The city’s biggest online community is getting a voice — and it launches this June
Listen to the trailer now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, Pocket Casts, Overcast and every other major podcast platform, or find it at Sheffield Forum.
Sheffield Forum has been part of the city’s fabric for over twenty years. Since 2002 it has been the place where Sheffielders argue about the Supertram, mourn the loss of another city centre venue, celebrate a promotion, and occasionally find a plumber. It is, by most measures, the largest independent online community for Sheffield people anywhere in the world.
In June it gets a voice.
A plan that was always bigger than one website
REYT. Independent Sheffield Podcast launches this summer, hosted by James Hargreaves, who took over Sheffield Forum in 2024 with a straightforward ambition: to turn it from a single website into something bigger. A proper local media home for the city. The podcast is the first step.
The show is a weekly long-form interview with someone who lives, works or has deep roots in Sheffield. The guest list spans musicians, politicians, athletes, artists, business owners and community figures. Not a panel show, not a news roundup, just a long honest conversation about Sheffield and the guest’s place in it.
What happens in every episode
As well as an in-depth chat with the week’s guest, three regular features run in every episode of REYT. Independent Sheffield Podcast.
Sum Up Sheffield asks guests to describe the city to someone who has never been. It’s a deceptively simple question that tends to reveal more about the person answering it than about Sheffield itself. Straight Outta Sheffield is the moment the guest found something Sheffield somewhere they didn’t expect it: a Henderson’s Relish bottle in a kitchen on the other side of the world, a fellow Sheffielder on a train in Tokyo, someone singing Arctic Monkeys in a karaoke bar in Barcelona. And REYT Good Recommendations is exactly what it sounds like: their personal picks for the best pubs, places, independent shops and hidden gems the city has to offer.
It is, in other words, a show for people who care about Sheffield. Which, given that Sheffield Forum has 210,000 registered members and 150,000 people receiving its weekly newsletter, turns out to be quite a lot of people.
The man behind the mic
Hargreaves is not new to this. He previously hosted The Sqweek on Sheffield Live and co-hosted Owlstalk, the Sheffield Wednesday fans podcast. He knows his way around a microphone and, more importantly, he knows Sheffield. The conversations on REYT. are unscripted and without an agenda. Guests are encouraged to follow stories where they go, speak naturally and say what they actually think.
Season 1 — coming June 2026
Season 1 kicks off in June with weekly conversations across the full breadth of Sheffield life: politics, music, sport, culture, business and community. The guests are the people who have built something here, left and come back, or never wanted to leave in the first place.
New episodes drop every week through the summer. The earlier you follow, the less you’ll miss.
Follow REYT. Independent Sheffield Podcast now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Amazon Music, or search REYT. Independent Sheffield Podcast wherever you listen. The trailer is out now and the first episode lands in June.
For a city that has never been short of opinions, it has been a long time coming.
Follow REYT. Independent Sheffield Podcast and listen to the trailer here
