Spotify has awarded a Creator Milestone Award to “The Ben Shapiro Show” after the podcast surpassed 100 million streams.
The awards celebrate creator achievements and will be given quarterly to those creators who reach top engagement milestones on the Spotify platform.
These awards are the first time Spotify has publicly revealed streaming numbers for podcasters across the platform. Other Creator Milestone Award winners include “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Audiochuck’s “Crime Junkie,” and Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take.”
Hosted by Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro, the podcast launched under The Daily Wire in 2015 and quickly became one of the fastest-growing podcasts in the world. By 2017, the show was the second-most listened-to podcast on iTunes, surpassed at one time only by Oprah Winfrey’s podcast.
In 2018, POLITICO described Shapiro’s show as “massively popular.” The reach of the show expanded further in April 2018, when Westwood One began syndicating the podcast to radio. In January 2019, Westwood One expanded Shapiro’s one-hour podcast to three hours by adding a nationally syndicated two-hour radio show.
By March 2019, Shapiro’s show was being carried by more than 200 stations nationwide, including in nine of the top ten markets. In March 2019, Podtrac ranked “The Ben Shapiro Show” as the second-most popular podcast in the United States. In January 2019, The Ben Shapiro Show won the Best News Podcast Award at the inaugural iHeartRadio Podcast Awards.
