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Buzzcast
Lessons From The Celebrity Podcast Graveyard
What determines whether celebrity podcasts succeed or fail, and what can indie podcasters learn from their mistakes? We explore the surprising patterns behind celebrity podcast success stories and the ever-growing celebrity podcast graveyard.
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All right. So Mark Maron, one of the, in my mind, most iconic podcasters, kind of the one who started the whole open, authentic conversations format just announced he's shutting down his podcast. It's 1,500 episodes, he interviewed President Obama in 2015. Kevin and I actually saw him at Podcast Movement and just said they're burned out, they're shutting down the show.
Alban:So it got me thinking, Jordan, because you and I have had these conversations about the celebrity podcast shows, or, as you called it, the celebrity podcast graveyard, and so sometimes shows shut down, but mostly like they really don't last all that long.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:So I did a deep dive.
Jordan:Oh boy.
Alban:And that's what I want to talk about during
Kevin:Are you going to blow our minds?
Jordan:Buckle up.
Alban:Because I was like what's the angle for celebrity podcasts? Nobody really cares about them beyond you know the few people who listen before they shut down. And then I was thinking you know the celebrity podcast, wait, wait, wait.
Kevin:What you're just going to blow past that like that. We all accept that as a true statement. I think nobody cares about celebrity podcasts, except a few people that tune in when they're shutting down.
Alban:The ones that don't catch on. They really just are used as examples of, like, what doesn't work in podcasting.
Jordan:Yeah, that's true.
Kevin:Okay, but like, let's be fair, even celebrity podcasts that don't catch on probably still do way more downloads than a typical podcast, than an average Joe who's just starting a podcast and does it for a couple of years and maybe works up to two 300 downloads per episode, which is really great. Like I don't know.
Jordan:Kevin, it's not about the downloads, it's about retention.
Alban:Let me say it this way Our audience probably doesn't truly care too much about celebrity podcasts. We think that's the Buzzcast audience. Yeah, the Buzzcast audience, the thousand true fans that we have that listen to this show.
Kevin:Right, okay.
Alban:But then I was thinking, you know, for a lot of indie podcasters, what we imagine is holding us back is actually what celebrity podcasters have. You know, we think I had a little more time If I had a budget, if I knew the right production team, if maybe I got a couple high-profile guests, if I knew the right production team, if maybe I got a couple of high profile guests, then I'd be good, then it would all work and it would all fall into place. And I was like that's actually what the celebrity podcasters have. They have teams, they have time because they've been paid to do it. Most of them have famous friends they could invite on the podcast and yet like half of them flop. And so my deep dive was what determines whether or not a celebrity podcast makes it or flops? And then what can we learn as indie podcasters?
Jordan:Love it All right.
Kevin:Okay, I'm buckling up.
Alban:And so we've got a game.
Jordan:Yes, I love games Okay.
Alban:The game is because of our celebrity podcast graveyard, Jordan. We're going to call this podcast hit or closed casket. Is this a hit or did it flop?
Kevin:Closed casket is so open caskets worse. Neither. Neither it's good, but I don't know. It just hit me sideways. Open casket. Can we call it like celebrity, like hit or flop?
Alban:We can we can call it something boring. It's the podcast celebrity podcast graveyard. The celebrities aren't dead, their shows are dead.
Kevin:All right, okay, all right, I'll get in the right state of minds. I just don't like, I don't know. The morbid imagery was not hitting me right.
Jordan:But I can get, just don't think about it. Put it aside, all right, just don't think about it.
Alban:All right, here we go. First, one podcast. Very much, that's what Kevin has to say. Now I'm going to tell you about a celebrity podcast. I'm going to tell you a little bit about it and you guys determine whether or not it was a hit or it was a flop. Number one BTF with Marc Maron, the one we started with, been going for 15 years, kind of kicked off. This like authentic conversations poured into Marc Maron's garage. They had the secret service on his roof. When he had President Obama, he was inducted into the Podcaster Hall of Fame. Podcast hit or I didn't like it very much.
Jordan:I'm going to speak up first. I think that this is a hit just because it has that Apple Silicon Valley beginnings of starting in a garage and then exploding into popularity. I didn't actually listen to it, but I really liked Marc Maron in Glow, which was the women's wrestling show on Netflix. But that's my only experience, so I'm just going to say, because he has that like Silicon Valley trajectory of success, I'm going to say hit hit for me or hit in general Cause.
