Tuesday 4th July: Let's talk about realistic podcast audience sizes

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How do you pitch podcasts to clients looking for million-strong audiences?

A few short Many longs months ago we hosted a podcast summit, in which we spoke about the twin issues of audience growth and revenue for podcasters. One of the things that quickly became clear is that these have been perennial issues for as long as publishers have been in the podcast game, and the other thing that became clear is that clients have expectations of audience numbers that don’t match the reality.

In this latest edition of Housty, We Have A Problem, our very own Peter explains how best to address that issue and still prove that podcasts are worth sponsoring or advertising against. As he explains, it’s very similar to how publishers have been conducting sales for years - just in audio:

“The starting point has to be asking them if they would actually want the whole world knocking on their door? Focus them on the customers they really want and get them to put a size on that cohort. Even if it’s thousands, it certainly won’t be millions. From there, you can start to have a realistic conversation about what your publication can do to bring them that group. And just like a good old-fashioned print sale, bring it all back to the value your brand can bring.”

This is a big story, and we hope City AM finds a buyer and that the team there is all OK. I’m including this in the newsletter, though, because the Media Voices team had a big WhatsApp chat about how this news was framed in this article. I’m particularly interested in the standfirst, which seems to suggest the Duopoly receiving the lion’s share of digital ad revenue is a shift that has taken place recently instead of, you know, forever and ever.

Charlotte Henry says it best in here: ‘The debate around MPs having second jobs is always fraught, but it does seem particularly odd that sitting MPs can have regular presenting gigs. This is not the same as a one-off appearance on “Have I Got News For You”.’ Yep. The dissolving barrier between the government and the fourth estate is worrying, so fingers crossed Ofcom actually makes some serious ruling here.

Leaving aside the personality of Andrew Neil - humiliated former chairman of GB News - this is a depressing look at how public broadcaster Channel 4 is having to cut back on its ambitions. It wasn’t so long ago that the channel and advertisers were going all out to prove the channel’s viability in the age of streaming in the face of privatisation threats, so this is worrying. Our thoughts go out to everyone involved - including the humiliated former chairman of GB News Andrew Neil.

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