Bluegrass “Podfades”
Don’t want to ruffle any feathers, but in looking at my podcast aggregator recently I noticed a trend which (at least in part) seems relevant to the Bluegrass Blog community and Brance and John in particular — It seems that several of my favorite (defined loosely as those I have been subscribed to for a long time and that I look forward to) Bluegrass related podcasts have quietly fallen off the face of the earth or ceased production of new episodes. The two most notable podcasts on that list are “The GrassCast” and “5 Minutes With Wichita”.
While I have gone on record in the past with others who feel that Wichita may not be truly representative of the image we may want to project on Bluegrass, he is a high profile advocate and he does (or did) provide some focus on musicians and industry types who perhaps do better represent us. I understand he is now deeply into the “mainstream media” side of things and making money, but if he wants to continue to carry the banner as a podcast pioneer, then it seems logical that he should make the effort to put out the occasional show, or at least admit that he has moved on and put the podcast out to pasture with an official announcment.
I feel differently about the GrassCast, as I know how hard Brance and John (and others) work on this blog and their “real jobs”, all of which have great positive impact on the music, musicians and fans of Bluegrass. This one I just simply miss hearing, and figured that we could certainly get an update regarding the status or plans for the show right from the folks who make it happen by posting here. This show is a great chance to keep up with the people who make Bluegrass the vibrant art form it is from people who are directly involved in it, understand it, and love it as much as we do. No criticisim or complaint implied at all, but how about it gentlemen, I am craving some new episodes!
I would also be very interested to hear from others about either their observations on Bluegrass podfades or other great Bluegrass related podcasts to check out to help fill this void in my playlist.
Thanks!
- A.J.
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The Oxford University Press has chosen the word podcast as the 2005 Word of the Year.
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A.J. – I just wanted to let you know that we appreciate your interest in the Grasscast. We would like to revive it ourselves. Unfortunately, at this time, John and I both have considerable demands on our time and are unable to invest time in the Grasscast.
We have discussed ideas for monetizing the podcast but we’ve been unable to find a way to do so that was agreeable to us. We felt that after a solid year of doing the show, we had given it a fair chance. While our stats indicated we were well above the average number of listeners for a podcast, the numbers were still not at a level where we felt we could produce a large enough revenue stream to justify the time and effort we were putting into the show.
We do continue to discuss it, and should inspiration strike, or if we suddenly end up with an excess of free time, we’ll gladly restart the podcast.
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