3 ms·

Podcasts today are fundamentally different from podcasts of yesterday. Some of the old ones still exist, but for the most part the industry has been completely

Podcasts today are fundamentally different from podcasts of yesterday. Some of the old ones still exist, but for the most part the industry has been completely transformed. The word means something different now. Podcasting started with a mix of radio drama and some really incredible radio journalism—a lost art. Podcasting transformed into parasocial background noise. Most top "podcasts" today are just people talking. It's like roundtable discussions with no script, no sound design and often no real production of any kind. As with reality TV, it turns out that's where the money was all along. If it doesn't cost anything to produce then you can create endless hours at zero marginal cost. Why people listen to this stuff I honestly have no idea, but they do. There are still a few things I find worth listening to and I often find myself going back into the back catalogs of This American Life and Radiolab. But when you think about the "good stuff" you start to realize very quickly why there isn't much of it. Creating an engaging one hour long audio drama that really pulls you in is very expensive. It's hard to do that once, let along every week. It's expensive to produce, time intensive, and then you've got bandwidth costs on top of all of that. Some of the really iconic podcasts took months or even years to make, and they were almost always made at a break even or a loss. Now you can record two people having some beers for two hours, monetize it, and post it same day. You can do it multiple times a week. Someone else will pay all the bandwidth costs and send you a check.

ironmagma 3y ago
I am subscribed to 115 different podcasts but just end up listening to Dear Hank and John episodes on repeat. It’s a sad state of the podcasting world. The only other show I found that was really enjoyable to listen to was Hello Internet (actually one of the first popular podcasts) and it went on indefinite hiatus years ago.
morsch 3y ago
Interview and talk podcasts have always been popular. I'm not sure why that's surprising? It's an established format in all media, and in my experience podcasts aren't bad at it -- certainly much better than TV which these days seems to be universally terrible at it; there are some tradeoffs when compared to written formats. Individual talk podcasts or episodes tend to be as good or as bad as the people in them. This is also not surprising? Edit -- here's a somewhat tenuous Top 10 list from 2005, via Web archive via USA Today (of all places) via Wikipedia History of podcasting. A few of them are still going, 18 years later. They're mostly people talking, not radio drama or stone cold journalism: 1. The Dawn and Drew Show, dawnanddrew.com: Married-couple banter. 2. Engadget, engadget.com: Technology news and gadget reviews. 3. Reel Reviews, mwgblog.com: Reviews of current and classic movies. 4. IT Conversations, itconversations.com: Hard-core tech talk. 5. The Daily Source Code, live.curry.com: Adam Curry with podcasting news and the latest shows. 6. Coverville, coverville.com: All about cover songs, the good, the bad and the never-should-have-been-recorded. 7. Free Talk Live, freetalklive.com: Political talk radio with a libertarian perspective. 8. The MacCast, maccast.blogspot.com: All things Macintosh, by and for Mac nuts. 9. The Rock and Roll Geek Show, americanheartbreak.com/movabletype: One fan trails rock's less charted waters. 10. Tracks Up the Tree, upthetree.com: Music show featuring artists whose tunes are available online. http://web.archive.org/web/20060207133911/https://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2005-02-09-podcasting-usat-money-cover_x.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20060207133911/https://www.usatod... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting#Wider_notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting#Wider_no...
- themagician 3y ago
  This is a great list, because almost all of these are gone. This kind of content could not survive in 2005. Too expensive to distribute and no monetization. Sort of true about all radio, really. But that's what made the podcasts that made it stand out IMO.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    The Engadget podcast is basically now just The Verge podcast. Nilay Patel is still on it (and Paul Miller was on it until relatively recently when he was cut during covid times)
CBarkleyU 3y ago
> Podcasting started with a mix of radio drama and some really incredible radio journalism—a lost art. Wasn't the first popular show the Ricky Gervais show? Which -- and I say this as someone who has listened to both the podcast and radio for years on end & on repeat -- is the most pointless drivel there is?
madeofpalk 3y ago
> Podcasts today are fundamentally different from podcasts of yesterday. [...] Most top "podcasts" today are just people talking. It's like roundtable discussions with no script, no sound design and often no real production of any kind. I hate to sound like that guy, but when's "yesterday"? First podcast I listened to, and loved, was the Official Lost Podcast from the creators in 2005, which had a structure but was otherwise pretty loose. Engadget podcast was a great listen with a lot of shucking and vibing. "Incredible radio journalism" podcasts with high production values and presenters reading from scripts are relatively new I think , with Serial really being the first breakout of them. But that's incredibly different from the podcasts that I've been listening to for the past 18 years. Personally, I listen to the more 'independant' podcasts because I enjoy the hosts and their interactions with each other, more or less regardless of what they're talking about.
slily 3y ago
I've been listening to podcasts regularly for well over a decade (not quite 20 but since before 2010 at least) and your comment conveys the complete opposite of my experience. I've always disliked over-edited and vulgarized programs like RadioLab. I got into and still listen to podcasts because they are relatively raw and unfiltered, unlike commercial programs. When I look for new programs to pick up, my main red flags are short runtimes, rigid structures, excessive editing (music and sound effects), and hosts that "talk down" to the listeners, which is a feeling that I always have when I give RadioLab a(nother) try. If anything, I'm starting to feel like podcasts are becoming too fake, commercialized and overproduced lately. Constant ad reads, hosts that don't really seem enthusiastic about what they're talking about, rotating guests who "coincidentally" have something that they want to promote. Most of the shows that I subscribe to have been going on for several years and are independent, but I struggle to find something new that's interesting and doesn't feel like a rehash of another one.
- themagician 3y ago
  Terrestrial trash talk radio is still around. Morning shows even.
0gravitas 3y ago
> As with reality TV, it turns out that's where the money was all along. If it doesn't cost anything to produce then you can create endless hours at zero marginal cost. Why people listen to this stuff I honestly have no idea, but they do. I imagine people listen to that calibre of podcast for similar reasons that people passively listened to the radio in the past: They are lonely, or they enjoy having background noise. Personally, I'm with you. I'd prefer to listen to a truly well done programme or good music -- but to each his own.

