Is Podcasting Having An Identity Crisis?

Content boundaries have been blurred, challenging traditional definitions of what constitutes a podcast. Jordan and Kevin discuss Oxford Road's What is a Podcast? survey and the problems that come when the definition is unclear. 

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Alvin's Absence Noted

Jordan 0:00

Hey Kevin.

Kevin 0:00

Hey Jordan.

Kevin 0:01 Jordan 0:02

All right , it's just you and me , Alban's , on a plane .

Kevin 0:04

It just you know , it seems like did he miss the last quick cast also .

Jordan 0:08

I think he did .

Kevin 0:09

I think you know we have to put something in place . There has to be some sort of punishment for missing two quick casts in a row .

Jordan 0:16

I think he's just like slowly easing out of it , you know like just slowly breaking up with the quick cast .

Kevin 0:21

Right . So yeah , he's on a plane heading back from podcast movement .

Jordan 0:31

Evolutions , evolutions

What Is a Podcast: Identity Crisis

Jordan 0:32

, yeah , say that , right , yeah . So I think we'll hear about his adventures in Chicago next week on our big episode , but today I want to talk about what is a podcast , and that sounds like a really basic thing , and it's super funny because I think it was the last episode where we talked about how you don't have to tell anyone what a podcast is anymore , right , right . And so I was surprised when I saw a study come out a week later after we talk about this and it said what is a podcast , saying that podcasting is suffering

Advertising's Impact on Podcast Definitions

Jordan 1:01

an identity crisis .

Kevin 1:02

You know , Jordan , I don't pay a ton of attention to stuff like this .

Jordan 1:07

And I don't .

Kevin 1:07

Not that I don't think it's not worth talking about , but I think the people who are mostly interested in stuff like this are people who are really big in the advertising space .

Jordan 1:17

Yes , 100% .

Kevin 1:18

Does that make sense ?

Jordan 1:19

Yeah .

Kevin 1:19

Okay , and you agree with that .

Jordan 1:21

I do .

Kevin 1:21

Okay . My opinion is that if you sell advertising or if you run a podcast however you define a podcast and you want ads , you sell ads for your show , or you're in the advertising space or in the marketing space and you're buying ads . It really matters , I guess , to those people how much money is being spent in advertising in podcasting .

Kevin 1:43

And then the way that you define a podcast becomes important , because did you buy a YouTube show or did you buy a podcast , an audio podcast or a video podcast ? I guess all that stuff matters , so we know which bucket to put the money into . Say , like , how much money was spent in podcast advertising , and I guess maybe you know , since advertising isn't a huge thing of importance to Buzzsprout , thus it's not a huge thing of importance to me . I don't really . I don't really pay a ton of attention .

Kevin 2:13

The point I made in last week's longer episode was that I think that people who listen to podcasts , who consume them I never hear them talking about this they don't seem to be worried about figuring out . Like , when someone says , hey , do you have any podcast recommendations , I don't hear people saying , well , what do you mean by podcast ? Do you mean a YouTube show or do you mean a video podcast or do you mean an audio podcast ? Usually , when someone's like , have you listened to any good podcasts , lately , people are just like , yeah , I have , and they name a show or two and generally , at least in my life experience , the shows that I hear people talk about as podcasts , generally those fit my broad definition of a podcast , which means to me that I can kind of get it in the podcast app of my choice .

Jordan 2:59

Yeah , so this study is Oxford Road , which is , as you said , an ad agency , and they worked with Edison Research , who is also really big into advertising , and what was interesting about this is I was kind of expecting the same stuff over and over again . The advertisers don't know where to put the money and which . They did bring up that point because all of these podcast apps are kind of like siloed off and so it's really hard to do a widespread campaign . But they also looked more deeply into how creators and podcast listeners

Blurring of Content: Podcasts vs. Videos

Jordan 3:31

felt that a podcast should be defined . So they surveyed podcast listeners should be defined . So they surveyed podcast listeners and 72% of them said that recordings of people discussing any topic on YouTube that are also available as an audio only show elsewhere is considered a podcast . That makes sense . Yep , this one threw me through a loop .

