Since the election, many have wondered whether Vice President Kamala Harris’s inability to find time for Joe Rogan’s #1-rated podcast may have cost her the presidency. Her communications consigliere, Stephanie Cutter, explained the ill-fated decision to Crooked Media’s “Pod Save America” podcast.
Yet, Harris did find time to go to New York to appear on a half-century-old linear TV show, "Saturday Night Live," drawing an audience of 6.6 million like-minded viewers—still 40% less than Rogan’s. By contrast, former and to-be President Donald Trump’s appearance with Rogan drew 50 million listeners and a significant endorsement from Rogan himself on the eve of the election.
In her Nieman Media Lab 2025 Predictions for Journalism piece, “Podcasting becomes the primary strategy, not an afterthought,” Joni Deutsch, Senior Vice President of Podcast Marketing and Audience Development at The Podglomerate, writes:
“At a time where traditional media trust continues to hit historic lows, podcasts can help long-standing organizations establish stronger relationships with audiences and, in the process, drive real change in how people think and engage with the news.”
PR Tools for Podcasts
So where do podcasts reside in the PR pro’s toolbox, and how can one identify the most appropriate pods for a company or client — especially with millions now in production?
The founders of four companies with searchable databases of podcasts answered some questions regarding the PR benefit of podcasts and how their directories could be utilized. They included Anuj Agarwal, founder of MillionPodcasts, Greg Galant, co-founder and CEO of Muck Rack, Bradley Davis, founder and CEO of Podchaser, and James Potter, founder of Rephonic.
First, an overview of the featured podcast networks:
Podcast Network Details
Million Podcasts
Peter Himler, Founding Principal of Flatiron Communications: Please briefly describe your service.
Anuj Agarwal, Founder of MillionPodcasts: MillionPodcasts is the ultimate solution for PR professionals, marketers, and outreach managers looking to connect with the right podcast hosts and producers. Our extensive and continuously updated database includes verified email contacts, social media profiles, and detailed podcast information across all niches and hosting platforms.
Himler: What makes you special?
Agarwal: A dedicated research team ensures accurate, up-to-date contact details of hosts and producers. Also, advanced filters allow for tailored searches by popularity, activeness, location, duration, and more. AI-powered categorization simplifies discovering podcasts by niche or interest. And effortless export generates CRM-friendly custom lists in CSV or Excel formats.
Himler: How would you quantify/describe your subscribers/users?
Agarwal: Our subscribers include PR professionals of all sizes, marketing teams (from small to large-scale operations), researchers, founders, and executives working in the podcast industry.
Himler: What am I missing?
Agarwal: We have an in-house research team that goes beyond RSS feed emails, finding personal emails of hosts and producers to ensure comprehensive contact information.
Muck Rack
Himler: Briefly describe your service and what makes it special.
Greg Galant, Co-founder and CEO of Muck Rack: What makes us special is that we’ve purposely built our AI-powered comprehensive and integrated platform from the ground up with public relations and communications professionals in mind to streamline the PR workflow to get you the right results, faster and more efficiently. We grow businesses by helping them generate positive media coverage, monitor mentions to manage brand reputation and analyze the impact of PR on business outcomes.
Himler: How would you quantify/describe your subscribers/users?
Galant: Muck Rack has two user groups: Our customers are primarily communications and PR professionals, with about 6,000 companies using our platform to generate earned media and analyze and report on their coverage. Founded as a journalist tool, we also have tens of thousands of journalists using Muck Rack’s free tools to showcase their work with online portfolios, analyze news about any topic, and measure the impact of their stories.
Our podcast database offers a variety of filters, including geography, languages, and domain authority, and users can search by a specific podcast name or keyword.
Himler: What am I missing?
Galant: This question: What should PR pros consider when it comes to podcasts and incorporating them into their strategies?
The recent election results have sparked an awakening among corporate executives to rethink their approach to media relations, with an emphasis on nontraditional platforms like podcasts. But this shift is hardly news to PR pros. PR teams have been focusing on targeting niche outlets and audiences for years. At Muck Rack, our customers have been pitching podcasts since we introduced them to our media database in 2020 and have added 153,117 podcasters and 885 podcasts to their media lists just last month alone. The key here is that CEOs and business leaders are finally catching up to the value of niche targeting, which their PR teams have been trying to convince them of for years. Getting in front of the right, albeit sometimes smaller, audience means shifting KPIs from large-scale (impressions) to smaller-scale (engagement).
Podchaser
Himler: Briefly describe your service and what makes it special.
Bradley Davis, Founder and CEO of Podchaser: Podchaser is the intelligence engine for the podcast industry, complete with 5.5 million podcasts, podcast reach, audience insights, and 2 million-plus validated contacts.
Himler: How would you quantify/describe your subscribers/users?
Davis: Hundreds of PR agencies, many dozens of brands, and media organizations use Podchaser Pro. The majority of Pro users leverage podcast data for earned media, including guest booking and media monitoring. A growing number use Podchaser for podcast advertising use cases. The media orgs use Pro for research and insights, including competitive intel.
Himler: What am I missing?
Davis: As traditional media continues to fracture and decentralize, the importance of podcasts has never been greater. We frequently hear from clients how Podchaser breathes new life into their businesses in the face of shrinking newsrooms and media contraction.
Rephonic
Himler: Briefly describe your service and what makes it special.
James Potter, Founder of Rephonic: Founded in 2020, “Rephonic is an all-in-one podcast outreach and research tool that gives access to detailed listener demographics and contact information for over three million podcasts. It simplifies the process of discovering relevant shows, pitching them at scale, and managing outreach campaigns with real-time data, saving users hours of manual work.”
Himler: How would you quantify/describe your subscribers/users?
Potter: PR professionals, marketing agencies, individuals pitching themselves, businesses seeking sponsorship opportunities, and podcasters looking to cross-promote their shows. They range from solo entrepreneurs to teams at major brands.
Himler: What am I missing?
Potter: Rephonic also has:
- Lots of advanced search filters (e.g. show me podcasts likely listened to by mechanics)
- Ability to create and collaborate on target lists with your team
- A concierge service to find better contacts
- Full-text episode transcripts
The Effectiveness of Alternative Media Outreach
Matthew Belloni, a founder and journalist at Puck offered this observation in his recent piece, "How to Spin the Decay of a P.R. Firm."
“You don’t need me to tell you that talent PR is a much different job today than it was even 10 years ago. Now, a well-timed Deuxmoi post can be far more effective than an [Entertainment Weekly] cover. "Chicken Shop Date" is the new "Tonight Show."
Still, there’s nothing like a prominent Wall Street Journal or New York Times feature, let alone a six-minute segment on NBC's “Today” or "PBS NewsHour." But do they move the needle like the influencer media ecosystem does? It’s a good question for our times (and industry).
If you can’t spring for one of the above, here’s a piece by Variety’s Digital Editor, Todd Spangler, on Spotify’s top 100 podcasts for 2024. Happy hunting.
Peter Himler is founding principal of Flatiron Communications, a NYC-based PR and digital media consultancy. Follow him on BlueSky and/or Threads.