This is something that might not intrigue everyone, especially if you’re not much of a podcast listener. But if you are a fan of podcasts, particularly what’s been on the Grantland network, you might find it interesting that one of their consistently best shows, “The Moment” with Brian Koppelman, has moved on to a different outlet.
If you subscribe to both the Grantland Pop Culture podcasts and Slate Magazine’s daily podcasts, perhaps you noticed a switcheroo as the latest episode of “The Moment” posted on April 7 showed up in the Slate feed, rather than Grantland’s. (If you don’t subscribe to both, that sentence probably meant nothing to you.) I briefly wondered if something was wrong with my iTunes feeds, but that would’ve been a very specific glitch.
As it turns out, and reported by Capital New York’s Nicole Levy, Koppelman’s podcast — which features interviews with figures throughout pop culture, such as comedians, writers, actors, chefs and media analysts — is now with Slate. A screenwriter by trade, Koppelman recently appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers and explained his podcast.
Past editions of “The Moment” include conversations with Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Ivan Orkin, Jason Isbell and Seth Godin, among many, many others. The last episode of the show on the Grantland network had an interview with playwright Eric Bogosian.
The first edition of “The Moment” at Slate features an interview with chef David Chang, discussing the progression of his Momofuku empire of restaurants, the quarterly food magazine Lucky Peach and the first season of PBS’ The Mind of a Chef, in which he was the featured star.
Will Koppelman’s podcast be a better fit at Slate? The web magazine has invested heavily in podcasts, creating the Panoply network and producing shows like Slate’s Political Gabfest, Hang Up and Listen, Working, Culture Gabfest, and The Gist. Writers Gretchen Rubin and Baratunde Thurston will soon have podcasts on the network.
Have Slate and Panoply created a more podcast-friendly environment than Grantland, despite the success of Bill Simmons’ The B.S. Report, Andy Greenwald’s Hollywood Prospectus and others? Koppelman moving to Slate might be implying so. Grantland is certainly friendly to pop culture podcasts, and “The Moment” was a good fit there.
But as Simmons has complained about recently, ESPN doesn’t seem to be as supportive (especially in terms of attracting sponsors) to shows that aren’t under the ESPN brand of sports programming, as its Baseball Today, Fantasy Focus, Championship Drive and podcasts of ESPN Radio programs do. There has been plenty of speculation that Simmons might leave ESPN and take Grantland (or something like it) elsewhere. Might Koppelman’s migration hint toward that possible next destination?
