I wanted to like podcasts, but never found one that wasn't either incredibly boring or incredibly grating to listen to.
Maybe I'm not the target audience, but I'm rarely if ever interested in the speaker of whatever information I'm trying to consume, and podcasts' focus on guests (and hosts) always came off as self-aggrandizing and people speaking just to hear themselves speak. Especially with very little editing (uhs, pauses, and general dysfluency) and/or preparation (winding conversations with a lot of fluff instead of a structured outline), I'd almost always just prefer to listen to a narrated book or textbook on whatever topic I'm interested in.
I don't listen to off the cuff podcasts at all. I used to listen to Tank Riot, for example. They had really interesting topics. But then it devolved into "we haven't seen each other for a month, so let's catch up while we're recording" and they got into endless unrelated tangents.
My current list is only well-edited and produced stuff
- No Such Thing as a Fish (facts, trivia, comedy)
- 20kHz - audio production and sounds in general
- 99 Percent Invisible - random trivia and deep-dives
- More or Less - analysing statistics
- Cautionary Tales - historical failures, they have actual radio play style stuff with actual name actors (Helena Bonham-Carter for example)
And stuff I listen to on the background and usually fall asleep to:
- Crowd Science - people as questions about science and the host interviews people who know about it
- Every Little Thing - More random trivia stuff
- 30 Animals that Made us Smarter - exactly what it says on the tin
My tolerance for "let's turn on the mic and chat for three hours without any plan and publish it as a podcast" is pretty close to zero.
- In Our Time (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl) - nearly 1,000 episodes since the late 90s, covering history, science and literature. Different expert panel every week with some amazing reoccurring guests (Ian Stewart, Martin Palmer, Mary Beard, Angie Hobbs, Paul Cartledge, Caroline Crawford).
Over the years I have adopted almost this same rubric. The way I describe my filter is "two people read wikipedia to you for an hour".
I have 2 of the ones on your list: 99PI and Cautionary Tales and I notice that they are both publish about the ~30 minutes episodes once per week. I think all these podcasts that are 60-120 minutes > 2 times per week are really just replacing talk radio on people's long commutes. It's just a pleasant way to fill the air, not to actually learn anything.
These are good, maybe similar, and have high frequency of very interesting episodes:
- People I mostly Admire (Steven Levitt/Freakonomics Radio)
- The joy of X (Steven Strogatz, discontinued)
Both are in the style that the host talks with an interesting guest about their work. Coincidence has it that in the most recent episode of PIMA, the guest is the host of the other one, Steven Strogatz. They normally don't collaborate but have their similarities.
There are a few podcasts that turn on the mic and chat, yet where the hosts also make an effort to reach out to new guests. For example: episodes of The Amp Hour that aren't just Chris and Dave pull in people from all over the industry. The thing is, I suspect that is difficult to do when you are are small podcast. Without the reach, potential guests simply don't know who you are.
Interestingly, these are exactly the traits that make podcasts appealing to me.
It's fun to hear people talking about what they're interested in, or I get to hear people's personal experiences on a subject I care about (entrepreneurship, neurodivergence, software development). I'm here less for structured content than to expand my perspective on general experience and challenges of being in a given situation.
For what it's worth, there are also lots of other formats besides "two dudes/dudettes talking": scripted drama, documentary, unscripted/situational comedy. I even listen to a guy critique classic computer science research papers.
I think different formats have different propensities.
Your problems with podcasts appear more related to propensity than inherent format issues - that is, books too can come off as self aggrandizing, fluff and winding, but you have found mode examples that don't do this perhaps?
Perhaps one thing inherent to podcasts vs books is that you can simply skip sections and skim past the content you find not worth your time, where podcasts are harder to do this without missing your spot, etc.
Podcasts like 99% invisible I find hit the right balance, but again, definitely have more emphasis on interviews than pure factual info compared to books. But I think that's kind of normal, as podcasts do suit discussion and interviews better than a more straight facts approach.
Still, I feel the points you've listed, while valid, are not always the case and like most mediums, you can find examples that would suit your style.
For me, the lack of editing, scripting and structure is exactly what I find refreshing about podcasts. They feel more natural, more flawed, more raw, but therefore also more honest and more human.
But to each their own. Not saying there's anything wrong at all with disliking podcasts for exactly these reasons, they're just not for everyone I suppose.
There is a limit to "natural". If the hosts even slightly stay on topic, a few umms and aahs don't bother me.
