I’m continuing a series on the patterns the top shows follow.
Here’s what we’ve covered so far:
The next basic question is timing: on which weekday do these shows release new episodes?
To keep the analysis clean, I’m looking only at the shows that publish weekly (for details, see the previous post).
How this post works:
- First I show the results.
- Then the key takeaways.
- Then a short methodology section if you want to know more about the data and analysis.
- Find a link to the raw JSON at the bottom if you want to explore or reproduce the results.
Results
When do weekly shows release?
From the top 1,000 shows, 582 publish weekly. This chart shows which weekday they release new episodes.
| Weekday | Shows | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | 130 | 22.3% |
| Tue | 131 | 22.5% |
| Wed | 124 | 21.3% |
| Thu | 90 | 15.5% |
| Fri | 70 | 12.0% |
| Sat | 12 | 2.1% |
| Sun | 25 | 4.3% |
| Total | 582 | 100% |
What stands out:
- Of the top 1,000 shows, 582 weekly shows with ≥5 dated recent episodes were evaluated.
- Releases cluster on Monday–Wednesday; Thursday follows. Weekends are rare.
How consistent are they on that day?
Weekly shows sometimes miss their usual release day. We capture this with a stability band: the share of recent episodes that land on the weekday a show posts most often.
From the top 1,000 shows, 582 publish weekly. For each show, we checked how often it released on the same weekday. ≥80% means 4 out of the last 5 episodes land on the same day.
| Stability band | Shows | Share |
|---|---|---|
| ≥80% | 308 | 52.9% |
| 60–79% | 86 | 14.8% |
| 40–59% | 158 | 27.1% |
| <40% | 30 | 5.2% |
| Total | 582 | 100% |
What the bands mean, in plain terms:
- 308 shows (52.9%) hit the same weekday at least four out of five times (≥80%).
- 86 shows (14.8%) land there most of the time (60 to 79%).
- 158 shows (27.1%) are looser (40 to 59%).
- 30 shows (5.2%) are highly irregular (under 40%).
Key takeaways
- If you publish weekly and want reliability, aim for a Monday–Wednesday release (Thursday also common). The key is the discipline to keep hitting it.
- Your audience and downstream workflows (clips, newsletter, social) benefit from a predictable rhythm.
Method (short)
In case you want to reproduce the analysis yourself, here's the methodology:
- Cohort: Top 1,000 shows by audience; keep only weekly‑cadence shows.
- For each show, consider up to the last 40 episodes (require ≥5 dated).
- For each show, find the weekday it posts most often (UTC).
- Measure stability as the share of recent episodes that land on that same weekday.
- Aggregate shows into weekday counts and stability bands.
Notes
- 95.5% of evaluated shows used the full 40‑episode window; 4.5% had fewer dated episodes (min 5; mean 39.14).
- Weekday is computed from UTC timestamps for consistency across shows.
Raw data (for reproducibility)
- Raw JSON snapshot (Top‑1k weekly) — generated on 2025‑11‑06
- SHA‑256: 2904e33f1dd88fab81e1da096a2ea0ca6303c5472e972348904ee0a23c27918f