Have We Hit Peak Podcast? | Hacker News Reader

Have We Hit Peak Podcast?

nytimes.com

42 pointsmooreds63 comments

The majority of podcasts I listen to are almost exclusively supported by Patreon and I think they probably need to be considered an entirely different thing than ad-driven podcasts.

The former is likely to persist consistently, albeit as possibly a more niche role than some currently occupy as opposed to a full time job for loads of people. One consistency among the Patreon sponsored ones is that they tend to involve a much looser approach and function almost as a kind of social substitute (very fluid run times, casual vibe even if they've been immaculately researched). In fact, there's a few I listen to where it's pretty clear the main reason they still exist is so the hosts have an excuse to hang out more than anything else.

The latter type seems to be either at or past the point of total saturation where they're just too much work to keep up with and the format is just too sterile to garner the kind of stickiness that the smaller and more casual ones can generate. The kind of quality required to garner a substantial audience for this kind of podcast is nearing the point of major TV shows. The peak was probably about two years ago when any crappy true crime thing could become a bit of a sensation (I'm looking at you, Dirty John)

I just started my own, and when I went to the music gear store to pick up a pair of Shure SM7B, they were sold out because everyone is starting a podcast these days... I tried to hide my embarrassment to the salesperson.

We do put a lot of time and effort into our podcast, though. We're avid fans of Radiolab. The first episode was just rambling - but it was the 5th take of rambling, at least. Our 4th episode was a thoroughly researched one where I introduced my co-host to some basic statistics I had to learn as part of the research (null hypothesis, precision/recall, ...) that Microsoft did after Vista to figure out why it went wrong. The 5th episode was about Linus Torvalds' book Just For Fun, where I read the book, annotated it heavily, found an interesting narrative and perspective, and read from the book and tied it into one of my favorite moments of the Breaking Bad insider podcast. Our upcoming 6th episode is going to be about the early Stack Overflow podcast episodes, where Joel and Jeff discuss in detail how they're going to make a successful QA site that at the time absolutely was not guaranteed to be successful. (Yeah, I know, very meta :D)

Maybe podcasts are like tenure at universities... 95% is wasted, but the other 5% is so good that it's worth it anyway? Hopefully we can contribute to the good parts of the podcasting sphere.

(Our podcast is in Norwegian and is named Utviklingslandet, if anyone wants to check it out)

> Maybe podcasts are like tenure at universities... 95% is wasted, but the other 5% is so good that it's worth it anyway?

Why do you think tenure is wasted?

No way. A lot of topics are not yet covered, and a lot of people are not yet listening. With a larger audience comes more $, and with more $ comes better content, over time. I’d guess we are at a time when competition sets in, and (some of) the people who are serious about making money off of their podcasts will outcompete the hobbyists.

I’m guessing there’s no coincidence that spotify added podcasts to their apps recently.

Of course, the «I want to talk about the trees outside» podcasts will suffer the same fate as rarely updated, uninteresting blogs.

If anything, we may be at peak interview/chatter and true crime, but listenable shows that go in-depth on a topic and tell a story are few and far between. Or at least, I haven't been able to find them as quickly as I can listen to them.

In-depth research and storytelling are pretty expensive (lots of time needed for research and editing), and it's not clear if there's enough money in the ecosystem for many of the interested amateurs to make those sorts of shows on a full-time basis. They'll probably continue to exist, but my guess is most shows like that won't be able to maintain a regular release cadence, since the creators will have to keep their "day jobs".

Sure. I am willing to pay for this sort of content (some of my favorites are Audible Originals, e.g. the ones by Michael Lewis and Jon Ronson).

Unfortunately, besides Audible, most of the subscription networks (looking at you, Luminary) seem to offer the same genre of chatter/interview podcasts I can get plenty of for free.

Yeah. An interview (or discussion)-type show--which can be quite good given the right host(s) and guest(s)--is very doable as a hobby or a professional sideline. No need to even try to make money off it if you don't want to.

I have no idea about the future of podcasting as a business. But, just as lots of people write with no expectation of being directly paid, there's no reason to think that lots of people won't continue podcasting in the same vein.

