Deborah Corn has transformed her successful podcast into Print FM Radio, the industry’s first 24/7 internet radio station
For years, Deborah Corn, the Intergalactic Ambassador to the Printerverse, has been a central figure in the global print community. Through Print Media Centr, she provides education and resources to professionals worldwide. She’s the Executive Director of the global nonprofit Girls Who Print, the founder of the customer education program Project Peacock, and the force behind International Print Day. Her ‘Podcasts from the Printerverse’ is listened to in 156 countries and has had more than 250,000 downloads.
Watch the full video below…
So, why launch a 24/7 radio station?
“As of last year, the podcasting lane got very crowded,” Deborah explains. “And not in a bad way, in a good way, because there was other great content out there. That is why I was really excited to bring everything together into one stream so that people don’t have to go digging around for things.”
The new station, Print FM, is a home for this content, giving a second life to a library of over 750 podcasts while also featuring new, live programming and content from other creators. “My goal is to be a true radio broadcaster and mostly do live shows. I collect industry news to do daily news reports. If there’s breaking news, I have the ability to call upon one of the many experts I know to help people understand how this might affect them. Because really, isn’t that all anybody really cares about at the end of the day?”
Getting the Community Involved
While the station is backed by launch sponsors Domtar and XMPie, Deborah’s vision is for a community-driven platform. The challenge, she admits, is reaching the printers on the shop floor who are busy getting jobs out the door.
“My hope is that this becomes a grassroots movement,” she says. “But I’m always about having a little fun, so one of the ways of enticing people is to offer them an opportunity to promote themselves.”
She has a raft of creative ideas to get people involved. “I want people to record a weird noise in their print shop. I’m going to play it and then see if anyone can guess what the machine is. I want to have cross-time-zone shout-outs and a ‘listener takeover’ where we let someone hijack the live broadcast for a day.”
This and many more creative ideas will be announced over the coming weeks and months.
An unbiased, international information channel
Everything Deborah does is international. “If you live in the Printerverse, you cover everything. This global perspective is central to the mission of Print FM Radio. “It’s very important to me that it is international and inclusive of everybody. I want opinions from other countries on that radio.”
Ultimately, the station is an extension of her core philosophy: to provide unfiltered information that empowers the industry.
“What do I sell? I sell attention. If somebody wants to give me their attention, I feel like I need to earn it. My primary motivation is how can this help you do something better? I want to create a place where printers, influencers, and print shops can hear about information in an unbiased way, and then make a decision for themselves whether it’s right for their business.”
She is adamant that Print FM Radio will not be a sales channel. “If you listen to my podcasts, one of my favourite expressions is, ‘With all due respect, I’m going to push back on that a little’. So, think of that as a promise to the audience. It is not going to be a sales channel; it is going to be an information channel.”
Live from the UK
This September, Deborah is bringing Print FM Radio to the UK, broadcasting live from The Print Show in Birmingham. “The Print Show has been incredible to work with,” she says. “They gave me a gorgeous space right next to their stand. I’m planning on interviewing people who work for the show, exhibitors, and attendees walking by. I am definitely popping over to the Sign Show too; I love the wide-format stuff.”
It’s an opportunity for the UK industry to get directly involved and for Deborah to connect with the community in person. “I’m not going to be running around the show that much, so I’m going to need people like you to come by and tell me what’s going on out there!”
For those wanting to tune in, the process is simple. “The current way is to go to printfmradio.com and the player is on the page. Just push play.”
Audio version of the interview here…
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