Rob Greenlee – 20 Years of Podcasting Wisdom and the Future of the Industry

All right, welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today we are joined by Rob Greenlee. Thank you so much for coming the show.

Rob, great to be here. Kasey, I'm excited to chat with you. It's always great to do a podcast together.

Absolutely. So I've been so just impressed by your career, your journey, and I think this is not only a conversation I've been looking forward to, but for those that don't know, you've been such a pioneer in the industry of podcasting, you know, you've been in it, I believe, for nearly 20 years, and, you know, you've had so many different incredible roles of from different companies in this space. And I think we're at this time in podcasting, like, you know, coming into 2025, where new M and A is happening. The phrase quote unquote podcast is changing by the month, it seems, and whole space, especially since I've been in the last eight years, have. Has matured so much. And I'm so excited to dive into your background and perspective while we're in this unique time in this industry that, you know very, very well. And, you know, before we dive in, would love to have you just give myself and the audience just a quick, brief high level of where you spend your time now before we really dive into your background and, you know, your journey overall.

Yeah, that's a great lead in because I've always kind of tried to live at where we are at through my whole journey, even back when I started on radio back in 1999 and took that show out as a digital download of sorts off my website. I was trying to, you know, stay ahead of the curve a little bit, try and think about where things were going. And. And so that's a kind of a good kind of backdrop to think about what I'm doing now. I'm. I'm doing more and more video. I'm doing. I'm still doing podcasts. I'm doing this kind of convergence approach to podcasting, which I have had my fingers in for a good 14 years. I mean, I can. I can talk from a historical perspective about podcasting and where we're at now compared to what it was back in, like, the 2006s and 2007 time frame, which was kind of similar in some ways to what we're seeing now. But what I've been really spending my time is just kind of becoming more knowledgeable about where we are in podcasting right now and playing around with different formats, playing around with video, trying new things, trying to expand my skills. And you know, I sure, I've been doing this a long time, but that doesn't mean that I can't learn anything new. And because everything is, is in the process of changing and you know, you got AI into the mix now. There's a lot to learn there. There's a lot of tools that are out there that need to be sifted through and figured out and having understanding. And then there's this whole kind of broadening of the medium with shorts and with long form content, with audio, with video and all the derivative content that creators are starting to create now, trying to build businesses. And I think that's the other big thing that I'm getting more involved into is thinking more about monetization strategies, thinking about ways that I can help others kind of navigate these very complicated waters around distribution and monetization and formats. And the only real way I could really speak intelligently about any of these things is to actually have done them myself. And that's the background that I've had. And trying to do it myself and then being able to speak intelligently about it and not blow a bunch of smoke at people, but really speak from it from a basis of I felt the pain. So.

Absolutely. And I appreciate you sharing that. And even just to preface a little bit before we talk about the industry today, of course, in more in depth there, you're the founding chairperson of the Podcast Academy and the current chairman of Podcast hall of fame, which in 2017 you were inducted into the Podcast hall of Fame, which is incredible for those who may not know what some of these awards and communities are and where they stem from. You've been so influential in this space. We'd love for you to take us back to the early days of not only the Podcast hall of Fame Podcast Academy, but the recognition around the industry, which I know you've been just very instrumental in.

