Pop Culture Podcast
Popspotting #145: “You Want It When?” (Oct. 7, 2011)
We kick off this feedback show with a call from Angela in Missouri, who was as happy to find us podcasting again as we were to have her back in the family. She shares some of her favorite Asian dishes, then on the entertainment front, suggests we take a look at “Being Human.” How does it compare to the original U. يورو 2023 مباريات K. series? Shelley in Oklahoma has an opinion on that. Then Geoff shares his love of “Band of Brothers,” with a vote of support from Faith in Tennessee.
Also today, more judgments on new fall TV shows, from “2 Broke Girls” to “Suburgatory” to “Prime Suspect.” We get schooled on Bollywood, and we get six app recommendations to help us get in shape.
Finally, we’d like to ask for your feedback on the Popspotting show schedule.
We’ve posted 85 daily episodes (with a break for Comic-Con) since relaunching in May. We love the Monday-through-Friday scheme we’ve got going, and it seems listeners do, too. But we also know (both from your feedback and from our stats) that a daily show is tough to keep up with. Many people fall behind, week to week, and from Monday through Friday. And honestly, we’re struggling to keep up with all the great stuff we need to watch, hear, and read in order to talk about it.
So as we’ve mentioned before, we’d like to build in breaks into our schedule.
We were thinking we could go to a “three one, one off” monthly cycle, or do “seasons” (eight to ten weeks, with longer breaks). فريق مان سيتي We could even alternate weeks, for the most conservative setup… and there are probably other schedule ideas we’ve not thought of. We’d really appreciate it if you’d tell us what you prefer, and what works best for your listening schedule.
You all everybody are the reason we do this show. لعبة الحظ بالارقام Thanks for helping us make it the best it can be.
Never saw the UK version of Being Human, but enjoyed the US version.
I am for 3 weeks on 1 off. I would really miss y’all if you did seasons on and off. Or 1st and 3rd weeks on 2nd and forth off.
I’m with Geoff. There are some weeks I don’t catch up with the show until later in the week (as an example, I marathoned Wed and Thur eps this morning on my way to work), but I would miss the regularity of having your voices on my iPod. So, my greedy answer is keep on keeping on (but if you need a break, then 3/1 or alternate weeks would be good for me)…
As another idea, you could do a rotation of 3 shows / 2 shows week by week (for example M/W/F shows one week and T/Th shows the next week), so that you are doing a complete week’s worth of shows every two weeks… Just a thought…
I like the 3 on, 1 off! I’m greedy and don’t want to be “left out in the cold” for a month at a time. 🙂
My personal opinion is you can’t please everyone when it comes to schedules for podcasts, so don’t jump through hoops trying. Just do what works best for yourselves and the fans that truly care about the show will continue to listen, no matter how many shows you put out each week.Â
Love the show, keep up the good work.
I’ll go along with the chorus of broadcasting shows when you want to. Let it be the responsibility of us listeners to either catch up with all of the shows on our own time or just pick and choose the shows that we want to listen to… like how it is now. Perhaps like network TV you can take the holidays off – Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. An abbreviated schedule in the summer, that kind of stuff. Really it is up to you. You folks are the podcasters.
Thanks for your thoughts so far. For sure, we’ll podcast when we can, and we won’t when we can’t… but I also know, as a listener, that it helps to know what to expect. Sporadic random shows will lose listeners, no question.
Trust us, we’d keep going nonstop if we could. This is perhaps our reluctant admission that we probably can’t.
As I mentioned, ‘seasons’ seemed to be Jen’s preference, but I think longer breaks are also going to be hard. It’s a lot of momentum lost, and I know for sure it would actually be harder to get up to speed again!
I’m leaning toward a week off a month. True, a friend emailed to say that frequent breaks may mean more time spent ‘catching up,’ but I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. One of a few reasons why next week seems precarious is that we haven’t found the time to watch the rest of the TV we want to talk about. We record on both Saturday and Sunday nights, and with work and the kids, primetime viewing is hard to come by!
It does help a lot to hear how you listen to our show, though, and how you catch up. And it means a lot that you cared enough to chime in, when this is really a pretty silly “problem” to ask for help with. We really do appreciate it!