But when I start listening to something titled "X & Y talk about Z" and they tangent off to A, B and C. I just stop listening.
My pet peeve is shows that have interviews with people and preface it with 30 minutes of "banter" that doesn't interest anyone who hasn't listened to the previous 420 episodes.
Just have one episode with the catch-up part and one with just the interview, please.
I could not get into podcasts until I started listening at 1.5x. That changed everything for me, the information density was finally high enough that they were worth listening to, and over time I upped the speed to 2.5x (mostly). Also I’ve started listening audiobooks faster (though not as fast), and that has greatly increased my consumption of audiobooks, even when measured in hours listened.
If you’ve not tried it I would heartily recommend it - I really didn’t think it would matter before I tried it.
It would be so cool in the future if AI could predict which parts are harder to understand and which parts are fluff and dynamically adjust the speed for you.
I’d love 50% speed for tough concepts but 300% for the banter and their dumb stories.
Maybe a product idea actually? Feel free to run with it.
I've begun doing this as well. Also, as soon as one of the guests makes some off-topic joke and I sense that there is going to be some banter before they get back to the point I just hit the fast-forward-30-seconds button.
Podcasts are not a good format for consuming serious information, at least in my experience. Neither are audiobooks. The problem with podcasts is they are light on real content and if it's on a technical topic and the format is having a guest be interviewed on it, the quality of information depends on the quality of questions and most people are not good at coming up interesting questions on unfamiliar topics on the spot. So you get very superficial questions and equally superficial answers. But podcasts are great for entertainment and zoning out. And for lonely people it's great to hear people talking. Darknet diaries is a good one though I don't listen consistently
I disagree, though it depends on the circumstances in which you're consuming them. If you're listening while you're doing something that is mentally engaging then of course it will be hard to absorb the information. But I'm not exactly taxing my brain when I'm walking my dog or sitting on the porch drinking coffee.
Heartily disagree. A lot of professional journalist-led podcasts are really excellent. And the audio format is concise without being distracting. It's basically the on-demand version of classic talk radio. I crow a lot about On the Media which is fantastic journalism. There's loads of other similar content that varies from topical to human interest. Stuff like This American Life or Radiolab or How I Built This or Planet Money or more niche stuff like Cyberlaw. Kara Swisher is great too.
I was like this until I found the NPR Planet Money podcast. I am not 100% sure why I found this so engaging but here are my guesses:
1. They cover a subject I was interested in (economics), but knew basically nothing about. This made it easier to listen to as I found I didn't space out when they were talking about things I already knew.
2. Nice, tight editing and good production. No hosts blathering on for hours - they keep it short and to the point. Most episodes are 20 minutes and easy to get through.
I used to listen to Planet Money, but it’s devolved over the same dumbed-down drivel that dominates NPR these days:
“Money has always been used to buy goods, but did you know you can also use it to buy services? Here’s some pop culture reference comparison to fake a narrative.”
I think the show started suffering when NPR turned every show into a podcast; it removes the ability to cater to a more focused audience because you have to waste half the show doing background.
I listen to podcasts that take a lot of production. One favorite of mine is "American History Tellers." It is well edited and tightly scripted and thoroughly researched.
Check out a big podcast producer like Wondery. They approach podcasts with production and professionalism. It takes a team to produce a good podcast.
If a professional podcast is like network TV, the podcasts you're describing are like the old public access channel on cable. They're both the same medium, sure, but they're in different leagues entirely. I don't listen to the podcasts with a random person with a mic chatting about what he thinks is interesting; that would indeed be boring and a waste of time.
My favorite podcasts are science Friday or stuff I’d hear on public radio for a short bit while driving.
One-off interview podcasts can be good if looking more into a specific person but in general many podcasts seem like/wanna be a cult of personality
Not all podcasts do that, though. I listen to about ten podcasts fairly regularly; one ("Behind the Bastards") has regular guests, though their purpose is largely to have someone for the host to tell a story to, two ("The Rest is History" and "The Rest is Politics") have occasional expert guests, on perhaps 10% of episodes, the remainder don't have guests at all.
I'd give "In Our Time" from the BBC, and Econtalk, by Ross Roberts, a try if I were you. They both follow the traditional podcast format with a host and guest, but there is a lot of work done by the hosts ahead of time to ensure your time is well spent. Definitely high-density content.
