Ezgi: 11am Saturday began at a time when I felt the people around me weren't going to the movie theater anymore, when it was still my most cherished past time activity. I felt called to be a part of the solution and uplift the voices who were still championing the theatrical experience.

I've always been curious about other people's rituals, so asking people their favorite time to go to the movies and their go-to snacks felt like a no-brainer.

Ezgi: Someone who goes to the movies at least once a week. Someone who drags their friends and family to the movies with them and turns them into a “movie person” as well. Someone who respects the movie theater and doesn't talk or take their phone out during the movie.

Ezgi: 150 and counting, now! It's evolved immensely. I started by interviewing friends and now find myself getting pitched by people in the industry I've admired for a long time. It truly showed me the strength of the film community, and how eager everyone is to connect and share.

Ezgi: Very casual and personal. My favorite thing about the questionnaire is that it offers readers a chance to see a more relatable side of the guest, get to know them not through talking points but through their moviegoing routines.

Ezgi: Loving the theatrical experience and having a strong point of view is enough.

Ezgi: To be frank, I don't do any steering — the questions are designed in a way that more often than not produce interesting answers.

Ezgi: Yes, always.

Ezgi: Email — ezgi@11amsaturday.com

First up, I discovered Arden Yum and Ad Hoc when Lena Dunham wrote a Cheat Sheet to promote her book, Famesick — and couldn't wait to dive in.

Cheat Sheet is Arden's cult-favorite series, where she gets interesting people to spill the objects, rituals, and secrets that make life feel like it's life-ing. Bingeing her back catalogue, I found an eclectic bench: novelists and journalists (Delia Cai, Emilia Petrarca), musicians (Lila Drew), podcasters (Avery Trufelman), founders (Ali Kriegsman), and a whole crew of fellow Substack writers. It's the corner of the internet where young creatives tell you how they actually live.

Below, she shares how Ad Hoc has evolved, what makes a strong Cheat Sheet fit, why photos matter, and — most usefully for you — exactly how to land your people a spot and her contact info so you can pitch her!

Arden: I started Ad Hoc in 2024, when I was a junior in college. I had abandoned the English major and missed having a writing outlet. Thus, Ad Hoc was born! Substack was still very new, but I enjoyed testing out ideas, reflecting on cultural moments, and building community on a platform that deeply cares about language and storytelling.

Arden: My audience is mostly young, professional women living in major cities, but it also spans 49 states and 157 countries. I would say my average reader is curious, well-read, and has specific preferences about the aesthetic, personal, and ethical choices she makes every day.

Arden: I like how the way I've set up Ad Hoc allows it to morph and evolve as I grow up. It naturally has become less college-centric, and I want to start incorporating more researched and reported pieces into the mix. It's also been fun to feature other voices.

Arden: Ad Hoc is sharp, observational, and empathetic.

Arden: I wanted to start a series to interview my friends and other online people who I admired, but I didn't want to do a basic Q&A format. Instead, I thought about what I would be most interested in reading. I love hearing about the big and small things people do to make their day-to-day easier, happier, or more satisfying. You know what they say… the way you live your days is the way you live your life.

Arden: I like someone who brings an unconventional perspective to the everyday! One of my favorite entries was by my friend Jude, who wrote about his “What will it take…” theory. Instead of asking yes or no questions, he poses, “What will it take for you to give me a free coffee?” or “What will it take for you to offer me an internship?” That small approach shift resonated with a lot of readers (myself included!)

Arden: I encourage them to read previous editions to see what we're going after. Your tips should be practical, but they should also reveal something about you that is quirky, specific, not immediately obvious. Those are the most fun — confessional is a great way to put it.

Arden: I say to aim for five, but allow for flexibility!

Arden: Photos really help bring the tips to life. Lena Dunham wrote about laying out her outfits for the next day, and attached some darling photos of these incredible outfits. I highly encourage photos for each line item!

Arden: Feel free to email me at arden.adhoc@gmail.com with the subject's name, background, and why they would be a good fit for Ad Hoc. Thanks for having me, Tracey :)

Kaya & Jasmine: Before launching Scalable, we spent a decade each helping people understand how to navigate the rise of social media and the creator economy and the shifts in audience behavior, ad dollars and consumer spending. It was inevitable that we'd join the creator economy ourselves! We are also longtime friends and collaborators so it was a perfect fit to build Scalable together.

With Scalable, we are building a new media company to help the business world make sense of the creator economy, giving readers and listeners a clear view on what's happening, why it matters and where it's headed. Everybody now understands that creators matter. The focus has shifted to how to scale creator businesses and strategies in the same way. That's where our name comes from!

What we do now is also so meta. After years of covering this industry from the sidelines, we're now deeply embedded in it. That gives us first-hand perspective on the creator economy, which strengthens our work. Ultimately, our goal is to be the go-to resource for the business of the creator economy, delivered through our podcast, newsletter, research and live event.

