Most internal communication tools solve a distribution problem, not an engagement problem. You can send an email to every employee in seconds. You can post a town hall recording on the intranet inside an hour. The question was never whether you could reach people. It was whether they would actually pay attention when you did.
We run a B2B podcast production agency, and over the last few years we have seen a growing number of organizations arrive at the same conclusion: the podcast format, the one their employees already use in their personal lives, is the channel with the biggest gap between effectiveness and adoption in corporate comms.
The Gallagher Employee Communications Report 2025, drawing on responses from more than 2,300 internal communicators across 55 countries, found that leader podcasts are rated 64% effective as a channel. The adoption rate? Nine percent of organizations. That is the largest effectiveness-to-adoption gap they measured. The channel that works most is the one almost nobody is using.
This article is the guide we wish existed when clients first started asking us about internal shows: what the format actually looks like inside real companies, how to distribute it privately, what realistic engagement looks like, and the step-by-step process to launch one without it dying in six months.
Why internal comms is broken
The problem is not a lack of communication. It is a surplus of it in formats people have learned to tune out.
PoliteMail analyzed 4.8 billion internal emails in 2025 and found an average open rate of 64% with a click-through rate of 6.8%. Those numbers look acceptable until you consider that most of what gets opened is skimmed. The email was technically delivered and technically opened, but the message rarely landed.
The result is a comprehension gap that is wider than most leaders realize. The Axios HQ 2025 Internal Communications Report found that only 9% of employees say they are aligned with their organization's goals, while 27% of leaders believe staff are aligned. Eighty percent of leaders think their communications are helpful, but only 53% of employees agree. Leadership believes the message is getting through. The numbers say otherwise.
This gap matters more as companies grow and diversify. Emergence Capital estimated in 2020 that roughly 80% of the global workforce, approximately 2.7 billion people, is deskless. These workers rarely sit in front of a company intranet. A town hall recording posted on SharePoint does not reach a flight attendant, a distribution center worker, or a retail associate on the floor. A podcast on their phone might.
Gallup's State of the Global Workplace puts global employee engagement at just 20%. The cost of that disengagement is approximately $8.9 trillion in lost productivity, roughly 9% of global GDP. Internal communication does not fix that alone, but it is hard to build an engaged workforce when the leadership voice is reaching people as a skim-read email or a recorded town hall nobody watches.
Why internal podcasts work
The podcast format fits how people actually consume content during a workday. Pew Research found in 2023 that 81% of podcast listeners listen while doing something else. Edison Research's Podcast Consumer 2024 report puts that number at 94%, while also finding that 72% of those multitasking listeners say the podcast keeps their primary focus. People can absorb a 20-minute episode from leadership while commuting, working out, or doing a task that does not require full cognitive attention. No other internal format competes with that.
A uStudio-commissioned survey of 1,043 US enterprise employees in 2022 found that 73% would rather listen to a podcast than sit through an hour-long meeting, and 60% admit to skimming employer emails. That is not an indictment of those employees. It is an honest description of how people process information when the format asks nothing of them emotionally or cognitively. A podcast with a human voice, a real person explaining the reasoning behind a decision, is a different thing entirely.
Leadership appears more human on audio and video than in a written update. You cannot hear tone in an email. You cannot see a CEO's face in a PDF. These things matter for trust, particularly in large organizations where most employees will never have a one-on-one conversation with anyone in the C-suite. The podcast creates proximity that the org chart cannot.
Real internal podcast examples
The best way to see what is possible is to look at what companies have already built. These are verified examples with sourced numbers, not case-study marketing fluff.
American Airlines: Tell Me Why
American Airlines launched "Tell Me Why" as a video podcast on the Jetnet intranet for approximately 122,000 employees. Hosted by VP of Global Communications Ron DeFeo, the show features executives explaining the reasoning behind major company decisions. Episodes run 5–10 minutes and publish roughly twice a month. The show was born directly from employee surveys asking to understand the "why" behind decisions, not just the "what." It won a Ragan Employee Communications Award in 2018. An audio version is publicly available; the video version is internal-only.
What to steal: The format came from listening to what employees actually wanted. Short episodes with a clear purpose (explain the why) beat longer, less focused shows every time. The public audio and private video split is a smart approach for companies where leadership communication has broader brand value.
