Reports from CBC's Winter Slate Variety Show(?)
Vol. 8 - Updates from CBC Podcasts, Dork Matters, Our Native Land, and smart people.
Hihi!! Happy Pod the North Tuesday. 2022 is coming to an end and that means it’s “best podcasts of the year” season! Did you make it on any lists??
In this issue:
Tanya Springer says we're entering an era of true collaboration.
Canadian Indie: Dork Matters
True North Podcast Feature: Our Native Land
UPDATE: There are currently 30 long-term drinking water advisories in effect in 26 First Nations communities across Canada!
I am officially “press”…?
A couple weeks ago I was invited by CBC to an event at Massey Hall in Toronto where they’d be showcasing their Winter 2023 Slate of content across all mediums; podcasts, radio, TV and more.
After the presentation, I was given the opportunity to interview some of their podcast people, including Kathleen Goldhar (The No-Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman), Kaitlin Prest (The Heart), and, just for me (at least that’s how it seemed and I refuse to believe otherwise), Arif Noorani and Tanya Springer, Director and Senior Manager at CBC Podcasts respectively.
I promise this hasn’t become a CBC Podcasts newsletter. This just the way the cookie has crumbled lately.
But let’s be real, as tax paying podcasters it is in our best interest to see how our public broadcaster is using our funding to put Canadian podcasts on the map!
During what I can only call the “variety show” of sorts, CBC announced a handful of new podcasts coming to their roster in the winter. From what was announced in the program, many seemed to fall under the true crime / investigative genres, like The No-Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman and, Love, Janessa.
They also announced a new show called The Africas VS. America, a brand new season of The Heart: Sisters, and I was THRILLED to hear that Let’s Make a Rom-Com will be coming out on Valentines Day — if I was releasing a year-end “best-of” list, its predecessor, Let’s Make a Sci-Fi, would definitely be on it.
But it sounds like there are many, MANY more to come!
Personally, I’m pretty excited about all of these shows because they all sound unique and showcase a lot of diverse talent and storytelling.
I had 15 minutes to talk with everyone each after the show.
In those 15 minutes Arif and Tanya touched on some concerns that might’ve come up for readers in Volume 6 — which means they definitely read this newsletter (no pressure, but also yay!).
They both seemed very excited for the future of podcasting in 2023 and shared some interesting insights about collaboration in Canada that I was encouraged to hear.
I also talked to Kathleen Goldhar about her new show — which everyone seems just be calling Shermans for short — and her journey from CBC Radio to indie podcast production.
I was also excited to meet Kaitlin Prest (and her sister, Natalie) and talk to her about her approaches to centering women’s voices and using sound design in a cheesey-yet-sophisticated way.
So, enough from me. Here are my interviews with some CBC Podcasts people…
Thoughts from the ecosystem
These interviews have been edited and condensed for brevity.
Arif Noorani and Tanya Springer
Director and Senior Manager, CBC Podcasts
Kattie: I was just talking to Falen Johnson about the amount of Indigenous stories coming out of CBC. What is the thought process for the both of you there? Is there a game plan?
Arif: Well, it's our commitment to reflect contemporary Canada. Our team is diverse and reflective in terms of Indigenous, black, people of color, women, non-binary people. It's our DNA.
So we don't think, “oh, we're gonna go do something Indigenous.” We think it's our commitment to find a space for all the different facets of people that live in this country. We're not doing it because of metrics and stuff.
Tanya: We absolutely count. You did the numbers just yesterday! We make sure we're like, “who's hosting our series? What is the face of our next series”? But we're always thinking about it.
Arif: We believe in keeping track to make sure we are doing a good job, but we also embrace it too. We think it makes us better storytellers. I'm at a leadership level, I count to hold our company accountable. I'm using [metrics] to partly say, “Hey, we need to do more recruitment to develop Indigenous talent” or develop different communities of color.
That's exciting to hear! Falen also made a really interesting point about sifting through dead feeds of Indigenous creators and supporting them. Is that something you think CBC could do?
Arif: Well, what we're doing is developing more series. Finding those creators; some of them may have worked on those series. So [CBC] did Telling Our Twisted Histories, but we’re in talks with the creators that were part of that on a new series.
We are regularly tapping into creators, independent as well as working for other podcast companies, to look for ideas and to work with them.
