2025 Chelsea Film Festival: Building Communities Through Podcasts

Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription software errors.

[00:00:00] Jeff Umbro: Welcome to Podcast Perspectives. My name is Jeff Umbro. This week on the show we have a special treat for you. We are going to be sharing a live recording from the Chelsea Film Festival. This recording features the Podglomerate VP of Production Services, Chris Bonello moderating a panel that was recorded in front of a live studio.

[00:00:21] This was recorded in October, 2025. At the Chelsea Film Festival's, Trinity Broadcasting Studio, the panel is called Building Communities Through Podcasts and discusses Podcasts as an intimate and consistent storytelling form. How the voice or video driven nature of Podcasts creates a sense of trust and authenticity.

[00:00:40] Podcasts is a platform for niche communities and increasing the conversions of audio and video podcasting. Chris moderated this powerhouse panel. Which included Chris Bannon, the former SVP and Head of Global Audio at Conde Nast. Dan McCoy, the founder and co-host of the Flop House podcast, Stuart Wellington, the co-host of the Flop House podcast, Ilana Levine, the host of the weekly podcast, Little Known Facts, and Ryan Donovan Purcell, a lecturer at Fordham University and the creator and host of Soundscapes NYC.

[00:01:13] Without further ado, here is the panel.

[00:01:21] Chris Boniello: Hello everyone. Thanks for coming. Thank you to the Chelsea Film Festival for having us. As Andrew said, I'm Chris Boniello. I'm the VP of Production services at the company called The Podglomerate, and I think we're gonna have a really fun conversation here about building community through Podcasts. All of us have various experience in film, tv, podcasting, stage television acting as well, and I think it's gonna be really exciting.

[00:01:45] So to jump it off. With a little tidbit here. Let's see. Go over to Dan and Stuart. I was wondering, was there a moment when you were guys were building this show where you found that your work had now turned into active engagement with the audience as opposed to you just putting out a show all the time?

[00:02:07] You're getting responses. You're finding, oh wait, someone is finding a nugget in here and coming back to us with it.

[00:02:13] Stuart Wellington: Yeah, just real quick Stuart, we do a podcast called The Flop House. We've been doing it for 18 years now. Dan, Dan, you convinced me to start recording a show and what are like bedrooms or

[00:02:24] Dan McCoy: something?

[00:02:25] Yeah, I was like do you wanna do a podcast, Stuart? And you were like, sure. What's that?

[00:02:28] Stuart Wellington: Yeah. And we, at the time we were recording with a single mic and just kind of passing it back and forth. And the idea that we would it was. Mystifying to me that anyone would ever listen to the show. I'm trying to remember.

[00:02:41] I feel like we did some initial, like for a while I just assumed you were like recording them and then saving them in a Volpp somewhere. But I feel like there we did like initial things where like people would write in or

[00:02:54] Dan McCoy: Yeah. I, I, we would get. Letters, but it would be like, you know, four years in, we started getting letters.

[00:03:02] And I don't know, I feel like it

[00:03:04] Ilana Levine: From family members.

[00:03:05] Dan McCoy: Yes. Well,

[00:03:06] Stuart Wellington: well, yeah.

[00:03:07] Ilana Levine: Stopped doing it.

[00:03:08] Stuart Wellington: We, we had a, we had a contest where it was like you could, we, part of our show is we review bad movies and we did an we did a contest where if you showed your appreciation for the show somehow. You could pick the movie that we reviewed.

[00:03:21] I could be wrong on this, but and some, a, a listener sent in pictures of temporary tattoos of our faces that they had placed on their body. And then we found out later on, it was a friend of ours anonymously doing it, but it was still, you know,

[00:03:33] Dan McCoy: but

[00:03:34] Chris Boniello: eventually there was

[00:03:34] Dan McCoy: actually

[00:03:35] Chris Boniello: themselves. They made those tattoos.

[00:03:37] Stuart Wellington: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's.

[00:03:39] Dan McCoy: I think that the, but we, you know, like we started doing shows of the late lamented nine two y Tribeca downtown, you know, like the downtown nine two y. And people would show up, but I think that the part that. You always cite that Kind of surprised you is we did a show in Chicago with our network Max Fun.

[00:03:58] Stuart Wellington: Yeah.

[00:03:58] Dan McCoy: And there was a, there was a meet and greet uhhuh that turned into a giant like scrum of people that I don't think any of us expected. And we were signing things for the first time, I think, in our lives. And it's like, well, why do you care?

[00:04:13] Chris Boniello: Why do

[00:04:14] Dan McCoy: you want our ex signature?

[00:04:16] Chris Boniello: I mean, I think that's a great way to start out connecting with those people outside.

[00:04:21] Or you're finding, oh, I'm putting out this small idea in this weird corner of the world. Are there people also watching these strange films and Ilana's show little known facts? You're interviewing actors, stage Broadway, and television, and those conversations are a little more intimate between you and the guests, but do you also find that in the reaction from the audience, they feel that intimacy.

[00:04:44] Ilana Levine: So, hi everybody. First of all, thank you for coming.

[00:04:48] Chris Boniello: Thank you.

[00:04:49] Ilana Levine: I feel like we should all reenact a scene from Beauty and the Beast. Maybe we can do that together afterwards.

[00:04:54] Chris Boniello: And we have one more panelist.

[00:04:56] Andrew Hect: We have one more panelist here. Brian Jonathan, herself.

[00:05:00] Chris Boniello: Ryan Donovan Perso.

[00:05:02] Andrew Hect: Good. Pete, you on the end per,

[00:05:04] Ryan Donovan Purcel: how are you?

[00:05:04] Chris Boniello: Yeah. How's it going? Thanks. Nice you.

[00:05:06] Ilana Levine: So my background as an actress, I did many Broadway shows in the beginning of my career and the Stagedoor, talking about community, which has now become a real thing if you guys are theater lovers. But the stage door was like a very, exciting way to engage with your audience immediately after performing for them.

