How Radio Broadcasters Can Help Podcasters With Seth Resler of Jacobs Media

What can podcasters learn from radio broadcasters?  Today I sit down with the "Digital Dot Connector", Seth Resler of Jacobs Media and he is going to share with us the correlations of radio broadcasting to podcasting and how it might impact you and your podcast.

In today's interview we will talk about:

• Revenue conversion and what it means for podcasters and what you can learn from radio broadcasters as they have faced revenue challenges.
• Understanding how numbers work and the metrics that matter most for your podcast.
• How to not feel overwhelmed when you are producing a podcast for audio and for web.
• How to find your aesthetic feel for your podcast.
• The first 30 seconds of your podcast and what it does for your listener retention.
• Local podcasts and whether they are worth creating.
• How radio broadcasters differ from podcasters when it comes to broadening/narrowing content to acquire an audience.

There is so much packed into this episode that it's impossible to put it all in the show notes. 

One recommendation that I do have is that you listen to this podcast, then listen again while taking notes. 

If you would like to learn more about Seth or chat with him, find him over on Jacobs Media's website at http://www.jacobsmedia.com.

======FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT======

Shannon Hernandez:

Today we are talking with Seth Resler. He considers him, or I don't know if you gave yourself that name, but the Digital Dot Connector at Jacobs Media. How are you doing today, my friend? 

Seth Resler:

Good. Thank you for having me. Yeah, that was the title that they gave me when I first started at Jacobs Media five years ago. There's been the occasional second thought about that. But the idea being that, when I started radio and when you started radio, all you needed to know how to do was what the CD players, and then maybe the cart machine or the audio vault or whatever it was. Nowadays, you have to know so many different tools. You have to know TikTok, podcasts, Google Analytics, blogs, and all this stuff. So my role was to take all these different digital dots, if you will, and show you how they all connect together and form a coherent plan.

Shannon Hernandez:

Sure. Now just to give some context to you being with Jacobs Media, now Jacobs Media, you work with the consulting firm that goes around the nation and consults with radio stations across the nation, correct?

Seth Resler:

Yeah. So Jacobs Media started, gosh, I don't know, four decades ago, really with classic rock. I think Fred was the first guy to come along and say, “Hey, you know what, why don't we have a rock station that doesn't play new music?” Maybe the people who like Led Zeppelin don't like, Van Halen or whatever it was, and started helping launch classic rock stations all over the country then started to do the same with alternative rock, really packaged that up. If you've ever seen an Edge station anywhere throughout the country, that was Jacobs Media's thing was the Edge stations. I was a Jacobs Media client at a number of different places over the years.

Shannon Hernandez:

Sure. You're out there in Detroit. Were you in Detroit when they were now a consultant?

Seth Resler:

No. I am now, but I wasn't here. I came here. I started working with Jacobs Media about five years ago, but the company really started getting into the digital space, launched this tech survey that is the industry's largest online survey of radio listeners to figure out how they're using new technology, and  started this 16 years ago now, watched the rise of social media, watched everybody ditch their landlines and get cell phones, which obviously had big implications for how radio does its ratings. Now we're focused on things like podcasts and smart speakers like Alexa and the connected car and all that. These are really topics that are broader than just rock radio, so we have branched out into other areas, working with public radio stations, Christian radio stations, things like that in addition to the rock radio consultant.

Shannon Hernandez: 

That’s great. Now that we are talking about Jacobs Media jumping into this digital space, both of us have been in radio for probably the equal amount of time, I've been in radio for 21 years, and I know that when the proliferation of smartphones started to overtake everything that radio jocks were lost at that point. I remember I resisted smartphones for the longest time and I was like, “Ah, smartphones, who gives a shit about smartphones?” Then Apple came out with the iPhone, that was the one thing that changed the game. I remember I had a Google G1 Phone and I was like, “Oh, this thing's kind of cool. It's fun to play with,” but little did I know that as a radio broadcaster, that was going to change the game of how I presented my content on the radio. I decided that I needed to start jumping into this digital space, whether it be podcasting, YouTube, blogging, and whatnot. This is where Jacobs Media, like you said, recognized that trend. As they went throughout the years, they started adjusting and adapting to the trend. Now, when they brought you in, what was the purpose of having you as the Digital Dot Connector, as they say, but really what was your role for radio broadcasters?

Seth Resler:

Yeah. So let me start by talking a little bit about smartphones because I think that's really important what you bring up. What we've seen with the smartphone is just all these other devices have been sucked in and now your phone plays the role that those other devices used to play. You don't have an alarm clock anymore sitting on your nightstand, it's now your phone that you use to wake yourself up. I think radio, what we did everywhere was we tried to use all these channels to steer people back to the radio. “Oh, let's use Facebook to keep people to tune into the radio or get Twitter,” or whatever. We resisted the idea of the radio being sucked into the smartphone. In some ways, it's been slower to do that and the other things that have gotten stuck in there. But inevitably, people are streaming and listening to the radio on their smartphones. Jacobs Media actually started a sister company called jācapps because they recognized that radio stations were going to need mobile apps so that people could access those radio stations on those apps. That's what jācapps does. Now it builds mobile apps for other companies outside the radio industry, but it really started to focus on the radio industry. I came in because, again, there are all these different digital tools and I think the question became, why do they really matter? What's the bottom line? Great. I'm getting a Facebook post with a thousand likes. How does that affect my revenue? Where does that fit? I think the key here is that, again, if you look back 20 years ago, the only thing we could measure as radio stations were the ratings and the revenue, those were our only two data points. Now we have a million data points. We've got everything from podcasts downloads to website visits, to retweets, you name it. There is a temptation to think that just because you can measure it, it is important and not all of those different data points are equally important. Some of those things are more important than others, and I think a big part of it is figuring out which of these numbers really matter and then how do we move them? I would argue that the single most important number is still revenue, how much money is actually coming in? Then it becomes a question of, “Okay, what's that second tier of numbers that feed into revenue?” If I have X number of website visits or X number of email subscribers, I know how to turn that into money for my radio station. Those numbers really matter. I don't necessarily know how to turn a retweet into money for the radio station, so that might be a third or fourth tier number that more is better but it's not quite as important to some of these other numbers.

