July 28, 2023 • 41 mins
Rebecca is an award-winning Executive Producer, Journalist and Host; in this interview with Sam Sethi she talks about how she got the job working with Harry and Meghan, and about wanting to help more women get involved in podcasting. This interview was first aired in the Podnews Weekly Review.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Now, one of the reasons I get you on to pod news was you wrote this interesting article in Vanity Fair.
(00:05):
Now, first of all, why did you write the article?
What was the genesis of it?
And then give us the beef.
What was the main thinking behind the article?
You know, the truth is it came from a place of trying to understand myself, given what's happened in the industry.
My career really followed, I think, a very classic trajectory of this boom and bust cycle of podcasts.
(00:30):
And so I felt uniquely privileged into seeing how some of that worked.
And I just kept on having this feeling like, oh, this thing that I loved, that I did from a place of service and artisan and creativity
and like a true soulful place has sort of become the word that comes to mind is bastard eyes.
(00:56):
And I was trying to sort of find myself in that.
And I thought the more that I talked to other people about it, the more other people were like, yeah, I kind of feel like that too.
And then also, you know, I've talked to people across industries and I have people who are like, yeah, like, nobody's really interested in buying or funding podcasts anymore.
Like it's just not a sexy investment place right now for people outside of the industry.
(01:22):
So I thought branding is such like a buzzword and I thought it would be kind of funny or cheeky to be like, what's wrong with the podcast brand?
Where did it come off the rails?
And how are the people who still make it thinking about it and interacting with this term and do they care?
And so that's really where it came from.
(01:43):
So why do you feel it's come off the rails?
I mean, yes, advertising has taken a dip and OK, Spotify stopped doing exclusives.
But the number of podcasts is still growing.
Yes, of course, we had a massive hiatus through COVID.
Everyone's home board Spotify came up with a do it for free model.
So we saw a massive spike.
(02:04):
But generally, the upward trend of those people that are repeat episodes is upwards.
Advertising CPMs are staying around the twenty four twenty five dollar mark for most people.
So why do you feel that podcasting's bubbles popped and that it's become I suppose passe is what you're trying to say.
So let me be clear.
(02:25):
I don't think podcasting quote unquote is going anywhere.
I think a very specific chapter in podcasting that felt exciting and lucrative and had a lot of potential has ended.
So the way that I saw it is that in twenty fourteen, serial came out and that the New York Times called it podcast first blockbuster hit.
(02:49):
And suddenly everybody was like, oh, podcast, this is a cool space.
And all the public radio nerds were starting to be like, oh, maybe I can make my dream project over here in this wild west space.
And from that, you get Gimlet, Alex Bloomberg, as well, Sarah Cain and both came from this American life.
And this starts to grow and grow.
And then in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, because of the crazy election cycle, we start to see a mass burst of news podcasts because people are suddenly like, I can't keep up with it.
(03:21):
What's going on?
I need somebody I trust to explain this to me.
So then again, we see another burst.
And then in twenty eighteen, Spotify goes public and part of their IPO strategy is to buy up everything and to be the Netflix of podcasts.
So what I was seeing and we can talk about my own career is that for a little while, the only game in town was public radio.
(03:43):
And then suddenly there's this big open commercial space.
And what I think I was naive to and maybe we all were is that corporate dollars will inherently change how we do things, how we make things, what gets made, why things get made.
And what I saw is a lot of that money that Spotify specifically, but other people were investing in podcasts, were going towards people who hadn't made podcasts and then hired the people who had made them to work for those people.
(04:16):
And now, however, many years later, the rent is due and it didn't pan out.
You know what I mean?
Like it just didn't pan out.
And so what I have observed in terms of understanding branding is when you see a lot of headlines and you see a lot of negative trends and stocks going down and deals being broken and layoffs and gimlet barely exists anymore.
(04:40):
When you see all of these things, it's very hard to get somebody who doesn't already love this thing excited about this thing.
So that's what I'm seeing.
It's not like, oh, what was me like celebrities are gone.
So the industry is over.
I'm saying this very specific wave that had a lot of promise when off the rails and is now over.
(05:03):
And that's hard for a lot of people, including myself.
Isn't it very much like wet one, Toto?
We had crazy valuations.
We had money flying into the industry.
Petzar asked friend to reunite here.
You name it, right?
I remember a friend of mine, Michael Burch, at Bebo, 400 million he was paid for fundamentally, you know, a very simple, very basic social network that then was just crashed and burned.
(05:28):
So are we not seeing that same thing?
Maybe we're seeing the first hiatus of podcasting, the money's in, the money's out, and maybe that dip will come back with something else.
100% of course it will.
I have no doubt said it will.
I absolutely think that it will come back.
I think that lots of it will survive.
There are still people thriving.
But unless the people who love it start talking about it publicly and figuring out what we want that next chapter to look like, then we are not in control.
(05:59):
We don't have our fingerprints on it.
And again, I think that's something Sam Sanders talked about this in the article.
And I had seen this too, which is when I would get into the rooms of decision makers and money holders, it was almost never somebody who had built
their career in podcast.
It was somebody who had come from something else and made it there.
(06:19):
So part of my point of my article is like, OK, let's pretend for one second that the people who make podcasts are in charge of podcasts.
What do we want to call it?
What do we want people to know about it?
What's great about this?
What's different about it than television and why is it special?
OK, so in the article, you did ask what should we return this?
Do you have any ideas what we should return it?
(06:41):
No.
OK, that's fine.
Not really. No, I don't know.
I was being a little bit cheeky, right?
Like, I don't think we're actually going to call it something else.
What I've found across the board pulling friends because, like, I wasn't sure either.
Not everybody I talked to ended up in the article, but I think a lot of people like to say they worked in audio, that they work in audio, that they're audio storytellers, that they produce audio.
(07:05):
I talked to one friend who works at a pretty high profile production company and she was like something about the word podcast feels like, oh,
it's just anybody on the mic and that can mean video and that can mean on YouTube and it could also mean this American life.
And when you put things like that and it's all just like a bucket, it's very hard to explain to people why one thing needs a quarter million dollars worth of funding and one thing you can do in your basement for fun.
(07:30):
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I do.
Yeah.
But if we said film could be independent film, it could be a blockbuster film, it could be anything.
I suppose in my head we have these generic words, I think then we need to secondary words that will then delineate them and think that's what we're missing.
I totally agree.
I don't think we're going to change the word podcast in anybody's mind.
(07:54):
Part of the reason why I wanted to talk to Ira Glass, other than the fact that he was like my hero and he started this whole thing and yada, yada, yada.
He was a semiotics major, right? Like he studied how we interact with signs, you know, like how we experience words and ideas in the world and how that then changes our behavior.
(08:17):
And so that's kind of what I was thinking is like when we interact with the word podcast, are we interacting differently with the word documentary or storyteller?
And I think a criticism of the article was so what's the point? And I don't know if I, I don't know if I have a specific point except to say I want to be part of the public conversation and I want other people who care about this medium to be part of the public conversation about what it is and where it should go and how it should be funded and respected.
(08:44):
Cool.
Then you said that you had a lot of feedback on the article as well. Give us a flavor.
So it was funny because it was very, I'm gonna say makes so though, I would say for the most part, I got a lot of people who said, thank you for seeing me. This is how I feel. I am having my own existential crisis about this thing.
I don't know how to describe it. I'm deeply disappointed. And then there were other people that were like, yeah, this is banal. Who cares? Let's talk about craft.
(09:11):
But here's what I thought was really interesting for me personally is that really divided along the lines between the people who are able to make and start and sustain a career in public radio and those who are not and were tied to a commercial system.
And I thought that was really interesting because like, yeah, of course, if you've been able to pay your rent and make advancements and tell the story you want to tell for all these years and you haven't had to look at what the trends are and who the money is coming from.
(09:44):
And then of course you would be like, yeah, craft is the most important thing, but it's been interesting seeing that's mostly come from people who've worked and stayed in public radio. And I'm gonna add mostly men.
