Nearly every survey of the podcast industry in 2024 agrees on one point: Chat podcasts are king. As video rises in popularity (33 percent of US podcast listeners prefer to consume this way), ad spending increases (estimated to top $4 billion worldwide), and listenership steadily grows (8 percent year-over-year), it is the chat format—in its combative, enlightening, and sometimes quite unserious splendor—that continually draws people in. The ecosystem is profuse and unpredictable.
There are the mainstays that have become fixtures of culture: The Joe Rogan Experience , Armchair Expert , and The Read . Newer fare like I’ve Had It and ShxtsnGigs (more on that one later) have also found tremendous followings. Other chat-casts, like Club Shay Shay, seem to court controversy with every release.
“Katt Williams, please close the portal,” @ nuffsaidny recently joked on X, alluding to the comedian’s guest appearance from January when he prophetically proclaimed of 2024: “All lies will be exposed.” “That appointment—that relationship—is everything,” Eric Eddings, vice president of audio at Kevin Hart’s media company Hartbeat, says of the bond chat-casts are able to establish with listeners. In 2014, along with Brittany Luse, Eddings launched For Colored Nerds , a weekly gabfest about pop culture, race, and current events (full disclosure: I appeared on an episode in 2017).
After Nerds , Eddings went to Gimlet Media, where he co-anchored The Nod (also with Luse) .
