🥁All whoa all the time 📚 crimes in publishing 👄 secrets secrets 🐯 Calvin & Tinker Bell 🧚 The Hand of God ⚽️
🍭 👂 You're in for a treat! 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour!
Today is Monday, August 22. There are 44 days until I go on my next Disney Cruise. In case this email is too long, juicy true crime where nobody dies (yet) here, why Calvin and Tinker Bell are icons here, I beg you to listen to this.
xoxo lp
ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
James Cridland
James Cridland is the editor of Podnews and co-host of Podland News. Follow him on Twitter here. Follow Podnews on Twitter here. Follow Podland News on Twitter here.
How was Podnews different when you started it?
I started Podnews after a chat with a friend in a bar in Los Angeles. I was there for a radio conference, and he was asking me about the world of podcasting and where I got my news about podcasting - when I got home, I thought back about that conversation and realised there might be a bit of an opportunity (I've written newsletters before, and have been involved in podcasting for a long time).
The first edition, on May 30 2017, is still on the site - there were far fewer stories in those days, and I appear to have had a very staccato way of writing!
Podcasting has certainly grown up as an industry since 2017 - and has certainly changed since 2005, when I wrote my first RSS feed. There is, of course, a lot more money in the industry now, and we have a lot more data and information. It is, also, significantly more popular as a medium: which gives us all opportunities.
Any memorable pitches you care to share with us?
My address is on the website, and occasionally people send me things, which is a good way to help me remember them. I got a strange package including a police badge from one podcast, and I seem to own far too many randomly-branded t-shirts. The downside is that Australia, where I live, is a long way away: and so it normally takes six weeks for things to get to me, by which time the podcast has launched and people think I’m rude for not covering it...!
I've written a full article on the kind of pitches I like. The most important thing is to send a picture. You'd be surprised how few people do that. Tip: Podnews has a big picture every day, normally promoting the top story. If you want to be the top story, send a picture.
How is podcasting in Australia different than it is in the US?
I think there's a feeling in the US that the country is incredibly far ahead on everything and the rest of the world doesn't matter: certainly that's the case in radio, and I get the feeling that for podcasting, there's a similar thought. I think that's a bit of a mistake.
The podcast industry in Europe is growing incredibly fast. France has been experimenting with podcast subscriptions, especially around audio fiction, for rather longer than the US - and has learnt a lot doing it. Places like Sweden and the Netherlands have incredibly high listening numbers: partially because almost everyone there speaks English, so they have a great choice of content both locally and from other countries.
In Asia, places like Singapore and South Korea are still dominated by reheated radio shows, and I think the presence of those in the charts is a good indication that the market in those countries has a fair way to grow. I'm helping organise Radiodays Asia in early September in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and look forward to learning more about local markets there.
And Australia? I'm also helping organise the Sydney part of Podcast Day 24, so I'm quite into the Australian podcast market at the moment. We've a strong public service broadcaster here, but also strong commercial broadcasters and indie producers too, and I find the quality of the podcasts being made here are very strong. Podcasting here is more popular, by some counts, than the US, too.
What’s a podcast you love that not enough people know about?
There's this amazing podcast about this guy who's in prison for killing a girl, except he might not have killed the girl, except he might have done, and it's amazing, you should take a listen, it's called Serial. Have you heard of it? It's amazing. Why is nobody talking about this podcast?
Other than that - I loved a podcast about my home town of Brisbane, called "Brisbane is Weird". I keep trying to get them to make more episodes, and while it's now fallen off Apple Podcasts for some reason, it's still available on some other podcast apps and worth a listen.
