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Stacy Bond
Using Format to Engage the Listener
Stacy Bond
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[runtime: 00:54:00, 24.7 mb, recorded 2006-06-16]
Listeners interact with audio in distinct ways that can be engaged by the creative use of formatting elements. In this talk, NPR veteran and AudioLuxe executive director Stacy Bond shares tips and techniques drawn from traditional broadcasting to teach podcasters how to capture and keep their audience's attention. By playing off of familiar elements, a well crafted show can both satisfy expectations and deliver delightful surprises. At its best, well-produced audio has the power to transfix the listener in a brilliant "driveway moment".
Good audio engages, inspires, entertains, and often informs. Bond explains that people listen differently than they watch, read or consume other media. Audio creates a particular connection where listeners are providing internal images to accompany what's being said. At the same time, people are often multi-tasking and receiving other inputs as they listen, and they may tune in and out during a show. In our media saturated culture, Bond notes, listeners are used to hearing certain familiar elements. Playing with these expectations allows a producer to build, and sometimes intentionally counter, a comfortable flow.
Although podcasters may savor the raw style of extemporaneous talk, Bond shares many pro-level tips to help ensure content is presented in a listenable way. By envisioning a timeline or arc for the show, podcasters can build an identity and create hooks to engage and stimulate their audience. Breaks should be designed to allow people a chance to catch up and stay clear on who's speaking and what's happening. Rhythms, repetition and certain milestones can reinforce the tone and trajectory of a show in order to keep listeners on track and well entertained within a familiar framework for audio storytelling.
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, she 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. Stacy has created programming for commercial and public radio around the country. She has just joined NPR's "Next Generation Radio" as a mentor to burgeoning radio producers. Stacy is the author of two hacks in O'Reilly's "Podcasting Hacks: 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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