Shannon Hernandez:

Now when we look at those metrics and we talk about retweets, Facebook posts, all those things, I want to now move into this area of podcasting where a lot of podcasts they're looking for, I don't know if it's a magic bullet, here we are in 2020, and podcasters, I think, are still looking for this magic bullet of saying, “I can get a podcast that's as big as a radio station, as big as Joe Rogan, and I can do that my entire life, make money, and live the rest of my life doing that completely,” which isn't necessarily true because we're looking at different metrics. Even radio stations are looking at different metrics, because like you said, revenue is the most important thing that we're looking at here. What would you say to someone now who gets an idea that radio is focused on multiple metrics? What would you say to someone who is just in the podcasting game? How can radio broadcasting give solid lessons to a podcast or just starting out, or maybe has a podcast and is still trying to figure this game out based on metrics or based on revenue?

Seth Resler:

Yeah. I think it starts with knowing what those metrics are.  What are we measuring and what are we doing with revenue? Look, I'm aware of radio broadcasters, or even people outside of the radio broadcasting industry who can generate a lot of downloads and yet not really turn that into revenue or not turn that into enough revenue to offset their costs. When you start talking about the type of podcast that takes a team of 10 people a year to make 10 episodes and they're great, they're award-winning episodes and they might get millions of downloads, but then there's that question of, “Can they get the sponsorship dollars to actually pay for that or make enough of a profit to justify that?” Whereas you take it something like Marc Maron where the production costs are just lower, It just doesn't take a team of 10 people to put together Marc Maron's podcast, Conan O'Brien's, or Joe Rogan's podcast. The numbers work better, if that makes sense. First things first is understanding how the numbers work and understanding that, again, revenue is the most important number and figuring out how you get there.

Shannon Hernandez:

Sure. Now, getting there, I think that is the challenge. That's the question that gets asked on my YouTube channel all the time in the comments. They want to know, “I have so many downloads per month, when can I start asking for a sponsorship?” There isn't just one cover answer for this, there are multiple answers for this. What would you say to a podcaster starting out very first time or maybe has been doing it for five months, but just not seeing results, what metric or what number do you think would be appropriate, if there is a metric that even matters to get a sponsorship?

Seth Resler:

Different people will say different things. Rob Walch, who's the VP of Podcaster Relations over at Libsyn will tell you that you really start to see advertisers interested when you start to see 5,000 downloads per episode. Usually, when we say the number of downloads per episode, we're talking within 30 days of release, it's not over five years, it's over the first month that the episode is out. I've heard other place like Midroll say, “Look, it's really 50,000 before we start getting advertisers their interest.” This assumes that you're going out and selling to your traditional advertisers, your Blue Apron, or your stamps.com or something like that. I think if you have a real niche podcast, you may be able to go out and find an advertiser or a sponsor even if you've got smaller numbers. If I have a knitting podcast, I'm probably ideally suited for Yarn Barn to come along and sponsor this because everybody who listens to my podcast is potentially going to go shop at Yarn Barn. Even if I don't have a half a million downloads, it still makes sense for them to come along and sponsor. I think the other thing to look at is there are many different ways to monetize podcasts, so don't think it's all about advertising that there may be other things that you can do. What a lot of people in podcasting do is they don't look at the podcast as their product, it is part of the marketing effort for some other service or product that they have. I'm a lawyer and I go out and I do a podcast because it's a way for people to hear me and go, “Hey, this guy's a really smart lawyer. I'm going to hire him next time I need a lawyer.” It's part of their marketing. You'll see some people make money off of events, not so much now because we're in the middle of a pandemic, but that's another way that you're starting to see, or other merch or other channels. Some people will make money off of IP because these podcasts get turned into television shows, and that's something that we're starting to see more and more. I think the other thing would be the focus on diverse revenue streams in trying to make money in more than one way.

Shannon Hernandez:

How would you consult with someone or what would you say to someone who just heard everything that you said about these different revenue streams? One of the things that you mentioned was that you can use podcasting as a great marketing effort, which is something that I've seen over and over, not only with myself, but with my sister who's a lawyer. She does a YouTube channel where it's just simple videos and that is her marketing effort which helps bring in revenue. But what would you say to someone trying to transition or trying to implement these strategies into their marketing mix? Where should they start without feeling overwhelmed and how can you keep them from feeling overwhelmed?

Seth Resler:

Yeah. One of the things I like to tell people is to do a pilot season when it comes to podcasting. When I launched my first podcast, I thought of it like The Tonight Show or the Today show where I was like, “Okay, I have to do this every week until the day I die. If I don't, I failed as a podcaster.” Spoiler alert, that didn't happen. I think I’m not still doing that podcast. But I learned a lot and I'm still podcasting, it's just different podcasts that have come and gone along the way. I like to encourage people to pick a finite number and do a pilot season. Go in and say, “Hey, I'm going to do 10 episodes. We're going to start with that and I'm going to learn a lot along the way.” It gives you a natural stopping point to get to the end of the season and you're either going to go, “Hey, that was a huge success. I'm going to come back and do season number two,” or “That was a dismal failure, I'm not going to waste any more time doing this. I'm going to do something else instead.” In all likelihood, it’s going to be somewhere in the middle, and they're going to be some things that you found that have worked and some things that haven't, and so tweak it, change the format, figure out what's working and what's not, and make those changes and then come back for season number two. But I think if you can do that, it becomes much more manageable than this kind of, “Oh, I've got to do this from now till the end of time.”

