
Podcasters are seeing encouraging numbers - ALee
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-podcast-analytics-first-month/
======
rcthompson
From the article:

> the few listeners who do skip ads continue to remain engaged with the
> episode, rather than dropping off at the first sign of an interruption.

I'd bet that this is because fast-forwarding through podcast ads is pretty
trivial. If podcast apps tried to do anything to make the midroll ads
unskippable, you'd probably see a different pattern. (Here I'm thinking of
things like online video ads and the TV networks' fight against the TiVo
30-second skip button.)

For my part, I often skip through ads that I know have no relevance to me, but
listen to ones that might have relevance. It also helps that many podcasts
bring their own humor to the ads rather than just reading the ad copy
verbatim, so there's still some entertainment value even if I know I'm not
going to buy what they're selling.

~~~
chaostheory
I suspect why the majority of people don't skip is because the ads themselves
aren't terrible. The worst aspect of ads is repetitiveness, which is why Hulu
with ads is unwatchable. Of the podcasts I listen to which are typically rated
high on popularity, the ads typically aren't repetitive: they feel ad-hoc
since they are done differently per episode, where it's almost like it's part
of the entertainment. The only repetive ads I'm aware of are from Malcolm
Gladwell's Revisionist History, which start to get tiring because they are
exactly the same episode to episode.

~~~
simplicio
I think at least some of it is how podcasts are consumed compared to other
media. I (and I think most other people) listen to podcasts while doing
something else, (jogging, washing dishes, driving, etc), which both makes
pulling out my phone to fastforward through ads difficult, while at the same
time, its easy to just shift my focus to whatever else I'm doing until the ad
ends, making them less annoying.

------
dewey
I feel like there’s a lot of great podcasts coming out in the last years.
Every time I tell myself I’m getting back into podcasts I usually subscribe to
10 of them, then the backlog gets too huge and I delete everything again.

My new strategy is just to subscribe to one or two. Usually ones with seasons
and not weekly / monthly and one common topic which helps me stay attached to
it.

The ones I enjoyed most in the last weeks are:

My best find this year, interviews with prisoners in San Quentin Prison
produced by prisoners:
[https://www.earhustlesq.com/](https://www.earhustlesq.com/)

Currently listening to this one and it feels like House of Cards as a podcast:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html](http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html)

The famous: [https://serialpodcast.org/season-
one](https://serialpodcast.org/season-one)

~~~
swozey
Slow Burn is incredible. I haven't enjoyed a serialized podcast as much as
that since the first season of Serial. I haven't been able to find many other
serialized podcasts in the same vein. Sad that Slow Burn just ended.

------
40acres
2017 for me was the year of the podcast. I came across podcasts such as The
Daily from the New York Times, a 20 minute rundown of the day's biggest
stories, and Hardcore History from Dan Carlin, 4-6 hour epics. Alongside
podcasts on politics, tech, and more. Podcasts are consuming my TV, movie and
music streaming time.

My biggest issue are the ads, they are very generic and it seems the same
types of companies dominate the space. Primarily services like zip recruiter,
blue apron, and other subscription types. Also, the ad reads are very hit or
miss when done by the podcast presenters.

I think there is big business for a pod casting platform that can get the ad
model right (personalized ads, professionally read) along with suggestions and
curation of suggested podcasts.

~~~
criddell
The ads have worked on me. My family gets two Blue Apron meals a week and we
bought a Casper dog bed. Some ads I find genuinely entertaining. For example,
one podcast has very long audible podcasts that I enjoy listening to. I don't
subscribe to that service, but I have bought books that they discuss.

Most of the time though, I do skip through them.

> I think there is big business for a pod casting platform that can get the ad
> model right

No thanks. That means I'm being monitored beyond just counting my download of
an MP3. I'm happy that the ads are about as personalized as the ads in a
magazine.

------
paule89
Am I the only one that thinks more ads in podcasts are a bad thing? I am the
10 percent that skip ads. But more ads will force users to act soon

~~~
WesleyLivesay
I think there is a breaking point, but considering that most people who watch
TV (at least here in America) seem to be okay with watching 20%
advertisements....I think there is a lot of headroom in the amount of ads on
podcasts.

~~~
paule89
What I really find interesting. The really big podcasts in Germany are all ad
free. Maybe patreon maybe donations via sepa bank transfer but no ads at all.
There are exceptions yes. And that is ok. But what I find worse are platforms
which try to hog the listeners to themselves. Spotify or Google play music
podcast. The joy of using podcasts is the same as the internet you just need a
podcatcher instead of a browser and can listen to anything you want anywhere
anywhen. And also with apps with great user interfaces. How come someone would
even want to listen to Spotify podcasts without 30 second skips, chapter marks
and most importantly resumable playback where you stopped.

------
Merem
This seems like a good opportunity for people to recommend some excellent and
well-researched podcasts for various topics.

