Culture Study Podcast - Is the Golden Age of Podcasts Over？

00:00:00.560 The first time I was aware of the word podcast, I was driving around in a car in 2003, and the radio station 1077, which was like the alternative station, it actually was the station that the cast of the real world Seattle works at.

00:00:20.740 Incredible.

00:00:21.220 yeah I know but they they had a podcast and they were like it's on like the like the iPod you can

00:00:30.880 listen to part of our radio but like that's really interesting to me I love it I love it

00:00:35.720 that's like Seattle's sort of bleeding edge of things you know right right and but that it was

00:00:39.800 like part of the radio you could carry with you was the original conceit which is something that

00:00:46.300 Like, I think we've come full circle in so many ways.

00:00:49.040 Oh, yeah.

00:00:49.660 But then just remembering how, like, where some of these ideas came from and how none of this is new.

00:00:58.160 Oh, absolutely.

00:00:58.820 It's radio and internet, which is both a thing that we've always known exists and a joke on Silicon Valley.

00:01:04.020 Yeah.

00:01:09.340 Hi, everyone.

00:01:10.140 This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne-Helan Peterson.

00:01:13.760 And I'm Nick Quava.

00:01:14.940 I am a staff writer and critic at Vulture and New York Magazine.

00:01:19.480 And you have a specialty.

00:01:21.800 I do have a specialty.

00:01:23.040 For many, many years, I ran a newsletter about podcasts,

00:01:26.640 this is called Hot Pod.

00:01:28.320 And over at Vulture, podcasting is one of my main beats.

00:01:32.480 But you also write about lots of other stuff, which I love, too.

00:01:35.380 It's true. It's true.

00:01:36.500 I'm trying to spread my wings and be a diversified little portfolio in my body.

00:01:41.340 Same. Always.

00:01:42.360 Always trying to be diversified.

00:01:44.940 So, thinking about the podcast industry, when would you say you first started, like, observing it?

00:01:52.500 Oh, like, professionally or, like, as a fan?

00:01:56.360 Well, I guess, like, when do you think, like, you started thinking about the podcast industry?

00:02:00.960 I started thinking about the podcast industry in the most cliché moment possible, which is when Cyril exploded in the fall of 2014.

00:02:08.980 For years prior to that time, I had just been a consumer and a fan.

00:02:13.680 and in 2014 I was working another media job that I was very bored and underutilized that

00:02:21.500 and you know the phenomenon happened and I started seeing a bunch of other places start writing

00:02:26.740 about it and I was like all of these people are wrong they have no idea what they're talking

00:02:30.540 about and that's when I started thinking about things a little critically and thinking things

00:02:34.980 in terms of like how does this actually work and that's also when I started the newsletter that

00:02:39.080 would eventually give me the job that I have today.

00:02:42.320 What have you seen change since the serial era?

00:02:47.100 Like what is there, like if someone was forcing you in a piece that you were writing to write

00:02:53.300 the nut graph about the shifts, about like the little paragraph that's like, here's

00:02:57.420 all the ways that the podcast industry have changed.

00:03:00.260 Like, what would you say?

00:03:01.280 Well, first of all, my editor has seen me write this paragraph, does it sometimes.

00:03:04.120 I'm sure he's bored about it, but let's say he's come back to me for one last time and

00:03:07.700 He's pointed a gun in my head.

00:03:09.480 I would say in three or four six sentences, there were three and a half phases, let's

00:03:15.460 call it.

00:03:16.200 There was prehistory, which is everything that led up to 2014.

00:03:19.780 There is what, in retrospect, might be called the sort of golden age of podcasting.

00:03:27.060 And then there is the pandemic era.

00:03:29.540 And then there's the era that we're in now, which is, I think, some would argue, and I

00:03:34.560 would argue it, the post-burst.

00:03:37.280 Yeah.

00:03:37.700 And for the most part, my attention to podcasting had been through this, you know, quote unquote, so-called golden age, where it was pure potential.

00:03:47.280 It was, you know, the first six months of dating, maybe the first six months of marriage.

00:03:53.460 It feels good. It's all potential.

00:03:56.100 And that tracks alongside a lot of alongside a lot of the larger structures that's happening in the media business.

00:04:01.220 Right. This was the streaming boom.

00:04:03.480 This was everybody's flush of cash.

00:04:06.220 Everybody was making TV shows.

00:04:08.180 Money was cheap.

00:04:09.300 Money was good.

00:04:10.720 And a lot of the investment and experimentation, which I would, you know, I still continue to believe that produce a lot of really positive externalities, funded a lot of projects in part, partly in ways that in hindsight was unsustainable.

00:04:25.200 And partly in ways where like it just mirrored how the entertainment business works.

00:04:29.760 Like this is how you find new things, which is in moments of largesse.

00:04:34.420 Yeah.

00:04:34.580 And, of course, during the pandemic, everybody couldn't make TV shows and everybody was at home.

00:04:40.480 I guess what you could do at home, you could make a podcast at home.

00:04:43.900 So, you know, money just accelerated in a way that felt, I mean, it was scary.

00:04:48.280 Like at the top of the pandemic, I think there was this moment where folks were like, nobody's commuting, nobody's going to listen.

00:04:53.320 Turned out that the inverse was true.

00:04:54.660 A lot of people were listening.

00:04:55.980 A lot of people were making stuff.

00:04:57.540 And then the events of the past year and a half, which is, again, tied to the larger economics of this country.

00:05:03.760 Higher interest rates means more difficulty to get advertising dollars because companies are borrowing less and to advertise less.

00:05:11.480 But also investment investors are asking for more specific rigorous things from the company.

00:05:15.720 So everybody has to be a little bit more responsible now and disciplined now with their businesses.

00:05:19.320 And that has resulted in a remarkable contraction because it turns out during the golden age of podcasting, where a lot of money was coming in, in hindsight, relatively few people were trying to make the actual models work.

00:05:30.900 And that's how we arrive to where we are today.

00:05:33.220 that was more than four sentences but it's a it's your fortune cookie version fantastic like i am

00:05:38.620 not editing any of that out from the piece that you're writing that's all good i want it all

00:05:43.060 you can tell i've told this story many many times though exactly i i have this memory of like around

00:05:49.460 2018 2019 where it not only felt like every media company was trying to come up with a podcast arm

00:05:55.800 and like scrambling with what it means to have a podcast arm what kind of podcast they want to have

00:06:00.900 But then, and also individuals having like podcasts on different levels of professionalization, but then also all of these freaking businesses that were like, we're a window washing business, we should have a podcast, right?

