where do people drop off?

At the 14:00 ad read, where 22% of new listeners leave; regulars stay. A smaller dip follows at the 38:00 ad, 9% across both groups.

compare to genre norm

Against 40 comparable true-crime episodes this one indexes 114 on completion with regulars but 86 with new listeners. Listener questions sit in the genre’s top decile.

quotes from new listeners

New listeners liked the story and lost patience with the break: “I didn’t know it would come back to the case.” “The questions bit was the best part.” 68% would try another episode.

Welcome to your plan.

“Season two drops in March. We need to know where new listeners give up on an episode, and why.”

see how we test podcasts

step 01

choose your tested audience

true-crime regulars

new listeners

commute listeners

We recruit the listeners your show is made for.

Multiple panels field at once without duplicate respondents.

Don’t worry about bad respondents. We catch that in real time, so every reaction is a real one.

26M

vetted respondents

30+

countries fielded

duplicate respondents

24/7

quality detection

true crime show

episode test

season two

1.5K respondents

step 02

kickoff

Get from kickoff to fielding in as quick as 24 hours.

Find where new listeners drop off in an episode.

goal 01

Know if the ad read costs you the second half.

goal 02

Learn which segment to open season two with.

goal 03

A request form quicker than email auto-prices your study and books the kickoff call.

step 03

fielding

The whole episode, heard the way your audience hears it.

We field until every quota is hit, on the commute or at the desk, wherever your listeners really listen.

episode 12 · listen and reactdrm · watermarked

listener 4471 · mobile · on the commute18:40 / 42:10

HOSTSo the door was locked from the inside.GUESTWhich is the part nobody wanted to say out loud.

step 04

results

Your listeners react live on the Sentiment Dial. We’ll tell you why.

Every reaction and every tune-out lands on the chapter it happened in, so you know which segments hold an audience and where they drift.

audience:

tune-outs:

annotations:

true-crime regularsnew listenerstune-outs

Tune-outs spike at the 14:00 ad read: 22% of new listeners leave before the second segment. Rec. moving it after the story’s turn.researcher · podcasts

Listener questions are the peak for both groups. Regulars ask for it earlier; open the next episode with one.researcher · podcasts

cold openthemesegment 1: the casead readsegment 2: the turnlistener questionsadoutro

0:0010:0020:0030:0042:10

chapter	sentiment	tuned out
cold open0:00	+0.4	0%
the case2:10	+0.3	2%
ad read14:00	-0.6	22%
the turn16:00	+0.3	1%
your questions28:00	+0.8	0%
ad38:00	-0.5	9%

illustrative example · the lane under the timeline is the episode’s own chapters

step 05

reporting

Let’s get deliverables to your stakeholders.

We don’t dump data. We tell stories.

Pilotly’s media sector experts across nine markets turn your data into a report in your stakeholders’ language.

All benchmarked against genre norms, in your custom format, delivered in days.

Talk to your study in plain language.

and ask it anything

is the episode too long?

Not for regulars: 91% finish it. New listeners are the risk. 22% leave at the 14:00 ad read, before the story turns.

don’t leave just yet

come to the Pilotly side

We support media & entertainment in several ways.

Podcast testing

use case

Trailer & marketing testing

use case

Concept testing

use case

Virtual focus groups

methodology

Brand lift studies

methodology

Simulated environments

use case

Ready when your next episode is.

Book a demo and we’ll walk this exact study through, from kickoff to the story your stakeholders hear.

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