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Your Podcast Isn’t About YOU!

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My advice to you this week is that if you want your podcast to grow, it's NOT ABOUT YOU. Many people start a podcast because they feel it's the "in" thing to do, or "my friends say I'm funny," or a myriad of other reasons.  But if you want people to listen to your podcast, if you want to grow your audience, if you even want to MONETIZE your show...it has to be about your listeners.  What is a LISTENER getting out of your show?  Are they informed, entertained, or educated? Have you been able to connect with them on an emotional level?  People aren't going to listen to your podcast just because they like you and you asked them to.   Too much other content exists to compete for their attention. You've got to stand out from that crowd.

Incidentally, that's a lesson that baby radio DJ's have to learn.  When we first crack the mic, the world is our oyster. But to succeed as an entertainer, you have to make the content about the listener.  Memo to college senior Jag: No pop radio listeners in Syracuse, New York care about the Patriots winning their first Super Bowl?  Get the idea?

Seth Rogen is developing a podcast for SiriusXM and Stitcher.  And Spotify will exclusively host Michigan Native Dax Shephard's Armchair Expert podcast.   They'll still be free, but only on Spotify as of June 1st.

Speaking of Spotify, they'll soon roll out high fidelity audio for music and transcription for podcasts. Also, combining both sides of their business, they have now figured out a way to let podcasters use full songs, not just clips, in their podcasts.  It has to do with their music licensing deals.  Sounds great, right?  Well, hang on a second.  This will work on Spotify, but you still can't legally publish that same show on Apple and other platforms.  And that's important, because Apple and Spotify are still the biggest two platforms out there. Who's got a bigger slice of the pie? Well, depends who you ask.   Podcast host Libsyn has Apple way ahead, but podcast host Buzzsprout has Spotify in a dead heat.  Now there's a lot of technical back-end reasons for this discrepancy. James Cridland, as always, breaks this down brilliantly in Podnews here: https://podnews.net/article/spotify-apple-podcasts-market-leader

But the key takeaway is this.   Be everywhere you can be.  At the very least, make sure your podcast is on Apple, Spotify, and Google.  And you can consider other desintations like Stitcher, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Amazon, and Pandora.  It doesn't cost you a dime to be on any of these, so you may as well do it.

Podcast advertising grew 19% in 2020, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.  And listeners don't mind commercials.  In fact, they are more effective in the podcast medium, according to a study from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights, as reported by PodNews: https://podnews.net/press-release/cumulus-signal-hill

Podcast Movement first week of August in Nashville: They've announced their first group of speakers, and have a scholarship program open to students: https://podcastmovement.com/featured/1st-round-of-pm21-speakers-announced-plus-scholarship-applications-are-open/

I'm looking forward to my first in-person podcasting event in two years. And if you're coming to Nashville, I'd love to connect.  Until next week, stay healthy and stay safe.  Lata!

Change Your Podcast – It’s Not Too Late!

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Change Your Podcast.

Welcome in, I'm Jon Gay.  There are typically two types of people that start a podcast  Some throw caution to the wind and just go for it.  Others meticulously plan every detail before they start.  Now, there's probably a happy medium between those two extremes.  But too often, folks think once they start the show, it has to stay the same format.

So my advice to you this week is that it's ok to make changes to your podcast.  For example, take the two biggest podcasts I listen to.  The Daily from the New York Times used to run a 2 minute list of credits at the end of every Friday show.  I doubt a ton of people stuck around for that.  Now, they do 30 seconds at the end of each episode thanking the behind the scenes staff.   And Pod Save America used to be 2 segments with the hosts, followed by a guest. Over the last few weeks, they've played with having the guest as the middle segment and moving them around, probably because they are looking at their listening stats and what causes tune out (which you can usually get on premium plans from podcast hosts).  And even me, I've been trying different things with the video version of my podcast, as well as playing with the compression settings on my audio.

Here's the point.  Whether you have 5 million downloads or 5 downloads, you can always make changes if you think it will improve the show.  Unless it REALLY degrades the quality of your audio or your content, it's not going cost you audience.

Speaking of audience, podcast Facebook groups are always littered with this question. "How do I grow my audience?"  Some are looking for hacks or cheap tricks.  Others are willing to invest time and effort into tried and true strategies.  But this week's newsletter from Vancouver podcast company JAR audio breaks it down so beautifully simply:

  • The One Question to Answer to Grow Your Brand Podcast Audience. Why should someone listen to my brand's podcast?

There are a million ways to try to game the charts, artificially increase your downloads, and otherwise stroke your own ego with numbers.  But if you want true, honest growth on your podcast, start with the content.  Why would someone else want to  listen?

