Fulltime Casual - An Australian Film and TV Podcast

As you may or may not know, I’m unhealthily obsessed with Podcasts.

The last few weeks I’ve been busy setting up Australia’s first purpose built public Podcasting Studio. Why? Because their are some really great Podcasts available in Australia, but their could and should be far more.

Looking at the most popular Podcasts available on iTunes right now, the well produced podcasts fall into two main categories, Old Media spinoffs, and Tech related.

Thats understandable, as the Old Media players like Austereo, Macquarie Radio, etc, have been in the audio production game for a while now, and their podcasts are really just repackaged versions of the stuff they broadcast. Not that theres anything wrong with that. Tony Martin’s Get This is one of my favourite podcasts, but the promise of podcasting was to give a voice to independent media producers, as blogging did to print.

Then you have the Tech Podcasts. Again, I listen to a shitload of tech podcasts, like the ever popular TWiT and its many spinoffs, and the brilliant Buzz Out Loud. These shows are equally well produced because, well, geeks were the early adopters to podcasting, so they’ve had time and money to work out the kinks.

After those two types of shows, sadly, the quality drops way off. Sure their are exceptions to the rules, like the brilliant Boxcutters, a podcast for the tv obsessed. And Footytalk has analysis of AFL that reminds me of the old Macaveny vehicle Talking Footy. But these are few and far between, and almost impossible to find in iTunes.

Which brings me back to the studio. I want to create a place where anyone with a voice and a good idea can wander in, record their passion, and wander out again. My team of audio ninjas will clean up the audio, wrap it in a nice RSS feed, and submit it to iTunes. Podcasting need to be taken out of the realm of geek and Old Media for it to break through to a mainstream Audience. Until it does, its just geeks talking to geeks, or a regurgitation of media available else where. To the vast majority, that equals a a big fat “who cares”.

But I need your help. I really want to have the studio up and running as soon as possible, but little things keep getting in the way. Little things like Public Liabilty insurance, the cost of a a decent set of microphones, a mixer, more ram, external hard drives, soundproofing etc etc etc.

So far I’ve spent about $2000, and had a few bits of equipment donated, but I’m still about $2000 away from my goal. I can and will eventually get there, but if you would like to help, then I would like you to help to.

So, there is now a pretty donation button on the side of this blog. Even if you can only donate $10, it would make the world of difference. You will be thanked, loved, and you might even help create your next favourite podcast.

Thanks again,

Peter Wells.