4 Reasons its Time to Leave Anchor

Author: Ona Oghogho

As you prepare your podcast for 2021, it’s time for you to leave Anchor and elevate your show by switching to a new hosting platform. I know the free element can be very appealing, but if you’re trying to take your show to new heights it’s time to see the truth that is Anchor.

Now let me put this disclaimer, I know for some podcasting is just a fun creative outlet for you and your friends; hence, this may not apply to you. 

So, let’s dive right on in as to why it’s time to leave anchor and level up your podcast.

Audio Quality

One of the main selling points of Anchor is that you can record directly from your phone and patch in callers. This is a great feature; however, if you’ve ever listened to a conversation recorded on your phone it doesn’t always produce the best audio. 

Aside from phone audio quality; when audio is recorded directly into Anchor and not a DAW it has very limited editing capabilities. 

Listener Analytics

As content creators it’s important to understand what content your audience wants; and how best to achieve this is by looking at your episode data. 

Unfortunately, if you’re using Anchor you ultimately have no access to your actual statistics through Apple’s Podcast Connect and other platforms. They control your feed and what you can do with it. 

Other hosting platforms can provide you with the location of your listeners, which listening platform (Spotify, Apple, Google etc.) their tuning in from and so much more.

Customer Service

When something is free you are not really a customer but instead part of the companies marketing funnel for their brand. With any company you are not a true customer until you pay. Hence, using Anchor you are simply allowing them to utilize your platform to advertise their services and gain data about listener habits. 

I’ve heard many complaints about shows being taken down without warning or adding advertisements to show’s without prior communication.

Privacy

What we’ve recently learned from Podnews is that Anchor makes it easy for someone to pirate your podcast. In their October 6th Newsletter Podnews dives into how Anchor allows you to import someone else’s RSS Feed without their knowledge or even confirming an email address. This is just the icing on the cake as to why the platform as a whole in truly in it for themselves vs. for the content creators they claim to support.

Overall of course you have to make a decision based on what’s best for you; but as you look to grow your show you should take these above items very seriously as they can limit your growth and hurt the brand, you’re working so hard to build.

If you’ve started on Anchor and made the switch, share your experience in the comments.