Yeah. So, yeah, I guess my perspective has kind of always been, is to be part of the community. And I think that's one of the roots that this medium has. And though it's changed a lot because the community has gotten so big and it's gotten so diversified, it's gotten so pervasive and ubiquitous that it's hard to think of podcasting as a community that's cohesive. Right. So one of my biggest projects that I felt like I needed to do in the early years, or the earlier years compared to even now, is being ambassador of sorts and across those barriers between like the comedians and the sports podcasters and the larger Media creators and the smaller media creators, and to be able to speak to them in a way that would be inclusive and. And also, you know, speak to other genders and races. Getting involved in the medium and being a proponent of that. And that's what took me into working on the Podcast Academy, the Ambies Awards, all that kind of stuff was to contribute to the formation of these very helpful kind of organizations that can have some sense of holding this large medium now into a cohesive community of sorts. There's a lot of interests that want to pull things in all sorts of different directions, and there's priorities and competitive influences and all sorts of things that go into this. But at the end of the day, the Podcast hall of Fame, I didn't start that per se. That was started by the founders of Podcast Movement, the Podcasting Conference. And just after the pandemic was over, they chose that. They didn't want to run it anymore. So we took it back. The hall of Famers took it back from Podcast Movement, and we did a relationship with PodFest to actually continue it. So that started back in 2015. And so I was inducted in 2017 as part of the relationship with Podcast Movement. And so that was. That was a different kind of time for the hall of Fame. And now we're kind of at a different stage. And I've kind of led the last, probably the last three events to help put that event on and keep it alive, because, I mean, all the hall of Famers want to have a Hall of Fame that still is active and around and holding events every year. So it was just. It's really kind of a passion project because I wanted to bring light to those in the podcast community that have helped really make this medium what it is today and honor those people, because they were and continue to be, many of them, significant contributors to what this medium is all about. And this gives them an opportunity to get up on stage and to be recognized and give them the opportunity to share some of their wisdom. Wisdom and their thoughts and their experiences on stage. And those are available on. On YouTube. So you can go watch some of those. You know, we've had some like Adam Curry has been inducted in there. Leah laporte, Adam Carolla has been inducted in here. And my master ceremonies two years ago was Dr. Drew. And so he was a terrific ambassador. And this past year, I had John Miles, the very successful host of Passion Struck, which really aligned with the whole purpose of the hall of Fame, which is to honor those that had these passions for getting in front of People and influencing people's lives.

It's so cool to hear this perspective. Rob and I think we were talking about a little before we started the show. And I think as someone that has had a show for eight years, you know, this. This medium, this industry of podcasting, I always say, has been like the foundation of my career, you know, I was telling you, but I started it. I started my show when I was 17 years old, at the tail end of 2017, when I was just coming out of a neck injury, playing football and nearly paralyzed. And to see how much it's matured, you know, I started my. My podcast on a pair of Apple headphones, like wired, just kind of walking in circles in my bedroom. Didn't even think twice about production quality or video. And, you know, I knew video was important in the world of creators, but I was just like, hey, I'm going to start an audio show. In the first, like, 50 to 100 episodes were pretty much all audio and some live streams on Facebook. And, you know, over the years, as I've done nearly 500 episodes now, you know, I. I was a part of a network back in 2020 called Blue Wire, and I, like, we had this beautiful recording studio at the Wynn in Las Vegas. And to kind of see where I started, to the. Where, you know, the. The different places I've recorded, the different people I've had on the show, you know, we were talking about Larry K. It makes me sometimes take a step back to see how much this industry has matured since at least my point of view of 2017, where I think I put out an episode and I was the top 200 in business with, like, barely any downloads, it felt like, but it was. The momentum was there. And, you know, I want to ask you the perspective, like, the creator of podcasters that are out there today just putting out content because they hear podcasting as, like, a big thing into big business. I. I've learned, you know, because over the years, like, the industry of podcasting and the nuances that come with it and the community there is very, at least from my perspective, like, different than just like, the creators that may be putting out content because they think having a podcast is, like, the right thing to do for their content strategy for their business. And I think that more now more than ever, like, the blend of creators and companies recognizing, like, wow, like, these different events. Like, next week, I actually, I'll be going to the podcast show London, and to see all the industry coming together at these different events. You know, I've been to the podcast movements, events. It's really cool to kind of be inside of the industry that's, you know, been historically aligned and invested into podcasting for many, many years. Most of the time, like yourself, before this medium was a very, like, properly mature media. It's like you can be a business, right? And I want to ask you, you know, what does it feel to see. How does it feel to see podcasting where it is today in 2025, and what's your viewpoint of the industry and how do you feel about how it's grown over the years?

