Episode 2290: Marshall Poe on why 2024 was a bad year for most podcasters

Jan 1, 2025

Marshall Poe, an American historian and founder of the New Books Network, discusses the tumultuous landscape of podcasting following drastic changes in Apple’s metrics. He highlights the challenges small podcasters face against the dominance of giants like Joe Rogan. They explore potential reforms to democratize the medium, touching on Section 230 and the influence of Substack. Poe emphasizes the struggle between quality content and sensationalism in an era increasingly shaped by AI, while advocating for human authenticity in storytelling.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Impact of Apple's Download Changes

Apple's change in automatic downloads in 2023 negatively impacted the New Books Network.
This change led to restructuring and a significant decline in revenue.

INSIGHT

The State of Podcasting

Podcasting in 2024 was a good year for big names like Joe Rogan but bad for smaller players.
The change in the business climate made it more difficult for smaller podcasts to generate revenue.

ADVICE

Podcasting for Passion, Not Profit

Don't start a podcast to make money, as very few content creators actually make a living from it.
Podcasting can be valuable for niche communities but not for generating significant income.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Marshall Poe runs the New Books Network, a podcasting platform incorporating over 25,000 individual podcasts from thousands of podcasters and many millions of downloads. 2024, he acknowledges, was a bad year for podcasting because Apple changed their metrics so that the audience numbers for most podcasts fell precipitously overnight. And 2025, he suggests, probably isn’g going to be much better with winner-take-all podcasters like Joe Rogan hogging most of the audience and profits. How could the internet be made more democratic again so that podcasters on platforms like the New Book Network and entrepreneurs like Marshall Poe can make a living from their work? Poe isn’t particularly hopeful, but suggests that a reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 might represent a beginning to restoring the leveling promise of the digital revolution.

Marshall Tillbrook Poe is an American historian, writer, editor, and founder of the New Books Network, an online collection of podcast interviews with a wide range of nonfiction authors. He has taught Russian, European, Eurasian, and world history at various universities including Harvard, Columbia, University of Iowa, and, currently, the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Poe is the author or editor of a number of books for children and adults.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe