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Now, two years later, she considers her podcast, “Everything is Best” — the place she provides conversations on points comparable to parenting, being pregnant, monetary planning, entertaining — a giant success. She credit her partnership with Dear Media.
Since its launch in 2018, Dear Media has quietly turn out to be one of the crucial outstanding names in girls’s media. The podcast community’s social media channels attain a mixed viewers of greater than 120 million. Dear Media’s exhibits have been downloaded greater than 200 million instances in 2022, and the corporate has launched over 50 strains of influencer merchandise and doubled its annual income in every of the previous 4 years.
The model has turn out to be ubiquitous in girls’s areas on-line. It’s exhausting to scroll by TikTok or Instagram with out seeing a Dear Media podcast video clip. “You see a clip on TikTok and you know immediately it’s Dear Media,” stated the TikTok star Corporate Natalie, who has practically half one million followers on the app.
Podcasting is forecast to be a $94.88 billion trade by 2028, and massive gamers together with Spotify and Apple have acquired or commissioned a slew of high-profile, unique exhibits. And the expansion of platforms comparable to Anchor, which permits anybody to create a podcast, has led to a tidal wave of homegrown exhibits. But, because the economic system contracts and this media sector enters what the podcast critic and analyst Nicholas Quah calls a “podcast winter,” competitors is turning into fierce. That’s the place Dear Media is available in.
“[There’s] generally a feeling of pessimism in the podcast business,” he stated. “I haven’t seen that many attempts at building out a women’s focused multimedia lifestyle brand that has a distinct podcast presence like Dear Media. The big question of a network of that scale is whether they have the downloads.” Meaning, for Dear Media to outlive, it should proceed to churn out exhibits and increase its viewers.
Dear Media appears to have tapped right into a profitable formulation: leveraging podcasts as a springboard for feminine influencers to construct multimillion-dollar manufacturers. The Dear Media community hosts 63 exhibits, primarily chat exhibits (the place hosts and visitors have freewheeling conversations) with dozens extra in growth, and is consistently bringing on new expertise. Its well-liked slate of exhibits consists of “Not Skinny But Not Fat,” a popular culture present hosted by the influencer Amanda Hirsch, “Back to the Beach,” which is hosted by the fact TV stars Kristin Cavallari and Stephen Colletti, each of whom starred on the MTV present “Laguna Beach,” and “Absolutely Not,” a comedy podcast hosted by the actress and comic Heather McMahan.
“They’ve created this network of powerful women that all have really interesting channels,” Baroncini stated. “…We’re all constantly doing pod swaps with each other.”
Last yr, Dear Media launched its first restricted collection, “Summer of Gold,” hosted by the retired determine skater Michelle Kwan and co-produced with Togethxr, a girls’s sports activities media firm. It tells the oral historical past of the 1996 Olympics, when the ladies’s sports activities groups swept gold. And this yr, the community additionally launched its first fiction present, known as “Bone, Marry, Bury,” with Sarah Hyland, about romance and homicide. Dear Media additionally has introduced a present with the “Black-ish” star Tracee Ellis Ross known as “I Am America.” It options tales that highlight on a regular basis Americans and “transcend[s] all the divisions we have in this country,” an announcement for the present reads.
Although Dear Media itself has managed to remain out of the net drama that’s usually synonymous with the influencer trade, it has not shied away from controversial expertise. In October, the corporate recruited Claudia Oshry and Jackie Oshry Weinreb, daughters of far-right extremist Pamela Geller, to host a present, regardless of Claudia Oshry’s being mired in backlash for espousing views just like her mom’s, comparable to repeatedly making racist feedback and downplaying the coronavirus pandemic.
Dear Media was based as a three way partnership between the entrepreneur Michael Bosstick, who serves as the corporate’s chief govt, and Raina Penchansky, the founding father of Digital Brand Architects (DBA), the main way of life influencer administration firm, which helps social media creators monetize and increase their manufacturers. DBA’s primacy within the area was cemented when the administration firm was acquired by United Talent Agency in 2019.
The enterprise got here to fruition after Michael Bosstick and his spouse, Lauryn Bosstick, a massively well-liked way of life influencer identified by her deal with, @theskinnyconfidential, produced a profitable podcast constructed off her model known as “The Skinny Confidential Him & Her.” The present featured frank conversations with entrepreneurs, content material creators and authors.
Although their present was a hit — the Bossticks have produced greater than 500 episodes, by no means lacking an episode per week in six years and garnering over 150 million downloads — they’d hassle discovering a podcast community. They didn’t really feel that any of the main networks took them severely or have been concerned about serving a primarily feminine viewers.
The Bossticks acknowledged that numerous influential girls with large on-line followings, together with way of life content material creators, actuality stars and entrepreneurs, wished to begin podcasts however have been dismissed or have been tremendously undervalued by the male-dominated podcast trade. So, they partnered with Penchansky, whose firm had a report of working with main feminine content material creators, and Dear Media was born.