I feel like there's a gap in the "tip jar" market. I have a lot of podcasts for which I'd happily pay about 10 to 25 cents per episode, but it's not trivial to do. If it were, it would take a few thousand people to do so -- which isn't a small audience, but not enormous.

Currently there's a voluntary "if you like us, find us on Patreon". Even being able to provide a "connect to Patreon" button on the screen would be a boost. UX and web site designers are well aware of how many people you lose with each step. Such a button could also auto-switch to the ad-free stream; I once paid for the upgrade but managing the different feed was a pain.

I'm still using Pocket Casts, so it's possible that an integrated app like Stitcher is already doing that. If not, I see a niche that would make it easier for amateurs to scratch out a living. I think the money is there if you make it easy for people to give it.

This is the whole micropayment conundrum that Clay Shirky wrote about when it first reared its head during the original dot-com era. In principle, if most content were wired into some common payment system, the thought is that people would be willing to pay 5 cents for an article/podcast/etc.

In practice, the wiring of everything together, the establishment of pricing, and (Shirky's argument) the mental transaction costs of having to decide whether to make constant small purchases has made this model very elusive.

I think that since podcasts are often subscribed to, we might be able to mitigate the micropayment problem at least a bit. There are a lot of podcasts for which I'd be willing to pay, say, $10 per year -- though not enough to go through the trouble of finding and connecting to them on Patreon.

The thing is I dive in and out of podcasts. I don't want to subscribe. Plus I'd actually say that $10 is a fair bit for most podcasts over the course of a year. Maybe if there's one I'm particularly obsessed with. But not in general.

I wonder why Patreon doesn't have annual subscriptions.

Very few podcasts do have the qualities you are looking for. NPR's slew of podcasts has been the only one that has been consistently goes in-depth on certain topics. If anyone else knows of podcasts similar, please share!

From my experience, it seems that you can find a podcast for any topic nowadays...

I curated a list of podcasts "There's a podcast for that" https://lnns.co/9Q1vbicJXgY -- well, it's like "there's an app for that" :)

"They called it “The Advice Podcast” and put about as much energy into the show’s production as they did the name. [...]recorded themselves chatting with an iPhone 5. But six episodes in, [..] the friends quit. "

<sarcasm>With all that hard effort I am shocked they didn't become rich and famous.... </sarcasm>

The year was 2011 and I had just moved to DC after finishing undergrad. I couldn't find work in the radio business so instead I got a contract gig through Craigslist with the Internet Archive scanning books in the basement of the Library of Congress. Its dark down there and the work is pretty mechanical. The books themselves are only occasionally interesting.

My iPod Touch could connect to wifi so I started listening to NPR while I scanned. I could do that for two hours or so, but once the segments started repeating I got bored. A friend suggested I listen to Radiolab, so I did. When I'd gone through their catalogue I tried out 99% Invisible. Then academic lectures that had been turned into podcasts. Then audiobooks. Then whatever I could find by searching for "good podcasts." Eventually I got tired of the sound of podcasts (they have a sound) and switched to WFMU and a couple college stations I liked.

I haven't listened to another podcast since. Am I missing something?

Did you stick purely to NPR styles genres? Or did you try two dudes talking podcasts and all that other sort of stuff? If you did then apparently you just dont like non-music audio entertainment now, which has more to do with your preferences than with the nature of podcasts I would think.

I wouldn’t say they’ve gotten better, but there’s a lot more at or near the quality level of Radiolab or 99pi.

You can fill your day/drive with well produced podcasts on a regular basis, rather than just the occasional hour.

WFMU and you didn't wind up hooked to the Best Show for at least a short while?

Oh sure, I had my Best Show phase. Who hasn't these days?

I don't think you're really missing anything beyond the fact that podcasts have diversified to the point that you can find one in whatever niche you're curious about. There's also a huge array of artistic and fiction content, with a panoply of sound styles.

The problem, of course, is finding the niche that fits you. It's classic long-tail stuff. I'm sure there are lots of podcasts that sound like indie radio stations, though I have no idea how you'd go about finding them except by trial and error (and referral).

Once you find it, the medium is conveniently offline, requiring neither airwaves nor a live connection -- as well as the ability to speed it up or slow it down, skip, etc. If nothing else, I suspect a lot of those indie stations make their material available by podcast, which would give you access to similar content from all over the world.

