EXCLUSIVE: Punchup Live, the creator-owned live entertainment platform from Danny Frenkel and Alex Dajani, has launched a native podcast product, with popular comedy pods Bein’ Ian with Jordan (hosted by Jordan Jensen and Ian Fidance) and Tuesdays with Stories (hosted by Mark Normand and Joe List) joining the service.
The intention behind the launch is to allow comics to more seamlessly convert podcast viewership into ticket sales, via a product stack where those capabilities are integrated like nowhere else — a stack already spanning creator tools, ticketing infrastructure, analytics, streaming and digital content distribution. Previously, comics have run subscription content and touring through entirely separate systems, with no path for a listener to move from consuming a podcast episode to purchasing a seat in a room. But Punchup’s product will close that gap.
Punchup acquired ticketing platform Tixologi to underpin its live commerce capabilities, and the podcast product sits on top of that foundation as the content layer connecting subscription audiences to live revenue. Both Tuesdays with Stories and Bein’ Ian with Jordan are available on Punchup now and come to the platform, non-exclusively, after building substantial paid subscriber bases through Patreon.
Bein’ Ian producer James Webb told us, “Our listeners are the same people buying tickets to see Jordan and Ian live. Having both [podcast viewership and ticketing capabilities] in one place just makes sense. It’s how the business actually works.”
The financial model behind Punchup’s podcast product is competitive. We’re told they’re operating on a 7% take rate, lower than both Patreon, which consolidated its plans to a standard 10% rate for new creators as of August 2025, and Substack, which also takes 10% on paid subscriptions.
The company’s move into podcasting comes at a heated moment in the creator platform wars. beehiiv, the newsletter platform that has reached over 50,000 active users and added $4.5 million in annual recurring revenue in Q1 2026, launched native podcast hosting on April 2nd, included across all plan tiers with no per-episode fee and automatic distribution to Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The company has since hired Ainsley Rossitto, a former Paramount Global and NPR executive, to lead its podcast push.
Substack, which raised $100 million last July at a $1.1 billion valuation, has similarly built out podcast hosting as part of a broader consolidation of newsletters and audio on its platform. Patreon, which reported podcasters generating $629M on its D2C platform last year, in a 33% year-over-year increase, launched an overhaul of its newsletter capabilities in October 2025, positioning itself as another destination for creators who want memberships and written content under one roof.
Jordan Jensen, co-host of Bein’ Ian with Jordan, became the first female comic to win NY’s Funniest Stand-Up at the New York Comedy Festival in 2021, and was named to Deadline’s list of comics to watch in 2025. Meanwhile, Normand and List have in the last 13 years built Tuesdays with Stories into one of the most consistently popular independent comedy podcasts in the country, recording weekly at the Creek and The Cave in New York.
