This week marks a milestone for PRI’s weekly “Next Round” podcast as we celebrate our 100th episode.
When we first started the podcast in July 2017, our podcast had a different name, “Another Round with PRI” (I won’t go into the story of why we changed our name). Sally Pipes’ husband, Dr. Charles Kesler, gave us the idea of having a virtual happy hour where we would discuss free-market ideas with our guests over our favorite adult beverages.
As “Next Round with PRI,” we continue that theme by asking each of our guests to share their favorite adult beverages with our listeners. We’ve gotten a lot of interesting recommendations, which we made into a special wine map for PRI’s 40th anniversary. Who knew, for example, that Chuck DeVore would recommend a hipster distillery outside Austin?
At first, it took a long time to edit the episodes to get a final product that was presentable. One of the first episodes we taped was so bad that we taped it a second time before posting. It seemed like a daunting task to line up a weekly guest and deliver a new episode every Tuesday. Fortunately, we’ve never missed a week (other than for planned holiday breaks).
In celebrating our 100th episode, I went back to see which episodes were the most popular with listeners. The winner was our recent episode with noted pollster Scott Rasmussen is the most listened-to episode of “Next Round”. Also, not surprisingly, our Sally Pipes has proven quite popular with listeners, as 3 of the top 10 podcasts are episodes featuring Sally.
Most gratifying to us is that our listenership continues to grow. In fact, 7 of the most popular episodes of “Next Round” are from the past 6 months.
Along the way, we’ve gotten to talk with some interesting people about free-market ideas – from elected officials at the highest levels of government to the PRI All Stars weighing on the latest election or the State of the Union address.
For our 100th episode, we have a very special guest – U.S. House Minority Leader (and my former boss) Kevin McCarthy (click here to listen). We discuss a wide-range of issues, including the first 6 months of the Democratic majority in the House, and a host of issues Californians care about including tech, high-speed rail, health care, and water.
Having worked for Congressman McCarthy more than a decade ago, I asked him what lessons he learned as Assembly Republican Leader in Sacramento and how that helps his current job as minority leader in the U.S. House.
He told me, “I never forget where I come from . . . Sacramento taught you a lot . . . I realized that I was not in the majority, but that didn’t mean that you didn’t have good ideas. It didn’t mean that you didn’t fight for your ideas. And lots of times, we won in those situations. Government is not designed where one side gets 100 percent of what they want. You’ve got to find common ground. And I’m willing to work with anyone who wants to work to make the future better than today.”
On behalf of my co-host Rowena Itchon, we thank you for listening and subscribing. We hope you will enjoy our interview with Congressman McCarthy and the other great guests that we have lined up in the coming months.
And, as Rowena always says at the end of each podcast, you can subscribe to “Next Round” at iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on PRI’s YouTube page (and don’t forget to give us 5 stars).
Top 10 Most Listened-To Episodes of “Next Round with PRI”
- Scott Rasmussen, “Insights from America’s Top Pollster,” June 3, 2019
- Sally Pipes, “Medicare for All in the 2020 Campaign,” April 29, 2019
- Bartlett Cleland, “All Things Tech,” May 20, 2019
- Sally Pipes, “The False Promise of Single-Payer Health Care,” March 5, 2018
- Sally Pipes, “On Single-Payer Health Care,” February 11, 2019
- Steve Hayward, “Earth Day Special,” April 22, 2019
- Tommy Few, “A Front Row Seat in the Fight for Worker Freedom,” May 6, 2019
- Sarah Rose Siskind, “Making America Laugh Again,” December 3, 2018
- Brian Isom, “How Policy Changes Can Help Minimize the Risk of Another Destructive California Wildfire,” June 10, 2019
- Connie Conway, “She’s Back! Former Assembly Republican Leader Takes on Sacramento’s Hot Topics,” April 23, 2018
Tim Anaya is the Pacific Research Institute’s communications director.
