Never forget the audience

I am listening to an excellent podcast at the moment called “Empire”. It is hosted by two historians who are genuine experts in their area of empire.

The podcast deals with the British empire in India and all that flowed from that and has now progressed to the Ottoman Empire, one I am particularly interested in.

One increasingly grating feature that has developed in the hosting of the episodes is one of the presenters has become very jocular and seems to think she is tremendously funny and witty.

I don’t think she is but that is not the point. She is getting in the way of the real reason as to why I listen to the podcast: my further education in this area of history.

This presenter’s ambition to be funny and jokey is adding so much padding to each episode that it is becoming seriously annoying.

It is a good lesson for anyone hosting a podcast or even trying to communicate information or knowledge to an audience. The likelihood is the audience is more interested in the information or knowledge rather than how humorous or witty you can be.

Never forget the audience is a good lesson to be reminded of.