Shoutcast weekly rankings

[Orion Talk Radio]

Hey, is there anyone out there that represents Shoutcast and can explain the recent abberation that was released as weekly rankings? There are at least 46 stations in the top 3000 with ZERO Tune-Ins and ZERO 5-Min Tune-Ins, but they have thousands in TTSL. Yeah... that's a problem to those of us running radio that rely on these definitive binary stats that should be finite and easy to access. Does Shoutcast plan on a new release for this week? It is clear they missed the mark HUGE this week. Our station was trending up every week. We watch our tally closely. We had 264,123 last week, and now Shoutcast tries to say we have only 127,824. We should be moving closer to 300,000 by our count, yet Shoutcast totally missed it. Twenty five years in programming dealing with Arbitron and Birch leads me to believe we have some serious problems with the Shoutcast metrics. I also find it disconcerting that any business would throw up a shingle, charge money for a service, and then not offer an easy way to contact them via telephone or email. If it's there, it sure isn't easy to find. Any help here in contacting Shoutcast? We need an immediate re-print of the numbers for this week. Those of us paid Shoutcast subscribers selling radio time respectfully request it. Thanks very much for looking into this.

[Orion Talk Radio]

Hey guys... Perhaps I posted in the wrong place. I posted a note in the Shoutcast discussion regarding Shoutcast Weekly Rankings. I have not heard back from a tech yet. Should I re-post here, or can your techs find my post and address the issue? There are huge glaring errors present in the latest Shoutcast Weekly Rankings. Those of us selling our Shoutcast stats cannot present these recent statistics to advertisers without the fear they will percieve an errant system not capable of measuring finite binary usage data. It's all about impressions with advertisers. We cannot possibly sell this week's rankings. Will there be a re-print soon? Can you provide a contact number of a Nullsoft rep or department that I could call? Thanks for any assistance you can offer in this matter.

[DrO]

i've merged your threads though i'm doubtful i'm going to give you a response that you'll like.


the TTSL report is made up of what it gets from the DNAS servers and it is possible (based on what i was debugging before my first holiday of the year) that not all of the 'touch' updates are being properly processed and that can cause the TTSL stats to drop. you would know if this is the case by getting NAK errors in the DNAS server logs.

as such, i am going to be looking into deploying a fix which should resolve the touch updates failing (which is something that has been on-going for months if not years) and which randomly affects different stations.

really if you're that concerned about your stream stats then you need to monitor your DNAS yourself as the TTSL reports have _never_ been guaranteed as exact (especially with how any site player connections skew the stats from a DNAS anyway - which would be the case even with you directly getting them).


secondly, an optimisation was done to the YP which removes one of the test connections made to verify the validity of listings which was also found to be able to be counted as a stream hit when it wasn't valid. this however should only have a small effect as it's when a listing is added so unless you've had stability issues, it should not have had a major effect.


as for the zero tune-ins issue, i am aware of that but haven't gotten around to determining the cause of that and getting a fix deployed to the script which generates the report. as to my knowledge, 0 tune-ins have been reported on the reports since well before my time so i am agreeing that something is not right and that it will be looked into (but is a lower priority compared to other issues with the platform).

I also find it disconcerting that any business would throw up a shingle, charge money for a service

you will need to clarify that comment as you are not charged to be listed in the Directory. as i've had a number of people claim that now and yet never explain where they've gotten that idea from as the DNAS is free and so is to be listed (yes there is a small license fee if doing MP3 encoding via sc_trans but that is not something hidden away).

-daz

[RadioRookie]

The weekly stats page is not loading. Has it been removed?

In addition, is there a Daily stats page that available somewhere, maybe in development?

[DrO]

it's been broken for over a month (is when i first noticed and i've not had time to fix it) and there is no intention on a daily version, it just wouldn't be helpful or worth the hassle of getting it setup.

[RadioRookie]

Thanks for the reply. Are you planning on getting the weekly back up?

[DrO]

at some point yes - just depends on when work is allocated to fix the issue (as it is deemed very low priority).

[DrO]

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....92#post2923492 (only because the monthly failed for a yet unknown reason).

[RadioRookie]

When you say they are failing to update, are you referring to aspects of the stats; such as; tune-ins, or the entire profile is not uploading to the webserver?

That said, with stations reporting tune-ins of 0, where is that glitch coming from again? This does not invalidate the TTSL figures for that same stream, does it?

[DrO]

failing to update purely relates to the report being uploaded to the YP servers, nothing else.


i don't know what causes the 0 tune-in listings (i know i briefly looked into the report a year and a half back but cannot remember what i found then) it and could be anything from the DNAS not providing things correctly (since it counts metadata requests as listener connections which skews things instantly) or people using fake DNAS or a bug on the report generation.


personally i'd just remove the ttsl report as all i've ever heard since i took on SC is the main complaint is that it doesn't match local stats (which it won't do because it's based on a specific point in time) or it fails to update, it doesn't update enough, it's not in the right format for what x, y and z want.

[RadioRookie]

Originally Posted by DrO

it and could be anything from the DNAS not providing things correctly (since it counts metadata requests as listener connections which skews things instantly) or people using fake DNAS or a bug on the report generation.


personally i'd just remove the ttsl report as all i've ever heard since i took on SC is the main complaint is that it doesn't match local stats (which it won't do because it's based on a specific point in time) or it fails to update, it doesn't update enough, it's not in the right format for what x, y and z want.

Where are the metadata requests coming from? And how are people getting away with fake DNAS and bug reports? Do you not have the ability to capture this and remove their name from the list, ban them, or is this done on their server end?

So you're suggesting getting rid of the TTSL report all together or just certain categories from the stats? Which part of the categories did people have the most contention with? The TTSL #s, the Tune-ins, or both?

[DrO]

and this is why i should just keep my mouth shut. the current copy of the ttsl files are available, that's all that matters now.

[RadioRookie]

Originally Posted by DrO

and this is why i should just keep my mouth shut. the current copy of the ttsl files are available, that's all that matters now.

Sorry m8.. Didn't intend to open up any wounds. But yes, thank you for the work in getting it back up. Let the sharks fend for themselves in how they choose to use these stats.