The podcasting hype house from hell
Imagine you’re a podcaster who’s been recording your show at CBS Radio, a venerable, if not unglamorous spot. One day, you’re instead offered the chance to start recording in a Beverly Hills home. The house has a pool, free food for the talent — that means you! — and the space to host blowout events. You know what you’d choose, and you know what podcaster Norm Steele chose: the Hollywood life.
When Steele walked into the HiStudios hype house for the first time, he found an oasis, one you wouldn’t expect to come with the territory of being a podcaster. Even the biggest podcaster in the world, Joe Rogan, records in a studio resembling an underground bunker. But here, alongside two studios equipped with hardware and support staff, was a vast view of Los Angeles and the cachet that comes with it.
“It was the professional element,” Steele says when asked why he chose to work with HiStudios, a company spun out of the buzzy podcasting startup Himalaya. “Basically, me having shows that are on the verge of being something great, they had a purpose there. It was a nice place.”
