What Does A Podcast Producer Actually Do?

A Producer + an Editor = A Preditor. Two previously separate roles got combined through circumstance and technology into one efficient super-being working alongside its predecessors. But don’t be afraid, there is another new skills hybrid emerging to enter the battle for podcast producer supremacy.

We hunted, and bagged some of these different species and got their views on what they do best – and what’s coming over the hill.

Listen along with the audio episode

What Skills Does A Producer Need?

Some producers find the story, some pull all of the interview questions together, some give you coaching, while others focus on editing and assembling beautiful audio.

So, on behalf of people who may be thinking of becoming clients, we asked ‘Which combination of skills do you need in your producer? What are they ? and how to work with the right person’.

In this episode we cover:

What does a producer do? What does the client bring as a starting point for a podcast? What should potential clients expect from their podcast producer, and what’s their remit?

Lead Producer, Martin Franklin from East Coast Studio gets some quality Zoom-time with fellow producers, Courtney Carthy, Nick McCorriston, and Louise Poole to explore the different dimensions of production on Planet Pod.

Links
Courtney Carthy (Linkedin)
Nick McCorriston (Linkedin)
Louise Poole (Linkedin)
Independent Music Podcast (Apple Podcasts)
State 51 (WWW)

Transcription

Martin Franklin
Hi, Welcome back to Metapod. This is Martin Franklin from East Coast Studio. And we are still deep diving into the world of podcasting and finding our things tick. So my question for this episode, what does a producer actually do?

I noticed that there’s quite a variety of approaches to production within the podcasting world. And I was kind of curious about how different people do it. I wanted to produce some sort of guidance for people who are perhaps thinking about producing a podcast or appointing a producer to produce their podcast, so that we just had a little bit of an overview of what what could you expect and the different approaches that different people take to, to do that work.

Once again, I canvassed, the Australian Podcasters group, and I had three sterling individuals step forward, willing to talk to me and just share their thoughts in a conversation. So in this episode, I’m talking to Courtney Carthy, from Nearly Media, Nick McCorriston from Sound Boy Audio, and Louise Poole, from Welcome Change Media. And I’m really happy with the conversations that we had, because each of them takes a slightly different approach to the craft of being a producer, which is shaped by their background and their particular aptitude and take on what they what they do best. So we get into what’s next for podcasting, music, copyrights, content strategy, and a whole load of other stuff, which, honestly, I hadn’t expected to talk about before I hit record on the conversations.

Courtney Carthy – Hearing the Potential

Martin Franklin 2:07
So let’s jump into the first conversation I had, which was with Courtney Carthy from Nearly Media, he’s got a really strong radio background, spending almost a decade as a producer for ABC, he very kindly squeezed this interview into his journey from one place to the other in his car. So you will hear the sound of the car in the background. And I did think I could spend a bit of time cleaning up the audio and removing the various traffic noises that are in the background. But actually, I kind of like how it, how it sounds, he’s in the car, and he’s talking to me through his Airpods. And this is what it sounds like:

Radio Production

Martin Franklin 2:50
I know your background is originally as a reporter, and then producing in radio, I wonder if you could just give me your take on what’s involved in the producer role for for radio.

Courtney Carthy 3:04
It’s basically everything but speaking on air, is how I used to think of it. So I didn’t sort of get myself boxed in about, you know, what was or wasn’t part of my job. I think before I worked in radio, I really didn’t appreciate or media, you know, Southern first media sort of, like, role that I had was student radio. But I never appreciated how much work there was outside of the final product. And whenever I hear producer, I just think, you know, like, the person that does everything that knows what’s going on everywhere. You know, that can that can yell at someone, not that I yell at people, but you know, that can identify, can see the end but knows where to start?

Martin Franklin 4:02
Yeah. So in terms of the shows that you worked on, could you just kind of go into what’s involved in from a production point of view?

