Opinion

Saturday Sofa favourite podcast among Omanis

A study has revealed the most popular podcasts around the world. UK-based MrQ has collected data on every country’s top podcasts and revealed them along with top genres.

The Global Podcast Index sheds light on the most popular shows for about 156 countries from A to Z. The research has been attributed to the Acquisition Team at MrQ.

Accordingly, Saturday Sofa, an Arabic show in which social, psychological and philosophical themes are explored every other Saturday, was judged the favourite podcast for the Sultanate of Oman in the genre of society and culture.

The podcast stood third in the rank with five countries favouring the show which includes the Sultanate of Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan.

The study also revealed the genres which are increasing the most in-demand since 2018.

Tied in the third place are Saturday Sofa and Despertando Podcast, both of which came top in five countries each.

Despertando Podcast is a daily morning show with a focus on well-being and is popular in many South American countries. With the demand for podcasts increasing over 250 per cent (since 2018), the research has revealed 2021’s most popular podcasts across the world.

The top podcast genres are society and culture, TV and film, comedy and news.

About 35 countries had Society and Culture as the top podcast along with 15 each for TV and film and comedy.

Cryptocurrency is the most increased in-demand podcast genre across the world with a 201-per cent increase in searches since 2018, the data reveals. Spirituality came close second as most increased in-demand podcast genre across the world with an 88-per cent increase in searches. True Crime came third most increased in-demand podcast genre across the world with an 81-per cent increase in searches.

The world’s most popular podcast is Vanity Fairs ‘Love is a Crime’ which is number one across 14 countries while USA’s most popular podcast is ‘Over my dead body’ and the most popular genre was news.

The top five most popular podcast genres are society and culture, TV and film, comedy, news and music. Society and Culture tops among 35 countries as the top genre.

MrQ was launched in August 2018 and was created by Lindar Media to bring new life into the world of online bingo.