Audience & Impact

21 years. 850 episodes. Still growing.

Coaster Radio launched in 2005 as one of the first podcasts ever created — before Facebook, before Instagram and before most people knew what a podcast was. Two decades later it's a thriving media brand with 30,000 downloads a month, listeners in all 50 states and 45 countries, and a YouTube channel that grew 487% last year. What started as a passion project became proof of concept: that a dedicated team, a consistent content strategy, and a genuine connection with an audience can build something that lasts. Every growth challenge Coaster Radio has faced — and overcome — is the same challenge any content brand faces. Doing it independently — without a marketing budget or support staff — has been one of the best educations I could have asked for. The audience has always been the best part of this project. Neil Patrick Harris found the show as a listener years ago — and eventually became our weekly announcer. (He even invited us to be background actors on "How I Met Your Mother".)

YouTube and Instagram: Adapting to where the audience is going

A few years ago it became clear that short-form video was changing how audiences discover content. We adjusted our YouTube and Instagram strategy accordingly — and the results have been encouraging. Twenty-one years in, the most telling number isn't the downloads or the demographics — it's the 82% of listeners who visited a park because they heard about it on the show. That's what engaged content actually looks like.