Listen to These Podcasts to Get Ready for Global Voices

There is just one week to go until the International Women’s Podcast Festival 2024! One of the best and most unique things about this festival is how the word ‘international’ is truly accurate. The Global Voices stage of the festival is a chance to join in from anywhere in the world for an online series of panels, discussions and workshops from podcasters across the globe.

We believe that it is important to amplify what is happening in global podcasting. Not only is it a chance to learn from other professionals who might have different approaches, but it is a chance to hear stories from around the world. It opens up our own experience as listeners, and as podcasters we can find out different techniques, preferences for styles and ideas for creating our own unique shows.

We’re sharing some recommendations from our Global Voices speakers so that you can find out more about their work before you watch them at our Online Festival this year.

I LIKE NETWORKING

One show from our speakers that could be particularly useful before coming along to the International Women’s Podcast Festival is Isabel Sachs’ I LIKE NETWORKING. Isabel is an entrepreneur and public speaker with over eighteen years of experience in the creative industries, and her podcast is an extension of her networking program for women and non-binary people in that space. Speaking to experts from design, fashion, visual arts, and theatre, unpacking how they have designed their careers and sharing advice on how you can actually enjoy networking. If you want a podcast that will make you feel confident no matter what room you walk into, this one is a good choice. Isabel will be hosting the Sports Podcasting Panel on our Global Voices Stage. Listen to I LIKE NETWORKING here.

KABRAZEN

The KaBrazen podcast from the LAM Sisterhood is a children’s podcast that reimagines the stories of beautifully brazen women from Africa. We’ve written before about the value of creating podcasts in multiple languages, and this show creates every episode in both English and Kiswahili. In both versions, the host Auntie Shishi gives space for the listener to get involved, practising pronunciations of names and sing along. Whilst this is a podcast aimed at children, there is so much in this show for adult listeners – the music and sounds are wonderfully integrated, and whilst there is joy in the stories, they don’t shy away from some sad contexts at times. Two seasons are currently available of the show, which won the APVA Award for Best Children’s Podcast 2023. Aleya Kassam from The LAM Sisterhood is speaking on the Audio Drama and Storytelling Panel at this year’s Global Voices stage. Listen to KaBrazen here.

DOPE LABS

A podcast that received endorsements from notable figures including former First Lady Michelle Obama, Dope Labs was a Spotify Studios podcast created by MegaOhm Media. Its mission was to bring out the inner scientist in their listeners and being hosted by two best friends (and very dope scientists), Titi and Zakiya, there is a good balance of buddy-pod in there too. Dope Labs explored the idea of scientific principles in an engaging and relatable way (which is why we asked Zakiya to host an online workshop about turning boring facts into engaging podcasts!). The show covered a vast range of topics by using cultural touchstones as starting points, such as Mothers Day to look at maternal healthcare, or the Tinder Swindler as a starting point to explain cybersecurity. Sadly the podcast is no longer active, but the topics are still relevant and worth rediscovering. Listen to Dope Labs here.

CASEFILE PRESENTS TROUBLED WATERS

“I’m still worried about all the things in Australia that could kill you…” I like to think that this offhand comment from one of the contributors in this true crime podcast was put in because of the irony. It is true that many people from the UK looking in on Australia are concerned with the wildlife, but this show is focused on more malicious deaths. Troubled Waters is a new ten-part series from Casefile. The second podcast by Julia Robson, a Melbourne based Investigator, it explores the tragic and mysterious death of a young woman in 2011. Louisa Ioannidis was only 24 when her body was discovered in a local creek by passers-by (one of whom uttered the above passing comment). Her death was concluded to have ‘no suspicious circumstances’ but for Louisa’s family and friends, the circumstances surrounding how or why she came to be in the creek – in her dressing gown – have never been satisfactorily explained. Julia is speaking on the Investigative Podcasts Panel. Listen to Troubled Waters here.

BLOODLINES

Bloodlines is a joint production between BBC Asian Network, BBC Sounds and CBC, and that collaboration of resources, viewpoints and storylines may be part of what made this an multi-award winning investigative podcast. Another factor is no-doubt Poonam Taneja who is the host and reporter of Bloodlines. This podcast considers the aftermath of the war against the Islamic State, and asks – what became of the children of IS fighters? In particular, Poonam is tracking the story of two-year-old Salmaan, who disappeared in Syria in 2011. In London, his grandfather is still desperately searching for answers, and Poonam’s reporting takes her into dangerous territory to find out what happened to Salmaan and thousands of children like him. As an investigative journalist Poonam has reported from Syria, Afghanistan, Bosnia, India and many more countries and she is hosting our Investigative Podcasts Panel on the Global Voices stage. Listen to Bloodlines here.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROAD

For those wanting a little bit of light-hearted horror (especially at this time of the year) Slaughterhouse Road by Sydney-based writer and producer Jess Hamilton is my new go-to recommendation. Self-styled as “an australiana romantic horror musical podcast” we get perfect pacing between the dulcet narration from Jess and the comedic-noir of the songs. With lyrics such as “there’s nothing in the world like the sound of a cow’s last moo” (from a tune in the first episode that apparently evolved from a very funny jam with mates) the comedy is dark, and the romance is honey-sweet – a phrase that makes sense when you start listening! Jess is speaking on the Audio Drama and Storytelling Panel alongside Ella Watts and Aleya Kassam. Listen to Slaughterhouse Road here.

PLUS MANY MORE!
  • One of the Content is Queen podcast picks of 2023, Black Earth Podcast sees environmental leader, Marion Atieno Osieyo, celebrating nature and black women leaders in the environmental movement. Marion is speaking on the Activism for Podcasters Panel alongside Youmna El Sayed and Attika Choudhary.
  • Wheel It Up F1 features three friends Simone, Chanise and Anita who love F1 and each race week they bring listeners race reviews, F1 gossip, opinions, banter and a whole lot of laughs. Simone is talking on our Sports Podcasting Panel alongside Suzy Wrack, Viviane Favery Costa and Isabel Sachs.
  • Mo! Sibyl is a Nigerian-born, US-educated, Korean-speaking, self-described “Struggling Intellectual”. The More Sibyl Podcast is about culture and culture nomads designed for Black listeners and Asian listeners – and those who love them.
  • The MTB PASS GREGARIO podcast is an interview program all about mountain biking. It’s hosted by Viviane Favery, a two-time Brazilian champion mountain bike athlete, commentator for Red Bull TV and panellist on our Sports Podcasting panel.

This is still just a taste of the incredible audio that our speakers have created! You can listen to podcasts from all speakers from London event and Global Voices over on our Spotify playlist.

We’re thrilled to share that this year our Global Voices online festival sessions will be free to access as part of the International Women’s Podcast Festival on 4th October. Head to festival.contentisqueen.org to see the stellar programme we’ve lined up for you or grab those tickets now.

Meet Bea Duncan: Comfort and Communities in Audio

Many people with their ear to the ground in the podcast industry will be familiar with Bea Duncan’s work. As an award winning creative, producer, and sound designer, she’s led production on some highly acclaimed and awarded shows, including Anthems for Broccoli Productions, Power Lines with The Kyiv Independent, and Who Robs A Banksy for Podimo UK. It’s this type of work that has made her a nominee for Producer of the Year at the Audio Production Awards in 2023, and has listed her as both a Radio Academy 30 under 30 and a PodPod ‘One To Watch’.

But Bea is also working within the audio industry on initiatives for inclusion that don’t come with awards, such as the Entry Level Audio Network (ELAN), which she co-founded to be a safe, supportive, network space for anyone who self-identifies as being entry level. “That’s a really important part of it,” she tells us. “You could be trying to break into the industry having just graduated or you could have worked in another industry for 20 years, or you’ve been in the industry for five years but still don’t feel like you’ve got that secure footing. If you feel like you need that support, then ELAN’s for you”.

Francesca Turauskis sat down with her to talk about the difficulties there are entering the audio industry, the importance of nurturing entry level producers, and how the power for change doesn’t only lie in the decisions made at company level.

FT: When did you know that you wanted to work in audio?

BD: I always knew that I would thrive in a creative job of some kind and I discovered podcasts when I was about sixteen. [It would have been] 2012 or 2013, and I remember sneaking off to the back of my school library with my iPod Classic, when I was supposed to be doing revision or something, listening to the latest episode of something that I would’ve downloaded manually on iTunes.

My first memories of podcasting were intimate moments alone with my headphones in, and I remember being very inspired by the range of what was possible with audio. I listened to Welcome to Night Vale a lot, a show called Philosophy Bites and there was a comedy chatty podcast called If I Were You, which was the first podcast from what eventually became Head Gum. Then, like a lot of people, a few years later it was Serial.

I found the possibilities of storytelling really fascinating. It felt like people were really innovating and it was a new artistic space for people to try new things, which was incredible. Also, the ability to create something very stimulating just with one sense, which still keeps you hanging as much as a television show or film.

I don’t think I realised that could be a job – I don’t know how possible it would’ve been at that point, it wouldn’t have been the same level of industry we have now. I went to university instead and did philosophy, but I joined my student radio station. I’m really grateful for those first few years of audio purely as a hobby because I could try so many different formats and start to understand what kind of audio storyteller I wanted to be.

FT: So when did you get your first job in audio and realise it could be a career?

BD: It was probably after a few years there that I was like, “oh wow, I actually could make a career out of this”. I was the deputy station manager of the [university] station and that was probably a full-time job – an unpaid one. I probably spent more time doing that than my actual degree.
When I left university, I did a lot of community radio, a lot of my own podcast projects. I did any course I could find, I was really trying very hard to get into the industry. My first actual, paid job was an independent radio station as a freelance assistant producer and I was doing a bunch of other random freelance shifts anywhere that I could get any sort of audio work.