I like the week off per month. It would give you too a regular break plus you wouldn’t lose listeners as you might with a longer hiatus. In all honesty, I’ll keep listening nonmatter your decision.
Thanks, Mel. Real life will probably dictate that family holidays will bring breaks no matter what! But we appreciate the openness and vote of confidence!
Thanks, Matt. We’re no hoop jumpers, for sure. But it’s keeping in touch with and forging connections with listeners like you that motivate us. We definitely don’t want to drive anyone away. Mahalo!
Thanks for the feedback. I agree, longer breaks can be tricky. Once we took a ‘hiatus’ after the ‘LOST’ finale, it took us over a year to come back!  Is this your first comment? Welcome to the blog!
Great to hear from you on this, Daniel. I guess breaking up shows across weeks sounds reasonable, but the way we record the show, it could take just as much time doing it MWF/TR as it does now doing every weekday. Any ‘bye week’ will probably have to mean the full weekend to recover and watch lots of TV in order to be useful.
Alternate weeks? That’d be a pretty leisurely pace. Don’t think it’d be quite enough, though.Thanks for your thoughts. Dedicated listeners like you mean the world to us.
Aw, Geoff. We’d miss you too. You’re practically a rotating guest host! Daniel also mentioned alternating weeks, which I threw out there, and I won’t deny it’s a possibility. But it’d feel a bit halting to me. A month off a week gives us decent momentum, some rest, and 15 episodes a month, or, basically, an episode every other day (if you didn’t keep up regularly). That looks like the prevailing preference… apart from no breaks at all! Mahalo for chiming in.
Thanks, Faith. We know we’ve let listeners down before with scheduling (or the lack thereof!), so we’re especially sensitive to not mess things up this time around. Mahalo for sticking with us!
One of the advantages to podcasting is that queing up backdated shows is really simple, and with your 15-20 minute format a catchup is relatively painless. Therefore, you guys shouldn’t tie yourself down to a hard and fast production schedule that ties you down to what is likely to be unsustainable dailies. In other words, I suggest what suits you guys best. Just clue us in when you plan on doing a hiatus. Like a good tv series, we’ll be back when you say you are coming back.
For me, Stitcher’s startup music might as well be the cool bass line of Popspotting’s theme. You guys are on the top of my queue.
Are you guys planning a Jobs tribute?
I think my vote would go to the 3 on 1 off. But, like many people have already said, please do what works best for you guys. Â
Thanks so much for the podcast, I’ve really enjoyed listening. And thanks again for turning me on to Fringe. Â I just finished season 1 (loved it!), and hopefully will get through season 2 in the next couple weeks. Â I’m hoping to catch up to season 4 before it ends.
I will keep subscribing through Itunes no matter what. Yours is one of the first podcasts I ever fell for and you never forget your first love. Hearing your voices is like hearing from old friends, whenever that may be. Really appreciate all your dedication. I will take you along on walks with my Doberman, Georgia for as long as you choose to put content out there. Mahalo
Bonita
You could do what Conan and Chelsea Handler do and reduce the number of shows per week to four with a rerun on Friday. (Joke.)
I love getting new shows each weekday. It helps me get through the work week and I enjoy listening to them when I wake up in the morning. However, if there needs to be more breaks besides the weekends, I would really like the 3 on then 1 off (or something similar) schedule as I hate when there are larger gaps in time and I feel like I am missing something I so need! Also, what about doing a school schedule? I am a teacher in NY. I am not sure what the Hawaii school schedules look like, but in NY there are many breaks and days off. During the school year, you can always take the days off or weeks off that school is not in session. Do whatever is best for you two and your family, however, please know that I look forward to seeing the show in my feed in the mornings and I would love to have that gift as often as possible. Mahalo!
Hey Ryan and Jen,
First I wanted to comment on something one of your emailers mentioned in this Feedback Friday episode. I think it was Rashmi in Perth that talked about Bollywood films and I just wanted to chime in and say that one of the films she briefly mentioned, Delhi Belly, is actually going to be playing at HIFF this Friday. http://www.hiff.org/program/films/detail/dehli_belly_2011 Not sure if you guys will be able to make it (or myself for that matter), but thought it was mentioning due to the coinciding of the reference in the Friday episode, and of HIFF starting up this week.
