Fitz Thiar: Thinking For The Impatient

-16 LUFS for podcast (stereo) audio has been the standard for longer than I can remember. By exporting your audio at this level, you help ensure that your listener isn’t suddenly forced to either raise their volume to hear your podcast properly or panic grab for the volume button before their eardrums start to bleed.

I sometimes feel like podcasters, even established ones who should know better, think that their show exists in a vacuum. The listeners shown in your stats dashboard listen to your show and your show alone, so fuck them, and fuck the larger podcast community. I’ll put my podcast out the way I want to.

Well, reality check, ducky. I’ve had enough and am now actively unsubscribing from podcasts that don’t respect podcast audio standards. It’s been around way too long to be lightly brushed aside.

Your podcast isn’t the only one I listen to, and I can say with relative certainty that 95% of podcast listeners don’t just have one podcast on their playlist.

As listeners, we tend to be doing other things while we listen – chores, running, etc. Being forced to stop what we are doing, especially when you’re elbows deep in the podcast creator’s wife dishes, to adjust the volume because it has suddenly jumped to levels that would make a KISS concert feel like gentle elevator music is just not acceptable.

It’s a bad listener experience. Your podcast does not exist separately from the larger podcast ecosystem, and the success or perception of the podcast community is tied to what we do as a group.

It’s not a difficult fix. In production, it literally takes less than 30 seconds to adjust and export appropriately.

I understand that some podcasters don’t even listen to their own shows (what kind of monster are you?); they record, and their editor or production team take care of the rest, but that is no excuse for disrespecting your listeners who are choosing to spend their time listening to your podcast.

It’s also no excuse for disrespecting the rest of the podcast creator community that is trying to make podcasting better for all involved.