January 9, 2026 • 55 mins
Recent studies confirm that while podcast is a continually growing medium, it still isn't very inclusive in terms of hosts and guests. Anney and Samantha talk about their own experiences and dig into the data.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I'll never told your protection of iHeartRadio. And today, as
we're entering the new year, we wanted to check back
in with what's going on with podcast We've done this
(00:26):
a couple of times. Wait, raised you know, it's our industry,
it's what we do. So we're really exacting. Hey, what's
going on here? And to be honest, not a lot
of progress has happened, and in a film cases, some
backsliding has happened. And for this episode, we are primarily
focused on some new research out of usc Annenberg that
(00:49):
was about this whole thing. So at the end of
twenty twenty five, usc Anenburg released a study about race
and gender and popular podcast as they know it. In
their study, twenty twenty five was a big year for podcasting.
For example, it was the first time the Golden Globes
included nominations for.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Podcast Annie, did you know? In their twenty five list
did you look at this stuff you should know?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Was included.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
A very own og was included as a possible contender
for being nominated for the first ever podcasting category of
the Golden Globes. I know and they weren't of course,
which is really really disheartening. But yes, they were in
that list because as they should be. They've been in
the top ten podcast for the last what ten twenty years?
(01:39):
I don't know how long podcasts have been around, even
though imint it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Was I think theirs was two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So we're getting there. They are getting there. Congratulations guys.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
But yeah, they were actually in that twenty five list
when they were considering it, they were not actually nominated.
Three out of the six nominated were celebrity podcast which.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Is a thing.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
It is a thing which kind of does segue into
my next point, but before we get into that, I
every time I see awards like that, I kind of
and it's not like this is unique to podcasting, but
I always am like, well, how often does their show
(02:25):
come out? How often does it air? How big of
the of a production team do they have, because you know, Steph,
you should know, is a very small team. It's doesn't
have a lot of like sound editing or sound effects versus.
I imagine a lot of these celebrity podcasts might not
(02:47):
be that. I could be wrong, but.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, I know they don't have a lot. Actually, I
don't think that any of them are storytelling. They're just
so that while we're here mine as well. The six
that were nominated are Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd, Call
Her Daddy, Good Hang with Amy Poehler, the Mel Robbins podcast, SmartLess,
and Up First from NPR. So SmartLess, the Ducks, Shepherd One,
(03:16):
and Good Hang are all three celebrity based. SmartLess was
one of the highest bought out I guess show like
millions of dollars. Uh, so it was interesting to see
who is nominated.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Call Her Daddy has been.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I think they weren't influencers first, y'all can tell me
if I'm wrong. They were really like big on social
media and then grew their platform, and then they had
some things happen and the show split. Like there's a lot,
but they have consistently been on the top, so it's
not surprising to see them there. I think they actually
deserve that type of hype because they did build based
(03:55):
on and I think they were Their number one consumers
are young women, so like that makes a lot of sense.
I want to say the Mel Robbins podcast, which we
mentioned before, and we did Monday Mini as a back
and forth of like who is she? Yeah, because I
could not quite figure out who she was, but she
(04:16):
has made a name for herself kind of in that
self help conversation as well. The That's Shepherd one is
interesting because he does have a co host that really
helps run it. I really feel like she may be
the actual bones in this type of podcast, but his
names carries through. There's a lot of controversies in their
conversations as well, but like SmartLess and good Hang, bring
(04:39):
on other celebrity guests and depth celebrity friends, so it
kind of comes through as like really fun times. Of course,
NPR has been the beginning of podcasts, and we know this,
so it would be really shocking to see them not
being nominated. In one of theirs not being nominated. I
was surprised to see that no.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
True crime.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Podcast was in here. I kind of was surprised that
Joe Rogan wasn't in here. Pleasantly, Yeah, pleasantly surprised. But
of course he was also in the twenty five list,
and I think you could have gone in October before
October and nominated from what I gathered to put other
people on the list, but they were the originals in
(05:21):
the twenty five as well, So it's interesting to see
how this came about. And I will say so the
Edison research talked about who had like the most listenerships
for these types of podcasts. So they say that for
the Armchair one, it was number six among homemakers, earning
seventy five thousand, which I was trying to figure out
what that meant because obviously they have a job.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
To Yeah, that's very specific.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
They have some very specific categories.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I need to notice again, Call her Daddy was number
one among women's students. Mel Robbins had the silver highest
numbers among women, earning seventy five thousand or more. So
instead of being homemaker, who does this?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Just women?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So there's a lot of interesting statistics on who is
listening to what and we're not We're going to talk
about this a little bit later, but like, the listenership
really does drive a lot of this obviously, as it should.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
As it should.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Again, it's interesting to see SmartLess good Hang and Dax
Shepherd because they also are not celebrity rewatch podcasts, which
a lot of them started out as.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yes and and not to get to behind the scenes
here to name drop, but Josh and Chuck of Stuff.
You should know were very early at the forefront of podcasting.
NPR and How Stuff Works, which was our old company,
was very early and their podcast was so popular that
(06:56):
they had celebrity listeners who would talk about them and
post about them. And they, if my memory serves correctly,
Chuck at least like had lunch with Kristen Bell is
married too, right, Dag Shepherd. And so it's interesting to
(07:19):
see how podcasting went from this thing where no one
knew what it was and you know, there were celebrity
listeners and now Celebrity in Question as a podcast.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Right, which, yeah, that's that is very interesting to see
because I.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Again, like.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
A lot of networks who are banking on the podcast
industry banked on celebrities, like literally hung and invested so
much money and knowing they were not going to get
as large of a share in the profits with celebrities
and hopes to grow it and it hasn't always been
a very successful I mean, as we look at everything,
(07:59):
the way trying to grow the podcasting industry almost feels
like it's no longer a podcast, like they kind of
defeat the purpose of podcasts.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
It does, and again an excellent segue into my next point.
But one more thing before we get to it. We
our office when I first started working was in Buckhead, which,
if you don't know Atlanta, Buckhead is the fancy, rich part.
And I learned later that this was a very purposeful
(08:26):
decision because they were trying to get bought by Discovery,
and so when corporate people would come to visit the office,
it would be in Buckhead and it was this really
nice office, and so it was a very It was
a presentation of see, we're a legitimate company and you
should be interested in us. And I feel like that's
what's happening with a lot of celebrity podcasts right now,
(08:49):
is that you might not be making profit off of
XYZ celebrity podcast which you can tell a company, well,
Will Ferrell has a podcast with us, so we're legitimate, right.
I think it's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
That is interesting as we see the industry grow, it
is interesting to see who is doing what I think
NPR has held pretty strong and what they have held
as their podcasting standards. Companies like Stitcher, which were coming
out as specific for podcasts no longer exists. They lived
like such a short amount of time, which basically sad
(09:24):
because I definitely have one of their T shirts and
I really like that T shirt.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I have a scrungcheet.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They have great job. They did a great job with
marketing on that way.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
But like companies really invested in things like that and
then they came through with like a never mind, this
is not as profitable. Spotify bought out a big podcasting
chunk and hoping to grow them bad and they have.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
They definitely have.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
However, they've invested a lot more money than other companies
like the smartlest.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I believe with Spotify who bought them.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So Spotify really put their money in a giant podcast
like Joe Rogan, which they bought for two hundred and
fifty million dollars. They were banking and he's doing well,
don't get me wrong, Like they are probably getting their return,
but that's a huge, huge deal like that will happen
in twenty twenty four. SmartLess, which at that time before
this had like I want to say, an eighty million
(10:13):
dollar contract with Serious XM slash Wondery slash Amazon.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Because yeah, capitalism.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Monopolies anyway, And it's been a huge conversation in that
because even before they had their first episode release, they
were already bought with a multimillion dollar deal, which is like,
don't get me wrong, I'm a little jealous obviously.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, and they get a lot more leeway than we do.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I have so much more.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I mean, you know, even our company, iHeart wasn't into
podcasts until it became like a big thing and they
were like, Okay, we're an audio company, we should have
right this company. And then we've changed companies so many
times listeners like.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Have gone through since you started, and you know, at
the beginning, it is interesting to see because, like, honestly,
with the conversations that I've had with y'all, because I
came in as the merger was happening, I was with
how stuff works. And then all of a sudden They're like, oh,
we just got bought out, and I'm like, oh really really,
and everything started changing. I was like, oh no, I
(11:28):
was liking the old thing, Give me the old thing
back into this new company in which was about saturation
and trying to figure that detail out, and then watching
what had happened in between all that, I was like, oh,
you can see when something looks like there's about to
be a buyout and then how I'm on edge because
of that.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
I used to have a joke because every time I
went on vacation, I would come back and there'd be
a new company. So I stopped going on vacation. I'm
not even joking. I was like of a curse. I
would come back, I've been away for a week and
they're like, it's a new company and this is your
job titled Oh my god, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I mean I yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So when iHeart bought out how Stuff Works and then
started adding in because we were we the beginning for
this company, like how stuff is not us, but like
how Stuff Forces was the beginning of their podcasting venture right.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Of their podcasting. There was another company before, but how
Stuff Works was the first one to do podcasting.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Okay, for an iHeart really learned the value of podcasting
because they knew it was growth. Don't get me wrong,
but I think during the pandemic it kind of proved
to be a lot more stable than radio at the time.
So that was the information being fed to us, right.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yes, And we are going to talk about that some
more in a second, because I think that had major
political ratifications. But more on that later. Another thing is
that's been really interesting for me that Samantha has heard
me talk about it a lot, is that when I
first started, I was actually a video I am merrily
(13:00):
video editor. I did do podcasting, but primarily I was
the video element of the podcast. And then they were like, nope, videos,
nothing go away. And now video is back, and it's back,
it is back, and yes, our very own company. Uh,
(13:21):
we have got deals with Netflix, We've got to deal
with TikTok, and we don't really know much about a.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Couple of these announcements came on social media. My partner
sister sends me a text about the Netflix and she
was like.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
So, we are we about to see you on TV.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
It's like, hell no, we can avoid it at all costs.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Hell no.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Because we were also in that conversation a year ago,
two years ago, two years ago where it was we're
gonna start doing YouTube, You're gonna have to start doing
these things, and we were prepping up. I was freaking
out and he was freaking out, and like, how do
we edit this? Because we heavily need editors. As you
can tell when I go rogue or when Annie just
laughs at me or has sneezes.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I sneeze very loudly, and I learned recently you can
definitely hear it in the entire building.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So yeah, oh no, what a late time discovery because
you've been there for having I've been.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
There for ten eleven years. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
But all of that to say is like, there are
the power of editing. Because I people get confused when
I say I'm a podcaster. They're like, oh my god,
you must be such a great speaker, you must really perform. Well.
