If you were to survey most folks in the podcast space, they’d tell you that the primary problem they face is surfacing their content: Discovery. That, of course, is the natural perception you’d expect to find among people with too-small audiences who can’t reconcile the size of their audience with the scale of the always-on, worldwide distribution provided by the Internet. My show is available everywhere and all-the-time! So what’s the problem? Well, let’s assume the problem

Everybody wants to go viral. It’s as if your little corner of fame or infamy is not complete unless you have some tidbit of content achieving the kind of exponential exposure that used to require things like, say, TV or radio. The same goes for those who create audio content and post it online with all the best intentions and hopes for a viral miracle. So the other day I read something that stopped me cold. It was a comment from Jenna Weiss-Berman, director of audio at BuzzFe

…and what TV learned from the Serial podcast. Disruption is rampaging through the TV industry, and there are a lot of lessons there for radio. That’s according to a great source: TV Guide Executive Editor Michael Schneider, who also c0-hosts the excellent KCRW podcast The Spinoff. Mike spoke with me at hivio, the audio future festival in Los Angeles. Here are just some of the questions we covered: How do TV people see audio? What can the audio space learn from the TV space? W

Beginning later this month, Pandora becomes the exclusive streaming home for the uber-popular Serial podcast. And starting next year, Pandora adds Serial’s sister radio show/podcast This American Life (on what can only be a non-exclusive basis). I’ve been thinking about the consequence of this announcement, and here’s the best I can come up with: It’s good PR for Pandora in an otherwise quiet time It’s great news for Serial, which gets to add an all-new distribution partner w

Look out! America’s most popular apps will reshape media! And… Was media’s “crisis of proliferation” predicted…back in 1976? It’s episode 28 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Plus, the “Happy Birthday paradox” and HBO’s Westworld nudity PR stunt. Brand authority Tom Asacker and Media Strategist Mark Ramsey go inside what’s really happening in media. Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! Click the play but

Anyone who knows me or who has been following this blog for a while knows that I am a champion for the primacy of unique and compelling content. You see, media is really about two things: Content and distribution. And distribution channels are inherently dumb conduits that need to be filled with the stuff audiences care about: Great content. That’s true of all dumb conduits, whether they be digital, analog, TV, podcasting, or radio. I have long argued that unique and compelli

Lots of people have been talking about the phenomenon of This American Life’s Serial podcast and what it has meant to the booming ecosystem of on-demand audio. But there’s more to the story. There’s something nobody’s talking about. And that’s how Serial demonstrated with great clarity how to disrupt public radio. Now I’m not making a value judgment here. Disruption is neither good, nor bad. It just is. And if you’re a content-maker, disruption of traditional content/distribu

Snapchat introduces Discover and goes from messaging to big media. Also: Amazon’s making their own original movies – here’s why the movie business will never be the same. Plus, Tom raves about Taylor Swift’s move to gobble up trademark protection to many of her phrases, while Mark rants about the utter absence of ideas for season two of the popular podcast, Serial. Mark also raves about the most popular Superbowl commercials – many of which didn’t even exist. It’s episode 12

Alex Blumberg is the creator of the popular podcast Startup and founder of the new podcasting network, Gimlet Media. Given his deep background in public media, it’s fair to ask what anyone in the commercial audio space might learn from Alex about audio advertising. What the heck does he know, anyway? Well, Gimlet Media is powered in no small part by advertisers, and Alex brings his knowledge of storytelling to bear when he crafts ads for his clients. His goal is to extract wh

Does This American Life’s “Serial” Podcast signal a new “Golden Age” for Podcasting? Nope. And we’re going to explain why. Also: Why is Beats crushing Bose – on YouTube? It’s episode 8 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Listen as we take the steam out of some overheated PR. Click the play button here: And if you’re reading this by email, click here for the audio. For show notes go to the Media Unplugged site. Don’t forget