Why Can’t You Find a New Podcast?

Podcasts are great, it seems like an undeniable and ubiquitous opinion. Whether you listen while you workout, on your commute, or simply as you carry on through the day, more and more people are streaming podcasts. Podcasts have also increasingly wedged their way into our content consumption plans. And, in an era where we have loads and loads of content force-fed to us all the time, it’s become even harder to discover the best podcasts or the right podcasts.

Current Podcast Discovery

Chances are you listen to a select group of podcasts and don’t often venture out or try something new. You also likely discovered these couple of podcasts in one of two ways:

1. Found it on the top charts
2. Your friend told you to listen

While neither method is necessarily bad, they’re both limited. The top charts are self-perpetuating, especially when it comes to the small subset of listeners looking for something new. They’ll likely scroll the top charts, be intrigued by a podcast title, and listen. While this is great and the podcasts at the top of the charts are deserving of the notoriety, this creates a tough barrier to entry for newcomers without an existing large following.

The second method, through word-of-mouth, is definitely preferred in my opinion. The only issue with it is it’s too sporadic and doesn’t happen nearly enough. My friends, people I communicate every day, just recently shared the podcasts they listen to in hopes of finding something new.

Another problem with relying too heavily on word-of-mouth from your friends and coworkers is falling into a like-minded trap. You’re automatically drawn to people who have similar interests, viewpoints, and probably already listens to podcasts you already do to begin with. If you don’t already listen, their list of podcasts are probably a group you’ve heard of and “having been meaning to listen to once I have the time.” They’re rarely going to be new, never-heard-of-before podcasts that genuinely surprise you.

This article originally appeared on Discover Pods as The Podcast Discoverability Problem.