Designing a Show That s Right for Your Listeners


Designing a Show That's Right for Your Listeners

The mental picture of your listeners that you're developing will affect decisions you make about your podcast throughout the rest of your planning processand beyond. The clearer this picture is, the easier it will be for you to make decisions about format, length, frequency, and a variety of other attributes of your show.

Crafting the Best Overall Sound for Your Podcast

The best way to begin designing your show is to think a bit about what you want for your show's overall sound and feel. For example, Adam Curry's Daily Source Code has a distinctive sound and structure, one that's very different from The Dawn and Drew Show or Dave Winer's Morning Coffee Notes. What kind of overall structure makes sense for your show and what are your options? Well, here are some questions you might want to ask yourself for starters:

  • Should my show be a soliloquy or do I want to break it up with music, interviews, or sound effects? (More on all of those in the next chapter, by the way.)

  • Should it be ad-libbed or scripted?

  • Is a slow, deliberate pace appropriate for your audience or would your show sound better at a breakneck, MTV-style pace?

  • Do I want the audio quality to be pristine or should it have a funkier, more organic kind of sound?

If you're not sure what you want for your show's overall sound, think about two or three podcasts (or broadcast radio shows) that you enjoy and spend some time analyzing them with these questions in mind. Chances are, you've never had a reason to listen this analytically before. Breaking down the components of a favorite show's overall sound will likely give you some useful ideas about what you might want to do with your own show.

Choosing the Right Length

Do your listeners have the time or inclination to listen to a long show? Would they prefer to get information from you in relatively short, bite-sized chunks? Is file size/download time important to them? Your answers to all of these questions will help you determine an ideal target length for each show. Once you determine a target length, it's generally not a good idea to deviate from it significantly from one show to another.

For most listeners, 20 to 30 minutes is an ideal show length. For one thing, it means your podcasts won't produce inordinately large files. More important, though, is the fact that listeners tend to listen to podcasts in situations that overlay nicely with a 20 to 30 minute show, for example while exercising or while driving to work.

As a rule of thumb, you'll want to stick with your chosen target length as closely as you can for each show. If you need more time to cover a particular topic, it's generally better to break that topic up into multiple shows than it is to deviate from your target too much.

How Frequently Should You Post Your Shows?

One of the great things about podcasting as opposed to radio is that you don't have to accommodate a broadcast schedule. Since your show finds your listeners via RSS rather than forcing listeners to find your show, you can post shows with whatever kind of frequency you think would be best for your listeners. Do they want or need to hear from you on a regular basis? If you're dealing with subject matter that updates regularly, then a daily or weekly schedule might be appropriate. Alternatively, your listeners might prefer to hear from you only when there's breaking news or something important going on. For some listeners, a frequent podcast might be intrusive.

Here are some guidelines you can start with based on the listener characteristics you've already started considering:

Table 2.1. Podcast Design Guidelines

If Your Listeners Are

Then Your Podcast Should Probably Be

Listening while they're driving to work or exercising

Between 20 and 30 minutes long

Looking for hard, practical information

Well organized and deliberately paced

Listening for entertainment

More energetic and upbeat

Traditional and conservative

Created with an eye toward audio quality and production values

Students

Faster paced with a lot of variety

High tech

Higher quality, larger files

Low tech

Lower quality, smaller files

Checking and downloading your shows manually or listening to them in a browser

Posted on a regular schedule

Using pod-catching software

Posted when the content and show format dictates

Businesspeople

Concise and explanatory


This list is by no means comprehensive. Use it as a starting point to put together your own list. The idea here is for you to start looking at the design of your podcast critically from the very beginning and to get in the habit of making design decisions based on the likely desires of your listeners rather than just your own preferences.



Absolute Beginner's Guide to Podcasting
Absolute Beginners Guide to Podcasting.
ISBN: B001U8C03Q
EAN: N/A
Year: 2004
Pages: 167

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