Podcasts are in a transitional period. After over a decade of booming growth and investment, the audio business has consolidated. Yet there remains a plethora of listening options for every taste.
“It's … a sort of minor index of what's happening everywhere else in the entertainment business,” Vulture magazine podcast critic Nick Quah said on Boston Public Radio on Wednesday. “We're all figuring out what the new normal, or what an actual sort of equitable and balanced money ecosystem, looks like for all of these media businesses.”
Like trends in television, podcasts are now mostly chat shows with low overhead costs, said Quah. It’s more difficult for longform, narrative shows like “This American Life” or “Slow Burn” to be monetarily successful. Reporters may be reporting for months or years at a time, which is not suited to the advertising-based business model of podcasts, Quah explained.
Despite this, Quah was still able to recommend several podcasts to fill the hours in those long summer flights and car rides.
For fans of true crime
A series from This American Life, this podcast tells the story of the women who underwent painful procedures at the Yale Fertility Clinic because a nurse had swapped out painkilling fentanyl with saline.
“It's a very, very difficult listen, and folks should steel themselves if they want to go into it,” Quah said.
Only three episodes are out, but Quah thinks the show will try to answer the question of “what does justice look like in a complicated situation like this?”
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For thinkers
"Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas"
“Slow Burn” is a history podcast — one of those longform shows that’s becoming more difficult to produce. Season 8 is out now, which chronicles the personal life of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Host Joel Anderson even visits the home of 94-year-old Leola Williams, Thomas’ mother.
“The longer we have certain political figures in life, specifically Supreme Court justices … the less we kind of know about them,” said Quah. “I have a political understanding of Clarence Thomas, [but] I actually have very little idea who this person is outside of the many headlines.”
The show asks small questions that lead to big ideas, like “Do you drink coffee on airplanes?”
It was created by P.J. Vogt, the former host of “Reply All,” a podcast that shut down in 2021, in part due to workplace complaints about Vogt.
“P.J. was a real talent in this business and it's a really fascinating thing to sort of watch him come back from this and try to … build a narrative show that works in 2023,” Quah said.
For star chasers
Yes, that Anna Delvey, or Anna Sorokin, depending on what identity she’s using. Delvey is known for conning her way through Manhattan’s elite. She’s been in the public eye since a 2018 New York Magazine feature profiled her fraudulent activities — and later a Shonda Rhimes-produced Netflix limited series. After serving two years in prison, Delvey is currently out on house arrest and records podcast episodes from her West Village apartment.
“It's kind of a spectacle. I would not recommend it as a good show, but I would say that it's a fascinating thing to listen to,” said Quah. The talk-show format adds to Delvey’s intrigue, he said, because the listener hears mostly from her interesting guests, while Delvey rarely speaks.
Even though it’s ranked number three on Apple podcasts, Quah finds this show with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett “intolerable” at times. Still, “Sometimes it actually does reach transcendent levels of … rich people extracting really interesting, sort of, insight from other rich people,” Quah said.
"Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus"
Louis-Dreyfus interviews women older than her about their lives and careers. “She’s also just a delight behind the mic,” Quah said.
