Tank, fly, boss, walk, jam, nitty gritty, you’re reading a podcast newsletter from the boy (me) from the big bad city (Swindon).
Fresh Air Towers might be in London, but the spiritual heart of Fresh Air (well, the legally registered office) is right here in the North of Wiltshire, just South of the Cotswolds, not far from Oxford, Bath, Cheltenham and Marlborough. Within a short drive, you can visit a White Horse, walk around an ancient henge, or lose yourself in the idyllic tucked-away villages of Gloucestershire. And, I tell you what, if you need to go to a betting shop, a Wetherspoons or a Cash Converters, you’re in the right place too. If you’re ever near Junction 15 or 16 of the M4 please pop in and say hi.
It’s quiet around here this morning. Richard, Director of Pressing Send on the Email, is on a romantic weekend with his lovely wife, Janet. As you read this, he’ll be wandering around the streets of Prague, soaking up the culture and remarking on the stunning surroundings as the chilly autumn winds blow in from the East. Meanwhile, Michaela – Director of Content and Head of Loud Nose Blows – is on a three-night girls’ trip with her bestie to Malaga. As you read this, she’ll be soaking up the culture [wine] and remarking on the stunning surroundings [the beach bar] as the sun shines down on her face. They’ll both have a lovely time for very different reasons.
This is Not a Beauty Podcast
Just occasionally, just every now and again, I use this newsletter to show off about a piece of work we’ve produced. And this is one of those times. This week saw the release of Series 2 of ‘This is Not a Beauty Podcast’ with Isabella Rossellini – a show from L’Oreal Groupe produced by Fresh Air in partnership with T-Brand – the content studio of New York Times Advertising.
This is a proper documentary piece, exploring the different ways that the concept of beauty is woven into our lives in sometimes surprising ways. Isabella explores science, health, sport, technology, business and relationships, with guests including Naomi Osaka and Deepak Chopra. Isabella herself is a stunning choice for presenter, with a voice that can melt steel and a cheekiness that makes the script come alive. She’s Hollywood royalty, and could easily have chosen to lazily phone it in, (much like some actual royalty do on their podcasts), but Isabella takes time to study the script and find ways to put her own spin on it, which is an absolute joy. She also embodies the spirit of the show – an actress and model who was shunned in her 40s for being too old, but who is now re-embraced in her 70s thanks to more enlightened times as a L’Oreal ambassador. That’s true beauty right there.
The other person whose brilliance is woven through the show is Senior Producer and Head of Cinnamon Buns, Eva. In partnership with the dream client team at T-Brand, Eva squirrels herself away to craft this series; preparing, recording, editing, mixing, and even being in it as the perfect science explainer. Anyone who ever suggests that brand podcasts are dry, or one-dimensional, or easy to make will be introduced to Eva and this series before they can finish the sentence. As you can tell, we’re all very proud of it, and we’d love you to listen right here.
Charles and Ozzy
If that subtitle made you think of Charles and Eddie of 1992 one hit wonder ‘Would I Lie to You? Fame, we can definitely be friends. What a song that was. Anyway, where was I?
Another terrific Fresh Air client is Helen Carter – Head of Channel Engagement for Mortgage Intermediaries at Barclays. Helen opened this week’s Inclusion Summit with remarks about how broad audience segmentation can be a blunt and misleading tool. To demonstrate the point, there’s a great analogy between His Majesty The King and the late great Ozzy Osbourne which is well worth a read right here.
More on AI Slop
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned ‘Inception Point AI’ which now claims to be the world’s largest independent podcast company because it creates over 3,000 episodes a week. They’ve now created over 160,000 episodes with their AI ‘personalities’ who are as real as the person in my dream last night who I had an argument with in an imaginary Tescos.
The podcast industry went pretty bonkers about whether this was actually the future that would take all our jobs, so James Cridland – podcast blogger extraordinaire – has interviewed the co-founder and CEO Jeanine Wright. Jeanine is of course bullish about the content and its legitimacy, and there are some interesting points in here about how the podcast discovery ecosystem still belongs in the 90s. If the only way to make people find your beautifully crafted show is still to spend thousands of pounds hoping that they type the correct thing into the Spotify search bar because they read about your show in The Times*, then maybe there’s a better way. Whether ‘scraping the belly of the internet to find what people are searching for and then instantly create a podcast where robots talk about that thing’ is the desirable answer or not, I suppose it’s filling a gap of sorts. For now, most of the podcast industry is still calculating that humans generally prefer to listen to other humans. I’ll let you know if this changes in what I expect will be my final newsletter.
*this is NOT the only way, but some people think it is.
Are You a Hammer?
Yesterday, I learnt the phrase ‘To a hammer, everything is a nail’. I’m not sure I fully understand what it means but I like it and I’m going to find a way to use it soon.
