Let's take just a minute to deal with something most of you won't ever need to address, shall we?

The issue is commercials, and the problem is that some shows from major producers are overloaded with them. I can think of several -- not even the biggest shows, but shows on iHeart and Audacy and Spotify -- that make you sit through several ads or, mostly, promos for other podcasts right at the pre-roll, then another long, long stop set of promos in the midroll, and a few afterwards.

Who's gonna listen to all of that? Who's gonna sit through that?

Some people might, out of inertia, but most will fast-forward or bail. The hope is that they'll just skip the spots, which is a weird way of doing business, relying on people to not listen to the ads to keep them downloading the show. Do prospective clients know about that? Perhaps that's why most of the iHeart inventory seems to be promos for other iHeart shows.

There's an emergency. A huge one. News is breaking. That's... not for you, because you're a podcaster, right? You'll leave it to radio or social media to address it. Why? Or, more precisely, why NOT? If you have a non-fiction podcast, you might think that being TOO ...

Who decides who's a "successful podcaster"? I thought about that when I saw an article describing someone as exactly that. There were no statistics offered for the title; it was just taken as given. He says he's successful? Then he's successful. But, you know, that's ...

Podcasts, by nature, aren't breaking news vehicles. They can't be -- they're not live. But when breaking news happens, shows on which news is discussed have to be on top of it. That came up when the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs was released. Suddenly, whatever episodes ...

Several big-time podcasts release episodes in "seasons." Should you? Ask this: Are your "seasons" thematically consistent? Are you telling a story arc over the course of those episodes? Or are you just doing a few episodes and then taking a break? Because if it's the ...

You hear a lot about "host-read ads," the equivalent of radio's live spots, and how they're the most effective advertising on podcasts. That should be obvious: Once you've established a connection with your audience, a sincere, naturally-delivered ad is more likely to be ...

I'm back from a long hiatus -- we'll get to that some other time. Meanwhile... If you haven't started your podcast, what's holding you back? I'm betting that some of you are just confused on where to start, because even though countless companies have tried to make ...

I'm one to talk, really. I refer to the phenomenon of "podfade," the tendency of many, maybe most podcasts to just stop posting after a relatively short time, about which Steve Goldstein has previously written here, and which came to mind when I was writing an item about ...

Do you have any listeners? Does it matter? Let's parse this out a little. Everyone wants a big audience for what they do, but for podcasting, the number of shows that get big download numbers is... well, it's minuscule. And many of the big shows aren't all that honest ...

The other day, I saw an animated discussion of podcast listenership measurement on Facebook. There were podcast producers, most of them new to the medium, debating the merits of the IAB with some of the prominent hosting company leaders, and it was interesting on a ...