Shannon Hernandez:

I want to backtrack just a little bit because I feel as though the biggest struggle that I have with a lot of people who come to my YouTube channel and who reach out to me is that the tech is the one thing that kind of holds them back, whether it's the editing software or it could be the equipment that you need to get. Some do it very basic, others do it more like radio, like how I like to do my stuff. What would you say to someone when it comes down to the tech? Where should they start? How should they envision their podcasts to sound?

Seth Resler:

I think sound quality matters. I do think you want a podcast that sounds as good as it possibly can, but I also think that this isn't about hitting a home run your first time up at bat. If that's what you're trying to do, you're going to disappoint yourself because it's probably not going to happen. We sit here and think, “Oh, Joe Rogan, overnight success.” Not really. The guy put in a lot of decades doing stand-up comedy, which is really hard to do to get there on the road and do all that stuff, and on television. That guy paid his dues before he got where he is. Everybody's got to start there. The great thing about technology is you don't need to break the bank in order to do it so you can start fairly basic. If you want, you can use a service like Anchor, which is now one by Spotify and use just your phone to podcast. I would recommend going a little bit above and beyond that. I pick up a simple microphone. I use the ATR 2100 from Audio Technica or the AT2005, those are basically the same mic with a slightly different design, or a Samson Q2U. These are mics that run about $75. In fact, that's what I'm using right now for this. You get decent sound out of it. It's portable, it's an XLR or USB mic, so you can use it on any kind of equipment. Download an audio editor. You can get Audacity for free. If you're a Mac user, I don't think it works on Windows, but you can get something like Reaper and it's a $75 license. It doesn't cost a lot of money to do audio editing and you just got to get in there and start and play around with it. Again, I think the goal when you start should be, “I want to learn how to do this,” not, “I want to become a millionaire.”

Shannon Hernandez:

Right. You can't just say I'm going to be a millionaire. This is not meant to throw people in radio under the bus, but we aren't millionaires. We're not making money. The people who are higher up aren't millionaires.

Seth Resler:

Not very many of us now.

Shannon Hernandez:

But what we do learn is we do learn skills over the years. I don't know about you, but one of the skills that I really love to do and love to create are sweepers, people might think of them as bumpers, those, I think, are a lot more fun to create. But that took me forever to learn how to do that, and I'm still not as good as some of the guys that I have known growing up into my career. Those are some of the elements that I like to include. Do you think those elements should be included when it comes down to a podcast?

Seth Resler:

Yeah. I think it's an aesthetic choice.  We usually tell people to listen to other podcasts and see what they like. I come from a radio background, so I tend to like a much more polished radio feel but there are a lot of podcasts that start with just a short bit of music and it's just instrumental, there was no big voiceover guy, there's no Don Pardo who comes in and says, “Here’s my podcast.” That works. I would start by listening to the podcast you like, and seeing if you can identify the elements in there, why do you like that? I sometimes hear young podcasts that come with this big 62nd production thing, one of the things that we found in doing this is how important it is to get into the meat of the podcast right away because people come in and it's not like television where people have to flip around and so you might need a theme song to make sure that everybody gets there at nine o'clock to sit down to say, “Okay, everybody, you need to sit down and gather.” With a podcast, people have found it and they've downloaded it and they've pressed play. They're ready to go and you need to go.

Shannon Hernandez:

I think that's something interesting to bring up because when it comes down to finding that podcast, there are behavioral elements that we do look at when it comes down to finding a podcast. That’d be the show art, it could be the description, it could be the title of the podcast is the episode itself. What is the most important thing you think comes with that behavior when it comes down to searching for a podcast before they even press play?

Seth Resler:

A couple of things. I think the title of the podcast itself really matters. Both. One of the things that I think we know is that most people hear about podcasts through word of mouth. We know that the second most common way that people find a podcast is by searching. When we talk about search engine optimization—which is the art of making sure that when people search for stuff, your stuff comes up at the top of the results—we often think about Google. But when it comes to podcasts, it's helpful to think of, especially Apple Podcasts and also Spotify, which are the two biggest directories—Apple podcasts by far the biggest directory, Spotify, the number two with about 10% of downloads, and everything else is distant—but think about Apple Podcasts and think about Spotify as search engines. Then think about them as not very good search engines because we're all used to Google who their core business is search and Apple's core business is not search, Apple's core businesses selling hardware. Yeah, they're doing search, but they're not doing the Google level. You need to understand how these search engines index things and surface them. We'll often tell people that, ideally you want people to know just by looking at the podcast what it's about. If I were doing a podcast about pineapple recipes, it might be really clever and arty for me to call my podcast Spiky Fruit, but nobody was looking for pineapple recipes that’s going into the Apple Podcast and typing in spiky fruit. They’re typing it Pineapple. You want to make sure that you come up for that term. I think thinking about your keywords and thinking about what you're coming up with is really important. I would think about search and I'd be thinking about word of mouth.

Shannon Hernandez:

Yeah. How about that artwork? That's always something that trips people up, they go, “Ah, I'm just going to make a quick piece of art and it's going to be done in Canva.” You can actually make some pretty decent things in Canva.

Seth Resler:

Again, I think just like the title of the show, I think you want the artwork to do the same thing, which is to instantly convey what the podcast is about. I should be able to look at it and I should know at a glance. Keep in mind that an artwork can be really small on a phone so make sure it works at a really small size. A lot of words on your artwork is usually not going to work, things like that. Those are all things to consider.

