How has iHeart Reigned Supreme? with Will Pearson

Jeff Umbro: This week on Podcast Perspectives, we uncover iHeart’s biggest advantage…

Will Pearson: Where is there an intersection that’s really interesting with our existing audience?

Jeff Umbro: We’re going to discuss how they leverage radio listeners to build podcast audiences, what they look for in outside production partners, and why – despite being an executive – Will still takes time to make his own show.

Jeff Umbro: Will, how you doing? Long time, no chat.

Will Pearson: Yeah, it's been a minute, Jeff. Good to see you again.

Jeff Umbro: For our listeners, I actually interviewed Will and his co host on Part Time Genius, Mangesh, back in 2017, right after they had launched the show. And, and it's funny cause I actually found the audio from that. I was listening to that to prepare for this interview.

At the time we had talked about how you founded Mental Floss and moved over to HowStuffWorks and you had just made that move and launched a show. And iHeart had not purchased Stuff Works at that point, or Stuff Media. So I wanted to just go back in time and look at that window of, of podcasting where you were launching a new show, I think for the first time, and, and like a year before you were made like an executive at this company and then purchased by an even bigger company.

And I don't know, looking back at that today, do you remember how you were feeling when you launched the show?

Will Pearson: I do know that, you know, when you talk about having been an executive before and then go and then becoming, you know, a podcast host and then getting back into the management piece of it all.

Mangesh and I, after 15 years or so of running and growing Mental Floss, we really were looking to just exercise our sort of creative spirits and be able to jump back into something fully on the creative side. And to have that opportunity to join HowStuffWorks and start Part Time Genius and really focus solely on that for some time was just an incredible experience.

Not that we didn't love managing our teams at Mental Floss when we were there, but we were just looking to, for a little while to just say, let's only care about us for a minute and, and start this show. And it was so fun to go back to the beginning and create something from scratch. I think that's, the most fun part of any creative job for me is, is the ability to create a thing that doesn't exist in the world and then go see or hear or watch that thing in the world is just a, is a thrill.

And so I know we were excited. We were nervous. It had been a while since we had started something brand new, but it was just a blast to get a chance to, to do that.

Jeff Umbro: And you're still hosting it today, right?

Will Pearson: We are, we're, we're sort of back at it because we, you know, as, as you mentioned, we were doing that for a little while, and then I did start getting that itch to be a part of the growth of the company and a part of really helping sort of steer the vision of what we were doing for our podcast division.

And so I did start getting more involved in what we were doing strategically. And so we took a little bit of a break from doing Part Time Genius. Mangesh took the leap again, he missed the sort of smaller startup world, and I'm super proud of him for making that leap to start Kaleidoscope and to say I'm ready to start something from scratch again, ready to fundraise again, and they've been making some brilliant podcasts, and so we decided several months ago, you know what, let's get back to it, let's start doing Part Time Genius again, so we produce Part Time Genius in partnership with Kaleidoscope, and it's, It's honestly almost like my therapy.

It's our chance to say, you know what, let's put everything else aside and just sit down and talk about something super nerdy for the next 45 minutes. And it's a, it's a fun experience.

Jeff Umbro: It's funny to hear you say this because these are like the almost same words that you used in that interview seven and a half years ago.

Will Pearson: Really?

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. It's that you were, you know, really interested in doing something nerdy and getting to hang out with your buddy. And in that conversation we had, you said that you guys were doing like 30, 40 hours a week on the show and, and I know how busy you must be at iHeart. So I'm, I'm just, I was wondering like how you were able to, to juggle both of those jobs.

Will Pearson: We sort of got into a groove with what it means to produce the show and, and to, to get each episode together. We definitely have help on the, on the writing side, have some fantastic researchers that really help us come up with the topics and the research for that. Mangesh honestly does the really heavy lifting.

I sort of am spoiled in this experience of getting to say, okay, what's our topic for the next one, putting some thoughts together and really getting to just sit down and chat through it each time. It's a lot of fun. So, yeah.

