How Long Should A Podcast Be?

One of the most frequent questions I get asked as a podcast coach & teacher is, “How long should a podcast episode be, ideally?”

Libsyn’s Rob Walch came up with the perfect (and perfectly cheeky) response:

“There is no such thing as a podcast that is too long — only too boring.” — Rob Walch

Podcasting isn’t like other traditional media. For example, when we go to see a movie, we enter the theater and put our lives on hold for two hours (give or take), and the expectation is that we will have a completely uninterrupted experience with that piece of media.

In this case, there IS such thing as a movie that is “too long”, because we can only suspend our lives for a certain period of time.

However, with a podcast, we can make use of the “pause” button on our podcast app. With a podcast, the experience is similar to listening to an audiobook — I’ll listen until I need to stop or do something else, hit pause, and then resume at a later time.

As a creator, you cannot control how listeners consume what you create. You can try to guess how long a listener may listen during a stretch of time — say, a 30-minute commute or a 20-minute jog — but there is never a guarantee of how long someone will listen.

And I’ve seen podcasts of all lengths succeed, from daily 5-minute update shows to Dan Carlin’s 6-hour episodes of “Hardcore History.”

Your podcast should be as long as it needs to be for you to share your story or make your point — with no unnecessary filler.