Last week we featured podcasts reflecting on the death of HM The Queen. There’s been a few more over the last week that are worth mentioning.
The podcast company History Hit are known for their easy-to-listen fact based deep dives into our past. They were about to launch a new spin-off series called American History Hit, but have pushed their scheduled first episode back a week to release a special looking at the relationship between The Queen and the 14 US Presidents who have been in office during her reign. She also met Hollywood Stars such as Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, who happened to be the same age as her.
For those (like me) who are fascinated by how the media and broadcasters reacted to the breaking news last week, The Radio Academy Podcast released a special episode looking at how radio reacted to The Queen’s death. Host Christopher Hewgill spoke to bosses at Kiss FM and Jazz FM. He also spoke to Tim Levell, who runs Times Radio: “We were getting soundings that things were quite bleak,” Levell said about the day of The Queen’s death. “We genuinely did not know that The Queen had sadly passed on until the tweet from The Royal Family arrived at 6.30pm.”
“We had thought that there might be announcements at firstly at 5 o’clock and 6 o’clock. We geared up and did things slightly differently at the top of those hours in case an announcement came, which didn’t happen.”
The Rest is Politics, presented by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell, also did a special episode on King Charles III and the future of the British monarchy.
NOTABLE NAMES ON PODCASTS THIS WEEK
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- Graham Hobson, the Founder of Photobox, a photo printing company that was sold for reportedly £400 million, is on 40 Minute Mentor this week to talk about his and his company’s journey.
- Robbie Williams is on Changes with Annie Macmanus this week.
- Jenny Owen Youngs, the co-host of the Buffy podcast Buffering The Vampire Slayer was on 90 Minutes or Less Fest to talk about the sci-fi movie Cube.
- Bill George, Harvard Business School Professor, is on the newest episode of The Positive Leadership Podcast to talk about the merits of having a strong support network around you.
Here are our podcast picks for the week ahead
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Fear of Missing Out – The winner of the British Podcast Awards 2021 was a podcast called Vent Documentaries, which featured young people from one London Borough making a documentary on a subject of their own choosing. It was a fascinating listen, as each episode’s presenter was engaged hugely with the subject matter because they had in fact chosen it. You also felt that they had gone on a bit of a personal journey.
Jesse Lawson, who was one of the people behind Vent, has now launched a new podcast with a similar format. Each of the episodes is presented by a young person who wants to explore a topic that they weren’t taught in school; from how activism was organised before the age of social media to the history of religiously segregated schools in Northern Ireland. Each episode is carefully crafted with suitable guests for each young presenter to engage with.
Allegedly: The Popbitch Podcast – Anyone who loves to share celebrity gossip is a subscriber to Popbitch, a weekly newsletter that drops every Thursday. “It has been going for twenty plus years now,” says Chris Lochery, who runs the newsletter, it in their new spin-off Audible podcast. “We publish tip-offs and industry stories that people within the industry, journalists tell each other down the pub. So it’s gossip from sets, tour stories from roadies, what is happening behind the scenes. We mentioned phone hacking and how they were doing it four or five years before it became headline news.” You admire Popbitch not only for the gossip, but also the fact that it hasn’t been shut down in the first place.
The podcast shares more interesting tid-bits and gossip, starting with an episode on weird rider requests made by artists. Fun fact: Madonna and Mary J. Blige requests that a fresh toilet seat is provided for her sole use wherever they perform.
This is an Audible Original, so if you want to listen you will need to be a subscriber. However, listening to the podcast does not use up any of your credits.
Beneath Our Feet – I’ve never heard a podcast before that opens with the words “please be aware that this podcast contains some moments that listeners might find claustrophobic” until now. But here we are! And you know what, they’re right.
This new drama, by the National Youth Theatre, takes you deep underground with a set of five people who discover some caves under their doomed housing estate. The sound production is fantastic and the social commentary is well considered.
Priced Out Podcast – Why are houses so expensive and so out of reach for so many of us? This is the question at the heart of this new podcast by Priced Out UK, a campaign for affordable house prices. In each episode they discuss an issue currently facing housing and what can be done to make it more accessible for everyone. And renters, don’t worry, they haven’t forgotten about you either, with a frank discussion on why we have one of the least regulated private rented markets in Europe.
If you want to listen to more about the coverage of the passing of The Queen this week, I was on the Media Podcast this week, filling in for regular host Matt Deegan. Guests this week included Karin Robinson from Edelmen and Boyd Hilton from the Pilot TV Podcast.
Thanks so much for reading.
We’ll be back soon with another edition next Sunday.
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