Spotlight on Hub & Spoke Audio Collective
Six questions that explain why I feel like this collective, and ones like it yet to exist, are here to shape the future of this industry
When Tamar Avishai beamed “optimism is back!” as we huddled in the basement with Mia Lobel in early November at Resonate, I felt like I had accidentally stepped on a trip wire.
The three of use were trying to articulate the undeniable energy around us. Mia was talking about a project she spearheaded over the last year called superfeed.fm, which is perhaps the future of RSS. Tamar shared that the Hub and Spoke Audio Collective felt like it was growing and busier than ever. And I felt that I was seeing the future in a new way.
Generally, I try not to speak in hyperbole; but sometimes it is the plain truth that I see.
Optimism wasn’t the foregone conclusion to a capstone event in the podcasting industry for the year 2025. There’s a lot of shit going on in the world that’s very uncomfortable. The entire audio industry has massively shrunk. The remaining industry has required some big shifts. On a broad scale, there’s some intense soul-searching underway with the expectation of video, the disappearance of public media funding, the inevitability of AI, and the continued shift of audiences toward celebrity-driven, always-on chat-and-video shows. I’ll stop myself there.
What place does optimism have around here?
Have we hit rock bottom and there’s only one way to go? Have we run out of good ideas, so why not just feel positive instead? Is it the canary in the coal mine? Or is it our mind playing tricks on us, kind of like people in late stage hypothermia who peel off their clothes because they think they’re hot?
But yet, my pan around social media, newsletter-land; even Sound School Podcast agreed. This meetup felt good, and it left an optimistic, inspirational vibe.
So what is it about the no money-exchanged, no-monetary-model attached, not-IP-seeking network of Hub & Spoke that makes it now, perhaps again, feel like an integral part of the future of this industry?
So I gathered Tamar Avishai and Nick Andersen together to talk through some of these questions.
The following is an lightly edited version of our interview.
Q.1. Tell me the origin story. Where did this all begin?
Tamar Avishai: So 2017…Boston has this monthly potluck of audio makers. I don’t know if it still does…we were living there in peak-democratized-audio-time.
Nick Andersen: It’s our Google Group for podcasters, and it’s called Sonic Soirée…it actually started in the 1980s. The tagline is a feast for your belly and your ear. You’re supposed to bring food to share, and if you have an audio piece you’re working on, bring that too.
Tamar Avishai: I had launched my show The Lonely Palette in 2016, and I found myself in a very tiny Somerville, MA apartment next to who turned out to be Wade Roush. And he was like, so what are you doing? And I said, well, I just launched this independent podcast. And he said, oh, so did I…It’s called Soonish.
And we started chatting and we realized that being independent felt at the time, like it was kind of synonymous with being an amateur. And we weren’t sure how to kind of lift ourselves out of feeling that way because we already felt that way and we wanted to do something that felt like we were kind of elevating ourselves, but also creating a community.
We were like, okay, let’s just be something. Let’s just do something together. Let’s have a name and a website and a little bit of branding and decide once we make it how we can feel like our own community was lifting each other up.”
Q2. What does the tagline “independence, not totally alone” mean?
Nick Anderson: “They’re all independently owned, the producers. Own their own stuff. They decide their own things. We have no editorial control over it, and that’s really been key to what we have built.
People making stuff together [or with their teams], but getting support when they need it. So we’ll spend edits to each other; but it’s really independence, not totally alone.
Tamar Avishai: ”Which has also been an interesting challenge for us as the leaders of Hub & Spoke, because we’ve realized along the way that being a collective of independents is a contradiction in terms. Because if everybody is independent, what is the collective connective tissue bringing us all together?
We want to make sure that every show feels both completely, confident in their own, you know, fiscal ideological IP independence….and yet we’re also asking and expecting if you’re going to be part of this, you will promote other shows.
Q3. Do members sign a formal agreement?
Nick Anderson: “Yes. We have a Membership Agreement. When you sign up to join, when we extend an invitation, there’s an outline of expectations…an Agreement.”
