Triton Digital Launches Podcast Benchmarking Tool Enabling Publishers to Compare Themselves to the Market

Podcast publishers have long had access to granular download data. What they have never had is any way to know whether those numbers are good, says Daryl Battaglia, SVP of Measurement Products and Strategy at Triton Digital, a global audio technology and services company.

"Publishers control their own data," says Daryl. "They have insight into their own content and the listening to that. They don't have a lot of insight into the broader industry and how they compare, so they can properly evaluate themselves and position themselves appropriately."

That gap is what Triton set out to close with the February launch of its Podcast Metrics Industry Feature Set, a suite of analytics tools that gives publishers access to industry-level benchmarks, market share visibility, and audience composition data across the top 20 podcast markets worldwide.

Triton, which provides IAB-certified measurement infrastructure for publishers across more than 80 countries, built the feature set after years of producing one-off industry analyses for clients who kept asking the same question: how do we compare? BBC Studios served as the proof-of-concept partner.

The launch coincides with Triton’s “2025 U.S. Podcast Report,” which provides the audience research backdrop for the benchmarking tools.

The Problem With Knowing Only Your Own Numbers

Podcast measurement has a structural advantage over most other media. Because every download is logged digitally, publishers get a complete record of consumption across devices, apps, time windows, and geographies. There are no samples or estimates.

But exactness without context is only half the picture, according to Daryl.

"You can say, 'Oh, my audience is up,'" he explains. "But you don't really know: how good is it? How much better could it be and why?"

Without industry benchmarks, a publisher with 5 000,00 downloads per episode cannot tell if that represents exceptional performance or mediocrity within its genre and market. Content investment decisions, distribution strategy, promotional spend, and advertising sales pitches all depend on that context.

Daryl notes that the gaps were especially visible at larger publishers. The BBC was conducting internal research to evaluate content quality and inform international advertising strategy. Triton was already producing ad hoc analyses to support them. The decision to productize that capability came from recognizing that many other publishers were asking for the same thing but lacked a systematic way to access it.

Three Tools, One Framework for Industry Context

Triton’s Industry Feature Set is organized around three capabilities, each addressing a different dimension of competitive context.

The first is Download Benchmarks, which lets publishers compare their episode consumption against the broader industry, filtered by country, genre, or both, across multiple release windows: next-day, seven-day, and 30-day performance. “My podcast is in the top 3 % of all podcasts in that genre,” Daryl says, describing what a publisher might now confirm for the first time.

The second is Market Share, which shows a publisher’s portion of total Triton-measured consumption, with filters for device type, player, and genre, along with trend data to track whether that share is growing or declining.

The third is Composition, which allows publishers to compare how their audience accesses content against industry norms for their category and geography. Daryl’s example is concrete: a Kids & Family podcast in Spain might discover that its smart-speaker listenership trails the genre average. “Maybe there’s an opportunity to promote and distribute my content differently to grow that smart speaker audience,” he says.

Together, Daryl adds, the three tools move publishers from knowing their own story to understanding where they fit in a larger one.

Better Data Changes What Publishers Actually Do

Daryl emphasizes that the commercial implications of benchmarks run directly through publishers’ investment, operations, and sales.

On the content side, benchmarks inform which shows deserve continued investment and at what level. "It affects how much money and promotion I want to put behind it," he says.

The advertising sales case is equally direct. Daryl points out that publishers pitching sponsors have historically relied on raw download numbers that advertisers struggle to contextualize. With benchmarks, those conversations can lead with rankings. "It's in the top 5 % of all true crime podcasts in this country," he says, describing the kind of statement publishers can now make with supporting data. "Therefore, you should take it seriously and consider investing in advertising on our podcast."

Podcasting spans everything from global companies with dedicated research teams to individual creators with no data infrastructure. According to Daryl, "a lot of small podcasters don't have these giant research teams to take raw data and make sense of it themselves." The feature set was designed to reduce the complexity required to extract actionable insight from both ends of the spectrum.

Video Is Not Replacing Audio. It Is Expanding the Audience.

