Timeline of shows Current shows Radiotopia members include the following podcasts:
Adult-ISH Adult-ISH features interviews, storytelling and advice by and for people in their 20s. Hosts Nyge Turner and Merk Nguyen highlight topics central to their own lives, such as
mental health, professional goals, personal identity, music, and relationships. The show debuted in 2018 through
YR Media and partnered with Radiotopia for its second season. Its debut season put
Articles of Interest on many best-podcast-of-the-year lists, including that of the
BBC,
Vulture, Its third season focuses on
American ivy, and was highlighted in
The New York Times best-of-year list.
Ear Hustle Ear Hustle is a podcast about life inside prison, produced by two inmates at
San Quentin State Prison,
Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams, together with Nigel Poor, a
Bay Area artist who volunteers at San Quentin. The show beat out 1,536 other entries to win
Podquest – a 2016 contest organized by Radiotopia for new podcast ideas. The term "ear hustle" is
prison slang for eavesdropping or being nosy. On November 21, 2018, Earlonne Woods'
sentence was commuted, with
Ear Hustle cited as a significant contributor to his reformation.
Everything is Alive Everything is Alive is an unscripted interview show in which the host, Ian Chillag, interviews an actor inhabiting the role of a different inanimate object each episode. Interview "subjects" in the first season included a can of generic cola, a bar of soap, and a mousetrap. These interviews are punctuated by conversations between Chillag and a real person that further explore topics touched upon in the main interview. Before joining Radiotopia, Chillag was a producer on
NPR's ''
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! and Fresh Air, On December 8, 2017, it was announced that The Heart
would not be producing new shows in 2018. After December 2017, the show took a hiatus while its producers made a serialized fiction podcast called The Shadows for the CBC in 2018. In 2019 producer Kaitlin Prest announced the founding of a new audio arts production company, Mermaid Palace, that will make shows in partnership with Radiotopia and the CBC, including a new season of The Heart'', which launched in January 2020.
The Kitchen Sisters Present The Kitchen Sisters Present is a podcast produced by Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, who are collectively known as the
Kitchen Sisters. They have had long careers in radio production, with shows like
Hidden Kitchens,
Lost & Found Sound, and
The Hidden World of Girls. Their podcast, then called
Fugitive Waves, was one of the founding members of Radiotopia. In it they present pieces from their archive of stories built up over their careers, which they describe as "stories from the flip side of history".
The Memory Palace The Memory Palace is a monthly historical podcast hosted by
Nate DiMeo.
The Memory Palace moved to Radiotopia from the
Maximum Fun network in 2016. whence it spread to other cities. Nadelberg also turned the show into the book
Mortified: Real Words. Real People. Real Pathetic. Together with Neil Katcher, he also created a documentary series,
The Mortified Sessions, that ran on
Sundance Channel for two seasons in 2011 and 2012, and a 2013 documentary movie,
Mortified Nation. The podcast, which was also created by Nadelberg and Katcher, joined Radiotopia in 2015. Celebrity guests who have appeared on the
Mortified podcast include
Elijah Wood,
Kate Micucci,
Chvrches,
Alison Brie,
Alanis Morissette, and
Busy Philipps.
Normal Gossip Normal Gossip is a conversation podcast co-produced by
Defector Media, hosted by Kelsey McKinney and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin. Each episode explores an anonymized story of interpersonal drama alongside a celebrity guest.
Oprahdemics: The Study of the Queen of Talk Each week, historians and longtime friends
Kellie Carter Jackson and Leah Wright Rigueur dive deep into the cultural significance and contributions of
The Oprah Winfrey Show. Discussion topics have included diets, the
1992 Los Angeles riots,
Tyler Perry,
Toni Morrison, and
Oprah's Book Club.
Passenger List A serialized fiction podcast starring
Kelly Marie Tran in which a plane has disappeared mid-flight between London and New York with 256 passengers on board. Tran plays Kaitlin Le, a college student on a quest to discover the truth behind the missing aircraft. The first eight-episode season ran in the fall of 2019.
Radio Diaries Radio Diaries Inc. is a production company started by Joe Richman in 1996. Richman and his staff give everyday people a tape recorder and ask them to record their daily lives, which is then edited to create an episode-length story. Richman's pieces have appeared on
NPR's
All Things Considered, and
This American Life, and on
BBC Radio. In 2013, Richman started the
Radio Diaries podcast, as a showcase for his pieces. The podcast later became one of the founding members of Radiotopia.
Radiotopia Plus In 2018 Radiotopia created a short-form exclusive podcast for its financial supporters. Each episode of
Radiotopia Plus poses a question that each of the network's show hosts and producers answer.
Radiotopia Presents In 2017 Radiotopia launched a podcast feed under the name
Showcase after putting out an open call for new podcast proposals. From over 1,500 entries, four were chosen to run as limited series with weekly episodes all sharing the same podcast feed. After a successful run, four more limited series were chosen in 2018. In 2020 the feed was renamed
Radiotopia Presents. The series broadcast so far have been: • Summer 2017:
Damon Krukowski's six-episode treatise
Ways of Hearing about how humans listen to music. • Fall 2017:
The Polybius Conspiracy, a podcast about
urban legends. • Winter 2018:
Secrets by Swedish producers Mohamed El Abed, Martin Johnson, and Åsa Secher, about the secrets people keep. • Spring 2018:
Errthang, by
Al Letson and Willie Evans Jr. This is the second season of the podcast – the first season ran as an independent show. • Summer 2018:
The Great God of Depression by Karen Brown and
Pagan Kennedy, a five-episode documentary about the author
William Styron and his neurologist
Alice Flaherty. • Fall 2018:
The Stoop, by Leila Day and Hana Baba, a four-episode series about stories regarding
African Americans. • Winter 2019:
Spacebridge, by Julia Barton and Charles Maynes, a four-episode documentary about
U.S.–Soviet Space Bridge.
