[2] John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman had previously partnered for satirical comedy radio programs Political Animal and The Department.

During the News International phone hacking scandal of 2011, The Bugle satirised its parent company in a manner which the New York Times characterised as "blistering" in an article published 15 August.

[3] Over the course of a few weekly episodes prior to the New York Times' article, Zaltzman and Oliver had gone "straight for the jugular" regarding News International, its newspapers, and Murdoch himself.

"[3] In response to the report from the New York Times, in an episode of The Bugle released 19 August, Oliver gave this opening monologue:"Welcome to any first-time Buglers who are here because they might have read The New York Times' story on us earlier this week...but now that the story's in a newspaper that I'm guessing [Murdoch] reads cover to cover every day, I'm thinking there's an even smaller chance of us managing to not get fired now.

[7] The first episode of the newly independent Bugle was published on 20 January 2012 and the podcast was funded by donations and merchandise purchases by listeners from October 2012 to mid-2016.

On 3 June 2016, it was announced that Oliver would be leaving The Bugle as a permanent co-host, no longer able to regularly host due to family and work commitments.

[13] Since the 2016 relaunch, the show's most frequent co-hosts have been Alice Fraser, Nish Kumar, Anuvab Pal, Hari Kondabolu, Tiff Stevenson and Nato Green.

Other co-hosts to have appeared more than once include Chris Addison, Wyatt Cenac, Neil Delamere, Alex Edelman, Matt Forde, Jena Friedman, Lloyd Langford, Aditi Mittal, Al Murray, James Nokise, David O'Doherty, Sami Shah, Mark Steel, Baratunde Thurston and Felicity Ward.

Starting at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, followed by dates in London and Edinburgh, the live shows feature Zaltzman with regular co-hosts and Producer Chris.

[24] Computing website Philosophical Geek praised The Bugle for its unique wit, saying that the reviewer found himself "laughing too hard to concentrate on anything else".

[27] The podcast has continued to gain positive press coverage in the "Season 4" era, a Financial Times review of its earliest episodes opining that "Anyone wondering if The Bugle would be a damp squib without Oliver needn’t have worried.

The Spectator stated Fraser "vibes perfectly with Zaltzman’s hyper-articulate and anarchic style",[29] whilst Narc Magazine reviewed her live performance as "captivating, landing her punch lines every time with surreptitious asides into the mic, while Zaltzman whips factual news into delightful, fantastical nonsense, leaving you questioning what was real and what was not.