Chat Pods Crowd Out Journalism

Ad buyers are rewarding low‑cost, personality chat shows while pulling funds from labor‑intensive narrative and investigative audio. Major studios that defined the genre—Pineapple Street, Wondery, Gimlet—have been closed or dismantled even as overall podcast listening remains high. The economic model now favors parasocial conversation over reported storytelling. — If cheap chat displaces reported audio, the public loses a funding stream for deep investigations, narrowing the depth and diversity of stories that reach mass audiences.