Podcasts are the new mass media

Fascinating data from Scott Galloway’s latest newsletter on the “podcast election” :

“Rogan has 16 million Spotify subscribers and can reach many more people across a variety of other platforms: In just three days after the live podcast, his three-hour-long conversation with Trump was viewed 40 million times on YouTube. The audio downloads likely exceeded 15 million.”

“By comparison, when Trump appeared on Fox News’ Gutfeld!, which averages about 3 million viewers, he reached 5 million people, and the full episode has been viewed 2.3 million times on YouTube. To reach as many people as he did via Rogan, Trump would have had to do at least three separate one-hour hits on cable TV shows with numbers comparable to Gutfeld! There are only a handful of those, and they’re all on Fox, the top-rated cable news channel. Any other news network would have been a waste of his time. The typical viewership for CNN is below 1 million, and CNBC’s is less than 100k.”

In essence, podcasts are the new radio + TV. FYI, podcasts now come in video formats too, it’s no longer just audio (though I usually just listen to the audio as I’m jogging, driving, or doing housework). Podcasts are LONG-FORM media that requires way more attention and time than your bite-sized social media posts, so the idea that everyone just wants short snippets is misguided.

For communicators, the future is about mastering BOTH short-form and long-form media.

(The visual here is from the same newsletter.)