Brian Baumgartner & iHeartMedia Head Back To ‘The Office’ For Deep Dive Podcast

EXCLUSIVE: Brian Baumgartner, who played Kevin Malone in The Office, is staying in Scranton for his latest podcast – a deep dive on the hit NBC comedy.

Baumgartner and Propagate Content have teamed up with podcast network group iHeartMedia to launch The Office Deep Dive with Brian Baumgartner.

The series, which Baumgartner tells Deadline will consist of between 40 and 50 episodes, will launch February 9.

It is a follow-up to his Spotify podcast An Oral History of The Office, a 12-episode that traced how an oddball British comedy became a long-running hit for NBC, navigating past near cancellation to become a streaming sensation.

The Office Deep Dive with Brian Baumgartner will feature full-length interviews with likes of stars Steve Carell and John Krasinski and the creative team behind the show including Greg Daniels and Mike Schur.

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Each week, Baumgartner will be joined by his former coworkers and pals, which also includes Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, for more in-depth conversations.

Baumgartner told Deadline that it was always the plan to use the extended interviews that he’d done with his Office colleagues. He said that he’d spent four hours talking with Daniels and three and a half hours with Carrell, amassing 100 hours of interviews.

“What I wanted to do was to give people an insight into the full interviews that we did. It’s all new material from the other podcast. It’s deep dive conversation between me and all of these people,” he said. “It’s going to feel rougher and rawer. Whereas on An Oral History of The Office, you heard the story of the show, in this you’re going to hear about the people behind it and the personalities in a way that you haven’t before. There’s much more comedy and interaction, telling stories that happened over time.”

The show, which is now streaming exclusively on NBC streamer Peacock, has continued to be a huge hit in the digital world and Baumgartner says he’s keen for new viewers that have recently discovered to find out more, including the fact that it was “almost cancelled 14 times”.

Baumgartner, who has also appeared on The Goldbergs and Arrested Development and stars in upcoming hair metal comedy Electric Jesus, added that the reason the show, and subsequently the podcast series, work, is because the cast and crew were genuinely a “family”. “There’s a number of reasons,” he said. “Firstly, how difficult it was at the beginning and how we were almost cancelled but also people forget that The 40 Year Old Virgin didn’t come out until season two, there was nobody on that show that was a star, everybody was growing up together, riding the same wave, obviously to different degrees. There truly were no egos.”

The Office Deep Dive with Brian Baumgartner is co-produced by Propagate Content and iHeartRadio. Baumgartner exec produces alongside Propagate’s Ben Silverman and Linh Le. Episodes are produced by Tessa Kramer, Emily Carr and Diego Tapia with theme music by Creed Bratton. Baumgartner, who also runs production company 3 Bees Entertainment, said that he particularly enjoyed the production side of the show.

“I may not always know what the right questions were to ask, but I knew that the shared history that we had together allowed people to relax and be themselves and tell stories in a way that they just couldn’t with somebody else because that person can’t spark a certain memory. We were there together and became great friends,” he added.

“We’re thrilled to introduce The Office Deep Dive with Brian Baumgartner to listeners,” said Conal Byrne, President of the iHeartPodcast Network. “The Office was a true phenomenon in TV comedy, and this podcast gives listeners the chance to revisit this legendary show with a fresh perspective. They’ll come for the nostalgia, and stick around for the hilarious new context and rapport.”

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