And I think that's really important to remember that podcasting is still like something like 70% men that there's very few women in it. There's fewer opportunities for women in it.
(10:10):
And so seeing that feedback, I was like, it's interesting who gets to focus on craft and who has to worry about where the money is coming from and what people think of it and how we're going to sell it and pay our rent going forward.
So let me tell you that gender discussion you just had there.
Sure.
Why do women not get involved? So I can look at my wife, a super smart business woman of the year, blah, blah, blah.
(10:35):
She listens to very few, if any podcast doesn't feel the value. She would never start a podcast, right? There was no desire.
And often it's really weird. So my wife has said before when she's gone for a senior role, women wait until they're overqualified and men go when they're under quality.
But that's not a fault of men and that's not a fault of women. It's just it's the system. It's the generic makeup.
(11:00):
So are you saying the reason is that there's a barrier for women coming into podcasting or are you saying that women don't want to put their selves out there front and center as much as men do?
Which is it, do you think?
So this is a great question. I think that my next article might center on this idea because I think probably the answer is both.
(11:22):
I think that a couple of things, something that I think about a lot is people criticize women's vocal fry disproportionately to men.
Like when we do it, it's a problem. When men do it, it's just like how they talk.
And we still think of words like shrill when it comes to women and not men.
Like there are all these social constructs for women and how we hear women that would make us one reticent to get on the mic and two,
(11:50):
to make people less likely to take us seriously and want to listen to us in theory.
And I think that those things still show up in this utopic democratized space where anybody can do it.
You know, it's affected my own career. Like I've just seen it happen over and over again.
And it's something that I want to dig into. Like I wish that I had a very clear and specific answer.
(12:12):
But I think, you know, we live in a culture where we'd rather see women than hear women.
And so it makes a lot of sense that in a medium where you do not see a woman,
that we'd be less likely to want to hear what she has to say from a place of authority.
Okay, you've never thought of it that way, but that's interesting.
Okay, so you talked about your career. So let's have a look. How did you get into podcasting?
(12:34):
How long have you been in podcasting and how did you get into it?
So I'll give you the long story and you can edit and post.
So
like comes from an editor.
It comes from a tag. Thank you.
Like you'll think and you can do that later with.
There you go. Yeah. So when I was in college, I was like a starry eyed, I want to save the world
(12:59):
gal. And I went to go spend a summer working at a nonprofit health clinic and reforestation
program in Borneo, Indonesia, like middle of nowhere to study. Like it was a barter economy.
It was hell. It was fascinating to me. And it was like a three day like boat ride.
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But you know, like it was a crazy journey. And I got there and I was like,
forgive me, fuck, what am I doing here? I am not a doctor. I'm not a botanist.
And like, what have I done skills? Do I bring to this village?
Yeah, like what and I'm here and yeah, what am I doing? But this particular clinic was
attached to the Yale Medical School and the Yale Medical magazine reached out to me and they said,
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hey, like you're over there this summer. Do you want to make a short documentary about
what you're doing over there? And it was like a light bulb, you know, whatever it was, I was like,
that is it. That's what I really want to do is go to these places, talk to people,
doing amazing things to change the world, people that we aren't hearing from exotic places. You
(14:04):
know, this is like the height of the Anthony Bourdain style of journalism. And it was like,
that's what I want to do. And then I spent many years doing unpaid internships and waiting tables.
And around when I was like 25, I had an internship at Frontline, and it just didn't go anywhere.
(14:24):
I was like, okay, well, I can't pay my rent on this. And so my mom was like, why don't you apply
to grad school and see what happens? And I did it in a month because it was due the next month.
I just did it blind. I never considered grad school. I did the whole thing and I got a full
scholarship to go. I was like, it was like Boston University, thank you so much. You changed my
(14:47):
life. I will say it over and over again. Yeah, they gave me a full scholarship and a stipend and I
went and this was before podcasting was really cool. All I knew when I talked to my thesis advisor,
I said, I want to do international reporting. And I want to tell stories like Ira Glass.
And she said, have you considered doing public radio? And to be honest, I was like, oh,
(15:08):
it never even occurred to me that people get paid to do public radio, you know? But the answer was
yes. And at the time, nobody else was doing it. And so I got every fellowship and internship and
whatever under the sun. And that was literally the same year that serial came out. And then by the
next semester, everybody wanted to do podcasting. So I really just got in a right place right.
(15:32):
That's 100%. And then when grad school was over, and this is one of those moments where I saw that
men got opportunities that women didn't, I was told like, go to a small station and work your way
up, even though I had male counterparts that like got to stay at the big station and talking to the
mic. And so I moved to literally middle of nowhere, Vermont. I would skate that good skiing.
(15:56):
Oh, good skiing. Oh, it's beautiful. Oh, it is beautiful. I worked in the basement of the King
Arthur flower factory. Maybe not so good. But yeah, yeah, like literally the middle of nowhere.
And I'm like 26. I'm like a pretty young single woman with my dog. But it was the most fun job.
Because really, I was just there every day being like, what am I curious about? And then I got to
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go take a microphone out and have those conversations. And then ultimately, I won the National Murrow
Award for one of my pieces there. And I got pieces on NPR National. And but at a certain point,
like it just wasn't happening fast enough. I was like, I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere
forever. Like I want to go to a bear market. And it just wasn't happening. And at the same time,
(16:40):
was the time I'm describing where news podcasts, the Daily Comes Out, Pod Save America, Today Explained,
like all these news podcasts are coming out. And I had this, oh, maybe my career as an audio
journalist doesn't have to be tied to the public radio system, which is not giving me enough
opportunities. So I moved to New York, which is where it was sort of happening at the time. And
(17:02):
I'd live there when I was younger. And I'm from outside the city. And I was a waitress. And I
took gig after gig after gig. And I worked like 80 hours a week. I worked nonstop. And I had cold
called a bunch of people. It really was scrappy. And eventually, I got a call from my contact at
Vox Media at the time. And she was like, Hey, Kara Swisher is revamping this podcast feed that
(17:28):
she had, they want to make it into something new. Do you want to come in and develop it with us? And
I was like, Yeah. And so I did that as a gig producer for about six plus months. I was in the
room before it was called Pivot. I built the original structure. I was there the first time
they got together and the energy in that room was bananas crazy. And then eventually it became
(17:52):
successful. Then I went internal at Vox and then later at New York Magazine. And then ultimately,
I was poached. I was poached. Somebody reached out to me from the middle of come back to the
poaching. So let's go back. You said how it was successful. What made that show successful?
The chemistry is good. I mean, I'm a fan of the show. And I'm amazed because for Kara to come
(18:15):
back from those days of having one Mossberg to find a partner who I suppose come back,
come back her back. What I love about Scott is he can be rude. He can be a face of but what he can
be is very informative at the same time. So Kara does actually step back when he gets into
Professor mode in Brand mode. And she does expect that he does know his shit. So so in that sense,
(18:39):
they have an equal standing, I think. They're very good at holding one other accountable.
Something that I really like about Scott personally, I say this from a genuine place is
he can be rude. He can be a fade like he can be all of those things. And he can take criticism.
And he can say, huh, I hadn't thought about it that way. And then course correct. And I think
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that's kind of what's special about their dynamic to is they listen to one another, like they go
back and forth and go back and forth, but they are willing to concede to the other person, learn
from the other person. There's so much in their chemistry that like, may we all find our Scott
to our Kara, you know what I mean? But this is I can tell you from my perspective, the moment
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that pivot got big. And from a podcast perspective, why I think that's interesting. So from the
beginning, the original pivot structure was their intro, big story breakdown, wins and fails, and
predictions and predictions was I had seen Scott was already in the business world sort of known
for his trends and analysis. And so I thought this was a good way to kick the show every week is
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just like come in and do your predictions. And we did that over and over again. And then relatively
early on, Scott got his hands on the WeWork S one. And we started doing predictions about the WeWork
tumble week over week, in that very specific section that people knew to come after the break,
right? They'd already listened to their midroll. So we kept people listening. And week over week,
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that started to become the place where people knew they could hear about this crazy story. And
Scott was really good at being just like one step ahead of it. And that's when I really started to
see things take off for pivot. And then what's interesting is, I used to cut the show at about
30 minutes, keep it really tight. And I remember the first time we did a live event, somebody came
(20:33):
up to me and they were like, my only problem with pivot is I want more pivot. And so that's really
what ended up happening is like we start cutting it long. And then we went to two days a week. And
so then we had to be like, okay, what are new segments that we can do that make people want to
come to both days, but we can still sell ads, and people will listen through them. But I always
thought it was really interesting, like that's how important format is. And a brand that people
(20:58):
come back to is I think people started to associate pivot with predictions that were coming true in
sort of like the broader. Yeah, I mean, they've done great job on predicting what's going on with
X as we have to now call it. Yeah, previously now on his Twitter. Yeah, that's not gonna lie.
