2023-08-01 (This is a rebroadcast of an episode of The Sound School Podcast from 2020, back when it was called HowSound. These notes about the episode are from that time as well.) The other day, I dropped off some computer speakers at a friend’s house. She came …›
2023-07-25 Introduction Hey y’all! We’ve got a bunch of new subscribers, so I thought I’d do a little housekeeping! I’m Alice, a podcast producer in Durham, North Carolina. I write this newsletter in partnership with Transom, the best tr …›
2023-07-18 Music is emotional fascism. I often say that when I’m teaching. It’s a warning about scoring stories with music because music is incredibly dangerous — it commands an emotion. It’s almost as though we have no control over what we feel when …›
2023-07-11 Hello! Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. If you’re new here, my name is Talia, I’m an audio producer based in London. Last year, I created a Google Doc compiling international audio resources. In this news …›
2023-07-05 Sometimes I yell at podcasts. I’ve grown weary of narrative series that use the same tropes again and again. Haven’t you? Surely, you’ve heard this too many times: “To understand, we need to go back in time.” What about this: “When I first …›
2023-06-27 Introduction I try not to think too much about the day that I got laid off. It was during the early days of COVID. After I got the news I called my favorite union steward, who called the SAG-AFTRA lawyers. Then I logged off Slack, ignored texts or call …›
2023-06-20 When I think back on it, I had a positively appalling approach to field recording when I first started out as a producer. A problem would present itself in the field and I would think “I’ll fix it later.” Wow. What a mistake. For instance …›
2023-06-13 The first cohort of the CBC’s Indigenous Pathways programme. Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. If you’re new here, my name is Talia, I’m an audio producer based in London. Last year, I created a Goog …›
2023-06-06 “Driveway moment.” That’s a term used for a captivating audio story. The story is so good, so well told, a listener can’t get out of their car until they finish listening. A “driveway moment” is something all audio producers strive for. Bac …›
2023-05-30 Hi all, Happy Friday! I have a two-parter for you today. First off is a Q&A with Tinkercast — one of the leading publishers of kids podcasts — about the state of children’s audio and the challenges of adapting the medium for YouTube. How do y …›
2023-05-30 The week is almost over, and I hope it will end on a good note. Today, I dive into a YouTube pilot for RSS that likely will have a major impact on podcasters if it becomes adopted, and a…very wild night on Twitter Spaces! Will YouTube’s RSS lea …›
2023-05-27 Hope everyone at The Podcast Show is enjoying the conference (and ignoring their jet lag). While I’m still very much across the pond (like, way across) in LA, this issue of Hot Pod leads with some news from BBC Radio. I’m also digging int …›
2023-05-23 We were digging into some numbers the other day. By “we,” I mean, Jay Allison and Jennifer Jerrett at Transom and Kerri Hoffman at PRX. And by numbers, I mean “How many episodes of Sound School have there been?” The answer is simple — 20. …›
2023-05-19 Hi all, Hope everyone is surviving the week. Today, I have an exclusive interview with one of the co-founders of DWNLOAD Media, a new investment firm focused on the audio industry. I’ll also take a look at the new audio app by The New York …›
2023-05-19 Hi all, Today we’re mixing it up a bit. First off, I have a post-Podcast Upfronts Q&A I conducted with SiriusXM’s Lizzie Widhelm and Scott Walker. Both Widhelm and Walker are a part of SXM Media, the massive ads operation that powers SiriusXM, …›
2023-05-16 Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. If you’re new here, my name is Talia, I’m an audio producer based in London. Last year, I created a Google Doc compiling international audio resources. In this newsletter, …›
2023-05-12 Hi all, Hope everyone is recovering well from yesterday’s Podcast Upfront. For today’s issue of Insider, I’ll go over the AI hype cycle, layoffs at PRX, and some announcements and deals. AI was topic du jour in podcasts over the pas …›
2023-05-12 Today was the first in-person Podcast Upfront since the pandemic, and it started off with a bang. Well, maybe not. A glitch — in the very beginning — caused presentations from last week’s IAB NewFronts to briefly air for remote attendees (“Shou …›
2023-05-10 Hi all, This week is an exciting one for the audio industry, with Podcast Upfront around the corner and awards season underway. This week we’ll look at a new community audio project on BlueSky and Spotify’s expansion of its audio ad network i …›
2023-05-10 Hi all, Hope everyone is looking forward to some rest this weekend. For today’s Friday issue, we’ll look at how traditional podcasts are faring on YouTube, the Vox Media Podcast Network’s debut on Podtrac, and a lightning round of new deals …›
