The ultimate new niche genre? ⚡
Podcasts about *your* life are now a thing
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A few years back I sat down with my grandparents, who were then in their early 90s, and asked them questions. I recorded on my phone as they spoke about growing up in Northern Ireland, what it was like living through the Troubles, their cycling misadventures across France.
This was before I’d started making audio so I didn’t have a mic, and I feel a deep sense of regret over not getting their stories on tape properly. Noel and Sadie Wiley passed away last year, and I yearn to hear the texture and cadences of their voices, their accents and slang, my grandfather’s audible glee as he tells yet another joke, my grandmother’s mischievous laughter.
I’d happily listen to a whole podcast about their lives — and I’m sure plenty of other people feel the same (about hearing their own grandparents, that is). Well, that might now be a possibility. ‘Personal podcasts’ are a thing. And I’m not talking about Spotify recommending shows you might like: I mean podcasts about your life and your loved ones.
They’re the work of a San Francisco-based company called Artifact, which makes professional quality podcast episodes about whatever you want … a grandfather looking back on his childhood, newlyweds reflecting on their relationship, a woman contemplating her retirement. The audience is as niche as it gets: the subject’s family and friends.
People are also buying Artifacts as gifts, celebrating milestones like birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries. These days of course, that often means the events that we can’t actually attend in person.
Adele, for instance, commissioned a podcast for her sister-in-law as a wedding present. Featuring family and friends discussing the couple, the podcast commemorated the wedding at a time when most of the guests couldn’t be there IRL. Adele told me it’s like a time capsule, a way to capture how people are feeling right now. And the listenership doesn’t get much more targeted: the newlyweds themselves.
Allison, meanwhile, wanted to create a podcast of her father’s memories. Her mother had died suddenly of a heart attack. After she was gone, the 46-year-old financial advisor racked her brain, trying to remember the details of her mother’s colourful stories. “I didn’t pay enough attention,” Allison told me. “I should have written it down. Now it’s gone and you can’t get it back. There are some things that literally go to the grave with that person.”
Allison didn’t want to make the same mistake with her father, who’s in his 80s. The resulting podcast features interviews with her father, and the audience is Allison’s family.
When someone buys a personal podcast from Artifact, the team interviews the ‘characters’ and then edits the story together. There are different pricing options for episode length and number of guests.
Artifact isn’t the only one catering to ultra-specific tastes. Saga is an app that preserves family memories by capturing stories via audio: “like getting a private podcast of Grandma’s childhood stories”. Swell allows users to record and share ‘micro-podcasts’ about their lives with friends.
So what might all this mean for us audio producers? In an immediate way there could be opportunities to interview, report and produce for companies like Artifact.
There may also be another potential revenue stream here for independent producers. As you might contract your production services to a brand or charity, maybe in the future we’ll be creating custom podcasts for individuals or families.
In a weird way it almost reminds me of Jon Ronson’s brilliant The Butterfly Effect. Ronson explores the world of custom porn, where sex performers began to make increasingly niche content for individual people, after the rise of free porn sites severely affected their ability to earn a living in the industry. Audio and podcasting are booming of course, so that comparison only takes us so far, but there’s something intriguing here about the opportunities that come with people’s desire to hear about themselves and their history on tape.
What do you make of personal podcasts? Have you done this kind of work yourself?
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What I’m listening to
🎧 I’m enjoying I’m Not A Monster, from the BBC and PBS, a deeply-reported exploration of how and why an American family ended up in the ISIS caliphate. There’s some heart-stopping tape in this one, and great immersive storytelling.
🎧 And for something totally different, I’m catching up on An Oral History of The Office, taking you behind the scenes of the American version of the show. Strangely gripping and soothing at the same time.
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