Creating a Podcast: Tips on Format and Researching Your Topic

Think about whether you will be producing your podcast alone or whether it will be a team effort. Will you be the single presenter or will you have co-hosts? Will you conduct live interviews as part of the podcast or will you rely on secondary recordings?

It is also important to decide where you will record your podcast. Does your workplace have suitable facilities or will you be recording at home, or in another private location? A well-chosen setting is vital (see section on Location).

At this stage it is also worth thinking about the length of your podcasts. Will they be short 10-minute weekly editions, 30-minute weekly episodes or 1-hr monthly editions? Which formats do you prefer as a listener? Quality over quantity still holds true.  And remember a 30-minute podcast may require 2-3 hours of preparatory research.

Examples: 

The Blúiríní Béaloidis podcast is a 1-hr monthly podcast but the team research their topics for 2 weeks prior to each recording: identifying and reading primary and secondary sources, selecting and editing audio recordings for inclusion etc.

If you aim to discuss a different topic for each podcast episode you may need to undertake primary and secondary research in preparation. This will aid your script development and help facilitate a structure for each episode.

Depending on your topic you can avail of an array of research sources: from UCD Library to local archives, to your own primary research.

By reading widely on a topic you’ll begin to visualize a potential structure for your episode and the elements you might like to focus on in the podcast. It is worth noting these down as bullet points and fleshing them out in an initial script for your first episodes.

You are creating a ‘walled garden’ with your structure. Having this in place gives each episode a frame and flow, and as you grow more comfortable, the nature of your script can become more fluid. You may like to create a script for each part of the episode or simply speak informally on your findings and readings.

Having a guide is important however as it reduces the numbers of pauses in your recording and thus reduces the amount of editing required.