-
Using Recurring Guests In Podcasts
October 24, 2018
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. I have always loved the idea of a large, regular cast of characters in a radio show. Years ago, when I was still early in my career, I wrote a proposal for a radio show that incorporate recurring characters. The idea was based on the television show The Simpsons. In The Simpsons, you have characters with small but well defined roles. A major plot point is introduced, such as a public transportation vote or an escaped serial killer, and it's fun for the audience to watch how these familiar characters react to the situation
-
I have always loved the idea of a large, regular cast of characters in a radio show. Years ago, when I was still early in my career, I wrote a proposal for a radio show that incorporate recurring characters. The idea was based on the television show The Simpsons. In The Simpsons, you have characters with small but well defined roles. A major plot point is introduced, such as a public transportation vote or an escaped serial killer, and it's fun for the audience to watch how these familiar characters react to the situation. (Some radio shows do in fact use characters this way, but I didn't know that at the time.)
As we published more and more episodes of The D Brief, we inevitably encountered guests that we enjoyed having on so much that we want to bring them back on a regular basis. Like Simpsons characters, these recurring guests had well defined characteristics. Bailey Sisoy Isgro of Detroit History Tours is versed in the city's lore; Ann Delisi of WDET has a deep knowledge of music; Greg Russell talks to movie stars; and so on. We thought it would be fun to have them back on the podcast periodically so we could hear their take current events, such as Ford's purchase of the train station or Halloween in the city.
We wanted to make this as easy as possible on our guests. Usually, our guests come into our studio to record interviews in person. This works well for a one-time guest, but it's a lot to ask of recurring guests, especially given that their segments would only last for about ten minutes.
Instead, we decided to find a way for them to call in from their homes. However, I didn't want to tolerate the poor audio quality you get from a phone line, so I decided to send each of them an ATR2100 USB microphone so that they could use Skype to call in. In my experience, Skype sounds great when it works correctly, but it's awful when it doesn't. We are still considering alternatives like Ringr and Zoom, but we are concerned about the technical proficiency of our guests and the learning curves involved. To be honest, we also haven't had enough time to fully experiment with and evaluate these options. So for now, we're sticking with Skype.
In order to send the audio with all of our voices and production elements in the mix down the line to our guest, we would need a "mix minus setup." In this case, we're sending the entire mix minus the call-in guest's voice over the phone line. Fortunately, podcast producer Ray Ortega has some excellent online videos explaining how to do this:
This setup allows us to invite a rotating panel of guests back on a regular basis. Currently, we have about six guests in rotation. Over time, we hope to increase that to nine, each specializing in a different area of Detroit arts and entertainment. These guests not only allow us to expand into discussions that we might not be able to have otherwise because we lack the expertise, but they also breed familiarity over time, much like Simpsons characters.
LISTEN: Hear the latest episode of The D Brief podcast.
More Glimpses Behind the Scenes:
-
-