Announcement: Taking a Hiatus to Recharge and Reimagine - A Message from Tyler & Peter
Happy Holidays to our longtime ASPN listeners and CNT readers. We've got big news.
In May 2017, Tyler Buckingham and I began working on a new idea for an ocean and coastal news service and podcast. It was an exciting time of creative energy for us and we spent months developing the idea and framing a new media product. The result of our effort was Coastal News Today and the American Shoreline Podcast Network, which launched in September 2018. It has been an amazing six years since we put the first concepts for this work down on paper.
Today, we are reaching out to inform you that we have decided to take a hiatus from producing this wonderful project. For now.
After curating and releasing tens of thousands of ocean and coastal news stories on CNT and recording and producing almost 1,100 podcast episodes on ASPN, it is time to take a breather, a time to reassess, and a time for a new beginning on how best to tell the stories of the American shoreline.
Our first “podcast” was a brief trailer announcing the American Shoreline Podcast Network, released on August 28, 2018. In that trailer, we set out what we hoped to cover and what we hoped to talk about on ASPN. From the outset, we designed ASPN to be a collaborative exercise that brought together a spectrum of professional perspectives under one podcast umbrella. Tyler and I hosted the American Shoreline Podcast, ASPN’s weekly flagship show, but we were only one voice on the network.
Creating CNT & ASPN has been an absolute labor of love for Tyler and me. Our goal from the beginning was to create a platform for the ocean and coastal community to share news, stories and insights, and to learn from one another. All along, ASPN hosts have been key to our enterprise. They have hosted hundreds of enlightening conversations that have elevated our community’s awareness of coastal science, policy, and even art and together we have presented an amazing diversity of views. And, Tyler produced and edited almost every show released on ASPN over the years, a monumental accomplishment.
We are incredibly proud of what we have created together. ASPN has been a powerhouse of amazing podcasts including:
- Derek Brockbank, Capitol Beach Podcast
- Lesley Ewing, Shorewords Podcast
- Adm. Tim Galuadet (ret.), American Blue Economy Podcast
- Helen Brohl, North Coast Chronicles Podcast
- Peter Neill, World Ocean Radio
- Taylor Goelz, The Ocean Decade Show
- Felicia Olmeta-Schult, Rising Sea Voices Podcast
- Jon Miller, Marissa Torres, Deb Fernandes,Going Coastal Podcast
- Ashley Bennis, Working Waterfronts Podcast
- Arica Sears, Big Tourism Podcast
- Brad Warren and Thane Tienson, Changing Waters Podcast
- Jacques Hebert & Simone Maloz, Delta Dispatches
- Jenna Valente, Sea Change Advocacy Podcast
- Genevieve “GG” Guerry, Kyra Hagge, Rory Kuczek, Kathryn Lienhard, and Nat Blackford, the All Swell? Podcast
- Bill O'Beirne, Coastal Conundrum Podcast
- Tamara Kahn, Wavemakers Podcast
- Howard Marlowe and Dan Ginolfi, Waterlog Podcast
- Dan Martin, Next Gen Waterfronts
Thank you to all our hosts! Click the name of your favorite host and you can see all the shows they did on ASPN.
Creative endeavors take energy, and this one is no different. As we have both settled into the next chapters of our lives, Tyler and I have found that we do not have enough energy to maintain the daily operations of CNT & ASPN, while continuing to grow, improve our product, and attract new audiences. We expect some shows to continue and we will keep you advised on new developments.
So, with both excitement for the future and sadness for the close of a chapter, we are announcing that effective Monday December 18, no new news stories will be uploaded to Coastal News Today. The website will remain online for now, as will all of the podcasts on the site and on our many platforms -- Spotify, Google Pods, Apple Pods and all the places ASPN shows appear. Over the next month, some new episodes of your favorite shows will be released and will appear through our distribution channels.
In taking this break from production, we hope to give ourselves time to think and feel about what the future looks like. We want to ask ourselves the question, “How can we make the most impact in our mission of coastal and ocean storytelling?” We want to have conversations with you, our colleagues and friends, to seek your ideas and guidance. There’s a chance to do something new and better, and we want to find it. If you have a suggestion, drop us a line.
Thank you for reading Coastal News Today and listening to ASPN. And, thank you to all of our sponsors and friends for the support over the years.
Sincerely,
Peter Ravella & Tyler Buckingham, Co-Founders
Coastal News Today & American Shoreline Podcast Network
peter@parccoastal.com and tyler@parccoastal.com
