Welcome to the second Working Hours podcast Newsletter. This newsletter is designed to keep you informed and up to date about the Working Hours project.

Working Hours is the oral history podcast about a place called Leeds, a time called now and activity called work.

Need to get in touch with the show? Email workinghourspod@western-studios.com

only 200 free Episodes

As you can see from the headline or as you know if you been listening to the outros of the recent episodes of Working Hours, there’s been a HUGE change to the target for Working Hours episodes.

It’s true, I’m pulling the plug on the next 5 years and the next 800 episodes of this show.

Not because I want to, but because I have to.

I’ve spent £12,490.22 on the project in five years just to get to 175 episodes and that’s without paying myself for any labour. I’ve been through a lot in those five years (who hasn’t). However, I finally have to admit defeat. The way I am doing this, isn’t working.

I have done at least a thousand hours (and then loads more) of unpaid labour on this project. The original idea was to get a thousand one-hour recordings so this seems as good a point as any to throw in the towel. I’ve gone as far as I can with paying for all of this.

I can’t market the show effectively while also doing everything else for it and I can’t afford to pay someone to market the show for me because the show runs at a loss. Without the marketing for it I don’t get the listens, without the listens I can’t build the audience to a viable level where it can be monetised.     

• I know this show is viable – it gets listeners and it has had donations
• I know I can make this show – I’ve done it already 175 times including publishing two episodes a week and also publishing 4 video episodes just over the last few weeks.
• I know how I can make the show better – improve recordings and sound, have more marketing to grow the listener base.
• I know that I have been unable to give this show what it needs – I have had to focus on quantity as that’s what the original idea required, but the show itself needs more time given to its episodes, to guest acquisition and to marketing.

I don’t have the resources for this show that I need.

I don’t have the time, energy or desire to market the show as it needs to be marketed. I don’t have the financial resources to keep paying for the show. I don’t have the energy to keep making it for free. I don’t have any space left in my head to think about this anymore.

I cannot increase the production value or regularise production without investment. I therefore need either regular income, a bunch of capital or to charge people for their episodes in order for Working Hours to continue.

It’s not over yet though.

We’ve still got a way to go before hitting 200 episodes and we still need to find 18 more guests to fill up the free slots and we still need to pay for several more months of costs just to get us there.

If you can do anything to help Working Hours to get to 200 episodes, in any way that you can, it will be absolutely massive for me and it will be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Simon Treen – Creator and host. August 2025

175 Published Episodes of Working Hours

Art work for episode 175 of Working Hours podcast starring Michael Guy

Working Hours is now up to 175 episodes and is currently sitting at 6,191 total and 3,591 unique downloads. There’s been 10 new episodes published since Newsletter No.1 and four of them were also published as video episodes to YouTube and Spotify.

Did you listen to them all? If you need to catch up on any episodes you’ve missed click this link: Working Hours podcast website. All published episodes of the Leeds social history podcast about work, in one place.

Fancy being a guest on the show? If you live, work or were born in an LS postcode you can be the guest on Working Hours.

Remember there’s only 18 free spots left to record for Working Hours before we hit our 200 episodes’ target. Get in touch now to secure your place.

Email workinghourspod@western-studios.com and let us know the best time for us to arrange a couple of hours with you.

Please, indicate whether you want to record online or in person.

Working Hours on YouTube

Don’t forget Working Hours is also available on YouTube and video episodes are published to Spotify and YouTube.

Did you catch the new YouTube episodes?

We started the run with writer and PR wizz Claire Kenny. Then we had comedian and teacher Micky P Kerr. This was followed by well-being wonder and fellow Leeds YouTuber Emma Longbottom. Next up was artist and former mental health worker Jack Hurley, then to finish off the run of 2025 YouTube episodes we had former mental health worker turned self employed therapist Candice Waldie.

Congratulations to Micky for being the first guy) to give it a go.

If you’d like to be a guest on the show then don’t forget to max out the value of it by having a YouTube video version too. Get in touch today.

Remember there’s only 18 free episodes of the show left to take advantage of your free podcast episode about what you do and to make some history.

Get in touch now to get your free YouTube and Spotify video interview.

Want to do something that’s free and super nice to do for Working Hours right now? It’s really easy and costs you nothing and it’s super helpful for the show.

