Welcome to the Streamlines Podcaster, a podcast
that shows you how to put the right systems in
place so you can stop spinning your wheels, focus
on making great content and see your show grow.
Because there's nothing worse than putting a
ton of effort into your show to see very few
benefits and even fewer downloads. My name is
Joe Casabona, and I know you're strapped for
time. So let's get into it. Hey, everybody, Joe
Casabona here today. I want to go through my
favorite points of the independent podcaster
report 2025. I will link the entire report below.
So I'll start with kind of methodology and limitations
for what they did. And then I'll hit my most
interesting points. I'm not going to go through
the whole thing because I think that's boring
for you to hear me talk about the whole thing.
If you want to hear me talk about the whole thing,
let me know. Leave a comment over a streamlined
podcaster comm that's also where you can get
the report This report was put together by the
podcast host and ala to it has 558 creators and
the number of people who took it largely probably
overwhelmingly from the podcast host and ala
to audience slash customer base so You know,
they say represents a sample It reflects their
own audience may not capture the full range of
backgrounds I've always had in my head that like
a thousand is significant significant statistically
significant, but again This is a limitation.
I think there are still some interesting snapshots
here. I went through and I highlighted some things
so I'll walk through these I'd love to hear your
thoughts on it again over a streamlined podcaster
calm I do want to say right off the bat, I didn't
highlight this, but 47 % of people are aged 50
plus. And this is either like younger generations
don't want to take polls or surveys or just the
podcast host has been around for a very long
time and maybe their audience is aging with them.
So just an interesting point. The first thing
I highlighted. was the primary goal. What is
the ultimate goal of your podcast? 31 % said
help, support, or motivate others. 20 % said
personal enjoyment or creative outlet. 12 % said
raise awareness about a cause or topic. 11 %
said establish a main income source. The rest,
I think there's like a hodgepodge here that could
probably all be grouped together. Establish a
main income source, develop or promote a business
or brand. build my authority on a topic, create
a side hustle, accounts for 33%. I think those
could kind of all be lumped together, but they're
not. They're broken up. I assume they have a
reason for that. So 31 % though, help support
or motivate others. I think that's very interesting.
I think this is the best place for small business
owners to be, right? If you're listening to this,
you likely are a small business owner or want
to be. And help, support, and motivate others
is a very important aspect of a podcast for us,
right? I've been telling people what is your,
you know, and I help people launch their podcasts.
I say, what is your positioning, packaging, and
promise? Who are you serving? How are you telling
them you serve them? What are you promising them
when they listen? And usually this is how do
I help, like who do I help and how do I help
them? So that's the positioning, packaging, and
promise. I think this aligns very well for small
business owners. Now if we look at what the biggest
challenge is, and quick caveat here, 19 % of
survey respondents said that they are pre -launch.
And so, For any questions about, like, what's
your current problem, struggle, income source,
whatever. That's only for people who currently
have a podcast. So, 558 minus 19 percent is 400,
let's say 452, 451 .98. So, let's say 452. So,
any of these questions I'm going to cover now,
likely 452 people responded to. Biggest challenge,
growth and discoverability. 72 % of people said
that. This makes perfect sense. Growth and discoverability
are very hard. I usually tell people, hey, a
podcast is for strengthening your relationship,
not for getting discovered. And your workflow,
your system and process should be around creating
great content and then putting it out there in
the world. You can't just publish a podcast episode
and hope people find it. I mean, you can. You
should hope people find it. But job's not done
once it's published, right? If you want your
podcast to grow in that way. And my friend Courtney
Elmer talks about podcast SEO a lot. This is
really important. You need to focus on that.
You need to think about that. I think this is
one of the few places where like AI could help
you here. appreciably help you. We'll get to
more of that in the survey. But yeah, growing
a podcast is hard. There's no algorithm for podcast
discovery. There's no single algorithm. It's
not like YouTube. Or it's not like any social
network. Yes, there is maybe an algorithm in
Spotify, but not really. There's no real recommendation
engine, so that's really hard. A distant second
is making money at 39%, and audience engagement
is 32, and then rounding out the 30 or more percent
of respondents. And they could pick more than
one. Time commitment and burnout, which is my
jam, right? So 30 % of the people here in this
survey could likely benefit from how I help people.
So that is biggest challenge if we scroll down
a little bit I highlighted this because I think
it's interesting. I've always thought about like
podcasts and how they make money 85 % said they
are not making money their podcast does not make
money I'm a little I didn't take the survey.
I'm a little curious if they mean that they're
not generating revenue or if it means that they
are generating revenue and their costs just exceed
the revenue they're generating. The caveat here
in the survey is like the low yes numbers maybe
because majority of participants don't see monetization
as a driver or priority just yet. That could
be true, right? I think also if we dig deeper
into revenue streams they've used, sponsorship
and advertising and paid subscriptions are the
biggest ones with 65 % and 48 % respectively.
