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Will
Ferrell recording The Ron Burgundy
Podcast
at iHeartRadio in Los Angeles
(image
courtesy of iHeart)
|
Season One of The Ron Burgundy Podcast got attention.
Now in Season Three, it looks like Ferrell’s podcast is on life support.
Question: Why is The Ron Burgundy Podcast the top podcast in the nation according to iHeart’s Top 100 podcasts chart?
Answer:
Because iHeart has invested so much money in the project the company doesn’t
want the embarrassment of an “also ran” tarnishing their aura as the top
podcast publisher.
Welcome
to our second edition of The Battle of
the Podcast charts.
Last
month we looked at top podcast charts [link] and found that none of the charts has
the whole picture. It is the same now as it was then. Because of differences in
methodology, the lack of common definition of a podcast and competition between
various vendors, the actual reach of specific podcasts is hard to find.
The
top podcast on each chart is different. The ratio between for-profit commercial
publishers and publishers associated with non-profit public media organizations
is profound.
Simply
put, if you were hoping for a picture of the entire podcast industry, none of these charts are what your are looking for.
The
iHeart chart is a self-promotion vehicle for iHeart. In some ways it is similar
to the top records chart during the payola years.
The
iTunes chart is neutral ground. But cause it is based solely on podcasts
distributed on iTunes no other podcasts are listed.
Podtrac’s
numbers are based on monthly audience data includes only podcast publishers who
are clients or publishers that agree to use Podtrac’s propriety tracking
software.
Triton Digital’s
numbers are also only for clients. Because iHeartRadio is not a Triton client,
you won’t any of their shows on the chart.
Do we have an idea of what people use more often to download/access podcasts? The limitation of the iTunes chart, of course, is that it only serves Apple devices, and we know there are more Android users, but for some reason their chart is the most... balanced of the four, at least to me.
ReplyDeleteBut then, we also have to count podcast streams (say, if you use Spotify to listen)...