--:-- [Sound of a podcast intro fading out]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Welcome to a special edition of The Journal podcast. We're in Washington, D.C. today on Inauguration Weekend, and we're here to talk about the rise of podcasting and the impact it had on the 2024 election. I'm your host, Ryan Knutson, and I'm joined today by two other podcast hosts, Ben Shapiro and Preet Bharara. Thanks so much for being here.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Great to be here.
--:-- Preet Bharara: Thanks for having us.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So you guys both sit on opposite sides of the political aisle. Ben, you're one of the most well-known conservative voices out there. You were previously editor-at-large of Breitbart. You co-founded The Daily Wire. Now you have one of the top conservative podcasts with The Ben Shapiro Show.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: That's right.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Preet, you are a former U.S. attorney appointed under President Obama. You served as chief counsel for Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. And on your podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet, you also make no secret about your politics.
--:-- Preet Bharara: That's right.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But I want to talk about the thing you have in common, which is that you're both podcasters in the podcast industry. So the 2024 election, as I'm sure you've heard, has been dubbed by some the podcast election. Both candidates spent a lot of time going on podcasts. Trump appeared on at least 20, including the Ben Shapiro show, and Kamala Harris went on at least eight.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: That's right.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So I want to put this question just to both of you. What role do you think this medium played in the 2024 election?
--:-- Preet Bharara: I think it played a huge role. I mean it granted access to – for President Trump, places that he wouldn't have been able to reach before through legacy media without the same sort of filter.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I agree with Preet. I think it was a big mistake for Kamala Harris not to take advantage of that a little bit more.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: [pauses] I think President Trump actually broke through a lot of perceptions about him as a person because in a long-form podcast, you get the opportunity to sort of delve into what people are more. You get past the surface very often.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And for President Trump, I think that was a really, really big thing. Plus, of course, the audience for podcasts is significantly younger than the audience for traditional media.
--:-- Preet Bharara: That's right.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So if you're talking about legacy media, legacy media, if you're talking cable TV, it's probably 50 and up largely at this point. And if you're talking about the podcast industry, it's largely 40 and under.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And I think that one of the big shifts in this election was how younger voters actually moved toward President Trump, a marked number, largely because they were exposed to him in a way that they hadn't been through kind of the short clips and the political framing.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Pri, did you watch Trump – or sorry, did you listen to Trump on any of his podcasts?
--:-- Preet Bharara: I listened to portions of it.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So you'd like to say we have a moment of agreement. On the eve of a new administration. Ben Shapiro and Preet Bharara agree about the power of podcasts.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: It's not new. We didn't have Kamala Harris or Donald Trump on our podcast this past season.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Did you try to get them on?
--:-- Ben Shapiro: We tried to get one of those two on. I figured one of them would have been futile, and it turned out both were futile.
--:-- Preet Bharara: So Joe Rogan and I are bonded forever in that same regard. Kamala Harris wouldn't come on either one of our podcasts, I think probably for similar reasons.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Logistics and timing, you wanted her for three hours, I don't know...
--:-- Preet Bharara: But back in 2020 we had a number of the democratic primary candidates, Pete Buddha Judge notably went on a number of podcasts.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And obviously as everyone knows, goes on media that does not necessarily associate itself with the liberal cause.
--:-- Preet Bharara: I agree with Ben also that you know the intimacy of podcasts, the relationship that people have with the podcast host, whether it's Ben or me or you or anyone else, translates into, I think, a greater intensity of feeling and listenership, not just with the host, but whoever their guest is.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And in the long form, particularly in the very, very long form, it's hard to bullshit who you are.
--:-- Preet Bharara: Pretty much anybody can do it, whether they have half a brain or not.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: No offense to the legacy media on cable, but for six minutes or four minutes, if you're on a panel with other people or three minutes, you can pretty much get away with pretending to say what you think you mean but your staff is giving you talking points on you can't do that if you're an hour with Ben and hopefully you can't do that if you're an hour with me.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And I think it gives people a better sense of who the candidate is and if the candidate is good and allies with what the listenership, putative voters want to hear from a candidate about authenticity and their policy positions well then that's very good if you're not, then it can go in the other direction.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Ben, when you had Donald Trump on your show, what were you hoping to get out of that conversation?
