The narrative podcast is dead. At least, if you have to believe 28 Dutch makers of it, who wrote an urgent letter to the NPO fund at the end of 2020 with the message that the current budgets do not do justice to their work. Last week, NPR, the public radio in the United States, was also not immune to an austerity of the podcast landscape, and reported that it would cancel major productions. One of the victims is the fantastic Rough Translation. In each episode, the makers, mostly correspondents, choose a much-discussed theme in the US, such as abortion, and investigate how other countries think about it. The result is a series of compelling stories that will last for years to come.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of April 8, 2023