and (b) telling stories, I seem to have lost about a third of my
listeners. I didn't have that many, anyway, 30 or so, and now I have 20
or so. Certainly it'd be nice to have more than 30 listeners. But it's
kind of discouraging to make an effort to try something new and lose part
of the handful of folks who were listening, anyway.
And I don't know if it was too many episodes, or too many stories.
There's nothing wrong with having a small number of loyal listeners. But
I suspect there's such a thing as too few listeners to justify continuing.
And after a whole year, I'm wondering if that's not where I am now.
I like doing the podcast. I'd like to think it's more about the content
than the technology. I can justify continuing the show based on my liking
the technology. But changing the content seems to destroy any interest in
the show by anyone other than me.
The Tech show folks have it kinda easy. Most of the folks who listen to
podcasts are fairly techno-savvy. If you have something that's fun
technically to get downloaded, and covers Tech subjects, you've pretty
much got it in the bag, as George Burns put it.
But if you talk about something that isn't technical, then you don't
appeal to that sizeable chunk of the available audience. And there ain't
much left, since downloading podcasts is hard.
So I may have achieved the full measure of the possible audience for what
I know how to do. And since I have nothing else I know how to do -- maybe
I should stop now?
When I was doing theater, I knew a director who would always remind us, concerning small audiences, that every one in the audience had paid the same to get in, whether there were 2 people or 200. And each individual deserved to get the best show we could give.
ReplyDeleteYour podcast has heart, no reason to stop just because the audience numbers fluctuate sometimes.
Yeah, I feel ya. Might know the same director.
ReplyDeleteWas just remembering an album I had decades ago, a live album by John Denver. He was talking to the audience, and said he remembered sitting on the lifeguard stand at the beach, working on songs that he was singing, and working on songs that he was writing, and "literally ached for someone to sing to." It's kinda like that.
I have 100 percent more people listening now than I had a year ago, and that's more listeners than most of the world have. But I want everybody. ;-)