[00:05:28] And the thing that I realized is that so many people would say like, I live in Brazil, I live in Singapore. Like we think of New York as a very small town. And then you're staged during, and you are meeting people who have come from all over the world because Broadway is. A destination. Right? And so one of the things that I started doing is you'd meet people and then they'd be like, can you, they'd email you at the time that when I started 10 years ago, this idea of like DMing people through Instagram and having direct engagement like it was.

[00:06:03] When I was young, I wrote a letter to some studio to get Mary Tyler Moore's autograph. Like how I figured out in Teaneck, New Jersey how to find MTM. I don't even know. But now you can. In five minutes we can be friends. Through DMing on Instagram. So my point is I realized that like Broadway, we think of as such a New York fan base community, but it's global.

[00:06:28] And I wanted to find a way to share this art form with people who live all over the world and the stars that they loved from, you know, Kristin Chan with to whoever I started with. So basically I realized that. People all over the globe wanted to know about these Broadway stars, and then I took these Broadway.

[00:06:51] Stars and then realized, actually I know a lot of people who do film and television, and Alice and Jannie used to be my roommate, so I got her on and like I just asked friend, after friend, after friend. And when you're as old as I am and have been doing this as long as I am the people you loved and came up with, many of them break through in these huge ways.

[00:07:11] So it just became a way to share these beloved artists with people all over the world.

[00:07:17] Chris Boniello: Do you have a most surprising or exciting place you've had someone reach out from that you would not have expected

[00:07:23] Ilana Levine: the show to reach? Yeah, I mean, this is a very deeply painful thing, but there are countries where Broadway music is not allowed.

[00:07:29] There are people who would get in tremendous trouble, a, if anyone found out. They were listening to it, but especially if men were listening to it. So the number of people who write to me about what a lifeline, you know, I was in, you're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. So like that, that soundtrack is like an anthem for them, but it has to be in secret.

[00:07:51] Has been incredibly moving and incredibly satisfying. In terms of why I started to do this thing to begin with.

[00:07:59] Chris Boniello: Yeah, that's exciting. And Chris, who is the SVP and Global Head of Audio at Conde Nast, reaching out to this global world, do you find that that's a challenge to build the community on some of these shows that you have spread across so many platforms?

[00:08:15] Chris Bannon: Thank you very much. Thank you all for coming. I, it's a challenge sometimes. It, like everything at Con Nast, it depends on the brand. I think the New Yorker already the people who read the New York way of New Yorkers, subscribers in the audience want. How many of you have a stack of New Yorkers that you Yeah, same hands.

[00:08:33] Ilana Levine: Adam Gonick is my guest this week. Just. Coincidentally. Well,

[00:08:36] Chris Bannon: yeah, ask. He's a subscriber.

[00:08:39] Ilana Levine: I bet he is. They want it for free. They

[00:08:40] Chris Bannon: want it for free.

[00:08:41] Chris Boniello: Are you gonna ask where the stack is?

[00:08:43] Chris Bannon: No, I just to point out that like people save that as a kind of totemic object. They carry around the tote bags in New York.

[00:08:51] Other brands at Conde Nast, like you might say, wired, I'm not sure people. See themselves yet as a community. We have a new editor in chief, relatively new Ke Drummond wired, and she's very much. Driving the idea that if you are interested in what Wired is interested in, you're part of their community.

[00:09:12] And I think we're seeing all the brands under the Conde Nast imprint realizing that we're not just a one-way source of information. Our job is to engage with people and get them talking to each other, not, not just make the focus us, but like. There is a community of people out there who see themselves as wired readers, and we need to make sure we're activating them and engaging them and listening to them.

[00:09:38] Honestly, that's the biggest step.

[00:09:41] Chris Boniello: Great. I think it's really exciting to engage with those audiences on different scales. We have a few of our shows that spread around. It's always odd to see on the megaphone, analytics on the back end, like, oh, I guess someone in Romania was really interested in in this episode.

[00:09:56] And jumping all the way over to Ryan, who runs the soundscapes NYC show, who is a host and creator and also a lecturer on history of music and these small communities here in New York, you're currently doing. Disco you've previously done, punk. Is there a way that you're bringing these stories, a specifically to those communities, and then b, looking to spread them out so you don't want just punk fans to listen to it?

[00:10:24] Ryan Donovan Purcel: Well, yeah. I think that my well, by the way, thank you for having me. You're in star GreenLake. It's a beautiful venue. I'm glad

[00:10:29] Chris Boniello: we all got lost in here. There's ghosts, there's strange things.

[00:10:32] Ryan Donovan Purcel: Why. Well, you know, my project bridges many communities. I think fundamentally I'm bridging academic communities in a popular audience in a big way, but there's also, you know, kind of communities that are attached to these musical genres that I'm covering as well.

[00:10:44] And part of the project here is both to bridge the, the, the, the communities between academia and the public, but also to bridge the audiences too, because, you know, by telling these stories and telling them together. And we're finding a lot of overlaps, we're finding a lot of commonality between these segmented genres, which in the seventies didn't really exist to the extent that they do now.

[00:11:04] So it was a more fluid you know, kind of time for music and for society. We're finding, it's a lot of eye-opening things come out of this, this project, but yeah, we're trying to build, build bridges.

[00:11:15] Chris Boniello: Do you find any fights between the academic crowd and the punk crowd?

[00:11:19] Ryan Donovan Purcel: Yeah, so it's a, it's kind of a weird weird thing because, you know, I can, I guess like the, the coverage of punk rock in scholarship, at least academic history scholarship, it's kind of new.

