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NPR's RAD to Provide Podcast Listening Measurement
RADIO ONLINE | Thursday, December 13, 2018 |
NPR is launching a new podcast analytics technology called "Remote Audio Data" or RAD, a method for sharing listening metrics from podcast applications straight back to publishers, while respecting user privacy. NPR worked with a cross-section of nearly 30 companies to develop and test the new metric. Companies joining NPR in committing to implement RAD in their products in 2019 include Acast, AdsWizz, ART19, Awesound, Blubrry Podcasting, Panoply, Omny Studio, Podtrac, PRI/PRX, RadioPublic, Triton Digital, WideOrbit and Whooshkaa.
Cadence13, Edison Research, ESPN, Google, iHeartMedia, Libsyn, The New York Times, New York Public Radio, Voxnest and Wondery have also supported and participated in pushing RAD forward.
"Over the course of the past year, we have been refining these concepts and the technology in collaboration with some of the smartest people in podcasting from around the world," said NPR VP/New Platform Partnerships Joel Sucherman. "We needed to take painstaking care to prove out our commitment to the privacy of listeners, while providing a standard that the industry could rally around in our collective efforts to continue to evolve the podcasting space."
Downloads have been the core of podcast analytics -- indicating audience size and device habits across all platforms. RAD allows watching for spikes and track over- and underperforming episodes. With efforts from organizations like the IAB, the download is trusted and better defined.
However, NPR says the download is only part of the story. Mobile applications and major platforms, notably Apple's Podcast Analytics, have begun to share listening metrics with producers. NPR One, for example, has informed public radio about listener engagement since its launch in 2014. Even though statistics are a good thing, NPR says they are not comprehensive or standardized and require a great deal of manual analysis. Once adopted throughout the industry, RAD will consolidate that data for publishers and begin to move the industry toward new metrics around listening.
NPR will also be launching soon a free tag-writing tool for podcasters to create their RAD tags, and shares the full tech spec at rad.npr.org. NPR One's Android app is configured to read RAD tags now and iOS will do the same in early 2019. Additionally, Podtrac is launching a beta program to show RAD data and invites interested publishers to participate.
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