“I can hardly imagine a nicer job”

Tips: Mr. Sator, since 2018 you have been interviewing scientists, journalists and many other people every week on a wide variety of topics for your award-winning podcast “Explain the World to Me”. You currently have over 300 episodes. In 2023, the podcast recorded 1.4 million downloads. How do you assess the development of this project?

Andreas Sator: It is one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life. I started in my shared flat and it has grown bigger month by month. The variety of people I get to know through “Explain the World to Me”, the topics I get to deal with – I can hardly imagine a better job. The project is now professionally set up, I have one employee, soon there will be two, I work with three agencies for technology and marketing and yet it is no less fun today than it was at the beginning.

Tips: How did the podcast come about and how did you get into podcasting?

Sator: I’ve always loved listening to podcasts, especially journalistic formats from the USA. In 2017, I took a year off to study and wanted to set up my own media project during that time. I thought to myself: everything that happens in the media sector in the USA will happen here five years later. At that time, many podcasts were already being produced in the USA, but hardly anyone in Austria was doing so. It was just fortunate timing at the time.

Tips: Your podcast mission is to understand the world a little better and to take as many people as possible with you on your journey: Do you understand the world a little better after more than 300 episodes?

Sator: I think so, but every answer you find raises ten new questions. Every topic you explore brings you to at least one other topic you don’t yet know about. It’s also a never-ending journey and I think that’s beautiful.

Tips: What topics are coming up in the near future? What topics do you find particularly exciting at the moment?

Sator: Unfortunately, what I have been increasingly interested in for the last two years is geopolitics. Why do countries start wars, how do other countries get drawn into them, how do you create peace? I am also very interested in everything to do with artificial intelligence, I think it is fantastic what it makes possible. Apart from that, I am becoming more and more interested in art and philosophy. The nice thing about “Explain the world to me” is that I can actually always do what interests me. You also look beautiful in a different time, which is what I am interested in. In the autumn, for example, I will be recording an episode on Bruegel, in the spring there was one on Michelangelo, next year I will be looking at the Austrian art scene.

Tips: With your podcast you want to make knowledge accessible to everyone. We live in a world where it has never been easier to acquire sound knowledge. Nevertheless, many people have fallen for fake news and the like. Why is that?

Sator: Fake news has been around as long as humans have existed and research has not yet been able to say whether there is more misinformation today than in the past. We must keep things in perspective. One problem is certainly the structure of social media, in which emotional misinformation spreads faster than boring facts. But it always helps me to look at the human species: we are slightly more developed apes who want to survive and reproduce. Our brains are evolutionarily adapted to this, not to life in modern knowledge societies. It will come as no surprise that this will always be a challenge. Good early childhood education, down-to-earth media that presents complicated content in an accessible way, science that sees it as one of its essential tasks to explain itself to people – all of this can help.

Tips: How suitable are podcasts for imparting knowledge compared to traditional media (print/online)? What are the advantages of podcasts?

Sator: Podcasts are very good for this. Firstly, you can listen to them in the background, which means that your attention span is longer. People read articles on the internet for a minute or two at most. With podcasts, they often spend an hour or two listening. Secondly, podcasts are human. You get a feeling for the type of person speaking. Are they relaxed, nervous, having fun, or successful? We build relationships with the people we listen to, and that creates trust. That is extremely important for conveying knowledge and information. If we don’t trust the source, it can say six times that this is the current state of research, and we still won’t believe it.

Tips: Which interview partner/conversation has particularly stuck in your memory over the six years of the podcast?

Sator: Lucia Heilman, now 95, who talked about her life in hiding from the Nazis in Vienna. Robert Tatar, who was homeless for four years during the Vienna War. Daniela Brodesser, who explained what it was like to live in poverty. A two-hour conversation with my journalist idol Armin Wolf. Meetings with Heinz Fischer, Josef Hader, great scientists like Reinhard Heinisch, Christine Zulehner and Maria Sibilia. It is such a privilege to be able to meet these people.

Tips: In 2022, you launched “Sonne & Stahl”, Austria’s largest sustainability podcast. How has this podcast developed?

Sator: It has developed really well, 10,000 people have subscribed to it. But no episode has been published for a few months now because the work has become too much for me. I am still trying to figure out how to proceed with the project.

Tips: What do you have to consider if you want to start your own podcast?

Sator: You have to enjoy it. Podcasts develop slowly. You won’t have 100,000 listeners tomorrow. You’ll probably have three. And then maybe ten. And a month later, 50. If it goes well. To keep it up for years – you have to think about that time frame if you want to do it seriously – you just have to enjoy it. Ideally, you make a podcast that you would also make if no one was listening. Because you meet people that you wouldn’t otherwise meet, learn things or just have fun doing it.

Tips: How easy/difficult is it to make money with podcasts?

Sator: It’s very difficult for most podcasts to make money. You either need a large reach so you can live off advertising, a small niche with a well-paying audience, or you need to build a community that celebrates you so much that they pay for your living. A mix is ​​best, but it’s a long road to get there.

Tips: How do you think the “Success Story Podcast” will continue? Will people still be listening to podcasts in 50 years?

Sator: People surround themselves with other people and want to hear stories, to be told about experiences, they need information. I don’t know whether podcasts will still be around in 50 years, but we will always talk to each other and listen to each other.

Andreas Sator is a journalist, podcaster and author. He runs one of Austria’s most successful podcasts, “Explain the World to Me”. The graduate economist tries to understand the world better and takes people along on his journey. He writes as a freelance journalist for Standard and Falter. His book “Everything OK?! Unpleasant questions and optimistic answers for a fairer world” was published by Kremayr & Scheriau in 2019. He gives lectures and works as a moderator. His main areas of focus are sustainability, artificial intelligence, politics and economics.