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A lot of podcasters obsess over the Apple charts. Perhaps there’s good reason. As podcaster Cathy Heller told us last week, when Apple popped her podcast Don’t Keep Your Day Job into New and Noteworthy, it took off. Of course, Cathy delivered with some excellent content.
For many podcasters broadcasting to a niche audience, is it really worth any time and effort at all to try get noticed by the Apple chart gods? Dave Jackson from The School of Podcasting tells PBJ he quit looking at the charts years ago. “Being on the front page of Apple does not bring the avalanche of downloads that you think. I would much rather look at my audience. It’s not like these rankings are preserved in time. I can’t look up who was in the top 10 in 2008. Focus on your audience, give them the best content and you will end up on the charts.”
So what’s all the fuss about? According to The Verge, manipulating Apple’s podcast chart is pretty easy. WBUR’s John Perotti spent $5 and his obscure podcast, certainly not aimed at the masses, shot all the way up to number 2.
It’s become an ugly underbelly of the podcasting world. Scammers or hackers seem to have figured out how to manipulate the charts for those podcasters willing to try. And, why not, if the price is only $5?
Perotti is the Manager of Podcast Production at WBUR, Boston’s NPR station. He tells The Verge he decided to see what would happen if he actually responded to one of the messages claiming they could get his music and comedy podcast to the top of the Apple chart. His show had 300 downloads before his experiment. A day after he paid the $5, Perotti tells The Verge, his show was on the bottom of the chart, then it started to move up and moved as high as number two.
Kevin Goldberg at Discover Pods has written about this topic extensively and even tracked one podcast, called Kickass News, that seemed out of place to him. Goldberg suggested the rise of Kickass News could have been the result of a clickfarm. He did not accuse them of this tactic. He merely said it was possible, after he dug into the matter.
The Verge states that Perotti’s fraudulent success suggests it’s easy and cheap to trick the system, and as revenue continues to filter its way over to the podcasting industry, a chart, especially an Apple chart, could be worth a lot of money. “Podcasts primarily make money through advertisements built into a show, although revenue can also come from TV deals, like Pod Save America on HBO, and live events, like WNYC’s RadioLoveFest. There’s serious incentive to be at the top if it’s how advertisers determine where to spend their budget, or, at the very least, if it’s how people discover new shows.” Verge reporter Ashley Carman tracked down the company Perotti paid the $5.00 to. It’s called SEOClerks which pushes SEO services.
Perotti actually posted some of his interaction with the company, which is in Bangladesh, back in October. 
Here’s what Goldberg concluded in his article. “Many will view this as a victimless innovative growth tactic. And to that, I agree. Unless a podcast is using their position in the charts to defraud advertisers by selling at a higher rate than they deserve, this is really an ethical (and genius) tactic. In essence, they’re gaining extra exposure and awareness to attract new listeners. As podcast analytics mature and advertisers further familiarize themselves with the medium, vanity stats like charts or subscribers will matter less than engaged listeners. Growth tactics like the ones detailed above will only be successful if they’re able to use their standing to convert actual engaged listeners.”
Others in the industry have also raised the red flag about chart manipulation. Nicholas Quah wrote about it back in October. Perotti wrote about it himslef in Hot Pod. James Cridland has had his eye on it_. _And Dane Carter went into great detail about an unknown real estate show beating out Serial, and The Daily in a very well researched piece at Chartable.
Is all of this really such a big deal? Perhaps, if you look at it as damaging to the podcasting industry as a whole. Do we really want to have to deal with fraud when Podcasting is just starting to really take off? And good luck getting Apple to tell any of us whether it’s really happening or how the company deals with it.
Comments:
I’ve also written and done podcasts about this. https://podcast.bigpodcast.com/yes-podcast-charts-can-be-rigged for one, if you’re interested. Is it a big deal? Maybe. It would certainly be nice if we had accurate charts, but having worked in both the music and book businesses, where we have charts like Billboard and New York Times, I can tell you with certainty that ALL CHARTS CAN BE MANIPULATED. Nothing we as podcasters do will stop this from happening with Apple Podcasts. But even if we could do something, I think a lot of podcasters worry about this way too much. Our time is far better spent on making great podcasts than worrying about what other people are doing to get a few extra downloads.