← The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
E605 - A Free Health Scorecard for Podcasting from PodMatch - How Healthy is Podcasting
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Okay, we're rolling. Hey, welcome back to the how to Podcast series. Glad to have you here. I love finding tools that help podcasters and one of the tools I reference all the time. I don't talk about it here often enough, so that's why I'm doing it today. But I look at it all the time and it's free, completely free from podmatch. You don't have to have an account to get to this website, but I would encourage you. We'll talk about that in a moment. But I. I'd encourage you to consider PodMatch as a podcaster. It's great. So anyway, so the website is podmatch.com report and this is a free report put out by Alex and his amazing team there at podmatch. And it is like a health check on podcasting from multiple different sources. And Alex and his team pulls this together, provides a really a one pager what's happening in podcasting. And you can actually manipulate it as well and go back for a couple months as well to kind of see what's been happening for the past few months in the podcasting world and it gives you some great insight. So I'm going to break down currently what's available on podmatch.com report as I see it today in February. But again, remember, this could change in the future and Alex is known for bringing more and more and more value. This could change as far as the appearance and what they offer in the future. But I can tell you if it's changed, it's changed for a good reason. So go there often. I would encourage you to go there the beginning of the month, every month and look back at the previous month for podcasting. Even if you're just enjoying podcasting as a hobby. And this isn't meant to be a business. This isn't meant to drive income. This is not your job. Podcasting isn't your job. It's just your passion. You love doing this, right? You just love being a podcaster. I think understanding the podcast community is a bonus for you. And some of this information I think could be really motivating for you as well. And clarify some of the noise in podcasting because you're going to hear, if you listen to any kind of podcast about podcasting, a lot of noise and a lot of misinformation, a lot of information that's biased depending on the host and what they're promoting and their affiliate links and all that. This is a free website, so there's. I'm not getting anything from this. I just encourage you to go check out podmatch.com report and again to Alex and your team, thank you so much for all you do for podcasters hosting us as podcasters as guests on podmatch.com but also this reports feature is outstanding and Alex has been doing this for a very long time and Alex is somebody I trust. So if you want good information on a regular basis then you're going to want to go back to this report often and just keep your thumb on what's happening in podcasting. So again to the Pod Match team, thank you. We're going to jump into what I'm seeing for January of 2026 based on podmatch.com report. Let's talk about this if you want to know more about Alex and his journey with PodMatch. Episode 310 of the how to Podcast series Alex was on and a great a great conversation with somebody I really really admire and I would love for you to go check out that episode and give give it a listen. It's also available on YouTube as video podcast so you can see Alex and his amazing setup as well. I want you to note when you Listen to episode 310 Listen to Once I introduce Alex, listen to what he says about this show. Not because I want to glorify my podcast, but I want you to show I want to show you how he shows up as a guest and I've listened to him and watched him on other shows and he does this for everyone. Like what a genuine person. He comes in with praise for the show. He does his homework. He knows what he's talking about. He knows the show that he is a guest on. It's a valuable lesson from a guest perspective. If you want to be a better guest, I want you to model how Alex shows up in any episode. You can go on YouTube, search up or even on your podcast app, just type in Alex Sanfilippo and and you will see how he shows up on every podcast he comes to serve and again makes him stand out in a world of people who just seem to be all about themselves. Alex is all about you as the host when he comes on your show. If you haven't had him on your show and your podcast has anything to do with what Alex can talk to, then then reach out to him. A man who serves. It's great. Episode 310. Go check it out. So again reminder, this is February so I'm look February's numbers aren't available yet because it's Still February. So I'm looking at January 2026. And as I come on to podmatch.com report, I get to see kind of like a, an overview of the podcasting community. So right off the bat it just says podcasting industry reports specifically for independent. This is very key. Alex scrubs out some of those big celebrity podcasts because they are heavily weighted and they really skew the numbers. So this is designed for independent podcasters. Okay. So keep that in mind. And it says for January 2026 at the what I'm looking at on my screen, this report. And I love that he has this in here. Provides interview based independent podcast hosts and podcast guests with relevant industry insights by excluding data from celebrity and big network shows. So this is great. And the first number I see at the top of the screen is the total number of actively established podcast. These are non celebrity independent interview based podcasters with 100 plus episodes and a release cadence of at least 10 days or less. So