Celebrating Not One But Two Podcast Award Nominations
Two of my podcasts I work on have been nominated for the first Scottish Podcast Awards. Set up as “part of a wider mission to spotlight Scottish creative industries and strengthen Scotland’s position as a modern creative hub”, it has acknowledged a wide range of podcasts, including several smaller players, and it’s worth exploring the nominations list.
I do find it disappointing that an awards show meant to raise awareness and increase the visibility of the Scottish podcast scene does not offer any direct links to the nominated podcasts. Spotify are one of the key sponsors, and one of the biggest podcast destinations has only one playlist of nominated shows, those in the Listeners’ Choice category.
Classic Baseball Radio
Nominated for Best Sports Podcast (classicbaseballradio.com).
Long ago, baseball ruled the radio waves in America, and the commentator’s voice was trusted and beloved by the fans of every team. Yet the stations could not afford to send their teams out “on the road” to away games, and the technology to bring a live signal from the likes of Chicago to Boston was not readily available.
The broadcasters came up with another solution: a junior reporter would travel to the game and send back basic information by telegraph. This was passed to the commentator, who would take a message such as “KKBB43” and spin it into two minutes of the game, mixing improv, fact, theatre, and reporting over three hours to bring the game to the listeners.
With today’s online records of baseball games going back to the 19th century, it’s possible to recreate these telegraph messages and present a full radio broadcast of a game from history. And that’s exactly what Classic Baseball Radio does. Each episode is a full baseball game from the history books, complete with sound effects and audio work to replicate AM radio, bookended by the significance of the players and the events featured in the game.
It’s a history podcast, live sports broadcast, and an ASMR collection all in one.
The Edinburgh Fringe Show, With Ewan Spence
Nominated for Scotland’s Emerging Talent (edinburghfringe.thepodcastcorner.com).
The Edinburgh Fringe Show is a lot easier to explain; it’s an interview show for the Edinburgh Fringe featuring a wide range of voices from across the world of Fringe theatre. It’s old enough that there weren’t any complicated thoughts on branding; it was a podcast about the Edinburgh Fringe, so that was the show.
Since the Fringe’s return after the pandemic lockdowns, I’ve pushed my name into the title to help make it a little easier to search for, but otherwise it’s essentially the same show. Find interesting people, ask them what they do, and listen to their stories.
The show has aired over a thousand interviews since its launch, and the adventure begins again in July with four Fringe previews before the madness of August starts.
There is, of course, a small administrative note around the ‘emerging talent’ category… this Fringe podcast was nominated for a Best Interactive Media BAFTA in 2005. I guess it’s true what they say about overnight success taking twenty-one years of podcast publishing.
