On a recent article on the Podcast Report from Paul Colligan Paul stated the truth. Nobody listens to podcasts that suck.
I was reading a very long (ever so slightly disguised link bate) article that had a section where the author stated:
“Podcasts are pointless. Anyone who tells you otherwise is the literal devil. No one is going to get rich or famous or gain any level of following from this medium ever again, because it is hilariously dead. Your idea to share caustic observations about an ongoing TV show? Pointless. Your idea to interview interesting people? Laughably misguided. Your idea to discuss each individual episode of a decade-old CW show? Well… shockingly successful.”
There are people listening to Brock's show. Around 125 downloads per episode (13,767 downloads divided by 110 episodes). If you were a teacher, that would be 5 classrooms of 20.
So I went over to listen to his the Brock Party. I'm three minutes into it, and I am now finally getting into the content. You played a song with no teaser. You are hoping that people sit through some song hoping that they make it to the content. As a first time listener, I have no idea who you are, or your guests.
Your audio is right on the edge of distracting. I get it. One microphone with four people, you're going to get room noise. I'll let it slide.
At 5 minutes you finally introduce your guests. Nobody waits for 5 minutes for someone to get to the point. You then had one of your guests introduce themselves. It's your show, but it just sounded like you decided to have this person on the show an hour ago. Oh wait, you just admitted that's what happened.
97% of the time improv blows.
98% of stats are made up.
Not that it matters, but you have no ID3 tags in your mp3 file. That wouldn't bring you any more listeners, but for those who download your show and listen on Windows Media player you look like a giant hack.
Congratulations on typing a whopping 32 words for Google to find to help bring your traffic.
Nothing screams “great content” like four people talking over each other. Who am I to judge, it works for THE VIEW.
In the article you say, “two years ago we started setting aside Thursday nights to have fun people get drunk around microphones in my living room.” It sounds like you've achieved your goal.
The one thing that really confused me, is Brock has a great looking website, but instead of adding the podcast to YOUR WEBSITE, you send people to a bad Podbean site that looks like a throw back to bad MySpace page.
The 15 Minute Test.
For me, I had to bail at the 15 minute mark. You are all over the place, and while I get to be a voyer and listen in to a conversations between friends, it's a pretty boring conversation. While I'm happy to say you were not talking about the Kardashians, the choice to talk about Tonya Harding seemed so 1991. Can you make it past the 15 minute mark? Here is the episode.
What I Would Do
Pick some topics to talk about and let me (the audience) know what to expect before I waste 10 minutes of my life trying to figure it out
Lose the music. People are busy. They tune into hear you, and your content.
Get some microphones and a mixer (not sure this is an option). Again, your sound quality was not 100% annoying. It has lots of room for improvement.
Newspapers, Magazines, and Movies all have editors. If you don't put time into your show, why do you expect your audience to give up theirs?
Put this podcast on your website. As you can see, it's super easy to embed audio on any website. The traffic from your website will drive downloads. For those that like your show, they might tell their friends, review you in iTunes, etc. and help you grow your audience.
Put (at least) an iTunes button on your ugly Podbean site.
Put a link back to your website on your ugly Podbean site.
Lastly congrats on turning 30. Your website shows a completely different guy than the podbean version does. You have an impressive resume.