Throughout that entire time I wanted to make the move into podcasting and my first podcasting job was as an AP [Assistant Producer] on a BBC Sounds podcast with – at that point, a brand new company – Broccoli Productions, which very quickly turned into a full-time job. That was the first time that I actually felt settled and secure in the audio industry. That was two and a half years after entering and I remember so vividly that feeling of relief of “I’m on the right track now”.

FT: You co-founded the Entry Level Audio Network (ELAN) around that time in 2019, which is about networking with your peers. What was it about your own experience that you decided ELAN was needed?

BD: It really came from a frustration about the experiences I’d had in my first few years and things that I’d seen with other people. There wasn’t a space to express those frustrations or to help someone else who might be in a similar position. Unpaid internships were rife, even the paid entry level jobs were not enough to live on – which is probably still the case now. The radio station that I worked at paid something wild like £50 a day to basically be a studio producer, so I had a heap of other jobs on the side. I even fed pigs at an urban farm!

To be frank, the work environment was not very good. I actually left the audio industry entirely for a few months between that job and joining Broccoli because I was burnt out and completely lacking in confidence – which is crazy and not normal after being in an industry for two years.

I can only look back now and realise what a bad environment that was for somebody who was just trying to get a foot in the door. I just wish that there had been somebody there to tell me “that rate is not normal, the treatment is not normal”.

At the time, I also felt quite out of place in spaces that were for audio professionals because I felt so low in confidence that I didn’t feel confident saying “I’m an audio producer”. I saw people getting their heads bitten off for asking really simple questions that I also wanted the answers to. So I decided to start ELAN and I wanted it to be a place where anything goes – ‘stupid questions’, asking advice about the industry, a place to connect and make friends as well, which is really lovely.

FT: How many people do you have in the group now?

BD: Many hundreds. I want to say 600? We’re on Facebook because Facebook was big in 2019, and there’s still people joining every day. I honestly did not think that it was going to get to the size that it is now. I truly thought there’d be ten people in a group meeting up for a drink every now and then, so clearly it was something that was very, very needed.

I run it with a wonderful producer, Tess Davidson, and we now also have a small team of entry level people. It’s actually really lovely because the people who joined when I first started the group are now my peers in the industry and I’ve seen them succeed. They’ve become the next generation of audio talent.

There’s still a huge amount to be done and we are still a tiny team of volunteers with absolutely no funding but we have grand plans that we’re trying to enact.

FT: That peer-to-peer support is obviously needed. How do you think companies can better support entry level audio professionals?

BD: To be honest, I really don’t see many audio companies who are genuinely serious about fostering junior talent. Our group is full to the brim with the most eager, hungry and talented creators that I’ve ever seen who just can’t find work. It’s heartbreaking because I feel like I’m letting them down even though I know I’m not. But I want to be able to give people jobs.

It’s such a tired phrase, but if companies wanted to, they would. And so if I was being facetious the number one thing that I would say for companies to better support entry level talent is: just want to. Just commit.

If I was going to be serious, it would be: jobs and pay. Actual entry level jobs where you don’t need experience and you should just be able to enjoy podcasting and be creative and have ideas. I think that would be really great. What I do see is a lot of poorly paid ‘entry level’ jobs that have the requirements of a producer level or seem to require degrees in audio production masters. I would love to see more people take a chance on entry-level freelancers too.

Obviously if companies were serious about improving accessibility, then we need jobs to be higher paid, they can’t be wages that were good enough five years ago. I would love to see companies seeking out fresh talent – whether that be making well-paid apprenticeships for a year, or putting on courses for people for free. The Entry Level Audio Network is just full of people who don’t even know where to go to apply for jobs, or they have applied for many, many jobs and they don’t feel like they can get a look in.

There are a couple of companies where I see good initiatives, but I just genuinely think it’s as simple as hiring actual entry level staff members and nurturing them. Those people will reward you as well. I’m somebody who was given an opportunity when I had never had a podcasting job before and then I was nurtured and I stayed at that company for a really long time.

FT: I agree with you, we do know what the answers are. So perhaps the more appropriate question is – what do you think is stopping companies from just doing it?

BD: You’ve written about it, it’s not just entry level, there are problems at every level of production right now with stagnant wages and with mistreatments. Budgets for shows are getting smaller, timelines are getting smaller. I think when every hour is money, companies just really want people who are going to take on a job for less money and deliver it in half the time. I think that’s all it is and I wish I could say something more than “stop doing that”.

FT: You’ve had a lot of recognition for the work that you’ve done. You’ve got 30 Under 30 from the Radio Academy, you’ve had award-winning shows and you mentioned Broccoli took a little bit of a punt on you and they nurtured you. What kind of things could companies be getting by nurturing this talent?

BD: I think dedication is one. If people feel nurtured by a company, they’re going to stay for a long time and everyone knows that it costs more to rehire somebody than it does to keep someone on. Not that I would usually think that way, but speaking the company’s language, that’s just a fact.

Those things that you mentioned, obviously I’m proud of those, but they’re not the markers of success for me. The work that got those achievements was what I’m proud of. That’s the stuff that the company would get: you’re going to get perspectives. If you help somebody and give them the opportunity to just try and fail – but they might try and succeed or they just keep getting better.

Yeah, you will also get acclaim and you can help young producers get a new producer award or whatever it might be. But the actual markers of success are in the work that gets made. We talk about diversifying the industry, and I think a lot of people think about that as lip service and “how does it look?” And it’s not about that. It’s about perspectives. We work in the business of storytelling and how are you supposed to get the thousands of millions of perspectives of human life from around the globe without having that many perspectives in an industry? If you are only able to get one particular perspective, it’s just going to make a very dull and boring industry.

FT: We’ve talked about what companies can do, but for individuals you’re running the Power of the Producer panel as part of the International Women’s Podcast Festival. What is it about that producer dynamic that is important to you?

BD: For a long time I’ve been thinking about the fact that as producers, the work we do, no matter what it is that we’re making, is always political. It’s not neutral. I think that people assume they have to be making current affairs programmes or documentaries or news content for it to be political, but that’s not the case. The places we choose to work or the topics that we cover or the guests that we book, the behaviour that we might witness at our workplaces that we don’t stand up against – all of that is important and feeds into the wider issues that we see in the industry.

I think about the Equality In Audio Pact, which was something that Broccoli Productions created as a kind-of ‘call to arms’ for the industry in 2020. There were a lot of large companies who it was interesting and important that we wanted them to sign. I saw a lot of people almost kind of going, “oh, well my company has signed this. That’s me done”. And they were still making the choice to appear on panels that weren’t representative, for example, or they were still making content that didn’t align with the values that I knew they had. That was interesting and I kind of felt we’ve all got a choice in this life.

At the same time, I’ve seen a lot of parts of our industry become very obsessed with commercial success and money. It’s just where we’re at at the moment with arts and with funding and all of the above. I don’t think it’s necessarily any one person’s fault, but I do think that I’ve had it where I’m having to make a programme in a specific amount of time because that’s what budgets will allow, and it means that it’s rushed and that the level of due diligence or care is not able to be given because it just physically can’t be.

It leads to contributors maybe feeling like they aren’t being valued in the process or a whole host of other things. So I am really interested to be having this discussion because I think it’s something that we maybe don’t talk about enough. It does feel sometimes, there’s that struggle of individualism versus the system. But I also think it’s about what we feel comfortable with on a day-to-day basis and we do have the ability to stand up for what’s right and we have the ability to say no to things, and we have the ability to make changes. Especially for producers who work pretty much alone or have a lot of autonomy in the work they do.

There’s a lot of different strands to the discussion, but that’s why it’s very important to me. I think it’s very important that we don’t just hold our hand up and go like, “well, the industry’s like this” because we’re taking the power away from ourselves when we have a lot of power to begin with.

FT: I feel like this is something that you’re going to go into in the panel, but do you have a top tip for making your contributors comfortable?

BD: The number one thing is just to be human. I think it’s always important to just remind yourself every single day that a contributor is doing you a favour by even speaking to you. They don’t have to make a podcast about something that’s happened to them, and it’s your duty to tell their story correctly, and that should be the number one thing that you’re thinking about.

Just always be asking them what they want. Do they want to be in a studio? Do they want to be at home because that makes them feel more comfortable? I’ve had it before where I’ve given somebody a recorder and just said, “I’m not even going to be there. You just say something into a microphone and then I will take that and turn that into a voiceover so that you don’t have to sit in a studio with a bunch of people you don’t know”. Never forget the contributor or the person giving you the story is the one in the driving seat. It’s not you, it’s never you. So you have to just make sure that they’re as comfortable as possible. It is never your content, ever.

I’d really recommend Jess Shane’s series, Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative for anyone who’s interested in examining their relationship to their work. That really put into practise a lot of the things that I’ve been thinking about over the years.

If you want to learn more about the power dynamics to consider when producing podcasts, Bea will be hosting the Power of the Producer Panel at this year’s International Women’s Podcast Festival on 4th October 2024. Tickets are on sale now.

Meet Hiwote Getaneh: Developing Unique Podcasts

Hiwote Getaneh is an audio producer whose curiosity about human-centered and emotion-driven storytelling has led her to work on some of the most critically recognised podcasts of recent years. As part of the team working on Where Should We Begin? and How’s Work? with Esther Perel, Hiwote is used to creating shows that rely on sharing parts of people that are often private.

Her passion for intimate storytelling is clear – In This is Dating, she even went as far as to put her own life in front on listeners for the sake of the story – but she says her skill for this can be traced back to her training in the field of public policy, where Hiwote worked for years as a Senior Research Analyst.

Francesca Turauskis hopped on a call with her to talk about transferring her skills in public policy to podcasts, podcasting cultures across international borders, and how to create a truly unique and intimate show…

Francesca: You have a background in public policy, how did you move into podcasting?

