HollYwood eYes shows iN podcast market
LOS ANGELES: Four years after put podcasts on the mainstream map with a twisty true crime murder story, Hollywood is rushing to embrace the audio format with everything from fictional thrillers to game shows.
At the same time, TV and movie producers are making their own podcasts, which are fast and relatively inexpensive to produce, in a search for the next breakout hit in a rapidly expanding crossover market.
Podcasts like and are already making their way to television with adaptations of and dozens of others underway.
“It’s the wild wild west for podcasts.” said R.J. Cutler, producer of the
TV series and documentary. He recently launched his first podcast, the satirical
Portable and mostly free to download on smartphones, the number of Americans listening to podcasts has surged 35% in the last three years as content expands beyond radio shows on platforms, according to a study by consumer data company statista.com. It’s the 56% who have never listened that has attracted Endeavor Audio, a new unit of Hollywood talent and deal-making agency WME/Endeavor.
Endeavor Audio connects established producers with podcast makers and vice versa with a mission to develop, market and monetize the genre. That includes formats like game shows and competitions, said Moses Soyoola, senior vice president of Endeavor Audio, which is working on a podcast series with television’s franchise creator Dick Wolf.
Ad spending on podcasts are forecast to almost double to $659 million in 2020 from $313 million in 2017, according to a study in June by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Soyoola said advertisers pay at least $20 for each 1,000 listeners a podcast gets. A premium podcast can charge more than $100 for every 1,000 listeners. Paranormal mystery
is a prime example of the potential. Season 2 of the podcast was released this month, a prequel novel is coming in November, and a TV show starring Jessica Biel is in development for Facebook Watch. To be sure, successful podcasts don’t always translate into visual hits. The TV version of “Alex, Inc,” about a man who starts his own company, was canceled earlier this year after just one season. And the 2015 deal to adapt
whose first season was downloaded globally some 240 million times according to the makers, is stuck in the development stage with directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Yet as players like Apple, YouTube and Facebook expand original content to compete with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and traditional networks, a good track record in one medium is a safer bet than something untried.