Search for ‘Podtrac’

Adam Bowie looks at the Podtrac ranker for the UK and Apple Podcast’s Top UK Shows of 2024..

Podtrac’s “top podcasts by country” rankers have been updated for October.

Podtrac released its new US rankers for October. Most participating publishers saw increases in the month. As a reminder, the “top publishers” ranker also includes YouTube podcast consumption; 43% of downloads/views for Libsyn Ads shows are consumed on YouTube; 56% of Paramount’s are, too.

Acast blames Apple’s iOS 17 changes for a drop in listens of -15%. A decrease of -15.2% was also reported by Podtrac earlier in the year. We covered the iOS 17 changes in full.

Adam Bowie analyses the recently announced Podtrac Country estimated rankers - comparing them to UK recall data from Edison Research, and to logfile-derived data from Triton Digital in Australia. Pointing out some rankings which are “wildly off”, “there are some curious anomalies between what [Podtrac] are suggesting versus what Triton can more accurately discern”, he concludes.

Exclusive: Spain’s Hoy en EL PAÍS has been claiming impressively high download figures; yet today, Podnews can reveal that many of the downloads were never heard. The 14MB podcast was observed automatically downloading, without user intervention, in a browser using an iPhone user-agent - just by visiting the elpais.com homepage.: thus artificially growing the download numbers from every mobile visitor to the website. El País got over 118mn visits in September, according to similar web, making it the largest Spanish newspaper online. It’s owned by Prisa. The podcast is apparently the 12th biggest show, by downloads, on Triton’s Latin America Podcast Ranker, and 45th in Podtrac’s estimated Spanish podcast ranker - the show, hosted by Triton Digital, also appears to contain a spot for programmatic advertising.

First Look: Podtrac has expanded its service to list the top 100 podcasts in 30 different countries. Shows from Podtrac are automatically considered for the country-specific rankings, which are “made possible by Podtrac’s proprietary download measurement and estimation systems which include all podcasts in a region”. You’ll find the Top Podcasts By Country lists on the Podtrac website.

Podtrac has announced a “predictive promo planner” - to provide insights for publishers who place ads in other podcasts to promote their shows. It’ll identify the podcasts which work best for each show.

Podtrac released its rankers for September. In the US, Wondery has moved up from #5 to #4. iHeart remains #1 for podcasts. The ranker measures participating publishers only.

Podtrac released its rankers for August. The Ezra Klein Show was a new entry for the biggest podcasts; NPR has jumped from #6 to #4 in the publisher ranker. The list includes participating publishers only.

Podtrac is now measuring over 14% of all new episodes, another record for the company, says Livewire. The second-largest, Chartable, slipped down to 6.7% last month. Chartable’s analytics was down for almost three weeks, but its analytics dashboard has now been restored.

The Dan Bongino Show has posted its audience numbers - claiming 16,382,838 downloads in July - aided by his insight as a former Secret Service agent following the attempted Trump assassination. The show was number 5 in Podtrac, should you wish to do some comparisons, though Podtrac measures unduplicated audience rather than downloads.

Podtrac’s rankers for July have been released. There’s no change in the US publisher top 10; globally, The Daily Wire enters the top 5. iHeart is still #1 for everything, everywhere, except the top US podcasts, where The Daily from The New York Times remains top. MrBallen is a new entry at #19. The ranker measures participating publishers only through a combination of redirects and logfile analysis.

The number of shows being tracked by attribution companies like Chartable and Podsights have increased by more than 21% year-on-year. More than one-in-five shows have trackers on them, with Podtrac and Chartable being the biggest companies.

iHeart’s average weekly downloads in the Podtrac ranker for June are 78mn, 18% higher than Triton’s number, despite both solutions being IAB Certified. Over the last month, trying to understand why they’re different, Podnews spoke to Podtrac, Triton, iHeart and the IAB - and learnt:

This American Life is to be exclusively sold by National Public Media. The show had been represented by The New York Times. Ira Glass is also going to voice a host-read ad within the show for the first time. (That might explain why The New York Times is no longer listed as a publisher in Podtrac, as we noted earlier this week).

Podtrac released its ranker for June 2024. Each top 5 is unchanged, though almost everyone saw a drop in consumption. The New York Times is no longer listed as a US publisher, though The Daily remains the most listened-to podcast. The ranker measures participating publishers only.

There’s a new #1 for podcasting at the top of May’s Triton Digital US Podcast Ranker - for the first time, iHeart Media is being measured by the service. The “iHeart Audience Network” claims 67,355,410 average weekly downloads, 76% more than the previous #1 network, SiriusXM. iHeart is also #1 with Podtrac.

Two days after its release, Podtrac’s ranker of global publishers now includes Acast (at #2). “Acast was inadvertently left off the original May Global Ranker release as we worked with Podtrac to clarify their methodology,” said Acast CBO Greg Glenday.

Podtrac released its rankers for May. After being #1 global publisher in March, Acast is now absent from the global publisher list altogether; it’s fifth in the list of US publishers. Total RSS traffic was down 3% month-on-month, while YouTube views were up 11%.

Spotify for Podcasters remains the #1 podcast host based on new episodes in May. Megaphone has been falling in share since August, but saw a small increase in episode share last month. Meanwhile, Podtrac is now measuring over 11% of all new podcast episodes, including almost 60% of new episodes on Spreaker. Open analytics service OP3 measured 342,000 new episodes in May.

Podtrac released its rankers for April.

Podcast hosting and monetisation company Acast released its Q1/24 financial results. The company, which is #1 global podcast publisher according to Podtrac, reported that net sales grew 25% year-on-year - driven by North America, where sales grew by 48%. The company is closer to positive EBITDA, losing $1.4mn in the quarter (compared to $5.6mn a year ago).

Podtrac is now measuring more than 10% of all new episodes, according to data from Livewire. Spreaker has a Podtrac tracking code on almost a third of shows.

Acast is celebrating its tenth birthday today, with a number of video messages from podcasters, and events across the world. We’ve a few of the videos on our website. The company was recently highlighted by Podtrac as the world’s largest podcast company.

AdsWizz has successfully recertified for v2.1 of the IAB Podcast Measurement program. Podtrac and Simplecast also recertified in March. On the IAB TechLab website, there are still a number of companies only certified to v2.0, who haven’t recertified in more than three years: Anchor (now Spotify), Buzzsprout, Captivate, Chartable, Libsyn, Megaphone and Podbean.

Podtrac released its rankers for March - including, for the first time, Acast. Acast is the #1 publisher globally, with 405mn downloads in March. It also came in at #3 publisher in the US. “In today’s newest ranker, we’re seen not just as a global leader, but also as a top contender in the highly valuable US market,” said Chief Business Officer at Acast, Greg Glenday.

Downloads from Apple Podcasts are down 39% year-on-year for Buzzsprout podcasters, according to new Buzzsprout data released for March 2024. Spotify is also down by 11%. While the number of active podcasts on Buzzsprout is only down 1%, Buzzsprout customers published 12% fewer episodes, and data we shared last week from Podtrac showed an overall drop for larger shows of around 15%.

Exclusive: How much are podcast downloads down year-on-year following the changes in Apple Podcasts? For Podnews, the leading podcast metrics company Podtrac has analysed more than 2.7bn downloads; and some individual categories fared very differently.

Podtrac published its top podcasts, publishers and networks for March. The top five podcasts are regularly hosted by women.

Podtrac has launched a global ranking - the first to include YouTube views. The first ranker for January 2024 says that Libsyn’s AdvertiseCast is #1 for “streams, downloads and views”, with the DailyWire+ at #2. However, DailyWire+ shows do 32x better on average than AdvertiseCast’s.

Podtrac published a new ranker for January - which no longer lists “global streams and downloads”, but US-only ones instead. The company promises “a new global ranking” later this month.

