Podcast Week compiled by Trent Thomas
“By a fan for a fan”: Justin Hill’s Drag Race Down Under podcast
The Hit Network’s Justin Hill is the host of Stan Original RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under: The Podcast to coincide with the eight-part Stan Original Series RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under which launched on May 1.
Mediaweek‘s Trent Thomas spoke to the diehard Drag Race fan about what it was like making the podcast.
Hill described being able to be involved in the local adaption of the famed format as a career highlight.
“I have been a fan of the show since season one, whenever it would come on my whole night would be set aside. I love all the iterations of it like the UK, Canada, Thailand, Holland, so when they announced an Australian version I was like ‘I have to be involved in this show’ and it’s the family I want to be a part of.
“When the opportunity came around I was like it’s an absolute no brainer, I couldn’t think of any other exciting thing I would rather do on my Saturday than watch that show and then talk about it, I mean that’s just fun.”
Hill said that while he has loved the international versions, the thing he was looking forward to most was an authentically Australian culture being incorporated into the show.
“I knew that it was going to be fantastic. I have always gone to drag shows and spent a lot of my younger years on Oxford Street and know a lot of the Aussie drag queens, and I just knew that it would be super Australian.
“There is a lot of in terminology and vocabulary jokes on the show and everyone who is a fan of the show loves to know those jokes. I was like I can’t wait for it to come to Australia and we have the same type of thing. They will say stuff about Kath and Kim and we will be like ‘Yes I get that! That is hilarious!’.”
The show also features the eliminated contestants from each episode which Hill said was super important.
“There are a lot of Drag Race podcasts out there but ultimately if you’re doing it as a fan for the fans then you really do need the eliminated queens to talk to.
“I always say anyone who watches Drag Race is an expert so there aren’t too many people that are an authority over others. So you want to be sharing the show with those people rather than telling everyone what it is about.”
One challenge for Hill when making the podcast was finding the balance between catering to long time fans and first time viewers.
“The whole show is essentially built around catch phrases and songs and things about RuPaul and stuff we all know like if you say a drag queen is fish then we all know what that means. It was a case of finding that balance of really enjoying that with the other fans and also allowing the new fans to learn something and feel a part of the family.”
LiSTNR goes Royal with Juliet Rieden and Bryce Corbett
Editor-at-large of The Australian Women’s Weekly and royal correspondent for the past 11 years, Juliet Rieden, has joined forces with her former colleague, Bryce Corbett, to produce the weekly podcast – The Royal Record – sifting royal fact from fiction, for LiSTNR.
Juliet Rieden has established herself as the country’s foremost authority on the Royal Family. She penned the 2015 book, The Royals In Australia, and has secured exclusive interviews and stories over the years with senior members of the Royal Family.
Rieden said: “On any given day, there’s a lot of noise out there about the Royal Family, but only some of it bears any relation to the truth.
“This podcast will endeavour to set the royal record straight on the biggest stories of the week and bring a bit of old-fashioned journalistic rigour to an area of reporting that too often strays into the realm of fairy tales.”
Corbett added: “I don’t know anyone with more rigour than Juliet. She’s interviewed Prince Charles, been on tour with Harry and Meghan, William and Kate and Camilla and interviewed Crown Princess Mary in her Copenhagen palace. Her royal contact book is the best in Australia. When it comes to sifting royal fact from fiction, Juliet’s your go-to person.”
As well as a deep dive into the royal stories of the week, the podcast promises to cast light on the machine behind the Windsors, examine the forces at play behind every royal headline and put it all through the prism of the Royal Family’s rich and storied history.
The Royal Record, produced by LiSTNR’s head of news and entertainment, Sam Cavanagh and Tait McGregor, is a weekly podcast that will dissect the royal headlines of the week and hold them up to scrutiny.
The Royal Record will be published every Tuesday, and will be available via the LiSTNR app.
Glenn Daniel launches The Worst Day of Your Life
Nova Entertainment has announced the launch of the new podcast, The Worst Day of Your Life, with smoothfm’s Glenn Daniel who will share intimate conversations with people thrown into life’s worst moments through no fault of their own, only to emerge to do life’s best.
Glenn Daniel said: “It’s been a privilege to work on this podcast with creator and director Matt Clark and executive producer Katie Jackson. We’ve been humbled by incredible Australians who’ve faced life’s worst yet emerged to do life’s best. We know you’ll be inspired by their unforgettable stories.”
