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whatisonthemoonarchive · 4 years

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Sean Moon has replaced his Father's "Genesis Creation Doctrine" with something more scientific

In my COVID-19 "lockdown" state, I find myself able to make time on Sundays to listen to Sean Moon ramble away at his Sanctuary Church. I feel an obligation to do so, since my wife is a member of that "congregation." She tries to influence my son with all of Sean's "fanciful" teachings. Therefore, I feel a great need to pay attention to what is going on over there in northeast Pennsylvania.

I find that every once in a while, something is said in one of Sean's "sermons" that "sticks out like a sore thumb." And today was one of those days. Here is what he said (NOTE: due to Sean's erratic "style" of grammar, plus his tendency of using verbal "crutches" like "you know" and repeating words & phrases...and for his use of run-on sentences, ect...because of all those verbal habits, I "cleaned up" Sean's talk a little bit for easy reading):

We're having a great study with our kids who are studying Apologetics and giving lectures about these things. We're going over the argument of origins and also the Kalam cosmological argument, plus the argument from existence, also called contingency. And we did the moral argument yesterday along with fine-tuning, plus the argument from experience. Combined together, we gave that whole 5 combo punch...pa-pa-pa-pa-pow! Right?!...of the Apologetics System. And you know it's amazing...the majesty, fine-tuning and artistry in how God architected the Universe.

Dr. Francis Collins, who was the head of the Human Genome Project, deciphered and encoded the human genome, which is a pattern of four letters. He describes this as a beautiful letter or "art piece", like a poem made with four letters of the alphabet...and God is putting this together! And if you stack them as pages, it would go six hundred feet into the air! One sequence of DNA, if written on 8.5 x 11 pages would stack up six hundred feet into the air! That's how complex the information is. And it's stable as it passes through time and through generations. It's unbelievable...the mechanism and system that God created.

Dr. Francis was an atheist. He was an agnostic. He got a Ph.D. in biology. Then he became a student of the medical sciences. He was a chemist as well. He also has a Ph.D., I believe, in chemistry. Anyway, he just became confounded because science would not help him answer questions like, "Why are we here?" and "Where are we going when we die?". He was in the hospital doing intern work because he went from chemistry to medical biology. He saw all these people dying. And then he saw all these people reflecting on life. People were asking him, "Doctor, what do you believe?" They wanted comfort, asking "What do you believe, if I die?" It just stunned him. He didn't know what to say. He wasn't a "mean" person. He had a good conscience. He had a good heart but he was "fallen." He didn't know that he was separated from God. He could offer no solace, no comfort, with all that training in chemistry and biology...years, decades of PhD work. He couldn't offer anything because science doesn't answer those questions at all. In fact, you cannot even ask those questions in science...they're irrelevant to science. But they're very important for our lives! Amen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZPyXNObdws&t=1s (31:39-35:03)

So, what can we learn from this excerpt of Sean's talk? Well, for one, the 2nd generation members of Sanctuary are learning "Apologetics". This has most likely become necessary, because they're trying to make "heads and tails" of all the things in the Bible that seem contradictory. Not only that, the so-called "future leaders" of Sanctuary have to reconcile the words of Sun Myung Moon and the Divine Principle with the Bible. For example, "Were Adam & Eve the first human beings on the Earth?", and "Did Adam & Eve get created 6000 years ago?" These are big questions, folks! Why? Because Mr. Moon (and Young Oon Kim) were teaching that the answer to those questions was an emphatic "YES", right from the beginning. Are the Sanctuary Church 2nd gen going through "cognitive dissonance" over Mr. Moon's "Genesis Creation Story?" They ought to be!

