Podcasting and Videoblogging: A Production-Side Analysis

[mental-escher]

Check it out, some interesting trends and stats in this draft publication from Dr Peter Chen, Assistant Lecturer, Media and Communications Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

....Based on a survey of 366 podcasters and videobloggers, this paper examines these emerging cultural practices from aspect of production, with specific interest in producer motivations, production methods, the relationship between formats, and audience numbers....

Link to full article here: http://peterchen.members.grokthis.net/node/206

[SPThom]

That is indeed very interesting. Makes me wanna do a daily podcast.

[jeffoest]

The major conclusions are here. It's very interesting and I'm glad that people are doing studies like this. The science/statistical person in me was thinking of doing something similar in terms of trying to correlate show success with various factors...

I think it's useful stuff but I also tend to think since this medium is still so new and the audience is still so small compared to other media, that the conclusions drawn here are probably best to be considered momentary. Would not be surpised to see the results different in a year from now since I believe the characteristics of this media as still very dynamic and relatively undefined.

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Abstract (skip to the results)

Based on a survey of 366 podcasters and videobloggers, this paper examines these emerging cultural practices from aspect of production, with specific interest in producer motivations, production methods, the relationship between formats, and audience numbers. The exploratory research findings – largely limited to English language producers – illustrates a number of interesting features about this area of activity. These include:

* Podcasts and videoblogs exhibit many similarities in terms of their content and production, and therefore can be conceptualized in similar ways, with some notable exceptions,
* The research identified a relatively limited demographic range of producers (dominated by educated men from North America in their mid-thirties). Overall, there is a significant disparity in participation by women in the production of both podcasts and videoblogs,
* Surprisingly, a significant number of podcasts and videoblogs are undertaken for explicitly commercial or quasi-commercial purposes, but with an emphasis on advertising over other revenue models,
* Most shows are produced with some reference to third party input and the inclusion of third party content,
* The use of guests or experts is relatively common in many shows (as opposed to associated website commentary and discussion) demonstrates a clear “gatekeeper role” by producers more akin to television and radio production than the associated phenomena of blogging, and
* There appears to be opportunities for the providers of supporting technologies (production software, hosting and directory services, and media clients) to further support show producers through increasing the ease of production, better audience metrics, and peering options.

In addition, a number of interesting relationships between audience size and show characteristics are examined. Some key findings include:

* Episode frequency exerts a strong influence on audience size, with the release of daily episodes demonstrating the highest average audience size. Presently, most shows are produced on a weekly basis,
* There are few specific production-side determinants on popularity (including production time per episode), with the exception of collaborative shows, where there is a significant positive correlation between the number of staff or collaborators and show popularity, and
* There appears to be an emerging negative relationship within the podcasting production community between the prevalence of shows in some genres and lower average audience sizes. While this relationship is not significant, it may indicate that the market in some genres is saturating and further efforts need to be undertaken to expand the overall size of the market.

[mental-escher]

Good points Jeff, everyone should feel free to leave your comments on the article on their website too (there is a form at the bottom of the page there).