Here is why starting your own podcast is harder than your own videoshow

Podcasts is my new hobby. I really like listening to podcasts, and as I YouTuber I've been interested in starting my own “audio only” podcast. But after some research I found out that its quite hard to start a podcast. So I decided to stick to do my videoshow on youtube instead. Here is why.

why starting a podcast is harder than starting a videoshow


There is no free hosting for podcasts that works as good as Youtube for videos. Free podcast hosting always have some annoying limitations that make them useless.

  • So you always have to pay for podcast hosting in one way or another. The biggest and most popular video hosting service (Youtube) is totally free.

Podcast hosting costs a lot of money

  • You usually have to pay for both hosting of files and traffic.

Not as easy to save and upload audio files to a podcast host as it is with video files

  • Video files is directly supported on iOS devices for example. Audio files is not.
    • That means that it's very easy for normal people to make and share videos from their mobile devices.
  • Video editing software supports Youtube and Vimeo natively. Audio editing software doesn't support podcast hosting services. Sometimes they support Soundcloud though but that's because its more for music.
    • Video editing apps for iOS is really good so you don't need to have or use a computer for making videos for your video show.
    • Yes audio editing apps is also good on iOS but as I said, no native support for podcast hosting makes it hard to create and share podcasts on a mobile device.

As a podcaster you have to be on iTunes to be known

  • And that's way more fiddly than it is to being on YouTube
    • You need to have a correctly formatted RSS feed for that for example…
    • iTunes is not a host so you have to host your files and RSS feed elsewhere…

It's necessary to have your own website / blog for your podcast

  • Otherwise you don't have a “home” for your podcast
  • And otherwise your podcasts won't be indexed by Google so that they won't be found in Google Search.
  • It also means that your website need to be SEO optimized and well ranked to be found.
  • As a Youtuber you don't need that because your Youtube channel is a website, indexed and well ranked by Google. Easy to follow.

It's a lot harder to get revenue to cover the costs for a podcast than it is for a Youtube channel

  • Podcast revenue is only possible to get from sponsors. Video revenue is possible to get from both sponsors and ads.
  • It's overall harder to make a living out of podcasting than it is to be a Youtuber

It's harder to get followers of a podcast than it is for a YouTube channel

  • Youtube is the largest social media site and the second largest search engine in the world. That says everything really.
  • Podcasting is still a quite small phenomena
  • It's harder for people to understand how to find and listen to podcasts than it is to go to youtube and find videos to watch
  • Videos are more shared and easier to watch on social networks

It's harder to share a podcast than it is with a YouTube video

  • For example on Google+, Flipboard or Pinterest
  • Youtube videos is directly supported on twitter, facebook and google+ for example. Twitter even has a dedicated “card” for youtube videos.
  • To share a podcast you have to manually copy the link and share it. And then without a visual presentation.

It's easier to have a video show alone than it is with a podcast

  • Most podcasts is recorded with at least two persons discussing. While most videos is recorded with just one person.
  • Podcasts is more like talkshows with guests. Video shows is more a “one man show”


Watch videos from the svartlingcast playlist(sorted from oldest to newest):

In this video show, I talk about Apple stuff, apps, how I use apps, how I do stuff on my iOS devices, how I create content, how it is to already live in the post-pc era, and much more. The show is more podcast-like than my other videos. Every episode is usually longer than my other videos. I try to do the show weekly. Please give me some feedback about the show.