Picture the scene. It’s a cold, wet, miserable Sunday – the kind of day that makes you question the mental state of anyone who dares to step outside. I’m inside (obviously), taking the opportunity to do a top-to-bottom, wall-to-wall clean. I’m hoovering, so I have my headphones on, listening to the latest episode of one of my favourite podcasts, Ride. Suddenly I’m stopped in my tracks.
“If you’re listening to this then you won’t get the joke,” says one of the hosts. Sorry? If I’m listening? This is a podcast – of course I’m listening. Then it clicks: they’re assuming that I’m watching.
Podcasts as videos – or “visual podcasts” as it is insisted we call them – are not new; the first, zombie apocalypse comedy Dead End Days, filmed its recordings all the way back in 2003. But recently, the proliferation of video podcasts has become impossible to ignore. Netflix is now involved.
Last week, the streaming service announced its first original video podcast, The Pete Davidson Show. The series will be filmed in the former SNL comedian’s own garage and feature “revealing conversations” with his “famous friends”. So far, so dull. Following that, Alison Hammond will host a Bridgerton companion podcast, going behind the scenes of the hit period drama.
Miquita Oliver and Lily Allen are rarely in the same room when they record ‘Miss Me?’, yet they still film it (Photo: BBC)Netflix isn’t just funneling cash into creating its own podcasts – it’s also bought the rights to a handful of the most popular shows in the world. My Favourite Murder (two billion downloads), The Breakfast Club (one billion downloads) and Pardon My Take (one million downloads per episode) are all being brought onto Netflix’s platform, too.
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The reasons for its move into the so-called “podcast space” range from the obvious (they’re very cheap to make) to the dark (podcasts don’t come under the jurisdiction of a union) to the business savvy (more podcasts on Netflix=fewer eyes on YouTube). But putting a traditionally audio medium onto a traditionally video platform makes the entire idea of a podcast redundant.
The genius of podcasts is exactly that we don’t have to watch them. I can be entertained or informed (or both!) while I’m doing the most mundane tasks – cleaning, cooking, driving, on a walk, in the gym. Listening to Ed Gamble and James Acaster witter on about restaurants, or the News Agents gang explain the latest development in the mad world of international politics isn’t background noise exactly, but they are an accompaniment to my daily life, filling the time when my eyes are needed away from a screen.
We also listen to podcasts to get closer to people in the spotlight. But filming a podcast immediately removes any semblance of intimacy. I know from my own experience interviewing celebrities that it’s easy to forget it’s being recorded – they relax, share stories they might not otherwise, are more honest. But put them in a studio with cameras and bright lights and all of a sudden they’re in show mode.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler recently won the first Golden Globe for Best Podcast (Photo: Paper Kite Productions/The Ringer)It’s now become the norm for every podcast to have a video element – The Rest is Entertainment, Kermode and Mayo’s Take, Miss Me? and Off Menu all film themselves recording, however rudimentarily. But when does a podcast become a TV show? Surely The Pete Davidson Show and Good Hang with Amy Poehler (which recently won the first Golden Globe award for Best Podcast) are just cheap chat shows? They have a host, a celebrity guest, and a purpose-built set (even if it is in Davidson’s garage).
And yet, I’d much rather watch The Graham Norton Show – a professional outfit that is designed to be watched, rather than just listened to. Guests dress up, there’s a musical performance, there’s the visual treat of the Red Chair, which tips members of the audience in the air should they tell a boring story.
Perhaps all visual podcasts should adopt the Red Chair. Because I can’t think of anything more interminably dull than sitting down to watch two people have an hour-long conversation.
So, no, I don’t want to watch your podcast. Because if it comes with a visual element, that’s not a podcast at all.
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