Around 34 million women listen to podcasts, which is about half of podcast fans, yet only approximately 22% to 30% of the shows they listen to are hosted or co-hosted by women. Even fewer of the podcast networks are founded by women. After years working in Hollywood running their ideas through male gatekeepers, actors and writers Amanda Lund and Maria Blasucci, along with former agent Priyanka Mattoo, decided to build the podcast network they wanted to see in the world. Yesterday, they launched Earios, a female-founded podcast network dedicated to sharing content created by women but intended for everyone.
“Nearly all of the networks that host, develop, and promote popular shows are run by men,” Mattoo said in a statement. “So a lot of content pitched by women is not bought or promoted. We wanted to make it easier for women to share their ideas with a like-minded community.”
Last summer, Earios launched a Kickstarter campaign with the goal to raise enough money to launch with six to eight shows, but ended up raising enough to launch with 12 shows. Now, with support from Acast, the largest global podcast company, they are coming out of the gate strong with interview podcasts from comedy icon Margaret Cho and musician Feist.
Other podcasts to add to your playlist are Filling the Void, which has Lesley Arfin, the creator of the Netflix’s Love, interviewing women like Diablo Cody and Kate Berlant about their off-screen passions; We Need to Talk about Britney, in which Jen Zaborowski puts Britney Spears’s life and work under a microscope; and The Alarmist, where actor/writer Rebecca Delgado looks back at history’s greatest disasters. There are also a few shows about motherhood and attempted motherhood: Spermcast, features actor, writer, and comedian Molly Hawkey hunting for a sperm donor, while Mother of All Shows uses comedy, interviews, and investigative journalism to try to understand modern parenting, hosted by Glow‘s Kimmy Gatewood.
And because this is their network and they, too, will have podcasts if they want to, the Earios founders have their own shows. On Foxy Browns, Mattoo and Camilla Blackett explore beauty and wellness from their perspectives as immigrants and women of color, and on The Big Ones, Blasucci and Lund discuss life’s most significant moral dilemmas.
Earios will launch with three shows this week. New shows will launch every couple of weeks.
Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter Awards before the early-rate deadline, May 3.
