06/15/2017

Apple's New Transparency is Huge for Podcasts Everywhere

How a move from the behemoth will reshape the industry

In 2017, it seems like everyone has a podcast. Hillary Clinton. Your utility company. Hypothetical spokespeople for Darth Vader’s utility company. But they all have one thing in common: They have no idea who's listening. Thanks to Apple’s commitment to user privacy, along with the ubiquity of its Podcasts app, there hasn’t been a way for producers—or advertisers—to track how most listeners interact with an episode.

That's finally changing. On Friday, after years of requests from producers, Apple announced that starting with iOS 11, changes to the Apple Podcasts app will allow creators to track aggregated data about when users start, stop, and skip within an episode. Podcasters will also be able to choose how listeners encounter their shows: as episodic or serial seasons, and as full, trailer, or bonus episodes. “It’s an inflection point for the industry,” says Matthew Lieber, co-founder of Gimlet Media. “This is the first time that producers and publishers are going to be able to see how audiences are actually responding to their shows.”

This isn’t the first time that a platform has offered data about listeners, but since most people listen to podcasts through Apple, the company’s shift has lasting consequences. Apple has dominated podcast consumption since the beginning, even before mobile apps for podcasting; according to data tracking company RawVoice, in 2007, 96.5 percent of listeners played podcasts on Apple desktops. When podcasts exploded in 2014, it was thanks to a lucky coincidence: The record-shattering Serial premiered two weeks after the iOS 8 update automatically installed the Podcasts app on all Apple devices; suddenly Sarah and Adnan were only four clicks away for anyone with an iPhone. Today, 55.5 percent of listeners still play their podcasts on Apple Podcasts or iTunes. So while other platforms—Stitcher, Art19, Megaphone—already offer tracking analytics beyond simple number of downloads, a move from the behemoth will reshape the industry.

Please click here to read the complete article from WIRED.