Should Shows Have Production Credits?
If you asked the audience if they belong at the end of episodes, I’m afraid they’d likely vote “no”--and there’s strong reasons you should too.
Welcome to Dispatch #82 of The Audio Insurgent. Every once in a while I think of something to write about…and I know from the jump that I’m going to upset someone–or perhaps many someones.
Today is one of those dispatches. This may seem like a light topic that can easily be brushed off–but hang in there with me. This is a bigger deal than you might think.
So, let’s go…
[SHOULD SHOWS HAVE PRODUCTION CREDITS IN THEM?] Let me say up front: People deserve to be credited, publicly, for their work. It is an important acknowledgment of the person’s contributions, it provides transparency on works of journalism, and it is just the right thing to do.
However, I’d argue that at the end of a radio program or the concluding moments of a podcast episode are not the right place to put them. In fact, I think it’s pretty easy to establish that it’s actually harmful.
Take a look at this chart:
It is a retention curve for a random episode of one of Mag Noise’s shows, as measured through the Bumper Dashboard. It answers, across the three major platforms that provide retention data, what percentage of listeners who hit play are still listening over the course of an episode. So, using that chart, you can tell that about 60% of Spotify listeners, 50% of Apple podcast listeners, and 17% of YouTube listeners and viewers were still engaged 25 minutes into this 41-minute episode. But I bet your eyes went straight to the cratering that starts to happen about 38 minutes into the episode.
What happened?
The credits started to roll.
And if you look at retention graphs for pretty much any show, you’ll see the same thing happening on almost every episode. The credits start…and the audience vanishes.
This should surprise no one. Every streaming platform gives you the option to skip credits at the beginning or end of an episode. The lights come up in the movie theater because most everyone leaves after the credits start to roll. I mean, everyone appreciates Mitchell Andrew Lillian’s masterful key grip work on Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. But most people aren’t interested in sitting there until his name scrolls by.
But these production credits are harmless, right? Why is this even a question?
The problem
When a listener finishes an episode, what do you want to happen next? You want them to hear the next unplayed episode from your show. That’s so obviously the goal that most podcast players are designed to do it automatically. Ideally, the original episode ends and the next episode’s opening hooks them before they even think to reach for their phone.
But when credits start rolling, you break that spell. The listener’s hand goes to their device, and suddenly they’re making choices—maybe to scroll, switch shows, or stop listening altogether. You’ve lost momentum and you’ve lost control.
Something similar happens in radio as well. When a show starts running production credits at the end of the episode, it’s a clear signal for the listener to scan other options, switch to something else, or move on. You are practically telling them to go away.
[Continued after the jump…]
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That’s why I tell production teams their hardest and most important job isn’t just to make a great episode—it’s to get the listener to listen again. That’s the real measure of success. So don’t give them cues to leave; give them reasons to stay.
Almost every time I consult with networks and their podcasts, we spend the first several sessions talking about structural issues–the things they do, often without realizing it, that make the show difficult to connect to or stay engaged with. And most creators don’t realize how much self-inflicted tune-out they create with their choices. But once we make changes to address them, the change in listener behavior is pretty clear and immediate.
You don’t control what is going on in a listener’s life, but you have a lot of control over how much they enjoy the experience of escaping that life to spend time with you.
And while we are at it, I also often advise people to give a lot of thought to postroll ads and promos. Networks tend to pack a lot of lower-tier ads or free promo exchanges at the end to prevent clutter inside their episodes. This is well-intentioned, but hearing three minutes of ads and promos, in a place where there is almost no demonstrable audience, is following a bad practice (production credits) with an even worse one. Nobody wins.
The solution
So, we’ve said that it is important to credit a creator’s work, but also said it can be damaging to list the production credits at the end of an episode. So, where should the production credits go then?
Almost anywhere else.
Show notes. A web page. Even “meet the staff” posts on social media. Almost any other way to credit the fine work of your colleagues provides the same level of clarity and acknowledgment without the collateral damage, and–frankly–will be seen by more people.
Eric is a hypocrite
There are some keen observers who will point out that Magnificent Noise shows contain production credits. I know this because every time I advocate for something in these dispatches, I get at least one person, sometimes many more, writing to point out the time in my decades-long career where I have not practiced what I’m preaching. (Seriously, after a recent dispatch I got an email from a guy pointing to a conference presentation I gave in 1997 where I advocated for something different. I replied, “Dude, that was over a quarter century ago.”)
I would say, in my defense, that I’ve been advocating to reduce or eliminate radio production credits for a long, long time (ask any of my former teams and clients) but often settle for what we do in our podcasts today: a very short list of the team, no titles, that is designed to convey the information as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.
That said, I’m planning to try to move even further away from production credits. I’ve just been seeing these credit-induced evaporations on these retention graphs so consistently for so long that I can’t deny this is something we need to take seriously.
This may seem like a tiny thing, but it isn’t. Every show wants growth, but lasting growth doesn’t come from chasing hacks—it comes from removing the little barriers that make listening harder. Each small fix compounds. Together, they turn a show people occasionally sample into one they stick with.
Okay, that’s it for today.
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Make great things. I’ll be listening.
--Eric