The Earwolf Challenge Last Words: Ham Radio with Brett Hamil

Catch-up on The Earwolf Challenge! You can listen to the Week 4 “Recurring Segments” Elimination episode here. Brett Hamil from Ham Radio had this to say about his Challenge experience:


When I found out I had been chosen as a contestant on The Earwolf Challenge, I was thrilled. I told my friends and they were thrilled for me too, unless they happened to be one of the 80% of Americans who have never listened to a podcast, in which case I had to explain to them the following: what a podcast is, what a podcasting network does, and who, exactly, would listen to a podcast about podcasting.

But that’s what’s great about Earwolf: they’re so far ahead of the curve that some people don’t even know there is a curve yet. Think about it: millions of people walking around who have no idea about podcasts, people who have never accessed the thousands of hours of high-quality comedy with no commercial interruptions or corporate meddling that are available free to anyone with the Internet.  When those people do find out (and eventually they will–even my grandmother has a cell phone now) one of the first things they’ll observe is that Earwolf is producing the best content in the medium.  What Jeff Ulrich and Scott Aukerman are doing is visionary.

So, again, thrilled to be a part of it.

Now on to the competition: I didn’t do as well as I thought I could, I didn’t feel the judges got what I’m trying to do, and the limitations of the format could be unforgiving. Having two isolated minutes of your podcast critiqued in vivid detail by people you respect and admire is like being slow-roasted on a rotisserie made of self-doubt. On the other hand, getting to listen to Paul F. Tompkins and Jesse Thorn or Matt Gourley and Paul Scheer expound upon the limitations and possibilities of the medium in such depth and at such close proximity was, for me, a master class in podcasting. Granted, some of these discussions were provoked by clips of my show that seemed to make Matt Besser almost physically revolted, but it was still pretty cool.

Thanks to Peter Moses and Frank Cappello for putting this whole thing together, and thanks to all of my listeners. If you want to check out my podcast, you will find over three hours of original, scripted comedy I’ve produced in the past year, of which less than 5 minutes aired on The Earwolf Challenge.

Ok, that’s it.  Good luck to the rest of the contestants!

-Brett


You can keep following Ham Radio at www.HamRadioWithBrettHamil.com or subscribe via iTunes.