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If you haven't heard the phrase “podcasting is an intimate
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medium,” well, then you must be new.
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Can this reported intimacy ever be anything more than just an empty promise
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made by podcasting advertising advocates?
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Evo Terra:
Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
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Now, if you're playing the podcast drinking game at home where you
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drink every time someone says "podcasting is an intimate medium,"
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you may want to sit this one out.
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I'm going to take a somewhat critical look at that much-lauded phrase,
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and a little bit of a cliche.
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I don't want you to be too tipsy before the show is over.
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Let's start here.
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Podcasters who are able to buy their way into tens of thousands or hundreds
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of thousands of downloads, they don't really care about intimacy.
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For them, it's a reach game.
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The more people that they can reach with their show, the more ads they can
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sell for their show, whether they're intimately involved with it or not.
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So, no, they don't really care about intimacy.
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Although that's not completely true because there's a collective need across
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the people who are able to get tens or hundreds or millions of downloads to their
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shows, there's a need to keep CPMs, the price of an ad, high, which, by the way,
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they're not doing a very good job of.
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CPM rates are relatively stagnant across the board.
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Have you seen a slew of reports talking about how CPMs have
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increased from an average of 20 to $30, let's say, in the last decade?
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I haven't really either.
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I know they happen in isolation, but overall?
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Kind of the same thing.
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But the idea is to convince advertisers that podcasting is an intimate medium.
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They need to do that to get those advertisers to spend
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more money on podcasting.
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And that is more or less working.
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Total ad spend in podcasting does continue to increase, and new advertisers
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enter the market all the time.
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Great.
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So think about that for a second.
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Also think about this.
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The opposite, however, is broadly assumed to be true.
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And that is that shows with more modest audiences tend to
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have more niche audiences where really intimacy can reign true.
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But does it really?
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What's our measuring stick to determine whether or not we're
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getting more intimacy from our people?
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It's not downloads.
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Downloads do not measure intimacy, especially since around a third
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of downloads are automated and may not be listened to ever.
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I don't even think it's consumption rate, which services like Apple
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Podcasts and Spotify and Google Podcasts will tell us how much of our
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episodes listeners tend to consume.
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I don't think that's it.
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Or, at least, it's not necessarily giving us the answer we're looking
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for - is there a correlation between consumption rate and intimacy?
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There might be.
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But anecdotally, I've seen a huge increase in the number of requests for
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podcast recommendations where people only want something to listen to in
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the background while they study or they work, or they do some other sort of
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brain intensive activity where they're not intimately engaged with our content.
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They just need some noise.
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And then there's all the people who say, "Hey, I need something to fall asleep to.
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Can you recommend a podcast?"
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The podcast stats we have today don't really tell us how, or even if
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people are engaging with our content.
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We don't have it.
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We don't have repeated listener initiated plays.
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We don't get that kind of detail.
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We don't really know - where's like the time to listen number?
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Like from the time an episode is published to somebody actually listening to it?
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We don't have it.
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What about listens per unique user?
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How many times does a unique listener listen to that episode
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again and again and again?
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We don't know.
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Or some sort of a loyalty rating, how many different episodes
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does a loyal listener consume?
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We don't know.
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Any of those things would likely get us to an understanding so we
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can answer the question is, in fact, podcasting an intimate medium?
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But our industry isn't really set up to report on that.
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The IAB takes the A in their name seriously.
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The IAB is the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
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Advertising.
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And advertisers don't care about intimacy.
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They tell us they do, but they really don't.
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They care about results.
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How well did the campaign perform?
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And in lieu of results, they care about benchmarking their spending
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activity so they're not spending too much or too little in a certain medium.
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Also, we have the problem with privacy issues.
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Privacy issues make everything I just talked about really challenging to
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get to, to understand the intimacy is almost, or as some will definitely
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say, an invasion of privacy.
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Now, personally, I do not care who knows what episodes I listen to and
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what episodes I skip and for how often.
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But I also know that that's just me, and I understand how
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that information could almost be weaponized or used in nefarious ways.
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So I don't know that we're ever going to see it.
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I also wonder what would we do if we knew?
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Specifically, what would you do if you could measure some sort of intimacy
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rating, either with your episodes or with your listeners themselves?
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Would it change how you produce your podcast and the episodes of your podcast?
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I wonder.
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Or would you just simply immediately start comparing yourself to the average
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intimacy ratings the same way we compare our own download numbers or CPM rates?
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I am actually genuinely curious what you would do if you could see
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either by listener or by episode some sort of an intimacy rating,
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a number that you could trust.
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Email that to me, would you?
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Email me your thoughts, evo@simpler.media.
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I'll compile them, and we'll come back and revisit this
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another episode in the future.
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Or, if you want, you can share your thoughts on this in the
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Advancing Podcasting community at advancingpodcasting.xyz.
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Let's do a few Boostagrams, shall we?
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Now it's time for the boost-the boost-the boost- Boostagram Corner.
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Boostagram Corner.
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I don't know a thing about crypto.
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Thank you very much to Mr.
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Brad Tirpak.
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Brad is my newest virtual coffee member.
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That's right.
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He went to BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra and signed up for a monthly
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recurring coffee donation.
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Thank you very much, sir.
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Also, hello and thank you, Seth Goldstein.
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He left a review previously for Podcast Pontifications.
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He's gone one step further and actually bought a virtual coffee for me.
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So I certainly appreciate that.
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And if you received any value today out of today's episode,
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please return some of that value.
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You can go to BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra, just like Brad and Seth both did.
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Thank you very much.
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Or if you're using one of the new fancy podcasts listening apps, you'll find
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them at newpodcastapps.com, actually be sure to set it up to stream some
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value to me, a few sats at a time.
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And that'll make a lot more sense once you get there.
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Or it won't.
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But if it does, be sure to set it up to stream some sats to me, or
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send a boost along with a message.
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And with that, I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
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Cheers!
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Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra.
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He's on a mission to make podcasting better.
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Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes
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section of your podcast listening app.
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A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at
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podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected
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transcript, both created by Allie Press.
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Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.
