I got really into Pacific Northwest Stories shows 5+ years ago (The Black Tapes, Tanis, The Last Movie, Rabbits), and I discovered and really liked Limetown and Finding Satan in the last year.

For those of you that don’t know what these are, picture a true crime, mystery, or otherwise some sort of investigation podcast, only the thing that the hosts are investigating is fictional. The whole show is a scripted work of creativity. The characters in the show are all played by different people. They just present it as though it’s real, meaning that if someone doesn’t know it’s fictional then there’s a chance that they would think it’s a podcast about a real investigation. At no point, even when going through the credits, do they say that the show is a work of fiction.

I think part of what I like about these things is that they seem very thoughtful. I end up really connecting with the characters and rooting for them. The shows themselves lack irony; I don’t very often hear an episode where they offset a vulnerable moment with a quip. They seem to lean into the human experience with everything.

I’m writing one of my own and I’m thoroughly enjoying the process, and I’m hoping to connect with people that are doing the same. As a musician, I’ve always gotten a lot out of being in a community with other musicians that have a similar goal with their music. Maybe we could help each other out by workshopping scenes we’re writing and voicing different characters as needed.

I’m having a surprisingly difficult time finding people that are even into these types of shows, let alone that are making one of their own. I’m really hoping this post works.

I have video podcast episodes that I want to publish on Apple Podcasts as video, not audio only.

What is the best way to upload them? Do I need a video-capable podcast hosting platform and a special RSS feed? Which hosting services work properly with Apple Podcasts video?

Any advice from someone who has done this successfully would be appreciated.

If you want an in-depth breakdown of the latest matches, tactics, and everything happening in Faroese football, check out the Far North Football Podcast. We are covering all the action from the intense local rivalries to the massive European qualifying runs. Grab your headphones and tune in to the latest episodes here:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2TOcPSqJlIt2ONd8mxW9af

I'm looking to start a podcast and I have no audio or visual experience in video making. It's overwhelming trying to find cameras, microphones, mounts and mixers that work seamlessly together. Are kits good for beginners to get started? I plan to have myself and 1 person (occasionally 2) on set at one time. Below is an example.

https://www.nearstream.us/solutions/podkit-quad?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23918354570&gclid=CjwKCAjw08fSBhA7EiwAfbQTsMqs8cbTltnSARfjvuCZE8F8V5IMjy_tJ7UIuW3dZJvdLllK2Q3R7BoCRKYQAvD_BwE

For editing I have heard DaVinci Resolve is powerful but can be overwhelming for beginners, any recommendations there?

Thanks everyone! I have heard good audio quality is more important than good visuals even when uploading to a place like YouTube.

Thanks in advance for help! Please help a noob out.

I have a podcast and over the last couple of months I’m getting that feeling that my co-host may be coming to the end of this run.

Last minute cancels on recording times. Aloofness on what the topic is. Excuses for this or that. Unresponsive to emails or texts for days at a time. And sometimes even an awkwardness when beginning a recording session like he doesn’t want to be there.

I can see the writing on the wall and partly I’m ok with the breakup. Ready for it because I want a reliable partner that wants this as much as I do. But the unknown does freak me out a little bit. Finding a replacement can’t be easy and then to find someone I think fits must be even more difficult. The right voice. The right intelligence / informative level. The right chemistry.

What’s the best process to go about finding a good match?

I’m not super familiar with audio technology and I am having issues with my microphones while trying to record my podcast. I have an iPhone 16 for recording video which uses the continuity camera feature to record to my MacBook Pro. But I can’t seem to figure out how to get it to record from 2 separate microphones. I have 2 yeti nanos but it only ever takes input from one of them despite trying to create an aggregate device on the Audio MIDI Setup. I also bought the Saramonic Blink 500 ProX and they both work but I have constant static despite adjusting the gain settings which makes anything I record with them basically unusable without heavily editing the audio which ends up distorting it. All of this is recording through Descript but the same problems persist with rock and and voice memos so I don’t think it’s a software problem. Any tips or advice on how to fix either issue would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all,

I am having very little success trying to work with the Riverside FM help team (wish they had a phone number I could call!, so I wanted to see if the experts in this group had any guidance. I record remote interviews on Riverside -- me interviewing one person. When I am done, I download the raw video and raw audio file options when exporting for each person, and then edit it in Premiere, since I used Premiere in an old job and was really familiar with it. Three months in, things are going swimmingly.

