I am amazed each month by the number of podcast that podfade. I have been keeping some stats on how many shows we have removed at Blubrry.com because of podfading and over the past year.
The number is significant at some point I am going to try and collect some data from the content creators themselves and try to figure out why they have stopped.
One trend that I know exist already is that podcasters expect way to much and they are disappointed when their podcast do not grow as they should. If I have any advice to give is that podcasters need to stick it out for at least a year maybe even two to see where their show is gonna go.
Just doing a couple of episodes is not going to cut it, if you think you will have 10,000 listeners overnight you may be in for a bit of shock when the numbers come in much lower than that for most people.
Podfading can also be sad for fans— Dailysonic became a huge favorite of mine… and then I accidentally erased my archive of shows before realizing that they were no longer producing anything new— as it stands the episodes I had burned to cd are things I can still enjoy listening to repeatedly.
Todd,
I can agree with you on this as I have been doing this for just over two years and my podcast is small but alive. I have had my dips in listenership and rises as well. I have stuck it out because it has not gotten to be an ego thing for me, but rather a love of the hobby. I still feel that I have not gotten to my full potential with my podcast, I am thinking of doing some major tweaks but keeping the flavor of the podcast the same. I do not intend to podfade, but if I do decide to go, I will at least bow out gracefully and let all my listeners know what and why I would be hanging up the mic.
Norbert Davis,
Host – Norbtek.info Podcast
http://www.norbtek.info