7 Types of POdcast (At LEAST)

There seems to be a consensus that there are basically 7 popular types of podcast. Of course there are far more and each podcast is unique to its creator, and targeted at its own particular audience. It’s essentially a very flexible medium. You can go to town on the production values and have an all-singing-all-dancing show, or you can create your podcast on a shoestring. Examples of the 7 types of podcast can be found below.

1. The Monologue Podcast

As it’s name suggests, this podcasts revolves around a key presenter who chooses a subject and just… talks. It’s ‘easy.’ No guests required. You need to be good about talking off the top of your head, unless you write a script but this can be time consuming and unless you are an ‘A List’ presenter, it’ll be obvious that you’re reading. It’s something you can do alone, in your own time. It’s great for building a personal profile. It’s easy to edit. But… you end up doing a lot of talking, and you really do need to be interesting or worth listening to. Do you have enough to share? It could be tiring, lonely and at times challenging.

Listen to The Rock-n-Roll Time Machine and Party Games

2. Conversational Podcast

Two or more people having a chat. No one to interview. No one particularly in charge. Not only do you need to have the right chemistry, but you also need to have something interesting to say. It’s a great format if you want to play with play with dynamics within a relationship: Parents and Child, Wise and Fool, Teacher and Pupil, or simply just mates. With the right person, this can be an enormously satisfying type of podcast to make. Depending on your fluency, there may or may not be a lot of editing. You need to be super-critical though. It’s too easy to shut listeners out with in-jokes. No prepared script is needed. You have to be sure you both have enough to say about a wide range of topics.

Listen to The Minhall & Jones Podcast and Random News.

3. The Interview Podcast

One or more hosts interviews a guest in each episode. After a brief introduction, the questions start. Perhaps focussing on an achievement, event, or aspiration. Having a good guest can create a fabulous listen. It can be easy and cheap to create, so long as the guest doesn’t want paying, and most seldom do. High profile guests allow you to tap into their followers. They key is to have a host who is good at asking questions, and a guest who is fascinating and worth listening to. You could spend a lot of time tracking down and recording guests to make the show.

Listen to Classic FM Arts Daily

4. Panel Podcasts

Like the interview podcast, but you have more people. A host will interview a group of guests, maybe brought together to talk about a topical subject. The right panel could make this type of show a push-over, especially if they talk amongst themselves. A good host simply needs to keep them focussed and on track. It’s labour intensive trying to find enough guests to fill up the show, not to mention the technical nightmare such a show could potentially be.

See a selection of Panel Podcasts

5. Non-Fiction Storytelling/Investigative

These are some of the most popular types of podcast. They deal with real life events - true crime, personal experience, historic events etc. They can be highly addictive and encourage people to stick with you, if the show is built well. It’s also a good vehicle for a variety of techniques, such as documentary, drama, illustration with audio clips, interviews, Sound Effects etc. However they can take a lot of effort, and you ought to be aiming at accuracy and impartiality. It’s common to get bogged down in research. The best such podcasts have a massive team behind them.

Listen to This American Life and S-Town

6. Fiction Podcast

This is simply story telling - however which way you want to do it. Monologue read, narrative with dialogue or a full scale theatre group. Again, it’s a format that is wide open for creativity in production and can be highly enjoyable. Some people source audio books or existing plays to present, others write the material them selves. In which case, you have a massive job ahead of you. Ideal for a theatre group or existing novelist. You can build an audience. No need to worry about accuracy. It needs a lot of work. There’s a lot of competition. There’s a lot of planning needed to envisage an entire season. Yoou can’t make it up as you go along.

Listen to Quarry and Welcome to Nightvale

7. Repurposed Content Podcast

Perhaps you have already gathered material already, a series of connected interviews for example for another project. You can pick and choose the best of them and weave them into a story. The existing material might be interviews, recordings of lectures, vox-pops, or actuality (recordings of actual events.) They can be easy to create, are a good use of resources, but might not always fit a new format, or it might prove a struggle to make it sound sufficiently different from the original offering.

Listen to The Ted Radio Hour and The Classic FM Podcast

And of course you can mix-n-match, or make a hybrid show… whatever seems right for the message you are trying to get across.

Need a podcast? Further advice? Get in touch.