The stories have a plot and, like a movie, they’re entirely about character and scenes, emotional moments, funny moments. We feel like the only reason to listen to a show like this would be that it’s fun or to get caught up in the plot, so we are constantly trying to get stories where we get away from the old-fashioned, deep-voiced, authoritative narrator and to a much more conversational presentation. We take that as a premise, and although in some ways it’s a very high-minded, mission-y show, we feel like a lot of people who do that kind of thing tend to be very corny. For one thing, we view our job as being entertainers. We are consciously trying to push the bounds of radio in a bunch of ways. How different do you think This American Life is to standard American public radio? After the US, our number one country is Canada, then the UK, Australia and Japan. How big is your podcasting subscription in the UK?ġ3,000 a week, out of about 650,000 globally. My impression was that the name of the show was not a big selling point, so we thought we could come to the BBC with Radiolab and present it as a package which they could present as “new approaches to radio journalism from America.” So it’d be one show one week, and the other show the other week. How have you pitched the show to the BBC? We just think “What would amuse us to hear on the radio?” and, to the extent that we are citizens of the world, we assume that it will apply to anyone. We honestly don’t think about it that way.
What happens is that every few months we wake up and say “Wait, wasn’t one of our year’s goals to get on the BBC?” And then Seth Lind, our production manager, and I will look at each other and say, “Who were we supposed to call? What was supposed to happen next?” And then the two of us will call or mail the one guy we know at the BBC or the contact at our distributor who’s supposed to be making this happen.ĭo you think the show is as accessible if you’re British or Australian, say? We’ve been trying to get on the BBC in an active way for about a year. I understand that you’ve been trying to get This American Life on the BBC, but that it’s proved to be a rather complicated process.
#Ira glass this american life series#
But its influence is undeniable-both aesthetically (the show has been praised/blamed for promoting the rise of personal and-that dread word-quirky storytelling), and in more concrete ways as well, helping to launch the careers of writers like David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell, and drawing attention to more serious stories with its investigative reporting (such as the 2011 case of a Georgia law court which seemed to be abusing its power).īack in 2011 I sat down with the host and mastermind behind the show, Ira Glass, to discuss whether the series will ever make it on to the BBC, the conservatism of broadcast journalism and how an episode of This American Life differs from regular radio. In the US This American Life is so well known that it has inspired a mini-industry of parodies, as well as an inevitable backlash. (If you’re wondering where to start, here's my pick of the best episodes.) But if you haven’t heard the show-which mixes Errol Morris-style documentary-making with more personal, intimate stories-it’s hard to give a sense of what it’s actually like. The concept is simple: “Each week on our show we tackle a theme, and bring you a variety of stories on that theme,” as host Ira Glass says at the start of every episode.
There is nothing on British radio like This American Life. Ira Glass, the host of "This American Life." Will the show ever come to the UK? © Stuart Mullenberg
0 kommentar(er)
