The Journey to CEO with Gretta Cohn of Pushkin Industries

Gretta Cohn: I don't think it's productive to try and force, like, this is an audio book and this is a podcast. A podcast tends to be, like, very much driven by character. A book can be more ideas driven. If you love a narrative podcast, you can love an audio book.

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. Pushkin Industries is one of the most well respected companies operating in the audio space today, founded by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weissberg and home to Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist history, and Michael Lewis's against the rules.

Today on the show, I'm speaking with their CEO, Gretta Cohn. She'll walk us through her path from producer to production company founder to CEO and how she's navigated an extremely challenging year in audio and what's in store for the company to come. Let's get to it.

Welcome to the show, Gretta.

Gretta Cohn: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Umbro: It's funny. I was actually just laughing to myself because I am a huge Bright Eyes fan. And I think I grew up listening to your music.

Gretta Cohn: Quite possible.

Jeff Umbro: I know that you played cello from like a young age, but did you always want to work in audio in general or was it always music or what drove you to the audio space?

Gretta Cohn: It was a slightly circuitous path, I think. Like if you're talking about, if your definition of audio is like the work that we do now in terms of like, audio storytelling, podcasting, audiobooks. But no, it wasn't something that I knew necessarily that I was headed towards. My first essentially career outside of, out of college was as a professional musician playing in Cursive and Bright Eyes and The Faint and a bunch of other bands that were located around Omaha, Nebraska and Saddle Creek Records. And I did that for about four years. living like a full time life as a touring musician.

I had always had an interest in journalism though and so while I was full time playing music I was also writing for a local alt weekly in Omaha. I took a three month break from the band and I took an internship at the Village Voice in like 2003 or something like this. Yeah, actually I worked very closely with Ed Park, who if I'm not incorrect is now a Pulitzer winner.

Jeff Umbro: That was like peak Village Voice too, right?

Gretta Cohn: It was peak Village Voice. It was fun and great. And I actually worked first as an intern with Ed Park in the books department.

And then I was working with a guy named Nick Catucci who was covering like music and culture. It was great. After I left Cursive, which I had decided to do because I just wasn't certain that playing music full time, touring full time, was really where I saw, like, my life headed. And it took me a few years to figure out that really what I wanted to do is basically like what This American Life did.

So I worked at a ringtone company. So like audio is like a theme throughout. Like, so this was at a time when people paid for ringtones and I remember cutting down Sean Paul's Temperature into like three seconds, six seconds, nine seconds.

It took me a series of conversations with people kind of like exploring. I think actually the thing that triggered me into audio storytelling was having coffee with a guy who used to do illustrations for This American Life, and I was explaining to him, like, I'm interested in like, you know, all this like sonic stuff and journalism and storytelling. And he's like, you, this is probably what you should be doing.

And I ended up going to study at the Salt Institute in Maine with the great Rob Rosenthal. And then kind of everything from there is my present day work life. So it took me a little, a little circuitous path to get there.

Jeff Umbro: And I bet you like a lot of what you love about your job now came from each of those.

And I bet you learned a lot at each of those different avenues that taught you a lot about what you're doing today. You cut your teeth in like actual podcast and radio work afterwards at WNYC, including Freakonomics.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: And then you were a very early employee at Earwolf, correct?

Gretta Cohn: Yeah, I was the first producer hired in the sort of newly formed New York office.

That was in 2014. And it was myself and Erik Diehn and Lex Friedman, and then shortly after that, Chris Bannon. And we were this like inaugural New York crew helmed with essentially building out the production arm. Or at least that was my job, was to build out the production arm. You know, the nature of the Earwolf podcasts prior to that had been largely engineer focused.

So the engineers were also kind of doubling as producers in many ways. But it was the first time that the company decided they wanted to really put a focus on producers and expanding slightly beyond the sort of Comedy Bang Bangs. And yeah, that was a great time.

Jeff Umbro: You, you had kind of like a front row seat to like, each of the, the big eras of podcasting.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: I'm curious, just like on a super basic level, like, do you think that your jobs historically could exist again today the way that they did back then?

Gretta Cohn: Yes, initially I was a producer at WNYC. I worked, as you said, on Freakonomics and a show called Soundcheck. I think that the job of a producer at a public radio station is still very much the same.

