The Trough for Friday the 24th of March – the final episode (for now)

Today – Turnbull slams Pauline Hanson over calls for Muslim immigration ban, Abbott calls for the Federal Government to keep the Hazelwood power station open and Jacqui Lambie opens up on welfare cuts.

I started this podcast in February. I always warned that it would be an experiment to see whether something like this would be successful, interesting and engaging.

And it has. Over the past month or so, there has been 4400 hits on my Soundcloud account. On average, 150 people a day have been listening in, which has been great. That’s not bad, given it was recorded in some kind of ghetto studio I set up in the spare room.

I’ve been encouraged by all the feedback from public servants, political staffers, journalists and the occasional MP. It’s a gap in the market that I think could be successfully filled.

I’ve had a lot of fun, although waking up at 5AM has been a bit tough, especially when you’re not getting paid for it.

I’m back at the ABC and so because I’ll be waking up even earlier to get to work, I’ll have to put The Trough into storage for now.

I simply wont have enough time – and it’s something I can’t afford to keep going on a daily basis.

If a news outlet or an organisation was keen on sponsoring this podcast, then maybe things would be a bit different.

But this is simply the state of the industry at the moment.

There were also doubts about whether a subscription model would have been enough to pay the bills, despite the encouraging number of people who said this was something that they would definitely contribute to.

Without long-term institutional backing, without taking a lot of risks, and without a significant financial buffer, it would have been very difficult.

But it may not the end.

This might turn into a weekly wrap of politics – and who knows what could happen down the track.

But it’s fun, it’s been great delivering these bite sized podcasts each morning and proving to the world and to myself that this idea I had two years ago is something that works.

And so, it’s goodbye from The Trough for now.

Thanks for listening, talk to you soon.

Advertisement

The Trough for Tuesday 14th March, plus some news

Today – SA unveils its new power plan, QLD’s election to be delayed thanks to One Nation and Julie Bishop’s blunt message to China.

I’ve also got some news –

I’ll be back at the ABC from Wednesday – only on a casual basis – which requires me to wake up even earlier than I do for this podcast. It means that it wont be possible to do podcasts every single day. I’ll telegraph this in advance – but I’ll be back on Thursday.

Sorry about this. Paid work has to take priority.

Cheers

Frank

 

The Trough for Friday the 10th of March

Today – all the reaction from Kate Ellis’ resignation, fresh reshuffle speculation and tensions between the Liberals and the Nationals hit fever pitch in Western Australia ahead of Saturday’s state election.

Meanwhile, yes this is *quite* early to be putting up a podcast. Might work better than waking up at 5am each day, given the time that the newspapers hit the internet. Have a great long weekend for those in the ACT – I’ll talk to you on Tuesday.