Inside Evergreen Podcasts: A Conversation with David Allen Moss

We also talk a little bit about podcasting 2.0 because I feel that, especially within companies like these, there is no awareness of it at all. So it's always good to spread the gospel. Now without further ado, here is David Allen Moss. And so, you know, obviously, I run into Evergreen podcasts. Perhaps we can start there, what that is, and, what you do there.

She had a a sort of a cottage or bespoke, series of shows she had come up with and wanted to repurpose them into the podcasting space. So our CEO came on first. There was our one of her first employees who was an intern out of college is still with us. He's now the EVP of production. So we a lot of us are still along for the ride. We made a lot of left hand turns. The content was really, it was truly evergreen content. It was classic films, movies, classic comedy, classic books.

And it was really independent of that whole hosting relationship. It was just more almost encyclopedic type podcasts. And, we were looking at Wondery. We were looking at NPR. We were looking at Gimlets, and we said, you know, we we wanna do what they're doing. We wanna do it like that in our own way. And so in 2018, I think it was fall of 18, we came up with Evergreen as a network. We knew we wanted to keep doing originals.

We knew we wanted to do branded content and content marketing, and then we also knew that we wanted to grow out the network. So how do you do that? That those are the three things we do, originals, branded, and partner shows and partner networks. And so we really didn't come out of the, the gate until, podcast movement, our first conference, August of 19. I remember it because we created this little booklet, and it was so,

novel because everyone's there with their screens and their postcards and stickers. And we had a little booklet that was on a network that had just started, but it seemed like we were a thing. And my whole career has been brand strategy and and, communication design, and how do you how do you package product and media. And, so we did a really bang up job coming out as Evergreen. And, and then grew from, you know, half a dozen shows and 17,000 downloads to this over 350 where we are today across,

6 networks. We've purchased a few smaller networks recently. Most recently was the Converge network, which is, faith based shows. We also have our own motorsport sports network. It's called pitpassmotorsports.com. Mostly f 1, IndyCar, motocross, but but really more on the 4 wheels kinda racing. And then we have a political network. We have a news, entity called 5 minute dot news, which has grown into more of a video first, media.

And the website itself, which we kind of have learned to to put podcasts into buckets so that we can when we get brands and advertisers, we can sell into those buckets. It's really worked out well. Mhmm. So here we are tracking for about 40,000,000, 45,000,000 downloads this year. That's a long way from 17,000. Uh-huh. So we're happy about that. The the the curve is going in the right direction.

Mhmm. Our chief content officer loves history, loves content, and he was he had his own web enterprise that was sort of, lifestyle for men kind of, you know, web content. He's a content guy. So we're all sort of media geeks. Yeah. So it serves us that we're not selling something that we don't also have passion in. I'm also a musician. And the expression, one of our largest channels, just so happens to be music. It's in our top three in terms of listenership.

So it's it's certainly a venue also for our founder to see the excitement around storytelling, because that's her passion. She really believes in the reason she called her media company, Front Porch Media Network, which is the holding company of Evergreen, is she really believes in families and friends sitting on a front porch and the kinds of stories and conversations that happen. So we're all conversationalists. We're all, like I said, media geeks.

And the why is certainly tied to the fact we identified the industry as being a real growth industry. We wanted to do something that we could really shepherd and see take off. And, ultimately, what happens? Do we roll up with another network? Does do other networks roll up with us? Probably all of the above. Yeah. You know, we've been acquiring shows through the podcast broker and, you know, finding opportunities to also

invite other passionate talent from other networks. Because, you know, it's constantly shaking up. When that happens, we're able to bring folks from Spotify, folks from cast, folks from other networks that are kind of breaking apart and invite them onto the boat. Yeah. And the boat metaphor is one of the best in podcasting because we talk about this all the time, how the mentality is all boats rise.

There's a I've been in a lot of other industries related to media and technology, and this one seems to be the most convivial, collaborative, helpful. We all wanna help one another. It's a it's a different industry, and I think that's special. I think we all recognize that, and we try to, engender that in our ranks and in our in our culture, in our our company culture. So I don't know if that's the why. Okay. We do love to tell stories. Yeah. We like to joke around. It's a very

it's a lively bunch. Evergreen.

