MY WEEK IN CARS PODCAST
FULL CHAT
Autocar’s My Week In Cars podcast is going from strength to strength. Steve Cropley looks back at how it all began – and where it might lead
PHOTOGR APHY MAX EDLESTON AND JACK HARRISON
Matt Prior and I worked together for 17 years before we ever spent as long as half an hour simply chatting. That’s how it goes with reporters. Most days you head off in a particular direction to find the source of a story while colleagues on different missions set different courses. Occasionally you’re together in cars, but even that’s rare. If two car journalists are involved in a project, there are usually two cars as well.
However, conversational life changed for Prior and me a little over a year ago. We started recording a weekly half-hour podcast, called My Week In Cars, and over the past year it has become established as a regular element among Autocar’s collection of multimedia offerings: printed magazine, website, video channel, other social outlets – and now pod. As we all know, one medium helps promote others. It’s an effect that has helped expand MWIC’s total of weekly downloads from 1600-odd in the beginning to around 5400 as this is written, 62 weeks later. Total downloads are homing in on 270,000, and we have hopes that the trajectory will continue. We’re currently number eight (down two) in the top 10 of UK motoring podcasts.