ARLINGTON, VA – This week’s podcast episode is delayed by a few days for technical reasons, so in lieu of it, we offer a report card on The Rice Stuff’s 2025 season. Each year, podcast and music listeners, and creators, anxiously await their “Spotify Wrapped” report. It’s the feature where the online platform lets users know what they listened to, for how long, and how many times, and while it doesn’t capture all listeners (in 2025, about 20 percent of TRS listeners used Spotify) – it does give creators a sense of how they are doing against others in their space. So how did The Rice Stuff podcast do in 2025? As Larry David would say, “pretty, pretty, pretty good.”
In 2025, The Rice Stuff released 22 episodes with 54 guests, producing more than 15 hours of new programming. The total show new audience (those who haven’t listened in two years) increased 781 percent. Listenership in general increased 57 percent over 2024, outpacing 73 percent of other Spotify shows. Listening time also increased by 24 percent, beating 84 percent of other shows on the platform.
Twenty-five percent of Spotify listeners listen to two or more episodes at a time, and 15 percent listen to new episodes within the first 24 hours of a drop.
TRS is enjoyed in 22 countries and while the top spot remains the U.S., the top five were rounded out with France, Australia, Nicaragua, and Colombia.
The most popular TRS episode in 2025 was #107, A Rice Retrospective, that featured Marvin Hare, Jackie Loewer, LG Raun, and Michael Rue talking with Steve Linscombe about their more than 50 crops each. It was played 134 percent more than a typical episode.
But let’s not forget, Spotify is also for music and audio books. So who were the top artists for TRS listeners? Number five was Zach Top; four was Sabrina Carpenter; three was Zach Bryan; two was Taylor Swift; and our fans’ top artist was Morgan Wallen!
The top five audio books ranged from “Iron Flame,” a fantasy romance by Rebecca Yarros to the non-fiction, “Teaming with Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Gude to Optimizing Plant Nutrition,” by Jeff Lowenfels.
“We appreciate all the guests and listeners who made this positive report possible, and we look forward to continuing to offer timely, relevant, and engaging programming in 2026 for our loyal listeners as well as delivering value to our advertisers,” said show host Michael Klein who is also USA Rice vice president of communications & strategic development and could name songs by at least one of the top five musicians mentioned above.
He encouraged listeners to “like,” “follow,” and leave positive reviews for the pod on whatever platform is being used.