Nieman Foundation at Harvard
How does the business of podcasts look to the people running it? A new survey suggests that even as interest in podcasts increases, much of the growth of the business is coming from existing listeners rather than new listeners. And podcasters are concerned about finding new audiences and monetizing.
Clammr, the company behind an iOS app that helps users share and discover streaming audio content, conducted the online survey of 59 podcasters. Most of the respondents were “independent podcasters of the type who represent the vast majority of podcasts that are being produced,” Clammr co-founder Parviz Parvizi told me, “not large brand-name shows with NPR or big-media company links.”
Among the survey’s findings:
— Here are the aspects of podcast development that the survey’s respondents are satisfied and dissatisfied with:
In other words, it appears podcasters are generally happy with the tools at their disposal but are concerned about the tougher task of growing their business.
— Despite that dissatisfaction with social media, social media is still the main way that podcasters drive growth:
— Apple has facilitated the growth of the podcast business. Eighty-two percent of smartphone podcast listening is on an iOS device, while only 16 percent is on an Android device. And 78 percent of those who listen to podcasts on an iPhone do so through Apple’s Podcasts app.
The full results of the survey are here.
6 comments:
C’mon gang. 59 sources. Which were already selected (biased) so as not to include, e.g., NPR. By an…iOS app company. But kudos to Clammr for getting NiemanLab to sabotage their credibility for the sake of Clammr’s PR.
You don’t need to have ever taken a statistics class to see that this is non-objective, unscientific, worthless propaganda. Just read this paragraph again:
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…Clammr, the company behind an iOS app that helps users share and discover streaming audio content, conducted the online survey of 59 podcasters. Most of the respondents were “independent podcasters of the type who represent the vast majority of podcasts that are being produced,” Clammr co-founder Parviz Parvizi told me, “not large brand-name shows with NPR or big-media company links.”…
Hi Nate, we were fully transparent in the report about the sample size and made no claims to having statistical significance. Likewise, we did not select the respondents — we put out open calls for responses, including on list-serves frequented by people involved with NPR and large podcasts. They chose note to respond, which is fair enough — people are busy and larger institutions tend to interact more readily with repeat players who they are already familiar with. We included all respondents who we could validate as having podcasts, based on referencing them against the iTunes database.
As for objectivity, we really didn’t have a horse in this race when it came to what the respondents said. We are a new company with a technology that we believe can add significant value to audio creators, especially podcasters. We are approaching our public beta launch with humility by seeking to get direct input from podcasters in order to understand how they think about their industry so that we can be a better partner for them. If the respondents had a completely different set of answers, it would not have made any difference to us — we would simply have a different set of insights on their needs that we could execute against. We took the time to send early drafts of our survey and a thought piece that we wrote in TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/18/the-future-of-podcasting/) to a half-dozen leading figures in the podcasting space. Most of them were able to take time to provide feedback — none shared even a hint of the types of hyperbolic aspersions you are casting.
While statistically valid surveys are one great way to generate insights, they are not always the most appropriate approach and they certainly don’t encompass the full universe of valid research that can yield insight. Focus groups, anthropological observations, and meta analyses are several approaches that come readily to mind as common practice in business and academia. A survey with a sample of 59 has more data points than focus groups, anthropological observations, or some published medical research, for example.
As for your ad hominem attacks that seem to be grounded in a bias against our company being an early-stage one, we draw different conclusions from the ones that you do. Rather than condemning Nieman, we laud the organization for keeping an open mind and letting new voices like ours into the mix on the future of journalism and media. We don’t claim to have a monopoly on truth, but we’re glad to have had a chance to share some of the work that has informed our thinking and to spur a dialogue about the important topic of podcasting and the future of audio more generally. We appreciate the Nieman respects its readership enough to provide them with access to new research from new voices and let them decide how to interpret
Hi Nate, that was the most well-written response I’ve seen in a long time. I commend you for your startups approach and how you are using that info to learn how you can better service your customer demo. If more startups did this type of due diligence, I think we’d see more companies succeed, pivot their model or decide not to go into business. As a media personality that is a contributor for big names like NPR & NBC TODAY show I have found with my newly launched podcast “#NeverSettleShow” ( http://www.neversettleclub.com/podcast ) very similar findings and challenges. One way as a new Podcaster they we intend to monetize is to become part of a podcast network that will help facilitate distribution and ad sales, I’ll read the rest of the survey to see if distribution & ad sales networks were covered. And I’ll check out your company as well.
Thanks Mario. We cover some of these business aspects in our TechCrunch guest article, which you might enjoy (http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/18/the-future-of-podcasting/). The research report focuses more on the survey and other facts about the podcasting space (one thing that struck us is the extent of Apple’s dominance — both as an OS platform as well as with its native Podcasts app).
BTW, side note, Nate is name of the original poster & there is no one at Clammr by that name. This is Parviz corresponding with you here in case you need to get in touch directly — we’d love to help you get on board Clammr and make it a social homt for your podcast
Thanks Parviz, I’ll checkout the TC article. OHH and I edited my original comment to have the proper name :-)
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