--:-- Ben Shapiro: So the truth is I had seen President Trump the prior week. So on October 7th, he and I went to the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and I brought along a hostage family that has a child who's an American citizen who's still hostage in Gaza.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I wanted to talk to him about that. I wanted to talk about – it was I think two weeks before the end of the campaign. So what the campaign was going to include.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: It was a shorter podcast for what it was. I think it was about a 20-minute interview. If I'd had him there for three hours, we would have talked a lot more, I'm sure, about what it is like to be on the campaign trail. What are his deeper thoughts on issues like trade?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Dig into that.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I think one of the things that makes Trump sort of an interesting podcast guest is that it's not as though he has a thoroughgoing ideology, right? As everyone has noted in this space, President Trump is not an ideologue.
--:-- Preet Bharara: That's right.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: President Trump is a utilitarian pragmatist. And what that means is that he tends to shift and move his positions based on what he thinks will be effective, and that provides him rich fodder for digging.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Now that doesn't mean that people who are deeply ideological are boring. I deeply ideological.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: But in order for somebody ideological to actually be interesting, they have to have thought through all of their positions all the way down to root level so you can have a really interesting discussion about that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I think politicians tend to live in that midspace where they have an ideology, but they haven't thought it all the way down to the bottom.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And so they want to repeat those same five points that you're talking about as opposed to get at sort of the broader conversations that lie at the root of our politics that really are interesting.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: When I had Bred on, we talked about kind of the big issues at the bottom of the iceberg. And that stuff's interesting.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: You can do that. But if you're always at the top of the iceberg, it's very boring.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It's sometimes scary to dive down to the bottom because you don't know what you'll find. You know what it'll do to your views.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: That's why there's not a lot of consistency among a lot of people who are in public office.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There's a, it seems like conservatives have done a better job at building and cultivating audiences in the podcast space.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Because we had to. I mean, that's the actual reason. It didn't begin that way.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Like four or five years ago, people are maybe six or seven years ago, people were calling podcasting liberal talk radio.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: So something changed. Maybe it was Ben Shapiro. I'll take credit for part of it, but it wasn't me only.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think what happened is that just like AM talk radio, which became a very big business in the United States, started as an offshoot of the fact that legacy media was so dominant.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Podcasting started in much the same way.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The reason that I got into podcasting is I was doing a talk radio show in Seattle and I was noticing that three or 4,000 people were downloading it from all over the country.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And I was like, well, if I've got that on like a local talk radio show in Seattle, maybe if I start posting this, it'll grow to a bigger audience.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It kind of exploded in a way that we didn't think was going to necessarily happen.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: The biggest thing about podcasting that has been, I think, such a revelation to people is that there is such a siphoned informational environment.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There are not that many networks.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: You've got MSNBC and you've got Fox, you've got CNN on the cables, and then you have the mainstream legacy networks and you have a few big newspapers.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That's kind of it.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And if you don't hear a voice there – and they don't tend to be particularly heterodox voices.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: If you can't get a voice there, where else are you going to get it?
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And podcasting offered that ability and also the immediacy of being able to react in close to real time to things.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That I think was another big – it's something we definitely embraced in this election cycle more than we have in past election cycles.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: We started doing these react series where something would break in the news and five minutes later I'd be on the air anytime day just reacting to what was going on.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I think that that actually meets with the news cycle somehow better than the 24-7 wall-to-wall cable coverage sometimes does.
--:-- Preet Bharara: So, Pri, what do you think the left needs to do differently?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I mean people are talking about it needs a Joe Rogan of the left.
--:-- Preet Bharara: Yeah, I have no. Copycats, I don't think necessarily do very well.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That goes against the entire grain of what we've been talking about, which is authenticity.
--:-- Preet Bharara: If someone decides to try to manufacture in a laboratory, or in this case, a podcast studio, someone who sort of emulates Joe Rogan, but from the left, I mean, he'll tell you, and he has said, and people have said, there was a liberal Joe Rogan.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It was Joe Rogan.
--:-- Preet Bharara: Right? I don't know that I agree with that and I don't want people to get upset with me.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But, you know, I think different voices develop in different ways.
--:-- Preet Bharara: And the other point I think that someone mentioned to me once about the difference in this business sphere, whether you're talking about cable television or podcasting, I think it's sort of similar.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Good friend once told me who was a high-ranking person at Fox News. The thing you've got to remember about Fox News and conservative outlets is they make money and have listenership and viewership when there's a Republican in the White House because they get cheerleading.
