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2017 - present
Thirteen thousand dollars: Audiochuck, the podcast network Ashley Flowers founded in 2017 and named after her dog Charlie, called Chuck, began on her life savings of $13,000, raised at the start through Patreon memberships and advertising. It is the creator economy's founding myth in its standard Indiana form: no investors, no plant, a spare bedroom and a phone line to South Bend, where Brit Prawat co-hosted the flagship. Within five years the network was a business the trade press measured in nine figures, and this record prints its growth in dated points, because the company's own later publicity gives portfolio figures no two sources date the same way.
The scale, dated: In October 2021 Audiochuck signed a multiyear partnership with SiriusXM, reportedly valued at over $100 million, giving SiriusXM exclusive advertising sales across the network. By July 2022 the network carried 16 podcasts, had passed 1.26 billion downloads, and employed nearly 30 people. Apple ranked Audiochuck the top free channel on its platform in 2022 and the second most popular free podcast channel in 2023, behind iHeartPodcasts. Its show Anatomy of Murder won the Webby Award for People's Voice in 2022. A company founded on a South Bend born podcaster's savings and a South Bend co-host's telephone had become, in five years, one of the two or three largest independent podcast networks in the United States.
Indiana on the slate: The network's subjects stayed Hoosier more often than its address did. Flowers' second flagship, The Deck, launched in February 2022, works cold cases with few leads, and its investigative arm, The Deck Investigates, opened in December 2022 with an eleven city tour built around the 1984 murder of Darlene Hulse in Argos, Indiana, a Marshall County case a short drive south of South Bend [Argos is carried here as regional subject matter; it is not a South Bend event and no part of it is claimed for the city]. The company's headquarters is Indianapolis, and this section claims for South Bend only what the record fixes: the founder was born here, and the co-host whose voice is on every flagship episode was living here when the company was founded. That is a smaller claim than the company's size, and it is the true one.
Sources:
- Wikipedia, "Ashley Flowers": Audiochuck founded 2017, named for the dog Charlie; the $13,000 of life savings; Patreon and advertising as first revenue; by July 2022, 16 podcasts, over 1.26 billion downloads, nearly 30 employees, citing Podcast Magazine, 29 July 2022; the top free channel ranking for 2022 and second for 2023, citing Variety.
- Chan, "Crime Junkie Network Audiochuck Inks Multi-Year Ad Sales Deal With SiriusXM", The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Oct 2021, and Spangler, Variety, 26 Oct 2021: the multiyear SiriusXM partnership, reported at over $100 million.
- Forbes, Risa Sarachan, on The Deck Investigates and its 11 city tour of the Darlene Hulse case, Argos, Indiana (via Wikipedia): the December 2022 launch.