I noticed that I like podcasts just how I like blogs. Even if it's objectively great (as decided by the masses), I probably don't like it and can't stand listening to it for long. But if I stumble upon something I like to read or listen to, then I'll follow that blog/podcast for many years. I would in general even go so far as saying that listening to people talking is not my medium of choice (I also don't like audio books) - but I'd say I'm actually a fan of a select of few ones.
It works if the guest is discussing a topic that interests you and the information cannot be readily found elsewhere, because it's his unique story or perspective.
I quite enjoyed Swindled. Not exactly on the lighter side, but usually stories I’ve never heard of before. With the type of research and structure you mentioned.
After a while I realized that a fairly amount of podcasts/episodes have pretty low density information throughout say a 3 hours talk. There are those gems where sufficiently good preparedness of the interviewer (e.g. read the book and came prepared with a set of well thought-out notes) is met with a suitable rhetorical skill/confidence of the interviewee.
But, alas, I would lie to myself if I believe podcasts are driven by the above.
Personally, I like to hear interesting people talk, it became much a tilted board, so for some time, now, I've cut down my consumption considerably and try to appreciate it as a digital social treat rather than actually knowledge building (very limited).
For that there must be some large enough "active" part involved and as a mere listener I get too comfy too easily. It is a bit like not writing down your ideas, the moment you commit them to "paper" most of the time they are not so "great" anymore and you realize there is more nuance to it ;)
There seems to be a sweet spot of about 20--40 minutes for a good information-dense presentation, and I find that most of the podcasts I find myself gravitating toward aim for this duration, though some may extend to about an hour.
Over that, and both the production is slipping and my attention wanders or is interrupted.
There's also only so much that can really be absorbed in one sitting.
I do like the interview or "issues and ideas" format, though there are also scripted monologues (Peter Adamson, History of Philosophy) which can be quite good. HoP is interesting in that it also features fairly frequent interview segments which ... on the whole are less captivating than the scripted episodes (though there are some exceptions).
Shorter than 20 minutes and there's usually too much structural framing around the key bites, over 60 minutes and either the episode is poorly-edited (there's a lot of cruft which should have been cut out) or there are multiple key concepts being presented. There are exceptions to this, but they are rare.
I'm generally not interested in hearing a multi-person ramble, even on what is otherwise a topic of interest. Panel discussions can work, though those tend to fall into either (1) a series of individual lectures or (2) a multi-party interview when they do work, and rarely work past about 3--4 participants.
Dave Weinberger: "Conversation doesn't scale very well." This has multiple dimensions, in participants, duration, audience, time, and more. True conversation is ultimately intimate: small, immediate, and private.
Yes - I was wondering downthread what the boundary between "podcast" and "radio programme" was, and I think this is an important aspect that makes certain things not documentaries. It's a parasocial (it is after all one-directional) connection through the voice of another human or humans. Some people like to listen to this kind of thing all the time, even if they're not really paying close attention, because they like to hear talking. Broadcasters have understood this for a very long time.
I would say for those long form conversations, I like listening to "interesting" people but I also like to occasionally put on what I call "shit talk". A great example of "interesting" would be just about any guest on Lex Friedman, deep insightful conversations where you often stop to think about what the guest said. On the other side is the "shit talk" podcasts, these are great at the gym or on a long drive when you just don't want to think to hard and would prefer to laugh, for me i like JRE but I think most comedians' podcasts fall into that second category.
I can relate, even if it's not specifically about podcasts for me, but rather any source of information.
How I try to cope is by striving for contextualizing decisions.
Everything I do or could do and every value I attach to something depends on and is influenced by context.
Every choice I make affects more than just one area or part of my life.
My life consists of more than one thing.
Yes, I could spend all day doing X. How would this affect different areas of my life? Is this the single most important thing in my life right now? How will this benefit me? At what cost? Is it worth the cost?
Striving for a more holistic view of my life helps me balance my tendency to lose sight of the whole for focusing in too much on one single thing without context.
Plus, dealing with the roots of my anxiety rather than the outgrowths alone.
A personal story about podcasts is that I usually listen to them during my commute. That means my podcast consumption went way down when the pandemic happened and I started mainly working remotely. I just don't have a defined suitable time for them anymore.
A few weeks ago I was sick and I put on some podcasts as I was resting. Made me realize how much I miss the content.
I wonder how much the radio/podcast industry is reliant on car radios and such.
I would recommend replacing the commute with a walk every day, get a little bit of exercise, clear your mind, and optionally listen to those podcasts again.
