[upbeat music] I always have great difficulty telling people what I do, and so I'm always kinda going back and looking at the definition I put on the website or the definition on my LinkedIn or whatever.
And I mean, I think one of the things that, that you make me think about when you, you talk about doing podcasts but not really making any money at it is sort of figuring out how to navigate platforms and which ones are for marketing a- and which ones are for monetization.
And sometimes it's both, and sometimes it's one at times and another at times.
And so I think yours sits in a probably just a different place where, you know, your newsletter and your dinners and those kinds of things are more your revenue drivers than your podcast. But you probably...
A lot of people find you through your podcast. It's probably a good marketing channel for you. It's not as neat as that, though, right?
Because the, the podcast is not a wide top of the funnel because podcasting, the s- the numbers are smaller. It's so much easier to, to grow a newsletter than it is to grow a podcast.
Well, tell me more because I'm trying to grow newsletters right now. [laughs] How do you grow a newsletter? [laughs] All right. Well, you tell me how do you do a podcast.
[upbeat music] Welcome to "The Rebooting Show." I'm Brian Morrissey.
This week, I'm talking to Scott Porch, the founder of Big IP, a podcast studio. I wanted to talk to Scott for a few reasons.
One is we've traded notes over the last several months about going from journalism into figuring out how to build a business, and also because he knows a ton about the podcast market that I do not.
What I find interesting is how podcasting, too, is diversifying. I mean, just like newsletters, few will stay just in that medium.
Podcasting is already blurring into video with YouTube as one of the biggest podcast distribution channels. And making money in podcasting is more than just hosts reading discount codes for DTC underwear brands.
Podcasters are building membership businesses, events business lines, and more. Scott and I get into this. Really appreciated him sharing his insights, and I would love to hear yours.
Send me a note at bmorrissey@therebooting.com. Now, here's my conversation with Scott. [upbeat music] Let's get into the actual discussion. I wanna get all into podcasting today with you, Scott Porch, from Big IP Media.
Uh, before we get in, Scott, how do you, how do you describe Big IP Media and what you do? [chuckles] 'Cause I struggle with this myself sometimes.
I struggle a little bit talking about it because what people sort of understand, you know, when you use a word or a couple of words is a lot easier than what it actually is.
I usually say producer, although I think that connotes for most people that I'm involved in a lot of the mechanics of the recording and that sort of thing.
And I guess sometimes I say produce and distribute, which is maybe a little closer, although all of these shows have podcast platforms and ad sales that really function more as the distributor.
So I think in a lot of ways I sit between a producer and, like, a talent manager for the show, so I'm dealing with kind of all of the business end of everything it takes to make a podcast and grow, you know, a, a podcast the way I'm doing it with these shows.
So that's dealing with their hosting, you know, whether that's Libsyn or Megaphone or whatever, and dealing with their monetization, and I work with three different ad agencies.
D- Each of the shows are exclusive to one of those agencies, but some shows are with one agency and some shows are another. And I'm dealing more recently with touring, so I'm dealing with venues and how all that works.
Oh, yeah. And I'm dealing with membership, so monetization and how that works.
And I'm having these calls all the time with potential partners, companies that do certain things in marketing like Podrole, which I've been working with some lately on the marketing side.
And so even just picking Memberful took weeks of, like, what does Constant Contact do, and what does this other one do? Yeah. And what does Memberful do?
And it, it, it takes a long time, but that is really the stuff that these creators don't really- Yeah... have time and don't need the expertise to deal with.
They just want someone to send them the login for Memberful and say, "This is how we're doing the newsletter." Right.
So I mean, you're basically the, the operator side of this particular media sector at the end of the day. Yeah. I mean, there's people who do the same on, like, the, quote-unquote, "the newsletter side."
And, and these things all blur, right? Because, like, you're not in-- That's why I always... I don't really believe in, in, quote-unquote, "newsletters" as, like, a business model for most people.
It's just a d- it's a distribution... It's a way to distribute content, but very few people stay in newsletters. You know, you, you...
Pretty soon the newsletter becomes a website, there's a podcast, there are events, and then what are you still a newsletter company? I, I guess. I don't know. I think for my shows- Ultimately...
it becomes a function of what does the newsletter mean. I mean, like, for, for what we were looking for, we had to...
I had to pick a company that could deal with exclusive audio and also be really good at newsletters and also be really good at CRM.
And so some were better than others and, you know, we wound up settling on Memberful to do that, m- mainly because they were right down the middle of those functions. They...
I can interface other apps like Stripe or, you know, whatever with the, the, the company. I can do things with the database inside and outside of Memberful's platform.
I can send emails tranched a lot of different ways, and I can- Mm... create custom audio tranched a lot of different ways.
So I think they're-They're gonna be, uh, it's gonna be more useful to me as I scale it, but I mean, we launched, we're talking here on Thursday the 9th, and I launched Brav Bros yesterday on Memberful. Mm.
And, and they had 50 members as of- Yeah... this morning. So w- l- let's just back up. Like, what, what, what shows do, do you rep? And describe, describe the biggest ones.
I know you're gonna have to choose a few, but we can't get through the entire roster. Yeah. I work with... I was trying [chuckles] to count them this morning.
So I work with, I think right now, 13 shows plus two that are pending contract that we could maybe talk about a little bit.
But the biggest shows I work with are The John Campia Show, which is a daily YouTube sort of film and TV entertainment news show. It would be like- Mm-hmm...
comparable to, like, an hour on CNN that's just about film and TV news, but, you know, very personality driven and kinda up to the minute of, of, you know, what's going on right, right before that show goes out live.
And then I'd say the other biggest shows would be the, the sort of female skew reality TV shows like Brav Bros and Kempire and Daily Dose of Donna- Yeah... No Filter with Zach Peter.
They're all sort of in and around Bravo reality TV doing some different things. Yeah. And then more recently, Pop Apologists and Kurt Sutter and Katey Sagal's projects- Yeah...
would be So how, how big, how, how big is big in podcasting? 'Cause I, I find... We're, we'll get into the whole podcasting. I j- I find it a fascinating space because there's such a power law.
Like, it's, it's so easy to have a top 1% podcast in the world. [laughs] If, those of a, those, those who are listening, if, if you want a top 1% podcast in the world, you can have one. You can. It's possible.
I would, I would like a couple of those. I'm not sure, I'm not sure if I have a top 1%. I guess it depends on if you mean by unique monthly audience or unique weekly audience or by revenue. I don't know.
Or- There's, like, there's, like, services that'll, like, be like, "You're, you're one of the top, like, 4%." I'm like, "Really?" I'm like, "This podcast is very small."
