Gareth Cliff on...: Recent Episodes
CliffCentral.com
Gareth Cliff is known for his well-articulated and strong opinions about politics and current affairs. Hear them in his own voice here.
2022 is almost over, and very few of us will be celebrating the last year - in fact, the last three years - of our very bizarre lives on planet Earth. I could take up your whole day by listing the ways some humans have made the planet much worse for others - lockdowns; masking kids; letting old people die alone in cold, dark hospitals; making us all dumber; bringing the words ‘expert’ and ‘science’ into disrepute; destroying businesses, and making us all suspicious of a cough like never before - but I won’t...
Does your brand tell stories? Absolutely! And podcasting is the most modern medium of the ancient form of storytelling. Welcome to the era of on-demand listening where people listen when they want to - and listen to what they want to. In 2021, branded podcasts have become an important tool in any company's marketing arsenal...
So what’s happening in podcasting? The short answer is a lot. Podcasting went up by 50% in 2018 (according to Nielsen) and then doubled from 2019 to 2020. For CliffCentral.com, our audience doubled again since the start of the pandemic and lockdowns, and this is probably true for other South African podcasters...
Thabo Mbeki was right: There really are two South Africas. Most people jump to the conclusion that we’re a nation divided along racial lines. Others think it’s about the haves and the have-nots. The events of the past few days have made it abundantly clear that the real divide is between those who want law and order, and those who see the law only as a means to make themselves more powerful...
If you google 'Gareth Cliff’, one of the first links that comes up is an article from November 2020 about an interview I did with David Icke, the well-known conspiracy theorist on my eNCA TV show, So What Now? The show was specifically created to "highlight diversity of thought and talk to people with different opinions - leaders, opinion makers, alternate voices and people who don’t think like you and me - because great minds don’t always think alike"...
If you’ve ever heard a song and found that it resonates with you, you might start to question what that actually means. If you’ve ever heard someone sing out of tune or strike a horrible chord on a guitar, then you equally know what dissonance is. When people use the word “resonant” or talk about harmony, it isn’t obvious that they mean what you think they mean...
Well, this is more of a blog than anything I’ve written for a while... Covid has come to CliffCentral. We like coming up with clever alliterative phrases for new ideas and divisions in the business - like CliffCentral Communications, CliffCentral Campus, CliffCentral Creative and CliffCentral Collaborations. Now we have CliffCentral Contagions...
Not a week goes by where you don’t see two neanderthals abusing each other because they have a different point of view online. Do you wonder, like I do, if their anger and stupidity could be channeled into great arguments that might change minds and move us all forward, instead of making us dumber and more primitive?
Sometimes you need to stop and take a breath. Perhaps last year’s pandemic and the resulting drastic lockdown measures gave many of us that opportunity. Armed with an excuse, some of us have used this time to appreciate the extraordinary changes in our lives. The most valuable businesses - like Amazon, Netflix, Google and Facebook - didn’t exist 30 years ago, now they’re the ones we can’t live without...
His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh died on Friday the 9th of April 2021, at the age of 99. I had the pleasure of meeting him when I was in my final year of high school. The headmasters, head boy and head girl of each of the schools in Pretoria were invited to a garden tea in honour of The Queen’s State Visit to South Africa and Nelson Mandela. Through family connections, I was invited along...
Maybe I’m getting old - or wise (I'll leave it to you to decide) - but I’m taking more and more pleasure in small rituals. Perhaps the relative monotony of lockdown is to blame, but I have discovered magic in unexpected places. If you’re about to give up on me, hold on. Let me explain by way of some examples, and this might convince you neither of us are going mad...
2020 will soon be behind us, and with the possible exceptions of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, nobody will be sad to see the back of it. But if, like me, you absolutely cannot spend another minute talking about vaccines, masks or curfews, then what I’m about to tell you will (hopefully) feel like something fresh...
Every year I write something hopeful, something that I wish would help just one person who reads it to have something to reach for in the new year. This has been such a tumultuous year that it almost feels like I need to reconsider everything, even my parting shot for 2020. But have no fear, there’s enough inspiration to go round, even after an annus horribilis like this. I’ll start with the things that have kept me going this year, that have given my life meaning, and perhaps they will strike a chord with something in your life...
