We all know that the idea of Blue Monday is a load of rubbish invented by a holiday company, so I hereby declare today to be Orange Friday. We’ve been going at it now for three weeks of 2025 and so we’re really into the swing of things. We’re feeling energised, up-and-at-‘em, excited about the opportunities lying ahead, and I feel like the colour for this is orange. Oranges are tasty. No-one can be uncheered with an orange. So welcome to Orange Friday. Obviously, if you disagree, feel free to name it any colour you like. Except brown. Noone wants a Brown Friday.
It’s always very gratifying to know that this newsletter infiltrates real life, but two people this week have deliberately asked me ‘Is it too late to say Happy New Year?’ when I’ve met them in person. The answer, of course, ‘For the love of God, Yes it is too late to say Happy New Year.’
The Podcast Show
I know it’s only January, but The Podcast Show is back in May and you can get 30% off if you book your tickets now. It’s the biggest event in podcasting, it all takes place at The Design Centre in Islington and then in the pub afterwards. If you can afford it, go for the tickets that get you into all the talks and all the events that go on around the edge. They’re where all the real business gets done, where the insight happens, and where you might get to dance to Pete Tong.
Honestly. It’s great.
The True Crime Cruise
Love true crime podcasts? Love the Caribbean? Fancy being on a big boat with loads of other people who also love those things? Well, the world’s first true crime podcast cruise in the thing for you.
Oh yes, Exhibit C (geddit?) takes you from Miami to the Bahamas while indulging in everything true crime related. Chilling stories with podcast hosts and top criminal experts, panel discussions and exclusive Q&A sessions, you name it. You can practice your self-defence skills just in case the true crime cruise turns into an actual true crime, and take part in murder mysteries on board. If you’re a Wondery+ subscriber you even get access to a members lounge and an exclusive cocktail hour. What more could a true crime podcast fan want?
If this is the next lucrative monetisation route, there must be all sorts of podcasts that could be turned into holidays. A Parenting Hell cruise with Rob & Josh where the kids are allowed to do whatever they want and everyone just has a laugh about it; a High Performance cruise with inspirational people just walking around the deck telling you how to be a better version of yourself, interspersed with Jake Humphrey regaling everyone with stories about how he flunked his A-Levels; or The Rest is Politics cruise where everyone disagrees with each other very politely and then someone plays the bagpipes without being asked to.
Podcasting with The Wall Street Journal
Working with media owners and networks to create podcasts for their clients is something of a speciality for Fresh Air, so we’re very chuffed to add The Trust at The Wall Street Journal to our partner list. This week saw the release of Episode 1 of ‘Crafting Capital: The Evolving World of Private Markets’ – a paid programme from UBS. Recording in the USA and London, the series hears from some of the leading industry executives across banking and finance about the outlook for 2025 and trends in private markets.
As ever, reach a super valuable niche with high quality in depth content is podcasting’s super-power for brands.
Podcast listening at work
A survey by RSS has found that Americans spend an average of 30 minutes of their working day listening to podcasts at work. It’s the third most popular activity, after messaging and looking at social media, that people do on their phones during office hours, and Texans are the most likely to have their ears stuck into a show during that time.
Obviously, this shows that podcasts on headphones are the perfect accompaniment to most jobs, except perhaps an airline pilot or a high court judge.
Beckie Bird is hooked on immersive sound design…
“The Girlfriends” is a true crime series about a set of, you guessed it, girlfriends, who come together and investigate an ex-boyfriend who has a bizarre back story. A Jewish doctor who moves to Vegas in the 90’s, dates various women and slowly reveals more and more suspicious details about himself and his previous marriage. I was hooked from the very beginning. The series gradually reveals deeper layers about the ladies who regularly meet up and their connection with Bob Bierenbaum. The host, Carol Fisher is one of these girlfriends who guides the podcast in a funny, honest, and clear way. Enough was revealed in each episode to make me excited to hear the next but not too much I felt I knew what was coming. The sound design is beautiful, with a haunting theme tune and well-placed sound effects and music to fully immerse you into this well-crafted podcast. Unsurprisingly, this is an award-winning series and producer Anna Sinfield has done a fantastic job. A second series was released last year, which excites me. I feel this is one of those series you miss listening to once it’s over!
Annie Day explores the art of spin…
I stumbled across this podcast during that weird time last March where the world and his wife lost their minds over Kate, our future Queen, editing a Mother’s Day photo. It was hard not to get sucked into the commentary – let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a scandal?! But I was totally baffled. How on earth does something like this happen? I was immediately drawn to an episode of this podcast on exactly that. ‘When it Hits the Fan’ is hosted by David Yelland and Simon Lewis – one a former editor of the Sun and one a former trouble-shooter for the Queen and Gordon Brown, among many others. They’ve been involved in many a crisis so are well placed to comment on topical stories about where it went wrong and how to keep big stories both in and out of the media. They’ve covered the Jaguar rebrand, Greg Wallace and the Trump inauguration circus this week. They don’t always agree but I like that I come away with a new take on a story that might have been covered everywhere.
What we’ve been listening to this week
YMCA.
Obviously, the whole Trump inauguration was mind-blowingly off-the-charts can’t-watch-but-can’-stop-watching insanity, but the full performance of YMCA by The Village People is a different level. The bizarre cherry on a very weird cake. We all cheer when it comes on at a wedding, right? But that doesn’t mean you need over four minutes of it to welcome the world’s most powerful man-child. The dancing, the lack of any discernible musical notes being sung, the over-long bows at the end. It has everything.
What we’ve been doing this week
Avoiding the Norovirus.
Well, not all of us have successfully avoided it. There’s so much of it around, isn’t there? When someone says they’ve had flu or Covid you often then have a more extended conversation about it. For instance: I felt a bit light headed on Tuesday and thought I could shake it off, but then by Thursday I was all shaky and had to go to bed; a bit brighter on Friday but still had a sore throat and a headache, but nearly back to normal now after taking lots of Lemsip.
When someone says they’ve had the norovirus everyone looks very concerned, thinks about it for a second, says ‘that’s awful’, and sensibly moves on.