Jeff Umbro: There's nothing better than like a, an amazing production team.

I'm more curious about your current role at iHeart. So could you explain what that is? What is the president of iHeart Podcasts? Where do you sit in the organization?

Will Pearson: My favorite part of the job here at iHeart is that we get to think about podcasts across every single genre, every single category, and whether that's, you know, thinking about our comedy shows and big money players with Will Ferrell or thinking about, you know, our business shows in partnership with Bloomberg or sports shows with the NFL and the NBA, I love that every single day we're thinking about a different genre and different shows that we want to develop.

So my job sort of bridges the, you know, the different areas that you might imagine, whether it's the development piece. I'm, you know, I don't necessarily sit on the development team, but I definitely work very closely with that team when we're thinking about, what is it that we want to be creating six months from now, 12 months from now, what is missing in that space?

And so, you know, if you back up a little bit, you know, say 12 months ago. We were recognizing that women's sports were finally getting some of the attention they deserved. It's not as though there's some newfound interest in women's sports. Women have been interested in sports for quite some time, but finally it was, there was this moment where we realized, okay, we think the industry can come together in a way to support it from a listener standpoint, from an advertising standpoint, from a marketing standpoint. So let's develop that.

And so that's an example of, you know, when we say let's develop a slate of shows together and go at it full force, how we try to approach it. And so we have a roster that we launched this year of about a dozen shows led by Good Game with Sarah Spain as sort of the anchor of that.

So when we're thinking about those kinds of things, that's part of, part of the job. So maybe that's a third of the job is what are we going to be creating from a slate standpoint, from an individual show standpoint, a lot of that is spending time with our partners on those are sitting down with the Pushkins of our, you know, industry and the Bloombergs and the others to think about what we want to be doing as partners or individual talent that we might be recruiting.

The next piece of it would be, you know, the marketing of those shows, really working closely with our, our marketing team to say, how do we cut through the clutter in a, in a very busy industry? One of the great things about the podcast industry is that there is a very low barrier to entry. Almost anybody can start a podcast.

That also becomes one of the challenges of the podcast industry is how do you cut through? How do you, you know, in, in all of the noise that's created by so many launches, how do you get a podcast to, to really cut through? And so one of the big advantages we have here at iHeart is that megaphone of broadcast radio and all of our existing podcasts. So really working with the team to build the strategy for how to help those shows cut through.

And then the third part would be the monetization of all of that. So working really closely with our sales team, let's say back to the idea of launching a new slate of shows, taking, you know, iHeart Women's Sports, for example, saying who are the four or five really obvious sponsors that we feel like should come in and, and get behind this in a very big way?

And so, so that's part of the job as well as just working day to day with our sales team to help drive monetization of all of that. So those are the main things.

And of course, as you know, in any sort of management role day to day, there's always the things that pop up that are, you know, maybe team related or personnel related or anything like that, but that those are the general areas of focus.

Jeff Umbro: Do you have like ambitions to move beyond the podcast side or is this just kind of like, is this what you love?

Will Pearson: It's sort of relevant to the way I thought about Mental Floss. When Mangesh and I started Mental Floss and then when we sold Mental Floss, we always said, we will stay here as long as it feels entrepreneurial, as long as it feels like a startup, and the day that it becomes or starts to feel like we're managing just a business that's trying to grow a little bit every year, then maybe it's time to move on. And that time eventually came as it does with just about any job. It was about 15 years into it before that, that feeling came about.

And so for here, we we we've sort of had the best of both worlds in the sense that it feels very much like a startup, but a startup that is under the umbrella of a much larger organization that's able to provide that investment, that support to be able to help us continue to grow. And it's still very much feels like that.

And so while iHeart does a lot of really interesting stuff, and we certainly lean into all of those areas of the business, there's no way that the podcast division would have grown like it has without the radio side of the business. I really want this to be my focus for the foreseeable future, just because I think it would be a mistake on my part and honestly, on the company's part for, for us not to have someone that was solely focused on what we're doing on the podcast side.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. And you guys are monsters. Like I think anybody listening to this will know that you guys really do control a significant part of market share for all three of those different silos that you mentioned, in terms of like developing new shows in terms of growing those shows and then in terms of monetizing them.

