Daily news podcasts shined this year; Desi Stones and Bones creator interview and an assortment of 'Best of 2020' lists
A Reuters report explains how daily news podcasts succeeded in 2020. An interview with Anupama Chandrasekaran on how she makes archaeology sound interesting. A mixed bag of podcast recommendations.
Before the Covid19 pandemic hit, daily news was a podcast category I didn’t pay much attention to.
Yes, I would listen to a one-off episode of Guardian’s Today in Focus or BBC’s Global News Podcast, but nothing else. After the lockdowns, I noticed a change in my consumption of daily news podcasts. Indian Express’ 3 Things became a daily go-to podcast and it just helps that they also have regular explainers to put daily news in context.
Recently, I came across a Reuters Institute’s report on the Daily News podcast category. Even though the report focusses primarily on the western market with countries such as the US, the UK, Australia, France, Sweden and Denmark, it gives an interesting perspective on how Covid19 completely transformed this category.
Daily news podcasts make up less than 1% of all those produced but account for more than 10% of the overall downloads in the US and 9% in France and Australia
This stat is quite enlightening. In fact, the listenership of popular daily news podcasts such as NYT’s The Daily, Guardian’s Today in Focus and others is far higher than some of their legacy competition’s subscribers. To give a number, NYT’s The Daily has 4 million daily average downloads - that’s a huge number for a news podcast. Guardian’s Today in Focus has more listeners than its newspaper readers.
Daily news podcasts have significantly higher habit-forming potential than the news website or any other audience acquisition technique. Simply because you can have the news podcast in the background while you are getting some work done. This is different from interacting with the news site online or on TV, as it involves complete attention. Hell, even Apple launched a daily news podcast this year. It’s also a great way to get youngsters, who would otherwise not bother reading a newspaper, to keep in touch with the news.
Talking about home, I don’t know of many daily news podcasts apart from 3 Things. The thing I love about this podcast is that the host interviews reporters who have broken stories or done a deep analysis of a breaking story. Understanding issues through the perspective of beat reporters adds a lot more value than just news being read out by the host. Newslaundry does have a daily news podcast called Daily Dose. But I haven’t heard enough episodes to make an informed comment.
If you want to read the entire Reuters Institute report, head here.
Podcaster in Focus: Anpama Chandrasekaran
Podcast: Desi Stones and Bones
Desi Stones and Bones is a podcast whose storytelling format had me hooked from the first episode.
Amid the many interview-format podcasts, it was nice to listen to an independently produced narrative podcast. I had recommended the podcast in an earlier newsletter.
Reported and produced by the one-woman team, Anupama Chandrasekaran, Desi Stones and Bones is a labour of love. You can tell that when you look at the site which not just has the podcast episodes but illustrations, text and photos to make the listening experience even richer. The focus on India’s natural history is what makes this podcast stand out.
What made you select this niche of archaeology and palaeontology for Desi Stones and Bones?
As a business journalist, I was tired of the quid pro quo nature of meeting people at press conferences and pursuing that kind of stories. I wanted to do something meaningful with my time. I happened to read Pranay Lal’s book Indica and once even managed to interact with him. It really did something to me, talking to him and getting a sense of how sometimes people dedicate their whole life to studying a field, besides their vocation. It answered questions such as what was India? What are the fossils found in India? How did India break away from Gondwana and ended up in the northern hemisphere? It felt like this is the kind of pursuit one must have.
I had to tell their story, and more than that, I wanted to know more about this. I was quite grateful that they were willing to talk to me and take me with them to their field. There are many stories to be told about how archaeologists found important digs.
This is a vast subject area. Your podcast episodes span a wide spectrum, so how do you organise it?
This is not a fixed-format podcast. The idea is that this is a podcast on archaeology and palaeontology and I will produce the stories that I am able to produce. By that I mean: I get the right people to talk to and I can afford to travel to the right places. I really don’t know what is the common thread, I hope it will emerge eventually. I have received overtures to write a book, but it’s too early to say anything. I need to put in at least five years of work in this area. It is possible that the stories appear random but I find it difficult to chalk out how the podcast episodes will play out. This is also a reason why I have refrained from marketing my podcast as well.
Each of your episodes has scenic sounds and mandates you to be outdoors. With the lockdown in place since February, do you think your plans for the year’s recordings have been disrupted due to Covid19 enforced lockdowns?
No, actually I had finished all my recordings for the year. I travelled in November last year for a story I am working on currently, then I took another long trip in February. I just have to follow up with scientists remotely to see what they are up to. I have enough stories which I still need to produce, so I am not worried on that front. I have a few other backup recordings that I have done from the field thanks to my absolutely slow pace of work. That has helped me.
What are your thoughts on the Indian podcasting industry and where it’s headed?
I just feel it’s a bubble. I have serious doubts about podcasts being a thriving business…
This is just a tiny segment. To read the complete interview, head here
Important developments globally
In the last newsletter, I had pointed to speculation about Apple being interested in buying out Wondery. It turns out, Amazon is already in advanced talks to purchase Wondery for $300 mn. As I had said earlier, it makes perfect sense for someone like an Amazon or Apple to buy Wondery as they have interests in TV/film content. Wondery, which has over 150 shows, a few of which have already been adapted (Homecoming, Dirty John) could give Amazon just the right ammo for future adaptations. I don’t know if buying the podcast maker would automatically transfer adaptation rights to Amazon as Apple TV+ is adapting the podcast WeCrashed.
Considering Amazon is investing in expanding its podcast portfolio and already has a product such as Audible Suno - it would just make it really easy for the audience if Amazon slotted podcasts under a Podcast-specific service rather than bundling it under Amazon Music or Audible.
