8 ms·

Podcasters are seeing encouraging numbers

64 points by ALee 9y ago

ALee 9y ago
Turns out Evan Williams was right, but much too early.
- staunch 9y ago
  Or maybe he set podcasting back 5 years by giving up on it ;-) If he was a true believer, he'd have realized Medium isn't the long-form content he was looking for. He didn't fully commit to Odeo, and that's why he gave up when Apple made its move. I still remember thinking "Fuck!" when I saw that "Try our new thing twttr" banner at the top of Odeo. I liked where they were headed. Twitter + Podcasts are all you need. No one really wants to read long-form text on a computer. Medium.com should have been Odeo 2.0 It's just so much richer to listen to a monologue, or socratic debate, in most cases. @ev should pivot Medium into being the biggest podcast publisher in the world, by sponsoring every high quality podcast and building a better version of patreon for podcasters. There's a lot of amazing people that should be podcasting and are not.
  - kough 9y ago
    > Twitter + Podcasts are all you need. No one really wants to read long-form text on a computer. Medium was a bad idea. LOL I would obviously prefer reading long form text on a book, but do you really prefer audio to digital text? Story telling is one thing, but for most of what I'm reading I think a low-bandwidth, search-free environment (audio) is a bad match.
    - staunch 9y ago
      I learn a lot more from audiobooks, podcasts, and youtube videos these days than from any other source. I listen at 1.5 or 2x speed and find it as close to an "I know kung fu" experience as it gets.
      - RmDen 9y ago
        Agreed... difficult to read a book on a run or while walking to the train station
    - hnal943 9y ago
      Audio is much better for transient stuff like news, not so much for reference.
Eridrus 9y ago
I'm hoping someone rolls podcasts into a music subscription service so that I don't need to listen to these ads. I know that Spotify has done this a bit, but iirc their selection is pretty limited.
- blfr 9y ago
  The podcasts I listen to have live reads rather than separate ads so removing them would be difficult.
- Splendor 9y ago
  Stitcher Premium has done this but it's not for all podcasts.
- staunch 9y ago
  It's easier to just have 10% of listeners pay $10/year and go ad-free. Advertising is a pollutant and no longer necessary in the new at-scale world. When you have a small podcast, you can just do it for the love of it and not worry about money. If it gets big, you can get a small percentage of your listeners to give you money. The number of contributors should continue to rise for many years as more people discover how great podcasts can be.
  - WesleyLivesay 9y ago
    The easier, and more lucrative, method is to setup some sort of Premium/Patreon/etc. method where you can either listen to the podcast, with ads, for free, or pay $X a month to support the show and get access to an ad-free feed.
    - staunch 9y ago
      There's no need for ads at all though. If you don't have many listeners, then there's not much ad revenue anyway. And once you have a lot of listeners, you only need a tiny percentage to fund the entire thing. It's totally viable to have 10% of listeners voluntarily pay while 90% of listeners freeload. And there needn't be any NPR guilt trip about it because they're not blowing millions on office space and executives. Any successful podcast can be a very financially successful business for a small number of people.
rcthompson 9y ago
From the article: > the few listeners who do skip ads continue to remain engaged with the episode, rather than dropping off at the first sign of an interruption. I'd bet that this is because fast-forwarding through podcast ads is pretty trivial. If podcast apps tried to do anything to make the midroll ads unskippable, you'd probably see a different pattern. (Here I'm thinking of things like online video ads and the TV networks' fight against the TiVo 30-second skip button.) For my part, I often skip through ads that I know have no relevance to me, but listen to ones that might have relevance. It also helps that many podcasts bring their own humor to the ads rather than just reading the ad copy verbatim, so there's still some entertainment value even if I know I'm not going to buy what they're selling.
- dionidium 9y ago
  Some podcasts have relatively short ads at unpredictable times. I listen to those 90% of the time. Some podcasts do live reads that are predictably 3-4 minutes long, which feels like an eternity, especially when they're doing the same ads they did last week. I skip those every time.