00:06:16.500 like there was this idea yeah and i'm being somewhat facetious there but like that some

00:06:22.460 like salesforce should have a podcast right and so there was a lot of money coming into podcast

00:06:27.440 production right from companies that thought they should have a podcast right the equivalent here is

00:06:33.740 uh trader joe saying yo we should make a glossy print magazine and then you go like why but then

00:06:39.900 the person who's like my my specialty is making a print magazine i'm gonna take this trader joe's

00:06:43.880 buddy like that that is the equivalent you know and we actually have even like an analog that

00:06:49.380 existed which is that a razor company should have a magazine which was mel magazine yes i remember

00:06:55.300 this magazine very well uh and it's very good yeah and i actually just remember trader joe's

00:07:00.140 actually had a podcast i just pulled it out i completely forgot that they did that

00:07:04.320 all right so today's conversation is going to be a little different because listeners you guys are

00:07:11.200 listening to a podcast so we don't have to explain the larger culture of podcasts instead we're

00:07:16.940 going to answer a bunch of questions about the nitty-gritty behind the scene how it's done

00:07:20.400 details and probably because i think there's actually if when people aren't involved in

00:07:25.220 podcasts or report on the industry they there's very little knowledge of how this how this stuff

00:07:30.940 is made oh yeah it's paid for and like yeah that's also that's also true for everything else

00:07:36.720 like i don't like i think most people don't quite understand how like planes can fly or how are you

00:07:41.000 buy an airline ticket um it's just magic uh and i completely understandable you know it's a very

00:07:46.060 understandable human response it's only so much that we can chew on yeah yeah and i think that

00:07:51.040 the difference is similar to the news or a tv show that it's something that like we spend a lot

00:07:56.160 of time consuming for entertainment and then you also add in the expectation born of the last 20

00:08:04.640 30 years that like a lot of this content should be free right so that like you know we think an

00:08:09.420 airline ticket should cost money and so in some ways we're like well i guess we pay for it so

00:08:14.200 there has to be something complicated going on right whereas there's something like there's a

00:08:19.380 more nuanced consumption process that happens when you largely get something for free right

00:08:23.860 thank you youtube facebook etc etc for ruining value economics okay so we're gonna get right to

00:08:31.840 it we're gonna try to go through as thoroughly as possible we should also note that you know

00:08:36.020 we have a lot of understanding and a fair amount of insight but like we ourselves are not the ceo

00:08:44.960 of a podcast company so a lot of our our the information that we're providing is the knowledge

00:08:50.640 that we have from our perspective yes absolutely yeah and melody please chime in if you have other

00:08:55.960 insight as a producer and editor and then in the asking anything part of the show that's just for

00:09:02.000 paid subscribers, which is a good segue into this. Nick is going to stick around and give us

00:09:07.640 his recommendations on podcasts that he's loving right now and how to find new ones. So got a lot

00:09:13.100 of questions about money, which is apropos. Let's kick things off with this question from Emily.

00:09:18.320 How do podcasts get funded these days? I've seen some go the Patreon or Substack route and sort of

00:09:24.580 crowdfund their work, which seems great because you're not beholden to corporations whose

00:09:28.680 advertising dollars you rely on does that seem sustainable in the long run though and how do

00:09:34.040 podcasts attract advertisers are they basically all part of podcast networks that take care of

00:09:39.340 that for you oh my god there's so much baked in here uh and before i i we break this down um and

00:09:46.060 i essentially function as a business lawyer i guess i'm gonna i'm gonna come up with i'm going

00:09:51.900 to sort of preface all this with a very lawyerly uh caveat which is um it depends on the situation

00:09:57.360 depends on the context like we all exist in the context a little bit um uh and we have to sort of

00:10:03.940 first in first principles think about the podcast as an ecosystem in the same way that the media

00:10:09.100 business and you know just about any segment of the economy is an ecosystem right uh you know a

00:10:15.480 fine dining restaurant doesn't function the same way as a sandwich takeout shop but they're both

00:10:19.060 restaurants um so to attack the first part of that question like how do podcasts get funded these days

00:10:25.320 we're essentially talking about the questions of business models.

00:10:28.020 For the most part, if you kind of go up and down a podcast chart,

00:10:33.540 the majority are funded by advertising.

00:10:38.300 Some portion, particularly, you know,

00:10:40.960 there's a good chunk of emerging podcasts that are funded by Patreon.

00:10:46.500 Some shows are a balance.

00:10:48.660 And it depends on also the format of the show.

00:10:52.060 So a limited run series, which is one of the podcasts,

00:10:55.060 types that is honestly on the on the ropes in terms of just how the economics of business has

00:10:59.580 changed that historically is advertising driven even though advertising doesn't quite work for

00:11:05.120 that form uh some uh and within how you sell advertising that also we can have a whole other

00:11:10.520 conversation there but i'll just give you three concepts to play with one is this notion of cpms

00:11:14.960 which is um cost per meal which is actually cost per thousand podcasts are sold often preemptively

00:11:22.000 based on an assumption of how many listeners it's going to generate.

00:11:26.960 And then you divide a thousand and then you apply the price number

00:11:29.980 and that's your revenue.

00:11:31.620 That is the sort of dominant and traditional way things get sold.

00:11:36.180 Increasingly because of, you know, things like Spotify

00:11:38.520 and things like increasingly like technologification

00:11:40.760 of the podcast advertising layer.

00:11:43.060 There is something called dynamic ad insertion,

00:11:45.520 which is, you think about how YouTube kind of structured,

00:11:49.000 do you overlay an automated exchange of ads that run into it?

00:11:53.920 But those tend to be very, very small dollars to the ad.

00:11:57.900 I should also say that people disrespect this last category, 0.99

00:12:00.300 but direct sales is a fucking thing. 0.97

00:12:03.000 If you are an independent podcast that serves the Cincinnati area, 0.99

00:12:07.840 you could go to a business and go like,

00:12:10.500 hey, do you want an evidence-in podcast?

00:12:12.100 On my podcast, we hit 10,000 Cincinnati citizens,

00:12:17.200 and then you can work out the deal from there.

00:12:19.580 That's kind of how things used to work.

00:12:21.560 It was a lot more one-to-one.

00:12:24.040 And then as the industry kind of quote-unquote professionalized and tried to achieve scale,

00:12:27.780 they tried to automate a bunch of these things.

00:12:29.400 And as a result, push the values down.

00:12:30.960 There's a lot that goes into that as well.

00:12:32.260 I think it's interesting because I think people think there's like unlimited advertising dollars available for podcasts.

00:12:39.080 when really, like, if we look at the example,

00:12:41.840 like the classic example of something like MailChimp and Cereal, right?

00:12:50.020 Like, that was a company that decided to take a slightly creative advertising route

00:12:56.540 and bet on this podcast and probably did not pay that much

00:13:01.680 to be the presenting sponsor for this show, right?

00:13:04.800 And that's how you get a lot of other kind of quirky startups that are often associated with podcasts is that, like, we are not talking about, like, Ford Motor Company amounts of advertising budget.

00:13:19.900 We're talking about, like, Brooklinen, right?

00:13:22.420 Right, right.

00:13:23.120 But then if you contrast like what, if you were listening to like, I don't know, any of the Crooked Media podcasts or like my show, you have those advertisers there and then you listen to like anything on The Ringer, right?

00:13:36.180 Which The Ringer is now owned by Spotify.

00:13:39.220 But even before that, it would be like Subway, right?

00:13:42.880 Yeah, Subway, you can get like a movie ad as well.

00:13:48.300 I remember there was a whole era where Bulletin's podcast was purely FanDuel and DraftKings.

00:13:53.120 Yes.

00:13:54.020 Yeah, but within that, there's also a microhistory

00:13:57.080 because around the 2014 sort of quote-unquote golden era,

00:14:00.780 these sort of startups were capitalizing on an edge.

00:14:06.140 Like podcasting had a very deep, engaged,

00:14:08.900 extremely effective audience,

00:14:10.680 and GM is not paying attention to this category.

00:14:15.200 Also, podcasting was like younger and things like that.

00:14:17.980 Yeah.

00:14:18.160 You know, maybe podcasts, maybe nobody in New York buys cars,

00:14:20.720 so that's why like GM is like, no, you know,

00:14:22.520 No podcast listens for us.

00:14:24.900 But I remember in that era when I was reporting on how people were thinking about advertising,

00:14:30.520 a lot of the podcast companies at the time were like,

00:14:32.460 we need to get up to a point where we can get GM involved

00:14:35.540 because they can put in a lot of money and we can schedule out four quarters worth of a business.

00:14:40.620 Whereas what are called direct response, which is like the startups,

00:14:43.820 are more gun-to-gun, week-to-week kind of thing.

00:14:47.840 And it depends on how much you want to scale a business.

00:14:50.040 And back then, everybody thought they were going to be Mark Zuckerberg.

00:14:52.700 So they're going after big money.

00:14:55.260 And so that was the push.

00:14:57.100 And that was that was where we ended up with.

00:14:58.680 And the thing I would say about if you see someone who is doing a subscriber or a Patreon, it's not I mean, there is definitely an ethos of like, we want to be independent.

00:15:07.300 So, like, my friend Virginia Soulsmith, who has a podcast, like, she doesn't want to ever have to freaking deal with, like, anti-fatness shit that comes along with having to read the ads that, like, you have to read.

00:15:21.240 So she really wanted independent media to be independent. 0.51

00:15:23.620 And I think there are other people who very legitimately do not want to deal with the dynamics that come with top-down sponsorship.

00:15:32.500 Right.

00:15:33.400 But I would say that the vast majority of people that I know are doing it because it is the only way to be sustainable.

00:15:39.440 Because the ad dollars are not sufficient enough, either if you're doing it independently and trying to, like, get part of an ad podcast network, or, and this is the case, what happened with Work Appropriate, your show might not be losing money, but it's not making enough money for the company to continue making it.

00:16:00.040 Right. And so the options are either you go independent as like a single person who is operating with an editor and a producer the way that Melody and I are and like cover your costs that way. Right. But no company really wants your business, if that makes sense.

00:16:18.320 i okay i'm gonna caveat yeah tell me tell me how you see it that like i want to say this in a way

00:16:26.300 that uh it's not like i this is what i truly think even though i understand that the folks

00:16:32.120 who have had uh contradicting experiences or uh express on one side of what i'm about to say is

00:16:36.740 um what what experiences is completely about etc yeah two things one there is the tension

00:16:45.460 between a larger company that needs to balance your books, right?

00:16:50.800 And that's why each individual show within a podcast network

00:16:54.520 or, you know, like a larger company that needs to be

00:16:59.100 either beholden to investors or just have priorities

00:17:02.680 that aren't always fully aligned with a subsidiary show, right?

00:17:06.680 That comes into clashing.

00:17:07.980 Like the question for them is why am I supporting this

00:17:11.140 when I could put this money and this resources into a category

00:17:14.800 that can either make me more money or is more aligned with my mission um or maybe i'm just like

00:17:20.460 i don't have a personal relationship with it a lot of human dynamics come into play there

00:17:23.380 when you're an independent podcast when all you are accountable to is yourself and the people

00:17:30.140 that gives you money uh you can stay in the game for however long as you like and you can figure

00:17:36.400 out the next steps on your own terms and that that is i think that's the dynamic and emotion

00:17:42.620 that powers a lot of the move to Patreon,

00:17:44.680 a lot of move to Substack, which I totally get.

00:17:47.160 These are also two very different types of species, right?

00:17:49.260 There are things that only companies can do 1.00

00:17:51.920 and there are things that only indies can do. 0.90

00:17:53.440 And we live in a world,

00:17:54.340 we want to live in a world

00:17:55.140 where we can support all of these things.

00:17:57.260 Yeah.

00:17:57.500 At the same time,

00:17:58.180 the second thing I want to sort of talk about

00:17:59.660 into the attention

00:18:00.200 is that I feel like there is this sense

00:18:02.020 either that there is unlimited gobs of money.

00:18:05.480 I think this is like a perspective

00:18:07.720 of like how advertising dollars kind of work.

00:18:10.800 And conversely,

00:18:11.900 there's also the sense of like there is no money and both are not true right um yeah yeah yeah in

00:18:18.280 the pool of advertisers everybody is dealing with their sort of like cyclical spins but there uh

00:18:23.740 it's not unlimited but it is there because at the end of the day coke needs to sell more cans at the

00:18:28.840 end of the day like businesses need to make other people aware that they exist and they can fool

00:18:33.860 themselves into thinking that that google and facebook is enough but you must always kind of

00:18:38.800 like play to the next hand in order to grow your business like better businesses yield better

00:18:42.860 businesses etc i would also frame things in terms of the the feeling that there's not enough money

00:18:49.520 there's no money in package advertising that is true to a point because a lot of it becomes

00:18:54.000 centralized within sure bets right if you are a joe rogan or if you're a smartless that is a thought

00:19:00.440 that's never crossed your mind because everybody wants to put their money in you and largely you

00:19:04.820 know this is a it's also a human nature thing right like if you are a busy advertising executive or a

00:19:10.480 busy person like governing an advertising budget like you're not you know out in these streets

00:19:14.700 looking for a for like a like the hot new podcast or where the new kids are or whatever um and so

00:19:20.280 you keep putting your bets on on what the experts tell you or the sort of most immediate established

00:19:24.700 people and the most immediate established people knows other most immediate established people

00:19:27.560 and those are other big companies i always think about a podcast company now called citycast which

00:19:33.660 is started by its former slate CEO, David Plants.

