PodMov Daily: Friday, January 10

Episode 118: Week Download Complete

Timing is Everything: Doug Fraser on Ideal Interview Length

This Friday’s guest article from documentary podcaster and filmmaker Doug Fraser offers indispensable guidance on timing an interview.

It’s about much more than length — Fraser teaches how to extract the best possible conversation within strategically set boundaries. For example, “By asking for less time from our interviewee, we create a smaller box in which every moment counts.”

For his podcast What We Do, Fraser interviewed Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket, the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events). Fraser did several hours of research and went in with a plan which was immediately abandoned.

“80% of my plan went down the drain…and I couldn’t have been happier […] His answer [to the first question] led us down a path of reminiscing on the impact libraries, these vast museums of stories, had on his childhood,” Fraser writes.

From adapting on the fly to securing long-shot interviews, these timing tips are more than worth your minutes.

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First-Person Journalism: An Opinion on “I” in Audio

Avoiding the first-person “I,” a main tenet of reporting, has declined in “radio […] and many podcasts,” says Rob Rosenthal. The teacher, producer, and Howsound host has observed the disquieting change “in the last ten to twenty years, which is recent in the history of journalism.”

Nonfiction is refined by minimizing commentary from “people who shouldn’t be in the story — other than to carry the story forward as a narrator,” Rosenthal asserts. He praises the hosts of a particular show, The Stoop, that deftly “navigate these waters” with a “combination of ‘hosty-ness’ and reporting that always serves the story.”

The Stoop co-host Leila Day discusses dealing with “I” on the new Howsound episode “When The Story Is About You But Not About You.”

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Saturation Point: Streaming Media's Discovery Dysfunction

Lulu Wang, director of the Golden Globe-winning film The Farewell (2019), chose a small studio release to avoid being buried on a large streaming platform. Julia Alexander for The Verge cites Wang’s recent commentary on streaming’s biggest problem.

Regardless of quality, discovery is tough in oversaturated content jungles like Spotify, iTunes, or Netflix. “With newer filmmakers, newer voices, you don’t have a brand,” Wang said. “If people don’t know how to find you, it doesn’t matter how wide your audience is.”

Emerging media aside, the sheer number of streaming choices leaves multimillion-dollar programming struggling for spotlights as well. As Alexander points out, “HBO Max is rolling out an entire marketing campaign around using human curators instead of relying on recommendation algorithms.”

Happy Friday, readers, and thanks for starting your new year with us. The first-ever Podcast Movement Evolutions is one month away in sunny LA, and we can’t wait to share what’s in store. Curious about the details? We’ve got you covered.

Cheers,

Team PM

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Here's what else is going on:

• Path forward: Coinciding with the centennial of women’s suffrage in the US, the leadership platform Seneca Women has announced the launch of a podcast network and app. Its first show, Conversations on Power and Purpose, debuted last fall.

• Going steady: Kate Cocker, the leader of Prolific North’s Podcasting for Business workshops, explains why “regular and consistent” podcasting is an ideal medium for marketers to “inject enthusiasm and an air of authority into information.”

• Better together: The audio intelligence platform Veritonic has announced the integration of LeadsRx and Podsights technologies into its audio analytics, “combining post-flight performance analysis with pre-market creative intelligence.”

• Golden opportunity: Colin Gray has built a thorough 18-step guide to starting a podcast this year. Expert instructions and links to further reading teach about “top quality equipment, recording, editing, publishing and growth.”