2023-05-09 Remember back in high school, when a student would raise their hand and ask the teacher “How long does the report need to be?” I clearly remember one teacher saying, “Long enough to answer the question!” Good one, right? The teacher was clearly …›
2023-05-04 Hi all, There’s been a whole flurry of earnings reports from the audio industry over the past couple of weeks — so I dove into what we’ve learned about the state of podcast ads today. I took a closer look at iHeartMedia’s earnings, as wel …›
2023-05-02 Introduction Hey y’all, Welcome back to Starting Out, from me and Transom. It’s season four of the newsletter! And my first season of the newsletter on Substack. I switched platforms because I want us to be able to connect more — and …›
2023-04-25 For this episode of The Sound School Podcast, I took Chris Brookes’ advice. “I believe in finding a talisman,” Chris wrote on Transom back in 2011. He says he digs up a talisman for a story he’s producing, something that’s “connected in som …›
2023-04-18 Hello! Welcome back to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. If you’re new here, my name is Talia, I’m an audio producer based in London. Last year, I created a Google Doc compiling international audio resources. Every month, I …›
2023-04-11 “You don’t want the music to take over or even be noticed very much.” I think that’s the most important observation Quil Lawrence made when we talked about a non-narrated, audio obituary he produced. Quil reports on veterans for NPR. The obitua …›
2023-03-28 If a podcast drops in Tanzania, does it make a sound? Munira Kaoneka is asking just that question when producing a podcast from her home in Dar es Salaam. Some days she wonders who’s listening because, as she puts it, “podcasters are struggling out …›
2023-03-21 Hello! Welcome (back) to All Hear Hello! Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. Before I get into this month’s Spotlights and opportunities, Transom has some exciting news! They are considering (re)starting some prog …›
2023-03-16 Introduction Welcome back to Starting Out, from me and Transom! There won’t be an issue of Starting Out next month, since I’ll be hard at work preparing the next season of the newsletter for you. Do newsletters have seasons? …›
2023-03-14 If a humpback whale could talk to us, what would they say? Dr. Geraint Rhys Whittaker decided they might say the same thing someone who lived through a bombing would say. And then he made an audio piece called “First Contact.” It’s intriguing rig …›
2023-02-28 Steve Junker makes it sound easy. A year or so ago, he was stuck inside during a cold Cape Cod winter while Covid was still a thing and he was feeling restless. “And so I started thinking about like how we can bring the world to us,” Steve told me. …›
2023-02-21 Hello! Welcome (back) to All Hear. In case this is your first time: my name is Talia, I’m an audio producer based in London. Last year, I created a Google Doc compiling international audio resources. Every month in my newsletter, I’ll rem …›
2023-02-14 “Should I? Or shouldn’t I?” “Should I? Or Shouldn’t I?” I must have asked myself that question a thousand times. My internal dialogue never seemed to end. “It’s one of the most important events of your life! Bring a recorder!!” “No, …›
2023-02-02 Introduction Hey y’all — Ariana Martinez has been on my “to interview” list for a while now — they’re an incredibly talented sound designer and make truly delightful stories. But what I was most excited about was how they push t …›
2023-01-31 I think my favorite quote from Brian Harnetty on this episode of Sound School is when he told me his work as a sound ethnographer is “basically, curiosity that’s rooted in sound.” As he conducts his research, he says he pays attention to the “s …›
2023-01-24 The Everything List for Audio Opportunities Hi there! My name is Talia, I’m an audio producer based in London. When I entered the industry a couple of years ago, I really struggled to find opportunities. Eventually I started compiling a small list of …›
2023-01-20 The Everything List of Audio Opportunities When I was just starting out, it was hard to learn about what opportunities were out there in the audio industry. It felt like you had to know someone who knew something, or look in a million places, or pay fo …›
2023-01-19 A call for submissions for the Transom Specials We want to help support your passion project — a small, random, one-off story or audio experiment that means a lot to you. And one that might not fit anywhere else. This call is for (ideally) finished p …›
2023-01-17 I subscribe to far too many podcasting emails. I probably need to cut back. But, I won’t. It’s the best way for me to stay in touch with what’s happening outside my radio/podcast bubble where I live in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. I just wish these …›
2023-01-10 Introduction Hey y’all, As longtime readers of the newsletter know, I’m a gardener. Which means I have a tough time in January. It’s too early to start my seeds for spring, most of my fall crops have been knocked out by the cold …›