Buzzcast
Buzzcast is a roundtable discussion about podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. We'll cover current events and news, podcast strategy, tools we are using, and dip into the Customer Support mailbag to test our podcasting knowledge. If you want to stay up-to-date on what's working in podcasting, Buzzcast is the show for you.
Buzzcast
The 5 Mistakes That Lose Podcast Listeners
Are you unknowingly sabotaging your podcast? We’re diving deep into the biggest pitfalls that trip up even the most seasoned podcasters—and how you can avoid them. From stretching episode lengths (when is it too long?) to finding the right balance with ads, we tackle the choices that can make or break a show’s success.
Plus, we're thrilled about all the Buzzsprout podcasters announced in the Women in Podcasting Awards, Kevin gets excited about a cognitive study on speed-listening, and we recount our recent meetup in Nashville!
Links mentioned:
- David Hooper - Big Podcast
- Why Listeners Enjoy Sped-Up Podcasts
- 2024 Women in Podcasting Award Winners
- Five Ways that Podcasters are Their Own Worst Enemy
Sound-Off Question: Have you ever experienced a podcasting pitfall? What did you learn from it?
Contact Buzzcast
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- Email us at support@buzzsprout.com
Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!
All right, hey, before we kick off today, as you know, we are three influencers and we have had a rough week. We lost an influencer this week. I think we should start the show with a moment of silence for P'nut the Squirrel.
Jordan:I don't even know who P'nut the Squirrel is.
Alban:Jordan. This is kind of big right now. How do you not know who P'nut the Squirrel is?
Jordan:Well, okay, now I got to look it up.
Kevin:Oh it's sad, it's terribly sad.
Jordan:Oh, but it's going to be like when Grumpy Cat died, isn't it?
Kevin:It's actually worse. I think yeah, because Grumpy Cat, I think, died of natural causes.
Jordan:Oh geez.
Alban:So P'nut. P'nut was murdered by the state.
Jordan:Oh my gosh.
Alban:It's basically, you remember Harambe the gorilla.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:That only it's a squirrel.
Jordan:Did P'nut bite somebody?
Kevin:There's allegations that P'nut did bite one of the people trying to remove him from his home. Self-defense I think it was self-defense, yeah.
Jordan:Oh, P'nut was so cute. I'm looking at this Call for justice for P'nut and NYSDEC reform. Holy cow, they've got $153,000 raised for this, whoa.
Kevin:The state is saying that P'nut bit somebody who tried to remove him from his house. So they had to test P'nut for rabies. And the only way to test P'nut for rabies is to euthanize him. What that's how? They can't test him when he's alive, evidently. But the argument against that is P'nut lived with his owner for seven years before they came to get him. So it's like obviously P'nut didn't have rabies and it seems like you can have a squirrel as a pet, you just have to have a permit. And the owner did not have a permit, so that was his bad. But why couldn't the state just come in and say listen, you've got like just 14 days or 30 days or something like get a permit, and if not we're going to come back and take P'nut.
Kevin:Yeah, but like, do they have to just do it right, get a permit? Well, we got through that.
Jordan:On that note.
Kevin:RIP P'nut.
Jordan:RIP Peanut. Welcome back to Buzzcast! A podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. Let's get into our trip to Nashville.
Alban:It was a great week yeah, it was a great week. This is the third annual buzzprout meetup and we got everyone together. We went to Nashville and someone who didn't plan it, kevin, did most of the planning. I feel like I can say that was our best one by a lot, I thought it was really really well done and really had a wonderful time in Nashville.
Kevin:Yeah, I was super impressed with Nashville. I've never spent a lot of time there, been in and out a few times. There was a podcast movement there a couple of years ago.
Jordan:That's where I met you guys for the first time.
Kevin:You say that I don't believe that's true, but we don't have to go into all that again the first time in person.
Jordan:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin:If you say so. But yeah, it's the first time that I've seen Nashville like boots on the ground, hit Broadway, had like Nashville restaurants, did a little jog around the city, Got to see the Vanderbilt campus and stuff. Really nice, really nice town. We had great weather. It was a beautiful place.
Alban:Yeah, I think it's very cool because it's got all the music in the world and it's got multiple colleges, so it's got college town feel. It's got kind of this destination Country Music Hall of Fame, but it's also got Broadway, but also as a football team. And Country Music Hall of Fame, but it's also got Broadway, but also as a football team, and so there's lots coming together and it's also not a big city, so it's a bit different. I don't know, maybe the closest to it would be something like New Orleans.
Jordan:Really.
Alban:So I'm trying to think of, like not very large cities that have destination purposes, that's what. New Orleans pops in yeah.
Jordan:Yeah, and we stayed in like a really neat place, so we were at the Virgin Hotels.
Kevin:Right.
Jordan:And we got to stay at the flight house there. It's like a big red house just plopped in the middle of downtown and it was really cool. It was like I don't know it was what. Even was it? It was like a Airbnb or yeah it's an Airbnb.
Kevin:I don't know the history of the flight house. I imagine there is some history because it looks like it's been there for a long time, a hundred plus years. Very old, old house that's now been renovated as a luxury vacation rental. Yeah, national being a big destination city for bachelorette parties and stuff like that, I think that's primarily what people use it for. We were able to use it for a corporate retreat Same vibe.
Jordan:Yeah, it was really cool. So the girls got to stay in the flight house and it was very fun because there was like a pink room and like a yellow room and an orange room and a blue room and it was really fun just going around to like each other's rooms and seeing who got what. It was just all decorated like really crazy. You could definitely tell it was like intended to be a party house, but it was really cool.
Kevin:Yeah, and they have a great outdoor space and a great kitchen space and like a comfortable big living room area so we could use that for our all team meetings. You mentioned the Virgin hotel. The Virgin hotel was amazing for anybody listening who's looking for a hotel that is accommodating to large groups. The Virgin Hotel was probably the easiest I've ever worked with.
Alban:I feel like there's so many times that I've been radicalized by going to a different hotel and then they get you on a contract and then you're like, oh, we need like one more table. And then some like guy comes out and he's like, all right, I'm gonna have to get two more people, we have to update the contract. We're gonna bring out the table and you're like, oh, my gosh, can we just have another table?
Jordan:Oh yeah.
