Two professional comedians putting together a podcast, edited in coffee shops and bedrooms, have out rated many radio comedy shows in the iTunes podcast top ten, illustrating the increasing importance of home made radio shows using new delivery methods. The Sweetest Plum, hosted by radio and tv comedians Declan Fay and Nick Maxwell started “as a bit of a laugh,” but after eight episodes went to the top ten in the iTunes Comedy section.
The show outranks FM radio programs like Nova Drive, The Hot Breakfast with Eddie and Triple J’s Tom and Alex on iTunes.
Fay presented the cult comedy show, The Pinch on 3TripleR for the past eight years and was also was an announcer on Triple J in 2005 and 2006. Nick Maxwell is one of the Rove cast and is known for his Kevin Rudd voices.
The pair both wrote for Rove for the past three years, and then had what they call “a very traumatic experience at channel seven” which included “six wasted months and two failed shows.” They walked from the network and started the podcasts to keep busy and stay sane.
Declan Fay talks to radioinfo about his experiences with podcasting.
radioinfo: Is podcasting now the way to become famous on radio now? Better than being on Big Brother?
Fay: I’m not sure podcasting is a way to become famous, it’s more a chance to do your own thing, and get it up online and reach your own audience, without the limits of commercial radio, like having to say terrible things like “now here’s a great new track from Thirsty Merc.”
radioinfo: Why did you choose podcasting as a way of ‘keeping you sane’ rather than something else like stand up comedy or such?
Fay: We’d both worked for quite a few tv shows, and at commercial stations so much time is wasted worrying whether a segment will work, or how the demos will respond, that we just needed to make something and not worry about that, or we would have gone mental.
As for stand up, we’ve both dabbled in it before, but having just worked on The Bounce (which was a truly hideous experience), performing at a pub in front of drunk punters, didn’t seem like the best place to repair our fragile minds. A radio studio seemed much safer, and saner. Plus Nick doesn’t like too much human interaction, or he tends to break out in a rash.
FM Radio used to be a place to take a real risk, think about Danger Low brow, The d generation or Martin/Molloy, but now it’s become a bit of a dumping ground for ex-big brother housemates and retired sports stars (with the exception of Hamish and Andy, who have a great dynamic and aren’t afraid to take a risk)
When Get This! finished on Triple M, it broke our hearts, because I truly believe it was the last great radio show on Australian radio. Since then we both sort of gave up on FM radio, and started listening to podcasts, like This American Life, Ricky Gervais or Baddiel and Skinner. Plus with podcasts you get a much longer, much funnier conversation because there’s no arseholes interrupting with a bloody traffic report about a minor bingle on the East Gippsland highway.
Also with Podcasting you can experiment a bit more when you’re recording because if a segment is shit, you can just drop it afterwards, on commercial TV or radio, there’s so much pressure to make the segment perfect because everyone is terrified that people will tune out before the next commercial.
radioinfo: How do you make your shows?
Fay: We record the shows at a few friends studios, then I do the editing on my laptop. The only problem is when you’re editing it in a cafe and accidentally erase a giant chunk of dialogue, and then start swearing at the screen. I was kicked out of one cafe for hissing at the screen and giving my computer the finger, because I made a small child on the next table cry.
radioinfo: How do you prep the shows?
Fay: We prep the shows pretty much by turning up, and taking turns at running a segment, sometimes it backfires terribly, but again, we just wanted to do something that we didn’t overthink.
Now that we’ve got a blog page and a facebook page, we get suggestions or questions from listeners. The one thing I miss doing podcasts is getting listeners calling in, but then again I don’t miss the late night calls from psychopaths (such as the girl who offered to burn down my ex-girlfriends house, if I told her the address)
radioinfo: Any other thoughts about your experiences?
Fay: I hope it doesn’t sound too cynical about commercial TV, we both had a great time at Rove, and learnt an enormous amount, but you can go a bit mad if you don’t create your own stuff (Shit now I’m starting to sound like a tortured artist).
The Sweetest Plum iTunes page is at http://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/the-sweetest-plum-podcast/id374949075 and The Sweetest Plum podcast page is at the link below.