State of the Podcast(s) with Ashley Carman
TOPICS DISCUSSED
What We’ve Learned from Pantsuit Politics
The State of Podcasting with Ashley Carman
Your Beautiful Birthday Reflections
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EPISODE RESOURCES
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.
Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. Welcome to Pantsuit Politics. We are so glad you're joining us for this very, very, special episode. We are celebrating our seventh birthday here at the podcast! We're going to be talking about what we've learned over the past seven years and some of our favorite memories from our time as podcasters. We're also going to be talking to Bloomberg reporter, Ashley Carman, about the state of the podcasting industry. We love Ashley and think she always has such smart things to say about what's going on with podcasting. So we thought this would be a good moment to share some of that with all of you. And we'll wrap up the show by sharing some of your reflections on seven years of Pantsuit Politics.
Beth [00:00:57] We are aware that we are less than a week out from our midterm election, and we do think that's important. And our message to you today is vote, vote early, vote wisely. Encourage your friends and neighbors to vote. Take people with you to vote, make your voices heard. And then we just have to wait. And so instead of doing a bunch of wild speculation today and spinning ourselves up into anxiety, we're going to step back and look at the big picture of what we do in podcasting. And speaking of, you're going to hear Ashley Carman talk about video as a big part of what's going on in the podcast industry. We are not really there yet at Pantsuit Politics, but we have made a first step in that direction.
Sarah [00:01:34] We're tiptoeing.
Beth [00:01:35] And our tiptoe has taken us on to YouTube as a platform. This is a very easy way to share the episodes. You'll find the episodes there on our channel. We do not have a video of Sarah and me, it is just the audio. But you can hear that audio on YouTube if it's where you like to listen. And it is a super easy way to get this show in the hands of people who say, "Well, I don't do podcasts or I don't know how to listen to a podcast or podcasts aren't my thing."" You can say, That's great, just turn it on YouTube then." And we would love for you to do that.
Sarah [00:02:04] And up next, here is our birthday celebration. Happy birthday, Beth.
Beth [00:02:18] Happy birthday, Sarah. Can you believe we've done this for seven years?
Sarah [00:02:22] Absolutely not. I'm so glad you responded to my email, which I still have, (we'll put it on Instagram) where I said would you want to start a podcast? Can I be honest with you? I didn't think you'd say yes.
Beth [00:02:35] What do you think I would say? Like, a gracious no?
Sarah [00:02:39] Yeah, I thought you would say, like, listen, I got a full time job. I have a new baby.
Beth [00:02:44] Those things were true.
Sarah [00:02:45] And you had such a serious job. And I thought that you would say, like, a blog post once or twice is one thing, but I'm just not up for that level of commitment. But I ask people for things all the time with no expectation of their answer. That's sort of my vibe. I'm so happy you said yes, though.
Beth [00:03:06] I'm so happy that you asked me. It changed everything for me. It made me a much less serious person and I'm thrilled about that. A much happier, much less serious person.
Sarah [00:03:14] You are serious in a different way.
Beth [00:03:16] That's fair.
Sarah [00:03:18] You're less serious and more purpose driven. How about that?
Beth [00:03:21] I like that! Nailed it.
Sarah [00:03:22] Thank you.
Beth [00:03:23] You've been good at branding since the beginning. That's part of your gift.
Sarah [00:03:27] Listen, I can turn a phrase. Sometimes I get lost in a sentence, but other times I can turn a phrase.
Beth [00:03:33] Well, we just had this conversation the other day about what we're doing and how we're doing it and all kinds of things. And I said to you I'm married now. I'm with you. Whatever happens, we're together. There's not going to be a breakup here. We're in it.
Sarah [00:03:50] This was the thing I wanted to talk about as we're looking at seven years. When you think back to those beginning episodes, I'll say the first six months, how much has changed and how much has stayed the same as far as what you think about me and our relationship and what we're talking about and the audience. It's a big question.
Beth [00:04:15] Well, let me take those one at a time, I think. So how I think about you has changed dramatically because I really did not know you well. I knew college Sarah, and I knew that college me bears almost no resemblance to the person sitting down at the microphone. So I wanted to give you that space also to say I'm getting to know adult Sarah, not college Sarah. And I think we both did that really well. I think that's a way in which we were unusually generous with each other. You don't meet a lot of people who can say, I'm willing to see you on a new page. And so that was a real gift, and I think you extended it beautifully to me and I tried to do the same. And so now obviously I know adult Sarah very well and I depend on you and I learn from you. And I always like it when we get to do interviews for other shows together because it gives me this really clear opportunity to articulate here are all the things that she's brilliant at and all the things that she's taught me and all the ways that she supported me. So it's been a total making of the relationship. And that's been the most fun part.
Sarah [00:05:26] It's so funny to me because it feels like we treat each other very carefully the same way we did in the beginning, but for different reasons. It's so funny because it's like in the beginning I think we were so careful because we didn't know each other and I think we both knew. I knew instantly-- not to brag on myself, but I knew the first time we had a conversation on the phone, the the famous conversation where I said, we're not talking more or less recording. I knew instantly we had something that our conversational flow was very complimentary and interesting. I will say it is equivalent to the feeling I had when I met Nicolas. I always tell people, like I fell in love with Nicolas and I thought until I die I will be interested in how his brain works and what he's thinking. And I think I felt that same way with you. Like, until I die, I will be interested in what she thinks about this. Don't always agree with her, but interested in how her brain works. Because it was different from mine but not so different from mine, you know? And so it was like there was this very carefulness. And now the carefulness is just because I know you so well that I'm, like, you can navigate the person's inner life as well as you can ever navigate someone's inner life but when you are more aware of it and you have more transparency and vulnerability, which our relationship has had from the beginning, you know the terrain much better. Again, it's the carefulness you take whether you don't know the terrain or you know it so well that you know where to be careful. You know what I mean?
