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Podcasts for your Thanksgiving Travel

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Podcasts for Thanksgiving travel are a great way to pass the time during your trip. The podcast space has exploded this year. With thousands of topics, there truly is a podcast for everyone.

Travel forecasts predict 2018 to be one of the busiest travel holidays in recent memory. Combine that with bitter cold, and a long trip can be a less than pleasant experience. Most of us will face long delays sitting in traffic (or weather), or we will get to enjoy the “hurry up and wait” aspect of flying.

Before You Leave:

If you’re driving, most cars make it extremely easy to play podcasts.  You can connect via Bluetooth, or an Auxiliary or USB cord. (The USB connection will also charge your phone – be sure to have a way to charge your phone if you’re on a long road trip). If you have an iPhone, some cars even support Apple CarPlay, allowing you to navigate your phone’s menu from the screen in your dashboard (please be careful not to be distracted while driving, of course).  Also, if you’re concerned about data plans (especially if you have kids with you), download the shows at home over your Wi-Fi before you leave. Podcasts don’t use nearly as much data as video, but if you find yourself worried about your data consumption at the end of every month, every megabyte counts!

If you’re flying, you’ll of course want to download your shows and episodes before boarding.  You may not be able to stream audio when your phone is in airplane mode. Sure, most flights have WiFi (for a fee), but those networks are often unreliable.

How Do I Listen?

New podcast listeners should know you need an app to listen to them. If you’re traveling with an iOs device (iPhone, iPad, etc), the Apple Podcasts app (formerly part of iTunes) is the easiest, most simple way to listen. The app is already on your phone. For Android users, Google Podcasts (already on your phone) has made great strides in recent months, but if you have any issues, you can use third party apps. Spotify is the most popular podcast app behind Apple, and you may already use it to listen to music. They’ve been improving their podcast functions. You can also try other apps like Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.

Show Suggestions:

Here are some podcasts for Thanksgiving travel that will make your trip feel much shorter. Follow the links, or simply search for them in your favorite podcast app.

Serial – this is considered the “gateway” podcast for many podcast listeners. It was created by the folks at NPR affiliate WBEZ-Chicago, and it’s now in its 4th season. Each season follows a true crime case, and it really takes a deep dive into the offense, the ensuing trial, and much more. Think of it as the “Law and Order” of podcasts. Serial has won virtually every broadcasting award out there.

The Daily – This New York Times offering is a must-listen for me every weekday morning as I walk my dog.  Now, before you scream “Fake News,” know that The Daily tackles one big story every day. Yes, many times they delve into politics. However, as I write this, their last three episodes have been in-depth looks at the war in Yemen, El Chapo’s journey from Mexican drug kingpin to an NYC court, and an expose on what Facebook knew and tried to hide.  Each day, host Michael Barabaro interviews a prominent Times reporter. These reporters are experts in their fields. Earlier this year, they did a special series called Caliphate, that was an outstanding glimpse into ISIS.

My Dad Wrote A Porno – now, this clearly will not be for everyone (especially if you are traveling with children), but this should disprove the podcast stereotypes that all shows are about news and politics and are delivered by a sloooow-speaking National Public Radio anchor. MDWAP is up to 2 million downloads per episode. It’s also the reason my neighbors think I’m crazy. I frequently listen in the afternoons while walking my dog. Sometimes I get funny looks when I walk down the street seemingly cackling with laughter for no reason.

Here’s the premise. An Englishman named Jamie is the host, and his dad has (very poorly) written an erotic novel. Each week, Jamie reads a chapter to his female friend Alice and his gay friend James.  They dissect the writing, including author “Rocky Flintstone’s” lack of knowledge of anatomy and often poor word choice.  I believe their English accents make their reactions even funnier.  In fact, the show became so successful, it inspired “Rocky” to write several more books in the series. I’m just getting into Season 2, and I’m trying to proceed slowly. I want to have enough left for my drive from Michigan to New England over Christmas.

