MrBeast on Joe Rogan is the one to start with: two of the largest audiences in media speed-designing a $10 million zombie show live on air. Then Joe Rogan on Kill Tony, Erin Brockovich on Theo Von, Dustin Poirier on Diary of a CEO, and Conor McGregor's UFC return exclusive with the Nelk Boys. All ten are embedded below. The full 160-episode calendar across 21 shows is at the bottom, and one warning before you write about Call Her Daddy's July.
Ten from a month of roughly 160 episodes across the 21 shows that move culture. Every one is embedded, so you can listen here. Where we could not confirm something, we say so.
The Ten That Mattered
The Big Bookings
JRE #2527: MrBeast · July 17
Two of the largest audiences in media, in a room, speed-designing a television show. Jimmy Donaldson floated a $5 to $10 million zombie survival competition live on air: contestants survive in an abandoned location, the prize grows daily, and eliminated players possibly return as zombies.
His own hesitation is the funniest and most revealing part. "I always get hung up on, okay, I can make some real zombies, but the problem is like, how do they kill them?" And: "What if this guy thinks it's a real zombie and kills one of the people?"
Multiple outlets picked it up as a news item, which tells you where the line between podcast and development meeting now sits.
Kill Tony #775: Joe Rogan · July 7
Rogan and That Mexican OT on the panel, which is the biggest booking the show ran all month and reliably its biggest audience. Whatever you make of the format, an hour of one-minute sets judged live in front of a room is the last piece of genuinely unscripted comedy television left.
Theo Von #670: Erin Brockovich · July 19
Brockovich spent July arguing that AI data centers are quietly draining and contaminating American water supplies, and she ran the play twice: Shawn Ryan on July 17, Theo Von on July 19. Then it broke into legacy media, with PBS running "Erin Brockovich Is Taking On a New Issue: AI Data Centers" on Amanpour and Company.
Why it is the most impressive media play of the month: two shows with enormous, largely right-leaning audiences platformed an environmental campaigner in the same week, and the story laundered straight into public broadcasting. That almost never happens in either direction.
Diary of a CEO: Dustin Poirier · July 6
Billed as a world exclusive, and the hook is the line in the title: "I deleted social media after the incident." Poirier retired from the UFC in 2025 after one of the most decorated careers never to hold an undisputed belt, and Steven Bartlett's format is built for exactly this: a fighter with nothing left to promote, talking about what the sport cost him.
If you only know Bartlett's channel from the health-optimisation episodes that dominate his July calendar below, this is the one that justifies the show.
Full Send: Conor McGregor · July 10
McGregor breaking his own comeback news on a YouTube podcast rather than to a sports desk is the whole story of where fight media went. The Nelk Boys ran it as an exclusive, and the follow-up reaction episode a week later shows how much mileage a single booking now carries.
Read it next to the Jake Paul item in our YouTube roundup. Two of July's biggest fight-business stories broke on creator-owned shows in the same three weeks, neither of them on a broadcaster.
The Easy Listens
Call Her Daddy: Kenzie, Love Island Tell All · July 15
The reality-TV debrief the format was built for, and Love Island USA is the only show left that can still put an unknown in front of a million-listener podcast within weeks of a finale.
Armchair Expert: Edward Norton · July 1
Norton is one of the few guests Shepard has back repeatedly, and the reason is that he answers the question that was asked. Recorded in Los Angeles, which matters for a show whose whole texture is two industry people talking without a publicist in the room.
Also from Armchair Expert in July: Geena Davis on July 20, Tommy Lee on July 22, and Alan Ritchson on July 27, three days before Reacher season four dropped. Fourteen episodes in the month, the busiest slate of any show we track.
Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend: Danny McBride · July 6
McBride returning is the purest version of this show: no promotion cycle doing any real work, two comedians who find each other funny, an hour that goes nowhere on purpose. Conan's show is produced in Los Angeles.
He also got Mick Jagger on July 13, talking six decades and the Rolling Stones' 25th studio album Foreign Tongues, which is a legitimate news hook independent of the interview.
Good Mythical Morning: Every Pudding Flavor · July 24
Fourteen episodes in July, on a weekday schedule they have held for over a decade, and this is the one that captures the whole thing: a taste test with no news value, no guest and no hook, made with total commitment.
The durability is the story. Good Mythical Morning has outlasted nearly every format that launched alongside it by refusing to become anything other than what it is.
New Heights #198: Tom Brady · July 8
The most quotable episode of the month, and four moments carried it: Brady on the Nate Clements hit ("he knocked the expletive out of me"), on Randy Moss's Week 1 catch in 2007 ("this expletive is going to be different this year"), on the endless Belichick-versus-Brady argument ("It's just a dumb analogy"), and on his favourite Super Bowl, XLIX.
For the culture-watchers: Travis Kelce made a Taylor Swift reference in the first New Heights recorded after their wedding, the highest-traffic pop-culture moment the show produced all month. Boston.com and the wider NFL press ran the standout moments the same day.
The LA Layer
Most of the shows that move culture left this city. Four things in July were genuinely about it.