I've lost interest in podcasts recently because it feels like the same people are just round-robining from host to host. It's all the same people.. Huberman feels like a lab manufactured podcast meme machine, even the high profile podcasters like Tim Ferris seem to have the same guests as everyone else.
Isn’t that like, an extremely narrow subset of podcasts you’re talking about? Like basically just the longevity+psychedelics+stand-up comedy podcast circle? I don’t see any of those guests on my movie and TV podcasts, for instance.
I was in that podcast circle, and honestly, it's just exhausting. They have to keep pumping new information at you and I eventually ended up doing nothing but being depressed at how much I was supposed to change about my life.
You likely know of Lex Fridman and many of his older podcasts really interview people you might not normally see in the "mainstream". Many of those people were especially leaning towards CS and would likely appeal to you, my fellow HNer :)
Is it important for podcasts to have guests? Are podcasts that provide insight or discussion or deep dives into ideas without guests not as valuable as ones with guests? Do you primarily seek out podcasts that have guests?
I haven't had interest in podcasts beyond the few occasions I've tried, because I consistently got the sense that a podcast was made in the interest of the creator (as something "low effort"), instead of me as a listener.
It feels like an obligatory side income stream for every "creator" out there, one that only requires them to turn up in front of a microphone and banter once a week. The signal to noise ratio is way off. I don't want to start of with 15 minutes about how the creator's week was.
Nowadays I realise that there are podcasts that are actual "productions" (educational or otherwise), which I would enjoy a lot more. I'm probably missing out on a whole medium. But I haven't come across that many yet.
I used to have high expectations for podcasts and YT. Though I've come to appreciate having any content in niches that will never sustain full time production values. And even the quirky and awkward hosts have grown on me.
Think of it like replacing niche, once local-only radio programs. Those too aren't very high production because of resource and time constraints. It won't please everyone and doesn't have to.
It probably depends very much on the sort of podcasts you're listening to. I haven't noticed that (most of the podcasts I listen to don't have guests, for a start), but then I've never even _heard_ of Huberman or Tim Ferris.
I work in the podcast industry. Anchor made it easy and free for people to start podcasting, so tons of people tried it during lockdowns. But podcasts are a lot of work beyond just having a place to host: from recording, finding guests, editing, marketing, etc. So you have a lot of beginners who drop off.
It's more than that, though. I own a podcast hosting service that Apple lists on their page of recommended services. Fewer people were starting podcasts in 2021 and 2022 than they were in 2019 and 2018 (it's hard to say before then, because my business has grown). The world, on the whole, lost a lot of interest in podcasting.
Part of that is a lack of a focus on podcasting. Serial drove a lot of interest, and that momentum faded with no obvious replacement. Podcasts were something folks made time for on their commutes and during their workouts. When folks started working from home en masse, they had less and less reason to listen.
Listenership fell for shows that have remained consistent. Some of my biggest customers have half or less than the number of listens they were pulling per week in 2019. And that's without changing cadence.
> The world, on the whole, lost a lot of interest in podcasting.
Your customers' data may reflect that, but industry data shows that podcasting is still growing steadily. In their more recent (2022) report, Edison Research notes, "Monthly podcast listening saw growth year-over-year among those age 35-54, as 43% are now monthly podcast listeners, up from 39% in 2021."
> Some of my biggest customers have half or less than the number of listens they were pulling per week in 2019.
Shows fail. There are countless podcasts whose listens have grown substantially since 2019.
>Listenership fell for shows that have remained consistent. Some of my biggest customers have half or less than the number of listens they were pulling per week in 2019. And that's without changing cadence.
Do you think QCode has a viable business model? Producing scripted podcasts that are designed to be trial runs for TV shows/films?
This is insightful. I used to listen to several hours of podcasts a day, but it was mostly while commuting and at the gym. When I switched to remote work and outdoor runs during the pandemic, I fell out of the habit, and I haven't listened to one in months.
I wonder how they count this? I use overcast app. It automatically downloads episodes of anything I’m subscribed to. But I migh not listen to it. Or I might listen to five minutes and delete. What level of truth do these podcast stats catch?
One useful thing about the incredible number of podcasts that I've only recently discovered is that you can often find in depth interviews with relatively obscure people or about niche subjects which contain a ton of information that's hard to come by other places.
For instance, a couple weeks ago I was listening to an 20+ year old album I've always loved that doesn't get much attention. I searched in Spotify and sure enough I found a podcast that was doing a multi-hour series just on that album and broke down its history, production, etc.
