What a year it has been for the podcast, which has a decent shot at being considered the most important cultural medium of 2024. Once the scrappy underdog of broadcasting, podcasts now sell out arenas and set the political agenda. They are inescapable.
They are also at times teeth-grindingly annoying. We first shared our podcast pet peeves – from live episodes to paying for pods – a few years ago, but since then the irritations have only piled up further. So we’re going to turn that whingefest into an annual event. Here are our five biggest podcast grievances of 2024.
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The triumph of looong podcasts
One of the many downsides of the US election result (admittedly a pretty minor downside compared with, say, the prospect of mass deportation) is that it has vindicated the makers of interminably long podcasts. Donald Trump and Joe Rogan’s three-hour word salad-athon is, the received wisdom goes, what won Trump the election, so we must all accept that such Tantric casts are what the people desire.
Except, I’m not sure they are. Yes, Rogan, Theo Von and that mob have their (very big) audiences – but plenty of us can’t really get past an hour of their stoner theorising, either. The majority of podcasts still, sensibly, stay the right side of the hour mark – so let’s keep it that way. Unless it’s a very special episode, keep your podcasts down to a manageable runtime: one or two commutes-worth at most.
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The YouTube-ification of podcasts
Podcasts started as a purely audio-only medium, which was great for those of us who wanted to listen to them while gardening/cleaning the bathroom/playing Super Smash Bros for eight hours. But then one day someone somewhere decided to record their pod and put it on YouTube. Now, it seems, every series is YouTube videos first, podcasts second. Which, for those of us still just treating them as podcasts, is intensely irritating.
In the YouTube era, hosts regularly seem to forget their audio audience altogether, neglecting to explain what they and their guests are wildly guffawing at. The effect is like straining to listen to an uproarious house party going on in the flat next door, with just as much Fomo.
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Everyone thinking they can do podcast interviews
Just because you have the A-list clout to host a podcast where you interview celebrities, doesn’t mean that you should be hosting a podcast where you interview celebrities. The rambling non-questions (“more a statement, really”) are bad enough; far worse are the endless love-ins. Listen, we’re not after Paxman verbally mauling a Tory junior minister here, but just the gentlest bit of interrogation would be welcome.
Again, I’m blaming Rogan for this one: he pioneered the “conversation, not interview” style of podcasting that has infected the whole medium. But Rogan does at least occasionally grill his guests (though usually when its a qualified scientist whose findings don’t conform with Rogan’s, ahem, unique beliefs): everyone else seems to be backslapping each other so hard you’re surprised they haven’t developed welts.
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Naming wrongs
Gary Lineker has built an enviable podding empire with his Goalhanger platform. But the one thing he can’t seem to acquire is someone who can come up with a decent name for a podcast. The Rest is History, is a good use of a familiar idiom and The Rest is Politics just about works as a play on that idiom. But The Rest is … Football? Entertainment? Money? Find another naming construction, we beg you.
Also needing retirement is the possessive verb podcast name (So and So Has Issues, … Has Questions, … Wants Answers, … Needs a Friend) and the “history but make it sound a bit edgy” format: Hardcore History, Bad History, Dark History et al.
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Podcast adverts sounding like radio adverts
Adverts, of course, are the devil’s bargain we made for podcasts being free (except for when they increasingly aren’t). Initially, that seemed like a pretty fair trade. Before people spotted the potential reach of podcasts, many of the ads were for pleasingly niche brands (mattress companies, pillow companies, mattress companies that also sell pillows), and lots of them were read out by the hosts as if it were a 50s American gameshow.
But as the podcasting ad market has grown, the bigger corporations have got in on the act, introducing the sort of loud, obnoxious ads you’d usually hear on Kiss FM. So now the softly spoken NPR pod you’ve been listening to on the secret history of edamame beans gets bracingly interrupted by a big-voiced bloke bellowing about “huuuuge savings” over a sound effect of clinking coins. Hideous.
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