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My Love Of Diversity in Podcasts…



By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

As I sit in my Kailyard I often wonder about the future.

I want to go to Boise Idaho.

There is nothing I want to go and see but I want to go and hear. I want to know if everyone, including the women, sound like the host of Great Detectives of Old Time Radio, Adam Graham. I don’t care if there is nothing there to see, I just want my lugs filled with such delicious and rich aural beauty.

I am an avid podcast listener and came across this treat many years ago. And in a month filled with some family fallout between one boy called Harry and the other called William, I am delighted to say that a short walk with Johnny Dollar or another 1950s episode of Sherlock Holmes or the Texas Rangers has filled me with greater joy than the political turmoil of some guy called McCarthy.

By the way, what is it with Americans and McCarthy? In fact, what is it with Americans and political names? Are you short of a few so that politically you need to keep them all the same to avoid confusion, like Kennedy and Bush? Is it just all a lack of imagination?

I hardly think so, given the nature of Great Detectives of Old Time Radio. Each episode is introduced by Graham, and then ended with his commentary which also includes his gratitude to patreon supporters, that allow him to continue bringing such oldies and goodies to our lugs. (I thought he had mispronounced patron the first few times I heard him thank people until I was informed that a patreon supporter paid to patronize things…)

My lugs are constantly delighted to hear not just the crackly content from public broadcasting sources that have stood the test of time OR have suffered from neglect, but it is also the commentary that drops through the earpiece which is molasses in its form and sweet to your soul. No punches are pulled, either in the episodes or in the commentaries but what comes across, from our esteemed host is a nostalgia and a love for these era defining classics. I have been introduced to quite a few new names which I had not known although the likes of Sam Spade and Joe Friday or Mike Hammer were well enough known, but now were added the listening pleasure of hearing Poirot in America or a Holmes that has been crafted in the US which is more than just an odd treat.

Along with the listening, there are adverts of the time and a “word from our sponsor” which is the snake oil hard sell, often from the star of the program – you get Lucky Strike adverts and the benefits of cigarettes, for example! We, of course, did not have that in the UK and still don’t. The idea of public sector broadcasting as opposed to public broadcasting is still held dear and much of our output in the UK is state sponsored in some form. Commercial radio channels, though popular are in a market alongside what the BBC put out. The BBC have a rich audio drama archive which anchors the market in the UK in quality. This year, the BBC have halved the budget for audio drama which is devastating and will lead to many losing jobs but, more importantly, many programs which would have been a risk remaining unmade.

The commercial success of many of these US radio programs will be pointed to by many as the way ahead. If you want to make the program, then raise the capital yourselves, they say, but there is safety in the program making in that format. Often the more wacky and interesting ideas are left without any sponsors – they are too risky commercially for the sponsors. British drama has almost always needed that element of risky behavior which commerce runs from in the opposite direction.

But of Adam Graham and Great Detectives of Old Time Radio there is little to criticize. What is great is that Graham sets strict parameters for his shows, and it is vintage. Really vintage. You can find shows that are pre 1972 if American made or for American syndication whilst British shows have to be before June 1957, or Australian shows produced before 1967 and not sold by Grace Gibson Syndication. There are plenty from which to chose and he has made available shows in the public domain that have a real value to listeners.

Podcasting has become quite the weaponized tool for some and politics has often played a part in corrupting some of the best ideas, however, whilst anyone can make a podcast, there are a select few who make a real lasting podcast. This is not just because the market is utterly saturated and there is so much choice so to be good, you need to be good, but also because you need depth to your work. There is either a need for real journalistic work which shows that you know the subject matter or, in the case of Mr. Graham, that you have deep affection for it.
I may not make it out to Idaho for quite some time, but I am nervous. What if everyone does not speak like Adam does… how disappointing will that be? Ocht well, I’m off to listen to another
Chameleon instead…

A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…

(Kailyard n. a cabbage patch, often attached to a school of writing – the Kailyard School – a genre of overly sentimental and sweet Scottish literature from the late 19th century where sentimental and nostalgic tales are told in escapist tales of fantasy, but here we seek to reverse it by making the Kailyard Observations of effective invective comment from that looks not to return to the past but to launch us into a better future by the one Donald worth believing…

Lugs – ears

cracker – meaning that something is very, very, very, very good.

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