December 29, 2025 • 36 mins
What’s Happening in Podcasting: 2025 Highlights
• The Growing Market & Shifts in Listener Behavior
- Podcast audience numbers continue climbing: in 2025, over 584 million people listened to podcasts globally, and consumption habits are shifting. Riverside
- At the same time, more creators are embracing video podcasts — blending traditional audio with video content, to meet changing listener expectations and platform algorithms. EMARKETER+1
- The industry forecast remains strong: some estimates project the North American podcast market will expand significantly over the next decade. Yahoo Finance+1
• Business & Monetization Trends
- As competition grows, creators and podcast networks are exploring different monetization strategies — from subscriptions and listener support, to sponsorships and multi-format distribution. TechWyse Internet Marketing+1
- But 2025 hasn’t been smooth for everyone: Wondery — once among the leading podcast studios — underwent major restructuring, with layoffs and integration into broader corporate content teams. The Verge
• Recognition & Cultural Shifts for Podcasts
- For the first time ever, Golden Globe Awards introduced a “Best Podcast” category, acknowledging podcasts’ growing influence and mainstream cultural relevance. EW.com+1
- The move signals a broader shift: podcasts are no longer a fringe medium, but a respected form of entertainment and storytelling on par with film and TV.
• Platform Moves & Discovery Changes
- Spotify introduced new podcast-discovery features this year to boost podcasts’ visibility — a sign of how platforms continue to fight for listener attention. TechCrunch
- Meanwhile, Apple Podcasts dropped its 2025 “Top Charts” and “Top New Shows” lists — giving creators and listeners a fresh look at what’s trending globally and locally. Apple+1
🎯 What This Means for Independent Creators
- Visibility matters even more. With major platforms pushing discovery tools and new formats, it’s more important than ever to optimize for search, video distribution, and discoverability.
- Flexibility is key. As more listeners embrace video or multi-format podcasts, creators who adapt — for example, offering both audio and video versions — may gain a competitive advantage, but that isn’t guaranteed; audio is still special and leading.
- Diversified monetization can increase resilience. Audiences are expanding, but ad markets and studio budgets are shifting. Relying solely on traditional ad revenue is riskier than ever.
- Quality and consistency still win. Even with all the noise, creators who deliver regular, high-value content — whether audio, video, or both — remain relevant.
- Recognition for long-form storytellers and niche creators is growing. With podcasts entering award shows and mainstream entertainment conversations, creators have new opportunities to be discovered and validated beyond listener counts.
Our favorite shows of 2025:
Dave Worlds Beyond Number
MacKenzie Song Exploder
The best place for support with any Blubrry product or service is our ticket system. Tickets give the whole team access vs. direct emails or calls. General podcasting discussion and more can be shared on the Blubrry Podcasting Facebook group.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Podcast Insider. I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing
director here at Blueberry.
And I'm Mike Dell, vice president of customer
relations here at Blueberry.
And I'm Dave Clements, technical support and social
media specialist here at Blueberry. And today, as
we wrap up 2025,
we're gonna talk about the year and some
of the things that happened in podcasting.
(00:21):
You're listening to Podcast Insider, a weekly podcast
bringing insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks
to help you start, grow, and thrive through
podcasting with the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in.
And I'd like to congratulate Mackenzie on her
promotion to marketing director.
So, that's something that happened just recently here
(00:44):
in 2025.
Thank you.
Rounding out the year well.
Yeah. So,
there's a lot of things that happened this
year,
you know, in the in the industry.
And,
we put together a little list of things
and, some new stories, which we'll probably have
(01:04):
links to in the show notes.
But, why don't you kick it off, Dave?
Yeah. So kind of our first section here,
I guess, would be,
just the market,
and listening behavior.
So Riverside
reports that,
podcast audience numbers continue to climb.
(01:25):
In 2025,
over 584,000,000
people listen to podcasts
globally,
and consumption habits are shifting.
Yeah. And and what's cool about it is
thirty four percent in the,
in The US,
have listened to podcasts, and, you know, the
average is, like, eight point something percent
(01:48):
or 8.3
podcast episodes per week. So that's a little
higher than it's been. I'm kind of impressed
with that.
Yeah. Those are I think those are pretty
good numbers.
And we're definitely seeing video,
get into the podcast landscape. If anybody's been
paying attention
(02:09):
Yeah.
Video. Video. Video.
Yeah. YouTube took a big step,
in 2025.
So we're seeing a lot of those, and
Riverside is saying that more than half of
the shows,
are now posting full video on YouTube.
So I think that is from their
(02:30):
That must be from their, their customer base
because,
I we don't see that here. We you
know? Well, there's a a fair number.
But, Yeah. That's their platform's
information, I from what I gather. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, which makes sense when they do
video natively,
but, I think we see it as a
(02:51):
much smaller percentage.
Yeah. It it's video is one of those
things. It takes a lot more work to
do.
You know, now with something like Riverside where
it's kind of all packaged up for you,
that's it is a little easier.
But, you know, think about this. You know?
If I wanna do a podcast and I
(03:11):
don't feel like shaving or combing my hair
that morning, I don't you know, if I'm
doing video, I gotta do all that.
And, you know, for for women, it's probably
worse, you know, for, you know, getting ready
to be camera ready.
That is correct. Yeah. And, you know, it's
like, you know, why why do we need
to do that if you don't want to?
Now there's nothing at all wrong with that.
(03:34):
Again, you know, I I I have lots
of strong opinions. I'll try to keep to
myself here. But
I also have strong opinions
about being the one on video.
That is not something I have any interest
in whatsoever.
And
it's, you know, it's whatever you're comfortable with
having your face, your
(03:56):
your reputation,
your
name, everything out there to the public like
that.
That's just another that's going video is another
level past an audio podcast for sure. Right.
And do what you're good at.
You know, if you're good at audio but,
freeze up on a camera, don't turn on
the camera. I mean, you know, do if
(04:17):
you wanna do some, like, video clips or
whatever, do animations
or slide shows or something like that, you
know, as far as promotional ways. But,
you know, you don't have to do video
or at least you don't have to be
on camera.
Yeah. We just published a YouTube video probably
a month or two ago specifically about,
(04:39):
video podcasting and should you do it. And
the conclusion, if you want the TLDR, is
basically, if you have time,
do it. If you're comfortable, do it, but
don't feel like you have to.
Right. You know, there's plenty of podcasts. You
know?
Anecdotally,
I you know, I don't have any hard
data on this, but anecdotally,
podcasts
(04:59):
listening slash
viewing. You know? So there's some podcasts that
I know of that do both a full
video version and a full audio version,
via RSS. And via RSS, it's about 10%
watch the video
and 90%
listen to the audio,
(05:20):
which still is pretty good. You get 10%
more audience on video, you know, but, you
know, the the percentage isn't really you know,
when they say the the juice isn't worth
the squeeze.
Yeah. You know? But then, you know, these
these particular shows also post on YouTube, x,
Facebook, whatever, so they get some additional views
(05:41):
that way, which aren't reflected in their podcast
stats. But still, it's a smaller percentage that
watch
rather than listen. And a lot of people
on YouTube and and,
one of our teammates, Sean,
says he's kinda doing that a lot now
is he does watch the video version of
a podcast
on YouTube, but he's generally not looking at
(06:01):
the screen.
He's listening
and doing something else, and every once in
a while, I might look up at the
screen.
So, you know, just because they listen on
YouTube
doesn't mean they're actually paying attention to what's
on the screen. So that's Mhmm. You know,
just like these are anecdotal. I don't have
any hard evidence of any of this, but,
you know, just just my gut feeling and
(06:23):
from what I've seen.
