Normal Gossip - S3 Ep9: Big Business Announcement Episode (new partner and new season!!!)

Episode Date: February 26, 2023

We're back with some big announcements and answers to your questions, like:  Where have you been? Who is your new partner? What does it mean that you have a new partner?  What will change about the podcast? Will you please have a live show in my city pleasseee? WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK You can support Normal Gossip directly by buying merch or becoming a Friend or a Friend-of-Friend at supportnormalgossip.com. Episode transcript here. Follow the show on Instagram @normalgossip, and if you have gossip, email us at [e-mail] or leave us a voicemail at 26-79-GOSSIP. Normal Gossip is hosted by Kelsey McKinney (@mckinneykelsey) and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin (@alexlaughs).

Hello, and welcome to a special announcement episode of Normal Gossip, I'm Kelsey McKinney and Alex is here with me, Alex say hello. Hello everybody. We have missed you so much. So much, oh my gosh, and I think that maybe you've missed us, I can't tell from the Instagram messages, but I don't know, maybe a little bit. It's a little unclear, maybe they do, maybe they don't, you know, who can know. You may notice that this is a shorter episode today than we usually have, it's not a full

hour, it's a little bit shorter than that, and that is because this is not an episode to tell gossip in, it is a special announcement episode. Though I will say, there is going to be gossip in it. That's so true. There's, I mean, do you think the two of us could get on mic without any gossip? That's like fundamentally opposed to our characters. I mean, we were recording for like five minutes before we started this, and all of that will be cut and lost to history.

Well, they don't need to know that. Alex, why are we recording this episode? We have some special announcements. Number one, we have signed a deal with a partner, and we'll explain what that means and who the partner is, and also we are coming back and we will announce our return date in this episode. Oh my God. Oh, it's all happening.

So we have a lot to tell you. Yeah, I mean, I think I want to admit that it has been like very, very difficult for me to not talk about what has been going on, mainly because I'm terrible at keeping secrets, which everyone knows, and it's like, it is kind of gossipy, the like process we've been through. Yes, and I think it's really important for us to share what we've gone through as a way to explain to listeners how the business works behind a podcast like this. Most podcasts you listen to, not all of them, but most of them have gone through something

like this. Yeah, and something that we have tried our best to be honest and open about is that we want to be transparent about the kind of work that goes into this, both so that you know why it takes so long for us to put episodes together and make seasons that are really good and also so that we can make that kind of transparency standard across the industry. We want to make sure that the people who are trying to make shows like we make have the same kind of intel that we have. Yeah, so let's talk about it.

So where does this process start? Let's rewind like harp, harp noise. In the fall of 2021, Alex and I started recording this podcast so that we could like put it out and the business coordinator for Defector Jasper Wang and our editor-in-chief, Tom Le, took the idea and the pilot we had made to a lot of different podcast producers, all the big names that you've heard of. Every company? Every company that exists.

And they all basically said that they couldn't risk it, right? That like the only podcasts they were accepting were ones that were sure bets, things that had already proven themselves to be popular, which sucks, right? That's the reason that like a lot of podcasts don't get made and like it felt pretty bad for us because we felt like we had a good idea. And when they say sure bets, it's like shows hosted by celebrities, it's true crime, it's recap shows of already popular shows, it's shows that are following a very familiar format. Right.

It's not that the shows that are quote unquote sure bets are absolutely going to be sure bets. And that replicates something that has already been successful, right? So were you, for example, to go out with a show right now called regular gossip stories from the regular world, it would probably be easy to sell that, right? Because you have a comp, which is us. All that is to say, we produced the first three seasons of this podcast with a company called Audio Boom because they were willing to let us use their platform.

And they told us if we got to like a certain number of listenership, they would start selling ads on our podcast, right? So that's why for the whole of season one, there were no host read ads. It was only like programmatic ads. Also I want to take a step back and explain like what the role of a company like Audio Boom or one of these big companies that Jasper and Justin were pitching to actually do. So what they're doing is A, they're providing a place for the producer, me, to literally upload the audio and connect that to all of your favorite podcast apps.

