Caloroga Opens AI Podcast Studio Linnet to All Creators

Caloroga Media opened its AI production studio Linnet to the public on Tuesday — no waitlist, no invitation — with paid plans starting at $16 a month and the Starter and Creator tiers free until December 1. The New York podcast company is pitching the tool squarely at independent creators who can't afford the video production audiences now expect.

"Video podcasts have taken off, but unless you have big budgets like the big streaming services do, it's hard for the smaller guys to keep up," co-founder John McDermott said in the release. "Independent creators have a finite amount of resources, time, and money, so it was important to us for Linnet to provide the tools needed to transform creators' audio podcasts into visual ones, while still keeping the creator in control of the finished product."

Co-founder Mark Francis framed the public launch as a development tactic. The company is opening the studio, he said, "because the best way to refine her is to put her in the hands of more creators."

What does Linnet actually do?

The studio packs scripting, AI voices, music, artwork, a 24-track audio editor, video editing and publishing into one browser tab. Its "God Mode" turns a single prompt into a draft episode on an editable timeline. An audio-to-video feature adds clips, captions and graphics to an existing recording for YouTube and social platforms.

Linnet publishes directly to Podigee, Buzzsprout and Transistor.fm. A Caloroga representative said those are "the only hosting companies that provide affordable video API access." The public beta began on November 2, as Net Influencer previously reported.

Why the video push now

Edison Research reported in June that video podcast consumption overtook audio-only consumption for the first time in the third quarter of 2025. Eighty-two percent of U.S. weekly podcast consumers actively watch video, against 78% who listen to audio only. Acast's Podcast Pulse survey of 4,300 listeners across 13 markets found 88% consume both audio and video podcasts, up from 78% in 2025.

Money is following the format. Spotify now shares premium subscription revenue with video creators through its Partner Program — the reason Flightcast cited when it began selling automated YouTube-to-Spotify distribution for $100 a month this month. For a small audio show, the math is blunt: pay for cameras, editing and visuals, or miss the platforms where audiences watch.

Caloroga made the opposite bet with its own catalog, which McDermott described in August as choosing short-form audio over long-form video. Linnet is its attempt to bolt video onto audio-first shows with AI tools a single producer can run.

A crowded field, and skeptical listeners

Established editors are moving the same way. Descript offers the AI voice-cloning tool Overdub. Riverside launched an "AI Twin" in September that generates video of a creator from a script, and added direct video publishing to Apple Podcasts in July. At the automation extreme, Los Angeles studio Inception Point AI has produced 200,000 podcast episodes at roughly $1 each, CEO Jeanine Wright told the Los Angeles Times last December.

Linnet differs in some ways, according to Francis. It offers preset voices with no voice cloning, God Mode output is meant to be edited before release, and the company does not train AI models on creator content. Those claims are Caloroga's; no independent verification exists yet.

Listener attitudes cap how far full automation can go. In Edison's Podcast Consumer 2026 study, 69% of U.S. weekly weekly podcast consumers approved of generative AI for research — but only 25% approved of a show hosted in an AI-generated voice. Sixty-two percent called AI a threat to podcast credibility.

Caloroga says its own shows have passed 10 million downloads. It has not disclosed signup numbers since the beta opened, and Francis said Linnet stays in beta while creator feedback gets turned into new features in 2027.