I was like, oh no, I have extreme anxiety that
I have to take my medication for if I'm in
front of people, and they're like really, I'm like, I
am an introvert. If I have to put on that
entertaining social person, I can, but it is exhausting and
(14:45):
I need some backup. But with this idea of being
on that and then they're like, Okay, scrap it because
y'all are really hesitanting, I'm like, thank you, thank you
very much too. We're just gonna take your content and
put it on YouTube, which was perfectly fine, and it's
fun to see. It's fun to see how they get
those graphics up. Our little pictures on the side, like
oh this, that's cute. And according to that Edison research
(15:08):
from the twenty twenty five, it shows that gen Zers
prefer all of their content from YouTube, like all of
their podcasting listening comes from YouTube. So that's an interesting
tape because obviously as non gen Zers, that's us I
stay away from YouTube. You like YouTube, I am very
fearful of YouTube.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I watch a lot of YouTube. I wouldn't say I
like it necessarily, I.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Actually have that as a resource.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Then I have many issues with it in fact, but yes,
I do consume a lot of YouTube, right.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
And we also have a deal with YouTube.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
From what I understand with iHeart and trying to like
again blow it up because YouTube is also trying to
grow their own podcasting content, not necessarily by creating their
own but allowing for podcasts to be used and streamed
through their services. So seeing things like that as well
as TikTok, and it has blown up, like when we
(16:07):
see podcast content on TikTok, because I get clips of
podcast content all the time all the time. It's interesting
to see how the setup is for video versus what
we do. It is very very different. And also it
sounds like I'm hating on celebrities, I'm not, but seeing
their setup versus our setup is also almost comical. The
(16:31):
layer of like watching celebrity celebrity podcasters on a couch
around with their drinks clinkly clacketing everything.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I'm like, that's.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Got to be an editor's worst nightmare. Yeah, because it's
like wide open. They're moving the mics up and then
not even talking about the people who actually hold the mics.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
So it was like wow, really, yeah, it really is
a different skill set. I'm not saying like an actor
cannot do it, but just because someone can perform doesn't
mean you can podcast in a way that is easy
for an editor.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Right, right, And that's the thing is like the depth
of like understanding what happens with that, as well as
the fact that again, video editing is completely different as
you would know.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yes, well, and this has been a very I don't
think our company is alone in doing this, but even
though it blows my mind that big companies do this,
but it's been very seemingly last minute. So a lot
of this, a lot of this happened very quickly for
the people involved, and it included moving into for at
(17:46):
least one person, moving into a nicer space to record
in their home because they were recording in their closet
and they were like, yeah, now we need video. And
I've had a lot of conversations with people who are like, well,
what if you get asked and I said, I do
not have another room to go. I live in a
small apartment. This is it. You're getting this closet if
(18:08):
you want to try to make it look less like
a cosplay nightmare than okay, But otherwise, like I don't
have house, there's no other room for me to go.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Right, And once again like I do have a house,
but I am in a small closet with a lot
of sound blankets. I look like I'm in the void,
Like this is what it looks like. But it is
interesting again because it also comes back to we listen
my partner and I love this one podcast. I don't
listen to podcasts, but their clips come up on my
on my TikTok for you page all the time, and
(18:44):
they are funny. They are funny as hell, and like
I've even been told, oh, you should do it like them,
I'm like what, just yell into the mic like I
know this is this is not what we do. Although
that would be wonderful if that's all we did. And
then the same thing is like we have other podcast
shows who bring on standing up comedians and they're amazing
in their dynamic, and that show different for our show,
(19:07):
very different. But then when you actually try to go
listen to the long form podcast because they do have
like instead of the three minute.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Clips, it doesn't work as well.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It's not what you get from those clips, those immediate laughs,
the highlights, the one quotes, and then you go in
and it's like, wells, this kind of it's drags. Like
we try to listen to them because we liked the
TikTok content and we think it's hilarious, and then as
we were listening to the actual podcast, we're like, ooh, yeah,
h this does not translate very well. And we've had
(19:39):
that again because the amount of cancelations of a lot
of our shows, which some of them I'm very upset about,
to be honest, because they weren't good shows, but some
of them made sense because they did not translate into
a podcast content.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Pat yeah, yeah, And we have had this argument for
a long time. At our company. They told us we
were going to write a book and I said, I
don't think this makes any sense. I'm just gonna be
honest with you, and I'm not I'm proud of what
we did, but I'm still like, it's not it's not
going to be an automatic. People listen to podcasts for
(20:18):
a reason, right, and it's not that they have time
to sit and read a whole book. Maybe.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I also, again love the critigues of like this is
probably a better podcast and a book.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
That was funny that did make me laugh. It also
means we really didn't do our good our job because
we were trying to be like, there's a podcast, Well.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
It's okay, it's okay, but yeah, I think is interesting
to see as the evolution of podcasts happened, what is
happening and what we're watching to do, because with that,
we're trying not to disappear the content that we were
trying to create. I feel like any I think we
have a constant conversation about those are like are we
going too far? Are we not going far enough? Are
we going to be on a watch list? I think
(21:01):
we're on a watch list. I'm pretty sure we're on
a watch list because of our stances of because of
some of the things that we take because as an
intersectional feminist show, we have a very specific duty in
highlighting that injustice and upholding the truth to that and
unraveling disinformation and misinformation, and that does come with a price.
I will say we're pretty much under the radar, so
(21:21):
I'm cool with that. But also we have amazing listeners, yes,
who understand and are are with us in this long battle.
But it comes to doing, but they're so far and
few between. There are actually, actually there's a lot of
good podcasts, but not enough good podcasts are given a chance.
And it partially has a lot to do with the
fact that the industry is not welcoming to everyone.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yes, and also who gets sponsorships and who gets ads,
which is a huge problem. We we got a little
sidetracked there, as we knew we would. We should come
(22:08):
back to this study we mentioned from usc Anenberg. It
was a report called Inequality and Popular podcast and it
was part of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, and it was
written by Stacy L. Smith, and it compiled data from
Spotify and other podcast reports in the industry. It examined
five hundred and ninety two podcasts from twenty twenty four
(22:31):
specifically looking at the gender and race of the host.
Smith highlights the fact that podcasts are increasingly relevant. The
twenty twenty four US presidential election is sometimes called the
podcast election, and we talked about podcast and their role
in the rise of the Manisphere in that episode, and
Smith said podcasting's power lies in its potential as a
(22:54):
democratized medium where anyone with an idea and a microphone
can find an audience. The format but sures that accessibility
can help challenge the old patterns of entertainment and pave
the way for more inclusive audio landscape, which we've said,
we've talked about this before. I think there's flip sides
to this. It's a double edged sword. Because podcasting is
(23:20):
free generally to listen to, it can be if you're
not doing the fancy setup, pretty cheap to get into,
and so that's great, but that also means that in
my opinion, like especially during COVID, when people were lonely
and isolated and sitting in their car and they're listening
(23:42):
to these like manisphere podcasts because they can't they don't
have access to legitimate news sources, or because now they're
behind paywalls or whatever. It is that. I do think
that we were going to have to look at that
damage as well. But anyway, the study also looked at
(24:04):
the top one hundred podcasts of twenty twenty four, and
here are some of the stats. Sixty four point one
percent of hosts were men and thirty five point nine
percent were women, which was similarly reflected over the five
hundred and ninety two podcasts that they also looked at.
Despite this being a newer medium, this is worse a
representation when it comes to women in film, TV and music,
(24:26):
which because the idea was it's new, so we have
a job, we have an opportunity to do better. But instead,
right now, that is not what is happening. When it
comes to what genres women podcast host are most successful with,
true crime is the top with fifty three percent. Something
(24:48):
in the arts, society, and cultural genre is forty three
point three percent, which is I think that's where we
fall Samantha, I think that's where we're categorized. Probably. I
think so News and education both are at about forty percent.
Women were least likely to host podcasts about business and
technology and sports and fitness at seven point seven percent
(25:11):
and eighteen point nine percent seven point seven. That's really low.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah, yeah, really disheartening. Yeah, the numbers are not good.
And I remember coming on twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, twenty
nineteen and talking about the state of podcasts and women
in podcasts, and yeah, we really thought by this time
(25:36):
the increase would be so huge and so giant, and
to see not at all and it's only gotten.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Bleak.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
We had so much hope and then and then yeah, yeah,
well it gets worse. So when it comes to of
those one hundred podcast surveyed, about seventy seven percent were white,
and the percentage rises even higher to about seventy nine
(26:07):
percent when casting a wider net. So when you're looking
out at more podcasts, the numbers get worse.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
These trends were similarly reflected as the ones in gender,
so there was higher representation in movies, TV, and music
than there is in podcasting. Only six point six percent
of the top one hundred podcast host surveyed were women
of color, and only about eight percent of the five
(26:34):
hundred and ninety two surveyed. Once again, this number is
lower than representation same groups and movies, TV, and music.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I want to know if we were in that five,
one hundred and ninety two because we were in Spotify.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Oh really yeah technically Oh well yeah, oh oh really
yeah that podcasts are there, they exist. Oh my gosh,
I'm not just screaming into the right.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Now into the YouTube boyd.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah. I tried to find the list of the podcast
I probably could have, but I couldn't find it easily. No,
I suspect we weren't on there, but it's possible.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
That makes me sad.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
I know, I feel like we're left out of a
lot of things that we sure.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Are, or all of.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Our data is relegated from twenty early two thousands when
the first the show first began.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's another pain.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
That's another pain. It's okay.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I mean, we definitely had an amazing beginning. Our platform
was created by Kristen and Molly and Caroline and they
really built up this platform so we can be here
because I don't know, it's so hard again to break through, Yeah,
in these industries, like people asking us what can we
(27:58):
do when we just sit there looking at like, oh,
do you have a friend that's already in podcasting that's
pretty well known? No, thank good luck?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
My joking horrible answer is always good a time machine,
but it used to be wild. I don't want to
I don't I don't want to discourage anybody, but it's
just changed so much because we do have that long
history and that built up audience thanks to previous hosts.