--:-- Preet Bharara: And they get listenership and viewership when there's a Democrat in the White House because they're in opposition.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And contrary to that, on the left, it seems that they get a lot of listenership and viewership when there's opposition, when there's Trump or someone like Trump in the White House.
--:-- Preet Bharara: And then when they have their own guy in the White House, they kind of take it easy and they go camping.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I'm curious to get your take on the media landscape as it's evolving.
--:-- Preet Bharara: It seems like the most prominent voices that are forming is on the right.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: On the left, there's sort of these two echo chambers.
--:-- Preet Bharara: People are in that for their algorithms, you know, the sort of fed information that they are more likely to believe in.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And a traditional media that tries to position itself as more neutral in the center, shrinking in its influence.
--:-- Preet Bharara: What do you think that means for our national discourse?
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I think that there's a little bit too much worry over this.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think that there's a lot of talk about, oh, the legacy media, which was seeking an objective middle.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I think the reason that our industry exploded is because everybody didn't believe them.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We all thought they were full of it.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And when I watched MSNBC or just ABC News or 60 Minutes, I can identify the bias immediately in one particular direction.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I don't think that they're trying to be particularly objective.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I think they live in their own little echo chamber.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think the thing about podcasting that's weird and what's interesting and strange and cool about the industry is that the spectrum of views is really broad.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Where do you peg Joe Rogan?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Right where's Joe?
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I mean like he endorsed Trump he's also endorsed the economic plans of Bernie Sanders in the past he's he's somebody who's very pro ayahuasca but he's also very anti-crime like he's kind of all over the place on the ideological maps.
--:-- Preet Bharara: I would consider myself you know a pretty strict down the line conservative but conservatism has shifted definition so many times at this point that on some points I'm now heterodox right I'm a free trader for example in a party that seems to be significantly more friendly to tariffs this sort of kind of ideological diversity does exist.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And you're starting to see it, I would hope, on the left.
--:-- Preet Bharara: I think one of the things that the left needs to do, if they do wish to have a Joe Rogan, is they actually need to allow perspectives that live outside of the sort of Nancy Pelosi wing of the Democratic Party.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There needs to, like some of my friends, I won't mention their names because then it'll get them untrumbled on the left because that's the way this works.
--:-- Preet Bharara: But some of my friends who are in Congress, who are on the Democratic side, right, are pretty heterodox in many of their views, but they're scared to say what their views are because they know they're going to get burned down by their own side.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Well, in podcast land, that's the exact thing that would make them popular and interesting.
--:-- Preet Bharara: There two things that I think on the liberal side the democratic side and maybe some of this is relevant to the conservative side but A liberal hosts or center center hosts or whatever you want to call them, should not be excoriated for bringing on people who are on the opposite side of the aisle.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I think on the part of some platforms, there is a worry that if I bring so-and-so on, are people going to be upset? Are they going to cancel their subscriptions, et cetera?
--:-- Preet Bharara: And also for people who are on the left side to go on programs to go on podcasts where the hosts are very very different.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I mentioned people to judge once I mentioned him a second time he does it with respect to Fox News I believe he does it with podcasts also.
--:-- Preet Bharara: We tried to get Pete on I will say he was running for president we really tried very hard to get him on because I thought he was really more fascinating at the time than he is now but yes it's too bad that he didn't get a smart guy yeah but there but there should be you know there should be an openness on the part of everyone on every side to have people from the other side or whatever that means, the other, you know, the adjacent sides to come on and hear people out.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But you sometimes see on social media, as soon as, you know, this podcast host has this person on, why are you platforming that person?
--:-- Preet Bharara: Well, that's how we get stuck in our silos.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Did you try to get Kamala Harris on your show as well?
--:-- Preet Bharara: We did. Did we? Actually, we did.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Okay. So my producer, my executive producer, we did issue an invite.
--:-- Preet Bharara: I mean, if she wasn't going to go on pre, she definitely wasn't going to go on my show.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That's for sure.
--:-- Preet Bharara: I think in her case it was – I think it was – they made – I don't know. I'm not part of the campaign.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I wasn't part of the campaign.
--:-- Preet Bharara: They made a determination about use of time, which we can all second-guess now.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I don't know that it was necessarily in every case.
--:-- Preet Bharara: I mean I think they made a determination about her inability to speak off the cuff in any sort of convincing and coherent way.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And you saw that evident even in interviews with mainstream media outlets where she had a producer sitting over somebody's shoulder being like, looks like time's up. We got to run.
