Hosting a podcast won’t make you any money, but it can win you an award that you can sell to buy more microphones or whatever. On January 18, the podcasting world will come together for the inaugural iHeartRadio Podcast Awards, a 90-minute event to unfold at Los Angeles’ iHeartRadio Theater.
“Critical world-building, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends.” That’s what Friends At The Table promises, and week by week it delivers it in spades. While other actual play podcasts can get bogged down in game mechanics or just spend too much time goofing around, game master Austin Walker…
This BBC food journalism podcast travels to China as part of a broader series exploring eating disorders outside the context of a Western woman’s disease. Although there’s not an official record, it’s known that areas of China see the same prevalence of eating disorders as the U.S. and Europe. At the country’s sole…
The podcasters: “We’re a little obsessed with each other.” Actors and longtime friends Yeardley Smith (The Simpsons) and Zibby Allen (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) hang on each other’s every word, a built-in feature of their kinship that lends itself impeccably well to their true-crime podcast, Small Town Dicks. Alongside…
At first blush, this new narrative offering from Wondery looks like another in-depth tale of true crime. And while that’s sort of true, it also isn’t. Scandals need not be criminal to inflame society. Yes, the BALCO steroid mess of the early ’00s—painstakingly recounted in the show’s inaugural episode—eventually got…
Articles Of Interest, 99% Invisible’s six-part series looking at clothing from now until October 12, takes the best of its parent podcast and applies it to the world of what we wear. Digging deep into design, the first episode dissects the most often over-designed department-store staple: the clothing found in the…
Serial wasn’t the first breakthrough podcast, but its dig into the murder of high schooler Hae Min Lee certainly galvanized the true crime subsection of the industry, spawning a slew of podcasts that, to this day, continue to dominate the iTunes charts. Following an underwhelming second season that broadened its scope…
“In October of 2014, a white police officer fatally shot a black teenager on the streets of Chicago,” states the first line of 16 Shots’ description before expounding. Now almost 15 episodes in, the podcast (a collaboration between WBEZ Chicago and the Chicago Tribune) continues in that pattern, letting statements hit…
PG-rated internet thirst trap Matt Adlard has been baking up sugary designer confections on his YouTube channel as the Topless Baker for about two years now. In a Sisyphean twist of fate, the British social media star’s success as an amateur pâtissier disqualifies him from consideration as a contestant on The Great…
The podcasters: Journalist Bim Adewunmi and writer Nichole Perkins decided in mid-2017 to launch a podcast series dedicated to female thirst—one where so-called “thirst buckets” could enthusiastically and unabashedly gush about the gorgeous celebrities they desire, from A-listers to up-and-comers. Beyond being heaps…
Bitch Media editors Dahlia Balcazar and Amy Lam have an easy and playful chemistry. They kick off each episode of Backtalk arguing about things like the worst Mark Wahlberg film, yet they’re still able to tackle serious and complicated issues like the #MeToo movement when necessary. This episode finds them discussing…
In an oft-quoted Simpsons line, Adam West wondered why “Batman doesn’t dance anymore”—a nod to the way his wacky Batman show had been replaced by modern Batman stories that were all about darkness and misery. A group of Chicago-based Batman fans seem to have had a similar thought recently, but instead of bringing…
There is no shortage of podcasts relying on improv. Among those series that create off-the-cuff scenes and narratives, the fun is often less about the story and more about seeing what can be constructed in the moment, catching bursts of laughter when the players are entertaining themselves just as much as the…
Twice a month, Mary Kay McBrayer and Maegan Stone Brooks analyze horror movies “because no one wants to be scared alone. But no one wants to stop watching scary movies, either.” A literature professor and a behavioral therapist, respectively, McBrayer and Brooks apply serious lenses to the films they watch to…
It’s been a long, hot, Riverdale-less summer, but Dial M For Maple is here with a special treat: an interview with Tiera Skovbye, a.k.a. the mysterious Polly Cooper. While on a press tour for her new movie, Summer Of ’84, Tiera jumped on the phone with host Cameron Scheetz to discuss the future of the Cooper clan, the…
FriendsLikeUs has long been a gem of podcasting, providing women (and particularly women of color) a place to sit down and unapologetically discuss their lives in the world of comedy. These conversations are often quite frank, touching as much on the issues of the day as the minutiae of the stand-up scene and all with…
Few foods straddle the middle of the Venn diagram between “wholesome, pastoral staple of the American diet” and “hotly contested ethical minefield” quite like a glass of milk. According to culinary historian and journalist Mark Kurlansky, many of the nutritional and moral questions surrounding human consumption of…
Why allow yourself to be killed by spending a mere minute-plus watching a video, a la The Ring, when you could drag it out for the length of an entire podcast? That’s the exciting proposition of an upcoming movie that dares to ask the question, “Is anything more deadly than a shitty podcast?”
“Iconic” is a word people often use to describe the music of James Bond. Like the clothes, cars, and gadgets of the early films, John Barry’s original 1960s arrangements feel like immutable elements of the franchise’s titular character. It just isn’t Bond if you don’t hear that certain chord progression. In the second…
A Woman’s Smile could spawn a Literally Unbelievable Tumblr just as easily as The Onion did. It’s billed as a podcast where co-hosts Patti Harrison and Lorelei Ramirez “talk about, well, everything! But especially the gentle and kind nature of a woman’s smile,” a summary that exemplifies the tone—but it could be taken…