But it just seems like in podcasting, I guess my point is that, you know, the big shows are really big. I mean, like, the Joe Rogan, like, Huberman, like, they're just, like, massive, right?
But it doesn't seem like podcasting has, like, a big middle class. I think there's a layer below Joe Rogan, particularly in comedy- Yeah...
where there are a lot of podcasts making a million-plus dollars a year just from the podcast. Now, that might be a combination of their YouTube, Google- Mm...
AdSense revenue from the pod- from the YouTube channel that the podcast sits on, and their host-read revenue from, you know, Libsyn or iHeart or wherever their podcast is based, plus their programmatic revenue from Megaphone or whatever platform that sits on, plus maybe some membership on top of that.
You know, so it... And some shows are much more dominant in areas than others. I have one show that does more in membership than all but one or two of my shows do in host-read revenue.
So I mean, it, they're not all equal. They don't all make their money the same way. So, but I mean- Yeah... there are, there are a lot of podcasts that do a million-plus dollars a year. Yeah. A lot.
So what is, what is the state of the, the podcast market right now? 'Cause I, I feel like over the last couple decades it's gone through these waves of, of hype and then disappointment, and it just keeps going up.
I don't know I think there's winners and losers along the way, and you see companies making sorta changes in, you know, how their, you know, what their business plan is.
I mean, like, Spotify, for example, bought, you know, Megaphone and Chartable and several big podcast studios. They bought Anchor, and I'm really pissed about it. Yeah.
Well, they're, they're- Can you explain to me why this podcast gets updated to Spotify, which owns Anchor and rebranded it Spotify pro- for Podcasting, way before it gets u- uploaded to Apple?
I, somehow, I don't think that's a coincidence. It's so much worse than you know. I mean- [laughs]...
we could go down the rabbit hole of all of the businesses that Spotify has bought and how they're trying- Spotify bought this business, and it seems like their OKR for the, for, for whatever product team was on it was, "Don't improve the product, but just make it more of a pain in the ass to actually hook into the dominant podcast platform, which is Apple."
So, like, it's just- Anchor is now a part of a product at Spotify called Spotify for Podcasters. Yeah.
And Spotify also owns Megaphone, which is now, fairly recently, I think it's still in beta, but I have several shows on it, capable of doing video.
So some shows are doing video through Spotify for Podcasters, which was an Anchor product, and some shows are now doing video- Yeah... through Megaphone.
And the two platforms, I spend a lot of time trying to resolve bugs between these two platforms. All right. Well, let's get back. So what is the state of, of the market?
'Cause I think it's, it seems like it's evolved a lot. I mean, there's a lot of different business models now, when it was just, like, host, host read ads. I mean, there's programmatic. Yeah. There's memberships.
There's touring. A lot of people have, have big, like, Patreons. But give me the lay of the land. I think the business is in great shape.
If you look at the listenership numbers year over year going back a decade or so, more people are listening to an episode of a podcast every month. Every year, that number continues to get bigger.
The revenue numbers of what advertisers are spending in the podcast space continues to get bigger and bigger every year. I think it's supposed to be 4 billion in 2025 or 2026.
So the, the, the gross numbers are moving in the right directions, but you still see these things along the way, like Spotify buying studios and then shutting them down, and then Castmedia, where I had some shows in early 2023, going bankrupt and losing money.
And it's like, well, those happened for specific reasons and for specific business decisions or doing things particular ways or getting into particular genres or making bets on minimum guarantees that didn't pan out, but you're always gonna have winners and losers even in-Growing businesses.
I, I would say overall I'm, I'm really not just optimistic, but as I look at all the numbers, I, you know, I get a lot of confirmation that the business continues to grow.
And I hear stuff all the time about individual shows. You know, Giggly Squad is a big show.
One of the hosts of that is a comedian, and the other is on the Bravo reality show called Summer House, and they're touring right now, and it's sold out all over the place. Yeah.
You know, I look at their tour update page, and they're adding second shows and second nights and third nights at some of these places.
And so, you know, that's not even captured in the gross revenue numbers that you see from, you know, IAG or whoever about, you know, how much money's getting spent on podcasts.
That's an entire economy, you know, over to itself.
And then over on the direct monetization side, you have shows like Bitch Sesh, which is a really popular reality TV commentary podcast that has almost completely left RSS.
They, they, they don't even really do free podcasts anymore. They've got lots and lots and lots of premium subscribers, and that is their business now.
So, I mean, you're seeing success in a lot of different areas and in a lot of different ways, and I, I kind of look at all of that as which parts of that should we be in or which parts of that- Yeah...
are we missing if we don't get into now or if we don't at least learn how to do now. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm very optimistic when I, when I look at all those things. Yeah, 'cause I f- I feel like podcasting is, is...
it's well positioned for where media is going. I don't think people... People generally agree that we're between eras, and that where it's going it's gonna be more niche, it's gonna be...
there's gonna be more depth than breadth. And I think podcasting is, is ideal for that, right?
I mean, there's a lot of, like, drawbacks to, to the podcasting medium, but I feel like it's well positioned overall because of that depth of engagement.
I think anyone who's done a podcast, uh, and we were talking about this, about... I hear about it all the time, right? Like, I...
There's numbers on dashboards, and yeah, look at the numbers and whatnot, but you should also listen to people.
[laughs] If people, like, always bring up the podcast of, of one of several things you're doing, then that tells me that, that they're... It, it, it builds a connection that other forms of media mostly do not.
Well, it's very one-to-one. It's, it's passive and active at the same time. I mean, I listen to podcasts when I'm walking the dogs, when I'm mowing the yard, when I'm doing the dishes, when I'm...
You know, there are things that you listen to podcasts when you do that are not when you read and not when you watch TV.
So there's a, you know, there's a very one-to-oneness in that respect, and it's, it's a, I mean, it's an intimate medium because it's, it's in your ears while you're doing other things, so you carry it around, but you, you carry it around with you rather than it being kind of a sit down in the living room, you know, experience.
So... And then I think sort of what passes for a podcast is changing some right now.
I mean, the part of the business that I work in is really the talk format podcast, but there's the sort of scripted narrative part of it where they're trying to get a TV, you know, series made, and the more in-depth, investigative, you know, The New York Times limited series kind of end of it.
I, I can't speak as much to sort of those two categories, but at, at least in the talk category that, that I work in, the platforms have evolved a lot, and so it's become not just a thing that means two people talking on audio, but two people talking on YouTube and audio platforms and Instagram and premium services.
And so it's really, I think, becoming recognized more as a format or a means of, of, of, of the way people talk than a f- a format- Yeah, it's kind of where you start... yeah.
I think that was a part I, I had about, like, newsletters, 'cause newsletters mostly, they morph into all kinds of different things. And I... It seems like podcasts is, is kind of similar, right?
I mean, you start a podcast, but then, then the podcast's on video, and I'm watching, like, all in, and then there's an event. You know, and it, and it, and it's sort of...
I, I guess that's why you call it Big IP, not Big Podcast, right? Yeah. And that really came from the coverage area. You know what I mean?
Most of my shows are in commenting on film and television, and sort of you hear the term big IP referring to franchises, and most of my shows cover franchises- Yeah... whether it's Br- Bravo or Star Wars or whatever.
So that's kind of where the name came from.
But yeah, I think you're seeing it go all over the place now from a platform standpoint, starting in, like, m- all, all of the shows that I work with started in one area of dominance or the other, and most of them started on YouTube, a few of them started on audio, but then they went the opposite direction.
So I mean, all of these shows are on YouTube and audio now, but m- a few of them are closer to 50/50, but- Yeah... most of them are very dominant YouTube shows or very dominantly audio shows.
So just on the YouTube, 'cause this is one of those things where I'm like, are people really watching podcasts? Is that, is that passive listening or is that actually viewing, and what, what's the mix there?
I know it depends, and some people will wanna watch people. I just... It seems very strange that YouTube h- has become such a big podcast distribution platform. It does depend.
We get better metrics from what people are watching versus listening from Spotify, and my experience with Spotify is that shows on video, about a third of the consumption is coming from, from video.
So m- even when shows are dis- are displayed as available in video, two-thirds of the people on Spotify are still just listening to them with the video off. Hmm.
I think on YouTube it's more about the distribution channel than it is about-The video, although the video is important for some podcasts, I think it's more about YouTube being a dominant platform for podcast distribution because it's a dominant platform for everything distribution.
It's the same reason a show can like not get any attention on one streaming service, but then as soon as it's on Netflix- Mm... everybody's talking about it. I think YouTube is that for a lot of podcasts. Yeah.
Did you see the like fake podcast interview ads? No. [laughs] There, are you talking about AI, AI-read ads that sound like hosts? No, no, no.
So, so people are, are making ads as if they're being interviewed on a podcast. They're just, they're f- they're faking the podcast. Oh, yeah, yeah. I have seen that.
[laughs] So making it look like they're important enough for someone to interview them on a podcast. Right. Yeah, yeah. They've got the microphone coming in. Yeah, yeah. I have seen that.
Um, I was joking on, on one of my podcasts that that could be a business model for us. And that is a look. I mean, there's a, you know, you got the, the headphones and the microphone that comes down from the ceiling.
It's a dorky look. And, yeah. I'd like to lose the headphones. I don't like the headphones. That's me. I think overall, that's, that's part of a diversification story.
And, you know, the diversification from just audio and just into like video, into eve- live events, sometimes into TV. But the business model's diversifying too, right?
'Cause I think when, when a lot of people talked about the podcast business, they were talking about podcast advertising, the ad business. Yeah.
But there's, there's more to just ad- that to podcasting than just advertising now. And this is where, and I think you may have been talking about this on the People vs.
Algorithms the other day, or maybe on one of your podcasts, about that podcasters kind of fit into influencer in, in a lot of- Yeah... respects, and they monetize like an influencer in a lot of respects.
So yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a diversification from a podcaster's standpoint, but it's the same thing that's happening on like TikTok influencers, Instagram influencers. Mm. They're all looking at...
They're all on one platform or starting on one platform- Yeah... and looking at all of the other platforms as, should I be there? Should I be there for monetization? Yeah. Should I be there for getting a foothold?
Should I be there because the money's better or because some studio wants to pay me to start there or... So I think, I think that's not just a thing that people on the podcast side are going through.
I, I think, I think everybody- Yeah. I, I don't know. There's a, there's a form of media that's emerging that is...
I think sometimes it's called creators, sometimes it's called influencers, but it's just an awkward term in a lot of areas because it, it just has connotations of, of selfies and, and whatnot.
But I think that there's this form of media built around individuals that is emerging that, like you said, is more akin to like talent management than like ad sales. Yeah. You know?
Well, and that's why I don't deal, I don't have any expertise in selling ads, so you know- Right... I have a partner that deals with that part of it.
Where you see some other studios even, you know, medium-sized studios will have their own ads in-house. So I mean, I think some of that has just been figuring out.
And like some talent agents have their own ads in-house, and some of them use somebody else.
And probably you see the same thing with, you know, newsletters and everything else, that everybody's trying to figure out what their leverage is or what their expertise is to bring to creators on sort of the management and distribution side that I sit on.
Yeah. I mean, I think it's closer to that than it is to, okay, how do I recreate the publisher function?
'Cause I go back to the blogs era, and Federated Media was gonna take all the publisher function from the bloggers and enable them to keep blogging and make money off it, and they were gonna be able to do the ad sales and handle the, the technology infrastructure.
CMSs were more complicated then, and I think they, they were gonna also do event infrastructure stuff.
And whereas now, and a lot of the successors to those bloggers are either like podcasters or newsletter writers, that there is, there isn't as much need for that.
I feel like the, the need is more akin to talent management.
Well, the big distinguisher I think of like creator economy versus traditional media is almost everyone in the creator economy owns their stuff, and almost everyone in traditional media doesn't, you know? Mm.
And sometimes you see people, you know, a reporter leaves MSNBC, Mehdi Hasan, and can find his own sort of niche in, in a direct-to-consumer model, but when he was at MSNBC, he doesn't own that show.
And so I think that's a big distinction between traditional media and creator media- Oh, yeah...
is they are looking for people to help them with the ad sales or the marketing or the newsletter or the whatever, and on the traditional media side, someone else always took care of that stuff.
They were just the, they were the talent, or they were the writer or the editor or whatever, but someone else took care of the business end of things.
And I think a lot of creators that spend a lot of time trying to sort through and figure out all that stuff on their own figure out that being a creator is hard enough, you know, without having to deal- Yeah...
with all of the platform and the business end of it. Yeah. And then it's just fight over the economics at that point.
You see the independents all the time though because big podcasts will leave podcast networks and go to other podcast networks, and so I mean, that's not something that a TV show...
I mean, it can, but that's not something that a TV show generally does, you know, w- going from one network to another 'cause the people that run that TV show or are in that TV show don't own it.
Someone else is making those decisions. But podcasts do it all the time. A two-year contract is up at Wondery, and they move to iHeart. They own the show. They can do that. Yeah.
I mean, that's a, I mean, just the leverage is more on the side of the person making the content.Yeah... in this, right?