ironmagma 3y ago

I am subscribed to 115 different podcasts but just end up listening to Dear Hank and John episodes on repeat. It’s a sad state of the podcasting world. The only other show I found that was really enjoyable to listen to was Hello Internet (actually one of the first popular podcasts) and it went on indefinite hiatus years ago.

morsch 3y ago

Interview and talk podcasts have always been popular. I'm not sure why that's surprising? It's an established format in all media, and in my experience podcasts aren't bad at it -- certainly much better than TV which these days seems to be universally terrible at it; there are some tradeoffs when compared to written formats. Individual talk podcasts or episodes tend to be as good or as bad as the people in them. This is also not surprising? Edit -- here's a somewhat tenuous Top 10 list from 2005, via Web archive via USA Today (of all places) via Wikipedia History of podcasting. A few of them are still going, 18 years later. They're mostly people talking, not radio drama or stone cold journalism: 1. The Dawn and Drew Show, dawnanddrew.com: Married-couple banter. 2. Engadget, engadget.com: Technology news and gadget reviews. 3. Reel Reviews, mwgblog.com: Reviews of current and classic movies. 4. IT Conversations, itconversations.com: Hard-core tech talk. 5. The Daily Source Code, live.curry.com: Adam Curry with podcasting news and the latest shows. 6. Coverville, coverville.com: All about cover songs, the good, the bad and the never-should-have-been-recorded. 7. Free Talk Live, freetalklive.com: Political talk radio with a libertarian perspective. 8. The MacCast, maccast.blogspot.com: All things Macintosh, by and for Mac nuts. 9. The Rock and Roll Geek Show, americanheartbreak.com/movabletype: One fan trails rock's less charted waters. 10. Tracks Up the Tree, upthetree.com: Music show featuring artists whose tunes are available online. http://web.archive.org/web/20060207133911/https://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2005-02-09-podcasting-usat-money-cover_x.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20060207133911/https://www.usatod... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting#Wider_notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting#Wider_no...

themagician 3y ago
This is a great list, because almost all of these are gone. This kind of content could not survive in 2005. Too expensive to distribute and no monetization. Sort of true about all radio, really. But that's what made the podcasts that made it stand out IMO.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  The Engadget podcast is basically now just The Verge podcast. Nilay Patel is still on it (and Paul Miller was on it until relatively recently when he was cut during covid times)

CBarkleyU 3y ago

> Podcasting started with a mix of radio drama and some really incredible radio journalism—a lost art. Wasn't the first popular show the Ricky Gervais show? Which -- and I say this as someone who has listened to both the podcast and radio for years on end & on repeat -- is the most pointless drivel there is?

madeofpalk 3y ago

> Podcasts today are fundamentally different from podcasts of yesterday. [...] Most top "podcasts" today are just people talking. It's like roundtable discussions with no script, no sound design and often no real production of any kind. I hate to sound like that guy, but when's "yesterday"? First podcast I listened to, and loved, was the Official Lost Podcast from the creators in 2005, which had a structure but was otherwise pretty loose. Engadget podcast was a great listen with a lot of shucking and vibing. "Incredible radio journalism" podcasts with high production values and presenters reading from scripts are relatively new I think , with Serial really being the first breakout of them. But that's incredibly different from the podcasts that I've been listening to for the past 18 years. Personally, I listen to the more 'independant' podcasts because I enjoy the hosts and their interactions with each other, more or less regardless of what they're talking about.

slily 3y ago

I've been listening to podcasts regularly for well over a decade (not quite 20 but since before 2010 at least) and your comment conveys the complete opposite of my experience. I've always disliked over-edited and vulgarized programs like RadioLab. I got into and still listen to podcasts because they are relatively raw and unfiltered, unlike commercial programs. When I look for new programs to pick up, my main red flags are short runtimes, rigid structures, excessive editing (music and sound effects), and hosts that "talk down" to the listeners, which is a feeling that I always have when I give RadioLab a(nother) try. If anything, I'm starting to feel like podcasts are becoming too fake, commercialized and overproduced lately. Constant ad reads, hosts that don't really seem enthusiastic about what they're talking about, rotating guests who "coincidentally" have something that they want to promote. Most of the shows that I subscribe to have been going on for several years and are independent, but I struggle to find something new that's interesting and doesn't feel like a rehash of another one.

themagician 3y ago
Terrestrial trash talk radio is still around. Morning shows even.

0gravitas 3y ago

> As with reality TV, it turns out that's where the money was all along. If it doesn't cost anything to produce then you can create endless hours at zero marginal cost. Why people listen to this stuff I honestly have no idea, but they do. I imagine people listen to that calibre of podcast for similar reasons that people passively listened to the radio in the past: They are lonely, or they enjoy having background noise. Personally, I'm with you. I'd prefer to listen to a truly well done programme or good music -- but to each his own.