The market share for Apple Podcasts is about 40% of all podcast downloads. Since listening was unaffected in Apple Podcasts, and since the loss of automated downloads meant 31% fewer downloads overall, it’s therefore fair to suggest that 31% of automated downloads on Apple Podcasts are never listened-to. Podtrac reported a 31% decrease in downloads from Apple Podcasts in July, and other podcast hosts reported similar numbers. This bug caused a significant decrease in some reported numbers. Users didn’t notice, because when they hit the play button, the app downloaded the audio anyway. Here’s how we know: in June and July 2021, some versions of the Apple Podcasts app had a bug, which resulted in it not auto-downloading audio.

How many podcasts are downloaded but never listened-to?ġ3% of podcast downloads are never listened to. Or it might have been downloaded twice by someone. Automated downloads mean a podcast may be downloaded, but never listened-to. (Podcast apps do know: but most don’t share that data).Īnd, of course, if an episode has had 2,000 downloads, that doesn’t mean it has 2,000 listeners.

It can only ever know it’s been downloaded. No podcast hosting company knows whether a piece of audio has ever been listened-to (a “listen” or a “play”). Your podcast hosting company doesn’t know if it’s an automatic download or a user-initiated download. Or, audio can be downloaded when a listener wants to hear it - a “user-initiated download”. To a podcast hosting company, that looks the same as a download: because it technically is.Īudio can be automatically downloaded to your phone, in case you want to hear it later. We use the word “stream” to convey the action of pressing play on a podcast you’ve not downloaded yet. In podcast analytics, no audio ever “streams”: the audio is always downloaded. Total audience numbers cannot be accurately worked out from downloads.A listen, or a play, is when we know a human being has pressed the play button.A download is just a download of an episode.Downloads vs streams vs plays vs listens vs audience numbers Here are some details about how the different figures work, and how to read them. But, podcast statistics can be confusing and complex. It’s always nice to look at the numbers to see how your podcast is doing.

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