The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Why Podcasts Are the New TV, Careers After 50, and Divorce With Kids

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Scott Galloway breaks down why podcasts are becoming the new TV, offers practical advice for navigating career disruption later in life, and reflects candidly on divorce with kids — including the lessons he learned the hard way. Want to be featured in a future episode? Send a voice recording to [e-mail], or drop your question in the r/ScottGalloway subreddit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are we dumber than we used to be? Maybe. Or maybe we're just wrong about what it means to be smart. Our brains evolved for social interactions. You know, so when you're like talking to your friend next to you in the math class, that is actually what our brains are for. This week on Explain It to Me from Vox, our crisis of stupid and how to get our brains back.

New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Office. with Property. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, picketack entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. If you'd like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to Office Hours of Property Media.com. Again, that's Office Hours of Property Media.com. Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode. Question number one. First question comes from Solar Surfer 7. Right on, dude. On Reddit, they say, I just had an epiphany that podcasts are moving

to video, not because people want to watch full-length podcasts on video, because it gives you short clips that can go viral on apps, including TikTok and Instagram, and thus landing more subscribers. Do you agree with this? Take, have you seen a higher growth on the podcast after moving to video format? Thanks for the question. So just some data. According to Spotify, 42% of podcast listeners discover new shows through social media channels like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. So Word, the clips on video platforms are a fantastic means of marketing. That's reason enough to do it on its own, but it's not the primary reason. And I'll come back to that. Consumer surveys show that

almost half of users on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube shorts watch podcasts through short clips. The same study found that one-third of consumers engaged with podcasts by watching video clips on social media. An industry report by Edison Media found that 80% or four-fifths. Isn't that amazing I can do that in my head? 80% four-fifths? What a guy! What a guy!

Anyways, some Genzi podcast listeners discovered new shows via TikTok. But even beyond short clips, there's also evidence that people are engaging more. more with podcasts visually. Roughly half of Americans age 12 and over 51% have watched a podcast. Spotify reports that one or three U.S. monthly active users engage with video podcasts. Okay. Every year I like to have for the business a strategic mandate. Our strategic mandate in 2025 was the same as 2024, and that was in one word, video. There are 600,000 podcasts that put out weekly content, 1.5 million podcasts in total. I bet the top 600 are the only ones that are economically viable. I'm not even sure that 500th most listened to podcasts is economically viable.

The top 100 are amazing businesses because once you get beyond a certain point, the gross margin or the incremental revenue was almost all margin. These things aren't that expensive to produce. If you look at the top 100 podcasts, you're going to see or have seen just in every 12 or 24 months, 50 rotate in and 50 turnout. Essentially, the problem with Hollywood is the following. It's the means of production has become too expensive. And that is, if you want to film, series, and I'm doing this right now. We're doing this original scripted drama on Netflix. Jesus Christ, between unions, talent, the caterer, the foam supervisor, the food design, oh my God, it is a lot of money. And I'll use Colbert as an example. I think Stephen Colbert is one of the

great talents in media. His show supposedly costs 100 million to produce and make 60 million because fewer and fewer people are watching late night television. The amount of people watching late night television is off by 90%. People aren't watching linear TV. They're not watching the clips as much. Actually, that's not true. They'll watch the best 60 seconds of any of those shows. But that's not enough to sustain the business model. Basically, the business model has been starched by those video players you're talking about. And they do get something back in terms of what you're talking about in terms of marketing. But the churn in and out is the arbiter of that churn is who has the best video game. And this is what's happening. Colbert will eventually move to podcasting.