Hiwote: I was at Johns Hopkins studying public policy and health finance. Hopkins is really well known in the healthcare world, so I was like, “I’m so sure this is the path I’m going to go down.”

But I remember sitting in the classroom on my very first day in my master’s program, and I was like, “I’m in the wrong place, this is not where I’m supposed to be.” Over the two years of getting my masters, I was basically looking for creative outlets the entire time. When I graduated, the work I started doing was a policy analyst, and I realized “there’s no way this is gonna be the rest of my life”.

So I started interviewing people about how they created lives that they felt were fulfilling because my life did not feel fulfilling. That was actually my first foray into podcasting, because it was such a low barrier to entry in terms of just getting started to interview people.

Over the course of creating that podcast where I was interviewing people about how they created these incredible lives, I was like, “wait, I’m having a lot of fun creating this show”. That was the first indication that maybe this is the path I need to go down.

FT: It sounds like podcasting was the way you were trying to figure stuff out, but then the podcast became the thing that you figured out?

HG: That’s exactly right. Even now, I identify much more as a storyteller first and then podcasting grew on me. The medium of audio became something where I really appreciated the intimacy in a way that I couldn’t get on video, couldn’t get through writing. So I just kept going deeper and deeper on that front.

FT: Does your Public Policy background help you as a producer, is it something you’re still able to bring into your current role?

HG: When I worked in public policy, I was a policy analyst tech and what that technically means is: I was a statistical programmer. It’s the process of programming large data sets, and it means you have to learn how to break something really big into its smallest parts, or work backwards from where you want to get, to what you currently have. We would get [for example] mother’s birth data from all over a state and then try to link it with our sample sizes. That is actually intricately linked to what I do on a day-to-day basis because that’s what storytelling is, right?

You have this big picture idea, but really the things we connect to are these small moments, these emotions. They are the characters. Those are the building blocks to the stories and the pictures that we eventually end up having in our heads with someone when we’re listening to someone’s podcast. In that way [podcasting and policy analysis] feel really intricately linked.

In a much more explicit way, I’ve worked on a podcast with the Gates Foundation, which just happened to be what I did my research on during my master’s program. So there are some very direct, literal links, but to me, the more interesting part is that as a statistical programmer, I learned to think creatively. Even though I didn’t make that connection until way later, that same skill set is what I use as a storyteller.

FT: You were able to build your expertise and your connection to the Gates Foundation into producing a show – was a podcast something that you pitched to them or was that something that you were recommended because you had those expertise?

HG: At the time I was working for a company called Magnificent Noise, it was a production house, and they had been talking to the Gates Foundation about making a podcast with them. I just happened to be the easiest producer to pick because I had that background, so I didn’t really have to pitch myself. It just felt really evident that the show [Make Me Care About] would be a natural fit for me.

FT: So, just lean into things that you’re good at and lean into that knowledge?

HG: Yeah. I spent a lot of time being like, “am I glad I took out American student loans to get a master’s..?” It’s hard to look back and think about whether, actually, could you do what you’re doing now without the background that you have? You will never know that answer, right? But I think about it a lot because my career is entirely different than what I ever imagined it to be. I’m a child of immigrants, I thought I was going to go to med school. That didn’t happen, which is why I went into public policy, because I was like, “this is a serious job, I will be a serious person”.

Now I tell stories for my living and my family still wonders what I do!

FT: You mentioned being a child of immigrants, and you’ve lived in ‘several corners of the world’, as you’ve described it. Do you have much of a view on how podcasting in the UK or the US differs to other countries?

HG: I know the US market really well, but I don’t know a ton about podcasting in the UK to be honest with you because I’m based in Lisbon – I want to be upfront about that. What I have noticed is American culture, the same way it’s exported in music, and then sports and arts, is so widely exported to the rest of the world. I notice that lots of folks think the American shows that are the most famous shows we see on Apple Podcasts – the shows that are constantly charting – are the standard. But I’ve just found so many cool shows based in different parts of the world that I’m like “the Americans don’t know about this!”.

I wish we had the collective power to share what is being created in different corners of the world. I know there are a bunch of very cool shows that have come out of the UK, but when I went to Nairobi I met podcast producers and podcast houses there that were really interesting. They had shows that had concepts and a basis that I never really thought about. So my big noticing is that we Americans do a really good job of marketing and I almost wish we could take that skill set and share it with the rest of the world, instead of just the product [the podcasts] that we end up sharing.

FT: A show you worked on, This Is Dating, was one of those international successes and for good reason as it was quite unique. What was the process of developing that show?

HG: Well, it was [Executive Producer] Jesse Baker who was really the mastermind behind it. A similar show that the same producers made is called, Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel and in terms of concept, they share a DNA. We had this idea that with online dating, you’re super superficial and it’s incredibly emotionally draining because you feel like a commodity and you’re kind of commodifying the people that you’re swiping on. The concept behind this show was “how do we go to the total opposite end and center connection first?”.

What was super interesting and super hard was – people really wanted to be vulnerable and share their stories and actually experience this kind of scary experience, but also they were terrified that the world would know who they were. So for the first season, I basically found people through my network and a big part of the promise [to contributors] from our end was, “It’s not about you meeting the love of your life… but we have a great dating coach and can provide some questions and the right structures for this hour you are together. You’re going to have fun and then you can decide whether you’re going to keep dating them or not. Only if you feel like this is going to be fun and beneficial for you should you do this.”.

The actual dates were created in that way that slowed the whole [dating] process down and so the process for us as producers also required that we slowed down and thought a lot about ‘if we’re creating a place of intimacy between these two strangers, how do we create intimacy between us and our listeners that allows them to come on the journey with us?’

The date’s are anywhere from an hour to two hours long, but you end up hearing maybe 15 minutes of that date. That was the hardest part about developing the show – finding the people was super easy and fun, convincing them was a thing we did very carefully because we didn’t want to push anybody into doing it. But actually shaping the story, we had to spend a lot of time thinking about what our audience cares about and how we insert ourselves as guides, or ‘dating fairy godmothers’ so that it wasn’t about us.

But also, we have to insert some parts of ourselves, especially me because I was the only producer that was dating. How much of my story I would share versus not was a big thing that we talked about a lot.

FT: Do you think that you’ve got the right balance?

HG: I always feel like I never quite get that balance right. [But we’ll talk about it more in our panel!]

FT: Lastly, you run an Emerging Voice Accelerator programme about helping people to create shows that are unique to them. Would you have a number one tip for developing an idea that is unique to you?

HG: The biggest thing that’s been sitting with me is this idea of creative resilience. I think that most of us don’t create shows that are unique to us, because we have an idea in our heads of what we want to make, but our skill level is not there yet.

My learning is that the only way to fill that gap is to develop creative resilience. [What I mean by this is] continue to stay with it until you actually find your voice, continue to pivot and experiment with your ideas until your ideas feel truly unique to you.

My learning is actually nine times out of ten, whatever you create is not going to be that unique to you. It’s not going to be that good yet. Even when professionals are doing it, it’s not always going to be good at first. The difference between what pros do and what I used to do as an amateur is that pros just keep going and they keep iterating and they do it with other people’s input. They keep sharing it. Maybe you don’t share it with the public, but we would have table reads where we would hear rough drafts of something we’re thinking about. We would get feedback on it and we’d go back and scrap it and start over and whatever.

When I think of creative resilience I think we need emotional regulation first and foremost because what happens for most of us is we start something, we feel the pain of it not being that good and then we either distract ourselves, give it up or just rush and publish the thing so that it’s out of our purview. We need to actually learn how to sit with uncomfortable emotions and then continue working towards the vision that we have.

The second thing is not creating in a silo. Make sure that when you are creating something you have trusted partners, friends, listeners, whatever stage you’re in. When I first started, it was a family member who would listen to the first 15 minutes of an episode. Eventually as I grew my Instagram, it became audience members who I would tap and say like, “can I give you just the preview of this thing?”. I think creating in a community is one of the most powerful tools.

The third piece of advice, and that I would give myself this advice five, seven, eight years ago, is continuous learning or failing forwards. It’s embracing this stuff, getting very comfortable with not being where you want to be and saying, “okay, I’m just going to try and fix this one thing on the next episode”. Once you fix that one thing, your level up is so big and you feel so good about that.

If you want to learn more about creating unique and intimate podcasts, Hiwote will be hosting the Structure of Intimacy Panel at this year’s International Women’s Podcast Festival on 4th October 2024. Tickets are on sale now.

Meet Dani Murphy, Co-Founder of Just Add Joy

Dani Murphy has over a decade of creative and strategy roles under her belt, but like many people we interview, her path into the podcast industry has been a bit unconventional. After a brief stint in journalism, she worked as an advertising creative where she worked on brand-focused concepts.

However, it was leading the Creative Strategy for the partnerships team at a media agency when she discovered  the podcast space allowed her to create adverts and branded content that people genuinely wanted to spend time with. Having found her niche in media partnerships, her path led to working at Acast. “I’ve been a radio and podcast geek from day one,” she says “so I was thrilled to specialise in my favourite type of media”.

Now, Dani has taken that podcast geek knowledge into her work as the Co-Founder of Just Add Joy, the UK’s only podcast-led creative agency. Francesca Turauskis caught up with Dani to find out more about creative strategies, shaking up the cultural landscape and whether there is a ‘discoverability problem’ in podcasting…

FT: As the lead in the creative department at Acast I expect you worked with a wide range of shows on brand-related content. Are there different strategies you have to use for different shows?

DM: My background in advertising really instilled in me the power of the big idea – the kind of evergreen, channel-agnostic concepts that can thrive anywhere. While there are plenty of brilliant tactical or media-specific ideas out there, I believe the most exciting and effective campaigns are those where you can tell a brand story across multiple channels. That’s what I brought to Acast as Creative Director.

