When a film reaches the scale of Wicked, the companion podcast can't be an afterthought — it has to feel like part of the event. Straw Hut Media produced Wicked: The Official Podcast end to end: we developed it, wrote and scripted it, ran the recordings, handled all of post-production, built the key art, and distributed it across every major platform. Hosted by Vanity Fair's Chris Murphy, the series took listeners behind the curtain of Jon M. Chu's Wicked: For Good with the people who made it — Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, director Jon M. Chu, producer Marc Platt, and composer Stephen Schwartz among them.

The brief

Launch an official companion podcast from zero, timed to a global theatrical release, at a level of polish worthy of the franchise — and do it fast enough to ride the film's release window, when attention is at its absolute peak.

What we did

This is what "full-service" actually means in practice:

  • Development & writing — the concept, the episode arc, and the scripts that gave each conversation shape.
  • Recording — remote sessions with the cast and creative team, directed and captured at broadcast quality.
  • Full post-production — editing, sound design, mix, and master on all eight episodes.
  • Key art & assets — cover art, episode thumbnails, and a run of short-form clips for social.
  • Distribution — published across Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and every major platform, then promoted through clips built to travel.

The results — first 11 weeks, zero paid promotion

Every number below is organic. Nothing here was bought.

  • 11.7M+ combined reach across podcast, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok — in just 11 weeks.
  • 717,404 plays on the show itself — 186,193 podcast downloads plus 531,211 YouTube views.
  • 5.6M Instagram + 5.4M TikTok views on the clips we cut from each episode.
  • 1.46M average views per episode across platforms.
  • 4.9 / 5.0 on Spotify — the top 2% of all shows — and 4.6 / 5.0 on Apple.
  • 57% average watch-through on Spotify video, peaking at 81% — against an industry norm of 35–45%.
  • 20+ minutes average listen time per episode, on 40–50 minute shows.
  • 97% of listeners landed squarely in the film's core 18–54 demographic.

Why it worked

Three things, in order. Quality — the show sounded and felt like a premium production because it was one, and audiences reward that with the kind of watch-through most podcasts never see. Full-service speed — because one team handled development through distribution, we moved fast enough to launch inside the release window instead of missing it. And fandom — scripts and clips built for how Wicked fans actually watch and share turned a companion podcast into a destination of its own.

That's the whole idea of full-service production: you hand us the vision, and we return a finished show — and the audience to go with it.