Two ten-part series have revealed the stories on the walls of Glasgow. As we prepare to go into production on series three, we reflect on this fascinating podcast.
What would the walls of your city say to you? Glasgow, like many ancient cities, has a wealth of stories to tell, sometimes wonderful, inspiring, terrifying or uncomfortable; always enthralling. Glasgow embraces its history, good, bad and ugly. This podcast, commissioned by, and produced with, Glasgow City Heritage Trust, is a wonderful way to learn more about a world-renowned city for a global audience with its ear to the wall.
Inner Ear
If Glasgow’s Walls Could Talk started in 2021. As GCHT put it:
Each episode focuses on a specific area, type of building or aspect of Glasgow’s heritage, not only from an architectural history point of view, but also from the perspective of the community. The podcast host, Niall Murphy, GCHT Director, was joined by special guests for each episode, who shared their personal experiences, thoughts, knowledge and memories.
Glasgow City Heritage Trust
Most of the episodes are recorded remotely. We use a professional platform called Riverside.fm to record the audio. It functions like a video meeting service, such as Google Meet (more than Zoom, as it is browser-based) and unlike Zoom or Teams, it makes a broadcast quality recording on the hard drive of each contributor, which is uploaded to the server afterwards. The platform also records video, which we’ve used in documentary productions for BBC Scotland and branded content for Lagavulin. We then edit the interviews and add sound effects to add colour and context to relevant parts of the conversation.
As pandemic restrictions eased, in later 2022 and 2023, some episodes were recorded with the contributors together in the same room, one of which was at a public event, which made for a lively change of scene. Series three will develop further with a new selection of stories about the city, told through by experts with an eye and an ear to the wall.
We take care of all the creative and technical aspects of the project, from planning, research and scripting, to recording, editing and publication and selecting clips to use in social media promotion. Podcasts are a wonderful way to communicate with your audience. The personal, evocative medium of audio can be an intimate and magnetic way to bring your audience closer to your message.
We have made podcasts and radio programmes since we launched Radio Magnetic in 2001. If you have a story to tell, speak with us and we can discuss the best way to bring it to life and get it to the ears of your audience.