Four Dangers That Could Cripple The Popularity Of Podcasts

For those readers who recall the old days of podcasting, please remember this moment in time. You’d listen to a podcast on your iPod or Zune player (FYI: It was the Microsoft iPod) and then turn to a family member and say, “I listened to a podcast the other day called Grammar Girl, and she said you could end a sentence with a preposition.”

Your reaction from your family members is twofold. First, don’t ever repeat that blasphemy about ending a sentence with a preposition.

Second, when you said the word “podcast,” it’s as if your family heard, “Frank is listening to his imaginary friend, Guido, again.”

Today, podcasts have elbowed their way into the national conversation. Joe Rogan, Serial, Doctor John, and more are easily recognizable podcasts people can relate to, even if they haven’t heard them firsthand.

So podcasts have made the big leagues. TV and radio, move over. Podcasts are now center stage. And that’s good news for long-time podcast enthusiasts like myself. We can now “come out of the closet.”

Friends and family no longer believe you need electroshock therapy. Unless, of course, you’re listening to Rudy Giuliani’s podcast and say to yourself, “you know, Rudy makes total sense in everything he says.”

In that case, please seek professional help.

The consensus is that podcasts are “the next big thing.”

I hope that is true because I love the medium.

But I’m frightened.  

Why do you ask?

Remember laser discs? How about 3D TVs? How about the recent Quibi experiment in short-form subscriber-based video with Jeffrey Katzenberg leading the charge?

          Ask any Baby Boomer if they ever thought Sears would end up in the trash pile of department stores. Could the “Boomers” conceive of a world where a weekend did not involve a trip to Blockbuster?        

So with those caveats in mind, and as a public service, I am presenting to you the “Four Dangers” that could cripple the popularity of podcasts.

 # 1: Too Much Content

 There’s a widely repeated statistic that claims there are more than two million podcasts. Numerous articles have debunked that claim by sifting through the podcast trash pile and excavating about 500,000 active podcasts. That’s still an enormous number.

Keep in mind that scripted TV shows number well below a thousand, and radio shows excluding talk, sports talk, and music are limited to a few hundred. And most of those shows are more recognizable as podcasts.

Examining the major podcast networks such as Spotify, Vox, Acast, iHeart, and many more, we find about five thousand podcasts. Consider that – according to Edison Research – the average weekly podcast listener subscribes to six shows and listens to seven shows per week. About 100 million Americans listened to at least one podcast last month.

These numbers point out the incredible potential in growth in the podcast listener base for these large podcast networks. Therefore, more shows can convert more non-listeners to podcast fans.

However, as podcast networks and independent podcasters flood the network with new shows, choices explode for casual, weekly, and super listeners.

While marketers will insist that more choice is always better for the consumer, science begs to differ. In his 2004 best-selling book The Paradox Of Choice, author/psychologist Barry Schwarz argued that limiting consumer choices can actually reduce consumer anxiety and, ironically, increase sales. Schwarz argues that brand extensions such as 14 kinds of jelly, 12 types of peanut butter, or 15 kinds of bread can paralyze shoppers. Schwarz explains that too much choice can make people feel powerless and frustrated because choosing one of the many options available means giving up the other opportunities.

With podcast networks racing to release new podcasts every week, the listener’s ability to choose – based on a finite amount of listening time – among this expanding roster of podcasts can cause anxiety and frustration.

I am a podcast reviewer. That’s what I do. I’m sent hundreds of new podcasts a year. Trying to listen to them and write reviews on a fraction of new podcasts is a Sisyphean task. The rock will always roll back down the hill. For podcast enthusiasts, attempting to listen to the torrent of new podcasts released weekly can be an exercise in frustration.

True-crime podcasts are a perfect example. Podtrac rankings show that true-crime podcasts dominate the top download rankings. That popularity comes, however, at a price. With podcasting now echoing the copycat mantra of TV programming, podcast networks are tripping over each other to develop, produce, and release true-crime podcasts.

Soon, there will be so many true-crime podcasts that new shows will cover more mundane true crimes such as jaywalking, loitering, littering, and even driving with a brake light out.

Sadly, independently produced true-crime podcasts that deserve an audience are consigned to obscurity because of the factory-assembled true-crime podcasts that reproduce like Russian-controlled Facebook profiles.

The Murder Sheet, for example, is a true-crime podcast that beams its light on heinous crimes in the fast food and restaurant industry. The podcast is not simply a voyeuristic romp through gore but an insightful slice of social and economic inequities that face this nation. Check out a recent episode about execution-style murders at a Wendy’s in New York City over 20 years ago. Despite the true-crime blizzard, the podcast is drawing a solid listener base but deserves more attention.

