By Tess Connery and Grace Gollasch
Heading out of the city with LiSTNR’s My Town series
My Town, a podcast series dedicated to locals in regional communities across Australia is now available on LiSTNR. The team behind the podcast are passionate about their regions, and are bringing news, stories and content to local communities across regional Australia on the topics that matter to locals the most.
Podcast Week’s Tess Connery spoke to Southern Cross Austereo’s head of regional content Blair Woodcock about getting out of the city.
The series is now live in Hobart, Adelaide, and regional centres Townsville (Queensland), Newcastle and Albury (NSW) and Bunbury (Western Australia). Woodcock says that this is only the beginning for My Town.
“We chose a few test markets just to see if it could work first. Population size of those markets is varied, but it gives us a good indicator of where the success level is going to come from. From an internal perspective, those markets are well resourced at this stage.
“Of course, there are expansion plans as well. We’re having a look at what that looks like over the next couple of weeks as we see the initial pick up of it – then we’ll plan out the rest of the markets.”
One of the many perks of working is regional content is just how niche the stories can get. For Woodcock, getting the right staff on board to bring that content to life was a major step in getting My Town off the ground.
“We’ve really engaged with our entire offices – whether it be content, sales, engineering, newsrooms, admin, everybody in the office is involved to really bring together.
“When we did Locals Guide, and when we did Sports Shorts, we took them to the markets and asked for their involvement. Now we’re turning the tables and saying, ‘what are the major important factors in your communities that people want to hear about? You tell us what you want to create’.”
Getting out of the city means a lot to everyone who works on My Town. Woodcock says that regional Australia is “where the real stories are.”
“Population is starting to grow around the place thanks to Covid – it’s one of the great outcomes we’ve had from a regional perspective. With the movement in population also brings a massive interest and involvement in in different community groups.
“Outside of that, from a radio population sense, we’ve got about 2.6 million cume across our Hit and Triple M brands across regional Australia. That is an absolutely massive size of the pie. We’re talking directly to these people now with with topics and interest pieces that are actually connecting with them, as opposed to a national story.”
Looking ahead, Woodcock says he’s excited to see the results of the My Town podcast flowing through to the rest of the business.
“I’m really excited about the growth opportunities, but I’m also really excited about the opportunities for our staff. Not only have our announcers and our producers been working on this medium in this industry for so long, but now we’re going to be upskilling them with more opportunity to enter the on demand world as well, which is a really exciting place to play.”
Acast chats to Osher Günsberg on Why I Podcast
For International Podcast Day 2022 on September 30, Acast tapped into the minds of podcasters from around the world to find out what makes them tick in the Why I Podcast interview series.
As a part of the series, the team at Acast talked to Osher Günsberg about his podcast, Better Than Yesterday.
Osher discussed how he got started in podcasting, his relationship with his listeners and what he’s learnt along the way. Additionally, Günsberg talked about what attracts storytellers and listeners to podcasts.
“I feel it’s because there’s an enrolment on the part of the listener. Often the listener seeks out something they’re curious about. So there’s ownership and delight on the discovery of a show you might have missed, or excitement with each episode getting released. That connection is so different to radio,” Günsberg told Acast.
Günsberg said he has always loved the intimacy of audio conversation.
“Podcasting is an extraordinarily intimate form of that — because of the subject matter. You don’t have to appeal to all of the people all the time — you can do a podcast about woodworking with hand-forged chisels, and be as niche as you like — because your audience will find you and feast on that authenticity. That’s why I love it. You can’t be this authentic in traditional broadcasting.”
[Read Why I Podcast with Osher Günsberg here]
Brooke Blurton And Matty Mills talk representation in the media for children
In Brooke Blurton and Matty Mills’ latest episode of their Not So PG podcast, the duo discusses how children see themselves represented in the media, specifically regarding diversity.
Blurton discusses a retreat she attended run by Natarsha Bamblett, and the duo unpack the lessons from the retreat, falling on the topic of being able to speak to your younger self as an adult.
The duo then discuss The Little Mermaid, drawing correlations between representation and diversity and children seeing themselves in the film.
“I know my purpose in this world is to really show people and open their eyes up to representation,” Blurton said.
