Podcasts about Tennessee, United States

During a Republican primary forum for Coffee County mayor, one candidate stops talking about zoning in general and talks instead about a friend who farms 600 acres. If that farmer ever needs to sell a single acre to live on, the candidate says, he will have to "go in front of a board, pay money, just to try to get rid of one acre." The forum, carried on Thunder Radio Podcasts from Manchester, also discusses a triplex allowed on land zoned for lower density, and whether the town's water, sewer and schools can carry it. It is a local debate. It also raises the question that runs under much of what this state's podcasts discuss: who gets to decide, and how far from the people affected they sit.

The first thing most listeners will hear is sports, and most of it is loud. Early October 2026 gave the hosts plenty to work with. Tennessee's college football team beat Auburn 24–14 in Knoxville on October 3. The next day the Titans lost 24–18 to Baltimore and fell to 0–4. Vols shows and Titans shows can sound like one long call-in hour whose mood changes between Saturday and Sunday.

Off the field, the arguments are also about authority. In September 2026, Chalkbeat reported that Memphis-Shelby County Schools' leaders had obtained a temporary pause in the state takeover on June 30. That is an interim position, not a final outcome. Republican proponents presented intervention as a response to academic performance and district management, and opponents argued that removing elected officials' authority infringed Memphis residents' voting rights.

What Tennessee is

Tennessee is a landlocked state in the southeastern United States. Its population was an estimated 7,315,076 on July 1, 2025, and its land area measured 41,232.49 square miles in 2020. Its economy includes health care, automotive manufacturing, finance, chemicals, electronics, tourism and music, and its musical associations include country, blues and rock and roll.

Friday nights, Saturdays and the morning after

Most of these shows are about particular places inside the state, and the smallest stages are some of the most revealing. Thunder Radio Podcasts carries CHS Red Raider Football vs. Tullahoma - 08/28/2026 Half 1, in which Josh Peterson and Dustin Murray set out three keys to victory. Their play-by-play then carries Coffee County into "the Lane's Reunion scoring zone," with a sponsor's name folded into the call. A barbecue restaurant, a trucking firm and a pharmacy all get read between downs. The same feed's Coffee Coaches Show 4/18/2026 has a high-school tennis coach explain how freshmen are learning the jump from middle-school play. The conversation also turns into a long, affectionate argument about who has ever been to a tractor pull.

Beyond the Boxscore does similar work for Giles County at a slower pace. In Beyond the Boxscore for April 2, 2026, reporter Chandler Harmon and co-host Mark look back at the Richland Lady Raiders' championship. Mark notes that his story ran nearly 2,000 words with quotes from 12 different people, a record for him. The feed also carries Maurice Patton's Sports on Main Street. In Sports on Main Street Episode 38 for April 15, 2026, Matt Wilson, newly named Ohio Valley Conference commissioner, sums up college athletics: "the sand is just shifting under your feet all the time."

The Vols shows divide by temperament. Fanrun Radio's More Tennessee Auburn Talk | TalkSports Hour 2 10/2 works through the injury report and approves of the re-sodded midfield under a new interlocking UT logo, reading chat messages from listeners as it goes. The 1796 Sports Podcast sharpens a single grievance. In The 1796 Sports Podcast: Another HUGE Third Saturday in October, the hosts keep returning to Tim Banks and say near the end, "Just pray to God. Tim Banks doesn't show up." More Important Issues handles defeat more gently. In Ep 378 | March 29th, 2026 | A Sad Sunday on Rocky Top, recorded after a basketball loss a host calls embarrassing, he says he is proud of a team that beat his expectations, adding, "I'm still wearing my orange."

Titans talk this fall is mostly grief management. Aidan Karns titled his September 29 episode of Two Tone Titans Podcast DISASTER LOSS TO THE GIANTS / Cam Ward Is The PROBLEM / THE SEASON IS OVER / SEATS GETTING HOT???. In the calmer OFFSEASON BLUEPRINT / Cut Candidates / Free Agency / Positions of NEED, near the end he shares a verse from 1 Corinthians and the words "Tighten up."

