Podcasting Everything Everywhere All at Once
18/08/25
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PODCAST RECORDING STUDIO, IMAGE: JONATHAN VELASQUEZ
The ‘podification’ of everything in our lives has slowly crept up on us. We were naïve to its impact, but it has consumed everything. It has felt like being swarmed by wasps. At first, one may start surrounding you - you take no notice. Then a second will come, and your attention will be caught. But then a third will come, and a fourth and a fifth, before you are surrounded, no matter where you look or go.
As the media landscape has constantly shifted and evolved over the past 15 years, one of the most interesting developments has been the rise of podcasts as a dominant medium. Their popularity is theoretically counterintuitive. We are told that people’s attention span has dwindled so much that listening to hours and hours of conversation should be an alien concept. Whilst this may be the case for those who have only just been bestowed with a smartphone, it certainly is for people in adulthood. Yet, Edison Research found that 30% of adults listened to podcasts every week, a figure of over 10 million people in the UK.
This soaring popularity has manifested itself in lucrative business. GoalHanger, the big beast of the space, has created a stable of podcasts through its now trademark ‘Rest is’ labelling. This has seen podcasts hosted by Gary Lineker - the owner - Marina Hyde, and Dominic Sandbrook, with the jewel in the crown, the ‘Rest is Politics’ hosted by Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart. The show, which launched in early 2022, has soared in popularity across the country, often jostling with LBC’s ‘News Agents’ at the top of charts, which is hosted by a cabal of ex-BBC hacks.
THE REST IS POLITICS HOSTS RORY STEWART (LEFT), AND ALISTAIR CAMPBELL (RIGHT), IMAGE: JAMIE LUCAS
The primary appeal of these podcasts and those adjacent to politics and current affairs is their ability to speak with sense and reason. Sensible, good, measured conversations that are, for the most part, very informative. Brexit and the tedious debacle that followed it all sent everyone a bit insane, compounded to no end by the pandemic, which then inflicted its wrath across the country. The impact of these events, I don’t think, has been fully comprehended; the first ripped up so many of the conventions we thought set in stone, and the second plunged us into a dystopia we thought not possible. Finally moving on from those discombobulating and endlessly tiring years required someone to make sense of it all, and the podcast became the ideal remedy.
Major corporations were early to latch onto the growing trend, but this mainly consisted of spinoffs packaged up as something new, when it was really a rehashing of tired, non-partisan lines. It fundamentally misunderstood why podcasts were becoming so popular - a primary appeal was a rejection of the big broadcasters dominating the discourse. We live in a hyper-capitalistic environment; non-partisan spiel does not sell anymore.
Since their first inception, podcasts have risen to such prominence that they’ve become a part of many people’s lives. But whilst it may resemble a soundtrack that constantly murmurs in the background, its reaffirming nature and solidity, it maintains, in one’s opinion, offers an explanation to our divided world. Reaffirmation is comforting; it is stability. Much of the population does not want to be challenged on their opinions; they want to seek solitude with others who feel the same. In this context, political podcasts on both the right and the left have reached such a level that they shape and mould the conversation; their output almost resembles rallies, led by figureheads that espouse certain messages, supported by people who want to be told this is the way things should be done.
Discussions on these platforms used to feel nuanced and informative, enriching the debate and moving the conversation forward. But one feels this has slowly dissipated. The political debate has descended further into the quagmire of toxicity and hyperbole; their output has not tried to mirror but become further entrenched in their viewpoints or just hate parades on their least liked politicians. Our lack of curiosity and unwillingness to hear from others is limiting our ability to understand our reality. We are being left with echo chambers that do nothing but reinforce what we already believe – a fundamentally redundant experience.
Actively seeking out differing opinions is not a sign of agreement, but a process of understanding the reasons behind their viewpoints. The Labour government’s flailing since taking charge has made those at the top of podcast charts – centrist sympathisers – reconsider the period of relative stability they envisaged that would appease their beliefs, seemingly, cannot exist in such a volatile political climate. Lots of these podcasts have just become downright slop - not naming names - regurgitating the same tired viewpoints from their warped Westminster bubble.
A PODCAST STAPLE: THE CONDENSER MICROPHONE, IMAGE: RITUPON BAISHYA
The lackadaisical approach reflects how little the media landscape understands about the wider population. People do not need 10+ every day from major organisations telling us the same points, which are all packaged and presented in a slightly different way. What benefit does such saturation serve to anyone? This mentality extends beyond news reporting to other corners of the podcasting world. The flood of so-called ‘emergency’ podcasts about all the details of the MasterChef fallout or the latest celebrity rift has, quite frankly, become absurd. Is it necessary to analyse everything in such excessive detail?
The credence we give these voices as the voice of all reason is seeing us hurtling towards a nadir. We only need to look at the US to realise the potential ramifications of peddling stalling voices (to clarify, I don’t think the two countries' stable of podcasts is even remotely equivocal, but America’s elevation of certain voices to stratospheric levels has created an unregulated political discourse that cannot be reined in). MAGA has a stable of podcasters pumping out their rhetoric week after week; it was smart manoeuvring from Trump to appear on each of the biggest shows before the election; he couldn’t have asked for better platforms to appeal directly to his base.
Podcasts used to be, and still can be, a form of escapism, but it feels as if many have succumbed to the desire to monetise ‘everything, everywhere, all at once’. We have been left with echo chambers, propaganda channels, and slop, in its various political, cultural and celebrity fronted formats. There is still output that avoids falling into this trap, but they are becoming increasingly sparse. Our desire for everything to be talked about and micro-analysed – the unwillingness to sometimes take the world at face value has meant that podcasts have become an unshakable companion. Opinions, it seems, can no longer truly be formed – only imposed.
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