Although that, in and of itself, doesn’t really mean a great deal, given that Season 1 only ended last week. At the time of recording the final episode of Season 1, we didn’t really know that would be the end of Season 1, any more than when we recorded this episode we had any idea it would be the beginning of Season 2.

Indeed, we make no mention of it being Season 2 throughout the episode, such is our ignorance of the fact.

In fact, we may actually make reference to the fact that it is Episode 22. Which it is, overall. But it’s not Episode 22 of Season 1, and that’s not a distinction we point out. At all.

So why the post-production decision to launch Season 2?

Partly, it is to do with the new academic year. Yes, this episode does technically drop during the school holidays, but it is the last day of the school holidays. The week of its launch is, essentially, the beginning of the 2026/27 academic year.

We haven’t made a definite decision about this, but, assuming the show endures for a while longer yet, I think we’ve notionally got the idea that each ‘season’ will commence at the beginning of the new academic year.

Albeit that is an optimistic prognosis for the show.

This will obviously mean most seasons will contain considerably more episodes than Season 1’s 21. That seems OK. Season 1 was always really a proof-of-concept phase.

And hopefully we have proved the concept works.

It seems to work – for a small number of people, anyway. We haven’t quite worked out how to turn that small number into a larger number.

But Ben had a dream, and I could only curtail his dream for so long.

Ben’s view has long been that if we made the move from being an ‘audio-only’ podcast to a video and audio podcast, we’d get more people engaging with the show.

Which is another reason why this episode really needed to be Episode 1 of Season 2.

Because this episode is the first episode that we made into a video.

I had been reluctant to make the switch, partly because I’m of the view that a large percentage of our listeners are teachers who listen on their commute. This theory has been broadly borne out by our dip in listeners over the summer holidays. We saw a similar dip during May half term, which suggests we are at our strongest as a term-time enterprise.

I’m also of the view that listening to podcasts is a completely valid way to consume them.

I’m aware of the irony that I’m a podcaster who doesn’t really listen to podcasts, but on the rare occasions I’ve deigned to sample the medium, I’ve tended to experience them as audio experiences.

Ben, who is a much greater connoisseur of the podcast, tends to consume his by video, albeit he consumes the work of much more established and celebrated proponents of the medium than us.

He constantly espouses the view that what we’re doing is just as good, if not better, than those other podcasts. This doesn’t alter the fact, in my head, that more established podcasters can and should do video because they have a large audience. With our numbers, I can’t honestly see it’s going to make the blindest bit of difference.

Time, I suppose, will tell.

My biggest gripe, however, was that, in switching to video, I’d have to get my head around a whole new editing process. This was a concern because I have really only just about managed to acquire the basics of audio editing.

But Ben persuaded me, and, cognisant of the fact that we probably did need to start producing some video clips for the likes of Instagram and YouTube Shorts, I was willing to give it a go.

It turns out that video editing isn’t actually that much harder than audio editing when you’re just editing two faces on a screen, and actually I have quite enjoyed that bit of it.

The recording also went pretty well for a debut effort.

I also think the switch to video might have brought a different character to the show.

Certainly, it’s allowed us to have a look at the format. In one contrived bit on this episode, we ‘retire’ the register bit, which even I would agree was getting a bit stale.

I did fight to keep the postcard bit, though. If anything, I think having the visual medium gives us more reason to keep it.

I am actually pretty pleased with this debut effort of vodcasting. I don’t think it’ll get us additional listeners in big numbers, though. I am also slightly worried we might accidentally alienate some of our existing listeners because, at times, we lean a little too heavily into the visual element of it.

But overall, I think it works both as a video and as an audio podcast, and we actually finished this recording wondering why we hadn’t done this switch sooner.

Episode 23 (aka Season 2, Episode 2) was shortly about to offer us all the answers we needed to that particular question…