Perhaps you’ve noticed the trend of broadcasters who no longer have access to their professional broadcast studios are producing less-than-professional results for all of us to see.

Funny. Back in the day, it was podcasters who were leaning into the reduced spit-and-polish, embracing a “rough around the edges” approach that set us apart from the broadcasters.

So now we have not only big media trying to force authenticity into their podcasts, but big broadcasters on crappy webcams and built-in microphones trying to stitch together their programs with tools we gave up years ago.

Podcasters who also notice these trends typically have one of two things to say about it.

“Our Podcast Sound Great From Home, Why Can’t Their Broadcasts?”

“Why haven’t these forced-to-stay-home broadcasters figured out how to make great cont from home? We do it all the time.”

“Are Our Podcast Episodes Too Polished?”

“Maybe we've been making episodes that are too produced? Maybe we need to expose a bit more of the process to our audience? Maybe it’s having those rough edges present what makes a podcast special?”

I'm going to dismantle both of those arguments. 

I promise you, no rational person listens to your show ONLY for the imperfections. More often than not, they're listening in spite of those foibles.

No, I don't think that you should make a less professional show. No one ever stopped listening to a podcast because the episodes sounded too good. 

These broadcast pros aren’t doing a crappy job because they don't know any better. They’re doing it on purpose.

They're putting out a much lower-quality version of their regular programming on purpose. It’s completely calculated. They want to showcase the fact that they are in their homes and not their big studios.

So the next time you see them on screen looking dorky and goofy, with bad audio as they shout at their webcam from across the room, understand that they are intentionally keeping it rough-and-tumble because they want you to miss the professional quality they made before. That way, you too are longing for a return to normalcy. 

Rather than lamenting broadcasters...