There's no more intimate experience than listening to a voice in your ears through headphones.  

Think about the passionate relationships you have with the music you love.  In most cases, those relationships didn't happen when you were listening to the music in a public setting, or even on speakers - it happened when you were all alone, listening to the music through your headphones, and it seemed so personal.  

Podcasts are like that.  You start listening, while you're walking the dog or trying to sleep, and pretty soon you have a relationship with this voice in your ears.

Relationship.  The magic word that all marketers and advertisers like to hear.  And it's a one-on-one relationship, which makes it extra-appealing to marketers, who are always looking to reach consumers in an intimate way like that.

It's hardly ever a one-time thing

The thing with podcast listeners is that they're loyal.  Once you find a podcast you like - a voice in your ears that you develop a relationship with - you go back and listen to their whole back catalog, you subscribe to their new podcasts...it's a long-term relationship you're building.

Advertisers are looking for two things:  Reach and frequency.  'Reach' is how many people you're reaching with a particular message; 'frequency' is how many times an individual person is getting hit with your message.  Podcasts may have limited reach (at least so far) but they definitely have great frequency.

So why isn't there more advertising on podcasts?

I listen to a lot of podcasts.  A lot.  In fact, I think it's the only reason my dog isn't 102 pounds - it's easier to face a couple of hour-long walks every day when you've got something interesting to listen to.  It also helps with the tedium of housework, public transit, insomnia - I'm not sure how I ever got the laundry folded before the advent of podcasts.

I listen to a wide variety of podcasters:

• Dr Karl (science stuff)
• AnswerMeThis (answers to random questions...hilarity ensues)
• The Bugle (Audio Newspaper for a Visual World, with John Oliver from the Jon Stewart show)
• About a zillion BBC podcasts, from Newshour to Friday Night Comedy
• Dave Gorman from Absolute Radio (an edited version of his morning show)

There are lots of others, but this'll do to get started.

Of all of these, the only one that consistently has any advertising is the Dave Gorman podcast - they do a regular segment within the podcast promoting Kronenbourg 1664 beer.  The AnswerMeThis podcast had a brief promo for Audible.com (a perfect fit in my opinion, since people who listen to podcasts are likely to listen to audiobooks too) but it's gone now.  

It's great to be able to listen to 30-60 minutes of entertainment without commercial interruptions and all, but as I listen to these podcasts, week after week, I can't help thinking that advertisers are mising a huge opportunity.

So what's the problem?

Well, I think the biggest problem is that there aren't any comprehensive download statistics for podcasts.  The BBC, as a public company, posts stats for their podcasts, but iTunes doesn't (they have lists of 'top' downloads, but no numbers), and the individual podcasters themselves don't seem inclined to reveal stats (I've emailed a couple of my favourites, asking for info - so far not one of them has responded).  

The other problem is that podcasts tend to be very international:  One of my favourite podcasts is Scotland's Funny Bits, and it's interesting to note that most of the reviews for it on iTunes seem to be from Canadians.  So podcasts are a great channel if you're advertising a product that's available online (like Audible) or internationally (like Kronenbourg), but possibly less appealing if you need to reach a local market.

There's a huge opportunity here

There are lots of podcast directories out there; I don't know why someone hasn't created a podcast statistics directory or advertising agency yet.  (Maybe they have.  But I can't find it.)  

Remember what happened with bloggers?  Once smaller bloggers got themselves aggregated into networks, provided statistics and a demonstrated niche audience, they suddenly became much more attractive to advertisers.  I don't know why this isn't happening with podcasters.  I know the BBC figures aren't necessarily indicative of the average podcast, since they have a certain basal built-in audience, but there are more than 1 million downloads of the Friday Night Comedy show every month - and the demographics for that show aren't 'kids with iPods', either. (Yes, I'm aware that the BBC has stricter advertising rules than other organizations.  I'm using these shows as an indicator of audience levels.)

And I wouldn't mind getting my message into 1 million pairs of ears every month.

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