(28:31):
But no joke. We used to have a kind of
a penalty. I guess it was a bonus, but I
saw it as a penalty. You had to get a
million downloads every month, right, or you wouldn't get like
your bonus.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
It's kind of it's more complicated than that, but you
wouldn't get this like extra pay, right, And nowadays that
seems wild to me, that's right? Or with you a
million yeah a month? And now I'll hear other podcasts
talking about how much they get and it's their scenic
successful and it's nowhere close to that. But that's what
(29:09):
it used to be, right, And now there's so much competition,
And I don't blame I mean.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Even within our own company, I know, and.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Listeners, you have so many options, So thank you for
being here, thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
For listening still being part of our family. We do
love that. But yeah, the amount of choices when you
go through it is unbelievable because you can just I
was looking up Intersectional Feminists podcast for twenty twenty five
and that they had top one hundred lists and it
kept going. And that's for intersexual feminism, which I didn't
(29:40):
think there was that many, but there is, and I'd
love to see it. But of course each one of
them more like has like four votes or five votes,
are like and I want to see more and more
because we want to have more and more content. But
then at the same time, yeah, there are so many choices,
there's so many new voices.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
We need more new voices. We want to hear more voices.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
But it's interesting to se the as it again, this
market is very saturated, but now they want to be entertained.
Now they want us to entertain in different fashions, whether
it is through the clip videos, the the viral Yes
acts that we can't just conjure up because we don't
(30:20):
see each other that often. Yes, Well, this split second.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Another infamous story, Samantha's Nos, and this was not this
was not iHeart. This was a different company that owned
us at one point. But we had a meeting where
they sat us down and played what does the Fox say?
And I bet a lot of listeners don't even remember
that viral clip and said why can't you go viral?
(30:48):
And we were like, what you think if we knew
how to do it, we wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I was gonna say it wasn't for the lack of trying,
because the videos from Kaz House Works are hilarious and
I'm really glad to not have had to be a
part of that. And God blessed Ben and Kristen acting
their butts off for all of these clips, and Jonathan
doing their bits and trying to appease the viral gods
(31:18):
and hope that someone sees them.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
And Christin has some viral videos. I know.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
She was really to the point that people did not
realize it was a podcast.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yes, and they thought it was just a YouTube show.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Which was really interesting to me because I feel like
I was the person who answered listener mail at that
point as well. I feel like they were separate audiences
for us. Here's the audio podcast listeners, and here are
the YouTube primarily listeners, and that was fascinating to me.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I mean, I remember because I had come in with
Caroline and we were doing some collaborative work with a
friend of a kind of an acquaintance. We were doing
a project that I was really passionate about and I
was into Caroline and she was I was like, oh,
you know, she's a podcast she does stuff Mom never
told you. She was like, oh my god, you know
Kristen And we were like, yeah, they were all on
(32:10):
podcasts together.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
She's like, she has podcasts.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Like she was so confused because she knew her from
again the YouTube series, and she did not know that
there was a podcast. And I was like, I guess
because there's two separate entities and they weren't necessarily trying
to show podcasting in YouTube. So it's kind of like
and then Caroline became full time. She was doing a
(32:35):
video for another segment that wasn't stuff Mom never told you.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like Caroline came on to the
this Sminty YouTube show once and even I was like, oh,
it's Caroline on the video, but yeah, I know it was.
It was very different and just if any of you
(33:00):
just haven't seen any of those videos, they weren't a
lot of what we're talking about now with podcasting. Video
is literally you're watching a video of them.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Podcasting recording a podcast. So it's the same episode as
you could just listen to.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Yes, this was supposed to be supplemental to the podcast,
and they were short, like five to seven minute videos skits, Yes,
but they weren't like educational skits. Yeah, they were meant
to They kind of were meant to look like a
journal or somebody talking directly to you. A lot of
(33:37):
times she did focus on the topics that she uh
covered in the podcast, but it wasn't like a she's
talking into a microphone and this is the episode she
had costumes. I put it in effects like this is
where I learned all the font names. Yeah. Yeah, so
(33:58):
it is different.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Which way have you noticed?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I don't know all on Spotify they have an option
to see like just music, to see the videos instead
of just listening to the music.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Oh really, I.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Think there's one story.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Well, YouTube makes sense because they had music videos that
kind of they kind of replaced MTV for music videos
being released, like that's why you would look it up.
But in Spotify it was never nothing about video. Like
they came to the point where you could actually read
the lyrics and I was like, oh that's cool. Now
you can actually watch the music video and I'm like, oh,
(34:34):
they're one step away from doing this content.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah. Well, and that's another thing that as we've been
discussing how this might impact us if if it happened,
if we had to do video, I do think in
some ways this has changed, but it's just going to
require more for a lot of women are people who
(35:01):
present as femme because it usually does entail like makeup
and clothes, and that's extra time of your day and
hair maybe just stuff that men necessarily don't have to
worry about as much. And just to like hammer home
that point, I was in a meeting once where they
(35:24):
brought it up back when we still did video. It's
like you should wear more makeup to somebody. So it's
not like I said, I do think it's gotten better,
but that's just an extra thing. And I even expend
some makeup when I thought we had to do it
because I was like, well, not ready running.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
No.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Oh well It's It's.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Interesting because we also have talked about the criticisms that
women host in marginalists, well they receive is so much
more vast and so much more harsh and like intense.
So having that layer of criticism about the way we
speak about the way we pause, about the way we giggle,
about any of those things which have the amount of
criticism I got because of my accent, because of the
(36:17):
way I spoke, the way I would whisper, and being
all these things or what I talked about or how
I talked about it, whatever whatnot was pretty painful and
damaging for a while that I had to come to
again talked about this before being like, how do I
stop looking at this? Because I want I want the
praise without the criticism, and the amount of criticism was
(36:39):
outweighing to me what seemed to be the praise. And
again we've got amazing listeners who have always been with
us a part of the family, but we have people
who are comparing us to the previous hosts about not
being this person or that person. Me being criticized for
having a non white perspective like that has happened as well.
(36:59):
But like all of that to come back into having
our appearance and have being told that these are the
things that are wrong with me, or these are the
things like what we look like, what we don't look like.
Oh my god, I don't know if I can go
to that again.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
It's miserable. It's you stepped answer the YouTube comments and
it was not fun.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh and but that's the thing, is like, that's what
we're going to see, and that's kind of one of
the things that we want to avoid personally in our
in our every day the coming in sweats and pajamas
has been a privilege. Again, we love our job, and
we know we have a privileged position, but understand that
when you're under scrutiny, the amount of scrutiny is intense,
(37:40):
and so feeling like we have to do it no
matter what is unbelievable. And then also to seeing okay,
but if we have to, because is the tides turning
to that point that if we don't, we lose to
those willing to do these things or have been doing
these things. And again, you know, we lose another marginalized
voice because because of that exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
And obviously these numbers they're terrible. This is terrible, so
low of a percentage of women and women of color specifically,
and I do think it has to do with a
lot of things. But yeah, that scrutiny that when you
come on you're not getting the support from monetarily from companies,
(38:24):
but also just from you're getting bombarded with all this
criticism you're not getting Like sometimes Apple podcasts will spotlight
a show. You're not getting something like that because maybe
you're controversial and they don't have anything to do with that,
like even though you're probably not controversial, but they'll, you know.
And that's going back to what I was saying earlier.
(38:46):
When you're talking about a medium that is relatively new,
that is relatively free, that's a huge deal. If people
are like going to podcasts to get their news or
to like shape their worldviews, and they're not hearing from
women or people of color or women of color, then
(39:07):
that's a huge problem. Ah. And this was an interesting
thing too. The study looked into guest appearances on podcasts
and found that almost seventy five percent of guest appearances
were men. Women weren't featured as guests on two thirds
of the over four thousand podcast episodes surveyed, and perhaps unsurprisingly,
(39:33):
women guests were the most likely to appear on podcast
with host who were women. That makes so much sense
to me. The numbers were pretty stark too, though, even
for podcasts hosted by at least one woman, percentage wise,
they still had more male guests, about fifty five percent men. Meanwhile,
podcasts with no women host had over eighty percent male guests. Right, yes,
(39:57):
and again that's that's part of the p when you
don't have these hosts who are going to make the effort.
I guess people.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Have a conversation like, it's interesting to see how that
comes about and who is asked to.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Be on what show?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I will say, we have plenty of people asking to
have men, Like, We've had plenty of agencies or men
asked to be on this show. And I'm like, do
you know what this show is about? Yeah, and there's
somewhere it is appropriate, don't get me wrong. There's some
real conversations and I'm like, yeah, let's let's do this,
let's have this conversation whatever whatnot. But they are just like,
(40:39):
again we had that one dude.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Oh yeah, it was very like.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Right leaning politics and get your women in control.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
I was like, yeah, are interesting pitches shall we say?
