The Problem
Phil Schroeder, VP of Digital at Times News Journal, was outsourcing podcast production and hitting the same frustrations a lot of media companies deal with. He had no control over how stories were being selected. He had no direct access to analytics. And costs kept creeping up because the vendor model depended on labor, and labor costs only go one direction.
Phil needed a way to produce podcast episodes from his newsroom's existing content without adding headcount, without depending on a vendor who didn't know his audience, and with full visibility into what everything costs.
No Editorial Control
A third-party vendor chose which stories went into episodes. The newsroom had no say in what represented their brand.
No Analytics Access
Performance data lived with the vendor. Phil couldn't see what was working, what wasn't, or where to improve.
Rising Costs
The vendor model depended on labor. As production scaled, costs scaled with it. There was no path to efficiency.
A Problem That Matched a Platform
Phil and Sean were catching up when Sean asked what Phil was working on and whether he had any challenges. Phil explained that he had built a system using Google Sheets and scripts to get about halfway to producing a podcast episode from his newsroom content, but he couldn't get it all the way to a finished product and it wasn't going to scale.
Sean had already been building the Media Orchestrator platform and was deciding what the first tool on it would be. That was the light bulb moment. Phil had a specific content production problem that needed solving, and Sean had a platform designed to host exactly that kind of tool. Episode Composer became the first application built on Media Orchestrator, purpose-built to take Phil's workflow from halfway to fully automated.
Phil's Problem
Halfway there with scripts and spreadsheets, but couldn't reach a finished product
Sean's Platform
Media Orchestrator ready for its first purpose-built tool
What Media Orchestrator Actually Is
Media Orchestrator is a multi-tenant platform designed for media companies that need to transform their existing content into new formats using AI. It's not a single tool. It's an infrastructure that hosts purpose-built child applications, each one solving a specific content production problem.
The first tool built on the platform is Episode Composer, which automates podcast production. But the architecture was designed from the start to support additional tools and whatever else media companies need next.
Media Orchestrator
multi-tenantEpisode Composer
Articles to podcast episodes
Video Tools
Video content workflows
Future Tools
Built as customers need them
How Episode Composer Works
Episode Composer lets newsrooms turn the articles they're already publishing on their website into fully produced podcast episodes. Editors pick which stories go into an episode, and the platform handles everything from script generation to voice synthesis to publishing. No manual audio editing, no recording sessions, no outsourcing to a vendor who doesn't know your audience.
Published Articles
RSS feed from existing website
Story Selection
Editors choose what goes in
AI Script Writing
AI generates natural scripts
Voice Synthesis
AI produces broadcast-ready audio
Published Episode
Ready for distribution
Results from Phil's Perspective
In Phil's own words, the biggest wins are control and cost visibility. His editors choose the stories. They control how the product goes out the door. And he can see exactly what each episode costs to produce, where to tweak, and where to optimize. That level of insight didn't exist with the previous vendor model.
Phil also noted the reliability factor. He wanted to work with someone who could build a stable platform that his team could depend on, not just a contractor who would deliver a project and disappear.
Editorial Control
Editors choose the stories. They control how the product goes out the door. No more outsourcing editorial decisions to a vendor.
Cost Visibility
Production costs visible on a per-episode basis. Phil knows exactly what each episode costs and where to optimize.
Platform Reliability
A stable platform the team can depend on. Not a one-off project from a contractor who disappears after delivery.
Before: Vendor Model
- ✗Vendor selects stories
- ✗No access to performance data
- ✗Opaque pricing
- ✗Costs scale with labor
- ✗No ability to optimize
After: Episode Composer
- ✓Editors choose every story
- ✓Full analytics access
- ✓Transparent per-episode costs
- ✓Costs decrease as AI improves
- ✓Tweak and optimize daily
What's Next
Episode Composer proved the architecture works. One tool solving one content production problem for one customer. The platform was designed to host multiple tools, and the next area of focus is applying the same approach to video workflows.
Media Orchestrator continues to evolve based on what media companies actually need.
- Proven architecture: Multi-tenant platform with the first tool live and producing episodes.
- Video workflows next: Applying the same automated pipeline approach to video content production.
- Customer-driven roadmap: New tools get built when customers have specific problems that need solving.
