Interview - Podcasting - A new platform for literature

Hank: Good afternoon. Welcome to the panel Podcasting and Literature, organized by Deutsche Welle. My name is Holger Hank, I’m head of the New Media department. Before we get straight to the topic, I wanted to introduce our panel. We have Annik Rubens, Germany’s most famous podcaster with us, but she’s taking a break at the moment, more on that in a moment. Next we have Christian Heinke, he is an author, writer and came to publishing via a podcast. He’ll explain how that worked in a moment. And last but unquestionably not least, we have Wolfgang Tischer, who has been running the Literaturcafé website for over ten years and has also become a podcaster, here at the book fair, by the way. Perhaps a quick answer of why Deutsche Welle is interested in podcasting? As the foreign broadcaster of the Federal Republic of Germany, we are traditionally a radio and television broadcaster, but for over ten years we have also been doing a lot of Internet work and we have found that the Internet is not only interesting for our website, but we are also increasingly distributing our radio and television content via the Internet. And podcasting is an important element of this. We were the first in Germany to podcast in 2004, and last year we made it a regular feature. We were also the first to start video podcasting last year. In this respect, we are passionately interested in the topic and also think that this is a very promising way for Deutsche Welle to get its radio content in particular, but perhaps also television content into the wider world in the future. How many of you listen to podcasts regularly? Just a quick show of hands, I’d be interested to know. Okay. Are there any podcasters among you, people who produce podcasts themselves? Ah, one, good. So we’ve prepared a short film to introduce the topic, which we hope will thoroughly explain everything about podcasting so that we’re all on the same page. The mouse has shown up, here it is. So, attention, sound a little louder, please. We’ll show you what podcasting is.

The term podcasting comprises the English word broadcasting and the name of the world’s most popular MP3 player, the iPod. Despite the name, an iPod is not required to use podcasting. A podcast is a type of a radio program that listeners can listen to as often as they like as an audio file on their computer, cell phone, or MP3 player, rather than at a specific time. What do you need? A computer, an Internet connection, and free software, for example iTunes. If you want to listen to podcasts on the go, you need either an MP3 player, a CD player, or a cell phone. You select a podcast you are interested in on the Internet. Just click on ›Subscribe‹ and you will receive this podcast on your computer. Your computer receives new episodes of this podcast with no effort. If you have an MP3 player or a cell phone with a USB port, you can connect it to your computer and easily transfer the podcasts you have subscribed to. You can also burn the podcasts onto a CD with a simple click and then listen to them. If you lack the equipment, you can use a regular telephone, as phone casts are also available. These are podcasts you can call and listen to by phone at a local rate. And if you have a telephone flat rate, you can even listen to them for free. And who uses podcasts? That’s Steffi. She has to rise early today because she has an important appointment with her boss. And she’s still pretty tired. She speedily checks her e-mails and downloads her favorite podcast, a cooking show, onto her iPod. This is Jan, a soccer fan, and real estate salesman. He just got a company car with a docking station for his iPod. Since then, he no longer has to burn his soccer podcasts to CD to listen to them in the car. He pulls the latest episodes onto his iPod when he goes to sleep and then listens to them at his leisure on the way to his client appointments. This is Markus. Markus is a physiotherapist and rides his bike to work every day. To improve his English, he enjoys listening to English-language podcasts, including those from Deutsche Welle. This is Tina. She doesn’t have her own computer at home and always listens to podcasts at work. Her favorite is the podcast ›Schlaflos in München‹ by Annik Rubens. Of course, she didn’t want her boss to find out about that.

Hank: I believe we have addressed all the questions about how podcasting works. I just said that we want to find out a bit more about our participants on the panel first. People consider Annik Rubens the best known, perhaps even the most famous German podcaster. When did you first hear of the word podcast?

Rubens: Around March 2005. I can’t recall precisely, as it didn’t have a major impact on me at the time. I should have remembered it. About a year and a half ago. And then you jumped into action and started podcasting yourself.

Hank: How did that come about?

Rubens: I listened to Adam Curry for two weeks and became curious about how it works technically. I then downloaded the software and so on. Sadly, it did not turn out to be as effortless as I had pictured. I sat until four in the morning, feeling pretty exasperated by the time I finally finished the first episode. Subsequently, the computer posed the question, after I had grasped the technology, regarding the desired title for my podcast. And then I found it a bit difficult to be creative at four in the morning. And that’s how I came up with ›Sleepless in Munich‹.

