Both locally and around the world, podcasts are popping.
According to Pew Research Center, more than half of adults in the United States have listened to a podcast in the last year, with a full two-thirds of those aged 18-29 tuning in.
The digital listening world is only trending up.
Think of a podcast like talk radio for the digital era — episodic content created for digital download, taking its name first from the iPod, the audio listening device that popularized the medium in the early 2000s.
They can be on any topic, from news to comedy to even their own versions of “radio dramas.” On Apple Podcasts, the chart-topping shows include true crime show “Crime Junkie,” news programs such as “The Daily” and “Dateline NBC,” and celebrity-hosted interview podcasts such as “The Joe Rogan Experience” and “Good Hang with Amy Poehler.”
It’s been more than two decades since podcasts were made available on iTunes, and the audio medium has boomed around the world — but also here in Pittsburgh. From chatfests about movies and pop culture to audio game shows to podcasts about Pittsburgh, the local scene is flourishing.
“The scene is growing, it’s getting more robust. I’m seeing a lot of the same faces come out to meetups, so there’s a little bit more stability,” said Jeff Rivella, longtime Pittsburgh-based podcast host and owner of Poduty Podcast Theater in Tarentum.
If you’re looking for something new to listen to on your commute, tune in for one of these local podcasts.
Yinz Are Good
We could all use a little good news in our lives, and “Yinz Are Good” creator and host Tressa Glover is here to provide a weekly dose of good old-fashioned Pittsburgh niceness.
Now 212 episodes in, Glover has found a calling in brightening the local community. “I thought, ‘What if I do a podcast that shows the good news going on?’ ” Glover said.
Episodes typically range from 40-60 minutes and involve interviews with individuals, institutions and nonprofits with good news and deeds to share.
“I had a woman reach out and say, ‘My 12-year-old son is doing something in our neighborhood for folks in need; I’d love it if you’d talk to him,’ and I was like, ‘I absolutely will!’ ” Glover said.
She also has segments that include “Name That Neighborhood,” where she asks someone else — usually her husband, Don — to take a little quiz.
“I give him two Pittsburgh neighborhoods and then I give a fact and he has to guess which one I’m talking about.”
From the germ of an idea in late 2019 to a hundreds-episode-strong show that’s been heard in 98 countries, “Yinz Are Good” has been a positive force for its listeners and for Glover herself.
“I found my calling for this chapter of my life,” she said.
Trivia with Jeff
Jeff Revilla is both an old hand and a jack-of-all-trades at podcasting at this point. Not only has he been hosting a variety of pods since 2011, but he also organizes monthly local podcaster meetups in addition to running Poduty Live Podcast Theater.
That theater is the venue where he records “Trivia with Jeff,” his latest foray into the world of podcasts.
“It’s kind of like ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ meets ‘Let’s Make aDeal.’ There’s some chaos and it’s a lot of fun,” Revilla said.
The podcast is a function of his belief that the next frontier for podcasts will go beyond audio and into video.
“Trivia with Jeff” is recorded with a live, interactive audience and then is posted to audio and video platforms. He said that he’s already gotten more than 10,000 views on the first four episodes.
“For a brand new show, I’m really excited about that,” Revilla said.
The podcast theater is a project he’s been running for about two years now, with the purpose of bringing in other shows to tape interactive podcast episodes.
“I see the future for smaller independent podcasters as live performances, the same way comedians perform at comedy clubs.”
The theater also allows for virtual ticketing, so live podcast episodes can be attended by a seemingly infinite number of people and then posted online for audio/video consumption later.
“I joke that my little 40-seat theater in Tarentum has the same capacity as Madison Square Garden,” he said.
YaJagoff!
When people think of Pittsburgh podcasts, there’s a good chance that “YaJagoff!” will come to mind. The hosts have found a thriving audience in the podcast’s 10-year history.
Rachael Rennebeck, who co-hosts and co-owns the podcast with John Chamberlin, said that the name has kind of a double meaning, both affectionate and lightly insulting.
“We started really working with uplifting small businesses and nonprofits and voices without finances to figure out how we could build a platform for them,” she said.
Rennebeck describes the podcast as “magazine-style” with several different segments in each about-40-minute-long episode.
“Every year, we do a different component,” Rennebeck said. “This year, we’re doing a game show component, so that all of the guests have to compete in something.”
Their uplifting stories vary from interviews with nonprofits and unique businesses to some very niche and fascinating topics.
“The thing that we often reference is a student from the University of Pittsburgh who was creating ‘green gum’ — not the color, but sustainable gum — in her apartment. She completely dissected and explained how chemically she was able to do this and why it’s so important. And we were like, ‘this is such a cool story.’ ”
For the “YaJagoff!” folks, their stable and growing fanbase is something that they don’t take for granted.
“We just appreciate that we’re still acknowledged … we were just talking about how absurd it is to get to a year of podcasting because nobody sticks to it. The fact that people still think of us almost 10 years later just makes us love our city even more,” Rennebeck said.
Werewolf Ambulance
For horror movie fans, the most bingeable podcast around is “Werewolf Ambulance,” created in 2014 by “platonic life mates” and Pittsburghers who go by Allen Ambulance and Katie Werewolf. The two spend each episode hilariously recapping a film in the horror genre.
“Allen and I were friends, and he said, ‘You have to watch this movie,’ ” Werewolf said. “It was ‘Mausoleum,’ this incredibly schlocky ’80s horror movie. … I said, ‘Wow, this movie’s fantastic.’ And that’s when we realized we’re both the same weirdos.”
The podcast has more than 500 episodes on its regular feed, covering films from “When a Stranger Calls” to “Frankenstein” (2025) to “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master.” But every once in a while, they deviate from the horror genre.
“During the pandemic, Allen and I both lost our minds so we did an episode where we talked about the movie ‘Titanic’ from memory from like 20 years prior,” Werewolf said.
Their episodes, usually around 60-75 minutes long, involve preparation in the form of watching the movie and then taking notes.
“Anyone who has ever listened to the podcast is going to find this easy to believe, but there’s almost no prep work put into the podcast,” Ambulance joked.
But their spontaneous jokes have given them plenty of success: They get tens of thousands of downloads a month, and have kept the podcast going for more than a decade.