But,
anyway, let's press on here.
So the industry
itself
is is doing good. It's doing well,
quote, unquote, remains strong.
There is
you know,
we took a dip, I think, just for
(06:45):
a cup for a year or two there,
the industry with
a dip in listeners
and creators,
but I think that was you know,
we spiked,
in the beginning of 2020
and into '21, and then things kinda started
to dip for a while in '22, '23,
(07:06):
twenty four ish. But this year this year
was okay. Yeah. That's
that's good. We're we're gaining podcasters,
and we're gaining podcast listeners. And, actually, the
listener side is growing more than the podcaster
side,
but, you know, both are doing fine.
Again,
you know, the the barrier to entry into
(07:28):
podcasting,
especially with just audio, is
Mhmm. Is it's low now.
I mean, you can
jump on Blueberry and in ten minutes, get
your feed put together, record something.
All the editing tools are so much better
than they used to be.
Oh, yeah. You know, all of that stuff,
distribution,
(07:49):
you know, we've we've just revamped our our
destinations
to where a lot of those are just
one click. One click, agree to this, you
know, hit apply, you're you're on. You know,
Apple, Spotify, Index, you know, the the three
major ones, and then all the other ones
are are fairly easy to do. And, you
(08:09):
know, that wasn't the case five years ago.
Yeah. So Yeah. Waiting a week to see
if you're gonna be on Apple or
or something like that. Those days are over.
That's that's pretty quick now. So,
I I don't know. I I kind of
expect to see
more podcasters coming into the space because it
is easier. You know, we've got microphones that
(08:32):
plug right into your iPhone that actually sound
pretty good. Mhmm. They're, you know, maybe not
studio level,
but they're probably the equivalent to what we
were using Good enough. Eight years ago.
Good enough. They're not the yeah. They're not
the stick microphones that sounded like you talking
into a wet paper bag.
Or,
(08:52):
earbuds like, Dave was last week on this
up on this show.
Yeah. I just gotta pick on you a
little bit. Didn't sound bad.
You know, one of the other things I've
seen,
is ads.
You know, the
the thing about ads
is, you know, they're
(09:13):
like, Edison came out with
a research that people don't mind listening to
ads. Well, you didn't talk to me. I
promise you.
You know? I I understand the need for
ads. I understand, you know, our casters gotta
make money,
you know, if they wanna keep doing this,
you know, and there's businesses out there that
(09:34):
that's what they do is, make money from
ads on podcast. I get that.
And I will put up with a certain
amount of that, but
some of it is getting to the point
of ridiculous.
Sorry. I had a rant on my regular
show the other day about that.
Anyway
but,
you know, creators and podcast networks exploring different
(09:56):
monetization
strategies other than ads, like, subscriptions,
listener support sponsorships,
value for value, not the Bitcoin kind, but
just, you know, we provide value, send us
some money for the value, you know, that
kind of thing.
Yeah. I'd much rather do that than get
involved in Bitcoin.
(10:16):
Yeah. Exactly. You know? But, you know,
I I do that. I have a couple
of Patreon
people that I support because I like their
YouTube channel or I like their podcast.
And that's a much better way than getting
a whole bunch of ads.
And, you know, and then it works out
for the creators too. But ads are fine.
(10:37):
Again, you know, if that's what you wanna
do, do it. You know, we have some
tools to help you get ads for your
show, and
and, you know, it's all good. But, again,
you know, there's a certain number of audience
members that are not gonna put up with
that.
So I think part of my
ad reasoning,
you know, whether I'm on
(10:58):
the the okay side or the annoyed side
of it is what is the quality of
this episode that I'm listening to
and overall the show as well.
If if it doesn't sound great, if it's
not, you know, well
thought out, if they're just kinda rambling, if
they're doing all that stuff,
I'm I'm gonna get sick of the ads.
(11:20):
If it is professionally done, if it sounds
amazing, if it, you know, came out
at a timely
place during the week, like, you know, if
it's news and it's relevant and, like, this
is actually good information I wanted right now,
I don't care if there's ads because this
is free.
Yeah. And some of them do the ads.
It goes back and forth. And some of
(11:40):
them do the ads really well. You know?
Right. And that's that's the other thing. You
know?
There's
some platforms out there that have programmatic ads,
YouTube being one of them,
where if you don't pay YouTube to get
rid of the ads, they you know, somebody's
in the middle of a sentence and this
irrelevant ad comes in there.
(12:00):
Yeah. Now if I'm listening to, you know,
something from,
I don't know, 99%
Invisible is one of the shows I listen
to, and they do the ads really well.
They they read them. You know, you would
think it's part of the show,
and they're always relevant to whatever they're talking
about or at least in the subject matter.
That's exactly what I mean when I say
(12:22):
I don't care. So if if I have
some advice for people who wanna monetize their
show.
Get really good at ads.
You need to practice doing these. This isn't
something that you just throw in. Like, actually
take take time outside of recording the episode
and practice doing these and decide, like, oh,
that one's better than the other. Like, maybe
(12:44):
that we should do it this way type
of thing because, like, you could really
you could be a thorn in someone's listening
experience or you could just be a blip
and, like Yeah. They'll they'll take it.
I think to kind of tack onto that
as well, if you're not interested in actually
taking the time to do the ads, I
guess, what you would call, quote, unquote, right,
(13:05):
maybe you just start a Patreon or,
a coffee or whatever
and do that value for value thing? That's
probably a better way to go.
That way you're you're being more honest with
your audience. I think that was always something
that that was my approach. I don't want
to have to sit there and figure out
how to do an ad well, but I
(13:27):
am putting my all into an episode.
So maybe you give me a dollar a
month on Patreon,
you know, and most of that is coming
to me instead of a very small percentage
coming to me and then going to
the advertiser.
Yeah. And another another way of doing it,
getting ads I don't know. This isn't really
the topic of the episodes, but, you know,
(13:49):
getting ads, you you do affiliates.
You know, there's nothing wrong with you creating
your own really great ad for an affiliate
program that you're interested in.
You know? That's another way of doing it
without having to deal with, well, this this
copy is not what I want and, you
know, or some, you know, programmatic thing that
(14:09):
may or may not fit your show.
You know, that's
who knows? I I just say, that's another
way of doing it. Let's get back on
track here. In 2025,
it really hasn't been
smooth for everyone. There's been some layoffs in
the industry. Wondery,
which was one of the biggest podcast studios,
had a major restructuring with layoffs. They got
(14:32):
rid of their CEO.
They canceled a bunch of shows, and, yeah,
it was it was ugly.
And, you know We are not immune
to layoffs in this economy. I don't think
anyone is. But
Right. No. Definitely took a hit earlier this
year. Yep. And, you know, but, you know,
some of those big studios, they had staffs
(14:54):
that were unreal.
You know, they put they put a show
together. You know, one show might have a
staff of 50 people or 25 people.
And
can that be sustained in in an economy
like this?
Obviously not.
And, Amazon, which owns Wondery,
(15:14):
finally decided, well, we need to, you know,
we need to cut this off a bit.
And, you know, they they're still existing, and
they still do quality shows and all that,
but, they're doing it with a 110 less
people.
Mhmm. That's that sucks
for them. Yeah. And sucks for everybody, really,
because that was a great studio. It is
a great studio.
(15:34):
But, anyway, one good news thing. For the
first time ever, there's a Golden Globe Award
for best podcast.
So that's interesting.
Yeah.
I I don't know how I feel about
the,
the nominee.
Oh, no. I have no idea.
