After ruminating on my podcasting pet peeves (I’ll share them at the end), I searched Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook to find out what bothers podcast listeners the most. There were commonalities and upvotes that we can use to improve our podcasts. It turns out that listeners do not just want to be entertained, educated, or inspired, but they want podcast creators to respect them and their time.
Here’s what I found.
While I’ve heard creators say that content quality trumps audio quality, listeners’ most frequent complaints focus on uneven volume and poor audio quality. Uneven audio within a podcast episode that requires the listener to constantly adjust the volume is a big turnoff. Also, having your podcast episode too soft or too loud compared to other podcast episodes is also a problem. While commercials on television often boost the volume to make up for you heading to the kitchen for a snack, podcast listeners do not appreciate loud ads played in their earbuds. Quality is most important but do not pass on a relatively easy fix to keep your listeners happy.
Solution: Manually fix audio levels in your DAW. There are also very useful plug-ins and tools that can help.
Here are my favorites.
Listeners want a podcast episode to deliver on its promise. That means getting to the meat of the content quickly, without too much rambling or going off-topic for a long time. If you host an interview show, this requires preparation so that you ask questions that listeners want to hear answers to, not interrupting or talking over your guest, and not spending too much time on inside jokes.
Solution: Follow the British Army adage: Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Follow the 7 Ps and the payoff will be a stronger podcast.
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