The best place to work in the country

What’s the best place to work in the UK?

London Zoo? Cadbury’s World? Manchester City’s calf-muscle-massaging department?

NO. It’s flippin’-well Fresh Air Production.

Because, as of this morning, we’ve been named as one of the Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2023! We’re one of only ten ‘small organisations’ chosen in the UK, and we’ll be included in a special pull-out in this weekend’s Super Soaraway Sunday Times.

Despite the regular abuse I dish out to my staff every week in this very newsletter, we absolutely love what we do, who we do it with and how we do it. We’ve won a few awards for our work over the years, but when you nurture a small business you have a chance to define the type of culture you’re creating for yourself and the people who you bring on board. We’ve built our team and our ethos from scratch. These are super-precious things and to have them recognised is something I’m ridiculously proud of.?

The Podcast Show

In just two weeks’ time, you have the chance to absorb yourself in the world of podcasts at The Podcast Show on May 24th and 25th. Come and learn about the podcasting world, see lots of famous folk and come to see us with our stand, our T-Shirts and our MASSIVE (I’m talking 2.5 metre high) headphones.?

We’re running two sessions at 11am each day on the Brand Works Stage, and you can see the full run-down of sessions right here. We’ll be joined by our friends from Kinda Studios and our brilliant clients at Auto Trader, as we reveal a sneaky-peak of the celeb-packed podcast we're launching with them in June.

If you’re going anyway, and if you’ve not yet booked your pass, we’d like to offer two pairs of newsletter readers to come as our guests. Don’t worry - you don’t have to spend the whole day with us or wear a Fresh Air branded T-Shirt (although you’re welcome to). Just reply to this email saying ‘Please can I be your guest at the Podcast Show Neil?’ and if you’re one of the first two people you’ll get your sweaty hands on those golden tickets.

Results all over the Place

This has been a big week for numbers, with some of Podcasting’s big players posting their financial results and other studious people studying things.

Acast’s revenue grew by 11% year on year, including the acquisition of Podchaser - a podcast discovery platform.?

Podcast ad revenue is still booming in the US according to SIM, with an incredible 43% year on year growth. However, the New York Times recorded a drop in digital advertising revenues, which they say is largely down to falling podcast revenues.?

Is this “YouTube” Thing Any good?

A lot of noise has been made about YouTube entering the podcast world, not least by me in this very newsletter. However, it might not be all it’s cracked up to be. Ashley Carman on Bloomberg spotted that it’s not going so well. For instance, NPR - one of the biggest podcast networks in the US, and indeed the world - gets an average of 179 views of its podcasts on YouTube. Which is quite pants. Other podcasts for major groups like Slate are also being watched by at least 7 times fewer people than go to see the average Swindon Town home match. Which is also pants.

I don’t know for sure, but maybe the magic of podcasts is in the audio rather than crowbarring it into a video platform? Who’d have thought it?

If you’d like to know why listening to audio is a far more engaging and attention-holding activity than video, and therefore special in its own right, just listen to Fresh Ears.

Banned wordies

As you know, last week Michaela Hallam (King) - Director of Content and Fierce Woman - added a descriptive phrase to her banned list that was so offensive it was actually banned from even being mentioned in the newsletter. Worse than “moist” apparently, which is also banned. However, this week she had a visceral reaction to the much tamer ‘Drinkies’.

Next week, we’re going to be at Campaign UK ’s Media360 in Brighton - a top tier event for the Marketing industry - and I was excited to share that we’re invited to ‘drinkies’ in the i360 Tower at the end of the day. Honestly, Michaela’s disgust was off the charts. She yet again alluded to me being ‘swanky’ and instantly told me never to say it again in her presence.?

There’s a thread emerging here. A few weeks ago she banned ‘botties’ so maybe it’s the infantilisation of any word by adding ‘ies’ to the end that is most offensive to her delicate and discerning ears. Options to slip into meetings next week will include ‘Can we have chatties?’, ‘What are you having for dinnsies?’ and ‘Shall we just run through the presentation deckies’, and I will let you know which one makes her head explode.?

Here's our recommends for this week..

Jayne Morgan returns..

