Jon Manel is the Podcast Commissioning Editor at the BBC World Service in the UK.
His focus over the past twelve months has been collaboration. He’s been working with the production teams and trying new things out.
“I’m trying to do things a little bit differently to how commissioners have done things in the past”.
Death In Ice Valley, a podcast produced in partnership with Norway’s NRK, has been a great success for Jon’s team. The World Premier of the podcast kicked off the project (in the Radio Theatre at the BBC in London) and was incredibly effective at driving interest.
Like several other podcasts, a Facebook group has been set up alongside the podcast, with listeners providing content for the show. The interest and engagement is impressive, even in World Service terms.
Looking ahead this year, Jon Manel announced a new podcast he’s launching in India in August this year. The podcast, called Kalki Presents, targets University students in India. It deals with issues only young people in India would understand.
Jon played a clip from the podcast – the content is tough. A wannabee musician with a stammer talks about his career aspirations.
Because the content is so targeted, Jon is confident that the audience will find the podcast, regardless of how tough some of the content is.