Which format suits your podcast?

Whatever your business goals, there is a format that suits your story best. Discover more about the shape your podcast could take to convey your company’s message successfully.

Looking to start a discussion? Or grow your profile? Creating the perfect corporate podcast is made up of many parts, including choosing the right format for your story. We might assume that a podcast is just two people on mic, talking to each other about a particular subject. But actually, a podcast can offer many forms of storytelling. 

In this blog, we want to introduce some other formats that might suit your podcast aims better, aligning with your business or brand goals and helping you stand out from the crowd.

A Monologue/Solocast

A Monologue or Solocast is one person on mic talking through a subject. This can be elevated with sound design and other editing techniques. Examples include Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Series and The Anthropocene Reviewed with John Green. 

Pros

This format is great for thought-leadership, as well as narrative storytelling or reviews. It doesn’t rely on guests or other parties, as one person carries the show. Your audience really has the chance to know you intimately, which can be very powerful for personal brand building. It can also be easier to edit one voice rather than several, and you can always adjust and record again with an individual, if things don’t sound as you’d hoped. 

Cons 

Your host has to be very capable, as they really own the show - there’s no one to bounce off from! Also, to make sure this format really shines, it’s important to ensure audio is well produced in order to still sound dynamic and hold audience attention. This can also mean privileging shorter episode lengths or use of archive audio, to break up the single speaker. 

The Documentary 

Popularised by NPR, this format is very much about historical recounting of a series of events. This might be achieved with a combination of voices, music, archival audio, and more. An example of this is our podcast with Remembering Srebrenica, Untold Killing.

Pros

This format is very engaging and dynamic, and can definitely have broad appeal, enabling a deep exploration of a particular story. These sort of shows are also proven to have a broad appeal and are regularly seen at the top of the podcasting charts. Beyond this, documentaries often have an evergreen quality meaning people can discover and enjoy your content long after the run is over. 

Cons

This style of podcast requires a long production time, and has complex production needs. It requires lots of forward planning and more time to piece together the episodes. Great research is definitely required.

Non-fiction storytelling or reporting

In this format, you hear reporting on an ongoing story, or a hosted show that is being reported, usually based on real life or true stories. It’s a combination of a discussion and reported information, so multiple voices are heard and help to tell a story - this makes it a great way to teach something new to your audience, and expose listeners to new ideas and concepts. Examples include Breaking Brand, Reply All and Heavyweight. 

Pros

This is a compelling way to tell a story that you own, offering the chance to include other audio to create a dynamic episode. You really can tell any story at all, so this can be a very flexible and inclusive format.  

Cons

Because this format often involves many sources of information, it can mean long and complex production and detailed research are involved.

The Interview

An interview between a host (or multiple hosts) and a subject, who is given the chance to share their unique expertise or insight. The host guides the discussion, asking key questions. Examples include our collaboration with NatWest, or How I Built This and the very popular Tim Ferris podcast. 

Pros

Interviews offer the opportunity to introduce a new perspective. Hosts have less pressure, as the guest should do most of the talking. Listeners also don’t mind the occasional fluffed word - they want to feel there’s a natural conversation happening. New audiences might discover your podcast through your guest, which is great for audience building, and this format can help spark discussions. 

Cons

There are lots of podcasts already in this format, making it hard to stand out. Interviewing is also trickier than it looks - it takes good research and can be challenging if the guest is repetitive, talks for too long, or isn’t able to articulate their views. You’ll also need a new quality guest for each episode. 

Fiction storytelling

A fictionalised play or audio drama, this format is normally performed by voice actors. It’s much more similar to dramatic television or the radio play. Like any good fictional story, these rely on great characters, tension and narrative arcs. It’s a very creative storytelling type, and examples include The Archers and Forest 404. 

Pros

Audiences can be really engaged with this style of podcast, as they become invested in the story. With few examples out there, it can be easier to stand out in this format. The only limit is your imagination! Which also means, research and factual accuracy might be less important.

Cons

This is a less common format because it is generally less relevant to businesses. Your competition comes more from Netflix than other podcasts, so it’s much more about having the creativity to come up with a great original narrative. You do have to have the whole story in place at the start, so you know exactly where your episodes are going and how to hit the right beats to keep listeners engaged.

There you have it, some of the other podcast formats that might be perfect for your brand. Don’t get us wrong, sometimes two people and a mic just having a great chat can really work - after all that’s the format behind Conflicted! But it's important to consider why this is the best format. 

Think carefully about the format that best suits the story you have to tell, so that you can get out there and share it! And if you’re not sure — get in touch, we can help you figure it out. 

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Want to learn more? At Message Heard, we make podcasts that help your brand reach new audiences. Find out how we can help you by getting in touch.

5 Podcasts That Go Beyond The Headlines

Podcasts for when you want to take a deeper look at the stories passing through the news cycle. 

The news cycle can get a bit overwhelming. Brexit, Trump, we’re destroying the planet and then Brexit and Trump again, just in case we forgot about them…

It’s a lot to take in - and no-one can blame you if you just want to switch off sometimes. There is a way to get around it, though. Podcasts that keep you in the know and do so in an entertaining, and often deeper, way.

Here are five that I love and would recommend to anyone. Some of them talk about current events and others go back and dissect things that have already happened. They all have one thing in common – they go beyond the headlines and give you a lot more of the detail and backstory that you’d never get in traditional news.

1. Undone

This 7-episode series by Gimlet went back through big events and headlines in history and looked at what really happened beyond what was reported at the time. While the stories are US-centric, all of them are fascinating no matter where you’re from.

2. Slow Burn

This show from Slate is a serialised political documentary. It is gripping in a way that makes you want to instantly go into politics and be part of all the shady goings on (or maybe that’s just me... ). So far, it has only focused on American politics but there are big events that you will definitely want to find out more about. Season 1 went deep into Watergate and the second talks all about Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct scandals. Yes, that’s scandals plural.

 3. This American Life – ep. 669 ‘Scrambling to get off the ice’

This American Life have always produced political stories, but in recent years, in the hands of producer Zoe Chace, their political reporting has reached a new level. She has inside access to many Republicans and Democrats and she is able to pull back the curtain on dull backroom processes and machinations in a way that makes them actually interesting - and funny. Episode 669 features, amongst other stories, one about the Democrats’ newfound political power and how they’re learning to use it again.

4. Criminal – Hostage

There are so many true crime podcasts - too many some might say. Criminal is different, though. The stories focus on the human aspect and are never sensationalised. The show doesn’t linger on the obvious and goes a step further to explore new and surprising sides to the stories. The episode ‘Hostage’ does that with the crime that inspired the term ‘Stockholm syndrome’ and features the people who were actually people involved.

5. Today in Focus

What The Guardian’s daily news podcast does so well is that it doesn’t give you the daily news – you can read the newspaper for that. Today in Focus dissects two topics each day that you may have missed or which need a closer look. Through its sound design and Anushka Asthana’s great voice and style, you find yourselves being interested in stories you’d never choose to read in the newspaper.

…Oh, and one more. If you’re a fan of these shows, we would love to hear what you think of Undiscovered - our podcast which tells stories that haven’t received much attention in mainstream news (but that definitely deserved it). In season one, we did a deep dive into the human experiments conducted by the Japanese army in WW2, explored all sides of the assisted dying debate and more. Give it a listen!