THE PODCAST AVALANCHE:
Podcasts are taking over YouTube. Everyone from financial influencers and gamers to fitness
models and vloggers all suddenly have a podcasts. This is in stark contrast to everything the
media has been telling us. Our attention span is shrinking. TikTok is beating YouTube.
Long form content is dying. YouTube shorts are taking over and on and on and on. The reality
is that this is completely false. In fact, companies are backing away from short form
content. Meta has eliminated their Reels creator fund and TikTok is becoming more and more like
YouTube. Conversely, what seems to be doing really well is actually podcasts despite them breaking
basically every creator rule you can think of. For one, they’re 1 to 2 hours long, if not longer,
so they’re by no means catering to our short attention spans. Also, there’s no fancy editing,
sound effects, music, graphics, or coherent storytelling that keeps people enticed. More
times than not, podcasts are just conversations that naturally jump from one topic to another.
Not to mention, there’s only one episode per week or maybe only one episode per month. Yet,
despite all these quote on quote shortfalls, podcasts are performing better than ever. The
Iced Coffee Hour has nearly half a million subs, the PBD Podcast has 700,000 subs, Lex Fridman
has nearly 3 million subs, and heck even Logan Paul’s podcast has 4.5 million subs. It seems
like podcasts are the new vlogging where every YouTuber has a podcast channel and they all rack
in millions of views. YouTube is of course trying to capitlize on this trend by pushing podcasts as
much as possible. Just yesterday, YouTube rolled out podcast functionality on the music app. You
no longer have to be a premium member to listen to podcasts in the background. But, speaking of
vlogging, that trend didn’t last for too long. Eventually, most vloggers quit and it was only a
select few channels like Caisey Neistat who have been able to survive in the genre over the long
term and even he took a massive break. So, why are podcasts taking over the platform and is this
just a short term fad or the future of YouTube. THE JOE ROGAN EFFECT: Taking a look back, the explosion of podcasts
on YouTube can be traced back to one man, Joe Rogan. Rogan basically invented the podcasting
niche here on YouTube having started his podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience way back in 2009. Given
his background as a comedian and showhost on mainstream media, he was naturally pretty good at
having engaging and enticing conversations. His show was almost like Good Mythical Morning which
was also blowing up at the time, but instead of focusing on production and entertainment value,
Rogan would focus on educational and intellectual value. This isn’t to say that he instantly blew
up, but it gave him a differentiating factor which he leaned into over the years. He would interview
everyone from Elon Musk and Neil deGrasse Tyson to David Blaine and Bernie Sanders. Over time, this
gave him access to an extremely large audience. In fact, by the end of 2020, he had 10 million
subscribers and nearly 3 billion views. But, all of this would change in 2021. You see,
Spotify offered Rogan an exclusivity deal that was worth as much as $200 million. Rogan would
of course take the deal and he would move his podcasting over to Spotify starting at end of
2020. Conventional wisdom would tell you that this is terrible news for YouTube. Spotify had
effectively poached the most popular podcaster in the world. And with that who knows how many
loyal listeners they had converted to Spotify, but this is where things get dicey. Rogan is
obviously still extraordinarily popular pulling in an average of 11 million listeners per episode.
For perspective, the most popular mainstream media show only pulls in 3.24 million viewers per
episode. So, Rogan is obviously crushing it, but that doesn’t mean that YouTube is performing
poorly without him. In fact, Twitch has found that large creators leaving the platform is
surprisingly beneficial for them. Here’s the thing, when there’s a super large creator in
a given niche, they basically soak up all the attention. This makes it extremely difficult for
smaller creators to gain traction as viewers are simply satisfied with the larger creator. But,
when the larger creator switches platforms or takes a break, this allows for content from
smaller creators to be pushed more at the same time that viewers are looking to fill a void. This
creates the perfect storm for smaller creators to explode in popularity as was the case with Twitch.
Apparently, Ninja leaving Twitch allowed for 5 to 6 new streamers to take his place. And it seems
that this same phenomenon has played out on a much bigger scale with podcasting on YouTube.
The best part of all of this for platforms is that the creator who left often tends to come
back. Rogan’s deal with Spotify, for example, only lasts for 3.5 years. This means that the
deal will expire in early to mid 2024 which is only a year away. If he returns to YouTube
at this point, I’m sure he’ll do great, but he would no longer be the only podcasting
giant on the platform. He would simply be a giant. IRRESISTIBLE OPPORTUNITY: So, that explains the audience side of things. Joe
Rogan had an extremely big podcasting presence on YouTube, and his departure left tens of millions
if not hundreds of millions of fans looking for an alternative, allowing for up and coming
creators to blow up. But, what about the creator side of things? If you take a look at the biggest
creators on the platform like Mr. Beast, Airrack, and MrWhoseTheBoss, you’ll see that they’re all
taking the exact opposite approach. Every second of their videos is all about constant stimulation.
Text on screen, sound effects, constant cuts, super high energy, and tons of money. Clearly,
this is working out great for them and while this style will definitely evolve over time,
it’s most likely the future of YouTube. I mean, there’s a reason that movies are so popular.
