Lessons From The Celebrity Podcast Graveyard

All right . So Mark Maron, one of the , in my mind , most iconic podcasters , kind of the one who started the whole open , authentic conversations format just announced he's shutting down his podcast. It's 1,500 episodes , he interviewed President Obama in 2015 .

Yeah .

So I did a deep dive .

Oh boy .

And that's what I want to talk about during

Are you going to blow our minds ?

Buckle up .

Because I was like what's the angle for celebrity podcasts ? Nobody really cares about them beyond you know the few people who listen before they shut down . And then I was thinking you know the celebrity podcast , wait , wait , wait .

What you're just going to blow past that like that . We all accept that as a true statement . I think nobody cares about celebrity podcasts , except a few people that tune in when they're shutting down .

The ones that don't catch on . They really just are used as examples of , like , what doesn't work in podcasting .

Yeah , that's true .

Okay , but like , let's be fair , even celebrity podcasts that don't catch on probably still do way more downloads than a typical podcast , than an average Joe who's just starting a podcast and does it for a couple of years and maybe works up to two 300 downloads per episode , which is really great . Like I don't know .

Kevin , it's not about the downloads , it's about retention .

Let me say it this way Our audience probably doesn't truly care too much about celebrity podcasts . We think that's the Buzzcast audience . Yeah , the Buzzcast audience , the thousand true fans that we have that listen to this show .

Right , okay .

But then I was thinking , you know , for a lot of indie podcasters , what we imagine is holding us back is actually what celebrity podcasters have .

Love it All right .

Okay , I'm buckling up .

And so we've got a game .

Yes , I love games Okay .

The game is because of our celebrity podcast graveyard, Jordan . We're going to call this podcast hit or closed casket . Is this a hit or did it flop ?

Closed casket is so open caskets worse . Neither . Neither it's good , but I don't know . It just hit me sideways . Open casket . Can we call it like celebrity , like hit or flop ?

We can we can call it something boring . It's the podcast celebrity podcast graveyard . The celebrities aren't dead , their shows are dead .

All right , okay , all right , I'll get in the right state of minds . I just don't like , I don't know . The morbid imagery was not hitting me right .

But I can get , just don't think about it . Put it aside , all right , just don't think about it .

All right , here we go . First , one podcast . Very much , that's what Kevin has to say . Now I'm going to tell you about a celebrity podcast . I'm going to tell you a little bit about it and you guys determine whether or not it was a hit or it was a flop .

I'm going to speak up first . I think that this is a hit just because it has that Apple Silicon Valley beginnings of starting in a garage and then exploding into popularity . I didn't actually listen to it , but I really liked Marc Maron in Glow , which was the women's wrestling show on Netflix .

I mean , I know the show was a hit .

Yeah , this one's to me . I tried to start us off easy . Huge hit . Yeah , huge hit .

15 years was like the most popular podcast .

15 years it was like the most popular podcast at one point . Headliner at the first podcast movement , Kevin and I went to Interviewed the president.

Yeah , I mean the only to be perfectly transparent with you the only episode that I listened to from start to finish was the Obama episode . That was it . I tried listening to other episodes and I could never get into it . Not a show for me , but huge hit nonetheless .

All right , we did it First , but huge hit nonetheless , all right , we did it First one down All right .

Podcast number two Dolly Parton's America short run series . Nine episodes deep dive into Dolly Parton's life . She was on the podcast throughout . Telling all these stories won a Peabody award . I think that podcast flopped . You think Dolly Parton flopped ?

No . I think her podcast flopped . I think Dolly Parton has had a long , historic and wonderfully successful career in almost everything she does except podcasting . What makes you say it flopped , like what I just don't think it got ? It didn't get a lot of notoriety . I didn't see a lot of people talking about it .

So in my circles it was a major hit . Everyone was talking about it and yeah , it's a limited series that like won an award . I don't know , I saw it everywhere .

I took this as a hit . I thought it was good . It's a good example of a short run series that was fun , that did something well in a short run and had cultural impact and won awards , and one of the things that stood out to me was that Dolly Parton was really involved . She's in every episode .

From what I know about Dolly Parton is that she doesn't do any projects unless she's very involved , like even opening up the Dolly World theme park .

Yeah , she's very like protective of her brand .

Yeah , so I'm happy to be wrong about that . I'm glad you two both decided it was a hit .

All right , New one the low down . Either you know the low down . Washan did the lowdown in 2022 . She was going to do bi-weekly cadence , she was going to do bi-weekly shows and she made it 12 episodes . So she made it past kind of that pod fade mark what year was this again ?

she was probably contractually obligated .

