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[caption width="300" align="alignright"] Julie Shapiro photo from PRX.org.[/caption]Nicholas Quah reports for Nieman Lab that Julie Shapiro has been hired away as Executive Director of Third Coast Festival to be executive producer of Radiotopia. Radiotopia was in the news in May, winning a $1 million grant from the Knight Foundation. The audio group launched in February 2014, and includes the shows "99% Invisible" from Roman Mars and "Criminal" from Lauren Spohrer and Phoebe Judge. In the last 18 months, the similar networks Radiotopia, SoundWorks, Infinite Guest, Gimlet, the Loud Speakers Network, and Wolfpop have all launched, with Midroll creating the Howl app. Shapiro founded Third Coast Festival in 2000, as, "a big independent radio conference/summit/party in Chicago." Shapiro, besides starting the Third Coast conference, also co-produced Third Coast's "Filmless" festival, and edited the "Re:sound" audio show. After the mainstream success of the "Serial" podcast in 2014, that claimed 40 million downloads, radio companies have been hiring, and working on new shows and distribution. In August, the U.S. podcast conference "Podcast Movement" drew more than 1000 audio storytellers from around the globe to Fort Worth, Texas to discuss the medium. Wired reports 2013's 1.9 billion listens rose to to 2.6 billion in 2014, according to Nielsen data.