c4countdown

The fifth episode of the Focal Talk podcast, and the first one in full video, is out now here.

Hope you all enjoy!

Gents, Mark, hi. So, I appreciate the intent, and the video element helps. It is however really too long. Tighten everything up to an hour - if you can't think of anything to say, don't feel as though you have to - be strict in the edits, and you can turn this around in a quick hour. You have a niche audience here to begin with, and while that is very OK, you're only going to make it nicher if the arcane subject matter is paired with excessive length. Please take this as constructive feedback and not a snipe, thanks!

Though I have criticised the length of the podcasts, I do like the potential to have a longish chat so I would probably just chop them into separate podcasts and maybe release two a month.

Hi Mark! Thanks for the feedback, and don't worry: it comes across as very constructive.

The length is the most common point of feedback, but as I've said to it every time: the entire point of this podcast is to have unrestricted and not contrived conversations. I just don't think this is possible while imposing a time limit on a conversation.

We don't actually set out to have long conversations necessarily; we just chat until we've chatted about everything we think there is to chat about, and stop when it ends. In some cases (such as with Tom Carey) we've specifically had to end the conversation early because we were conscious it has gone on for a while despite still having stuff to talk about.

To engineer a shorter conversation would not be a different version of this podcast. It would be a fundamentally different show. One based more around producing a punchy, more expedient end product rather than basking in the journey of conversation, however long that takes.

I'm sure that'd be a good show, and if there is indeed an appetite for such a thing then that's great, and I'll l join you all in looking forward to seeing it come about. But it won't be this show, and it won't be from me. That's not what I set out to do with this podcast.

But why not have one per podcast?

Gavin Chipper wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 7:31 am But why not have one per podcast?

We could release each guest chat separately. But if we were to do that, I would like to then stitch the chats together, with the intro and outro that Paul and I do, into a 'this month on the Podcast' anyway. In which case, why bother going to the effort (which is hours of tedious work) of clipping and chopping and preening and scrutinising the individual chats for which bits to release, when the only end product is something which can be found in the longer form anyway? We try to timestamp the releases (sometimes it takes us a day or two to get round to it) with the start/end times of the individual chats anyway. To upload the chats separately would be for me to spend hours of my time to save you seconds of yours. Sorry but I'm not willing to do that!

If people want just a portion of the longer podcast, they can go to the longer podcast and just watch/listen to that portion. They might say that this takes some effort and time to find the portion they want. To that I would say it takes much, much, much more effort and time for me to preemptively do that for them and release everything separately, after which they may still have to do it because each individual listener may want a different portion to the other, so they'll still have to pick and choose what they're looking for, even within the already edited version.

Basically:

If you want a short, punchy, structured, bullet-point contrived chat then that's not what this is. Sorry it doesn't cater to your wishes, but it was never designed to and never claimed to. I hope something comes along that does.

If you want unrestricted chat that allows for expansive long-form discussion, but despite that only want to listen for a short period of time, then just listen to a short segment of the podcast! I'm not going to preemptively segment them up for you because a) that takes far more time and effort than I either have or am willing to expend (and far more time and effort than it would for you to just find the segment you want for yourself), and b) I don't know segments you (or anyone else) wants, and if I get in to the game of guessing what people might want then there'd be dozens or hundreds of possible clips and segments to arrange, which would be more than a full time job.

Callum Todd wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:18 am We could release each guest chat separately. But if we were to do that, I would like to then stitch the chats together, with the intro and outro that Paul and I do, into a 'this month on the Podcast' anyway.

Or you could not stitch them together, and say "This fortnight on the podcast..."

I know that would mean twice as many intros and outros of course though. Now that I've got into listening to them, I'm less bothered about it because I'm used to it, but there's always the worry that there are people out there that see the length and run away screaming, or think to themselves that they will listen at some point but never get round to it. I know logically people can just listen in parts, but that doesn't necessarily turn off the initial dauntingness of the length even if it is an irrational phobia.

But anyway, that aside, I am really enjoying your podcasts, so definitely keep them going. I liked the contrast of your guests this month - one of the greatest Countdown players and internet forum troll.

The one-guest formula could work, I suppose. It would be interesting to hear if people preferred Episode 3, in which we had just one guest, to other episodes.

Quite rude of you to imply that Jack is a troll there.