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This article is about the satirical audio news podcast. For the musical instrument, see bugle. For other uses, see Bugle (disambiguation).


The Bugle
File:The Bugle Art.jpg
The Bugle cover art (Issue 180)
Presentation
Hosted byJohn Oliver, Andy Zaltzman
GenreNews, Comedy
LanguageEnglish
UpdatesWeekly
Production
Audio formatStream, MP3, AAC
Publication
Original release14 October 2007

The Bugle is a weekly satirical news podcast, hosted by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman, initially distributed by TimesOnline, but produced independently since January 2012. New episodes of The Bugle are released on Fridays with related material appearing on the official website.[1]

Focusing on global news stories (but primarily on UK/US news items), the show was launched in 2007 following John Oliver's move to New York to work on The Daily Show, allowing Oliver and Andy Zaltzman to continue a partnership that had previously enjoyed success with Political Animal and The Department. In December 2011 The Times decided to stop producing the show and the show became an independent production in January 2012.

Offshoots

  • The Bugle Website - Created in January 2012, the site contains updates on new shows, funding information, notes from the producer and technical information. A site with the same URL (http://www.thebuglepodcast.com) had existed previously as an unofficial site.
  • @hellobuglers, a Twitter account.[2] Although it began as a complement to The Bugle, primarily publishing one-liner political jokes, it also serves as Andy Zaltzman's own Twitter feed. For example, Andy has used it to announce his guest appearances on other programs.[3]
  • @Buglesamerican, a Twitter account[4] from sometime guest "The American" (voiced by Rory Albanese).
  • @ProducerChris, a Twitter account[5] from show producer Chris Skinner, providing news and updates.

Producers

Tom

Tom Wright,[6] known solely on The Bugle as "Tom the Producer", was the producer of the show from episodes 1 through episode 107. He was first mentioned in episode 11 as Zaltzman announced his plans for the Hotties From History calendar. For most of the Bugle he remained silent, occasionally intervening to ask John and Andy to finish up so he can go home or responding to questions when asked. In later episodes he contributed more often, with listeners often addressing their e-mails to him directly. According to Tom's on-air answers to a number of questions sent to him by fans he is married, has a daughter, is Scottish, enjoys his job and does not ski.

In February 2010, Tom and his family emigrated to Australia. A week before his departure, he announced his intention to continue producing The Bugle remotely. However, in Bugle 106 (6 March 2010), it was announced that the next Bugle would be Tom's last as he had found another job. When asked by John and Andy what his new gig was, he refused to identify it on the grounds that it was a sensible show and that mentioning it by name would result in it being abused by Buglers. John and Andy agreed that this was an accurate characterization of their audience and did not pursue the matter further on the air.

Chris

After Tom left, he was replaced by Chris "Fuckslice" Skinner. Chris has previously worked with Andy on "Yes, It's the Ashes" radio show on BBC Radio 5 Live in 2009 and also produces "The Game" podcast for Times Online. When Chris first began producing the podcast, he restructured the standard musical cues quite a bit to jarring effect (e.g., he once played the podcast's closing music during the middle of an episode), but over time, his production became more similar to Tom’s. Appearing to be younger and more enthusiastic, Chris occasionally participates in banter with Oliver and Zaltzman with his guest spots increasing in volume over time, an example being an extended conversation about the state of Australia in Bugle 140. Chris has been the subject of semi-ironic hate mail (and fan mail) from listeners,[7] apparently for no reason other than that he is not Tom, and this became a running joke of the show. Chris is the star of fuckyouchris.com, a site devoted to chronicling fan's ironic hatred of Chris. Despite this, fans now appear to only be sending hate mail as a good-natured joke (including the fuckyouchris website), accepting his role on the show's staff. He is the only member of the bugle staff to be a regular poster on the Bugle Facebook page - often insulting buglers and taunting them with his power to release bugles late or badly cut. It should also be noted that Chris "does not ski."

Ped

The enigmatic Ped subs for Chris when the latter is ill or on holiday. A man of very few words, about whom almost nothing is known, he is generally regarded as a most dependable hand on the tiller. Vague attempts at getting a Chris-style hate campaign going against Ped have so far not succeeded. Ped also deputies for Chris on The Game.

Paul

The only producer to be mentioned on the American side, Paul manages the New York studio where John Oliver records his part of The Bugle. Paul has been with The Bugle since the beginning. Paul plays the trumpet, which was shown in one podcast when The Bugle used short excerpts of Paul playing the trumpet for the musical interludes between segments.

