Inside The LA Times's podcast strategy

06/04/20 • 40 min

The Business of Content with Simon Owens

The New York Times gets a lot of credit within the media industry for the blockbuster success of its podcast The Daily, but The Los Angeles Times was also an early pioneer within the medium. Its narrative true crime podcast Dirty John generated over 30 million downloads and was adapted into a TV show for Bravo. The newspaper has since gone on to launch ambitious shows chronicling the criminal trial of Bill Cosby and the famous murders committed by Betty Broderick.

I recently interviewed Clint Schaff, VP of strategy and development, about the paper’s podcast productions. He walked me through how shows get made, their monetization strategy, and his views on selling IP to TV studios and Spotify.

Previous Episode

How a pencil artist generated millions of views on YouTube

Jono Dry is the type of artist whose work is sold in European galleries by art dealers. He only finishes a few pieces a year, and most of his purchased pieces likely reside in the private collections of rich people, closed off from the public.

But that hasn’t stopped millions of people from viewing his work. That’s because Jono films himself drawing each piece and uploads gorgeous time-lapse videos to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. On YouTube alone these videos have generated over 8 million views, and his success on social media has transformed him into a world-famous artist.

I recently interviewed Jono about how he built his following and in what ways he’s been able to leverage that following to advance his career.

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His video game song adaptations generated millions of views

I first discovered Gil Assayas, the musician otherwise known as GLASYS, when one of his YouTube videos made it to the front page Reddit. His amazing keyboard set up and sophisticated musical adaptations of well-known video game soundtracks caught the attention of several gamer subcultures, who then shared his videos widely across social media.

I recently sat down with Gil and asked him about how he grew his fanbase and in what ways his viral videos have translated into career success.