Ten podcast companies are still not certified for the latest version of the IAB’s podcast measurement guidelines v2.1, in spite of being asked to do so by the end of 2022. More than a year later, the IAB’s list of compliant companies still shows AdsWizz, Anchor (now Spotify), Buzzsprout, Captivate, Chartable, Libsyn, Megaphone, Podbean, Podtrac and Simplecast as only compliant to v2.0 of the guidelines, something that means “they will lose current status”, according to the IAB Tech Lab.

Livewire published a list of the top podcast trackers. Podtrac and Spotify’s Chartable are still top of the list. Podscribe, named as a preferred partner by Acast last year, is continuing to increase.

Podtrac released its rankers for November. Total global downloads for the top 20 publishers are down 15% month-on-month: “due largely to modified download behavior by iOS 17”, says the company. It measures participating publishers only.

What’s the future for IAB Podcast Measurement? In November 2022, we reported that the IAB’s v2.0 certification would no longer be valid after Dec 31 2023. As of today, some of podcasting’s largest names are still only compliant to v2.0, and all will lose their claim to certification by the end of the year unless recertified: Adswizz, Buzzsprout, Captivate, Chartable, “EmpireStreaming” (now Soundstack), Libsyn, PodBean, Podtrac, Simplecast, and “Anchor” (now Spotify Creator Studio).

Podtrac released its top rankers for October. reVolver Podcasts were new in the publisher list at #19: president Jack Hobbs tells us it's the first Latino platform to make the Podtrac listings. It measures participating publishers only.

Podcast downloads and audiences both fell 10% last month, according to Podtrac's rankers for September. iHeartPodcasts are still #1 for podcast publishers; Wondery is still the #1 sales network; The Daily is still the #1 podcast. Podtrac measures participating companies only.

Podtrac's US data for August shows a 7% increase in global downloads over July. There is no change in the top 5, with iHeartPodcasts being #1 for podcasts and showing an 11% increase in total global downloads. Libsyn's AdvertiseCast saw an increase of 27% of global downloads month-on-month. The data measures participating publishers.

Podtrac measured 9.2% of all episodes released in August. It's the highest share for the company ever. Spotify's trackers are measuring 7.4%.

Spotify's claim, above, of "number one platform" is based on number of users only.

Podtrac released its US rankers for July. The average US unique monthly audience was down 3% year-on-year. The New York Times moved up to #4 publisher, overtaking NBC News. SmartLess climbed to #2 show, behind The Daily.

Podtrac is measuring more podcasts than ever: Livewire reports its tracking code was in 8.6% of all episodes released in July. Meanwhile, the use of trackers from Audacy's Podcorn has almost halved in just two months.

Podtrac has released its ranker for US podcasts, publishers and sales networks for June. There are no changes in the top 5 podcasts or the top 5 publishers (iHeartPodcasts are still #1 for podcasts); month on month, total downloads were flat for the top 20 publishers, and down 3% year-on-year. For sales networks, Acast (#2) closed the gap on Wondery (#1). The ranker measures participating publishers only.

Spotify for Podcasters, formerly Anchor, saw a big drop in share of new podcast episodes in June, according to Livewire. Omny Studio overtook Libsyn to gain the #4 slot. For tracking services, Podtrac increased its lead over Spotify's various tracking tools.

One of the oldest podcast apps, Stitcher is to close on Aug 29. An internal memo, seen by Podnews, says that the "scale and reach of our widely-distributed podcasts has been and remains a crucial accelerant for our advertising sales business". In January, Stitcher was the sixth-biggest podcast app in the US, according to Podtrac - though it had lost a quarter of its users in two years, and had only 1.3% of the market.

The average monthly audience for individual shows in 2023 is half of what it was in 2019 - and downloads are down, says Eric Nuzum, quoting Podtrac data. He suggests that publishers are pulling back on new shows: and it's new shows that drive more downloads.

Podtrac unveiled April 2023's rankers. Vox Media debuted at #10 in the publishers list with 6mn US listeners. The Daily is #1 podcast.

Echoing data we unveiled from Podtrac in January, the report also says Apple Podcasts delivers almost three times the downloads per person than Spotify; and that Podcast Addict listeners download the most shows.

Correction: iHeart's figures from Podtrac were up in March, not down as we reported here on Friday. Apologies to our friends at iHeart; we've corrected the original story. Sorry. #awkward

Podtrac's ranker is out for March. iHeartPodcasts is still "#1 for podcasts", though total downloads are down 8.3% total downloads are up 8.3%. Wondery at #2 is up 8.1%; and NPR at #3 is up 9.3%. (March has 10% more days in it than February - three more weekdays this year).

Open podcast tracking tool OP3 grew its share of tracked episodes by 11.5% last month, and is now at #13. Podtrac remains #1. And, Amazon Cloudfront remains the most-used CDN.

Data: Exclusive: Who's biggest? Spotify is biggest for total listeners to podcasts, but Apple is biggest for downloads, according to new US data from Podtrac. The company also reveals that Spotify has the lowest number of episode requests per listener, at just three: Apple Podcasts users download more than nine times as many.

Podtrac has released its US rankers for February. iHeartPodcasts is #1 for podcasts; Wondery is the top sales network; and The Daily is the top podcast. The ranker measures participating podcasts only.

Amazon Music has lost an exclusive podcast. Disgraceland is now available everywhere (it became an Amazon exclusive last year). The podcast is celebrating its 5-year anniversary this week, and has just released the premiere for season 11 of the show. Being available everywhere drives the download numbers: Podtrac now ranks Disgraceland as the #1 music podcast again.

Podtrac has released the company's stats for January. iHeartPodcasts is still #1 in the publisher list, which doesn't measure its competitors SiriusXM or Spotify; Wondery remains #1 sales network; The Daily remains #1 podcast with NPR's Up First climbing to #3. (Participating publishers only).

BBC Sounds data in Q4/22 was published. 188mn plays (62mn per month) were to on-demand content (excluding music mixes). The corporation also saw 259mn podcast downloads (86mn per month) on third-party platforms. A total of 148mn global downloads and streams per month would make it #4 on Podtrac's publisher list, behind NPR, Wondery and iHeart; though this number includes some catch-up radio shows unavailable as RSS podcasts.

Podcast analytics service OP3 has published its methodology of calculating a download, and John Spurlock has published more on why prefix analytics aren't always identical to logfile analysis, particularly a different method of dealing with range requests. Major prefix analytics companies we've spoken to, including Podtrac, say that they have similar solutions in place.

Podtrac remains the most popular third-party analytics service; Audacy's Podcorn has slipped to fourth place.

Analytics company Podtrac has added a new feature for paid customers - rankings for all shows in your account, and historical show-level rankings as well. You need to be a "Grow Your Show" subscriber.

At one point, Samsung Free's automated podcast plays were responsible for more than 1-in-10 podcast downloads, Podtrac tells Podnews today. The problem first appeared around November 14, and peaked at 10.7% of all daily downloads on Nov 27. According to Podtrac data, the issue appears to have been corrected. Podtrac will temporarily remove all Dalvik counts from its monthly podcast and publisher rankers for November.

Podtrac published its top 25 new podcasts of 2022 by average downloads per episode. The Trojan Horse Affair, from The New York Times, is #1. It measures participating publishers only.

Podtrac is to launch an attribution product. "Podtrac Attribution" promises "independent, accurate assessment of your podcast ad performance, in a new dashboard you’ll want to use" - you can apply for the beta today.

Podtrac released its US podcast rankers for October. iHeartPodcasts remains #1 podcast publisher; Wondery remains #1 podcast sales network; The Daily remains #1 podcast by total audience. The ranker remains incomplete - measuring participating publishers only.

Podtrac has launched a new Podcast Sales Network Ranking. The initial ranking, for September, places Wondery at #1, with a US monthly audience of 25 million. Others in the ranking include Podcast One, and new to Podtrac's measurement, Acast and Libsyn's AdvertiseCast - we understand more sales networks are lined-up to be included.

