0:00

- That's the beauty of podcasting on both sides.

0:02

The producer and the listener has a complete control over

0:07

what they listen to, when they listen to it, how much they listen to.

0:11

So the length actually doesn't matter

0:14

as much as people might think. - I, I think there's also a factor of like some burnout

0:20

that happens when people are recording.

0:23

And I think you'll come to find your own, like natural

0:26

episode length, like your average episode length.

0:31

- You're - Listening to Podcast Insider hosted

0:34

by Mike Dell, Todd Cochrane, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team,

0:38

bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips

0:41

and tricks to help you start, grow and thrive through podcasting.

0:45

All with the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting.

0:48

Welcome. Let's dive in. - I'm Mackenzie Bennett,

0:53

marketing specialist here at Blueberry. And - I'm Mike Dell, the Vice President

0:56

of customer Relations here at Blueberry. So we get this question a lot.

0:59

How long should your podcast episodes be?

1:03

The short answer is only as long as they need to be.

1:10

- I definitely got asked this when we were at podcast when

1:14

Todd and I were at podcast at the end of January, and the answer was same, was same as what you said, only

1:21

as long as they need to be <laugh>, - Right?

1:24

You can have varying links even within the same podcast,

1:28

we we're not always doing exactly a half hour

1:30

or exactly an hour or exactly any particular time we cover the topic

1:36

that we need to cover and to our satisfaction, and then we're done.

1:40

This friend of mine always says a podcasts are never too long, but they're often too boring.

1:45

In other words, don't put 10 minutes

1:47

of good content into a 30 minute podcast

1:50

episode. 'cause it gets boring. - It really does annoy me, <laugh>

1:55

- <laugh>, - And I am not the only one <laugh>

1:58

- And I love long form podcasts, but they're interesting

2:01

for the whole time I'm listening to them. They're not, they're not trying

2:05

to stretch out the topic over an X amount of time.

2:09

A lot of TV shows do that. Uh, a lot of YouTube channels do that,

2:13

and it's like, don't do that in podcasting either.

2:16

There's no rules in podcasting. What's good for you

2:20

and your audience is completely different than what's good

2:22

for me and my audience. - Yeah, so, so generally there's a couple different kinds

2:29

of podcasts that people will recognize.

2:32

So generally short is around 20

2:35

to 15 minutes and below. Yeah. And then standard is a, probably about 20 to 40, 45

2:43

long is after 45, closer to an hour, longer than an hour.

2:48

There are some shows that are very, very popular

2:50

that are very, very long and then episodic or like series

2:56

and those just range. That's kind kind of what we were talking about of like,

3:00

it's gonna be different each episode. It's just what they wanna do.

3:04

- The old TV paradigm, everything is 30 minutes

3:07

or 60 minutes and they got x number

3:10

of commercial breaks and all that. So everything was formatted to the time.

3:14

Well, with the podcast, you don't have to format to time.

3:17

So if you're doing a short form podcast,

3:20

typically they're 15 minutes and they're usually single topic or like a news broadcast.

3:27

And there's quite a few of those out there that are

3:29

between five and 15 minutes, and they're easily digestible in a short amount of time.

3:37

And for that type of content, it's perfect.

3:49

- My favorite is nowadays about 20 minutes

3:53

or so, 2025. If I really like it, I'll do 45 to an hour.

4:00

I can't tell you the last time I listened to a podcast that was longer than an hour.

4:03

It's probably been like two or three years. - Yeah, yeah.

4:06

And a lot of people say the sweet spot of podcasting is

4:09

between between 20 and 40 minutes

4:12

because of the average commute and other things.

4:16

But again, if you only have 10 minutes worth of stuff

4:19

to talk about, don't, don't stretch it out.

4:22

Just do 10 minutes. Your, your audience will thank you

4:26

and your sanity will Thank you. Especially if you do a lot of editing. <laugh>

4:30

- <laugh>. Yeah. One of the reasons that they also say that that 20

4:36

to 40 is the sweet spot is because of our attention spans.

4:40

Um, which personally I can attest to that

4:43

because there is so much content out there

4:46

to consume too much of it. I consume too much of it,

4:50

and my attention span is only gonna last

4:53

so long talking about this one subject

4:55

before I'm ready to move on to something else.

4:59

So that I think has definitely factored into me gravitating

5:03

towards shorter shows and episodes in the past couple years.

5:06

- Yeah, it depends on what I'm doing of my normal morning routine is I've got like two

5:11

or three newsy podcasts that come out every morning.

5:15

I listen to and, uh, you know, pod news

5:18

and some other regular news stuff,

5:21

and I expect it to take me a half an hour to get

5:24

through these two or three shows that I listen to every morning.

