About Remote Audio Data

Remote Audio Data (RAD) measures podcast listening across a range of participating clients and platforms, aggregating the data in an analytics endpoint. RAD is not intended to replace download statistics as a point of measurement for the on-demand audio industry, but is designed to provide data on listening events to complement download statistics.

Three groups must work in collaboration to successfully implement RAD:

  • Audio publishers add the specified tags to audio files.
  • Mobile client applications implement the specification to watch for and report events.
  • Publishers or analytics services provide a tracking URL to a server that is equipped to accept reported RAD events and make the data available for analytics.

NPR piloted this technology in 2017 and has collaborated with colleagues across the on-demand audio industry to iterate, refine and implement RAD as a voluntary industry standard. NPR now encourages developer feedback on the open libraries and is collaborating with publishers and developers to encourage adoption throughout the industry.