My hobby became my job, so I'm blowing up the format
Tyler hits pause on the usual format to explain why he's blowing up the show again. He walks through the moment he realized his supposedly personal podcast had quietly turned into a second shift of his day job, and what that means for where the Tyler Woodward Project goes from here.
Quick thing before I get into anything else. Everything in this episode is my opinion. I mean, it's my show and it's from my point of view. Nobody signs off on this. Nobody had to. So just getting out out there on the front end. All right. So today I'm going to be talking about changes. We're going to be making some changes. And here's here's how here's where I'm going to start with this, because A few weeks ago, I had this epiphany, I guess you could say. I got home from work, you know, a few weeks back, and I sat down to record one of these episodes. And about, I don't know, four or five minutes in, I stopped talking.
Mid -sentence. Because I realized... I was kind of just describing the exact same thing that I had just spent eight hours doing at work. The same stuff. And I remember sitting there thinking, this is supposed to be my thing, you know, something that's mine. And it kind of wasn't. It was like a second shift. I mean, with really bad lighting and my dogs barking in the background and my kids running around screaming about whatever. I'm Tyler. Welcome to the podcast. I'm talking about where this show goes from here. Because I'm changing it. Again, yeah, I know. And I'd
rather tell you why than just quietly do it and hope you don't notice. Because you probably will notice. Now back in January if you've been following for a while back in January, I rebranded the show from fully modulated to the Tyler Woodward project because It was supposed to be more about myself who I am what I'm thinking what I'm feeling what I want to talk about not so much about What I do during the day job. I mean I changed a name I told myself I was widening the scope. I was going to talk about more than just radio stuff.
And I did for a little bit. Until I didn't. I went right back to what I had already been doing every single episode. Nobody made me. It's just what was, I guess, comfortable and familiar. It's like that tool. that already fits your hand, that you're already used to, and you stop asking if it's the right one for the job. Right? That's the best analogy I can make. I've got a whole list of stuff I actually want to get to that has nothing to do with anything broadcast related. Things that used to work and don't anymore. Legitimate
complaints from my generation. And I'll own the label, alright? I was born in 1986. I am 100 % unapologetically an elder millennial. And I've got opinions about what got quietly taken away from us, people my age, while everyone told us to be grateful we still had jobs at all. None of that is obviously a radio topic. None of it was supposed to be Now I don't dislike my day job by the way, I want to make that clear most days I actually like it. I mean everybody's got complaints about their day job. All right It's
not it's not a complaint. I eat sleep and breathe This stuff it's who I am and it's who I've been since I was like five years old and I got my hands on my first AM FM cassette recorder, all right? The complaint is I noticed I don't have a version of my life that isn't tied to my job or my title anymore. The job kind of became my personality. The hobby became an extension of the job. And somewhere in there, those two things fused into one long shift that I I never get to clock out from. And to me, that's just not
sustainable. It's enough to burn someone else. I mean, that's burnout with a microphone. I need something that's mine that's a little different. A hobby that's also your job stops being a hobby. It's just unpaid overtime with... better branding Now I already know that Some of you are probably typing right now in the comments You just did a guest spot on this week in radio tech, you know a few weeks back an hour on RBDS And I did I picked up a nice little bump a new followers
off of that. How you doing Tommy and now You know what? You want to blow the whole thing up right after that landed? Yeah. Yeah, I do. And I get how the timing looks. I do. But this has been nagging at me long before that interview. Well, since January. Since the week I changed the name and I mean, I didn't change anything else about the show, I guess. Mean I did do some other general tech stuff and then I slowly came right back to radio The interview with Kirk that didn't start this it just happened to land in
the middle of You know this whole thought process that I've been doing I kept telling myself ah It's fine, but you know the more I dive into it. It's like it's it's not fine So Here's what here's what's gonna change about the podcast me and the podcast this becomes less of a Purdue show and more of a Not a vlog, but like an audio blog an audio journal. It's it's me It's still one continuous take still whatever's on my mind, you know that week And I'm really done at forcing every episode Into a shape that pretends it needs
