Whether you’re celebrating these holidays yourself or simply want to learn more about them, we hope you enjoy our selection!

Did we miss an episode? Let us know in the comments or get in touch info@podbiblmag.com!

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Tell us about how you got into podcasting.

I used to be a TV director, and in 2019 I had an opportunity to interview several of the DEA agents who hunted and caught Pablo Escobar. Their testimonies were so engaging that I wasn’t prepared to reduce their life stories into TV-friendly soundbites. I gathered a few talented writers and editors, and we turned those interviews into a non-fiction drama podcast called Real Narcos. Our marketing budget was non-existent then, but the Apple Podcasts team enjoyed the show and front-paged it on their app. The podcast took off and Noiser Originals now have a monthly listenership of seven million and a team of 38. We produce immersive history and crime podcasts and use sound design and bespoke music to help the stories feel immersive.

What made you decide to launch a subscription on Apple Podcasts?

After launching Noiser, we quickly realized that we needed stable and diversified monetization options to continue making these shows regularly. When Apple Podcasts began its subscription offering, it was a no-brainer to partner with them. Our audience wanted an ad-free offering with bonus content — and we now have several thousand subscribers.

How do Apple Podcasts subscriptions fit into your overall business model?

Premium ad sales still drive our revenue; however, our Apple Podcasts subscription is rapidly becoming a key, dependable revenue source for the company. We are aiming to continue growing our subscriber audience in 2023.

What have you learned after launching Apple Podcasts Subscriptions?

We ran audience surveys across our network, and they told us that early access to new content and bonus material were the main reasons they signed up. Because of this, we are doubling down on producing subscriber-only content. People also tell us that they want to support the podcasts they love, and ultimately the subscription revenue helps us create more exclusive content for them to hear.

Where do you see Noiser in a year?

Noiser will release several new shows this year in the crime, adventure, and history spaces. We will launch several limited-run shows, as well as always-on weekly shows. There are so many amazing stories out there; we love the fact that we have the opportunity to tell them.

Tell us about an episode that you’re most proud of.

We recently produced a podcast on the life of civil rights activist Rosa Parks, which has been my favorite of our podcasts to date. Rosa’s story is so important, and hopefully, we were able to do it justice and introduce some new people to it.

What advice would you give someone trying to break into the industry?

I recommend not being too concerned about what other podcasters are doing and instead focusing on telling the stories you love in a way you enjoy. The first review we received was a one-star review. It stated that our show was not a real podcast because a real podcast had to have a conversational element. But we enjoyed listening to the show, so we carried on. This principle of only producing content that we would go out of our way to listen to is still the key factor in our editorial decisions.

Apple Podcast Subscriptions is the global marketplace for premium podcast subscriptions. Join the Apple Podcasts Subscriptions community alongside Noiser. Learn more at apple.co/podbible.

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In Search of Black History with Bonnie Greer
Ep. 1 // Bones Do Not Lie // Dec 2019

Bonnie Greer’s eight-part exploration of stories that have historically been sidelined or outright erased goes right back to the beginning of human history – indeed, even before then. We start 300,000 years ago with the very earliest of human ancestors, and Geer challenges long held presumptions, misapprehension, and straight-up lies with an almost meditative approach. which makes the regular surprises land all the harder. There’s real joy in the way that Greer opens out the human story to include all of us. Listen now on Audible >>

Human Resources
The Tree of Life // May 2021

In this stand-out series from Broccoli Productions, Moya Lothian-McLean contextualises the impact of the transatlantic slave trade on daily life in modern Britain. ‘The Tree of Life’ focuses on one of England’s greatest minds, Sir Isaac Newton, and his links to Britain’s slaving past such as the ‘slave triangle’ that allowed him to collect information for his studies. Enlightening interviews with experts alongside Moya’s engaging presentation style make this episodes, and the rest of the series, well worth checking out. Listen now on your podcast app >>