Yeah, I'm a little melancholy about it to some degree because back when I started with this, podcasting wasn't really anything that too many people took entirely seriously. So it, it's just one of those things. And the reason podcasting started is also a funny story too. It was a, I think, a reaction to the early years with like Napster and, and was very anti commercial. It was very kind of like a rebellion against radio really at the core. I mean, I was a radio show when I came into it and I had commercials in podcast and I took heat from like, oh, you're a sellout, right? So, you know, that's, that's where we came from, right? Was this rebel, upstart medium that wanted to break the molds, wanted to break those binds with the perceived content gatekeepers out there and to give a microphone to everyone. And that's what it was all about. So if you came out of commercial radio or you came out of, you know, commercial television and you were involved in podcasting, you were like, not part of that in crowds. So that was kind of the early years. That's not anything really negative. It's more to do with just the, the real revolution of what Adam Curry kind of fomented. Now granted, Adam Curry came out of MTV and was a mainstream media creator, radio type of personality himself, so. But he was like doing content was like sticking it to the man kind of stuff, you know, so. But that played into the culture at the time and that's what really propelled this medium forward. And it's rather ironic as I think back on it, to where we are today, right? We've, we've moved into this phase where podcasting is really the media now. It's not, you know, this upstart kind of medium that's, you know, someday it's going to take over, take over the world. Well, it's happened. We've kind of taken the mantle away from the mainstream media and say, well, we're the trendsetters now podcasting and the medium of individual created content. You know, Facebook was involved in creating this, so was Instagram, so was the social platforms were very much. And I mean I'm increasingly hearing this conversation that well, you know, if YouTube is considered social media and Instagram is social media, Facebook is social media, LinkedIn is social media. Well, isn't podcasting a form of social media too? So we may be seeing this evolution of this medium to be seen as something more culturally relevant than we really realize is happening and that these legacy media creators, the mainstream media radio are really being replaced and this is what the media landscape looks like going forward increasingly and it's going to become even bigger. So that's kind of how I like to portray that question.

Totally. I mean I think it's even too like human nature. You see so many founder driven companies and personal branding and how that's really become so important over the years. You know, people like Elon or Zuckerberg, like these, these people that have obviously changed industry with their companies, but they're so front facing and founder driven with their companies. And I think, you know, the, the world of PR teams and needing everything to be so polished. Like you've seen even someone like Zuck, like their, the PR strategy around how he wants people to perceive him and like the cool, laid back and like fun guy now versus what his image was nearly 5, 6 years ago it seems. But to the, to the world of podcasting, you know, I am someone who you know, grew up with social media in some sense, right. I was born in the year 2000. By the time I was 13, I was 14, I was on social and this idea of new media and you know, podcasting overall, you know, this, this line between video and audio. I'm always so fascinated to see just like how many people are still listening and like the rise of listenership in this, in this kind of like this medium that has again grown so much over the years. And one thing I want to ask you and something I know you've written about and for the people listening now, like when it comes to the future of podcasting today we're in this time where so much is changing and you know, elections have been dictated on podcasting. You're seeing, you know, multi hundred million dollar deals with large creators. You're seeing companies like Netflix starting to, you know, ideally get into podcasting. And it feels like this word, podcasting, podcast. Even if it's changing fundamentally of like what that means in terms of video format, audio format, the the presence of what a podcast is, I don't want to say is irrelevant, but it's the impact it's having on culture is so high across many different mediums and formats. And you know, from your perspective, like, where do you see the opportunity and what's most exciting to you right now given your historical viewpoint on the space?

