TOP 10 PODCASTS ON AO3 BASED ON NUMBER OF FANWORKS (2013-2022)
YEAR = November 6 (or closest date to it if unavailable) of that year
To make this bar chart race, all series titles in the Other Media Category on November 6 (or the closest date to it) of every year were copy-pasted from Wayback Machine to Google Sheets, rearranged according to number of fanworks, and manually filtered since not all podcasts were marked as such. Then I inputted all the top 10 data to Flourish to turn into a bar chart race.
Some web series like Critical Role and Dimensions 20 released audio-only versions of their works too, but I left them out since they were listed was a web series on ao3 and more known as one too.
Similarly, radio shows which only had podcasts years after they started are not included. That means Cabin Pressure, which I accidentally added in the 2022 Top 20 ranking last week, is not included here because it was only rereleased as a podcast in 2019, and 90% of the fanworks it has now are from before 2019.
All nonfiction podcasts have also been excluded (Not that there were many), because with RPFs, it’s hard to tell if the fic in question is just based on the podcast or because of the things the person has done outside of it.
The bar race starts on 2013 because there were no podcasts in the Other Media category before that year.
The first podcast fandom to post on Ao3 was We’re Alive on January 1, 2013, followed by The Thrilling Adventure Hour on January 27, 2013, and then Welcome to Night Vale at June 2013.
In 2014-2016, Sparks Nevada Marshal on Mars, a segment from The Thrilling Adventure Hour, was also in the top 10, but I didn’t included it since it’s not its own podcast.
TOTAL = the total fanworks of all the top 10 over the years, not the whole podcast fandom itself
Thanks for understanding and hopefully I didn’t miss anything! Apologies for any mistakes, I’m still a podcast noob.🙏
ETA: Locked fanworks aren’t included in the count because Wayback Machine can’t view those, only Ao3 users can.
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
dededos
2087
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
turnnoffyourmind
