1.8 million podcasts and other great Cliffcentral stats revealed

Cliffcentral.com started in South Africa on the 1st of May spearheaded by Gareth Cliff. Tired of being shackled to out-dated broadcasting regulations and constantly been made to sit in the naughty corner Gareth decided that enough was enough so he headed out into the Wild Wild West (www) realms of the internet.

6 month on and the naysayers have been proven wrong – yet again. The show is not dead but is growing as Cliffcentral team are finding their rhythm – throwing out what doesn’t work and focusing on what does.

But the big question remains – is there an audience?

I scheduled an interview with  Gareth to ask him some questions about the show and ask him directly about his numbers. In complete unscripted unradio style, instead of conducting the interview in the office, I found myself talking into the mic and conducted my interview LIVE on air during the morning show hosted by Gareth Cliff and Mabale Moloi. No pressure.

Here is the podcast of that live on-air interview:

What was incredible was just how many people called in the second Gareth posed the question to the audience “How long do you listen for?”. Caller after caller after caller told us that they listen for hours on end.

What was even more incredible is how many people listen via podcast.

That is big. With traditional radio, you listen as you meander through traffic. As soon as you arrive at your destination you switch the radio off. Here endeth the show. With Cliffcentral this is not the case. People listen whilst driving to work via WeChat app but when they get to work they download the podcast of the show and continue to listen when they can. Callers describe their “binge-listen” habit of listening to  3 or 4 podcasts in a row essentially creating their own playlist. Their own unradio show.

Now I was even more intrigued with that kind of feedback. live on air. So I asked Gareth to be specific and would he share the actual numbers.

He did.

What are the Cliffcentral numbers?

Make no mistake – Cliffcentral are a tech savvy bunch. Maybe not “traditional techies”, but they have their fingers on the pulse. After my morning interview-by-fire-on-air Gareth pulled out the latest stats:

• 1.8 million podcasts since June (so over 3 month that is roughly 600 000 podcast downloaded per moth).
• 47 000 on Facebook page
• 34 000 Twitter followers
• 1.7 million page views on Cliffcentral.com
• 120 000 people added Cliffcentral on WeChat account

This is staggering. I can not find a larger podcast supplier not only in South Africa but in Africa.

6 month in whats next for Cliffcentral.com ?

Remembering that a Radio show with its large audience will have podcast as an add-on. Cliffcentral IS the podcast. There is no add-on. So people across South Africa are making a conscious decision to switch off their car radio and tune into the live stream and then download the podcast on several devices.

Incredible feat for a 6 month old show.

Gareth would not divulge any secrets but I have a feeling the next 6 month will be even better.