Beth [00:06:50] Yeah, I think that's really well said. So how do you think about the audience? I was not confident at the beginning of this that we would get to do it for seven years. I would have been shocked that we were going to get to do it for seven years. I was also not confident that anyone would listen. And so when we started realizing that we had an audience and not only that people were listening, but that they were interacting with us, I went through this very intense period of feeling like I needed to study that audience. So I responded to every email. I read every email more than once. I responded to every tweet. I was kind of in this mode, even though I had this full time job, of being a little bit obsessive about the audience. And I've gone through a lot of iterations of that because I think given my background and my training, I studied first and then that led me into this space where I started to think about the audience like customers, like, how do we always make the audience happy? How do we ensure that they're having a great experience every time we're here? And you really helped pull me out of that by saying sometimes we're going to say things that are challenging to people who listen or that they don't enjoy hearing, and that is okay. It is not a customer-business transaction, it's something different and broader than that. And so now I just think of the audience as the continuation of our discussion. That we have our conversation and then all of these beautiful people and some who are less beautiful in their actions, but mostly by and large, incredibly beautiful people are going to pick it up and continue to transform it into other things. And sometimes they'll share that with us and lots and lots of times they won't, but you can feel it happening. And that is the healthiest, happiest place I've been. What about you?
Sarah [00:08:46] Well, so much of our beginning was informed by my work in blogging, and so I had an experience with a very small audience, almost all of which had personal relationships with me. Like, so much of my blogging was driven by people who see I posted something on Facebook because they knew me and they had some sort of connection to me and then they would read it. I didn't have a lot of people who read my parenting blog that I just I didn't know. There was some sort of tenuous connection. So I guess I thought that's what the podcast was going to be. I think if I really traveled back in time and got inside my own head, that's probably where I was at is I thought we'll build a pretty decent listenership just based on people who know us and want to listen. I had no framework or anticipation for the audience that we have now. I mean, it has just been a complete amazing surprise and blessing that there are just now this entire network, universe of people who listen, some who have like just become our people and our friends. We're finally, after seven years, getting to meet Brian face to face. We used to call Brian (one of our listeners from the very beginning) our North Star. We'd be, like, well, how would Brian feel about this? He's our North Star. I mean, that's how connected we are to so many of you guys. And so it's funny. It's like we got this audience and now I've built these tenuous connections like I'm used to from the blogging, but it's so different.
[00:10:10] I was not prepared for how different of a medium it was and how intimate it is to be in someone's ears and to build that sort of trust and relationship. Because I do feel like we are in relationship with our audience even the ones who don't. I know it's parasocial and there's all this descriptors, but it doesn't feel parasocial to me it is. It's a little weird, but because our podcast is not sort of an affectation, like, I'm not playing a character on here, this is who I am. The only difference is I cuss a little bit less. When people are like, well, they don't know you. And I'm, like, they kind of do. No, we're not going to dinner, although sometimes we do. But the people who listen to our podcast, they do know us because politics is such a personal and vulnerable topic, because we share so much of our lives on here, because we're friends and we're in conversation with each other. So there are a part of that conversation between the two of us, which is a very close personal friendship. I can't imagine what it's like to be like a TV character and people are walking up to you and it's really not you at all. They are reacting to a completely fictional character. Because it's so different for us because it is this is who I am. This is me. And so I think that's also why we've been able to do it for seven years, because it isn't such a sort of part performance. Like, it was really different what we show up here and do here.
Beth [00:11:39] What's changed for you in the way that you work? The way you prepare for an episode from the beginning and that kind of the habits and systems?
Sarah [00:11:49] That's the biggest change. That is absolutely the biggest change for me over the past seven years. When we started, I was still blogging. I was doing social media consulting. I was about to run for office. I was doing this podcast, so I was cobbling many things together-- as had been my way since I moved to Kentucky in 2009. I had not had a fulltime 9 to 5 job, and it took me several years-- even several years I would say at least a year past when Pantsuit Politics absolutely was my full time job under any definition for me to recognize, oh, this is my full time job. This is not a side hustle any more, because I had just been in that frame of mind for so long. It really had to be sort of this conscious recognition I'm moving into our new house where I had an office and a studio. I think that's probably where I really shifted. And then when I lost the reelection it was like, that's fine, you have a whole other thing you are doing now. And so it's much more professional. I mean, for a long time we would sit and be, like, what do you want to talk about? And we would just talk about it. And now the content planning is way, way, way, more intense and there's more of a process surrounding it than it used to be. And our social media presence, not to mention having a team, having employees, owning a business, having accountants and all that serious stuff, I would say the the professionalization of Pantsuit Politics is absolutely the biggest change over the seven years.
Beth [00:13:24] I have always been addicted to working. I am not a stranger to I'm going to do this all day, every day. I think the biggest shift for me when we started, I felt that I needed to be a very online person, that I really needed to track what the conversation was on Twitter, that I really needed to know what people in cable news were talking about. And over time, I think I've realized that actually being a very offline person is much more valuable to what we do. And being more involved in my community and more anchored in my friendships and reading longform writing and really being able to back out of that very online space is better for what we create than trying to just be in the mix.
Sarah [00:14:12] Absolutely. I think what we practice here is a very holistic politics. That's what I'm going to call it. And I can't do that if I'm not a person in the world. Listen, some of my best sort of aha moments and things I want to talk about come because I'm reading something else, come because I'm li redecorating a room, or throwing a party, or going for a walk with a friend. And they say something that trigger-- I've learned to let my brain do what it does and come here with fresh insights and things to share with our audience, I have to be out there living a whole and complete life because pundits who do that all the time are boring. Hot take.
Beth [00:14:54] Well, it's a form of trust. It's a form of trusting yourself and trusting the audience and trusting our partnership, knowing I don't have to know everything about what we're going to talk about because you're going to know things. And there are two of us for a reason, and our audience will know things and they'll teach us those things as they continue what we're making here. And I think settling into that trust in every respect has taught me so much in the past seven years. I feel like I've grown 35 years or something in terms of perspective because of that.
