PUCK / Audacy Launch New Media Podcast:The Grill Room With Dylan Byers

 Podcasting has amassed an impressive stable of media industry shows -- The Business with Kim Masters, Vanity Fair's Little Gold Men, and Matt Belloni's The Town. 

This week, a new media podcast joins the fray. 

Puck, a media company that has focused on putting journalists at the center of its business model, has announced the launch of a new podcast hosted by Dylan Byers, Puck’s founding partner and senior correspondent. The Grill Room, is the new podcast, which is an homage to the exclusive dining room within The Four Seasons where a generation of media executives consummated deal and traded gossip.

The show is produced in partnership with Audacy Podcasts. New episodes will drop every Tuesday and Friday starting on October 29th. Upcoming episodes of the podcast will include interviews with Brian Williams, David Zaslav, Jim VandeHei, Emma Tucker, Don Lemon, and many other top executives and talent.

The Grill Room will cover what’s happening in the media industry, bringing listeners inside the conversation with the television personalities, media moguls, political pundits and industry executives driving the day’s headlines.

Host Dylan Byers, a veteran media reporter covering the business of entertainment and news media, joined Puck as a founding partner in September 2021.

Before Puck, Dylan worked at NBC News, CNN, and Politico as a media reporter. Dylan’s private email newsletter, In the Room, reports on the inner workings of American media, bringing readers into his notebook as he reports on the biggest stories and egos in the industry.

In an example of podcast marketing hyperbole at its best, here's Jon Kelly, co-founder of Puck: “Dylan isn’t simply required reading in the media business—he’s a combination of Must See-TV, the Voice of God, and the industry’s ultimate arbiter-referee-biographer. His audience has been waiting for this podcast for ages, and I’m thrilled that we are able to deliver it for them during an exciting inflection point in our business.”

Wow. Can he also walk on water and turn water into wine?

By contrast, Dylan Byers has a more modulated view of his new podcast.

“In three years, In the Room has become an absolute must-read newsletter for power players in media, entertainment, and politics looking for the inside view on what’s really going on,” said Byers. "In The Grill Room, we want to bring you inside the conversations I'm having with those power players, and offer listeners the real stories taking place behind the headlines."

“Dylan is the best at what he does by a long shot–he’s the smartest and best sourced journalist on the media beat, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to further expand our thriving Puck slate with The Grill Room,” said Jenna Weiss-Berman, EVP, Audacy Podcasts. 

The Grill Room will be Puck’s eighth podcast and its sixth with Audacy. Puck launched The Varsity by John Ourand last month, which covers all things sports business, including the leagues, agencies, media deals, and the egos fueling it all. Puck also recently launched Impolitic with John Heilemann, a leading podcast for political insiders.

Byers is not without controversy during his career in journalism. Of course, you can make the case that good journalists often court opprobrium from subjects being profiled.

Hopefully, Byers brings the kind of thinktank power that Belloni exhibits on The Town.  Considering Puck's recent pedigree with podcasts, I'd recommend checking out The Grill Room with Dylan Byers.