The twist and turns of the story in the upcoming season of Slate’s Slow Burn will be easier to follow as the show leverages Slate’s recently-announced alliance with Pocket. The two companies are developing “Stories Behind the Podcasts” web pages for Slate shows, giving listeners a way to dig deeper into a series.
“Pocket is the ideal place to host our curated collections because it’s easy and seamless for readers and listeners to discover, manage, and go deep with the podcasts they love,” said Bill Carey, Director of Strategy at Slate. “We know there are many Pocket readers interested in the topics these shows cover who haven’t yet discovered Slow Burn or our other podcasts, which we think presents an exciting opportunity for audience growth.”
For Slow Burn, the content will serve as a supplementary guide to the show’s sixth season that will closely examine the 1992 Los Angeles Riots following the acquittal of four LAPD officers in the brutal beating of Rodney King. Hosting this season is journalist and podcaster Joel Anderson, who will share with Pocket readers what he read, listened to, and watched as he investigated the story. Slate says the collection will serve as a guide to the season, providing listeners a list of the people, places, and moments that helped define this moment in history. Slow Burn is one of the most-popular podcast series in Slate’s portfolio, with more than 65 million downloads since its launch in 2017.
There will also be Pocket Collections coinciding with new seasons of One Year, hosted by Josh Levin and Decoder Ring, hosted by Willa Paskin. They offer deep-dive reads, down-the-rabbit-hole research, and commentary straight from the hosts, Slate said in a blog post.
Slate announced in August that it had teamed up with Mozilla-owned Pocket to create the “Stories Behind the Podcasts” section that will act as a sort of back-stage pass for listeners. Hosts will also curate unique lists of recommended articles, videos, and podcasts that informed and inspired different episodes. The Pocket Collections are published on a rolling basis as new shows are released. It has already created content tied to new seasons of Slate podcasts One Year, Decoder Ring, How To! and Thrilling Tales of Modern Capitalism.
“Partnering with Slate on these collections has been such a delight and really showcased the expertise of their hosts and the reach and flexibility of the Pocket collection format,” said Carolyn O’Hara, Director of Editorial at Pocket. “We are avid listeners to Slate’s podcasts ourselves, and it’s been gratifying to help deliver these behind-the-scenes deep dives that we know listeners often crave.”
The partnership will also help promote Pocket to Slate listeners. The app features a tool that lets users listen to the stories they have saved read aloud to them. “Just like another podcast,” it notes.
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