Episode 11: When Will The Newness Wear Off?

With iHeart Radio claiming to have 250,000 podcasts and Spotify announcing they want to be the Netflix of podcasting. The one time hidden away not always talked about rap sessions are quickly becoming a global fashion.
When you talk to those labeled pioneers, they’ll tell you that even I was amazingly late getting into the groove. That was 2012. Back when the decision makers in radio knew I was up to something in the production room but they couldn’t figure out how to sink their money loving fingers into it.
Seven years deep into podcasting and I still feel this new age of generating content hasn’t budged from the core of my creative womb. It’s still an infant with no real date set for delivery.
To be a great podcaster I think you have to do what authors do. Participate with the process. Authors have read and continue to read a lot of other people’s work. Podcasting should not be different. You should be digesting two to three shows a day. All from different talent.
There’s a ton of one on one conversation podcasts. Two to five yackers cackling up a storm like the battered and tattered old hen house on the farm. I’m not knocking it! It just seems to be the go to sport of the moment. To layout your openness without having to write a blog.
When will the newness of this podcast style wear off? Actors, comedians, bankers and whomever else are locked in on asking everybody in the room a bunch of questions.
Here’s why I feel it’s not the typical and why it may get old much quicker than anticipated. In the real world without a microphone and recording device, when you’re with friends and family, are you sittin around talking about taking drugs, masturbating, massively hating your job, openly discussing your failures while wishfully thinking about having fantasy sex with dot dot dot?
I know that’s going overboard and looks like an object that crosses the line. Let me remind you that this is podcasting and it seems like everybody’s on this kick to be extremely open about their lives knowing they’d never be that way unless they’re on the show.
Sports shows are posted with last night’s scores. I love the emotion but in two days all of that work will be wasted space. It’s like a pizza that sat out all weekend. The stories are dried up and nobody’s red hot on the idea of devouring what you served.
I do enjoy actors talking to actors. Always bringing up how they’ve been friends for years. Hmm if it were anyone else, you know like a no name, they’d barely have a following because two friends chumming it up gets a little too inside.
An old radio term that still works. Don’t go too inside. It causes a disconnection.
The newness of that kind of podcasting might wear out the newby listeners that checked in cuz someone hit the share button.
Every How To Podcast book and website says to get a guest. It makes the show interesting. Let me ask one question. Is it a guest if you already know each other’s dirty little secrets? Bantering works when the content gets the listener mentally involved.
What I do find funny is how Conan O’Brian and Dax Shepard endlessly invite guests to the microphone who are completely clueless as to what podcasting is. That tells me that we’ve got years of discovery still ahead. Both guys are supremely talented with the gift to gab and know when it’s time to get off the subject.
Then again they both have real producers and we don’t know what ends up on the cutting room floor. You should see how much I yank off the podcast before its broadcast. During the conversation I’ll bring boring stuff up that gets the guest more involved. I hear it in their voice. Then I’m off again. Jotting down notes to remind myself later to edit edit edit.
I’d love to hear Chelsea Handler do her podcast without people in the room. The girl is so brilliantly gifted that she could get a huge new audience based on the fact that she’s speaking directly to them.
Michael Rappaport is doing his podcast on a paid site. As much as I love his chance taking extremely too loud attitude, I’ve got to get a least six to ten shows in me before I decide if it’s worth the investment.
Paying for podcasting will get real old to many people because it seems television with all of its apps are starting to dig into the wallet as well. Nickle and diming your fans and followers better have an everyday payoff or the tune out will be an explosion of destruction that looks more like AM stereo and HD Radio.
Both of those truly sounded pretty good but the consumer didn’t buy into it.
So what’s the moral of the story? It’s pretty simple. There’s a lot of talking going on but it’s all starting to sound the same. A bunch of chumming around with no real TMZ nastiness. Have several ideas in mind when you bring the second and third voices in. Show prep is a brilliant tool.
I learned that trick when legendary Rocker Leslie West called me out in the middle of a conversation. He knew I was winging it. To this day I wish he would’ve hung on me. The impact was big on my heart but it needed to an all-out get out of my face action. It kinda told my listeners that I didn’t truly care about the time they were putting in by being there. Changed me forever.