Sarah [00:15:29] I think there was a real pivot point when I realized, oh, she researches different than I do. I don't have to feel guilty because I don't research like she does. Realizing like, oh, I see it up here, she sees it down here, and that's the strength. Because I do think that I felt this pressure and more of a temptation to not compete with you, but to compare. The more professional it got, the stakes get higher, there's more money involved, there's people involved. And when it's a partnership, there is that comparison. And I think we've navigated that really well. But I won't lie and say it's not hard to remember, like, no-- you're really good at saying everything is okay here. We are fine. Just because you're better at I think navigating the business stuff because you just have much more experience of saying, like, I think there's a temptation over the professionalization to treat everything like a problem. And you're, like, no we're just trying to get better. There's no problem here. And I think that's been really helpful to me. But that was a journey. I mean, that's like a journey you have to take, I think, over the course of a business. And I think we're really good at articulating we want to grow the community, but perpetual growth. Nobody here Pantsuit Politics is trying to get big enough to sell-- just FYI. I think you're going to hear our conversation with Ashley Carmen next, where we talk about the scalability. That's like the always goal inside this industry. Not here at Pantsuit Politics, guys. That's not the life we want to live. We're not doing that. Just sleep easy knowing neither Beth nor I are here trying to get Pantsuit Politics so big, we sell it for like a million dollars. Hard pass.
Beth [00:16:57] No, we do not want that. I think we think about the money side, which we will talk more specifically about in a minute. I think we think more of the money side in terms of responsibility. What's our responsibility to our families and to the kind of lives that we want to have with them? What responsibilities do we have to our employees now because they are integral to this business? It is a huge leap of faith to say I will work full time for an independent podcast. And so making sure that we are being responsible to Alise and Maggie and to our partners at Studio D. And then I think the biggest bucket is the responsibility to the audience. Beyond those baseline sustainability factors, how do we make sure we are always investing in doing what we do better? And so that kind of takes me to the content side and what have we changed on in terms of how we see the world? I will tell you that the investment in the content has changed me dramatically. There is no experience in my life that I think has taught me as much in terms of just a field trip as going to the Iowa caucuses. That was a very profound experience for me.
Sarah [00:18:03] Yeah, no, I think that that is true. The ways in which we have incorporated our listeners and what they've taught us has been really, really, important to me and has changed the way I think about our content. At the beginning, in some ways nothing has changed and in the some ways it has changed because I really just want to sit down with you and chat about the news. Obviously, that's not exactly what we do anymore. The audience's presence is more integral to what we do now. It feels like you're in the room with us more than it did in the very beginning. I think that moment for me was during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. And I tear up, Beth, thinking of this. We got an email from someone who had never told anyone their story of sexual assault, and she shared it with us. And I will never forget that as long as I live. And I thought, oh, man. You just kind of feel the weight of that. You feel the weight of people telling you I'm voting for the first time. I'm running for office for the first time. I've mended the relationship with my father. It's heavy in the best possible way. We started our new book Now What with the quote from William James, "We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep." I remember the first time I read that quote and sending it to you and thinking, like, this is what we do. It just feels like we're deep diving. It feels like every time we start this podcast and we're on this island and we think we're talking about one political topic, and then we just dive all the way down and we see and hear from all of you and see all of that connection and realize what is below the surface of so many things that are happening in American life and around the world. And I just wish everyone could have that experience and could feel that and could see that connection. I feel that presence. I feel that connection to you, into our audience. When I get frustrated or anxious or sad or upset, it guides me in a really, really, profound way. And it's hard to express the gratitude I feel for that and how much impact that has had over the past seven years of my life.
Beth [00:20:31] When I read The Body, which is subtitled A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson. I left that book thinking it is a miracle that we feel well ever a day in our lives. There is so much happening here and it's all connected and it's connected in ways that science can kind of get to. But there's a lot of art and mystery as well, and it's just miraculous that we function at all. That has come to be my perspective about the United States of America and about any society in which people govern themselves. It's just a miracle that anything happens. That is a totally different place than I started. I sat down on this podcast very much with my business leader hat on thinking there are some really obvious things that we could be doing better here, and I've got some ideas about how to do it. And the more we do it, especially the more we travel and see different communities and what animates those communities, what challenges those communities, especially as we learn more about the natural world-- part of what I love about making this show is how much I get to think about geography and climate and different forms of energy-- it's just a wonder that we function at all. And that's given me a lot more patience and respect for where we are. Now, that doesn't mean that we have no lines or principles, that everything is okay, that we're going to entertain every perspective. We've talked a lot about this in the past. It just starts me in a place of greater contentment and peace, because I've been able to do that dive and to see more. And I know that there are depths that we have not explored yet, and that makes me excited to keep doing the work.
Sarah [00:22:17] We're going to pivot a little bit and talk more about the business side of podcasting and the industry itself with Ashley Carman. Ashley is a reporter covering podcast music and the broader audio world at Bloomberg. She used to be the senior reporter at Verge covering podcasting, and she wrote Hot Pod, the podcast industry's preeminent newsletter. And she has a new newsletter now. She's fantastic. She's the podcast reporter, my personal opinion. We love her here at Pantsuit Politics and we can't wait to share our conversation. Before we get started with Ashley, we talk a lot about monetization and so we thought we would go over a little bit about the monetization structure here at Pantsuit Politics, which we've never really talked about on the podcast. We've talked about it on our premium channels, but not here on the podcast.
Beth [00:23:04] My favorite thing in the world is telling someone what I do and then figuring out how to ask me how we make money. There's always this awkward moment, like, so do you make money from that? How does that happen? And it happens through several different channels for us. By far, the sustaining driver of Pantsuit Politics' financial resources is listener support. It has been since the beginning. It always will be, I think. The subscriptions that you buy on Patreon or Apple Podcasts subscriptions are what allow us to make the show hands down.
