Introducing: Trailer Park: The Podcast Trailer Podcast is a podcast that showcases podcast trailers. Whether those trailers were made and then abandoned, were made as creative proof, are part of a larger body of work, or were created just for fun, they're welcome here at the park!

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Not so long ago, it was possible to talk about the future of podcasting in relevant terms for every podcaster. But podcasting has evolved beyond those simpler times. So what do we do in these more complex times?

I'm not gonna beat around the bush. What you are listening to or reading right now is the very last episode of Podcast Pontifications that I will make. This is it.

I wrote out this long and detailed outline of a script that dug deep into why I'm making this decision and what I'm doing next... but I threw it out because it was a little—OK, a lot—self-serving. Brevity is better. Episodes should be as short as you can possibly make them, right? That's something you've heard me say before. So I might as well eat my own dog food.

I'm choosing to shut down production of future episodes of Podcast Pontifications for a lot of reasons, but they all trace back to a single reality: Podcasting has outgrown my ability to keep up with all the changes.

That's something that's likely not going to slow down anytime soon. So I'm doing the only logical thing to do when an industry gets this fractured, and you're just one person. I'm niching down. You know. That course of action I've suggested you do with your own podcast for years now?

The niche I'm picking is fiction podcasting. No, not as a maker of fiction podcasts, which also precludes me from being a pundit. I'm simply not qualified to tell fiction podcasters what they should be thinking about.

No, my role in fiction podcasting starts with curation and enabling. A couple of weekends ago, I sent out a special edition of this newsletter. If you skipped that, here's what you missed:

I'm helping people who love fiction audio—audiobooks, audio drama, radio theater, etc.—to discover great fiction podcasts. Not when those productions start, but when they have reached the (or at least a) conclusion, providing an excellent listening experience.

I'm doing this with a newsletter I call The End, which you can—and I hope you will—sign up for free!

If you like watching fiction TV or movies and you haven't yet dipped your toes into the amazing world of fiction podcasting, you are missing out on some amazing stories. Stories that just might let you cancel one or more of those expensive streaming video services!

So, yes, this is the end of Podcast Pontifications. I've genuinely enjoyed meeting so many amazing people and podcasters, and I'm humbled to know that I've played a small part in helping those podcasters make their own podcasts, and therefore all of podcasting, better.

And I don't see that behavior stopping anytime soon. So please reach out to me if you ever need any sort of help whatsoever. My general email account thisisevo@gmail.com will probably reach me forever. The website for this show will stay up for a little while longer, but not forever. I plan on keeping all of the mirrored posts up on Medium for as long as Medium exists. The audio episodes will stay up as long as Captivate doesn't kick me off. So if you feel like archiving close to 600 episodes of Podcast Pontifications for posterity, now is your time.

Again, thank you. Please subscribe to The End, and I'll see you around

Cheers!

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Sponsored by:

• Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast hosting...

The podcast advertising business is once again taking it on the chin, blasted from inside the industry and out. What can podcasters and podcast listeners do about it?

From ad buyers paying for podcast plays that ran inside mobile video games. 20-minute episodes with 20% filled with ads. People are getting fed up with advertising.

If a popular podcast runs ads, it's guaranteed that more than one negative review will simply read: too many ads. A valid complaint leveraged against much of the content we watch on our TVs and mobile devices. Ads we can't avoid.

But podcast creators can (and often do) offer ad-free options. And today, it's super easy. Subscription services built directly into Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Ad-free feeds via Patreon, Supercast, or Buy Me A Coffee. Or network-specific apps like those from Wondery+ and Realm.

The real problems are related to friction and awareness. And there isn't much we as podcasters can do about the friction issue. That's a tech problem only really solved by Apple Podcasts. And not everyone listens on Apple Podcasts.

But we podcasters can do something about awareness. We can make people aware that yeah, they are listening to an ad-supported feed, so expect ads. But also make them aware that there is an option (or options, I guess) to get an ad-free listening experience.

And there's one other thing we podcasters can do: We can stop complaining about ads in podcasting. Production costs—like all costs—continue to rise. The quality bar continues to be raised higher and higher, causing podcast creators who rise to that new level to again incur more costs.

Podcasting may still be a fun hobby to most, and I truly hope it stays that way. But the industry is driven forward by those who treat podcasting like a business. And for many, ads (and an ad-free option) is a very big part of the business.

Let's at least accept that fact, shall we?

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Sponsored by:

• Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast hosting company

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Links

• Got a podcasting service? Become a sponsor of Podcast Pontifications.
• Serious about podcasting? Join the Advancing Podcasting Community today!

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Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media. New episodes are released weekly, providing ideas and questions every serious podcaster should be thinking about.

It's created and hosted by Evo Terra. Follow him on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come. Allie Press assists with the production and transcription of the show.

If you received value from today's episode of Podcast Pontifications, return some of that! We call it value-for-value and there are many ways to show your support.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer