When Do We Know There Are Too Many Podcasts?

 According to PodcastHosting.org, there are about 1.5 million podcasts with 34 million episodes floating in the audio universe. 

When you consider the magnitude of those numbers, we have to ask: Is having 1.5 million podcasts a positive trend? A sign of saturation? Reassurance that podcasting is one of the last democratic media forms where anyone -- from your grill master neighbor to your quilting-crazy Aunt -- can broadcast into the ether of the media multiverse.

Photo by BedexpStock

 First, let's take a quick look at the current podcast market and podcast demographics. Again, according to PodcastHosting.org:

• 50 percent of all U.S. homes are podcast fans.
• 155 million Americans have listened to a podcast.
• 104 million Americans listen to a podcast at least once a month.
• 68 million Americans listen to podcasts at least once a week.
• Podcast listeners are divided evenly among male and female listeners.
• Just about 50 percent of podcast listeners are under 35 years old. 
• Podcast listeners have higher incomes than non-listeners. 
• Podcast listeners are 30 percent more likely to have a four-year college degree than non-listeners.
• One reason why podcasts only saw a short-lived decrease in listening and downloading at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 is because -- despite conventional wisdom about podcasts being strictly a commute time-killer -- 90 percent of podcasts are listened to in the home.

These clear trends showing podcast listening as a permanent and growing media format obscure the fact that podcasting has been around for about 20 years, with many of those early-adopter years spent in a nuclear winter of listener base famine, deliberate neglect by advertisers, limited paths to monetization, and listeners restricted to desktop, laptop, and ipod options for consumption.

Who wants to be a millionaire

What's driving those astounding numbers of podcasts? 

First, conceiving, planning, recording a podcast can still be accomplished with a small investment of money and a somewhat larger cost in sweat equity. Podcast microphones can be inexpensive, audio software programs like Audacity are free, and hosting is offered free by several companies.

Second, the low barrier to entry enables people with little or no audio, media or production experience to throw their hat into the ring. More than 80 percent of all podcasts started in the last five years are works of people with no experience in podcasting, audio engineering, hosting, interviewing, writing and website development. 

What makes podcasting so unique as a media format is that even with the odds stacked against them, podcast amateurs score successes all time. 

For example, the winner of the 2019 Best History Podcast was The History Chicks, which is hosted by Kansas natives Beckett Graham and Susan Vollenweider. Beckett had been frustrated with the lack of online coverage of women’s history. In 2010, Beckett approached her friend Susan – a Kansas City Star columnist and freelance writer – and together over several kitchen table meetings, they created a slightly irreverent podcast and website focused on women’s contributions to history.

Graham and Vollenweider played the long game and now their podcast pulls strong ratings, has a tremendously loyal fan base and is monetized by the perspicacious co-hosts. 

Yet for every success, there are these sobering facts:

•  About 12 percent of podcasts have only published a single episode.
•  Only six percent of podcasts have made it past two episodes.
•   Three percent of podcasts have been able to generate a second season.
  

When Amazon, Spotify and Sony bankroll podcasts, they may not be over-the-top successes but by virtue of their visibility, the presence of a celebrity, the money spent on production values, and pre-show surveys, these podcasts either stay around or, at times, morph into another podcast. 

Take comedian Paula Poundstone, for example. Poundstone’s first effort at her own podcast – Live From The Poundstone Institute – took advantage of her penchant for questioning the expertise of scientific studies on NPR's successful and long-running Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. Live From The Poundstone Institute podcast interviewed a scientific expert on each episode and featured Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me panelist Adam Felber, who was a long-time writer for Real Time with Bill Maher and has written for TV, movies, stage, and even a six-book mini-series for Marvel Comics as well as a novel called Schrödinger’s Ball.

 The chemistry between the two was immediate and the clash between the intellectually rambling Poundstone and the focused, quick-witted Felber gave the show its primary interest value. Live From The Poundstone Institute began and ended in 2017, but it was clear that there was indeed a seedling of a successful podcast there that simply needed more conceptual potting soil.

 In the second half of 2018 Poundstone returned with Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone and the audience reaction based on listener numbers have been impressive. Right from the first few episodes, a listener could discern that the podcast resembled an audio three-ring circus with simultaneous activities bombarding the listeners with stimuli.

Amateur hour closed

So is podcasting now another media format fenced off and reserved for large media players and experienced professionals?

In a word, no. 

In the earlier, medieval age of podcasting, aspiring podcasters had to battle both launching their podcast and then struggling to raise the visibility of podcasting so that they can attract listeners. 

Today, based on the numbers recorded at the beginning of the article, today's aspiring podcasters enter with a maturing market and a built-in audience of at least 100 million people. For today's new podcasters, their road to success is paved with ways to separate themselves from the podcasting logjam and build a large and growing audience always in a search of the next Serial.

Today's new podcasters are buoyed by the growth of Super Listeners. According to Edison Research, Super Listeners are defined as Americans 18+ who listen to five or more hours of podcasts weekly.

Even better news for today's established and aspiring podcasters is that almost half, 49 percent, of podcast Super Listeners agree that “Advertising on a podcast is the best way for a brand to reach you.” This finding was up from 37 percent in 2019 - the biggest mover in the survey. Podcast Super Listeners are exposed to the most amount of podcast advertising and provide invaluable insight as to how ads are perceived in podcasts.

Moreover, Edison Research reports that over half, 54 percent, of Super Listeners, said that hearing an ad on a podcast (compared to other places) makes them more likely to purchase a product, up from 46 percent from last year.

Testament to the positive impact of podcast advertising is seen in the percentage increase of Super Listeners that agree with the following statements:

• “Your opinion of a company is more positive when you hear it mentioned on one of the podcasts you regularly listen to” increased from 44% in 2019 to 49% in 2020.

• “When price and quality are equal, you prefer to buy products from companies that advertise on or sponsor the podcasts you regularly listen to” increased from 43% in 2019 to 46% in 2020.

• “You pay more attention to advertising on podcasts than on other forms of media” increased to from 44% in 2019 to 48% in 2020.

• 33% of Super Listeners say they pay more attention to host-read ads than other types of ads in podcasts.

Finally, Super Listeners are consuming more podcast content than ever before. In last year’s survey, Super Listeners reported consuming an average of 9.8 hours of podcasts per week, this year the average increased to 10.5 hours per week.

Going long

 In the early podcast days around the turn of the century, listeners were few and far between with modulated expectations about a new medium that sounded a lot like talk radio. 

By contrast, today's listeners are much more abundant, but their expectations about the quality of a podcast's production values, narrative excellence, and entertainment currency are consequently much higher. 

How can new podcasters break through the sonic clutter and reduce that depressing stat that only 12 percent of podcasts have only published a single episode?

"Successful podcasters play the long game," says podcast consultant George Witt. "The long game means producing content, consistently over time. The first episode of The Joe Rogan Experience was released in 2009. So was Marc Maron's WTF. The oldest episode in the How Stuff Works feed is from 2008."

Witt continues, "Remember, podcasting is a medium based on loyalty, habit, and an ongoing opt-in relationship with your audience."