Podcast and internet radio previews: Meet the Author, Unreported World Meet the Author It's surely a sign of the times that this podcast - featuring extended interviews with some of the UK's most popular authors - has been produced not by a publishing house or bookshop but by the US technology giant Apple. Whatever you think of that, it's hard to deny the strength of its line-up, with episodes given over to writers of fiction and non-fiction, including Hilary Mantel, Stephen Fry, Professor Brian Cox and Nick Hornby - not to mention a brilliantly offbeat performance by the Australian author and musician Nick Cave. Freight Train Boogie Musical podcasts can often be frustrating affairs, overfilled with songs that should probably never have left their authors" laptops. This excellent series bucks that trend with an elegantly produced blend of new and unreleased Americana, presented by a laid-back DJ called Bill Frater. As the name suggests, there's an infectious freight-train shuffle to much of the music: just the thing to add a bit of American romance to a long British motorway journey. Unreported World Krishnan Guru-Murthy introduces this eye-opening series of podcasts, made as a companion piece to Channel 4"s foreign affairs strand, which has been rightly acclaimed for following up international stories that don't get coverage elsewhere. As with the TV show, each episode is presented by a different journalist and focuses on a story that they've helped to investigate, with topics including the work of the brave employees of the Afghani film industry (episode three), the communities of homeless Kiev teenagers who live underground (episode five) and the hunting of great apes in Cameroon (episode six). Radio Magnetic Launched over a decade ago, this Glasgow music station is one of the oldest online radio services in the UK. They no longer broadcast a continuous live stream, but instead offer on-demand content - from jazz and world music through to hip-hop and electronica.