Alban:And everything is new contract, more workers, and it just spirals out of control. But here they were, just like everything was super accommodating and it was wonderful, I mean we had an awesome meetup. We had drinks, we had food, we had people taking photos, we had all sorts of stuff.
Jordan:We got to meet some Buzzcast listeners.
Kevin:Yeah, the customer meetup on Thursday night was great yeah. A lot of fun I think we had. I don't know I'm not good at estimating numbers Probably around 30.
Alban:Does that sound right to you guys?
Kevin:30 customers or so show up from the Nashville area 30 customers, 20 Bus Brought employees, probably about 50 total.
Alban:That'd be my guess. Yeah.
Jordan:Yeah, so Eric Nordhoff and his wife came by you were there.
Alban:They were fun to talk to, Always good to see them. I actually met David Hooper. I don't know if either of you know David, but he wrote a book called Big Podcast a few years ago that we have in the office. He lives in Nashville. So he showed up and he was like telling me about this book and I'm like I'm pretty sure I have that book. It's right next to my desk.
Jordan:That's so funny.
Kevin:Yeah, I spoke with Lark and Momster. They have a podcast Hosted on Buzzsprout which I hadn't listened to before, but I got to meet them and while I was eating we had a fun conversation.
Jordan:Yeah, they were super cool. We also got to meet Derek from Pardon the Insurrection.
Kevin:Oh, yes, yeah, Derek is awesome.
Jordan:He was so cool. I love Derek I think we've met him a few times at different podcasting events. It's always good to see him, yeah, and then the gals from the Sideline Rewind podcast.
Alban:Were they the former Titans? Cheerleaders, yeah.
Jordan:Oh my gosh Seriously yeah.
Alban:That's so cool.
Kevin:That's because they connected with Kara because Kara was a cheerleader for the Jaguars and so they had a lot in common, yeah, and evidently Kara might be on their podcast soon, oh cool. So it was a great night. It was an outdoor event, which is always a little nerve wracking because you never know what the weather's going to be like. There's a backup plan to move indoors, but nobody really wants that. But the weather cooperated. The space was wonderful, the food was great, it was a wonderful time. So I mean, we can't do it obviously at any place. It has to be bigger cities. We have a decent chance of having enough customers in the area to make it worthwhile. But we've rolled the dice with Nashville and I think it worked out really well, and so maybe this is something that we try to add on to all of our team meetups going forward, as long as the city is large enough to have enough customers in the area.
Alban:Absolutely. I think that's a really good idea. Obviously, I think it's nice for people who want to come to the meetup the customers but my real reason for it is pretty selfish and that's that people on the team get to meet somebody who they impact with their work. So I had somebody I was talking to who was telling me about how much they enjoyed the Buzzsprout apps and they're like yeah, it's so cool that you're doing all these apps. It's really valuable. I use them every day and I'm like okay, let me introduce you to somebody. And then I walk them over to Dylan and I'm like this is Dylan, he leads all of our mobile work. And then they get to talk and Dylan's like wow, it was so cool I've never met someone that I created the app and then they were using it.
Alban:And you just get to set those up over and over and over again. People meet someone who helped them in customer support, or you watched a video that Jordan or I made, or they listened to Buzzcast. It's so important for us to feel, oh, the work that I did didn't just go out to the void, didn't go out to nobody, it actually went out to real people. And then if you get to meet them in person, that's just so encouraging for when next time you're working on something to remember. Oh yeah, like David Hooper told me, he listens to Buzzcast. That's cool. I'm going to remember it when I'm prepping for an episode and I want to do a little bit of a better job.
Jordan:Yeah, just think of David. So this is a topic that we have actually covered in the past because of Kevin's horrendous podcast and movie consumption rates.
Kevin:And now there's some science behind my position.
Jordan:Now there's some science behind it and Kevin's getting vindicated and I'm like begrudgingly talking about this story.
Alban:I don't buy it. This, this whole article, oh my gosh.
Kevin:Alban, follow the science, my friend, it's right in front of you.
Alban:I got to do my own research on this one, kevin, because nothing in this rings true to me. All right, jordan, you can. You can recap the article, I guess, before I jump in.
Jordan:Let's cue this up. So CBC News interviewed a cognitive scientist to understand the effects of accelerated media on the brain.
Kevin:And what did they find?
Jordan:They found this. The first thing that they talk about is podcasts, because a lot of people listen to podcasts at like 1.25 1.5 speed, but a study by UCLA's Alan Castell showed that younger listeners, especially college-age students, retain nearly as much information when listening to content at double speed.
Kevin:Double speed.
Jordan:And for many they said it reduces mind wandering, which is where they just like get distracted and don't think about what they're listening to.
Alban:You know what mind wandering is? I'm just saying.
Jordan:I don't know if you guys were mind wandering while I was explaining it.
Kevin:No, you know I didn't do a good job of articulating that part of my argument, but I think I do suffer from that. When I listen to podcasts at 1X, I oftentimes I'm doing something else and then I find myself getting more involved in whatever else I'm doing instead of listening to the content. But when the content's faster, it holds my attention a little better.
Alban:Yeah, I think that maybe it's just that I'm doing different things when I'm listening to podcasts. I was never listened by themselves. I'm not sitting there like around the radio listening with my family, mostly driving or working out or you know, cleaning or something, and I feel like doing two things at once keeps my attention extremely locked in. So I feel like when I'm listening to a podcast even one X or with kind of like smart speed where it's cutting out the silences, I feel like I'm about as focused as I could be. I don't know if I would get more focused with like 1.5 or two X or something.
Jordan:Yeah, and it sounds like it's a slippery slope because they're saying that you know, if you, if you regularly listen to podcasts that like an accelerated speed, then you train your brain to like want to do that, but that I mean that kind of segues to the music. Portion of this is that you know people are starting to listen to music at accelerated speeds too, and really we have TikTok to think for this. Think about the Wednesday dance. So Wednesday there was this famous scene where she's dancing in the black dress. Everyone's seen it. It's to Bloody Mary by Lady Gaga. But the version of it that got really popularized was this like super sped up version. It's that's what people like, because if you actually listen to the real song it's like at half speed and it sounds weird, like it sounds wrong.
Kevin:Do you know why they sped it up for the TikTok version?