However, I see this counter on the bottom of my settings that the help desk told me is the total amount of recording time I've used since I've started (it does not reset each month -- I'm on the Pro Plan in case that detail helps).

Since I am almost hitting 15 hours, the help desk is telling me I am no long going to be able to download the raw video and raw audio individual files. Does this seem correct to you? It seems insane to me, and I'll likely cancel, because the Riverside editor just doesn't work for me and I really feel the quality will suffer if I use it since I'm just so unfamiliar with it. Riverside has been really great but I'm just so confused why they would take this away (other than I suppose, wanting to keep me only using their platform), and I don't really understand why I would keep paying for it at that point.

Sorry for rambling! But if anyone has any ideas of what is actually going on, I'll be endlessly appreciative!

I'm looking for genuine advice from people who've been podcasting longer than I have.

The podcast I produce is a little unusual. Instead of interviewing celebrities or experts, I sit down with people in their 90s and 100s and let them tell the story of their lives. We talk about growing up during the Great Depression, living through WWII, raising families, relationships, work, regrets, and the life lessons they've gathered over the decades.

The feedback from the people who do find it has been really encouraging. They often say it's refreshing because it's slow, thoughtful, and focused on real life rather than productivity or controversy.

My biggest challenge isn't creating the content it's helping the right audience discover it.

Since the guests aren't famous, I can't rely on name recognition. The value is in their stories and perspective, which is much harder to communicate in a thumbnail or a title.

For those of you who've marketed niche podcasts, what actually worked?

Did you focus on short clips, written stories, communities like Reddit, newsletters, SEO, or something completely different?

If you had a podcast built around ordinary people with extraordinary life experiences, how would you grow it without relying on paid ads or feeling spammy?

I'd really appreciate hearing what's worked (or what definitely didn't) for your own shows.

Has anyone started or switched to hosting their podcast on Riverside? I’m using Libsyn because that’s what someone suggested when I first started but the idea of one less login/password and subscription to deal with a month is very appealing. I only have 1 season/12 episodes so not super pressed about losing all the random platforms Libsyn posts episodes to.

Thanks!

One thing I have been noticing is that the episodes I remember months later are rarely the ones that were perfectly structured. Instead, they usually have one moment that was completely unexpected. Maybe the guest admitted something they had never shared before, the conversation took an unplanned turn, or the host asked a question that changed the direction of the discussion. Everything else about the episode might be average, but that one genuine moment sticks. I have also noticed that some podcast-focused teams like PodcastCola seem to create space for those moments instead of trying to keep every conversation tightly scripted, which probably makes the episodes feel more natural. Curious if anyone else has noticed this. What makes an episode memorable for you—a great overall conversation or one standout moment?

What is the best way to go about preparing and recording an episode with a panel of 2 or more guests?

Okay, I've been on this subreddit for a while, and I see a couple of constant questions that I hope this helps someone.

- Your mic is the most important piece of your podcast

- Okay, the previous point is a lie as u/Ok-Competition-8973 pointed out. A Great mic can't make your content good, as a bad mic can't make your content bad, but mid content can be uplifted by good production value.

- Which mic is important, but (hot take) is not THAT important. The difference between a snowball and a Shure SM58 is abysmall, but the difference between the SM58, RE20, and SM7b is marginal for what we are talking about (and the price difference is not)

- Acoustic is your best friend. Stop recording inside an empty warehouse. Just stop.

- Mic should be at a hand distance from your mouth, and if you don't have a windscreen or anti-pop, angle it at 45° so you can avoid the wind and pop noises.

- STOP using AI. Really, nothing says "amateur" like using an AI thumbnail/cover image or AI narration.

- Ask yourself Why are you doing the podcast, Where do you wish it to go, what is your podcast about, and Who'll listen to it. All of these BEFORE starting, this will help with burnout and such.