A few days ago, I woke up to everyone on my Instagram timeline sharing what music they had listened to, which artists they had streamed the most, how many new artists they had discovered and more in their Stories. A little digging revealed that Spotify had unveiled its 2020 Wrapped in a wonderful “Story” type format on its mobile app. You could see your major Spotify highlights focussed on music as well as podcasts, played against the backdrop of some music you may have heard over the year. It was a nice way to end the year for Spotify enthusiasts. Want to guess which podcast was number 1 on Spotify? The Joe Rogan Experience, of course. Spotify Wrapped also gives you an idea of the granularity of data collection on your listening habits. Head here to know your Spotify Wrapped if you haven’t already checked it out.
Spotify also released its 2020 Podcast Hall of Fame which ranks the most popular episodes that were streamed on it. The Case of the Missing Hit from Reply All, an absolute gem of an episode, was showing at the top for me. Additionally, for podcast creators, there was 2020 Wrapped for Podcasters, which would give podcasters a shareable card showing some key podcast statistics.
At the start of the last month of the year, Apple announces its ‘best of’ across all its platforms such as iOS, macOS, tvOS, iPadOS and so on. This year, it also showed some love to podcasts, and even awarded NPR’s Code Switch podcast, the inaugural Best Show of the Year. You can find the complete list of US award-winning podcasts here.
This American Life is an institution if you want to learn how great audio stories are told. Every episode is aurally stimulating and you definitely take away some societal lesson. It’s the podcast that spun off Serial, Nice White Parents, S-Town and has one Pulitzer award to its credit. It’s always there in the top 5 podcasts anywhere you look. This story looks at the 25-year journey of This American Life which started off as a live radio show and then made the shift to the podcast medium. It is the podcast that gave the world a new form of telling stories.
Netflix is testing an audio-only mode for its Android users in what seems like a quest to attract the podcasting audience. This mode lets you turn off the video and just listen to the audio of a series or a movie. It is also enabling audio description mode which reads out what is happening on the screen. I am not surprised Netflix is trying this, as many of its shows and documentaries could translate well as just audio - letting viewers/listeners stay connected to the app while they’re getting some work done.
Indian podcast in focus
Advertising is Dead
This is a conversational podcast hosted by the co-founder of creative media agency The Glitch, Varun Duggirala. Advertising, marketing, social media and related topics are the subjects of discussion and conversations focus on how modern society influences them. Every episode has a theme based on the expert being interviewed. Advertising and marketing aren’t subjects that I am naturally drawn to, but the easy to follow conversations makes listening about these topics interesting. But there are a lot of interviews with media personalities that I quite like.
For me, the guest being interviewed determines if I will listen to the episode. I haven’t heard all of the 100 plus episodes.
Some of the episodes of Advertising is Dead that I liked:
The Evolution of Journalism feat. Faye D’Souza
Sustainability, Community Building & Commerce feat. Dhimant Parekh
Building a Career With Comedy as a Foundation feat. Varun Thakur
International Podcasts for the fortnight
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an important watchdog which keeps an eye on tech companies. To quote from their About page, “EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development.” Take up any globally-relevant data privacy and civil liberty issue in the last many years, and chances are that EFF has weighed in. How to fix the internet is a six-episode series which tackles six key pain points of modern internet culture. While it’s US-specific, EFF hosts scratch beyond the surface on issues such as facial recognition legislations, right to privacy, surveillance mechanisms adapted by governments, digital rights management, anti-competitive behaviour of Big Tech companies and more.
Wondery has been in the news for the last few weeks, as it looks for a new buyer and right now Amazon is rumoured to be in talks to buy it. The compelling proposition of all of Wondery podcasts is their limited episode shows which are brilliantly produced. A few Wondery original podcasts have even been adapted into TV shows. WeCrashed is currently being adapted by AppleTV+.
The fall of WeWork was all over the media last year, especially because of its insane valuation that was speculated. This podcast goes behind the scenes interviewing former WeWork employees, talking about the god-complex-afflicted WeWork founder Adam Neumann, how Softbank gave WeWork just the economic boost it needed to go crazy and how it paid the price eventually. ‘Fake it till you make it’ is Silicon Valley philosophy that explains the mind-boggling valuation numbers of some startups, which on the surface may not seem that valuable. WeCrashed chronicles how Neumann used that mantra to create ‘a community’ whose foundation was a lot of hubris. In 6 episodes you get a very good idea of what went wrong with WeWork.
If you like watching wildlife documentaries, you will like this podcast. Set in the Pacific Northwest in the US, Morgan takes you on an aural journey of the wild in every episode. The focus is to explore natural ecosystems, wildlife and the stakeholders who are working hard to protect it. The podcast is currently on a break and will resume in February, but that still leaves you with enough content to listen through. The wildlife soundscape is an underlying motif in every episode which complements the narration beautifully. The last two episodes which just focus on natural sounds are wonderfully done and I have fallen asleep to these episodes on more than a few occasions.
Given the end of the year is fast approaching, I came across a lot of Best of 2020 podcast lists. Here are a few of my favourite ones, with most of them featuring international English language podcasts (for the most part). For regular readers of Indian Podcasting, a lot of the podcasts will be familiar:
That’s all for this week’s newsletter. As always, it would be great to hear your feedback. Till then, have a great week ahead and happy listening. If you liked this issue, do consider sharing. If you didn’t like it, please feel free to let me know.
Before I leave, I would like to thank each and every one of you who have subscribed to this newsletter. Please do consider sharing it with your friends who would like to know about new podcasts to listen to.
I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and very happy 2021.