Ashley Milne-Tyte

Podcasting versus audio on demand

March 18, 2013

Last week I wrote a post asking if podcasting is still relevant. I've since had a chance to listen to this webinar featuring former NPR reporter and editor and current Slate podcast executive producer Andy Bowers. I'd had a link to the webinar in my inbox for a while but its length - an hour - meant I kept postponing listening. I'm glad I did. Here are a few takeaways from the interview.

• Bowers can't stand the word 'podcast' himself. He thinks it's outdated and reeks of the iPod, which he, along with others, claims is now a gadget of the past. (I still don't have an iPhone and use an iPod Nano quite cheerfully every day, demonstrating a) my dinosaur tendencies and b) my dedication to the medium. He thinks of the Slate podcasts more in terms of audio on demand.
• Bowers thinks audio is lagging far behind other areas when it comes to the way the Internet has (or rather hasn't) disrupted it. He believes there's a new audio world looming in the not-too-distant future, but we're not there yet.
• Podcasting, he says, "is intimate...it's an opt-in club. You've joined that club and you feel invested in it in a particular way."
• "Much of podcasting is about personality and it’s about opinion," he says. "As news people that can be a little uncomfortable." How true.
• Podcasting is about experimenting, Bowers says. Slate has tried a few things and dropped them, and continued with shows it never expected to last.
• The ad rates Slate gets for its podcasts are the highest rates they get for anything on the site. They have more advertisers than they can fit on their shows.

Today I came across this piece by Radio Survivor's Paul Riismandel called 'Will the success of podcasting mean the end of the medium?' It's more about how we access podcasts - and whether podcasts will continue to exist in their current form - than the content of podcasts. It came out of the writer's time at South by Southwest, where podcasting was under discussion. If you're a podcaster yourself or just interested in the medium, both the webinar and the piece are well worth listening to and reading. 

Is podcasting still relevant?

March 15, 2013

(Photo: M Keefe, Creative Commons license)

Earlier today I was going back and forth on email with a professional contact and friend about the radio entries in a journalism competition we were both connected to. The topic started out being about the dearth of entries in the radio category, which was disappointing, but then the discussion moved on to podcasting and whether podcasts were permitted to be entrants in this particular competition (they were). I know the question of podcasting's popularity, or lack thereof, has come up in other forums, but I wanted to raise it here because I was struck by this journalist's perspective. She was discussing 'online audio' as a term to use instead of 'podcast', referring to 'the brief podcast craze', and saying use of the term 'podcast' had been thought not to be a good idea as it was 'a trendy term' that 'could quickly become dated'. She said 'online audio' described what was meant 'without using the jargon of the moment'. (Am I speaking from my ivory audio tower, or is the moment still with us?)

She also mentioned she felt podcasts were less popular today than they were a few years ago because everyone is flocking to video thanks to higher connection speeds, 'and the big media companies are investing in online video.' The video entrants for this competition just keep coming. 

I want to pose some questions in the hope others will weigh in with their opinions below.

• How do you feel about the term 'online audio' rather than 'podcast'? To me, a radio reporter and audiophile, 'podcast' never went out of fashion and is the accepted way to talk about an audio show that is produced for consumption away from the actual airwaves. At one point I experimented with using the words 'online audio show' on The Broad Experience website, but the term seemed awkward and just never sat well with me so I took those words out and re-wrote 'podcast'. I know from Edison Research's latest report on podcasting that only about 45 percent of Americans are familiar with the term. Still, that's a lot of people.
• I realize online video appeals to a mass audience, whereas audio does not. As my former Marketplace colleage and host of the wonderful podcast The Memory Palace, Nate DiMeo, once said, 'audio never goes viral'. OK, occasionally. But not often. Video goes viral all the time. I am aware that within 'elite' audiences, such as public radio listeners and Slate readers, podcasting is popular and becoming more so. But what do you make of the fact that a chunk of the news-aware public, including journalists, apparently feel it's basically had its day?

Perhaps that's all I have. This conversation really made me think about podcast awareness and relevance, and I'd be very glad to hear others' opinions on this topic. 

Entrepreneurship diaries 12: promoting a podcast

February 15, 2013

After last week's cri de coeur about what I should be doing with my work life, I heard from two listeners and a few friends with advice, which was heartening. I've decided that for the next few months I will concentrate solely on producing and promoting The Broad Experience - after that I'll take stock and decide next steps. I feel I have to put time into the show in order to build its audience and secure sponsors. Talking of which, I took a big step this week thanks to fellow writer, public radio reporter and podcast host Tanner Latham's example. This two-minute teaser gives listeners, potential sponsors, partners, and radio stations an idea of what The Broad Experience is about. I am actively looking for sponsorship, so if you know anyone...

Also, I recently got in touch again with a podcast network I had contacted in September to ask if they were still interested in working with me. For logistical reasons things kept getting put off, but the answer is yes. This means that, beginning the week of February 25th, I'll have a home for The Broad Experience at a network that has some heft with iTunes and Stitcher. The show should receive some promotion and pull in some more listeners - many more, I hope. I'll reveal more after my debut with them. Finally in podcast news, yesterday I spoke to Julie Shapiro of the Third Coast International Audio Festival for a piece she's writing on why there are so few female podcasters. She mentioned a comment Andrea Seabrook of the Decode DC podcast made in a recent interview with Third Coast, which I will post here:

"As for the gender gap, I can tell you that throughout my career at NPR, young people came to me for advice on getting into journalism. Twenty-something women would ask, what degree should I get? What's the next internship for me? They seemed to be looking for some authority to give them the credentials or experience to be a reporter. Young men, on the other hand, would ask how do I start now?"

