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, drop a like if you’d like to see more videos about
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