The word audience is an interesting one, but it doesn’t mean listener.

One thing you should always remember is radio and podcast is always a one 2 one medium. You are never with an audience. You are always with a single person.

In fact radio and TV have never really had an audience. We have never really had audience figures – watching and listening perhaps? Or maybe not?

The word audience derives from a period of time where entertainers were actually performing to an audience. Traditionally the theatre or concert where a group of people sat in front of you and you could see their reaction to the work you lay out before them.

When we look at Podcast should we say listener; or should we? Do people actually listen or do they have you on in the background.

Radio is the perfect example of a secondary medium. What I mean by this is that radio is something you can and often have on while you do something else. Reading the newspaper, getting the kids ready for school, eating breakfast or walking the dog are good examples of primary activity that takes place with radio as an accompaniment.

TV these days has also become a bit of a secondary medium with people surfing the net while the TV entertains at the same time. Many script writers of soaps know this and write accordingly.

Podcast could also be that secondary activity. The question though is, do people really listen or is it just on and they consume and every so often picking out something they like?

I was doing up my garden a few months back, and the radio was on. I was listening to the Wimbledon Tennis finals.   I was so absorbed in the commentary of the Andy Murray match my fence panels ended up slightly out of line. However, the England Under 21’s European football match was so dire that those panels are up perfectly.

In radio or Podcast I think it is a case of creating content that is an enough of a distraction, enough of a value proposition and need for your listener to keep them compelled away from that is usual and for your a moment for your content not be a secondary activity but a front of mind actuality.