While “superfan” is an existing segment researcher Luminate uses to classify 18% of U.S. music audiences who heavily listen to audio, Spotify’s “super listener” classification is so strict it only includes 2% of listeners on the platform. The classification focuses on the kind of listener who consumes an artist’s music 20 times more often than those who simply listen to a track because it was recommended or it was included in a playlist. Super listeners are 9 times more likely to share music with their friends and account for 50% of artist ticket sales initiated through Spotify. One has to wonder how high the super-listener percentage is in podcasting, given podcast audiences inherently are practiced at committing even more time to full episodes of podcasts than music listeners are to individual songs.
What I Learned From The Longest-running One-Person Show in Vegas by Tom Webster
During a recent vacation to Italy, Tom Webster attended a lecture from magician Mac King, who has run a one-man show in Vegas for 20 years. An important lesson podcasting could benefit from is King’s response to a question about how he always seems so fresh while doing his act. King repeats the same effects in the same order hundreds of times a year, but he also takes great care to incorporate audience participation. As Webster says, everything an audience gives a performer is a gift, and it’s an opportunity for the performer to demonstrate they are actually listening and care for said audience. Something even podcasts that don’t have live shows can take advantage of by incorporating some live element into their work, even if it’s simply using YouTube premiers to hang out in a live text chat while audiences watch the latest episode of the podcast for the first time.
International comedy festival Just for Laughs has announced they will be giving the chat podcast Handsome its Podcast of the Year award during the festival’s annual awards ceremony. While not world-shifting, it is worth noting that just three years ago ‘Podcast of the Year’ was not a category at Just For Laughs. Comedy podcasting is a juggernaut and it’s becoming more and more likely a name-brand comedian has at least a standing invitation on a podcast or two, if not actively producing a show of their own.
As for the rest of the news…
- Triton Digital has published the June edition of their Canada Podcast Ranker, including CBC / Radio-Canada remaining on top of Top Sales Network with 2.2 million average weekly downloads.
- Podcast Advertising Playbook host Heather Osgood has a new interview with Media Bodies founder Ed Fuller discussing why podcast ads aren’t just another media buy.
- Motivational speaker Mick Hunt has signed his show Mick Unplugged to Realm for exclusive distribution and representation for multichannel monetization.
- Writer and critic Ben Sixsmith offers five “do as I say, not as I do” bits of advice to podcasters based on mistakes he’s made as a podcast guest.
- TIME has published a top 100 podcasts of all time list, causing hot debate on social media as readers note a lack of fiction entries.
- For a bit of fun to end out your day: Tammy Rogers on TomsGuide has a list of five “secret” features within Spotify you might not have stumbled across yet.