WTF Podcast with Marc Maron – one of the 800 pound gorillas in the field, Maron is a 20 year stand-up veteran. He routinely has A-list celebrity guests. He even did an episode with Barack Obama. This show is very well-regarded in the podcast community.

Cheap Plugs:

I’d be remiss if I didn’t plug a few shows that I’m directly or even tangentially involved with.

The Quizzo Cast: I’ve spent the last 18 months hosting bar trivia in and around Metro Detroit for local company Quizzo! Currently, I’m co-hosting a bi-weekly show in which we play trivia with guests and talk about events we are doing with the company.

Spiro Avenue: Mainly a long-form Detroit sports-talk podcast, I helped Justin Spiro re-launch last week with a spirited political discussion. We took two very good friends from opposite sides of the aisle and debated all things right, left, Trump, race, and more.

The D Brief: For a year, I worked with Seth Resler and Becky Scarcello on this show, which showcases the burgeoning Arts and Entertainment scene in and around Detroit. Worth a listen.

Bottom Line:

Podcasts for Thanksgiving travel will make your week much more enjoyable. There’s something for everyone. Open your favorite app and search for knitting, gaming, Constitutional Law, Friends, or whatever your heart desires. Audio is much more portable than video (especially if you’re driving), and there’s an intimacy and companionship to having a “friend” along for the ride.

iHeartRadio Podcast Awards Elicit Mixed Feelings For Podcasters

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Last month, iHeartMedia, the parent company of iHeartRadio, announced their latest venture, the first iHeartRadio Podcast Awards.

This could be a great thing for the podcasting industry. iHeart has a massive reach in terms of their radio stations and streams. Podcasting has been around for 15 years, but it’s only recently caught fire.  This megaphone could prove very beneficial.

There should be no debate about terrestrial radio’s interest in podcasting. The burning question is what iHeartMedia hopes to accomplish with their Podcast Awards. The company’s track record with big events gives me pause.

Former iHeart Ventures:

I worked for iHeart (and its former incarnation, ClearChannel) 3 times.  The first iHeartRadio Music Festival was in 2011. I was working for the company in Detroit at the time. It seemed like a great idea – put an A-list group of artists together and send a hundreds of listeners to an amazing concert in Las Vegas.  There was a ton of buzz. Despite some technical issues, the show was successful.

Years later, ClearChannel rebranded themselves as iHeartMedia. They were attempting to shed the negative connotations associated with the ClearChannel name. They also wanted to capitalize on the app and the festival. This may have even been a bit too successful. I was then with the new company in New Orleans. My anecdotal evidence suggested that when people heard the term “iHeart” – they thought of a Vegas concert first, and an app and radio company second.

The iHeartRadio Music Festival reached it’s 4th, 5th, and 6th years, and ticket sales dropped off.  However, corporate continued their mandates. Local stations had to spend disproportionate amounts of airtime promoting the event.  The company asked its employees to post about the show on social media. The show, though, had little social media buzz outside air personalities, artists, and festival attendees.  Stories emerged of CEO Bob Pittman chumming around with U2 backstage. Rumors of a giant boondoggle for iHeart VIPs and big-ticket clients subsisted.

iHeartRadio Music Awards
(Image Copyright iHeartMedia)

An even bigger fail was the iHeartRadio Music Awards, designed to compete with the Billboard Music Awards. Credit the company for trying to diversify its entertainment options, but nobody cared.  iHeartRadio corporate pushed its stations to promote the event, leaving less room for compelling content.  (For example, every plug I did for the show was a missed opportunity to talk about a Mardi Gras parade.) Program Directors like me groaned. We had to get creative to honor our corporate mandates without sacrificing the quality of our radio stations.

Conclusion:

Naturally, iHeartMedia set up the iHeartRadio Podcast Awards to benefit their parent company. They wouldn’t do it, otherwise. But questions remain for Mr. Pittman and his team.

  • Are you actually going to raise the profile of an up-and-coming medium, or only your own company?
  • Are you seeking a legitimate content creation and distribution partnership?
  • Will you once again ask your stations and personalities to endlessly promote another major iHeart event, at the expense of their own compelling content?
  • Will you have an honest awards process, or will you only promote shows you have (or hope to have) a vested interest in?

