What’s Your Podcast's Frequency, Length, And Span?
Excerpt from: Podcasting at Work: 25 Questions to Ask Before Starting
These three elements make a big difference to the work that goes into producing your podcast, and how the audience experiences it:
Frequency: How often will you release new episodes?
A regular release schedule helps your audience know when they can expect new content, and grow their connection with the show over time. Release new podcasts sporadically or too infrequently, and you risk losing that connection. Typical release frequencies include weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Many of our clients find that bi-weekly or monthly strikes the right balance.
Length: How long should each episode be?
The great thing about podcasting is that your episodes can vary from one to the next - though it’s good to stay within more or less the same range so your audience knows what to expect. There’s no perfect length for a podcast - they vary from a couple of minutes to a couple of hours! We usually suggest that shorter is better, but as Mark Twain once said, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.” -- that is to say, being concise can often require more effort than being long winded. 20-30 minutes tends to be our recommendation for most people, but you should let your content dictate how long each episode should be - 15 minutes of gold is better than 45 minutes of so-so content. Read our article How Long Should My Podcast Be? For more research on this topic.
Span: How long will your series run?
Defining the span of your series early on helps with planning and budgeting. Some podcasts start releasing episodes weekly and never stop - but this is difficult to keep up. Consider running your podcast in seasons with breaks in between. You could start with a season of say, 10 episodes, and then take a break and resume for another ten in season 2.
