February 24, 2025 • 18 mins
Breaking up with a co-host can feel like navigating a delicate and deeply personal crisis—especially when you’ve invested time, energy, and your creative efforts into building a podcast together.
But like any partnership, misalignments in goals, scheduling, or creative vision can arise, sometimes leaving you little choice but to respectfully part ways. Today, we explore the signs that it may be time to move on, how to plan an amicable separation (if possible), and the best ways to handle shared branding, intellectual property, and audience communication.
We’ll also dive into the emotional side of a co-host breakup—discussing how to maintain positive relationships, practice self-care, and explore your rebranding options (or even launching a new show from scratch). From updating artwork and bios to establishing legal boundaries and dividing ownership, we’ve got you covered with a comprehensive checklist to ensure a smooth transition. By the end of this episode, you’ll feel more confident about not only ending things on good terms but also moving forward stronger—whether you choose to continue the show solo or embark on an entirely new and different venture.
Today's Hosts: MacKenzie Bennett and Mike Dell
How to End a Podcast Co-Host Partnership Gracefully
1. Signs It’s Time to Part Ways with Your Co-Host
Recognizing misalignment in goals, schedules, or creative vision
Listener feedback and declining engagement as red flags
Gut-check questions to ask before making the decision
2. Planning an Amicable Separation
Setting up a proper meeting to discuss the break and next steps
Reviewing your initial agreements (verbal or written)
Keeping communication clear, professional, and empathetic
3. Handling Branding, Ownership, and Intellectual Property
Deciding who owns the show name, social channels, and website
Dividing past content archives fairly (music, artwork, etc.)
Legal considerations: written contracts vs. verbal agreements
4. Managing the Transition with Your Audience
How and when to announce the change to your listeners
Crafting a consistent message across all platforms (podcast episodes, social media, newsletter)
Maintaining listener trust and loyalty during transitional episodes
5. Navigating Emotional and Personal Fallout
Handling personal feelings of loss or disappointment
Best practices for preserving a positive relationship if possible
Strategies for self-care and avoiding burnout amid major podcast changes
6. Rebranding the Show (or Starting Fresh)
Deciding whether to continue the existing show or launch a brand-new podcast
Building a new brand identity (name, artwork, format)
Retaining loyal fans while attracting new listeners
7. Technical and Administrative Checklists
Updating show artwork, host bios, and RSS feed details
Removing or transferring hosting credentials and account access
Adjusting distribution channels (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.)
8. Lessons Learned: How to Build Partnerships That Last
Setting up co-host agreements from the start
Understanding each other’s goals, strengths, and schedules
Creating a regular feedback loop to spot and resolve issues early
9. Success Stories from Podcasters Who Went Solo
Highlighting podcasters who parted ways but thrived on their own
Challenges of solo hosting vs. co-hosting
Tips to keep content engaging without another voice to bounce ideas off
10. Next Steps: What Comes After the Split?
Future growth strategies for the newly solo (or restructured) show
Potential avenues for monetization or audience expansion with a new format
Using analytics to guide your content decisions moving forward
We hope that this information helps you decide if and when it's time to end a podcast co-host partnership and if so, how to go about the split gracefully.
Thanks for listening to Podcast Insider,
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Podcast Insider. I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing
specialist at Blueberry.
And I'm Mike Dell, the VP of customer
relations here at Blueberry.
Today's episode tackles a sometimes uncomfortable topic, how
to end a cohost partnership gracefully.
And we'll share crucial tips for navigating that
split, everything from initiating a tough conversation to
(00:20):
handling
your brand and loyal listeners.
So if you're facing a big podcast breakup,
stick around. Let's dive into split decision, how
to end podcast cohost partnership gracefully.
You're listening to Podcast Insider, a weekly podcast
bringing insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks
to help you start, grow, and thrive through
(00:40):
podcasting with the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting.
Welcome. Let's dive in.
Yeah. That's always a tough subject. You know,
a lot of times what'll happen is, you
know, you're all gung ho. You know, that
happened during COVID a lot. You know? Hey.
You know, we're we're sitting home. Let's let's
do a podcast together. And then, you know,
life's changed.
(01:01):
The situation changes.
You know? There's just all kinds of reasons
that you would break up a cohost partnership.
The best way as far you know, and
and this isn't in our notes, but the
best way I can figure is figure that
out before you start the podcast.
But if you didn't do that, we have
some ways of doing it properly, hopefully.
(01:24):
Yeah. Definitely. Speaking as someone who's never been
married, this kinda does feel like you're in
a podcast like marriage with someone. Yeah.