I would say half the series we do, we're developing new folks or taking them to the next level, and trying to build up the Canadian ecosystem.
Podcast Playlist is one of our shows, and it's been around for seven years and we created it to showcase independent podcast makers. A majority of what they profile are independents and they created the Canadian Podcast Database. But also at a lot of the festivals we put ourselves forward to do skills training workshops.
Tanya: I think it's just ensuring that we are really tapped into the community and to the ecosystem and to the talent and yes, doing those talks at schools. Not just to bolster the community, but it's self-serving, right? We really need to understand what talent fits and who's out there.
Arif: One thing to note, [producing] “in house” doesn't mean [a podcast is] not independent. “In house” just means you need certain insurance to make a podcast and not get sued. You [and Chris Oke] were talking about most [developed pitches] being in house – actually from the beginning, a third of all our productions happen with independent producers like the Andrew Nortons.
Tanya: But those were called “in house” because of insurance. That's actually a really good delineation.
So it’s independent producers that you're hiring on contract for that particular show?
Tanya: That's right. This is probably super boring but it's the way that we engage them as partners, as producers. We call it “in-house” because they're protected by our insurance.
So by nature, that type of arrangement would be considered in-house, even though that producer would be independent by name or whatever.
Most of the production studios I've noticed you work with seem a little bigger but there's a lot of smaller ones like Vocal Fry Studios and Media Girlfriends. Are you looking to kind of leverage some smaller production companies as well?
Tanya: A hundred percent. We are open all of the time to pitches. We are very committed to working with all types of Canadian producers and journalists.
Arif: What's the future of podcasting? It’s these hybrid scenarios. These big companies have tons of independents working for them, so if you're ever looking for a job...
Like the BBC World Service, you think, “oh, BBC and cbc”. But one of the stories we're doing [with them] is called Gold Fever and the host is a freelancer from Alberta.
The Heart; there's three parties involved. It's us, Radiotopia and Mermaid Palace. Outlaw Ocean was the same thing.
So we're all coming together and figuring out how do we stand out. Because the other challenge is there's 2 million podcasts out there. We need ours to cut through and find that audience.
This kind of collaboration with different studios and freelancers, I think over the last few years I’ve thought this must be something that's happening behind the scenes. It's starting to occur to me that I think everyone's just sort of figuring it out.
Tanya: We're all building the ship as we sail. No one really has it totally figured out. Really the era we're entering this era of true collaboration and teamwork.
What Arif and Tanya are listening to:
Kathleen Goldhar
Host, The No-Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman
Sherman sounds like a fascinating show! Can you tell me about any new storytelling techniques you explored while making it?
Kathleen: So, Barry Sherman started writing his autobiography and it's public. So what we've done is we're using it in the podcast to basically have Barry come alive in the podcast and we've hired the actor of Saul Rubinek to play Barry. So we're putting Barry in the podcast. It's really cool. He's gonna exist in there even though he's no longer alive.
You've been in the audio game for a little while and now you're going indie. So are you nervous, excited? What was the decision maker there?
Kathleen: I'm nervous, terrified, but also excited. It was a business decision on Antica's part. They're sort of shifting their business model and so not doing so much of what I wanted to do. So it was a mutual decision.
When I was a radio producer you could not make a living as a freelance audio producer. But with podcasting and the access to the markets that aren't just Canadian, you really can make a living. And that's very new.
I think it's because of the influx of money from TV people and media organizations that understand the power of podcasting. Honestly, 10 years ago, I would've never gone indie. Like it would've been impossible.
What Kathleen is listening to:
Kaitlin Prest
Host / Creator, The Heart. Director, Mermaid Palace.
Kattie: I'll just be blatant; The Heart is a hot show. It feels like it's the audio representation of the female gaze. How do you think about that?
Kaitlin: Oh my God. Love it. This show is now 14 years old. It's a 14 year legacy of centering a woman's point of view — a queer point of view.
I think that I was really politically lit up when I started the first chapter of what The Heart was (Audio Smut). But, I'm asking myself, was it on purpose that we wanted to center women's voices?
There's a lot of decisions that we made in terms of the content that we create that continued to center the voices of women and the way that we do it as well.
I tried to do a story from a male point of view. And I thought it would be an interesting and important story to tell about gender. But then I was listening to the rough cut and I was like, when you position yourself in the narrator's view, everyone in the story becomes an object.