all of the band, the union players, will probably get on the arc to podcasts. And he'll be able to have an amazing podcast, not doing 100 million, but maybe doing 10 or 20 million, with six people instead of the 200 people that currently work on a show. And it's going to make, you know, 10 million and profits off that 20 million because he's such an extraordinary talent. But basically, what are podcasts? Podcasts are 80% of television shows in terms of product and production quality for 10% of the price. That's what podcasts are. And that is a really well-done podcast, feel like television,

but they don't need to make $40, $60, $100 million to be sustainable. They need to make a lot less because the means of production are so less expensive. And let me get, I'll use pivot an example. Pivot is between our audio listens about $300,000 and our video views, 100,000, so 400,000 impressions. We'll get a blended, you get a lower CPM for the video views. Audio creates more intimacy and advertisers like it more. We get a blended CPM probably about 30 to 40 bucks, 45 bucks. For the audio, CPM's 30 bucks for the video. So call it blended of 40. CNN right now is getting 15. Why? The average age, I think of a CNBC viewer is now well into their 60s. So what do we have? What's the advantage of podcast or a pivot? We have, whereas cable news,

30% are in the core demographic. That is 25 to 54-year-olds who advertisers love because they're stupid and they buy high margin range rovers and coffees and go to movies still. They love those. And 30% of cable news now is in the core demo. 70% of listeners to pivot are in the core demo. So if we do 400,000, we're getting about 280,000 in the core demo. The average CNN program is lucky if it gets 40 or 60,000 people in the core demo. So what are you getting here? You're getting the great taste of more people in the core demo, which advertisers love, with the low calories of a much lower means of production. So if Pivot does $12 to $14 million this year in top line revenue, which would be a modestly successful TV show, not a successful one, but the difference is

eight or ten of that will drop to the bottom line. Now we've got to pay box some money to sell our ads. But as you can imagine, it's a very, very profitable business. But it's a little bit like the NBA in the sense that there's a couple million kids and not playing high school basketball. And I think only five are still in the NBA after three years. And they make an extraordinary amount of money, but your chances are like almost the same, like getting to go into space someday. Podcasting somewhat similar. The numbers I use, the algae I use is crew at UCLA. There's been 2,800 oarsmen and oars women in the history of UCLA crew. I was one of them. Thank you very much. Easily the worst varsity athlete in the history of UCLA. But anyways, 2,800 people have road crew at UCLA.

10 have gone to the Olympics. So what is that? Approximately 0.3%, conservatively, not conservatively, generously, 0.1% of podcasts make money. So at UCLA rowing, I was three times more likely to go to the Olympics than I was to have an economically viable podcast. So mama, don't let your kids grow up to be podcasters. If you want to get into podcast and do it, but use it as a means or start out initially thinking of it as a means of marketing another core product. For example, our videos initially at L2 were meant to raise awareness among our client base. We did an amazing job of them, and it ultimately led to a newsletter that we turned into a media company, see about property media. But right now, if you're going into podcasting, you should be doing it for personal consumption or to market another

product because the economics or the likelihood of breaking through to the top 100 are again, sort of like your kid may be an amazing basketball player, which means there's like a one in five thousand chance that he will end up with a sustainable income in the NBA and podcasting is somewhat similar. Anyways, the clips, yeah, fantastic marketing, but generally speaking, more broadly speaking, podcasts are becoming the new TV with a strong audio overlay, so we're all trying to raise

or the smart ones are investing more and more in video. You're going to see more and more podcasts on TV screens, and you're going to see more visual graphics, production values, lighting, all that stuff, to try and level up. Anyways, thoughtful question, thank you. Question number two also comes from Reddit. Dwen Dolvac asks,

With the average tenure of a job being about four years, how can those of us in our early to mid-50s who have been impacted by layoffs, but cannot you retire convince companies to take a chance on us? If I hear you're overqualified once more, I'm going to shove a TikTok of some millennial Snapchat. Yeah, so the way you're feeling is real. There's some data here. The job, stability, and the disruption is being felt by people, I don't we say older mid-career. A major 2018 study found that more than half of workers in the early 50s who had long-term jobs were laid off after age 50. many other struggle to find steady work again or saw the pay drop by 50% or more for years.