You know, who you think you have all
these things figured out beforehand, you get involved,
you're like, we're gonna do this together. And
then
how do we do this amicably and break
up, essentially? So
Exactly. So, you know, just well, first off,
(01:45):
you know, what what are the signs that
it's time to part ways?
You know, a lot of lot of times,
your goals will
be different. I mean, boy, this does sound
like a divorce, doesn't it? It does. It
really does. Yeah. Including just kind of arguing.
But I think
one that would really stand out to me
is just, like, if it wasn't fun anymore,
(02:07):
that creative vision, if you just are in,
like, total disagreement with that,
I think that would really take me out
of it and just make me wanna bail.
And bail is not necessarily a a negative
term here, but it is kind of accurate.
Yeah. You know? But you can, you know,
you can figure it out. You know? If
your goals or
the schedules are screwed up or your your
(02:27):
vision for where you wanna go with the
podcast is screwed up, you know, I've had
a similar thing where I started a show
with another person, and
and,
you know, they were doing things that, you
know, why are we doing that? Let's do
this other thing. And, you know, and by
the time it was over, it was like,
yeah, let's just go do our own things.
And and, you know, we're still friends and
(02:47):
all that, but it just didn't work as
a partnership on a podcast.
I'm glad it worked out well for you
guys, though. But Yeah. Yeah. I think I
think one of those things is, kinda
while you are going through this,
if you have anything written up,
it's talking about agreements,
just, you know, how things are kinda divided
(03:08):
up of, like,
this was both ours. We had an LLC
set up,
stuff like that.
What do you, like, what do you do?
And if you're unhappy with it,
how do you deal with that? It's it's
rare, but it has happened when we've had
podcasters
contact the team and say,
hey. We need to get this show taken
(03:29):
off the air, and we're like, okay. Well,
what's the show? Like,
why can't you log in? And they're like,
well, it's under this account, like, this person's
account. It's, like,
tough luck. That's not our responsibility
to turn off. Yeah. Unless you have some
sort of an agreement, you know, that
but, you know, that that does happen. You
know, we've actually and this isn't really a
(03:49):
breakup question, but,
we've had a cohost die. And they were
the ones that had the account. You know?
So, you know,
we can work with you on that. But
Mhmm.
You know, that's something to think about too.
You know? What happens if somebody
is no longer able to podcast for whatever
reason?
Yeah.
So so whether you're breaking up
(04:12):
up a show or, you know, someone has
unfortunately passed, the
some of the things that you need to
decide on are,
who owns the show name? Is the show
still going to continue? What do you do
with the social media platforms?
What do you do with the website?
How do you divide like, if you if
the show's gonna end, how do you divide
the archive?
Do you both have copies of this? Do
you,
(04:33):
you know, just say, nope. This is the
end and delete it, and you wanna forget
this ever happened?
Make sure you, you know, you agree on
that. You know, have a, you know, have
a sit down with your your, cohost and
just say, hey. We need to work out
how this is all gonna work, you know,
if you hadn't already written it down. You
know, most people are amicable,
you know, I think.
(04:54):
But, you know, talk it out. Make sure
you know, you know, who's gonna own the
name? Who's gonna you know, I can think
of one, you know, way back in the
day. It was a very successful podcast. It
was a husband and wife team, and they
got divorced.
And, you know, he ended up with the
the show name. She
continued the show under a different name, and
(05:14):
it Yeah. Felt fine.
Oh, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if,
like, that was part of their divorce proceedings,
like, part of what they actually had to
figure out. Yeah. Very well could be. Yeah.
Yeah. You know her. I'm sure.
Yeah.
Well, it's the I mean, in the legal
aspect there, like, one of the things you
definitely have to figure out too is,
(05:35):
music, any, like, any music associated to that,
like, if you would wanna use it again,
any artwork with that, anything to do with,
like, the publishing of those files and just
how they originally came to be and if
you're gonna use them again. Yeah. You know,
like, say, who you know, if you guys
bought music,
you know, who owns that music? Who owns,
you know, the artwork, like like you were
(05:57):
saying. And, you know, there's just, you know,
so many things to think about. Now if
somebody just rage quits and you never hear
from them again, well, you can pretty much
say, well, okay. I guess it's mine now.
But, generally, that's the hope.
But, you know, that doesn't always happen either
or, you know, you may get a nasty
letter in the mail three years down the
road when you're successful on your own. So
(06:18):
Yeah. You know, make sure you try to
cover all that stuff.
