Pod People

This morning I hopped in my truck on the way to the gym and was genuinely surprised to find my car radio set to the local sports talk station. I haven't sat down to listen to sport talk radio in years thanks to having worked in the industry (Looking to kill your love of radio? Get a job in radio.), so I can only assume I was trying to find a score the other night, got home before that happened and turned the radio off without thinking about it. Anyway, the four or five minutes I listened before arriving at my destination got me to wondering just how much longer radio as we know it will be hanging around. Sure, there are always going to be people who want to hear new music and not pay for a subscription service like XM, but the lines get a little blurrier when it comes to talk radio. These days people are able to get extremely specific with their tastes because the internet is only too happy to provide them with whatever they want, whenever they want and for free thanks to podcasts (basically on-demand, commercial-free radio shows). I currently subscribe to many podcasts and would much rather listen to a sports-themed version of them than anything on my local radio. If someone ever figures out how to download them directly to my car's stereo the local talk stations would be in big trouble. The only thing traditional radio has in its favor at the moment is that will probably take some time to develop and by then all the really talented podcasters will probably have moved on to something else.

Lately I have noticed there is a big trend of podcasters making the transition to having television shows. I get why TV executives would be interested in them - these guys did all the hard work by building up loyal fans and will bring a healthy-sized audience with them automatically - but this is still a slightly crazy to me for a couple of reasons, the first being the age-old concept of people working behind the mike because they have a face for radio. Honestly, the money is better in TV, so if these podcasters could have already been working there they would have. But, second and larger reason this surprises me is that even though the two jobs appear to be in the same industry they are vastly different from one another. You see, these new shows aren't your standard radio show being simulcast on a local channel (Which I have also never understood. Watching a radio show is the most boring thing ever.), in which the host is doing what they have always done only now they make sure to have a clean shirt on - these are brand new shows with a more typical talk show format which happen to be hosted by the podcasters. I am not sure if this is better or worse because, having done a little TV as well as a little radio, I know that they require completely different skill sets and just because you are good at one it doesn't necessarily mean you will be good at the other. It's like the old Mitch Hedberg joke about being told he was a good comedian and then being asked if he could write: "That would be like being a great chef and then being asked if I could farm." All I am saying is that not all hosting duties are the same.

As always happens when you take something with a small and dedicated fanbase and try and expose it to the masses, there is always a danger for some backlash from the original fans. Most of these podcasters are trying to do both jobs at the same time and while neither job is the equivalent of digging ditches for a living the simple fact is that when anyone tries to spend time working on two things at once one of them is bound to suffer. I would assume the TV shows will get most of the attention, but if the podcast ends up suffering you're going to piss off the fans which make up the bulk of your audience, hence also hurting the TV show. It is a delicate balancing act and also the reason why, as a control freak, I am not sure I would make this deal and lose the creative freedom you get from being a podcaster. Sure, the best podcasts are the ones which stick to a schedule and maintain a professional quality but even the most popular podcasts are a loose with the rules. That means the hosts can record at whatever time of day they find convenient, episodes can end whenever the host feels like the topic has been played out and the only person they have to answer to when it comes to editing is themselves. TV is pretty much the opposite of all those things, so the people deciding to try and move these podcasters to the small screen are either brilliant or about to end up with a lot of egg on their faces.

The good news is that so far the results of this little experiment appear to be working out well. This week a new show debuted on Comedy Central called, "@Midnight" (cleverly the title and the show's Twitter handle). Hosted by the Nerdist's Chris Hardwick it features three comedians telling jokes about things which were popular on the internet that day under the guise of it being a game show. The jokes have been very good in the first few episodes and you can always count on the internet to provide endless content to rip. The other is the new "Pete Holmes Show" which starts next week, which will be more your standard interview/sketch show. (Am I the only one who finds these debut dates slightly odd? Most new shows start in early September, not the end of October. People already have made their entertainment schedule by this point. I know they probably left midnight open but considering the demographic these shows are hoping to attract that is not guaranteed.) The few clips I have already seen have made me laugh, so that show appears to be starting off on the right foot. I do question the wisdom of putting these shows against one another considering they are probably going for the same small group of viewers, but if that is the only problem these guys have I would have to consider that a win. It certainly can't be any worse than the ratings for simulcasting a local radio talk show.