Well, I'm excited about the reemergence and I can explain why I say it that way of video with podcasting. For my early experience back when I was working for Microsoft and I ran what's called the Zune podcasting platform, which was it's not Zoom with 2M or with 2O's. It's Z U N E was a, a portable media player player platform that was competing against the ipod and itunes. And so I led the, the TV show side as well as the podcast side of that platform. And so, you know, in the early years of podcasting, back when YouTube, about the same timeframe YouTube launched, I don't know if you saw that, I think YouTube celebrated its 20th anniversary here this past year, just like podcasting did. So it, you know, these two platforms, YouTube and open RSS based podcasting, have been around about the same amount of time and so they've been really parallel paths for a long time. It's just a lot of people didn't really remember or, or see that because a lot of the big media companies in the early years of podcasting did video podcasts. They actually put video files into their RSS feeds, created a separate RSS feed just for the video version. Apple still today supports video podcasting. So you can go into Apple podcasts today and find a video show and watch it on your iPhone. You don't have to go to YouTube to watch a video show. But there has been a lot of changes in that. But that is probably the biggest thing that I'm excited about is the reemergence of this convergence between audio and video, which has always been there. It's just that we went through a period of time with podcasting. This was around the time frame of serial and when we started to shift down this path towards audio storytelling and true crime and the growth of comedians getting involved in podcasting that we really started to shift our emphasis towards an audio only thought process. And you know, these kind of true crime storytelling kind of stuff really captured the attention of a lot of people. And they were very highly produced, they were very interesting to listen to, they attracted large audiences. Especially the true crime attracts a lot of female listeners. And that was an area of podcasting that we needed to grow on, which was if we were going to grow the full demographic spectrum of what the reach of podcasting was, we needed some genres that would attract female listeners because they weren't listening that much. In the early years of podcasting, it was really the creators and the consumers were very much male, I'll just put you that way. And there wasn't a lot of diversity because you needed to be a little bit of a geek to, you know. And like myself, I'm an example of what that era was like. I'm the, you know, I'm a guy, I was very technical. I ran my own servers with my own show. I had to, to do everything prior to all these podcast hosting and hosting platforms, you know, like Ellipsen or I think I started doing podcasting before those companies even existed. So um, so I had to hand code RSS feeds, I had to, you know, get my own servers because there wasn't a place that I could host the content on. So I, I, I had to go out and buy blade servers and co locate them in data centers myself for my own show. And then I had, then I started making that infrastructure available to others and then Libsyn launched and then they kind of took over that, that role. So that's kind of how I look at where we're going, is that in some ways it's a return back to what it used to be in the early years of what it should be seen as. But what's changed is the power and scope of YouTube. And I can't emphasize this enough. The impact of YouTube is profound. YouTube in my view, will probably be the biggest search engine in the world. It'll probably surpass the google.com property and I think it's well on its way. But that gives you a glimpse of what the future is going to look like. Going to be a lot of video.

Absolutely. I love that perspective and it made me think. You talk about manual coding, all these things that happened before all these tools came out. And regarding just the technology aspect that comes along and that has come along within podcasting, you know, tools, all these different acquisitions that have taken place. You've worked at a handful of like very innovative companies in the space. Things Companies like Podcast One, Spreaker, Voxnest, Libsyn, AdvertiseCast, Podbean, you name it, and there's many directions we could go in here. But I'm curious to get your viewpoint on just technology companies in this space, how you know, what's been some of your biggest learnings from working at these diverse set of companies over the years. And then where do you see, you know, like, the podcast technology space today? And two reasons. One, I'm curious to get your perspective, given I'm someone now building in this podcast tech space and I've previously had different tech companies that are in, like, creator economy. But it's been so interesting to me over the years to just be following along a lot of the M and A that has happened in this space and to have met a handful of the founders that have been a part of these different acquisitions in the space. It's just so intriguing to see how, like, some years, you know, you have lots of big acquisitions and it's cooled off and now it feels that coming into this year, there's a lot of hot deals that are happening. So curious to, number one, just hear your viewpoint and takeaways from working at this diverse range of podcast companies and then to hear, you know, your viewpoint on how you think about M and A and having been in it for so long.

