Libsyn CEO Brendan Monaghan on Monetization in 2026

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: This week on Podcast Perspectives.

[00:00:02] Brendan Monaghan: There's a variety of different ways to generate revenue and that you simply don't have to rely on one approach to fund what it is you're creating.

[00:00:11] Jeff Umbro: Today's guest is Brendan Monaghan, CEO of Libsyn, and co-founder of Megaphone, the ad tech and hosting platform Spotify bought in 2020 for $235 million, and then after a year at Spotify, Brendan stepped away and eventually returned to the space to take over Libsyn. Libsyn is one of the oldest and most influential companies in podcasting. Welcome to the show, Brendan.

[00:00:35] Brendan Monaghan: Thanks for having me, Jeff.

[00:00:37] Jeff Umbro: Yeah. So I want to start at the beginning. What do you consider your first job in podcasting?

[00:00:44] Brendan Monaghan: Probably working in business development for Slate, the Slate group of properties, working on development deals, whether it was hosting technology partnerships, or others to help. Um, provide the tools and monetization that that brand particular needed to, um, to succeed in that space. So it was really early for me in terms of learning about the space, and we already had a pretty established podcasting arm at Slate, and so I was kind of grafted into that later.

[00:01:15] Jeff Umbro: What year was that?

[00:01:17] Brendan Monaghan: It was probably around 2012, 2013.

[00:01:21] Jeff Umbro: And so at that point, Slate is owned by Graham Holdings, they also own the Washington Post and a handful of other things. Where does Panoply come into play, and Megaphone?

[00:01:34] Brendan Monaghan: So Panoply was started essentially by a couple of us within the Slate Group. My job was in charge of business development, I was partnering with Andy Bowers, who headed up our editorial initiatives. And then Matt Turck also had a pretty strong hand in helping monetization. He was our lead revenue officer for us at Slate at the time.

[00:01:55] And the idea was to help leverage some of the things we were doing in a space that was continuing to evolve. So this was middle of 2014 where we were trying to brainstorm opportunities for increased business and revenue for the company. And so we found that we were doing a pretty good job at creating content and actually monetizing podcasting content.

[00:02:18] And so the idea for Panoply was to take that model and share it with other creators, in our case, other media entities to start with, to help provide the studios and the producers, as well as the ad sales and monetization stream for those shows. So our first partners were kind of all friends of the family, if you will, besides Slate

[00:02:39] It was, um, New York Magazine, real Simple and Ink. We all had either friends or former colleagues that were in largely editorial positions at those companies that we pitched and persuaded to, to take a flyer on something. We were just getting off the ground.

[00:02:56] Jeff Umbro: And so you were essentially like doing, you were producing content for them and also trying to help them monetize that content.

[00:03:08] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah.

[00:03:09] Jeff Umbro: And so did Megaphone exist at that point? Like, were you also building the platform?

[00:03:14] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, we weren't yet. So when we first launched in 2015, tech wasn't necessarily part of the roadmap, but we, what we felt like at the time was that the space wasn't innovating quite as quickly as we would like. And so.

[00:03:28] Jeff Umbro: What hosting platform were you using?

[00:03:30] Brendan Monaghan: Ironically, we're using Libsyn.

[00:03:31] Jeff Umbro: Of course, of course it's Libsyn, and we'll get back to that in a little.

[00:03:35] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, sure.

[00:03:36] Jeff Umbro: That was what everybody used, so.

[00:03:37] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, I mean, if you had a, if you have a podcast that's over than 10 years, older than 10 years old, you were on Libsyn.

[00:03:43] And so we started to look for other folks. We started looking at folks in streaming, folks in the radio space, and we couldn't quite find the right fit for what we were looking for. So we actually found a small company in Australia. Two brothers bootstrapped this business together, and they were providing a lot of technology for dynamic ad insertion and publishing tools and kind of all the things that made sense. And so,

[00:04:08] Graham supported us purchasing that company. We hired the two brothers, Jason and Darren Cox, and we proceeded to convince them to move to the United States. And that became the background for the backbone of our technology business, which Megaphone was just a product at the time. And then I can unpack later how it became the name of the whole company, but it was hosting a distribution platform at first.

[00:04:36] Jeff Umbro: How much do you guys pay for that?

[00:04:39] Brendan Monaghan: That's one I can't talk about still to this day.

[00:04:43] Jeff Umbro: All right. Uh, you gotta ask

[00:04:45] Brendan Monaghan: You got to.