John Stapleton
This week, the world sadly said goodbye to broadcasting and journalism legend John Stapleton. John had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and in February was a guest on the beautifully made and brilliantly titled ’Movers and Shakers’. It’s a podcast made by six friends in a Notting Hill pub who all have the same diagnosis, including Jeremy Paxman, Mark Mardell and Rory Cellan-Jones. If you fancy spending a very pleasant 23 minutes with John, this is the place to do it.
Goalhanger at the Southbank
When you look around at who to admire in the podcast industry, aside from Fresh Air – the UK’s leading podcast agency for brands – you can’t help but end up with Goalhanger. Those of us who work in the business have to frequently take a moment to stand back and marvel at the extraordinary job that Gary Lineker’s gang have done in the last few years, driven by the success of, ‘The Rest Is .. ‘ stable. This week they announced a quiz book inevitably called, ‘The Rest is Quiz’ which will undoubtedly be in thousands of stockings, just about the dry tangerine.
And next summer they’re taking over the Southbank Centre for a whole weekend. The iconic venue is celebrating its 75th anniversary next year with aprogramme of events including celebration of youth culture curated by Danny Boyle, an exhibition by Anish Kapoor and, blow me, a weekend of sessions with all the Goalhanger shows. They haven’t just made a load of great podcasts; they’ve established themselves as members of Britain’s cultural fabric.
Goalhanger’s approach is: ‘We don’t chase algorithms. We build loyal communities, fuel word-of-mouth discovery, and create IP with real cultural impact’. The perfect antidote to the ‘Terminator 2’ future presented by Inception Point AI and a sign that this newsletter will still be around for a while. Gawd bless ‘em.
Clara Kavanagh is cosying down for Autumn…
If you’re in need of a break from the ever-terrifying news cycle, Good Hang with Amy Poehler is the podcast for you. It’s a warm, gentle hug. It’s a cosy cup of cocoa. It’s a lap blanket for your soul. Set up as the antithesis to some popular male-fronted 3-hour podcasts with meandering rambles about conspiracy theories. Good Hang invites a guest on for a funny chat about their lives and what makes them laugh. Before the interview, they begin each episode with a friend of the guest, who comes on to talk positively about them and to give Amy a question to ask during the chat. This is a lovely mechanic that gives you a broader picture of the guest and flips the idea of talking badly behind people’s backs. For me, interview podcasts are guest dependent. One or two feel crowbarred in as part of a press tour ie Idris Elba who was a very stiff hang. But then when Amy has SNL alumni on, the podcast is at its best – from the silliness with Seth Meyers to the sisterliness with Tina Fey. But the episode I’ve laughed the most at was with Regina Hall. This lovely warm glow feels like ASMR for your nervous system and lets you live in a little bubble of joy for an hour. So give your brain a rest, give your algorithm a rest and go hang.
Harry Lampert becomes boring (but not really)…
The podcast equivalent of accidentally mentioning your friend’s favourite topic and then sitting there while they infodump on you for a quarter of an hour, The Boring Talks gives you a deep dive into a topic that may seem dull on the surface but once you dig a little deeper, can turn out to be utterly fascinating (except for the occasional topic which is less exciting than staring at a blank wall). Episodes are the perfect length for a quick wander to the local shop and have covered all sorts of subjects including punny names within the Asterix books, the exciting world of pallets, figuring out when the world will really end (using information from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and of course…. the Argos Catalogue.
What we’ve been listening to this week
Last night of the Proms.
I know this was a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot to write it last week and I never said this was an entirely topical newsletter. Some magnificent and cherished things are turning 50 this year, including Fawlty Towers Ant & Dec, me and Bohemian Rhapsody. So, The Last Night of The Proms kicked off the finale with this phenomenal version of Queen’s masterpiece. Brian May played the guitar solo and Roger Taylor hit a big gong. Sometimes in the UK, when it’s all a bit grey and the news is sad, we forget we have joyful things like The Royal Albert Hall, Queen and the BBC. We do, and it’s great.
What we’ve been doing this week
I bought a new webcam. This might not sound a wildly exciting or notable move, but it’s one of those webcams where a little arm comes down and places the camera in the middle of your screen. For a while now, I’ve been conscious that I’m always talking to people on calls while they look down from the top of my 27 inch monitor with no eye contact. If I speak to them while they’re in a box in the corner, it looked fully like I’m talking to someone else. This way, I’m looking straight at you which will surely mean we feel more connected, and you’ll be even more enraptured by my enchanting conversation.
However, on installing it yesterday, I spotted the downside. It’s rare that in real life I have conversations where the other person’s face is only about six inches from my nose. Indeed, if this was my style I expect some awkward HR issues would have arisen by now.
Plus, this is a 4K camera meaning you’re looking at me both very close up and in very high resolution. Whilst discussing the latest developments in our podcast project, you can study every line on my face and every pore on my skin, which will definitely be more distracting on some days than others. Equally, maybe you’ll be mesmerised by my new eye contact as if I’m Ka in The Jungle Book. I’ll go with it for a while and see how many people are weirded out.
