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The Return of In-Person Podcasting
Chances are, if you’re reading this, you either make a podcast or aspire to make one. If not, then you’re some kind of podcast pervert; a sicko voyeur of an industry you have no interest in.
Anyway, weirdos aside, you’re probably all grappling with one of the big questions as we emerge from the past couple of years (aka the Great Covid-19 Age). Is it time to start recording in-person again? We’ve all gotten so used to Zoom and Zencastr, to Blue Yetis and Shure MV7s, to Google Docs and Monday.com — it’s hard even to remember that we once did things very differently…
In the past month or so, I’ve really started getting into the swing of location recording again. Two of my main weekly clients are back in-person, and one of my big fortnightly ones will get into a studio for the new series next month. This means that, each Thursday and Friday, I can guarantee that I’ll be out and about recording for the foreseeable future. I live in London, so, as the crow flies, nothing is too far away: one of these commutes takes about 30–40 minutes via train (and then a very pleasant walk along the Thames) while the other I can do in about half an hour by car. So let’s be clear, the travel times are further than from my bedroom to my desk in the living room (6 seconds, at a dash) — but they’re still perfectly manageable.
I did some location recording last week that took me out of London and down to the coastal city of Southampton. That’s about a two-hour drive, which I appreciate is not that much to Canadians and Russians. But a 13:00 start time for the recording means a 12:00 departure time from London (giving myself an hour wiggle room for traffic, set-up and stopping to pee at some point on the motorway). Then, an hour and a half of recording later, we’re good to grab a bite to eat and head back, which means that you’re leaving around 15:30. You’ll hit rush hour traffic as you get into London, so you’ll be lucky to get home for 18:00. All in all, that’s a day’s worth of work for that 60 minute recording slot.
And even the shorter travelling times can have a knock-on impact. On Thursday late mornings, I head into central London to record a current affairs show that needs to be edited and back with them for legal checks that same evening. I’ll leave home around 10:00 and, if I’m lucky with trains, get back…
