Abbie Chatfield has called on budding podcasters to bring more structure to their content and long-term planning.
Speaking to News Australia’s Ruby Randall straight after her panel discussion on the rise of independent media at Cairns Crocodiles, presented by Pinterest, Chatfield said new podcasts need to think slightly harder to cut through.
“I’m not trying to be mean, but I think we have enough podcasts of two friends talking. I think we need to have structure because there are a lot of podcasts that I see that have so much potential, but they run out of content after six months,” she said.
“I’m not against the people doing it. I want people to have structure and purpose and to take it seriously, take some risks, take on a theme and hunker down rather than just going ‘We’ll just yap and it’ll be okay,'” she said.
Chatfield, who hosts the It’s A Lot podcast, and her fellow panellist, Osman Faruqi, spoke about the various reasons they moved away from traditional media companies on their panel.
“It got to a point at about year three where I kind of thought, okay, I think it’s time for me to take another step into starting a business and being independent and having more creative freedom,” she said about her departure from LiSTNR to join Acast.
“The hard part with being in the network is that you are kind of locked into their resourcing,” she said. “Now that I have my own producer… I can say, ‘Don’t do that. Do this instead’.”
Chatfield also discussed her ambition to form her own podcast network to provide pathways for emerging talent.
“I think we’ve got enough of Abbie Chatfield,” she joked. “I need to get other people to do things I love.”
