Review: Black on Air
By in
Identified hosts?
Yes. Larry Wilmore.
Explained what the show is about?
Yep.
Time to topic
Almost 6 minutes, but it’s all good because he spent the time explaining who he was and giving some background. Two things here: 1 – Explaining who you are is important for new podcasters (big or small) and 2 – I had NO idea Larry was so accomplished (In Living Color, The PJs, The Wayans Brothers and more). But then again, I’d never heard of Larry until I saw Cam’ron on his show. I remember thinking “whoa! there’s a late night talk show that’s having Cam on as a guest!? Nice!”
Ad(s)
I thought it was interesting that he joined the Audible crowd. If you listen to enough podcasts, you’ll hear a circulation of a lot of the same advertisers. Audible is one of them. I guess it’s understandable why he would be placing an ad on his very first episode, but I always feel like people with a major following don’t really need to do that. They can create their own product (like a book or an event) and sponsor themselves. All good though.
Show structure/type
In-person interview. Larry interviewed Norman Lear after first giving some thoughts about Trump.
Topic(s) discussed
Larry’s background, (wrote for in living color, created PJs, Bernie Mac show, worked on the office, helped launch Blackish, Insecure as well, Daily Show, Nightly Show), advice from Bernie Mac, Donald Trump’s latest news items, Comey firing.
Norman Lear interview (he has a 70 yr old kid!?, All in the family talk, Til Death Us Do Part, Norman’s father, pearl harbor, his service in the armed forces, dropping literal bombs on the enemies and the effect it’s had on his life, fighting to put All In The Family on the air, Archie Bunker’s complexity, George Jefferson vs Archie, an early uncomfortable racial incident Larry had when he was 7, Sanford and son, Maude, Edith’s abortion, Abbott and Costello and straight men, Trump and Ivanka, a film called Religion, what it would take for Norman to kill someone in front of their family, having gratitude, Norman’s podcast.
Audio quality
Perfect. No issues here.
Passion/personality
I think there was a good amount of passion from Larry. It seemed to increase when he started to interview Norman.
Mentioned socials/site(s)?
no
Mentioned schedule?
no
Mentioned hashtag?
no
Summary
This was a case of REALLY good content, but shaky technique. It’s understandable though, because Larry already has a following that he’s built over a number of years. That’s great for the amount of listens you’ll pull in (especially up front), but technique (along with your good content) is what you’ll need to grow beyond the first few episodes. The average podcaster isn’t really Larry’s competition…it’s people at his level of celebrity. So let’s say someone of his stature decides to join podcasting with a similar quality of content. They’re going to one-up him if their technique is better. We don’t want that. We want to level the playing field and let the best content (judged by the listeners) speak for itself.
As far as the interview, it was good. Larry and Norman talked about the past and it was a VERY interesting discussion. I think it’s important for creatives to hear these kinds of discussions because they are littered with gems. More specifically, a podcaster should tune in to understand what it was like for Norman to create content and what his approach looked like. Really good discussion.
Recommendation
My recommendation would be for the people helping Larry out to create a “show sheet” for him. It should include a checklist asking him to 1 – give out his social media username or the username for the show, 2 – mention when the next show is coming out, 3 – mention the hashtag, 4 – give out a link to the show notes. I’d also recommend the show sheet creator to make some more detailed show notes as well.
Link to episode
https://art19.com/shows/larry-wilmore/episodes/be9c92e6-8675-40db-843b-eb28c6ab8f88
Link to socials
Larry
Norman Lear
Other links (these could have been included in his show notes)
Til Death Us Do Part
Just another version of you trailer
His recent book (he’s at 4.3 stars from 222 reveiws as of this post)
Pilot episode of all in the family