International relations, internet maelstroms, Larry David, and more.

Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Publishers, Courtesy of Maura Claire Walz, Andrew Max Levy

As the kids say: new year, new you. After a 2023 defined by layoffs, cancellations, and malaise, the podcast world is looking to turn the page and start the process of rebuilding. It will likely get a jolt from the fact that we have a presidential election coming up, which traditionally drives an uptick of listening among political and news-related podcasts. But for now, our attention is drawn to a raft of upcoming releases that will set the stage for the year to come, which includes a globe-trotting mystery, an interrogation of documentaries, and new projects from Jamie Loftus.

History of Curb Your Enthusiasm

iHeartMedia, January
Curb Your Enthusiasm hasn’t even begun airing its final season yet, but that’s not going to stop the TV recap podcast economy. Susie Essman and Jeff Garlin lead this one, which intends to tackle every episode in the show. Will Larry David show up at some point? Ehh… probably.

Dissident at the Doorstep

Crooked Media, January
A Chinese civil right activist fights against his government’s corruption, flees to the United States for asylum, and becomes an election-denying pro-Trump supporter. What exactly happened here, and what does it reflect about the complicated relationship between China and the US? This new Crooked Media documentary is set to get into the thick of it.

White Devil

Campside Media, January
Josh Dean (The Clearing, Hooked) tumbles down a rabbit hole in this audio docuseries tackling the death of a veteran Belizean police superintendent and the privileged Canadian woman arrested for the murder… who may or may not have done it. Campside Media has carved out a sizable portfolio of podcasts that draws heavily from the spirit of classic magazine crime features, and White Devil’s shaping up to be yet another globe-trotting entry into the genre.

Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative

Jess Shane and Radiotopia Presents, January
Jess Shane, a Canadian artist and documentarian, takes a scalpel to the mechanics, power dynamics, and ethics of the hotter-than-ever “nonfiction content industry” through a conceit that involves a Craigslist ad, auditions, and a handful of subjects willing to talk about why they’d want to be the subject of a documentary.

Fifteen Minutes (Of Fame)

iHeartMedia’s Cool Zone Media, March
Podcast impresario Jamie Loftus returns with a new weekly program that seems to hail from the You’re Wrong About lineage. In this hybrid nonfiction storytelling and interview show, Loftus revisits various figures who have had the misfortune of becoming the internet’s main characters — and have been presumably preserved as cartoon villains in the minds of millions. Intent on understanding them within context, Loftus is going for a study in the blurred line of consent that transpires when an internet maelstrom kicks off. This is one of two new podcasts we should expect from Loftus this year; the other is a limited series with details to come.

The Sicilian Inheritance 

Kaleidoscope, March
The prolific Jo Piazza (Under the Influence, She Wants More) is bouncing around Southern Italy with her next project. Designed as a nonfiction true crime-ish audio series that serves as a companion to her upcoming novel of the same name, The Sicilian Inheritance sees Piazza trying to solve her great great grandmother’s murder, which may or may not be tied to the Sicilian Mafia way back in the day.

The Recipe with Kenji and Deb 

Radiotopia, Winter
You might be familiar with J. Kenji López-Alt from his recipes, his cookbooks (The Food Lab, The Wok), and those great YouTube videos where he straps a GoPro on his head while wordlessly cooking up a greasy late-night snack. And you might be familiar with Deb Perelman from her OG recipe blog Smitten Kitchen, her various Smitten Kitchen cookbooks, and her stove-top mac and cheese recipe. They’re teaming up for a new recipe podcast geared towards the home cook. Given the continued absence of Home Cooking, Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway’s glorious pandemic-era pantry project, I’m ravenous for more food pods.

A previous version of this piece listed A History of Policing, whose release plans are still in flux.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the January 1, 2024, issue of New York Magazine.

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