- Armchair Expert and Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend are both produced in Los Angeles, and between them they ran 19 episodes in July. They are the two biggest interview shows still made here.
- Tommy Lee did both Joe Rogan on July 1 and Armchair Expert on July 22, walking through the Sunset Strip to worldwide fame and Mötley Crüe getting sober before recording Dr. Feelgood. Sunset Strip history narrated by someone who was the Sunset Strip.
- Club Shay Shay got both halves of Bad Friends in one sitting on July 16, Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino on Joe Rogan, joke stealing, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, and Kevin Hart. Bad Friends is LA-recorded and both men are fixtures of the LA club circuit.
- And the correction that keeps needing making: Kill Tony and the Joe Rogan Experience are Austin shows now, not LA ones. Same correction runs in our July YouTube roundup.
Before You Write About Call Her Daddy
Three Call Her Daddy episodes appeared on July calendars as new bookings. At least one is a rerun, and probably more.
The Janelle Monáe episode dated July 31 is tagged "(FBF)" on Apple's feed. FBF is an established Call Her Daddy convention meaning Flashback Friday, a re-release. That Janelle Monáe interview originally aired in 2023. Other confirmed FBF-tagged episodes include Spencer Pratt, Kristin Cavallari and Offset.
The Riley Keough episode dated July 3 appears to have originally run in January 2025, based on the show's own promotion at the time. Likely also a rerun.
The Nara Smith episode dated July 29, "Stop Calling Me a Tradwife," is real and did generate coverage. Whether the July date is the original air date or a re-release, we could not confirm.
None of this is a knock on the show. Flashback Fridays are an announced format. But a July roundup that presents these as fresh interviews is wrong, and several are going to.
What Broke Into the News
Podcast moments that jumped into mainstream news in July 2026:
- JD Vance on JRE #2526, July 16. The Vice President spent a long stretch on Jeffrey Epstein, saying he "clearly had connections to the upper, the highest levels, of American intelligence" and to "the highest levels of Israeli intelligence." The Jewish Telegraphic Agency covered it as a notable embrace of theories that have historically veered into antisemitism and noted that no evidence supports the intelligence claims. Al Jazeera, The Hill, the Philadelphia Inquirer and three Jerusalem Post op-eds followed. The sharpest pushback came from the right: Tomi Lahren, on Fox Business, called it "a huge misstep."
- Erin Brockovich's AI data-center campaign. Shawn Ryan July 17, Theo Von July 19, PBS Amanpour and Company shortly after.
- MrBeast's zombie show pitch on JRE #2527. Covered as a development story by multiple entertainment outlets.
- Tom Brady on New Heights #198. Boston.com and the wider NFL press ran the standout moments the same day.
- Nara Smith rejecting the "tradwife" label on Call Her Daddy. Picked up widely, regardless of the air-date question.
The Full July Calendar
Every episode from the 21 shows we track, 160 in all, each one linked straight to the episode. The highlights above are our picks. This is the whole month, so you can find the one you missed.
Jump to a show: The Joe Rogan Experience · The Shawn Ryan Show · Huberman Lab · IMPAULSIVE · Kill Tony · This Past Weekend · Call Her Daddy · Lex Fridman Podcast · The Pat McAfee Show · The Diary Of A CEO · Flagrant · New Heights · PBD Podcast · Club Shay Shay · Bad Friends · Full Send Podcast · SmartLess · Armchair Expert · Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend · Distractible · Good Mythical Morning
The Joe Rogan Experience
Channel · 15 in July
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| Jul 1 | Tommy Lee |
| Jul 2 | Aravind Srinivas |
| Jul 3 | Tony Hinchcliffe |
| Jul 8 | Ali Siddiq |
| Jul 9 | Rupert Lowe |
| Jul 10 | Protect Ya Neck |
| Jul 15 | Nick Bostrom |
| Jul 16 | JD Vance |
| Jul 17 | MrBeast |
| Jul 22 | Cassie Coppersmith |
| Jul 23 | Zach Bush |
| Jul 24 | Timothy Alberino |
| Jul 29 | Forrest Galante |
| Jul 30 | Tim Robbins |
| Jul 31 | Diana Pasulka |
The Shawn Ryan Show
Channel · 8 in July
Huberman Lab (Andrew Huberman)
Channel · 9 in July
IMPAULSIVE (Logan Paul)
Channel · 5 in July
Kill Tony (Tony Hinchcliffe)
Channel · 4 in July
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| Jul 7 | JOE ROGAN + THAT MEXICAN OT |
| Jul 14 | KT #776 - BRIAN MOSES + DAVE LANDAU |
| Jul 21 | KT #777 - MYLES JOHNSON + FUZZY KHILJI |
| Jul 28 | KT#778 - JIMMY CARR |
This Past Weekend (Theo Von)
Channel · 7 in July
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| Jul 1 | Sen. John Kennedy |
| Jul 8 | Duncan Trussell |
| Jul 11 | Cristina Mariani |
| Jul 15 | Riley Green |
| Jul 19 | Erin Brockovich |
| Jul 23 | Casey Rocket |
| Jul 28 | Trace Adkins | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #672 |
Call Her Daddy (Alex Cooper)
Channel · 10 in July
Lex Fridman Podcast
Channel · 1 in July
