The radio industry will start tracking the most downloaded and listened to podcasts in Australia.
The Australian Podcast Ranker, a first of its kind in Australia, launched today at the national Radio Alive conference in Brisbane.
It looks at the top 100 podcasts each month and has founding members including News Corp Australia, PodcastOne Australia, Nova Entertainment, Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), Australian Radio Network and Macquarie Media.
The first ranker covers the September period and is topped by Hamish & Andy, produced by SCA and PodcastOne, and Nova’s Kate, Tim & Marty.
Industry body Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) hopes that by producing the ranker it can increase awareness for consumers and grow consumption, while also creating a framework and guide to assist advertisers in understanding opportunities within the podcasting space.
“This work was initiated by the radio industry because of the significant investment made by radio broadcasters in the podcast space, not only into catch-up radio podcasts but into original content outside of the radio offering,” CRA CEO Joan Warner says.
“Radio is one part of podcasting and now that we are up and running, we extend the invitation to all podcast publishers to join us and help shape this work and grow the sector into the future.
“As the list of participating publishers expands each month, we are confident the value to advertisers of being able to access a credible, independent ranker will be clear.”
Public broadcaster the ABC is set to join the initiatives in the next two months.
Triton Digital, an IAB Tech Lab-certified global audio technology services provider, will provide measuring and reporting services for the Australian Podcast Ranker. The ranker is compliant with IAB Tech Lab’s version 2.0 podcast measurement guidelines and will be independently audited.
The ranker will develop to include specific data on publisher and program performance.
Media agencies have welcomed the initiative.
“I fully support this work as I see it as a first step to allowing advertisers to have confidence in an agreed reporting approach around this new area of investment,” says Jo Dick, head of partnerships for outdoor and audio at Omnicom Media Group and a member of the Podcast Committee.
The ranker comes as GfK Australian Share of Audio research released today shows that time spent listening to podcasts has doubled over the previous year, overtaking owned music for the first time.
Here's the first Australian Podcast Ranker:
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