It’s a Tuesday evening in early December and I’m in church. This, for various reasons, is not exactly a regular occurrence for me. There is no service taking place though. Instead, the congregation is here to worship the stars of their favourite podcast.
On a stage positioned near a lovely Christmas tree, Carl Miller, the host of “Kill List”, and producers Caroline Thornham and Tom Wright, are being quizzed about murder-for-hire websites by Jamie Bartlett. Bartlett is, of course, the host of another wildly popular podcast – “The Missing Cryptoqueen”. (If you haven’t listened to Kill List 1.) Do 2.) Listen to my conversation with Carl on The Addition Podcast.)
Miller, Thornham and Wright got something approaching a rock star’s welcome when they came onto the stage. Never has being a podcast producer been so cool.
The Union Chapel in Islington was packed, but it was a relatively small venue compared to some others that big-name podcasters have been appearing at recently. “The News Agents” hosts Jon Sopel, Emily Maitlis and Lewis Goodall have been at the Royal Albert Hall. Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell of “The Rest is Politics” went on tour across the UK at venues that include the 02 Arena in London.
Obviously, I think podcasts are a brilliant format for storytelling of many kinds. Shows like “Kill List” and “The Missing Cryptoqueen” made use of the flexibility they allow to do brilliant long form journalism. The News Agents and The Rest is Politics are news-focused and use the same tools to have timely conversations. But the live extension of podcasting is becoming seriously popular.
Seeing Your Favourite Podcast Live Show
The stage shows provide a sense of community to a medium usually consumed in isolation. There are in-jokes and Q+As with the hosts. It is a mix of being in the same room as your favourite TV star and chatting with your friend. These events have also proven to be a lucrative additional revenue stream for podcasters.
There are other advantages to the hosts too. Presenting a podcast is, to some extent a solitary experience. At an event, the hosts can feed off the energy of the audience. And it doesn’t have to be at big, prestigious venue either. My friends at Media Voices held a brilliant event after Newsrewired in a room at pub. (Listen to the episode here.) One of the hosts, Esther Thorpe, told me:
The energy you get from a live audience can really transform a podcast recording. To be able to get reactions, smiles, laughs, nods, even disagreement – and in our case, actually get those in the room participating – adds a whole new dimension to it. Podcasting can be one of the more one-way mediums where it’s difficult to get any listener feedback or interaction, so having listeners in the room to build that relationship is absolute gold.
Podcast popularity shot up during the pandemic, when we couldn’t be around people. Now we can, it turns out that people want to be around podcasters.
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