Especially in bad branding, right? Exactly. Oh, look, I think I own x.com. I'll rename my company.
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There's another news, another five billion on the valuation. Sure, like, sure, just keep
him with me, my friend. So, okay, so pivot, pivot's done many things. He's gone multi day,
it's gone live, it's gone international, he's done all sorts of things. Sure. Again, if you were
still in pivot, what would you be doing? I mean, put your hat back on. What would you say they
(21:45):
need to do? Do they need to do anything to keep it fresh or change it up? Or is the format good
and stick to your knitting? What I would do personally and like, nobody's asked me and I
genuinely am not. Well, I have, I have asked you. Yeah, there you go. You have. I think that what I
would do is a pivot universe is start doing spin off shows the same way like Pod Save America has.
And I guess they have on with Caris Whisher and they have the Prof G show, but pivot should be an
(22:09):
overhead brand. And then they should have young people, they should have some 25 year old doing
a Bitcoin podcast. I don't know, that's a bad idea. But you see what I'm saying. I think what they
should be doing is spin offs. Like maybe I thought it would be interesting to do one investigative
piece a quarter where like pivot is on Tuesdays and Fridays, but it's also on Wednesdays and
(22:33):
Thursdays, you know, once a quarter and it deep dives into what's going on with X or whatever.
That's what I would do is expand it as pivot is the umbrella brand, you know, they have their
conference already, build it out and open up to new voices and new perspectives that are
in line with their tone and their thinking and their subject expertise and use it as a
(22:58):
flywheel, right? Like you already have sort of like a marketing circle there that can feed itself.
Yeah, you've got an audience extend the audience brand value. I mean, we're seeing that with,
I don't know if you listened to them, but there's a great two shows in the UK once called the Rest
This Politics and they've just extended that it was Rest This History, then became Rest This Politics
and they're just about to extend that into other brands around the rest is and then the news agent,
(23:23):
which is another great show of X BBC people, they've now got the news agent USA because they used to
be the USA BBC correspondence. So they've extended it so I can see how other people could do it.
It's interesting. I mean, I guess it also fits into the fact that I don't know if Cara and Scott
have got enough hours in the day to extend. Right. I mean, look, Cara has more hours in the day. I
(23:46):
don't know where her hours come from, you know what I mean? And she really does do it for herself.
People are like, well, she must have an assistant. I'm like, Cara is a machine. But I agree is like
at a certain point, there's like an oversaturation and what they can do and what they can offer.
But what they can also do is sort of point at the people around them. And I think in a lot of
(24:06):
ways that's what she did with Recode many years ago. But I think Pivot is a big enough brand and a
big enough institution that they could start doing that. Okay. So let's move on. You said the word,
you got poached. What was that call? I didn't use that word you did. So you must have been at home
one day. Hi. Yeah. We'd like you to come and work for this new company called Ardwell. Who the hell's
(24:30):
Ardwell? What happened? I mean, honestly, that's more or less it. They didn't use the word Ardwell.
So honestly, I got reached out to on LinkedIn as I do often and I took the call, they were just,
there's a job at Spotify. Are you interested? And I looked at the job description and it was
interesting. And I was like, okay, sure. And the recruiter was like, somebody very well known
(24:56):
is looking to make podcasts at the intersection of entertainment and social justice. And I was like,
like dream job. That is absolutely like if I were to, even still, if I were to say what it is that
I want to do, it looks like that. And I was like, yeah, I'm interested and we had a good conversation.
And I happen to have been at the 2016 International AIDS Conference as part of reporting that I had
(25:21):
done around that time with the Pulitzer Center and Prince Harry had been there. And so I think even
that conversation, I had mentioned something about that. And I left the call and I was like,
who could this be? And I looked around, I was like, is it Ava DuBernet? And I was like, I think this
is Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Like, oh my God. And lo and behold, it was. And then from there,
(25:41):
I can't really talk too much about it. But I would say a good three month long interview process and
a lot of conversations and a lot of what do we want to do and what are the goals and what do you
want to do? And yeah, nothing will be more surreal in my life than that. I mean, truly, I'm like,
anything that is the nobody could have told me in the basement in Vermont, telling stories for
(26:08):
local public radio, that was going to happen one day. And this is a reminder to answer your inbox
because you don't know who's knocking, you know, exactly. So how much input did you have in the
direction of it? I mean, as I said, your role in editorial and production, what side of the fence
were you? Hey, I'm the expert podcast. So let me tell you how they should run in the format. Or
(26:30):
was this, we are the Royals and let me tell you how we want this to play out. Where was the bounce?
I wish I could talk about that, but I really can't talk about that on the record.
Okay. Can you tell me, did you curtsy the first time? That's all I need to know.
No, I very much did not. And let me say that they are very warm people. Okay. You know,
(26:51):
like I didn't feel like that was expected of me. Now, I wouldn't have thought so. Now, they had some
negative press around from podcast saying the horrible word which he was grifters. Again,
not talking about the individuals, but do you think those types of exclusives within Spotify
actually work? Because I don't think it's just them that didn't work, particularly. I think the
(27:13):
Abomas didn't work. I think Michelle Abomas one didn't work. I think you look at the one.
Kim Kardashian, Ava DuVernay, like the list goes on. I have lots of opinions on this that I can only
share privately, but I think Megan and Harry became the poster child for something that happened in a
lot of different places. And I think, I guess, let me say, I don't think that there was ill intention
(27:39):
from anybody. I think that there was, this is again why I want to try this article is I think
there weren't enough people in the room who were like, I make audio. That is my career. That will
be my career after this. This was my career before this. There weren't enough people who really
understood the fundamentals of what works and how it needs to be done. And that kind of strategy
(28:03):
won't pan out. So given, I think the quarterly returns for Spotify, increased user numbers,
down on their R-Poo though, so average revenue per user, increasing the price, so possibly losing
some people, subscriptions really not working, advertising, flatlining, where do you think
Spotify is going next? I couldn't really begin to know, but from the outside, because I'm no
(28:28):
longer inside, but I think they're hunkering down. I think that they are reassessing. I think my guess
is they don't really know where they're going next. I think what they're trying to do is trim the fat
everywhere and get out of the limelight a little bit until they're a little bit more clear. What I
will say that I thought was interesting is they've made a deal with Trevor Noah, which I think is in
(28:49):
a better direction because at least he is proven to be somebody who can do consistent on-mic talent.
And they did it as a one-off, right? Like they aren't doing these overall mega-million dollar,
how many shows deals, but that being said, they're still leaning into celebrity who might not fully
(29:10):
understand. I think there's imagination in podcasting where it's like, oh, you just talk into a mic
and you can do it anywhere and it's super easy. And I think that will never end well. So I don't
know. I think Spotify is tamping down, is looking internally, is trying to figure it out. I think
there's been changes in leadership over there. And I think this didn't make it into the article,
but when I was talking to Davy Gardner, we both agreed, like anybody who tells you that they
(29:34):
know the future of audio probably does not know. Like nobody knows right now. I think we are in the
let's figure it out phase of this commercial part of this industry.
So let's figure out where you're going next then because you might not figure out the whole industry,
but where does Rebecca go next? What's for you? You're an award-winning editor and producer. So
(29:58):
have you checked your inbox? That's the question.
