Cancelled TV shows are often resurrected from the graveyard and can have a renaissance on a streaming channel. The Resident is a medical show that ran from 2018 to 2023 and then found new life on Netflix.
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Why do podcasts die? And how do they die? Not to be morbid, but a lot of podcasts perish. It is usually a silent, “no one even notices” type of death. No dramatic death scenes as in a blockbuster Hollywood film. According to Amplifi Media, approximately 40,000 podcasts die every year. Wow. I thought the dinosaurs had it bad after that comet hit Earth.
On TV, series cancellation is a very public event, with numerous network announcements and media articles. Sometimes, these announcements of cancellation even generate a tsunami of protest and the show is "uncanceled" and brought back, such as Chuck on NBC. Or the show is picked up by another network or streaming service, like Lucifer going from Fox to Netflix.
Sadly, podcasts die quietly. It almost begs the existential question: If a podcast dies and no one knows about it, has it really died? Or, more importantly to this discussion, did it ever live?
TV Show, Friends, reruns air in over 100 countries and regions worldwide. The show remains a massive global hit, generating roughly $1 billion annually for Warner Bros. through extensive syndication, international licensing, and streaming platforms like Max.
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By contrast, popular TV shows can have multiple lives in reruns. Travel to any TV market throughout the U.S. and you can find Seinfeld, Friends, and The Big Bang Theory reruns. I think we all know the tale of the original Star Trek TV series on NBC from 1966-1969 that was canceled and then resurrected in reruns, where it blossomed and became one of the most popular and profitable entertainment franchises in history.
Sadly, podcast archives, or reruns to use the TV vernacular, have little or no second shelf life. That's a shame because there are some terrific podcasts that were canceled that can be still enjoyed via their archives.
In this article, we will investigate podcasts that are no longer "alive." No new episodes are being made or planned as far as we know. What happens to their archives? How about their legacy? What are ardent podcast fans missing because these cancelled podcasts have no ability to “Lazarus” themselves back into existence for future listeners to enjoy?
Sadly, unlike Theresa Caputo, I cannot communicate with podcasts that "have passed on." Boots on the ground detective work is needed.
First up is Internet Urban Legends, which was released in April 2021. This series was from Spotify and Parcast, in collaboration with Wheelhouse DNA, and was hosted by beauty gurus and internet sleuths, Loey Lane and Eleanor Snitchery.
In each episode, co-hosts, Loey and Eleanor, took a deep dive into one big story, investigating clues and conspiracy theories that surround the paranormal tale to try to determine if it is a hoax or a haunt.
Internet Urban Legends
The marketing line was: "they scour the web for the most chilling unsolved mysteries that have plagued the curious with endless questions. Paranormal and true crime obsessives can follow Loey and Eleanor’s journey into the unknown as they investigate the Internet’s biggest mysteries in search for the truth."
For example, the debut episode featured the terrifying story of “The Watcher House” in the small town of Westfield, New Jersey; the second episode chronicled the horrifying TikTok Tyson Chandler’s stalking encounter that went viral and got downright paranormal.
The show ran from April 2021 until March 2023, when Spotify pulled the plug on the show, along with 10 other shows, and the Gimlet and Parcast production companies. It was the podcasting version of The Purge!
In March 2023, Spotify also canceled How to Save a Planet, Crime Show, and Medical Murders, Every Little Thing from Gimlet and Female Criminals, Crimes of Passion, Dictator, Mythology, Haunted Places, and Parcast’s Horoscope Today.
The last episode of Internet Urban Legends was about trees and the petrified forest. This message was included on the Spotify episode page of the podcast. "This is the last episode of Internet Urban Legends. On behalf of everyone here at Parcast, we thank you for listening!"
In this case, we know why this podcast was canceled. It was part of Spotify's "boy, did we screw up podcasting, and now we're desperate to fix it" strategy.
Was this a great show? No, but it was a good show with a decent audience, engaging social media hosts, and a lively topic.
After cancellation, there was no resurrection for the show, even in archived episodes. The show lies dormant in the Spotify archives. These episodes of Internet Urban Legends are a perfect match for listeners with a taste for true-crime, the paranormal, and social media celebrities.
The Spectacular Failures podcast with Lauren Ober ran for two seasons from June 2019 until winter 2020. Spectacular Failures investigated the causes behind some of the biggest business blunders and breakdowns. It featured stories on corporate corruption, hubris, and financial ruin, covering topics like MoviePass, which imploded in 2019 after its unsustainable $9.95/month, "unlimited" movie model burned through hundreds of millions, causing its parent company to file for bankruptcy in 2020.
The podcast covered some of business's biggest failures, such as when U-Haul was forced into bankruptcy due failed family therapy sessions, fistfights in the boardroom and even murder accusations.
