Already posted a blog entry about Radio Open Source (ROS) host Christopher Lydon being at his best when he gives guests a lot of room.

I’ve also been overtly critical of Lydon, in the past. Nothing personal. ROS is a show that gets me thinking and I tend to think critically. I still could have voiced my opinions in a softer manner but blogging, like other forms of online communication, often makes it too easy to use inflammatory language.

At one point, I even posted a remarkably arrogant entry about my perception of what ROS should do.

But, what’s funny, what the show has become is pretty much what I had in mind. Not in format. But in spirit. And it works quite well for me.

Lydon posted a detailed entry (apparently co-authored by ROS producer Mary McGrath) on the thought process involved in building the new ROS show:

Open Source » Blog Archive » As We Were Saying…

Despite the “peacock terms” used, the blog entry seems to imply a “leaner/meaner” ROS which gives much room for Lydon to do his best work. Since it started again a few weeks ago, the show has been focusing on topics and issues particularly dear to Lydon including Jazz, American cultural identity, U.S. politics, and Transcendentalism (those four are linked, of course). It’s much less of a radio show and much more of a an actual podcast as we have come to understand them in the four years since Lydon and Dave Winer “have done the first podcast in human history.” In other words Lydon, a (former) NYT journalist, has been able to adapt to podcasting, which he invented.

What is perhaps most counter-intuitive in Lydon’s adaptation is that he went from a typical “live radio talk show” format with guests and callers to a “conversation” show without callers, all the way to very focused shows with extended interviews of varying lengths. Which means that there’s in fact less of the “listener’s voice” in the show than there ever was. In fact, there seems to be a lot less comments about ROS episodes than there were before. Yet the show is more “podcasty.”

How?

Well, for one thing, there doesn’t seem to be as strict a release schedule as there would be on a radio show. While most podcasters say that regularity in episode releases is the key to a successful podcast, it seems to me that the scheduling flexibility afforded podcasts and blogs is a major part of their appeal. You don’t release something just because you have to. You release it because it’s as ready as you want it to be.

Then there’s the flexibility in length. Not that the variability is so great. Most episodes released since the comeback are between 30 and 45 minutes. Statistically significant, but not extreme variability in podcasting terms. The difference is more about what a rigid duration requirement does to a conversation. From simple conversational cues, it’s quite easy to spot which podcasts are live broadcasts, which are edited shows, and which are free-form. Won’t do a rundown right now but it would make for an interesting little paper.

The other dimension of the new ROS which makes it more podcasty is that it’s now clearly a Lydon show. He’s really doing his thing. With support from other people, but with his own passions in mind. He’s having fun. He’s being himself. And despite everything I’ve written about him as a host, I quite enjoy the honesty of a show centered on Lydon’s passions. As counter-intuitive as this might sound given the peacock terms used in the show’s blog, it makes for a less-arrogant show. Sure, it’s still involved in American nationalism/exceptionalism. But it’s now the representation of a specific series of voices, not a show pretending to represent everything and everyone.

So, in brief, I like it.

And, yes, it’s among the podcasts which make me think.