Podcast NYC - Blog: The New Rules Of Podcasting

The New Rules of Podcasting

Networks are a losing business model.
Signing away the exclusive rights to your podcast is a stupid thing to do.
Speaking at conferences does not qualify as an accomplishment.
Statistics and demographics are meaningless and useless. That's right, I said it. Your stats are useless. Why? Because there is no real accurate measure to determine the true reach of your podcast. Can you rely on file download stats? How about page views? Or accesses of your RSS feed?

The right answer is that the reach of your podcast is some wild combination of all three. But no one has any algorithm available to tell you what you want to know. Take the volume of downloads for example. You can't just divide the MB of download in a day by the size of a file. That's because many downloads result in partial requests where the full file is never delivered. And it's very difficult to distinguish a complete download from a partial one. But you should probably count partial downloads that result from partial streams. How do you know which ones those are. You don't. And of those people who do get a complete download of your media file, how many consume the whole thing? Do they trade the files on peer-to-peer networks? Do they burn them to CD and share with friends and family. You have no way of knowing. So all the available metrics are useless.

And what about demographics? Solid demographic data is considered a holy grail to traditional advertisers and the podcasters who love them. Demographics (i.e. age, education, sex, income, etc.) are general stereotypical guidelines for people's habits. Traditional advertisers live (and most of the time) die on demographic data. But there's a problem. In traditional media, the audience can be tightly controlled by the method of distribution. For example, magazine subscribers can be tightly targeted based on the content of the magazine and the location of their home. If someone knows that you like, say cooking for example, and they know your zip code they can then find out the cost of housing and the general affluence of an area. From then on they go wild making assumptions about who you are and what they can sell to you. This model in itself is flawed, but when applied to podcasting it simply gets ridiculous.

Only a handful of podcasts, like the DRM infused Ricky Gervais podcast can exert any control over their distribution. Exerting control over the distribution channel is counter to the whole idea of podcasting anyway. So your show goes to an IP address which tells you as much about a person as their grandmother's maiden name. You just don't know who these people are. "I'll use the PodTrac Survey or Survey Monkey," you say. Great. Let's assume that 90% of the people that actually consume your show will not only take the survey, but answer the questions truthfully. And I'm being very generous with these percentages. What do you then do with that information? Do you make wholesale changes to your show if you find out you haven't captured the almighty 18-34 age group? Do you sulk if 60% of your subscribers are students from Sweden? No offense to the Swedes intended. And do you keep analyzing the survey weekly as new people subscribe to your show? So now you're in the demographics business. Just where you wanted to be I'm sure.

Face facts. It's not worth your time to sweat numbers. It's nearly impossible to hit a moving target in the world of media. Any good show takes root and grows in audience based on a number of factors. You need to have unique content. You need to have content that people can't live without. You need to produce it well and on a reliable schedule. You need to interact with your subscribers. And you need to do all you can to promote your show. Download stats and demographics be damned. Focus on the content and selling your show. Ignore the numbers and the numbers will continue to rise. You're never going to know all the specifics and if you did you'd probably do something stupid like change a format that really energizes you.

Every network TV show is built from the ground up based on ratings and demographics. What percentage of new shows these days last past a single season and find an audience? So much for the holy grail of stats and demographics.

If you really want to get a feel for your audience, take steps to truly connect with them. Encourage your users to comment on your blog. Create a forum as an extension of your website. Include their comments and suggestions in the show. A strong bond with 200 subscribers is worth a lot more than 1000 subscribers who you never interact with. Good interaction takes effort, but it's worth it if you really want to know who's out their consuming your podcasts.