If you're a newbie and you're having trouble setting up podcasts, we recommend first that you check out the info on our podcast page.
If you know you have everything set up right and you're still having problems, email web@thislife.org with specific information on what's happening when, and what platform/programs you're using.
We can't figure out why this is happening, but a few people have reported that after TAL podcasts have been successfully delivered to their desktops/iPods for a few weeks, they suddenly quit. These listeners report that the "solution" is to download the podcasts directly from the official TAL podcast page. This isn't a great option, we know, but the only other thing we can recommend is to try resubscribing to the TAL podcast altogether. This seems to work for some people, not for others.
Try this fix from Apple.
This is most likely due to an iTunes quirk that's beyond our control. To verify, try opening the MP3 in a different audio player (e.g., Windows Media Player, Winamp). But, if you just want a quick workaround:
- Go to the folder on your computer that contains the MP3. If you're not sure where it is, right-click (if you're on a PC) or ctrl-click (if you're on a Mac) the file in iTunes, select "Get Info," and the bottom of the "Summary" tab should say: "Where."
- Make a copy of the MP3 in the same folder. Either double click or "play" the new file, then it will move to the iTunes library – and you should be good to go. To prevent confusion, you'll probably want to delete the dormant file from your iTunes and your computer.
Chances are that the file is actually downloading – the problem may be that you can't see where it's being saved. A better option might be to right click and hold on the download icon (or, if you're on a Mac, hold down the control key while clicking that icon). This should bring up the option to save the file. You should be able to specify that you'd like to save the file to your desktop, but if not you'll at least be able to see the file's name so that you can search for it later (and by the way, all our MP3s are named according to show number. Thus, episode 25 is named 25.mp3).
In the vast majority of cases, this issue is due to your download being interrupted. If your connection is lost, even ever-so-briefly (and brief connection losses can be common) the download will stop. Conventionally, podcasts will resume download after an interruption, but for some reason ours doesn't. We're working on this problem. In the meantime, here are a few tips to work around the issue:
- Make sure to keep iTunes open for the entire download.
- Make sure that your computer does not go to sleep or hibernate during the download.
- Check your version of iTunes, Adobe Flash Player, and Quicktime: are they the most recent?
You can also download the MP3 directly from our site. Just go to our homepage, and look at the last week's show for the little red arrow that says "Get Free MP3". Right-click on this link (or if you're on a Mac, ctrl + click) and select "save link as" or "save target as" from the menu. The MP3 should automatically download to your desktop or documents folder.
Thanks for bearing with us!
There are a handful of shows—especially very early ones—that we'd just as soon never have anyone hear again. If they're not currently on our website, they're unlikely ever to be released again (sorry, folks!). Then there are some later shows where contributors haven't granted permission to put their stories online.
Each week's episode is posted on the Monday following national broadcast and is free for seven days. After that initial week, the show migrates into our 300+ episode archive. You can download archived shows from the iTunes Store or Audible.com for only 95 cents an episode. Or you can listen to these shows for free anytime, via streaming audio, right here on our website.
Downloads are availablefrom the iTunes Store or Audible.com for only 95 cents an episode. You can also purchase a CD of any show for $13 by clicking on the CD icon next to the title. This includes shipping, as well as a beautiful label and sleeve designed by artist Chris Ware.
If you have trouble playing our MP3s, first make sure you have the latest version of Flash installed on your computer. You may also have to contact your Internet service provider and ask them to add our audio server to a “safe list.”
If you've got Flash and a stable, fast (non-dialup) connection, if you're able to stream MP3s from other locations without buffering or dropouts, but you're still having trouble, try this: When you begin streaming a file and the special streaming player pops up, right-click (or control-click on a Mac) and select "Settings" from the pull-down menu. Then select the tab with the image of the file folder. Under the "local storage" option, it says "How much information can audio.thisamericanlife.org store on your computer?" Slide the slider over to "unlimited." This should make a huge difference. If, after doing this you subsequently can't re-stream shows you've started to listen to but want to finish later, just be sure to clear your browser's cache.
If this doesn't work, the culprit may be a temporary Internet burp somewhere between you and us that we can't really treat. You may also have to contact your Internet service provider and ask them to add our audio server to a “safe list.”
Sadly, many folks on dial-up have trouble listening to our files. We're told, though, that if you open one of the streams and let it sit for awhile, giving your computer time to queue the audio file, you'll eventually be able to play it without interruption. Listeners report that this can take 45 minutes to four hours, depending on your connection speed.
If you're having trouble fast-forwarding to a section of a show you'd like to hear, make sure you're allowing the MP3 player enough time to download enough of the stream to get you to that point. In other words, if you're immediately trying to advance to, say, 45 minutes into a show file, you may have to wait a few minutes (depending on your connection speed) before you can fast-forward that far.
For most of 2006, in addition to our weekly radio show, we shot and edited a television version of This American Life for the Showtime cable network. The series began airing in March 2007.
We did everything possible to make the TV show feel like the radio program. To see what we mean by that, check out the section of our website devoted to TV episode descriptions, TV-related links, and TV trailers and clips.
Goodness, no! We'll continue making the radio show as long as you all keep listening to it.
