In the 59th episode of the Freezenet official podcast, “Going on Hiatus”, we announce that this podcast is being put on hold.
Welcome to the public version of the Freezenet official podcast for September, 2023. This month’s episode is entitled “Going on Hiatus” because, well, I’m taking this podcast onto a hiatus. After putting in the time to try and make this a great podcast, the low response compared to something like YouTube has been noticeable for some time.
As I got further and further behind on other projects, it became a question of whether or not it was worth it to continue. This was before I contacted a consultant to talk about the YouTube channel. He pretty much confirmed what I had suspected all along.
So, I thought I’d spend this last episode explaining the work flow for the podcast, how much effort it is to make this in the first place, the results it got, and why I came to this conclusion. It’s a short episode to say the least which would explain the short turnaround time this episode. I’m not closing the door entirely on podcasting, but it doesn’t make much sense to continue it on at this point in time.
You can check out our official podcast on Spotify. Alternatively, you can take a listen below:
What follows is a transcript to this month’s episode:
Intro
Going on Hiatus
Hi, I’m your host, Drew Wilson. Welcome to episode 59 of the Freezenet official podcast for September, 2023.
This month is going to be a very different episode. The short of it is that I’m taking the podcast into hiatus. I don’t know if it will return, but I thought I’d spend this last episode, well, last at least for now, explaining why I have made this decision.
The Process
First of all, I wanted to go over the long process I have to creating these episodes. At 7 days before the end of the month, I gather all the news articles I wrote on Freezenet. The articles for the episode date between that deadline and the 7th to last day of the previous month. The day this process starts is a day I call the “cutoff point”. This gives me a week to work on the podcast, giving me a necessary head start in putting together what you hear. When I reach the cutoff point, I make an announcement on Patreon, throwing in announcements of some of the games I’ll be previewing the next month in the process.
Then comes the process of the first draft. This is the most time consuming draft because I spend time making summaries of each article, organizing them in a logical manner, and rounding out the podcast with the entertainment stuff I have for the calendar month. Since reviews and video’s are done ahead of time, I can look at anything that hasn’t been published in advance to add them into the podcast during production. At this point, I gather the clips as necessary, getting rough cuts ready for the podcast for when I need them while editing. Depending on the situation, this may take anywhere between one and three days.
From there, I begin my drafting process. In this process, I refine the text by whispering everything that is said. I whisper out every draft because I would otherwise blow my vocal chords doing this. In the process, I find out what sentences don’t work despite being grammatically correct, shortening sentences to make the podcast easier to say, fine tuning the facts for accuracy, and other tweaks. Not only do I get practice in this, but I also refine the podcast script. The process makes the script easier to read out despite the complex nature of the topics I cover. This is the second draft.
I then repeat the drafting phase until I get a 6th draft completed. By that point, I’m basically moving the deck chairs. What changes I do make most likely do not really impact the overall podcast as a whole at that stage. These additional 5 drafts ultimately take up the bulk of the time when put together as a group of steps. It usually sets me back anywhere between 3 days to a week, depending on the length of the podcast and what all else is happening.
From there, I block out a day to rehearse the podcast once, then do an actual recording. The actual recording is where I actually use my full voice. Even then, by the time I make it to the end of a podcast, my voice is usually feeling it. Can’t blame me when I’m talking for anywhere between 45 minutes to 3 hours straight, really. This just takes a day, but sometimes, things don’t work out and it might take a second day to complete this.
Once the recording is done, I make an additional announcement on Patreon. The post showcases my progress. Additionally, I also complete the announcements for which other games will be featured on the YouTube channel in the process.
From there, editing begins and that usually takes me about 1 to 3 days. Again, it depends on what all is happening and how long the podcast is, how many clips are involved, and other factors. In the process, I edit down the clips, giving them some mastering treatment. Then, I mix it all down into a nice single audio clip after.
After that, the podcast gets posted on Patreon which involves me formatting the script so all the links display nicely. It’s usually an all day process for me.
I then, of course, wait a week and post the podcast publicly. This process usually takes about an hour or less because the work is basically done. I have developed a system of copying all the formatting of the script straight from Patreon to the website.
Overall, this is a process that usually takes anywhere between a week to two and a half weeks. Throughout that time, I’m only doing basic work on everything else. It’s an extremely time consuming process.
Steps Taken to Make the Podcast a Success
Now, you might be wondering what steps I took to make the podcast a success. Obviously, there was the high quality original news content that even the large major media outlets struggle to attain. What’s more, I even received the help of an audio engineer for a while – to which I am eternally grateful for. I also took the time to get a better understanding of various editing and filtering techniques to make the podcast sound as clean as possible.