Jordan:I honestly feel like it's to match up with Wednesday's dance. Like she's got this like hand thing. That's very like Michael Jackson-esque.
Kevin:But isn't she dancing, Like when they did that for the show? Wasn't she dancing to that song?
Jordan:That song was. The song that she danced to was Goo Goo Muck.
Kevin:Oh.
Jordan:Which is also really good.
Kevin:but Well, I might've been wrong on this. I mean on the social apps, on TikTok and Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. I always assumed people were speeding up the songs to get around the automated copyright violation stuff.
Jordan:Ooh.
Kevin:Thinking that they would be tricking the automated systems that were looking for that type of music.
Jordan:And maybe if you sped it up, it wouldn't catch it as often.
Kevin:But maybe that's where it started, and then people started catching on.
Alban:Yeah, well, there was some research that was in this article about that. Sometimes increasing the tempo of a song makes people feel happier like higher heart rate and so they'll take long but slow and sad songs and compress them. And then people will be like, oh yeah, this is like exciting and fun now, but I feel like that defeats the purpose. If it's a sad song, the point is to like feel the sad song-ness of it, not the listen to it, and be like, oh, I'm going to make like a happy-go-lucky version of this.
Kevin:I found a new word in here that I wasn't familiar with. They refer to it as accelerated music is also known as nightcore. Yeah, I'd never heard of that. It's become a phenomenon, especially on platforms like TikTok, where a sped up version of a song often gains more traction than its originals. When I look up Nightcore on Wikipedia, also known as sped up edit of a version of a music track that increases the pitch and tempo of its source material, so you need to start listening to like Nightcore podcasting yeah.
Kevin:I wonder where they got that name. The name is derived from the Norwegian musical duo Nightcore, which released pitch-shifted versions of trance and Eurodance songs. There you go, all right. And what do they say about watching fast movies and TV shows?
Jordan:This is the one that just it pains me. There was a cognitive scientist that found that audiences have gotten so good at processing these visuals that shot lengths in movies are actually shorter now than they used to be, which makes sense, and I think that it's just kind of like a reflection on how quickly people are receiving information now, like we just yeah people's brains are changing.
Alban:Have you seen this trend of combining multiple clips into one, like YouTube or Instagram short or real or whatever? Like you're watching on the top is like a podcast interview and on the bottom is like somebody playing Roblox or Minecraft or something, and they put both on there just so that your attention is a little bit more likely to stick. So if you start watching the Roblox character jumping like platform to platform for half a second or the car racing down a track and hitting stuff and you're like, oh interesting, as you're listening to the audio, I mean it just feels hyper optimized in a very negative way. I'm not a fan of this. I think that our attention spans get shorter and shorter the more of this junk we throw in there, and our brains are like, oh, I need more novelty, more bangs and Michael Bay style explosions and fast music and everything like constantly switching and it just feels very like chaotic.
Alban:To me it still works, it just doesn't feel healthy.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:Yeah, brain change. Everyone's talking about climate change, but we should be talking more about brain change.
Jordan:Brain changes.
Alban:Well, it was interesting how many people they got that said. Songs that are sped up create novelty. I think that makes sense to me. You know, you hear a song once and then you listen to it at 2x and you're like, oh, it reminds me of the original. But the one that did not land for me at all was somebody who said we've gotten better at pulling information quickly from our screens and that was why we're watching faster videos and faster podcasts and all this stuff. I'm like. The fastest, though, is reading. Reading is so much more efficient than watching a movie or listening to a podcast, and I feel like if all we're focused on is efficiency, then I would just find like a really good book or podcast transcript or something Like you can read that so much faster than you could ever listen to it.
Kevin:I don't know. I don't know if I agree with that I think it depends on the person. Yeah, you've gotten good at reading because you're an avid reader.
Alban:Yeah.
Kevin:And so you can read very quickly, and I'm assuming have gotten very good at retaining what you read very quickly.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:I am not an avid reader. I am at best a casual reader. Maybe I'll read like maybe six books a year, tops, probably more like four on an average year, and so I'm not reading a ton, and so it does take me a while to get through a book, but I've gotten very good at listening to podcasts very quickly, so I think it's just whatever you practice?
Alban:Do you think that if, like we had a 45 minute podcast and you were to listen to that in 22 and a half minutes but you also had like a blog post that was on the same thing, Do you think that you would still take over 22 and a half minutes to read the blog post?
Kevin:I don't know I've never tested that theory. I could confidently say that if we had the same amount of material that you and I both had to read and then took a test on retention, and we only had a certain amount of time to read it, you'd probably do better on the reading portion. And if we had to listen to a podcast like at 2X and then took a test on retention, I might do better than you on that.
Alban:But which of us would do better if it was a TikTok where the top was a Roblox character and the bottom was an AI?
Kevin:voice talking over it. See, Roblox doesn't hold my attention, but if they were cutting moonsand with a multicolored knife, I'd be all in for that.
Alban:I know exactly what you're talking about. I've seen this too.
Jordan:Shampooing a rug?
Kevin:Oh, yes, I get so much dirt out of those rugs.
Alban:I can watch that forever, all the power washing videos, if it gets me. I'm like wow, that's really dirty. Oh my gosh, power washing still works. Yeah, actually, I think this has proven our point that it does work pretty well.
Kevin:Yeah, it does All right. Well, I feel vindicated by the science. Please link up that article so everyone can read along and feel good about their 2x listening.
Jordan:The winners were announced for the 2024 Women in Podcasting Awards, and 11 of them are host on Buzzsprout. Women in Podcasting Awards, and 11 of them are hosts on Buzzsprout. So there is over 15,000 listeners participating in the voting process and there were 400 nominees for the Women in Podcasting Awards.
Alban:Yeah, that's really cool. Big thanks to James Cridland, who highlighted this for us and sent it over.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:There's lots of interesting shows. And do either of you ever get just kind of blown away by how many good podcasts there are that you've never heard of shows? And do either of you ever get just kind of blown away by how many good podcasts there are that you've never heard of?
Jordan:Yes.
Alban:I pretty regularly will find a show and I'll click into it. I'm like, wow, this is really good, this is really well done. You know, it's just really exciting to see somebody doing a cool show and then you're like man, this is still not a very large show and it's also often one I've never heard of. There's just so much good stuff out there.
