Fun Kids funkidslive.com
The Butterfly Effect jonronson.com
Quite a few friends have asked me about podcasts for children. I’ve found with many kids that once they hit nine or 10, they’re happy to listen to programmes aimed at adults, as long as they’re funny and relevant to their interests. If you have a football-mad child, as I do, I’d recommend 5 Live’s documentaries and phone-ins (I can’t stand the callers’ passion and pernicketiness, but my son, 11, loves all of that).
He’s far more likely to stick with those shows, for instance, than the station’s child-aimed offering, Jamie Johnson Football Podcast, which he flatly hates, though he got through the episode where YouTube footballer Spencer FC talked about his life. He’s also a fan of Reply All (mentioned last week), because it’s funny and techy, and, for some reason, Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History, particularly any episode about US education. I tried him on S-Town, but it was too long winded and complicated.
When it comes to music, Radio 1’s Grimmy makes tweens and early teens laugh, but if they’re really into their tunes, they tend to swap to specialist shows as they get older. Still, whether they like music or not, younger kids love countdowns, so if you’re listening with a four- to nine-year-old, you can rarely go wrong with a Top 40, whether that’s Radio 1’s The Official Chart (Fridays) or The Vodaphone Big Top 40 (Sundays).
Aside from all of that, if you’re looking for child-friendly podcasts for the under-10s, then I heartily recommend Fun Kids. It’s a radio station, first and foremost, broadcasting all day, every day, on DAB and the internet, and it understands its young audience very well. Its hosted shows (7am-8pm) are upbeat and welcoming, peppering chart music with interviews and daft chat, requests and quizzes. Online, you can access an extensive repertoire of programmes and specialist podcasts made for children.
It’s admirable how much detail and effort go into these shows. There’s a great science podcast, Science Weekly, which is interesting whether you’re seven or 47, plus several shorter ones about the human body, space and travel. There’s even one that teaches you Polish. I wasn’t quite so enamoured of the new book podcast, which played irritating music underneath a not very interesting interview with Greg James and Chris Smith. Still, it’s only the first one, and Fun Kids’ high production standards will no doubt kick it into shape. The site offers videos too – no youth-aimed channel will survive without visuals – and for those who are stuck for kid-friendly holiday amusements, there are weekly summer challenges and advice for days out. There are recipes for Polish meals, how to create a sound map, instructions for a silly science soup (just raisins in lemonade, food fans). The whole setup is very impressive, almost as clickable and content-packed as the CBeebies website and, no doubt, made on a lot less money. Excellent stuff.
Not for children: Jon Ronson has a new podcast out called The Butterfly Effect. It’s about pornography, which might make you rush to listen to it or hesitate. I hesitated, if I’m honest; I’m not a huge fan of Brit-geek-on-a-porn-set-with-hilarious-consequences shows. But I was wrong; with Ronson, you get much more than that. In truth, the whole show is about rapidly changing economics and how those changes affect people’s everyday lives. And how one decision, by one man, can upend an entire industry.
That one man is called Fabian, a young guy who has ended up owning almost every free online porn site in the world. We meet Fabian as soon as we start. He seems lovely. Ronson has a way of making everyone seem lovely initially (remember his Jonathan King interviews?) and then gently revealing their other sides. He knows that we are all complicated, all hypocritical, and he never reduces people to one thing or the other. Plus, he’s funny, and poses the toughest of questions in an utterly disarming way. It makes for a gripping listen, a story that unfolds in a madly unpredictable way. All seven episodes of The Butterfly Effect are out on Audible. Try it; you might like it (she says, like a porn pedlar).
