Big Year End Reveal Coming Soon: Act Fast & Submit Your Podcast Considered For Bingeworthy 2023 List

Warming up the End-Of-The-Year List Machine...get ready for Bingeworthy's FIRST Best Of List for 2023

It’s a busy week, and while I’m not in the kitchen cooking (Canadian Thanksgiving is in October), I am cooking up some exciting stuff for the rest of the year. And it’s all taking more time than normal.

So I’m going to make this real quick and leave you with just five things this week, ordered and listed for an easy breezy read.

1. Polish up your work and get it ready to submit to Tribeca Audio Storytelling Festival

Tribeca is an unusual festival in that it accepts works in progress. It also stretches beyond the podcast format to include audio books and other innovative platforms. Last year I was lucky enough to be able to attend…it was amazing to connect with audio makers from all over the world.

Festivals like Tribeca offer a glimpse of some of the great audio work that’s still fermenting…even if it’s a bit odd to get this great visibility opportunity for an idea that’s still in the early stages of production. Tribeca proved to be a launch pad for some great series: Weight For It, Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto, and Wilder all popped out for me.

Here’s a link to the eligibility requirements for 2024. And when it comes to the fees, if you’re an indie creator, reach out to have them waived [send email to: audiopremieres (at) tribecafilm.com]

2. Bingeworthy pics are popping up everywhere!

It’s been fascinating to see and hear some of the ideas that crowd into my brain going into other shows and newsletters. This week I noticed this happen twice…so if you’ve been reading this newsletter, I thought I should share these shows here to deepen your understanding of these shows, and get to know the makers on a deeper level.

Believeable: The Coco Berthmann Story captured my imagination this year. I wrote about their use of an AI voice clone in the summer, and then last month I wrote about it alongside the popular series Scamanda…where both shows tell a difficult story of a con artist, sans the con artist’s involvement.

Here on Sound Judgement, Showrunner Karen Given sits down with Elaine Appleton Grant to connect more about how to tell the story of someone who’s story keeps changing.

And then just yesterday, another one popped into my feed. Sound School Podcast, hosted by Rob Rosenthal, brought Pippa Johnstone in to talk about her podcast Expectant, which mixes fact and fiction about climate anxiety uncomfortably interacts with the question of whether or not to have children.

Rob admits that he went in not anticipating that he would like it, but the series took him by surprise. I had a similar feeling. I wrote about it at the end of our crazy climate-change-reality-sinking-in summer…and also how the fact that series was partly fiction only occurred to me in my opening question of our Zoom interview.

Have a listen to Sound School Podcast (one of my go-to series) to get a preview of the series, and also get some more background from Pippa.

3. Submit your series to Bingeworthy - Deadline Soon!

So far this year I’ve listened to more than 35 different narrative series…but I’ve only written about twenty-some-odd of them (which means there are still some surprises in the hopper for the end of the year).

If you want to recommend a series for me to listen to, I think I can cram in about 2-3 more before my list drops.

Help me top 40 series listened to for the year.

Deadline for entries is December 1…but the sooner the better.

Please click the link below to head over to my Google Form:

As a reminder, the criteria:

• It has to be original (no re-watch, no do-overs)

• It must be serialized or episodic

• The minimum number of episodes is 3, the maximum I can manage is 10

• If it’s a “Seasonal” podcast, meaning each year is different, it must be a standalone series, and not a multi-year show

• No chat-casts, one-off interview shows, or celebrity-hosts

• It has to be great

• Publishing window: It must have FULLY aired from 06-01 2022 through 12-01-2023

*NOTE* Submitting your series does not indicate that it will be chosen for review…thank you in advance for all your suggestions.

4. Listening Assignment

This true crime series In Her Defence from The Globe and Mail newspaper just wrapped its 8-episode run this week.

The series looks deeply at an uncomfortable legal subject: When an abused woman is accused, and then confesses, to murdering her abusive husband. But is this just a closed book case? Should the law approach these uncomfortable subjects in a different way?

Think of it as true crime meets Women Talking, in podcast form. Watch out for an upcoming newsletter where I’ll feature a Q+A with producer Kasia Mychajlowycz and reporter Jana Pruden.

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