At that time, there weren't a ton of other opportunities, opportunities actually like in this space. And I applied and applied and applied and like had to bang on the door to get in at WNYC for several years. The sort of like building the team of a brand new startup podcast arm of a place like an Earwolf or a Midroll, that I'm not sure about.

I actually think we might be sort of in a different era than that. Like that was very sort of like starry eyed and super optimistic.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. You can't be scrappy anymore unless you have like venture money behind you.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah, and Midroll was an amazing, Midroll/Earwolf had just, you know, they had figured out the ad sales piece.

Jeff Ulrich, who had founded that company, co founded that company, and he really was like the mastermind, I think, behind the Midroll piece. And even then, like the ad sales at Midroll were essentially deficit financing some of the comedy shows that were existing on the Earwolf Network. And so they really, that was a great front row seat to understanding how the business can work.

Jeff Umbro: So you started Transmitter in 2017. Not to keep coming back to like your resume, but do you think you would have been capable of doing that the way that you, the way that you did without having that experience in a startup ecosystem and without having like had so many of the jobs in the audio industry leading into that?

Gretta Cohn: Oh, absolutely not. I really credit all of the sort of like upfront kind of business meetings that I was sort of brought into at Earwolf and Midroll with like opening my eyes up to that aspect. Before that, I really was focused on the creative.

As a producer, I joined Earwolf/Midroll as an executive producer. I was really focused on developing, building, launching shows, and then, you know, joining the conversations around, you know, seeing my first P&L and doing, you know, green lights and thinking about audience and really getting that front row seat, sitting in rooms with really experienced people who, many of whom had MBAs, like this was a real, you know, bootcamp for me in thinking about how these kinds of businesses run.

And it was in many ways because I had that experience that I was able to go and start Transmitter. I didn't, I certainly didn't know everything. I learned a lot. It was a real lesson in like solopreneurship for a while. No, it was, I, I credit a lot of my experience at Earwolf and Midroll for giving me a lot of the, just like the juice to, to go forward.

Jeff Umbro: I actually started Podglomerate after spending five months living out in San Francisco watching a bunch of startups get off the ground.

Gretta Cohn: Oh, cool.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah, and I, still to this day, I feel like I don't really know what I'm doing, but, but it's worked so far.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: But it's, so I'm very jealous that you got to like do it in audio with a front row seat to like all of these experienced people, but.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: But it worked out.

So I want to like start by just touching on Transmitter for a little bit. Can you walk us through, like, what, what was Transmitter? What was a specialty that set you apart from all the other production companies that were out there in 2017?

Gretta Cohn: Well, there weren't a lot of other production companies out there in 2017.

Jeff Umbro: That definitely helps.

Gretta Cohn: It did. I mean, Pineapple Street, I think, had been around for about six months when we started, when I started Transmitter and, you know, in part, I had looked at what they were doing and thought to myself, I can do that. I had saved like just enough money to cover, like rent and costs for three months.

I put a notice out with Nick Quah in Hot Pod about two months before I actually left my job at Earwolf and stepped into my office at, in Gowanus, Brooklyn for, for Transmitter. Like it was like, The end of March was my last day at Earwolf/Midroll, and April 1st or whatever was like my first day with Transmitter, I just went right into it.

Jeff Umbro: No vacation.

Gretta Cohn: No.

Jeff Umbro: I bet you regret that.

Gretta Cohn: A little.

I started to receive inbound inquiries about making podcasts even before I had actually truly opened my door. Before I had my, like, LLC paperwork, before I had even, like, opened the bank account, like, I was getting inbounds for clients. And so Transmitter, I, you know, Transmitter was founded to really enjoy what at that point was, like, a growing market for work for hire podcasts.

And I'm not even talking necessarily about branded, like, some of our first clients with Transmitter were Spotify, CNN, NBC, other, like, media companies, media production companies, TED was one of our first clients. Really incredible still working with TED.

You know, and certainly we were doing branded and custom shows. I think one of our first clients was also Walmart, which was huge. And I, I priced it extremely poorly. I didn't know what I was doing. Like, it was a low, low budget that I made, but it was not so low that I was, it, it essentially like covered me for then the next, three or five months, right? Like, I was like, oh, cool.

And then when it came time to renew for season two, I was like, you know what? This budget has to double. And they were like, yeah, we, we knew we were getting a really good deal.