I trained the creative team there to shift gears, from pitching show-specific tactics to developing big concepts that could live, breathe, and adapt across different shows. The beauty of this approach is twofold: not only can each creator bring the big idea to life in a way that’s unique to them, but the core idea remains strong even if a client wants to switch up the shows or a creator decides to step back. It’s about having one strategy and idea that works for the brand, executed in multiple different ways depending on the creators involved.

FT: Do you have any examples of that in practice that you could share?

A good example of this is the Klarna Money Talks card game. Klarna wanted more people to talk about money, so instead of scripting a load of sponsorship reads for creators we created a conversation card game. Creators played the game in their shows, bringing to life the talking points in their own way. We had vulnerable conversations, unexpected confessions, hilarious anecdotes – something that we just simply wouldn’t be able to achieve if we were trying to sell in scripts or other show-specific tactics.

Kate and I founded Just Add Joy to take this approach even further, working with an even broader scope of shows, unrestricted by networks or trading deals. We come up with big ideas that resonate with both brands and audiences, and then the creators bring them to life in the way that suits them best.

I love this way of working. There are few better feelings than watching an idea take several new leases of life when creators get their hands on them.

FT: You mentioned your own creative agency, Just Add Joy, which is podcast-led. Is that unusual for creative agencies?

There are plenty of podcast media agencies out there, most of them are focused on selling media spots and spaces. But nobody was selling ideas the way a true creative agency should.

You’ve got creative agencies that specialise in social media, others that are all about AI, and the more traditional ones that focus on TV. But there was this glaring gap in the market for a creative agency that specialises in podcast media.

Unlike those other agencies however, we’re not boxed into the podcast medium. That’s because we don’t believe podcasting is a medium. Even the dictionary can’t keep up with what a podcast is these days, whether it’s on YouTube, on Twitch, or live shows or on TV. Our podcast-led specialism means we focus on how best to work with creators to bring the big ideas to life.

Work with podcast creators and your ideas can genuinely live anywhere.

FT: What is it about podcasts (and podcast creators) that you love to work with?

The best thing about podcast media is that it doesn’t come with a rulebook – frankly, there aren’t any rules. It’s an open space where creativity can genuinely thrive, and we’re just beginning to explore what’s possible. Jamie Laing talks about podcasting being still in its black-and-white era, and I couldn’t agree more. We’re only at the start of discovering its potential.

Look how quickly podcasts have shaken up the cultural landscape. Take the most recent general election, for example – it was dubbed ‘the first podcast election,’ which really highlights how influential podcasting has become. Podcasts are making us smarter, more informed. They bring depth and nuance that’s often missing elsewhere, and that’s why I find them so exciting to work with.

What’s more, podcasts have uncovered some incredibly sharp talent that might never have broken through on TV or social media. These are fresh voices and perspectives that are changing the way we think, talk, and engage with the world. They’re not just influential – they’re more influential than traditional influencers and celebrities.

FT: There is a belief that podcasts have a ‘discoverability problem’. Do you agree?

Is there a podcast ‘discoverability problem’? Sure, but let’s also admit that content discovery is a mess everywhere. I saw a report the other day that said it takes us, on average, over 11 minutes just to find something to watch because we’re swamped with choices. Cory Doctorow calls this “enshittification”: platforms that once worked for users now prioritise profit, drowning us in an avalanche of stuff that’s harder and harder to sift through.

The podcast world is crowded, but no more than any other space. The real problem is that Indie creators are battling against big media brands, with deep pockets.

This is why I think podcast creators need to embrace social. As podcasts break out into more diverse channels, they actually become easier to discover. Especially on interest-algorithms like TikTok where your content is more likely to find its tribe.

In this era, focus is everything. You can’t be everything to everyone, so don’t even try. Instead, perfect what you do best and deliver it to a loyal, engaged audience. As content options keep multiplying, taste becomes crucial – it’s the new currency. We don’t just need more creators; we need curators who can sift through the dirt and find the gems for us.

Audio producer Mia Lobel recently floated a brilliant idea: what if we curated podcast feeds, tailoring content to specific tastes? It would make discovering new shows a lot easier, and open up fresh ways to monetise shows.

I also loved the fact that Reading and Leeds Festival had its own podcast stage this year – what a great way to discover new creators. The more we take notes from other entertainment forms the more podcasting will thrive.

FT: Why do you think that the idea that podcasts are particularly difficult to discover is such a big belief?

The UK Podcast Survey highlighted that a significant portion of potential listeners stop listening or never start because they can’t find content that interests them, don’t know how to access podcasts, or find the medium inconvenient – so I can’t say that there aren’t barriers.

But I think the conversation about discoverability obscures the real problem.

We’ve somehow convinced ourselves that if we create something amazing, the audience will just find it. But that’s not how it works in any other industry. Byron Sharp, in his book How Brands Grow, makes it crystal clear: if you want to grow, you’ve got to reach far and wide – and that takes money. We wouldn’t expect a consumer brand to blow up without some serious marketing behind it, yet we keep hoping podcast brands will magically take off without spending a penny.

And that’s where it gets tricky for indie creators. They’re stuck in this catch-22: they need to grow to attract advertisers, but without upfront investment in marketing, that growth just isn’t happening. No growth means no money, and no money means staying hidden in the crowd.

What we really need is more cross-category learning (eg. brand growth principles and marketing 101) and a real commitment to investing in podcasts like we would in any brand. It’s not enough to hope that word of mouth will do the trick. We need to put some serious muscle – and money – behind these shows so they can actually reach the people who’d love them.

FT: Speaking of learning, what are you most looking forward to at the International Women’s Podcast Festival in October?

DM: I’m absolutely buzzing to dive into the whole community vibe of the International Women’s Podcast Festival. It’s going to be magical. But if I’m being honest, the highlight for me has to be Sarah Koenig’s appearance. It’s been 10 years since Serial – the podcast that put podcasts on the map – and I can’t wait to hear her reflections and insights on how the landscape has evolved since then. To hear directly from the person who shaped modern podcasting as we know it? That’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’m here for it.

If you want to learn more about creative forms of advertising, Dani will be presenting the Creating Brilliant Ads workshop alongside Kate Mander at this year’s International Women’s Podcast Festival on 4th October 2024. Tickets are on sale now.

Don’t miss the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Sarah Koenig! Join us at the Southbank Centre, London, on Thursday 3rd October at 7.30pm. Find out more and get your tickets on the Southbank Centre website.

Listen to These Podcasts to Get Ready For The IWPF!

We’re just over a month away from the International Women’s Podcast Festival 2024, and we can’t wait to be in a room with some of the most influential people in the podcasting world. One of the best things about a podcast festival is that you can get to know our speakers and their work before you even arrive.

To help you level up your excitement, we’re sharing some of the podcasts that have been made by our speakers this year. Whether you are looking for a catalogue of interviews, a community of sisterhood or some insight to the recent history of another country, these shows will keep that podcast itch scratched until October!

TAPE LETTERS

Tape Letters is a project that stretches across multiple disciplines, including poetry, photography and physical exhibitions – but at the heart is the sound of one person talking to another. When many Pakistanis migrated and settled in the UK between 1960-1980, they had to turn to an unorthodox form of communication to stay connected to friends and family back in Pakistan: recording and sending messages via post on cassette tape. Tape Letters features original tapes collected from families, as well as oral history recordings and interviews with the people involved in the project. Leona Fensome was one of the Producers on this series (alongside Executive Producer Lucia Scazzocchio, who spoke at our last festival) and you can catch Leona speaking on the How to Tell Stories That Matter (and Make Money) panel at this year’s festival. Listen to Tape Letters now.

TO MY SISTERS

Courtney Daniella Boateng and Renée Kapuku are your online big sisters, and their show To My Sisters offers listeners in-depth conversations about subjects that often aren’t tackled enough. From how marriage changes your friendships, to healing your relationship with men, they offer episodes that are focused on wellness and growth but in a way that doesn’t ignore the social context. The sense of community comes out in the way they bring on guests to talk about their expertise, but also in the #TMSHotTakes episodes that react to the needs of their community, such as the recent ‘Racism in the UK Isn’t ‘Covert’ #TMSHotTakes‘. Courtney and Renée were recipients of the 2023 Content is Queen Micro Grant and we’re thrilled that they are hosting the From Audience to Community workshop on 4th October. To get a good context for their session, listen to the podcast here.

SLIDING DOORS

Based on the concept coined by the 90s movie classic, Sliding Doors host Jennie Becker chats to some amazing people from all walks of life about their Sliding Doors Moments. From Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp to Stef Reid MBE, the series gives some wonderful insight to some household names, as well as the randomness of life. We get to learn why Jennie Falconer left university, and hear Dane Batiste’s theory of the multiverse, or rather the ‘Daneiverse’. But we also get some episodes that ask us to consider alternative histories that set people on a path long before they were born. The sheer range of guests Jennie has spoken to is staggering, and so it’s very fitting that she will be running the Booking Great Guests workshop at this year’s festival. Listen to her catalogue of guests here.

AFGHAN STAR

Afghan Star is perhaps one of the most recommended shows of the moment, catching the ears of the editors at Apple Podcasts, The Week, The Telegraph, The Spectator – and most importantly we’re fans too! In the years between the fall of the Taliban and its return, people all over Afghanistan planned their lives around watching a musical talent show. The Afghan Star television series launched a cultural revolution, but when the Taliban returned in 2021 the show came to an abrupt end. John Legend narrates this series, but much like the Afghan Star television show, the podcast will pull you in with the true stories of the singers and the people involved in the show. This was produced by Meera Kumar, a producer whose work has been recognised by multiple awards. She’s also been named a Radio Academy 30 Under 30 and recently worked on the pilot episode of Sissy, which was a recipient of the Content is Queen Micro Grant 2023. We can’t wait to listen to her at The Shape of Shows workshop at this year’s festival, but in the meantime listen to Afghan Star here.