Memphis: home court and morning drive

The Memphis page continues where this section stops. Grizz Beat is a Grind City Media panel led by Jason Smith with Jarvis Greer, Michael Wallace and Anthony Sane. Its best stretch in Rayan Rupert's Grizz Future, Who is MVP?, NBA's 65-Game Rule has nothing to do with standings. A panelist describes taking his nine-year-old grandson to the last home game. He then remembers early nights at the Pyramid, when fans came in other teams' jerseys, and how the crowd became "a Grizzlies crowd." He calls the arena "the big community center." Grits and Grinds: Memphis Grizzlies is the counterweight, with Keith tracking a losing season with dry patience. In A historic lack of rebounds and Cedric Coward's All-Rookie case, he notes that 31 players have appeared for the team and says he will never name them all: "I will wear that as a badge of honor."

Morning radio sounds like a different city. Wake Up Memphis Podcast is Steve Gill's openly conservative talk show on The Mighty 990 KWAM, and the newest episodes on its feed date from June 2025. In Supreme Court Slaps Down Planned Parenthood in New Opinion! (6/27), Gill argues that newcomers from California, Chicago and New York are making Collierville and Bartlett "a little bit more purple." That is his commentary, and the episode states harsher claims about immigrants in the same register. In Federal Magistrate Orders Illegal Alien Abrego Garcia Freed!?!?! (6/26), Senator Marsha Blackburn describes riding along with ICE agents.

Mid-South Viewpoint // Bott Radio Network moves at a gentler pace. In 200 Walks, Countless Transformations, Byron Tyler gives guests from the Emmaus Walk room to describe the three-day weekends planned for Camp Conquest in Millington. For the city's past, Our Memphis History's episode, Ida B. Wells – Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, recounts Wells weeping through her first public speech in New York.

Nashville behind the bandstand

Nashville's shows spend time away from stars. Roosic, hosted by K.C. Harris and Brian Graham, talks with working players. #060 - Cannon Moltz covers a year of mornings at TPAC, afternoons at a school, night classes at Belmont and weekend gigs downtown. It also describes drives to Clarksville for piano lessons that prompt the line "I'm so bad at this instrument." Grand Ole Opry | OTRWesterns.com supplies the older town: Prince Albert broadcasts with the tobacco ads left in. In Casey Jones (Red Foley)(Prince Albert) | Grand Ole Opry (09-20-52), Minnie Pearl describes a "mother-in-law sandwich": "cold shoulder and spiced tongue."

Other shows deal with the cost and texture of staying. Early in Jason Laiacona- Executive Chef- Miel on Nashville Restaurant Radio, host Brandon Still warns that he is no therapist. What follows is a candid talk about ADHD, drinking and sobriety in kitchen work. Nashville and Beyond comes from father-and-son realtors Brian and Zach Copeland and strays far from listings. The One About Quilts follows a trip to QuiltCon in Raleigh, where one host estimates that close to 40 percent of the quilts dealt with resistance. Pharmaceutical Soccer: Nashville Soccer Podcast, in Episode 293: The Final Countdown, credits fans planning to spend money and take days off to follow Nashville SC to Austin for the Open Cup final. NashVillager's April 16, 2026: Protecting kids from online exploitation explains a General Assembly measure that would treat some appearances by minors in monetized family videos as child labor. The Nashville page continues from here.

East Tennessee, and towns that never existed

Real Estate with Ryan brings the housing question to Knoxville. In Are $1 Million Starter Homes Coming to Tennessee? 🏡💰, Ryan Coleman of Hometown Realty reads out a 98 percent median list-to-sale ratio, with 17 percent of sales above list price. Dialogues with Creators covers Northwest Georgia and the Tennessee valley with long, unhurried interviews. In Dana Shavin, the columnist explains that her grandparents came from Russia to Chattanooga and started a plumbing and dry goods business. As a child, she says, she thought nobody could ever be depressed there.

Fiction series use the state as a setting. Limetown is built around the disappearance of more than three hundred people from a small Tennessee town, though its 2018 episodes chase the story to Halifax. The Love Talker is folk horror set where Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee meet, with stated warnings for violence, domestic abuse and sexual assault.

Where to start

• For local democracy at kitchen-table scale: Thunder Radio Podcasts, POLITICAL DEBATE - Coffee County Mayor. Listen for which board the farmer would have to face.
• For a fan who likes the losses itemised: Grits and Grinds: Memphis Grizzlies, A historic lack of rebounds and Cedric Coward's All-Rookie case.
• For country radio as it once sounded: Grand Ole Opry | OTRWesterns.com, Casey Jones (Red Foley)(Prince Albert) | Grand Ole Opry (09-20-52).
• For working musicians talking shop: Roosic, #060 - Cannon Moltz.
• For a patient conversation about family and place: Dialogues with Creators, Dana Shavin.

The Tennessee feed on this page plays clips from these shows.