Should a Podcast Use Seasons or Keep Rolling?

0:05 Good morning, podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Monday, October 27th, 2025, and today should your podcast use seasons or keep rolling? We'll discuss how each format shapes your workflow momentum and how listeners like to engage. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand, side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast chatter, YouTube, Facebook, please share this with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds. We'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. Good morning again, podcasting, Morning Chat. Thanks so much for being here.

1:24 I am your host, Mark Ronik and currently on stage with me. We've got a pretty full house here. We have producer Ashley Phil better. I'll wait for a second. I was going to go right to our guest, Dr. Fahey, Jonathan Howard, Nick Naulback, Alex Baelish, the birthday boy, by the way, happy birthday to Alex Baelish. Actually, let me just stop for a second, Alex. Happy birthday, Sir. Thank you. And may I ask how old? Really old. I am 54. Some days you feel 54, some days you feel 18 and some days you feel 80. So today I'm just feeling 54. All right, there you go. Well, happy birthday.

2:05 Hope you make it a great birthday. Couple years older than me. I don't feel as bad anymore. Thanks, Alex. You know, I I might be, but you know, I still look great. I don't tell you no. Just shut up. Yeah, yeah, yards over there. I got shoes older than on both of you guys. That's all right. Let me also welcome in our guests today. First, somebody who's no stranger to the podcasting morning chat. We have Jason Zircon of Bomb Track Media. And good morning to you, Jason. I hope you're doing OK after a tough loss by from your Pittsburgh Steelers last night.

2:48 Until they fire Tomlin and Arthur Smith, I am completely accustomed to big losses from the Steelers, so that is not going to impact my day whatsoever. Well, good. And I'll say I actually spoke with Nick ahead of time and told him maybe we shouldn't bring up your Green Bay Packers today. So I'll leave that right there. And Julia Levine has joined us. Julia, I had the pleasure of meeting at the Empowered Podcasting Conference this past, actually exactly a month ago. That's when we hosted the Empowered Podcasting Conference in Charlotte. Julia is the owner, the CEO of the podcast teacher, and she's also a former elementary school teacher turned podcaster educator. And she helps business owners find their voice, grow their business through the power of podcasting. And her show is podcasting for solopreneurs. I should have said Jason's show.

3:49 Let's blow this up. And Julia's show is a show for reaching listeners around the world, and she brings her natural curiosity, warmth and love to teaching podcasting to everything she does. And a fun fact, I saw Julia on your website, you were holding a couple of lightsabers while you had one and your husband had one at your own wedding. So now you are one of my favorite people ever. Good morning. Well, good morning, Mark. Thank you so much for having me. And yes, we did indeed have lightsabers at our wedding. I'm a little biased, but I think it was the best wedding ever. Now, was that the only Star Wars thing at the wedding or was there more to it?

4:33 No, no, there was a lot more to it. We actually had some characters from the five O 1st Legion. If you're a real Star Wars fan, you know who those people are. So we actually got married on May the Fourth several years ago. Look at you. And so we absolutely had to go all out. So I contacted the five O 1st and they sent some folks over. We had a fully functioning R2D2 moving around. It was amazing. Wow. I now my first wedding. Yes, I've been married twice and my first wedding the best I could do was it was game day. It was opening weekend of the NFL and I'm a big NFL fan.

5:16 And the most I could get from my first wife was we got to come out together when they introduced us at the party after afterwards come out together together to the Fox NFL theme music. That was about about the best I could do for my wedding. So very impressed with yours. Well, thank you. And I see by the way, we have several of our usual Co hosts in the audience today. Looks like Clubhouse didn't bring everybody up as per usual. So we will do that now. OK, there we go. Now we also have Rich Perry and Sid Meadows on stage. So I have Jason here because I know I've had conversations with Jason many times about this. I know Jason is pro seasons in podcasting. We'll get to it in a second, but Julia is pro ongoing series and I think that we'll have some representation from all sides of the fence as well.

6:15 But I thought, sure, let's bring them in and let them represent those, those sides and we'll, we'll see where this conversation goes. First couple of other things I wanted to share with you. We are, if you didn't catch it at the beginning in my introduction, we are streaming now on Facebook as well. So hello to anybody on Facebook who is listening, watching us. Eventually I'm going to bring in a component where I will share my screen. It won't just be me. And then everybody's voices being heard. I'm going to pull up Club Deck and I'm going to put that on the screen as screen as well. So this way people can at least see who's on stage and see who's speaking when their little faces on the screen light up, etcetera. Just trying to add a little bit something more to it so it's not just me on the screen waving like I'm doing right now. OK, so that's one.

7:08 And two, this Thursday, a heads up, we are doing another podcast evaluation. Last week went really well. We got a lot of great feedback and we've got several applicants since that episode who are asking for us to evaluate their show. So the show we're going to be doing is called Unbreakable Spirit, a Healing Journey. We'll share more about the show and the podcaster come Thursday, but this podcaster happens to be a listener of the podcasting Morning Chat and actually I think so does at least one or two others who have applied as well. So that's also cool to serve our very own community.