5:27

That's one thing. But then like, if I'm gonna go

5:30

for a drive somewhere, if I gotta drive two hours somewhere,

5:33

I want it to be a little longer for him. Like be like, I'll get into, believe it

5:37

or not, I've actually been getting into true crime podcasts. That's, I know that's weird,

5:40

- But it's taken you like 10 years, but <laugh> Yeah,

5:44

- Well, Kathy's into it, my wife. And then when we travel together, that's what we listen to.

5:49

So, Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then some of those tend to be longer form podcasts.

5:54

One of my favorite podcasts that I listen to is

5:57

on average three hours. That's crazy. But then they do it twice a week. <laugh>.

6:03

<laugh> - Twice a week is a lot.

6:06

- It's nuts. And, but I don't listen to it all in one sitting either.

6:09

It's okay, I gotta go run errands.

6:12

I'll put my earbuds in and go run errands and listen to 'em.

6:15

Or if I'm just, you know, mowing the lawn, blowing snow,

6:20

whatever, I've got my headphones now.

6:22

The, the, uh, the noise canceling headphones

6:25

that I can wear when I'm running the equipment, it, it protects my ears.

6:29

Plus it gives me something to listen to. And then I listen to a lot of the average length podcast,

6:34

the 20 to 40 minute ones. And it all depends on what I'm doing.

6:38

Like if I'm working here in my office,

6:42

I don't listen to podcasts. I can't 'cause I'm concentrating on other things.

6:48

But if I'm just, uh, editing pictures

6:51

or editing a video, believe it

6:53

or not, I can listen to podcasts and edit a video. <laugh>, it's, it's weird

6:58

'cause I really don't care what I'm saying on the video

7:00

or whatever I'm editing. I, I can see it all.

7:03

So I don't have to engage that part of my brain that

7:06

that does the listening. But it's all up to what your content is

7:11

and what your, uh, audience wants.

7:15

You can use our trending graph in the advanced stats to see

7:18

where are people dropping off. If you notice that everybody's dropping off at 20 minutes

7:23

and you do a 45 minute show, - Take that into consideration. <laugh>.

7:28

- Yeah. Think about it. Are you putting all the good stuff

7:30

at the beginning or, and then getting boring as you go?

7:33

Or is there a segment that you do at the time of the drop off?

7:38

There's, there's ways of of figuring out well,

7:42

and just ask, Hey, what do you think of this? Am I talking too long or I not talking enough?

7:46

Uh, engage your audience. They'll, they'll have an opinion and,

7:50

and a lot of times you'll get both opinions <laugh>, so

7:54

it may not be that helpful. - I think this is one of those times when,

7:59

especially if your friends and family are gracious enough to listen to your show,

8:04

whether they are interested in the topic or not,

8:06

but this is kind of one of those times where they will be brutally honest

8:11

or politely lie <laugh> about, about

8:15

how long your episode is. And you have to pick

8:18

and choose those people who are gonna be honest with you if you really wanna find out the answer.

8:22

- Yeah. And, and your audience, if they're engaged,

8:24

they will definitely answer you. I had, uh, this, another podcast I listened to

8:29

that generally goes between two and three hours a week.

8:33

Uh, they asked, they say, is this too long?

8:36

And they overwhelmingly got said no, go longer. Go longer.

8:41

- There you go. Yeah. I mean, I could absolutely never do it,

8:46

but people listen to Joe Rogan's show,

8:50

which is like two or three hours sometimes.

8:54

- And what was the, oh, there's another one that's,

8:56

oh, Dan Carlin, - Hardcore history, - Hardcore history.

9:00

He, he doesn't put out very many episodes,

9:03

but as far as the amount of time <laugh> that you can listen

9:06

to him, it's probably about the same as an average weekly show.

9:09

- Exactly. I mean, - Like 6, 7, 8 hour episodes.

9:14

It's nuts. I can, I I, I wonder if anybody actually listens

9:18

to one all the way through in one sitting.

9:21

- That's maybe unnecessary dedication, but that's just my opinion. <laugh>. Yeah.

9:26

- And I listen to like, some daily shows that,

9:28

that I don't listen to daily. They come out daily.

9:32

So on Sunday afternoon I might play a whole series of 'em,

9:37

just binge 'em and that that works too.

9:40

And that's the thing, whatever your podcast length is,

9:45

people are gonna adapt to it. However they adapt to it.

9:48

If you do a three hour show, they may not listen to it all at once, but they might get the whole thing over

9:53

the course of the week and then,

9:55

or if you do a bunch of short shows, they might group 'em up

9:58

and do like I do with that one and uh, binge 'em.

10:02

So that's the beauty of podcasting on both sides.

10:05

The producer and the listener has a complete control over

10:10

what they listen to when they listen to it, how much they listen to.