Shopify: The internal podcast network
In 2016, Shopify engineer Simon Eskildsen launched an employees-only podcast when the company had roughly 1,500 employees. About 30% of the company downloaded the first episode. That number is notable because it came from a grassroots launch, not a top-down corporate mandate. The network grew to approximately 20 internal shows, including one hosted by the CEO and recorded town halls. Distribution ran on private RSS feeds assigned per employee, automatically revoked when someone left the company. This is documented in Eskildsen's own first-person writing and is the strongest-sourced internal podcast story in the industry.
What to steal: The per-employee RSS feed with automatic offboarding revocation is an elegant security model. Shopify also shows that internal podcast culture can grow organically: leadership does not have to own every show.
Lululemon: Leadership Series
Lululemon produced a private podcast for 4,200 global employees, recording 20–30 minute episodes following internal TED-style leadership events. The production agency JAR Audio, which produced the show, reports 95% average episode completion and approximately 75% of staff listening regularly. These are platform-reported figures from the producing agency and should be read as benchmarks set under favorable conditions: high-quality production, a well-defined format, and strong internal promotion. They are achievable, but they are not average.
What to steal: Tying episodes to events that already have internal energy, in this case internal leadership talks, is a smart editorial engine. You are not inventing content from scratch; you are capturing something that would otherwise disappear after the room empties.
Dell: The field communications network
Dell faced a specific problem: email was only reaching 10–15% of its 1,500+ field specialists. The solution was an internal podcast network of 11 shows on the uStudio platform. Within the first year, the platform reports 80% adoption. Those figures are platform-reported and vendor-attributed, but the underlying problem, and the logic of the solution, is consistent with what we see across organizations that have large deskless or field workforces. If your people are not at a desk, they are not reading the intranet update.
What to steal: If you have a large field or frontline workforce, the podcast case is even stronger than it is for desk workers. The format meets people where they are: on a phone, in transit, between tasks.
Bupa: The Running Elephant
Bupa Group CEO Iñaki Ereño uses "The Running Elephant" to walk 100,000 employees through company strategy. At that scale, the CEO cannot have a 1:1 conversation with anyone below the top tier of leadership. A podcast gives the CEO's voice a distribution mechanism that feels personal rather than corporate. The name alone signals an intent to be direct rather than polished, which matters when your audience has a well-calibrated filter for corporate speak.
What to steal: A named, personality-driven show from the CEO signals commitment in a way that a generic "leadership update" never will. The name and format are part of the message.
Wakefern Food Corp: Reaching the deskless majority
Wakefern Food Corp launched an internal podcast to reach 30,000+ mostly deskless retail employees, distributed via a branded mobile app. The show launched for the co-op's 75th anniversary and continued as a leadership communication and training vehicle. It is a clean example of a specific, solvable problem: how do you run consistent leadership comms for a workforce spread across hundreds of retail locations, most of whom will never open a corporate intranet on a work computer? A mobile-accessible podcast is the answer.
What to steal: Start with a specific occasion or purpose, as Wakefern did with the anniversary. A clear editorial mandate at launch stops the show from drifting into vague "culture content" that nobody knows what to do with.
Video or audio: the case for video-first
Our position on this is clear, and it comes from watching what builds trust inside organizations. Internal podcasts work best as video. Seeing leadership on camera creates a different kind of connection than audio alone. Tone, expression, and genuine human presence all come through on video in a way that a voice recording cannot fully replicate. For a frontline worker who has never met an executive in person, video closes more of that gap.
The practical argument for video-first is also straightforward: every video podcast can be released audio-only for commuters and frontline staff without any additional recording. You shoot once and distribute twice. Video-first means you get both formats from the same production run. The only thing you lose by going audio-only from the start is the connection video creates, and you cannot get that back without reshooting.
That said, audio-only internal shows are entirely viable if budget demands it or if leadership is not yet comfortable on camera. Consistency beats polish. A well-run audio-only show published monthly will do more for internal culture than a video show that records two episodes and disappears.
We cover the broader trade-offs between video and audio in detail in our guide to video podcast vs. audio for B2B shows. The core argument applies internally too: if you can do video, do video. If you cannot, do audio and do it consistently.
Step-by-step: how to start an internal company podcast
These are the steps in the order they matter. Skipping step one or step eight are the two most common reasons internal shows fail.