Mills and Blurton then discuss Lizzo, her career and Emmy’s speech, where she talks about the similar idea of being able to speak to your younger self and wanting to see someone who represents you. “Someone fat like me. Black like me. Beautiful like me. If I could go back and tell little Lizzo something, I would be like, ‘You’re going to see that person, but bitch, it’s going to have to be you.”
Mills said, “What I absolutely love about Lizzo is she puts her money where her mouth is. And she’s about representation of both black and also for people who don’t fit the social norms for what people have in the past been expected to look like.”
Triple M’s Oztober returns with greatest Aussie hits and new podcast
Triple M’s Oztober is back for 2022 with a month-long celebration of the greatest Aussie hits of all time.
All month, Triple M’s, Dave ‘Gleeso’ Gleeson will have Aussie music legends joining him at midday Monday to Friday, as guest hosts on Triple M’s Oztober Takeover with Gleeso where they will have their say on what they think the best Australian songs of all time are.
Gleeso will also host a new, four-part podcast series on LiSTNR called These Days: The Greatest Moments in Australian Music featuring the cultural impact and the defining moments in Aussie music. Topics will include the evolution of pub rock, to stadiums on the global stage, why Michael Hutchence’s passing had such a big impact on the world and Aussie music scene, and how Aussie music survives the digital age.
[Listen to These Days: The Greatest Moments in Australian Music here]
Charlotte Crosby Discusses the Geordie Shore Reunion with Sophie Kasaei on “Charlotte Crosby, Always On”
In the latest episode of Charlotte Crosby Always On, host Charlotte Cosby chats with Geordie Shore castmate and friend Sophie Kasaei.
The pair discuss the Geordie Shore reunion, their thoughts on Gary Beadle and Vicki Pattinson not coming back and cutting ties with the OG cast, and whether they would come back again. Charlotte also reacts to Beadle’s non-reaction to her pregnancy.
In response to Beadle not congratulating her on her pregnancy, Crosby said, “I don’t understand how it’s gone from bumping into each other and being able to chat to then nothing.”
When Beadle announced he was having a baby, Crosby congratulated him on Twitter “It was hard”, she says. “Where was my congratulations? Where was the sense of being happy for us?”
[Listen to Charlotte Crosby Always On here]
SCA announces AdsWizz agreement across Stitcher and SiriusXM podcasts in Australia
SCA has announced its agreement with AdsWizz to exclusively represent the ad inventory of select Stitcher and SiriusXM podcasts in Australia through SCA’s LiSTNR app and other podcast listening platforms.
AdsWizz’s audio advertising technology, combined with SCA’s media sales, is expected to streamline podcast inventory connections, making Stitcher and SiriusXM’s content more easily accessible to advertisers. Both Stitcher and AdsWizz are subsidiaries of Sirius XM Radio Inc.
LiSTNR has grown the Australian digital audio market over the last 18 months and believes that the addition of select premium podcasts from Stitcher and SiriusXM will continue to facilitate this growth, increase audience scale, and reinforce LiSTNR as Australia’s audio destination.
Stitcher’s slate of original podcasts include LeVar Burton Reads and The Sporkful; top-ranked comedy podcast network Earwolf’s How Did This Get Made and Office Ladies; award-winning documentary network Witness Docs’ All-American, and Unfinished; along with Black lifestyle and culture network More Sauce’s New Rory and Mal and Reality with the King.
Australian stars front Audible’s New Home of Storytelling campaign
Australian stars have teamed up with Audible to invite audiences to explore the Home of Storytelling in a new brand campaign.
Actress, author and podcaster Miranda Tapsell and comedian, actor and podcaster Josh Thomas are joined by a host of familiar faces and Audible’s local content creators in the campaign, including culinary figure Adam Liaw, journalist Marc Fennell, and media personality Flex Mami.
Set for TV, out-of-home, social and online video nationally from October 5, the campaign features Tapsell giving Thomas a tour inside a house of storytelling.
Tapsell, who hosts the Debutante: Race, Resistance and Girl Power podcast, said: “I have developed a wonderful relationship with Audible, initially with my podcast Debutante with my best friend Nakkiah Lui, which took me around the world.
“The Audible app also got me through a few Melbourne lockdowns, a pregnancy and my early stages of motherhood. On top of that, I got to do this ad with the lovely, funny and clever Josh Thomas,” she added.