the show would definitely fall in there. So this number is the number of actively established podcasters. And for January 2026 it's 36,344. That's not a huge number, by the way. There are more listeners than there are active podcasters. Keep that in mind. Actively established is how Alex and his team calls this. So 336,344 at the time of recording for January 2026. And then he's got four categories here, which is interesting. He breaks this down as a high level summary and survey some of what's going on in podcasting. He has the overall industry buzz, the listenership health, podcasters health and podcasting opportunity. So of overall industry buzz, this is where he talks about podcasts are trending at 81% on search engines, which is awesome. So he's giving that a medium rating. And then leadership listeners or listenership health, he has it as high 619 million podcast listeners estimated for 2026. And then podcasters health, he has him and his team are showing it as low. And what he's highlighting is his extremely high failure rate with limited clear success paths for podcasters. Interesting. And then podcasting opportunity has rated at very high for January 2026. There has never been a better time to start a podcast. And I totally agree with him. As you scroll down, you're going to see podcasting industry totals and there's a little dropdown menu as well. And you can go back at this point to January 2026, December 2025 and November 2025. And it'll automatically update the information showing on the screen. So the podcasting industry totals for January 2026, podcast listenership is rapidly increasing, but the number of active podcasts has not changed, making podcasting a non saturated industry. I get this all the time, Dave. There's so many podcasts, why should I start one? Well, there are over almost 3 million podcasts in the podcasting space. That's a lot. And that's what people go, oh my gosh. There's no, there's no point. But only 398,536 are actually active out of the 2.9 million. So there's a lot of podcasts that are just dormant now. This could be podcasts that have created a short run podcast, beginning, middle and end. We talk about this 5, 10 episodes and then they move on to a new show. The show is good, the content still fine. They're just not producing on a regular, active basis into the future. Regular cadence. Okay, so that's the qualification there. Keep that in mind. It's only 13.3% of the total podcasts are actually active right now. That's the podcast industry totals. Then it jumps down again. Drop down menu available to go back a few months as well. But the independent interview based podcaster totals. This is the most. Interview based podcasters fail to achieve the total. The goal, sorry, the goal for their show due to quitting prematurely or inconsistent episode releases. So right now there's a total of 598,502 interview based podcasters and only 121,148 are actually active. So only 20.2% are active for interview based podcasters. There you go. So the, the amount of competition you have is smaller than you think. And then if you break it down into your subtopic like what you talk about, then it might even be less than that. Way less than that. So don't be overwhelmed by those big numbers and think there's no room for you in podcasting, because there is. The next section that he talks about is chances of success and failure as a podcaster. And again, you can change the drop down menu to go back a couple other months as well. But for January 2026, on average, he has written here, it takes two years and 100 episodes released before podcasters see results. 94.2% quit before reaching this point. 94% don't get to 100 episodes. Wow. So episode milestone and chance of reaching the milestone is how he breaks this out. And for people to get to eight episodes. The chance of reaching this milestone is 37.84%. To get to eight episodes. I'm working with podcasters. I get you to 10. That's my goal. I want to get you into the double digits and I work with you hand to hand. One. One on one. We go through and we build out your content. We help you and encourage you through your recording. I'll even help you with your editing. Let's get you to 10 episodes, because once you get to 10, you'll be in double digits from 10 all the way to 99. You're in a good spot. So let's get you past that eight episode hump where 37.84 get to eight episodes. Come on, let's help you with that. The next one is 50 episodes. 9.31% of podcasters get to 50 episodes. A hundred episodes, it drops down to 5.8% of podcasters get to a hundred episodes released. And if you do a daily or do we weekly episodes over. Over that your podcast, that's like two years roughly, right? 52 a year. So 5.8% get to a hundred, you go to 200 episodes, only 2.74% get to get to 200. And if you want all the way to 300 episodes, 1.79% of podcasters get to 300 episodes. Now, again, your goal for your show might be to do 10 episodes. So this is not relevant for you, but if you're doing an ongoing podcast, like I'm doing here, I'm doing 300 episodes, 365 episodes this year. So keep that in mind. So, Approximately, according to podmatch.com report, approximately 1325 podcasters quit every single day. Wow. Wow. So keep that in mind. That's pretty interesting. And another little call out he has here is the average time before pod fade. Podcasters who use PodMatch keep their podcast going 704% longer than the industry average. And what's happening right now, 39 days in the industry before Podfade. And if you're on Podmatch, 313 days before Podfade, that's quite interesting. Alex and his team then break out what they call actively established podcast and what they have written for January is only 6% of independent