Yeah, I think we are in a. In a little bit of a transition point. And it's one of those things that comes up occasionally that I went through during, to some degree during the dot com era, too, was. Was this. You know, it's the innovator's dilemma to some degree, because we've kind of been around a while, right. So 20 years for some of these platforms like Ellipsen or whatever came from a different era and things have changed. And so, you know, some of the companies are struggling to adapt to what is increasingly happening in the market right now. And some of them are resisting the change because they built their models around a different ecosystem. But the ecosystem of podcasting and video and audio is changing. And then, you know, you throw into the mix, or however you want to call it, the monkey wrench, into the mix of AI, and you've really created quite a convergence of messes that are in front of us when it comes to this medium and video and audio podcasting, you know, the proliferation of the deep fakes that are going on, the cloning in the ability to replicate and create artificial humans in video and audio. I mean, it's really creating quite a quagmire of opportunity as well as existing platforms that probably can't move fast enough to adapt to this changing landscape. And all of us, or many of us, have a hard time accepting what's happening and just the sheer gravity of the changes that are before us. I mean, I think in the next 18 to 24 months. The podcasting landscape isn't going to look anything like it is right now, just because of all these changes that are happening and the push more towards video, which many in the industry are pushing against. They just want to double down on the audio, which, believe me, I'm not an opponent of audio. I just think that there needs to be a balance here. And some formats, some genres will do better in audio, some will do better in a dual strategy, some will do better as a video only strategy. So I'm. I'm very kind of versatile in my thought around this, but people that have built their models around audio first, and then people that have built their models around video first are going to have an agenda. And. Yeah, yeah, no, literally those agendas are going to clash at the point of AI because AI is going to disrupt both of them. And I don't know that we know the entire scope of that disruption quite yet, but I think we're starting to see the early signs that it's not going to be an easy one. At the end of the day, your name, listener.com is key to everything here. That listener is going to make that choice. We as creators and platforms are not going to make the choice of what they want. What they want is what they want, and what they want is what we should all want. And that is a difficult thing for the industry to accept at this point. They like to be in control. And in some ways, if you think back to the early days of podcasting, that's what we were against when we created this medium. Was the content creator being in control. Right. Yeah.

I'm so glad you even brought up listener.com as a phrase and reference, because we were talking beforehand. And my whole reason of hunting down this domain to make a quick story here, listenr.com is twofold. One is we were talking about it before, but when I interviewed Larry king back in 2019, he had this phrase and quote where he said, I've never learned anything while I was talking, therefore be a great listener. And, you know, that was his viewpoint on life, but most importantly, his viewpoint on his work. Of how he goes about his interviews, how he became the greatest is just to be a great listener. And not only did that influence my interviewing approach, but more so my viewpoint on life and the curiosity that I bring into every conversation and room I walk into. So, like, that word listener became this sort of word on my wall and things I would just, like, think about, like, how do I be a great listener in every conversation and Then in the context of business, you know, a big part of our, like, launch here soon at Listener is to really build a modern listener, a listener analytics platform for modern podcast teams and networks. And I think that this idea of a listener is changing so much. Right. Whether that's a, you know, YouTube viewer or listener, at the end of the day, like everything in this space comes back down to my opinion. The listener from, you know, you're recording your content today because the listeners are, you know, listening. You're, you're doing advertise, you're doing, you know, sponsors on the show because those sponsors want to reach your listeners. And most importantly, the listener is ever evolving in terms of where they are listening. And I think for me, it was like this, this epiphany of like, wow, like this is a shifting space. This has been such a phrase in my life. And I want to go build a company around this, you know, this, this word that means so much to me, both personally, but also professionally. And here we are with listener.com and I think it's cool to hear your, how you get it in terms of the phrasing, the understanding of the space and where it's going. So one, I appreciate you pointing it out. And two, just wanted to share some more context there.