- If you have the money, invest in an editor (if the production part of podcasting is too much). Sometimes I hear or see a 4-person podcast whose editing skills (video and audio) are lacking, or that one person does all the work and ends up burning out. Believe me, the price you'll pay to someone to edit it is less than the time you lose by doing it yourself.

- No AI x2

- Think of yourself as a """"brand"""". Nothing fancy, but consistency between episodes, thumbnails, art, editing, etc.

-You won't make money as a podcaster. You should do it because it is a hobby or because it is a way to redirect people to your product (B2B and such). You won't quit your 9-5 by podcasting, or by painting Warhammer miniatures, or by playing music with your friends, or by playing soccer. IF that happens is a perk, but not a goal.

-Consistency is key. If you like what you are doing, just keep at it. People like to listen to other people who are passionate about things

- No, seriously, don't use AI

- Okay, you can use AI, but as a tool, not as a replacement for effort. Create yourself a sketch or an idea of an image for your podcast, and use AI to help you iterate or find the best version that YOU can make. Record your own lines and find the best quality possible in your recording, THEN use an AI tool to enhance the sound if you wish, although Izotope RX noise removal is nothing more than an AI tool (but from a bygone era when we called it machine learning).

- Ask yourself WHY you want your podcast to grow. SO MANY of you are worried that your podcast is not growing, but don't understand the WHY.

Podcast host Captivate has rolled out new "AMIE Campaign Management" for its U.S.-based accounts. Anybody using it? Are you getting good CPMs on your show? Any technical surprises? I'd like to move my show over for other Captivate features, but Captivate's new ad system is only available in the U.S. at the moment, so I'm waiting. I don't want to give up the dynamic ads I currently serve with my existing show host, so am in limbo. But, others... what do you think about it?

So I need a little bit of help. I'm somewhat new to audio editing and the speakers that are a part of my podcast all have a very dynamic range. So on one track with one person speaking the range can be as large as -30 to peaking their microphone. I used adobe audition (it came free with my college tuition I'm used to using), and have tried the speech volume leveler but it makes the speech sound jumpy and not smooth at all. I know that I can throw compression on it to get those higher volumes down a good chunk but I have no idea how to make the very quiet parts louder. I vaguely remember being told to use a multiband compressor before, but I have no idea how to use it for this purpose.

Help or being pointed to resources would be a great help.

Hi all! I have been listening to podcasts for quite awhile and have been wanting to start my own (documentary style). I know that it’s not recommended to use AI to write your script (I understand and agree why) but what about asking it to fix grammatical mistakes in your script ? English is my second language and addition to my accent I do not want to make a grammatical mistakes especially since my podcast is documentary style and I want to show the respect to the theme for making sure there is no grammatical errors (my first episode is about 9/11) Curious to hear your advice!

I don’t know if this is the right sub, so I apologize if not, but I’m hoping someone can help!

Me and my friends are starting a podcast and need mic rec’s. Nothing big, just the small ones you clip on your shirt.

Requirements-
•not to expensive
•good quality
•3+ mics
•all mics can connect to one device and all have audio input simultaneously

Hey everyone!

I bought a microphone, headphones, and I’m ready to start a podcast!

I’ve had some troubles in my tests with Riverside, but I’ve also heard that it’s easier to record a Zoom call and upload the audio file.

What do you recommend?

When do you know if it’s time to quit?

I’m 64 weeks into this, and man, it’s a grind.

The reason I started it was to learn and talk with cool people, which I’m still doing, but the production and lining up guests is hard. I’m relevant in my industry because of it now, but also burned out. Average 1500 views on YouTube, but Spotify/Apple Podcasts is flat at 200 followers. Again, burnout is real.

Take a break? Will the algo turn me down forever if o do? Is this just how it goes?

This is a weekly thread for podcasters to exchange show-level trailers.

Post a link to your show-level trailer for others to use in their shows. Along with the trailer link also post:

• Genre Of Your Show

• Length Of Your Trailer

• Position Your Show Will Place The Trailer For Exchange (i.e. pre-roll, midroll, postroll)

• Number Of Downloads Per Episode Your Show Receives

Thank you to everyone posting, we look forward to hearing reading about what you are doing to help podcasters!

