Australia’s audio industry unifies around single source of podcast measurement

Commercial Radio & Audio has confirmed the extension of its partnership with Triton Digital to continue delivering the Australian Podcast Ranker, reinforcing the sector’s commitment to robust, transparent reporting for participating podcast publishers.

The monthly ranker is commissioned CRA and published by Triton Digital, in compliance with IAB’s Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines. This months’ results are released today.

The latest Infinite Dial research reveals 52% of Australians report that they are listening to or watching one or more podcasts every month. Podcast listening has more than doubling in the past five years, delivering sustained growth in podcast consumption. The growth of podcasting, added to the mass audience of radio, delivers advertisers the ability to target audio consumers with multiple strategies across the audio industry.

The podcast medium has now crossed from emerging to essential, firmly embedding itself in audience routines. It reflects an evolving audio industry defined by unified measurement, consistent data standards, and collaboration across publishers of all sizes, who choose to participate in the ranker.

CRA’s Chief executive Lizzie Young says “podcasting has reached scale, and that requires measurement that’s fit for purpose. The industry has united behind a single source of truth because advertisers need consistency and clarity to invest with confidence. “Australian podcasting now delivers the scale and depth of audience intelligence that advertisers require to make informed investment decisions.” 

The ranker is Australia’s only official, third-party verified podcast measurement system. Governed by a cross-industry Steering Committee and “supported by deep collaboration across commercial, independent, and non-commercial publishers, it sets the benchmark for podcast data in Australia.”

The ranker delivers:

• Granular title-level and publisher-level metrics
• Demographic and behavioural insights via Triton’s Demos+
• Standardised, transparent methodology trusted across the industry
• Interactive dashboard showcasing the top 300 podcasts listened to by Australians, the top 300 Australian-produced podcasts, and genre-level analytics

Participating publishers include the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), ARN/iHeart, Audioboom, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Guardian Media Group, Mamamia, New York Times, Nine, Nova Entertainment, Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), Schwartz Media, Shameless Media, Southern Cross Austereo (LiSTNR), Squiz Media, Wondery and others.

At the recent Sound Bites conference, a range of speakers went deeper into podcasting, debunking some myths about podcasting. One of the myths busted was that True Crime is not a brand safe genre. The true crime genre is increasingly being seen for what it really is – in depth reporting and investigative journalism, with the mushroom case being the latest podcast to demonstrate the strength of that genre.

The ranker’s Digital Demos+ data reveals that True Crime delivers active buyers, not browsers. Among True Crime monthly podcast listeners surveyed, 83% serve as primary grocery shoppers and 90% purchased groceries in the past week. The True Crime genre, with 19.2% reach of monthly podcast listeners and a premium female 25-54 skew (44.9% vs 31.3% average), delivers engaged consumers making active purchase decisions. These listeners represent quality buyers reaching for their wallets weekly.

Digital Demos+ is one of five ‘drill down’ features of the ranker, particularly useful for advertisers.

There are other measurement methods, for instance Spotify and Apple both make country podcast consumption data available, but the difference is that the CRA commissioned data is verified against an accepted measurement standard with a view to delivering reliable consistent data to advertisers, to be used in their Australian ad campaigns. Podcasts that do not participate in the CRA/Triton ranker are not shown in the Australian chart. The Top Podcasts ranker no longer includes SiriusXM, publisher of the Mel Robbins podcast, nor does it include Spotify, which publishes The Joe Rogan Experience.

The latest monhtly results have just been released, see our related report.