Latest news with #SubwayTakes
News18
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- News18
Sooraj Pancholi Reveals Actors Pay Rs 30 Lakh To Feature On Top Podcasts
Last Updated: Sooraj Pancholi reveals that top podcasters in India charge up to ₹30 lakh for celebrity appearances. He shares his own experience with being offered a paid guest spot. When the world came to a standstill in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entertainment industry found itself in uncharted territory. Film shoots halted, television shows struggled to adapt, and even global talk show giants like The Tonight Show shifted into host's homes via webcams. As the virus dominated the news cycle, celebrities—cut off from film sets, premieres, and paparazzi—had to find new ways to stay visible. That's when podcasts stepped into the spotlight. Safe, accessible, and direct, they quickly became the preferred medium for stars looking to engage audiences without red carpets or studio lights. And by the time the world reopened, podcasts weren't just a backup plan—they were a permanent part of the media landscape. In fact, they had become so influential that, as actor Sooraj Pancholi recently revealed, getting featured on a top podcast could cost you a cool ₹30 lakh. Speaking to Hindi Rush, he said, 'I have heard that there are a few actors who charge about ₹30 lakh to do a podcast. Is this true? I have come here for free, at least give me ₹30,000." When the hosts laughed it off, Sooraj added that podcasters are now the ones setting the terms—and charging celebrities to appear. He wasn't being sarcastic. Sooraj acknowledged that the tables have turned. 'These guys have great viewership," he said, 'and they've worked really hard to build their platforms. It makes sense—they're offering reach that even traditional media struggles to deliver." And he's not the only one observing this shift. Comedian Kareem Rahma, host of the hit digital series Subway Takes, recently turned down actress Amy Schumer's request to be on his show. 'She wasn't the right fit," he said bluntly. Since launching in 2023, Subway Takes has featured guests like Cate Blanchett, Charli XCX, and even U.S. Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz. With over 420k subscribers, Rahma's YouTube channel is now one of the most-watched pop culture formats on the internet. The rise of podcasts as celebrity gatekeepers isn't accidental. According to Forbes, more than 540 million people listen to podcasts globally—a number that's only growing. What started as a niche format has now become a powerful cultural force. In fact, Vulture once claimed that Donald Trump's effective outreach through podcasters like Joe Rogan contributed significantly to his digital dominance—while traditional political players struggled to catch up. The ripple effect has reached India too. Several Indian celebrities have launched their own podcasts to take control of their narratives. Neha Dhupia, Kalki Koechlin, Navya Naveli Nanda, and Rhea Chakraborty are among those using the format not just for interviews, but for storytelling, vulnerability, and brand building. For Rhea, Chapter 2 marked a redemptive comeback, where she candidly opened up about life after Sushant Singh Rajput's death and the media trial that followed. Meanwhile, social media creator Apoorva Mukhija, aka Rebel Kid, launched her own podcast after the viral fallout with comedian Samay Raina. In just three weeks, her show has amassed over 2.2 million views, proving just how quickly podcasts can gain traction. First Published:
Indian Express
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Sooraj Pancholi says actors pay Rs 30 lakh to appear in podcasts with top guys: ‘I too received the offer'
