What Does Season 2 Of Serial Tell Us About Podcasting? - The Podcast Report Episode #72

What does season two of Serial tell us about podcasting? It's the Podcast Report. Episode number 72, show notes, links, conversation and more at the podcastreport.com 72. It's the podcast report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. Serial on Pandora proves that the reach of a podcast can simply be bigger than a podcast. Hey, this is Paul Culligan, podcaster, author, consultant, and this is the Podcast Report. I've been in podcasting since the beginning. Beginning. I love this industry. I've been in it since pretty much day one. You are a podcaster looking to make your podcast a real business or do more real business as a result of your podcast. That's why you listen to this show. It's not about the microphones, it's not about the hosting. It's because this is business and you want to do more of it. This show has never been a massive play, but it's always been a deep one. We go deep here and this episode is going to be interesting. A little bit of controversy probably, but should be fun. Why this topic, the announcement? Actually two announcements. One, I'm, I'm testing this. I'm recording this entire episode and I'm actually going to edit this episode as well using nothing but an iPad pro. And we'll see if the whole editing process and if everything goes well there. I'll let you know in a future episode. But the announcement that sparked this episode was the announcement that Serial Season 2, and if you haven't listened to Serial, it's the biggest podcast out there, I'll be honest with you, I've never, never listened to it. It's not that I'm jealous or it's not that I don't like it. It's just simply I don't have time. I know it's an addicting show, people love it and I just don't know if I necessarily have all that time to give to it. But anyway, Serial people and wondering about season two, what's going to happen with season two? Different announcements have come out, but the one announcement that has been the most fascinating is that season two of Serial is going to be on Pandora. That's right, the streaming audio music service is going to have Pandora or I'm sorry, Pandora is going to have season two of a podcast. Now there are a bunch of knee jerk responses. There are a bunch of people, and I'm sorry, I gotta admit, myself included, who thought that it was just a exclusive thing with Pandora that got a little bit confusing because Pandora is quote Unquote, the exclusive streaming provider. And as many of you podcasters know, the term streaming has a bunch of different definitions and approaches to it. So a lot of us got confused. Basically, it's going to be available just like a podcast, or available like a podcast just like before, all the ways you got it before, but you're going to be able to get it on Pandora as well. Now, they're not the exclusive provider. This isn't the reality. This isn't the insanity of the current exclusives that we're seeing and things like Star Trek, the new Star Trek TV show only on cbs, or House of Cards only on Netflix. Don't worry, it's not an exclusive provider thing. That hasn't happened yet in podcasting, and I hope it doesn't. But they are the exclusive streaming partner, meaning that it's not going to go to Spotify or Apple Music or that type of thing. Although on the same device you can get it as a podcast. So I'm curious how much Pandora paid for this. Pandora is looking at spoken word content. We cannot deny that anymore. That's why they grabbed Serial. Serial is spoken word content. It's not a music, you know, it's not music. It's not. Yeah, it's spoken word content. Pandora's looking at it. And a bunch of different podcasters and prognosticators and all these types will tell you, you know, Pandora is not ready for podcasting yet, but they're looking at spoken word content. And you know, a couple episodes ago we talked about Google Play getting into this. A couple episodes before that we talked about Spotify getting into this. There is nobody of any real size left that's not interested in spoken word content on their platform. This is really, really important. The spec of Pandora can be debated until the end of time if you want to. But the fact of the matter is the bigger names, the distribution partners are realizing the value of the podcast content. And this is tremendous. This is huge, how much they spend on it. You know, what is hype? What is excitement? That type of thing is there. But realize that this is where things are going. There's nobody else, any real size left who's not doing this. Which means, again, my whole quote is that we want to be everywhere. Now I got a quote for you from Ira Glass, executive executive producer, you know, the guy from this American Life. For people already listening to Serial and this American Life, nothing will change. But we believe lots of people who'd like our shows and simply haven't heard of them or haven't started listening to podcasts at Ira Glass, editorial advisor of Serial, host of this American Life. Serial is the biggest podcast in the world, but only 70% of Americans listen to podcasts at all. That's why it's so exciting for us to work with Pandora. Pandora reaches millions of people who never listen to public radio or download podcasts. This will get our shows to them. Now, Ira's quote and the numbers and that kind of stuff, I don't want to debate that, but the fact of the matter is, a guy who knows a lot about spoken word, a