Podcasting Hacks

Adopt a Format for Your Podcast

Apply the elements of a format to your podcast to give listeners a reason to subscribe to your show.

To format or not to format. That’s a question many podcasters ask. Some believe formats smack of radio and are completely inappropriate to the ad hoc podcast, and others believe a format can help get content to listeners in the best way possible.

Deciding if a format is right for your show starts with understanding the term.

In its broadest sense, the term format refers to a show’s style. There are sports formats, talk formats, news formats, and others.

But more specifically, the term format refers to how material within a show is arranged. In that sense, a format is an invisible framework on which your content rests. For example, you can format a sports show in several different ways: you can feature a series of three quick interviews separated by music clips, or you can feature one long interview bookended by music clips. Both are sports shows, but they are formatted differently. How you arrange those blocks of sound is how you “format” your show.

Formatting starts with choosing an overarching theme for the show’s content. Will it be a political show, a review show, a music show?

Once you have a theme, envision your ideal listener. Start with yourself; how would you like to hear the theme approached? With one guest, or with many guests? With lots of music and not much talking, or the other way around? If you’re doing a music show, for example, you could ...