Mini Post: A Boring Podcast Blues.

I'm more partial to podcasts that talk about great albums or albums that really had a substantive story behind them, like, well "The Great Albums." This Vulture story notes that podcasts as a promotional tool for new albums or new artists can backfire if there just isn't enough of interest to cover in their creation or rise.

Harnessing the Business of the Medium

The previous entry here a couple weeks ago began with more thoughts about how changes in communication media shape the messages or content transmitted. The post ended, however, with questions about how acquisition deals in podcasting could further change this medium.

Spotify is acquiring a lot of podcasting companies. It appears to be the main media concern out there that is doing this. Will others get into this game? HBO is doubling its “McMillions” documentary series with a behind-the-scenes and extras podcast. Netflix is making nominal efforts in the podcast world with its Irishman podcast as well as its short interview series with stars of new shows and movies on the service called “I Hate Talking About Myself” (which itself is a quick-hit mini podcast of 10 minutes or less per episode, a la The Ringer’s Spotify exclusive, “The Hottest Take.”)

But these feel like token efforts and nobody’s idea of a serious challenge to giant generators of content like Wondery, The Ringer and Gimlet. Amazon seemed to have the scale to succeed in this field but pulled back from its Audible Originals shows in August 2018, only a little over two years after their launch. HBO and Netflix certainly have the resources and connections with talent to compete in the podcast or audio entertainment space if they so chose. Do HBO and Netflix know something that Spotify doesn’t?

Anything HBO, Netflix or Amazon does in podcasting has to start as a loss leader at this point to attract attention, or it has to be bundled into its existing subscriber offerings. Spotify, on the other hand, can put new shows from the companies it has acquired behind its own paywall, while using the great volume of already popular shows from Ringer, Wondery and Gimlet as loss-leaders or attention-grabbers. That’s a lot larger critical mass of content. 

On the Recode Media podcast, which analyzes these matters, Peter Kafka said on February 6 that Spotify won’t put popular podcasts behind paywalls, but will “encourage” its newly acquired properties to generate new exclusive series. This has already happened with The Ringer about to launch “Music Exists” with Chuck Klosterman and Chris Ryan.

What’s the point of all this? It’s so hard to get noticed in the flood of podcast content out there, that having the promotional muscle that a giant like Spotify can provide is a must for a new podcast to catch on in large numbers.

The Medium Takes Over The Message

A couple of anecdotes I caught recently argue strongly for the idea that the medium controls the message in artistic content such as music or movies.

Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller, speaking on Chris Hardwick’s ID10T (pronounced eye-dee-ten-tee) podcast in March 2019, described an issue he ran into while making “The Aristocrats” documentary in 2005. Streaming video was just starting to emerge at that point, but Jillette and his colleagues already had to think about where the movie, about the legend of a certain long-lasting dirty joke, would be seen most – in theaters or on home video. A movie theater audience, he explained, had to be given time to react to elements of the joke or different comedians’ versions of the joke, with pauses before the next bit of narration or other spoken element. Otherwise, a laughing audience can actually miss what is said next in the movie. On home video or streaming, it’s easier to go at a quicker pace, because one or two people watching at home may laugh or be amused but they don’t fill a room with as much energy for as long, and the makers of the program can move on more quickly.

The Netflix show “Bojack Horseman” comes to mind as a perfect example of this. Its jokes are often rapid fire, but subtle, in the dialogue, and the pace of the show rolls right on almost before a viewer can react to any one piece of it. Movies and shows are less and less likely to allow room between jokes or funny pieces of dialogue, especially in comedy, because so few are being seen anywhere but privately on streaming. Another example – the recent comedy “Long Shot” with Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron, which played in theaters, but its makers probably knew most would see it on HBO or streaming, because its pace is similar to that of “Bojack Horseman.”

In music, the way the medium shapes content is even more pronounced, and that can be seen in an example of how the very order in which performers appear and present songs is changing, because of how recording artists know music is being heard.

“Rockonomics,” an enlightening book by economist Alan B. Krueger (and sadly, it was his swan song), covers how streaming music service Spotify counts plays of songs for royalty purposes. A listener has to play a song for 30 seconds to count as a “stream” or “spin.” So producers putting together artists to collaborate on tracks will structure the performance so the more popular performer appears first on the track, to make it more likely that listeners will hang in there for at least 30 seconds.

It would be an interesting exercise to analyze popular duets of decades past (think “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves,” etc.) and see if the more popular performer sang first on these songs. Maybe the same principle did apply to keeping listeners tuned in on FM radio, maybe not. Even if it did, it’s less likely that there was such precise knowledge and analysis of this. In the case of Spotify, popularity is being evaluated by a much more precise metric – exact numbers of plays that artists have on the service. And so, this was probably not much of a concern in the recording studio when these older songs were made. The main factor was a producer’s opinion or artistic ideas about who should sing what lines in the song, based on the story being told in the lyrics, or what words sounded better for each performer – not a sophisticated data analysis.

This blog previously hasn’t explored such broader questions about media, focusing on podcasting, but the role of Spotify in music, as just mentioned, is important to observe, because probably soon, Spotify won’t just be called a streaming music service, since it is getting ever-more involved in the podcasting field, having acquired Gimlet and now, as just announced, The Ringer. Would these same principles apply to these producers’ podcasts? Would the more popular host or guest need to appear in the first 30 seconds or two minutes of a show to raise engagement and plays? Or will the merging of podcasts into a medium like Spotify change their shape in other ways. It’s something to think about.