Hank: And ›Sleepless in Munich‹, that’s the name of Annik Rubens’ podcast, you can see it here. And if the technology works well this time, I’m curious. There’s the question again. Here comes the mouse. Then we can also listen to something.

Rubens: Hello everyone, welcome to ›Sleepless in Munich‹. The 400th, I didn’t think I’d persist that long. And the 400 is indeed a turning point. I had already announced that. There’s a lot going on now with ›Sleepless in Munich‹ that I don’t like. Of course, it’s also connected to the comments, it’s also connected to a certain expectation, it’s also connected to a certain tiredness of discussion. In this respect, I think it’s time to end this format for now. End the format. You’re ending ›Sleepless in Munich‹. Tell us something about it. I’m ending ›Sleepless in München - Daily‹ because after 400 episodes and a year and a half, it’s just too much. And I think the format is exhausted and is no longer the creative playground it once was and should be for me. And that’s why there will be a new ›Sleepless in Munich‹ at some point.

Hank: Can you perhaps describe in a sentence or two what ›Sleepless in Munich‹ was like for someone who hasn’t heard it yet?

Rubens: it was daily, seven days a week at the beginning, then at some point five days a week, three to five minutes. Normally, during interviews, it could happen that I talked away for 21 minutes. Fortunately, podcasting doesn’t have the rigid rules that radio has. And it was a wide variety of topics, from little anecdotes from everyday life. So my cat is always quoted, which I haven’t talked about as often as some people make me out to be. But there were also often movie or book reviews or interviews with listeners. Just whatever I felt like talking about.

Hank: How many listeners did you have per episode?

Rubens: In the end, 10,000 now.

Hank: Thank you, so far. Christian Heinke. I’ve just said that you were a writer, you shook your head a bit, so let’s say an author. But we are here at the book fair. And your story is that the podcast came first and then came the book or the publisher. How did that work out?

Heinke: I first applied for a job at WDR in the radio play department and used my novel manuscript, ›Die Haut‹ as a demo.

Hank: ›Die Haut‹ (The Skin), what kind of book is that? What is it? It’s a thriller set in the milieu of the rich and beautiful. It’s about a serial killer who takes former top models off the catwalk one by one.

Hank: And that was too much for WDR?

Heinke: No, it was about the fact that I was an unknown and unpublished author. I essentially still am. And so they said, yes, if your name was Andreas Eschbach or something like that, then maybe we could do business. But of course that didn’t work. I had a bit of an idea about technology, which doesn’t fit at WDR. There’s a very rigid separation between technology and the creative side. And for me, I think it was two months later, or in May or June 2005, when I heard that there was something new with podcasts. And now I basically had this demo lying around and thought, oh, it would be a shame to let it go to waste like that. And then I put it online and before I knew it, I found myself in the top ten on iTunes.

Hank: And how did that help you to get into the “real” book world?

Heinke: Well, a publisher who had already contacted me beforehand was very accommodating afterwards, as the publisher is based in Switzerland and I was also in the Swiss top ten on iTunes, and then a book contract was signed quite quickly.

Hank: Do you have another project?

Heinke: Yes, I have now started a second unpublished manuscript, Kabbalah. It’s not a thriller, it’s more in the area of, I think the new German term is ›mystery‹. You can’t call it horror or fantasy anymore, I’ve been told. And yes, it’s going very well, I’m very pleased with the download figures. And we also have an audio sample from Christian Heinke. ›The Skin‹ by Christian Heinke.

Chapter 6 - Outside. »What did she say?« asked Davis ...

Hank: That sounds like a very elaborate production.

Heinke: As a trained media scientist, I have the necessary equipment and resources to produce podcasts, including sound effects and music recording capabilities.

Hank: Yes, thanks so far. We can talk about that in a bit more detail in a moment. The third member of the team is Wolfgang Tischer, who has been running a website for ten years that many of you may know, namely the Literaturcafé, which has also won many awards. But recently you have also joined the ranks of podcasters, especially here at the book fair, by the way. What do you do?

Tischer: Yes, it sounds as if I’ve been podcasting since the book fair. No, it was actually around the same time in 2005, when Apple integrated podcasting into iTunes and it actually reached the masses. Because if something is free, then people will go for it anyway. And we’ve been doing the Literaturcafé online for ten years now. And the great thing is, although it’s sometimes very contrary, you can still do a lot with literature and technology and the internet if it benefits literature. At that time, podcasting and MP3 files had been available for download for some time. The audio version of Goethe’s Werther, for example, is still available for all the schoolchildren at home to read, download and listen to. It’s always been very popular. That’s why producing MP3 files was nothing new. And that was simply an attempt to do podcasting.