The Internet isn’t real life. Look, I’m, sure you know this already, but let’s all take a minute in what has been a very difficult year, to take stock of our lives. Thanks to Covid, for many people the Internet is the only kind of social activity they’ve had. It’s frighteningly unhealthy and you must do everything you can to break free before you lose your soul online. That may sound dramatic, but the evidence of mental and emotional breakdown is there for everyone to see. Don’t let it happen to you. Here are the twelve online commandments...
Not sure why, or for whom, but I felt it necessary to say this:
If you’re going through hell at the moment - If your life isn’t anything like what you always hoped it would be- If people are disappointing you or hurting you - If you’re hopeless, disconnected, lonely - If you’ve fallen out of love with music, art, dance, even love - If you aren’t turned on by the things that used to turn you on - If you find conversation and philosophy pointless and uninspiring- If you’ve given up on treating your body like a temple and treat it like a garbage heap - If you don’t appreciate what others can do for you - If you’ve forgotten what explosive, unbounded happiness feels like - If you feel like you’ll never have enough - If you don’t sleep because your nightmares are worse than being awake - And if you look around and see a world that’s broken,
Please consider that you’re not alone, that you’re alive, and that all the universe, fate and the most impossible series of events over billions of years conspired to bring you into existence here and now.
That there are many worse off than you, and not just materially...
Podcasting is flourishing, not just globally, but in South Africa. There is no other audio medium that can reach an audience as highly engaged as podcast listeners. Loyalty and influence come with a highly engaged podcast audience and as a result, the people who make up this audience are an attractive target for brands. In CliffCentral’s six-year pioneering journey, these are just three of the lessons we have learned...
America celebrated their Independence Day over the weekend, a day that marked their split from the kingdom of the oppressor of the day, King George III of Great Britain. Since we’re revising history left, right and centre (but mostly left), I thought it might be useful to remind ourselves of what was going on back then, and why it matters as much today...
I write to you in my private capacity as a citizen of South Africa, just in case the media read it wrong, again. I watched your NCCC briefing today. I decided at the outset to give you the respect due to you - as an elder. Without the usual judgement that we’re all prone to, I listened not to get angry or find fault, but with an open mind...
How are you doing in this madness? ‘Vasbyt', as the Afrikaans people say. I write one of these blogs every week and normally they’re not as controversial as the last two, but they might interest you if you’re thinking about what happens next. Just like any other mammal, I don’t have any special powers to predict the future, but I think it’s becoming clear that the lockdown will have far-reaching ramifications...
We live, we learn.
It has been almost three weeks since we heard from the President, and two weeks where I have found myself trending on Twitter. Neither of those things is optimal.
I’d really like to hear from the President - because we’re in crisis and it would be in everyone’s interest to know what the endgame is...
We’ve all been ready to support you and your administration in your efforts to save lives from this pandemic. Even people like me, who have questioned the idea of a lockdown as the best response have decided to comply and do whatever we could to help. We set aside our concerns over the heavy-handedness of the police and army; we swallowed and accepted that poor people in informal housing would be crammed into their one-room dwellings for a month; we limited our trips to the shops and even accepted not being able to buy hot food (for whatever inexplicable reason)...
OK, so we’re all coming to the end of our lockdown sentence - and you’ve probably been angry, depressed, anxious, frustrated, scared and numb - at least a few times each. I am not one to gild the lily and if you’ve ever read any of my stuff you know I’m not here to give you platitudes or the kind of “inspirational” but meaningless nonsense most people put on social media. We also haven’t made some simpering CliffCentral.com ad with piano music and quotes from spiritual leaders to pretend we care. We do care, and that’s why we haven’t stopped during lockdown - whether it’s my daily show or our award-winning podcast series. To those who have joined the podcast family because of lockdown, welcome! We hope you’ll stay, no matter what happens next.
Time to level with each other, ok?
You don’t have to prove you’re exercising at home during lockdown - we’ll know at the end when you roll out of your house if you did or not.
I believe you’re working from home. Thanks to all the holidays, April was a write-off anyway, so we were only expecting 50% from you. Don’t feel bad if you’re not the most productive person on Earth - you’re not.