Reception

The Bugle has received many positive mentions in the media. A review by American blog Frozen Toothpaste described the podcast in a 2007 review as 'a usually delightful, witty and deadpan satire'.[8] Computing website Philosophical Geek praised The Bugle for its unique wit, saying that the reviewer found himself 'laughing too hard to concentrate on anything else'.[9] The Bugle, according to The Nerd Rage Blog, is 'a thing of beauty' and 'is quite simply, hilarious'. Zaltzman's 'bullshit facts' are complimented, as is Oliver's 'biting sarcasm'.[10] BBC Comedy review show What's So Funny described The Bugle as the benchmark in satire, in an episode dated 27 May 2011.[11]

Relationship with News International

Until January 2012 the Bugle was distributed by TimesOnline, a division of The Times of London, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International. During the News International phone hacking scandal of 2011, The Bugle satirised its parent company in a manner which the New York Times characterized as "blistering" in an article published 15 August.[12] Over the course of a few weekly episodes prior to the New York Times' article, Zaltzman and Oliver had gone "straight for the jugular" regarding News International, its newspapers, and Murdoch himself.[12] Their barbs included a comment that The News of the World "would not be missed at all", as well as the assertion by Oliver—in response to the shaving cream pie attack on Murdoch—that despite the humor inherent in the attack, "[y]ou just don't want to find yourself with any misplaced sympathy for Rupert Murdoch."[12] The comedians jokingly marveled with one another that no one in News International had yet shut down their podcast, with Oliver tapping his microphone and asking, "Should this not have been stopped by now? It doesn’t make sense!"[12] In response to the report from the New York Times, in an episode of the Bugle released 19 August, Oliver gave this opening monologue:

"Welcome to any first-time Buglers who are here because they might have read The New York Times' story on us earlier this week…but now that the story's in a newspaper that I'm guessing [Murdoch] reads cover to cover every day, I'm thinking there's an even smaller chance of us managing to not get fired now. So thanks very much, New York Times! Your trumpeting of this podcast may well turn into bugling the Last Post. I guess what I'm saying is—to our new listeners—'Hello and goodbye!'"[13]

End of relationship with Times Online

On December 14, 2011, Zaltzman announced that Times Online would soon cease hosting and distributing The Bugle.[14] He stressed that he did not believe that this decision was connected to the Bugle's coverage of the News International phone hacking scandal.[15] He also stated that both he and John wished to continue creating the podcast, and so Zaltzman "[does] not see this as the end of The Bugle".[16]

Episodes

A full list of episodes of The Bugle, including titles, release dates, and download links, is available at the podcast's RSS feed (Times Online feed). The following list reproduces only the titles.

Sub-episodes

Starting 29 September 2011, the show's producer Chris initiated a new series of episodes to be released on the topic of world leaders, to be released instead of the normal cut-outs when the presenter(s) are away.[17]

Notes

  1. ^ In the "History of the World" subseries, Andy pronounced the lowercase letters as being Greek letters, i.e. alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. For presumably technical reasons, the Greek letters were not rendered in the episode titles as α, β, γ, and δ, but rather as the Latin letters a, b, g, and d. Note also that the Greek alphabet does not follow the order of the Latin alphabet, which is why the episodes are a, b, g, d instead of a, b, c, d.
  2. ^ The episode was recorded a mere 40 minutes after Hosni Mubarak's resignation much to the presenters' surprise after his speech on 10th February

References

  1. ^ Bennett, Rosemary; Watson, Roland. "The Bugle". The Times. London. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
  2. ^ "@hellobuglers". Twitter. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
  3. ^ "@hellobuglers". Twitter. 5 December 2010. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
  4. ^ "@Buglesamerican". Twitter. Retrieved 9 January 2011.
  5. ^ "@Producerchris". Twitter. Retrieved 27 January 2012.
  6. ^ http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tomwright2
  7. ^ http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=113169382027094
  8. ^ http://www.frozentoothpaste.com/2007/11/19/review-the-bugle-podcast/
  9. ^ http://www.philosophicalgeek.com/2008/04/03/the-bugle-podcast/
  10. ^ https://thenerdrageblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/podcasts-you-should-be-listening-to-the-bugle-2/
  11. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011f7m1
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Goodman, J. David (14 August 2011). "Comedy Podcast Inside News Corp. Feasts on a Scandal". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 August 2011.
  13. ^ Zaltzman, Andy (19 August 2011). "Episode 165: Bashar goes to Madcon 1". The Bugle. TimesOnline. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ Zaltzman, Andy. "hellobuglers". Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  15. ^ Zaltzman, Andy. "hellobuglers". Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  16. ^ Zaltzman, Andy. "hellobuglers". Retrieved 14 December 2011.
  17. ^ Zaltzman, Andy (29 September 2011). "Leaders Special #1 - Silvio Berlusconi". The Bugle. TimesOnline. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
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