Six British political podcasts, six different bargains struck with the listener. We compare cadence, format, ownership and the wildly different definitions of 'civil disagreement' each show has quietly settled on.
A million-download podcast sounds enormous — until you ask which million, on what platform, by which standard. We unpick what the industry's biggest numbers actually count, and what they quietly leave out.
Science is the genre most hostile to audio: nothing to point at, a vocabulary that resists, a truth that keeps moving. Six British shows have each made a different bargain with the problem — and the bargains tell us how British science radio actually works.
Sleep podcasts are third by hours streamed and command top-quartile CPMs, yet critics rarely review them. A craft-led look at six major shows, the production techniques that separate them, and why the genre's invisibility is its design.
Touring is no longer a side hustle for Britain's biggest podcasts; it's a second format with its own craft, economics and disappointments. Six shows, six different bets on what a live feed should be.
Apple and Spotify never built proper listener communities, so British podcasts went and built their own. A field guide to the Discords, subreddits and Patreon rooms where audiences actually gather in 2026.
E