Well , we will go further and there'll be people who won't even fill out their contracts . So don't worry .

What year was this ?

2022 .

So it was like after she got herself a little bit more together .

Yes , this is on her rebound .

Yeah .

All right 12 episodes .

I put this in the flop . It started out consistent , it dropped off , it didn't make it past six months and wasn't renewed .

Yeah , I think if it wasn't renewed it didn't make it very long and it wasn't like an intentional , like miniseries or limited series . That sounds like a flop to me .

All right Office ladies Jenna Fisher , Angela Kinsey I'm bringing it early Hit , hit , hit . They've done a show for six years . They're re-watching the Office . Now it's spun out They've won awards . And I didn't know this . Do you know ? They're real life best friends . Yeah , I've heard that .

So here's another show . This one hits different for me because I don't like listening to them talk about the Office . I'm not interested in all the behind the scenes stuff , but they're funny . They have great personalities . Anytime I hear a clip I listen to it . So I don't subscribe to the show , but I often find myself like stumbling into an episode somehow .

So I then contrast this . I found another Office rewatch with a former Office member , Brian , who played Kevin .

Yeah , yeah .

He did his own , called An Oral History of the Office . It didn't pick up and then he was quoted saying something like everyone's got a celebrity podcast . It's too saturated . I don't know , man , your co-host just knocked it . They're still doing it after six years . All right , we can go a little bit faster .

All right , we can go a little bit faster . We've got more of these Smartless Hit . They had an HBO series . They're on it .

HBO series picked up Amazon Wondery . They've been doing it for five years . The system , the case of Kevin Keith . Do you guys know who did this show ? No , Kim Kardashian in 2022 did eight episodes . Oh , yes , it's kind of like her own serial , talking about a guy who was incarcerated and she believed he was probably wrongfully imprisoned or wrongfully prosecuted .

I did a Peloton workout with Kim Kardashian , and who's the guy who was on that 70s show who also played Steve Jobs in a movie ?

Ashton Kutcher .

Ashton Kutcher yeah , and the whole time they were doing the workout they were talking about her going to law school .

Yeah .

And I'm assuming this podcast was a result of something that like a case that she was studying in law school or something .

Yeah , she's super passionate about prison reform and she actually literally just graduated law school when she posted about that .

So yeah for her that little 30 minute run changed my view on Kim Kardashian .

She's smart .

I just didn't think that she was . I don't know from the just watching the Kardashian show or clips of that show , you don't think that they're super smart . She's very smart .

Yeah , she is , and very passionate and empathetic .

The reason I picked this one is it's an eight episode series . It only made one season , which to me , initially I thought this is going to be in the flop category . But Kevin Keith , he has not been nothing's changed with his case . But she got the former governor to say , yeah , I wish I'd pardoned him . It looks like he was wrongfully convicted .

National Treasures .

National Treasures was the podcast to hit . It spawned a whole genre of in bed podcasts . It won an award . The award was Best Cover Art at the UK Podcast Awards in 2020 .

I'll say that was probably hit . I mean , I know about this show . I didn't listen to it again . I don't listen to any celebrity podcasts , but I do think it was a pretty big show .

How about this ? They shut down during COVID because they couldn't record in person anymore , that's crazy .

They both could have tested and still got in bed together .

I'm like , but aren't they ?

they're married , they're married in the recording . Yeah , they're married .

Oh , then that's , ridiculous they didn't need to do that .

And then it canceled . I was like , why was this canceled ? And they were like , oh no , we couldn't do it in person .

I don't know . I've never heard it , I've never heard clips from it , I've never heard anyone reference it . So , though I absolutely adore them as people and as performers , I don't know . I feel like this might be a flop .

I'm edging on flop I , I , I put it in the flop yeah , okay all right , a couple more and I think we're getting down to some easy ones . Armchair expert hit , major hit yeah though I like this point armchair expert dax . Dax shepherd was not super famous before this . You know he did chips , he'soo .

Yeah .

What's his wife's name ? Kristen Bell .

Yeah , he's married to Kristen Bell . That's like at least what I knew of him . I don't feel like I knew much about it until he did the show . Now we're getting to some painful ones Renegades Born in the USA . What two celebrities did this show ?

Barack Obama and Bruce Spring .

Give me some of the most star power you can get .

Yeah .

Friends discussing America music and fatherhood that was a flop yeah .

I didn't know what the show was about and then when you told me what the topic was , I was like I don't know .

