Podcasting Is Having Its HBO Moment AND Its Netflix Moment At The Same Time: Why Your Company Should NOT Make Your Own Podcast

It’s official — podcasts are hot and here to stay.

Consider these stats from Edison’s Podcast Consumer 2016 report:

• Over ⅓ of Americans have listened to a podcast (98 million)
• 21% have listened to a podcast in the last month
• Podcasts skews young — 27% of 12–14 year olds and 24% of 25–54 year olds have listened in the last month.
• Podcast consumers are affluent — 41% have a household income over $75k
• Podcast consumers are more likely to follow brands on social media

With stats like these, it’s no wonder that brands are jumping into podcasting.

Podcasts From Brands Make a Lot of Sense

There are LOTS of smart reasons to get into the podcasting space as a brand. First, listeners spend large, regular amounts of time with your brand. All that time turns into long-term relationships with potential customers and higher retention of existing customers. Plus, audio is unique — it can be consumed in places where other content can’t, including commuting, working out, cooking, and dog-walking. The secret to success is that podcasts offer brands a way to create content people love instead of interruptive ads that people hate (and skip).

So why should your brand NOT make your own podcast?

Because the odds are very high that you will do a poor job with it. (Sorry!)

There is a broad lack of understanding about how hard it is to make great audio content. And oddly enough, most of that problem is podcasting’s fault. Here’s why…

Podcasting’s First Wave — Democratization of Audio

Back when podcasting was created and first becoming popular in 2004–2005, the medium created a lot of excitement because it democratized the ability to produce and distribute shows. Anyone could make an audio show with relatively inexpensive equipment and put it on an RSS feed for anyone to subscribe and listen to. And LOTS of people did exactly that — they turned on the microphones, talked with their friends about what interested them, and hit publish. It’s relatively easy and it’s a lot of fun.

The result was that podcasts were — and for many still are — perceived as a couple of people having unedited, hour-long conversations.

After the initial excitement, podcasting lost its buzz and, while there continued to be die-hard publishers and listeners, the overall industry was stagnant. Online video supplanted podcasting as the cool democratized medium of choice for creators and it has dominated the conversation around rich, online media since.

Podcasting’s Second Wave — The HBO & Netflix Moments

The second wave of podcasting was kicked off by a number of factors in 2014, including the popularity of Serial, the release of a separate podcasting app by Apple, and the increasing ease and comfort of audiences connecting their phones to their car stereos.

This second wave is reshaping the perception of what podcasts are and what they can be.

Serial was podcasting’s HBO moment — the point where a new quality bar was set. More and more people are realizing that podcasts can be better quality programming that what is offered on the radio.

Simultaneously, podcasting is having its Netflix moment, when audiences are realizing (because of the HBO moment) that they can program their own commutes instead of listening to whatever happens to be on the radio.

Today, podcasts are to radio what Netflix is to TV.

As more and more high-quality podcasts are produced, more and more people are personalizing their listening experience because — simply — it’s a better experience.

The Blue Ocean In Podcasting

Thanks to podcasting’s HBO and Netflix moments, there is a HUGE opportunity for brands in the podcasting space.

The problem is that not enough brands have understood that there is a “second wave” — many brands still think a podcast is an unedited hour-long conversation between two people. They are still in the “first wave” mindset. And so they are making shows that are cheap and easy to produce. And it almost never works. 

That’s not HBO. And in a Netflix audio universe, an unedited hour-long conversation is not what a discerning listener will choose to give their time and attention to.

Quality matters. Quality is hard to make. Quality is the one factor that will set a podcast apart from the sea of other podcasts listeners can choose from. 35 million people are listening to podcasts every week, but they only listen to an average of 5 podcasts. Quality is the route to becoming one of those 5 podcasts.

It’s not unlike the home-screen on your smart phone. There are only a certain number of apps you use regularly and they are all on your home screen. And if you want your app to be on the home screen, you’d better make it great.

It’s also not unlike video. Companies don’t shoot their YouTube videos on iPhones because it doesn’t reflect well on their brand. They hire professional video teams that understand how to tell stories visually and represent their brand properly.

And THAT is why your brand should not make your own podcast: the odds are very high that you will spend a lot of time and effort to make something underwhelming, that doesn’t represent your brand well, and that very few people will listen to.

To be clear, your brand SHOULD consider making a podcast.

But you should aspire to make it great. Aspire to make it compelling. Aspire to become one of the top 5 weekly listens for your target customers. And most of all, aspire to make a podcast you can imagine your potential audience REALLY wanting to listen to.