Other Platforms & Creator Culture
Podcast downloads
Also called: downloads
A download is logged when a podcast app asks the hosting server for the episode file and pulls enough of it to count. Podcasts go out by RSS to hundreds of separate apps, so the host's server log is the only place with a view of the whole audience, and that is why the industry measures file requests instead of plays.
The IAB Tech Lab guidelines exist to make the figures comparable: known bots filtered, tiny range requests discarded, one download counted per listener per day. Certification is not universal. Hosts certified against the guidelines report lower numbers than hosts that are not, so two shows quoting downloads may be counting differently.