Bill Simmons, Alex Cooper, Emma Chamberlain and 36 More on The Future of Podcasting
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Ask the most powerful people in podcasting whether we’ve reached “peak podcast” and the answer is a resounding no. Or, more specifically, a “hell no,” an “absolutely not” and a “don’t be ridiculous!” Still, the medium isn’t without its challenges. “Podcasting has gone from being an industry that had a ton of speculative money thrown at it, to an industry that now has to figure out how to make money,” notes Audacy’s Jenna Weiss-Berman when asked to describe how it has transformed over the last five years. Here, many of the top hosts, executives and agents in the business, all featured on THR‘s annual list of The 40(ish) Names to Know in Podcasting Now, weigh in with their hopes, plans and pet peeves.
My podcasting pet peeves are…
Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM The idea that all it takes to make a good podcast is a mic and a computer.
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Kara Swisher, Pivot Blabbery.
Shantae Howell, Acast Celebrity podcasts. Not all (Bad Dates slaps)! But…a lot.
Lisa Ammerman, Treefort Media “Like, like, like, like, like…” is, like, very distracting.
Gretchen Stockdale, Lionsgate Sound With narratives, taking too long to tell the story; there is a fine line storytellers must intuit.
Rachel Ghiazza, Audible When someone questions whether we’ve reached “peak podcast.”
Zola Mashariki, Audible Studios The word podcast itself. Right now, it’s associated with free-flowing talk, and the medium is so much more advanced than that. It includes talk, but also rich storytelling.
Glennon Doyle, We Can Do Hard Things Same as my real-life pet peeve: when anyone interrupts.
Dan Fierman, Higher Ground Idiot economists that predicted a recession that never happened leading to thousands of jobs lost for no reason. To be honest, that’s a lot more than a pet peeve.
Ashley Flowers, Crime Junkie Plosives and poorly placed ad breaks
DJ EFN, Drink Champs When a guest doesn’t want to be there.
Josh Lindgren, CAA When people say there are too many podcasts. No one says there are too many books or records.
Jenna Weiss-Berman, Audacy When a guest host steps in and feels they need to copy the exact inflection of the usual host. And when a crime show promises to be the only crime show that’s not sensationalist or victim blaming.
Gillie Da King, Million Dollaz Worth of Game Artists being scared to come sit down and talk to us because they know they can’t dictate the conversation. You got one artist come in asking what questions we going to ask? We don’t know the f*cking questions yet. Do you watch us do this? Does this look like this is some shit that’s written down and staged?
Tiffany Ashitey, Acast Terrible editing. Podcasting is storytelling, and telling a great story starts with strong editing. Also, inconsistency in publishing. I know podfade is a real thing, but once you’ve hooked a listener you owe it to them to share when the show will end. Don’t get them hooked and just walk away.
JD Crowley, Audacy The idea that podcasts are not fully measurable, attributable, or addressable like other digital media. That’s simply not the case. From attribution to targeting to brand safety — there is no reason for any advertiser not to at least test the channel.
Ross Adams, Acast People recording with bad (or without) microphones or poor audio quality. It’s not hard or costly to record clear and crisp audio and it’s essential for a satisfying listening experience.
I stop listening when I hear…
Josh Lindgren, CAA Poor audio quality. This is an artform; treat it like one!
Zola Mashariki, Audible Studios Dead air and navel-gazing.
Tiffany Ashitey, Acast Inconsistent audio levels, or too many random sound effects.
Jenna Weiss-Berman, Audacy Bad script reading.
Shantae Howell, Acast Siri-esque VO.
Ross Adams, Acast People talking about there being “too many” podcasts in the world. Go, create, prosper.
Gillie Da King, Million Dollaz Worth of Game When people ask me for money.
The biggest misconception about the job is …
Bill Simmons, The Ringer We just press record and start talking. The best podcasters make it seem easy and loose even though they structured everything out in their heads ahead of time.
Josh Clark, Stuff You Should Know That I retain all of the stuff we learn when we’re researching. I retain some of it – like how Oreos are the knockoff and Hydrox was the original sandwich cookie and other somewhat useless things like that – but after 1500-plus episodes, the vast majority of it has slowly trickled out of my ears.
Chuck Bryant, Stuff You Should Know That we have a script for the show. We’ve always just had the same general information and recorded our first conversation about it, with very few edits. About podcasting in general, is that it’s easy to do and easy to gain an audience.
Rachel Ghiazza, Audible That Audible is only about audiobooks. We also have podcasts, boundary-defying originals, theater and a ton more.
Ashley Flowers, Crime Junkie That it is all researching crimes and then recording. There is so much work on the business side that listeners never see.
