Ever since the first hit podcasts launched 15-20 years ago it has been nearly impossible to track the precise size of their audiences. Now, Bill Simmons, the “Podfather” himself, is calling out dishonesty in the industry.
Simmons would know. Since 2020, Simmons has helped lead Spotify’s expansion into podcasting and was promoted this year to head of talk strategy for the Swedish audio streaming company. At Spotify, and Grantland before that, Simmons has long been one of the key believers in podcasting as the future of digital content consumption. Simmons also cut his teeth as the host of one of the most popular shows in the space dating back to his time at ESPN.
As part of The Hollywood Reporter‘s “Podcast Power Players” series this week, Simmons is quoted accusing “some of the bigger shows” of “publicly lying” about the size of their audience and the scope of their corporate partnerships.
“I’d say some of the bigger shows lying publicly about their deals, lying about their podcast numbers and lying about their YouTube subs (by paying for those subs),” Simmons told THR. “I can’t believe how many people are dishonest about this stuff.”
For years, the top voices in the fledgling industry have clamored for a trusted go-to metric to evaluate their space. The medium (and its name) began as a reference to RSS feeds that beamed audio to Apple iPods. From there, RSS publishing platforms and audio players sprouted up at just about every major tech company. Audiences migrated from radio and talk television to podcasts over time, but they got them all over: Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon. Far from Nielsen’s hold on TV viewing habits, there is no technology tracking people’s podcast consumption.
Since TikTok stormed onto the scene with vertical video, many of the top emerging shows have featured a strong video component on YouTube. This allows them to go viral and funnel in an new audience through social media algorithms. YouTube would seem to be a more concretely measurable platform. The subscriber count is right there on every channel’s landing page and below each of its videos.
However, Simmons doesn’t buy those numbers either. Dating back long before podcasting became big on YouTube, big content creators on the platform have been accused of buying subscribers. It’s not hard to find websites where you can pay bots to spam a channel with fake subscribers. Of course, these bots won’t actually watch through full videos. The point, instead, is to inflate numbers for potential advertising partners and to trick the YouTube algorithm into prioritizing your channel more heavily in users’ feeds by making it seem as if a channel is more popular than it actually is. A big podcaster pulling this stunt, as Simmons suggests, would hardly come as a surprise.
Combine all that together, and big corporate audio networks are flying somewhat blind. They likely have access to more metrics than the average reporter or industry insider, but even a more trusted firm like Edison gauges its podcast charts by surveying listeners about what shows they consume. So companies like SiriusXM, iHeartMedia or Amazon — which have spent a fortune licensing big podcasts in recent years — are also working off of rough audience estimates and other data like social media following when they make bids for shows. When the deals are signed, as Simmons notes, they are bound to be inflated just like any other contract that is reported publicly, from a star quarterback to a movie director.
None of what Simmons is saying hasn’t been whispered in the business for years. But it’s notable to see one of the biggest voices and executives in the space going on the record to call it out.
The irony, of course, is that Simmons’ bosses at Spotify have also been accused of gaming their app to artificially place Ringer shows atop their podcast charts and deprioritize competitors. Without a central clearing house where podcasts are distributed or tracked, this problem will continue. And as the industry goes mainstream with awards recognition and licensing from major corporations, tensions are bound to continue among leaders like Simmons.
Source link
