I've been thinking about doing this for climate podcasts! We have 4 or 5, each with their own feed, and then I regularly get pitched things that would be great as a limited series but don't feel like they quite merit the massive lift of starting a new show (or even if they do, whether it's worth doing that in general at the moment, for all the reasons you mention), and things that I think could be an excellent 45-minute one-off narrative episode, and I'd love to bring them all into the feed with the biggest audience (Drilled). I do think batching shows thematically could be a way to deal with some of the potential pitfalls. Feels like it could be a way to provide an easier on-ramp of sorts of new ideas too. And *could* mix different formats in a way that's not off-putting, although that feels easier said than done. Anyway, appreciate this post (and the thinking aloud in general!)
it's interesting to consider that the answer could be, essentially, a return to radio! A couple of problems in the present: 1. listeners seem not to like the multi-use feed thing. Something like 11th is fine, or the BBC's Seriously... podcast, as they would have opted in to a variety feed; but they really don't like one show taking over another show's feed. They really don't like feed drops either. Which brings us to problem 2: at the moment, Apple Podcasts does this unwelcome thing where if a listener hasn't listened to the most recent handful of episodes in a feed, they are automatically unsubscribed and the feed doesn't even show more recent episodes. It's a disaster generally, but specifically if they were interested in some of the shows on a combo feed but didn't listen to one miniseries then they wouldn't even see the stuff that followed it. The relevant technologies working against both listener and artist is dispiriting
Not sure if you are familiar with us, but the type of RSS feed you describe that functions like a radio station is very similar to how New Books Network works.
NBN is a public education project. We manage a couple hundred channels like New Books in Philosophy, New Books in Science, Technology, and Society, etc. Hundreds of hosts from around the world (mostly professors and graduate students) interview authors about their books (mostly published by university presses). The goal is create a comprehensive interview library. We also frequently cross-post podcasts from other channels that are on related topics.
Can I ask if those content channels existed previously or were all created at once? I'm trying to figure out how to combine a few existing feeds without losing the audiences already attached to any of them and wonder if someone has already figured that out.
I've been thinking about doing this for climate podcasts! We have 4 or 5, each with their own feed, and then I regularly get pitched things that would be great as a limited series but don't feel like they quite merit the massive lift of starting a new show (or even if they do, whether it's worth doing that in general at the moment, for all the reasons you mention), and things that I think could be an excellent 45-minute one-off narrative episode, and I'd love to bring them all into the feed with the biggest audience (Drilled). I do think batching shows thematically could be a way to deal with some of the potential pitfalls. Feels like it could be a way to provide an easier on-ramp of sorts of new ideas too. And *could* mix different formats in a way that's not off-putting, although that feels easier said than done. Anyway, appreciate this post (and the thinking aloud in general!)
it's interesting to consider that the answer could be, essentially, a return to radio! A couple of problems in the present: 1. listeners seem not to like the multi-use feed thing. Something like 11th is fine, or the BBC's Seriously... podcast, as they would have opted in to a variety feed; but they really don't like one show taking over another show's feed. They really don't like feed drops either. Which brings us to problem 2: at the moment, Apple Podcasts does this unwelcome thing where if a listener hasn't listened to the most recent handful of episodes in a feed, they are automatically unsubscribed and the feed doesn't even show more recent episodes. It's a disaster generally, but specifically if they were interested in some of the shows on a combo feed but didn't listen to one miniseries then they wouldn't even see the stuff that followed it. The relevant technologies working against both listener and artist is dispiriting
Not sure if you are familiar with us, but the type of RSS feed you describe that functions like a radio station is very similar to how New Books Network works.
I'm not familiar. Tell me more! How is it working for you?
NBN is a public education project. We manage a couple hundred channels like New Books in Philosophy, New Books in Science, Technology, and Society, etc. Hundreds of hosts from around the world (mostly professors and graduate students) interview authors about their books (mostly published by university presses). The goal is create a comprehensive interview library. We also frequently cross-post podcasts from other channels that are on related topics.
Can I ask if those content channels existed previously or were all created at once? I'm trying to figure out how to combine a few existing feeds without losing the audiences already attached to any of them and wonder if someone has already figured that out.
Amy I'm going to email you.