You have been doing your show for years, week after week after week. And now you have some good ideas for episodes, but they really do not fit with your current show. When is it time to call it a wrap and start a new show?
I recently ended a show that I had been doing since 2013, Podcast Help Desk. When I started PHD I also produced three other shows and on every one of them, I would end up talking about podcasting – even though the show was NOT about podcasting. At that time there were not a lot of shows about podcasting by someone who worked in customer support (help desk) for a podcast hosting company. So I started one about podcasting.
Fast forward eight years and I’m now co-hosting ANOTHER show about podcasting (Podcast Insider) and had been trying to keep up on Podcast Help Desk. In my case, I decided that I would be better off discontinuing PHD and putting any extra energy into the Podcast Insider.
Before you kill your podcast, maybe ask on your show if one of your listeners wants to take over for you; that way the show doesn’t have to die. Depending on the agreement you make, you could come on the show once in a while to scratch the podcasting itch.
Here are some of the other reasons you may want to kill your show…
You have run out of passion for the subject
It happens. You have a hobby or topic you are really passionate about, and then you fall out of love with it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Your interest in your subject just feels forced and it has run its course.
Life changes prevent you from doing a good show
Your work or home situation has changed. You no longer have the time to do show prep, recording, publishing or the marketing of your show. You get married, have kids, change jobs or many other things that can get in the way of podcasting. Maybe the new job doesn’t want you to talk about whatever your subject is. That can happen too.
You have nothing more to say
No really… You can simply run out of things to say about a subject. Some politics related shows have this issue. The subject of the podcast is closely tied to a candidate or a political movement and when the election is over or the movement achieves its goal, there isn’t much more to say. Or it could be something very personal to you and that subject has resolved itself in one way or another and you really do not need to talk about it anymore.
Regardless of the reason you want to quit hosting or producing a show, there are a couple of steps that I suggest you do to make the shut-down go smoothly and without any hard feelings from your loyal listeners.
- Make a final episode explaining what you are doing and why. Decide if you are going to do another show. Let your listeners know about the new show.
- Prepare to keep the show up for at least a month or two (or longer if you can). Some listeners might be taking a few weeks off from your show and when they are ready to come back, and your show is gone, that will be mysterious to them. Let them off the hook by keeping things up for a while. Don’t just podfade!
There’s a lot to think about when considering killing a show. Do you want to keep going with a different show? Or do you want to just be done with podcasting? (We hope not!)
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Mike Dell is the co-host of Podcast insider and the host of Mike Dell’s World. Mike is also the Customer Support Manager at Blubrry Podcasting.