Should Apple Podcasts kill the charts?
We're all gaming the charts. Maybe the charts need to die.
What’s the point of the Apple Podcast charts anyway?
Let’s be real. If you work for a professional podcast company, or even if you’re an indie who pays attention to the space, you’ve tried to game the charts.
Stop lying. You’ve done it. I’ve done it. They’re doing it. We’re all doing it.
The goal is discovery. With discovery comes listens. With listens comes potential advertiser interest. Advertisers give the creator money.
Gaming The System comes in different forms. The one most of us are guilty of is the “Drop 3 episodes at once” move. Totally legit, but be honest about why you do it, and it’s not because you think listeners really want to hear three episodes some random Tuesday morning, but will be fine with just one the next week.
Apple themselves explains what the chart is and isn’t:
(The bold there came up in the Google search, I can’t get rid of it, it’s not me trying to make a point.)
The charts are an alchemy of listens, how many people have subscribed (with a bias toward those who have subscribed recently), follower count and completion rate. If you’d like to be #1, I suggest you get 100 of your closest friends to all follow your podcast on a Sunday morning and watch the chart magic happen. Take a screenshot so you can show everyone how popular your podcast appears to be and post it to LinkedIn. I would.
So now that you’ve developed your new series, you drop three episodes at launch. Why? So you get more downloads/listens with the hope of climbing the charts for discoverability. You didn’t do this for the audience, you did it because that’s the system Apple is using, and you tried to game the system. For discoverability, to make more money. Guilty.
The other day, I read this great piece from Ashley Carman and my takeaway was: WHAT ARE WE EVEN DOING?
Ashley walks you through a system where something something mobile game users something something that I guess is advertising, albeit unconvetional, but “Customers pay $5 per new follower with a required minimum spend of $5,000” So kinda sorta buying 1000 followers?
Ashley writes:
Over the past week and a half, I identified at least 37 podcasts being advertised through in-game rewards provided by MowPod, including shows from prominent creators and networks like Wondery, Netflix, iHeartMedia, Lemonada and Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy . In fact, of the top 50 shows in the US yesterday, I spotted nine that had been promoted in games recently.
I mean - what are we even doing? Those companies, I guess, can afford to throw $5000 to get 1000 new followers, and 1000 new followers will move you up the chart. And that will theoretically increase the chance of discoverability, so more people follow, and then we can sell that number to the advertiser and Joe Rogan is #1 anyway, so…yay?
I’m not really sure the charts do anything but keep the big fish in front of the eyeballs of the casuals, with the occasional shooting star that shows up on the charts for a few hours before we go back to Rogan, Call Her Daddy, and Murder Shows.
SO WHAT DO YOU WANT JOHNNY MAC?
I’ve written about that. I’d like to see Apple Podcasts and Pocketcasts have a kid. Keep the best of both, with the goal being to have the best functionality and the best search.
I’d like to see Apple work even harder to surface shows, whether through search or editorial. Apple Podcasts has done a great job highlighting diverse voices. To further grow the platform's reach, I'd love to see even more emphasis on showcasing popular, engaging content on a wide range of topics that resonate with listeners across the country. When are the fishing shows going to be spotlighted on the main page?
Or, to translate that into what we learned about comedy back at Sirius - Vulture might be writing about Kyle Kinane, but America is listening to Jeff Foxworthy.
(I love Kyle Kinane, just picking a random comedian. Insert Mark Normand, Shane Gillis, Jenny Slate, Stavros Halkias, Hannah Gadsby etc)
The big companies have people who have the time to work the Apple Podcasts editorial submission. Yes it’s open to everyone, but you also have to fill a form and do artwork to certain standards. All reasonable on Apple’s end, but maybe something a one man band fishing show doesn’t have the resources (and resources include time and humans) to pull off.
Apple has an exciting opportunity to help more listeners discover great podcasts. Focusing attention on standout shows in the most popular content categories, while still maintaining variety, could be a win-win for expanding listenership.
After reading Ashley’s coiumn, I’m not sure reminding us that Call Her Daddy is #2 really does anything for the industry.