The Daily Telegraph - Features

I love podcasts – but they are killing creativity

In a world where our free time is eroding and there are more ways to entertain us than ever before, the podcast has become a resilient mainstay. This seems strange, given that a decade ago we were talking about them as plucky upstarts, making minimal incursions into the world of mainstream radio.

Yet 7.6 million of us in the UK are now tuning into them every week, and the market is growing. There is a clear appeal – podcasts are easy to listen to while we “multitask” and cover every imaginable topic, from the general news agenda to in-depth discussion­s of old TV programmes and films. Some are ridiculous­ly niche (I have yet to listen to Muse Stories – An Unusual History of Gnomes), which does feel welcome in a climate of increasing cultural homogenisa­tion.

And yet I can’t help feeling that this form of entertainm­ent is bad for culture, that it offers something that is often formulaic, shapeless and prone to spawn pale imitations. Funnily enough, I was spurred to write this column because of something I heard on a podcast. On Marina Hyde and Richard Osman’s excellent The Rest

Is Entertainm­ent series, Osman was talking about the state of British comedy, linked to the Edinburgh Fringe. He pointed out that not many comedians have TV as a platform anymore, and in an age where the panel show is out of fashion and sitcoms are dwindling in numbers, this feels very true. But Osman also stressed that podcasts are very lucrative for comedians who now don’t have to filter their ideas through a production company. They can also liaise directly with advertiser­s.

Some of the biggest podcasts are those in which comedians merely conduct interviews, and certainly US shock-jock Joe Rogan – whose net worth is a reported $200 million – falls into that category. In the UK, the big successes have been podcasts such as Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster, and Richard Herring’s RHLSTP, which feature comedians interviewi­ng other comedians. I have nothing against this format, except that such shows often go on for far too long and would benefit from a stern edit, which in the glory days of Radio 4 comedy would certainly have been the case.

Podcasts work best if you are a comedian who thrives on the zeitgeist, where you can find an immediate audience – rather than waiting months for a gummed-up TV commission­ing process to green-light your show. Yet writing and editing is crucial and is something that many podcasts simply don’t bother with. While I admit that some creativity thrives on spontaneit­y, there is plenty of great work which is lovingly crafted over a long period of time. In comedy, this means that a supreme talent like Kieran Hodgson, who spends ages constructi­ng very precise pieces, is less likely to hit podcast gold. In fact, Hodgson did record a podcast series – Makes Art Will Travel

– about how creative people make their journeys, but I can’t swear that it was an out-and-out success.

But my issue with podcasts does not simply lie with comedy. The wider documentar­y format has suffered from the template that podcasts have set. Blame true crime, if you like. The hit 2014 series Serial was a masterpiec­e which, in its first outing, detailed the 1999 killing of US student Hae Min Lee through a fiercely forensic lens which has, perhaps, never been bettered. The problem is that Serial was too influentia­l and everyone with a true crime idea then clamoured to get their voice heard. The internet is littered with these shows, and they are of variable quality. More worrying is the fact that Serial’s success looms large in TV documentar­ies, too, which threatens the quirky one-offs, the more authored pieces which were once a crucial part of the TV ecosystem and have now all but disappeare­d. It is unlikely that a documentar­y auteur like Nick Broomfield (the director of Kurt & Courtney and The Leader, His Driver and the Driver’s Wife, about far-Right Afrikaner nationalis­t Eugène Terre’Blanche) would find a platform if he were starting out today.

Indeed, the one-off is a problem in general, and the podcast fuels the idea that everything has to be a series, a potential bingefest for the bored and the insomniaca­l to gorge on. I believe radio drama is particular­ly susceptibl­e. On the BBC, the main proponent of radio drama, the axing of the Woman’s Hour Drama and the Friday Drama means there are fewer outlets for aspiring and, indeed, seasoned playwright­s anymore.

It is true that drama podcasts are in relatively rude health (technicall­y you could argue that

The Archers is a podcast as it is offered in that format on BBC Sounds), but they are of the episodic variety and tend to conform to a certain structure like Life Lines, which is set in an ambulance call centre. While Audible, Amazon’s audiobook service, has come to the rescue with a few all-star adaptation­s such as David Copperfiel­d, executive-produced by Sam Mendes and starring Helena Bonham Carter, such undertakin­gs are few and far between. These commercial producers don’t have the capacity to make endless dramas, and if they do, more worryingly, they are going to plump for big-brand names rather than fledgling writers. Tom Stoppard started his career by writing short radio plays. Would a new Stoppard have their voice heard now?

I am not critical of the majority of podcasts – and I believe they offer a unique experience which radio can’t deliver – a deep sense of analysis, for example, which scheduled radio can’t compete with. However, when it comes to the more creative end of things, I think it’s time for a rethink. As they stand, podcasts feed the mind, but they do not feed the soul.