Youtuber and viral Twitch streamer Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins is set to launch a new interview-style podcast featuring A-list celebrities, according to reports from Variety.
The twice-weekly podcast titled AFK w/ Ninja is launching later this month on 12 September. Tuesday episodes of the podcast will feature the streamer engaging with a number of celebrity guests across the sports, music, and entertainment industry, while Thursday episodes will be more serious and focus on covering top news and viral online stories.
“I’m hyped to finally talk about what has been in the works for a long time,” Ninja told Variety. “I’ve always wanted to blaze new trails, and making my mark in the podcast world gives me the chance to sit on the other side of the table to dish out the questions myself!”
Celebrity guests that are confirmed to make an appearance on the podcast include Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey, professional football quarterback Jared Good, DJ and music producer Steve Aoki, and fellow Fortnite streamer Maria Lopez, also known by her streaming name - Chica Live.
AFK w/ Ninja is produced in partnership between audio media company SALT - which is also behind thriller podcast Ad Lucem - and SiriusXM’s podcast division Stitcher Studios, with SXM Media retaining the exclusive rights to global ad sales. It will be available across all major podcast platforms as well as the SiriusXM app.
Along with Blevin, a number of other YouTubers have expanded their online presence with podcasts, including Emma Chamberlain whose hit podcast Anything Goes was the third most popular podcast in Spotify’s Wrapped 2022 list last year, and TikToker and YouTuber Jonathan B. Allen - also known as Mr Ballen - whose podcast Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories has over 200,000 subscribers on YouTube.
“I did YouTube for a while and once YouTube is established, it's like a career, it's a monetised platform,” Allen told PodPod. “Once I knew that ‘MrBallen’ had gone from this interesting, random TikTok to a brand, I needed to capitalise on it and make it a career.”
“It was like, take this style, make it slightly longer and focus on true crime - because that's the genre that we can repeat, it’s a popular genre - and do it on a podcast,” said Allen. “We'd launched the podcast, it was very quickly one of the best podcasts and we just insanely produced as much podcast content as we could while keeping up with all the other platforms.”
