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  • Websites vs. codswallop, anti-aphasia drama tool, call for sketch comedy writers, Quest Friends' spinoff, Burnout, Skandinavien, and more

Websites vs. codswallop, anti-aphasia drama tool, call for sketch comedy writers, Quest Friends' spinoff, Burnout, Skandinavien, and more

Plus: internship and education opportunities, and three keys to escaping the amateur mindset

Author

Lindsay Harris Friel
April 25, 2025

Issue 298 of The Fiction Podcast Weekly is brought to you by Are Podcast Websites Still Relevant in 2025?

Is Gemini making your show harder to find? Are apps the new Ask Jeeves? In Are Podcast Websites Still Relevant in 2025? Katie Paterson explains what’s happening with organic search traffic and how a website can protect your podcast’s brand from enshittification. Sorry, Mom, I mean, enshirtification.

News, Roundups, and Announcements

  • Podnews reports, “Coming to The Podcast Show in London? New this year, if you’re coming from outside the UK or Ireland, you now need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, an ETA, to enter the country. It’s just £16 directly from the UK government.” Apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation 

  • Scientists at King’s College, London are working on a tool that makes podcasts easier for people with aphasia to understand. “The team are now working with the BBC R&D team who have provided 15 episodes of a popular drama on BBC Sounds for their programme to work with, with the ultimate goal of integrating the software into the app to make the nation’s favourite audio content more accessible.”

  • Apple is moving into scripted podcasts for the first time, though it remains to be seen whether Easy Money: The Charles Ponzi Story is an audio drama.

  • Sometimes I ask questions in this newsletter, and sometimes people respond. Last week, I asked, “How do you feel about AI voices, music, or scripts in audio drama? Does it have a place in the Fiction Podcast Weekly?” Whoa Nellie, did people respond. Thank you! If you have an opinion about this, but have not written to me at lindsay at thepodcasthost dot com yet, please do. I’ll read, reflect, find consistencies and outliers, and write something. If I quote you directly, I’ll contact you and ask permission to use your name first. This may take a while, because I’m not a robot. Again, thanks!

  • Liars and Leeches are crowdfunding for Season Two.

  • Have you checked out The End’s Fan Favorites yet?

  • The Cambridge Geek posted on his Patreon: “It is getting weirdly quiet recently. Don't know if I'm failing to find [audio drama podcast debuts], or if there are just fewer coming out. In case you need to find a lot more to listen to, you can now export OPML files from my tag search. This will let you import loads of podcasts into your app at once.”

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Opportunities

  • Scottish sketch comedy writers: Noising Up is set to return to BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds. Noising Up needs your topical, satirical, and observational sketches! The series will cover Scottish politics and beyond. They will be looking at Scottish contemporary life. And they can feature anything and everything!

  • What happened to all the casting calls? And, why?

  • The Women’s Audio Mission Internship Program is widely recognized in the audio and music production industries for the caliber of training, range of activities, overall experience, as well as job placement opportunities. The internship is open to women (transgender or cisgender) and non-binary/gender-expansive individuals, recommended for those 21 years and older. You must be a resident of the San Francisco Bay area. Deadline: 5 May.

  • Levels Up Academy offers a free 2-week, in-person audio storytelling programme at the VPM + ICA Community Media Center in Richmond, Virginia for local applicants aged 17 to 22. It’s open to anyone regardless of educational status. The program takes place from 30th June - 11th July. Deadline unspecified, so if this looks like a good fit, apply ASAP.

Milestones & Debuts

  • Quest Friends! is releasing a spin-off of its first season, with three twists: -The five-minute weekly episodes are narrated solely by Kyle, audio-book style -It's being released solely on Discord, Tumblr, and Substack -Each week, the audience decides what happens next!

  • Albion Byrd writes, “There’s a world I’ve been building; bleak, beautiful, and quietly terrifying. It’s called Skandinavien. A dark Nordic horror audio series that's immersive, eerie, and full of unsettling beauty. If you're into haunting soundscapes and atmospheric storytelling, this will be for you.”

  • Burnout concludes the first season of the Alternative Stories cyberpunk thriller on Friday, 2nd May. Tune in to find out if Theo and his embedded AI companion IRIS can complete their mission. Burnout is a new show from the award-winning team behind The Dex Legacy.

  • Click Click Boom Boom. A photographer and DJ strike up a relationship at an isolated wedding venue, only to discover a guest list suspiciously short on numbers and a wedding night harbouring a terrible secret.

Keep sharing good stories. We need them.

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