THIS IS DATING

This Is Dating is produced by the same team as the iconic Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel, which lets listeners in on real psychotherapy sessions. This Is Dating has a similar format and we get to eavesdrop on real people’s first encounters and dates, before hearing them speak to experts about how to (basically) do better next time. Both shows have the same feel of being let into something you shouldn’t quite be privy to, but in both cases you come away from episodes with small revelations that just might change the way you approach life. Hiwote Getaneh was one of the producers on the show, and as the only producer who was also dating at the time, she found herself having to approach the production in a different way to her colleagues. Hiwote will be hosting the Structure of Intimacy Panel at the festival this year. Listen to This Is Dating here.

INTERCONNECTED VOICES

Interconnected Voices was a product of the Transmission Roundhouse programme, which offers emerging presenters and producers aged 18–25 a chance to create content from the heart. Produced and hosted by Cherise Hamilton-Stephenson alongside co-producer Bridey Addison-Child, the show combined insightful political commentary with personal stories from underrepresented, diverse and minority voices. The show ended in 2020, giving it something of a time-capsule feel if you listen now, but some of the conversations were quite prescient (or perhaps, four years later, it is incredible how stagnant progress is…) Cherise will be speaking on the Power of the Producer Panel at this year’s festival. Listen here.

 

PLUS MANY MORE!

This is just the first page of the podcast app when it comes to incredible shows by our speakers this year. There are several speakers with shows we’ve recommended before and other speakers who are working on more than one show at a time, or providing support away from production:

  • Ella Watt’s passion project Camlann is a reimagining of the Arthurian legends.
  • Bea Duncan’s work on the last Anthems talks series shared conversations from trans individuals.
  • Natasha Miller’s food podcast Bitter/Sweet is a lovely, intimate short series.
  • Menopause Whilst Black from Karen Arthur was one of our first recommendations for providing a safe space through podcasting.
  • Raj Pander’s podcast Almost 40 is about getting older, but not necessarily wiser – it focuses on milestones, and not just the ones to do with age, but the ones that her guests think are important.
  • In The Reset Rebel, journalist Jo Youle meets the rogues, rebels, and rascals who have carved out a life on the island of Ibiza.
  • As the Founder of Chalk + Blade, without Ruth Barnes we might not be obsessed with the BBC’s Obsessed With… series.
  • And of course, the original true crime podcaster, Sarah Koenig will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of Serial on the 3rd October at the Southbank Centre.

If you want to connect with incredible women like this who are shaping the rapidly expanding world of podcasting, you can join us on 4th October 2024 for talks, workshops, panel discussions and much more! Tickets are available now or find out more on the International Women’s Podcast Awards website.

How Can Individuals Welcome Working Class Audio Professionals?

Our recent article series about the experiences of working class and financially insecure audio professionals has shown a need for more inclusion and opportunities across class lines. In the final article on the topic, our writer Francesca Turauskis suggests some actions for individuals to make audio a more welcoming career path…

My deep-dive into the topic of class, socioeconomics and audio in the past couple of months has been somewhat disheartening, but the response that our articles have been receiving has been loud. There is a level of resonance from many people struggling with the current state of the industry.

Whether you are working for a company, freelancing in various roles or looking for work, it can sometimes seem like changing the audio industry is too big a challenge on an individual level. However, some of the anecdotes we’ve seen in this series have proved to me that there is plenty that we can do as individuals to make audio more welcoming.

Encourage Authentic Accents

Accent snobbery is something that has come up a few times in this series, and it’s easy to trace this back to the early days of radio. If I’m being generous, I would acknowledge that audio relies on voice to convey meaning and so for producers and voice directors, an accent might be a consideration for how the audience will perceive the speaker and story being told.

The difficulty comes when we as creators expect (and even rely on) stereotypes as a shortcut to storytelling. Accents get pigeon-holed into genres, and identities get pigeonholed into sounding a certain way. We heard from Chris Mitchell (Breaking Atoms) last article and how he’s been told his voice is “not street enough”. When Chris was working on Redemption Man (part of Unedited’s Pilot Season 2024 and a recipient of the Content is Queen 2022 micro-grant) this was something he found himself doubting too: “I told myself, ‘your voice does not slap’.”

Whilst most people don’t like listening to their own voice for various reasons, this specifically speaks to the lack of vocal representation and is not to be ignored. Sangeeta Pillai of the Masala Podcast (a multi-award-winning show) commented after my article that she had to work hard to ‘like’ her accent because “all the voices I heard on British radio/audio sounded ‘posh British'”. Both producers and listeners are used to that stereotype, but when accents become a definer for the type of work people get hired for, the lack of opportunity self-perpetuates the lack of representation.

The good news is that as producers and directors, individuals have the power to change what we hear. With Redemption Man, Chris was encouraged by Unedited’s Founder, Bernard P. Achampong, to be authentic with his narration. Bernard reassured Chris that he was the right person to tell the story: “He asked ‘Why are YOU telling this story?’ I did some soul-searching and rewrote the script with personal reflections and anecdotes. That’s when it clicked for me. The script came together nicely, and I knocked out the voiceover in over 30 minutes.”

What is lovely (and telling) about this anecdote is how it shaped not just the delivery, but the script of the show. Who knows what creativity we are missing by asking for carbon-copy narration and script? Since then, Chris has done voiceover work for other projects. “I’ve received so much positive feedback about my voice. It’s funny how that works.”

So please – don’t correct accents or expect people to speak a certain way. Encourage the authentic voice of all the professionals you work with.

Expand The Social Side of Work

One thing that I briefly touched on when talking about cultural capital was how joint experiences can make networking easier for people. This can be shared backgrounds (such as the unique experience of Oxbridge education that is overrepresented in media) but it can also help when people build connections around shared interests and hobbies.
This type of connection also shows up in office culture, and it can be a big part of whether a workplace feels welcoming to everyone. The Multitrack initiative, which helps arrange paid placements in production companies, mentions this aspect of the work/office environment in the Host Company Code that they ask participating companies to agree to:

“…encourage the Multitrack fellow to be part of the social side of workplace culture and will include them in any appropriate group activity, without pressure or fear of repercussions if they aren’t able to attend.”

As individuals, it’s worth pausing to think about the social side of your workplace and how you contribute to it. Do group activities rely on having the money to participate? Are there aspects that might rely on shared background or specific knowledge? If so, consider if there is a way you can expand this social side to be more universal. That doesn’t mean you have to stop socialising in a way you enjoy, but it does mean noticing and stopping any repercussions or exclusion that may have unconsciously developed.

Offer Mentorship

One of the most tangible ways you can help develop and encourage a welcoming culture in audio is to offer mentorship to individuals who are underrepresented in audio. This is especially important if your workplace doesn’t offer placement opportunities, but you could also offer it to someone who did a short placement to you. Mentorship is a really effective way of meaningfully increasing representation in the workplace, as it can help address the needs and concerns of an individual, as well as provide ongoing support and advice to help them find opportunities.

It’s not just the mentees that benefit from mentorship programmes, as mentors can also learn a lot from the experience, such as gaining market insights from a different generation. If you are interested in providing this kind of support to someone, there aren’t currently many audio-focused mentorship programmes to support you as the mentor in the process. An exception is the Radio Academy RAMP mentoring scheme for mid-career radio and audio professionals, and it would be great if this type of partnering was extended to the 30 Under 30 cohort as well.

Another option is Arts Emergency, which is offering a new mentorship programme across the arts, including radio and podcasting. If you are happy to be paired with a 16-18 year old for a 12-month period, the scheme offers training and support to you as a mentor as well.

What Have We Learnt From This Series?

When I started writing about this topic, I thought that it would be a single article sharing some issues around how the class gap showed up in audio. However, I couldn’t ignore the passionate response from a wide range of professionals sharing anecdotes around the situation. We’ve seen that financial insecurity is an issue across class lines, and it is a major contributor to who is able to stay in the audio industry. However, we’ve also seen that pay rates are not the only factor in who gets hired for work – the personal experiences of working class individuals show a divide that goes beyond money.

As the initial Creative PEC report that kicked off this topic shows, many of these problems are not unique to the audio industry – but if we want audio to be a sustainable industry that continues to grow and innovate, making audio a uniquely welcoming industry should be seen as a priority.

Thank you to everyone who filled in the survey, spoke to me about their experience and shared their thoughts on the article on social media.

Read The Other Articles In This Series:

How Is The Class Gap Affecting Audio And Podcasting Professionals?

Is There A Brain Drain in Audio?

The Cultural Capital of Audio

How Can Companies Welcome Working Class Individuals?

How Can Companies Welcome Working Class Audio Professionals?

Our recent article series about the experiences of working class and financially insecure audio professionals has shown a need for more inclusion and opportunities across class lines. In the final two articles on the topic, our writer Francesca Turauskis suggests some actions to make audio a more accessible career, starting with some options for companies…

Now that we’ve done our best to outline where some of the issues are around class and socioeconomics in audio, I wanted to end this series with some tangible actions. When it comes to audio companies, there is a wide range of influence and power between the big corporations (such as BBC, Spotify and Audible) and indies that might have a handful of shows.

None-the-less, there are some things that all companies could implement fairly easily. What’s more, as mentioned back in my first article on the topic, there is an intersection of socioeconomic status and other marginalised identities, and some of these suggestions are likely to increase equality in many ways. So what are we waiting for?

START GATHERING DATA

Class and socioeconomic status aren’t protected characteristics so companies aren’t legally required to collect the data. However, having a baseline of data can be a great way to understand if there is improvement to be made in your company, so I suggest gathering information on your working class workforce percentage and pay gaps.

