ABC Radio National picks up This American Life
The ABC is to air This American Life, one of the world’s most popular podcasts.
It will be the first time the show has been broadcast in Australia.
This American Life will air on ABC Radio National on Sundays at 7pm .
Each episode of the show is themed around a particular topic and told through ordinary people’s voices. The GFC episode Giant Pool Of Money won several awards.
The show consistently heads iTunes podcast charts with more than 400,000 downloads per week. It has a US audience of more than 100m across more than 500 public radio outlets.
It was less charitably described in The OC as “that show by those hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are”.
The ABC will be the first broadcaster outside of North America to air the program.
Other new ABC Radio National outlets include Replay, airing on Saturday afternoons with a Sunday morning repeat, which looks at art, artists and the creative life with features, documentaries and segments from the ABC archives.
And The Story of Pop, which first aired on The ABC in 2004, will get another outing for its 54 episodes tracing popular music from 1956 through rhythm and blues, country music, hard rock, the protest movement, Motown, glam, punk, disco, electronica, reggae, rap, the art of re-mix, the global village and the music industry.
Angela Catterns also gets a show, with Life Matters airing at 9am on on weekdays for five weeks from Monday January 24.
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This American Life is great radio. I was listening to Giant Pool Of Money just yesterday. Good move by the ABC.
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Sundays at 7pm? I think I’ll be sticking to the Podcast. Heartily recommend this weeks latest update which is, like Giant Pool of Money, a co-production with Planet Money describing the virtual nature of Money.
As for “the OC”…who cares what hipsters think
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Best radio show ever produced.
Fantastic move.
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I have been listening to This American Life for the past 4 years and LOVE it. I eagerly await the podcast to be downloaded each week and listen to it that night. It will be fantastic to hear it on ABC
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Great news. They should pick up Radio Lab, too.
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I must say I absolutely adored Nell Schofield’s Story Of Pop. Rather excited to hear of its return to Radio National.
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Great move by the ABC, will hopefully introduce many others to this great show
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Great.
Can’t wait to have more American rubbish blasted to us. When will our broadcasters, the public one included, spend more time on local programming and content instead of foreign content?
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I want to listen but our ABC NEWS is in timing conflict.
We are all not hip to podcast…sorry… and while we listen to podcast we are missing some other show which is again a Must Listen to! Sunday night would be great if this gem was moved to 7.30. Selfish I know but you asked for my comments!
Great choices and big thanks.
Life would be dull without my Radio National!
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