Back in 2020, when COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, it closed down filmmaking globally. All the major morning and late night shows struggled with productions, some moving them into their homes like Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. The news channels were all about the developments of the new virus across the world, but stars and personalities were still hungry for attention. It was around this time when podcasts and YouTube shows emerged as safer alternatives for stars to reach out to their audience and stay in news. By the time the pandemic subsided, these podcasts had become foundational. It became so sensational that landing a spot on top podcasts or YouTube shows became a competitive thing for the stars and their PR teams. Now, these podcasts hold so much power that they reportedly charge actors to feature them on their podcasts, with some even rejecting them saying, 'they are not the right fit.' In a recent conversation with Hindi Rush, actor Sooraj Pancholi said the top podcasters charge Rs 30 lakh to feature people on their podcast. He said, 'I have heard that there are a few actors who charge about Rs 30 lakhto do a podcast. Is this true? I am just wanting to know because I have come here for free. Pay me at least Rs 30,000.' When the podcasters revealed that now the tables have turned, Sooraj quickly added, 'Yes, I have heard that too that the podcasters who have good viewership charge Rs 30 lakh to get you on their podcast.' He admitted that he too had received a similar offer from the top guys. He added, 'But it makes sense as they give you viewership. They have put immense hard work to grow their page so I think why not? Because we cannot deny the fact that they have great viewership.' ALSO READ | Mohan Babu was howling when he got to know about co-star Soundarya's death, shares Vishnu Manchu: 'Our family went through a lot of pain and trauma' Previously, Comedian Kareem Rahma, the host of digital interview series Subway Takes recently shared that he declined to feature I Feel Pretty star Amy Schumer on his show when her team reached out to him. He said, 'I will probably get in trouble for this, but Amy Schumer. Let's just say she wasn't the right fit.' Since posting the first episode in 2023, Subway Takes has featured personalities like CHarli XCX, Cate Blanchett, and Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz, among others. SubwayTakes with Kareem Rahma has over 420k subscribers on YouTube. According to Vulture, it became gospel that Donald Trump won his second presidency in part because he successfully courted Joe Rogan and a slew of other new-media hosts while Kamala Harris didn't. According to Forbes, there are over 540 million listeners globally, making brand leverage podcasts as a core component of their marketing strategies. Now, several celebrities have also taken up this opportunity to build their own podcasts. In India, actors including Kalki Koechlin, Neha Dhupia, Rhea Chakraborty, and Amitabh Bachchan's granddaughter Navya Naveli Nanda have their own podcasts. For Rhea Chakraborty, her podcast Chapter 2 became her grand comeback into the showbizz after actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death, where she spoke extensively about her struggles and time in jail. Even Rebel Kid Apoorva Mukhija turned to a podcast after her Samay Raina controversy. The three weeks old podcast today boasts over 2.2 million views.
CairoScene
26-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
Comedian Kareem Rahma & Wife Karina Muslimova Star in Gap Campaign
Gap's latest series puts the spotlight on real, everyday style, worn by the people shaping culture in their own way - including comedian Kareem Rahma. American casualwear label Gap has created an ongoing series shedding light on artists within its community. This time, the brand follows Egyptian-American comedian Kareem Rahma and his wife Karina Muslimova as they go about their day in Brooklyn, chilling between creative projects, parenthood and everything in between. For Rahma, dressing is all about function. Whether he's shooting an episode of 'Subway Takes', performing with his band 'Tiny Gun', or moving between projects, he needs outfits that keep up. 'I usually leave the house for 10 hours and go to a lot of different places,' he explains in his Gap campaign. 'So, I like clothes that are layered, functional, comfortable, and make me feel cool.' He keeps it effortless in an Oversized Denim Chore Jacket and '90s Loose Khakis in the campaign. Muslimova, a writer and artist, sees fashion the same way. 'Because I'm a mom, comfort is the most important thing,' she says. 'I like to have some fun. I'll play around and combine things that usually don't go together, or add my own touch with accessories.' In the campaign, she does just that, styling the Men's Oversized Trench Coat and Horseshoe Jeans with her own vintage Gap scarf.