So that's called distribution. And then the other side of it is ad sales. So they would be talking to advertisers on our behalf, selling ads for us. And then, you know, they would take a little cut and then we would get the rest of the money defector normal gossip. So like obviously you don't need all of those things, right? Like Alex could have jumped through all of these extremely annoying hoops and uploaded our podcast to Spotify and Apple podcasts and all of the like millions of different platforms

that you listen to this podcast on. And we could have just said, you know, we won't have ads and we'll only have other money through subscriptions or something. But I think like one thing that is important to note here is that like there was a big investment money in this podcast from Defector Media. They paid for us to make it. They paid for Alex to produce it. They paid for my time where I wasn't writing blogs and was instead talking into this silly

little mic. And the goal was never for this podcast to be as big as it was. The goal was for the podcast to break even. And for the podcast to break even, we needed to sell ads on it. Like that was just kind of the way you make money and like capitalism, which sucks. Like none of us are out here thrilled about it, but it is the way it works. Yeah. So, so that's how we side on with Audio Boom and we signed a one year contract with Audio

Boom. We love Audio Boom. Thank you so much for taking a chance on us. Holy cow. And so by early fall of last year, 2022, we were within months of our Audio Boom contract coming up. So we were about to have to either renegotiate that contract based on the numbers that we had done over the last year or find a new distributor.

And so we started a process that was long and arduous. But also, I mean, to like put on a little bit of rose colored glasses and look back at this process, it like was so reaffirming to go from having two members of our team take these calls and basically be like treated like nothing and told that this didn't matter and like have to kind of fumble our way through the beginning of this process to running a process this fall that was like filled with big names, right? And like people coming in and saying like, we love this podcast and like we may not be able to afford it or be able to help you guys do it, but like we love it and we listen to

it. And that is like a cool distinction, I think for us to have. So our agents at UTA set up a bunch of calls for us with companies all over the country. I want to say we took like five or six calls, right? Yeah. I think we took five actual calls and then five companies just sent us emails with offers in them without taking a call at all. And also one million thousand emails, hundreds, hundreds of thousands of emails.

So many emails, bless the agents. That process was a process of both us vetting the companies, but also for them to get a sense of what we actually wanted from a partner because, you know, at the bare minimum, what we were looking for was a company that was going to sell ads on our behalf. That was, that's really all we wanted. But a lot of the companies were coming to us saying, hey, like we would love to actually be your partner in this. We would love to help you take the show to the next level, whether that's going on tour

or like doing special episodes or collaborating with other things or like doing a festival or, you know, whatever, all kinds of ideas were thrown out. And it was a sort of mutual vetting process that we were going through. Yeah. And I think like just for full transparency, like we are picky. Like we were not just dating to date, right? Our relationship with Audio Boom was good and we liked being there. And so yeah, we were having these conversations mainly to see like, okay, is there any other

company that could give us the same amount of like infinite reign that we had and complete creative control and also maybe make our life a little bit easier, right? Maybe take some of the like marketing stuff off of our plate, the things that like Alex and I frankly just didn't do for the first year because we don't know how. And so that's like a really specific kind of partner, right? Yeah. And there were a lot of reasons why both sides bowed out, either we bowed out or they did. I think that our commitment to not going to being a weekly show was something that kept

a lot of people from like putting in an offer ultimately because a lot of companies were like, okay, if you're doing these kinds of numbers, you need to move to a weekly format ASAP in order to make the most money possible. And we were like, we can't do that unless we have a team of like 20 people. Right. And more than that, Normal Gossip is like a defector podcast. And one of the aims and goals of Defector as a company is to like make content that is good and that we believe in first and foremost above everything else.

So like when you and I started this, we started it being like, how do we make ourselves laugh? How do we make like this fun for us? And you can tell that in the show, like that's part of why it's good is that you can hear the fun in it. And like had we chosen to prioritize the biggest possible number we could get at the expense of our mental health and our like quality of life over a good partner for us, that you sure you might get an episode every week, but they wouldn't be fucking good, right? The episode that came out every week would be the product of two exhausted minds.