  - wickawic 9y ago
    It seems like many podcasts also have an unspoken agreement with the listener about ads and make them easy to skip. Two popular podcasts come to mind: WTF with Marc Maron: always plays a guitar riff after the ad, which is easy to hear when skipping MBMBAM: has a “shoutout” section (listeners sending messages to each other) immediately after the ads, so if you skip into it you don’t really care if you miss a minute or two.
    - floren 9y ago
      MBMBAM does sponsor ads (read by the hosts), then the shoutout section which I hate, and then usually two ads by other podcasts in the network. Once the sponsor ads start, I can then simply skip ahead until I hear an unfamiliar voice, then more carefully jump forward until I get back to the show. This is pretty much essential for me, because both the shoutouts (jumbotrons) and the plugs for other podcasts are written with the "OMG QUIRKY!" knob turned up to 11 and I just can't handle it. Edit: The Greatest Generation (Star Trek podcast) is on the same network and has a somewhat similar format, except they don't do the ads until they're almost done. They talk about the episode, then do sponsor ads and shoutouts, then they do one of two options: "Drunk Shimoda" segment followed by ads for other podcasts, or vice versa. I assume this is to prevent over-zealous ad skipping but really it doesn't take much effort.
40acres 9y ago
2017 for me was the year of the podcast. I came across podcasts such as The Daily from the New York Times, a 20 minute rundown of the day's biggest stories, and Hardcore History from Dan Carlin, 4-6 hour epics. Alongside podcasts on politics, tech, and more. Podcasts are consuming my TV, movie and music streaming time. My biggest issue are the ads, they are very generic and it seems the same types of companies dominate the space. Primarily services like zip recruiter, blue apron, and other subscription types. Also, the ad reads are very hit or miss when done by the podcast presenters. I think there is big business for a pod casting platform that can get the ad model right (personalized ads, professionally read) along with suggestions and curation of suggested podcasts.
- blang 9y ago
  Audio only media being dominated by a few large players is nothing new, it's been done on talk radio for years. Vermont Teddybear Company, Pajamagram (which I just found out is owned by Vermont Teddybear Company), and 1-800-Flowers ad reads are so burnt into my brain from years of listening to the radio and don't get me started about Cellino and Barnes or Foxwoods casino.
- criddell 9y ago
  The ads have worked on me. My family gets two Blue Apron meals a week and we bought a Casper dog bed. Some ads I find genuinely entertaining. For example, one podcast has very long audible podcasts that I enjoy listening to. I don't subscribe to that service, but I have bought books that they discuss. Most of the time though, I do skip through them. > I think there is big business for a pod casting platform that can get the ad model right No thanks. That means I'm being monitored beyond just counting my download of an MP3. I'm happy that the ads are about as personalized as the ads in a magazine.
Helloworldboy 9y ago
TRAIN BY DAY JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY NIGHT ALL DAY!
Merem 9y ago
This seems like a good opportunity for people to recommend some excellent and well-researched podcasts for various topics. "Hardcore History" by Dan Carlin is such an example and I wish it was easier to find other such podcasts of similar quality.
- drdrey 9y ago
  I have been eating these up: * https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/ https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/ * http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/ http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/
  - vxNsr 9y ago
    My two favs also. I'm a big fan of planet money as well. Another underrated show is Masters of Scale[0] I know it's a little more techie based which might be too much for people trying to escape that reality while listening to podcasts but I've found it very informative and I highly recommend it. [0] https://mastersofscale.com/ https://mastersofscale.com/
- ronnier 9y ago
  I've been enjoying these lately: * https://syntax.fm https://syntax.fm * https://hasspodcast.io https://hasspodcast.io
- lbotos 9y ago
