What Even Is a Podcast Producer Anymore?
This latest post from Eric Nuzum (The Audio Insurgent) hit the nail on the head. Worth a read and a follow.
The lines between job descriptions for people who work in media (audio & video podcasting, video production, social media marketing) are blurring and in a lot of cases, seem to have been removed altogether.
What do you want to be when you grow up? An audio producerā¦or a podcast producer? For a few years, weāve been able to think these are the same thing, but I think weāve reached a point where they are no longer the same job. Weāve expanded the definition of a podcast so broadly that the label now precedes the format. And once that happens, the job of making one changes too. When I think of an audio producer, I think of someone working in an audio-first mediumāradio, podcasts, audiobooksāfocused on intimacy, narrative, and craft. The work is about what happens in the listenerās head. A podcast producer, increasingly, isā¦something else (or, at leastā¦something more). The job spans audio, video, and social platforms. It is as much about packaging, distribution, and growth as it is about making the thing itself. Spend five minutes looking at podcast job descriptions right now and this becomes obvious. Video isnāt a bonus skill anymore. Itās table stakes.
Personally, I love that more people are producing video for podcasts, but it’s added complexity and time consuming work and there are limits to what one person can accomplish in a day and a week. 4k video files are massive and SSD drives have skyrocketed in price (thanks AI, real nice). And I don’t know if there’s much demand for zoom recording style video podcasts (someone else who’s paying attention to the numbers would have to clarify). And all that before you get into short-form content vs long-form content and what works for different platforms and audiences…
But if I’m honest about my own consumption habits, it’s still 5-10 audio only podcast episodes a week, anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours an episode.
Am I an outlier here? Did I find the optimal format for consumption or I am just turning into one of those “back in my day we read the newspaper” old men? Still a lot of questions to explore.
#podcasting