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Using Artist IDs In Podcast Production
January 8, 2019
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. When I set out to create The D Brief podcast, I wanted to borrow ideas from radio broadcasting and adapt them to the medium. I often describe our podcast by saying, "It's like a radio morning show, but it's hyper-focused on Detroit arts and entertainment." Like a radio morning show, the podcast is comprised of multiple segments, each several minutes in length. The segments are separated by production elements, which are essentially radio sweepers
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When I set out to create The D Brief podcast, I wanted to borrow ideas from radio broadcasting and adapt them to the medium. I often describe our podcast by saying, "It's like a radio morning show, but it's hyper-focused on Detroit arts and entertainment." Like a radio morning show, the podcast is comprised of multiple segments, each several minutes in length. The segments are separated by production elements, which are essentially radio sweepers.
When I set out to make these production elements, I sought out the advice of my friend Jake Kaplan, the Creative Director at Entercom/Los Angeles (back then, the cluster was still owned by CBS). Jake informed me that the stuttering, flanging voiceovers from my mid-90s heyday as an imaging director had long since become passé. These days, he told me, radio stations prefer to use "audience drops" in their production elements: recordings of listeners heaping praise on the radio station. "The best variety!," "I love the morning show!," or "I always listen at work!"
With that in mind, I decided to trek out to a local stand-up comedy open mic night with a digital audio recorder. A lot of the comedians were friends of mine, so getting them to say things on the mic wouldn't be difficult. The problem was that I didn't know what to have them say. It's easy to get people to spontaneously rave about their favorite radio station, but I had a podcast that hadn't even launched yet. Nobody knew what The D Brief was!
Instead, I decided that I would compile together a series of soundbites that were not about Detroit, not about our podcast. So I asked people to answer basic questions: What's your favorite place to go out to in Detroit? What's the best thing about Detroit? What neighborhood are you from?
While it sounds easy enough, the recordings I captured were less than compelling. I got a lot of "I dunno" and "I can't think of anything." If there's a secret to getting good man-on-the-street audio, I hadn't found it.
I decided that it might be better if I fed people the lines that I wanted them to say. I began asking them to repeat after me as I namechecked various Detroit institutions: The Motown Museum, Ferndale, the Red Wings, etc. While this did enable me to get people saying the things I wanted them to say, their inflection was less than compelling. After listening back, I decided to abandon the idea of creating production elements using "audience drops" for the moment.
Guest interviews are a big component of our podcast, and every time we sit down to talk to somebody, we ask them for an "Artist ID." This is a common practice in radio. For example, when interviewing Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you would ask him to say, "Hi, this is Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and you're listening to WKRP." We adapted this practice for our podcast, and after six months, we had stockpiled a large number of artist IDs namechecking Detroit institutions. I edited these into production elements to give people a sense of the scope of our podcast. Here is an example:
I was pleased enough with the results that I made several more, and have decided that moving forward, I'll put my focus on creating production elements with artist IDs rather than audience drops.
LISTEN: Hear the latest episode of The D Brief podcast.
More Glimpses Behind the Scenes:
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