Results Of Token Skeptic Survey – Thanks For Your Feedback

Episode Sixty-Four is unfortunately delayed until my internet issues are fixed. It’s a lengthy episode, so everyone who enjoys taking a particularly long walk or has somewhere of a decent distance to drive should enjoy the extra content… when it arrives. 🙁

Those who like to have forewarning about how much bandwidth its going to take, you know what’s going to happen as soon as things get fixed around here – prepare for a download of just under an hour!

In the meantime – hope you enjoyed the April 1st episode!

Here’s the results of the survey that people filled in:

Male 73.8% (31 people)
Female 26.2% (11 people)

Not unusual with the average listenership of skeptical podcasts, let alone podcasts in general, I suspect. I hope to increase the numbers in general and if there’s any suggestions in regards to balancing out the gender difference, I’m open to them.

Top listener locations are from Australia (42.9% and 18) and USA (26.2% and 11) with equal third Europe and UK (11.9% and 5) [Apologies for calling ‘Europe’ a country, as I said in the QEDCon panel episode!].

Age range of listeners – 31-35 (14.3% and 6); 36-40 (23.8% and 10); 41-45 (23.8% and 10). So, most people are in their late 30s, early 40s if they’re listening. Again, not something unexpected.

A few people who answered the survey don’t listen to the show! I am amused. 🙂 Feedback as to ‘why not’ is always appreciated, if it’s constructive.

Top podcasts that listeners subscribe to – Token Skeptic (85.4% and 35); Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe / 5 by 5 (78.0% and 32) and Skeptoid (73.2% and 30). I’m very flattered that I have that many people who check out the show and think I’m in good company if you enjoy those other podcasts. Closely followed by Skeptic Zone, Skepticality, Point of Inquiry and Skeptics with a K, in case you were wondering.

People who listen to my show are keen on podcasts! “I download podcasts to listen to daily” – 68.3% and 28 in total. Way more than weekly (24.4% and 10 people). Which makes me wonder whether I should do a show bi-weekly?

More than half of my listeners have listened to +30 episodes (52.9%).

Listeners like my interviews – (79.4% or 27 people) and quite like the audio essays that I do (61.8% and 21 people). Not much in terms of criticism of ‘not like’, but the vodcasts aren’t as popular? I’d say that the size of them as well as relevance would be a factor and I understand how that can distract from subscribing.

Which Subjects On The Token Skeptic Podcast Interest You The Most?

Education / Critical Thinking – 73.5% (25)
Pseudoscience – 70.6% (24)
Skeptical / Science Activism – 64.7% (22)
Atheism / Religion – 61.8% (21)

The rest is a mishmash of the other topics like Philosophy, Science Communication, Health and Consumer Rights, Superstitions and Book Reviews. I’ve noticed that there’s not many other podcasts devoted to education as much as my podcast (although I’m always networking with Desiree Schell of Skeptically Speaking and Swoopy of Skepticality who also produce great content in that regard, and I highly recommend both shows).

Finally – additional written feedback!

No trolls, and only three ‘no comments’, so I really appreciate people’s effort in that regard. 🙂

I would suggest all episodes be kept under 20mb for 3G downloading; I often suggest podcasts to others who I encourage to download immediately. I especially like Australia-based issues.
I hear you. Will make sure I alert people about this and do less vodcasts unless there’s a convention?

Email update with notes would be swell along with logo t-shirts sold at a fair price with shipping to the States.
Working on the t-shirts! Several different logos/designs. If you have suggestions about suppliers, let me know.

Enjoy the show very much. Maybe a little bit of an update on your own work here and there would be good.
I’ll see what I can do in that regard – I have had difficulty getting acknowledgement of my work from skeptics in Australia and after spending three years researching, it’s not something that immediately springs to mind as ‘of interest’ to anyone but me! :p But I’m working on doing lectures on the topics.

Would like a regular segment that does a quick round up of Australian news items viewed through a skeptical lense…
previous pioneers, historical facts segment. e.g on this day in history…
I’m not very keen on doing this, since other podcasts do this All. The. Time. I like to keep my show relatively short and on ‘only one topic’.

I’ll tackle recent issues via interviews or via essays, but I’d rather not add to my workload in this regard. I certainly encourage people to try making their own podcast that does this kind of thing – there’s already a few that incorporate it, however.

I add and remove podcasts from my iPhone on a daily basis, maybe an email reminder that a show is available with a short summary would be great.
I’ll look into this – the blog does this and the forum board on the Australasian Skeptics in a fashion already, but I guess it shouldn’t be too much to add to the workload.

I don’t really have any strong suggestions. I like TTS, and I don’t think there is much I would ever change! My only suggestions/comments are technical in nature: I did notice that the most recent episode I played (59) seems to be damaged. It stops playing after a minute, which is a shame, I like TIm Minchin. I would have loved to hear it. I tried re-downloading a few times. 🙁 My only other comment is that I would refer a separate RSS feed that only included the podcasts, and excluded the videos and text-posts. My pod catching software is confused by entries without audio files, so I need to manually clear them out… but its not a big deal. 🙂 Love the show!
1) Tim Minchin episode fixed – did mention this earlier and hope it’s okay for you – let me know if not!
2) The only thing I can do that allows ‘only audio’ is the links to the mp3s in each blog-post; hope they’re a useful alternative?

Your full back catalogue of Podcasts is no longer available on feedburner. My Android phone podcast reader can’t access iTunes.
I answered this in a previous episode – head to:
here – Token Skeptic Libsyn RSS or
here – Token Skeptic Libsyn Main Page or
here – List Of Episodes with mp3s for each link.
All of those will allow you to download eps.

the “ask the token skeptic” now and again is a neat idea, and yes, the cats should have their own show, or at least segment. 🙂
THE CATS GET NOTHING BUT CATFOOD.

All I can say is thank you.
I love you too.