Oliver Callan's bemusement with the new jingle reflects a broader sentiment about its unexpected similarity to Eurovision background music, which may not align with audience expectations.
A student's personal narrative of what it's like to earn a college degree while at the same time raising a child. A look back at the rich sounds and music of a New York City neighborhood, recorded by a recording artist in the 1950s. Feelings of loss and displacement among the lifelong residents of a Georgia town when their community became a popular vacation hot spot. These and other compelling stories, chosen from hundreds of entries we received this year, have been named the finalists in our fifth annual NPR College Podcast Challenge.
We've all been there. Someone starts telling a story, and within seconds, your mind starts wandering. Maybe you pull out your phone, suddenly remember an urgent email, or find yourself mentally reorganizing your weekend plans. The storyteller doesn't notice. They keep going, completely unaware that they've lost their audience. After interviewing over 200 people for various articles, I've noticed patterns in how people communicate their experiences. Some captivate you from the first word, while others lose you before they've even gotten to the point.
Social platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Facebook offer huge opportunities for marketers. They are the new de facto gatekeepers to huge audiences, and there are very few other means to reach younger audiences at scale with ease. But that access comes with trade-offs, and different platforms emerge and disappear rapidly. As part of our Predictions season, The Drum Network seeks to examine where brands and agencies fit into that environment.
On YouTube, The Rest is History podcast draws roughly around 500,000 viewers, who stick around for an average of about 48 minutes. That's close to the length of a traditional hour-long show and even longer than the podcast's strong audio average of around 40 minutes.. For the production team, seeing that level of engagement, especially on TV screens, was a turning point. People weren't just listening along to podcasts. They're settling in to watch now too.
The Podcast Metrics division of Edison Research has released an interesting output of its relentless podcast metrics research: Top Ten New Podcasts of 2025. We compare that list with Edison's Top 50 Podcasts of Q4 list. First, the top ten new podcasts of 2025: Now, Edison's top 50 of all podcasts in Q4 - the top 10 shown below: The Joe Rogan Experience Crime Junkie