New York Times
07-02-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Where the Dealmakers and Strivers Get Their Gossip
It took about three minutes for Emily Sundberg to secure an invitation to her first inauguration party in Washington this January. She had asked for invites on X, adding, as a selling point: 'I am so funny.' Bari Weiss answered the call. The founder of The Free Press, Ms. Weiss was co-hosting a party at a five-star hotel with Uber and Elon Musk's social media network. Her guest list included the former British prime minister Liz Truss, the Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Dr. Mehmet Oz. Ms. Weiss and Ms. Sundberg, 30, are both stars of Substack, their shared publishing platform, though on considerably different scales. The Free Press, a center-right publication, recently reached one million subscribers. Feed Me, Ms. Sundberg's daily business newsletter combining zeitgeist analysis with link aggregation, has only about 60,000 readers. But over the last two years, Ms. Sundberg has become an object of fascination in media and finance circles. Though many readers are young (or youngish) worker bees, Feed Me's subscribers include high-profile venture capitalists like Kirsten Green, well-connected rising editors like Willa Bennett, and Bloomberg personalities like Matt Levine and Joe Weisenthal. In November, Ms. Sundberg was a co-host of an off-the-record dinner along with Paul Needham, chief executive of The Infatuation, a restaurant recommendation website owned by Chase and favored among upwardly mobile city-dwellers hunting for spots for a first date. It was attended by a mix of scene-y creators and power brokers: Kareem Rahma of the web series 'Subway Takes,' Chris Black of the podcast 'How Long Gone,' Peter Lattman of Laurene Powell Jobs's Emerson Collective and Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times's DealBook. While that gathering was invitation-only, an upcoming party for Feed Me readers around Valentine's Day ('a really chic, cool singles party,' as Ms. Sundberg wrote on X) currently has a waiting list of 500. Feed Me bills itself as being about the 'spirit of enterprise,' but its true subject is consumption: How do people make their money and spend it? In her writing, Ms. Sundberg has assumed the identity of an insider — sometimes with the bite and braggadocio of a 'Succession' character. Her bio reads: 'I write the hottest daily business newsletter.' Her newsletter reads: 'Dior's golf collection will be a flop.' 'It was first described to me as a finance newsletter,' said Janice Min, the former longtime editor of Us Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter who now runs Ankler Media. 'It is definitely not a finance newsletter.' Until recently, almost every edition included a pouting selfie of Ms. Sundberg, even if the headline was about Goldman Sachs interns. ('There's a lot of guys,' she said of her subscriber base.) Feed Me is preoccupied with a certain slice of millennial culture in New York City. The restaurants they patronize, the media they consume, their picturesque vacations, their online shopping habits, their obsession with Gen Z. 'She's almost like a Carrie Bradshaw of her generation,' said Ms. Min, whose company also publishes its flagship newsletter, The Ankler, on Substack. On the platform's leaderboard of popular business publications, Feed Me is now at No. 4, one spot below The Ankler. Like the divisive heroine of 'Sex and the City,' Ms. Sundberg writes in the first person, usually to place herself in a scene ('I went to dinner at The Odeon last night …') or to emphasize her connections to one ('I texted a few friends who work on Wall Street this morning …'). She is not, however, a confessional sex columnist. But that was not the point of Ms. Min's comparison: 'If 'Sex and the City' was about the search for romantic fulfillment, Emily's voyeurism is about money — and that same sense of it being possibly unattainable, frustrating and, for some, something that comes easy,' Ms. Min said. Because of its gossipy core, Feed Me also sometimes reminds people of Gawker — written by young people in New York, self-assured in its own taste and authority. Max Read, a former editor of Gawker, said that he might not understand or occupy the 'parallel New York City' that Ms. Sundberg had built, but that he still loved to read about it. 