This month marks the 20th anniversary of our start in podcasting. I'd kinda forgotten it until a social media follower brought it to my attention. But as weird as it sounds (to me) I've been doing this for two decades now. That's longer than any other job I've ever done.
We started the same month that Apple's iTunes began supporting podcasts. That was no accident. I was in a tech company at the time and one of our guys had just come over from Apple and knew they were about to unveil this new addition to their iTunes menu/guide but couldn't tell me. All he could say was “You know that online show that you've been sitting on, not knowing when to release it? Release it NOW.” and we did. The first episode of Common Sense with Dan Carlin debuted in June 2005.
To say that things were different then would be an understatement. Even though there had been quite a bit of media attention to the word “podcast” that year, most people had no idea what a podcast was. I know because trying to gain new audience members back then meant educating people on how to even find, download and play a show. There was very little being done by any professional/corporate outlets. As you can imagine things were far more rudimentary back then than they are today.
The standards were lower too. Expectations were different and what passed for a good show in 2005 wouldn't pass muster for us today. The medium has evolved and what people will accept has changed. It’s not such an amateur medium anymore. You don't, for example, hear as many bad microphones as you did in the old days. I can clearly remember watching the audience grow...and such milestones as the first 100 listeners...and then the first thousand.
A year later we started Hardcore History, which was a completely new animal. Whereas Common Sense was a version of my old AM radio shows adapted for this brand new distribution system, Hardcore History was something built from the ground up with the freedom of podcasting in mind. The constraints and formatting of radio was completely jettisoned and we began to experiment with the development of HH in ways that simply couldn't have happened in the radio medium.
I don't remember when we began to wonder how to make it pay for itself, but we couldn't think of anything more inventive than the PBS-style listener donation model. We had no idea if it was a crazy or dumb idea (there were no real metrics after all), so when we tried it we were overjoyed to see the results turn out better than we'd hoped. Eventually we began to do some ads here and there and then began selling the old shows but the bottom line was that the listener support is what allowed us to do everything else. And 20 years later, with the listener’s help, I feed my family with this endeavor. Against all odds, if the experts I polled in 2005 about this idea were to be believed.
We have lost both our “Big Voice” (“the Fabulous”) Bill Barrett and our longtime artist the uber-talented Nick Lay over that span of time. I want to thank them both (in spirit) for being willing to try new stuff with us. And “Ben” (if there is a Ben) and I continue to roll along with our “Hard Corps” of supporters (it was their name invention, not ours) and we still can't believe the good fortune they've made possible for us. It's crazy to look back and see how much water has passed under this podcasting bridge since 2005. We are very grateful.
In other news, a reminder that if you want to catch what we have unofficially named the “Southern Fried Unicorn” tour1 this August here's a link to the shows on our website. Southern Fried Unicorn Tour
In addition, I'm coming back to Portland, Oregon in September (part of what you might call our regular “drowned Unicorn” tour region) and here's a link for tickets to that if you want to join me. Portland Tickets
And finally, our new artist Erich Sayers has come up with a piece of art we like so much we plan on using it in a number of places. It will, for example, be the new art for our Hardcore History Compilation package (our signature offering...the one that includes our entire back catalog of shows that are no longer offered for free). I hope you like it as much as we do.
Again though, none of this is possible without you guys. We never forget that around here. There are so few podcasts left from the old days of podcasting, and fewer still that are still independent from corporate ownership or control, and fewer STILL that are listener supported. So thank you so much for 20 years of defying the odds. There is no show without you.
See you next year for HH’s 20th.
We’ve always said the show was a “Rainbows and Unicorn-Free Zone” due to the fact it could be a bit dark and not always silver-lined.