00:19:37.660 He also used to be CEO at Ellis Obscura.

00:19:39.800 The whole thesis or whole theory behind that company is that we're going to create a network

00:19:43.540 of small, hyper-local news podcasts for an individual city.

00:19:47.420 There's a city cast Boise, there's a city cast Nashville, there's a city cast Portland.

00:19:51.220 And if you listen to those shows, depending on the city, you can hear that they sell directly,

00:19:57.480 ads directly for businesses that are in that city.

00:20:01.120 that is a pursuit and an approach and my understanding is that they go out and they

00:20:06.380 sell themselves it's manual it's not dynamic the ad inserted the ad rates are somewhat higher than

00:20:11.440 if they were trying to automate it but they are sort of carving out a different way uh sort of

00:20:15.720 an unexploited edge uh in order to access more and more pockets of money of course sounds like

00:20:20.320 npr to me it sounds like an npr correct npr would call it sponsorships not uh or underwriting yeah

00:20:27.520 Yeah. But my point here is, is that there are always people who want to give you money. The question is that can you extract that in time to not have your business fail? And this is the problem that everybody faces as a business. It's something that your car wash and your laundromat fails as much as a as an individual podcast. And that's that is the reality of the capitalism, you know, of American economics.

00:20:53.480 well and i will say that i think a lot of the people who including this podcast um who have

00:20:59.100 individual sponsorship like in fan supported podcasts are this is not their only gig whether

00:21:07.880 they have a newsletter like me or they have you know melody produces other shows or they have

00:21:14.120 like a job job that's not related to media in any capacity like this is something that they are

00:21:18.860 doing to try to make it work yeah it's not that they don't want to necessarily make money although

00:21:22.580 some people podcast and don't care if they make money yeah um I think that like because of the

00:21:28.300 uncertainty you can do it in the beginning be like ah well if this makes some money if this makes

00:21:32.540 enough to make it sustainable right if this makes enough to cover melody's salary yeah yeah we can

00:21:38.780 decide whether it's working um melody is telling me that I need to go to the next question so I

00:21:44.080 think we like covered two or two other questions in that question but like let's let's keep going

00:21:47.620 we did we totally did uh but this one's gonna be this is something I get asked all the time

00:21:52.560 Our next question is from Katie, who wants to know about how the money works in podcast ads

00:21:56.880 specifically. What's the price progression in types of ads? Host read, provided, etc. And how

00:22:02.400 much editorial input do the podcast hosts or owners have? Do podcasts have staff and equity

00:22:08.140 ownership differences like companies? How much of an impact is there if podcasts take a week off

00:22:13.820 from their regular schedule? Is it about ad revenue or a drop in listenership? What's the

00:22:19.300 spread in podcast listeners? A bell curve or the biggies have all the listeners and the small ones

00:22:24.460 have barely anyone? And does a very engaged, how can one measure engagement anyway, listener group

00:22:30.780 command higher ad revenue? Clearly I'm an avid and curious podcast consumer. You have an extremely

00:22:39.620 PhD listenership, I think. Okay, there's a lot in here. There's a lot in here. So let's take

00:22:47.440 through them in order okay uh what's the what's the price progression on types of ads and when we

00:22:53.240 say like like i used to do reader ads um when i did work appropriate where they would be like there

00:22:59.900 would be a script that someone at crooked had written and approved with the company for a third

00:23:08.600 love piece of shapewear. And then Melody and I would try to work through it to have me read it

00:23:18.180 in a way that sounded like I had used the shapewear and loved it. And again, this is something that

00:23:28.240 has a long history. I hear it on the radio now, like the hosts of the morning show at the Virgin

00:23:35.380 radio station in Vancouver, they do ad reads for like, I used paint my house in a day and it was

00:23:41.320 amazing. So again, there's some history here, but are those more expensive than just like someone

00:23:47.060 else reading the ad for you? So again, the two caveats here is it depends on the situation,

00:23:53.140 but there is a general answer here. But the general answer here ties into the second caveat,

00:23:57.680 which is my general answer is how things used to and should work. Things might be muddled

00:24:03.440 depending on the situation so yes there is a price progression as there should be a price progression

00:24:07.840 because not all ads are created equal just in the same way that no two human beings are created

00:24:12.740 equal to the gods are um hosts read ads in which is what you were talking about which is the host 0.97

00:24:18.420 going i love my my wooden stick buy this wooden stick i use this wooden stick to beat shit all 0.96

00:24:26.080 the time um that is that should be the most valuable right because yeah you are as an 0.96

00:24:32.920 advertiser borrowing or buying the goodwill and enthusiasm and the parasocial relationship

00:24:38.120 of the host. You're buying the credibility of the host. And this is kind of also why we

00:24:42.500 don't hear, typically don't hear, journalists or news shows in which the hosts go ham.

00:24:48.020 There are many exceptions, but generally speaking, this is a thing that journalists

00:24:51.920 get really kind of iffy about. In contrast to the host-read ad, and let me also just

00:24:56.660 say one more thing about host-read ad, is that there is what many ad sales folks would consider

00:25:02.300 a scale issue, it requires the host to actually put in the work and perform. And it's difficult

00:25:10.240 to target. Targeting based on location stuff is a well-worn trope and a well-worn thing

00:25:16.080 that people want in internet advertising, and to varying degrees. This is also where

00:25:21.040 AI kind of overlays, because there's some conversation with people wanting to apply

00:25:24.740 like AI host-read ads, which, you know.

00:25:28.940 Gross.

00:25:29.640 I know. 0.71

00:25:31.180 And my brain goes like, well, then, you know,

00:25:33.800 there should be some sort of stamp of like,

00:25:35.060 this is human-fed, you know, host-read ads.

00:25:38.220 And this should be more expensive than AI host-read ads.

00:25:40.280 Anyway, in contrast to host-read ads,

00:25:42.480 there is, you know, prepared material.

