John Biewen transformed from a small-town Minnesota basketball player to a documentary podcaster with 18 million downloads and two Peabody nominations. His counterintuitive approach? Tackle the biggest, most controversial topics other hosts avoid. When John launched his series on whiteness and racism, he expected to lose half his audience -instead, his downloads exploded 20-fold and changed his podcast's entire trajectory. He reveals why asking audacious questions about history's thorniest subjects builds massive audiences while safe topics fail. John's university-backed model eliminates revenue pressure, letting him spend 12+ months researching single seasons that deliver life-changing content. This episode breaks down his proven formula for turning complex historical deep-dives into podcast gold without chasing trends or sacrificing editorial freedom.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.