Audio Alone Just Doesn’t Cut It

Jump to Comments

Since Keith Olbermann was an anchor for ESPN back in the day, I was a big fan of his broadcasting style.

Countdown's Keith Olbermann

When he made the move to hard news, and anchoring “Countdown” on MSNBC, I was equally interested in watching him. I try to watch Olbermann and his wacky leftist ideas almost every night, mostly because I think he is a phenomenal broadcaster.

When I was picking a podcast to examine, I figured, why not just listen to Olbermann?

So I downloaded the latest edition of the Countdown Podcast. I chose to look at how they take the audio-only edition of Countdown and make it internet-ready. I’ll start by looking at content quality.

Content Quality: How can a TV show be interesting after it is stripped of its pictures? Well, a show like countdown can pull it off. There isn’t too much graphics-based material, as the show is usually a dialogue between talking heads. However, there are lots of funny pictures in his “World’s Worst” segment where the jokes are definitely lost in translation. Overall, the content quality was mediocre because it is a made-for-TV show, not a radio or podcast show.

Production Quality: The audio quality is very sharp. Sound bytes are tight, and really it has the feel of a network show. The production value is very good, even though there are no images. The only problem here is that they keep in Olbermann’s transitions into commercials. The problem; there are no commercials! So he transitions into commercial, and then it comes right back to Countdown after a quick sound. This was definitely awkward and not entirely smooth.

Length: Countdown on MSNBC is an hour long. Since there were no commercials, Countdown came in at just under an hour. This is a bit long, but there isn’t much they can do about it sense its a TV show that has a set time.

Online Extras: The only real online extra I could find is a discussion board where you can rate the Countdown podcast. Outside of this review system, there are no online extras.

Overall, I like this podcast because I think the content doesn’t suffer too much due to the format of the show. However, if you can help it, watching Countdown is way better than listening to Countdown. Next time I’ll get the vodcast!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Other