The Audience/Complexity Ratio and Your Ideal Point of Broadcast

Yesterday I was listening to one of Leo Laporte‘s podcasts, which I believe is broadcast nationally on radio as well. I had several times seen him record it in his Twit video channel, but had never listened to him without seeing him.

Two things struck me as I listened.

First, that Leo has a very cool radio voice. Trent Hamm, a FriendFeed user, described it perfectly: “strong, deep, authoritative tones, yet still warm and inviting”.

Second, that Leo’s technologic complexity on the show is right in the middle: not too complex, not too simple.

Leo is really admired and has a very loyal and large following. He has 137,000+ followers on Twitter and this Twit shows are always buzzing with people who ask him stuff, but also help him in things he doesn’t know.

I think Leo knows more about technology than he shows or broadcasts. He has his ideal point really figured out. Of course, he’s done it for years, first on ZDTV, then TechTV and now with his own channels.

I’m thinking about many other technology newsmakers with decent following and they always seem, to me, that they weren’t advanced in their technology knowledge. They’re not hardcore programmers like I am.

And that’s a good thing, if you look at the chart above.

I thought, if I put on a chart the complexity of your channel (be it a blog, your Twitter or FriendFeed stream, or your Ustream channel), the more complex the content is in terms of its content, your audience will tend to reduce. Why? They’re alienated by what you’re transmitting. They don’t understand it and the likelihood they’ll use it in their daily lives is slim.

On the other side of the chart, if your content is really, really simple, your audience can be very wide. The problem is that they will prefer to get that information from the hundred other sources that offer the same content like you do. You will be talking to the wind.

I think you need to find your IP, as I’ve marked above, where you offer enough value or complexity to your content so that you can build an audience, but at the same time, even though you know much more than that, not to exceed this level of alienation that will certainly show that you know your stuff, but it’ll be interesting to fifteen people.

Of course, this is all dependant to what your goal is. If your passion is nuclear fision and you’re ok with fifteer really good followers, then this is fine.

For others, though, who want to be like Leo, you just need to keep practicing. See what posts or days you had a really good audience, and check the level of complexity of that broadcast. You can probably start seeing trends and slowly, but surely, start to offer real and unique value to your audience.