Dec 4 2022
Serial
Finally got around to listening to Serial. I’m not a podcast historian, but I think Serial is the podcast that made podcasts go mainstream. The style of the show, a 12 episode investigative journalism piece, has been replicated many times since 2014. It’s interesting to see how Serial was the one to set the tone for an entire category of podcasts.
I wonder what novel podcast structures are waiting to be discovered. It seems like besides the Serial-style shows, we have interview shows (Tim Ferriss, Joe Rogan), group conversation shows (All-in, Pod Save America), and two hosts exploring something shows (Radiolab, Reply All) as the main formats.
I’m interested in formats that engage audiences in new ways. Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces are interesting first iterations on this idea. Video also looks like a trend that podcasts are heading towards, though I think there is something qualitatively different with the audio-only experience. A big part of it might be that audio-only lets you do other things while listening.
I’m also increasingly becoming a fan of solo-host audio essay type podcasts (How To Take Over The World and Currently Workshopping stand out as good ones right now). The format gives the host a lot of freedom to explore their own ideas. Kinda like an audio version of Substack.