Reflecting on Podcast Cadence 🤔
Asking myself the question: How often should I release new episodes?
Hello Besties!
Today I’m taking you behind the scenes of my production process. Maintaining a consistent cadence has always been a challenge for me as an indie podcaster because I tend to juggle a lot of different projects. So I thought it would be helpful to share the research and thought process that recently led me to change my podcast release schedule from weekly to biweekly.
Also, if you’re going to Podcast Movement later this month, hit me up! I want to connect with as many Besties as possible IRL.
Lately, I've been reprioritizing my workload. Asking myself what do I really want to be doing? and how I can spend my time to better match that from week to week. It's a valuable exercise; I should do it regularly.
I want to be doing more one-off radio stories, limited-run podcasts, and a lot more writing. But my ongoing podcast projects take anywhere from 25 to 95 percent of my working hours in a given week. Lately, with launching a new show and producing for a new client, it's been on the upper end of that spectrum, and I'm trying to nudge it back down towards the lower end.
Not only do I need more time for other creative projects, but I also need more time for podcast marketing and promotion. During a Q&A one time, I heard an expert recommend doing one hour of podcast promo for every hour you spend on production. I've heard that repeated from other sources, and now it's stuck in my head, yet I consistently fail to meet that target.
Last year, in an article for the Pacific Content blog, Dan Misener recommended podcasters build a schedule that:
Sets and maintains listener expectations
Is manageable and sustainable
Allows for sufficient time to promote each episode effectively
Builds and strengthens relationships with listeners over time, drip by drip
You'll see that promo piece of the puzzle is included in his recommendations.
In considering the “manageable and sustainable” part for myself:
Though we do special limited series within Private Parts Unknown, we think of it as an always-on show. The Bleeders is essentially always-on, as well — I'm only planning to take a couple weeks off between seasons.
I don't have a big team. Most of my work is done solo as part of a production duo. I handle all the research, pre-production, producing, recording, and story editing. Typically, I do V1s for each episode in Descript, and then I hand it to Mike Castañeda, my sound editor and mixer, for a rough cut. From there, we usually do two rounds of notes, one on the rough cut and one on the "final." Final V2 is usually what gets published unless something has gone horribly wrong. And this process is remarkably streamlined since Mike and I have been working together for six years, but it's still A LOT OF WORK.
So with two ongoing podcasts, what's a cadence and frequency that allows me to build and strengthen my relationship with listeners, yet still leaves room for lots of other creative projects without going insane?
After weeks of careful rumination and then a hasty decision, I landed on biweekly (every other week) for both shows.
Here's my thought process:
First of all, when I think of myself as a podcast listener, it's hard for me to consume every episode of a weekly show. I wind up popping in from time to time and just picking a recent episode that looks good. Even if it's my favorite show, I can't keep up week-to-week — I'm busy.
In Nick' Loper’s recent Q2 Progress Report, he talks about taking his show from weekly to twice a week. According to his data, he increased his overall downloads — from 87K in March to 104K in May — but decreased his take rate on individual episodes 10-12 percent. And data from Private Parts Unknown follows the same trend: higher frequency leads to more overall downloads, but a lower per episode listenership. For that show, it makes more sense financially to release biweekly because we're more likely to sell out our ad spots, and our per-episode listenership will be on the higher end.
On the other hand, it’s worth considering whether reducing frequency could lead to podfade. However, we’ve altered our PPU release cadence in the past — and in my experience, biweekly doesn't lead to podfade, especially when there's a back catalog for eager listeners to snack on in the meantime. What’s more important than frequency is consistency and communicating your schedule to your listeners.
On the production side, I'd rather have a lil extra time to produce an episode that feels worthy of its slot. If I'm only making two-ish episodes a month for each podcast, I want to knock both of them out of the park. I'm always trying to hold myself to high standards, but biweekly standards have the luxury of being a tad higher than weekly standards, just due to the economics of time. Thus, I'm more likely to do something truly special and out-of-the-box if I'm doing fewer episodes, which definitely appeals to me.
