Paramount Podcast Year In Review - The Top 9 Accomplishments

Happy Holidays everyone!  ‘Tis the Season for year in review and forward looking thoughts so who are we to deny you the same?   In this newsletter, we’ll do a review of Paramount Audio accomplishments as well as our plans for the year ahead.  Spoiler alert - we did great!  

Downloaded hours are up 8% year over year, as of Thursday we became a Top 10 publisher on Podtrac and from a creative standpoint we’re putting forward some of our strongest work ever.  48 Hours, The Daily Show: Ears Edition, Fantasy Football Today, Late Show Pod Show, On Fire: The Official Survivor Podcast, Are You Afraid of the Dark and Light The Fuse (to name but a few).  We continue to produce award-winning pods that deliver on the core promise of Paramount podcasts - creative that only we can do, backed by our amazing talent that grows the fandoms (and associated franchises) of our best and brightest shows.

But before the list, the news…

• Warner Bros. Discovery announced a new distribution and monetization partnership with Spotify for the company’s podcasts, including podcasts from CNN, HBO, and Max, all of which will be part of Spotify’s advertising marketplace, the Spotify Audience Network
• Tesla brings the Apple Podcast App into its dashboard for Model S, 3, X, Y, and Cybertruck in 47 countries
• Instagram has launched its first branded podcast, Close Friends Only, in partnership with Alex Cooper's The Unwell Network. The first guests were Doja Cat and Ice Spice.
• A new study from Rephonic shows that Ukranian was the fastest-growing language for podcasting this year with a 50% increase

And now, our top 9 accomplishments…

Fulfilling the promise of Profit-Generating Marketing in a Growth Area

The fantastic part about running a portfolio that is deliberately based on large pre-existing shows from linear or streaming services is that everything you do has the potential, if executed correctly, to serve as profit-generating marketing.  Internal research proves that our pods drive affinity for show, host and increase likelihood of consumption.  This year, we were able to combine the ability to create stronger ties between our fans and our franchises with multiple revenue streams (both ad sales and subscription based) to create content that also acts as margin-accretive marketing in a medium that continues to grow.

Top 10 Podcast Publisher via diversity of titles and franchises and an interconnected ecosystem

As of last Thursday, we became a Top 10 Publisher as defined by Podtrac, which is an accomplishment unto itself (unranked in 2020, at #13 in 2021). 

Dedicated ~17% of our audio promo inventory to support cross-promotional efforts for other, non-podcast priorities

We allocate a considerable share of our promotional inventory to promote Paramount Global’s products and initiatives beyond podcasts, spanning streaming premieres to consumer product promotions. We’re expanding Paramount’s promotional flywheel by adding a new medium into the mix, strengthening our unified cross-platform approach to maximize reach and opportunities. 

Jeff Probst and the debut of the official Survivor podcast

We will continue to beat the drum that the way to break through in a crowded podcast space is to make something that is so highly differentiated that people (or fans) really want to listen to it.  A pod that becomes a definitive voice in its space.  One of the best examples of this was On Fire which debuted with Jeff breaking down the process of how they build the actual game and never slowed down from there.  An immediate must-listen for fans of the show and a great example of how a pod can be far more than just a recap and create a richer experience that fans can then bring back to the linear/streaming world. The season finale debuts next week.

48 Hours transforms from a hit podcast to a hit podcast franchise

When we sat down with the 48 Hours team this year, we knew we wanted to go bigger in the space.  The result has been the biggest growth for any franchise within the Paramount Portfolio (80% off of a material base) with shows that highlight both the depth of reporting the show does, as well as how plugged in they are to the immediate.  Inside The Lori Vallow Daybell Trial provided real-time dispatches from the courtroom, providing an incredibly gripping analysis to accompany their extensive coverage.  Married to Death brought us into the mini-series space, providing a lane for our fans to go deeper into their favorite stories.  My Life of Crime returned with the indomitable Erin Moriary who devoted her latest season to dangerous family secrets, and finally 48 Hours Post Mortem gave the correspondents and producers a space to talk directly to the fans about the experience of creating the show, providing a new point of entry for our viewers to help see and understand the people behind the program. The franchise is also now available to fans via a premium subscription with Apple Podcasts and our initial conversion metrics are far above goal.

