BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

Hello, I'm Tina Deheelie.

This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4,

the space to ask one big question about one big story.

Today, how did podcasts become mainstream?

Now you can probably identify a few moments when the podcast phenomenon really began.

A lot of people would say it was the start of the True Crime Series serial in 2014. Many would say it was the moment in 2009 when an

American comedian started interviewing people in his garage. WTF with Mark

Marin has since grown to be a podcast juggernaut each month

it's downloaded six million times and it's just celebrated 1,000 episodes.

Some of the most famous people in the world have talked to Mark,

rock stars, A-Listers and even a former US president. You might also know Mark

from the Netflix series glow, he's also a successful stand-up comedian and he's here

in the UK at the moment to play a few shows. I sat down with Mark a few days ago to talk about

how podcast made the jump from the underground to the mainstream

and what it's like to have Barack Obama come visit.

It's quite an undertaking because the Secret Service has to come, they have to figure out how to secure the perimeter,

they have to figure out where to put the snipers, they have to install isolated phone lines

in case the world ends, and there's no other way to communicate and the plan was

that there would be about 15 Secret Service on premises and there would be about a

dozen cops and they

had to go up securely into my backyard and they made a carport

...