Compiled by Tess Connery
From Kenya to Canada: Marc Fennell on ‘bottling the sense of adventure’ for Stuff The British Stole
Museums and galleries are filled with artworks, jewels, and priceless relics that have been seized and taken halfway across the planet for display. Following the success of the show’s first season, Marc Fennell returns with a new season of Stuff The British Stole on ABC and iView.
Podcast Week’s Tess Connery caught up with Fennell to speak about the success of the Stuff The British Stole podcast.
Can you tell me a bit about how the show and the podcast differ?
I view them all as part of the same universe of stories, I don’t think of one as higher or lower than the other. They’re connected, but there are some crucial differences.
With the television show, you have to be able to show people things, and the one piece of leverage that museums and galleries have is they can always say no, you can’t film the object and we won’t answer any questions. I suspect they think that will stop the stories from going ahead, and it doesn’t.
With the television show, we have a whole budget just for replicates. Now, if we use a replica in the show we always tell you at some point, but we had a whole replica of a sphinx made for, we had to replicate a sixth-century mosaic, we borrowed the crown from one of the props companies that does the props for The Crown. We’re always trying to bring things to life.
The podcast just hit 5 million downloads last month, which is huge – congratulations.
Thank you. The reason I’m surprised by it is because you have to consider the origin of this thing – it literally started with me and a microphone by myself with a couple of hours to spare in London. We’d had the idea and I’d pitched it around to British broadcasters at the time. This is 2019 and all these British broadcasters just looked at me blankly like, Did we really steal that much stuff, though?
I just started recording it by myself with the microphone. From then the ABC and CBC got involved, and when the podcast launched it went to number one in a whole bunch of different online podcasts rankers. I was like, What? I thought I thought I was making this weird niche show about nicked artefacts, and actually, I think it tapped into something that I don’t think I could have predicted.
[Read the full the interview with Marc Fennell here]
7News releases true crime podcast The Truth About Amy
The Seven Network has premiered a true crime podcast from the investigative team behind The Lady Vanishes and Shot in the Dark.
The Truth About Amy, produced by Seven journalists Alison Sandy and Liam Bartlett, reopens the case of the death of 24-year-old Amy Wensley in 2014.
It’s been 10 years since the body of the mother-of-two was found in her bedroom in Serpentine, Western Australia. She’d died from a gunshot wound to the head.
Outside in the driveway, Amy’s car engine was still running, and her two daughters were strapped into the back seat – with clothes, toys and other essentials, ready to leave. Amy had gone inside to get one last thing and never came out.
[Listen to The Truth About Amy here]
9News podcast Hannah’s Story honoured with third national award
The team behind 9News Queensland and 9Podcast’s podcast Hannah’s Story celebrated another significant achievement at the Walkley Foundation 2024 Mid-Year Celebration of Journalism.
They received the Our Watch Award for Excellence in Reporting on Violence Against Women. It adds to their other accolades for the production, which include the Kennedy Award for Outstanding Podcast, the Spotlight category at the Australian Podcast Awards, and the Best Narrative Documentary podcast at the New York Festival Radio Awards.
Hannah’s Story is presented by 9News Queensland presenter Melissa Downes, produced by 9News Queensland producer Jessica Lodge, and edited by Adam Buncher of 9Podcasts.
[Listen to Hannah’s Story here]
9Podcasts lifts in shows and sales representation ranking
Nine’s podcast network, 9Podcasts, has leapt up the Australian Podcast Ranker to take the No.5 spot for sales representation nationally, with 1,387,096 monthly listeners and 3,635,692 monthly downloads in May 2024.
The Ben Fordham Live catch up podcast was Nine’s highest ranking podcast at No.29 on the Australian Top Podcast Ranker (up 3 positions in May), attracting more than 194,000 listeners and 388,000 downloads.
Over on the Australian-made podcast ranker, Nine’s new investigative journalism podcast, The Missing Campers Trial debuted at No.53; ACRA winning series Stories of Origin made a return to the top All Australian Made ranker at No.142, and Footy Classified jumped the most positions in the ranker across Nine’s stable, up 14 places this month.
[Find May’s Podcast Ranker here]
New podcast Grand Gestures is the nonna bear hug we all need
Comedian Lizzy Hoo is the host of SBS’s new podcast Grand Gestures, an interview podcast with 10 notable Australians re-telling family stories and speaking about the special bonds they have with their grandparents.
Hear heart-warming and heart-breaking stories of grandparents who were second parents, confidants, heroes, and custodians of knowledge and traditions.
“Grand Gestures is like a warm hug from your grandparents – it’s full of warmth and stories that remind you of your own loved ones,” said Hoo.
“Especially as we get older, we start to realise our grandparents are the keepers of all the family stories and histories.”
[Listen to Grand Gestures here]
