Some say awards season ends with the Oscars, but podcast sickos understand that the true capstone is the iHeart Podcast Awards. (Or is it actually the kickoff to next awards season? Discuss…) 

The iHeart Awards have taken an interesting path since beginning in 2019. Initially, the awards were broadcast live from Los Angeles, but moved to a virtual broadcast in 2021 due to COVID, before teaming up with SXSW starting in 2024. Ego Nwodim, flourishing post-SNL exit, hosted this year’s ceremony. (Nwodim was also up for the Best Emerging category with her own podcast, “Thanks Dad.”) She was introduced by Will Ferrell, resplendent in full Team USA speed-skating spandex — which may have made more sense two weeks closer to the Winter Olympics, bless him.

In a night that bore few genuine surprises, the biggest shocker was who took home the grand prize: Podcast of the Year went to “Giggly Squad,” hosted by comedian Hannah Berner and influencer/entrepreneur Paige DeSorbo. The show won a stacked category that included “Call Her Daddy,” “Good Hang with Amy Poehler,  “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” and “The Daily,” among others. 

It’s worth noting that Podcast of the Year is an audience choice award, not a jury prize. Winning it speaks to Berner and DeSorbo’s reach and their ability to mobilize fans despite the pair’s utter absence from, say, The Hollywood Reporter’s “44 Most Powerful People in Podcasting” list. We’re guessing that next year’s list will look a bit different… especially with the news that Berner and DeSorbo just inked a major deal at Netflix.

If you didn’t know, Berner and DeSorbo’s rise to fame came via the reality circuit; both are alumni of Bravo’s “Summer House” — a show set in the Hamptons that once featured Erika Kirk (👀) as a cast member’s churchy love interest. Since then, among other accomplishments, Berner landed a Netflix special, and DeSorbo launched a loungewear line, but their fame still lives well outside of Snooty Prestige Audio Circles.

Snootiness aside, “Giggly Squad” just works: It’s relaxed, chatty, and free-flowing in a way that plays beautifully on video and snipped up on socials. (To get a sense of it, watch this YouTube Short about seeing “Tarzan” as kids.) All in all, “Giggly Squad” feels like a Podcast for Non-Podcast People, meaning it appeals to folks at the very outer edges of the podcast audience funnel. Given how many panels at SXSW and similar conferences focus on audience growth strategies in a hyper-competitive media environment, this win for “Giggly Squad” seems important. 

But if “Giggly Squad” plays like a podcast for non-podcast fans, it also scans as a Podcast Podcast-People Don’t Listen To. (Personally, I am unfamiliar with the lore, but recently realized that I’ve been staring at a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial starring Berner for about a week, and had no idea who she was until I started working on this newsletter.) All of which speaks to the confused and confusing nature of the podcast landscape right now, where it’s possible to be completely huge and totally under the radar at the same time. 

In other news, our digital drop this week from Good Tape Issue 03 is “Listen Together or Fret Alone,” in which contributor Deborah Copperud shares how parenting podcasts can provide support and community amid constant threats. 

(Speaking of our illustrious print issue… Get ready, because we’re preparing our call for pitches for Good Tape Issue 04! Watch this space — we can’t wait to reveal this year’s theme. It’s a hot one.)

Listen Together or Fret Alone

As IRL conversations between parents fade, parenting podcasts offer support.

Words by Deborah Copperud
Art by Pieter Van Eenoge

As a mother of three, I fret all the time about threats over which I have no control: everything from school shooters to microplastics, flash floods to bullying. But I frequently fret alone.

I rarely find myself in the spaces where parents confab with their cohorts. The leisurely, organic conversations that my parental predecessors used to enjoy at playgrounds, houses of worship, and school gymnasiums have been edged out by certain technologies. Events like PTA meetings, which are often used to facilitate the kind of end-of-days commiseration I crave, have largely moved online. And even when I do attend in-person events, instead of socializing on sports bleachers or in the music school lobby, everyone is often slouched over their phones. 

Enter the parenting podcast sphere, which fills the void left by the dearth of casual conversation. In a fragmented and frazzled society, these podcasts offer in-ear connections, giving voice to the many concerns parents encounter as they attempt to raise healthy kids in unstable political and environmental times. 

“The Mother Of It All” podcast was born in 2023, when Miranda Rake and Sarah Wheeler, two writers and mothers who admired each other’s work, connected online. Their show departs from the clickbait headlines popular in media aimed at parents, and instead of manufacturing hot takes about controversial trends, they offer wide-ranging conversational meanderings and interviews with experts, authors, and influencers about complex topics that require nuance and in-depth discussion. The hosts’ calm delivery comforts their core audience, which, according to Rake, consists of millennial moms who are concerned about screen time, health care, climate change, racism, and trans rights. When the cohosts discuss their own parenting highs and lows, Wheeler often draws on her training as an educational psychologist, employing a therapy-speak qualifier — “I hear you saying” — to assure both her cohost and listeners that they’re not alone. 

Read the rest

Some other stories that have our attention, brought to you by Good Tape’s “Off The Record” — an event series creating real-time dialogues between podcast executives, creatives, and brands on hyper-relevant topics to evolve the medium.

• • Entries just opened for the 5th Annual Signal Awards. Early deadline is May 5.
• • Looking for a job? Lemonada Media is hiring.
• • Austin Film Festival’s annual script competition is open for screenplays, teleplays, digital series, and fiction podcast scripts. The early-bird deadline is this Friday, March 27, so get cracking! 
• • The Sonar Network recently launched Season 2 of their interview show “The Worst Podcast,” hosted by documentary filmmaker and self-described curmudgeon Alan Zweig. If you’re exhausted by the relentless brand-building exercises that pose as celebrity interviews, this show promises a refreshing brew of guests’ worst, most embarrassing moments. This season is coproduced with Canadaland — all the more reason to check it out.
• • We were thrilled to hear from so many readers about the article we published alongside our last newsletter that addressed the visual elements of video pods. Didn’t catch it? Read “Does Your Video Podcast Look Like Trash?” here. 
• • IN MEMORIAM
  • • → CBS Radio will be shuttering this coming spring after nearly a century on the airwaves. May the grifter-in-chief at the head of this network be poked nightly with sticks by the ghost of Edward R. Murrow.  
    • → BuzzFeed recently hinted it is nearing bankruptcy since gutting its staff and leaning all the way into AI content. Maybe if CEO Jonah Peretti had chosen to invest in BuzzFeed’s award-winning newsroom instead of killing it and stripping the brand for parts, the company might be faring a little better today. Who can say? Regardless, it’s a sad moment for those of us who loved BuzzFeed for its hard-hitting journalism, while also telling us, once and for all, which Disney princess we are.

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