Fun and Games

For example, Andrew Littin, a second-year film studies student who hosts a podcast called “Rock of Ages,” creates episodes lasting from 15 minutes to an hour, while Walker’s podcast runs a brief three to seven minutes per episode.

“There’s a lot of different formats [of podcasts] out there,” said Dan Baum, AACC’s executive director of strategic communications and host of the college’s podcast, “Redefine U.” “It might be a solo; it might be a story format.”

Baum said podcast hosts have many options when it comes to format, but timing is an important part of keeping the audience engaged.

“A number of years ago, the sweet spot seemed to be around 30 minutes … which really reflected the average [commuter] time,” Baum said. “What has changed, in COVID, is that people are doing other activities, wheth- er it’s walking the dog … or working out … and that has grown. You now have a lot of long-format [podcasts], which could be 60 minutes or more.”

The student podcasters said it takes a lot of time but little money to produce a podcast.

“To be perfectly honest, your phone, in all likelihood, records some pretty awesome audio,” Baum said. “If you have some decent … AirPods or something, that may be all you need.”

But Baum agreed it takes hard work to create a thoughtful, polished podcast.

“Students who are interested in doing a podcast would be well advised to spend some time on the pre-production,” Baum said. “You can accomplish a lot by putting a lot of effort into that front piece.”

Littin said it’s worth it.

“At times it might be