Bob Pittman is a brilliant guy who has helped run everything from MTV to AOL in their heydays. He inherited an impossible situation with ClearChannel and its massive debt load, and his leadership team have worked hard to transform the company.  I have a number of friends that remain with the company. They are passionate, creative radio people.

Naturally, terrestrial radio has a much, much larger share of listening and revenue than the podcast industry. But in an on-demand world, they are trending down while podcasting is trending up. It’s my hope that an honest partnership between the two industries can help the long-term viability of both.

Seeking Personality and Content, Corporate Radio Buys In to Podcasting

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Large corporate radio is buying in to podcasting. Some would argue it’s the podcaster equivalent of a band “selling out for a record deal.”  Others would say it was inevitable. Here’s how we got here. It all started with this device:

Nielsen Portable People Meter PPM
Portable People Meter (image via Wikipedia)

History:

In large markets, the PPM device (above) replaced the old diary based ratings system. Previously, ratings relied on respondents’ memory (and human error). Now, the Arbitron (later Nielsen) ratings people could track actual listening, minute by minute.

  1. The PPMs showed massive tune-out when DJ’s spoke too long or were not compelling.
  2. Radio companies erroneously thought this data meant listeners hated all DJ’s.
  3. The edict came down for on-air personalities to “shut up and play the music,” outside morning drive, news, talk, and sports.
  4. This turned radio stations into jukeboxes, which was fine until services like Pandora and Spotify took hold.
  5. Listeners started listening to their own curated playlists, rather than one put together by some radio programmer.
  6. Radio lost the very thing that differentiated it from other music sources: its personality.

Podcasts began to fill that personality and creativity void, while radio remained dominated by nationally syndicated and prerecorded voices. Podcasters have a passion for specific content, and it shows.  When I attended the Podcast Movement convention this summer, I was struck by the presence of all the major radio companies.  iHeart was there; so were CBS/Entercom, Beasley, and others.  It was obvious why they were there. They saw the personality and growth of podcasting, and they wanted in.

Radio Jumps on the Podcasting Train:

Dan Granger, a Detroiter and iHeartRadio expat like me, wrote an outstanding piece for The Drum, discussing the re-invention of radio. This new dawn comes on the heels of seismic change in the industry. Entercom purchased CBS Radio, making them the second-largest owner in the nation. The biggest, iHeartMedia (formerly ClearChannel), recently filed for bankruptcy protection under $20+ billion in debt.  Here’s the part of Dan’s piece that jumped off my screen.

The radio giants did not go quietly into the night. Quite the contrary. In the last two weeks, I’ve spoken directly with executives at Entercom, Westwood One, and iHeart. They are now in an arms race for on-demand audio content, and do not care if it comes from existing radio talent, launching new podcast talent, or acquiring existing Podcast talent that has already achieved leadership on the charts. Westwood One has emerged from bankruptcy. Entercom is newly empowered as a major player with an appetite to scale into the future. Then there’s iHeart. The industry leader is chomping at the bit, soon to emerge from their Chapter 11 bankruptcy and bucking the gates, poised to go on a content tear. Meanwhile, Panoply shuts down its programming arm, in favor of focusing on their tech platform, while BuzzFeed and Audible both close down their podcast creation efforts.

Granger also shared this Podtrac chart of Top 10 publishers (updated since his piece). He also reminds us that iHeart (still in bankruptcy) just bought HowStuffWorks. PodTrac Podcast Publishers

There should be no debate about terrestrial radio’s interest in podcasting.  They hope to find great content and give it a bigger microphone (so to speak).  The biggest piece of evidence is iHeart’s announcement of their iHeartRadio Podcasting Awards, which I’ll tackle in my next post.

Kim Kardashian is Into Podcasts. So is the FCC. Are You?

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Kim Kardashian tweeted earlier this week, looking for recommendations for podcasts.

