By Roz Morris, Managing Director, TV News London Ltd
We are living in the era of the podcast. Over the past twenty years, podcasts have evolved into one of the world’s most influential media platforms.
Podcasts first emerged in the early 2,000’s as audio only and in 2005 George W. Bush became the first US president to deliver a weekly address in a podcast format.
In 2016, there were just over half a million podcasts listed in major directories. Today, there are more than 4.7 million podcasts worldwide, according to podcast industry trackers.
Although not all of these are currently active, around 600,000 podcasts, in more than in 100 languages have released new episodes within the past 90 days.
Andy Burnham, the new UK Prime Minster, reinforced the growing importance and influence of podcasts when, while waiting for his official ‘coronation’ as PM, he gave his first full media interview to former footballer and commentator, Gary Lineker, on his Goalhanger podcast. The show notes say: Gary Lineker sits down with Britain’s next Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, ahead of England’s World Cup semi-final against Argentina. They discuss Everton, Mexico ’86, England’s chances of lifting the trophy, the Hillsborough Law, the cost of living and dealing with Donald Trump. You can see the interview here.
This interview introduced us to the Andy Burnham ‘man of the people’ image in content and in appearance. Andy and Gary chummed up while wearing black T-shirts not shirts and, perish the thought, of course, no ties. Our new PM is also using other forms of social media, getting influencers to promote him and making big efforts to engage with young people who don’t watch or listen to traditional media for their news. The BBC website has a very informative article about this.
In another sign of our changing media times when the BBC gained Andy Burnham’s first interview with traditional media, in a sit down session with political presenter Laura Kuenssberg, it put it into a traditional broadcast on the Panorama programme, but also pre released sections online in a more modern media format on its own podcast on YouTube.
Some media have criticised the government’s emphasis on social media as cosy chats with influencers or talked about the ‘TikTok PM’ and asked whether he wants to be a content creator or a Prime Minister.
But others have pointed out that Andy Burnham and his team know exactly what they’re doing in creating a modern media brand that reaches more potential voters than traditional news media.
Embracing content creators means speaking to influencers like Max from The Career Ladder, whose channels reach around 20 million followers worldwide. Max’s interview with Andy Burnham, was posted almost immediately after he became Prime Minister. Amazingly to older news consumers, the reaction from some of Max’s followers was that this was how they first found out they had a new prime minister.
This is a clear illustration of the differing worlds of news consumption between young and old which the current Labour administration has recognised.
Andy Burnham has so far been interviewed on more than a dozen podcasts and has demonstrated the power of podcasts to create an influential personal brand.
The podcast industry is now a major business with advertisers spending billions reaching engaged audiences, and celebrities, journalists, academics, and entrepreneurs all recognise podcasts as one of the best ways to connect directly with audiences.
All business leaders now need to take podcasts seriously
Do you have a podcast policy? Do you know which podcasts specialise in your field and could be useful to you?
Once you have done this research you would benefit from media training so you can make the most of your podcast interviews and avoid the mistakes that giving long form interviews can often lead to.
Giving a 3 minute news interview is challenging, but a 30 minute or longer podcast interview has its own big challenges and potential pitfalls.
