Our Podcast editing service has been going strong for several years now.  During that time, I have tried to listen to as many podcasts as I can to see how others are editing their productions.  One thing I have noticed is that a lot of podcast editors don’t like to remove unnecessary conversation or banter at the beginning of a paragraph.  For example:

Interviewer:  What’s the biggest thing that companies need to do when it comes to security?

Interviewee:  Yes, well, thank you for having me on.  I appreciate the question.  You always ask Great Questions by the way. {Long Pause}. You know, this is something I spend a lot of my time thinking about in my day job.  It is a really hard problem because it’s not going to be the same solution for each business.

You can see that there are several sentences at the beginning of this answer that are fluff, gratuitous, whatever you want to call them.  If you leave too much of this type of thing in a podcast, the listener will get tired or frustrated listening to it and might even hit the stop button.  There is no one correct way to edit this example, but consider the following and see if it is a bit cleaner and more to the point.  Everything to be removed is in CAPS.

Interviewer:  What’s the biggest thing that companies need to do when it comes to security?

Interviewee:  YES, WELL, thank you for having me on.  I APPRECIATE THE QUESTION.  YOU ALWAYS ASK GREAT QUESTIONS BY THE WAY.  {LONG PAUSE}. You know, this is something I spend a lot of my time thinking about in my day job.  It is a really hard problem because it’s not going to be the same solution for each business.

Again, this is just one possible edit of this section.  You could leave a bit more IN, or you could take a little bit more OUT.  My overall suggestion is to remove as much of the unnecessary banter as possible without making your podcast sound unnatural or robotic.  Think of your listener and whether they really want to hear this type of fluff, then hit the cut/delete key.  You will usually be better off.

To read other tips from podcast editors, check out this article on The New Media Revolution website: How to Edit Your Podcast Like a Pro.