[00:11:29] You know, and so, you know, it's, it's a struggle sometimes to be taken seriously. By the academic audience. And then, but I'm finding from the, from popular audience, my listeners, many of my listeners, they really want that academic knowledge. They really want that academic insight. So I feel kind of caught between two worlds, but, you know, I feel like I'm doing good work because I'm, I am having those connections building those bridges and, you know, making those you know, links between the academic and the broader public.

[00:11:56] Chris Boniello: Yeah, and I think that's something that's really special about podcasting is that direct interaction you have with your audience, with what you're creating. Being able to be intimate and build on that and say, oh, you know, there is this strange group of people over in this corner who like this strange thing that I like, or like this exciting, fun thing and we can all chat now and we don't quite have to.

[00:12:17] Work on scaling it up too much yet until maybe Chris is interested in, in bringing it and making it, you know, much, much bigger. But I think it's also fun to be able to do it across mediums and have live events like this. And I was interested, Dan and Stuart, when you guys are building out your ideas for live events and how you're gonna interact in those moments where you're bringing.

[00:12:38] Your show from the audio world directly to the community, is there rituals? Is there something you're planning for where you're saying, Hey, we're gonna bring this out to

[00:12:46] Chris Bannon: the slaughtering of the chicken? I think that's one of the more gruesome parts.

[00:12:50] Stuart Wellington: Well, when we, when we first started doing live shows, we would.

[00:12:54] We started doing our, our show format is we watch a bad movie and the show is us reviewing it basically. And when we first started doing live shows, we're like, nobody's gonna wanna watch three guys sit on stage and talk. So we so we would do riff fries. Yeah, we would, we would do riff shows where we would, similar to a mystery science theater, 3000, where we would screen the movie.

[00:13:16] We try and tell jokes without preparation over the movie on, we did it to various degrees of success.

[00:13:22] Dan McCoy: It was okay, but there's a reason why they script those. And the problem with doing it that way is you know, you have to get the rights to screen a movie. So we would do this, we would do it only in concert with like places that were already screening movies.

[00:13:36] And so then we switched over to basically doing our show live. But again, we were like, I, it was early on and I was like. Well, we gotta give the live audience something more than just three guys talking. So we started doing these PowerPoint presentations like each of us

[00:13:53] Stuart Wellington: beforehand. So like school. Yeah, it's great.

[00:13:55] Dan McCoy: Well, there comedy Ted talks essentially about whatever we found funny and. Then, you know, like we're, turns out we were the fools. 'cause there are plenty of shows that just go up on stage and talk and they seem to be doing just fine. But I think that we like that we're doing something a little extra

[00:14:13] Stuart Wellington: and then, you know, we, uh uh, the.

[00:14:16] At least initially, I, I don't have a performing background, so the actual, doing the show in front of an audience terrified me. But the part that I was comfortable with was the after show part where we would meet people who had come out. We'd probably go to a bar and I could be in my natural environment.

[00:14:31] Yeah. Well,

[00:14:32] Dan McCoy: it's handy that Stuart Stuart co-owns a few bars and so, and not. When you started out, he was mostly a bartender, and then Uhhuh grew into the ownership. Yes. But but it was, that's a handy thing to have on,

[00:14:44] Stuart Wellington: should have the after party of one of my businesses. Yes. Yeah.

[00:14:48] Chris Boniello: You can fall upwards into ownership,

[00:14:50] Stuart Wellington: uhhuh, but that's also, that's one of the things like, that was, that was an aha moment for me too, was the.

[00:14:56] There was a moment when I was attending bar and it was like midnight on a Saturday and I had like a group of people come in from Denmark who were like, oh, excuse me, are you Stuart from the flop house? And I'm like, yes. And like, I'm like taking pictures with this guy. And then like, what last year, so this was like easily 10 years later, that same guy showed up to a show we did in Oxford, England.

[00:15:19] Wow. Which is weird. Like, it's great.

[00:15:22] Chris Boniello: Traveling fans. Ilana, have you found that you have some fans that are coming for the podcast versus your performances or your stage credit certificate?

[00:15:30] Ilana Levine: Yeah, it was really an extraordinary thing. Obviously before it became a vodcast medium, it was just audio and I would be on a subway talking to someone and by my voice.

[00:15:44] Anyway. When you're an actress, you enjoy being recognized for your Seinfeld episode. Exactly. And now hearing someone recognize you from your voice, because it is so intimate, I feel like I do a lot of live events also. I'm in Brian Park all summer and I at the W Hotel, I do a lot of live things. I mean, one of the wonderful things for any of you here who wants everything becomes.

[00:16:09] You think it's one thing and then it becomes a whole other part of your life, right? Like the idea of all the live things you're doing. When you were in your apartment doing a podcast, that was not your expectation, but so the ways in which this thing that felt so safe to somebody's point, like once you are in public, then I have to wear makeup again.

[00:16:27] Like podcasting was amazing. Because as an actor, you're so worried about this and the idea of just being able to concentrate on the person you're talking to, and for them, you know, I, I talk to movie stars all day. It was very liberating for them to not have to worry about what they look like. So there's something, there's something very unique about getting to meet your audience. I just wanna bring up something about niche because everything is so niche here, like academics and punk or this, or for you, it's like someone loving wired. Public radio. Public radio. I just talked to someone who. Produced content that you can only watch on your Nintendo Switch.

[00:17:08] They've created an entire channel of incredible creative content. Just, it makes me so happy that young people are coming up with ways in this crazy world to still express themselves artistically. So you go, how many people are gonna watch something just on a Nintendo Switch? A lot. Because in every lane that we represent, the whole thing with podcasting is, I think the more niche you are, the more specific your audience becomes huge.

[00:17:37] You find out how many people are weird like you are. Exactly. And so I would just say like I. You know, and also I'm thinking like, what constitutes a bad movie and is it the same for ev? Like what does that even mean? Because you might find one person's trash is someone else's treasure. Has that been true in your experience or are they obviously bad?