7:51 So stay tuned for that. We will provide a link here. And in the show notes, we are going to be evaluating the episode titled Act of Letting Go. Act of Letting Go. And this podcast is a podcast really about a healing journey, somebody who's dealing with chronic illness and how to deal with that. So we will dig into all of that this Thursday. Again, that's called Unbreakable Spirit, a healing journey. I'm trying to share the link here, but Clubhouse isn't behaving. So maybe Ashley, you can grab it from the sheet. We will continue on. All right, let's do it. Let's dive in. And I'm going to start with an ice breaker question for you.

8:36 Something to get us thinking about our commitments, our consistency, etcetera, because I think that fits very well with today's topic. So I'll open the floor. What's one thing that helps you stay consistent or inspired to keep showing up? I'll start to get people get your minds going, but if you have an answer, please flash an emoji. Flash the hot pepper emoji here on Clubhouse. Or you can just flash your mic a few times bottom right hand side. You got the microphone where you can mute and unmute a few times and that usually gets my attention. So again, what's one thing that helps you stay consistent or inspired to keep showing up? For me, it's you, it's the community. And I think a lot of people here know, at least the behind the scenes people here know the days that I can't make it last minute due to, as some of, you know, dealing with some insomnia these days.

9:34 I feel really guilty about it. And maybe that's a little unhealthy because I feel super guilty about it and it lingers for a little bit. But ultimately, that's just because I don't like to let my community down. I promise that I'm going to be here every Monday through Friday. And it's important to me to follow up on that commitment, commitment I'm making to myself, the commitment I'm making to you. So that's what keeps me going. That's why I show up as much as I'm able. And I saw several other people wanted to chime in. Let's check in with Ashley 1st and then we'll say hello to Jonathan. Go ahead, Ashley, good morning, good morning.

10:15 I'd say in my case, it's also for the people. For example, was my last podcast. I had reservations about putting it out, scrambling to get it done. And it was a preview of a music festival I was about to go cover. And while I was there, I met someone who said, did you make a YouTube video, a podcast about this festival? And I said, yes, I did. And he said, your episode is what basically made me decide to buy a ticket at the last minute, throw all my stuff in the car and go because I wanted to participate in a campfire jam. And then I met him playing music around the campfire. And he also left a very nice comment on the YouTube videos. So that's one thing that keeps me consistent is knowing that it actually impacts people.

11:00 Oh, I love that. Thank you for sharing that story too. That's awesome. Very fun to get that kind of feedback, right? Like somebody's saying, because of your podcast, I did X. And then to follow up and be able to actually meet that person around that campfire that you inspired him to go do in the 1st place. That's pretty cool. Congratulations on that, Ashley. OK, who else? So Jonathan, of course, Jonathan, good morning to you. Jonathan Manning the OR I should say, holding down the Fort over on Chatter for us. We are streaming live to Chatter as well. Appreciate you. Jonathan, what did you want to add to this? What's one thing that helps you stay consistent or inspired? We are streaming live and Amanda Yo is here with me helping out as well as a few other people on stage.

11:45 And I'm I'm on camera waving everybody. But what keeps me consistent, honestly, is my routine and the fact that I have specific days that I do my podcast on a record on a certain days, edit on certain days and get it out there because I'm that I need to be that crazy or I don't do stuff. So I like that actually a lot, Jonathan. That's that's something and I don't know if we've ever talked about whether or not you have ADHD as well, but that is a that is a common thing for people with ADHD to really, if they want to succeed, one option, one tool they could try is just that is really setting a regimented schedule and following that schedule team seems to help us along the way. So yeah, that's very cool.

12:31 Thank you for sharing that one as well. Jonathan, anyone else want to share before we dive into the main topic, what's what keeps you going? I'm just going to echo what you and Ashley were saying about the audience and knowing that there are people out there counting on me, counting on my content. And I think I've missed one episode in two years of podcasting. And I heard from my audience and we're like, they checked in or like, hey, missing an episode, are you OK? What's going on? You know, was there a tech glitch? I didn't see anything. And so, you know, as podcasters, sometimes it's the feeling of, is there anyone even out there listening?

13:17 Does this show matter? And so to really get that feedback of, wow, people are noticing if I don't show up, that is really motivating and helps keep me accountable. Very cool. And Julia, so you do a show, what, once a week and how long? I do 2 episodes a week. 1 is like a 15 minute episode and the other is a less than 5 minute episode. OK and then how long have you been doing that? The two days. So I've been doing the two days a week thing for a little over a year. I started last September. OK all right, cool. And you're feeling good. You're not feeling like it's a little bit of a chore these days. Not a whole lot, no.

14:03 My Friday episodes, those are my short episodes. I call them FAQ Fridays. And so I answer a listener submitted question in 5 minutes or less. And so I'm able to batch those in one sitting. I can knock out four of them in about the same amount of time that I can do one regular sized episode. And so that doesn't add a ton to my workload. So adding that second episode a week feels really easy for me. And so I designed it that way on purpose. So I was like, I'm not, I'm not committing to, you know, over stretching myself, but that works really well for me and my workflow. OK, awesome.

14:46 And that keyword in there batching those episodes. I think we'll probably have that a little bit more if that discussion in a moment. So thank you Julia and Sid, I think wanted to comment as well. Go ahead, Sid. Good morning. Good morning, every. Yeah, good morning, everybody. I certainly agree about the audience. I'm in Kansas City at a convention for the next couple of days and I've met last night probably a half a dozen people that walked up to me and talked to me about my show, which I really, really appreciate that people I didn't know. But what I really, really enjoy the most is interviewing the guest. 80% of my guest I'd never met before. And so I love meeting new people. I love talking about what they're doing, I love spotlighting them, and I love learning new things. And so every time I interview somebody that I don't know, I get to learn something new and my audience gets to come along with that journey.