Shannon Hernandez:

I think also before they even press play, I know for myself where I was going to take this podcast, the vision I had with this podcast, because I've been in radio and I make my podcasts sound like radio. I knew the elements that needed to happen beforehand. I would say that as podcasters come and visit my YouTube channel, they visit this podcast itself that it doesn't happen all at once, it happens over time. You learn this stuff over time. I didn't learn this stuff overnight. It was just something that I desired to do. I think that would be some advice to share with a podcaster that might be struggling. I get some people to say, “I've got a comedy podcast,” and then they say, “How do I sound on that comedy podcast?” I can't be a sure expert on telling you how your podcast will sound from a comedy standpoint but I can tell you from a programming standpoint what it sounds like, and maybe it just doesn't work. But that's where I think we see with podcasting that it has just mushrommed out with so many different formats that there is no one format with podcasting, which brings me to my next point.

At Podcast Movement, I've known you since I met you at Podcast Movement in Dallas, I believe, it was Dallas Fort Worth. You were just exploring the space and now you're a speaker at Podcast Movement, which I think is great because you bridge that gap with radio and podcasting. There is a session, especially a session that you did this year at Podcast Movement, you've done it in the past, it talks about the first 30 seconds of your podcast. You touched on that just a little bit. Can you tell me what that first 30 seconds is about and what it is meant to do for podcast listeners?

Seth Resler:

Can I just point out that when we were in Fort Worth, I think that was the second Podcast Movement ever, and that was the first one that I went to, we were one of five radio people that were there. Most of the radio people that were there were not employed. I think you and I were actually the only two people employed. Now you look and iHeart's there and Westwood One is there and the radio companies have really embraced the podcasting space in a way that's been fairly quick compared to how radio has sometimes embraced other forms.

Shannon Hernandez:

Yeah. Before you go though, I just want to let the audience know that we were like one of five people there and we were like one of five people standing in some restaurant like wallflowers and we're like, “Oh yeah, there's one Rob Walch over there.” We're like total fanboys, “Look at that podcaster.”

Seth Resler:

It’s true.

Shannon Hernandez:

We were total fanboys. Now look at you, you're big time now, Seth.

Seth Resler:

Well, I don't know about that, but I've hosted this session for the last couple of years at Podcast Movement called Podcast Makeover. This is actually based on something that Fred Jacobs of Jacobs Media has done with morning shows for radio in the past, which is essentially an aircheck session. Radio people know when their check is, it's when they bring a recording of their show into their program director's office and they sit down and they listen to it together. The programmer critiques the show and says, “Here's what's working well and here's what's not.” That's how radio people get better. Podcasters don't have that because there are only so many times you can go to your spouse or your mother and say, “Hey, will you listen to my podcast and tell me what you think?” 

Shannon Hernandez:

And what do they know. Right.

Seth Resler:

We did this, we would aircheck podcasts live on stage. Over the years of doing this, the thing that really became apparent to me is how important the first 30 seconds of a podcast are because people make a snap judgment about whether they want to listen to the whole thing or not. This year with the Podcast Movement becoming a virtual event because of the pandemic, we decided that we were going to have a panel and do it American Idol style or America's Got Talent where we would just listen to the first 30 seconds of several podcasts and critique them and say, “Yes, I would want to hear more,” or “Nope, I'm done. I'm out. Give me something else.” We had Peter Sagal, who is the host of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on NPR. He was one of our panelists and we had Shannon Cason who's The Moth storyteller who won the GrandSlam in the past. We had Lisa Orkin who works for the Radio Ranch and is a Creative director and does this fantastic job creating audio commercials for both podcasts and for radio. They were on my panel and critiqued this, and we learned a lot about what makes the first 30 seconds of a podcast work. Like I was saying earlier, 30 seconds is not a lot of time, it can be very long for a listener, but when you're on this side of the mic, it feels like it goes very fast. We played a couple and then I would ask the panel, “Do you know what this podcast is about?” and they would not because a lot of these podcasts begin with idle chit chat about what we had for breakfast that morning. Then minute nine, they get into, “Hey, by the way, on today's show, here’s who we're interviewing.” People want that right away. We saw what you need to do at the top of the podcast is to tell the people what the show as a whole is about, who you are as the host, and then what this episode is about. I used to host a food and travel podcast called Taste Trekkers. My opening would be, “Hello, welcome to Taste Trekkers. This is the podcast for foodies who love travel and travelers who love food. Today, we're talking to Joe Blow who runs Memphis food tours. If you're a foodie going to Memphis, we're going to tell you all the dishes you need to try the neighborhoods you need to visit, and chefs you need to know.” Right away, either, “Yup. I'm in, this is my kind of podcast,” or “Nope. This is not for me. I'm out,” and that's fine for people to have that reaction because at least they know or are unsure of what the podcast is about.

Shannon Hernandez:

Yeah. You're doing the listener the favor, really. You're saying, “Hey, this is what the podcast is about. If you don't like it, then get out.”

Seth Resler:

There's no such thing as a podcast for everybody. It doesn't exist. Someone's not going to like your podcasts and you gotta be okay with that. I think the more you dial in the better, the more you know who your audience is. With Taste Trekkers, for example, one of the things that I've found was that I went to a food blogger conference at one point and I was like, “This is going to be great. These are all going to be people who listen to my podcast. As soon as they tell me about it, they're going to go, ‘That's brilliant. Give me your card. I want to go listen to it right now.’” What I discovered is that this food blogger conference was essentially a lot of mommy bloggers who had an hour of free time a week because they had young kids at home and their creative outlet was blogging about what they made in their home kitchen, which is great. It's a fantastic thing to do. It is not something that you would ever do if you listen to my podcast, because my podcast is not about how to make food at home. It's about going out to eat. I figured out that there were diners and there were cooks. I was making a podcast for diners and I was at a conference full of cooks so it didn't work. From then on out, I made this rule, “Okay, on the podcast, we know who we're talking to. We're not talking about nutrition on this podcast. We're not talking about diets. There are no recipes in this. That's not what this is about. This is a show about how to eat when you are away from home.” The more not only what your show is about, but also what it's not about, I think that's really important.

