> I'd have thought its niche had been filled several thousand times over by podcasts.
Not at all.
I have a distinct memory in which I’m driving alone, late at night, on a long road trip. I don’t have any unlistened podcasts downloaded, I’m not in the mood for music, but it’s late and I would like to hear another human voice. So I turn on the radio. The night sky is a magical sight that implies endless possibility, so I’m not in the mood for sports radio or Dave Ramsey. I don’t know if I ended up listening to Coast to Coast AM or one of its imitators, but I found something along those lines and it hit the spot.
*That* is exactly how I discovered Coast to Coast AM in the 1990s. It was late at night, I'd listened to all I could stand from my collection of cassette tapes, and I just hit "scan" with my radio set to AM.
These days my unlistened podcast collection is large enough that I rarely get to that point. And my unlistened podcast collection is that large in part because the radio dial is a little bare lately when I hit "scan" in most of the places I'm apt to do so.
Not at all.
I have a distinct memory in which I’m driving alone, late at night, on a long road trip. I don’t have any unlistened podcasts downloaded, I’m not in the mood for music, but it’s late and I would like to hear another human voice. So I turn on the radio. The night sky is a magical sight that implies endless possibility, so I’m not in the mood for sports radio or Dave Ramsey. I don’t know if I ended up listening to Coast to Coast AM or one of its imitators, but I found something along those lines and it hit the spot.