Podcast Bola Sepak
When padangbolasepak started back in late 2014, the interest in producing podcasts about all things Malaysian football was red hot. In early 2015, had the opportunity to produce 4 podcast episodes with various fantastic and insightful football loving human beings.
What is a podcast? “A digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new instalments of which can be received by subscribers automatically.” Simply, imagine taking your favourite television show convert it into audio format, put into your iPod or phone, and tuning in on the go. While you are working, exercising, travelling, and etc.
Why only four episodes? Well the cost of producing a podcast was quite high. The demand was there, however it wasn’t enough to sustain. Hence the padangbolasepak podcast is currently on the shelf until one fine day that it will return!
Apart from padangbolasepak Malaysia football podcast, there was Malaysian Football Weekly (MFW) by All Sportz Asia by Jeevan Selvanathan and Ross Yusof. Presently, ‘The Sons Of Pitches’ by Henry, Izham, and Yu Han on their YouTube channel. On Media Prima’s Ais Kacang podcasting platform, there’s currently, ‘The Balls’ with Faiz Hajizi and Muhammad Sabri and now ‘Bola Bro’ with Hanif Miswan. And coming soon, there will be another.
As with everything in Malaysian football, there’s will always be the question of sustainability. Sustainability in terms of the interest from the listeners, interest from the producers, viability of production, and other factors. I do believe that podcast will be the future in Malaysia, especially to those who are hungry to learn more through listening and spending time listening to people who shares the same interest with the listener.
For me, the near perfect podcast show is a show where you have a group of people sitting down recording, and discussion about something that they respectively are passionate about in their own comfortable language. For example, just before the recording of padangbolasepak podcast episode 2, with Alfred Loh (Football philosopher), Khairil Anuar (Klang Valley League founder), and Manivannan (Life long KLFA fan). One of them asked if they had to speak in English, since the padangbolasepak medium of language has always been English. I simply said, it does not matter what language you converse in, as long as you are comfortable with articulating the message that you want to express in whatever language it may be. Cause the subject matter in our podcast is football, and football is the universal language as it brings people together. When the people recording enjoys the session, the listeners in turn will enjoy listening.
Why do thousands of people enjoy watching Tifo Arena’s ‘Sembang Tifo’? Simple, because how comfortable and accessible the presenters and the format are to the audience, correct me if I am wrong.
Interested in listening to some podcast? Here are the links that you can stuff yourself for the week!
Padang Bola Sepak Podcast
Malaysian Football Weekly:
The production of the Malaysian Football Weekly podcast goes to All Sportz Asia.
Link to the podcast click here.
Sons Of Pitches
Production of The Sons Of Pitches football podcast goes to The Sons Of Pitches.
The Balls
Credit for the production of The Balls goes to Ais Kacang.
Link to the podcast click here.
Bola Bro
Credit for the production of Bola Bro goes to Ais Kacang.