You don’t need to post a screenshot of your Zoom calls to friends - I’m sure you have some. After this you’ll still be chatting on Zoom because there will be no restaurants, clubs, bars or events left to meet up at. Get some practice while it’s still en vogue.
Can you believe what this coronavirus outbreak is doing to us? It has everyone jumping, and in the midst of mass-hysteria toilet paper stockpiling and stock markets crashing, we should take stock of ourselves. Let’s take a sober, rational look at the madness that has taken hold in the last few days, all over the world...
Imagine being the responsible parent in a family where the other parent has spent every cent, saved nothing, borrowed against the house, taken on mountains of credit card debt and siphoned off whatever cash could be found to their lover and their children. That’s what Tito Mboweni has to manage...
Are you ready for the best decade in humanity’s history? No matter how much the news media, politicians, celebrities and climate change activists tell you we’re about to enter the gates of hell, we’re not. Things are pretty fantastic for humans...
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been called an optimist. I think the people who called me that didn’t mean it as a compliment. Throughout human history, the cynics, stoics and mystics had more respect than the optimists - but it turns out that history is on the side of those who have a generally positive view of their existence and the overall trend for humanity. 2019 has been the year of Greta Thunberg, Hong Kong, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jussie Smollett, Venezuela, Christchurch, Notre Dame and Jeffrey Epstein - so you’d be forgiven for thinking things aren’t great. But you’d be wrong… completely wrong.
Siya Sangweni (CliffCentral Brand Manager), Rina Broomberg (CliffCentral co-founder) and I were in New York last week for a series of meetings, a conference and some interesting experiences in the world of podcasting. It’s always reassuring to hear other people’s stories of pioneering their businesses and ideas in new media and to compare them to your own. You quickly realise that the distance between Johannesburg and New York is shorter than it has ever been - and that we’re having similar experiences, challenges and discovering clever solutions to the flux that all media businesses find themselves in...
People abuse the term ‘community’. A community is defined as “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.” It doesn’t mean the million things politicians want it to. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram talk about their community – but we’re certainly not in the same neighbourhood and we don’t have much in common (especially if you look at your feed on Twitter)...
Turns out we’re not just vapid and superficial. Turns out we want more than 280 characters. Turns out we like complex stories with lots of characters and plot lines. Turns out we like interviews where people talk about philosophy, life and meaning. Turns out we’re smarter than the media people thought.
For the last few years we’ve been told we’re in an attention economy. We are, but it isn’t for less and less - for soundbites and loud statements and #trending on Twitter - it’s for more. Marketers, pundits, speakers, writers and creatives want to make a difference, not just get your attention...
I remember the school run fondly. My mom would load me, my brother, and sister into the car and take us on the 30-minute drive to school. The journey had a familiar routine - passing by the same places, chatting and laughing. Someone else was always in the car though - the radio. There was a DJ cracking corny jokes at the same time every morning, making a predictable prank call, playing the number one song on the charts for that day (in 1992, it was Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’, which meant that we all had to hear that song every day for months, so that it was tattooed on the inside of our skulls and infected our dreams), and someone reading the news headlines. Those morning drives were the context for my teenage years...
Online media was in its infancy in South Africa when we made the giant leap from terrestrial radio to start CliffCentral.com. Podcasting was almost unknown in South Africa and the naysayers predicted failure. Now, five years later, podcasting is the fastest growing medium in America (70% growth year-on-year for the last three years according to Edison Research) and gathering momentum in South Africa.
We’ve been collaborating with Brain and Brand expert Timothy Maurice and actuary Ernest North to assess the qualitative and quantitative effect of podcast audiences – what makes it different, how it adds value to people’s lives and how it is becoming a powerful way to connect brands to listeners.
There aren’t a lot of ways we can still exercise our imaginations. So much of it is done for us now… great TV series like Game Of Thrones or movies like Lord Of The Rings do most of the imagining for us. People don’t read fiction like they used to (or they just don’t have the time to).
CliffCentral.com turned five on May 1st, a milestone for a small start-up that is now the leading podcaster in Africa. It’s amazing how quickly we incorporate new habits into our lives...
