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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 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 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. 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.
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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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,
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. 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 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, 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 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
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, 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 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 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
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 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 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 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 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,
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 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 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. 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
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 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 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. 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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. 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. 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 the next one. Hopefully not. So come back next week. We should have a wonderful episode for you. Thanks, everyone.
¶ Closing Remarks and Resources
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 help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry.com. That's Blueberry without the e's because we can't afford them.