[00:04:45] Jeff Umbro: People talk about the LinkedIn Mafia, uh, I'm sorry, the PayPal Mafia. All the, all these folks that worked at PayPal back in the day that are now like, you know, starting LinkedIn and Palantir and SpaceX and all these amazing companies and you kind of had that at Panoply back in the day.

[00:05:04] Like, there's you at Libsyn, there's Matt Turk at PodRoll. There's Laura Mayer, who was at ABC forever and, and, you know, made Shameless Acquisition Target. There's Mia Lobel, who's back at Slate, ironically, but was at Pushkin forever and was one of the first employees. Did Nick Quah work there for a minute too?

[00:05:20] Brendan Monaghan: He did. Nick was our first audience development person, so he was trying to do the newsletter and audience development for us at the same time.

[00:05:29] Jeff Umbro: Yeah, and I'm sure I'm missing a dozen people, but, uh, Andrea Silenzi, a handful of others, but. So you all were building this, um, kind of like heaven for podcast folks at the time because there was a lot of things happening in the editorial space, but there, to be blunt, like there was not that many places that were putting a lot of actual resources into the editorial side of podcasts.

[00:05:57] So what you all were putting out was like catnip for like audiophiles in the world. Because there just wasn't that many people that were like really like, you know, making art in the space. You know, there's plenty of chat shows and there's some narrative journalism shows, but this was like the first time where you got a lot of people who got a budget and could go and live in the sandbox, and you got Revisionist History, and you got like Why Oh Why and you got, I'm sure I'm blanking on like all of the best shows that came out of there.

[00:06:27] But anyway, point being, after a few years, you all decided that that business model wasn't really working properly. Can you, can you walk through that a little bit?

[00:06:35] Brendan Monaghan: The challenge we ran into is that we were working in an editorial business, which we're trying to create excellent shows, first of all, which in and of itself is a hard business to do. Then we were providing monetization solutions for people, and then we were also building out a technology platform, and what we found was the technology and the monetization side was what we were doing best and where the, the probably the biggest opportunity for growth was.

[00:07:01] And so we made a strategic decision to pivot in that direction. Those are never fun, as I'm sure you, as well documented., But it was the right decision for our business. Iironically, something that doesn't get talked about much either is we also launched Pinna, which was a kids, uh, kids app meant for, for audio consumption.

[00:07:23] And so we were doing all the things I just laid out, plus a kids' app, and so there was just a lot of time and energy, and in some cases, distraction for what we were trying to do. And we had to make a really hard decision at the end of 2018 to say, “what do we wanna be best at? And what do we have to do to double down on that?”

[00:07:43] And so Pinna was sped off into its own entity, under Graham, and then eventually sold. And we really focused heavily on the technology and the monetization side, and renamed the company Megaphone at that same time. So as we headed into to 19, there was a, a much more clear focus on what it is we wanted to be as a company and what value we could provide to the market

[00:08:07] without trying to be too many things to too many people, which we kind of were doing at one point.

[00:08:12] Jeff Umbro: And so the core insight that you were building around is, you know, take the thing you're really good at and, and get, become the best at it. So what, what did you believe about, you know, DAI or dynamic ad insertion and publisher sales that like other folks just didn't at the time?

[00:08:29] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, I think the thing that we were pretty well ahead of the curve on was this idea of audience targeting. So, myself and Jason Cox, our CTO, were both not marketers, came up with the name of Megaphone Targeted Marketplace, which is a massive mouthful, settled on MTM for that, but that was the predecessor to what today is known as SPAN at Spotify.

[00:08:54] And that was our ability to target someone who was, maybe surfing on the web to now target them in a demographic way, based on audience. I'll never forget I had a potential client I was working to get her, and she was listening to one of our shows. She's like, Brendan, it really works. And I said, "what are you talking about?”

[00:09:13] She goes, "well, I just listened to an episode of,” I can’t remember the podcast, “and I got a Cadillac ad, and my daughter, who's 20 years younger, got a Honda ad.” She's like, you guys knew who was listening, and we were able to target advertising to the appropriate listener.” And so where, where that came into play was when we pivoted to becoming Megaphone.

[00:09:33] We ended direct selling on behalf of shows and we doubled down exclusively on audience targeting. And so what that allowed us to do is to bring a part, a product to market that no one else had. Through an exclusive partnership we had with Nielsen that we frankly were able to negotiate exclusive terms for a number of years.