Sarah [00:23:43] It was a very important turning point in Pantsuit Politics. The first Patreon drive is how we brought on a professional audio engineer, our OGs. Remember that Chad and Nicholas and Beth used to audio engineer the show, not me, because I was smart enough never to learn how to do it. And we remember people would be, like, it's really loud in my left ear. [Crosstalk].
Beth [00:24:03] Seriously really loud. And I got to turn back all the way up. God bless you all. Thank you for hanging on.
Sarah [00:24:10] For hanging with us. So that's what we did with our first membership drive, which was on another platform called Paywall. And y'all, the very last subscriber-- we had one left from like five years ago-- and she finally was like, hey, how do I get on this? And we're, like, we love you, bless you for paying the $5 a month for the last five years. But she was the last one. So now everybody's on Patreon or Apple. But I always just love that little Paywall. It was like $15 a month. It just connected me to our history in a very important way. We cannot do what we do without Patreon and Apple podcast subscriptions. It's just that's the long and short of it, is the people who support our show. And I think also the content we create on those channels makes us better podcasters.
Beth [00:24:49] Absolutely.
Sarah [00:24:50] It's so good. It's so helpful. We do create a lot of content-- not going to lie to you. But when I look at the sort of universe of the content we create now as compared to seven years ago, I'm just very proud of us.
Beth [00:25:03] Me too. And it makes me think more flexibly too about the audience because some people subscribe as a customer for the product. I only pay for it when I know I'm going to be listening to that extra content. If I'm not listening, I'm coming out. But then there are people who never listen to any of the premium content and just want what we do here on the show to continue. And all of those people are important. Every $5 a month, $15 a month-- $15 a month really sustains the show are all the way to our executive producers. That is the most important revenue that we have. The second bucket is advertising, which you obviously hear on the show. Advertising is a much smaller component for us than lots of podcasts because we are a big podcast. In the universe of all podcasts, we are a tiny podcast in the universe of podcasts with advertising.
Sarah [00:25:49] The reality is that for advertisers, a political podcast is a hard sell. We have politics in our name. And so I think if we had this audience size and we were talking about parenting or fashion, our advertising share would be much larger. But it just spooks people. That's okay. It's okay, everybody.
Beth [00:26:12] And advertising is much more volatile. You're going to hear a lot about that in the conversation with Ashley. So those two things. Speaking events help us tremendously financially and also improve our content. We do it primarily to improve our content, and that's maybe a thing we should articulate because we say this in our team all the time, that we do a lot of different things. We speak, we write books, podcasting is the sun of our solar system. We exist to make this podcast and everything we do around it has to support that or it can't be in our universe. So speaking helps. We've had some revenue from books, but the primary thing is listener support with advertising as our second major funding source.
Sarah [00:26:55] And so with that background, why don't we share our conversation with Ashley Carman? Ashley, welcome to Pantsuit Politics.
Ashley Carman [00:27:04] Hello. It's good to talk to you guys.
Sarah [00:27:06] Well, we invited you here to discuss the state of the industry. It sounds official. I really like it. But it does feel like we need to start by defining the industry. How do you even think about the industry of podcasting, especially as it's starting to encompass everything from independent podcasts like us to huge media conglomerates like Amazon and Spotify and Apple that are merging podcast with all other audio like music and books. I noticed in your bio, you described it as the audio world. So how are you thinking about that audio world?
Ashley Carman [00:27:38] Yeah, you're right. It is getting increasingly difficult. When I first started covering podcasting-- and this is super nerdy wonky-- but when I first started covering it, everyone thought of podcasting is saying they had an RSS feed. So basically you could listen to a podcast in any pod catcher, you could even have your own RSS. You could load the RSS page feed on a web page. Like, RSS feed was really the key here. And increasingly, we've kind of seen these walled gardens with like Spotify, for example, and even video platforms like YouTube trying to call video podcasts a thing. Which I'm not a purist. I'm like, sure, it's a video podcast. I think like podcasters, yeah, it's a tough term, but I think increasingly I'm just thinking of it as like you distribute an audio only feed. But I do believe that we could talk about this more. That all of these worlds are just going to blur together and it's someone who's just a creator online and maybe audio is the preferred medium.
Beth [00:28:41] So we use the word creator a lot. How much do you feel like you have creators to cover versus manufacturers at this point? It just seems like so much content is recycled into the form of a podcast. You wrote a big story about people paying to be on podcasts, how now a lot of podcasts are paying for their downloads in numerous formats. And it feels much more like industry to me than art form, but maybe I'm being too judgmental about it which I would be open to. I have that tendency.
Ashley Carman [00:29:17] I mean, luckily the cool thing about podcasts is that the barrier to entry is pretty low. Honestly, even if you aren't that great at editing audio, there are some apps that have made that a lot easier. I'm thinking of like a descript where you can actually edit words like a transcript instead of actual audio. Obviously, Spotify's anchor has increasingly tried to do this as well as other apps. So the barrier to entry is pretty low, which is cool. Breaking through is difficult and also there is a thriving independent production company world where there's a lot of audio excited people who run their own companies. But, yes, there is also this other part of the industry that's very corporate and that's increasingly becoming more of it. But it's not to the point where it's like music and labels where it's like you really need a label behind you to break through. I do believe that independents can still make it happen in that space.
Sarah [00:30:11] I'm interested to because when you're saying like audio is their preferred content, it feels to me like that is not the industry's preferred content model. It feels like this push, especially from the big media conglomerates--- and you've covered a lot of your reporting-- that push to make podcasting more like television than radio. More serial, more sort of contained forms, seasons, story-driven, less like host-driven. You've had some host-driven successes, especially under the likes of celebrity model, but not a ton. And it just feels like-- there's a great tweet there and somebody was, like, stop trying to make podcasting TV, just let them do audio. That's their art form.
