What is Podcast Movement, and how will its industry shape our future?
The fourth annual gathering of podcasters took place last week in Anaheim, CA. Podcast Movement 2017 brought together a panoply of podcasters, vendors, and even a smattering of radio people. While official numbers were unavailable as of press time, I’m going to estimate that about 1000 people were on hand for the two and a half-day conference, which covered all things related to the new art form, from performance tips to platforms and other technical aspects—and the subject on everyone’s mind, monetization.
Finding Yourself
One of the key topics was making it easier for listeners to find their favorite podcasts, much less discover others in which they may be interested. To that end, a number of new and improved platforms purport to make it push-button easy to find the audio content you’re looking for. Especially promising is new technology that can “read” the audio content and catalog individual podcast episodes accordingly. Companies like RadioPublic—founded by a bunch of ex-NPR people—and CastBox are developing rival technologies to make access to individual episodes easy, and then use your choices as the basis for recommendations for other episodes of other podcasts with similar content.
Another critical issue is the content, and how one’s choice of content can determine the success of the podcast. As Eric Nuzum, the Senior Vice President of Original Content Development for Audible (an Amazon company) put it, “Everything that’s successful is about something.” In other words, Nuzum said, the most successful podcasts are the ones that have the clearest vision about what they’re about.
Show Me the Money
How to make money with podcasts is a subject on pretty much everyone’s mind, and that was addressed in several sessions. Ad insertion technology is becoming more and more sophisticated, and some podcasting platforms offer not only ad insertions but representation as well—although, as you might expect, those podcasts that don’t have a certain threshold of listeners need not apply.
But making money with a show is not all about the size of the audience. Public Media Marketing executive Mark Vanderhoff said that the number of downloads is less important than “how specifically you can speak about your audience.” But later on, he clarified: “I said size is not the most important thing, but it’s AN important thing.”
In the world of podcasting, host-read ads are king; they bring a level of personalization without disrupting the mood or flow of a podcast. Lex Friedman from Midroll said that his company relies almost exclusively on such delivery.
Listener Behavior
To gain some insight into the behavior of podcast listeners, Edison Research, in the form of Larry Rosen and Tom Webster, presented some statistics based on a survey of over 6500 podcast fans.
Eighty-six percent of respondents listen to music every day; 41% say they listen to speech. Of those who listen to speech, they tend to listen to more audio overall than the average. Broadcast radio holds their attention 69% of the time, satellite radio is at 7%, audiobooks are at 7%, and podcasts are at 11%.
About a fourth of those listening to spoken-word podcasts are between the ages of 13 and 34; the percentage drops to nine in the 35-54 demographic. Location -wise, 54% of podcast consumption takes place in the home, and 33% takes place in a vehicle.
To conclude the session, Webster urged podcasters to focus on content instead of technology, and to foster a social experience—“take the earbuds off,” he said, and understand that families are gathering around their Echoes the way people used to listen to the radio back in the day.
Radio Shines
Thursday included an entire radio track, presented by Jacobs Media and SonicAI. The respective founders of those companies—Fred Jacobs, Paul Jacobs, and Steve Goldstein—emceed a number of sessions intended to bring radio’s collective historical wisdom to the world of podcasting, ostensibly to cut short the development process and bring the new medium into its own more quickly.
THE COMPANY STORY. The first session comprised a number of executives from commercial radio, discussing how their various companies were approaching the integration of podcasting into their array of content. Chris Peterson, head of podcast content for iHeartRadio, was very upbeat, talking about the “huge” listenership for repurposed morning-show content. Other broadcasters were less sanguine, citing low listenership for repurposed radio content.
What also came up was the age-old dilemma in broadcast, especially since the wave of consolidation: investing in the future while scrambling to make this month and this quarter.
RADIO PODCASTERS SPEAK UP. The second panel consisted of a collection of air talent and content managers (read: program directors for podcasting) discussing ways of improving content. WNYC Studios Chief Content Officer Dean Capello noted that his approach to podcasting was to look for “heart, plus smarts, plus urgency.” Capello also said that podcasting can form a sort of farm club for broadcast, picking the best, radio-suitable content and putting it on the air.
NPR One, according to company representative Tamar Charney, is looking for ways “to get the listeners of the future listening to our content.” She touted the NPR app, which generates information they can use to improve the experience for both the app and content. Cheney’s rules for podcasters included “start strong” (you may never recover from a bad start); re-engaged the audience throughout the show; edit ruthlessly (“respect your audience’s time—cut out the filler”); make sure that your artwork and titles are reflective of the quality and content of your podcast; and tailor your content to match what your audience wants to hear, not just what you want to say.
RAB President/CEO Erica Farber moderated the panel, which also included a quartet of radio personalities who have expanded into podcasting. They offered a number of tips to aspiring podcasters from their experience in radio, including the importance of production values.
MORE DATA, MORE OFTEN. Steve Goldstein teamed up with Leigh Jacobs from Nuvoodoo to present another profile of podcast listeners. According to their research, 76% of respondents listen to 2-6 podcasts a week; Goldstein noted, “It’s tough to get above that number.” The study also found that listeners were forced to delete unheard podcasts because of space limitations on their smart phones.
The number of people who subscribe to podcasts is only about two-thirds of the number of people who listen, and a common complaint among podcast listeners is the quality and usability of apps.
Interestingly, podcast listeners are much more likely to pay attention to, and enjoy, the ads within the podcasts (56%).
SHOW ME SOME MORE MONEY. As before, monetization was a central topic in this track. A mixed panel of broadcast executives and representatives of tech startups discussed how best to make podcasts revenue-ready. All agreed on the effectiveness of the medium, but acknowledged that, in the words of Market Enginuity’s Sarah Van Mosel, “the things that make podcasting so hard to buy are, paradoxically, the things that make it so good.”
PODCASTERS ON THE SPOT. The radio track wrapped of with the second annual aircheck review, where a bunch of radio talent critique the work of some very brave souls. One of the podcasts was criticized for its over-use of music and effects, while the other was praised for its lack thereof.