15:40 So I really, really enjoy interviewing people that I've never met before. I like that one. It's a little different than what we've been sharing in the sense that, yeah, your inspiration, your motivation to keep going is looking forward to speaking to those different guests each week. And by the way, Kansas City, you are in the This is Football day today in Kansas City playing my Washington Commanders. Are you going to the games? No, I'm not going to the game, but I'm about to go on my walk with my friend Michelle, so I've got to bounce. I will see you guys later, OK. All right, no problem. Enjoy. Have a good day everybody. See you, Sid. OK, so let's dive in now, shall we? I think that this is a good place to kick things off. All right, so here's the deal.

16:23 As I said, Victoria, who's in the audience, she also has been a guest here on the podcasting Morning Chat. She shared her strategy several months ago on how and why she charges guests to be on her show. And that was a really interesting and lively discussion. She texted me yesterday, I think it was right, Victoria saying, and I'm going to share the text. I think it's OK to share, Victoria, if you don't want me to quickly make some noise, give me some flash, something to let me know you don't want me to share this. But I don't think it's anything crazy. She says, hi, Mark, listening to a recent episode where you're talking about taking holiday breaks.

17:05 So this was from based on last Wednesday, our news and comment episode where Apple had announced or at least had warned people that holiday schedules may slow some some things down over there at Apple Podcast. Victoria goes on to say, here's a question I'd like to post to the team, seasons or no seasons. I've run one continuous podcast for almost five years with very few breaks and no season designations. I attended a recent podcast conference, I believe it was Speak Fest, which we also have shared over the past several weeks during the news and comment episodes. She said so she was at that conference and the speaker there was a big advocate for seasons to make your podcast binge worthy. I'd love to get people's view on this. And she goes on to say, should I go back and add seasons? I guess if we were to advise her to start doing seasons, should I go back and add seasons to my show? I'd probably do them by year for simplicity. I think there's a great topic and I think that perhaps, oh, and thank you, Ashley Ashley's put a poll up. Do you do seasons or no seasons?

18:16 And by the way, Speaking of polls, I did put up a poll yesterday after I spoke briefly with Victoria, put it up at Buzz Sprout, their Facebook group and of course our Empowered Podcasting Facebook group. 22% of the responders, we had 60 people respond, 22% say they do seasons, 22 ongoing. 60% of the people polled said that yeah, ongoing seasons for them, 18% say other. I would almost say that we are the podcasting morning chat would be considered other because we do take somewhat of an extended break at the very least at the end of the year. We usually take around 2 weeks off around the holiday season in December, but we don't actually label them as seasons. It won't say we're starting a new season in 2026. It's just we start up again.

19:17 All right, let's just dig in. Maybe I'll start with you. Jason, what do you think as far as seasons? We know that you are pro season. Do you think seasons can help you make cleaner pivots, experiment more freely? What's your reasoning behind seasons? I think the first thing to say, it's important to understand when you say pro season, yeah, I love the format. I love the flexibility that it provides. But what I look at, especially when I'm talking to somebody that's coming into podcasting, maybe it's a per person that's never leveraged this platform. How does it benefit you and is a seasonal approach going to allow you to enter into the medium with more excitement, more engagement, and more of a willingness to learn what you're putting together?

20:06 And I honestly, when I really leaned into the seasonal format, the reason why was because I was seeing comments online. And I know it. It's all subjective, but there's some gurus and experts out there that will say that you can't do seasons, it's not enough, you're not speaking to your audience enough. But I hear that type of advice. And then I see the numbers saying that 90% of podcasts don't get past 345 episodes. I look at them say, well, there there's a major gap in the advice and the success rate. And I think a lot of that has to do with this mindset that the only way you can do this well is to be doing it every week.

20:49 So if you're coming into this brand new, you're putting yourself up against this arbitrary deadline and you're saying, Oh my gosh, I have to get an episode out every single week. And that can get very overwhelming for someone that doesn't understand the workload. If you're in DIY mode with your podcast, plus you have other responsibilities in your business, in your life. It can be. Difficult to say. A schedule that requires me to put a podcast out every week or multiple times a week. It is hard. It's hard to accomplish that. Anybody I work with, the first thing we evaluate is time. If you have time to do a weekly show, it has great benefits and it can absolutely set up a binge effect just like a season can. But if you don't have the time to do that, there's no reason why a seasonal approach can't work for you if you do it the right way.

21:41 What I like to do with seasons, at least what I'm starting to transition my show to, and I'm working on it as we speak. I'm rolling out a series of content. It's similar to a season, but it's all dedicated to a specific subject and I'm not splitting any atoms with that. I know that's been done before, but it makes more sense for me to create blocks of content that can serve as resources for my listeners and for people that discover bomb track media and let's blow this up so they can understand how I work with them and help them utilize the platform. So to summarize all of this, for me, it's all about strategy 1st and if it makes sense to do a season, then you do that.