Yeah. And there I mean, written contracts and
verbal agreements,
obviously, verbal agreement is not gonna get you
as far as a written contract,
but
it's still good to have because the assumptions
of, you know,
this will just be fine,
(06:40):
can really
come back to bite you. Yeah. And, you
know, if you know this is gonna happen
and you're still on speaking terms Mhmm. You
know, announce it to the audience ahead of
time, maybe. Absolutely. You know, there's gonna be
some sort of change or, you know, you
can
have a a message that, you know, both
of you or, you know, if there's more
(07:01):
more than one. I've seen these happen where,
you know, people disappear from a show and
you never hear anything about it.
I don't think that's the right way to
keep an audience if if the thing's gonna
keep going,
or if it's just gonna quit, you know,
have a joint, you know, a joint
Statement. Message, you know, saying, hey. You know,
we decided we're done with this. Thanks for
(07:23):
listening. See you later. Yep. You know, whatever.
But, you know, you wanna
try to communicate that to us. If you
just go poof, then that's that's not good
for your audience.
Well, and especially if if one of you
does want to continue doing the show, you
can't just, you know, go on hiatus for
a while and come back because,
yeah, definitely, some of the people will come
(07:44):
back and still happily be listening. And but
you will you will lose some people there,
because
because they take it personally when
their content creators
just disappear. Obviously, there's, you know, some grace
that comes with
being an online figure in that sense to
some people. But, yeah, that consistent message that
(08:06):
you want to put out there,
you see it a lot with celebrity couple
couples divorcing
Yep. Is they just, you know,
post on Instagram at the exact same time
or whatever of their notes app.
What is it? When we we've been out
in Las Vegas, every once in a while,
I turn on the TV, and there's a
morning show. I think it's on the on
(08:26):
one of the, you know, network TV channels
there. Mhmm. And it's a husband and wife
or a former husband and wife that were
cohosts on the morning show. They got divorced,
but they're still doing the show together. It
it's it's fun to watch because you could
see the little digs every once in a
while.
Stuff like that.
But I and I think that's in Las
Vegas, but I'm not sure. I just remember
(08:48):
feel like a very Vegas thing to do,
though. The show must go on. Yep. Yep.
Yep. You know, and think about it for
yourself and your cohost too. You know? There's
there's fallout,
for you. You know?
You may have, you know, personal feelings. You
know, the friendship might not be there anymore.
There's just a lot of things you gotta
(09:09):
think about yourself too. You know?
You know, it's a hard thing sometimes.
Again, this is sounding more like a divorce
than a than a cohost breakup, but same
idea.
Well, for for people that are doing this,
more as their job instead of, like, as
a hobby, I think it is somewhat easier
to move on from that and, you know,
(09:31):
not take it as personally. That feeling of,
like, oh, I tried and it it just
didn't work out, type of thing. But
but, otherwise,
you know, just try to keep that positive
relationship. And and that can also mean, like,
if things are just terrible,
then then it is the end and you
don't talk. And there is no communication, but
(09:51):
that is just it's done.
Right. Right. Well, like I said, in the
in the case, the one that I stopped
was, you know, we're we're still friends. We
still, you know, collaborate on certain other things,
but, you know, just that podcast was not
the thing.
It just it happens.
It kinda is the beauty of podcasting, though,
is that, like, you can you can end
(10:12):
something and start something new very easily. Mhmm.
Yeah. I've done it many, many times.
Too much. Too much. And
We've rebranded this show before.
You know? This is
the third or fourth iteration of it. I
think, honestly, it might be the fourth. So
the show existed
in a very distant world when I started.
(10:34):
They were like, okay. Well, we're gonna have
you
do the show for a while, and I
did that by myself for a couple years
and got really burnt out with it. So
then
you and Todd started doing a show. For
a while. Yep.
Yep. And then we we were like, okay.
Let's change it up again. And I came
back and,
have been doing it with you guys for
(10:54):
quite some time now. But even with the
three of us doing this, like, a year
or two ago, we were like, we're gonna
change up the style of this. We have
to. It's and, it's happen again.
Yeah. That's not super surprising for a show
that's been around for ten plus years.
Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, like, when you
you know, if you're say you're
(11:15):
you you break up with the cohost and
you're the one that's gonna continue the show,
You gotta decide whether to keep the existing
show name,
start a brand new one,
or maybe have elements of the old one,
the new one, you know, a new brand,
you know, all this stuff.
You know, if you have a a loyal
(11:35):
audience, you know, you don't wanna make it
too different, but
you you you wanna consider,
you know, what what you wanna do. I
mean, sometimes it's just better to pull a
Band Aid off and start a whole new
thing. You know, announce on the old feed
saying, hey. Got a new feed. It's over
here. And my co host got a new
feed. It's over there. You know? And maybe
you end up with two shows.