Speaker 2 (40:58):
But yeah, of course it's not surprising to see that
they as guests, even they're not platformed, and by the
pitches that we get, there's plenty of people out there
who should be platformed and we don't get to have
everybody that wants to be on our show or have
been asked have been doing amazing things. So it's not
because of the lack of opportunity. There are plenty of
people out there. There are plenty of women, There are
(41:18):
plenty of marginalized people, have so many different types of
experiences and expertise that really should be platformed, but they're
just not chosen.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, like you said, we get plenty
of people that we wish we could. It's just timing
or whatever it is. They're out there. They are out there,
and I promise they're not pitching just to us, right,
(41:48):
just to only women.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So this is also a very disheartening number because how
are you going to have You're just missing women listen
to just as many podcasts as ment like a little
a little less statistically, but it's almost equal.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But like, the thing is interestingly the because we've talked
about this before, but the percentage of a listeners listenership
tripled in the last ten years for women. Like the
growth has been astronomical. And we've talked about this before
about advertising and who is most likely buying things and
who's also listening to the sponsorships. Hello, it is women,
(42:30):
It is majority women. They are the one that are
actually making money for these podcasts.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
So it's kind of interesting to see why once.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Again, we've talked about this in marketing in every way,
when we talk about like marketing on TikTok, when we
talk about magazines, when we talk about all of these things,
we know that women are the buyers. They make up
the buyers of the household. So podcasting, which relies heavily
on ads, sorry, y'all.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I know you hate it, I don't.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I also do the fast forward mark that you would
think that they would understand having women being sponsored by
a company would help them in the long run economically.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
I know. But I feel like the issue is there
was a push a couple of years ago to oh,
women are listening to podcasts, we should actually pay attention
to them. They might buy stuff. But then every advertisement
we got was just the most horrendous. I can't vote.
(43:37):
I cannot believe you think this would fly on a
feminist podcast at And it was just so telling to
me of how little you actually care, right, Like you're
just oh, they'll buy something they like botox, right, right, else.
This is a thing that happened everybody, and it's too
(43:59):
too long of a story and too traumatizing for us
to go into right now.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
But y'all some of the things that we were like,
I don't think you understand what we do.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yes, and listen if you want to your healthy mindspace,
you want to get photox. I'm not calling it out,
but it was the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yes, No, specifically specifically what we were talking about.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yes, it was very bad.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
We were like, you don't understand what this is. No,
but that's I mean again, And this could because I
was trying to look up numbers and I could not
find them. I'm sure I can do a deeper dive
because I was looking at behind the scenes of podcasts,
who what, what gender, or what community holds up and
I could not get specific numbers, but just from what
(44:46):
I see as white men. So this is part of
the bigger problem, Like the people who are not a
part of the conversation once again and not having giving
the feedback or not understanding the feedback, are not the
people who understand what is needed and what things are
like having research, research, what you're talking about, research, what
show you're trying to trying to use for what conversation
(45:08):
instead of just putting a band aid because yes, stuff
Mom never told you comes gets brought up as being
a mom show, even by the way, by our own bosses.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, that's fun, but show us this like we've been
here for a long time.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Right, like literally, Like we're not as big as the others,
for sure, I get this, but we are known as
one of the staples. Like they call this a legacy
show because of that, and then they use our show
to bring on other guests to when they start a podcast,
so that we can help get their name out, which
oftentimes they don't need our name, need our help, you know,
(45:52):
because we are a part of that thing. But people
who work for our company as leaders really do not,
and not that they can.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Again, there's tons of.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Our there's tons of shows. There's tons of shows. But
in things like marketing and things in like collaboration, you
kind of need to know who you say you want
to work with and why. Yeah, asking two women who
are not married and have no children and have no
want of children to do things because you think they're
(46:20):
moms because of the word mom.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Yeah, is in that show.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
It's stuff mom never told you. That doesn't mean we're
the mom.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
So we didn't tell you. We would be telling you.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Right every year we have to have this conversation.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
But it is interesting to see in that level of
like who is behind the scenes, who is navigating this boat?
Speaker 3 (46:44):
And I will say, our.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Team, I think has been well made and we are
a well oiled machine. Like our executive producer has done
a lot to advocate for us, our producer Christina has
done a lot to advocate for us. Joey has been
like putting their finger on the pulls to make sure
that we're in line with the standards for the gen
(47:05):
z Yers. Oh my god, sorry about that. And I
hate myself for saying that. But all of that to
say is like we try. We have a great team,
So that's for us. We are again once again privileged
in having that. But just seeing the behind the scenes
when it comes to the corporate level of who controls
what is being platformed. I think that's the bigger conversation
(47:29):
in this narrative. And it is nice to see more
and more like producers and writers and researchers who are marginalized,
but it it feels like they get very and I
can I say this as privilege. They get stuck into
that same role instead of being able to expand and
being able to use their talents. And again that's a
(47:50):
whole different conversation in that because, as we talked about,
in any industry, if you want those communities to be
part of this conversation, if you want to grow in
those communities, we need those people from that community to
be a part of the conversation.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Absolutely, absolutely, our listeners are awesome and we love you,
and yes, you listeners are fantastic, and a lot of
times when we do episodes, I'm almost kind of I
feel kind of not guilt, but I'm like, they already
know this, but here we are with the facts and
the research. So you're correct. But I did want to
(48:30):
include this quote. According to the host of the podcast
Boy Problems, Liz Plank, women will listen to men without hesitation,
but there's a real reluctance among many men to engage
with content made by women. So I think that that,
I don't know, I think we should keep that in
mind too, because that is also something that just ring
true to me. Is that feels correct that it's seen
(48:55):
as you know, women's issues is still a top like
a genre, which there can be, but it feels so
like if a woman is the host, then it's a
woman's issue and I shouldn't engage with it unless I'm
a woman, and that's not what it is. Women hosts
talk about all kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Oftentimes we're like, no, we need you to listen.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
We're talking to you.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yes, you live in the society man that we live
in as well, So.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Hello, we are being othered when we need you to
be a part of this conversation. We do want to
but they'll listen part.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah yeah, But I just feel like that was such
a Yeah. Women listen to male hosts, but.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Men are like I will say, we do have some
men that listen to us, and we are very excited
to get you are on and thank you for doing
so and writing in yes, and we appreciate that we
see you.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Yes, kudos. And with that, I'm.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Going to do something that I haven't done in a
long time.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Anie, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
This is appropriate, which is highlight a few of the
podcasts that are out there that you might not know
about and that we want to see grow. And some
of them are already kind of big, but you know,
we still love them. So I was going to start
off with Intersectionality in the American South. So this is
actually hosted by doctor Katie Acosta, and it is I
(50:16):
believe in affiliation with Georgia State University, which made me
very excited because obviously we're from Atlanta. But they do
great research topics, research topics and interviews with different people
in the South in talking about how intersectionality is important
for the South and what we are looking at. So
(50:37):
they're from their episode description in bus Sprout, they write,
Intersectionality in the American South is a podcast to anyone
who's ready to take a long, hard look at the
ways oppressive systems land in people's lives. We bring together
academics and everyday people in conversations about the intersectional forms
of oppression that marginalize people experience.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
You will hear thought.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Provoking conversations about hard topics that center the often silence
voices of women in color, queer, trans and non binary
folk and immigrants. So from our research, this is in
correlation with Georgia State University and their Intersectional Studies collective
and from a I believe they have twenty two episodes.
The last one was released in September of twenty twenty five,
(51:19):
so it's been a minute. And their topics go from
educational topics to reproductive rights, to specific indigenous groups light
the golah Geichee community, which is a fascinating conversation and
if you don't know about them, you really should dive in.
There's been a big conversations as in fact, there's an
island I believe in Georgia that is a part of
Georgia that is currently being kind of fought over the
(51:41):
government's trying to take it from the Goliguchi community. So
something that we need to talk about and look at.
But they do have an instagram called intersect South that
you should go check out. I fin ended up fascinating.
I did listen to a little bit. They do a
great job in doing some of the research I can.
We love intersectionality in any way, but in the South,
(52:02):
you know, it hits different.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
So just so you know.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Another one is a Burn It All Down. It's hosted
by Sharen Ahmed Amara, Rose Davis, Brenda Elsie, Lindsay Gibbs,
and Jessica Luther and they are a feminist sports podcast,
which we were like we need more of so from
their site, they just write the feminist sports podcast You Need,
very succinct with two hundred and seventy episode. The last
(52:27):
one was released just last month. Definitely you want to
go to. They do have all the social media under
burn It All Down pod, so you should go and
check them out. They've done a lot there. I think
they are pretty big in general. But you know we
love sports, then we have Uplifters. It's hosted by Arnsas
Savas and this is from their site, the Uplifters podcast
(52:49):
dot com. On the Uplifters podcast and the substack, I
share stories of women in midlife and beyond who are
pursuing their wildest dreams and biggest ambition despite self doubt
and societal messaging that says it's too late.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Spoiler is not.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
These women are proving that we are all capable of
building our meaningful, our most meaningful lives at any age.
So it's very sweet, very uplifting, great stories. They have
one hundred and forty three episodes that have different inspiring
episodes with different interviews. She gets to talk to through
talk with many different people. Very cool, So you can
go check that out and then finally, but of course
(53:23):
there's many, many more, many many more. The Unscripted Revolution
is hosted by Nikita Ramkissen and this is their Spotify
show description. Intersectional proletarianism, journalism, and Leftism. From a master's
graduate in gender studies, Nikita Ramkesen raised in an anti
apartheid activist household, Nikita grew up with love for human
(53:44):
rights and good books. Being a survivor of childhood sexual assault,
she developed by polar disorder and wishes to debunk myths
about mental illness and shed light on survivor issues through
her writing. Some might call her a raging feminist, and
she is guided by Bill Hooks, Angela and the Other
Black women Is. Nikita wishes to uplift voices of women
in color and media spaces, so she has some really
(54:05):
great interviews as well. Her work is pretty fascinating. She's
not afraid of tackling all of the hard subjects. Very
good listen, kind of hard listen, but very needed. So
those are four that we would recommend for now. I'm
sure I'll find them more about it before the end
of the year.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
For y'all, yes and listeners, if you have any oo
yes that you would like to suggest we know some
of you have podcasts. Just let us know. You can
email us at Hello A stuff onever Told You dot com.
You can find us on Blue skyt Mom Stuff podcast
or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You.
