ANNOUNCEMENT: New flagship podcast from Pod the North!
ANNOUNCEMENT: New flagship podcast from Pod the North!
Vol. 41 - Launching "Canardian", plus Al Grego on what happened when The Produce Stand booked it's White Whale Guest, Jared Keeso.
Hihi!! Happy Pod the North Tuesday!
Pod the North is now on Instagram (@podthenorth)! I’m still figuring out the best way to post there, but there’s been a bit of demand for it, so if you have any thoughts about bringing Pod the North to Instagram, let me know!
In this issue:
The new flagship podcast from Pod the North: Canardian, the podcast gossiping about Canadian hometowns.
Al Grego says booking his ‘White Whale’, Jared Keeso, was a matter of patience and standing out.
Canadian Indie: Reefer MEDness
True North Podcast: Indigenous Medicine Stories
There are currently 28 long-term drinking water advisories in effect in 26 First Nations communities across Canada.
The new flagship podcast from Pod the North, Canardian, is coming April 8th!
Have you ever found yourself thinking about how much your hometown messed you up?
Have you ever wondered what childhood trauma made some of your favourite podcast hosts the quirky weirdos that they truly are?
Introducing: Canardian, the podcast gossiping about Canadian hometowns!
You might have caught some hints around the Pod the North digital footprint over the last new months, and I’m so excited to finally share the news of my latest project that’s had me exploring the Canadian podcasting ecosystem in a whole new way.
Starting April 8th, join me and a variety of notable Canadian podcasting people as we discuss the seedy ins and outs of their hometowns, and unravel the juicy stories about those places from “trusted” sources like eyewitness testimony, community Facebook groups, Subreddits, and Wikipedia.
It’s stupid, juicy, and a grand old time (if I do say so myself)!
In this first 12 episode season, you’ll hear from folks like Frequency Podcast Network’s Jordan Heath-Rawlings and Arshy Mann of COMMONS, and discover the inner turmoil of Southeast Calgary’s fake lake communities, Whitehorse’s weird Trumpy history, and unruly teens of Ancaster, Ontario.
You can catch the trailer and subscribe to the feed on your favourite podcast app now!
I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO HEAR IT!
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Tell the Pod the North community of nearly 1200 Canadian podcasters (!!) about your stuff by booking the exclusive ad spot at the top of the newsletter.
Thoughts from the ecosystem:
Al Grego says booking his ‘White Whale’, Jared Keeso, was a matter of patience and standing out.
Most of us have dreamt of booking that one guest that will take our podcast to the next level. For Al Grego, co-host of the Letterkenny/Shoresy recap podcast, The Produce Stand, booking the creator and star of those shows, Jared Keeso, was the ultimate get.
The only problem? Jared notoriously does not do interviews.
That was up until the end of last year, when seemingly out of nowhere The Produce Stand was offered an exclusive interview with Jared, along with the news that Letterkenny would officially be coming to an end after 12 seasons.
I talked to Al about how The Produce Stand established its niche as the go-to podcast for all things “Letterkenny universe”, how they built a meaningful relationship with the team behind the hit TV show, and what happened in the aftermath of what Al calls the “Keeso Bump”.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Paid subscribers of Pod the North can listen to the unedited interview tomorrow!
KL: Jared Keeso was your White Whale guest for a long time. Tell me the story of how he ended up on the podcast!
AG: So when we started doing the podcast, it was just going to be a fan show. We didn't think we could get cast members on for interviews. But a few months into it, I had this Twitter interaction with one of the cast members on the show. I dared to ask, ‘I've got this Letterkenny podcast. Would you like to be on it?’ And he said, yes. And then we were like, ‘I guess we can do this!’
That snowballed into another cast member, and another cast member. So we started daring to dream. Jared Keeso is the creator of both Letterkenny and Shoresy, he stars in both the shows, he's the showrunner, it's his baby.
We started making inquiries, but we quickly found out that he doesn't do media at all. After a while, we didn't give up hope, but we just thought ‘that's not going to happen but at least we'll have some fun getting all the other actors on’.
We were doing the show a couple of years, and then we received a ‘Thank You’ package from the production company — from Jared himself actually — with some swag, just saying thank you for doing what you're doing and he let us know he listened.
