The three mistakes most interview podcasts make (and how to avoid them)
Judging my third award show in the last year and a half, I’ve heard dozens of different interview podcasts at this point (and I take notes on every single one). Evaluating so many different podcasts, I saw I was getting frustrated that so many interview shows make the same three mistakes, which make their shows less interesting, less differentiated, and less likely to keep listeners sticking around.
I discuss further in the video, but here they are, and then the three solutions:
Three common interview podcast mistakes:
Starting with the get-to-know-you chitchat and reading the guest’s bio.
Playing the entire interview exactly as it happened.
Not using narration
Three interview podcast solutions:
Start with a “cold open” — a provocative or intriguing quote. (Then go back later and introduce the guest. Don’t include the “Hi, welcome, glad to be on your show” . . . they wouldn’t do it if they weren’t glad. It’s boring and unnecessary.
Edit: cut that interview way, way, down. Inside every rambling 53-minute interview (conversations are rarely linear and uniformly interesting) is a punchy, information-packed 28-minute episode waiting to get out. Voice-to-transcript tools like Descript make visual editing so much easier.
Use narration to strengthen the episode: cue up the interview, build suspense, recap topics at the end, and fill in gaps or move the story along. Interspersing bits of narration also makes a podcast more engaging by providing the contrast of different voices.
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