Emma Chamberlain, Anything Goes I think some underestimate the preparation that goes into recording an episode. Coming up with a concept that can be discussed on a long form medium takes a little bit more contemplation than I personally assumed before I learned for myself. I thought podcasting was just sitting down and talking about whatever was on my mind, but I quickly learned that a lot more preparation is required to create an episode that is engaging and easy to follow along with.
Josh Lindgren, CAA The notion that just because a show makes money, I would want to represent it. I pass on plenty of lucrative shows if I don’t believe in them.
Tiffany Ashitey, Acast That we are a production company. Nope. Instead, we have the opportunity to collaborate with amazing networks (BBC, A&E, The Daily Beast, etc.) and production companies (Higher Ground Audio) to support their podcasting businesses through strategy, audience development and monetization.
Ashleigh Kelley, Morbid: A True Crime Podcast That I just sit in front of a microphone for a couple hours a week.
Jenna Weiss-Berman, Audacy That making a podcast is easy!
DJ EFN, Drink Champs That we fake drinking.
In the last five years, podcasting has…
Jenna Weiss-Berman, Audacy Gone from being an industry that had a ton of speculative money thrown at it, to an industry that now has to figure out how to make money. I’m excited for this new era and energized by the prospect of turning podcasting into a sustainable, long-term business.
JD Crowley, Audacy Exceeded every expectation. According to Edison Share of Ear, Podcasts just surpassed 10 percent of all audio listening time in the US – even higher when you look at ad-supported audio – with Podcast listening time up nearly 75 percent year over year. In fact, Podcasts and Streaming AM/FM Radio are the two fastest growing segments of all audio.
Josh Clark, Stuff You Should Know Exploded, legitimized, and helped the world through a pandemic.
Shantae Howell, Acast Gotten pretty crowded.
Chuck Bryant, Stuff You Should Know Become more ubiquitous and not as necessary to explain. I’ve always been able to tell how popular podcasting was depending on the answer I got when I told people I did it for a living.
Josh Lindgren, CAA Become a much more widely respected top-tier artform.
Bill Simmons, The Ringer Become a way for people to get out of writing anything.
Steve Ackerman, Sony Music Entertainment Gone through high school and is now coming out of college into the big bad world.
Adam Sachs, SiriusXM Really come into its own as a maturing medium. Mainstream talent is taking podcasting seriously.
Will Pearson, iHeart Become the newest mass reach medium.
Marshall Lewy, Wondery Gone mainstream. I don’t have to explain to my relatives what a podcast is and where to find one.
Zola Mashariki, Audible Studios Exploded!
Dan Fierman, Higher Ground Experienced the audio version of the 1999-2001 dot-com bubble.
DJ EFN, Drink Champs Helped a lot of people find a second or third career for themselves. It has also grown to the point where it’s just as popular or more popular than mainstream media and content.
Donald Albright, Tenderfoot TV Been misunderstood: 230 million people may be familiar with the term, but many don’t understand that podcasting isn’t just people sitting around a table talking. And while you can watch some podcasts, there is a fundamental misunderstanding that this is an audio first medium. Some people believe it has peaked already, they misunderstand that not only have we not peaked, we’re still in the early days.
Conal Byrne, iHeart Become the newest mass-reach medium in the United States. More than 120 million Americans a month now listen to a podcast (and they listen longer, and with more attention, than we’ve seen in a medium in a long time). And it’s now pulling “time spent” from social media, something I’ve never seen in my career.
Rachel Maddow, Déjà News Earned the respect it deserves! There’s a lot of dross, to be sure, but there’s also so much that’s good. It’s been great and gratifying to see actors and journalists and historians and intellectuals and comedians turn to podcasting not as a side-gig but as an apex creative platform.
Oren Rosenbaum, UTA Become something many people “watch.”
Ben Shapiro, The Ben Shapiro Podcast Become the single best method for consuming information in aural form. The quality of podcasts continues to rise, as does the variety.
Maya Prohovnik, Spotify Really gotten democratized! … All you need is your phone, truly!
How would you like to see the medium evolve?
Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM I’d love to see podcasting continue to evolve as a multi-platform medium. Listeners want to hear their favorite podcasts wherever they are – whether it’s listening on the phone or in the car, watching their videos, following them on social media, wearing their merch, or seeing them at a live event. The best creators understand the intimate fan connection audio brings, and the value of expanding their presence across all platforms to reach new audiences and diversify their revenue stream.
Oren Rosenbaum, UTA I’m excited to see how video becomes a bigger piece and a growth driver, the emergence of more established content distribution platforms embracing audio and video podcasts, crossover of English language to foreign languages and vice versa, and how the biggest talent and shows domestically can further have international success.
Ben Davis, WME I would like to see new formats and distribution platforms.
Rachel Maddow, Déjà News Less chat. More editing.
Ben Shapiro, The Ben Shapiro Podcast I’d love to see advertisers recognize that reaching out to a wide variety of audiences is a great way of spreading brand awareness. I don’t want to see podcasting turn segmented the way cable television has.