Well, I think that's the big shift that the industry is having a hard time grappling with, because if I think back even to the early years of the podcasting medium, really a lot of consultants or a lot of people would, would suggest to people that, you know, create a show that is based on, you know, your passions or what you wanted to say as a host, and that the audience would self select itself. Right. And would. Would follow you if they align with your views. Right. And, and it's, in some ways we're moving out of that era. I think we have to. And YouTube is really leading the way on this because I've been doing a lot with, with the YouTube platform, not always successfully, but trying to navigate its algorithm. And it's, it's very kind of in tune, I'm going to put to you that way with the, the viewer Listener. Right. They, they are very in tune to the signals that the viewer listener gives to the platform and gives to the platform via the content. And that is really where podcasting is really kind of falling down. And I think that there is a lot of metrics envy or data envy in the podcasting medium about what YouTube has been able to bring to the content creator as well as the advertiser. And so you know, I think for the industry to be successful going forward, I think there needs to be a little bit of a coming together moment even looking at like a platform like Spotify. Spotify is trying to become more like YouTube. Absolutely. I'm not sure that they're successfully navigating those waters very well yet, but I have a feeling like has always been the case with Spotify, I worked with them very early in their entry into podcasting is that it's a bumpy road for them and it always is. They have to bounce around and hit walls and go down the, the bad path before they can course correct and get it right again. So they're going to be like a ping pong ball bouncing around for a while until they finally get it right. And, and hopefully they, they will at some point. And, but in the meantime, they're causing quite a ruckus inside of the audio podcasting space right now. And as they push into video, because it's, it's disrupting the audio side, their efforts to push into video. And there's a lot of kind of interesting aspects of that because what they're doing is exactly what YouTube is doing and people are pretty receptive to what YouTube is doing. But I think, and that's the conflict here is that people have always thought of Spotify as an audio platform and now they're shifting into video and now they're like, oh God, what is, what's Spotify doing? You know, they shifted their starts to plays and that just is going to blow all the metrics apart because then there's going to be different metrics that's visible to the public then will be available to advertisers and brands and that's going to create some conflict. And so we've got some things that we have to work out.

I, you know, as someone that's such a, I view like there's this, I don't know the exact quote, but it's like when, before you start any opportunity, like be like, pick the macro trend, right? And I think obviously when, if you look at podcasting, the macro trend, it's like video is inevitable. And I like, like when I read a handful of these reports, I like video. Spotify is just disrupting the space entirely. It gets me excited, it really does. Because I think that that's where opportunity is, is created from. You know, like there's, I know there's some podcasts out there that some of the, you know, hosts are like audio. Like, no, we just do only video. And it's an it's a video only show and I think again there's like a, there's a, there's a middle ground in every aspect of like I still personally my, myself mainly listen to shows when I'm on runs, when I'm on walks, when I'm driving. Like that is 90% of my consumption. If I like want to specifically watch something that's really like 10% of you know if I have a podcast on when I'm eating dinner or something. But I know some people that it's just 99 video only, they will never just like turn on a podcast when they're walking. And I think it's just so interesting and so personal around consumption habits. And again it definitely gets me excited when it comes to like the innovation around this space. And it's cool to see and I think it's like good to have so many of these unique perspectives. And it's also one thing and I'll end on this is like there's obviously as you mentioned earlier, like some companies and individuals have a bias towards certain aspects of it going one way or the other. But I think there's obviously going to be room for everything. But it's really about like what's the macro trend and like where is that pointing to and how do you get on board so that you don't miss it?

Yeah, yeah, I think that's really where the opportunity is that everybody has to look at is where are the trends pushing us towards. And that gets back to my orientation to this market. And I take friction from the industry because sometimes I say things that people don't want to hear about what's going on. And I ask them, well, are you really diving in and learning about what's happening inside of YouTube and really seeing what's going on there? Are you really watching the content there? Are you really seeing what is actually happening there? Because you know, the industry likes to talk about, well, if you're a video only show on YouTube, you can't be a podcast. Right? So that's a very real question that comes up in the, in the industry right now is that if you're a video first show, you're not a podcast. But when I think, you know, my lens turns towards my experience back in 2008, 2009, 2010, when all these big media companies that are audio podcasters now were primarily video podcasters back then. So you have this kind of in my mind, it's almost like we're returning to what we used to be. It's not like something so new. It's totally. And YouTube has always been a part of this journey. So one of the reasons why audio became the focus was because of YouTube, because a lot of those video podcast creators back in that time took their podcasts, their video podcasts and put them over into YouTube. And one of the reasons they did that was a financial reason. It was just cheaper to host the media files over there because YouTube didn't charge for bandwidth. Yeah. So that was the real reason why we saw video podcasting decline. It was money because it was very expensive to deliver video.

