Skip to main content

99% Invisible

99% Invisible is a podcast all about “design, architecture and all the thought that goes into the things most people don’t even think about” (PRX Inc, n.d.). The show is available as a podcast on their website and it is broadcast on a “local public radio station in the US” (Sawyer, 2013), therefore it has a wide listenership due to it being on public radio. It was a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign that had a goal of earning 42,000 dollars but it ended it “[raising] over 170,00 dollars” (Quirk, 2016) due to the “strategic and time-intensive marketing initiatives” (Quirk, 2016).

These initiatives that were used for 99% Invisible included using “stretch goals” (Maly, 2012). These goals are where backers will receive items/benefits from pledging certain amounts of money. For example, one of the benefits was “custom designed 99% Invisible pocket sized notebooks” (PRX Inc, n.d.) if you pledged over $15.


I listened to episode 279 entitled The Containment Plan. The programme is mainly based on design and architecture but it is also about human experiences because it is “often based in untold or forgotten history” (Sawyer, 2013). This particular episode was all about an area of San Francisco called the Skid Row neighbourhood. The narrator described the scene and actuality was used to provide atmosphere and depth to the programme allowing the listener to paint a picture of the scene using their imagination. As well as including comments of the design of the Skid Row area and how they are tackling homelessness there are interviews with town planners and homeless charities giving real stories of how people are affected. This helps bring in “new listeners” (Maly, 2012) to the podcast to broaden its listenership. Not only is it aimed for those adults interested in design but those who want to hear stories from real people about how the little thing of moving a road or building a house affects their whole life.

Reference list


PRX Inc. (n.d.). 99% Invisible: Season 3. Retrieved 24 October, 2017, from, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1748303376/99-invisible-season-3


Sawyer, M. (2013). Rewind Radio: 99% Invisible. Retrieved 24 October, 2017, from, https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/may/26/99-per-cent-invisible-radio-review


Quirk, V. (2016). Direct Support. Retrieved 24 October, 2017, from, https://towcenter.gitbooks.io/guide-to-podcasting/content/revenue_streams/direct_support.html


Maly, T. (2012). How 99% Invisible will change public radio. Retrieved 24 October, 2017, from, https://www.wired.com/2012/07/99-invisible/



Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Archers

The Archers is BBC Radio 4's "longest running drama" (Independent, 2011) and has been providing entertainment of real stories for over 67 years. It fits the radio 4 remit by providing a "wide range of other speech output including drama" (BBC Trust, 2016) but why has it been running for so long and what makes this drama engaging for its listeners? The episode I listened to was from back in 2013 when Bridge Farm's dairy herd was sold. This programme was grounded in factual research to ensure the programme sounded realistic for the viewers. The writer for The Archers visited a farm's cattle sale because there is "no way a writer could conjure scenes like this out of the imagination" (Solazzo, 2013). This quote shows that in every detail of the programme, in-depth research has been done to immerse the audience in as much realism as possible. The Archers covers a wide range of topics from "domestic violence and dementia to robotic cow mil...
Read more

Desert Island Discs

This week I am focussing on copyright and clearance, more specifically how copyrighted material is cleared and what has been used in the chosen programme. I listened to the episode featuring Jack Whitehall which was broadcast on 9th February 2018. Desert Island Discs is presented by Kirsty Young who "invites her quests to share the soundtrack of their lives" (BBC, n.d.) and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Desert Island Discs fits BBC Radio 4's remit because the "mixed speech service" (BBC, 2016) is used to "inform, educate and entertain" (BBC, 2016) its audience. The Copyright,  Designs and Pattern Act 1988 is the law on copyright currently in the UK (UKCS, n.d.). It gives the creator of original content control over how their content is used. It is described as when an "individual or organisation creates a work, and applies to a work if it is regarded as original" (UKCS, n.d.) then copyright arises. For Desert Island Discs, the music used w...
Read more

Eden: Paradise Lost

Eden: Paradise Lost - Channel 4 'Eden: Paradise Lost' was first broadcast as 'Eden' on Channel 4 in 2016. The programme followed the experience of a group of men and women from the UK as they "face the challenge of building a new life and creating a new society from scratch" (Channel4.com, 2015). Using an "embedded crew" (Channel4.com, 2015) the group have only the basics to survive and build a new society but after the only a few episodes being aired in 2016 it was "pulled from screens" (Swindon, 2017) and in 2017 it was rebranded as 'Eden: Paradise Lost' to "tell the story of how it all fell apart so dramatically" (Nicholson, 2017). When the participants emerged from Eden, they realised that it "had not been on television in months" (Nicholson, 2017) mainly due to the ratings falling "from 1.7 million to 800,000 over four episodes" (Swindon, 2017). So why did this programme fail? The five new e...
Read more