Congratulations to Sequentia and Caprica for conducting the incredibly successful Canadian Podcast Listeners Survey. It was the first independent survey in Canada to attract significant participation - 928 respondents! Congratulations are also in order for the authors’ transparency about the process they followed in conducting this survey.

Facts worth noting:

• This is the first survey I have seen that reported a higher percentage of female listeners (52%).
• A surprising 69% of Canadians continue to get their news from traditional media sources such as radio, television, newspapers and magazines.
• 46% of respondents prefer a weekly episode.
• 35% of respondents prefer a Podcast which is ten minutes or shorter.
• Advertising/sponsorship opportunities may not be attractive in Canada. Only 28% of respondents earn $60K or more per year, 48% earn less than $40K.
• Only 25% of respondents would not tolerate an advertisement in a Podcast.
• 60% of respondents are likely to buy a product or service recommended by a Podcast host that they trust.

And now, my concerns:

• The survey missed an opportunity to identify how respondents viewed sponsorship messages versus advertisements.
• The authors made an assumption that respondents have “little knowledge of video podcasts”. The questions from which this claim is made do not support this assumption.
• The section labelled Content is King presents confusing results which are derived from a question in which respondents provided their top three choices. The results presented suggest that 58% of respondents prefer re-purposed content and 69% prefer original content meaning that the bar chart breakdown exceeds 100% - something that requires a better explanation. The section labelled Canada’s Favourite Podcasts presents a similarly confusing summary.
• For consistency, I encourage the authors to focus on two chart styles - pie charts with percentages, and vertical bar charts with specific figures.

Despite my concerns (name a survey which didn’t result in some controversy), the authors did a phenomenal job. The information in this report is incredibly valuable, and the core structure should serve as the foundation of a similar effort next year to allow for a worthwhile comparison. I hope that the authors consider timing their next survey so that the release of its report can occur at PAB2007.