Ashley Carman

Ashley Carman is the Senior Reporter for The Verge and lead writer for Hot Pod. Follow her on Twitter here.

How did you get introduced to the audio space?
As far as journalistically, it happened somewhat randomly. An editor came into Slack with a tweet about NPR’s RAD technology and was like, “someone should look into this.” That someone ended up being me. After that story, I realized I wanted to pursue this beat a bit more, and around a couple months later, Spotify made its first podcast acquisitions with Gimlet and Anchor. I was the reporter assigned to that story, and the ball kept rolling from there. 

As far as personally, I’ve always been interested in audio. I hosted a radio show at my college station; worshipped the radio hosts I listened to in high school; and co-hosted my own podcast at The Verge called Why’d You Push That Button?. It makes sense that I ended up deeply covering the space.

How will Hot Pod change?
Hot Pod won’t change much! I love the format Nick established, and he set a great precedent for the newsletter. I’m always looking to break more news or add a different perspective to an ongoing conversation, so that’s really the only way it might change — just more breaking news! 

Nick already operated like this, but it’s worth reemphasizing that although the newsletter is called Hot Pod, I plan to cover the audio industry widely, which includes social audio platforms, as well as smart speaker content and podcasts. I might widen the scope ever so slightly. And finally, because Hot Pod now lives under The Verge, we have teams here who specialize in product reviews and how-tos, so I imagine we might find some way to collaborate eventually. 

Can you share any podcast predictions for 2022?
It’s a little early for predictions, but I’ll give it a shot. I think we’ll start seeing more discussion about show exclusivity and whether that’s something that benefits programs or even makes much business sense. I’m sure I’ll be poking at Facebook and Amazon entering the space and how that’s going, under the broad theme of fragmentation and siloing of platforms. (I have a feeling it might be going better than I expected!) Then, there will always be more talking about how podcasts and audio creators make money in the space — are subscriptions working out, for example? And is it worth the extra time and labor involved?

What speed do you listen to podcasts?
Hah, I listen on 1X!! But if I’m listening for non-entertainment purposes, like for work, I can usually handle 2X speed. I listen to podcasts when I’m cooking, cleaning, or walking, so I try to slow down and enjoy the moment. It’s not about consuming as much as possible as fast as possible for me.

Do you have a genre of podcasts you like the most?
Given that I’m a business and tech nerd, I tend to listen to shows in that vein. I also usually have some narrative shows in my arsenal that I’m waiting to enjoy until I’m taking a longer trip and have time dedicated to binging.

What’s your favorite beat to write about when it comes to podcasting? What excites you?
I enjoy writing about what audio creators are experiencing. You can see much of that come through in various stories, like my most recent one about Clubhouse’s Creator First program lacking sponsors, my feature from June about the ”hype house from hell,” and one I published in August about Apple Podcasts presenting major problems for podcasters on the platform. The people who live the life of podcasting and are trying to navigate these platforms and ecosystems regularly are who I learn from the most. Hearing their stories is so important.

If you were going to have a podcast, don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it, what would it be?
I would love to do a food podcast! I have no idea what the concept is, but I imagine it’s something about trying new restaurants, or going really specific, like reviewing all the bagels in Brooklyn.

If podcasts hadn’t caught on, what would you be writing about?
Prior to covering podcasts, I wrote about dating apps, independent hardware companies, and the broad world of creators. I imagine I would have continued doing that if audio hadn’t come my way.

Thanks, Ashley!