fresh (they/them): hey bro!! may i have your pronouns?

sans (he/him): sure. he/him.

fresh (he/him): thanks! B)

sans ( / ): [WA]-[IT]

VIDEO DIDN’T KILL THE RADIO STAR...

VIDEO DIDN’T KILL THE RADIO STAR it just made him dress nicer 

By Pat Mellon 

Speaking of your brand evolving, PODCASTS are now a wise bullet to have in the arsenal of promotional weapons. In the early 2000's, for instance, you didn't have the option to record and distribute a PODCAST. The technology didn't exist to even IDENTIFY, much less create one- if you typed PODCAST into an email in 2002, it would have been flagged as a misspelling. 

But now, thanks to Audioblogging, re-branded as PODCASTING thanks to the iPOD, you can reach a targeted captive audience in a car on a long commute, with content that they've actually sought out. It's essentially a radio infomercial for the lifestyle of your product, without the PAID-PROGRAMMING aftertaste. Plenty of people have been slow to warm to the idea of such self-promotion and have waited to see if the technology and its effectiveness sustained or if it waned, the way QR codes did, or video discs did until the invention of the DVD. It can be an amazingly powerful part of your brand. 

Many rejected podcasting, as I did initially, as a waste of energy. In fairness, early on when there were no networks for podcasting and its business model was less focused than now, it smacked of self-congratulatory volunteer work. I saw it as an infringement on my profession. I have 15 years of radio hosting experience. I saw podcasts as competition. In my short-sighted view then, I didn't see the full potential of a podcast. I just saw it as people wanting my job. But as time went on, I began to see the ways, at least in terms of in-car entertainment, that podcasting was the future. And like the cryptic fortune cookie says, "Kill Your Darlings". Or maybe go with the less-confusing, "Reinvent Your Business Constantly. The End Goal May Be The Same But The Tools and Methods Evolve Constantly" which is a Ken Tucker quote I saw on a Snapple Cap. Or even the more direct, "You Have To Reinvent To Stay Fresh and In The Game" which Madonna said once. 

But early on, I saw it as the enemy - the way news journalists must have felt when FREELANCERS started getting a lot of the work in the late 90's. I thought, "If all you need to broadcast is a computer and an opinion, why the hell did I major in Broadcasting? It's like everyone becoming a Youtuber or a Social Media Influencer (seriously, that is NOT a good name. It's just saying what you're doing. It lacks creativity, like naming the glass thing you drink out of a "glass". Or the room with the bed a "bedroom". Or the thing you swing on a "swing". Or the... Sorry-I'll move on.) Anybody can become a Social Media Influencer these days, (and if they're under 14 and haven't been trying for half their lives then you might want to make sure they're breathing) and that means fame, sometimes money, but more important: LIKES. I overheard my 8 year-old playing with her friends and they were pretending there was a genie or something granting wishes and one girl asked for a pony, and another asked for a house of chocolate, and my daughter asked for a million LIKES on her video. LIKES are currency for pre-teen popularity. And LIKES or even merely PAGE VIEWS can be currency in the grown-up world of business. My point is that anyone with a computer and a camera can make money on Youtube if they hustle. It's simply the new normal. It's great, if not dangerous. We've yet to see the fallout of a generation raised on Youtubing, unless, of course, you count cautionary tales like Logan Paul or Jo Jo Siwa, both of whom are rich. It's simply another entertainment option for kids. I kinda thought podcasting was that, but for adults who only wanted quasi-fame; to show-off. But it's bigger than that.

If you're a plumber, for instance, and you want to maximize business, you probably want a decent social media footprint, some solid YELP reviews, and maybe even a podcast. Toilet clogged? Click here for an interview with master plumbers from all over. It's not the ONLY thing you should do. It's ONE of the things you should do.

On the consumer side, you have to realize that traffic, especially the bumper-to-bumper kind, is GOLD to a radio talk show host. People listen the most in their cars, so DJ's in New York and Los Angeles, the #1 and #2 radio markets depending on who you ask*, for instance, who entertain on the radio, are always on their toes to stay funny and relevant because it's so easy to push a button and change the station.