As for how I digest your guys’ podcast . . . I generally listen to you guys in my car the day after the episode “airs.” I have three daily podcasts I listen to weekdaily (the other 2 are ESPN shows) and I usually make sure to listen to the daily ones as they air so that those don’t back up. I generally push other weekly or stand alone podcasts back since I can catch up with those over the course of a week. Also, if I need to sacrifice other movie podcasts to listen to my daily ones, well, the world won’t end if that happens.
In regards to the show schedule and breaks, I kind of lean towards the “1 week off 3 week on” formula more than the “seasonal” schedule. Like others have mentioned, its mainly due to the frequently aspect. Then again, I may be one of those in the minority that listen to you guys relatively quickly after a new episode airs. I also think this format lends more favorable to holiday breaks as well. We have Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up and I definitely don’t expect you guys to give up your holidays for the podcast. So, a 1 or two week break around that definitely fits with the “1 off 3 on” format.
Sorry for the long comment, but you got a great podcast and I just want to help provide feedback to make it easier for you and better for us all. 🙂
Hows about 3 weeks on, one week off. I’ll listen however it finally works out.
Thanks, Al. I like that you used the word ‘unsustainable,’ which was mentioned to me a lot when I started planning over a year ago to do something daily. We’re finding it’s not impossible, but the skeptics were certainly onto something!
We can’t consume pop culture as fast as we’d like, and we’re often flying by the seat of our pants when a sick kid or weekend event throws a wrench into our plans. So we just want to make sure we leave some breathing room and make sure our wonderful listeners don’t give up on us in the mean time.Thanks for listening, and for thinking of us. As for a Jobs tribute, probably not. We are an Apple family and of course produce our podcast with Apple equipment, so that’s tribute enough, I hope!
Thanks, Nicole! I think 3-1 will be the way to go.
We love that we’ve turned a few folks onto “Fringe,” when we once thought everyone was already watching. It’s a top show for us, for sure.
You’re going to make us cry! We feel the same way about you, and many of the other long-time members of our podcasting family. Give Georgia our best, Bonita!
Heh. You don’t want to know how close I came to dropping ‘reruns’ into the feed this week. But I thought it would annoy more people than it would comfort.
Thanks, “L.” Seems many are concerned about longer breaks, as was I. But a ‘school schedule’ was certainly one of the models for the thought to do seasons. We do have three young kids — well, two young boys and a teen daughter — so certainly school scheduling and family events always have an impact on our podcasting. We do love doing the show, though, especially knowing it’s part of the daily routine for so many great people!
It’s so great to hear from you, and thanks for the HIFF heads up! We will be catching “The Descendants” and hopefully the Giacchino talk this weekend, but we might miss “Delhi Belly.” It does sound like a lot of fun, though!
Your podcast listening schedule is a lot like mine. I do focus on the daily shows, then use weekly, longer shows to fill whatever time I have the rest of the day. This is, of course, why I wanted to do a daily show. I did have to chuckle when one of my daily inspirations, though (“The Daily Giz Wiz”) suddenly declared them to be untenable and went to weekly the same month we launched.
You’re right, the 3-1 setup does allow for flexibility to wrap around major holidays and family stuff, so that’s probably the way we’ll go.
I really appreciate the “long comment,” and overall it’s just really… heartening to see that I wasn’t crazy to think this question mattered to people. We’ve always felt especially close to our listeners, and this almost indulgent conversation is proving that the feeling of family is justified.
Thanks, Jwrollins. That seems to be the consensus. But we’re glad you’re willing to share your time with us, however it turns out!
I agree with Matt, whatever works for you guys is fine. However, just to add my two cents in, suggest maybe two or three episodes a week? That way, if I miss a day or so, I’m not that far behind. 🙂 Thanks always, you and Mrs.Hawaii keep up the good work.
Jon Stewart has a staff, a decent budget, and 100+ days off, including Fridays and summers.
You guys already have full time jobs, no budget and planned to produce more media minutes than the Daily Show. Relax. We’ll be there, and we definately don’t want you guys to burn out – you guys have lightning in a bottle right now.Â
And Ryan, “best of” podcasts are a good idea when you know your audience is missing shows occasionally. If we don’t want to hear a repeat, that’s what the “next podcast” button is for.