So first off, ask yourself a question, can you not get a job or can you not get the job that you expect that you should have right now? You might have to take a cut in pay boss. Even college educated workers were hit at similar rates in the risk cuts across education levels. And just back to the notion

that can you get a job or can you just not get a job you want, no one ever thinks they're overpaid. Nobody at Prop G thinks they're overpaid. And let me tell you, they are. I'm on AI. I try to pay people, between 30 to 50% above market, but no one thinks they're overpaid.

They just say, oh, okay, I won't leave. But no one sits around and says, hey, mom, I'm overpaid. No one ever feels overpaid. And just statistically, and I can prove this to you, 50% of the time in your career, you were overpaid, and 50% you were underpaid, and almost 0% of the time,

whereas it calibrated exactly. And going to the next job, the natural kind of progression or instinct is, oh, I should make the same amount or more at my next job, maybe not. I think the workplace has become increasingly agist as I sit here with a swollen face from my just having my eyes done. And it's really strange. A lot of times when people like my content, they reference my age as a means of being critical. And I remember at L2, I hired a systems engineer who was, I think in his 40s or 50s. And the vibe was, dude, what happened? I think you're in

technology and you're a male and you're in their 40s or 50s and you're not running the place. you're not already a multimillioner, the general view is like, oh, my God, you fucked up. I think you're just going to see a boom in cosmetic surgery and Botox and all that shit amongst men who are feeling the same ages and women have had to endure for a long time. You're in a tough spot. I don't want to sugarcoat it. And I also think that the hard part about looking for a job in your 50s is you're not willing to eat as much shit. My companies right now would be more successful if I were more aggressive.

and less arrogant. And my arrogance has been a bit of a function of my age, and that is, I think I could go out and get a million dollars in incremental advertising if I was willing to go have dinner or not play golf, but socialized with ad buyers or brands or Samo's retail to me all the time. Let's get together. I'm like, I don't want to hang out with you. I'm going to hang out with my kids. And I don't feel, I don't do pre-calls. I don't take advantage in 90, I know I'm, I know I'm boasting right now, but it's true. I don't take advantage of 98% of the opportunity is thrown my way, because I'm at a point in my life where I'm like, I'm just not willing to hang out with some 35 or 40-year-old that I don't want to hang out with. I find that the key to getting

a job is how social you are. Study done at Google, they put out a job opening, 200 CVs within like 60 minutes. They shut it down. They bring in the 20 best candidates. And 70% of the time, the person they end up hiring has an internal advocate. So, one, a boss, if you're in your 50s, it doesn't matter from your 50s or your 20s, the advice you would give your 22-year-old self, you got to make a bunch of calls, you got to get out a big spoon and eat shit, call people you don't want to call,

follow up, which sucks when you're older, which means you're bothering people that don't want to hear from you, be willing to ask other people for help, reach out for copies, hey, do you know anyone I'm looking, but also be as social as possible. Because what I have found

is that when I hear from a friend that they're looking, that my intent I go up and I start trying to, I need to do a better job of this, of identifying potential operational, opportunities for them. When I see them recently and they call me and say, hey, do you know anyone at Salesforce? I'm interested in this position. I'm more inclined to return the email or leverage one of my contacts to try and help them. And, you know, it's like finding a, finding a boyfriend or a girlfriend

or friends or it's like kind of like finding a job. It's a little bit, it's a lot of it is serendipity, and you want to create serendipity by putting yourself in a position around as many other mammals as possible. So it sucks to be in the position where I'm sure you've been good at what you did. You think at this point your momentum and your skills would open doors. I found even the most robust economies, it's never easy to get a job. But I think you have to do whatever it is to make yourself feel, you know, build your self-esteem. Because every day boss, every night, you got to write down a list of three or six things you're doing the next day when you grab that spoon to eat shit. Emailing people, going on LinkedIn, going out, networking. I do just think it's a numbers game. I don't

think there's a silver bullet here. Also, some of the ageism you might be feeling, some of it's real, but some of it's also probably self-inflicted, and that is, it's probably not as bad as you think. You're just starting to get self-conscious about it. Unfortunately, you're in a bad part of the cycle. The way you describe the labor market right now is no hire, no fire. Companies, the whole AI tsunami of layoffs is not really happened outside of tech, who are the early adopters here. Does that presage more layoffs? Probably. But that's the whole. But also firms aren't hiring because they want to see what happens with the economy. It's like the housing market right now.

