Understanding Podcasting’s Liquid Content Era

As mentioned in a recent Thought Letter, podcasting has entered what I’ve been calling the era of liquid content. The phrase isn’t meant as a slogan or a provocation. The term has its roots at Google. It’s an attempt to describe a structural shift in how content now moves, how it’s discovered, and how audiences encounter ideas across platforms.

A simple way to visualize the shift is to think about an orange. The fruit itself doesn’t change, but once squeezed, what was solid begins to flow. The value isn’t created by producing more oranges, but by understanding how and where the juice can be used.

That metaphor matters because it reframes the challenge. The work is no longer finished when something is published.

Today’s letter is about what’s actually changing, and why some media organizations are already operating fluidly while others still assume the work ends when an episode is published.

Why Media Has Become Liquid

Liquid content isn’t just about serving an existing audience. It’s about making ideas discoverable wherever attention happens to land.

Across media, content is breaking free from the boundaries of a single feed or platform. Podcast episodes are clipped, quoted, embedded, searched, recommended, and resurfaced in places far removed from where they were originally published. Increasingly, people encounter ideas in fragments long before they ever listen to or watch a full episode. What reaches them first is rarely the complete work, but a moment, a point of view, or a recognizable voice.

In that environment, discovery no longer follows a linear path. The assumption that audiences will start at the beginning, move through content in order, and remain engaged throughout no longer reflects how people actually find and consume media.

Where We See Liquid Content Working Best

One of the clearest examples of liquid content flow is The New York Times.

The Times no longer treats an article as the end of the audience journey. Reporting now lives across text, audio, podcasts, video, newsletters, alerts, apps, and social formats. Importantly, these are not duplicates. Each version is shaped intentionally for the context in which it appears. For example, remarkable graphics that would not work well in the printed paper are used to augment a online story.  We see reporters talking about their work in clips and on their website.

Wherever someone enters—through a headline, a narrated article, a podcast segment, or a short video—the work holds together. The underlying reporting remains consistent even as the form changes.

This reflects a clear understanding that discovery now happens across many entry points, not one prescribed path.

Television has arrived at a similar place. Programs such as late‑night shows or Saturday Night Live often reach larger audiences on YouTube than on linear broadcasts. This isn’t simply a distribution shift. Segments are increasingly structured, so they function as complete, self‑contained experiences, regardless of where they are encountered, and are designed to feature advertising.

What “Liquid Content” Actually Means

At its core, liquid content is an editorial mindset. How can we maximize this “piece” of content?

A podcast episode might live as a written analysis on Substack. A reported story might appear as audio, video, a newsletter item, or a visual explainer. These are deliberate packagings of the same idea, shaped to fit different environments.

What This Means for Podcasting

For podcasting, adapting to liquid content has become essential for growth and relevance.

People rarely discover podcasts in order anymore. The days of announcing a new show with a simple link on Twitter (or whatever it’s called now) are long gone.

Audiences may encounter a quote, a short video, a social post, or a newsletter mention before they ever realize they’re engaging with a podcast at all.

I work with a political commentator whose writing performs exceptionally well on Substack but has yet to find the same traction on YouTube. The issue isn’t the quality of the thinking or the strength of the voice. It’s interpretation. The same ideas need to be shaped differently to align with each platform. That is the work.

How Time-Starved Audiences Are Adapting

A recent piece by Bloomberg’s Ashley Carmen captures a growing tension in podcasting. Faced with an oversaturated landscape and limited time, many listeners are no longer consuming shows start to finish. Instead, they’re relying on transcripts, summaries, chapters, clips, and AI tools to surface key ideas. Podcasts are increasingly encountered as moments or insights rather than complete episodes, raising understandable concerns about whether this kind of partial consumption could cannibalize full listening.

But Carmen’s reporting suggests something more nuanced is happening. These behaviors aren’t a rejection of long-form content so much as an adaptation to the sheer abundance of it. For many time-starved listeners, the choice is often between some engagement or none at all. In that light, making podcast ideas more adaptable doesn’t necessarily diminish the core experience rather it can add to relevance, preserve discovery, maintain connection, and keep audiences engaged when full attention isn’t always available.

In my Thought Letter, I talk often about limited “shelf-space.” To add a podcast to my regular rotation means something else has to go. I’m out of time.

A Strategy Shift, Not a Marketing One

This is important. Liquid content is not about producing more work or flooding platforms. It’s about making deliberate decisions with your strongest ideas and ensuring they travel well.

In practice, this often means doing less, not more. We regularly advise clients to resist over-clipping or over-publishing, because too much exposure can unintentionally signal that the best moments have already been given away. An axiom I use is “E2=0, when you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing.” When everything is highlighted, nothing feels essential.

This doesn’t require being everywhere or doing everything. Not every creator has the time, budget, or appetite for that. It requires deciding, how a key argument, insight, or moment should appear when it shows up as a clip, a quote, or a written post.

The Big Picture

The next phase of podcasting, and media more broadly, will reward clarity over volume, thoughtfulness over output, and adaptation.

People won’t discover your content the way you intend them to. They will find it in fragments, across platforms, and in moments.

Liquid content leans into that reality.

And that’s where things are headed.

Let’s talk about it.