Helen Zaltzman

Helen Zaltzman
Helen Zaltzman performing at TED2017
Born	Tunbridge Wells, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Occupation	Broadcaster Podcaster
Notable work	Answer Me This! (podcast) The Allusionist
Spouse(s)	Martin Austwick
Relatives	Andy Zaltzman (brother)
Website	helenzaltzman.com

Helen Zaltzman is an English podcaster, broadcaster and writer. She is best known for her work with longtime collaborator Olly Mann with whom she presents the comedy podcast Answer Me This!

Zaltzman began the weekly comedy podcast Answer Me This! with Mann in 2007. The duo met in 2000 studying at St Catherine's College, Oxford. The podcast is recorded in Zaltzman's living room in Crystal Palace with assistance from Martin Austwick (a.k.a. "Martin the Sound Man"). Zaltzman also edits the show, a process that takes around ten hours per episode.

The podcast won a silver Sony Award in 2010 and gold in 2011, and in 2012 a European Podcast Award. It has been voted one of the Top 10 Comedy Podcasts in the World by The Guardian. It has received critical plaudits in numerous publications including Q (magazine), The Times, Time Out, and Radio Times.

In 2009, the two made history by being the first podcasters to be given their own national show on BBC Radio 5 Live, Web 2009 with Helen and Olly. They have gone on to present several other specials for BBC 5 Live.

Due to the podcast's success, Faber and Faber published a companion book in November 2010.

In January 2015, Zaltzman launched a new linguistics podcast called The Allusionist. Zaltzman is the first British broadcaster on the Radiotopia podcast network. The Guardian describes the Allusionist as "an antidote to all the whither-life-and-how-to-understand-it podcasts". The Allusionist was iTunes UK's best new podcast of 2015.

Along with Mann, Zaltzman was the internet correspondent on BBC 5 Live's Saturday Edition and on Steve Wright in the Afternoon. She was a panellist on the third series of Charlie Brooker's So Wrong It's Right and won. She has appeared on Woman's Hour, The News Quiz, The Richard Bacon Show, Transatlantic with Rory Bremner and Ian Collins's shows, and was a correspondent on the 2012 Olympics for BBC Radio Scotland. She has been a guest on numerous podcasts, including The Guardian's Media Talk and Maximum Fun's International Waters, and guest-presented a special edition of the Radio Academy's Radio Talk.