(Photo by kaboompics via Pexels)
By Stephen Beech
Four out of 10 podcasts are "dead" — not having made a new episode for a year or more, reveals new research.
Analysis of 19,659 podcast feeds found 39.1% of shows findable by topic search have not published in 12 months.
The research, by U.K. directory Podcast Amplify, read thousands of podcast RSS feeds directly at source, recorded the publication date of its most recent episode, rather than relying on figures reported by platforms.
Of 14,915 shows found by searching Apple and Podcastindex for a subject, 39.1% have not released an episode in more than a year.
Podcast Amplify founder Sam Allcock says the strongest predictor of survival is simply how many episodes a show made. (Podcast Amplify via SWNS)
Of 4,744 shows found in Apple's genre "Top" charts over the same period, only 6.3% were dead.
Podcast Amplify founder Sam Allcock says the the gap is structural rather than surprising.
He explained that a "Top" chart can only return shows that are currently ranking, so it is incapable of showing attrition.
Allcock said: "Every stat you have read about podcasting being in rude health was probably measured off a chart, and a chart is a list of things that are alive.
"It is a survivorship bias so complete that the industry has built its self-image on it.
"Search the same index by subject instead and you find the graveyard."
He says the strongest predictor of survival is simply how many episodes a show made.
The findings showed that more than four out of five shows (81.9%) that stopped at three episodes are dead, along with over half of 11- to 25-episode podcasts (55.1%).
(Photo by Vince Andrada via Pexels)
But only 13.5% of podcasts that passed the 100-episode mark were classified as dead.
The findings also showed that the subjects growing fastest are the ones quitting the most.
Crypto and Web3 shows have the highest attrition of any subject (59.5%) followed by AI (55%),according to the findings.
Finance, with just 20.7% dead, and health (23.2%) are the most durable podcasts.
Allcock says the likely explanation is who starts them.
He said: "A show launched to ride a market stops when the market moves, while shows launched by practitioners with a business behind them keep publishing, because the podcast is not the product."
Allock says the data also contains a warning for anyone buying a podcast contact list.
(Photo by George Milton via Pexels)
Of the 9,243 searchable shows that publish their own contact address, 43.4% were dead.
Allock said: "Marketing and PR teams pitching podcast guests are therefore sending close to half their outreach to people who stopped podcasting, in some cases years ago."
He added: "If you buy a list of 10,000 podcast contacts, on our numbers more than 4,000 of them are people who are not podcasting anymore.
"No amount of rewriting the subject line fixes that.
"It is the single largest hidden cost in podcast outreach and almost nobody measures it, because the bounce rate looks fine.
"The emails arrive. Nobody is listening."