PODTRAC’S DECISION TO NOT REPORT DOWNLOADS MEETS FLACK FROM THE PODCAST INDUSTRY

Podtrac claims its podcast ranking charts are The Standard of the podcast industry. But the company met considerable resistance last week following an abrupt and unexplained change in one of its key metrics. Podtrac stopped including global downloads, a basic metric of measuring podcast’s reach.

The respected radio industry publication Inside Radio said they will discontinue printing Podtrac’s charts because of concern about the veracity of Podtrac's methodology and the company’s lack of transparency.

Inside Radio said [link] that a reporter for its sister publication, Podcast News Daily, inquired with Podtrac about the change. A representative of the company responded by email, saying:

"We are re-evaluating the information provided on the rankings. There is a link at the bottom of the post requesting feedback to that end." That was the entire message.

According to a knowledgeable industry source, who spoke with Spark News off the record, people are speculatinb that Podtrac’s download numbers may not be in compliance with the Internet Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) impending 2.0 standards.

Podtrac has a secretive internal process that sometimes does not build confidence in the company. Podtrac wants to establish itself as the industry’s “go to” source for podcast metrics similar the role Nielsen plays in broadcast ratings.

Velvet Beard from Podtrac told us in November 2018 that it is up to publishers to choose which of their shows they want Podtrac to include in the rankings. For instance, the number of active shows published by iHeartRadio varies between 100 and 600 depending on the month. iHeart has complained publicly about Podtrac’s decision not to not provide download data because they think is important information.

Spark News publishes Podtrac’s rankings “as is.” We let readers decide the value of their charts.

LISTENING TO PODCASTS HAS GROWN BY DOUBLE DIGITS FOR MOST PUBLISHERS IN THE PAST YEAR

Podtrac’s  ranking of podcast publishers for January 2019, compared with January 2018 (chart on the left), show amazing growth in the estimated number of people accessing podcasts. Of the eight publishers with data for both years, only one organization had a decrease in Unique Monthly Audience: WNYC Studios. The reason for drop is not known.

Commercial podcast publishers, including The New York Times, Wondery and iHeartRadio, saw startling growth in their Monthly Audiences during the past year. The Times, powered by the popularity of The Daily, was up 49%.

The estimated audience for public media podcast publishers were also up over the past year. PRX had the biggest gain, up 17%.  NPR, the top podcast publisher, increased their Monthly Audience by 9%.

 Despite the gains made by commercial publishers, podcasting remains predominantly a public media endeavor. The chart on the right shows Podtrac’s Top 20 podcasts for January 2019.

Unfortunately, Podtrac does not provide the statistics for the Top 20 podcasts, so we have to trust them that the rankings were not created using an Ouija Board.

Public media organizations publish 14 of the Top 20 (70%). NPR publishes 9 of the Top 20 podcasts (45%).

PODCASTS + RADIO = SUCCESS

The top takeaway from the data is that radio and podcasts reinforce each other and both platforms benefit.  Radio has greater reach and podcasts satisfy the on demand itch for a deeper experience.

Sixteen of the Top 20 (80%) podcasts have strong ties to radio. They use virtually the same content on both platforms. This allows valuable cross-promotion opportunities.

Examples that demonstrate the one-two punch of radio and podcasts include:

• The Daily, now the top podcast according to Podtrac, has benefited by radio distribution by American Public Media (APM). More and stations are adding The Daily because of its perceived affinity between Times readers and public radio news listeners. Plus the banner “ad” at the top of page one of The Times doesn’t hurt either.

• Conservative talker Ben Shapiro leveraged his popular daily podcast into a staple of right-wing commercial talk radio. Now in only its fourth month of radio syndication The Ben Shapiro Show is now cleared on over 200 stations, including outlets in most of the biggest markets. Being on radio has allowed Shapiro to monetized his entire company, Daily Wire. It may be cool to have a hit podcast but the real money is syndication.

• Radio cross promotion was essential to the successful launch of the podcast series Serial by This American Life’s (TAL). Serial was introduced to an estimated 2.4 million people when it was featured on TAL. Not every podcast debuts on 450 public radio stations.