Inspired by last week’s blog about clearance searches, which used the podcast “Cocaine and Rhinestones” as an example, I was curious about how frequently major podcasts were seeking protection for their names. To do so, I reviewed the top 100 podcasts on iTunes as of today. That won’t identify the 100 most enduringly popular podcasts, but it’s fine as a snapshot of a large group of successful podcasts.

Under half of this select group – 43% – have active pending trademark applications or trademark registrations with the USPTO. The most active filers are larger media organizations or those longstanding radio shows like NPR, TED, or the Dave Ramsey Show. More independent podcasts were considerably less likely to have filed.

Apple’s categorizations are a bit more rigorous than randomly assigned numbers, but not much, so the “Subject” category is all over the map. True crime podcasts seem to fall into one of about six categories, and many others are almost as arbitrary. For a representative example, TED Talks Daily is in Education, and TED Radio Hour in Technology.

Full data is included below. This is just a snapshot of the current iTunes top 100, which is almost certainly not representative of podcasts across the board. These are likely to be larger and more successful, and thus more likely than average to be the subject of trademark filings. Some of these with earlier registration dates are registered for radio services or something very closely related; they’re still included below. Interestingly, a few newer independent podcasts filed applications that included a bunch of merchandising goods but not the podcast proper. It’s possible that that lines up more directly with the podcaster’s revenue, but, at least as of 2015, advertisers paid a premium for podcast listeners over traditional radio listeners, and the total podcast advertising market has only grown since then.