In the US, iHeartRadio is still #1 for podcasting according to Podtrac's publisher data for September. Numbers are slightly down, but that's misleading - September has 3% fewer days than August. It's an incomplete ranker, measuring participating publishers only.

After Podtrac told us that purchased podcast plays in game apps were "consistent with IAB guidelines", the IAB's Eric John has told Bloomberg that "the standards are in a continual state of review". The practice has been widely criticised elsewhere.

Those purchased podcast plays are all OK, it seems. After yesterday's news that iHeartMedia and others have been purchasing podcast plays in game apps, Podtrac tells us: "We decided not to filter these downloads as they are consistent with the latest IAB guidelines. It’s our understanding they appear as browser traffic without a unique user agent (or [unique] IP address). These downloads don’t have a material impact on the publisher rankings including the rank order of the top publishers."

Players get game tokens if they listen to a podcast for just twenty seconds. (Carman posts a graphic). But, because more than 60 seconds of audio are downloaded by the player, as demonstrated in this article in Sounds Profitable, these plays count as an IAB-certified download from podcast hosts and in prefix services like Podtrac. That allows podcasts promoted in this way to charge for the ads delivered in the show, and for that traffic to be counted in rankers.

Measurement company Podtrac has seen a significant growth in the shows using its analytics, according to new data from John Spurlock's Livewire, a podcast research website. iHeart's Spreaker, a podcast hosting company, appears to have added the Podtrac code to the majority of new episodes.

To compare: Podtrac places iHeart at #1, but doesn't measure shows from Spotify or SXM Media. Triton Digital has SXM Media as #1, but doesn't measure shows from Spotify or iHeart.

Podcast analytics company Podtrac's US podcast publisher data for August was released. In spite of all the publicity handed to them last month, The Daily Wire, a right-wing podcast network, underperformed, increasing total downloads by just 3% against an average increase of 7%. Ben Shapiro's show also dropped a place in Podtrac's top podcast ranking. iHeart remains #1 for podcasts, with downloads up by 6.8%. The ranker measures participating publishers only.

Podtrac is to add a Sales Network Ranker report in Q3 this year, according to emails from ART19 to some of its customers.

Podtrac reports a drop in podcast consumption for many of the biggest networks in July. The data, which excludes Spotify and SiriusXM among others, claims iHeartRadio is #1 for podcasts.

Podtrac has published its top US podcast publishers for June. iHeartRadio is still #1 for podcasts, though SXM Media, who are believed to be larger, is not a participating publisher. iHeartRadio downloads fell 3.8% month-on-month. Wondery is the new #2, overtaking NPR.

Hey, weirdos! Morbid, which recently switched from Audioboom to Wondery, has debuted at #2 in Podtrac's top 20 US podcasts chart for June, its first month with the network. Its old home, Audioboom, doesn't participate in Podtrac.

Out of all podcast episodes published in June, Buzzsprout saw a decline of market share to 8.1%, according to Livewire. The company is still the #2 podcast host after Anchor. Amazon Cloudfront is still responsible for more than 50% of all podcast downloads; Spotify's Chartable and Podtrac both saw an increased amount of use as tracking tools.

Talking of which, Podtrac published its latest podcast rankers. iHeartRadio is still #1 network, though the company doesn't measure SXM Media. The Daily is still #1 podcast. There is no change in the top 5 of either ranker.

The number of podcast episodes using Chartable, Podtrac and Podsights prefixes has increased. Of the top two, Chartable was seen on 4.87% of all episodes in May; Podtrac on 4.49%.

Spotify is to bring back political advertising on the platform. It was suspended in early 2020. In the 2019-2020 election cycle, total political advertising spending reached $8.5 billion across TV, radio and digital media. The company recently drew ire from podcasters for adding ads for alcohol on podcast pages after a technical error, costing them a major advertiser.

Exclusive: In new research from Podtrac, YouTube is the most popular platform for podcasts that post full video. 22% of Podtrac's top 250 podcasts are posting full video episodes to YouTube - which do particularly well on the platform, with bigger and more engaged audiences. You can grab a copy of the research here.

iHeartMedia isn't measured by iHeart-owned Triton Digital; but Podtrac reported iHeart has only 50% more unique listeners than NPR; allowing us to clarify that SXM Media would be #1 for podcasts if measured by Podtrac. Last week, Edison Research also reported SXM Media is #1 for podcasts.

SXM Media is #1 for podcasts, reports Edison Podcast Metrics. The data for the top US podcast publishers places iHeartMedia at #3, after Spotify. iHeart claim they are #1, but quote Podtrac data that does not measure SXM Media.

Opinion: This 'top publisher' data is based on "the number of podcasts in the top 100", and not based on audience reach nor total downloads. While data from Podtrac and Triton Digital is incomplete, both align well with publisher data we already have from Edison Podcast Metrics, a more robust survey of the whole space, which shows SXM Media at #1, and NPR at #4. To suggest that NPR isn't in the top ten of US podcast publishers is obviously untrue; but helpful narrative for its competitor iHeartMedia. Coincidentally, iHeartMedia owns Media Monitors, a fact not disclosed.

Podtrac's Top US Podcast Publishers ranker for April is out. iHeartMedia is still "#1 for podcasts" and pulled further ahead of NPR in the period. Every publisher in the top ten saw a drop in global streams and downloads though, and total downloads were down 5% month-on-month (though April has 3% fewer days than March and the Easter weekend). The ranker lists participating publishers only.

Podtrac has published the top 20 podcasts for the US for April. There's no change in the top 5, but My Favorite Murder is brand new at #6. Amazon bought the rights in January; it's already a top ten podcast with Triton Digital’s Podcast Ranker and Edison Research’s Podcast Consumer Tracking Report. Podtrac's data is participating publishers, now including Exactly Right Media.

Podcast redirect trackers are being used on 12.6% of all podcast episodes, a number that's slightly shrunk from last month. Spotify's Chartable is on 4.71% (down by a tenth of a percent); Podtrac growing from 4.37% to 4.44% at #2.

iHeartRadio is still #1 for podcasting, according to Podtrac which has published March's list of US podcast publishers. It has increased its lead from NPR at #2, and claimed 443m downloads in the month. The Daily is still #1 show. The list includes participating publishers only.

Podtrac has shared February's Top US podcast publishers. Audience was up 18% year-on-year. In February (which has 10% fewer days than January), NPR decreased downloads by 7.8% but iHeart increased by 1.8%. It lists participating publishers only.

Noting that Chartable and Podsights have been bought by Spotify, Podtrac is owned by Authentic, and Triton Digital owned by iHeart, podcast analytics service PodInch has launched, offering "podcast analytics by an independent team which care about user privacy". (Blubrry remains independent, too).

Tyler Moody looks at the recent Podtrac data for publishers, and works out per-show numbers. We overlooked that this data also includes This American Life's total download figures for that one show: 12 million downloads in January.

Media Monitors has released its US PodRank data, showing top podcasts and publishers for two weeks in December. The company puts Joe Rogan as #1; suggests that comedy is the top category; and says iHeart is #1 for podcasting. Media Monitors is owned by iHeart; but the data is similar to Podtrac's December data for participating publishers.

Podtrac reports iHeartRadio is #1 for podcasting for January's US publishers list - the gap slightly narrowing between them and NPR at #2. No change in the top 5 for US podcasts.

The BBC says it saw a total of 257m podcast downloads globally last quarter. That would make it the #3 podcast publisher in the world, possibly; NPR has 169m vs the BBC's 85m per month. The 257m doesn't include all plays though - a BBC spokesperson tells us: "If you listen via BBC Sounds as a stream (e.g. without downloading it) then they’re not included. If listening via BBC Sounds as a download then they would be."

Podtrac has added multi-user accounts and data export capabilities.

