Bit of a hullabaloo last Friday afternoon, when The Information’s Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel published a report stating that Apple is “discussing launching a new subscription service that would charge people to listen to podcasts, according to people familiar with the matter.” Dotan and Toonkel further report that talks are underway between Apple and […]

Last week, Pushkin Industries, the audio publishing company founded by Jacob Weisberg and Malcolm Gladwell, published what can be described as its first independently-produced audiobook. Called Hasta la Vista, America, it’s a short humor piece written by Kurt Andersen pegged to President Trump’s impending departure from the White House with the outgoing president being narrated […]

Today, the Vox Media Podcast Network is launching a new audio product called Vox Quick Hits, billed as “a daily morning podcast playlist.” The product takes the shape of a podcast feed that publishes three ten-minute episodes every day, with each installment sourced from a different subject area. Some of the episodes will be short […]

Selected Notes… Almost three years after Pocket Casts was acquired by a consortium of public radio organizations, the podcast app appears to be in the process of being sold off again. Current’s Tyler Falk has the report on this. Pour one out for WNYC’s Trump Inc, which ends its run this week as the Trump […]

Given the complete annihilation that 2020 brought to the very notion of future projections, I couldn’t help tensing up when I sat down to outline this preview column. But hey, there’s broader usefulness to the conceit of a preview column that goes beyond… well, just projecting ahead. It’s an opportunity to reset the frame, take […]

The tail of this story is still evolving. On Thursday, Radiolab published a note to listeners acknowledging the chatter surrounding Andy Mills, who had been a long-time staffer and who left the show five years ago. “We can’t change the past, but we can promise you that we are all holding this show, and each […]

Big week for letters. This morning (as in, just a few minute ago), a group of audio producers formerly employed by Condé Nast published an open letter sharing their experiences working for — and then getting laid off by — the media publishing group, which they characterize as having mismanaged the team. The letter begins: […]

The Hot Pod family has officially grown a little bigger. I’m excited to announce the newsletter’s newest regular contributor: Aria Bracci. She’s a freelance writer and producer based in Massachusetts, and she’ll be writing a story a week for the Tuesday letters in addition to taking over the paid Insider newsletter on Fridays starting next […]