  I enjoy: - "The Daily" by the NYT - High Quality, but it is skewed towards "liberal ideas". - "Who? Weekly" - This is a weird one for this crowd, but it's 2 people who are deep into celebrity culture and it's fun to get outside of my depth. - "Limited Resources" - MTG podcast with great in depth coverage of the limited format - "S-Town" - Fun narrative podcast, that opened some ethical questions by the end, but I think would def make this crowd cry.
- txt 9y ago
  Duncan Trussell Family Hour, Its All Happening - Zach Leary, Radiolab, Tangentially Speaking with Dr Christopher Ryan, The Dr Drew Show, The Joe Rogan Experience, WTF Podcast, Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank, MAPS Podcast, These are all A+ Podcasts.
dewey 9y ago
I feel like there’s a lot of great podcasts coming out in the last years. Every time I tell myself I’m getting back into podcasts I usually subscribe to 10 of them, then the backlog gets too huge and I delete everything again. My new strategy is just to subscribe to one or two. Usually ones with seasons and not weekly / monthly and one common topic which helps me stay attached to it. The ones I enjoyed most in the last weeks are: My best find this year, interviews with prisoners in San Quentin Prison produced by prisoners: https://www.earhustlesq.com/ https://www.earhustlesq.com/ Currently listening to this one and it feels like House of Cards as a podcast: http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html The famous: https://serialpodcast.org/season-one https://serialpodcast.org/season-one
- swozey 9y ago
  Slow Burn is incredible. I haven't enjoyed a serialized podcast as much as that since the first season of Serial. I haven't been able to find many other serialized podcasts in the same vein. Sad that Slow Burn just ended.
IronWolve 9y ago
People are dual broadcasting their video feeds in podcast version. Radio stations are also releasing their daily radio ep's in podcast form. Paid shows also release a audio only as a teaser to get people to subscribe. Its basically free promotion of your show, just release it in mp3 as a podcast and let it trend. Example, Joe Rogan has his 3 hour daily video show, but he also broadcasts his show in audio only. His mp3 podcast version is one of the most popular podcasts out. http://analytics.podtrac.com/industry-rankings/ http://analytics.podtrac.com/industry-rankings/
paule89 9y ago
Am I the only one that thinks more ads in podcasts are a bad thing? I am the 10 percent that skip ads. But more ads will force users to act soon
- WesleyLivesay 9y ago
  I think there is a breaking point, but considering that most people who watch TV (at least here in America) seem to be okay with watching 20% advertisements....I think there is a lot of headroom in the amount of ads on podcasts.
  - paule89 9y ago
    What I really find interesting. The really big podcasts in Germany are all ad free. Maybe patreon maybe donations via sepa bank transfer but no ads at all. There are exceptions yes. And that is ok. But what I find worse are platforms which try to hog the listeners to themselves. Spotify or Google play music podcast. The joy of using podcasts is the same as the internet you just need a podcatcher instead of a browser and can listen to anything you want anywhere anywhen. And also with apps with great user interfaces. How come someone would even want to listen to Spotify podcasts without 30 second skips, chapter marks and most importantly resumable playback where you stopped.
  - corobo 9y ago
    There might be something to that number but keep in mind watching 20% adverts probably has a lot of not really watching adverts but taking a moment to grab a coffee Podcasts are right in your earholes whether you're making a coffee or not. After the 4th Blue Apron ad you might start skipping
misiti3780 9y ago
I am a paying listener of Sam Harris's Waking Up - He has a lot of interesting guests and I get create book recommendations. I have also been enjoying the weeks and ezra klein's work, and heard "where it began" is good.
sgk284 9y ago
A little self-promotion here, but I've been working on an app for listening to, sharing, and talking about podcasts. I listen to well over 20 hours of podcasts a week and was always frustrated with how difficult it is to share episodes I've enjoyed. We have a very tiny beta right now with < 100 users, but if you like podcasts you might like it! (you can sign up at https://banter.fm https://banter.fm OR just email me, steve @ banter.fm)
- corobo 9y ago
  If you had a web version I could use without leaning too heavily on the "listening to" part I'd be much more interested As it stands my knee-jerk reaction when I clicked was "aw it's just a podcast app - I already got one of those" Good luck though!

