A Podcasting Conundrum: Covering Current Events With An On-Demand Medium

When you borrow live radio concepts and apply them to a podcast, one of the challenges you face relates to the timeliness of your podcast. For years, I've been pointing out that the shelf life of a podcast episode can have a big impact on its consumption. For example, every week, I listen to Meet the Press, the Sunday political talk show, as a podcast. Because the information is timely, I feel an increased pressure to listen to it over other podcasts that are not as time sensitive. However, if I miss an episode, I am unlikely to go back to it; I have never listened to a six-month-old episode of Meet the Press.

On the other hand, I have listened to episodes of WTF, comedian Marc Maron's interview podcast, months and even years after they were initially recorded. I am still interested in Maron's interviews with people like Robin Williams, Terry Gross, and Judd Appatow long after the initial taping because the conversation doesn't become outdated as fast. WTF is a far more evergreen podcast.

Most of my previous podcast shows were evergreen. In fact, my food and travel podcast, Taste Trekkers, receives far more downloads now, years after I stopped producing new episodes, then it did when I was actively publishing it. By the same token, my Worldwide Radio Summit podcast also has a long shelf life - in fact, I don't publish the episodes until several months after they were initially recorded.

The D Brief, on the other hand, is different. The central concept of the show is "here's what's happening in Detroit this week." We record on Monday evenings and publish Tuesday morning. We cover events that are happening - concerts, comedy shows, sporting events, etc. - on Wednesday through the following Tuesday. If you don't listen to our episode within the first 72 hours of release, the information will be outdated.

At the same time, unlike live radio, people are not listening to us in real time. We know that people are going to listen to the episode after the recording, but we don't know how long after. Our best guess is that it will happen within a few days, which means that the audience may have more information about something than we do at the time of recording.

For example, the Detroit Lions have often been playing a Monday Night football game as we are recording the show. We don't know the outcome of that game, but audience members will by the time the show becomes available. As a result, we have to tailor our discussions according.

A more recent example came up when legendary Detroit singer Aretha Franklin passed away. Reports about her ill health first surface on a Monday, just hours before our recording. We recognized that she might not survive the week, and that if she did die, she would be the biggest topic of conversation in the city she called home. We felt that it was important to talk about her in that evening's episode, because we did not want to go an entire week without mentioning her. At the same time, we did not want to speak about her as if she had already passed away. We were faced with a dilemma: How do you talk about a woman who is alive at the time of your recording but might not be by the time listeners hear your episode?

In times like this, we often employ the phrase, "as we record this on Monday night." This signals to our audience a recognition that they might know something that we don't. In the specific case of Aretha Franklin, we had a guest on our show talk about the singer's contributions to the city without making it sound like an obituary. Fortunately, our guest was a historian, so it was natural for her to look back to the past.

It's not always easy finding the best way to address the time issues inherent in doing a timely show that's available on demand. But it's an issue we are always conscious of, and that often adapt our show to.

LISTEN: Hear the latest episode of The D Brief podcast.

More Glimpses Behind the Scenes:

1. Striking a Balance Between Informational and Conversational
2. The Art of Adding a Third Co-Host to Your Podcast
3. What Happens When You Have to Switch Podcast Co-Hosts?
4. In Podcasting, What You Say Sticks Around. Is That a Problem?
5. Why It's Important to Think About the Shelf Life of Your Podcast Episode