78%
Listen-Through On Internal Podcasts.
Hypecast platform data, measured across customer programmes after their first six months. This page explains what the figure measures, how it compares to other internal channels, and which decisions move it.
What Listen-ThroughActually Measures.
Listen-through is the share of an episode that listeners hear, averaged across everyone who started it. If an episode runs twelve minutes and the average session covers nine minutes and twenty seconds, listen-through is 78%. It answers a different question from reach, which counts how many people in the audience started the episode at all. A programme can have modest reach and excellent listen-through, or the reverse, and the two need separate targets.
The figure is calculated from playback progress, aggregated per episode and audience group. Sessions are counted once, so replaying a passage does not inflate the number, and an episode opened and abandoned in the first seconds counts as a start with almost no completion. How to build a reporting set around this metric is covered in how to measure an internal podcast.
How It Compares ToOther Internal Channels.
Channel metrics are not interchangeable, so the honest comparison names what each number counts. Two public benchmarks are close enough in structure to be useful.
| Channel | Figure | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Internal podcast | 78% | Average share of an episode heard, per started session. Hypecast platform data, measured across customer programmes after their first six months. |
| Intranet news article | 33% | Share of visited news articles where dwell time was long enough to have read the whole article. SWOOP Analytics, SharePoint Intranet Benchmarking Report 2025. |
| Internal email | 68% | Average open rate, not a completion measure. ContactMonkey, Internal Email Benchmark Report 2025. |
| Internal video | Not stated | We found no named public source with a transparent method for completion, so no number is given here. |
The email figure sits highest and measures the least: an open says a subject line worked, not that the message landed. The intranet figure is the closest structural comparison, because it estimates whether the whole piece was consumed, and it is the one that shows the gap. On video, the public material we could check was vendor commentary rather than method, so the qualitative point stands on its own: video competes for eyes and a quiet moment, audio does not, which is why completion holds up on shift and on the commute. Where each channel fits is set out on internal communications.
What MovesThe Number.
Episode length.
Episodes between eight and fifteen minutes hold the highest completion. Past roughly twenty-five minutes, drop-off in the second half becomes visible in almost every programme, unless the episode is a training unit that listeners have chosen deliberately.
Format.
A conversation with a named colleague holds attention longer than a read-out announcement. Where a script is unavoidable, two voices hold better than one.
Distribution path.
A private feed in the podcast app listeners already use produces the highest listen-through, because listening happens while commuting or working, without a screen. An embedded player on an intranet page produces more starts and lower completion, because the visit competes with the rest of the page.
Rhythm.
A predictable release day builds return listening. Irregular publishing costs completion before it costs reach, because listeners stop expecting the episode.
How We ArrivedAt 78%.
The source is Hypecast platform data, measured across customer programmes after their first six months. The six-month cut matters: early episodes of a new programme carry launch curiosity and unstable publishing rhythm, and including them would describe a launch rather than a running show.
Everything in the figure is aggregated. There is no named-listener data behind it, no per-employee history, and nothing that could identify a single organisation. The external figures quoted above are other organisations' published research, each with its own population and method, and they are cited so you can check them rather than take our summary for it. The access and privacy model that produces this data is described on the security page.
Benchmarks:Frequently Asked Questions.
What exactly is listen-through rate?
The share of an episode that listeners actually hear, averaged across everyone who started it. A 78% listen-through rate means the average listening session covered 78% of the episode's running time. It is not the share of employees who listened, which is reach and is reported separately.
How is the 78% figure measured?
It comes from Hypecast platform data, measured across customer programmes after their first six months. It is aggregated across programmes, so no single customer and no single listener can be identified in it.
Can you tell us who listened to a particular episode?
No. Reporting is aggregated by show, episode and audience group. No named-listener record is created, which is what makes the model workable for a works council review.
Why do you not publish a comparable video completion benchmark?
We could not find a named public source with a transparent method for internal video completion. Rather than cite a vendor claim, we describe the difference qualitatively and leave the number out.
See The NumbersFor Your Programme.
We can walk through the reporting model with your communications and data protection contacts, using the same aggregated view your team would work with.