It is impossible to feel pessimistic about the future of radio and podcasting when surrounded by its students.
I felt it when I headed into the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) earlier this year, and in abundance at show radio. Having spoken to Convenor Natalie Pozdeev and now Discipline Lead Andrea Ho (pictured) from the AFTRS Graduate Diploma of Radio and Podcasting you can both see and hear it. It is easy to wax lyrical when studios are filled with passion, fresh ideas, co-operation and willingness to learn, grow and get the best out of each other.
When I first saw the upcoming and free fifth edition of AFTRS Digital Futures Summit, on Thursday June 26, I glossed over session four which Andrea is moderating as being about ‘the future of audio’. But the topic, Hear-Say: Exploring the Future of Listening, is bigger than that.
Before my son headed to the UK for his gap year, he requested for Christmas a really good set of noise cancelling headphones. He loved them for the flight over and told me he uses them daily. Have you noticed just how many of us are going about our lives wearing headphones or earbuds now?
Everywhere we go we are listening to something.
But while this appears on first impression to be individualised and private experience, we are still social beings seeking connection. My son sends me songs and other audio that he’s discovered because he wants to share the knowledge or how it made him feel.
I also clearly remember sitting at the traffic lights just post Covid lockdowns. There was a young guy, about my son’s age, in a beat-up ute next to me. He had the windows down with his elbow hanging out and blaring from the speakers so loudly I reckon you could have heard it over the mountain ranges was Huey Lewis and the News’ The Power of Love.
As it happened, I also had on the local classic hits radio station playing the same song and so I cranked my volume up and opened the passenger window so that we had Huey in stereo. The lights went green as we belted out a couple of lines together. He grinned at me and tooted the horn as he left. I grin still at the memory of such an unexpected connection.
That’s the power of listening.
Hear-Say: Exploring the Future of Listening is being live streamed between 3:40 and 4:30pm on Thursday June 26 and sees Andrea Ho the moderator with three panelists, Broadcaster with the Umeewarra Aboriginal Media Association Dre Ngatokorua, Regional Director with AMARC Asia-Pacific (the world association of community radio broadcasters) Suman Basnet and Executive Producer / Deputy Head of Vision for News Corp Australia Rachel Fountain.
I mentioned to Andrea News Corp’s The Mushroom Cook podcast. In the May Triton Australian Podcast Ranker it had had 287K monthly listeners across 58 episodes. There were two other podcasts in the ranker’s top 100 covering the trial of the ‘mushroom cook’ Erin Patterson with nearly 1.2 million monthly listeners and 4.5 million downloads between them.
Since the medium of podcasting exploded around the time of the pandemic I don’t think we’ve seen before something that has captured national attention like this where different networks have invested time and people in covering the trial daily, or in the case of News Corp, more than that.
Andrea said:
“One of the great things about consuming media, particularly one that you receive in a linear fashion, is that you actually don’t really know what the ending is going to be. You might be able to have a guess but when you embark on the process you don’t know.
You enter with curiosity, and when you get to the end you get to satisfy your curiosity. Each of us gets to choose what we’re curious about.
But as human beings, ultimately social creatures, we haven’t satisfied all of our needs yet. So, we go to somebody else and say, hey, did you listen to that podcast?
And the most frustrating thing is when they haven’t because you can’t talk about it!
The three speakers have noticed a pattern of behavior where people are now consuming what they want, when they want it, of the kind that they want. They find what they want. But, we haven’t yet properly reclosed the gap with our new platforms, which is to say, going to socially engage with somebody else and say, have you heard about it too?
One of the things that Rachel will talk about is Dear Rachelle, which is a true crime podcast with a fully integrated listener input component.
People are looking to create such shared experiences, and that’s fascinating.”
It’s the modern version of the water cooler chat, or sharing a mixtape. We still and will always want others to experience what has fueled our own curiosity.
Andrea added:
”Media was in the past stories, news, music and content that were given to us that we simply had to accept it. Now, as listeners, we have an opportunity to choose wisely and to choose broadly. Perhaps in a community sense we have an obligation to do so.
We get a window into communities that aren’t necessarily ours and into individual experiences or lives that aren’t necessarily ours. The media doesn’t have to be made for us. We can still peer in and look.
What our obligation as media makers to do is to find our audience, target that audience, and look after them. But if anybody else wants to jump in, they can and should do so. That is the real opportunity, to create community outside our known community boundaries.
I think that this is an interesting time to be here because the industry is by its nature, remaking itself in a very large way.
Suman said to me the other day that you can’t shut your eyes to the sun. It’s there.
Lift your face up to it. Continue to make what you make, move with the times and you can surf the wave out the other side. That’s what I’m trying to do when we teach our students, and hopefully what we’ll talk about more when we explore the future of listening.”
AFTRS’ Digital Futures Summit is on from midday till 6pm across five live streamed sessions on Thursday June 26. Hear-Say: Exploring the Future of Listening, session four, is between 3:40 and 4:30pm. AFTRS Radio and Podcasting Discipline Lead Andrea Ho is the moderator with three panelists, Broadcaster with the Umeewarra Aboriginal Media Association Dre Ngatokorua, Regional Director with AMARC Asia-Pacific Suman Basnet and Executive Producer / Deputy Head of Vision for News Corp Australia Rachel Fountain.
The summit is free to watch and listen to. You can RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/digital-futures-summit-2025-4350003
Andrea pictured on World Radio Day in the AFTRS’ studio – image supplied
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster.
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