RIIZE's Anton Launches a Solo Podcast on Spotify

K-pop star Anton is trading the stage for a studio mic, at least for a few hours a week. The RIIZE member is launching TON-AIR, a Solo Podcast that will stream exclusively on Spotify, with the first of six episodes premiering October twentieth, 2026. Anton will read personal stories and concerns sent in by listeners, then recommend songs to match each one, and he composed the show's signature theme music himself, according to allkpop.

The announcement came Thursday through SM Entertainment, the agency behind RIIZE, which said the podcast would debut at midday with music as its central theme, according to Aju Press. Anton will respond to listeners' stories and recommend songs based on each episode's topic, and the agency confirmed he created the show's theme music himself. For an artist whose public image has mostly been built on group choreography and arena stages, a solo show built on talking and recommending music is a different kind of spotlight.

Fans are already counting down. Reactions on fan forums include one listener who said they had become someone endlessly waiting for lunchtime next Tuesday, while another nicknamed the new host DJ Ton, according to netizenspill. The nickname is telling: the audience already pictures Anton as a radio-style host, not just a guest on someone else's show.

What TON-AIR will sound like

Music is the central theme of the program, not a backdrop. Each episode pairs a listener's story with songs Anton picked for the occasion, drawing on a habit fans already know well. He has been sharing playlists reflecting his personal taste since his debut, spanning acoustic tracks to upbeat dance songs, and TON-AIR turns that habit into the show's engine. The host becomes a kind of musical advice columnist for the streaming era, prescribing tracks the way a columnist prescribes wisdom.

His agency asked fans for their interest and support ahead of the launch, saying the show would carry Anton's unique sensibility alongside a theme song he created himself, according to allkpop. That personal touch matters to the concept. Rather than licensing a stock intro, the host built the show's sonic identity from scratch, which fits a podcast that promises intimacy over spectacle. New episodes land on Tuesdays, giving listeners a recurring appointment with the host between RIIZE's group activities.

The Spotify-exclusive format also says something about where artist-led audio is heading. K-pop idols have long hosted radio shows and fan broadcasts, but a structured Solo Podcast with a single global distributor is a newer playbook, one that borrows as much from the creator economy as from traditional broadcasting. It is a reversal of the usual funnel: instead of using a podcast to promote an album, the artist uses his curator credibility to build a show, and the audience follows him there. Spotify has been leaning hard into personality-driven audio, expanding podcast payouts to dozens of new markets this fall, a shift covered in GenZ NewZ's look at how podcasters can finally get paid. Anton's show slots into the same bet that listeners want voices, not just playlists.

The timing lines up with a packed RIIZE calendar

The podcast does not arrive in a quiet season. RIIZE is scheduled to release a new single on October twenty-sixth, six days after TON-AIR's debut, and the group has a second full-length album planned for spring 2027, according to allkpop. Launching a solo project in the middle of that run suggests the agency sees the podcast as a complement to the music rather than a distraction from it: a space where Anton's taste as a curator can breathe while the group's release machine keeps running. For the label, it is also a low-risk experiment in member-level branding, the kind of solo venture that tests an idol's individual pull without pulling him away from the group.

For fans, the practical details are simple. The show lives only on Spotify, episodes arrive on Tuesdays, and listeners can submit the stories and concerns Anton will respond to on air. The half-dozen episodes planned for the first run make TON-AIR easy to sample without a long commitment, a smart design for a generation that discovers shows through clips and shares the best moments in group chats. Because the show is exclusive to one platform, international fans get the same release at the same time, no regional radio schedule required.

There is a bigger reason the format could land. Gen Z already treats playlists as personality tests and song recommendations as love languages, so a show built on matching music to real-life situations speaks the audience's native dialect. Whether Anton's advice-giving chops match his taste in songs is the open question, and that uncertainty is part of the draw. Music launches like U2's stadium return and Knox's global tour show how crowded the fall calendar is, but TON-AIR is betting that a quiet conversation can compete with the noise. If the run finds its rhythm, expect the Tuesday appointment to become a fixture in fan timelines, and expect other idols to follow the format.

Sources: allkpop, the Korean outlet's report.