Step 1: Get an executive sponsor and define the purpose
This is not optional. An internal podcast without a committed executive sponsor will run for three months and then quietly get deprioritized when the sponsor's schedule fills up. The executive sponsor is not just a figurehead: they are the voice, the credibility, and the internal political cover that keeps the show funded and scheduled. Define the purpose before production begins: is this a leadership communication vehicle, a training series, a culture show, or a hybrid? Vague purpose produces vague content that nobody has a reason to seek out.
Step 2: Pick a format and cadence (monthly is fine)
Monthly is the minimum sustainable cadence for most organizations, and it is enough. A 20–30 minute monthly show adds up to 240–360 minutes of leadership communication per year: more than most companies achieve through any other channel. Choose a format that matches the purpose: interview with guests, solo executive update, panel discussion from a leadership offsite, or Q&A where employees submit questions. Simpler formats are easier to maintain consistently, which matters more than novelty.
Step 3: Choose video-first or audio-only
Our recommendation is video-first for the reasons above. If video is not feasible in the first season, start audio-only and plan to add video when the show has found its rhythm. Do not promise video and then deliver a poorly lit, badly framed recording: that kills engagement faster than going audio-only would have.
Step 4: Plan the first 6 episodes before recording anything
Six episodes is roughly one quarter for a bimonthly show or half a year for a monthly one. Planning them before you record the first one forces you to answer the questions that kill shows later: What are we actually going to talk about? Who are the guests? How does each episode serve the stated purpose? Running out of ideas in episode four is not a production problem; it is a planning failure that happened before the microphone turned on.
Step 5: Choose your recording location
A quiet conference room with decent lighting works. You do not need a studio. Companies often underestimate how good a properly lit, acoustically treated office space can look on camera, and overestimate how much the physical environment matters compared to the quality of the conversation. Leadership offsites are particularly effective recording opportunities: the team is already gathered, already talking strategy, and an interview or discussion recorded in that context captures genuine energy that a scripted studio session rarely does.
Step 6: Handle post-production (outsource vs. internal)
This is where internal shows most often go wrong. Post-production can be handled by an internal team or outsourced to an agency. If handled internally, bring in an experienced podcast production agency for at least a consulting and editing review pass, even if they are not running the whole show. Internal teams without podcast production experience routinely produce edits that are hard to watch: long silent pauses, awkward cuts, flat audio that makes a confident executive sound uncertain. That is not a failure of effort; it is a failure of unfamiliar craft. A bad edit kills the show faster than any other single factor, because if the first two episodes are painful to watch, the audience does not come back for the third.
There are two models that work here: full end-to-end production handled by an agency, or consulting and editing support alongside an internal team that wants to own the process but needs experienced guidance on the output. We offer both. The key is not having an internal team produce and publish unreviewed until they have developed the eye and ear for what a watchable, listenable episode actually requires.
| Production model | Typical monthly cost | Internal effort | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full agency production | $2,000–5,000 | Leadership shows up to record; everything else is handled | Lean comms teams; organizations that want predictable quality from episode one |
| Internal team + agency consulting and editing | $500–2,000 | Internal coordinator owns planning and recording; agency reviews and edits | Companies with in-house creative capacity that need podcast-specific craft |
| Fully internal | Staff time + equipment | Everything, including skills the team may not have yet | Organizations with experienced video/audio producers already on staff |
Step 7: Distribute privately
See the full distribution options in the section below. The key decisions are: do you need SSO integration (for larger organizations where manual access management is not feasible), and do you need detailed per-episode analytics? Your answers will point you to a platform tier. Set up distribution before you record the first episode, not after, so you are not scrambling to figure out access control at launch.
Step 8: Set realistic success metrics before launch
This step is non-negotiable, and doing it after launch is too late. Sit down with your executive sponsor before the first episode publishes and agree on what success looks like at 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months. Not "we want everyone to watch it." Something specific: 20% of employees listen to at least one episode in the first quarter; engagement grows by 10% each quarter; at least one episode generates measurable discussion in team meetings. If you do not set these benchmarks before launch, you will evaluate the show against an implicit expectation of 80% viewership, see 15%, and cancel a show that was actually working.
Step 9: Drive listenership with incentives
Distribution alone does not build an audience. You need active internal promotion. See the specific tactics in the "Why internal podcasts die" section below.
