Radio’s podcast commitment deficit; Nine storms the Index; retail media’s power struggle
Welcome to a midweek edition of Unmade.
Today: Why is the man who many see as Australia’s best broadcaster, only 296th most popular on the Australian Podcast Ranker?
We’ve announced the schedule for this year’s Compass series. Our panel-in-the-pub, end-of-year tour kicks off in Sydney on November 3 and concludes in Hobart a fortnight later. Reflecting on 2025 and projecting into 2026, please hold the date for your city:
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November 3 – Compass Sydney
Topics
Tim, I rarely comment as such on your reporting.
First up, I agree that broadcast radio can be called an ancient system’. But so is the Bible, our Constitution, driving on the LHS of the road etc … but they all still work well.
You report referred to the ‘daily radio shows placed within the ranker:’ The highest daily radio show was The Kyle & Jackie O Show (Listnr). My understanding is that the ranker is based over the calendar period (I hope).
Looking at Triton’s Australian Podcast Ranker for July 2025, the #1 radio show The Kyle & Jackie O Show had 386,439 Monthly Listeners (Nationally) and made 1,145,158 downloads (Nationally) of the 21 weekday K&J shows broadcast.
That indicates that the AVERAGE WEEKDAY SHOW had 54,531 during the month.
Further, with 386,439 listeners and 1,145,158 downloads during the month indicates that the listener / broadcaster ratio is 2.96 of the 21 available downloaded – i.e. about 14% of the broadcasts made.
Even further, there appears to be NO DATA OF THE DURATION of those average 2.96 listeners. If you listen for 10 minutes you are counted the same as someone who listens to all (or part of) 4 hours.
In comparison, the ‘Ancient System’ audience estimates (yes, they are estimates based on responses) are based on 15-minute blocks. In order to be qualified as a listener you must listen to at least 8 continuous minutes (i.e. > 50% of the 15-minute block) to be considered for that quarter-hour BUT NOT FOR THE ENTIRE BROADCAST. For example, if you listen to just a 15-minute block in a 4-hour broadcast you count as one-sixteenth of the broadcast’s duration.
Then across the span of the radio survey weeks it has individual consecutive weeks that are aggregated to generate the Survey Report (e.g. 6 weeks together). Therefore, across longitudinal reporting of the active duration you get a more stable basis. And then the ‘Ancient System’ its reports are based on average duration because that is how Media Agency planning is operated amongst other factors.
Hi John,
If a side effect of your recently announced and well deserved retirement is to give you more time to comment on my reporting then I’m all for it!
To clarify, my reference to the ancient system refers not to the methods used to gather the data, but to the audience outcome – their favourite shows only being on air for the 41 weeks of the year covered by the survey system.
Cheers,
Tim