Lots of popular podcasts are long. Really long. 1.5 - 2.5 hours long. I don't know about you, but I think that's nuts. Half an hour is a much more manageable length for a podcast.

Why aren't there very many good 30 minute podcasts?

It's the ads, stupid. It's always the ads.

You can have 3 sponsor reads in a 2 hour podcast with no trouble. Even if the ads are a disrespectfully long 3 minutes1 each, that's 9 total minutes of ads - just 7.5% of the total episode length.

Now try that in a 30 minute show. You're looking at 30% of the entire show as ads. No one is listening to a podcast that is 30% ads2.


  1. Some unnamed shows have ads as long as 6 minutes each. That is beyond disrespectful of the listener. 

  2. Except valued listeners of All the Good Ads