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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Tufts Podcast Network prepares first semester with new format

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Cooper McKim, founder of Tufts Podcast Network, sets the group up for a blockbuster year of aural entertainment after a rocky start.

Becoming more prominent in mainstream media, podcasting is experiencing something of a golden age -- just in time for the Tufts Podcast Network to come into its own. Founded two years ago by senior Cooper McKim, the Tufts Podcast Network grew out of McKim's passion for sound as a medium and a desire to meet people who share his love of good stories.

“I love journalism, but I think often that writing news stories can be really dry, and I was hoping that using sound would allow narrative to take place in a more layered way…which provides communication in a way that the page does not,” McKim said.

The podcast, an on-demand audio program delivered via the internet, is an art form that grew out of the widening proliferation of broadband and MP3 players (particularly Apple’s iPod) in the early 2000s. Buoyed by the possibility of access to a global audience and a relatively low barrier to entry, podcasts large and small sprung up to cater to every conceivable interest, with everyone from passionate individuals to national broadcasters putting out regular audio content via the internet.

Despite a deluge of high-quality content and wide awareness of the concept of a podcast, actual listening to podcasts remained a niche activity. The Pew Research Center estimated in 2006 that only 11 percent of Americans over the age of 12 had ever listened to a podcast. Perhaps the awkwardness of listening to podcasts in the pre-smartphone era in some ways stunted their potential audience.

Prior to the wide availability of internet-connected mobile devices, those who wanted to listen to podcasts on the go had to first download them to their computers and then sync them to their devices before they left the house -- an awkward process by today’s standards. The ubiquitous smartphone, with its access to fast mobile data, has smoothed the process of listening to podcasts immeasurably, as podcasts can now be downloaded or streamed via dedicated apps virtually anywhere with cell service.

By 2015, one third of Americans over the age of 12 had listened to a podcast. The wider audience brought about through improved delivery infrastructure was arguably one of the factors that led to the success of NPR’s smash hit podcast “Serial” (2014–present), which investigated the 1999 murder of Maryland teenager Hae Min Lee. "Serial" became the fastest podcast to reach five million downloads on iTunes, and its first season has received tens of millions of downloads to date.The podcast also received extensive coverage and praise from the mainstream media.

Courtesy Stephanie Li

This surge in podcasting's popularity comes just in time for podcast-lovers on campus. According to McKim, who is majoring in American studies and environmental studies and plans to graduate a semester early to pursue audio production, the founding members of the Tufts Podcast Network were all “NPR lovers” with a common love of good stories. Not all the members' initial plans came to fruition, however.

“[I wanted] for there to be a whole bunch of different podcasts, all with unique staffs,” McKim said. “We had two or three episodes of multiple series, but most all of them have ceased to exist and most of the staff members are gone.”

McKim attributes this high level of burnout during the network’s first year to the sheer amount of energy and commitment required to produce a polished podcast, as well as structural problems.

"In the beginning, people like the idea of making a podcastbut it’s really hard to keep going," he said "You put a lot of energy into making one episode, and then it’s discouraging because then you have to do that whole process again.”

Junior engineering psychology major and former Co-President of the Tufts Podcast Network Ronna ten Brink echoed McKim, saying that she too had seen burnout at the network. She noted that her own substantial academic commitments keep her from being as involved with the network as she would like.

In order to resolve these issues, during the group’s second year, staff at the Tufts Podcast Network began to work more collaboratively on podcasts, and McKim pointed out that the level of collaboration is only increasing this year.

“This semester, we have a lot more time for people to work on their episodes and we make sure that the editor is working a ton with them so that they are comfortable, that they don’t get burnt out and that they feel they are producing the story they want to produce,” McKim said.

Courtesy Stephanie Li

In order to keep people invested in the podcasts, the network does not give out assignments, but instead allows staff to choose which stories they would like to produce from a central board of ideas or, if they don’t see something they like, pitch their own idea. On this score, Brink also claimed that the Podcast Network allows students the most freedom to execute their own ideas out of any media club on campus.

According to McKim, these changes have massively increased member retention. After this semester’s GIM (the largest in the network’s history, with a turnout of about 20 students) the Tufts Podcast Network has acquired approximately 10 new members.

The group has instated a few structural changes this year -- the expectations of the network's staff are now more clearly defined than they initially were, McKim said. In addition to structural reforms, the Tufts Podcast Network is also changing the format of the podcasts it produces, a transition that McKim described as a move to “story-based rather than series-based” content. In practical terms, this means that the network will be producing shorter podcasts in the range of three to five minutes.

McKim was quick to point out, however, that shorter podcasts are not synonymous with lower quality podcasts.

“A good radio piece has nothing to do with length," he said. "A three to five minute piece on NPR is probably better than a 10 to 20 minute episode.”

The hope behind this change is that allowing people to work on just the stories that are interesting to them in a short-form format will increase investment, lead to better quality content and further protect the network against burnout.

“People, I think, can relate to producing one story that really speaks to them, rather than a whole series,” said McKim.

Senior history major Stephanie Li, the group’s head of marketing and design, believes that the new format will also increase audience engagement, remarking that audiences are more likely to listen to the entirety of a short podcast rather than a long one.

The Tufts Podcast Network will release its first podcasts of the year on Sept. 27 and will continue to release podcasts every Sunday at 8 p.m. throughout the semester. In the cards for this semester are a collection of fake news segments, some improv podcasts and an as-yet-unnamed flagship podcast.

The network’s podcasts are online at tuftspodcastnetwork.com and will soon be available via iTunes, which will allow listeners to subscribe to a podcast and automatically receive new episodes as they are released.

The future looks bright for the Tufts Podcast Network. Interest in podcasts has never been higher and, thanks in part to the rise of the smartphone, it has never been easier to start listening. Changes in the network’s structure and podcast format are starting to pay dividends and have allowed the group to move past the problems that it had early on. As McKim prepares to graduate and hand off leadership of the organization to senior Xander Landen, he leaves the Tufts Podcast Network in a position to produce quality content while retaining its staff. Stay tuned; the best is yet to come.