To Pod, or not to Pod?

"You should do a podcast!"

If I've heard this once over the last few months, I've heard it a thousand times. Well, maybe 30 times anyway. But it's still a pronouncement that greets me on a regular basis - one that has been delivered at different times by well-meaning colleagues, friends and family members, ranging from experienced media professionals to tech-savvy university students, football fans, housewives and my teenaged daughters.

My response is the same every time.

"Why?'

To avoid sounding dismissive, I quickly follow it up with a series of questions and statements of my own. Among them: "You do realise that I have a 30-minute TV show that goes out three times a week, right?" and "I chat about football with a range of collaborators, ranging from former players and managers to journalists to fans." Plus, "Not sure if you are aware of this, but I work full-time for a broadcaster, on an exclusive contract, and not as a freelancer," as well as, "What am I supposed to say and do on this hypothetical podcast anyway?"

That last question usually helps me discover whether the person who is suggesting that I podcast actually watches what I do on the TV and has a sense of the full range of content we put out across Fox Sports' different linear and digital platforms. Also, it helps me understand whether I am talking with someone who thinks I still work for a Premier League rights holder (I don't, by the way), and therefore have access to current players and managers for interviews. We do sometimes access managers or players on my eponymous show but this branded content is exclusively used on dedicated episodes such as those we did about Frank Lampard and Derby County FC last season or our August 20202 end-of-season Standard Chartered-sponsored Liverpool FC Title Celebration Special.

My next question: what makes podcasts so popular? After all, a podcast is really just the latest in a long line of delivery mechanisms that enable listeners to absorb information and entertainment, but it is probably the most flexible and accessible one yet. The podcast has also become the butt of many a joke, especially during lockdown (see the above illustration from Australia), when hearing someone say, "I'm thinking of starting a podcast because there are things I need to talk about," became almost as big a turn-off as social media posts of non-athletes exercising. We're all entitled to undertake vanity projects, I guess, but at what point does someone have to step in and politely point out that no one is listening to your podcast and that perhaps you should be focusing your energy elsewhere?

Rest assured, I know just how spectacular the podcast boom has been. I may personally prefer listening to music (from my own iTunes library rather than commercial radio) as I head to and from work in my car, or by train or bus, but I fully get that many folks fill their commuting hours by taking in a variety of spoken-word pods. Some data on this: researching the American market, Google reported up to 10 million monthly searches for “podcast” via the search engine giant in 2020. Meanwhile, in June 2019, Edison Research reported that approximately 90 million Americans tuned in to a podcast in the previous month. According to Marketing Charts, 74% of Americans from 25-year-olds to 54-year-olds listen to podcasts every month and the over-55s age group is the fastest-growing in terms of online audio listeners.

My podcast consumption to-date: I have dipped in and out (on YouTube) of my fair share of Joe Rogan's enigmatic and sprawling interviews, I listened intently to media analyst Claire Enders' appearance on the Unofficial Partner Podcast recently (it took me about three listens over four days to get through the 40-odd minutes), and indeed I have appeared as a guest on various pods over the last year or so (I have illustrated this article with a promotion for my appearance on Marcus Luer's "The Sports Entrepreneurs Podcast"). It strikes me though that I am not at all prolific in the pod-listening sense, unlike some of my colleagues and acquaintances who somehow cram an improbably-huge number of pod-hours into their days. I do sometimes wonder though if they get to take in what is happening around them, in the here and now "smell the roses" sense, as they go about their lives, headphones/airpods firmly in place, with a constant, head-filling soundtrack of opinions and information being delivered by people thousands of miles away?

