In 2018, two Melbourne-based journalists with little to no podcasting experience started a reality TV and celebrity news podcast to address a gap in the Australian pop-culture market.
Today, the side-hustle-turned-media company has nine employees, multiple podcasts, 55 million podcast downloads, and over 720,000 social media followers across its network.
Co-founded by Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald, Shameless Media is a youth media company dedicated to creating content that ‘cuts through a saturated market.’
In January, the company reported their strongest results yet, with 2.35 million listens across its network. Their flagship product, the Shameless Podcast, is described as “the pop culture podcast for smart women who love dumb stuff,” which airs two weekly episodes, along with a monthly book club episode.
Mediaweek spoke to Andrews and McDonald about their advertising ethos, the power of video, and the company’s plans for the future.
Aligning with the right partners
According to the 2022 Shameless survey stats, 49% of respondents bought a product advertised across the network in 2022. McDonald says the strong results come down to their core value: content over money.
“The community is constantly at the forefront. So when we’re getting our partnerships, we’re focused on making sure that the ad partnerships serve the listener- if they’re going to be listening to an ad, it has to be an ad that they are interested in,” McDonald said.
‘It’s really that less is more approach – that we back this partner, we want them to have a good share of voice, we want to really talk about the benefits of that product or that brand and give them that space on that episode,” Andrews added.
Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald
With 98% of Shameless listeners identifying as female and 75% in their 20s, Andrews says the network aims to consciously partner with brands that appeal to their audience.
“We really want to make sure that we’re working with a pretty stable roster of really great brands, and it’s always exciting to have long-term partners on,” she said.
Engaging with listeners
Along with the bi-weekly Shameless Podcast, the company hosts a second podcast, sends a weekly newsletter, and engages with its audience online.
Every Friday, the pair head to the Shameless Podcast’s Instagram stories to open up the conversation with listeners in a weekly segment called Your Say Friday.
“I think what’s so good about Your Say Friday is it’s a really beautiful space where we can have a dialogue with the community, their opinions can be heard, they can vote on polls, they can tell us what they thought, and they can share their opinions.
“But it’s a bit more of a controlled environment, and we keep that feedback to maybe an hour and a half a week,” McDonald said.
The weekly segment also provides an accessible format for listeners to share their perspectives and feedback.
“I love Your Say Friday as an unpacking exercise every week because sometimes we get things wrong. Or sometimes we don’t consider things. The listeners are really smart. They often highlight things, and we’re like, ‘yeah, good point,” Andrews said.
ShameMore and the power of video
Consistently interacting with their audience allows the Shameless team to have a deep understanding of what their listeners want. Recently, the overwhelming feedback was for more content. So they created ShameMore.
ShameMore is a $5.99 per month subscription service, which gives subscribers early access to Shameless Podcast episodes, exclusive bonus episodes and VIP benefits such as first access to Shameless merch and live show tickets.
ShameMore campaign
Since launching in mid-January, the duo say the initial response to ShameMore has been incredibly positive.
“I think we had such an emphasis on having a really strong launch campaign. We put more time, money, energy, and resources into the launch campaign of ShameMore than we’ve probably ever done,” McDonald said.
The campaign for ShameMore is a taste of what Shameless Media is focussing on this year – investing in video.
“This year, we’re really trying to pour more company resources into what we do when it comes to video and really blow it up across the company,” Andrew says. “And I think the ShameMore campaign video was so exciting because it was the first step to what we see as our direction as a brand going forward.”
The company’s most recent podcast, Everybody Has A Secret, hosted by podcast producer, Annabelle Lee, was created with the intention to utilise the power of video on social media, especially TikTok.
“It wasn’t the reason that we created this show, but it was a big motivating factor,” McDonald said.
The podcast unpacks the ‘wild, never-been-told, real-life secrets of their listeners.’ In only 18 episodes, the podcast’s Instagram page now boasts 23.5k followers, while its TikTok account has 350.9k followers, and often reaches over 1 million post views.
“I think that really crystallized to us that video is the future,” Andrews says. “The symbiosis between podcasting and video as mediums – It’s just so amazing.”
Looking to the future
After five years of building the Shameless Media brand, the pair say their current focus is to move away from being the face of the network to pave the way for a media company that exists well beyond them.
“The plan is for us to have a stable of shows that people associate with the network. And when people hear Shameless Media, they don’t immediately think ‘Michelle and Zara from the Shameless Podcast,’ they think, “Oh, yeah, they do that show, that show, and that show,” McDonald said.
Shameless Media team
Shameless Media’s ethos around taking things slow, and less is more has seeped into every aspect of their business, including their hiring process.
“We’ve also actually been quite conservative with our growth, and again, it’s part of that thoughtful, go-at-your-own-pace ethos that we try and live out with content.
“We live that out with staff. We never want our staff to join us and feel like there’s a kind of precariousness with their job,” Andrews said.
“I think one of the most rewarding parts about growing a business is sitting at your desk and hearing people form friendships around you or go to lunch altogether,” McDonald added.
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When asked what’s been the most significant business lesson learned, Andrews said, “Not rushing, taking your time figuring it out, and then launching when you feel ready, and you really confident that what you’re putting out is a good product.
“Moving fast and breaking things often comes at the expense of breaking yourself.”