The first episode features Gwen Cherne, an international development expert who met her defence force husband Pete in 2008 while working in Afghanistan. Cherene shares her story about their life before and following her military husband’s suicide. She talks about his struggles with depression and mental health throughout their marriage. Following his death, her drive to do something when she sees something is wrong or an injustice led to her to campaign to care for veterans and their families. She has taken on several important roles: she was appointed to the Council of the Australian War Memorial, the National Council for Women and Families United by Defence Service, a Director for the War Widow’s Guild, an Ambassador for the Commando Welfare Trust and an Invictus Games Ambassador for Clubs NSW.
The Worst Day of Your Life launched on May 11, with a new episode available every Tuesday.
How podcasting took Jenna Clarke to Triple M Perth
Since Triple M launched their Perth station, Jenna Clarke has been working alongside Basil Zempilas and Xavier Ellis (below) in the breakfast slot. She’s taking on the role alongside her current job as deputy editor at The West Australian.
Mediaweek‘s Tess Connery spoke to Clarke, who credits her work in podcasting with giving her the skills to tackle the Triple M Breakfast job.
“It’s very rare that someone is blessed with two gigs in the media, and I think they both complement each other. It’s good to start the day at 4am and be across all the news locally, nationally, and internationally, then take some of that back to the newsroom at the end of the day.
“What really prepared me was definitely my editor at The West Australian, Anthony de Ceglie, where he allowed me the platform to start my own podcast last year called The West Live. We basically started our own little radio show, which we streamed live through the website every morning, and that really set me up well on how to really fine-tune broadcast skills and stuff like that.
“It’s been amazing to also see that project, now that I’ve stepped away from that, take off with Ben O’Shea at the helm. That really prepped me for stepping into these massive, big shoes to fill at Triple M in Perth.”
Angie Kent on trying it, learning to interview, and podcast faves
This week Angie Kent launched her new podcast, Angie Tries It, on the Nova Podcast Network.
Mediaweek‘s Tess Connery spoke to Kent, who said that she learned some new skills while working on the podcast.
“I’ve never really had to interview before, I’ve always been interviewed with all the other shows and what not. So I had to learn how to interview other people. That can be quite awkward, right? You’ve got to learn how to ask the right questions, and therapy is so invasive.
“Going into that role has been really different, but I hope I did a good job, I feel like I did a good job. I had a good time. And if not, then I did heaps of therapy and got to talk about it! I don’t care if they’re laughing with me or at me, as long as they’re laughing.”
Kent also said that when it comes to what podcasts she listens to herself, she has a diverse taste.
“I probably shouldn’t admit it, but I do love a gossip podcast, I’m a sucker for television podcasts, it’s my guilty pleasure when I’m cleaning or driving for too long. I love a self help podcast. But my biggest one at the moment that I listen to is So Dramatic! cause it’s so much exposure of people. I listen to Abbie Chatfield, she’s got a podcast here with Nova, she’s always great at just getting right in there. I’m a bit of a variety listener.”
Check back tomorrow for the full interview with Angie Kent.
Podcast Ranker April 2021 by category
Some of the podcast champs from the latest Podcast Ranker in the following categories:
True Crime
#1 Casefile True Crime
#2 My Favourite Murder
Society & Culture
Stuff You Should Know (International)
Life Uncut with Brittany Hockley and Laura Byrne (Australia)
Comedy
Hamish & Andy (Australia)
No Such Thing as a Fish (International)
Radio catch-up
Kyle and Jackie O (FM breakfast)
SEN Breakfast Garry and Tim (AM breakfast)
Rush Hour with JB and Billy (FM daytime)
Kate, Tim and Joel (FM drive)
Whateley (AM daytime)
Bob Murphy and Andy Maher (AM drive)
News
#1 7am
#2 The Update
Finance/Investment
#1 She’s On the Money
#2 Freakonomics Radio
Sport
Triple M Footy AFL (Radio catch-up)
The Howie Games (Original)
See commentary and the April 2021 Podcast Ranker here.
Podcast Day coming to Australia June 7
Podcast Day 24, the 24-hour global podcast event being held on 7th June 2021, has announced that the Australian leg of the event will host a “Covid safe”, live and in-person day to be held in Sydney.
Matt Deegan from the Australian Podcast Awards said: “We’ve had such a positive response to the online event, it made sense to give it an upgrade and bring together Australia’s podcast community together in Sydney.”
