Condé Nast's podcast network lost nearly everyone who built it within six months

Condé Nast Entertainment pitched media buyers a major podcast push at the 2020 NewFronts and launched its eponymous network that summer with three shows — The Pitchfork Review, Get Wired and In Vogue. The people who pitched, produced and edited them were contractors, most actually employed through a staffing company called Ettain rather than Condé itself; they say they were kept on short-term contracts, worked all-nighters without benefits, and were told they couldn't be made staff because of a hiring freeze. Only two people on the shows were full-time employees.

In December it came apart. The Pitchfork Review team, 'teased' with the possibility of staff jobs, was told the show would move to outside production company Neon Hum the next business day — and that they should train their replacements. 'They wanted [us] to train this production company... to take our jobs', said senior producer Caitlin Pierce. The In Vogue team learned from an automated Ettain email three days before their contracts expired that they were out on December 18. The Wired team's extra three-and-a-half-week contract was rescinded after they pushed back.

On January 12, 2021, 11 former CNE producers and editors published a joint statement accusing the company of mishandling their employment and bungling the network: 'we don't foresee success for this or any audio initiative that doesn't respect its producers, editors, engineers.' Both full-time employees had resigned, leaving it unclear who would produce the shows, even as advertisers had bought inventory in Get Wired's second season. The turmoil tracked a leadership change: Agnes Chu replaced Oren Katzeff in July 2020 — Katzeff wanted in-house production, Chu favored outsourcing.

Of the people who created the three launch shows only two were full-time employees; both resigned, leaving no in-house producers

CNE built its slate on short-term agency contracts to work around a hiring freeze, so the people making the shows had no stake or security.

Producers were ordered to train the outside company taking over their show, poisoning the handover.

Contract terminations were communicated by automated staffing-agency email days before expiry, with no negotiation.

A mid-year leadership change flipped strategy from in-house production to outsourcing, stranding the team mid-plan.

Launching a content business on disposable contract labor saves headcount on paper and loses the entire capability the day the contracts lapse.

Neon Hum had signed no new production deals with CNE going forward, and the fate of the shows — including Get Wired, with advertiser inventory already sold — was unclear. CNE said it saw 'much growth' in its audio business in 2020 and hoped 'to not only bring back some of our teams, but also build new creative partnerships' — news, former producers noted, to the people it had just let go.