CRA retracts inflated podcast listenership claim
CRA has retracted a bold claim regarding Australian podcast listenership, first published in its annual Australian Podcast Report earlier this week.
The report initially stated that 63% of Australian podcasts average over 100,000 listens per month, with the accompanying press release largely centred around this claim.
In the report, the attribution was simply: “Triton Digital Podcast Metrics: Analysis is based on listening in Australia in 2024.”
Not surprisingly, this claim raised a few eyebrows, and after some soft inquiries from Mumbrella – plus a Mumbrellacast segment dedicated to the topic – we were able to gain clarification.
To their end, Commercial Radio & Audio are pointing the finger squarely at Triton, who provided the data used in the report.
CRA issued Mumbrella with a “clarification statement” that included strong disclaimers such as: “The data presented in the Australian Podcast Report originates from and is the sole responsibility of Triton Digital”; “CRA does not produce, alter, or control the reported data in any capacity”; and – in case there was any confusion – “The press release from CRA was based on the data provided on the Triton Digital report and subject to final approvals from Triton Digital.”
Daryl Battaglia, SVP of measurement strategy at Triton Digital explained further, in a separate statement, provided to Mumbrella by CRA.
“Earlier this week, Triton Digital provided data for the annual Australian Podcast Report, highlighting download trends in the Australian market. Since then, our team has released an updated version to clarify one slide in the report.
“The report now states that large podcasts – those with 100,000+ monthly downloads in Australia – account for 63% of all downloads. This figure reflects the full universe of Triton-measured podcasts with listeners in Australia. The data underscores that while the majority of impressions in a podcast advertising buy come from large podcasts, the podcasting landscape remains diverse, with a robust long tail of content.
“The Australian Podcast Ranker, an opt-in ranking powered by Triton’s Podcast Metrics, continues to serve as a trusted measurement standard for the industry. As we track the ongoing growth of Australia’s audio industry, we remain committed to expanding and refining our reporting.”
Below is CRA’s full clarification statement:
“The data presented in the Australian Podcast Report originates from and is the sole responsibility of Triton Digital. An earlier version of the annual report, which is comprised of data from the full universe of Triton-measured podcasts with listeners in Australia, has since been updated to provide further clarification on downloads in the Australian market. CRA does not produce, alter, or control the reported data in any capacity.
“The press release from CRA was based on the data provided on the Triton Digital report and subject to final approvals from Triton Digital. What’s important to us is ensuring the accuracy of data and the context is fully understood.”
In case you missed it, the actual statistic is: of all the podcasts that opt into the Triton measurement system, those that have over 100,000 monthly downloads in Australia account for 63% of all downloads.
This suggests a long tail – and an extremely long one if you include the hordes of other podcasts produced in Australia and not in the Triton system.
It still shows a compelling fact: there are hundreds of podcasts in Australia that have monthly listenerships of over 100,000 people.
That’s a cause worth celebrating – billions of Australians can tell you that!
For more on this, listen to the new Mumbrellacast
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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