--:-- Preet Bharara: What do you see as your role in the media landscape?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I mean for me, I'm a conservative. I got in this because I want to convince people with my point of view.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I mean I've never been dishonest about that. I say that openly. I've said that consistently.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And what's funny is that then you'll have news guard or fact checkers be like, well, you said this because you're conservative.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I'm like that's not – you're not – that's not a gotcha. I say that I'm conservative. Like of course I'm saying it from a conservative perspective.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: With that said, I think one of the best ways for me to defend my conservatism is to put it up against different ideas and then ask questions of those ideas.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And sometimes there may be kind of weird crossovers. That does happen from time to time.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And at other times, there's not a crossover.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: But in order for an ideology or any idea to really be interesting, you have to put it up against some sort of contrast.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Can you tell me what my goal is?
--:-- Ben Shapiro: So I'm not quite a political podcaster. My podcast was born of my experience.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And when I began podcasting in the fall of 2017, there was lots of legal news.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: There was a lot of news about the Mueller investigation.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I knew something about that, and it was in my wheelhouse.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: That has expanded over time to cover politics and policy issues and all sorts of other things.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But I try to be myself, which is I'm not enraged.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I'm not trying to enrage other people and there are podcasts that do that on the left and the right, but sort of assess as the best as I can.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I have a point of view. I'm an opponent of Donald Trump, a critic of Donald Trump.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I was a supporter of Joe Biden. I was a supporter of Kamala Harris.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I've always voted Democrat.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I worked for Senator Schumer, but I do, as Ben says he tries to do, look at an issue, whether it's the withdrawal from Afghanistan or a crime bill or a particular course of actions taken by the special counsel, sort of calmly in a measured voice, not too quickly, make my point of view known and it's not always the point of view that other people have.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It's to sort of be like a sane voice.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Will I always get it right? Is my point of view the one to be taken as gospel? No, because I have a perspective and I have the kind of innate bias that everybody has that has a perspective, but I try to call it as fair as I can see it.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I think and hope for audience members who keep coming back and for those who want to check us out, that's what we bring, not just sort of necessarily predictable views, but a calm, rational assessment of the things as we see them.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I want to ask about the economics of this new industry.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: The economics obviously have shaped everything.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The economics of the traditional newspaper business, let's say, over the last, you know, in the 20th century was to have as wide of an audience as possible.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: That's led to, in some ways, the rise of objectivity because we're just neutral. We're just telling the facts so that we can have as many eyeballs on our newspaper.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We can get as big of advertising dollars as we can get.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: What are the economic incentives that push the industry in the way that it's forming now?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I mean, I try not to be led in my viewpoint by the economic incentives.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I do think that there are some negative economic incentives for being nuanced and interesting, meaning there's some quick and easy money to be made by saying, I'd say, inflammatory conspiratorial things.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think that there's always a great audience for that.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And the thing is, the country is so big that you don't need that big chunk of the American audience to have a really big audience, right?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: You can have hundreds of thousands or even millions of people watching you say crazy s**t because it's a really, really big country.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And so I think that there is an incentive to steer into some of that sort of stuff depending on sort of how the algorithms push it and people get very animated about that sort of thing.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So if you want to talk about the JFK assassination every night, then you'll probably do big numbers.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And, you know, that's something that I'm not willing to do, right?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Again, I got into this business because I actually care about the things that I'm saying and the money came much later, much later.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And I think that's true for pretty much everybody who, you know, takes their politics seriously.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I mean, I've worked for, I wrote a syndicated column from the time I'm 17.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I started to hit like financial success point probably around the time that we started Daily Wire 2015.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So by that time, I was already 31.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I've been doing it for 10, 15 years already.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So there are principles that I not willing to sign off on just in order to make the quick buck.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And again I think that goes back to the authenticity.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The audience could sense that.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: If I suddenly turn and I started saying conspiratorial stuff people listen to my show.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Some people do that.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Some people do that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There are people who have been excommunicated from mainstream media. I won't name any of them.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Who are very polemical in their podcast and it serves them well in terms of audience.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Well, Ben, in the description of your show, it says, of your podcast, Ben brutally breaks down the culture and never gives an inch.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Why brutal?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Well, I think, again, that goes to when you talk about the marketing versus the content.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: If you look at my stuff on YouTube, there will be a lot of Ben Shapiro destroys the facts and logic kind of stuff.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There's the clickability factor of getting people to listen to the thing.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Then there's the actual thing.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: If you listen to the show, I think that the show is – when it says brutally, I think the idea there is that I'm not going to shade what I think is the truth regardless of what I think my audience wants to hear.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Here are what the opposing audience is going to want to hear.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And again, that means that sometimes I find myself crosswise with my audience.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I mean I can think of half a dozen times that's happened over the course of the last six months probably.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But I think that that again goes to the authentic point.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: By brutal, we just mean we're not shading it. We're not hiding it. It is exactly what it is.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Do you think your show would be as successful as if it had been kindly breaks down the culture?
