01:08:19 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Josh Lindgren, Sean Frank
[01:08:19] S1: Let me tell you about Codex. Codex is a powerful workspace for getting work done with AI agents. Whether you're writing code, analyzing data, creating content, or automating business workflows, Codex helps you move projects forward from start to finish. And we have Thibault joining in just forty minutes or thirty minutes to give us the update on 5.6 and what's going on in Codex, of course. But first, we have Josh Lindgren from CIA. He's the head of podcast development here to give us an update on all things. [01:08:44] S0: Suited up. Podcasting. Suited up. [01:08:46] S1: Looking good, Josh. How are you doing? Welcome to the show. [01:08:49] S7: I'm doing well. You guys are always looking good as well. [01:08:52] S0: Yes. Great to have you on the show. Great to hang in France just a couple weeks ago. [01:08:56] S6: That's great. [01:08:58] S0: Give an introduction on yourself, how and when you got into podcasts, and then we'll talk about where we are now. Yeah. [01:09:05] S7: Yeah. It's been a wild ride. Twelve years for me, started representing podcast twelve years ago. I was a music agent at a boutique music agency in Seattle booking tours for indie rock bands. And I used to listen to podcasts all day while I was routing tours and had the idea that maybe podcast could have agents. Started cold emailing podcasters and was surprised to discover that there was a business there for me. [01:09:30] S1: Mhmm.
01:09:30 · John Coogan, Josh Lindgren
[01:09:30] S1: Mhmm. [01:09:31] S7: And very surprised in that time to discover that there wasn't really much of a business infrastructure yet. Mhmm. So there was a lot of opportunity. Spent the next several years signing podcasters within that agency. And then in 2018, I met with 11 different agencies and ended up joining CAA, started the podcast department here. And we have a great team of people focused on podcasts. The podcast department is within our greater creators department that works with all kinds of different creators like yourselves. [01:10:02] S1: And [01:10:04] S7: it's been a really wild ride. When I got into podcasting, the estimates I've seen is that the global podcast advertising industry was worth about $45,000,000. And Owl and Co. Has put out a report that last year it was worth 9,200,000,000. So, you know, I I expected there was gonna be a lot of growth in this space. It seemed like a great growth area. Thank you. But I never expected this level of growth. I mean, it's been a really tremendous wild ride.
01:10:04 · Josh Lindgren, Jordi Hays
[01:10:04] S7: it's been a really wild ride. When I got into podcasting, the estimates I've seen is that the global podcast advertising industry was worth about $45,000,000. And Owl and Co. Has put out a report that last year it was worth 9,200,000,000. So, you know, I I expected there was gonna be a lot of growth in this space. It seemed like a great growth area. Thank you. But I never expected this level of growth. I mean, it's been a really tremendous wild ride. [01:10:30] S0: I had started working with some podcasts around the same time a little bit later, I think. You were 2014? Is that Yes. Yeah. So I I probably started working with with podcasts in, like, 2016. Mhmm. But even then, I would meet a show that today was probably, like, a 10,000,000 a year business, and they would have zero revenue. But they would have this like rabid fan base and maybe they'd have one sponsor which was just someone in the audience that reached out and was like, hey, can I send you some some free stuff if if you talk about it? And they'd be like, okay. And then and then, you know, fast forward to today, those kind of properties are are super valuable. What what are you seeing what are you seeing now? Like, what's coming down what's coming down the pipeline, net net new shows? You know, we've covered a lot of the evolution of, you know, formats, how podcasting obviously interacts with with live streaming in our case. But what do you see coming down the pipeline?
01:11:30 · Josh Lindgren
[01:11:30] S7: Yeah. I mean, you know, it's been clear for a few years now that video is gonna be a bigger part of podcasting, and we're really seeing that come to fruition in the past year. It's like a major inflection point right now. Now to be clear, like, it's not that video is replacing audio. Both can continue to exist together. There was a recent study from Edison that said that the majority of podcast consumers do both. Sometimes they do audio, sometimes they do video, which that's my experience. I live in LA, I have a long commute. And so I I like listening to podcasts in the car, but I also like watching podcasts at home and in the office. You know? But it it's created a really interesting moment in podcasting where there are some things that are fundamentally different about digital video versus digital audio. For one thing, advertising looks really different. Right? The ways you can integrate with brands looks very different versus the audio space tends to be much more dominated by your thirty second pre rolls and your sixty second mid rolls and so on. The video space tends to have a lot more custom integration with advertisers. And it also discovery looks really different in video. Mhmm. You know? In the audio space, in terms of breaking stuff through, there's a lot more spend that is required in sort of the same way that you might market a TV show or a movie. Right? Whereas in video, there's a lot more clipping. There's really seamless integration into social media. And so if you're trying to break through with a new podcast in 2026, you should have a really strong reason why you're not a video podcast or else you should probably have a video podcast.
01:13:02 · John Coogan, Josh Lindgren
[01:13:02] S1: Yeah. Somewhat related to the video podcasting thing, a big trend out of Cannes that Colin Samir and others were talking about was that many podcasts are sort of reformulating as shows. We we we we've done this where we think of this more as a show than a podcast because it's a live show. There's a lot else going on. Of course, like, it's available as a podcast. And then you also think of, like, Subway Takes. It's Emmy nominated now, and it's a it's very much a show, but it's also an interview that's sort of like a podcast. And I'm wondering how you're perceiving, the definitions changing, evolving, just this idea of what does it actually take to, to deliver a show as opposed to just a podcast in the modern era. [01:13:49] S7: Yeah. I I'm with you. I think that's the right thinking to not try and put it too much in a box. Right? Because the lines are just getting so blurry between what's a podcast, what's a TV show, what's a series of reels, right, what's a YouTube channel Mhmm. In your case, a livestream. [01:14:03] S1: Yeah.
01:14:03 · John Coogan, Josh Lindgren
[01:14:03] S1: Yeah. [01:14:05] S7: I do think that the word podcast is a bit of utility for me just because it's sort of like I know it when I see it. Right? Sure. People talk about podcasts. People like podcasts. Yeah. But, I mean, truly, the line is really blurry. I mean, you know, I I think we talked a bit in Cannes about Oprah's podcast, which she's moved over to Amazon. Right? And, I mean, Oprah is the queen of television. Right? And and this is where she's putting her energy. And, you know, who who's to say, like, if you're watching it on Prime Video versus if you're watching it on your phone, is it a podcast if you're watching it one place and it's a TV show if you're watching it the other? I mean, I don't know if it necessarily matters, but I think that it's an amazing time to be a media consumer because media is meeting us where we are. [01:14:47] S1: Yeah. Talk about the landscape of these, podcast distribution deals that are happening. Pat McAfee with ESPN. Oprah, you mentioned, is doing one. There's, Netflix is entering the space. Spotify went with Joe Rogan very early on. Some of these platforms just sort of get the video podcast for free. Like, YouTube is, you know, the default for most creators. But what are the larger companies looking for when they want to go deeper with a creator who might just not be ready to graduate from the self serve options, or maybe they don't have a self serve option if it's a linear TV or a platform like Netflix?