[custom_adv] Hamid Shabkhiz is an actor and producer, known for Banished (2007) and Delusive Dreams (2005). [custom_adv] Before you get any fancy ideas of becoming the next best thing since Zach Galifianakis bought two ferns and invited the President of the United States to sit between them, you need to do some introspection and determine whether you have what it takes to be a talk show host. [custom_adv] This carries over from that big fluffy sentence in the last paragraph of the previous section. All that stuff about “foundational knowledge of the craft.” What we mean by this is take some classes in video and television production. These days, production classes are available at nearly any community college and there likely are tons of private classes at camera rental facilities, public access television networks – even online. This base knowledge of how to construct a show, design a set, pace the program, set your cameras, light the guests and so forth will allow you to build something that’s both unique to your sensibilities and professional to anyone who discovers it. [custom_adv] You know you’ve got the chops, you understand how to produce your dream, now just develop the idea. And in this instance, let’s have that mean the entire show. Everything we cover in How To Start Your Own Talk Show. What the format will be, who the guests will be, if it’s traditional or if it’s something entirely new and different. Once you have all those pieces together, it’s time to start fitting the format into something that will play well on the web. [custom_adv] If you choose to produce a talk show that follows a traditional format of various guests and topics, more than likely, your show will get lost in the clutter. Viewers of online talk shows tend to consume video content the same way they consume podcasts or blogs or other online content: specific to their specialized interests. [custom_adv] Comic book fans might watch Pete’s Basement, for example. If you do decide to be more general, consider producing episodes with specific themes. Table Talk does a great job of this. Each episode has a specific theme, like time travel or worst food experience or 90s TV. Table Talk often includes a few topics per show, to give it variety, but these specific topics help viewers find their content. [custom_adv] Whether it’s YouTube, Vimeo or your own personalized website – even Facebook, Vine or Twitter – decide where you’ll host your show. And by that, we mean plant a flag in the ground and call all your followers there. While you’ll likely want to post your show in several places and share links on social media, you want to give viewers a place they can always find you. A home base, if you will, where they can learn about upcoming shows, guests and so forth. [custom_adv] For a lot of people, this may be the biggest hurdle. To produce a talk show, you have to know how to get that idea from page to set to screen. The screen part means picking the right video equipment and knowing exactly how to use it. Sure, you’ll become an expert as you go, but you have to get over the beginner phase if you want to produce something people are going to watch.