Code Switch
Black Kiss-tory // Feb 2021

Coode Switch jumps with both feet into the most livewire topics around race and society, and here hosts Shereen Marisol Meraji and Karen Grisby Bates use the Netflix period romance Bridgerton to delve into how Black romances set through history are essential for expanding ideas of Black lives in the past beyond pain and suffering. “Black romance thrives on complexity and nuance, on Black solidarity and achievement, on the triumph of everyday life lived well in spite of the odds, ” as the critic Carole Bell points out. Listen now on your podcast app >>

Pod Save The People
Edward Snowden // May 2017

The thoughtful explorations of social justice, politics and publis policy which DeRay McKesson and regular co-hosts Samuel Sinyangwe, Clint Smith and Brittany Packnett take on each week are always worth dropping in fro if you want t take the temperature of the US on anything that’s worth knowing. But dig into the archives for illuminating interviews with the likes of John Legend, Rev Al Sharpton, and this one with Edward Snowden, which is particularly good on the intersection of race and surveillance. Listen now on your podcast app >>

1619
Episode 1 // The Fight for a True Democracy // Aug 2019

1619 tells the important story of the history of American slavery and the birth of a new nation, with episode one focusing on the very beginning and the first ship to arrive in the English colony of Virginia with more than 20 enslaved Africans. Told with clarity and feeling and accompanied by stirring sound design, narrator Nikole Hannah-Jones lays the foundations for the rest of the series as she begins her examination into the long shadow of that fateful moment. Listen now on your podcast app >>

Louder Than a Riot
The Conspiracy Against Hip-Hop // Oct 2020

A decade ago, in April 2012, an explosive, anonymous email started to land in inboxes. It was titled ‘The Secret Meeting That Changed Rap Music and Destroyed a Generation’, and it laid our the accusation that in the late 1990s industry insiders and representatives from the prison system conspired to make music that promoted and glamourised criminal activities. The idea, the email said, was to pack the prision system for decades to comes. But was it real? Louder Than a Riot investigates… Listen now on your podcast app >>

Witness Black History
The killing of Amadou Diallo // Dec 2019

Powerful stories told by the people that witnessed them, or have direct links to those who were there, Witness Black History is a BBC World Service show that was created to accompany their popular Witness History series. In this episode we meet Kadiatou Diallo, the mother of Amadou Diallo who waws shot 41 times by the NYPD in 1999,leading to mass protests across New York. Kadiatou tells both Amadou’s and her own stories, with a focus on celebrating the way her son lived, rather than how he died. Listen now on your podcast app >>

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Want more Black history classics? Check out our Spotify playlist of Black history podcasts looking at the unrecounted nuances of black history, and powerful stories that have been forgotten.

Head to our Shop to pick up a copy of Pod Bible magazine for more recommendations, interviews and reviews.

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It’s taken criticism from some quarters over a few editorial choices, but The Trojan Horse Affair restates again how podcasts as a medium can take complex, morally grey stories and tease them out into a story rich with characters and twists which are all the more fascinating for being real.

If it’s got you hankering after more deeply reported investigation podcasts, you’re in luck. Here are some of the best of the last few years.

Death by Conspiracy?

When 46-year-old Gary Matthews died of Covid in January 2021, his family’s grief was made all the more disorientating by conspiracy groups claiming that Gary’s death had, in fact, been part of a cover-up. Marianna Spring, the BBC’s specialist disinformation and social media reporter, goes to Shrewsbury to find out who Gary was from his family and friends, how he drawn into the conspiratorial thinking of the Shropshire Corona Resilience Network, and how much responsibility they feel they bear for Gary’s passing. You’ll likely inhale all 10 episodes in one sitting. LISTEN NOW >> 

S-Town

The breakout hit that set the investigative podcast mode for the next decade, S-Town is a gripping, twisty, intensely characterful listen. The red herrings, the local eccentrics, the tiptoeing pace and sudden revelations are all part of the furniture now. The bigger question is whether you think it’s an exploitative piece of yokel-baiting or a thoughtful meditation on life itself. When horologist John B McLemore got in touch with This American Life asking them to investigate an alleged murder in his hometown of Woodstock, Alabama, it quickly turned out to be nothing. But a much bigger, more moving, and more profound story was there already – McLemore’s own life. LISTEN NOW >>