And finally, the surreal comic sketch show The John Dredge Nothing To Do With Anything Show, which if you're a fan of Monty Python (the funny bits of Monty Python, not the unfunny bits) then you'll love.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
I think I have been waiting for Missing Pages my entire life. Each week, Bethanne Patrick brings us intriguing, DISHY stories that are pulled from the wacky publishing world and lean heavily on true crime. (No murders just yet, but there have only been three episodes.) Ever since I left publishing I have relied on my friends still there to keep me updated on this stuff. Publishing, like podcasting, is a tiny insular world with enough drama for a bottomless bowl of popcorn. The difference is that it’s been around forever. These cuts are deep. The first episode explores the darkness of the book The Woman in the Window (a book I read in an acquisitions meeting before it was published) and the second is even more compelling—a young woman is the pawn in a plagiarism scandal that sparks a conversation about book packaging. (The young woman, now a full-blown adult, is interviewed to share her story, and TBH she probably could be a guest on the other podcast I’m loving, Media Circus—the story is that wild.)
oh hey.
✨I’m going to Podcast Movement this week! Come say hi to me and Arielle. We’ll have a surprise for you if you do.
✨LA Weekly has named DCP’s Chris Colbert’s Entrepreneur Struggle one of The Best Business Podcasts.
✨I’ve been writing for Lifehacker—see my articles on advice podcasts, podcasts for people who love food, short podcasts to make your day better, podcasts for gamers, and more. See them all here.
✨Sign up for Pod the North, Kattie Laur’s new newsletter for the Canadian podcast community.
✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted My Mother Made Me in her newsletter and podcast.
💎BTW💎
🎙️Love and Radio, which has been freed from the Luminary paywall, is dropping some beautiful episodes you may have missed if you weren’t a Luminary subscriber. More good news: the show’s The Secrets Hotline series has found its own home, where you will hear intimate (often semi-whispered) confessions about the things people are too afraid to share with people they know. (Things like: admitting to daydreaming of killing your dad to a beautiful mind wandering about not being afraid to die.) It’s very good listening. Secret-tellers are getting things off their chests, and listeners feel a little less weird, a little less alone in the world. The Secrets Hotline has always felt like a special, safe space, and now it’s even more special. Listen here.
🎙️I have already written about You Are What You Love, a podcast that celebrates our unbridled joy for things in media that have made us who we are, and the fandoms we are part of. Host Marissa Tandon interviewed me about Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) and Tinker Bell. I learned so much about myself talking to Marissa about why and how these characters who have formed who we are as a person (it truly felt like a therapy session) but also about what it means to be a fan of something and be proud of it, how lucky it is to have something in your life you love, no matter how dorky (or how cool—Tinker Bell is COOL) that may be. Marissa also offers an argument for why Disney princesses are not corrupting our youth, which I truly appreciated, and an ethical quandary at the end that had me flipping back and forth, and will give you something to think about. Listen here.
🎙️I’m starting to think of Shameless Acquisition Target as my litmus test. If you’re not listening and you’re reading this newsletter, which you are, I want you to take a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror because I don’t think you could truly care about the podcast industry. A recent episode has Laura tracing the podcast to TV pipeline strategy, arguing that it’s not a strategy at all, and completely ignores podcast listeners and doesn’t even try to bring in new ones. And I underlined this with my ears. To fix this, it’s going to take people paying podcasts for the podcasts as they are, and also a lot of giving a shit, which Laura is doing as she entertains us with this interactive audio adventure. Listen here.
🎙️Lemonada is the cheerful-looking podcast network (full of someone of my favorite people on the planet) that puts out some of the hardest stuff you’ll hear—gut-wrenching stories about gun violence, suicide, and the opioid crisis—with a careful, respectful approach that ends up making you feel like you’re in a group hug instead of feeling forlorn. Death Sex and Money had a great episode about the new suicide hotline 988, which felt like a bomb drop to me. Why had this taken so long, how will it change our mental health system, and are we ready for it? Oh my god! Helmed by Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Lemonada’s new series Call for Help is taking time to answer those questions with the help of Zak Williams, Robin Williams’ son. It’s appropriate. Stephanie’s brother, whom she lost to a heroin overdose (she beautifully documented his story in Last Day) was a comedian, like Robin. Lemonada always does the hard work, Zak has dedicated his life to this topic, so it’s a perfect alignment that might make for difficult listening but is kind of storytelling that can move us all forward. That’s pretty unique. Listen here.