There's just a lack of transactions. There's very few buyers and very few sellers. And the labor market right now is kind of no hire, no fire. So, yeah, it's bad, but it's been worse. And again, I just go back to the same things. Get ready to eat shit and be as social as possible. And also, I literally, when I was younger, used to stand in front of a mirror and say, I know I can make someone happy, you know, because I was constantly single and really wanted a girlfriend.

I know I can add value to a company. I was constantly starting companies failing. I know I can add value to a company. You know, I was always trying to like manifest and tell myself that I had value. And I think that, I think that's really important. And also, if you're feeling any anxiety, action absorbs anxiety. Write down a list and just start sending out emails and making appointments and calling on people. Sorry for the word, Sally. out here. Thanks for the question. We'll be right back after a quick break. Support for the show comes from IM8. If you're looking for a daily all-in-one wellness drink that gives your body the support it needs, you might want to try IM8. It was co-founded by David Beckham

and crafted with insight from experts at Mayo Clinic, Cedar Sinai, and a former NASA chief scientist. I have tried IM8. I've been taking it every day. It makes me feel good. It makes you feel fresh. I feel hydrated. I feel good to go for the day. So I am loving my experience so far. You can feel your best self every day with IM8. You can go to IM8He.com slash profg and use code ProvG for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. That is I am number eight, H-E-A-L-T-H dot com slash profg. Code ProvG for a free welcome kit, five free travel Sessions plus 10% off your order, IM8health.com slash profg, code profg. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

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making it easier and faster to find top candidates. That's LinkedIn.com slash prof to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Support for the show comes from boot.dev. So you want to learn code? The good news is that there are endless tutorials and classes that will teach you. The bad news is that a lot of them can be pretty boring. And when you're bored, chances are you're not.

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annual plan. That's boot.dev and use code the prop G to get 25% off your entire first year on the annual plan. Welcome back onto our final question. Hey, Scott, I'm a big fan of years. Thanks for all the insight and information and entertainment. I'm reaching out because I'm in my early 40s and I've heard you talk about how this is a really hard time of your life. And I agree. I'm about to enter a divorce. We have a young child and it's a lot of grief and sadness and just confusion. And I think that you've been divorced and you've got kids and just lay it on me.

What should I know? What would you have told yourself as you were starting to cross the Rubicon? Thanks so much and hope to hear from you. First boss, I'm sorry. I can just hear on your voice how sad you are. And let me give you bad news and good news. The bad news is you're in for a rough ride for at least you think you feel better after 12 months. I found after my divorce, I didn't really start feeling normal again until after 24 months.

And maybe you need to double that because you have kids. I didn't have kids when I got divorced, and I think kids just are, I would imagine, rub salt in the wound. So there's just no getting around it. This is a shit sandwich. And you should be able to mourn. And I would lean on your friends and talk openly about it and feel the sadness and the grief. But also recognize you're going to wake up, I don't know, six, 12, 24 months, maybe 36 months. You're going to like, oh, I kind of feel normal again.

