Podcast Formats: Which One Is For You?
Everyone should try podcasting. It’s as easy as blogging.
Still aren’t sure why you should start a podcast? Check out Top 5 Reasons to Start a Podcast.
Once you decide to start a podcast, you need to decide how you will structure your show.
Here are some options.
The Interview
The classic podcast format. In each episode, the host interviews a different guest, diving into that guest’s expertise or their life.
There are many advantages to the interview podcast. It’s easy to find guests — if you invite someone to come on your show, that is a flattering proposition. The guests provide variation for the show, while the host provides some regularity.
It’s a great recipe, used successfully by personalities like Terry Gross, Ezra Klein, Joe Rogan, and Mark Maron.
The Host Discussion
Do you have a friend (or group of friends) who you have great conversations with every time you hang out? Every time you get coffee with them, you walk away saying “I wish I would have recorded that conversation!”
In the freewheeling discussion, 2–4 hosts talk about a different topic every episode.
Shows like Exponent and Pod Save America exemplify this format.
Sometimes these shows also bring on guests. The group of hosts interviews the guest, or the guest joins in on the freewheeling discussion.
The Highly Produced Narration
Highly produced narration takes audio recorded from several different contexts and mixes it together to tell a story.
Shows like This American Life, Serial, and Radiolab draw massive audiences due to their close attention to detail. They draw listeners in with polished storytelling.
If you love editing audio, the highly produced narration is for you.
There are several challenges to this format: you need different microphones for inside and outside your home studio. You need to move audio between multiple different devices. You need to have a vision for how your different recordings will fit together. These shows can take a long time to produce.
And you need an exceptional audio editor.
News
Podcasts are great for making sense of the news. I love to hear my favorite podcast hosts respond differently to the same piece of news, because it helps me understand that news through different perspectives.
There can never be too many news podcasts.
The Daily proved this by shooting to the top of the podcast charts due to its short length and excellent production.
News podcasts are easy to produce on a regular cadence, because there is always news. They are hard to produce, because you have to have something unique to say about the news.
Others
Podcasting is unexplored territory.
There are many other types of podcasts. Game shows, Game of Thrones analysis, monologues of people ranting, LeVar Burton reading books, fictional stories, concise explainers, music playlist podcasts…
Don’t be afraid to try something new. If you figure out a new podcast format, you might create a smash hit.
But also don’t be afraid to try one of the formats that is proven to work. Whatever podcast you decide to make will be inherently different than anything that came before it.
Whatever type of podcast you want to make, Podsheets can help you get started.
Let us know in the comments if you have any questions about how to get started.
