How to Fail at Podcasting (or not)

I've been podcasting for some time now and listening to podcasts for a lot longer.  There are some great podcasts out there but also some stinkers.

Here are my nine rules for how to fail at podcasting and some of my reflections on the alternatives.

1.  Don’t have any clear subject matter for your podcast.  Be all over the map.

Listeners seek out podcsts because of the content they are looking for. As a result, your podcast needs to have a clear niche. If listeners can't predict what your next episode might be about, they are unlikely to subscribe, or stay subscribed very long. 

You need to "brand" what your show is about and preferably make it about something that 147 other podcasts are not also about. 

A narcissictic "it's about whatever I want" subject won't attract much of an audience, other than maybe your family and close friends.

2.  Use bad video and off-mic sound.

Theorist Marshall McLuhan said "the medium is the message."  If you are an audio-only podcast, you need excellent audio quality.  Sounding like you are a yard away from the microphone will turn off listeners fast. You don't necessarily need expensive professional microphone equipment, but use what you have professionally, which means having your microphone close to your mouth, recording in a quiet location, and avoiding distractions like "Popping Ps".

If you are also doing video, you also need a well-composed screen for each participant and good lighting. Weird camera angles and bad lighting appears unprofessional and ruins your credibility.  

3.  Ramble and use free-association as you talk.

You need to have a solid plan for your episode and stick to it.  At least have a rundown of topics planned in advance so all particiants can keep track as you record. Many podcasts use a relatively complete script, written in advance. 

And plan to edit your podcast before posting it.  At the very least, remove most (or all) of your "UMs" and generally tighten up the flow.  If you did end up wandering away from topic, maybe it's best to cut that section out.  The common professional audio editing software is Adobe Audition, but the Open Source (free) package Audcity will also do everything you need.

4.  It’s great to have multiple people all talking at once.

No, it's not. Only one person at a time should be talking and you should not be interrupting each other.  Whoever the "host" is for this episode should also be the discussion leader and moderator.  When you're verbally stepping on each other's toes  or talking over each other, it doesn't feel professional and, again, blows your credibility.

5.  Laugh uproariously at your own jokes.  

Humor is fine in a podcast, but remember that your focus has to be your audience, not your own narcissism. You aren't entertaining yourself.  You are entertaining your audience.  Be like the late-night talk shows - if you are telling the joke, you're the "straight man" (or woman or other gender choices, of course). Your side-kicks may respond, but nothing is more of a turn-off than people laughing at their own jokes 

6.  Spend at least 20 minutes talking about your personal lives before you get around to the announced topic of today’s episode.

This takes finnesse.  Some talk about yourselves (self-disclosure) can help make connections with the audience, but too many podcast people take way too long to get to the point of the episode.  Best is to make any opening small-talk short and sweet.  Also remember that people may be listening weeks or months into the future, so references to today's events need a light touch.

7.  Monster files are no problem, even if they take ages to download.

Save your finished podcast file in a way that is easy to download quickly. For audio-only, that means as an MP3 file, but wait, there's more.  

Unless you MUST have stereo, save your final as monaural.  It will be smaller and will download faster.  A sample rate of 44,100 Hz 16-bit is plenty of quality for a podcast that is mostly voice.  Try a format setting of MP3 192 Kbps. If you use lower than these numbers, listen to test recordings critically in headphones to ensure quality.  If you use bigger numbers, you probably won't hear an appreciable improvement in voice quality.

8.  Violate copyright - nobody will notice (probably).

The biggest point here is that you need to be REALLY careful about what music you use in your podcast. There is no way to blanket-license your podcast to play commercially-recorded music (although a few companies are cautiously getting their feet wet).  So if your podcast actually plays the music by name recording artists, you may easily be subject to copyright infringmenet legal actions. 

There are ways to find royalty-free music to use for your opening and closing themes and transitions, but beware. Many of the sites that claim to have royalty free music offer it only for personal use, and a podcast available to the general public is NOT personal use. Be sure to read their terms of service.

