Allison Raskin is “letting go of another dream” as her podcast Starter Marriage gets cancelled after not bringing in enough money.
Videos by Suggest
Starter Marriage launched in May 2025, but after “almost a year of weekly episodes,” the show was considered a “financial flop.” Raskin, the New York Times best-selling author and relationship coach, made a blog post and Instagram announcement to share the disappointing news.
When her producers invited her to a Zoom call, she had assumed the worst. “I had assumed our producers were just going to cut the cord through my reps and never speak to me again, which is how most of my canceled projects have gone,” she shared. However, “they dutifully gathered on a Zoom call and tried to strategize a Hail Mary to help get the show new advertisers.”
“None of us wanted to give up. We believed in the show. We were proud of what we were making. If we could just increase the audience by a few thousand listeners, we might be able to get one or two advertisers to bite and… It didn’t work.“
“I will have to add it to my growing graveyard of failed dreams. Projects that had every opportunity to succeed but didn’t, leaving me to have no one to blame by myself,” Raskin continued.
This Is Not The Final Death Of ‘Starter Marriage,’ However
Although the cancellation of the show has been a “major blow” for Raskin, she isn’t giving up on herself nor the podcast.
“We will be pivoting to a YouTube version of the show in a few weeks,” she said. Hopefully, it will find a comfortable home on the free and more easily-advertised service.
The author is admittedly struggling to find balance on the mental wire strung between her incredulity that the podcast with “all the right ingredients for a slum dunk” failed and her pessimism that the “most obvious explanation” is that she simply isn’t talented enough for success.
As a fellow creative, I understand how this extremely fine wire is very difficult to stand on. But I’m glad to see that she hasn’t fallen off yet into despair or destructive hubris, and continues to believe in herself.