57 Form-Breaking Podcast Examples To Inspire Audio Producers
Experimental, creative, wild, genre-defining — Here are originals to help us rethink what is possible for this medium.
⚠️ Note: I no longer update this list with new discoveries as of 09/21, although I still do for the companion playlist on Spotify. Sorry! ⚠️
As an audio documentary producer, I listen to A LOT of podcasts. And every time I come across a piece that teases the norms of the audio format (often an OMG moment), I scribble on my notepad meticulously.
So instead of hoarding the goodies all to myself, I thought it would be fun to share and discuss them with everyone who has a similar interest. 😊
Note: My definition of form-breaking includes being one of a kind AND it worked.
Alright, let’s begin!
We believe in quality over quantity. These pieces take WEEKS of care to craft and maintain. Subscribing and SHARING keeps us pumped and helps us in a long way! 🙇🏻♀️❤️🙇🏻♂️
Full disclosure: I’m a producer for a show in the list myself (East Asian Story). I love to try out form-breaking stuff too. It’s fun. 😄
THE CONCEPT 📝
What and how these stories are told deviate from the standard structures of their genre.
Fiction 😽 (6)
36 Questions (couple reconciliation, 🇺🇸) Act 1
= A musical podcast! 3 acts (episodes) and 13 songs in total.
The Sunday Magazine (current affairs, 🇨🇦) Dead Mom Talking
= This ingenious producer created a new imaginary conversation with her late mom using archival footage recorded before her departure.
Everything Is Alive (objects’ perspective, 🇺🇸) Sebastian, Alex and Alex, Russian Dolls
= ‘If objects could talk’, unscripted interviews with actor impersonating it. More examples here but instead on animals.
Limetown (investigation, 🇺🇸) Episode 1: What We Know
= Produced like a narrative non-fiction piece by a public radio reporter. Check-out the realistic short audio diary check-ins. Had me believe the bizarre events were real until I looked them up. Joe Frank’s Sweepstakes Winner also had me (and the public) completely fooled.Neutrinowatch (generative fiction, 🇺🇸🇬🇧) The Daily Blast [Almanac]
= Although the format is the same, every time you download it is different. The content is generated algorithmically and pulled online from what’s happening daily.
Welcome to Night Vale (paranormal conspiracies, 🇺🇸) 13 - A Story About You.
= Produced like a small town community radio show giving a bi-monthly local news update.
Non-Fiction 😍 (19)
Bellwether (speculative journalism, 🇺🇸) 01_AUTOPILOT OFF
= The story of the present is instead reported through the lens of journalists in the future looking back at the incident.
Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything (connected world, 🇺🇸) Dear IRS
= The piece adopted the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax form as its structure. What the heck!?
Between The Ears (sound art, 🇬🇧) The NHS Symphony
= A half-an-hour orchestral and choir montage produced from various unconnected recorded footage around the hospital.
City of Women (reclaiming space, 🇮🇳) An Anthology Of Women’s Laughter
= As the title suggests, there’s nothing else but laughter in this episode. No narrative or drama needed; pure delightfulness alone works.
City of Women (reclaiming space, 🇮🇳) Guts
= Delightfully scripted and scored with the aesthetic of a story book with rhymes and chapters.
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History (in-depth history, 🇺🇸) Show 62 - Supernova in the East I
= Super long-form. Don’t think anyone else can pull off 4 hour-long episodes without being boring.East Asian Story (growing up, 🇹🇭) Smacking down heaven
= Note: this is my own show. Without spoiling too much, this piece is meta and plays around the fact that its a highly-produced non-fiction audio story. Showing how the flaws in this medium could be weaponise by the me to defeat even Heaven itself. See the show notes in the link above for more exploration of it and the themes.
Extremities (extreme settlements, 🇺🇸) Arrival on Pitcairn
= That non-stop monologue at the intro that is a detailed step-by-step guide on how to travel from point A to B (to prove how tedious the journey was), is unheard of elsewhere.
Have You Heard George’s Podcast? (reflections, 🇬🇧) 1. Listen Closer
= The standard monologue narration of the story is replaced by poetries and raps. Also seen in KITA!
Here Be Monster (the unknown, 🇺🇸) HBM034: The Grandmother and The Vine Of The Dead
= Blurring the lines between non-fiction and fiction. A drug-induced hallucination experience is re-produced with metaphorical sound designs. The earliest piece made in this form is probably A Trip to the Dentist.
Also found here in The Pear by Rebecca Nolan, where a character plucks a pear and we are magically and metaphorically transported through time and space, essentially as a plot transition device.
The takeaway is that you can do whatever the heck you want and the limit is up to our imagination.
The Heart (intimacy, 🇨🇦🇺🇸) Dream
= The piece is structured like a dream, coming in and out of different unconnected thoughts.
Imagined Life (biography, 🇺🇸) Encore: The Everyman
= The show is a biography but structured like a mystery. The host narrates the life story but only at the end is the identity of the famous person revealed.
The One Who Got Away (missed messages, 🇬🇧🇺🇸) #03 Microscopic Infinities
= A series of voice-mails from listeners turned into a beautiful collage audio piece.
