If you didn’t know, I recently went on the TBPN podcast with John Coogan and Jordi Hays. I’ve known about this show for awhile and was excited to finally go on, and if you haven’t read Jackson Dahl’s piece about them, he does a great job breaking down the TBPN playbook. It was only a matter of time before an internet-first show would try to take on someone like Fox Business or CNBC, given the success of Pat McAfee within sports and Hasan Piker or Asmongold within politics, and to me this trend is not going to stop.
Live from the Ultradome.
What Has Been The Trend?
We saw this recently in the last election cycle, where it felt like Trump was making podcast appearances every week. Now we’re noticing that it’s no longer cool to go on CNN or Fox News, and CEOs are appearing on small (but growing) online shows focused on finance and technology.
Tech podcasts are popping off.
I think that we could see the next big disruption happening in the news space. TBPN has obviously carved a niche within finance and tech, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other areas get disrupted. One that pops into my mind is Ryan Hall Y’all as a YouTube live version of The Weather Channel.
Smaller Shows Can Have a Huge Impact
TBPN continues to gain traction for multiple reasons, one being that it feels like a safer space for prominent individuals and CEOs to go on and have real conversations. They’re not going to press them about terrible earnings or negative press. Instead, they have an open floor concept. Jordi and John are also well connected and have convinced a lot of CEOs to go on their show instead of news networks. The last reason is that individuals want to go on the show because TBPN is popular (and cool) on X, where a lot of the technology and finance communities hang out.
The Big Takeaway
Podcasting is becoming the place where meaningful influence happens. TBPN shows that smaller, niche shows can shape conversations more effectively than traditional networks. As more CEOs, creators, and public figures choose these online formats, the center of gravity in media is shifting.
This week’s LOCK IN is about a Reddit member (F1exican) who has been trying to cut the perfect chives for 44 days, and some are even calling it ChivesGate. It has been all over the front page, and he even has a YouTube channel with 65K views in the first seven uploads.
The community will point out any imperfections.
Creators don’t usually start on Reddit, but it can happen. It has happened in the past, with Among Us crediting a lot of their early success to the community they built on the platform. Will we see more hyper niche creators come out of Reddit in the future?
Podcast Sets Are Trying To Tell Us Something
Fascinating read on how podcast sets are purposefully unpolished, unlike TV.
Alan and Elaine Make It To The Finale Of DWTS
Wishing the best of luck to our favorite DWTS duo.
Quarter Zips To The Moon
We don’t know why these things happen, but if I’m big quarter zip, I’m excited.
