When we launched City Cast in 2021, we committed to tracking–and publishing–demographic information about our podcast guests. Diversity is a core City Cast value, and accountability is another. We want to have podcast guests who are diverse in race and ethnicity, gender, economic background, and geography. Tracking and publicizing guest demographics is a way to hold us accountable for representing the diversity of DC.
So are we living up to our values? How diverse is our podcast guest pool, really?
We ask each of our City Cast DC podcast guests a few questions about their gender identity, racial/ethnic identity, and neighborhood. About 95% of guests responded in 2023. The following data encompass a total of 142 responding guests who collectively made 207 podcast appearances from Nov. 1, 2022 through Nov. 9, 2023. (We did not count City Cast DC staffers who appeared on the podcast.)
We then used census data to compare our podcast guests to the broader city population. This helps us see how well we’re reflecting the community we’re serving.
Race/ethnicity of City Cast DC podcast guests vs. the DC city/metro population.
As you can see in the chart, City Cast DC’s guests were more white than the population of the city and region. We had fewer Hispanic/Latinx and Black guests than you’d expect, given the local population. Only 15% of City Cast DC guests were Black, compared to 42% of the city and 24% of the metro area. Based on these data, we can do a better job representing DC’s racial and ethnic diversity than we did in 2023.
The gender identity of City Cast DC podcast guests.
We also asked about gender identity. A 54% majority of our guests identified as male, with 44% identifying as female and 2% identifying as non-binary.
