Compiled by Jasper Baumann and Tess Connery
Drifting off with dogs: Bedtime Explorers Puppy Pals
Whether your child’s favourite puppy pal is a labrador, a pug, a poodle, a dachshund or an Afghan Hound, in season 11 of LiSTNR’s children’s meditation podcast, Bedtime Explorers Puppy Pals, they can drift to sleep learning all about their favourite furry friends.
The multi award-winning Bedtime Explorers has launched season 11, which features 10 episodes that see mindfulness coach, Amy Taylor-Kabbaz talk about dogs and their different characters – and how kids can use these characteristics in their lives.
As the 11th season of Bedtime Explorers, Taylor-Kabbaz told Podcast Week’s Tess Connery the team went straight to the heart of the podcast when deciding on the newest theme – the kids who fall asleep with them.
“We asked our community on social media if they could check with their kids about what they wanted to hear more of. I run into families all the time, and it’s so random the episodes that kids want to listen to over and over and over again – there’s the T-Rex from a few seasons ago and ones right back from season one. So we asked our parents and community what they wanted; overwhelmingly, it was dogs.
“We decided to look at Puppy Pals and explore each of the dogs’ little personalities and bring out different qualities in each of the dogs.”
Amy Taylor-Kabbaz
Whilst the key goal for Bedtime Explorers may seem obvious, Taylor-Kabbaz said there are “several intentions” for the series.
“One, obviously, is to help kids get to sleep – that’s our ultimate goal. Secondly, it is to help parents who really struggle to get their kids to go to sleep. The third is to bring in mindfulness skills and tools that they can use to help them fall asleep, but also use during the day.
“Lorna [Clarkson], the executive producer and I spent a lot of time looking at resilience skills, mindfulness for children, how we can encourage them to speak up when they’re not feeling great, how to believe in themselves – all of those different elements that we try and weave into these stories around different dogs.”
It’s one thing to make a mindfulness podcast for adults, and it’s another thing to make a podcast for kids. Bringing the two together on Bedtime Explorers, Taylor-Kabbaz said was “quite a challenge.”
“It’s different to a podcast listened to during the day. At the moment, we’re working on what we call Daytime Explores, which is made up of shorter mindfulness breaks for kids. That’s a different concept because you’re not trying to get them to fall asleep, you can keep them awake and keep their bodies moving.
“When you’re trying to get them to stay still and lie quietly in bed, it’s a balance between doing that, but also not trying to do too much in each episode.”
On top of the stories themselves, Taylor-Kabbaz said the addition of sound design elevates the podcast, keeping kids’ attention as they drift off to sleep.
“I speak very slowly when I have my Bedtime Explorers voice on, and then the amazing team at Austereo add music and sound effects. With puppies, what we were trying to do was sprinkle those sound effects in enough so they could be there in their mind, but not excite them so they want to jump up and go and find a dog to play with. It needed to be a balance.”
[Listen to Bedtime Explorers: Puppy Pals here]
Natalie Imbruglia, Cody Simpson and Pallavi Sharda team up for new Audible series, Sleep Sound
Sleep Sound is a new podcast series that will transport listeners into a world of immersive audio to drift off to at bedtime.
Designed to help listeners drift peacefully off to sleep, each Sleep Sound podcast features immersive soundscapes and recordings, complementing each Australian star’s soothing narration.
Sleep Sound with Natalie Imbruglia will immerse listeners in passages from Dorothea Mackellar‘s Australian poetry. Sleep Sound with Cody Simpson will provide guided swim mediations across Aussie beaches, lakes and waterfalls and Sleep Sound with Pallavi Sharda will transport listeners on a journey to India to hear a magical Sleeping Beauty story, the Tale of Princess Aubergine.
The new series will be available to listen to in March 2024.
Spotify Wrapped 2023 reveals the top podcasts of the year
The Joe Rogan Experience has taken the number slot for the top podcast of the year globally – marking the fourth consecutive year it’s taken this spot.
Coming in second and third are Call Her Daddy and Huberman Lab, followed by anything goes with emma chamberlain and On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
As for Australia, the top 3 globally round out the same top 3 in Australia, however, #4 belongs to Aussie-produced Casefile True Crime and #5 went to The Inspired Unemployed podcast.
Hamish & Andy return for season five of Hamish & Andy’s Remembering Project
The podcast returns with a fresh set of memories pulled from the archives. With production notes from 2,500 shows, 26,000 segments and 20+ years of radio archives, the boys are set to take a hilarious trip down memory lane.
Despite being on break from their main podcast, fans can continue to revisit favourite moments from the past two decades of the boys’ career, all the way through the summer break.
Andy Lee said: “While moving recently I found the old cassettes from our SYN FM community radio days and had them digitised for a special launch episode of Remembering Project – I now have proof that Hamish has run late to every show for 20 years!”
[Listen to the Remembering Project here]
Meshel Laurie and Simon Baggs unite to lead 5-week LIVE podcasting course in 2024
The 5-week course from The Audio College promises to be a transformative experience for aspiring podcasters, providing a comprehensive blend of creative insights and practical strategies from two industry veterans.
Participants can expect to gain knowledge on launching successful podcasts and cultivating a dedicated audience.
The collaborative approach that Meshel Laurie and Simon Baggs have blend creative intuition with data-driven strategies, offering the most impactful way to launch podcasts, owning their intellectual property for businesses, creator audiences, or clients in 2024 with The Audio College 5-week LIVE course.
