I’d like to begin with an apology.
Last week, my colleague Annie Day – Fresh Air’s Head of Chat, Snacks and (crucially) Gambling, gave her tips for both the Grand National and The Masters Golf. Unfortunately, her tips included some minor typos which may have been misleading to some readers, for which we apologise.
Instead of saying ‘Annie’s top tip is Tommy Fleetwood with an each-way side bet on Min Woo Lee’, this section should have read ‘Tommy Fleetwood will finish in joint 33rd position and Min Woo Lee will fail to make the cut at all, hence going home on Friday evening.’
Likewise, instead of confidently stating that ‘After painstaking hours of research, a lifetime of insight and a passion for the sport, she has landed on Monty’s Star at 16/1’, what I meant to say was ‘stay well away from Monty’s Star because he’ll end up in 10th place, and there’s no prize for finishing tenth.’
Annie has formally apologised, and offered some more insider predictions by way of recompense: West Bromwich Albion to win the Premier League and Shergar in The Derby.
Sorry about this
Depressing news reported by James Cridland’s excellent Podnews newsletter – the second finest newsletter in podcasting: There are now more new AI generated podcasts being released than human ones. Come on people, this is enough now.
Podcast Index shows that Inception Point AI – an Australian company that continually deposits stinking AI shows into the internet – created 392 new podcast feeds in the space of 24 hours – over 26% of all new shows globally. Only 48% of all new podcasts were marked as ‘likely legitimate’. The platforms are doing all they can to identify the good stuff over the dirty nasties, but as with everything, it’s an uphill battle. It’s no good for advertisers, for the medium, or for the IQ of those listening – but it’s at least clearly marked.
Inception’s AI Wellness shows begin with an explanation saying ‘I want you to know that I’m an AI host, which means I can engage with sensitive, deeply personal material without judgment, agenda or projection’, which is a particularly cynical way of suggesting that content is cleaner and better if you just take the unconscious bias out of the process by eliminating humans. I don’t know, maybe I’m old fashioned – but I like humans. Bias, frailty, judgement, humour, vulnerability – they’re part of us. I like us. I like you. Come on people.
Wrestling Live Show
Do you like watching people pretend to jump on each other? Do you like to see men on steroids wearing tiny underpants? Well this is the weekend for you, and I have the podcast for you. Wrestlemania 42 is apparently the most hotly anticipated weekend of the year, and the podcast Instinct Culture with Denise Salcedo is doing a live show from there tonight.
Nothing more to say on this. Enjoy.
Cannes Lions 2026
Are you going to Cannes? So are we.
Michaela – Director of Content and Head of Loud Nose Blows, Richard – Director of Pressing Send on the Email – and I will be there as part of our partnership with Propeller and Empower to create special episodes of The Empower Podcast. We’ll have our own space in the Amazon Port and would love to see you.
As ever, we’re AirBnBing it, swerving the ‘Gutter Bar’, and are open to classy conversations about podcasts for brands …while complaining that we’re not invited onto any of the yachts.
Open AI spends loads of money
We thought the days of podcasts being bought for huge amounts of money were over. Back in the distant days of 2020 when we had nothing else to do, Harry and Meghan sold their non-existent show to Spotify for £18 million and proceeded to release one episode. Fair do’s to them, as I’m sure I said at the time. Can you remember the name of their podcast without googling it? No, neither can I and there was a time when I mentioned it in the newsletter every week.
Anyway, those days are not over because Sam Altman’s Open AI, owners of ChatGPT – the world’s best tool for cheating at GCSE coursework – have reputedly splashed out hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire one show – TBPN. Take that, Hazza and Megs.
TBPN is a daily three hour long show and THE authority on what’s going on in tech-bro land. As with everything these days, it stretched the podcast definition pretty hard and is really a live YouTube video programme but, whatever, and huge congrats to anyone who builds a fairly niche show from the ground up to the point where it’s so dominant within that niche that it’s insanely valuable. It’s like the world’s leading dessert industry discussion podcast being bought by Bird’s Eye Angel Delight. So why would Open AI buy a podcast? Well, why worry about building your own narrative when you can just purchase the main news and discussion channel in the industry? Sam Altman has assured everyone that the show will maintain its editorial independence, and that’s fine because we know tech billionaires are all great guys. weather in my opinion, or the long half-term drives when you hear “are we there yet?” from the backseat!
Finlay Macrae turns his head leftwards…
What’s Left? is fast becoming one of my favourite UK politics/politics adjacent podcasts.