Tamar Avishai: “I think we’ve come to realize that that really is an art, not a science. You know, this is, this is very human storytelling and we kind of know based both on the show and the producer because it’s really important that producers that come into our collective.”
Q.4: What is the most recent show to join the collective?
Nick Anderson: The Audio Flux Podcast! It’s super exciting and I think both deeply flattering and also very empowering to have Julie [Shapiro] and John [DeLore], with Amy Pearl hosting.
Tamar Avishai: We were blown away.
[We asked them…] Why? What do you think we are? Not that we didn’t know within ourselves, but we were really curious externally how we presented. And [Julie] talked about this community aspect …you know, when we started in 2017, the industry was a completely different place. And as we’ve been evolving, and the industry has been evolving, we’ve had to adjust to this kind of tectonic plate shift.
In the Spotify/Gimlet days, we thought, well, there’s no point to us. We can’t get that money. We can’t give that to our shows. We’re not getting bought. So we hired a fundraiser….she worked her ass off. She could not find the money. Like there was no money to give to quirky, independent shows that had been going on for a long time. Even in 2018 and 2019.
And then the industry shifted again and that inflation deflated. Leaving everybody in its wake and suddenly a place to kind of regroup.
I talked to so many people yesterday who were just despondent about the state of the industry, but still really excited about a passion project and feeling like they had nowhere to take it.
Q.5: What do you think is different now from 2017?
Tamar Avishai: “ I think the money from 2018 and 2019 brought so many people into the industry who thought: this is my living and this is how much I deserve to be paid. But it takes a real commitment to the soul and the craft of this stuff to keep it going. And I think in this particular moment. We just have to figure out how to fund that creatively on our own.”
What we are offering is very high quality place to park your passion project.
None of us have gotten rich off of our passion projects. None of us. I have never made a living off of The Lonely Palette. [But], I have been able to make a pretty decent living off of what the doors that the the Lonely Palate has opened for me in the industry. Talking to people about that…it’s like everybody seems to be like, yep. That’s, that’s just kind of the way of it right now.”
Q6. So what’s your take on the future?
Tamar Avishai: “The work that got the people into the industry, who are going to stay in the industry, is not going anywhere. It’s the work that’s been around this entire time. What do you get out of the human voice telling their story? Before TV, before video podcasting, the nuances and humanity of the human voice are not going anywhere.
And we talk a lot right now about this fear of like AI slop. I think that’s a very charitable amnesia about all of the slop that’s come out over the last five years anyway. I’m sorry but it’s true. Big corporate companies have made so much clutter to keep people employed, to do something with that money, and it’s brought so much clutter into the pipeline.
Big corporate companies have made so much clutter to keep people employed, to do something with that money and it’s, it’s brought so much, yeah, just clutter into the pipeline. There’s been some great stuff, but also a lot of stuff that no one is ever going to listen to again.”
Nick Anderson: Being at a place like Resonate again this year, hearing these great works, hearing these incredible folks…it’s like…don’t diminish your passion and joy. If you’re going to make this stuff, because you want to, and figure out the funding later.
You make this stuff because you want to so do it. And helping people like our friends and, and colleagues in Hub & Spoke who will support you, and celebrate that joy with you.”
10 Essential Facts About Hub & Spoke
Hub & Spoke began in 2017 in Boston.
Hub & Spoke = Collective; Radiotopia is a Network
The original founders were producers of three independent shows: The Lonely Palette (Tamar Avishai), Soonish (Wade Roush), and Ministry of Ideas (Zachary Davis).
From the beginning, Hub & Spoke was conceived as a community rather than a company—there was no initial funding and no outside money.
Each show maintains complete ownership and editorial control; Hub & Spoke operates without central editorial oversight.
Hub & Spoke uses a formal membership agreement outlining expectations around participation and cross-promotion.
Hub & Spoke is run by a volunteer-based Board.
Yes, they have a Manifesto, too.
Cross-promotions are supported through a shared “drawer of promos,” including host-read or pre-recorded spots that any show can use.
Hub and Spoke has a fiscal sponsor, which means that the different shows an receive tax-deductible donations from their community of fans.
Yes….it’s that time of year again.
The Bingey List is coming next week.
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