The Hitmaker with Wavland’s Jason Hoch

Jason Hoch: The narrative limited series are still the most important part of this entire industry. Anytime you see something that breaks through and hits people, it's what they're talking about.

Jeff Umbro: This is Podcast Perspectives, a show about the latest news in the podcast industry and the people behind it. I'm your host, Jeff Umbro, founder and CEO of The Podglomerate. Today, I'm speaking with Jason Hoch, who is the CEO and the Chief Creative Officer of Wavland. He's also the creative force behind many beloved podcast series, including Atlanta Monster, The Agent, and Boomtown, which is going to be a TV show with Billy Bob Thornton made by Taylor Sheridan. In this episode, we'll discuss the anatomy of a podcast hit, what he considers valuable in podcasting today, and how he promotes his projects. Let's get to the interview.

Jason, how you doing?

Jason Hoch: Doing very good.

Jeff Umbro: I am excited to speak with you today because you have helped create some of the most iconic brands and podcasts out there. I have to start by asking you about your time at the WWE and how does podcasting relate to wrestling?

Jason Hoch: I ran the digital team at WWE. And so we were innovating across video, audio, et cetera, et cetera.

And part of this was actually getting the talent engaged in a way that they felt comfortable knowing what to do on social media or how to do kind of a TikTok style video before there was a TikTok. And so we were, as Vince McMahon used to say, we want you to innovate, but we don't want you to be first. Be right close to there, but don't be first because we're not sure where this is going.

And so, we were pushing ourselves and we were pushing the talent to kind of figure this out and take a leadership position without trying to do everything all the time. I've been in the media space for 25 years and I always cared about content, so I had two different stints at HowStuffWorks. One of those stints we were acquired by Discovery, Discovery Channel, TLC, etc. And kind of that evolution of always staying close to content and the expressions of content is kind of the deep seated connection that matters to me. So, I've been in tech, I've been doing lots of different roles, but it's about how we tell stories across those mediums and across those brands that matter to me.

So that was always my through line. And so that's how, in fact, WWE and podcasting and kind of all these, this crazy journey I've been on, this is how it all stitches together.

Jeff Umbro: I have many reasons why I wanted to talk to you today on this show, but the main one is that you've recently launched a new company called Wavland and you've released as far as I'm aware, two shows so far under that umbrella.

Both of them have been at the top of the charts and I just started thinking about it and like Googled your name a little bit and went back into your portfolio and every show that you work on has like the anatomy of a hit, is a hit, hits the top of the charts, gets millions of downloads. I want to talk about what really makes a podcast hit, and there's a lot of elements to that, but like I want to start by asking you, what was the first big show that you worked on that you would consider a hit?

What was the moment that you knew that it was a hit?

Jason Hoch: I managed the HowStuffWorks team as chief content officer for a number of years, so that's kind of the part where, you know, podcasts were in a nascent space and there was the growth and evolution of shows like Stuff You Should Know, but there was no narrative path or limited series path on how stuff works.

And that's what I wanted to do. That's the stories I wanted to tell. And famously, Apple came to visit us, I think it was about 2016 or 17, and I discovered over lunch that their next meeting was with Payne Lindsey upstairs, TenderfootTV, and they have this little hit that was emerging called Up and Vanished.

And so, I reached out to Payne afterwards, and we just kind of looked at each other and said, Wayne Williams, Atlanta Child Murders, let's call it Atlanta Monster, let's do it. And that became this, frankly, monster hit. It was so incredible to be able to collaborate with Payne and kind of get to know him.

He's a longtime friend of mine since then. But it was this big, bold story that has been sitting in the public view for so long. But in Atlanta, in Georgia, we kind of like to bury our past. And so we've been sitting there and no one was telling the story. And we said, let's just go for it. It's in our backyard.

And as you know, we had, we had Wayne Williams on the series. Like, we heard from this guy in prison, and it was just this wonderful exploration that was just, like I said, an absolute monster hit. We did that, and of course you're addicted. Let's go, let's do this. And I think I still take a lot from that initial series.

