Kyle Cooke is slamming Bethenny Frankel for criticizing Bravo for trying to “exploit” Raquel Leviss – arguing that she herself is “cashing in” on the reality star.
“The irony of it all: Bethenny cashing in ads as she ‘exposes bravo’s exploits; and gives Rachel ‘a voice’. She literally has more ad spots than any other podcast I’ve ever listened to. Rachel won’t see a dime lol,” Cooke commented under @twojudgeygirls’ account on Thursday, which showed a clip from Leviss’ bombshell interview on Frankel’s podcast.
The “Summer House” star, 41, added that if he had to guess, Leviss probably “had to pay her way to fly to B [Frankel] just to record this.”
“If this was a true PSA it would be ad free,” Cooke concluded.
Cooke specifically mentioned Frankel having several ads – which averaged to around 13 minutes total per episode – in each of her three separately released podcast episodes on her iHeart show, “Just B.”
“She flew herself on her own dime out west to do the interview,” a source close to Frankel told Pvnew Friday. “She has nothing to do with ads – that’s all iHeart, and iHeart generates all the ads.”
Reps for iHeart Media and Frankel didn’t immediately respond to Pvnew’s requests for comment.
All three episodes culminated to a total of 139 minutes, and Frankel, 52, used roughly 39 minutes total – or about 30 percent – to fill up ads.
For reference, Apple Podcast’s top-charted podcast, “Dateline NBC,” averages around 43 minutes per episode and typically maxes out at around 2.5 minutes of ads per episode – a full 10 minutes less than Frankel’s last three episodes with Leviss.
In 2022, the average podcast composed of only 5.5 percent of ads per episode, according to a report by podcast media planning platform Magellan AI.
Frankel has not released the amount she’s made for the three episodes so far, but according to Podchaser, the average CPM, or average cost of one thousand ad impressions, is $15 to $30, for a 30 to 60-second ad.
Therefore, if Frankel had each ad spot generate a $30 CPM with 100,000 listens per episode, she’d make $3,000 per ad – or roughly $117,000 for the three combined episodes.
The Skinnygirl founder has kept tight-lipped on whether Leviss made any money, but she did say on Friday’s episode that she flew down to interview Leviss, 28, at her parent’s place in Arizona.
The bombshell interview has garnered tens of thousands views on Frankel’s Instagram and TikTok pages alone, since the “Vanderpump Rules” alum has not publicly spoken about her affair with Tom Sandoval – aka Scandoval – since facing off against her co-stars in an explosive Season 10 reunion in March.
Leviss made several claims on the three episodes – including that she has “not seen a single penny” from Bravo.
However, Lisa Vanderpump denied that claim, and a source told TMZ that she actually raked in a whopping $361,000 during Season 10.
Frankel’s rep didn’t immediately respond to Pvnew’s request for comment.
