Doug (and Sam) – I wasn’t singling y’all out as poster boys but you were the most vivid examples I had to hand of something that was bothering me. The Halley thing I knew well because I listened to all the shows and knew the genesis. It’s all part of the feeling-out process, but I just wanted to get on to the table what has long been the Perl motto – “There is more than one way to do it.”

Hey Ed! I don’t listen to every single one of your shows, but I pick and choose based on who the guest is. Some I have more interest in others. I really liked the Alison Bechdel interview and the Jeff Vandermeer. I’ve know Jeff for almost 15 years, since he tagged along to the studio when I interviewed his wife Ann. I do agree that the ability to be flexible with time and format is our advantage over radio, and to tell people that can’t use it is to forfeit the strong suit. I myself will sometimes break up interviews with a song but it is always for aesthetic and artistic reasons, not because I think people can’t handle it unbroken.

Derek, I’m with you brother. When I did my experiment to keep the shows under 15 minutes, pretty much nobody like that including me. It is what it is, unfold it at its own pace and the people that stick with it won’t mind it being what it is.

Sam, I wish Closet Deadhead could have continued. You pretty much did the impossible, making me care about the Dead and Dead culture. You rolled away the dew! I’m glad you took this in the spirit intended, which wasn’t a chide so much as a springboard to a conversation I’d been thinking about having anyway.

Ewan, I looked at your blog and it took a couple of looks to figure out that was the string you were talking about. I kind of liked the way the graphic looked with that line. Looks like the guy is on a surfboard.

Mike, you are smack in the tech media demographic so you should go for it. I like the longer ones too. Sam the people are speaking – 7 minutes of you are too little!

Peter, I think it’s different hearing from your fans and listeners that its too long, than a generic statement across the board about all podcasts in general. That said, you should do the length you want to do. The better you make it, the easier that length goes down. I certainly have decided at the 1:20 mark that I’d had enough of that episode. Do what you feel good doing, and you’ll get the audience that digs it and all will be right in the world.

i personally like longer ones, 45 to 60 minutes but it mostly depends on what i’m doing while listening…

i too have met sam at a conference and liked him, but his deadhead podcast didn’t work for me – will check out his media tech one though since i bet i fit that demo

You are definitely right about listening to your audience. I’ve had times when I think that Comic Book Noise is going too long, but when I start talking about making the shows shorter, my audience lets me know that they aren’t necessarily fans of the short form. I have never gotten a complaint about the shows being too long, but I’ve caught all kinds of hell when making them too short.

I can understand putting in a commercial if you have sponsorship. But should not a show simply be what it is? Why must we adopt the old radio models, particularly when people are, as you ponit out, often listening to these podcasts on their commutes? My own podcasts have ranged from 25 minutes to over an hour. The only reason I split some of these hour-plus conversations into multiple parts is because of file size and bandwidth issues, prohibitive on both listeners and podcaster.

I also agree with Doug Kaye’s wise words about constant reminders to the audience, as well as the troubling tendency of radio interviewers to treat their audiences as if they are imbeciles (“So let me get this straight. You say [what has just been uttered and what is clearly understandable because it has just been said].”) I assume that those who are kind enough to listen to my conversations are also sharp enough to keep up with any troublesome ambiguities. (And, hell, unlike radio, if there is a point of confusion, you can actually skip back a few minutes to clarify what was just said. Or you can even email the podcaster or leave a comment and ask and generate the kind of conversation that you just won’t see from the big media guys.)

These podcasts are often on niche subjects for niche audiences. Can we not then treat them with the respect and intelligence that they deserve? Is not a varying length an advantage for this very reason?

We also learned — duh! in retrospect — that unlike radio, you don’t need to remind listeners of whom you’re speaking with, etc. No, “We’re talking to Dave Slusher…” That, too, comes from radio, where listeners may join mid-program. Podcasts, by comparison, are linear: Everyone enters from the start.