Back after a break, this week I discuss the radio coaching I have been getting recently, my intention to launch a new radio show, details of a new podcast recording studio in Sheffield, my thoughts on the Spotify acquisition of Gimlet and Anchor and Podsites – a new service from RadioPublic.
Websites and articles mentioned in the show:
http://onaircoach.net/ – Radio Presenter training
https://rebelbasemedia.io/studio – Sheffield’s new podcast recording studio
https://www.provideocoalition.com/radiopublic-answers-my-questions-about-podsites – RadioPublic answers questions from Allan Tépper about their new service for podcasters, Podsites
Show Transcript:
Launching a new radio show, new podcast recording studio facilities in Sheffield and my thoughts on the Spotify acquisition of Gimlet and Anchor
Welcome to episode 34. I’m your host Richard Dally. Each week I curate and discuss the latest news in podcasting and Internet Radio with a focus on the smaller podcaster, radio host and DJ.
Yes, i’m back with the podcast after a bit of a hiatus. I’m not going to dwell too much on the reasons for taking a break but let’s just say sometimes life gets in the way of the things you’d really like to be doing.
Why am I back now? Well a couple of reasons really. Firstly, I think there is space for a podcast that covers the kind of news I like to discuss around internet and online radio and podcasting.
Secondly, I am in the early stages of planning a new radio show so I think it might be interesting to talk a little bit about that process as the show develops.
I’ve been off the radio for a little while. To be honest I got a bit disillusioned with the show I was doing for an internet dance music station. Until now I have mostly presented live or as-live shows and didn’t really feel like I had “found my voice” as the saying goes.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been taking some radio coaching sessions with Nails Mahoney and Tracey Lee from OnAirCoach.net. Between them they’ve encouraged me to explore different ways of presenting and hosting shows.
Because of that, I’m now planning to try putting together a pre-recorded show with more production, still including some music but with more talking as well.
Perhaps I could talk more about the coaching in future episodes if you’re interested. For now I’ll just say that if you are looking to improve your presenting skills then I really can recommend working with Nails and Tracey. You can find them at onaircoach.net. I’ll put the link in the shownotes for this episode. And I should mention…I’m not getting paid to say this – I just feel that their coaching has been really helpful to me.
So let’s move on to the news.
I can’t ignore the biggest recent news which is the purchase of Gimlet and Anchor by Spotify.
Gimlet is a well known podcast producing agency that set out, in their own words, to be the HBO of audio. They’ve had some big hits, like StartUp and ReplyAll but also their fair share of flops.
Anchor, a podcasting hosting company, has somewhat of a ‘marmite’ reputation in the industry. Some people love their free service model for podcasters, while others have been concerned about some of the Ts&Cs they impose on their customers and the sustainability of their free hosting model.
Plenty has been written elsewhere about the acquisition so all I want to comment on is that buying Gimlet gives Spotify a ready-made pool of podcast producer and host talent but it also gives them the studio complex that Gimlet has built up, with their previous rounds of funding. By all accounts they have a lot of state of the art equipment in their custom-built studios for producing audio, video and music in-house.
I expect to see a lot more original content coming out of Spotify. This seems to be the model favoured now by so many media companies – just look at Disney and Amazon for instance.
As for what Anchor brings to Spotify, like many other commentators, I’m not really sure. Surely it’s not about the number of podcasts Anchor host even though the Spotify press release hints at this saying they are getting Anchor’s “established and rapidly growing creator base”.
Perhaps, as I’m suggesting with Gimlet, it’s really about the infrastructure they are acquiring. I’m not convinced though – surely there were better podcast hosting companies that could have been purchased for the same amount of money?
One final thought on Spotify – let’s hope that their push in to podcasting will help the industry start to address the thorny problem of music in podcasts – after all, Spotify are paying music companies and artists to stream music – is it really too much of a stretch to find a way to do this for podcasts and let podcasters play music legally?
Let’s move on,
A number of podcast studios where you can rent recording space by the hour have been springing up recently. If you’re anywhere near Sheffield in the UK then Rebel Base Media now has you covered.
Their new fully soundproofed recording studio has space for up to 4 podcasters plus it can handle guests dialling in on Skype or by phone. They will provide training, if you need it, on the equipment which includes 4 Heil PR-40 microphones and a rodecaster pro mixer. They can even provide a producer if you need one.
Prices start at £55.00 per hour + VAT, which seems pretty reasonable to me.
If you want to see more of how the studio looks, take a look at their Instagram account – rebelbasemedia or Mark Asquith’s personal Instagram – he’s their CEO and a co-founder of the company.
I really hope we see more of this quality of studio popping up in different locations for podcasters and other broadcasters to use.
Lastly today, an interesting development from RadioPublic. Before I go on, I should declare that I am an investor in the company – though only a very small one!
RadioPublic’s aim is to help listeners discover, engage with, and reward creators of podcasts and other audio. They have a free podcast app for iOS and Android. As well as the usual podcast listening features they have human’s handpicking selections and listening suggestions and they create trending listings of the most popular podcasts in different categories based on listening stats.
Allan AL-AN Tépper TAY-PER of ProVideoCoalition asked RadioPublic a number of questions about their new service which is called PodSites. If you have your own developed website covering everything you do then this may not be of much interest but for those who just want a simple website for their podcast then this could be what you’re looking for.
PodSites provdes a dedicated website for podcasts that use an existing media host, such as Libsyn. Maintenance of the website is automated as a new page gets created when a new show is posted in the show’s RSS feed.
Of course hosts like Libsyn and Sticher give podcasters access to simple hosted webpages already. Podsites are suggesting, naturally, that theirs give more functionality – something I am sure the hosting companies will be looking to catch up with quickly.
I’ll put a link in to the show notes to the ProVideoCoalition article so you can take a look for yourself at some more of the proposed benefits.
