The Chaser Report - LIVE: Australian Podcast Awards 2024

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Dom and Lachlan give a live blow-by-blow update of their experience at the prestigious Australian Podcast Awards. How do they go in their campaign to win Best Comedy? What is the limit on free beverages at the open bar? And most importantly, why do I have to edit this right now? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Welcome to the Chaser Report with Dom here at the Australian Podcast Awards, powered by IHeart. I'm here with producer Lachlan sitting in the second row. We're handy to the stage. And Lachlan, this means we can either go up to the stage if we win or if we don't win, we can tackle the people that do. Are you up for that? I've been training my tackling form since I was four years old for this very moment.

If I hear anyone's name but The Chaser Report, I'm still walking on stage. I mean, it will be cancelled or it will be Kate Langbrook or Nathalvo. But they're highly successful comedians. Why do they have to have podcasting as well? That's what I ask you. Can't they leave podcasting for the little guys? Can't they leave it for the Chaser Report? Well, exactly.

And I'm thinking, if you're already on the project every other weekend, you don't need podcasting awards as well to add to your repertoire. It's excessive and it's not fair to the real people who get up every day at 3 a.m. and record. And I've done some surveying tonight, Dom. We're the only people who do record every morning at 3am. And look, let's be really frank about this. Hamish and Andy, I don't believe they've ever come to this. I'm sure they would win Miss Comedy if they did come to this.

They don't bother. You know why they don't need it? They're the number one podcast in the country. They make millions of dollars, I think, a year out of it or something. They're not here with the little guys, are they? No, they're not here. but it is a pleasure to be around other people who also don't make money out of podcasting.

Yeah, I don't know how anyone afforded the ticket. Anyway, good to be here. Let's see how the night unfold. I've got to be honest, it's not looking good. They've just introduced our competitors, Naith Valvo and Kate Langbrook as the host of Australia's hottest new comedy podcast. What's it called Lockland again?

It's called The Buck Up and Stop the Count. Stop the Count. It's already over, isn't it? They're talking, they're trying to charm the room with their comedians. We're just talking in the corner. No, we are. We're here.

We're being... Genuinely rude. Genuinely rude. But at least our podcast isn't called the buck up. Look, just a quick tip if you're naming a podcast, don't choose a name that is one letter away from fuck up. That's all I have to say at this time. Look, it's time to, time to confess what happened.

The awards are still going. Mark Fennell's just presented a bunch of awards and won an award because, you know, it's Broadcasting and Mark Fadon's good at that. Lachlan, let's break it gently to the listeners. Did we win our award? We came at least second. There's no evidence of that, but let's just claim it anyway. Yeah, I think that a nominal second place is the only truth.

So the winner was... The winner was The Beautiful Nightmare. I'll check out their podcast and all the sincerity, but do you think anyone's ever achieved three losses in this category before? I don't know if they have. That's a great point, though. I think that actually we've just won our own. award, which is most money spent on least wins, most failures in best comedy.

I think that's something to be truly proud of. Do you think it's a trophy for that? I think there's definitely a trophy that they'll ask us to pay to go next year for. That's probably true. I'd say it was nice just to be here, but I'm not sure that's true right now. The True Crime Award is just about to be handed out, and Loughlin, no one has nominated us losing Best Comedy in the True Crime category. No, but unfortunately the hosting of this event also hasn't been nominated for true crime.

Oh my God, it's not actually past file. It's Unravel Firebom, there you go. Don't listen to that. All right. Look, Lachlan and I are here at the butt end of the Australian podcast Awards. The room is full of people with surprisingly heavy trophies. We've considered stealing them from various colleagues and friends, but we haven't had heart yet. There's a chance we made before the end of the night. No, I'm still hoping out, I think Mark's got at least

three on his hands. That's too much for one man to carry. Yeah, look, Fenella's won many in previous years, too. So, there's that, but the point we have to ask ourselves now is, we've lost three Best Comedy Podcasts now. Three! It's a lot of times, we've made it to the final

round, made it through the initial judging and then, and then we've just found, at the highest you know what do Hillary Clinton say the highest largest glass ceiling of the ball which was in no way a glass ceiling we cannot seem to break through lochland what do we do how do we pick ourselves up for 2025 I think I've had a grand idea for what our strategy is and I think Dom that next year we should take episodes of irrational fear put them in our feed we'll have to do a replay episode at some point right so when we do a replay episode let's

take episodes of irrational fear. Which has won three times, three in a row, and that's Danny Litch's podcast. So, yeah, we take his episodes and we say, Dan, do you want to get some more of this? We'll put you in our feed. Yeah, yeah, oh, Dan, Dan, it's totally for your benefit. Little does Dan know, we're going to submit those episodes next time for our submission to enter Comedy of the Ward of the Year. That is an extremely good idea.