64 points by ALee 9y ago

ALee 9y ago

Turns out Evan Williams was right, but much too early.

staunch 9y ago
Or maybe he set podcasting back 5 years by giving up on it ;-) If he was a true believer, he'd have realized Medium isn't the long-form content he was looking for. He didn't fully commit to Odeo, and that's why he gave up when Apple made its move. I still remember thinking "Fuck!" when I saw that "Try our new thing twttr" banner at the top of Odeo. I liked where they were headed. Twitter + Podcasts are all you need. No one really wants to read long-form text on a computer. Medium.com should have been Odeo 2.0 It's just so much richer to listen to a monologue, or socratic debate, in most cases. @ev should pivot Medium into being the biggest podcast publisher in the world, by sponsoring every high quality podcast and building a better version of patreon for podcasters. There's a lot of amazing people that should be podcasting and are not.
- kough 9y ago
  > Twitter + Podcasts are all you need. No one really wants to read long-form text on a computer. Medium was a bad idea. LOL I would obviously prefer reading long form text on a book, but do you really prefer audio to digital text? Story telling is one thing, but for most of what I'm reading I think a low-bandwidth, search-free environment (audio) is a bad match.
  - staunch 9y ago
    I learn a lot more from audiobooks, podcasts, and youtube videos these days than from any other source. I listen at 1.5 or 2x speed and find it as close to an "I know kung fu" experience as it gets.
    - RmDen 9y ago
      Agreed... difficult to read a book on a run or while walking to the train station
  - hnal943 9y ago
    Audio is much better for transient stuff like news, not so much for reference.

Eridrus 9y ago

I'm hoping someone rolls podcasts into a music subscription service so that I don't need to listen to these ads. I know that Spotify has done this a bit, but iirc their selection is pretty limited.

blfr 9y ago
The podcasts I listen to have live reads rather than separate ads so removing them would be difficult.
Splendor 9y ago
Stitcher Premium has done this but it's not for all podcasts.
staunch 9y ago
It's easier to just have 10% of listeners pay $10/year and go ad-free. Advertising is a pollutant and no longer necessary in the new at-scale world. When you have a small podcast, you can just do it for the love of it and not worry about money. If it gets big, you can get a small percentage of your listeners to give you money. The number of contributors should continue to rise for many years as more people discover how great podcasts can be.
- WesleyLivesay 9y ago
  The easier, and more lucrative, method is to setup some sort of Premium/Patreon/etc. method where you can either listen to the podcast, with ads, for free, or pay $X a month to support the show and get access to an ad-free feed.
  - staunch 9y ago
    There's no need for ads at all though. If you don't have many listeners, then there's not much ad revenue anyway. And once you have a lot of listeners, you only need a tiny percentage to fund the entire thing. It's totally viable to have 10% of listeners voluntarily pay while 90% of listeners freeload. And there needn't be any NPR guilt trip about it because they're not blowing millions on office space and executives. Any successful podcast can be a very financially successful business for a small number of people.

rcthompson 9y ago

From the article: > the few listeners who do skip ads continue to remain engaged with the episode, rather than dropping off at the first sign of an interruption. I'd bet that this is because fast-forwarding through podcast ads is pretty trivial. If podcast apps tried to do anything to make the midroll ads unskippable, you'd probably see a different pattern. (Here I'm thinking of things like online video ads and the TV networks' fight against the TiVo 30-second skip button.) For my part, I often skip through ads that I know have no relevance to me, but listen to ones that might have relevance. It also helps that many podcasts bring their own humor to the ads rather than just reading the ad copy verbatim, so there's still some entertainment value even if I know I'm not going to buy what they're selling.

