Once it appeared that everybody had made their contributions to this thread, I began to go through the offerings and attempted to decide which podcasts might be of interest to me, and which ones would not be to my liking. But I quickly discovered, like Enright3 in post #39, that the title of a podcast does not always tell one what the podcast is actually about.
So, because I have a lot of time (and obviously no life), I extracted each and every podcast title from this thread and listed them in a spreadsheet. Then I Googled each of the 216 podcasts and found a synopsis for each one (usually from podcasts.apple.com) and put those into my spreadsheet as well. I think I’ve got all the podcast titles, although it’s certainly possible that I missed a couple.
If there’s interest, I can create a series of posts (probably 5 or 6), which will contain all the information in the spreadsheet. I have the list alphabetized and the titles bolded, so it’s fairly easy to read. Let me know if this is something that you’d like to see.
I listen to various board game podcasts (The Dice Tower, Garret’s Games & Geekiness, Ludology, and sometimes others), The Planetary Radio poscasts, and sometimes The Outspoken Cyclist.
Wow. If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to see it. I have a hard time selecting new podcasts, and I fall back on programs I already know. But I’m always looking for new stuff to listen to when I’m walking.
If I’m the only one interested, PM me and maybe you can email me the spreadsheet.
I listen sorta-regularly to: WTF, Stay Tuned with Preet, The Dice Tower, Shut Up and Sit Down, and So Very Wrong About Games (those last three are about board games), We Hate Movies, The Episodic Table of the Elements, Radiolab, Deconstructed, and The Moth. I’ve also started poking around at some Magic: The Gathering pods since I’ve been playing on Arena.
I stopped listening to political podcasts because it wasn’t good for my mental health or blood pressure.
The West Wing Weekly: each week, hosts Hrishikesh Hirway and Joshua Malina discuss an episode of The West Wing (Malina played Will Bailey on the show). I listen infrequently, and sometimes in just 10-25 minute bursts, so I’m currently a full West Wing season behind: right now the podcast is up to S7 E6. Their episodes frequently include a guest or two: anyone from Aaron Sorkin to most of the cast to real-life people who deal with issues raised on the show. I’m a fan of both Sorkin and The West Wing, so I’ve really been enjoying it. I’ll be a little sad when they get to the end of season 7 and the podcast ends.
When the podcast started, I had a 30-minute commute twice a day and could get through roughly five episodes a week (sometimes less, if I felt like listening to music during a given drive). I’d let a bunch of episodes build up on the website, then download a few and burn them to a CD for listening in the car. A year and a half ago I was lucky enough to start working much closer to home, but it has meant no podcast time during my drives. And I don’t really listen to anything at home; unless I’m practicing, either the house is quiet or the TV is on. So now I mostly only listen when I go to my friends’ house (about 25 minutes away) or up to Baltimore to visit my dad (about an hour away).
I learned about this podcast from The West Wing Weekly (they featured part of an episode one week), and I’ve listened to several episodes. I love both the concept and execution! I haven’t downloaded a new episode in forever, but if my commute ever changes again and I have more car time I will definitely listen to more.
Ear Hustle - life on the inside at San Quentin
Lexicon Valley - Language and linguistics
Every Little Thing - Deep dives into trivia
99% Invisible - Design
Learning Jazz Standards - Jazz music education
Twenty Thousand Hertz - everything about sound
What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law
Science Rules
The Indicator - economic indicators in the news
Planet Money - economics
The Sporkful - eating and life
Reply All - weird internet shit that happens
The Allusionist - language
Science Vs. - sorts the science from the bullshit
Podcasts that are also radio shows:
The Moth - true storytelling
Fresh Air - pop culture and newsmaker interviews
Radio Lab - eclectic in-depth stories
This American Life - eclectic in-depth stories
Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me - comedy news-related game show
Freakanomics Radio - economics
TED Radio Hour - cutting edge research
I use Stitcher after having tried a couple of others. It doesn’t have the features I would want if I designed on myself but it’s the closest I’ve come. Battery usage is pretty good and it optimizes storage and data usage. (One quirk is that if I am listening to the last podcast in my playlist, then new episodes are added in the meantime, it does not automatically continue to the next new episode.) The user interfaces gets updates that improve the navigation and flow since I first got it.
I’m subscribed to many podcasts. My job allows me to listen to podcasts, or music, or whatever I want all day. I also listen in my car and when I’m walking my dog, so I have a lot of material I can burn through. There are only a couple I listen to every episode of - those are marked with a * below.
Politics
*Buzz Burbank News and Comment
NPR Politics Weekly Round Up
Slate Political Gabfest
The Young Turks
Lovett or Leave It
*Pod Save America
Entertainment
How Did This Get Played - about bad video games
The Todd Glass Show
*Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
Armchair Expert - Dax Shepard
*Unspooled - Paul Scheer and Amy Nicholson reviewing moves from AFI top 100
Improv for Humans
*Never Not Funny - Jimmy Pardo and friends
*Doug Loves Movies
*Comedy Bang Bang
You Made it Weird - Pete Holmes
WTF - Maron
Monday Morning Podcast - Bill Burr
And there’s a bunch of true crime podcasts I sometimes dip a toe into, but they’re all pretty much the same. There’s one called Disgraceland that covers musicians who have done horrible things.
Due to popular demand (well, at least 3 people), I am sharing my podcast spreadsheet with the world. I saved it as a Google Sheet document and am sharing it via Google Drive.
I believe that I have extracted every suggestion from this thread, up to and including the suggestions from Jack Batty in post #75. I also added a couple of others that I found while perusing the podcast libraries. There are 265 rows in the sheet. (It’s entirely possible that I missed a couple from this thread, but I don’t believe I’ll be adding any more entries.)
In each case, I list the title of the podcast, as well as a brief description. The description is generally copied from a podcast provider, usually podcasts.apple.com. I make no claim as to the accuracy of any description.
The Google Sheet is set to view-only, but you should be able to download it in a variety of formats, including Excel. Go to the File menu, then to Download, and choose an option. I am assuming that you know how to find a downloaded document on your device.
If you have any issues with the document, feel free to PM me. As I stated above, I am not adding any new content.
I didn’t catch this the first time and just noticed it. Isn’t it great? I love it so much. I can’t believe I hadn’t read non-Discworld stuff before this podcast.The Bromeliad Trilogy was something I would have missed out on entirely if it weren’t for this Terry Pratchett adventure. Plus they used one or two of my questions/comments!