[00:17:57] Dan McCoy: Well, we, I mean the. It's, it's kind of weird to be at a, a film festival talking about it 'cause I feel like we're the enemy. But the thing is like, we love movies and I think that a lot of people who love bad movies love movies. 'cause otherwise they wouldn't waste their time watching bad ones. And we try and walk in with an open mind and.

[00:18:15] Number one, not be like jerks about what we're saying, like

[00:18:18] Ilana Levine: hurt

[00:18:18] feelings.

[00:18:18] Dan McCoy: Yeah. We're just, you know, we're having fun as friends together. But we, at the end, we, we say whether it was a good, bad movie, IE like a movie that's fun to watch. 'cause it's bad, A bad, bad movie. A movie that's not fun at all. Or a movie that we actually liked.

[00:18:33] Like we, we have liked movies that we reviewed, you know?

[00:18:37] Stuart Wellington: But to answer your question, that's something we've been trying to find the answer to. What is a bad movie for 18 years? And I don't think right, we're any closer to figuring it out. But that's, I mean, part of the fun is just like goofing around.

[00:18:48] And I feel like that's ultimately what connects us to our audience is that feeling of like, talking about a thing that you don't, you might enjoy a little bit, but you also don't know what didn't work and like goofing around about it, but trying to be positive, I guess, in a way.

[00:19:04] Chris Boniello: I think that's something we all see behind the scenes is.

[00:19:07] Once you get more involved in it, whether you're making a podcast, working on your film and you see the craft behind it and the skills and the tools needed and the work for it, you start to respect that amount of time and sweat and effort. And if the storyline doesn't quite work, but a shot was amazing, you start to wonder how they plan that.

[00:19:24] Or similar with a podcast, when you start getting an audience built up and people you're engaging with, even if it's five or 10 people, they know, you're sitting down there recording those episodes, watching those movies. I hosted a show a couple years ago where we just did Halloween movies for. 31 days in October.

[00:19:40] I wouldn't suggest doing a daily movie show. It was a bit of a production nightmare. But we ended up getting interviewed on a Canadian radio broadcast, 'cause one of the hosts just loved the show so much and we went down a rabbit hole of sixties and seventies horror movies. So there's, there's people out there who are excited that you're gonna put in the time and the effort, especially when tools now make things super fast and have crazy stuff and you can.

[00:20:05] Plug in an idea and get a ton of crap put out for it. But if you're gonna sit down and do the hour and especially put your own voice or your own blood, sweat, tears behind the frame or in the audio mix or something, that is a nice way to engage with that audience. And I was wondering, Ryan, have you had, have.

[00:20:21] The experience now that Ilana was talking about where she has had people recognize her voice. Have you gotten there yet in, in this world of your craftsmanship?

[00:20:29] Ryan Donovan Purcel: Well, I just I came in from LA yesterday for two, two reasons. First it was academic conference. Stop the movie industry. Well, I mean, I mean, there's a, there's a kind of a push within academia, Lisa Histor historians, el least that's what I know to kind of connect with the entertainment industry.

[00:20:44] It's just starting out. And I think that I'm, I'm on that wave of kind of connecting. But when I was out in LA I was out there for an academic conference, but also to host the La Punk Film Festival. So that's one kind of unlikely scenario where someone reached out to me, said, Hey, you know, you would like what you do in punk, you know, would you like to host this?

[00:21:03] Of course I'm be out there anyway. Love to. But at the academic conference. People in academia, they're like, hold on, you're behind soundscapes. NYC, you're that guy. Oh my God, great to meet you. Really exciting stuff. And I was like, wow, this is a warm, inviting community here. And I didn't know that. I was just kind of making things to make them.

[00:21:20] And if you don't mind, I just wanted to share this brand new news. We just started the podcast. Last year. But we just got a, a, a, a big award, the Signal Award for best indie podcast. Really excited for that. So we're riding high. Congrats. Really, really excited about that. And I just wanted to share that.

[00:21:34] Thank you very much. Congrats.

[00:21:36] Chris Boniello: And that's also another great way to build community in the podcast world. In the film festival world, there's a lot of different festivals, a lot of awards. There's places you can chat with, and I've been finding through my career. Most people are just an email or a chat away.

[00:21:49] This, this isn't a huge industry with big walls. I mean, maybe you're not gonna go after someone at the top at Warner Brothers, but someone running the Signal Award, someone doing something like that is gonna chat with you and be able to let you know how to apply, see what you've been about, and it's, it's a good way to, to practice those things.

[00:22:03] Chris Bannon: Can I ask Ilana a question?

[00:22:05] Chris Boniello: Go for it.

[00:22:06] Chris Bannon: Ilana. How do you build your audience and how do you approach. The first time listener, like, because the indie podcasters, I think have the hardest job in podcasting. Right.

[00:22:17] Ilana Levine: I was really lucky because the people, so. I went cast by cast. I did a lot of plays and a lot of people in those plays had huge fan bases.

[00:22:27] John Slattery from Mad Men. I can't see you guys. I can't tell if you're, you know how young you are. So I've made references to people like Mary Tyler Moore, and you may not know who I mean, but Slattery is an old friend of mine and he did my first episode. And you know, once you get someone that has a big.

[00:22:45] Fan base, it's very easy to get Julianne Moore to come up. You know, you just, and then all of a sudden publicists are calling me because a friend of mine started the ball rolling. So I had a very lucky thing that all of you know. Adam Gonick was talking about Malcolm Gladwell on his episode this week.

[00:23:03] I had 10,000 hours of talking to people in dressing rooms really intimately about what it was not to win in this career, but how you get through the losses. And so I really wanted to create a community that was really honest so that when Edie Falco came on, it wasn't like, just tell me about Sopranos, but tell me about the houses you were cleaning.

