Cow Dog Sale Takes Hollywood

Scenes from a podcast industry conference

In your Death, Sex & Money feed this week: The Very Hot Marriage of Niecy Nash and Jessica Betts. This is a fun one!

I spent a part of this week at a podcast conference in Los Angeles called Podcast Movement Evolutions. Organizers tout Podcast Movement as the world’s biggest gathering of podcast professionals, and it wasn’t not just makers, but also advertisers, podcast platforms, and more than a few companies selling new “AI-enabled” this and that.

I popped into many sessions about the podcast business, specifically on building sustainable revenue models in 2024. (The unsurprising answer: a balanced mix of advertising and listener support, while keeping costs in check.) And I did a session with Slate’s President Charlie Kammerer about Death, Sex & Money’s acquisition. It was fun to recount what Charlie described as “our courtship,” and to hear what excited people about our show on Slate’s business side.

As you may remember from my early newsletter about our move to Slate, for me, part of Slate’s appeal was feeling like I could be entrepreneurial while nested in a larger institution, and I’m really enjoying getting to know more about how all the parts of the company work together. Lots more to come on that, but let me remind you, we are in a media environment where we all need to support the makers and journalists whose work we value…or they might go away. If our work at Death, Sex & Money is something you want to help support financially, please become a member of Slate Plus here, or hit “Try Free” at the top of our show page on Apple podcasts.

After I collected lots of advice about the podcast business, I moderated a panel about advice podcasts, with Andrew Ti of Yo, Is This Racist?, Lori Gottlieb of Dear Therapists, and Jamilah Lemieux of Slate’s Care and Feeding parenting advice podcast. Our conversation reminded me again what an incredible medium this is — how we can have one-to-one conversations prompted by a specific listener’s question while sharing episodes that can be downloaded all over the world.

Most of my conference-ing, though, was spent moving through the J.W. Marriott like a herding dog, saying hello and nipping at ankles to get different clumps of people connected and introduced. (Working from home has made me a very enthusiastic IRL colleague.) Here are some of the old and new friends I got to hang out with:

1. Nichole Hill of Truth Be Told’s She Has A Name and Megan Tan of Snooze, and Milennial, 2. Canadaland’s Jesse Brown, 3. Arkansas Podcast Collective’s Brittany Rush, 4. NPR’s Collin Campbell and Wondery’s Marshall Lewy, 5. Mary Dooe of Dooe Diligence Media, 6. Futuro Studios’ Fernanda Echavarri and Antonia Cereijido of LAist’s Imperfect Paradise), 7. Andrea Gutierrez (whom I worked with at NPR’s It’s Been A Minute, now freelance!), 8. Apple News’ Leta Hallowell and Arwa Gunja and 9. Song Exploder’s Hrishikesh Hirway.

Speaking of Hrishikesh from Song Exploder, I learned something amazing that you will appreciate.

I first got to know Hrishi when I interviewed him about music and his mother’s death on Death, Sex & Money – and got him to sing a Hindi lullaby for us at the end of the episode. I’ve long admired the audio he makes (Song Exploder AND Home Cooking And The West Wing Weekly) and I also appreciate how he does it. And in the last several months, he’s been a generous guide to me while I’ve figured out the next steps in my career. Even though this week was our first time being together in person, it’s been an easy transition from colleagues to real friends.

But, reader, I have only just learned that there was something else essential at the root of our connection.

HRISHI IS ALSO A SUPERFAN OF THE SHELTER DOG MATCHMAKING SHOW THE DOG HOUSE! After I wrote about this show last week, I kept talking about it, including in a text thread with Hrishi. He responded that he had also written a newsletter post about his love of this show…three years ago!

This is why we’re friends.

Two other big thrills of my work trip? Ronald Young, Jr. won THREE Ambie awards for his podcast Weight For It. If you haven’t listened yet, do take some time with this personal and beautiful series about living in a big body. And something else you should know? Former Death, Sex & Money intern Sarah Dealy was an editor on the award-winning series, and Ronald reminded me this week that he first met Sarah after he cold-emailed her after hearing the Death, Sex & Money episode that Sarah pitched and produced about love and body size called “The Weight of Love.”

The other big thrill was our Slate colleagues won the Ambie award for PODCAST OF THE YEAR for “Becoming Justice Thomas,” the latest season of the podcast Slow Burn.

It was a lot to chew on and absorb, and reader, as I write this on my Southwest flight back home, I can feel my enthusiastic puppy-like pep draining from my body, replaced by the need to pipe down, have some alone time, and listen to other people talk.

And for that, thank goodness there are podcasts.

Take care,

Anna