The Crisis of Situationships In Podcasting

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After seeing countless headlines about the podcast boom, Sam* started his foray into podcasting during the pandemic. He landed an entry-level audio job through Upwork and later got a gig at a national news outlet. There, Sam (who asked to use a pseudonym for this story to avoid potential professional repercussions) worked in a contract position for three months before the company eventually promoted someone else in-house, and they didn’t renew his contract. Wanting to stay involved at the company, he scoured its job board hoping for another way in and found an advertising job. After the interview process, where Sam learned the role had changed from full time to freelance, he was hired as a freelancer and told that his “record of success” would prove to HR that they would need to make the position full-time. While the position was lucrative at first, the workload slowed down over the following months and on January 1, he says he lost access to the company Slack and was told his services were no longer needed. 

“I was promised something really large but it didn’t materialize,” he said.

Sam has been told repeatedly by audio companies he’s contracted for that if they had the budget for a full-time person, the job would be his. But three years into his audio career, he still only has a series of contract jobs on his resume. 

Sam has experienced what can best be described as a work-related “situationship.” In dating, situationships are relationships between two people where there’s no real commitment. One person may be more invested than the other, or maybe one person keeps the other “on the hook” without properly communicating. Work-related situationships follow a similar dynamic, where companies with hiring power string freelancers along without ever committing to delivering full-time employment. And it’s actually pretty common, both in audio and the broader media industry. 

Katie Jane Fernelius, a radio producer and journalist who has worked in the audio industry since 2017, said podcasting has evolved over the last two decades. Podcasting and audio more generally boomed around 2014 with the highly successful Serial. The narrative podcast broke records with 300 million downloads. And its success drove a lot of people to venture into podcasting and form companies. Around the same time, ad models changed. Across the media industry, podcasts — and podcasting companies— seemed like a good investment. To all, there was a sense that it was an opportunity to grow an audience that you could capitalize on by selling ads, subscriptions, or selling audience data, Fernelius said.   

“Podcasting was considered HOT, and so everyone poured money into it,” Fernelius wrote in a follow up email. “And only a few winners emerged and now we’re living in the bust-half of this cycle.” 

Fernelius herself went into radio because she says it felt more stable than other roles in media. 

But many of the production companies that popped up around that time didn’t deliver, and over the past few years have been shutting down, laying off many of their workers, or have been acquired. In 2014, Alex Blumberg and Matthew Lieber founded Gimlet, a digital media and podcasting network that created shows like “Science Vs” and “How to Save A Planet.” In 2019, Spotify acquired the company. Last fall, they cut 10 original shows, and just last month announced even more layoffs. 

Suffice it to say, there is a lot of uncertainty in the audio industry right now. It’s a lot harder to make audio –– or journalism in general –– that’s profitable. As executives realize this, they try to cut costs wherever they can, as evidenced by the past few months of layoffs and media organizations shuttering or going bankrupt.

“There’s an abundance of ideas but a lack of resources to make all those ideas, even ones that are worth a lot and could have an impact,” Kelly, a freelance producer who didn’t want to share her last name, said. “A lot of these situationships are evident of the fact that the audio journalism industry is changing and it’s getting a lot harder to make audio that’s profitable,” she adds. 

The problem with situationships

Like in dating, work-related situationships can look different depending on what you’re chasing. And it’s not always explicitly stated you can get a job. But when you see others who started out in similar positions and were able to work their way up to full-time employment, you hope the same can happen to you.False hope can be real, both in dating and the job search.

Tori, a freelance audio journalist, explained how many audio journalists are “thrust into a world of contractor or contractor situationships.” For the past 10 months, she’s been a contracted producer for a national news outlet. Although they never explicitly promised her a job, she noted that many of the people who have permanent jobs at the company started as contractors. “My thought was that I need to be very good and lucky.”

Situationships aren’t exclusive to just contract roles at audio companies––interns, fellows, and post-grads in temporary roles in media have similar experiences. 

Right now, the vast majority of currently available journalism opportunities are part-time or on a temporary contract basis, and offer little to no benefits. 

For some, particularly workers who experience any number of structural inequities deeply rooted in the media, freelancing offers an alternative to the perpetual threat of layoffs and exploitative working conditions that persist at numerous staff jobs.  Many of these jobs offer low salaries that do not support building a sustainable life or any amount of long-term security in the cities. And some newsrooms curate an unsafe and unwelcoming workplace, especially for marginalized identities. 

