Spreaker posted an update on its statistics. Spreaker will now be using IAB guidelines to determine what constitutes as a “download.”

Spreaker points out some of the complications that arise when someone tries to figure out what to count as a “download”. Spreaker is in a unique position to check on this because they are able to control their platform from end to end. This means that Spreaker can see that most incoming media file requests to their platform come from human-operated apps, and that others come from pieces of software that work automatically.

That’s part of what makes figuring out what counts as a download difficult. Spreaker provides further explanation:

And there’s yet another complication; even legit apps that “stream” podcasts make multiple requests for the same file. The Apple Podcast app, for example, makes lots of requests, even for small episode bits, in order to prevent users from using too much bandwidth. However, that results in tens, sometimes hundreds of requests for a single episode file by the same user.

To solve this problem, Spreaker looked at a detailed guideline produced by the IAB and has published their own up-to-date document that describes the type of filtering Spreaker is applying in order to remove duplicates. Spreaker wants you to know that you have the exactly the same number of listeners as you had before these changes were made.

Spreaker’s Listener Analytics document provides more details about how downloads and plays are counted. It’s worth reading over if your podcast is on Spreaker.