[00:23:24] Edie only wanted to act and if it was gonna be a hobby for the rest of her life, and she had to clean houses, work seven shifts in restaurants. Her intention was never to be a household name. So it was sort of about sharing these stories with people who had become very well known, who were being really transparent about.

[00:23:44] The way they got there, as opposed to when you go on Kimmel or Seth or those shoe, you're promoting a specific thing and everything seems gorgeous. So that was the idea to share these real conversations. But I had a leg up because the people were very famous at the beginning. What did you start? And I had a podcast yet.

[00:24:03] Did

[00:24:03] Chris Bannon: you start a newsletter?

[00:24:04] Ilana Levine: I, you guys,

[00:24:05] Chris Bannon: did you start a newsletter? Did you, how did you reach? Back and forth.

[00:24:10] Ilana Levine: People who found I would the show, I would say they had my email address that at the beginning and people started writing to me. I would do things also on Instagram like. Sharing fans' reactions to things.

[00:24:24] I would put it, I would include it in the episode, right? Giveaways, like all those, when I think, I haven't thought about this in so long, the number of like, people collect playbills, like people collect New Yorker magazine. I have an insane collection of playbills, so I would, if you wrote in and tagged for friends, you could choose from my incredible library of playbills.

[00:24:45] So it was very Broadway centric at the beginning. And then Alison Janney, who's in a Broadway show, wins an Oscar. So then we're. You know, we can just go back and forth between the two. But a lot of fan engagement. Yeah.

[00:24:57] Chris Boniello: Chris, do you, do you have a similar playbook at Conde Nast or that you brought from public radio days?

[00:25:02] Chris Bannon: Well, public radio, like I used to produce a public radio comedy show called, what Do You Know, with Michael Feldman, and that show was from Wisconsin Public Radio, but it had a live audience every week. And it toured to about once a month to another city in the country. Usually not. Always the biggest cities, but Wichita and Cleveland and places with good public radio stations and really engaged audiences because we found that it's much harder to sell tickets in New York than it is in Wichita.

[00:25:32] I could sell out a 2000 seat theater in Wichita, 'cause all the public radio listeners there, you know, they're starved to see these people face to face. And. Because it's a live show, they get to see each other. The thing I that I took away from that experience was that it's really, and I'm, we're sort of moving to this world and Conde Nast more, we're gonna try and do eight live shows of some of our New Yorker Podcasts next year.

[00:26:01] People like seeing the hosts they love, but they also really love sitting with each other and it's like, oh, these are the people that I am otherwise. Separated from when I'm listing on my run or on the treadmill, but it's like there's an extra energy that's good for everybody when people are able to get together and share their love of something.

[00:26:23] And you know, it's like what's kept me in audio, honestly, all this time is that sense of like, oh, there we're a special group. Like TV people are somewhere else, film people are somewhere else, but the audio people have a thing that they love. A little bit more, and I don't think television actually can produce the same kind of bond that that audio can conversation.

[00:26:47] Chris Boniello: Do you have a time where something failed early in that, that you were testing out,

[00:26:50] Chris Bannon: you don't have enough time today.

[00:26:52] Ilana Levine: That's a different panel.

[00:26:53] Chris Bannon: Care about all those things. When, what failed. Be specific

[00:26:57] Chris Boniello: when an outreach. To community that you were attempting to do, whether Yeah. A live show or a newsletter?

[00:27:02] One of one.

[00:27:03] Chris Bannon: When I was at WNYC, I really wanted to produce a comedy show and 'cause it was is around 2011 or 2012, and I met this marvelous comedian Sarah Schaefer, and I somehow squeezed like $40,000 out of WNYC to make eight or 10 episodes of a show that she had conceived of called Lies. And there were great people on the show, like Kate Berlin was on it.

[00:27:28] There was just, and the whole premise was, she's a bad. Terry Gross, who doesn't understand how bad she is, and the guests come on and they're all improv comedians and they lie fantastically about their careers. I don't know whether you can even find it anymore on, on Apple, but it's, it was a marvelous show.

[00:27:48] And I, what I learned was, oh, you cannot market comedy to public radio people in New York City. They will, they're, that's not what they came to WNYC for. We didn't have any other comedy shows and there was no community for it. And that was like a terrible disappointment to me. 'cause I thought that show was, she was marvelous and so much fun.

[00:28:11] And, you know, we edited the daylights out of it. Each episode was only 30 minutes long. There was real craft in the making of it, but I didn't have enough money to let it build an audience over time. I only was given enough money to do it for eight or 10 weeks. That's not enough time to grow an audience for a thing that's very specialized.

[00:28:32] Dan McCoy: Chris, I had no idea. I used to write for Sarah Schaefer's like. Comedy show and she was doing it in a basement. Yeah, downtown. And what do well downstairs. I was like, Chris, you know, everyone, and this is just another example of it.

[00:28:45] Chris Bannon: Look up that show. If it's out there, somebody should pay her to do it again.

[00:28:50] Ilana Levine: The other, I'm sorry to interrupt. The other obvious thing, there are cons for everything. Like I started at Broadway Con and immediately met my, my. My show grew. Right? That's another global destination where people, and I imagine for everyone here, there are these conventions that are either really small or

[00:29:10] Chris Boniello: festivals,

[00:29:10] Ilana Levine: Comic-Con or film festivals, and that's where you're building community also and, and you're face-to-face with the people listening to you.

[00:29:18] Chris Boniello: Yeah. You get to have a direct interaction and you're not in a gigantic crowd and you kind of know. That initial wall has been broken down, and

[00:29:26] Ilana Levine: I would interview the people at Con, at Broadway Con and then have snippets of their stuff be on the show. And then all their families are listening. Right. Like you, you invite someone in and then everyone they know is now listening.

[00:29:39] Chris Boniello: Yeah. And like Ryan at the film festival this week, you know, you're interacting directly with people you know that are interested in this topic already. Well, are you able to easily outreach there? Is that. A good experiment for you for that community building?

