Looking back 2025 | Podcasts, and rage bait, continued to change Malta’s media landscape

Podcasts are having their moment. They’ve been around for as long as smartphones and the internet, but have shot up in popularity over the past decade, so much so that almost everyone and their mother has a podcast nowadays.

It’s a medium with little barrier to entry that has shaken up the traditional media landscape, with Malta being no exception.

In Malta, it was Jon Mallia who made the podcast format mainstream. He was dubbed by some as the Maltese Joe Rogan, using a simple production set-up to have long chats with various personalities, whether they be politicians, influencers, priests or singers.

Jon’s podcast is still going strong, but there are far more podcasts in the market nowadays. Trudy Kerr offers a more women-oriented platform with The She Word, which has also become more popular with time. Media houses have set up their own podcasts on Spotify and Facebook, as have companies and NGOs. Even the Labour and Nationalist parties both have political podcasts in the works too, despite owning their own radio stations.

But looking back at 2025, two podcasts stand out among the fold because they elicited emotion and commanded social media engagement. In short, they knew how to outrage the masses and keep the attention on them.

Rage with a side of Bajd u Bejken

The Bajd u Bejken crew, seen here outside the law courts, were no stranger to controversy in 2025, with Terry ta’ Bormla instituting legal proceedings against them over a transphobic joke. The case was eventually dropped after an amicable agreement (Photo: Bajd u Bejken/Facebook

We were barely two months into the new year when people on Facebook found a clip of one of the hosts on the popular, dark-humour podcast Bajd u Bejken passing a joke about Twanny Aquilina, a child who was murdered in 1960. His mother, Ġiġa Camilleri, had been found guilty of murdering him, although doubts were later raised as to the guilty verdict.

The case horrified the nation and was the subject of many a Xarabank feature decades later. Everyone knew about the case, except for one of the crew members of Bajd u Bejken. The other hosts were amazed that he had never heard of Twanny or Ġiġa, then one of them chimed in with something along the lines of: “To be fair to Ġiġa, all kids are insufferable at that age.”

Outrage ensued. People were so offended by this comment that some even held a vigil in honour of the murdered child, 65 years after his death, because they felt the joke went too far. Free expression dominated talk show agendas for the two weeks after this. Until eventually, like all instances of internet outrage, the anger died down and people moved on with their lives.

At least for a couple of months. In May, Bajd u Bejken were forced to take a break after widespread backlash over a transphobic joke made during one of their live shows that targeted social media personality Terry Muscat, better known as Terry ta’ Bormla. During the show, the comedians showed a doctored photo of Terry with male genitalia. The backlash led to host JD Patrick quitting the podcast, and co-host Max Vassallo doing damage control. Vassallo posted an eight-minute apology video on Facebook, saying the show’s humour is not rooted in discrimination.

But this wasn’t the end of BUB. The podcast continues without JD Patrick, who is hosting a radio show on Magic Malta 91.7. They practically sold out their most recent live shows and will probably continue to offend with zeal, for better or for worse.

Rage, dressed in a sparkly suit

Ricky Caruana posing with Joseph Muscat and Michelle Muscat during a party event the former organised to award his podcast guests a trophy (Photo: Ricky Caruana Podcast/Facebook)

Bajd u Bejken is not the only podcast that garnered attention this year. About a year and a half ago, a new podcaster emerged on the scene armed with a strong contacts list and a garish collection of blazers. He quickly managed to score interviews with high-profile people, starting with disgraced former EU Commissioner John Dalli and going on to secure a 2.5 hour long sit-down with ex-PM Joseph Muscat.

Yet, Caruana is a divisive figure. He might not be making jokes about Twanny and Ġiġa, but he handles complex subjects with a certain careless disregard and parochial frame of mind, like when he said that women should be the ones to stay home with children because they are naturally more connected to the baby. This caused rightful outrage from the Malta Women’s Lobby and the national equality commission.

Beyond these questionable views, Caruana doesn’t keep his interviewees accountable. Even when sat in front of politicians like John Dalli and Joseph Muscat, he shies away from prodding and poking on their misdemeanours. The Ricky Caruana Podcast is just an opportunity for casual conversation and light reputation laundering.

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Caruana, in the span of a year he became a household name with his own primetime slot on the public broadcaster. He is officially on government payroll as an influencer for Project Green. He might ruffle feathers from time to time, but the free market has rewarded him and made him a media personality in his own right.

Rage-baiting the masses

Ricky Caruana was awarded a Friday night prime-time slot discussion programme on national broadcaster TVM (Photo: Ricky Caruana Podcast/Facebook)

So, what do Ricky Caruana and BUB have in common? They might not be masters of nuance or satire, but they know how to elicit emotion—specifically, rage—to drive traffic or engagement to their podcasts.

There are few stronger emotions than rage, and in a space like social media, which is driven by likes, comments and other forms of engagement, outrage is the most powerful emotion of them all. Unlike love, rage demands explanation. You don’t need to comment why a story of a hatching turtle nest is cute, but you do need to explain why a particular joke offended you, and why your reasoning might be different to someone else’s. You must discuss it. You must share it with friends or colleagues to discuss it with them. There are many ways to engage with outrage, and the media personalities who have mastered the outrage have been rewarded for doing so, whether through sold-out live shows or primetime television slots.

Malta is no different to the rest of the world. There’s a reason why the Oxford Word of the Year is ‘rage bait’. All over the internet, content creators know that attention has become the most valuable currency. In a fragmented media landscape where anyone with a microphone can compete for relevance, provoking outrage is often more effective than informing, entertaining or challenging audiences with depth and care. Rage, whether wrapped in dark humour or a polished blazer, travels faster and further than nuance ever could.

This doesn’t mean that podcasts are inherently corrosive, nor that controversy should be avoided at all costs, but the success of rage-driven content raises uncomfortable questions about accountability, ethics and the role of media figures who wield significant influence without the editorial checks of traditional journalism.

In 2026, podcasts will no doubt continue to grow and evolve in Malta. But as audiences, creators and institutions focus on engagement metrics, they might also benefit from looking inwards and asking themselves what kind of public conversation they are rewarding, and at what cost.