Which podcasts would (sexy) Harry Potter listen to?
Oli Seymour back again. The pressure of returning to the newsletter has been affecting my week in weird ways. I bought a box of Chocolate Caramel Brownie Mocha from Co-Op yesterday. I’ve never done that before. Just had my first cup and it tasted surprisingly bland for something called ‘Chocolate Caramel Brownie Mocha’.
It’s getting crowded
In a more serious appraisal of my week, I’ve been thinking about my listening habits recently. I seem to have got stuck in a bit of a pattern with what I listen to throughout the week: It’ll be a mix of The Rest Is Politics, The Adam Buxton Podcast, music, and then I try and make a conscious effort to listen to a new podcast or two each week. But these days there’s not much I keep coming back to again and again, aside from the names I’ve mentioned. I suppose my point is that, even for me – someone who works in podcasting – it’s a challenge to change my listening habits and adopt new go-to listens.
So it’s crucial that when we make podcasts, we’re always trying to win our audience over – to convince them to give us some of their valuable listening time. Keeping your exact audience type in mind really helps with this. For example, a podcast I’ve been making with Legal and General, A Little Bit Richer , is aimed at 18-35s, and so we’ve decided to make the episode lengths shorter (13-15 mins) which is really helping to pull in that particular audience. Content is crucial as well as length – Legal and General understand that my age group aren’t just obsessed with taking selfies and Looking Too Young To Be Served In An Off-License – we want to have serious, grown-up conversations that help us improve our lives.?
I’m bored of reading this newsletter, I want an in-person experience at The Barbican on the 25th of January instead
January is a pretty terrible month, generally. It’s cold and dark. The Christmas decorations are mostly put away. Michaela commits to a health regime that involves drinking a jar of mysterious green liquid everyday, impressing and frightening the office in equal measures. But this year, it’ll be the highlight of the whole year, thanks to The Podcast Advertising Summit . This is going to be all about making sure your brand stands out to your listener and really catches their attention. They’ll be talking about a topic close to our heart: podcasting that stays true to a brand, while still resonating with its audience
It’s on the 25th of January at The Barbican, and we’re going to be there too, you lucky things. Save ￡100 if you book before 16th December.?
We’re off on a night out
And speaking of standing out, we’ve had some lovely news this week – Fresh Air have been nominated in the Audio Production Awards, for Production Company of the Year. We’re shortlisted among some other great companies, and are really looking forward to the Awards Eve on November 22nd. We couldn’t be more proud - it’s all down to the brilliant work we make and the people we make it with – so if that’s you, thank you. And if you don’t work with us yet but you’d like to learn more about what we do, get in touch (as before just make it clear to Neil that this is because of my newsletter specifically please.)
Podcasts are on the telly
On Wednesday, podcast studio Wondery announced that three new channels will launch on Amazon Freevee, as an entry point for audiences to discover their podcast content. This’ll be done through a ?mix of on-camera video, cinemagraphs, animation, and show artwork from series like Morbid, Business Wars, and Dr Death. Video is only getting more important in the world of podcasts, and it’s great to see Amazon and Wondery taking both mediums so seriously.
It does raise the question about exactly why so many podcasters are joining the video fray – Wondery are an audio podcast company, why don’t they just stick to that? I think a huge part of this is again about keeping your audience in mind. I heard someone say at the IAB Upfronts last week, “Let’s stop talking about whether a video podcast is a podcast or not. The only thing that matters is what my audience thinks is a podcast”. Again, it’s all about learning your audience’s preferences and meeting them there – make it as easy as possible for them to listen to your work. If that means you need to offer some visuals too in order to hold their attention, then do it.
Onto our recommends this week...
Eva Higginbotham wants to be forever young...
Would you want to live forever? Well, certain tech bros in Silicon Valley certainly would, and The Immortals is a deep dive into the strange world of immortality ‘research’. I put ‘research’ in quotation marks because, as the podcast points out, although there are legitimate scientists working in the science of aging, there’s also a fair share of questionable work being performed in the quest to live forever. From plasma transfusions to AI determined lifestyles, The Immortals looks at it all - and handles the breaking down of the science remarkably well.?
领英推荐
But though we start with the science, the show ends up taking a much more philosophical turn as you reach the last few episodes. And surprisingly, as a science podcast producer myself, it’s these that really stand out and that I’m still thinking about.?
Tune in for interviews with scientists, experts, philosophers, and that guy who is always in the news about trying to look like his teenage son.?
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Paul Russell talks up his ghoulies...
If there’s one thing that’s likely to divide opinions amongst a group of friends is that classic question – does anyone believe in ghosts? A lot of people resolutely refuse to accept even the notion that ghosts exist – but I’m one of those who has a real open mind about this thorny issue. Even though I don’t understand why they could??exist – I really do believe that the spirits of certain people choose to hang around after death.?
So in the run up to Halloween – what better subject to listen to on a podcast than a classic true ghost story? Ghost Story is a corker of a series, where we hear the chilling story of a seasoned journalist, Tristan Redman, who definitely doesn’t believe in spirits in any form but has his beliefs, or non beliefs, challenged big time when he finds out details of not one, but two, related stories.?
He grew up in a lovely family home in Richmond, Surrey, and when he was a teenager he experienced some weird goings on in his bedroom. He then finds out that years later subsequent occupants of the same house have been visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. Weirdly, Tristan’s childhood home is next door to the house where his wife’s great grandmother, Naomi Dancy, was murdered in 1937. The series then finds Tristan investigating further with the help of the real Prime Suspect police officer and an actor from Law and Order and things get really weird and scary.?
These 7 episodes are so well made – the script is superb; Tristan is a superb host; the guests chosen are all carefully selected; the music and audio effects are so well chosen – it has all the perfect elements to bring us a horrific and gruesome tale, where you never quite know what’s going to happen next. There’s a lovely murder mystery at it’s heart and much of the happenings described are genuinely creepy and not for the faint hearted.?
What more could you want for Halloween??
What have we been doing this week?
I’m going to a fancy dress party this weekend. You guessed it – it’s that classic fancy-dress theme, ‘Sexy Harry Potter’. I’ve spent most of this week trying to decide what the hell my costume is going to be. So far my idea is ‘Normal Harry Potter But With An Extra Shirt Button Undone’. I’ll include pictures in my next newsletter (I won’t).
What we’ve been listening to this week
What’s the point of writing the newsletter if you can’t plug your own podcasts?? So this week I’ve been listening to a lot of Stopping To Notice , editing it to get ready for our special Halloween episode (guest-hosted by Uncanny’s Danny Robins) and our 100th episode celebration – both releasing next week. I have never done anything in my life 100 times before (do not fact check this), so it feels like a biggie. Have a great weekend.
The apprentice becomes the master.