AfterPod — Listening Behaviors

Podcast listeners share certain basic behaviors; we naturally follow many similar patterns.

The podcast audience is not monolithic. Every perspective of “audience”, larger or smaller, is different and only a SLICE of the full industry pie we’re examining. There are many slices. This article addresses only one.

The discussion picks up where the previous left off. If you haven’t already, reading it will establish a better foundation for understanding the overall rationale.

Start-from-the-Start

Unlike radio and television, where some of the audience will drop-in and may consume whatever is on at the time, podcast consumption is usually more like reading a book or watching a movie… at the time we want to engage, most people start from the beginning. Of course, not everyone completes the podcast, so there is a natural decline in listeners for the duration of the episode. (You can’t lock theater doors while the movie plays.)

Here’s a graph from NPRone based on listener data captured in their innovative player:

audience retention, 2 podcasts, first few minutes

You can see the steep drop in listeners during the first few seconds of an episode before tapering off into a more gradual decline during the first few minutes of listening. Most media pros, including panel members at Podcast Movement, agree on the critical importance of the listening experience when first starting:

Heard in the Hall “You’ll never have more listeners than at the start.” “The strength of your opening will determine the level of success of the entire podcast.”

1. The First Few Seconds

The data show, as we already know, first impressions matter. Listeners drop off FAST during the first few seconds of a show. When we start listening to a podcast or watching a video, we make some rapid unconscious decisions whether to engage fully — or disengage — in a snap.

Picture those barrels full of water at freeway entrance and exit ramps…

listeners may go either way — ON or OFF — at the very last second…

SOME people decide to get off (or onto) the freeway… and then, mere seconds before the moment of truth… change their minds. YOU have probably seen this happen. The pattern occurs with enough frequency there are safety measures in place to save human lives!

Think about that.

It’s always been my theory most people go temporarily insane at the very moment of making an actual decision… but that’s a discussion for another time.

Even though we already started listening to a podcast, many of us will bail out within moments. Less than 15 seconds or so.

Make the best of them, podcasters!

2. The First Few Minutes

IF the listeners’ attention is snagged somehow, then they settle in a little bit… but still are more likely to exit within the first four or FIVE minutes. Perhaps we are getting a better sense of the tempo or mood of the show since this behavior happens even to favorite shows.

You’ve done it. I have to.

Started listening with full intentions of enjoying the whole episode and, for whatever reason, it didn’t feel right and impulsively decided to switch to a different podcast.

Just because a podcaster gets the attention of a listener doesn’t mean it will be kept even after the “first few seconds”, and particularly in the early portion of the show. Forward-selling upcoming segments is a smart idea at this point. Quickly remind (tease?) us about great content “just around the corner”.

Like in fishing… if you catch a fish, you need to set the hook or it will get away.

3. The Bulk of the Episode

Listeners still on the train at this point tend to stay, though there is a gradual audience decline as individuals slowly exit early, either due to other things to do or generally fading interest. We are easily bored these days, it seems.

Many organizations continue to study ways to keep listeners and viewers engaged, some attempting to transfer traditional radio and TV methods while others are exploring new frontiers (me!). Some generously share their findings with others in the industry:

4. Inline Advertising Spots

If the show runs advertisements during the main content block, a segment of listeners will fast-forward playback, jumping over the ads.

Many podcast listeners DO listen to ads, though, especially host-read spots. Some listeners are actually LOYAL and AVIDLY support “their” show’s sponsors, affiliate links, “merch” sales, and so on.

Some podcast listeners purposely listen to spots read by CERTAIN HOSTS, as they tend to “go off-script”… making their ads fun, or at least unpredictable. Really. (This is nirvana to marketers… but like walking a tightrope, falls can hurt!)

5. The Last Few Minutes

Commonly, advertisements or credits are placed at the end of podcast episodes. Listeners, especially experienced fans, know the show is essentially over and leave.

Like other ad segments, some smaller portion of the overall audience will stay to the very end.

Let’s put die-hard FANS (short for fanatics, eh?) to the side for now. THEY are an entirely separate discussion on behavior but, while very important to building a core audience, they are a very small minority of any given podcast’s total audience… definitely not the mainstream. Truly zealous fans are a powerful component of any show’s success and should be looked at under a special light.

SOON…

Recently, Apple announced plans to provide detailed episode analytics for podcasts played through their platform, which will be great data to have. This is a preliminary example of one of their graphs showing number of listeners during a single podcast episode:

I have added the points of reference to make this discussion easier.

Just to be clear…

Let’s not confuse two concepts related to AUDIENCE: interest and size. The INTEREST an audience has at any point during a podcast episode, how engaged they are — which is continually going up, wavering, or going down — is not what we’re discussing. Nobody is turning “thumbs up/down dials” as they listen.

These graphs indicate audience SIZE, the count of listeners versus any measure of their level of interest or engagement. The mere act of listening IS the most fundamental measure of interest, though. It’s often also inferred that, when someone STOPS listening, they have no interest and do not return. We may know soon exactly how true that is.

Keep in mind, this graph WILL look different — maybe a little, maybe a lot — depending on the characteristics of any given podcast. We are speaking in generalities.

A few quick comments about the above points:

The “freeway entrance” is dangerous… a lot of audience potential is killed right there. Stabilizing the trend takes a few minutes. Though a slight audience decline persists, the bulk of the show is relatively stable except when ads are run. THIS section is probably most representative of an episode’s true audience and slope would be an obvious measurement. Clearly, some people do SKIP through ads (and content). Simple DVR fast-forward action. Happily, it doesn’t appear to be a huge proportion of the audience. Perhaps that has to do with the length of an ad (too much bother) or the way it is being presented (host-read maybe entertaining). Also, I’ll take a guess: could that the slight uptick after the second ad be a guest segment and a few listeners fast-forwarded to it from earlier? A variation of #4, but the final ad segment induces audience DROP OUT faster since listeners know the show is over.

Tweaking

NOTE: This topic is not about working to improve the quality of the content or production, that is a different conversation. We assume QUALITY CONTENT throughout this discussion, which does affect the size of an audience. This section is about making the most of the content in hand.

A lot of audience research focuses on finding weak spots and attempting to modify audience behaviors at those points. There are many effective tactics professionals employ, some are applied DURING the program and others are EXTERNAL.

Forward selling reduces the rate of audience decline in-show, improving the numbers later within an episode. Promoting the upcoming segments and guests are examples.

Think of these as mitigating measures —efforts to maintain the slope of the line— hanging on to as much of the base starting audience as possible.

Having your radio station promote your podcast is different. This off-show activity SHOULD “raise the tide” for the whole show as it (presumably) gets it started at a higher level. With a bigger base, “normal ”attrition takes place but everything is higher on the graph (all other things being equal). In radio terms, think of this as the amplitude. It is the starting high-water mark.

To stay with the analogy for a moment, episode duration might be equivalent to wavelength. A topic for another day, the length of a show may affect the size and interest of the audience. Given our breakdown, any change in length would come in section #3. The difference between the success of a short and long podcast seems less structure… (perhaps) pointing more to the cadence of the bulk of the content.

I suppose, then, frequency would be the switching back and forth between content and sponsorship segments? too deep for right now.

There are SO many ways any show, TV-radio-YouTube-podcast, can be enhanced and promoted… I’ll just offer a simple, sound start (thanks again, NPR and NPRone!).