Almost a year ago I polled readers of this site to see what they might want to see me do more of, and less of. The overwhelming response I got was: we want a podcast (again). I heard you, and I started working on a podcast, and then in August of 2013 I dropped the idea for a bit as life got busy.
Now is the time though.
So next week I am recording the first episode of what will be known as ‘The Brooks Review Podcast’ — really catchy name.
Some notes about what this show is, and is not:
- The first episode will record July 2nd, 2014 at about noon.
- Most episodes will not air live, and this means no chat room. I am doing this intentionally, as I already have the infrastructure setup to actually have both live broadcasts and chats. I want to put forth something different and I think the only way to do that is to not air live.
- I will be the host, and I will have guests on the show, the first two guests are booked. If you want to be a guest, or you want to nominate someone, get in touch with me. I’m not holding this show to just “popular bloggers” I want interesting people. I don’t care what your online presence is, just convince me you have interesting things to add.
- The podcast will record weekly and hopefully be live Wednesday nights for your Thursday commute.
- I am hoping to keep the show runtimes under an hour, but I am not putting a hard time limit on this. The shows need to end in a finished manner.
- I am pledging to not just show up and wing it. I plan on outlining each show — not scripting — but knowing what I want to talk about and the path each show should move along. I’ll only share a rough outline with the guest right before we record — again I don’t want things rehearsed, but I want there to be a clear path leading to something.
- My personal goal is to make something really special that is both well prepared and casual feeling — This American Life is my benchmark. I may never achieve that, but that’s my goal.
- Bear with me because the first few episodes will very much be a work in progress.
- My goal will necessitate editing of the content of each show. Most podcasts you listen to today are a straight recording, even the irrelevant and unfunny bits. I want to cut out the crap. I’ll pre-record any sponsors, and intros and record my talks with the guests. The pre-recordings are so that I don’t have to arbitrarily work in a sponsor at and interrupt the flow of discourse. At the end of it I will trim the show where needed to create a better podcast, but I’ll do so with the utmost respect to the intent, meaning, and integrity of what each guest is saying. I am working on a way to provide the RAW audio file as a reference point so that you can be the judge of whether I am accomplishing that goal.
That about covers it.
The show lives here. And will also be in iTunes here.
I am currently taking sponsors, even for the first episode — but I really have no clue what the listenership will be. You can see more about that here, and I’d really love to have you sponsor the show. (Paid podcasts really aren’t feasible.)