It’s the summer months, and there aren’t a tremendous number of Eurovision topics to discuss (although there is an elephant in the room that is being discussed at the highest levels of public service broadcasting). What we do have, though, is the Eurovision Podcrawl. This feels like a good moment to talk about the podcrawl, where the idea came from, what its goals are, and what could come next.
The Eurovision Podcrawl
The podcrawl could not happen without the various podcasts taking part. Already announced are 12 Points From America, Douze Points, EuroWhat?, ESC Insight, Niall Points, That Eurovision Site, and The Wind Machine Podcast. You’ll find links to all the sites and their episodes when they are uploaded through linktr.ee/eurovisionpodcrawl.
And if you want a little experience of how ESC insight answered the podcrawl premise of “talk about a Contest when a country hosted for the first time…”
Where Did The Podcrawl Come From?
This is not a new idea. The podcrawl that caught my ear was from the always-engaging and thought-provoking team from Women At Warp. They covered “Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country” in their own fantastic way, before inviting the team from Star Trek: The Next Conversation on to the show to introduce the next episode, which would be on their podcast.
Their podcrawl was the seven ‘original crew’ Star Trek films (all the episodes in that podcrawl are here). Just like that, from the rather busy world of Star Trek podcasts, I had six new Trek pods recommended to me by a crew I trusted.
What Are Its Goals?
Which brings us to the Eurovision Podcrawl. There’s an ebb and flow to the Eurovision season, and the summer months are generally quiet; some Junior Eurovision news, maybe a deadline or two for National Final entry, and the aforementioned elephant. Some years, ESC Insight has gone dark for the whole summer. In other years, we’ve maintained a steady flow during June, July, and August. The same is true of many other community sites.
This summer was always going to be on the slower side. It’s been a bruising season with many hefty issues discussed, so we’re taking time for everyone to take a break and rest. With the Podcrawl, Insight can effectively have seven podcasts through the summer, as can all the other podcasts featured in the Podcrawl.
In Basel, many in the community were represented in a single room, sharing ideas, supporting one another, and generally being a great group. Part of the podcrawl is to keep those connections alive. The idea is that while we are all creating content, we’re all part of the same community, and we don’t need to stop working together after we leave the host city.
With the Podcrawl, we can all stay connected.
That connection is not just between the sites; it’s also for everyone in the Eurovision community. With the Podcrawl discussing older Contests (we decided that the loose subject would be “when a broadcaster hosted for the first time”), it’s easy for listeners to watch that Contest online, listen to the music, and become part of the conversation.
What Could Come Next?
What comes next? In the short term, the Podcrawl team will help each other publish and promote all the episodes. Looking further ahead, this is a great starting point for more joint projects, whether audio, video, written, or otherwise.
And if you have ideas on what they could be, get in touch!