While Domenica Calarco and Ella Ding‘s Sit With Us podcast rose in listenership during the same month it received heavy backlash for their interview with Jack Dunkley, recent data shows a decline for June 2024.
According to Triton Media’s Australian Podcast Ranker, Sit With Us reached 140, 621 listeners in May, 2024 — the same month the pair interviewed Jack and his partner Tori Adams.
This is compared to the previous month — April 2024 — when Sit With Us pulled in 50, 729 listeners. March reached 51,333 monthly listeners and February reached 57,205 monthly listeners.
The listenership figures for June 2024, have just been revealed and the Sit With Us podcast finished the month with 44,237 monthly listeners.
While May was their highest monthly listeners for 2024, June was their lowest (when it came to regular programming).
In January 2024, Sit With Us only released two episodes and didn’t place in the top 200 ranking (number 200 had 28,522 monthly listens, so we can assume it was below that).
What was the Sit With Us backlash?
Domenica and Ella started inviting MAFS 2024 contestants on their Sit With Us show in May, including Tim Calwell, Jack and Tori, Jono McCollough and Ellie Dix and Eden Harper.
It’s when they posted a snippet of their interview with Jack and Tori that public scrutiny began. Many people flocked to the comments section to share why they believe platforming someone like Jack in this way is wrong.
Abbie Chatfield also pointed out how damaging their actions were in the comment section.
“I can’t believe I’m seeing you both dismiss what he said, because he was “pushed”,” Abbie wrote.
“That’s the excuse for all abusive men. And what he did was verbal abuse. This is really worrying. Particularly in the current climate, this is really incredibly awful.”
She even uploaded a podcast episode explaining why Domenica and Ella’s choice to interview Jack in the way that they did was extremely harmful.
There are a lot of different reasons as to why the interview with Jack could be seen as harmful — Abbie’s It’s A Lot podcast episode is actually a wonderful and educational explainer — but Domenica and Ella’s video appeared to victim blame Lauren Dunn for the “muzzle” comment.
Why did the podcast get more listens in the same month as the Jack Dunkley interview?
It’s important to note the different factors that would have contributed to the Sit With Us podcast’s May numbers.
There was vested interest in the podcast episode Australia was talking about, as well as the multiple other MAFS interviews and exclusives that month.
The pair also released an episode addressing the backlash during the month of May.
Why did the podcast get less listeners in June?
It is impossible to pinpoint one particular reason for June’s numbers. While the backlash to the Jack episode could’ve played a part, there were a number of other differences on the podcast in June.
MAFS was no longer a focus of the podcast in June, following three months of the show being a focus on the podcast with recaps or guests.
As of their May 28 episode, Ella started doing the Sit With Us podcast either solo or with guests while Domenica checked herself into a mental health facility.
Domenica has been vulnerable and open with her mental health journey since returning to social media. She is currently is Europe with her family and it is not known if and when she will be returning to the Sit With Us podcast.
It is also not known how the Jack interview and Ella and Domenica’s response to the backlash will affect their podcast listens moving forward — and ultimately what the future of the podcast will be.
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