Showtime approached us; public television didn't. That's how we ended up on Showtime. And one advantage of working with a commercial network is that when they decide to do your series, they can just write a check, and you begin production. Public TV greenlights their series, and then begins the fundraising process, which takes years. And though we had no idea what it would be like to work with a commercial network, and had some fears about it, it's been very easy to work with Showtime. As Ira says, "We kept waiting for the moment when they'd say, 'This stuff is fine, but when do the girls take off their tops?'" That never happened. They supported our vision of the show at every step. When they gave us critiques of our stories, the notes were the same kinds of questions we were asking ourselves: "Is this part of the story dramatic enough?" "Can I hear more about this character?" There never overrode any of our creative decisions. It was a very happy working relationship. We couldn't have done better with public TV.
DVDs of our first season are now on sale exclusively at Borders. You can also download the entire season from iTunes.
Some of you noticed that for the last half of 2006, there were more repeats than normal. This was due to production of the This American Life television show, which we completed in December of 2006. Our small staff averaged one new radio show every three weeks, while making TV. That's now ended, and we're back to our regular production schedule. Should there be a second season of the television show, we plan to schedule the work so that there aren't as many radio reruns.
Our regular weekly broadcasts are closed to the public, but every few years, we go on the road and do live shows, onstage, for broadcast. The most recent, "What I Learned from Television," was in 2007, recorded on a six-city tour. Right now we have no live shows planned.
Over the years, we've used hundreds of songs under our stories – and in some stories, we use a number of different songs in different sections. We tried to answer these emails for awhile, but often it was impossible sometimes to pinpoint which song people were asking about - and the reality of digging up the answer completely overwhelmed us. We do keep track, but the files are kept in one place, and our webstaff is in another. For this reason, it's unfortunately not possible for us to answer emails asking what music was playing under a particular story. That said, if you're just browsing for ideas generally, some of the music on the show comes from movie soundtracks: Donnie Darko, Amelie, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Virgin Suicides, and others. We also use a lot of Calexico and Bexar Bexar, all of which you can find online.
We get tons of email at TAL these days, and we're thrilled because we know it means many are listening. The trouble is that it does compromise our ability to respond to everyone's email personally. So, we ask that you take some time first to research your question yourself by trying to find the segment you're wondering about in our show description pages. Use that search engine! We've been working really hard to flesh the website out with as much information as possible, so chances are good that if you take time to scan, you'll find what you're looking for. Likewise if you've forgotten a name or something from a show – try listening to the segment again via our free streaming audio. Thanks much for lending a hand.
We have an extremely small staff – of one person (!) – handling both the website updates and show email. As a result, we ask you to be as patient as possible. Many thanks.
First off – read our guidelines. Then, you might want to consider reading Ira's detailed Radio Manifesto on making good radio; it's at Transom.org.
If you'd still like to submit something, we highly recommend that you read Hillary Frank's suggestions. Hillary went from listener, to intern, to regular contributor by carefully following our guidelines, and struggling to get past our initial rejection and long-delayed responses. Hillary kindly wrote us this little treatise detailing her experience on the outside, and now, on the inside: How to Get on This American Life. Read it, and perhaps you'll follow in her footsteps.
Some important notes on submissions: don't email the web@thislife.org address with your submissions.The correct address is in the guidelines.
Also, be warned that because of the tremendous volume of ideas we receive, we can only personally respond to the pitches we think might be right for the show.
A final note: if you do submit audio (we accept CDs, DATs and cassettes), they must be accompanied by a full script in order to be considered. You can also just send a script, solo.
Ah, we were hoping you'd ask that. Radio's fun. Luckily, there's a website devoted to putting the tools into people's hands to do interesting radio stories. It's called Transom.org. It has a ton of basic explanation about the tech side of things, plus it's the only place anywhere that people just starting in radio get to chat with experienced oldtimers like Studs Terkel, Sarah Vowell, Scott Carrier, and most of the best documentary producers in the country.
Ira's own massive Radio Manifesto is at home at Transom: it's a great resource for people starting out.
Some other useful links:
- Our Comic Book: Step-by-step explanations –with pictures – of how to make stories in the style of This American Life.
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Radio Diaries: Handbook on making your own stories (plus really great stories archived on their site)
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Sound Portraits: Another how to (plus a great archive)
We use the Marantz PDM 670. It records directly to a memory card. There's no tape at all. We've had good experiences with this. We use a 1 gig or 2 gig memory card, and record – this sentence is about to get unbelievably technical – in the MP2 format, 44.1 sampling rate (which is the same sampling rate as CDs) and 192 kbps. We use the Audio Technica 835B shotgun microphone, and we also use a bunch of wireless microphones.
We edit on Macs, using Digidesign's Pro Tools. We convert our MP2s into Sound Designer II files.
There are better mics and better recorders. When we hear David Isay's work – which is recorded digitally using super-expensive phantom-powered mics - we hear a huge difference, and always feel a little jealous. But what we lose in sound quality on our show we gain in reliability and flexibility. This recorder and microphone can be shipped around the country. They're easy enough to use that we can give instructions to beginners over the phone.
If you want really good advice about what equipment to buy, you should go to Transom.org, a non-profit site for people starting in radio. They have great reviews and how-to's.
Please read this very important paragraph: In general, when people's tape sounds bad, we find it isn't because their gear is so bad. It's because they're shy (as everyone is at first) about getting in close with the microphone. Or they have the interview in an unnecessarily noisy, buzzy annoying environment. The best thing you can do to improve most recordings is simply to get closer with the microphone. A correctly-microphoned interview with a minidisc or cassette will sound a thousand times better than a badly-miked interview with the most expensive gear in the world.