The IAB, or Interactive Advertising Bureau, projects that not only will podcasting revenue hit ONE billion dollars this year, but it will hit TWO billion dollars by 2023.  https://podcastbusinessjournal.com/iab-projects-2-billion-in-ad-revenue-by-2023

For example, The New York Times has announced their Q1/21 results. Revenues overall are up 6.6%. Digital advertising revenue, including podcasts, grew from 48.2% of the company’s revenue a year ago to 61.3%.

Also, iHeartMedia reported their first quarter earnings. Year over Year numbers doubled, from nearly $16 million to over $38 million.  Worth noting their total revenue is DOWN 10% year over year.    But hey, they have launched a self service ad platform. You can use it to create an ad to run on your favorite podcast or radio station.   Looks like they're automating away sales people the way they did on-air DJ's.   I feel like I say this every week, but it's worth repeating.  iHeartMedia, Audacy, and many other companies are focused on podcasting and digital audio.  These are huge companies that have to answer to stockholders.  The only way that radio will survive is if it's owned by smaller companies. They can afford to invest in local markets and local talent that can connect with their audiences.   For iHeart, it's hard to care about  Cheyenne when you're worrying about New York.

Let's do a quick check-in on Apple Podcasts - James Cridland at PodNews says they are now crawling his feed for new content every 20 minutes. This is better than two hours. And it seems the bugs are slowly being worked out of the new system.  However, for some users, the new iOS update seems to be downloading every episode of every podcast you subscribe to - this can be a major issue if you've got limited storage space left on your device.  Here's an article on how to fix that: https://tidbits.com/2021/05/04/prevent-apples-updated-podcasts-app-from-eating-your-storage/

Now, while Apple struggles, Spotify continues to revolutionize the podcast space.  If you like a particular story in a podcast, you can now share that exact SPOT in a podcast to social media through Spotify.  For example, share today's episode at this spot....right here.

Finally, if you want to know more about Clubhouse - now available on Android in the US - the venerable Edison Research is doing a webinar about all things Clubhouse this Tuesday, May 18th, at 2pm Eastern. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/6516203299295/WN_U80SXPDQROenIIxcNmYPJA

As always, if I can help you start or improve your existing podcast, feel free to reach out to me on social media at JAG in Detroit or on my website, JAGinDetroit.com.

 

Apple Podcasts Drama Continues

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Apple Podcasts. Welcome in, I'm Jon Gay. I try not to cover the same topic in consecutive weeks, but I had to start with an update on the biggest story in podcasting right now - the disastrous rollout of the changes to Apple Podcasts.  And just to check....yup.... you can STILL hear Steve Jobs rolling over in his grave.

Personally, I've had no issues with the Apple Podcasts Connect dashboard - under either of the two accounts I use it with.  But I think I'm one of the lucky ones. Every podcast newsletter I get is littered with horror stories of folks who can't get in, can't add new shows, or can't get new episodes to show up.  Also, according to PodNews, Apple Podcasts is no longer taking your info straight from your RSS feed.  Instead, they are crawling your show, the way Google does with a website.  But other podcast apps check every few minutes. It appears Apple only crawls every two hours or so, which has resulted in a delay of new episodes showing up, even for subscribers.  Just to be safe, I recorded this on Wednesday and set it for a Thursday midnight release, so hopefully you have it by the time you wake up on Thursday.

Here's the explainer from PodNews: https://podnews.net/article/apple-podcasts-new-episode

Speaking OF show notes, you may not see them this week - particularly if you're listening in the new Apple Podcasts.  Those aren't showing up correctly either.  You will see them, however, if you're listening in Spotify, Google Podcasts, or if you're watching or listening at  JAGinDetroit.com.  Frustrating.

As I mentioned last week, Apple was first in to the podcasting space, and they got fat and lazy as a result.  As the space blew up over the past year they though, "We'd better make some changes."  Looks like the bugs weren't worked out before the big launch, and now, sadly, it's messing with people's livelihoods.  Do better, Apple.  Do better.

With all the news last week about paid subscription models from Apple and Spotify, no news from Google.  They seem to be taking the opposite approach.  They are moving at a glacial pace, but seem to try to get it right before releasing anything new.

A new "um removal" service is online. Cleanvoice claims to use AI to remove "ums" and "uhs" from your audio.  The website is Cleanvoice dot AI, if you wanna give it a try.  It's been my experience that AI isn't as smooth an editor as a real human being, but I'd be curious how it works if you try it.  Again, CleanVoice (all one word) dot AI.

As far as the real human editors, some news around popular free audio editing software Audacity this week.  A company called Muse Group claims to have bought Audacity.  Now the program is free and open source. So it's not clear what the Muse Group actually owns besides the trademark, according to PodNews.  But it could mean better support for the app?  Stay tuned.  Again, that's the AUDACITY app, not to be confused with AUDACY, the new name of the second biggest radio station owner in the US. They thought Audacy would be a better app name and website than...oh i dunno....RADIO DOT COM.