 

Before you roll your eyes, remember that Mrs. Kanye West is one of the biggest influencers on social media. She has nearly 59 million Twitter followers (more than President Trump). She commands DOUBLE that number on Instagram. Last year, Kim promoted a morning sickness pill on her Instagram and was compensated $500,000 for that post.  Kim Kardashian is now an entreprenur worth an estimated $350 million. People listen when she speaks (or posts). Podcasting could use an ambassador with her clout.

If that doesn’t sell you on podcasts, let’s move to the other end of the spectrum. Look at the old, stodgy Federal Communications Commission, or FCC.  The government agency that’s tasked with regulating the airwaves, net neutrality, and more…is starting their own podcast.  They cleverly call the show “More Than Seven Dirty Words.” In their first episode, they explain that there’s much more to the Commission than cour cases. In their second, they visit Puerto Rico a year after Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

I attended the world’s largest gathering of podcasters, Podcast Movement, in Philadelphia last month. After my trip, I wrote that I was struck by the presence of all the major radio companies at the event. My theory remains that poorly exectuted ratings systems and corporate consolidation have sucked much of the personality out of radio (with some exceptions). Radio came to meet with podcasters and find out how to recapture that magic of resonating with your audience via this emerging field. Now the government arm that oversees radio stations is creating a podcast of their own. That speaks volumes.

Jon Gay, aka JAG in Detroit, is a 15 year radio veteran turned podcast creator, host, producer, and editor. If you want to start a podcast, or need help producing or editing your existing show, you can reach him here.

What I Learned at Podcast Movement

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Podcast Movement is the world’s largest gathering of Podcasters. Over 2,000 hosts, editors, hobbyists and radio people descended on Philadelphia last week to network and learn what’s trending in podcasting.

This was my first Podcast Movement, and it was worth every penny. I’m really glad I bought the Virtual Pass; there were several interesting sessions that ran concurrently and I could only be in one place at once. Here are some of my biggest takeaways from Podcast Movement.

Sound is the number one tune-out factor. If your audio lacks professional quality, people will not listen. Think about the early days of YouTube. People were simply thrilled to watch videos on the web. Now, if the visuals don’t meet a certain level of “watchability,” people…well, won’t.

Your interviews should be transactional. Guests should be able to get value out of the interaction too; it’s not all about you. If guests feel their time was well invested, they are more likely to be a partner and/or brand ambassador.

Podcasts are not simply a marketing tool. They are also a means to connect and create another touchpoint with your existing audience. Podcast audiences can become communities.

Apple Podcasts dominate the space at 63% of total listening. Spotify is #2 at only 9%. Forutnately, overall podcast listening will get a large boost thanks to Google. There are 2 billion Android users worldwide, and they finally have a native app to listen to podcasts on.

You don’t need a niche or audience to start with.  Pat Flynn mentioned this in a keynote. Just dive in and start. Like any muscle, you’ll only improve by using it.

48 million Americans listen to podcasts, but we should be able to hit 100 million. That’s the number that will open the advertising floodgates. Unlike radio, who hold their loyal listeners close, we need to market in different ways to grow our audience.  The first hurdle is destroying misconceptions.

Edison Research’s Tom Webster, in another keynote, showed a very compelling video of real people talking about why they don’t listen to podcasts.  Here are the reasons, among the “non-believers.”

80% think they “don’t have a podcast app.”

62% think they use too much data.

50% think they are too long.

47% think they cost money to listen to or download.

30% think podcasts are only for educational purposes

(By the way, none of these are true.)

Two final takeaways:

I was suprised by the presence of traditional radio companies at Podcast Movement:

Radio is all in on podcasting. I have a theory on this, as someone who worked in that industry for 15 years. While news, talk, and sports radio continue to thrive, the industry removed most of the personality from music radio, at least outside morning shows. Outside Weenie and the Butt, however, most dayparts are syndicated, and we were told a long time ago to “shut up and play the music.”

This worked for a bit, until Pandora, Spotify and their friends came along. Listeners didn’t need to listen to someone else’s playlist when they could curate their own.