Kevin:I mean, I know the show was a hit.
Alban:Yeah, this one's to me. I tried to start us off easy. Huge hit. Yeah, huge hit.
Kevin:15 years was like the most popular podcast.
Alban:15 years it was like the most popular podcast at one point. Headliner at the first podcast movement, Kevin and I went to Interviewed the president.
Kevin:Yeah, I mean the only to be perfectly transparent with you the only episode that I listened to from start to finish was the Obama episode. That was it. I tried listening to other episodes and I could never get into it. Not a show for me, but huge hit nonetheless.
Jordan:All right, we did it First, but huge hit nonetheless, all right, we did it First one down All right.
Alban:Podcast number two Dolly Parton's America short run series. Nine episodes deep dive into Dolly Parton's life. She was on the podcast throughout. Telling all these stories won a Peabody award. I think that podcast flopped. You think Dolly Parton flopped?
Kevin:No. I think her podcast flopped. I think Dolly Parton has had a long, historic and wonderfully successful career in almost everything she does except podcasting. What makes you say it flopped, like what I just don't think it got? It didn't get a lot of notoriety. I didn't see a lot of people talking about it. I don't know that it was on the top of any charts for any sustained period of time, you won a. Peabody award.
Jordan:So in my circles it was a major hit. Everyone was talking about it and yeah, it's a limited series that like won an award. I don't know, I saw it everywhere.
Alban:I took this as a hit. I thought it was good. It's a good example of a short run series that was fun, that did something well in a short run and had cultural impact and won awards, and one of the things that stood out to me was that Dolly Parton was really involved. She's in every episode. She's telling interesting stories, it's talking about her cultural impact, but she's actually involved in the show.
Kevin:From what I know about Dolly Parton is that she doesn't do any projects unless she's very involved, like even opening up the Dolly World theme park. I've heard and read stories so I went there and I was impressed with it and then I started doing a little research and it turns out she's very involved in the theme park, from food selection to ride selection, to how they operate, to the like the firework shows they do at the end of the night, like everything, and I think that's part of what makes people who are fans of Dolly fans of Dolly. She's very protective of. It's going to have my name on it. I'm going to be involved and it's going to be done my way to my level of, you know, excellence or whatever.
Jordan:Yeah, she's very like protective of her brand.
Kevin:Yeah, so I'm happy to be wrong about that. I'm glad you two both decided it was a hit.
Alban:All right, New one the low down. Either you know the low down. Washan did the lowdown in 2022. She was going to do bi-weekly cadence, she was going to do bi-weekly shows and she made it 12 episodes. So she made it past kind of that pod fade mark what year was this again?
Kevin:she was probably contractually obligated.
Alban:Well, we will go further and there'll be people who won't even fill out their contracts. So don't worry.
Jordan:What year was this?
Alban:2022.
Jordan:So it was like after she got herself a little bit more together.
Kevin:Yes, this is on her rebound.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:All right 12 episodes.
Alban:I put this in the flop. It started out consistent, it dropped off, it didn't make it past six months and wasn't renewed.
Jordan:Yeah, I think if it wasn't renewed it didn't make it very long and it wasn't like an intentional, like miniseries or limited series. That sounds like a flop to me.
Alban:All right Office ladies Jenna Fisher, Angela Kinsey I'm bringing it early Hit, hit, hit. They've done a show for six years. They're re-watching the Office. Now it's spun out They've won awards. And I didn't know this. Do you know? They're real life best friends. Yeah, I've heard that.
Kevin:So here's another show. This one hits different for me because I don't like listening to them talk about the Office. I'm not interested in all the behind the scenes stuff, but they're funny. They have great personalities. Anytime I hear a clip I listen to it. So I don't subscribe to the show, but I often find myself like stumbling into an episode somehow. Yes, and it's always good.
Alban:So I then contrast this. I found another Office rewatch with a former Office member, Brian, who played Kevin.
Jordan:Yeah, yeah.
Alban:He did his own, called An Oral History of the Office. It didn't pick up and then he was quoted saying something like everyone's got a celebrity podcast. It's too saturated. I don't know, man, your co-host just knocked it. They're still doing it after six years. All right, we can go a little bit faster. We've got more of these Smart still doing it after six years.
