How-to Thrive in the Future of Podcasting: Insights from PodcastOne Top Industry Executives, Kit Gray & Robert Ellin

0:00Being an entrepreneur is a 24-7 job. And when you're hiring, you need a partner that works as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share with your network, get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. For one thing, you can post a job. LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people. You get qualified candidates. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your business is the quality of the candidates.

0:30And with LinkedIn, of course, you can feel confident that you're getting the best. Based on LinkedIn data, 72 % of small and medium businesses say using LinkedIn helps them find high-quality candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash altature. That's linkedin.com slash altature to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Today on the James Altucher Show. What's the future of podcasting? YouTube is just in the last three years, you know, since they really adopted podcasting, has changed everything.

1:12It makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, anybody that has kids or knows people in that 20 to 35 year old age, that's where they consume everything. You know, TV programs to their YouTube stars to how to learn anything now. Dinner conversations have all changed. Then all the world were on television radio and now on podcasting, right? Everybody's talking about whether it's Rogan or it's Corolla or so on. And if you don't keep it interesting and doing a good job, it can fall off really fast. We're going to build a multi-billion dollar company and that's our goal. We're on our way to being a quarter of a billion dollar plus business.

1:51This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show.

2:07So I've been doing podcasting for, gosh, 11 years. I cannot believe it. Over 1 ,500 episodes. And all along during this journey, I've always been impressed by the podcast network, Podcast One. And today we have on Rob Ellen and Kit Gray. Their company has also recently gone public. and they're here today to tell us what is the future of podcasting. And if you're starting podcasting now, how to get involved. And if you've had a podcast for a while, how to grow bigger, everything you need to know to basically convince yourself that podcasting is still the way of the future. So here's Rob and Kit.

2:52I remember when you guys started Podcast One, it was very exciting. It was immediately out the gates, the biggest podcast network out there. You have something like, I don't know, a billion downloads a year now on hundreds and hundreds of shows, including the James Altucher show, which I am grateful that you have included us. Let's just get right into it. You know, just for people listening, everybody's been saying podcasting is dead since the day I started a podcast in 2014. So what's the future of podcasting? Like I, for instance, consume my podcast on YouTube. I don't really listen to podcasts, but I don't drive either.

3:29And I don't go to the gym. The two main places people listen. I'll end most of this to Kit, right? Because Kit's the founder. And really, not only did he found the podcast one, but he also found the industry, right? He really broke the industry. But what I loved about it and the reason that I bought the company and partnered with Kit is those second and third windows. everything from live shows to where video's going and numbers in video are just skyrocketing to second windows, taking podcasts and turning them into TV and film, and owning our own products. So with that, I'll hand it back to Kit on where you think it's going.

4:02Yeah, and I'd love to hear more about that and what's working and what's not, because we've tried a lot of those strategies too. But Kit, I'm curious what your thoughts are. Yeah, I mean, when we started the company, and James, you were an early guy in the space as well, So it's been really a joy to get to know you and get to work with you over the last couple of months as you guys have joined Podcast One. You know, when we started it, you had to download the file on your computer and maybe you had an MP3 player. And if you don't drive, but a lot of people like me drove, you'd have to hook it into a tape player.

4:33And there wasn't this Bluetooth ease of doing it, right? So you really had to want that audio session. I started listening to Ricky Gervais over at the BBC doing some great content with Carl Pinkerton. And then I got into Adam Carolla when he lost his job with CBS on his national syndication. I'm just a huge audio fan. I always have been. So I still go to Apple Podcasts and that's how I listen and discover my podcasts. But YouTube has just, in the last three years, since they really adopted podcasting, has changed everything. It makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, anybody that has kids or knows people in that 20 to 35-year-old age, that's where they consume everything.

5:18You know, TV programs to their YouTube stars to how to learn anything now. And really, it makes a lot of sense for podcasters to be out there. You know, when we started the company, it was expensive to produce video, right? And you'd have to have makeup and all this stuff, as you can see from our three beautiful faces. We're just out there, right? So it's a whole different game, right? Rob's got a ton of makeup on, but it's easy to see through a squad cast. Yeah, exactly. So now people are just, you know, they're used to consuming media this way. This is how people are okay with it. And I think COVID had a lot to do with it.

5:53As you look into the future, discovery in video is massive. And I think to Rob's point, live is going to be something that really changes the ability to communicate with your community, right? So you can take questions live. You could talk about the market and what's happening today. You can do live streams. You can do live shows. That's going to really change the evolution of these communities that we used to call podcasters. But now that you can consume it on YouTube and Rumble or Twitter or Instagram or YouTube Live or even just RSS feeds like us old school guys, it's just tremendous. We're just evolving how to touch these different communities.