Hank: What kind of content do we use?

Tischer: We started with the newsletter and simply said that we would read the newsletter out loud. That’s why it was initially called the Acoustic Newsletter. But then we realized very quickly that, unlike Christian Heinke, we don’t have literature as content, but rather report on literature, that we needed some kind of format. That developed very quickly. There’s always a kind of audio book with episodes. There are interviews. And at the last book fair, we already said we’d do a book fair podcast. We simply go to the fair and interview the authors, who are all gathered here. Back then it was simply because we said we’d just do it. We didn’t want to explain to the fair what podcasting is. A year ago, nobody knew that. And then we thought it would be similar to WDR, i.e. if we asked the book fair, what is it? But even then, the book fair took notice of us. And this year we are delighted to be an official partner. And we’re doing 30, 40, so together with my colleague Aileen Stiller, we’re doing two 30, 40 interviews from this book fair and interviewing the authors, known and unknown.

Hank: Okay. And let’s have a quick listen to what that sounds like.

Tischer: You are now entering the danger zone. Literature can boost your intelligence and is dangerous for your imagination. [Music] We’re staying cool and putting on the summer rhythms. Welcome to the 16th edition of the podcast from the Literaturcafé on the Internet www.literaturcafé.de. My name is Wolfgang Tischer.

Hank: Yes, that also sounds like an elaborate production. You are also at the book fair at the moment. You were just saying that you were up all night editing interviews. What are you doing?

Tischer: You get into such a frenzy, so many authors - I’m a bookseller myself, I have to say. And you get into a frenzy about who you can interview here. From Elke Heidenreich and Wolf Haas, of course, but also such great authors as Frank Schulz. And yesterday I realized, for God’s sake, at the end of the day I had ten interviews, all of which lasted at least ten to 15 minutes. And we put them online relatively uncut, but you still have to edit them. Jingle before, jingle after, cut out a few “ehs” or something. Yes, so I sat up until half past two tonight to edit and finish these ten interviews, because of course we also have the ambition to have them online the next day if possible.

Hank: By the way, do you see yourself as a journalist now, as a radio audio journalist, or are you saying I’m something else?

Tischer: We cultivate a bit of an underground podcaster image. When I listen to myself, I realize that I somehow forget the verbs at the end of the sentences. But that’s okay. We boldly declare that we’re not a radio station, we don’t use 1:30 or the three highlights that Ms. Heidenreich throws at us, but the interview is, as I said, relatively uncut, even online. And if there’s a slip of the tongue, we intentionally leave it in.

Hank: A question for all three of you at this point. There are accusations from us radio professionals in particular, WDR has just been mentioned, but I think that applies to everyone who does this in the country. It’s a kind of hobby radio thing that’s going on in this podcast scene. What is your stance on this, Annik Rubens?

Rubens: I think the problem is that radio has evolved a bit away from what many people want to hear. And people are looking for a bit of authenticity and are also looking for dialects or people who forget verbs at the end of a sentence, which incidentally often happens to me too. And in that respect, I think it brings back a freshness that was still to be found on the radio 10 or 15 years ago, but is now unfortunately becoming increasingly rare.

Hank: Christian Heinke, how do you see it?

Heinke: Yes, what I find exciting about it is that I can get in direct contact with the listener/reader, so to speak. In other words, I don’t have to wait until my book is on the shelves, but I put a raw text, which is always the rough draft that I then put online, also as an audio book, on the Internet and then get in direct contact with the listener.

Hank: But you could also just put the text online yourself and say, read my text and react to it. Why are you doing this as an audio format?

Heinke: That’s basically how it’s grown. I basically put it online as a demo and I was kind of forced to do it because people just... So when I realized that I was in the top 10 and it was really irritating, I decided that I would have to make a second one. And then I said, well, you’ll have to stop by then at the latest. Or maybe the third one. But now I’m on my tenth one and yes, I’m actually getting more listeners than less.