[00:09:53] But it also allowed us to open our business up to other competitors who wouldn't normally work with us because they would say, “well, you guys are gonna try and steal them from us because you might want to sell ads for them.” And what, what the new value was to say, “you know what? You be their sales force.

[00:10:09] Go out and sell as as much as they need first, we'll backfill with SPAN, and most importantly for us, we'll provide the technology to host and distribute and monetize your platform.” So really we doubled down on those two prongs, which is to say, best-in-class technology. And, you know, audience-targeted monetization with that third pillar we weren't touching anymore, which was direct sales on behalf of particular shows.

[00:10:35] And that was really appealing to some folks who'd been holding off from working with us.

[00:10:40] Jeff Umbro: I remember we moved to Megaphone in 2019, at Podglomerate, and it was like magic. You know, we, we clicked a button and all of a sudden there's money in our account every month. Was it an actual programmatic marketplace? Maybe it is today. Maybe it wasn't at the time, but like, was the technology driving what was delivered or was it like human beings like clicking some buttons to determine?

[00:11:03] Brendan Monaghan: It was direct sales. It was, it, I mean, it was, we'll put it this way, it was direct sales on the outbound to the, the, to the actual. Um, brand and then the technology was delivering in terms of if, if you versus your wife might be listening to the same episode. The technology was truthfully driving, so I'm not sure which one of those you're asking about, but we had a sales force of 15 people, boots on the ground in all the major US markets actually selling advertising to large brands and agencies, and those sales

[00:11:37] would become the, the what we would push through and the reason why we were able to do it is because we had so much scale. Because we were working with such large customers. The thing that people don't always realize is that podcasting relative to TV or radio or others, can be tremendously small. It's not as small now as it once was.

[00:11:54] But the idea, if I'm a Fidelity or a Microsoft, I buy millions upon millions, maybe billions of impressions, and I can't reach that scale. If I wanna reach, let's just say this is my pool of listeners, and I say, I just wanna reach women. Okay, shh, that cuts your audience say in half. Okay, now I want to reach women 18 to 35.

[00:12:13] Shh. That cuts it even smaller. So the base off of which you need to sell from is a really massive pool of listeners. Um, and that's just in the example of a Microsoft. Now what happens when Starbucks wants to reach that same female, 18 to 30-year-old, you know, working professional like that gets to be a really narrow search.

[00:12:33] And so you have to have scale to start with. And so that's what we were able to do is we were able to translate a lot of enterprise business and anything they didn't sell into this pool that we could sell against from a larger scale. And that gave us the, the economics to appeal to brand advertisers in ways that they really were only dabbling in the space before.

[00:12:54] So that was, if you were to say what was like the biggest thing Megaphone did for the market? I would say we opened up the scale and the targeting nature of brand advertising in ways that just simply weren't there before. Based on the scale we had and the technology we built to target those listeners.

[00:13:14] Jeff Umbro: Yeah. And, and now we see that with, with iHeart, with SiriusXM, with Spotify, which now owns Megaphone,

[00:13:20] Brendan Monaghan: And Libsyn.

[00:13:21] Jeff Umbro: and Libsyn, of course. So there, there are half a dozen companies now that can reach that same kind of scale.

[00:13:27] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah.

[00:13:27] Jeff Umbro: I, I, I did wanna talk a little bit about the Spotify deal. I don't know how much you can or want to share, but like, when did those conversations start?

[00:13:35] Like, what did Spotify see in the deal that justified a $235 million price tag? I assume it's, it's more of what you were just talking about.

[00:13:43] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, I think,I think what's interesting is, so they were an enterprise client of ours, first of all. So they were using the technology to support some of their larger shows. So that was first and foremost. And so that was going well. And I think this was a time when, of course the Gimlets, the Joe Rogan deals, all of this was happening.

[00:14:02] It gets talked about a lot, as it rightly should, but what doesn't get mentioned as much of was this acquisition was really critical to Spotify's advertising initiatives, which were at that time, of course, growing pretty dramatically. What we brought to the table was we brought the scale, as you just alluded to, but our sell-through wasn't off the charts.

[00:14:25] I think of the ad business in, in podcasting, kind of three layers. One is that host-read, specific to that show that I want to be connected with. Two is an audience-targeted solution, à la, what we offer at Libsyn or SPAN, et cetera. And then third, of course, is programmatic. Filling every possible impression.

