Month: August 2017

Assignment

For Monday’s class, post a pitch for your first assignment, a 15+ minute podcast that will follow a host interview format, with minimal editing. Who will you interview, and why is it interesting/relevant?

The Daily is a New York Times produced Podcast that narrates the most important news story of the day. Hosted by Michael Barbaro, the twenty-minute episodes air five days a week and consist of a deeper insight on major breaking news stories. The Daily is powered by the New York Times and I would say the quality of the production is quite high, and the dynamic of the episodes hook the listener up.

Michael Barbaro, in addition to being the managing editor of The Daily, has been a New York Times Journalist for a while now. Him having experience in the field makes it easier for him to bring reporters that are covering the breaking news. I enjoy this thoroughly because it is more detailed than the writing pieces in the New York Times, not to mention you are able to listen to interviews with the subjects.

I listen to it on my commute to college in the morning and it is extremely helpful when I am sleepy and would most likely fall asleep if I read the news. His narration wakes me up and actually interests me to the point that I get involved with the breaking news and listen to the vocabulary he uses.

Eddie Trunk is a radio personality well known for hosting shows dedicated to hard rock and heavy metal. His presence is well known in places like Sirius XM and New York’s own Q104.3 FM. Serving as an expansion to his Trunk Nation radio show, this podcast includes through interviews with artists, commentary on the latest hard rock and metal news, and reviews of the newest albums.

What makes this show unique compared to other music podcasts is how down to earth this show feels. Whenever musicians come onto the show, they’re not so much special guests but more like close friends of Trunk coming into the studio to casually hang out while promoting their latest endeavors. Trunk’s enthusiasm for the genre also wears off on the listener, especially with the interviews.

One recent episode featured the band Nickelback. Aside from talking about their newest album, the band brought up their early days and even brings up their thoughts on the hatebase that has followed them through the course of their careers.

While many of the recent episodes can be found on the show’s PodcastOne page, all episodes can be downloaded for free on iTunes.

No Sleep Podcast is a horror fiction podcast that surfaced on Reddit in 2010. Voice actors share “Tales intended to frighten and disturb,” that are roughly 15 minutes each. The audio quality is very good, but the content isn’t. I frighten somewhat easily, but for a very successful horror podcast that has thousands of followers, it wasn’t even remotely scary. I listened to a few episodes to give it a chance, but it just didn’t work for me. No Sleep Podcast is distributed on Apple Podcasts and Android, and there are several episodes on the podcast’s website to introduce new listeners to the series.

Black Hands is a podcast revolving around the 1994 Bain family murders in Dunedin. Of the six member family there was only one survivor, David Bain. The subsequent trial deemed David guilty of the murder of his family. To this day he claims innocence, and refers to a pair of mysterious black hands that no pathologist has confirmed the meaning of. Martin van Beynen is the narrator and lead interviewer of the ten part series, which uses a mix of actors restating witness accounts, recordings of David Bain’s trial, and the input of various researchers and scientists. Van Beynen explores the case from start to finish but begins the story before the trial, giving accounts of each of the personalities within the Bain household.

The podcast is captivating from the first episode as it introduces the eccentric (crazy) matriarch and her strained relationship with her husband, who would be the prime suspect if it weren’t for his own murder.

The production value of the podcast is relatively low, yet they have a team of ten people producing it. However, the depth of research done by the ensemble and raise its value.

Peter Rosenberg, well known for his on the air personality at New York Hip-Hop Station Hot 97, has a podcast about the world of Pro Wrestling in the WWE entitled Cheap Heat.  The Podcast is intended for WWE fans who want to hear the opinions of on the air personalities that share the common finding of the wrestling industry.  From what I have listened to I would say it is mainly host interview.  The people on the panel all debate and analyze their take on what happened in the news of the WWE and what they feel is needed to help a particular WWE Superstar strive and get a push in the business.  The host would have a guest every so often on the podcast and they give their take about how long they have been in the industry and what life is like for them out side of the WWE.  It gives fans a chance to connect with the superstar on a level outside of what they see from their character on TV.  The podcasts is linked with the ESPN website.  So if you were to go under the podcast category of the site and select the sport in which it is in, it would be one of the top choices.  It it also advertised on the personality’s social media bio’s.  The podcast is distributed through Apple podcasts.  I would say it is a fairly popular podcast.  I follow Peter Rosenberg on Twitter and when the WWE has news or when they release the podcast you see him interacting with his twitter followers and responding to the comments they had to say about the latest episode. Occasionally I see him quote a fans tweet about a particular topic that should be introduced on the newest episode and he responds with positive feedback.  I would say to start with the latest podcast since it is a reaction to latest Summer Slam Pay per view and gives you a glimpse of what is in store for the superstars moving forward.