Courtney Carthy 4:14
Yes. The bulk of my time at ABC Radio, and, you know, radio in general, was as a live radio producer. So that would be like, you know, finding stories briefing, the host briefing the talent, deciding how we were going to cover a story. So, you know, effectively acting like a bit of an editor you know, sort of more like a newspaper editor, not an audio editor. And then, you know, pushing the boundaries of, you know, what, sort of, you know, angle we might take or, you know, how we respond to something or what the audience might like, and thinking about how that fits into the overall show in the overall context of, you know, where we were, you know, broadcasting.

It would be physically, you know, physically getting on the phone, calling people, you know, as fast as you can, so that you can get people booked on that show, either the same day or the next, you know, couple of days. And then live producing the show. So that would be directing the host, updating the host, managing guests coming in and out. Cutting audio, getting audio, dealing with technical problems, answering the phones, pushing the buttons on the desk, sometimes dealing with legal issues, choosing music. You know, there’s a whole host of stuff that goes on, as you know.

Podcast Context

Martin Franklin 5:52
Yeah. So that’s, that’s great. So can we move on to how does that roll transfer into the world of podcasting, as far as how you do it?

Courtney Carthy 6:02
Well, the ability to conceptualise and then conceptualise audio, and hear it before you’ve heard, it is probably the biggest thing, I spent so much time explaining what shows will sound like and show formats, how they’ll run to clients or, you know, just people, you know, that don’t work in podcasts. But you know, we’d like to have a podcast made or, you know, helping me with a podcast show.

People can’t perceive what it’ll be like, you know, if you say, you know, we’ll have a cold open where you’re speaking for maybe 30 seconds, and then we’ll hit some music, and then that’ll fade out into a second introduction that’s got, you know, the proper sort of show, you know, theme and this and that. And then that’ll go into the interview. And then we’ll do a little bit of voiceover in the interview, you get through all the details, and people just can’t hear it, like people that work in you know, radio, or podcasting or audio production can hear it

Martin Franklin 7:05
With you taking such experienced role in shaping the podcast, what did the clients bring to you as a starting point?

Courtney Carthy 7:15
They usually want a story told or a message conveyed. So they want they want to tell people about how, yeah, their customers that had a great experience, or that they’re, you know, Senior Manager is really knowledgeable about something or update their staff on, you know, weekly things. Often, it’s something that they’re interested in. And you know, that’s, that’s fine. But it usually often often has to be shaped a little bit to make it interesting beyond their immediate team. And, you know, what’s interesting in one context is absolutely uninteresting in another context. And that’s, that’s not saying that any context is better than another. But podcasts traverse, you know, several contexts, whether that’s online, somebody’s listening, you know, privately or, you know, you’re trying to get listeners publicly.

Martin Franklin 8:22
You know, a few years ago, I worked in the culture sector in the UK, and for one of the organisations that I used to work for, we had a media company come in to do some consulting on a project. And they started saying to us, “you need to find a preditor” to do a particular role. And this is the first time I’ve ever heard this amalgamation of two roles. It’s producer, editor, so someone who can conceptualise your content, and then actually create it and edit it gets you from the start right to the finished content.

So we’ve heard from Courtney Carthy, who I think is very much coming from the producer direction. And now we’re going to hear from Nick McCorriston, and then coming up after Nick, there’s an indication I think of a fourth roll, which is somebody who can do that end to end production, plus, do a little bit of strategy around it as well. And it’s probably one of the things that we do here at East Coast Studio.

Nick McCorriston – Game Community

So let’s jump into the interview with Nick McCorriston. When you popped up on the Facebook thread, you kind of introduced yourself as an engineer and editor. Yeah. And I know I’ve just had a quick look on your, your website and you’ve got production duties as well. How do you see the difference between those different roles?

Nick McCorriston 9:50
It’s interesting because I do generally prefer the editing side of work. I like the that’s the where I feel skilled. And that’s where I feel creative. I feel as though in the industry these days when a company says they’re looking for a producer, they’re looking for someone who’s a script writer, they’re looking for someone who is ready to write copy that is ready to churn out more of a commercial, the commercial end of a product, as well as have some skills in digital editing and in in, yeah, digital production and, and generally, some sort of an idea of how to make something sound good. But that’s definitely not a priority.