“It was at this time we realized how many other female-focused shows were also not getting the attention or resources they deserved,” Michael Bosstick stated. “The top charts of major podcast platforms were all male-dominated, and there were very few women being represented in the way we both felt was appropriate. We had been collaborating with and speaking to so many incredible women and thought it was time to even out the charts a bit.”
What Dear Media acknowledged earlier than most was that the media trade was shifting away from conventional manufacturers and towards on-line creators. “The idea of building a platform by creators, for creators, that caters to female audiences looking into opportunities beyond just audio was born,” Michael Bosstick stated.
Each Dear Media model speaks to a particular sort of lady or curiosity. Dear Media exhibits cowl matters together with style, leisure and popular culture information, courting, marriage, being pregnant, the challenges of being a lady within the office, and extra. The community does embrace males, however they largely converse to the corporate’s predominantly feminine viewers.
“Consumers view Dear Media podcasts as a resource for real life,” stated Siffat Haider, an influencer and the founding father of the wellness model Arrae, who hosts “The Dream Bigger Podcast.” “The [listener] finds a lot of Dear Media shows relatable, no matter where they are in their life. Whether it’s a parenting podcast or career podcasts, there’s a lot of genuine, real-life applications.”
“The hope is that you may come to Dear Media for a comedy show but then decide you also want to hear a parenting show. Or you may come in to listen to a business show and discover that you also like a pop culture show,” Michael Bosstick stated. “Our goal is to create a wide enough offering that can appeal to anyone as they go through their weeks and days as well as through different moods throughout the week.”
Unlike different podcast firms which have generic tools and bland studio areas, Dear Media has constructed Instagram and YouTube-ready studio areas in West Hollywood and Austin. The areas have turn out to be a hub for influencers and celebrities who are available as visitors or to host their very own exhibits, merely to sit down in entrance of the Dear Media branded microphones. Dear Media branding is affixed to the thumbnail of each present, and the Dear Media identify is shouted out at first of each episode of each present on the community. That branding has allowed Dear Media to attain a degree of identify recognition that different networks have struggled to realize.
“Branding is something that has been on the forefront of every business conversation,” stated Paige Port, Dear Media’s president. “What does the brand look like on cover art, in the studio, when it comes to distribution. It’s something that’s become really recognizable, and when you see content on other platforms, it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s a Dear Media show.’”
While Dear Media makes use of podcasts as a launchpad for the expertise with which it really works, the community’s success comes from its potential to assist influencers construct mini media empires round themselves. “We look at all the shows as brands within themselves, and when you look at them as brands instead of just audio channels, you can do so much more,” Michael Bosstick stated, mentioning alternatives that embrace merchandise, dwell occasions, touring, product strains, streaming and IP. “This is a focus many of our competitors can’t or won’t entertain.”
For the expertise, working with Dear Media opens up monetization alternatives not usually obtainable in conventional podcasting. “Why should I have a random advertiser on the podcast that I don’t really use?” Baroncini stated. “I wanted to work with brands that are a part of my life and can seamlessly integrate with my other social media channels.”
Michael Bosstick has championed sponsored episodes, the place visitors pay 1000’s of {dollars} to be featured on a present, just like the way in which influencers would produce sponsored content material for manufacturers on their social feeds. The apply is frequent within the on-line creator area, however in podcasting, it has historically occurred solely behind the scenes. Bosstick places it out within the open. “The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast” prices between $20,000 and $40,000 per sponsored interview, in line with Bloomberg News. “We always frame it as: There’s no talking points; you don’t get to submit questions; the only thing is it’s just your brand being featured,” he informed Bloomberg. And sponsored episodes account for only one to three p.c of Dear Media’s whole programming, he stated.
The firm additionally spins out client merchandise. Dear Media has incubated The Skinny Confidential, Bosstick’s unique way of life model, and Woo More Play, a sexual-wellness toy firm. The firm additionally has invested in and helped to develop a complement model, a line of vegan and gluten-free cookie dough, a humidifier firm, a line of glowing wine cocktails and a line of pure cures. It additionally runs a thriving merchandise enterprise.
Chat exhibits stay Dear Media’s bread and butter, however the firm is quickly increasing into new codecs. In 2020, Dear Media raised $8 million Series A funding, telling Forbes that the corporate deliberate to make use of that cash to broaden its slate of programming. “We’re focusing on adding more diversity, not only in the types of women we represent, but also the type of content,” Bosstick stated on the time.
In November, Dear Media launched “dailys,” that are five- to 10-minute items aimed on the Dear Media viewers. Port calls them “digestible, snackable episodes people can start or end their day with.” The firm employed a staff to give attention to the product.
“You can listen while doing the dishes, folding the laundry, you can be on a walk, or working,” Port stated. “It’s content that doesn’t take up a huge portion of your day and can be added onto shows you’re already listening to.”
Correction: The identify of the ladies’s sports activities media firm Togethxr was misspelled in a earlier model of this story.