How COVID Changed the Market [Day 17 30 Days of Podcast Notes]
September 17, 202600:07:13

How COVID Changed the Market [Day 17 30 Days of Podcast Notes]

Before 2020, the objection I heard constantly from would-be podcasters was "I don't have time." Then the pandemic hit and time was suddenly the one thing everybody had, and podcasting exploded. Most of those shows podfaded, but the demand spike changed the industry around them — hosting companies accelerated their roadmaps, and hardware makers started building for people recording at home instead of assuming everyone would buy a Shure SM7B. This is anecdotal, not a study; it's just what I watched happen from inside it.

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00:00:00 --> 00:00:04 Hey everybody and welcome to day 17 of 30 days
00:00:04 --> 00:00:09 of podcast notes. I want to spend the next few
00:00:09 --> 00:00:13 episodes talking about COVID and how COVID kind
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 of changed podcasting. Now, this is not some
00:00:16 --> 00:00:22 deep dive study. It's just observations having
00:00:22 --> 00:00:27 lived in podcasting before, during, and after
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 COVID. So like, don't take this as some academic
00:00:30 --> 00:00:33 study or anything like that. This is just something
00:00:33 --> 00:00:37 that I observed. And as I reflect back, I think
00:00:37 --> 00:00:42 there are some lines that we can draw from where
00:00:42 --> 00:00:47 podcasting is today that probably started in
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 COVID. And the first that I want to talk about
00:00:50 --> 00:00:54 today is how COVID changed the market. One of
00:00:54 --> 00:00:57 the reasons I started doing some podcast coaching
00:00:57 --> 00:01:02 before COVID was a lot of people said I want
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 to start a podcast but I don't know how and I
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 don't have time and I would help people build
00:01:07 --> 00:01:10 systems or figure out the best way to create
00:01:10 --> 00:01:14 that time and space and and back then it was
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 you know this was before any AI tools or anything
00:01:17 --> 00:01:20 like that and really before the the tools got
00:01:20 --> 00:01:24 really polished which I also think happened because
00:01:24 --> 00:01:27 COVID showed like an overwhelming demand for
00:01:27 --> 00:01:31 for podcasting as an industry. But and then again,
00:01:31 --> 00:01:32 like there are probably smarter people who can
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 have better insights into this than me. This
00:01:35 --> 00:01:39 is largely anecdotal. My observations, which
00:01:39 --> 00:01:44 are now six years old, five, six years old. So
00:01:44 --> 00:01:47 but this is this is what I remember. And these
00:01:47 --> 00:01:51 are my observations. So people didn't have time.
00:01:51 --> 00:01:52 And so generally I would say like, oh, yeah,
00:01:52 --> 00:01:56 you got to hire an editor and and a whole bunch
00:01:56 --> 00:01:58 of things that people didn't necessarily want
00:01:58 --> 00:02:03 to do well. When COVID started, all people had
00:02:03 --> 00:02:10 was time. And so podcasting exploded, right?
00:02:11 --> 00:02:21 From a creator point of view. And so I'm sure
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 that there are, again, some very smart people
00:02:24 --> 00:02:29 who can tell me how many podcasts launched in
00:02:29 --> 00:02:33 let's say April of 2020 that lasted through the
00:02:33 --> 00:02:37 end of the year or that lasted through mid 2021
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 like around the time that you know things really
00:02:39 --> 00:02:43 started opening again and people started to not
00:02:43 --> 00:02:50 have the time that they had but this was this
00:02:50 --> 00:02:58 was the first everything that followed was because
00:02:58 --> 00:03:04 there became more of a demand in the podcasting
00:03:04 --> 00:03:09 space, right, for podcasters. So podcast hosts
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 started, like podcast hosting companies started
00:03:12 --> 00:03:16 accelerating some of their development and adding
00:03:16 --> 00:03:20 more features. Hardware makers, this is probably
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 the, and I'll talk about this more when I talk
00:03:22 --> 00:03:27 about quality of show, but. There were not like
00:03:27 --> 00:03:32 the microphone The big professional microphone
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 to get if you were a professional podcaster was
00:03:35 --> 00:03:40 the sure sm7b I would generally recommend, you
00:03:40 --> 00:03:44 know some hundred dollar model that didn't necessarily
00:03:44 --> 00:03:49 sound as good in in probably a future episode
00:03:49 --> 00:03:51 of this i'll talk about like does gear really
00:03:51 --> 00:03:57 matter these days, but We really saw an explosion
00:03:57 --> 00:04:02 of recording gear and demand for recording gear.
00:04:03 --> 00:04:10 I so very luckily bought my Sony A6400 in February
00:04:10 --> 00:04:16 or January of 2020 and I made a video on how
00:04:16 --> 00:04:23 like basically how a non -photographer can set
00:04:23 --> 00:04:30 this up. Right. So. How can how can a non -photographer
00:04:30 --> 00:04:37 set this up as a webcam? And that video blew
00:04:37 --> 00:04:42 up my channel because so many people were looking
00:04:42 --> 00:04:46 for that sort of thing. They wanted better cameras
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 and better microphones. And, you know, I started
00:04:49 --> 00:04:53 to make a strong argument that hey, with school
00:04:53 --> 00:04:58 closed, you know, teachers should be doing podcasts,
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 lectures, right? And a whole bunch of other things
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 that we're kind of, we're seeing still happen
00:05:03 --> 00:05:08 today really started to happen in 2020 because
00:05:08 --> 00:05:12 of COVID. And so the market fundamentally changed
00:05:12 --> 00:05:18 during COVID because so many people had more
00:05:18 --> 00:05:22 time. And yes, most of those people podfated,
00:05:22 --> 00:05:27 right? But we did end up with a lot of really
00:05:27 --> 00:05:31 good shows and Spotify. You know, I mean, I can't
00:05:31 --> 00:05:33 say that COVID is the reason that Spotify started
00:05:33 --> 00:05:37 getting into the market, but it certainly accelerated,
00:05:37 --> 00:05:39 I think, a lot of things in the podcast space
00:05:39 --> 00:05:43 because recording from home was something that
00:05:43 --> 00:05:46 a lot of people could do now and had a lot more
00:05:46 --> 00:05:51 time. to do now. So that's kind of my reflection
00:05:51 --> 00:05:56 on like COVID changed podcasting. And so I see
00:05:56 --> 00:06:00 I spent all of this time reflecting. And as I
00:06:00 --> 00:06:03 turn to what podcasting is today and in the future.
00:06:06 --> 00:06:11 The COVID -19 pandemic definitely. Played a really
00:06:11 --> 00:06:17 big role in that. So that's it for this. podcast
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 note for day 17 of 30 days of podcast notes on
00:06:20 --> 00:06:22 the Streamline podcaster. If you're enjoying
00:06:22 --> 00:06:26 this series, be sure to subscribe wherever you're
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 listening. If you're a solo business owner who
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 suddenly doesn't have time again, I want to help
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 you. Maybe you are trying to run your business
00:06:35 --> 00:06:37 and you're doing everything yourself and you
00:06:37 --> 00:06:39 finally want to take things off of your plate,
00:06:39 --> 00:06:43 but you also don't want to hire a team or become
00:06:43 --> 00:06:47 overly reliant on AI. I can help you through
00:06:47 --> 00:06:51 what I call SoloOps. So you should join my mailing
00:06:51 --> 00:06:55 list over at streamlined .fm slash join and I
00:06:55 --> 00:06:58 will give you what every podcaster loves, tips
00:06:58 --> 00:07:01 and tricks for how to run your SoloOps without
00:07:01 --> 00:07:07 relying on AI or hiring a team. That's it for
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 this episode of the Streamlined Podcaster. Thanks
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 so much for listening and I will see you tomorrow.