"Hardcore History" by Dan Carlin is such an example and I wish it was easier
to find other such podcasts of similar quality.

~~~
WesleyLivesay
You mentioned a history podcast, so just remember, you asked for this. I don't
think anybody matches Dan Carlin for presentation (although his historical
accuracy can be lacking) but here are some that are probably the most
approachable.

* History of Rome: A narrative history of Rome from foundation to fall of the western empire

* Revolutions: A long series of various revolutions around the world (American, French, Haitian, etc. etc.)

* The British History Podcast: Chronological history of the British Isles, very detailed, hundreds of episodes in and the Normans have not showed up yet.

* When Diplomacy Fails: Covers various political/military events throughout history. Currently doing a deep dive on the Korean war.

* The China History Podcast: Episodes on all topics from Chinese history from ancient times to the Mao era

* The History of Byzantium: Picks up where History of Rome ended and continues the story until (theoretically) the fall of Byzantium.

* The History of England: Similar to British History, but moves at a far faster pace, currently in the reign of Henry VIII

There are of course many many more, but these are probably some of my
favorites.

Shameless Plug: I create a podcast on the First World War called History of
the Great War. I think it is pretty good, at least the more recent episodes.

~~~
icebraining
I came here to recommend (1), (2) and (6) - and frankly, I prefer both Mike
Duncan's and Robin Pierson's style over Dan Carlin's, as the latter easily
becomes grating to my ears. Give me Duncan's deadpan humor any day.

Thanks for the other podcasts, by the way!

~~~
WesleyLivesay
I also prefer Duncan and Pierson to Carlin, but I have come to accept that I
am in the minority. I have not actually listened to the last few Hardcore
History episodes because I can't handle Carlin's "quote voice"

~~~
schemathings
I look forward to checking out your podcast! I'm just following Mike Duncan's
Revolutions podcast and he's nearly up to WWI historically, would be a nice
segue to new content.

~~~
WesleyLivesay
My advice, skip the first 30ish episodes, they are rubbish, I had no idea what
I was doing, and I have not had time to go back and fix them. ;)

------
IronWolve
People are dual broadcasting their video feeds in podcast version. Radio
stations are also releasing their daily radio ep's in podcast form. Paid shows
also release a audio only as a teaser to get people to subscribe.

Its basically free promotion of your show, just release it in mp3 as a podcast
and let it trend.

Example, Joe Rogan has his 3 hour daily video show, but he also broadcasts his
show in audio only. His mp3 podcast version is one of the most popular
podcasts out.

[http://analytics.podtrac.com/industry-
rankings/](http://analytics.podtrac.com/industry-rankings/)

------
sgk284
A little self-promotion here, but I've been working on an app for listening
to, sharing, and talking about podcasts. I listen to well over 20 hours of
podcasts a week and was always frustrated with how difficult it is to share
episodes I've enjoyed.

We have a very tiny beta right now with < 100 users, but if you like podcasts
you might like it! (you can sign up at [https://banter.fm](https://banter.fm)
OR just email me, steve @ banter.fm)

~~~
corobo
If you had a web version I could use without leaning too heavily on the
"listening to" part I'd be much more interested

As it stands my knee-jerk reaction when I clicked was "aw it's just a podcast
app - I already got one of those"

Good luck though!

------
Eridrus
I'm hoping someone rolls podcasts into a music subscription service so that I
don't need to listen to these ads. I know that Spotify has done this a bit,
but iirc their selection is pretty limited.

~~~
RmDen
I have no issues with ads being left in.. hit the skip button 3 times on the
phone and you are past the ads.

JRE.. skip the first 5-7 minutes until you pass the "Train by day, Joe Rogan
podcast by night all day!" and you are set as well. Same with Tim Ferriss..
but there it's about 4 minutes

But mostly I listen to the ads.. they are usually less than a minute anyway
(especially since I listen to everything at 1.5 speed... some at 2.0)

~~~
thanatropism
Then, Rogan has an entertaining way of reading the ads.

------
ALee
Turns out Evan Williams was right, but much too early.

~~~
staunch
Or maybe he set podcasting back 5 years by giving up on it ;-)

If he was a true believer, he'd have realized Medium isn't the long-form
content he was looking for. He didn't fully commit to Odeo, and that's why he
gave up when Apple made its move. I still remember thinking "Fuck!" when I saw
that "Try our new thing twttr" banner at the top of Odeo. I liked where they
were headed.

Twitter + Podcasts are all you need. No one really wants to read long-form
text on a computer.

Medium.com should have been Odeo 2.0

It's just so much richer to listen to a monologue, or socratic debate, in most
cases. @ev should pivot Medium into being the biggest podcast publisher in the
world, by sponsoring every high quality podcast and building a better version
of patreon for podcasters. There's a lot of amazing people that should be
podcasting and are not.

~~~
kough
> Twitter + Podcasts are all you need. No one really wants to read long-form
> text on a computer. Medium was a bad idea.

LOL I would obviously prefer reading long form text on a book, but do you
really prefer audio to digital text? Story telling is one thing, but for most
of what I'm reading I think a low-bandwidth, search-free environment (audio)
is a bad match.

~~~
staunch
I learn a lot more from audiobooks, podcasts, and youtube videos these days
than from any other source. I listen at 1.5 or 2x speed and find it as close
to an "I know kung fu" experience as it gets.

~~~
RmDen
Agreed... difficult to read a book on a run or while walking to the train
station

------
misiti3780
I am a paying listener of Sam Harris's Waking Up - He has a lot of interesting
guests and I get create book recommendations. I have also been enjoying the
weeks and ezra klein's work, and heard "where it began" is good.

