Podcasters Need Better Metrics

Tom Webster

Edison Research VP of strategy & marketing Tom Webster says podcasters need better audience metrics.

The comment came Tuesday during a webinar on The Podcast Consumer 2015.

According to webster, yhe most commonly cited podcast metric–—number of downloads —doesn’t provide a qualitative enough picture of the audience. Nor does it measure the number of people who actually listen after downloading.

“It’s incumbent on podcasters to take all aspects of measuring this medium seriously,” Webster said, adding the purveyors of the medium need to better explain its reach to advertisers.

“Podcasting is starting to become mature enough that a credible measurement system is warranted,” Webster said.

Watch the webinar here:


Despite the absence of a syndicated audience measurement service for podcasting, a clearer picture of the medium’s audience is emerging.

According to new Edison Research data, the listeners are educated (58% have at least a four-year college degree). Affluent (36% have a household income greater than $75,000) and engaged with brands (six in ten say they follow companies or brands on social media, compared to four in ten of the total U.S. population). In short, they’re “an advertiser’s dream,”