2. Alex Graham, Founder of Audio Coast | The Age of Audio

Alex Graham, Founder of Audio Coast joins Graham Brown in this episode of The Age of Audio. The Age of Audio is a series of conversations with thought leaders and changemakers in the world of audio. Podcasts, Radio, Social Audio and Data are converging to create engaging and authentic content for a new generation of listeners. To get access to all the audio conversations and book content for Age of Audio, go to theageofaudio.com.
Alex Graham, Founder of Audio Coast joins Graham Brown in this episode of The Age of Audio. The Age of Audio is a series of conversations with thought leaders and changemakers in the world of audio. Podcasts, Radio, Social Audio, and Data are converging to create engaging and authentic content for a new generation of listeners. To get access to all the audio conversations and book content for Age of Audio, go to theageofaudio.com.

Show Highlights:
  • I think podcasting is brilliant because it allows you to create these niche communities really easily around niche subjects, whatever it might be, and talking to your audience in that way as a radio presenter would do. I think that would only help them massively.

  • In university, studying radio, you're taught how to address your audience and create that level of intimacy between you and the listener. Working in radio is just practiced without thought. And then eventually as you start to develop your producer skills, and then you start working with younger talent or up-and-coming talent.

  • I guess you're always having to think about what your audience wants and who they are always and how that is changing and also how the station is looking to approach new audiences

  • I guess it's just thinking outside of the box, thinking about the resources you've got available to you and the topics and who your audience are, and then trying to combine those in a way that makes something compelling to listen to on the radio or supplementary podcast, I suppose, in some cases.

  • I don't think podcasters quite realize the deep knowledge or at least claimed knowledge that radio stations think they have through various studies and things of that listener. But yeah, it does go quite granular, into their interests, their likes, their dislikes, and who they are as people. I'm thinking that allows you to talk to them in a much more personable way. And that's what makes a good presenter or a bad presenter is knowing who you're talking to and how to talk to them.

  • The listener changes throughout the day. But often their key interests are the same, they're all united by their love of perhaps the music or the topic of the station. Each show has its own audience and a good presenter will know who that audience is and how to talk to them in my opinion.

  • I love narrative, sort of longer form, maybe journalistic style content. That's kind of what I really enjoy listening to.

  • I think it's really interesting that the oldest form of media (newspaper) in the world is leaning really heavily on what could be considered one of the newest forms of storytelling.

  • I mean, radio, was in many ways, a sunset industry in the eyes of so many critics for so long, but it outstayed digital and a big part of it was it had all of that. It had great talent and it had a connection with the community, didn't it?                                                                                     
  • A journalist should be a great storyteller in theory and that's a craft, isn't it? If you read a good journalist and read their writing, they write really well.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
  • You've got these middle-aged guys just doing a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. I think it's awesome. And the fact is that people are willing to pay for that and support it.