And that's not what we wanted to do. Yeah. Um, that was a big reason we didn't go with several, several partners. Yeah. And, and the other thing is like a lot of people wanted to own part of the intellectual property of the show. Like they wanted actual like percentage points of ownership of the show, which was something that we just were not going to give up.

That's something that's really important to us. Yeah. And I think like it's worth noting there that like obviously we recommend keeping your IP forever if you can, right? Like part of the reason we didn't want to give it up is that that is one of the few things that actually gives you power as a creator is like maintaining your own intellectual property. And ultimately like we made this show, right?

So like it didn't feel fair to us either to like give up IP just so that somebody else could sell ads on our podcast. Like that doesn't seem fair at all. So that brings us to December. We were having conversations with one company in particular that they sent in a proposal that blew us away in terms of first raw numbers of what they were offering us. But second, just the care with which they talked about how they respect the way that we make the show, the transparency that we have.

And also like naming both of us individually and talking about our work outside of the show and like wanting to be partners with us as people. Like I was really blown away by that. Yeah. I think it was really evident in a lot of like the conversations that we had that people knew we were worth money. Right. Yes.

And like there's a difference in having a conversation and a business transaction with someone who is just trying to make as much money off of you as possible and someone who like actually understands why you're valuable in the first place. Right. And in these conversations, we that's it became really clear that this group knew that they were like, we understand that part of what makes the show good is the breaks. We understand part of what makes the show good is like doing bonus content for your subscribers and being able to have a subscriber program.

Yeah. Like and being on every platform, right? Like basic things they believed in and not just were willing to cave on. So should we tell everybody who this company is that we've signed with? Oh my God, everyone congratulate us on our new marriage. No, normal gossip is now a proud member of Radio Topia, a podcast network of independent creator owned listener supported podcast. We love it.

We're married to Radio Topia. Alex and I were literally at dry bar when we got the email from Radio Topia with their offer because we wanted to have good hair for the DC show. And like I opened it and did you know how did this go? Did you open it and read the offer or did I open it? I think I opened it and I was like, holy shit. And we were offered from radio. I mean, we were like all amped up.

Do you want to tell them like why this was such an exciting deal for us to get? Yeah, I just okay. So I was really excited as a producer. I've really admired Radio Topia for a long time because they are a network of independent podcasts, which means that like they're one of the first networks that was created so that indie podcasts, podcasts that are not affiliated with like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or whatever, or even NPR, like big NPR. This was one of the first places where good indie podcasts that are like production

forward, like very creator centric could like work together and sell ads like as a group, essentially. So they like support each other. They raise money as a group and then they use that to invest in more independent shows. And so I've been a fan of like Radio Topia shows since, I mean, for the last decade, they've been around since 2014. And I remember listening to like The Illusionist, 99% of visible and like Kitchen Sisters and The Heart, like all of these shows are like, they're like in the pantheon of, you know,

if you're an audio producer, it's like the great audio shows. So it was really exciting for me because a lot of the conversations we had had with potential partners seemed very interested in like the product that was the podcast as opposed to the podcast being the product of production and like creative work done in the medium of audio, which sounds like, I think sounds a little precious, like as I'm saying it out loud. I think you're saying it in a way that sounds very beautiful, but like the rougher and grosser version of that is like, are you buying something or are you helping someone

make something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're not going to be a place where like they have one producer working on like 10 shows at once. Like that's never going to happen. And like, I mean, I'm excited to be, I'm excited for all the reasons that Alex is excited, obviously, but I'm also excited to be somewhere where like creators are the ones that are trusted with their product, right? Like Radio Topia is known for empowering creators with the support to deliver like well

crafted innovative audio and the freedom to thrive on their own terms. And like that's the shit we want, right? Like we want to be given space to do what we've already proven we can do. Yeah. So like when their offer came in, they were like, look, we want to sell ads for you. We want to promise that we will sell this many dollars worth of ads for you in the next calendar year, and we don't expect you to change anything about the show. And we were like, oh my God, they want to kiss us.

I don't know. I feel really excited about it because there were a lot of ways that this entire process could have ended that I think would have felt bad for us, right? We didn't want to be making a deal that felt like we were giving up the thing like our baby, right? This show is the baby that we are raising together. And like we didn't want to like lose it. We wanted to make sure that we could still make it good.