Then we got invited up to Sudbury to check out the sets, and we actually recorded a couple of episodes from the Letterkenny farmhouse kitchen set, and another from the Shorsey locker room set. We had this great access and they were showing how appreciative they were of all the all the publicity we were giving them, and the community we were building around the show.
So when the announcement was coming out that Season 12, which was just released back in December, was going to be the final season the producer reached out and she said, ‘Jared's ready to come on’. And I was like, ‘he's what now?!’ She said, ‘and he wants you to have the exclusive interview’.
Our podcast enjoyed good listenership for what it was — we were in and out of the top 20 aftershows in Canada and the US. It took three years to get to those numbers, [and] it took three days for Jared[‘s episode] to pass those numbers, and it's just kept on going.
Then it picked up, because whenever there was a press release about the end of Letterkenny, any quote about Jared on how it ended [was] citing us because we were the only ones he spoke to. It was a wild ride.
KL: How did your listeners respond when the episode came out with him?
AG: We had a little fun with that. I wanted to reward our listeners with this surprise in their feed. Normally when we have a guest interview, we let everyone know, ‘next week, so-and-so is coming on’. But this one here, we wanted it to shock everyone.
For day one, we [titled the episode] ‘TPS Update’. That's all we wanted to say. We had a lot of fun watching the discord blow up. The first person went on and said, ‘oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!’ And then everyone else was like, ‘what, what?!’ It was so much fun to watch. So gratifying for us because everyone is excited to hear from Jared, but they're also really excited for us that it happened.
And then afterwards we retitled the episode [‘An Interview with Jared Keeso’], and then the rest of the world got to join in on the fun.
KL: That's such a fun idea. I love building the hype with your community first.
So tell me about that recording; how are you feeling going in and how did you prepare to make sure that it was worth his time since he doesn't normally do this type of stuff?
AG: I was nervous for sure because we had an hour with him. It's three years built up of questions you want to ask him, but at the same time, we don't want to be like, ‘in episode three of season five, when you did this…’ it wasn't about that. This was about celebrating the end of the show.
I had to ask him the important question, why is it ending? But we wanted to give him an opportunity to talk up creation and his cast and crew.
KL: One of the things that I've come across in trying to get pretty notable guests and even celebrities onto a show is that a lot of folks talk about how celebrities will come onto a show with a PR agenda.
Was there anything going on in your head about getting something fresh and new out of Jared when he came on your show?
AG: The thing was it was easy to do because he doesn't do media. Any answer he gave, no one else had. So it was kind of easy.
We try to keep things laid back and fun with our guests. When we had K. Trevor Wilson or Tyler Johnston, when they log on, they see three other faces looking at them, right? It's not a one on one interview. Their eyes go wide going, ‘oh, what am I in for here? I've got an hour with these nutsacks.’
Invariably, at some point in the interview, you can feel them relax and then have fun again. I'm not saying that we got any different answers that they would have given during a junket or whatever, but I feel like we get real reactions from them and insight from them that maybe others wouldn't get because they wouldn't ask the right questions.
KL: Do you remember when you noticed Jared get relaxed in your interview or was he relaxed to begin with?
AG: He was pretty relaxed to begin with, but there was a question that my cohost Matt asked him that really broke the ice.
During our last visit to Sudbury, we got to meet and greet with Jared. They were in the middle of shooting Shorsey [and] we had a 20 minute window — I think they were taking their lunch.
He walked into the room still in his hockey equipment, looking like a superhero, and the air just got sucked out of the room cause we're all like, ‘oh my God, there he is!’ He's coming around, shaking our hands, calling us by name. We were all trying not to fan out, but doing this poor job of that.
So Matt asks, ‘Jared, when you walked into that room, how starstruck were you to see us?’ That got a giggle from him, and I think if he was nervous at all that settled him down.
KL: You mentioned that the interview that you did with him ended up being cited in a bunch of articles. I know it was cited in a Bell Media announcement about the show ending, but it was also cited in Variety and a couple of other publications. Tell me about how the aftermath of the interview impacted your show.
