In a sign of the further blurring of the lines between traditional media and branded company podcasts, today I'm highlighting a collaboration between one of the biggest media stars and one of the biggest consumer brands:

The Oprah Podcast

The podcast itself (and other variations like Super Soil) has been a long running, successful property. The new development is devoting a series of episodes to Book Club recordings sponsored by Starbucks.

Starbucks for it's part has had some interesting prior podcasting efforts. A show from 8 years ago called Upstanders, and audio segments in the Starbucks mobile app that weren't available as a podcast RSS feed.

The new collab is solid. The Book Club format is a mainstay of the Oprah empire, and in addition to the callout of Starbucks as the sponsor in the script, there are also mid-roll ads for the company. My favorite touch is that the recording is done in a real Starbucks location, and the guest is asked about their favorite coffee drink.