And now I feel like we kind of have the best of both worlds, which is like a group that knows what they're doing, that can support us, that when we say like, what is marketing, they know what it is, right? Yeah. And the ability to make what we know we can make good. So I know there are a lot of questions. I think we can preempt a couple of questions here, but we also have a bunch of questions that close friends asked.

Question number one, are we leaving Defector? I would like to say that no, we're not leaving Defector. And in fact, Alex is now coming on full time at Defector. So we are now co-owners of defector.com, which is the media company that supports this podcast. I told my friends when I signed the offer letter, I'm an indoor cat now. That's what I am. I'm an indoor cat for Defector.

I mean, I think you and I have both said this and I feel comfortable telling the entire world this that we both had a lot of like rough media jobs where we were like not treated well and not taken seriously and like pushed around a bit. And we both kind of separately were like, I'm not going in-house anymore. Like it's not fun. I don't get to like do the stuff I want. People treat me poorly. It's not worth the marginal small amount more money that you make for like to deal

with that amount of bullshit. And like this is the only place I would work in-house. It's the only place that like actually holds up the values that I hold for myself, which is nice. I'm very excited that you will be on board and stuck with me. I'm very excited too. Maybe I will finally become a sports fan. We'll see.

Doubt it. Okay. So, so let's break down the distinction of like, okay, what does it mean that we're joining Radiotopia? Great question. First of all, the literal website that I'm going to go to to upload our episodes now is a different website. It's like, Radiotopia's website.

We're migrating the fee to have a meeting on my calendar tomorrow. That's not going to change anything for listeners, but it will change a lot for me. Um, so that's distribution. They're going to make sure that our episodes are in the right places at all times. And then the other arm is ad sales. And so they are going to be selling ads for us. Again, that's not going to affect listeners, except that like, you will continue to hear ads and maybe for different companies than before.

Yeah. Unless you are a listener who happens to work for a major brand that wants to support us, in which case it's normal gossip at defector.com and yes, shout out. Let's see. They're also going to be providing some marketing support, um, because Radiotopia is a network of podcasts. You will hear us recording promos for other Radiotopia podcasts.

And if you listen to other Radiotopia podcasts, you'll hear promos for normal gossip on them. Yep. Um, and that's just like a, you know, we're all pals here and we're all going to promote our, each other's shows. Yeah. I mean, I, I am excited to do that, honestly. Like I'm excited to, like both direct our listeners to shows that we think are

good and to be a part of a community where producers support each other. Like that is not always the case. Yes. And I would just like to reiterate a lot of these shows are like some of my idols. So I'm like, it's really chill for you. You're feeling super chill. It's super chill, super normal.

Um, the other thing I wanted to talk about is that Radiotopia has their own fundraising drives a couple of times a year, which is similar to how like your local public radio station might raise money. That's because in addition to being supported by grants and ads and whatever, Radiotopia is also supported by listeners. Exactly. So like 80% of the fundraising dollars that Radiotopia gets goes to shows in the Radiotopia network and like 20% of it goes to like running and operating their

whole network. So when you pay Radiotopia, you are also helping fund us and other shows like us. Exactly. Um, and so I know that might be a little confusing because you might hear us a couple of times a year, participate in a Radiotopia fundraiser and say, Hey, we're raising money for Radiotopia. That might be confusing with the existing subscription model for normal, normal gossip.

So we just wanted to clarify what each of those things does. I would like to make an analogy that's maybe not great, um, but anyway, Alex and I and nor the normal gossip podcast are Phoebe Bridgers and we play in a super group called Boy Genius with Defector. Yeah. Right. Okay. So Defector is Boy Genius and we are just one part of Boy Genius Phoebe Bridgers.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Radiotopia is like if Boy Genius goes to ACL and it's like, Oh, you can support all these bands at once and you can like see them all at once. And like that's also great. Yeah. Buying your ticket to ACL means that you are, you know, a penny or like $10 or

whatever of your ticket is going toward each of these groups. Right. So if you think about it, like if you buy a Phoebe Bridgers album, if you buy a subscription to normal gossip, you are supporting us directly. Mm hmm. If you are buying things from Defector at large, you are also supporting us directly, but just at a smaller percentage. And if you buy things from Radiotopia and support Radiotopia, you are also

supporting us, but at an even smaller percentage. Yes. But in a different way, because the other percentages of money are going toward the radiotopia stuff. Do you like the analogy that I've made for years? No, I think that helps a lot. I think that helps a lot because I imagine if I were a listener, I'd be like, what do you mean?

