In today’s podcast news roundup, Westbroook’s “Red Table Talk” featuring the flagship series hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith, inks an overall podcast pact with iHeartMedia; Season 3 of Payne Lindsey’s popular “Up and Vanished” series investigates an unsolved disappearance in Montana; Crooked Media pop-culture podcast hosted by Jason Concepcion gets a launch date; and more.
DEALS
“Red Table Talk,” the Facebook Watch talk show from Westbrook hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith alongside her daughter Willow and her mother Adrienne “Gammy” Banfield-Norris, signed an overall deal with iHeartMedia to launch the Red Table Talk Audio Network. The deal encompasses five new podcasts shows over the next two years. The first new show under the deal is a podcast version of “Red Table Talk: The Estefans,” hosted by Gloria Estefan with her daughter Emily Estefan and niece Lili Estefan, set to debut Aug. 25 via iHeartMedia’s My Cultura network. iHeartMedia already distributes the podcast version of the flagship “Red Table Talk” series as well as weekly podcast “Positively Gam” hosted by Banfield-Norris.
DATES
Spotify and Headspace Studios, the content studio of meditation app Headspace, teamed to launch “Sunday Scaries by Headspace,” addressing the common feeling of anxiety that builds up on Sunday ahead of the impending week ahead. Hosted by Headspace mindfulness and meditation teacher Dora Kamau, the microcast series will provide 7- to 9-minute episodes to help ease listeners into the week ahead. The 12 episodes will be released weekly cadence starting Aug. 29, exclusively on Spotify.“Sunday Scaries by Headspace” is developed by Headspace Studios in partnership with Spotify and will be available exclusively on the Spotify platform. The series is produced by Headspace’s Emma Nemtin and Danny Carissimi and is executive produced by Leah Sutherland, Morgan Selzer and Sam Rogoway. Listen to the trailer at this link.
NBC News’ podcast unit is launching original series “Southlake,” a six-episode podcast promising a “rare look inside a racial and cultural fight, intensified by national politics, that tore a wealthy Texas suburb apart.” The first two episodes will be available Aug. 30, with a new episode released every Monday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast platforms. From the team that created podcast “Do No Harm,” the show tells the story of a town that seemed almost too good to be true, until a video emerged of white high school students chanting the n-word — unleashing a flood of complaints from Black students and their parents about racist harassment and bullying. “Southlake” is hosted by NBC News national investigative reporter Mike Hixenbaugh and NBC News correspondent Antonia Hylton. Composer-producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, Jazz Is Dead and the podcast “Microphone Check” wrote and performed the series’ original music. Listen to the trailer at this link.
Season 3 of Tenderfoot TV’s true-crime podcast “Up and Vanished” hosted by Payne Lindsey (pictured, right) and produced with Audacy’s Cadence13 is set to premiere Sept. 1. In the new season, Lindsey heads to northwest Montana to look into the case of Ashley Loring HeavyRunner, a 20-year-old indigenous woman who went missing from the Blackfeet Nation Indian Reservation in 2017. Two weeks after her disappearance, friends discovered potential evidence on the edge of the reservation near the town of Babb — a pair of red-stained boots and a tattered sweater — but left many unanswered questions. Watch the Season 3 trailer of “Up and Vanished” at this link.
Former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler‘s podcast and vodcast series “Uncut With Jay Cutler” from PodcastOne is launching Aug. 25 via PodcastOne’s Sportnet. Upcoming guests include country music star and former NFL tight end Zach Miller, Kyle Long of the Kansas City Chiefs and Dan “Big Cat” Katz from Barstool Sports. Cutler recently signed with talent agency Buchwald for representation. Earlier this month, Cutler said Uber Eats canceled its endorsement deal with him over his views on school mask mandates.
Crooked Media announced that weekly entertainment-centric podcast “X-Ray Vision” from executive producer and host Jason Concepcion, will premiere Aug. 30. The first episode is a primer on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what’s to come in Phase 4 and how Disney Plus has changed the MCU; the second episode will explore Marvel Studios’ upcoming film “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” Concepcion previously created and hosted digital series “NBA Desktop” and co-hosted fandom podcast “Binge Mode.” Listen to the trailer at this link.
RENEWALS
Pushkin Industries‘ “A Slight Change of Plans,” produced by and hosted/executive produced Dr. Maya Shankar, a behavioral scientist and former senior adviser to President Obama, has been renewed for a second season, which will launch in October. On the show, Shankar interviews guests about a change they have experienced in their lives and discusses it through the lens of behavioral science — looking at how people’s minds change and how to change people’s minds. Season 1 of the show ran weekly from May 19-Aug. 5 with guests that included Hillary Clinton, Adam Grant, Tiffany Haddish and Kacey Musgraves.
HIRES
New Pod City, a podcast-hosting company in Trenton, N.J., announced entertainment journalist, video producer and photographer Will Foskey as president of the new NPC Podcast Network. Foskey will work closely with Frank and Christina Sasso, owners of New Pod City. In addition to podcast hosting, New Pod City operates a podcast recording studio and manages distribution, promotion and monetization of podcasts.