(15:55):
I am excited to see,
this be added to the Golden Globes.
I don't really it feels like it should
be
the
the Emmys and not the Golden Globes. I'm
not entirely sure. Well, Emmy's for more TV.
Golden Globes is basically is all entertainment, I
(16:16):
think, is
why that happened. But maybe the Emmys will
do it. You never know. Yeah. Yeah. The
Golden Globes are are, film and TV.
Yeah. Well, Netflix is adding podcast, so, you
know, Netflix is, eligible for the Emmy Awards
because they're That's true.
TV. So maybe that'll happen. You know, one
of the shows that they've picked up,
(16:38):
you know, a little further down our list
here, but,
you know, they made some deals, and they're
putting some video podcasts on
Netflix as part of their content. And that's,
you know, that might make it eligible for
the TV type awards.
So interesting.
Well, the Webby's also added podcasts a couple
(16:59):
years ago. I forget how long ago that
was, but, you know, the Webby's used to
just be for web pages.
How boring is that?
The Internet has vastly changed Yes. For sure.
For the worse, for the better. Yep. I
I changed my mind on that throughout the
day every day. Yep.
Now when you go to a website smart
(17:19):
to do. Yeah. You go to a website
and a pop up gets in your face
before you can even look at the website,
you're like, oh, okay. The web web sucks.
And then later on, you read something, oh,
that's really good. You know?
I get it.
Oh, yeah.
What else we got going for 2025?
(17:40):
What did they do? Spotify really is is
just putting more money and effort into podcasting
from what I can tell.
They are do they added
a podcast discovery feature Mhmm. So that, you
know, shows can actually be found better within
Spotify.
So I don't listen to shows in Spotify.
I listen to or I use Spotify for
(18:03):
music and some audio books every once in
a while, but I I mean,
as someone who doesn't listen to podcasts on
Spotify,
I have noticed
the podcasts. They've made it, you know, impossible
to not see.
Yep. I get those. And, you know, I
actually just I have to say, I discovered
a show that I like
that way. And I'm not a boss you
(18:25):
to say? It does. Same on you. Bad
because I hate Spotify for podcasting, but, you
know, and you guys know that.
Yeah. But I found a show, and I'm
like, oh, wow. Really? Cool. And and I
went
to my podcast app of choice
and subscribed to it. I did not listen
to it in Spotify.
(18:45):
That I have done that as well. I
have noticed a show or, like, saw that,
you know,
so and so was a guest on some
episode, and I was like, oh, okay. I
gotta go listen to this Yep. In Apple
Podcast. And I go to I go to
Overcast. That's still my daily driver.
But Yeah. I I do something similar
because I don't use Spotify. I'm all in
(19:06):
on YouTube right now. Mhmm. And so if
I'm listening to YouTube music, they also have
a podcast section in there. Mhmm. And I
kinda do that same thing.
They're they're more based off of what I've
watched on YouTube than what I've listened to.
Mhmm. But,
yeah, my my actual podcast app, which is
currently overcast,
(19:27):
it's I've probably added 15 new podcasts that
I have a hard time getting
completed
every single week or whatever.
So Well, I have an unfair advantage in
that way. I spend too much time on
the tractor this time of year, so I
listen to podcasts.
So I actually ran out of podcasts the
other day,
which is Yeah. That's true. I have
(19:48):
I have, you know, a driver too
around the holidays that I'll probably get some
get some episodes
out of my queue on my phone. So
Yep. So, Apple came out with their,
top
or top shows. I don't know what they
call it. Top new shows, top charts.
(20:09):
And Yeah. If I can find that. There
it is.
And, of course, the usual suspects show up
in the list,
the Joe Rogan, The Daily, Mel Robbins, Crime
Junkie, Dateline. My wife is addicted to Dateline.
Smartless. Hey. You know, I have never listened
to that. I heard it's pretty good.
Call Her Daddy. Guest.
(20:30):
Yeah. It depends on the guest. I that's
isn't that Jason Bateman?
Jason Bateman.
Yeah.
Sean something and, Will Arnett. Yeah. Yeah. And
Call Her Daddy, never listened to that one.
This American Life, I used to listen to
that one a lot, and I just haven't.
And then Huberman's Lab was number nine
(20:52):
and Ezra Klein Show?
Never heard of it.
Okay. And then, top new shows. Of course,
Amy Poehler's got one called Good Hang. That's
been pretty popular, actually. That yeah. She's kind
of a knocking it out of the park.
I mean, I am an Amy Poehler fan,
but I've listened to a couple episodes, and
she's she's doing a good job of, like,
(21:13):
actually being a host. She's not just a
celebrity, like, talking to a you know? Yeah.
That that happens. That's good. I I remember
when podcast one used to be recruiting,
you know, just they'd recruit any celebrity to
do a podcast, and some of them were
terrible at it. Yeah. And I, you know,
I'm I'm a fan of Pawn Stars,
you know, that TV show. And Rick Harrison,
(21:35):
the guy that runs that show, they they
did a podcast when he made it eight
episodes.
It was terrible.
And now they're doing a podcast slash YouTube
channel that's pretty cool called Pawn After Dark.
So his format
that they were doing for that audio show
was terrible.
But now that he's doing it on video
(21:55):
and he's got a cohost and it's really
cool,
you know, that's, you know, that now he's
into podcasting and it actually works
where, you know, not always. But, yeah, here
we'll have the link to this whole list.
There's, you know, top episodes, most shared shows,
most shared episodes,
most followed shows, and so on and so
(22:15):
on. We'll have links in the show notes
to Apple's top chart list.
Yeah. To be honest, the top charts or
the top shows, like, the top 10
of 2025,
a lot of these have already been in
this list.
Year after year.
Yeah. I
people.
(22:36):
Yep. There are so many podcasts out there.
You could listen to a lot more than
just this. Stop.
Well, yeah. Well, you know, the thing is
is those are like the gateway drugs.
Okay. Somebody says, oh, I really like this
show,
and I'm gonna listen to the podcast. Like,
my wife, for instance, likes that,
Dateline show. She likes liked it on TV.
(22:57):
She'll you know, she likes it on podcast.
But then she discovers other true crime podcasts.
And now when we get in the car,
she's wanting to listen to podcasts, not to
radio, which is awesome. So we're we're we're
we're
in onboarding new podcast listeners with these big
shows.
So that that's actually really good.
(23:19):
It's a good way to think about that.
You know? And and same thing with, you
know, all
these minor apps, I call them, you know,
as far as distribution.
Yeah. You know? Get in Spotify.
Even if you don't listen to Spotify as,
you know,
yourself,
people will find you there. Some will listen
there, and some will Mhmm. Find you and
go elsewhere. Same thing with, you know, YouTube
(23:40):
music, with all the places.
Somebody might find you there and then go
to their regular podcast app and and,
sign up and listen to your show or
or just go over there and listen, whatever.
So but,
you know what all this means for us
indie creators? I consider myself one.
(24:02):
You know, visibility
is more important
than it used to be, you know, and,
again, another
plus for video.
You know, you get on YouTube, you know,
even if it's just a short clip or,
you know,
a one off video once in a while,
that'll help people discover you.
(24:23):
But yeah. And, I mean, as for the
discoverability
and, like, the video portion of it,
I mean, there's
there's a popular podcast that
the video component of it shows up on
my TikTok algorithm all the time. Yeah.
So I get that.
I don't actually listen to the show because
it's way too long, and I just don't
(24:44):
care.
Do you like the However
however, they did get my money when they
went on tour and came to Columbus. Like,
I went to that a couple months ago,
so they still got my money somehow.
