Silent Witness Star Emilia Fox To Host True Crime Podcast

Emilia Fox, the star of long-running BBC crime drama Silent Witness, is to host a true crime podcast with leading criminologist, Professor David Wilson. If It Bleeds It Leads will see the pair tackle topical true crime stories dominating headlines and will take a deep dive into true crime-focused entertainment. It will feature guests including former police officers, crime reporters and former offenders and will also discuss true-crime in culture from books, series and films. The series will launch on March 12 via Global and is produced by Alaska TV, the company behind History’s Spy Wars with Damian Lewis and UK talent agency Money Group Entertainment. Chris Baughen, Managing Editor for Global Player said that it would “delve into a subject that keeps millions of us enthralled and intrigued”, while Alaska TV co-founder and creative director Ian Lamarra said that the show marks the first of a slate of “major talent driven” podcasts.

Wondery Launches Adventure Survival Podcast

Wondery, the company behind hit podcasts including Dirty John and Dr. Death, is launching a new survival-themed show. The company, which was recently acquired by Amazon, is launching Against The Odds, on February 23, where host-adventurers Mike Corey and Cassie De Pecol share stories of survival, from the daring rescue of a soccer team trapped in an underwater cave in Thailand to a woman taken hostage by Somali pirates. Corey is a marine biologist and BBC travel show host, who has wandered through the depths of the Amazon Rainforest, raced down the snow powdered mountains of Uzbekistan, and cave-dived in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. De Pecol broke two Guinness World Records when she became the first woman to travel to every country in the world. Before that, she was a contestant on Discovery Channel’s Naked and Afraid. Listen here.

Color Farm Media Teams With Charlamagne Tha God On Reparations Podcast

Color Farm Media, the company behind John Lewis: Good Trouble, has teamed with Charlamagne Tha God’s and iHeartMedia’s The Black Effect Podcast Network to launch a new narrative podcast. Reparations: The Big Payback, which launches February 18, is co-hosted by The Cosby Show star and Color Farm co-founder Erika Alexander and filmmaker Whitney Dow. They will explore the argument for and against the controversial topic of reparations for Black Americans. Guests on the podcast will include Rev. William Barber, Tom Steyer, Robin Rue Simmons, Gwen Carr and Saru Jayaraman. Alexander said, “We sit on the precipice of an opportunity to heal America’s divide through leaning in to a greater understanding of the restorative powers of reparations.” Charlamagne Tha God added, “Erika Alexander is brilliant. Anytime I can assist her in bringing any one of her visions to life it’s a no brainer for me. There are so many conversations revolving around reparations and the case for Black Americans to have reparations, and hopefully this project adds to those conversations and makes people realize why reparations isn’t just a request, but a necessary step for this country to take in order for it to atone for the sin of slavery and finally get to a real place of healing.” Listen here.

Rooster Teeth Launches Millennial Podcast Slate

Warner Bros’ Rooster Teeth is launching a slate of podcasts including a theme park-themed series and a comedy from Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart. The lineup features a slew of millennial and GenZ focused shows. While Rooster Teeth has aired vodcasts since 2005, it pushed into audio only podcasts last year. Shows include Annual Pass, which launches April 22 and sees Achievement Hunter’s Jack Pattillo and Geoff Ramsey dive deep into the world of theme parks, semi-fictional show No Dumb Answers, which launches March 3, How Ya Been? with Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart, and a superhero fitness show launching in March. This comes after the launch of Wrestling With The Week, hosted by AEW sensation Scorpio Sky and Funhaus co-creative director James Willems, pop culture podcast The Real Canon, earlier this month. “Our Rooster Teeth owned and operated podcasts attract incredibly dedicated communities surrounding our personality-powered content,” said A.J. Feliciano, head of The Roost Podcast Network. “This slate doubles down on the best parts of our programming, from the talent to the topics. Only we would deliver a podcast about weight training like a superhero or a show digging into the deep cuts of genre content. It’s that homegrown fandom that makes our podcasts favorites for advertisers and audiences.”

LiveXLive and Audio Up Media Sets Valentine’s Day In Hell

Musicians including Iann Dior, Jxdn, Oliver Tree and Phem and Adam Carolla are to star in a new scripted podcast from Audio Up Media and PodcastOne. Valentine’s Day In Hell is a six-part musical-horror-comedy scripted podcast, which marks the first production of a joint venture between LiveXLive and Audio Up Media. The series centers around a Los Angeles hype-house, filled with social influencers, YouTubers and TikTok personalities, which becomes a portal to hell when empty-headed Sound Cloud rapper and Instagram star jxdn sells his soul to the devil (Carolla) in exchange for everlasting fame and fortune. It is the sequel to Audio Up’s, Halloween in Hell, which starred the likes of Machine Gun Kelly and Tommy Lee. “This is the first of many brand new hybrid musicals coming from our partnership with LivexLive and PodcastOne,” said Jared Gutstadt, Founder and CEO of Audio Up Media. “Our novel idea is setting the stage for the concept records of a new generation. The inclusion of music in this long-form environment has never been done this way.” Listen here.

— to deadline.com