Transcription
Joe Rogan is signing a new deal valued at up to 250 million. Alex Cooper landed a massive deal for 125 million. This podcast will make millions this year. The Prof podcast will be close to 15 or 20 million next year.
I mean, we have like 20, 30,000 patrons.
Yeah, you're printing money.
Oh, David, that's if I had your money, I'd throw mine away.
So, it's worth $250 million to get a percentage of Rogan's ads. Is that crazy?
Yeah, that is crazy. I mean, people are jumping off cranes and lighting Ferraris on fire. And meanwhile, two people talking in a room can bring in upwards of $250 million.
[ __ ] the term man cave. This is like Man Empire. You did this with your mouth. You talked yourself into this.
Very strange.
Isn't that awesome?
Yeah.
That is strange. I mean, when Joe Rogan started out, the only company that would sponsor him was sponsored by the Fleshlight. And uh, this is the butthole version of the Fleshlight. But now, I mean, Range Rover is sponsoring podcasts.
Do you lead by example and live with passion? Then our sponsor, the Range Rover Sport, is made for you.
The biggest store in the world sponsors podcasts. Walmart has the top brands we all love in one place. Even the 2024 election played out on podcasts. An entire medium went from nobody cares to everybody cares in under two decades. The question is why?
Long before the biggest brands in the world were advertising on podcasts, there was one specific group [music] of people who more or less started it all. For the past few years, Ricky Jves, Steven Merchant, [music] and Carl Pilkington have been meeting regularly for a series of pointless conversations.
Hello and welcome to the Ricky Jay Show.
Welcome to SM.
It's time for WTF with Mark Marin.
So, what's going on? It's Bill Bur. This is my uh, my [ __ ] podcast.
Podcasting actually solved a huge problem for comedians. Before podcasting, the only way they had of developing an audience and promoting themselves was to travel all over the country doing sets at college campuses and bars until they slowly worked their way up the mountain of venues.
What's called a hell room. It was a bar. The people there were eating. They had no idea there was going to be a show. They turned off the Bruins game and then they bring you up.
This sucked for two reasons. One, a fan would see them once, maybe twice a year, which meant developing an audience was a slow and painful process.
That you've wasted 10 years, talking about nothing to drunks in bars, and it's too late to go back and do anything else with your life.
And two, coming up with new content is extremely labor intensive. Jerry Seinfeld once said that it took him 24 months just to write the Pop-Tart bit.
I've probably been working on [music] this for 2 years.
That's why it was pretty bleak being a comedian in the 70s and the '80s and the '90s. And then everything changed.
How many of you uh know what podcast? How many of you heard of podcasting?
All of a sudden, comedians had a way of building up their fan base other than just going to shitty little clubs. I remember the moment I realized people were listening. I was doing this bit. It had something to do with the podcast. And I said, "How many you guys listen to the podcast?" And the place went, "Yeah." [sighs]
Comedians started to realize that a TV show or a 1-hour meticulously crafted special was overengineered for what their audiences mostly wanted.
If you do telly, it takes months to write a TV show and make it and film it. And whereas this, you can just walk in a room, you can just ask Carl any question that comes into your head.
People still want that hour and would pay to see it. But the rest of the 51 weeks of the year, they will also tune in to a 2-hour long session of banter.
That just has a way of cheering me up when I'm feeling down. Uhoh.
[laughter]
See what I mean though? That's
And eventually podcasting itself will become a significant source of income for comedians.
Switch over to the Patreon for the last part. So join the Patreon if you want.
Why do you switch? Why are you making them go on Patreon?
That way.
That way. What?
It's good.
You make do you need the money?
Yes.
More on that in a bit. And this is more or less why everyone, not just comedians, started podcasting.
Your podcast was a very early influence for me. I see you've gone past me. Well, [laughter]
Podcasting was just easier to make than writing a book or making a TV show. And people wanted weekly content to listen to. By the late 2010s, if you were a famous person and you didn't have a podcast, there's a high likelihood you were dead. But for any perfect storm, well, you need things to be perfect. And what happened next is why podcasting really took off.
Companies like Facebook and Tik Tok that make apps for your phone will now have to ask your permission to track you. And tracking what you do on your phone helps companies target ads and make money off you. It's more than a hundred billion dollar industry in the US alone.
Companies love tracking because it solved a huge problem for them. Before Facebook, they used to waste a ton of money throwing out ads to a huge general audience. Dudes would see tampon ads. Women would see beard trimmers. But with tracking, they knew exactly who they were selling to. This meant that basically overnight, companies lost the best age of advertising they'd ever been through.
Podcast didn't offer the same laser focus that app tracking did, but it got close for a couple reasons. First of all, everyone has a podcast who no one else in their life understands. Take my friend Ben. He loves Matt and Shane's secret podcast. Me personally, I don't really get it. The technical word for something that a group of people are obsessed with is a niche. And advertisers love niches. Sure, they might not have the entire FBI dossier on them like they had access to in the Facebook years, but they do know that the type of person who listens to Matt and Shane's podcast is usually male, usually in their 30s, that they like comedy, etc. Sorry to dox you, Ben.
