Bobby Bones is a young country DJ who does a widely syndicated morning show. He's at his best with his BobbyCast, in which he talks to Nashville up-and-comers such as Kelsea Ballerini and Lauren Alaina. Guests are encouraged to relax on Bones's couch and talk about anything they like.
— David Hepworth
'Intrigue: Murder In The Lucky Holiday Hotel' is a podcast put together by the BBC's Carrie Gracie that investigates the story behind the death of British businessman Neil Heywood in the Chinese city of Chongqing in 2011.
The 'Backlisted' podcast describes itself as 'giving new life to old books'. In each episode, John Mitchinson and Andy Miller are joined by a guest from the world of books who brings along some overlooked gem to enthuse about.
Formed in 1967 and still performing regularly half a century later, Fairport Convention are Britain's equivalent of the Band. Unlike the latter they have maintained cordial relations.
Back in the 1980s, state-of-the-nation fictions were all set in Manhattan. Now, they're all in Trump country. Early in 'S-Town,' we're introduced to an actual maze, every branch of which leads to a further junction. This may also be a metaphor.
Others may recognise their world in 'Eat Sleep Work Repeat'. This podcast is the side project of Bruce Daisley, who works at Twitter. It consists of him talking to experts about what makes us happy at work and why.
'Twenty Thousand Hertz' investigates the role of audio professionals in our daily lives, from the engineering that ensures a car door closes with that reassuring finality to the Foley artists of Hollywood who synthesise the sounds of marine life using old kitchen equipment gathered at the pound shop.
The podcast 'A History of Jazz' began telling its story in February - 100 years after the recording of 'Livery Stable Blues' by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the start of jazz as a legitimate branch of music.
'Bombshell' is a remarkable podcast. In the course of it, three people who know what they are talking about cover 'military strategy, White House mayhem, and the best cocktails'.
The age of the rock star ended with the passing of physical product, the rise of automated percussion, the domination of the committee approach to hit-making, the widespread adoption of choreography, and, above all, the advent of the mystique-destroying Internet.
Famine is a consequence of poverty.
The great children's author and illustrator Shirley Hughes marks her 90th birthday by appearing as Michael Berkeley's guest in 'Private Passions'.
Some of the vintage comedy on Radio 4 Extra wasn't very funny to begin with, whereas some things just get funnier regardless of the changes in public attitudes over the years.
Radio 4 Extra is the network which offers the broadcasting version of eternal life.
The 'PBS NewsHour' podcast is the audio version of the nightly TV broadcast.
Both traditional broadcasters and podcasters are betting heavily on the growth of voice-driven technology and so-called smart speakers, the theory being that it is as easy to ask Amazon's Alexa to play you the 'Guardian Books' podcast as it is to get it to play Capital FM.
'The Anthill' is the podcast wing of The Conversation, the site that presents news and views derived from the academic and research community.
A gap in tone is opening up between podcasts and broadcast radio. The people who produce the former know their listeners have given them permission to go deep into their subject. The people who do the latter live in fear they've already gone too far.
There's a tendency to locate the cliche of the 'strong woman' exclusively in the present day, as if those many women who endured such inconveniences as the Depression and the Second World War were porcelain compared to, say, Amy Schumer.
'You Must Remember This', the podcast about 'the secret and or forgotten history of Hollywood's first century', has a thread dedicated to Dead Blondes, which is a clue to where it's coming from.
It is the melancholy fate of all young legends to becoming better known for the things they did to exploit fame than the things that made them famous in the first place.
British podcasts tend to shamefacedly shuffle the ads towards the end. Americans put them up front and promote them enthusiastically. I think the Americans have it right.
Lucy Kellaway's columns in the 'Financial Times' lend themselves to podcasts because they usually consist of her giving a brisk ticking off to some CEO or subversively wondering whether we're really as busy as we pretend we are.
'Unjustly Maligned' is a neat idea for a podcast. Antony Johnston invites a believer to make the case for a cultural artefact that consensus tends to deride.
The podcast 'Note to Self' is 'the tech show about being human'. Human notions of privacy have changed.
