How Long Should a Podcast Be? - PCI 383
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Whether you’re a budding podcaster wondering how to pace your episodes or a seasoned listener curious about the behind-the-scenes decisions, this episode offers valuable perspectives on balancing content depth with listener attention spans. Join us as we unravel the art and science behind podcast lengths, ensuring your next listen or production hits the sweet spot.
Today’s Hosts: MacKenzie Bennett and Mike Dell
Podcast lengths can vary significantly, and the duration often depends on the content, format, and target audience.
As a friend of mine says “Podcasts are never too long, but are often too boring.” In other words, do not put 10min of good content into a 30 minute podcast episode.
Here are some of the things to think about when deciding how long your episodes should be.Short-Form Podcasts: Duration: Typically under 15 minutes. Characteristics: Concise and focused on a single topic or idea. Ideal for listeners who prefer quick, digestible content. Common Uses: Daily news updates, motivational quotes, language learning, quick tips or advice.
Standard-Length Podcasts: Duration: Usually ranges from 20 to 40 minutes. Characteristics: This length is often seen as the sweet spot for podcasting. It’s long enough to delve into a topic in some depth but short enough to retain listeners’ attention. Common Uses: Interviews, discussions on specific topics, storytelling, educational content.
Long-Form Podcasts: Duration: Generally over 40 minutes, often reaching up to an hour or more. Characteristics: In-depth exploration of topics, detailed storytelling, extended interviews or conversations. Requires more commitment from listeners. Common Uses: In-depth interviews, comprehensive discussions on complex topics, detailed storytelling, investigative journalism.
Episodic or Series Podcasts: Duration: Can vary; each episode might be short-form, standard-length, or long-form. Characteristics: Part of a series with a connecting theme or storyline across episodes. Can be released in seasons or as ongoing series. Common Uses: Serialized storytelling (fiction or non-fiction), educational series (e.g., history, science), thematic investigations (true crime, social issues).
The Average Podcast Episode As of April 2023, the most common length for a podcast episode tends to be around 20 to 40 minutes. This duration is often considered a sweet spot for several reasons:
Commute Compatibility: The average commute time in many countries falls within this range, making these podcasts ideal for listening during a commute.
Attention Span: This length is generally long enough to delve into a topic with sufficient depth while still being concise enough to maintain the average listener’s attention.
Production Feasibility: For podcast creators, producing episodes in this range is often a manageable task in terms of recording, editing, and maintaining consistent content quality.
Listener Engagement: This duration allows for meaningful engagement without overwhelming listeners with too much information or requiring a significant time commitment.
However, it’s important to note that the “ideal” podcast length can vary greatly depending on the content, format, and target audience. Some successful podcasts feature episodes that are significantly shorter (less than 15 minutes) or longer (over an hour). The key is to match the episode length to the podcast’s subject matter and the preferences of its intended audience.
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Speaker 0 00:00:00 That's the beauty of podcasting on both sides. The producer and the listener has a complete control over what they listen to, when they listen to it, how much they listen to. So the length actually doesn't matter as much as people might think.
Speaker 1 00:00:16 I, I think there's also a factor of like some burnout that happens when people are recording. And I think you'll come to find your own, like natural episode length, like your average episode length.
Speaker 2 00:00:31 You're
Speaker 3 00:00:32 Listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochrane, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow and thrive through podcasting. All with the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1 00:00:52 I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist here at Blueberry. And
Speaker 0 00:00:54 I'm Mike Dell, the Vice President of customer Relations here at Blueberry. So we get this question a lot. How long should your podcast episodes be? The short answer is only as long as they need to be.
Speaker 1 00:01:10 I definitely got asked this when we were at podcast when Todd and I were at podcast at the end of January, and the answer was same, was same as what you said, only as long as they need to be
Speaker 0 00:01:23 Right? You can have varying links even within the same podcast, we we're not always doing exactly a half hour or exactly an hour or exactly any particular time we cover the topic that we need to cover and to our satisfaction, and then we're done. This friend of mine always says a podcasts are never too long, but they're often too boring. In other words, don't put 10 minutes of good content into a 30 minute podcast episode. 'cause it gets boring.