Ashley Carman [00:30:56] Yeah, you're hitting on so many things in that statement, but yeah, I think we're seeing a variety of factors here. One, is you have all these big companies making investments in the space, big time investments, and they need to recoup that money. And audio advertising is growing year over year, but it's nowhere near the levels of video based advertising. So if you're a company, I'm talking about companies specifically, but even if you're an independent creator, I mean, YouTube allows you to monetize so easily. You could just turn it on. Spotify doesn't have that yet-- it does have it, but you have to be pretty big to take advantage of that. I think most platforms don't allow for that. Apple doesn't have that. So really video is a way to bring more ad dollars into the space and recoup that investment and start making money. As far as TV narrative-driven shows, there's a little bit of prestige there for sure. I think they're hoping that there would be derivative works that come out of that, that they could be adapted for TV. So it's sort of like the podcast is the pilot of host. But at the same time, I think that networks that are really audio oriented do see how important having an identifiable host is. Because, like your show, your audience knows you. You are hosts that they identify with. They like you. And I think audio oriented networks do see that in that importance. And I think they also recognize, again, for ad money you need an always on show that you can monetize against and a back catalog. So there are a couple different strategies here and different networks approach it differently.
Beth [00:32:32] I value in your reporting that you are very descriptive, like when you said that you are not a purist about video podcast. I can tell in your reporting that you're never trying to say, like, this is what podcasting should be. You're saying this is what is happening in front of me. I wonder over time if you are developing a sensibility about the ethics of this industry. It's something Sarah and I talk about all the time, and we think about it in two layers. So as a podcast, what are our ethics around advertisement, transparency around partnerships, things like that. And then separately, we think about what does it mean to be in the news and politics space when you're not a journalist, you're not a pundit, you're still sharing some information that people rely on? And how do we behave ethically there? So I just wonder what comes to mind for you when we talk about what is ethical in podcasting as a business?
Ashley Carman [00:33:22] Yeah, I'm fascinated by that space just across the broader "creator economy". I mean, it's also new and I think the norms are being written now. And I think especially in podcasting, like you mentioned this article and I'll explain it just for folks who haven't seen this. So I wrote an article about podcasters accepting money from guests. So sometimes maybe a podcaster would pay gas to come on like an appearance fee. But this is more guests paying podcasters to bring them on the show, so almost like a sponsored episode. In many cases, the disclosures are just totally different across the board. And one example I had in my piece, there was no disclosure. It was included after I reached out for comment. But, for me, I'm just interested in how people are trying to make money now. Like, how is this world developing? How are people approaching new business models? What are they trying? It's sort of not up to me to decide what is ethical there. The industry kind of has to decide for itself what it's willing to accept, and advertisers have to be willing to say what they're willing to accept. So I think with that piece, the FTC has its rules about disclosures for ads. You are supposed to disclose if there's money exchanging hands. So there that's a thing that they say. But the industry itself has to decide how do we feel about this? And independent creators like yourselves also probably have your own lines. So, yeah, I just find it so fascinating to see what new things people are trying.
Sarah [00:34:50] Well, the words we use often at Pantsuit Politics as the wild, wild, west because it just feels like things are shifting and changing. And I'm wondering, as you look back over your time reporting on podcasting, what you feel like were the real pivot points? I know everybody talks about when Apple put the podcast app native on the iPhone, so you didn't have to download a podcast app which also aligned with cereal's viral success. And I don't think that was an accident. But I wonder the entrance of Patreon on the scene when you started to see these big media companies get involved. As you look back over your years of reporting, when do you see some-- if we're in the wild, wild, west and the town is being built, when were some of those buildings going up down the main thoroughfare?
Ashley Carman [00:35:35] Well, I think things really started to change when Spotify entered the scene in earnest and made a lot of its acquisitions. And you could focus on a variety of acquisitions, like their firsts were Gimlet and Anchor and then Podcast followed. For me, the more interesting acquisition actually was its acquisition of Megaphone, which is a service I'm sure much of your audience is not aware of, but it's essentially where you host a podcast. And for Spotify, what they want to do is also monetize podcasts through it. So the idea would be your podcast, just as an example, could host a Megaphone and you could allow Spotify to insert ads into your show, and therefore Spotify makes some money and you make some money. And that's kind of like how YouTube does it, for example, with their ads. So for me, that was actually the bigger moment in Spotify's trajectory, just because I think tapping into that ad world is a huge opportunity for Spotify, more so than owning a podcast network, potentially, but they needed the network to make it happen. I think Amazon acquiring Wondery like is a lot of this is around the tech platforms entering the space. For me those are the big moments. And increasingly we've just seen more and more investments, more and more acquisitions. I think that's when the conversation really changed and those are the moments I really think about.
Sarah [00:36:49] It's so interesting that because they mirror so closely what I saw in blogging, which was the people who had independent success, including us, before the big media companies entered the scene, were able to monetize more successfully. But once monetization became the focus, you really lose that sort of democratization because like what you said, their focus is monetization, not creating good content. They think it's like, how many different industries do we have to do this in before we realize it's not that simple to create good content guys. It's just not as easy as you think it is no matter the form, whether it's blogging or podcasting or television or radio or whatever the case may be. You just see this pattern play out where it's like, well, we'll just do celebrity hosts of podcasts and that's what people want. Or we'll just do a million true crime podcasts because that's what people want. And then you get this reporting that's it's really hard to launch a podcast, but you can see the strategy is just launch as much as you can and see what sticks. You see that in a lot of networks, big and small. But that's not how you get lightning in a bottle. And it's just so interesting to watch this cycle sort of play out over and over again.
Ashley Carman [00:38:04] Totally. It's all scale plays, obviously. If you're a big company that wants to hire a lot of people and continue to be massive and publicly offered and make your investors happy, you need scale. And when you have scale, you're going to be focused on monetization. So, yeah, I think the incentive sort of change in podcasting a little bit.
Beth [00:38:25] You've written a little bit about the intimacy of the format and how it motivates people to take action in their lives and how that has political consequences for sure. I wonder what some of the most interesting examples of that you've seen are.
