Creating a community-focused series-led podcast - what did we learn?
The Parched Pea podcast was a collaborative effort and saw an independent publisher and an established publisher team up
Good evening,
Something different for this week’s newsletter as I thought I’d share some thoughts from a podcast we recently produced via Blog Preston in collaboration with National World, former radio host John Gillmore and two journalism students from the University of Central Lancashire - so it’s a digest of a different kind.
I was talking this morning as part of the Independent Community News Network’s virtual conference in a session about podcasting.
In the summer we released a podcast, in collaboration with National World’s Lancashire Post, about all things Preston. It’s called The Parched Pea Podcast (more on the name in a bit).
I was alongside Steve Austins of Bengo Media who gave some excellent insights into what makes a great podcast and his experience of creating podcasts for a wide range of clients.
You’d definitely not put me in the technical expertise when it comes to podcast or audio creation - I’d refer you to the likes of Kelly Crichton, Michael Pearson, Daniel McLoughlin and others on that front.
But here’s some points I made when it came to actually producing the Parched Pea Podcast and getting from the ‘we should do a podcast’ stage to having something out there in your earphones.
Community: We knew it was important for this podcast to be part of the community, this wasn’t about a bunch of influencers being interviewed in yet another rather glossy Ikea kitted out studio. Fred from Lune Street chippy was interviewed in his fish and chip shop, Adrian Murrell invited us into his home and showed us his Windrush memorabilia. Real people, real stories.
Find some backers. We pitched the idea of the podcast to a number of organisations first, and got their backing (financially) to make it before embarking on it. It’s important to recognise podcasts take time and effort and it’s unlikely you’ll be able to monetise it in terms of programmatic ads on the platforms (at least initially). Thankfully we had Preston Business Improvement District and Preston Markets who saw the opportunity in supporting a different way of telling stories, yes, this meant we had to be mindful of theming/giving a voice to market traders and city centre stalwarts but that fitted with the ethos of what we were trying to achieve.
Series-led rather than reactive. We were clear from the start this would be a limited run series podcast, rather than an ongoing ‘newscast’ style podcast or ‘talking thoughts’ podcast. Working with Kelly from National World helped us really refine the brief and her experience and expertise of interview-led podcasts was invaluable. And calling it The Parched Pea Podcast - the parched pea is a Preston delicacy - gave it a clear definition as a Preston-based podcast. Plus it’s a nice little pun.
Don’t obsess over audio quality. A sigh of relief when Steve had a quick listen to the podcast and said it was perfectly acceptable. To us the content and the story, and being out there on location, was more important than being absolutely pitch perfect on equalising levels. We’re currently seeking support for a second series, so absolutely we’ll be upping the quality levels with what we have planned but having something out there to listen to was crucial.
Don’t be afraid of collaboration. We had a freelance host, the experienced John ‘Gilly’ Gillmore, two student journalist producers (Ellie and Sasha), Kelly from National World, myself and Nicola Adam from National World too - and Vanessa and team at the Post when it came to content-sharing. Of course it was a bit messy at times, things took longer than planned, but we got there. I think overall we achieved a positive thing for Preston, and that was the focus, rather than it being a Blog Preston podcast or a National World podcast, it was about us working together to make it happen in what is essentially always going to be a niche podcast area. One of my main aims for the podcast was not to do everything myself, there’s people who know more and are better at all this stuff than me - let them be brilliant at it. And they were.
It also meant we were able to leverage our collective audiences, across social, digital and print, plus Gilly’s own social following, to build awareness of the podcast. I also found it interesting how much social-sharing there was by those featured/supportive of the podcast too.
There’s lots more learnings too, but as Steve put it nicely, lots of people have an idea for a podcast - but it remains an idea. For us it was about getting a viable product out there to show there is an appetite - and there definitely is - and now we can evolve it.
And there was lots more discussed at the conference, but that’s a post in itself for another day.
Hope you’re having a good week. Keep going.
Ed
p.s. if you’re interested in helping us with a future series of The Parched Pea Podcast then drop me and Nicola a line on ed@blogpreston.co.uk and nicola.adam@nationalworld.com