01:16:07 · John Coogan, Josh Lindgren, Jordi Hays
[01:16:07] S1: Mhmm. [01:16:07] S7: Is understanding who the different buyers are and what their needs are and understanding your client, the talent, right, and what they want, You know? And it's it's just there's no one deal that makes sense for everyone, and there's no one size fits all in podcasting, which I think is great ultimately because it means we can paint with different paintbrushes for different types of shows. [01:16:26] S0: Yeah. Can you do you feel like you can identify if somebody's gonna be a star based on their first ever episode? [01:16:33] S7: Well, think that I think that taste is really important, you know. And for me, like, I I will take bets on stuff that I think is fundamentally good. I mean, when I was a music agent, I was picking bands based on the bands that I liked, and I just had to hope that other people would like those bands as well at some point. And I I still believe that, you know, in podcasting. I think that there there is room for taste. There's certainly stuff that I don't represent that has that does good business, but it just wasn't right for me, and that's fine. You know, I think that as soon as you divorce as soon as you divorce your love of the medium from the business, then what's the point? Right? Like, we're if we're just here to make money, maybe we should be working in finance or in tech or something. Right? [01:17:16] S0: Yeah. Maybe we should all be wearing suits. There you go. You're one of Look. Look at me. I'm just here to have fun. Yeah.
01:17:16 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Josh Lindgren, Sean Frank, Bernt Øivind Børnich
[01:17:16] S0: Yeah. Maybe we should all be wearing suits. There you go. You're one of Look. Look at me. I'm just here to have fun. Yeah. [01:17:26] S1: How are you thinking about, live streaming and maybe more pure play live streaming? I'm thinking about, the video game creators, the ninjas, the the shrouds, the folks who spend twelve hours, eight hours a day live streaming, political commentary, business analysis, anything. It's such a different business model, such a different community, sometimes much tighter audiences, but incredibly engaged. Is that a muscle you wanna build? Is that something you're thinking about growing? What what trends are you seeing there generally? [01:18:01] S7: Yeah. I think the live streaming space is is fascinating. Right? And, obviously, this has been happening for a while, but I think the moment we're talking about of the merging of all the different things is really playing out for live streaming too [01:18:12] S6: Yeah. [01:18:12] S7: For yourselves and for other shows. You mentioned political shows [01:18:15] S5: Yeah. [01:18:15] S7: Where people need real time news. Yeah. I don't think your fans wanna wait an entire week necessarily to get your take on something when it develops. It's a lot of work. I think you guys know [01:18:26] S6: Yeah. [01:18:26] S7: The amount of time and energy you have to put into doing this. Right? It's it's really impressive, and I applaud you for it. [01:18:32] S6: Mhmm.
01:18:32 · Sean Frank, Josh Lindgren, John Coogan
[01:18:32] S6: Mhmm. [01:18:33] S7: But it really creates a lot of different opportunities. I think something else that you guys are doing really well is that you do the livestream, but you also cut this up into audio episodes and video episodes on YouTube and so on. So there's so many different ways to reach your audience. And I think as a creator today, the more that you can be flexible to meet your audience where they are, the better chances you're gonna have of succeeding and breaking through. [01:18:56] S6: Mhmm. [01:18:57] S7: So I love to see what you're doing, and I think that you're on the tip of the spear right now in terms of the new type of experimentation that's happening in the streaming space. [01:19:07] S1: Yeah. Talk to me about how you're thinking about working with a celebrity or group of celebrities that wants to get into podcasting. It feels like there was this crossover moment where podcasting was a backwater, then it became cool. Maybe it was around COVID, but we got a whole bunch of celebrities crossing over. Some of them did extremely well, won awards. Smartlist is huge. It feels similar to celebrities launching brands where there's still going to be a power law. It's not just it's obviously a huge advantage to have an audience already, but not every celebrity is going to have a hit podcast and vice versa. Not every podcaster is gonna work on TV or wind up starring in movies. How how are you assessing the the the reverse transition from, you know, Hollywood or TV or films coming over into the podcasting world successfully?
01:20:07 · Josh Lindgren
[01:20:07] S7: Yeah. I think there needs to be a reason to be for any given podcast. There was a level of experimentation, like you mentioned, around COVID where a lot of folks launched podcasts that maybe didn't pan out. Yeah. And I think maybe some of those had to do with the the the the reason behind the podcast and the idea of the podcast, you know, wasn't as sought out. Right? I think a a good example of it working would be Julie Wie Dreyfus' wiser than me Yeah. Where that was driven by her desire to hear from older women that are largely ignored in our culture. Mhmm. Right? So she had a reason that she wanted to make it. It wasn't like she would just come into the space because, you know, some enterprising agent, myself, told her that she should make a podcast and she could make money. Right? She was there for a different reason. The things I see succeeding have that reason behind them. I mean, you mentioned Smartlist, right, another COVID, you know, project that that began of COVID, and it came together because the three of them wanted to hang out. Yeah. Right? And they wanted to create something for people who were locked at home. Yeah. You know? And it that that, like, genuine friendship between them is the basic building block of what it is. You know? A So lot of what I do when I talk to celebrities about podcasting is try and get to the core of what it is that they want to create and what their purpose is for coming, and then they can craft all the business and everything else around that, like, central seed of an idea.
01:21:27 · John Coogan, Josh Lindgren
[01:21:27] S1: Mhmm. What's the secret to a successful podcast tour? I mean, back to SmartLists, I feel like they've been extremely successful at engaging the community off of the Internet, which is interesting because they started off the Internet. They went to the Internet, and they go back into the live tour. But what what what makes for a successful podcast tour? [01:21:49] S7: Yeah. I think that your relationship with your audience is so strong in podcasting, and it depends a little bit by format. You know, I think the level of engagement for more format driven shows maybe a little bit less than more personality driven shows. But something that I saw really early on getting into this space and coming from a touring background, was booking tours for podcasts. And, you know, one of the first live podcasts that I went to is early client of mine, Stuff You Should Know, which I assigned by emailing info at Stuff You Should Know. [01:22:17] S1: No way.
01:22:17 · John Coogan, Josh Lindgren
[01:22:17] S1: No way. [01:22:18] S7: It was a really different time. But then I I went and saw them do a show in Vancouver, and they had a q and a at the end of the show. People were getting up to the microphone, and this this woman gets up to the microphone. She's like 22, looks normal and nice. As soon as she gets on the mic, she's bawling because she is talking to Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know. And it was a real, like, light bulb moment for me. Right? Because that's a educational podcast. Right? But for her, she was explaining on the microphone that they spend so much time in her ears that she has this relationship with them, and it was like she was finally meeting these friends that she's had for so long. And I think that's that's when you get people who are not just willing to buy a ticket, but to travel four states over to make it to a live show. And, you know, we we look at data for download performance in a market before and after a live show, and we see, you know, in some cases, like a niche show can have a really solid touring business because they're converting, like, 50% of their listeners in a market are turning out for these live shows. And we've done analysis too where we look at ZIP codes of of ticket buyers and the the number of people who are traveling long distances to come to these is is pretty incredible. So, you know, I I think that's the key thing is if you have that relationship with your audience, if you let your personality be a part of the podcast, people are gonna wanna come out for that.