Crossing the Streams

May 11, 2026

Image by Abdellah Benziane of Pexels.

You may have seen the recent announcement that Nielsen will be working with Triton Digital to provide “enhanced visibility, accessibility and utility of podcast data to the industry.”

Good for you, podcasts. Because what radio really needs is better measurement of podcasts.

Snark aside, I’m not against podcasts. They are a valuable source of entertainment and potential revenue. But at its core, podcasts are nothing more than spoken word audio—something radio kind of invented.

You know what would be a boon for radio? If Nielsen partnered with Triton Digital (and every other back end digital measurement firm) to do a better job of measuring digital listening for…radio stations.

Both Jacobs Tech Survey and Edison’s Share of Ear studies show that listeners are increasingly listening to radio stations via their digital outlets. This is great news for radio as it extends our reach and enhances our viability.

If only Nielsen could do a better job of including stream listening in the ratings. The current system is woefully inadequate.

I’ll remind you how this works, at least in a PPM world. IF a meter happens to pick up your stream the actual listening will be greatly, uh, enhanced. Depending on your format and/or the demo involved you’ll be granted a “headphone adjustment,” an ironic term since the meter cannot hear anything that is played through wireless ear buds or headphones.

The technical term for this is “statistical modeling” …or you can just say it’s an educated guess. Nielsen’s headphone adjustment process and the specific value of the factors are patented and proprietary. Either way this ONLY helps your ratings if at least one meter actually “hears” your stream.

I can see the collective eye roll from Programmers around the country who see the exact numbers of unique stream listeners every day. They dream of finding a way to add that volume of listening to what is currently being published. This streaming data is verifiable, precise and, for the most part, ignored. The challenges include attributing demographics to streamed listening, and Nielsen would have to account for duplication between the OTA audience and the streamed audience. They seem to have figured this out for television. Hopefully they can apply those lessons to radio.

I get the importance of podcasts. But for every Joe Rogan and Call Her Daddy, there are—literally—millions of podcasts out there. According to Podcast Statistics, as of early 2026 there were 4.5 to 4.6 MILLION registered podcasts. Of that number, between 342,000 and 391,000 were considered active. (Note to podcast Mafia: this is what Gemini told me.) This is a viable industry that deserves accurate information on how it is consumed.

So does radio.

Digital continues to be the shiny object. Radio is doing a credible job of conforming to that space. Isn’t it time we get full credit for our efforts?

Feel free to tell me I’m full of it: sallan@researchdirectorinc.com

PS: Please don’t cross the streams as it will cause a total protonic reversal and end all life as we know it.

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