So I want to spend a minute talking about each of those three things. On the production front, you kind of touched on this for the Women's Sports Network, but you are kind of thinking ahead to where people are going to be spending their time in the future. And if you do your job right, then that's going to translate to like people listening today.

Will Pearson: Right.

Jeff Umbro: How do you think about that? Are you just reading the news every day and seeing like, you know, do you have like a calendar showing you like big events that are coming up that you want to focus on?

Will Pearson: It's certainly not something I'm, I'm doing alone. We've got a fantastic development team and it's both listening on the development side, also listening on the sales side, not that all of our decisions should be made by, you know, what sales is saying that we need, but we do look for those gaps and those opportunities to say, who's, who's not yet listening to podcasts in a way that, that they should be.

So backing up, let's say five years ago, I guess it was, yeah, about five years ago, we were talking with Charlemagne, one of our biggest talent on the radio side, host of The Breakfast Club, actually interviewing Kamala Harris right now. We were talking about opportunities to grow in the podcast space, and he felt very strongly, even just looking at the numbers, of how much Black podcast listening was under indexing and saying, you know, we, we, there's, there's not enough in terms of options for listeners. People aren't hearing themselves in the shows that they're listening to. And then also representation within the talent base that was in podcasting at the time. So with the, let's do something about this.

That's again, one of the fun parts about being at a place like iHeart is we actually have the opportunity to, and the resources to affect that change to be able to say, let's, let's build a roster. Let's not launch three or four shows and call it a day. Let's, let's really launch a network together. And that's where the idea for The Black Effect, all credit to Charlemagne on this. To, to say, let's create a network called The Black Effect Podcast Network. And you fast forward, you know, a year after launching, and it was the largest podcast network dedicated to black voices.

And so it's a combination of thinking about things like that. So on the heels of that, we launched My Cultura, not long after that, we launched Outspoken, Outspoken focused on the LGBTQ community. And so we're always looking for those areas where it feels like there are entire populations that are under served and under represented in this space, and to try to create rosters of shows that that appeal to and serve those audiences. And then there's also just the sort of one off opportunities, or things where we'll see a show that may be already existing in the world, then we feel like we can really help amplify that.

So during COVID, you know, with mental health being such a point of focus, not that it was the first time people are struggling with their mental health, but there was definitely a very real mental health crisis in the world and in America, specifically as we think about it. And so we started looking for shows that we could help amplify.

One of those was called The Psychology of Your 20s. You know, this is an entire population, really, really struggling people in their early part of adulthood or in college. And this is supposed to be the time where they're doing the most socializing they'll ever do. And suddenly their world comes to a halt and there's this fantastic show that we see and we think, you know what?

We don't want to change what this show is trying to do creatively, but we feel like we can amplify this and get it in front of a bigger audience and really help monetize it. So that's how we think about it as well. We're just constantly looking at what's out there and the gaps, either content wise or audience wise, always looking at the statistics on who's listening to podcasts, why they're listening to podcasts, what they feel is missing from the podcast world. So constantly, you know, trying to bury ourselves in, you know, in that data. And then at the same time, also leaving a little bit of room for things that may just be great ideas that come up.

We don't want all of our decisions to be specifically data driven, just saying like the data says we need this, so let's go create this. Sometimes people just come up with a great idea for a show and you never, you never know where it's going to come from.

You know, one show, for example, it's a, it's a huge show called Noble Blood by Dana Schwartz. And it's just focused on the very weird history of royalty throughout the world over, over the ages. And. You know, we didn't know how that show was going to do when we launched it, but it was this quirky, interesting history show. Dana's a brilliant woman and, and creator and, you know, you put a show like that out in the world and you start to see, oh yeah, it turns out a lot of people love history.

