I hope you all had a chill Labor Day à la Miss Flo. I spent extra of it on Twitter than I might have appreciated due to the spit 🙏, a present from the messy drama gods. I don’t care what Chris Pine’s PR says — we noticed what we saw.
Talking of drama, the Ben Shapiro / Podcast Motion brouhaha merely is not going to die. Let’s get into it.
Cumulus cuts ties with Podcast Motion over Ben Shapiro controversy
Do I really like getting a juicy, unprompted information nugget in my inbox after 4PM? Not likely. However I do respect the shit stirring on Cumulus’ half. Yesterday afternoon, the corporate introduced that it’ll not be taking part in Podcast Motion subsequent yr after the occasion’s organizers apologized for Ben Shapiro displaying up on the convention final month.
“At Cumulus Media, our tenet is that Each Voice Issues and we help conferences and commerce occasions the place differing political viewpoints will be expressed and acquired with respect. As such, we have been dismayed and dissatisfied by Podcast Motion’s dealing with of the response to our companion, prime podcaster, and conservative discuss chief Ben Shapiro’s mere presence at Podcast Motion,” the corporate stated in an announcement. “After giving the leaders of Podcast Motion enough time to appropriately tackle their misstep, we’re disassociating from Podcast Motion, together with canceling our 2023 sponsorship plans.”
A fast recap when you’ve got not been following: Podcast Motion, the podcast business’s greatest convention, passed off in Dallas two weeks in the past. Most main audio corporations have been represented there, together with Cumulus Media and The Each day Wire (The Each day Wire is Ben Shapiro’s media firm, and Cumulus handles its audio advert gross sales). Shapiro made an surprising look on the convention, some folks have been mad (most individuals have been identical to “huh”), and Podcast Motion’s organizers issued a prolonged Twitter apology (extra on that later) for the “hurt executed by his presence.” It kicked off a shitstorm. Proper-wing media had a subject day, claiming the convention and its attendants have been illiberal, whereas some convention attendees are nonetheless demanding extra accountability from Podcast Motion.
Podcast Motion seems to be siding with those that have been upset about Shapiro’s look, tweeting on Friday: “We’re putting in insurance policies to information our social media & occasions with inclusivity, variety & respect for all. It’s a journey. We’ll preserve listening, continue to grow collectively.”
Even when the convention was able to probably exclude The Each day Wire from future occasions, pissing off Cumulus could have been one other consequence for which organizers weren’t ready. Cumulus is the third-biggest radio firm within the nation. Its podcast operation isn’t as large as, say, iHeartMedia’s, nevertheless it’s not insignificant. Along with The Each day Wire, Cumulus additionally represents different conservative reveals like The Bulwark with Charlie Sykes and The Dan Bongino Present. It is smart that Podcast Motion would wish to salvage its relationship with the community and probably exhibit that there’s a place for conservative discuss on the convention.
It’s unclear what steps Cumulus anticipated Podcast Motion to take after the blowup and if something particularly prompted the announcement yesterday (the corporate didn’t reply to request for remark). It does really feel like one thing was within the works as a result of…
Podcast Motion quietly eliminated its Twitter apology
Yeah, that’s a bizarre one! I noticed this when making an attempt to hyperlink it above for all of you, however the notorious apology thread is now… gone. You possibly can nonetheless take a look at the total thread courtesy of the Wayback Machine, an web instrument for which I’m without end grateful.
Podcast Motion posted the apology on August twenty fifth, saying that the choice to just accept cash from The Each day Wire was “unacceptable” and a mistake. In accordance with snapshots on Wayback, it seems the apology was eliminated as of September 4th.
Podcast Motion didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. I’m curious to know why it was taken down after everybody already noticed it and whether or not discussions with Cumulus had something to do with it. I’ll make sure you preserve you guys up to date if I hear something.
Can podcasters compete within the creator financial system?
Love a brand new Forbes checklist (I’m biased!). Yesterday, my former employer launched an inventory of the highest 50 creators, rating stars based mostly on their clout, entrepreneurship, and (duh) earnings. Just one podcaster — Name Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper — made the checklist. She acquired a plum spot, rating third behind MrBeast and Charli D’Amelio. However the checklist, which is dominated by YouTubers and TikTokers, demonstrates that Cooper is the exception moderately than the rule.
To be clear, she isn’t the one particular person on the checklist with a podcast. Emma Chamberlain (#5), Rhett & Hyperlink (#7), Markiplier (#11) and a number of other others on the checklist do, as properly. However none of them began in podcasting, and as a rule, the podcast is a facet hustle moderately than the primary present. Lacking from the checklist (and rightly so) are conventional celebrities who transitioned to podcasting and social, like Conan O’Brien, Joe Rogan, or Dax Shepard as a result of they established themselves first via movie and tv.
Cooper actually stands alone as somebody who rose to prominence purely via podcasting. She has gained an simple following amongst younger girls and has been strategic about utilizing video and social media to extend engagement (assume the Unka Jams second). And even then, the viewers is nowhere close to the extent that creators get on YouTube and TikTok (she has a mixed 3.6 million followers throughout platforms — nothing to smell at however nowhere close to the tens and a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of followers creators in her league have).
Being one of many prime stars within the podcast business has earned Cooper a candy $60 million cope with Spotify and media clout. Nevertheless it has been some time since one other creator who wasn’t a C-list superstar or an athlete or a YouTuber has been in a position to break via. It looks as if the impediments to making a sustainable creator financial system via podcasting alone are the identical ones we preserve speaking about — discovery, sharing, and monetization, issues which have but to be solved by the business. There’s additionally the dedication of podcasting — even avid podcast listeners will be reluctant so as to add new reveals whereas scrolling on TikTok takes damaging effort.
Is there a restrict to how a lot creators can obtain via podcasting alone? Extra on that…
Are podcasts doomed to grow to be movies?
I actually hope not, however Anchor co-founder and former Spotify exec Michael Mignano makes a strong argument for why that is likely to be the case (although he doesn’t see that as a nasty factor). In a brand new weblog submit, he writes that video podcasts could also be the easiest way to scale audiences and enhance engagement.
“For so long as I can keep in mind, everybody has been ready for podcasts to grow to be a much bigger enterprise and extra equitable for all stakeholders. Video would be the key,” he writes. “Podcasts could go the way in which of video, however it might truly be an excellent factor for all concerned.”
He argues that the video market is just a lot larger than the audio market (honest!), that the pandemic made distant recordings extra frequent (which occur on video-capture companies like Zoom and Riverside anyway), and that movies are extra shareable on social than audio-only clips. And the success of Alex Cooper, who has managed to faucet into that video market and benefit from social, is robust help for such arguments.
However, however… can we not lose one thing if podcasts grow to be indistinguishable from run-of-the-mill movies? Look, I’m right here as a result of I really like audio. Likelihood is, you might be studying this since you additionally love audio. From a sensible sense, I like that it bodily calls for much less of my eyeballs, that are mounted on my laptop most days. I additionally respect that, in contrast to with video, all of it comes right down to the storytelling, dialog, and aural engagement (video, as you may see from the Forbes checklist, constantly rewards hotties). I typically do not know what the podcasters I take heed to appear to be, and that’s completely nice as a result of I actually don’t care.
I’m not naive about the truth that many within the business will (and possibly ought to) embrace video and that it will likely be key to podcasting’s enlargement. However I do assume there are sufficient audio-only customers to maintain conventional podcasts as an artwork kind, even when it by no means will get as large as video.
