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Tuesday, November 18, 2025 |
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Hey, good morning. Here's the latest on the BBC, One America News, Seth Meyers, Brendan Carr, Ryan Lizza, NPR, Walter Isaacson, Roblox, "Baby Shark," and more... |
👂 The top podcasts of 2025 are... |
"The Daily" has been dethroned. "The Joe Rogan Experience," which was #3 on Apple's list of most popular podcast shows last year, moved up to first place this year, according to the charts Apple released this morning.
"The Daily" was #2 this year, followed by "The Mel Robbins Podcast," which wasn't even in the top 10 in 2024.
There are two other notable new entrants to the list: "Call Her Daddy," at #7, and "The Ezra Klein Show," at #10. In other words, yes, it is still possible to break through all the noise!
Robbins' multiplatform success is worth studying (as Axios did earlier this fall). The show "is about helping people create a better life," she said during this new THR roundtable with other top 10 podcasters like Keith Morrison of "Dateline NBC" and Ashley Flowers of "Crime Junkie."
Robbins also made the point that podcasts, especially the video versions, are like a modern form of daytime talk TV: "A lot of us came home from school, and Mom had Oprah on," she said... "This is what we grew up on. And so I think it’s migrated back to that from a video standpoint."
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More insights from Apple's lists |
"Among the new shows of 2025, 'Good Hang with Amy Poehler' topped the charts, followed by 'Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce,'" THR's Caitlin Huston writes.
"Poehler’s appearance on SmartLess also ranked among the most listened to episode on Apple, as did Taylor Swift's appearance on New Heights." But the "top episode" of all was from "The Telepathy Tapes." (My wife tried to get me to listen. I... was skeptical.)
>> Most of the podcasts on the "top new shows" list are crime series, but MS NOW's "The Best People with Nicolle Wallace" also ranked in the top 10.
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Is that podcast host a real person? |
This made me feel a little nauseous: "There are already at least 175,000 AI-generated podcast episodes on platforms like Spotify and Apple. That's thanks to Inception Point AI, a startup with just eight employees cranking out 3,000 episodes a week," Tess Patton reports for TheWrap.
With each episode costing about $1 to produce and "only needing 20 listeners to turn a profit" via programmatic ads, it's a "quantity over quality" approach, one we're likely to see/hear more of. But as the Apple charts show, real human connection is what scales and sells best...
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Epstein and a 'reality distortion field' |
Trump reversing course on the Jeffrey Epstein files ahead of today's House vote is a top story almost everywhere. The NYT's Annie Karni wrote on X that she sees "a bit of a reality distortion field" in the comments from Republicans ahead of the vote: "In their upside-down telling, Mr. Trump — who pushed hard to head off the vote — had consistently fought for the release of the Epstein files. And so had they."
You can follow CNN's live updates about the vote here.
>> Big-picture observation from Cook Political Report publisher Amy Walter: That the Republican-controlled Congress "is breaking with Trump on Epstein — not tariffs, or bombing drug boats, or redistricting — tells you what they think GOP base cares about most; namely to 'unmask' establishment figures who have been shielded from scrutiny and consequences for their actions."
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OAN fires producer for antisemitic posts |
One America News "fired 'The Matt Gaetz Show' producer Vish Burra on Monday after he posted a cartoon last week that characterized Jewish people as scheming cockroaches he later labeled as 'vermin,'" Corbin Bolies reports for TheWrap.
Gaetz initially defended Burra last week by saying he "posted something dumb" and "quickly deleted it." However, one of their own OAN colleagues, Stella Escobedo, pointed out that Burra had posted many ugly messages.
>> More: The Independent's Justin Baragona explained how Burra's antisemitic tweets "are an offshoot of the growing fracture within the American conservative movement..."
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Seth Meyers brought up Trump's latest "NBC should fire him" rant overnight, remarking that "being attacked by the president this weekend doesn’t make me special in any way, shape or form. I was simply on the same shit list as Christopher Wray, James Comey, Indiana Republicans, Thomas Massie, Rand Paul, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and former President Joe Biden."
>> As we noted yesterday, FCC chair Brendan Carr reposted Trump's call for Meyers' cancellation. Jake Tapper's reaction in a walk-and-talk video: The repost is significant because "Comcast really, really wants Brendan Carr to be on their side."
>> Speaking of Carr, check out Gilad Edelman's piece for The Atlantic. Edelman asserts that Carr's role "is not to tell networks what to air and whom to fire. It's to get to the point where he doesn't have to."