A lot of people love, you know, learning about weird royalty, especially. And so we want to get behind it. So really leaving room for taking a lot of shots on goal, right? Putting a lot of different things out there and seeing what people latch on to. So that's also one of the exciting parts is being able to try out a lot of different things.

Jeff Umbro: And where does the distribution side fall into that? So for example, you have partnerships with like Pushkin.

Will Pearson: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: I imagine you don't own those shows or anything. Like, how do you think about those partnerships?

Will Pearson: The partnerships we frankly get most excited about is ones where there's actually kind of a blend of how the production and creative process works.

So when we partner with places like Bloomberg or Pushkin or the NFL or even niche categories, something like, like Meat Eater, which is hunting, fishing, outdoors life, it's a huge roster of shows, we actually do like to get involved in co productions together and really try to create some new shows. So in the best execution of these partnerships, we're bringing on board their existing shows, helping to grow those shows, both audience wise and from a monetization standpoint, and then putting our teams together and saying, what could we create, you know, that hasn't yet been out in the world?

And so let's take Meat Eater, for example, hunting and fishing shows. And so we thought, where is there an intersection that's really interesting with our existing audience? And we thought, Um, you know what, we've got a huge base of country music listeners. So there's a strong intersection there. It's not that it's, you know, a one to one necessarily.

We thought, what could we create together knowing the strength of our country music listenership and the strength of their audience? And we created a show that's all about that intersection of songwriting and outdoor life, and it's called God's Country. And we do huge promotion for it on Country Music, and it's a co production that we've created together, hosted by the Isbell brothers, and it's just, it's a fantastic show.

So, in any kind of partnership like that, what we rarely do is just your sort of standard sales rep partnership of saying, let's take your shows and we'll sales rep them. We're really looking to try to build things together over time.

Jeff Umbro: How are you thinking about, I've heard you say in other interviews, like how you guys put together your development teams and how you bring in people from a lot of different backgrounds.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Will Pearson: Yeah, it's really important. I mean, I, I think in more ways than just the development team, one of the things that we always wanted to avoid is falling into the trap of essentially starting to make the same show over and over even across different categories where the voice feels the same and the structure feels the same.

And so I think it's important to bring in a, you know, a range of voices, not just for the sake, sake of saying like, Oh, we've got a diverse, you know, team of voices here on a development team, it actually makes for better shows and a wider range of interesting shows. And so we do want to make sure that as we think about those that are sitting down and saying, Okay, we've got all these pitches coming in and we've got team members developing new ideas, that we do get a range of thinking on how those are going to, to come together.

The same thing goes for how we produce those shows. So the majority of our shows and the roster are produced by our in house team. We also like to lean into a lot of production companies outside of iHeart, just to make sure that we're giving a shot to, to different types of creators, different, you know, different production companies.

And so, you know, it's been fun to see that growing over the past two or three years of, you know, when we work with everyone from a Pushkin to just a wide range of production companies to be able to say, come on board and create a new show with us and let's, let's put it out in the world and see what it sounds like.

But we do a little bit of a reset or not a reset, but an evaluation of the development team every six to nine months or so, just to say, are we serving the needs of the podcast universe and podcast listenership that's out there? And do we need to add anybody to the team? Do we need to make any changes here just to make sure that the voices that are on the development team, as much as possible, reflect the listenership that's, that's out there?

Jeff Umbro: I know that this is like the million dollar question, but how do you grow a show?

Will Pearson: It's funny because you've talked about us being at this for quite some time now. The number of times that, you know, we will start some new marketing effort and then say like, why were we not doing this three years ago, four years ago?

And we try not to kick ourselves too much when we realize that there is something that seems like an obvious form of marketing that maybe we weren't doing all along. And just know that this is still a young industry and we are still trying to get better and better at what we're doing and still trying to lean into existing forms of marketing and medium that are out there.

And what I mean by that is, you know, we were three, four years into being part of iHeart after the acquisition of Stuff Media and realizing that we still weren't fully taking advantage of this huge audience that was the iHeart app subscriber base. And you've got, you know, we, what we knew was we believe in broad distribution of our podcasts.