(11:57):
Yeah.
But who who knows? But, you know, you
want to,
you know, keep keep your fans in the
loop.
So, you know, there's gonna be people that
like you and didn't like your cohost, and
there's gonna be people who like the cohost
didn't like you. So
That is absolutely true. Oh, man. It really
is. You know? And, you know, there's there's
nothing wrong with that.
(12:17):
It just you know, everybody likes certain things.
You know? I don't I listen to podcasts
sometimes that I really don't care much about
the subject matter. I just like the person.
Yeah. And there's some that I like the
subject matter and can't stand the host.
Yep.
Two friends and I recently were saying, you
know, this one podcast host, we're like, we're
done with him, but he still has really
(12:38):
good guests, so we'll stick around.
Yeah. I just got one of those that
if if I see who the guest is
and I wanna listen to it, I will.
Otherwise Mhmm. Ignore it. Mhmm. And, you know,
and, let's see. Let's talk about some technical
and administrative thing. Oh, that sounds exciting.
Again It's not ex it's not exactly fun
(13:01):
holding on to, trying to figure out what
to do here. No. But, you know, same
thing we've covered before. You know?
Updating your show artwork, host bios, the
feed details, you know, removing or transferring,
hosting credentials from one account to the other.
You know? That happens at Blueberry.
You know, we'll have somebody, hey. I'm leaving
the show. I'm the one that has the
(13:22):
login. I need it to get transferred over
to this person who's taking over. And, you
know, you you know, no matter which host
you're on, you can do that, and it's
usually not that big a deal. Yeah. We
just wanna reiterate that whatever podcast host you're
on, that is what the support team is
for. Yeah. You know, you
you can obviously try and figure this out
yourself,
(13:43):
if you're, like, moving things,
transferring them, whatever.
But if you're worried,
genuinely just contact your podcast host, and they
will happily help you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And
you you also gotta think about things like
if you submitted it to Apple, but you're
leaving the show,
do you need to transfer that show over
to the other person's Apple account or Spotify
(14:04):
or any of the others that have logins
for that sort of thing. Or, you know,
with Apple, it's not a huge deal to
it doesn't matter where it's at. It's still
gonna get distributed. It's just it'd be nice
to have control over it, whoever's doing the
show. Yeah. Absolutely.
Way too geeky.
But that that's just a small part.
And that's kind of one of the last
(14:25):
things that you would do if you're essentially
splitting up a podcast. But after that is
all said and done, it might be time
to think about how to build a partnership
that does last. Yeah. Like we said at
the beginning, the better way of doing this
is set all this up before the breakup
happens, you know, when you start the show.
Yes. To keep with kind of the divorce
(14:46):
theme that we've got going on here, prenups
exist for a reason. Yep. A podcast prenup,
while not technically
a legal term, is kind of maybe what
some people should do. And I'll give Gordon
a a little bit of a thing. Go
check out Gordon Firemark. He he's really good
at writing those things up.
Yes. I'm sure, I'm sure he would have
lots to say on a situation like this.
(15:08):
So,
yeah, set up those agreements that you have
that you want to have with your cohost.
Really talk it out. Decide,
what what your goals are. Understand what their
goals are. Come up with, you know, like,
a combined goal.
Who does what?
Who does what? Yeah. The schedules that you
can, you know, actually work with and expectations
(15:31):
so that you're not building up that resentment.
With us, you know, you you're you're usually
in charge of finding the topic. So Mhmm.
You know, I'm in charge of getting the
recordings together and Yep. And, you know, Todd
does whatever Todd does, talks into the microphone.
We get to you know, Kate takes care
of our editing. But, But, you know, if
it's just you and somebody else, you know,
(15:51):
hey. Who does the editing? Who does the
publishing? Who does this? Who does that? You
know?
And I I think maybe you have to,
like, also consider,
factoring
those things in in the future too when
you're saying, like, I'll do this now. But
if perhaps in the future we monetize and
we actually do have money, like,
what's one thing what's the first thing on
(16:11):
my list that I would not wanna do
anymore that we would happily put money to
that I would then, like, have more time
to dedicate to such and such? Yeah. Who
gets the profit? You know? And how does
that split up? Big one. You know? That
can be a complicated part. Yeah. Yeah. For
sure.
I think one of the things that comes
after
(16:32):
the split
is
if you're gonna do a show on your
own, how do you wanna grow this? How
do you monetize this?
How do you use your new analytics from
this show comparing it to the last one
if they're related or anything like that? If
you're thinking maybe like, oh, okay. I lost
part of my audience because they listen to
this old show, but now I have a
(16:52):
new RSS feed and a totally new brand
and have to get them to
transfer over, hopefully. So these are all things
to consider.