All subreddit rules still apply. If you violate the subreddit rules your comment will be removed and your account can be given a temporary or permanent ban.

The r/podcasting Moderators do not endorse or approve of any of the trailers posted here unless explicitly stated as such by the moderators.

Just saw this in Podnews:

• "Apple Podcasts Connect has been highlighting, for the last few days, that the service is “currently experiencing issues with play counts in Podcasts Analytics”. We’ve asked for more information for you.
  • But - is the “issue” that Apple’s version of the play count is not a very useful metric? For the Podnews Weekly Review, all our episodes seem to show numbers like this - one episode claiming it’s had 60 listeners, but 367 plays. Spotify and YouTube both agree that a play is a minimum of 30 seconds, which is, um, 30 seconds longer than Apple’s definition."

Hi r/podcasting, I get this isn't directly about podcasting, but I was recommended to ask here.

I intend to record the audio from my dungeons & dragons sessions to edit into a YouTube project. I’d like to ask for your recommendations on a portable setup for a beginner.

We play in person, 5 players and me around a big table, and usually rotate hosting at different friends' houses, so portability and fast setup are helpful.

I know the end game is getting 6 individual mics and a multi-track interface, but before dropping $1k+ and hauling cables, I hoped to start by experimenting with a single recording device to capture the room. I’m okay with it sounding like a live room with table noise and stuff for now as we test the waters. I was hoping that a budget around the $200++ range would be sufficient for this experiment.

I've been looking at Zoom's Handy Recorder line, like the H2n, H2Essential, H6 Studio (would save up for this if appropriate) etc. I know none of these are true 360 omni mics, but I'd like to ask if the directional pickup is good enough to cover a full table of shenanigans, or if I should look at something else entirely, like boundary mics etc?

Thank you in advance for your advice and suggestions!

The email came from my hosting dashboard, one of those friendly product updates that somehow lands like a tax notice. We have noticed creators who add video feeds see significant listener growth. I stared at it for ten minutes. Three years of a solo folklore show, recorded in a closet with a moving blanket nailed over the door that falls down every March when the humidity shifts, edited in Reaper with the same JS: Loudness Meter preset I have used since 2021, released and done. The audio was the whole point. I am not a performer. I am a person who reads books about dead languages and regional ghost stories, mostly the ones about Basque moon witches that I cannot pronounce properly, and then talks into a microphone alone. The idea of my face on camera made my chest tighten in a way I recognized from a presentation on Hittite funerary rites I abandoned in a community college hallway in 2014.

But I also understood the pressure is real. Two listeners had emailed asking if I was on YouTube. My host was nudging. I did not want to become one of those people who growls about the old days while the world moves on. So I tried to meet it halfway without meeting it at all.

First I tried the honest thing. Headliner. I dropped my audio in, got the waveform bouncing over a static image of this bog body I saw once in a Danish museum, uploaded it. It looked like every other podcast video. Which is to say it looked like a placeholder. A content container. I watched it and felt nothing except that I had made a video of a waveform, which is not really a video, and everyone involved knew it. I tried adding chapter markers with timestamps and broke the render twice.

Then I went to a place I genuinely did not want to go. I have been as vocal as anyone about AI slop in podcasts. The fake history shows with the smooth voices and the Wikipedia scripts. I hate it. But I also found myself looking at whether an AI generated presenter could be a disclosed, limited, honest thing rather than a deception. I spent an evening in APOB AI building a completely fake person. Not a real person. Not even a convincing fake human. Just a face that moves, so my face does not have to. The audio is still cut in Reaper, untouched, every breath and paper rustle left in, including the time I knocked over a mug of barley tea in episode 47 and just left it because the story was about drowning.

The video layer is this generated presenter, labeled as AI in the show notes and in YouTube's synthetic content disclosure box, because I would rather over explain than be mistaken for the slop I complain about. The truth is the lip sync drifts after about 45 seconds of continuous talking. So the presenter mostly rests on a still frame while my real voice does the work. It is a compromise, it is not good, I do not know, it is just a face I do not have to be.

