This page summarizes how Flightcast counts podcast downloads and unique listeners. It is a public overview, not the full Document of Methodology. Flightcast follows the IAB Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines (v2.2) for download and unique-listener counting. Flightcast is not formally IAB-certified.
Publishers who embed the Flightcast player, or who build their own players, should also read the Player Recommendations.
Downloads are deduplicated in a rolling 24-hour window per listener and episode. Counted downloads are then reported in UTC calendar-day buckets.
A unique listener is the combination of IP address and User-Agent. IPv4 addresses are used in full. IPv6 addresses are truncated to a /64 prefix before hashing. The IP and User-Agent are then hashed with SHA-256. Flightcast does not use cookies, user IDs, or session IDs to identify unique listeners.
Before a request can count as a download, Flightcast filters out non-listener traffic. That includes bots and spiders (using OPAWG-based user-agent lists), preload and prefetch signals, disallowed HTTP methods and statuses, Apple Watch user agents that the guidelines treat as automatic downloads, and non-listener IP classifications from IPinfo Plus. Inclusion and exclusion lists exist for remaining edge cases and are revalidated on a 90-day cadence.
The documented methodology is kept in lock-step with the implementation. Changes are recorded in a dated changelog. Flightcast performs periodic self-audits of the measurement system.
To request the full Document of Methodology PDF, email support@flightcast.com.
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