One of the most common complaints with podcasting is that there are no established metrics like in radio. People expect exact number of listeners, downloads and impressions for digital media. I am all for it, and we are working diligently on it at GigaVox but I constantly find it amazing that advertisers are completely satisfied with hand filled rating diaries for radio.

Mark Ramsey posted a perfect example today on Hear 2.0. (Mark is a well known radio consultant.)

In fact, if that one diary of listening were added to the station’s audience pile, it would have been worth an estimated .2 share among persons 25-54…. The station would have leaped five rank positions…. I don’t need to spell out the revenue consequences.

Make sure you read the whole post on his blog. This is amazing to me: One listener, one diary, five rank positions! These are the numbers they rely on to drive a $20 billion dollar ad market for radio. (And yes all you math wizards, I understand sampling sizes and all the fancy math behind this.) All that said: One listener, one diary, five rank positions.

Knowing this, I am confident that podcasts (and new media in general) can already give advertisers and sponsors more accurate and detailed data – now it’s just a matter of educating the marketplace. Two years from now, the pendulum will swing the other way and advertisers will then be hammering magazines and radio about why they can’t provide the same metrics as podcasts.

I am looking forward to NAB this year, lots of questions buzzing around in my head.