Totally.

Yeah.

No, I love that. I feel we could talk about just that whole industry viewpoint for so long. One thing that I did want to speak on and bring up again is with all these deals that are happening in the space and even modern companies like Podex who are sort of facilitating modern podcast roll up strategies and private equity coming in and buying out networks and you know, like, it's so fascinating to see all the different types of deals that happen in this space from a network perspective, from an individual show perspective, from a podcast tech perspective, and even just like a, you know, unique brand deals that are like sort of these 360 deals which I spoke about at podcast Movement, which is just the modern podcast deal in terms of like 360 approach, vertically integrated across social more than just audio. And I'm curious to get your viewpoint, just to kind of go back on this, is what is your viewpoint on all things podcast M and A historically, where it is now, and where do you see the future of like these different deals happening in your mind?

I think you have to kind of just back up and look at it from the perspective of these things come and go in cycles and they happen for reasons that are motivated by opportunity. As you look into the future, sometimes these venture capital firms or these private equity firms see something in the future that may be based on some research data that they saw or kind of the opinions that they're getting from people. And sometimes they're right, sometimes they're off the mark a little bit about the timing of these things too. And I think you saw a little bit of that happen with Spotify when they did all their buy ups of Gimlet and all these podcasting companies and a lot of the radio companies acquiring podcasting companies too, like Iheartra, you know, they, they did a bunch of acquisitions and what the motivations for that was, is really important to look at at that time because, you know, a lot of those radio companies could see what was happening to their audience. Their audience was getting older, it was declining. There was a shift towards digital. And Frank, quite frankly, they didn't have a lot of expertise inside of their corporations and their companies that knew anything about the digital side. So they had built their infrastructure kind of like what's happening with the podcast hosting platforms right now. They built their infrastructure around audio, and that's their expertise. Right. And so sometimes if you want to expand your expertise, you have to go outside of the company, bring in new talent. And in some ways, these acquisitions, like Spotify did, were really accu hires. They were basically hiring people that had experience in a side of the media business that they didn't have inside of their companies. And so that's the motivation on that. And if you fast forward to today and you look at like a Podex Potx has been going on a buying spree for probably a good five years now. Yeah. So they've been actively acquiring companies over in Europe primarily, and rolling up these production companies. So what they're trying to do is roll up a lot of creative people that are very skilled in creating successful content. Because at the end of the day, we are moving into an era where content is driving everything now. So. And there's fewer and fewer, unfortunately. There's fewer and fewer shows that are able to reach scale. So in some ways, we're kind of falling back into the old legacy media era to some degree. And many of us don't realize that that's. That's somewhat happening, but it's coming out in a different way now. It's being built around, like, personal brands. It's not built around ABC or cbs. That's not what the future looks like. What the future looks like is, you know, Chris Cuomo, who's. I use him as a great example of what's happening because he has a deal with News Nation. He does a show on News Nation that's a somewhat successful show on News Nation. But when you go to News News Nation's channel on YouTube, it has a certain amount of audience there on YouTube, but it's primarily a broadcast channel. Right. So it's on cable. And. But then you go look at his Chris Cuomo's project podcast that he does, and his audience on his Chris Cuomo Project podcast YouTube show that he does is probably three times the size of his show that he does on News Nation. So, you know, so you can kind of see what's going on there is that. That's what the shift is about. The shift is about trusted voices, trusted people that can garner a large audience. And that's the era that we're in now.

