99 percent of podcasts have hardly any listeners. If you have even 100 downloads per episode, that puts you in the top quarter of shows, and many of those downloads aren't even listened to!
At the same time, more than half the population listens to podcasts, and it's only growing. They're great for when you're doing something and can't look at a screen, like when commuting or at the gym.
So if so many people are listening, why do so few shows have listeners? This is podcasting's dirty little secret. Only the top few podcasts capture almost all the audience.
Why? Because most podcasts are just too long. There is only so much time in the day, so if someone is going to listen to a long gas podcast, it's going to be something from a big studio like NPR or Wondery, or from an A-list celebrity.
That used to be true for video too, until TikTok showed the value of short, punchy, engaging content! We need the same revolution for audio podcasts!