People love high production value content. So, with that being said, podcasters won’t be
taking on these behemoths anytime soon, but what podcasting does offer is super high ROI
on a much smaller scale. Take the upfront work for example. Creating one of my videos takes about 20
hours of work between me and my editors. Creating something on the level of MrWhoseTheBoss takes
hundreds of hours of work. And creating something the level of MrBeast takes thousands of hours
of work. But, at the end of the day, all this effort only translates to a 10 to 20 minute long
video. Creating a podcast on the other hand only takes 3-5 hours of work. Worst case scenario, it
might take 10 hours of work, but at the end of it, you have hours of content. So, the ratio between
work input and content output is simply ridiculous and that’s just the first advantage. The second
advantage is that the demographics of podcast listeners are insane. Given the educational
nature of podcasts, it simply doesn’t appeal to the general audience which largely limits how big
these channels can get. But, the people that it does reach is insane. The people who are listening
to podcasts are generally high performers looking to improve themselves, learn, and get to the
next level. In fact, 30% of podcast listeners make a quarter million per year. That right there
is a gold mine for advertisers leading to super high ad rates on podcasts. Not to mention, given
the length of podcasts, you can stuff in like 20 mid roll ads leading to even more income. But,
honestly the money and reach are the smaller advantages. The real advantage in my opinion
is the opportunity to network. As a podcaster, you’re constantly reaching out to leaders that
you would have otherwise never reached out to. People like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and you
get to meet and talk with these people for hours. So, really you’ve got low effort high
output evergreen content that appeals to a high value audience and allows you
to network with the most successful people in the world. No wonder every YouTuber is
trying to capitilize on this opportunity. UNSUSTAINABLE:
Not only are podcasts great for creators, viewers, and advertisers, but they’re also great
for platforms. One of the biggest challenges for modern social media platforms is trying to
keep your attention. Attention is really the currency of the modern world. If you’re able to
garner attention, everything else will follow. This is why social media platforms are constantly
tinkering with their algorithm and looking for the perfect balance. It just so happens to be that
podcasts are extraordinarily easy to recommend as they pull in a stupid amount of watch time
given their length. Podcasts often boast 20, 30, 40 minutes of average watch time. But, not only
do podcasts pull in a stupid amount of watch time, but they also build habits and regular viewership.
Here’s the thing, people aren’t listening to podcasts on a friday evening when they’re trying
to unwind. Rather, podcasts usually make their way into people’s daily routines. We’re talking
about commutes to work, taking a walk, cooking, folding the laundry, doing chores, etc. More times
than not, podcasts are the perfect tool to make these mundane tasks more productive and it becomes
a part of the routine. So, platforms like YouTube and Spotify don’t really have to push podcasts too
hard. When the time comes, people go and find the podcasts they wanna listen to by themselves. This
makes podcasts likely the easiest way for these platforms to garner and retain attention, but it’s
not all good news. With everyone jumping onto the podcasting scene, there’s no question that this
area is going to become saturated if it isn’t already. I mean, there’s only so many finance
podcasts, gaming podcasts, fitness podcasts, and food podcasts that people can listen to.
Also, something else to note is that much of the popularity of these podcasts can be attributed to
the mystery surrounding the guests. Take MrBeast for example. Before podcasts starting blowing
up YouTube, the intricacies of his business and operations were largely a mystery. But, now that
Jimmy has made his rounds on dozens of podcasts, much of the mystery surrounding his business
is now gone. People’s curiosities have been satiated. A perfect example of this is Alex
Hormozi. In the early days, there was a lot of curiosity regarding who this lumberjack is
and how he made a $100 million. As such, his first appearance on the Iced Coffee Hour pulled in
nearly a million views. But, his second appearance on the show only garnered 300,000 views. And,
his latest appearance only garnered 200,000 views. This isn’t to say that these podcasts are
any less valuable, but simply that much of the mystery and interest surrounding Alex has faded
away. And as more and more podcasts interview the same people, it’s likely that Alex’s situation
will become a trend. Now of course, there will always be new figures of interest, but there’s
no question that this list is not nearly as exhaustive as it once used to be which raises the
question: how sustainable really is podcasting? THE FATE OF PODCASTS: None of this is to say that podcasting is going
to die into oblivion like Vine. But, there’s no question that the area is becoming oversaturated
and there’s only a limited amount of attention and a limited number of guests. The early signs
of this are already starting to surface. Newer podcasts aren’t garnering nearly as much momentum,
popular podcasts are getting most of their views and growth from short form content, and podcasts
are having to repeat guests more and more. So, I think it’s safe to say that the golden days
of podcasts are right now or are already behind us. Again, this isn’t to say that podcasts
are going to disappear into oblivion. But, it’s more than likely that many of the newer
podcasters won’t end up making it and the legacy podcasts will stabilize at a much more modest view
count similar to vlogging. Vlogging isn’t dead, but it’s also not what it used to be back in 2015
and 2016. And that may very well be the fate of podcasts as well, but that’s just what I think.
Do you guys listen to podcasts? If so, which one is your favorite? Comment that down below. Also,
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