[00:29:53] Ryan Donovan Purcel: Well, I'm kind of working two crowds here. So I got the entertainment crowd and then, you know, film festivals are great for that.

[00:29:58] I'm still learning. In fact some of the ideas that we brought up here I'm gonna take with me. So I appreciate that. But the other crowd of my students and the, the professors in my college, Fordham, and you know, the whole podcast came out of a lecture. That I give called American Soundscapes, where we dive into a specific moment in history and listen to the music and kind of learn what the, what kind of history that music can tell us about that moment.

[00:30:18] And the students came to me, this is actually at Sarah Lawrence College. Before I came to Fordham. They said, this is your, your narratives are awesome. They're so riveted. You have characters that drive the story, you know, and you wrap it up. And talk about the implications. This can be a podcast. I was like, I don't know what that, I don't know the first thing about making a podcast.

[00:30:35] So actually these very creative students really encouraged me, showed me the ropes with Adobe Edition and all these kinds of programs and everything, and really got me going. So it's through this, the schools, you know, that I really find my engagement, like I and I make this podcast. A part of each of my classes, which is not tack it on, but actually it's an ingrained part of the curriculum that I'm doing.

[00:30:54] So like I, I start with an opening anecdote. Like I play a clip from my you know, the latest released episode, which happens to tie into the lecture for that day, and the students are following it, and I find that it's. And making them more engaged in the classroom, but also they're, you know, super fans at the end of the day you know, they're liking and engaging in the digital space.

[00:31:12] And then of course I also have a, a live event series at Fordham Lincoln Center the soundscapes experience where I bring new emerging talent from the school. And I pair that with an academic conversation. So it's a good two for two for one experience, and students go crazy over it because I get them involved too.

[00:31:28] I get them involved with the organization. I got a small little student film crew that works on it and they, they're doing little documentaries. It's cool. So it's like all learning process and all, all love, you know, all, all love all around. It's really good.

[00:31:40] Chris Boniello: I think that's a great point you bring up too, is that.

[00:31:43] The barrier to entry into podcasting is not very high.

[00:31:47] Ilana Levine: It's zero.

[00:31:48] Chris Boniello: It's zero. I mean, it's

[00:31:49] Ilana Levine: no barrier.

[00:31:50] Chris Boniello: Yeah.

[00:31:50] Ilana Levine: I, we can't promise listeners, but anyone in the My mother could make a podcast.

[00:31:55] Chris Boniello: Yeah. And it can be a tool for. Creating that community to build out to a short film or a lecture series or building out a community for live events.

[00:32:03] Or it can just be the stop there that you're making with a beautiful sound mix or a great conversation. And yeah, it just takes a microphone and some desire to record with people and have, have a good time. I think that. People sometimes jump too far into trying to make the next amazing thing with needing tons and tons and tons and tons of talented people to all help out on, and podcasting is a good place to start off learning all of these tools and none of this software or any of these tools is, is that hard?

[00:32:33] There's a million tutorials on YouTube to learn it all. I don't know. Stuart, Dan aot, was there anything as you guys started out where you were just like, you know, this. I, I got into this medium because it's so easy for me to fall into it.

[00:32:46] Dan McCoy: I, I literally bought Podcasting for Dummies and that's how I started.

[00:32:51] And you know, like we started, like we said, 18 years ago, and. So we had the great advantage of there being a pretty open field, which gave us a chance to build an audience. I think that we've put on a good show, which has allowed us to grow and, and, and have people listen. But but it was a lot easier back then.

[00:33:09] Chris Boniello: Yeah. And the tools are still cheap. There's tons of free options. I don't know at Conde Nast, you guys building out anything on the early side to keep budgets down and say, you know, we can build a community with this and not need to. Blow it outta the water on budget.

[00:33:24] Chris Bannon: Budgets are all we care about.

[00:33:26] Yeah. In the time of media transition, I mean we the advantage of what I do at Conde Nass is that it's, it is per episode very inexpensive and I have to keep an eagle eye on the cost of our episodes. We're gonna start doing more video podcasting in 2026. I, it excites me from a creative standpoint, but I.

[00:33:50] I'm really wary of the economics of video. And so, it concerns me that you, it's easy to overinvest in that stuff and outstrip the actual market's ability to pay you back for the work you do. Yeah, we look at every, and you have to decide, like not every show deserves video. You need to have. A personality, I think at the center of it, that person has to be, can't be script dependent.

[00:34:16] They have to be able to just talk fluidly for hours at a time. I, you know, I don't really wanna make television. I wanna make something. If it's gonna be on video, it should look a little cheap and dirty. That contributes to the authenticity of the medium that I'm. Interested in. And I, if I wanted to make tv, I would've, I'd be much wealthier now and I'd be living in la

[00:34:40] Ilana Levine: That's a nice jacket.

[00:34:42] Don't, don't undersell. That is a very nice jacket over

[00:34:44] Chris Bannon: several months.

[00:34:45] Chris Boniello: And to Ilana's point earlier, you know, with podcasting, whether you were saying not switching over fully to video, it does allow guests to be more intimate, more open. And if you are. R 10 minutes before recording, telling someone, oh, actually you're gonna be on video.

[00:34:58] You're gonna need hair, makeup, we're gonna have lights. Oh, you only have a terrible webcam. That's like looking up at your chin. You might not get a good interview, or the guests might not wanna be on anymore. And this allows you to connect directly with people a lot easier and then build an audience from there.

[00:35:16] And I was wondering, Dan Stuart, when you guys were starting on. Moving ideas into video using some of these clips. Is that a conversation you've also had?

[00:35:26] Stuart Wellington: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing that like almost all podcasters are struggling with right now is whether or not the pivot to video and like putting more effort and money and time and producers and getting more people involved like.

[00:35:41] Does that make sense? Is it worth it? Is that what your, is that what your audience wants?