[00:14:45] So we were only operating in that one level, and so it left a lot of unsold inventory because, you know, I used that example of the shrinking situation, but there's always outlier listeners that maybe that month an advertiser isn't looking to reach or maybe had to cancel a campaign, et cetera. And so what we,

[00:15:05] we allowed the market to do is to reach those specific segments. But Spotify had a huge amount of demand. They had a global sales force. We needed supply. So it was, it was a really compelling marriage to say, okay, first of all, this is a very useful and applied technology to, they're working with some of the greatest brands in the, in the content creator space, at least at the enterprise level.

[00:15:28] And then third, we've got a natural business synergy where we've got meaningful demand. Megaphone has meaningful supply. Let's marry those two things. I'm really glad it worked out, but it was, it was one of those where truly was like a one plus one equals three kind of deal.

[00:15:43] Jeff Umbro: Yeah, I mean, my friends are sick of hearing me say it, but Spotify I think is like one of the best companies out there. I think has like, you know, one of the brightest futures and, and I could get into all the reasons why I think that, and you probably agree with many of them, but, but I really truly started to believe that after the Megaphone acquisition for a lot of the same reasons that you're mentioning.

[00:16:07] But you left a year after that.

[00:16:09] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah.

[00:16:10] Jeff Umbro: Were you just done with it? I, I know, and we'll get back into Libsyn in a minute, but like, what, what, what drove that decision?

[00:16:16] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, I mean, look, I think my priorities were in joining, in joining Spotify first and foremost was to make sure that our people were taken care of and they landed in the right place, and we were, we're pleased that there was very little turnover as a result of that acquisition. So that was one, so is ensuring that our customers landed in the right place, um, and making sure that they were taken care of.

[00:16:38] That it wasn't like, okay, we sold, see ya. We really wanted those people. Um. To land in the right place and be taken care of. And, And so many of our folks have still been there until even recently, supporting those customers. And I think three, as a founder, you, you look around and wonder what opportunities there are for you, and what other interesting ideas there are.

[00:17:02] So Jason, Matt and I all left at the same time and felt like there were some other things that we could be putting our time and creativity into. And figure those things out. So it was really more about kind of what I was going to rather than what I was going away from. And, and yeah, that's, that was, that was a quick year and, but yeah, it was a fun transition, and I feel good about where we left things.

[00:17:26] Jeff Umbro: You're very good at being diplomatic, and I believe every word that you said, I'm so curious, like what your earn-out was too. So, I want to go back to the Panoply question.

[00:17:40] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, please.

[00:17:41] Jeff Umbro: When you decided to shut down the content studio and focus purely on Megaphone that seems to me to be one of the early signs of a broader pattern that we have seen many times since then. Original content is harder, riskier businesses than building infrastructure or tools. When you look at the current wave of publishers and studios that are cutting back on originals, does it feel like, like deja vu to you? Do you feel like every time you see a new studio launch, or like a new company just put a, a bunch of cash into originals, is a small part of you kind of like that's doomed to fail?

[00:18:25] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah. You know, I, I, I don't necessarily go there immediately. What I, what I do think about it is how hard of a space it is. Sometimes when we talk about content creation, there's this false dichotomy, whatever the term is, where it's like, okay, this is a creative endeavor, and yet they’re scaling and thoughtful building that needs to happen around it.

[00:18:48] And I think of Gimlet, and I think of Wondery as two contemporaries to what we were doing at Panoply as, as, two teams that really understood not just how to create a show, but how to create the economics and the, I hate the word synergies, but, but those team dynamics help create content at scale. And that's a really hard formula I think that, you know, that we don't talk enough about in this space is that, sure 

[00:19:18] it's, you get three smart people on a, on, on a microphone at Political Gab Fest, and there's just magic that happens there. But there's also some things when you're creating shows from thin air, and you're producing them consistently, and you're building an audience, those are all very challenging endeavors that make up more than just getting behind a mic and talking.

[00:19:39] So when people have success in the content creation space, I think there's a lot more to it than just having a great idea. That, that the creative community doesn't get enough credit for, particularly if they have a kind of a network of shows or any kind of scale. It's just a hard space to be in. And I think we found that ourselves. You can have a hit, and then you can have a flop.

[00:20:01] And it's understanding the through lines of what made this thing successful and being able to repeat them. And I think, you know, Gimlet and Wondery were two examples of many others that kind of figured out that secret sauce and were able to replicate it more than once.

[00:20:15] Jeff Umbro: So you, you took a few years off from the podcast space. Why did you head back to audio? And why did you do it with Libsyn?