How to keep it private for employees only
Most organizations want their internal podcast to be accessible only to current employees, with access automatically removed when someone leaves. Here are the main distribution options, from lowest cost to most secure.
Option 1: SharePoint, Teams, or intranet embedding (zero extra cost)
Upload episodes as video or audio files directly to SharePoint or embed them in a Teams channel or intranet page. Access is controlled by your existing directory. Cost: nothing beyond your Microsoft 365 subscription. Downside: limited analytics (you cannot see who listened or how far they got), harder to notify employees of new episodes, and no native podcast player experience on mobile.
Option 2: Private RSS with a podcast hosting platform
This gives employees a real podcast feed they can add to their preferred podcast app, including Apple Podcasts, which supports private feed invitations. Access is managed per subscriber, and feeds can be revoked when someone leaves, which is exactly how Shopify ran its internal network. This is the best middle-ground option for most organizations.
Option 3: Enterprise podcast platforms
For large organizations that need SSO/SAML integration, SCIM provisioning for automated onboarding/offboarding, and enterprise-grade security reviews, the purpose-built platforms are the right choice.
| Platform | Price | Private subscribers | SSO / SAML | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transistor | $19–99/mo | 50–3,000 | No | Small to mid-size teams; simple private feed setup |
| Podbean Business | $99/mo | 100 (expandable) | Yes (SSO/SAML) | Mid-size orgs needing security compliance and SSO |
| uStudio | Custom pricing | Enterprise-scale | Yes (SSO/SCIM) | Large enterprises; Fortune 500 security reviews; analytics dashboard |
| Supporting Cast | Custom pricing | Enterprise-scale | Yes (SSO/SCIM) | Large enterprises; automated provisioning; mobile app |
| SharePoint / Teams | Included in M365 | All staff (via directory) | Via Azure AD | Organizations that need zero extra cost; weakest analytics |
For most organizations starting out, Transistor or Podbean Business is the right entry point. Enterprise platforms make sense once you have validated the format and are ready to invest in scalable infrastructure.
Why internal podcasts die (and the honest engagement math)
Internal podcasts do not usually fail because the content was bad. They fail for a short list of structural reasons, and understanding them before launch is the only way to avoid them.
Overproduction plus unrealistic engagement expectations
This combination is the most common killer. A company invests in high-quality production, launches with genuine excitement, and then checks the numbers after episode three. Leadership expected 70–80% of employees to watch each episode. The actual number is 15%. The show gets cancelled as a failure.
Here is the honest engagement math. Internal email has a 64% average open rate, and much of that is a skim (PoliteMail, 2025). A 15% engagement rate on a podcast episode, where engagement means someone actually listened for 20 minutes, is not a failure. It is different. Done month after month, 15% of a 500-person company is 75 people who heard the CEO explain the reasoning behind a difficult decision. 75 people who talk to colleagues. 75 people whose understanding of the organization is not filtered through rumor or misread email. That compounds.
Not every employee will watch every episode. Someone who listens to one episode a month is a win. Even 10% regular engagement, repeated consistently, is meaningful reach. Set those expectations with leadership before launch. In writing, with specific numbers. Because if you do not, the implicit expectation is always 80%, and 80% is never the reality.
No executive sponsor
Without a named, committed executive who owns the show, it will be deprioritized the moment a competing initiative appears. This is not a prediction: it is a pattern we have seen consistently. The show needs a sponsor who has made a public commitment to it and whose calendar protects recording time.
Stale or unfocused content
Episodes that could have been an email are episodes people skip. If the podcast is just a verbal version of the newsletter, the audience will not show up for it. The format earns its keep when it does something the email cannot: put a human voice and face to a decision, have an honest conversation rather than a polished announcement, or go deeper than a written update allows.
No active promotion
Employees will not find the show on their own, and they will not listen to it just because HR sent a link in the all-staff email. Active promotion, repeated over time, is what builds a listening habit. Here are the tactics that actually work:
- Feature employees from other teams as guests. Their whole team watches their episode. An episode featuring the head of engineering is appointment listening for every engineer on staff.
- Shout-outs and recognition inside episodes. If employees believe they might be mentioned, they tune in. Keep them wondering.
- Episode-linked trivia or quizzes with small prizes. A brief quiz tied to the episode content gives employees a reason to actually listen rather than skip to the end.
