How do you help podcasters find their next favourite show and keep listeners, listening?

Audiences often find a show they love and stop there, not because there’s nothing else they’d enjoy, but because no one’s pointed them in the right direction.

Traditional broadcasters solved this problem a long time ago.

Continuity announcements have been guiding audiences from one programme to the next on television for decades. They’re the “coming up next…” moments that keep listeners moving through a schedule, staying engaged with a network rather than drifting away. It’s a simple, well-proven idea, and one that, until recently, the podcast world hadn’t really explored.

Across the month-long trial, continuity announcements recorded by network voiceovers and placed at the start of podcast episodes are estimated to have generated 191,069 listens to recommended shows. Listens that, without the announcement, might never have happened.

Some of the most engaged audiences came from Help I Sexted My Boss, where continuity announcements are estimated to have sent 28,796 listeners to the recommended shows. Listeners of The Teen Commandments also responded well — 3.69% of the audience went on to listen to Get A Grip after hearing the recommendation. Listeners of shows in the Always True Crime network also responded well – 17.04% of the British Murders audience went on to listen to UK True Crime, while 14.81% of Murder Mile’s listeners followed a recommendation for The True Crime Enthusiast.

One of the highest conversion rates in the trial came from Leave A Message promoting to other shows across the Audio Always Network. One continuity announcement sent 5% of listeners to another show; a second sent a massive 13.97%. That’s a meaningful number of people choosing to spend more time with Audio Always content off the back of a well-placed recommendation.

Claire Chambers, Marketing Executive at Audio Always explains. “We’ve always known that great audio content leads listeners somewhere. This trial gave us real evidence that continuity announcements can genuinely navigate audiences, in the same way they’ve moved TV and radio viewers and listeners for years.”

Paul Fernley, Business Development Director at Audio Always added. “It points to something worth building on and we will continue to grow this tool for the benefit of our podcasts and their listeners. The broader point is a simple one: podcasting has a huge amount to discover from the mediums and channels that came before it. Continuity announcements are just one example. Audio Always intends to keep developing the good ideas — and finding out which ones work when you take them somewhere new.”

Photo Credit: by Ilias Chebbi on Unsplash