[00:20:23] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah. A couple things. You, you get the call like you do and, and you know, you have experience with all the companies in the space. And Libsyn of course was a known commodity. I think what I didn't realize was how invested both the board and some of the leadership team was or is in the company. And those are the first conversations I had.

[00:20:46] I had a terrific CFO in place called Chuck Cargile. I have a terrific Chief Revenue Officer, and Rick Selah and the board was really engaged in looking to. You know, support this business and help it succeed. So that was the first thing I looked at. I think two, honestly, when we sold Megaphone, I felt like there was some unfinished business there.

[00:21:06] I felt that like there could have been—the opportunity to build the, the largest enterprise technology and monetization platform out there. So at Megaphone we focused really at the enterprise level and some of the mid-tail shows. Libsyn, at one point in time, had kind of all of those types of shows.

[00:21:27] Jeff Umbro: Was gonna say, I feel like they were that.

[00:21:29] Brendan Monaghan: They were.

[00:21:30] Jeff Umbro: Years ago.

[00:21:30] Brendan Monaghan: Right. And I think, but I think the thing that Libsyn lacked in its earlier days was a monetization suite for its creators. Right. So it—

[00:21:39] Jeff Umbro: They were making 10 bucks a month from all their hosting,

[00:21:42] Brendan Monaghan: Right, and that was their mon—that was their, their revenue strategy. So for me, I've often felt that there was, you know, you've seen a ton of evolution since I, I left Spotify in ‘21, call it.

[00:21:56] and the creator space continues to grow, and yet the technology monetization, et cetera, I felt like there was an opportunity to help support creators in ways that maybe. I mean, I think the way I look at it is in the period of like, I think it was 14 months, you had Art19, Megaphone, Omni, a couple others taken off the table.

[00:22:23] And the question is, you know, of the companies that were left, how were they creating and supporting business to support the, the broader creator community, and particularly the audio side. And I felt there was still a lot of meat left on the bone there. And so as I dug into Libsyn and I understand, understood now they have both technology and a monetization strategy that presents some really interesting opportunities to bring everything to small, medium, and large creators.

[00:22:50] To say nothing of where I think the space is going with video and other types of tools. I got excited pretty quickly and was reminded of the success we had at Megaphone and felt like, you know, I could scratch that itch some more.

[00:23:03] Jeff Umbro: Well, so, so let's talk about that. If, if I was a small, medium and large creator on Libsyn, like what are my different opportunities for monetization?

[00:23:12] Brendan Monaghan: I mean, I think that the, the distinction goes back to some of those three buckets I talked about from the advertising side, which are, if you're, if you're large, compelling audience, we want to work with you. On the host read side, we've got a large and growing segmentation of audience, targeted advertisers.

[00:23:30] And third is on the programmatic side. When do a lot of fill. Our fill rate is north of 80% most months. And so that in of itself may not sound all that compelling, but when you break down some of the competitors in the space, you have some that are just focusing on audience targeting. You have some that are just, just representing inventory, or some that are relying almost exclusively on programmatic.

[00:23:54] For us, we're able to say to large creators, “hey, you have a, you have a compelling audience that advertisers wanna speak to specifically, and then. You have a great audience we wanna reach, and as part of a broader buy, like I talked about. And then of course we want to deliver advertising at scale to your audiences.”

[00:24:12] I think the other piece of this is where we're going as a company, and I'm sure we'll get into this, is some ideas I have about other monetization streams that can help support creators in other ways. But for now, it's doing those three things on the ad side really, really well and providing the technology and the data and, and the audience side around it, to help, help deliver their business overall.

[00:24:40] Jeff Umbro: How, how big is your sales team?

[00:24:42] Brendan Monaghan: Got about 30 people in sales. Whether it goes from reps as well as ad operations, et cetera. It gets blurry if you start to count tech people and that, those kinds of folks. But by and large, it's in that, it's in that neighborhood.

[00:24:55] Jeff Umbro: And did you say that Megaphone had 15 when it sold to Spotify?

[00:24:58] Brendan Monaghan: Well, yeah, Megaphone was probably twenty, twenty-five when you factor in the ad ops people, et cetera. So actually, similar-sized companies. When we sold the Megaphone, we were about 90 people. We're sitting around 90 right now at Libsyn, ironically. So, you know, size-wise, you know, it, it, it's familiar territory for me, it's when we start to clear a hundred, 110, that's when it'll be new, new air.

