Sudden cancellations of TV shows is something we’re all used to. Film franchises getting prematurely canned is becoming increasingly common (my condolences to the seven people who were looking forward to that next Fantastic Beasts sequel). A podcast getting cancelled though – now that’s a far rarer occurrence. But that’s exactly what happened at NPR last month, as the US public radio big boy (and Twitter unsubscriber) axed a number of pods – and nearly 10% of its staff – to cope with a shortfall in advertising revenue.
Among the series coming to an abrupt end, shockingly, was Invisibilia, NPR’s long-running narrative series about tiny unseen forces governing human behaviour, told via real-life stories of oil rig workers, incels, an all-female debate team in Rwanda. I’ve always regarded Invisibilia, which launched back in 2015, as one of podcasting’s mainstays: one of, say, 10 shows that anyone who has even a passing interest in podcasts has probably heard of. It was clever in an unshowy way but also compulsively moreish, with great sound design and likable hosts. It felt like a podcasting dead cert – so for it to get a sudden scything feels ominous for the whole industry.
