What Would You Do If You Actually Loved Podcasting? by Tom Webster
After years of researching what drives podcaster burnout, Webster argues there’s a common methodology that needs to be reversed. Most podcast development cycles can be charted out with the core words behind those steps: WHAT, HOW, WHY, WHO. A system that should be reversed so it starts with who you want to make content for. Not a mythologized audience built from data, as an individual podcaster has the superpower of actually choosing one specific person they can cater to. Why would that person listen to this hypothetical podcast? How should it be formatted? At that point the “what” (what should go in the episodes themselves) is largely an automated process because the steps have already been taken to figure out the show’s audience, what they want, and what format best meets their needs. If a producer podcasts like they love podcasting, they would innately desire to know their audience. Connect with them, engage with them, understand what they want from the podcast. A process that, if done right, creates an endless font of ideas and creative fulfilment that feasibly could stave off burnout indefinitely.
Now that we’ve calmed down from the excitement of Delroy Lindo finally getting an Oscar nomination, it’s podcast awards time. This year the Ambies from The Podcast Academy will be presented at On Air Fest the night of February 23rd in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Academy has 32 categories to judge this year, with the full list of nominees provided in the linked Hollywood Reporter piece. Categories including Best Ad Read and the Podcast Advertisers Innovator Award, both sponsored by Sounds Profitable this year.
Netflix Is Rebuilding Its App to Own More of the Day by Kirby Grines
Netflix may be big, but they’re not a daily driver app for most users. Reportedly the company is testing out an updated version of the app with a focus on vertical video feeds and short-form clips to get users scrolling similarly to TikTok and YouTube Shorts. A mindset that dovetails naturally into their recent video podcasting investment, as an in-house vertical video feed acts as an advertising engine to drive people to full episodes. Especially when the compelling clips of the larger episode are natively in the same app as said full episode, instead of a shortform social media platform that requires the user to back out of the clip, search the podcast name, and then commit to watching it.
Oxford Road Finds That “Mental Health” Dominates “Fitness” In Podcast Ad Performance
The new ORBIT Top 15 looks at top-performing self-improvement podcasts using $1.6 billion in campaign data spread across over 500 advertisers. New Years’ Resolutions mean January is a big month in the world of fitness, but Oxford Road zoomed out to a year’s worth of data to see where listeners’ interest actually lie with self-improvement. Key findings include the idea mental health is a steady performer year-round, resisting the end-of-January slump that gym and diet ads receive once resolution energy burns off. Health & fitness podcasts proved to be eight times more volatile than shows focusing on mental health, with big wins being equally punctuated with big misses. The findings suggest building a “safe” base layer of mental health podcasts to advertise on before splurging on a few riskier fitness podcasts (with strict proof-of-performance expectations before scaling those experimental investments).
As for the rest of the news…
- Voxtopica has a new article breaking down how mission-driven organizations can use podcasts to build trust and teach complex issues, featuring three case studies of podcasts developed for organizations and their resulting impact.
- StreamGuys have expanded their executive team with the addition of Dara Kalvort as VP of Digital Sales & Strategy, as well as promoting Eduardo Martinez to EVP of Technology.
- Speaking of hires, Emmy award-winning producer Winnie Dunbar has just joined FlightStory as Guest & Research Director.
- Acast and Barometer have teamed up to launch an integration that enables pre-bid targeting at an episode level. The new feature is now live across all of Acast’s podcast inventory.
- PodcastOne has signed a multi-year AI partnership with Listener.com, a move expected to streamline operations and enhance monetization performance.
- Spotify has a new blog from product director Frances McNamara about how the company is building “human-centered discovery” for podcast listening.
- Podcast Nation has launched How We Got Away with Murder, a How to Get Away with Murder rewatch podcast hosted by actors Jack Falahee and Matt McGorry.
