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- If your content can be consumed any old time, then it is easy to put off until later–or never. In other words, given a choice between something that is time-sensitive or has some kind of urgency attached to it, and something that doesn’t, the squeaky wheel gets the grease every time. I find that there are a lot of podcasts in my iTunes repository that simply go unlistened to or unwatched because they get bumped to the back of the line behind more topical content. If there is no need to listen to a given podcast now, then it can often fall victim to the urgent.
Podcasting and The Value of Scarcity
July 14th, 2009
With all of the recent kerfuffle surrounding Chris Anderson’s new book Free, it’s worth noting that one basic economics lesson continues to hold true: scarcity creates value. In fact, economics is essentially the study of scarcity, and when a good or service becomes common, it becomes devalued.
I was reminded of this crucial distinction when I perused the results of RAJAR’s latest MIDAS research. RAJAR, the UK’s radio measurement entity, publishes a semiannual look at British consumption of Internet-delivered audio that examines trends in digital radio, streaming and podcasting akin to our own Internet and Multimedia Research Series here in the States, and I am always interested to see how the behavior of UK digital consumers agrees and differs from our own here in the US.
I’ll have more to say about the podcasting statistics in a later post (they show continued growth in uptake, from 7.2 million podcast consumers in October 2008 to 7.8 million today,) but for now I wanted to focus on this telling statistic: while 4.2 million say they listen to podcasts at least once a week, only 28% find time to listen to all the podcasts they download (the typical user reported subscribing to 5.2 podcasts per week.)
I freely admit that I rarely listen to everything in my queue, and often weeks will go by before I will listen to an episode. Some subscriptions I have never caught up with, and others remain weekly staples. The vast stew of unlistened-to podcast episodes in my iTunes folder is very reminiscent of my TiVo “Now Playing” page, which also contains dozens of shows (and one entire series) that I’ve never watched. I suspect, if you own a DVR, that you have had a similar experience.
It’s easy to subscribe to episodic content–less so to find time to fit it all in. If you are a podcaster with a program centered on information or news content in a given niche, you know that listeners have multiple ways to get the content you offer (after all, you also got it somewhere.) What keeps listeners coming back, week after week, is you–character development, roles, trust, and your story. Even the most compelling podcasts, however, can pile up in someone’s feed reader amidst the plethora of audio and video available on the Internet.
What RAJAR’s Recent Podcasting Data Means for Podcasters
March 17th, 2009The UK’s radio ratings service, RAJAR, recently released the findings of its latest study of Internet-delivered audio services, including a healthy section on podcast consumption. Here are some of the principal findings, and a few thoughts on what they mean for podcast content producers:
1. The overall podcast audience continues to show significant growth: the overall UK figures rose from 6 million persons indicating they had ever downloaded a podcast in May 2008, to 7.2 million today. Also in that same period, the number of persons indicating that they listen to a podcast each week rose from 3.7 million to 4.1 million.
Two things strike me about these numbers–first, of course, podcast consumption continues to grow at a very healthy rate. More significant to me is the fact that 57% of the total podcast audience listens to a podcast each week. That, combined with the fact that the number of podcasts subscribed to increased from 3.6 to 4.4 is clear evidence that listening to podcasts is becoming more of a habit, and less of a novelty, for the majority of this ever-growing body.
If you are monetizing podcast content, habit is most definitely what you need. It is vital for content producers to encourage, promote and even reward regular, timely listening–again, the fact that podcasts can be consumed any old time is a benefit to the listener, but means that ‘campaigns’ can stretch for weeks–even months–and occur asynchronously. The more podcast producers can create and reinforce the habit of listening to a podcast, the more they can control variables and show demonstrable results for advertisers within a finite window of time. So listen whenever you want–but listen this week–and be creative about how you encourage your listeners to make the habit.
2. 33% of podcast listeners responded positively to the idea of podcasts without advertising that would have to be paid for. However, the same study showed that the number of podcast listeners who had actually paid for a podcast remained unchanged–3%.