It was not structured. It was seat of our pants. Sometimes we would walk into a week and not have anything ready for an episode. Like literally nothing. Just taught us, like, we have to talk to the right people. We have to tell the stories. We've got to go into danger. We've got to do all these things and kind of combine that with really good storytelling, really authentic, you know, kind of time and place.

And then we scored it. We wanted this to be not cookie cutter. So the music was just as much a part of this as anything. And so that really kicked off the journey, and the next two series I produced were also number one hits. It was the follow up on The Zodiac Killer, again with Payne and the Tenderfoot team, and then a series called Broken Hearts with Justine Harmon and another writer at Glamour Magazine.

You'll find a commonality here.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah, and I'm also, as you're saying this, kind of putting the threads together with Wavland stuff.

Jason Hoch: Yeah. I love working with people over and over again that have a gift, they have a talent. They're smart as a journalist, a writer, someone that'll knock on doors. And this can go a couple different ways.

Either I can work with a production team and they kind of have the army that helps us make the show and I'll EP it. Or someone with a gift that just knows how to tell a story and knows what this story is and has connections with the people that are going to be on the show. I call it wrapping my arms around that process and surrounding them with the all the right elements to make a podcast, because I just don't think you need to have ever done a podcast to be a podcast star.

What you need is that gift in storytelling, and so that's who I look for. I look for people who just, they have that kind of instinct. There's another person, Wes Ferguson, who I've worked on a couple series. We did Standoff together. And we did another series called Devil Town, and what I love about Wes is he's just so humble and matter of fact in kind of how he tells the story, but I just love that he did something that we don't do enough, so instead of sitting in our closet trying to muffle the sound and getting on a phone call with someone, he gets in his pickup truck and he goes knocking on doors in the most destitute area of a, you know, country, country mile in Texas and has really difficult conversations with people, that most people wouldn't knock on the door.

Those are the people I'm looking for that have a little bit of courage and, and just the ability to get out there and at all prices, tell the story.

Jeff Umbro: And how often are you the one that is approaching these storytellers versus you being pitched.

Jason Hoch: People always ask me, like, how do you find these stories? How do you, I don't understand this.

How are you finding this stuff out? How are you getting people to talk to you? And I think it is a combination of my own natural curiosity and wanting to find stuff that no one else is doing and going a little bit deeper, but I think it's just within the universe of just maybe building a track record and I've produced over 30 series. I've worked with people over and over again. It's kind of my best version of word of mouth.

And again, not every production is perfect. They don't all go to number one. I'd change things about some of these. We all have that process, right? But hopefully what I'm doing is really respecting their ability to tell the story their way.

And again, surrounding them with my knowledge of what it takes to really kind of go there. And we go there, we really challenge each other. So it is a combination of what is the story? How are we brutal in our edits to really get this thing where it needs to be. And just, honestly, I do not want any of my shows to sound anything like any other show, even if I've done it with you before, that's the whole point, because if we're doing the Content Factory for podcasting, that's not really interesting to me.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. Well, how often have you gotten to the point where you've greenlit a show or have like agreed to work on a show or something, and you have doubts? Is there ever a point where you're not sure of what you're making?

Jason Hoch: Yeah, every one.

Jeff Umbro: Okay. And how do you push back on that? How do you convince yourself?

Jason Hoch: I would actually argue that the creator or the person on the front lines, if they're on the front lines, they have those same doubts.

I don't know if we're going to be able to end this the right way, or I'm not sure I can get access to the right person, or I'm not sure that this is coming together like I thought it was. And I think, listen, if we were doing this and trying to get it all done in 30 to 45 days, that would be one thing.

But a lot of these productions actually take, you know, six months, nine months, and I want to make sure that we get the time to actually form. And that first episode in particular, as you would imagine, is the most difficult. It's got to have the right intro, the right dramatic moments, because if we can get people excited and hooked on that first episode and get them to the next episode, They're going all the way through this.