Bellingcat

A lot of podcasts do punditry and analysis. There aren’t that many doing proper investigative journalism. There are even fewer doing the kind of laborious, fiddly work that goes into disentangling the confusion which piles up around international incidents from original, open source material. Bellingcat has been doing that for some time now, and the two series of its podcast showcase how it does things. The first tried to get to the bottom of how flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, and the second a video apparently showing militiamen killing women and children in an unknown country. It’s extraordinary stuff. LISTEN NOW >> 

The Tip-Off

The big stories which break in the national press are frequently shocking, engrossing and revealing in themselves, but the stories of how they came together are often equally as fascinating. That’s what The Tip-Off focuses on. Maeve McClenaghan speaks to the journalists behind some of the most complex and important stories of recent years – including Liz MacKean and Meirion Jones, who broke the story of Jimmy Savile’s crimes – about the complex business of getting to the truth. LISTEN NOW >>

How It Happened

Axios’ behind-the-scenes strand has included a couple of Trump stories: first, reporter Jonathan Swan traces how the Capitol riot came to happen, going all the way back to Trump’s recovery from Covid and attempts to jump-start his re-election campaign; and second, the attempts to broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians which first failed, and then were rescued. They’ve also started a new Putin themed season this month. LISTEN NOW >> 

Where is George Gibney?

Reporter Mark Horgan sets off on the tail of George Gibney, a former Irish Olympic swimming coach who was charged with 27 counts of sexual assault and rape against young people under his charge, and who fled to America via Scotland in 1994 before he could stand trial. This pod isn’t about having a triumphal moment of catharsis, though; rather, it’s the culmination of dogged detective work and a particularly empathetic understanding of what Gibney’s accusers went through. LISTEN NOW >>

A Very Fatal Murder

Just went it felt like investigative podcasts might be disappearing up their own Dictaphones, satirical newspaper The Onion’s show A Very Fatal Murder arrived to spoof them all beautifully. David Pascall is a journalist on the lookout for the perfect death to make his Great American Podcast about, with help from ETHL, an MIT-engineered robot constantly sweeping news reports for “the most interesting, violent, culturally relevant murder cases in America”. It’s pitch perfect, and extremely funny. LISTEN NOW >>

The Walkers Switch

The closest British equivalent is about an appropriately British outrage: the fact that at some point in the nineties, Walkers switched the colours of its salt and vinegar and cheese and onion crisp packets – a fact that the company denies ever happened. Overnight, it seemed, the world of deep fried potato was turned upside down. Or… was it? What starts out as a deadpan gag turns into an oddly absorbing examination of the Mandela effect, the Illuminati, and Gary Lineker. LISTEN NOW >> 

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But however brilliant your Christmas is or isn’t, at some point you’ll be overcome with the urge to lie down in a dark room and stay very still for a while. That’s where your podcast Christmas specials come in.

Gathering around the fireside (or at least a nice bed of fireside FX) for an especially cosy chat is non-negotiable for most big pods now, but there’s a wealth of great Christmas-adjacent episodes out there too.

The Allusionist – Ep 41, Getting Toasty

Out on the frozen tundra of Antarctica, scientists Amy Lowitz, Christine Moran and Allison Barden can see the South Pole marker. Or they would, if there had been any daylight for the last four months. Shake off the plasticky excesses of the season with a meditative chat about exactly what working at the South Pole does to your body and your mind. Those elves should unionise. Listen now >>

Wireless Nights – Destiny’s Child, Christmas 2018

Jarvis Cocker’s Radio 4 show has returned for a new run recently, and this Yuletide edition is a good place to start with the back catalogue. We bump into people who slot into the Nativity story – a shepherdess, a stargazer, a baby born from a miraculous birth – as well as hearing a story about a Christmas spent adrift at sea. Listen now >>