Jeff Umbro: And they were probably still happy when it doubled.

Gretta Cohn: Yes, they were. But you know, the idea was to really make like well produced, highly produced, thoughtfully produced podcasts for others.

Later on, you know, towards the end of Transmitter, we started to have ambitions to make originals and we tried our hand at it, but for the most part, it was a client services, work for hire, working with partners to make beautifully produced podcasts.

Jeff Umbro: I don't want to get too in the weeds with like the original stuff, cause I want to get to the Pushkin side of that.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: What did and didn't work with the original side of the business while you were still at Transmitter?

Gretta Cohn: Funding was difficult. We self funded our biggest, biggest, our, basically like our, what I would think is our most successful and the thing that I was so proud of, which is Rebel Eaters Club with Virgie Tovar. That was just a beautiful, bespoke project where even down to like the artwork, like everyone was so proud of it, but did it, it didn't really drive a huge audience. We had trouble monetizing. We had to really like strip back the production season over season in order to allow the costs of production to make sense within the wider business.

And it was, yeah, it was tough. It was hard to, to make that piece work, but we were able to do that because we had these, these client projects. We were, it was like an experiment.

Jeff Umbro: We had a, a very similar situation a couple of years ago with our first like big original swing.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: I had nine goals associated with that show and we hit eight of them. The one that we didn't hit was making any money.

So I know today a lot of people are saying that it's like a lot easier to monetize an always-on show, but did that apply then as well?

Gretta Cohn: I believe so. Yeah. I mean, that was the feedback that we got from the folks we were working with on the advertising side was if we were more consistent, if we had more episodes that we could, we had the potential to drive more and better advertising.

We were working with an agency who was able to bring us some really fantastic advertisements, but they were, they didn't even cover the cost of producing the episodes and I went out and I tried to take meetings, largely with sort of like size inclusive brands to encourage them, like even just like take a shot on like one episode and I was able to land one, which was fantastic. Sales is, you know, that's not my background.

But making that show always-on wasn't really an option for us at the time. We didn't have the, the bandwidth as far as staff time was concerned. We understood that it was more of a bespoke kind of beautiful thing that we were making for the joy of it more than for a, you know, payday.

Jeff Umbro: It's like everything else in capitalism. Like eventually it hits you like, Oh, in order to do this, you have to do that.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: So, so speaking of capitalism, at some point Pushkin acquired Transmitter.

Gretta Cohn: Yes.

Jeff Umbro: When did that happen?

Gretta Cohn: That was in August of 2022. I had reached a point in 2021 or thereabouts where I felt like I was looking for kind of like the next phase of Transmitter, whatever that might be.

I was really open to whether that might be an acquisition or some kind of investment or a joint venture. I asked Ben Riskin and Bianca Grimshaw at Room Tone. Bianca was Transmitter's counsel, and so it was kind of natural to kind of turn to them and ask for some support there, and we just started to think through what some options might be, and we started to pitch out to folks.

Pushkin very quickly came forward as one of the most interesting options as far as exploring. And I think from the very first conversation, it was clear that there was a really, like, we were in sync. The kind of work that I was interested in making was very much the kind of work that Pushkin was making. The, essentially, the attention to detail, the focus on quality, not being a sort of, like, factory of churning out podcasts day in, day out, but really focusing on story, you know, all the things that what drew me into this work in the first place, like the great care that Pushkin seemed to take for all of the work, what really drew, drew me in.

And then, of course, finding out that there, while I, while Transmitter and Pushkin had not worked together in a co production or, you know, work for higher capacity, I knew so many people who worked here. Already people I had worked with in the past or people that I knew socially. And so it just was another indication that it was the right place.

Jeff Umbro: So was the initial vision, like Transmitter would do the branded and the Pushkin team would do the originals?

Gretta Cohn: I think the, there was a goal of utilizing the experience, the team at Transmitter to build out further on the work for hire and custom type staff. And when we came in to Pushkin with some clients who came with us, and that was additive to Pushkin, but there was, from the beginning, the idea that there would be an integration of the folks who came from Transmitter, the producers, and with the rest of the Pushkin group. Like, there was never an intent to keep a separate operation.

The Transmitter name was, like, the company was dissolved. The name went away. There is no Transmitter anymore.

Jeff Umbro: What was that like for you?