Not to mention, Private Parts Unknown is about love and sexuality AROUND THE WORLD. When we're releasing weekly, there's no time to plan our next trip. We wind up doing more remote interviews, and the travel element of the show gets lost to production.
We run host-read ads on Private Parts Unknown, and obviously, it’s important to maintain good relationships with our sponsors and our network, Pleasure Podcasts. So I continued to fulfill our weekly ad obligations as I mulled over this cadence change. Then it was easy to tweak our release schedule by communicating the adjustment with plenty of lead time.
For The Bleeders, I run programmatic ads through Spreaker, so my only concern was that it's a new show and I didn't want to throw off new listeners who just got into the weekly rhythm. But I decided its newness is exactly why I need to carve out that extra time for promo to build the base of listeners. To keep current listeners engaged through the schedule change, I've been announcing when they can listen to the next episode at the end of each episode.
And finally, I have some big ideas for Podcast Bestie that I would like time to execute! Going biweekly on Private Parts Unknown and The Bleeders will help me stay weekly with Podcast Bestie and carve out some extra time to explore special features and other things that make a newsletter great.
This is the end of my first week on the new schedule, and so far, it's been wonderful. I had time to write this reflection, reimmerse myself in an old project, and cross a bunch of other stuff off my to-do list. And next week, I’ll be excited to drop two stellar podcast episodes. Wow, balance is a beautiful thing.
REMINDER: I’m fundraising for a reporting trip and you can help!
💸 Buy a pro-abortion shirt AND help support a reporting trip to cover post-Roe America, all with one purchase! Use code BESTIE for 10% off.
🎧 Here’s a playlist of abortion-related episodes from Private Parts Unknown, including the "Men Have Abortions Too" series.
Guests Are Paying Up to $50,000 for Podcast Appearances - The podcasting community has been abuzz over Ashley Carmen’s Bloomberg story that exposed pay-to-play guest spots going for up to $50K on top podcasts. The discourse has raised some interesting points — PR people get paid; why not the podcasters who have actually built the valuable asset that is their audience? Others argue it should be disclosed as sponsored content. I’m not sure…
Got a *BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW* Show, or Season, Dropping This Fall? - Let Financial Times columnist Fiona Sturges know (she requests about a month lead-time):
Got a Small Budget & Wanna Spend it Wisely to Grow Your Podcast? - Arielle Nissenblatt’s got the thread for you:
Podcast Producer, The Ringer (full-time) at Spotify | Los Angeles, CA
Vice President, Podcast Editorial (Talk/Entertainment) (full-time) at Paramount+ | New York, NY
Fall Internship (part-time) at Feet in 2 World | Remote, Continental U.S.
News Director & Morning Edition Host (full-time) at Nebraska Public Media | Lincoln, NE
Sr. Editors of Original/Partner Editorial Podcasts (full-time) at Audacy | Remote, Easy Proximity to NYC or LA
I was so stoked to interview Dr. Diana Greene Foster, who's responsible for some groundbreaking research on abortion! Dr. Foster is the director of research at ANSIRH and the author of The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—Or Being Denied—An Abortion. In this episode, we dive into why she started the study, her initial hypothesis, how it lined up with the results, what Gloria Steinem said about her book, and more.
Caroline Shannon-Karasik and I took Catapult’s 12-Month Essay Generator together. In this episode, she fills me in on what she’s done with her manuscript since then… and what she’s learned about her writing process is so wise! Plus, we end the episode with the first-ever edition of Prompt Me, Daddy, so make sure you stick around to the end to get a writing lesson from Caroline.
So… ROLL CALL! 🗣
I'm curious what other Besties are doing in terms of frequency and cadence, and how y'all have landed on your release schedules. Comment below and let me know!
Follow me @courtneykocak on Twitter and Instagram. For more, check out my website courtneykocak.com.
With our new podcast, "Crow's Feet," about the experiences of aging, we've been releasing 1X/mo. We are now thinking of going to 2X/mo. Thoughts? Sounds like that's the way to go.....
Thanks!