So that is a very great question. And I'm being very honest when I say part of writing that Vanity
Fair article is me trying to out loud, figure that out for myself in hopes that other people will
feel seen in my doing that. Like I don't really know where I've landed is I've always loved
(30:21):
the craft and that's always been the thing that's felt most fulfilling. My favorite job I've ever
done still remains reporting from the basement of Vermont Public Radio, even though that place
wasn't right for me. I'd like to get to a place where I can do more of that. I'd like to get funding
for my own show. I'd like to do more writing. I'd like to help other people make great shows. I'd
(30:44):
like to be inspired by great creators. I want to make new things. I want to be part of this
restructuring and restratatizing about like how do we make this something that values craft and
people can make a living in it and it's not blocking out non white non male creators. But I am
(31:05):
when I tell I'm figuring out day by day every morning I wake up I'm like how am I going to do
this what's the difference between my career and my craft and my ego and my finances and like all of
these things I'm juggling all the time I guess at the end of the day I want to make stuff and I
want that stuff to be good and any way that I can do that and pay my rent is how I want to do that.
(31:29):
And pay your rent that's the key. Now and pay your rent yeah. So look you talked about earlier
women and voices but it sounds like you may want to go from back room to front office right to be
on the mic. What area would you be interested in doing you've talked about news is that something
you'd want to come back into or would there be another area that we don't know about Rebecca?
(31:51):
That's a great question. Look I think if I look back at my work in all honesty time and time again
I'm attracted to women's stories and other marginalized people who might live and feel
in that spectrum like from the beginning of being in middle of nowhere Indonesia like I've
always been attracted to that I've always felt like there's a part of me that understands that
(32:15):
experience and wants to help make that a more visible experience in a way that people feel
excited to learn about and not lectured at. I don't know exactly what you call that I think I
want to do things at the intersection of news and entertainment social justice and entertainment.
I don't know exactly what that that looks like I'm interested in exploring the world from the
perspective of women in our current moment in culture. Okay so one of the other things she
(32:41):
talks about and I thought it was a really perceptive thing was women's voices but women's looks
video is becoming a much more dominant platform. You've talked to audio but audio and we've talked
about the word podcast being a generic term right is video on demand YouTube is that a podcast
you know there's a big debate going on and I'm less worried about it because I did a show last
(33:05):
night with Rob Greenlee it was recorded as a video live he pushed it out to YouTube but it's also an
audio thing the editing and the construction of the presentation of the product was still done in
the same way it was just distributed into different mediums so I mean do you see yourself going into
video then maybe is that another area that you want to go into? Oh this is such a good
(33:33):
and complicated question because I think that there are some things that you can do
just as well by recording it and putting it on video and I think that there's some things that
you can't and I think it's important to know the distinction. I think video offers a bigger top funnel
and like why wouldn't you do that if you could do that? On the other hand I do think video can
(33:57):
detract from great conversation so I'll give you an example that I hope I don't get sued for sharing
but you know when we did the archetypes interview for Mariah Carey that happened over video and
these were these two extremely busy women that we see out in the world as these like mega glamorous
(34:23):
people barefoot in their homes in between putting their children to bed and I think had we said and
this has to be on video and we have to see you and the world is going to know you that would not
have been the same intimate conversation and it would have been almost impossible to produce and
so I think just a reminder to people that there is something uniquely special about voice only
(34:48):
conversations that I think especially for women because there is so much pressure to do that
but also talking to Sam Sanders for this same piece he said podcast is a service industry and
if that's where the audience is I guess that's where I go like if that's where the listeners
want me to be I guess that's where I'll be so I don't have a great answer to that I guess it's
(35:10):
balancing is there is something unique and special about that voice only non-physical conversation
there's an intimacy that builds and we need more audience if that's where people are listening from
why wouldn't we do that I would do it I'd have to like get over myself a little bit but yeah I
(35:30):
think the video question is so complicated I think everybody's thinking about it all the time and
yeah I think people are trying to work out if there's an audience that why wouldn't I go there
why wouldn't I yes yeah I certainly wouldn't begrudge anybody I guess what I would say is
don't think of it first if you want to make a podcast make the best podcast you can make
(35:51):
and then if it lends to video like sure of course put it on YouTube but don't make everything all
at once make the best thing with the biggest why and the most intention possible and if that does
include video fabulous but if not don't stretch yourself because you're not going to make a good
product at the end of the day okay fine a couple of questions sure who would you love to work with
(36:13):
who's that who's that one person you think you know what I could really make you better or I'd
love to just work with you who's that person okay this is like not the answer I'm most proud of
but it's the thing that came to mind so I'm going to tell you is Larry David I really want to make
a podcast with Larry David okay the creator Seinfeld and Curve Your Enthusiasm but the truth is I
(36:37):
want to work with people who are making cool stuff I've heard there there is great stuff out there I
was just recommended the podcast classy which I'm going to mispronounce his last name but it's a
reporter named Jonathan and he makes great stuff like I want to make stuff with somebody who's gonna
(36:57):
make my stuff better make me think differently challenge me you know like that's part of why I
put the bit in my article of iriglass pushing back on me because I like that I want somebody to be
like you can be smarter you can be tighter you can get better voices you can think of things
differently so I don't know if it's a specific person as much as anybody who wants to make
great stuff and can make me better oh and then my other answer is if Greta Gerwig is listening
(37:21):
and she ever wants to make a podcast a narrative podcast series call me immediately excellent okay
last one what are you listening to currently good question so like I said I just started
listening to this podcast classy which is very good it's a really smart conversation about class
and how we interact with it and done very creatively I recently loved a podcast called
(37:45):
you didn't see nothing I don't know if you've heard this I'm the worst person to ask I listen to
technology and business only I don't read books like novels I only read technical manuals I'm a
really dull typical male so no got it yeah I'm the opposite I'm like I love novels I love think
pieces I'm a typical dork in that way but you didn't see nothing it was really good it was part
(38:11):
memoir part true crime about a beating that happened in Chicago from a white kid to a black kid
that then became sort of like a poster story for race relations I say this in quotes in the 90s
and this person who was involved in it rediscovering it and it was so good and something that I think
(38:31):
is really interesting worth noting is it was co-produced or financed by Universal and I was
like hmm okay so movie studios have arms now that are run by their heads of IP and acquisitions
that are funding to make podcasts and it was great it was an exceptionally good podcast
and that made me feel excited about the future there is life after love for audio for sure
(38:58):
and it's coming from somewhere and this was one of the places where I felt hope where I was like
this is a classically great piece of journalism and entertainment and highly well produced and
interesting voices that was clearly well financed by a less than obvious benefactor yeah I think
we're seeing Netflix to appear these IP podcasts and a couple of other big network platforms do it
(39:22):
I think it's a good testing grad is there an audience can we build up a pre-hype etc etc
there's a better way maybe sometimes than going out with a cold film trying to then
build an audience rather than save well also podcasts I mean we crashed on Apple and the
dropout on Hulu were both almost verbatim taken from their podcast IP origins and those podcasts
(39:46):
had episodes already built out they had cliffhangers they had developed characters like
in a podcast they're so much closer to a screenplay that's ready for the visual than perhaps
an article or some of the other IP origin so I think it's a great idea everybody Rebecca thank
you so much for your time it's been brilliant talking to you finally we tried to do this for a
(40:08):
few years finally did it it's been a pleasure an absolute pleasure thank you so much for having
and look where can people find you if they need to get out of you well you can look at my website
which is revsays.com our ebzsays.com and all of my social media follows those same things and I
really am somebody who I answer my messages I want to hear from you I want to work as much with the
(40:33):
person ahead of me as the person who's coming up behind me because I think young people who maybe
aren't getting the funding still have great ideas and great talent so yeah reach out. I did it was
amazing it was one o'clock in the morning in my kitchen I reached out to you and you answered
it's pretty quick with that. Ruth is in the living and that's why you're here.
(40:54):
Rebecca thank you so much and look if you're an LA podcast movement in 24 I don't know if you'll be
there but if you are love to catch up with you. Oh absolutely thank you so so much for having me.
