What Do We Call Feature Length Fiction Podcasts?

The New York Times
NYT
this week reported on a relatively new trend of fiction podcasts lasting approximately the length of a feature film and that are meant to be consumed in one sitting like a feature film and on the difficulties of what to call them. The article was called “Podcast Movies’? Feature-Length Fiction Stretches the Medium.”

The trend is driven almost entirely by podcast production company Cadence13 and co-founder Chris Corcoran who released two such productions this year with Halloween thriller Treat starring Kiernan Shipka and Ghostwriter starring Adam Scott and Rooney Mara.

Additionally Two-Up released a podcast called Shipworm that they called a “feature length audio movie” and children’s podcast studio Gen-Z media put out Iowa Chapman and the Last Dog which they called a “movie-length audio epic”.

Various podcasters responded quite negatively to the article’s title on Twitter feeling that it demeans or ignores the work they have done for years in the audio fiction space with Jonathan Mitchell of The Truth responding to it simply by saying “At this point, this is just straight up offensive.”

Christopher Dole of the Arden podcast was quite cynical about both the reporting on 90-minute podcasts and their use of celebrities.

Jocelyn Gonzalez, director of PRX Productions joked about the concept of a feature length podcast stretching the medium.

The NY Times Art department didn’t do themselves any favors by comparing it to a midcentury radio drama as if major audiences still need that trope to compare it to.

Ed Fortune of Starburst Magazine refuses to take the bait and points out how his very own magazine has been reviewing feature length podcasts (albeit ones with much lower budgets) for years.

The NY Times article proves that no matter how many podcasts are made or how good they are, major media companies will still resort to comparing them to radio dramas of the 1940’s as a point of comparison while good work will continue to go ignored if it doesn’t feature celebrities and isn’t by a big production house.