[00:35:46] Chris Boniello: Have you asked the audience, or,

[00:35:47] Stuart Wellington: I mean, or your

[00:35:48] Chris Boniello: community. You

[00:35:48] Stuart Wellington: know, that's a good idea. We, we haven't, I mean, I think part of it's also like, is it, do we see it more as a tool to. Find new au like new audience. Like, use it as a way to like, have social media clips that draw people to our, our, our show.

[00:36:05] Like, but we don't want to do, like, we do it an like a two hour long podcast. We don't want the whole thing on video. That's nuts.

[00:36:12] Dan McCoy: Yeah. I I it's not something we wanna do all the time. I think we, what we have done is, so Elliot, our third host who's not here he and I, we both wrote for the Daily Show and he, and and he's gone on to write more television.

[00:36:26] And I, and I hope to again someday, but when the writer strike was going on, I think that part of what happened from that was we were like, oh, let's do our, like we can't write television for a union signatory, but we can do our own TV version of the podcast, which we did as sort of like. A season of shows that people who already listen to our show, if they want to buy a season ticket, you know.

[00:36:53] They can do that. And so we were sort of rebuilding our own television on the side, but

[00:36:59] Stuart Wellington: our little like pub, like nod to public access tv. Yeah. And

[00:37:02] Chris Boniello: are you adding little in jokes in there

[00:37:04] Stuart Wellington: for us? Of course. And there's also, that's also we, we both have the, like the live equivalent where we're doing a live Zoom call that people can watch.

[00:37:12] And also there's a like a q and a and you can see people being active in the the chat. Then if you buy a ticket, you can also watch the tape later. You can watch the show later on. But like, I think a big part for me is the excitement of seeing the people in the chat, like talking with each other, chatting with each other.

[00:37:30] It's, I mean, that for us, that's, that's the community part of it is, is seeing that.

[00:37:34] Chris Boniello: Yeah. I'm always impressed with that chat. Ilana, you were sitting.

[00:37:37] Ilana Levine: Yeah. I think we're living in a very visual era. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just the reality. I know some of you, I popped into the. Panel that was here before talking about vertical clips, all the things, all the content on TikTok and Instagram that drives audiences.

[00:37:55] And so for me it's about what is the goal? Right? Exactly. What, what is the ultimate goal? Why am I making this thing? What was it born out of when I'm sure you all felt this way, when I was asked to be on this panel, which was called Building Community, I started my podcast literally because. All I want is to be in community in a world where it feels like it is.

[00:38:17] So we are also dispersed in all these different ways. And so, I mean, I was thinking about Howard Stern as you guys were talking. I now watch Howard Stern. Right? Yeah. I mean the idea that, you know, my dad would listen to him in the car. Yep. And now I watch him and call her daddy. I don't know if you guys are part of the daddy gang, but we watch that.

[00:38:37] We, it's so great to see Kim Kardashian and not just listen to Kim Kardashian. So all the platforms are available. You have the audio version, you have the video version. People are gonna find what works for them and people are going to, I'm hoping while people are driving, they're listening and not watching my podcast, but I am guilty of sometimes watching shit, but while I'm driving.

[00:39:01] So it's figuring out what works for your audience also. Demographically, there's a lot to consider.

[00:39:08] Chris Bannon: It's really about putting it where they are. Right,

[00:39:10] Ilana Levine: exactly.

[00:39:11] Chris Bannon: I I, my pet theory is that the YouTube podcasting is basically the kitchen, the TV in your grandma's kitchen. That's always on at some level, and it's kind of like go and, like people wander in and out of the room and they're paying attention or not, but it's not like they're not staring at it.

[00:39:29] Ilana Levine: But certain people, certain, certain shows are. Appointment television, like appointment YouTube in that way. They know every Wednesday

[00:39:38] Chris Bannon: still think they're not sitting there. I they're doing other things.

[00:39:41] Chris Boniello: I'm usually making breakfast

[00:39:43] at

[00:39:43] Chris Bannon: the

[00:39:43] Chris Boniello: shows.

[00:39:43] Chris Bannon: Right? Yeah. But it's through YouTube because that's where everything else they do is.

[00:39:48] Yeah. So why not? And we have to be there for that. And TikTok.

[00:39:50] Stuart Wellington: Yeah, I mean, we've, we have put up full episodes of our show on, on YouTube with no video, just like a, the, the audio and like. We're sh we were shocked to find that people are listening to it that way. But like, like you said,

[00:40:04] Ilana Levine: because they were there anyway,

[00:40:05] Stuart Wellington: that's what they're used to using.

[00:40:06] That's the platform of choice. Don't make

[00:40:08] Chris Bannon: them push another button.

[00:40:09] Chris Boniello: No,

[00:40:10] Ilana Levine: I forbid.

[00:40:10] Chris Boniello: And on some of our shows, we've gone beyond where we. Started adding video, added even more animation to it and realized, oh, we're getting the same amount of viewers as if we just put the cover art up. It's just people are using YouTube.

[00:40:21] I mean, I already pay for YouTube premium. It's easy to click there, right? It's easy to save stuff. Sometimes I lose my mind with the Spotify UI and it's just like, oh, it's on there, but I don't need to actually watch anything happening. And so on the backend for production, I can save budgets and time by not hiring an animator to animate a whole thing that.

[00:40:42] Gets the same amount of views.

[00:40:43] Chris Bannon: There's a thing called AI you should really explore.

[00:40:45] Chris Boniello: Oh, oh, yeah. That's a whole, a whole nother world. I mean, I, I, I ran our names through some different AI things that said, we had all never worked on anything together. We didn't share any guests, but it also said you guys all worked for the Podglomerate.