Yup. Plenty of good history podcasts, for example

What are the good history podcasts? Most seem still like two guys chatting and oh here’s some facts from the past

I don't know what you're looking for but Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is excellent for a very long form podcast.

Three I like:

The History of Rome in 179+ podcasts. Done in increments of 12-20 minutes. Great for short commutes.

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History as mentioned by ghaff, but yes, it's extremely long form.

Tides of History - different topics and somewhere between 45 - 60 minutes.

The Revolutions podcast is great.

History of philosophy without any gaps if you're into philosophy.

From Wittenberg to Westphalia; History of the Papacy podcast; History of China podcast.

I'm not a fan of Hardcore History - it seems more about the drama and theatricality of Carlin's own voince than about the historical content.

/r/badhistory agrees.

https://old.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/6swvvq/opinion_...

You are definitely missing a lot. I don't think many of these would show up under "good podcasts":

Sample, for example:

* Re:Sound (curated aggregator of best episodes)

* SpeakUp (storytelling and teaching storytelling intermixed)

* Confabulation (storytelling, Canadian)

* The Moth (storytelling, worldwide)

* Story Collider (storytelling, Science topics, somewhat uneven)

* Snap Judgment (storytelling, backed by music)

* The truth (mini-stories)

* Everything is alive ("objects" talk)

* Proof (food mini-episodes)

* The Allusionist (stories about language)

* Uncover (radio style journalism. NXIVM series was great)

* Hit Parade (stories about music/trends)

And that's just the vanilla general podcasts. Then, many niches you want to dive in have their own constellations of podcasts in different levels of quality/style.

For example

* for DnD/Role Playing:

-- Critical Role (live DnD game with (niche-)famous Voice Actors), also

-- Session Zero

-- Character Creation Cast

-- Hello from the Magic Tavern

* For Impov:

-- Improv London Podcast

-- Improv Nerd

-- Improv for humans

-- Improv beat by beat

I was already listening to the podcasts before that name existed (Gilmore Gang!) I welcomed, used, and said goodbye to ITConversations. Things they did with AWS to insert new adds into old episodes were super cool for the time :-) Same with Java Posse (oh those hats!)

Just because some podcasts are now popular and tuned for the general audience does not mean that there is no longer something for those with interest for audio consumption and much more niche interests. In fact, it is the opposite, as the software becomes easier and hosting cheaper.

I suspect you've listened to overproduced podcasts. I don't care for those. NPRs are like that. Reed Hoffman's Masters of Scale podcast is a textbook example of what I don't like.

Dan Carlin, of Hardcore History, a very longform podcast, was interviewed by someone once and asked about producing his podcast. He actually does a lot of producing but it's very subtle. Things I didn't consciously notice until I had heard him talk about those.

So maybe try some high quality (e.g. clear audio, recorded well), but not overproduced podcasts with all the bells and whistles.

At this point you can find one like that for any topic you maybe interested in.

Both podcasts and blogs are difficult to monetize. But does that have to be the point of a podcast/blog? I'd say no.

Plenty of people write blogs for themselves and for learning/teaching. Why not do the same thing for podcasts? Those who are truly invested in the medium and want to provide value to others (and themselves) will do it long enough to make it successful. I mean if you try a podcast for 6 episodes and quit...sorry, you probably were never going to be successful as a podcast owner.

A lot of people are probably conflating the monetization angle with the content of the podcasts themselves. It's true that you're probably not going to see a lot of NPR or NPR-style highly produced podcasts from people just doing it for fun. On the other hand, quite a few actually prefer the more conversational and casual angle that comes from people just talking on mic or over the Internet. And those are very doable for pretty much anyone who has the interest and motivation.

thanks to podcasts I have 50 business logos, a year supply of dollar shave club, 8 wordpress hosting accounts, and 5 mattresses

Yeah, it feels like less than 10 companies are funding everything podcast right now. Seems pretty fragile.

Lots of profit to be made (and marketing budgets to be spent) on products that sell for 3-4x+ their production price.

Especially when they’re a several hundred dollar expense, or annually recurring.

Gimlet media’s startup talks about the narrow field of pod advertisers.

