Pod the North Podcast

June Findlay, Brand and Social Media Content Strategist joins Pod the North’s Kattie Laur for a deep dive into the Canadian creator economy.

Don’t miss this discussion on the state of podcasters and creators in Canada, how advertisers think about Canadian content, the future of building digital ecosystems (not just a podcast), and how creators make money while navigating the systems that don’t pay out (ahem, meta).

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Janine Steele, Director of Interactive, Digital, and Emerging Media for Canada Media Fund, joins me for a casual conversation about the nuances around defining what a podcast is anymore, and what she hopes will come from CMF now including podcasts to their the Digital Creators Pilot Program.

Pod the North is a reader-supported publication. To receive new…

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.com

Transistor.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

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A 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.com

During 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.com

Chris 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