Greetings, podpickers

Thanks to investment by US-based Edison Research we now have a UK Top 25 podcast list, reporting publicly quarterly.  Unlike charts supplied by podcast platforms, it doesn't seem to have algorithms that favour 'new' shows, or much of a link with download data. It's based on a rolling survey. 

It doesn't tell us how many people listened, but their relative levels. Radio guru Matt Deegan writes in detail about the new chart but has an estimate of how the Edison survey might work "The current release of the UK data says they interviewed 2,273 people from April 2023 to June 2023, a three month period, so I imagine circa 200 people a week."

Matt recalls working with research company Kantar in 2021, to produce a one-off chart in 2021

"We spoke to around 9,000 people to find 3,000 podcast listeners over 12 weeks. Back then our Top 5 was:

1. The Joe Rogan Experience
2. BBC Friday Night Comedy
3. Happy Hour Podcast (Jaack Mate)
4. That Peter Crouch Podcast (BBC)
5. Shagged Married Annoyed

Spookily similar, eh ?  Matt says while the top numbers were credible, his problem was that "as you went down the list the data started to look a little more wobbly. There were only a few shows that had hundreds of our respondents listening. Our top show – Joe Rogan – only had a reach of 5% of the audience. Pretty quickly we were into just tens of people saying they tune in."

Another radio guru Adam Bowie reveals that, when being surveyed, contributors are asked to look at their smart phones to help them recall what they might have listened to. 

So the chart clearly favour long-running consistent providers. Let's see what's going on next quarter.