So when I was inside this point of view of this straight man talking about women I was like, “we can't do this”. It doesn't matter how radical it is about gender, women are the objects in this.
I guess that kind of expands to questions around the way that we objectify love or the way that the people in our lives become a story — they become plot points for our own.
So the new series on The Heart is about sisterhood. It's not me pretending it's her story and then me being actually the sneaky one who cuts it all together and turns it into my point of view of what her point of view is.
In terms of production a really big thing for us is letting people talk the way they talk. Not picking people based on how good they sound on the mic. Really letting people own their own story. Like black artists coming up in the industry too, have always had to deal with people telling them how to talk. So letting people talk how they talk is a big part of it.
So tell me your approach to sound design because there's a sweet spot that you have to hit so that it doesn't get too cheesy. What's your balance?
Kaitlin: To me, sound design is part of the writing.
We were trying to reenact the way that it sounds when, you know, just a regular, classic sister fight. So we did the reenactment of a classic way that we fight, where things get really heated and we say really, truly awful things to each other.
A big part of the sound design for me is music. Music is emotion. So I was able to create the emotional arc of the scene with the music. Once that got created, all I had to do was pull these tiny little pieces and throw them in. And it worked.
Natalie: We had this moment where we're replaying a piano recital. I sound designed it for the first time and I put a heartbeat, and Kaitlin’s like “I think that's where we draw the line, is the heartbeat”. And she told me to find the sound of a heartbeat without actually using the heartbeat. So that's why the main thing of The Heart is a drum. It's not actually a heartbeat, but it sounds like a heartbeat.
Kaitlin: I think as you go on there's the low hanging fruit that you reach for when you're first sound designing something, and as you go you start to figure out how to play with what people are expecting.
Thank you CBC for inviting me!
Check out this Canadian Indie: Dork Matters
A dorky podcast, for dorks.
Lexi Hunt and Ben Rankel dork out about the most important aspects of TV, comics, animation, movies and more. Best Final Fantasy hair? Most eligible Stardew Valley bachelor? Every Star Trek series ranked? We’ve got you covered. It might not be smart but it should be amusing.
True North Podcast Feature: Our Native Land
Tchadas Leo explores all things Indigenous and First Nations!
Our Native Land features fun interviews and compelling discussions about Indigenous and First Nations cuisine, culture, heritage, and more from Vancouver Island and around the world. Recorded at CHEK Studios in Victoria, BC, Tchadas is joined by guests of all backgrounds and professions for educational, emotional, and engaging conversations.
Our Native Land is open to guest pitches! If you are interested in being a guest, contact them!
For your pod:
There are 3 days left to nominate your podcast for the 27th Annual Webby Awards! Enter by December 16th, 2022.
Registration is open for the Digital Publishing Awards! Learn more about submitting your show for either “best podcast” category here.
Track episode mentions with Podchaser Alerts! Podchaser has launched a new paid tool that lets you track target keyphrases and get alerts of new mentions. Learn more.
What’s going on in Canada’s podcast ecosystem:
PODCAMP IS BACK AND THEY WANT YOU: They’re accepting submissions for sessions, panels, and workshops for this Toronto event now. Apply by January 16th!
5 Yoga-Inspired Stretches for Podcasters: Did my lesson about slowing down in the last issue hit too hard? Ren Bangert has a nice lesson for you on the Vocal Fry Studios blog.
Podcasting Isn’t Turning Out Blockbusters. That’s What Makes It So Powerful.
Annalise Nielsen shares her thoughts on the Pacific Content blog.Tink Media recently released their first Audio Delicacies list which includes multiple Canadian podcasts! Check it out.
Vote for your favourite Canadian podcasts at the 1st Annual Signal Listener’s Choice Awards: Voting ends December 22nd! Check it out.
Niall Spain wrote about some winners of the Canadian Podcast Awards on the Earbuds Podcast Collective blog. Read it here.
Someone very sweet suggesed the potential for Pod the North merch and I immediately thought: toque.
Share what you think in the poll below!
Finally, a word from Joe…
If you have thoughts or questions about this newsletter, please share them with me! Leave a comment or reply to the newsletter email.
Thanks for supporting Pod the North, I’ll be back in your inbox in two weeks!
Kattie | @podkatt
(Find me on Twitter or Post!)