[00:25:22] Jeff Umbro: Yeah, well, good luck with that. I find like management to be one of the hardest parts of running a business, and I'm running it like 10% of the size of Libsyn.

[00:25:33] Brendan Monaghan: All levels have different levels of challenges for sure, but it's, yeah, it's not easy.

[00:25:38] Jeff Umbro: So what are some of those new levers that you're, you're like considering for your creators?

[00:25:43] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, I mean, I think a simple example of that is the partnership we have with PodRoll, right? So these three co-founders, two of which worked with me for a long time at Megaphone, Jason Cox, Matt Turck, they've built a platform that allows people to, in essence, provide audience in exchange for, you know, revenue and payment for that.

[00:26:04] So they have a tool that allows people to drop, you know, this, but drop episodes into a feed that actually helps drive awareness to other shows. And at the same time, bring dollars into the hands of the creators. And what we've done with, with, with PodRoll, we've actually built it specifically into the platform itself.

[00:26:24] So that now if you're a creator, you can actually opt into that monetization stream directly within our platform at Libsyn. And I think the, the idea is to streamline these tools to make them a compelling part of the process. The other thing for us, and we can unpack that all you like is, you know, some of the video approaches that are being explored right now is, you know, how can people launch and monetize in different ways?

[00:26:53] The Apple HLS example is, is unique. Spotify is, is unique. And then there are others to come. But I think for us the idea is. Figuring out where those opportunities are, exploring them at kind of a beta level, and then bringing those at scale to creators from large to small across our 60,000 plus shows.

[00:27:16] Jeff Umbro: Is Libsyn taking a cut of like any of the sales that you're making via the Libsyn platform?

[00:27:20] Brendan Monaghan: Oh yeah, absolutely. So it's a revenue share between us PodRoll and the creator. And so yeah, that's—

[00:27:29] Jeff Umbro: Is it a significant driver of revenue for you?

[00:27:32] Brendan Monaghan: It's growing, I would say, you know, it's, it's only been in place for six to nine months. And some of this is, you know, we have a wide variety of creators. Some folks who aren't even interested in monetization and others that are, aren't always familiar with some of the, the tools and technology. So it runs the gamut of what is appealing to folks, but it's been a strong performer for us.

[00:27:57] Out of the gates. But I think the scale is just, that comes with education and engagement, and frankly, even our product in terms of highlighting these tools to make available to people as well. So there's a lot that goes into it, but yeah, I'm really optimistic about it.

[00:28:14] Jeff Umbro: I believe you've integrated with Spotify video, so you can now upload MP4s to Libson and it'll go straight to Spotify. Is that correct?

[00:28:21] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, yeah. I'm not the most technically savvy on this. This is a work in progress right now, but that's the expectation. The expectation, I can tell you this, Jeff, the ideal end state for us is for people to upload video to the Libsyn platform and be able to distribute it at multiple points, whether that's Apple, Spotify, you know, other forthcoming platforms.

[00:28:43] Of course, YouTube. And YouTube we've worked with for years. And so the idea that I spent a lot of time, and we talked about this on your last show, is the idea of integrating this connectivity into the platform to make it really easy for distribution. I mean, we get. We get as an industry really caught up in, you know, excited, rightly so about Apple and Spotify and others investing in this space.

[00:29:07] And that's awesome on the ad side. But there's also the technical side of this and how easy of a use case we make it for creators to, you know, decide where they want to be, host or distributed rather so they can check those boxes in a really easy way.

[00:29:24] Jeff Umbro: So with uploading the video to Spotify, there is the idea of the Spotify partner program. There is the idea of, there's a rumor that Spotify is at some point going to be launching like dynamic video insertion, but Apple has already announced that they'll be doing dynamic video insertion via their HLS platform.

[00:29:42] Are you all integrated into that and, and there's some. Questions out there from many people that I've spoken to as to like what the CPM is and like how you'll actually pay that CPM to insert dynamically inserted video ads on Apple. Can you explain like how that will work via Libsyn?

[00:30:01] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, I, you know, I, I can't, unfortunately, I can't get into a lot of detail. But what I would say is, as has been publicly talked about is this, you know, everything you've just highlighted, which is this concept of, and I think why it's received such like applause from hosting and creators is the fact that

[00:30:21] it's leaving the control, dare I say, with the host or the creator, whoever they, whoever chooses to do it so that the ad is inserted as it is today, dynamically delivered. And then yes, Apple's taken a surcharge, which they haven't in the past, but at the end of the day. The creators or the hosting platform will know what that is and can pass that along however they choose to.