Tischer: Wolfgang Tischer, do you think that your format could have a place on normal radio at some point? No, it’s not really meant to be. I don’t think it will find a place there either. It’s simply a format that works very well as a podcast. As I said, even with all the interviews, I’m not interested in an author. I can just skip that one on my iPod and then listen to the next one. It doesn’t have to, so it doesn’t have to. I’m not even interested in that, but podcasting was actually a supplement to the Internet platform for the Literaturcafé.

Hank: We are here at the book fair and the topic is podcasting and literature. So the question is, who in the literature business or the book business, publishers, authors, should be particularly interested in podcasting and for what reasons? For whom is it interesting from your point of view? Who would like to take the question?

Tischer: That varies again. In the meantime, we not only do the podcast for the Literaturcafé, but also work for publishers, for example we produced a podcast for Hansa Verlag on Thomas Glavinitsch’s new novel ›Die Arbeit der Nacht‹. But not with predominantly literary content, i.e. not the text read, not an audio book. Again, it’s not a competition, but a complement. So I talk to the author. We were in Vienna, we were in the places where the novel is set, we talked about peripheral topics such as “Is it difficult to turn a novel into a movie?” or simply “What role do weapons play in this novel?” Just a whole range of topics. It’s a supplement to the book and simply a marketing tool for a publisher. As I said, it’s completely different here with Christian Heinke, who uses it in this way. So we also offer it, simply as a supplement, as an advertising medium.

Hank: Christian Heinke, would you add to that?

Heinke: Yes, what I find exciting and what I would also advise other authors to try is that you now have a large testing ground. And when you listen to my podcasts, you realize that the first episode is much less professional than the latest one. And you can say that the technical aspects are getting better, but you also realize more as an author what you can do with this new medium. So I think it’s very exciting to be able to try things out first without running the risk of incurring any costs for a publisher and then possibly having an audiobook go to waste. And then you can try it out and interact with the listener or reader.

Hank: Is that a kind of test run for you for the text that is written afterwards with the option of improving it further?

Heinke: Yes, I can always correct texts very well by listening to them. In other words, that’s why I always find it really awful to listen to the podcast, because then of course I think of two or three improvements and I find it really awful what I’ve put down on paper and then also recorded. But it’s precisely this work in progress that fascinates me so much about it, so that I can improve it myself, so to speak.

Hank: Annick Rubins, you earn money with your podcast. How does that work?

Rubens: Well, I don’t earn any money with the ones that I see as my babies, for example ‘Sleepless Munich’, and I don’t think that’s the point of it all. It should be and remain my playground. And I think it’s great that I can let off steam without any advertisers wanting to interfere. But I have been approached by publishers and other companies who have also said they wouldn’t be interested in doing a podcast for us. I have the great opportunity to work as uninfluenced as possible by these bosses, so to speak. In other words, that’s because they probably don’t yet understand what it’s all about.

Hank: Yes, but then we don’t tell them either.

Rubens: So for Warner Music Trackcast, for example, I simply present new music that has come onto the market once a week, or I present audiobooks for Audible, which are all new releases. These are all, yes, review podcasts, I would say, or also for Bayerischer Rundfunk and I get paid for it, fortunately, without them always saying, and how was the quota? You only get as much money as you make quota. So this quota thinking is sometimes present in podcasting, but I think it’s great that in most cases it works without it. One podcast is actually enough. It’s a technique, if a child makes a podcast and both parents listen enthusiastically, then that’s a wonderful thing. It’s not really so much about the numbers as it is with the long-established media.

Hank: Okay. Audible, by the way, is a commercial audiobook download portal. They are also represented here at the trade fair. By the way, could it be that podcasting, especially if it’s a bit literary, will become a kind of competition for audiobook portals? Wolfgang Tischer, you know the scene a bit.

Tischer: They certainly are to some extent, because podcasting, it has to be said, is of course also a bit of a return of listening culture. So all the radios that now only play the greatest hits of the 70s and 80s and one radio is like the other, you can’t tell them apart anymore, podcasting is also a bit due to the legal situation, because it was or is simply difficult to play music there, a return of listening and hearing.

Hank: I explained it to you very briefly, it’s difficult with the music rights because they are simply not available and music has to be paid for on the radio and there are no payment models for podcasting at the moment. In this respect, you probably also have to make sure that you can find rights-free music.

Tischer: Exactly, so background music has to be rights-free, but that’s why spoken word contributions are in great demand and audio books are on the rise anyway and that’s why it’s still the case that a podcast with a novel or audio book, even if it’s an unknown author, is very noticeable that the thing goes up in iTunes in the top 10 or top 100 or in the cultural sector, because people, as I said at the beginning, are already keen to listen to something like this and of course to get it as cheaply as possible and here you get it for free.

