Podcasts Are the New TV, Except Better

We were in Chattanooga, TN last week and caught up with AGEIST favorite Lori Carter. Lori is doing great; her business is thriving, she is excited for what the future will bring. But what was most interesting to us was Lori’s enthusiasm for podcasts. As we often say, our people are far from technophobes. We love new digital solutions if they fit our needs. 

Lori tells us that she now prefers a podcast to watching the same show on TV. The audio-only experience allows her to be more focused on the content, which would be the opposite of what one would think. She can listen to a news show while making breakfast and learn more than sitting and watching the same show on a screen. This has got to be alarming news to video content producers of the world.

She has even reduced her music listening. Instead, there are shows like S-Town. It makes us wonder, for all the talk that we are in the Golden Age of Television, maybe we are really in a Golden Age of Audio. We, here at AGEIST, watch maybe two hours a week of TV, if that, because truthfully, TV, no matter how good, is still TV — a medium designed to cause one’s mind to check out. However, we will listen to information-dense audio programing such as Monocle 24 a few times a day. 

The thread that we got from Lori was that listening is linked to learning and self-improvement. Shows like How I Built This help her feel she is not alone in the struggles of starting and running a business. Shows like Constitutional and Presidential fill her with history while she is driving. Malcolm Gladwell provides sharp, witty insights while she is exercising at the gym.

One other trait that we all seem to share, besides a drive for self-improvement, is the desire to stay culturally connected. Both of these are well served by pods. We can be painting a house or walking in the morning, all while being connected to a source of information as diverse as we choose — Radio Nova out of Paris, for instance.

One thing that Lori took us to task over was our lack of podcasting. In fairness to the AGEIST team, we have a lot on our plate these days. But, don’t despair, AGEIST podcasting is coming soon. We have 2 shows that we are working on now — one in collaboration with our friends at CIRKEL dealing with intergenerational topics called Mind The Gap, and a second which will be closer to an audio version of our weekly newsletter.

Here to read Lori’s original profile in AGEIST

Here to read about a recent CIRKEL event

Here for a creative director’s morning productivity