Best Of 2025...More Great Audio To Celebrate

Because one list doesn't capture all of the greatness happening in the audio industry

Last week I released by Bingey List for 2025…which is my Top 10 best narrative audio series for this last year.

The thing is…that list doesn’t get a chance to capture all of the greatness of the industry.

So I’ve taken the time to break out another list, with new criteria. Another trove of impressive, captivating, essential shows to queue up for this year.

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And hey, while you’re here…please consider subscribing to Bingeworthy

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Best Overall Output By Volume and Quality

CBC has truly spread its deep-rooted audio wings, expanded its slate, locked down a great content, expanded its pool of talented hosts and producers and said LET’S GOOOOO!

They have impressive stand alone shows: Outlaw Ocean, Season 2 (which I covered here in words and here in video) and a new series from their stable of talented producers (like Falen Johnson with See You In Court). The Ceeb continues to examp new co-production partners: ABC + CBC for the series Forged, about a widespread art fraud ring of the Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau. They’ve beefed up their existing strands with The Con (Kaitlyn’s Baby). Their longrunning strand Uncover (which recently launched Season 35 with Allison After NXIVM), released four (4!) complete series this year, including Sea of Lies (which I named #3 on the Bingey List), The Banned Teacher, Calls From A Serial Killer and also the exceptional Dirtbag Climber (which I covered here). They released new strand Personally which first reorganized previous titles like Run, Hide, Repeat, Welcome To Paradise; and then in January they kicked off the year with a new commision Toy Solider, where Dan Golberg questions the incredible life story of a Holocaust survivor Alex Kurzem. Three more titles arrived this year: a re-release of Sorry about the Kid (from 2022), a co-release Radiotopia’s The Heart which returned to the seminal mini series NO: Again? Again, a re-release of the previously indie title Forever is a Long Time as a CBC title…and then last month they released Resurrection. I’m excited to see what is in the pipeline for 2026 (I’m expecting the Tribeca Select title Creation Myth, and others). There are so many titles I’m sure I’m forgetting many of them…and of course in additional to the incredible amount of longform journalism and investigative reporting that’s already part of the public broadcaster. No one else in the entire industry that is putting out this much narrative content. Period. I’ve done the math. It deserves a big spot light shine.

Best Public Media Series:

It’s hard to overstate just how perilous work in public media has become in this last year. Massive budget cuts, entire teams and shows axed, whole-scale rebranding of what truth is, and then, how to report it. Working inside these conditions is challenging on every level, but then reaching for the headspace to create ground-breaking, sometimes emotionally taxing work. And yet, this is what these teams manage to do, with fewer resources, uncertain futures, and a changing view of what the truth holds. From a controversial program to rewild wolves inside Yellowstone National Park with Howl from Boise State Public Radio and The Idaho Capital Sun, to the oddball history of a renegade landowner in Texas with A Whole Other Country from Marfa Public Radio, to the unsung heroes who spend time on those dark corners of the internet so others do not have to with Arachnid from TVOntario, to the return of one of the OG narrative podcast series with Love Me from CBC. These series remind us of the place that public media has, both in our hearts and in our culture: to be the voice of the public.

Best Mini Series

The mini-series is a great way to engage a topic without a massive time commitment, or giant production burdon. These two series quickly brought me into a world and allowed me to lose track of time while I was in there. The often-excellent Vox podcast Unexplainable released a four part series called The Sound Barrier which me think differently about everything to do with music, sound, silence and that super annoying ringing in my ears that’s always there when I notice it but try not to. Operation Night Cat, from New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) was a reminder of just how slippery the line is between human and animal. If the way we treat animals offers a clue about how humans treat each other, this show proves the point. I continue to enjoy how NHPR takes me out into the field to discover life in New Hampshire. I’ve never been there, but NHPR makes me, an urban dweller from a different country, feel connected to the ‘Live Free or Die’ state. I think that’s their point.

Best Ongoing Series

Avery Trufelman offers another history lesson through a sartorial lens with Articles of Interest. This year she released Season 7: Gear…since 2018 Trufelman has consistently created deeply-researched, beautifully produced, thoroughly considered seasons of content, all delivered with her deep sexy voice….big Joan Didion vibes here. Each season focuses on a different aspect of the fashion industry, and they are all ‘books’ in their own right. If you thought this was a fluffy fashion piece be ready to be surprised. I will never look at jackets (or field jackets or GoreTex) the same way again. Aside from the delightful cold opens, my favourite moment in Season 7: Gear was when Trufelman introduces herself “I’m a fashion journalist…no really I am.” Trufelman reminds us just how much fashion connects us to each other, to the past and drags us into the future.

Best Industry Builder

As the audio industry changes, adapts, evolves and morphs in new ways, there are one million invisible levers that spin and hum, rotate and index, oscillate and turn. The raw material of the industry is the layer where creators themselves quietly work away (paid and unpaid) and then seek out ways to publish their works. In front of those layers of work is a top layer I’ll call Possibilities Layer: this is where all those creative producers can take their work for compensation, or recognition (or both). If this layer of Possibility is not expanding and adapting to current industry reality, or different trends, all that good work has nowhere to go, and the raw material languishes.

There are three exceptional podcasts right now that are expanding the Possibilities Layer. The Audio Flux Podcast, which comes after three years of motivating producers to create short audio works based on a given set of prompts and criteria. There have been six circuits in all, four of them with public. From this process a trove of exceptional short audio works have entered the world, and been exhibited at top tier festivals. The Audio Flux Podcast now brings these pieces together with a host (the hilarious Amy Pearl) to offer backstory, giggles and a short outro. Total effect? A regular offering of audio joy. Pitch Party is a joint initiative of Tink Media as Resonate Podcast Festival showcases exceptional narrative podcasts that are looking for a home. Pilots for shows that should be made, they just need a bit more help to find their matchmaker. Think of Pitch Party like a match maker…the Shadchante of the podcast world. Phonograph is an ‘audio-zine’ that celebrates specific shows or individual creators with a sound-rich deepdive into some aspect of a show, or person, or long-running strand. Phonograph demands that we see these different works as art and consider its craft, which is how you help to create an industry, one episode at a time.

Best Indie Series

Signal Hill is a new audio magazine, published twice each year. It’s not coincidentally also the name of the place where the first transatlantic radio signal was received, in St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada, in 1901. There are at least 18 more locations called ‘Signal Hill’ in the world…this listener-funded, totally independent, audio endeavour takes inspiration from all of them. It’s both experimental and packed full of well-endowed craft. Who says a ‘magazine’ must involve paper?! It’s more about a fascinating and efficient combination of ideas, story, metaphor, concept and design. And we don’t need actual images for that…let these audio producers create that image for you alone.

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You might have noticed that I’ve peppered this issue with more than the average subscription reminders.

If you’ve got the BEST offer yet…just until the end of this year, I’m offering 50% off annual plan with this offer:

If that’s totally out of your range, please like, share, repost…and subscribe:

If you’re part of an institution and want to share this with co-workers, here’s a good one for more than 4 people:

And then if for that special audio friend, what about a GIFT?

Thank you and HAPPY HOLIDAYS 🕎 🧑‍🎄 🦔 🍿