00:25:44.920 So like, yeah, a pre-produced spot.

00:25:48.700 Typically, it's larger soundscape.

00:25:50.480 Typically, in NPR's case, they bring in a sponsorship reader.

00:25:53.780 they like produce it themselves

00:25:55.920 it's like one step

00:25:57.740 removed from a host read ad but it's still kind of intimate

00:25:59.640 and then you have

00:26:01.140 dynamically inserted stuff which is people are

00:26:03.700 producing spots but like at quicker rates

00:26:05.840 and it tends to be a

00:26:07.700 love on radio e

00:26:09.000 we're really nowadays hearing a lot of

00:26:11.600 radio style ads in podcasting and when you

00:26:13.720 hear that that's largely because they're

00:26:15.340 automated and dynamically inserted

00:26:17.140 how much editorial

00:26:19.620 okay and obviously the sequence

00:26:21.600 I just talked about it should be a descending

00:26:23.660 value scale. People should pay more for hosted ads and people should pay much less for AI slop,

00:26:29.000 et cetera, et cetera. How much editorial input do podcast hosts and owners have? Again,

00:26:33.200 it depends on the situation. It depends both in terms of the contract, but it depends on the

00:26:38.060 informal power dynamic between the host and the advertising and network. Because if the podcast

00:26:43.360 host feels that they owe their network money, that maybe they're not making their network

00:26:48.740 enough money uh there may there may be this feeling like hey i should just follow what i

00:26:54.480 was told so that i could get everybody paid that is a very individualized personalized situation

00:26:59.040 but generally speaking it depends on the contract and not everybody gets the chance to say no

00:27:04.060 but increasingly these days like if you had a good lawyer look over the contract they would

00:27:08.020 they should argue for it in there yeah i had i was able every week they would send a list like

00:27:13.660 a spreadsheet of all of the potential sponsors and some of them were crooked specific and some

00:27:18.060 of them were part of the larger podcast network that was feeding ads to crooked which i will say

00:27:24.380 those ads were for companies that were slightly more dubious uh and i could say i could say like

00:27:29.720 no i don't do dubious supplements right which is a major advertising category in podcast

00:27:35.080 and they would have like it was really interesting they would have like whether or not the business

00:27:42.320 like what its business grade was right so like did it have complaints filed against it like

00:27:47.960 if i said no i would just have to give a reason and i was never made to read any ad that i

00:27:52.980 ideologically disagreed with and i also anything that i like actually said that i that i used and

00:27:59.220 like like i i had access to it it was sent to my house like they do do that which is good which is

00:28:05.940 kind of what you want right so that you can actually have a relationship with it and see

00:28:08.480 whether you actually want to advertise this thing yeah and i would always put like next to the stuff

00:28:13.200 that i actually already use in the spreadsheet i'd be like i already love this thing like this

00:28:18.560 would be an easy thing somehow i never got those ones but um yeah so that's that's part of this

00:28:24.800 too so yeah that's like i i think like you said the input really changes do podcasts operate like

00:28:30.580 companies in terms of equity uh uh like there's usually some in my experience there's like if you

00:28:39.880 earn back whatever we're spending on this then you get some percentage of the ad money and like

00:28:44.380 that unless you're a massive hit that does not happen yeah uh again this depends on the situation

00:28:50.080 for the most part the question is like the do podcasts in general have staff and equity

00:28:54.080 ownership differences like companies um it's like it's the same with any other business right like

00:29:00.040 if i started uh again a car wash uh and i'm like you know i i own as 100 but i have a bunch of

00:29:06.300 working for me that is the structure that exists uh you know there are many many examples out there

00:29:11.340 of um shows in which they split ownership equally between like two or three hosts and that's a

00:29:16.700 structure that happens too often the producer typically does not but sometimes it can get cut

00:29:21.580 into it it depends on the person who owns it or who makes the governance there uh in terms of like

00:29:26.220 who owns it between the show and a company again it depends on how that project was developed so

00:29:32.060 sometimes there are instances in which a podcast network develops a project and like i'm slotting

00:29:36.220 i'm slotting a host into it typically the host doesn't have any ownership in that um yeah but

00:29:41.700 sometimes it can be a 50 50 co-pro uh co-production uh in which case um i that's i i that's relatively

00:29:49.280 rare but it's it's known to happen yeah if you like if you're big enough you know like i hosted

00:29:54.740 this podcast for uh hg tv about small towns and it was very much like we have an idea for this

00:30:03.420 podcast and we have like a vague outline and we can help like we would love for you to help us

00:30:08.140 sketch that out right but really we just want you to come and host and like i was paid per episode

00:30:13.500 right and that was it right like there was never any it's you diversifying your portfolio right

00:30:18.180 like stephen curry can both be a basketball player and the host of holy moly you know that's that's

00:30:22.700 a thing that happens and that's the thing that we should be thinking about uh okay and then the last

00:30:27.940 question that i think we should deal with with this is just the question of numbers because

00:30:31.700 and maybe this is a good way for us to join together another question which is about the

00:30:38.740 podcast bubble because i think like so much of our conversation is intertwined in terms of the

00:30:44.640 inflated numbers numbers that are not the same as during the pandemic or pre-pandemic like

00:30:50.140 what did numbers actually matter like all of these different things i

00:30:55.120 numbers are very very difficult to come by yes uh

00:31:00.040 okay it's like books everyone thinks that we have like good measurement tools and we don't

00:31:08.560 yeah no one knows how many books are sold i was going to say and i and again it's the same as my

00:31:14.720 caveat what's emerging is my caveat number three which is everything that's happening in podcasting

00:31:18.320 it's not unique to podcasting and if anybody says that they are just ignorant about how everything 0.89

00:31:23.340 else works because if you look at the streaming business nobody knows what what the fuck is

00:31:28.620 happening there right the only people who know the numbers are the people who like own the platforms

00:31:33.000 and even they employ people to like try to figure out what the numbers are um and what we're all

00:31:38.620 doing in in this kind of a scenario is that we're we're trying to use imperfect tools to get a shape

00:31:44.860 of reality but reality itself is like it's it's it's a mutually agreed upon situation one of the

00:31:51.340 like we want to one of the more very existential no but it is so true though it's like you know

00:31:58.020 like how many people watch baby reindeer i don't know it seems like a lot but yeah but like it's

00:32:04.540 a netflix interest to go like i don't know it's a lot of people i don't know yeah and uh and nbc

00:32:09.460 is like that's right uh people think all of us talking now um in terms of like there it's an

00:32:16.020 ongoing battle as well because uh podcasting is advertising driven for books business uh where

00:32:22.460 it's mostly units sold of course with kindle and audible it's like really fucking that up

00:32:26.880 but unit sold is like the clearest thing that we can try to get to a reality right when it comes

00:32:33.400 to something like an advertising driven podcast the numbers matter to the advertiser and so that

00:32:39.860 the advertiser needs, if not 100% trust in the numbers being given, at least an 80%.

