The Conversations Radio Has With Itself

There's a category of radio knowledge that never makes it into the trade press.

It's not the ratings. It's not the format changes or the ownership reshuffles. It's the stuff that gets talked about in the hallway after the meeting, at the bar after the convention, in the car on the way home from a shift that went sideways. The real mechanics of the business — how you actually build a morning show, what it feels like to watch a format flip, why some markets are impossible and others just hand you ratings if you show up and do the work.

That knowledge lives in podcasts now.

Radio people have always been talkers. It makes sense that when the industry needed a place to process itself — to argue, to reminisce, to teach, to vent — it built one out of the same technology it spent twenty years being told would kill it. The irony is not lost on me.

Starting today, The RIB Cage is tracking 17 podcasts about the radio industry — shows hosted by engineers, programmers, consultants, historians, and working broadcasters who have things to say that don't fit in a headline. You'll find them at radionews.blog/podcasts [blocked].

The list includes shows that cover the technical side of broadcasting (This Week In Radio Tech, Brandwidth On Demand), the business and programming side (The Sound Off Podcast, Leading Local Insights, The Broadcasters Podcast), the international perspective (Radio Today Tonight from Australia, RadioToday Programme from the UK), and the kind of long-form storytelling that only works in audio — John Leslie's Talking About Radio, where veterans sit down and just... talk. 193 episodes in. Still going.

Some of these shows publish weekly. Some publish whenever the host has something worth saying. All of them are worth your time if you care about this industry.

This is a living list. If there's a podcast about radio that belongs here and isn't, use the Submit a Tip form. I'll vet it and add it.

Radio has always been a conversation. Now it's having one about itself. Pull up a chair.

Charles "Boz" Bosworth is the founder of Bosworth Media Group and the editor of Radio Industry Brief — The RIB Cage.