List Envy Podcast: It's The Wish List Listeners Want

 People love lists. All kinds. Top ten politics podcasts. Five meanest celebrities. The top 20 comedy movies of all time. Any writer who cares about attracting readers knows that lists work as an attractant, or if you are feeling mean, audacious clickbait.

How about a podcast that caters to list-mania? Welcome to List Envy, a podcast that understandably features lists. 

 Here's the marketing pitch: "What's the most-used emoji? Who's the best Bond villain? Does anyone care that an olive is technically a fruit?

Discover hidden gems from pop culture to pasta, hip-hop to history, and meet the creatives, enthusiasts, and experts who love them.

Each week, host Mark Steadman collaborates with a guest to build a top-5 list on a topic they choose. If you want to know what your next TV binge should be, or where to go on your next trip abroad, List Envy has you covered."

Host Steadman adds: "Whether it was singing karaoke, listening to audiobooks, or devising a radio station in my bedroom, I’ve always appreciated the power of the human voice."

It's admittedly an excellent concept for a podcast. But is it executed well? The answer is an unqualified YES. 

One of my favorite episodes is the June 18, 2024, show where guest Ashley Hammer (Host of Taboo Science, also a terrific podcast) discusses real world inventions inspired by science fiction. Steadman and Hammer make the show informative, funny, witty, and clever. They discuss sci-fi concepts like the mobile phone, autonomous vehicles, credit cards, and even the World Wide Web as current realities often crafted by the sci-fi community.

The July 9, 2024, show with Valerie Paris about James Bond gadgets brought back great memories of Bond, Q, and the often preposterous nature of these MI-6 gadgets that always elicited glee.

Here's the show note:

Nothing is ever quite as it seems in the world of spies. A watch isn’t just a watch – it’s a deadly weapon. That phonebooth? Also a weapon. Bag pipes? Weapon. This sandwich though, that’s just Q’s lunch. Don’t touch it."

"There's the grenade pen from Golden Eye, the mini-rocket cigarette from You Only Live Twice, and the garrote watch in From Russia With Love."

Through 62 episodes, Mark Steadman has excelled at bringing listeners the unexpected, the funny, the outlandish, and the bizarre -- all packaged with a unique British twist.

Mark Steadman, the creator and host, studied Media & Communication at Birmingham City University, specializing in Internet radio. He graduated the year the term “podcasting” was coined, but it would be a further four years before he’d pluck up the courage to pick up a mic and plug it into the Internet.

But in 2008, the podcast bug finally bit, and he started what would be a 14+ year career helping people make podcasts, first in exchange for beer, and then for money.

In 2016, he founded the media hosting company Podiant, which took him to the British Podcast Awards, and saw him present at International Podcast Day in 2020. The product served millions of listeners across thousands of podcasts, and in 2021 he sold Podiant, so he could focus on working more closely with individuals and small teams, to set them up for podcasting success from day one.

Steadman, in his bio, says: "My love for radio started at a local level, in the glory-days of personality-based breakfast radio. That love affair was sparked at my home city’s famous BRMB, but a succession of cost-cutting measures, takeovers, and technological advances would slowly snuff out that candle."

In 2021, he founded Origin to help impact entrepreneurs build trust with their audiences, and catalyze change. 

Steadman observes: "I do this through a combination of consulting, training, coaching, and mentoring. It centers around driving messages from the ear to the brain, where – through consistency and authenticity – they eventually land in listeners’ hearts."

On List Envy, Steadman has an ear for all kinds of lists, from the typical to the arcane. Episodes have included lists about top five emoji reactions to the Top 5 Korean TV Romcoms." 

On the show, Steadman sounds like he's having fun with all this, and he tends to bring on guests who don't take themselves -- and these lists -- too seriously.

Check out List Envy. It satisfies our evolutionary need to make lists to bring order to our chaotic world. Along the way to this biological imperative, we learn a lot about a diverse set of subjects -- top 5 time-travel romance films to the top 5 ways to eat potatoes -- and enjoy the amiable and quick-witted host Mark Steadman, along with his guests.

Here are some ideas for future episodes:

1. Top Five Beatles Songs

2. Top Five Fast Food Menu Items

3. Top Five Rodney Dangerfield quotes from Caddyshack

4. Top Five BBC podcasts

5. Top Five U.K. current tennis players