Yeah. But, you know, even the you know,
like shorts
or clips or TikToks or,
you know, all the different short video formats,
(25:06):
I I follow a lot of people that
way just for the shorts. And, you know,
and I won't you know, I'm not gonna
listen to their hour and a half show,
but I'll listen to their thirty to thirty
second to two minute little shorts here and
there, and I and I follow them quite
closely that way. But,
you know,
I guess the what we're trying to say
for for, you know, indie podcasters is, you
(25:27):
know, be flexible.
You know,
you know, test out stuff.
You know, Dave and I talked about that
last week, you know, testing out formats. Well,
you could also test out, you know, adding
video, adding shorts, adding clips,
You know? Or
It's it's not hard to, like, literally just
buy, like, a little
stand for your phone and just record yourself
(25:50):
recording your episode
and then clip that
and throw that on social because there are
a lot of people out there that they
they could see that thirty second clip
and go, oh, this is interesting. I wanna
know more. Then they follow you. They start
listening.
It's it's something I've been talking about
with podcasters that I'm working with, whether it's,
(26:12):
you know, answering tickets or on the phones
or just podcasters actually know
in my life. I'm like, mhmm. This might
be something worth doing, and it's it's low
effort, so play around with it. Yep. For
sure.
And, you
know, talking about monetization,
you know,
ads are not the only way to monetize
(26:34):
a show.
So Nope. Be, you know, be flexible in
that. You know, you could do,
like, we've mentioned before, you know, Patreon, buy
me a coffee,
PayPal donate links, bag, whatever,
and, you know, you can,
you know, make a little money that way.
It's not just all about ads. You know,
there there are ads
(26:55):
available, but
that might not be right for your show
or your audience.
I do understand
people wanting to do video because they know
they could make money off of YouTube and
TikTok and Instagram.
If they, get enough audience. That's that's the
thing. The threshold for making money on YouTube
is rather high.
(27:15):
Yes. And I believe it's 10,000 followers on
TikTok before you,
before you make anything. And, also, I think
only in
The US
or I don't know. That gets complicated. I
know Canada. It's that way. Yeah. That's all,
all changed here lately too because the ownership
of TikTok has kinda been thrown around.
(27:36):
Correct. As of yesterday, the eighteenth, they said
they're gonna sell
to some
US investors, so we'll see how that goes.
Yep. So Where that happens? Interesting to watch.
That's something to watch next year.
Yeah. Yeah. That was also the 2025
in January. That was a big decision. So
Sure. Yeah. Who knows?
(27:58):
Yep. But be flexible because you never know
what's gonna happen to these big companies,
and they might change things on a dime.
And and
your money could be you know, the way
that you're getting money could just be gone.
Yeah. Well, I've I've run into a couple
of YouTubers
that, have come to us to start podcasting,
and they got demonetized
(28:19):
by YouTube for whatever reason, and their entire
income went poof.
Yeah. And if you build it yourself,
own it yourself,
and diversify
how you're making money on it, maybe one
will fall out,
but you'll have others to back it up.
So that's a good thing. And, of course,
(28:39):
as we always say, quality and consistency
are still big winners.
You know, just,
you know, be consistent, do what you're good
at,
and, you know, offer
good content,
decent audio or video or whatever you're, into.
And, you know, that that will win the
day. You know? Just keep plugging away.
(29:00):
Yeah. Because you only get better as you
keep doing something. I I think I say
it to
Mike and Mackenzie after we record an episode.
I was like, man, I am so rusty.
I haven't actually made a podcast regularly
in ages.
So
Yeah. You know threw you another wolf.
Yeah. I know. Right?
(29:20):
But, yeah, like, you just get better the
more you do it. So, like, figure out
a schedule that works for you and
tweak things as you go. Like, it you're
I think sometimes and this is a little
rant of mine. But sometimes I think we
look at these highly produced podcasts, like the
ones that are sitting at the top of
the Apple charts right now or whatever,
(29:42):
and we're like, that's what we wanna do.
And it's like, yes. But how many people
are working on that show and engineering the
sound or video or whatever? And just at
some point, you may get there. Just keep
going.
Yeah. And, you know, there's no reason an
indie can't do a lot of that themselves,
but how much time do you wanna spend?
That's that's part of the problem, you know,
(30:03):
with with people who get a regular day
job and they, you know, they got all
all the other things going on in life.
They don't have time to spend four hours
editing a podcast episode.
Yeah. And It can be a grind for
sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm I've
I've been editing for the last couple of
weeks,
for this show,
you know, because Kate's, taking a much deserved
(30:25):
vacation.
And,
you know, I I'm rusty at it, I'll
tell you.
But, you know, I got one cranked out
today, so we're good.
It's definitely a skill you have to exercise.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of,
the go ahead. No. I was just gonna
say I you know, on my personal shows,
it's very rare that I edit anything. It's
(30:47):
basically clip the ends,
be done.
Yeah. And speaking of taking forever to edit,
we are we're seeing, you know, a lot
of recognition
for
long form storytellers.
And this is exciting to me being a,
you know, D and D slash tabletop role
(31:08):
playing
podcaster myself.
You know, we talked about the award shows
at the beginning
toward the beginning of the episode.
And I think it's cool to see
those kind of shows get more
recognition.
There are a couple shows in my mind
that I'm like, I can't wait to see
those shows hit the top charts because they're
(31:31):
so good. Whether you like D and D
or not, just the storytelling
is
really, really cool.
Oh, very good.
I got a a some personal stuff here
that happened in 2025.
As as, of course, I'm sure you know,
we lost our founder, CEO,
(31:51):
good friend, and a cohost on this show,
Todd Cochran, this year, and it was a
significant
setback for us here at Blueberry
and for the whole podcasting industry, frankly.
And the good news is we have a
very deep team here. We're,
you know, we're pressing on with Todd's vision
and some of our own,
(32:13):
and,
you know, just wanted to acknowledge that for
this last show of the year. You know,
Blueberry's here to stay,
and our commitment to podcast creators and the
open nature of podcasting
is still here and still intact.
So,
we look forward to 2026.
(32:33):
And, of course, 2025 has shown podcasting is
still mostly audio. That's my opinion.
Video is getting more popular
with some audience.
Podcasting nowadays is about flexibility,
formats, and adapting to what listeners actually want.
And get to know your listeners. That's, I
guess, the key takeaway, I would say.
(32:54):
And we're seeing platforms
change and evolve, so
every single one of us creators has to
stay nimble.
But at the end of the day, remember
that good content is still gonna win out,
and, it doesn't matter if you're doing audio
or video.
Okay. Before we get out of here,
I have to put you guys on the
(33:14):
spot. Okay. I don't know. What was your
favorite show of 2025?
My favorite show.
Probably something you've never heard of, but, Midlife
Pilot Podcast.
That's the one that's like an indie show?
Yeah. I, I found them on Spotify and
(33:35):
then promptly went to Overcast and subscribed, and,
so far, I'm loving the show.
Yeah. I think my favorite show from this
year,
is called Worlds Beyond Number. It is
Dungeons and Dragons
tabletop role playing game podcast.
Just great,
(33:56):
great voice acting
and
imagination
happening on that show.
Yeah. I like it a lot.
Nice.
So what was yours? Mine
yeah. Mine,
has been the same for a couple years,
is Song Exploder.
It's just they
they have
(34:17):
the artist that, you know, who sings the
song,
come on to the episode and go through
how it was made and why they chose
this and, you know, talking about how it
was produced and who wrote it, if they
wrote it, all that type of stuff.