Podtrac published their Dec 2021 top US publishers list. iHeartRadio is still #1 for podcasting, with more than one-and-a-half times the US audience of the #2, NPR. Total global downloads were up 19% year-on-year. The Daily remained #1 podcast; Jordan Harbinger made a new entry at #20. Podtrac measures participating publishers only.

Podtrac has published its list of "top new shows for 2021", ranked by average downloads per episode for shows that were published for the first time in the last twelve months. Wondery and iHeartRadio both have nine shows in the top 25; The Apology Line was the most successful new release. Podtrac measures participating publishers only.

Podtrac has published their top podcast publishers for November. Total global downloads for the top 20 podcasters were flat, the company says, both month-over-month and year-over-year. iHeartRadio is still #1 for podcasts; it measures participating publishers only.

Chartable's tracking is pulling ahead of Podtrac, according to new data from John Spurlock. The company's tracking prefix was found on 4.3% of all new podcast episodes published in November.

Downloads vs audience - what's the difference? A useful primer from Podtrac. (Also - a quicker read than our comprehensive look at podcast stats.)

Podtrac has added a new Show Overview report for podcasters using their free analytics.

Meanwhile, Podtrac report The Daily was still #1 podcast for October, with Audiochuck's Full Body Chills being the only new entry; and iHeartRadio was still #1 for podcasts. It measures participating publishers only.

Earlier this week, we published data from Podtrac showing that Spotify is close to Apple in terms of US monthly users but nowhere near in terms of US downloads. John Spurlock has calculated how many episodes Podtrac, and the other analytics services, measured in September.

Exclusive: Spotify is closing in on Apple Podcasts and indie podcast apps are becoming less popular, according to new data released to Podnews by Podtrac today. Calculated from over a billion US podcast downloads in September, for monthly audience, Spotify is now less than three percentage points away from Apple. But, for monthly streams/downloads, Apple is more than seven times larger - and that number's growing.

iHeartRadio is still #1 for podcasts, according to Podtrac's Top US Podcast Publishers for September. iHeart added 29m global downloads last month; but also added 30 new shows. (Podtrac contains participating publishers only).

The Australian Podcast Ranker will report on audience reach and download figures by podcast title. The ranker, compiled by Triton Digital, will add these numbers after ad-buyer request; the ranker will now be in order of total audience, aligning with Triton Digital reports in other countries, and with Podtrac.

Podtrac reports that iHeartRadio is still #1 for podcasting, according to their US podcast publishers list for August. The average US monthly audience was up 15% from July - a figure affected by Apple Podcasts's download bug - but down 2% year-on-year. Podtrac measures participating publishers only.

Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett's podcast SmartLess is a new entry at #9 in the Podtrac top US podcasts list for August. The show was bought by Amazon's Wondery at the end of June. Podtrac contains participating publishers only.

A separate measurement company, Podtrac, report numbers are now increasing again, coinciding with Apple's fix rolling out.

CEO Ross Adams highlighted that, were Acast measured in Podtrac, they'd be the #3 publisher in the US and the #1 global publisher.

Podtrac has highlighted how the Apple Podcasts bug affected US podcast traffic in July - reporting a 31% drop in downloads from the app. The company suggests that traffic during much of August will still be affected. Podtrac also report a significant drop in news podcast downloads since the end of the US election cycle in February 2020.

iHeartRadio is #1 for podcasts again, according to Podtrac's figures for July. The average US unique monthly audience was 7% down year-on-year, as a download bug in Apple Podcasts continued to disrupt data. The Daily is still the most listened-to podcast; the Podtrac numbers measure participating publishers only.

The BBC has released stats for their podcasts and BBC Sounds for Q2/21. Total podcast downloads have dropped slightly from 265m to 257m. That places the BBC behind iHeartRadio and NPR, but just ahead of the New York Times's Podtrac data.

Apple has confirmed a download bug has been fixed in iOS 14.7. This meant downloads from Apple Podcasts were down 20% in June and much of July. Since Apple accounts for almost half of all podcast downloads, it had a big effect on the industry - one analyst criticised Spotify, causing its stock to drop by $2.5bn: because of lower Podtrac figures caused by Apple's bug.

What's behind the year-over-year decrease in podcast downloads for June 2021? Podtrac posts a blog, confirming what we reported on July 2 - a bug in Apple Podcasts has resulted in at least a 20% dip in downloads on the platform. The fix was rolled out on July 20; so you'll see big increases in August: and, really, they were up 5%, they say.

The June 2021 US Podcast Report is out from Triton Digital. Stitcher are #1 for a second month, beating NPR (though iH eartRadio isn't measured). Average weekly downloads for the top 10 publishers were up by 5% year-on-year, in spite of an Apple Podcasts auto-download bug and a shift to IAB v2.1. (One investment analyst recently used figures from the competing Podtrac ranker to claim podcasting was in negative growth).

Analysis: Bernstein quotes Podtrac figures as evidence of this 'slowing market', saying that in June, listening sank 16.5% year-on-year. However, Podtrac don't measure Spotify's podcasts; and it's notable that the top ten publishers in Triton Digital's latest Podcast Report for the US (measuring May vs May) shows an 11.4% growth in downloads. However, a bug in Apple Podcasts may affect total downloads in June.

iHeartRadio is still the #1 US podcast publisher according to Podtrac's ranker of participating publishers.

Podtrac's US top 20 podcasts for May 2021 has an unchanged top ten, excepting Dan Bongino rising one place to 10. Bongino has taken the place of the late Rush Limbaugh on a number of stations. Of the US publisher list, iHeart remains #1, with almost a third more audience than NPR. It measures participating publishers only.

Podtrac has published its top US publisher data for April. It's the 5 year anniversary of these numbers, which list participating publishers only. Total global downloads fell by 2% in comparison to March; but then, April has 3.3% fewer days than March. They also released their top 20 US podcasts.

Podtrac has published its top US podcast publishers for March. Global unique streams and downloads from participating publishers was unchanged from a year ago.

How do podcast prefix analytics work? Bryan Barletta looks into the tech used by companies like Podtrac, Podsights, Chartable and Blubrry, in Sounds Profitable this week, sponsored by Claritas. Subscribe here

Triton Digital released their new US Podcast Report for February. The #1 publisher is NPR; but Triton Digital, which is owned by iHeartRadio, does not measure iHeartRadio, the #1 publisher according to Podtrac. (Incomplete: participating publishers only)

Use Chartable or Podsights to measure your traffic? Overcast will no longer appear in your data: Marco Arment, the developer, has decided to skip those redirects entirely, after they have, he claims, become increasingly affected by ad-blocking DNS servers. "Most download links that would otherwise redirect through these widely-blocked domains will now try to skip that hop and go to whatever’s after them", he says on Overcast's Slack channel. "I keep getting emails and tweets from people whose downloads are being blocked at the network level by these DNS blocklists, and they’ve gotten frequent enough that I need to do something." Podtrac is currently unaffected by this action, though.

Podtrac has released the top 20 US podcasts for February (no change in the top 3), and the top US podcast publishers (no change in the top 3). They report a drop of 13% of downloads since January; February has 9% fewer days than January, so this is a drop in real terms, too.

Analysis: Tom's explanation - that Serial included Nice White Parents in full - is certainly part of the answer: as independent verification, Podtrac reported the audience for the Serial feed was huge in July 2020, up 48 places to #11. However, that "up 48 places" tells us that Serial was #59 in Podtrac's chart in June - which is worth highlighting. In spite of Serial not releasing an episode since November 2018, it was still in the top 60 podcasts on Podtrac, measured by unique audience. Serial appears to be relatively unique as an evergreen podcast that new listeners seek out, and as Edison Research's data also shows.

iHeartRadio is still the #1 podcaster, according to Podtrac's January data: the company leads NPR for both US unique monthly audience and global streams/downloads. Here's what else you need to-know-tdy: The Daily remains the US's most popular podcast. An incomplete ranker, it measures participating publishers only.

iHeartRadio is still the #1 podcaster, says Podtrac. They've 32% more US unique monthly listeners than podcasts from NPR, and 26% more global downloads; though they do have ten times more shows. The Daily is still the US's most popular podcast, too. An incomplete ranker, Podtrac measures participating publishers only.