Heinke: I’m a bit more critical when I say that. I wouldn’t dare to compare myself and my production with a professional audiobook publisher, for example. I wouldn’t want that either and I think it would be terrible if that were the case. What I find interesting is that in the field of podcasting you can reach similar numbers of listeners with relatively inexpensive means as with the now traditional audiobook. I find that interesting, but I would say that there are still big differences in terms of quality.

Rubens: I can agree with that. In terms of quality, it has to be said that there is no comparison. Some episodes you listen to once and then you like them. Others are very well done. However, I also think it’s interesting that there is a podcast, such as Blog Read, where people simply read texts from weblogs. Anyone can take a text and read it aloud. And what I find very interesting is that there are sometimes speakers who mumble, who speak completely incomprehensibly. You hear that and think, yes, you can see the difference between a professional actor who can simply read. And then you listen for five or ten minutes and then you suddenly realize that there is no better speaker for this text than this mumbling person. And I also think a discovery like that is great. I just can’t do that with audiobooks, because everything has to be perfect.

Hank: Annik Rubins, you don’t mumble at all, as we’ve heard, but it’s precisely this imperfection or lack of perfection that perhaps gives podcasting a certain market advantage or unique selling point compared to radio on the one hand and audiobooks on the other, which are somehow always very perfect.

Rubens: I think it’s really important because there’s simply character in the voices. I’m still a radio fan and a radio listener, but I can hardly tell the difference between some voices. They’re already very streamlined, they’ve got their rap key, they don’t put any A’s in and stuff like that. And sometimes I find it difficult to identify with these people or to say that this is a person I find likeable, because their personality just doesn’t come across very well. And in podcasts, you’re just the way you are or the way you can manage it, because you’re not sitting in a studio, you’re just sitting in a quiet little room in your own home, where you feel very comfortable anyway, you’re not very afraid of the microphone, you don’t have an audience, you just imagine that someone else might be listening. And in that respect, you’re just completely natural. And I think that’s what I like best about hearing these imperfect voices. I find that very, very beautiful.

Hank: So when I listened to your podcast in particular, I thought to myself, yes, that sounds very natural. But I also imagined, and I used to do a lot of radio myself, that it must be damn hard to sound so natural, because you’re probably a bit tense in that situation. Did you experience that as a problem or was it easy for you?

Rubens: It was very easy for me because I thought nobody was listening to me. So the first few episodes, I really thought nobody was listening. And there were only 70 or 80 podcasts in Germany. So it was like that, nobody was listening. And I think it’s a bit like leaving a message on a friend’s answering machine. For me, that’s actually more how I imagine it.

Hank: But there are also people who are better at it than others. So it’s not that simple, is it? But women usually like to communicate.

Rubens: Yes, I can only add that I also had the experience, for example, that I tried very hard to do everything very well during the first demo. Then I just added a second one and didn’t know that I had so many listeners. And then afterwards I was really annoyed that I talked it down and didn’t try so hard. I felt the burden of authorship and listeners, so to speak. And I think that’s also a nice claim. On the one hand, this imperfection. Sometimes, because I record in the kitchen, you can hear the fridge cracking in the background and so on. I think that’s nice and natural. On the other hand, of course, you also have a personal ambition, oh, I have to hit that spot, I have to hit that spot, I want to get better at that. And that, I think, is the beauty of it.

Hank: Yes, in practical terms, if I were sitting here in the audience and imagined that I wanted to become a podcaster. How time-consuming is that? So what do I have to do to get started, Wolfgang Tischer?

Tischer: To produce a podcast yourself, as you said earlier, you actually need the same things to listen to it. That is, a computer, a microphone, what you connect to it. The software for this is available free of charge on the Internet so that you can digitize it using Audacity, for example. And then, of course, I need storage space somewhere on the Internet where I can store my MP3 file, which is then available for download somewhere. And the podcast is characterized by the fact that these MP3 files can be subscribed to, so to speak, that there is, without getting too technical, another file that simply draws people’s attention via programs such as iTunes. If there is a new episode, it is downloaded automatically. You can also program such a file manually, for example, if you have a bit of knowledge. But there are also providers on the web where you can record your podcast on a phone, for example, and then it’s online.

