Well, what can we say listeners? Not much...except thank you for your support! This year has been more successful for our little show than we could have planned, dreamed, or imagined. Those who follow us on Facebook or Twitter will have seen that in December alone we had over 4000 downloads. Yup, 4000 + downloads in one month! This beat our monthly average by about 1300 downloads. Hopefully this is a good sign.

To put some of these stats in perspective we should outline some of our original goals. Our initial battle plan was to produce approximately 10 episodes. We had planned for these to fit into three different formats. We expected around 100 downloads a month overall. Our plan was to take the data from the initial 10 episodes and develop the show based on most successful format and content. 

Well, just as a quote from a different dead prussian goes, our plan did not survive contact with the audience. After our second episode, our first interview, it became clear that we had struck upon something that the audience appreciated. Looking to exploit success, we extended our limits of exploitation and produced 27 episodes in total. All of these, except the first introduction episode, was in the now familiar interview format. 

Learning from 2016 we have decided to...continue to produce a fortnightly episode in the interview format. We have also decided to introduce other content in the off weeks. What this format will be has not yet been confirmed but we expect it to be a shorter episode that provides useful information for those interest in learning more about war and warfare.

Another key lesson was that running a podcast costs $$$. The hosting of the websites and podcast as well as investment in better equipment cost more than just the enthusiasm that saw us start the show. This is why we have set up a support account to allow listeners to help us meet the running costs.

Finally, but maybe not ultimately, we learnt that our audience is AWESOME. Without the support from the listeners we would not be as successful as described above. Thank you for spreading the word, whether it was on social media, in the office, in the classroom, or gobbing off at a BBQ. The growing network of our listeners and the support you have shown us is the truest measure of success we have!

March was the biggest month in our very, very, very short history. The show has been running since the 8th of January and we have been steadily growing in our fan base; however, March spiked at a whopping 1240 downloads!!! That is over twice the number that we achieved in February; although in February we only had one episode released and still managed 585 downloads. Episode 6 - On Shellshock in WW1 with Dr Meghan Fitzpatrick proved our most popular episode in March; though Episode 8 - On the Ghost Fleet with August Cole set our record of over 100 downloads in under 24 hours. Episode 7 - On the Dime with Phil Walter generated some great discussion on Twitter and we were also mentioned in two prominent Aussie blogs, The Interpreter and The Murphy Raid.

What the results in March tell me (it's Mick writing the blog BTW) is that we are probably reaching a wide audience. We are nowhere near Serial numbers, but nor do we ever expect to be. This month has shown that variety in the topics is also popular with the listeners. We discussed military psychiatry in World War 1, the concept of DIME, and future war as examined in a 'useful fiction' book, Ghost Fleet. All three of these topics were very different and demonstrate the breadth of the challenge we have here at TDP. The topics of war and warfare are so broad that we don't anticipate running out of interesting people to talk to anytime soon!

​We are also planning to implement some new features on our website. They will include:

• The War College - a place for reading lists, book reviews, podcast recommendations and much more.
• The War Diary Blog - you are reading it now.
• A free newsletter for email notifications about new and improved content.

Finally, thanks for listening, reading, and engaging with us here at The Dead Prussian Podcast. This project of ours is a work in perpetual progress and your support & feedback makes it worthwhile.