AG: We called it the ‘Keeso Bump’, because after that our stats found a new plateau. There was that huge spike obviously when he was on so that guaranteed that people were listening to the one episode, but then you never know if that translates to new listeners.
It did, so there's a new level that we're at now. Here's a challenge though: the season's over. Now we have a lot of vamping to do between now and the next season of Shoresy, or whatever else they're going to do. So this is where the rubber meets the road and the work gets done because we have to be really creative with our content to hopefully keep a lot of those listeners.
KL: You've got the measurable metrics of success, but you also have the community measurement of success; you were invited to be extras on the show!
AG: It was crazy. When they contacted us, ‘how'd you like to come up to Sudbury and be on the show?’ We're like, ‘what do you mean? We're podcasters for a reason.’
So it was the four of us, but we also had seven of our listeners who came up from the U.S. and joined us. There was like 12 of us and we were being escorted around Sudbury. Got to be in the crowds and in the arena for some of the hockey [scenes]. So if anyone watches Shoresy episode three, season two, we're in the stands!
KL: What about your experience with Jared is transferable for other indie podcasters looking to have a notable guest, or book their White Whale, on their show?
AG: Well, hopefully your White Whale isn't as tough to get. IMDbPro is your friend if you want to find the representatives and email them. That's how we got most of our guests. We got some polite ‘no’s’, but we got a lot of ‘yeses’.
Obviously social media is another easy way to reach out to them, but they get a lot of noise coming from a lot of different people so you have to be patient and you just have to stand out with what you do.
There's a lot of demand on their time, and sometimes the timing isn't right; they're on another shoot or doing something else. Don't give up, but also pester them too much or else you'll get sent straight to their junk folder.
KL: I think there's also something to say about the fact that you've carved out a niche around the specific show and the community around it. That might've made things a little bit easier for you to stand out from the crowd. You had a mission and a reason to talk to them as the ‘go-to’ podcast for Letterkenny and Shoresy.
AG: Yeah. I was very deliberate when picking Letterkenny. I looked [at] what shows don't have after shows – most of them do, right? Most of the ones that do have cult followings. And when I noticed Letterkenny had two other podcasts, but one of them was out of Seattle and they've since become really close friends of ours, it was like, ‘all right, there's an opportunity here’.
This is a show that's got a cult following and is being underserved in Canada. There's a lot of slang and a lot of language used on this show that even we don't understand, but we'll look it up and we'll figure it out. But even explaining to our American listeners what ‘Roll Up The Rim to win’ means, what All Dressed chips… our community, they're a lot of Canada-philes.
They love anything that comes out of Canada because of their fandom of Letterkenny and listening to us. It's been really cool to watch.
KL: Any final advice about booking a White Whale guest?
AG: What not to do is use this as an opportunity to be self-serving. Just let it happen, be there, and capture the moment. Stay present in that moment, don't worry about what's going to happen or what's happened in the past. Just enjoy it.
What Al is loving:
Check out this Canadian Indie: Reefer MEDness
A nurse and a pharmacist explore how society is changing its understanding of cannabis.
Focusing on people’s use and perception of cannabis as Reefer Madness, Reefer Medicine, Reefer Mellow, and more.
True North Podcast Feature: Indigenous Medicine Stories
Educating health professionals and the public about Indigenous healing.
Since time immemorial, Indigenous Peoples held a knowledge system of wellness, healing, and medicine. Colonial processes such as Treaties, the Reserve system, the Indian Act of Canada, Residential Schools, child welfare policies, racism, discrimination, and excluding Indigenous healing in Western biomedicine and education have attempted to erase this knowledge system. Until recently, the health education professions have played a role by excluding Indigenous knowledge from the curriculum. Also known as Anishinaabe mshkiki nwii-dbaaddaan (“I’m going to talk about Indigenous medicine”) in Anishinaaabemowin, Medicine Stories explores the perseverance and holism of Indigenous well-being and healing practices through the lived experiences of practitioners.
What’s going on in Canada’s podcast ecosystem:
New Releases:
March 11, 2024 — APTN News and Indigenous writer, Danielle Paradis, have launched The Place That Thaws, a podcast about Danielle’s trip to the High North in Arctic Canada last year, where she spoke with Indigenous peoples about climate change.