Pleasure.
Now, one of the reasons I get you on to pod news was you wrote this interesting article in Vanity Fair.
(00:05):
Now, first of all, why did you write the article?
What was the genesis of it?
And then give us the beef.
What was the main thinking behind the article?
You know, the truth is it came from a place of trying to understand myself, given what's happened in the industry.
My career really followed, I think, a very classic trajectory of this boom and bust cycle of podcasts.
(00:30):
And so I felt uniquely privileged into seeing how some of that worked.
And I just kept on having this feeling like, oh, this thing that I loved, that I did from a place of service and artisan and creativity
and like a true soulful place has sort of become the word that comes to mind is bastard eyes.
(00:56):
And I was trying to sort of find myself in that.
And I thought the more that I talked to other people about it, the more other people were like, yeah, I kind of feel like that too.
And then also, you know, I've talked to people across industries and I have people who are like, yeah, like, nobody's really interested in buying or funding podcasts anymore.
Like it's just not a sexy investment place right now for people outside of the industry.
(01:22):
So I thought branding is such like a buzzword and I thought it would be kind of funny or cheeky to be like, what's wrong with the podcast brand?
Where did it come off the rails?
And how are the people who still make it thinking about it and interacting with this term and do they care?
And so that's really where it came from.
(01:43):
So why do you feel it's come off the rails?
I mean, yes, advertising has taken a dip and OK, Spotify stopped doing exclusives.
But the number of podcasts is still growing.
Yes, of course, we had a massive hiatus through COVID.
Everyone's home board Spotify came up with a do it for free model.
So we saw a massive spike.
(02:04):
But generally, the upward trend of those people that are repeat episodes is upwards.
Advertising CPMs are staying around the twenty four twenty five dollar mark for most people.
So why do you feel that podcasting's bubbles popped and that it's become I suppose passe is what you're trying to say.
So let me be clear.
(02:25):
I don't think podcasting quote unquote is going anywhere.
I think a very specific chapter in podcasting that felt exciting and lucrative and had a lot of potential has ended.
So the way that I saw it is that in twenty fourteen, serial came out and that the New York Times called it podcast first blockbuster hit.
(02:49):
And suddenly everybody was like, oh, podcast, this is a cool space.
And all the public radio nerds were starting to be like, oh, maybe I can make my dream project over here in this wild west space.
And from that, you get Gimlet, Alex Bloomberg, as well, Sarah Cain and both came from this American life.
And this starts to grow and grow.
And then in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, because of the crazy election cycle, we start to see a mass burst of news podcasts because people are suddenly like, I can't keep up with it.
(03:21):
What's going on?
I need somebody I trust to explain this to me.
So then again, we see another burst.
And then in twenty eighteen, Spotify goes public and part of their IPO strategy is to buy up everything and to be the Netflix of podcasts.
So what I was seeing and we can talk about my own career is that for a little while, the only game in town was public radio.
(03:43):
And then suddenly there's this big open commercial space.
And what I think I was naive to and maybe we all were is that corporate dollars will inherently change how we do things, how we make things, what gets made, why things get made.
And what I saw is a lot of that money that Spotify specifically, but other people were investing in podcasts, were going towards people who hadn't made podcasts and then hired the people who had made them to work for those people.
(04:16):
And now, however, many years later, the rent is due and it didn't pan out.
You know what I mean?
Like it just didn't pan out.
And so what I have observed in terms of understanding branding is when you see a lot of headlines and you see a lot of negative trends and stocks going down and deals being broken and layoffs and gimlet barely exists anymore.
(04:40):
When you see all of these things, it's very hard to get somebody who doesn't already love this thing excited about this thing.
So that's what I'm seeing.
It's not like, oh, what was me like celebrities are gone.
So the industry is over.
I'm saying this very specific wave that had a lot of promise when off the rails and is now over.
(05:03):
And that's hard for a lot of people, including myself.
Isn't it very much like wet one, Toto?
We had crazy valuations.
We had money flying into the industry.
Petzar asked friend to reunite here.
You name it, right?
I remember a friend of mine, Michael Burch, at Bebo, 400 million he was paid for fundamentally, you know, a very simple, very basic social network that then was just crashed and burned.
(05:28):
So are we not seeing that same thing?
Maybe we're seeing the first hiatus of podcasting, the money's in, the money's out, and maybe that dip will come back with something else.
100% of course it will.
I have no doubt said it will.
I absolutely think that it will come back.
I think that lots of it will survive.
There are still people thriving.
But unless the people who love it start talking about it publicly and figuring out what we want that next chapter to look like, then we are not in control.
(05:59):
We don't have our fingerprints on it.
And again, I think that's something Sam Sanders talked about this in the article.
And I had seen this too, which is when I would get into the rooms of decision makers and money holders, it was almost never somebody who had built
their career in podcast.
It was somebody who had come from something else and made it there.
(06:19):
So part of my point of my article is like, OK, let's pretend for one second that the people who make podcasts are in charge of podcasts.
What do we want to call it?
What do we want people to know about it?
What's great about this?
What's different about it than television and why is it special?
OK, so in the article, you did ask what should we return this?
Do you have any ideas what we should return it?
(06:41):
No.
OK, that's fine.
Not really. No, I don't know.
I was being a little bit cheeky, right?
Like, I don't think we're actually going to call it something else.
What I've found across the board pulling friends because, like, I wasn't sure either.
Not everybody I talked to ended up in the article, but I think a lot of people like to say they worked in audio, that they work in audio, that they're audio storytellers, that they produce audio.
(07:05):
I talked to one friend who works at a pretty high profile production company and she was like something about the word podcast feels like, oh,
it's just anybody on the mic and that can mean video and that can mean on YouTube and it could also mean this American life.
And when you put things like that and it's all just like a bucket, it's very hard to explain to people why one thing needs a quarter million dollars worth of funding and one thing you can do in your basement for fun.
(07:30):
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I do.
Yeah.
But if we said film could be independent film, it could be a blockbuster film, it could be anything.
I suppose in my head we have these generic words, I think then we need to secondary words that will then delineate them and think that's what we're missing.
I totally agree.
I don't think we're going to change the word podcast in anybody's mind.
(07:54):
Part of the reason why I wanted to talk to Ira Glass, other than the fact that he was like my hero and he started this whole thing and yada, yada, yada.
He was a semiotics major, right? Like he studied how we interact with signs, you know, like how we experience words and ideas in the world and how that then changes our behavior.
(08:17):
And so that's kind of what I was thinking is like when we interact with the word podcast, are we interacting differently with the word documentary or storyteller?
And I think a criticism of the article was so what's the point? And I don't know if I, I don't know if I have a specific point except to say I want to be part of the public conversation and I want other people who care about this medium to be part of the public conversation about what it is and where it should go and how it should be funded and respected.
(08:44):
Cool.
Then you said that you had a lot of feedback on the article as well. Give us a flavor.
So it was funny because it was very, I'm gonna say makes so though, I would say for the most part, I got a lot of people who said, thank you for seeing me. This is how I feel. I am having my own existential crisis about this thing.
I don't know how to describe it. I'm deeply disappointed. And then there were other people that were like, yeah, this is banal. Who cares? Let's talk about craft.
(09:11):
But here's what I thought was really interesting for me personally is that really divided along the lines between the people who are able to make and start and sustain a career in public radio and those who are not and were tied to a commercial system.
And I thought that was really interesting because like, yeah, of course, if you've been able to pay your rent and make advancements and tell the story you want to tell for all these years and you haven't had to look at what the trends are and who the money is coming from.
(09:44):
And then of course you would be like, yeah, craft is the most important thing, but it's been interesting seeing that's mostly come from people who've worked and stayed in public radio. And I'm gonna add mostly men.
And I think that's really important to remember that podcasting is still like something like 70% men that there's very few women in it. There's fewer opportunities for women in it.
(10:10):
And so seeing that feedback, I was like, it's interesting who gets to focus on craft and who has to worry about where the money is coming from and what people think of it and how we're going to sell it and pay our rent going forward.
