7. Over-Produced and Too 'Slick'
I'm going to pick on one particular cast in mistake 7. I recently wandered upon the William Lane Craig podcast--The Reasonable Faith Podcast.
Craig is a philosopher and Christian apologist and does some really good work.
The podcast is well-done from a sound quality and production standpoint. Great work there. Love it. The content is laid out well, and by and large, it's a really good cast. I'm subscribed to it and enjoy listening. Loved the episode on the Fine Tuning Argument.
But the co-host wears me out in one major area: He's way, way, way too polished.
He has a brilliant radio voice. I'm definitely envious. Very polished. Toooo polished. When he asks questions of Craig, they're obviously scripted. Scripted is fine. Obviously scripted is not. The questions just don't feel natural. They're not conversational. They're produced. Worse, at times he asks questions or makes comments with a voice that says, 'Now, Bill, you and I both know this, but how about you break this down for the listeners?' Those are bad things.
I can't capture the feel of this in text; so you'd do well to download some episodes to get a sense of what I'm talking about. My guess is that he has this approach because he's worked in radio and his audience has been the 40 and up demographic.
But podcasting is . . . well . . . different. Younger audience. MUCH more conversational feel.
Here's the rule of thumb for co-hosts: You're asking questions for the rest of us. That means you present yourself as a fellow learner along with us--the listeners.
The co-host is a bridge between the host and the listeners. The best way to accomplish this is to be a learner alongside the listeners--not a guy who already has the answers along with the host. Definitely not a guy with a scripted list of questions that SOUNDS like it's a scripted list of questions.
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