Why do podcasters think that I want listen to what they have to say??

Sean

So I tried to find some new podcasts to listen to the other day and noticed a worrying trend. It seems like a number of podcasts now have this pointless banter throughout the show. Shows like Dave and Joel manage to get away with it because they are genuinely funny, but most shows attempts at this fall flat.

A good example of this is Movies You Should See. I used to love that show, it was funny but they had a genuine interest in movies and were generally insightful. I stopped listening to it a year ago because every episode was way off topic and it got tiring. I tried to listen to a new episode to see if it had gotten any better. The 'Reservoir Dogs' episode was really boring, they barely talked about the movie, the off-topic banter just wasn't funny. It almost seems as if they got it in their heads that the reason why people listen to them is for the banter rather than their opinions on movies and that is what they are now concentrating on.

Another one is the Open Source Musicians podcast. This is actually a pretty promising show and the guys are interesting when they are talking about music production, but each episode seems to have 5-10 minutes of pointless banter at the beginning.

So what does everyone else think? Are there any podcasts which manage to get the mix right or should they forget about pointless banter and concentrate on the topic at hand? Or am I wrong and listeners want to hear podcasts where people engage in meaningless banter and go off on tangents.

Calcaneus

I don't think most podcasters do it for narcissistic reasons, the listeners react well to off-topic banter more often than not. In most podcast forums I visit, the listeners always love it when the hosts go on weird tangents.

Kate Monster

I don't think most podcasters do it for narcissistic reasons, the listeners react well to off-topic banter more often than not. In most podcast forums I visit, the listeners always love it when the hosts go on weird tangents.

Yes, but doing to the exclusion of adressing the core topic of the show is a fail.

jlawson70

I think we also have to remember that a majority of these people that do podcasts have no experience in broadcasting. If you look at the two round-table shows that Leo Laporte does (This Week in Tech and Mac Break Weekly), while they tend to get off-topic and banter a bit, Leo (or another member) does a good job of steering the conversation back on-topic.

Apreche

On the Stack Overflow podcast they have a discussion of the amount of meta content that is appropriate. Ironically, that conversation in and of itself is meta meta.

The idea is basically that most people going to stackoverflow.com want to ask or answer a tech question. They don't really care about the stack overflow site or community. So if there is meta-discussion about stack overflow itself, that is not good for most people. However, for that discussion to be in other places, such as the Stack Overflow podcast, is ok, because the only people listening are those core community members.

How much meta and banter is appropriate really depends on the context. If Leo Laporte made a podcast called This Week in the TwiT network, it should be almost entirely meta talk. However, This Week in Tech should concentrate on tech news. It's very annoying when it gets meta.

Sail

It's the Twitter effect. People have convinced themselves that the people care about the mundane aspects of their life. A bit of metatalk is good, though, because it makes you feel like you're on the listening end of a conversation with some good friends. Just as long as it's not overdone.

Funfetus

A bit of metatalk is good, though, because it makes you feel like you're on the listening end of a conversation with some good friends. Just as long as it's not overdone.

That's true, but it depends entirely on the qualities of the hosts. Huge portions of Geeknights are often entirely meta -- just a couple of friends shooting the shit. But Scrym are genuinely entertaining to listen to regardless of what they're talking about. They have giant personalities. Same with Dave and Joel. Most people just don't have that quality. Honestly, there are quite a few podcasts that are mostly content that I'm interested in, but I can't listen to them because I just can't stand listening to the hosts talk. Podcasting is a performance medium, and if you can't perform, you're probably better off putting that content out as text.

Nuri

Yup, there's a reason Michelle and I use an outline when we record. Keeps us relatively on topic and makes sure we cover everything we meant to cover. Useless banter podcasts, especially those with inside jokes, are quickly unsubscribed from in my player.

Some people podcast just for fun and don't really care if anyone listens. I find the less a host is concerned about building a community, the more useless the cast tends to be. Not always, but usually.

Churba

Yup, there's a reason Michelle and I use an outline when we record. Keeps us relatively on topic and makes sure we cover everything we meant to cover. Useless banter podcasts, especially those with inside jokes, are quickly unsubscribed from in my player.

Quoted for truth - Max makes entire, detailed scripts for every radio show we do(the only things that are not scripted are generally anything I say(admittedly not much), small sections of crosstalk and the little glitches that creep in because it's student radio(even though I'm not a student) and I spend 3/4 of my time either fixing/jerry-rigging broken shit, trying to ensure that things work just well enough that my mixing desk doesn't catch fire and explode in my face, scarring me horrifically, shattering my mind and forcing me to flip coins for every decision I make.)

Admittedly, the scripts sound natural because we do two or three production meet-ups a week, and half of what we shoot the shit about basically becomes the script. But when we do stray into unscripted territory - Ie, when we cover for monkey tennis, the show after ours, when the hosts don't show up - things dissolve quickly. How quickly? Three men chanting "Chickenfisting" in perfect unison within ten minutes quickly. The time after that, it was two blokes and three girls discussing how hilarious it would be to dub yakkety sax over a porno - with vivid descriptions and sound effects.