Everybody wanted Ina.
Suitors flew from California and Washington to the Upper East Side in pursuit of Ina Garten, also known as the Barefoot Contessa. They brought gifts, including bags of candies and a jar of homemade pickles.
What they were after was a piece of the beloved Food Network star’s forthcoming foray into podcasting, a move that prompted a bidding war and secured her a seven-figure deal with Vox Media — an unusual level of interest for a yet-to-be-made show.
The scrum for “Happy Hour With Ina Garten,” which will be released in September, signals the booming interest in TV-show-style video podcasts hosted by charismatic, chatty personalities who can rope in their famous friends. The industry’s priorities have shifted after a spate of layoffs and closings in the last few years. Companies are now especially interested in people who already have strong followings, especially known “brands” like Ms. Garten and Oprah Winfrey, who just started her own video podcast with Amazon.
Ms. Garten, who has cooked with everyone from Emily Blunt to Stephen Colbert in her 20-plus years on the Food Network, will limit herself to cocktail- and mocktail-making as she pursues deeper conversations than those she felt she could have on TV.
Podcasting “was kind of younger and cooler and it was the thing that was moving fast, and I thought it would be really fun to be in that stream,” Ms. Garten, 78, said in an interview at her Upper East Side apartment, clad in a trademark denim shirt.
The show was hatched with Jenna Weiss-Berman, 43, who met Ms. Garten through a shared connection with her publicist and had been encouraging her to make a podcast for two years. Ms. Weiss-Berman, the executive producer of Ms. Garten’s show, is an industry savant who has worked on podcasts with Lena Dunham and Ronan Farrow and co-created the witty, feel-good show “Good Hang With Amy Poehler,” which has been a runaway hit since it was introduced in March 2025 and just won a Golden Globe.
Unlike Ms. Garten’s TV show, which is filmed at her sprawling barn in East Hampton, N.Y., the podcast’s early episodes will be set at her apartment, with furniture and paintings from Paris, and a dreamy, not-Manhattan-size chef’s kitchen.
Although she will continue to work with the Food Network, which turned some content from her show “Be My Guest” into audio-only podcast episodes, Ms. Garten said video podcasting offered an appealing “messiness” that could be lacking on a traditional show.
“It’s happening in real time, it’s not overedited, so it feels authentic in a way that nothing else does,” she said over a plate of cookies from Sant Ambroeus, the upscale Italian cafe chain. “I’m always in pursuit of that messiness of real life.”
Ms. Garten, whose rise to stardom started in her 50s after years of running a popular food store called the Barefoot Contessa in the Hamptons, saw her legion of fans expand into Gen Z and even Gen Alpha during the pandemic as she guided home cooks through quarantine. Their desire to hang out and be like the Barefoot Contessa is such that one fan recently asked her bridesmaids to dress like Ms. Garten at her wedding. Ms. Garten’s husband, Jeffrey, was even invited to attend, though he didn’t join. (“Can you imagine 10 years later explaining that to your kids?” Ms. Garten said with a laugh.)
Video podcasts cater to that parasocial engagement that people increasingly crave with their favorite creators.
Still, even Ms. Weiss-Berman was taken aback by the flood of interest in a sample episode that Ms. Garten recorded with the millennial food writer Alison Roman, who happened to sit next to Ms. Weiss-Berman when both worked for BuzzFeed. They sent it to around 15 media companies and podcast networks hoping for two or three offers. Nine sought meetings.
Suitors included Amazon, Acast and Higher Ground, the production company led by former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, according to two people familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the names publicly. Amazon and Acast declined to comment; Higher Ground did not return a request for comment.
Vox Media, which owns a podcast network of nearly 50 shows from hosts like the technology journalist Kara Swisher and the Peloton instructor Robin Arzón, won Ms. Garten in part through its roster of personalities.
The company, which made more than $80 million in revenue last year from podcasts, declined to share specifics of the deal. But it was able to keep Ms. Garten on board when news of Vox Media’s partial acquisition by James Murdoch in May gave her cold feet.
Jim Bankoff, Vox Media’s chief executive, immediately flew from Washington for lunch with Ms. Garten, assuaging her concerns about the company’s future and values under the new structure.
Podcasts are increasingly challenging traditional media, especially with video, as consumers toggle viewing among phones, laptops and connected televisions. They are less at the mercy of Spotify’s and Apple’s feeds, as shows spread through YouTube and viral clips on Instagram and TikTok. (Apple and Spotify have since added video.) A record 58 percent of Americans recently said they were monthly podcast consumers in an Edison Research survey.
“These shows are rivaling, if not bigger than, what we have historically called TV shows,” Mr. Bankoff said. “They are bigger than what we have historically called talk radio shows.”
Ms. Garten’s show will run as full videos on YouTube with audio versions on Spotify and Apple.
Such shows present an obvious attraction for advertisers.
Ms. Garten, who has never formally endorsed products before in exchange for money, said she would also be open to those deals through her Vox Media partnership, as long as they were for items she used.
Although Ms. Garten aims to bring her TV charm to podcasts, she is also making some choices tailored to the medium. The focus on drinks emerged as she and Ms. Weiss-Berman discussed “food sounds” that would work for audio-only listeners.
Yeses included “the pop of a cork or a cocktail shaker,” Ms. Garten said. As for nos? “I would not want to listen to the sound of a raw chicken being cut,” said Ms. Weiss-Berman, eliciting a laugh from Ms. Garten. “Not raw chicken,” she agreed.
She and her team are making a list of dream guests for this fall, topped by the actor Tom Holland, whom she wants to ask about how he cooks with his wife, the actress Zendaya. (He also recently appeared on “Good Hang,” where Ms. Weiss-Berman remains an executive producer.)
“It’s all about personalization,” Ms. Garten said. “You can watch TV one way, but you can watch and listen to podcasts any way you want, and I think that’s really what’s appealing about it.”
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