Ashley Carman [00:38:38] Yeah. So the top of mind example, just because it's the most recent example that maybe you're also thinking of, is I wrote a piece with a colleague of mine, Davey Alba. We wrote about some research put together that basically there were some podcasts that were encouraging their audience to call hospitals and emergency workers to basically protest their treatment of COVID patients-- basically all COVID patients. And so that was just very interesting for me. And the reason why I want to write about that research is because that was just like, huh, if this is really what is pushing people to take action, that's fascinating. That the podcast host has this ability to encourage their audience to actually do something in the real world and take steps. But on a more innocuous level, this shouldn't come as a surprise. I'm sure some of your audience has bought things based on the advertisements you've read or endorsements you've made. And so that's why podcasting in the past historically has really been oriented around those promo codes, because the host's word goes really far. And I'm personally just very intrigued by that dynamic because I think it's different from TV or any other media, maybe influencers and digital media is sort of similar, but increasingly a powerful medium.
Sarah [00:40:12] Yeah. I'll never forget Marc Maron talking about everywhere he goes, he has to take a bag because people bring him so many gifts. And sort of being, like, what? And that's our experience, every great line we do, people bring us things. It's so generous, but you're in people's ears for hours a week. That is a very intimate relationship. And it's like that's what I think is frustrating with this sort of march of monetization industry. It's like you guys, you can't scale intimacy. That's not how it works.That takes time to establish. You're not going to get that right off the bat. And it's like the other thing you can do is create this long form, deeply reported, sort of the serial model. But that takes a lot of time and money and investment. It isn't exactly scalable either. And you can just see this battle playing out across the platform. And then you see like the reporting you did on Spotify, they laid off a bunch of Gimlet people. Those people felt frustrated. They felt like they'd never been supported, that they got acquired and then the relationship they built with their audience, it wasn't marketed, it wasn't expanded. I think there's a lot of frustration in the industry right now.
Ashley Carman [00:41:17] Yeah, for sure. And I guess it comes down to why you think podcast listeners are listening. And maybe everyone has their different reasons. Like I to listen to a podcast when I'm going on a walk because I'm a phone person. So I like to talk on the phone, but if we're not talking on the phone, having someone talking to me kind of fills that need. But maybe some podcast network could say, well, this is pure entertainment. Like, you're just bored, you don't feel like looking at a screen. You want storytelling. You want whatever it is. You want to get informed. Like I feel like there's maybe different reasons people listen and these networks are still kind of trying to figure out what maybe the scalable reason is.
Beth [00:41:53] I really celebrate that you're a phone person. I never hear anyone say that. I feel like everyone is always bashing talking on the phone. I love that you talk on the phone.
Ashley Carman [00:42:02] Yeah. I'm a major film person, probably why I chose this job.
Sarah [00:42:06] I was [Inaudible] to say that's why your stuff is so well reported.
Beth [00:42:10] When I talk to people about what we do, I always joke that we cannot have a five year plan because things change so rapidly in this space in that really we cannot even have a five month plan being both podcast and news-driven. But I wonder-- recognizing how unfair the question is-- if you look ahead, what do you see around the corner? What do you think the next big trends in this industry will look like?
Ashley Carman [00:42:34] Yeah, the immediate things I'm watching is just this broader macro economy and the ad market, just because I think podcasting, again, is really trying to grow its ad market. Now you have inflation and the economy changing and advertisers pulling back. So in the very immediate term and going into next year, that's really what I'm watching and seeing how resilient the industry is against that. And then going from there, I think there's going to be a lot of open questions about just how, again, the business develops. Like, is it where we're at? And this is what the industry is? Is going to continue to grow? Does it just turn into this sort of blob of content and we can't really define what's a podcast, what's a video, who's a creator, who's a podcaster, all of those terms? I mean, that's the main things I'm watching, I guess, and just seeing I think subscriptions is very interesting. The industry likes to talk about subscriptions because obviously you can buy them through Apple Podcasts and Patreon and now Substack is doing them too and tons of other platforms as well. So I think that's like an area to watch. Y'all are obviously already great at that, so it already exists. I just don't know if the big players who aren't so independent and hosts focused are going to find success there or not.
Sarah [00:43:50] Now, I think that's right. I think it is going to be interesting to see. When you have a huge company that's not just focused on podcasts, I think what you're seeing is they're like, well, this is a good space too to lighten the load and make it a little leaner for our other offerings. It does feel like often with the big companies podcasting is sort of the stepchild of the situation, which I think as a podcaster and a stepchild I don't appreciate. But I do think that as the market tightens and if the economy changes, I think you're just going to see that play out. Podcasting will sort of be a first on the chopping block in a lot of places.
Ashley Carman [00:44:32] Yeah. And we've already mentioned we've seen layoffs at Spotify, which is really unfortunate. We also saw layoffs at [Inaudible] which is really unfortunate. And just as a tech example, Facebook got into the podcast scene last year. So 2021 they entered and I think a little less than a year later, they already had announced that they were shutting down their podcast product. And they're doing that for totally different reasons, which is they're focusing on their top priorities, which is reels and taking on TikTok--
Sarah [00:45:04] And Metaverse.
Ashley Carman [00:45:05] Right. And the Metaverse. So different situation, but exactly like what you're talking about where it just wasn't a priority. I don't know why they decided to get into it in the first place. But just as an example of a tech company being like, okay, actually we got to pull back a little here. And not by a little we got pullback entirely.
Sarah [00:45:21] I think that's what I wish I could just say. I wish we could have an industry wide meeting with all of us and I would just say, make us a priority. We're worth it. Podcasting is worth it. Stop treating it like a stepchild or just some scalable part of your overall business. Give it the time. And I think that's what you hear from the people that are laid off from Gimlet. It's just this, like, give us the time and attention we deserve. This is a really, really, powerful medium. Obviously, we love it. We believe in it. I can tell from your reporting that you do too, and I just wish the broader industry could get on on board.