22:23 And if you want to transition to a weekly show later, you can also do that. You can also vice versa, you can go from doing weekly to seasonal if you feel it's going to be more of a benefit. But really it comes down to the time that you have available and how you want to carry that type of content forward. Thank you, Jason. I think that's a great way to start this conversation, especially because of the fact that what you're pointing out here, that it really is going to come down to our preference, what works best for us based on things like time, money, etcetera. So I think that's a really important point to think about, especially to somebody listening right now in Victoria who's in the audience, and I know she knows this, but I'll just say it out loud anyway, you got to listen to the different opinions here and make your call based on what feels right to you. Ultimately, that's what it comes down to because if you're pushing against the strategy, you're setting yourself up for a potential pod fade, in my opinion. Nick, did you want to chime in on this? Just wanted to speak to Jason, what he was saying about what makes sense or if it makes sense, because I think not every podcast lends itself well to doing seasons versus doing an ongoing thing.

23:42 And I think if your content has the ability to be Evergreen, seasons make total sense if your content is more timely, if you are reporting on news. Like I'm just thinking about the AI briefing. Like if I try to do seasons on a show about AI advancements, it wouldn't really lend itself variable to seasons because by the time the season comes out, it's already outdated and I'm needing to create new content again. So it depending on the content type I feel like plays a big role in whether you should do seasons or just ever like non ongoing episodes. I'm with you there. Jason. Did you want to chime in? I was just going to say I agree 100%. It it really comes down to what you're trying to accomplish with your show and if it is something that's more timely. Yeah, trying to make something that goes in seasonal format just wouldn't make sense.

24:33 Again, I go back to why I said before, divert to the strategy. If it's something that you are looking to accomplish that is more timely than a seasonal approach isn't going to make sense. So yeah, totally on board with what Nick is saying. Yep. Thank you, Jason. Let's check in with Yvonne. Yvonne, good morning. And don't worry, by the way, Julia, we're coming to you to hear your side of the coin as well. Yvonne, good morning. What did you want to add to this? I think I have a question actually. So when I started my podcast I was not at all thinking about seasons and it is a weekly podcast and always has been. And when I decided to start breaking it up in the seasons is when I realized I needed a break in order to keep going.

25:19 So I took my first summer break and it usually so my seasons now I do have seasons and they basically end up being about a year ish and I come back in the fall with my new season. So it's not topical, it's none of that and it is still a weekly show. So how does that relate to all of this? Because it seems like when Jason was speaking, I'm hearing it's either a weekly show or it's a seasonal show. I'm wondering how are we defining a season? Yeah, that's great question. And I was just jotting something down as you were asking that question. And it's almost I think the same along the same lines. Is there my question that I was going to ask the room is, is there an advantage of doing seasons but doing them continuously?

26:06 In other words, you finish Season 2 and the following week is Season 3. But your questions a little different. How do we define a season? Let me go back to Jason. Jason, what say you? How do we define that? I think it's a great question and I think again, it comes down to personal preference. If you want to create seasons to give yourself that break, that's one of the biggest advantages in my opinion that you get a chance to recharge your batteries. You can evaluate how things go and I get, or how things went, I should say, and then start rolling into the next season. And you can give yourself as much of a break as you want to. I wouldn't recommend saying, OK, hey, I'm going to take a whole year off and then come back.

26:49 That's probably too much. But give yourself a couple months to recharge and plan out what you want to do for your next season and then go from there. But at the same time, if you did want to just keep things going and separate things into seasons just for organizational sake, you have that flexibility. See, the thing I think this conversation is on is, is revealing for all of us is the fact that there's not a lot of written rules. You can do this in a way that keeps you engaged. And I think that's the most important part of all of this is if you're not engaged in the process, then your podcast is more than likely going to fade away or become less of a priority and thus kill that consistency that we talked about earlier. Do it in a way that keeps you excited to build content for your audience and stay engage in the process. And if giving yourself a break in between by clearly defining that this is our season finale and we'll be back for season 4 or five at X point, do.

27:47 That. But if it's all about staying in front of your audience on a weekly basis and you want to just define it as a season to break things up, do that too. No one's got and no one's telling you you have to do it a certain way. And if they are, you should block those people. Yeah. Thank you, Jason. Yeah. So basically, first of all, I guess one thing I heard in there is don't follow the strategy of Netflix and other streaming TV series, you know, where they, you know, take two years off before they come out with their next season of their popular shows. Yeah. I don't think that's a great strategy, at least in podcasting. It might actually kind of work in TV because people do seem to come back, but I don't think that'll work well in podcasting. So ultimately, what is a season?

28:35 I think it is a series of episodes that are consistently running and I don't think that there is a magic number of how many episodes that season consists of. I think that's up to you to decide. But I do think there you want to maybe create some consistency around your seasons. In other words, if you're going to take a two week break, I would argue then maybe every season tried to take a two week break, like keep that consistent. And I would also argue that I think it's beneficial to you to try to keep it to around the same amount of episodes for each season. I think that there is something to be said about building consistency, whatever it looks like, but building consistency around your show helps your audience and their loyalty to it because they understand the logistics.

29:30 If they're, if we're leaving them guessing whether we're an ongoing show or seasonal, if we leave them guessing to when next episodes are going to drop, what they can expect, how many episodes, etcetera. I think if we don't show that consistency it it can deter some people. Just my opinion. Go ahead, Jonathan. I'm actually going to pass it to Amanda 1st and then I'll go. Go for it. Hello, Amanda. I agree with you, Mark, I think consistency is key when we're talking about, you know, should we should we do it seasonally and you don't have to label it seasons. You can just do like a. Set amount of episodes and I think it especially if you want to monetize your show.

