How long should my podcast episodes be? The popular question is simple, yet the answer is more complicated than you think. Today, we’ve partnered with Ausha to look for some clues within the top shows in the UK.
According to Ausha’s PSO Benchmark and Edison Podcast Metrics, the average episode duration for the top 25 podcasts in the UK is 54 minutes, on par with the average episode length of the top 25 podcasts in the US: 64 minutes.
It’s tempting to say the optimal time hovers around the one-hour mark, but podcasts throughout the top 25 find engagement at different episode lengths. The Joe Rogan Experience and the Diary of a CEO drive up duration, with average lengths over 2.5 and 1.5 hours. Longer episodes suit the shows’ deep-dive format and facilitate tangential conversations with guests. Conversely, the long-running BBC fiction drama, The Archers, keeps its daily episodes to an average of 13 minutes. Writers for The Archers, an audio soap opera, leave listeners hungry for more by packing story arcs into shorter episodes.
With so much variance among the UK’s largest podcasts, know that there is no magic number for episode length. Experimentation is the simplest way to test what’s best for you. Strategic tools like Ausha’s PSO Benchmark and Edison Podcast Metrics help teams make decisions by providing key metrics and benchmarks for your podcast and other similar shows. Be sure to check other learnings from the top 25 podcasts in the UK in the full report.
