December 29, 2025

Does video lead to “dreadful listens”?

4 minutes

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Fiona Sturges, writing for The Guardian, writes about "how podcasts’ rush to video is turning them into dreadful listens" - highlighting recent podcasts that contain content that only works in video, while producers "seemingly forget about their listeners".

Roman Mars is among those who shared the piece on social media, commenting "I just think it’s so much cooler and more interesting to try to be the best audio show rather than the shittiest television show".

Plenty of debate around this in the /r/podcasting subreddit.

How long have you left it between seasons? How about 21 years? Back in early 2004 - even before Apple got involved in podcasts - My Pods Forecast was born - but sadly was also one of the first to podfade, even making it as an example of podfading in a book - Tricks of the Podcasting Masters, by Rob Walch and Mur Lafferty, in 2006. An excerpt from that book also highlights the, er, slightly unusual nature of the how this prediction show does the predictions. The good news is that the pods are unharmed, and My Pods Forecast returned over the weekend.

The host of the show tells us: “So little about what podcasting means is the same as the early 00s; it feels like the culture has wilted. So many corporate partners and metrics to hit. I really want to do this as punk as possible. I think I’m 89 pence (US $1.20) invested so far, for the domain name. I want the internet to be fun again and somewhere you can have a dumb idea and make it happen.”

Driving while listening to a podcast? That's fine, says science. Phone calls? Not so much.

> > > Read more of today’s podcast industry news stories on the Podnews website: and get our free daily newsletter.

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