podcasters are considered actively established, yet they account for 95% of the total podcast listenership. Wow. So only 1.21% of all podcasts are part of the actively established category. There's only 36,344 actively established podcasts, meaning Creating content on a regular basis, putting it out there into the world. Wow, there's a lot of room in podcasting. You're not too late. There's a beta thing happening here for podcast guesting health and it's the guest host ratio. Data must be closely monitored because it's biggest threat to the future of podcasting industry due to the lack of balance. Note this data isn't easy to gather, but we're working on it accurately providing it. So this is what they're working on. Serious podcast guests and hosts use podmatch.com to connect for higher quality interviews and to streamline the process. At this point for January 2026, 4.8 million guests looking to be on a podcast. 4.8 million guests are looking to get on shows. Podcast seeking guests is 100,682. So that means every podcast has an average of 47 people reaching out every day requesting to be a guest. That's why I like Pod Match because it helps to kind of streamline what I'm doing. I get a lot of emails, a lot. And with 4.8 million guests looking to be on podcasts and only a hundred thousand podcast accepting guests, there are, there's a huge opportunity. So if you're thinking about starting a show in 2026 and you don't know what to do, you love talking to people, you're a curious person. An interview based podcast would help, would really help to fill the need because there's more people wanting to be on guests be a guest on a podcast than there are podcasts to be a guest on. So keep that in mind. Average podcasts I guess appear on per month in the industry one and through Pod Match five guests who use Pod Match get featured 438% more on more podcasts. Another breakdown we get through podcasts podmatch.com Report is the podcast listenership industry averages. This is downloads. There's a little note here saying downloads are not everything nor are they essential to podcasting success. Yes, however, gaining perspective on the reality of where your podcast is can be encouraging. So a podcast listener is 100 times more valuable than an engagement on social media. Podcasting is comparable to public speaking. So this is where they break down the percentages of what a topic podcast is. And this differs from some other websites that people love to quote, but they really give a false narrative of what's happening. We won't name it because I don't want to send people there. But I anytime I hear somebody using I'm a top 5% podcast. I usually ask where they're getting that number from, and it's not correct. This is where I would come from. Come to for information. They're pulling this from buzzsprout specifically. Here's where we get to go into downloads and you know my thoughts, so don't hyper fixate on this, but here's where we go to be a top 50% podcast. How many downloads do you need in the first seven days of a release? A single podcast release. Not a group of episodes over seven days. One, one episode. So your episode went live today. In the next seven days, how many listens downloads do you need to be in the top 50? You need 29. 29 plays of your podcast and you're in the top 50% of podcasters. 29. That's not a big number. That's a workable number. You something we can work towards to get you into the top 50% if you want to be in the top 25%. How many downloads do you need for a single episode in seven days? According to January's numbers, 107 downloads will get you in the top 25. What if you want to be in the top 10? Ooh, the top 10. Here we go. How many episodes, how many downloads do you need in the first seven days to be in the top 10? 433. So when somebody tells me that I'm in the top 10 or better, my question to them is, how many downloads have you had on your most recent episode in the last seven days? And if they tell me anything other than 433, they're getting their numbers from the wrong place. So, you know, what about the top 5%? A lot of people want to be in the top five. You need 1047 downloads in seven days for one episode. Not all one. One episode has to get 1047 downloads in seven days to qualify you as a top 5% according to Buzzsprout. Now, here's the number that everybody loves to use. I'm a top 1% podcast globally. It's a very hard number to substantiate, but here, through Buzzsprout's numbers featured on PodMesh.com report. If you want to be a top 1% podcast, how many downloads do you think you need in the first seven days for a single episode? One episode, seven days. How many downloads you need to be in the top 1%? 4,721 downloads in seven days for a single episode. Not spread over multiple episodes. One episode. So when somebody tells me I'm in the top 1% of global podcasts. I asked them how many downloads on your last episode in the last seven days and if it's not 4721, I question that number. Just keep that in mind. We all love making money with our podcast, right? Some of us were like, yeah, I really want to do this. They have the a breakout for the average monthly income for podcasters. Estimated income from ads and sponsorships based on a $46.30 cost per milli which is cost per thousand for weekly interview based podcasts industry right now is $5.79 and through PodMatch $34.55. The average podcaster on Pod Patch earns 496.7% more than the industry average for a podcaster. So if you want to make money with your show, Pod Match is great. There's ways to earn money. You can actually pay for your account through how you use PodMatch. So be an active participant, get certain people on your show that through Pod Match you'll see that and you can actually