'The exercise of creating a 'scene' like that is way more difficult than people credit,' he said, adding, 'I suspect if it were 20 years ago she could equally have been a Gawker writer or a Gawker character.' On the Colostrum Beat Ms. Sundberg began publishing Feed Me on a dailyish basis in November 2022, around the time she was laid off from Meta. Until then, her career was in 9-to-5 digital marketing. She worked at The Cut, Condé Nast and Great Jones — a cookware company where she saw venture capital and consumer goods collide close up for the first time. Now, for Feed Me, she trawls job board openings to speculate about the direction of companies. She tracks trends with CNBC vernacular; in 2023, she was 'bullish' on both Ozempic and vaping. Real estate tycoons and Instagram chefs interest Ms. Sundberg equally, especially if she can reveal which spas they frequent. No observation or rumor is too minute to itemize, like a prebiotic soda brand flooding Manhattan bodegas, or Jeff Bezos' fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, dining at a private club, or 'I can't open Instagram without hearing about colostrum.' She often includes a bulleted list of external links. Recent subjects include protein bars; return to office; plastic surgery; and Rhode, the skin care company founded by the model Hailey Bieber. David Ulevitch, general partner at the Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz, said the newsletter enriched his professional understanding of cultural shifts. 'Plus, I'm a sucker for news that is just a degree above gossip,' he said. Sophia Amoruso, a venture capitalist whose best-selling book, 'Girlboss,' made her a target of journalists, said that 'Emily's voice feels insidery without the overwhelming, self-important snark that so many 'in-the-know' journalists have.' High-profile readers sometimes join what Ms. Sundberg has called her 'really fat Rolodex.' She notices when a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter begins following her on Instagram. She notices when Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News emails to say Feed Me introduced him to Ghia, a stylish nonalcoholic aperitif. When the fashion writer Derek Blasberg upgraded from a free to a paid subscription, Ms. Sundberg offered to take him out for a martini. 'Listen, I'm basically a middle-aged uptown gay dad at this point,' said Mr. Blasberg, a celebrity 'partner in crime' who attended Ms. Sundberg's dinner in November. 'I can't be in the East Village bumming Zyns from out-of-work actors at Lucien anymore.' Outsider to Insider Ms. Sundberg was an observer of money from a young age. She grew up in Huntington, a town on Long Island, where her parents, an artist and a public school administrator, had also been raised. 'I had neighbors who were lobster fishermen, and I had neighbors who were cleaning up on Wall Street in the '90s,' said Ms. Sundberg, who later studied advertising and marketing at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She also liked to write. In 2021, Ms. Sundberg used her newsletter to occasionally publish short fiction, including a horror story about a female founder whose employees toiled in the basement of her brownstone. (Ms. Sundberg has, incidentally, consulted for various female founders, such as The Wing's Audrey Gelman and Outdoor Voices' Ty Haney.) After seeing 'The Nutcracker' while high on mushrooms, she wrote of the well-dressed audience, 'I wanted to suck the pearls off of all these women's ears and roll them around in my mouth like gum balls.' In New York, her social circle had the same mix of well-off and less so that she'd grown up with in Huntington. And yet the money managers and bartenders in her group texts were equally enthusiastic about one thing, Ms. Sundberg said: business news. Not the minutiae of the market, but information about apps they used routinely, like the restaurant reservation app Resy. That sensibility formed the core of Feed Me. 'A menu change at Balthazar would get as much traction as a credit-restructuring deal at Rent the Runway,' she said. 'People wanted really fun, juicy takes.' Feed Me's early dispatches read more as Ms. Sundberg pressing her face against the glass of an unmapped world — this moneyed junction of tech, culture and hospitality — than as her being ensconced in it. Just because you're at the party doesn't mean you're at the party. Andy Weissman, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, described her voice as an outsider 'looking in, with one foot but not wanting to totally be in, not wanting to take it too seriously.' Soon her writing began appearing in major outlets. A Grub Street article about 'shoppy shops' drove a surge of new subscribers to Feed Me; an article for GQ about members-only clubs landed her talent representation from WME. But as the newsletter grew, Ms. Sundberg lost her anonymity. She did not enjoy being recognized in public or the speculation on Reddit forums about matters like the size of her lips, which are not cosmetically enhanced, she said. She cut back on selfies, which she said earned her the nickname 'thot Jim Cramer.' ('Being hot on LinkedIn and saying 'slut' on LinkedIn has been a funny experiment,' she explained to the hosts of the shock-jock fashion podcast 'Throwing Fits.') She now works from both her apartment in Brooklyn's South Slope neighborhood and the affluent private club Casa Cipriani. While Ms. Sundberg declined to disclose her finances, she is most likely earning a minimum of $400,000 in annualized subscription revenue. (In 2024, she charged $50 for paid yearly subscriptions, of which there are nearly 10,000. Ten percent of these earnings go to Substack, along with payment processing fees to Stripe.) That estimate does not include revenue from Feed Me's