30:12 I think it's. Really important to be able to craft that out for potential sponsors so they know essentially what bang they're getting for the buck. You know, and you could also angle it if you have a show where you know, each season you're a different theme or after you know, so many seasons you're going into a certain theme where. Your whole those. Batch of episodes are talking about, you know, for example, let's say Women's Health or something like that. You could angle that to pick up potential sponsors for those 18 to 20 episodes or that season. So sometimes you can really play it to your advantage if you do bulk your episodes into seasons or just having a set amount when it comes to monetizing your show. And I'll pass it to Jonathan.

30:58 I was just going to say because I do seasons and we did seasons on coffee social as well. And the way that we do them is we will have like a year of publishing and then take three months off. Now part of those three months we probably publish a couple repurposed episodes, but we did that and it actually really worked well for us. I mean, we did a whole lot of batching, but what we do in the, you know, in the off seasons, we research record, we batch and then I edit and then I just have to publish for that year as I go. And then we take those three months off. And it has worked really, really well and it's kept our, my sanity at least. So we do like 2520 episodes every other week. That's a full year and we're good and I personally love it.

31:42 It just goes so much smoother. Are you working behind the scenes in those three months off to create the next season? So the three months off we create, we do a lot of the recording and all that and during those three months off and then we just have to publish. Thank you, Jonathan and thank you to Amanda Yoa as well. I yes, I agreed. I think the batching strategy is one to follow whether you're doing continuous seasons or not season, a continuous series or podcast seasons. Nick, I saw you sharing in the chat and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing here on stage about marketing? You mentioned how TV shows they can take breaks, like significant breaks and people still come back to it.

32:26 And all I was saying in the chat is the big difference is that they market the. Crap out of. New seasons when they're coming out and I feel like podcasters don't do that enough. I also added that that is my opinion. They just kind of like show up and be like, oh surprise, season 2 is dropping next week and here it is. And to me, like seasons I think is a great strategy because it gives you the opportunity to market, which we a lot of times don't have enough time to do in the 1st place. But you have to do it. I kind of think even if you're doing seasons, seasons shouldn't really be an excuse to be like, OK, like I can give myself a break now. To me, seasons, if you're going to do seasons when you're not recording and releasing episodes, that's the time to really hammer the marketing hammer promotion and get people paying attention to what you're doing. Thank you.

33:20 I for the most part, I'm on the same side of that fence with you. I think there are advantages to that offseason and being able to prepare for the new season as far as promotion, marketing, etcetera. I see several people want to chime in and I want to get to Julia too. So keep that in mind with your answers here, gang. So I saw Phil had something and Dr. had something and then I want to, I will transition us nicely, God willing, into ongoing and listen to that argument a little bit more. Not that we're having an argument, but that for lack of a better word. So let me go to Phil. Phil, good morning. What did you want to add? I'm coming from this from a agency side that deals with brand and all the big brands do like 10 episode seasons. The ones that we work with the company, they do 10 episode seasons, 10 to 12 episodes as their seasons and they promote the hell out of it.

34:19 At the beginning of the season, usually A8 week run of ads played on other podcasts to help, you know, promote their podcast. It's coming out the season, the seasons out. They're constantly putting some money behind the promotion. So like Nick said, we need to as independent podcasters, as business podcasters need to put some money through marketing. We need to invest in the marketing because the more money you spend in marketing, the more technically money you make. There's the there they're saying in the marketing world. So we need to understand how we have to market our podcast and I think looking at fellow podcasters who are marketing would be a bet, a best bet.

35:00 And doing seasons works because you get that rest to plan out the next season. See what works in the previous season. OK. Thank you, Phil. I'm going to keep things moving. I know Dr. wanted to chime in. Go ahead, Dr. If you are going to do seasons, I think that it is really important that you have a mailing list because that's where you can prime up your audience to say, you know, hey, two more weeks. Before I come back, I've got some really exciting stuff or you know, hey, I just had an interview with so and so and it's coming up in this next season, so I think having a mailing. List is going to be really important if you plan to do seasons.

35:40 Yeah, I'm with you DRN to take any as broader step back. I think that whether it's, it can be newsletters, right? But whatever it is, find your way to stay connected regularly with your audience. If you're going to take a break with your podcast. So whether that's social media, newsletters or some other way, I think it's important that you are keeping the connection going in some way, shape or form since you aren't delivering the podcast each and every week or whatever that cadence is for you. Julia, you are team ongoing and I totally respect that. I mean, I, like I said, for the most part, just what we do here is team ongoing. So first tell me a little bit as tell me why you aren't a fan of doing seasons and it's OK, We don't bite. Don't worry.

36:34 We're not going to give you a hard time. This is a very we do a great job of sharing different sides of the coin without jumping all over each other. So no worries there, I promise. Well, that's good to know. And I have so many thoughts about all the comments that were just made about seasons. So many good points. I wish I could it respond to each and individual thought, but the one thing that I did just want to say before I launch into why I'm team ongoing is another factor to consider with seasons is that seasons often display kind of weird in the podcast players themselves. And so I have worked with multiple people who have come to me and said, Julia, I don't know why all my episodes are not showing up in Apple.