Shannon Hernandez:

Yeah. I think that is a huge thing. Back in the day, I was a high school English teacher in another life. One of the topics I had to teach was rhetoric, it was the art of persuasive writing. Did you take that class?

Seth Resler:

I took that class. Yes, I did.

Shannon Hernandez:

You're a pro at it, then. You know exactly where I'm going with this. But one of the things that Aristotle would always talk about was knowing your audience so that you can appeal to either logic or emotion within the presentation itself, and if you don't understand, the audience doesn't respond back to you. I think when a podcaster comes in, they think they have an idea of where they're going to take this show, but they might be attracting a whole different audience.

Seth Resler:

Yeah. I think you need to figure that out. In radio, we sometimes talk about creating avatars or personas, which are stand-ins for the audience and we help them envision us and know who we're talking to. I often think, I worked at an alternative rock radio station in Providence, Rhode Island called WBRU, and it flipped to alternative in the late eighties. When I worked there later on, they had blown up a big newspaper ad that they printed when they flipped. The thing about the alternative is that you're an alternative to something so that what they said in this ad is, “It's not just about the artists we play, it's also about the artists we don't play.” They went on to list AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, Journey, things like that, some of these were big bands and bands with a lot of fans but they didn't fit the alternate. If you were a fan of the Ramones or The Offspring, or whatever it might be, you were like, “Yeah,” that other stuff. That's, for me, always crystallized this idea of not only knowing what your show is, but knowing what your show isn't and it's okay if your show isn't something really big recipes or Led Zeppelin because if you're dialed into that, there will be an audience for that.

Shannon Hernandez:

Yeah. I think one lesson that you can learn where I think podcasters can get stuck is that they feel they can't pivot the show. The pivot, I think, is one of the biggest things that could happen. Early in my radio career, I remember I struggled for about six years part-time. I didn't understand basically how to present on the radio. I was very afraid of the microphone. Your pivots can happen with a programming change with your podcast all the way to a performance. That's what it was for me. It was a performance that I ended up pivoting my mindset to say, “What do I have to worry about with a microphone? What do I have to worry about the audience? I already know the audience. I can pivot my current presentation skills to fit what I know I am more comfortable. I'm not so stuffy.” You can do this with a podcast format, a podcast topic. However, I know there are podcasters out there that have done this in the past. I've run into them and they say that they may have done something that was involved in nutrition and wellness, but then they're like, “But I talked to more about yoga,” so they said, “We're just going to focus on the thing that I know the best.” I think that is something that's very important that podcasters need to recognize. I want to switch gears here. What value do you see in local podcasts? You brought up your own podcast as being something that you would do in your area. What value do you see and are they super impactful or should you expect them to be super impactful?

Seth Resler:

Local podcasting is interesting. There are a handful of people out there who are doing local podcasting and we're one of them with The D Brief, which is about the Detroit arts and entertainment scene. I've learned a lot doing it and I think it's about being dialed into your audience. The tough thing about local podcasting is, again, coming back to those revenue metrics, does it work? Can you hit the numbers that you need? Only about a third of people listen to podcasts out there. Everybody knows how to read a blog. Everybody knows how to click on YouTube and watch a video, but only about a third of people are regularly in the habit of listening to podcasts. Right there, you're taking your potential audience and cutting it by two thirds. That's best case scenario like you're the biggest podcast in your city, everybody listens to you, I doubt even The New York Times is getting a third of everybody out there. You've gotta figure out how those numbers work and how that is. David Plotz from Slate, former editor in chief of Slate and a longtime host of the Slate Political Gabfest has got a new venture called City Cast, which is looking into the idea of local journalism through podcasts. I think it's going to be a really interesting thing to watch and see how that does. You’re starting to see public radio delve into that. But it's unclear less on whether it can be done from a content angle and more about whether it's something that can be monetized.

Shannon Hernandez:

What's interesting about local podcasts, because we have a podcast here run by The Arizona Republic by AZCentral. They do a podcast, it could either be about the history of what's going on in Arizona, or they're talking about certain trends. For example, they might say, “We're talking about Coronavirus in Arizona,” and those podcasts are formatted specifically just to be Arizona centric. Will all Arizonans go and listen to that podcast? Not everyone. But you also have to think that if you are a city-centric podcast or a region-centric podcast, that someone from out-of-state might be moving to your city or your region, and they might want to get an idea of what it might be like in that area with a metric standpoint. Will it make sense? I don't know. It's a difficult metric if you ask me because you're so localized, but it doesn't mean that you couldn't be part of a local influencer program, implement your own merchandise, things like that that I think could probably play into the game.

Seth Resler:

I think there are certain factors that broaden an audience and certain factors that narrow an audience. I think it's about coming up with the right combination of factors. When we think about radio, we don't think about this often, but radio is actually niched along two factors. One is geography, you can only hear the radio station within a certain area within a certain radius of the tower that's transmitting the signal. The other is format, this is a radio station that plays top 40 music, rock music, hip hop, or whatever it is. Because radio is already formatted twice before you even start, radio personalities then try to broaden the audience by talking about the biggest topics they can find—the Superbowl or what Kim Kardashian just did, or whatever—because now they're trying to make it bigger. There are similar things that come into play with podcasts. Obviously, your topic, what you're talking about narrows it. If you're doing, again, a podcast about knitting, that's going to narrow it, but then the geography can actually widen it because we're not just looking for knitters in LA, we're looking for knitters anywhere in the world. One of the factors that will either widen or narrow the audience is the shelf life of the content. Meaning, is it evergreen so that I could listen to this podcast five years from now, and it would still be relevant or is it very ripped from the headlines? I listen to Meet the Press, for example, as a podcast every week. On the one hand, I feel this pressure to listen to it every week, because I know that if I don't, it'll become out of date. On the other hand, I've never gone back and listened to a six month old episode of Meet the Press because it's not relevant anymore. If you are going to narrow the audience of your podcast based on geography, this is only going to apply to people in Arizona, one way that you can then increase the audience is yes, but it's going to apply to people in Arizona for the next 10 years, because it's about the history and people are still going to find this relevant 10 years from now. People don't have to find it within the next week in order to enjoy it. I think that's one of the things that you can do. I'm working on a podcast now, producing a podcast for the historical society about the history of Detroit beer. 