Reminds me of the old joke. Podcast advertisers think that I'm a businessman in charge of hiring who doesn't own underwear or a mattress

The good podcasts take a decent amount of prep work. Hardcore history, probably one of the best has months between episodes because Dan puts an incredible amount of research into each episode.

On a side note, my dream podcast would be one analyzing the "time between". History podcasts love to talk about war, and war is interesting, but I find the political details before and after the war more interesting. One of my favorite books is "Paris 1919", a book all about the peace conference after the war. As great as Dan's podcast on WW1 was, he barely talked about the most important part of the war. What happened after it. When the leaders got together, the world was "shaped". It's a facinating read that gives a bit of insight into how the sausage we live in was made.

The story mentions a few stories and it might be a lead indicator but I tend to "follow the money" ;-) and this is what the money tells me[1]:

"Last year, VCs invested just over $200 million in various podcast platforms and related businesses, per the PitchBook Platform. That includes a $50 million funding for the online radio app TuneIn, about $20 million for Gimlet Media and another $20 million for HowStuffWorks, the company behind the popular show "Stuff You Should Know" as well as other original podcast content.

So far this year, VCs have shelled out $64 million on companies in the space, including a $40 million NEA-led round for Luminary Media, the operator of a subscription-based podcast platform, and a $13.5 million Series B for podcast startup Castbox"

[1] https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/vcs-love-fundingand-host...

The implication to me at-least is that the tools to launch podcasts will continue to proliferate (how else will all those platforms for podcasts make money?) and we can expect a lot more podcasts in the future. Would love to hear differing views.

I don't think so. My wife and I have started a podcast that's pretty much about our personal lives. Two of our recent guests went off and started a podcast of their own. Two more are talking about it, but haven't started, yet.

That said, IMO, the amount of podcasts that exist is just starting to ramp up. There are so many people who have yet to start listening/making one. The tools, like anchor, are miles ahead of where they used to be, but still have a long way to go.

What do you feel is missing in anchor?

And do you think more podcasts will be done with remote guests? Any good tools you recommend for getting good audio or video in that case?

>And do you think more podcasts will be done with remote guests?

If there were a magic bullet, take my money. But I doubt if there is, given the state of corporate video conferencing--which doesn't optimize for sound quality.

The "best" quality solution I've found is to have the other person make a separate audio recording and email it to me. But that certainly introduces friction and not everyone has mics laying around. However, in a lot of cases, consistently getting in the same room as people is tough.

One thing I've done is to try to take advantage of in-person opportunities as much as possible and just accept that there's going to be a lot of background noise at conferences, etc.

I think we are near peak corporate podcast. I listen to radio in the morning and I hear a lot of commercials for "advertorial" podcasts by lyft (or is it uber? I don't pay attention) and something hosted by Ariana Huffington with some mattress sponsor. And I can't imagine that a lot of these celebrity podcasts will last more than a year or two.

However, I think the non-corporate podcasts will be around for a long time.

Does it matter at all that people start and end low quality podcasts? Nobody listens to them, nobody spends money on them, and the producers lose little by trying something and stopping.

What I care about is the availability of high quality talk and news available on Podcasts. There seems to be plenty, and even if the ecosystem contracts by 50-75% there will still be far more good content than I have time to listen.

Also, considering "podcast" just means "digitally delivered serial mostly-spoken audio," it's hard to imagine it going away permanently. We have five senses, only two of which are typically used for informal communication. We have a few communication modalities for vision: video, graphics, text. And we have two that I'm aware of for listening: music and speaking (podcasts).

Peak podcast? Not sure that oversimplification makes sense. The number of podcasts may decline as a we get fewer, but higher value podcasts. I see this happening with YouTube. Higher production value shows with good content are winning.

It wouldn't surprise me if you end up with something of a bifurcation. Relatively simple podcasts by people doing it for fun or supporting them professionally on the one hand and professionally-produced podcasts that make money on the other. Of course, that's an oversimplification and at least some number of people will devote lots of time to podcasts even though they're just making a few dollars from fans through Patreon or whatever.

