Podcasts I Listen To

Podcasts I Listen To

Podcasts were a really big thing once. They were the future of radio or something, and everyone had one. Or, at least, actual radio shows were chopped up and then regurgitated as a podcast. Then, for a few years, their presence and popularity seemed to wane, perhaps due to the rise of YouTube, which gave podcasters a different sort of platform to broadcast from. Thing is, people still wanted to listen to stuff on the bus, and more recently podcasts seem to have become a thing again. Maybe it’s just me that saw this change. I don’t know.

I now travel by bus a lot. This gives me an hour or more a day to listen to something, as I rarely listen to podcasts at any other time – mainly because they’re too full of swearing that isn’t appropriate for work or home and using earphones in those situations isn’t going to happen.

What do I listen to, then? That is the point of this post, after all. Firstly, let me tell you what I use to listen. Like many folk, I used to use the iPhone’s built in Podcasts app, once part of iTunes itself but separated out at some point. It was alright, but I had issues with some of the podcasts being very, very quiet using it and couldn’t hear them properly even with the volume up full and the “high volume” limiter turned off. Someone recommended Downcast instead, which cost actual money (I don’t like spending money on phone apps – there’s probably a whole blog post about that topic) so I was reluctant. I’m glad I bought it though, as it’s much better laid out than the iOS default app, and has a “volume adjustment” setting which can boost the volume a different amount for each subscribed podcast. It made those quiet ones much easier to hear without the loud ones burning my eardrums out. Then I bought some much better earphones and the volume problem went away completely. Pff.

Podcasts I listen to

Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast
Where Richard interviews a guest each episode, but things usually rapidly deteriorate into nonsense. Appears weekly, but with breaks of a few months every so often.

Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
This weekly podcast rotates between The News Quiz and The Now Show, sometimes with odd episodes of other shows.

Comedy of the Week
This is also a Radio 4 podcast, and picks an episode from a different show each week. Sometimes it’s a sitcom, sometimes a sketch show. I sometimes skip them if they’re a single part of a larger series though.

Rhod Gilbert’s Best Bits
It’s basically his BBC Radio Wales show, with all the music scooped out. Rhod usually has a guest co-host, and subject matter is unexpectedly random audience participation.

The Adam Buxton Podcast
Adam talks to other people. It’s more like a chat in a pub garden than a radio interview. Apart from the odd special, it’s sadly missing Joe Cornish.

Midnight Resistance
Mainly hosted by three regulars, Andi, Sean and Owen, and usually joined by a games writer or host of another games podcast, Midnight Resistance talk about what they’ve been playing and then answer surreal listener questions. My questions have been used a few times too!

Pig Ignorant Indie Gamers
A mostly monthly podcast where Graham, Dave and Mark (all game devs) talk about games news, (mainly obscure indie) games they’ve played, terrible Kickstarter projects, and Graham’s bottom. A lot about Graham’s bottom, in fact.

RVG Podcast
From the Retro Video Gamer forum, comes a mixed bag of short shows about a particular retro game, console or device and longer shows with a theme and discussion. Very irregularly updated though!

Dorktunes
Now part of Gamestyle and usually monthly (but quite irregular), Dorktunes is helmed by “noob” and plays music from games, sometimes with interviews with game music composers. It’s the only podcast on my list I can listen to at work, as well, as it’s mostly vulgarity free!

Cane and Rinse
Weekly in-depth discussion about a different specific game each episode. I can’t say I listen to them all (I tend to skip episodes about games I’m not interested in) but where else can you get a two hour chat about Zelda II? Nowhere, that’s where.

Toku Podcast
Probably the most bizarre of all the podcasts I listen to. Holly and Kate talk about games, TV, films, and then each episode something else. Such as The X-Files, serial killers, ghosts, sex dungeons, and who knows what else.

Sadly lost and no longer updated are things like Joypod, The Official Nintendo Magazine Podcast, The Eurogamer.net Podcast and Sean Hughes’ Under the Radar.

(Featured image is from here, is unmodified, and used under this licence)

0 Comments

  1. You listen to pretty much the same as me!

    Some of my favourites are

    Answer Me This (Silly question and answers)
    Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project (Adam of mythbusters fame)
    Serial (Not usually my kind of thing but i enjoy this one – go back to the start though)
    Nerdist (interviews with film/tv people – though i skip the american people i don’t know)
    Empire Podcast (From the movie magazine)

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