Podcasts Will Save Wine
On watching the rise of the wine podcasts and participating as a guest
Sip, Sip, Hooray!
Not only is this my response to the rise of wine podcasts, but it’s also the name of the podcast hosted by “The Marys” where I recently was interviewed on a range of topics.
Here’s the bottom line on podcasting in general: It is killing talk radio and unceremoniously burying it in the ground like a no-name orphan found dead in the woods.
But is this good migration of our ears from terrestrial audio to digital audio good for wine lovers? It’s not just “good”. It’s an educational, entertainment, and community bonanza!
Wine has never been an important feature of AM/FM radio talk. Over the past 30 years, you could count on two hands the number of AM/FM radio shows of any significance that spoke to wine lovers. With the rise of digitally located podcasts, however, audio wine talk has risen to an important position in the wine media universe. Today, you'd need a football team’s worth of fingers and toes to count the number of wine podcasts of value.
Here’s the state of talk audio, according to Edison Research, the leading research firm following the state of audio:
“In 2017, 66% of spoken word audio went to AM/FM radio, and 13% to podcasting. Fast forward to today, and the race is far closer. AM/FM now accounts for 43% of spoken word listening, and podcasts 36%….the advantage for AM/FM is coming entirely from those age 65 and older. Among those ages 13-64, podcasting has already passed AM/FM listening by, 41% to 39%. Meanwhile, among the oldest Americans age 65+, AM/FM radio continues to dominate, with a 66%-13% advantage.”
In ten years, maybe five, podcast listenership will easily overtake AM/FM radio talk. And from there, the radio talk show is just going to whither away until the AM band is there for mainly emergency broadcast purposes.
We are witnessing the Internet killing and burying one more cultural institution. But take a look at those demographics above. AM/FM radio is geared precisely toward the predominant wine drinkers: Boomers. Podcasting is attracting all the other folks who wine is dying to attract. In fact, the younger the person the more likely they are listening to podcasts.
Our response to all this really ought to be, “Sip Sip Hooray.” The podcast is one of the more perfect ways for younger consumers to encounter and interact with wine information and wine culture. If I were just starting out in my wine PR and wine marketing career, I might start a communications firm that specializes in representing wineries and wine-related clients in front of podcasters; who specialize in presenting compelling guests/clients to wine podcasters.
But, back to “The Marys” and the “Sip, Sip Hooray” podcast. The Marys are Mary Orlin and Mary Babbitt, two very experienced wine educators and personalities who debuted “Sip Sip Hooray” back in late 2018 and have amassed a nearly 100-episode back catalog of podcast episodes. “On Sip, Sip, Hooray” the Marys have interviewed the royalty of wine, the rebels, the innovators, the writers, and everyone in between.
But what makes the Marys so good at what they do is their ability to ask the right questions without going over or under the heads of their listeners. This was particularly the case with the subject matter of our recent conversation: Wine DtC shipping, the three-tier system, reform to the system of wine distribution and sales, economic headwinds hitting wine, and more. Not exactly, “What’s your favorite wine” fare. But if you listen, I think you’ll find that these somewhat complex topics were made sensible and understandable largely because of the way the Marys guided our conversation.
The current wine podcast environment has the feel of wine blogs around 2009, when the technology for publishing online became very accessible and very inexpensive, and a whole lot of people jumped in the pond with both feet. That was followed about 5 years later with a lot of the same people abandoning their boats in the pond and retreating to the shore, blogs left behind.
But that’s ok, because what’s going to be left behind are the best of the best, and that is going to include the Marys and “Sip, Sip, Hooray”.
It’s also no coincidence that oftentimes podcasts will create very engaged communities around them, just like wine blogs once did. Wine For Normal People is a proper example. Elizabeth Schneider is not only like the Marys, a great interviewer and owner of one of the country’s best wine podcasts, but she has also created a hugely engaged community of listeners that follows her around the world visiting wine regions, getting together with each other in a variety of locations, and engaging in intense discussions online as Elizabeth feeds them interesting questions and comments. The best wine podcasters are and will accomplish similar feats of community building going forward, giving all of us in the business of marketing wine one more reason to pay very close attention to the wine podcasters.
I have other favorite wine (and non-wine) podcasts besides “Sip, Sip, Hooray” and “Wine For Normal People”. Take a listen to The Italian Wine Podcast, The Business of Drinks, the VinePair Podcast, and I’ll Drink To That.
Thanks, Tom (although spellcheck killed my last name 🤣). I wish I were as optimistic as you are. The podcast environment is very tough and even after 14 years of doing the show and having such a great community that does everything you said it does, it still shocks me at the relatively few listeners I have versus the readers of blogs and the "influencers". As an example, there is a large wine media company that started around the same time I did and does something similar, and although it has sold to a larger conglomerate and is now infused with marketing dollars and power, even before that acquisition, their written content was 10 times more popular than my show. While they have been catapulted to James Beard award winning status, I have never been considered for any formal awards in the wine industry for my work (I've actually won podcast awards from non-wine entities!). It could be because I am consumer oriented or because I'm outsider in the wine industry, but I think some of it has to do with the fact that podcasts that may actually reach consumers are still not respected.
My community is still small but mighty, as it has always been. I love what I do and who I get to do it for. That said, I don't think wine podcasting is going to see the kind of growth you are predicting, although that would be nice! I'm fortunate that *for podcasts* my listenership is a large number and that mine is a community that actually engages with my sponsor and with me. But when you look at the number of wine lovers in the world, I'm not even touching a tiny fraction of a percent of wine drinkers.
And lest people jump to the conclusion that it's because the show sucks or it's over people's heads, the reviews and the critical praise I've gotten don't bear that out. I think it's because the spoken word combined with wine appeal to relatively few people. Once a listener jumps on board, they are with me for years, but getting them there is a choice they need to make on their own, and while my flow of new listeners is steady, people in general aren't really making the choice to listen, en masse. Just my 2 cents...
Tom, we, the Marys, are humbled and grateful for your thoughtful comments about our Sip Sip Hooray Podcast and for your insights on the state of wine podcasting. We’re so glad you get what we are trying to do and are sharing this with others. We do our research yet remain open to where the conversation takes us, as we did with you - and the result was a fantastic discussion. Thanks again for coming on the pod and for all the great work you do.