So let me tell you that gender discussion you just had there.
Sure.
Why do women not get involved? So I can look at my wife, a super smart business woman of the year, blah, blah, blah.
(10:35):
She listens to very few, if any podcast doesn't feel the value. She would never start a podcast, right? There was no desire.
And often it's really weird. So my wife has said before when she's gone for a senior role, women wait until they're overqualified and men go when they're under quality.
But that's not a fault of men and that's not a fault of women. It's just it's the system. It's the generic makeup.
(11:00):
So are you saying the reason is that there's a barrier for women coming into podcasting or are you saying that women don't want to put their selves out there front and center as much as men do?
Which is it, do you think?
So this is a great question. I think that my next article might center on this idea because I think probably the answer is both.
(11:22):
I think that a couple of things, something that I think about a lot is people criticize women's vocal fry disproportionately to men.
Like when we do it, it's a problem. When men do it, it's just like how they talk.
And we still think of words like shrill when it comes to women and not men.
Like there are all these social constructs for women and how we hear women that would make us one reticent to get on the mic and two,
(11:50):
to make people less likely to take us seriously and want to listen to us in theory.
And I think that those things still show up in this utopic democratized space where anybody can do it.
You know, it's affected my own career. Like I've just seen it happen over and over again.
And it's something that I want to dig into. Like I wish that I had a very clear and specific answer.
(12:12):
But I think, you know, we live in a culture where we'd rather see women than hear women.
And so it makes a lot of sense that in a medium where you do not see a woman,
that we'd be less likely to want to hear what she has to say from a place of authority.
Okay, you've never thought of it that way, but that's interesting.
Okay, so you talked about your career. So let's have a look. How did you get into podcasting?
(12:34):
How long have you been in podcasting and how did you get into it?
So I'll give you the long story and you can edit and post.
So
like comes from an editor.
It comes from a tag. Thank you.
Like you'll think and you can do that later with.
There you go. Yeah. So when I was in college, I was like a starry eyed, I want to save the world
(12:59):
gal. And I went to go spend a summer working at a nonprofit health clinic and reforestation
program in Borneo, Indonesia, like middle of nowhere to study. Like it was a barter economy.
It was hell. It was fascinating to me. And it was like a three day like boat ride.
(13:19):
But you know, like it was a crazy journey. And I got there and I was like,
forgive me, fuck, what am I doing here? I am not a doctor. I'm not a botanist.
And like, what have I done skills? Do I bring to this village?
Yeah, like what and I'm here and yeah, what am I doing? But this particular clinic was
attached to the Yale Medical School and the Yale Medical magazine reached out to me and they said,
(13:42):
hey, like you're over there this summer. Do you want to make a short documentary about
what you're doing over there? And it was like a light bulb, you know, whatever it was, I was like,
that is it. That's what I really want to do is go to these places, talk to people,
doing amazing things to change the world, people that we aren't hearing from exotic places. You
(14:04):
know, this is like the height of the Anthony Bourdain style of journalism. And it was like,
that's what I want to do. And then I spent many years doing unpaid internships and waiting tables.
And around when I was like 25, I had an internship at Frontline, and it just didn't go anywhere.
(14:24):
I was like, okay, well, I can't pay my rent on this. And so my mom was like, why don't you apply
to grad school and see what happens? And I did it in a month because it was due the next month.
I just did it blind. I never considered grad school. I did the whole thing and I got a full
scholarship to go. I was like, it was like Boston University, thank you so much. You changed my
(14:47):
life. I will say it over and over again. Yeah, they gave me a full scholarship and a stipend and I
went and this was before podcasting was really cool. All I knew when I talked to my thesis advisor,
I said, I want to do international reporting. And I want to tell stories like Ira Glass.
And she said, have you considered doing public radio? And to be honest, I was like, oh,
(15:08):
it never even occurred to me that people get paid to do public radio, you know? But the answer was
yes. And at the time, nobody else was doing it. And so I got every fellowship and internship and
whatever under the sun. And that was literally the same year that serial came out. And then by the
next semester, everybody wanted to do podcasting. So I really just got in a right place right.
(15:32):
That's 100%. And then when grad school was over, and this is one of those moments where I saw that
men got opportunities that women didn't, I was told like, go to a small station and work your way
up, even though I had male counterparts that like got to stay at the big station and talking to the
mic. And so I moved to literally middle of nowhere, Vermont. I would skate that good skiing.
(15:56):
Oh, good skiing. Oh, it's beautiful. Oh, it is beautiful. I worked in the basement of the King
Arthur flower factory. Maybe not so good. But yeah, yeah, like literally the middle of nowhere.
And I'm like 26. I'm like a pretty young single woman with my dog. But it was the most fun job.
Because really, I was just there every day being like, what am I curious about? And then I got to
(16:20):
go take a microphone out and have those conversations. And then ultimately, I won the National Murrow
Award for one of my pieces there. And I got pieces on NPR National. And but at a certain point,
like it just wasn't happening fast enough. I was like, I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere
forever. Like I want to go to a bear market. And it just wasn't happening. And at the same time,
(16:40):
was the time I'm describing where news podcasts, the Daily Comes Out, Pod Save America, Today Explained,
like all these news podcasts are coming out. And I had this, oh, maybe my career as an audio
journalist doesn't have to be tied to the public radio system, which is not giving me enough
opportunities. So I moved to New York, which is where it was sort of happening at the time. And
(17:02):
I'd live there when I was younger. And I'm from outside the city. And I was a waitress. And I
took gig after gig after gig. And I worked like 80 hours a week. I worked nonstop. And I had cold
called a bunch of people. It really was scrappy. And eventually, I got a call from my contact at
Vox Media at the time. And she was like, Hey, Kara Swisher is revamping this podcast feed that
(17:28):
she had, they want to make it into something new. Do you want to come in and develop it with us? And
I was like, Yeah. And so I did that as a gig producer for about six plus months. I was in the
room before it was called Pivot. I built the original structure. I was there the first time
they got together and the energy in that room was bananas crazy. And then eventually it became
(17:52):
successful. Then I went internal at Vox and then later at New York Magazine. And then ultimately,
I was poached. I was poached. Somebody reached out to me from the middle of come back to the
poaching. So let's go back. You said how it was successful. What made that show successful?
The chemistry is good. I mean, I'm a fan of the show. And I'm amazed because for Kara to come
(18:15):
back from those days of having one Mossberg to find a partner who I suppose come back,
come back her back. What I love about Scott is he can be rude. He can be a face of but what he can
be is very informative at the same time. So Kara does actually step back when he gets into
Professor mode in Brand mode. And she does expect that he does know his shit. So so in that sense,
(18:39):
they have an equal standing, I think. They're very good at holding one other accountable.
Something that I really like about Scott personally, I say this from a genuine place is
he can be rude. He can be a fade like he can be all of those things. And he can take criticism.
And he can say, huh, I hadn't thought about it that way. And then course correct. And I think
(19:01):
that's kind of what's special about their dynamic to is they listen to one another, like they go
back and forth and go back and forth, but they are willing to concede to the other person, learn
from the other person. There's so much in their chemistry that like, may we all find our Scott
to our Kara, you know what I mean? But this is I can tell you from my perspective, the moment
(19:23):
that pivot got big. And from a podcast perspective, why I think that's interesting. So from the
beginning, the original pivot structure was their intro, big story breakdown, wins and fails, and
predictions and predictions was I had seen Scott was already in the business world sort of known
for his trends and analysis. And so I thought this was a good way to kick the show every week is
(19:50):
just like come in and do your predictions. And we did that over and over again. And then relatively
early on, Scott got his hands on the WeWork S one. And we started doing predictions about the WeWork
tumble week over week, in that very specific section that people knew to come after the break,
right? They'd already listened to their midroll. So we kept people listening. And week over week,
(20:13):
that started to become the place where people knew they could hear about this crazy story. And
Scott was really good at being just like one step ahead of it. And that's when I really started to
see things take off for pivot. And then what's interesting is, I used to cut the show at about
30 minutes, keep it really tight. And I remember the first time we did a live event, somebody came
(20:33):
up to me and they were like, my only problem with pivot is I want more pivot. And so that's really
what ended up happening is like we start cutting it long. And then we went to two days a week. And
so then we had to be like, okay, what are new segments that we can do that make people want to
come to both days, but we can still sell ads, and people will listen through them. But I always
thought it was really interesting, like that's how important format is. And a brand that people
(20:58):
come back to is I think people started to associate pivot with predictions that were coming true in
sort of like the broader. Yeah, I mean, they've done great job on predicting what's going on with
X as we have to now call it. Yeah, previously now on his Twitter. Yeah, that's not gonna lie.