And I think that's different, like you said, from traditional media, but I think that's the direction a lot more media will be going.
I mean, you're seeing it across all kinds of different areas where if, for instance, like, the, the amount of money going to, like, the, the sports stars, you know, Messi, [laughs] you know, like, is, is- Yeah...
is far different than what it was when it was, like, Maradona. And that's because they recognize the leverage and the power that, that they have. It's not across the board. I mean, there's...
But for the top, and I think you're seeing it, like, in podcasting and, and beyond, is, yeah, I mean, people can, can make a go of it as long as they have the right infrastructure around them.
And you see I mean, you see people sort of figuring it out all the time.
I mean, I think there's still a big information imbalance with creators in the business who don't know what's available or don't know how much more money, you know, they could make doing one thing than another.
So you'll see... I mean, I talk to YouTube creators all the time who have no idea that podcast CPMs are sometimes multiples more than what they're getting paid per thousand views on Google AdSense.
And so most of the creators I work with control their own Google AdSense because they came to me later. They already had that.
They didn't know how good, uh, podcast CPMs were, so we- we're now monetizing those shows as podcasts in addition to what they're making as, you know, as YouTube channels.
And it's the same thing with subscription and touring and everything else. They... There's money out there to be made, but they, they kinda need a Sherpa to sorta help navigate that stuff. Yeah.
So explain, you know, memberships and subscriptions in podcasting, because, I mean, I, I mean, Apple has an ability to do it. But it, it's always been...
It's always struck me as it's been more difficult to have a subscription model in podcasting, just technically difficult. I have three shows that use Apple Podcast subscriptions.
One of them has almost 500 subscribers, and the other two are in the 300s. We've started all three of those within the last six months or so. So they've grown some and are finding an audience there.
So that, the technical part of that is actually pretty easy because it's all on platform. You know- Yeah... I've got a producer account through Apple Podcasts Connect. I set up that part of the show. They get a login.
They're able to upload those premium episodes directly to the Apple Podcasts Connect platform, and they go out and, you know, we get paid. That, so that part is technically easy.
And the, the, the premium part that people do other ways, whether it's through Patreon is probably the most popular, Memberful, and then there are a lot of podcast-specific ones that will create a link that goes into your podcast player, you know, either Apple Podcasts or, or Spotify for the most part.
And some of those can be more technically cumbersome, but I think that part of the business has gotten a lot better over the last couple of years. It's, it, it...
Most of my time when I was figuring out which partner to use wasn't about which one is technically easier or, you know. It was really more about the other factors. Hmm.
They're all pretty easy to use on the user end and on the consumer end right now. Are consumers willing to pay for podcasts? Yeah. I mean, they're, they're, they're- Yes...
willing to pay for lots of different types of media. I just wonder whether that, it's like a, quote-unquote, "normal thing" to pay for a podcast.
It is, and I think it's surprising to a lot of people the degree to which it is, and we include it in our messaging a lot.
Even on the ad-supported side, I think even going back several years ago with John Campea's show, we always add, you know, every few episodes after one of the ad blocks that, you know, remember that supporting our podcast, you know, supporting our sponsors is a way of directly, you know, supporting the podcast.
This is, you know, how we're able to bring these episodes to you live on YouTube every day. Or, you know, we include that in our messaging, and we're doing it now with, you know, with shows going into membership.
Rob Bros, when we wrote their talking points, they started talking about it on their episodes this week.
One of the very first things they say is that this is a way of directly supporting the show, and people wanna do it. That's why they come to the live shows. That's why they buy the T-shirts. Yeah. That's why they...
I mean, it's- Well, that's what I...
Yeah, that's what I wonder is, a- again, I go back to this individual media because there's, there's tremendous upsides to having a media brand that is, is tied to an individual or, or a specific group of individuals versus a faceless institutional brand where you can swap in indivi- individuals.
[laughs] You know, you don't have as much equity, long-term equity value. That was Luminary. Do you remember Luminary? Yeah, I remember it.
So the whole point of Luminary was supposed to be, we're gonna get all these creators together, and it's gonna be ad free, and it's gonna be this premium stuff that you can't get on podcast platforms.
And I think it didn't work because you, there wasn't a direct connection between the money you were spending and the individual creator- Yeah... you wanted to listen to.
I, you know, I couldn't give my $5 a month directly to the show that I was signing up to Luminary to listen to, and I, I don't, I don't... I think that's why it didn't work. Yeah, I think that's a good point.
I mean, but what I think about is, like, c- sort of like newsletters 'cause I think newsletters and podcasts have similar dynamics in some ways, and, and they're very, like, personal driven.
But you look at, like, something like Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter, and she doesn't, as far as I can tell, she doesn't actually give any benefits to her, like, members.
[laughs] And she's got, she's, like, one of the most popular paid Substacks, uh, out there. And- You, you mean beyond, beyond being able to read things that free subscribers can't read?No, people wanna just support it.
And that's why I think podcasting, and tell me if I'm wrong, it- I feel like paid podcasting really did well on Patreon compared to other forms of media.
It seemed like the Patreon top list was, like, filled with podcasters.
'Cause I, I say this because John McDermott, who used to, who used [laughs] to work with me, I, I, I made some offhand comment that like, "Oh, podcasts has never figured out subscription models."
He's like, "Look, go Patreon." So I- Patreon got there early and figured it out and made it easier for people to message, you know, in their podcast that if you wanna support the show, it's on Patreon.
And Patreon, it was searchable and it was easy to find these shows and all these things.
And I think there is, like Pop Apologists, when I, when we very first started talking about, with them about whether to do Apple Podcast subscriptions, their immediate concern was, "But what if it cannibalizes Patreon, where the fees that we're paying to the distributor are lower than what they will be through Apple?"
Mm.
And I said, "Well, I don't think that's gonna happen because people are kinda particular to their platform, and so people that you're getting on Patreon probably subscribe to another Patreon, and people that you're gonna get on Apple Podcasts are probably subscribing to some other show on Apple Podcasts.
That's how they get their podcasts." Yeah. And that's what's happened. Their Patreon has continued to grow, and now their Apple Podcast is growing, and it's grown- But-... every month since we launched it.
And that's coming only from people that listen to Apple Podcasts. But I wonder if it's almost like a different, not just a different audience segment, but almost psychographic, right?
'Cause it's like Patreon you think about, at least I think about Patreon and maybe other people don't, I think about it as, like, supporting someone, right? Like, it se- it feels less transactional.
I guess that was the point I make. Whereas if I'm using Apple Pay or anything App, it's, it's, this is, this is a transaction, man. I'm, like, paying to get something. Yeah.