Ideally companies across the sector would use the same measure of ‘working class’. I mentioned in my first article how definitions of class can be tricky because self-identification doesn’t align with metrics, but luckily the Socio Economic Commission has guidance on how employers should measure socio-economic background.

Gathering data in this way would bring the sector in line with the BBC measures, and align with the Audio UK mention of socio-economic background in their statement on diversity and inclusion. This can be a baseline for companies to set internal, tangible targets to aim for better representation in their workforce.

INCREASE REGIONAL AND REMOTE WORK

We’ve seen an increase in remote working options in recent years (in large part because of the enforced remote working during the Covid pandemic restrictions). Many jobs are advertised as remote or hybrid, and for many, jobs being in the office is often a preference rather than a necessity. All employers should be offering this as an option whenever able, and perhaps consider splitting out the work that needs to be in person to a separate role to allow more specialism (e.g. an engineer or studio manager rather than a ‘producer’ doing it all – more on this in the job role section below!).

We’re also starting to see more companies basing themselves outside of London. Notably, last month saw Persephonica move their operations to Sheffield, where both Founders are from. In the press release, Persephonica CEO Dino Sofos specifically mentioned people from ‘lower income backgrounds’ being priced out of London:

“It means people growing up in the South East have an unfair advantage at securing interesting and influential media jobs. The best way to change the status quo is to create more opportunities outside the capital.”

Other companies that have been based outside of London for years are also pushing it as an advantage, such as Distorted whose Head of Marketing, Becky Lamb-Pritchard, I spoke to for my previous article.

Audio is one of the few mediums where remote and regional production makes a lot of sense, and it was one of the reasons many other media forms turned to podcasting in the pandemic. It is also a great way to help make your podcast production greener, and it can increase accessibility for workers in many different circumstances, including disabled professionals, parents and carers.

The only thing to consider with this suggestion is to make sure it is not done at the expense of workers already employed in London. If a company is considering moving their office, they must offer enough support for those staying put to do remote working too.

OFFER PAID INTERNSHIPS (AND ADVERTISE THEM OUTSIDE AUDIO)

One of the key pledges in the Equality in Audio Pact was to ‘pay interns/no longer use unpaid interns’, and there are already several paid internship and entry-level schemes of note. Multitrack in particular is a scheme that has been running since 2019 and specifically references class as an area underrepresented in the audio industry. They work closely with industry partners, which this year included Novel, Goalhanger, BBC Studios Audio and Sony Music. As a company, you can work directly with Multitrack to offer placements at your company.

It’s also worth considering running internships yourself independently, particularly if you are a regional company, as you might have local knowledge to reach individuals outside of the audio network. Distorted offered a good example of this when they created an internship for 18-24 year olds based in Yorkshire. “We wanted to ensure our search went beyond our own industry networks and the more traditional entry routes” Becky told me “it attracted candidates from all parts of the region and all demographics.”

Reaching potential interns who aren’t necessarily tuned into audio networking in this way is really important, as the lack of connections or industry knowledge could mean that many talented individuals just don’t see the opportunities advertised. It’s one of the reasons I personally offered an internship in my own Tremula Network via Arts Emergency last year – it was the first time Arts Emergency had a podcast company offer a placement and there were several more people interested than I was able to offer a space to.

HAVE A CLEAR AND COMPETITIVE PAY STRUCTURE

UKAN (UK Audio Network) has been a good resource for me when it comes to finding jobs and learning about rates in the industry. This is partly because all posts for work have to include the rate of pay for all jobs, whether it is day rate for freelancers or a salary. However, one thing that I still find confusing with jobs across the audio industry is the pay structure and discrepancy between roles, particularly with day rates.

Whilst controlling rates across the industry would require some form of industrial action or intervention, individual companies could have clear pay structures and transparent pay grades. Knowing the pay makes it easier for people to decide if they can even afford to take on a job, but seeing the pay structure also helps people plan for a future in audio. Making those pay grades competitive and fair (for example by referring to rate cards like BECTU as a minimum) will encourage the ambitious and the talented to stay in audio.

EXPLAIN AND OFFER CAREER PROGRESSION

Your pay structure should go alongside clear job descriptions that explain the duties and level of responsibility, because the label ‘podcast producer’ is often too vaguely used for a wide range of jobs. The National Careers Service still doesn’t even have ‘podcasting’, ‘producer’, ‘audio producer’ or any form of the job in its database and this makes it difficult for newer professionals without a prior connection to the industry to a) know what could be available to them and b) tell whether a pay rate is adequate.

Companies could do a lot for people entering the industry by making the progression of ‘production assistant’ to ‘executive producer’ MUCH clearer, with pay grades that correspond.

THINK ABOUT YOUR ONBOARDING

When you have hired someone – whether as a freelancer or on staff – I think audio companies could do a lot more to bring workers into the company (especially if they are new to the industry). Coming from the public sector, the lack of onboarding with audio jobs was a real shock, and there are two different aspects that I think are worth making a more official part of all company welcomes:

a) Explaining the options for industry body support, unions and financial or mental health support (if available). A simple welcome pack that signposts people to places like ELAN (Entry Level Audio Network), UKAN, AudioUK, and Radio Academy would be simple to send to everyone – and if people don’t need it, they can just not read it!

b) Company-specific training for things that might seem simple but would take less time to explain than it would to pick-up, for example presets or preferences on the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), who is who in the company, and any industry partners you work with regularly or newsletters you subscribe to etc.

SIMPLE ACTIONS ACROSS THE BOARD

All of these suggestions are fairly simple actions, and there may well be some of you reading this thinking your company already does some of these. That means that industry change to make audio more welcoming for working class audio professionals is not that far away – it just takes simple actions industry-wide.

Read The Other Articles In This Series:

How Is The Class Gap Affecting Audio And Podcasting Professionals?

Is There A Brain Drain in Audio?

The Cultural Capital of Audio

How Can Individuals Welcome Working Class Audio Professionals?

The Cultural Capital of Audio

With the news that working class creatives are severely underrepresented in TV, film and radio, Content is Queen has been digging into class culture in audio. This time our writer Francesca Turauskis is focusing on the personal experiences of working class professionals in audio and podcasting, which highlight a divide that goes beyond money…

When we wrote our short, anonymous survey, we wanted to open up a conversation about the experiences of working class and financially uncertain audio professionals. With our specific request for ‘financially uncertain’ experiences, it is no surprise that issues around pay in audio, radio and podcasting have been a big topic in our previous articles in this series.

However, as one survey response phrased very well: “Class isn’t all about lack of money… this country’s obsession with class permeates all areas of society.” Some of the other concerns we touched on in our first article in this series, such as social currency, lack of regional jobs and outright prejudice, will not only affect individuals but limit the industry.

In this article, I want to give some space to these barriers for working class professionals, and share some experiences and anecdotes that need more attention.

Lack of Connections

The old adage of ‘it’s not what you know but who you know’ runs across industries, but more than one person emphasised the lack of personal or family connections as a key barrier in audio. “What seems to have held me back” one person said “is a lack of network connections due to having come to audio from an alternate career path”.

There are free initiatives in audio to help people build those connections – for example the Entry Level Audio Network (ELAN) or networking events from Radio Academy. Yet it’s worth considering that this remaining emphasis on ‘networking’ could be limiting who gets into the industry. As one response said, “the industry at the moment requires people to be complete ‘self-starters’, but that phrase itself is tinged with privilege. Who has the confidence to take the plunge, and where does that confidence come from?”.

I would agree that many people I know in audio (including myself) would fit in the ‘self-starter’ category. I would also argue that for many audio roles there isn’t an intrinsic necessity for ‘confidence’. Jobs such as editing and engineering are based on hard skills, and whilst some soft skills can help in those roles (as we discussed with Aradhna Tayal-Leach) perhaps it is another sign of de-professionalisation that a lot of companies are looking for good ‘all-rounders’. Roles that could be good for the more introverted have been combined with more outward facing roles.

Lack of Cultural Capital

The question of ‘where does that confidence come from?’ hints at the other result of good family connections, which is the cultural capital that can help people from middle and upper-class families get into creative industries. Cultural capital could include knowledge and behaviour that can be picked up from childhood – for example, simply knowing the type of jobs that could be available to you. As one person pointed out: “I absolutely had no idea about what ‘jobs’ might be beyond what I knew from home”.

Even if you know what jobs to aim for, the class divide can mean that “not knowing the secret codes that exist can prevent people from getting access to interviews and before – it happens right at the beginning of the process.” This goes beyond anecdotes – one study focused on independent television looked at the importance of networking to secure work, and found that people with high levels of cultural and social capital were more successful in this respect.

After entering the industry, the cultural capital can be a barrier to belonging. This could be something very specific within the culture of an office – such as a joint hobby or school experience – to a less tangible feeling. One person who had been working in radio and podcasting for more than a decade said “I STILL find a lot of things a bit weird and don’t quite know what the ‘done’ thing is.”

Overt Prejudice

Trying to navigate ‘secret codes’ is one thing, but the anecdotes around how people feel they are treated when they are from working class backgrounds is more serious. We already mentioned the ‘accent snobbery’ previously, and this was something that resonated with many readers. I’ll be looking into this a bit more in the next article, but it is worth saying that this is sometimes overt, and is also a part of reinforcing stereotypes. Chris Mitchell, who was one of Content is Queen’s 2022 micro-grant winners, told me that he has been told that he sounds too “intelligent”, “not street enough”, and even “not Black enough”.