Jordan:All right, we can go a little bit faster. We've got more of these Smartless Hit. They had an HBO series. They're on it.
Alban:HBO series picked up Amazon Wondery. They've been doing it for five years. The system, the case of Kevin Keith. Do you guys know who did this show? No, Kim Kardashian in 2022 did eight episodes. Oh, yes, it's kind of like her own serial, talking about a guy who was incarcerated and she believed he was probably wrongfully imprisoned or wrongfully prosecuted. Hit number one on Spotify in his debut but no second season.
Kevin:I did a Peloton workout with Kim Kardashian, and who's the guy who was on that 70s show who also played Steve Jobs in a movie?
Jordan:Ashton Kutcher.
Kevin:Ashton Kutcher yeah, and the whole time they were doing the workout they were talking about her going to law school.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:And I'm assuming this podcast was a result of something that like a case that she was studying in law school or something.
Jordan:Yeah, she's super passionate about prison reform and she actually literally just graduated law school when she posted about that.
Kevin:So yeah for her that little 30 minute run changed my view on Kim Kardashian.
Jordan:She's smart.
Kevin:I just didn't think that she was. I don't know from the just watching the Kardashian show or clips of that show, you don't think that they're super smart. She's very smart.
Jordan:Yeah, she is, and very passionate and empathetic.
Alban:The reason I picked this one is it's an eight episode series. It only made one season, which to me, initially I thought this is going to be in the flop category.
Alban:But Kevin Keith, he has not been nothing's changed with his case. But she got the former governor to say, yeah, I wish I'd pardoned him. It looks like he was wrongfully convicted. So I thought if you move the ball forward on a court case, you get in the win category. Okay, All right, In bed with Nick and Megan. Nick Offerman oh, yeah, yeah. Megan Mullaney yes.
Jordan:National Treasures.
Alban:National Treasures was the podcast to hit. It spawned a whole genre of in bed podcasts. It won an award. The award was Best Cover Art at the UK Podcast Awards in 2020.
Kevin:I'll say that was probably hit. I mean, I know about this show. I didn't listen to it again. I don't listen to any celebrity podcasts, but I do think it was a pretty big show.
Alban:How about this? They shut down during COVID because they couldn't record in person anymore, that's crazy.
Kevin:They both could have tested and still got in bed together.
Alban:I'm like, but aren't they?
Jordan:they're married, they're married in the recording. Yeah, they're married.
Kevin:Oh, then that's, ridiculous they didn't need to do that.
Alban:And then it canceled. I was like, why was this canceled? And they were like, oh no, we couldn't do it in person.
Jordan:I don't know. I've never heard it, I've never heard clips from it, I've never heard anyone reference it. So, though I absolutely adore them as people and as performers, I don't know. I feel like this might be a flop.
Alban:I'm edging on flop I, I, I put it in the flop yeah, okay all right, a couple more and I think we're getting down to some easy ones. Armchair expert hit, major hit yeah though I like this point armchair expert dax. Dax shepherd was not super famous before this. You know he did chips, he'soo.
Kevin:Yeah.
Jordan:What's his wife's name? Kristen Bell.
Alban:Yeah, he's married to Kristen Bell. That's like at least what I knew of him. I don't feel like I knew much about it until he did the show. Now we're getting to some painful ones Renegades Born in the USA. What two celebrities did this show?
Kevin:Barack Obama and Bruce Spring.
Alban:Give me some of the most star power you can get.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:Friends discussing America music and fatherhood that was a flop yeah.
Jordan:I didn't know what the show was about and then when you told me what the topic was, I was like I don't know.
Alban:I think you couldn't have put me more in the bullseye for a podcast that I didn't listen to. Wow, this is exclusive to Spotify. I love Barack Obama. I like Bruce Springsteen. I would be interested to hear about people and how they're patriotic and they want to learn about fatherhood and music, but I didn't even listen.
Kevin:Yeah, yeah.
Alban:And then one that probably wins us a superlative Archetypes, oh.
Kevin:Meghan Markle. That's a flop.
Alban:Meghan Markle did 12 episodes in 2022, and it was a $20 million deal.
Jordan:I forgot who even hosted it, so I'm going to say that's a flop.
Alban:It was Meghan Markle. She did not do well, though she did do better than Prince Harry, who produced zero episodes as part of that $20 million deal.