Kaya & Jasmine: Our core audience is business professionals. That includes everyone from founders and tech executives to marketers, creators, talent agents and social media managers. At the same time, we want our reporting and analysis to be accessible to anyone who wants to better understand the business of the creator economy.

We also want to make sure that we're reaching people in all the different ways that people learn and consume content. That's why we have a video and audio podcast, a newsletter and a live event.

Kaya & Jasmine: We want to bring on many different voices with a perspective on the creator economy. The industry touches everything now from politics and sports to news, marketing, fashion and everything in between. We're especially interested in speaking to operators in the industry who can share tactical advice that listeners can bring back to their businesses.

Kaya & Jasmine: It always helps to have a news peg or to share a topic that the guest has a unique point of view on. Exclusives are also always top-of-mind for us.

We also appreciate when a pitch is short and to the point. We get so many emails and we don't have time to read a super long pitch!

Kaya & Jasmine: Most of our podcast tapings are done virtually, but we've also taken the show on the road, hosting live shows at SXSW, Sundance Film Festival and the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai. We also occasionally record interviews in person, including at the US Capitol with Senator Cory Booker.

Timing depends heavily on the topic and the guest. We are currently booking guests with more evergreen interview topics for June, but we are flexible. If there is a big news announcement or high-profile guest who wants to come on the show, we can turn around an interview in the same week.

Kaya & Jasmine: We don't need more conferences that say why creators matter or that brands need to listen to creators' creative vision. We've heard all these talking points before.

The event is for anyone who wants to understand how to actually build in this industry, which now touches everything from news and marketing to sports and entertainment. That's why we're bringing together folks from the traditional, digital and creator worlds to unpack what the next phase of the industry looks like.

We see an opportunity for a more curated, elevated and intimate experience with a high-quality group of attendees who are just as impressive as the people on stage.

Kaya & Jasmine: The Scalable Summit isn't just a celebration of how far the creator economy has come. Creators have arrived. Now we need to figure out how to continue to scale the industry in a sustainable way. We want to have real, candid conversations about what's working, what needs to be fixed and how to truly build long-lasting businesses in this sector.

We'll also host tactical sessions with operators in the creator economy. These sessions will provide attendees with practical advice they can take back to their businesses — from how to build a YouTube strategy, to how to invest in the creator economy, to how to scale social commerce.

Kaya & Jasmine: We are full on speakers for this year's summit. But we plan for this to be an annual event, and we hope to host a similar event in New York in the future. We're also open to hosting smaller events tied to broader conferences such as Cannes Lions or SXSW.

Publicists should still reach out! We're still getting so much inbound for our summit, and while the event lineup is full, we've been able to book many of the suggested speakers for podcast interviews.

Kaya & Jasmine: We take a wide view on the creator economy and aim to cover the most important developments happening in the sector at any given moment. We also want to cover areas that are getting less attention that people should be paying attention to.

Lately, we've been writing a lot about how the sports industry is embracing creators, the convergence of creators and Hollywood, the next chapter for influencer marketing, as well as the ways AI is shaking up the industry. We also dive into trickier topics — like regulation and youth safety online — that are rarely covered from the creator economy perspective. We're always looking for expert voices in these areas.

Trent: Apple and Spotify are listening platforms. They're built to help consumers find something to listen to — not to help a publicist build a media plan.

When you search Apple Podcasts, you get a title, a description, and a star rating. You have no idea how many people actually listen, who those listeners are, whether the show books outside guests, or how to reach the producer.

Podchaser Pro gives you the intelligence layer that sits underneath all of that. For any of our 6M+ podcasts, you can see estimated listenership, 20+ audience demographic datapoints — age, income, occupation, interests — verified contacts broken out by role (host, producer, talent booker, network rep), brand safety scores, and 32 million creator credits that map who has appeared on what. It's the difference between browsing a bookstore and having access to the publisher's sales data, readership demographics, and the editor's direct line.

Trent: We index every podcast that has ever published an RSS feed — over 6 million shows. For those shows, here's what members get access to:

• Listenership estimates — monthly and per-episode, derived from first-party data. Not what the host claims. What we can verify.
• Audience demographics — 20+ datapoints including age, gender, household income, occupation, location, interests, and brand affinities.
• Verified contacts — 2M+ validated contacts with role-specific breakdowns: host, producer, executive producer, talent booker, advertising/sponsorship rep.
• Creator credits — 32M+ credits mapping guests, hosts, and producers across shows. Think of it as a casting database for the podcast ecosystem.
• Transcript search — keyword search across episode transcripts, so you can find every time a talent name, show title, or brand was mentioned in conversation.
• Brand safety and political skew — content risk flags and political lean data, so you can vet a show before your client's name is attached to it.
• Sponsor intelligence — who's advertising on which shows, estimated spend, sponsorship history.
• AI-powered vetting — our "Tell Me Why" tool generates instant fit scores and custom pitch templates for any show, tailored to your specific campaign.

It's the most comprehensive podcast intelligence platform in the market, built specifically for the people doing the research and outreach — not the people pressing play.