Hank: So that’s a bit of the technical side. I was also thinking about the, let’s say, editorial side. You have to sit down and perhaps come up with a concept. How long does it take you to create a podcast like this?

Tischer: Yes, it varies. Of course, my concept is usually created in my head, but we always have two moderations in a regular episode. Of course, you have to coordinate a bit, and we try to do it with as little paper as possible. But it’s a 20-minute episode, so it’s certainly three or four hours of production.

Heinke: In my case, I just have a big problem with free speech. In other words, I still have the advantage of being able to hide behind my text a bit, because otherwise I’m actually quite reserved and don’t really like speaking freely at all. And yes, what’s perhaps interesting is, yes, right now, for example, I’ve just lost the thread.

Hank: For example, you put a lot of effort into the production. It sounds like a radio play in parts. That’s certainly more elaborate.

Heinke: Yes, exactly, that’s just what I wanted to add. That also increases the effort. And that’s when I realized that when I started, it took me maybe just two hours to produce the whole thing. Now I’m at six or seven hours per 20 minutes, because I’m also “composing” or putting together the music and then I also have to generate some of the sound effects. And that has become very, very time-consuming. I’m already realizing that I’m basically on the edge now, where you have to consider that it has to be useful somehow. Now it’s in the sense that I’m hopefully also promoting my printed book. But you get into an area where you can no longer just do it as a hobby.

Hank: Annik Rubens, you make it sound as if you just start talking. I have a suspicion that sometimes it’s not that simple. How often do you always start your podcasts?

Rubens: It’s true, and I swear, I haven’t done a “Sleepless Munich” episode twice. Unless the technology has stopped. But I just don’t listen to them again afterwards. That’s the key to success. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have put them all online. But ›Sleepless Munich‹ lasted as long as the episode did. Nothing was cut, nothing was tinkered with. And it was just put online like that. That really is the case. And there are also other podcasts, for example the ›Audible Hörletter‹, which sometimes takes five or six days to produce. So it’s very different in terms of the effort involved. Because it’s more of a professional recording and approval process. When you podcast, you’re your own boss, so to speak. There is no editorial team that approves anything. There’s no editor-in-chief telling you what to do. Is that the big advantage, the fun? Or sometimes a topic where you think it would be better if someone else told me that was okay or that wasn’t okay? Well, I’m used to it because I’m usually a freelance journalist and I’ve always had to kick myself in the butt and didn’t have a boss who did that. So it’s relatively easy for me. But I think it’s important to have a few confidants who can give you an honest opinion from time to time.

Hank: What do you hear then?

Rubens: In my case, the confidant at the very beginning was my mother. I didn’t tell anyone that I was podcasting, just my mother. And she always had to listen and gave me criticism from time to time. So now it was too long or speak more clearly, child. And of course things like that came up, yes.

Hank: Who was your first listener, Christian Heinke?

Heinke: For me, it was really the audience. And I was also very surprised when I received emails praising me for the beautiful things I had done. And I just didn’t want to believe it myself. And what I’m also missing at the moment is a bit of constructive criticism. I hardly get any... I’m constantly asking people to please tell me how I could perhaps do it better or how I could do it better. There’s a bit of a lack of feedback at the moment, because they all think it’s okay. Which worries me a bit, because you do end up in areas where it’s possible to be completely wrong at some point.

Hank: You work in a team, so it’s probably a bit easier, right?

Tischer: Yes, I mean, the team isn’t that big. But of course you very quickly get caught up in this pressure from the listeners, who then expect something from you. But I’ve also found that it’s very difficult to generate feedback. And as always on the Internet, feedback usually comes when people don’t think something is great or when they say, why wasn’t there an episode for so long or that and I didn’t like it. So we try, but I think that despite the relatively high number of downloads, the feedback channel is only ever so small. But as I said, if you do something or stop doing something, the feedback is there straight away. Interestingly enough, we had a very positive response. As I said, we always have an audio book with episodes and we said that next time, anyone who wants to read can apply to be a reader in this case, we wanted to read Arthur Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else. And with an MP3 file. We didn’t want to be actors or professional speakers, we just wanted to explain a bit how it works, similar to what we do now, where people have to plug something in. And I was amazed that we received over 30 MP3 files where people actually sat down, got to grips with the text, got to grips with the technology and sent us these MP3 files. And of course we made a great competition out of it. A bit like Germany is looking for the super reader. Of course, there’s still potential, because we’ve noticed that a lot of people want to speak and read aloud.

