Most podcasts die young. Why do two sisters in Fishers keep going strong three years in?

I started podcasting back in 2016. Before that, I spent years hosting radio talk shows in the 1970s and early 1980s, so I figured I knew a thing or two about talking into a microphone. Turns out podcasting is its own animal. Different gear, different rhythm, different rules. It took me a while to get comfortable.

But here's what I learned fast: the technology isn't the hard part. Showing up every single week is.

A 2026 study from CastFox Research backs that up. It found that 22.8% of podcasts stop after just one episode. More than half never make it past six. Only 6.9% ever reach 100 episodes. That's a brutal drop-off rate for something that sounds so simple to start.

So when I come across a podcast that's still going strong three years in, I pay attention.

Meet the Scuttlebutt Club

In Fishers, sisters Katelyn Marando and Taylor Pearl run a show called The Scuttlebutt Club. Current in Fishers editor Leila Kheiry recently wrote a great piece on them, and it got me thinking about what separates the podcasts that last from the ones that fade.

Marando and Pearl started their podcast about three years ago, right as the COVID-19 pandemic was winding down. They were both busy moms whose calendars were packed with school drop-offs, practices and games. Somewhere in there, they wanted something for themselves. Something that wasn't just logistics.

So they built a podcast. They told Kheiry they didn't know the first thing about podcasting when they started. No fancy background, no media experience. They went online, asked questions, and got pointed in the right direction by a friend's husband who runs his own show and knew the equipment and editing side of things.

That's how most good projects start, honestly. Not with expertise, but with curiosity and a willingness to figure it out as you go.

Growth Through Steady Work

Three years later, the Scuttlebutt Club isn't just surviving. It's growing. They've added video. They post on YouTube, cut reels for Instagram, and distribute audio across the major podcast platforms. A new episode drops every Tuesday, like clockwork.

That kind of consistency doesn't happen by accident. It happens because somebody decides the schedule matters more than the mood.

The sisters feature local businesses and restaurants, preview weekend events around Fishers, and often record on location. One week they might be at a pickleball facility. Another week, the Fishers Event Center. They're not sitting behind a desk reading headlines. They're out in the community they're talking about.

The Mayor, Off Script

Mayor Scott Fadness has been a guest on the show too, and the way they handled that interview tells you a lot about what makes the Scuttlebutt Club work.

When Fadness comes on my own podcast, we usually talk city business. Budgets, infrastructure, the occasional detour into family life if there's time. The Scuttlebutt sisters flipped that completely. They skipped the politics and policy altogether and just asked him about being a dad, a husband, a friend. Marando told Current in Fishers the goal was to show who he is outside the office.

That's a smart move. Everybody already knows what a mayor does. Almost nobody knows what he's like at home.

Why This Matters

I've always made a point of cheering on fellow podcasters who put in the real work of showing up week after week. It's easy to start something. It's hard to keep it going when nobody's checking in on whether you did.

Three years of weekly episodes puts Marando and Pearl well ahead of almost everyone who's ever tried this. They found something in Fishers that was missing for them, built it themselves, and figured out the technical stuff as they went. That's a pretty good blueprint for starting anything, really.

Having fun on a podcast is its own kind of discipline. It's easy to be serious. It's harder to be consistently entertaining and still show up on schedule.

So here's my hat tip to the Scuttlebutt Club. Keep recording, keep laughing, and keep proving that the best way to build something lasting is to just keep doing it, one Tuesday at a time.

Source: LarryInFishers

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