Shannon Hernandez:

Oh, that's cool.

Seth Resler:

Yeah, it's been a lot of fun with this project. It's been great. It's going to come out probably early next year. Again, this is one of those things where it's going to be much more interesting—you may find it interesting if you're not from Detroit—but it's going to be much more interesting if you're from Detroit or from Michigan. But it will still be relevant five years from now and people can still listen to it.

Shannon Hernandez:

That exists. I don't think people realize that, especially content creators and podcasters, that those things still exist. There was a brand that I came across the other day that was promoting, I don't know if you've seen this, but they're metal cast and you put a block of ice in them and then you put this metal cast on top of it, and then it melts the ice. Then when you pull the cast off, it turns the block of ice into a round globe.

Seth Resler:

Oh, that's awesome.

Shannon Hernandez:

I was like, “That is rad. That is really cool.” So I took the bait and I clicked on it and they were selling it. Now, it was a really expensive product, but it was all part of a brand that had a podcast and a YouTube channel. That was still relevant. I could go back into the library and I could see what they were talking about, whatever taste tests they were doing, whatever reviews that they were doing on food or whatever it may have been. I thought, “This is actually really cool.” They have created this library or compendium of content that you can always go back and review and say, “Oh, I can see what they're saying about this. It's too dry of a taste,” or whatever, but they've also now worked on it so much now and they have this whole brand that comes with it, which I think is very cool that they have done.

Seth Resler:

Yeah. I think that's something that you are seeing more and more of is brands embracing podcasts as part of their marketing efforts. We were talking about different revenue streams earlier, I think that's another revenue stream is podcast production for brands that are looking to do that.

Shannon Hernandez:

Yeah, I agree. I got a couple more questions for you, Seth, because I know you are busy in the pandemic right now, staying at home.  First question, before we jump into the next question pants on or off today, do you have pants?

Seth Resler:

Pants are on today. Ever since Jeffrey Toobin, I’m not messing around.

Shannon Hernandez:

I agree a hundred percent. Now, since you've been diving into the digital space, what is one skill that you take from podcasters that helps radio broadcasters?

Seth Resler:

It's interesting because, as radio broadcasters, I think we become so comfortable behind the microphone that we think that we can do that anywhere. I'm a radio broadcast at first. I've been a radio broadcaster for over 20 years now. If you need somebody to talk up the ramp of a Linkin Park song and plug the remote broadcast that's happening at the car dealership this weekend and drop in a witty line and hit the post, I'm really good at that. I'm okay as a podcaster because I've only been doing that for nine years.

Shannon Hernandez:

The line forms to the left, brother. I understand.

Seth Resler: 

It's not the same skillset. I think the reason public radio has been so far ahead of commercial radio and podcasting is because you can take an episode of car talk without making any changes to it, put it up on the air, or Fresh Air with Terry Gross or whatever, and it's ready to go. But if you are doing a show where you are playing six songs an hour, and you're saying the call letters a dozen times, and you're resetting and repeating, you can't necessarily just lift the audio and drop it into an on demand form and put it online and expect that it's going to work. You may be, if you're doing an all-talk morning show, that's something that you can do. I think one of the key things is that they are different mediums and that you do have to treat them differently. While I do think there are situations where you can repurpose audio from one place to another, I think you have to really think about that from the outset and go, “How are we going to create audio that works both as a radio show and as a podcast?” Don't think about, “How can we take this radio show that's clearly just a radio show and throw it out as a podcast as well?” Same thing with video, how do we take this morning show and make it work on the radio, on YouTube Live or Facebook Live and as a podcast, and what do we have to do to each format? This beer podcast that I'm working on, one of the things that's been really interesting is that as a radio guy, I'm used to my production being really tight and just cramming everything together because we've got five seconds to get the reading or whatever. I've actually had to tell my editor to go back and space things out and make it breathe more and put more pauses in because when you listen to it in your ear buds, it's a much more intimate experience and you just kind of need that, for lack of a better word, breathing in the podcast.

Shannon Hernandez:

Yeah. A pause of sorts to make it feel like a conversation, I think that is the hardest part for radio people. I want to flip this on its head. What can you say that podcasters that you've worked with have learned from radio? What have you taught them? What is one of the most enlightening things that they have gathered from radio?

Seth Resler:

I think a lot of people got into podcasting because, in some ways, they view it as a revolt against radio. It reminds me of the beginning of alternative, “Oh, I'm going to start this punk band to revolt against the corporate rock.” They think that there are no rules, and that's not true. There are principles, again, they may be applied differently, but there are principles that we've learned in radio that work. We were talking earlier about the first 30 seconds of a podcast. That's a variation on a principle that we know is resetting in radio. It works differently. In radio, you reset, let's say you're hosting a four hour morning show and you don't know when people are going to start listening to your show, they may get in their car at 6:45, 7:30, or 8:15, and so what you've got to do is constantly reset, and just assume that nobody heard the last break that you did on radio. You say, “Hey, if you just tuned in, I'm talking to Lisa, she's a sex expert and we're talking about blah-blah-blah.” There's something similar that has to happen in podcasts, but it's not if I have 90-minute episodes, it's not like I have to re-introduce my guests every 15 minutes in the podcast. But I do need to reset at the top of every episode of my podcast, because people could be tuning into my podcast for the first time, and maybe they've been with me since episode 1 or maybe episode 317 is the first time they've ever listened to my podcast, so you want to make it accessible to everybody. It’s a radio principle, we're just using it a little bit differently in podcasting. I think this idea that there are no rules and we can do whatever we want, you got to know the rules before you break them, and you got to understand why they're there, and you got to understand why you're changing them for a podcast.