Then suddenly there was a new game in town. People were bypassing the radio altogether and plugging external sources into car sound systems, removing the commercials and unwanted Morning Zoo shenanigans, and rendering my entire college education and training void. My only hope was wishing death to the podcast movement, which I think I did a couple of times on the radio accompanied by a sound effect of a toilet flushing (Take THAT, Podcasting!). It didn't work. I kept hearing the word. Podcast. (eerie voice) PODD CAAAST! My head was in the sand. People would say to me, "you should do a podcast" and I'd cringe and wildly swing fists at imaginary ghosts who were accusing me of "Resting on your laurels" and "Holding on too tight.”

It took a while, but I get the appeal and, more importantly, the power of the Podcast. It's like a book-on-tape for the 21st century- 10 times as cool, though, because it's technologically relevant, and can be different every time you listen. So we agree that podcasts are real. And we acknowledge that there is room for many things on the dashboard of a car, be them outlets, or additional buttons. And we agree that the the way we do business is always changing and we have to adapt to some degree. So why all the hub bub? Because we can't have an intelligent conversation about the delicate existence of Podcasts without talking about Shane Gillis, the comedian who was hired and fired by Saturday Night Live in the same week last year. We need to understand the power of what it was that torpedoed his streetcar (tune into Mixed Metaphors with Pat Mellon Tuesdays on The Podd Couple, right after Poddamnit at 8, and Pod of Thunder with Gene Simmons at 8:17) He and a buddy do this show, this podcast, it's like a radio show but you don't listen to it on your grandpa's Victrola, you tether your MP3 player to the radio inside grandpa's Camry, and there's bad language, which there never is on traditional, boring old dumb talk radio, so right away, it's awesome (honestly, the only difference between Howard Stern on radio and Howard Stern on satellite is the F word) and the internet allows curses and take that, Mr. Suit and Tie, and this is going to be amazing. And on one particular show from 2018, Gillis said "chink" when describing someone in Chinatown. Not a huge scandal, but I guess you'd have to ask Roseanne Barr if the internet can get you into to any kind of trouble. She was exiled from the the entire US for a social media post that mentioned race and monkeys. And the same new normal that allows John Q. Anybody to do a podcast ALSO watches everything you do online and will sink you if it sees something it does not like. America can be confusing that way. Freedom of speech and freedom of complaining about freedom of speech are always at each other's throats, it seems. And you can't have it both ways. The guy who alerted the world to Bill Cosby's dating rituals online is loved by many but is also shunned by others, but that guy knows what he did and he knows not to complain about the ones who, well, complain. It's the price you pay.

The point is, you need to constantly be hustling and using all of technology’s modern tools to get your product out (they’re not burning DVD’s anymore) and maybe one of those avenues is a podcast with salty language, and maybe that podcast exists among your body of work that clients can enjoy whenever they want.

But we live in a new age of retroactive outrage. Eddie Murphy was on SNL and is arguably the most talented person the show has produced. He did a stand-up special in which he explores “What if Mr. T were a Faggot?” It was inflammatory and it was insensitive and it was homophobic (though that buzzword was still a decade from conception) because the premise of the joke- the attribution of homosexual behavior to a big, strong, black man being marginalized as solely predatory sodomy - crossed the line. When I spell it out like that it looks horrible. But it’s a simple comedic device: assigning unlikely behavior to someone for comedic purposes. It’s the fish-out-of-water gag. It’s why we had Mork, and Alf, and Balkie from Perfect Strangers. It’s Freaky Friday. It’s why The Rock playing a babysitter or a tooth fairy is funny. Murphy did this AFTER he was on SNL. But if has been released before he auditioned, do you think he’d have been hired? 

  Of course he would have. Because the Mr. T thing was a small part of that special (though, I recall, an extremely quotable part) and the people who didn’t like or appreciate the language didn’t have the bionic megaphone of the internet so they could get their outrage all over your conscience. The point is that your podcast is a reflection of your brand. You have to weigh your desire to speak freely and loosely with your desire to keep the Cancel Culture at bay. At a MINIMUM, though, you should keep things clean for your clients, listeners, and most importantly, your potential customers. Shane Gillis missed out of being on SNL and fame, instead on infamy because he broke one of society's biggest rules:he said something controversial out loud. Granted, it was in bad taste, but if that were a crime half of us would be in jail. It's just important to remember that your language on a work-based podcast should be professional, which I realize cannot be defined easily, but maybe stay away from slang and cursing. Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD.