Sage Tanguay: It definitely is like a safe shelter in the university community.
And I think for most people it just makes sense, like when they hear we're coming in from WTJU and that's where we're kind of located.
They're like, oh yeah, of course the university radio station is also the center of podcasting at the university.
Neil McPhedran: Welcome to another episode of Continuing Studies, a podcast for higher education podcasters to learn and get inspired.
I'm Neil McPhedran, founder of Podium Podcasts, an agency for higher education podcasters.
Jennifer-Lee: And I'm Jennifer-Lee, founder of Jpod Creations, podcasting is broadcasting.
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Neil McPhedran: Jen, we've got part two.
Jennifer-Lee: Part two, because we had such a great conversation the first time.
Neil McPhedran: That's right.
So part two, speaking with Mary Garner, MG McGehee and Sage Tanguay from the University of Virginia.
We talked last time about, we dug in further last time about WTJU 91.
1 FM, the college radio station, and this time we're going to dig into the latter half of our conversation we had, which was about the Virginia Audio Collective.
Which is a super dynamic podcast network that they have built over the last few years at the University of Virginia.
Jennifer-Lee: Yeah, I like the fact that they really bring this community together and the people that are interested in creating a podcast will come to them.
And it's not like they're vetting them, but they really give them a realistic picture of what it takes.
And they also really hone into everybody's topic to make sure that is a full length podcast.
And another thing that I like, they really figure out if they are going to be a forever podcast or if they're going to be a limited series.
Because as we all know, some topics are just a limited series does not mean that that podcast isn't as strong.
It just means that's the time that is needed to tell that story.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah.
I like how they break that out actually on their website, the network website they've created, which is excellent.
We're going to put that in the show notes, a link to it, it's a really good reference.
But we've spoken with a couple of podcast network folks over the last year and a half.
Actually we have a really good conversation coming up in an upcoming episode,
Jennifer-Lee: With another network.
Neil McPhedran: That's right.
The University of Texas podcast network, the Texas podcast network.
But one of the things that really struck me is what they've created is almost a, if you build it, they will come.
I have had a conversation recently with another university podcast that we work with and there's momentum to create a podcast network for the university.
There is just a stumbling block of trying to figure out, like, who is there out there, like, is there enough interest?
This kind of just shows that creating the support network, it all starts coming out of the woodwork.
And the education and the tools, and obviously the support from the radio station, and the equipment there, is just fantastic.
I think there's a lot to learn here for university podcasters thinking about creating a network.
And just get going, just do it, just get started because there's a lot going on in the space and there's a lot of interest in the space.
Jennifer-Lee: I think there's a lot to learn just about networks in general that we've only skimmed the surface on because we always talk about this with the Podcast 2.0 people, and the other people in the podcasting community, that it's hard to find podcasts.
But now with these networks, it is making that community.
So if you are interested in a certain subject, you're able to find podcasts easier.
So we're just skimming the surface.
You know, podcasting is still young, but let's get into it.
Neil McPhedran: I'd really like to dig into the Virginia Audio Collective.
It is incredibly vibrant.
Your website is excellent.
I love how you've got all the podcasts.
And you can see them all there.
And then you delineate from limited series podcasts, which I think is a really smart idea, browse by topic archives and so on and so forth.
This seems like a very vibrant podcast community.
Do you credit the association with, and the access to the equipment, and so on and so forth, with WTJU, that, the radio station?
I was just talking to someone else at another university and they're struggling, they're feeling like there's nothing, like they're seeing these networks that are proliferating and cropping up on other campuses and in other institutions and they're just sort of feeling it's just not happening there.
Like, so just how did this thing turn into such a vibrant community of podcasts?
Sage Tanguay: I definitely think having it hosted or like, homed at a community radio station that kind of has its own thing going on all the time anyway, has been really helpful.
I wasn't here for the inception of the very beginning of the podcast collective.
But it definitely is like a safe shelter in the university community.
And I think for most people, it just makes sense.
Like when they hear we're coming in from WTJU and that's where we're kind of located, they're like, oh yeah, of course the university radio station is also the, the center of podcasting at the university.
There's a lot of people who don't even realize the Virginia Audio Collective exists, who when they think about producing a podcast, reach out to WTJU.
You know, we're always trying to increase kind of that notoriety or infamy on our campus of people just immediately thinking about us.
But I would say people already had a, like, they are naturally attracted to a radio station to do this type of work.
Mary Garner McGehee: I think we make it really easy.
I think that, like, a lot of people at the university have, I think a lot of people at any university, have interesting podcast ideas.
It just makes sense.
There's tons of smart people doing cool research, you know?
Um, it's a new medium, lots of people are interested in it.
And I think, you know, for most people who are doing this on their own, like, you have a podcast idea and then you have a million questions.
You have technical questions, you have storyboarding questions, you don't know how the podcast gets put out in the world, you don't know anything about editing.
And so, you know, it takes a lot of research to figure all that stuff out for yourself.
And, you know, usually once people get, they have an idea, their next step is they'll reach out to us, right?
And instead of spending hours and hours and hours figuring out each one of those things on their own, like, we have like an hour and a half long meeting and we're like, we talk through all that stuff.
We give them answers.
We're like, here's a resource.
So I think that, you know, again, like I said, on any college campus, I think there's probably a ton of great podcast ideas.
And, I think that having a community, not just the two of us, but the other people that do this at UVA, you know, we have quarterly luncheons that another colleague really helps us put together.
I think that makes a huge difference.
Sage Tanguay: Yeah.
It's also something else I think that we don't think about a lot, but so we have obviously a lot of physical resources of technology and the space to record in.
And we have a lot of documentation of here's how you do this.
And here's a lot of step by step processes.
But another thing that I definitely do, and I've heard you do it in consultation meetings, is I think we do a lot to take the pressure off of people who are interested in starting something.
A lot of people come with this idea that this is going to be their, like, main driving creative focus for every week until forever.
And I'm in the practice of really being pretty direct about, like, what do you actually have time to do?
What do you want this to be?
Who do you actually want to have listen to this?
Like, are you content if it's just your mom listening and saying, hey, I love this.
Great job.
Or just your students who tune in because you've assigned it as a class item, you know?
Understanding that scope and then saying, listen, it's okay for limited series to exist.
Not every podcast has to be a weekly podcast that releases at the same exact time for the rest of existence.
Like, we should really be conscious of how much energy we have.
And I'm always just, I generally encourage people to make their podcasts shorter, less frequently, and simpler in format.
And I think that helps get people to actually create them and do it successfully.
Mary Garner McGehee: A hundred percent.
Jennifer-Lee: When you say less frequently, what would be the time that you advise?
Because there's such a debate that some people say, you know, always do it every two weeks, do a season if you can't commit, and then say you're going on a break, but don't do once a month because you're not going to get the growth.
Mary Garner McGehee: We ask folks to make three episodes before they release their first one.
So with new podcasts, we say, like, let's come up with a plan to make three episodes.
And then once you've made three episodes and you know how much time it took you, we can put together a production calendar that's like sustainable.
Sage Tanguay: Yeah.
The other thing I'll say is like, you know, since we are like housed in this non commercial community radio station, we're not the most like market driven people when it comes to creation.
The other thing I think about is like maybe part of this is like a lot of our podcasts are evergreen.
They're not super timely.
They're not super prescient.
And in a lot of cases, in my opinion, as a producer, sometimes it's more important for the people who create with us to have a tangible deliverable that they can point to for like the next ten years of like, oh, I created this podcast.
This is what I'm about.
Or like, this is this big thing I did a few years ago.
I want to do something again like this.
Please give me grant funding.
That is like a huge part of what I think about.
And so for us, it's, I don't think a lot about, but I do agree that like every two weeks is good and once a month is definitely hard to like pull people in.
I'm a big fan of limited series.
Mary Garner McGehee: I'll also say we are very serious about audience.
So when people come in to meet with us, like we spend a lot of time working with them on what is your target audience?
Who are you trying to reach?
Is your target audience specific enough?
Usually it's not very specific, right?
So really trying to get people to think about who are you trying to reach with these ideas and then letting that drive the release calendar.
Neil McPhedran: Wow, there's some, you guys have some really good stuff in there and super, super impressive.
If this was a video podcast, you would see me just nodding my head along the whole time over the last ten minutes.
There's some really good insights there.
And when you say folks approaching you because they want to start a podcast, it's not just students, right?
When I look through the list of podcasts in the collective, there's people from admissions in there.
It looks like there's profs in there.
There's academic advisors in there.
So really, this is, you know, anywhere from within the university community.
Mary Garner McGehee: And outside.
And community members.
Sage Tanguay: Yeah, we just have people from Charlottesville as well who come with an idea and they somehow find out that like this is a good place to come for some resources.
And yeah, so that's, it is a really wide swath of people who come to produce here.
Neil McPhedran: So back to my question about how to get started or whatever, it really is like once you build it, they will come.
This is really sort of what you're describing here.
You've built this incredible, you know, you've got the audio infrastructure, the recording infrastructure, the mics and so on and so forth that you started with.
And then you've built on the processes and working through how to get started and the consulting that you guys do.
It just feels like people have an interest and they know where to go now.
Versus back to my example I gave of, who I just talked to a couple of days ago.
No one knows where to go.
So there probably is on that campus, which is a big university.
There probably is a lot of pockets of individuals and people and faculties that are wanting to, but no one knows where to go.
And you've created that central place.
Sage Tanguay: Yeah, and I think it's also important for us to sort of acknowledge, like, here at UVA, there are other places that you can go and record a, a podcast.
I actually was just meeting with some of the people who have, like, designed these, like, kind of one off, you know, recording booths that are in academic buildings or in the library system.
And we're just now talking to each other, like, we should really kind of collaborate and make sure that people know where to go for the right thing.
Because like, one of the facilities has like massive studios that are really good if you have like five people on your podcast.
Some of the studios are like, if you know what you're doing and you just need a place to record, that's the place to go.
We're sort of like, if you have artistic questions and questions about distribution, we can post all of that.
And we can also do training and provide some technology as well.
But there's so like, we're still building those relationships here at UVA.
And then the other thing I will say that definitely led to our success is I think the leadership at WTJU has an approach to collaborating with the rest of the university that's extremely mission driven for connecting community and university resources and making sure everyone has access.
And so, there's very few projects that we would turn down coming from inside the university or outside from the Charlottesville community in terms of like, hey, we need someone to run sound for this or hey, I've been thinking about doing an event.
Can we, you know, can you help us with that?
There's like a lot of multidisciplines and just interdisciplinary work that the station has done within both Charlottesville and the university that I think has led to very deep relationships with different departments and different organizations, that then have kind of trickled down into this like, oh yeah, people come to us for podcasting.
Mary Garner McGehee: I think a lot of universities will build a podcast studio or have like equipment that people can borrow.
But I tell people this all the time.
The technical part isn't the hard part.
It's all the other questions.
Neil McPhedran: I totally agree.
It's everything that you've, it's, that's almost like sort of the table stakes, you've got it there.
But everything else you described your intake system and your documentation you've created, all the questions you're asking, the way that you are approaching it, the, just even the lens that you've applied to it of evergreen limited series podcasts and so on and so forth, I just think is, just is just tremendous and.
Jennifer-Lee: You guys are so ahead.
I feel like I could go into many conversations with you.
Like limited series is something that I think is not utilized enough.
And I think it's because it's hard because we don't say it on these platforms.
We don't say it on Spotify.
We don't say it on iTunes.
There's no category yet.
So when people go, and I get people to research, especially when I start with a client, is like research what is out there already.
And you go, and there's so many dead podcasts out there.
Some that have only gotten to three episodes and they didn't move forward.
Or one episode, but I say, why not have a limited series category?
Because some podcasts don't need to go on forever.
And I think that's another thing that people are scared of.
They think because that's the way it's marketed right now is, if I have a podcast, oh no, this is like, forever until I decide to call it quit.
And no limited series.
If you only have enough to say in going back, you can give a studio, but you gotta give other tools.
You need to have a way to get into your break and a way to get out of your break.
And you know that from radio, and it's the same thing for podcasting.
So if your limited series only allows you to go five episodes or eight episodes, and it's tied up in a neat little package.
Why break it?
People are scared of that.
Mary Garner McGehee: Well, I think the trade off for limited series is that it's hard to build an audience around something when you're not putting it out consistently.
But I'll say we have kind of a fun little success story on that, which is in the fall of 2019, we partnered with the department at UVA, the drama department, and we had some like, UVA arts funding and they produced an original audio drama that is totally evergreen, like doesn't have anything time sensitive in it.
And you know, it got some listens when it first came out and we were like promoting it.
And then last year I was like going through and like doing some data updating on all of our podcasts.
And I was like, oh my gosh, this podcast had gotten like tons of listens like four years after it came out.
I think it had gotten on like a Spotify playlist recommendation or something like that.
And so when you create stuff like that, that's limited run and evergreen, like, yeah, you don't have as much time to do that official launch.
But it can live online forever, you know, like it has plenty of time to, to find its audience.
Sage Tanguay: Yeah, the other, I have two things.
One is just like a background reasoning for why I'm a big fan of limited release.
When you work in a community news environment where you are producing a whatever number of stories per week, and usually you have it down to like, well, at this time on Wednesday, I need to send Judy my copy of, of this so it goes to air, right?
Like, that is a very specific type of work.
And it's just like any other type of work that you have to just kind of keep going at.
You're constantly contacting people to interview.
You're constantly going.
And that's, it's a job, like, right?
At a, at a station, that's a job, right?
Most people are not making their podcasts their job.
And so to approach it the same way that we do any other, like, weekly daily news is like, ridiculous to me.
It's really, that's a lot to ask of yourself as a, as someone trying to host something.
Mary Garner McGehee: Especially if you're an academic and you're already doing so much other creative, generative work.
Sage Tanguay: And the other thing, and this is something that we, what our presentation at, uh, the Humanities Podcasting Network was about, which was just that academia is a great habitat for limited series, long form narrative podcasting, right?
So, heavily researched, sound rich, multi voiced interviews that are woven into a story, really hard to support that type of production outside in the market.
It exists, but it's always kind of a risk.
But at a university, right, there's already this semester system.
There's a lot of turnover.
So doing anything for years and years and years is hard.
There's grants to apply to every season.
There's limited runs of classes that can help feed into what you're producing in a show.
All of those things make doing like, limited run, documentary style podcast really possible at a university.
It's still a massive lift, but it's just a massive lift for a semester or two rather than forever, you know.
Neil McPhedran: That's great.
I like those, totally agree with those two points.
Well, I feel like we could chat forever.
We've taken up a lot of your time and there's just a ton of insights here that you've both shared with us.
Really, really appreciate it.
And I feel like taking the conversation back to the beginning where we were talking about community radio and how it really is about the community and it's a voice for the whole community.
Really, that's what you've created with your podcast collective, with your audio collective, it's for the community.
And the fact that you're leaning into the heritage of that community to build it out.
And as you said, from the leadership down, that's excellent.
And that's obviously tremendous approach.
And just by looking at our conversation, your website and all of those incredible podcasts on there, congratulate you guys.
You're really onto something.
We'll be sure to put the links to everything in our show notes, to the collective, to the radio station.
We didn't get to it, but that Humanities Podcast Network and the symposium that you guys spoke at, we didn't even get to that, but we'll put a link to that in there too.
There's just so much there.
Mary Garner McGehee: I feel like we should also give some credit to our general manager who's been here, his name is Nathan Warren.
He's been here for about fifteen years.
The, the podcast collective was really his idea and he kind of got it started and he's been willing to invest in it too.
It's scary and it's hard when you work at a small, nimble, non commercial media organization to take some risks like investing in these sorts of things.
So I think that's a lesson too.
Neil McPhedran: It's a really good point.
Sage Tanguay: Yeah.
The last thing I'll say too is that, because of Nathan's connections with other people at the university and ability to sort of network and, and say yes to wild ideas that have never happened before.
I'm fully funded by a residential college here at UVA.
And so I'm actually like, I do work for the, the audio collective, but a lot of my focused work is working with this living and learning community in what we call the Community Media Initiative.
And MG is partially funded by another program at UVA.
Mary Garner McGehee: The Sound Justice Lab at UVA.
This was really fun.
Jennifer-Lee: Well, I'm going to steal your line.
That was another great episode, Neil.
Neil McPhedran: Yes.
I have said that before, I think.
You're right.
No, that was, that was a wonderful conversation and we definitely learned a lot from MG and Sage.
And I'm looking forward to our next episode where we dig into another podcast network.
Jennifer-Lee: They're becoming all the rage and I love it.
They are really starting to be really cool, creating these amazing communities that connect everybody.
Because, you know, not to sound like a broken record, but what we hear from a lot of people is that when they're in these large campuses, they don't realize that there are other podcasts there.
So it's a way to keep the community connection.
And in our next episode, not to give away, but this particular university we're talking to is massive.
There's like a North, a South, a West and East, and it's like blocks and blocks and blocks.
And so they said, it's a way to keep everyone engaged because you would never be able to walk across campus, take you a while.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah, right.
So if anyone out there listening, if you have other thoughts or you want to point us to other university podcast networks, please reach out and let us know.
Well, I think that's a wrap.
Read us out there, Jen, please.
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