Another example is that yesterday I was out training for a race I'm running in a couple months and managed to find multiple interviews with the race director, past winners, etc. to put me in a great mindset for a tough day training.
If podcasts are like blogs, they will need a crazy amount of time and energy to get off the ground and that’s why we don’t see so many blogs any more. Discoverability is too hard for most individuals to even try for now
Yeah. I remember when podcasts first came out (before they were even called podcasts in the iTunes Store.) It was super easy to be discovered because there was so few things out there, and most of them were junk.
I can second that. I started a podcast almost 10 years ago with some friends. The guy who ran the site had analytics on everything. Each episode got maybe 100 downloads, but despite soliciting comments, only about 3 other people that we didn't know listened. It ultimately felt like a job, and I was putting too much effort into it and getting too little out of it. The format and topics on the show eventually felt long in the tooth, and I stopped in late 2019. If I figure out a plan to address those problems, I might start it again.
I was shocked at how much I needed to have in place to record, to get listed on the major players (and Google took DAYS to publish my show but Spotify and Apple did it within hours).
yep. If one could solve the discoverability problem for podcasts they'd make a mint.
The problems, as I see them:
- must be resistant to gaming. Many of the really popular podcasts are backed by marketing money, many of the best ones are buried
- must be able to account heavily for taste. I really love midst, magic tavern, darknet, zzyx (RIP), night vale. Lots of people aren't into fiction so the system would have to have market segmentation built in. like a music app recommendation engine.
- should provide mechanisms to link to other stuff for the podcast. A huge part of the problem for the podcasters is the friction there is to give them money. This is mostly solved by podcast metadata but any good tool needs to display these properly.
as it is, current podcast recommendation algorithms miss tons of good content. There should be more than enough data on me to recommend a lot of stuff that I've had to hunt down Internet 1.0 style by googling and reading blogs.
I wonder if an embedded cbatgpt like system could offer such a recommendation engine on demand for different sorts of media. It wouldn’t ever be the best recommendations of all time, but it might be able to handle scale better than humans. Eg, to get something YouTube algorithm like for other services like podcast apps
Podcasts are no different than any digital medium. I can create a podcast, a blog, a YT channel, a Twitter feed with a few clicks. Record on my phone. Even plug into ad networks. But getting an audience is still really, really hard.
This seems predictable, though, no? I sorta figured that it'd go like blogging, and here we are.
What surprises me is how many podcasts are INSANELY long -- like, 2+ hours. Where do people find the time to listen?
(Granted, I say this as someone with a zero podcast diet. I'm not opposed to them or anything; I just don't have a place in my life for listening to them. I have no commute. I prefer music when cooking or cleaning or whatnot. My exercise is usually biking, and I don't listen to anything for that.)
> I have no commute. I prefer music when cooking or cleaning or whatnot. My exercise is usually biking, and I don't listen to anything for that.
This is the heart of it. I generally prefer listening to people talking as opposed to music. So instead of music I listen to podcasts when doing chores, going on walks, or going to the gym.
Although, when I stopped commuting my listening time went way down.
I find 2+ hours of podcasts episodes way to long to listen.
I simply cannot find the time.
After work + learning + side projects + social life + friends and family + hobbies (both creative and consuming types), I don't have the time for 2+ hours podcast episodes.
I have found 20-30 minutes lengths as the sweet spot. Like: Darknet Diaries, History of Philosophy without Gaps, BBC in our Time Science, etc.
Shorter than that, I feel it doesn't penetrate my mind enough, like: Moments of the American Mathematical Society, Developer Tea.
Larger ones, I simply can't fit into my day: Huberman Lab podcast, some episodes of Lex Fridman's, etc.
If you have the time to listen to four 30-minute podcast episodes, you have the time to listen to a single 2-hour podcast episode.
Working my way through the back catalogue of my current favorite podcast, Reconcilable Differences (200 episodes at 1.5-3 hours each), took me around 12-15 months.
If I had to listen to a 2 hour podcast for a full 2 hours I couldn’t do it. Sorry to say, most people speak too slowly and this why I hated radio and a lot of television before; it’s not that they’re necessarily bad but I just don’t have the patience when I could be listening to music instead.
So I listen at between 2x and 3x with Overcast’s Smart Speed flipped on; but the upshot is I get through them a lot faster and I adjust the individual podcast speed to a level where I can still understand and process the discussion.
> I prefer music when cooking or cleaning or whatnot.
And that's where the time is found.
