The rise of the locally-made podcast
In a world where the demand for media is constant, where we can’t eat dinner without watching something on TV because, God forbid, we are alone with our own thoughts for 10 minutes, there are constantly new forms of entertainment and new tools to distract us from the pain of being alive. One of these glorious new forms of media is the podcast.
Some people might compare podcasting to radio, and it’s not an entirely inaccurate point. The key difference is that if you’re listening to a podcast, you really want to be listening to it. It’s different from having your AUX cord break in your car and being forced to listen to the first clear frequency you can find.
It sometimes feels like podcasts get a bad rap, especially when there’s people like Joe Rogan dominating the scene and upsetting all of your dad’s favourite musicians with his misinformation and general bullshit.
This isn’t a Joe Rogan slam piece though, even though it totally could be. It’s important that instead of highlighting the shitty people of the podcast world, that we devote some energy to quality local creators.
One podcast that deserves the hype it gets is Learnt My Lesson. Jess and Sav have been co-hosting the show that discusses all things mental health, and delves into topics that people don’t always want to talk about. They’ve chatted with the one and only Ashley Bloomfield, and done partnerships with Chow, Nuzest and BeYou.
When I asked them about the origin of Learnt My Lesson, it started just as you’d expect it to. Essentially it was a ‘we should definitely start a podcast’ moment. I’ve had those moments too, but these two actually did it and saw some awesome success with over 60,000 downloads since they started in 2020.
“We were just talking one day and thought, someone should definitely be recording us all the time.”
They reached out to another podcast, The Oversharers, who really inspired them and got put in contact with their producer who helped get Learnt My Lesson off the ground.
One of the most successful episodes they released was when they had a chat with Ashley Bloomfield, Mr Press Conference himself. He opened up about his anxiety and how he dealt with being the face that many of us turned to during Covid-19’s first go at us in 2020.
They also saw great success with an episode where they discuss their friendship breakup.
“People love a bit of drama,” Sav said.
The official advice from the Learnt My Lesson hosts if you want to start a podcast of your own is to understand the commitment you’re taking on.
“It’s a huge commitment, I mean just listening to your own voice back on tape is hard enough. A lot of people say they want to start podcasts but there’s a really dark statistic about how many actually go for a long period of time and reach success, I think it’s only about 20%,” Jess told Massive.
On what got them over this scary prospect, they say it was a discussion they had before deciding to start the project.
“We were talking and wondering why we would want to listen to us, we would second guess ourselves and wonder why us? But then we thought, why not us?”
Podcasting in Aotearoa has not seen the same huge success that it has overseas, and those making independent continuous podcasts don’t have the same revenue options as big podcasts overseas. Getting into the podcast space and actually seeing success is a rare thing, but there are so many excellent podcasts like Learnt My Lesson that discuss issues that impact so many of us.
One of these podcasts is The Hard Way hosted by Molly Blanchard. She has been self-producing her podcast since early 2021. The motto of her show is “out here learning shit the hard way”. She talks about mental health, often focusing on how little men’s mental health is prioritised, and how to get through all the struggles that life throws at you.
“I wanted to make the podcast in the beginning because I’m just generally a really big talker. In the first lockdown I was in a slump and was thinking about how much is going on in the world and I wanted to be able to talk through it and give my opinion on it, and maybe give people someone to lean on while everything was going on.”
Molly keeps wanting to use her podcast to continue inspiring people, as well as have the chance to take her podcast from a hobby into a full-time job.
“I’d need to get paid enough to actually live on, so I hope I can get some kind of sponsorship to turn The Hard Way into more than a hobby and grow it into my day job,” Molly tells Massive.
Molly echoes the sentiment of Jess and Sav, if you think you have something to say you should go for it. She also acknowledges that it is a huge commitment, especially financially.
“It’s either going to work or it’s not, and you’ll only know by going for it. You have to make sure you have enough to talk about to keep people interested, having guests or a co-host will keep the podcast engaging, even if it doesn’t work out, you learn from everything you do and you can use that going forward.”
Molly hopes that her podcast can help people of all ages, but especially those who are in their teens or early twenties.
“I think I’m like this crazy aunt who makes all of these mistakes so you don’t have to. My main point of advice is if you want to do something, just fucking do it. Life is crazy and hard and you should be able to try and go for what you want to achieve.”
Learnt My Lesson and The Hard Way are just two examples of awesome young people taking up space in what is clearly an industry on the rise. There’s a real appetite out there for people who are open and vulnerable about how tricky life can be. With so much of the media we consume being from the US or overseas, it’s awesome to have local voices who can talk us through issues that are sometimes really specific to the experience of young New Zealanders.
Jess from Learnt My Lesson points out that New Zealand is really behind the curve when it comes to podcasts. The huge market in the US is evidence that people really do want to listen to other people talk, who have something to say.
Essentially, the podcast world is growing and you should get amongst it, because it’s not going anywhere.