I think if Luminary is on one side of, like, "I don't see how this money's getting to the creator," and Patreon is all the way to the other side- Yeah...
of, "I feel like this is going directly to the creator with just a small commission going to Patreon," Apple Podcast kind of sits in the middle. You know, they take a bigger commission, but the other is going- Right...
directly to the creator. So I mean, all things considered, I would rather have someone who wants to support a show support them on Memberful than on Apple Podcasts.
And I think on some of these newer, these shows that we- Brav Bros. has just launched on Memberful and a few others are getting ready to launch, I think we're probably gonna hold out- Mm...
a little longer on Apple Podcasts for those shows because I, I wanna signal that it's a, a better way to support them is the, the more direct path, where they make more of the money- Yeah...
and we get better contact with, with the, with, you know, with the listener. So which is the dominant form of, of consumer revenue in podcasting? Is it, is it a freemium model? Yeah. I mean, 'cause we, we...
There's all kinds of different subscription models. Yeah. It is you post your podcast once a week or twice a week or whatever on RSS, and then your premium is separate. So in a- So is...
The, the draw is you're gonna get more? Yes. Because I always just wonder whether people really want more. Well, they listen to it. I mean, I th- a lot of these people do want more. Yeah.
But I think it's a way for them to directly support the show also. Okay.
I mean, like No Filter with Zach Peter, he does his show in the mornings, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then he does a premium episode on Thursday night that he records for YouTube members, only his YouTube members for his channel, and then we post the audio of that on Apple Podcast subscriptions the next morning.
And people, his subscribers listen to that. I can see the numbers in my console from, from Apple. It's a little harder to tell on an individual basis w- if they're watching on YouTube or listening to the audio. Mm.
But yeah, they definitely, they definitely do. But I think more than that, it's just the way to directly support the show. Yeah. The, and the shows market that.
They're like, "This is what I do for a living, and if you wanna support the show, this is the, this is the best way to do it."
Or the ones that are doing the best job, I think, of messaging, that's, that's what they're communicating. Yeah, for sure.
And, and do you have any shows, like, in your portfolio that make more money from non-advertising sources than advertising? I do. Mm-hmm. Mm. I do. That's interesting. Yeah.
And is that, is that usually from memberships, touring? It is in the case of this one. So touring is something that Kempire and Brav Bros. are both doing some touring right now.
When we're talking touring, it sounds very fancy. But, like, I think in reality- It is not fancy. [laughs] It is, like, that's what I've heard. It is.
Like, it sounds like touring and it was, like, anyone that's- It is- Anyone that's... I've never been on a book tour 'cause I've never written a book, but- It's a lot like that. Okay.
[laughs] It's closer to a book tour than it is, like, Taylor Swift's tour. [laughs] These are mostly in comedy club, small venue nightclub, small auditorium-type spaces.
But now the bigger shows, like Giggly Squad right now, they're touring big venues. Gaillard Auditorium in Charleston is where the opera plays. That's where their show, you know, is gonna be in, in Charleston.
So some venues are doing the bigger... Most of my shows that, or the two shows that we've started touring, we do, like, Green Room 42 in New York, which I think seats 150.
[laughs] And we do in, uh, City Winery in, like, Philadelphia. Oh, yeah. And Union Stage in Washington. I didn't know there... I thought they were only in New York, City Winery is in Philly too?
City Winery's are all over the place. Really? One in Nashville. They're a chain? That's like- Yeah... Cheesecake Factory? There's two in, there's three in New York. They've got one in upstate. I know.
There's- One on the West Side and, yeah. Yeah, there's one on the River now. I think that's the same oneAnd they've got one, they've got two in Chicago.
They're in a lot of places, and that's become a really popular podcast venue- Good... is, is City Winery, 'cause they...
And if you look on one of their schedules, you see a lot of, it's basically a combination of small music acts and podcasts. Yeah. And sometimes you see book events and those things, and comedians, but it's...
Yeah, podcasts are, yeah. But, I mean, I did an awards show- I just think your question- I did an awards show at, at them.
The, someone got taken out by a dodgy chorizo or something, but I don't know if it was City Winery, so I don't wanna [laughs] they complain about it.
But to answer your question about the monetization, we're making a little bit of money on these tours, these hundred and fifty seat, hundred and seventy-five seat venues.
The creator and I are definitely coming out of that night with, you know, making enough money to pay for the, you know, the travel and, and, and whatever. But those are two East Coast shows.
We're mostly doing East Coast venues. We're mostly doing small venues.
We mainly wanna learn how to do it and learn how to navigate it and get better at it and grow a presence in each of those markets where we're touring so that we- Mm... can come back and do larger venues.
But yeah, the shows that are making, you know, that are doing the thousand, two thousand, three thousand seat venues, I mean, some of those, yeah, some of those shows can make twenty-five, thirty thousand dollars a night touring.
Yeah. That's great. So what is the fa- What, what's the fastest growing part of the podcast business? As far as genre? No. I mean, like, monetization of the, the business side. I mean, is it still...
What I wonder is whether there's like, a shift away from like, programmatic ads or f- from host read ads, whether subscriptions are gonna, are, are becoming a bigger part of it. I think subscription will be
maybe fifteen or twenty percent of my business in three years, where it's essentially zero percent of my business, you know, just a little bit- Yeah... of my business now.
And touring, it's hard to say whether that sits more on the marketing side or more on the revenue side. I mean, I guess as some of these shows get bigger, it becomes more revenue.
But I, I think membership and touring together are, are definitely gonna be a bigger share of creator- Mm... revenue.
But also just getting bigger makes a huge difference because, you know, you go from ten thousand followers to fifty thousand followers on YouTube and your Google AdSense revenue goes up a lot.
I mean, there are shows making fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty thousand dollars a month, you know, on Google AdSense revenue. Mm. And same thing on the host read side.
You know, what you're billed at for a twenty-five thousand dollar show is, is arithmetically different than a two hundred and fifty, you know, it's five, you know, fifty thousand is five times less than two hundred and fifty thousand.
So I mean, you definitely make a lot more money as you scale up.
And sort of the quality of the ad sales makes a difference too, because a show that can fill seventy-five percent of its host read revenue makes fifty percent more than a show that can only fill fifty percent of its host read revenue.
So the quality of the ad sales, the, the actual sales can make a huge difference from, from, from one year to another. Yeah.
And so host read ads are still the predominant form of advertising in podcasts versus programmatic or just, like, sort of, I don't wanna say generic, but I, I've always found podcasting a little bit charming in a way where, 'cause I think on...
I, I was meeting with a, an agency executive earlier this week, actually, in New York, and he was saying to me, he was like, "You know, it's so weird now.