Trent: A launch campaign lives and dies on timing and targeting. You have a narrow window to generate maximum coverage, which means you can't afford to waste pitches on shows that look relevant but aren't.

Here's the typical workflow in Podchaser Pro: Start with our 25+ advanced search filters to narrow from 6 million shows to a working shortlist — filtering by topic, audience demographics, listenership range, whether the show actively books guests, and whether it's still publishing. Then use our audience data to verify each show's listeners actually match the audience you're trying to reach for the launch.

From there, you pull verified contacts — the talent booker or producer, not just a generic inbox — and export everything into a campaign-ready list. Our AI tool can even generate pitch angles tailored to each show based on the launch angle and the show's editorial history. For book publicists specifically — we work with 72 publishers — you're pitching 50–100 shows in a two-week window around pub date, which means the research has to be fast and the targeting has to be precise.

Trent: The dirty secret of podcast PR reporting is that most agencies report a list of show names and call it a day. The client has no idea whether those placements actually reached anyone meaningful.

Podchaser Pro gives agencies the data to build reports that justify retainers. For every placement, you can report: estimated per-episode reach from a third-party source (not the host's self-reported numbers), audience demographic breakdown, and brand safety context.

The agencies that show leadership a number — total quarterly reach, audience breakdown, quality of placement — are the ones that get their podcast PR budgets renewed. The ones that show a list of show names don't.

Trent: Studios and networks have a podcast measurement problem. When a show's star does a press tour that includes 15 podcast appearances, the internal team usually gets a spreadsheet with show names and air dates — and that's it. Nobody can tell the producer how many people actually heard those appearances, who those people were, or which placements drove the most value.

Podchaser Pro closes that gap. For every podcast appearance, you can pull estimated reach, audience demographics, and coverage context — then roll it into a report that tells the producer or talent manager: "Your star reached an estimated 2.3 million podcast listeners this quarter, primarily 25–44 year-olds in the US, across 15 shows in the entertainment, culture, and comedy categories."

For networks managing multiple titles and talent simultaneously, the monitoring tools let you track mentions across the full podcast landscape in near-real-time — so when a show starts generating organic podcast buzz, you see it as it happens, not in a quarterly review.

Trent: Most studios have sophisticated media monitoring for print, broadcast, and online coverage. They know within hours when a publication runs a story. But for podcasts — a medium reaching 546 million people globally — they're flying blind.

A show's title character can be discussed at length in a podcast episode, and unless someone on the team happened to listen, nobody at the studio knows it happened. The episode title might be "Our Favorite Moments of 2026" — there's no indication from metadata alone that your property was featured for 20 minutes.

That's why transcript-level monitoring changes the game. Netflix and Disney's streaming entertainment division use Podchaser Pro to track mentions of their shows, actors, and characters across episode transcripts — not just titles and descriptions. The result is that podcast coverage stops being an unmeasured afterthought and starts being a reported media channel with real numbers attached.

Trent: It's the single most underutilized capability in entertainment PR right now.

Most podcast monitoring tools only search episode titles and descriptions. That means they catch an episode titled "Interview with [Actor Name]" but miss the episode where that actor, their character, or their new project was discussed for 15 minutes under a completely unrelated title.

Our transcript search indexes the actual words spoken in episodes across thousands of podcasts. You can search for a talent name, a character name, a film title, a catchphrase — anything that was actually said on air. And for each mention, you can see the context, the reach, and the sentiment. During a campaign, that means you can track in near-real-time how the conversation is evolving across the podcast landscape — intelligence you can act on mid-campaign, not just a report you file after it's over.

Trent: The simplest thing: make sure your show has a valid RSS feed. We index every podcast with a published RSS feed automatically, so if your show is distributed through any major hosting platform, you're almost certainly already in the database.

To verify, search for your show at podchaser.com. If it's there, you can claim your page and update your details. The more complete your profile, the more discoverable you are to the 540+ PR teams, agencies, publishers, and brands using Podchaser Pro to find podcast opportunities. Think of it as your podcast IMDb page — you want it accurate.

Trent: Three shifts I think will define the next few years:

AI is going to be the interface. Right now, podcast research means a human searching a database, building a spreadsheet, and making judgment calls. Within two years, that workflow will be: tell an AI agent "find me the 20 best podcasts to pitch for this book launch, verify the audiences, draft the pitches, and send them." The intelligence layer — the data — still has to exist. But how people interact with it is about to change dramatically. We're already building toward this.

Measurement will become non-negotiable. The era of podcast PR existing as an unmeasured channel is ending. Clients, studios, and leadership teams are going to expect the same level of reporting from podcast coverage that they expect from every other media channel. The teams that can quantify reach, audience quality, and sentiment will dominate.

The podcast landscape is going to get more competitive, not less. More shows means more noise. More publicists are discovering podcast PR, which means response rates will decline over time. The teams that invest in data-driven targeting now will have a compounding advantage.

My advice: treat podcast intelligence as infrastructure, not as an experiment. The teams building it now will own the channel. The ones waiting will be catching up.