To Season or Not to Season?

Workbench
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Before I even ask my question, I want to bring in this thread from awhile back where @artemisgavriilidou asked about podcast seasons and episode numbers…

Building on the thread started there, I’m curious what your personal take on offering seasons and if you offer seasons for your podcast, how you number your episodes?

Yes, I’m curious if you sequentially number your episodes even when you begin a new season (most podcasters seem to do this - meaning if your Season 1 ends with Episode 10, your Season 2 starts with Episode 11 - as opposed to restarting episode numbers like TV shows do)… though I’m even more curious about if and how you categorize your podcast into seasons and WHY you do it or you don’t.

Another interwoven question, I’m curious if you offer SERIES within your podcast. I see seasons as different than series in the way that a season is based on a length of time versus a series is based on a theme. Your definitions may vary, though :slight_smile:

I’ve been looking through big and small podcasts to see what each host does… @craigconstantine you do different things for each of your podcasts so perhaps you have intentionally considered what you do and why you do it in regards to seasons?

@clevpt I came upon your podcast Wisdom Shared (and I came upon it actually by searching for @steveh’s podcast and recognized your name Carole from previous encounters in Akimbo land) and you seem to restart your episode numbers with each new season. Would you care to share your reasoning?

@steveh, you seem to simply keep going with episode numbers and don’t include any “seasoning.” :wink: (trying to play with wording but to be clear, you simply go with episode numbering and do not include any season numbering :smiley: )

Really, there’s no one way and I’m not here looking for the one way. I’m curious to hear your perspectives is all!

It’s nice to touch back into this community. It’s been a lot longer than I thought since I’ve been here (I needed to look up when Craig and I talked on Podtalk and it was… July 2022!! this community is too good for me to simply touch in on an annual basis… :smiley:

Curious to hear your thoughts and perspectives on if you season or not! – and if you “series” or not too.

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Seasons… like everything in podcasting, there are many options and then many things to consider. It’s really something I think little about in my day-to-day podcasting work. Here’s my thinking…

If one’s episodes carry a larger story arc, then clearly grouping them into a season makes sense. I don’t do any work like that, so this isn’t a consideration for me.

Little Box of Quotes has way over 1,000 episodes. They’re daily and no one sane would try to listen to all of them. Each episode is tiny and separate. I think people find them individually (via a share, or a search for a person). It makes no sense to group them i to seasons. I’ll just keep piling them on until the sie of the RSS feed breaks podcast player apps.

Movers Mindset I started using seasons a few years ago when I removed episode numbers from my titles. See Titles of episodes and … I thought I had a blog post about episode numbers in titles, but I cannot find it. :frowning:

In MM I’ve just been changing the season number each calendar year. Thinking perhaps a new listener might start at the beginning of the most recent season. For Podtalk I’ve just been letting the episodes pile on.

Sometimes I think about doing the conversations (for MM and for Podtalk) in batches and then publishing like 10 episodes at a time, one per week, and calling that a season. Then I could publish a “coming soon” episode explaining when to expect the next batch/season. But all of that just makes more work for me. Instead, when I have a conversation, I publish it.

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LibSyn strongly recommend not to use Seasons.

From their podcast “The Feed”.

I forget the reason why though. Sorry!

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Craig, thanks for sharing your thought process, especially noting the differences between each of your podcasts.

Yeah if a podcast host is going for simplicity, seasons really don’t seem to make sense.

I’ve been learning that seasons can make sense for hosts who regularly publish and regularly take breaks in between. The restarts after a break can easefully become a new season. But that doesn’t seem like how you groove with publishing.

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Thanks for sharing Brian. Do you have easy access to the episode in which they shared this? I searched for it but couldn’t find it. I actually reached out to the hosts of the podcast to see if they could point me in the right direction (so no worries if you can’t find it).

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Hi Cassandra - thanks for tagging me. I kept to weekly episodes as a discipline around my ‘promise’ to myself and my listeners.

Two challenges with Seasons - you might find it hard to come back to the next season after a break. And the listeners might ‘replace’ you in their limited supply of disposable attention. If they are not listening to you they ar probably listening to someone else and you may have to displace them from a listeners three favourite podcasts they listen to every week.

What do you do when choosing what to listen to and to keep listening to?

The good thing about seasons is that it allows time to reflect and the possibility of stopping.

Often we don’t have a clear exit strategy for our podcast - maybe we don’t need one when we start but trying a season or three gives time to decide if podcasting is now a permanent part of your life.

Batch production can be another bonus. Build the season and then schedule the episodes while you take a break or start building the next season.

All options for you to try and to change your mind about if they are really not working for you.

Hope it helps. SteveH

PS Mini series - yes I do sometimes but fairly loosely.

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