Podcasting isn't a media channel. It’s a relationship.

My first podcast experience wasn’t clever or curated. It was clunky, faintly nerdy and required actual effort.

In 2006 I was living in Princeton, New Jersey and commuting into New York three times a week. It was the World Cup in Germany, and my lifeline to home was the Baddiel and Skinner World Cup podcast. I had an iPod with a screen the size of a stamp and a MacBook that needed plugging in just to download new episodes. No streaming. No Wi-Fi miracles. Just syncing, waiting and hoping I hadn’t picked the right episode for the wrong train.

It never occurred to me that this was niche at the time. It felt obvious. Of course people would want long-form audio they could take anywhere. Of course you’d want smart people in your ears during commutes. Of course this would become a thing. I just assumed everyone else was doing it too.

Turns out they weren’t. Yet.

A few years later, podcasts went properly mainstream and then fully commercial. Platforms arrived and sponsorship money followed. What had started as a slightly geeky extension of blogging quietly turned into a global media category almost without anyone really noticing.

My listening habits haven’t actually changed that much. Everything else has.

What I love now is how effortless podcasts have become. They’re ubiquitous, instant and beautifully engineered. The sound quality, the pacing, the storytelling and the confidence of the formats are now as good as any professional radio show. In many cases, better. But the ritual itself still feels oddly familiar. I still like knowing when my favourites land each week. There’s a rhythm to it that reminds me of waiting for Top of the Pops on a Thursday evening or circling something in the Radio Times. Regularity breeds loyalty in a way algorithms never quite manage.

The harder part now isn’t finding podcasts. It’s ignoring them. Knowing which ones not to listen to is the real skill. There’s an infinite ocean of choice and not nearly enough hours to swim in it. It takes a lot for a new show to earn a place in my rotation, because once something’s in, it’s not easily replaced. This feels less like content consumption and more like curation of your own mental diet.

These days, my listening life looks like this.

My regular list has settled into a quietly dependable cabinet of comforts.

Parenting Hell, hosted by Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe, is the one that makes me feel least alone as a parent. They’re disarmingly honest about the small humiliations, private panics and unexpected joys of raising children. It’s therapy in trainer socks and, on a good episode, it genuinely makes me laugh out loud in public like an idiot. Which is probably the highest praise I can give anything that calls itself “content”.

Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth sits at the civilised end of the spectrum. Short, surprising and deeply humane, it’s built around guests sharing the memories that shaped them. Big names, small moments and a gentle reminder that life is mostly a collection of turning points rather than grand gestures. And frankly, I’d listen to Gyles read the phone book. His voice alone feels like a warm cardigan and a pot of tea.

Rockonteurs, presented by Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt, is where I go when I want stories told properly. Rock legends talking like humans rather than “artists”, careers revealed as messy, funny, accident-prone journeys rather than glossy highlight reels. It’s honest without being reverent and nostalgic without becoming sentimental, which is harder to pull off than it sounds.

Frank Skinner’s Off The Radio remains the purest form of listening joy. There’s no structure worth mentioning, no obvious format and no sense of anything being “built”. Just curiosity, reflection and jokes drifting wherever they feel like going. Frank still has that rare gift of sounding like he’s thinking rather than performing, and this is another one that regularly leaves me laughing out loud when I should probably be doing something more responsible.

The BBC's Desert Island Discs is the quiet anchor in my listening. It isn’t trying to be funny or current or clever; it just lets people talk about the moments that shaped them, framed by the music that travelled with them. Some episodes drift by gently, others catch you off guard. It’s the sort of programme you don’t rush. I often save certain guests for the right afternoon, like a book you’re not quite ready to finish. It’s steady, unhurried and endlessly human and that’s why it’s stayed in my rotation for so long.

Different voices, different moods, different moments. Same intimacy.

At some point it stops feeling like “media” at all and starts feeling like what it really is: a relationship with a voice you’ve never met.

That intimacy is the part people still underestimate. Podcasts aren’t just another content channel and they’re certainly not background noise. They’re relationships you build with voices you never meet. They live in pockets of life that no other medium gets close to: long drives, early runs, empty kitchens, late nights when everyone else is asleep. You don’t skim podcasts. You invite them in.

Which brings me to the bit brands still get wrong.

If you sponsor a podcast, you’re not buying space. You’re entering a relationship. You’re turning up in someone’s car on their commute, in their headphones on a walk, in the kitchen while they clear up after dinner. That isn’t advertising space. That’s domestic territory, and it has rules, even if nobody writes them down.

I’ve been listening to podcasts for nearly twenty years now and in all that time I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve made a purchase decision because of an ad. In fact, I’m fairly certain the real number is zero. Not because I hate advertising, but because most of it simply isn’t designed for this medium. It breaks the spell. It shouts. It reminds you that someone wants something rather than offering something.

If you’re advertising on a podcast, your job is not to interrupt it. Your job is to belong in it.

Sound like a human. Write the way people actually speak. Let the host make it theirs rather than forcing them into your script. If your brand can’t be explained out loud, in a relaxed sentence, by somebody who didn’t write the words, then the problem isn’t the host and it isn’t the show. It’s the brand.

Keep it short. Make it relevant. Make it sound real. Because there is a fast-forward button and it will be used ruthlessly.

Podcast listeners have the sharpest nonsense detectors in media. The moment something sounds like marketing, they are already reaching for the skip control. The moment it sounds like a genuine recommendation, they’re still there. That difference happens in seconds and once you’ve lost them, you’ve lost them.

Scale is overrated. Fit is everything.

Choose shows that feel like your audience rather than the biggest download numbers you can afford. A smaller, loyal listenership beats a distracted crowd every time. Familiarity beats scale. Tone beats tactics.

Nearly twenty years on from that tiny-screened iPod, podcasts still feel oddly personal to me. The technology has grown up but the ritual hasn’t really changed. Still one voice. Still one listener. Still that strange feeling that somebody, somewhere, is talking directly to you.

Just smarter voices, better mics and a lot more brands trying not to sound like brands. If you’re doing podcast sponsorship properly, you don’t sound like advertising. You sound like you belong in the room.