00:32:45.940 And so in something like what happened a couple of months ago, in which Apple Podcasts kind

00:32:50.440 of uploads an update saying, hey, it turns out that not an insignificant percentage of

00:32:56.900 the downloads that you're reporting are like pre-downloads, and we can't actually prove

00:33:01.840 like deep engagement there.

00:33:03.300 And they kind of knocks on the overall number.

00:33:05.580 and if i was an advertiser i'm like i am being you're asking me to pay for a number that you're

00:33:10.140 ultimately saying that it's not exactly what it is let's renegotiate so um if the advertiser itself

00:33:17.800 is seeing very good outcomes from whatever spend that they had to begin with right like

00:33:23.280 in theory we could arrive at a place where we're pricing per outcome but we're not right and so

00:33:29.380 yeah the advertiser is in their rights to argue or battle to go like hey don't look at my outcomes

00:33:34.960 look at how much money you're talking about so that that is the battlefield that we're talking

00:33:38.800 about um and so to that point numbers matter until they don't and numbers matter within certain

00:33:44.100 certain circumstances and numbers matter within the context of whatever the interaction is

00:33:48.880 um extremely a galaxy brain answer but like that's kind of where it is yes well and so this

00:33:56.300 is the question is pod is the podcast bubble going to burst so the podcast bubble has already

00:34:00.880 subscribers i would argue right yeah basically she says like the only ads i hear on other podcasts

00:34:05.600 are for other podcasts right it's like a ponzi scheme for other podcasts you know to speak very

00:34:11.940 generally some podcasts are ponzi schemes and uh this thing that was being described how only ads

00:34:21.400 for other podcasts seems to exist on this podcast is perhaps one could say an indicator

00:34:25.960 um however just because a podcast is running ads for other podcasts you know money's going in there

00:34:34.140 right um and no or sometimes it's also i think sometimes people mistake promos right so we get

00:34:40.840 asked to swap promos with other podcasts all the time right and what it is is it's a mechanism for

00:34:47.540 trying to aid discovery of your podcast with a similar audience that might be game to listen to

00:34:53.080 it right i don't love these because it makes it feel like all you're doing is ads for other

00:34:59.060 podcasts but at the same time i think it's an indication of just how few ways there are to 0.69

00:35:05.280 aid discovery when it comes to podcasts right like how do you get the word out fuck if i know

00:35:10.060 wait a hundred percent um and i think part of the challenge as well is that like it's never

00:35:15.340 a hundred percent clear what is a promo and what is an actual ad buy because some podcasts do buy

00:35:19.640 ads on the podcast yep historically i had compared this to like why are we complaining about this

00:35:24.960 movie trailers run before movies all the time you know because people who watch movies would like to

00:35:29.980 watch other movies too um but i you know i i understand the feeling that it's a house of cards

00:35:36.020 right like if everybody if all we're seeing is money being sloshed from everybody else money's

00:35:41.820 not actually coming into the system yeah but the fact of the matter is is that like money is coming

00:35:47.600 to the system right we don't see all of it and like i do listen to a lot of podcasts that run

00:35:52.240 ads for other podcasts and maybe they're making some money from it maybe they're not but there

00:35:56.280 are like podcasts that are a good chunk of podcasts out there who are making money through advertising

00:36:02.360 who are like bringing in new advertisers bringing in new budgets uh many of them are the very large

00:36:08.000 ones there are smaller ones that are bringing in new advertisers and developing good relationships

00:36:11.880 again advertising is partly about a relationship you have the advertiser and so that that kind of

00:36:16.200 stuff can take a while to ramp up. But yes, to come to the sort of first order question,

00:36:20.980 is the bubble going to burst? It has burst. Many people have lost their jobs. Many shows

00:36:24.760 haven't canceled. There has been this restructuring and reorientation of how

00:36:29.520 the business looks and works and how it works. But to raise some numbers, which can also be

00:36:37.840 questioned, the sort of larger 30,000 foot number measures that we have, the IAB has a podcast

00:36:43.920 revenue report. Edison Research has a podcast listenership report to the extent that we can

00:36:48.820 trust them. I trust them because they're mostly longitudinal. They've been doing this report

00:36:52.180 for quite some time, especially Edison. The audience is still growing. The overall advertising

00:36:58.620 pie is still growing. The question is less about is there money coming to the space? The question

00:37:04.720 is more about how can that money be spread around? Who's dominating that money? Is that money

00:37:08.580 trickling down to produce more shows? Is that money diversified? These are the questions that

00:37:13.900 that's a little bit more harder to answer,

00:37:15.260 but they are the more important ones.

00:37:17.180 Yeah, and those are the questions that I think,

00:37:19.080 we got a ton of questions about,

00:37:20.640 like, all I see are celebrity podcasts,

00:37:24.300 recap podcasts, and like Joe Rogan.

00:37:27.400 And I think that that's, first of all,

00:37:30.060 it's not entirely true,

00:37:31.300 but at the same time, established IP,

00:37:34.180 like other places in the entertainment industry,

00:37:37.160 is the best bet.

00:37:39.060 You know, it's the easiest bet.

00:37:40.460 It has the broadest appeal.

00:37:41.920 It has known appeal.

00:37:43.220 And so that's why, in part, when an industry is unstable, their bets become more conservative.

00:37:49.760 Exactly right.

00:37:51.140 And I'll take sort of three points here.

00:37:53.520 One is, you know, the essential question here is that if IP is the only thing that everybody wants to bet on, who makes the new IP?

00:38:02.520 Where does that come from?

00:38:04.080 And how does that work?

00:38:05.440 That has always historically been the trickiest part, right?

00:38:09.020 Like when Frank Herbert wrote Dune, my guy was poor for a lot of it.

00:38:12.220 Yes. 0.97

00:38:13.220 It took a fucking while. 0.97

00:38:16.340 The other, the question of the celebrity thing is, you know, celebrities are people too. 0.96

00:38:22.280 And they are trying to diversify the portfolio much like you are and much like I am as well.

00:38:28.480 And, you know, if you're an actor, for example, it's, you're often in between jobs a lot.

00:38:33.740 And it would be nice to introduce some stability.