Song Exploder Song Exploder is a biweekly music podcast hosted and produced by
Hrishikesh Hirway. The show features musicians talking about the creative process behind an individual song while "deconstructing" the song into its component parts. The podcast launched on the
Maximum Fun network, went independent in February 2015, and joined Radiotopia in June 2015.
Theory of Everything Producer Benjamen Walker ended his
WFMU radio show
Too Much Information (TMI) to start
Theory of Everything as a founding member of Radiotopia.
Theory of Everything focuses on stories as they relate to new technologies and shifts in culture, and Walker has used the podcast format to excerpt and serialize old episodes of
TMI.
This Day Hosted by journalist
Jody Avirgan and historians
Nicole Hemmer and
Kellie Carter Jackson,
This Day (formerly
This Day in Esoteric Political History) looks back at notable moments in the history of
American politics and government for insights on current-day issues and developments.
ZigZag ZigZag is the first production by Stable Genius Productions, a startup formed by
Manoush Zomorodi, the former host of
WNYC's podcast
Note to Self, and her colleague Jen Poyant. The show itself is a documentary of the early days of the new company.
Former shows 99% Invisible 99% Invisible is an independently produced radio show created by
Roman Mars that focuses on design and architecture. It began as a collaborative project between San Francisco
public radio station
KALW and the
American Institute of Architects in San Francisco. In April 2021 the company that produces the show (99% Invisible Inc.) was acquired by
SiriusXM, with
99% Invisible moving to the
Stitcher Radio network.
Appearances Appearances is a semi-autobiographical podcast by Sharon Mashihi, an audio artist, screenwriter, and story editor, In 2021,
Criminal host
Phoebe Judge announced the show would move from Radiotopia to
Vox Media. Judge attributed the change to a wish to grow the podcast and spend more time on storytelling over business running. The founders expressed gratitude towards Radiotopia in a PRX newsletter.
Millennial Millennial was a semi-autobiographical podcast created by Megan Tan in 2015, when she graduated from college and was unemployed living with her boyfriend in Portland, Maine. It became part of the Radiotopia network in 2016. The podcast focused on the transition between university and work from the point of view of a person in their twenties. In 2017, Tan decided to end the podcast, and the final episode aired on August 16, 2017, making it the first show on the Radiotopia network to end its run. Tan went on to work as a producer of
The Habitat from
Gimlet Media.
Strangers Strangers is hosted by Danish-born producer Lea Thau. Initially part of
KCRW's Independent Producer project,
Strangers became a founding member of Radiotopia in 2014. The show's last episode on the Radiotopia network aired on December 12, 2017, followed by an unofficial hiatus and a 2019
Patreon-backed revival.
The Allusionist The Allusionist is a podcast about the English language. Zaltzman was already the co-host of the
Answer Me This! podcast and was looking at the possibility of starting a new podcast focused primarily on English etymology, a subject she was interested in. Roman Mars helped Zaltzman find funding for the podcast, which eventually became
The Allusionist, and debuted on the Radiotopia network.
Caroline Crampton of
New Statesman put it on her list of podcasts of 2016. Zaltzman and the podcast left Radiotopia in October 2020 to free up more resources to address the mostly white line-up at the network.
The Bugle The Bugle is a
satirical news podcast created by
John Oliver and
Andy Zaltzman in 2007. Its focus is global news stories, primarily on UK/US news items. Initially produced independently and distributed by
TimesOnline, the show was launched in 2007 following John Oliver's move to New York to work on
The Daily Show, allowing Oliver and Andy Zaltzman to continue a partnership that had previously enjoyed success with
Political Animal and
The Department. The show joined Radiotopia in September 2016 after Oliver's departure. In late 2018 Andy Zaltzman announced that
The Bugle would leave Radiotopia at the start of 2019.
The West Wing Weekly The West Wing Weekly was an American podcast hosted by
Hrishikesh Hirway and
Joshua Malina, in which the hosts discussed one episode of the popular television program
The West Wing, which originally aired on
NBC from 1999 to 2006. The podcast featured various cast and crew members including series creator
Aaron Sorkin, director
Tommy Schlamme,
Rob Lowe,
Bradley Whitford,
Richard Schiff,
Janel Moloney,
Marlee Matlin, and
Dulé Hill, as well as former government officials, academics, and pundits. The podcast finished its run with their discussion of the series' final episode on 29 January 2020.
This Is Love This Is Love was launched in 2018 by
Phoebe Judge, Lauren Spohrer, and Nadia Wilson—the team behind
Criminal, another Radiotopia show. The show ran for a short six-episode season in early 2018, with a second season airing at the end of the same year. As of 2022, it had five seasons. The show tells stories on the subject of love.
This is Love left the Radiotopia network in 2021 along with
Criminal and
Phoebe Reads a Mystery.
The show is now distributed independently of Radiotopia under the title What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law''.
Judas and the Black Messiah Podcast Judas and the Black Messiah Podcast is hosted by
Fred Hampton Jr. and
Elvis Mitchell and accompanies the
film of the same name. The show was produced by
Proximity Media and
99% Invisible and in partnership with
Warner Bros. The last episode aired March 12, 2021. Stories were developed as a collective where frequently the dialogue was completely improvised. Additionally, recordings were made on location and then taken into the studio to be edited. Work by
The Truth has been heard on many nationally syndicated public radio programs, including
This American Life,
Studio 360,
Snap Judgment, and
The Story (see Links below). ==Accolades and awards==