They still have access to the tool. They can be power users, but they can also focus more on their content. We take admin, iOS, insertion orders, the the you know, all the different work that's on the ad side of things, cross promos. We handle all of that. So we have a partner relations department that really helps with guest placements, helps with, you know, feed swaps, all of the things that we do. And, gosh, there's so many things that we do in podcasting

to try to elevate a show. Our that's that's how we've built our our team. And so when you sign on with Evergreen, we come up with a revenue share, and that's really a custom conversation. That's a custom number every time. Is it 80 20, 70 30, 50 50? It depends on who's doing what. Are we helping with production? Are we doing engineering recording, you know, mixing distribution, or are we just distributing what they're creating? You know, it it all depends on how far along they are on the path.

I think when we first started that piece of the business, just about any podcast with a pulse, we'd consider bringing up to the network. And now we have to bring someone on that is more mature, or has, an incredible, trajectory that they're on.

And, you know, it used to be something like you might remember when it was like, well, if you have, you know, 25 100 listens over a 30 day period per episode, that's pretty darn good. But we're we're at a much higher number in terms of us being able to take on that show and and give him the ROI. Because there's an expectation when you join a network that your growth maybe is going to accelerate. When you join the network, it's definitely a full service,

almost a turnkey relationship. But it's all relationship driven. It's not about, hey. Here are the things we do, you know, and you've got access to these things. No. It's high touch. It's a lot of conversations on the front end. It's strategy. Some podcasters come to us and, like, we're really rethinking this. Or we've got this show, but we wanna start this show. Can you help? So it's it's a full spectrum of relationships that we have with partners.

Okay. Which is kinda nice. Yeah. It's a lot of work, but it's nice Yeah. That we can be that custom.

let's just think about this for a minute. Don't just it's just sort of a knee jerk reaction that that oh, that wasn't that wasn't a winning campaign because of a certain performance metric like a promo code. And now we're looking at other platforms, and we have to be tech geeks. I mean, we're looking at other platforms where we can do community development. We're very excited about Station dot io and building building an unbundled social and, deals and promo kinda hub

for thinking of a show as a bigger brand. It's not just the podcast. It's the personality. It's the it's the extras. Yeah. So we're just starting to build these sort of hubs for a show that are that are beyond just the landing page for their web for their podcast. There are places that they can do polls and do conversations, kinda like Discord, all in one place. I like to call it like a link tree or a power link on steroids. There's so much to it.

Yeah. So we're trying to go there as well. So it's a different growth. Now we're really paying attention to the community of listeners and trying to build superfans in more of an organic and real way.

micro transaction enabled value for value. That's the feature. What's it? That's called the podcasting 2.0. And that means that through the fountain app, somebody logs in there. You can put some fiat money in there. Like, I put $50 in your wallet there. And then you can send, you know, here's, here's a dollar for this episode with a comment.

Hey. I like this or a question or something. You don't have to. You can also just comment there. And the whole thing about FountainDot. The family is that they create a community there. People don't leave their podcast app. They just comment right there. They talk to each other. They talk to the podcasters. Podcasters reply. They like stuff. They follow stuff. It's a whole thing. And it's all right there. And the power is that it's all in the podcasting

player app where you were already listening to this thing. That's very powerful because you don't have to leave and go somewhere else to to do it. Right? Because that's Exactly. And I think we're finally seeing,

realigned in in something like what did you call it? Phantom. No. Fountain.fm. There's probably a phantom.fm. It's probably very different.

Yeah. You have to be lab mindset. You have to be laboratory about it.