And we were so focused on that of saying, we want to be available, not just on the iHeart app, but on Spotify and Apple and everywhere else people listen to podcasts. But in doing that, we were actually missing the opportunity to say that's all fine, but there's a huge audience of people that are using the iHeart app on a regular basis, and we're not taking advantage of that in the right way and making sure that, you know, let's take what's happened over the past week or so, for example, the show Las Culturistas, which is part of our Big Money Players roster of shows, just a brilliant, funny show, was celebrating their 400th anniversary, uh, 400th episode, not 400th anniversary.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. Very old show.

Will Pearson: Yeah, exactly. It's a long running podcast.

Their 400th episode by celebrating the, sort of the 400 icons and movers and shakers in pop culture. And so they did this over a series of five episodes. And so you can't be an iHeart app user without being aware of this celebration, because we're letting people know through push notifications and in app experiences and any other way, of course, cross promotion through audio as well, but realizing when there are these moments that happen, we need to have a really concentrated effort across everything that we do. And we were doing this, but not at the level that we've been really zeroed in on over the past year or so. We've been so focused on the audio 30 and 60 second spot cross promotions and the trailer drops and all of that.

And so part of what we've been trying to really, really focus on is when we have these new launches, how do we take advantage of the range of assets that iHeart has to offer? But to back up a little bit and, and to, to answer the question of, of how you grow a show, it's really about making sure as early as we can, identifying the audience that is latching on to that show.

You know, we make our guesses at first and we say we're launching a new show that's about food and health and wellness. And so we say, okay, we're going to try some health and wellness shows. We're going to try some female focused shows that are in pop culture. We're going to try these three or four other types of categories.

And sometimes there's surprises in terms of which audiences is gravitating to a show more. But as soon as we start to identify that, that's when we double down and say, that's the audience we need to go to for guest appearances, for trailer drops, for 30 and 60 second spots for social media campaigns, and really focus on giving that audience what they seem to be looking for.

And it's not an overnight thing. You know, for these ongoing shows, it's just making sure that there's a regular plug of these great episodes that are coming out and, and trying to play the long game as well, not saying like, Hey, we're, we're here to make a splash right now on this and ignore this show.

It really is how do you add, you know, another 50 listeners, another a hundred listeners, another 5, 000 listers, and then over time really building that audience.

Jeff Umbro: There are a lot of different levers to track what is success in a podcast. And everybody's going to have a different version of that engagement, number of emails, total downloads, total listeners, like consumption per episode, et cetera.

And I just know personally, like in my conversations with clients and partners, that's become more of a central conversation in terms of how we're discussing these KPIs, so I'm wondering if you guys at iHeart are having similar discussions.

Will Pearson: On our end, it's something where we haven't looked at it as, as one or the other.

Like we really do focus on both of those. And to your point, different advertisers have different KPIs. Some of them are really looking to, to drive pure conversion. Some of them are looking to make sure that there's brand lift. And what they're, they're seeing from their campaign. So on the one hand, we do want to make sure that when we're working with an advertiser, we get them in front of some number of unique listeners.

That's a really important thing, but at the same time, there are few things more engaging than a show that can bring a listener back every single day, like that is a dedicated listener. So if we have a daily show, something like the Daily Zeitgeist, one of our daily news shows that people are coming back to every single day, you know that audience cares what those hosts are saying.

So we really look at both and it, and it depends on what an advertiser's KPIs are, and I think that's something we've been focused on for a long time now.

Jeff Umbro: When it comes to promoting podcasts, like we've talked about, you know, feed drops and cross promos and, you know, taking advantage of the owned ecosystem at iHeart.

How much are you guys leaning on like the broadcast arm to promote your shows and like, and what makes a good sample for somebody to like get that kind of promotion?

Will Pearson: When we sold HowStuffWorks to iHeart, one of the big unknowns, one of the sort of leaps of faith was the idea that radio would be effective in promoting podcasts.

