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Romance on the screen and on the page: Two Indicators

NPR | By Erika Beras,
Wailin Wong, Adrian Ma, Darian Woods, Julia Ritchey, Kate Concannon
Published October 24, 2024 at 9:14 AM EDT
Kaitlin Brito for NPR

On today's show, we have two stories from The Indicator, Planet Money's daily podcast. They just launched Love Week, a weeklong series exploring the business and economic side of romance.

First, hosts Wailin Wong and Adrian Ma fire up the gas logs and pour a mug of cocoa to discuss the made-for-TV rom-com machine, and how television executives learned to mass produce seasonal romance.

Then, Wailin and host Darian Woods discuss another romance medium: the romance novel. Once relegated to supermarket aisles, these books are now mainstream. And authors, an often-maligned group within publishing, have found greater commercial success than many writers in other genres. We find out how romance novelists rode the e-book wave and networked with each other to achieve their happily-for-now status in the industry.

This episode is hosted by Erika Beras, Wailin Wong, Adrian Ma, and Darian Woods. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Julia Ritchey and engineered by Kwesi Lee. They were fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator's Editor.

You can listen to the rest of the series at The Indicator's feed, or at npr.org/love

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.

Music: Universal Production Music - "Our Holiday Romance," "Feel The Love," "So In Love With You," and "Sun Worshipper"

Copyright 2024 NPR

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Erika Beras
Erika Beras is a reporter and co-host for NPR's Planet Money podcast.
Wailin Wong
Wailin Wong is a co-host of The Indicator from Planet Money.
Adrian Ma
Adrian Ma covers work, money and other "business-ish" for The Indicator from Planet Money, the daily economics podcast from NPR.
Darian Woods
Darian Woods is a co-host of The Indicator from Planet Money.
See stories by Darian Woods
Julia Ritchey
Julia Ritchey is an audio journalist with 15 years experience reporting, editing and podcasting all over the country. She's reported from eight states and all four U.S. time zones, most recently at Nashville Public Radio, Tennessee's largest NPR affiliate, overseeing the station's policy, environmental and education beats.
Kate Concannon
Kate Concannon is the Supervising Senior Editor at The Indicator from Planet Money. She leads this small, collaborative team of hosts, reporters and producers in making sense of crucial, but often complex and confusing, economic news in just 10 minutes a day.
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