How to Decide How Many Hosts Your Podcast Should Have
You have a concept for a podcast and you’re ready to move forward, except for one little thing: you can’t decide how many hosts your podcast should have. Can you hold down the fort on your own? Should you bring on a co-host? Or two, or three?
If you’re currently debating the pros and cons of various hosts, this article will break it down for you.
✴ If two’s company and three’s a crowd, then four’s way too many
We may have taken some creative liberty with the age-old saying, but it’s true in life and it’s true in the podcasting world: things start getting crowded once you have three people.
Remember podcasts are audible forms. The only thing an audience has to differentiate the podcast hosts they’re listening to are their voices and a few context clues.
Most of the time, listeners can determine who’s who when there’s three or fewer people. More than that, though, and things start to get a little hazy. So, what does that mean for you? Well, a lot of it depends on what type of podcast you’re producing.
Related: How Frequently Should You Release New Episodes?
✴ Determine what type of show your podcast is
What type of show is your podcast? Is it interview-driven? Is it a pop culture review hour between fans? Is it a passionate re-telling of forgotten history?
If you listen to other podcasts within your genre, you’ll come to realize many of them operate similarly.
Interview shows tend to have one--maybe two--hosts, and a single guest each week. Think Armchair Expert or The Tim Ferris Show.
Political and cultural talk shows tend to have two or three hosts, and it feels more like you’re listening in on podcast hosts talking to each other. Think Pod Save America or My Favorite Murder. Both elicit the feeling of listening in on a conversation between friends and making you feel like you’re a part of the club.
Or, there are the single host shows, which are generally teaching their audience or revealing a long-form story. Think shows like 99% Invisible or Revisionist History.
All have their own pros and cons, and it’s not wrong to choose any specific type. But notice that all of them adapt in their own way to follow the same general rule: no more than three voices speaking at once. Even in three-host shows like Pod Save America, if they bring on a guest, one or two of them always bows out to make room for the guest’s voice.
✴ Keep in mind the length of your show
If you’re set on hosting your podcast on your own--go for it! Just keep in mind that without someone to interact with, there are no natural breaks. You’ll have to prepare a tight script and hold the podcast all on your own.
This works well if your podcast is short and to-the-point and offering advice in bite-sized chunks. If you’re planning on episodes lasting for longer than twenty or thirty minutes, however, make sure you’re passionate--and informed--enough about your topic to hold it on your own. We can’t all be Dan Carlin with his epic four-hour episodes. Nor should we be.
Find the right length for your show, and this more than anything might dictate whether you want to bring someone else on to co-host. At the end of the day, it just might be more fun to have a partner in podcasting.
Stop thinking and start building your podcast! Here’s a checklist to help you launch in 30 days.
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