Speaker 1 00:01:52 It really does annoy me,
Speaker 0 00:01:55
Speaker 1 00:01:55 And I am not the only one
Speaker 0 00:01:58 And I love long form podcasts, but they're interesting for the whole time I'm listening to them. They're not, they're not trying to stretch out the topic over an X amount of time. A lot of TV shows do that. Uh, a lot of YouTube channels do that, and it's like, don't do that in podcasting either. There's no rules in podcasting. What's good for you and your audience is completely different than what's good for me and my audience.
Speaker 1 00:02:24 Yeah, so, so generally there's a couple different kinds of podcasts that people will recognize. So generally short is around 20 to 15 minutes and below. Yeah. And then standard is a, probably about 20 to 40, 45 long is after 45, closer to an hour, longer than an hour. There are some shows that are very, very popular that are very, very long and then episodic or like series and those just range. That's kind kind of what we were talking about of like, it's gonna be different each episode. It's just what they wanna do.
Speaker 0 00:03:04 The old TV paradigm, everything is 30 minutes or 60 minutes and they got x number of commercial breaks and all that. So everything was formatted to the time. Well, with the podcast, you don't have to format to time. So if you're doing a short form podcast, typically they're 15 minutes and they're usually single topic or like a news broadcast. And there's quite a few of those out there that are between five and 15 minutes, and they're easily digestible in a short amount of time. And for that type of content, it's perfect.
Speaker 1 00:03:49 My favorite is nowadays about 20 minutes or so, 2025. If I really like it, I'll do 45 to an hour. I can't tell you the last time I listened to a podcast that was longer than an hour. It's probably been like two or three years.
Speaker 0 00:04:05 Yeah, yeah. And a lot of people say the sweet spot of podcasting is between between 20 and 40 minutes because of the average commute and other things. But again, if you only have 10 minutes worth of stuff to talk about, don't, don't stretch it out. Just do 10 minutes. Your, your audience will thank you and your sanity will Thank you. Especially if you do a lot of editing.
Speaker 1 00:04:30
Speaker 0 00:05:06 Yeah, it depends on what I'm doing of my normal morning routine is I've got like two or three newsy podcasts that come out every morning. I listen to and, uh, you know, pod news and some other regular news stuff, and I expect it to take me a half an hour to get through these two or three shows that I listen to every morning. That's one thing. But then like, if I'm gonna go for a drive somewhere, if I gotta drive two hours somewhere, I want it to be a little longer for him. Like be like, I'll get into, believe it or not, I've actually been getting into true crime podcasts. That's, I know that's weird,
Speaker 1 00:05:40 But it's taken you like 10 years, but
Speaker 0 00:05:44 Well, Kathy's into it, my wife. And then when we travel together, that's what we listen to. So, Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 1 00:06:04 Twice a week is a lot.
Speaker 0 00:06:06 It's nuts. And, but I don't listen to it all in one sitting either. It's okay, I gotta go run errands. I'll put my earbuds in and go run errands and listen to 'em. Or if I'm just, you know, mowing the lawn, blowing snow, whatever, I've got my headphones now. The, the, uh, the noise canceling headphones that I can wear when I'm running the equipment, it, it protects my ears. Plus it gives me something to listen to. And then I listen to a lot of the average length podcast, the 20 to 40 minute ones. And it all depends on what I'm doing. Like if I'm working here in my office, I don't listen to podcasts. I can't 'cause I'm concentrating on other things. But if I'm just, uh, editing pictures or editing a video, believe it or not, I can listen to podcasts and edit a video.
Speaker 1 00:07:25 Take that into consideration.
Speaker 0 00:07:28 Yeah. Think about it. Are you putting all the good stuff at the beginning or, and then getting boring as you go? Or is there a segment that you do at the time of the drop off? There's, there's ways of of figuring out well, and just ask, Hey, what do you think of this? Am I talking too long or I not talking enough? Uh, engage your audience. They'll, they'll have an opinion and, and a lot of times you'll get both opinions
Speaker 1 00:07:56 I think this is one of those times when, especially if your friends and family are gracious enough to listen to your show, whether they are interested in the topic or not, but this is kind of one of those times where they will be brutally honest or politely lie
Speaker 0 00:08:22 Yeah. And, and your audience, if they're engaged, they will definitely answer you. I had, uh, this, another podcast I listened to that generally goes between two and three hours a week. Uh, they asked, they say, is this too long? And they overwhelmingly got said no, go longer. Go longer.