guy who's been doing spoken word for a long time, a guy who we have a lot to learn from in terms of spoken word, is realizing that his podcast is bigger than podcasting. And I'll say that again. You know, he's realized that his podcast is bigger than podcasting. And it's funny, because that little theme is something we've been chatting about on this show for a long time. Most of our podcasts are bigger than podcasting. Most of us could put these things on a scene cd. Some of us have done things like I've spoken in past episodes about Grammar Girl making her thing in an audiobook, or Dan Class making his a CD set or that type of thing. The content we're creating, if we're doing it right, is bigger than podcasts. And because it's bigger than podcasts, I mean, I'll tell you this. I know Pandora's spending a big chunk of change, a big chunk of money to do this. And had Ira Glass said, no, it's just a podcast. Had Ira Glass looked to someplace other than the podcast, not looked to someplace other than the podcast for distribution, this never would have happened. He's realized that his podcast is bigger than a podcast. And I'll tell you something, I think your podcast is bigger than a podcast. I know that my podcast is bigger than a podcast. I'm getting near, you know, finishing up season one here. We'll probably end season one, it's at 75 episodes, and then launch season two in the new year. But part of the whole process is this. Is this is bigger than that. And is it, is it the transcripts? Is it the show notes, Is the other distribution options? You know, I don't know, but I'll tell you, it's bigger than podcasting. So what do you do about this? Well, a couple things. A, just simply realize that your podcast is bigger than podcasting. But B, consider. Think about building shows that would do as well on Pandora as they would on Itunes. Consider doing a show that would do as well on Spotify as it would on Google Play. You know, consider doing a show that would be, you know, as nice and as well positioned in iHeartRadio as it would in Stitcher. And then I want you to consider, and I've been saying this for a long time, and I love the word podcast. This is the podcast report. I got books about podcasts. I'm a podcasting consultant. You know, I love podcasts. But consider insisting on calling your show a podcast if you're bigger than a podcast. You know, if it was serial, the podcast on Pandora, it never would have happened. I want you to think about that. And some of you are still insisting on calling your show a podcast. And I'm going to suggest that you're bigger than that. I'm going to recommend, I'm going to encourage, I'm going to say strongly that you're bigger than that. So build shows that could do as well on Pandora's itunes and consider insisting on calling it a podcast. Shows as well on Pandora's as itunes. Things like show notes, things like some of the nomenclature that we speak to in podcasts, visit our website episode number. You know, look at the show notes, kinds of things that only podcasters know. Realize as we get bigger and bigger, less and less people are gonna know what we're talking about. Here's what I'm doing. I, like I said, gonna end kind of this version of the podcast report in a couple episodes, close up of the year, build season two. And my whole focus, my attention is going to be on content, and this is gonna be content that makes as much sense in itunes, where, yes, still the majority of you are getting this. But something that would work inside of Pandora, something that would work inside of Spotify, some of it that would work in all these other places. And gosh darn it, I recommend that you do the exact same thing. So I'd love your thoughts on this one. You can head out to the podcastreport.com Twitter or the podcastreport.com Facebook or any of those places and let us know in social what you think. You can also obviously head over to the blog, thepodcastreport.com 72 has the links to the serial press release at the very least. And I've got some other links in there for you as well if you want to follow up on that. And there's obviously a commenting system inside of there that you can take a look at if you've not yet subscribed to the podcast report, please do so. Subscription is the power of podcasting. This is episode 72. Well, when episode 73 gets released, I want you to be able to get that automatically. When episode 74 is released automatically, 75 is released automatically. And of course, as we head into season two and season three and season four, automatically. And that happens with subscription. And that's one of the powers of podcasting is not these one offs, it's these subscriptions. That's where the power is. So definitely. And I don't care how you listen, you know, maybe one day. No, not maybe one day. I'll bet you very, very soon this will be on Pandora and maybe you'll be going to the podcastreport.com Pandora. But right now the places are that we are the podcastreport.com iTunes or Stitcher, Pocketcasts or TuneIn or Spreaker/iheartradiovercast. And right now it's not available yet, but we know it's coming soon, so I'm gonna start speaking to it already as per our last episode. Google Play again, social be great. If you want to email me, I'm at the podcastreport at outlook. Com if you want to do the whole review thing. I always love reviews. Itunes would be the best place to do it right now. Thank you so much. Your podcast just might be bigger than a podcast. Chat with you next week. Bye.