This month’s edition of TPR-related news and reports is a tad later than usual, but at least it’s here. June was a busy month for TPR, and you may have noticed that TPR News has been on a bit of a break. Due to work and other time commitments, we decided to give the show two weeks off at the beginning of July. The next edition of TPR news will be out towards the end of this week.

The next Seijigiri is set to be recorded about an hour from now, and should be released tomorrow. That said, it’s time to look at the numbers, and follow that with this month’s news:

The Numbers

10 audio releases in June - 7 original and 3 Old-Time Radio. The top five original releases by listens in June:

1. Seijigiri #26 - June 5
2. BizCast Japan #4 - June 14
3. TPR News for June 17
4. TPR News for June 12
5. BizCast Japan #5 - June 21

Listenership surged in June. After moving about 1.5 gigs per day in March and April, and slightly less in May, we came just a hair short of moving 2 gigs a day in June. We now have nearly 200 listeners on the average day, and that number is sure to increase again in July, since server logs show well, well over 2 gigs a day worth of audio being listened to by visitors.

The News

As I mentioned at the top of this post, TPR News will be running again later this week. We’re excited to announce that TPR News will have its first “celebrity” guest reader later this month, as part of our Upper House election coverage.

At the end of July or beginning of August (the exact date has not been set yet), we will be doing a follow-up interview with human rights activist Debito Arudou. His Seijigiri appearance back in March left plenty of unanswered questions, and we have decided to release a new interview as part of the Spotlight series. The exact format of the interview has not been decided upon either, but we’re hoping to stick with a one-on-one format.

Finally, later this month we will be introducing a monthly column by fellow Bostonian Sam Porter, who will be moving to Japan in August in order to spend his senior year at a Japanese high school. Sam is going to provide us with a fresh perspective on school life in Japan, reporting on things as he sees them. He’s going to provide an introduction of himself in his first column to be published here in the next few weeks.

As always, thank you for listening and thanks to those who have given us feedback, either here or by email.