Podcasting - Quality is what counts

“Amateur podcasters must sharpen up and get some expert radio help if they want to keep their listeners” says David Prest, Managing Director of “Whistledown Productions”.

 

Long before the advent of the little white life support system that we wire up to our eardrums every morning, I had a friend who affectionately nicknamed me “pod”. I was unsure at first, but realised that in her mind, it just sounded warm, honest and reassuring. If only she’d sold the feel-good concept to a major computer manufacturer, we’d have been quids in.

 

Rarely can a three letter word have had such potency, and when the hybrid “pod-casting” came along, it sent a shiver down the spine of all us radio folk. The google searches went from zero to 3 billion in six months, but if ever a thing was “concept broadcasting”, then this was it. There’d been downloadable broadcasts since 2001, catchily dubbed “downloadable broadcasts,” or for users of the BBC’s on line service “Listen again”, but when linked with portable players, we producers suddenly found that there was now a name for what we do, and it was “new”.

 

Coupling an i-pod with a broadcaster’s network, allowing people to carry and store programmes, subscribe to them, and play them to their friends is undoubtedly great for radio. What could be even more exciting is the shot in the arm it will give to other forms of media. Magazines like “Nature” have pioneered weekly podcasts featuring interviews with leading academics, a major pharmaceutical company is soon to start internal podcasts to staff and when The Guardian hired Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant for a weekly round the kitchen table yacca, the precedent was set. In January, the Daily Telegraph’s ubiquitous podcasts even got them into the i-tunes Top 10.

But many newcomers still suffer from a heritage that sees podcasting as an essentially amateur activity. Look at any of the podcast search engines and you’ll find a whole load of stuff from stuttering cat-lovers to people ranting nonsense about biscuits. This is people’s propaganda radio and if World War III broke out next week, Lord Haw-Haw wouldn’t even get a look in. The majority of it is badly produced rubbish: rambling, self referential and incoherent, much of which, as we say in radio, sounds like it’s been “recorded up a badger’s backside”. More seriously, content is often crude, tasteless and potentially defamatory. As audiences grow, OFCOM and the legal profession are sure to start taking more of an interest.

 

To some extent, the technical fuzziness, and poor content, is all part of the illicit underground appeal of the podcast. Big American corporations have already caught on to this and are applying the “astro-turfing” principle: roughing up the sound quality to give their messages that honest home-produced garage feel.

However, as most people in this country are used to consuming quality radio with high end production values, it’s more likely that the grunge factor will quickly become a turn off in Britain.

 

The challenge ahead for the organisations keen to embrace the i-pod user is not to rush out hastily cobbled together content, but to create polished audio that will stand above the rest, giving people a regular appointment to listen. Magazine editors can give their star columnists an audio outlet, politicians can do weekly podcasts, and marketing men can get editorial to their customers or workforce, but if the producers, presenters and reporters they’re using aren’t up to scratch, then people just won’t be bothered to listen.

 

The signs so far aren’t good. Last week, a national newspaper advertised for a producer/ reporter to create what it called “high quality and engaging podcasts”, but with no mention of any need for broadcast experience and at the sort of chilling salary that’s likely to attract only the keenest media grad. The truth is that if you’re not prepared to invest in the talent then you’ll lose the chance to shine.

 

Melvyn Bragg’s “In Our Time” regularly tops the charts with 180,000 download listeners a week, but, as you would expect of a Radio 4 production, this is a beautifully orchestrated and expertly researched discussion – it’s not thrown together in an afternoon over crumpets in the Bragg back bedroom by a friend of the family on work experience.

 

There is real potential for podcasting in this country, but those investing in its future must look for suppliers who can give them interesting, stimulating content with pace, poke and good narrative. The BBC has already made great inroads during what it still insists on calling its “podcasting trial period”. The best bits of Chris Moyles have led the way, and even BBC7’s Big Toe Show is offering its “best of” packages, branded as “clippings”. When listeners park their player, the latest editions are automatically downloaded, so you can keep abreast of new films with Mark Kermode’s weekly reviews. I even found myself sitting next to a business class passenger on a flight to San Francisco last week who informed me he had a months-worth of “From Our Own Correspondent” to kill the journey time.

 

Can we generate revenue from it? London talk station LBC has already gone for the money offering six months of podcasting for a subscription of £10, which is as much Anna Raeburn and Nick Ferrari as any person can take – and without the adverts!

 

But forget the well worn favourites, there’s a whole world to play with. Dan Neil of the L.A. Times has a sassy weekly podcast on “cars, people and their relationships” which sounds really fresh, and the National Public Radio network now has a bewildering array of downloadable content on its websites.

 

All this quality floating around puts a premium on using good radio talent. Not many people can make the successful transfer from writing for the print medium to writing for radio, and if podcast investors work on the sole presumption that all you need in the job spec is an “engaging speaking style”, then we’re all in trouble.

A good radio producer is like the conductor of an orchestra blending sound effects, music and voices, injecting pace and energy into the spoken word. By contrast, I’ve heard podcasts, which sound like they’re recorded in an airing cupboard acoustic, are delivered by people with speaking clock delivery and have content that is leaden, uninspired and pedestrian.

 

Only last week, a major academic establishment approached my company to help with one their first podcasts. It transpired that someone in IT had done some interviews on an old cassette machine, but had spent three months editing them down and it was still 2 hours long. I told them we could start from scratch and have it done by the end of the week.

 

“It used to be cool to be a radio DJ, then it was cool to be a club DJ: now its cool to be a podcaster,” said one music radio executive at last November’s Radio Academy conference. If the talent pool really is on the move, then the truth is that it’s not going to be long before we start to see cult podcasts with the sort of download stats that put them up there with a good sized radio station’s RAJAR figures. And what’s more, they won’t have to pay the hefty platform fees for the right to broadcast either. However, only if existing radio talent is embraced by podcasters will we really get the sort of thrilling listening experience that can rise above what’s already out there on the web.

 

Reprinted from “The Guardian” February 27 th 2006” .