Photo: Luke Dyson
What happened at Day two of The Podcast Show 2023?
The second day of The Podcast Show 2023 has taken place at The Business Design Centre in Islington.
Highlights from the day include Comedian Nish Kumar speaking about the launch of his brand-new podcast Pod Save The UK in a talk entitled “A Podcasters Manifesto: How Pod Save The UK Can Change The World”.
Kumar said: “Historically big companies were best placed to launch new media products. To create and distribute a new newspaper required oodles of cash over a long period of time – only a few people could stomach that.
“Even today trying to launch a new TV channel is expensive and the results aren’t often great – just ask Rupert Murdoch or Piers Morgan. Or GB News, which I’m reliably informed stands for Generally Bullshit.
“Outside of that many news podcasts seem to have a desire to have some sort of provable impartiality as if that’s the key to something… I think this is where the BBC looms large over lots of media. If you’re doing something mainstream, then being fair and impartial seems this immovable object you need to orbit around.
“There’s nothing wrong with trying for impartiality, it’s a noble aim, but social media has changed people’s perceptions. And it’s a language we are tired of. Did someone ‘speak a mistruth’ or did they ‘lie’? Was someone’s comment ‘racially charged’ or was it ‘racist’? Is Boris Johnson ‘unorthodox’ or ‘a philandering alcoholic/chancer”. Sometimes what sounds impartial can actually be minimising, or even sanitising.”
Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall, co-hosts of The News Agents, took to The Origin Theatre today, one year on from the launch of their hit podcast, to announce they’ll be launching News Agents USA on 20th June.
Emily Maitlis said: “It’s going to be the same fields, big analysis, big names. All the cultural things which are happening; gun laws, abortion laws… It’s a full-on circus from now until 2024 with the presidential election, we will be tapping into all that… we get excitable talking about America.
“I remember this time a year ago feeling like the biggest fraud ever, we had an idea but no name… We had left mainstream broadcasting, jobs where we know what we were doing. Now it’s a podcast, it’s visuals, it’s a brand. It feels so rewarding.”
To which Jon Sopel chimed in with: “When we sat here last year I didn’t realise you start a podcast with zero listeners. To start with zero suddenly seemed terrifying… We got going at the end of August and god bless Boris Johnson and Liz Truss I mean they are just the patron saints of The News Agents.”
Dino Sofos, executive producer of the podcast, said: “What we’ve done here is more than redefining public service broadcasting, it’s redefining the news and how people consume the news… we’re setting the agenda… you know, Matt Hancock texting us to come on…”
To which Maitlis added: “We won’t be doing that again!”. Sopel also mentioned an encounter with a celebrity fan: “I was walking along the street and a guy was walking his dog, he came bounding over and he shows me his phone saying ‘I’m listening to you right now’ and shows the picture of the three of us… when he looks up I realise it’s Tom Hiddleston.”