You know how sometimes a light bulb goes on in your head?
You’ve been sweating over something for weeks or months, and all of a sudden you see it from a new angle. One thought breaks in and lights up a bevy of questions, the answers to which bounce off one another in ways you never suspected. It can be profound when that happens.
It doesn’t happen to me much. But yesterday morning, it did.
I’d been thinking about podcasting. I don’t mean I had considered doing a podcast. In fact, I don’t even know what “doing” is, where podcasts are concerned. Rather, what I mean is, I’ve been pondering the whole subject of podcasting.
It’s a bugaboo for writers. We are told to become a guest on somebody’s podcast, because podcasts are the best avenue to increased book sales. You must pitch podcasters with . . . well, with whatever it is you do, or what you have to contribute to the conversation, or . . . something.
Did I mention, Dear Reader, I was born in the twentieth century? The year 1945, to be precise. Almost eighty years ago. So what do I know from podcasting?
Tens of millions of people make podcasts and listen to podcasts, often with great regularity and brand loyalty. According to Pew Research—which, as you know, researches every social trend worth researching—large portions of a podcast’s audience will buy something, read something, or take an action because they heard it on their favorite podcast.
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But I don’t understand why someone would listen to podcasts in the first place. I am mostly a printed word guy. To me, Gutenberg invented the latest reliable technology. I watch very little TV, listen to very little radio, and take in nearly zero podcasts.
Those things seem like giant time-wasters to me. You have to wait for someone to speak, or in the case of video, to act, before you can learn that which you could already have grasped by skimming a line or two of prose. And it’s inconvenient, sometimes even impossible, to go back and re-check something that was said a while back. Why would a person want to do this?
“Yes, but—” I hear you cry. “But you can ingest a podcast while doing something else—driving or jogging or washing dishes.”
Maybe you can, but I am no multi-tasker. I have to pay attention to every single thing. I guess they call that a one-track mind. It leaves me no way to pay attention to something else.
That’s not absolute, Gentle Reader. I can, for example, talk with someone while driving a car. I won’t run over any pedestrians, but I’m almost certain to miss my turn-off.
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So why do I need to pay attention to podcasting at all? Because podcasters are powerful influencers. The folks who subscribe and listen to podcasts become attached to the voices they hear repeatedly. They invest great authority in their pronouncements. That’s what makes podcasting a valuable vehicle for promoting a book.
Still, I—antedeluvian creature I am—bridle at the idea of pursuing podcast appearances. It is unseemly. It is very now. Therefore I hate it.
But I was mulling over the authority listeners invest in the podcaster, and suddenly—Fair Reader, you might recognize that this is where you came in—A LIGHT BULB WENT ON above my head, just like we used to see in the funny papers.
When I was a boy, in the 1950s, there was a man in whom listeners invested great authority. So much authority, in fact, that you could buy time from him at an expensive rate . . . but if you paid, oh, ten times that rate, the great man himself would deliver your message, in his own voice.
His name was Arthur Godfrey.
He was a creation of radio, and by his own audacity, he became king of the medium. While recovering from a near-fatal car crash in 1931, Godfrey spent a lot of time listening to and analyzing commercial radio broadcasts. He noted, according to Wikipedia, “that the stiff, formal style then used by announcers could not connect with the average radio listener. The announcers spoke in stentorian tones, as if giving a formal speech to a crowd and not communicating on a personal level. Godfrey vowed that when he returned to the airwaves, he would affect a relaxed, informal style as if he were talking to just one person.”
That’s just what he did. Jim Ramsburg says: “In their 1963 book, It Sounds Impossible, former CBS executives Sam Slate and Joe Cook describe Godfrey’s return. ‘. . . Listeners heard for the first time the casual, unhurried speech . . . the ruminating, hesitant pace . . . the purring growl that has since opened the doors to millions of American homes.’ ”
Godfrey’s informality extended even to adlibbing and joking while delivering on-air commercial scripts that sponsors had paid good money for. Godfrey sometimes appeared to be mocking the very product he was selling. But sales zoomed, and canny sponsors realized that having your commercial butchered by “the Old Redhead” was better than having it read meticulously by an ordinary announcer.
He hit his stride on April 30, 1945, when CBS gave him a half-hour coast-to-coast slot at 9:15 a.m., Monday through Friday, under the title Arthur Godfrey Time. Eventually it expanded to ninety minutes.
The Old Redhead delivered long, unscripted monologues; interviewed celebrities; introduced and sometimes interrupted or joined in with musical selections by his own in-house orchestra and regular vocalists. It was all spontaneous and informal.
He got beyond the scripted sound of commercials by inserting adlibbed comments. I recall his reading a commercial for Bufferin that was filled with Madison Avenue catch-phrases. He stopped ten seconds in, paused, and said, “So forth and so on. To tell you the truth, folks, I don’t know what’s in this stuff, but I’ve used it myself and it works.”
He was the ultimate pitchman because it never seemed he was pitching—he was simply commenting, in a folksy, down-to-earth way, on the passing scene. According to Ramsburg, he realized that radio was a personal medium and he spoke directly to the individual listener.
People listened to Arthur Godfrey every day. They knew him, they trusted him, and they were loyal.
Aren’t these the same reasons podcasters are said to be so influential?
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So when the light bulb went off over my head, it said: “Podcasters are the Arthur Godfreys of today.” Even an old wreck like me can understand that.
Few podcasters enjoy as big an audience as Godfrey commanded. That’s just as well, because anyone whose book is not yet on the New York Times Best Sellers list is unlikely to get a foot in the door of those giant podcasts.
The media scene today is fragmented. Many podcasters have only a few followers, or a few hundred, or a few thousand. That’s where I ought to start.
And the first thing to do is to pick a few likely candidates and listen to their podcasts. When pitching somebody, it never hurts to know what they’re all about.
You can help me, Dear Reader. Do you subscribe, or listen regularly, to any podcasts that seem related to the theme of this blog—“Seeking new meanings in our common past”? If so, drop me a line at larryfsommers@gmail.com, or just add a comment to this post.
Help me function in the present century.
Blessings,
Larry F. Sommers
Your New Favorite Writer
