Tuesdata: Four guesses at how much podcast listening is actually occurring
Welcome to a Tuesday update from Unmade. In today’s data-led post for Unmade’s paying members, we share the specifics on competing data on podcast listening.
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
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November 5 – Compass Brisbane
Topics
Tim, you are 100% correct that people have to recall their usage. Yes, many say “Yes” to content but not what proportion of the content. But also in many cases the respondent has forgotten content that they did listen/view.
Regarding measurement by ‘the push’ of content (requested) in many cases the content is sent to the device but the podcast entity has no idea of the duration. In some cases, “the count” is based on the fact that the content was asked was assumed to be viewed/listened in totality.
And as you pointed out, each provider has (in the main) their own rules which make them collectively mathematically correct, but not reality correct (or in many cases not usable).