Idea: Fedora Lounge Podcast

[LizzieMaine]

I'd be glad to do something like this -- but I'd have to get paid actual money for it. I can't afford to do work for free -- my creditors won't accept "exposure" -- and producing, writing, recording and editing any kind of radio show/podcast is, make no mistake, actual serious work. The commitment of time, labor, and ability involved would have to be compensated.

 

[Fivesense]

I'd definitely listen to a US-based podcast similar in format to Harry and Edna. I listen to Harry and Edna and I do enjoy the show but sometimes the topics feel a bit... hmm... remote.

This being said, suggesting that the forum expands into new directions is a bit of a delicate topic. We can suggest, and there can be a lot of enthusiasm for the idea, but someone has to step up and actually do it, and sometimes the stars don't align or the return on investment just does not make sense. Seems to me though if there's a group of folks who are enthusiastic about producing a podcast and it cannot be formally associated with the forum, they could produce it independent of the forum.

Yes, I suppose it doesn't need to be associated with the forum, although there are some natural reasons why it could be.

And it is about who is willing to undertake the effort. Even a simple podcast still requires some production and planning to make it enjoyable.

 

[tonyb]

It would be quite feasible for a person or persons so situated as to put in the time and effort without compensation until that blessed day when advertising and/or Patreon revenue starts flowing their way.

The lovely missus is an avid podcast listener and shoots some dough to her favorites via Patreon. It wouldn’t take more than a few hundred people sending their five and 10 dollar contributions every month to make it worthwhile.

But, like pretty much everything, it’s easier said than done.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The rub is having enough time in your day to do this. I write radio scripts professionally (22 years and counting as the primary writer for a feature heard on CBS) and I know down to the minute how long it takes me to turn out material. On a good day I can turn out 60 seconds worth of script in exactly twelve minutes, assuming there's no need to do outside research. That's a minimum six hours to prepare a half-hour's worth of material -- and that's a pretty big chunk of time when you work three other jobs besides. The amount of recording time and editing time varies, but when I was recording material for one of my other contracts, I allotted at least a full eight-hour day to record and edit thirty minutes worth of content -- sometimes it came in less, sometimes more, depending on how elaborate any given piece was.

That comes to a baseline outlay of fourteen hours a week for a half-hour program, and that's just a one-person operation without guests or other special features to worry about. If you're doing outside research, booking guests, or setting up special features, that's all going to be added on. For a really elaborate show on a regular weekly schedule, you can easily be looking at a full-time job. Even if you stick with a simple one-person operation, you can run into problems that stretch the work out well beyond the minimum.

I'm not saying all this to be Negative Nellie. But there's a lot more work that goes into this kind of a thing than most listeners realize -- when a good show sounds effortless, that's because it isn't.

 

[tonyb]

As I said, “for a person or persons so situated ... ”

Alas, few of us are.

Regular listeners — the ones who actually make the Patreon contributions, the ones the producers point out to the advertisers — expect the new episodes to come out on schedule, and when they don’t, those regulars go elsewhere. So the producers must regard it as a dairyman regards his herd — the cows gotta get milked, no matter how under the weather he may feel or how tired he is of milking cows.

To date, the run of podcasts have been amateur efforts, which is not to say those efforts have been wasted. But in some cases it’s been akin to many an art gallery — a person of leisure’s hobby that might turn a profit at some point but probably won’t.

 

[tonyb]

FWIW, a careful listener can usually tell a one-person podcast from a team effort.

Everybody needs an editor, and everyone has his or her annoying tics.

There’s a podcast that covers matters of interest to me and often features guests who know of what they speak. But the guy who does the podcast often mispronounces names and opens each episode singing the show’s theme. Dude can’t sing a lick.

 

[Nobert]

I concur that I like the idea, and have had similar aspirations just for my own self, but it is an undertaking. A little over a year ago, I tried doing a radio show on one of the local college stations, and was surprised at how much time, effort and anxiety went into just trying to fill two hours with mostly music and sundries. It was around this time that I started drinking heavily again.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Alcohol was the number one killer in radio in the days when I worked in it, with high blood pressure a close second. There's a reason.

The guy who should have lived long enough to do podcasting was Jean Shepherd -- but twenty years of doing a 45-minute one-man show seven nights a week left him a bitter husk by the end of it. His work was the kind of thing I mean when I talk about someone who made it sound effortless -- you listen to his shows and it seems like this carefree guy just rambling on ad-lib, but he never sat down without meticulous preparation and, in many cases, a written script. It was such an easy show to do it almost drove him insane.