advertising, sponsored posts or merchandise. She made 10 advertising deals last year, she said, which represented 'maybe a quarter' of her subscriber revenue. Those deals included various sponsored newsletters, as well as a dinner co-hosted with the wealth management app Titan and a book-club discussion of Miranda July's novel 'All Fours' at a Warby Parker glasses store. Ms. Sundberg has since raised the price for new annual subscribers to $80. This falls somewhere between a New York magazine digital subscription ($60) and access to Puck's industry newsletters ($150). She currently has no paid employees, although Feed Me has three paid columnists who write monthly about transit, restaurants and entertainment. The downtown publicist Kaitlin Phillips also assists Ms. Sundberg, though she works for free. 'I just believe in the cause,' said Ms. Phillips, who was recently persuaded by Ms. Sundberg to start her own newsletter on Substack. She now earns around $99,000 in annualized revenue from it. Scoops as Currency Why did Ms. Sundberg go to Washington? Feed Me does not cover politics. She is, however, interested in vibe shifts. After she received The Free Press's invitation to the inauguration party, Ms. Sundberg booked a room at the Riggs, the luxury hotel where it was held. (She also tried, unsuccessfully, to score an invite to Mark Zuckerberg's black-tie reception.) 'I had a prediction that nobody else was going to cover the party in the same way, and I was right,' Ms. Sundberg said. Her report included details like 'a lot of incredible tans going on,' and a video showing Linda Yaccarino, chief executive of X, singing to Dierks Bentley. The coverage earned her new subscribers, she said, but also new scrutiny. Days after the inauguration, Ms. Sundberg wrote in Feed Me about having a 'phone call with Tucker Carlson.' She was promoting her new feature for GQ about Zyn. The article included interviews with Feed Me readers, as well as Mr. Carlson, who owns a rival nicotine pouch company. (Ms. Sundberg, a social smoker, said she was 'trying to use Zyn less.') On Substack, Caro Claire Burke, a writer and co-host of the podcast Diabolical Lies, called it a 'little puff piece push for Tucker Carlson and big nicotine.' In an email, Ms. Burke said she thought Feed Me reflected a worldview of 'how a certain group' had 'become empowered to stop caring about politics altogether.' There is a centrist desire 'to enjoy wealth aspiration and conspicuous consumption again.' To her, Feed Me was 'much less a newsletter about building and maintaining businesses, and much more about the business of sounding rich, which is probably why it's found such success,' Ms. Burke said. 'It's hard to start a company. It's much easier to learn how to speak like someone who has.' In D.C., back at her hotel, Ms. Sundberg semi-clarified her personal politics: 'I wouldn't say I'm like a social-justice-warrior super progressive, but definitely care about people,' she said. 'There's still a Bernie poster in my apartment.' She knew her readers were more politically mixed: 'People on the right are inherently pro-business.' Sometimes Ms. Sundberg said, she longs for the camaraderie and resources of a newsroom. She gets lonely. Yet she has decided not to work for a media company or let one acquire Feed Me. 'I don't know if any traditional media company would be able to afford it, and it's growing too fast for me to even consider,' said Ms. Sundberg, who also prefers to sell her own ads. She ended her business relationship with WME, the talent agency, last month. Her team there had recently asked if she wanted to pursue sponsorship around her wedding, and she declined. (Ms. Sundberg is engaged to a man who works in tech.) When she first moved to this city, Ms. Sundberg learned that money bought access to the world she wanted to inhabit. But when she started building Feed Me, she learned that scoops were currency, too. 'The networks that I've developed definitely give me an edge,' Ms. Sundberg said. She referred to Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who also financed lawsuits against Gawker: 'He really believes that secrets give people edge.' In January, Ms. Sundberg had been the first to report on a West Village resident's application to install a tourist-deterring stoop gate; the landmark building had been used for exterior shots of Carrie Bradshaw's apartment. The story, which came from a reader tip, was picked up by dozens of news outlets, many of which credited Feed Me. 'If I don't get something, then Puck will,' she said, referring to the power-obsessed digital media site. 'And if Puck doesn't get it, Semafor does. And if Semafor doesn't, The New York Times will — eventually.' Though she often writes about unsourced gossip in her newsletter, she said she had not yet encountered any legal challenges. Ms. Sundberg has been trying to raise her standards as the newsletter grows, such as reaching out for comment when she publishes a rumor about a company. 'A habit that I've been getting better at: Act like you might be working at real place,' she said.