make money with your show. Time spent on podcast production hmm, this is interesting. Numbers based on interview based podcast releasing one episode per week, averaging five hours of production. The industry average 22 hours monthly and pod match hours nine hours monthly. Podcasters who use podcast pod match reclaim 59% or three hours of of their time per episode spent on production. So you want to save some time, use a tool like podmatch. Another thing I love too here is they break down the how podcasters share episodes with listeners. And through PodMatch they've asked 289 random podcasters to send us a link to their podcasts so we can listen. And here's the list of the top 10 platforms that podcasters responded with. The first was Spotify. The second, no link or broken link. It didn't even work. The third apple, YouTube was number four, Buzzsprout number five, somebody's own website number six, which I love. That's what I do. Podbean was one of the next one rss.com substack and number 10 was 12 other platforms. 84.4% of podcasters sent listeners to platforms with low accessibility. So keep this in mind. My suggestion, Pod Link Pod Pod Link allows your audience to pick the app they want to go to rather than the app that you're sending them to. So keep that in mind. So this is the podcast podmatch.com report. Love for you to go check it out. One other thing they provide Here is podcast hosting providers ranked by their ability to serve and support independent podcasters. You can go see the whole list, but I'll give you the top five. So the top five in order, number one is Captivate. Number two is Buzzbro. Number three, red circle. Number four is Transistor, and number five is Acast. The last one on the list according to this would be Spotify for creators. There you go. So that gives you an idea. You can go check that out anytime again through the link podmatch.com report so my big takeaway for all of us here on the how to Podcast series is that there are still room for you. There's a big need for interview based podcasts. As much as people are downplaying it as important, I still see it as a valuable way to build your community, build your connections, grow your, your influence in the world and in your space, in your topic, your genre, your niche. It's a great way to build that. Tools like Pod Match helps for sure. And there is a big need for more people to create interview based podcasts. I hear a lot of gurus telling you to stop doing interviews and just do solo episodes. It's fine if you have a product or service to sell, but if you don't and you're a curious person and you just want to meet people, then come on, create a podcast. Your guest is the star of the show and you need to develop your interview skills. If you have a journalism background, if you love asking questions, your show could be amazing. So there's a big need for more interview based podcasts. If you want to create that and you want to create a show, that might be the way to start and start with an interview space podcast. So that's one thing I'm picking up on. There's a. There's more podcast listeners than there are podcasters. So this whole idea that you're too late to be a podcaster is false. We need you. We need more of you. So don't think that there's no room for you. It might seem noisy, it might seem crowded. You go to a convention or an event and there's just all these people, you're like, oh my gosh, how am I ever going to be found? Not everybody in that room is an active podcaster. Just keep that in mind. So what you do and how you show up, how you create content is great. And the one thing I would remind you is that nobody else can do your show. You are you and nobody else has ever been you before. So your approach to Your topic and how you interview, how you do your solo episodes, how you create content, how you connect with people, your stories, your history, what you've read, what you know, your life lessons, your failures, your successes make you different than everyone else. So if you feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of podcasts, keep in mind that only a small fraction are actually active. So you're only competing with active shows, and you're really only competing with active shows in your group. You're not competing with every Octo show, so keep that in mind. There's a lot of great things coming in podcasting and I think understanding and keeping your. Your thumb on the pulse of what's happening in podcasting through podmatch.com report. It's a great starting point and I love that Alex and his team provide this for us for free. And it's worth checking out if you want to sign up for PodMatch. I have my affiliate link in the notes, and if you use my link, then that's great. I might make a little bit back and I appreciate that. But it's in there for you and I'd love for you to come over and join me there. You can find me and my show there. I mentioned at the beginning, a little bonus. I would say to every podcaster, there's just two options when you sign up for Podmatch. You can sign up as a podcast host. You can sign up as a podcast guest. I would encourage every podcaster who has interviews to sign up on podmatch.com as a podcast host. It's like less than $10 for me. $6, I think Canadian translates to 12 with exchange, but it's $6 US for me. And what it is is I'm investing $6 a month into advertising my podcast. I could advertise my podcast on other players and get banner ads and advertise on Facebook and throw my money into the void. Will anybody ever see it? I have no idea. But when I advertise through PodMatch by having my show on PodMatch, there's a more likely chance that people are going to find my show to be a guest or just to listen. Because I'm