Because to that point, the biggest podcasts at iHeart were the on demand podcasts. So somebody who's a big fan of The Breakfast Club or, you know, or, or Dan Patrick or whomever, and just doesn't get a chance to listen when the show normally runs. And so they're listening to the on demand version of the podcast.

So we didn't know how well these would promote on radio, and we're thrilled to see, especially among a subset of categories, just how well these shows were, were promoting and, and driving listenership via radio. Pop culture, true crime, health and wellness, comedy, you know, there's a, there's a handful of categories that work really, really well when we can zero in on those, those audiences for that promotion. So it, it is a huge part of what we do promotion wise. I would say we do as much or more honestly, just because of the reach that we have on the radio side of the business when we launch a new podcast to make sure that we have a, a really effective plan on that side of things. The good thing is, is because we reach so many people through radio, we can also be more targeted in how we think about, you know, we just, just launched a show today with Rob Gronkowski. Dudes. And so we are able to zero in on that sports loving audience through all of our sports radio, and it will drive huge listenership from being able to do that. So we think about it a lot and it's a, it's a big, big part of the strategy.

Jeff Umbro: I'm so jealous that you guys have access to that.

Will Pearson: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: It, it's truly like a superpower. Let's talk a little bit about monetization. There is the idea that you can use podcasts to expand, you know, your reach as a brand. I think it's pretty, we, we could get into all the studies and data about this, but like I think it's pretty widely accepted that it works and it will drive more, if it, if done well, like it will drive more attention to your brand.

Something I think about a lot is like when a brand should be pumping like efforts into getting like somebody from the show, from the brand as talent on other shows, whether they should be pumping dollars into advertising on like minded shows or whether they should be producing their own content.

Will Pearson: I think it really depends on, on the brand.

I mean, we, we've found some brands, often the path is they start experimenting in podcast advertising. You're a little bit more of your standard media buy, your 30 and 60 second spots. They're seeing a response from that, and then they realize that their brand could have a clear voice in, in that world as well.

And that's the part where our team really loves to be able to dig in. We've got a division of, of our podcast team called Ruby Studios. And it's a team of about 15 people, and they just do a brilliant job of working with brands to say, if you want to bring this brand to life in podcasting and try to come up with a show of your own, here's what that could look like.

And so, we've done that with brands from T-Mobile to Under Armour to Trojan, each one of those, I mean, that's three brands that have three very different voices from each other, but it actually makes sense when you think about brands like that. They're each trying to communicate something pretty clear, and so our team's job is to help them sort of realize that and put that together and say, If I am Under Armour in this podcast space, what is my goal?

If my goal is to really help people see, you know what, maybe I'm not Michael Phelps, but I'm an athlete and I want to push myself and I want to be better in every way that I can, and I want inspiring stories about athletes that have done that. Here's where I'm going to, going to go do that. And Under Armour wants that close affiliation with that.

Of course, with a brand like Trojan, it's a very different thing. They want crazy stories. They want, you know, fun stories of things that happened to people in college. They want, you know, just sort of this, this idea of it being more of a lifestyle play with them as, as well.

And so it's actually a lot of fun. I don't get to sit in on as many of those meetings as I'd like to with the Ruby team. Because it's a blast to just watch them in action and to help a brand see, Oh, this is the way that we can, can play in the podcast space. But so it, it, sometimes it's a, it's an evolution of, of how they do it. Now, there are other brands that, you know, it is purely a scale play that they realize just the more people that their message is in front of, there are some brands that we wouldn't recommend doing, you know, a custom podcast.

A lot of your traditional sort of direct response type of advertisers, it's purely about just getting in front of people, letting them know that that product exists. It's a pretty straightforward idea. If you like the idea of this product, here's where you get it. Here's the code you use sort of end of story there, if it's a little bit less of a brand play.

So we're there frequently and there are times where a brand will come to us saying, should we do a custom podcast? And if it's not the right fit in that situation. You know, we'll, we'll let them know, like, maybe this is the path that we should go instead.

