The World Economic Forum's Podcasting Strategy🎙️, with Robin Pomeroy

Eurowaves #42 Interview

Robin Pomeroy is head of podcasts at the World Economic Forum and hosts its flagship weekly show Radio Davos. He recommends one podcast each weekly on his Substack/LinkedIn newsletter Pick of the Pods, and has launched a monthly Pick of the Pods podcast, talking to people who make great podcasts. He also made a five-part narrative documentary A Book - A Place: Geneva, part book club, part travel guide, part history podcast. Before that he was a reporter and senior editor at the global news agency Reuters, reporting from Brussels, Rome, Tehran, London and elsewhere.

You can connect with Robin on LinkedIn here.

What’s your podcast origin story?

I had never made a podcast before launching one at the World Economic Forum where I was commissioning, writing and editing text stories. I have spent a career as a news journalist and had always wanted to do radio, but things had not worked out that way. Podcasts have made that possible.

How has your international journalism experience influenced your approach to podcasting?

I spent 20 years at Reuters, as a correspondent in Brussels, Rome and Tehran, and editor in London. That taught me that you have to engage an audience very quickly - people won’t read past a headline if they don’t see a reason to.

On the “international” side, I am always aware that not everyone in your audience speaks English as a first language or has the same cultural references as you, so I try to keep my language as simple as possible and spell out culturally specific things that might not easily cross borders.

Tell us about the World Economic Forum’s entry into podcasting, where it’s at now and how it’s changed. What is the team targeting for the future and how is it keeping up with all the industry changes?

In 2019, I joined the World Economic Forum on a team that was already making brilliant social media content. It was a team that was constantly innovating but had not yet cracked podcasting. We were discussing how we could make a regular podcast when COVID hit and we were all working in isolation. A colleague suggested I make a podcast about the pandemic so what is now called Radio Davos was launched as World Versus Virus.

The format is deliberately broad to allow us to cover pretty much any big issue. Like most podcasts, we are making lots of episodes video-podcasts. I’d like to publish in other languages, either through AI translation/voice cloning and/or original content in e.g. Spanish, Chinese…

What is your strategy in translating technical concepts for a general audience, in an entertaining tone?

We have three weekly podcasts: Radio Davos (looking at how humanity can address some of the biggest challenges), Meet the Leader (one-on-one interviews with leaders on leadership) and Agenda Dialogues (the full audio from the best sessions at World Economic Forum events).

The tone of our podcasts is meant to address a global audience of intelligent, curious people who might not be specialists in whatever the subject is that we are discussing, so I try to ensure our conversations are not full of arcane acronyms or jargon, and also that they explain the main concepts which the experts involved might (wrongly) assume people already understand.

It’s my job as podcast host to play the role of the audience member, asking the questions that they would want to put themselves.

Share a bit about your journey with your podcast, Pick of the Pods, and the adjacent newsletter. What gaps are you looking to fill?

Pick of the Pods is a weekly recommendation of just one show. The newsletter has been going for a year and a half now and has around a thousand subscribers. It started because when I told people I was a podcaster, they would often ask me to recommend a podcast I like. POP is a way of sharing that with everyone - and it forces me out of my comfort zone to find new shows.

I deliberately make it eclectic - one week it might be some heavy, political show, another a silly comedy. The only common point is that I personally found something to recommend in there.

I launched Pick of the Pods, the podcast, a couple of months ago. It is a simple interview with a podcast maker talking about their show. I love talking about the craft of podcasting and the show is aimed at people who want a peak behind the scenes. It is currently monthly, but I hope to increase the frequency once I have built the capacity to do this (entirely in my spare time).

What do you predict the future of European podcasting will look like?

There’s no one future of podcasting - it is a pretty much limitless landscape with room for all kind of content and formats. What I am fairly sure will not happen though is that humans will be replaced by AI. Even once AI-generated content sounds indistinguishable from human, most audiences will still want to know they are engaging with a real person.

Share 2-3 recommendations of your top European podcasts.

You can find lots in the back catalogue of Pick of the Pods:

The shows I have been following the longest and still love are:

• The Bugle (weekly news satire)

• RHLSTP (interviews, mostly with comedians, by Richard Herring)

• Kermode and Mayo’s Take (formerly from BBC Radio - Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s film show)

Thank you, Robin!