Once a niche subgenre, the episode-recap podcast is now a huge phenomenon, taking in hit shows from The Sopranos to
Game of Thrones. But what is fuelling their popularity?
“We did it to set the record straight … we’ve got observers doing podcasts, writing books about The Sopranos. They weren’t there. They don’t know what it was about. We were there!” The Sopranos
Actor Steve Schirripa is talking about his new podcast which he co-hosts with fellow series regular Michael Imperioli. Talking Sopranos sees Schirripa – who played the kind-hearted mobster Bobby Baccalieri, his wheezy Brooklyn accent instantly familiar to long-time Sopranos fans – and Imperioli, who played Christopher Moltisanti, offer episode-by-episode recaps of the
HBO juggernaut. It is catnip for Sopranos mega-fans: both actors were major characters and have an inexhaustible
Arsenal of anecdotes and trivia. They also have the show’s creator, David Chase, on speed-dial: he has promised to appear on an upcoming episode, as have fellow Sopranos actors Robert Iler (AJ Soprano), and Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Meadow Soprano). “We want to talk to everyone who made the show a success,” says Schirripa. “Why did the writers make those choices? Who was up for that role? I have a lot of questions.”They are not the only ones. Once a relatively niche subgenre, the TV episode-by-episode recap podcast has, in recent years, become a podcasting phenomenon. Popular series include the Buffy the Vampire Slayer show Buffering; A Cast of Kings, about Game of Thrones; The West Wing Weekly; Star Trek: The Next Conversation; and the recently launched Fake Doctors, Real Friends, about Scrubs. The biggest podcasts pull in lucrative sponsorship deals – Talking Sopranos is sponsored by Bose – and often spin off into live events.
But what is fuelling their huge rise? “So much of our lives have moved online that the whole conversation around the water cooler about last night’s TV doesn’t really happen any more,” explains the journalist and podcaster Joanna Robinson, the co-host of A Cast of Kings and Decoding Westworld. “You tune into a podcast to listen to a conversation that 10 years ago you would have had with your
Friends or family.”