A brand I advise just killed their podcast after eighteen months. It was my recommendation. They are relieved. Their marketing team practically threw a party. And I think the decision is going to be one of the smartest strategic moves they make this year.
Here is the thing about branded podcasts in 2026: everyone has one and almost nobody should. The math is unforgiving. There are over four million podcasts in existence. The average branded podcast gets fewer than two hundred downloads per episode. Most brands would reach more people by printing flyers and handing them out at a bus stop.
Here is the thing about branded podcasts in 2026: everyone has one and almost nobody should.
But killing a podcast feels like failure. It feels like admitting you wasted budget. It feels like quitting. So brands keep producing episodes that almost nobody listens to, week after week, because stopping feels worse than continuing to do something that is not working.
This is the sunk cost fallacy wearing a microphone.
The podcast I recommended killing was not bad. The production quality was high. The hosts were charming. The content was genuinely informative. It just did not have an audience, and after eighteen months, the trajectory was flat. No growth. No hockey stick coming. Just two hundred loyal listeners who were mostly employees and the host's extended family.
The resources freed up by killing it? They are being redirected to a short-form video strategy that is already outperforming the podcast's lifetime numbers in its first month. Same content. Same insights. Different format. Different distribution. Different results.
I think there are three honest questions every brand with a podcast should ask right now:
Is our audience actually podcast listeners? Not all audiences are. Some demographics over-index on podcasts. Others do not listen to them at all. If your target customer is not already in the habit of listening to podcasts, you are not going to change that behavior. You are just producing content for a channel they do not use.
Is this the best use of these resources? A good branded podcast requires a producer, a host, guests, editing, promotion, and ongoing creative development. That is a significant investment. Could those same resources produce more impact in a different format? Usually the answer is yes, and usually nobody wants to admit it.
Are we continuing because it is working or because stopping feels like failure? This is the hard one. Be honest with yourself. If your podcast disappeared tomorrow, would anyone outside your company notice? If the answer is no, you have your answer.
I love podcasts. I listen to them constantly. I think audio is a beautiful, intimate medium. And I think branded podcasts can be extraordinary when they are done with genuine creative ambition for an audience that actually exists. Trader Joe's podcast works because it is genuinely entertaining and their customers are exactly the kind of curious, engaged people who listen to podcasts.
But for most brands, the podcast is not the right channel. And knowing when to stop doing something that is not working is one of the most underrated strategic skills in marketing. It is not failure. It is resource allocation. It is maturity. It is strategy.
Pour one out for the branded podcasts we have lost. They tried their best. Time to try something else.