Everything's audience targeting, and you never, we never see the ads." We work, like, all of our [laughs] so much on these ad campaigns, we never actually see them.
They don't, they exist on, on dashboards and in spreadsheets, but because they're so audience targeted, we don't see them. Like, they, they almost feels like they don't exist. Do you know what I mean?
And I always felt that podcasting was like almost an antidote to that very mechanized world of the way the digital advertising world has become. I mean, I have mixed views about programmatic.
On most of the shows that I work with, it is less revenue than the host read by quite a lot, but it's also not nothing.
And for a lot of shows that have a big catalog or that are actively cataloged shows, like movie deep dive shows and, you know, those sorts of things where the catalog might do really well, there are, I mean, a lot of those shows, you know, might make twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars a month on programmatic if they're big enough shows with a big enough catalog.
Mm. The, the ads just sort of disappearing is, is interesting though.
I mean, we're, you know, as we, as Spotify, so m- some of my shows are host, most of my shows are hosted on Megaphone, which is owned by Spotify, and as they're transitioning to video, the ads are also eventually gonna transition to video.
So where right now if you listen to a podcast on Spotify that's hosted on Megaphone, you're, for the ads, you're mostly gonna see like a card, you know, like a piece of art of the brand or the show or whatever on the screen.
But I mean, over the course of this year, those are gonna become video, and they're telling us that we're even gonna be able to do our own host read ads that we do in video, which, you know, is something we can already do on YouTube and, and, and already do a lot on YouTube.
Interesting. So how's AI going to affect this field? I have to ask the AI, AI question. I have to get a sponsor for that. Because, you know, I've seen...
I know I d- I saw Reid Hof- Hoffman interviewing an AI version of himself. I didn't, I didn't actually listen, but I'm not sure if that's that compelling.
I've seen, I've seen talks about Spotify using AI, I guess, to, like, clone-People's voices for ads That's the one area, being able to basically do your own ADR, you know, being able to fix things with with AI or doing your ads in AI.
I think the other one, and one that we haven't pulled the trigger on yet because the translation is still pretty expensive but that we're looking at for a couple of shows is translating shows into foreign languages. Mm.
Because AI is really good at that, at at getting the inflection and the specific, you know, sort of pronunciation quirks of a speaker from English into Mandarin or Hindi or Spanish or whatever.
It's still really expensive per minute to do that, and with high volume, you know, a show that does a- an hour every day or, you know- Mm...
a couple hours a week, it's still really, really expensive just to translate that into one language, because once you've got it in that language, you're kind of starting all over again. Uh, you launch- Yeah...
a new YouTube channel in Spanish or you launch a new podcast in Spanish. So I mean, it's- it's definitely an investment, but I think as the cost comes down you'll see more people do it. Yeah. I don't know.
Maybe I'm skeptical of that. I mean, if you don't understand the language then it's better than nothing because other... It's like dubbing.
I mean, for a long time movies in other markets, English language movies were dubbed, right?
And like most- most markets moved away from that 'cause they a- ended up having like a propensity of people who understood English and they just found it maddening if a movie [laughs] was dubbed. Yeah.
And I, I wonder podcasting can be... I think a big thing is the, the connection to the hosts, particularly in l- you know, host-driven podcasts, that listening to an AI translation wouldn't be the same. But maybe.
I don't know. So I mean, the, the like podcast business guy hopes that's right. You know?
[laughs] That we stay ahead of the technology, and particularly as AI kind of starts infiltrating other areas of people's lives, that- I just want a pastoral podcast existence, Scott, that's what I'm saying.
[laughs] Yeah. You're like, "I've gotta scale this thing, man." But like if you listen to Bill Simmons or Brené Brown or whoever, I- do you- I don't think you want an AI- Yeah... version of that.
I don't, I don't want like- Maybe Simmons... Max Headroom the podcast. [laughs] I don't, I don't, I don't wanna listen to that.
But you know, I mean, back to your point on dubbing, do you think people like it because the lips don't match the audio?
Because that, the technology is getting better with that part, and I- my wife and I were talking about that the other day. Mm. Would we still wanna watch a French movie in French- No...
if their mouths- I would never wanna watch a dubbed-... looked exactly like they were speaking English? No. No, no, no. Even if it was perfect? I would not watch... No. Absolutely not. Do not want any dubbing of movies.
This is like, this is very American, I think. [laughs] But I think that could be interesting because most things over- It's like not eating the whole fish, you know?
[laughs] Like- Americans read the subtitles, but a lot of other countries, you know, European, Asian countries, you know, they, they, they like dubbing better than subtitles. So I mean, I, I think we're kind of- Yeah...
we're kind of holdouts. I use the subtitles in Game of Thrones. I have to admit. [laughs] I use the subtitles on British shows all the time- [laughs]... 'cause I can't understand their accent.
[laughs] This is Ame- this is American Hour. [laughs] I just finished Baby Reindeer with subtitles on- [laughs]... so I could understand what they're saying.
But is it, are we gonna see like a flooding of AI-generated podcasts? 'Cause I mean, I, Peter Kafka was on one of my podcasts and he called for a tsunami of crap, so I have to give him credit for that.
But I, I would assume that we're gonna [laughs] we're gonna have AI-generated everything flooding the system. Are there already a lot of AI-generated podcasts, or is that not- I don't think so.
I mean, not that I'm aware of. I mean, I could see where there, that is something that m- maybe would happen. I don't... I mean, you talk about the enshittification of digital media a lot of times.
Where I hear that in podcasts is just too much programmatic. Just too much.
You know, there's that podcast that Jeff Garlin is doing about the history of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I listened to the first seven or eight episodes of it and it was just, I just crumbled under the weight of the programmatic ads.
It was just, it, it was just beating me down. There were so many. You mean like too many? Too many, yes. Oh, okay. Too many. It's becoming like web- Like-... web pages.
[laughs] Like, like two times the acceptable number. I mean, like way too many. And I eventually checked out on that show, and I mean, I have that conversation with my shows all the time.
I have a couple of shows that, or several shows that don't do pre-roll programmatic ads because, basically because I think it's bad for discovery.
You know, you, you, you find a show in a search result or you hear about a show- Oh, yeah... and you go listen to it and the first thing you hear is two programmatic ads?
I don't, I want the first thing you hear to be the host's voice. Yeah, that's a good point. I don't mind paying for premium either, you know?
I mean, I buy the premium version of, you know, Netflix without the ads and Disney+ without the ads. Yeah.
And like I don't, I, you know, I would rather have the better experience than ads, but you know, I mean, ads are what pay the bills for my show.
