WNYC Studios

Overview

WNYC Studios is the podcast division of New York Public Radio, the nonprofit behind New York’s flagship public radio station WNYC and classical station WQXR (Columbia Journalism Review). It was announced in October 2015 as a new division devoted to creating podcasts, with a plan to raise $15 million for new programming — “This is the way we will become a much, much bigger content company, period,” said Dean Cappello, WNYC’s executive vice president and chief content officer (RAIN News). The launch lineup included The New Yorker Radio Hour, the health show Only Human, and a Radiolab spinoff (RAIN News).

The economics behind the launch were as important as the shows. Over the summer of 2015, WNYC took over distribution of Radiolab and On the Media from NPR — a task NPR had long handled (RAIN News). As the Columbia Journalism Review put it, self-distribution meant that “WNYC, not long-time distributor NPR, gets to pocket the money” — and insiders saw the model as potentially lucrative (Columbia Journalism Review). The division was conceived partly as a startup culture inside a 91-year-old institution: a $2 million podcast-centric creative house, aiming to raise another $13 million, collaborating with the likes of The New Yorker, Vice News and The Daily Show’s Jessica Williams (Columbia Journalism Review). It was also a defensive move. Private podcasting startups were poaching public radio talent — a glance at Gimlet Media’s 26-person staff showed 23 people who’d come from public radio, veterans of Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Radiolab and Freakonomics Radio — and WNYC had already lost executives to private podcasting (Columbia Journalism Review). WNYC Studios was meant to give ambitious producers a reason to stay, a place “to have a new experience” inside the institution, in CEO Laura Walker’s phrase (Columbia Journalism Review). “It is this moment where you go to dinner parties and people ask what podcasts you listen to, rather than what books you read,” Walker said. “So this just gives us the opportunity to double down on podcast production” (Columbia Journalism Review).

The bet on talent scouting got its own machinery. In the summer of 2015 the station announced its first-ever “Podcast Accelerator” — a contest to find the next Serial or the next Ira Glass, narrowing 370 applicants to five finalists who pitched at the Online News Association’s annual conference, with the winner taking home a pilot deal valued at $10,000 (Columbia Journalism Review). The day’s emcee was Anna Sale, herself the winner of an earlier in-house contest that had launched her interview show Death, Sex & Money in May 2014 (Columbia Journalism Review). The audience math justified the ambition: nearly 800,000 listeners tuned in to WNYC every week, and roughly 50 million Americans were listening to podcasts at least once a month — a number that had nearly doubled since 2008 (Columbia Journalism Review).

A decade ahead of the division

WNYC’s podcasting roots run deeper than the Studios brand. In 2004, the station uploaded a digital file of its weekly radio show On the Media — the first-ever public radio podcast, released a full decade before the podcast boom made on-demand audio an industry (Columbia Journalism Review). By the time WNYC Studios launched, the station owned or distributed six of iTunes’ 100 most popular podcasts, including two in the top 10: Radiolab, Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, Snap Judgment, The New Yorker Radio Hour and Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin — with only NPR itself having more shows in the top 100 (Columbia Journalism Review). The house catalog the division inherited and grew — Radiolab, On the Media, Nancy, The New Yorker Radio Hour, Death, Sex & Money, Snap Judgment, Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin and 2 Dope Queens — was the envy of the medium (New York Public Radio).

10 Things That Scare Me — and Trisha Hope’s episode

On December 4, 2018, WNYC Studios debuted 10 Things That Scare Me, described as “a tiny podcast about our biggest fears” (New York Public Radio). The format was deliberately small: a five-minute “Audio Listicle” in which a single subject, in their own words, lists the ten things that keep them up at night — from imposter syndrome to the state of the world to bugs and the dark (New York Public Radio). Debut episodes featured music producer Rob Lewis, former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, novelist Ottessa Moshfegh and dogsled racer Blair Braverman, with new episodes every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (New York Public Radio). “10 Things That Scare Me is an experiment in empathy,” said Paula Szuchman, the Studios’ vice president of on-demand content. “These episodes are like little meditations, an opportunity to pause for a minute and feel connected to the people around you — even people who feel a world away” (New York Public Radio).

One of those strangers-a-world-away was Trisha Hope. Her episode aired on February 20, 2019 (Podcast Republic), and it remains the fullest biographical account she has ever given. In her own words, she described growing up in a family that owned a funeral home — “so death was all around me” — and walking into her parents’ bedroom as a child to stand over their bed and make sure they were breathing (WNYC Studios). She spoke about giving birth at eighteen, alone and quickly, to a stillborn baby — “excruciating pain” she has equated with pain ever since (WNYC Studios). She introduced herself as a realtor, a mother, a wife and a sister, and talked about putting her real estate business on the back burner to travel the country attending Trump rallies (WNYC Studios). She closed with her fear of the country her grandson would inherit, recalling a “me too” moment with a builder employer she confronted in a deposition — and her defense of Brett Kavanaugh, whom she felt had been attacked “with zero proof” (WNYC Studios). Five minutes, ten fears, and a life story no interview had captured before.

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not assert an exact launch date for WNYC Studios — October 13, 2015 appears in some references but was not confirmed in a fully-read source. It does not claim the $15 million fundraising target was met. It makes no claims about WNYC Studios’ current leadership, show roster or corporate status in 2024–2026, which were not researched. The description of the Trisha Hope episode as her fullest biographical account follows this site’s Trisha Hope profile; readers can judge from the episode page itself, linked above.