Welcome to the age of the ‘dadcast’: ubiquitous, lucrative – and a bit boring | Archie Bland

Identikit podcasts featuring men of a certain age and character - think George Osborne and Alastair Campbell - are elbowing out innovation

When the austerity era began, the Tories were fond of telling their opponents that there was no such thing as a magic money tree". But in September last year, George Osborne thought he'd finally found one. You may have heard him talking about it.

Political Currency, presented by Osborne and his former Labour opponent Ed Balls, was a cheerfully transparent attempt to take a piece of an exciting new trend in the political podcast market: the ravenous appetite of centrist commuting blokes of a certain age to listen to - be in the room with - two sensible remainer men who wish they were still in charge. Rory Stewart, whose own podcast with Alastair Campbell, The Rest Is Politics, is a fixture of the Top 5 in Apple's chart, calls it disagreeing agreeably. We can call it dadcasting. (As a 40-year-old father who lives in Hackney and literally works for the Guardian, you will not be too surprised that I enjoy several of them.)

Archie Bland is the editor of the Guardian's First Edition newsletter and writes on media, culture and technology