Ashley Carman [00:45:53] You're speaking it into the world. Maybe you're manifesting it.
Sarah [00:45:57] That's right. I learned that from Oprah on TV.
Beth [00:46:01] Well, thank you for spending some time with us and thank you for your reporting. This industry, the wild west, does feel very opaque, especially sitting here in Kentucky doing what we've been doing. We've been at it seven years and it is still hard to know anything about what is actually happening and what's coming. And so your work is incredibly valuable to us.
Ashley Carman [00:46:24] I appreciate that. Thanks, guys.
Beth [00:46:26] Thank you.
Sarah [00:46:38] As we wrap up our birthday celebration, thank you to Ashley Carman for coming and talking to us. And we wanted to share some of your reflections on what you've learned from Pantsuit Politics over the last seven years. Lots of amazing, funny products. This is the thing I can't go without. Lots of you wearing more sunscreen, hat covering. I feel like I have personally over the last seven years prevented at least a single case of skin cancer-- I'm just going to say it-- with my relentless pursuit of hats and SPF and and swim leggings and scratchcard. So I'm going to climb that mantle as we look over these other reflections.
Beth [00:47:14] You deserve that mantle. We also know that several kids have been diagnosed early with type one diabetes because of how you shared about your experience with Felix. A lot of things that have nothing to do with politics that we'll hear from people. You said this one thing this one time and here's how it changed my life. And that is a remarkable part of Dennis. I can't think too much about that because it makes me want to examine every word. But it is a real gift to hear that from you.
Sarah [00:47:44] Yeah, I do feel like the Felix Type one diabetes episode will be my Oprah when the guy got in the camera and said [Inaudible]. And then for years on Oprah people would come back and be like somebody attacked me and I heard his voice and I didn't go and then I didn't get murdered. So that's our don't get moved to the second location. And, look, we did that episode and I thought I'm going to get these emails and still when they come I'm just a puddle on the floor because it is an email that I'm happy, impacted people's life, but I don't want anybody in this club with us. But I am so thankful and grateful, especially if it can reduce the trauma of someone's diagnosis by catching it early the way that we did. And Felix knows that and we talk about when we get those messages, too. So, yeah, that's an intense impact that has come our way via Pantsuit Politics recently. So we wanted to share some of the individual words you guys have emailed us because they've been so amazing. We love this one from Nikki. She said, "I'm Beth some days, Sarah some days, but mostly I'm me. I love that. We love that because there's no teams here. We're not trying to get anybody to pick a side ever on Pantsuit Politics. So I love that. I do like it when people say, like, I see myself on both of you. I think that that's a really lovely compliment.
Beth [00:49:02] I do too. I hope it's true that listening makes you more of you. That's the best thing that we could do. If you listen to this and you feel more like yourself, that's the goal. I really felt like Karla understood the insecurities in my head when she said, "I will never get tired of Sarah and Beth." I have thisperpetual fear of being stale or gimmicky or tired. And Sarah's always, like, "The news is always changing. We're going to be talking about something different." And I one level know that's true, and I am working to address that. And on another level, there is still a lot of left over corporate me that says, "Be so careful, people are going to get exhausted with you." So thank you, Karla, for never getting tired of us. I really appreciate it.
Sarah [00:49:44] There are so many times where I feel like we're worried about something and we're talking about something and we will get the perfect message from somebody. Of course the mythical iconic story is Alise emailing us and saying, "You seem stressed, could you use some help?" And now she's our managing director, so that linked up up well.
Beth [00:50:01] We were and we could. Yeah.
Sarah [00:50:02] Yes, we were and we could. Thank you, Alise. Renee wrote us and said, "I've not found one episode that I didn't learn something from. And that is saying a lot considering my age, life experience, and what I did for a living up until three months ago." So I love that. I love that you're learning and curiosity is definitely a guiding value here at Pantsuit Politics. So hearing from people especially the episodes where people come in thinking they know what they think and what they feel and they go, man, by the end, I was like, okay, I guess I'll think about this differently now. That was such a nice thing Brandon Harvey said in his episode when he came and talked to us.
Beth [00:50:38] More than one person said, "I've learned it's okay to change your political party," and what a gift that is to me as someone who lived the fear of perhaps taking this whole thing down because I couldn't stick with the Republican Party any more during the Trump era. So thank you for articulating that and for being flexible and open and adaptive in your own lives. And, listen, as I said to my seven-year-old this morning when Chad and I were having a little debate about the purpose of the White House Instagram account, our party affiliation should be the least interesting thing about us. And when that's not true anymore, we have a big problem.
Sarah [00:51:18] Yeah. That was a very pivotal moment in the history of Pantsuit Politics. And I think it illustrates such trust that we have with each other and such trust that the audience has with us, that they weren't here for the gimmick. Listen, I always want to be clear. I think the gimmicks served us. It was a very easy on ramp to explain our show for a long time. It served us. I think it helped grow our audience in the beginning.
Beth [00:51:45] By the gimmick you mean that it was Sarah from the left, Beth from the right.
Sarah [00:51:49] Right. I think that that was a good elevator pitch. But I am more proud of the fact that we were allowed, able, adaptable to leave that gimmick behind.
Beth [00:52:01] Well, it just illustrates something that is true all the time in ways that the audience can't see. We are very clear on the fact that we love doing this. Hope we get to do it until we retire. Love it. And we will not sacrifice anything to do it. We won't. There are lots of things we are not willing to do in order to continue doing it. And the top of that list is lie to the audience.
Sarah [00:52:28] I'm a terrible liar. Couldn't do it if I wanted to.
Beth [00:52:30] Yeah. So it just became really important to me. And, honestly, audience expectations were a big reason I changed that party label because I just couldn't stand people saying I feel deceived by your tagline. That wasn't true for me, but it was true for them. And I'm not interested in deceiving anyone, ever.