Wondery has shown itself as a powerhouse for podcast publishing, especially launching new shows. Podtrac's top 25 new podcasts of 2020 had eleven shows from Wondery, easily the largest publisher of new shows this year. Jen Sargent, who'll take over management of the company, outlined her strategy last year.

Podtrac has released their listing of top new US podcasts of 2020, based on average downloads per episode. Nice White Parents is the #1. 10 shows are from Wondery; 7 shows are from iHeartRadio.

Podtrac published their top 20 US podcasts for November. No change in the top 4 (Up First at 3, NPR News Now at 2, and The Daily at 1), this incomplete ranker measures participating publishers only.

Podtrac has published top US publishers for November. iHeartRadio is still #1. Wondery has jumped from 6th to 4th. An incomplete ranker, it measures participating publishers only.

Podtrac is to make improvements to their podcast reporting dashboard next week. The company, which offers free podcast consumption data, has mailed details to their current users.

In the same Billboard article, iHeart's Conal Byrne says "Spotify accounts for somewhere between five and 12% of listening" of podcasts from iHeart, and suggests that exclusives are bad for creators, brands, and listeners. iHeart remains the top US podcast publisher, according to Podtrac's October numbers.

Podtrac has posted data showing how podcasts did in the US last year during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year. (We'll be publishing every day, as normal)

Is it that time of the month already? Podtrac have published their US Top Podcasts list for September; The Daily is still #1. In their US Top Podcast Publishers, NPR also remains the US #1 for audience; iHeartRadio, the #2, is measuring 44 new shows and remains the global #1 for downloads. An incomplete ranker, it measures participating publishers only.

The new version of Overcast, an iOS app, has gone live. As Podnews started doing in January, the app shows podcast hosts and analytics companies like Podtrac and Chartable; and highlights privacy information.

Podcast analytics and attribution company Chartable has raised $2.25m in seed funding. The company is tracking 1bn downloads a month (Podtrac tracks 1.5bn). Podnews uses it.

Exclusive: Podtrac has shared total downloads and audience, split by platform. Based on 1.5 billion US downloads from participating publishers measured by Podtrac during August, Apple has 61.1% of all podcast downloads; but when measured by total audience, Spotify is closing in on Apple in the country. Founder and CEO of Podtrac, Mark McCrery, told Podnews "Apple continues to provide the largest US podcast audience, podcast downloads and streams, and downloads per audience member. Spotify has become a popular podcast player in the US but with fewer monthly downloads and streams per audience member currently."

Chartapalooza: Why Every Podcast Chart Is So Different - Steven Goldstein posts a helpful article about podcast data, including the US podcast networks measured by Podtrac and Triton.

NPR is back at #1 in Podtrac's August US podcast publishers ranker; iHeartRadio is at second place, though is still #1 for global consumption. US unique audience increased by 10% month-on-month for the top 10 publishers. There's no change in the top 5 in Podtrac's August US individual podcast ranker. The services measures participating publishers only.

If that 240m downloads number includes all podcast listening for the BBC (it's a little unclear if BBC Sounds's podcast plays are included), that would mean an equivalent of 80m downloads per month, and would place it behind iHeartRadio, NPR and the New York Times in the Podtrac rankings. The BBC blocks Google Podcasts.

Anchor is hosting a large number of pirated podcasts from other publishers, we can reveal today. 30% of all the Podtrac top 20 podcasts are currently being copied on Anchor, according to our searches. The new podcast from NYT/Serial, Nice White Parents, has a further five pirated copies hosted on Anchor, using the original artwork.

Podtrac have released their top 20 US podcasts for July 2020. Surprisingly, Serial has risen from below the top 50 up to #11: because of the publicity surrounding the NYT purchase of Serial Productions, maybe? The ranker only measures participating publishers.

Podtrac has published its Top US Publishers list for July 2020. iHeartRadio is now #1 for US unique monthly audience as well as global downloads, beating NPR in both rankings. ABC is now measured alongside ESPN; it only measures participating publishers.

Podtrac has also released their US Top 20 Podcasts ranker. The Ben Shapiro Show climbs to #5. It only measures participating publishers.

Podtrac has released its top US podcast publishers ranker for June 2020. NPR regains the #1 slot, followed by iHeartRadio and the New York Times. The ranker includes participating publishers only.

ESPN have released a press release saying their podcasts are increasing in popularity. Blubrry's analytics, according to the release, are 44.2m downloads; Podtrac says ESPN achieved 45.3m downloads for the same time period. Both companies are IAB Certified.

Podtrac has also released their US Podcast Ranker. Call Her Daddy moved up eleven places after the return of the show. It, too, only measures participating publishers.

Another day, another ranker: Podtrac covers the top US podcasts by category. News was biggest in May, but down from April. The service only measures participating publishers.

Edison Research has revealed its US podcast ranker top 10. Unlike Podtrac or Triton Digital, who only measure downloads from selected publishers, the Edison Research data is calculated from 2,013 online interviews with podcast listeners about all the podcasts they listen to, which is then weighted to be nationally representative, and calculates reach ('people'), rather than total downloads. Joe Rogan is at #1; The Daily at #2; This American Life at #3.

Podtrac has also released their US publisher report for May. iHeartRadio, absent from the Triton Digital report, is at #1; NPR is at #2. Their service, too, only measures participating publishers.

Podtrac has published its final weekly update of podcast data amid the coronavirus. Most podcast consumption has returned to near normal levels; last week was affected by Memorial Day (the last graph in the data shows this most visibly). The data only contains participating publishers.

Audioboom is to "participate exclusively" in Triton Digital's Podcast Reports, according to a press release. Triton competes with Podtrac in the US for a podcast ranker, but also has products in LATAM and Australia, with more countries slated for launch.

Podtrac reports that podcast consumption continues to recover after a slump caused by the coronavirus. Last week, downloads were up 5%, and audience up 4%. Comedy saw the highest growth. The service only measures participating publishers.

Podtrac has released their top 20 US podcasts for April 2020. The Daily is still #1. The service only measures participating publishers.

Podtrac's latest weekly report is good news for podcasting: downloads were up last week by 4%, and audience was up 3%. It's the fourth consecutive week that things have been growing. Comedy podcasts grew the most last week. The service only measures participating publishers.

The BBC had 230m podcast downloads in Q1 2020, it says, excluding its own UK-only BBC Sounds app, which claimed a further 123m plays of on-demand radio and podcasts. That roughly translates to 117m downloads per month, making the British broadcaster bigger than the New York Times, but smaller than NPR or iHeartRadio. The number of podcast downloads in Q1 2020 was flat based on last quarter. The BBC is still blocking Google Podcasts.

Podtrac have also published highlights of their top podcasts by category ranking for April.

Podtrac shows another slow increase in podcast listening in their weekly report. The Business category saw the highest growth last week.

Podtrac have revealed their top publishers ranking for April 2020. Surprisingly, NPR falls to second place in terms of US audience: they're beaten by iHeartRadio, who have also added 18 new shows. The service only measures participating publishers.

Podcast traffic is continuing to recover, according to latest data from Podtrac. Last week was 2% higher for audience and virtually flat for downloads; comedy podcasts fared best. The service measures podcasts from participating publishers.

Podcast consumption is increasing, according to new figures from Podtrac. This is the first week that both downloads and users have grown since the first week of March, the company says.

Podtrac says that The Daily has seen a yearly increase in US audience of 73%; and monthly audiences increased by 7% in the month of March. It's part of their paid-for category report.