[00:30:45] But I think that's the thing that differentiates that solution, and something that is interesting for the industry is the fact that all of a sudden you can still continue to dynamically insert and you don't need to rethink how you're thinking about your ad insertion pieces. So we were really excited about it, as I think others were.

[00:31:02] And think it's, it's a, it's a compelling model for how we wanna continue to deliver to another video distribution platform.

[00:31:11] Jeff Umbro: We have talked a little bit about, on the last episode where, you, Greg and Leah were on. We talked a little bit about how you all are using AI as kind of like a discovery mechanism. And a research tool. Is there anything you've dealt with where somebody's trying to like, use Libsyn as a hosting platform for like fully AI-generated content?

[00:31:34] And are you building any guardrails for that? Like, is that, is there anything in your updated TnC about that or something?

[00:31:41] Brendan Monaghan: I think AI content is gonna have a role to play. I'm not a doomsayer that thinks it's going to wipe out all of our creative industry. I, I just. More optimistic than that. But I think there's opportunities to leverage AI, not just in the content creation, but also perhaps even in the splicing together of things, right?

[00:32:02] And how content is created. You can, you can envision, you know, how do radio stations do traffic updates or election updates? There are things that are just purely data based and are relying on some voice that are less, you know, thoughtful or creative than an interaction or an interview or a debate. So anyway, I, I kind of went down the rails with that question, but, but we don't have those guardrails in place.

[00:32:26] And I think we're, we're pretty agnostic about that because ultimately listeners are gonna decide. Now don't get me into the conversation about people taking other people's content, and that that's, that's a totally different issue altogether, and that we'd have concerns with. But when it comes to the actual creation of content

[00:32:45] I think it's just a matter of what are people listening to and what are they engaging with.

[00:32:50] Jeff Umbro: Yeah. Yeah. Understood. What, what are some of the common mistakes that you're seeing creators make when it comes to monetization? Or are there common mistakes that creators are making when it comes to monetizing their content?

[00:33:01] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, I think, I think something that we don't talk enough about in this space is that it's not one size fits all. Right it’s like, it's really easy to say everyone should be opted into monetization and that certainly benefits our company when people do, but there's certain types of content that they're just interested in the distribution mechanism and the technology to make it really easy to produce and put out into the world, and they're not interested in generating revenue.

[00:33:27] I think of faith-based podcasts at times. You know, they're not looking to have ads run next to that week's message. Rather, they're looking to distribute their message and give, say their parishioners or their attendees an alternative if they were sick that day. Listening to a message online. They're not looking to generate ads that way.

[00:33:45] So I think there's a lot of opportunity for people to understand what the different options are and not feel hamstrung into one particular solution. The other thing that I get excited about also is just the different ways at which people can build their audience, right? Is that for so long it's just been about audio, but as we've seen, and I've seen this for a few years now, is that

[00:34:09] you know, live events are taking shape and becoming more scalable for people to do and to engage with their audience. They can target promotions to some of the tools I talked about already, to get people's attention if they're gonna be in Seattle or they're gonna be in Denver, and try and reach those audiences in those places.

[00:34:26] So I think there's, there's a lot there. That there's opportunities for people to really kind of build micro communities around their content. And then the other thing I'd say is I get excited and I've, I've shared this with you before, this concept of how do we help creators build their audience? What are the tools that we as technology platforms are putting in the hands of creators to help them grow their, their,

[00:34:49] probably, I would argue their most valuable currency, which is audience. More so than just pure revenue from a subscription standpoint or advertising standpoint.

[00:34:58] Jeff Umbro: One of the things I've noticed, and, and this is not necessarily with advertising, but people who will build the structure of their show to just prioritize like their DAI placements, whether it's cross promos or internal house ads, or paid ads at the expense of like the listener experience and just try and shove as many in there as they can and then they lose like retention for the audience.

[00:35:20] Brendan Monaghan: I miss that. Sometimes I listen to shows where it feels like. It's just thrown in, and I feel like I would like to talk to their producer and just be like, there's a better way to like, make a quick throw to, to the ad union instead of just coming in hard with this abrupt different voice. There are times it's, it's hard to listen to and I'm like, that's why the AI is so great is you, you don't have to do this.

[00:35:45] So I, I struggle with that myself.

[00:35:49] Jeff Umbro: Well, it's so funny too 'cause it's like even knowing that like there's some people who are just masters at it and some people who just will never understand it so—

[00:35:58] Brendan Monaghan: It's hard.