While corporate radio continues to corporate radio...Podcasting is  continuing to grow in all areas:  Nielsen, the company that does ratings for TV, radio, and lots of web stuff, has launched a Podcast Ad Effectiveness tool to measure the success of ads: https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-releases/2021/nielsen-launches-podcast-ad-effectiveness-to-measure-digitally-inserted-podcast-ads-in-real-time/

And on the content side:  A podcast is coming from Chelsea Handler (an advice column). Pop duo The Chainsmokers are launching a singing competition via podcast on Audible in the near future.  And the Tribeca Film Festival in New York will include podcasts this year.

Finally, I'm planning on attending Podcast Movement in person this August in Nashville.  If you're on the fence about going, they've got a cool program where you can buy the Virtual Ticket, then upgrade and pay the difference if you decide you'd go in person this summer.  https://podcastmovement.com/featured/pm21-virtual-attendance-southeast-meetup-tour-and-more/

Will Apple Podcasts Changes Affect Me?

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Back from vacation last week, but as I tell all my clients, that's the kind of stuff to save for the END of your podcast, so more on that later.  Naturally, the biggest podcast news of the year came while I was away, so let's get to it.   Apple is revamping their Podcasts platform.   As always, James Cridland of PodNews did an excellent job of breaking it down: https://podnews.net/update/apple-podcast-subscriptions-hello

Here are the key takeaways.  For podcast listeners, you'll be able to "group" shows, and the new "smart play" button will know which episode to start you with on a show. For example, the first episode of Serial vs the last episode of The Daily.

The big changes are for podcast creators.  Apple will be rolling out a subscription model that will allow you to charge users for your podcast.  Apple will take a 30% commission of whatever you charge in year one, then 15% after that. Yikes.  They are supposedly also improving the Apple Podcasts Connect Dashboard.  So if you haven't logged in over the last 10 days or so, hop on over there and accept the new terms of service.   If you're like me, and don't read those things, Cridland also spies a mention of Windows and Android.   After all, Google Podcasts are available on iOS - maybe Apple Podcasts will finally come to Android?

So what do Subscriptions in Apple mean for you as a podcaster? Likely, nothing.  Think about this for a second.  Realistically, for someone to pay for your podcast on Apple, two criteria need to be met.  One, your podcast needs to be exclusive to Apple so it can be found for free somewhere else.  Two, your content has to be SO good, that people are willing to add one more line item to their monthly budget, on top of Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, and any other subscriptions.   I don't have the hubris to think THIS show meets that mark.  I hope you don't either.

Now, you've heard me say for awhile that Apple, despite being "first in" to the podcast space, is fat and lazy.  Well, it would have been hard to screw up this launch any worse than they did last week.   Shows disappeared, people couldn't log in to their dashboards, people couldn't add new shows, and more.  There's a list of bugs as of Tuesday here: https://transistor.fm/apple-podcasts-problem

Apple, if you truly want to be a leader in the space, you gotta work out the bugs ahead of a giant launch.  And when problems happen, you should probably not go "radio silent" for the better part of a week.  If you listen really closely...you can hear Steve Jobs rolling over in his grave.

For me personally, as recently as Wednesday of this week, I was trying to catch up on The Daily and some other shows.  And my Apple Podcasts app would NOT play them.  Seems to be OK today after restarting my phone, but yesterday, I just hopped on over to Spotify, and I can't be the only one.

Speaking OF Spotify, THEY are also hopping on the monetization train.  Following revenue and subscriber gains in Q1 of this year, they are giving you the opportunity to monetize your show through their Anchor platform.  Now they won't take a cut the first two years, and only 5% starting in 2023.  Shots fired, Apple.  The catches: to pay, listeners have to be re-routed to the Anchor website and creators will have to part ways with credit card processing fees.   But again, if your show isn't platform specific, and worth paying for, is it really worth it?

And with the debate raging over privacy, and Tim Cook saying Apple will share less of your data, how much will you really know about your subscribers?  That's why Tom Webster of Edison Research says the best thing you can do right now - is get your listeners to subscribe to an email list.  https://tomwebster.media/archive/preparing-for-paid-subscriptions/

And Evo Terra adds, you shouldn't have anxiety around these podcast changes. https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/reducing-your-anxiety-around-big-podcasting-changes

Facebook jumped in on the audio fray in the last week as well with a suite of what they collectively call "social audio."   Thanks to SoundBites, you'll be able to post short audio clips like you do pics and video.   You'll also be able to listen to podcasts within the Facebook app, thanks in part to their continued partnership with Spotify.  (Facebook, after all, wants to keep you in their app as long as possible).  And, they are launching an audio-only version of their "Rooms" feature - which previously had been a video chat version.  This, ostensibly, will compete with Clubhouse.