9.  Believe that "if you podcast it, they will come."

You need to not only produce a podcast with good technical quality and engaging content.  You need to promote it.  Get it listed with many podcast hosting sites as you can, promote it on social media, get yourself a professional-looking website, and promote, promote, promote still more. When podcasts instantaneously go viral, it is usually a freak occurance. How to really succeed at promoting would take tens of thousands of words, but promotion needs to be an importnt part of your planning.

I hope that this reverse psychology format has generated some ideas for your podcast.  A podcast is not something to start on a lark.  Those who do usually close down again soon.  Your podcast doesn't have to exist to make money (although that is possible, once your audience grows some) but you should still treat it as a professional undertaking.

Star Trek Discovery: Saints of Imperfection

Here are observations about the fifth episode of Star Trek Discovery this season, Saints of Imperfection.  There ARE a few minor spoilers below, but not full episode summaries.

1. May refers to transporting Tilly across the "dimensional plane."  So the thing Discovery is temporarily stuck in is basically an inter-dimensional portal.  Like a Stargate event horizon without the actual Stargate. Maybe THAT'S why the parts of the Discovery saucer need to rotate.  Because Stargates rotate in setting the destination address.  (In reality, CBS can't overtly use elements from MGM's Stargate, due to copyright, but the visual portrayals are reminiscent.)
2. Pike is seen entering the bridge from Lorca's Ready Room, even though Pike made a big thing a few episodes ago of not liking it and moving elsewhere. We can still see the stand-up desk through the doorway.
3. Pike and Georgiou were classmates at Starfleet Academy, although maybe not the same class year.
4. When Pike, Georgiou, and Burnham get into the turbolift, it starts going without anybody saying the destination.  In fact several times people get into the turbolift and don't say where they are going in this episode, but this is the only scene in which we see them continually after the doors shut.
5. A reference to "alligators" on Cestus III, was likely a reference to the Gorn, although supposedly Starfleet didn't know anything about the Gorn until the TOS episode Arena.  On the third hand, Lorca appeared to have a Gorn skeleton on display last season.
6. Also a reference to Deneva, one of the first Earth colonies, where Sam Kirk and family eventually live (and some of them die). 
7. Georgiou is eating an apple to show how cool she is, kind of like how the J.J. Abrams Kirk ate an apply in one of the movies.  She drops it when Burnham gets in her face.  She isn't as cocky as she pretends to be. Since they are getting ready to make a series about her, I HOPE that she is a nicer person than she lets on.  Here "oh look at the cute baby" moment last episode gives me some hope.
8. The new chief of security, Commander Nhan, is still wearing the skirt-and-tights version of the Starfleet uniform, except in Discovery blue.  Note that when Pike first came to Discovery, he identified her as an engineering staff member.  Now she's heading security.  Was she Security pretending to be Engineering, as a safety detail for Pike?
9. Once they find Tilly and...what else (spoiler) they find...they fritter away a LOT of time when they urgently need to be heading back.
10. Tyler has a radio integrated in his com badge, like TNG and later comm badges.  Nobody else has ever heard of that before, through the TOS movies.
11. The Section 31 ship does not have invisibility, but apparently is able to make its shields look like a big asteroid.
12. The tractor beams in this episode need a receptor or "tractor rig" to pull against.  The only time I remember the 1701 Prime using a tractor beam was in Space Seed, and they may well have placed a receptor on the Botany Bay, which we just didn't see.
13. Now we have two "we will meet again" foreshadows: Tilly and May, and Pike and Jacob (on New Eden). 
14. Leland is apparently in charge of Section 31, but he made a reference to "control" last week, and now we find out who "control" is.

Note: Photo is a "fair use" screen capture used for purposes of review or criticism, and thus complies with copyright law.

Why they had to Redesign the Enterprise...Again

Spoilers below!

Note: This post was written before the reuniting of CBS and Paramount.  This article reflects the considerations in effect when the Discovery version of Enterprise was created.

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The Star Trek Discovery season finale appeared on CBS All Access last night, and the cliffhanger was an unexpected appearance of the original USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 (no bloody A, B, C, D, E, or anything else, as Scotty might say).

Careful examination reveals that this is yet another "re-imagining" of the classic starship.  So why couldn't they just use the design from the "Kelvan Universe" in the most recent movies?  That would be logical, wouldn't it?