We also are on YouTube. We have merchandise at Cotton Bureau,
(54:46):
and yes we do have a book you can get
wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to our
super produced Christina executive Priws Maya and your concertor Joey
dream Team.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
Thank you yes, and.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
Thanks to you for listening. Stuff Never Told You is
prediction by Hi Radio. For more gusts from Heart Radio,
you can check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast
or if you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I'll never told your protection of iHeartRadio. And today, as
we're entering the new year, we wanted to check back
in with what's going on with podcast We've done this
(00:26):
a couple of times. Wait, raised you know, it's our industry,
it's what we do. So we're really exacting. Hey, what's
going on here? And to be honest, not a lot
of progress has happened, and in a film cases, some
backsliding has happened. And for this episode, we are primarily
focused on some new research out of usc Annenberg that
(00:49):
was about this whole thing. So at the end of
twenty twenty five, usc Anenburg released a study about race
and gender and popular podcast as they know it. In
their study, twenty twenty five was a big year for podcasting.
For example, it was the first time the Golden Globes
included nominations for.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Podcast Annie, did you know? In their twenty five list
did you look at this stuff you should know?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Was included.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
A very own og was included as a possible contender
for being nominated for the first ever podcasting category of
the Golden Globes. I know and they weren't of course,
which is really really disheartening. But yes, they were in
that list because as they should be. They've been in
the top ten podcast for the last what ten twenty years?
(01:39):
I don't know how long podcasts have been around, even
though imint it.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Was I think theirs was two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So we're getting there. They are getting there. Congratulations guys.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
But yeah, they were actually in that twenty five list
when they were considering it, they were not actually nominated.
Three out of the six nominated were celebrity podcast which.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Is a thing.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
It is a thing which kind of does segue into
my next point, but before we get into that, I
every time I see awards like that, I kind of
and it's not like this is unique to podcasting, but
I always am like, well, how often does their show
(02:25):
come out? How often does it air? How big of
the of a production team do they have, because you know, Steph,
you should know, is a very small team. It's doesn't
have a lot of like sound editing or sound effects versus.
I imagine a lot of these celebrity podcasts might not
(02:47):
be that. I could be wrong, but.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, I know they don't have a lot. Actually, I
don't think that any of them are storytelling. They're just
so that while we're here mine as well. The six
that were nominated are Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd, Call
Her Daddy, Good Hang with Amy Poehler, the Mel Robbins podcast, SmartLess,
and Up First from NPR. So SmartLess, the Ducks, Shepherd One,
(03:16):
and Good Hang are all three celebrity based. SmartLess was
one of the highest bought out I guess show like
millions of dollars. Uh, so it was interesting to see
who is nominated.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Call Her Daddy has been.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I think they weren't influencers first, y'all can tell me
if I'm wrong. They were really like big on social
media and then grew their platform, and then they had
some things happen and the show split. Like there's a lot,
but they have consistently been on the top, so it's
not surprising to see them there. I think they actually
deserve that type of hype because they did build based
(03:55):
on and I think they were Their number one consumers
are young women, so like that makes a lot of sense.
I want to say the Mel Robbins podcast, which we
mentioned before, and we did Monday Mini as a back
and forth of like who is she? Yeah, because I
could not quite figure out who she was, but she
(04:16):
has made a name for herself kind of in that
self help conversation as well. The That's Shepherd one is
interesting because he does have a co host that really
helps run it. I really feel like she may be
the actual bones in this type of podcast, but his
names carries through. There's a lot of controversies in their
conversations as well, but like SmartLess and good Hang, bring
(04:39):
on other celebrity guests and depth celebrity friends, so it
kind of comes through as like really fun times. Of course,
NPR has been the beginning of podcasts, and we know this,
so it would be really shocking to see them not
being nominated. In one of theirs not being nominated. I
was surprised to see that no.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
True crime.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Podcast was in here. I kind of was surprised that
Joe Rogan wasn't in here. Pleasantly, Yeah, pleasantly surprised. But
of course he was also in the twenty five list,
and I think you could have gone in October before
October and nominated from what I gathered to put other
people on the list, but they were the originals in
(05:21):
the twenty five as well, So it's interesting to see
how this came about. And I will say so the
Edison research talked about who had like the most listenerships
for these types of podcasts. So they say that for
the Armchair one, it was number six among homemakers, earning
seventy five thousand, which I was trying to figure out
what that meant because obviously they have a job.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
To Yeah, that's very specific.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
They have some very specific categories.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I need to notice again, Call her Daddy was number
one among women's students. Mel Robbins had the silver highest
numbers among women, earning seventy five thousand or more. So
instead of being homemaker, who does this?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Just women?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So there's a lot of interesting statistics on who is
listening to what and we're not We're going to talk
about this a little bit later, but like, the listenership
really does drive a lot of this obviously, as it should.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
As it should.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Again, it's interesting to see SmartLess good Hang and Dax
Shepherd because they also are not celebrity rewatch podcasts, which
a lot of them started out as.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yes and and not to get to behind the scenes
here to name drop, but Josh and Chuck of Stuff.
You should know were very early at the forefront of podcasting.
NPR and How Stuff Works, which was our old company,
was very early and their podcast was so popular that
(06:56):
they had celebrity listeners who would talk about them and
post about them. And they, if my memory serves correctly,
Chuck at least like had lunch with Kristen Bell is
married too, right, Dag Shepherd. And so it's interesting to
(07:19):
see how podcasting went from this thing where no one
knew what it was and you know, there were celebrity
listeners and now Celebrity in Question as a podcast.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Right, which, yeah, that's that is very interesting to see
because I.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Again, like.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
A lot of networks who are banking on the podcast
industry banked on celebrities, like literally hung and invested so
much money and knowing they were not going to get
as large of a share in the profits with celebrities
and hopes to grow it and it hasn't always been
a very successful I mean, as we look at everything,
(07:59):
the way trying to grow the podcasting industry almost feels
like it's no longer a podcast, like they kind of
defeat the purpose of podcasts.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
It does, and again an excellent segue into my next point.
But one more thing before we get to it. We
our office when I first started working was in Buckhead, which,
if you don't know Atlanta, Buckhead is the fancy, rich part.
And I learned later that this was a very purposeful
(08:26):
decision because they were trying to get bought by Discovery,
and so when corporate people would come to visit the office,
it would be in Buckhead and it was this really
nice office, and so it was a very It was
a presentation of see, we're a legitimate company and you
should be interested in us. And I feel like that's
what's happening with a lot of celebrity podcasts right now,
(08:49):
is that you might not be making profit off of
XYZ celebrity podcast which you can tell a company, well,
Will Ferrell has a podcast with us, so we're legitimate, right.
I think it's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
That is interesting as we see the industry grow, it
is interesting to see who is doing what I think
NPR has held pretty strong and what they have held
as their podcasting standards. Companies like Stitcher, which were coming
out as specific for podcasts no longer exists. They lived
like such a short amount of time, which basically sad
(09:24):
because I definitely have one of their T shirts and
I really like that T shirt.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I have a scrungcheet.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They have great job. They did a great job with
marketing on that way.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
But like companies really invested in things like that and
then they came through with like a never mind, this
is not as profitable. Spotify bought out a big podcasting
chunk and hoping to grow them bad and they have.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
They definitely have.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
However, they've invested a lot more money than other companies
like the smartlest.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I believe with Spotify who bought them.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So Spotify really put their money in a giant podcast
like Joe Rogan, which they bought for two hundred and
fifty million dollars. They were banking and he's doing well,
don't get me wrong, Like they are probably getting their return,
but that's a huge, huge deal like that will happen
in twenty twenty four. SmartLess, which at that time before
this had like I want to say, an eighty million
(10:13):
dollar contract with Serious XM slash Wondery slash Amazon.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Because yeah, capitalism.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Monopolies anyway, And it's been a huge conversation in that
because even before they had their first episode release, they
were already bought with a multimillion dollar deal, which is like,
don't get me wrong, I'm a little jealous obviously.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, and they get a lot more leeway than we do.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I have so much more.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I mean, you know, even our company, iHeart wasn't into
podcasts until it became like a big thing and they
were like, Okay, we're an audio company, we should have
right this company. And then we've changed companies so many
times listeners like.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Have gone through since you started, and you know, at
the beginning, it is interesting to see because, like, honestly,
with the conversations that I've had with y'all, because I
came in as the merger was happening, I was with
how stuff works. And then all of a sudden They're like, oh,
we just got bought out, and I'm like, oh really really,
and everything started changing. I was like, oh no, I
(11:28):
was liking the old thing, Give me the old thing
back into this new company in which was about saturation
and trying to figure that detail out, and then watching
what had happened in between all that, I was like, oh,
you can see when something looks like there's about to
be a buyout and then how I'm on edge because
of that.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
I used to have a joke because every time I
went on vacation, I would come back and there'd be
a new company. So I stopped going on vacation. I'm
not even joking. I was like of a curse. I
would come back, I've been away for a week and
they're like, it's a new company and this is your
job titled Oh my god, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I mean I yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So when iHeart bought out how Stuff Works and then
started adding in because we were we the beginning for
this company, like how stuff is not us, but like
how Stuff Forces was the beginning of their podcasting venture right.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Of their podcasting. There was another company before, but how
Stuff Works was the first one to do podcasting.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Okay, for an iHeart really learned the value of podcasting
because they knew it was growth. Don't get me wrong,
but I think during the pandemic it kind of proved
to be a lot more stable than radio at the time.
So that was the information being fed to us, right.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yes, And we are going to talk about that some
more in a second, because I think that had major
political ratifications. But more on that later. Another thing is
that's been really interesting for me that Samantha has heard
me talk about it a lot, is that when I
first started, I was actually a video I am merrily
(13:00):
video editor. I did do podcasting, but primarily I was
the video element of the podcast. And then they were like, nope, videos,
nothing go away. And now video is back, and it's back,
it is back, and yes, our very own company. Uh,
(13:21):
we have got deals with Netflix, We've got to deal
with TikTok, and we don't really know much about a.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Couple of these announcements came on social media. My partner
sister sends me a text about the Netflix and she
was like.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
So, we are we about to see you on TV.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
It's like, hell no, we can avoid it at all costs.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Hell no.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Because we were also in that conversation a year ago,
two years ago, two years ago where it was we're
gonna start doing YouTube, You're gonna have to start doing
these things, and we were prepping up. I was freaking
out and he was freaking out, and like, how do
we edit this? Because we heavily need editors. As you
can tell when I go rogue or when Annie just
laughs at me or has sneezes.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I sneeze very loudly, and I learned recently you can
definitely hear it in the entire building.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So yeah, oh no, what a late time discovery because
you've been there for having I've been.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
There for ten eleven years. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
But all of that to say is like, there are
the power of editing. Because I people get confused when
I say I'm a podcaster. They're like, oh my god,
you must be such a great speaker, you must really perform. Well.