Podcasts play in my headphones as I do any mindless physical tasks I need to get done, snowblowing, renovating something, mowing my lawn, etc.
I'm not a good enough cook to do it without 100% of my focus.
Also despite WFH, I still drive quite a few hours so often there as well. I like music for quick drives around town, but 30+ minutes I prefer podcasts.
> What surprises me is how many podcasts are INSANELY long -- like, 2+ hours. Where do people find the time to listen?
Personally I break the podcast up. Whenever there is a guest or the host is talking about something I'm really interested in, I'll listen to the 3hr episode over the course of like 3-4 days, typically 30min to an hour per day.
My theory is that people are not listening that closely. You've heard about 'ambient TV', where there are shows people have on in the background, but aren't actively watching? This is similar.
Well, if the story is engrossing enough (The Fall of Civilizations podcast's episode about the Aztecs/Mechica, for example), then one episode turns into a week-long series of listening sessions and sets a great mood for the whole week. If it all works out well.
Readit News
Maybe I'm not the target audience, but I'm rarely if ever interested in the speaker of whatever information I'm trying to consume, and podcasts' focus on guests (and hosts) always came off as self-aggrandizing and people speaking just to hear themselves speak. Especially with very little editing (uhs, pauses, and general dysfluency) and/or preparation (winding conversations with a lot of fluff instead of a structured outline), I'd almost always just prefer to listen to a narrated book or textbook on whatever topic I'm interested in.
My current list is only well-edited and produced stuff
And stuff I listen to on the background and usually fall asleep to: My tolerance for "let's turn on the mic and chat for three hours without any plan and publish it as a podcast" is pretty close to zero.I have 2 of the ones on your list: 99PI and Cautionary Tales and I notice that they are both publish about the ~30 minutes episodes once per week. I think all these podcasts that are 60-120 minutes > 2 times per week are really just replacing talk radio on people's long commutes. It's just a pleasant way to fill the air, not to actually learn anything.
It's fun to hear people talking about what they're interested in, or I get to hear people's personal experiences on a subject I care about (entrepreneurship, neurodivergence, software development). I'm here less for structured content than to expand my perspective on general experience and challenges of being in a given situation.
For what it's worth, there are also lots of other formats besides "two dudes/dudettes talking": scripted drama, documentary, unscripted/situational comedy. I even listen to a guy critique classic computer science research papers.
Your problems with podcasts appear more related to propensity than inherent format issues - that is, books too can come off as self aggrandizing, fluff and winding, but you have found mode examples that don't do this perhaps?
Perhaps one thing inherent to podcasts vs books is that you can simply skip sections and skim past the content you find not worth your time, where podcasts are harder to do this without missing your spot, etc.
Podcasts like 99% invisible I find hit the right balance, but again, definitely have more emphasis on interviews than pure factual info compared to books. But I think that's kind of normal, as podcasts do suit discussion and interviews better than a more straight facts approach.
Still, I feel the points you've listed, while valid, are not always the case and like most mediums, you can find examples that would suit your style.
But to each their own. Not saying there's anything wrong at all with disliking podcasts for exactly these reasons, they're just not for everyone I suppose.
But when I start listening to something titled "X & Y talk about Z" and they tangent off to A, B and C. I just stop listening.
My pet peeve is shows that have interviews with people and preface it with 30 minutes of "banter" that doesn't interest anyone who hasn't listened to the previous 420 episodes.
Just have one episode with the catch-up part and one with just the interview, please.
If you’ve not tried it I would heartily recommend it - I really didn’t think it would matter before I tried it.
I’d love 50% speed for tough concepts but 300% for the banter and their dumb stories.
Maybe a product idea actually? Feel free to run with it.
Yes, podcasts are reminding me 'the age of the feuilleton' from Hesses's Glass Bead Game.
Steve O has had some interesting people open up about their issues, same with Jon Bernthal. Especially his episode with Shia LaBeouf was amazing.
But these people are rare. They devolve too often into the host fawning over the guest. Nerdist podcast started doing this at one point.
1. They cover a subject I was interested in (economics), but knew basically nothing about. This made it easier to listen to as I found I didn't space out when they were talking about things I already knew. 2. Nice, tight editing and good production. No hosts blathering on for hours - they keep it short and to the point. Most episodes are 20 minutes and easy to get through.
“Money has always been used to buy goods, but did you know you can also use it to buy services? Here’s some pop culture reference comparison to fake a narrative.”
I think the show started suffering when NPR turned every show into a podcast; it removes the ability to cater to a more focused audience because you have to waste half the show doing background.
Check out a big podcast producer like Wondery. They approach podcasts with production and professionalism. It takes a team to produce a good podcast.
If a professional podcast is like network TV, the podcasts you're describing are like the old public access channel on cable. They're both the same medium, sure, but they're in different leagues entirely. I don't listen to the podcasts with a random person with a mic chatting about what he thinks is interesting; that would indeed be boring and a waste of time.
Not all podcasts do that, though. I listen to about ten podcasts fairly regularly; one ("Behind the Bastards") has regular guests, though their purpose is largely to have someone for the host to tell a story to, two ("The Rest is History" and "The Rest is Politics") have occasional expert guests, on perhaps 10% of episodes, the remainder don't have guests at all.
And for some good fun (and some occasional new insight), the Soft Skills Engineering podcast (https://softskills.audio/).
It’s hard to find good ones though. I haven’t had as much luck.
Example : Most show on France Culture.
But, alas, I would lie to myself if I believe podcasts are driven by the above.
Personally, I like to hear interesting people talk, it became much a tilted board, so for some time, now, I've cut down my consumption considerably and try to appreciate it as a digital social treat rather than actually knowledge building (very limited).
For that there must be some large enough "active" part involved and as a mere listener I get too comfy too easily. It is a bit like not writing down your ideas, the moment you commit them to "paper" most of the time they are not so "great" anymore and you realize there is more nuance to it ;)
Over that, and both the production is slipping and my attention wanders or is interrupted.
There's also only so much that can really be absorbed in one sitting.
I do like the interview or "issues and ideas" format, though there are also scripted monologues (Peter Adamson, History of Philosophy) which can be quite good. HoP is interesting in that it also features fairly frequent interview segments which ... on the whole are less captivating than the scripted episodes (though there are some exceptions).
Shorter than 20 minutes and there's usually too much structural framing around the key bites, over 60 minutes and either the episode is poorly-edited (there's a lot of cruft which should have been cut out) or there are multiple key concepts being presented. There are exceptions to this, but they are rare.
I'm generally not interested in hearing a multi-person ramble, even on what is otherwise a topic of interest. Panel discussions can work, though those tend to fall into either (1) a series of individual lectures or (2) a multi-party interview when they do work, and rarely work past about 3--4 participants.
Dave Weinberger: "Conversation doesn't scale very well." This has multiple dimensions, in participants, duration, audience, time, and more. True conversation is ultimately intimate: small, immediate, and private.
Yes - I was wondering downthread what the boundary between "podcast" and "radio programme" was, and I think this is an important aspect that makes certain things not documentaries. It's a parasocial (it is after all one-directional) connection through the voice of another human or humans. Some people like to listen to this kind of thing all the time, even if they're not really paying close attention, because they like to hear talking. Broadcasters have understood this for a very long time.
I really struggle with this, driven by this anxeity that I am "falling behind" in terms of knowledge if i don't consume it all the time.
How I try to cope is by striving for contextualizing decisions.
Everything I do or could do and every value I attach to something depends on and is influenced by context.
Every choice I make affects more than just one area or part of my life.
My life consists of more than one thing.
Yes, I could spend all day doing X. How would this affect different areas of my life? Is this the single most important thing in my life right now? How will this benefit me? At what cost? Is it worth the cost?
Striving for a more holistic view of my life helps me balance my tendency to lose sight of the whole for focusing in too much on one single thing without context.
Plus, dealing with the roots of my anxiety rather than the outgrowths alone.
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A few weeks ago I was sick and I put on some podcasts as I was resting. Made me realize how much I miss the content.
I wonder how much the radio/podcast industry is reliant on car radios and such.
I think walks help with thinking, and exercises can block it.
Some people I have great respect for take daily walks.
I think having a dog helps here. ;-)
All these podcasters know each other. It may as well be network television
It feels like an obligatory side income stream for every "creator" out there, one that only requires them to turn up in front of a microphone and banter once a week. The signal to noise ratio is way off. I don't want to start of with 15 minutes about how the creator's week was.
Nowadays I realise that there are podcasts that are actual "productions" (educational or otherwise), which I would enjoy a lot more. I'm probably missing out on a whole medium. But I haven't come across that many yet.
Think of it like replacing niche, once local-only radio programs. Those too aren't very high production because of resource and time constraints. It won't please everyone and doesn't have to.
Part of that is a lack of a focus on podcasting. Serial drove a lot of interest, and that momentum faded with no obvious replacement. Podcasts were something folks made time for on their commutes and during their workouts. When folks started working from home en masse, they had less and less reason to listen.
Listenership fell for shows that have remained consistent. Some of my biggest customers have half or less than the number of listens they were pulling per week in 2019. And that's without changing cadence.
Your customers' data may reflect that, but industry data shows that podcasting is still growing steadily. In their more recent (2022) report, Edison Research notes, "Monthly podcast listening saw growth year-over-year among those age 35-54, as 43% are now monthly podcast listeners, up from 39% in 2021."
> Some of my biggest customers have half or less than the number of listens they were pulling per week in 2019.
Shows fail. There are countless podcasts whose listens have grown substantially since 2019.
Do you think QCode has a viable business model? Producing scripted podcasts that are designed to be trial runs for TV shows/films?
For instance, a couple weeks ago I was listening to an 20+ year old album I've always loved that doesn't get much attention. I searched in Spotify and sure enough I found a podcast that was doing a multi-hour series just on that album and broke down its history, production, etc.
Another example is that yesterday I was out training for a race I'm running in a couple months and managed to find multiple interviews with the race director, past winners, etc. to put me in a great mindset for a tough day training.
I was shocked at how much I needed to have in place to record, to get listed on the major players (and Google took DAYS to publish my show but Spotify and Apple did it within hours).
The problems, as I see them:
- must be resistant to gaming. Many of the really popular podcasts are backed by marketing money, many of the best ones are buried
- must be able to account heavily for taste. I really love midst, magic tavern, darknet, zzyx (RIP), night vale. Lots of people aren't into fiction so the system would have to have market segmentation built in. like a music app recommendation engine.
- should provide mechanisms to link to other stuff for the podcast. A huge part of the problem for the podcasters is the friction there is to give them money. This is mostly solved by podcast metadata but any good tool needs to display these properly.
as it is, current podcast recommendation algorithms miss tons of good content. There should be more than enough data on me to recommend a lot of stuff that I've had to hunt down Internet 1.0 style by googling and reading blogs.
What surprises me is how many podcasts are INSANELY long -- like, 2+ hours. Where do people find the time to listen?
(Granted, I say this as someone with a zero podcast diet. I'm not opposed to them or anything; I just don't have a place in my life for listening to them. I have no commute. I prefer music when cooking or cleaning or whatnot. My exercise is usually biking, and I don't listen to anything for that.)
This is the heart of it. I generally prefer listening to people talking as opposed to music. So instead of music I listen to podcasts when doing chores, going on walks, or going to the gym.
Although, when I stopped commuting my listening time went way down.
I find 2+ hours of podcasts episodes way to long to listen.
I simply cannot find the time.
After work + learning + side projects + social life + friends and family + hobbies (both creative and consuming types), I don't have the time for 2+ hours podcast episodes.
I have found 20-30 minutes lengths as the sweet spot. Like: Darknet Diaries, History of Philosophy without Gaps, BBC in our Time Science, etc.
Shorter than that, I feel it doesn't penetrate my mind enough, like: Moments of the American Mathematical Society, Developer Tea.
Larger ones, I simply can't fit into my day: Huberman Lab podcast, some episodes of Lex Fridman's, etc.
I simply can't find the time.
Working my way through the back catalogue of my current favorite podcast, Reconcilable Differences (200 episodes at 1.5-3 hours each), took me around 12-15 months.
So I listen at between 2x and 3x with Overcast’s Smart Speed flipped on; but the upshot is I get through them a lot faster and I adjust the individual podcast speed to a level where I can still understand and process the discussion.
And that's where the time is found.
Podcasts play in my headphones as I do any mindless physical tasks I need to get done, snowblowing, renovating something, mowing my lawn, etc.
I'm not a good enough cook to do it without 100% of my focus.
Also despite WFH, I still drive quite a few hours so often there as well. I like music for quick drives around town, but 30+ minutes I prefer podcasts.
Personally I break the podcast up. Whenever there is a guest or the host is talking about something I'm really interested in, I'll listen to the 3hr episode over the course of like 3-4 days, typically 30min to an hour per day.
Well, if the story is engrossing enough (The Fall of Civilizations podcast's episode about the Aztecs/Mechica, for example), then one episode turns into a week-long series of listening sessions and sets a great mood for the whole week. If it all works out well.