The answer is that if they had, they'd probably get sued.

The problem is that movie Star Trek and television Star Trek are no longer controlled by the same corporations.  CBS and Viacom (which owns Paramount) were once part of the same corporation, but over a decade ago they were split into two separate publicly-traded corporations (now there is talk of them recombining).

The result required years of negotiations over who owns Star Trek, which is why we didn't see new Star Trek for years.

Viacom/Paramount controls the rights to the Star Trek movies, whereas CBS controls the rights to television Star Trek.  When to comes to making NEW Star Trek, they're not allowed to draw significant content from each other.  They have to go back to the source material that THEY control.

All previous redesigns of the NCC-1701 Enterprise were in the movies.  The only appearance of a Constitution Class Starship in television Trek since The Original Series was the USS Defiant, seen in Star Trek Enterprise, which was a faithful CGI reproduction of the original design.

So given the decision to redesign the Enterprise, CBS HAD to create an Enterprise that was not directly linked to any of the movie incarnations of the ship. Of course, they COULD have made this Enterprise also a faithful reproduction, but...

My guess is that merchandising considerations led to the redesign.  We now have (or will have next season) yet another version of the Enterprise to make into plastic model kits, Hallmark ornaments, etc. 

Oh by the way, Pocket Books, which publishes all the Star Trek novels, is owned by CBS. Last year they negotiated a deal with Viacom/Paramount to also public Star Trek books based in the J.J. Abrams Kelvan Universe, but I do not know when any actual Kelvan Universe books may be released.

Separating the two companies resulted in Byzantine complications for Star Trek.  Merging them again would probably be highly beneficial for Star Trek, if they could decide which production team takes over.

For the record, what is different in the redesign?

• The struts attaching the nacelles are different.
• The shape of the rear landing bay is changed
• The nacelles, themselves, are different - the original did not have those lighted side panels
• The exterior lighting is different   
• The ship's markings in some areas are different
• The impulse engines at the rear of the saucer are different

There are probably plenty of other things that we will see when we get a plastic model kit or Hallmark ornament...or more video from next season.

Why you SHOULDN'T watch your favorite shows on-the-air (or cable)

If you REALLY want to help a TV show you love, don't watch on the networks (including cable). Watch a (legal) streaming feed or DVR.  Why?

TV series live and die by the ratings, but many people do not realize that weekly ratings that lead to cancellation or renewal are only collected from the top 50 markets (cities) in the country.

On top of that, only a random sample of homes with "people meters" actually get counted, and then are project statistically.

So, if you live in a big city, but do NOT have a people meter, you don't get counted.  If you live anywhere else you do not get counted...if you watch your show over-the-air or on cable, that is.

On the other hand, ratings today take into account how many people streamed or DVRed the show in the seven days after the network/cable broadcast.  When you stream or DVR the show you DO get counted.

(Of course, this means streamed legally, or DVRed with a system that can "phone home" to report your viewing.  Bootleg copyright infringed streams, downloads, and old-style home video recorders don't get counted.)

The reality is, there are some shows that get twice or more as many views via legal streaming/DVRing than they do in the network/cable feeds. This is particularly true when you look at certain desirable demographics, like 18-49-year-olds. A three-times increase is not unheard of.

Because these streaming/DVR viewers still get commercials, the networks make money from every commercial you see, and profitability and return on investment is what gets a series renewed, or canceled if the return is too low. 

So the "broadcast plus seven" ratings are influential, and streaming/DVRing allows you to contribute to the ratings of the shows you like.  Or, if you still like the context of gathering for the broadcast at a specific time, watch the live feed but make sure you also stream it again, at least once, before seven days are up.

(Of course, this does not address original series from Netflix, etc, that are never on the broadcast and cable channels.  They are not counted in any ratings, other than the company's internal tracking of hits, downloads, and streams, which they rarely reveal.)

So again, of you REALLY want to help your favorite shows, make sure you stream them at least once in the seven days following the original network/cable feed and add your ratings into the renewal calculations.