I was like, oh no, I have extreme anxiety that
I have to take my medication for if I'm in
front of people, and they're like really, I'm like, I
am an introvert. If I have to put on that
entertaining social person, I can, but it is exhausting and
(14:45):
I need some backup. But with this idea of being
on that and then they're like, Okay, scrap it because
y'all are really hesitanting, I'm like, thank you, thank you
very much too. We're just gonna take your content and
put it on YouTube, which was perfectly fine, and it's
fun to see. It's fun to see how they get
those graphics up. Our little pictures on the side, like
oh this, that's cute. And according to that Edison research
(15:08):
from the twenty twenty five, it shows that gen Zers
prefer all of their content from YouTube, like all of
their podcasting listening comes from YouTube. So that's an interesting
tape because obviously as non gen Zers, that's us I
stay away from YouTube. You like YouTube, I am very
fearful of YouTube.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I watch a lot of YouTube. I wouldn't say I
like it necessarily, I.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Actually have that as a resource.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Then I have many issues with it in fact, but yes,
I do consume a lot of YouTube, right.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
And we also have a deal with YouTube.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
From what I understand with iHeart and trying to like
again blow it up because YouTube is also trying to
grow their own podcasting content, not necessarily by creating their
own but allowing for podcasts to be used and streamed
through their services. So seeing things like that as well
as TikTok, and it has blown up, like when we
(16:07):
see podcast content on TikTok, because I get clips of
podcast content all the time all the time. It's interesting
to see how the setup is for video versus what
we do. It is very very different. And also it
sounds like I'm hating on celebrities, I'm not, but seeing
their setup versus our setup is also almost comical. The
(16:31):
layer of like watching celebrity celebrity podcasters on a couch
around with their drinks clinkly clacketing everything.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I'm like, that's.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Got to be an editor's worst nightmare. Yeah, because it's
like wide open. They're moving the mics up and then
not even talking about the people who actually hold the mics.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
So it was like wow, really, yeah, it really is
a different skill set. I'm not saying like an actor
cannot do it, but just because someone can perform doesn't
mean you can podcast in a way that is easy
for an editor.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Right, right, And that's the thing is like the depth
of like understanding what happens with that, as well as
the fact that again, video editing is completely different as
you would know.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yes, well, and this has been a very I don't
think our company is alone in doing this, but even
though it blows my mind that big companies do this,
but it's been very seemingly last minute. So a lot
of this, a lot of this happened very quickly for
the people involved, and it included moving into for at
(17:46):
least one person, moving into a nicer space to record
in their home because they were recording in their closet
and they were like, yeah, now we need video. And
I've had a lot of conversations with people who are like, well,
what if you get asked and I said, I do
not have another room to go. I live in a
small apartment. This is it. You're getting this closet if
(18:08):
you want to try to make it look less like
a cosplay nightmare than okay, But otherwise, like I don't
have house, there's no other room for me to go.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Right, And once again like I do have a house,
but I am in a small closet with a lot
of sound blankets. I look like I'm in the void,
Like this is what it looks like. But it is
interesting again because it also comes back to we listen
my partner and I love this one podcast. I don't
listen to podcasts, but their clips come up on my
on my TikTok for you page all the time, and
(18:44):
they are funny. They are funny as hell, and like
I've even been told, oh, you should do it like them,
I'm like what, just yell into the mic like I
know this is this is not what we do. Although
that would be wonderful if that's all we did. And
then the same thing is like we have other podcast
shows who bring on standing up comedians and they're amazing
in their dynamic, and that show different for our show,
(19:07):
very different. But then when you actually try to go
listen to the long form podcast because they do have
like instead of the three minute.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Clips, it doesn't work as well.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It's not what you get from those clips, those immediate laughs,
the highlights, the one quotes, and then you go in
and it's like, wells, this kind of it's drags. Like
we try to listen to them because we liked the
TikTok content and we think it's hilarious, and then as
we were listening to the actual podcast, we're like, ooh, yeah,
h this does not translate very well. And we've had
(19:39):
that again because the amount of cancelations of a lot
of our shows, which some of them I'm very upset about,
to be honest, because they weren't good shows, but some
of them made sense because they did not translate into
a podcast content.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Pat yeah, yeah, And we have had this argument for
a long time. At our company. They told us we
were going to write a book and I said, I
don't think this makes any sense. I'm just gonna be
honest with you, and I'm not I'm proud of what
we did, but I'm still like, it's not it's not
going to be an automatic. People listen to podcasts for
(20:18):
a reason, right, and it's not that they have time
to sit and read a whole book. Maybe.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I also, again love the critigues of like this is
probably a better podcast and a book.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
That was funny that did make me laugh. It also
means we really didn't do our good our job because
we were trying to be like, there's a podcast, Well.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
It's okay, it's okay, but yeah, I think is interesting
to see as the evolution of podcasts happened, what is
happening and what we're watching to do, because with that,
we're trying not to disappear the content that we were
trying to create. I feel like any I think we
have a constant conversation about those are like are we
going too far? Are we not going far enough? Are
we going to be on a watch list? I think
(21:01):
we're on a watch list. I'm pretty sure we're on
a watch list because of our stances of because of
some of the things that we take because as an
intersectional feminist show, we have a very specific duty in
highlighting that injustice and upholding the truth to that and
unraveling disinformation and misinformation, and that does come with a price.
I will say we're pretty much under the radar, so
(21:21):
I'm cool with that. But also we have amazing listeners, yes,
who understand and are are with us in this long battle.
But it comes to doing, but they're so far and
few between. There are actually, actually there's a lot of
good podcasts, but not enough good podcasts are given a chance.
And it partially has a lot to do with the
fact that the industry is not welcoming to everyone.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yes, and also who gets sponsorships and who gets ads,
which is a huge problem. We we got a little
sidetracked there, as we knew we would. We should come
(22:08):
back to this study we mentioned from usc Anenberg. It
was a report called Inequality and Popular podcast and it
was part of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, and it was
written by Stacy L. Smith, and it compiled data from
Spotify and other podcast reports in the industry. It examined
five hundred and ninety two podcasts from twenty twenty four
(22:31):
specifically looking at the gender and race of the host.
Smith highlights the fact that podcasts are increasingly relevant. The
twenty twenty four US presidential election is sometimes called the
podcast election, and we talked about podcast and their role
in the rise of the Manisphere in that episode, and
Smith said podcasting's power lies in its potential as a
(22:54):
democratized medium where anyone with an idea and a microphone
can find an audience. The format but sures that accessibility
can help challenge the old patterns of entertainment and pave
the way for more inclusive audio landscape, which we've said,
we've talked about this before. I think there's flip sides
to this. It's a double edged sword. Because podcasting is
(23:20):
free generally to listen to, it can be if you're
not doing the fancy setup, pretty cheap to get into,
and so that's great, but that also means that in
my opinion, like especially during COVID, when people were lonely
and isolated and sitting in their car and they're listening
(23:42):
to these like manisphere podcasts because they can't they don't
have access to legitimate news sources, or because now they're
behind paywalls or whatever. It is that. I do think
that we were going to have to look at that
damage as well. But anyway, the study also looked at
(24:04):
the top one hundred podcasts of twenty twenty four, and
here are some of the stats. Sixty four point one
percent of hosts were men and thirty five point nine
percent were women, which was similarly reflected over the five
hundred and ninety two podcasts that they also looked at.
Despite this being a newer medium, this is worse a
representation when it comes to women in film, TV and music,
(24:26):
which because the idea was it's new, so we have
a job, we have an opportunity to do better. But instead,
right now, that is not what is happening. When it
comes to what genres women podcast host are most successful with,
true crime is the top with fifty three percent. Something
(24:48):
in the arts, society, and cultural genre is forty three
point three percent, which is I think that's where we
fall Samantha, I think that's where we're categorized. Probably. I
think so News and education both are at about forty percent.
Women were least likely to host podcasts about business and
technology and sports and fitness at seven point seven percent
(25:11):
and eighteen point nine percent seven point seven. That's really low.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah, yeah, really disheartening. Yeah, the numbers are not good.
And I remember coming on twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, twenty
nineteen and talking about the state of podcasts and women
in podcasts, and yeah, we really thought by this time
(25:36):
the increase would be so huge and so giant, and
to see not at all and it's only gotten.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Bleak.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
We had so much hope and then and then yeah, yeah,
well it gets worse. So when it comes to of
those one hundred podcast surveyed, about seventy seven percent were white,
and the percentage rises even higher to about seventy nine
(26:07):
percent when casting a wider net. So when you're looking
out at more podcasts, the numbers get worse.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
These trends were similarly reflected as the ones in gender,
so there was higher representation in movies, TV, and music
than there is in podcasting. Only six point six percent
of the top one hundred podcast host surveyed were women
of color, and only about eight percent of the five
(26:34):
hundred and ninety two surveyed. Once again, this number is
lower than representation same groups and movies, TV, and music.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I want to know if we were in that five,
one hundred and ninety two because we were in Spotify.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Oh really yeah technically Oh well yeah, oh oh really
yeah that podcasts are there, they exist. Oh my gosh,
I'm not just screaming into the right.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Now into the YouTube boyd.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah. I tried to find the list of the podcast
I probably could have, but I couldn't find it easily. No,
I suspect we weren't on there, but it's possible.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
That makes me sad.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
I know, I feel like we're left out of a
lot of things that we sure.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Are, or all of.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Our data is relegated from twenty early two thousands when
the first the show first began.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's another pain.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
That's another pain. It's okay.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I mean, we definitely had an amazing beginning. Our platform
was created by Kristen and Molly and Caroline and they
really built up this platform so we can be here
because I don't know, it's so hard again to break through, Yeah,
in these industries, like people asking us what can we
(27:58):
do when we just sit there looking at like, oh,
do you have a friend that's already in podcasting that's
pretty well known? No, thank good luck?