Thoughts on some recent Podcasting Data
September 2nd, 2008The Pew Internet and American Life Project just released some new data on podcast consumption, estimating that roughly one in five Americans have ever downloaded a podcast:
These numbers are extremely close to the Edison numbers on podcasting and certainly validate that study’s conclusion that podcast consumption continues to grow. This is a good study, and a worthy addition to the growing body of credible research out there on the consumption of downloadable media.
The Pew report does draw one conclusion that is likely to draw comments from a number of podcasters, if not outright controversy. With 3% of Americans indicating that they download podcasts “on a typical day” (and 17% of actual podcast consumers claiming the same), the data suggests, as Mary Madden indicates, that “podcasting has yet to become a fixture in the everyday lives of internet users.” One could point to the “300% increase in the daily podcast audience” here, as the headline reads in today’s Podcasting News, and see the glass half full, or one could focus on the number “3″ and be fairly dismissive of podcasting.
The truth, as it generally is, lies in between, and is best summarized just exactly as Madden has written–podcasting has proliferated, but has yet to become a fixture in daily life. The overall consumption numbers from both the Pew and Edison studies (one in five Americans) show that podcasting is becoming important on a national scale–but it isn’t yet a “daily habit.” I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that podcasters don’t really “ask for the order,” a phenomenon I wrote about at length on this very site in an article entitled “Podcasting: The Curse of Convenience.” Because you can listen to a podcast any old time, there is not necessarily a daily urgency to do so. There aren’t many daily shows, for one thing–and I often wait until the end of the week to even sync my portable MP3 player. “Daily” may not even be a reasonable standard–radio is measured on weekly reach (Edison’s data puts podcasting’s weekly reach between 8 and 9 percent) and television is measured on the “show,” both of which are more reasonable standards for podcasting.
Podcasting: The Curse of Convenience
August 20th, 2008I recently gave a talk at the New Media Expo on the efficacy of podcast advertising and some additional data on the makeup of the audience for downloadable media. I concluded that talk with three points for my audience to ponder (and if you were there on that Friday afternoon, I’m honored and grateful you came.) The last point generated more talkabout than the first two, so I thought I would expand a bit here on what I meant by the curse of convenience:
Lots of folks came up to me afterwards to chat about this one! Here was my point: Downloadable media represents a solution for consumers who want to control their media and be the programmers of their own personal media experience. It’s one of the reasons I am so bullish on the space: regardless of the penetration and uptake of the word “podcasting” (which we currently have at 37%), the desire to listen to what you want, when you want and on whatever device you want will soon be ubiquitous. The “convenience” of podcasts is clearly a big selling point–why be tethered to a television set or a radio at a specific time and place when I can take content with me and consume it when I want? Kind of a no-brainer.
So, yes, the “convenience” of your podcast is a feature–even a benefit–but my point here is that it isn’t the feature you should lead with. What you should lead with is how incredible your content is, and why, even though it is available to be listened to at anytime, it should be listened to now, or at least on the day it is released. There are two very compelling reasons why:
New Research on the Podcasting Audience
April 23rd, 2008Last week I had the privilege of being invited to share some of our current data on podcasting as a part of the ADM’s “Get The Download” event at ad:tech SF. This week, we are making our most recent Podcasting data publicly available at our site, and I will be expanding on the current state of the audience for podcasting at Podcamp NYC later this week (where I have the last slot of the day on Friday–nothing readies you to get your drink on like a big bucket o’ numbers, but I promise to be concise!) My job at Edison Media Research is to analyze data and tell the story behind the numbers-whether those stories are good, or bad. In the case of the current state of podcasting, the story is good, so I am pleased to be able to share it with you here.
This year, our third annual Podcast Consumer Revealed report (derived from the 2008 Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet and Multimedia study) details significant gains in both audio and video podcast consumption. The audience for downloadable media is not only growing, but also represents a very attractive target for advertising. Our national data shows that more than one in five Americans have ever downloaded and watched/listened to a podcast, which breaks down further to 18% of Americans having ever listened to an audio podcast, and 16% having ever watched a video podcast. Those numbers are up sharply from last year’s figures, which were 13% and 11%, respectively. Nine percent of Americans 12+ have listened to an audio podcast in the past month, and those 23 million Americans are affluent, spend lots of time (and money!) online, and are increasingly more difficult to target with interruption advertising.
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