I also found it interesting – and disheartening – to see anecdotes of location prejudice, where people were told their location was a reason for not being hired. Sumit Sharma, an award-winning producer and sound designer based in the Midlands, is currently trying to get out of freelancing but is struggling to secure well-paid work. “I just faced rejection from a third interview, one reason being my location in the Midlands, despite discussing my willingness to commute to London weekly. As a result, I’ve stopped mentioning the Midlands on my CV.”

I can imagine employers see this as a way of limiting the risk of lost work hours, but it is a prejudgment based on the location. Given that we know individuals from working class backgrounds are statistically less likely to relocate from their hometowns, it’s arguable that this kind of policy would have a worse effect on working class people.

One person who said “I have always had this sneaky feeling that my working class roots show” also said they were finding it difficult to secure full time work, despite experience. “In the past year I have had the chance to work on short term projects… when it came to having an interview for a longer term position, I wasn’t hired.” The job market is very competitive, and there’s no way to know if there was prejudice involved, but the fact the individual felt there might have been is of note.

When it comes to discrimination and recruitment laws, location and class aren’t protected characteristics, but it is something that some audio companies are considering more. Just this week, Persephonica announced that they have moved their offices to Sheffield, and Distorted, a company based in Leeds, are very proud of their Northern roots. Becky Lamb-Pritchard, Distorted’s Head of Marketing, told me “when the company was founded, we decided to base ourselves in Leeds, grounded in the principle that you shouldn’t have to move to London to work in the creative industries if you don’t want to. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

Many Routes Are Through Higher Education

In terms of providing steps into audio work, university is one of the most established routes in. One person who filled in the survey even specified that “University is actually a really accessible step to getting into industry”. This is certainly a step that many people highlighted, with one linking it to the cultural capital as well: “I’ve got no money, and no actual capital and no property but I have acquired cultural capital through my education.”

However, there’s problems with the industry relying on higher education as the route in. The latest data on widening participation in higher education shows there are still big gaps when it comes to class (as well as region, race and gender). As pointed out in the gov.uk website ‘Employers’ toolkit’, if you are the first person in your family to go to university (one possible description of working class) there is still “an acute form of disadvantage and signals a lack of support to navigate university and entry into the graduate workforce”.

A Barrier To Belonging

There is one final point that I wanted to address in this article that I’m finding difficult to explain. We asked a very open question at the end of our survey asking people to leave an anonymous comment. It feels significant that without prompting several people brought up the idea of ‘luck’:

“It feels like I got in by accident…”

“I DID have some beginner’s luck…”

“I’m now lucky enough to be one of few with a good salary in a FT audio position…”

Perhaps it is the feeling of isolation, with less than 10% of professional creatives coming from similar backgrounds, that leads working class individuals to feel like something of an anomaly in audio. However, I’m sure that their determination and talent had more to do with their success than luck, and it’s time to celebrate and uplift them more.

Looking For Solutions

I’m aware that the past few articles have been somewhat disheartening, with a lot of problems and difficulties being highlighted. However, I have heard from people (including my boss and Founder of Content is Queen, Imriel Morgan) that it has at least given shape to some issues. Hopefully the articles so far have also given some solidarity for others who have been contemplating similar issues in isolation.

The good news is, the final article in this series is going to be looking at some possible solutions, and highlighting some places that are creating a different culture in audio and podcasting.

Further resources:

– The Creative Mentor Network supports 16-25 year olds from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to help them develop their creative careers through mentoring, education, and opportunities.

– Multitrack has a number of resources to help you step into audio, including starting to build some guides to help you understand the different roles in audio production.

– If you want to sound like a pro when you first start working in audio, I personally found Content is Queen’s worksheet on audio and radio terms very useful when I first started.

Read The Other Articles In This Series

How Is The Class Gap Affecting Working Class Professionals?

Is There A Brain Drain In Audio?

How Can Companies Welcome Working Class Professionals?

How Can Individuals Welcome Working Class Professionals?

Is There A Brain Drain in Audio?

Here at Content is Queen, we have been asking how the current state of the audio industry is affecting working class and financially insecure audio professionals and podcasters. In the second of our short series of articles, our writer Francesca Turauskis is digging into the results to ask how we can make audio a place people want to work…

When we set up our mini survey, our aim was to get some idea of what the audio industry is like for working class audio professionals and podcasters. However, as mentioned at the end of my first article in this series, it was worrying to see that almost two-thirds of the respondents said they are considering leaving audio ‘seriously’ or ‘in passing’.

This feeling seems to be occurring regardless of class: almost all of the people who said they ‘Don’t Identify as Working Class’ also ticked that they had thought of leaving the audio industry in the past twelve months.

So in this article, I’m going to pivot (just for the moment) away from the conversation about class to address another issue – before we bring more people from underrepresented demographics into audio, how do we make it a place they want to stay? Here are some of my thoughts on where we can start.

ADDRESS THE ILLUSION OF SCARCITY

I’d like to begin by sharing one very honest comment from a survey respondent:

“The industry is shrinking left, right and centre. If it’s not huge radio conglomerates buying out local stations, it’s AI changing up the working processes. The industry is modernising, which is GREAT – it needs to. But it’s modernising into something a fraction of the size. Why are we still doing these “Getting into the Industry” events, there’s not even enough jobs for those of us already here?”

The worry from this person is clear, and if we want to talk about making audio a place people want to work, we need to make sure we aren’t pulling up the ladder out of undue fear. As I said in a previous article – listener numbers, advertising revenue, and the amount of shows all point to the fact that podcasting is a growing medium. Radio listenership is holding steady at 89% and the audiobook market is also in a state of growth.

I would argue that the jobs and opportunities are there – or could be made – but they are perhaps changing or going to different people. Looking at the UKAN Pay Survey, we can see stats that support this. In both 2023 and the 2024 results (which we got a peek at during The Podcast Show) wages have been stagnant or dropped for many people, except for those with more than eleven years experience. This suggests to me that newer audio professionals are being undervalued or compensated, whilst more established people are asking for more money – which makes me ask…

HAS AUDIO BEEN DE-PROFESSIONALISED? (AND HAVE I BEEN A PART OF IT..?)

When resources are tight, many industries fall into the trap of de-professionalising themselves by giving lower grade job roles greater responsibility without compensation. Meanwhile, mid-level jobs are cut and senior levels are placed in higher pay-grades as they manage larger teams.

Some of the responses of our survey would suggest this is happening in audio. One person said that the pay is “not high enough for the work we do, especially when we take on more than one role on a project” and more than one response suggested that “there’s a problem for mid-level producers” (something The Radio Academy has tried to address with their Mentoring Programme). And whilst I encourage people to get in touch with me if this has always been the standard, when BBC roles are advertised with a wage-range of “£55,000 – £85,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience” it begs the question of how it can be the same role? There seems to be an incentive (and excuse) to hire the person you can pay less.

This type of de-professionnalisation doesn’t just happen when budgets are cut, but also when there is a boom in industries – as we saw in podcasting over the pandemic restrictions. This is when people with less ‘relevant skills, knowledge and experience’ are accelerated to more senior positions to supply growth. Like many, I entered the industry because we went from 500,000 podcasts to nearly 4 million, and people needed producers. Thinking about the day rates and workloads I received at the start of my Producer journey – I was probably a part of the devaluing of audio.

However, I don’t think I – an ex-library worker, working fully freelance with no production connections – and others like me are to blame. I was offered a day rate, and the only open source reference I had for what to charge people was the Industry Rates from UKAN. This is pointedly ‘not intended as a fixed rates card’, yet as someone used to earning £15 an hour, those industry rates seemed pretty good to me. However, I’ve since come to learn…

AUDIO RATES ARE COMPARATIVELY LOW

As well as pay being low for the level of work, some responses suggested that the pay is low compared to other creative industries. One person said “industry bodies tout day rates which are unlivable. TV and film don’t pay as poorly as radio, often for less responsibility”. BECTU (the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union) has a rate card that backs this up, with a Sound Trainee in TV and film getting a day rate higher than the average women in the UKAN survey.

And despite audio production and sound design for film and television being higher than radio and podcast, only around 5% of a film budget is given to the audio – rates for film professionals are even higher.

Quite a few people also mentioned that “The UK has abysmally low rates of pay relative to other comparable countries”. We can see this reflected not just in day rates and wages, but in grants for podcasts and audio in the UK compared to the USA where Amazon offers a $10k commission fee to create your podcast pilot.

Low day rates make it incredibly difficult to pull the majority of your earnings from audio as a freelancer – in order for the UKAN survey ‘lowest average women’ to make the National Living Wage, they’d need to be working a five-day week for 36 weeks of the year. The ‘lowest average non-binary’ would be working 44 weeks. In an industry that is often project based, this is unlikely.

WHY IS THIS THE CASE?

Whilst I can’t say it’s the only reason, there is one theory that keeps surfacing:

“There has always been a culture of ‘radio is a lovely part time job for the wife’ in speech radio. The idea that it’s a privilege to work in audio has created a low wage industry in comparison to other industries which require similar dedication, skill and hours.”

This idea that audio is a ‘fun hobby’ is something that Ella Watts also mentioned in our conversation, and I think it’s related that we have audio professionals like Leanne Alie, James Acaster and Thomas Curry self-funding or crowdfunding the shows they really want to make.

With this culture of audio work being a ‘nice-to-have’ and the need for even established professionals to self-start projects, it’s no wonder that less than 10% of audio professionals are from working-class backgrounds.

SO, HOW DO WE MAKE AUDIO A PLACE PEOPLE WANT TO STAY?

