PolyCast: Most Preferred Episode Length

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by DanQ

My answer was not "lame", but perhaps not explanatory enough as to why it is impractical.

10 minute episodes are too short; they do not allow enough flexibility in discussing a number of topics and discussing those topics to a reasonable degree. To have 10 minute episodes would require heavy curtailing of conversation either in editing or during the recording itself.

My suggestion for 'chunking' wasn't "lame" either -- it's reasonable and practical.

I was quite clear that I do not think 10 minute episodes are a good idea.

I'm afraid I still find your approach odd. Why consult on episode length and then say to those who have made valid arguments for episodes shorter than 1 hour that they can just listen to it in chunks? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[Locutus]

Dan has a point when it comes to 10-minute shows, virtually no one who's listened to the show will reasonably expect us to cut it down to 1/6th its current length, that just doesn't allow for any kind of discussion. We actually had such a format in the past, it was called ACSR Weekly and it had about two listeners (me and Dan, and I didn't even listen all the time ) For people who really only want a 10-minute show I would suggest they only listen to the news segment (or the modcast or the senate or any other one segment if you prefer those). Noone's forcing you to listen to the whole thing. In fact, that's why we provide the starting times of different segments, we understand that not everyone will be into everything.

As far as 30-to-40-minute shows goes, that would also be a bit tricky as well. That means pretty much cutting the current show in half. I can see where the people who want the show to be 45-50 minutes long are coming from and at least in slow news weeks we might be able to pull that off by trimming things down a bit more (but when we have something like BtS being released and the entire community going nuts over it that would be a very, very tall order).

But cutting the show length in half can't be done without getting rid of entire segments. What would you guys have us get rid of? The modcast, should we simply no longer discuss what's being talked about in the forums? Should we cut all the strategy talk and only look at the news? Or should we cut out all the joking around and become a very focused, serious show with all the current content but none of the current atmosphere? We take the feedback we get from these polls seriously (otherwise we wouldn't have started them), but if you advocate cutting the show length in half please explain to us a little bit how you'd want to see that happen.

I wonder though, PolyCast is a bi-weekly show. Recently with all the BtS-craze it might not have felt that way (in retrospect we may have gone a bit overboard there), but that's not a permanent thing. If we were to switch to a weeky format (which I'm not saying we will, but for argument's sake), would you only want us to do 15-minute shows? Or would 30 minutes be fine then as well? I suspect the latter is the case for many people: I have a feeling that it's not the 1 hour per 2 weeks that people have a problem with, but rather the fact that it's an hour in one stretch. In that case Dan's suggestion of listening to the show in two sittings really isn't such a bad idea.

Of course, we could split the show in two ourselves and release the news and modcast one week and the Senate, Research Lab (or whatever we happen to have that week) and the Mailbag the next week. But what good does that do really? Artificial cuts like that would make for very disjunct shows, and we record and edit everything in one stretch anyway, why force people to wait a week for the second half? It makes much more sense to release the whole thing when its done and let people decide for themselves if they want to listen to the whole thing in one stretch or spread them out over multiple sittings spread out over the course of two weeks.

As far as I'm aware MP3 does not currently support chaptering otherwise we'd happily provide that. As a suggestion -- and I'm not saying we will necessarily be willing to do this because it's a lot of extra workload for Dan, but for argument's sake -- would it be a decent alternative solution if we'd cut the show in segments and both provide the show as a single MP3 and as a set or 4 or 5 files with one segment each?

[Ming]

While it would be more work... I like the idea of breaking the broadcast into segments.

We do a lot of pod casts for our clients, and research shows that the optimum length is between 10 to 20 minutes. This is a "comfortable" range for most listeners.
Many people just can't dedicate 50 to 60 minutes at a time. Yeah, you can listen to it in multiple sittings now. But breaking it up into smaller segments would make that a lot easier. And anything we can do to make it easier to listen to is probably a good thing

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Ming
We do a lot of pod casts for our clients, and research shows that the optimum length is between 10 to 20 minutes. This is a "comfortable" range for most listeners.

As I've pointed out to you before, there are virtually no popular audio podcasts that are that short, so that research is missing at least part of the picture. If that was really such an ideal length there should be more shows like that at the top of the iTunes or Podcast Alley rankings or doing well in the Podcast Awards, because there are plenty of them in existence. But in reality almost all popular audio podcasts offer at least an hour of content a week, in case of some of the most popular ones out there (like Keith and the Girl and the Daily Source Code) even 1-2 hours a DAY (well, every weekday anyway).