Are You Afraid of The Dark brings back a classic franchise in a great format

A project multiple years in the making, Are You Afraid of the Dark marked our first foray into original scripted genre work.  Partnering with Gideon Studios, the goal was to create an immersive anthology piece that could work in tandem with the new linear series.   Working with show creators we created an extension that felt incredibly like the show while leaning into the scares that the audio genre delivers so well.  And for those of you who think kids' horror can be tame, we invite you to consume The Tale of the Ghastly Gourmet.

Agent of Betrayal breaks through as one of our first hit fully original pods

From Major Garett at CBS News, Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen, is so many things all at once.  A riveting spy story.  An incredible expose into the double life of a man with some incredibly unique sexual picadillos.  An intensely reported journey that took years to create.  Major and team (including our partners at Neon Hum) created one of the most dramatic new podcasts of the year in the non-fiction space, topping multiple charts and now being explored as a development vehicle.

Daily Show goes deeper on the Behind The Scenes Process

Our Daily Show podcast team has spent the last months shining a light on HOW the show gets made with terrific behind-the-scenes episodes. The show’s writers and producers interviewed guest hosts including Leslie Jones, Charlemagne Tha God, Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng.  I especially loved the episode featuring John Oliver in conversation with editor Mark Paone about their favorite field pieces. Much like “Survivor,” the extraordinary access to TDS makes these episodes entirely unique and must-listens for fans.

Cover 3 captures the college football conversation

What an epic fall season for CBS Sports and college football. Fans got their fill with an Iron Bowl for the ages, an Army-Navy thriller and the debut of B10 Football (just to name a few moments!). But when it came to previewing and recapping the action and making sense of the ever-evolving college football landscape, no show did it better than The Cover 3 College Football Podcast. Chip Patterson, Bud Elliott, Danny Kanell and Tom Fornelli drove triple-digit audience growth across all platforms while cementing Cover 3 as the No. 1 college football podcast in the space and a key anchor of our 50-plus show college football podcast network. - Eric Kay 

And before we go close, we wanted to highlight a few of our favorite episodes.  And yes, I know this feels  a bit self-serving I’m truly proud of the work this team has done all year growing our audio slate and the work that has been to shape these stories.  So consider this our holiday gift to you.

Agent of Betrayal - Full Series.  Amazing work from Major Garrett and team on the secret double life of spy Robert Hanssen.  Amazing reporting married to exquisite storytelling. 

Mobituaries: “Charlie McCarthy - Death of a Dummy.” Candice Bergen shares the story of her bizarre childhood, growing up alongside the dummy of her world-famous ventriloquist father. If this wasn’t a Mobits episode it could also easily double as a “Twilight Zone” or retro “Black Mirror” take on parenting, sibling rivalries and our collective struggle for fame and adulation.  The fact that it is all, amazingly, 100% real makes it that much more compelling 

The Daily Show Ears Edition: “Jordan Klepper Dishes on His Return to the Trump Trail.” This kind of behind the scenes take is always one of my favorites from the show and Jordan and his producer Ian Berger go to amazing lengths to get the material he does.

On Fire: The Official Survivor Podcast - Season Finale - comes out next week.  If you love Survivor but haven’t listened yet, do yourself a favor.  The pod special, the insight from Jeff is amazing and you won’t regret it.

And as we close, one final note to everyone in the audio industry and beyond.  Yes, it was a tough year but the fundamentals of our business, and our creative prowess, are very much intact.  There has been amazing storytelling across all audio this year from so many people, so many groups.  We have weathered the storm and our medium is sound.  Let’s continue to do great work and I look forward to seeing (and hearing) everyone in the new year.