Short, sweet, and celebratory.

Vol. 45 - Celebrating Canadian podcasting wins and saying goodbye to freelancing.

May 14, 2024

Hihi!! Happy Pod the North Tuesday!

In this issue:

Let’s pour one out for freelancing!
Canadian Indie: Duped
True North Podcast Feature: Unspoken Words
Plenty of Canadian podcasts being recognized over the next couple months!

There are currently 28 long-term drinking water advisories in effect in 26 First Nations communities across Canada.

I’ve shaken things up a bit!

Some of you may have noticed some recent news around the podosphere about my career transition at the beginning of May!

After 5 years in the freelance podcast production game, I recently accepted a full-time role at Bumper, the data-driven podcast growth agency from the genius minds of Dan Misener and Jonas Woost.

Saying goodbye to my freelance clients and co-workers has been pretty gut wrenching, but I’m not gonna lie… I’m so excited to put the hustle of freelance production aside for a while.

So let’s pour one out for freelancing!

I don’t think enough attention is given to the freelancers in the Canadian podcast industry — so many I’ve been lucky to learn from.

These folks are not only the covert brains and brawn behind major podcast titles, but also the life force of the smaller-scale shows that are keeping up important conversations, representing underserved communities, and doing big things with small budgets.

Working as a freelance podcast producer is a grind — a kind of hustle that a type A person like myself can easily lose themselves in. The pressure can be such a thrill and the work can be so rewarding. But I gotta be real. I’ve definitely noticed its impact on my body and mind.

For me, sitting for hours on end editing was getting pretty isolating, and left me with painful kinks in my neck. The stress of juggling professional and personal projects made my asthma flair up, and my brain a bunch of TV static. My shoulders have felt stuck up around my ears for about 2 years.

So before I hang my hat I have to acknowledge the pros who are deep in the trenches and keeping this industry chugging along for the love of the craft. I’d also like to share a few important lessons from my time as a freelancer if you find yourself here:

Find other freelancers and connect over Slack. This is where you’ll find the space to create work besties, and get the watercooler talk you’re so desperately craving. For me, this was EVERYTHING.
There is no such thing as a podcast emergency, so don’t forget to eat. Nothing is more important than your health and wellbeing, so please, for Gods sake, take at the very least a 20 minute break to eat LITERALLY ANYTHING.

Smoothies have become my go-to for quick, nourishing sustinance. Here’s my recipe: Frozen fruit mix (P.s. a bag is $4.44 at Food Basics), AG1 that I got through a podcast sponsorship(check your client roster for free promotional stuff stuff!), a hearty gloop of vanilla yogurt, fill 1/4 of the way with your juice of choice, fill the rest of the way with water. ENJOY.
Don’t forget to set money aside every month for taxes, and contribute to your RRSP if and when you can! RRSP contibutions help Future You and reduce Current You’s taxable income.

Lastly, don’t worry, Pod the North is going NOWHERE!

This newsletter, and now it’s podcast Canardian, remain my (highly public) sacred spaces to be curious and annoying about Canadian podcasting.

Anyway, due to the nature of lately being a complete whirlwind, I’m keeping today’s issue short and sweet so I can take a moment to recuperate.

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Check out this Canadian Indie: Duped

The Dark Side of Online Business

If you’ve ever felt like you’ve been duped by a celebrity entrepreneur or coach, or watched with wonderment while people do downright dirty things to grow their business, this is the show for you. The dark side of online business that you need to know about, and more importantly how to protect yourself from falling prey to these tactics and tricks.

True North Podcast Feature: Unspoken Words

The issues of Indigenous peoples with insight, experience and humility.

Unspoken Words is a podcast by Native American hosts Josiah Hugs (Apsaalooke), JC Beaumont (Apsaalooke/Nakoda) and Randy Bear Dont Walk (Apsaalooke). Covering a wide range of topics, promoting mental, emotional, physical and spiritual wellbriety with traditional culture in a contemporary world.

Don’t miss the flagship podcast from Pod the North, Canardian: the podcast that’s gossiping about the hometowns of various Canadian podcast personalities!

Listen to Canardian

What’s going on in Canada’s podcast ecosystem:

New Releases:

Apr 21, 2024 — What Should We Call This? is the new podcast that comes from the UBC Creative Writing 402 students of Jennifer Moss, Chief Creative Officer at JAR Audio. The show is full of personal insights about writing, place and identity. I live for young people getting into this space!

Apr 25, 2024 — CBC Podcasts recently announced their spring/summer slate of podcasts. Split Screen: Kid Nation, a show about the controversial reality TV show Kid Nation is out now. Also out now, and topping the Canadian charts, is Broomgate: A Curling Scandal, where semi-professional curler and fully professional comedian John Cullen is exposes the unbelievable scandal that rocked the sport of curling. Yesterday, the new season of Understood, Modi’s India is out and examining how Modi went from being barred from the U.S., to becoming one of the most powerful men in the world. Still to come is The $6 Billion Scam (May 19), Come By Chance (June 4), and Tested (July 15). Check out the press release for more details!