Shannon Hernandez:

That is great advice. That is perfect advice because that is advice that I have shared with other podcasters, people looking to do this stuff. I have a shirt that actually says “Know the rules before you can break them”. You have to know those rules. These principles that you talk about, like resetting, that was a hard thing for me to catch onto in radio when I was doing a 30 minute, 20 minute interview and having to reset because you didn't know how many people were going to be flipping the dial and they're like, “Who's this guy coming on?” But in podcasting, their first point of contact might be that episode that shows up in a Facebook feed through a share and they might not know who you are so resetting every time is a very important concept because not a lot of podcasters that I know are doing it and they just jump into the content and you don't have an idea of either who you're talking about or who you're talking to. I love that you brought up that concept. I know you got to run here, Seth, but I want to ask you a series of nine questions. I didn't do 10 because 9, it’s just like everything else on the internet were like “the 7 top things”. I'm just going to mention some things for you and you just give me your brief thoughts—it could be 10 seconds, it could be 5 seconds. It could be whatever you want it to be—but I'm just going to mention them to you and then you just give me your thoughts on them, okay?

Seth Resler:

Okay.

Shannon Hernandez:

All right. Here we go. Number one, your favorite food to taste.

Seth Resler:

Oh, my favorite food to taste.

Shannon Hernandez:

Time's up. No, I'm just kidding.

Seth Resler:

For some reason I thought of fried chicken, I like something that's crispy on the outside, but when you get into it, it's juicy and succulent, and just has that contrast in it.

Shannon Hernandez:

Do you use a lot of adjectives in your podcast whenever you're describing food?

Seth Resler:

What's funny is I don't actually do much of the food description, my guests do. I will try to solicit that from them. For me, the key is often playing dumb and just going, “I don't know what that is.” I know what toasted ravioli is, I lived in St. Louis, I know that it's a thing there. But then when you do that interview, you've got to go, “I don't know what toasted ravioli is. What does that look like? What does that taste like?”

Shannon Hernandez:

Totally. I play dumb, but it's just a natural thing for me anyway. So, thanks pal. No, I’m kidding. Number two, podcasting to grow a business or podcasting for entertainment only?

Seth Resler:

Podcasting to grow a business or podcasting for entertainment only. I think it depends on what you want to do. I've never been good at having hobbies because when I start something, I want to be the best in the world at it. I'm always disappointed because there's always somebody better.

Shannon Hernandez:

That's true. That's a very humble way of looking at it.

Seth Resler:

I'm frustrated that I'm not the Elon Musk of podcasting.

Shannon Hernandez:

In my eyes, Seth, you are, my friend.

Seth Resler:

I think that can be podcasts for entertainment only. I think that two ways of thinking about it, is it entertaining for the person making it or is it entertaining for the audience? Ideally, it should be both. But I would start because it's something that you want to do. I would not start this because you think this is a way to get rich. I would start this because you love audio and you should be starting a podcast because you listen to podcasts. Stephen King has this thing where he talks about you can't be a writer if you don't read. You can't be a podcaster if you don't listen to podcasts.

Shannon Hernandez:

Listen to production, listen to content, listen to formulations of how they came to a conclusion or a question, I think that's important. Number three, favorite podcast right now? This one gets me too all the time.

Seth Resler:

I will say that there've been periods where I'll listen to a podcast for a while and then I'll fall off. Marc Maron was one of the podcasters that got me into podcasting because I listened to Marc Maron interview Conan O'Brien and I was like, “Oh my God, Conan O'Brien has the same problems that I have.” Not really true. But then I'll fall off, because Marc Maron’s podcast is evergreen. I can sit there and listen to a dozen episodes and then go away for a couple months and then come back. The one that I have listened to almost every week for 15 years is Slate Political Gabfest with John Dickerson, who's now on 60 Minutes, and Emily Bazelon, who’s with, I think it's New York Times Magazine and David Plotz. It's a radio morning zoo format. It's the format that we always know, two guys and a girl with 3% round table discussion, but they talk about politics and they break down what's really happening. It's been well done forever and it's been consistent forever, and that's the one that I listen to every week.

Shannon Hernandez:

Awesome. Number four, preferred consumption app for podcasts?

Seth Resler:

I use Pocket Casts because I'm on an Android, I'm on a Galaxy Samsung, so I don't have Apple Podcasts at my disposal. I switched to it a number of years ago because I was finding that I would start a podcast on my iPad and then I would get in the car and I needed it on my phone. At the time, Pocket Casts had that ability, and whatever I was using prior to that did not, so that's a switch to that. I will say since the pandemic has started, and I don't leave my house very often, I am pulling up podcasts more and more on Alexa. That has increased quite a bit. I have an Alexa in my kitchen and when I'm making food, I like to listen to something.

Shannon Hernandez:

Gotcha. Okay. I understand that because I do the same thing. I have a Google Home. Now that Google Homes and Nest now have that ability to listen to podcasts, in fact, I actually pull them up on my phone and then I stream them to the Nest whatever I'm cooking in my little 900 square foot place, and play it in the living room and it's 5 feet away. Next one, less equipment with more power or more equipment with less power?

Seth Resler:

When we say power, are we talking about electricity?

Shannon Hernandez:

Let's say with more impact.

Seth Resler:

Okay. For the longest time, I was podcasting with a Zoom H5 recorder and a couple of these ATR2100 mics which is about $400 worth of gear.  That's the setup that I take to CES when there's a CES to go to, to do that podcast, that I take to the Worldwide Radio Summit that I used to do for a lot of things. I started podcasting with that or with Skype. I was doing interviews over Skype, and we can do them over Zoom. I don't think you need to spend a ton of money to do this. I think you need to develop your skills. I think there's a ton of time that goes into it.

