The Wardman Wire

I promised to post a few more detailed thoughts about the Daily Roundup was going.

Why a roundup?

My aims with doing a daily audio roundup are these:

• To experiment with internet audio programmes again - I was in on the early days of podcasting back in 2004.
• To provide a service in a niche that nobody else is currently addressing.
• I think that UK political blogs need to find some sources of revenue, in order to allow the time and resources to be put in to compete with the Mainstream Media bloggers who have come onto the scene in the last 18 months. I want to see if I can build enough of an audience to (eventually - probably very eventually) create a sponsored programme. The “magic number” for serious sponsorship is (apparently) 10,000 listeners - which looks frightening at first glance; we shall see.

I am already experimenting with a written roundup article, which provides a readily available set of notes - so that I am able to use the material twice.

Why a Daily Podcast?

A short daily programme works on a quicker “heartbeat” than a weekly show. That - in itself - is a strong differentiating factor, as few (any?) UK podcasters have attempted to maintain a daily frequency.

It is also possible to build (or find out that I can’t build) a reasonable audience in a shorter time.

As a final point, that 10,000 listeners I mentioned above can be seen as a weekly or monthly figure - which looks a little bit more achievable if it is divided by 6 (for 6 shows in a week) or 25 (for 25 shows in a month).

How to do it

Creating a daily podcast is straightforward, if time consuming. Distributing the podcast widely - and creating a wider audience - is a more interesting challenge.

I have a number of sites of my own, where I am using a variation on the “listen to my music” sidebar feature - borrowed from social networking sites (and at least one political blogger) - to put across political news.

I have been running a short “alpha” trial across my sites and a number of blogs of friends and colleagues who are kindly helping to test the system - these are currently highlighted at the top of the page. It seems to work reasonably well, although it has been interesting figuring out a way to collect credible statistics. I see the “alpha” trial as continuing for another week or two.

After that, I would like to experiment with a wider range of blogs in a “beta” trial - to see if I can build a wider audience and prove that the “infrastructure” can handle a wider distribution of the audio files. If you would be interested in participating, drop me a line - I will continue to promote sites participating.

At present I have two sidebar flash players - the “most recent 5 editions mini-Ipod” you see in the sidebar here, and a single track player with “today’s roundup” as seen in the sidebar of my Welsh Political Comment site.

Signature Tune

In the next day or two I’ll be adding a short signature tune to the programme. I have found a cracking jazz tune “Coolage” from an artist called Anne Farnsworth, who is based in Los Angeles.

Anne is also the (rather mmmm!) “Adjunct Professor of Jazz Studies” (Quiet at the back) at the University of South California Thornton School of Music.

Have a listen to the full track before I start chopping bits out:

Coolage is an instrumental track, so here is a vocal one. For me it resonates with memories of evenings spent at the 606 Club in Chelsea.

Wonderful evenings, but if you can’t afford Gauleiter Ken’s newly bloody expensive taxi fares it is a hell of a walk to the nearest night bus route. For that reason, the room and the clientele seem less “plush” than those at Ronnie Scotts (at least when I was there - but it was fun when the gaffer was in the chair).

This is “Star Eyes”.

Is it a success?

Defining “success” for a podcast is more difficult than it is for a blog.

First of all it all depends on your own criteria for “what is success”.

In this case I am wanting to achieve an audience and a circulation that merits the effort that needs to be put in to making an online audio programme. That will be the test.

Wrapping Up

One final point - it is both interesting and revealing that there are a lot of “ex-political podcasters” out there.

As far as I am aware, current independent UK political podcasters who have a track record of more than 12 months can be counted on the fingers of one finger.

Tags: political podcast, tory radio, jonathon sheppard, anne farnsworth, 606 club, jazz, politics daily, matt wardman, newspaper roundup[tags]political podcast, tory radio, jonathon sheppard, anne farnsworth, 606 club, jazz, politics daily, matt wardman, newspaper roundup[/tags]