[00:35:58] Jeff Umbro: Well, looking ahead two or three years, what does success look like for Libsyn under your leadership?

[00:36:04] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah, I think success for us is, you know, if you look at our vision, our mission statement, our values, et cetera, you won't find things in there that are specifically audio-related. Audio is of course where we found our roots and will, I can comfortably say, always be a part of who we are as a company, but it won't be on the only thing we do as evidenced by the conversation we're having here about video, that's a small example of an expanded push into other genres, if you will.

[00:36:34] And so. I think about the world where creators today have a podcast, they have a video channel on YouTube. Maybe they have a fast channel, maybe they have a live events business, they have merchandise, they have newsletters. And so for me, what I get excited about is thinking about ways to take what we've built at Libsyn and expand that

[00:36:55] so creators aren't having to use software for 20 different things, but it really can be the home base for what it is they're trying to do, which is connect with an audience. And so that's what success looks like for me, is are we providing the tools and technology as well as the monetization for these creators to do what they do best.

[00:37:14] And reach the audiences they're trying to reach. I think there's a lot happening right now and part of the reason to your earlier question why I came back to this space, 'cause it's not just solely about audio, which in and of itself is awesome, but there's so much happening in the creator universe that is providing opportunities for folks just like me and you to create shows and build brands that someday might 

[00:37:39] expand to something they hadn't even dreamed of. So that's a little bit of what we think about.

[00:37:44] Jeff Umbro: Well, I love it, and I think you guys are doing such cool stuff. And, and it is kind of fun to see. Like I remember the, when I, when I made my first podcast in 2014, I called Max Linsky and I said, what, where should I host my podcast? And he said, Libsyn, like, there was no, no questions. It wasn't like you could do Libsyn or ART19 or SoundCloud or whatever, it was Libsyn.

[00:38:08] And then a couple years in, I'm like, “wow, this website is not fun, and we moved to Acast and SoundCloud and basically every other hosting platform eventually. And, and I can say that 'cause Libsyn is very different than it was 10 years ago.

[00:38:27] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah.

[00:38:28] Jeff Umbro: One final question.

[00:38:29] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah.

[00:38:31] Jeff Umbro: Are we in a healthier, more sustainable phase in podcasting now than during the growth at all costs era, or does it feel different?

[00:38:39] Brendan Monaghan: I think the broader ecosystem around podcasting has just really exploded and generally isn't a better place for it. I do think we have to be mindful about how shows are created and how does AI fit into that. As we, as we touched on. And also how smaller shows get that share of ear, right? Because it does, that's the one thing I feel like today is it feels like there's a lot of out there, and it's, the barriers to entry have never been easier, and that's generally a good thing, but sometimes if you're one of those creators really slugging away and trying to build that audience, it could be hard to break through.

[00:39:16] So I think that's difficult, but all in all, I think we're in a much better place, and we're continuing to grow the economics to make this be a sustainable business for people. So at some point, it really could be their only career, and that, that is exciting to me.

[00:39:32] Jeff Umbro: And I think it's just like everything else. It's like, you know, YouTube or social media influencer or whatever, this will be the main thing for some people, and it'll be a side thing for some people and it'll be a never thing for some people.

[00:39:46] Brendan Monaghan: Yeah.

[00:39:47] Jeff Umbro: So. Well, thank you so much Brendan. This was awesome. I really, really appreciate the time.

[00:39:52] Brendan Monaghan: Always great to connect with you, Jeff. Thanks for having me on your show.

[00:39:55] Jeff Umbro: Yeah, of course. Thank you so much to Brendan for joining us on this week's episode of Podcast Perspectives. You can find him at libsyn.com or check him out on LinkedIn. And if you love Brendan's episode, make sure to check him out on the live episode from South by Southwest that we recorded with Brendan, Greg Glenday from Acast.

[00:40:17] And Leah Reis-Dennis from Audacy that was released on this feed in early March.

[00:40:22] Jeff Umbro: For more podcast-related news, info, and takes, you can follow me on LinkedIn at Jeff Umbro. 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.com. Shoot us an email at listen@thepodglomerate.com or follow us on all socials @podglomeratepods.

[00:40:42] This episode was produced by Chris Boniello and myself, Jeff Umbro. Thank you to our marketing team, Joni Deutsch, Madison Richards, Erin Weiss, and a special thank you to Dan Christo. Thank you all for listening, and I'll catch you in a few weeks.