Josh Lindgren, CAA We need greater diversity. This industry has made strides over the past ten years to become more inclusive but there is still so much further to go. The more voices join the conversation, the better the medium becomes.
Marshall Lewy, Wondery People have been so focused lately on discussing the business of podcasting and not enough time on the creative side. I would like to see an entirely new format or category break out next year that none of us saw coming.
Jenna Weiss-Berman, Audacy We still need to reach so many more audiences – children, international audiences, older folks, etc.
Podcasting is best suited to …
Ben Davis, WME Creators that are committed long-term.
Jen Sargent, Wondery Incubate new content and create valuable IP.
Josh Lindgren, CAA Passion projects.
Ben Shapiro, The Ben Shapiro Podcast Long form discussion. There’s no medium that can touch it.
Nishat Kurwa, Vox Media Podcast Network Facilitate a sense of deep human connection to people you might never encounter IRL.
Tiffany Ashitey, Acast Satisfy your mood, and soothe your soul. Audio is such a personal medium, and the power of podcasting just enhances that.
Bill Simmons, The Ringer Be listened in a car ride or a hike.
Shantae Howell, Acast Go deeper!
So, have we reached peak podcast?
Kara Swisher, Pivot Not even close. That’s a canard.
Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, Crooked Media We may have reached peak “hey, you’re a celebrity who’s bored” podcast. (Or maybe not! Call us!) But more than a third of Americans have never listened to a podcast and there’s an even greater global opportunity for audience growth.
Rachel Maddow, Déjà News Not by a long shot. Particularly when it comes to well-produced multi-episode narratives, I feel like we’re just getting started.
Audie Cornish, The Assignment Not yet! We have yet to enter the creatively poverty-stricken AIdays to come!
Ben Shapiro, The Ben Shapiro Podcast Not even close. Podcasting is just another name for how we consume information aurally and that’s only going to grow in size and reach.
Ray Chao, Vox Media Podcast Network Absolutely not. Today, only a third of Americans listen to podcasts regularly. We have so much room to grow!
Ben Davis, WME No. Ignore the noise, it’s about the audience. Opportunity follows audience. More people listen to podcasts today than yesterday. The same will be true years from now.
Josh Clark, Stuff You Should Know I’m not sure peak podcast is possible. I used to think so, but we keep adding them exponentially and everyone seems to just get happier as we do. So why stop?
Chuck Bryant, Stuff You Should Know I don’t think we can ever reach peak podcast. The beauty of the medium is its egalitarian spirit and the possibility that someone out there in their basement has talent and something to say that’s worthwhile.
Conal Byrne, iHeart Not even close. Not only is the overall podcast audience continuing to explode (more than 120 million listeners a month) – the “time spent” of each listener is also growing (more than 80 million Americans a week are listening now …with some of the strongest growth among daily listeners … while the amount of time spent per listener, per day, has doubled in the past five years … so that every engagement metric we see is “up and to the right”). And from the content side of things, more creators and genres are showing growth in the medium every month, as we’ve seen podcasting evolve from a “true crime and chat show” medium to a fully mature format now – with sports, comedy, health and wellness, history, news and politics, travel, drama and many more genres all delivering robust, diverse, incredible slates of new content every day. If you thought the past five years were cool for podcasting, just wait until you see the next five …
Jen Sargent, Wondery Nope, we haven’t even scratched the surface yet. Podcasting is poised to deliver the influence of social media combined with the reach of radio.
Emily Rasekh, Sony Music Entertainment Absolutely not. Audience demand for podcasts is undeniable but still untapped; in the U.S. alone, there is still 59 percent of the population that does not listen monthly which is a huge growth opportunity. And money always follows consumers, it just may take more time or require a different model.
Alex Cooper, Call Her Daddy There is always room for growth and improvement! I’m continually finding new ways to evolve and give my listeners the best possible experience.
Gretchen Stockdale, Lionsgate Sound Not even close. Podcasters at the forefront of the medium continue to inspire more and more creators. Plus, creating derivative works from podcasts is a nascent business, yet it is flourishing.
Josh Lindgren, CAA No. We have actually seen a lot of growth this year and all signs point to more long-term growth ahead. In particular, I see tremendous growth coming outside of the United States.
Ross Adams, Acast Hell no. We still have so many new listeners to convert, as well as advertisers who are yet to realize the massive potential podcast advertising holds. I’m not done yet.
Tiffany Ashitey, Acast Absolutely not! We’re still watching television, and consuming movies, so why would podcasting be short-lived?
Bill Simmons, The Ringer I sure hope not… podcasting is lucrative!
Steve Ackerman, Sony Music Entertainment Don’t be ridiculous!! Have you heard anyone say audiences are flatlining?!”
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