10:13

So the length actually doesn't matter as much

10:17

as people might think. - I I think there's also a factor of like, some burnout

10:22

that happens when people are recording. And I think you'll come to find your own like natural

10:29

episode length, like your average episode length just

10:33

by the nature of doing your podcast on a regular basis.

10:36

And you have to realize like, am I burning myself out doing this?

10:40

Do I have enough time during my week

10:43

to get all of this done? That type of stuff. So you're bound to figure it out.

10:48

- Yeah. And if, if you're, if you're one of the lucky ones,

10:51

you'll never run outta content for, for the amount

10:54

of time you're recording <laugh>. I listen to another show that they try to hit 90 minutes

10:59

that they, but they don't do it in a boring way.

11:01

They have too much content for 90 minutes. And so a lot of people want 'em to go on and on and on

11:07

and eh, I don't think I'd even go for that,

11:10

but towards the end of the 90 minutes they're like,

11:12

well, I think we're done. We gotta get outta here. We got so much more to talk about.

11:16

So keeps 'em coming back, I guess. But, but as far as it goes,

11:21

there is no magic bullet length of a podcast.

11:25

Uh, again, keep it to what's important.

11:28

If, if you've got 10 minutes worth of content, do a 10 minute podcast.

11:32

If you've got an hour's worth, do an hour and anywhere in between.

11:36

We kind of average between what, 15

11:38

and 30 minutes of actual content on this show.

11:43

And it all depends on what the subject matter is,

11:46

whether we covered it completely, how much, uh,

11:49

how much extra stuff we're throwing in there, <laugh>, that kind

11:52

- Of stuff. I mean, generally the ones with all three

11:54

of us when Todd is here as well, end up being longer.

11:57

- Yeah. 'cause we voices get words and edgewise, <laugh> gotta get, get our voices in there.

12:03

That's for sure. Basically the importance of there's no ideal length,

12:13

it's just depends on your content.

12:15

So don't, don't overthink it. Just record until you feel like not recording anymore.

12:20

You run outta things to talk about <laugh>. - Yeah. Yeah. The, the <laugh>.

12:24

The same can be said for your podcast like series too.

12:30

If, if you feel like your content is coming to an end, then

12:35

there's no harm in turning off your podcast

12:38

and putting it on hiatus or just officially closing it up.

12:42

- Yeah. I noticed a lot of YouTube channels I watch are starting to quit YouTube

12:47

because of burnout. And so don't burn yourself out either.

12:50

If writing a hour long episode every week,

12:55

a recording one every week is too much, cut the time down

12:59

or do go every other week or switch topics

13:03

or close the show, start a new one. - It's usually a very simple solution. <laugh>. Yeah.

13:08

- I mean it's, it's not the end of the world

13:11

and a lot of your audiences here

13:13

because of you, not necessarily

13:16

because of the subject matter. That's, that's another thing a lot

13:19

of podcasters don't realize that I listen

13:22

to a few podcasts from people that I could care less about the subject matter.

13:25

I like them and the way they deliver

13:28

stuff and I learn stuff. So I do start kinda liking the subject matter,

13:32

but uh, you know, that's a possibility as well.

13:36

There's podcasters out there that do say podcast about cars

13:40

and then, you know, two years later they run out of content

13:43

for that and they, they switch to doing a podcast about building houses

13:47

or who knows what plumbing <laugh>.

13:50

- Yeah. <laugh>, - Your passions change

13:54

and as long as this is a hobby for you, then that's good.

13:59

Let it change. - I think that's all we have to say about

14:03

how long your podcast should be. I'm wondering how long this episode will be

14:07

when it's being edited. Yeah, fairly short, but in a good way. Yeah.

14:12

- 14 minutes is what we got so far on the recording. <laugh>,

14:16

- I have a long drive tonight. I'm driving somewhere an hour away and then coming back

14:19

and I wonder what I'm gonna listen to. - Yeah. Probably not this show.

14:23

- No. That I can, that I can tell you. <laugh>.

14:27

- <laugh>. Alright. Well thanks for being here Next week we'll have uh, another

14:32

fascinating topic about podcasting

14:34

and we're kind of starting with this 1 0 1 stuff

14:37

for the beginning of the year here. So, uh, getting into February. Wow. Time's already flying

14:43

- That. It is. - Todd should be, uh, around next week.

14:47

See you then. Thanks. - Thanks for joining us.

14:50

Come back next week and in the meantime, head to podcast insider.com

14:55

for more information to subscribe, share,

14:57

and read our show notes. Check out the latest suite of services

15:01

and learn how blueberry can help you Leverage your podcast.

15:05

Visit blueberry.com. That's blueberry without the ease

15:09

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