Louisville, KY – Louisville Public Media is excited to announce new podcast initiatives designed to increase access to podcasting resources for underserved communities, including a podcast incubator, distribution partnership program, a podcast internship, and a newsletter. Readers can subscribe to the podcast newsletter here.
Led by LPM’s Director of Podcasts & Special Projects Laura Ellis, this new initiative launches today and applications for all three programs can be submitted at LouisvillePublicMedia.org/podcasts. The LPM Podcast Incubator and distribution partnership are free to participants.
The LPM Podcast Incubator is designed to make podcasting accessible to people in our community who don’t have a show yet, but have great ideas and aren't sure how to make them happen: people who can't afford studio time, who can’t travel to conferences or attend all-day trainings, and who don’t usually hear themselves represented in public media. The program will prioritize shows created by and for people of color, marginalized genders and identities, and nontraditional backgrounds, and is designed to be accessible for people with multiple work and family obligations and differing time commitments. Selected applicants will work with LPM producers to develop their ideas into a recorded and edited full season podcast.
LPM’s new podcast distribution partnership is designed for people who are already producing a show and want help with the logistics of getting it out into the world. Under this model, finished episodes are submitted to LPM who will help publish them on podcast apps, LPM websites and NPR.org.
This initiative also includes a new LPM internship. Designed for a person of color and/or marginalized gender who wants to learn how to edit and produce podcasts, its objective is to make the audio and podcast production industry more inclusive of underrepresented groups. This is a six-month-long paid internship that can also be for college credit, but is meant to be accessible to non students with other work or family obligations. The intern will learn to create podcast episodes from start to finish, including mixing, editing and publishing. The program's inaugural intern is Louisville native Alex Cooper, a freelance theatre sound technician moving into audio storytelling.
“We are great at audio storytelling at LPM, but not every story is ours to tell,” Ellis said. “Some conversations are better had by folks whose lived experiences inform them. This initiative is meant to empower people in our community to own and tell their own stories, and to have those important conversations. We'll facilitate, support, and then help put those podcasts out into the world, to let us all understand each other a little better, and hopefully care about each other a lot more.”
Louisville Public Media’s Podcast Incubator is made possible with support from The Community Foundation of Louisville, The Eyecare Institute’s Butchertown Clinical Trials, Podchaser and Rankings IO.