Alongside the Industry Feature Set launch, Triton released its "2025 U.S. Podcast Report," which Daryl describes as closely aligned with the product's broader mission. One of its central findings directly challenges a prevailing market assumption.

Podcasting now reaches 53,60 % of the U.S. population each month, and the data show that 80 % of that audience engages with both video and audio formats. Only 13 % listen exclusively; just 7 % watch exclusively. That pattern, Daryl argues, dispels the narrative that video is cannibalizing audio. "Video is expanding it, but audio is critical as well," he says. "You need a strategy that covers all the different ways that people can consume podcasts."

The behavior is not uniform. Exclusive watching skews younger and male, while exclusive listening skews older, more female, and higher income. Genre matters too: Science, History, and Fiction audiences lean heavily toward audio, while Music and Sports audiences are far more likely to watch.

Platforms are also differentiating. YouTube has grown as the primary platform from 28,10 % of consumers in 2022 to 37,70 % in 2025, while Apple Podcasts' share of primary platform usage has declined from 15,70 % to 11,30 % over the same period, though it remains dominant in RSS downloads at 49,70 %.

For publishers, the implication is practical: format-agnostic distribution has become a baseline requirement. A podcast strategy that covers only one consumption mode is almost certainly leaving audience on the table.

New Listeners Are Opening Advertising Categories That Didn’t Exist Before

Triton's report also documents a structural shift in the podcast audience that carries advertising implications. The overall listener base already skews favorably for advertisers: the 25-to-34 age group indexes at 142 against the general U.S. population, income above $100 000,00 indexes at 123, and parents with children under 18 index at 164.

But it is the profile of new listeners, those who started consuming podcasts within the past year, that Daryl flags as particularly relevant for advertisers. New listeners show elevated purchase intent in categories that have historically underinvested in the format. Among new listeners, 69 % express intent to visit quick-service restaurants, compared to 60 % for listeners with five or more years of tenure. Online shopping intent is 49 % among new listeners, versus 38 % among the most tenured group. Wireless provider switching intent is 22 % among new listeners versus 15 % among long-tenured listeners.

“Advertisers that may not have thought podcasts were a good fit for them should reconsider, as the audience continues to grow and change,” Daryl notes.

The influx of new listeners is also being driven by niche genres. Kids & Family has the highest proportion of new listeners at 45 % of its audience, followed by Education at 43 % and Health & Fitness at 41 %. YouTube disproportionately attracts newer podcast consumers, with 37 % of its podcast audience having started in the past year compared to 33 % on Apple Podcasts, making platform mix an increasingly important variable in audience composition strategy.

The Next Step Is Getting the Data to Buyers

The measurement infrastructure Triton has built sits largely on the publisher side of the equation. The next challenge, in Daryl's view, is the buy side.

"How do you take the good data that exists and put it in the hands of the buyers of the advertising as well?" he asks. "With trusted measurement that can help set standards across the industry, that brings confidence that brands can invest in podcasting."

Advertisers allocating spend across media types need to compare podcasting directly to television, digital display, and streaming. That requires standardized metrics and tools designed for buyers, not just publishers. The data, Daryl argues, is increasingly solid. The bottleneck is distribution and education. "The data exists now, and it's just a question of how to make that accessible across the industry," he says. "There's a lot of information out here that's not being used to its fullest, and that's a big part of the goal."

The Measurement Gap Is Narrowing, but the Work Is Not Done

Podcast advertising has grown, but its measurement infrastructure has lagged behind the channel's commercial scale, in Daryl's view. The Industry Feature Set moves publishers from operating in isolation toward a shared benchmark system that can support decisions on both sides of the advertising marketplace, mirroring the maturation of television and digital display that occurred a decade earlier.

Daryl frames the near-term challenge as more operational than technical. The tools are largely in place. What remains is adoption, training, and making the case to buyers who are still unfamiliar with the category's depth of measurement.

"It's more about education and training and accessibility of the data rather than just improving the measurement," he says. "There's a lot of low-hanging fruit of information out here that's not being used to its fullest."