🎙️In November 2022 we will see our 22nd World Cup Games, and over the next few months, The Ringer will be telling the stories of the 22 best goals in World Cup history for the storytelling podcast (not sports podcast) 22 Goals. Host Brian Phillips’s thesis statement is that sports make us feel things, and each episode offers an answer to the question: why? It’s very passionate storytelling (Brian is as obsessive about soccer as a four-year-old going through a hardcore train phase.) His enthusiasm is contagious. The show itself is a bit over written and packed with too-many mediocre jokes (something I notice with a lot of shows from The Ringer) and at times I feel like Brian is trying to sell me soccer like he’s an evangelical selling me Christianity. But I was moved and surprised to hear the details of Diego Maradona’s 1986 Hand of God goal, and I thought the episode on Cristiano Ronaldo was particularly strong. (The story of the Hand of God goal took so long and went down so many side streets that I was becoming impatient.) Brian takes us through the plays to make us feel like we’re watching, and gives the full context so we can understand why these goals were even more incredible than they appear at first glance. My husband is a huge soccer fan, and he loved the show, too. Listen here.
🎙️The Hand of God goal took place in 1986, and so did a bunch of other stuff, apparently, One Year has launched with a new season hosted by Josh Levin that documents the moments in 1986 that shaped the decade’s politics, culture, science, politics, culture, science, and religion, and our today. Depending who you are, these are stories you have forgotten about or didn’t even know about. For episode one Josh talked to Isiah Thomas about his “No Crime Day” plan that set out to stop all crime in “murder capital of the world” Detroit for 24 hours. Sure, it was unrealistic goal, and technically a failure. (Four people, including a policeman, were slain, there were 11 non-fatal shootings and stabbings, and you just know someone lifted something from a bodega.) But it sparked a conversation about the goodness of Detroit and its people, what can happen when people care to shoot for the stars, and the solutions required to “fix” a city. Listen here.
🎙️If you’ve been following along, you know why my sole mission in life right now is to get everyone to listen to In Your Hands—I’ll say it, the best new show of 2022. (And I launched a show in 2022.) TLDR: On the show, I won the opportunity to market it for one month, and the entire Tink team is going balls to the wall to getting it into people’s ears. (I read a pitch letter written by Arielle that nearly brought me to tears.) So this is a very meta thing that is taking over my life, much like how In Your Hands takes over Lizzy’s life. Thanks to James Cridland and Michal Stein for covering it, Spotify for featuring it, and many of you for listening to it. JOIN THE MOVEMENT. Just call me Joanie Diamonds. (If you get that joke, email me and I will Venmo you $1.) Listen here.
🎙️Demi Lovato has released a pop punk-inspired album, and on Switched on Pop, Charlie and producer Reanna Cruz break it down with an analysis of the songs’ DNA that is both beautiful and mathematical. This is a trip back to the late 90’s and early 2000’s for a session on pop-punk, what exactly it is, and how Demi uses bright, relentless drums and plenty of whoa whoa whoas (think Offspring’s “The Kids Aren’t Alright”) to play tribute to it in tracks like “Skin of My Teeth” and “Substance.” Once you hear Charlie and Reanna’s diagnosis of Holy Fvck (and a parade of songs like Blink 182’s “Dysentery Gary,” Yellow Card’s “Ocean Avenue,” and NOFX’s “Whoa on the Whoas,”) you can’t unlearn it, and you’ll never listen to pop punk in the same way again. Listen here.
🎙️The year is 2023, Brad Pitt is 71, malls are called “lifestyle centers,”there is a new disease called “fineness,” which stops people from caring about anything, and friends Benji and Jacob are going through some stuff. Benji has cancer is attending a bootcamp to end his suffering, Jacob at his side. The beautifully produced show is about their friendship and the boot camp, but I was getting real Severance vibes. There’s something shady about the camp—technology and surveillance are fucking with human nature. I’m three episodes in, and I am not quite sure why Benji is really there. The podcast The End Up has my attention. Listen here.
