2018 By The Numbers: The Biggest Moments on TuneIn This Year
2018 feels like it started forever ago: Celebrity couples met, got engaged, and broke up. (Many) White House officials came and went (remember Hope Hicks? Rex Tillerson?). Babies were born, celebrity feuds boiled over, and–finally!–audio went viral with the Yanny/Laurel debate.
Through it all, we listened: we listened to game-winning touchdowns, court-changing Senate votes, our new favorite songs. We heard stations that took us back, podcasts that moved us forward, and games that kept us on the edge of our seats.
And here at TuneIn, people listened: across all 50 states and in more than 200 countries, they listened. We hosted the podcast stage at SXSW, added new stations for users to listen to (and took away some commercials for them not to), and discovered more for you to love.
Here is the most popular audio on TuneIn this year.
— MUSIC —
Top 10 Songs Most Played on TuneIn
With such an abundance of music on TuneIn, we play a ton of songs that you love and even more that might end up your new favorites. Out of our diverse range of stations and DJs, by the numbers, these ten are the songs we played the most in the U.S. this year.
Rookie of the Year
“Ocean Eyes” broke out, “You Should See Me In A Crown” exploded. 2018 only feels like a warm up for Billie Eilish, who has amassed nine million followers on Instagram and a billion streams. The 16-year-old singer and songwriter (yup, you read that right — she’s only 16) connects to her audience because she’s honest and real, open about her struggles with depression while staying true to her own unique style. Because of her killer vocals, stellar songwriting, and breakout success, she’s our Rookie of the Year.
The Music Innovator
Blood Orange, a.k.a Dev Hynes, defies classification, challenging the boundaries between different genres and continuing to introduce fresh sounds in a way you haven’t heard. His fourth LP, Negro Swan, explores the sonic mindset of LGBTQ+ people of color. With the help of Puff Daddy, Tei Shi, A$AP Rocky, Steve Lacy and friends, Dev continues to showcase his signature multi-genre sound, and we can’t wait to see what the innovator comes up with next.
Top 10 Latin Songs of the Year
From Daddy Yankee’s #durachallenge becoming one of the biggest social media challenges in the world to Drake, dominating social media with a #kikichallenge of his own, singing a song purely in Spanish, 2018 has signified the year that Latin culture solidified itself as a force of nature in pop culture, emerging as a major influence in the music world. And women breaking into the center of the cultural conversation wasn’t limited only to politics: with the ascendant star power of female artists like Becky G, Natti Natasha, and Karol G, women dominated the Latin charts, showing that Latinas can and will compete in a male-dominated genre. These top 10 Latin songs represent the culture, unity, and future of Latin Music.
Top 10 Songs Not To Miss
In a year with so much great new music, picking our ten favorite songs is a difficult feat! How did we do it? Our curators scoured the world for the songs we couldn’t stop listening to. From Beach House’s dark and dreamy “Drunk in LA” to Post Malone’s earworm “Psycho” (and Ty Dolla $ign’s song-making verse), these are the 10 songs we were obsessed with in 2018.
— SPORTS —
Top Call of the Year
There are the game calls you expect, and then there are the rare calls that you’ll never forget, once that make your heart race: calls that go down in history. Our favorite game call of 2018 will forever be known as “Gano Lo Ganó” (which means “Gano won it”), and it punctuated the Carolina Panthers’ win over the New York Giants on Graham Gano’s last-second 63-yard field goal. The Panthers’ Spanish-language radio announcer was so overcome with excitement that he spontaneously broke into song! And his jubilation went viral: sweatshirts were made in honor of his brilliant moment of joy, our Top Call of the Year for 2018.
These are a home-run for any fan who appreciates a deep dive on their favorite leagues and athletes. Five podcasts stood out for superb sports commentary and analysis, which makes sense, given that they had the most listeners this year. Check out our Top 5 Sports pods of 2018.
Top College Stations of the Year
Collegiate sports is defined by competition, so these five stations should be proud that their fans are top ranked when it comes to who listens the most on TuneIn. The Arkansas Razorbacks, Auburn Tigers, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Georgia Bulldogs, and Michigan Wolverines had the most listeners this year, making them our top college stations of the year.
— NEWS —
Top 5 Live News Moments
Who else feels like 2018 had us all caught in a nonstop news cycle? Remember how the Olympics were this year? Yeah, neither did we. There are moments, however, that really matter. These five moments were the ones with the most listeners on our major news stations as they happened, the events that had us stop what we were doing and listen to history in the making.
Even when you experience the news as it happens, getting a better understanding of what’s really happening often deserves deeper analysis — and that’s where these podcasts come in. These five were the ones consistently at the top of our News & Politics Podcasts rankings, with Up First and CNN News Briefing providing quick updates on the headlines you might have missed, The Daily giving you deep dives on important stories, and Pod Save America and The Ben Shapiro Show giving you sharp commentary on the news of the week.
— PODCASTS —
Breakout Podcast of the Year
If there’s a formula for the perfect podcast tagline, “The story of a Vice President mired in political scandal, as told by Rachel Maddow” nails it. Dominating the podcast charts, Bag Man, Rachel Maddow’s first original podcast, investigates a story of political corruption that feels like one you should already know. Come for the envelopes of cash, stay for Maddow’s world-class journalism.
Binge-worthy Podcasts of the Year
The story starts with Christopher Duntsch, a rising surgical star in Texas. The story ends with patients who would never walk again. And with everything that happens in between, you won’t be able to press pause until you know all the details of the system that failed these patients. From the network that brought you the breakout hit Dirty John, Dr. Death investigates what happens when we put our most vulnerable versions of ourselves in the hands of the wrong people, digging deep into the story and victims of Duntsch.
Top 5 Podcasts of the Year
Distilling Jonathan Goldstein’s Heavyweight into a single adjective, or even a genre, feels nearly impossible. A podcast that defies definition, Heavyweight and its excellent third season, at its core, reminds us what it is to be human and helps its subjects — and listeners — come to terms with our own shortcomings and regrets. Like therapy in your headphones, Heavyweight is cathartic, beautiful, and one of our favorite podcasts of the year.
What’s better than someone with cool friends talking about cool music? Those conversations being shared for us to hear. In The Nostalgia Mixtape, Sama’an Ashwari invites famous friends, from The Ringer’s Shea Serrano to musician Amber Coffman, to discuss important songs from their lives. Each conversation is fun and unpredictable and each episode is better than the last, making it one of the podcasts you should add to your queue in 2019.