I loathe anyone impressed by fame or money.
I don't think most rock stars are particularly calculating. I don't think they sit there and think, 'I will do this; therefore, on Monday, I will sell another 200,000 records'.
The packaging of Led Zeppelin's IV doesn't have the name of the band, doesn't have the name of the album: It's got a guy on the cover with a load of sticks on his back. This record didn't quite get to No. 1 in the United States - it went to No. 2 - but stayed on the charts for years and years and years.
'They Walk Among Us' is the work of husband-and-wife team Benjamin and Rosie. In the past, they've covered the Shannon Matthews case and the career of the prisoner known as Charles Bronson.
The '30 for 30' strand started life as a series of behind-the-scenes docs for the sports channel ESPN. It has now spawned an equally fascinating series of podcasts. Like the films, these podcasts don't rely on access, the usual currency of sports journalism, and are strangely excited by stories that are complicated and require telling at length.
There's only one podcast subject that can give Donald Trump a run for his money when it comes to vulgarity, excess, and base comedy, and that's football.
'The Daily' from the 'New York Times' - which offers smart analysis of one key story - sets the pace here, and can see you through one standard train commute.
Talking about smart thinking, The British-made 'Brain Training Podcast' is a brief daily workout for the mind that could easily get addictive.
The 'Art of Charm' podcast can be intimidating. Not just because it's the work of a lawyer called Jordan Harbinger. Not simply because Jordan has worked out how to weaponise all the many elements of the human personality that go to make up charisma in order to get people to listen to him, be impressed by him, or hire him.
I once interviewed Anthony Burgess on the radio. I played pop records between the conversation.
For a wide-ranging look at literary matters, the 'Book Review Podcast' from the 'New York Times' is still one of the best. Presented by Pamela Paul, each episode has an interview with an author - recent guests have included Neil Gaiman and Sana Krasikov - plus a roundup of the uppers, downers and hanging-arounders on the U.S. bestsellers chart.
One of the reasons why 'Here's The Thing', Alec Baldwin's series of podcasts with 'artists, policymakers and performers', is so good is because he's a big name, so the guests have to deliver.
John Lydon must be more famous for his efforts on behalf of dairy products than his music.
The ads that podcasts manage to sell tell you a lot about who they think is listening. They include services that promise to make your investment portfolio ethical, deliver exotic, ready meals to your home, or guarantee better sleep thanks to luxury bed linen.
I make no apology for the fact I like to hear people talk about work. It's the acceptable way of talking about life and people.
History is written by the victors. The victors in daily life tend to be those who live longest.
Upload Radio is a new venture offering content creators and bedroom DJs the chance to get their own programmes on the air by buying time.
The age of the rock star was coterminous with rock n' roll, which, in spite of all the promises made in some memorable songs, proved to be as finite as the era of ragtime or big bands. The rock era is over. We now live in a hip-hop world.
I think getting people's focus, getting people's attention on anything has never been harder, because the media has done everything in its power to try and dissolve people's attention, shift it round absolutely all the time.
I wouldn't wish a night of 1971 television on my worst enemy. But the records of 1971, again, still live for us now. And they had the benefit at the time of having the kind of uninterrupted, unimpeded concentration of a huge generation of people. Because the only thing I wanted to spend money on when I was 21 was records.
Half the battle with successful podcasts is in the naming; here, the big media owners have a lot to learn from the smaller operators.
The podcast by 'The Kitchen Sisters' celebrates the staggering variety of a society of immigrants via its food, from the Sheepherders' Ball in Boise, Idaho, through the favoured cuisine of Emily Dickinson to the unbelievable rituals of the great rural barbecue.
From Public Radio International, there's 'PRI's The World', which is the States looking out at the rest of the globe. Elsewhere, the 'Global News Podcast' from the BBC World Service offers something similar.
Podcast listening, much like radio listening, is largely a question of habit. And the most powerful habits are the ones that fit into our daily routine.
'The Weeds' is a timely podcast from the news and opinion website Vox. It leaves the coverage of the Punch and Judy politics to others and confines itself to the details of policy.
