Santa Monica College’s 89.9 KCRW Santa Monica/Los Angeles has announced the hiring of Gina Delvac as leader of its new Podcast Audience Lab and Arnie Seipel to lead its approach to news content.
Delvac most recently spent two years as head of Spotify’s in-house podcast studio and seven years as producer of Call Your Girlfriend. She has also produced for Launch Media and KPCC. She will be focused on building podcast audiences for KCRW.
Seipel joins KCRW from NPR where he has spent the entirety of his fourteen year professional career. He most recently served as Deputy Washington Editor after previous duties as Supervising Political Editor, Deputy Political Editor, Morning Edition Editor, and Elections Desk Assistant Producer. His focus at KCRW will be “news stories that matter most to us”.
KCRW announces two new key hires, Gina Delvac and Arnie Seipel. Delvac will lead the roll-out of a new podcast Audience Lab this Fall. Seipel will also join KCRW from NPR this Fall to lead its approach to news content.
KCRW President, Jennifer Ferro says, “We are so excited to have Gina and Arnie join our team at this time in KCRW’s journey. Having Gina totally focused on building podcast audiences and Arnie focused on the news stories that matter most to us, KCRW continues to grow our community service and singular voice.”
Gina Delvac was most recently the head of Spotify’s house brand podcast studio where she led a team of sixteen and developed a hybrid internal and co-production model. She started her career in public radio and is the founding producer of the popular podcast, Call Your Girlfriend. Call Your Girlfriend was named by Apple Podcasts among the “Best of 2015” and “Best of 2016.”
For Gina, coming to KCRW and the Podcast Audience Lab is a lifetime dream fulfilled, declaring, “KCRW has long been the soundtrack to the Angeleno experience. With the Podcast Audience Lab, we’re going to take the best of what KCRW already does every day, and bring best-in-class audio experiences to the many neighborhoods that make Southern California great — on the airwaves, in person, and in the digital spaces where we congregate. We’ll curate the sounds and stories that matter most and be in direct engagement with the communities that drive our culture forward. We want to hear your stories, reflect your experience, and share it with the world.”
The Podcast Audience Lab is KCRW’s latest innovation to engage with new audiences and build meaningful relationships around on-demand content. Funded by a generous investment from the KCRW Foundation Board of Directors, the Podcast Audience Lab is designed to expand KCRW’s footprint which already includes broadcast radio, multiple streaming channels, podcasts, robust newsletters, social feeds, and live events.
Arnie Seipel has spent the last fourteen years at NPR, most recently as the Deputy Washington Editor on the Washington/politics desk where he oversaw daily news coverage of politics and the inner workings of the federal government. Prior to this role, he edited politics coverage, leading NPR’s reporting on elections.
From Arnie: “I’ve been a big admirer of KCRW from afar. There’s really nowhere I’m aware of in public radio that is as special as KCRW. There’s so much opportunity ahead to expand and serve all the communities of Southern California who can rely on KCRW for news and information in their daily lives.”
