As a former radio guy, I’ve spent a lot of time covering the often converging lanes of broadcast and podcast. For many in podcasting, the fear is that large radio corporations will “elbow” their way into our space. For me, I worry that these large corporations – iHeartMedia, Entercom, and others – are going to do what they did to radio. That is, put profits ahead of product and make the product watered down and often unlistenable.
For example, iheart has furloughed most “non-essential” employees, but hey, they launched a new podcast! It’s got commencement speeches for the class of 2020 from celebrities, including Chelsea Handler, Eli Manning, Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Fallon.
Entercom put out a press release bragging about their podcasting numbers being up. Wonder how that hit morning and midday hosts Chuck Edwards and Cadillac Jack, both recently laid off from their country station WYCD here in Detroit. Or Mistress Carrie and Mike Hsu formerly of heritage rocker WAAF Boston, sold off to a Christian broadcaster after 50 years for a quick $10 million.
Evo Terra, a thought leader in the podcast space, commented this week on broadcasters in our space – his message: get out. Essentially, he railed on fired radio DJ’s who are recording into their internal laptop mics and calling it a podcast in an effort to “keep it real.” Evo’s point: podcasting is much more than the bastard stepchild of radio. Sorry, Bob Pittman.
Onto the positive – there are a number of great resources for podcasters that have been published this week.
The folks at Podcast Movement have put out a guide to help answer the burning question of what mic should I use? There are a million guides out there on this topic, but this one is very detailed with a lot of videos.
Speaking of the fine folks at Podcast Movement (fingers crossed for Dallas this summer), they’ve also got a very useful piece on popular side hustles for podcasters as, like most of us, they try to make ends meet right now.
Speaking of Coronavirus, Podcast Business Journal has a nice “roundtable” article on what to make of the often conflicting podcasting stats in the era of COVID-19 and social isolation.
Next weekend (April 25-26), there’s going to be a virtual podcast festival, with money being raced for COVID-19 relief.Podapalooza benefit: Podapalooza dot org
The New York Times reminds us that Facebook, Netflix, and YouTube consumption are all up on desktop. Keep that in mind as you produce your podcast – many of your listeners may be listening on your hosted website or an embedded player, as opposed to their favorite podcast app.
Finally, Kim kardashian is apparently launching a podcast? I only mention this to help my SEO.
Finally, if you’re interested in developing your own podcast, i’m here to help.
Find me on social at @JAGinDetroit
Or call 313-757-2524
