Pod Drop

A preview of three new (and returning) podcasts you should hear! The Cut - Rebirth of a beloved podcast Quarantine Genius - Shakespeare and other greats in pandemics Consenting Adults - Funny and true accounts of ethical non-monogamy.

Three new podcasts to check out! Literally! With Rob Lowe - A-list celebrity chat The Carlos Watson Show - Expert interviews with public figures The Syndicate - Incredible student-run black-market marijuana

A flash review of three outstanding new podcasts to discover! Guru: The Dark Side of Enlightenment - Three people dead. The Gift of Forgiveness - True stories  from both sides. Great Big Story - The most fascinating stories you've never heard.

A flash review of three new podcasts you should hear! Unfinished: Deep South - A Jim Crow murder investigation Consider This - Interviews with National Geographic stars The Gratitude Diaries - Daily uplift

A flash review of three new and returning podcasts!  Servant of Pod with Nick Quah - the famous podcast expert finally starts a podcast! Land of the Giants - the immersive Recode series returns to examine Netflix Truth vs. Hollywood - can truth coexist in life and on the screen?

A flash review of three outstanding new podcasts! Unholier Than Thou - A priest tries to figure out the world Good Yarns - Lots of laughter ...but no knitting, get it? Waiting on Reparations - Rap and politics

Three (very different!) new podcasts! Live! From Tomorrow - A show within a show, serious and frivolous My Funeral Home Stories - Is this the True Death genre? RomComPods - Fun escapist romantic comedy fiction

Three splendid (and somewhat strange!) new podcasts! Heaven Bent: Strange manifestations in a Canadian church Borrasca: A gloriously produced fictional mystery/horror show Hope in Darkness, the Josh Holt Story: Political abduction

Three new (one returning) podcasts! Stay Human (Michael Franti) / Homemade (Allrecipes) / Stroke of Genius (IPO Educational Foundation)

Three new fabulous new podcasts! Can We All Come Out Now? - Stories  of (extreme) emergence. Wind of Change - Did The Scorpions really write that iconic song? Missing in Alaska - A (very) cold case of two missing senators.

Three excellent new podcasts! Influence: Exploring the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Advertising: This interesting and accessible podcast about advertising has just returned for its second season. It is a branded podcast produced by file-storage and sharing service WeTransfer, hosted by Chief Creative Officer Damian Bradfield. It’s an extended documentary podcast that takes a deep dive into the world of advertising via interviews with experts and ad execs. It explores questions like: How much of a say do we really have when it comes to the things we buy? And what does the way we consume advertising say about our culture, our economy and our world? One reviewer said: “Influence has helped me understand the internet better.”  All Together Now: Fridays with The Moth:  This is a podcast drop within a podcast. The Moth is the well-known live storytelling show that started in 1997! — as a podcast it is downloaded 73-million times a year. It might seem like the gambit here is to add a second story performance show into The Moth’s existing feed — and that is the case — there is also a thematic rationale for “All Together Now.” There will be a new episode every Friday through Labor Day featuring “PG-rated” stories from The Moth archive, curated into weekly themes … like Identity, Togetherness, Transformation, and more. We’re told that the show is for listeners who are distancing or quarantining together in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: kids, couples, singles, and friends of any generation. So, it’s a Covid-19 spinoff meant to bring The Moth’s warmth, humor, and inspiration to a limited run of special shows. TEDx Shorts:  TEDx Shorts is the seventh in an enlarging empire of TED programs, whose podcasts are downloaded 420-million times a year. The TED Radio Hour, now hosted by Manoush Zomorodi, is the audio flagship for this cluster of TED shows. TEDx is the localized extension of the original TED talks. The TEDx program started in 2009, and there have been 28,000 TEDx events in 170 countries since then. With those numbers, you have to think it’s about time we get a podcast featuring the best of those local events and presentations. Hosting this new podcast is actress Atossa Leoni, known for her role in the television series Homeland. The promotion for this podcast mentions that Atossa is fluent in five languages — she appears to settle on English for this show. ( It’s not called TEDx -SHORTS- for nothing — the bite-sized episodes will each be under 10 minutes.)

Three new podcasts to recommend! Dear Governor -  Maybe we shouldn’t call this a True Crime podcast — it’s more like a True Innocence show, or a True Redemption podcast. It centers on Jarvis Jay Masters, a condemned prisoner who has maintained his innocence for over 30 years. The podcast shares intimate details of his life story and his ongoing legal case. The man has written inspirational books and articles while imprisoned in a nine-by-four cell, and his case is famous enough to inspire an exoneration website. There is a larger moral thrust to the show. Notes for the first episode observe that the U.S. is the only Western nation that continues to execute its own citizens. And the backdrop of Jarvis’s particular predicament is California governor Gavis Newsom’s moratorium on capital punishment. “The story is tragic, but also quite heartening!” Let's Find Common Ground -  The title makes it pretty clear this is a podcast about politics, community, and the social good. The main purpose of the show is to find and foster points of agreement in a world of increasing incivility. Guests will include figures in academia, public policy, and finance. Interview subjects in the first dropped episodes are General Wesley Clark, who was a presidential candidate in 2004, and Professor Paul Light of NYU, who has testified in Congress. “A thoughtful and refreshing take compared to the polarized discussions we see in the media all day long.” Oxfor Road Presents: Media's New Deal -  Oxford Road is a Los Angeles creative media agency, and the show is, in a sense, a branded podcast, but more out front about that than most others. CEO Dan Granger hosts this interview show with new-media leaders. The first three episodes feature conversations with Hernan Lopez, founder and CEO of Wondery, David Field, CEO of Entercom (owner of Cadence13, RADIO.com, and Pineapple Street Studios) and Andy Lipset, the CEO of audio production company Spoken Layer. This is a limited run series, and though we don’t know exactly what that means, Dan Granger’s inspirational four-minute State Of The Media Landscape speech which is the show trailer, clearly ties the show to Coronavirus.

