Business

Podcasting Aims for a Whole New Level, and a TV Drama Maestro Joins In

LOS ANGELES — Fifty-six percent of Americans have never listened to a podcast. One of Hollywood’s most aggressive companies wants to change that, and it has enlisted Dick Wolf, the king of broadcast television, as part of its campaign.

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Podcasting Aims for a Whole New Level, and a TV Drama Maestro Joins In
By
Brooks Barnes
, New York Times

LOS ANGELES — Fifty-six percent of Americans have never listened to a podcast. One of Hollywood’s most aggressive companies wants to change that, and it has enlisted Dick Wolf, the king of broadcast television, as part of its campaign.

Endeavor, the entertainment and sports conglomerate led by Ari Emanuel, introduced a new division Thursday dedicated to developing, financing, producing, distributing and marketing podcasts. Endeavor Audio, as the entity is called, will also sell podcast ads and sponsorships. Initial partners include Wolf, the producing force behind the “Law & Order” and “Chicago” franchises on NBC, and Magical Elves, a production company known for reality shows like “Top Chef” and “Project Runway.”

“We see an opportunity to take podcasts mainstream and open up a lot more revenue,” Moses Soyoola, general manager of Endeavor Audio, said in an interview.

The WME talent agency, which is owned by Endeavor and counts Wolf as a client, represents podcast creators like Malcolm Gladwell (“Revisionist History”) and Crooked Media (“Pod Save America”). But Endeavor is ambitious about growth, to put it mildly, and listening experiences represent a promising area. Podcast ad sales in the United States totaled $314 million last year and will grow to $659 million by 2020, according to a recent report by PwC and the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

If successful, Endeavor Audio podcasts could generate major spinoff revenue in the form of television adaptations.

“Right now, there’s a lot of the same content aimed at the same audience — investigative journalism, amateur chat,” said Soyoola, who joined Endeavor from Panoply Media, a podcasting network. “We want to help creators of all kinds develop audio entertainment that reaches new audiences.”

Wolf, whose credits also include the unscripted “Cold Justice” cable franchise, spoke excitedly in a separate interview about an idea for a podcast involving death row prisoners in the hours leading up to execution. “You have to understand: I don’t know what I’m really talking about yet — we’re just getting started,” Wolf said. “But I know this is the future. It’s already here. And I want to be there. I want more than anything to continue to be relevant.”

Wolf will develop one dramatized podcast series with Magical Elves and work on others independently. He may also serve as a “curator” of additional crime podcasts.

“I don’t know if I would call the appetite for crime storytelling insatiable, but there is definitely a large segment of the population that is addicted, and there is only so much beachfront real estate on network television,” Wolf said, referring to prime time. Wolf Entertainment will have eight shows on the air this season, including the new “FBI” on CBS.

Endeavor Audio also plans to finance and codevelop up to 10 podcasts with Mass Appeal, a media company that counts the rapper Nas as an investor and focuses on what it calls urban culture. Additional clients include “Limetown,” a fictional podcast (season 2 starts Oct. 31) about the disappearance of 300 people from a neuroscience research facility; and Parcast, a startup that specializes in lurid podcasts like “Cults” and “Female Criminals” that gives Endeavor Audio an immediate network of some 9 million downloads a month.

Efforts to turn podcasts into hit television shows — the bigger gold mine, by far — have been disappointing.

The television rights for “Serial” were sold three years ago, but a series never emerged. In May, ABC abandoned “Alex, Inc.,” a comedy adapted from a Gimlet Media podcast, after a handful of low-rated episodes. On a brighter note, HBO recently ordered more comedy specials built around the “2 Dope Queens” podcast and Amazon has found a modicum of success with “Lore,” based on a horror podcast of the same name.

But television executives — now three years into “peak TV” and increasingly desperate for ideas — are looking harder at podcasts. Amazon has high hopes for “Homecoming,” a drama starring Julia Roberts and based on another Gimlet podcast. (Gimlet is represented by Creative Artists Agency, which also has a growing podcast business.) The Los Angeles Times’ scam-artist podcast, “Dirty John,” may spawn two shows: In deals brokered by WME, a scripted “Dirty John” drama is coming to Bravo, and Oxygen is working on a spinoff.

Endeavor has been working to grow by any means possible since 2013, when Emanuel pulled off a $2.3 billion deal to buy IMG, which negotiates media rights for sports leagues and handles licensing for more than 200 colleges, among other vast operations. To add to its bulk, Endeavor has invested in or purchased at least 16 additional companies since then, including UFC, the mixed martial arts organization, and Miss Universe, which runs a variety of pageants.

Endeavor has also asserted itself as a financier and seller of movies and TV shows, creating a new entity last year called Endeavor Content that has supplied hits like “Killing Eve” to BBC America and “Book Club” to Paramount Pictures.

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