Your show
Episode detail
One episode in depth: its reach, plays, listening hours and retention curve, with Apple, Spotify and YouTube side by side to see where listeners drop off.
What this page is for
This is a single episode under a microscope — how many people it reached, how long they stayed, and where the platforms disagree about it.
Reach it by clicking any row on the Episodes page.
The metric tabs
Switch between Unique listeners, Plays, and Listening hours to change what the chart plots. Each one tells a different story about the same episode:
- Unique listeners — how far it reached
- Plays — how often it was started
- Listening hours — how much attention it actually earned
60 days vs all time
An episode's first two months are when almost all of its listening happens, so by default the page shows the 60-day window — a like-for-like comparison against every other episode.
Switch to all time to see the episode's full life, which is useful for evergreen back-catalogue episodes that keep getting discovered.
The retention curve
The chart shows how much of the audience was still listening, second by second, through the episode. This is the most actionable view in PodAnalyst — you can see the exact moment people leave.
Common shapes and what they usually mean:
- A sharp drop in the first minute or two — the opening didn't match what the title or description promised.
- A cliff at a specific timestamp — something concrete happened there. A long ad break, a topic change, an audio problem.
- A gradual, even slope — normal. Listeners drift away steadily.
- A bump or a flat stretch — something in that section is working. Worth repeating.
Cross-reference the timestamp with your own episode notes. If the drop lines up with the ad break, that's your answer.
Comparing the platforms
Every platform is plotted on the same chart. Their audiences behave differently — Spotify listeners tend to sample more widely, Apple listeners tend to be more committed, YouTube viewers tend to watch further in before dropping — so a gap between the lines is expected, not a problem. What matters is when the shape differs between them, which usually points at something platform-specific.
Use the platform filter to isolate one at a time.
Pro feature
YouTube is a Pro and Network platform. On the Community plan this chart plots Apple and Spotify. See Plans and billing.
Annotations
Shift-click the chart to pin a note to a specific point — useful for marking where a drop or a bump happens, so the explanation lives with the data. Teammates can reply in the thread.