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Of course not because people don't engage in politics in order to be kind.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That's not what politics is about.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I mean it was Nixon who suggested that if you're looking for sympathy, get a dog.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Politics is a rough and tumble place.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: It has been since the days of Machiavelli.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so this sort of notion that I'm going to break down politics in a non-exciting, boring way.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I think people confuse civility with boring.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I don't think those two things are the same.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I mean, again, Preet and I can be perfectly civil with one another, and we can also say stuff that is pretty raw about the politics of the other.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think that's one of the things that we've lost actually is the notion that brutal and non-civil are somehow – they go hand in hand.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I mean if you go back to the debates that were being had between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal, those are pretty brutal.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And yet they did that for several years running.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: The dimension on which I wish these things were judged was not level of brutality or civility, although those are interesting, but good faith, right?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So if there's a very, very smart person who believes something different from me and they don't bullshit about my argument, they present like as lawyers are trained to do, right?
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And I know Ben is a trained lawyer as well.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And you say, I take your argument to be X or Y, and this is why your argument is full of shit.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: And then they say their arguments.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And if it's done brutally or uncivilly, to me that matters less than they're engaging in the argument in good faith and from their perspective.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Last question, where do you see this going?
--:-- Ben Shapiro: No, I think there's a sea change in the way that media is consumed.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I think that the shifts in social media are part of that sea change.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I'm very excited that Facebook and Zuckerberg have decided to actually release the throttle on political content on the outlet.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I'm hopeful that YouTube is going to do the same.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: I mean, I think that there's been too much jiggering of the various levers that prevent people from actually seeing the stuff they want to see.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I'm excited that that's going to happen.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Plus, again, I think that legacy media, I think that this election may have been the death knell of legacy media's trust.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think that it was already going down.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: You can see this. It starts basically in 2015.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It starts dipping and has never reversed.
--:-- Ben Shapiro: Preet, what's your view on where things are headed?
--:-- Preet Bharara: Growth. I mean, I think until every human on the planet has a podcast, we haven't hit maximum growth.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There's like no barrier to entry.
--:-- Preet Bharara: And the other thing that people, since this is sort of a business enterprise here, it's hard to make money in a podcast.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Ben has been very fortunate.
--:-- Preet Bharara: We've been very fortunate.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There's some big names. Joe Rogan has been really, really fortunate.
--:-- Preet Bharara: But a lot of people have really good, high-quality podcasts that focus on a particular issue that's of interest to them and to a constituency of people.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But because of the way that ads are sold and the amount of money that companies have so far that they allocate to podcasts versus television and print and radio, I still think – I think the heyday of podcasts as a business matter are still in the future.
--:-- Preet Bharara: You know, when I first got into podcasting, I had nothing about, I'd never listened to a podcast before.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: You know, that's how arrogant I am.
--:-- Preet Bharara: You know, I don't know how many ads the typical hour-long podcast has.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think we have like four minutes of ads.
--:-- Preet Bharara: If you go beyond four minutes, people will find someone else to listen to.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Listen to any kind of radio.
--:-- Preet Bharara: I don't know what the number is, but it's a lot more than four minutes and they pay more.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: For whatever reason, and this is a wonderful thing, right?
--:-- Preet Bharara: People love podcasts in part because they're not interrupted in the same way as talk radio is or news radio is.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But that leaves a particular gap financially and economically between the model of radio and the model of podcasting.
--:-- Preet Bharara: And I wonder if we're going to get over that at some point because that would make it more lucrative for even more people to join.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Great. Well, thank you both so much for your time.
--:-- Preet Bharara: Thanks for having us.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Special thanks to Ben and Preet for being here today.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We'll be back later this afternoon with a new episode of The Journal.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Thanks for listening. See you then.
--:-- [Sound of a podcast outro fading in]
