Mark: So what is the industry’s big story now?
Jordan: The expanding ecosystem is the central narrative. Measurement continues to be a prominent subject of conversation because for any popular podcast, there’s no way to get central, apples-to-apples data about how it’s consumed. But audiences spending a lot of highly engaged time somewhere with fragmented, imperfect data is true of many forms of media. We see making sense of that data as a place where we can add value.
Mark: How has the work of buying a podcast changed?
Jordan: Things that used to be simple are more complex. In the 1.0 era of podcasts, you went to a production company and did a deal. Now some podcasters are famous people with other lines of business, and the networks don’t always own all the rights. The network may sell host-read ads, while another entity sells its YouTube inventory, someone else sells social, and someone else sells brand ambassadorships.
Mark: Does that change how you describe what ARM is?
Jordan: We talk about “audio-first creators,” because “podcaster” isn’t even a useful term for a lot of the talent we work with now. If you want to do a deal with TBPN, that’s a video-first show. But as an agency, you never want to be an order-taker. The conversation rarely starts with a client saying, “We want you to buy these two podcasts.” It starts with a conversation about their goals, audience profiles, and campaign arcs, and we look at their other media buys before making a recommendation. What we’re doing now are effectively creator partnerships.
Mark: That puts you closer to creator agencies. How do you see that market shaking out?
Jordan: Influencer agencies are bad at navigating this space, which is great, because it allows businesses like mine to exist. But if you asked us for the 30 most relevant TikTokers for a campaign, we wouldn’t be as well equipped to do that. If I’m a brand, that fragmentation is annoying. Long term, you’ll see agencies that can help brands partner with creators anywhere along that spectrum, but I think it will take M&A to get there.
Pulled Quotes
“We enter into the realities of other people through emotion, not information, and that’s what a great novel does.”
Author Barbara Kingsolver, on the power of literature
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“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish.”
President Trump, defending his ban of Politico, CNN, and MS NOW
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“In polls, voters register their displeasure with the perception that A.I. is something that is happening to us whether we like it or not.”
The New Yorker’s Gideon Lewis-Kraus, on our collective AI problem
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“If the eighth-richest person in the world hadn’t decided his son should get what he wants, Warner Bros. Discovery would have been carved up and the studio sold to Netflix for far less.”
Puck’s Matt Belloni, on the strange fate of the company
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