I think you couldn't have put me more in the bullseye for a podcast that I didn't listen to . Wow , this is exclusive to Spotify . I love Barack Obama . I like Bruce Springsteen . I would be interested to hear about people and how they're patriotic and they want to learn about fatherhood and music , but I didn't even listen .

Yeah , yeah .

And then one that probably wins us a superlative Archetypes , oh .

Meghan Markle . That's a flop .

Meghan Markle did 12 episodes in 2022 , and it was a $20 million deal .

I forgot who even hosted it , so I'm going to say that's a flop .

It was Meghan Markle . She did not do well , though she did do better than Prince Harry , who produced zero episodes as part of that $20 million deal .

At least she tried .

I think there was a big miss . I don't know much about Meghan Markle , but I think Meghan and Harry were hoping that the US audience would be more empathetic to their situation than they were , and it seems like the American people in general sort of sided more with the royal family than maybe they expected .

So I went through all of these and then I kind of came up with pretty similar lists and I tried to come up with a few key points and we can all kind of talk about which things fill into each of these . I came up with four things that I think are lessons for indie podcasters , because these are the things that seem to in my mind .

Okay , I mean I can get on board with that . I think when you read that quote from Mark Maron , it reminds me very much of what Joe Rogan is doing today . That has made his podcast probably the largest podcast in history .

They're talking about this great period of their lives where they did this fun show with other people they liked and they're just enjoying themselves . And even if you're not like the biggest office fan , it's a lot of fun .

Yeah , good point .

This one is really good for all of the podcasters . Consistency , mm , hmm , just the most common thing throughout this was consistency . Anyone that failed . It was like three episodes in , they're not doing every episode , they're skipping some now and then they're missing recordings and they're like oh , maybe we'll come back for a second season .

I do remember that being a big talking point around archetypes . When that released it was a huge promotional PR push . Wasn't it a Spotify exclusive for a while or something ? It ? Was a huge deal . And then I think they released two or three episodes and then the show went dark for a couple months and the people who did like it were like where is it ?

And the celebrities . I think part of it is they have busy calendars , they've got lots of opportunities and so they get this big push . They probably get a big bump in the beginning because of their name recognition , but then they're not sticking around , so they go off and do something else .

I mean , that's an athlete's mentality , you know , like you . Just you have to show up every day and do the thing you don't want to do . It's like athletes and military .

Yeah , you didn't bring up the new heights podcast in the game , but that would be another celebrity podcast and they were absolutely consistent .

Yeah , that's a great one . This is okay . Number four we'll skip to this one distribution . So many of the shows that were flops were walled gardens .

I would like to add a fifth point to this .

Okay .

Okay , my fifth point . What I've noticed from the ones that we deemed to be hits is that the celebrities actually were involved in the podcast . So a lot of the ones that were not hits .

Yeah , I might not be . It might not be a hundred percent , but I feel like , at least from the shows you mentioned , my recollection of those shows are those were started by the celebrities themselves .

Yeah .

So , like Dak Shepard , he started his podcast , grew it a little bit and then he did like a deal with somebody right , the smart list guys . They started doing their podcast . They probably like I'm sure they have people to help them Like how do we , you know , record this and how do we host this and that kind of stuff ? But they did it themselves .

Wondering .

They did a deal with somebody wondering Mark Marin definitely did , joe Rogan definitely did , I think even Conan O'Brien . Now I think Conan was like part of Earwolf , but I don't think Earwolf said , oh , let's go seek out Conan , let's go to him . I think Conan had the idea to do a podcast and then maybe they shopped the idea or something .

Yeah , the way I wrote this was you need a unique angle . Why are you doing this show ? There were times where the show was kind of like it's just a normal podcast , but it was done by a celebrity and there's been so many bad celebrity talk shows over the years . And being a good celebrity does not mean you're going to be a good podcaster . I don't think .

Yeah .

And I didn't want to beat up on them too much , but there's a lot that are like five episodes , 12 episodes , 20 episodes . So maybe the big takeaway is , if you've made it 50 episodes , you've probably outlasted hundreds of celebrity podcasters .

Yeah , and that's a good list . So run through the takeaways for indie podcasters again that we can learn from celebrity podcasters .

One authenticity You've got to be interested in this yourself . Why are you doing it ? Are you excited about it ? Are you enjoying it ? Consistency you want to stick with the podcast week after week , because if you start building some momentum , you want to keep it going . Then we skip to four Distribution matters . So make sure your podcast is available everywhere .

Great takeaways . Thanks , Alvin .