Jordan:At least she tried.
Kevin:I think there was a big miss. I don't know much about Meghan Markle, but I think Meghan and Harry were hoping that the US audience would be more empathetic to their situation than they were, and it seems like the American people in general sort of sided more with the royal family than maybe they expected.
Kevin:I mean I'm not saying right or wrong or you or somebody else. I'm just saying in general, it felt like the American people were more empathetic to the royal family during that whole debacle than Meghan and Harry. So again, I'm not expressing an opinion, I'm just saying I think that's my opinion about why this show might not have been received as well as it maybe could have been.
Alban:So I went through all of these and then I kind of came up with pretty similar lists and I tried to come up with a few key points and we can all kind of talk about which things fill into each of these. I came up with four things that I think are lessons for indie podcasters, because these are the things that seem to in my mind. I can't whether one was going to be a success or not. Authenticity you know, mark Maron said I don't really know what the show's going to be. Mm-hmm, I don't have to be so tight. I think it's why every single political podcast has failed. Everyone that's run by a politician at least seems to have not done well, and there's a lot more beyond just the Obamas, and I feel like it's probably kind of like this political PR speak like everything's been overpolished. You kind of polish away the authenticity and like the interesting stories and everything's overset.
Kevin:Okay, I mean I can get on board with that. I think when you read that quote from Mark Maron, it reminds me very much of what Joe Rogan is doing today. That has made his podcast probably the largest podcast in history. Which is he like he always says I just want to have an authentic conversation, and sometimes that takes, you know, typically it takes two or three hours to have with somebody, and so when somebody that he wants to have on the show, wants to go through talking points, or wants to put certain things off limits, or wants to get an outline before they do the show or something, he's like that's not what I do, like we're just going to come in and we're going to talk about whatever we're talking about, not going to plan it ahead of time. You can't come in and say, well, this about that, yeah, Authenticity office ladies, their best friends, yeah, just having fun.
Alban:They're talking about this great period of their lives where they did this fun show with other people they liked and they're just enjoying themselves. And even if you're not like the biggest office fan, it's a lot of fun. And I didn't listen to the one that the guy who played Kevin did, but my guess is he's not doing it, you know, as authentically with like a friend and they're excited to share these stories. He's just kind of telling his own stories and it's not going to come off the same way of like, oh, this is a fun dynamic and now I'm back with like two friends. Yeah, okay, all right.
Kevin:Yeah, good point.
Alban:This one is really good for all of the podcasters. Consistency, mm, hmm, just the most common thing throughout this was consistency. Anyone that failed. It was like three episodes in, they're not doing every episode, they're skipping some now and then they're missing recordings and they're like oh, maybe we'll come back for a second season. Never come back for a second season.
Kevin:I do remember that being a big talking point around archetypes. When that released it was a huge promotional PR push. Wasn't it a Spotify exclusive for a while or something? It? Was a huge deal. And then I think they released two or three episodes and then the show went dark for a couple months and the people who did like it were like where is it? And anybody who was coming in late was like okay, I got caught up on the first three episodes. Yeah, that's a bad look.
Alban:And the celebrities. I think part of it is they have busy calendars, they've got lots of opportunities and so they get this big push. They probably get a big bump in the beginning because of their name recognition, but then they're not sticking around, so they go off and do something else. Then that initial excitement drops off and then episodes four through 12 are kind of like oh, this isn't working Might as well, let this go because it's not having the same success that my TV show is having.
Alban:Kevin and I play pickleball and Kevin, your pickleball partner, told me he goes. Oh, you know who you should talk about is Draymond Green and JJ Reddick. They're basketball coach and basketball player at the NBA and they both have had podcasts. And he was like oh, they did a show together about what makes a great podcast. And one of them said it's consistency, 100%. You finish a game, you want to go. You're supposed to do an episode. You don't want to do the episode, you've got to do it. If you don't do it after a while people will say but the show's kind of dead or they're not really invested in it and you drop all the momentum and I was like these are NBA players, nba coach, who are working super hard on their health. They're focused, they're locked in and they're still saying don't do the podcast. We can't be consistent. I thought that was pretty impressive.
Jordan:I mean, that's an athlete's mentality, you know, like you. Just you have to show up every day and do the thing you don't want to do. It's like athletes and military.