Podtrac's weekly update shows a continued decline in downloads, by 1% last week, across the publishers that they monitor. Fiction was the highest growing category, with downloads increasing by 35% week-on-week.

Unlike competitor Podtrac, it's based on average weekly downloads over a four-week period, rather than a calendar month. Different publishers are in each: Podtrac has iHeartMedia, NYT and PRX, while Triton lists Stitcher/Midroll and Entercom's RADIO·COM.

Podtrac has published their top 20 US podcasts for March. There's only one new entry: CNN's Coronavirus: Fact vs Fiction, which debuts at #13.

Squadcast has announced a partnership with Dolby Laboratories. The partnership promises automatic leveling, EQ, noise reduction, and a "spatialised audio" function that claims to "make you and your guests sound and feel like you're sonically in the same room". (We linked to DolbyOn on Apr 6, a free Android app with similar features).

Podtrac have announced Podcast Audience Category Rankings, a new paid service from the podcast analytics company.

Podtrac has released a new set of data about podcast consumption during the coronavirus. Last week, downloads were down just 1% week-on-week, leading the company to say that the effects are levelling off. The highest-growing category last week was TV & Film; though fiction podcasts have grown strongly over the past three weeks.

Podtrac has published March 2020's top podcast publishers. There are a number of new publishers participating in Podtrac's list: WarnerMedia (new at #10), Fox News Radio and Slate. "Sixteen of the Top 20 were up or flat for March over February in regards to Downloads", says the release.

First look: US podcast downloads were down 4% last week, says Podtrac, which has posted a new weekly update: they are still 25% higher than the first week of January (when everyone was, admittedly, mostly on holiday). In terms of categories, audio fiction podcast downloads were up by 19% week-on-week; news podcasts saw a 6% decline, and sports down 10%. Podtrac measure over a billion podcast downloads per month.

Exclusive: Podtrac, the largest podcast analytics company in the US, has released weekly podcast data showing podcast download and audience growth including the effect of the coronavirus. The data will be published later on the Podtrac website, and updated weekly.

Podtrac publishes its ranker for February. The top 8 is unchanged from January.

The news bulletins are taking over the rankers: Podtrac has published their top 20 podcasts for January. NPR News Now, a five-minute news bulletin mainly driven by smart speakers, is now at #2; Fox News Radio Newscast is a new entry at #20. Podnews reported on Feb 6 that Sky News's News Bulletin, which is not available as a podcast at all, is #2 in the Australian Podcast Ranker. (Podnews is also available in your daily news briefing settings).

Podtrac have published the January top 10 podcast publishers for US audience. The list actually lists fifteen publishers, with Westwood One new at #11, and NPR is still #1. It doesn't list all publishers. Podtrac claim 1.3 billion downloads in January 2019 across all publishers, up 21% from December.

Podcast measurement company Chartable has achieved IAB Certification. Today's announcement makes it the fourteenth company to achieve certified podcast measurement status from the IAB Tech Lab, and the third to achieve certification by prefix, after Podtrac and Blubrry. We've updated our podcast stats primer.

Verdict with Ted Cruz has "topped the charts" and apparently has been downloaded more than 500,000 times so far, according to US newspaper coverage of the US Senator's podcast. (Megaphone/Podtrac)

NPR News Now is a brand new entry at #3 in the Podtrac top 20 US podcasts chart for December. The podcast, consisting of the latest hourly news bulletin from NPR, was previously excluded from the chart.

Podtrac have released December's top podcast publisher list, which is now a top 15 and shows a sales contact. The data is US-only, opt-in and incomplete. It faces competition from Triton Digital's Podcast Ranker, which launches later this year.

In an email, Stephen Hallgren from Simplecast has noted that preload="metadata" behaviour has changed on Android Chrome at some point recently, possibly since a new release in late October - trebling the amount of download data (and bringing it way above the IAB minimum). This potentially means that any player could succumb to the same issue that we noted earlier this week. Podtrac are keeping a close eye on this latest development: it may explain why the Us Weekly podcast saw such a traffic jump in November.

Podcast host Libsyn is restricting its publishers from using some analytics companies. The company's recent platform update to add "URL prepends" for companies like Podtrac and Blubrry does not allow publishers to add Podsights, a company that measures the effect of podcast advertising. Attempts fail with an error, saying that the prepend is not compliant with privacy legislation. Podsights, however, say in a statement to us that "Podsights is GDPR and CCPA compliant, and data privacy is core to our business." Libsyn tells us: "We are taking these steps to help Libsyn, our customers and Libsyn partners better comply with CCPA and data privacy best practices globally, and because we feel it is necessary to protect listener privacy," though their statement does not mention Podsights by name.

EXCLUSIVE: Podtrac have published their top 20 (US) podcast list for November 2019. American Media LLC have two new entries: Us Weekly's Hot Hollywood is new at #5. Today, Podnews can reveal that these numbers also include Android users just visiting their website, and never playing the podcast at all.

Libsyn has updated their platform, adding the ability for you to add Podtrac/Chartable/Blubrry "URL prepends" and author data per episode.

The Podtrac (US) podcast publishers list has been released for November. All publishers saw a decrease in unique audience, due to Thanksgiving. NPR, iHeart Radio and the New York Times are the top 3: the figures are opt-in and incomplete.

Podtrac have published a "top 20 new podcasts of 2019" list (which like all Podtrac lists are US-centric and opt-in). Wondery has eight titles in the top 20; iHeartRadio has five.

Podtrac have released their top 20 US podcasts ranker. The Daily is still #1; NPR have eight shows in the top 20. The ranker is opt-in and not complete.

Podtrac has released new top ten publisher rankers for US audience. NBC News debuts at #9. The data's opt-in. The number of iHeart listed shows have increased from 268 to 299 - iHeart has declined to send us a list.

Podtrac's top 20 US podcasts for September is up. Stuff You Should Know slips back to #3.

Podtrac have released their top podcast publishers for September 2019. The data is US-only. iHeartRadio have fallen back to #2; and Kast Media is a new entrant to the chart at #10.

The NPR Politics podcast is now a daily podcast, released every weekday afternoon. It's the biggest politics podcast in the world, according to Podtrac.

Podtrac have published their top 20 US podcasts for August 2019. Based on US unique audience, iHeart's Stuff You Should Know rises to #2. Here's what else you need to know today: The Daily remains #1. (The data is opt-in, and all publishers don't take part; here's more on podcast stats).

Podtrac have released their Top 10 Podcast Publishers data for August. The data is opt-in. NPR remains the #1 global podcaster, while iHeartRadio has achieved the #1 spot for US unique audience, with figures that increased 26% apparently due to the return of Ron Burgundy. The figure includes 258 active iHeart shows monitored by Podtrac.

Similar decreases were flagged by Podtrac in May, Podbean in June 2018, Audioboom in Jan 2018, and Libsyn in Sep 2017 along with many others.

Podtrac have released their top 20 podcasts list for July. iHeartRadio's Stuff You Should Know has dropped to #3, being overtaken by This American Life at 2. The Daily still remains at #1. The data is opt-in and US-only.

We reported on Triton Digital receiving IAB Certification earlier this week. The company has now published details: the certification is for the Triton Podcast Metrics tool, and Triton's Tap ad server. Podtrac have also published detail of their Certification,

Libsyn, Triton Digital and Podtrac are now IAB Certified.

ESPN claim their podcast audience increased 17% year-on-year in July. Additionally, content created specifically for podcasts grew their downloads 25%. The data is from Podtrac.

US broadcaster Cumulus, the owner of Westwood One, saw 5.9% revenue growth in Q1 2019, driven by growth in podcasting, according to their investor call. They claim 52 million downloads for March 2019 (which would put them at #5 in Podtrac's rankings); and that their podcasting business is profitable.

Podtrac has published July 2019's top podcast publishers. It's opt-in and US-only, but NPR has increased its lead over iHeartRadio.

