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Preview data: all rankings, scores, votes, refresh labels, methodology, testing and editorial-process statements in Top 49 are illustrative demo content, not live measurements or documented reviews.
Rank 18—No change
#18 in Podcasts of All Time
of 18 ranked entries
Heavyweight
Jonathan Goldstein · Gimlet Media · Since 2016
Goldstein tracks down people stuck on one specific regret from years ago — a lost friendship, an unresolved argument — and mediates an actual real-world resolution, turning a simple premise into some of the most quietly moving audio being made. Recorded specifics: launched 2016, host Jonathan Goldstein, network Gimlet Media. Panel highlighted a genuinely rare format — mediating real unresolved personal history — executed with real care, balances comic narration with sincere emotional payoff episode to episode and goldstein’s narration voice gives the show a consistent, distinctive personality. The reservation on record is not every tracked-down resolution lands as satisfyingly as the show’s best episodes.
Narrative journalismComedy
Score breakdown
How Heavyweight earned 71.5
Each criterion is scored independently, then combined using the weights published on Podcasts of All Time.
- Editorial & production craftweight 30%
- 74.0
- Storytelling ambitionweight 25%
- 69.0
- Cultural influenceweight 25%
- 70.5
- Consistency across episodesweight 20%
- 71.9
On the record
Recorded detail
| Launched | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Host | Jonathan Goldstein |
| Network | Gimlet Media |
| Rating | 8.5 |
Panel verdict
Strengths and reservations
What it gets right
- A genuinely rare format — mediating real unresolved personal history — executed with real care
- Balances comic narration with sincere emotional payoff episode to episode
- Goldstein’s narration voice gives the show a consistent, distinctive personality
Where it gives ground
- Not every tracked-down resolution lands as satisfyingly as the show’s best episodes
1 appearance
Where this entry ranks
From the same list
Ranked alongside it
Rank 01Editor’s pickSerial
Sarah Koenig · Serial Productions · 2014
Koenig spun a This American Life segment into its own show and spent twelve episodes second-guessing a 1999 murder conviction in real time, essentially inventing the true-crime podcast format and the modern podcast industry’s commercial viability along with it.
97.7/100 Top 49 score1Up 1
Rank 02Editor’s pickThis American Life
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Glass built a weekly structure — theme, then acts — simple enough to become the default format for narrative audio, and three decades later almost every serious storytelling podcast is still working some variation of the template he standardized.
96.2/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
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Jad Abumrad · WNYC · Since 2002
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95.0/100 Top 49 score—No change
Rank 04The Joe Rogan Experience
Joe Rogan · Since 2009
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93.5/100 Top 49 score1Up 1
Rank 05Hardcore History
Dan Carlin · Since 2006
Carlin releases episodes that regularly run four or five hours and treats that length as a feature — enough runtime to actually sit with the scale of, say, the Eastern Front, rather than compress it into a digestible summary.
91.1/100 Top 49 score1Up 1
Rank 06S-Town
Brian Reed · Serial Productions · 2017
Reed set out to investigate a small-town murder that turned out not to have happened, and the show pivoted entirely to profile its own tragic, brilliant subject instead — a structural risk that paid off into one of podcasting’s most acclaimed seasons.
90.0/100 Top 49 score—No change
Rank 07WTF with Marc Maron
Marc Maron · Since 2009
Maron recorded early episodes in his own garage and built the show on unusually candid, therapy-adjacent conversation, most famously getting a sitting U.S. president to sit down in that same garage in 2015.
88.7/100 Top 49 score3Down 3
Rank 08The Daily
Michael Barbaro · The New York Times · Since 2017
Barbaro and the Times built a twenty-minute weekday news briefing around a single story reported in real depth, and the format proved so effective that it became the most listened-to news podcast in the country within a couple of years.
86.4/100 Top 49 score4Down 4
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Top 49 rankings are editorial. Scores are produced from the published criteria on each list and are refreshed on the cadence stated there. Figures shown across this section are curated demonstration data.