8 Podcast Formats for 2022
I ❤️ podcasts!
But I’ve been nerding out on them ever since 2006 — the first time podcasts were a thing. Now, I’m getting ready to launch Season 6 of my primary podcast*, The Edutainer, in 2022 — so I’ve been thinking a lot about…podcast formats.
If you’ve been thinking about starting a podcast in the new year, or you’ve got a podcast already up and running like me, but you want to change things up for the new year, I thought I’d share some of my own favorite podcast formats that I both love to listen to and/or try to create on my own. Ready?
- The short & sweet format, no guests — This was my favorite format in Season 5 of The Edutainer. It’s just a short and sweet podcast to check in with the audience and focus on one topic for 5–10 minutes. Now that several of us don’t commute to an office, the amount of time that we have to listen to podcasts during the pandemic has radically been cut back in a lot of instances — so, it’s sometimes best to drop in, say hi, and share one tip. Here’s a sample: Score one for the Generalists.
- Co-host commentary — If you can partner on a podcast, the witty banter between two or more hosts is always fun. It’s just important to not ramble too long, especially if the co-hosts have no wit in their banter. This format is good for weekly news or meeting recaps.
- The 20-minute guest interview — Commutes used to be, on average, about 20–25 minutes. This is also enough time to get to meet and know someone around a specific topic as well. I like short and sweet interviews myself these days. This generally takes 10–12 questions for prep time to a guest, if you like to give your guests advanced questions as a heads up. Here’s a sample that’s shorter than 20 minutes.
- The double-duty vodcast interview — This is like #2 above, but instead of recording audio-only, the host records audio and video, and then strips out the audio-only to recycle for the podcast. Here’s a sample that I did recently as a guest on video. But face for radio over here — I prefer audio only for my podcasting. 🙂
BTW here is a list of indie pharmacist podcasters.
5. One-hour in-depth interview — Tim Ferriss is a master of this — he asks really excellent, unique questions of one guest and does a ton of prep before his interviews. I’ve done this a bit in the past, but oftentimes I broke up a 1–2 hour interview into multiple segments or episodes in my own podcast. I like a good speed round of questions at the end of this longer format as well.
6. The multiple guest interview mashup — My favorite hosts/masters of this format are two: 1. Malcolm Gladwell Revisionist History and 2. Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam. These take a ton of time, thought, and thoughtful editing. For those who have that kind of time, resources, and editing patience, I salute you! This is my favorite format if I have a lot of windshield time and as a listener.
7. The livestream — Clubhouse and/or Castbox (livecast) offer up livestream audio now. There’s a bit of wildcard on the audience and their questions on Clubhouse, but it’s fun to interact live real-time….if you dare. Of course, you could do live stream video as well here….for the triple win if you record it (live stream, video recording, and audio recording) but live always has a risk-taking element to it.
8. The miniseries — Several episodes, any length, guests or not, on a topic. I’ve done 10 part series on the Art of Finding a New Job During a Pandemic in 2020 as an example, or the Sanditon Fan Fiction Writers Series. I love this format perhaps the most of all as a podcast host, because it allows listeners to deep dive with me into one topic, but you’re not pigeonholed on the topic forever. Just like books, podcast miniseries can feel “done” at a certain point.
Any other formats you love? Be sure to share them below. And to all who put together original content on podcasts — thank you! Let’s have a better 2022, filled with excellent podcast content! 🎙
*I also kicked off the first season of The American Society for Pharmacy Law’s Podcast, and occasionally guest host on Apex Benefits’ Podcast.
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Erin L. Albert is a podcaster and podcast fan, inter alia. The opinions above are her own. Season 6 of The Edutainer Podcast begins in January 2022.