00:38:36.900 And it's why, you know, it's actually, it's a pure reflection of the same, you know,

00:38:40.280 about why SiriusXM has shows hosted by celebrities going back wherever there's incentive for the

00:38:45.700 celebrity to do it there's incentive for SiriusXM and not podcast companies to do it because those

00:38:50.920 celebrities theoretically have built in audiences but that is the sort of business dynamic that

00:38:55.280 that's happening there yeah I will also say that the sort of general feeling of like why does it

00:38:59.900 feel like there's only like 12 podcasts that's ever existed um again this is not a new dynamic

00:39:05.360 right now if you just kind of think about how music feels right now it's like are there only

00:39:09.420 like five musicians and now there's a six named chaparron um like like where where's all the other

00:39:15.680 stuff and then you go like wait did you know that Sonic Youth is still alive but they're all still

00:39:19.320 alive you know like this is kind of the the same dynamic right that for every one you know Taylor

00:39:26.720 Swift style musician there's always a hundred thousands if not millions more people trying to

00:39:32.220 break in yeah but they're all making art they're all making art some of them want to become you

00:39:37.400 know blue chip companies some of them just want to make art and be able to be at pay doing it and

00:39:42.540 so if it feels like there's only 12 it's not true but that's kind of how the system is structured

00:39:46.780 okay this is a great segue since you mentioned art this is about sound quality comes from becca

00:39:53.080 right i listen to at least 15 to 20 hours of podcasts a week and i'm always surprised at

00:40:00.440 the range of audio quality and production of different podcasts how much does the production

00:40:06.420 level matter in terms of success what are people really looking for in terms of podcasts how much

00:40:12.240 of this is just replicating trends in radio like am sports radio quality versus npr both popular

00:40:19.080 but serving different purposes oh the answer to all of these questions is yes

00:40:23.320 well i do i don't think that like the fine granular stuff like i think an immaculately

00:40:33.200 produced or engineered show right like i should be specific with my language here engineered like

00:40:41.020 all of the sound sounds amazing everyone was taped pristine conditions right i don't think

00:40:46.920 that that makes it a guaranteed hit by any means no no and i think that like shitty stuff with

00:40:53.760 like oftentimes the host has okay audio sometimes not especially when we're talking about daily or

00:41:00.260 weekly and like chat shows right and then oftentimes the person that they're talking to

00:41:04.540 and you know the pandemic contributed ton to this because there used to be this expectation that you

00:41:09.020 would try to find a studio and now even npr is okay with you doing like a call on zoom if it's

00:41:15.740 an important enough person um oh yeah and or if it's an important enough story for sure so i think

00:41:21.220 what we're identifying and circling around here is this sort of assumed presumed correlation

00:41:25.120 between audio quality and audience size um oh that's interesting and historically i've always

00:41:31.980 thought that that was bullshit um because i so for example i am um a fan of the okahoma city

00:41:37.820 thunder do you know how many okahoma city thunder specific podcasts there are just like two or three 0.91

00:41:42.440 wow i listen to all of them all of them are poorly edited there are uh there's a bunch of 0.95

00:41:47.560 dudes sitting around talking about shit um they go for three hours long and i will pipe that into 0.98

00:41:53.060 my veins because that that is what i want um well it's talk radio it's talk radio like that is talk 0.99

00:41:59.480 radio and that's the thing that i think some people make this connection and some don't that

00:42:03.300 like this is our version of having the radio on at all times with someone talking somewhat

00:42:10.340 continuously about a subject that we have interest in absolutely yeah but also i mean this gets to

00:42:15.880 the larger sort of question here which is that like essentially what are the purpose of podcasts

00:42:19.820 yeah yeah the purpose of podcast is whatever the podcast is and there is a diversity and there

00:42:24.600 there is a podcast is not one thing right i think for the longest time it's largely associated with

00:42:31.360 like the comedy podcast sports podcast or these sort of very very precious highly finely tuned

00:42:35.820 narrative highly engineered narrative podcast and like all of these things are valid in their

00:42:40.560 existence and all of these things are things that people want the question is how to finance them

00:42:44.340 and how to make the numbers work.

00:42:46.060 But like, I think audio quality in general is,

00:42:49.100 it's a nice,

00:42:50.220 I'm not going to say nice to have

00:42:51.760 because that's like a very horrible thing to say,

00:42:53.720 but it's like, you know,

00:42:54.580 there's a, it is important within the bounds of the project.

00:42:58.320 It is important within the super objective

00:43:01.220 of what the producer and the creator wants.

00:43:03.800 There is also the reality that my guy, Terrence Malick,

00:43:07.380 his films, not a lot of people watch them,

00:43:09.500 but like, they're great, great art.

00:43:12.180 And they're doing so well, 0.90

00:43:13.320 but like nobody wants to watch it you know like let's let's just be fucking real you know yeah

00:43:17.640 yeah no i for sure and i think that like there's like terrence malick who again probably like one 0.76

00:43:23.560 of my top three filmmakers of all time like i can understand the preciousness with which he

00:43:28.620 approaches a movie and i can also understand like the way that clint eastwood makes a movie like an

00:43:33.980 old hollywood director like there there are different levels of appreciation and i don't

00:43:38.220 think that like you know we could get into class and aesthetic and taste and all that sort of thing

00:43:42.720 but like oh yeah yeah to stick with the terence malik like uh like uh analogy here you know when

00:43:50.880 i think about the film business right everybody's really anxious you know there's this phrase going

00:43:55.860 on survive till 25 like this is get to 2024 um you know but twister says come because glenn paul

00:44:01.220 has saved us um the thing about the film business right now that you're trying to balance um making

00:44:08.260 the engine continue to run like you just need like more deadpools and you need people to come

00:44:12.360 about to watch this thing so that everybody can get jobs everybody can make stuff but you also

00:44:16.080 need smart talented passionate executives we're not the creators yeah the people who are like we're

00:44:20.900 gonna figure how to make this money and how to finance this and get this in front of people 0.96

00:44:25.460 because a Terrence Malick film you can't substack that shit like you can slap a patreon on Terrence 0.96

00:44:31.520 Malick's face and go like give me money to make Tree of Life 2 like you need a guy who needs to 0.98

00:44:36.680 figure out sure sure but you need someone to be able to like i need to extract money to like

00:44:44.960 bring this art into the world that otherwise like it'd be very hard to resource it um and we need

00:44:50.540 talented executives and we are you know honestly in a shortage of that like there it's the business

00:44:54.860 is still too young and the business is still way too influenced by uh external factors there are

