More Podcasts ≠ Better Podcasts
As a podcaster — and, particularly, a podcast who writes (a lot) about podcasting — I’m marketed a tonne of products. Some come my way via Twitter, just coincidentally, and some slide into my inbox in the form of press releases or other solicitations. “Hey Nick, really enjoyed your blog about how much you loathe podcasting… would you be interested in beta testing and writing about our new product??”
Anyway, there is one common thread to these products that I feel a moral obligation to condemn. They all have the same expressed purpose: to make it easier, and quicker, to produce podcasts. Whether we’re talking Descript, Zencastr, the RodeCaster, or every new AI launch, the impact of the product is the same. Let’s streamline processes, so you can make more podcast. More, more, more.
The question of whether we need more podcasts is a contentious one in our industry. Apple has over 2 million registered podcasts currently in operation, and the number of accessible audio-shows is likely even higher. That’s split between a global podcast audience somewhere around 400 million, which means, if listeners were split equitably, each show would have 200 listeners. Of course, all podcasts are equal but some are far, far more equal than others. Many shows have 100 listeners or 10 listeners or 1 listener; and other shows have 1 million listeners or 100,000 listeners or 10,000 listeners. The industry has already experienced a silent stratification between the audience haves and have nots.
Does more podcast solve this issue?
The reasons why the number of podcasts has exploded are basically all down to technology anyway. Anchor, for example, changed the game in terms of hosting — instead of spending $100 a year on a hosting service, it was now free to release your podcast. Naturally, this opened up the market, in a good way, to economically disadvantaged people. But it also significantly lowered the threshold at which people deemed a product worthy of release. Even a small capital outlay like $100 stops people launching shows willy-nilly. Suddenly, that barrier was removed.
Free audio editing software has been around for as long as podcasts, but it just gets better and better. As does audio capture software like Zoom, Zencastr, Cleanfeed, whatever. All have workable free versions. All have integrated more features that streamline the process of creating a podcast. Microphone technology might not have changed significantly in the past decade (at the elite level) but listen to the sound difference on an iPhone 3 versus an iPhone 13; an Apple Mac versus an iMac. Inbuilt microphones are now good enough that a lot of people use them. Plus, the quality of USB microphones has shot up: the Shure MV7 is a prosumer microphone that satisfies all but the most robust quality demands. And USB microphones make it much, much easier to record podcasts. You remove a whole level of requirement for interfacing, and the job of “producer” gets a lot easier (on a technical level, at least).
So, basically, everything has already been moving in the direction of making podcasting easier. And most of these companies are incentivised in that direction. The more people making podcasts, the more people who might buy microphones. The more podcasts being launched, the more people who might need a subscription to X technology. Just get people into podcasting, and you’ll improve your ability to sell.
This isn’t a screed against those companies. It is, after all, a logical business model. This is a screed against the pervasive sentiment that the only products we can make for podcasting are ones that expedite the process — unlock new efficiencies — rather than ones that improve the quality of podcasts. And don’t tell me that the latest remote recording software is improving the quality of podcasts. It’s not. What it’s doing is making the gap in quality between IRL, in-person, recording, and remote recording, smaller. Remote recording is, after all, a pale facsimile of the techniques used for a hundred years in radio and other audio broadcasting. You can polish away at it, but it’s still a turd.
Where are the products that assist with depth of research? Where are the products that don’t delegate editing to a blunt AI tool, but sharpen the gifts given to human editors? Where are the products that help people intelligently structure their shows? Help them produce elegant, complex sound design, help them add layers with music, with field recordings, with interviews. Where are the tools that hone skills like guest booking? Narrating? Interviewing?
Obviously, these are all technological products that are harder to make, because they, ultimately, rely on the human. That beautiful, fallible thing.
But whether you believe we’ve reached saturation point or not, it does seem perverse to keep streamlining our industry, until any idiot in the park with a smartphone can produce an episode of This American Life. Increasingly, the inhibiting factor there is NOT technological, but intellectual. The trickiest hurdle facing quality podcasting today is not distribution, production or editing. It’s the competence, experience and curiosity to create good podcasts. As we find ourselves awash in a sea of new technologies that are “idiot-proof” or will “reduce the time it takes to make an hour-long documentary to just 30 seconds!!”, remember that none of these products are really promising to make your podcasts better. More podcasts are not better podcasts; an easier podcast is not a superior one.
Talking of podcasts, I have a new show coming out next week: Other Edens. Trailer below, if you’re curious.