Gretta Cohn: I am someone who, I have really enjoyed making pivots over the course of my working life. And I think there was a moment when I first understood that we were going to be dissolved of like an emotion, like a feeling of like, Oh. I mean, Transmitter, I think did good work and had grown a reputation.

But I think it was a capital R reputation. I don't think that we were really particularly known outside of niche areas of the, of the podcasting ecosystem. So I, I didn't look back. And frankly, I never loved the name.

Jeff Umbro: That's, that is like a, a founder's problem. I hate the Podglomerate's name. And like, I hear all the time that people love it.

I'm like, why? Why would you like that? But.

Gretta Cohn: It's a great name.

Jeff Umbro: See? Exactly.

Was there anything that was like really surprising for you with that transition?

Gretta Cohn: Well, I think one of the biggest things that I was looking forward to was not having to, and this is now funny knowing where I sit today, but not having to make decisions about everything.

That, you know, Transmitter was a team of producers, and things that had to do with strategy, business development, even like HR, office management. These were all my, that was my job at Transmitter. I was running everything except for the actual hands on, the making of things. And so it was a great relief to me to come into a place where I had more peers and that it wasn't resting on my shoulders to have to do all of those things and more.

So that wasn't surprising. That wasn't. necessarily unexpected, but the transition was one where I like breathed a sigh of relief. I was like, okay, like now I can focus on heading production and I don't have to like run payroll every week.

Jeff Umbro: I, wow, you and I are kindred spirits.

So a lot happened after Pushkin and Transmitter became one. Now it's just Pushkin. There was a kind of a downturn in the entire industry. It impacted Pushkin. Yeah. About a third of the staff was laid off. You eventually were promoted to CEO as part of like a reorganization. What was that experience like?

Gretta Cohn: 2023 was one of the most challenging years of my work life, for sure.

It's really hard to see the business that you work in and that you love just plummet in that way. And then the It's about the impact and the cost on the people that you work with and see every day. And those conversations are awful and traumatic for everyone. And I don't think anyone could have predicted like the scale at which it was going to kind of come for us.

It also created such an important reckoning of, in order to move forward, we have to do it sustainably. And what does that look like?

And so when I was put into the role of CEO, that was my task was to figure out, like, how are we moving forward to create a sustainable business, a profitable business, one where, you know, and Transmitter was always sustainable or profitable for the majority of our time.

It's like the money coming in has to be equal to the money going out, or maybe you want a little bit more coming in. Yeah. So there was this reckoning and this level setting and a lot of people had to learn and make difficult decisions and do difficult things and then figure out how to come back from it.

And, you know, I think the good news is that we are very much in the coming back stage.

Jeff Umbro: You guys are genuinely one of three podcast companies that I pay for. You guys got me with the Olympic series.

Gretta Cohn: Oh, awesome. It was so good.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. I've been putting it off forever cause that's just who I am. And then finally I heard the first episode.

I'm like, I got to get the rest of this, so.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: That is my segue into asking you, what are some of the things in which you are doing to make the company more sustainable?

Gretta Cohn: We're doubling down on what works. So we have a roster of shows, some of which are, you know, really enormously successful. And so how are we continuing to build and grow those shows?

How are we giving the present audience, like our current audience, what it is that they want while also seeking to bring new people into the fold? In some ways that looks like, you know, releasing more content or experimenting and seeing what works, what people gravitate towards. You know, we tried a whole series in revisionist history in the beginning of the year called Development Hell, which was kind of a departure for the show.

And we found that some people really liked it, some people not so much. But you know, any feedback is good feedback. And so we're able to, to use that. And, and when I say some people didn't, you know, some people liked it, some people not so much, it's because revisionist history is just known so much for the narrative storytelling that we do. And this was just like a different style, a different kind of production.

Reducing costs is another thing that we did to make the company more sustainable. Looking at production budgets, figuring out how we can adapt them. Like, what can we do to bring down a budget by X percent? Being realistic when it comes to any new sort of like advances with hosts, you know, looking at what is the revenue potential and how are we going to ensure that the show can earn out?

And I think something that is really important to Pushkin as far as sustainability is just like revenue diversification. And so, you know, our biggest arm is our podcasting arm and we are ad supported and we work with iHeart and that is wonderful and working really well for us. We also do branded work, we work with companies and we make podcasts for them.

