The familiar voice of Daniel Schlipf - better known as Daniel Danger - can be heard from the speakers. In his usual relaxed manner, the presenter talks about the NRW police force: How do I apply, how does the course work and what can I expect afterwards? But this time it's not a contribution from the presenter at the radio station 1Live. In his role as Commissioner Danger, he meets various guests together with police officer Michaela Laduch for one of Germany's first police podcasts.
"We observe everything that becomes a trend and see whether it is also suitable for our advertising measures," says Chief Superintendent Julian Kösters. This is how the recruiters at the State Office for Training, Further Education and Personnel Affairs (LAFP) of the NRW Police came up with the idea for their own podcast, i.e. a series of audio contributions.
First idea for a police NRW podcast back in 2018
The recruiters first had the idea back in 2018. "That was the time when the hype surrounding true crime podcasts began," says Kösters, referring to podcasts that deal with real crimes. The colleagues initially rejected the idea until it was brought up again at the end of 2019. "Podcasts were becoming increasingly popular and we wanted to bring our Youtube series with Inspector Danger to your ears," says Kösters, who is a big podcast fan himself.
One in five Germans now listens to podcasts occasionally. Sometimes it's about sport, sometimes politics and other times pure entertainment. Recruiters have recognized the potential and developed a target group-specific format to arouse the interest of potential applicants and to be present in their everyday lives: on social media, on YouTube, as a podcast or with outdoor advertising.
Daniel Danger, Michaela Laduch and the recruiters have recorded eleven episodes with very different topics and guests for the first season. They can be heard on all popular podcast services such as iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud or on the career page of the NRW police.
No script, no screenplay, no guidelines
The planning starts with the topic idea and the search for a guest. The guests are contacted a good month before the planned recording. Once this has been arranged, Kösters, Laduch and Daniel Danger work together to draw up a list of questions, which acts as a kind of safety net and allows the guests to prepare for the shoot - as there is no script, screenplay or guidelines.
"We want the interview to sound as if there is no microphone at all," says Kösters. And that worked for every episode. "We were very lucky to have such great and motivated guests." From Kösters' point of view, the format lives from the guests and how they share their experiences.
Second season of Commissioner Danger starts
The recording of the podcast episode, which ultimately lasts around 30 minutes, takes a good 90 minutes, including set-up and breakdown. But the podcast is far from finished. Schlipf, alias Daniel Danger, then works on the editing and sound for three to four days until everything is as it will ultimately be published.
The second season of the Inspector Danger podcast started on February 19, 2021. Listeners can once again look forward to a wide range of topics.
