Libsyn Statistics, visualized
Libsyn, one of the largest podcast hosting companies by episode volume, provides raw data every month (in their podcast The Feed) about the most common apps it sees when serving podcasts for its customers.
We’ve listened to every episode since the switch over to their current stats system (Oct 2017) and collected the numbers in order to present them in visual form.
Starting back in September 2022, these represent IAB-certified download numbers. Prior to that, Libsyn reported on an in-house download calculation.
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First, a breakdown of download share by mobile aggregator app:
¹ “The Apple Podcasts app, iTunes, and the Apple podcast ecosystem” Likely includes AppleCoreMedia, thus an overrepresentation of the Apple-specfic app share.
² “Mobile aggregator apps not from Spotify, or Apple” (Prior to Jun 2022, also excluded Stitcher)
We’re missing user agent data for Aug 2019, Nov 2019, Jan 2022, and Feb 2022. If anyone can point us to Libsyn user agent data for any of those months, give us a heads up.
Libsyn started reporting browser download share in Mar 2023.
Libsyn did not report download share for Nov 2023 due to the impact of iOS17 auto-download changes.
Zooming in on mobile aggregator app download share for the smaller apps:
Libsyn does not usually provide exact values for apps below 1% share, only their ranking position. Our values for these reflect conservative estimates maintaining the stated order, but likely less than the actual share.
Now, since Libsyn provides a download share ranking order for apps every month, let’s visualize the ranking positions themselves over time:
Libsyn also provides raw numbers every month breaking down download share by device type and country:
We’re missing country data for Aug 2019 and Nov 2019. If anyone can point us to Libsyn country data for any of those months, give us a heads up.
Libsyn does not usually provide exact values for countries below 1% share, only their ranking position. Our values for these reflect conservative estimates maintaining the stated order, but likely less than the actual share.
Next, Libsyn provides raw numbers every month about how many downloads an episode needs in the first 30 days to be in the top x% of Libsyn shows.
They also give an Adjusted Mean number where they throw out the top 0.5% of downloads and any episode with 3 or less downloads.
We’ll present them here on the same graph:
We’re missing median and mean data for Dec 2017. If anyone can point us to Libsyn median and mean data for this month, give us a heads up.
And finally, the percentage of episodes that receive 5000 downloads or more. This is the threshold download number some advertisers look for when determining campaigns.
Data provided by Libsyn, collected and visualized by John Spurlock.
Special thanks goes out to Nathan Gathright, who gave us the idea of relistening to all of these episodes in the first place.
Updated 2024-12-10, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 282.
Updated 2024-11-19, with latest median, mean, country and user agent data as of Episode 281.
Updated 2024-10-08, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 279.
Updated 2024-10-08, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 278.
Updated 2024-09-24, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 277.
Updated 2024-09-10, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 276.
Updated 2024-08-27, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 275, when they also announced that March through May’s median/mean numbers were underreported (based on one month, not two).
Updated 2024-08-13, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 274.
Updated 2024-07-30, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 273.
Updated 2024-07-16, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 272.
Updated 2024-06-18, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 270.
Updated 2024-06-04, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 269.
Updated 2024-05-21, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 268.
Updated 2024-05-07, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 267.
Updated 2024-04-09, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 265.
Updated 2024-03-26, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 264.
Updated 2024-03-06, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 263.
Updated 2024-02-06, with latest user agent data as of Episode 261.
Updated 2023-01-23, with latest country data as of Episode 260. User agent data still not reported.
Updated 2023-12-19, with latest country data as of Episode 258. Median/mean was not reported for Oct 2023. User agent data was not reported for Nov 2023 due to dramatic changes from iOS17 rollout.
Updated 2023-11-21, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 256.
Updated 2023-11-07, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 255.
Updated 2023-10-25, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 254.
Updated 2023-10-10, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 253.
Updated 2023-09-19, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 252.
Updated 2023-09-05, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 251.
Updated 2023-08-22, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 250.
Updated 2023-08-28, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 249.
Updated 2023-07-25, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 248.
Updated 2023-07-11, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 247.
Updated 2023-06-27, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 246.
Updated 2023-06-13, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 245.
Updated 2023-05-17, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 243.
Updated 2023-05-12, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 242.
Updated 2023-04-18, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 241.
Updated 2023-04-04, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 240.
Updated 2023-03-21, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 239.
Updated 2023-03-13, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 238.
Updated 2023-02-21, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 237.
Updated 2023-02-07, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 236.
Updated 2023-01-24, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 235.
Updated 2023-01-10, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 234.
Updated 2022-12-20, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 233.
Updated 2022-11-30, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 232.
Updated 2022-11-15, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 231.
Updated 2022-11-01, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 230.
Updated 2022-10-18, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 229.
Updated 2022-10-04, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 228.
Updated 2022-09-20, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 227.
Updated 2022-09-06, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 226.
Updated 2022-08-28, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 225.
Updated 2022-08-09, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 224.
Updated 2022-07-26, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 223.
Updated 2022-07-13, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 222.
Updated 2022-06-28, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 221.
Updated 2022-06-14, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 220.
Updated 2022-06-02, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 219, and added iOS / Android ratio chart.
Updated 2022-05-16, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 218.
Updated 2022-04-19, with latest country and user agent data as of Episode 216.
Updated 2022-04-05, with latest median and mean data as of Episode 215.
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