The Coode Street Podcast (www.coodestreetpodcast.com) is co-hosted by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe and is produced by Coode Street Productions. The podcast debuted in May 2010 and has released 261 episodes up to 31 December 2015. Each episode features interviews and discussion about science fiction and fantasy, often with major figures in the science fiction field. Episodes are published weekly, with a hiatus over the Christmas period. The podcast has been nominated for the Hugo Award (three times), the British Science Fiction Award, and the Ditmar Award (four times).
Listenership for the Coode Street Podcast grew for the fifth consecutive year in 2015, with a total of 48 full-length episodes and three mini-episodes published during the year, up from 42 full-length episodes in 2013 and 2014. The listenership for the podcast increased by 52.1% over the previous year, with a total of 133,501 downloads (episode plays) during the year. Average listenership for individual episodes increased by 33.1% (from 2081 in 2014 to 2781) in 2015. This can be considered to be the average size of the listening audience. Interest in the podcast also increased, with feed hits growing by 44% to 1,148,322 across the year.
Guests that appeared on the podcast during 2015 included Adam Roberts, Aliette de Bodard, Alisa Krasnostein, Bill Schafer, Cecelia Holland, Charlie Jane Anders, Cheryl Morgan, Chris Brown, Deborah Biancotti, Eileen Gunn, Elizabeth Hand, Gene Wolfe, Guy Gavriel Kay, Harlan Ellison, Ian McDonald, Ian Mond, James Bradley, James Morrow, Jim Minz, Joe Abercrombie, Joe Monti, John Clute, John Scalzi, Karin Tidbeck, Kelly Link, Ken Liu, Kim Stanley Robinson, KJ Parker, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Linda Nagata, Liza Trombi, Margo Lanagan, Michael Swanwick, Nina Allan, Nisi Shawl, Pamela Sargent, Paolo Bacigalupi, Paul Kincaid, Samuel R Delany, Scott Westerfeld, Sean Williams, Sean Wright, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Suzy McKee Charnas, Tehani Wessely, William Gibson, and Zen Cho.
Highlights for the year included trialling syndicating the podcast with Tor.com. Episodes were published on the Sunday of each week on Coode Street, and then republished on Tor.com on Tuesdays. This trial ran from February to November, concluding with Episode 256. Listenership for the podcast via Tor.com is not included in the statistics in this summary, and the Coode Street Podcast will not be offered via Tor.com in 2016. We would like to thank Tor.com and Irene Gallo for partnering with us during the year and hope we can find other opportunities to work together in future.
During the year we presented the first ever interview with World Fantasy Award winning writer K.J. Parker, and helped reveal Parker as a pseudonym for British writer Tom Holt. The episode was published April 21, 2015. Other highlights included talking to Ian McDonald about Luna, William Gibson about The Peripheral, Samuel R. Delany, Harlan Ellson and Kim Stanley Robinson. We also regularly featured Locus editor Liza Trombi on the podcast, discussing forthcoming books.
The most popular episodes of the year were:
- Episode 245: Ian McDonald and Luna (3,333)
- Episode 246: Aliette de Bodard and The House of Shattered Wings (2,756)
- Episode 230: K J Parker and the history of a writer (2,672)
- Episode 253: SF Lectures, The Martian and more (2,637)
- Episode 238: Kim Stanley Robinson and Aurora (2,634)
- Episode 242: Time runs out for the Hugos and more (2,619)
- Episode 207: Kameron Hurley (2,508)
- Episode 236: On books to look for… (2,398)
- Episode 250: Forthcoming books with Liza Trombi (2,388)
- Episode 231: Ian Mond, James Bradley and the 2015 Hugo Novel Shortlist (2,298)
The Coode Street Podcast will resume in January 2016.