Paper Radio (audio journal, 🇦🇺) Transcenmentalism
= Economics 101 is explained through a meditative chant.
Planet Money (economics, 🇺🇸) Messy Nobel
= When a concept is so hard to explain that the producers decide to let randomness lead the way. They draw several inspirations from ‘Oblique Strategies cards’, which is kind of like fortune cookies to guide how they should proceed.
Radiolab (big questions, 🇺🇸) Colors
= Pushing the limit of audio explainer journalism. The team illustrates how we see colours by recruiting the help of a choir. Cities is also another great example.
Reply All (internet culture, 🇺🇸) #36 Today's The Day
= We go on a full-day audio adventure together with the host around New York City. Surprisingly ‘visual’.
This American Life (human-interest, 🇺🇸) Retraction
= An episode produced to admit their mistake, self-critique their own failure to fact check, and investigate what their guest fabricated in a previous episode. Admirable for holding themselves accountable as rarely seen in other journalistic outlet, but also for how they turned a crisis into an opportunity. Similarly seen in Gimlet 9: We Made A Mistake.
You’ll Die Smarter (trivia, 🇫🇷) What is the ideal number of days for a vacation?
= Opposite of super long-form. Here’s a super short-form podcast averaging at 2 minutes. Also Naval.
Conversational 💃🕺 (2)
The Economist Ask (expert interview, 🇬🇧) The Economist asks: How do you win the AI race?
= An extremely bizarre moment with the interview guest… listen for yourself.
The Film Reroll Podcast (role-play, 🇺🇸) Ep 46: Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter (Part 1)
= Friends role-playing characters in movies except the outcome is re-determined by rolling dices (like Dungeons & Dragons). As you can imagine, the story can end-up in pretty wild places since the new narrative is generated live on the spot by chance.
Bonus: Audience Participation 🙋 (4)
99% Invisible (design, 🇺🇸) 419- Take a Walk
= The experience is taken to another level by asking the audience to actively participate in the same activity as the narrator, to listen while out taking a walk. It’s particularly powerful when you are lonely without a companion and have to socially distance during the 2020 pandemic when it was released.
Also seen in the episode of Dream by The Heart. The producers ask the audience to listen while lying on the floor. Extremely immersive.
Geo-tagged / location-based audio
= Explanation here. Essentially, a way to augment reality not with sight but with sound by storing an audio file to a location. Another way to think about it is like using those audio guides that you can find in museums to enhance your private experience with expert prompts.
Meditative Story (mindfulness, 🇬🇧🇺🇸) Lang Lang: The teacher who asked a new question
= After the narrative ends, the audience is guided through a meditation/reflection of the story by the host. An experience similar to various meditation and sleep-aid apps.
Pick Your Path (adventure, 🇺🇸) 1: Don’t Blow Up the Universe!
= An interactive choose-your-own-adventure podcast. We pick the path by choosing the episode to jump to.
THE SOUND DESIGN 🎵
The innovation is on the audio signals themselves.
Character’s Vocal 🎙️🤓 (4)
Appearances (cultural conflict, 🇺🇸) Prologue
= A single narrator voicing multiple characters (her family members).
Kismet (fated relationship, 🇺🇸) Ep 17. LS FIX
= Whenever the different subjects said the same thing in separate interviews. The producer edit the clip to overlap at the same time, amplifying the feeling that the subjects had a really unique relationship together.
the love letters podcast (personal message, 🇺🇸) Good Enough
= The narrator is so close to the microphone that you could hear even her mouth noises, making it insanely intimate with listeners — in a good way.
Love and Radio (intriguing characters, 🇺🇸) A Girl of Ivory
= It’s ingenious, enough said. I won’t spoil this piece. Another great one is Jack and Ellen.
Tapes 📞📹 (3)
99% Invisible (design, 🇺🇸) 83- Heyoon
= No actual tape from when it happened? Make one. The producers re-enacted the scenes, capture it, and played it like an actual footage to help listeners get a sense of what it’s like. This is a technique often used by Imagined Life, as well as other shows in the same network like Business Wars.
Rabbit Hole (echo chambers, 🇺🇸) START HERE
= How the production team uses the sound clips from footages sucks you in like the real Youtube recommendation algorithm.
Short Cuts (reflection, 🇬🇧) Noel
= Tapes of a conversation with an adorable kid is spliced up and remix into a fun song.
Sound Environment & SFX ⛈️🎧🔥 (6)
Between The Ears (sound art, 🇬🇧) Give Me Space Below My Feet
= Recording binaurally to create a 3D sensation to listeners.
Constellations (sound experiments, 🇨🇦🇦🇺) accumulation over time (parts x,y,z)
= I have completely no clue what this piece is about but the audio is otherworldly. The crazier thing is, it can be listened separately as 3 different pieces (x-axis, y-axis, z-axis) or listen in combination (5 more combos). My brain can’t handle this.