Yeah. Like I said, you know,
doing a solo show is sometimes harder than
doing a co hosted show. Mhmm.
Or are you gonna have guests? Are you
gonna you know? But, that's all the stuff
for basic podcasters when you start any show.
(17:14):
So, you know, this isn't really specific
to to,
you know, having a cohost breakup.
But,
yeah, I I think we covered it. You
know, the the I guess the key takeaway
that I would say
is try to get this figured out before
you start or at least before the breakup.
You know? Yeah.
(17:35):
So Yeah. In this case, it's a company
show, and, you know, whatever happens happens. You
know? It's not a you know, we we
don't have that kind of thing that we
have to deal with with this particular show
Mhmm. Other than, you know, who does who
does what. You know? We can still have
to figure that out, and,
and it changes. Sometimes I'm writing show notes.
(17:56):
Sometimes I'm publishing. Sometimes I'm editing even. Yeah.
Exactly. And,
you know, we've been doing this for a
really long time, and even if we would
decide to end the show at some point,
we we're all just really proud of what
we've done.
Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, it changes
over time.
You might like one episode. You might hate
(18:18):
the next one.
Hopefully not. So come back next week. We
should have a wonderful episode for you.
Thanks, everyone.
Thanks for joining us. Come back next week.
And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com
for more information, to subscribe, share, and read
our show notes. To check out the latest
suite of services and learn how Blueberry can
(18:38):
help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry.com.
That's Blueberry without the e's because we can't
afford them.
Welcome to Podcast Insider. I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing
specialist at Blueberry.
And I'm Mike Dell, the VP of customer
relations here at Blueberry.
Today's episode tackles a sometimes uncomfortable topic, how
to end a cohost partnership gracefully.
And we'll share crucial tips for navigating that
split, everything from initiating a tough conversation to
(00:20):
handling
your brand and loyal listeners.
So if you're facing a big podcast breakup,
stick around. Let's dive into split decision, how
to end podcast cohost partnership gracefully.
You're listening to Podcast Insider, a weekly podcast
bringing insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks
to help you start, grow, and thrive through
(00:40):
podcasting with the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting.
Welcome. Let's dive in.
Yeah. That's always a tough subject. You know,
a lot of times what'll happen is, you
know, you're all gung ho. You know, that
happened during COVID a lot. You know? Hey.
You know, we're we're sitting home. Let's let's
do a podcast together. And then, you know,
life's changed.
(01:01):
The situation changes.
You know? There's just all kinds of reasons
that you would break up a cohost partnership.
The best way as far you know, and
and this isn't in our notes, but the
best way I can figure is figure that
out before you start the podcast.
But if you didn't do that, we have
some ways of doing it properly, hopefully.
(01:24):
Yeah. Definitely. Speaking as someone who's never been
married, this kinda does feel like you're in
a podcast like marriage with someone. Yeah.
You know, who you think you have all
these things figured out beforehand, you get involved,
you're like, we're gonna do this together. And
then
how do we do this amicably and break
up, essentially? So
Exactly. So, you know, just well, first off,
(01:45):
you know, what what are the signs that
it's time to part ways?
You know, a lot of lot of times,
your goals will
be different. I mean, boy, this does sound
like a divorce, doesn't it? It does. It
really does. Yeah. Including just kind of arguing.
But I think
one that would really stand out to me
is just, like, if it wasn't fun anymore,
(02:07):
that creative vision, if you just are in,
like, total disagreement with that,
I think that would really take me out
of it and just make me wanna bail.
And bail is not necessarily a a negative
term here, but it is kind of accurate.
Yeah. You know? But you can, you know,
you can figure it out. You know? If
your goals or
the schedules are screwed up or your your
(02:27):
vision for where you wanna go with the
podcast is screwed up, you know, I've had
a similar thing where I started a show
with another person, and
and,
you know, they were doing things that, you
know, why are we doing that? Let's do
this other thing. And, you know, and by
the time it was over, it was like,
yeah, let's just go do our own things.
And and, you know, we're still friends and
(02:47):
all that, but it just didn't work as
a partnership on a podcast.
I'm glad it worked out well for you
guys, though. But Yeah. Yeah. I think I
think one of those things is, kinda
while you are going through this,
if you have anything written up,
it's talking about agreements,
just, you know, how things are kinda divided
(03:08):
up of, like,
this was both ours. We had an LLC
set up,
stuff like that.
What do you, like, what do you do?