They're gonna stick with us. And so, we really do spend a lot of time up front just trying to figure it out and crack this thing, but it's a little dicey. Like, it's just, I actually love the diciness of it all. I actually love the doubt. I have one creator in particular. He's like, I just don't know. I just don't think this is gonna be the one that's just not gonna work, and I'm just not sure I'm gonna be able to get whatever.

And we joke because he'll call me within 24 hours of him always saying this, and he will say, and it always starts this way, You're not going to believe this. And there's just something about that, like, again, that courage, that persistence to go all the way, giving them the permission to do that.

So this is the process. The process is messy, but it is the process. And I actually prefer messy over structured.

Jeff Umbro: So you've talked a little bit about, like, the elements about what go into this. So you look for great stories and even more great storytellers. You want messiness over structure. When you decide to make a show, what are some of the goals that you have in mind for that show?

Because I imagine that you're not sitting there saying, I want to make a number one hit here. That's the result of you making a great show. How do you define what your goals are when you go into greenlighting a new project?

Jason Hoch: You actually have to look at the show through a lens like this. So you have to ask yourself, is this a really good show?

But is it for a small audience or is it for a large audience? And if I want it to be for a large audience, I want as many people as possible listening to the shows that I produce, otherwise, why am I doing it? And so I have to think about how do I tell this story where I don't water down the series, the narrative, so it becomes Content Factory ish or watered down or any of those things.

How can I make this something like what I might pull up on Netflix or HBO, where you put this in front of me, and I don't care who you are, wow, Ripley was a really good show, or The Sopranos was a really good show, or whatever that is. And so, I maybe wasn't asking that question as much early in my career, it was just like, this is a cool story, I think it'll be awesome, but I didn't know how large the audience size could be.

Now I actually really think about audience size, and is this for as many, anyone that walks up to this, would they like this? Or am I only limiting it to a small section and therefore it's just, it's going to be a nice science project, but not kind of go anywhere.

Jeff Umbro: The industry has changed in recent years.

There are different projects that are being greenlit. How has that impacted the work that you do? Is that something that you pay any attention to?

Jason Hoch: I have never, to date, sold a show to a third party network, and so, yeah, I mean, I've tried to hold on to this as much as I could through the companies I've run or operated.

There's not a ton of buyers, and there's a lot of companies that have kind of paid the bills by selling their show to other buyers. Again, nothing wrong with that, but if there's not the demand, and there's a pricing issue, kind of squeeze, then it's just something you have to look at.

Jeff Umbro: Bad thing to base a business on.

Jason Hoch: Yeah. And I just, when I set up a show, we do think about derivatives. We do think about franchises and multiple seasons, but I don't build the house before I've had the first season. I think sometimes we do consumers or listeners a disservice by confusing them. They don't actually like, we've got all these derivative titles that don't make any sense for the consumer because we're trying to make franchises out of them first. And I don't even know, I'm not going to name names, but I just, listen, everyone has their own way of doing it, but I just think the way that things are organized on these podcast platforms and the art and the names and the taxonomies and all that stuff, I think it's difficult for people to sort it out.

And I think a lot of really great IP is getting buried in these franchises, where I want to see all the movie posters when I walk in the lobby. I think there's another version of this where it's getting buried, so I'm mindful of the environment especially in the narrative space, but I think that the narrative limited series are still the most important part of this entire industry.

And it's what consumers want most, I believe that. And anytime you see something that breaks through and hits people, it's what they're talking about. And we certainly create viral moments out of talk show stuff. On a daily basis, that's great. But I think narratives are just like that great HBO series, right?

On Monday morning after House of the Dragon or after The White Lotus, this is what everyone's talking about, this incredible story. And I just still believe after all these years that number one, it is still the most important thing, and two, that these things are cyclical, and it will come around again, and you will see wave after wave of great storytelling in the limited series space.