[00:40:58] On one of my results, I was like, I don't, I don't know if I trust this, but,

[00:41:03] Ilana Levine: and I went to Fordham, so

[00:41:04] Chris Boniello: yeah,

[00:41:05] Ilana Levine: that. There's that also, just by the way, I have done episodes in a pinch on my iPhone. I mean, it is, yeah. Truly. And the quality, I was like, what? It sounded fun.

[00:41:17] Chris Boniello: Yeah. So it's, and there's a lot of tools to, to clean things up and get good.

[00:41:20] Yeah. And, and I think that that goes back to the community building and the intimacy of this medium is that it. Mistakes or variances in the quality doesn't detract from the intimacy of the conversation or what you're making. If, if you're making a big narrative show and your sound effects all sound tinny and terrible,

[00:41:38] Ilana Levine: that's

[00:41:39] Chris Boniello: not

[00:41:39] Ilana Levine: good.

[00:41:39] Right. That's the

[00:41:39] Chris Boniello: thing. But if you have a narrative show and you have an amazing once in a lifetime interview with someone and you had to record it on a phone,

[00:41:45] Ilana Levine: do it.

[00:41:46] Chris Boniello: You got it. And, and you go for that and you, you go after those opportunities. My one other side over to Ryan, as you were starting to build things out here, are you looking at.

[00:41:56] TikTok YouTube as the the earliest youngest creator here. Earliest show. As different spaces to create for, or are you trying to use the same content across places?

[00:42:08] Ryan Donovan Purcel: Well, I, I have a confession to make, which is that I'm not really a TikTok consumer, but I, I see it as a tool, you know, and I'm trying to understand

[00:42:15] Chris Boniello: it.

[00:42:15] I bet none of us are, but I don't know.

[00:42:17] Ryan Donovan Purcel: I mean, the students are really helping me. It really, students are really helping me discover this new technology, new, new platforms and everything, and I'm adapting it as I can. It's you know, I'm really focused on the quality of the episodes, quality of the events, quality of the lectures that I give.

[00:42:31] And so if I can, if I can bring in new technology, you know, between seasons, that would be great. But yeah, I'm just trying to work with the tools that I got and seeing if I can, you know, innovate and in that way and, and see if I can, you know, if, if I can bring in TikTok. So right now, TikTok is not, I have stuff up there, but it's it's not like my main kind of, you know.

[00:42:49] Thrust of the, of this project. But I do see the value and, and the so-called virality of TikTok posts, which seems to be, you know, it could happen to anybody, you know, yeah. Depending on the kind of content that you're posting. But I do find that, you know, the more genuine you are, the more authentic you are, the more people respond to that, whether that be on video or on audio, and just being yourself, being true and being engaged in the conversation that you're having.

[00:43:14] That's, that's a really a big thing.

[00:43:16] Chris Boniello: Yeah, I think it's been interesting to try to see if those are one community, if people bounce from one to the other, or if now you're, you're building out separate little side communities and interacting with people. I'm guessing across your guys' show and all the shows at Conde Nast, you,

[00:43:30] Chris Bannon: every platform I assume is a different, slightly different community of people.

[00:43:35] Stuart Wellington: Yeah. One of the, one of the things that I remember that I'm, I'm assuming everybody dealt with a little bit was how much it affected our community when Twitter collapsed, basically. Yeah. Like how our reach shrunk so much and. Part of, I mean, part of it is because we didn't really have video prepared.

[00:43:54] Like we weren't ready to do a bunch of video clips and things.

[00:43:58] Chris Boniello: Film Twitter was a pretty contained world there. Yeah. Did you go to Facebook?

[00:44:02] Dan McCoy: Well, we started in Facebook. We have a very active Facebook posts, active Facebook community

[00:44:08] Stuart Wellington: still. We have from our Facebook community that are like getting married and sending us invites to the weddings.

[00:44:13] Yeah.

[00:44:13] Andrew Hect: Love that.

[00:44:14] Stuart Wellington: But yeah, I mean, we we're still kind of struggling. Do you do, do any of you guys have social media managers? Because we don't. Yes,

[00:44:25] Ryan Donovan Purcel: I have a, I have a production assistant, which is ba basically a student that helps me out with that. So, and it's great because it's the school, they pay for her stipend and everything.

[00:44:33] And I, she's a font of information for new technologies like this that she uses on a daily basis. And so I kind of have a social media manager, but a

[00:44:41] Stuart Wellington: young person,

[00:44:42] Ryan Donovan Purcel: a young person that shows me the ropes and shows me the way. I'm very grateful for it too, as well.

[00:44:47] Chris Boniello: Yeah, I think that's a great note with these.

[00:44:48] New platforms coming along so quickly. Sometimes it is nice to get a native user from that platform to help you weather than. Go over the speed bumps and try to figure it out yourself.

[00:44:58] Ilana Levine: I felt like anytime I had done that, I mean, I learned many things like horizontal versus vertical, how long, all of that, but it has to be in my voice.

[00:45:08] Yeah. People can sniff it out immediately if it's not authentic. So unless you start it on day one with someone else posting for you, I mean, maybe someone could, you know, do an edit clip for me, but it didn't, it didn't work.

[00:45:23] Jeff Umbro: Thank you all for tuning in to this week's episode of Podcast Perspectives. If you enjoyed this, please check out the rest of our episodes or head over to podglomerate.com/media where you can find a number of other conversations that are similar to what you just heard today. Thanks again and we'll see you in a couple weeks.

[00:45:41] Podcast Perspectives is a production of the Podglomerate. If you're looking for help producing marketing or monetizing your podcast, you can find us at Podglomerate dot com. Shoot us an email at listen at the Podglomerate dot com or follow us on all socials at Podglomeratepods. This episode was produced by myself, Jeff Umbro, Chris Boniello, and Jose Roman.

[00:46:00] Thank you to our marketing team, Joni Deutsch, Madison Richards, Morgan Swift, Erin Weiss, and a special thank you to Dan Christo.