I guess the other thing we could do is quit and get Danny Litch and Lewis Hobbit to host this podcast. So, I mean, there's some things we could do here. we could change categories. So maybe of the categories that we've seen, there was one obvious one that we didn't go in that we should have, where there were only two entrants. And frankly, I think we can smash them both. I think that next year, the Chase Report,

to hell with winning comedy, we're going to win Daily News Podcast. We can take on The Guardian. Who is The Guardian anyway? Frankly, there have been a lot of episodes this year that have had no jokes and just people talking honestly about US politics. So if we continue in that direction, yeah, maybe we can be. We basically are The Guardian at this point.

And I think full credit to us. I also think that there were a few other award categories that I, yeah, I think maybe we could throw our hat in that are a bit more personal Dom. And I'm talking about, of course, there are best host and there are best producer awards that for some reason we totally overlook. Yes, I'm sorry, Rising Star, we can put you in Rising Star. You've got to have only done it for two years. Oh, bugger.

There was another one that I think we should go for, which is there was a little award. award at the end of the night called Champion. I've no idea what that means. That was the award that could only be entered if you get 100,000 listeners. Wow. That's not going to happen. What about wellness? We could do wellness.

We could have every Friday, and maybe we would have to produce a new episode. We could just do sort of meditation. Like, just play, couldn't you just montage together some like sea gulls and shit and wave sounds? No, what I could do is I could pull out, I've got a giant bloopers file. at the moment, Dom, of you and Charles both being much more candid than what you would. Here's a little sample of what I've got in the bloopers file.

Yep. Okay. Lachlan, edit heavily. Sorry. I think we've repeated ourselves. All right, sorry, Lachlan. See ya. Sorry. I feel like we're not going to get 15 minutes out of this disaster. No.

And maybe Lachlan just cut out this whole, you know, background thinking. Maybe. Is that a bad tag? No, it's a terrible tag. Um, oh, no, unless it's... It doesn't exist.

Uh. Uh. Um... The sign of two Tired Men attempting to end a podcast. And, um, yeah. So, I can't even remember what this thought was leading. Where was this thought?

You didn't say VB, it could be like, MD. No, that's terrible. Um, what could it be? I can't think of a bunch of it. yeah it's a little low energy but uh I think there was some uh no

I've got the transcript I'm gonna get Hey Lachlan suck shit you're gonna have to cut some audio You are not allowed to have that bloopers file It's in breach of your contract But I think what we could do Is we could just

Bring that energy into the show And we'll win wellness for sure I mean actually to be fair If there was a best bloopers category Or a best best bad thing to say while the mics are on. Are you trying to Alan Jones us? Yes. I as a young

man, am trying to Alan Jones someone. Can I just play the clip that I'm talking about? This is the best clip in the history of radio. Don't play the whole thing just a little bit. With Alan Belford Jones being a great colleague. What's this? You haven't heard this? No, what's this clip? Oh, you're in

for a treat. I'll send it to you now. Fucking hopeless. Well, it is fucking hopeless. I mean, if this is that bloody urge and I should be given it in the morning. I just certainly see my life should be turned into a fucking nightmare for the sake of other incompetence.

From here on in you can tell them I'm refusing to do something that I've got my face up against the wall and they want it done immediately. Anyway, it's almost time to sign off here. Defeated and disappointed. We'd like to think, though, that to you, dear listener,

we are the best podcast in your hearts. We know that it's not true, but we like to think. It's not on paper what matters. what matters is what have you chosen to listen to for your best comedy? Because we know that you're not listening to The Guardian or the... Was it the buck up or... The fuck up?

The really funny thing though about this at this point is that it's what? It's 10.30 at night. We've all had a bit to drink. You have to go home and edit this space of shit. Lachlan, thank you as always for your fine effort. It wasn't good enough to your best comedy, but it was good enough to be almost best comedy. This is a note to future, Lachlan. Could you submit this episode next year for the 2025 Australian Podcast Awards?

Yeah, thanks, mate. I appreciate that. We are part of the Iconoclast Network, which has very few members because we haven't been very judicious about building it out. But maybe one day we will. Who knows? It's kind of suspenseful. Anyway, signing off from the Australian Podcast Awards,

I think if nothing else are, Loughlin, we are the only people stupid enough to record a podcast at the Australian Podcast Award. I'm looking around, Dom. If that's a category, we're the only entry. Good night.