And if you're unhappy with it,
how do you deal with that? It's it's
rare, but it has happened when we've had
podcasters
contact the team and say,
hey. We need to get this show taken
(03:29):
off the air, and we're like, okay. Well,
what's the show? Like,
why can't you log in? And they're like,
well, it's under this account, like, this person's
account. It's, like,
tough luck. That's not our responsibility
to turn off. Yeah. Unless you have some
sort of an agreement, you know, that
but, you know, that that does happen. You
know, we've actually and this isn't really a
(03:49):
breakup question, but,
we've had a cohost die. And they were
the ones that had the account. You know?
So, you know,
we can work with you on that. But
Mhmm.
You know, that's something to think about too.
You know? What happens if somebody
is no longer able to podcast for whatever
reason?
Yeah.
So so whether you're breaking up
(04:12):
up a show or, you know, someone has
unfortunately passed, the
some of the things that you need to
decide on are,
who owns the show name? Is the show
still going to continue? What do you do
with the social media platforms?
What do you do with the website?
How do you divide like, if you if
the show's gonna end, how do you divide
the archive?
Do you both have copies of this? Do
you,
(04:33):
you know, just say, nope. This is the
end and delete it, and you wanna forget
this ever happened?
Make sure you, you know, you agree on
that. You know, have a, you know, have
a sit down with your your, cohost and
just say, hey. We need to work out
how this is all gonna work, you know,
if you hadn't already written it down. You
know, most people are amicable,
you know, I think.
(04:54):
But, you know, talk it out. Make sure
you know, you know, who's gonna own the
name? Who's gonna you know, I can think
of one, you know, way back in the
day. It was a very successful podcast. It
was a husband and wife team, and they
got divorced.
And, you know, he ended up with the
the show name. She
continued the show under a different name, and
(05:14):
it Yeah. Felt fine.
Oh, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if,
like, that was part of their divorce proceedings,
like, part of what they actually had to
figure out. Yeah. Very well could be. Yeah.
Yeah. You know her. I'm sure.
Yeah.
Well, it's the I mean, in the legal
aspect there, like, one of the things you
definitely have to figure out too is,
(05:35):
music, any, like, any music associated to that,
like, if you would wanna use it again,
any artwork with that, anything to do with,
like, the publishing of those files and just
how they originally came to be and if
you're gonna use them again. Yeah. You know,
like, say, who you know, if you guys
bought music,
you know, who owns that music? Who owns,
you know, the artwork, like like you were
(05:57):
saying. And, you know, there's just, you know,
so many things to think about. Now if
somebody just rage quits and you never hear
from them again, well, you can pretty much
say, well, okay. I guess it's mine now.
But, generally, that's the hope.
But, you know, that doesn't always happen either
or, you know, you may get a nasty
letter in the mail three years down the
road when you're successful on your own. So
(06:18):
Yeah. You know, make sure you try to
cover all that stuff.
Yeah. And there I mean, written contracts and
verbal agreements,
obviously, verbal agreement is not gonna get you
as far as a written contract,
but
it's still good to have because the assumptions
of, you know,
this will just be fine,
(06:40):
can really
come back to bite you. Yeah. And, you
know, if you know this is gonna happen
and you're still on speaking terms Mhmm. You
know, announce it to the audience ahead of
time, maybe. Absolutely. You know, there's gonna be
some sort of change or, you know, you
can
have a a message that, you know, both
of you or, you know, if there's more
(07:01):
more than one. I've seen these happen where,
you know, people disappear from a show and
you never hear anything about it.
I don't think that's the right way to
keep an audience if if the thing's gonna
keep going,
or if it's just gonna quit, you know,
have a joint, you know, a joint
Statement. Message, you know, saying, hey. You know,
we decided we're done with this. Thanks for
(07:23):
listening. See you later. Yep. You know, whatever.
But, you know, you wanna
try to communicate that to us. If you
just go poof, then that's that's not good
for your audience.
Well, and especially if if one of you
does want to continue doing the show, you
can't just, you know, go on hiatus for
a while and come back because,
yeah, definitely, some of the people will come
(07:44):
back and still happily be listening. And but
you will you will lose some people there,
because
because they take it personally when
their content creators
just disappear. Obviously, there's, you know, some grace
that comes with
being an online figure in that sense to
some people. But, yeah, that consistent message that
(08:06):
you want to put out there,
you see it a lot with celebrity couple
couples divorcing
Yep. Is they just, you know,
post on Instagram at the exact same time
or whatever of their notes app.
