Podcast Style Guide — CommSec Direction (Young, 2026-09-09)

Status: ACTIVE — applies to every daily episode from 09-09 onward.

What changed (Young's brief)

  • Old style: too number-heavy, stock codes everywhere, felt like a data read-out.
  • New style: conversation + news reading, like CommSec's morning direction. Numbers support the story; the story leads.
  • Company names, never stock codes. Say "Paladin" not "PDN", "Deep Yellow" not "DYL", "Boss Energy" not "BOE", "Tencent" not "0700".

Rules for the script writer (whoever drafts the daily episode)

  1. Lead each beat with a sentence a listener cares about. ("The rare-earths story is still running hot" — then the detail.) Not "NMG +5.0% on 41.9M".
  2. Company names only. Never a bare ticker. Never a bare number dump.
  3. Round the numbers. "roughly three per cent below its record high", "just over two per cent" — not 2.79%, not 41,913,772 shares.
  4. Percentages spoken naturally. "one and a half per cent", not "1.5%".
  5. Prices only when the story needs them. The index level yes ("just above nine thousand points"); individual share prices no.
  6. A stock's 52-week / moving-average context becomes a sentence, not a stat: "still below its long-term average, so the rally hasn't repaired the trend."
  7. Every section ends with a so-what ("the watch-list from here: …"). Never end on a raw figure.
  8. Two segments, as now: Morning Report (4 min) + Eve's Corner (1 min). Target total 4–5 min.
  9. Sign-off must stay: "general information only — not personal financial advice."
  10. Written for the ear. Short sentences. Read your draft aloud; if a breath can't carry it, split it.
  11. Every episode carries a story (Young, 09-09: "more natural and engaging with stories"):
    • Eve's Corner = one idea told through a daily-life analogy (garden, kitchen, seasons) — the garden/tree analogy from 09-09 is the benchmark
    • Morning Report: the biggest mover gets a why narrative (who's buying, who's selling, what it means) — not just the number
    • Bar: a listener who knows nothing about stocks should still follow and enjoy it

Pipeline facts (unchanged)

  • Script file: content/podcast-YYYYMMDD-script.md (date frontmatter required)
  • Renderer: python3 scripts/render_podcast.py content/podcast-<date>-script.md → public/podcast/episode-<date>.mp3
  • Voice: Edge TTS en-AU-NatashaNeural, rate +25% (brisk — keep, it suits the news-reader feel)
  • Serving: Nitro middleware reads from disk (Sol's fix), no rebuild needed
  • Stub guard: any episode under 400KB fails loudly — the new format naturally runs 1MB+

Reference example

content/podcast-20260909-script.md — the first episode in this style (3:08). Read it before drafting a new one.

Attribution

Style commissioned by Young 2026-09-09 (Spotify CommSec references supplied). First episode rendered by Mira. Min's daily chain adopts it from the next fire.