"Deconstructing" Star Trek Discovery

There’s been a lot of talk about Star Trek Discovery, but I haven’t seen anybody yet really analyze the story.  Ergo, here is my “deconstruction” of the first two episodes.

First let me say that in 1990s, when The Next Generation was on the air, it was common for fans to go onto the message board and work through many fine details and nuances of the episodes.  As I said, I do not see that level of analysis as often today, which is why I am providing this example.

Many of my comments could come across as negative, or as complaints, but that it not what they are. They are observations concerning the many decisions made by the writers and producers. They are what they are, because Discovery is a completed work of art, which is unfolding week-by-week.  So I am looking at what the writers and producers did, how they did it, and why they did it.

There ARE spoilers below, for episodes 1 and 2.

About the Plot

T’Kuvma is a cult leader, having gathered together outcasts and those marginalized by Klingon society. He found his father’s crashed ship, repaired it, and has fixated on the Federation as the enemy of the Klingon people.

“They are coming. They will coil around us.  And take all that we are,” he says.

So, he lures the USS Shenzhou, NCC 1227, to the fringe of Federation space and provokes a conflict.  It is Stardate 1207.3, or May 11, 2256 on Earth.

Specifically, T’Kuvma ignites a huge beacon, both in visible light and subspace signals, that attracts representatives of the 24 “houses” of Klingon society.  He cites legendary Klingon leader Kahless, and essentially says, “Make Klingon great again.”  

Battle results between Klingon and Starfleet ships.  T’Kuvma is killed, and it is asserted in the episodes that killing him makes him a martyr that the Klingon people will rally around, setting the stage for the war storyline in the remainder of the series.

The main character of Discovery is Michael Burnham. This black female first officer of the Shenzhou was raised by Spock’s father after her parents were killed in a Klingon raid.  This is a little confusing because the episodes also establish that virtually nobody has heard from the Klingons in a century.  Maybe it will be clarified in future episodes.

Michael displays some Vulcan traits if employing logic and analysis, but emotions also influence her.  She is the one who actually kills T’Kuvma after he kills her captain, Philippa Georgiou.  Therefore, it is Michael who triggers the entire war, because she allows her emotions to overrule her logic, exacting revenge for her captain’s death.  Saving her captain and crew is more important to her than Starfleet’s principals, which appears to be a remarkably emotional reaction, for one trained by Vulcans.  

Apparently, they have never heard of setting phasers on stun.

Michael gets in big trouble, is court martialed, and sentenced to life in prison.


The Klingons

One of the biggest continuity issues is that Klingons in this era did not have head bumps. 

In Star Trek Enterprise, the Klingon people were infected with a deadly virus, and the cure removed their head bumps.  They only got them back after The Original Series.  This was done in Enterprise to rationalize why Klingons in The Original Series had no head bumps, but before and after, they did.

The Klingons in Discovery would not be as threatening and exotic, if they conformed to established continuity.  This is a question of design esthetics over rigid continuity, but it is one of the things long-term fans will grumble about.  

The assertions about “coming in peace” or firing on first contact were not persuasive to me.  If you fire on a Klingon, the Klingon will fire back.  I do not see that as leading to respect from the Klingons. Klingons respect honorable behavior, like the Enterprise-C defending innocent Klingon civilians from the Romulan raid.  Firing first and asking questions later would not fit Klingon ideas of honor, I believe.

A threat display MIGHT have impressed the Klingons. However, in a threat display, you would fire your weapons in different directions, not at the people you want to impress.  What Michael was advocating, firing first, would just make them mad and ready to defend their own honor against an unreasonable attack.  

Honor IS important to the current generation of Klingons. At one point, T’Kuvma talks about honor, but the other Klingons say he has not earned it. It is interesting that we see flashback scenes that show he had been bullied as a child, which appears to have been part of his stimulus to restore honor, as he saw it, to the entire Klingon people. 

The Klingon cloaking device is also troubling. It is a one-off technology developed by T’Kuvma, so I HOPE we will NOT see Klingon cloaking technology later in the in this series.  It is well established that the Klingons eventually obtain cloaking technology from the Romulans, a dozen years in the future after Discovery.


The Shenzhou

The Shenzhou, of course, is named after the current real-life Chinese manned spacecraft.  