there, because my show gets offered up to other people as I'm an active user on podmatch. So sign up, get your show on there. Less than $10 a month. Try it. Try it for a few months, six months a year, try it and invest in your show. Six dollars. Come on. And at least you'll be in front of other podcasters and podcast Guests. The big thing about podmatch, I would encourage you when you sign up is be active, don't sign up and never come back. They will actually remove you at some point. And inactive people just clog up the system because nobody responds to your messages when it's inactive. So I love that they kind of do some house cleaning with the people that use PodMatch. So sign up. Sign up as a podcast host. Get your show on there. Your show will be featured to possible guests. Some will be great, some will not be. The app will learn through AI will learn who is a better guest for you over time. So by how you interact on PodMatch will help feed PodMatch to make it better for you and better experience. So have patience, be active, support the community. Also, go to Podcasting Made simple, which is a quarterly event through PodMatch where they feature guest speakers and topics for guests and topics for hosts to help you improve your podcast. It's a live event where you get to meet the people who are talking in the in the different sessions and then it's released later as a podcast, Podcasting Made Simple. So if you're interested, you want to know more or you just want to try the free report podcast podmatch.com/report links in the show notes, including my affiliate link. If you want to sign up for Pod Match, love for you to check that out. Come meet me there. If you sign up, come meet me there. Find me how to Podcast series is proudly featured on Pod Match. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for listening to the entirety of the episode, including this part. You know what, A lot of people leave right now, so we'll let them leave. Give them a second to go. Okay, now it's just you and me. We have our meetups that we do for the how to Podcast series. We do them during the week and we also do them on Saturdays. So twice a week you have the opportunity to meet other podcasters just like you. Some people have just started. Some people haven't even released an episode yet. Some have been doing it forever. And we get together and talk podcasting. We want to help you in community to continue with your show, to start your show, to grow your show, to come and meet listeners of this show in one space on meetup.com again through howtopodcast ca you'll see the links. It's completely free to join. Come whenever you have an opportunity to come. There's no commitment. You don't have to sign any waivers. You can just come join us. Come Join the conversation. We'd love to have you there because the only thing that's gonna make these meetups better is you being there. So I'm hoping you will say yes and you'll say, dave. I'm tired of podcasting by myself. I wish there was people I could connect with that are fellow podcasters and share my frustrations with guests who ghost me. And my editing software is crapping out on me and I'm just having this hard time. I'm just having a hard time coming up with podcasts, episodes and titles and all the things. And social media. Wouldn't it be great to get in a room with other podcasters and share best practices and learn? Three of our four Saturdays every month are themed, so you have a topic. Put that last Saturday of every month. It's an open question and answer. Ask anything. Come meet a podcaster. Come enjoy the podcasting community throughout a podcast. Ca come to our meetups. Can't wait to see you there. So I had the pleasure of being on PodMatch on podcasting made simple for their event. And my topic was about the audience and focusing on the audience and focusing on the people who are there and not overlooking them and focusing on the empty chairs. We really want our show and our podcast to connect with people, but we get so caught up in who's not listening to our show and we ignore the people who have assembled because they love what we do. So instead of focusing on the negative, focus on the positive. I want your show to be big. I want it to be huge. I want many people to listen. But when you look at your stats and you only see a handful of people and you feel discouraged because you're not reaching the masses, then it's just early for you. It's just early. You just need to focus on building. So pour into the people who follow your show. Pour into the people who leave you comments. Pour into the people who leave you a speak pipe or a buy me a coffee donation. Pour into the people who follow you. And don't worry about the people who haven't found you yet. Keep creating content. Keep your head down. Keep focused on building and getting better as a podcaster, as a better host, better interviewer, better solo content creator, better at social, better at promotion, whatever that is. Focus on that. The numbers will come. It's a long game. This isn't Instagram fame. This isn't TikTok Dance Wants fame. No, this is podcasting. It's different. So instead of trying to follow all the trends, just focus on you and creating great content. The numbers will come. They will. But you can't give up and you can't take an easy route that skips the hard work. It's not how it works. You need to focus on creating great content, showing up on a regular basis. That's where it's going to come from. So please keep going. We need more podcasters. Right now. There are more people wanting your content than there are podcasters to deliver it. So. So it's a perfect time to be a podcaster. Come join us. You need help at a podcast ca. Thanks for listening.