Kevin:Yeah, I really love the categories I'm looking at. Best travel podcast was a Buzzsprout winner. Best storytelling podcast. Best science podcast. Best regional podcast. Like these are not just standard iTunes categories, like they came up with some really cool unique ones and I think they did a great job.
Jordan:Well and honestly, usually a lot of the women's like podcasting awards that people have done in the past, the awards are kind of odd categories. It's not like you know the best, like design podcast, best business podcast, things like that like typical award categories that you would just see. Generally they always have some weird odd categories whereas, like, I think there was one I saw that was like most unflappable host, I was like what does that even mean? I'm happy to see some like normal award categories here.
Alban:I think you're right. You're both right in that picking different categories made these probably come out with better content, so they surfaced a lot of different shows.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:When you pick the same categories that Apple Podcasts has well, Apple Podcasts has a ranking. It's called the Apple Podcasts has. Well, Apple Podcasts has a ranking. It's called the Apple Podcast Charts, yeah. And so you click in there and a lot of times what wins are the things that are at the top of the charts, the most popular. But when you pick something that might not be a one-to-one Apple Podcast category it's not exactly another category then maybe like documentary podcasts I don't think there's like a documentary category, but regardless, there's tons of these in here and I think what that does is people think about it a little bit more and they think, oh well, here's a podcast I really love that's hosted by a woman, that is in this category, and then they recommend it versus somebody just scrolling through the Apple podcast categories and going, okay, well, number one on this list, number four on this list, were hosted by women. So those are the two winners. That yields kind of more boring results, I guess.
Jordan:Yeah, the other thing that I really like about this is that it's listener voted. You know we had this with discover pods, and then discover pods quit doing their awards, like a few years ago, and so it's really nice to see this. Where it's not a lot of these award shows feel very like bought.
Alban:You probably have to be a major network in order to win's broad appeal podcasts, and maybe you know like current event podcasts or news podcasts, where everyone's like I kind of want to keep up with what's happening in the world and you look in like eight of the top 20 podcasts are all going to be news related. It's not that people are like this is an amazing news related show, it's just that it's news, so people listen to it every day. But these are podcasts that some of them probably only release once every two weeks or sometimes even more, but the listeners going no, this is actually a great podcast. There's one about careers best careers podcast and people listen to it and go yeah, this actually impacted my career, so I want to vote for it versus the ones that are broad appeal. So very good list. We should definitely link to it in the show notes so people can find. I mean, there's like 50 shows in here.
Kevin:So yep, that's great. Congratulations to all the winners, and especially the Buzzsprout customers. Thank you for trusting us with your amazing podcast.
Jordan:All right. So there was a Substack article linked in Pod News this week that really caught my attention. It's from Frank Rachopi and it's called Five Ways that Podcasters Are their Own Worst Enemy.
Kevin:Yeah, catchy title.
Jordan:Yeah, really catchy. So the first three points are basically, frank, whacking you over the head with a less is more stick. I don't know. At first I thought it was kind of critical of all podcasters, so let's just go through some of the points that Frank made here. The first point he makes is that podcasters have too many podcasts. All the podcasters have multiple shows just because they can podcast, and it's like cluttering up the ecosystem.
Alban:Now is he arguing from a we're filling up the podcast apps with too many options, or is he saying the podcasters are splitting themselves among too many different shows?
Jordan:He's basically saying both podcasters, you know, just because they can, they're creating multiple podcasts and it's like diluting listenership because listeners can't listen to that many podcasts, which could be proven wrong, based on our couple segments ago where we talked about listening at two X speed becoming more and more popular so they can consume more podcasts. But this is interesting. So he says listeners care because podcast discoverability is already a major issue without more podcasts tossed into the pool. Other podcasters care because every new podcast takes a slice of the pie from existing podcasts.
Kevin:I don't know. Here's what I'm thinking as a podcast consumer and listener. My show selection is usually based on a combination of I find a topic that I'm interested in and then I find a personality that is covering that topic, and then when the two come together and align with my sensibilities, then I become a listener of that show. Oftentimes I find a show where the hosts also do other shows and I'm not immediately drawn to those other shows. So it's very common for me to listen to a podcast of a podcaster who has two or three or four podcasts and I've never even gone to listen to the other podcasts because they're different topics and those topics are not interesting to me.
Alban:Yeah, I think I'm with you, kevin. I didn't really think of this point, but I think of Nilay Patel on the Verge cast is not all that interesting to me, but on Decoder, that's really interesting to me and I think he's a really good interviewer. But I think the roundtable discussion about tech news isn't all that exciting for me, and if they were to kind of cram those into one podcast or try to do different segments, I'd probably find that show to be a bit more boring and I might churn away. The point that I do like from this article, though, is I definitely. I mean, you meet people who are like oh, I have three podcasts, I have one about this, one about this, one about this, and my thoughts are you know, if you're trying to grow any of them, it might be valuable to just focus on one and put all your efforts into the one and get better and better at podcasting rather than spinning up new projects, right.
Alban:So for that point I think I have a bit of like. There's a bit of me that says, yes, this is definitely a problem. Podcaster can be their own worst enemy, but when it's a different format and you're a successful podcaster, I think splitting it off is kind of kind to your audience, who doesn't really want to listen to multiple formats in the same feed.
Kevin:I think maybe the trap that this person might be pointing out is that, as a podcast creator, you might think that you're going to get more carryover than you actually will by launching additional podcasts.
Jordan:Yes, so you might say oh.
Kevin:I've got this show. It's going pretty well. I should launch another one, then I'll get all my existing listeners plus new ones who are interested in this new topic as well. Oh, yeah, and I think that that's a trap, like that's probably not going to happen as much as you might want it to, or you might think it might.
Jordan:That's a good point. Let's go to his second point, which is podcasters increasing the length of their podcast. So he's saying over the past few years episodes have been getting longer and that can lead to listener fatigue, and he's suggesting that you keep episodes like concise and tight and well-edited to respect your audiences.
