This guide explains how to interpret the statistics for Infomaniak's Streaming Radio service, understand the distribution of your audience (differentiating between actual listens and automated traffic), the methods for counting listeners, and diagnose connection anomalies.

Introduction

• A detailed analysis of a traffic spike can be performed by downloading the connection files via the FTP logs.
• To block an unauthorized aggregator or unwanted connections, you can use the IP / GeoIP restrictions.

Listener count, aggregators, and bot detection

Types of listeners and listening duration

An listener refers to any person or robot that starts playing the stream for at least 1 second. Non-unique listeners count all of these sessions. Conversely, unique listeners are counted per distinct IP address. For example, two people connected to the same Wi-Fi network listening to the radio on separate devices count as a single unique listener, but as two non-unique listeners.

The filter for listeners listening for 30 seconds or more measures sessions exceeding this duration. This value identifies genuine listeners who take the time to listen to the content, allowing simple connection tests or brief openings to be excluded.

Impact of aggregators and robot behavior

A sudden increase in traffic often comes from a web radio aggregator or robots. Aggregators allow your radio to be broadcast to their audience while frequently sharing the same IP address, which generates a volume of non-unique listeners that is much higher than the number of unique listeners. As for robots, they almost never listen from different IP addresses, rarely exceed 30 seconds of listening time, and rarely change their user-agent.

Audience analysis and log verification via FTP

On the Audience Statistics page, you can isolate legitimate traffic by displaying only unique visitors + audience >= 30 seconds, which eliminates artificial spikes. To confirm the presence of bots, download your access logs via FTP: an IP address or user-agent that is absent from the logs before the spike and appears hundreds or thousands of times in a single day indicates automated behavior. However, be sure to check if these IP addresses correspond to known platforms such as the radio station's website or a reputable aggregator like Radio Garden.

Delivery disruptions and discrepancies between measurement tools

Causes of disruptions and outages

Malfunctions and abnormally high connection rates can originate from several levels of the network:

• Upstream, an interruption can result from the radio signal, a problem with the encoding server, or instability in the transmitting internet line.
• Incidents affecting the Icecast servers can occur in the middle of the chain.
• Downstream, the cause often lies with the listener, particularly in cases of insufficient bandwidth, saturated local lines, or an interruption to their internet connection.

In case of streaming instability, it is very useful to refer to the real-time listener statistics. Please note that it is impossible to investigate incidents that occurred several weeks or months ago.

Differences in counting between measurement tools

These audience statistics are quite specific: using three different analysis tools will systematically yield three distinct results. The discrepancies observed between your Infomaniak statistics and those of organizations like NetMetrix (WEMF) are explained by different calculation methods. NetMetrix bases its measurements directly on events within the player itself, which redefines the concept of a unique listener.