564- Why some podcasters do not want reviews

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the theme of podcast episode and show reviews — but not their value or how to get more of them, but instead why some podcasters do NOT want to get any reviews or even feedback from people in the podosphere.

Since the dawn of the podosphere in 2004 and 2005, there have been numerous episodes from podcasters that dealt with the tutorials, the themes of how to get more podcast reviews from around the world and how to use them to your benefit as a positive sign of social proof.

In fact, there have even been some applications that were created to deliver the message to the podcast content creator that a review had been posted — even in countries outside the USA. As an example, the famous podcaster, Daniel J Lewis, even created an application and program called My Podcast Reviews, where a podcaster can purchase a license to get the information of reviews of an episode from anywhere in the world on the internet. There are good means of delivery and good analysis of the results of the podcast review.

And so, for the past 15 or 16 years, the podosphere has had the idea that podcast reviews are good — not so much for monetization-based statistics, but more for social proof. And so it was that lots of podcasters tried to request reviews in their outros and their key messages on their apps and their web sites, as this was one way to try and increase their numbers of subscribers and also indicate the popularity of their podcast shows and the warm reception (or negative result) of their messages with their audience. And so has it continued for the majority of podcasters.

However, other podcasters want NOTHING to do with podcast reviews — and sometimes, even nothing to do with feedback from listeners of their shows. And this has been growing amidst the censorship movement, as well as the woke attitude and perspective of today’s social media and lame-stream media tendencies.

For instance, one podcaster commented on this: “Why should I clutter up my web site or review sections with woke-based or extremist-based content where they want to shout you down because you may not agree with their views or their ideology? There is no favorable situation where feedback or reviews could be a positive for both the reviewer or the podcaster — it is just an opportunity for a platform to carry their own message of negativity and censored content by being the means of shouting down all other communications outside of their own dominion.”

Thus, some successful podcasters have removed any type of feedback loops and reviews from potential audience listeners. They don’t want to deal with this negativity — that is, they don’t want negative reviews from a radical ideology to be seen all over the world and deliver a wrong message to the audience. And so, what have they done? Well, they have eliminated any and all reviews — and in some cases, they have eliminated all feedback mechanisms. Instead, they rely on download numbers and acceptance from other feedback by podcasters in audio format for any type of responses to their shows and episodes.

In fact, some of these podcasters have limited the audiences to whom their shows will be posted and published. As long as the media host is not woke, then the podcast episode will be available to all those who care, but the feedback and reviews will NOT be posted for the world to see or to consume.

This strategy seems to work for a few successful podcast shows that are available on certain streams that are limited to the ears of certain individuals who follow more of a “free speech” mentality — and the results are, indeed, great as far as acceptability and downloads of each episode to their intended and like-minded audience.

And the result?

Well, for a few podcast shows, the results indicate that their downloads are growing and that their message is being accepted by more people who are choosing to be willing listeners to get the content of their show just from their web site (or other locations delivered to the listeners). In fact, the podcasters don’t have to sift through all the noise of the woke-based potential audience just to see if there is anything that is “socially redeeming” in the feedback or reviews. And this seems to be working in a very positive way for the podcaster.

So now, for this podcaster, we hope that you can find such a place for your content, should you wish to eliminate all the negativity and narrow-mindedness of the podosphere shouters who only want to criticize and marginalize, but do not wish to contribute any suggested improvements or solutions. And if you do find a spot where your podcast content can reside and grow without reviews, we wish you the best in seeing the results of your content be positive in the areas of growth, downloads and success for your podcast shows.

For this podcaster, I had one occasion very early in my podcasting career in 2007, when I had a couple of podcast shows. For my flagship podcast at that time, I had been soliciting reviews and feedback (as all “good” podcasters did in their intros and outros and other content), and I had been receiving many good reviews (most of “excellent” or “very good” ratings in the old iTunes reviews, for instance). However, I did receive one review from an individual called Ann at SoCal. This scathing review was negative, with typical negative criticism with no redeeming value — in fact, the only thing that this individual stated that was aside from the always-critical role was that my episodes had good audio quality (which she found very difficult to believe). So after that, I quit asking for reviews in all of my 18 podcast episodes that I had in my podcasting career since 2007. And even today, there is no call-to-action for reviews or for feedback, as I know that the new generation of “know-it-all” reviewers will only talk you down negatively and shout you down when they promote their own idiot ideologies with no rhyme or reason or ability to conduct a conversation where both sides may be deliberated.

And you know what? I do not miss the podcast review process at all, because I have seen this resource grow into a place where the reviewer is just spouting off ideology or negative opinions — and remember what was said about opinions from old philosophers?…”opinions are like ******* — everybody’s got one.”

So we hope that your podcast show can grow successfully to meet and exceed your objectives — either with or without the call-to-action to receive reviews or feedback. It is YOUR show, and you should not have to put up with destructive content from the idiots who want to criticize and marginalize, since this is all they do all day because they have nothing positive in their existence today.

Thank you for your attention.