When the creator of a podcast names their podcast, “The *insert creator’s name here* Podcast” you are in for a treat. Joe Budden is a retired Hip Hop artist/lyricist who represents the older generation of Hip Hop fans who simply don’t enjoy the newer acts the genre has to offer. His rants on today’s ‘mumble rap’ era has led to viral memes and gifs that anyone can use to express their emotions on social media.

Joe Budden is joined by his friends Rory and Mal, and occasionally a special guest to discuss Hip Hop and the culture surrounding it. The podcast produces episodes that are around 2 hours long and you can listen on soundcloud, or download the podcast episodes on iTunes. You can also watch the video podcasts on YouTube. The podcast has over 106,000 subscribers on Youtube and 37.5K followers on soundcloud. A good introduction to the podcast is “Kill Jay Z & The Story of O.J.” which is a episode where Joe Budden goes into depth with the first two songs off Jay Z’s new 4:44 album. It is a 8 minute snippet and if you’re a hip hop fan and you enjoy that, I recommend watching the full hour episodes.

Listening to a podcast has never been my interest, so finding one was kind of hard for me. I just finished season 12 of Criminal Minds and decided to search some podcast about criminals or crime stories. I did start listening to Serial, but didn’t want to write about it because every knows about it.

I stumbled upon a podcast, Serial Killers, which is a narrative about the killer and who he or she was and why did the killer do the things he or she did. It takes you into a journey to really get to know the killer and its psychological mental state.

This podcast is intended for people who are interested in crime/criminals. The hosts are scripted and from what I have listened to it’s a male and a female talking to each other in a story format and also finish each other’s sentences. The type of advertising they do is during their commercials, and it’s about their sponsors, Casper, hunt a killer, blue apron and The Sinner. I think you can start with any episode because each episode is dedicated to one serial killer, so it depends on which one you are interested on.

The Adventure Zone is a live-play Dungeons and Dragons podcast hosted by Griffin, Travis, Justin, and Clint McElroy. Dungeons and Dragons is a tabletop game that involves dice and a lot of roleplaying improvisation, so the podcast is exactly that. Travis, Justin, and their father, Clint, roleplay as their characters: Magnus, Taako, and Merle, while the youngest son, Griffin, is their DM (Dungeon Master) and guides them through the world with his words and plays every NPC (Non-Playable Character) that they come across.

It’s a podcast that originated from another series that the brothers do, so it was initially intended for fans of that podcast. However, it grew and attracted people from the “nerdier” side of the spectrum, as well as young adults that are interested in this form of interactive storytelling. It is all unscripted except for a basic plot that their DM, Griffin, has outlined and features music scored by the aforementioned.

There is advertising in the podcast, usually sponsorship from companies like Blue Apron. Other times, it is sponsored wholly by their network, Maximum Fun. They have a yearly drive to encourage listeners to donate and also sell shoutouts (“Jumbotron”) that are read by Griffin in the podcast during their ad breaks.The ads are usually in the middle of the episode.

The Adventure Zone is a pretty popular podcast with more than 130,000 subscribers and 80.7k followers on their Twitter account. It definitely made positive waves with their portrayal of sexually diverse characters. It can also be argued that their podcast made Dungeons and Dragons popular again among younger generations. A graphic novel based on the adventures of their characters is set to be released next year.

They recently finished their first season, the Balance Storyline, which has 69 episodes split into 8 arcs. A good place to start is episode 2 or at the second arc: Moonlighting. It is serial in nature, so for the best experience, starting at Episode 1.5 is fine, as long as you’re alright with vague discussions about the rules of Dungeons and Dragons.