Listeners prefer downloading podcasts on...

[Savage Snow]

...what day of the week?

I read something months ago about best upload days for new episodes, but I do not remember the answers or what statistics they were using.
My search here didn't bring up any obvious threads, though I am sure this must have been discussed in the past.

Does anyone know of a study or relatively significant story discussing the most popular download days?
Does anyone have any numbers of their own they would be willing to share?
What are your own opinions and bandwidth experiences with different days of the week?

Just another decision to be crossed off the list as I get closer to launching.

Thanks.
Dan Savage
www.SavageSnow.com (http://www.SavageSnow.com)
Savage Snow - Film, Snow, and Water Podcast

[Yotto]

My own stats show a moderately consistent sine-wave, higher midweek and lower on the weekends. However, I tend to release shows on Monday. I would suspect people that release shows on Friday to have almost the opposite sine wave.

I don't think there is a day of the week that, if you released your show on that day more people would listen/watch than any other day. I mean, that's the whole point of time shifting right?

[RobotsLove]

I agree with Yotto, I don't think it really matters what day of the week you upload a show because that's the beauty of time shifting. Even if someone only checks their feeds once a week, the worst that can happen is they download the show 6 days after it was posted.

The download stats are really only helpful if you wanted to do a live feed, you can figure out when your audience would be online anyways.

[Savage Snow]

Thank you for the responses.
Since posting that original question at the beginning of the summer, I have come across some interesting data. When looking at advertising statistics for some sites that sell advertising in their forums, I have found that there is notably more traffic to those forum sites on Mondays.

People who play on the Internet during working hours and who possibly listen to podcasts during working hours, I suspect are doing so more on Mondays. Though the employer is hoping employees come in ready to get off to a great start each week "doing their jobs," the employees themselves are probably more concerned with making sure they are caught up on their personal interests on Mondays.

As far as time shifting goes, we all have only so much time, so if a "fresh" episode of a program is waiting on Monday for the employee as he arrives in his office and when he is eager to catch up on his personal life issues, it seems that the shows that are new and fresh for Monday might be of more interest, than one loaded midweek "last" week on Wed. or Thurs. that the person missed becasue they had indeed become engrossed in work by that point in the week. And only so many shows can be listened to on this Magic Monday while the employee is in this mood to take advantage of company time and get caught up on more critical things like podcasts and forum checking.

Of course some people are very loyal to certain shows and will listen whenever they come out. But we all are subscribed to shows that we don't listen to so regularly. And in trying to establish loyal listeners, making the show as appealing as possible for listening is important.

I think the day a show is released might help make it a "more likely to be chosen" podcast to listen to.

Simple Theory: People who download podcasts at work may be doing more downloading of podcasts in general on Mondays, and people are naturally drawn to "fresher" programming when chossing the few they actually listen to.

These types of things are studied by marketers and are important for promotional efforts of all types. My speculation is based on limited information. I would enjoy reading more in depth studies of this kind of thing.
Dan Savage
Savage Snow - Film, Snow, Water (& Japan) Podcast
www.SavageSnow.com (http://www.SavageSnow.com)
www.SavageJapanMovieReviews.com (http://www.SavageJapanMovieReviews.com)

[Yotto]

Well, I don't know if I'd say they tend to do it on Mondays. I think most of us producers release on the weekends, so if people at work download Monday-Friday, they will always download our shows on Monday if we release between Friday at 5:00pm and Monday at 5:00pm. That's 3 full days' worth of podcasts always being downloaded on one day.

[paulyb]

Push subscribing and then you don't have to worry about it!

[WyethDigital]

People who play on the Internet during working hours and who possibly listen to podcasts during working hours, I suspect are doing so more on Mondays. Though the employer is hoping employees come in ready to get off to a great start each week "doing their jobs," the employees themselves are probably more concerned with making sure they are caught up on their personal interests on Mondays.

As far as time shifting goes, we all have only so much time, so if a "fresh" episode of a program is waiting on Monday for the employee as he arrives in his office and when he is eager to catch up on his personal life issues, it seems that the shows that are new and fresh for Monday might be of more interest, than one loaded midweek "last" week on Wed. or Thurs. that the person missed becasue they had indeed become engrossed in work by that point in the week.
In these two paragraphs, you're making a lot of assumptions. You're apparently assuming that Employee A:
1) Does not have an iPod or media player synched to their home library.
2) Prefers to download his files at work.
3) Has permission or the capability to download files at work.
4) Does not recognize that listening any time, means listening any time.
5) Sees reading/responding to forums or blogs as akin to listening to an audio show.

All of these are pretty big assumptions to make just from a study tracking forum use.

From our own experience, the best time to upload is the weekend. The sooner the better. We do slightly better uploading Friday or early Saturday, but not much better than when we upload on Sunday. Downloads for the rest of the week drop off more quickly by releasing on Friday/Saturday than when we release on Sundays (which is more of a steady decline).

More important than all of that is uploading consistently. We usually upload Sunday (at least 85% of the time), because that's most convenient. Sometimes we upload early. We hardly ever upload later than Sunday, though.

Eric

[podcastmom]

Interesting info. I never really thought about it because I always figured that was the beauty of RSS feeds, listeners would upload at their leisure.

However, if you're talking mailing lists, this info is much more relevant.

[WyethDigital]

Yep. But just to emphasize the point: Consistency is the most important factor. If you tell you audience when you're going to publish, it helps to be regular.

Eric

[podcastmom]

Yep. But just to emphasize the point: Consistency is the most important factor. If you tell you audience when you're going to publish, it helps to be regular.

Eric

I couldn't agree more! This is the importance of planning before actually producing, so you can figure out a schedule and then stick with it.