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January 11, 2024
Most Accessed Podcast Episodes of 2023
Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast
Looking back on the most popular podcast episodes of 2023 from the Exchanges Discourse reveals a few surprises.
To paraphrase Shatner [1] ‘When it was 2023 it was a very good year. It was a very good year for author interview podcast episodes and soft academic chat’.
In 2023 I produced 13 new episodes of the Exchanges Discourse podcast, representing our fourth (!) production season. I know, I’m as surprised as you are that we’ve been going this long now - but also delighted too. Since we kicked off in the high-pandemic year [2] of 2020 with the intention to create a surrogate for the kinds of conversations we’d been having behind the scenes with authors – but were less able to enjoy so easily during the extended remote working period. Unlike a lot of things which arose during lockdown – banana bread, clapping for the NHS, panicking over the food shopping [3] – the Exchanges Discourse podcast is still alive and well.
Back in 2022 we produced 17 episodes [4] and 6hrs 49 minutes of content over the twelve months. Now you might think that with fewer episodes in 2023, this means there was less content for listeners to enjoy. Slightly less variety of voices, I’ll perhaps give you. However, checking on the episode statistics we clocked in with a grand total of 6hrs and 39 minutes of content produced - most which wasn't me talking! Hence, 2023’s podcast episodes were nothing at which to be sneezed. [5] Now if I were to make one behind the scenes observation, it concerns those conversations which continued followed the end recording. A lot of our guests, once we turned the mic off had a lot more interesting things to say - and while I enjoyed every minute, I wish I'd managed to capture them for our listeners to enjoy. So, my goal for 2024 is to try and let more episodes run longer this way.
Anyway, all this aside – what you want to know in this post are which were the most popular episodes we published this past year. As always, we pick a top five and with four episodes appearing in December I’m was curious myself to see if any of these made it into the list when I ran the stats:
Rank | Title | Duration | Published |
1 | Across Two Professional Worlds: In Conversation with Intissar Haddiya | 00:24:34 | August 2023 |
2 | Creating Critical Reflection Articles: The What, The Why, The How and The Where | 00:23:58 | January 2023 |
3 | Environmental Humanities & Transdisciplinary Research: In Conversation with Justin Westgate | 00:31:32 | June 2023 |
4 | Presidential History and Digital Pedagogies: In Conversation with Rebecca Stone | 00:43:60 | March 2023 |
5= | ChatGPT, Reviewers from Hell & Linguistic Challenges: In Conversation with Beth Montague-Hellen | 00:27:34 | December 2023 |
5= | Sustainability, Batteries & Pringle Cans: In Conversation with Jean Marshall | 00:25:18 | December 2023 |
5= | Crossing the Creative Frontier: In Conversation with Sonakshi Srivastava | 00:34:35 | June 2023 |
Well there you go - and yes - a three way tie there for 5th place, with two of those being podcasts we launched in December! How especially gratifying to see them there, meaning a real potential for them to keep climbing up the ranks. I am personally a little delighted to see what occupies our number 1 slot, as it also happened to be the 50th episode of the podcast – which was a minor milestone all of its own. I think the one surprise for me is that my solo episode on creating critical reflections has proved so popular. I suspect, given we’ve two special issues which are critical reflection focussed, this episode likely had a bit of a boost from authors planning to submit to them. I can’t tell for certain, although I know one or two authors have mentioned listening to it ahead of submission - so there's some evidence to support this assumption.
Anyway, what was your favourite episode in our top 5? Let us know if it was, or even if it wasn’t, in the comments below!
And now on to Season 5 - which I start recording today with an author interview again. Do join me.
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Endnotes
[1] I know it’s by Sinatra originally, but I’ve only ever listened to Kirk’s version. It’s rather good. But no, I shan’t be performing it in karaoke any time soon.
[2] Rather than the pre-vaccination endemic COVID-19 pandemic we’re still experiencing.
[3] UK inflation being what it is, I don’t think this one’s gone away – it’s just evolved into a more fiscal than existential mode.
[4] 15 author interviews, two solo performances by myself
[5] For 2023 the average episode length is 30 minutes 41 seconds, for 2022 it was only 24 minutes 3 seconds – so we talked a lot more this year just passed.
January 13, 2022
Looking Back at 2021: Most Popular Podcast Episodes
Writing about web page https://open.spotify.com/show/5amW8qMjCrUihAvtBq5ChM
We take a look back at the most popular episodes of the Exchanges Discourse podcast in the past twelve months
Happy new year, Exchanges readers. And what could be a better way to start the new year, than by sharing a couple of our most access, read and used items within our communities. First off, it’s our run down of the most popular episodes – based on listener statistics – for the Exchanges Discourse podcast. As we moved into this second year of the podcast there was an upswing in the number of episodes and content duration too. In fact, we produced 13 episodes in 2021 which lasted a grand total of 3hrs 33mins and 18 seconds. Which equates to fully two more episodes and over 90 minutes more content than the previous year. Hence, cheers all around to everyone who participated and helped make this happen!
So out of these 13 glorious episodes – which were the ones most beloved by our audience?
>Number 5 (audience share 9%): Introducing Volume 8.3 of Exchanges – a look back at the Spring 2021 issue of the journal.
>Number 4 (audience share 10%): A Conversation with…Doro Wiese. A chat with a past author, and Warwick scholar.
>Number 3 (audience share 12%): The Cultural Representations of Nerds – in Conversation with Filippo Cervelli & Ben Schaper – a special issue focus.
>Number 2 (audience share 13%): A Conversation with...Urmee Chakma. Talking with a past author about teaching English to speakers of other languages.
>Number 1 (audience share 19%): Conversations with…Associate Editors – a panel discussion exploring what working on Exchanges & its special issues means for early career scholars.
And you can freely listen to these and all our other episodes on Spotifyand Anchor.Fm
I am quite surprised to see one of my solo efforts, looking at a recent issue of the journal, in there by the skin of its teeth at number 5. I had rather assumed that listeners most preferred to hear guests, and while for the most part the rest of the top 5 hold this up, it is gratifying to know there is an audience for me talking (mostly) to myself.
For contrast - here are the most listened to episodes in 2020.
We have already two episodes recorded and pending editing for the new season of the podcast, which will be coming out over the next week or so – giving you something to look forward to already. Plus I’ve two further guests lined up for February, and maybe even something a little special…a live recorded podcast session with an audience. More on that idea if we can pull it together!
Next time though, I’ll share what were the 10 most downloaded papers in the journal last year. Stay tuned for that – next week!