The Ringer is officially a podcast site
And, you know what? It doesn't stink.
Good morning.
That’s right! Whether you wanted it or not, you’re getting another post from me this week.
Let me lead off with a correction. In Wednesday’s send, I mistakenly said that Hearst’s new CEO hire came from TikTok. What I meant to write is that their new CMO was hired from TikTok. I apologize for the oversight.
OK, lets get to it.
Because its Spotify Wrapped season (top song “P.F. Sloan” by Jimmy Webb; top artist Randy Newman; 61,000 minutes, or 63 days, of music listened to) it's only fitting that I cover The Ringer’s homepage redesign.
You may be asking yourself: What do those two things have in common? Well, Spotify owns The Ringer and what The Ringer’s new website makes perfectly clear is that Spotify sees The Ringer as a content marketing surface to get people to use Spotify.
Now, it's no secret that I live a depraved life that has led me on a near 20 year journey following the work of Bill Simmons and those in his orbit.
Yes, I spent a lot of time on the /r/billsimmons subreddit and many other Ringer associated subreddits. (Yes, even /r/crheads.)
Yes, it's true that the internet probably peaked for me in 2012-2013 when Grantland was at the peak of its powers.
(Was my dream of being published on Grantland crushed when the horse I’ll Have Another bowed out of running in The 2012 Belmont Stakes, thus resulting in a piece I wrote about the importance of the race being killed? Yes.)
Yes, it's true that I probably spend an unhealthy amount of time listening to Ringer podcasts.
But you know what I don’t do and haven’t done for a long time? Go to The Ringer website with any regularity to read articles.
Instead, I go directly to Spotify to listen to every new episode of The Rewatchables, Philly Special, The Watch, The Big Picture, The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Town, The Press Box (Thursday eps only!), and The Ryen Russilo Podcast (less so these days).
It turns out, I’m not alone. This is a screengrab from a subreddit dedicated to The Big Picture podcast.
I actually used The Ringer as an example at work recently to illustrate how hard it is to create a definition for a “loyal” visitor. T
here are people who are loyal to The Ringer and who help generate ad revenue by religiously listening to every episode of multiple podcasts—but they never go to the website.
I mean, I’m one of those people. I’ve listened to days worth of Ringer podcasts this year. I spend so much of my idle phone time reading posts on Reddit communities dedicated to individual podcasts and even individual staff members. Yet, I hardly go to the actual website for The Ringer.
Spotify must realize this. The website, in their eyes, is probably a good vehicle for some extra display dollars as well as sponsored content packages.
But it's GREAT as an entry surface for people to listen to popular Ringer podcasts on Spotify and not on other players.
Take a look at this homepage.
Most of those little menu ovals at the top are links to Podcast show pages. And scroll further down on the homepage and look at all of these entry points to podcasts.
Say, you want to take a look at some NBA coverage. Well, this is what the NBA page looks like.
That’s a lot more podcast entry points!
For the record, I think this is a great idea. Most people associate The Ringer with their podcasts over their website or written features at this point. I mean, The Ringer employs Brian Phillips who, in my opinion, is one of the best writers on the internet and he’s barely writing for them. Instead he spent this year creating a podcast about telling lies that I probably won’t even listen to.
I always talk about how websites stink. I think this website is smart because it more closely resembles how people use the internet today. And one of the ways that people use the internet the most these days is through the Spotify app.
It is Spotify Wrapped season after all. How many minutes did you spend listening to podcasts and music this year?
One affiliate quote
“Of course, affiliate revenue is harder to grow these days because everyone is using consumer links (including us) and shopping patterns are shifting back away from pandemic customs. The rise and fall of affiliates also represents the latest example of groupthink in this deeply unoriginal industry, where top executives have been desperately lurching from one failed strategy to another—banner ads, online video, etcetera—all while diluting their once-great brands. Alas, the lack of good solutions simply underscores how challenged the business has become. Companies that don’t publish a lot of original reporting, or employ a lot of star talent, have a harder time convincing consumers to break through the paywall or continually snookering luxury advertisers to spend to get in front of their audience. None of this is easy, but it didn’t have to be this hard, either.”
This is from Lauren Sherman’s The Line Sheet newsletter earlier this week. Sherman had an item about the Hearst layoffs and the current state of their traffic and business. I found this quote particularly helpful in summarizing the current state of mind of anyone working on Commerce content or trying to drive affiliate revenue. And, of course, there is the regular Sherman ruthlessness in assessing the state of the media industry. She ain’t wrong though. Just look at the guide to gift guides that Substack sent out. Everyone’s in it for the affiliate dough.
More links to end your week
My company announced layoffs yesterday.
Seems like things at the Los Angeles Times are really not going well.
At Business Insider, Peter Kafka reports that BuzzFeed’s creditor debt is officially due. It's about $124 million they may not have. They got out of a related jam earlier in the year when they received approval for a stock split to stay listed on Nasdaq. We’ll see what happens this time. Full disclosure: I live with someone who works at BuzzFeed.
Over at Axios, Sara Fischer reported on Amazon’s interest in working with media companies on deals to license content to power the next generation of Alexas.
The Media Copilot took a deeper dive into what licensing news content for Alexa might actually mean.
On The Rebooting Show, Brian Morrissey talked to Sofia Delgado of London’s Metro newspaper about how they increased traffic by publishing less.
On the Grill Room podcast, Dylan Byers talked with Andrew Morse of the Atlanta Constitution Journal about building a new business model for local news and his experience working on CNN+. There’s some great stuff in this one particularly Morse’s articulation of a simple fact: sometimes good strategy runs up against bad timing.
Another Puck podcast link plug: On the Powers that Be podcast, Peter Hamby and Dylan Byers talked about the latest goings on at the Washington Post.
NiemanLab published their annual media predications feature. I liked this one from Ryan Kellett, formerly of Axios and the Washington Post.