For years, podcasting resisted the temptation to attract listeners and boost downloads by copying the “Fox News” template and developing content that appeals to a specific political belief system. Typically, radio was the province for Rush Limbaugh types, where the more outrageous the “statements” were, the higher the ratings. Podcasting has now succumbed to this political maelstrom, and shows proliferate with presidentially pardoned felons and other disreputable types spouting preposterous conspiracy theories to garner listeners.

Shows that offer moderation and political common sense such as Left, Right & Center, The Political Junkie, The Purple Principle, and Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates attract a loyal audience but nowhere near the downloads that political podcasts that pander to a political base.

Finally, as a harbinger of my next danger, TV or film celebrities and social media influencers have parachuted into the podcast universe with their carry-on luggage containing narcissism, inane chatter, and an overdose of middle school humor.

 

# 2: Too many Celebrities and Social Media Influencers

 With the growth of advertising and downloads, podcasts have attracted celebrities from other media formats and social media. Since social media “influencers” are typically not the most self-reflective people, these podcasts have an "enough about you, how about me" quality to them.

Most of these podcasts follow an all-too-familiar pattern. A social media personality – typically with a partner – blabber on about pop culture, sex, overshare about their personal relationships and lamely attempt to brand their lifestyle so the listeners will emulate it and purchase the appropriately positioned products.

By contrast, TV celebrities seem to want to clone Marc Maron’s WTF podcast and interview their circle of friends in some room of their massive home. However, they often lack Maron’s delicious caustic wit, so consequently, these podcasts have a daytime TV ambiance with all the accompanying self-revelatory schlock and empty-headed prattling.

Let’s look at a successful celebrity podcast, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard. The intellectually frenetic Shepard is blessed with snappy wit, peripatetic intelligence, and the unique celebrity ability to conduct an interview without making it about “him.”

Shepard, however, enjoys one of the best-kept secrets for the podcast’s success -- its co-host, actor Monica Padman. When you read the podcast’s website and check out the ABOUT section, there is no mention of Padman at all. There’s no doubt, however, without the skills of Padman, the podcast may still attract a sizable audience but not nearly be as good. Padman is funny, insightful, a voice of reason, and a fabulous “straight-man” for the goofy Shepard. Without Padman, Shepard would be forced to travel the Joe Rogan route to liquor up his guests, so he seems much brighter than them and then say something outrageous ever once in a while to delight his listener base.

 # 3: Too many ads

 According to IAB’s U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study, prepared by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) and released at the IAB 2021 Podcast Upfront, podcast advertising will grow as much in the next two years as it did in the past decade. 

Driven by a robust fourth quarter (+37% year-over-year), podcast advertising revenues climbed to $842 million in 2020, up from $708 million in the year prior.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) comprises more than 650 leading media companies, brands, and technology firms responsible for selling, delivering and optimizing digital ad marketing campaigns.

According to the report, marketers valued the ability to quickly switch out messaging as-needed: dynamically inserted ads, which enable ad placement at the point of listener download, increased revenue share from 48 percent to 67 percent, year over year. Announcer-read / pre-produced ads, which also put more control in buyers’ hands, increased share from 27 percent to 35 percent. Host-read continues to represent over half of the revenue by ad type, which illustrates buyers’ desire to tap the direct, meaningful relationship creators have with their listeners.  Half of the podcast ads lasted longer than 30 seconds in length.

In the comparatively short media history of podcasting, host-read ads dominated its early days. Recent research from the IAB indicates that listeners find real value in those types of ads. Let’s look at host-read ads in podcasting and explore their genesis from more established media formats, such as radio and TV.

 As previously mentioned, host-read ads are standard in the podcast industry. Ten years ago, when most podcast ads revolved around mattresses, Audible, sheets with a mind-blowing thread count, and debt consolidation, podcast hosts excelled at host-read ads with an enthusiasm that a dynamically inserted ad couldn’t match.

Even today, hosts like David Plotz of Slate’s Political Gabfest, Mike Carruthers from Something You Should Know, and even Paula Poundstone with her trademark absurdist humor excel at selling products and doing so with integrity, conviction, and humor.

There is an implicit understanding among loyal listeners that these podcast hosts are not experts on the product or service features. After all, when Roman Mars of 99% Invisible extols the virtues of Progressive Insurance, I do not expect Roman to answer my specific questions on my ideal deductible amount, when I should drop collision on an older vehicle, and how bundling can save me money.

I expect from Mr. Mars that Progressive Insurance is a legitimate insurance company that will not take my money and head off to the Cayman Islands without sending me the insurance card for my glove box.