One of the reasons I wanted to work in podcasting was the fact it felt like a welcoming industry. Podcasters really love the medium, we have great fun making our shows and as a non-linear form, there is so much space for growth and innovation. However, it’s clear that there are some bad legacies in audio work and love can only take us so far. There are some things me might try as an industry to bring up standards across the board:

  • We ALL need to welcome new people at all stages. We cannot pull up the ladder on people. The concern on whether there are enough jobs or career progression steps is a different problem and it is not new professionals’ fault.
  • Share resources and going rates with new professionals. Whether they are freelance or employed, people new to a role should be told about resources, initiatives and industry bodies. Links to AudioUK, The Radio Academy, The Equality in Audio Pact and UKAN could be part of inductions as standard. Options for workers unions that cover audio – such as BECTU or Equity for Audio Artists – could also be highlighted, something that is common practice in other industries.
  • Show solidarity on pay. The NUJ states that all members “have responsibilities, including, as stated in the union’s Rule Book, not to undercut other freelancers” and I think that audio professionals could have a similar pledge.

Read The Other Articles In This Series

How Is The Class Gap Affecting Working Class Professionals?

The Cultural Capital of Audio 

How Can Companies Welcome Working Class Professionals?

How Can Individuals Welcome Working Class Professionals?

If you have any thoughts on this topic, please feel free to get in touch with me directly on LinkedIn, and you can read the first article in this series ‘How is the class gap affecting audio and podcasting professionals?’.

Do you want to be a part of a welcoming audio community? The Content is Queen community awaits! Explore our membership options here.

Six Olympic Podcasts To Get Ready for Paris 2024

This article was first published on 19th July 2024 and updated with our reader recommendation on 2nd August 2024.

Sports podcasts are still one of the most popular podcast genres, with many listeners saying that they help them connect to their passion. With the Summer Olympics and Paralympics starting in Paris later this month, many people will be searching for a good listen to accompany their watching.

But the Olympics and Paralympics are always about more than the sport. As a global platform, they often highlight societal injustices, issues of representation, controversies fuelled by greed and the politics behind it all. From the Black Power protests at the 1968 Olympics, to the reasons behind the exclusion of men in Artistic Swimming until this year, there is always a hundred stories behind the final event.

We think the best Olympic podcasts dig into this kind of history, the social structures and the politics that we might not always see in the final event. Here are seven shows that will make you appreciate this summer’s games even more.

EQUAL TOO

This limited series was spearheaded by Harder Than You Think (the team behind the Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix) and explores Disability equality through the lens of sports and the Paralympics. Host Sophie Morgan starts by exploring the history and the legacy of the Paralympic movement, but the show heads into the rights of disabled people and explores topics like employment equality, representation in media and more. Guests include Michael Johnson, Jameela Jamil, RJ Mitte, and Sinéad Burke, and many members of the Production team have lived experience of disability so the authenticity of this show is palpable. Listen here.

Persephonica were recently hiring for a Producer to work on ‘a new Paralympics related podcast series alongside the team behind the Rising Phoenix documentary’, so there could well be a follow-on for this series in the works for Paris 2024…

VARIOUS EPISODES ABOUT YUSRA MARDINI

Rather than a single podcast, this recommendation is to explore the life and story of Yusra Mardini. A competitive swimmer and refugee of the Syrian civil war, Yusra was part of Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 and 2020 events. Her story has also inspired several podcast episodes – in the BBC’s The Documentary you can hear about her journey across the Hungarian border and into Germany, where she and her sister claimed asylum. Frank Film Club discussed The Swimmers, which is a Netflix film based on her life and the crossing of the Aegean sea in a dinghy. Yusra’s autobiography, Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian – My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph, was recommended by Laura Whitman in Bookshelfie and her story was part of the Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series. However, if you want to hear Yusra herself talk, check out her interview on the How To Fail podcast, which left host Elizabeth Day almost speechless.

MUM’S GONE CLIMBING

Sport climbing is one of the newer events in the Olympic line-up, making its debut in Tokyo in 2020. If you want to learn more about the sport we can highly recommend the Mum’s Gone Climbing podcast to get an idea of the fun it can be. The great thing about this show compared to other climbing podcasts is that it gets into some of the lesser explored difficulties and misconceptions, as well as the benefits and the fun, of climbing as a mum. The episode with Leah Crane – a coach and previous GB Bouldering champion with a great approach to the sport through play – is a great place to start.

Bonus recommendation from Francesca: “If you’re looking for a bit of an ‘in’ to climbing culture, I’ve been the naive host in round-tables on different aspects of the sport for On The Outside. We’ve spoken about the reaction when Olympian Shauna Coxsey climbed whilst pregnant and whether topless men should be banned in climbing gyms.”

THE LEGACY OF SPEED

When Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in protest at the 1968 Olympic Games, it showed how powerful activism in sport could be. Pushkin Industries looks at the path to this moment In Legacy of Speed, tracking how coach Bud Winter trained the sprinters. His “Relax and Win” methods were revolutionary at the time, as was Bud’s focus on recruiting Black athletes to a mostly white school. His training and belief in the runners helped make them fast enough to win, and brave enough to take a stand in front of the world. The story is fascinating, and the perfect example of the social constructs that are happening on the path to the podium. Listen here.

BELIEVED

Wherever there are positions of power, there are people who will abuse that trust, and the Olympics is no different. In 2017, Dr. Larry Nassar admitted in court that he sexually abused children and women on the US Olympic gymnastics team over a period of two decades. Believed from NPR was released in 2018, in the wake of the high-profile trial and media coverage surrounding Dr. Nassar’s conviction. It tries to understand how he was able to get away with it for so long, and opens with the premise that “serial predators don’t just get away because of sloppy police work or inept institutions, they get away because we let them”. It’s another uncomfortable example of how much onus is on survivors of sexual assault to empower themselves, when they should have been protected. Listen here. 

BLIND LANDING

Blind Landing is an independent documentary podcast with an impressively in-depth exploration of a number of obscure Olympics controversies. Hosted by Ari Saperstein, the first series looks at how a mistake in the gymnastics set-up at the Sydney Olympics was very costly for a number of front-runners – and talks about how it could have been deadly. The analysis of in-house decisions following the mistake is fascinating, and you’ll soon find yourself invested in the controversy.

The second season ‘Out On The Ice’ focused on the way that figure skaters were forced to play into narrow gender stereotypes, leaving LGBTQ+ skaters feeling like they could not be themselves in the sport. Other one-off episodes explore important Olympic figures, such as Mabel Fairbanks (a Black figure skater in the 1940s), Ukrainian Gymnast Illia Kovtun and the Asian American figure skater, Kristi Yamaguchi. Listen here.

KEEP THE FLAME ALIVE

If you’re after a comprehensive Olympics and Paralympics podcast that gives you an insight to the events and competitors of today, Keep The Flame Alive is a great resource. Jill Jaracz and Alison Brown interview athletes across the range of disciplines, giving listeners some inspiration and insight to the life of an Olympian. If you want to learn more about some of the more obscure events, this is great. The episode on the American pool team speaks about the distance swimmers and divers, but also speaks to the Artistic Swimmers about synchronised swimming. If you want to learn more about how the Breaking competition will work, the episode with Ivan ‘Flipz’ Velez introduces listeners to the newest introduction to the line-up. The fact that the Paralympics and Olympic athletes are also integrated shouldn’t be novel, but is a lovely bit of curation.

FLASHPOINT

Flashpoint is a brand new show from Tenderfoot and iHeart Podcasts. Both these companies often delve into true crime documentaries, and this series explores the White-supremacist bombing that took place at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games held in Atlanta, and the following attacks on two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub. With archive audio, interviews with witnesses and a narration that is nicely contemplative narration there is a lot to find value in this show, but it is a difficult listen at times particularly with the sound design amplifying the interviews.  It’s nice to have a narrator connected to Atlanta as well, with the first episode giving small nods to his own experience of the city and interest in the bombing.  Listen here.

Listeners’ Suggestions:

EMBEDDED: TESTED

NPR’s Embedded series ‘unearths the stories behind the headlines’ and Tested is incredibly relevant to the Olympics 2024 headlines as I write this. It looks at the long history of gender testing in competitive sport, uncovering the deeply embedded belief that women need to fit into a box is.  This short series by Rose Eveleth has been several years in the making, and during that time they’ve been rejected because the story was ‘trans’  — but what is telling about this documentary is how many of the guests and people affected are cis, how many are women of colour, and how many of the rules come from men. Rose was told this story could only be made if it was approached as comedy, but it really is tragic listening. You can find out more about Rose’s struggle to get it created on Instagram @roseveleth and Podcast The Newsletter.  Listen here.

If you are interested in this topic, another recommendation on the same subject was The New Yorker Radio Hour episode  ‘The Trans Athletes Who Changed the Olympics – in 1936′. It features some of the same guests as Tested, and gives a good overview if you want a shorter listen,

OUTSIDE/IN

The Paris 2024 Olympics were at one time marketed as the most sustainable games in modern Olympic history, but a recent episode of Outside/In looked into the reality behind that claim. ‘Hot Olympic Summer: Is Paris Greenwashing the Games?’ speaks to experts who have analysed the carbon footprint of all modern games, looking at aspects such as public transport, construction and air conditioning. It’s not too surprising that the carbon-neutral Olympic caldron at this year’s games aren’t quite enough to make them sustainable, but there is a lot of interesting conversation in this. Listen here.

CIVICS 101

A lot of drama at the Olympics can focus on the individual athletes, but as a global event there is a lot of political drama connected to the games as well. ‘How Are Cities Chosen For The Olympics?’ is an interesting episode from Civics 101 that digs into some of the global politics behind the event. It comes hot out the blocks with a number of mic-drop comments, such as guest Jules Boykoff’s “if anybody tells you that the Olympics are not political, there is a very good chance that they are making their living off the Olympic Games…” before looking at some of the more obviously controversial games like Berlin 1936 (aka ‘Hitler’s games’) and Sochi 2014. This episode doesn’t purely focus on the controversial though, and there are nice nods to some progress such as North Korean athletes heading to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. Listen here.