Melbourne Podtours were a co-production between ABC Radio 774 and Professor May, with four students on fieldwork placements from the Public History program (Lauren Girardi, Belyndy Rowe, Ember Parkin, and Eden Cox). The three tours—“Eat, Drink Melbourne”, “Showbiz, Sexy Spectacles and Sideshows”, and “Death, Dirt and Disease”—took advantage of the Cultural History Unit’s research capabilities and the ABC’s production, storytelling and marketing expertise. Melbourne Podtours were targeted at locals as well as tourists interested in the stories of the city. Each audio tour combines script, interview and archival elements organised around a theme. The tours take about an hour and a half to walk, although the total length of the audio may be shorter than that. Narrators Derek Guille, Stephanie Alexander, Jon Faine, Red Symons and Myf Warhurst guide listeners through the sights, sounds and smells of Melbourne town with free audio tours that can be downloaded to an MP3 player. A route map is also available as a downloadable PDF. In the first two months of the launch, the podtours were downloaded over 15,000 times. “A l’écoute de Melbourne”, an adaptation of the “Eat, Drink Melbourne” Podtour, was produced by Philippe Vallantin and Diane de Saint Léger and co-funded by the French Embassy, the Association of French Teachers in Victoria, and the University of Melbourne.

Eat, Drink Melbourne

• Eatdrink

Showbiz, Sexy Spectacles and Sideshows

• Showbiz

Death, Dirt and Disease

• Dirt

 

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