Political/History podcasts - Recommendations

the thing is that if one accepts ads as a necessary evil, in the sense of, "well, my favorite podcasters gotta eat, and this is how they can make some money," then you also have to accept that the advertisers can tell if you skip the ad and they don't get the money. so folding the ads into wacky skits and in-jokes (Blank Check does a ton of this) is clearly a way to keep their diehard fans from skipping ahead, since the ad itself becomes a thing to joke about on Reddit and Twitter, etc. every so often something goes so spectacularly wrong with one of their funny voice characters that i do actually get a chuckle out of them, somewhat ashamedly.

Dana Gould basically turns his Audible ads into 20 minute monster movie history segments

I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't skip through the 7 minutes of ads at the beginnings History on Fire episodes. Maybe now that it's behind a paywall that doesn't happen.

Not a history podcaster obviously but Greg Proops used to do sarcastic readings of his ads, criticise the prose, read out the instructions, make his own jingles "audible... for when you don't feel like reading!" etc. but at some point they stopped him doing that and I stopped listening to the ads. Adam Buxton does a good job of making them into entertaining jingles/sketches.

I know it's toxic to most, but the Cumtown ad reads are one of the best parts of the show - they basically do everything they can possibly do to get fired by the sponsor.

Hollywood Handbook is the ad read GOAT

Adam Buxton does a pretty good job with ads but ymmv (perhaps that should read your ability to deal with shit whimsy may vary, or yatdwsw).

Anyone know how much a podcaster would get for an ad?

I think some only get paid if people sign up for a service using their code

I know that Itunes U's heyday (if it ever had one) is like a decade past, but I find listening to decent undergrad lecture courses about a million times more informative and entertaining than any of the history podcasts I've tried. I found that colleges were only really putting their "tried and true" lecturers online, and a formally trained historian speaking to a present audience was usually more engaging than a hobbyist talking into a microphone in his study. And the professors carry a little more credible for me, tbh.

I really liked Stanford's "History of the International System," and Yale had a French history from 1871-present that was pretty good. There were probably good ones from less fancy institutions too, those are just a couple of the ones I found.

Lectures are good, but History podcasts are for EXHAUSTIVE detail.

like sure, you could listen to 7 hours of lectures about the Crusades, or you could listen to 318 episodes of the History of the Crusades podcast

Lol that’s definitely true. I guess I just prefer audiobooks for that.

then you also have to accept that the advertisers can tell if you skip the ad and they don't get the money.

I don't they can with most pod delivery methods, though? That's why so many still rely on the custom URL method.

yeah, my podcasts are all just mp3s on my (android) phone. I seriously doubt that my podcast app is tracking where I skip forward and if I ever discovered that it did, I would just start using another app.

Same.

same

I use podcast addict, 99% sure it doesn't track this, though it does remember where I've got to and seems to scrobble though I wish it wouldn't. (ahem new episode of my thing which is almost like a history podcast is out today and obviously doesn't contain any fucking ads apart from the very brief patreon plug at the start ahem)

Same. It's amazing how smart some of these devices are that we let into our homes, but our podcast apps can't even remember where we left off.

My biggest frustration at the moment is not being able to subscribe to a podcast version of The Shipping Forecast. It's just not there, while it should be, and there is a TuneIn link to it, and I downloaded TuneIn specifically for it. And and and it still doesn't work. Southwesterly gale force 8 imminent, Clive, increasing severe gale force 9 soon.

(xp)

you like a bit of Doggering then?

You betch'er Calz! Susan Powell reading the Shipping Forecast has been on of my best weapons in combating insomnia...

This isSusan Powell isn't it? She's mostly just announced as 'Susan', I have no idea who she is, but at 0.48am she's been doing wonders.

Alistair Cooke's Letter From America used to have the similar effect on me. Even though his politics sucked absolute shit, his voice had an AMSR effect.

Yeah I suppose you could call it an ASMR effect, even though I refrained using that term. ASMR stuff seems to lull intentionally. Shipping Forecast (esp read by Susan, I do admit) just... is. It doesn't tickle my earbuds or gets me butterflies. It just carries me off into sleep. Which is all I ask for when insomniac.

Also: no product placement in the Shipping Forecast :)

Alistair Cooke's Letter From America used to have the similar effect on me.

Yeah I get that. His politics were rubbish but there was something undeniably soothing about his voice and just zoning out, listening to it.

I've got a 3gb folder of old Letter From America episodes divided into: Regan Years, Clinton Years, Bush Years. Obv not much of it ages well!

Dire, but I've had 3gb hogged up by even more questionable content :)

Would download a torrent of Cooke's 'Complete Works' actually.

Some of it is amusing, like his jubilation over the first dot.com bubble bursting and prediction of shopping bags and ppl ordering goods with a quill pen looking solid!

xp

I've got it shared on Soulseek if you are online rn - folder is titled "letter from america".

Am getting no results! That's ok, maybe tomorrow!

apart from that Scottish duo beloved of N Sturgeon obv! It will be on most days after GMT noon if you can be arsed trying again.

LBI you can subscribe to the shipping forecast in BBC Sounds app

podcast ad rates are measured in “CPM” which is dollars per 1000 listeners. $25 is considered a pretty good CPM. so if an episode of hollywood handbook gets 100K unique listeners, a $25 CPM will get them $2500.

I use PocketCasts which is great at remembering where I left off. It has taken a turn for the worse in the last six months, but I've tried a bunch of other apps too and nothing comes close to it in terms of functionality.

I like This Podcast Will Kill You on various diseases. Comes with a relevant cocktail each week and it's
Non alcoholic equivalent.
2 women giving the history of human contact with the disease.

Your Queen History where 2 guys snark at each other in various subjects relevant to queer history.

Irish History Podcast where somebody I used to know has spent the last 9 years outlining the history of Ireland. He's spent a lot of time on the famine.

Stuff You Missed In History Class.
2 women explore various subjects of somewhat esoteric history.

Dressed
2 women explore fashion history.

And a few others which will come to me later.

Stuff You Missed In History Class is good for the range of stuff it covers, and the presenters are pretty good, but the episodes are something like 40% ads and 10% listener mail.

Thank you Tracer, that's it!

awesome!

once subscribed new eps will appear in ‘My Sounds’

My man! "Fair, good."

speaking of Sounds, there’s a history podcast from Horrible Histories fella now called “You’re Dead To Me” which people seem to like

Hadn't realised that was who that was. Listened to a few of them a couple of weeks back.
Nerdy chatty stuff about aspects of history.
I then wound up with several episodes of Horrible Histories on during the week

Just listened to the Battle of Jutland segment of Hardcore History and I swear he said "HMS Indiefaggotable" at least three times -- first time I though it was just a slip, but he really can't pronounce that word.

Amazingly I'm up to Blueprint for Armageddon VI now (final part). Still enjoying overall -- he's bad on some points (his take on Marx was painfully simplistic) but he's great at conveying what war is like from the ground and at covering a lot of different ground and making the whole war seem like a moving worldwide puzzle, also at conveying a sense of the horrors of battle, and the changes in technology and military organization and strategy.

I would def do another Carlin series when finished, which one should I pick next?

his best imo is the series about the Mongols

i wish people would start recommending some good Political/History podcasts on this thread ! (jokes obv!)

I've really taken to the revolutions podcast, the episode about Bakunin is excellent.

yeah same, I'm totally addicted.

I need to exercise more listening discipline, because I've been quite random in the order of listening to the eps.