Hop on over to the Working Hours YouTube channel and hit subscribe!

Already subscribed? Just hop over there and share or like a video then!

It’ll really really helps, just click the link to go to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@workinghourspodcast4618

Thank you so much. That’s honestly a massive help.

Money, Money, Money.

If you follow the show closely, you know that funding for Working Hours is nearly non-existent. It has always been a struggle to find the money to cover our costs but, we’ve managed to do it for these five years, largely all on our own.

Unfortunately, we can’t do this anymore.

If you can help this project financially either with a donation, a regular membership payment, buying ad space on the show or even by buying something from Western Studios Leeds then please do.

Or if you know someone who has money to spend but doesn’t know where to spend it, please send them my way.

The easiest way to donate to Working Hours and help the show is to visit the show’s website and click the donate button on the Captivate episode player. That will take you to our Kofi page. You can donate any amount you want to the show there, as long as it’s more than three quid or you can provide Working Hours with a monthly donation of just a pound by buying your Working Hours supporter membership there.

Click here to go to Kofi now: https://ko-fi.com/workinghours

If you can give £20 a month to the show you will being paying for a month’s worth of audio hosting for Working Hours or for its web, phone and email costs for the month. £20 pays for a month of YouTube audiograms or for Working Hours’ SquadCast and Descript access.

Each of these are needed and used to make the show and they all need to be paid for.

£111 pounds a month will basically cover all those costs. Which is why it’s on the Patreon as a membership tier. That’s right. One person could just cover the monthly non-labour expenses of this show with just one Patreon membership. That’s why they get the shout outs, because they’re basically going to be a producer on the show.

There’s three choices of Patreon memberships so supporters of Working Hours can help me pay towards the show’s running costs and help me to hit those 200 episodes.

Patreon memberships start at £6 for Loiners and £10 for non Loiners.

For those who can afford it there’s also the Valued Active Listener tier we mentioned above. This tier is for the serious listener. They can easily afford to support the show and want to help keep it going. I’d only need to sell three or four of these memberships to make the show much more viable for me to keep making it.

I could, maybe, get out an episode a week for a minimum of £450 quid month.

For a bit at least.

Anyway, if you enjoy the show and you can help it out then you should.

You can check out memberships at: https://www.patreon.com/c/workinghourspod/membership

And you can browse Working Hours sponsorships, ad rates and franchise opportunities on the Patreon shop: https://www.patreon.com/c/workinghourspod/membership

If you can help me pay for any of these costs, especially while I have no work and no income that would really help me out and enable me to spend my time on getting interviews recorded and on publishing the banked recordings instead of looking for stupid jobs.

If I can get these costs covered that would take the pressure off and help me to keep the show on the air. It’ll help to ensure that the next episodes can be made and that I still have somewhere to publish to when they’re ready.

If I could find members, donors, sponsors, advertisers or just any good Samaritans to pay for these costs that would free me up to press on and see how many more historic episodes of Working Hours we could make with your added support.

Your support will help episodes be released in a timely manner and be of the best quality possible.

Working Hours Episode 201+

Going beyond 200 episodes of Working Hours I need to be paid for each episode.

I can’t make these for free anymore but, I would be happy to make them at cost. As long as someone is paying me for my time at the rate I’m asking for, I don’t have a problem with making this show. I love the show. But I just can’t go on like this.

It’s editing these episodes for free.

At the scale and pace the show needs you can’t do it for free and for fun. I really resent all the unpaid work I need to do for this show. It’s too much and I’m burnt out and I need a massive holiday.

So, going forward I need to cover the interview costs too.

£60 for in person audio recordings (2hrs @£30) or £80 (2hrs @40) for video recordings and then at least double that for editing (£120 for the audio and £160 for video) per episode. So, you’d be looking at £180 for audio recordings and £240 for video, which is still super cheap.

People have often talked about giving something back on Working Hours, well I’ve just given to Leeds for five years of free work, twelve and a half grand and 175 podcast episodes. So, now it’s Leeds’ turn to give something back to me.

Thanks for reading issue two of the Working Hours Newsletter. Sign up to stay up to date on released episodes, upcoming shows and all the news about Working Hours. Make sure you’re subscribed via the website western-studios.com.

Need to get in touch with the show? Email workinghourspod@western-studios.com