Spotify: The Amazon of Podcasting?

In his February 14 appearance on the Bill Simmons Podcast, Ben Thompson, the expert analyst behind the Stratechery website that covers e-commerce and media, posed a couple ideas related to podcasting and streaming audio that should be further scrutinized.

Thompson mentioned Spotify’s acquisition of Wondery and The Ringer and its increasing library of podcasts, but he was speaking to Simmons, the head of The Ringer, and Thompson was praising the strategy, saying it put Spotify ahead of Apple Music, Amazon and other platforms in the podcast space. Thompson also put forward the idea that podcast aggregation can work much better than news media aggregation, as Apple has also tried to do with Apple News, and Vox, BuzzFeed and Vanity Fair are all doing, and may be doing more of going forward.

Simmons and Thompson both commented that more successful outlets like New York Times and Washington Post aren’t going to want to integrate with other news outlets because they have millions of subscriptions and would be cannibalizing their value by participating in aggregation. 

It was hard to tell if Thompson (and Simmons) is fully committed to the idea that podcasting is more amenable to integration than legacy print news media because the discussion bounced around so much between topics and often let go of threads before reaching complete conclusions. Reflecting on their observations, however, it seems that podcasting might actually be less amenable to integration when niche aggregators like Stitcher and Luminary have a more challenging time, at least in terms of commanding a higher subscription rate. As with the New York Times and Washington Post, the biggest podcasters (like Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla) aren’t going to participate in someone else’s aggregation, since they have better value to protect.

One can also see how Simmons is effectively voting with his feet on these issues. Simmons threw a couple bones to Luminary with specialized niche podcasts like “Rewatchables 1999” and “Break Stuff,” but is now putting the Ringer’s bigger and broader ideas, like the “Music Exists” show, on Spotify. Luminary found that its subscription rate had to be closer to Stitcher’s $3 or $4 a month, because demand for its offerings just wasn’t high enough to command $8 or $10 a month.

The question now may be whether Spotify ends up crowding out or dominating the landscape and making it even harder for niche aggregators featuring specialized content to keep enough of an audience to sustain themselves.

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.

SNL's sharp dig at podcasting

Kind of says it all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YEmeXsknE4

Conference Blues

Perhaps it’s my own ignorance, but last week I checked out the National Association of Broadcasters NAB New York Show, and, having only been admitted to the exhibit hall, even as a media representative, found it a bit lackluster.

I guess I was expecting a lot more broadcasting content to be showcased in the exhibit hall, rather than aisles and aisles full of displays for audio and video hardware and equipment, such as sound mixing and recording, video cameras and editing, and other broadcasting hardware. I was also expecting some podcasting content to be showcased, since there were sessions on the conference agenda concerning podcasting.

The most prominent presence of podcasting on the exhibit hall floor was one small table crowded with business cards for something like 50 to 100 different small, lesser known podcasts. None of the big podcasting names such as Slate, NPR, Earwolf, Midroll or The Ringer were represented. Only one podcast distribution company of any consequence, VoxNest, had its own booth on the floor, and this company is focused mostly on hosting services, for small podcasts, although it does also provide such services on a larger enterprise level for companies, possibly from industries other than podcasting.

Again, possibly another aspect of ignorance, but it’s surprising that podcasting doesn’t have a better conference or exhibition in the New York market on a regular basis. There’s Podcast Movement, but that goes to different cities each year. This could be a prime opportunity for the right conference production company.

Acquisition Opens A Box Full Of Questions

Sirius satellite radio’s plans to acquire streaming music service Pandora, announced last week, raise a lot of questions. 

First, what should Sirius do with Pandora? Fold it into its own service? Remove Pandora’s free ad-supported option? Cannibalize the useful parts of its “music genome” technology?

Sirius had developed its own version of customization using certain songs or artists as seeds, called My SXM, but that appears to have been phased out with its redesign of its mobile phone app. So if Sirius already thought customization of music was on its way out, what is it doing with Pandora? Or does Sirius plan to replace My SXM with Pandora?

Some analysts have suggested that the purpose of the acquisition is for Sirius to use Pandora as a funnel to try to convert free listeners into paid subscribers, as Spotify does all by itself with free and paid tiers. Another idea about the reason for the acquisition is that it’s a bet on, or reaction to the likelihood that the market can support multiple streaming music and talk services. However, the Sirius-Pandora deal may also be pushing the streaming space toward just having two or three behemoths – them, Spotify and perhaps Apple Music.

Secondly, in the space this blog is more concerned with – podcasts and talk shows – there are still more questions about the impact of this acquisition.

Should the podcasts being distributed through Pandora be walled off from Sirius? Would podcasters who agreed to distribute their shows through Pandora agree to distribute them to Sirius? Would Sirius pay for their content? Had podcasters given their shows to Pandora with an understanding that they were only for that service, not any new master that relies on subscriptions?

It's a rarity that a broadcaster or podcaster operates on both outlets. Kelly Carlin, with her SiriusXM show focusing on guest interviews, and her more free-form “Waking From The American Dream” podcast, is a rare example. Will more hosts emulate that model of doing a more commercial and focused show on paid “airwaves”? 

Something similar does also occur with podcasts such as “Slow Burn,” which offers bonus episodes to those who subscribe to its parent, Slate’s, Slate Plus program offering subscriber-only content. So, if, as always, the medium is the message, will many more outlets operate on this two-tiered basis, and does it mean the free content is less worthy or less valuable? It’s more complicated than that, if the bonus content is a further deep dive for obsessives, rather than just a better produced and tighter program.

With the absolute flood of programming available, both musical and talk, the number of decisions concerning programming distribution, especially with this merger added to the mix, just rose exponentially.

Podcast of the moment

99.9% Invisible, “The Laff Box,” May 1, 2018. I’ve cited other episodes of this podcast here before, but this one was particularly good in the way it explored an interesting aspect of sound design, complete with a more recent example. The episode covers how laugh tracks for TV sitcoms were invented and used, and then how they fell out of favor, with a turning point being the early 2000s sitcom “Sports Night,” whose creators were forced to use a laugh track against their better judgment, and eventually phased it out slowly, without ABC’s permission, in a manner that was hard to spot until it was gone. That part of the story is told through an interview with Joshua Malina, a member of that show’s cast.