Your Podcast Is Not Underperforming, It Is Unmeasured: An Audit Framework From Hangar Studios
New York, United States - September 23, 2026 / Hangar Studios /
Hangar Studios, the New York podcast production company founded in 2009, has published the framework behind its podcast consultation and audits service. The framework evaluates an existing show against its own stated goals and measures progress in episodes and seasons rather than calendar months. The studio developed the framework in response to a pattern it sees repeatedly on discovery calls. A host or a brand team arrives convinced their show is underperforming, and in most cases the show was never given a target to perform against. Without a stated goal, every metric looks like bad news, and the corrective actions that follow tend to be cosmetic.
"Nine times out of 10 the show is not broken. It is unmeasured," said Jennifer Chernicky, founder and CEO of Hangar Studios. "Somebody asks us why the numbers are disappointing, and the first question back is always the same. Disappointing compared to what? If nobody can answer that, we have found the problem before we have listened to a single episode."
What the audit reviews
The framework works through six areas. The first is the goal itself, chosen and stated plainly: listener numbers, conversion into paying customers, brand awareness, social engagement, or global reach. Most shows are quietly pursuing two of these at once and succeeding at neither.
The second is format and structure, including episode length against the audience's actual listening context, segment discipline, and whether the show sounds the same from one episode to the next. The third is production quality, covering the recording environment, levels, room treatment, remote guest audio, and the consistency of the finished master.
The fourth is the publishing layer: episode titles, which should carry the value the listener gets and the guest's name, show notes, artwork, and metadata. The fifth is distribution and marketing, including whether audiograms and short form clips of 60 to 90 seconds are being produced at all and whether anyone owns the job of getting each episode in front of people. The sixth is cadence and sustainability, measured against what the team can realistically maintain rather than what was promised at kickoff.
Episodes and seasons, not months
The framework's measurement standard is deliberate. Based on 17 years of production across more than 600 client engagements, the studio holds that a format stabilizes at roughly six episodes, a clear growth trajectory becomes visible around 12 episodes, and meaningful business impact typically appears in season two. Assessing a show against a calendar quarter routinely produces a cancellation decision at exactly the point where the show is about to start working.
"The single most expensive mistake in podcasting is quitting at episode nine," said Chernicky. "We have watched genuinely good shows get pulled because a quarterly report came due before the show had finished becoming itself. Seventeen years of watching that happen is most of why this framework exists."
What the studio does with the findings
An audit produces a written read on each of the six areas, a stated goal the client signs off on, and a prioritized set of changes ordered by effort against likely effect. Some of those changes are production changes the studio can execute. Many are not, and the studio's position is that saying so is the point of paying for an audit. A show that needs a different host, a shorter format, or a distribution owner does not need a new production contract.
For clients who do move into production, the studio's three modes are studio sessions at its 417 Fifth Avenue facility in Midtown Manhattan, remote sessions on Riverside or Zoom with a guest preparation deck and a 15 minute tech check, and on-location deployment to offices, conferences, and events. Every session runs on Pro Tools with an engineer in the room. Post-production is an add-on configured to the show's package. Hourly room rental with an engineer is available for teams that need the room rather than the full service.
The record behind the framework
Hangar Studios was founded in 2009 by Jennifer Chernicky as the first podcast production company in the United States owned and operated by a woman of color. The studio has produced thousands of episodes for more than 600 clients and reached more than 50 million listeners worldwide, with a confirmed portfolio that includes the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Podcast, JPMorgan Chase's Market Matters, Viatris's Listen Well, Five Things with Lynn Hirschberg for W Magazine, The Knot's XOXO, Beauty Curious, and Refinery29's Go Off Sis, alongside hundreds of independent shows.
The three findings that come up most
Across the audits the studio has run, three findings recur. The first is that the show has no owner for distribution. Somebody owns recording and somebody owns editing, and the job of getting the episode in front of people belongs to nobody, so it does not happen.
The second is that episode length was chosen by habit rather than by audience. A 75 minute episode is a genuine commitment to ask of a listener, and shows regularly discover their completion rate collapses at the 30 minute mark. The fix is usually structural rather than editorial.
The third is inconsistency of sound. A show where the host is in a treated room, one guest is on a laptop microphone, and another is on a phone teaches the audience that quality is unpredictable. Listeners forgive a great deal, but they do not forgive having to adjust the volume every four minutes.
What an audit is not
An audit is not a rebrand and it is not a rescue. If a show has a clear goal, a committed host, and an honest distribution plan and still is not landing, the answer is usually patience and a few production changes rather than a relaunch. The studio's experience across 17 years is that most relaunches are expensive ways of restarting the clock on a show that was about to start working.
It is also not a sales exercise. A meaningful proportion of audits end with a short list of changes the client can execute themselves and no recommendation to move production. Saying that plainly is the service.
Who the framework is for
The framework is built for two situations. The first is a show that has published at least six episodes, has some data behind it, and is not doing what the people paying for it expected. The second is a team about to commission a show, who would rather set the goal and the measurement standard before recording than reverse-engineer them afterwards. The second group has an easier time of it, which is itself the argument for the framework.
Hosts and brand teams with a show that is not landing can review the service at podcast consultation and audits on thehangarstudios.com.
About Hangar Studios
Hangar Studios is a full-service podcast production company in New York City, producing studio, remote, and on-location shows for Fortune 500 brands and independent creators since 2009. Founded by Jennifer Chernicky, the first podcast production company owned and operated by a woman of color, Hangar has produced thousands of episodes for more than 600 clients and reached over 50 million listeners worldwide. From concept and recording to editing, sound design, and distribution, the team turns ideas into broadcast-grade audio and video. Learn more at thehangarstudios.com.
Contact Information:
Hangar Studios
417 Fifth Avenue, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10016
United States
Jennifer Chernicky
+1-516-366-0333
https://thehangarstudios.com