So it, it really is kind of a brand by brand thing.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. And we had Amber Smith on the show earlier this year from the Ruby team. And so if anybody wants to dive deeper into that, they can listen to that episode and she's awesome.

Will Pearson: Amber's fantastic. Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. So tell me how that actually works. Like if I come to you, I, I have a mattress company. I want to make a podcast. Am I also buying like ad space across your other shows to promote the podcast?

Will Pearson: Yeah, basically what, what we're, we're working to do is the, is, is what you're paying us is for that, you know, what we would describe as the hardworking media. What you get as part of that investment is the podcast that we create together.

There, of course, in order to do that has to be a minimum spend level in order to get to that. But when that comes in, that, that's what we want to do is we want to make sure that we lean into those same levers that we use to promote any of our new podcasts, to promote a custom podcast as well. So it's really, you know, to state the obvious, when you launch a new RSS feed, a new, new podcast into the world, it starts with zero listeners, right?

So unlike putting something on a TV channel where hopefully people will stumble into it, no matter what, we've got to do the work and the heavy lifting to make sure people get there. So yes, that's exactly what, where the investment goes and sometimes it's divided between pure brand spots and spots that then are, you know, promoting the brand, but also driving people to, to the podcast.

But yeah, you'll be driving down the road and listening to the radio and hearing a spot for one of our brand new custom podcasts that the Ruby team has made just the same way as you would, you know, a regular editorial podcast.

Jeff Umbro: I have experienced that moment.

Will Pearson: Oh, good.

Jeff Umbro: I mean, it's just such a funny way to think about it and like, and again, I'm very jealous that you have those levers to pull because you know, it's, it's a lot more work to reach the same amount of people that you could just pay for on other shows, but the benefit is that you get to own that experience with your listener and build that relationship.

Okay. I want to talk to you a little bit about like where you see the future going. So the podcast landscape, I think it's an understatement to say that it's more competitive than ever. Like, where do you see opportunities for innovation and growth?

Will Pearson: The good thing is, is yes, it is a much more crowded space, but I still think that there are, there are so many people and categories that are not being fully served. And part of our job is to figure out what those things are. So, like I said, our most recent was realizing the very real lack of great coverage and podcasts dedicated to women's sports. I mean, the fact that we launched just a few months ago, the first daily show solely focused on women's sports in any sort of meaningful, scalable way, is kind of wild to think about, and so there are going to be so many more categories, some that we've thought about, some that we're gonna wake up one day and realize, what are we thinking? Why, why have we not put a show into the world in this, in this category? So, some of it just comes with the continued growth of the, of the space.

So at the, at the end of the day, I, I also think that we can sometimes overthink where the industry is growing and usually great content and great ideas will still win, whatever the delivery mechanism may be. We may experiment more with shorter form, longer form, but at the end of the day, if it's an intriguing idea and a really great talent and a really well produced show and has a very strong marketing plan behind it.

It has a shot at cutting through. And I don't think that that will change tremendously over the next few years. So of course, we're always looking into the evolution of technology, the role that AI can play, all the different ways that we can evolve this company. But our, our primary focus will remain on what's the next great idea for a great story that people want to hear and how do we get that in front of people?

Jeff Umbro: Well, thanks so much for joining us, Will. This was great.

Will Pearson: Thanks, Jeff. This was fun.

Jeff Umbro: Thank you so much to Will Pearson for joining us on the show this week. You can find him on LinkedIn at Will Pearson, or you can head to iheart.com and check out all their podcasts.

For more podcast related news, info, and takes, you can follow me on Twitter @JeffUmbro. 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 social platforms @podglomerate or @podglomeratepods. This episode was produced by Chris Boniello, and myself, Jeff Umbro.

This episode was edited and mixed by Jose Roman. And thank you to our marketing team, Joni Deutsch, Madison Richards, Morgan Swift, Annabella Pena, and Vanessa Ullman. And a special thank you to Dan Christo and Tiffany Dean. Thank you for listening and I'll catch you all in two weeks.