Hank: Before we get straight into a Q&A session, one final question, namely that we at Deutsche Welle do podcasting, but we also do classic internet streaming, for example, and offer our audio and some of our TV files for download anyway. And what we have of course already noticed is that interest in podcasting has increased rapidly in the last year. But if you look at the whole picture, a lot more content is still being accessed, or streamed, in the traditional way on the Internet. You can listen to Deutsche Welle’s live radio and television programs, for example. So the proportion of podcasting is still relatively small here. How do you think this podcasting story, for whose success you are also somewhat responsible, will continue? Do you think it’s a kind of trend that everyone is talking about at the moment? Or do you think it will continue to grow in terms of reach and really become a substantial mainstay? Annik Rubens.

Rubens: Well, I don’t think it’s a trend that’s going to die down any time soon, because all the public broadcasters have jumped on board. And they’re not really known for jumping on every hype. In this respect, the whole thing has been a topic for two to three years now and is developing very positively. And it’s simply a technology. So I don’t think we should assume that it’s a new medium. It’s a technology that can be used by a very broad mass of people, which wasn’t technically possible until a few years ago. In other words, various factors are now coming together that fit very, very well. And in that respect, I think things are going uphill now. There will definitely be more paid podcasts now, so you can no longer simply download them for free. And as you can already see, it’s moving more and more towards video. Are paid podcasts losing a bit of the charm of being unbiased and direct? Well, the question I always ask myself personally, for example, is whether people will pay for the content I produce at some point. And I think the crux of the matter or the advantage over radio is this on-demand character. This means that you can download the podcast and listen to it whenever you want. And with the radio, you always have to be near a radio set at a certain point. And for me personally, that’s the big advantage of podcasting, which will probably not only make it a trend, but also possibly lead to a new concept of radio.

Hank: Wolfgang Tischer, you are also someone who knows a lot about the literary scene. Will this podcasting trend mean that in the foreseeable future audiobooks, which are currently traditionally distributed via CD and DVD, will completely migrate to this download market?

Tischer: No, not at all. To be honest, I don’t see podcasting as competition for radio. And perhaps we’ve given the wrong impression, because as Annick has already indicated, podcasting might be thought of as something that dilettantes do at the kitchen table with the fridge cracking in the background. To put it bluntly, the media really have already got on board. And we were still in the top ten before 2005, but now it’s the Sendung mit der Maus podcast or the Ditsche podcast, i.e. the media, the brands that you’re familiar with. The podcasters in particular, who are really still fiddling around at home, have almost fallen out of the bottom because the brands are simply on the rise. And it’s the same with audiobooks. So here, of course, the brands also count. In other words, people naturally buy an audiobook because it’s read by a good actor or because it’s a text by John Grisham or whatever. This market will continue to exist, but there are also these podcasts that appeal to a slightly different niche, a slightly different audience. Television hasn’t killed the cinema or the internet hasn’t killed books. The question always comes up, of course, that won’t happen. Everything has its target group and, to a certain extent, podcasting will also fill the target groups and niches, so to speak, but it won’t displace other things. By displacing, I mean above all the CD medium. So I go into a store and buy a CD. The alternative is to go to a download portal, pay money and then get the classic audio book. Do you think that this distribution channel will become increasingly important through podcasting? Well, yes. It was also ultimately the case for Apple that they integrated these free podcasts in order to sell the devices, you have to say, Apple is behind it. The MP3 download, I don’t know, it’s still the same, so with a CD, it’s higher, but with a CD I still have something in my hand. With MP3s, you realize quite quickly from your own experience that sometimes you have to fiddle around or the computer crashes or the hard drive crashes and suddenly you realize with these MP3 downloads that you don’t actually have anything, suddenly somehow nothing, things are ephemeral. My CDs still work. So MP3 downloads are also more likely to find their target group in the non-fiction sector and perhaps also more in the guidebook sector, but a CD, especially without copy protection, I have to say that quite clearly, is preferable to me, because the mess, I also say that, that you can do with DRM, with digital rights management, that will be and is very dangerous for me, because then such things are conceivable that audio books that you buy suddenly expire after a month or I can only listen to them three times and then I have to pay again and then the consumer is fleeced. And in that respect I prefer the CD, which I can also copy, which I can also lend to my friend. And we’re not talking about the bad, bad pirates here, but about legal methods of use.

Hank: Thank you very much, so far. Now we have the opportunity to ask our panelists questions. I’m curious to see what interests you. And there’s already a question up here.

