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Teri Hatcher relaunches Desperate Housewives… as a podcast: an intergenerational “rewatch show
Teri Hatcher is returning to Wisteria Lane. But this time, it’s not for a sequel or a reboot: it’s for a rewatch podcast, a format that has been a hit for several years now and is gradually establishing itself as a genuine model for companion podcasts like The Traitors.
The actress has launched Desperately Devoted, a podcast produced by iHeartRadio and co-hosted with two very special people in her life: Andrea Bowen, her on-screen daughter in Desperate Housewives, and Emerson Tenney, her real-life daughter, who is discovering the series… for the first time.
One episode a week has been released since 9 September, each lasting around fifty minutes.
A ‘rewatch’ that plays on three dynamics: nostalgia, transmission and novelty
The trio offer a hybrid format: Teri Hatcher and Andrea Bowen revisit their memories of the shoot, Emerson Tenney brings a fresh perspective as a 27-year-old viewer, and all three use the episodes as a starting point for talking about broader subjects: relationships, parenthood, identity, fashion, cooking…
This blend of memory and contemporary insight has become one of the keys to the success of rewatch podcasts: they allow us to connect with fans of the time and with a generation that is discovering the series today. iHeart is investing heavily in rewatch podcasts, which have become one of its strategic formats for engaging fans of TV series and extending the life of the catalogues.
A timely podcast for guests
The other subtlety is thatAndrea Bowen is pregnant with her first child. She says that revisiting the series with “her fictional mum” and Teri Hatcher’s daughter makes the experience particularly moving. For Hatcher, it’s also a way of revisiting her career with a mixture of “gratitude and forgiveness”, whether on Desperate Housewives, Lois & Clark or Coraline. She points out that several generations now come to her to say that the series has been part of their lives.
Why is this interesting for the media, radio and studios?
This launch ticks off several key trends for audio in 2025:
1. The rewatch is the new after-show
Like companion podcasts, rewatches create a conversational second life around an existing programme. For media groups, it’s a very powerful engagement lever: loyalty, new generations and cross-platform. It makes it easy to create content about content.
2. Resurrecting forgotten catalogues with new content
With full availability on Hulu, iHeart fits perfectly into the ecosystem. Rewatch is becoming a tool for reactivating a catalogue organically. It’s a new way of communicating for installed programmes.
3. Extracts that are a hit on social networks
Anecdotes, behind-the-scenes footage and nostalgia generate very successful formats on social networks. The actress shares them almost every week. She welcomes the main actors and even their children. Several pieces of content have exceeded millions of views.
We’re a little disappointed that the podcast doesn’t seem to be available in a longer video version. This could have been a good addition to the Hulu offering, with the podcast on an episode broadcast just after the episode.
In any case, you can listen to Desperately Devoted on all the podcast platforms.