Dirty John, Who the Hell is Hamish?, Sweet Bobby …. podcasts about women (sadly it does usually start with them) being taken for a variety of rides by conniving, double-living scum – often for financial gain - are fairly plentiful. So, if you’re going to do another one, you need to do it exceptionally well. Enter Love Bombed – the story of Colleen and the man she thinks is handsome, romantic, firefighting hero, James Scott. It’s not too much of a spoiler to say that he turns out to be someone else. It’s beautifully constructed but what really made it stand out for me was its humanity. Because we hear this story all too often, it becomes easy to write off the various victims as gullible or simply their own worst enemy. This time we are expertly taken into the hearts and minds of those involved in a way that engenders true emotional engagement with their experience. This is particularly due to the authentic and empathetic presentation of Vicky Pattison (Geordie Shore etc) who actually does some of the interviews and who is clearly invested in the people she talks to. I want to heartily recommend it and, at the same time, make a comparison with Wondery’s Stolen Hearts - the other, extremely high-profile recent podcast covering very similar territory. ?Here presenter Kerry Godliman delivers a wise-cracking, arch script talking about people she’s clearly neither met nor has any interest in. Her complete lack of any genuine relationship with the material left me, at least, feeling completely indifferent to the whole thing. So – check out Love Bombed and, while doing so, can we all consider the fact that, while we know famous names drive downloads, bolting them on to the end-product in an attempt just to do that will potentially undermine the content you’re making.

Listen here.

Eva Higginbotham gets saucy..

There's nothing like a heady cocktail of sex, scandal, and storytelling to get you through the day, and Sanctum Unmasked delivers all 3 in spades.

Damon Lawner was a broke family man whose life changed forever when he founded SNCTM: an elite sex club serving the crème de la crème of Hollywood and billionaires alike. Sanctum Masked tells the story of the rise and fall of the club, featuring interviews with performers, friends, and family members. The world-building and description of the parties is particularly excellent, you can really feel the atmosphere and tension and intensity through the audio.?

The host, Karley Sciortino, has famously experienced her fair share of sexual exploits, as documented on her blog and TV series 'Slutever'. She brings a brilliant combination of tongue-in-cheek silliness and sincerity that makes the show easy listening without feeling exploitative or judgemental. Episodes are still being released, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it all ends up...

Listen here.

What have we been listening to this week?

The Northern Lights.

As you may know, I’m a sucker for a sound from outer space. Famously, in space no-one can hear you scream, but every now and again there’s a story about the sound of something from a billion light years away, or someone turning space data into music, which is of course a totally made up thing to help them get a PhD.

However, sounds from space are very useful when you’re stuck for something to fill the ‘What have we been listening to this week’ section of your regular newsletter. So, just imagine how delighted I was when, on Wednesday night, ITV News ran a story about how scientists have used ‘Audification’ to convert the magnetic fields created by plasma waves from the Sun into an ‘eerily beautiful orchestra of sounds’.?

So here it is. Now, I’m sure that the technology used to gather those magnetic sounds is at the very cutting edge of extraterrestrial science and human achievement, but sadly the Northern Lights sound like a rather lame and unproductive lavatory flush. Judge for yourself.

What have we been doing this week?

Being disappointed with the DoPSotE.

Richard Blake - the former ‘Director of Pressing Send on the Email’ has had a somewhat awkward week. In fact, he’s lucky to still have a job at all in one of the Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2023.?

You see, since February, this newsletter has been published, not just as an email into the inbox of thousands of grateful lucky duckies, but also on Linkedin where it’s gained a strong and committed, some might say, obsessive, following.

However, last week, Dear Reader, Richard forgot to publish it on Linkedin. I know. Kind of important, right? It was apparently on his list of stuff to do and he only remembered at 11.34pm on Friday, by which time it was too late. Therefore, after an intensive review of Fresh Air’s staffing and structure over the last few days, Richard’s job title has been subtly amended to ‘Director of Pressing Send on the Email and Publishing it as a Newsletter on Linkedin Which He Must Never Forget to Do Again’.?

Please do keep an eye out later this morning to see whether the new DoPSotEaPiaaNoLWHMNFTDA has managed to fulfil his very simple job description. (and.. done.. Ed.)