Guest: Perhaps you could say something about the listeners. How many do you estimate there are and are they all under 30 or are there also older ones? And what else can you say about the listeners? Who would like to say something?

Rubens: Well, I would ask for a little patience because the new podcast survey is still not out yet. We’re all waiting for it. Maybe tomorrow Alex Wunschel will be here, maybe we can work on it a bit. Last year, most of them were around 30 and male. I can only say that from the letters and emails I’ve received, the listeners have become younger and there are more women. I hope it’s not just a trend with my podcast.

Guest: I just have a question for you, Mr. Heinke. You read your own books and podcasting itself costs money. Is the benefit you derive from this that your books are then bought more? What exactly is your motivation?

Heinke: Well, to be honest, I’m mainly driven by the fun of it. But of course I also have in the back of my mind that I hope that I might be able to turn some listeners into readers. The whole thing will be published next year and I will probably also present it as a book at the next book fair next year. And then of course I hope that I can take some listeners with me, which would of course also please the publisher.

Hank: So the podcast is used a bit like a teaser for your books? Yes, but it really has developed that way now. There’s no marketing concept or anything else behind it, but it really has turned out that way. Thank you.

Hank: But there could be a marketing concept behind it. We also noticed that, you also reported that you are now receiving orders with this ulterior motive, partly to design something like this. So it’s quite possible that it’s also being used deliberately for this purpose. Any further questions?

Gust: My name is Stefan Müller from Hessischer Rundfunk. First of all, I wanted to take up the cudgels for public radio, because radio has been very vehemently criticized. We always have to realize that in addition to commercial radio stations with the same sounding voices, there is also something like Deutschland Radio Kultur, which has the following podcasts. There are podcasts from hr2 Buchmesse with a lot of things, but my question is aimed in a different direction. We have heard that Annik Rubens and Wolfgang Tischer started out as early birds in this scene. In the meantime, however, they are practically being bought by the industry, which puts them in very problematic PR waters. So as soon as publishers or Warner Music, for example, make use of the supposedly independent services of this podcaster scene, it automatically becomes a PR story. And then it’s no longer an independent thing, in my opinion.

Rubens: Well, at least with my stuff, it’s not about saying that I do independent journalism. I would find that more questionable in public broadcasting if something like that were to appear. Instead, I think it’s important to be open about something like that and to say that this is a Warner Trackcast. It’s not something where I say, oh, I’ve just come across this music, I think it’s great. It’s something where you really just have the right voices. You just openly say, this is advertising, but people, if you’re interested, I also say, if you’ve heard it, I often say, people, I don’t like the music at all. But it’s a matter of personal taste, if you like it, go ahead. So in that respect, I think you have to be authentic and you have to disclose things like that. Then it’s absolutely okay.

Tischer: Well, I also think these podcasts are separate. Of course you also use these networks, but the Literaturcafé podcast, your own, is just as subjective and, as I’ve already said, it’s also marketing. In a way, if you like, it’s a marketing tool for the literature platform and for the things there. So it’s also networking. Fortunately, we don’t have the status of independent journalism, but we are very subjective and can allow ourselves to be subjective. But it’s important that this separation is there and that you say, yes, we’re now also doing this for this and that. So of course, just like in any newspaper where the word “advertisement” is used, you have to make that clear.

Hank: Further questions for our panel.

Gust: This isn’t a question, but an expression of my opinion. I stumbled across podcasts about a month or two ago and I’m a passionate podcast listener. I listen to a wide variety of genres, niche genres, as well as the big things you mentioned. I would also like to thank those present for their podcasts, because I listen to them too. And it’s a lot of fun. It has become a real passion for me. I must have 20 subscriptions and I look forward to every subscription, i.e. every new episode, and whenever I come across a new podcast that I like, I download all the episodes that are still available somehow, so I really have a lot to listen to at the moment. But I never get tired of it. And I’m really excited about it.

Hank: Thank you. I think that’s almost a fantastic final word. In that respect, I would say I take it all in. Thank you very much for our participants on the panel for doing such a good job of explaining the very technically complex topic of podcasting to us. I think a lot has become clear about the possibilities involved. I can also point out that Deutsche Welle will be offering a recording of this discussion as a podcast next week. I think it will also be possible to listen to parts of it on your side at least. At least that’s what we discussed earlier, if the technology works. So thank you very much and have fun at the book fair.