6:35And is audio only still growing as much? Yeah, it really is. It's still, you know, growing tremendously. The advertising dollars alone, it's growing. I think when some of the Edison and Nielsen research just came out, there's less new podcasts going out there, but still consumption of existing podcasts is going the right direction, right? So as you know, it's not easy to do a podcast. You have to do the research, the writing. Anyone can do it for five, 10 episodes. You can talk to your friends, but what do you do in episode 78, 200? And that's where people are getting to. So it's really a business.

7:12You guys have been there, done it. You've seen it all. And I'm always trying to figure out how to improve. And it's really hard because just in terms of format, I've always done kind of like the interview format, like what we're doing now. So I take the best, the goats of an industry, which arguably you are in podcasting, but I'll talk to everyone from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in basketball, Gary Kasparov in chess, you know, all the presidential candidates, actors, whatever. And then there's the interview format, which is, that's what I've been doing for 1500 episodes, more or less. Then there's kind of serial style or true crime style podcasts.

7:55There's the comedy podcast now where there's two comedians just sort of riffing and with an occasional guest and topic. You know, like Theo Vaughn or History Hyenas was a favorite. And, you know, you guys started with Adam Carolla. And now there's like, you know, then there's political and niche topics. You have like Tim Pool and all that. But what's working? And I get a little bored sometimes of the interview format. Yeah, everything's working. So what's best practices? This is how I see it, right? You know, and I look from the lens of my kids, right? My kids range from 14 to 30, right? And I see the habitual behavior and how much time is moving towards podcasting.

8:34And then you got to figure out each podcast, got to figure out what does their audience want, right? How do they bring their friends in? How do you get more traffic and audience by keeping them intrigued and interesting? And it's all hard, right? There's so much competition out there, but you got to keep fighting through it and you got to keep battling through and you got to keep that, that audience's attention. Yeah. Right. And keep them talking because the dinner conversations have all changed. Right. You used to only talk about TV shows. Right. You used to talk about your favorite radio hosts or your favorite television hosts.

9:03They're no longer on television radio. And now I'm podcasting. Right. Everybody's talking about whether it's Rogan or it's Corolla or so on. We just got to figure out for every one of our podcasts, we got to figure out what is really intriguing enough to make it more interesting than the other options that are out there. You know, one thing you said is what are they going to tell their friends? What are they going to share with their friends? I think that is the key to making any particular episode viral is you make sure there are components that are shareable. I mean, I remember when we were kids, everybody on a Wednesday morning would be talking about what was on happy day.

9:37What did the Fonz do on happy days the night before? Now it's, Hey, do you see who Joe Rogan spoke to yesterday? and what that guy said about Egypt and they found the vaccines in the pyramid. It's like, it's just like, it's Rogan is what everybody talks about the next day. By the way, it used to be Adam Carolla too. And Adam Carolla is still growing, but Rogan kind of eclipsed everything. I don't think that's ever changed. Talking heads have always controlled, listen, the most successful, right, entrepreneurs in all of media are Howard Stern, Ryan Seacrest, right? Tucker Carlson, all these guys are talking heads whether video or audio.

10:11they make the most money of anyone, right? Yeah. Because they have super fans, right? You got to build up those super fans and then you got to work your socials, right? You got to work that social element of it across YouTube and TikTok and keep expanding your audience. And then you got to go on other people's podcasts, right? You want to grow your podcast? Search is difficult. You got to go on other podcasts. And I think what we do best, and I'll hand it back to Kit because he's really doing it, is what we do best is be able to utilize the relationships between our other podcasters, right? When I first put my brother's podcast on, we immediately put him on Corolla and Jordan Harbinger and a bunch of other podcasts.

10:48And his traffic grows, right? And I think that's the golden goose of this business is you got to be able to share your content. You got to be able to share your thoughts and leverage your network. And that's what KIT has done brilliantly is building the network. As you said, we humbly reach over, I think it's 1.2 billion impressions a year now, right? 100 million plus a month. Yeah, it's something like that. And James, to your point, I was actually reading something yesterday about the late grade George Wendt, who played Norm, on Cheers. And the finale of Cheers did over 80 million views or watches, which is unheard of except for Super Bowls.

11:30Yeah, we got views now. Yeah, right? It's just, it's crazy, right? So that's still the biggest thing, right? But everybody was talking about Cheers' last episode. I was a huge fan of that show growing up in Boston, and it was just part of everything my youth. But everybody was talking about that show, and it's the same thing with podcasting. It's, you know, hey, did you hear who's on Adam Carolla last night or who's on James' show? And the key is that all these people are now in the social media world is having them share and share that with their friends rather than me and you running into each other back in school or whatever talking about what happened on the Seinfeld finale or Cheers finale, it's now everything's done on the internet.

