Clarifications on the Australian Podcast Report
Yesterday, Podnews questioned the data shown in CRA’s 2024 Australian Podcast Report. We’ve had two statements sent to us by the CRA, who released it. We reproduce them verbatim here:
Statement from Daryl Battaglia, SVP of Measurement Strategy at Triton Digital:
“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.”
Clarification Statement from CRA:
“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.”
Our take
The original claim was that “63% of podcasts now [achieve] over 100,000 average monthly downloads in 2024”. Any podcast publisher would tell you that this is a data point that simply can’t be true - and we heard from a number of podcast publishers in Australia who were doubtful about it.
We queried it with CRA, who published the report. CRA’s initial response was sent sent too late for us to include yesterday. But, initially, CRA gave us quite a different response. A CRA spokesperson told Podnews that “the 63% figure does specifically refer to podcast titles from the publishers that participate in the Australian Podcast Ranker”. They added: “Many of these publishers include both major and niche title offerings, so their data captures a broad spectrum of the industry. … It’s also important to note that this figure is based on an average of Monthly Downloads across all of 2024, rather than just a single month.”
We questioned the data again. Could it be possible that they’d just looked at the top 200 ranker, and calculated the 63% from that? (We tried ourselves; and for the second half of 2024, found that on average 74% of all podcasts in the Top 200 Ranker achieved more than 100,000 downloads - a number that might well be closer to 63% if you were to include the rest of the year).
CRA’s response then changed (as above) to blame Triton Digital for a statement the CRA published and sent out, with a quote attributed to CRA’s CEO, on CRA letterhead. We think it’s unfair to abdicate any responsibility for something the CRA published under its name.
Indeed, the headline of the report’s press release claims a “Remarkable 37% Surge in Podcast Listenership Over Last Two Years”, yet the data is based on - well, either a) participating publishers in the Australian Podcast Ranker, or b) publishers measured by Triton Digital, but either way - two years ago, the figures didn’t include the ABC, the biggest podcast publisher in the country. As the small print says: “Numbers will increase as new publishers join”. So, much though we’d like it to be the case, this data from CRA is bogus too. Almost every trend in the report suffers from this issue.
The Australian podcast marketplace is one of the most cohesive and collegiate in the world, and CRA - working with Triton Digital - has been instrumental in its success. No other country’s podcast market works better together.
Australia is, as a result, a country where podcasts are listened-to by more of the population than anywhere else, and punches above its weight financially, too. CRA is responsible for much of that success. It’s the closest to a “Podcast Advertising Bureau” that we have - and its success is impressive.
So, it’s important that CRA retains the trust of the industry and advertisers - and ensures that data it releases is clear and truthful. We look forward to seeing more work from CRA to grow the industry.