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| Jul 29 | Gary Gallagher: American Civil War, Slavery, Lincoln, Grant & Lee | Lex Fridman Podcast #499 |
The Pat McAfee Show
Channel · 16 in July
The Diary Of A CEO (Steven Bartlett)
Channel (UK-based) · 10 in July
Flagrant (Andrew Schulz & Akaash Singh)
Channel · 5 in July
New Heights (Travis & Jason Kelce)
Channel · 2 in July
PBD Podcast (Patrick Bet-David)
Channel · 13 in July
Club Shay Shay (Shannon Sharpe)
Channel · 5 in July
Bad Friends (Andrew Santino & Bobby Lee)
Channel · 4 in July
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| Jul 7 | Bobby Is Distressed |
| Jul 13 | Nasa Poops In Space |
| Jul 21 | Bobby's Car Crash |
| Jul 28 | Dating Asian Orange |
Full Send Podcast (Nelk Boys)
Channel · 4 in July
SmartLess (Bateman, Arnett, Hayes)
Channel · 5 in July
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| Jul 6 | Ike Barinholtz |
| Jul 13 | Olivia Wilde |
| Jul 16 | RE-RELEASE: Will Ferrell |
| Jul 20 | Timothy Olyphant |
| Jul 27 | Marcus Mumford |
Armchair Expert (Dax Shepard)
Channel · 14 in July
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| Jul 1 | Edward Norton Returns Again |
| Jul 3 | Family Secret |
| Jul 6 | Lukas Gage |
| Jul 8 | Dave Eggers (writer and publisher) |
| Jul 10 | Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack III |
| Jul 13 | Jackie Tohn Returns |
| Jul 15 | Grant Achatz (award-winning chef) |
| Jul 17 | Armchair Anonymous: Stalking III |
| Jul 20 | Geena Davis |
| Jul 22 | Tommy Lee |
| Jul 24 | Armchair Anonymous: Wild Card XIII |
| Jul 27 | Alan Ritchson |
| Jul 29 | Eva Benefield (on surviving the Black Swan Murder) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard |
| Jul 31 | Armchair Anonymous: Home Intruder | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard |
Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend
Channel · 5 in July
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| Jul 6 | Danny McBride Returns |
| Jul 13 | Mick Jagger |
| Jul 20 | Molly Shannon |
| Jul 27 | Leslie Jones |
| Jul 30 | Conan & The Chill Chums Return With New Series "Summer S'pouses" |
Distractible (Markiplier, Bob & Wade)
Channel · 4 in July
| Date | Episode |
|---|---|
| Jul 6 | Unhappy Birthday |
| Jul 13 | Hoopst Was First? |
| Jul 20 | The Perfectest Crime |
| Jul 27 | Wade Definitely Has A Topic |
Good Mythical Morning (Rhett & Link)
Channel · 14 in July
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the biggest podcast episode of July 2026?
The Joe Rogan Experience #2526 with Vice President JD Vance, released July 15. It generated coverage in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Al Jazeera, The Hill, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and three Jerusalem Post opinion pieces, plus criticism from commentators on the right including Tomi Lahren on Fox Business.
Which July 2026 podcast episodes have a Los Angeles connection?
Armchair Expert with Tommy Lee is the strongest, covering his rise from the Sunset Strip, on a podcast recorded in LA. Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Mick Jagger is also produced in Los Angeles. Club Shay Shay with Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino connects to the LA comedy club circuit through Bad Friends. Erin Brockovich's appearances center on the Hinkley case in San Bernardino County.
Is Kill Tony recorded in Los Angeles?
No. Kill Tony records at the Comedy Mothership in Austin, Texas. The "Sunset Strip Comedy Club" listed on Deathsquad's site is an Austin venue named in homage to the LA original. Joe Rogan's own show is also recorded in Austin.
Were the Call Her Daddy July 2026 episodes new?
At least one was not. The Janelle Monáe episode dated July 31 is tagged FBF, the show's Flashback Friday convention, and originally aired in 2023. The Riley Keough episode dated July 3 appears to have first run in January 2025. The Nara Smith episode is real, though its original air date could not be confirmed.
What did Ray Dalio say about the AI bubble?
On Diary of a CEO on July 30, Dalio identified inexperienced investors chasing price, excessive stock issuance, and valuations disconnected from real money as bubble markers, and warned that rapid selling could become contagion. He also described an "unemployability crisis" for young workers, arguing AI is eating white-collar entry-level roles faster than retraining can absorb them.
The Verdict
Start with MrBeast on Rogan. Two of the largest audiences in media designing a television show in real time is the clearest picture anyone gave last month of what podcasting has become: not an interview format, a development room with an audience.
Then listen to Brockovich on Theo Von. It is the only episode in July where somebody used one of these shows to move an argument into places it could not otherwise reach, and it worked well enough to end up on PBS inside a fortnight.
And if you want one hour of pure craft, take Danny McBride on Conan. Nothing in it is news. That is the point.
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