Among the various podcasts out there, I have to give a serious shout-out to Stephen Fry’s podgrams. Fry is a BBC tv comedy institution and he also shows up in various films and TV shows, but the most fun thing about him is how British he is. He has a great accent, seems to both enjoy being from the whole Oxbridge crew as well as satirizing being from it, and really enjoys being well-spoken and intellectual-y. All tempered with the off-the-cuff best British silliness in his humor. The BBC describes him thus:
"Stephen Fry seems as English as tweed, silver toast racks and the London black cab he can be seen driving around the streets of the capital."
His podgrams are very irregular, but are always a blast to listen to. His latest consists of Mr. Fry reading a speech he recently gave regarding the BBC and the motion to "slice" their licensing fee to include the (apparently) foundering Channel 4. He uses this speech as an excuse to talk about his own history with the BBC (from listening to BBC radio to making shows of his own) and to explore the current state of media production and distribution today. For anyone in or connected to any kind of "content production" in today’s world, it’s a pretty great podcast.
The podgrams can be found here, though you’ll have to subscribe via itunes…in case you’ve no time nor audio to listen to a podcast, there’s a text transcript here…and his blog is also fun (he’s a bit of a tech-head)…he’s got a great post talking about being semi-famous and what it’s like to have people coming up to you all the time to talk to you, have pictures taken, etc. Interesting stuff…
I love this bit from the BBC podgram:
And as for broadcasting, well after a mad diversion of believing that it was all about distribution, every media boss now repeats the mantra Content is King.
‘We repent,’ they seem to be saying, ‘being a media boss is no longer about owning as many stations, networks, nodes, outlets and ports as possible – it’s about production, about making things. I see that now.’
‘Hurray,’ shout the programme makers, ‘finally you’ve understood. So, give us the money then.’
‘What money?’ say the media executives, ‘there is no money. We spent it all buying up companies and their back catalogues. We needed content in a hurry, because – in case you weren’t aware … content is king, you know.’
‘Doh. Hang on … but what about new content?’
‘Good lord no. Are you mad? Far too expensive.’
On my ride in to work I was listening to some tracks off The World According to RZA, a record that didn’t get a US release. It’s RZA going around the world and highlighting a bunch of foreign rappers and hip-hop types…it’s a bit hit-or-miss, but it’s pretty fun, and you really get a sense that these foreign MCs are really giving it their all because they know it’ll have RZA’s name on it. JG and I came across it while doing research for our all-things-RZA