Podcast Perspectives

Is the podcast industry at the end of an era? The beginning of a new one? Or are we just seeing the natural ups and downs of a developing market? Today’s episode collects a panel of industry experts to weigh in on this discourse by taking a step back and looking at the entire podcast industry through its past, present, and future. The panel includes:– Amrita Khalid, reporter at The Verge and writer at Hot Pod, one of the largest newsletters covering the audio industry.– Alex Goldman, formerly a producer and co-host of Gimlet’s Reply All, now a freelancer spending a lot of time thinking and writing about the state of the industry.– Rachael King, CEO and founder of Pod People, a full-service podcast production agency.Jeff is on all the socials @JeffUmbro The Podglomerate offers production, distribution, and monetization services for dozens of new and industry-leading podcasts. Whether you’re just beginning or a seasoned podcaster, we offer what you need. To find more about The Podglomerate:– Show Page and Transcript: https://listen.podglomerate.com/show/podcast-perspectives– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Podglomeratepods– Email: listen@thepodglomerate.com – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/podglomerate– Twitter: @podglomerate – Instagram: @podglomeratepods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Washington Post’s Lillian Cunningham produced, wrote, and hosted one of the Washington Post’s first podcasts: Presidential, a series about the history of the American presidents. Despite the show being Lillian and The Post’s first audio project, it was an immediate hit. Since then, Lillian has gone on to produce and host three more narrative series for The Post, including Constitutional, Moonrise, and most recently Field Trip, a series about the messy past and uncertain future of America’s national parks.In this episode, Jeff speaks with Lillian about Field Trip and how she goes about telling the sweeping stories, how The Post’s audio unit has developed since Presidential, and the current landscape of history podcasting. As a bonus, we also hear some audio from a 2017 interview Jeff conducted with Lillian for another podcast. To find more from Lillian, you can go to her website https://lilliancunningham.com or find her podcasts Presidential, Constitutional, Moonrise, and Field Trip wherever you get your podcasts. I’m on Twitter @JeffUmbroThe Podglomerate offers production, distribution, and monetization services for dozens of new and industry-leading podcasts. Whether you’re just beginning or looking to bring a popular show to the next level, we offer what you need. To find more about The Podglomerate:– Show Page and Transcript: https://listen.podglomerate.com/show/podcast-perspectives– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Podglomeratepods– Email: listen@thepodglomerate.com – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/podglomerate– Twitter: @podglomerate – Instagram: @podglomeratepods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2017 Russell Weissman joined All Things Comedy as an early employee, and was recently promoted to COO. He’s been a key figure in guiding the company’s growth. Today All Things Comedy is one of the largest podcast networks in the world, and by any measure can be considered a media company that spans well beyond podcasting. And yet! They still maintain the original indie / co-op foundation the company was founded on.Russell and I cover a lot of ground in this conversation, including All Things Comedy’s approach to working with artists and developing IP, how to develop a brand identity for a media network with dozens of shows, and the current role podcasting plays in the lives of comedians.To learn more about All Things Comedy you can find them at allthingscomedy.com. You can reach out to Russell on LinkedIn. I’m on all the socials @JeffUmbro The Podglomerate offers production, distribution, and monetization services for dozens of new and industry-leading podcasts. Whether you’re just beginning or a seasoned podcaster, we offer what you need. To find more about The Podglomerate:– Show Page and Transcript: https://listen.podglomerate.com/show/podcast-perspectives– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Podglomeratepods– Email: listen@thepodglomerate.com – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/podglomerate– Twitter: @podglomerate – Instagram: @podglomeratepods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bradley Davis, Founder of Podchaser, discusses the use-cases of Podchaser for podcast listeners and producers, the 'podcast discovery problem,' and Acast's acquisition of the startup.

Recently there’s been a lot of chatter around the public radio in podcasting discourse. Joining Jeff to break it all down is Rebecca Lavoie, Director of On-Demand Audio at New Hampshire Public Radio. Rebecca has been with NHPR for 10 years, but is also familiar with the commercial side of the industry through her work with Netflix and Partners in Crime Media, the audio company she runs with her husband.Rebecca breaks down how the public radio space works: how stations make money, their relationship with NPR, and most importantly: why they might be uniquely positioned to make industry-leading podcasts.You can find Rebecca @reblavoie on Twitter or check out The 13th Step and Bear Brook Season 2 wherever you get your podcasts. Jeff is on all socials @JeffUmbroThe Podglomerate offers production, distribution, and monetization services for dozens of new and industry-leading podcasts. Whether you’re just beginning or looking to bring a popular show to the next level, we offer what you need.To find more about The Podglomerate:– Show Page and Transcript: https://listen.podglomerate.com/show/podcast-perspectives– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Podglomeratepods– Email: listen@thepodglomerate.com – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/podglomerate– Twitter: @podglomerate – Instagram: @podglomeratepods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harry Morton, founder of Lower Street Media, discusses the effectiveness of podcasts as a marketing tool, lessons learned from traditional shows, and how Lower Street markets itself in a crowded landscape. They explore the differences between B2B and B2C marketing, the importance of high-quality storytelling in branded podcasts, and the challenges of educating buyers about podcasting services. They also discuss the evolution and future of podcasting, highlighting the need for education and strategic content marketing.

