Podcasting Continues to Grow 22% in Two Years

Because of My Podcast I'm on the Cover of a Comic Book

Jeremy Dennis explains how he was able to commission a custom comic book cover thanks to his supporters. 

New Edison Research on Podcasting

Edison Research did a telephone survey of 2000 people ages 12 and older. Here are some of the results related to podcasting:

81% of the respondents own a smartphone (up from 76%). It's actually gone up 22% in two years.

50% of people have a Netflix account (more on that later)

60% of people (168 million) are familiar with podcasting (up from 55% last year)

40% have ever listened to a podcast (up from 35% last year). 10 Years ago is was 13%

24% listen to a podcast in the last month (up from 21%)

15% listen weekly (up from 13%)

The people who listened weekly average five episodes per week. 

Their data shows 65% is mobile (Libsyn says this is closer to 80%)

40% listen to the whole thing. 45% listen to most of it. 10% listen to less than half. 5% listen to just the beginning.

77% Click on and listen immediately (stream). 41% download and listen later. 2&% subscribe and listen later

People that subscribe, are subscribed to an average of six podcasts.

Each year since 2004 these numbers have gone up every single year. 

Get the slides and see the presentation at http://www.edisonresearch.com/infinite-dial-2017/

One More Thing..

50% of people have a Netflix account, and 43% of them use it on a weekly basis

60% of people are familiar with a podcast. 40% have listened to one, but 24% listen monthly, and 15% listen weekly. Why? In my opinion, you have a better chance at finding quality programming in Netflix than you do in iTunes. I'm going to do some random experiments on this going forward. 

Pinecast is a new "Free" media hosting service.

It is founded by Matt Basta who is an engineer for Uber.  It was founded in August of 2015 (per his LinkedIn profile). 

Their free hosting has the following features:

• Demo accounts are limited to three podcasts per account.
• The podcast import tool is not available for demo accounts.
• An unlimited number of episodes may be added, but only the most recent ten episodes will be available to view in the podcast dashboard and the podcast RSS feed.* 
• Episode audio is limited to 48MB (per episode). You are free, however, to split episodes into smaller episodes.
• Only a small subset of the basic analytics will be available. This includes subscriber and listener counts.
• Episode descriptions will contain a link to Pinecast.

Episodes older than the most recent ten are not deleted, but they are not available to view or edit. Upgrading your plan will make them available again.

Upgrading to a plan will remove the link to Pinecast from the show's episode descriptions.

All analytics data that is collected for higher-tier plans will always be collected for all podcasts (even ones owned by demo accounts), meaning analytics data will retroactively be provided if the account is upgraded.

Unavailable Features

The following features are not available to demo accounts:

• Feedback
• Geo analytics
• Import tool
• Ability to create networks
• Embeddable (HTML5) player
• Bittorrent downloads
• Podcast website or blog

They have a demo (free) account, Starter ($5/month) and Pro ($50) a month. 

The pro plans allow you to create a network, and allow you to receive comments on your page, as well as have multiple users on your account. 

Their free (known as "Community" plans meet the following requirements:

These plans may not be used exclusively for marketing, evangelical, or other promotional purposes of any sort. The user's content must provide unique creative or informational value. 

Things that seem cool but aren't

Subscriber counts are pointless. If I subscribe on my phone, my tablet and iTunes it's going to potentially show me as three separate subscribers. I do give them credit for being blatantly honest. On their website it states, "Pinecast will only mark a subscriber a single time in any 24-hour window. Note that this is not a great metric for measuring podcast success; there is no foolproof means of tracking the number of subscribers."

There is a tip jar where you put in your bank account information, and when someone leaves you a tip, it goes to your bank. This is done securely through Stripe, but Pinecast is also going to take another 5%.  As this is not available on the free plan, I'm not sure why they feel the need to take a cut. Keep in mind that you can make your PayPal donation button in about 2 minutes. 

Their podcast site needs work, and you have one shot to get it right. I uploaded artwork that was made to the spec they suggested. It looked horrible when I went to go back and upload a new version that was not an option. 

So here is my checklist

1. Don't mess with my file. What I upload is what I want people to download. - Pass 2. Give me the ability to have an unlimited back catalog (unlimited storage) - Pass 3. Don't limit my audience size (unlimited bandwidth) - Pass 4. Don't control my feed, and make it easy to leave if I choose to do so. I need to be able to put in an iTunes redirect script. - Yes, but you have to ask 5. Give me support. - Yes, Matt answered my email about redirection fairly promptly.  6. Charge me for your service so you can stay in business - Yes. But there is a chance he may get overloaded with free customers.  7. Give me stats so I can see what's working. It would be nice if they were accurate. - Very basic stats

What About the Almighty Stats?

Listens by Source: This is a breakdown of how your audience is consuming your episodes. "Subscription" means that the listener heard an episode by using the feed for your podcast. "Direct" means the listener clicked a link and downloaded the audio file directly. "Embed" means the listener used the embeddable player to play the episode from a web page. Subscriber History: Whenever your feed is downloaded, Pinecast remembers the fingerprint of that user. Pinecast will only mark a subscriber a single time in any 24-hour window. Note that this is not a great metric for measuring podcast success; there is no foolproof means of tracking the number of subscribers. Listens by Device: When Pinecast can determine what type of device an episode was listened to on, it will break that down here. Note that some podcast software does not reveal this information. Listens by Browser: If Pinecrest can determine the software used to listen to the podcast, it will break that down here. Note that some podcast software will identify itself as other applications (e.g., some applications will identify themselves as iTunes, even though they are not). Listens by OS: If Pinecast can determine the operating system of the listener, it will be broken down in this section.

In general, they remind me of podbean stats. So, yes, they have stats. 

Why You Can't Rely on iTunes

I started a podcast called the Podcast New Flash. It's a daily show m-f with quick headlines, reviews, etc. I made it for the Amazon Echo (you can add it to your daily news). I late added it to Twitter and Facebook. I average about 30 downloads. I kept it this way for a month. Then I added it to iTunes. I didn't tell a soul that it was now on iTunes. This way I could see the effect of "being in iTunes." What was the effect of being in iTunes? Almost nothing. Previously I would get around 30 downloads an episode (all twitter and facebook). Now I get 35. I might have 10% of my downloads coming from my RSS feed (meaning subscribers). 

So what this means is that you need to go to where your audience is, make friends, listen to them, and then tell them about your podcast. Being in iTunes is not the holy grail. It's a convenient place to tell your audience where to go. A better solution is to have a subscribe button on your website. 

Now granted this is a hyper-niche podcast about podcasting, but I still think you need to realize that it may not bring you a ton of listens. 

Update on the Messengers a Podcast Documentary

BIG NEWS: The Historic Tampa Theatre has confirmed to play our Movie The Messengers: A Podcast Documentary as one of its selection. The tickets will be $11 for anyone that would want to attend.

Here is the info: Messengers Premiere: Wed March 22nd @Tampa Theatre Ticket price for family and friends $11 per person Theatre opens@ 6:30pm 

Soundcloud Is Still Losing LOTS of Money

$51.22 million last year. That's $140,329 A DAY see http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/soundcloud-may-run-out-of-cash-this-year-as-it-posts-e51m-loss/

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2025 Audience Survey

I Want Your Opinion

I am doing an audience survey and I want your input to help me make this show exactly what you want. If you have a few minutes, I have a quick survey at www.schoolofpodcasting.com/survey25

2025 Audience Survey