Podcasts are based on loyalty

Speaking of audio (not) going viral, in episode 76 of Unprofessional, Marco Arment makes an important point about podcast listenership:

[47:46] Podcasts are a very different kind of medium than most other things on the web. Most “new media” is all about getting this flood of hits, and things “going viral” (or whatever that means), and just getting tons of drive-by hit traffic.

Podcasts don’t work that way. Podcasts are based on loyalty, and getting people subscribed who are going to listen to every episode. So, there’s your core audience of people who you should cater to. That’s what the advertisers pay for. That’s what people tune in for. That core audience is the backbone of the show.

And then there’s the people who will listen to one episode and complain about it. And so you have to prioritize what you do and the way you do things to please that core audience, because they’re the ones who matter a lot more.

If you measure the success of long-form audio content using the same yardstick as a listicle, you’re doing it wrong.

While we’re on the subject, Andrew Kurjata makes some more good points about audio virality in his post on the subject.