Jun 26, 2026 · 21 min · 11 segments
Send us Fan Mail After a month of publishing Buzzcast as a video podcast, we have some real stats, workflow notes, and one very painful mistake to…
Kevin FinnHostJordan BlairHostAlban BrookeHostI was looking at our stats, and I don't know, what do, what do you guys think? Um, uh, is this surprising or not? We've done five episodes, and pretty much since the beginning, we've fluctuated between 7 and almost 13% of all of our plays, if this is the right way to say it, Kevin, plays have been video plays.
[laughs]
[laughs]
I mean, it is a more accurate representation to say plays probably when you're talking about HLS video than it would be if you were talking about downloading an MP3 file.
It's not uncommon for podcasting apps to download the entire MP3 file when you're just doing audio podcasting and have it queued up for you.
Whether it does that the second that you hit play, and it just, like, downloads the whole thing for the first time, and then it sits there, and it doesn't really matter if you listen to it or not, or if it does a background download, typically it grabs the whole file.
So I'm not aware, unless you go into, like, the Apple Podcasts app and switch the default preference to kind of, like, play on demand to download the video, it won't download the video.
So for the most part, at least right now, we have a pretty high confidence that if we actually track a video play through the Apple Podcasts app, that it was because people were actually watching it.
So what do you think of these numbers? Between 7 and 13%, and about, on average, it's 10% of all of the downloads do play some of the video.
And so it'll be somebody who flips over to video for some portion of it, and so we would then characterize it as a video stat.
I was looking at our stats, and I don't know, what do, what do you guys think? Um, uh, is this surprising or not? We've done five episodes, and pretty much since the beginning, we've fluctuated between 7 and almost 13% of all of our plays, if this is the right way to say it, Kevin, plays have been video plays.
[laughs]
[laughs]
I mean, it is a more accurate representation to say plays probably when you're talking about HLS video than it would be if you were talking about downloading an MP3 file.
It's not uncommon for podcasting apps to download the entire MP3 file when you're just doing audio podcasting and have it queued up for you.
Whether it does that the second that you hit play, and it just, like, downloads the whole thing for the first time, and then it sits there, and it doesn't really matter if you listen to it or not, or if it does a background download, typically it grabs the whole file.
So I'm not aware, unless you go into, like, the Apple Podcasts app and switch the default preference to kind of, like, play on demand to download the video, it won't download the video.
So for the most part, at least right now, we have a pretty high confidence that if we actually track a video play through the Apple Podcasts app, that it was because people were actually watching it.
So what do you think of these numbers? Between 7 and 13%, and about, on average, it's 10% of all of the downloads do play some of the video.
And so it'll be somebody who flips over to video for some portion of it, and so we would then characterize it as a video stat.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
