Stories from the Heart

Miranda Sawyer explores the world of podcasting, rounding up some of the best spoken word audio from around the world. This week: The comedy episode. Richard Herring discusses the freedom the medium allows comedians and ponders its impact on mainstream media. Adam Buxton reflects on his new podcast and dreams of interviewing David Bowie for it. Also featured are New Zealand comedians Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery, whose podcast The Worst Idea of All Time is about their experience of watching the same tedious film every week for a year. The podcast's reached cult status - but how have they managed to get through it? Producer: Jim Frank Researcher: Chris Pearson.

Miranda Sawyer with the third episode of her series about the world of podcasts, rounding up some of the best from around the globe. This week: podcast pioneers, the agenda-setting podcasters who have broken new ground in the genre. Miranda hears from the creators of Welcome to Night Vale, who talk about their perhaps unlikely surrealist pod hit. The programme also features Wendy Zukerman's Australian-based science podcast Science Vs, recently bought up by Gimlet Media, an increasingly powerful new media player in the burgeoning podcasting market. Ben Hammersley, internet technologist and journalist, and the man who invented the word "podcast" guests. Producer: Jim Frank Researcher: Chris Pearson.

Miranda Sawyer continues her exploration into the world of podcasts by rounding up some of the best from around the globe. This week's programme features personal storytelling concerning issues which some of us find it hard to talk about: love, sex, family and money. Matters of the heart. Guests include Anna Sale, creator and host of New York-based podcast, "Death, Sex and Money", and Lea Thau, who documented her own love life in a series for Los Angeles-based Strangers podcast "Love Hurts". Producer: Jim Frank Researcher: Chris Pearson.

Miranda Sawyer presents a new, stylish round-up of the best and most memorable podcasting from around the world. There's been an explosion in the profusion and quality of podcasts, plus a new public awareness after the breakthrough moment in 2014 with Serial. Suddenly, podcasts have become cool. There are now more than 100,000 English speaking podcast feeds worldwide covering everything from science to sport to every conceivable niche. Last year, there were 165 million podcasts downloaded just from BBC Radio 4 programmes alone, and the trend is seemingly ever upwards. But is this a bubble or is podcasting set to take its place alongside TV and radio as a long-term media genre? British podcaster Helen Zaltzman guests in this first episode which explores the genre, plays some great podcasts and asks why it's taken off in such a big way. Producer: Jim Frank.