Creating a Culture of Democracy with How To Citizen

How To Citizen is a podcast for people tired of tuning in to bad news and looking for new and better ways to “citizen” – as a verb. Through meaningful conversations and insightful moments, bestselling author and host Baratunde shows listeners how to wield their collective power to make the world a better place.

Client

iHeart Media

Distributor

iHeart Media

Services

Production Team Assembly / Field & Studio Recording / Project Management / Podcast Production / Sound Design / Mixing & Mastering / Audience Engagement

Overview

Baratunde Thurston is not only a former Daily Show correspondent, an Emmy-nominated host of PBS’ America Outdoors and a New York Times best-selling author, but he’s also passionate about learning and sharing new practices from people working to create a better society for the many. Previous seasons of his podcast How To Citizen have garnered millions of downloads. And Apple named it one of their favorite podcasts in 2020.

For season four of the show, they were looking for a new production partner. They wanted a small, but experienced team that could produce the show efficiently at the highest-level of quality. So they turned to Rowhome to make the 12-episode season.

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A screenshot of a Zoom video call with three participants. The man on the left has a beard, is wearing a beige hoodie, and holds a microphone. The woman on the right has curly hair, red glasses, and red headphones, and is speaking into a large microphone with a pop filter in a room with window blinds and a plant in the background. A smaller window at the top right shows a woman with curly blond hair and red glasses, also speaking into a microphone.

Featuring live interview sessions hosted via Zoom allowed a fully interactive experience for fans, where they could ask the host and guests questions. Some of these were featured in the final podcast episodes.

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We built a highly skilled team that included Lead Producer Allie Graham and Associate Producer Danya AbdelHameid. In addition to the normal tasks of podcast production — booking guests, interview prep, audio editing, sound design and mixing — our team also facilitated live Zoom events that gave fans of the show the opportunity to attend interview tapings. These live recordings were rich events where the audience had the chance to ask questions to Baratunde and our guests. We used some of these audience interactions in the final podcast episodes.

Season 4 of How To Citizen launched in February 2023 with iHeartMedia.

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The Process
We recorded interviews with an esteemed and diverse line-up of guests including the writer Adrienne Maree Browne, NBA coach Steve Kerr, author Priya Parker, activist Claudia Chwalisz, and more.

Named one of Apple’s favorite podcasts of 2020.

Season 4 of How To Citizen launched in February 2023 with iHeartMedia. Each episode is already earning tens of thousands of downloads.

The Results

Next Project

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