37:27 I can't figure it out. They're all published. What's going on? Can you help me figure this out? And the problem is just that you have to select the season at the very top of Apple Podcasts. And so a lot of people don't know that. And so adding seasons adds, in my opinion, kind of a just a layer of complication and a layer of, I don't know if confusion is quite the right word, but something else that the listener has to do or figure out in order to access past seasons and episodes. And I'm sure there are settings that each individual can change where it doesn't display that way.

38:12 But the default display, you have to select the particular season. And so if you go to like Serial, for example, you know, they have, what is it 15 some seasons now, 16 seasons, and you have to initially select the season in order to see those particular episodes. It's not just one giant list of episodes. And so I think that's important to think of when we're thinking about the user experience. So I just wanted to add that on to the season conversation. Can I have on this actually? Because at some point when I started doing seasons, I realized, wait a minute, what's going on with the listing of my shows? And I realized that it's just a little thing that I have to do each time I post the show.

39:04 There's one level down in in detail on the season, the episode number and such. As long as I say, hey, this is season 5, it's puts it in the right order and everything comes up. I can see all my shows, 246 of them or whatever I'm at right now. They all show up and they show up in order as long as I have put in when I'm posting it what season it is. Basically, I guess what you're saying, Yvonne, is you haven't experienced that problem personally and as far as you know, your audience does see the most recent season is that.

39:45 Yeah, I just, I actually just went and looked at my at my podcast and I can see that my most recent episode is right there on top and and so on down the list. The only time that that might get messed up is if I forget to put the season number in. And then things can get a little wonky. Any thoughts on that, Julia? Yeah, I was going to ask if you want to go to a past season if you have to manually go in and select that in your player, though. Not not in Apple Podcasts. OK, maybe, I don't know, maybe it's updated, but because I remember that being an issue for me at some point, but maybe they've sensed updated that. If I look at this, it says I'm looking at my feed on Apple podcast on the on the player and it just says episodes and there's a selection to see all what's got sorting features, sort oldest to newest.

40:43 I can flip that if I want to, but I don't even see anything about seasons here. Yeah. Well, and to to that point though, yeah, just, I don't, I think I agree with Julia. I don't think users at least maybe the power users know, but I, I think the average user doesn't realize half of the things that the podcast players can do. So that that's something to consider as well. I don't even see the the selection like I don't know, maybe somebody else could go and look. Yeah, I'm looking right now. And here's the thing that I'm also seeing is that it's not showing me any distinction between seasons, right? Like where I'm looking right now, it's just all your episodes, like it's not displaying it by season or anything. It's just one after the other, starting with your most recent that was posted five days ago.

41:30 Yeah. So yeah, so the right there again, it's like if if we're trying to package these as seasonal, they're not necessarily being displayed as such. OK. I guess. And can I just pop in again just to say for me, like it's almost a marketing bonus to be able to say, hey, this is season 5 or this is season 4. You know, I, it shows that the, the show's been around for a long time. This is not a new thing, you know, So it's something, it may not be something that shows up in the players, but I can speak to it. Oh yeah, for sure. OK, cool, cool. Thank you, Yvonne. And going back to you, Julia, so let's talk a little bit more. Why ongoing?

42:14 What are some of the reasons for it as far as you're concerned? Is this about discoverability? Is it about algorithm? Tell me a little more. I have so many different reasons why I am pro ongoing. However, I will say that there's nothing wrong with seasons. And so if seasons is what works best for you, your content, your audience, absolutely do seasons. I'm not going to sit here and tell anyone you absolutely cannot do seasons, right. So just getting that disclaimer out of the way there. There are very few rules in podcasting, which is one of the things we love about it.

42:56 And so I, it is my opinion that ongoing shows are better, especially because I work with a population that is business owners and they are trying to sell their own products and services on their podcasts. And so when you are not publishing continuously, it's kind of that out of sight, out of mind type of thing. Your listener is not going to sit there and say, oh, you know what, I'm not interested in whatever they're learning about, say they're listening to my show. They're not, they're not interested in learning about podcasting for the next three months while I'm on a break. They're not going to say that they're going to go find a different show that's a podcast about podcasting to go listen to if I'm taking a break.

43:50 And so if I want their business, I need to stay top of mind on their radar. I need to be delivering value, establishing trust, all of that good stuff. And I think the other big point, which I'll kind of condense here just to, you know, not monopolize the microphone, but is for us as podcasters, you know, it is so easy, so much easier to maintain a habit than to stop and start a habit. And so I think it was Jonathan earlier who was saying, you know, the ADHD, you have to have a certain day where you're doing these tasks and, you know, I, I belong to that group as well.

44:40 And if my routine gets disrupted, it's incredibly difficult to get myself back on track. We think about going to the gym or something else. Once you start going every single day, it's so much easier to maintain that habit than to say, OK, I'm going to go for three months and then take three months off and then go back. Going back is incredibly difficult after you've had a break. And that's what I find a lot of podcasters run into is they're like, man, I really enjoyed not having that on my plate every week.