Like there's two fundraisers. Okay, got it. We are a band. See how I didn't use a sports team. Yeah. So we are continuing our subscription model. If you're a friend of a friend level subscriber, you get access to the secret podcast feed, which we are continuing to publish to once a month.

And you also get discounts on merch and access to discounts on live shows. Yeah. I just want to wink really hard. Like imagine me winking really, really, really hard, like Lucille Bluth when I say, but if you are a subscriber, you get early access and discounts to live shows, live shows, winking here. If you subscribe at the friend level, you get access to all of that plus close friends on Instagram, where we talk about a lot of the stuff and

also make early announcements to things and entered into a pool to be on the monthly subscriber episodes with us. Yes. When you're on the close friends, uh, we also do question box a lot. We're just one of us answers your questions and that like, we have more questions to answer here on this podcast and where we are getting those questions from is the close friends Instagram, right? So those are friend level subscribers who we said, do you have questions

about a big secret wink? And they said, yes. And yeah, so many people sent in questions. So we're not, we're definitely not going to get to all of them, but let's just go through. Um, let's see. I just became a defector subscriber. Please tell me this still matters with regards to normal gossip.

Yes. I hope that the Phoebe Bridgers analogy works for you. We love boy genius and the family. Let's see. Is this deal for a defector in general or just normal gossip? This is an overall deal for normal gossip. So like our contract with radiootopia does allow defector to pitch other shows in the future.

So that is something that like maybe we'll do. Maybe we won't. We cannot see the future, sadly, but it is a deal for that everyone benefits from. Yes. And I did see a question, you know, deeper in that was about the distraction and whether the distraction was part of this as well. Um, they are not, they are working with multitude productions. I think is the company.

Um, and that was busy. We're backing on another platform. Yeah. It was a separate process. Hmm. Do you have oversight on what ads are put on the pod? So yes, we get to like every ad that I read, we get to say yes or no to. So we get to choose the host red ads.

There are still some ads that are like programmatic. Those are ones that like I don't read that are just inserted into the episode. And we don't get to say yes or no to those individually, but we say yes or no to like the categories, right? So we'll say like no political ads, for example. And then there won't be any of those. Um, but it's complicated, right? To say like, do we have, we do have oversight over what ads go on the podcast,

but we don't have like the ability to just say no ads because like we still need ads to make money and we need the podcast to be profitable. And so like, I don't know, capitalism. Yeah. It's, it's a tricky thing where like every time a potential advertiser comes in, we have to think to ourselves, okay, like, do I feel comfortable putting our names behind this? And for the most part, well, I don't want to say for the most part, it's yes.

Like we say no to a lot of stuff. Yeah. That's why you'll never hear a weight loss ad on our shows, for example. Okay. Um, many of you asked, like several of you asked, like, if we get rewarded for this, if we get any money. Um, and also like if we own the podcast or if defector owns the podcast, which like, okay, nosy take after me.

I love it. Um, the answer to that is like two fold. The first part of ownership of any creative device is intellectual property, which we own the entirety of defector does not own any of the IP of this in the same way that defector doesn't own the IP of individual blocks or any other podcast that we produce creators, maintain all of that. That's something that we decided very early on in the structure of the company. The second part of that is like literal dollars, right?

So like who makes money off of the ads of this podcast? And the answer to that is both of us. We have, I think it's a pretty unique deal in all of podcasts. I could like, you could probably talk more to this Alex, but Alex and I now both have a salary from defector, right? So we are W2 employees and we get paychecks every two weeks, right? And healthcare and all that, like nonsense. That is like our base pay.

