Contested

What can we say about Scene on Radio that hasn’t already been said - the show is beloved and a pinnacle of the medium. Every season, John Biewen and a co-host methodically and deliberately undermine everything you thought you knew. It’s the show you recommend to someone looking to “do the work” and the one you recommend to your parents knowing they’ll never listen. But prior to Scene on Radio’s iconic second season, Seeing White, its origins have always felt a bit murky. The show’s first six episodes were released in 2015 and focused on sports as a lens for culture. Biewen presents these episodes as a series called Contested, but it somehow didn’t achieve the notoriety of subsequent seasons, Seeing White, Men, or The Land That Never Has Been Yet. Indeed, after the series published, Scene on Radio proceeded more as an anthology until it's breakout success with Seeing White in 2017. Consequently, even many dedicated listeners have never heard this initial season. That’s not even to mention how good this series is. As the 2024 Summer Olympics open in Paris, the world’s media outlets will paint sports as a purely human pursuit. We present it as “the great uniter” and avoid the giant societal discussions about sex, gender, sexuality, religion, heritage, and economics that are also in play. Contested takes these questions individually, with each episode presenting complex characters working through thorny issues. Together the series provides depth to a monolith in culture. While it may not seem like it shares the heft of future seasons on whiteness, the environment, and capitalism, Contested recognizes the ubiquity of sport and its power to set and change minds. There’s something fresh in the first few minutes of the show and that permeates Biewen’s writing throughout the series. You can hear him wrestling with the question of what it means to host a podcast. Not only what is the format of this digital show, but also what listeners can and should expect from it, and the relationship between host and listener. In 2015, these questions are unique for podcasting, but that inquiry has become a hallmark of the Scene on Radio sound. Biewen remains actively conscious of his role and has been proactive in offering the host seat to other people who might better tell a story (which is more than can be said about many other shows of the same prestige). Moreover, this dialogue has been picked up by other documentarians including Jess Shane in Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative, PJ Vogt in Search Engine, and Sayre Quevedo in his talk Orexis: A Manifesto in 21 Questions. We assure you that this is not sports radio, and that you don’t have to like sports to be into this series. And if you love sports, we assure you that this series will add to your love and not undermine it. At the very least, we can assure everyone that John Biewen’s voice is a balm.