Kevin:Yeah, you didn't bring up the new heights podcast in the game, but that would be another celebrity podcast and they were absolutely consistent.
Alban:Yeah, that's a great one. This is okay. Number four we'll skip to this one distribution. So many of the shows that were flops were walled gardens. Yeah, and they're walled gardens for new shows, because there's a lot of walled garden shows that were made exclusive, that actually did okay or did well when they were exclusive, but they were all ones that went exclusive or had some windowing, but they did that after they were a successful podcast. None of them did it beforehand. And so these shows like the Renegades podcast or Archetypes or Amy Schumer did one.
Alban:There's lots of these podcasts that are like Spotify exclusives and Spotify paid a lot of money to get somebody with star power to come do a podcast and then Spotify still had to grow it, but only inside their world, and you notice a few of these shows left saying the reason was we didn't get distribution outside of this small ecosystem, which is what we needed. Trying to launch a celebrity podcast in a specific app was always tough. I think that made it a little bit more difficult.
Jordan:I would like to add a fifth point to this.
Alban:Okay.
Jordan:Okay, my fifth point. What I've noticed from the ones that we deemed to be hits is that the celebrities actually were involved in the podcast.
Jordan:So a lot of the ones that were not hits. They just, you know, delegated all the work to everybody else and they weren't very intentional about it and they were just collecting their paycheck and like, moving on, and I mean Mark Maron, joe Rogan, dax Shepard, the smart list guys like they put in the work to like research, the guests, they are actually like really intentional and passionate about the podcast and why they have the podcast, and so, yeah, I'm going to add that as my, as the fifth one.
Kevin:Yeah, I might not be. It might not be a hundred percent, but I feel like, at least from the shows you mentioned, my recollection of those shows are those were started by the celebrities themselves.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:So, like Dak Shepard, he started his podcast, grew it a little bit and then he did like a deal with somebody right, the smart list guys. They started doing their podcast. They probably like I'm sure they have people to help them Like how do we, you know, record this and how do we host this and that kind of stuff? But they did it themselves. And then they I think they got bought by Amazon or something, or yeah, I don't know.
Jordan:Wondering.
Kevin:They did a deal with somebody wondering Mark Marin definitely did, joe Rogan definitely did, I think even Conan O'Brien. Now I think Conan was like part of Earwolf, but I don't think Earwolf said, oh, let's go seek out Conan, let's go to him. I think Conan had the idea to do a podcast and then maybe they shopped the idea or something. But I think you're right, jordan, it has something to do with them being involved in driving the idea versus a network or a company or somebody going out and seeking celebrities and pitching them on the idea.
Alban:Yeah, the way I wrote this was you need a unique angle. Why are you doing this show? There were times where the show was kind of like it's just a normal podcast, but it was done by a celebrity and there's been so many bad celebrity talk shows over the years. And being a good celebrity does not mean you're going to be a good podcaster. I don't think. If you told me like, out of all these celebrities, some of the best were going to be the guy from Chips or the old Fear Factor host, not A-listers. Some of the A-listers are the ones who come in and can't's show didn't take off. He's just like being a celebrity doesn't make you a great audio talent. It's just a totally different skill set and it shouldn't be surprising to us that celebrities don't always translate into great podcasters. What makes you amazing on film or a really funny comedian is going to be different than the podcasting skill set. Anyway, I thought this was interesting. I was sat there and was researching. There's so, so many more.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:And I didn't want to beat up on them too much, but there's a lot that are like five episodes, 12 episodes, 20 episodes. So maybe the big takeaway is, if you've made it 50 episodes, you've probably outlasted hundreds of celebrity podcasters.
Kevin:Yeah, and that's a good list. So run through the takeaways for indie podcasters again that we can learn from celebrity podcasters.
Alban:One authenticity You've got to be interested in this yourself. Why are you doing it? Are you excited about it? Are you enjoying it? Consistency you want to stick with the podcast week after week, because if you start building some momentum, you want to keep it going. Then we skip to four Distribution matters. So make sure your podcast is available everywhere. Jordan's number five slash. My number three is what's your unique angle? Why are you doing it? Are you going to be engaged with your podcast? You can't outsource everything. You've got to actually have something that you're excited about and a reason why you're doing this show, not just you redoing some of the most popular podcasts out there.
Jordan:Great takeaways. Thanks, Alvin.