While most podcasters rely on advertising to fund their operations, a successful strategy isn’t always guaranteed. In recent years many podcasters have tried to focus on alternative revenue streams, such as premium subscription feeds. Eric Barnett is here to walk us through these alternatives. Eric is the Director of Sales and Marketing at Supporting Cast, a company that provides subscription platforms for some of the biggest players in the audio world – NPR, Wondery, Pushkin, etc. He spends his days working with these partners to ensure that Supporting Cast provides them with a subscription platform perfectly tailored to their audience.Before coming to Supporting Cast, Eric spent 7 years engrossed in the audiobook market at Findaway, an audiobook distribution platform that was recently acquired by Spotify. In this conversation, we cover the different subscription models Supporting Cast uses, how creators succeed with premium subscriptions, and the recent integration between audiobooks and RSS technology.If you want to learn more about Supporting Cast visit their website www.supportingcast.fm. You can reach out to Eric at eric.barnett@supportingcast.fm. Jeff is on all socials @JeffUmbro The Podglomerate offers production, distribution, and monetization services for dozens of new and industry-leading podcasts. Whether you’re just beginning or a seasoned podcaster, we offer what you need. To find more about The Podglomerate:– Show Page and Transcript: https://listen.podglomerate.com/show/podcast-perspectives– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Podglomeratepods– Email: listen@thepodglomerate.com – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/podglomerate– Twitter: @podglomerate – Instagram: @podglomeratepods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The RSS feed is now a 20 year-old technology, and has remained largely static in that period – a simple way to distribute audio on the internet. But with constantly evolving methods of distribution, analytics, and monetization in the fragmented podcast ecosystem, it’s become increasingly difficult to create all-in-one solutions for creators to host their podcasts. To parse the challenges of keeping RSS up-to-date in a fast-moving industry, I’m speaking with my friend Sharon Taylor. Sharon is the SVP Podcast Strategy & Product Operations at Triton Digital, where she oversees Omny Studio. With over 65,000 podcasts and billions of monthly downloads, Omny is one of the largest podcast hosting platforms in the world. Omny is a platform specifically tailored for the enterprise podcast market, meaning they work with some of the biggest audio distributors in the world – Cumulus, Audacy, CNN, All Thing Comedy, Warner Media, and many more. Omny is owned by the digital audio technology company, Triton Digital, which itself has been nested under the iHeartMedia umbrella since its 2021 acquisition. In our conversation, Sharon and I discuss how modern hosting platforms work under the hood, the (very exciting!) regulations and standards around measuring user data, and how platforms like Omny stay competitive in a crowded market. If you want to learn more about Omny Studio or Triton Digital, you can find them at www.OmnyStudio.com or www.TritonDigital.com. Triton is also on social media @TritonDigital (X, LinkedIn, Facebook) or @Triton_Digital (Instagram). You can find Sharon Taylor on LinkedIn. Jeff is on all socials @JeffUmbro The Podglomerate offers production, distribution, and monetization services for dozens of new and industry-leading podcasts. Whether you’re just beginning or a seasoned podcaster, we offer what you need. To find more about The Podglomerate:– Show Page and Transcript: https://listen.podglomerate.com/show/podcast-perspectives– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Podglomeratepods– Email: listen@thepodglomerate.com – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/podglomerate– Twitter: @podglomerate – Instagram: @podglomeratepods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcast Perspectives helps you understand the ever-changing podcast industry. Hosted by Jeff Umbro, founder and CEO of The Podglomerate, a podcast services agency focused on production, audience growth, and monetization for some of the biggest podcasts in the world, this show speaks to leaders in the podcast space through longform interviews and panel discussions. The goal is to walk through not only the important news and issues of the day in the podcast landscape, but also to go deep on the topics that podcasters need to know today. Produced by The Podglomerate.To find more about The Podglomerate:– Show Page and Transcript: https://listen.podglomerate.com/show/podcast-perspectives– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Podglomeratepods– Email: listen@thepodglomerate.com – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/podglomerate– Twitter: @podglomerate – Instagram: @podglomeratepods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices