No Place Like Home

Let's stipulate first that voice command is how we're going to summon our audio entertainment and information moving forward. That's not in dispute. At some point, everyone will just say "play X" and X will play. That's going to happen. In fact, you can do that now with smart speakers.

But so far, people aren't doing that for podcasts. Music, sure. Podcasts, nope. And that's something that might be instructive for those of us in the spoken word biz.

One of the recurring themes of this column has been that in the age of audio abundance, with hundreds of thousands of existing podcasts and countless streams available alongside broadcast and satellite, the future will belong to content creators who a) provide the best quality content and b) market the hell out of it. It's going to be about marketing. While the industry has been talking about curation and gatekeepers and walled gardens, it's really a matter of getting people to want your product. A compelling topic or personality, quality storytelling -- those are paramount, but so is breaking through the clutter to tell people what you're offering and how to get it. Voice command will break down the friction of firing up an app and finding a show or stream, and when you're SAYING what you want, you're not paging through a playlist or directory. So, marketing, whether word of mouth or going on other podcasts or promoting on broadcast or taking out billboards (that'll be interesting when voice command controls your dashboard -- a billboard telling you to say "Alexa, play Podcast X" might be the way to go) or email blasts... there will be a lot of trial and error to determine what marketing will work best, but that's where we're going.

And there's another thing. It's not enough to have a good product and good marketing. There's also the matter of whether that product is what people really want in particular listening scenarios, not on a quality level but on a utility level. Is a half-hour or hour-long podcast what people at home want when they're in their homes? I suspect that's an issue for podcasts and smart speakers. Think about how people have used audio in the home for generations. I think back to my mom, and how she would flip the radio on in the morning and have talk radio on in the background while she went about her business, WOR or WCAU as an ambient soundtrack to her day, not really requiring rapt attention. Many people prefer music for that. Do people in their homes want something to which they have to pay closer attention? Some will, but when you're in your home and you're looking to spend some time concentrating on content, you can also watch TV, or -- I know, this is particularly get-off-my-lawn -- read a book. Audio that you have to focus on? That's for the commute, or the workout, or the walk around the neighborhood. (I'm aware that the ratings have always shown home and office listening for broadcast radio being strong; I'm talking about the kind of content that commands attention, which doesn't really adapt to office listening and isn't necessarily the first option for home listening.) (And my own usage is hardly representative of 100% of the audience, but I have sports and talk radio and news on in the office while I work, and podcasts on the iPhone are for when I'm working out.)

Which means tailoring the content to the use case, which further means that if you're looking to smart speakers as radio and podcasting and streaming's salvation, it will help to make that content the kind of thing people would welcome in the home-use scenario. Otherwise, you're expecting the days to return when the family would gather around the big radio in the living room after dinner to listen to "Inner Sanctum" or Jack Benny. So, maybe we're talking about shorter shows, vignettes or features like the kind radio does in the middle of stop sets. (Like... well, ask Alexa or Google Assistant for "The Evening Bulletin podcast." Evidently, I'm not above a cheap plug for my podcast.) Or maybe it's longer, radio-style shows that can be used as background while you're doing whatever it is you do in your house -- if you'll have a talk radio station on in the background while you're home, you could have Joe Rogan or Adam Carolla on for the same purpose. But planning for the future involves planning for the likely use case scenario. Maybe the reason the research shows heavy smart speaker adoption but limited use of those devices for podcasts is that the content isn't quite right for the use case. Let's see if we can't fix that.

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Short or long, radio or podcast, smart speaker or digital dash, you're gonna need stuff to talk about, and that's where Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, comes in with material for every show. It's free. Click here and/or follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. Oh, and we have a very good "10 Questions With..." Jay "PodVader" Soderberg, who is one of the key people in the development of the podcast space, from his days at ESPN to his new gig at Locked On Podcasts. If you're interested in where we've been and where we're going as a business, you should pay attention to this one.

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My podcast is "The Evening Bulletin with Perry Michael Simon," a quick (two minutes or less) daily thing, and you can get it by just clicking here, which should take you directly to the page or app that will work best for your device. It's also on Spotify; just search for it there, or ask for it on your Amazon Alexa-enabled device by saying "Alexa, play the Evening Bulletin podcast."

You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well. And you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pmsimon, and at pmsimon.com.

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Oh, yeah, jury duty. I was going to do a column about what lessons I learned while doing time at the Inglewood Courthouse, but absolutely nothing happened. I spent three days sitting in a courtroom as part of a jury pool and didn't get picked. Nothing of note occurred. The only radio-related thing about the experience is that one guy in the jury pool wore an iHeart Radio t-shirt one day. I didn't ask him where he got it. And then they dismissed me. I did listen to the radio on the long drives to and from the courthouse, if that counts. What? OK, that doesn't count. Anyway, it's over. Couldn't get a column out of it. Barely got a paragraph out of it. Sorry.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
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