Local podcast producer helps others in Spokane find their voices

The Northwest has a wide selection of podcasts based on local lifestyle. One local podcaster has found success with his own podcasts – and with helping others to produce their own programs.

Spokast! is a community-based podcast, as well as a business that helps other local podcasts with production services.

Brennon Poynor, owner of Spokast!, originally started in the podcast world in 2017, when he created “Super 90’s Bros.” with Adam Pitzler. The podcast still airs today.

He started “Spokast!” with Andrea Williams and Nathan Martin in 2019.

“It started as a podcast to help share the stories of people that are living in Spokane that are doing awesome things,” Poynor said.

The podcast took off quickly, even winning the Best of Local Podcasts Award in March 2020. However, the day they planned to celebrate, everything went into lockdown for COVID-19.

The three podcasters were never able to gain the momentum they had before COVID, but Poynor worked hard to create consistency in “Spokast!” independently.

“We ended up getting back into it, but it just never got back into the same sort of rhythm,” Poynor said.

Before starting his own company, Poynor worked at Speak Studios. Once the company shut down, there were many podcasters who did not know how to properly produce a podcast independently.

Poynor decided to broaden Spokast! and begin producing podcasts.

“I had a handful of podcasts that I was still helping make their podcasts that were kind of left without any place to go,” he said. “And I was like, how do I help these people?”

After leaving Speak Studios, Poynor originally helped with three other podcasts. Spokast! now helps produce 20 podcasts.

For Poynor, it made sense to take this leap and see where it led him.

“The only thing that I kept on coming back to was Spokast!,” Poynor said. “I’m wanting to create podcasts in Spokane, and it just seemed like such a match made in heaven like it made so much sense. I could still have my ‘Spokast!’ podcast and I could have all of my podcasts that I’m helping produce be under the Spokast! umbrella.”

Poynor appears in around 10 of the podcasts, mainly focusing on “Spokast!” and “Super 90’s Bros.” Over the years, Poynor has worked to become more consistent with podcasting which allowed his business to grow.

“And probably near the end of 2020, I had started working in another podcasting studio in Spokane and I had made the leap from my marketing job to work in a podcast studio,” Poynor said.

Poynor has about 250 monthly listeners, and usually receives around 100 views within a week, and he says his audience is growing.

Zach Hawkins, or known as ExZac Change, started his podcast, “Happy 2 B Here,” in July 2019.

Hawkins created “Happy 2 B Here” with the intention of connecting with people in the community.