45:21 I filled the time with either fun things or other tasks that needed to get done for my business. And now it feels heavy and like resistant to start up again. And of course, we all know the numbers of pod fade. And so I think that having a continuous ongoing show really helps with the content creation process as well. And the last thing that I'll say is just that holiday breaks, taking A2 four week holiday break in the winter or something like that. I don't consider that the same as seasons. I consider that an ongoing podcast, even if you either don't air anything or air, you know, repurposed content, as long as you are communicating that to your audience. That's one of the most important things in my opinion, is telling them, hey, we're going to be taking some time off in December.

46:22 You know, you're not going to get a new episode or you're going to get a re aired episode type of thing. And then we'll be back with a new fresh episode On this date. Communication is key in my opinion. There are some great arguments for ongoing. Let me check in with Jonathan. Jonathan, did you want to respond to any of this or add on to it? The one thing that I would say is, and this is because I work with entrepreneurs who are overwhelmed and you know, content is a lot. Don't think that your audience is listening to every single one of your podcasts as you release it. So even if you take a slight break, they probably have podcasts to get caught up on because a lot of times entrepreneurs will put that extra pressure on themselves. Oh, and they're going to miss me. I'm going to.

47:07 There's episodes that they have to listen to. That's true. I mean, that's kind of what puts my mind at ease when either we miss a show during the week or we do take an extended break. My reasoning is, yeah, we've got a whole library of almost 400 episodes now that people can go back and listen to because I don't fool myself. I don't believe that a lot of our audience is going and listening to every single episode when they release. I don't think that's realistic. I'm I'm with you there. Julia, did you want to add more? I was just going to chime in with that and say that again. I think there's a difference between taking a little bit of time off, missing an episode here and there, especially for a daily, you know, five days a week show. I think that that's totally reasonable. I think there's a difference between that and taking a three month or six month break where you're not publishing any new content.

48:05 Certainly if you're missing, you know, a couple weeks around the holidays or, you know, days here and there that your audience certainly has things to catch up on absolutely 100%. But to me, a season and and again, there are no rules about seasons, right. So it, it may be only two weeks between your seasons, but I think for most people who podcast in seasons, it's a little bit of a longer break, at least like 2 months I think is what I've I've seen. And so having that longer stretch of a break I think is where the impact comes in. Fair enough. And what do you suggest to somebody who just kind of enjoy liking what you're sharing here, right?

48:51 Like there's they're thinking, OK, so maybe I don't have to take seasonal breaks, but I do need a break. So what, what's your suggestion to them as far as how long is a, a good length of for a break? And what should they be doing in the, in that little break time? Like how, what, what strategy should they be? Or should they just be kicking back and saying, OK, I'm going to just not do anything for these few weeks, months, how, whatever that is? I'm a big fan of batching whenever possible and getting ahead and giving yourself a break in that moment. So let's take, you know, December's coming up. A lot of people want to take that time off.

49:32 And so if you are batching your content in November, you're doing kind of double episodes so that you can release in December. You can still take that time off in December, but you're not actively working on your show necessarily during that time. That's one strategy that works well for a lot of people. Other people are like, I don't have the time to do double the work in November. And so in that case, I think it really comes back to communication and telling the audience, hey, I'm going to be taking December off. And so here's what that looks like for you and telling them either, you know, I'm going to publish old episodes, you know, best of like you may have missed this golden episode type of thing.

50:23 It's just going to be quiet for two to four weeks and then I'll be back in January. Really communicating that is key in my opinion. And in terms of what's what's an acceptable break, I mean, that kind of depends on each person and you know what's going on. And I always tell people that, you know, your show, it is an asset. It's not for most of us our our life's purpose. And so if you have something else going on in your life, you know, health issues, family issues, whatever, that obviously takes precedence. And so while I can sit here and say I think like a two to four week break is ideal if you're going to take some kind of break, while I can sit here and say that I need each person to make the decision for themselves, of course, in terms of what's going to work for them. Again, coming back to you, there are no rules in podcasting. You need to do what works for you, your life, your content, your audience.

51:32 Yeah. And I think that's a real key, right? Like, I mean, although I am and Jason knows this, I'm very pro seasons. I do think that a lot of times just getting on top of your episodes, doing batch recording can really eliminate all of this, the idea of seasons and just, and still give you that break that you're looking for. It doesn't have to be this marathon idea where it's like, OK, you know what? I wanted I I'm going to take us a break here. So now I got to take the next week and record a bunch of content. I would recommend record an extra episode every couple of weeks or so, right?

52:16 Or even once a month. But ideally find some time to record a handful of episodes every so often and where it doesn't feel like a chore, right? Like I got to go and record more episodes. I got to edit more episodes, do them at a pace that makes sense and work toward taking that break, whatever it is, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, etcetera. But then you'll have plenty of content to lean on. You can schedule it ahead of time and then kick back and take that well deserved break. So I'm with you there, Julia. I can see that. Anyone else want to chime in or have different thoughts? Well, I want to emphasize something that Julia said because I think it's one of the most important parts of this entire conversation. The communication piece is the primary thing you should be thinking about.

53:04 I actually just recorded a whole episode for my upcoming series about this, and I think it allows you to work with this flexibility that's come up with either approach and understanding that your audience. Is going to ebb and. Flow with you in regards to listenership because they're not just listening to your show, they're listening to other podcasts as well. If they don't know what's going on or when to expect new content, or when you're going dormant and playing repurposed content, then they may have a good reason to tune out and find another show. And once you're outside of their rotation, it can be hard to break back in. So you have to be clearly communicating at all times.