12:11So having a really good community that shares your content and says, hey, Rob, you'd like this about this particular podcast episode, tune in. That's the key. And what we find is some people have like the biggest guests in the world and huge names like you. You've had the super powerful people of the world. That's not really why people come in to tune in. They It's the host that they love, the interviewer. I think that's really the key. That's the beauty of the space. And it's just using all these different channels, whether it's YouTube or Instagram and Twitter, whatever works, test it all. We've been testing a lot lately in short form content, even just through RSS feeds.

12:52Kind of like what Instagram stories does, where it's five, eight, nine minute episodes in between these longer episodes. So you get more of the daily updates and that kind of stuff. Yeah, I've been considering playing around more with short form. I started off like super long form, like doing three hour episodes. But of course, shorter form, you know, basically people are able to listen to the whole thing more easily. And we finally get more downloads that way. And also, I agree with what you're saying. The quality of the guests, doesn't matter how famous the guest is, that does not drive views.

13:25What drives views is the podcaster. You know, Howard Stern could have on, you know, anybody. Maybe Donald Trump would drive views for Howard Stern, but Howard Stern could have on anybody, but it's just him that people are listening to. That's exactly it. Yeah, if he had me on, I don't think anyone's listening. Well, I wouldn't say that. First off, you know he's going to ask, basically, did you get laid more once you started hanging out with your brother when he was doing Entourage? That's what he's going to ask, and you're going to not want to answer because your wife's listening or whatever, and he'll eventually get you to answer.

14:00Yeah. I'm going to stay far away from that one. I'm not even going to respond to that. As my brother said, I'm just the lucky brother, right? When I moved out to LA, my brother in the back of the entourage thing says, yeah, my brother moves out to LA. He's here for one day and he hits the movie 300. I've been here for 20 years and finally so I've found who I am. That's funny. Well, yeah, no, I remember we even spoke about entourage that one time we met. 12 years ago we met. So funny. I was just, you know, looking up your name for this episode. And I vaguely remember that we had met and then I saw the emails back and forth in 2013.

14:40Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It would mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

15:00I think being an entrepreneur is a 24-7 job. And when you're hiring, you need a partner that works as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share with your network, get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. For one thing, you can post a job. LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people. You get qualified candidates at the end of the day. The most important thing to your business is the quality of the candidates.

15:32And with LinkedIn, of course, you can feel confident that you're getting the best. Based on LinkedIn data, 72 % of small and medium businesses say using LinkedIn helps them find high quality candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. post your job for free at linkedin.com slash altature that's linkedin.com slash altature to post your job for free terms and conditions apply so when you're looking for shows right now or when you're looking for new talent to develop what are you guys looking for yeah so you know i've realized that i'm 48 now so my coolness and what's cool out there is long gone right but we We have a team of 20 to 35-year-olds that really know what's trending, who are the smart movers and shakers out there in the reality TV world and the YouTube world and the social media space.

16:32So we listen as a team in terms of going out and trying to figure out what shows we want to work with, if they exist, or if we want to create our own new programs. You know, it always comes down to, and we built the business on advertising. My background is in sales. So I just was actually trying to create something to sell 15 years ago when I started getting into podcasting. But, you know, when we went to all the major agencies and still with all the major ad agencies, they're still looking for moms. You know, that's still the home run spot. They still know that women typically spend the household income and they are the decision makers when it comes to products and services and stuff like that.

17:12So we're always kind of leaning that way. But we've got a really strong, you know, male network with you, Michael Malice, Jordan Harbinger, Adam Carolla, Dr. Drew still does his podcast with us. You know, so we try to fit in every bucket. You know, honestly, it's really important for us to have a conversation with the talent, the people like you to see, you know, what do you like doing? It's your show. We don't own it. It's what you feel comfortable with. Will you do these ads? Will you have people on like Rob and I? And, you know, all these type of things that it's great to work with good people that understand we're all swimming in the same direction.

17:48And then Kit and I, you know, come from a little different, you know, kind of left brain, right brain work so well together in that. Yeah, they really run it like a hedge fund. All right. They really study the numbers, understand them like no one I've ever seen. Right. You see so many of these podcast networks just lose their shirt and lose so much money and blow through money because they're doing deals that just make no economic sense. Yeah. It's great to get talent, but if you lose money on it, you're not going to be around very long. So what we try to do is we try to really study those numbers and understand them.

18:17And then we try to surround them with some moonshots. Kid has been aggressive enough and excited enough that we've now sold three of our shows to television that has a second window. The podcasting side may not have been the golden goose, but if you sell it to television, you could have an entourage hit or you could have a 300 hit. And if you do, we just sold a show called Vigilante to Peacock. In selling that, we pick off almost a half a million dollars in growing, and then you get paid for the rest of your life. And what's Vigilante like? Was it a serial type show? Exactly what you would think of Vigilantes.