What is it? When we we've been out
in Las Vegas, every once in a while,
I turn on the TV, and there's a
morning show. I think it's on the on
(08:26):
one of the, you know, network TV channels
there. Mhmm. And it's a husband and wife
or a former husband and wife that were
cohosts on the morning show. They got divorced,
but they're still doing the show together. It
it's it's fun to watch because you could
see the little digs every once in a
while.
Stuff like that.
But I and I think that's in Las
Vegas, but I'm not sure. I just remember
(08:48):
feel like a very Vegas thing to do,
though. The show must go on. Yep. Yep.
Yep. You know, and think about it for
yourself and your cohost too. You know? There's
there's fallout,
for you. You know?
You may have, you know, personal feelings. You
know, the friendship might not be there anymore.
There's just a lot of things you gotta
(09:09):
think about yourself too. You know?
You know, it's a hard thing sometimes.
Again, this is sounding more like a divorce
than a than a cohost breakup, but same
idea.
Well, for for people that are doing this,
more as their job instead of, like, as
a hobby, I think it is somewhat easier
to move on from that and, you know,
(09:31):
not take it as personally. That feeling of,
like, oh, I tried and it it just
didn't work out, type of thing. But
but, otherwise,
you know, just try to keep that positive
relationship. And and that can also mean, like,
if things are just terrible,
then then it is the end and you
don't talk. And there is no communication, but
(09:51):
that is just it's done.
Right. Right. Well, like I said, in the
in the case, the one that I stopped
was, you know, we're we're still friends. We
still, you know, collaborate on certain other things,
but, you know, just that podcast was not
the thing.
It just it happens.
It kinda is the beauty of podcasting, though,
is that, like, you can you can end
(10:12):
something and start something new very easily. Mhmm.
Yeah. I've done it many, many times.
Too much. Too much. And
We've rebranded this show before.
You know? This is
the third or fourth iteration of it. I
think, honestly, it might be the fourth. So
the show existed
in a very distant world when I started.
(10:34):
They were like, okay. Well, we're gonna have
you
do the show for a while, and I
did that by myself for a couple years
and got really burnt out with it. So
then
you and Todd started doing a show. For
a while. Yep.
Yep. And then we we were like, okay.
Let's change it up again. And I came
back and,
have been doing it with you guys for
(10:54):
quite some time now. But even with the
three of us doing this, like, a year
or two ago, we were like, we're gonna
change up the style of this. We have
to. It's and, it's happen again.
Yeah. That's not super surprising for a show
that's been around for ten plus years.
Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, like, when you
you know, if you're say you're
(11:15):
you you break up with the cohost and
you're the one that's gonna continue the show,
You gotta decide whether to keep the existing
show name,
start a brand new one,
or maybe have elements of the old one,
the new one, you know, a new brand,
you know, all this stuff.
You know, if you have a a loyal
(11:35):
audience, you know, you don't wanna make it
too different, but
you you you wanna consider,
you know, what what you wanna do. I
mean, sometimes it's just better to pull a
Band Aid off and start a whole new
thing. You know, announce on the old feed
saying, hey. Got a new feed. It's over
here. And my co host got a new
feed. It's over there. You know? And maybe
you end up with two shows.
(11:57):
Yeah.
But who who knows? But, you know, you
want to,
you know, keep keep your fans in the
loop.
So, you know, there's gonna be people that
like you and didn't like your cohost, and
there's gonna be people who like the cohost
didn't like you. So
That is absolutely true. Oh, man. It really
is. You know? And, you know, there's there's
nothing wrong with that.
(12:17):
It just you know, everybody likes certain things.
You know? I don't I listen to podcasts
sometimes that I really don't care much about
the subject matter. I just like the person.
Yeah. And there's some that I like the
subject matter and can't stand the host.
Yep.
Two friends and I recently were saying, you
know, this one podcast host, we're like, we're
done with him, but he still has really
(12:38):
good guests, so we'll stick around.
Yeah. I just got one of those that
if if I see who the guest is
and I wanna listen to it, I will.
Otherwise Mhmm. Ignore it. Mhmm. And, you know,
and, let's see. Let's talk about some technical
and administrative thing. Oh, that sounds exciting.
Again It's not ex it's not exactly fun
(13:01):
holding on to, trying to figure out what
to do here. No. But, you know, same
thing we've covered before. You know?
Updating your show artwork, host bios, the
feed details, you know, removing or transferring,
hosting credentials from one account to the other.
You know? That happens at Blueberry.
You know, we'll have somebody, hey. I'm leaving
the show. I'm the one that has the
(13:22):
login. I need it to get transferred over
to this person who's taking over. And, you
know, you you know, no matter which host
you're on, you can do that, and it's
usually not that big a deal. Yeah. We
just wanna reiterate that whatever podcast host you're
on, that is what the support team is
for. Yeah. You know, you
you can obviously try and figure this out
yourself,
(13:43):
if you're, like, moving things,
transferring them, whatever.
But if you're worried,
genuinely just contact your podcast host, and they
will happily help you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And
you you also gotta think about things like
if you submitted it to Apple, but you're
leaving the show,
do you need to transfer that show over
to the other person's Apple account or Spotify
(14:04):
or any of the others that have logins
for that sort of thing. Or, you know,
with Apple, it's not a huge deal to
it doesn't matter where it's at. It's still
gonna get distributed. It's just it'd be nice
to have control over it, whoever's doing the
show. Yeah. Absolutely.
Way too geeky.
But that that's just a small part.
And that's kind of one of the last
(14:25):
things that you would do if you're essentially
splitting up a podcast. But after that is
all said and done, it might be time
to think about how to build a partnership
that does last. Yeah. Like we said at
the beginning, the better way of doing this
is set all this up before the breakup
happens, you know, when you start the show.
Yes. To keep with kind of the divorce
(14:46):
theme that we've got going on here, prenups
exist for a reason. Yep. A podcast prenup,
while not technically
a legal term, is kind of maybe what
some people should do. And I'll give Gordon
a a little bit of a thing. Go
check out Gordon Firemark. He he's really good
at writing those things up.
Yes. I'm sure, I'm sure he would have
lots to say on a situation like this.
(15:08):
So,
yeah, set up those agreements that you have
that you want to have with your cohost.
Really talk it out. Decide,
what what your goals are. Understand what their
goals are. Come up with, you know, like,
a combined goal.
Who does what?
Who does what? Yeah. The schedules that you
can, you know, actually work with and expectations
(15:31):
so that you're not building up that resentment.
With us, you know, you you're you're usually
in charge of finding the topic. So Mhmm.
You know, I'm in charge of getting the
recordings together and Yep. And, you know, Todd
does whatever Todd does, talks into the microphone.
We get to you know, Kate takes care
of our editing. But, But, you know, if
it's just you and somebody else, you know,
(15:51):
hey. Who does the editing? Who does the
publishing? Who does this? Who does that? You
know?
And I I think maybe you have to,
like, also consider,
factoring
those things in in the future too when
you're saying, like, I'll do this now. But
if perhaps in the future we monetize and
we actually do have money, like,
what's one thing what's the first thing on
(16:11):
my list that I would not wanna do
anymore that we would happily put money to
that I would then, like, have more time
to dedicate to such and such? Yeah. Who
gets the profit? You know? And how does
that split up? Big one. You know? That
can be a complicated part. Yeah. Yeah. For
sure.
I think one of the things that comes
after
(16:32):
the split
is
if you're gonna do a show on your
own, how do you wanna grow this? How
do you monetize this?
How do you use your new analytics from
this show comparing it to the last one
if they're related or anything like that? If
you're thinking maybe like, oh, okay. I lost
part of my audience because they listen to
this old show, but now I have a
(16:52):
new RSS feed and a totally new brand
and have to get them to
transfer over, hopefully. So these are all things
to consider.
Yeah. Like I said, you know,
doing a solo show is sometimes harder than
doing a co hosted show. Mhmm.
Or are you gonna have guests? Are you
gonna you know? But, that's all the stuff
for basic podcasters when you start any show.
(17:14):
So, you know, this isn't really specific
to to,
you know, having a cohost breakup.
But,
yeah, I I think we covered it. You
know, the the I guess the key takeaway
that I would say
is try to get this figured out before
you start or at least before the breakup.
You know? Yeah.
(17:35):
So Yeah. In this case, it's a company
show, and, you know, whatever happens happens. You
know? It's not a you know, we we
don't have that kind of thing that we
have to deal with with this particular show
Mhmm. Other than, you know, who does who
does what. You know? We can still have
to figure that out, and,
and it changes. Sometimes I'm writing show notes.
(17:56):
Sometimes I'm publishing. Sometimes I'm editing even. Yeah.
Exactly. And,
you know, we've been doing this for a
really long time, and even if we would
decide to end the show at some point,
we we're all just really proud of what
we've done.
Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, it changes
over time.
You might like one episode. You might hate
(18:18):
the next one.
Hopefully not. So come back next week. We
should have a wonderful episode for you.
Thanks, everyone.
Thanks for joining us. Come back next week.
And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com
for more information, to subscribe, share, and read
our show notes. To check out the latest
suite of services and learn how Blueberry can
(18:38):
help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry.com.
That's Blueberry without the e's because we can't
afford them.
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