Mhmm. You know, I think the smaller shops that are more design minded, they have design thinking in and inside and out of their product. They're more nimble, they're more agile, and they can move more quickly to your point. Yeah. Definitely. So do,

And her father started it, and she she and her 2 brothers had been running it. And it was purchased or sold out from somewhat from under her, she might say, by her brothers, to Michael's Crafts, which is, you know, the craft store next to Hobby Lobby here in North America. She came to us. She says, I'm, you know, I'm doing this. And I I was doing the bridal thing, but I wanna get back into this. And we started an audio podcast for her. We did a first season. This was last year. And,

after that season didn't take off like we had hoped, we kinda took a step back and said, well, why don't we do a video series with you? You have all this knowledge. You could be doing how to's, how to do a bridal bouquet, how to do a veil, how to do all these things. It could be bridal related, but it could also be home. It could be about design. So we thought about her brand first, who she is, Catan Designs. I designed a new brand for her, and now

it's now video first, and we're getting ready to release that. We don't know how it's gonna perform, but my point is it really makes sense to think about both mediums all the time. You're gonna do you're gonna do both. But is it just, like, clippy clips, bonus reels? Is it, is it stuff is it content marketing for social, or is it a prime piece of media that you're building off of? And so the YouTube strategies

more and more we're we're playing a little catch up, but everybody else is as well. We have to know when it makes sense to be YouTube first or, you know, video first or if video is just part of the big flywheel. Yeah. And, you know, you've got your podcast either somewhere big around that or in the center of the flywheel, and then there's video and everything else all around it. It it comes down to the personality of the host, and some people don't belong on camera.

Am I allowed to say that? I don't know if I belong on camera. But, you know, some people, also are insistent. I just wanna do it. I just wanna be audio. Like, that's where I'm most passionate. I don't I don't need to be doing video. But they still need to think about how to use video to grow their audio program. So you can't divide them up anymore. They're really they're this duality that we have to think about. And, you know, now we're using the term simulcast.

Yeah. When I was a kid, and I'm gonna date myself, simulcast was very exciting. My dad was an audiophile. We had state of the art. Even when it was a tube TV, we had a Mitsubishi stereo TV that had a button simulcast. And inside the TV was a tuner, and you could tune in 100.7. And here was this live concert, and you're listening to it in stereo. You know, just, or high fidelity. And that was simulcast.

Well, that means a totally different thing now. We we talk about it for sales, for ad sales. Yeah. We've kinda co opted that word.

to there. So as a developer, you can use you can just query all that data. You can download a copy if you wanna play around with that. That is very useful if you're building, for instance, a podcast player app. That's very handy. And that makes you less dependent on things like Apple Podcasts or, Spotify, which are basically closed gardens because you can't really speak with those people if you're a developer. They don't talk to you. So that's one thing.

And then the extra capabilities, they come from the project that is called podcasting 2.0, which has been started by Adam Curry and Dave Jones, 4 or 5 years ago to modernize podcasting. And they do that by creating a new namespace. So in your podcast RSS feeds, that's a whole XML file that basically describes your show. Right? It has all the episodes in it, all the the data,

all the show notes, all that type stuff. And they've created extra things for that. So an easier way to add chapters, easier way to add transcripts a uniform way, let's say. But all of the modern apps that then use the data from the podcast index use the same way to discover chapters, for instance, and, show those in their apps. For instance, chapters then come from a JSON file, a data file that lives somewhere in the cloud. That's the new way to do it.

Transcripts, same thing, which now Apple Podcasts in their app also has adopted recently this year, the new way of doing transcripts. They use the podcasting 2 point o standard. And there's a bunch more features that you have like identifying people, for instance,

going live within a podcast app that can be audio or video, which is really cool. You can just do this and then it you can just listen to it live in an app like radio was. Right? It's really cool. Sure. And a bunch of other features, and there's more and more always coming. And that's that's very exciting. And some hosting companies support these features, like Pod Home, the company I work for. Captivate, for instance, like you mentioned, also do a bunch of these features.

Spotify obviously does not because they are Spotify. Yeah. They they don't care about that because they don't really care about podcasting too much. They're they're just a music company. They have their spin offs like Megaphone, for instance, that works for them, which is fine.