Like, I'm okay again. Okay, so just some thoughts. The first is, and this comes from experience as a child. divorce parents. Whatever you do, do not weaponize the kids in the divorce. Oftentimes in divorce, there's a lot of anger on both sides or on one side. And it's very tempting to weaponize the kid. No, you're late. Don't pick the kid up. Complaining about your ex-spouse to the kid. This is no joke what happened to me. Let's bring this back to me. My mom used to tell me when my dad would come pick me up every other weekend when he was still living in L.A. Tell your father. I was eight. Tell your father if the

child support check isn't here by Tuesday, I'm calling his boss and telling him that he's a deadbeat dead. I would digest my entire stomach the entire weekend knowing I had to tell my dad this, and I would finally wait to the last five minutes before he dropped me off. And I'd tell him, my dad would fucking freak out and say, tell that bitch, I'm not sending the check. And I'd have to walk back into my $200 apartment with my mom and Tarzanah in the Valley and say, dad said, tell the bitch that he's not sending child. I mean, it was just, I mean, my parents had a lot of good qualities, but sophistication understanding the nuance of divorce and kids was not one of them. Do not weaponize your kids. And even going beyond that, I think, I don't know if you have a daughter or a son, I guess it

doesn't really matter, but especially for sons, I think one of the best things you can do for sons, especially sons, is treat their mom really well. I think it just sends the right signal around their approach toward women. You know, I really try to defer and show a lot of respect for my son's mom. And I never, I always have her back, even quite frankly, and I think she gets it wrong, and constantly talk her up to her kids. And by the way, I think the same is true in divorce. I think that you are always complimentary and supportive. And even when it hurts, even maybe when it's not true, of talking up their mom and showing a great deal of respect, kids remember. And unfortunately, what happens, unless you're doing the whole co-parenting thing, Austin, I think they call it nesting now,

where they have the kids stay in one house and the parents rotate through the house, you have to resources to do that. I don't know if you're doing that or if it's logistically possible. But oftentimes what happens is the parent who has primary custody becomes sanctified. Think dad's the bad guy. Sometimes it can go the opposite way because dad is scarce and he gets romanticized. But usually it's, one is the bad guy and one's the saint because they have trouble processing just what the fuck happened and think there must be a victim and there must be an oppressor here. So hopefully you and your wife have come to an accommodation that it said, okay, what is our first priority here? Our first priority is to ensure that our kids are healthy, emotionally stable, and feel a source of love and support and consistency from us, both of us. What does that mean? It's not only about our relationship with them, it's about our relationship with each other. And let me know if there's anything I can do, but I need you to do it as well. We need to be model parents post-divorce. And what does that mean? It's showing love and affection for our kids, but it's showing a great deal of respect and generosity for each other. Because there's just no way to get past

the trauma or not forcing the kids to sanctify or demonize one or both of you if for whatever reason you give in to the hurt and anger of a divorce. I do remember I demonize my father because he did in fact leave and he was financially very, very difficult with me and my mom. He immediately went on to upper middle class. We immediately dove to the lower middle class and I was in for a long time. But I also as I got older, realized that he tried. Just remember that everything you do right now. Everything, every little thing, whether it's when you drop them off, my dad would drop me off. My mom wouldn't come out to the car because she didn't want to see his car. I would have to walk to the front of my apartment complex alone because she didn't want to see his car. That's how bad it was. They will

remember when they're older, everything you did and everything you didn't do. And how you handle, there's kind of moments of truth. People remember how people behave and stressful, emotionally charged situations. And just keep in mind, the next 12 months, your kids are are going to have a memory of your behavior to a greater extent than the following 12 months. Anyways, I'm going to try and summarize here. One, I'm really sorry. This is a shit show, especially with kids. It's ugly.

It's awful. There's no getting around it. You are going to get past us. You are going to get passes. Half of people who get married end up divorced. This is nothing new. Nothing new. Two, do not ever weaponize the kids.

That's the easy shit. What's harder is demonstrating affection to the extent you can respect and admiration for your ex, even when it really hurts and you have to swallow hard. And also just keep in mind every ounce of incremental effort you make with your kids now, they're going to remember. They're going to remember. But let me just circle back to, I think it was point number two. Trust me on this brother, at some point you're going to wake up and you think you're going to think,

you know what, I feel okay. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to office hours atprofitimedia.com. That's office hours at profitechemy.com. Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our associate producer is Laura Gner. Cammy Rieke is our social producer. Jee Rose is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropG pod from ProfG Media.