440. Should You Repeat Topics on Your Podcast? - The Audacity to Podcast® - tips and how to start and grow profit in podcasting

Summary4 min read

Podcast Summary: The Audacity to Podcast®
Episode 440: Should You Repeat Topics on Your Podcast?
Host: Daniel J. Lewis
Release Date: July 8, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Daniel J. Lewis addresses a common yet nuanced question for podcasters: “Should you repeat topics on your podcast?” Drawing inspiration from his own recent experience of nearly duplicating an episode topic, Daniel explores when and why it might be appropriate—and even beneficial—to cover the same subject more than once. He frames the discussion around four key questions to guide creators’ decision-making, while encouraging critical self-reflection based on audience needs and personal podcasting goals.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Framing the Dilemma (00:00–02:02)

Daniel sets up the episode by recounting how he almost reused both a topic and its URL from several years prior, prompting him to question the appropriateness of repeating topics.
He establishes that, as with many podcasting decisions, the answer to whether you should repeat a topic “really depends on you, your podcast, and your audience.” (01:30)

2. Four Critical Questions to Ask Before Repeating a Topic

1. Do You Have More to Add? (02:03–05:30)

If you’ve gained new insights, received audience feedback, or thought of additional content, it can be valuable to revisit a topic.
“Maybe your audience has follow-up questions…and you want to do a follow-up episode, still covering the same topic but now you have more to add to it.” (03:10)
Daniel notes the difference between adding substantial new value versus just rewording the same content.
If the topic is especially timely or situational, it may warrant a fresh take.

2. Is Your Original Episode Still Available? (05:31–08:07)

Some podcast feeds only show a limited number of recent episodes, so your original discussion might not be discoverable for new listeners.
“If your original episode about that topic is no longer in your RSS feed, then I think that gives you more of a sort of permission or grace to publish…repeated or reworded…content that might be the same topic as before.” (06:30)
Repeating topics can help bridge that accessibility gap for newer audience members.

3. How Much Time Has Passed? (08:08–10:12)

Time is an important factor. The more time has elapsed, the more justified a revisit becomes.
Audience turnover and forgetfulness mean much of your current listenership may not remember or ever have heard the original episode.
“If years have passed and maybe you have a more refined perspective on the topic, maybe you have more experience…you are essentially talking about the same topic, but a lot of time has passed and now you're adding more to that topic.” (09:05)
Daniel combines this point with the idea of updates—sharing results or changed opinions years later.

4. Do You Have a Different Approach to the Topic? (10:13–15:45)

New formats, perspectives, or experiences can justify returning to a topic, even if the core subject is the same.
“Maybe your first episode about the topic was an interview…now you want to talk about the same topic, but from the perspective of your experience.” (11:20)
Changing your mind and sharing an updated stance can provide significant value (e.g., Daniel’s changing opinion on episode numbers).
Bringing in guests, roundtable discussions, or deep dives are all ways to present familiar material from fresh angles.

3. Combining and Applying the Framework (15:46–18:45)

The four key questions often overlap and can be combined for more nuanced decisions.
Daniel recaps the questions and empowers listeners to adjust their approach based on their unique situation, ongoing growth, and evolving podcast strategy.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“When the question involves the word should, the answer really depends on you, your podcast, and your audience.” — Daniel J. Lewis (01:33)
“If it's just something you feel you want to say the same basic stuff over again, maybe worded slightly differently, that might not be the time to actually publish a new episode.” (04:12)
“If your original episode about that topic is no longer in your RSS feed, then…I think that gives you more of a sort of permission or grace to publish…content that might be the same topic as before.” (06:30)
“It's also likely because of the way that the audience flows in and out…your audience might not know the original content you shared. Either they have forgotten it or they've never listened to it.” (09:32)
“It's okay to cover the same topic from multiple approaches or whatever term you feel best applies to what it is you're doing. I like to use the term approach because that can encompass many different things.” (13:22)

Important Timestamps

00:00–02:02 — Origin of the episode topic; setting the theme.
02:03–05:30 — Question 1: Do you have more to add?
05:31–08:07 — Question 2: Is your original episode still available?
08:08–10:12 — Question 3: How much time has passed?
10:13–15:45 — Question 4: Do you have a different approach to the topic?
15:46–18:45 — Recap and combining the framework.

Conclusion & Takeaway

Daniel’s advice throughout the episode emphasizes that repeating topics is not only permissible, but sometimes advisable, provided you are adding value, adapting to audience needs, or bringing fresh insight and experience. The four-question framework offers podcasters a practical guide to evaluating each situation on its own merits, while his conversational tone and transparency about his own thought process model the reflective decision-making he encourages.

