Pod the North Podcast

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comTransistor.fm’s Justin Jackson joins me for a candid conversation about Podcasting 2.0! A deeply nerdy chat about the future of podcasts.Thank you THE GRAIN, Clearing a New Path, Devin, and many others for tuning into my live video with Justin Jackson!Pod the North is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

ICYMI: Catch the inaugural town hall or re-watch!The open forum town hall to discuss Pod the North initiatives, ideas, and what we need for the Canadian podcasting ecosystem.Pod the North is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podthenorth.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comA couple years ago I talked to Liv Albert, host and creator of Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! about how she ended up making podcasting her full time job. In 2020 she was able to go all in on the show, but within the first year she knew she needed help on the business side of things, she just didn’t now she needed an agent.Coincidentally, she ended up get…

Dr. Pamela Palmater is a renowned lawyer, professor, and podcaster hailing from Ugpi'ganjig, a Miꞌkmaw First Nation. When Kim invited Pam to join the newest Words and Culture series, she couldn’t have been more flattered. “It's Kim Wheeler!” she told me. “She's everything! The thing that really sets Kim apart is that she's like, ‘who can I partner with? Who can I uplift? Who can I help promote? Who can I give opportunities to?’ [She] has her hands in all these amazing projects, always supporting Indigenous women in particular.”I talked with her about why podcasting could be today’s most significant step towards language revitalization and reconciliation in Canada.Pod the North is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podthenorth.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comDuring the pandemic, Kels Valenzuela Delamarter, a queer Filipina-Canadian in Lethbridge, Alberta, was feeling incredibly isolated. That’s when she decided to put out a video on TikTok, calling out to fellow queer Albertans who were feeling the same way as her. The video exploded and prompted her to create her podcast Queer in Alberta.Since it’s launch,

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comChris Oke says there’s a renewed interest in Canadian content from podcast audiences around the world.Canadians have played a significant part in the global podcasting ecosystem for a long time, but is the industry only NOW realizing it?I caught up with Chris to discuss the surge of global interest in Canadian podcasting, the perception of our represent…

The Harbinger Media Network is Canada’s impressive progressive podcast community of over 80 podcasts. It’s directed by André Goulet in Montreal, who also serves as the Community Director at Unrigged, what he calls the “journalism equivalent of Harbinger”, and includes 27 publishers from around the country focused on progressive journalism.André says that right now progressive podcasts (and progressive media in general) have found themselves in a precarious position. “The right wing is very well funded in terms of independent media, very powerful, very influential. That sucks because their values are awful. We're trying to model what it would look like to have an alternative to that.” He says that Canadian progressive spaces are balkanized, that “the oars are not rowing in the same direction in the Canadian Left”. That’s why part of the broader mission for Harbinger “with no sense of urgency” he explained, is to figure out what would happen to progressive spaces if we focused on building friendships and community, “and see where it gets us in 2028?”“This experience of having 50-60 people in a room, drinking a beer in the evening, and being like, ’so my fun tonight was going out and basically watching a live podcast but also [attending] a community gathering of people who do this work in journalism and in podcasting’. Harbinger wants to model spaces that are fun, cool, warm, smart, funny – like letting the sun in. When community radio stations do that really well, they become places where people can come and participate in the medium of radio. Harbinger can't be a space where there's room for like 8,000 people, but I think it should be a space that helps to energize other communities.”Pod the North is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podthenorth.substack.com/subscribe

Falen Johnson, cohost of the beloved CBC podcast The Secret Life of Canada, joins Canardian to discuss Brantford, Ontario and it's strange allure, life as a goth teen from Six Nations in the 90s, the permanent stamp of Wayne Gretzy, and way more! Season two of Canardian is out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and all other podcast platforms begi… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podthenorth.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comOne of the latest projects to hit the scene in Canadian podcasting is Queerial, the new podcast from comedian and podcaster, Trevor Campbell. The “neo-noir” detective story has one mission: to find the root source of queerness.Queerial is a satire and clever critique of queer conspiracy rhetoric and the “gay agenda”. It’s also part of an exciting swell …

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comIvan Rivers came to me with a ton of fascinating insights as a Canadian indie musician, a former music journalist, and a big-time podcast listener. He told me that simply having his name next to July Talk on a roster of YWS… episodes was a breakthrough enough—especially since the traditional ways of getting music publicity are practically obsolete.“We'r…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comSleep Tight Media is reading bedtime stories over and over and over again — so you don’t have to!When I met Clark and Sheryl MacLeod, the Prince Edward Island-based husband and wife team behind the kids bedtime story podcast, Sleep Tight Stories, I had SO many questions for them.Especially when they told me that the show was getting over a million downl…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comVass Bednar says podcasts are part of a well-balanced Canadian News diet.If you’ve ever wondered about Canadian media regulations, or why Canada generally seems to be run by three corporations in a trench coat, why you’ve probably heard of Vass Bednar.Vass is the executive director of McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy (MPP) in Digital Society

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comDan Misener is seeking the truth of podcast audiences.Now that podcasters have all these amazing analytics to work with, they’re bound to make incredible shows and foster massive audiences, right?Well, it turns out it’s not the case. Instead, podcasters are finding themselves toggling between browser tabs, half-hazzardly calculating averages in Google S…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comThe North Bay Echo Community Podcast Network is bringing local narratives back home.Are hyperlocal podcast networks replacing traditional local media?It feels like every month there’s an announcement about yet another local radio or television station getting shut down by one of Canada’s handful of media giants. Today, the majority of Canada is finding …

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comHow are podcast advertisers gonna deal with YouTube?I talked to Pary Bell and Jeff Ulster to get some insights into the minds behind The Podcast Exchange - TPX; how they're thinking about the current opportunities in podcast advertising - especially with the shift to YouTube, whether or not charts really matter, and how Canadian podcasters should be thi…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comTwo years ago, Laura Mayer’s Shameless Acquisition Target, a podcast created solely in the hopes of getting acquired so that Laura could buy her dream Grey House, exploded into the podcasting scene. It was an especially hot topic amongst fellow podcast producers.In just under a year Laura ended up selling the shows RSS feed to Gilded Audio, an independe…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comI love getting to talk to radio-people-turned-podcasters because they have such fascinating insights into how the two industries share similarities, how they differ, and how ultimately impact each other. Sarah Burke is one of those people, and now she’s got an even better view with the launch of her new podcast network.Along with teaching podcasting to …

Paid subscribers of Pod the North are getting an early listen today of the second episode of new flagship podcast, Canardian!Winnipeg, Manitoba, population: 841,000. A place best known for the Winnipeg Jets and Honey Dill sauce. Rick Harp, host and creator of MediaINDIGENA, joins the show to discuss Winnipeg's strangest sightings, the Legislature buildi… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit podthenorth.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comMost 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.I talked to Al about how The Produce Stand established its niche as the go-to podcast for all thin…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comThe two former theatre kids and filmmakers who make up Innerspeak, suddenly found themselves in the throws podcasting, and a deeply troubling and hyper-local story.TVO Today’s Unascertained, from Yusuf Zine and Kevin Young, investigates the untimely death of Soleiman Faqiri, a young man struggling with mental health, who died at the hands of Ontario’s c…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit podthenorth.substack.comPodSummit CEO, Tim Truax, is willing to go into debt for the Canadian podcast ecosystem.Last year I met Tim Truax, an ethusiastic Calgary-based, independent podcaster, and the new CEO of PodSummit. Tim has been spending months picking the brains of podcasters across the country, asking them what they want out of a podcast conference, and what it would t…