RadioKismet founder and president Christopher Plant in front of the new podcast studio on Sansom and 34th streets (Photo courtesy of RadioKismet).
Podcast studio RadioKismet opened its new headquarters in University City at 130 S. 34th Street on Feb. 15.
RadioKismet is a podcast studio and content lab with a portfolio covering topics such as community, hospitality, entrepreneurship, arts, sciences, and entertainment. It offers broadcast production services to individuals and organizations looking to start podcasts.
RadioKismet's new space in University City was recently renovated to become a hybrid event venue, recording studio, and office space, according to a Shop Penn announcement. The new studio is located in the Shop Penn Retail District, which is operated by Penn.
“RadioKismet offers the community access to a network of creative producers, a team of audio professionals, knowledge of technical equipment and software, and a new recording studio acting as a HQ for creatives, visionaries, artists, and dreamers,” Christopher Plant, the founder of RadioKismet, wrote in the announcement.
Plant founded RadioKismet in September of 2019. While it was originally located in Center City at 448 N 10th St., Plant told the DP that he really wanted to be in a place where they could have more direct interaction with the surrounding community.
“When the possibility came up of moving our studio over to Penn, I was incredibly excited to be in a location where I could be proximate to universities and to younger audiences,” Plant said.
According to the announcement, RadioKismet intends to collaborate with the Penn community through podcasts, aiming to have two to three shows a week featuring members of the Penn community.
“RadioKismet is an exciting new addition to the Shop Penn retail portfolio, providing a unique space for students and the surrounding community to utilize the studio, attend live podcast recordings, and hear from local Philadelphia content creators,” Ed Datz, Penn’s executive director of real estate, wrote in the announcement.
Plant added that it took almost a year to figure out a deal with Penn. He said he would love for RadioKismet to have a deeper engagement with both students and professors within the larger Penn community.
Plant explained that most of what RadioKismet currently does is white-label podcasting — producing everything needed for a podcast from beginning to end. He said that they are looking to become a more connective media company for organizations trying to stay connected to a disparate audience.
“People are on TikTok, people are on Instagram, people are on Facebook, people are on YouTube, and each one of those formats has their own associated requirements to get stuff up onto those platforms,” Plant said. “And so what we're doing is helping organizations apply a lot of their content choices, and knowing exactly where they want to go, how they want to be used, and helping people develop a strategy for that.
Plant also owns co-working spaces called Kismet Cowork. He explained that during the pandemic, when people stopped working in person, he primarily focused on growing the podcast network and produced about 15 new podcasts. At the time, RadioKismet worked mostly with small businesses and individuals, building towards working to produce podcasts for museums, colleges, restaurants, and hotels.
The studio currently produces podcasts for several different organizations, including the Franklin Institute, Mural Arts, and Monument Labs. Plant explained that podcasting opened a whole new way for people to digest content, to continue learning without having to stop doing other things in their lives.
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