March 11, 2024 — The Podcast Studies Podcast debuted their first episode of the year about scholarly podcasting. Lori Beckstead is joined by Ian M. Cook to discuss his book Scholarly Podcasting: Why, What, How? and to talk about why podcasting is an attractive way of doing and disseminating research for so many scholars.
March 13, 2024 — The Good Enough Gaming Podcast has launched it’s sixth season. In this first episode, Darrell, Jordan, Kyle and Trevor discuss their experience with Baldurs Gate 3, sing the praises of Larian Studios, and write out their wishlist for updates!
March 14, 2024 — Danny Brown has launched My Other Podcast Is... , a biweekly show where he chats with podcasters from around the world about their other podcast. The first episode features media composer and audio producer Gareth Davies of The Music Room.
March 15, 2024 — Transition House Association of Nova Scotia has launched the second season of Somebody Must Say These Things, in collaboration with Podstarter. The upcoming season delves into women’s rights, housing, cost of living, homelessness, healthcare, and child safety.
March 20, 2024 — Actual play podcast, No Quest for the Wicked, is releasing a special episode premiering the second edition of Startfinder in collaboration with Starfinder creator, Paizo, and The Atomless podcast. The first part is out this Wednesday, with part two out next week!
March 27, 2024 — The new season of the award winning podcast, But What Do I Know?™ is out next week. Topics include: a relationship with a narcissistic partner, changing friendship dynamics, approaching intentional dating, therapy modalities including EMDR and Narrative Therapy, and much more.
March 8, 2024 — The COMMONS team at Canadaland recently released a bonus YouTube video where Arshy, Jordan and Noor rank Cults featured on the previous season and answer the question: are Swifties an S-tier cult?
You should know…
The Walrus Lab is on the hunt for a podcast host for their show Youth for Youth—a podcast by young Canadians, for all Canadians. They’re looking for passionate individuals between ages 13-22 to lead insightful discussions on the pressing issues impacting young Canadians today. Check out the application form.
The talented Sarah Burke has launched the Women In Media Network; a podcast network for women and gender-diverse podcasters. The network launched with eight podcasts including The Jann Arden Podcast, which is produced by Sarah, along with Trust Me, I’m A Decorator, The SpicyFat Podcast, and more!
Nina Sturm has joined The Podcast Exchange as Senior Client Partner. From their press release; CEO Pary Bell said “Nina’s depth of digital experience, creative approach and passion for podcasts will be of great benefit to our clients. With Nina on board, TPX is also well positioned to capitalize on future innovations in the industry.”
JAR Audio’s winner of the Audio Pilot Competition for Emerging Women Podcasters is Ann Kane, creator of A Touch of Hysteria. “For years, I’ve seen my family and friends struggle to get even a simple diagnosis or miss serious warning signs,” Ann explained on the JAR Audio announcement. “It shocked me to realize how little is actually known about women’s health and bodies. I hope that this podcast will change that fact even a little and that it can help other women better understand the bodies they live in.”
Quill Inc. celebrated International Women’s day with another round up list of 50 Trailblazing Women in Podcasting. The round up includes plenty of powerhouse Canadians, including Amber Mac, We Edit Podcasts’ Carli van Heerden, Karen Burgess and Annalise Nielsen at Pacific Content, CBC’s Leslie Merklinger, and even me (at #17!).
SXSW might have been on in Austin last week,and the line-up of podcast events has included a handful of Canadians, including Head of Pacific Content, Matt Mise, who was on stage with Sounds Profitable.
Events:
Harbinger Media Network is hosting another edition of their live “Soapbox Series.” Saturday March 23rd, 8PM ET— $15 tickets. Check out the poster below for more info, and get your tickets today!
For your pod:
Just Joe (and me enjoying an early spring walkie)…
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Kattie
@Podkatt | @PodtheNorth
Kattie, I'm excited about the new podcast. Can I write about it and then review the podcast when it's live?
Wow Kattie! Thank yo uso much for the interview! I thoroughly enjoyed it and your research is impressive! Also congratulations in the new show. I look forward to it.