However, the sheer dynamics of the situationship phase can be weird––contractors sometimes feel like they’re walking on eggshells and don’t have the same benefits, resources, and sense of community as a full-time employee. 

“You feel like everyday is an audition for a job,” said Tori.

Solutions in audio 

The “situationship” is a reflection of industry trends.To cut costs, and avoid paying for employees’ benefits, companies are relying more on short term, contract labor. 

Rose Eveleth has worked in audio for 10 years and is an executive producer of Flash Forward Presents. As someone who now runs projects, they have firsthand seen the temptation to create these kinds of “situationships” for people. 

“It’s our responsibility as people with some power to be realistic about what we can offer,” they wrote in an email to Study Hall. “But it’s also a moment where organizing as producers can help protect against often well-meaning sources of exploitation.”

When asked what a potential solution could be to these “situationships,” Sam pointed out the need for support in the form of a union. Unlike TV or film, there is no large audio union. And even if you’re employed specifically by a company, it’s unlikely the position isn’t part of the bargaining unit. For instance, because Tori is a contractor, she can’t be part of the outlet’s union. 

Some others think that a union is too much of a lofty goal and noted that various roles within the podcasting umbrella would likely have to have separate unions . But lofty goals can still be overcome–– some digital media unions include freelancers. And some of the components of unionizing can still be employed.

To bring back the situationship metaphor–– communication between involved parties and setting boundaries about what is okay can go a long way. 

“It becomes a lot harder for companies to take advantage of freelancers when we organize together and raise our voices in unison to demand better,” Olivia Aylmer, an independent podcast producer and organizer of the Freelance Solidarity Project (FSP), wrote, pointing to resources like rate-transparency guides, the Writers of Color Twitter account, and contract demystification  initiatives, among other things.  

“That’s how we begin to build real power and shift industry standards for what’s understood as acceptable treatment,” Aylmer added.

Sure, digital media is in a constant cycle of boom and bust, and right now the future of  podcasting is entering a period of uncertainty.  But as the industry inevitably welcomes all sorts of new players (i.e. The Messenger) or new models (i.e. Defector), they can create new structures that don’t rely on situationships. 

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📰 ICYMI: A Report On Media Internships 📰

Hana Urban reported on the state of internships in the media industry. 

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💸 Micro-Grant Update 💸

Study Hall is accepting another round of micro-grant proposals. This time, the first place winner gets $2,000, while the second and third place winners will receive $1,000, respectively. Apply via this link before August 31.

 

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👩‍💻 Coming and Goings 🧑‍💻

—Jamal Jordan is now an editor for Experimentation and New Formats at The Washington Post.
—Kalley Huang is now a reporter at The Messenger.
—Alexi McCammond is now an Opinions editor at The Washington Post.
—Nancy K. Walecki is now an assistant editor at The Atlantic’s science, tech, and health desk.
—Camilla Hodgson is now a San Fransisco correspondent for the Financial Times’ tech team.
—Katie Drummond was named the next global editorial director of Wired. She was previously senior vice president of global news and entertainment at VICE. 

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🫠 Everything Else 🫠

—Sigh, another day, another report of OpenAI partnering with a journalism institution. According to Axios, OpenAI is planning to fund “a new journalism ethics initiative at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute with a $395,000 grant.” What exactly will this “new journalism ethics initiative” entail? Well, Stephen Adler, the former EIC of Reuters who is now spearheading this sketchy thing, told Axios that it’s going to be some “workshops and discussions” regarding disinformation and “the challenges of AI.” Alrighty.
—Last week, Paramount Global announced that they had sold Simon & Schuster to KKR, a private equity firm. The publishing company was sold for $1.62 billion.
—Journalists at CalMatters, a nonprofit news organization, voted to unionize as part of the Pacific Media Workers Guild.
—More good news! The Freelance Worker Protection Act was signed into law in Illinois. The law requires that freelancers get paid within 30 days after finishing a project. The National Writers Union pushed for the bill to be passed in Illinois.
—Last week, G/O Media churned out some more “AI-generated” articles. Even though the GMG Union is adamantly opposed to AI-assisted content, the articles were published on The A.V. Club and Jalopnik with disclaimers that noted that they were reviewed by editorial staff. However, according to the Onion Inc Union, union members didn’t edit the content. The GMG Union has asked readers to not click on any blogs that have “bot” as a byline.