How Friends Grew Their Viewership (and How You Can, Too)

I'm a huge Friends fan. Like...watch the whole series multiple times per year. Did you know they did something in Season 1 to grow their viewership 25%? Season 1, Episode 16 was called, “The One with Two Parts, Part 1,” it was the first of a crossover event with two other NBC shows. Before landing the role of Phoebe on Friends, Lisa Kudrow was a waitress named Ursula on NBC’s hit show Mad About You, also set in NYC. The show wrote them as twin sisters, and Ursula was introduced to the Friends audience in Episode 16 when Joey started dating her. Helen Hunt and Leila Kenzle, who played the main characters on Mad About You, also make an appearance, mistaking Phoebe for Ursula at Central Perk, a common hangout in Friends. But it doesn’t stop there. At the end of Episode 16, Rachel falls and hurts her ankle. Episode 17 opens with her and Monica at the Hospital, where they meet two young doctors, played by George Clooney and Noah Wyle, the stars of ER. The results of that cross-over event? The most-viewed episode before that arc had 26M views and guest-starred Morgan Fairchild as Chandler’s mom. After that, the average viewership was 29.8M per episode. What can podcasters learn from this? Get in front of other people’s audiences. The Friends team knew that pulling in Mad About You and ER cast would bring the fans. After all – they were similar shows (daily lives of young people in big cities), at similar times, on the same network. You can replicate this strategy 2 ways:

1. Going on other people's podcasts as a guest
2. Doing podcast swaps, where you and another podcast plug each other shows I did each of these and grew my own show from 33,000 monthly downloads to 72,000 monthly downloads in 10 months. Not bad, right? Now it's your turn. Write back and let me know: what are 2-3 podcasts you can work with on a podcast swap?

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About Streamlined Podcaster: This is the show for solo podcasters who love their podcast but hate how much time it takes. Each week, host Joe Casabona shares the systems, workflows, and podcast automation that let you run a great show without burning out.

Joe has been a solo podcaster for 15+ years and helps solopreneurs replace manual tasks with reliable systems so they can take time off worry-free. He knows firsthand what it takes to produce a quality show solo — and he's here to help you do the same.

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