Absolutely. It's, I feel like the word personal brand has been so like indicative in my life Since I was 18 in terms of how I've met people, you know, how I've pitched to be on the show and how you have a social presence overall and on the front of just, you know, I started this conversation asking you where you spend your time today. And I want to circle back to really not just from the industry perspective, but what excites you the most around what you're working on in this industry or even on a personal front moving into the next five to ten years.

Yeah, I'm being pulled into working more on the network side and when I say networks, that comes with a fair amount of assumptions, but in some ways it is a little bit of a return to kind of more the traditional media models to some degree where, where you consolidate content and you offer services, you know, kind of like a studio of sorts did with television and did also with the movies. And I, I spent some time working in the digital TV side for many years when I was working at Microsoft. So I can kind of see some similarities that we're moving into. So the whole network side is, is really a support mechanism for creators to help them scale because the successful creators, the ones that are able to build scale now, usually are built around teams. So the, the age of individual creators being able to become a show that is listened to million by millions of people is not done by an individual creator. It may look like it is and that's part of what's happening. But, but behind the scenes there's you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 people working on making that show successful. And so that's what, that's what the whole network idea concept is, is to help the monetization part, help the production part, help the marketing, help the pr to actually be able to scale shows and make them viable and successful.

That's wonderful. No, that's so great to hear. And you're totally right. Like I think some people don't recognize if they aren't in the space and they just watch some pods. You see one person in the chair talking to someone else and you don't grasp like, wow, they probably have a 30 person media team behind them working full time and you'll never know like what they do, who's behind what, but it just, it can be. And then you say, oh, let me start a podcast. And you're like, wow, this is a lot of work. And how do I get it out there? How do I make it look good, how am I consistent, how do I get deals, how do I do it all? And then you quickly learn about, oh, there's, you know, these modern media teams are very much so like the root of what makes these shows successful.

Yeah. And that takes a different kind of creator too, that is capable of managing teams. Yeah. Because, I mean, a lot of the independent creators are independent, and so they, they want to control and do do all the, all of the levers and. Because they have a passion for it, you know, and that's, that's entirely understandable. And that's where where podcasting started and why so many people got involved in it during the pandemic. I mean, there was an explosion in interest in creating a podcast back during, during the pandemic because everybody was locked in at home and it's like, you know, they had extra time. So, yeah, just buy a microphone and a camera and you couldn't even buy a camera back then because they were all sold out. So it was just one of those things.

Totally.

Yeah.

I love that. Well, Rob, before we wrapping up here, you know, when it comes to all of the work that you do and the continued work that you do in this space, where is the best place for all the listeners to just stay connected with you, to learn more about all the initiatives and projects you have going on and just to continue to stay up to date with all the content you put out there around the industry?

Yeah, that's always in a state of flux for me, but it's always great to, to, to look at my LinkedIn profile. But also if you go to robgreenly.com it's, there's some information there. It's not always 100% up to date because I'm always running ahead of my ability to update my website, but it's, it's. And then I also do a live show which I'm doing in a couple minutes here, called the New Media show. And I've been doing that show live online for about 14 years with the CEO of podcasting platform called Blueberry. And so we talk about the industry trends and things like that on that show. And that's an audio and video podcast, so you can find the video version of that in Apple Podcasts. And I've been doing a show called Podcast Tips that's also on YouTube on my YouTube channel. So, I mean, you can check out my YouTube channel obgreenly as well. And yeah, I'm Rob Greenlee. On pretty much all the platforms except for Instagram, so I will be sure to link.

Link everything down below. Once again, Robin, thank you so much for. For taking the time to come on. I know I said it at the beginning, but I'll say it again. Just so inspired by all the work that you've done over the years, and it's really insightful to have this conversation.

All right, well, thank you for having me on, Casey. It was great to speak with you and hear and learn about your journey more. Yeah, thank you.

I appreciate it.