A Moveable Fest: The acclaimed Netflix series Chef’s Table is launching its inaugural food festival this August in Park City, Utah, although the cost of attendance made me lose my appetite. The most affordable option for the four-day experience starts at $2,000, with other tiers ranging from $4,000 to $15,000. The exorbitant event is the apotheosis of culinary culture, which has helped fuel the rise of related festivals across the country, many of which are the experiential extensions of food media brands. On Wednesday, the spirits media brand The Daily Pour, founded by TV personality Dan Abrams in 2024, acquired the whiskey festival Whiskey Riot, its third such acquisition in 24 months. Food & Wine expanded its flagship event from Aspen to Charleston in 2024, and Complex acquired Family Style with plans to increase its cadence. Eater, The Infatuation, and NYT Cooking all have movable feasts of their own. As the media industry deepens its reliance on events, food media is doing the same.
Podcast Television: The migration of podcasts to streaming platforms continues apace. On Tuesday, SiriusXM announced a partnership with Tubi to bring several of its most popular podcasts, including Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend and What Now? With Trevor Noah, to the free streaming service. Tubi has been a first-mover in this space, signing a similar deal with Audiochuck in October, prompting other streaming platforms including Netflix, Roku, and Paramount to follow suit. Samsung TV Plus has similar plans in the works, I am reliably told. The video transformation of podcasts has proven to be a boon for the industry, as well as for streaming networks, provided consumers flock to the series as executives hope they will.
Quote/Unquote
Nayeema Raza is a journalist and podcast creator behind the series Smart Girl, Dumb Questions, which was named one of Spotify Wrapped’s Top 10 Best New Shows of 2025 and the Winner of the 2026 iHeart Podcast Award for Best Emerging Show.
Before launching SGDQ, Raza spent two decades in media, most notably as the longtime on-air executive producer for Sway and On with Kara Swisher, as well as the original cohost of the Semafor podcast Mixed Signals with Ben Smith. Last Thursday, Raza threw a party at 30 Rockefeller to celebrate its first 50 episodes.
This interview has been edited.
Mark Stenberg: How would you describe what Smart Girl, Dumb Questions is?
Nayeema Raza: It’s a weekly comedic interview show, rooted in journalism with the addition of irreverent comedy and wit. I interview guests like Mark Cuban, Esther Perel, and Diplo, trying to make sense of modern life for a wide swath of millennials and Gen Z.
Mark: Where do most people engage with it?
Nayeema: It’s consumed on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, in that order. Some people listen, some watch clips, some people watch. What I focus on is making every piece of derivative content a cohesive experience. Having covered media, I think you need to be ubiquitous and do your best to meet people wherever they are.
Mark: You decided to make it a video-first product. Why is that?
Nayeema: I came up as a documentary filmmaker, and I like to start there because it is the most holistic of formats. You can turn video into print, into a clip, into audio, but the reverse is more difficult. I also think video is only becoming more pervasive, such that in the future people will consume podcasts on LinkedIn the way they currently do on TikTok.