Jordan 3:51

Okay 29% said how to and do it yourself . Videos on YouTube are a podcast . Okay said how to and do it yourself . Videos on YouTube are a podcast . Okay , I don't know when I when I saw that , I was just like I don't know how good this information is , because I personally would not consider that a podcast at all .

Kevin 4:09

Yeah , for real , Like if you , if you go on YouTube and you watch I don't know how to renew your bathroom tile by painting it or something like that If you watch that .

Jordan 4:19

Yeah .

Kevin 4:19

And then someone asks you a week later have you consumed a podcast in the last week ? And you say yes , and the only thing you've done is you've watched that how to video on how to paint bathroom tile on YouTube . That is definitely misleading . Yeah , for us in the podcasting world , or people who enjoy podcasts like none of us , would consider that a podcast .

Jordan 4:36

Absolutely not no .

Kevin 4:42

And so it definitely begs the question with all the reporting recently about how big YouTube is in the podcasting space , how accurate are any of those measurements ?

Jordan 4:46

Exactly Right . I feel like the essence of podcasting is just starting to like blur and bleed into other things . Lucia Moses , with a business insider in her article . She was talking about this study and she said more broadly the shift raises identity questions for hosts as they go beyond audio to video and then do live events and sell ads on social media . They start to look more like influencers and I feel like that's kind of the thing is . People are trying to make podcasting everything . It's starting to bleed into a thing where they're

Movie Industry Comparisons

Jordan 5:18

like oh yeah , I have a podcast , but they're also like repurposing the podcast content so much in so many different ways that now the audiences are starting to misunderstand what a podcast is , or we're somehow changing the meaning of what a podcast is .

Kevin 5:34

When you say this stuff , it makes me wonder what other industries have had issues like this . So I don't know that I haven't answered your question , but it makes me think like if I asked you the question , like when was the last time you watched a movie , what would you say ?

Jordan 5:46

I would say Saturday night .

Kevin 5:48

Saturday night . Yes , and what did you watch ?

Jordan 5:51

I watched the Barbie movie for the first time I'm like two years behind yeah .

Kevin 5:54

At home on your TV I watched at home on HBO max .

Jordan 5:58

Okay , or I guess it was max .

Kevin 6:00

So there might be some people in the movie industry that would say that's not really a movie , Jordan you didn't go to a theater . Yeah , you didn't go to a theater like , because they want a very strict definition of going to a movie or seeing a movie and that has to happen at a movie theater .

Jordan 6:14

Yeah .

Kevin 6:15

I don't know because I'm not in that industry , but I imagine there was some sort of transition period of which it happened and when movies kind of came out of theaters and got to like VHS or what were those huge discs or whatever that people used to watch movies on .

Jordan 6:28

Oh , betamax , or like what was it .

Kevin 6:31

Betamax was like a alternative to VHS , but there was this huge disc . They were like giant CDs , like a alternative to VHS , but there was this huge disc . They were like giant CDs . I can't remember what those things were called , I don't know . Anyway , there was the transition from movies like out of theaters and into homes .

Jordan 6:43

Yeah .

Kevin 6:44

And then I'm sure there was an argument for a long time Like are you watching TV ? Are you watching a movie , especially as networks started popping up that started creating movies for at home watching , like they were never in theaters , they were only on TV first . So like all the Hallmark movies and everything , oh yeah , disney Channel movies , yeah yeah are those really considered movies ?

Kevin 7:02

Yeah , and I wonder if podcasting is getting a little bit of that , but it's sort of like the other way around . It's almost like you know , YouTube has been around forever and really YouTube hasn't changed much . I mean , I guess the type of content that's appearing on YouTube is certainly evolving and we're certainly getting a lot more talking head videos with people with microphones in front of them than we used to have .

Kevin 7:24

You know , it's a podcast , it's a video podcast , I don't know . And then at some point people just assume that anybody talking to camera is a podcast . Really , as a podcaster , does it matter ? As people who consume podcasts , do we really care ?

Jordan 7:40

Yeah .