Podtrac has posted their top 20 (US) podcasts for June 2019. The data is opt-in and proprietary (nothing wrong with that, though); in the top 5, based on US unique audience, iHeart's Stuff You Should Know has overtaken This American Life.

Podtrac have revealed their top US podcast publishers for June 2019. They note that average US unique monthly audience (a proprietary and opaque figure) is up 6% from May.

iHeartRadio have launched their own podcasts top 100 - consisting of podcasts carried on the iHeartRadio platform. The company says it now lists 250,000 different shows, and describes this chart as "most listened-to"; it goes back to mid-April. The current top 3: #1 The Ron Burgundy Podcast; #2 The Bobby Bones Show; #3 The Joe Rogan Experience. RAIN compares it with Podtrac.

Podtrac released their opt-in top 10 US podcast publishers list for May 2019. NPR is #1, iHeartRadio is #2, and PRX is #3.

Exclusive: Podcast analytics firm Podtrac has removed a statement that it made in error on its website, Podnews can reveal today. The company is working towards IAB certification.

Podtrac have also released May's top (US) podcasts. The proprietary opt-in data claims The Daily is at #1, This American Life at #2, and Stuff You Should Know is at #3.

Podtrac have released their "top 20 podcasts" list for April 2019. The service is US-only, opaque, proprietary and self-selecting; but with that in mind, #3 is Stuff You Should Know; #2 is This American Life; and #1 is The Daily. The Ben Shapiro Show, which was #2 last month, is now at #5.

Podtrac is changing their measurement algorithm. A blog post appears to indicate that they're undergoing official IAB compliance, and warns "you should expect to see your download numbers decrease to be consistent with the new guidelines". Podtrac claimed last July that their figures were, and have always been, consistent with the IAB Podcast Metric Guidelines v2.0; but say this change is due to "more coalescing around specific interpretations of the guidelines" in the industry.

"We’re incredibly sorry for the inconvenience," say NPR in a statement, after a configuration change messed up all the broadcaster's RSS feeds, adding hundreds of episodes and kicking off a large number of downloads of seemingly random shows for many. One correspondent tells us: "They managed to download 61 episodes of Planet Money for me overnight, a podcast I have never subscribed to." They've fixed the issue, and we're told: "we're already speaking to Podtrac as to how best address this."

Three more publishers have pulled their content off Luminary. Mikey Fowler, EP of Podcasting for Barstool Sports (8th currrently in Podtrac), tells us that they have requested all of their RSS feeds be removed from Luminary, which would mean a total of 26 shows will be unavailable. Endeavor Audio podcasts have been withdrawn from the service, and the Joe Rogan Experience is also removed - that's been replaced with another characteristically snippy message. The subscription podcast app launched earlier this week with high-profile podcasts from Spotify, Gimlet Media, Parcast and the NYT's The Daily being unavailable.

More stats, this time from Podtrac (not everyone's signed up to it; its methods are proprietary; it's US only; etc) - the top 20 podcasts for March 2019. The company has also quietly revised their top 10 podcast publishers for the same period, correcting Wondery stats.

Podtrac's March figures are out. #5 Wondery, #4 New York Times, #3 PRX; #2 iHeart and #1 NPR. Of note - NPR is now, once again, the leader in both US and global charts; PRX has a nice increase caused by merging with PRI.

Podtrac released some data about podcast categories. News and comedy are the fastest-growing categories, according to the company. Important caveats: it's only relevant for the US, and only relevant for those podcasts that measure through Podtrac. RAIN has analysed the data, revealing possibly under-served podcast categories.

Podtrac have released their "top 20 podcasts" ranker for February. Based on monthly US audience, using an opaque algorithm: iHeart's Ron Burgundy podcast is a new entry at #6.

Podtrac have published their stats for February 2019. February included the much-hyped Ron Burgundy podcast, which released its trail on Feb 1 and launched on Feb 8; yet iHeartRadio's figures in total were virtually flat, at 5.28m downloads a day (rather than 5.22m the previous month). iHeart remains the global leader for downloads, while NPR remains the US #1 based on unique audience. (As ever: Podtrac only measures some US-based publishers and their methodology is proprietary and opaque. Here's more on podcast stats.)

Podtrac have restored total global download numbers to their industry rankings. They reveal that iHeartRadio is #1 global podcaster with 162,159,000 downloads in January, beating NPR's 157m downloads. NPR remain #1 when judged on US unique users.

Podtrac have released January 2019 figures for the top 10 US podcast publishers, and top 20 US podcasts, using their service. NPR remains at #1, with a yearly increase in US unique audience from 16.3m to 17.9m. iHeartMedia has seen significant increases year-on-year, but their figures now include the StuffMedia purchases, so aren't comparable.

Transistor, a podcast host, have made their revenue figures public and open, and also the consumption figures for Build your Saas, their podcast. Their stats include information from Apple, Spotify and Podtrac.

Podtrac have published their Top 20 (US) podcasts for December 2018. Serial has dropped from #2 to #14; Pardon My Take is up to #7.

Podtrac has released their monthly US podcast publisher rankings for December 2018. December's a rogue month for stats, and most publishers saw fewer downloads; podcast downloads for the top ten publishers did show a 56% increase year-on-year (although we're not sure how reflective this is of the industry as a whole).

Podtrac have released their "top (US) podcasts of November 2018". Serial has slipped to #2; The Daily returns to #1 (where it was in August).

Podtrac has posted their top (US) podcast publishers for November 2018. New in this chart is a verified tick showing subscribers to Podtrac's verified measurement service. Podtrac appear to have overwritten October 2018's figures with November's, so we can't compare them month-on-month.

Podtrac has announced support for RAD, and their own RAD beta is open for signup. Other companies who've said they'll support it are Acast, AdsWizz, ART19, Awesound, Blubrry Podcasting, Panoply, Omny Studio, Podtrac, PRX, RadioPublic, Triton Digital, and WideOrbit.

Podtrac have posted their top 10 new podcasts of 2018, based on US downloads. iHeartRadio has two in the top ten, and one in the top three, which (in alphabetical order) are Dr Death (Wondery), Gladiator (Wondery), and Happy Face (iHeartRadio).

ESPN Podcasts have released their monthly podcast figures for October, quoting "43.6m IAB compliant downloads" from RawVoice, and "6.3m US unique audience" from Podtrac.

Chartable, a podcast analytics product, has added integration for Apple Podcasts Analytics. To use this, however, you need to share your Apple username/password with Chartable; the company told Podnews that "we triple encrypt all usernames and passwords with the same technology used by sites that ask for the same information for bank accounts". They've also launched Trackable, a redirect stats service much like Podtrac or Blubrry. (We're trying it out for our podcast).

Podtrac has published its US top 20 podcasts for October. Serial is still #1; The Daily and This American Life round up the top 3.

RAIN does some interesting maths on the latest Podtrac stats, showing data per show. An interesting way to look at the data.

Podtrac, a podcast measurement company, have published October 2018's podcast publisher numbers. The numbers are ranked in terms of US monthly audience. iHeartRadio's acquisition of HowStuffWorks have propelled them up to #2: the company now claims 147m global downloads.

James Purnell, boss of BBC Radio (among other things), shares plenty of stats about BBC podcasts. The broadcaster had 63m global downloads in September: probably a global #2 after NPR, who report 143m.

In HotPod, Nick Quah writes not altogether positive things about Podtrac.

Podtrac have posted the top 20 (US) podcasts for September 2018. Unsurprisingly, Serial is the new #1; The Daily is #2; This American Life is #3.

Podtrac have announced their top (US) podcast publishers for September 2018. The listing for "This American Life/Serial" is up from 19.3m to 37m global downloads: this would indicate that Serial, which launched on Sept 20, is responsible for around 17m global downloads, or approximately 1.7m a day.

