Three people, one very small room.
Nightjar has never been more than a three-person studio. That is a constraint, and it is also the reason every episode sounds like it was made by somebody in particular.
The studio
Inés Okonkwo-Vale
Host & Executive Producer
Fifteen years in radio documentary before founding Nightjar in a converted box room in 2019. Reports the long ones. Argues, at length, that a good interview is mostly silence.
Ruben Estévez
Senior Producer & Sound Design
Composes the score for every episode and mixes the whole run himself. Came to podcasting from live theatre sound, which is why our episodes are mixed for headphones rather than car speakers.
Marguerite “Mags” Fenn
Field Producer
Does the travelling, the door-knocking and the six-month follow-up calls. Has recorded in a fishing boat, a decommissioned exchange, and once, briefly, a wardrobe.
How the work actually breaks down
Questions we get asked
Is Nightjar Audio a real company?
No. Nightjar Audio is a fictional brand built to demonstrate how far per-tenant white-labeling goes on this platform — brand name, palette, typography, site content and console theming all come from one tenant record. Every name, quotation and statistic on this site is invented.
How is the show funded?
Listener membership first, a small number of sponsors second. We publish the split at the end of each season so nobody has to guess who paid for what.
Do you take pitches from outside the studio?
Yes, and roughly a third of our episodes now start that way. If a story needs a year of reporting, tell us that in the first paragraph rather than the last.
Why only three people?
Because everyone here has to be able to hear the whole episode in their head. Past about five that stops being possible, and the show starts sounding like a committee.
“I sent them a two-line email about my grandmother’s switchboard. Nine months later they had found four of the operators she trained, and I heard her name on tape for the first time since 1994.”
We are usually looking for one field producer.
Not always. But if you have a reel and a story, we would rather hear from you early than never.