✊ Sliding towards obsolescence
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Hi friends, This week, we’re exploring the existential question (and opportunity) facing podcast hosts in the age of AI: How do you make a podcast worth listening to in its full, uncompressed, unsummarized original form? The answer to this question begins with understanding how the broader content, media, and information ecosystem has changed. One of my clients, Natalie, a branding expert, sent me an email yesterday that perfectly sums up the typical podcast listener’s experience over the past few years… And shows why what used to work in podcasting no longer does. Over to Natalie. When I first started listening to podcasts, a decade ago, finding reliable, high-quality information required real effort. You had to search through blogs, read books, and spend time piecing things together yourself. For me, podcasts became a primary source of learning, especially during long commutes. They allowed me to go deeper into topics that mattered to me at the time. What made podcasts especially valuable then was their format. They were often long-form, interview-style conversations, and the market wasn’t oversaturated. There was a sense of depth and exploration. You could sit with an idea, hear someone unpack it over time, and walk away with a more nuanced understanding. It felt like access to conversations you wouldn’t otherwise be part of. But over time, that shifted. As podcasts got more popular, the space became saturated and shows started to feel repetitive or transactional. You had to listen to an entire episode just to maybe get to something actionable — and often, the show never even got there. That created fatigue. Now, the context has changed entirely. With AI, information is no longer scarce or gatekept. If I want to understand a concept, I can get a clear, immediate answer personalised to the exact context I need it for. In short: The value of Information is trending to zero. Podcasting used to be a convenient way to download information into our brains. But as more convenient, personalized, and efficient solutions have emerged, there is little need for the types of shows that used to thrive—the “how to do X”, tactical breakdowns, and expert interviews. The problem isn’t competition or even a higher expected bar for quality. It’s obsolescence. Fortunately, the opportunity is hidden inside the problem, which today, has swung from information scarcity to information overwhelm. We’re drowning in data, but have no idea what to do with it, unable to see the forest for the trees, let alone navigate it with confidence. Which is where podcasting as a medium is uniquely capable of thriving. While the early wave of podcasting was built by hosts who delivered scarce information, the next wave will be built by hosts with the scarcer skill of skillfully exploring, unpacking, explaining, interpreting, and making sense of their topic. Natalie’s listening habits reflect this: I’ve gone through my feed and removed the podcasts that feel generic or surface-level content that could easily be found through a quick search.
What I’m drawn to now are voices that offer a distinct point of view.
Not “storytelling” in a vague sense, but the ability to take a concept, strategy, or idea and translate it into something tangible through analogy, lived experience, or a clear framework that shows how it actually works in practice.
Natalie might be just one listener. But her experience reflects a broader shift in what audiences want, expect, and value from a podcast. Your listeners already know, feel, and are acting on this. Are you?
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