Do you Censor your Podcast?

[andrewzarian]

I had a discussion with a fellow Internet Broadcaster recently about Mature Content / Language in Podcasts. The person that I was speaking with does a Comedy podcast that has Mature content and I was wondering if they pull back at times and what is off limits. At times some of my shows have "mature" content but I have a few things that we don't do on the air.

What are some of your "Rules" for your show? How do you let your Guests/Co- Hosts know the rules?

[MyTakeRadio]

I had a discussion with a fellow Internet Broadcaster recently about Mature Content / Language in Podcasts. The person that I was speaking with does a Comedy podcast that has Mature content and I was wondering if they pull back at times and what is off limits. At times some of my shows have "mature" content but I have a few things that we don't do on the air.

What are some of your "Rules" for your show? How do you let your Guests/Co- Hosts know the rules?

I run a pretty open show. I don't allow hate speech or racially charged commentary. Everything else is pretty fair game. Our language can be strong on occasion but its within the parameters of conversation and not just spewed for the hell of it. You know how it is.

[ChaseShumway]

We don't censor s**t. And it's probably to our detriment. I think some advertisers are scared away by uncensored content. On our show there are only two topics we all agreed not to dive too deeply into. I wouldn't say they're off limits, but I do try and limit our conversation on them. They are politics and religion. Mainly because people (listeners) can be very passionate about them. Politics would just turn into an angry rant for us. And one of our hosts is a fairly religious guy. He prefers the word "spiritual" though, so we decided before the show ever went into production that those two things would be left out.

Otherwise, nothing is off limits or censored for us. I did bleep out a movie spoiler our "spiritual" co-host blurted out one time. It was before we were doing our show live, so it worked out okay.

[mcphillips]

A master radio programmer convinced me many years ago: "You will not gain listeners because you use profanity, but you will definitely lose them." You young guys think I'm just being old fashioned, but some people will not listen to gutter language.

[MyTakeRadio]

I definitely don't think you are Mike. I have had you listen to my stuff for critique and out of respect to you as a pro I let you know if there is strong language. You have to definitely work harder for your audience when you are not "clean" that's a fact. I have guys that email us and are older and say they love the show language and all because they say we use it where it fits and don't use it as a crutch. That may be open to interpretation obviously but Mike definitely is right that some people will tune you out if the language is too abrasive.

[sunkast]

As far as profanity is concerned, I think its acceptable, so long as it's in moderation and not done for the sake of being shocking. For example if you constantly use curse words, and the like every few words, I won't listen to your broadcast. It's fine so long as you have a point or a reason to be speaking that way.

Some people do it just because it's the internet and there is no FCC. That's the wrong reason to use profanity.