Then the way that the podcast income works is that 60% of the podcast in podcasts income goes to the company of defector, which because we are owners of it, some of it will trickle back to us, which is like a kind of funny system. And the other 40% goes to us. Which that is, I just want to drive home to listeners who maybe aren't involved in podcasting. That is an incredibly rare deal for creators to have with a media company. You know, your favorite podcasts that are hosted by somebody who's just independent

making their own show, they get to keep, you know, 100% of their profits, you know, after any commissions that might be taken out by any middle men. But, you know, I've worked in podcasts for almost a decade and I have never seen a single cent of a revenue share from any of the shows I've ever worked on. And I've heard a ton of what huge shows that have a lot of money. Yeah. And so when we worked out this deal, I had a moment where I was like, kind of pissed because I was like, if I had this kind of deal for every show I've ever

worked on, I'd be rich. Yeah, I'm not rich. So, yeah, that's something that we're really proud of. And we hope to be able to talk about more and also like implement on to other shows that we produce in the future. Yeah. Do you think this means more live shows? Philly soon, please.

You may have recently seen me winking. We wink don't have an answer to that question for you at this time. Wink. Wink, but we wink will soon. And if you live in Philly, don't move. Yeah, that's great. Go birds. Will there be a change in the length and frequency of seasons?

There will be. Yeah, there will be. Actually, I just remember that there will be a change in the frequency and the length of seasons. We are one of our goals going forward is to be a lot more transparent with y'all about like when the seasons are coming back in that, like, I don't think we've done a super good job of that in the past. And then you are all just like sad because the season is gone and DMing us

like when more gossip and like, I don't want you to have a conniption fit. So we're going to try and be more transparent about that for our radio Topia contract. We are contracted for 24 episodes per contract year. Our current plan is to give you two, count them, one, two, 10 episode. Ooh, more episodes, two, 10 episode seasons, which gets us a 20 and then four bonus episodes of some kind. So maybe that'll be another telephone episode.

Maybe it'll be a live show. Who knows what it could be. Sprinkled in. And sprinkled in. In addition to the monthly episodes that will not stop coming. Yeah, Alex and I have had a lot of conversations, especially going into this process of like negotiating our contract with radio Topia and deciding how much we want to do about like, where is the limit of shows we can make good

and not burn out? Well, to be clear, we kind of hit that limit like halfway through season three. And I don't know if listeners can tell, but like probably the whole ladder half of season three, like it was a fever dream for both of us. Yeah, we were not in a good place. I would say mentally or physically. And like in full honesty, we weren't. I don't think either of us was.

And we pushed ourselves to put out that third season because we knew that you wanted it and we wanted to make it for you. And we did not really do the math well to figure out if we would be able to manage that. And like, I don't want us to end up in that situation again. There are a lot of things that we want to do this year like tour, like make cool, funny episodes, like try some new things in a production standpoint that like we have to protect our creative space to do that.

All of that sounds really ominous. What it actually means is that instead of getting 24 episodes in a 12 month period, you will be getting 20. That is the math we did is we figured out that if we do two, 10 episode seasons instead of three, eight episode seasons, it will be a hundred percent easier for us. Yeah, OK, I don't think there's any more questions, Alex. I don't think anybody else had any other questions. I don't think no other questions.

Nobody has been DMing me every day, DMing the podcast every day, tweeting at us. I don't think anybody actually cares when the fourth season is coming back. I think everyone is just waiting really patiently and feeling like it doesn't matter to them. Is that has that been your experience? Do you think we should tell them when we are coming back? I mean, yeah, I think we should tell them. We know now, we know now.

So we're going to tell them to our credit. We have been saying this whole time we will tell you when we know. And now we fucking know. So season four will be a 10 episode season, which will premiere on April 5th. And we will see you then. Yeah, it won't even be an April Fool's Day prank. You promise? Yeah, I don't have the energy for that.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Normal Gossip. This is obviously a strange and rare episode of business updates. If you listen to this and thought, wow, I love Phoebe Bridgers, I would love to support the Normal Gossip podcast. You can do that at supportnormalgossip.com. I'm Kelsey McKinney, and this is Alex to John Laughlin. And you did not hear this from us. No, you didn't.