How do you measure podcast audiences? The existing metrics don’t make sense. Soon we'll be sharing some powerful thoughts and insights on why podcasting is different, and it won’t just be me talking - it will involve both actuarial and behavioural science. Before we go down another new road, and just ahead of CliffCentral.com's fifth birthday, I thought it might be interesting to talk about podcasting by numbers.
Should you vote? The truth is, I don’t know. That might sound surprising coming from someone who has always been a vocal supporter of democracy - so much so that for the last four elections I carried on like an unpaid employee of the Independent Electoral Commission, on radio, TV and in person...
They used to say that all roads led to Rome, but in the ancient world, you only knew how far you’d gone down the Appian Way out of Rome by checking the milestones - and venturing very far into hostile, uncivilised or unexplored territory was for madmen and exiles only...
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Everyone is now in the media business. Every business is now by default a content creator and every business also has an audience - clients, customers, suppliers, international partners and their competitors. The content you serve them can be specific, targeted and relevant (and it should be, to make an impact) and doesn’t need to be mainstream.
Imagine leaving your doctor after receiving the dreaded news that you have cancer. The sinking feeling, the anxiety, the loneliness of that moment. If it hasn’t happened to you, then chances are that it has happened to someone you know and love. Some people don’t have to imagine. It’s gut-wrenching, terrifying, too much to bear. But you don’t have to go through this alone.
Facebook just launched their first ever original podcast – Three and A Half Degrees – and if there was ever a moment podcasting became totally mainstream, this is it.
Nobody has time. Everyone you speak to is so busy - they’re busy at work, being parents, building their brand, changing the world and taking pictures of their food. The pressure is relentless. Most of us acknowledge that we have to eat right, do some exercise and keep up with the news, but how much time do you have to improve your mind?
An ex-radio DJ once said disparagingly to someone I know that "everyone and their dog has a podcast". I don’t think it was meant as a positive comment but that is what is so exciting about podcasting. Like social media, podcasting has opened up opportunities to interact and engage directly with friends, family and consumers.
In a world of constant and unrelenting media bombardment, our brains have to become really adept at prioritising, ranking and recognising the most important messaging. Every day, as close to you as your mobile screen, you’re faced with a stream of never-ending social media, pictures, video, branding, advertising, marketing, noise, updates, friend requests, WhatsApp messages, calendar invitations, podcasts, financial information, news, opinions, outrage and pressure to take it all in. It’s impossible. If you try to do all of this, all the time you’ll stress yourself out, develop a tumour, withdraw or give up completely.
The social media world is fast, complex and unforgiving. Many brands find themselves targeted, maligned and sometimes unwittingly embroiled in controversies which seem, at the time, damaging and unfair – and which can have dire consequences….
South Africa is starting to catch up! I read just yesterday that Jacaranda FM (and their parent company, Kagiso Media) have launched a podcast resource called Jacpod, and Primedia recently announced a collaboration with Triton Media, showing that the two biggest independent media companies see the rise of podcasting as an inevitable and exciting development in audio media. Having been at it for four years, we welcome them to the wonderful world of podcasts.
Social justice, for most people, is about equality, freedom, opportunity and fairness. That’s what they tell you, anyway. Most of us wouldn’t object to those things, except that equality usually means equal misery; freedom means mine not yours; opportunity means mine at your expense and fairness is so subjective that it’s personal. Other than that, they’re great ideals. What if social justice were a bit more practical?
I interviewed Dr Jordan B. Peterson last week. He’s a former professor at Harvard and professor of evolutionary psychology at Toronto University. He has become an internet celebrity because of the way he reasons away politically correct nonsense and espouses personal responsibility and self-worth, especially popular with disenchanted young men. Often an interview is interesting - just good conversation - but every now and then it becomes instructive and useful...
If you want thought leadership; meaningful interaction; a space to explain ideas, new products and positioning - if you want to appeal to the leading edge of the market, you simply cannot afford not to be involved with podcasting.
Gareth Cliff gives his thoughts on the 2018 Budget speech… and asks what government is cutting back on.
With the resignation of Jacob Zuma as President of South Africa, it leaves the door open to new beginnings.