So that one is hard to top for
me. Yeah. That's a solid show.
(34:40):
Yeah. It's been around for I don't know
how long, but I've been listening to it
for a very long time. Almost ten years,
I think. Yeah. It it's definitely close to
that. They've I'll have to go check that
out.
They've had some different hosts over the years,
but it is just, like,
quality episodes, and then they play the song
at the end. So
(35:01):
I would love to listen to, you know,
maybe I'll try and find more
independent shows that do somewhat around the same
thing, but that one would be hard to
do independent because, one, they have the actual
artist,
and, two, they have to pay for
License. To play the song every single episode.
Yeah. So it's
not cheap to do that one, I would
(35:23):
assume.
Overall,
this is the perfect time to experiment
experiment for indie creators that goes for any
medium right now. I think everyone is just
kind of becoming
more open,
and likely to watch
local
indie content,
(35:43):
as opposed to from these
big networks and corporations and everything.
So
this is just a a good 2025
recap.
Yeah. So I guess I'll I'll, wrap it
up here. Happy New Year. We'll see you
in 2026.
Thanks for joining us. Let's meet up next
(36:05):
week. And in the meantime, for more information,
to subscribe, share, or follow, check out the
show notes at podcastinsider.com.
To check out our latest suite of services
and how Blueberry can help you leverage your
podcast, visit blueberry.com.
That's Blueberry without the e's.
Welcome to Podcast Insider. I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing
director here at Blueberry.
And I'm Mike Dell, vice president of customer
relations here at Blueberry.
And I'm Dave Clements, technical support and social
media specialist here at Blueberry. And today, as
we wrap up 2025,
we're gonna talk about the year and some
of the things that happened in podcasting.
(00:21):
You're listening to Podcast Insider, a weekly podcast
bringing insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks
to help you start, grow, and thrive through
podcasting with the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in.
And I'd like to congratulate Mackenzie on her
promotion to marketing director.
So, that's something that happened just recently here
(00:44):
in 2025.
Thank you.
Rounding out the year well.
Yeah. So,
there's a lot of things that happened this
year,
you know, in the in the industry.
And,
we put together a little list of things
and, some new stories, which we'll probably have
(01:04):
links to in the show notes.
But, why don't you kick it off, Dave?
Yeah. So kind of our first section here,
I guess, would be,
just the market,
and listening behavior.
So Riverside
reports that,
podcast audience numbers continue to climb.
(01:25):
In 2025,
over 584,000,000
people listen to podcasts
globally,
and consumption habits are shifting.
Yeah. And and what's cool about it is
thirty four percent in the,
in The US,
have listened to podcasts, and, you know, the
average is, like, eight point something percent
(01:48):
or 8.3
podcast episodes per week. So that's a little
higher than it's been. I'm kind of impressed
with that.
Yeah. Those are I think those are pretty
good numbers.
And we're definitely seeing video,
get into the podcast landscape. If anybody's been
paying attention
(02:09):
Yeah.
Video. Video. Video.
Yeah. YouTube took a big step,
in 2025.
So we're seeing a lot of those, and
Riverside is saying that more than half of
the shows,
are now posting full video on YouTube.
So I think that is from their
(02:30):
That must be from their, their customer base
because,
I we don't see that here. We you
know? Well, there's a a fair number.
But, Yeah. That's their platform's
information, I from what I gather. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, which makes sense when they do
video natively,
but, I think we see it as a
(02:51):
much smaller percentage.
Yeah. It it's video is one of those
things. It takes a lot more work to
do.
You know, now with something like Riverside where
it's kind of all packaged up for you,
that's it is a little easier.
But, you know, think about this. You know?
If I wanna do a podcast and I
(03:11):
don't feel like shaving or combing my hair
that morning, I don't you know, if I'm
doing video, I gotta do all that.
And, you know, for for women, it's probably
worse, you know, for, you know, getting ready
to be camera ready.
That is correct. Yeah. And, you know, it's
like, you know, why why do we need
to do that if you don't want to?
Now there's nothing at all wrong with that.
(03:34):
Again, you know, I I I have lots
of strong opinions. I'll try to keep to
myself here. But
I also have strong opinions
about being the one on video.
That is not something I have any interest
in whatsoever.
And
it's, you know, it's whatever you're comfortable with
having your face, your
(03:56):
your reputation,
your
name, everything out there to the public like
that.
That's just another that's going video is another
level past an audio podcast for sure. Right.
And do what you're good at.
You know, if you're good at audio but,
freeze up on a camera, don't turn on
the camera. I mean, you know, do if
(04:17):
you wanna do some, like, video clips or
whatever, do animations
or slide shows or something like that, you
know, as far as promotional ways. But,
you know, you don't have to do video
or at least you don't have to be
on camera.
Yeah. We just published a YouTube video probably
a month or two ago specifically about,
(04:39):
video podcasting and should you do it. And
the conclusion, if you want the TLDR, is
basically, if you have time,
do it. If you're comfortable, do it, but
don't feel like you have to.
Right. You know, there's plenty of podcasts. You
know?
Anecdotally,
I you know, I don't have any hard
data on this, but anecdotally,
podcasts
(04:59):
listening slash
viewing. You know? So there's some podcasts that
I know of that do both a full
video version and a full audio version,
via RSS. And via RSS, it's about 10%
watch the video
and 90%
listen to the audio,
(05:20):
which still is pretty good. You get 10%
more audience on video, you know, but, you
know, the the percentage isn't really you know,
when they say the the juice isn't worth
the squeeze.
Yeah. You know? But then, you know, these
these particular shows also post on YouTube, x,
Facebook, whatever, so they get some additional views
(05:41):
that way, which aren't reflected in their podcast
stats. But still, it's a smaller percentage that
watch
rather than listen. And a lot of people
on YouTube and and,
one of our teammates, Sean,
says he's kinda doing that a lot now
is he does watch the video version of
a podcast
on YouTube, but he's generally not looking at
(06:01):
the screen.
He's listening
and doing something else, and every once in
a while, I might look up at the
screen.
So, you know, just because they listen on
YouTube
doesn't mean they're actually paying attention to what's
on the screen. So that's Mhmm. You know,
just like these are anecdotal. I don't have
any hard evidence of any of this, but,
you know, just just my gut feeling and
(06:23):
from what I've seen.
But,
anyway, let's press on here.
So the industry
itself
is is doing good. It's doing well,
quote, unquote, remains strong.
There is
you know,
we took a dip, I think, just for
(06:45):
a cup for a year or two there,
the industry with
a dip in listeners
and creators,
but I think that was you know,
we spiked,
in the beginning of 2020
and into '21, and then things kinda started
to dip for a while in '22, '23,
(07:06):
twenty four ish. But this year this year
was okay. Yeah. That's
that's good. We're we're gaining podcasters,
and we're gaining podcast listeners. And, actually, the
listener side is growing more than the podcaster
side,
but, you know, both are doing fine.
Again,
you know, the the barrier to entry into
(07:28):
podcasting,
especially with just audio, is
Mhmm. Is it's low now.
I mean, you can
jump on Blueberry and in ten minutes, get
your feed put together, record something.
All the editing tools are so much better
than they used to be.
Oh, yeah. You know, all of that stuff,
distribution,
(07:49):
you know, we've we've just revamped our our
destinations
to where a lot of those are just
one click. One click, agree to this, you
know, hit apply, you're you're on. You know,
Apple, Spotify, Index, you know, the the three
major ones, and then all the other ones
are are fairly easy to do. And, you
(08:09):
know, that wasn't the case five years ago.