Kevin:I'm all in on this one.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:The majority of podcasts that I've listened to that have been long running. Shows have gotten a little bit longer and longer and I don't think it's like not because they're getting better and better, they're just getting longer and longer and I find myself skipping more and listening faster and skipping episodes. But there's a show I used to listen to on the regular, but it used to be a little bit over an hour. Now it's regularly over two hours and I'm like I'm not drawn into it nearly as much. I see it pop up that they released again this week. Okay, great, and I'm not excited to listen to it. I felt like it used to be a lot tighter and I couldn't wait for it to come out.
Alban:You know, I feel like that way about TV shows. There's times where TV shows that are like 30 minutes long are much easier to get into, because I'm like, okay, there's a full story arc here in 30 minutes and maybe you'll watch a few of them, but if there's a movie that's like a three hour movie, you have to almost like plan the whole night around watching that long movie.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:And there's times with podcasts where I see it's like this two and a half hour show and I'm like I'm not getting into that. Now, Where's my podcast? It's 15 minutes a piece.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:I'll listen to those and it just feels like a commitment. Sometimes, when it's like a this is two hours, like come on, this didn't need to be two hours.
Kevin:I think there must be different personality types though, because, like, I'm not for the premium version of podcasts, it's never a draw to me, it's never attractive to me to pay to get the extended uncut version of episodes or to get the bonus interview or whatever. I'm like I'm assuming that you're already taking the best and cutting it down to be the tightest version and that's what I got. And then you want me to pay for the junk you cut out because it wasn't good enough to make the real show. But I'm also the person I've never watched like a director's cut of a movie. I have no interest in really watching the director's cut. Now, like the director's commentary, I do find those interesting when they're talking about how they shot this or why they made these decisions. I think that's interesting. But this the extended director's cut again, I'm like eh, there's a reason why you cut out that extra 45 minutes of the movie, right?
Alban:Because most people found it boring. I feel like it should actually be the other like. The free version is the raw, unedited meandering conversation and it's like and if you want the same episode with editing, then come over to the Buzzsprout supporters yeah, we covered the same stuff, and half the time.
Jordan:Yeah, I think you create a new premium subscription model. Shorter episodes.
Kevin:I probably got that wrong with the books too. Like the full book should be like 10 bucks and the SparkNotes version should be like 150. Like we're saving you a ton of time.
Alban:I remember reading the reviews on a book I read and on Amazon, someone was like Reading the reviews on a book I read and on Amazon, someone was like great book, way too short and it was nonfiction and I was like what's the? You wanted her to rewrite this longer.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:With more fluff. Like that's what happens to books. The author comes in with like a really good idea and premise and they've got five really great examples and the editor's like look, we want to sell this book for like 19 bucks, so it needs to be 230 pages minimum, so go add me another hundred pages. No, I'd much rather pay for the version the author wrote that was tight and was easier to read, rather than a bunch of fluff that you're like this doesn't really make their point.
Jordan:Yeah, I mean we had a whole discussion about this on one of our more recent episodes, where I mean we talked about how the guys from acquired like yeah, they have three hour episodes, but it's edited.
Kevin:Yeah, it's a tight three hours. There's nothing wrong with a long podcast. There's a. There's a problem with the boring podcast? Yeah.
Jordan:I mean it's like okay, so survivor. You know they were 45 minute episodes. They're 90 now, like the past few seasons it's been 90 minute episodes.
Alban:We're talking about survivor, like the TV show.
Jordan:Yeah, and it's it's so stinking good, but it does take more time and I'm finding that sometimes we have to put off watching an episode because of time. It kind of sucks a little bit in that way. But we we do love it because it's it's a tight 90, you know a tight 90. It's really good. It goes by fast.
Alban:It's like a perfect segue to number three.
Jordan:Okay, yeah, podcasters monetizing with too many ads and his argument is that excessive ads, especially interruptive programmatic advertising, is completely disrupting the listener experience and it's kind of ruining podcasting.
Alban:Well, I think that's why a lot of them got longer. I think when it's longer and longer there's more ad break spots and if you're doing a very popular three-hour show, you could put in six, seven ad break spots and you're like, oh, this still would be a really light load compared to radio or TV. So the ad load's low, it's fine, and I think the ads plus the desire to not really edit combine together to create these long, meandering episodes that should be tightened up quite a bit. But when the money says go longer and stick a bunch of ads in there and the laziness says, go longer, don't worry about editing, I think that's why everything keeps getting more and more, just longer episodes. They're just getting longer. They get more ads, cut them down.
Kevin:Yeah, I'm going to have to confess something on the show.
Jordan:Oh boy.
Kevin:So I don't listen to a lot of podcasts produced by Spotify, but I did this week. I'm not in like a regular listener to the Joe Rogan podcast, but I did listen this week.
Kevin:It's an election cycle and he had a couple guests on this week that I felt compelled to educate myself and just listen. Okay, who was it? I don't want it to be political and this isn't what I'm talking about, but the first one I listened to there were no ads and I didn't even think about it until I listened to the next episode, and I think maybe they intentionally didn't put ads in there because they didn't want to monetize this particular polarizing figure. Okay, fine, that's not what I'm talking about. But the next episode that I listened to of the Joe Rogan podcast there were ads and they were in the worst possible spots ever, like right in the middle of one person talking at length about something pretty deep. It would just cut off and go to an ad and then the ad is super loud and it was Joe Rogan was reading the ad. It was definitely a prerecorded ad that they just inserted at this terrible spot, and I was blown away with how terrible this Spotify ad tech is.
Jordan:Yeah, it's awful.
Kevin:They're like, probably the company that's spending the most in podcasting right now, and their ad tech is just atrocious.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:And so I'm wondering of how many poor opinions about podcast advertising are being formulated around Spotify just not seeming to care about how they approach ads and advertising in general in the podcasting space.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:It was so jarring I literally had my earbuds in and I was pressure washing and so like everything's already very loud and then all of a sudden this whole interview just gets interrupted and Joe Carlin's Hardcore History has the most aggressive jarring forget everything you knew about history.
Jordan:And the guy will be mid-sentence. He's very soft-spoken, very gentle, and then I get the forget everything you learned about history. And it's just so loud. It's scary and it's making me hate this podcast because it's so loud. Okay, so point number three hate this podcast because it's so loud.
Kevin:Okay, so point number three, I think, is a good point.
Jordan:Yes.