🎙️Corked, a true-crime fiction (yes, that’s a thing!) tells the story of a stereotypical Louisianan bumpkin who drags an investigative journalist into his search for his ex-friend, brash winemaker named Lyle (Jon Gabrus) with a fishy past and missing sommelier girlfriend. Sound familiar? It’s clearly a direct spoof of S-Town, so closely related if you were drunk you might think you were listening to S-Town. In Corked, Jeffers is an attempt at an exaggerated John from S-Town, a character who, even with a writers-room full of comedians, can not possibly be topped. But Corked tries. The dialogue is fast-paced and witty…slow it down to catch all the jokes. Lots of great voice talent. (Mary Holland, Betsy Sodaro, Natalie Palamides, Whitmer Thomas.) Corked is entertaining, and a can’t miss if you’re interested to see what a comedic version of one of the best podcasts of all time sounds like. Listen here.
🎙️On Deux/U, the anonymous creator of the pop culture and entertainment news IG account @deuxmoi gives extensive analysis on the most popular and controversial posts from the account. Fed Up is Wondery’s exposé on Tanya Suckerbrot’s F-Factor Diet, and the influencer, Emily Gellis, who is trying to take Tayna down. Emily is currently being sued by Tanya for slandering Tanya’s brand, and came on Deux/U to dig even deeper in the story, offering some behind-the-scenes information about what went into making the show. (Some may be dismayed to hear how little Emily knows about podcasting.) Listen to that here. Emily was also on I’m Sorry to talk about the podcast and try to figure out why people are so invested in this story. Two good pieces if you can’t get enough of Fed Up. Listen here.
🎙️I love you!
This week we’re getting to peek into the listening life of Joyy Norris, a Chicago born and reared freelance creative and writer. Her work is influenced by her identity as a Black American woman invested in discovering solutions to the issues that plague society through art, conversation and imagination. She finds value in these pursuits through the dynamic and effective forms of documentary film and podcasting. Producing stories on heritage, personal enrichment and just chatting it up through an agency-driven lens, defines her work in media.
The app you use to listen: Mainly Apple Podcasts. I may be biased because the app was already on my phone when I first started listening to podcasts more than a decade ago, however, the interface is undeniably intuitive and the algorithm works in my favor a majority of the time.
What speed do you listen to podcasts? 1x is the only way I can listen to podcasts. I love that feeling of being in the room while a thrilling story, or enthralling conversation is going down. The intimacy of my favorite hosts vibing as their authentic selves and on the topics that they’re passionate about, is what I’m in it for. It's wild to me that people who listen for pleasure would listen at faster speeds.
How do you discover new shows? Word of mouth and other podcasts. So many pods are connected by common producers or production studios that want the word on all these projects to spread like wildfire. And typically it works to the benefit of all listeners.
One show you love that everybody loves. This is difficult but…I love The Read with Crissle and Kid Fury and know so many who love it too. They truly speak without a filter and capture the collective sentiment of the week, in just the best way possible. They say what we all want to say without the fear of recourse or judgment. A cathartic listen every time.
One show you love that most people don't know about. This is Uncomfortable with Reema Kharis produced by Marketplace. All the conversations we work to avoid on finances, relationships and internal reflection are explored weekly on this pod with a warm yet unflinching approach. Everyone needs to listen to this podcast, it's going to make you feel a helluva lot better on where you are in life because (collectively) SAME!
Anything else you want to say…Podcasting is a wonder in this modern age of hot takes in the name of getting attention and sponsorship. For every show in service to the selfish needs of those behind it, are an abundance of shows that are truly engaging listeners to consider perspectives outside of their comfort zones that inspire others to ignite thoughtful conversation. The stories, experiences and knowledge shared in so many episodes, gives me hope that change can happen through purposeful and honest discussions that encompass the many invaluable voices that are often unheard.