We also have our audiobooks arm, which was, you know, I actually had briefly been involved with audiobooks in like 2008 for a short period of time, but coming to Pushkin, it's been a real education for me in the place of audiobooks, how audiobooks function, really learning that podcasts and audiobooks are really operating on a continuum.

And being able to sell something direct to consumer is amazing.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah, it's really nice. And you have your premium subscription stuff too, which is, which is awesome.

Gretta Cohn: And we have our subscriptions. Yes, which is another really important part of, of diversification. Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: I want to ask two more questions about like the sustainability side.

Do you find that you're quicker to kill a show now that you like have more learnings about what does and doesn't work?

Gretta Cohn: We, in like 2022 ish into 2023, we made the decision to sunset shows that were not profitable or didn't have a path to profitability. And so at this point, it's really more about greenlighting rather than killing.

So we are being super intentional about what new show we might add to our roster. And of course, you know, nobody has a crystal ball to tell, is this show going to hit? Is it going to reach the number of, you know, listeners that we need? Are we going to find like a great bespoke, you know, sponsor? All of these things, like we can't really predict that, but we could, there are things that we can look at that will help us drive a decision about whether it's going to make sense and thrive in the Pushkin network.

Jeff Umbro: And how much does iHeart have to do with that? Because I know they're your ad sales partner. Are they able to pre-sell all of your shows just on the back of it being a Pushkin show?

Gretta Cohn: They have pre-sold some shows. Yes.

Jeff Umbro: Okay.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: Are they, are those like special shows or is it like, like for example, the Olympic series.

Gretta Cohn: Mm-Hmm.

Jeff Umbro: That you did under revisionist history, like.

Gretta Cohn: Mm-Hmm.

Jeff Umbro: That kind of had a guaranteed audience, right?

Gretta Cohn: For our long running shows, the ad sales team at iHeart, who are amazing, are just always focused on like the next thing. We are engaged with them on like a weekly basis. Here's what's coming, who do you think might be interested, could we get a package like for this or that or the other thing.

Our show Medal of Honor was something that was sold prior to production even starting because it had such a, we were able to tap into a really specific audience. And advertisers who are seeking that very specific audience, iHeart is always thinking ahead, so in a sense you could say we are always pre selling, but for a brand new show, like for example, we launched Risky Business with Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova, it was on their list, like we knew they were thinking about it.

I don't think there was any sort of like big advertising deal that was able to take place prior to the show launching, but now that we're in production and we've seen an audience and it's on their list, they're thinking about it and they're, they're always planning ahead.

Jeff Umbro: When you became CEO, was there like a first decision that you made?

Gretta Cohn: I gathered my new leadership team. I had them come over to my apartment. We had coffee and then we had salads, and then we had cookies thinking about the day in terms of the, the food and the snacks. But we just went through every single sort of like department or function, and thought about what needed to change.

So, you know, whether that's from marketing or finance or biz dev or any of it, like, where are we at and where do we want to be in X period of time? And I think, you know, initially the goal was sustainability, profitability. And so trying to take some learnings from like the past X years, you know, four or five years of Pushkin history, you know, and then figuring out what are the things that we need to think about doing differently in order to move into the next era of Pushkin.

I am proud of, along with the team, making the company sustainable. Like, we achieved that goal, and we're very proud of that. That was hard earned. What is the challenge is maintaining that.

So in some ways it's maybe not as hard as the getting to it, but like right now I'm thinking about 2025. I'm already there because I need to be, because we need to know, what is Q1 gonna look like. You know, the rest of the year is like already pretty much, like we know what the rest of the year looks like.

Jeff Umbro: Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg are the founders of Pushkin. They're still very much involved.

Gretta Cohn: Yes.

Jeff Umbro: What, what is that relationship like now?

Gretta Cohn: So Jacob is our executive chair. He's also the chair of our board. He is so good at thinking through complex business decisions. So he and I meet regularly and we talk through future thinking. We talk through any sort of like present puzzles or challenges that need a little bit of unsticking.

And Malcolm is our, essentially our editorial director. Revisionist History is our biggest, most successful show. Malcolm is, like, the creative engine that drives Pushkin. Malcolm is probably one of the most inspiring people I have ever worked for and with, and to sort of interface with him on a regular basis, to hear his ideas, his, his enthusiasms, he's probably one of the most optimistic and excited people.