I've said it before and I'll say it again: women do not ask for things the way we should, in part because we feel we need permission for everything. Until this changes, we - including me - will have less chance of getting what we want. You know that podcast network I just spoke about? I pitched them my show as soon as I heard of their existence. Their response said, in part, that they were very glad to hear from a woman, because all their pitches came from men.

Is Journalism School Really Necessary?

December 7, 2012

I wrote this piece for Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists. The editor, knowing I had had a rather eclectic background, asked if I'd like to consider the pros and cons of journalism school. I still don't know the answer to the question of whether you should bother to go or not. J-school is hugely expensive, in the US at least, but so many students flock there every year regardless. It's the American way to keep getting more and more layers of formal education. Employers tend to expect it. I tell a little of my own story in the piece and I also speak to two people who have taken different paths to get where they want to be in journalism. One is studying at Columbia Journalism School, the other has taken the 'school of life' approach, or rather the 'reporting from the streets of New York' approach. There's also a sidebar on podcasting tips. I swifly destroy any ideas you might have about the glamour of radio/podcast production.

A conversation about podcasting with Tiny Spark's Amy Costello

November 4, 2012

As a new podcaster I spend a lot of time thinking, 'How do I do this well? How do I grow an audience? How do I get paid for this?' I've spoken twice in public about podcasting in the last couple of months, the most recent occasion being the 'Pimp Your Podcast' panel at CUNY Journalism School (see previous post). I think Amy Costello, public radio and television journalist and host of the podcast Tiny Spark, has a very interesting and valuable perspective on podcasting and I wanted to interview her in the hope that our conversation will be interesting and/or helpful to any other journalists who are thinking about launching a podcast - or anyone else interested in podcasting. The file is saved as an MP3 and can be downloaded below.

Pimp your podcast (or 'am I totally nuts to be doing this?')

October 22, 2012

Entrepreneurship diaries #10 
From the 'Am I crazy?' edition: earlier today I was part of a panel at CUNY Journalism School called 'Pimp Your Podcast' (yes). The other panelists were NPR's Adam Davidson of Planet Money fame (and much other fame - Adam has produced tons of great pieces for both NPR and Marketplace, including many from Iraq), Mia Lobel, senior producer of the Distillations podcast, which tells stories about chemistry and makes them interesting for lay people, and Jim Colgan of SoundCloud. I originally met Jim when he was at WNYC, where he worked for ten years. 

Moderator Amanda Aronczyk, Adam Davidson, me, Mia Lobel and Jim Colgan (Photo: Skyler Reid/CUNY Graduate School of Journalism)

Adam believes public radio is gradually going kaput and is amazed more public radio bosses 'aren't freaking out' about the fact that public radio listenership is tailing off. As this piece in Current points out, the latest figures illustrate the problem. Most people under a certain age (30, 35?) don't own radios and get any audio they hear from an app or stream it online. When I asked one of my Columbia Journalism School classes this summer if anyone owned a radio, not one hand went up. Planet Money is hugely successful, with hundreds of thousands of downloads - I can't recall if this is per week or per month, but either way it's impressive. Adam pointed out, though, that without the sizeable NPR budget devoted to the show he's not sure the podcast (and NPR has told them they should not refer to it as a 'podcast' any more) could work for its creators, monetarily speaking. That's the big question here - if audio is all going online, how the heck is anyone going to make money from it? Kickstarter campaigns are all very well but they do not provide a sustainable funding model. As I've said elsewhere, Jesse Thorn of Bullseye brings in $300,000 to $400,000 a year from listener donations, which seems pretty impressive to me. But he has a family of podcasts in his stable and has worked very hard to build his brand. At the Third Coast conference earlier this month he described his journey as tough. 

Mia's podcast is funded by the Chemical Heritage Foundation so I was interested to hear her talk about how lucky she feels to be paid to do what she does and mention in response to a question that the Foundation does not interfere editorially with her stories. That's something many journalists would worry about if working for a foundation or company that has its own agenda. Mia says in her case, it's not an issue. I'm a big fan of SoundCloud, which hosts my podcast, so was intrigued to hear Jim talking about new ways in which it intends to work with sound in the future, and about the SoundCloud fellowship. Public radio journalists and podcasters Amy Costello (Tiny Spark) and Andrea Seabrook (Decode DC) are both wrapping up SoundCloud fellowships at the moment.

At the end of the day, where are we going? Hearing Adam speak, I felt rather depressed. The idea of actually being able to earn a real living from The Broad Experience - even down the road - once more seemed crazy. That said, my podcast requires nothing like the resources of Planet Money. Still, I require money to live on the planet. I am currently juggling The Broad Experience with actual paying work, which means I can't give it the attention it deserves. Which, in turn, means it isn't getting the marketing input it needs, among other things. So I come back to a question that haunts me fairly often: am I completely mad to be devoting myself to a project that may never earn me anything approaching a living? Can I somehow make it pay? If not, should I continue to produce a show on a topic I believe is of the utmost importance, not to mention interest, even if I do so infrequently? Answers on a postcard please.