Christmas, New Year’s Day, and many more holidays affect people differently. Learn whether you should keep podcasting or take a break during a holiday.

I cover this more thoroughly in a members-only webinar I did for Podcasters’ Society, “How to Prepare Your Podcast for Breaks.” That’s one of many resources to help you improve your podcast, available exclusively in Podcasters’ Society. Click here to join and get immediate access to community, training, and support (https://PodcastersSociety.com/)!

1. Know your audience

Geography

What holidays affect your audience? The easiest way to know that would be to look at where your podcast is being downloaded.

* Libsyn (https://theaudacitytopodcast.com/libsyn): Stats ➜ Show ➜ Geographic

* Blubrry (https://theaudacitytopodcast.com/blubrry): Stats ➜ Geography ➜ World

Most likely, if the top country (by a large margin) isn’t your own, you may need to consider whether your own holidays will matter to the majority of your audience.

For example, Memorial Day, President’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving (in November) are nationally observed American holidays. Some of these may be known outside the USA (like Independence Day and Thanksgiving).

Regardless of how you let a holiday affect your podcast, I recommend always being inclusive to those who may not know the holiday. Instead of being vague and saying, “the holiday,” be specific (for example, “It’s Independence Day in America this week, …”).

Immediacy

It’s also good to know the timelessness or “long tail” of your podcast episodes. Most podcasts will get the majority of their downloads in the first 72 hours. (Edison Research reports that 73% of podsumers play an episode within 48 hours of access.) If your podcast has this same “immediate” consumption pattern, then timely events and holidays may have a greater effect on your audience. But if your podcast has significant downloads continuing after the episode’s first week, then timely events may not be as relevant to your audience.

Lifestyles

If you know your audience is affected by the same holidays as you, and they consume your podcast quickly, you should also think about the prominent lifestyle of your audience and how your podcast might fit into that.

Consider Christmas and New Year’s Day (which seem to be the most prominent international holidays). This is about a week or more that your audience’s daily routines are significantly different. They may take time off work and thus may not be commuting. They may spend more time with family and friends and thus less time alone. They may spend more time with new “toys” and thus less time with established habits. And they may spend more time traveling to visit loved ones, but such traveling may be with others instead of alone.

With this in mind, how does your podcast fit into the lifestyle of your audience? If your podcast is business-focused, then it may not be relevant or even desired around the holidays. If your podcast is entertainment-focused, it could be a way for your audience to escape holiday stress. And if your podcast is focused on something more relevant to the holidays (like family, health, and such), then your audience may need your podcast at that time.

2. Know yourself

Be realistic. How plausible is it for you to continue your podcast around a holiday? This significantly depends on your workflow and episode backlog.

If you all your podcasting steps (planning, preparing, presenting, producing, publishing, and promoting) (https://theaudacitytopodcast.com/6-ps-for-a-proven-podcasting-workflow-tap165/) are within close proximity, then you may have very little margin for holidays.

If your podcasting steps are more spread out, either through batching (https://theaudacitytopodcast.com/is-batch-podcasting-for-you-tap259/) or through being several episodes ahead, then you have a lot more margin for holidays.

What is actually doable for you?