By the Numbers

A look at the statistics of downloads

We track how many downloads our episodes get, mostly because numbers fascinate me (Chip). It also gives our egos a nice boost when we see numbers going up.

The picture above is a look, season by season, of the average daily downloads the episodes received. It starts with 2017-18 (Season two) and tracks each month with the total downloads for all the episodes of the season and then divided by the number of days in the month and the number of episodes in the season. So, for example, October 2017, had 31 days, season one has 14 episodes, with an average of 6.12 downloads per episode per day. Season two averaged 9.65 in the same month, but they were only three episodes out and the latest episode always has more downloads than the rest.

Season Two has more downloads per episode than Season One through May 2018, as there was a new episode out each month. Then we get to June and July and the numbers flip (if only slightly). Season One has slightly more downloads per day per episode than Season Two. Why? Well, people start with episode one of Season one, but not everyone goes on to listen to the entire series. So, after the latest episode, episode one of Season One has the next highest number of downloads.

Thinking about that, we also monitor how the episodes do with regard to listener dropoff—those who don’t continue on to the next episode. We used to have about 75% of those who listened to episode one (in a given month) also listening to episode two. Then we remastered Season One for a better quality sound experience. Now we have roughly 87% listeners continuing on to episode two. We get nearly 95% listening to episode three and from there the numbers suggest listeners continue on through the podcast, at least through season one.

Again to the above chart, Season Two is getting slight less downloads per episode per day than Season One. Although you can’t see it in the chart here, Season Three has a significant drop off. The latest episode is still really strong, getting over a thousand downloads in the month, but the episodes from previous months are not getting as many downloads as Season Two. We’re watching this number to see if begins to increase as we get further into Season Three. Perhaps people want to binge episodes, and are waiting for us to get far enough into the season to make it a marathon this. It is also the holiday season. We saw a drop in downloads last November and December. So, there is definitely something seasonal in the decline.

Only time will tell.

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