It’s hosted by Jovan Owusu-Nepaul and Freddie Feltham, both Labour Party members (potentially both still staffers, I’m not entirely sure) who by and large, discuss what it means to be on the ‘political left’ today and the future of progressive politics. But most importantly, also how to build bridges in an increasingly fractured political climate.
Both in their mid-to-late 20’s, Jovan ran against Nigel Farage in the Clacton by-election, whilst Freddie is building himself an impressive following across social media. But ultimately, they both seem like super smart and down-to-earth guys – something distinctly lacking in both party politics and political media.
The show features in-depth conversations with a very wide mix of friends, experts and commentators. Past guests have included figures on the left like Ash Sarkar and Aron Bastani. Economists like Grace Blakley (admittedly also very much on the left of British politics). Top UK lawyers like Jonathan Hall, as well as actors and comedians like Asim Chandhry and Horatio Gould.
But they also make a point of talking to emerging right-wing voices like Lin Mei (who was recently on the Channel 4 show ‘Handcuffed’), and young right wing ‘influencer’ George Gilbert, who was kicked off Big Brother for comments he made which were ultimately never aired.
Both these conversations in many ways turned out to be some of the more entertaining. Both non-combative exercises in listening to someone who (particularly in the case of George Gilbert in my opinion) ultimately exposes themselves as being someone who likes being contrarian for the sake of it – but is ultimately making a career out of it.
The episode with Grace Campbell (Alister Campbell’s comedian daughter) where she talks about being a paid up member of the Green Party is also a personal favourite.
Looking for a ‘Joe Rogan of the left’ is a bit of a meme these days, but this is more of a ‘The Rest Is Politcs for Gen-Z’… also something we desperately need.
Keep an eye on these guys – there’s big things to come from both.
Annie Day gets “light and frothy”…
I’ve not long finished the latest series of Bridgerton on Netflix. After lingering on a social media post about it a little too long (yes, it probably featured Jonathan Bailey or Luke Thompson) my feed was swamped with promo videos for the companion podcast. Unlike the previous 3 series (which I’d never heard about) it’s hosted by Alison Hammond (who must have the best agent in town.) She is clearly having an absolute blast, chatting to the cast members about their story lines like she’s getting juicy bits of gossip from friends. They’re fun and open with her, lifting the lid on what goes on behind the scenes along with insights from the writers. It’s light and frothy and exactly what I needed to distract me from the madness of the current world.
Listen here.
What we’ve been listening to this week
Artemis II.
I genuinely think space is a great example of when audio gives you a completely different spin on things. I know this seems like I’m taking 80 years of mind blowing scientific achievement for granted here, but we all know what the moon looks like. We all know what Earth looks like. But what do they sound like?
And somehow when you add sound to the pictures they’re ten times more fascinating. Here is the Orion module’s re-entry with sound. The spacecraft travelling at 25,000 miles per hour hits the Earth’s atmosphere, generates tremendous friction and a plasma layer of over 4,700℃… and so what does it sound like? Well, a bit like you’ve dipped your head in the bath and someone is banging a saucepan.
Talking of NASA by the way, we admire them and all that. Very clever people. But does that mean they should beat us in the Webbys? No it does not. So thank you if you voted for us – we really appreciate it. The poll has now closed, and on Tuesday we fully expect to be told that we’ve lost to NASA.
What we’ve been doing this week
Hanging out of windows.
Fresh Air Towers is based at Tileyard, just North of King’s Cross. It’s a very cool place full of musicians, with over 130 studios and its own on-site brewery. When we go to the cafe, we are by far the least trendy people in the place. It also means that we occasionally get impressive stars on the premises. I mean, I once gave directions to Matt Goss (look him up if you’re under 40).
And then on Wednesday, word went around that Miguel was going to be performing on site that evening right underneath our office windows. Once again, the schism between the age groups within the Fresh Air team, so often carefully papered over, opened up to clearly expose those who were hugely excited about the visit of a world famous R&B star, and those of us who went straight to Google and then whatsapped our kids to try and sound cool.
At 6.30pm, half of North London suddenly gathered around a set of DJ decks and sang along with his rendition of ‘Sure Thing’ which, despite me not knowing it, has had over 2 billion streams on Spotify and 208 million views on YouTube. Our office had the perfect view, so Lynnike leant as far out as a reasonable risk assessment would allow while I took some videos to try and have another go at persuading my kids that I’m cool.
Next time, if we get a sniff of a world famous star coming to the office, I promise to put it in the newsletter.