So I mean, I'm not, I'm not insensitive to advertising, but I, I like to integrate it. And you know, I mean, h- host-read ads are popular with brands because they are like the content. Right.
If the host is funny, the ads are funny. If the host is informative, the ads are informative.
They, they meet the character of the ad, and I don't have nearly the same difficulty listening to those as I do programmatic ads- Yeah... that I'll listen to Ringer shows and I will hear the same Carvana ad. Yeah.
I've heard it a thousand times. I think I've heard that ad a thousand times. [laughs] And like I don't know that it's benefiting that sponsor for me to hear that ad so many times. At some point, no, there's a wear-out.
But-Who knows where that point is? Tell me something about the, the, the long-form podcast. What, what, what happened here?
I feel like the entire media industry is going towards shorter and short clips and everything, and then, and then I, and then I listen to a six-hour Lex Fridman podcast that was, like, debating, like, Israel, Gaza.
There was, there was no conclusion, by the way. There's a very specific reason for that. Okay. Okay. More ads. No, he does all the ads at the beginning. I don't know.
I don't know that show specifically, but a lot of shows- But, no, I'm just more for the user behavior that, like, I find it very...
And maybe it's just a few of, you know, a few podcasts that do this, but that it seems like podcasts are almost getting longer than shorter.
The divide between audiobooks and podcasts has certainly narrowed a lot, and I mean, you see it with Spotify putting audiobooks on the platform now.
But Spotify has a show called Bandsplain that does deep dives on albums, and they just started a series on Pearl Jam that I even have not even started listening to yet, but the first episode is four hours long.
And you look at that and you think, "Good gosh, that's really long for a podcast." But it's Pearl Jam. It's, it's, it's worth it. But it's short for an audiobook. [laughs] You know? I mean- Yes... I listen to...
I, I sp- My threshold for an audiobook- Okay, next time someone complains my newsletter is too long, I'm gonna be like, "It's way shorter than a book." That's right. It's shorter than a book.
It's shorter than a New Yorker cover story. [laughs] I mean, like, my podca- or my audiobook threshold is about 12 hours.
I, I lose interest in something after about 12 hours, so, you know, I mean, if a podcast is from a experiential standpoint, if it's the same thing as an audiobook, then, I mean, I don't, I don't have a problem with a four-hour Pearl Jam episode.
I think as a practical matter, I don't know their reasons for doing it that way, but I would look at that for one of my shows as, "Can't we just make this part one, part two, [laughs] part three, and part four?
Does it have to be one episode that's four hours long?" But I, I don't know their business reasons for doing that, but it doesn't deter me from listening to four hours about a subject. Yeah. I don't know.
It depends on the subject, I guess.
But I think for a lot of shows, as you see, like, Dax Shepard or some of these other popular shows go from, like, an hour to an hour and a half to two hours an episode, it's so they can create another mid-roll every 20 minutes for two or three more ads.
And so a lot of these shows will sell out their inventory, you know, six months or a year in advance, and the only way to... It's like Miss Moore Cowbell.
You know, the only way to get more ads in this thing is just to jam more- I don't know...
just jam more ads in there, so you, you have to create more places to put them, and I think that's part of the reason these podcasts have gotten so longer, so much longer. Wow.
Man, I th- I thought, I thought they were, [laughs] I thought it was just some sort of tr- cultural trend, but it's actually just about the advertising, as it, as it turns out.
I think a lot of people, though, there's definitely a market for that, these three, four-hour, you know, deep-dive podcasts. I don't- Well, it's ambient. I mean, it's ambient, so I feel like you can... I don't know.
There's forms of, of podcasting that is less, it's less I'm trying to accomplish something, right?
If you search, if you're, like, an intent-based publisher, which is basically someone who wants to grab some search traffic and give a specific answer to a question, there's a time and a place for everything.
That is the time- Mm-hmm... to give the people, give people what they, what they're searching for. They literally told you. This is, this is one of the easier parts of media.
Nothing is easy in media, but look, people told you what they're, what they're there for. You don't need to immerse them in, in things.
Like, you can just give them what they're, they're looking for, whereas I feel like there's a different mode that happens with, with podcasting because, yes, it's active, but it's also ambient.
I think some of these guys, like Huberman, Peter Attia, I mean, they would say a two-hour episode gives us time to not feel like we're just rushing through the, like, the four bullet points of whatever health topic they're talking about that particular week, but it sort of gives you time for repetition and for asking the questions and going down the rabbit holes.
Mm-hmm. And, and I, I do listen to some of those. But my...
Like, I'm not gonna listen to a pod- I'm not gonna listen to a four-hour podcast in one sitting, and I'm frankly not gonna watch a Martin Scorsese movie in one sitting either. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't, I like...
I love a three-hour movie. I'm not gonna watch that whole thing in one day. I'm, I'm gonna chop it up in little pieces.
And so I've got an audiobook on my Audible account right now that I've been listening to for a couple of weeks, and I've got... Spotify is really good about showing you your half-eaten podcasts at the top of your queue.
[laughs] Pick one of those and finish it, or if it's one of my podcasts that I always like to listen to when it comes out, I'll skip, skip ahead and listen to that one and then come back to the other one that I was listening to.
Yeah. So final question is about distribution, right? I feel like podcast distribution has been a, a challenge from, from the beginning. I mean, there's a ton of podcasts.
There's not clear distribution channels like there are for, like, websites. I mean, all the- Yeah... that's all sort of been thrown up in the air lately. Is it possible to grow? I mean, I- I... It is possible, right?
Like, Andrew Huberman has a- one of the biggest podcasts out there, and I think he just started a, a couple years ago. So it's possible to break through, right?
But it strikes me as exceedingly hard to scale a podcast in 2024.
From a platform standpoint, I mean, there's a lot of little podcast apps, but from a platform standpoint, most of the shows I work with, most shows in general, are getting 80-plus, maybe 90-plus percent of their total consumption from Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
And so YouTube is probably the easiest one to get from zero to 10,000, but it's hard, and it takes a long time. But I think in general...
And so this has changed sort of my sort of development, sort of what kinds of shows I wanna do and what kinds of shows I'm working with, that I've really gone from wanting to develop new shows to kind of finding that really, really difficult right now, partly because of the growth partThat you're talking about, and partly because of it's hard to finance talent for shows that they're [laughs] not...
You either have to take on that cost to pay them- Mm... or they have to take on a rev share knowing they're not gonna get paid for a while.
So, I mean, for someone in my position, it's easier to get a show from 10,000 unique listeners to 20,000 unique listeners than it is to get them from zero to 10, from zero to 10,000.