He wants to have fun. And I think because he wants to have fun, he wants everyone at Pushkin to be having fun. And so, you know, he was reaching out to me to plan something for early 2025 because he is also thinking about 2025. And the end of the email just said, so fun, right? And I'm like, yes, this is going to be so fun.

And so I think like Malcolm is, he is just this like bright engine that is driving Pushkin and is inspiring us and like the things that we're making and how we're making them and how we're thinking about it. He's constantly driving ideas. It's like a real privilege to work with him and also with Jacob.

Jeff Umbro: I don't know if this is overstating it, but I feel like a lot of people our age like grew up reading his books and now you just get that guy at the other end of your email whenever you want.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: So with the audiobooks, has that been a growing part of the business in the last like couple years?

Gretta Cohn: Oh yeah.

Audiobooks is a really important focus of our work here. It is one of our smaller revenue lines, but it is growing, and the audiobooks market is growing, and I think our particular way of doing audiobooks is still, like, ripe, like it is just at the beginning in so many ways. I think for us, like I said earlier, like audiobooks and podcasts exist on a continuum, and we're thinking about audiobooks in the same way that we're thinking about podcasts.

Our first audiobook was in 2019 and it was Malcolm's book, Talking to Strangers. And, you know, how he describes it is like he had been doing revisionist history for all these years. And as he was preparing for his next book, he thought, why am I writing a book to then just like read the words, like word for word on the page, exactly as it is in the book? And how is that serving my audience?

And so he approached that book like he would a season of revisionist history. And any interview that he collected for the book, any conversation that he had, he recorded it. Anytime he came across some great piece of archival that he thought would be something that he might include in the book, he made a note, like, this is going to be in the audiobook.

And so the writing of the book was thinking about the listening experience from, like, the ground floor. And then that book did so well, the audiobook did very well, and it was, like, competitive with sales for the book. And so that was just a real proof of concept of the fact that audiences want this. It is, in many ways, like, a more exciting listening experience.

I think that there's a lot of hand wringing about what audiences want or what they don't want, and I think that in many ways the difference that we're thinking about, like, oh, you know, traditional audiobooks and this audiobook, it's just like, it's a technical difference, like, audiences, I think, are excited about encountering something that offers them a little bit more, like, of an immersive cinematic experience.

What we can do with our audiobooks program is we have our, for the most part, this kind of permeability between our podcasts and our audiobooks. So Malcolm has a new book coming out called Revenge of the Tipping Point. We produced the audiobook. The new season of Revisionist History this fall is all a companion podcast for Revenge of the Tipping Point.

And so. If you enjoy the book, then you might like to hear more about the background of the stories which he explores in the podcast. If you are a fan of the podcast and you hear these episodes about this new book and the stories that are in them, you might be compelled to go check out the book. And we did this also with Michael Lewis and the book Liar's Poker.

So, there's just, there's more of a connection between the mediums than I think a lot of other places are able to, like, capitalize on.

Jeff Umbro: It doesn't hurt that you also have, like, this built in distribution platform to promote the book.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: So.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah, exactly.

Jeff Umbro: Since you're producing podcasts and audiobooks, like, how do you differentiate, like, which is which?

Why couldn't Malcolm's book have been the next season of Revisionist History?

Gretta Cohn: So I think that there's less of a distinction between the two. I don't think it's productive to try and force, like, this is an audiobook and this is a podcast type distinction. This is, in part, sort of like Malcolm's leadership on our thinking around audiobooks and podcasts, which is, a podcast tends to be, like, very much driven by character, like you need a really good character to draw you in to a podcast, broadly speaking. A book can be more ideas driven.

And so one of the ways in which, like in particular, Malcolm has like moved between podcasting and audio books so seamlessly and so well, is that like for example. The Bomber Mafia, which was a Revisionist season, and it focused on this guy Curtis LeMay, and it really was like character study and told a story like focused on characters.

And then The Bomber Mafia was really more of a, like, it definitely involved all those characters, but it pulled back the lens a little bit. And the book itself starts with Malcolm reflecting on his own family and intersections with some of the stories that are going to be told in the book and then his own sort of like interest in World War II history and like things that like wouldn't really have made sense in the podcast, wouldn't, we wouldn't have like had time for in the podcast.

