The Irish Times women's podcast is to launch on Monday. Presented by Kathy Sheridan, the podcast – which is free to download from irishtimes.com or iTunes – will be a weekly magazine programme that's engaging and current, with topics of interest and relevance to women's lives.
"We'll talk about everything from politics and social affairs to fashion and films," says daily features editor Róisín Ingle, series producer on The Women's Podcast. "We'll be talking to and about women who inspire us; there will be travel, pop culture, parenting and human-interest stories."
The Irish Times has an unrivalled record in the Irish media in ground-breaking women's-interest journalism stretching back to the mid-1960s when the forthright coverage of social issues from a woman's perspective in its "Women's First" section regularly prompted national debate.
The Women's Podcast moves beyond that traditional idea of "a women's page" to present subjects from a female perspective in ways of interest to women but which also will appeal to male listeners.
In the UK, the BBC's' flagship women's programme Woman's Hour on Radio 4 has long defied its gender prescriptive name and pulled in an audience which hovers around and often exceeds 40 per cent male.
"The guests we have lined up range from musicians to writers to politicians. There are women in team sports and women who aren't in the public eye at all," says Erin McGuire from The Women's Podcast production team, which hints at how the new programme will help redress the acute gender imbalance on the airwaves.
The scarcity of women’s voices on air on the national airwaves, both in presenter and contributor roles, has long been an immovable (despite active social media commentary) and curious feature of the Irish radio scene. Indeed, it is the norm to hear social or even health issues with particular relevance to women being discussed by a male presenter talking to a male contributor.
Women's voices will dominate in the podcast with Irish Times journalists as the main reporters and segment presenters alongside a diverse range of female contributors.
Rabodirect has come on board as sponsor of The Women's Podcast. The online bank already sponsors another of the Irish Times podcasts, Second Captains, and last month it renewed that sponsorship for another year, having seen the plays per week of the influential sports programme top 170,000.
The Irish Times has invested in its own in-house sound studio where its popular podcasts – including on business, politics, books and culture – are recorded.
“Our tagline is: ‘By women, for everyone,’” says Ingle of the podcast which will available for download every Monday.