Kevin 7:40

I don't know . I think it is problematic though , Like if you talk about how to and do-it-yourself videos being considered a podcast . I could see how that could be a problem for people who are in the ad space , but as content creators , I don't know that it's that big of a deal .

Jordan 7:53

Yeah , I mean , unless you're trying to make money from your podcast in the traditional like advertising way , it is harder to get sponsorships because a lot of these advertisers are throwing money at influencers . And now there's this question raised of like is a podcaster actually just an influencer in a way , because they're doing all this different stuff and they have their social channels and they have YouTube videos and they have all these different things ? But advertisers just don't see podcasters in that way and so we don't get quite as much money as the influencer space does .

Kevin 8:24

Yeah , but I mean , would like an author of a book be an influencer , if they are doing YouTube interviews to promote their book , or if they're doing short form video as marketing for their new book , or if they're doing lectures and those things are being recorded and put online . Those are all things also that like influencers do .

Jordan 8:41

That's true , but they're probably using it more as like a marketing funnel as opposed to like getting advertising dollars for it . I don't know .

Kevin 8:48

Yeah , it's true .

Eye-Closed Definition of Podcasting

Jordan 8:49

It's kind of confusing and it's kind of difficult . But there's a lot of people that they quoted in the study that were talking about how , with all the changes that have been happening and with everything bleeding into everything else and it's all getting mushy . They were saying , like the word podcast should just go away and nobody cares about an RSS and like all these different platforms are trying to define what a podcast is for that platform to make money . And it's kind of like muddying the waters for podcast creators and they feel like they have to like chase the algorithm and be on this place and this place and this place . But it's harder because everything's so siloed off . So it's hard for the creators , it's hard for the advertisers , it's hard for the industry leaders that are trying to like standardize everything .

Kevin 9:31

Yeah , you know . Another way we can think about it is think about some of the like talk radio hosts . I think specifically about , like the Howard Stern show . He started off as just radio . He just did a radio show , I think when he got picked up by Sirius XM . I think is when they started adding the video component . Is that right , or was he doing video before that ?

Jordan 9:50

I don't know .

Kevin 9:56

But at some point he started doing a video version of the show . Right , they just put cameras in the studio and now you can watch Stern online . I think you can watch them on YouTube . At least you can get clips of them on YouTube . I don't know if the full show is available there , but I think the primary audience for Stern is still Sirius XM . It's still like audio only first right .

Jordan 10:12

Yeah , he's still a radio show . I don't know if he would be considered a podcast , but is that just because he was before podcasting , right ?

Kevin 10:22

Yeah , I don't know . If somebody buys an ad on the Howard Stern show , is that podcast revenue , or is that radio revenue , or is that like video podcast revenue ? What is that ?

Jordan 10:30

I mean , I believe if you were to go by , like what the IRS says , it would be internet broadcasting , like that would be the classification . Yeah , so I guess it would just be internet broadcasting . It's so hard , I don't know . But there's one definition of podcasting . I know that a lot of people say like , yeah , a podcast is an audio file distributed by an RSS feed done . And now , with all the changes and the advancements and I don't know everyone just kind of getting into the podcasting space , there's one definition I saw in here that I actually really like and I think that this is very simple , it's to the point and I think that it works for defining a podcast . And this is ,

Call for Sound Off Responses

Jordan 11:11

if it works . With your eyes closed , it's a podcast .

Kevin 11:14

Okay , so I like it . If it works with your eyes closed , it's a podcast . The only thing I might add but I wouldn't add to the general public , but just for like podcast nerds like us is I also think it needs an RSS feed so that it's available , so that you can listen to it in the podcast app of your choice . But you're right , for the general audience , people of the world who are not podcast nerds if it works with your eyes closed , it's a podcast that works .

Jordan 11:38

You're a purist . It has to have an RSS feed . It's like the film versus movie sort of thing . Which is it ? Yes , All right . So for our next episode , we're still looking for sound off responses to our question . Have episode ? We're still looking for sound off responses to our question . Have you ever had an embarrassing foot and mouth experience ? If you want to be anonymous for this , let me know . We can do an anonymous submission for it . So until then , keep podcasting .