After reviewing some articles on Dr. Collin's work, you could summarize it by saying that, in Collin's view, there would have been about 10,000 people at the time of the Adam & Eve story. That's considerably more people, than what Sun Myung Moon led us to believe! Read it for yourselves:

https://answersingenesis.org/adam-and-eve/the-search-for-the-historical-adam-and-population-genomics/

I have to admit, that from a certain angle, it's smart on Sean's part to introduce the work of Dr. Francis Collins (who founded "Biologos"), since it helps ease the "mental pain" of his members as they deal with all these lingering questions about their "faith." However, there's one big problem with Sean's members accepting the "Genesis Story" as taught by Dr. Collins. THAT WOULD MEAN they'd have to "throw away" Mr. Moon's version of Creationism. And if they do that...where does that leave the doctrine of "Blood Lineage?"...where does that leave the idea of an Archangel having sexual intercourse with a young teenager named Eve? The questions go on and on, and we can see a whole "can of worms" opens up here. And remember, it wasn't so long ago that Sean was shouting his Father's "Six Marys Blood Lineage Doctrine" from the "mountain tops"! Here is a short video to refresh everyone's memory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU3f3uYLMQs (NOTE: A few years ago, Sean's speaking "style" was distinctly different than it is now. Refer back to my "NOTE" earlier in this post)

We have a responsibility, young and old, to reach out to the 2nd Generation of Sanctuary Church and inform them what Sean is trying to accomplish through this doctrinal "sleight of hand." If we can "nip this in bud," maybe there's a chance we can bring the whole "Sean & Justin Show" down like a "house of cards."

Before ending, I want to leave you with a couple of (more) links. This first one takes you to the "Mr. Moon Q&A session" back in 1965, which dealt with Adam & Eve questions and other "Creationism" related questions:

http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Books/sm-mast/MSTRSP-5.htm

I'm also leaving you with another article about Dr. Collin's work...this one written by TIME Magazine:

http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1895284,00.html

By juxtaposing Mr. Moon's Q&A session with the contents of Dr. Collins work...and then presenting that comparison to the 2nd Gen of Sanctuary Church, we just might be able to put an end to another "cult organization."

'til the next,

Don Diligent

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jobsearchtips02 · 5 years

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Top podcasters, power players of original audio production: list

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Barstool Sports; Sandy Honig; Eric Lee/NPR; Wondery; Samantha Lee/Business Insider

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Podcasting is on the rise, with the industry expected to generate $863 million in ad revenue this year and more than $1 billion in 2021.

As the medium becomes more popular, media companies are increasing their efforts with on-demand audio, while independent studios dedicated exclusively to podcasting are stepping up to bat against audio veterans.

Business Insider rounded up a list of the most influential people in the podcast production industry, from well-known hosts and founders to executives at major media companies and boutique podcast studios.

Click here for more BI Prime articles.

Podcasts are infiltrating the ears of listeners around the world, with hosts of most popular shows launching entire media companies and entrepreneurs landing increasingly large advertising and acquisition deals.

In 2019, Spotify spent more than $200 million to acquire podcast company Gimlet Media. And in 2020, the podcast industry is expected to reach $863 million in ad revenue, and top $1 billion in 2021, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

According to “The Podcast Consumer,” an annual series exploring the podcast audience in the US by Edison Research and Triton Digital, more than 50% of Americans over the age of 12 have listened to a podcast.

With podcast content in high demand, Business Insider took a look at the most influential people involved in original content production. This list of power players recognizes those who have topped the download charts, used podcasting to create social change, or are leaders driving the industry forward.

At podcasting and radio powerhouse NPR, audio leaders Anya Grundmann and N’Jeri Eaton are focused on curating content that will diversify NPR’s storytelling and reach a broader audience. And iHeartMedia’s Conal Byrne is innovating across industries, and capitalizing on Hollywood’s recent interest in optioning podcasts to adapt for the screen.

As the podcasting industry grows, its audience is becoming increasingly dedicated.

Barstool Sports has built a podcast following so obsessive that the vast majority of the company’s merchandise is tied to a podcast. Fans of “My Favorite Murder” and “Pod Save America” loved those shows so much that the hosts were able to launch entire podcast companies of their own. “This American Life” host Ira Glass is a household name, and two of his colleagues on the show went on to launch one of the most successful podcasts of all time: “Serial.”