Further, I employed the use of clips to better illustrate my points in recent months. What’s more, I even posted the podcast to 13 platforms if you count Patreon. I also publicized the podcast on various social media platforms in the process. All of this over top of the podcast being posted on the main website with full transcripts.
Could I have done more? Sure. I could have found a way to integrate an intro and outro tune. What’s more, I could have worked on solving the problem of not being able to have guests on the program. Beyond that, though, there really wasn’t that much more I could’ve done to make things any better for the podcast.
Yes, there was a plan to turn it into a weekly podcast assuming it gained considerable traction. This after I had achieved financial stability with website operations in general, but beyond that, there just wasn’t that much more that could have been done.
The Numbers
So, the podcast started in 2018. In all, it achieved, as of the writing of this script, 764 listens in total. That’s with 58 great episodes and me basically giving the podcast every chance I could give it to succeed.
In 2019, I started up the YouTube channel. One platform for video content, 13 platforms for the audio content. It was actually kind of interesting to see a sort of arms race between YouTube and the podcast for views. The YouTube channel grew and eventually surpassed the podcast when both reached the milestone of 500 views. The thing is, the YouTube channel kept growing significantly in the years since.
In fact, just recently, the YouTube channel had achieved over 3,000 views which nearly quadruple the attention the podcast got. The podcast, without a doubt, was lingering in the background, just not getting very far while the YouTube channel was taking off.
This led to some hard thinking, is it worth it to continue on with the podcast when almost no one is interested in listening to it? Is creating a news podcast even worth it? Maybe news podcasting isn’t actually all that viable unless you had already achieved celebrity status. Maybe this just isn’t a good time for me to create a podcast. I, ultimately, had a lot of questions, but almost all of them pointed to this podcast being a not worthwhile pursuit.
As some know, I had gotten into contact with a YouTube consultant and I am working on restructuring the YouTube channel, using many of his great ideas. In the process, I announced the new channel of Your Era Gamer while splitting the political stuff into its own separate channel.
Ultimately, I wasn’t even close to unlocking the full potential of YouTube and YouTube was absolutely clobbering the podcasts performance. This after putting in the time and effort to do everything possible to make the podcast a success. Same kind of content, different platform, completely different results. While the restructure was going to happen anyway, the consultant pretty much confirmed what I had long suspected: a news podcast, at least for now, isn’t really worth my time.
By revamping the whole channel and getting better material out there, I could very easily look at the possibility of seeing the channel get 10 times the attention of the podcast eventually.
Conclusions
So, ultimately, this leads me to one question: is it worth putting my time and effort into an audio podcast when almost all of the attention is going to the site and YouTube? I put a lot of time and effort into everything – arguably more time into the podcast than on the YouTube channel. I got, well, not the greatest results.
Personally, it just doesn’t seem logical that I continue to pour that time and effort into a podcast that just doesn’t seem to go anywhere. While it is a nice idea in theory, going out for a jog and catching up on everything tech, for instance, when people aren’t interested, people aren’t interested.
Does this mean a permanent end to the podcast? I don’t know. Maybe, somewhere down the road, I might be able to restart it when there seems to be a viable reason to do so. For now, though, I think the smartest thing to do is focus in on projects that have actually built interest. That is YouTube video game content and my commentary on tech issues on that same platform.
To the two or three people out there that actually listen to this podcast, I’m sorry this didn’t work out. Thank you so much for listening all this time, though. Maybe there will be a return someday down the road, but I have to focus on where my time yields better results. As it just so happens, for now, that isn’t this podcast.
Don’t get me wrong, though. It was a fun ride putting together an audio podcast. It was something I had toyed and tinkered with from time to time before starting up Freezenet. Being able to finally see a full product go out to people was actually a pretty fulfilling thing. Success, however, is leading me elsewhere at this point, though.
So, I hope you enjoyed the podcast during this run. It was fun making it for you.
Outro
If you’d like to get your hands on some behind the scenes stuff, exclusive content, and early access material, you can check out our Patreon page at Patreon.com/freezenet. Through this, you can help make Freezenet just that much better all the while getting some pretty cool stuff in the process. That’s Patreon.com/freezenet!
Alternatively, you can simply buy us a coffee via ko-fi.com/freezenet!
…and that’s this months episode for September, 2023. I’m Drew Wilson for Freezenet. Be sure to check out our website at freezenet.ca for all the latest in news and reviews. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Mastodon. Thank you for listening.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
