By Stephen Appezzato
Podcasting in Monmouth County has taken off in recent years as local content creators have turned to the medium to spread information and to entertain.
Since 2004, podcasting has allowed creators to publish long audio recordings on any topic for people to learn and enjoy. The format lets listeners access in-depth conversations from a variety of experts and entertainers. Since its conception, podcasting has steadily gained popularity as many new creators have shared their shows on streaming platforms.
For Jonathan Schultz, a Monmouth County native and co-founder of Onyx Equities, podcasting was a passion that manifested in the wake of the pandemic. “I took my time to learn about podcasts and study – how do you do them? How do you produce them,” he said. “And I took time to think about what topic I think I was best suited for and what I wanted to learn about myself and also share.”
Schultz is the creator of the Jon Schultz Podcast, hosted on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music, that discusses the myth of overnight success. “I’ve always had an insatiable curiosity, along with just enjoying listening to peoples’ stories. This allows me to do it,” he explained.
In his podcast, Schultz hosts a variety of speakers who open up about their journeys to success and the challenges they encountered.
“I bring on different guests from different industries – sports, media, real estate, financial, entertainment – and we talk about what went wrong, how they got through it, and the journey of what success really means,” he said.
“Anything really good in life takes time, energy and focus. You have to be able to bust through all the obstacles. It (success) is never what it looks like. Everyone goes through struggles and struggles are really a major part of how you become successful,” he said.
For Schultz, these unique success stories and the opportunity to help his listeners served as the inspirations to begin his podcast. “Regardless of the size of the audience, if someone listens to this and they can feel the next day that they can do something differently or look at something in a different way that projects them in their careers and in their life, that’s a good thing.”
According to Spotify, 1.2 million new podcast episodes were published on the streaming platform in 2021, demonstrating the growing popularity of the entertainment form. Listeners can access endless information and entertainment from their favorite speakers at their finger tips.
“I think that there are so many ways to learn today. Everyone has different interests and pursuits. With podcasts it’s such a great way to learn, because there are so many different topics and people and how they go about their podcasts… it’s a tremendous way to reach people in a different way,” Schultz explained.
Increasingly, dedicated podcast studios are also emerging, allowing new creators to produce content by paying an hourly rate, rather than facing the upfront costs of the expensive microphones, mixing boards and other equipment.
With locations in Red Bank and Holmdel, A Shared Universe PodcaStudio is a podcast recording company created to help new podcasters launch their shows. Customers can purchase recording studio time with a sound engineer, similar to a music recording studio. Alongside access to equipment and live sound mixing, founders and experienced podcasters Ming Chen and Michael Zapcic also offer podcasting classes and other media recording services.
“We started A Shared Universe PodcaStudio because fans of our podcast “I Sell Comics” began asking how they could start their own shows. Rather than give them a quick 10-15-minute lesson, we had always dreamed of opening some kind of classroom or studio,” said Chen.
“In 2018 we rented some office space in Eatontown and opened our podcast studio not knowing if anyone would use it. We figured at the very least that if no one came, we would at least have a space to record our own podcasts. Slowly the word got out that there was a specialized space to start a podcast and we’ve been off and running ever since,” he said. At the time of publication, Chen and Zapcic have helped launch more than 100 podcast shows with their studios.
“We are almost at a point where if anyone mentions the word podcast in Monmouth/Ocean county, that they think of us,” said Chen.
As the popularity of podcasting expands, it will be exciting to witness the growing roster of local creators and the diverse selection of topics they discuss.
This article originally appeared in the June 30 – July 6, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