Spectacular Failures
One of the most instructive episodes was about Schlitz Beer, with its "The beer that made Milwaukee famous." tagline. Due to a recipe change (switching to continuous fermentation and using cheaper ingredients) that made the beer, and ultimately its reputation, fail, the company went from the top-selling U.S. beer in the 1960s to being sold in 1982.
Why was the podcast cancelled even though it had high listener engagement? American Public Media (APM) cancelled the Spectacular Failures podcast following a major restructuring, where the company consolidated operations, dissolved the APM Reports business unit, and laid off staff to focus on strategic, high-priority programming.
In essence, the show was cancelled for reasons not related to the show’s quality or the enthusiastic reaction from customers. The story of high-profile business failures is still pertinent today. The stories of corporate cupidity and stupidity are perhaps more relevant now with technology discrupting markets.
In September 2021, Aileen Merciel and Glenda Pacanins started the Surfing Corporate podcast. The show’s marketing pitch was: "Two former media executives who have experienced first-hand what really goes on behind fancy corporate doors – and have a slightly evil sense of humor – will offer practical advice to employees who are currently navigating turbulent corporate waters."
The Surfing Corporate podcast covered topics such the Top Eight Toxic Bosses; the delicate Art of Corporate Communications; Why humor at work should be taken very seriously; and why work recognition May Be Better For Employers Than Employees.
Surfing Corporate
The show ran from September 2021 until early 2025. The show received recognition for their outstanding work, being nominated for the Ambies and winning Best Workplace podcast for the Ear Worthy Independent Podcast Awards.
The show lived up to its promise. It was engaging, had a sense of humor, described the incongruities of corporate life, and offered solutions.
The show was an independent podcast, financed by the hosts. Both hosts left high-level executive positions as Senior Vice Presidents at NBC Universal to start the podcast.
The challenges of monetizing an independent podcast cannot be emphasized enough. “Indie” podcasts, even with a high level of listeners/viewers, often cannot generate the revenue from running ads to sustain the show and pay the host(s). Adding a donation option via Patreon can help, however, the casualty rate of independent podcasts is alarmingly high.
The show exists now only in its archives, and yet, the show still holds value for people who work in corporate. The co-hosts knew from personal experience about corporate "clown car" behavior, corporate processes like recognition and employee reviews gone wildly astray, and how to deal with the politics in corporate, and universally dreaded and misused employee performance reviews.
Podcast archives of shows that still hold value for listeners should be more accessible and actively marketed to fans who have expressed an interest in that topic.
Leslie Stauffer
Remember the last scene in the 1981 film, Raiders Of The Lost Ark? As a man wheels a dolly holding the Holy Grail in a wooden box down a row, the camera pulls back to reveal the magnitude of this warehouse and the insignificance of this invaluable item amid all these stored containers.
Let’s draw some conclusions. First, not all podcast that die are worthy of resurrection via their archives. I’ve listened to podcasts to review that include a man who spent 12 episodes discussing one movie, National Treasure with Nicolas Cage. Or the woman who traveled around evaluating Cheesecake Factory restaurants. She was attempting to sample the entire menu. Good luck with that. Or the woman who discussed her wild animal dental collections. Did you know that most bear species, including grizzly and black bears, have 42 teeth?
However, there are superb podcasts, usually independent, that have been consigned to “the briny deep” of podcasts sunk due to reasons beyond their control, usually corporate restructuring or tragically the brutal economics of independent podcasting.
Too many of the archived episodes of these highly engaging podcasts remain unknown to podcast fans. There should be a mechanism in podcasting, as there is in TV, for listeners to locate and listen to inactive podcasts that still generate interest.
I’ll leave you with a breadcrumb to those archives. Spotify had a show, Yeah, I F*cked That Up that ran for two seasons until mid-2023. Hosted by the excellent Billy Mann, the show did something entirely different as a celebrity interview show. It interviewed celebrities about their biggest mistakes! Usually, celebrities are obsessed with themselves and recognition from others. In this show, they confessed their biggest miscues.
For example, singer Michael Bolton confessed multiple career mistakes. Guitarist Steven Van Zandt talked about walking away from Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, and Kelly Rowland talked being dropped from Destiny’s Child, saying in the show, “I think I could have known exactly what I brought to the table. That’s where I failed myself. To me, I think that when you don’t quite know your value, it shows. I didn't say enough for myself.”
I don’t know why Spotify cancelled the podcast, but then again who knows why Spotify does anything. However, the show had a novel, fresh approach to a celebrity-driven show, with a superb host, and high listener engagement. Reviews from the podcasting media were overwhelmingly positive. There are indeed threads of entertainment, insight, and self-revelation on our own life miscues resonant in the show. There should be a method of discoverabiltiy so podcast fans can still enjoy this show.
In sharp contrast to that scenario, I’ve seen the episode of Friends where in a showdown of how well they know each other, Rachel guesses "transponster" when trying to name Chandler’s job. I’ve seen that episode at least 2o times, primarily because the show is on multiple channels.
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