Martin is co-founder of Podmasters — this interview has been lightly edited for style and readability
Martin Bojtos: I’m the co-founder of Podmasters - we’re a podcast production company and network. We produce and and own our own shows, but we also work with talent, and we also work with clients to make to make shows.
James Cridland: And it’s Podmasters’ tenth year this year. So what have you learned in the last 10 years?
MB: I started Podmasters with my co-founder Andrew Harrison - we met in magazines and we got on very well, and after he left, we said, okay, one day we’ll work together on something. One day he came to me and said, what about podcasting? So we had a podcast called Big Mouth, which was a essentially a culture show for for Andrew’s tastes, which didn’t do much - a thousand listens a week or something. This is back in 2016. And then one day he said, we should do a podcast about Brexit (the UK’s controversial exit from the European Union). Andrew put together this dream team of panelists that he’d come across on Twitter and various places, aand the first episode immediately did 10,000 downloads in its first week. We said, okay, we’re probably onto something here. And then from there - I always say we’re building the car as it’s going down the hill, we’re figuring things out. It’s a lot of instinct, a lot of luck, a lot of mistakes have been made over time, but glad to say we’re still here 10 years on, probably in the best position we’ve been.
JC: So the Brexit show was called Remaniacs. Is is Remaniacs still going?
MB: It is. It turns out that what people really came for was the chemistry, the vibe, the presenters. So it morphed into a new show, which is called Oh God, What Now?, which summed up the kind of the feeling you have every morning you wake up and look at your phone. We still have a pretty big audience, a very decent Patreon, and very passionate fans who are who are really engaged. So it’s a great show. It’s our flagship show, it’s the one we’re you know we’re most proud of.
JC: Typically companies like yours will make podcasts for brands, they’ll make their own podcasts and then they’ll work with talent as well. What’s the biggest part of your business? What’s the biggest part of Podmasters?
MB: The goal I’ve had is to make sure that no one part of our business is too big - so if things change, you can absorb any shocks without it being terminal to the business. I think this is why we’ve never really just been a commissions business, and for a long time we were just a owned and operated business, just a network, and we’ve branched out in many ways.
When I describe it to people, we are split three ways. We make our own shows - we’re owned and operated, so we only eat what we catch, so to speak, and that’s that’s been really, really good for us because it means that we can apply all those lessons for everyone else. We work with talent in what we call co-pros, where we do everything from build the show from scratch for them to doing monetization and marketing deals. And then the final part is working with clients like Saga, like London Records, where we apply all those learnings, but they own all the content. I’d say it’s it’s a pretty even mix.
JC: Your website says you have studios for hire, and you’ve got a shot of a fancy studio with lights and cameras and all of that. What’s your strategy with video? Are all of your shows video enabled now?
MB: Not all of them are. From a monetization perspective, when you look at how the return that you get from video via Spotify, it can be really great. Via YouTube, sometimes it feels like you’re starting from zero on every episode that you put out. So you’re always having to fight with YouTube’s algorithm and thumbnail, you know, it’s a lot harder to do it. If you build an audience on Spotify video, that can be really lucrative. Spotify video has become our biggest source of revenue for some of our shows.
The main thing for Spotify Video, and this is gonna sound very obvious, is that it’s not only plays, but how long people are watching your shows for. If you’re making the kind of content that people are sticking around for, then we see really good RPMs - revenue per thousand views. Our audio RPMs might be twenty to twenty-five quid ($27-$33). We’ve seen on Spotify over 30 quid ($40) from just the video part. So they are paying a very good premium for people to who sit there and watch the content.
JC: If I was a good interviewer, I would have picked you up on this on this instantly - but you mentioned lots of mistakes over the last 10 years. Tell us one of those mistakes.
MB: At the very beginning, when Megaphone first came into the UK, they approached us to join them. This is 2021. They offered us a guaranteed deal, which was great - guaranteed for impressions. And we had that deal for probably three and a half years. YThat made us a lot of money for sure. That was very good.
When that deal expired, what we should have done at that point is cut everything that didn’t make us any money. And, not cutting nearly sent us out of business - to the point we had to make some quite deep cuts, let a lot of people go, sadly.
We now have a much more healthy business, and one which we’re seeing growth. Last year we made the highest amount of revenue, and decent profit, than we’ve ever made. It can really zig-zag like that.
JC: Martin, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
MB: No worries, James. All the best.