Summer in Podcast World

Notice that the Substack editor has a button for podcasting now? I have not tried it and I don’t think I will, but nagging curiosity - well yes. However, summer is here and this presents an opportunity and a challenge. The listeners are definitely there, what with waiting in airport queues or overcoming the noise from your fellow bus and train travellers. The challenge you ask? The challenge is that podcasters will do awful things to deviate from their trusted format and let you down.

Their options are after all limited.

If the podcast isn’t very topical (Edwardian literature or Greek history might work here) then clearly you can be Boxer in Animal Farm - work harder and get a few extra podcasts lined up that can run when you are away on holiday. If the podcast is very topical (i.e. the Emergency Pod scene) then you will probably be podcasting on your phone from somewhere in a quietish corner of a coffee shop or airport? Far riskier is getting a guest host to run the show while you are away, I would think. It is bad for the podcaster if we like the guest host better, but it he or she is terrible then it may not be good news for future listener engagement either.

The beauty of podcasts is the sit-down and listen to interesting people experience, not the fumbling insecure giggling or overconfidence of podcasters suddenly having to pay attention to a large audience that is not you. Why, after all, would you expose your subscribers to the experience of eavesdropping on a performance you are giving to someone else? Admittedly a few people improve enormously on being in front of a live audience rather than one or two fellow podcasters in a room somewhere. The most striking example I can think of is The Rabbit Hole Detectives (not currently active but past episodes available probably) , which was a lovely high table like conversation between Cat Jarman, Richard Coles and a fairly subdued and quiet Charles Spencer (now Mr Cat Jarman). On the one occasion where they took the show on the road it brought out a huge change in Charles Spencer who became a larger than life entertainer and more or less stole the show. So they did not do that again. Suffice it to say that I have learned to skip podcast episodes where the usual sweet spot format of 2 to 4 people is replaced with a recording in front of an audience. Mayo and Kermode’s brilliant podcast is not a good stage show as far as I can tell from the wet corner seat of a podcast audience. The Oshskosh air venture events of the Airline Pilot Guy podcasts are definitely the episodes to miss. Far better to keep the focus on a funny or informative, good hearted conversation between a very small number of people.

Funny, self-deprecating, ironic, cynical and everything you wanted to ask but didn’t.
Widely available

Good in-depth discussion of current security politics with episodes such as “Burnham floods the zone”, “Europe in Flames” and “Russia is doomed”. Provocative but interesting and well researche

Aiming for fifty percent accuracy and heavy on anecdotes, banter and actual aviation facts - a lovely team of retired airline captains from Delta and Virgin Atlantic and co-hosts from the world of general aviation with actual jobs discuss aviation news and aviation history, procedures, life, beer, barbecues and delta-P.

This is a new series with two insightful gentlemen of the writer and espionage kind who walk and drink their way through notable spy locations in historical cities and share anecdotes and interesting facts. Well worth a listen.

With episodes such as Feel the Burnham and Fa-rage Against The Machine you know that you are dealing with Ian Hislop, Helen Lewis and the Private Eye team. You are in good hands there in my opinion.