The podcast opened with a jingle that was upbeat and catchy.

The jingle got

quieter while the host introduced the topics for that episode, which reminded me
of newsbeat and allowed the listener to know when the roundup of topics ended.
The vibe of the podcast was immediately fun and conversational, with the hosts
asking each other how their weeks had been. I really like this as an introduction
and will be taking inspiration from this for my podcast. This was a smooth segway
for the hosts to mention any pop culture news that they may want to discuss and
let the viewer feel included in the discussions. This enabled the hosts to sound
very knowledgeable about pop culture, mentioning all things from the Jonas
Brothers to new tv shows/ movies they have been enjoying/looking forward to.
The topics also felt very relatable to anyone falling into the target audience for the
podcast- talks of who their favourite Jonas brother is is something that has been a
hot topic of conversation for fans. Their opinions about the Jonas brother outfits
being hot felt natural and, again, something you would talk about with friends. As
me and my host are very educated in the topics of fan culture, I will make sure to
be convincing in my conviction when talking about fan culture, but when I am
interviewing Yasmin about spots which I am less educated on, I’ll take a step back
as the host. The hosts had subtle language indicators that showed their expertise,
or supposed expertise such as saying the good barbie promo was ‘rare’. The word
rare insinuates they pay enough attention to pop culture to know what is
common or not.The conviction they spoke with also helps assert their intellect on
the topic. The flow of conversation was a nice rollercoaster. It had moments of
everyone quickly adding their input, but slowed down which helped to please
attention spans and let us listen carefully to moments of conversation, such as
facts and figures about the Barbie marketing like the budget they had. This is a
feature I would like to implement when I do my podcast as it will be more
engaging for the listener and will be careful to monitor the importance of what
we are saying and make sure to slow down if there is something I’d particularly
like the listeners to remember.

I think the podcast could’ve done with some sweepers to break up the podcast
topics. For example, after talking about Barbie the only transition to the next topic
was ‘for our second story’. There was little pause and I had to rewind as the
conversation changed so quickly I became confused. When I do my podcast, I’ll
make sure to use sweepers when the topic of conversation has moved on so the
listeners are aware of the change and if they want to pause it and come back
later, it is easier to do so. The second story mentioned deeper topics of school
shootings and PINK having someones’ ashes thrown at her, which could’ve done
with a trigger warning and immediately shifted the tone. I feel the structure of
order of the stories definitely could’ve been altered. This, early on, felt off putting.
Their attempt to brighten the mood was mentioning someone throwing a sex toy
at lil NasX. This felt tone deaf. Shortly after, there was a break including a jingle
and an advert. This was placed very well and was smooth. This has allowed me to
realise to make sure neither me or the host are tone deaf and are sensitive if any
deeper topics come up. The issue of structuring the news segments doesn’t apply
to the podcast I’d like to do as mine is on mostly the same topic and both are
directly relevant to each other, unlike the news reading aspect of the Shameless
podcast.

An advert followed which nicely split the segments up. The advert was natural
and integrated smoothly. If I add any advertisements in mine, I will take
inspiration from theirs. The third story came after the advert break about Blake
lively’s new drinks line that had faced some controversy. This story featured
reading out comments and asking the other hosts directly what they thought of
the situation. They admittedly didn’t care about the controversy, which insinuated
the stories on the podcast weren’t just what they were interested in, it was things
their listeners would want them to talk about. Story four also started abruptly with
the introduction being ‘now moving onto story four’. I didn’t like this so I will make
sure transitions in my podcast are smoother and more obvious. A sweeper
definitely could’ve fit in here. Something I did notice and like was each story being
introduced by a news headline from different news sources. This added levels of
credibility to the stories. They also slotted this in very smoothly, so if I add in facts
or quotes in mine I’ll take inspiration. They did include a trigger warning for this
story which was sensitive to the viewer and made them appear more mature in
the topics they were tackling. Throughout the story they frequently quoted things
that Colleen Ballinger, the person under controversy, had said herself, as well as
her ex husband and a woman who worked with Colleen, which all added to their
credibility and showed they had researched the topics thoroughly.