Kevin:Excessive ads, especially interrupted programmatic ads, disrupt the listening experience and can deter audiences. I agree, but I do think if monetization of your podcast is something that's important to you and advertising is a strategy that you want to implement, I think there is a good way to do it. So I don't want to like throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Alban:Yeah, but it does seem like some of the largest podcasts are doing a very terrible job at this.
Jordan:I agree. All right, what do we have now? Point number four podcasters engaging in extremism. I somewhat agree with this. So he's basically saying you know, I love podcasting and I don't want to become a trash heap of hate, extremism and advocacy for violence.
Alban:I think the point is yeah, this is a good point.
Jordan:Yes.
Alban:Extremist content. Not great. We're in a unique position of trust. That's true. It's not good to create divisive, sensational material, but that doesn't apply uniquely to podcasting, where some of these other things are unique to podcasting. This is just kind of a general like yeah, if the only thing you're doing in the world is creating a bunch of hateful rhetoric or something like, whether doing that on YouTube or Tik TOK or a blog or a newspaper, you're just doing it on a street corner, you're just a jerk. Don't do it Like lean into some of the beautiful things in the world. Yeah, this is sort of just like a foundational thing, like just don't be a garbage human being, I mean. But I think podcasts seem to have gotten a bit more of this. Like often people talk about podcasting as if podcasting is extreme. Podcasting, I don't think, is as extreme as lots of other media types.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:I think it's just that you can find it here, like you do on YouTube and you do anywhere else, and so I don't know. I think I thumbs down this. It's a fair point, but I don't find it to be particularly focused on podcasting Like. This isn't really a podcasting exclusive problem.
Kevin:Yeah, I don't even know what to say about this point. It is definitely a weird thing for him to try to touch on.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:Podcasting is a unique publishing format, much like blogs were at the time, and then they got kind of sucked up with social media feeds and stuff like that. And then, as those larger platforms had user created content and then they were using algorithms to promote certain content, then they had to figure out where the lines were about content they should promote and shouldn't promote. That doesn't exist yet in podcasting. Maybe it does a little bit with like Apple's charts and Spotify's charts and stuff like that, and those platforms need to figure that out for themselves. But I think content creators should be able to create whatever content they want.
Kevin:If you're going to build something that's then going to promote or demote content, you need to seriously think about what we're going to promote or demote. But the internet exists as a place for people to publish whatever they want, and the best way for garbage content to not get any traction is for people to talk about how. You know this is not a good way of thinking. So if there's a podcast out there that's extremist and yada, yada, yada and it's starting to gain traction, like I think, the way to and that doesn't align with you and your sensibilities, then start a podcast about why that's not good, and here's a better way to think or highlight all the cool podcasts we talked about at the beginning of this.
Kevin:Yeah, there's multiple ways to combat this, but I don't.
Alban:I feel like there's all these good shows that we are finding that are not ones we hear about and we spend a lot of time hand wringing over like pretty minor podcasts. I mean like, oh, this is bad yeah.
Kevin:I don't like this point. We'll move on.
Jordan:All right, let's see how you feel about the final point here Podcasters, copycatting topics, genres and styles.
Alban:Yes, 100%.
Jordan:Here's the thing is he's saying true crime, celebrity interview podcasts, they're oversaturating the market and I think that's true. But I think that it's very generalizing to say that you know copycatting topics and genres. The thing is, is there's only so many genres of anything you know and so you're going to somewhat copycat that?
Alban:I think that that's true again, not just in podcasting, but in any space, any medium you know YouTubers copycatting each other movies, books, but I think the very cool things almost always are somewhat unique. They're trying to tread some new ground. Look at podcasting. 10 years ago Serial came out. That was a multi-episode deep dive into a court case that had not really been done well on podcasting before that. Look at Rogan starting a comedian and TV show anchor or game show guy, whatever you want to say A comedian and TV show anchor or game show guy, whatever you want to say doing three-hour interviews with celebrities.
Alban:That really wasn't being done well at that point. Look at Welcome to Night Vale, an entire fiction podcast about a horror town or hardcore history, like you mentioned. Five-hour deep dives into a historical story with one person telling you the story.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:Those were unique or at least pretty unproven areas. And now there's like 5,000 podcasts with decent listener bases that are all like we're going to do a deep dive into this court case and I'm like, yeah, but we have serial, we have a handful of good true crime shows. It would be very cool for you to try something totally different, and I think the experimenting phase of podcasting was really high early on and it does seem like it's died off a bit as people go oh, I'm a comedian, I could do a celebrity podcast interview show. It's like we've got enough comedians doing celebrity podcast interview shows.
Kevin:Right. So I think the key word here is the copycat, versus when he goes in to make the argument he talks about oversaturation.
Kevin:And I don't think oversaturation is the problem. I think copycatting is a problem for podcasters. And like, if you have a certain style or genre or whatever a podcast that you enjoy, then to just say, oh, I'm also going to create my own podcast and it's going to be just like these, that's really not needed in the world. That podcast already exists, you don't need to copycat it. But what's cool about podcasting is that everybody has their own unique take or perspective on something. So if you love true crime podcasts, is he saying, don't start a true crime podcast. I hope not. I think what he's saying is what is your version of a true crime podcast and how is it different than all the other true crime podcasts that are out there? So just this last week I had a conversation with a guy who runs. I just joined a local pickleball club and I was talking with the owner. He looked at my email address when I registered and he's like oh, you're with Buzzsprout. I was like, yeah, he's like I had a podcast on Buzzsprout like five or six years ago. Run anymore? He's like, no, pickleball wasn't big enough. I wasn't, you know, getting the traction. I just, you know, wanted to start up this business and didn't have time and so we're talking about that. And I was like, well, that's crazy now because, man, if you would have stuck with it, think about how big you'd be right now.
Kevin:Pickleball podcasts are huge. There's a bunch of them that do really well in the space. I'm like it's too bad you gave that up, but you should start it up again. Like there's no reason you shouldn't start it up again. They're doing great. He's like yeah, but now there's so many. He's like I should have stuck with it, cause back when I was doing it, there's only two or three. And now there's like 500 pickleball podcasts and I was like, well, how many do you listen to? And he goes. I just listened to one. I was like, what? There's 500, are they no good? And he's like, well, I want to talk about, like what is it like to run a pickleball business and how do you build a pickleball community in the city and what are like the cool, like ideas and events you have and what's unique about your opinion? I was like, if that podcast doesn't exist, then that's your show.
