Radiotopia is a podcast network founded by 99% Invisible host Roman Mars and run by the Public Radio Exchange.
[1] Radiotopia, founded by Roman Mars,[2] was launched in February 2014 with an initial group of seven shows: Jonathan Mitchell's The Truth, Lea Thau's Strangers, Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything, Nick van der Kolk's Love and Radio, the Kitchen Sisters' Fugitive Waves (later renamed The Kitchen Sisters Present), Radio Diaries and Roman Mars' own flagship show 99% Invisible.
[3] The makers of these shows had decided to band together as independent producers who didn't have the support of traditional radio broadcasting, targeting instead a growing audience of podcast listeners.
[5] In October 2014 a Kickstarter campaign was started to support the growth of the network,[6] raising over US$600,000 and making it the most-funded radio or podcast project on the site.
Hosts Nyge Turner and Merk Nguyen highlight topics central to their own lives, such as mental health, professional goals, personal identity, music and relationships.
In 2019 producer Kaitlin Prest announced the founding of a new audio arts production company, Mermaid Palace, that will be making shows in partnership with Radiotopia and the CBC, including a new season of The Heart launching in January 2020.
Both the podcast and the original show feature adults sharing things they wrote as teenagers, such as diaries, letters, and poems, that now seem embarrassing in retrospect.
Celebrity guests who have appeared on the Mortified podcast include Elijah Wood, Kate Micucci, Chvrches, Alison Brie, Alanis Morissette, and Busy Philipps.
[51] Normal Gossip is a conversation podcast co-produced by Defector Media, hosted by Kelsey McKinney and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin.
[52] Each week, historians Kellie Carter Jackson and Leah Wright Rigueur dive deep into the cultural significance and contributions of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
A plane has disappeared mid-flight between London and New York with 256 passengers on board in a serialized fiction podcast starring Kelly Marie Tran.
[63][64] Producer Benjamen Walker ended his WFMU radio show Too Much Information (TMI) to start Theory of Everything as a founding member of Radiotopia.
Theory focuses on stories as they relate to new technologies and shifts in culture, and Walker has used the podcast format to excerpt and serialize old episodes of TMI.
[85] Appearances is a semi-autobiographical podcast by Sharon Mashihi, an audio artist, screenwriter, and story editor,[72] that had a limited run on Radiotopia.
[86] In 2021, Criminal host, Phoebe Judge, announced the show would leave the Radiotopia network to Vox Media.
Judge expressed the change to be due to wishing to grow Criminal and spend more time on storytelling over business running.
Love and Radio is an American audio podcast directed by Nick van der Kolk and produced by Brendan Baker.
It originally began in 2005 as a series of self-distributed episodes, though the show later received some support and distribution from NPR and Chicago Public Media.
In 2014, the show joined Radiotopia as one of its 7 original members and began producing episodes on a more regular monthly schedule.
[89] Millennial was a semi-autobiographical podcast created by Megan Tan in 2015, when she graduated from college and was unemployed living with her boyfriend in Portland, Maine.
Roman Mars helped Zaltzman find funding for this podcast, which eventually became The Allusionist,[95] debuting on the Radiotopia network.
Focusing on global news stories (but primarily on UK/US news items), the show was launched in 2007 following John Oliver's move to New York to work on The Daily Show, allowing Oliver and Andy Zaltzman to continue a partnership that had previously enjoyed success with Political Animal and The Department.
The podcast has featured various cast and crew members including series creator Aaron Sorkin, director Tommy Schlamme, Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, Richard Schiff, Janel Moloney, Marlee Matlin, and Dulé Hill, as well as former government officials, academics, and pundits among others.
This Is Love was launched in 2018 by Phoebe Judge, Lauren Spohrer and Nadia Wilson — the team behind Criminal, another Radiotopia show.
The show was produced by Proximity Media and 99% Invisible and in partnership with Warner Bros.[105] The podcast had a limited run and the last episode aired March 12, 2021.
Work by The Truth has been heard on many nationally syndicated public radio programs, including This American Life, Studio 360, Snap Judgment, and The Story (see Links below).