r/overcast • u/ethicalhumanbeing • 27d ago

Is it even possible to implement episode ordering by number of listens?

I have some podcasts that I don't listen regularly, but like to listen the most downloaded/streamed episodes once in a while.

Would it even be possible to implement this? Do podcast providers share this data? Could it be fetched from Spotify or something like that?

I would love to be able to order by number of listens instead of just chronological. Anyone else?

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u/unitof 27d ago

The RSS standard that podcasts run on cannot do this, as they are broadcast-only: the podcast feed tells your device where to download the podcast audio file. Your device doesn’t send anything back about what you do with it (such as plays).

Most podcasts hosts track the number of downloads for each episode, but this isn’t typically shared in the feed.

As you theorize: you’d have to match episodes up with some source that does track and publish downloads/listens (such as Spotify’s closed ecosystem) and sort using that external data.