Are Canada's Podcast Networks on the same page? VOLUME 2

Vol. 35 - CBC Podcasts, TVO Today, Canadaland, Sonar Network and more reflect on podcasting in 2023.

Dec 26, 2023

Hihi!! Happy Pod the North Tuesday! I hope you’re enjoying the winter holidays and are currently nestled under a blanket, happily bloated by festive treats.

Speaking of the holidays, why not give the gift of *nice words* to Pod the North this season?

Pod the North is on an exciting journey towards TAKING OVER THE WORLD. Just kidding, but I am looking to grow this community more significantly over the next year. Testimonials are a big part of making this happen!

Leave a testimonial

In this issue:

7 Canadian Podcast Networks reflect on 2023 and what’s to come in 2024: Amplify Podcast Network, Canadaland, CBC Podcasts, Frequency Podcast Network, Harbinger Media Network, Sonar Network, and TVO Today.

UPDATE: There are currently 29 long-term drinking water advisories in effect in 27 First Nations communities across Canada. A drinking water advisory affecting Miawpukek First Nation's Conne River public water system in Newfoundland has been in effect for more than 12 months. It affects 35 homes.

It’s time for some reflection on Canadian podcasting…

This time last year, I reached out to powerhouses from across the Canadian podcast industry to ask them what they had learned from the year prior, and what we could expect from them in 2023.

In that issue of Pod the North, there were plenty of ambitious goals, and really a variety of responses when it came to how industry folks were thinking about success over the next year; from strategies around framing academic conversations, and telling Canadian stories, to use of main-feeds and live events.

2023 was sure to be an exciting year of change and experimentation in podcasting!

And 2023 really did deliver what was truly a chaotic and heartbreaking, yet exciting year for the industry. Plenty of fan-favourite podcasts were discontinued and producers laid-off, and yet some wonderful projects and impressive stats were still able to emerge.

As we wrap up what was the Mario-Cart-style year of podcasting, looking back at the goals we set in December 2022 feels like a lifetime ago. So I reached out to Canada’s podcast networks to see if their learnings and predictions for 2023 still rang true, and how *what just happened* is impacting podcasting in 2024.

Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Amplify Podcast Network

Amplify Podcast Network is at the forefront of scholarly podcasting in Canada, and entering the 2023 new year they were thinking about how “play and experimentation are crucial to creating new ways of thinking and making space for different voices.” They were optimistic about the year ahead, during which they launched a call for pitches to their Sustain stream and an experimental audio/zine Manifesto.

Here’s how 2023 played out for Amplify Podcast Network, and how it’s impacting the year ahead!

Throughout 2023 play and experimentation definitely shaped the thinking and design behind our Amplify Manifesto project. The core statement grounding the manifesto in its audio and zine forms is: "we believe that scholarly podcasts create new knowledge, out loud and in conversation, by embracing experimentation, making space for different voices, and building new communities through collaboration and openness." We hope this is just the beginning of how this statement will shape the network moving forward.
2023 marked the acceptance of our first Sustain cohort of four shows into the network! The Editorial Board was blown away by the number and quality of the proposals we received in our very first round, and thrilled for what this enthusiasm says about the growth of scholarly podcasting. This year we also learned a TON in the process of working on our first pitch-to-publish peer-review podcast under the Amplify name and the evolving space university publishing industry could be for podcast scholarship into the future.
Our first original peer-review podcast following Secret Feminist Agenda is in final revisions and we hope to see it released by Wilfrid Laurier University Press under the Resonate stream in 2024.
2024 is also the year for our first Amplify Podcasting School. An idea my co-director Hannah [McGregor] and I have been plotting for a while now is finally happening! This April 2024 you will find us on Burnaby Mountain in British Columbia for a full week of podcast camaraderie with a cohort of 15 graduate students and early career researchers interested in making their own scholarly podcasts. We hope for this to be the first of many Amplify Podcasting School events in the future.
— Stacey Copeland, Supervising Producer and Project Manager

The podcast that made an impact on Amplify Podcast Network in 2023: 3QTL: Three Questions About Teaching and Learning

CBC Podcasts

At the end of 2022, CBC Podcasts announced the launch of Sherman, Let's Make a Rom-Com, and Love, Janessa in collaboration with Antica, which they called “Catfish” on steroids. They had their eyes set on telling stories with global acclaim, more collaborations, and “creating a scaffolding around shared projects”.

Here’s how CBC Podcasts is reflecting on 2023:

We partnered with a range of folks in 2023, to name a few: Antica, TellTale, USG, Novel, Kelly & Kelly, Neon Hum, Lark, You’re Wrong About, RAW, Love+Radio, and Vespucci, as well as larger networks like the BBC, ABC and NPR. And we continue to work with really incredible independent journalists and audio producers from around the country.
Love, Janessa was an international hit, thanks in no small part to the reach of our production partner, the BBC World Service. The Let’s Make A… team created both a Rom-Com script AND a short Horror film (Close And Lock The Patio Door). The Secret Life of Canada had its most successful season yet. The Front Burner team is launching a new ‘News as Storytelling’ umbrella feed of short (4-5 episode) narrative miniseries. The first season to launch under the new brand is about Pornhub.
We’ve got an ambitious and varied slate rolling out in the coming months; Hollywood Exiles, Broomgate, and Who Replaced Avril Lavigne? [where] comedian Joanna McNally investigates the wide-spread conspiracy that the singer was replaced by a look-alike at the height of her fame. In February our colleagues in News are launching seven hyperlocal podcasts that will connect listeners with their communities in new and exciting ways. In short - it’s going to be a busy year!
— Tanya Springer, Senior Manager

The podcast(s) that made an impact on CBC Podcasts in 2023:
Ghost Story, Heavyweight, The Girlfriends, You Didn’t See Nothin, Expectant, If Books Could Kill, and Stolen: Surviving St. Michaels.

Canadaland

“Hot new shows come and go, but most listening occurs on regular feeds” was the big theme for Canadaland in 2023, “we're deepening our investment into climate coverage, Indigenous issues, and accountability journalism. Our goal is to tell the stories others in Canada won't touch. We're discovering some shocking stuff,”

What Canadaland says about that now:

We utilized the main Canadaland feed to launch and host new shows like CanadaLANDBACK, The Newfoundlander, Thunder Bay: Post Mortem. Between [new shows], our live Backench show in Whitehorse, and a half dozen other reported stories, we kept laser focus on Indigenous issues. Across all of our shows, we continued to tackle thorny, underreported stories - Commons went deep into our disturbing national hockey culture, The Backbench did a series of special critical deep dives through the summer, and Canadaland told stories about foreign interference, Toronto's response to the refugee crisis, duplicitous grocery store stock buybacks, a mystery brain disease in Nova Scotia, and an Egyptian Trudeau hate farm.
In the summer we put out our first ever formal call for pitches and were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of great stories from across Canada and beyond.
Over the past few months we have been developing a number of new shows with the incomparable Julie Shapiro and we've got a slate of unbelievable stuff set to publish throughout 2024. Some of the shows are very much in line with what people expect from Canadaland and others will expand the idea of what we can do and bring to listeners. We also have a few surprises up our sleeve.
— Alan Black, Chief Operating Officer

The podcast that made an impact on Canadaland in 2023:
Crooked's Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto, The Ezra Klein show.

Frequency Podcast Network

In 2023, Frequency Podcast Network was thinking about how much harder it is to launch a new podcast from nothing. Like Canadaland, Frequency opened up a call for pitches, but with a focus on Canadian audiences and serving “the best Canadian storytelling”. Jordan Heath-Rawlings also teased some “secret projects” and shared news about expanding The Big Story.

Does this all still ring true for Frequency?

It rings more true than it did at this time last year.
We still publish new shows, but it’s much more effective to have them launch tied to an existing brand with listeners that people already trust. That’s what we’ve done with In This Economy?! and The Big Story. ITE is a separate show with a different format and feel, but it has a lot in common with TBS, including a host, so it makes sense to view them as part of a single brand. And it helps that TBS listeners had identified money/the economy/affordability as the biggest story in Canada.
We’re still looking for the next great Canadian show, but the realities of the market have made it harder to commit up front to a show that has no listeners, so what we’re really looking for are indie shows with an audience that need to take the next step. That’s where we see the FPN platform benefitting Canadian storytellers.
The secret project was In This Economy?!. But we have another secret project that we’ve been working on, tied to a different Canadian brand that audiences love. You should hear a lot more about this starting in January. I’m super excited about it.
— Jordan Heath-Rawlings, Executive Producer

In This Economy?! was also recently named one of Amazon Music's Best Podcasts of 2023.

The podcast that made an impact on Frequency Network in 2023:
Expectant.

Buy exclusive ad space on Pod the North!

Tell the Pod the North community of over 1000 Canadian podcasters (!!) about your stuff, and book the exclusive ad spot at the top of the newsletter.

Buy an ad!

Harbinger Media Network

This year, the Harbinger Media Network’s roster of podcasts seemed to just keep growing as they ended the year with 63 shows, and “more than 150,000 listeners worldwide every month” (with 80,000 in 2022). Their goal for 2023 was to reach “more listeners across the country and around the world, centering conversations on marginalized voices and values that are under-represented in mainstream media.”

How Harbinger Media Network is thinking about podcasting:

The accessibility of the medium makes it a powerful tool for democratizing journalism and bringing independent media into the discourse in a way that hasn't really existed before. More and more online journalists and news publishers began using podcasting as a tool for connecting with readers with new shows launching in 2023 including 'Berrygrounds' from The Independent in St. John's and 'Sources' from the national investigative journalism outlet Press Progress.
We also partnered with academics and activists across the country on shows like The End of Sport from the University of Fredericton, the Critical Community Psychology podcast series Indaba exploring Indigenous ways of knowledge with universities in Indonesia, Palestine, Chile, Italy and Waterloo, the excellent new show Trial By Shelter from Toronto's unhoused community, Data Decoded with Concordia University's Data Justice Hub and more.
Harbinger is super proud to be leading the new independent journalism initiative unrigged.ca, a coalition of 20 local, regional and national media outlets collaborating on a news platform providing up-to-the-hour news from across the country with our partners at The Progress Report in Alberta, Briarpatch and Sask Dispatch in Saskatchewan, The Hoser, Upping the Anti, Midnight Sun and The Grind in Ontario, The Rover, À bâbord and le Co-op de Solidarité Pivot in Québec, NB Media Co-op in New Brunswick, The Independent in Newfoundland and national publishers The Breach, The Resolve, Media Co-op, Canadian Dimension, Ricochet, The Maple, and Press Progress. What this means for listeners is that they can expect to see a new slate of journalism-driven shows launching in 2024 with more great conversations and interviews featuring topics and guests that we don't often hear in mainstream media as we continue to build Canada's independent journalism community!
— Andre Goulet, Executive Director

The podcast(s) that made an impact on Harbinger Media Network in 2023:
DEBRIEF, Alberta Advantage, Darts and Letters , Tech Won't Save Us

The Sonar Network

In 2023, the Sonar Network was excited to see the return of live events, and exactly as they predicted, they added a bunch of new shows to the network, most recently For You Pod, a podcast where “TikTok-obsessed Sam Sferrazza chats with guests about what’s making them laugh, cry, and in general have a bee in their bonnet on their FYP”.

Last year, the folks at Sonar said their goal heading into 2023 was “to support local podcasters who have unique voices and to try to help them find success because we believe in their work.”

So does this still resonate for Sonar Network?

Wow, that was a vague goal! But we definitely achieved it. We've helped shows grow, find sponsors and get paid for their work. Our company is always driven to support talented podcasters. What we learned was that the most important thing in this industry is relationships.
Partnering with other shows to trade guest spots and share audiences in any way is so crucial.
We had a lot of success with live events in 2023. We continued our partnership with FanExpo Canada, where we performed tons of fandom comedy and live podcasts back in August 2023 on the Sonar stage. We also performed several shows, including The World Needs Nerds and Vanderpump Robs, at L.A. Comic Con for the first time, which was a blast! And we just announced the Semi-Qualified Queens tour! We're hoping to keep the live events coming in 2024, possibly in partnership with some awesome podcasting industry wizards who we're very excited to work with! But more on that later ;)
Our goal for 2024 is to work more actively toward inclusivity and to find ways to support different communities and circles that we haven't really found ways to support yet. We're focusing more on community connections and nurturing the relationships we have in the industry to bring some cool things to life. So you can expect more goofy and artsy podcasts, more collabs with awesome artists, and more events!
— Marianna Miniotis, Brand & Content Manager & Michael Mongiardi, Co-founder

The podcast that made an impact on Sonar Network in 2023:
Happy to See Me with Erika Casupanan.

TVO Today

As a fan of Word Bomb myself, it’s exciting to see TVO Today coming into 2024 with some podcasting announcements! Katie O’Connor and Shaghayegh Tajvidi recently shared some news with me about their focus on podcasting for the year ahead.

January 10th, we can expect a new season of Screen Time: The Battle for Reality which “dives into the murky world of online conspiracy theories, disinformation, and misinformation”. January 25th is the launch of The Ultimate Choice, a podcast that “takes a deep dive into the status of MAID in Canada, startling news-making information and powerful conversations with doctors, politicians, advocates, and a Canadian seeking MAID to escape a life defined by deep depression and mental illness.”

How TVO Today is feeling about podcasts heading in 2024:

We learned even with a high saturation of podcasts out in the market there is still a large appetite for podcasts.
The goal of the TVO Today podcast team is to continue to produce podcasts that cover the most powerful issues and stories to help Ontarians better understand the world they live in. TVO’s focus is to develop high caliber projects that are journalistically sound and reflect the diverse voices and perspectives of the people of Ontario and beyond.
The Canadian podcast ecosystem produces great content that punches well above its weight. And our sense is that Canadian audiences want more Canadian content to better digest the issues most relevant to them.
— Katie O’Connor, Managing Editor, Podcast & Digital Video & Shaghayegh Tajvidi, Managing Editor, Podcasts & Digital Video.

The podcast that made an impact on TVO in 2023:
Expectant, Ghost Story

Just Joe (channeling a chill New Year)…

If you have thoughts or Canadian podcasting news, please share them with me! Leave a comment or reply to the newsletter email.

If you’re feeling generous there are a couple ways to financially support Pod the North at any budget: opt-in to pay for this Substack on a monthly or yearly basis, buy me a coffee, or buy an ad!

Thanks for supporting Pod the North, I’ll be back in your inbox in two weeks!

Kattie
@Podkatt (Twitter, Spotify, and Goodpods) | @ PodtheNorth (Bluesky)