Jeff Umbro: You are very good at making really popular shows, and it strikes me that that in itself is a marketing tool, and you just talked about how you build trust with both the audience and with the big players in the promotional landscape, like Apple and Spotify and Amazon and everybody else. Are there other ways in which the anatomy of the shows that you're producing bring people or keep people on the shows that you're making and thus show them that Wavland or Imperative or iHeart or whatever it or StuffWorks is something that they should be tuning into?

Jason Hoch: Yeah, I would still say it's not easy. It's still not easy to just get people to pay attention to you. We don't talk about this enough, but using the promotional inventory that you have on your podcast, a growing podcast audience with downloads, you don't just want a show to go dormant. A Vanity Fair piece in a magazine 10 years ago, or even five years ago, would have this kind of moment for 30 days and then it would kind of disappear, right?

I tell people, journalists, writers that I work with is, you have the ability to have people be listening to your podcast for one, two, five years from now, people still finding this.

And so, the audience doesn't go to zero. It, of course, does tail off after the series wraps. But there's a built in audience that are followers. So we have to talk to that audience on a frequent basis and remind them of other shows and not let it go dormant. So cross promotional inventory, episode drops, or trailer drops are the two most effective ways to move audiences who already care about podcasts. End of sentence. We spend so much time thinking about social media and email campaigns and all that stuff. And most of it doesn't, most of it doesn't work.

It's really hard because you have to think about the mindset of people. Where am I in my day if I see a social media clip that's talking about a podcast? Do I have the ability to then go to the podcast, subscribe, and start listening? No, but if I'm already in the podcast app, and I just, this is what I do, or I'm hooking up CarPlay in my car for my commute, and I already have that figured out, you want to talk to them where they're already living.

And I think a lot of people miss that. As I've worked with different creators, with different angles, backgrounds, production companies, whatever, they also bring new audiences. So, every one of the different shows and creators I work with, the shows are going to sound different, as you know, like you said, Matt Katz, Sean Kipe, their shows are wildly different, but actually, the audiences are wildly different, too. That's on purpose.

So, how do we start to continue to bring, build a core audience that's fans, but how do we continue to find new people looking for stuff? Because that's the number one question I get asked. What else should I be listening to? And so I always want to be looking at different audiences to bring in.

And so it just grows from there.

Jeff Umbro: So you have talked a few times on this interview about how you're looking at like derivative IP with the properties that you're creating. I'd like to start with just hearing about what does that process look like? Cause it's not an overnight thing. You make a show, somebody comes to you, asks to turn it into a TV show, like what happens next?

Jason Hoch: Yeah, I'm actually going through this on multiple phases right now. I was actually out in, of all places, West Texas last week. I flew into Dallas Fort Worth and was an hour outside in Jacksboro, Texas. And the reason I was there is Boomtown, the podcast, is being adapted into a television series called Landman, which is being created by, of all people, Taylor Sheridan, for Paramount Plus. It stars Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, Jon Hamm, Andy Garcia, Michael Pena, and a cast, a really wonderful cast.

So, it's incredible, I was there, on set, and it took us a while, it took us, a number of years with the COVID delays and the writer's strike, but it's been worth it. And I am so excited for this to happen. And it just doesn't happen overnight. But I love, I love that Taylor Sheridan and the Paramount team believed in the story and the process. They understood the connection. And it is not traditionally a New York or LA story. It's a middle of the country story. And, and that kind of untold story. It mixes the wildcatters in the oil fields with Friday Night Lights and kind of all kinds of family drama. It's kind of the best thing that you think of when you think of Yellowstone or anything else that Taylor Sheridan does.

And what I also love, because I manage so many different projects at the same time, I kind of modeled myself after Taylor Sheridan in his work ethic, his work ethic in terms of what he does, but also the quality that he puts out. So I admire that. That's a really cool thing that I've connected, you know, kind of just looking at him in the industry and the television industry.

