Thinking, again, about the recent developments in the podcast industry, I asked Fennessey about the state of podcasts at The Ringer. Back in February, I wrote about the curious life of The City, an upcoming project by former WBEZ producer and Chicago Reader deputy editor Robin Amer: how the project began as a winning pitch to WNYC's 2015 podcast accelerator, how a circuitous series of events led to the show becoming the centerpiece for a big podcasting gambit by the USA Today Network, the Gannett-owned media group uniting USA Today and a wide array of local news operations, and how the podcast was staffing up in preparation for its first season. The podcast partnered with the Los Angeles-based podcast company Wondery on distribution, and I'm told that Wondery has already lined up a few sponsors ahead of launch. The Murdertown podcast aims to be a companion to the TV show in a more literal sense than the Strictly or Love Island spinoff podcasts. At the point that Fitton was brought on board, the TV series had already been filmed, but the podcast team were shown early cuts of the TV episodes to ensure the feel of the podcast matched the tone. The first time I spoke on a podcast panel, at an alumni event for my alma mater back in February 2015 at WNYC's Greene Space in Manhattan, the moderator, who now leads a fairly notable podcast operation, kicked off the discussion with the question: "Is this a bubble?" Again, that was 2015, and while the bubble narrative largely settled into the background during the intervening years, in many ways, its shadow - that much of podcasting's popularity, value, and gains are fragile, fleeting, or fictitious for whatever reason - has never stopped looming over everything. Panoply laying off of its editorial team marks a divestment from content, and its refocusing on "Merely distributing podcasts" is more accurately a wholesale commitment to developing next-generation podcast advertising technology. Read more