Neilsen's podcasting report doesn't stack up

Neilsen/NetRatings has released a report on podcasting which has left a lot of prominent podcasters, myself included, scratching their heads and makes me wonder where they got their sample data from. A company in Cupertino by any chance?

For example, they claim that the primary browser for podcasters (not podcast listeners) is Safari. Now, I know that if I take TPN's hosts as a sample, about 10% of them are Mac users. And if I look at our server logs for June 2006, I know that 83.7% of our audience are Windows users, compared to 9.1% using a Mac. So, although I admit my sample is also pretty small, it doesn't correlate with Neilsen's.

Frank Barnako spoke to the analyst behind the report and has picked up some other issues with it as well. But, as Frank says,

When firms like Nielsen/NetRatings and Forrester Research  pay attention to podcasts, that's good.  By studying podcasting they're saying, "There's interest here. People willing to pay for our reports want to know what's going on."

Comments

[The Rooster]

Did Apple pay these guys? I looked at the top eCommerce sites supposedly visted by US Podcasters and 3 of them are Apple. Not only that who the heck goes to Lycos news? Bugus Bogus Bogus. Just the browser figures alone do not look right, as you say. I would have thought that the majority of podcasters would use Firefox actually and they are saying that there is nearly 100 users difference... what the?

The other thing no mention of Google in the top 10 advertisers...

Cash for comment? $$$$$$$$$

[Frank Barnako]

Thanks, Cam.

Frank

[Ian Betteridge]

As they've admitted elsewhere, they goofed with their terminology: they use "podcasters" when they really mean "podcast listeners". To be fair to them, they make it clear what they mean in the first paragraph of the news release about the research.

[Dave Lemphers]

Hmm, I don't put much pay anymore to such 'research'. The variables are sometimes so disconnected, that trying to resolve any of the findings into meaningful directions is frustrating and fruitless.

For example, take a bunch of people and ask them two questions, 1) Do you listen to podcasts?, and 2) What browser do you use? I see two potential sets of error, the first is the assumption that people use only one browser for all tasks (most people I know including me have at least two browsers installed), and the second is that they use their browser as a tool for accessing podcasts (I don’t).

[scientaestubique]

I agree with Dave. I think this is poorly phrased questioning, bad terminology, combined with poor data sets. Podcasting as a word is used poorly in the report, with a podcaster being a person who downloads a podcast. I don't have a lot of faith in data being analysed by someone who gets the terminology wrong.

However I think the biggest flaw to this report is the restriction of responses to users aged 18 and over, students are far more likely to use a mobile device than older people with cars and a computer at work and home.

With some universities now making podcasts part of everyday learning, these stats just aren't credible.