Three new podcasts! Yang Speaks -Ex-presidential candidate Andrew Yang has partnered with the Cadence13 network for a weekly podcast. It’s mainly a spotlight for Yang, even though his campaign is over, to promote his ideas, prominent among which is the Universal Basic Income program which was a pillar of his campaign, and which has gained more momentum now than during the campaign. (Yang can thank the economic disruption of Covid-19 for that.) In addition, the show is basically a chatcast covering many topics and featuring many guests, facilitated by Zach Graumann, Yang’s ex-campaign manager. Two shows have dropped. The first is just Andrew and Zach, the second features Ken Jeong, who used to be a doctor and is now a comedian. The episodes are settling into a 60-minute format. Run It Again -  This is a sports podcast produced by Benztown. If there is any production house in the world that knows how to create highly compressed and loud audio it is Benztown. (Listen to the trailer below.) The in-your-face production style is interesting marketing, as it is pure commercial radio, produced by a house whose main business is making radio imaging and jingles. Most podcast marketing (and shows) strive to differentiate from radio with a softer conversational approach. And in fact, Run It Again is actually straight-ahead conversation once you get into the show … at least the first episode which features NFL sportscaster Ron Pitts and analyst Mike Martz from FOX Sports. The rationale here is to skip the daily details of standings and game highlights (makes sense, given no games presently), and focus on inside stories of the sports industry. Podcast-19 - This carefully articulated show is produced by FiveThirtyEight, the company known for data-driven news and statistical analysis. There is a partnership with ABC News. Podcast-19 has a mission to separate fact from myth, certainty from mystery. Anna Rothschild is the host — she has years of experience reporting on science, health and the environment, and her work has won awards from scientific organization. The show is part news update and part interview. The first episode dropped on May 1, and comes in at a clean 30 minutes.

Three new podcasts! Hope Through History -  Hosted by New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham, this production is a five-part series examining five historic and critical turning points in American history. The first episode is “FDR and the Great Depression,” including the instantly recognizable “Nothing to fear but fear itself” speech. The entire first season will cover Season One takes a look at critical moments around the 1918 Flu Pandemic (which arguably could have made the most relevant first episode), the Great Depression, World War II, the polio epidemic and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Podcast guests include numerous distinguished scholars. This is high-level audio documentary, exceptionally accessible with 30-minute episodes (if the first drop is a template for the others). Strange Arrivals -  A UFO encounter podcast, Strange Arrivals launched at the end of March, and has posted four weekly episodes so far, about 30 minutes each. It is categorized as a History podcast, and the specific case study is that of Betty and Barney Hill, who in 1961 were purportedly chased by a bright sky object, until they found themselves directly encountering an alien craft. According to show notes, their story is “one of the most famous encounters of UFO lore.” Hosted by Toby Ball. The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber - The host is a public theologian (which is an interesting job description), NYT bestselling author, former stand-up comic, recovering alcoholic, founder of the House for All Saints & Sinners in Denver, and Moth storyteller. She is well known in the 21st-century New Age culture for what might be described as a spiritually incorrect attitudes and language. Bolz-Weber is a street-wise pastor for bruised souls, and has gained viral renown for her short-form video sermons. This podcast is about radical forgiveness. The format has Bolz-Weber interviewing extraordinary individuals who are in some state of spiritual recovery or redemption. The first episode guest is Megan Phelps-Roper, a former spokesperson of the Westboro Baptist Church (famous for religious demonstrations often described as hateful). Going forward, The Confessional will invite guests to share stories about times they were at their worst. Guests talk honestly about what led to that moment, what they learned from it, and how they changed as a result. The show offers a phone hotline for listeners to confess things. The first episode is 26 minutes long.

A Belgian bed-and-breakfast called Le Coffee Ride produces a charming conversational podcast to enjoy while drinking your own feshly-brewed cup. // The Harris School of Public Policy makes a charming atypical politics podcast with an intellectual flavor. // From marketing and analytics company Gfk, a podcast about research, innovation, and discovery.

Pod Drop is a podcast for discovering new podcasts. Sounds "meta," right? It's a five-minute flash briefing twice a week, each episode showcasing three recently launched ("dropped") podcasts. Take a listen!