The Future Of Podcasts
Should podcasts be made with an international audience in mind?
We should have, but we don't. What's clear is that radio has a certain footprint. The footprint of a podcast is infinite. We have deliberately - and it is deliberate - got a variety of voices on. Gabriella Marcotti is Italian, was educated in America, and has that strange Euro-Mid-Atlantic accent. Ian Balengae couldn't be more Spanish sounding if he tried. A Futbol Cloob rather than a football club. You don't consciously have a female voice, but when Allison Rudd came on I was very glad. She brought some literalousness to grunting - a lot of hairy-ass blokes grunting at each other. So, no. I don't think we set out to be inclusive, but it's not a bad thing if you are inclusive. Let's be fair, it's also true of all best media products, that they're not for every one. You must have a feel of a bit of a club about it. Clearly, you have got to like football. It really isn't about anything else. What it doesn't try to do is pretend that football exists in a vacuum. It's about society, it's about peoples way of life, it's about the culture of the whole thing as well. It's always important that you do that. We don't try extra hard to be inclusive, but now that you mention it to me, I think we should.
Should listeners be charged for podcasts?
People have come to expect virtually anything on the internet - with the exception of those two great wings, pornography and financial advice - to be free. We are moving to a time when people will start to charge small amounts for these podcasts. It is entertainment, after all. Ricky Gervais made a small fortune charging for his, but people have got to be absolutely honest. Unless you're making an absolutely premium product, charging for it is a huge leap. If you take a rule of thumb - if you're thinking about doing it yourself, and you've got an audience, you might think 50% of those will pay one dollar a week to hear it. It's more like 10%, if you're lucky. People are rightly careful with their money. They've had to earn it. It wasn't given to them. It didn't grow on a tree. You will see more and more podcasts being charged for, but they will have to be the very best ones. They will be - there's no other way for it. That's the way things work. Once you start to charge for things, you're out of business if you're not good.
Are podcasts the future of radio?
I can answer that question in two ways. “No” and “of course not” are the two ways. No, because podcasts are one way in which everything is changing, and of course not because we don't know. Anyone who says they do how this extraordinary convergence of media is going to play out, is a fool. At the moment, podcasts are the most important new thing because they are bringing a new way of receiving entertainment to us. The important thing about podcasts is that previously, if you want to hear something on the radio you'll have to record it but, you'll have to fit into the schedule. Podcasts, in some ways, are leading a revolution that's going to happen in television, radio, and every other kind of entertainment. Where we won't sit down at 7:30 in the evening to watch Hollyoaks, or to watch Coronation Street, or to watch ER. We will watch ER when we want to. ER will be there, and we will go and find it.
