NPR wants to work with Apple when it comes to podcast analytics. The radio station launched the Remote Audio Data (RAD) system to help podcasters know if people listen to their ads or not.
[Pandora Launches its Podcast Platform Today]
RAD Podcast Analytics
The podcast industry is becoming more popular, and revenue is expected to hit US$659 million in 2020, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) U.S. Currently, advertisers rely on download metrics to figure out how valuable it is for ads. But podcasters can’t tell if people skip over the ads.
Half of all podcast listening comes from Apple Podcasts. Last year Apple launched its own podcast analytics platform, but it’s only available for its own app. However, NPR says that Apple employees offered feedback on RAD, so Apple is aware of it.
https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/1072523998322409472
One critique of RAD is privacy. Marco Arment, creator of the popular podcast app Overcast, says that RAD could violate Europe’s GDPR regulations. He continued to say that he won’t support listener tracking in his app.
NPR says though that RAD doesn’t give podcast hosts or advertisers personally identifiable data, and NPR can’t access listener data either.
[Apple Investigates Reports of Listener Drop-off in Apple Podcast Analytics]
I’m with Marco on this.
Why in the world do they need More information about listeners?
And I’m truly surprised this is coming from NPR!