Why were DJ’s muzzled a decade agao? A new ratings system provided data showing that “audiences don’t like when DJ’s talk.” The flaw in this interpretation, however, was one missing word. “Audiences don’t like it when BAD DJ’s Talk.”  As a result of this error, we heard less out of our compelling personalities, and now radio is looking to rebuild that intimate connection with their audience. Podcasts do this exceedingly well, and radio doesn’t want to miss the boat.

Finally, I attended Podcast Movement as an editor looking to hone my skills and network with new clients. I was happy to achieve both. Unless you have an extensive audio background, employ an editor work on your podcast to give it a professional sound. And if you’re looking at the cost of a good editor and hesitating because your revenue isn’t there, you need to come at it from another angle.  How much is your time worth? Think about the four hours you’re spending with Audacity or GarageBand, painstakingly editing your show. Now imagine me plopping in front of Adobe Audition and getting it done in 90 minutes.  Is your time worth the money? Is a more professional sounding product?  If so, reach out.  You can reach me here.

The Emotional Connection

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geoffrey giraffe toys r us

This week, the image of mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe, leaving an empty Toys R Us with his rollaboard suitcase, went viral. The picture of Geoffrey was taken by Toys R Us employee Rene Johnpiere and posted on Facebook, according to an article from CBS News.

I share many memes and witicisms on social media, but this picture of a sad Geoffrey brought reactions and comments from people that rarely interact with my posts.

#SoulCrushing #IWasAToysRUsKid

A post shared by JAG (@jagindetroit) on

Why did this visual have such an impact? Two words: Raw Emotion.

The company was founded in 1948, adopting the Toys R Us name in 1959. This means, for almost everyone alive today, they either shopped there as a kid, took their own kids to the store, or both. When you’re a child, life is innocent. It’s unlikely the evils of the world have jaded you yet, and you are able to experience pure, unadulterated joy. That’s what a trip to Toys R Us meant. You may have gone home with a big ticket item like a bike or a Nintendo. Maybe it was just a four dollar Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure. Perhaps Mom and Dad brought you to the store to reward you for good grades, or rather to cheer you up after learning a hard life lesson. Either way, you’d be hard pressed to find an American that doesn’t have an emotional connection to Toys R Us.

It’s that very emotion that makes this picture so poignant. Geoffrey’s sunglasses are pulled up, he looks melancholy, and the once bursting-at-the-seams-with-toys shelves are barren. It may remind some of their own days of unemployment, or even their parents’ struggles.  There’s cognitive dissonance here; an image we’ve all associated with such unadulterated joy has become a sad reminder of a cruel world. I’ve shown the picture to several people in person, and it doesn’t even elicit the typical “meme chuckle.” Everyone just reacts…sadly.  And the juxtaposition of these happy and sad emotions really makes an impact.

Geoffrey the Giraffe made an emotional connection to kids and parents of all ages. That’s why he was a resounding marketing success that spanned generations. It’s powerful when these kids, many with childen of their own, are getting legitimately upset by this picture.

Emotional connections make powerful content.

When I was 25, my college roommate and best friend, Bill Leaf, was killed by a drunk driver. I was filling in as the night DJ that week in Vermont, and I didn’t know what to do. So I talked about my grief on the air. People with similar stories called. 12 years later, people occassionally still mention my show from that night.

Emotional connections don’t have to be sad, though.  I proposed to my now-wife in September 2016, and we were married in July of 2017. I lived out that whole process daily on the air with my Detroit listeners. The shared experience of planning and having a wedding served as a way for me to create a connection with listeners here.

Think about that emotional connection when you are creating content for your podcast, radio show, blog, or any other entity. Are you sharing common, relatable experience to elicit joy in your audience? Or, maybe you’re sharing something powerful that triggers sadness? Now, I’m not suggesting you manipulate the emotions of your audience for personal gain. People have great “BS” detectors and will see right through that. But I am suggesting, if you can find a way to connect to your audience on an emotional level, that you’re content will resonate that much more.

How are you connecting to your audience on an emotional level?

People make decisions based on emotion, then find facts to justify those decisions later. This is also true of what content they consume. Let them decide on yours by tapping into their emotions.