Speaker 1 (28:07):
My joking horrible answer is always good a time machine,
but it used to be wild. I don't want to
I don't I don't want to discourage anybody, but it's
just changed so much because we do have that long
history and that built up audience thanks to previous hosts.
(28:31):
But no joke. We used to have a kind of
a penalty. I guess it was a bonus, but I
saw it as a penalty. You had to get a
million downloads every month, right, or you wouldn't get like
your bonus.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
It's kind of it's more complicated than that, but you
wouldn't get this like extra pay, right, And nowadays that
seems wild to me, that's right? Or with you a
million yeah a month? And now I'll hear other podcasts
talking about how much they get and it's their scenic
successful and it's nowhere close to that. But that's what
(29:09):
it used to be, right, And now there's so much competition,
And I don't blame I mean.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Even within our own company, I know, and.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Listeners, you have so many options, So thank you for
being here, thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
For listening still being part of our family. We do
love that. But yeah, the amount of choices when you
go through it is unbelievable because you can just I
was looking up Intersectional Feminists podcast for twenty twenty five
and that they had top one hundred lists and it
kept going. And that's for intersexual feminism, which I didn't
(29:40):
think there was that many, but there is, and I'd
love to see it. But of course each one of
them more like has like four votes or five votes,
are like and I want to see more and more
because we want to have more and more content. But
then at the same time, yeah, there are so many choices,
there's so many new voices.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
We need more new voices. We want to hear more voices.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
But it's interesting to se the as it again, this
market is very saturated, but now they want to be entertained.
Now they want us to entertain in different fashions, whether
it is through the clip videos, the the viral Yes
acts that we can't just conjure up because we don't
(30:20):
see each other that often. Yes, Well, this split second.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Another infamous story, Samantha's Nos, and this was not this
was not iHeart. This was a different company that owned
us at one point. But we had a meeting where
they sat us down and played what does the Fox say?
And I bet a lot of listeners don't even remember
that viral clip and said why can't you go viral?
(30:48):
And we were like, what you think if we knew
how to do it, we wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
I was gonna say it wasn't for the lack of trying,
because the videos from Kaz House Works are hilarious and
I'm really glad to not have had to be a
part of that. And God blessed Ben and Kristen acting
their butts off for all of these clips, and Jonathan
doing their bits and trying to appease the viral gods
(31:18):
and hope that someone sees them.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
And Christin has some viral videos. I know.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
She was really to the point that people did not
realize it was a podcast.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yes, and they thought it was just a YouTube show.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Which was really interesting to me because I feel like
I was the person who answered listener mail at that
point as well. I feel like they were separate audiences
for us. Here's the audio podcast listeners, and here are
the YouTube primarily listeners, and that was fascinating to me.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I mean, I remember because I had come in with
Caroline and we were doing some collaborative work with a
friend of a kind of an acquaintance. We were doing
a project that I was really passionate about and I
was into Caroline and she was I was like, oh,
you know, she's a podcast she does stuff Mom never
told you. She was like, oh my god, you know
Kristen And we were like, yeah, they were all on
(32:10):
podcasts together.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
She's like, she has podcasts.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Like she was so confused because she knew her from
again the YouTube series, and she did not know that
there was a podcast. And I was like, I guess
because there's two separate entities and they weren't necessarily trying
to show podcasting in YouTube. So it's kind of like
and then Caroline became full time. She was doing a
(32:35):
video for another segment that wasn't stuff Mom never told you.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like Caroline came on to the
this Sminty YouTube show once and even I was like, oh,
it's Caroline on the video, but yeah, I know it was.
It was very different and just if any of you
(33:00):
just haven't seen any of those videos, they weren't a
lot of what we're talking about now with podcasting. Video
is literally you're watching a video of them.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Podcasting recording a podcast. So it's the same episode as
you could just listen to.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Yes, this was supposed to be supplemental to the podcast,
and they were short, like five to seven minute videos skits, Yes,
but they weren't like educational skits. Yeah, they were meant
to They kind of were meant to look like a
journal or somebody talking directly to you. A lot of
(33:37):
times she did focus on the topics that she uh
covered in the podcast, but it wasn't like a she's
talking into a microphone and this is the episode she
had costumes. I put it in effects like this is
where I learned all the font names. Yeah. Yeah, so
(33:58):
it is different.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Which way have you noticed?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I don't know all on Spotify they have an option
to see like just music, to see the videos instead
of just listening to the music.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Oh really, I.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Think there's one story.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Well, YouTube makes sense because they had music videos that
kind of they kind of replaced MTV for music videos
being released, like that's why you would look it up.
But in Spotify it was never nothing about video. Like
they came to the point where you could actually read
the lyrics and I was like, oh that's cool. Now
you can actually watch the music video and I'm like, oh,
(34:34):
they're one step away from doing this content.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah. Well, and that's another thing that as we've been
discussing how this might impact us if if it happened,
if we had to do video, I do think in
some ways this has changed, but it's just going to
require more for a lot of women are people who
(35:01):
present as femme because it usually does entail like makeup
and clothes, and that's extra time of your day and
hair maybe just stuff that men necessarily don't have to
worry about as much. And just to like hammer home
that point, I was in a meeting once where they
(35:24):
brought it up back when we still did video. It's
like you should wear more makeup to somebody. So it's
not like I said, I do think it's gotten better,
but that's just an extra thing. And I even expend
some makeup when I thought we had to do it
because I was like, well, not ready running.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
No.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Oh well It's It's.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Interesting because we also have talked about the criticisms that
women host in marginalists, well they receive is so much
more vast and so much more harsh and like intense.
So having that layer of criticism about the way we
speak about the way we pause, about the way we giggle,
about any of those things which have the amount of
criticism I got because of my accent, because of the
(36:17):
way I spoke, the way I would whisper, and being
all these things or what I talked about or how
I talked about it, whatever whatnot was pretty painful and
damaging for a while that I had to come to
again talked about this before being like, how do I
stop looking at this? Because I want I want the
praise without the criticism, and the amount of criticism was
(36:39):
outweighing to me what seemed to be the praise. And
again we've got amazing listeners who have always been with
us a part of the family, but we have people
who are comparing us to the previous hosts about not
being this person or that person. Me being criticized for
having a non white perspective like that has happened as well.
(36:59):
But like all of that to come back into having
our appearance and have being told that these are the
things that are wrong with me, or these are the
things like what we look like, what we don't look like.
Oh my god, I don't know if I can go
to that again.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
It's miserable. It's you stepped answer the YouTube comments and
it was not fun.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh and but that's the thing, is like, that's what
we're going to see, and that's kind of one of
the things that we want to avoid personally in our
in our every day the coming in sweats and pajamas
has been a privilege. Again, we love our job, and
we know we have a privileged position, but understand that
when you're under scrutiny, the amount of scrutiny is intense,
(37:40):
and so feeling like we have to do it no
matter what is unbelievable. And then also to seeing okay,
but if we have to, because is the tides turning
to that point that if we don't, we lose to
those willing to do these things or have been doing
these things. And again, you know, we lose another marginalized
voice because because of that exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
And obviously these numbers they're terrible. This is terrible, so
low of a percentage of women and women of color specifically,
and I do think it has to do with a
lot of things. But yeah, that scrutiny that when you
come on you're not getting the support from monetarily from companies,
(38:24):
but also just from you're getting bombarded with all this
criticism you're not getting Like sometimes Apple podcasts will spotlight
a show. You're not getting something like that because maybe
you're controversial and they don't have anything to do with that,
like even though you're probably not controversial, but they'll, you know.
And that's going back to what I was saying earlier.
(38:46):
When you're talking about a medium that is relatively new,
that is relatively free, that's a huge deal. If people
are like going to podcasts to get their news or
to like shape their worldviews, and they're not hearing from
women or people of color or women of color, then
(39:07):
that's a huge problem. Ah. And this was an interesting
thing too. The study looked into guest appearances on podcasts
and found that almost seventy five percent of guest appearances
were men. Women weren't featured as guests on two thirds
of the over four thousand podcast episodes surveyed, and perhaps unsurprisingly,
(39:33):
women guests were the most likely to appear on podcast
with host who were women. That makes so much sense
to me. The numbers were pretty stark too, though, even
for podcasts hosted by at least one woman, percentage wise,
they still had more male guests, about fifty five percent men. Meanwhile,
podcasts with no women host had over eighty percent male guests. Right, yes,
(39:57):
and again that's that's part of the p when you
don't have these hosts who are going to make the effort.
I guess people.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Have a conversation like, it's interesting to see how that
comes about and who is asked to.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Be on what show?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I will say, we have plenty of people asking to
have men, Like, We've had plenty of agencies or men
asked to be on this show. And I'm like, do
you know what this show is about? Yeah, and there's
somewhere it is appropriate, don't get me wrong. There's some
real conversations and I'm like, yeah, let's let's do this,
let's have this conversation whatever whatnot. But they are just like,
(40:39):
again we had that one dude.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Oh yeah, it was very like.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Right leaning politics and get your women in control.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
I was like, yeah, are interesting pitches shall we say?