It's easier to get from 20,000 to 30,000. I mean, it, it, it... Uh, the scale part gets better as you go 'cause you get in the podcast charts, you get mentioned more, you're- Right. That's what I mean...
it's easier to get on- But it's, it's- Yeah... it's harder to get to that level where it gets easier, it, it would seem. And then, then this, this happens throughout different forms of media.
I think in newsletters, it's, it can be kinda similar.
Pop Apologist was making a great podcast for two plus years that 4,000, 5,000 people an episode were listening to, and in March, they did a series on Instagram called Where the Fuck is Kate Middleton?
That grew their Instagram from 20-something thousand to 260-something thousand followers, and their podcast episode that came out the next week did 200,000 listens. And they've- Mm...
come back down since then, but they didn't come all the way back down.
So, you know, they're, they've got a show that's now multiple times bigger than it was two months ago, and we just signed a distribution deal with Q Code for that show.
So I mean, they had kind of a seismic event- Yeah... that grew them really quickly, and that can happen for shows. I think the more common model is a show like Brav Bros. They just grow every month.
They're making a good show that people like, and people are telling people about it, and it, it charts on platforms- But is that-... and it grows... I guess that's what I'm saying, is like how...
Like, anytime, like, a piece of media, it, it has prominently, "Please share this with, like, your friends and stuff," I'm like, "Oh, man. Distribution is broken."
And you always see that in newsletters, and, you know, it can exist in podcasts. And to me, it's always a sign of, of weak distribution. I think most growth comes from the algorithm. You know- Yeah...
most growth, if you're looking for an episode about Taylor Swift's new album, you search Spotify for Taylor Swift, and, you know, hopefully you hit the, the Pop Apologist episode where they talked about Taylor Swift, and you listen to it, and then you listen to another one of their episodes, and suddenly you're a, a listener to that show.
I, I think that's more the model of how podcasts grow than tell a friend about this- Okay... show. And I mean, I think that happens some. Mm. But I... The...
At least with Spotify, you, we can see where the traffic is coming from. You know, search versus on platform.
And I honestly like for shows to stay heavy in that search part of the chart, 'cause that means new people are finding us all the time. Yeah. I mean, are many new people coming into the podcast ecosystem?
'Cause there's always a question, it's kind of like with newsletters, people are always saying, "Well, there's peak newsletters, too many newsletters." I'm like, "Well, there's too many of ev- everything." I will say
probably. I don't have great metrics- Mm... on that other than the, like, survey data where you see the number of people that answer whether they've listened to a podcast in the last week.
That number continues to get bigger. But, like, on something like membership, I can tell in Memberful whether a person who subscribes to be a member of a podcast is already in Memberful system.
And of the first day of Brav Bros. signups, like three-quarters of the people who signed up were not already in the Memberful system. So I think there's people coming into these markets all the time. All right. Okay.
Let's leave it there. This was a lot of fun to go deep into podcasting.
I wanna do more of these episodes where I talk to people who know a shit ton more about these [laughs] specifically- You need to get a presenting sponsor for your podcast to pay you a lot of money, you know? I do.
Presented by- I do... Ford.
The problem is, I mean, this is the problem, anyone who's listening who wants to be a presenting sponsor, please get in touch, is compared to, like, other things like the newsletter, like with the newsletter, I can do...
And again, it's particular to businesses, right? I can do lead generation. A lot of my clients want to develop leads.
So I could do a research report, I can do an online forum, you know, I can use it to collect information about the audience that can then, you know, fuel, like, g- an event I had last night in New York.
And that, those two, like, monetization jobs, but they also do some community and influence work. And I look at, I look at the podcast as, as kind of marketing at the end of the day.
It's a mechanism for reporting for you, too. I mean, I see your episodes filter into things you talk about in other episodes- Yeah... or things you talk about- Yeah... on the other podcast or things in your newsletter.
But it's less... As a business, like, it's- Yeah... less about monetization. It's not, like, a... And I've just found this. You know, I did a podcast with my last, like, employer, and, you know, I was like, "Nah."
I, I would always, like, get, like, kinda pissed when sales team wouldn't sell stuff. Now that I'm selling, I'm like, I'm very understand- much more understanding. But [laughs] it- Was that DigiDay?
I think that's where I first- Yeah... was aware of you- Yeah... was Digi- the DigiDay- Yeah... podcast. Yeah. And, and, and it was never, rarely was the podcast sold, right?
And I was like, "But their numbers are growing, like the depth is..." The reality is, it doesn't work for a lot of that particular type of advertiser, sponsor.
They don't have a lot of data that they want, and they don't have a lot of experience in them. They've never run podcast ads. Yeah. So the thing that, that works in this model is sponsored content.
For a few of my partners, we have close relationships. You know, we'll post an episode with themTo get into what they're doing I think partners who wanna be in multiple areas of the- Yeah...
creator's output is, that we've done that a little bit. I mean, Bubly, which is a Pepsi brand, decided they wanted to be around the sorta reality TV business, and they were working with one of my podcasts.
So they would be in mid-roll on the podcast, and they were sponsoring a couple of tour dates, and- Yeah... they were, we did a couple of social engagements with them.
And so they kinda got wrapped into a lot of different areas of, of that creator's output. Yeah. Like, for me, like, there's never, like, a... Not never, I would say. There's rarely, like, a podcast-led program.
You know what I mean? Like, it's part of programs, but it's never... There's, i- in my area, like, nobody's coming to and saying, "I want the podcast, and then we can talk about other things." Yeah.
Like, that, and I think that's just B2B. I don't know. No, it's, it's where you sit in your, you know, it's where podcasts sit for you in the way you're doing, you know- Yeah... your business.
Where some people, it may be Instagram may be driving 90% of their revenue- That's true... but they have a podcast that they're trying to grow or something.
I think it's, it's, it really, people are starting on a lot of different platforms and figuring out how to, how to move into or monetize or use for marketing these other- Yeah... platforms as they go.
And everything is a different job, I mean, at the end of the day. I look at what I hear from, from people about, and, like, podcasting is number one or number two, so it tells me that it plays an important role.
That's- Still fairly new too. I didn't really know how to do any of this five years ago.
I mean, I was mainly a lawyer and a journalist, and started working with some podcasts at Starburns Audio and got to be friends with Jason Smith, who ran Starburns Audio, and learned a lot not making any money.
You know, I mean, just learned a lot kinda working on that stuff on the side, and then sort of over time figured out how to do it.
But it's, it, it's a, still a, you know, I mean, it's a relatively new business as a sort of professionalized thing with consistent job titles from company to company. Yeah. And it's still, still pretty new. That's true.
All right, let's leave it there. Scott, thank you so much. All right, awesome. I appreciate it. Really appreciate you taking the time. [outro music]