dionidium 9y ago
Some podcasts have relatively short ads at unpredictable times. I listen to those 90% of the time. Some podcasts do live reads that are predictably 3-4 minutes long, which feels like an eternity, especially when they're doing the same ads they did last week. I skip those every time.
- wickawic 9y ago
  It seems like many podcasts also have an unspoken agreement with the listener about ads and make them easy to skip. Two popular podcasts come to mind: WTF with Marc Maron: always plays a guitar riff after the ad, which is easy to hear when skipping MBMBAM: has a “shoutout” section (listeners sending messages to each other) immediately after the ads, so if you skip into it you don’t really care if you miss a minute or two.
  - floren 9y ago
    MBMBAM does sponsor ads (read by the hosts), then the shoutout section which I hate, and then usually two ads by other podcasts in the network. Once the sponsor ads start, I can then simply skip ahead until I hear an unfamiliar voice, then more carefully jump forward until I get back to the show. This is pretty much essential for me, because both the shoutouts (jumbotrons) and the plugs for other podcasts are written with the "OMG QUIRKY!" knob turned up to 11 and I just can't handle it. Edit: The Greatest Generation (Star Trek podcast) is on the same network and has a somewhat similar format, except they don't do the ads until they're almost done. They talk about the episode, then do sponsor ads and shoutouts, then they do one of two options: "Drunk Shimoda" segment followed by ads for other podcasts, or vice versa. I assume this is to prevent over-zealous ad skipping but really it doesn't take much effort.

40acres 9y ago

2017 for me was the year of the podcast. I came across podcasts such as The Daily from the New York Times, a 20 minute rundown of the day's biggest stories, and Hardcore History from Dan Carlin, 4-6 hour epics. Alongside podcasts on politics, tech, and more. Podcasts are consuming my TV, movie and music streaming time. My biggest issue are the ads, they are very generic and it seems the same types of companies dominate the space. Primarily services like zip recruiter, blue apron, and other subscription types. Also, the ad reads are very hit or miss when done by the podcast presenters. I think there is big business for a pod casting platform that can get the ad model right (personalized ads, professionally read) along with suggestions and curation of suggested podcasts.

blang 9y ago
Audio only media being dominated by a few large players is nothing new, it's been done on talk radio for years. Vermont Teddybear Company, Pajamagram (which I just found out is owned by Vermont Teddybear Company), and 1-800-Flowers ad reads are so burnt into my brain from years of listening to the radio and don't get me started about Cellino and Barnes or Foxwoods casino.
criddell 9y ago
The ads have worked on me. My family gets two Blue Apron meals a week and we bought a Casper dog bed. Some ads I find genuinely entertaining. For example, one podcast has very long audible podcasts that I enjoy listening to. I don't subscribe to that service, but I have bought books that they discuss. Most of the time though, I do skip through them. > I think there is big business for a pod casting platform that can get the ad model right No thanks. That means I'm being monitored beyond just counting my download of an MP3. I'm happy that the ads are about as personalized as the ads in a magazine.

Helloworldboy 9y ago

TRAIN BY DAY JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY NIGHT ALL DAY!

Merem 9y ago

This seems like a good opportunity for people to recommend some excellent and well-researched podcasts for various topics. "Hardcore History" by Dan Carlin is such an example and I wish it was easier to find other such podcasts of similar quality.

drdrey 9y ago
I have been eating these up: * https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/ https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/ * http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/ http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/
- vxNsr 9y ago
  My two favs also. I'm a big fan of planet money as well. Another underrated show is Masters of Scale[0] I know it's a little more techie based which might be too much for people trying to escape that reality while listening to podcasts but I've found it very informative and I highly recommend it. [0] https://mastersofscale.com/ https://mastersofscale.com/
ronnier 9y ago
I've been enjoying these lately: * https://syntax.fm https://syntax.fm * https://hasspodcast.io https://hasspodcast.io
lbotos 9y ago
I enjoy: - "The Daily" by the NYT - High Quality, but it is skewed towards "liberal ideas". - "Who? Weekly" - This is a weird one for this crowd, but it's 2 people who are deep into celebrity culture and it's fun to get outside of my depth. - "Limited Resources" - MTG podcast with great in depth coverage of the limited format - "S-Town" - Fun narrative podcast, that opened some ethical questions by the end, but I think would def make this crowd cry.
txt 9y ago
Duncan Trussell Family Hour, Its All Happening - Zach Leary, Radiolab, Tangentially Speaking with Dr Christopher Ryan, The Dr Drew Show, The Joe Rogan Experience, WTF Podcast, Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank, MAPS Podcast, These are all A+ Podcasts.