So you have to wonder what that research is aimed at. Are they looking at audio or video shows? What kind of release frequency are they assuming: daily, weekly, monthly? What demographics are they asking this to? What kind of content do they focus on: are they looking at entertainment, education or glorified commercials? You won't hear anyone saying that the ideal length of a TV show is X minutes: it really depends on what type of TV show, what time of day it airs, what demographics it aims at, etc. I wouldn't want my favourite one-hour dramas to be cut short to 20 minutes but I would stop watching the news if it was an hour long. Podcasting is the same way, different shows have different rules.

The only sources I've heard list those numbers are basically businesses trying to sell their products through podcasting, which is an entirely different type of show than something like KATG, DSC, TWiT or indeed PolyCast. I would agree that in the former case an hour-long ad or business-oriented show is really pushing it, but for weekly popular entertainment/infotainment podcasts the facts show plainly that their audience wants at least an hour a week. There's the occasional 40-minute show (though for each of those there are at least two or three that offer at least 90 minutes per week) but I only know of two popular weekly podcasts that are 20 minutes or less, and those are Manager Tools and Grammar Girl, incidentally both business-oriented podcasts that cater to large niches, not really to the 'mainstream'. PolyCast is neither business-oriented nor a mainstream popular entertainment show (though we're a lot closer to the latter than the former), so neither logic necessarily applies to us. We'll have to find our own happy medium, hence this poll

[Ming]

The only sources I've heard list those numbers are basically businesses trying to sell their products through podcasting, which is an entirely different type of show than something like KATG, DSC, TWiT or indeed PolyCast. I would agree that in the former case an hour-long ad or business-oriented show is really pushing it, but for weekly popular entertainment/infotainment podcasts the facts show plainly that their audience wants at least an hour a week. There's the occasional 40-minute show (though for each of those there are at least two or three that offer at least 90 minutes per week) but I only know of two popular weekly podcasts that are 20 minutes or less, and those are Manager Tools and Grammar Girl, incidentally both business-oriented podcasts that cater to large niches, not really to the 'mainstream'. PolyCast is neither business-oriented nor a mainstream popular entertainment show (though we're a lot closer to the latter than the former), so neither logic necessarily applies to us. We'll have to find our own happy medium, hence this poll

I'm refering to informational/news/entertainment type podcasts, not product selling or business promotional.

And your "facts" are based not on what people really want, but are based on what's currently out there.
The two aren't the same.

Yes, most of the current podcasts that are successful in your examples are longer. But the research we do is to ask people what their preferences are. The majority of the audience (usually web savy, slightly upscale, all ages) don't have the time to listen to a such a long pod cast in one sitting. If they are interested in the topic, they do enjoy having more to listen to, but they eventually end up listening to it over shorter time frames. And in many cases, not listening to all of it if the pod cast has a higher frequency. Once a new one is available, most won't go back and finish listening to an older one. People PREFER to get them in more manageable segements so that it is easier to fit them into their schedules better. And some even claim they won't even bother to download anything that seems too long to them.

I'm not saying we need to shorten them. I'm just saying that it would be easier on poly's audience if they were available in smaller sections, and by providing it in such fashion, it might increase listenership. Time is one thing many people don't have, and anything we can do to help make it more convienent for people to listen to them... so much the better

[Methos]

Originally posted by Ming
and anything we can do to help make it more convienent for people to listen to them... so much the better

How about babysitting? Call it PolyCare!

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Ming
And your "facts" are based not on what people really want, but are based on what's currently out there.
The two aren't the same.

There are over 100,000 podcasts out there. PLENTY of those cover the same topics as the popular ones but in a shorter time span, yet they don't do nearly as well. People are clearly more interested in the longer shows, the download numbers prove it.

E.g. Security Bites is a podcast I subscribe to about IT security that's about 5-10 minutes a week and it's hosted by CNET, one of the bigger and more mainstream outlets out there. However, in terms of popularity it's royally getting its arse kicked by another podcast I listen to on the same topic: Security Now! (which won a PodCast Award just a few weeks back), a small independent show that is around an hour long. You'd think considering its mainstream outlet and its apparently 'ideal' length that Security Bites would be more popular, but it's not even remotely close.

I think the issue here is more a matter of the difference of what people say in surveys and how they really feel than a matter of difference between what they want and what's out there. That, or it's a difference in people being surveyed and people who actually listen to this stuff. Many people in the podcasting community want to grab the big audiences so the same market mechanisms apply as in the rest of society: if people really wanted shorter shows they would get made, and the ones that are made now would be more popular than they are.