Shannon Hernandez:

$10,000 worth of equipment is just not--

Seth Resler:

No, you need production values, but you don't need world-class production values.

Shannon Hernandez:

Absolutely. Number eight, hosting provider?

Seth Resler:

Ooh, I'm going to get in trouble here.

Shannon Hernandez:

No, I, if it's going to get you in trouble, what would you say the top three would be for you?

Seth Resler:

Here's the thing, we mentioned Rob Walch from Libsyn, I have used Libsyn from the beginning. The book that got me into podcasting was one that Rob Walch wrote, the introduction was written by John Edwards. I don't know if you know this story that Rob Walch was approached by John Edwards during the presidential campaign to produce a podcast. Then a month later, Obama came to him and said, “Hey, will you produce my podcast?”

Shannon Hernandez:

I didn’t know that.

Seth Resler:

Yeah. He had to turn Obama down because he'd already said yes to John Edwards. John Edwards wrote the intro to the book. This is so long ago, John Edwards was still thought of as a good guy. I read that book and got into it. I started using Libsyn early on and have not really changed because I just knew the interface. There are a ton of people that I really respect, Todd Cochrane from Blubrry, who has been very involved in the podcasting space.

Shannon Hernandez:

Very involved.

Seth Resler:

They do great stuff over a Blubrry. Frankly, I like the people who show up and get involved. Rob Greenlee, who is now with Libsyn, but has been with Spreaker and other places over the years. There’s another guy, unless you go to Podcast Movement or one of these conferences, when there are two Robs and a Todd on a panel, that's the three wise men of podcasting.

Shannon Hernandez:

They really are, yeah.

Seth Resler:

I've started using Omny Studio for some stuff, which was originally designed by radio broadcasters out of Australia. For radio people, there are some tools there that make it nice and easy. I think it's really about knowing what features you want and then going and looking for those features. There's a lot of ways to go right.

Shannon Hernandez:

That's great advice because I, in the past say five to six months, have been asked, “What's the best hosting provider?” and I have to say, “What are you looking for? It really depends. You're going to have to find the platform that works for you. There is no one size fits all.” Back in the day, there was Libsyn. The one that I only knew of was Libsyn. I remember when Libsyn was just a teeny little website, that's all it was. Then Blubrry came in and then I went to the first Podcast Movement and there were just these few little hosting providers. Now, I can't even keep track of all of them. There are so many, but they all offer something a little bit different. Great answer, you're not going to get in trouble. I don't think you're going to get in trouble. Last question, Joe Rogan to Spotify?

Seth Resler:

Yes. Look, it's amazing what Joe Rogan has done. I heard somebody from Spotify the other day that Joe Rogan is arguably the biggest audio personality out there, bigger than even how it started at this point. I think that may be the case. I think we're going to look back at this moment in history and we're going to view Joe Rogan going to Spotify the same way that we now view Howard Stern going to Satellite radio. Like you, I worked in rock radio and there were a ton of rock radio stations all over the country that were really anchored by Howard Stern. When he left, it hurt rock radio a lot. Radio was saying this was a dumb move for Stern at the time.

Shannon Hernandez:

I raise my hand on that one.

Seth Resler:

They said, “Oh, this is going to be a disaster for Howard.” I don't think it was a disaster for Howard. I don't think it was a disaster for Satellite radio either. I think it's been great for both. It's been very mutually beneficial. I think that's probably going to be true in the long run for Spotify as well. I think that this is going to be, I mean they caught a big whale there and I think there's a sizable investment there and we're going to see if it pans out, but I think there's a good shot that it might.

Shannon Hernandez:

Yeah. I agree with that just because when I heard the news and the guy at the radio station told me that Rogan moved to Spotify, his excitement, I can't even describe his excitement in a certain number of adjectives, he was so excited that this was going to be a thing. He said that. I was like, “This is huge for Spotify. This is a big thing for Spotify, because now it opens up the doors for so many other content creators.” Michelle Obama, I believe, is on Spotify now doing that stuff.

Seth Resler:

I think the other analogy besides Howard Stern going to Satellite radio is this is going to be a lot like Netflix creating its own content, whereas Netflix is a company that started distributing other people's content, then at some point they started making their own and things like Stranger Things or Orange Is the New Black and really move the needle. Frankly, again, it comes down to those revenue metrics, you can make more money when you own the content than when you're distributing somebody else's content, you got to pay royalties or licensing fees or whatever on it. Spotify has really stepped up as a player in this space, in a way that for the longest time, Apple was number one and there was no number two and Spotify stepped in and said, “We're really going to dedicate ourselves to this space and invest in the space,”

and they really have, they've put their money where their mouth is. I think you're going to start to see more and more great content coming out of there.

Shannon Hernandez:

Great. Seth wrestler of Jacobs Media, the Digital Dot Connector, thank you so much for sitting down with me for a sizable chunk of time in your day, I didn't expect for an hour, but it was such a great conversation that I appreciate your thoughts and musings about podcasting, and of course, helping out those who will be listening to this podcast. Is there a way, or do you invite podcasters outside of the radio space to reach out to you and look for advice, help, or whatever?

Seth Resler:

Yeah. I love talking about podcasting, so by all means, feel free to email me. I'm [email protected]. I've got a blog there where once a week, I sit down and I write about digital topics. It's geared towards radio broadcasters, but I think there's a lot that podcasters could find useful in there as well. But I love talking about podcasting, so don't be shy.

Shannon Hernandez:

Okay. Can we go another four hours? No, I'm kidding. You're at home anyway, man. Pants on. All you need to do is go five steps to the kitchen, getting blunch.

Seth Resler:

Yeah.

Shannon Hernandez:

Seth, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

Seth Resler:

Good to talk to you.

Shannon Hernandez:

You too.