I came from broadcasting, having worked 14 years at TV stations in Orlando from 1982-1996. Podcasting was a way for me to get back to doing what I loved about broadcasting, while eschewing the aspects of it that I didn’t like.
I could have become a “name” in podcasting, but that’s not what I wanted from it. Not really seeking the limelight, I kept a low profile, choosing to interact with only a few other podcasters in my niche. And it was great. I followed the space closely and I knew who most of the OG and big podcasters were, they just didn’t know me. There was a nice advantage to that, and I preferred to keep it that way.
This relative transparency allowed me to experiment and do my own thing largely undisturbed. I could observe and learn from others without calling too much attention to my own mistakes. There was no desire to prove my experience to anyone, nor was there a need to explain my methods or to anyone else who might take issue with the way I produced my shows. I didn’t want to be a podcast influencer. I just wanted to play quietly in my part of the sandbox and do my own thing.
But nothing stays that way forever. The world changes, media changes, and if I want to continue to play in my podcast sandbox, at some point I have to deal with it. I don’t want to be an activist in the medium. But the more I see happening in the space, the more it bothers me, because it’s encroaching into my little part of the sandbox. And I now realize that I have to do something, or the medium that I know and love will be taken away, or changed into something I don’t like at all. So after nearly 19 years in podcasting, here I am.