a tidy explainer bow, you know on top of it Some weeks it'll be It'll be that I mean some weeks it'll just be me talking out loud about something that's bugging me since that Tuesday or whatever. Oh also Videos out too. I never liked doing video I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I mean, I'm an audio guy through and through. That's, that's the format. That's the whole format. A lot of these so -called YouTube and podcasting gurus will scream about that because, Oh my God, you have to do video to be successful nowadays in
podcasting. And maybe that's true, but you know what? I ain't looking. to be some big podcasting star. I do this for fun. If it works out that way, I'm not complaining, but that's not the goal. And if the work becomes more than a hobby, where I dread doing this, where it's no longer fun, I mean, what's the point? Oh, also too, because Side side tangent. I made a I made a neat little tool Available to everyone at woody FM comm where where you can make an audiogram
for your podcast You know, it's got audio. It's got images a waveform that reacts to your audio upload Nothing lives on my server. It's all done in the browser through Java. I Mean, it's bare bones, but it looks nice. At least I think so Check it out play with it if you want again at woodyfm .com because I'm still going to be uploading clips and snippets to Instagram and YouTube for the Reels and the shorts, maybe not my face plastered on it, but my voice for sure and social media is shrinking down to Mainly because I hate social media almost more than I hate video I don't want
to manage 10 different social channels trying to keep pace with 10, 13 algorithms that change the rules every six weeks anyways. That's not fun. That's more work on top of everything I do day to day already. That's a second unpaid job and social content distribution. I'm keeping what works though, trimming the fat. And if that means a smaller reach, Fine, whatever. I'd rather have a small show that's actually true to me than a big one that's slowly turning into the exact thing I was trying to get away from. I don't have any of this stuff figured out and
I'm going to be honest about that upfront. Instead of acting like I have all this figured out or I rolled out of bed one morning with a five -year plan, but you know, I know what this podcast isn't going to be anymore. And I think that's enough to get started. Oh, also, I want to mention you might have noticed I'm running ads in the podcast from RSS .com's paid program. I recently switched the podcast hosting over to those guys. I'm trying it out to see if I can at least cover enough to pay the hosting fees. RSS .com also
allows improved bit rates over Riverside, who I used before, which, I mean, did the video and everything all at once, but because I'm doing audio, I switched to RSS .com to get those improved audio bit rates, which Riverside was a measly 64 kilobits per second MP3 in today's age. Yeah. RSS has 128 kilobits per second, and I think I could do stereo on there as well. But I mean, mostly this is spoken word, so I don't really need stereo. But an improved speech quality? Hell yeah. But back to the ad stuff. Full disclosure,
and there is a link on the website for values and ethics. Some of the and categories that I blocked out right is gambling and casinos because I hate that that crap Pregnancy related stuff that was already in there by default from rss .com. I couldn't tell you what that category pertains to but I mean you're probably not coming here to look for Pregnancy ads, I think maybe I don't know if you are let me know I'll put it back in there anything sexual related, you know Definitely politics, um, whatever non -standard content means. That was another default one that RSS had in there. And obviously illegal content beyond that. I don't see the ads before they
run. And I mean, I don't endorse them. It's not me talking. I didn't write the scripts. Just a little extra income. Maybe it'll probably end up being like a few cents, but if you want to subscribe and support the podcast. Subscribe over on Apple podcast It's like three bucks a month. I priced it really low or something like I think it's 25 bucks a year but it gets you the The podcast ad free and eventually once I get up and rolling on this new format It'll have exclusive content. That's just meant for those members as well. So there's that perk as well and That's the show for this week. I just wanted
to Let you know what's happening, give you a little update on the life and the podcast, and next week kicks off brand new era of the Tyler Woodward Project. If you want to keep up with it, subscribe wherever you're listening, and you can find everything else at tylerwoodward .me. If you want to buy me a cup of coffee, you can also do that. The link's at the top of the page at tylerwoodward .me. Talk to you next week. Until then, stay cool, because man, it's going to be hot. especially over the northern part of the country and the upper Midwest where I'm at. Oof. I'm not built for that heat. All right, that's it. That's all I got for you this week.