Speaker 1 00:08:41 There you go. Yeah. I mean, I could absolutely never do it, but people listen to Joe Rogan's show, which is like two or three hours sometimes.
Speaker 0 00:08:54 And what was the, oh, there's another one that's, oh, Dan Carlin,
Speaker 1 00:08:58 Hardcore history,
Speaker 0 00:08:59 Hardcore history. He, he doesn't put out very many episodes, but as far as the amount of time
Speaker 1 00:09:09 Exactly. I mean,
Speaker 0 00:09:10 Like 6, 7, 8 hour episodes. It's nuts. I can, I I, I wonder if anybody actually listens to one all the way through in one sitting.
Speaker 1 00:09:21 That's maybe unnecessary dedication, but that's just my opinion.
Speaker 0 00:09:26 And I listen to like, some daily shows that, that I don't listen to daily. They come out daily. So on Sunday afternoon I might play a whole series of 'em, just binge 'em and that that works too. And that's the thing, whatever your podcast length is, people are gonna adapt to it. However they adapt to it. If you do a three hour show, they may not listen to it all at once, but they might get the whole thing over the course of the week and then, or if you do a bunch of short shows, they might group 'em up and do like I do with that one and uh, binge 'em. So that's the beauty of podcasting on both sides. The producer and the listener has a complete control over what they listen to when they listen to it, how much they listen to. So the length actually doesn't matter as much as people might think.
Speaker 1 00:10:19 I I think there's also a factor of like, some burnout that happens when people are recording. And I think you'll come to find your own like natural episode length, like your average episode length just by the nature of doing your podcast on a regular basis. And you have to realize like, am I burning myself out doing this? Do I have enough time during my week to get all of this done? That type of stuff. So you're bound to figure it out.
Speaker 0 00:10:48 Yeah. And if, if you're, if you're one of the lucky ones, you'll never run outta content for, for the amount of time you're recording
Speaker 1 00:11:52 Of stuff. I mean, generally the ones with all three of us when Todd is here as well, end up being longer.
Speaker 0 00:11:57 Yeah. 'cause we voices get words and edgewise,
Speaker 1 00:12:23 Yeah. Yeah. The, the
Speaker 0 00:12:42 Yeah. I noticed a lot of YouTube channels I watch are starting to quit YouTube because of burnout. And so don't burn yourself out either. If writing a hour long episode every week, a recording one every week is too much, cut the time down or do go every other week or switch topics or close the show, start a new one.
Speaker 1 00:13:06 It's usually a very simple solution.
Speaker 0 00:13:08 I mean it's, it's not the end of the world and a lot of your audiences here because of you, not necessarily because of the subject matter. That's, that's another thing a lot of podcasters don't realize that I listen to a few podcasts from people that I could care less about the subject matter. I like them and the way they deliver stuff and I learn stuff. So I do start kinda liking the subject matter, but uh, you know, that's a possibility as well. There's podcasters out there that do say podcast about cars and then, you know, two years later they run out of content for that and they, they switch to doing a podcast about building houses or who knows what plumbing
Speaker 1 00:13:50 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:13:53 Your passions change and as long as this is a hobby for you, then that's good. Let it change.
Speaker 1 00:14:02 I think that's all we have to say about how long your podcast should be. I'm wondering how long this episode will be when it's being edited. Yeah, fairly short, but in a good way. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:14:12 14 minutes is what we got so far on the recording.
Speaker 1 00:14:16 I have a long drive tonight. I'm driving somewhere an hour away and then coming back and I wonder what I'm gonna listen to.
Speaker 0 00:14:21 Yeah. Probably not this show.
Speaker 1 00:14:23 No. That I can, that I can tell you.
Speaker 0 00:14:27
Speaker 1 00:14:43 That. It is.
Speaker 0 00:14:44 Todd should be, uh, around next week. See you then. Thanks.
Speaker 3 00:14:49 Thanks for joining us. Come back next week and in the meantime, head to podcast insider.com for more information to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. Check out the latest suite of services and learn how blueberry can help you Leverage your podcast. Visit blueberry.com. That's blueberry without the ease because we can't afford the ease.