Sarah [00:52:48] Well, Melissa wrote in and said she feels like it is a way to engage with politics as sustainable and feels hopeful. And I think that's what's wrapped up in that expectation. We want to be the Rick Steves of political broadcasting. We want to be that level of the people who love us, love us. Lots of people don't know who we are, and that's okay. That's okay. I just want to be here for the people who this serves and who do feel like it's a holistic politics where they can process the news and leave feeling empowered instead of more anxious and more frustrated and more upset. I always tell people when I'm trying to explain what we do, that it's a political podcast for people who hate politics and everyone is, "Oh, I think I'll listen." That's sort of the guiding light. I think we've gotten clear on that. For a long time we had like a year and a half where we could not get the language right. We wanted to replace that gimmick. And I think we finally just realized, like, that's the point. And we can't find another gimmick because we adapt and evolve with ourselves. And so maybe we'll find the perfect one and then it won't fit anymore. We'll have to leave that one behind too.
Beth [00:53:58] Using the Rick Steves of this makes me think of two questions I wanted to ask you. So the first one is who that the audience has not seen. Someone who's not been a guest on the show comes to mind for you as like extremely influential over the past seven years, someone who's really kind of been a mentor or personal board of directors type person for you.
Sarah [00:54:20] I would probably say our agent, Caroline. I feel like that was an also a very important but hidden moment in the Pantsuit Politics history. But I think we'll go down as a very important one. She's incredible. She believes in us. She's also brilliant and funny and wonderful and incredibly supportive of our work here. When she asked to represent us, it just felt like a vote of legitimacy when we really needed it. And I think when we were pivoting away from the gimmick and to have her come and say, I think what you do here is really important and I want to help you grow the show. So I think I would say Caroline, how about you?
Beth [00:54:57] Well, now I'm mad at myself for asking this question because there are like so many people. And you don't want to leave anybody out.
Sarah [00:55:03] I can't believe an Enneagram two asked this question.
Beth [00:55:05] I know. Caroline came to mind for me immediately too. There are lots and lots of people. I think I'm going to say Leda Marritz. Leda was at Apple on the editorial team and is now with NPR, but Leda spent so much time with us. First of all, Apple reaches out to us and we're like, "Do they know we exist?" Like, there are over a million podcast on Apple Podcasts and someone there has a clue who we are. That was amazing. But then to actually get on a teleconference with her and to hear how much she had listened and how much she cared about what we were doing and how interested she was in how we did it and all of the connections within Apple that she helped us make, she's just someone who really comes to mind for me as a nurturer of this show as a show that can have some staying power. And it really means a lot to me.
Sarah [00:55:58] Yeah. It's there's something about people who have their eye on the entire universe of podcasting and then see us and say, "Hey, what you're doing is special." It just feels really nice. It feels really nice when people recognize your work. That's why we love all of you. So what's your other question?
Beth [00:56:16] Well, when you blow out candles on a birthday cake, you make a wish. So I wonder what your wish is for next year. We're going to do this for another year. Yeah. You're in.
Sarah [00:56:28] Yeah, I definitely have plans to do this for many, many, more years. I was thinking, can I make it that Joe Biden and Donald Trump don't announce that they're going to run again? But I'll try to be less snarky about my wish.
Beth [00:56:37] That'll be fine. Many of us share that wish.
Sarah [00:56:40] I share that wish. I wish for Pantsuit Politics that we continue our really sustainable and life giving path that we are on right now. I feel like we are in a really, really, good place. That we have clarified what we're doing, that we have built out our team in a really wonderful, sustainable way. I love that we are going into the presidential cycle and it feels like all our focus and all our energy is on the podcast. I love writing books, but it does sort of distract you. I thought the TV pitch that we were working on for a while was really exciting. And also I find myself relieved that we just get to focus on this work and do what we love during a really important time in American politics, which feels like all the time that we've been doing Pantsuit Politics has been a really important time in American politics. But that is my wish.
Beth [00:57:43] Well, this is totally characteristic because you have this macro wish and I have a micro one. One of the most frequent fair criticisms that we receive, a very fair criticism, is that we do not have enough diversity in guests on the show and in perspectives shared here. That is totally fair. We think and talk about it all the time. We've tried lots of different approaches to work on that. They often feel a little forced or hollow. And so what I am coming to realize is that my wish is just to get to know better different communities and people who work with different communities and spend time in spaces that we don't have access to on a deep level. Where we're spending time with them in person, where we're seeing what that work looks like on the ground, where we're in those communities, so that it is an outgrowth of a relationship by the time it makes it to the podcast, instead of being an attempt to improve what that looks like outwardly. I think that has to be inside out work. So my wish is just for those opportunities to arise, I know that we will dig in and invest as they do. And I'm just hopeful that they'll present themselves over the next couple of years.
Sarah [00:59:00] So as we were celebrating our birthday. We marked All Souls Day at my church. We talked about this on the podcast. I love All Souls Day and All Saints Day, which is a very ritualistic annual celebration of those who have passed. And I thought, for the first time ever in seven years, oh, we have listeners who have passed away that we never knew. So many people write and share with us and talk to us, but so many don't. And because of the nature of our relationship with our audience, people have certainly passed and we just never knew. And I thought, oh, man, I've never thought about those souls. You know how much I love and care for all the souls in this audience. I never really taken that moment to think, oh, we've lost listeners over the course of the seven years. And so I thought as we wrapped up our birthday celebration in a characteristically bittersweet way here at Pantsuit Politics, I did want to say thank you to all the souls who are a part of our community, both still with us and those who are no longer with us. Beth. Happy birthday. Thank you for saying yes to that email seven years ago.
Beth [01:00:20] Thanks for emailing me.
Sarah [01:00:22] Thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back in your ears next Tuesday. And until then, keep it nuanced, y'all.
Beth [01:00:57] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.
Sarah [01:01:02] Maggie Patton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.
Beth [01:01:08] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.
Speaker 3 [01:01:12] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Allie Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holliday. Katie Johnson. Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stiggers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited.
Beth [01:01:47] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McCue. Nicole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.