Because Spotify normally caches your audio, stats from Spotify won't appear within your normal podcast host's stats, and won't be measured by Podtrac and similar services. The bot uses Spotify/1.0 as a user-agent; and comes and grabs all older episodes as soon as you submit. Spotify's systems also appear to check your RSS feed as often as your TTL figure says so. If you're already listed in Spotify, you should continue using your host to get statistics, and you cannot use this new portal.

Serial saw over 1.4 million global downloads in the first fourteen hours of release, according to Podtrac. Nick Quah describes it as "a juggernaut". By way of comparison, NPR's Morning Edition radio show gets 14.2m listeners a week, in the US alone.

Podtrac has published their (US) "top 20 podcasts" for August.

Podtrac's top US publishers for August have been announced. Total global downloads is up 48% year-on-year; earlier, we learnt that Podtrac measures 2.8% of available podcasts.

What is really the top hosting service? After feedback, Chartable have re-examined their numbers in an illuminating blog post. Of note: just 2.8% of podcasts are measured by Podtrac; Libsyn is hosting 28.2% of top podcasts, and Anchor is easily the most popular host over the last six months - even limiting it to podcasts with more than ten episodes.

The BBC has reached agreement with Spotify to carry their podcasts. The UK public service broadcaster does (I estimated) 50m podcasts a month, probably making them a top five podcaster in the world.

Podtrac has released July 2018's top (US) podcasts. No change in the top 3; TED Talks Daily gets a new entry at #20.

US public media companies PRX and PRI are to merge. The two companies are distributors of public radio content, including podcasts; PRX is currently the #2 global podcast publisher according to Podtrac. (This American Life is one of theirs).

Podtrac have released their US top podcast publishers data for July. Total global downloads is down by 2% month-on-month, in spite of July being 3% longer than June. WNYC Studios is down by nearly a quarter.

Podtrac publish the top 20 [US] podcasts for June 2018. NPR's Up First has slipped to #5; Wondery has a new entry (their first in 2018) with Sword and Scale.

Podtrac has published their June 2018 Top (US) Podcast Publishers list. There are no new entries. The #1 publisher, NPR, has seen gains internationally but a drop within the US.

Podtrac say their figures have always been "consistent with the best practices outlined in the IAB Podcast Metrics 2.0 document".

Podtrac have published the Top 20 US podcasts for May 2018. #1 This American Life; #2 The NYT's Daily; #3 NPR's Up First.

Podtrac have published their top (US) podcast publishers for May. Total global downloads are up 88% year-on-year. #1 continues to be NPR.

Podtrac have released their top 10 US publishers - there are no new entries - and top 20 US podcasts for April 2018: there's one new entry, 99% Invisible (replacing Atlanta Monster, which ended in March).

In case you wondered, from Jan 1st this year, Podtrac's reports use GMT as their timezone. Until this year, they ran on New York time.

Podtrac release the top 20 podcasts for March 2018. As ever, data is US only.

Podtrac publish March's top podcast publishers. "Total Global Downloads and Streams for the Top 10 Publishers in March increased by 96% year-over-year from March of 2017".

Podtrac contacted users of its free podcast measurement service at the end of March, writing that the service's Terms of Service had been updated to specifically prohibit certain behaviours, including "pre-loading of media files in website players". Readers may remember our investigation into iHeartMedia's figures, which uncovered exactly this in January. The company also announced that SoundCloud website plays would no longer be measured.

Podtrac has published the top 20 podcasts for February 2018. The top 3 is unchanged from January.

Podtrac have released their "top podcast publishers" data for February. The release notes that unique listens are down 7% from January. February had 15% fewer weekdays than January; which perhaps explains the dip; and streams/downloads increased 8% year-on-year.

Podtrac have released their top 20 podcasts for January 2018. The Daily is at #2.

On Friday I noted the return of iHeartMedia to podtrac's charts after I discovered their stats were wrong; Podtrac tell me that they normally report the podcast list a week after the publisher list.

Podtrac have published their podcast data for January 2018. iHeartMedia returns to the charts, after podnews uncovered that iHeartMedia's stats were incorrect and they were removed ; they're back at #6 with 38m downloads. Podtrac have not published a 'top podcasts' chart this time; we've reached out to ask why.

Podtrac release their rankings for December 2017. Total figures are down from November, as is usual for a holiday period; but measured listening is up 93% year-on-year.

HotPod 146 is out, and focuses on smart speakers, in-car podcasts, and in a section called What's going on with Podtrac?, covers our investigation into iHeartMedia's figures. Of Podtrac, Nick Quah writes: "the fact that Podtrac missed what could be charitably phrased as an inadvertent gaming of its system raises questions over its technical acumen, particularly given its core work of verifying downloads in the space."

On Tuesday we reported on highly inflated figures from iHeartMedia on Podtrac's charts. Yesterday, Podtrac removed iHeartMedia from all of their ratings charts. Today, iHeartMedia have made a statement to InsideRadio, saying in part: "We are working through with Podtrac what constitutes listening."

Yesterday, we reported on highly inflated figures from iHeartMedia on Podtrac's charts. Nine hours later, Podtrac silently removed iHeartMedia from all of their ratings charts. The company notes on their revised release: "Preloading podcast content is prohibited under IAB podcast measurement guidelines." The new data and statement was not sent to their report mailing list.

EXCLUSIVE: Are iHeartMedia really the number one short-form podcaster, as we reported on Dec 26? No, it would appear that they probably aren't. After a lengthy investigation, we can reveal that the Podtrac figures are wrong - possibly thousands of times too large. Read our full investigation to discover what's happening and how you can check your own podcast for the same error.

Commercial radio rules short-form podcasts, claims US radio publication InsideRadio, quoting from the Podtrac data for 'snackable' podcasts. RAIN quotes Podtrac CEO Mark McCrery as saying the #1, Trending Songs: Pop, fulfilled all the “technical definition and delivery rules of a podcast”. We'll return to this subject on Monday.

Podtrac released their top podcasts for November 2017 late on Christmas Day: and has split the chart into "snackable" and normal-length podcasts. This split may have been after fierce criticism, which we reported on Nov 20.

An article detailing the tech behind audioburst, the podcasting search engine. (We covered its launch on Aug 29 and its integration into RSS feedreader Inoreader on Oct 18.)

Podtrac publish the top (US) podcasts of 2017 - the top 10 new podcasts of 2017 include many now household names, while the top 20 podcasts of 2017 includes one podcast at #2 that didn't even release an episode in 2017. 12 of the top 20 are radio programs, incidentally.

iHeartMedia debuted as #2 in October's podtrac numbers (as we reported on Nov 13). Mike Agovino, formerly of Triton Digital, did some investigation - and he isn't happy about what he's found. "I'm sorry but Podtrac, you have a responsibility to provide accurate and impartial data to the marketplace".

Podtrac release the top 20 US podcasts for October 2017. The Daily is now at #2. iHeartMedia has a new entry at #9.

October's podtrac numbers are out: the #2 US publisher is a new entry - iHeart Media, claiming 525 shows (mainly downloaded in the US, it appears).

Podtrac release their September podcast stats.

Podtrac release their monthly stats for US podcasts. This American Life at #1. "Name witheld at publisher request" at #16. #mysterious

Latest US podcast publishers chart, from Podtrac. Relatively flat for July vs June, with the only increases coming from publishers who've added episodes.

Podtrac publish their top podcast publishers for July - for the top ten publishers, 4% global growth month-on-month, 60% global growth year-on-year.

Podtrac released their top podcast rankings the other day - US-only. Of interest: NPR's Up First at #6, the NYT's Daily at #10. NPR's promotion heft is clearly paying off. S-Town has slipped to 18, but is still there - the power of the archive.

June's Podtrac "top podcast publishers" list is out. A strong debut for ESPN, and in total, June was 13% larger than May. Their release focuses on US numbers, but globally, the list is:

Podtrac publish their top 10 podcast publishers list for May 2017. Contains participating publishers only. New entry at #10 for the Washington Post.