‘It’s an anti-small talk show’: Shameless Media reintroduces interviews with new podcast pillar
Shameless Media has brought interviews back to its content roster, with a new weekly podcast – ‘Inherited’ – launching on Tuesday. Speaking to Mumbrella, co-founders Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews said they were at a point in their lives where they craved more introspective and honest content, and set out to do exactly that with Inherited.
Upon reflecting on the business they have built since 2018, the pair knew they nailed entertainment, joyful content and more, but according to Andrews, they were “craving something different”.
“And while we’ve always been reticent to relaunch a weekly interview show because it’s such a saturated space, there is so much out there, but this will be different,” she said.
In 2021, the pair ceased their interview style podcast, ‘In Conversation With’, after finding themselves stuck in the middle of the crowded market.
“There was a reason we stopped doing interviews,” McDonald said. “We felt like we couldn’t do them in a way that was different from the rest of the market, and we didn’t want to be chasing everybody else. We want to operate in our own lane as much as humanly possible, and that wasn’t the case with the format we had at the time.”
The new format hopes to provide fresh perspectives, especially to frequently interviewed individuals, through a unique content approach that redefines inheritance beyond just money.
Hosted by producer Ruby Hall, Inherited will explore the rules, recipes, relics, and rituals of guests – those they have gathered throughout their lives, those that have helped shape their identities.
“It’s a concept that we think serves both the listener and the interviewee really well – the interviewee has a deeper level of control over the stories they bring, but it gives the listener such a deep rooted insight into who this person is,” Andrews said. “And I think sometimes when someone is on a PR circuit, they don’t get that opportunity, they might just have their rehearsed answers because a lot of the questions they get are the same. But Inherited? The questions are so different.
“It’s almost like an anti-small talk show, it’s straight deep into the core of who a person is.”
McDonald continued: “And Ruby is such an incredible talent for this kind of format, she’s so wonderful at making guests feel comfortable, she’s infectious. She’s got such an easygoing likeable ability to go deep with people, and she’s a great listener too. Our community already love her as the on-air producer from ‘Everybody Has A Secret’, but getting to know her more and getting to know this deeper side of her will be really special too.”
Host Ruby Hall
The new pillar will obviously be audio-focused, but also marks Shameless Media’s first venture into long-form video content. Episodes will be visually recorded and uploaded to YouTube, making Shameless among the first podcasting companies in Australia to truly invest in video.
“We felt like that was a bigger priority, to be exploring full-length video, as opposed to another newsletter with the podcast,” Andrews continued. “It’s super exciting.”
While the calibre of guests is impressive – including leading athletes, writers, actors, entrepreneurs, and more – Shameless will also be inviting everyday people to share their stories.
McDonald explained: “I can think of two or three people in my life who don’t have public profiles that I would put on this show right away because I think their stories are remarkable – and Michelle could say the same. We know that it’s not just extraordinary people with extraordinary stories, and we want to give our wider community a chance to tell theirs.”
The new pillar comes after Shameless Media’s podcast suite hit 100 million lifetime downloads, an achievement McDonald and Andrews never thought possible.
“It’s so hard to conceptualise what a hundred million downloads even means or looks like,” McDonald said. “But when you constantly come in contact with people that consume a Shameless Media product, that’s when we see it the most.”
Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews
Andrews continued: “Zara and I are quite short-sighted in a lovely way, we focus on the thing that we’re doing right now, or we look only six months ahead. So when you look back and add all those six month gaps together, and realise what you have built over the past six-and-a-half years, it’s really exciting.”
The pair also recently returned from a trip to New York, where they recorded a limited content series and teamed up with Spotify AUNZ to erect a billboard in the city’s busiest transit hub at Penn Station.
“It was an amazing experience, being over there recording in studios out of Spotify in the World Trade Center. Moments like that are such a nice cherry on top, it was such a great way to reward ourselves for what’s been a pretty intense six-and-a-half years,” McDonald explained. “We took some moments while we were over there to just celebrate and hang out a little.”
The first episode of Inherited featuring Australian Olympics Jessica Fox is out now.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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Inherited
Michelle Andrews
podcast
podcasting
Ruby Hall
Shameless
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Zara McDonald
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