The bridge of the Shenzhou is huge – much larger than a Galaxy Class bridge decades later.  I don’t mind the modern set design not being anything like the Pike/Kirk Enterprise, but to me the various workstations seem spread out too for effective teamwork and collaboration.

By the way, the bridge is on the bottom of the saucer, with real windows, or at least transparent view screens.  

The assertion that the Shenzhou has no shuttle maneuverable enough to navigate the accretion ring is a plot device. Going fast and dodging stuff is hard, but provides dramatic footage.  Going slow makes it not so hard to dodge stuff, but is more boring, even though a shuttle would give more protection from radiation, because it has shields.  

In addition, why didn’t Philippa move Shenzhou closer when they knew Michael was in critical condition?  Yes, there was some debris, but they have shields, and in one wide-angle scene, they were clearly well away from the debris, where they were parked.  It is a standard law of radio that if you cut the distance in half, you quadruple the signal strength between two locations.  They didn’t do this, again, to heighten the suspense.

It will be interesting to radio folks, like me, that a Shenzhou graphic shown while Michael is missing near the Klingon Ship says the transmitters are using 100 watts with an antenna length of 8 meters, but radiated power is a whopping 12,599 watts. In the radio business, we call that a lot of “gain.” 

Nevertheless, why are they using faster-than-light Subspace Radio (subspace frequency 1142) to talk to a ship that is within viewing range, at the most a light second or so away?  Plain old VHF or HF radio would have solved many of their problems. 


The Other Ships

Several Federation starship names had cool associations.  The T'Plana-Hath is named after a Vulcan philosopher mentioned in Spock’s testing at the beginning of The Voyage Home.  The Yeager is named for legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager.  The Ride is presumably for the astronaut Sally Ride.  Many people seem to think that the Edison was named for the inventor, but I think it was for the long-lost Balthazar Edison, a character in the third JJ Trek movie.  The Europa, NCC 1648, is a reference to either Europe, or the moon that may harbor life (and by Michael’s time, they will know whether Europa has life).

By the way, all the ships zapping at once does not make sense.  Surely they came from different distances.  Why would some fly extra fast and some unusually slow so they all arrived POP at the same time. It is a dramatic visual, evoking the new Battlestar Galactica fleet arrivals or departures, but not very likely in the Star Trek universe, where even decades in the future the Enterprise is often the “only ship in the quadrant.”


The Uniforms

I also don’t mind that the uniforms don’t look like Pike/Kirk Enterprise uniforms, again because of modern design expectations.  The uniform side panels appear to reflect position - gold for command, silver for science, and I think maybe bronze for positions like navigation and helm.  If you look closely, they are made of a mesh of very tiny Starfleet insignia.  The Starfleet insignia on the chest also has different colors to reflect divisions, and that is where the rank insignia pips are in this incarnation of Trek.  The space suit helmet liner also had Starfleet insignia fabric. Note that the admiral’s insignia is different and does not have pips.

Yes, I know that in this era, every starship has a different insignia, and what I call the Starfleet insignia is really only assigned to the Enterprise.  But I do like the visual continuity that its consistent use provides.  


Professionalism in Starfleet

The entire first officer nerve pinching the captain, mutinying, and then the captain pulling a phaser on the first officer doesn’t really work very well.  It is part of the set-up of Michael is a disgraced convict, about to be pulled into risky events, but it isn’t how Starfleet officers behave in MY Star Trek universe.  

Nobody in Starfleet would imagine themselves getting away with this.  Spock didn’t even imagine himself getting away with hijacking the Enterprise to Talos IV, although his plan allowed him to not get caught for longer.


The Galactic Vicinity

We’re told that the Andorian colony at Gamma Hydra is six light years away. Gamma Hydra is where the Enterprise was going in the Kobyashoi Maru exercise. This means that the double star setting of these two episodes is near the location of the future Klingon neutral zone. Gamma Hydra is also mentioned in passing in other past Trek episodes.

Really, the whole basis for the conflict in Discovery is a bit strained. 

“This is Federation space.  Retreat is not an option.”  Who says its Federation space?  

