Hello there!
I almost didn’t send this newsletter because I read it back and thought it was a bit boring, and then I remembered a comment under a recent Youtube video I made:
And fair play, I think they’re right.
Long story short, I’m doing a Beef and Dairy Network live show on Saturday 6th September in London. Tickets can be found here: IN-HALL and STREAMING tickets.
Short story long, it’s been ten years since I started Beef and Dairy Network Podcast. Ten!
I had wanted to make a podcast for a long time when I started B&DN - I got into podcast listening very early on. I remember a girlfriend I had at university introducing me to them - I think neither of us had an iPod at the time, we were listening on iTunes on her laptop. I then got an iRiver H120, a truly great mp3 player that I went on to leave on a Megabus a couple of years later. Occasionally I meet someone who also had an iRiver H120 - you don’t even have to talk to them about it, you can just tell from the way they hold themselves.
After university I moved home to Cardiff and lived with my parents for a couple of years. Two paths were laid out in front of me. I could either buy a fedora and begin writing a manifesto, or spend an absolutely huge amount of time on Megabuses between Cardiff and London to try and make inroads in radio and comedy. I went for the latter and was probably spending an average of 14 hours a week on coaches and so podcasts, and being able to tune out the smell of a ripe chemical toilet, were vital in keeping me sane. (In this period I was listening using a Sansa Clip MP3 player - another absolute beauty)
It’s generally thought that you can split the history of podcasting into three waves.
The first wave was the beginning. The term was coined in 2004 and iTunes added podcast support in 2005. I think I cottoned on in early 2007. My first podcast was Answer Me This - which feels like it must have been the first indie British comedy podcast? Maybe? And the Bugle! And the News Quiz. And also there were the American prestige-o-pods like This American Life and Radiolab.
The next wave is the mid-2010s - my “generation”. The big one was Serial, of course. And Adam Buxton, Elis and John, Reply All, Mystery Show, My Dad Wrote A Porno, Griefcast. Even though many of these pods were quite professional, podcasting still felt quite DIY-y then, and felt to me like a medium that was full of possibility. I think the idea that a podcast is some people just chatting on mic hadn’t yet crystallized into being THE IDEA of what a podcast is. (That’s not a criticism of those sorts of pods, I listen to many of them! The one I WILL NOT listen to is one that I think is called “Three Bean Salad”.)
The next boom was the pandemic-o-pods, when suddenly lots of celebrities realised that they could keep working by doing a podcast. WITH MIXED RESULTS. Lots of good stuff, and also lots of podcasts that the world just doesn’t need. I believe “Three Bean Salad” began in 2021.
What’s the fourth wave going to be? The trend now is that podcasts are moving to video - lots of podcasters are now building SETS to film their podcast on. Something that started as a thing that can be done cheaply with an £80 mic, some strategically placed duvets and a laptop is now TELEVISION. I read somewhere that the verb that under 30s associate with podcasts is “watch”. So maybe that’s the future? And maybe audio-only podcasting will die out like the iRiver H120? I hope not. But then I thought blogging would last forever. RIP blogging.
(My specific iRiver H120 didn’t die, I left it on a coach. I rang the depot to see if anyone had handed it in and they said no one had seen it. A LIKELY STORY I CAN HEAR IT GLINTING OVER THE PHONE)
I recently had a conversation with another podcaster who said that he’d been told by his advertising people that listener numbers are down for most “old podcasts”, by which they meant any podcasts that pre-date the most recent pandemic-o-pod wave. It was the first time I thought of Beef And Dairy Network as being an “old” podcast. Off the top of my head I would think the reason why “old” podcasts are slightly withering on the vine is explained by “old” podcasts not getting any buzz (in the media by-and-large the only podcasts that get written about are new podcasts), the competition hotting up, and people having enough and moving on. Or maybe us “old” podcasts aren’t used to the new way of doing things with video?
Anyway, I’m happy. I’m just looking at my numbers now and it looks like they’ve stayed relatively steady. A happy plateau. A loyal band of worldwide beefheads. The only interesting thing I can see is that for the first time now since 2016, there are more listeners in the UK than in the US. 40.2% of listeners are in the UK, 38.01% in the US. For most of the ten years the US has been in front. What does this tell us? Does it track the USA’s waning status as a world super power? Does it say something about the confidence at the heart of the American psyche? Would the USA intervene militarily if China invaded Taiwan? All questions that my podcast listenership stats simply can’t answer.
If you’ve listened at any point in the past decade, thanks for listening. And if you can, do come to the live show! They’re always fun. Although I haven’t had a single thought about it yet - who knows what it’ll be. But whatever it is it’ll expertly walk the tightrope of tedious and amusing.
Tickets can be found here: IN-HALL and STREAMING tickets.
Also I’m on a UK-wide tour with Three Bean Salad starting in September. Most venues are sold out or nearly sold out, but I have great news for you if you’re from Newcastle or Glasgow. Tour info here!