"Episode Performance" graphs not working most of the time

[mblanc]

Are the "Episode Performance" graphs expected to work any appreciable percent of the time? Among my posted podcast episodes, 95 – 99% of reported starts have had no effect on the graphs. How is it able to distinguish between a start and a stream if it isn't recording when someone stopped listening?

In the case of one episode, the first graph that was displayed (showing less than 100% listener retention) was overwritten later by a graph with 100% listener retention.

[MafeG]

Hi @mblanc,

Welcome to the Community and thank you for posting.

The "start" statistic indicates how many people actually press play on the episode, while a stream is calculated after a full 60 seconds have been played. You can find more information about this here. 

However, if you believe these statistics are not reflecting accurately in the graphs, then we suggest you contact the folks from Spotify for Podcasters who can give you more personalized support. This is the link. 

Hope this helps!

[mblanc · Accepted solution]

They said the graphs are only meant to work for the first 7 days after an episode is posted. Sometimes there are updates after that period, but they will not account for all starts and streams. And if you take down and repost the same episode, the old graph will display until the first play, then start from scratch.

[DRPodcast]

Plan

Podcasters.spotify.com

My Question or Issue

About three weeks ago there was a sudden change in the retention rate or episode performance of all my companies podcasts (100s of podcasts). From having retention rates in episodes of about 80% - it suddenly dropped to 30% or below which doesn't make any sense, because we can see that people listen to the next episode of the same season. All the best narrated podcasts usually have this high a rate, but from one episode to the other in the same season - it dropped by a lot. But the numbers of people who listen to episode 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the same season didn't. If the episode performance rate was correct it would mean that people stop listening to episode 1, skip to episode 2, then stop listening to episode 2, skip to episode 3 and so on. And do that on all narrated podcasts. This is just wrong. Spotify, please fix this issue.

See the difference in the attached images to see an example of the difference. The content hasn't changed on any of the podcasts experiencing this, so it must be an error in the data.

[DRPodcast]

Thank you. I know perfectly well how this graph works - and it is wrong. We have data from other sources that confirm this, but thanks. I'll contact the support 🙂

[DRPodcast]

The graphs are still off. They've changed something and they are now useless in our company. The support team couldn't help.

[DRPodcast]

I have contacted the support and they can't help. The data is wrong on at all the podcasts we have in my company (30+). We're the danish version of the BBC. Please help.

[AlejaR]

Hey there @DRPodcast,

Thanks for all your replies here and for the info shared.

The best way to go here is getting in touch with the Spotify for Podcasters team here. You can find how to contact them at the very bottom of the web page. They'll take a look at your situation and, if possible, provide further insights. 

Have a great day!