The Big Technology Barrier Blocking Podcast Discovery

When writing about podcasting in this blog, particularly in 2016 (see this June 16 entry), I have been concerned with, and been asking about, what the medium’s growth potential is. Certain shows, such as “Serial” and “Making Oprah,” and certain guests (President Obama appearing on Marc Maron’s WTF) have become part of pop culture, water-cooler conversations.

At the same time, however, the medium is often a target for comedians who will joke that “everyone has a podcast now.” That’s even though so many comedians themselves seem to be popping up with podcasts of their own. Or actors such as Dax Shepard and Anna Faris launch conversational shows (I haven’t gotten to those yet, so I can’t say whether they are worthwhile or self-indulgent). These might be what satirizing comics also have in mind.

Still, the undercurrent of these points is that podcasting still is seen as, or in fact exists as, a secondary medium, the province of those who are among a highly educated elite or obsessive consumers of media, rather than entertainment for everyone in the mainstream. As Kevin Allison, founder and host of the “Risk!” podcast puts it, “People in their 50s and 60s are a demographic that maybe have yet to discover podcasts to the extent that they would probably really enjoy them if they found them.”

Once listeners do discover the medium, they are more likely to first find podcasts spawned by organized media interests, because those have more promotion and marketing muscle. Or those listeners can discover those podcasts through those organizations’ other properties.

However, Rob Walch of Libsyn, who expressed in last week's entry that independent podcasters still have plenty of exposure despite the rise of organized media interests in the medium, identifies a technology barrier to the continued growth of podcasting’s reach and influence. That barrier is Google’s lack of a native application for podcast listening in its Android smartphone operating system, like iTunes has for podcast distribution. Apple’s iOS (operating system) and its ability to handle podcasts is a big reason why the most relevant podcast ranking is the iTunes podcast charts.

Apple iOS or iTunes users consume 25% more podcasts than an average Android device user, according to Walch. Although there are about five Android devices for every single Apple device, the lack of a native app for Android magnifies the disparity of podcast listening of any kind to 25-to-1, Apple to Android, accounting for Android users who do listen even without such an app.

Google declined to develop a podcast app because it could not see immediate profitability in such a venture, as Walch explains, while Apple took a longer view and was rewarded with a firm grip on the podcasting medium, and a giant head start as the medium expanded, and as it continues to expand. “Now Google is at the point where they realize that not having a podcast app for Android makes them look silly and hurts their ecosystem,” says Walch. “Since profit was the motivation for them not to do it, shame is going to be the motivation for them to do it.”

Assuming Google does get around to offering a native podcast app, in Walch’s analysis, the consumption of podcasts would double just from the Android user population having the same access Apple users already have. And that, according to Walch, is the only development that can possibly significantly boost the reach of podcasting, sometime in the next five years.

Podcast of the moment:

Stay Tuned With Preet, “The Death of Sergei Magnitsky,” October 26, 2017. Former U.S. Attorney for the district including New York City, Preet Bharara began a podcast in September, tackling politics and criminal justice issues that concerned him when he held the office. This episode will make you better understand the depth of menace Vladimir Putin exerts on his country and the whole world. Bharara interviews Bill Browder, a businessman who had interests in Russia and abroad, who was targeted by Putin for exposing corruption. Magnitsky, a lawyer and prominent Putin opponent, suffered a cruel fate which played out slowly over the course of one year. Browder and Bharara tell a powerful story that will make you indignant.

Are Apple's iTunes Podcasts Charts Skewed Favoring Media Organizations?

In late 2017, I looked at a measure of podcasting’s reach among listeners to any kind of audio programming, Edison Research’s “Share Of Ear,” which had concluded that podcasting was getting just 3% of all audio listeners’ time. Edison’s sister measurement program, “Infinite Dial,” breaks down podcast listening habits.

I’ll revisit podcasting’s growth potential from another perspective, with some expert insight, in my next entry, but first let’s look at the issue of iTunes podcast rankings and whether they are now skewed toward podcasts that are backed by bigger media organizations.

The “Risk!” podcast, which features unique storytelling, mostly by comedians or comedy performers, is produced independently of any large media organization. It debuted in 2009, and achieved a run on the iTunes top 100 podcasts charts that began in February 2014 and ended in August 2016. At the time of its debut, there were about 250,000 podcasts in existence that could be tabulated for the iTunes chart, estimates Kevin Allison, creator and host of “Risk!”

The number of podcasts in existence now stands at about 500,000, according to Rob Walch, host of the “PodCast411” podcast and vice president of podcaster relations at Libsyn, a podcast publishing, hosting and delivery service that handles about 25,000 podcasts for both independents and media organizations. So there’s more competition for those top spots, and podcast networks such as Gimlet, Panoply and Earwolf or public radio spinoffs are more likely than independent podcasters to have marketing budgets to reach more listeners and get ranked on the iTunes chart.

“It’s not that [our] show has deteriorated,” says Allison, talking about the challenge of an ever-more crowded podcasting field. “The show is better than ever. It’s because we don’t have thousands of dollars to throw at marketing and to connecting us to business-to-business this-and-that. We have a tiny staff. We don’t have a huge money machine of some media corporation behind us.”

Independent podcasts like “Risk!” rely on their own “gumption,” as Allison puts it, and have to constantly beat the drum to promote themselves. “You have to show up places in person as much as humanly possible,” he says. “Just like a politician, shaking people’s hands, and telling them, ‘you have to listen to my podcast’ or ‘come be on my podcast.’” That includes, but is not exclusive to, social media outreach.

Walch, on the other hand, does not see organizational backing as an absolute pre-requisite for being on the iTunes top 100 podcasts list. “The majority of shows [on the list] are indie podcasters,” he says, adding that network or public radio podcasts make up less than 2% of all podcasts overall.

A cursory look at this week’s top 100, as compiled by itunescharts.net, finds a mix of independents and affiliated shows close to 50-50. “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which Walch emphasizes as a prime example of a successful independent show, ranked 3^rd on February 20 (itunescharts.net compiles charts daily but there is a lag in releasing results). The New York Times, WNYC, NPR, PodcastOne, Vox and Slate have shows on the list (amounting to much more than 2% but probably less than 10% of the list), yet most of the list could fairly be called independent podcasts, albeit of different sizes and scales.

Circling back to that “Share Of Ear” measurement – if podcasting makes up such a small part of audio entertainment, organizationally-backed podcasts would have an audience that is quite small. Collect up all the independent, unaffiliated shows, and that’s where the medium’s reach or power may reside.

Next time: A look at iTunes versus Android in achieving podcasting’s maximum reach possibilities.

Podcast of the Moment:

Risk! “Outta Place,” February 8, 2012. Writing the above entry sent me far back into the Risk! archives for this episode, in which Ben Garant and Kerri Kenney-Silver, both colleagues of host Kevin Allison, when they were in the State sketch comedy group, talk about misadventures related to travel. Garant tells about being on the road hanging out with heavy drug users in Wyoming, and Kenney-Silver talks about an unwanted trip to “Burning Man.”