Hello, I’m Stilgherrian. Guess what? It’s time yet again to organise more special guest episodes of my inappropriate and often disturbing podcast for grown-ups The 9pm Edict and other projects.

I’m determined that the podcast should never have those terrible, badly-placed adverts. But that means I need income while I produce them. Thanks to you generous supporters, I’ve been able to do that for a few years now. Let’s continue, shall we?

Target One $2700 ACHIEVED: Four special guest episodes in March–May

The core of this project is a minimum batch of four podcasts. They’ll feature special guests to discuss what’s on their mind, current events, and whatever topics you choose for them — just like these sample episodes from The 9pm Summer Series 2023 that's wrapping up around the end of February. Warning: There’s often explicit content.

As an aside, the remaining guests for the summer series are Justin Warren, “consultant, freedom of information tragic, hexagon enthusiast, and creator of the CyberRating™ labelling scheme” (now posted as The 9pm Artificially Intelligent Millipede Menace with Justin Warren); Professor Johanna Weaver, head of the Tech Policy Design Centre at ANU and presenter of the podcast Tech Mirror: Reflecting on technology and society; and Scottish author and social researcher David F Porteous (now posted as The 9pm Extruded Cheese Snack of Destiny with David F Porteous).

There is also an episode with Snarky Platypus, including a lengthy conversation about the ABC TV political documentary Nemesis, now posted as The 9pm Nine Years of Nemesis and Chocolate Cake with Snarky Platypus. And an extra solo episode, The 9pm Cheap Booze Cheap AI Chocolate-Free Disappointment.

As for the autumn series, I’ve already started contacting potential guests. Once they’re pencilled in they’ll be listed here. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Previous guests have included writer and columnist John Birmingham, satirists Mark Humphries and Dan Ilic, space archaeologist Dr Alice Gorman and astrophysicist Rami Mandow, climate activist Ketan Joshi, antarctic geopolitics expert Dr Elizabeth Buchanan, cryptocurrency sceptic David Gerard, cartoonists Cathy Wilcox and Jon Kudelka, and science communicator Upulie Divisekera.

Just check out The 9pm Edict in your usual podcast app to see more.

Target Two $4000 CLOSE ENOUGH: Two more episodes, so six in all

Get us to Target Two and there will be two more of these excellent conversations. That’s six episodes through autumn!

Target Three: Stand by for details

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, right? That said, there could be more podcast episodes, some special livestreamed events, or even episodes of The 8pm Quiz video livestream. I’ll be asking you what you prefer.

A Note on the Timing

If starting the next campaign before the last one has delivered everything it promised seems a bit previous, as the phrase goes, well, I should mention the lag in the system. This autumn campaign will end on 7 March, and then it’s about 10 days before I receive the funds. It also means I can use the final episodes of the summer series to plug the campaign. There is method to the madness.

A Note on the Rewards

These are the standard rewards I offer for podcast projects. Further rewards may be added as the campaign progresses. Suggestions are welcome.

Everyone who pledges to support the project will also get access to a secret stash of photographs and other treats. The set-up of this trove is long overdue, but we’ll get there. Sure.

Your contributions will provide me with a net income of $2200 while producing those first four podcasts. Pozible’s fees, bank fees, and other administration costs take about 9% of any total funds raised. On top of that there’s 10% GST, which brings the total for Target One to $2700, rounded up.

The figures for Target Two are calculated the same way, with my net income being $3300 from the gross total of $4000. 

The Fine Print

All up, each regular episode of The 9pm Edict takes a little over a day to research, prepare, record, edit, and post. Based on the MEAA award rate for casual freelance journalists that's about $1100 per episode. As a casual rate, that includes allowances for superannuation, leave, and the like, as well as equipment costs.

I discount this figure by 30% to $770 per episode because some of the work involves copying and uploading files and other mechanical tasks, so I can do other things at the same time. And because I love you all, I discount it another 20% down to $550 per episode. Maybe I should stop doing that.

If you want to see my working, check the numbers (PDF). I’ll update this as we add more targets.