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Stacy Bond
Producing for the Ear
Stacy Bond
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[runtime: 00:53:40, 24.6 mb, recorded 2006-09-29]
Podcast audiences listen differently than they watch or read. At the 2006 Podcast and Portable Media Expo, Stacy Bond, the executive director at Audioluxe, describes how podcasters should "write for the ear." Great podcasters know how to capture their audience's attention with more engaging content and by thinking like their listeners.
Bond, who has close to two decades worth of experience in public radio, explains how the broadcasting world successfully conveys messages through interviews and panels - putting together content effectively for broadcast. Podcasters who don't have training in traditional broadcasting methods often have a hard time caturing and keeping a listener's attention. In podcasting, even the smallest misplaced detail can cause a listener's mind to wander and stop listening.
"Writing for the ear" is an effective way of making content engaging and interesting. Examples of this are audio-based sentence structure, writing around audio clips, making informed word choices and creating a narrative arc for your podcast. Listeners, who are often occupied with other things while listening, need audio and content that transports them to another state of mind. With this in mind, Bond explains techniques and provides examples of how podcasters can anticipate what their audience expects to hear, and how they meet listener expectations while still providing something new.
Stacy Bond has been making sound-rich, engaging radio for close to twenty years - most recently as Producer of The California Report, a statewide radio news-magazine heard by 750,000 listeners weekly. At National Public Radio in Washington, DC, Bond was part of the "Talk of the Nation w/ Neal Conan" team that produced NPR's Peabody Award-winning news coverage of the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Bond has created programming for commercial and public radio around the country. She joined NPR's "Next Generation Radio" as a mentor to burgeoning radio producers. She is the author of two hacks in O'Reilly's "Podcasting: Tips and Tools for Blogging Out Loud,"and is currently in the process of establishing a "podcast incubator" program for AudioLuxe, in partnership with KQED Interactive.
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