At some older podcast companies, content is becoming king. Cadence13 is a longtime fixture in the industry, as founding partner Chris Corcoran helped to launch and monetize several major networks. Now, Corcoran is working to establish Cadence13 as a production studio in its own right, with a focus on influencer podcasts in particular.

And even with established media companies pushing to dominate the podcast industry, smaller studios are launching and finding success.

Wondery, the top independent publisher of podcasts (according to Podtrac), doubled its audience in 2019, up to 20 million unique listeners per month and more than 50 million monthly downloads total.

Specialty podcast studios are helping to lead the charge for podcasts in genres outside of the daily news briefing, a category dominated by New York Times podcast “The Daily.”

Tenderfoot TV, which has made a name for itself in the true crime genre with unscripted and semi-scripted podcasts, has more then 500 million downloads to its name, including 340 million on mega-hit “Up and Vanished.” Podcast boutique Wonder Media Network is using podcasting to empower women, while Revolver Podcasts’ Jack Hobbs is serving bilingual audiences around the world.

Here are the key players in podcast production, who are innovating across genres and pushing the industry to new heights (organized alphabetically by company name):

Chris Corcoran, chief content officer at Cadence13

Cadence13

Corcoran leads partner acquisition and content development at Cadence13, where he started as a founding partner in May of 2015.

The company was originally focused on developing and monetizing other networks — like The Ringer and Crooked Media — as opposed to creating its own original programming, but launched an original podcasting arm with the release of “Gangster Capitalism” in 2019.

The show, which dives into the college admissions scandal, has already been optioned for TV by Entertainment 360, Corcoran said.

Using his expertise fostering business partnerships with networks that Cadence13 helped monetize through ad sales, Corcoran has secured content partnerships with other networks as his company expands into original production.

Cadence13 partnered with Tenderfoot TV for a slate of six exclusive podcasts, including “To Live and Die in LA,” which premiered Feb. 28 and surpassed 20 million downloads on 12 episodes by May, and “Culpable,” which premiered in June and crossed 15 million downloads on 16 episodes by December.

Corcoran’s leadership and inclination for collaboration also led to the creation of Ramble, a joint venture between Cadence13 and United Talent Agency. Ramble is a network of original podcasts hosted by influencers like Emma Chamberlain, The Try Guys, Alisha Marie, and Remi Cruz.

“We are in the hit business, and content is king,” Corcoran said. “I’m in the HBO mindset of creating culturally moving content with influential brands and talent.”

Cadence13 was acquired by Entercom in August, and now operates under the company’s Radio.com division. It was named as one of the most innovative companies in media by Fast Company in 2019.

Moses Soyoola, senior vice president and general manager of Endeavor Audio

Endeavor Audio

When entertainment and sports conglomerate Endeavor decided to build out its podcast operation around 2017 — officially launching Endeavor Audio in 2018 — it recruited Soyoola to lead it.

Soyoola ran business development at podcast tech company Megaphone (formerly Panoply) from 2015 to 2017, where he worked with talent agents at United Talent Agency and Endeavor-owned agency WME who had begun to represent podcasters.

Endeavor Audio premiered its first original podcasts in 2019, Soyoola said, and released 12 new shows over the course of the year.

The network doesn’t publicly share download numbers, Soyoola said, but its first two originals topped the Apple Podcasts charts soon after each was released.

“Blackout,” a scripted podcast starring Rami Malek, reached Apple Podcasts’ No. 2 spot the week following its March 19 release, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “The Bellas Podcast,” hosted by former WWE wrestlers Brie and Nikki Bella, was released March 26 and claimed the No. 1 spot one day later.

Endeavor also partnered with legendary producer Dick Wolf to create the “Hunted” fiction podcast starring Parker Posey, and with journalist Christof Putzel for non-fiction show “American Jihadi.”

In 2020, Endeavor Audio is restructuring as it steps away from the podcast ad sales business. The company laid off its in-house sales team in January, according to industry newsletter Hot Pod, and Soyoola said Endeavor Audio will look to ramp up its development work in 2020.