And the second reason advertisers love podcasts is because of this.
Hooking you up with 20% off if you use the promo code flavoring. Betterhelp.com/daddy. And if you want to give it a try, head to drinkagg1.com/jo.
There's a reason every podcast ad comes with a code. Let's say my friend Ben is watching Matt and Shane's podcast and he sees this ad.
Get the Metapant now at vury.com/ secret.
If Ben buys those pants for some reason, not totally sure why he would.
I feel like it's ideal for the golf course or office, but also stylish and comfortable enough to wear all day.
I was thinking the same thing, Matt.
But let's say he buys them and he uses the code. The pant company now has a tracking mechanism. They know that this person came from that show which helps the company decide whether the ad was worth the money or not.
Okay, so advertisers love podcasting and podcasters love advertisers cuz that's how they get paid. But that still doesn't explain why one podcast gets paid way more than another.
250 million. 125 million. 15 or 20 million next year. But underneath all this, there's actually an extremely simple formula that determines how much money every single one of these people gets paid. The first part of the formula is super obvious. The number of listeners they have. Joe Rogan has a lot of listeners, aka people to sell ads to, so it makes sense that he gets paid the most. But it's not just the number of listeners.
Take this podcast. Acquired is the hit podcast that breaks down the stories and strategies behind the world's biggest companies from Apple to Bergkshire Hathaway. Their podcast is way smaller than Joe Rogan's. Joe averages around 120 million views per month. Acquired is getting around 400,000. But they still make an ungodly amount of money because of the type of listener they get. Joe's sponsors are companies like Black Rifle Coffee. Buy one Happy Dad Trucker hat and get one free. You need ExpressVPN.
If Joe's audience buys something, they're spending 50 bucks, maybe a couple hundred at most. But look at the list of sponsors Acquired has on their website. I recognize two of those companies, but the rest of them don't even sell stuff to regular people. They're businesses selling to other businesses.
Sponsors have been ROI positive on signing one large customer who heard about them on Acquired.
Let me translate that. If it only takes one person buying something for the company to make back their entire sponsorship cost, that person had a lot of money to spend. And that's why a choir doesn't need as many listeners as Joe to make a lot of money. It's not just the number of listeners, it's the kind of listener and what they buy.
The third part of the formula is harder to measure, but we all know it when we see it. Take two totally different podcasters.
That's what this is called this past weekend. Yeah. How'd you come up with that? Because I just started on a Monday [laughter] to be honest. I didn't really.
Kind of information intensive white collar industries that to a certain extent.
Scott Galloway and Theo Vaughn couldn't be more different. But they do have one thing in common. Actually, they have two things in common.
Yeah, you're printing money.
Oh, David, that is.
$35 million a year. Is that right?
I'm self-conscious talking about this.
They might not make [ __ ] you money, but they do make I'm embarrassed to talk about it in public money. But here's the second thing they have in common.
I had a question for you. I didn't know what you would do. Uh me and my wife tried out a threesome with another girl and turns out she likes girls now. And it turns out I kind of like dudes, so we're thinking about going our separate ways. What would you do? Well, y'all gay, bro.
What advice would you give to find and talk to actual people in an industry that you're curious about entering?
So, anonymous, I started my first business.
Okay, so they both give advice, but what does that have to do with how much money they make? Most people think ads are about ears and eyeballs. How many people can we get to take in this ad? But that's not why we buy stuff. The real reason we buy stuff is because we trust the person recommending it to us. And podcasters like Scott and Theo, they make a lot of money because of the trust they've built up with their listeners. And trust is extra important for sponsors like this. Our next sponsor needs no introduction. Talked about them a million times. Blue Chew is a unique online service that delivers the same active ingredients as Viagra. Does it work? Yep.
So, that three-part formula basically determines why one podcaster gets paid way more than another. But there's one last piece of the puzzle that explains how podcasting became the money machine it is today. After decades of platforms competing to be the king of podcasts, an unlikely victor has emerged.
YouTube is now the number one podcast listening platform.
YouTube being the king of podcasts is pretty weird for one obvious reason. Podcasts are audio. There's a lot of convoluted theories out there about why people are using YouTube to watch podcasts. Parasympathetic relationships, the death of late night TV. I think all of those are a little bit true, but the real reason is actually stupid simple. You find a new podcast the same way you find a new comedian through shorts and clips and thumbnails. Sort of like going to Costco and being offered a sample. They give you a tiny bite and if you really like it, you buy it. What doesn't happen is you try the sample, leave a store, and buy it elsewhere. When people see a podcast clip from Diary of a CEO, they don't leave YouTube and open up Spotify. They listen to it there. And if you're interested in growing your podcast on YouTube, one of the best ways to do that is to up your thumbnail game. We put together a PDF of the top five mistakes podcasters make with their thumbnails. Link below.
Podcast making this much money still feels kind of insane. But it was just this perfect storm where what people wanted to make lined up with what people wanted to listen to and advertisers were willing to pay for. Of course, when the milkshake's this big, everybody wants a sip.
You think I can have a sip of that?
And last month, a new contender stepped into the arena. We'll see how they do.
For something similar, watch this. For something totally [music] different, watch this.