Apr 29, 2024 — New from The Globe and Mail is Machines Like Us, a technology show about people. Every week Taylor Owen sits down with the entrepreneurs, lawmakers, journalists and scholars shaping the future.

May 12, 2024 — It All Started With A Lightbulb has returned with Season 2! Each episode explores our complex world through new ideas, stories, and topics, including personal growth, mysteries, true crime, guest experiences, philosophy, pop culture, conspiracies, and more.

May 14, 2024 — Pretendians, the new show from Canadaland is out today. The show joins co-hosts Robert Jago and Angel Ellis as they look at jaw dropping cases of Indigenous Identify Fraud. Why do these so-called “Pretendians” do it? How do they pull it off? And what happens when they are exposed?

May 17, 2024 — Sorry About The Murder premieres with its first two episodes just in time for the long weekend! The new murder-mystery podcast from TA2 Productions and the Fable and Folly network follows the story of the nice little Canadian town of Beavermount, Ontario, where every day a Zamboni driver must solve a grisly murder to clear his Québecois name…then ready the ice for tonight’s hockey game.

You should know:

Congratulations to the team behind Narcissist Apocalypse for winning “Outstanding Domestic Voilence Podcast” at the Purple Ribbon Awards, from Domestic Shelters. Select entries of the Purple Ribbon Awards receive grants totaling up to $30,000!

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently joined Jordan Health-Rawlings on The Big Story. In the April 26th episdoe, the PM sat down at a Honda plant in Alliston, Ontario, to chat in-depth about the climate crisis, the future of electric vehicles and his government’s efforts to find opportunity amid a world on fire.

A Concrete Way That Documentary Reporting Changes The World — I loved this recent piece from

Samantha Hodder

over on

Bingeworthy

, give it a read!

The Digital Publishing Awards nominees for the Best Podcast categories have been announced! For Best Current Affairs Podcast: Our Relatives, Bloodlines, CANADALAND, Détours, The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman, Love, Janessa, Le ripou des Hells, In Her Defence, Billionaire Murders, and It’s Political. For Best Podcast: Arts, Culture, and Society Podcast: Commons: Hockey, How I Wrote This, Thunder Bay: Post-Mortem, canadaLANDBACK, Let’s Not Be Kidding, The Heart: Sisters, The Dose, Dollars et cents, Le balado des Éditions Protégez-Vous : Mesaventures, saison 2, Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World, SickKids VS Podcast, New Wave: Innovators in Life Sciences

Congratulations to the Canadian podcast finalists at this years CAJ awards, berrygrounds (Best Community Broadcast) and The Newfoundlander (Best Broadcast over 5 minutes),

More congratulations go out all of the finalists in this year’s Quill podcast awards! Some of the Canadian nominees include: Yes, We Are Open (Branded Podcast of the Year), The Canadian Potcast (Best Interview), Indigenous Voices of Vancouver Island (Best Society & Culture), and The Other Path (Best Creative Branded).

BIG SHINY TAKES co-host Eric Wickham appeared on CBC's Metro Morning to talk about The Hoser's data driven food mapping project.

Events:

May 26, 2024 — Don’t miss Canadian Politics Is Boring LIVE in Halifax! Rhys, Jesse and various guest will be hitting the stage at 2 Crows Brewing Co. at 8PM. Get your tickets!

June 6, 2024 — The inaugural Soundwave Summit is coming to Toronto, a full days event showcasing everything Canadian indie podcasting. It is made up of two parts: a daytime portion, Soundwave Sessions, which offers panels, presentations and networking opportunities at Startwell. In the evening, catch the Soundwave Showcase, which includes a series of live podcast performances at Paradise Theatre. Get your ticket and check out the full lineup on the website. You can also use the code PODTHENORTH15 to get 15% off your ticket! (Full disclosure, I get a kickback from tickets sold with my code!)

For your pod:

The May issue of the
All Hear
newsletter is out now! Check it out for local and national arts council grants and opportunities in Canada and beyond!
Good Tape has put out a call for editorial and art pitches for it’s next issue that surrounds the theme of “celebrity”. I’m a big fan of this zine and contributing is an awesome (paid) opportunity, so if you’re a writer don’t miss getting some Canadian representation in there!
PODCAST MARKETING MAGIC: What to do with your podcast listener survey responses.
ERIC NUZUM: If You Are Asking How To Get More People To Listen To What You Make Now…You Are Probably Going To Fail

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!

You can also listen to Canardian and rate it five stars!

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

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

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