dewey 9y ago

I feel like there’s a lot of great podcasts coming out in the last years. Every time I tell myself I’m getting back into podcasts I usually subscribe to 10 of them, then the backlog gets too huge and I delete everything again. My new strategy is just to subscribe to one or two. Usually ones with seasons and not weekly / monthly and one common topic which helps me stay attached to it. The ones I enjoyed most in the last weeks are: My best find this year, interviews with prisoners in San Quentin Prison produced by prisoners: https://www.earhustlesq.com/ https://www.earhustlesq.com/ Currently listening to this one and it feels like House of Cards as a podcast: http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html The famous: https://serialpodcast.org/season-one https://serialpodcast.org/season-one

swozey 9y ago
Slow Burn is incredible. I haven't enjoyed a serialized podcast as much as that since the first season of Serial. I haven't been able to find many other serialized podcasts in the same vein. Sad that Slow Burn just ended.

IronWolve 9y ago

People are dual broadcasting their video feeds in podcast version. Radio stations are also releasing their daily radio ep's in podcast form. Paid shows also release a audio only as a teaser to get people to subscribe. Its basically free promotion of your show, just release it in mp3 as a podcast and let it trend. Example, Joe Rogan has his 3 hour daily video show, but he also broadcasts his show in audio only. His mp3 podcast version is one of the most popular podcasts out. http://analytics.podtrac.com/industry-rankings/ http://analytics.podtrac.com/industry-rankings/

paule89 9y ago

Am I the only one that thinks more ads in podcasts are a bad thing? I am the 10 percent that skip ads. But more ads will force users to act soon

WesleyLivesay 9y ago
I think there is a breaking point, but considering that most people who watch TV (at least here in America) seem to be okay with watching 20% advertisements....I think there is a lot of headroom in the amount of ads on podcasts.
- paule89 9y ago
  What I really find interesting. The really big podcasts in Germany are all ad free. Maybe patreon maybe donations via sepa bank transfer but no ads at all. There are exceptions yes. And that is ok. But what I find worse are platforms which try to hog the listeners to themselves. Spotify or Google play music podcast. The joy of using podcasts is the same as the internet you just need a podcatcher instead of a browser and can listen to anything you want anywhere anywhen. And also with apps with great user interfaces. How come someone would even want to listen to Spotify podcasts without 30 second skips, chapter marks and most importantly resumable playback where you stopped.
- corobo 9y ago
  There might be something to that number but keep in mind watching 20% adverts probably has a lot of not really watching adverts but taking a moment to grab a coffee Podcasts are right in your earholes whether you're making a coffee or not. After the 4th Blue Apron ad you might start skipping

misiti3780 9y ago

I am a paying listener of Sam Harris's Waking Up - He has a lot of interesting guests and I get create book recommendations. I have also been enjoying the weeks and ezra klein's work, and heard "where it began" is good.

sgk284 9y ago

A little self-promotion here, but I've been working on an app for listening to, sharing, and talking about podcasts. I listen to well over 20 hours of podcasts a week and was always frustrated with how difficult it is to share episodes I've enjoyed. We have a very tiny beta right now with < 100 users, but if you like podcasts you might like it! (you can sign up at https://banter.fm https://banter.fm OR just email me, steve @ banter.fm)

corobo 9y ago
If you had a web version I could use without leaning too heavily on the "listening to" part I'd be much more interested As it stands my knee-jerk reaction when I clicked was "aw it's just a podcast app - I already got one of those" Good luck though!