Lately I’ve been getting questions about this part of my EveryExpert profile:
“I won't tell everyone to start a podcast. Hell, some ideas are better as newsletters or social media accounts.”
It probably sounds like bad advice coming from a podcast consultant, right? But I say that on my profile because I’m less interested in the format than I am in what someone is actually trying to build.
Look at it this way: a podcast is basically a container for an idea. It can be a very good container, but if your goal is to build a durable audience, a media property, a body of intellectual property, or a professional platform, “we’re making a podcast” doesn’t answer the more important question: what is the thing underneath it that people actually care about?
A few things happening in media lately have made that distinction easier to see.
Podcasts from Crooked Media are now airing as television programming on weekends on MS NOW. According to the network, half of the audience for its Crooked Media programming weren’t previously watching MS NOW on Saturdays. Among viewers under 55, nearly two-thirds were new to the network. Impressive!
That’s more than expanding Crooked Media’s distribution; they’re bringing their audience along with them. The shows already have recognizable hosts, strong editorial voices, and relationships with people who will follow them into a different environment. That’s a very different power relationship from the one podcasting had with traditional media not even a decade ago.
Then there’s MS NOW itself. Its president, Rebecca Kutler, recently talked about expanding the network’s strategy to include a paid membership program built around its anchors and media personalities. The idea includes exclusive content, direct interaction, and other community features. It kinda sounds like a more formal Patreon, but the important part is what they’re monetizing: access to people the audience already recognizes and trusts. The personality becomes part of the media property.
And then there’s David Brooks, who recently left The New York Times and launched a new podcast with Yale University and The Atlantic. You’ve got a recognizable writer, a university, and a media organization all joining around a recurring idea. The podcast is the delivery mechanism, but the value underneath it is broader: Brooks’ voice, Yale’s academic expertise, The Atlantic’s production and distribution, and an editorial premise they can all participate in.
Three very different examples, but they’re all pointing toward the same thing: the podcast matters, but what the podcast helps build could matter much more.
That has me thinking a lot about intellectual property and portability.
If a podcast becomes less important than the editorial property built around it, does that property even need to stay inside a podcast?
I had to answer some version of that question myself when I stopped producing Revision Path two years ago. For eleven years, that show was the center of my professional (and personal) life. There was always another interview to schedule, another guest to research, another episode to edit, another week on the calendar.
Then production stopped. The work didn’t suddenly lose its value. There were still hundreds of conversations, the reputation and history of the show, and an archive documenting more than a decade of Black designers, developers, artists, educators, entrepreneurs, and other creative professionals talking about their work and their lives.
Eventually, I had to stop thinking about Revision Path only as a podcast because it had become something larger than its publishing format. The interviews became an archive. The archive became historical documentation. And the show’s reputation became authority I could carry into writing, speaking, consulting, research, and whatever else I decide to do with it.
The podcast ended, but the property didn’t. And I think more podcasters are going to have to make that mental shift earlier.
Take video, for example. There’s been endless discussion about whether podcasts “need” video, which I think misses the more interesting point. If someone watches your podcast on a television — and according to recent data from Sounds Profitable, that number is rising — they’re going to experience it differently than someone listening on their phone or through a smart speaker.
Suddenly framing matters. And lighting. And body language. And of course, audio. Even the pace of a conversation can feel different when you’re looking at two people talk instead of just listening to them. The content may be fundamentally the same, but once the container changes, the editorial experience changes with it. That doesn’t mean every podcast needs to become a big-budget television production, but it does mean that the environment becomes part of the experience. And if your work can move between those environments without losing what makes it valuable, you’ve probably built something more durable than an audio or video file shared through an RSS feed.
That brings me back to those lines from my EveryExpert profile.
What exactly are you building? Because if the answer is simply “a podcast,” that may not be enough, at least not if your larger goal is to build something that can last, grow, or move beyond the platform where it started.
My point isn’t about forcing every idea into more formats. Instead, identify what part of your idea is actually valuable enough to survive the podcast format. Maybe you have an idea people recognize, or you’re a host that people implicitly trust. You could even have an audience that will follow you wherever you go next. Or maybe you’ve got something strong enough to work on television, on stage, or in print.
Whatever it is, that is the thing worth paying attention to. The podcast may be where it starts, but the real question is whether what you built can travel without it.