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How the iTunes Podcast Chart works

It isn't a chart and it doesn't measure podcast downloads. But what does it measure?

By James Cridland
Posted 28 August 2016, 9.36am bst
Ollie Svensson




The iTunes Podcast Chart, normally heard about in a podcast where the presenters are saying "We're #23 on the chart at the moment".

Please can we stop calling it a chart? Because it isn’t a chart. Let’s call it the iTunes Podcast Number Thing.

Nick Quah from podcast newsletter Hot Pod asked a bunch of his readers how the iTunes Podcast Number Thing was calculated earlier this year. Here are the opinions he got back.

The fundamental thing is: it doesn’t measure downloads. That’s what I mean when I say that it isn’t a chart. The podcast that’s #1 is not the podcast that has the most amount of downloads.

The iTunes Podcast Number Thing is there to help people discover new podcasts. So it doesn’t measure downloads (since it would be really hard to change the chart). Instead, it measures the number of new, unique, subscribers that a podcast has had, averaged out over a few days.

That’s why it’s constantly changing - because it’s designed to. And why, if you find your position in the iTunes Podcast Number Thing going down, as it inevitably will, it’s nothing to do with the amount of downloads your podcast has or your popularity as a podcaster - it’s merely that the amount of new, unique, subscribers for your podcast that week has decreased. So, promote it more.

Radio talent, especially, thrives on numbers: because we want to be liked, and how better to know you’re liked than numbers of followers on Twitter (11,500, since you asked), or an appearance on another kind of chart: like the iTunes Podcast Number Thing. But this one is nothing to do with consumption or audience or anything.

The iTunes Podcast Number Thing is only an indication on how good you are at driving new subscribers to iTunes. If it is a chart, it just lists the best marketers in the business: which is why we in radio have an unfair advantage in that we have a recognised brand, and hundreds of thousands of listeners every day who we can market a new podcast to.

The real numbers you should be pushing for are total podcast downloads. Go hunt those down. And ignore the iTunes Podcast Chart. Because it’s not a chart.

James Cridland — James runs media.info, and is a radio futurologist: a consultant, writer and public speaker who concentrates on the effect that new platforms and technology are having on the radio business. He also publishes a free daily newsletter about podcasting, Podnews, and a weekly radio trends newsletter.