Death of a podcast

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Tony Morgan, over at his blog, discussed the end of Yahoo! podcasts a while back. The service shut down, and it begs the question: Is podcast listenership in decline? He lists a few barriers to the success of podcasts:
You can't scan through a podcast to find the good stuff.
It's tough to carve out time to listen to podcasts.
Other things like videos and reading sound more fun than listening to someone talk.
Podcast quality often stinks.
They don't lend themselves to viral distribution.
Why in the heck does this matter to church marketing, you might ask. Well, podcasts for weekly sermons are integral parts of many churches. Some churches even podcast more than just weekly messages. We have to ask ourselves if this form of media is something we should continue to pursue, and if so, how should we improve the state of the podcast?

I see two potential "Save The Podcasts" schools of thought here. Firstly, you might think that podcasts are fine how they are. They were all the rage for awhile as people were testing them out, and now they're settling down to only those looking for serious depth and theological meat through technology. Secondly, you might think that podcasts just need a little makeover. The most popular podcasts sit around ten minutes in length and are well-produced. Let's look at these two briefly.

Podcasts are fine how they are.
In a world of blogs, bits, slogans, phrases and quips, they are a defender of the theological and the deep. The workhorses of the technological industry. There's obviously a market for deeply satisfying podcast material. I've met folks who like to run to the sound of solid exegesis or like to be spiritually satisfied on their long drive to work. This can give your church appeal beyond just the community and can be so important for edification of believers. Maybe if you don't think podcasts are worth your breath, you should at least consider these people.

Podcasts just need a little makeover.
In a world of blogs, bits, slogans, phrases and quips, they are the the technology that showed up to the race without shoes. Churches ought to podcast straight and to the point--maybe sermon highlights, inspirational thoughts or news and updates from the staff. There's people out there who get a little squeamish at the idea of a 45-minute sermon (cheers to you, Kevin), and we need to give these individuals a gateway to our churches. Let's not forget about these people, either.

So maybe one or the other podcast is especially effective for your audience. Maybe both would be best. Or heck, maybe podcasts are dead and neither one is worth a second look. Either way, as podcasts get older (relatively speaking, of course), it's time to ask ourselves again how we'll be using this technology.

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