It’s an uninhabited binary system with stars still forming.  There is no indigenous species. The implication is that the Federation just out-and-out annexed it by fiat. 

I was also troubled by the Sarek-Michael telepathic conversation while they were 1,000 light years apart. Sarek says that part of his Katra is in her, which of the Vulcan consciousness.  Basically, Michael is apparently like one of Voldemort’s horcruxes?  

Oh, and 1,000 light years away, Sarek already knew that there was a “new star in the sky” after only a few minutes?  That is not a reference to invisible subspace signals, but rather to light, which would take, oh, 1,000 years to get to him.


Formula Plot Elements

There were several elements of this story that draw on common screen writing formulae that you see all over the place, if you know what to look for.  

Formula scenes include the opening scenes that set the tone of the story, the catalyst that changes everything, the main character making a choice that defines the “journey,” The Dark Night of the Soul in which the main character struggles with hopelessness (the brig scene), and others.

I can see many of these elements in episodes 1 and 2.  Of course, the story continues for 11 more episodes, so they may be stretched out, or we may see the formula being repeated time after time in the subsections of the story.

However...formula plot elements are not automatically bad.  Because they contain elements of familiarity, the audience relates to them easily, making it easy to engage with the story.  (For more information on a very widely-used formula, see this link.)    


Final Thoughts

There are plenty of additional things from these two episodes that could be mentioned.  But I think I have given an example of productions such as Discovery working on many levels, and having many factors that affect them.

Discovery plays fast and loose with certain points of Star Trek continuity.  The richly developed world defined by this continuity is what appeals to many long-term fans. Bit I think my many examples show that in every case where Discovery deviates, it is for a practical “works better for the audience” reason, and as I have shows here, the audience they are catering to is the newer fans they hope to attract, not the entrenched long-term fans.

Star Trek Discovery

Star Trek Discovery premiers next month and I have largely been avoiding the growing hype from CBS.  But I will be interested to see how they fit this series in to established Trek continuity and the overall Star Trek "brand."

This series is acknowledged to be set a decade before The Original Series.  Way back in the early stages of production development, Brian Fuller said it revolves around an event that has been mentioned, but not seen on screen.  I have been wondering what that event is.

There have been indications that Discovery is set in the context of a cold war between the Federation and the Klingons. There have been allusions in previous Trek to conflict between the Klingons and Starfleet in the years before Kirk and Spock on the Enterprise.

The inconclusive Battle of Donatu IV would have taken place around ten years before Discovery (mentioned in The Trouble with Tribbles).

Kirk once mentioned having seen what Klingons do to occupied planets - organizing slave labor camps, eliminating all freedoms, confiscating goods, and taking hostages (Errand of Mercy).

Kirk was in his early 30s in The Original Series, making him barely out of Starfleet Academy ten years earlier, or maybe even still a cadet.  Of course, his reference to having seen what Klingons do does not necessarily mean he was on the scene in person.

So, that's about all we know about the Klingons a decade before The Original Series.

Somewhere in there was also the Battle of Axenar. It would be an interesting choice to incorporate this battle, given that one of the semi-copyright infringed fan productions purports to tell the story of Axenar.  I don't think it is definitive that the Klingons were involved, but they may have been.

And of course, the "decade before The Original Series" time frame puts it right at, or just after, the Enterprise's first visit to Talos IV (as seen in the Cage and The Menagerie).

It is also interesting that one of the main characters is apparently Spock's adoptive sister, although he may have moved out of the household of Amanda and Sarek by the time she came along.  Of course, Spock went for at least 20 years without mentioning a half brother (Sybok) so we can't assume that he would have mentioned an adopted sister.

I have a great dislike for the dystopian stories that are so common today, which I have described as "unlikable people doing unethical things to each other."  This cold war storyline COULD go that direction, but I hope it doesn't.   I hope that when they say they are being faithful to the vision of Gene Roddenberry about characters being professional and respecting each other, they are telling the truth and not just making empty claims.

You Can't Play Music in Podcasts

Podcasts are programs intended to be downloaded and listened to off-line.  They are growing in popularity, but the general public, and some podcast producers, don't understand why it is illegal play music in a podcast.