Audio Only Podcasts That are Doing Well?
TLDR - audio outperforms video 15 to 1. There are simply more opportunities to listen than to watch.
In the battle of Audio vs Video I spit out Marc Maron WTF, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, Serial, who were all audio only. Then someone said, "Yeah and they all started a while ago."
So I thought about, can we name an audio only show that started say post pandemic (2021?). As I have my own stable of podcasts I listen to on a regular basis, I'm not as familiar with all the genres. Can you think of any audio only podcasts where the person does it full time as a job? We used to identify them because that host would be "famous."
Maybe it’s a case where a show building a decent audience was “news” and now it’s the norm? Maybe it’s because I don’t listen to true crime? Maybe it’s that there are so many podcasts now we can’t keep up with everyone who is succeeding, and those who are succeeding are busy.
It may be that there are people who are making a decent income without having a MASSIVE audience but instead having the RIGHT audience. My friend Ray at Around the Layout has his day job, but is making countable income with a show about model Trains. Ray started in 2022.
Chances are you've never heard of Ray (unless you're into model trains, or heard his interview on my show) but Ray doesn't look for sponsors, he looks for marketing partners. He doesn't look to have a huge audience, he looks to have the right audience.