Kevin:That's what you need to do this.
Alban:Okay, isn't it a bit ironic that when nobody was doing it, it was proof that there was no interest in the area. It was proof that it was a bad idea. And then, when a lot of people started doing it, it became proof that it was overdone. Like, maybe, if you feel like it should be made, make it and don't overthink the fact that, uh oh, this market isn't proven out yet. Yeah, it's probably not proven out because it's a unique idea and you're going to get a really nice first mover advantage. And then, if you are going to be the 30th, go listen to the ones that are already doing it and identify what makes them bad how could they be better, and then come up with your own angle. Well, good article, jordan, thanks for sharing that with us. I think a handful of these I really agree with. A few kind of kicked off some interesting conversations.
Jordan:Yeah, I mean he basically wraps it up saying that really the podcast networks are going to do what they're going to do and it feels like they're poisoning the well is the gist I get from his article. So he's just really hoping that any podcasters will continue to innovate and keep up the integrity of the podcasting space, because at some point they're going to do really well and it's not going to matter what the big networks are going to do. So positive note. All right. So we've got some sound off messages. First off, we have a message from Eric Nordhoff saying you guys really lived out the stereotype of the Nashville life this week. Great to see you all last night, except we missed chatting with Jordan. Yep, I did miss you, eric. I saw you but I didn't get to go say hi.
Alban:It does say at the end, she was never freed up from her adoring fans, which you left off.
Jordan:I did leave that off because it's not true.
Kevin:No, that's typical. That's typical. Everybody wants to hear the Jordan laugh in real life.
Alban:Glenn from Spirit Led Hope, hey Buzzcast. Thank you for your faithful encouragement and support of podcasters of all sizes. I run a small podcast in my spare time from my local church. I appreciate the way your topics and insights are useful, even for those of us who are not worried about listener numbers or income. Plus, your friendly banter makes it fun. Y'all are appreciated. Thanks, Glenn. That is such an awesome message. I really appreciate it.
Kevin:Yeah, thank you, glenn. Rob from the Wicked Wanderings podcast wrote in and said I mentioned this before and you seem to take note about it, but I was wondering if you'd implement it. I'd like to be able to add a button in the follow section to our merch store or add a button somewhere else on the website. Yep, I'm going to take note of it again. Only because we don't talk about new features before they're released, but we do listen all the time and we have long lists and a bunch of great ideas that we're implementing. So maybe we will get around to that at some point soon, but I can't make any promises. But thanks, rob, keep them coming.
Jordan:All right. And then Glendale Alaska sent us a couple of messages, the first one saying the thing I found interesting and humorous about all of this host-read advertising talk is that such a thing is really a flashback to old-time radio. Go back and listen to old-time shows such as Jack Benny, fred Allen and more. They would make jokes about the product. They would have comedy songs written about the product and they made the product part of the show. It even became a joke sometimes when a product was mentioned that wasn't an advertiser.
Jordan:I actually went on YouTube and I looked up Jack Benny and I found a really funny like from the 1960s Texco commercial where he was interrupted mid monologue and they said, hey, it's time for the ad. And so he sat down and he read the ad while they were changing the set and it reminded me a lot of like some of these comedic things that we see from like Conan O'Brien. All right. And then our second message says regarding your after show comments, there are certainly many movies we enjoyed in our youth holding up when we view them as adults. There are other movies that, while they don't hold up, we still love them enough that we really don't care, for example, the original version of the Rogers and Hammerstein Cinderella with Leslie Ann Warren was a television production shot on videotape with fairly low end sets and props, and yet, despite its technical failings, I still love it.
Alban:The thing that stands out, I remember, in this vein is these old Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Oh yeah, and like all the animals are human sized because they're just like costumes with humans in them.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:And I didn't really appreciate as a child how ridiculous it looked. And then I rewatched part of one I don't know years ago and I was like this is wild. This is a movie that I loved as a kid, but I'm sure watching it you know the nostalgia helps it hold up a little bit better.
Jordan:Okay, so one of my favorite shows when I was a kid was HR Puff and Stuff, which is a deep cut from the seventies, and if you look that up it is a fever dream. It's not great.
Kevin:Not familiar.
Alban:We got a message from Matt. From Matt and Friends Drink the Universe. You all need to check out the Good Pods app. It's newly redone and driven by recommendations and likes from listeners. It's essentially a social app for podcast listeners. As a podcaster, I love it. Good Pods has been doing lots of interesting things over the years and every few months I end up trying it out. So if they've redone it and they made some changes, maybe it's time to go back and give it another listen.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:I think, another look, another look.
Jordan:All right, and our last sound off question was what are some things you've gone to in person lately and what made it valuable?
Kevin:Yeah, Sarah Rossett wrote in from a Wish I'd Known Then podcast and said what meetup would Kevin drive a couple of hours to go to? She suggested HVAC Fest. I probably would. I probably would. I am very interested in the HVAC world. Yeah, good suggestion, Sarah. Thank you.
Jordan:Dave Jackson said. I attended EC Creator Camp and I love that it was capped at 100 people so I got to meet everyone. Their swag bag had stuff you actually would use, like a newer light. They kept you fed and all the sessions were about learning and not vaguely veiled pitches. You actually saw photos that he posted from the EC Creator Camp and it looked really cool and I love those smaller get togethers where it's only like 100 people, because you really do get to build stronger connections with people over the time that you're there.
Alban:Yeah, ec Creator Camp for people who don't know is Ecamm Live's king. I had to look that up myself to try to figure out what it was. One of the best conferences I ever went to was one that was run like this. I wanna say it was like 500 people, but it was for Moz, the SEO software. I went two years ago and it was very expensive, but they provided all the meals. Everything was very high end. They did a really good job vetting speakers. It was one track and I just got so much out of that conference and I think it was because when the prices are a little bit higher, they're able to invest a bit more in making the conference as valuable as possible.
