Sounds Definitive - The State of Podcasting

Hope you’re good at math, because podcasting is about to multiply.

This week on the Media Roundtable limited series “What’s a Podcast? – The Extended Interviews,” Dan Granger (CEO, Oxford Road) hosts Bryan Barletta (Founder and Partner, Sound Profitable) to peel back the layers of podcasting.

“I want it [the podcast definition] to be a virus… If we let it grow, it’s easier to kick out the things that are very clearly not it.” – Bryan Barletta

The team is talking: the Popular Kids, YouTube’s Top Shelf, Identity Crises, and more. Let’s dig in.

Podcasting: Now the Cool Kid – Portlandia’s NPR sketch is so 2017. Podcasting is officially cool now. How do we know? It’s gone from fringe references to serious storylines: From Emmy-winning show ‘Only Murders in the Building’ to Netflix’s hit ‘Nobody Wants This.’ Yes,  podcasting has stereotypes, “but so do books, radio, TV, and film. And they’re everywhere,” Bryan reminds us—The jokes aren’t a mockery, they’re a sign of clout.

View from the Top (Shelf) – ”Imagine if your favorite store just had a new shelf and it said that thing you love,” says Bryan. YouTubers now get to be on that shelf by categorizing their videos as podcasts, with massive audience potential. We’re here for it, and we’re enjoying YouTube’s new weekly podcast charts, which offer a peek into how this channel diverges from others. Sounds like good news for CAOs. Ultimately, the more hosts who can find an audience means more trusted hosts to work with.

Open=Choice  – Back in the day, podcasters uploaded to an RSS feed and called it good. Today, a debate rages between open and closed platforms (e.g. RSS vs YouTube). But Bryan transcends it all. The open spirit of podcasting is one of choice: “ To me, open distribution is the choice to put my podcast on [different platforms].” Having some closed systems like YouTube, can be part of a healthy podcast distribution ecosystem, as long as there are viable open distribution choices.

Want more podcast insights you won’t find anywhere else? Tune into the full episode below.