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BBC chair vows to 'fight this' |
We've been writing about the fight-or-fold dynamic in the BBC's response to Trump's legal threats. Yesterday, in an email to staffers, BBC chairman Samir Shah made it explicit that the decision is to fight.
"I want to be very clear with you — our position has not changed. There is no basis for a defamation case and we are determined to fight this," Shah wrote.
He also said the BBC is "acutely aware of the privilege of our funding and the need to protect our license fee payers, the British public..."
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Two notable new nonfiction releases |
"Cable pioneer and ex-Viacom CEO Tom Freston is out with a new book, 'Unplugged,' and some amazing stories," THR's Lacey Rose writes. Vulture's Jake Nevins says it's "a frisky account of his nearly two decades at the helm of MTV that doubles as a sort of handbook for dealing with hustlers, rock stars, and megalomaniacs."
Also newly on sale today: Walter Isaacson's "The Greatest Sentence Ever Written," about the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. I read the 67-page book on a flight last weekend and savored every word. The Atlantic has a preview from Isaacson here.
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NPR and CPB resolve legal battle |
Last month, NPR filed suit — reluctantly, it said — against the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, "accusing the corporation of illegally yielding to Trump's demands that the network be financially punished for its news coverage." Yesterday, the two reached a settlement, and both claimed victory.
The dispute involved a contract over public radio distribution. NPR's David Folkenflik has the details here. NPR CEO Katherine Maher noted that the outlet's larger lawsuit against the Trump admin is moving forward, and "we look forward to our day in court in December."
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The Substack post every journalist is buzzing about... |
"As the American media faces a whole new level of distrust and attacks, the ethical line between journalist and subject could not be more important to keep clear."
That was Eve Batey, writing for Vanity Fair last year, after Oliver Darcy broke the news about Olivia Nuzzi's relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Now Nuzzi is Vanity Fair's new "West Coast editor," and her ex-boyfriend Ryan Lizza is alleging another major breach of that ethical line. In a post to his Substack, hours after VF published a first excerpt from Nuzzi's forthcoming book, Lizza alleged that Nuzzi also had an affair with former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford while she profiled him for New York magazine on the 2020 primary trail. Nuzzi has not yet responded.
Lizza's post is labeled "Part 1," and he promised more in "the coming days," prompting journalists' group chats to light up with envious speculation about how many subscribers he will gain this week. But putting all that aside, this is a serious matter for Nuzzi and VF, since it casts even more doubt on her past and future work.
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>> Business Insider is rolling out a five-part series on the changing search landscape, starting with this piece about a new generation of media startups "built to survive 'Google Zero.'" (Business Insider)
>> The Telegraph will seek a "quick auction" that will "be completed over the next three months" following the collapse of RedBird Capital's bid. (Press Gazette)
>> Sky Sports "has scrapped its new TikTok account targeting female sports fans after just three days, after the style and tone of its videos faced backlash." (CNN)
>> The Met is gaining the Condé M. Nast Galleries, named for the publishing company's late founder. (WWD)
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Roblox tightens age moderation |
Roblox is introducing "AI age verification" to supposedly "make it easier to prevent young users from connecting with adult strangers," CNN's Clare Duffy reports. The move comes "as the platform faces a string of lawsuits and other claims that it has enabled sexual predators to connect with and abuse children." Details here...
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More of today's tech talk |
>> "The world's most-watched YouTube video hasn't made its creator rich," Jiyoung Sohn and Alana Pipe report. The video is the "Baby Shark" song and the creator is a South Korean company, Pinkfong, which now "wants to raise funds for expansion via an IPO." (WSJ)
>> Meta has introduced "Facebook content protection," a mobile tool "designed to detect when a creator's original reels posted to Facebook are being used without their permission," Sarah Perez reports. (TechCrunch)
>> A researcher built an AI agent capable of evading detection 99.8% of the time, leading him to say that "we can no longer trust that survey responses are coming from real people," Emanuel Maiberg reports. (404 Media)
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>> "Particle6, the U.K.-based production company that was behind controversial AI creation Tilly Norwood, has been commissioned by Hearst Networks to create an AI-led series," Alex Ritman reports. (Variety)
>> Cosm and Warner Brothers Pictures "are teaming up to create a shared reality production of 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'" (Variety)
>> Nintendo has released a first look at its live-action "Legend of Zelda" movie. (Variety)
>> And Disney has shared the official teaser for the live-action "Moana." (YouTube)
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