Right, the business model is getting nuanced with revenue from YouTube / Patreon etc... Some will continue to do it as a form of marketing. Also, there's a non-monetary social status benefit that will cause people to continue even if it's not a money maker (that you are alluding to). Like most other human activities it will follow something of a uneven distribution where 20% of the podcasts get 80% of the views (or something like that).

Teasing apart motivations is hard.

There's definitely the "egoboo"factor, a term from the early days of user-generated content that has sadly passed out of use

For many, they're definitely a way to increase professional recognition, promote a consulting business, improve customer engagement/awareness, etc. i.e. brand building/content marketing

For some, it's a hope that they are going to hit it big though this probably applies more to YouTube and Instagram. (And, if there is a bubble, this is probably the main reason.)

The fact that even just a few thousand dollars is worth putting a fair bit of effort into for many.

Or a complicated mix of all of the above.

> Hosts aren’t starting shows “because it’s a fun, niche hobby,” he said. “They do it to make money or because it will make them an influencer.”

lol I'm pretty sure there are heaps, the NYT just decided not to interview any.

I'd say so; when I travel I load up a bunch of software related podcasts to consume the time since I don't really listen to radio. To me it seems many people say 'lets start a podcast!!!' then their first episode they realize they need content to talk about. More power to them for doing a podcast, but I will say many times I'm just listening to people ramble about personal stuff or whatever.

Good content tends to take some serious prep, I guess is my takeaway

I'm not sure it necessarily needs serious prep but it does need some amount of prep/planning and discipline not to go off the rails. Interview shows can be good even when they at least come across as casual conversation about some specific topic. However, I'd agree that a lot of podcasts have way too much random chit-chat for my taste.

I guess I did exaggerate the serious prep a bit, but I guess I used that term because with my current schedule it would be tough to fit in.

Every time I do a developer workshop at work I want to do my best, but dang it takes me a good month of my spare time to get something I feel is worthy of consuming someone else's time.

I just have a difficult time thinking how I'd do a weekly podcast and keep it interesting on topic! But I'm sure there are plenty of people better at this than I am hehe.. At the end of the day though I'm probably happier people keep producing even if I don't consume it all, just nice to know its there

Weekly is pretty frequent. I aim for about every 2 weeks and am happy with 3. I find that, by finding interesting guests who can improvise and speak off the cuff, doing some prep, and keeping things to about 20 minutes it's doable. Then, it's also sort of part of my day job so spending an hour or so per week on it isn't a big deal.

I recorded 41 episodes of a podcast with some friends of mine. It was a lot of fun, and because we had a "format" it wasn't just "a couple of friends talkin' about whatever, especially dick jokes!!!"

We went into it not looking for sponsors or to make money, and we were not surprised :) It was a lot of work to get all 3 of us together every week to record, and then to get the episode edited and released on time. We'd typically record an hour and a half of raw audio, then edit it down to something closer to an hour, a process which took at least three hours--basically, whoever was editing the episode that week had to spend a full evening editing, which was hard for the two hosts with kids.

I've listened to podcasts for more than 10 years now and every year it's been either "peaking" or "declining". Meanwhile I just continue to listen.

I've told myself just that recently after trying a couple of recent Wondery podcasts... Too much produced, too much narrated, denaturing the initial idea and value of podcasts by over-complexifying everything and by emphasizing form over content.

And to think I haven't heard one podcast till date. I must be living under a rock.

I listened to one! It's basically someone reading out a blog post slowly.

I keep enjoying every other non MMA Joe Rogan podcast.

The article does not seem to mention Alex Inc., a main stream network TV show about starting a podcast with a pretty high caliber star.

And of course, gimlets acquisition by Spotify is probably the nadir.

You know once do you have reliable text to speech for websites and newspapers, podcast will be decimated. Or if audible goes a Netflix r you know once you have reliable text to speech for websites and newspapers, podcasts will be decimated. Or if audible goes a Netflix route.

On that note, I’m really happy with The Economist’s word-for-word audio éditions.

>You know once do you have reliable text to speech for websites and newspapers, podcast will be decimated.

Why? It's a different format. There's no shortage of text being read today in the form of audiobooks by people with a lot better voices than computers are likely to be able to imitate for a while. Also NPR stories, etc.

No, but I think we've hit peak news media outlet ...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com