Here's the link to their press release. https://about.fb.com/news/2021/04/bringing-social-audio-experiences-to-facebook/

Finally, as I mentioned at the top, my wife and I loaded up the car and took our pandemic pup to Hilton Head Island last week.  After both staring at these same four walls for 13 months, it was nice to have a change of scenery, warm weather, and walks on the beach.  We mainly got takeout, masked up in public, and folks down there were pretty compliant with masks as well.   It was a much needed break, and we were able to do it because we both got vaccinated.   Please go out and get the shot.  And if you post to social, as my friend Matt Friedman says - don't focus on the side effects - you will scare away those on the fence.  Talk about the things you can't wait to do, not that you had chills and a fever for a day. https://tannerfriedman.com/blog/heres-how-you-can-help-the-looming-vaccination-crisis

These new variants are highly contagious and not to be messed with.    Someone in my life passed away from COVID complications last night.  Until next week, stay healthy and stay safe.  Lata.

Additional Content:
Wall Street Journal Breakdown on Apple Podcast Changes: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-spotify-and-the-new-battle-over-who-wins-podcasting-11619170206

JAG in Detroit Podcasts Website: http://jagindetroit.com/

Beware Bad Content

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Sometimes, it's a slog to produce a podcast.  Coming up with new content is hard.  And most studies say consistency is key - listeners should know when to expect new content.  But today I'm going to give you a different angle.

Don't.

People have such limited attention spans - don't ask them to spend time with content that, as a creator, even YOU aren't confident in.  Case in point - yesterday's press conference from Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer.  The CDC was pressuring her to shut the state back down, since we lead the nation in COVID numbers right now.  Governor Whitmer, who, full disclosure, I'm a fan of, initially refused but called a presser yesterday afternoon. Rumors swirled about the announcement of a 45 day lockdown and more.

What did the Governor do?  Nothing.  She emphasized the importance of vaccines, and new COVID treatments, but she changed nothing.  I was expecting news, and I got none.  Just more jokes about governments having meetings to decide to have a meeting.  When delivery doesn't meet expectation, you turn people away.  The same is true of your podcast.  Which reminds me, no JAG Show next week due to some scheduling conflicts.

Onto this week's news- more from Steve Goldstein and James Cridland's look at Apple's 2 million podcasts.  Only EIGHT PERCENT have over 10 episodes AND have released in the last week.  Competition is not as stiff as you thought.  https://www.amplifimedia.com/blogstein/m7ei93yk38uivdv5llgbfkv7li87xw

On the other side of the device divide - Google Podcasts is now at 100 million installs, that's up from only 50 million 4 months ago.  Podcasts hosts now say Google Podcasts is the CLEAR #3 platform behind Apple and Spotify so make sure your podcast is listed there.  Theoretically, Google will crawl your podcast like a website, but you can help it along my claiming your show at https://podcastsmanager.google.com/

From two of the biggest podcasters around.  Mark Maron will take home the first ever Governors Award from the Podcast Academy - their highest honor . Meanwhile Spotify quietly deleted 42 more episodes of the Joe Rogan experience.  I won't get into a debate about censorship here, but when you take $100 million from a company, you gotta play by their rules.  Speaking of Spotify, they've debuted their own charts for top podcasts and top episodes.  Beware Apple - objects in your mirror may be closer than they appear. https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-04-14/5-fast-facts-about-spotifys-new-podcast-charts

If you're looking to record a podcast with multiple people in the same room, Rode Microphones announced the Rode Connect, which will allow you to connect 4 of their NT USB Mini microphones to one computer with its own mixer.  Definitely better than putting a Blue Yeti in the middle of a table, but I'd say beware of mic bleed.  Press release, via Podnews: https://podnews.net/press-release/rode-connect  Also, there is new software for the Rodecaster Pro mobile studio in Beta - I haven't tried it yet.  Let someone else work out the kinks.

Podcasting continues to be a silver lining in the pandemic - UK podcast host producer AudioBoom tripled their revenue in 2020 - to $26.8 million, according to Podcast Business Journal.

The New York Times has it's 4th annual student podcast competition: it's open to ages 11 to 19. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/learning/our-fourth-annual-student-podcast-contest.html

Libsyn buys podcast monetization platform Glow, and Vox Media has acquired Cafe Studio, founded by former United States attorney Preet Bharara.

And finally, a big piece of news in the evolution of podcasting.  Gimlet Media and Bill Simmons' The Ringer, both owned by Spotify, have ratified a union contract with the Writers Guild of America, East. It establishes job security and paid vacation for writer, and get this, a starting salary of $57,000, or, roughly, three times what I made in my first radio job in 2004.

If you need help getting started with your podcast, contact me via my website: http://jagindetroit.com/

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