Why ethics needs to be the first consideration in podcasting
I’ve had a front row seat to how podcasting has changed over the years. As the industry matures, its ethics need an upgrade, writes Sophie Walker, founder and host of the Australian Birth Stories podcast.
From beauty to true crime, sports to gardening; there’s a podcast for everything these days. And Australians are mad for them. According to Infinite Dial Australia’s August research, 40% of Aussies listen to podcasts every month with a quarter of us tuning in weekly. We’ve now overtaken our American friends as the bigger podcast aficionados, where 38% of American adults listen to podcasts every month.
Naturally it didn’t take long for brands to capitalise on this new captive audience. Podcasting ad revenue has been forecasted to hit $110 million in 2022. From a marketing and PR viewpoint, podcasts are a no brainer. Recent prestige TV programs including House of the Dragon, Lord of the Rings and Succession all had podcasting strategies to build hype and keep audiences engaged once the season finale had aired.
For those without multi-million dollar marketing budgets, hosting or appearing on a podcast is a surefire way to engage with niche audiences, providing ample opportunity to form deeper connections while the long-form content provides better value for listeners.
However podcast hosts can’t simply weave a good yarn and wait for the partnership dollars to come rolling in. There may be great power in podcasting but with that power comes great responsibility.
Those deep audience connections are often formed with audiences who are craving connection and community. It’s out of respect for these communities that podcasters need to pay particular attention to the ethics of their programming.
As a podcaster in the parenting space, this has led to me turning down five figure ad deals and deleting podcasts that I felt were at risk of putting mothers in danger. I don’t promote anything I wouldn’t use myself and I don’t interview those who have freebirthed their child. This hasn’t been without criticism, given the name of my podcast suggests I’d cover every type of birth available to expectant parents. However, given I have a background in public health, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to encourage people to give birth without a care provider present.
This isn’t censorship. It’s the curation of a podcast with the audience’s wellbeing in mind. In the same way not every advertiser is aligned with a particular podcast, neither is every potential guest.
These ethical considerations can become more thorny once the ecosystems expand beyond the podcasts themselves. As we see podcasts become fully fledged media institutions, think Shameless, Life Uncut or even the true crime mavens from My Favourite Murder, every partnership, book deal or ad agreement needs to align with the audience. Only as these brands increase in size, there’s more opportunities for slip ups that damage the trust that builds up between the host and their audience.
Yet too often podcasters, not to mention their platforms, miss the memo. Earlier this year it took 270 healthcare professionals penning an open letter to Spotify for the streaming service to put links to reputable Covid information on Rogan’s content. Closer to home, there’s parenting podcasts offering advice that is laughable at best and potentially damaging at worst.
I get it. Most podcasters aren’t journalists. They aren’t held to the same rigorous standards as a major metro. But they are broadcasting to significantly large audiences that they have a responsibility to protect. Perhaps an even bigger responsibility given the close relationships they often form with their listeners.
As podcasting matures and their brands expand, podcasters should be expected to use their voice to advocate for the very audience who gave them a platform. These days I am an advocate for women and childbirth in the same way She’s on the Money advocates for millennial women’s financial literacy or One Wild Ride advocates for gentler and more sustainable business practices. The obligation to the audience becomes greater than the sum of the podcast.
For podcast hosts and producers this responsibility starts with thinking of ourselves more like media organisations in terms of our publishing and editorial responsibilities. For marketers and PRs, it means doing deeper research and considering the audience as people beyond their value to your client’s product or service.
Podcasters are walking the fine line between ethics, opinion, free speech and commercial decisions. However these facets don’t have to be mutually exclusive. It doesn’t have to be a race to the bottom to supercharge your audience numbers.
Sophie Walker is the founder and host of Australian Birth Stories podcast