18:49Vigilantes who come along and do save the days type thing. Are they real stories or fictional? Yeah, I mean, they're real. But what television decides to do with them will be their decision, right? So we get the benefits of participating and not necessarily decide they may get more creative and be able to create stories around it. We just sold a show called Varnum Town, which I'm really passionate about. This is something that could be a golden goose for us and really a trophy property. I've spent a career building slates of television film. This is one that is a true story. It's like a Coen Brothers, Fargo, True Detectives, a true story that we sold to one of the major streaming networks.

19:32So it's really exciting to see direction, what you can do with this. If you're thinking long-term as opposed to short-term, what I loved about Kit and his team is nobody ever leaves, right? Our podcasts are there for life with us. And so when they spread that virus, you know, we do these things, we're going to have longevity with both, you know, our shows as well as with our talent. Yeah. The storytelling format is what you're able to sell into TV. Obviously like Rogan and Corolla, people like that are more in the interview format, which is a little harder, I think, to sell to TV. Although, of course, that format works in TV very well.

20:05But I think format is a challenge for any beginning podcaster. I was talking to John Lee Dumas, who has, I think it's called Entrepreneurs on Fire. He wrote a book on podcast and he was telling me, niche down twice if you're a beginning podcaster. Don't just do a podcast about being a lawyer. Do it about divorce law or keep niching down until you find where that audience is. And that's something I've never been able to do because I have a lot of interests. I'll talk about anything from politics to sports to art to chess. It's hard for me to niche down. I think it's more about figuring out what your audience wants, right?

20:43Rogan goes all over the map, right? I mean, so many of these shows cross over so many different things now, right? Yeah, Bill Simmons is doing sports and movies, right? Everyone's got to find their own audience and own that audience and own a relationship with them and keep building that relationship with theirs. civic audience. Yeah. And in terms of building a relationship, what do you mean when you're saying that? When you really build a relationship, one of the beauties of this is, and Sue McNamara, our head of sales, where I always describe it is, there's no hiding from what you sell and what you don't because such a big part of your business is direct response, right?

21:16Yeah. Only a product with the talent, doing live shows with the talent, people paying money for subscriptions, right? You will know quickly whether or not you have an audience that is true and not just engaged, but they're engaged and participating. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I think it's really important to, you know, when you say having a relationship, like as a podcaster, you have to be consistent, right? Your show needs to go out once a week. You know, you have to do your research and do your homework because there's so much out there for people to consume. And if you don't keep it interesting and doing a good job, it can fall off really fast.

21:52And as far as a company, you know, when we take on a show, it's really important for us to even have the hard conversation sometimes and say, hey, this isn't working. We need to do this. Or, you know, not every advertiser works, right? And yeah, I'm sorry, that one didn't work or they didn't want you. A relationship that we've had these shows, Adam Carolla for 15 years, Jordan Harbinger, eight, nine years, Lady Gang that long too. It's because you can also have that hard conversation and be real with them. And that's what we are at Podcast one. We're not going to just float your boat for whatever reason.

22:27We're all going to win together and lose together. And do you see it as a generation thing? Like, look, I feel like Gen X started podcasting and now you see where Gen Z is. They're on Instagram Reels. They're on TikTok. Do you see them as much getting into podcasting, both as consumers and creators? I just want to say gen z is the most amazing generation ever i don't care what anyone says you look at these tiktok videos they are superheroes these gen z people oh it's amazing yeah it's amazing as i get a phone call kit gets a phone call i would say every day i would say this week we got a phone call from a 12 year old with a massive audience and a 85 year old who's made some of the greatest movies ever made in history and everywhere in between right when a guy could out of his pajamas signed for$350 million with a microphone and a headphone and make$350 million, you got to believe that podcasting is here to stay.

23:27And it really isn't that different than Howard Stern when he first started and became that big. But Howard, the cost of radio was extraordinarily expensive. The cost of podcasting is, I'm looking at your background, you had some pictures in the background, you got a gray wall, you got a headphone and a microphone. You're probably in your pajamas just like Joe. I'm in a sweater, but yeah. I'm not wearing any pants, but who can see? Sometimes you got to be careful. I think that happened once or twice on Zoom. Yeah, Zoom. Zoom is dangerous. People think it's like podcasting, and then they start doing whatever, and it's pretty scary.

24:06But yeah, the 12-year-old called you. How does he have such a big audience? What does he do? He must have some superpower. These Gen Z kids are mutants. They're amazing. There are so many of these kids that have figured out how to make money through YouTube. I coach my kids at flag football. He's 10 years old. And one of his buddies here, and I live in Florida where there's a lot of fishing, and he goes out and does a YouTube fishing show. And he's got sponsors. This kid's 11 years old, and he's got sponsors of fishing equipment. They're paying for his boat. They're paying for all this stuff to go out there and fish.