Today we discuss how narrative podcasts work, the role they’ve played in American culture and how they’ve shaped our understanding of podcasting as a genre and an industry. Neil Verma’s new book, Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession, offers a rich analysis of the recent so-called golden age of podcasting. Verma studied around 300 podcasts and listened to several thousand episodes from between the fall of 2014 when Serial became a huge hit to the start of the Covid pandemic and early 2020. It was a period when podcasts—and especially genres like narrative nonfiction and true crime—were one of the biggest media trends going. At the heart of these genres, Verma writes, was obsession–a character obsessed with something, a reporter obsessed with that character, and listeners obsessed with the resulting narrative podcast.

Neil Verma is associate professor in Radio/TV/Film at Northwestern University and co-founder of its MA program in Sound Arts and Industries. Verma is an expert in the history of audio fiction, sound studies, and media history more broadly. He is best known for his landmark 2012 book, Theater of the Mind: Imagination, Aesthetics, and American Radio Drama, which won the Best First Book Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Verma has been a consultant for a variety of radio and film projects, including Martin Scorsese’s film Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). In addition to his research, Verma has also created experimental sound recordings for broadcast. His compositions have been selected for several radio art festivals around the world, winning an honorable mention from the Sound of the Year awards in the U.K in 2020.

For a fascinating listener Q+A with Neil, visit patreon.com/phantompower and get free access to this bonus episode in our patrons-only feed.

Finally, we have big news: This will be the final episode of Phantom Power. But don’t worry, Mack will be launching a new podcast about sound in early 2025. To make sure you hear about the new show, receive our new newsletter, and get bonus podcast content in the coming months, sign up for a free or paid membership at patreon.com/phantompower.

Mack Hagood  00:00

Welcome to another episode of Phantom Power. I’m Mack Hagood. Today we talk with Neil Verma, author of the new book Narrative Podcasting In an Age of Obsession. Neil offers a rich, multifaceted and methodologically creative analysis of the so-called Golden Age of podcasting. And it’s pretty wild how intensively he studied this recent period of history, investigating around 300 podcasts and listening to several 1000 episodes, from between the fall of 2014 when Serial became a huge hit to the start of the COVID pandemic in early 2020. This was a period when podcasts and especially ones in genres like narrative nonfiction and true crime, were really one of the biggest media trends of that moment. 

And we’re going to talk about how narrative podcasts work, the role that they played in American culture, and how they shaped the cultural understanding of podcasting as a genre, and an industry. But first, last episode, I promised you some big news about this podcast. And here it is. This episode is not only our 15th, and final episode of the season, it’s also the last episode of Phantom Power. I’ve been producing this show since 2018, we’ve done over 50 episodes, and I’ve loved pretty much every minute of it. It’s been such a privilege to bring you these amazing guests, forge connections, and help foster a community in sound studies and acoustic ecology. It’s truly been one of the most fulfilling things that’s happened in my academic career. So why am I ending the show? Well, I’m starting a new podcast, it’s still going to be about sound, it’s still going to engage with the theories and practices of sound studies and acoustic ecology and sound art. But it’s going to be a more public facing and accessible kind of show. 

So you know, I’ve had this NEH grant for this year. And while I’ve been producing this show, and writing a book proposal for a trade press book, and while I’ve been doing that stuff, I’ve also been working about 20 hours a week on developing this new podcast. And just like I’m pivoting from writing an academic book to a mainstream nonfiction book, I want to do the same thing here, I want to present a highly polished narrative podcast for the public. I don’t want to say too much more about it right now. But just know that I’ll still be interviewing experts and artists, but the focus will be on telling stories, not in providing a really, you know, long form interview. So in a way, this is going to be getting back to what we attempted in the very early days of Phantom Power, but with even higher production values. I’m a finalist for a New America Foundation Fellowship. So if that comes through, I’m going to put all of those resources into this new podcast. And the good news is, well, actually, I think there are a few good pieces of news for Phantom Power listeners. The first one is that I’m going to do what’s called “feed jacking”. So the new show is just going to show up right here in the Phantom Power feed. So you’re not going to have to go look for it or do anything to get the new show when it launches in early 2025. 

Second, for those folks who are members of the Patreon, I’m going to keep dropping the occasional long form interview. I love Phantom Power for those who want that deeper dive. And I also, I’m going to have a newsletter because I thought I wasn’t enough of a walking cliche by having a podcast, I really needed to add the newsletter component to it. So yes, a newsletter, it’s going to have news about sound original essays, updates on my from my book research, and interviews with sound scholars. And of course, I’ll be updating you on the progress of the new show through that newsletter. If you’re interested in the newsletter, just sign up at patreon.com/Phantom Power for a free membership or a paid membership. And I’ll send that your way. It won’t be too frequent, probably once or twice a month. I’d also love for folks to sign up for a free membership just so that I can reach out this summer with a listener survey.

 I’m developing this listener survey to help me as I tried to figure out this new show and what it’s going to be. By the way, I got a Spotify message from a listener who said they couldn’t find the free option on Patreon. If you just go to the Patreon site, it’s a button right there at the top of the page that lets you join for free. And by the way, at the end of this episode, I’m going to thank by name all of our paid subscribers who have helped support the show this season. One other bit of cool news. 

Some of you may be familiar with the New Books Network. They are a really important podcast network that is distributing and documenting for posterity 1000s of conversations about new books you in all kinds of academic fields, and two weeks ago, they began rebroadcasting all episodes of Phantom Power in order once a week on the new books in sound studies feed, so this is going to take a year for them to release all the episodes week by week. So if anyone is interested in hearing it all again, or telling a friend, just Google new books and sound studies, or hit the link in the show notes. 

And finally, thanks to all of you who got in touch, to let me know how you use the podcast in your classes or in your work as a sound scholar or practitioner, y’all are doing some really cool stuff. And it’s so gratifying to hear how this show plays a tiny part in it. As I go up for full professor, I’m trying to compile a list of how Phantom Power has been used in university settings. So if you’re listening and you haven’t sent me an email, and you have something to add, please let me know. So just email me at hagoodwm@miami.oh.edu That is h-a-g-o-o-d-w-m as in Mack. And thank you. Okay. Wow, that was a lot of stuff. Again, thanks to all of you for listening. I hope you’ll stick around for the new show and also take the survey when I put it out so I can get some feedback in developing the new one. 

Okay, let’s get to it. Let’s talk about our guests. Neil Verma is one of the most innovative scholars I know of working in radio and podcast studies. He’s an associate professor in Radio, Television and Film and co-founder of the MA program in Sound Arts and Industries at Northwestern University. He co-founded that with past Phantom Power guests, Jacob Smith. Verma is an expert in the history of audio fiction, sound studies and media history more broadly, like a lot of great radio and sound scholars. Neil’s from Canada, he grew up in Burlington, Ontario, a small town 50 miles west of Toronto. He’s the son of a half French Canadian half Anglo Canadian school teacher, mom, and a dad who was a scientist originally from India. 

Neil Verma  07:15

He was the only brown skinned paleontologist in Canada in the 60s. And so he spent about 10 years trying to make a go of that and didn’t have a lot of success. So eventually, he kind of quit academia and started a business like a lot of immigrant families do. He started a printing company. And so we had sort of a mom and pop printing company when I was a kid. 

Mack Hagood  07:35

Radio wasn’t an obsession for Neil as a kid, but it was a constant companion. 

Neil Verma  07:40

I can’t remember a t