Backstage at the British Podcast Awards 2024

Matt Deegan and Ollie Peart interview the winners at the BPAs.

A busy night at the British Podcast Awards for The Media Club team as Ollie Peart and me (Matt) spoke to some of the winners as well as the host Marcus Brigstocke.

In the show you can hear from The News Agents, Zing Tsjeng from Good Bad Billionaire, Marianna Spring, Stuart Morgan from Audio Always, Rob Auton and the team behind the Podcast of the Year Press Play, Turn On.

I used to run the BPAs, so it’s always interesting to see how it changes and evolves - just like the podcast sector as a whole. Ever since it started, podcasters haven’t been afraid to give their opinions - good and bad. One of the challenges it has always faced is that it operates a very big tent, from bedroom podcasters to the BBC and from audio production companies to organisations who just fancied making a podcast. For some people it’s their main job, for others a fun side project. It’s not a challenge that the BAFTA TV awards or the Oscars really face.

As we mention on the show, there were quite a few BBC winners (all chosen independently of each other - as judges don’t know what’s happening in other categories). Is our public broadcaster doing so well a good thing? That’s our money clearly going into very well made productions. Or is it crowding out others? Should that matter? Do small giant killers shows like Weird in the Wade or other winners like Athletic FC, And Then Came Breast Cancer and Get Birding show that anyone can win? I imagine it’s a discussion that will carry on.

Meanwhile, The Independent Podcast Awards (which they judge as shows produced without the financial support of a large organisation such as a publishing company, or brand, and is not fronted by high profile celebrities for whom this is one of many revenue streams) has their ceremony at the end of October.

Thanks for listening, oh, and if you consume (?) the podcast on Spotify, you’ll be able to watch the show there as well as listen to it. It’s also available on YouTube each week. Again, this is one of the interesting transitions for podcasts. Whilst audio has been the way people consume podcasts up to now, for younger audiences they often start with a video version. For them a podcast is merely some people round a microphone, rather than an audio file distributed over RSS. And who are we to argue with them? It’s part of the reason our rebrand has a strong video look. It also gives us more challenges when we’re out and about!

It’s what we all know about the media, nothing ever stays the same and you have to keep innovating whether you wanted to or not!

Have a great week.

Matt and the team