Don’t miss the next issue of Vocal Fridays! Subscribe below:

Someone please explain to me what a hype house is.

In my brain, they are all Entertainment 720 from Parks and Rec, but real.

Last week, Ashley Carman wrote a story for The Verge about the podcasting hype house from hell. It is a wild ride, and I still don’t fully grasp what a hype house is.

Reading this article made me feel like the human embodiment of this photo of Ben Affleck pre-reuniting with J Lo:

So if you’re up for that, buckle in for this week’s podcasting longread, and if you can tell me what a hype house is and why they exist and where they get their money from, I will elect you as President of Vocal Fry’s Podcast Hype House.*

*Vocal Fry’s Podcast Hype House does not presently exist, nor do we have plans to start one.

Earlier this week, I saw an ad for the T.V. show, Dr. Death, and thought:

"Huh. I know that name."

My brain has obviously turned to mush.

Dr. Death was a WILDLY popular podcast produced by Wondery. Truthfully, I’m not a huge fan of Wondery’s production style. I find myself simultaneously FASCINATED by the stories they tell (like WeCrashed, about the rise and fall of WeWork, and The Shrink Next Door, a story so bananas I couldn’t POSSIBLY try to sum it up in a sentence) but somehow bored by the execution—I couldn’t finish listening to either show. I think a lot of it has to do with the narration and the story structure, which feels stiff.

And yet!

I am clearly in the minority, because according to their website, 33 of Wondery’s shows have made it to number one on Apple Podcasts.
When I look through their slate, I notice a pattern: so many of their shows have been adapted into television. The trailer for Dr. Death, airing on NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock, was released earlier this week.

I will be honest. Writing that sentence made my head spin.

We have Wondery, a podcast studio, which produces shows for NBC properties (The Chuck ToddCast, Do No Harm, Bag Man). We have Peacock, NBC’s new streaming platform, which is not available in Canada. And, we have productions going two ways: Wondery producing podcasts for NBC, and NBC (well, the production company owned by NBC, Universal Cable Productions) optioning a Wondery podcast to turn into a T.V. show.

Podcast IP getting optioned for movies and T.V. isn’t new.

It’s been covered by Vulture, The Verge, Variety, Deadline, etc. since around 2018. Dirty John, another blockbuster Wondery podcast, was also optioned by UCP and turned into a blockbuster T.V. show starring blockbuster actress with a blockbuster head of hair, Connie Britton. The show has been airing since 2018, and they’ve put out two seasons so far (though Connie is only in S1).

It’s worth noting that Wondery was acquired by Amazon at the end of 2020, and Amazon has its own streaming service, Prime Video (which IS available in Canada). As more and more big companies buy up podcast studios, it’ll be interesting to see who ends up reigning supreme in the quest to squeeze every drop of IP.

Back in February, Ben Sisario wrote about the advent of the podcasting-to-big/small screen pipeline in the New York Times. One line in particular stuck out to me: “For Hollywood, the podcasting space has become a farm team for intellectual property — where storylines can be tested out and promising material scooped up relatively cheaply.”

Compared to film production, making podcasts is way cheaper and requires infinitely fewer resources. Theoretically, you can make a podcast with one person. It might not be great, and it would be a hell of a lot of work for that one person, but it is possible.

A good story is a good story, but some stories are better suited for different mediums. For example, I went to see Dark Waters in a movie theatre when that was a thing. I fell asleep. It’s not that it wasn’t a good story—it was a VERY good story—but it would have been much better suited for a podcast series where you could follow all the different threads over a few 45-minute episodes, rather than try to cram it all into a two hour movie. On the other hand, maybe those Wondery shows I don’t care for make better T.V. shows than they do podcasts.

As optioning podcast IP for movies and T.V. becomes more common, I wonder whether we’ll start to see shifts in what kinds of podcasts get produced in the first place. If you have a dream of making a podcast that eventually gets turned into a movie, read this piece that Juliana Clark wrote for the Bello Collective last year about what you need to know about IP in podcasting. There’s a lot that can go wrong.

jobs hot from the fryer

Here’s a full-time contract gig from the CBC! CBC Podcasts is hiring an Associate Producer.

They’re looking for someone with two years of experience working in journalism and sound editing/design chops.

Apply by the end of the day on June 25.

And a full-time permanent gig from CBC! Podcast Playlist is looking for their next Senior Producer.

In some ways, this is the ultimate meta-podcast job. Producing a show… about other podcasts… for the radio.

Pacific Content is hiring a showrunner!

You go run that show!

Hay House is hiring a remote audio editor.

If you’ve ever wanted to marry your audio production skills with astrology, tarot, energetic healing etc., this is for you!

Perks include a four-day work week, which rules, IMO.

hey freelancer!

Have you made award-worthy work but need some $$ to apply for awards submissions? Independent BIPOC, queer, and trans audio producers based in Canada or the U.S. can apply for the Podcasting, Seriously fund to cover awards submissions fees!

What we’re listening to

Season two of Box Office Bylines is in full swing! In each episode, hosts Tara Thorne and Jacob Boon dissect a different movie about journalism—they’ve done episodes on the obvious ones, like Spotlight and All the President’s Men, and the less immediately obvious ones, like Almost Famous and 13 Going on 30. Last week’s episode was about Heartburn, the film written by Nora Ephron based on the book of the same name.

I watched Heartburn for the first time in early lockdown and expected to love it, as a lifelong Ephron fan, but found it kind of odd. (It’s based on her marriage to Carl Bernstein—yes, that Carl Bernstein, of Woodward and Bernstein—which fell apart after he cheated on her while she was pregnant with their second child. Way harsh, Tai.)

Thorne and Boon bring juicy tidbits about the production, like which actors were originally cast and why they got swapped out. While there’s not much actual journalism in this particular movie, their fun rapport about the fictionalized versions of IRL journalism heavyweights (Meryl Streep as Rachel Samstat, a stand-in for Ephron, and Jack Nicholson as Mark Forman, standing in for Bernstein) made the movie feel richer.

Season one has 30 episodes already out, so if you’re looking for a podcast to go back through, you’ll have lots to work with. Keep your ears peeled (open?) for some familiar guests in episodes to come!

What’s happening at Vocal Fry?

We have a new blog post from freelance publicist Sabina Wex about how to promote your podcast on TikTok! The TikTok she included from Frequency's account made me laugh a lot.

We want to hear from you! What are you looking for in your podcast news? Let us know on Twitter, Instagram, or by email at info@vocalfrystudios.com.

Thanks to Emily Latimer for editing this newsletter, and to Katie Jensen for designing it.

We’ll see you again on June 25. Until then, here’s an update from Emily’s new kittens, Oscar, Luna, and Buffy, who she said she “accidentally adopted.”

Yours in friends and fries,

Michal