Jordan:Yeah, and our sound off question for our next episode. Since we talked about the five ways that podcasters are their own worst enemy, I would like to know if you have ever been your own worst enemy in podcasting and what's a podcasting lesson that you've learned the hard way from that. So, to send in your response, tap the fan mail link in our show notes and you're responsibly featured on our next episode. So until then, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
Kevin:You guys notice anything different about me.
Jordan:Are you mewing? That's what my kids do. They do like the thing.
Kevin:Do you see anything different? Do I look different?
Alban:Oh you grew your beard out a little more, a little Santa.
Jordan:Did you get Botox?
Kevin:No, do you know what this is?
Jordan:What am I looking at?
Kevin:Mouth tape. Mouth tape.
Jordan:Oh, I heard Jimmy Fallon talking about this.
Alban:What does that have to do with? What are you trying to show us that's different about you? I mean one of the unproven have like an improved jawline.
Kevin:Do your jawlines improving Cause you've lost weight and you work out all the time, or it could be the last two nights of using mouth tape.
Jordan:Okay, it's so wild because I've never heard of mouth tape up until like just recently, and now it's just kind of like blowing up, like people are using it for like snoring and all this stuff. Is this what this is for?
Kevin:Any stupid little trend that hits online, I'm all in for testing. And so I went ahead and got some mouth tape. I'm two nights in. Yeah, I'm not convinced it's magical, but I'm going for it. You guys want to try some? Should I send you some mouth tape? I've already. I've done mouth tape have I've already.
Alban:I've done mouth tape, have you? Oh yeah, I'm trying to pull up my stats for it real quick.
Kevin:Did you log it in your Wupat? Yeah, did you see any improvements?
Alban:Missing it now, but it was like 3% improvement on recovery for me so it seemed like it was helping a little bit on the margins.
Kevin:So why didn't you? Why didn't you keep using it? Does it stick to my mustache? I know it does. It pulls your hair out in the morning and it would always.
Alban:I'd like rip it off in the night and then I'd have like bumps on my lips from where it, like sticker, was stuck to me.
Jordan:Oh my gosh.
Kevin:There's a little hack around that. I found that out. I had the same problem night one.
Alban:So night two, I put chapstick on first before I put the mouth tape on. I don't believe in chapstick. I'm serious, dude. Chapstick is one of these products that I don't know why people ever start it, because once you start, you can't stop. It is addictive. It's like a nicotine.
Kevin:But you live in Florida, that's why.
Jordan:Come live in the desert Alban, I give you one week in the desert Holy cow.
Alban:Totally agree. You're right. There's many, many places in the world where chapstick is needed. Florida is not one of them. Florida, the humidity is a natural chapstick, and then you start using it and then your lips dry out and you have to keep reapplying and then you become one of those people who carries a chapstick everywhere.
Kevin:The good thing about chapstick is I'm convinced every stick is a lifetime supply. I'm convinced no one has ever fully used an entire chapstick they either leave it in their car and it melts or they lose it, but no one's ever just used it all the way up.
Jordan:Oh man, it doesn't happen. Well, I think I'm the first person, then, kevin.
Kevin:You've used yours up. You've kept one stick of chapstick long enough to use it all the way up.
Jordan:Yeah. So I have like different chapsticks, like there's like purse chapstick, living room chapstick, kitchen chapstick, I've got desk chapstick and all of them stay in their assigned place and then when it runs out I go get a replacement for it and it's like this EOS lip balm stuff. That's really good and they're kind of like expensive ones.
Kevin:You're blowing my mind right now.
Alban:Yeah, wait, is this community chapstick Jordan Like, or is this?
Jordan:personal. No, this is personal. How do?
Kevin:you know, no one else uses your chapstick, yeah.
Jordan:Cause my kids lips are chapped to all heck, and so I'm trying to get them to use it and they won't use it. I know Josh has his own chapstick, but that's like a pocket chapstick. We're heavy chapstick users here, like you need to be.
Kevin:Yeah, that's where I think I'm going wrong is I'm a. I get one chapstick at a time and then I try to take it where I might need it and it inevitably disappears.
Jordan:Yeah, that's why you lose it. You got to invest in several chapsticks and then they just stay in place.
Kevin:Maybe four to six applications of a chapstick before it's gone. Yeah, and then I have to go buy a new chapstick.
Jordan:You know, like Alban said, like you don't really need that where you guys are at.
Kevin:So but I need it now. The only thing that concerns me putting on the mouth tape is if I get a stuffy nose in the middle of the night, what's going to happen?
Alban:You'll wake up within like 20 seconds and take the mouth tape off.
Kevin:I don't know if you will, because people who have sleep apnea they stop breathing for like a minute or more at a time.
Alban:Yeah Well, I think sleep apnea is. You're so sleep deprived that you end up sleeping through it, and then you do wake up and then you restart breathing and then you fall back asleep.
Kevin:So what if I'm really tired and then I get a stuffy nose in the middle of the night? Then it's over.
Alban:Then you would basically cause yourself to have sleep apnea one night. I mean, I've woken up with the mouth tape and gone oh, this isn't comfortable, and rip it off in the middle of the night and go back to sleep.
Kevin:Do you want to hear all the potential benefits? Yes, improved sleep obviously especially beneficial for people with mild sleep apnea. I don't think I have that. I used to but I don't think I do anymore. Reduce snoring that is true because I have a sleep snoring app tracker thing and I barely snore. But if I do, it's been like one or two minutes per night of snoring and last two nights there's been zero minutes. That's working. Better oral health Mouth taping can prevent cavities and gum disease by reducing dry mouth. Bet you didn't know that Weird.
Kevin:Improved oxygen intake Nasal breathing can increase the amount of oxygen you take in while you're sleeping. Improved blood pressure Nasal breathing can help regulate blood pressure and improve sleep quality. And reduce allergens, since breathing through your nose can help filter out allergens and dust.
Alban:I think some of these sound like being a total mouth breather isn't great. Yeah, if you have your mouth open, going like a lab, that's going to be a problem. But I don't know if, like, do you normally sleep with your mouth open? I guess maybe that's the question.
Kevin:I don't know, maybe I should film myself while I sleep.
Alban:Well, I know that I don't. I I don't think the mouth tape bothers me a whole lot. I keep my mouth shut most of the time.
Kevin:All right, well, take it or leave it, I'm on the tape.
Jordan:You're on the tape, kevin's on the tape.
