Interview and talk podcasts have always been popular. I'm not sure why that's surprising? It's an established format in all media, and in my experience podcasts

Interview and talk podcasts have always been popular. I'm not sure why that's surprising? It's an established format in all media, and in my experience podcasts aren't bad at it -- certainly much better than TV which these days seems to be universally terrible at it; there are some tradeoffs when compared to written formats. Individual talk podcasts or episodes tend to be as good or as bad as the people in them. This is also not surprising? Edit -- here's a somewhat tenuous Top 10 list from 2005, via Web archive via USA Today (of all places) via Wikipedia History of podcasting. A few of them are still going, 18 years later. They're mostly people talking, not radio drama or stone cold journalism: 1. The Dawn and Drew Show, dawnanddrew.com: Married-couple banter. 2. Engadget, engadget.com: Technology news and gadget reviews. 3. Reel Reviews, mwgblog.com: Reviews of current and classic movies. 4. IT Conversations, itconversations.com: Hard-core tech talk. 5. The Daily Source Code, live.curry.com: Adam Curry with podcasting news and the latest shows. 6. Coverville, coverville.com: All about cover songs, the good, the bad and the never-should-have-been-recorded. 7. Free Talk Live, freetalklive.com: Political talk radio with a libertarian perspective. 8. The MacCast, maccast.blogspot.com: All things Macintosh, by and for Mac nuts. 9. The Rock and Roll Geek Show, americanheartbreak.com/movabletype: One fan trails rock's less charted waters. 10. Tracks Up the Tree, upthetree.com: Music show featuring artists whose tunes are available online. http://web.archive.org/web/20060207133911/https://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2005-02-09-podcasting-usat-money-cover_x.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20060207133911/https://www.usatod... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting#Wider_notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_podcasting#Wider_no...