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Matt Rodbard is the founder and editor in chief of the meals media model Style, in addition to the cohost of its podcast, That is Style. The outlet launched in 2017 as an in-house division of Crown Publishing, itself an imprint of the publishing agency Penguin Random Home. Initially conceived as a content material advertising and marketing car for the cookbooks revealed by Crown, Style started monetizing its personal content material on the finish of 2022.
The Style publication now has 250,000 subscribers, whereas the podcast generates over 100,000 downloads a month. The one-man operation is on tempo to interrupt seven figures in income by the top of the 12 months, partially because of an progressive business product wherein manufacturers invite Style to discover the tales behind their corporations.
This interview has been edited.
Mark Stenberg: Style has a novel mannequin, provided that it was launched as a division within a e book publishing imprint. How did that come about?
Matt Rodbard: Crown wished to market its cookbooks, however they realized that they couldn’t simply copy and paste advertising and marketing scripts and name it a day. I noticed an enormous alternative to inform the tales of the authors by way of editorial, and it grew from there.
Mark: Style initially began as text-based reporting, however is now recognized primarily for its podcast. How did that transition occur?
Matt: We’re very dedicated to textual content. We pay freelancers and publish a function per week, though that’s down from 5 every week. In 2018 we launched the podcast, ramped up after the pandemic, and in 2023 hit our three-times-a-week cadence. We estimate that we get round 2.5 million listening minutes a month, so whereas we’re not the largest podcast, I’d say we’re the one individuals in meals wish to be on essentially the most.
Mark: What distinguishes That is Style from different meals podcasts?
Matt: Lots of people assume a meals podcast is when somebody calls in to speak about dietary yeast. That’s boring. We’re a conversational present about meals tradition, which is totally different from cooking. Not too long ago we’ve had on New York Occasions’ meals author Luke Fortney, who touched on the rotisserie chicken inflation debate, Austin chef and cookbook writer Fermin Nunez, and meals enterprise capitalist Elly Truesdell. We simply minimize an episode with Jess Shadbolt, the chef behind the buzzy New York restaurant Dean’s.
Mark: Recently you will have been experimenting with a business format, wherein a meals model sponsors a complete podcast. How does that work?
Matt: Meals for us is about storytelling, and plenty of meals manufacturers have superb tales. I simply bought again from a visit to Spain the place we shot a whole lot of content material associated to some family names within the tinned fish house. CPG manufacturers and tourism boards want this nuance as a result of cabinets are saturated and a big a part of what they’re promoting is their identification. We clearly label these as sponsored, however the listener reception has been overwhelmingly constructive.
