Horror-podcast fans trust the show deeply — and that trust almost never turns into money

Horror storytelling programmes hold unusually devoted audiences. How closely does what followers think of a programme's relationship marketing communication relate to how they actually engage with it, and do demographics change the answer?

A survey of 400 people aged 18 and over who follow or have followed horror storytelling programmes, conducted by online questionnaire (Cronbach's Alpha 0.72–0.86). The most-followed programmes among respondents were The Ghost Radio and Angkhan Khlum Pong, tied at 87.25%. The instrument measured three dimensions — trust, commitment and communication — against both ordinary engagement behaviour and engagement that costs money, analysed with descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, and one-way ANOVA.

• Overall opinion of the programmes' relationship marketing communication was moderate (3.36), with trust rated highest (3.56) and the single highest item being “I believe the programme gives truthful and credible information” (3.81).
• Engagement behaviour overall, however, was low (2.45). Low-cost actions were common — commenting under clips or during live streams (3.28) and sharing clips (3.25) — while donating money (1.75) and joining a trip (1.41) were lowest of all.
• Opinion and behaviour correlated positively and significantly, but the correlation was very low (r = 0.167, p < .05), so a favourable attitude barely predicts real engagement.
• On opinion, the 46–59 (3.61) and 60-and-over (3.72) groups were more positive than the 18–35 group, while gender, education, occupation and income made no difference.
• On behaviour, civil servants and state enterprise employees, and those earning 10,001–30,000 baht, engaged more than other groups, while gender, age and education made no difference.

The study puts a number on the attitude-behaviour gap content creators keep running into: followers trust the programme and will recommend it, but that has not converted into paid support. What the results point to is designing a ladder from the low-cost actions people already take up towards tangible support, rather than jumping straight to asking for donations.