Should You Include Seasons in Podcast Episode Titles?

If your podcast uses seasons, you have multiple options for how to display them. Here's some guidance to help you decide!

Seasons share many similarities with episode numbers, so please read or listen to my previous episode, “Should You Include Episode Numbers in Episode Titles?” That will give you the extra context upon which this episode will build. But we can be thankful that seasons are not as complicated as episode numbers!

Do you even need seasons?

I made an episode back in 2015, “Should You Podcast in Seasons?” that I think answers the question in great detail (maybe even exhausting detail). So please go back to read or listen to that for more information. And here's a concise and updated summary of my thoughts about seasons.

Similar to whether you should use episode numbers, I challenge you to question whether seasons will matter to your audience, especially if they listen a year from now.

I recommend you use seasons only when each season follows a particular theme or arc. For example, each season of Serial told a completely different story, each season (and sometimes half season) of serial TV shows has a separate story arc, and I've heard other podcasts follow different formats in different seasons (like a “tools” season, a “top 10” season, a “client stories” season, and beginner/intermediate/advanced seasons).

Put another way, the audience can easily associate a theme or arc with the season because the seasons actually make sense and serve an obvious purpose.

But if you are thinking of using seasons merely for your schedule, then I don't think you should use seasons. If you need a planned hiatus, then simply announce and take the planned hiatus! There's no need to use seasons if you only need a break. Your current and future audience likely won't care about these “seasons,” and they won't even make sense to your future audience.

If your audience will not notice any big content changes progressing immediately from one season to the next, then the seasons are probably not necessary.

But with the assumption that your show does need seasons, let's consider how to best display them with your episodes.

Use the season RSS tags

Both the Apple “iTunes Namespace” and Podcasting 2.0 “Podcast Namespace” offer RSS tags for indicating seasons.

For Apple Podcasts, the season tag is <itunes:season>, which allows only a non-zero number. For Podcasting 2.0, the tag is <podcast:season>. But, of course, the Podcasting 2.0 season tag offers more by letting you give each season a name instead of only a number. So the first season could be labeled “Getting Started,” the second season could be “Growing,” and the third season could be “Improving.” Use both tags as well as you can until all apps upgrade to the modern Podcasting 2.0 standard.

When you use these season tags, modern podcast apps can more intelligently display the season information in appropriate contexts and possibly group your episodes by season. It can even cause an entire season to download or start playing at the beginning of the latest season when you combine this with the “serial” podcast type.

Apple started offering this season tag with the release of iOS 11 back in 2017. Pocket Casts supported it quickly, too