Like the book allows you to take a little bit more time and I think part of it also is the way that podcast audience and audiobooks audience are a little bit differently trained. I think a podcast audience wants to know, like, you know, we often tell ourselves, like, we get, you have 30 seconds to, like, capture that listener or they're going to leave and they're going to go somewhere else.

So it's like, you really have to, like, put a bunch of bells and whistles up front and, like, draw people in with a great cold open or some, like, really exciting story. But with the book, you can kind of say, like, Hey, I'm going to tell you a story. It might take me a couple minutes. Yeah, just, like, settle in. We're going to, we're going to go through something together.

And, like, part of it is, like, if you're an audiobooks listener or a podcast listener, you've made that choice. You've pressed play on that thing. And so you know, like, what you're in for. So I think I'd like to see there, I'd like to see, like, our vision of a continuum become more of a prevalent thing.

I think before I came to Pushkin, I was very much, I was not an audiobooks person. I didn't listen to audiobooks. I wasn't really sure. Like what the Pushkin audiobook experience meant. And now that I've been here for a few years, I, I understand it very well, and I see why it is so compelling and something that I spend time with and that I hope others will want to spend time with. If you love a narrative podcast, you can love an audiobook.

Jeff Umbro: I know that I, I'm the weirdo here, but I, I just read Barbara Kingsolver's book, Demon Copperhead. Oh, cool. And like I was literally thinking the entire time that I was reading it and I loved it. It was like best thing I've read in the last decade. But as I was reading it, I'm like, if I was listening to it, would I enjoy it as much?

Gretta Cohn: Mmm.

Jeff Umbro: And the answer is maybe, it kind of depends on like how they produce the thing, but.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: And distribution wise, I know that you guys have like, you know, a partnership with Supporting Cast and you're putting it out that way. Are you also distributing this through like every other place that people can buy audiobooks?

Gretta Cohn: Yes we are.

Jeff Umbro: What can we expect in 2025?

Gretta Cohn: So I think we're really going to be moving even deeper into our audiobooks program. We just appointed, we made an internal promotion and we appointed Nicole Op Den Bosch, our publisher. She had been at Pushkin for two years running her operations, but has a very, very deep history at Audible in content production and knows this industry inside and out.

And I went to an audiobooks publisher conference with her a couple weeks ago, and it was just incredible. First of all, for me, it was continuing to learn about the audiobook space via that conference, but just watching her and seeing how she navigates that landscape and how lucky we are to have her and what we're going to be doing there.

Jeff Umbro: There's a few other podcast publishing outlets like Lemonada and PAVE Studios.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah.

Jeff Umbro: That are getting into the audiobook space as well as like book publishers that are getting more into the audiobook space.

Gretta Cohn: Mm-Hmm.

Jeff Umbro: I know that the answer is probably that like there's no such thing as too many audiobooks, but like are you nervous about competition?

Gretta Cohn: No, I mean, I think what we do is so Pushkin that we're going to keep doing the thing that we know is great, like the, the kind of production, the kind of storytelling, the way in which we're able to harness our network to bring an audience. I think it's great that more folks are getting into audiobooks.

The Rising Tide, All Ships, you know that one?

Jeff Umbro: I sure do. Yeah. A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats.

Gretta Cohn: Exactly. I think, you know, considering that we are very much still in a growth era, both for podcasts and audiobooks, I'm not really worried about oversaturation. I think there will always be readers, there will always be listeners, there will always be new books.

And as long as we're focused on making really beautiful books, things that make sense for our network, things that we know our audience is looking for, and then maybe we're also able to continue pushing the medium forward. Like, I don't know yet what that sort of next iteration is that we're going to make, but I'm sure that we will.

There's a book that Nicole keeps talking about that has, it's like a very experimental novel. It has a lot of blank pages and upside down text and how would we do that? What would we, how could we make that experience something so singular? So yeah, I, I, I'm not worried about that.

Jeff Umbro: Well, thank you, Gretta.

This was awesome. Really, really appreciate you coming on.

Gretta Cohn: Yeah, this was really fun.

Jeff Umbro: Thank you so much to Gretta Cohn for joining us on this episode of Podcast Perspectives. You can follow her on LinkedIn at Gretta Cohn, G R E T T A C O H N. Or you can check out Pushkin.fm to see all of the amazing things that her and the team are working on.

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.