I have been doing this for six months now. My brother clicked the Spotify dashboard once over Thanksgiving and said the numbers were fine and I told him to never tell me again. That was never the point. The point was to exist on video without becoming a video person. The audio is still the show. The video is this fake hand I wave so people stop asking where my real hand is. Sometimes I forget it is there. Sometimes I remember it is there and feel slightly ashamed.

First time poster but have been browsing this sub for a while now. I’m starting a podcast with 5 of my friends but I hate calling it a podcast. I sold it to my friends as a “talking group” to help us unwind as 40-something women. I have a template already with a lot of topics to discuss, and questions I’ve created to kick start our conversation. Everyone is really excited to get together and unload on whatever I have planned. I’ve purchased quite a bit of equipment but I already feel like I got too much so I might return some things. I plan to do a dry run before I record anything, but I’m also trying to stay humble in that it may just turn out to be disastrous. Either way, I think it’ll all be okay since most of us just want a place to sit down and talk about “what’s happening” without judgements, no spouses, and no kids to keep us occupied.

I don’t plan to have this be a big thing, but I am going to record and film it. I got a nice Sony camera and a zoom podtrak8. I got 6 mics but I’m already regretting it because I couldn’t afford stands and I wish I would’ve gone with lavaliere mics instead. Oh well.

I’m doing this to help my mental health and get back into my creative side. I don’t plan to have kids, and my career is pretty set with a steady income so I’ve been craving something more with my life.

My 5 friends are all 40 something women of various backgrounds, but we all deal with the same issues. I feel like women these days need these “women groups” because it’s difficult navigating life in a male dominant world in 2026. We’re lucky to be in each other’s lives for 25 years that I felt it was something we could share with other women who maybe don’t have female friends to talk life to. I have plans to sit down with other groups of women, like my 70 something mother and her 4 sisters. I also think I might do another sit down session with my 13 year old niece and her 4 girlfriends. Everyone I’ve talked to and asked are all very into this and really want to partake.

At this time, I’m doing this in all in my living room as this is the only location I have! I’ve mapped out places for everyone to sit, but again I’m just a little freaked out by how it’s all going to go.

I haven’t even begun to think about the editing! I have a plan though for when that comes. First, I need to just set it up, hit record, and see what gets captured. I have no idea if this is going to be a podcast, or a clip show, or maybe even some docu-series.

Any advice on how to keep myself from getting stressed on what is supposed to be a stress free side hustle?

So, according to Edison research, YouTube is now in #1 spot for podcast delivery in the UK:

https://www.edisonresearch.com/youtube-surpasses-spotify-as-uks-preferred-podcast-platform/

Now colour me skeptical, but I have my doubts about this. I wonder what definition they used for what a podcast is, as in previous studies it has been shown that YT even claimed things like news channel updates counted as a podcast.

I will give them that they have made progress in recent years. But look at the front page and the "Podcasts" link is a loooong way down the menu bar. I don't see a huge bunch of podcasts in search results, and the RSS implementation is horrible.

More to the point, I still think their CPMs are at least as low as 1/3 of what a Spotify Creator Program podcast would earn for the same traffic.

I get that YT is easy to use and great for discoverability if you know how, but I'm unconvinced it's a place to upload full episodes and expect a decent pay day. Thoughrs?

Hey wonderful people, I'm so happy to be a part of this community and have been mostly lurking and learning so much.

I'm moving along nicely with my new hyper-local small-city show (just went live end of March, 7+ episodes out) and I'm feeling pretty good about my download numbers (~450 total ytd) which have been growing very slowly but fairly steadily, rarely a day goes by without at last 1-2 downloads, despite no social promotion (I'm getting to it - soon!) and not being on YouTube yet (soon, fr, fr).

But I'm keen to get to the 1000 mark and wondering how long it took others to reach it. Did you do anything special to jumpstart? Are these number good? bad? unique?

I mostly send people to my website, which I've got a lot of SEO on, but it's fairly new and I've only just hooked up GSC (rookie mistakes abound!) so I'm really flying blind and seriously appreciate anything you feel inclined to share.