So much for the physical experience and the practicality of downloading and playing these audio files. Next, what is it about podcast content that so appeals? Well, again, let's be clear that podcast content isn't revolutionary. It is based on several traditional media staples:

1. The Interview. A host or presenter interviews a guest at length. This is then either played out "raw" or is edited for duration and content. There's not much you can do in terms of interview formats that hasn't already been done.
2. Radio. A host or hosts discuss topics, report news, analyse games, review music or film, and so on. This is an area where podcasts have enabled folks who have an interest in a niche subject to bring it to an audience in a way that would not have been possible in the "traditional" media. It has also seen a rise in "alternatives" to traditional punditry or analysis.
3. The Chat Show. Not much different from the two above but it has of course become a late night TV staple, especially in the USA. Podcasts have again allowed some talented interrogators to gain a level of visibility they might otherwise not have been able to attain.

But let's get back to the self-indulgent point of this article. Why should I do a podcast and, if I did, which of the above formats should it take?

A former colleague who works in the digital media field suggested I set myself up as a podcaster offering newsy authority on all things Premier League, a la Adrian Wojnarowski, ESPN's NBA insider, who has a Twitter following of 4.2 million. That ain't going to happen. The "Woj", who is truly amazing at what he does, lives in the same country as the league, teams and players he covers and spent years as a reporter building connections which he uses to break stories and give the inside track on stories. As a match-day presenter and analyst, I developed a different skillset and array of contacts. Plus, I no longer work directly with the Premier League and I'm based 7,000 miles away from England. However, the insights I can offer and the network I have built up over the years already help me put out a thrice-weekly TV show offering my take and that of my guests on the major Premier League issues. That's what Fox Sports hired me to create and deliver back in 2017 and we are now into a fourth season of informing and engaging with Asian football fans across linear, digital and social platforms - and this, allied to healthy sponsorship support, would suggest we have a format that works.

Another person suggested I focus on a podcast containing interviews with Premier League stars and made the assumption that I can snap my fingers and get an hour with the Manchester City manager or the Liverpool captain. As anyone, broadcast rights holder or not, who has ever tried to get access to Premier League players and managers will tell you, it's way harder than you would expect it to be. Harder in fact than it should be. However, it is not impossible, provided you have a platform that interests the club or one of its sponsors sufficiently for them to grant access to your desired interview subject. And this is certainly one area that interests me.

If there is part of my skillset that is under-utilised right now, it is long-form interviewing, which just happens to be one of my favourite things.

I spent the first few years of my journalistic career interviewing people ranging from movie stars to politicians to business leaders for Hong Kong's South China Morning Post and the Sunday Post Magazine. I would spend days researching these interviews, often up to an hour conducting the interviews and then relished the process of writing and editing before seeing the long-form article published. I did something similar with movie stars and directors for an entertainment show on TVB Pearl. Later, I hosted a TV series called Up Close on ESPN STAR Sports in which I conducted 30- or 40-minute interviews with football personalties (Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer, Sir Bobby Robson, Michel Platini among the scores of interviewees). Few things give me more professional pleasure than seeing an interview subject open up and offer insights into themselves, their beliefs and experiences. This doesn't just happen by chance: interviewing technique and etiquette need to be learned and refined.

I'll be blunt about one thing here: there are a lot of amateur content creators out there and in many cases, their output is frankly amateurish. The democratisation of the media - as in the increased opportunities to "broadcast yourself" - can be a positive (as the emergence of some genuinely-talented YouTubers and TikTokkers has shown) but it is also a problem in that it leads to added wariness on the part of celebrities or sports stars who fear they might be handed over to an unskilled amateur for an interview or appearance that ends up being cringeworthy. It is galling to hear or see someone interviewed badly.

So, maybe we'll go down the interview route. I say "we" because it's not up to me alone - anything I produce has to be part of our raft of Fox Sports content under the JDShow brand and it should be delivered via my employer's platform of choice. I say "maybe" because this is merely a speculative article... a think-out-loud exercise which ultimately will benefit from your input. So, go ahead and comment: tell me about your podcasting preferences, your broad opinion on the medium and its future, or even offer a suggestion or two as to whether I should dip my toe into podcasting at some stage. Thanks for reading this.