I have been a big fan of podcasts since long before everyone in the world had one. I listen to them when walking, riding the exercycle and now that I have Android Auto I can listen on some longer drives too. Being the end of the year, both of the podcast platforms I used for my daily talking(s) to send me my listening history for 2024.
The platform that is my go-to for podcasts is Pocket Casts and they were the first to let me know about the accounting they did on my account. According to them I listened to 153 episodes from 11 different shows. This churned up 117 hours and 7 minutes of my life over the last year. Sounds like a lot, until you consider there are 8,760 hours in those 365 days. My most listened to podcast was Armchair Expert at 25 of those 153 episodes. The rest don’t have a total of episodes listened to, but I’m not sure if they are all that accurate. Everyday Driver came in 4th and they do 2 episodes a week, so that number should have been at least over 50, double the Armchair Expert total.
The host of Armchair is a Hollywood famous comedian, actor, producer and director, but maybe even more recognizably famous being the husband of Kristin Bell. His voice is very distinctive and his takes at the introduction to the commercials and some times in the commercials too made me want to stop listening to it. After 25 episodes I broken down and got a 3-week trial to the Wondery podcast platform where the Armchair Expert is home. The trail period expired on the 23rd and I let it. He does along with his co-host/producer/editor, Monica Padman, 3 shows a week and there are a total of 835 episodes. I started by scrolling though and cherry picking the famous Hollywood actors, but at least one day a week they have an Expert on Expert on the show do discuss everything from AI to any malady of the human brain.
Wondery let me know that I watched 44 episodes which took 79 hours and 7 minutes. My top four shows I listened to were #1, Armchair Expert, second was Killer Psyche, #3 was Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums and last was 10% Happier. Their counting obviously doesn’t take in whether you finished the episode because on those last three shows, I know I didn’t finish any episode of those three. I’m willing to bet that the Killer Psyche was just because I fat fingered selecting an Armchair Expert episode. Lastly, I was labeled “You’re A Early Bird” because the majority of my listening is between 5AM to 12PM.
Adding the two times from both platforms I spent 196 hours and 14 minutes with earbuds in listening, while that sounds like a lot, but my podcast listening was a mere 2.2% of 2024.