Especially in bad branding, right? Exactly. Oh, look, I think I own x.com. I'll rename my company.
(21:23):
There's another news, another five billion on the valuation. Sure, like, sure, just keep
him with me, my friend. So, okay, so pivot, pivot's done many things. He's gone multi day,
it's gone live, it's gone international, he's done all sorts of things. Sure. Again, if you were
still in pivot, what would you be doing? I mean, put your hat back on. What would you say they
(21:45):
need to do? Do they need to do anything to keep it fresh or change it up? Or is the format good
and stick to your knitting? What I would do personally and like, nobody's asked me and I
genuinely am not. Well, I have, I have asked you. Yeah, there you go. You have. I think that what I
would do is a pivot universe is start doing spin off shows the same way like Pod Save America has.
And I guess they have on with Caris Whisher and they have the Prof G show, but pivot should be an
(22:09):
overhead brand. And then they should have young people, they should have some 25 year old doing
a Bitcoin podcast. I don't know, that's a bad idea. But you see what I'm saying. I think what they
should be doing is spin offs. Like maybe I thought it would be interesting to do one investigative
piece a quarter where like pivot is on Tuesdays and Fridays, but it's also on Wednesdays and
(22:33):
Thursdays, you know, once a quarter and it deep dives into what's going on with X or whatever.
That's what I would do is expand it as pivot is the umbrella brand, you know, they have their
conference already, build it out and open up to new voices and new perspectives that are
in line with their tone and their thinking and their subject expertise and use it as a
(22:58):
flywheel, right? Like you already have sort of like a marketing circle there that can feed itself.
Yeah, you've got an audience extend the audience brand value. I mean, we're seeing that with,
I don't know if you listened to them, but there's a great two shows in the UK once called the Rest
This Politics and they've just extended that it was Rest This History, then became Rest This Politics
and they're just about to extend that into other brands around the rest is and then the news agent,
(23:23):
which is another great show of X BBC people, they've now got the news agent USA because they used to
be the USA BBC correspondence. So they've extended it so I can see how other people could do it.
It's interesting. I mean, I guess it also fits into the fact that I don't know if Cara and Scott
have got enough hours in the day to extend. Right. I mean, look, Cara has more hours in the day. I
(23:46):
don't know where her hours come from, you know what I mean? And she really does do it for herself.
People are like, well, she must have an assistant. I'm like, Cara is a machine. But I agree is like
at a certain point, there's like an oversaturation and what they can do and what they can offer.
But what they can also do is sort of point at the people around them. And I think in a lot of
(24:06):
ways that's what she did with Recode many years ago. But I think Pivot is a big enough brand and a
big enough institution that they could start doing that. Okay. So let's move on. You said the word,
you got poached. What was that call? I didn't use that word you did. So you must have been at home
one day. Hi. Yeah. We'd like you to come and work for this new company called Ardwell. Who the hell's
(24:30):
Ardwell? What happened? I mean, honestly, that's more or less it. They didn't use the word Ardwell.
So honestly, I got reached out to on LinkedIn as I do often and I took the call, they were just,
there's a job at Spotify. Are you interested? And I looked at the job description and it was
interesting. And I was like, okay, sure. And the recruiter was like, somebody very well known
(24:56):
is looking to make podcasts at the intersection of entertainment and social justice. And I was like,
like dream job. That is absolutely like if I were to, even still, if I were to say what it is that
I want to do, it looks like that. And I was like, yeah, I'm interested and we had a good conversation.
And I happen to have been at the 2016 International AIDS Conference as part of reporting that I had
(25:21):
done around that time with the Pulitzer Center and Prince Harry had been there. And so I think even
that conversation, I had mentioned something about that. And I left the call and I was like,
who could this be? And I looked around, I was like, is it Ava DuBernet? And I was like, I think this
is Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Like, oh my God. And lo and behold, it was. And then from there,
(25:41):
I can't really talk too much about it. But I would say a good three month long interview process and
a lot of conversations and a lot of what do we want to do and what are the goals and what do you
want to do? And yeah, nothing will be more surreal in my life than that. I mean, truly, I'm like,
anything that is the nobody could have told me in the basement in Vermont, telling stories for
(26:08):
local public radio, that was going to happen one day. And this is a reminder to answer your inbox
because you don't know who's knocking, you know, exactly. So how much input did you have in the
direction of it? I mean, as I said, your role in editorial and production, what side of the fence
were you? Hey, I'm the expert podcast. So let me tell you how they should run in the format. Or
(26:30):
was this, we are the Royals and let me tell you how we want this to play out. Where was the bounce?
I wish I could talk about that, but I really can't talk about that on the record.
Okay. Can you tell me, did you curtsy the first time? That's all I need to know.
No, I very much did not. And let me say that they are very warm people. Okay. You know,
(26:51):
like I didn't feel like that was expected of me. Now, I wouldn't have thought so. Now, they had some
negative press around from podcast saying the horrible word which he was grifters. Again,
not talking about the individuals, but do you think those types of exclusives within Spotify
actually work? Because I don't think it's just them that didn't work, particularly. I think the
(27:13):
Abomas didn't work. I think Michelle Abomas one didn't work. I think you look at the one.
Kim Kardashian, Ava DuVernay, like the list goes on. I have lots of opinions on this that I can only
share privately, but I think Megan and Harry became the poster child for something that happened in a
lot of different places. And I think, I guess, let me say, I don't think that there was ill intention
(27:39):
from anybody. I think that there was, this is again why I want to try this article is I think
there weren't enough people in the room who were like, I make audio. That is my career. That will
be my career after this. This was my career before this. There weren't enough people who really
understood the fundamentals of what works and how it needs to be done. And that kind of strategy
(28:03):
won't pan out. So given, I think the quarterly returns for Spotify, increased user numbers,
down on their R-Poo though, so average revenue per user, increasing the price, so possibly losing
some people, subscriptions really not working, advertising, flatlining, where do you think
Spotify is going next? I couldn't really begin to know, but from the outside, because I'm no
(28:28):
longer inside, but I think they're hunkering down. I think that they are reassessing. I think my guess
is they don't really know where they're going next. I think what they're trying to do is trim the fat
everywhere and get out of the limelight a little bit until they're a little bit more clear. What I
will say that I thought was interesting is they've made a deal with Trevor Noah, which I think is in
(28:49):
a better direction because at least he is proven to be somebody who can do consistent on-mic talent.
And they did it as a one-off, right? Like they aren't doing these overall mega-million dollar,
how many shows deals, but that being said, they're still leaning into celebrity who might not fully
(29:10):
understand. I think there's imagination in podcasting where it's like, oh, you just talk into a mic
and you can do it anywhere and it's super easy. And I think that will never end well. So I don't
know. I think Spotify is tamping down, is looking internally, is trying to figure it out. I think
there's been changes in leadership over there. And I think this didn't make it into the article,
but when I was talking to Davy Gardner, we both agreed, like anybody who tells you that they
(29:34):
know the future of audio probably does not know. Like nobody knows right now. I think we are in the
let's figure it out phase of this commercial part of this industry.
So let's figure out where you're going next then because you might not figure out the whole industry,
but where does Rebecca go next? What's for you? You're an award-winning editor and producer. So
(29:58):
have you checked your inbox? That's the question.
So that is a very great question. And I'm being very honest when I say part of writing that Vanity
Fair article is me trying to out loud, figure that out for myself in hopes that other people will
feel seen in my doing that. Like I don't really know where I've landed is I've always loved
(30:21):
the craft and that's always been the thing that's felt most fulfilling. My favorite job I've ever
done still remains reporting from the basement of Vermont Public Radio, even though that place
wasn't right for me. I'd like to get to a place where I can do more of that. I'd like to get funding
for my own show. I'd like to do more writing. I'd like to help other people make great shows. I'd
(30:44):
like to be inspired by great creators. I want to make new things. I want to be part of this
restructuring and restratatizing about like how do we make this something that values craft and
people can make a living in it and it's not blocking out non white non male creators. But I am
(31:05):
when I tell I'm figuring out day by day every morning I wake up I'm like how am I going to do
this what's the difference between my career and my craft and my ego and my finances and like all of
these things I'm juggling all the time I guess at the end of the day I want to make stuff and I
want that stuff to be good and any way that I can do that and pay my rent is how I want to do that.
(31:29):
And pay your rent that's the key. Now and pay your rent yeah. So look you talked about earlier
women and voices but it sounds like you may want to go from back room to front office right to be
on the mic. What area would you be interested in doing you've talked about news is that something
you'd want to come back into or would there be another area that we don't know about Rebecca?
(31:51):
That's a great question. Look I think if I look back at my work in all honesty time and time again
I'm attracted to women's stories and other marginalized people who might live and feel
in that spectrum like from the beginning of being in middle of nowhere Indonesia like I've
always been attracted to that I've always felt like there's a part of me that understands that
(32:15):
experience and wants to help make that a more visible experience in a way that people feel
excited to learn about and not lectured at. I don't know exactly what you call that I think I
want to do things at the intersection of news and entertainment social justice and entertainment.
I don't know exactly what that that looks like I'm interested in exploring the world from the
perspective of women in our current moment in culture. Okay so one of the other things she
(32:41):
talks about and I thought it was a really perceptive thing was women's voices but women's looks
video is becoming a much more dominant platform. You've talked to audio but audio and we've talked
about the word podcast being a generic term right is video on demand YouTube is that a podcast
you know there's a big debate going on and I'm less worried about it because I did a show last
(33:05):
night with Rob Greenlee it was recorded as a video live he pushed it out to YouTube but it's also an
audio thing the editing and the construction of the presentation of the product was still done in
the same way it was just distributed into different mediums so I mean do you see yourself going into
video then maybe is that another area that you want to go into? Oh this is such a good
(33:33):
and complicated question because I think that there are some things that you can do
just as well by recording it and putting it on video and I think that there's some things that
you can't and I think it's important to know the distinction. I think video offers a bigger top funnel
and like why wouldn't you do that if you could do that? On the other hand I do think video can
(33:57):
detract from great conversation so I'll give you an example that I hope I don't get sued for sharing
but you know when we did the archetypes interview for Mariah Carey that happened over video and
these were these two extremely busy women that we see out in the world as these like mega glamorous
(34:23):
people barefoot in their homes in between putting their children to bed and I think had we said and
this has to be on video and we have to see you and the world is going to know you that would not
have been the same intimate conversation and it would have been almost impossible to produce and
so I think just a reminder to people that there is something uniquely special about voice only
(34:48):
conversations that I think especially for women because there is so much pressure to do that
but also talking to Sam Sanders for this same piece he said podcast is a service industry and
if that's where the audience is I guess that's where I go like if that's where the listeners
want me to be I guess that's where I'll be so I don't have a great answer to that I guess it's
(35:10):
balancing is there is something unique and special about that voice only non-physical conversation
there's an intimacy that builds and we need more audience if that's where people are listening from
why wouldn't we do that I would do it I'd have to like get over myself a little bit but yeah I
(35:30):
think the video question is so complicated I think everybody's thinking about it all the time and
yeah I think people are trying to work out if there's an audience that why wouldn't I go there
why wouldn't I yes yeah I certainly wouldn't begrudge anybody I guess what I would say is
don't think of it first if you want to make a podcast make the best podcast you can make
(35:51):
and then if it lends to video like sure of course put it on YouTube but don't make everything all
at once make the best thing with the biggest why and the most intention possible and if that does
include video fabulous but if not don't stretch yourself because you're not going to make a good
product at the end of the day okay fine a couple of questions sure who would you love to work with
(36:13):
who's that who's that one person you think you know what I could really make you better or I'd
love to just work with you who's that person okay this is like not the answer I'm most proud of
but it's the thing that came to mind so I'm going to tell you is Larry David I really want to make
a podcast with Larry David okay the creator Seinfeld and Curve Your Enthusiasm but the truth is I
(36:37):
want to work with people who are making cool stuff I've heard there there is great stuff out there I
was just recommended the podcast classy which I'm going to mispronounce his last name but it's a
reporter named Jonathan and he makes great stuff like I want to make stuff with somebody who's gonna
(36:57):
make my stuff better make me think differently challenge me you know like that's part of why I
put the bit in my article of iriglass pushing back on me because I like that I want somebody to be
like you can be smarter you can be tighter you can get better voices you can think of things
differently so I don't know if it's a specific person as much as anybody who wants to make
great stuff and can make me better oh and then my other answer is if Greta Gerwig is listening
(37:21):
and she ever wants to make a podcast a narrative podcast series call me immediately excellent okay
last one what are you listening to currently good question so like I said I just started
listening to this podcast classy which is very good it's a really smart conversation about class
and how we interact with it and done very creatively I recently loved a podcast called
(37:45):
you didn't see nothing I don't know if you've heard this I'm the worst person to ask I listen to
technology and business only I don't read books like novels I only read technical manuals I'm a
really dull typical male so no got it yeah I'm the opposite I'm like I love novels I love think
pieces I'm a typical dork in that way but you didn't see nothing it was really good it was part
(38:11):
memoir part true crime about a beating that happened in Chicago from a white kid to a black kid
that then became sort of like a poster story for race relations I say this in quotes in the 90s
and this person who was involved in it rediscovering it and it was so good and something that I think
(38:31):
is really interesting worth noting is it was co-produced or financed by Universal and I was
like hmm okay so movie studios have arms now that are run by their heads of IP and acquisitions
that are funding to make podcasts and it was great it was an exceptionally good podcast
and that made me feel excited about the future there is life after love for audio for sure
(38:58):
and it's coming from somewhere and this was one of the places where I felt hope where I was like
this is a classically great piece of journalism and entertainment and highly well produced and
interesting voices that was clearly well financed by a less than obvious benefactor yeah I think
we're seeing Netflix to appear these IP podcasts and a couple of other big network platforms do it
(39:22):
I think it's a good testing grad is there an audience can we build up a pre-hype etc etc
there's a better way maybe sometimes than going out with a cold film trying to then
build an audience rather than save well also podcasts I mean we crashed on Apple and the
dropout on Hulu were both almost verbatim taken from their podcast IP origins and those podcasts
(39:46):
had episodes already built out they had cliffhangers they had developed characters like
in a podcast they're so much closer to a screenplay that's ready for the visual than perhaps
an article or some of the other IP origin so I think it's a great idea everybody Rebecca thank
you so much for your time it's been brilliant talking to you finally we tried to do this for a
(40:08):
few years finally did it it's been a pleasure an absolute pleasure thank you so much for having
and look where can people find you if they need to get out of you well you can look at my website
which is revsays.com our ebzsays.com and all of my social media follows those same things and I
really am somebody who I answer my messages I want to hear from you I want to work as much with the
(40:33):
person ahead of me as the person who's coming up behind me because I think young people who maybe
aren't getting the funding still have great ideas and great talent so yeah reach out. I did it was
amazing it was one o'clock in the morning in my kitchen I reached out to you and you answered
it's pretty quick with that. Ruth is in the living and that's why you're here.
(40:54):
Rebecca thank you so much and look if you're an LA podcast movement in 24 I don't know if you'll be
there but if you are love to catch up with you. Oh absolutely thank you so so much for having me.
Pleasure.
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