Bzzzt. Thank you for playing. Many, many podcasts do purport to be informative discussions on actual topics of at least some degree of actual, informative interest for people in the same hobbies - even if it’s just “hearing the opinions of people who are experts on this sort of thing”. It’s EXACTLY the same as an “interview” typed out for publication, only those have all the useless hemming and hawing and uhming and ahh-ing cut out.
So do well-produced podcasts. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it.
The thing is, all your complaints could be said about TV, too. You don’t listen to podcasts to get information. If that’s your goal, of course that’s going to be annoying. They are a form of entertainment, like video.
Would you really rather read about most TV shows than watch them?
Some of them, sure. I’d read Breaking Bad the book series long before I’d watch the show.
I think it varies wildly from podcast to podcast. Since there’s practically zero barrier to entry for any schmo who wants to produce a podcast, many of the resulting podcasts suck hard. But there are plenty that are fun/interesting/educational etc so it’s just a matter of finding the ones that you like.
I’m hearing impaired, so even listening to the radio is a chore. Podcasts are all but useless to me, so i do get annoyed with ones that I’m sure contain extremely interesting content, but don’t offer it in any other medium.
Quoted for truth. In fact until this post I realized I didn’t think of the stuff on NPR as a podcast at all, it was so organized. I actually also hate most podcasts because they are so rambling. Some very very few ones are good.
I’m sorry, that’s YOUR interpretation of what I said. I did not say people listening to podcasts were any more distracted than anyone else. The passenger next to me is part of my surroundings. This time of year I like to look at the fall colors.
Podcast fans are almost certainly less distracted than the bozos who text while driving.
But hey, I have to wonder why you’re so hypersensitive to my preference in entertainment.
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Even my favorite podcasts tend to be dry - both in content and in audio quality. Voices are always over-crisp and super-close-miked, as if the speaker is breathing in your ear. Given that so many podcasters are male, and often somewhat androgynous-sounding, this can be oogy.
There seems to be hypersensitivity on your side, too. This whole thing started when you accused people of being unable to understand that different people like different things. Because someone else pointed out that part of the reason you might not like podcasts is that you aren’t used to them. You seemed to take that as an affront, as if people are saying there is something wrong with you for your preferences.
I think hypersensitivity on one side attracts hypersensitivity on the other. There just this natural defensiveness when someone is accused of doing something they don’t think they are doing. Once you become defensive, it becomes about “winning” instead of being right. So you unintentionally misinterpret things as being negative when there’s a more neutral interpretation.
So that’s why I think Inner Stickler seems hypersensitive. It goes with feeling defensive.
A tiny, tiny fraction compared to the percentage of radio broadcasts that are professionally produced.
Podcasts are just radio shows with a different broadcast medium.
If you don’t like talk radio, you can pretty much safely write off podcasts.
If you like some talk radio, but it’s the production value or content quality bugging you, find better podcasts. They’re out there.
There’s LOTS of junk out there. A LOT of podcasts (the ones featuring the mindless chatter folks are mentioning) are usually cribbing from panel show or “morning zoo” formats of radio. They’re often absolutely terrible. I generally hate those formats when pros do it, and replacing pros with amateurs doesn’t solve the problem.
My favorite podcasts tend to be comedy. Judge John Hodgman, Comedy Bang Bang, and Harmontown are all, I think, pretty brilliant. WTF and You Made It Weird are also both excellent frequently. History podcasts can be great, too. Hardcore History and History of Rome are two excellent ones that are great; arguably they’re more like episodic audiobooks than radio shows.
Harmontown is actually one of the formats that’s more unique to podcasting, as it’s a live event that wouldn’t normally work as a broadcast show due its extremely loose format. If you don’t like the people involved, you’ll hate it. But I find the regulars to be extremely interesting and funny and absolutely love the show.
Podcasts make commuting and dog walking far more enjoyable.
I don’t listen to nearly as many podcasts as I used to, working for Earwolf for 2 solid years kind of drove me away from a lot of them just b/c I spent enough time dealing with them as a “job” and they weren’t as fun to listen to anymore.
I enjoy the format a lot still, I just find less time to enjoy my shows.
Oh gosh, this is such a pain for me. I would never listen to a podcast or watch a video on my own, but my employer is real big on disseminating information via podcast. It drives me absolutely NUTS to wander the halls looking for an audio privacy room, then wait and wait for the stupid thing to load, then try to pay attention to a bunch of throat clearing and ums and uhs, waiting for some nugget of information vital to my continued employment. For pete’s sake, those guys script that crap, just post the script on the employee info site and go on to the next task. I (and the rest of us) could then just quietly READ the message anywhere we happen to be at the time, make the usual snide comments and drive on.
What a complete waste of time for everyone.
I am baffled why the automatic assumption was that I didn’t like podcasts because I was somehow unfamiliar with them. Particularly since the second sentence of the OP in my thread stated I had tried them, the entire second paragraph was about trying different genres of podcasts, and the third paragraph about trying to listen to them while doing other tasks.
The response was “Try them! You’ll like them!”
Um… what? Didn’t I just say I had tried them?
It reminds me of Christians who are convinced I’m not a Christian because I haven’t read the Bible. I tell them I have, in fact, read the Bible but I’m not convinced and this Christian thing is just not for me. Then it’s either their eyes glaze over with incomprehension, or they say “read it again!”.
Look, I totally get that some people are in love with podcasts, talk radio, and audiobooks. That’s fine. I support their like of those media. It just doesn’t appeal to me. Every few years I try one of them again and… nope, still doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe one day they will. So far not.
No, it’s because you haven’t listened to Christian podcasts. 
Huh. I have not encountered any of those podcasts. Though I did try to listen to an NPR podcast once, I can’t remember which (it was the popular one everyone seems to adore), and it was horrible to listen to. Slick to the point of annoying.
That’s a meaningless statistic, considering that amateur radio programming is nearly non-existent in the United States.
You could fill more than a day every day listening to professionally produced podcasts.
I’m a big fan of podcasts…however, only one of the 'casts I subscribe to is meant to be informative. Most of the others are professionally produced comedies, with regular hosts bantering back and forth about interesting, but ultimately pointless, topics. I find that to be good, soothing background noise for work. Three of my podcasts are actual radio programs that are recorded for podcast distribution; these are mainly focused on music though. I also subscribe to a couple of podcasts that feature Irish/Celtic musicians – again, these are professionally produced. Only one of the podcasts I listen to lacks good production values (inconsistent audio, music/interview snippets don’t play when they should, random sound effects, etc.); I tolerate it because I find the subject matter interesting.
I also have a soft spot for old-time radio shows redistributed as podcasts.