Speaker 2 (40:58):
But yeah, of course it's not surprising to see that
they as guests, even they're not platformed, and by the
pitches that we get, there's plenty of people out there
who should be platformed and we don't get to have
everybody that wants to be on our show or have
been asked have been doing amazing things. So it's not
because of the lack of opportunity. There are plenty of
people out there. There are plenty of women, There are
(41:18):
plenty of marginalized people, have so many different types of
experiences and expertise that really should be platformed, but they're
just not chosen.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, like you said, we get plenty
of people that we wish we could. It's just timing
or whatever it is. They're out there. They are out there,
and I promise they're not pitching just to us, right,
(41:48):
just to only women.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So this is also a very disheartening number because how
are you going to have You're just missing women listen
to just as many podcasts as ment like a little
a little less statistically, but it's almost equal.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But like, the thing is interestingly the because we've talked
about this before, but the percentage of a listeners listenership
tripled in the last ten years for women. Like the
growth has been astronomical. And we've talked about this before
about advertising and who is most likely buying things and
who's also listening to the sponsorships. Hello, it is women,
(42:30):
It is majority women. They are the one that are
actually making money for these podcasts.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
So it's kind of interesting to see why once.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Again, we've talked about this in marketing in every way,
when we talk about like marketing on TikTok, when we
talk about magazines, when we talk about all of these things,
we know that women are the buyers. They make up
the buyers of the household. So podcasting, which relies heavily
on ads, sorry, y'all.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I know you hate it, I don't.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I also do the fast forward mark that you would
think that they would understand having women being sponsored by
a company would help them in the long run economically.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
I know. But I feel like the issue is there
was a push a couple of years ago to oh,
women are listening to podcasts, we should actually pay attention
to them. They might buy stuff. But then every advertisement
we got was just the most horrendous. I can't vote.
(43:37):
I cannot believe you think this would fly on a
feminist podcast at And it was just so telling to
me of how little you actually care, right, Like you're
just oh, they'll buy something they like botox, right, right, else.
This is a thing that happened everybody, and it's too
(43:59):
too long of a story and too traumatizing for us
to go into right now.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
But y'all some of the things that we were like,
I don't think you understand what we do.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yes, and listen if you want to your healthy mindspace,
you want to get photox. I'm not calling it out,
but it was the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yes, No, specifically specifically what we were talking about.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yes, it was very bad.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
We were like, you don't understand what this is. No,
but that's I mean again, And this could because I
was trying to look up numbers and I could not
find them. I'm sure I can do a deeper dive
because I was looking at behind the scenes of podcasts,
who what, what gender, or what community holds up and
I could not get specific numbers, but just from what
(44:46):
I see as white men. So this is part of
the bigger problem, Like the people who are not a
part of the conversation once again and not having giving
the feedback or not understanding the feedback, are not the
people who understand what is needed and what things are
like having research, research, what you're talking about, research, what
show you're trying to trying to use for what conversation
(45:08):
instead of just putting a band aid because yes, stuff
Mom never told you comes gets brought up as being
a mom show, even by the way, by our own bosses.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, that's fun, but show us this like we've been
here for a long time.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Right, like literally, Like we're not as big as the others,
for sure, I get this, but we are known as
one of the staples. Like they call this a legacy
show because of that, and then they use our show
to bring on other guests to when they start a podcast,
so that we can help get their name out, which
oftentimes they don't need our name, need our help, you know,
(45:52):
because we are a part of that thing. But people
who work for our company as leaders really do not,
and not that they can.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Again, there's tons of.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Our there's tons of shows. There's tons of shows. But
in things like marketing and things in like collaboration, you
kind of need to know who you say you want
to work with and why. Yeah, asking two women who
are not married and have no children and have no
want of children to do things because you think they're
(46:20):
moms because of the word mom.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Yeah, is in that show.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
It's stuff mom never told you. That doesn't mean we're
the mom.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
So we didn't tell you. We would be telling you.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Right every year we have to have this conversation.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
But it is interesting to see in that level of
like who is behind the scenes, who is navigating this boat?
Speaker 3 (46:44):
And I will say, our.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Team, I think has been well made and we are
a well oiled machine. Like our executive producer has done
a lot to advocate for us, our producer Christina has
done a lot to advocate for us. Joey has been
like putting their finger on the pulls to make sure
that we're in line with the standards for the gen
(47:05):
z Yers. Oh my god, sorry about that. And I
hate myself for saying that. But all of that to
say is like we try. We have a great team,
So that's for us. We are again once again privileged
in having that. But just seeing the behind the scenes
when it comes to the corporate level of who controls
what is being platformed. I think that's the bigger conversation
(47:29):
in this narrative. And it is nice to see more
and more like producers and writers and researchers who are marginalized,
but it it feels like they get very and I
can I say this as privilege. They get stuck into
that same role instead of being able to expand and
being able to use their talents. And again that's a
(47:50):
whole different conversation in that because, as we talked about,
in any industry, if you want those communities to be
part of this conversation, if you want to grow in
those communities, we need those people from that community to
be a part of the conversation.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Absolutely, absolutely, our listeners are awesome and we love you,
and yes, you listeners are fantastic, and a lot of
times when we do episodes, I'm almost kind of I
feel kind of not guilt, but I'm like, they already
know this, but here we are with the facts and
the research. So you're correct. But I did want to
(48:30):
include this quote. According to the host of the podcast
Boy Problems, Liz Plank, women will listen to men without hesitation,
but there's a real reluctance among many men to engage
with content made by women. So I think that that,
I don't know, I think we should keep that in
mind too, because that is also something that just ring
true to me. Is that feels correct that it's seen
(48:55):
as you know, women's issues is still a top like
a genre, which there can be, but it feels so
like if a woman is the host, then it's a
woman's issue and I shouldn't engage with it unless I'm
a woman, and that's not what it is. Women hosts
talk about all kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Oftentimes we're like, no, we need you to listen.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
We're talking to you.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yes, you live in the society man that we live
in as well, So.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Hello, we are being othered when we need you to
be a part of this conversation. We do want to
but they'll listen part.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah yeah, But I just feel like that was such
a Yeah. Women listen to male hosts, but.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Men are like I will say, we do have some
men that listen to us, and we are very excited
to get you are on and thank you for doing
so and writing in yes, and we appreciate that we
see you.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Yes, kudos. And with that, I'm.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Going to do something that I haven't done in a
long time.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Anie, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
This is appropriate, which is highlight a few of the
podcasts that are out there that you might not know
about and that we want to see grow. And some
of them are already kind of big, but you know,
we still love them. So I was going to start
off with Intersectionality in the American South. So this is
actually hosted by doctor Katie Acosta, and it is I
(50:16):
believe in affiliation with Georgia State University, which made me
very excited because obviously we're from Atlanta. But they do
great research topics, research topics and interviews with different people
in the South in talking about how intersectionality is important
for the South and what we are looking at. So
(50:37):
they're from their episode description in bus Sprout, they write,
Intersectionality in the American South is a podcast to anyone
who's ready to take a long, hard look at the
ways oppressive systems land in people's lives. We bring together
academics and everyday people in conversations about the intersectional forms
of oppression that marginalize people experience.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
You will hear thought.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Provoking conversations about hard topics that center the often silence
voices of women in color, queer, trans and non binary
folk and immigrants. So from our research, this is in
correlation with Georgia State University and their Intersectional Studies collective
and from a I believe they have twenty two episodes.
The last one was released in September of twenty twenty five,
(51:19):
so it's been a minute. And their topics go from
educational topics to reproductive rights, to specific indigenous groups light
the golah Geichee community, which is a fascinating conversation and
if you don't know about them, you really should dive in.
There's been a big conversations as in fact, there's an
island I believe in Georgia that is a part of
Georgia that is currently being kind of fought over the
(51:41):
government's trying to take it from the Goliguchi community. So
something that we need to talk about and look at.
But they do have an instagram called intersect South that
you should go check out. I fin ended up fascinating.
I did listen to a little bit. They do a
great job in doing some of the research I can.
We love intersectionality in any way, but in the South,
(52:02):
you know, it hits different.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
So just so you know.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Another one is a Burn It All Down. It's hosted
by Sharen Ahmed Amara, Rose Davis, Brenda Elsie, Lindsay Gibbs,
and Jessica Luther and they are a feminist sports podcast,
which we were like we need more of so from
their site, they just write the feminist sports podcast You Need,
very succinct with two hundred and seventy episode. The last
(52:27):
one was released just last month. Definitely you want to
go to. They do have all the social media under
burn It All Down pod, so you should go and
check them out. They've done a lot there. I think
they are pretty big in general. But you know we
love sports, then we have Uplifters. It's hosted by Arnsas
Savas and this is from their site, the Uplifters podcast
(52:49):
dot com. On the Uplifters podcast and the substack, I
share stories of women in midlife and beyond who are
pursuing their wildest dreams and biggest ambition despite self doubt
and societal messaging that says it's too late.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Spoiler is not.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
These women are proving that we are all capable of
building our meaningful, our most meaningful lives at any age.
So it's very sweet, very uplifting, great stories. They have
one hundred and forty three episodes that have different inspiring
episodes with different interviews. She gets to talk to through
talk with many different people. Very cool, So you can
go check that out and then finally, but of course
(53:23):
there's many, many more, many many more. The Unscripted Revolution
is hosted by Nikita Ramkissen and this is their Spotify
show description. Intersectional proletarianism, journalism, and Leftism. From a master's
graduate in gender studies, Nikita Ramkesen raised in an anti
apartheid activist household, Nikita grew up with love for human
(53:44):
rights and good books. Being a survivor of childhood sexual assault,
she developed by polar disorder and wishes to debunk myths
about mental illness and shed light on survivor issues through
her writing. Some might call her a raging feminist, and
she is guided by Bill Hooks, Angela and the Other
Black women Is. Nikita wishes to uplift voices of women
in color and media spaces, so she has some really
(54:05):
great interviews as well. Her work is pretty fascinating. She's
not afraid of tackling all of the hard subjects. Very
good listen, kind of hard listen, but very needed. So
those are four that we would recommend for now. I'm
sure I'll find them more about it before the end
of the year.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
For y'all, yes and listeners, if you have any oo
yes that you would like to suggest we know some
of you have podcasts. Just let us know. You can
email us at Hello A stuff onever Told You dot com.
You can find us on Blue skyt Mom Stuff podcast
or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You.
We also are on YouTube. We have merchandise at Cotton Bureau,
(54:46):
and yes we do have a book you can get
wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to our
super produced Christina executive Priws Maya and your concertor Joey
dream Team.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
Thank you yes, and.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
Thanks to you for listening. Stuff Never Told You is
prediction by Hi Radio. For more gusts from Heart Radio,
you can check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast
or if you listen to your favorite shows
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