So I tend to step away from jobs that pitch specifically as looking at looking for a producer, I like to focus on making the shows that I work on sound good and consistent, rather than sort of focusing too much on an aspect of the shows that I’m not very skilled in and that I’m not confident in Yeah, achieving an end goal with so yeah, like, for me, editing is about Yeah, providing the best experience for a listener that they can consistent experience for a listener. And that’s through you know, conforming to loudness standards, so that shows generally sound all the same and sound consistent so that listeners don’t have to grab for a volume knob every time they switch your show.

Martin Franklin 11:33
Yeah, it’s that real sort of technical production level. So when you take on clients, what do they what do they come to you with as far as their their podcast goes?

Destiny Community

Nick McCorriston 11:45
That’s a wide range of stuff. I mean, I’ve worked with a number of different people over the last five years, I’ve kind of been working in podcasts in the last five years, I started on a more of a twitch panel show, so focus specifically on a video game called destiny. So it was a podcast called The Destiny Community podcast, and we’d have four or five hosts, and then a guest on top of that. So we’d have a lot of audio that would come in each week.

Martin Franklin 12:14
It’s a lot of editing, when you get more than three people, it into a whole other level

Nick McCorriston 12:18
Well, it becomes it becomes about priorities, then and the show would run for two, two and a half hours. So the priority wasn’t necessarily editing anything, editing people’s ums and ahs and stuff out of it, it was really just making sure the product was produced and ready to go and ready to be published. Then I started putting the audio on on the video content side of it as well and pushing that out, and that kind of gave me my my my leg up in getting things going. And then from there, I’ve really only sort of had people contacting me in regards to my skills in the last couple of years really, up until then it was me chasing work and me, essentially looking for listening to podcasts and loving podcasts and enjoying podcasts and identifying the shows that I thought that I could improve on. And then contacting them directly, just cold messaging them saying I think I can do this for you. I can do X for you. For this much. Is that amenable to you? And they’d say yes or no? And then we’d go from there. So

Martin Franklin 13:23
Yeah. So from a practical point of view, when when you get a client who says yeah, I, you know, I’m sold on having you work on the show, what are they? What do they sort of supply with for you.

Nick McCorriston 13:35
It varies from person to person and content to content. I work with a couple of content creators at the moment who are primarily focused on YouTube these days, but they have podcast sides of their content. Jared Kimber is my main client. He’s a cricket journalist, who’s based in Australian based in the UK. And we started by him, essentially, just servicing me with a couple of audio files that he recorded with with the guest as an interview. Mostly Zoom calls just like this.

I take the good quality audio recording of jarred and clean that up, and then take the Zoom call of the guest and essentially run that through processes to just try and clean that up as best as possible. And make that sound not as harsh as a Zoom call might make something sound sometimes. That’s kind of where I got a lot of the basis from my work was sort of doing that and people spotting spotting that. And sort of Yeah, but my pitch is that I can make better audio sound good or more listenable? So that’s kind of what I pitched to people is that

Martin Franklin 14:45
yeah, and you find people are responsive to that idea that if they sound better?

Nick McCorriston 14:52
Everybody’s been on Zoom a lot the last two years and everyone knows what that sounds like. And you want to try and avoid that as best as possible. Because it’s an experience that a lot of people have day to day still going into gym calls and meetings and having to put up with with the sound of people’s rooms over and over again. So yeah, it’s it’s definitely something that that’s been attractive. And yeah, my business or an uptick in, in business over over COVID just meant that I was more consistently working from home and just meant that more people had time to create content. And so that’s, that’s, that’s been the base of the business.

Independent Music

Martin Franklin 15:33
I had a look at some of the shows that you you produce, and funnily enough, I’ve just, I just followed one of them today, which, which was the Independent Music Podcast. I absolutely love the sound of that. And funnily enough, you’ve got the latest episode embedded on your site with a little sort of ticker of the title or something. And one of the artists who’s released gets covered in in this episode is an artist who I used to work with the UK. Yeah, great. Janek Schaffer. And he’s just got a, an album released with a collaboration with William Basinski. Yep. Amazing. So yes. ‘Oh, yeah. Janek’, gave a quick listen to it. And I thought, yeah, I, I really liked this. And what I wondered if you have any kind of guidance on his that use of copyrighted music in the show?

