In Podtrac’s Top Podcast Publishers monthly ranker for December we learn that the metrics for year-over-year and month-over-month are mostly stable. Specifically, Podtrac sent these notes:
- US UMA (Unique Monthly Audience) increased for 4 of the Top 20 publishers in December over November.
- The average US Unique Monthly Audience for the Top 20 publishers was down 5% month-over-month and up 11% over December 2021.
- Total Global Downloads for the Top 20 were up 9% month-over-month and up 19% year-over-year.
Podtrac measures all its clients for this monthly ranker. The December list shows iHeartRadio and NPR continuing their #1 and #2 positioning of recent months:
RAIN Remix
The RAIN Remix of this report rearranges the listing by ranking the key metrics (audience size and downloads number) per active show on average for each publisher. This creates a different view from the original, which ranks networks by their entire portfolios, big or small. This conveys an understanding of portfolio strategy.
The two measurements Podtrac uses for this monthly ranker are U.S. Unique Monthly Audience and Global Downloads & Streams. We remix the ranking twice, one remix for each metric
The first RAIN Remix below shows the top 20 list sorted by average monthly audience per show for each publisher.
The original ranking numbers (on the left) identify each publisher to see quickly the extent to which the list is shuffled into a new order. The difference is dramatic: iHeartRadio moves from #1 to #17, and This American Life moves from #19 to #1.
In our view there is no good or bad in the remix. Different publishers have different business strategies in this regard, and they can range from piling their resources into many shows or few shows. Either way, they have landed on an elite list.
The second RAIN Remix re-sorts the original by average streams/downloads (e.g. plays) per show. The result is a light shuffle of the first remix:
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