The Boring Talks – An Underwhelming Christmas, 2018

After perhaps the most intensely underwhelming Christmas of all underwhelming Christmases in 2020, this one’s going to feel pretty sweet for a lot of us. But invariably, there’ll be a point at which you wonder what all the fuss is about. Rhodri Marsden comes over all Scrooge to compare the reality of Christmas with the reality of it in the UK, from white Christmases to grotty grottoes. Listen now >>

Christmas Past – The Eggnog Riot

In the spirit of keeping Christmas with us all year round, the Christmas Past podcast runs 12 months a year and mixes interviews with Christmas filmmakers, Christmas stories, new Christmas singles and bitesize history lessons. This is the latter; the backstory to ‘Jingle Bells’ is interesting enough, but a riot which broke out at West Point military academy in 1826 is too delicious. Listen now >>

Field Recordings – Singing Gate, Dorset

It ain’t Christmas until someone’s suggested a big walk. Whether you end up moving or not is irrelevant; the feeling that you should definitely go on a big walk has to be aired. If it feels like too much of an effort, try this short from Field Recordings, recorded on the winter solstice last year. No intro, no framing; just the sounds of Bronkham Hill ridge, dotted with ancient burial mounds and barrows. Atmospheric. Listen now >>

Off Menu – Ep 42, Christmas Special with Greg Davies

Off Menu wheels out the big stand-up guns for its Christmas specials, and over the last couple of years they’ve had Sarah Millican, Russell Howard, Joe Lycett and Nish Kumar on. The best, though, is the Taskmaster himself: Greg Davies. Invariably the best Off Menu menus are those of people who give the impression that eating is a terrible inconvenience, and Davies is no exception. No starter, no side, a steak cooked medium and a finale of Sussex pond pudding makes James Acaster’s brain fold in on itself. Listen now >>

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We hope it helps you find podcasts that narrate the unrecounted nuances of black history, and powerful stories that have been forgotten.

Have we missed off an episode you think is a must-listen? Let us know on Twitter or email us info@podbiblemag.com and we can add it on.

The post Pod Bible’s Black History Month podcast playlist appeared first on POD BIBLE.

But education never truly stops. Whether it’s learning a new skill or the science behind baking, the school of life is vast — and it’s not limited to the confines of formal education. That said, we often have to get creative in giving ourselves time to consume information and get our curiosity going.

Here are my top six educational podcasts, from history to how to be a great leader, that can help continue your education from the comfort of your own home.

Everything Under The Sun!

The much-acclaimed children’s podcast, hosted by author and original QI elf Molly Oldfield, returns for a third series this month. The science-themed podcast invites a host of well-known personalities and experts to answer questions from curious children. Listen now on Acast >>

Homeschool History

After nearly a year spent unable to enter classrooms, pupils needed more creative ways to learn. The Homeschool History podcast provides just that, in the shape of fun history lessons for all the family. The show is full of facts and jokes and brings to life a broad range of historical topics. Listen now on Acast >>

Sidenote

For the Einsteins of the world, there’s Sidenote by AsapSCIENCE — the hit podcast where Mitch and Greg explain the science behind a new subject, using studies, anecdotes, and interviews to keep you entertained. Listen now on Acast >>

History Extra

As a former history major, trust me when I say the History Extra Podcast keeps history buffs fully indulged with the curiosities and world events of the past. This week, Neil Faulkner reveals how the Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 helped give rise to the first modern jihad — you won’t want to miss it. Listen now on Acast >>

The Lazy Genius

This is arguably one of the most necessary school of life podcasts out there (and one I can relate to the most). The Lazy Genius podcast is here to help you become a genius when it comes to the things that matter — and lazy about the things that don’t. From laundry, to cooking chicken, to making new friends, host Kendra is here to welcome you into an easier way of life. Listen now on Acast >>

No Bullsh!t Leadership

Last but definitely not least is the no-nonsense No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast, for budding CEOs and change-makers. Each week, host Martin G Moore shares the secrets of high-performance leadership; the career accelerators you can’t learn in business school, and that your boss is unlikely to share with you. Listen now on Acast >>

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This article was produced as part of our partnership with Acast. To enquire about advertising with Pod Bible email info@podbiblemag.com

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