Nick McCorriston 16:32
Right. That’s it’s an interesting topic. It’s something that I’ve thought about the independent music podcast quite a lot. They specifically don’t pursue any licencing deliberately, that they offer the show as a service. And so any of the independent labels that they work with or speak to, they have a almost an unspoken agreement that it is essentially just a free promotion for them. So they get all right, they get companies, contacting them, essentially asking them to play them on the show. It’s not unlike a radio station, essentially. I

t’s operating as though it’s a free promotional service, essentially. And so that, yeah, they don’t necessarily pursue any of that. They haven’t had any issues with it so far. I’ve been with them for close to 200 Odd episodes, I think. And 150 Odd episodes. And they did. Yeah, about 200. Before that. So yeah, they’ve they’ve everyone’s been mostly just really warm. They mostly play labels that they know, Anthony Chalmers is? Well, both of them are former record label owners. Anthony Chalmers, runs Baba Yaga is hot in London, which is a booking, live concert booking agency. And so he runs the Raw Power festival in the UK. And so they both got pretty deep connections to independent labels.

They have a sponsorship from the State 51, who were independent label that they play a lot from as well. So yeah, they have close relationships with the labels that they play.

Martin Franklin 18:21
Thanks to Nick there for the information and the excellent sounding audio. So stick with me now, because we’re going into the web of content with Louise Poole.

Louise Poole – The Content Web

Martin Franklin 18:33
What should potential clients expect from their Podcast Producer? And what’s the kind of general sort of remit? Because different people kind of do it differently? So I just wonder, What’s your take on the producers role?

Louise Poole 18:49
Well, podcasting isn’t radio. So that I suppose that’s always important to realise from a production point of view, and from a listening point of view, as well. As when you email me that question about what does a product producer do? I actually thought maybe the question should be what doesn’t a producer do? Because it’s like everything in a way, depending on how much people want to invest with us in terms of time.

The biggest difference between, say coming from a radio production background and taking on clients as a Podcast Producer is when you’re in radio, you often are removed from the client when you’re making stuff up, someone gives you a brief and so you don’t have often have that direct interaction with you with them. And so talking to clients so much of it is less about the skills and more about being a bit of a life coach like a bit of a counsellor or a manager you it’s a kind of it’s it’s coaching the performance out of them but also helping them overcome nerves and and helping their guests overcome the nerves as well.

Coaching & Air Checks

Martin Franklin 19:56
I really like that approach. Could we just talk a little bit more about some instances of that, that that you’ve encountered where you need to actually work with the client in order to help them deliver what they want to

Louise Poole 20:12
We have a wonderful client who actually helps people overcome impostor syndrome, and is the first to admit that she suffers from imposter syndrome herself. And I’m constantly telling her, Don’t give away the farm, you don’t have to give everyone everything for free to prove to yourself that you are valid, which is always really interesting, because this is exactly the kind of stuff that she would say to other people to like, if you listened to any of her work her courses, she’d be telling people that as well.

So it’s, it’s often I’ll get a text message from clients where they, they might be having a bit of a, we got a record day set up on Tuesday, and it feels really overwhelming. And so it’s talking through that, let’s calm down. And let’s we’ve got these steps. If we just achieve this, you don’t have to worry about the big picture, we’re just going to focus on this thing for today. That’s all you have to focus on. It’s my job to worry about the big picture for us. So I think there’s a lot of that, and a lot of, and it seems to be something I would get in radio all the time where listeners would say I hate the sound of my own voice. And we never really hate the sound of somebody else’s voice. But when you hear yourself, a lot of people don’t like how they sound. And so there’s a lot of reassurances that you do sound good, this sounds great.