For more resources, tools, and to support Daniel’s work, listeners are directed to the episode notes and related websites mentioned during the show.

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Transcript1 lines

[00:01]
A
Should you repeat topics on your podcast? Thank you for joining me for the Audacity to Podcast. I'm Daniel J. Lewis. You can now tune your orchestra to the Audacity to Podcast because this is my 440th episode, so it's in concert pitch. Now that aside, if you've done your podcast long enough, there might be a moment where you're thinking of talking about something that you have talked about before. In fact, what inspired this was my previous episode where I talked about 10 ways to celebrate the independence of podcasting. And while I was preparing that episode and while I was recording that episode, and even when it came to sharing a URL for the episode, I kept having the thought in my mind, haven't I talked about independence before? And in fact haven't. Haven't I used slash independence as a URL before? But I went ahead with the episode because I felt it was different enough and I had some stuff on my mind that I wanted to share with you and I hope you really appreciated that episode. If you haven't, go back and listen to it please. Episode439 but after I finished it, then when I started doing some of the post production work and things and I checked to see if that slash independence URL was available, it was not because I had done an episode about the independence of podcasting several years before that. So immediately I knew this needs to be my next topic of should you repeat topics on your podcast? If you've covered something before, is it okay to cover it again? And when should you do that or not do that? So like many things in podcasting, when the question involves the word should, the answer really depends on you, your podcast, and your audience. So I'm not going to give you an explicit answer here, but I am going to give you some more questions to help you figure out what answer is right for you, your podcast, and your audience. You can follow along in the notes for this episode a simple tap or swipe away. Look at the chapters to see the outline. Powered by podchapters.com of course. Or go to the audacitytopodcast.com/remake topics Number one do you have more to add? If you've covered something in the past, maybe you've had more thoughts since you published that episode and that could be the very next day after you published the episode. You start thinking, oh man, I should have mentioned this and this and I didn't think about that. Or it could be something inspired by feedback from your audience. Maybe your audience raises issues to you of some things that you hadn't considered and you realize, well, this is really good stuff, I should have included that. And you think about adding more to that conversation. Or maybe your audience has follow up questions to the content that you shared and you want to do a follow up episode, still covering the same topic and talking more about that topic, but now you have more to add to it. And there could be many other things to this. Even sometimes just with time, we tend to come up with more ideas or maybe even better ideas. So you might have more to add to the topic. If you do, then maybe it would be good to repeat the topic. If it's just something you feel you want to say the same basic stuff over again, maybe worded slightly differently, that might not be the time to actually publish a new episode. Or if it's something that's more time sensitive and timely in this current day and age for whatever is going on in the world, you feel like this particular topic is fresh again. Should you rerecord just because it's around the time that it's more relevant? That's up to you. Maybe so, because maybe you have more tie ins with whatever's going on in the present. Or maybe you decide to just tell everyone about the old episode. Or maybe you even do a rerun of the old episode. Reruns, however, are a completely separate topic which I will cover in a future episode very soon. So number one question, do you have more to add? Number two, is your original episode still available? Depending on the publishing tool that you use for your podcast, you might have a limit on how many episodes are available in your RSS feed. You look at some of the original podcasts out there, like this Week in Tech or many of the others, and they often limit the number of episodes in their RSS feed so that when you look at their podcast Inside of Apple podcast, they might have published thousands of episodes by now, but you see only the latest, ten, fifty, a hundred, whatever that limit is. That's because they're limiting how much goes into their RSS feed. There's a good reason to do that, and maybe some not so good reasons to do that. I've got some links in the notes and chapter for this section to more information, helping you to decide when you should limit your RSS feed and some of the costs to that. But in this case, as it regards talking about the same topics again in your podcast, if your original episode about that topic is no longer in your RSS feed, then I think that gives you more of a sort of permission or grace to publish more content or kind of repeated or reworded, rephrased, reproduced content that might be the same topic as before. Consider that someone coming to your podcast right now, looking through your episodes might not see that original episode at all in your podcast RSS feed if it's limited to how many episodes you have and it was done so long ago, or your limit is so small that that topic is no longer available in your podcast as far as the podcast apps are concerned. So in that case it might be a good idea to either rerun the episode again. Reruns are a separate topic, but it might be good to either rerun the episode or record a fresh take on the same topic even though you've already covered the topic, but that topic is no longer in your RSS feed and it seems then like it's no longer in your podcast if it's not available in the podcast apps. And then that leads naturally into question number three. How much time has passed? If it's been a couple of weeks and you want to cover the same topic again, most likely I'm going to guess you have more to add to it or you're doing some kind of follow up based on audience feedback. And that can be great to do. You