- Watch parties or discussion moments in team meetings. A manager who plays the first five minutes of an episode at the start of a team meeting has done more for listenership than a month of all-staff emails.
- Make key episodes part of onboarding. New employees should hear the CEO's voice explaining the company's strategy within their first week. An episode is a far better introduction than a slide deck.
- Let employees submit questions leadership answers on the show. This is the single most effective listenership driver we know of. If there is a chance your question is read aloud and answered by the CEO, you listen to every episode.
Who should (and should not) do this
Internal podcasts are not the right fit for every organization. Here is our honest read on where they work and where they do not.
The sweet spot is 200+ employees. Below that, you generally have enough direct access to leadership that the distance problem the podcast solves does not really exist yet. A 50-person company where everyone eats lunch with the CEO does not need a podcast to create connection. The bigger the organization, and particularly one with multiple offices, hybrid teams, or a significant frontline workforce, the stronger the case becomes. At 1,000+ employees spread across locations, the podcast stops being a nice-to-have and starts being the only realistic way to distribute a consistent leadership voice.
You need a committed cadence. Monthly is the floor. A show that publishes two episodes and then goes dark for three months has done more damage to leadership credibility than no show at all, because it signals that internal communication is not a genuine priority. If you cannot commit to a consistent schedule for at least six months, do not launch.
Production quality needs to be watchable, not Hollywood. Consistency beats polish. But "it doesn't have to be perfect" does not mean "it can be bad." A handheld phone recording in a noisy kitchen is not an internal podcast strategy. A quiet conference room with a decent camera, a lavalier microphone, and an editor who knows what they are doing is enough. The content carries the weight; the production just needs to stay out of the way.
If you are not sure whether your organization is at the right scale or structure for this, that is a reasonable question to talk through before committing resources. We cover the production cost landscape in detail in our B2B podcast production cost guide, and much of the framework applies to internal shows too. For a deeper look at how podcast investment pays off across both internal and external use cases, the B2B podcast ROI article is worth reading alongside this one.
For organizations that are already producing an external podcast and want to maximize the content investment, podcast repurposing is worth looking at: clips from internal leadership conversations can often be edited for external use as culture content or employer brand material, turning one recording session into two distribution streams.
FAQ
What is an internal podcast?
An internal podcast is a private audio or video show produced for employees only, not published on public platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Companies use them for leadership communication, strategy updates, onboarding, training, and culture building. Episodes are distributed via a private RSS feed, a company intranet, or an enterprise platform with access controls so only current employees can listen. Some internal podcasts, like American Airlines' Tell Me Why, have a public audio version alongside a private video version.
How do I make a podcast private to employees?
The most common approach is a private RSS feed from a hosting platform, where each employee gets a personal feed link that is revoked when they leave the company. Transistor ($19–99/month) and Podbean Business ($99/month, SOC 2 certified with SSO/SAML) both support private subscriber feeds. Enterprise platforms like uStudio and Supporting Cast offer SSO/SCIM integration and Fortune 500-grade security reviews at custom pricing. The zero-extra-cost route is embedding episodes directly in SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, or your intranet, though you lose detailed analytics. Apple Podcasts also supports private feed invitations.
What is a good engagement rate for an internal podcast?
Set expectations before you launch, not after. Leadership often expects 70–80% of employees to watch every episode. The reality is closer to 10–20% regular engagement per episode, and that is meaningful reach when you consider that internal emails average a 64% open rate but much of what is opened is skimmed (PoliteMail, 2025). An employee who watches one episode a month is a win. Even 10% consistent engagement means a meaningful portion of your workforce hears leadership's reasoning, repeated month after month. Lululemon's production agency reports 75% of staff listening regularly, which is an exceptional outlier achieved with sustained effort and high production quality, not a baseline to plan around.
How much does an internal podcast cost?
Internal podcasts can run leaner than external B2B shows because you are not competing for a public audience. Professionally produced internal shows handled by an agency typically fall in the $2,000–5,000 per month range. For context, external B2B podcast production runs $3,000–8,000 per month at full service (see our production cost guide for a full breakdown). The other model is producing internally with consulting or editing support from a podcast agency, which lowers the monthly spend but requires an internal coordinator. Platform costs range from $19–99/month for mid-size teams up to custom enterprise pricing for SSO-integrated platforms.