Earlier this month, I noticed something strange on the iTunes podcast charts: a bunch of shows I’d never seen before were in the top spots, even pushing “The Joe Rogan Experience” out of the top 20. Others noticed, too. A day or so later, everything went back to roughly the way it was before, leaving […]

We’re exactly two Hot Pod issues out from the midterm elections here in these United States, and I was curious about how different news and/or political podcast teams were thinking through coverage. Here’s a sample of what I’ve learned: Crooked Media. The progressive media company has been experimenting with podcast advertising technology to help out […]

This week I got in touch with Renay Richardson, an independent producer in London who worked at some big audio companies before going solo just over a year ago. She has produced the UK hits About Race (with the author Reni Eddo-Lodge) and The Receipts on 1Xtra (more on that here). Here, she talks about […]

Happier with Gretchen Rubin, once a Panoply show, is moving to Cadence13. Its “Onward Project” podcast imprint goes with it. Speaking of Cadence13, Entercom Communications, which purchased a 45% stake in the podcast company last August, is apparently launching a political podcast featuring former Trump white house press secretary Sean Spicer. Interestingly enough, one of […]

Two seemingly conflicting ideas can be true at the same time. Here’s the first idea, which doubts a line of speculation I’ve been seeing a lot lately: Panoply’s divestment from the content business tells us relatively little about the future of the podcast business at Slate, its sister company under the Graham Holdings family. Here’s […]

How real is reality, really, when it’s captured on a microphone, edited extensively, and then bundled with narration before being presented to the listener? That’s the Big Question prompted by The Brights, a new British podcast launching this week that presents itself as part of a curious sounding genre: “structured reality.” Behind the production is […]