So that's awesome. It took a while, but I think ultimately anything worth doing is worth the wait.

Jeff Umbro: And how involved in that process are you?

Jason Hoch: I'm an EP, non-writing EP, so I get some check ins, but Christian Wallace, who is the writer and journalist on the story, it's kind of his story as a former Wildcatter and Texas Monthly Reporter.

It's his story told his way, and so he has been on the set every single day. He helped co create it with Taylor Sheridan, and I'm so happy for Christian because it is, it's his story, his family's story, kind of shot through this oil boom and bust. And I love that. And it's about trusting people to take your vision and making it something bigger, but you just never throw it over the wall and turn on the TV and say, Oh, look, they nailed it.

It's a collaborative, a collaborative process, but each time it's a little bit different. Again, I love that, that it's different every time.

Jeff Umbro: What year was Stuffworks acquired by iHeart?

Jason Hoch: 2017 or 2018.

Jeff Umbro: That was kind of one of the peaks in this whole peaks and valley, ebb and flow side of the industry that we're talking about.

Do you have any like different opinions or thoughts as to where we were at at the time? Different things we maybe should have been paying attention to?

Jason Hoch: Much like the early dot com days, it was kind of, boy, these podcasts can be hard to create and you can't just snap your fingers and have them overnight.

How do we, how do you do roll ups? How do you acquire assets? How do you get bigger? Because unlike website CPMs, which now they're in the bottom of the barrel, you know, you're lucky to get 75 cents or 25 cents for a banner, right? Like, actually, podcasts sell. Actually, there's no fraud involved. Actually, if we can get more audience, we know we can sell it.

And so I think there was a certain roll up that happens at certain points in the industry that is to be expected, so I'm not entirely shocked that it happened. I don't think it was a bad thing. But sometimes what happens when things get rolling, you overpay. And you know, in the land grabs and things have to come back to earth.

I actually think that the programmatic or network ads are the single best thing that will be good for the industry in the next five years.

Jeff Umbro: Is that because in a way, it's kind of like guaranteed income for some people?

Jason Hoch: When we did Atlanta Monster, we did any of those early series, whether it was narrative or talk, it was kind of like, let's run it and see if there's enough audience.

And by the way, we're on episode eight, let's throw the ad in there. And by the way, the series is over and we got to get host reads and we've got to do all these things. And there's absolutely a place for host reads, for big talent, for great integrations, for returning people that have a trusted audience.

You want to bring those in. I think the fill rates were low. I think that we are too panicked about programmatic and network ads being too low and following the pathway of websites. And so it scares us. But I think that this is some of the highest quality inventory that you can buy, and we have not made it easy enough for the buyers to actually buy.

And so I've talked kind of off the record with some executives at some of the biggest platforms about what's happening, and they've confirmed my suspicion, which is most of the platforms have bought an ad serving network that allows them to do the targeting and the dynamic ad insertion across a slate of huge amount of shows.

And so they're able to, instead of going to Brand X and saying, Uh could you buy this show and it'll be good and will promise you a million downloads?

Well, they've been burned before, because it didn't hit a million downloads. Yes, and that actually hurt the industry. So what's actually, I think, good is they can say, I'll give you this show as our anchor, and if you're looking for females 18 to 34, I'm going to give you part of the package you need to buy for your 5 million spend, which now you could actually spend 5 million on audio.

You need to buy these 18 shows at various levels. They're going to hit your demo. You're going to get one big one, three medium sized ones, 12 super targeted, but small ones, and we're going to be able to absolutely fulfill the campaign. And it just takes the pressure off each of those shows. And so the fill rate's going up, the CPM is holding steady and it's not just all programmatic, but actually network buying combined with ad serving technology and targeting from the major platforms, that is taking a lot of the pressure off, and I think that is the future. That, like, I just don't hear enough people talking about this, but if you really look at the strategic moves of each of the platforms over the years, what they're saying is the medium to small size shows, we can actually, we can actually start filling those and making money on those as much as we can the huge shows. And if it gets bigger, the multiple goes up. And that's exciting to me because there's nothing worse than working with a partner, a creator, a journalist, and being like, I don't know what to tell you.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah, we haven't sold any ads. Yeah.