00:44:59.820 not enough champions coming in not enough savvy champions to be able to carve out these new

00:45:03.200 structures i love that answer okay so this one we're gonna have melody chime in as well

00:45:07.880 because it's about editing and she's just been like in the back just like

00:45:13.260 hitting her hands ready just like okay she's been waiting so this is from carrie i have like

00:45:19.600 a villain monologue prepared why do so many podcast hosts decline to edit their podcasts

00:45:27.280 for long-windedness and bloviating it's like some of them just press record and don't go back to see

00:45:33.000 if it's relevant. This is what a good editor is for in writing. And because it's a slower,

00:45:38.880 more linear format, why a good editor is needed in recorded audio. It feels like mostly dudes

00:45:45.480 because they think we like to hear all of what they have to say. But in general, I don't listen

00:45:50.220 to many podcasts because the editing is so poor. Do you have first thoughts on this, Nick? And then

00:45:55.400 we're going to hand it to Melody. Oh, yeah. My only thought is, you know, like, Gary, you don't

00:46:00.620 listen to many of the podcasts because the editing support neither do a lot of other people so like

00:46:05.480 i wouldn't worry about it yeah well and i would say that like this is where um like i think some

00:46:11.900 people love a tight 42 minute podcast some people love the like radio lab style like where like

00:46:20.980 people's words are edited like the sentences are like so tightly edited right the reverb goes

00:46:26.340 haywire yeah and i hate it um but that doesn't mean that i think it's a bad podcast it's just

00:46:30.820 not my podcast i love a chat podcast i love it i do love a chat podcast too i i i'm here to

00:46:37.200 champion for the existence of the limited run finally edited uh finally engineered series but

00:46:41.020 i love a chat podcast like you were saying by drug yeah but you're like oh i did three

00:46:45.580 oklahoma thunder podcasts and you just keep on in the background or lots of that's right lots of

00:46:51.060 people listen to podcasts to go to sleep um they listen to them the way that they would previously

00:46:55.560 they turn on radio in in their homes like as they're doing stuff around the house all sorts

00:47:00.480 of stuff i'll be real like i listen i listen to a 15 hour long episode of a podcast 15 hour long 0.81

00:47:06.880 and i loved every second of it yeah it's just good shit in my veins so you know melody okay

00:47:14.840 here are my takes there are two factors at play here uh one is that when people listen to podcasts

00:47:22.180 because it sounds like a natural conversation they don't realize all of the editing that

00:47:26.700 happened to make it sound that way correct and so yes I have people reach out to me and they're

00:47:31.260 like yeah we just want to do a chat podcast like no editing and I'm like no everybody gets editing

00:47:36.700 at my company like we are not just pressing play why did they reach out to you if they didn't want

00:47:42.800 to edit exactly they're like oh just like stitch it together put a little music and I'm like that's

00:47:48.500 just not how it works like everybody needs editing i don't care like even ann helen peterson needs

00:47:52.900 editing no of course i need editing no and like i always tell hosts before the beginning not you

00:47:58.280 nick because i already knew that you knew this but i say like melody is very good at making us

00:48:03.460 sound like the smartest version of ourselves in a seamless way right and so like she will edit

00:48:08.620 both of us down in slight ways that will feel invisible so that we sound like it's the same 0.62

00:48:15.000 things that we would we were saying it's just that we the ridiculous is the exact same thing

00:48:20.360 but yeah people don't think it's necessary and they also don't want to spend the money on it

00:48:25.900 because they don't think it's necessary so even like this is no shade to substack at all but we

00:48:32.540 host the podcast on substack and they have a function where you can just hit record and like

00:48:37.860 talk into substack and then upload that as your podcast and if anybody does that that's a voice

00:48:44.460 memo that's a voice memo yeah yeah which i guess is fine uh don't ask me to listen to it but right

00:48:52.560 right and some people like that it creates this form of authenticity that sometimes people like

00:48:58.100 like blah blah blah but i also think that even something like you know mark maron's preamble

00:49:03.000 which sounds like he just pressed play and started talking edited edited 100 but people don't want

00:49:09.980 authenticity they want they want the appearance of a polished that's right you know if they hear

00:49:15.420 how many likes i say in a day or how i scratch my back when nobody's looking yeah it's a horrible

00:49:20.080 situation people don't want that yeah there's also a misunderstanding of what a conversation

00:49:26.380 is for somebody else to listen to so you are not just talking to each other like the way you talk

00:49:32.420 to your friends you're talking to each other with the purpose of an audience listening to you and

00:49:36.560 that is a very specific skill so these people think they're interesting no matter what they

00:49:41.900 think editing isn't necessary and they don't want to pay for it the end keep your in jokes out jokes

00:49:46.820 yeah you know all right we we had to leave some of our questions on the cutting room floor which

00:49:52.100 means maybe we have to do another episode at some point but i think now it's time for the ask and

00:49:56.220 anything part of the show if you want nick's recommendations on where to find new podcasts

00:50:01.120 to listen to, and what shows he's loving right now, head to culturestudypod.substack.com

00:50:06.980 and become a paid subscriber.

00:50:09.620 Nick, this has been such a pleasure.

00:50:11.560 Where can people find you on the internet if they want to find more from you?

00:50:15.720 Just find me on vulture.com.

00:50:17.960 I have an interview with Bill Kemp about the ending of Presumed Innocent, the greatest

00:50:22.240 summer show of all time.

00:50:25.040 And my piece just went up, so people should check it out.

00:50:27.820 Amazing.

00:50:28.380 Thank you again.

00:50:29.220 Oh, it's such a pleasure.

00:50:30.440 anytime anytime thanks for listening to the culture study podcast be sure to subscribe

00:50:34.900 wherever you get your podcasts we have so many great episodes in the works and i promise you

00:50:39.320 don't want to miss any of them and if you want to suggest a topic ask a question about the culture

00:50:44.040 that surrounds you or submit a question for our subscriber only advice time segment go to our

00:50:49.500 google forum at tinyurl.com backslash culture study pod or check the show notes for a link

00:50:55.600 also I cannot tell you how close we are to making this a truly sustainable enterprise

00:51:01.220 we are so close to hitting our goals for our first year but we need just a few more subscriptions to

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00:51:33.680 there is a link there that will show up for you the culture study podcast is produced by me

00:51:38.640 ann helen peterson and melody rowell our music is by pottington bear you can find me on instagram

00:51:44.240 at ann helen peterson melody at melodious 47 and the show at culture study pod

Culture Study Podcast - October 23, 2024

Is the Golden Age of Podcasts Over？

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