Yeah. So Yeah. Waiting a week to see
if you're gonna be on Apple or
or something like that. Those days are over.
That's that's pretty quick now. So,
I I don't know. I I kind of
expect to see
more podcasters coming into the space because it
is easier. You know, we've got microphones that
(08:32):
plug right into your iPhone that actually sound
pretty good. Mhmm. They're, you know, maybe not
studio level,
but they're probably the equivalent to what we
were using Good enough. Eight years ago.
Good enough. They're not the yeah. They're not
the stick microphones that sounded like you talking
into a wet paper bag.
Or,
(08:52):
earbuds like, Dave was last week on this
up on this show.
Yeah. I just gotta pick on you a
little bit. Didn't sound bad.
You know, one of the other things I've
seen,
is ads.
You know, the
the thing about ads
is, you know, they're
(09:13):
like, Edison came out with
a research that people don't mind listening to
ads. Well, you didn't talk to me. I
promise you.
You know? I I understand the need for
ads. I understand, you know, our casters gotta
make money,
you know, if they wanna keep doing this,
you know, and there's businesses out there that
(09:34):
that's what they do is, make money from
ads on podcast. I get that.
And I will put up with a certain
amount of that, but
some of it is getting to the point
of ridiculous.
Sorry. I had a rant on my regular
show the other day about that.
Anyway
but,
you know, creators and podcast networks exploring different
(09:56):
monetization
strategies other than ads, like, subscriptions,
listener support sponsorships,
value for value, not the Bitcoin kind, but
just, you know, we provide value, send us
some money for the value, you know, that
kind of thing.
Yeah. I'd much rather do that than get
involved in Bitcoin.
(10:16):
Yeah. Exactly. You know? But, you know,
I I do that. I have a couple
of Patreon
people that I support because I like their
YouTube channel or I like their podcast.
And that's a much better way than getting
a whole bunch of ads.
And, you know, and then it works out
for the creators too. But ads are fine.
(10:37):
Again, you know, if that's what you wanna
do, do it. You know, we have some
tools to help you get ads for your
show, and
and, you know, it's all good. But, again,
you know, there's a certain number of audience
members that are not gonna put up with
that.
So I think part of my
ad reasoning,
you know, whether I'm on
(10:58):
the the okay side or the annoyed side
of it is what is the quality of
this episode that I'm listening to
and overall the show as well.
If if it doesn't sound great, if it's
not, you know, well
thought out, if they're just kinda rambling, if
they're doing all that stuff,
I'm I'm gonna get sick of the ads.
(11:20):
If it is professionally done, if it sounds
amazing, if it, you know, came out
at a timely
place during the week, like, you know, if
it's news and it's relevant and, like, this
is actually good information I wanted right now,
I don't care if there's ads because this
is free.
Yeah. And some of them do the ads.
It goes back and forth. And some of
(11:40):
them do the ads really well. You know?
Right. And that's that's the other thing. You
know?
There's
some platforms out there that have programmatic ads,
YouTube being one of them,
where if you don't pay YouTube to get
rid of the ads, they you know, somebody's
in the middle of a sentence and this
irrelevant ad comes in there.
(12:00):
Yeah. Now if I'm listening to, you know,
something from,
I don't know, 99%
Invisible is one of the shows I listen
to, and they do the ads really well.
They they read them. You know, you would
think it's part of the show,
and they're always relevant to whatever they're talking
about or at least in the subject matter.
That's exactly what I mean when I say
(12:22):
I don't care. So if if I have
some advice for people who wanna monetize their
show.
Get really good at ads.
You need to practice doing these. This isn't
something that you just throw in. Like, actually
take take time outside of recording the episode
and practice doing these and decide, like, oh,
that one's better than the other. Like, maybe
(12:44):
that we should do it this way type
of thing because, like, you could really
you could be a thorn in someone's listening
experience or you could just be a blip
and, like Yeah. They'll they'll take it.
I think to kind of tack onto that
as well, if you're not interested in actually
taking the time to do the ads, I
guess, what you would call, quote, unquote, right,
(13:05):
maybe you just start a Patreon or,
a coffee or whatever
and do that value for value thing? That's
probably a better way to go.
That way you're you're being more honest with
your audience. I think that was always something
that that was my approach. I don't want
to have to sit there and figure out
how to do an ad well, but I
(13:27):
am putting my all into an episode.
So maybe you give me a dollar a
month on Patreon,
you know, and most of that is coming
to me instead of a very small percentage
coming to me and then going to
the advertiser.
Yeah. And another another way of doing it,
getting ads I don't know. This isn't really
the topic of the episodes, but, you know,
(13:49):
getting ads, you you do affiliates.
You know, there's nothing wrong with you creating
your own really great ad for an affiliate
program that you're interested in.
You know? That's another way of doing it
without having to deal with, well, this this
copy is not what I want and, you
know, or some, you know, programmatic thing that
(14:09):
may or may not fit your show.
You know, that's
who knows? I I just say, that's another
way of doing it. Let's get back on
track here. In 2025,
it really hasn't been
smooth for everyone. There's been some layoffs in
the industry. Wondery,
which was one of the biggest podcast studios,
had a major restructuring with layoffs. They got
(14:32):
rid of their CEO.
They canceled a bunch of shows, and, yeah,
it was it was ugly.
And, you know We are not immune
to layoffs in this economy. I don't think
anyone is. But
Right. No. Definitely took a hit earlier this
year. Yep. And, you know, but, you know,
some of those big studios, they had staffs
(14:54):
that were unreal.
You know, they put they put a show
together. You know, one show might have a
staff of 50 people or 25 people.
And
can that be sustained in in an economy
like this?
Obviously not.
And, Amazon, which owns Wondery,
(15:14):
finally decided, well, we need to, you know,
we need to cut this off a bit.
And, you know, they they're still existing, and
they still do quality shows and all that,
but, they're doing it with a 110 less
people.
Mhmm. That's that sucks
for them. Yeah. And sucks for everybody, really,
because that was a great studio. It is
a great studio.
(15:34):
But, anyway, one good news thing. For the
first time ever, there's a Golden Globe Award
for best podcast.
So that's interesting.
Yeah.
I I don't know how I feel about
the,
the nominee.
Oh, no. I have no idea.
(15:55):
I am excited to see,
this be added to the Golden Globes.
I don't really it feels like it should
be
the
the Emmys and not the Golden Globes. I'm
not entirely sure. Well, Emmy's for more TV.
Golden Globes is basically is all entertainment, I
(16:16):
think, is
why that happened. But maybe the Emmys will
do it. You never know. Yeah. Yeah. The
Golden Globes are are, film and TV.
Yeah. Well, Netflix is adding podcast, so, you
know, Netflix is, eligible for the Emmy Awards
because they're That's true.
TV. So maybe that'll happen. You know, one
of the shows that they've picked up,
(16:38):
you know, a little further down our list
here, but,
you know, they made some deals, and they're
putting some video podcasts on
Netflix as part of their content. And that's,
you know, that might make it eligible for
the TV type awards.
So interesting.
Well, the Webby's also added podcasts a couple
(16:59):
years ago. I forget how long ago that
was, but, you know, the Webby's used to
just be for web pages.
How boring is that?
The Internet has vastly changed Yes. For sure.
For the worse, for the better. Yep. I
I changed my mind on that throughout the
day every day. Yep.
Now when you go to a website smart
(17:19):
to do. Yeah. You go to a website
and a pop up gets in your face
before you can even look at the website,
you're like, oh, okay. The web web sucks.
And then later on, you read something, oh,
that's really good. You know?
I get it.
Oh, yeah.
What else we got going for 2025?
(17:40):
What did they do? Spotify really is is
just putting more money and effort into podcasting
from what I can tell.
They are do they added
a podcast discovery feature Mhmm. So that, you
know, shows can actually be found better within
Spotify.
So I don't listen to shows in Spotify.
I listen to or I use Spotify for
(18:03):
music and some audio books every once in
a while, but I I mean,
as someone who doesn't listen to podcasts on
Spotify,
I have noticed
the podcasts. They've made it, you know, impossible
to not see.
Yep. I get those. And, you know, I
actually just I have to say, I discovered
a show that I like
that way. And I'm not a boss you
(18:25):
to say? It does. Same on you. Bad
because I hate Spotify for podcasting, but, you
know, and you guys know that.
Yeah. But I found a show, and I'm
like, oh, wow. Really? Cool. And and I
went
to my podcast app of choice
and subscribed to it. I did not listen
to it in Spotify.
(18:45):
That I have done that as well. I
have noticed a show or, like, saw that,
you know,
so and so was a guest on some
episode, and I was like, oh, okay. I
gotta go listen to this Yep. In Apple
Podcast. And I go to I go to
Overcast. That's still my daily driver.
But Yeah. I I do something similar
because I don't use Spotify. I'm all in
(19:06):
on YouTube right now. Mhmm. And so if
I'm listening to YouTube music, they also have
a podcast section in there. Mhmm. And I
kinda do that same thing.
They're they're more based off of what I've
watched on YouTube than what I've listened to.
Mhmm. But,
yeah, my my actual podcast app, which is
currently overcast,
(19:27):
it's I've probably added 15 new podcasts that
I have a hard time getting
completed
every single week or whatever.
So Well, I have an unfair advantage in
that way. I spend too much time on
the tractor this time of year, so I
listen to podcasts.
So I actually ran out of podcasts the
other day,
which is Yeah. That's true. I have
(19:48):
I have, you know, a driver too
around the holidays that I'll probably get some
get some episodes
out of my queue on my phone. So
Yep. So, Apple came out with their,
top
or top shows. I don't know what they
call it. Top new shows, top charts.
(20:09):
And Yeah. If I can find that. There
it is.
And, of course, the usual suspects show up
in the list,
the Joe Rogan, The Daily, Mel Robbins, Crime
Junkie, Dateline. My wife is addicted to Dateline.
Smartless. Hey. You know, I have never listened
to that. I heard it's pretty good.
Call Her Daddy. Guest.
(20:30):
Yeah. It depends on the guest. I that's
isn't that Jason Bateman?
Jason Bateman.
Yeah.
Sean something and, Will Arnett. Yeah. Yeah. And
Call Her Daddy, never listened to that one.
This American Life, I used to listen to
that one a lot, and I just haven't.
And then Huberman's Lab was number nine
(20:52):
and Ezra Klein Show?
Never heard of it.
Okay. And then, top new shows. Of course,
Amy Poehler's got one called Good Hang. That's
been pretty popular, actually. That yeah. She's kind
of a knocking it out of the park.
I mean, I am an Amy Poehler fan,
but I've listened to a couple episodes, and
she's she's doing a good job of, like,
(21:13):
actually being a host. She's not just a
celebrity, like, talking to a you know? Yeah.
That that happens. That's good. I I remember
when podcast one used to be recruiting,
you know, just they'd recruit any celebrity to
do a podcast, and some of them were
terrible at it. Yeah. And I, you know,
I'm I'm a fan of Pawn Stars,
you know, that TV show. And Rick Harrison,
(21:35):
the guy that runs that show, they they
did a podcast when he made it eight
episodes.
It was terrible.
And now they're doing a podcast slash YouTube
channel that's pretty cool called Pawn After Dark.
So his format
that they were doing for that audio show
was terrible.
But now that he's doing it on video
(21:55):
and he's got a cohost and it's really
cool,
you know, that's, you know, that now he's
into podcasting and it actually works
where, you know, not always. But, yeah, here
we'll have the link to this whole list.
There's, you know, top episodes, most shared shows,
most shared episodes,
most followed shows, and so on and so
(22:15):
on. We'll have links in the show notes
to Apple's top chart list.
Yeah. To be honest, the top charts or
the top shows, like, the top 10
of 2025,
a lot of these have already been in
this list.
Year after year.
Yeah. I
people.
(22:36):
Yep. There are so many podcasts out there.
You could listen to a lot more than
just this. Stop.
Well, yeah. Well, you know, the thing is
is those are like the gateway drugs.
Okay. Somebody says, oh, I really like this
show,
and I'm gonna listen to the podcast. Like,
my wife, for instance, likes that,
Dateline show. She likes liked it on TV.
(22:57):
She'll you know, she likes it on podcast.
But then she discovers other true crime podcasts.
And now when we get in the car,
she's wanting to listen to podcasts, not to
radio, which is awesome. So we're we're we're
we're
in onboarding new podcast listeners with these big
shows.
So that that's actually really good.
(23:19):
It's a good way to think about that.
You know? And and same thing with, you
know, all
these minor apps, I call them, you know,
as far as distribution.
Yeah. You know? Get in Spotify.
Even if you don't listen to Spotify as,
you know,
yourself,
people will find you there. Some will listen
there, and some will Mhmm. Find you and
go elsewhere. Same thing with, you know, YouTube
(23:40):
music, with all the places.
Somebody might find you there and then go
to their regular podcast app and and,
sign up and listen to your show or
or just go over there and listen, whatever.
So but,
you know what all this means for us
indie creators? I consider myself one.
(24:02):
You know, visibility
is more important
than it used to be, you know, and,
again, another
plus for video.
You know, you get on YouTube, you know,
even if it's just a short clip or,
you know,
a one off video once in a while,
that'll help people discover you.
(24:23):
But yeah. And, I mean, as for the
discoverability
and, like, the video portion of it,
I mean, there's
there's a popular podcast that
the video component of it shows up on
my TikTok algorithm all the time. Yeah.
So I get that.
I don't actually listen to the show because
it's way too long, and I just don't
(24:44):
care.
Do you like the However
however, they did get my money when they
went on tour and came to Columbus. Like,
I went to that a couple months ago,
so they still got my money somehow.
Yeah. But, you know, even the you know,
like shorts
or clips or TikToks or,
you know, all the different short video formats,
(25:06):
I I follow a lot of people that
way just for the shorts. And, you know,
and I won't you know, I'm not gonna
listen to their hour and a half show,
but I'll listen to their thirty to thirty
second to two minute little shorts here and
there, and I and I follow them quite
closely that way. But,
you know,
I guess the what we're trying to say
for for, you know, indie podcasters is, you
(25:27):
know, be flexible.
You know,
you know, test out stuff.
You know, Dave and I talked about that
last week, you know, testing out formats. Well,
you could also test out, you know, adding
video, adding shorts, adding clips,
You know? Or
It's it's not hard to, like, literally just
buy, like, a little
stand for your phone and just record yourself
(25:50):
recording your episode
and then clip that
and throw that on social because there are
a lot of people out there that they
they could see that thirty second clip
and go, oh, this is interesting. I wanna
know more. Then they follow you. They start
listening.
It's it's something I've been talking about
with podcasters that I'm working with, whether it's,
(26:12):
you know, answering tickets or on the phones
or just podcasters actually know
in my life. I'm like, mhmm. This might
be something worth doing, and it's it's low
effort, so play around with it. Yep. For
sure.
And, you
know, talking about monetization,
you know,
ads are not the only way to monetize
(26:34):
a show.
So Nope. Be, you know, be flexible in
that. You know, you could do,
like, we've mentioned before, you know, Patreon, buy
me a coffee,
PayPal donate links, bag, whatever,
and, you know, you can,
you know, make a little money that way.
It's not just all about ads. You know,
there there are ads
(26:55):
available, but
that might not be right for your show
or your audience.
I do understand
people wanting to do video because they know
they could make money off of YouTube and
TikTok and Instagram.
If they, get enough audience. That's that's the
thing. The threshold for making money on YouTube
is rather high.
(27:15):
Yes. And I believe it's 10,000 followers on
TikTok before you,
before you make anything. And, also, I think
only in
The US
or I don't know. That gets complicated. I
know Canada. It's that way. Yeah. That's all,
all changed here lately too because the ownership
of TikTok has kinda been thrown around.
(27:36):
Correct. As of yesterday, the eighteenth, they said
they're gonna sell
to some
US investors, so we'll see how that goes.
Yep. So Where that happens? Interesting to watch.
That's something to watch next year.
Yeah. Yeah. That was also the 2025
in January. That was a big decision. So
Sure. Yeah. Who knows?
(27:58):
Yep. But be flexible because you never know
what's gonna happen to these big companies,
and they might change things on a dime.
And and
your money could be you know, the way
that you're getting money could just be gone.
Yeah. Well, I've I've run into a couple
of YouTubers
that, have come to us to start podcasting,
and they got demonetized
(28:19):
by YouTube for whatever reason, and their entire
income went poof.
Yeah. And if you build it yourself,
own it yourself,
and diversify
how you're making money on it, maybe one
will fall out,
but you'll have others to back it up.
So that's a good thing. And, of course,
(28:39):
as we always say, quality and consistency
are still big winners.
You know, just,
you know, be consistent, do what you're good
at,
and, you know, offer
good content,
decent audio or video or whatever you're, into.
And, you know, that that will win the
day. You know? Just keep plugging away.
(29:00):
Yeah. Because you only get better as you
keep doing something. I I think I say
it to
Mike and Mackenzie after we record an episode.
I was like, man, I am so rusty.
I haven't actually made a podcast regularly
in ages.
So
Yeah. You know threw you another wolf.
Yeah. I know. Right?
(29:20):
But, yeah, like, you just get better the
more you do it. So, like, figure out
a schedule that works for you and
tweak things as you go. Like, it you're
I think sometimes and this is a little
rant of mine. But sometimes I think we
look at these highly produced podcasts, like the
ones that are sitting at the top of
the Apple charts right now or whatever,
(29:42):
and we're like, that's what we wanna do.
And it's like, yes. But how many people
are working on that show and engineering the
sound or video or whatever? And just at
some point, you may get there. Just keep
going.
Yeah. And, you know, there's no reason an
indie can't do a lot of that themselves,
but how much time do you wanna spend?
That's that's part of the problem, you know,
(30:03):
with with people who get a regular day
job and they, you know, they got all
all the other things going on in life.
They don't have time to spend four hours
editing a podcast episode.
Yeah. And It can be a grind for
sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm I've
I've been editing for the last couple of
weeks,
for this show,
you know, because Kate's, taking a much deserved
(30:25):
vacation.
And,
you know, I I'm rusty at it, I'll
tell you.
But, you know, I got one cranked out
today, so we're good.
It's definitely a skill you have to exercise.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of,
the go ahead. No. I was just gonna
say I you know, on my personal shows,
it's very rare that I edit anything. It's
(30:47):
basically clip the ends,
be done.
Yeah. And speaking of taking forever to edit,
we are we're seeing, you know, a lot
of recognition
for
long form storytellers.
And this is exciting to me being a,
you know, D and D slash tabletop role
(31:08):
playing
podcaster myself.
You know, we talked about the award shows
at the beginning
toward the beginning of the episode.
And I think it's cool to see
those kind of shows get more
recognition.
There are a couple shows in my mind
that I'm like, I can't wait to see
those shows hit the top charts because they're
(31:31):
so good. Whether you like D and D
or not, just the storytelling
is
really, really cool.
Oh, very good.
I got a a some personal stuff here
that happened in 2025.
As as, of course, I'm sure you know,
we lost our founder, CEO,
(31:51):
good friend, and a cohost on this show,
Todd Cochran, this year, and it was a
significant
setback for us here at Blueberry
and for the whole podcasting industry, frankly.
And the good news is we have a
very deep team here. We're,
you know, we're pressing on with Todd's vision
and some of our own,
(32:13):
and,
you know, just wanted to acknowledge that for
this last show of the year. You know,
Blueberry's here to stay,
and our commitment to podcast creators and the
open nature of podcasting
is still here and still intact.
So,
we look forward to 2026.
(32:33):
And, of course, 2025 has shown podcasting is
still mostly audio. That's my opinion.
Video is getting more popular
with some audience.
Podcasting nowadays is about flexibility,
formats, and adapting to what listeners actually want.
And get to know your listeners. That's, I
guess, the key takeaway, I would say.
(32:54):
And we're seeing platforms
change and evolve, so
every single one of us creators has to
stay nimble.
But at the end of the day, remember
that good content is still gonna win out,
and, it doesn't matter if you're doing audio
or video.
Okay. Before we get out of here,
I have to put you guys on the
(33:14):
spot. Okay. I don't know. What was your
favorite show of 2025?
My favorite show.
Probably something you've never heard of, but, Midlife
Pilot Podcast.
That's the one that's like an indie show?
Yeah. I, I found them on Spotify and
(33:35):
then promptly went to Overcast and subscribed, and,
so far, I'm loving the show.
Yeah. I think my favorite show from this
year,
is called Worlds Beyond Number. It is
Dungeons and Dragons
tabletop role playing game podcast.
Just great,
(33:56):
great voice acting
and
imagination
happening on that show.
Yeah. I like it a lot.
Nice.
So what was yours? Mine
yeah. Mine,
has been the same for a couple years,
is Song Exploder.
It's just they
they have
(34:17):
the artist that, you know, who sings the
song,
come on to the episode and go through
how it was made and why they chose
this and, you know, talking about how it
was produced and who wrote it, if they
wrote it, all that type of stuff.
So that one is hard to top for
me. Yeah. That's a solid show.
(34:40):
Yeah. It's been around for I don't know
how long, but I've been listening to it
for a very long time. Almost ten years,
I think. Yeah. It it's definitely close to
that. They've I'll have to go check that
out.
They've had some different hosts over the years,
but it is just, like,
quality episodes, and then they play the song
at the end. So
(35:01):
I would love to listen to, you know,
maybe I'll try and find more
independent shows that do somewhat around the same
thing, but that one would be hard to
do independent because, one, they have the actual
artist,
and, two, they have to pay for
License. To play the song every single episode.
Yeah. So it's
not cheap to do that one, I would
(35:23):
assume.
Overall,
this is the perfect time to experiment
experiment for indie creators that goes for any
medium right now. I think everyone is just
kind of becoming
more open,
and likely to watch
local
indie content,
(35:43):
as opposed to from these
big networks and corporations and everything.
So
this is just a a good 2025
recap.
Yeah. So I guess I'll I'll, wrap it
up here. Happy New Year. We'll see you
in 2026.
Thanks for joining us. Let's meet up next
(36:05):
week. And in the meantime, for more information,
to subscribe, share, or follow, check out the
show notes at podcastinsider.com.
To check out our latest suite of services
and how Blueberry can help you leverage your
podcast, visit blueberry.com.
That's Blueberry without the e's.
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