The speakers at the Australian event will include:
Laura Byrne and Brittany Hockley (Life Uncut)
Victoria Devine (She’s On The Money)
Stephanie Coombes, iHeartPodcast Network Australia’s Content & Partnerships Director
Gillian Ramsay, Insights Manager, ABC Audience Data & Insights and Justine Kelly, Executive Producer at ABC Audio Studios
Jazmine Nikitta, Jade Le Flay and 24 Karat Kev from Spotify’s A1: The Show
Holly Wainwright, Head of Content for Mamamia
Andrew Davies, Digital and Engagement Editor, ABC Audio
Kellie Riordan from Deadset Studios
Anna Priestland (Casefile, Murdertown, Letters of Love in WW2)
The first part of the day will be the regular conference, bringing together the podcast sector with speakers from shows, networks and platforms.
In the late afternoon, Podcast Day 24 will be hosting Upfronts – a showcase for podcast networks to talk about their upcoming shows, activities and special projects to an assembled group of advertising agency guests.
After the Upfronts delegates from across the day will enjoy a drinks reception with cocktails from Four Pillars and Fever Tree.
After the Australian leg of the global event ends, Podcast Day 24, Europe (live online) picks up the baton, before it finishes with North America (live online). Each leg has over 30 speakers talking about a variety of podcast topics.
Ticket holders get access to the 24-hour live stream as well as being able to catch-up online with all the sessions. Australia is the only time zone planning to have a live, in-person event.
Full details of speakers and sessions for all of the 24 hours of this event can be found here.
US podcast Upfronts New York
While Australia will get Podcast Upfronts on June 7 this year (see above), the IAB is hosting US Podcast Upfronts for advertisers this week in New York.
This year’s event, labelled “Listen Up”, gives brands and agencies exclusive “first-listen” access to the year’s biggest new releases, previews of creative opportunities, and insights that will help shape the podcast landscape for the year ahead.
Podcast hosting and publishing platform Libsyn will be presenting at the IAB Podcast Upfront for the first time in 2021, while IAB will also feature nine “Showcase” presentations over the three-day event, including Audio Up Media, At Will Media, Blue Wire, Headgum, Kast Media, Locked On Podcast Network, QCODE, SpokenLayer, and Wonder Media Network.
New from CNN Audio
Global news broadcaster CNN has released details of forthcoming podcasts at the IAB Podcast Upfront.
During Covid lockdowns in 2020 in the lead up to the US election, many Australians got to know CNN late night hosts (mid-afternoon in Australia) Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon. The two will co-host a new series called The Handoff, based on the brief exchanges they had on air between their CNN programs.
Now, with no broadcast clock to hold them back, they are stepping out from behind their anchor desks to come together and ignite even more personal and hot topic conversations. Nothing is off limits in the weekly series, promises CNN.
The Handoff will be available exclusively with a subscription to the CNN channel on Apple Podcasts when Apple Podcasts Subscriptions debuts later this month.
Also new from CNN Audio is Chasing Life, a new weekly podcast from Dr Sanjay Gupta, Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Emory University Hospital and CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent, and someone viewers got to know very well last year. The series will offer listeners advice on how to rebuild their minds and bodies, and live a more healthy, grounded, and inspired life.
Diamantina Media launches Wait, You What? with Erica Mallett
Erica Mallett has launched a new podcast, Wait, You What?
The show will cover topics that range from a compulsive liar talking about lying to someone they love; a sneeze fetishist on coming to terms with their fetish; to then hearing from an FBI special agent and master spy recruiter on making people like you.
Mallett said: “Each episode of Wait, You What? is set to captivate, entertain and enlighten people. It’s been a huge amount of fun putting it together and I’m so excited to finally launch it into the stratosphere.”
Mallett says that despite the fact that each episode is unique, she finds that many people’s stories, at their core, come down to similar themes of the human experience: love, fear, loss, shame, failure, resilience and belonging. When it comes down to it, Mallett says Wait, You What? is about perspective.
“Sometimes in life, shit happens that’ll catch you off guard- and when it does, it’s how you respond to it that’s defining. Wait, You What? is all about hearing other people’s perspectives so we can enrich our own.”
Wondery to join Apple Podcast Subscriptions
Amazon’s podcast studio Wondery and Apple have announced a new partnership for the new Apple Podcast Subscriptions which launches later this month.
This is a rare deal between an Amazon company and Apple, that now gives the later access to properties such as Dr. Death, Business Wars and The Shrink Next Door, through the Wondery+ subscription service. Wondery+ offers ad-free podcasts, with early access and exclusive episodes for subscribers.
You can read more in this article by The Hollywood Reporter.