Martin Franklin 21:31
You’ve got a bit of a USP of having been an announcer yourself at some stage. So do you do you kind of use those skills in the coaching phase with clients?

Louise Poole 21:42
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, teaching them how to present ways to improve, you know, one of the things that we actually do offer ease with the clients that we have is we do do regular kind of regular airchecks of people’s productions. So we put it together. And then because I do full service as well, whereas a regular producer might not necessarily take it all the way to the post production stage. I can tell them, Okay, well, here’s all the crutches that I’ve edited out. And here’s where we can improve on that, uh, you know, if you pause before this if we do a bit more research on this. And I think that’s really quite valuable actually, to come at it from not just a technical point of view, but actually a performance point of view.

Martin Franklin 22:24
So when when clients arrive at your door, what do they typically sort of bring with them as far as the podcast that they would like to have produced?

Louise Poole 22:35
They have ideas, and I think they have a lot of dreams and visions. And what we do is to take all those ideas and put them into a tangible, workable strategy to bring what they hope they want to make to life, in a practical sense, as well. So and also fitting within I suppose the budget on that too, because, you know, everyone tells me they love true crime podcasts. But the amount of production that goes into a true crime style podcast is not necessarily accessible for most people who want to start a podcast. Yeah, so it’s sometimes having those conversations.

Content Strategy

Martin Franklin 23:11
The other thing I was curious about is you mentioned about content creation, do you get involved in that side of things as well? Or like, helping people to produce content to promote what they do?

Louise Poole 23:22
Yeah. So that’s, that’s the actually. And I probably would say, we have more clients, in least in the early days, because we’ve only been running the business out for a year that are coming from a more of a spinning of content side.

So lots of things to do with social media videos, article writing. So we design this concept called the the content web where we see content, whatever that piece of content is, whether it’s a podcast, or whether it’s a course that you’ve written as the spider in the middle, and you can spit it out to all these different places on the web. And you know, that that 130 minute podcast could become five different articles on LinkedIn, it could become, you know, 10 different static posts, it could we could turn it into, you know, those three minute long minimum Facebook videos that fit the algorithm and Reels and, or YouTube.

And then all those bits are also interchangeable, like because the content feeds itself. You could then say, well, from that podcast episode, maybe that’s the start of a micro course. But then if we move it around the micro course have the spider in the middle could then also shoot out the podcast. Yeah. So we really work with people on repurposing, and that’s probably a big thing that came from as an idea from my radio background repurposing, and recycling because people don’t listen to all the thing all the time in radio. That was a very good way to put it, but you could run the same break across three different days of the week, and it’s not the same audience listening at the same time.

And social media is a bit like that. as well, because the algorithms only push out your content to a certain percentage of people. So repurpose recycle, and you save yourself a lot of headache.

Martin Franklin 25:08
Yeah, I have a similar similar concept that I tried to promote to a lot of my people, but I find even people who are marketers, kind of seemed to sort of struggle to adopt that. Sometimes I wonder whether they sort of see your podcast as something which is isolated, you know, in itself, it’s just like, oh, we’ll do this extra little thing. But the idea of integrating it into a whole cycle of messaging seems to be something which is kind of harder than it should be. I don’t know, hahah

Louise Poole 25:46
No. No, I know. Like, we actually think of the idea. Do we call it a podcast? Like what we’re doing? It is a podcast. And that’s how people no it but I also think there’s this perception that people have a podcast is two dudes sitting in a closet talking shit. And that’s not necessarily what it is either. It can be a really powerful branding tool to integrate into your whole strategy. And yes, yes, definitely, in getting people to understand that it is it’s a powerful thing that is part of a whole, like, I don’t think that you could just have a podcast for your business. And that was the only way that you marketed.

Martin Franklin 26:25
But so you’re talking about content strategy, really, aren’t you?

Louise Poole 26:29
yeah, I am down to content strategy. So I know we were talking about what does the Podcast Producer do that but I suppose a really good Podcast Producer was thinking of the whole picture. How do you make this work for the person that you’re trying to help succeed?