Those are also the hardest ways in my opinion
to make money. I'm a sponsorship coach. I am
an evangelist for RSS .com where we give people
a lot of opportunities to make money. including
paid ads, which is our dynamic instance for programmatic
ads inserted dynamically. You probably heard
one or two at the beginning of this episode.
And it's still really hard to make appreciable
money that way. Paid subscriptions even more,
especially because if you look at The let's see
number of down that they ask number of downloads
at some point Like how many downloads is your
show getting? I can't find it right now, but
You know most are here. We go. How many downloads
do your new episodes typically get? 50 % said
less than 50 500 and more 16 percent total paid
memberships is really, really hard if you don't
have a big audience to make appreciable money.
If you have a small niche audience and you're
considering your packaging, positioning, and
promise, coaching, consulting, and mentorship,
which 29 % said they've tried, and product sales,
27 % said they tried. Those could be big revenue
generators for you. And I'm not saying easy,
but easier. So which revenue stream has been
most profitable to you? 41 % said sponsorship
advertising, 23 % said paid subscriptions, and
15 % said consulting, coaching, or mentorship.
Your most profitable... I'd love to see raw numbers
on paid subscriptions Because I want to know
what the audience size in how much they're charging
for paid subscriptions and if it's like like
how different would the answer to this question
would be If it was Which revenue stream has been
worth it for you? I'd be really curious about
that So that's a this is not really making money
I want to get into the meat, which now is video
and AI. And I'll get a disclaimer and a small
rant out of the way here, because I think that
video is an inevitability for podcasters. But
I think it's just worth noting that the last
time I saw this survey, Allatoo, who put out
this report, didn't have video support the last
time I saw it. And now they do. I just I'm not
saying. If that means anything, I think like
generally. If you have a product and it adds
a feature, your customers are more likely to
want or you either put it out because your customers
want it. Or your customers are more likely to
use it once you put it out. So I think I just
want to. State that explicitly. Honestly, video
in podcasting is an inevitability. There are
more like if 72 % of these respondents are struggling
with discover ability Having your podcast on
YouTube and video with Spotify Improves the discover
ability So it is an inevitability and I'll also
just say if you're still saying your podcast
isn't really a podcast unless it has an RSS feed
or If you're only on YouTube, you don't really
have a podcast. Like, knock that off. You are
objectively wrong. When someone says, I have
a podcast, it's only on YouTube. It is my job
to say, have you considered a way to get your
podcast in other apps like Spotify and Apple
podcasts? Because when you're just like, oh,
that's not really a podcast, you sound like a
dick. Plain and simple, right? And if you're
trying to be some sort of podcast purist, then
you can only listen to podcasts on iPods, right?
Because the word podcast is a portmanteau of
iPod and broadcast. So if you're really trying
to be a purist, break out that old iPod classic
and listen to podcasts there. So video in podcasting
is an inevitability. And the data is showing
this. 19 % of respondents say they don't make
any video and don't plan to. 32 % say they don't
but they're considering it. And then the rest
is they either use clips or post audiograms.
19 % says they publish full video episodes. So
I fall into the, I used to fall into the publish
full video episodes. Now I post clips or highlights
but not full video episodes. It just, it didn't
seem worth it to me. It's gonna be different
for everybody. So it didn't seem worth it to
me. That might change in the future, right? I
use Riverside to record and Riverside makes it
easier to edit video. But I don't, what I am
creating, I don't, like this would not be a compelling
video save for the fact that if you want to read
this survey along with me, But like, are you
going to sit in front of your computer and listen
to me talk through a thing that you can much
more quickly read? No, you're probably in the
car or on a commute or doing chores or at the
gym. You're probably not sitting in front of
your computer reading this report with me. So
the video just wasn't compelling for me. All
right. And now the big one. Are you using AI
tools in any part of your podcast production?
38 percent. AI -generated transcripts. 33 % say
they're not using AI at all. That is the number
two answer in this survey. 30 % say AI for content
research ideas and planning. 30 % say AI -generated
show notes and episode titles. 27 % say AI -assisted
editing or sound enhancement. 21 % say AI for
marketing. Then So, okay, so what they did was
they combined two here right the 33 % No, that
oh, yeah number shakes out. Okay, 17 % of those
17 % say I don't use AI and I don't plan to 16
% say I don't use AI and I'd like to 3 % say
they use AI voice cloning or synthetic hosts.
I Would say here if you cannot speak and you
want to have a podcast, a synthetic voice is
a very, this is one way where like AI has made
podcasting more accessible. If you're just doing
it for S &G's because you don't feel like recording,
you should just not have a podcast. Plain and
simple. If you don't feel like talking, don't
talk, right? Just like, oh, I have AI write for
me. Don't write if you don't want to write. No
one's forcing you to write. So like, I just,
I don't get that. Again, if you are unable to
speak and you want to have a podcast and this
is a great way to do it, right? That's great.
I think that's a really nice thing. So I'd be
curious to see how people are using the AI voice
cloning in synthetic hosts. So there's a lot
to unpack here, right? AI -generated transcripts,
I think are a great way to use AI. I still think
you should have a human review them. Like, I
have AI -generated transcripts and then my VA
reviews them. Because transcripts, the point
of a transcript is to make it accessible for
those who can't listen. And so you want accuracy.
And then the other reason is SEO purposes or
discoverability purposes. And again, you want
accuracy there. So I think AI transcripts are
great. If you're not doing transcripts at all,
there's really no excuse to not have AI transcripts
now. But I still think you should have humans
review them. And then AI assisted editing or
sound enhancement? My hands are not clean here.
I'm AI hesitant. My hands are not clean here,
though. I use AI assisted editing and sound enhancement.
If not on my show, as far as I know. I mean,
my editor edits my show. For this one. Don't
know is isotope RX is that AI enhancement? I
Don't do anything it listens to my audio and
cleans it up. So I guess it could be And then
AI editing like I edit via transcript what I
don't do is say Hey Riverside edit this for me
and then just put it out Or I don't say hey Gemini
find the places I should cut and just blindly
do that but I it's AI assisted. So like, I think
AI can be a really great tool. I would beg you,
I will beg you, don't let AI have the first crack
at research ideas and planning. Come up with
stuff, use your brain and your critical thinking
skills, and do it yourself first. And then if
you want to rubber duck with AI, if you want
to get another opinion from AI, fine. But don't
give AI the first crack at creative work. Just
what I think. What I think strong, not just what
I think, I strongly believe this. So I thought
that was an interesting point. And then The last
thing I want to cover here is video versus audio
production time. So the study here, the report
here says video and audio only podcasters spend
similar time creating each episode with most
and both groups falling into the one to three
or four to five hour ranges. The survey suggests
that audio only creators are more likely to invest
longer overall with 45 % spending more than six
hours per episode compared to about 36 % of video
podcasters. That's super interesting. But as
they point out, audio creators often will follow
a more traditional editing culture. Whereas if
you're using video, you're probably, I think
the conjecture here is you're taking more shortcuts.
That is certainly true for me. If I'm editing
a video, I'm using Gling .ai or Riverside, both
AI tools to help me edit. And then the, so that's,
that's interesting. And then 25 % of respondents
say they can, they've considered quitting because
of lack of time. 21 % say they never considered
quitting. But one of the wrapping up here, There
are two more notes on AI. What's the biggest
threat facing podcasters in the next three years?
25 % say increased competition and 25 % say AI.
They highlight that a noticeable trend was 28
% of the under 50 see AI as the biggest threat,
while increased competition was seen by the as
the biggest threat by people over 50. I think
that's very interesting. I think people over
50 have probably been podcasting a very long
time, and they remember when there was little
to no competition. And now they're seeing it's
harder to be discovered and harder to keep people's
attention. Whereas under 50s, I would say AI
is the biggest threat to podcasting. because
people are using it to take shortcuts. They're
forgetting the craftsmanship of podcasting and
other content creation. So really interesting.
It's an overall, a really interesting survey.
Five big takeaways. The one that stood out to
me is AI doesn't guarantee time saved. They say
there was no clear difference in time spent between
podcasters using AI and those who don't. But
they also say it's difficult to draw firm conclusions,
right? Because it really does depend. I would
say if you are looking at AI to help save you
time, the places to do it are with an AI -generated
transcript, helping you edit, but not editing
for you. I would encourage you to read about
the the autonomous system idea behind a human
in control. We hear about human in the loop all
the time, right? Like, oh, it'll do something
and keep humans in the loop. Human in control
should be the way we approach creating stuff,
including a podcast. The AI doesn't do something
unless we tell it to do something. That's my
biggest takeaway here. is that as we struggle
with discoverability and making money and we're
looking to save time and places so we can spend
it in the right places, AI is not a magic bullet.
And it's certainly not going to produce something
worth listening to as much as you will. Because
you know your audience better than some robot.
All right. Well, that's it for this episode.
I would encourage you to check out the survey.
It's over at alatoo .com. I will link to it in
the show notes as well, which you can find in
the description below or over at streamlinedpodcaster
.com. Let me know what you think. You can write
in, leave a comment over at streamlinedpodcaster
.com. And until next time. I hope you find some
space in your week.