Fiction Podcasts With the Most Fanworks on AO3 (As of July 24, 2025)
[JULY 2025] TOP 25 FICTION PODCASTS ON AO3 FOUND IN FANDOMS > OTHER MEDIA
The inspiration and legwork for this was heavily drawn from @bakanokiwami 's yearly Top 20 Podcasts, which they do every November. I'm literally using their whole format and criteria and everything. (I just got curious and made a 8-month update with 5 extra ranks!)
To make this ranking, all series titles in Other Media were copy-pasted to Google Sheets, rearranged according to number of fanworks, and then manually filtered since not all podcasts were marked as such. Because this was my first time running AO3 stats, I followed @toastystats 's guide, which you can find here.
The numbers in the second column indicate how much they rose/fell in the rankings based on last @bakanokiwami's November (Nov. 24, 2023) rankings, which can be found here. "new" means it's their first time appearing in a ranking. "prev" means they appeared on one of bakanokiwami's rankings from a previous year, but not the most recent one.
The numbers in the ^# light grey column represent how many fanworks it gained since bakanokiwami's November analysis 8 months ago. (I don't really know how to do retrospective counts, so I left the ranks I added blank.)
The data for this was taken while logged in, so locked fanworks are included in the count.
In bakanokiwami's yearly analysis, they exclude web series like Critical Role and Dimension 20 which release audio-only versions, but are primarily known as web-series. Out of curiosity, I've constructed a version that includes web series/other media that release podcast versions that you can find here
All nonfiction podcasts and larger franchises where audio is not the main medium have been excluded (ex. Dr. Who audio-dramas).
We have a tie for rank 24 between Unprepared Casters and Stellar Firma!
The Hotel is a genuinely new addition to the rankings!
Both Rolling With Difficulty and Unprepared Casters have been going on for a while, but are listed under Web Series on AO3. However, upon further inspection, they call themselves podcasts in their online presence and are almost exclusively audio productions, so putting them on here feels right.
All mistakes are mine and mine alone, please let me know if you catch any.
Once again, seriously go check out @bakanokiwami's analyses! They're way prettier than mine, and they get all the credit for doing the groundwork!