QUESTIONS RISE ABOUT THE VERACITY OF PODTRAC’S CHARTS AS TRITON DIGITAL ENTERS PODCAST MEASUREMENT COMPETITION

A sign that the podcast industry has matured and is now a viable option for advertising buyers is increasing the focus on accurate audience measurement. 

In December we published a comment by blogger and consultant Steve Goldstein [link]. 

He said that the industry has reached the “tipping point” and is now experiencing  rapid growth.

When Goldstein was asked to characterize the state of podcasting in 2019, he said:

“[The growth of podcasting is] nothing short of explosive. We have hit an inflection point in which awareness has moved beyond ‘what’s a podcast?’ and there is a cool factor [that] is hard to engineer. The velocity at which this has shifted to a business of acquisitions and aggregation by big players is head spinning.

But for Podtrac, the de facto leader in podcast audience measurement, the news was not so good. Podtrac had to recall its November Top 20 Podcasts chart because they included “clicks” instead of actual listeners.

Plus, Podtrac will soon have a new, very serious competitor: Triton Digital. Triton plans to debut its audience measurement in March 2020.

According to a report in the Podcast Business Journal [link], the recent troubles for Podtrac began when podcast publisher American Media’s show Us Weekly Hot Hollywood [link] debuted in the Top 20.

UK technology blogger James Cridland took a close look Us Weekly’s analytics. Cridland discovered that they included Android users visiting a website that never is actually playing a podcast.

Podcast Business Journal contacted Podtrac for their feedback about what Cridland’s reported. Podtrac told the Journal: “Everything is fine.”

But it wasn’t.

Then, without making any other comment, Podtrac issueda new chart. In a statement, Podtrac described Cridland’s work -- that found the false numbers -- “heroic." Podtrac never took responsibility for reporting false information.

Podcast Business Journal criticized Podtrac for their lack of transparency and refusal to respond to any questions or inquires about their charts.

ENTER TRITON DIGITAL

According to a report by Inside Radio {link], Triton Digital has been quietly building its podcast measurement service. 

Triton Podcast Report has already gotten a commitment from NPR and several big commercial media companies such as Entercom’s Radio.com, Cumulus Media, and Stitcher.

John Rosso, President of Market Development at Triton Digital said in a press release:

 “We are pleased to leverage our 10-plus years of digital audio measurement expertise to provide reliable and informative data around podcast consumption in the U.S. Our Podcast Reports will provide buyers with the trusted, third-party podcast measurement they need to make informed decisions around podcast advertising.”

“Furthermore, our reports will provide podcast Networks with the reputable consumption data they need to grow their podcast strategies, gain a better understanding of their listening audiences, and increase their advertising revenue.”

Note the use of the terms “reliable,” “trusted” and “reputable.” Triton is saying what potential podcast advertisers want to hear.

Meanwhile Podtrac has released their December Top Publishers chart, shown below.