I've come to love Threesomes...
(In the Morning)
I’ve been thinking a lot about Breakfast radio this week and the casting of morning radio.
There was a time when really there were only two choices at breakfast, an affable solo male presenter, or a male and female double act…
But nowadays things feel a bit more diverse than they used to, but still nowhere near the magnificent madness of an Elvis Duran Morning Zoo…
The double act with two males has become quite a thing, it’s usually funny, or at least attempting to be funny but can sound a little old fashioned and monotone in a world where we are more used to a blend of different voices and genders in our day.
Two female presenters at breakfast has never seemed to click with an audience in the same way, although I’ve heard some pretty good female double acts outside of Breakfast – I think 2FM’s weekend show with Roz Purcell and Emma Power has real potential.
Sometimes, it takes Three
For me, my current favourite type of show is a threesome… Most recently Dave Kelly and I worked with Cork’s Red FM to build a show with Olympian Rob Heffernan, Comedian Laura O’Mahony and Presenter Extraordinaire Ciara Revins.
I really like a show that has two strong female voices and a male in the middle, it creates a really entertaining dynamic and with a talented team, you can switch the dynamic and the allegiances depending on the topic and the storyline. Rob, Laura and Ciara had huge potential, we were hoping to build a show that wasn’t quite like anything else in the Cork Market, but as is the way with these things, the station changed hands and strategies shifted.
I’ve heard some really good work from Emma, Dave and Aisling on Spin 1038 in Dublin too, it’s a fresh and modern threesome, again with two strong females and in Dave, a really clever and thoughtful male host, who knows when to speak and when to step back. I was genuinely surprised they didn’t get a radio award nomination.
Casting the Right Voices
The critical thing when you’re casting shows with multiple voices is that they must each be clearly identifiable and distinctive to the audience. That’s almost more important than the personalities or the role, the first thing has to be that the audience can tell who is who, it sounds simple, but believe me it’s not!
The next critical piece is about co-ordination – no talking over each other, understanding and listening to each other and that magical sense that a crew develops for when a joke has hit it’s peak. If three people can land a punchline neatly, you know you’re on to a winner.
My love of threesomes doesn’t just end at Breakfast time either, my current favourite podcast is Smartless, which has three male voices, but each one is distinctive and they know each other so well that it really works
It’s Will Arnett, Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman, so I don’t think they need much in the way of coaching or notes from me, but I really do love the way they engage with each other and it’s the tiny sidebar comments that genuinely make me laugh out loud.
Good News for Podcasting
I’ll always find time in my day to skim through James Cridland’s excellent Podnews daily newsletter… If you don’t already subscribe, you should - https://podnews.net/go-subscribe/
There were two really interesting reports this week, one from the US and one from the UK
The US report is from Nielsen and it looks in detail at the state of Podcasting in America, and it’s looking pretty healthy
https://content.nielsen.com/PodcastingToday
64% of the US population have listened to a podcast, but more interestingly, 42% have listened in the last month and 31% in the last week… That suggests that Podcasting has really found a place in American ears and it’s showing real staying power as a medium.
It’s still only about a third of radio’s weekly listening number, but podcast is still a pretty scattered world, not anchored to habit in the same way that radio is – and it really is a self-selecting medium – you don’t find podcasts on your car radio, or in your kitchen…
Having said that, I really think the Smart Speaker in the kitchen is such a powerful gateway for audio, it’s versatile, simple and because of voice commands, it easily becomes part of your routine without any need for technical knowhow.
The Nielsen report also shows how many podcasts people are listening to, averaging 9 a week, which seems extraordinarily high… and the audience base is pretty wide too, with 53% of the 12 – 54 audience listening each week.
There’s a whole host of other good news in there too for podcasters, listening time is increasing, listening while in transit is growing and it’s growing across a really diverse audience too.
The biggest single category is comedy, with True Crime, Society & Culture and News all tying for second place…
Comedy Podcasts
That ties in with another interesting study, this time from Global in the UK, which shows that Comedy is a huge growth area for them in podcasting.
https://global.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Show-Me-The-Funny-Comedy-Report-Global-2023.pdf
It’s interesting to see the importance of comedy, when it’s really not something that radio does well, or at all. Yes, we have funny people and sometimes funny shows, but it’s very much a secondary aspect of radio after music and information, company, banter etc…
I’ll definitely come back to this in more detail another time.
This has been the 11th official edition of the RAudio Newsletter
Just to recap, each week I’ll be taking a look at big stories in radio, podcasting and audio.
Any feedback, questions or potential topics are welcome – you can get me on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamthompsonconsulting/ or on Twitter @Maxliam