In essence, I am safe with his recommendation. They may not be the best or cheapest insurance company for my car and home, but they are competitively priced and offer some acceptable level of coverage benefits.

David Brown, the host of Wondery’s Business Wars, is outstanding when he describes the benefits of various advertisers like Monday.com and relates the competitive battleground he describes on the podcast narrative to the business service he’s selling in the host-read ad.

 There are still a few host-read ads that pitch products on questionable efficacy or laughable benefits. Without naming host names, you know these people who push male enhancement pills that can “amp up the rage” so that male listeners turn around and punch the person behind them in the self-checkout line just because they can.

Or the host that hawks some vital body part from an endangered species so that you can regrow hair, lose that belly fat that is already 80 percent ranch Doritos, or remove wrinkles overnight.

Joe Rogan has been selling supplements for years, but to his credit, he does so with guests extolling the product who have credentials and talk intelligently about nutrition.

But it’s important to recognize that all host-read ads are not created equal,

The “ad-lib” ads where the host does not read from a script but uses their unique style to emphasize the key points seem to be the best received by listeners. I’ve listened to some of these ad hoc ads by a host where the same narrative storytelling skills used for the show’s content bleeds into the product pitch. It often makes “the sales pitch” a lot more fun and even compelling.

Scripted ads keep the host constrained to pre-programmed words, but, in this case, it’s how the host pumps in genuine enthusiasm into the carefully curated words that can make or break an ad.

The best podcast hosts who read ads have a basic understanding that podcast listeners are typically on the go – commuting, cleaning, exercising, walking – so the goal of the ad is not an immediate purchase. It would be rare for a podcast listener to cut short a five-mile run to apply for a Capital One card or sign up for a bunch of college-level courses.

Instead, a successful podcast host-read ad provides interested listeners with a specific call to action and a convenient way to take that next step toward a purchase. A phone number, website URL, access code, app download are all more actionable items that can streamline the purchase process for a podcast listener.

What sets podcasts apart from TV when structuring ads is that podcast hosts have earned the credibility from their listeners that celebrities and athletes could never capture when fronting for products on the TV screen. If host-read ads on podcasts diminish in number and quality, it will be yet another reshaping of podcasts to be more like TV and radio. And that would be a crime.

After all, we could see the three co-hosts from Slate’s Political Gabfest – David, Plotz, Emily Bazelon, and John Dickerson – travel the nation and challenge regular people to scholarly debates and then sell them public speaking courses when they inevitably fail.

Radio has included ads for about a century and has a long history of program announcers and hosts reading ads. According to a 2012 NPR All Things Considered show, the first-ever radio commercial was broadcast in August 1922 on WEAF in New York City. The ad was for the Hawthorne Heights apartments in Jackson Heights, Queens. Since then, host or announcer read ads on radio have been a staple of advertising. There has been a bifurcation in radio ads. Pre-programmed ads tend to dominate on music radio, mainly because music radio stations have become so homogenized. The radio industry has consolidated into a few large companies such as iHeart Radio, Cumulus, and Entercom. In satellite radio, Sirius XM has the industry to itself.

Talk radio stations, by contrast, offer a generous offering of host-read ads. For example, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh read his ads for years, ranging from nutritional supplements to ID theft sponsors.

There’s no doubt that ads on podcasts have increased in number and length. That’s to be expected when advertisers realize that the listener base is large enough to juice sales. Moreover, numerous studies have shown that podcast listeners as a group are more likely to purchase products or services advertised on podcasts than users of TV, radio, or the internet.

A decade ago, podcast advertisers expected to pay a lot for a small listener base. Today, the equation has shifted, and the surging numbers of listeners justify the “ad spend” for podcasts.

The question is: When will too many ads discourage listeners? If you think that cannot happen, just look at radio and TV. On radio, extended chunks of ads for car dealerships and other local businesses of dubious value have driven listeners to either station surf in search of music or retreat to satellite radio, where they bath in their 70s love songs spa during their entire commute.

Does it seem that TV has increased ad time over the years? That’s easy to prove. Watch an episode of Star Trek: The Original Show from 1967. The runtime is about 51 minutes. Now, check out an episode of Star Trek Enterprise, which ran in syndication from 2001 until 2005. The runtime was about 42 minutes. What happened to that missing nine minutes? Commercials. That’s right. Ad time increased on TV by more than 15 percent.

What was the fallout of that avalanche of more ads on broadcast TV? First, viewers fled to cable TV. Then, when cable decided to head down the rabbit hole of increased ad revenue via more ads, viewers retreated to streaming services.

If podcast listeners suddenly find their favorite podcast – such as The Daily, Office Ladies, or Stuff You Should Know – bursting with ads every few minutes, you could make the case that listeners have nowhere to go. It’s like when a movie you love – A Few Good Men – is showing on broadcast TV. When a commercial break begins, you can change the oil on your SUV, check the fridge to ensure that all your fruits are organic, and go on a search and destroy mission for gluten. And you’ll still have time to make it back to your 65-inch TV screen before the movie returns.

You’re trapped watching a 138-minute movie on TV that will take 180 minutes to play to its conclusion.

“I want the truth.”

“You cannot handle the truth.”

In reality, the truth is that there are too many commercials interrupting this movie.

If ads begin to intrude on podcasts, listeners could flee to podcasts with fewer ads. After all, there are thousands of true-crime podcasts. If the one you enjoy has too many ads, you can easily find another podcast with just as many grisly murders without the ads. Don’t like the ads on your tech podcast? No worries. There are about 18,000 other tech podcasts you can sample without the car insurance ads.

If just one ad on a podcast upsets you to the point of podcast rage – which is when you suddenly begin tailgating the Prius in front of you – the lure of audiobooks with a pristine ad-free universe may be irresistible.

Finally – and leading to our fourth danger – listeners will escape to podcast subscription services where ads are eliminated or restricted.

 # 4: Paywalls

For podcasts, monetization derives from one of three major pathways. First, subscriptions – backed by the pocketbooks of “big podcast,” namely Apple, Spotify, and Amazon-- have invaded the safe “free” space once designated for podcasts. To be clear, a subscription model can offer advantages to listeners. The benefits include content valuable enough to be paid for, a stable and reliable listening ecosystem, subscription bundling that enables listeners to access streaming music or video content, and, of course, the freedom from intrusive ads.

          It was the advent of Luminary and its disastrous rollout that convinced many that podcast paywalls would be as reviled as luggage fees.

It didn’t help that the geniuses at Luminary fumbled the rollout like an NFL running back with the hands of stone. Not only did Luminary’s app not include all its premium shows, but also the company scoured the internet for all of the free podcasts it could find, making them available in the app.

After continual screw-ups with servers and podcasts’ show notes,

Luminary decided it didn’t need permission to include these other podcasts in their app. The blowback was immediate. The New York Times requested that The Daily not appear in the app. Spotify's shows would also be excluded. Once the app launched, more high-profile podcasters joined in the exodus, including Joe Rogan and shows in the PodcastOne network. Twitter users set their hair on fire, and it wasn’t even over a Trump tweet.

          Many in the podcast industry saw the failure of Luminary as a sign that listeners would not abide by a paywall. Recent podcast chess moves have largely disproved that notion.

          Of course, Apple managed to approach Luminary incompetence when it rolled out its subscription service in June 2021 and then spent months battling a spider’s web on technical gaffes.

          Spotify joined the podcast fray two years ago in earnest and quickly became the podcast media whipping person. “Big company crowds out little podcasters” remained a common refrain among media types and social media ax grinders. Financially, the company’s second-quarter results, released in July 2021, justified the investment in podcasting. Total monthly active users grew 22 percent to 365 million in the quarter (a gain of nine million), just below its aggressive forecast, and revenue and profits increased substantially.

          The question remains: Can any company develop a sustainable subscription model? The answer is: It depends.

          Companies like Wondery and Slate have developed similar hybrid models that take advantage of listeners’ disdain for ads.

          Wondery is the home of many popular podcasts. I listen to Business Wars every week, but they are also well known for Blood Ties, Murder in Hollywood, Bad Batch, Dr. Death, and WeCrashed, among many others. Twenty of Wondery’s shows have reached # 1 on Apple Podcasts, and Wondery is the only publisher to have simultaneously claimed the # 1 and # 2 “Top New Podcasts” slots on an annual Podtrac ranker.

          With any subscription service, the value proposition will come down to what it costs. Wondery Plus is $4.99 per month or $34.99 per year. I was shocked at how inexpensive the annual option is priced. It works out to less than $3 per month, and if you listen to a lot of Wondery shows, you’ll find a lot of value in it.

          Wondery has found an appealing model with its premium service. They offer almost all of their shows for free with advertising. Still, with their Plus plan, you can get additional content, early episode releases, ad-free options, and the ability to subscribe in the podcast app of your choice.

          Recently, Wondery Plus – owned now by Amazon – announced that it would become part of the Apple subscription service. That is an interesting development, given the animosity between tech giants Amazon and Apple.

