Comments on: Podcast Discovery Stats | How Do Listeners Discover New Shows?

By: Steve Cain

Steve Cain — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 21:31:13 +0000

In reply to Grimbly Doo McDonald. Do you have a way to download those old episodes? If so, you could run them through Audacity, GarageBand, or whatever editing software you now have where you can adjust things such as filtering background noise, adjusting audio volumes, etc.

By: Steve Cain

Steve Cain — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 21:27:10 +0000

In reply to Scot McKay.

What you say is very true. I know on the two I do the things I try to do are:
A. Have a solid writeup, telling what we’re going to talk about, and if we have a guest, who that guest is, their contribution to our industry and why they’re on.
B. Put a solid punch in that first 60 seconds to grab the listener’s attention and make them think, “I’ve got to listen to this.”
As far as the music goes, on the two podcasts I do, the intro music on our longer show, which has 3 hosts, is slightly over a minute. The other one, which I do solo, has a 30 second intro, it’s also a shorter show at 30 minutes compared to the two hours, sometimes more, that my three host show does.

By: Grimbly Doo McDonald

Grimbly Doo McDonald — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 15:32:59 +0000

As a 10 year podcaster, the biggest question that I have is, how does the poor sound quality of 10 year old original episodes impact people who start listening in 2020. From about 2010 to 2013 we didn’t have the resources to get “studio quality” audio, lots of static, variable distances from the mic, some echoes, etc. Now in 2020 it is studio quality, but I am sure that the vast majority of new listeners start listening from the 10 year old episodes. So I have to wonder how many potential listeners today are turned off by the poor sound quality of the old episodes. I have debated for years if I should just eliminate the first 50 episodes, but considering the time and effort that went into them, and the fact that they address topics that we’ll never touch again, I’d hate to do that. Based on the survey, it looks like it would have an impact, but it’s hard to tell. It would be interesting to know if people tend to “start at the start” in non-episodic podcasts, or if they start listening to the latest episodes.

By: Scot McKay

Scot McKay — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 09:32:18 +0000

Having hosted podcasts for 14 years now, it’s amazing how nearly all of these principles have held true over time.

An underrated finding of your survey is the value of getting to solid, actionable content VERY quickly in an episode. I personally believe potential listeners of topic-based shows are indeed more ruthless in their “5 minute tests”, as you suggested. The way you worded the question involved “fairness”, but in practice I suspect far more people than the survey suggests give a show less than a minute. Extended stock intro narrative and/or music probably indeed hurts more than it helps.

Another key factor that seems to have been missing from the survey is the energy/vibe/skill of the host. That would be an interesting angle to add to future surveys, above and beyond mere notoriety.

There are also a lot of generic/formulaic approaches out there. A unique, quirky hook up front gets attention.