Audacious audio: ’Stoga on Air Podcast grows in popularity

Three months ago, Pakistan’s second most-listened-to podcast, according to Chartable, was being recorded from the other side of the world inside Conestoga’s very own TV Studio.

In June 2022, then-freshman Dean Rindner and then-sophomore Sanveer Kashyap launched a student-run podcast, ’Stoga on Air. Since the first episode aired, ’Stoga on Air has become the 131st most-listened-to Entertainment News podcast in the U.S. on Apple Podcasts. The podcast is available on streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.

“The goal of ’Stoga on Air is for people to talk on (topics) they’re passionate about and bring their voices and perspectives to the school,” Rindner said.

The podcast features student opinions on various school and community-related events, as well as global news and trends. Junior Lex Shah co-hosted the podcast’s second episode in November. Shah finds the listeners of the podcast not to be limited to a specific audience.

“Each one of the episodes so far have been for all Conestoga (students). (The episode I did) was about changes in school (this year). The next episode was about Cornucopia and (other) schoolwide events,” Shah said. “It’s interesting because everybody can connect to the topics discussed.”

The podcast has accomplished more than just reaching local listeners. ’Stoga on Air has also had a global impact.

“One of my friends, she’s Pakistani, and her family listened to (the podcast). So (our podcast) actually went number two in Pakistan, which was really unexpected,” Kashyap said.

The most recent episode of the podcast was “The Hotseat,” inspired by the YouTube series “Hot Ones.” “The Hotseat” was a special episode in which podcasters interviewed a guest while eating spicy hot wings. For their first Hotseat episode, Kashyap and Rindner interviewed 12th grade assistant principal, Patrick Boyle.

“Everybody’s familiar with (Boyle’s) speeches at the start of the year and how they’re imposing, (so) we thought it’d be interesting (to have him on the podcast) because he’s actually a really relaxed guy. A lot of people never get to see that side of him,” Kashyap said. “It was one of the more interesting experiences to learn a lot about people’s stories that you would have never expected to hear.”

Although ’Stoga on Air has been around for 10 months, Rindner and Kashyap still have many plans to improve the podcast, such as entering the NPR Student Podcast challenge. Their main goal, however, is to include more voices on the podcast.

“We really hope for other people to contact me through our Instagram and say, ‘Hey, Dean, I’d love to talk about this or that.’ That is our goal,” Rindner said. “We want people to talk about things that they’re passionate about.”