Are Podcasts Just Clip Farms Now? | My First Million

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Too many podcasts, too little time. So, [laughter] I don't know if you've seen, >> is that what a trend means? >> This insane explosion in the number of high quality podcasts done by highquality people. So, there's one that this guy did with this he the the podcast was um from this guy Ti Morris. Ti Morris. It's a podcast called Relentless. So, just shout out to to him. I don't know him, but uh I thought it caught my eye. I've had so many people uh like reach out. There's a guy named Mark Brazil who I like who's got a podcast and he was like, "Does everyone know how much money can be made in podcasting? Like all these people are like discovering this about how strong this medium is for engagement." >> All right. [snorts] So, look at this podcast. Do you see what I'm looking at? >> Yeah. >> With like get a Cybertruck tonight if you can get a training run on these GPUs in >> So, this guy just describe what you're seeing. >> Wow. He's actually recording a podcast outside on a huge building. >> Yeah. And I think, by the way, it's not that hard. Like I think what he's doing is you know like these apartment complexes in San Francisco where like there's like a oh we have like a rooftop thing with like a shuffle board and like a grill that nobody's going to use cuz it's like cold and but if you had friends which you don't but if you did they could hang out here but they won't cuz it's cold. Our version of [laughter] that when Sean and I like started making like a podcast it was let's just make our love seats bright red. >> Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We were like cavemen in the podcasting game right now. So this guy basically has this like fireside chat literally by the fire. They talking to some uh like a technical staff member at XAI and the guy's sharing a bunch of like Elon stories. So you know what? >> I'm in. Guess what? Guess what? I'm definitely in on that. And so I'm listening to this and then the next podcast I see is Joe Londale who's a billionaire and you know probably going to be like in the 10 richest people on earth at some point. like the uh Joe Lansdale is talking to Joe Gabia, the guy who created Airbnb, and they're in like a warehouse and it's well lit and they're talking about, you know, Joe's time at the White House now cuz he's the chief design officer of America. And I'm like, there's been this absolute explosion of podcasts. Um, and this is in every industry. In the sports industry, this is the same thing. You know, I grew up, the first podcast I ever listened to was Bill Simmons. I used to listen to him back in 2007 in college when he used to like have to like download from the RSS feed and you know he had like Ronald Jenkins doing his intro music type of deal and now sports podcasts are like well here's LeBron has his own podcast called Mind the Game where he's sipping wine talking to JJ Reic the future Lakers coach and they're just talking X's and O's and then oh guess what um you know Max Kellerman he's not on TV anymore so so Max Kellerman who goes from the number one TV show to Now he creates a podcast with Rich Paul, LeBron's like longtime friend and sport like the number one sports agent in basketball. They're going to they're going to talk shop. So like the amount the the type of people who are getting into this industry the quality of production and sets like our friend Chris Williamson is doing like IMAX 4K like you know your phone starts rumbling when the an insight happens like I don't know what he's doing with production value and then you have the volume the overall volume that comes from this and I think it's because of what you said podcasts went from niche and nerdy to now kind of cool cool people do them people think you can make a lot of money doing them which I think is not as true as people think. And I think there's this big problem, which is what I call the shelf space problem, which is that a podcast is great when you have listeners because it's like an hour in their ears and it's habitual and it becomes a part of their day when they're commuting or they're at work or they're doing chores or they're going for a run or the gym. And I'm I'm glad we're that for some number of people, but the reality is like you only have so many idle hours where you're going to listen to podcasts. And so the number of podcasts might 10x 50x and it has over the last, you know, 10 years or so. But the number of podcast listeners and listening space hasn't gone up in that same way. And I think that dam has broken. And now what's happened is I think a couple things are going to happen. There's going to be too many podcasts that are bad and boring. So that's happening already. I think there's going to be a disillusionment when people realize how much time, money, and effort goes into podcasting well and you don't get uh fame and money back. And then I think the the the trick and what's happening the the the savior in this case is clips. And so I think podcasts are just becoming clip farms. >> That's not where real engagement is. But I think that's what that's what all these people are going to use as their moral victory, which is uh oh look how many people liked that clip on Twitter or Tik Tok and they're going to make a the the pod is a clip farm and whether anybody listens to the pod or not doesn't really matter. This is I mean TBPN I think is doing the best at that. Um but but that's where I think all this is going. >> I think that um what a lot of people Okay, and we we have I think made mistakes uh on this path a lot as well. I think a lot of people think that just because you see the video and um that's what gets your attention because it is cooler. The reality is is that you just said that it's hours and ears and that a lot of the shiny stuff really doesn't matter. The content just needs to be good and it needs to be consistent and it has to have a unique perspective and it is all in your ear. It's audio is what matters more than anything. And like there's been times where we've talked about something like in minute 55 of this podcast and people on the streets will bring it up and they didn't watch that on YouTube. They're listening to it while they're working out. If if you're working out and actually in fact if you're listening to this on your ears, go to Spotify right now and just like tell us what you're doing right now. I'm curious in the comments. But um people aren't like watching these things. And >> what do you mean people aren't watching these things? People are definitely watching these things. >> No, they're not watching it near if you look at the time spent. If you look at our, for example, if you want on our megaphone and you look at time listened versus timed watch. So the average engagement, the average time um on YouTube versus Spotify or some other type of feed, it's significantly longer. >> So we'll put numbers around this. Our average time on a YouTube video is about 15 minutes. >> Yeah. 15 minutes. >> And on audio is about 40 to 45 minutes. >> Yeah. >> So So you you need three views for every one listener of audio. if you wanted equivalent of uh time spent. Now, even that's not exactly right because that one person who listened to 45 minutes has a deeper sense of connection and trust and and uh fandom than three people who watched 15 minutes each. Now, here's the downside for anyone listening. YouTube, it's very simple to grow. It's not like there's there's a formula behind growing YouTube. It's still challenging, but it's simple. Growing an audio uh feed, very hard. It's very hard. We have tried so long to do it and we have hit so many plateaus multiple times. Growing audio is so challenging, but it is significantly more consistent in in listenership, but it does not grow fast in most cases. >> I think you're right. I don't think you're right though that like the clips and stuff don't matter. >> No, I didn't say that. I didn't say they don't matter. [snorts] They matter significantly less. >> Right. I guess what I'm saying is I think that the people who are who are going to play that game are just actually playing a different game and they can do very well in that game and have like all the results that they want out of it. But it's very different. It is a it is like literally just like a new game in the same way that I think if 7 years ago you're making prestige TV or movies and you looked at like Ryan Tran and Mr. Beast and you're like what? He painted a circle and they have to these six strangers have to stay in it and every 3 seconds something changes on the screen. Like that's not art. No, that's not Breaking Bad. That's not Game of Thrones. You're not going to get that. You know, you could say all those things. >> No, but I'm not criticizing it for that reason. I'm criticizing it because of the the physics, the mechanics of it. Often times the equation of influence involves time spent and so the amount of time you've spent with someone. So meaning the >> So I I wonder if it's going to flip or I wonder if volume is the other variable in this. And if you just said, "Okay, but you're gonna see my face 30 times for every one time you're going to see that." >> It could be. >> I wonder if that works. It might work. You know, >> you just need to do it a lot. >> So are 60 seconds. Our podcast, you said the average listen time is 45 minutes and there's two a week. >> You just you're the volume has to be the game. You better be Walmart. You better be turning that out.