And the older, bigger hosts, like you said, they are less nimble because, obviously, they have built a lot of stuff. They took them years to do and then changing them. Yeah. That that also take years to to change. And then they really need to weigh, well, do I really wanna do that? What's the benefit for me? Like, what's in it for me? But the benefit really is, on that one leg podcast index is Okay. To keep podcasting

open and free. And open means, open and free from, censorship, which, for instance, Apple Podcasts and Spotify, are very, at risk of. And we'll see that, of course, when things heat up, election cycle, you know, stuff like that, things get taken down. And I think that's not a good idea because I I I love that we are able to just talk about anything and discuss anything, because that's how we learn. Right? So so that's one thing. Yeah. We shouldn't be guarded. Just to just to sidebar.

Like, I'm afraid to criticize the way they do business because they've already we've already run into a few of our shows getting removed from Span and and the amount of backlash and customer relations that it requires for us to to smooth that over, and yet they can't even tell us why. It's getting to antitrust time. And so I just wanna say what you not to take you off course, but I do wanna say that it seems like podcast 2.0 is creating, pathways for innovation.

Absolutely. It's it's guaranteeing competition

Yeah. You you know, I was in a situation whereas, digital signage and, media networks shop here in Cleveland, and we decided to be agnostic. Well, that was hard for my team, because then we decided, well, we'll whittle it down to 4. So we've probably had 3 or 4 of these top digital sinus platforms at the time. And it was very much like podcasting, and everything was still in development. And and it was hard for the team to kinda switch gears

across platforms. It would be like if if Evergreen had Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Megaphone, and Captivate, you know, you'd have to really have the mindset. You'd almost have to have product special product leaders on each platform.

properly equipped for this. And what's it gonna be like when you acquire this thing? Yeah. Did you just make a permanent storm for your own company? So we might be one of the more careful outfits in this. You know, it's funny to be around all this tumult, and we're just kinda cruising along. Maybe we got a little solar power. Maybe we got maybe we got air power and diesel. You know, it's a sailboat with a really big engine. I don't know. But we're just gonna keep cutting through all this chop.

And it's worked so far because people come on the boat, and they're like, okay. Yeah. Evergreen. Steady as she goes. It might be our Midwest underpinnings. People are like, where are you from? We're in London. They're asking, where are you from? Oh, Cleveland. Oh, Cleveland. So surprised. They're always so surprised.

and our relationships with brands. And I'd like to see us. There's conversation about a joint, venture or, acquisition of a European network. We're growing in, Asian Pacific markets. And what I understand we've got a few conversations in the pipe since the, podcast show in London. When you look at India, we should all be kind of paying attention. They're gonna explode. They are exploding.

And they're doing some really interesting things. A couple folks that we've talked to well, you mentioned Hopper, but they're they're finding all of these other devices. They call them dumb phones, and they're gonna be lighting those up. And when they light them up, it's half a 1000000000 people. Yeah. So we want our content there. I want our content there. I'm trying to get everybody else to understand. We all need to understand that, hey. Let's find the right partner in that.

And we have. We've done some stuff with Geo Savan, and then we have a nice small channel called voices of India. Mhmm. And India is in our top five countries. So I'd like to I'd like to see us, support Podfest Asia next year. I'd like to see us stretch beyond you know, it's been nice to be in London because I think that's an eye opener for everyone that there's a lot of growth opportunity outside of the States. Yeah. A lot to happen.

but that's also where we are. It's just it's sort of like you've got your you've built your, built your boat, but now you gotta work on the boat Yeah. Itself. Things go things go wrong otherwise.

everywhere that Megaphone makes our show is available, but, you know, you kinda gotta get a sense. If you wanna get a sense of the breadth of our catalog, the landing page is divided up across all channels. There's a handy little drop down that divides everything up across channels and networks. There's a nice team page. You can get to see my mugshot along with the rest of the team. I think that's a good place to start.

Okay. And find us on LinkedIn. We love having conversations out there in the LinkedIn space. We're trying to be a little bit more engaging there. And on all of our social channels, you know, that's at stream evergreen. So Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.