53:47 But I'm also going to go back to something that Nick said earlier, and it speaks to Julia's point about what happens when your show isn't producing new content. That's the time to market all of the podcast content that you've created. And it goes back to that age-old adage of our content only being valuable when it goes live. And that's not true. Sometimes we get wrapped up in that or get lost in that, that new episodes are only valuable for the week that they're out. And then we're coming back next week with the brand new shiny diamond. And now this one's. Important and we just. Repeat that process. But our entire catalog is valuable, so use that time off to push people towards specific seasons, specific episodes. If something is timely regarding your show, you can even repurpose it at that point and and throw it out as a bonus episode and say, here's a new intro to this. But let's dive into this subject all over again. A number of things can be done with it just to keep all the stuff front of mine for your audience. But at the they are the biggest thing I get. I'm going to beat this drum as hard as I can. If you're not communicating what's going on within your production, your audience is never going to know. So don't ever give them a reason to stop listening to you in one way, shape or form.

55:03 I think it's so important to keep them behind the scenes and share all the things going on behind the scenes. It makes them feel more a part of the show than just being a listener, right? Because now you're giving them a taste of all the things that you're doing. They're feeling in the know and there's some value to that from an audience. They appreciate that. And that can go for your content, for your breaks, whatever it is, just keeping them posted. They appreciate it and it creates even stronger loyalty. Julia, any other thoughts you want to add before we wrap up? I just want to make sure you've gotten your time. I don't know if this is a good note to end on, but the other thing that I had kind of sketched out in my thoughts when planning for coming on this morning is talking about TV show seasons. And we touched on this briefly earlier, but TV show, I'm a big TV show watcher.

56:03 I don't know if everybody is, but I can't count the number of times that I have watched ATV show and then it's the season is over and then I need to find something else to watch to fill that time. And then when the new season of the original show comes out, I may or may not go back to that show. And of course, if it's one of my top favorite shows, no question, I am absolutely on the radar going back to it. It's on my radar. I'm going back to it. I am not forgetting about it type of thing, but there are other shows where I'm like, that was fine to fill the time in the moment, but now I've found something that I like even better.

56:56 And so I'm not going to go back and watch that other show. And then if we think about, you know, I, I don't watch the show, but Days of Our Lives, that show has been running continuously, airing just about daily for more than 60 years. And it has a bunch of loyal fans. And so I just think of that of when you don't give your audience an opportunity to go and seek out something else to fill the void in their schedule that they are more likely to become a loyal fan, someone who loves what you do, consumes all your content, you know, is essentially a super fan.

57:40 And so that's kind of how I think of our content creation process as well. And of course, that ties back into what Nick was saying about marketing. TV shows, of course, market like crazy when a new season is coming out. And do we have the ability to do that in the same way that ATV show does? And sometimes even with all the marketing, they don't get the return on investment that they expected. And I mean, there's so many different layers and nuances to all of these things. We could be here all day. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Julia, the podcast teacher.com and Jason, of course, bomb track media.com.

58:21 I will say, Julia, I totally I, I am one of those people. You just described that. Started all all in on a certain TV series and then felt like I had to wait too long for season 2 and I just never got back into it. And that was Stranger Things. I loved Stranger Things season 1, I really enjoyed it. And season 2 came out and I just wasn't excited anymore and I never went back to it. And I know it's still a really, you know, popular show. People still love it, and for whatever reason, after the long break, I never got back into it. So I get that and yeah. And for me, oh God. Dear For me, it was Yellowstone. Yellowstone took so much time in between, see, in between seasons that I just got pissed off. And I just decided I'm I'm not going to watch you anymore. And I got hooked on some other things. That I didn't want to necessarily be torn away from. Yep.

59:16 Yeah. So I think the good lesson there is to remember that we don't want to take too long. If we are going to take a break, whether we call it a break a season, etcetera, I think we want to make sure that we're not waiting too long to the point where they're losing interest. All right, So listen, I love how many different perspectives came out of this one and whether your team, seasons, team ongoing, maybe you're somewhere in the middle. The real take away is to build something that's sustainable for you. And if you want to keep the conversation going, just reach out, tag me, tag somebody from the show. Definitely reach out to Julia and Jason. And again, that's bombtrackmedia.com for Jason and the podcast teacher.com for Julia. Jason, did you have something you wanted to wrap up with? Yeah, I wanted to ask you a question to bring everything full circle this morning.

1:00:06 So tonight your fantasy quarterback is going against your team. Who are you rooting for? My fantasy quarterback is not playing. I thought you had Patrick Mahomes. Oh yes, I'm playing. Oh, OK, yes, that was another league. Patrick Mahomes I am cheering for. I'm cheering for a lot of scoring and more points on the Washington side than the Kansas City side. Fair enough. That's how I'm doing it. Thank you, Jason, and thank you again to you for your thoughts and opinions on seasons. Thank you to Julia and her thoughts and opinions on an ongoing series. I think that we've all made valid points. It's up to you, the listener to decide what you, the listener what to decide how you want to do this. And let us know what you decide.

1:00:50 If you if we've changed your mind one way or another, I want to hear about it. And we're back tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern, talking all things podcasting, content creation, etcetera. Come join us 7:00 AM Eastern as we're here every Monday through Friday at 7:00 AM Eastern. And until then, make it a great day. Everybody take care.