Celebrating Howard Brown surpassing 300,000 downloads of his Shining Brightly podcast

In December 2024, we reported that Howard Brown—a nationally known advocate for cancer patients—was himself in the midst of a life-and-death struggle with an aggressive form of leukemia. This is the third time in Howard’s life that he has been hit by a virtual death sentence from advanced forms of cancer, making him an exceedingly rare “survivor” whose story is followed nationwide.

That’s why Howard closed out 2024 with the special podcast he produced with his daughter—TV news broadcaster Emily Brown—to talk about their lives, their relationship and the core values that surface in such a struggle.

Howard now has put his podcast on hold—meaning that new episodes will have to wait until he beats this third long-shot struggle with this new form of cancer. He is weak and fragile, but reports to us that he is determined to beat this especially resistant form of leukemia.

That’s why we’re celebrating with Howard and his family in January 2025 that he is starting this new year with—by far—the most popular weekly podcast produced by any of the writers we have published over the past two decades. Yes, there are celebrities whose podcasts reach millions, but they are relatively few in number compared with the vast array of podcasts now available. Media experts we work with regularly consider this milestone to be exceedingly rare, certainly within the top 1 percent of all podcasts.

Howard, as you continue your struggle to beat this cancer in the early months of 2025, please take heart that your publishing house—and our community of authors—are celebrating with you this rare milestone in your effort to keep “shining brightly” through these broadcasts each week.

Care to learn more?

Visit Howard’s Shining Brightly website where you can find all of his 112 weekly episodes.