don't have to cover all the same information. You might do a super quick review or just refer people back to that previous episode to get more of the information. Just keep in mind, try to make sure that your episodes present all of their value consumed as standalone episodes. Unless your podcast is a serialized podcast where people have to listen to one episode after the other in the very specific order that you release it in. That's not only for storytelling podcasts, by the way, whether that's fiction or nonfiction. It could also be educational things like lesson one, lesson two, lesson three, where each lesson builds on the previous one, and in your podcast, each podcast episode builds on the previous one, requiring that previous knowledge. But if a lot of time has passed and people have forgotten what you've talked about in that original episode, even if it's still in your RSS feed, then maybe yes, it would be an appropriate time for you to talk about it again. Especially if years have passed and maybe you have a more refined perspective on the topic, maybe you have more experience with the topic. So even though you want to talk about the same topic, it's now with something more to add to. Could be the update. Maybe the episode years ago was teaching a particular method and now after several years of practicing that method, you want to share results. So. So you are essentially talking about the same topic, but a lot of time has passed and now you're adding more to that topic. So this is combining number one and number three. So how much time has passed? It's also likely because of the way that the audience flows in and out, and let's be honest, our forgetfulness with the content that we've consumed, that your audience might not know the original content you shared. Either they have forgotten it or they've never listened to it, because maybe your audience came long after that content was available. So if you release more content on that same topic, that might be okay. And question four. Do you have a different approach to the topic? Now, this presents all kinds of opportunity for you. Just look at how many times I've talked about episode numbers or the word of the month apparently, or season. Right now for me is topic. Look at my episode titles for the last several episodes and you'll see the word topic in it, like multi topic. And this now is talking about repeating topics and such. But there can be many times where you think of a different way that you want to approach the topic, whether that's a completely different format for your episode. Maybe your first episode about the topic was an interview and you spoke with an expert on that topic. Now you want to talk about the same topic, but from the perspective of your experience with that topic. So you not only have more to add to the topic, but also a completely different approach. Maybe you've changed your mind on that topic. Like I changed my mind on episode numbers many years ago. I essentially said episode numbers are unnecessary for most podcasts. Now I see more uses for episode numbers. So I've changed my mind on certain aspects of that, and that's why I released other content about that topic. Same topic, different approach. Maybe you want to do an interview or have a guest on to do a roundtable talking about that same topic, more perspectives on it. Maybe it's your audience feedback, their experience with it, more of their thoughts with it. This combines a lot of the other ideas and you can do this years later. You could do this in the very next episode, still talking about the same topic, but with a different approach. Whether that is a slightly different approach, with other experience, other insight, more in depth, or a completely different approach. It's okay to cover the same topic from multiple approaches or whatever term you feel best applies to what it is you're doing. I like to use the term approach because that can encompass many different things. Your style, your perspective, your experience, your presentation. Method and much more. So maybe you want to cover that same thing, but now with a different approach, could be even the same thoughts, but presented in a completely different way. And there could be a time for that how similar the content is. However, I suggest not keeping it very close together with the original content. In time that is. But if you have a different approach, most likely you're going to say completely different things, even if it's the same core topic. I just think about podcasting and if we talk about something like episode titles, how many different approaches there are to talking about episode titles. I've talked about several with the Audacity to podcast certain things like how to use episode numbers in your titles, how to combine numbers with episode numbers in your titles, how to use season numbers and such in your titles, how to how to do SEO with your podcast, episode titles, and much more. It's all about episode titles, but different approaches, different perspectives, different applications of each of those. So when you're thinking about whether you should repeat topics on your podcast, doing an episode about something you have already talked about in the past, I think it really comes down to these four questions. There are many other questions you could ask yourself to figure out whether you should do it or how you should do it, but I think it comes down to these four Number one, do you have more to add? Number two is your original episode still available? Number three how much time has passed? And number four do you have a different approach to the topic now? If this information has helped you, I'd appreciate if you consider how much it's worth to you, how much the Audacity to Podcast is worth to you, how much time it saves you, how much money maybe it saves you, and consider giving back whatever that's worth to you. You can do that over@the audacitytopie podcast.com giveback. Or if you want to buy something from me, go over to podchapters.com and transcribe and chapter your podcast faster and better than ever before. Or supercharge your podcast engagement with Podgagement.com now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of the tools, it's time for you to go start and grow your own podcast for passion and profit. I'm Daniel J. Lewis from the audacitytopodcast.com thanks for watching. Listening.