Are Podcasts Getting Too Long

Too often, a people’s greatest strength is also their greatest weakness. That maxim relates to organizations, industries, and nations. For example, people who are results-oriented can also create win-lose situations and be unnecessarily demanding. In business, Kodak’s skill in boosting sales in existing markets overwhelmed its inability to recognize the potential of new digital markets.

In podcasting, a podcast’s lack of time restriction — unlike a time-limited radio or TV program — is a strength because it enables the narrative to expand or shrink depending on the content in a specific episode.

However, that strength becomes a weakness when podcasts use that time flexibility to expand the running time of the podcast episode without a compelling reason to do so. A back-of-the-envelope calculation of the top 10 podcasts reveals that the time of the average episode has increased by 14 percent in the last year.

Interview podcasts have increased in length the most, driven primarily by celebrity podcasts, where the sense that “less is more” is close to editorial blasphemy.

Political podcasts have also increased in length, as axe-grinding and demonizing the “other side” is a never-ending process.

Listener surveys reveal that 26 percent of podcast fans speed up their podcast to finish an episode.