Jason Hoch: It's a huge, huge deal. I'm telling you, for agencies and buyers, to be able to say, this is who I'm looking to target. Help me get there and have a collection of shows that I can buy against and get all these great metrics, is incredible. And then for the platforms themselves to be able to package that with hundreds, if not thousands of salespeople out in the force, putting this package together with the brands that they've worked with, whether it be digital or radio, is a game changer. And so I want the industry to lean into that even more.

Jeff Umbro: I've been an advocate for programmatic forever and to many people's chagrin. But yeah I mean with everything else there's a right and a wrong way to do it.

Jason Hoch: But programmatic is different than network is different than what I'm talking about here.

They actually have the levels that say host read kind of big brand network buy across multiple shows and have programmatic which programmatically like it's your backfill and then your backfill your backfill. It's this layer in between that we've been missing that makes it easier for brands to buy and better for platforms to be able to monetize and increase our fill rate.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah, and and that's a great distinction. And so for example, on behalf of a client we just bought on the Ringer podcast network from Spotify, and yeah, we had Bill Simmons do the read and then we also ran that on half a dozen shows within the Ringer network. So yeah, there's the brand affinity. There's the Bill Simmons connection.

It was a good ad that was a relevant fit for that audience, but we couldn't hit the threshold that we wanted to on just the BS podcast. So, so that's an example of this at work. So.

Jason Hoch: Well, so think about that when you've got a narrative series where you're starting from zero, right. And you of course need to move audiences in there.

So you've got to be able to leverage sometimes, like, talk and narrative series together too, or a series of talk shows in the podcast space, and it's all about bundling, it's all about packaging, it's all about targeting. I feel like we now have all those tools, so let's get after it, because the audience is not slowing down, and that's the other positive part, is like, the audience continues to grow, they continue to be hungry, we're going to continue to have new taxonomies or new kind of splits in the demos that we can target.

And I think there's going to be more brands that understand, wow, this is actually really powerful and effective. And I actually know how to buy, actually know how to buy what I'm looking for.

Jeff Umbro: I can't wait for that day. We've been creeping closer to that all the time and we see it in a lot of our sales too.

I'm simultaneously seeing that their brands are getting a lot more picky because they, they are learning what's working and what's not. It's harder for people to sell, but when they crack the code, it's just more effective, which is great. That's just the evolution of media. So.

Jason Hoch: It is, it is.

Jeff Umbro: Well, Jason, thank you so much.

I am so excited to listen to the next shows that you put out. Before we go, what is your favorite podcast right now? Like what we should we be paying attention to?

Jason Hoch: I listen to Conan. I listen to SmartList. I listen to Bill Simmons as my counter to what I listen to every day. Actually try not to listen to too many other podcasts because like when I did The Agent, everyone's like, Oh my God, it's a real life Americans. I'm like, I don't want to watch that show because I don't want it to influence me. So I kind of, maybe right or wrong, I keep in my own box. But yeah, I tend to limit myself sometimes with other series.

I talked about Payne Lindsey. I love what he does in his creative spirit. High Strange, Up and Vanished, the new season is really fantastic. And I know he's kind of back in Alaska working on that stuff. So big shout out to him, and he has a similar kind of motivation to getting series done the right way. So I listen to everything he does.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah, me too. We had Donald on the show a few months ago and similar idea. I'd never listened to Up and Vanished, so I hit play and before I know it, I'm like 70 episodes in or something. I'm happy I did it, but like, yo, we're all busy. Thank you for doing this. This was very fun.

Thank you so much to Jason for joining us. You can find him online at Jason Hoch, H O C H, on LinkedIn or Twitter, or you can check out wavland.media, W A V L A N D. media.

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.