But based on surveys by actual podcasters (people like Libsyn, TWiT, Podshow, etc) most people listen to podcasts while commuting, working out, at work/school, etc, which gives them at least an hour a day to listen, in many cases more, even up to 8 hours. It's not typically something people specifically set aside time for but rather it's treated pretty much the same way people used to treat radio: something that you have in the background while doing other stuff. And radio isn't being presented in 10-minute bites either (unless of course you count the time between commercial breaks, but that's hardly the same), it's something you have on all day.

Once a new one is available, most won't go back and finish listening to an older one.

That's one thing that we know to be wrong not only from other podcasters but even from our own show. Our old episodes still get LOTS of downloads, this month alone e.g. episodes 4 and 5 (almost a year old) got almost 70 downloads each, which is more than they got when they were first released (and there's still almost a week left before the month is over, those numbers will only climb).

The observations you're stating all fly straight in the face of what many popular podcasters have been hearing over the past 3-4 years in talking to their listeners. I'm sure they are true for some people and they are definitely things to keep in mind, but the bulk of the podcasting audience just does not subscribe to those sentiments. As a rule, 40-90 minute shows (whether weekly or daily) is almost universally what people end up listening to, with 60 minutes being by far the most common happy medium (which is why we started out with that).

That said, as I noted what's true for other podcasts doesn't necessarily have to be true for us, which again is why we have this survey. If Dan is willing and able to put in the time to split up the show that would be great -- at least offering that as an option can't possibly be a bad thing, but there's a lot of work involved and nobody's getting paid for it, so it would need to be worth the effort.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Locutus
The observations you're stating all fly straight in the face of what many popular podcasters have been hearing over the past 3-4 years in talking to their listeners.

Uhhh... those "observations" are not observations... they are statistically reliable quantative research results.
This is not "grandma" type research where you ask a single person or two, but full fledged research studies.
We ARE talking to the listeners, and actually listening to what they have to say

[Locutus]

Yet they don't match the actual behaviour of the people listening to podcasts. They don't match the download numbers, which are hard, verifiable, observable, reproducible scientific facts. What you're quoting are survey statistics, which are about as far removed from being facts as Fox News is from being fair and balanced

[DanQ]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I'm afraid I still find your approach odd. Why consult on episode length and then say to those who have made valid arguments for episodes shorter than 1 hour that they can just listen to it in chunks? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Wouter has addressed a number of points on this now, but to emphasize: two of the poll choices are under 1 hour, so we do consider i.e. 30-40 minutes as a possibility to explore. It's the suggestions of less than a 30 minute minimum that which would be too problematic as has already been detailed... which is why they do not appear as poll options.

My chunking suggestion remains, I believe, a reasonable compromise for those who feel an episode of any length is too long. What I was getting at in part earlier is we may decide to reduce the standard length of episodes, but that reduction may still not be enough for some -- hence, continuing to chunk.

As has also been discussed, there's the option of splitting a show up into smaller individual files -- i.e. "Episode X, News". That should be doable to a finished show, very comparable to e.g. as I have started to do in recent months in re-compiling an episode into 16kbps quality after its 64kbps sibling.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Locutus
What you're quoting are survey statistics, which are about as far removed from being facts as Fox News is from being fair and balanced

Yeah... I guess asking people what they want is not a good way to figure out what it is they do want

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Locutus
, which are about as far removed from being facts as Fox News is from being fair and balanced

Locutus



Dont attack Fox News, remember our policy, no personal insults,address the post not threadjacking by questioning an unbiased news orgainization, afterall, Fox has teh Simpson, COPS and NFL REAL FOOTBALL

I mean, c'mon, lets remember they are professionals and are there to keep us informed, as are you and others involved in PolyCast's, so lets, toast one up for FOXNEWS & one for Polycast

Gramps

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Ming


Yeah... I guess asking people what they want is not a good way to figure out what it is they do want

I gotta support Ming on this, true dat, ask and ye shall receive, but on the other hand, you do make some other valid points.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Ming
Yeah... I guess asking people what they want is not a good way to figure out what it is they do want

Yes, because people would NEVER not put their money where their mouth is

They are cleary not doing what your survey says, so it's getting something wrong...

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Grandpa Troll
Dont attack Fox News, remember our policy, no personal
insults,

Ermmm... Fox is a person now?

unbiased news orgainization

I mean, c'mon, lets remember they are professionals and are there to keep us informed

Love your sense of humour, Gramps