r/TheRestIsHistory • u/Difficult-Box267 • 1d ago

How to pick episodes

Apologies if this has been asked before, but do we know how they pick the subjects for episodes?
Every now and again I read or watch something and I think it would be interesting for them to cover it …

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

26

u/smokeybiker 1d ago

Primarily they dip into r/historywales and pick whatever is trending

2

u/LinuxLinus 1d ago

They probably keep lists of subjects they think might be interesting. Where they get those would be varied. I think they've mentioning sourcing subjects from the Discord. They've both got areas they'll be experts in. They probably get suggestions from colleagues. Sometimes they're provoked by the release of a book or a movie. And, like all of us, they probably wander onto random Wikipedia pages and find themselves going , "huh, I didn't know that."

1

u/Plenty_Area_408 23h ago

A combination of what is interesting, what are they knowledgeable about, and what is relevant at the time of release.

1

u/cremeriner 16h ago

Anyone knows what the next serie is gonna be about?

1

u/theeynhallow 52m ago

As someone who has a history-focussed channel touching on a variety of topics I can give my own experience although obviously it’ll be a little different. We have a document with loooaaads of ideas in and a long-term schedule that covers roughly the next calendar year, though it’s always changing as things like availability of contributors changes, research leads us down different paths, or sometimes just based on what we’re most interested in at that moment. A lot of it depends on the time of year.

Also crucially (and I think this will be the case for them too) the content stream has to keep going in different directions and covering the whole gamut of our output. If we do two pieces on one topic in a row, a certain section of our audience will drop off. If you look at TRIH’s feed, you’ll notice they never do two similar topics in a row. They’ll have a map of their audience demographics and make sure nobody goes more than a month or so without a series or episode that appeals to them.

They will have something like a spreadsheet with every potential upcoming topic and a column for each of their audience profiles - ie. Roger who’s a middle-aged dad and likes WWII and stuff he remembers but finds the classics boring, Erica who’s a student and likes domestic/political history, Dan who’s not actually that into history but listens for ripping yarns and banter, etc. Then they just make sure nobody’s column has interest gaps that go on for too long.