MONSTER (personal demon, 🇺🇸🇱🇻) Act 1
= From the narration, pacing, to the music, the whole soundscape has a psychedelic aesthetic to it which is super unique yet organic compared to all others that I’ve heard (from NPR’s gentleman style to Wondery’s high dramatisation style).Richard’s Famous Food Podcast (food, 🇺🇸) #14: Truffles For The Trufelman
= I’ve never heard of such chaotic sound design. Kind of worked in its own way. More examples of beautiful chaos in Tin Man and Anatomy of a Punch, parts 1 & 2.
Snap Judgment (drama, 🇺🇸) This Is Not A Drill
= No clever tricks needed. The sound design is just so realistic and immersive that I felt like I’m in the actual situation.
Another stunning one is Jump Blue by Between The Ears. I literally couldn’t breathe. Also Kathy Tu’s The Fighter Pilot, probably the most engaging stereo sound design I ever heard that pushes the limit.
Twenty Thousand Hertz (sound, 🇺🇸) Sonic Illusions
= Different way our hearing can deceive us. Would be fun to do it intentionally on a podcast…
Scoring 🎼 (3)
99% Invisible (design, 🇺🇸) 146- Mooallempalooza
= The whole 30+ minutes of the episode (timestamp: from ~14.30) is scored by a single continuous piece of music.
Note that the piece is an original recording of a live performance not by the show producers. The music was written as a ‘soundtrack’ for a book excerpt monologue. However, it demonstrates the potential of this technique for audio to enhance monologues adapted from print — as sometimes seen on New York Time’s Modern Love essay reads like this piece: To Fall In Love With Anyone, Do This | With Gillian Jacobs.
City of Women (reclaiming space, 🇮🇳) Dicks
= Part of the interview is remixed to produce the vocal for the soundtrack.
My Year in Mensa (infiltration experience, 🇺🇸) Episode 1: IQ and the Average Girl
= The whole episode is scored extremely sarcastically. That’s my best attempt at describing this unique piece.
MORE BONUS: THE STANDARD SEGMENTS ⏱️😪
There’s nothing stopping producers from applying a little bit of creativity to make these spaces fun to listen as well.
Advertisement 😏 (7)
East Asian Story (growing up, 🇹🇭) A disappointment to my parents
= Note: this is my own show. Since my show following is too puny to attract any advertisement, I decided to use the ad spot to endorse something which unexpectedly played a huge part in the whole story later. It’s great fun and also get my listeners comfortable with my ad reads.
Errthang Show! (memoir, 🇺🇸) Season 1, Episode 1: Big Brother Almighty
= I was straight-up surprised when the host endorsed a service by recording the moment he uses it… that service was a tattoo artist.
How To Do Everything (life guide, 🇺🇸) Episode 190: Milk & Asparagus
= The host played an hilarious prank on a competitive swimming Olympian to advertise a clothing subscription service.
Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman (management, 🇺🇸) 1. Airbnb’s Brian Chesky in Handcrafted
= The sponsors have their own narrative that is run in 3 segments at the pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll. It’s all from one single story with each segment ending with a question so you would be interested in listening to the next part. Genius.
StartUp (entrepreneurship, 🇺🇸) Gimlet 9: We Made A Mistake
= The team bring their human-interest journalism technique into advertisement production to make it interesting. This episode is about how they produced it but also the mistakes they made.
Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly (advertising, 🇨🇦) S2E04 (Archive) Radio Is Dead: Long Live Radio
= This episode showcases insanely clever use of audio in advertising. Like a music school recruitment radio ad leaving a message that only perfect pitch students can decipher, thus apply. Or when all radio station in Israel broadcast silence their left speaker simultaneously to raise awareness of what it’s like to lose one breast to breast cancer. More examples in S5E20 (Archive) Radio Still Makes Waves and S10E12 Air Quotes: Creative Radio 2021.
This American Life (human-interest, 🇺🇸) Evergreen Fundraising Pledge Spots
= Making fundraising pledge drives as intimate and funny as a regular show. Seriously, I could listen to 2 hours’ worth of them in the link above. I particularly enjoyed the super satirical one (timestamp: 08.45).
There are probably more examples of great ads you can find here.
Intro & Outro 🤜🤛(3)
The Allusionist (language, 🇬🇧) 4. Detonating the C-Bomb
= “Today’s random word from the dictionary is…” + the sound of flipping and closing the dictionary = surprisingly satisfying.
How I Built This with Guy Raz (entrepreneurship, 🇺🇸) Lady Gaga & Atom Factory: Troy Carter
= After finishing the narrative interview with the famous entrepreneur of the episode (How I Built This), the host ends the show by featuring a mini-story of a show listener’s business (How You Built That). A touching way of giving back to fans.
Reply All (internet culture, 🇺🇸) #36 Today's The Day
= Back to this piece again. The ending is cleverly integrated as part of the story. We find out that the hosts’ ultimate destination of the day is to deliver a script to their boss, which reads as the end credits of the show. Hah!
That’s all that I’m aware of for now. If you know more, please let me know. 🙇
Thanks for reading! Hope you’re inspired to create great stuff! 😍
We believe in quality over quantity. These pieces take WEEKS of care to craft and maintain. Subscribing and SHARING keeps us pumped and helps us in a long way! 🙇🏻♀️❤️🙇🏻♂️