News show reaches 1500 episodes!

When Brexit talks started in 2017, my friend Chris Mason and I were on opposite sides – he in Westminster and me in Brussels. So we decided to make a podcast on the subject. We called it… Brexitcast.

Then Laura K and Katya Adler realized the pod was a great place to share all the information they were getting from their sources that didn’t have room for in The News, so they joined us. And a growing group of listeners realized they preferred conversation over confrontation and depth over headlines.

When Covid hit in 2020, we used everything we’d learned from Brexit – keep calm, get into the details, be yourself – to launch Newscast as a daily pod. 1,500 episodes later, we’re still doing it. Just with a bigger audience, more people helping in the office, and a wider range of news. We even broadcast at weekends now with Laura K and Paddy O’Connell.

The podcast industry has exploded. All successful podcasts have a bit of newscast in them, relying on informed hosts who share their subject matter in an accessible way with their enthusiastic audience. And it’s noticeable that news in general is now increasingly taking on a more informal and conversational tone, while retaining its authority.

There were so many incredible moments that I will never forget. I recorded an episode about an EU summit while I was in bed because it had taken so long. Laura recorded an episode on the bus at Cairo airport and then climbed the stairs to Theresa May’s plane without batting an eyelid. I was moved to learn about end-of-life care at the darkest point of the pandemic. And I chatted to Prince William when he launched his Earthshot award in the capsule.

The 2024 general election was newscasting at its finest. I followed the campaign all day and then every afternoon I talked to Chris or Laura or some of my other great colleagues about what was happening, getting constant feedback from our audience.

They were responsible for our best election piece: Remote Voter. It featured newsreaders sending in their arguments for postal voting. At one end of the distance scale, there were people visiting their parents down the road, to people climbing Kilimanjaro or birdwatching in the Seychelles. The idea was so simple, but it was such an amazing portrait of Britain in a pretty strange time.

The highlight of the election for me was our All Nighter, where 150 podcast fans came to the BBC Radio Theatre to sit on newscast beanbags and watch Laura, Clive and Chris present the election night show on a HUGE TV while guests dropped in. We all chatted about what we were watching and it was podcast, radio show, live stream, talk show and theatre event all in one. I couldn’t think of a better place to experience this momentous moment.

The best thing about Newscast is that I never feel bored or alone, and that’s because of our anchors, the audience. There’s always someone suggesting a new angle on a news story…or sharing something interesting from their life that clarifies the world…or joining in with one of our silly gimmicks…or pointing out something we’re missing. And the entire time I’m watching the news, or reading a jargon-filled report, or interviewing a politician, I’m doing it on their behalf.

Some news anchors no longer listen to the traditional news and rely on us to tell them what they need to know, while others follow the news minute-by-minute but want analysis. We need to create a pod for both and everyone in between. Luckily, I’m surrounded by brilliant presenters like Lyse Doucet, Katie Razzall and Alex Forsyth who do this every day.

What’s next? We’ve gone from once a week to five days a week and then seven days a week, from Brexit to Covid to the world, launched a number of spin-offs (some of which have their own spin-offs), started a TV show on BBC One, done a twelve-hour all-night livestream, so who knows.

I learned three important lessons at Newscast that I think can be applied anywhere, not just in broadcasting: be yourself, be transparent in what you do, and be where your audience is. And one more: everything is interesting if you look at it hard enough, with an open mind, and in good company.