          Slate offers a “Plus” service that can eliminate ads for some of its most popular podcasts, notably Slate’s Hit Parade podcast for music chart nerds, of which there is a large number, thanks to the redoubtable Chris Molanphy.

          What sets Slate apart from other podcast producers is that the company blends a vibrant podcast network with a wealth of outstanding digital journalism, with well-written articles that espouse a largely progressive cultural and political agenda.

          In many ways, Slate’s business strategy is more akin to Vox and The New York Times. Vox successfully manages its digital fingerprint via The Verge, SB Nation, Eater, Polygon for gamers, Intelligencer, Vulture, and more brands, while cultivating its print legacy brand with New York magazine and pushing carefully into video with its YouTube channel, and Explained on Netflix, among other video projects.

          The New York Times has successfully leveraged its popular podcast properties to drive digital subscriptions. The result has been increasing subscription numbers and growing revenue for the once exclusively print-based “Gray Lady.”

          What have we learned so far from the various subscription strategies executed or bungled by Luminary, Apple, Wondery, Slate, and many more media networks?

          First, a Luminary-type paywall with podcasts locked up tight like in a super max content prison will most likely not work. In the TV universe, Netflix faces increasing competition from “later-to-the-party’ streaming services like Paramount Plus, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Still, Netflix only has to contend with a handful of paid streaming competitors.

          A podcast subscription-only service would battle tens of thousands of free podcasts, which often would provide comparable or superior content and narrative storytelling.

          Second, TV streaming services impact podcast subscription services since viewers and listeners can only sustain a limited number of paid subscription services or the free time to watch or listen to all this flood of content.

          Third, while podcasts continue their upward trajectory in capturing “ears,” they are still a long way from dominating the national conversation via social media, the workplace, or the family dinner table. After all, the long and tortuous path to a Jeopardy permanent host to replace the much-beloved Alex Trebek has captured eyes and ears for months. By contrast, when the most prominent proponent of independently owned podcasts – Roman Mars – sold his 99% Invisible podcast company to satellite giant SiriusXM, the grumbling, catcalling, and boos came from a small subset of the media and American content users.

          Finally, the podcast networks uniquely positioned to design a clever mouse trap for subscription-type services are the media companies that own properties in different media. The contenders are Vox, The New York Times, Amazon, Apple, SiriusXM, Cumulus Media (Westwood One), and Spotify with its music subscription service.

          For any podcast network thinking of starting a paywall with no means of escape for listeners, they should remember that video streaming services often have viewer turnover rates that approach 40 percent. One reason why streamers like Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus stopped releasing an entire season of a show was that viewers would binge like addicts then cancel the service after the last episode.

 

The podcaster next door

 Technology is already making it easier for people to begin their own podcasts. So far, we’ve been introduced to Spotify’s Music + Talk service, companies like Cleanfeed that enable users to create a podcast via their browser, and Facebook with its live audio competitor to the popular Clubhouse.

          Simply put, the general public will find it easier than ever to create and distribute their own podcasts. Like website templates where no coding experience will be needed, aspirational podcasters will simply need a microphone and the urge to say something they think people want to hear.

          It’s instructive to look at the democratization of videos via YouTube and TikTok. Forgetting the conspiracy nutballs and inveterate haters, easy-to-create amateur videos have mostly enhanced the video universe, from the how-to instructional videos to the dance-a-thons on TikTok.

          Podcasting for the masses holds a similar promise, despite the ever-present risk of political extremism, racial bullying, and a raging river of misinformation promulgated by “what’s in it for me” types.

I want to end with an observation about two podcasts that serve as the Promethean models to demonstrate how podcasts can change the way we think about our world on a personal and sensual level.

99% Invisible, the Roman Mars podcast about design, galvanizes our visual sense to interpret what we see in vastly different and more complex ways. For example, in an episode about the invention of air conditioning, we learn that Willis Carrier’s invention not only gave millions of people relief from the heat but also dramatically affected how buildings and homes were designed and built.

Twenty Thousand Hertz by Dallas Taylor directs our cognitive horsepower toward an overlooked and underappreciated sense – hearing. His podcast about sound is a sonic masterpiece, with episodes that range from our home appliances' sounds to why commercial jingles are so infectious. In the audio-only universe of podcasting, Taylor becomes the shaman to better interpret the sounds that assault our ears.

Where will podcasting go in the future? Vanity and ego prompt some to offer predictions and forecasts that hum with certainty. The truth is that we don’t know what shape podcasting will take in the future.

What we do know is that we are at the beginning.

English author Rudyard Kipling once said, “We are the opening verse of the opening page of the chapter of endless possibilities.”