“We want to double down on what we were able to do in 2019 with the projects we did and create even more interesting and robust programming,” Soyoola said.

Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, cofounders of Exactly Right Network

Karen Kilgariff (L) and Georgia Hardstark (R) speak onstage at the 2019 Clusterfest on June 23, 2019.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for Clusterfest/Getty Images

Kilgariff and Hardstark’s 2016 podcast “My Favorite Murder” was so popular that it spawned an entire podcast network. The two comedians debuted the Exactly Right Network in 2018, and inked a deal with Stitcher in 2019.

“My Favorite Murder” is a regular feature on Apple Podcasts’ top US podcasts chart, rarely dropping below No. 14, according to Chartable.

Exactly Right is home to six shows including “My Favorite Murder,” which tops 34 million monthly listeners. The network was expected to gross nearly $10 million in 2019 and more in 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported.

That’s at least how much Exactly Right’s deal with Stitcher was worth, according to the Wall Street Journal, which called the agreement “one of the largest ever of its kind.”

“My Favorite Murder” is also known for its global cult following, dubbed the “Murderinos,” who tune in weekly to hear Kilgariff and Hardstark chat true crime with a comedic twist and turn out in droves for live shows.

Kilgariff has a background in stand-up comedy and acting. Hardstark was previously known for appearances on the Cooking Channel, and for her work writing for Elle and Food Network online.

The podcasting duo published a book in May called “Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered: The Definitive How-To Guide.” The title is based on their “My Favorite Murder” sign-off, and while it touches on true crime, the book is primarily a memoir.

Theo Balcomb, executive producer of “The Daily” and news at The New York Times

Damon Winter

Not only does Balcomb run production on “The Daily,” The New York Times’ audio phenomenon that draws over 2 million listeners per day, but she also came up with the idea for the show before daily news podcasts really existed.

Balcomb joined The Times in January 2017, straight off a job as the youngest supervising producer of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and just several months after The Times debuted its audio team with 2016 election podcast “The Run-Up.”

She spent a month making pilot episodes of “The Daily” that never aired, then the show went live 10 days after the 2017 inauguration.

“It has transformed our audience’s relationship with The Times and brought in an entirely new audience, which has been introduced to and fallen in love with The Times and its journalists in this form,” wrote executive audio producer Lisa Tobin and assistant managing editor Sam Dolnick in a statement announcing Balcomb’s promotion to executive producer in 2019. “So much of that success belongs to Theo.”

As executive producer, Balcomb ensures each episode is posted without issue, sets the news agenda for the show, and provides support for the rest of “The Daily” team, which is about 30 people deep, Balcomb said. And that’s all before she gets into the office in the morning.

She also leads planning meetings, decides who will work on each episode and who gets featured in interviews, records, produces, trains new hires, and works on audio projects outside of “The Daily.”

Over the course of her three years at The New York Times, Balcomb has produced hundreds of episodes of “The Daily,” including a particularly notable episode called “The President and the Publisher,” in which New York Times publisher A. G. Sulzberger interviews President Trump in the Oval Office.

Anya Grundmann, senior vice president for programming and audience development at NPR

Stephen Voss/NPR

Grundmann is credited with the launch of 15 podcasts – four of which are among the top 20 podcasts in the US, according to NPR – since she was promoted to senior vice president for programming and audience development in 2015.

Grundmann started at NPR as an intern in 1994, and has since helped the company expand into digital audio and podcasting.

In the early 2000s, NPR launched its first digital audio program, “All Songs Considered.” Early original podcasts like “Planet Money” followed in 2008, and from there NPR greenlit more originals and worked to transition some pre-existing radio shows into podcasts.

“It’s been a really exciting, important piece of our work as the leading audio newsroom in America to transform that into the on-demand space,” Grundmann said.

Although NPR faces increased competition from for-profit podcast companies, the legacy media outlet continues to hold the top spot among podcast publishers in the US, according to analytics site Podtrac. NPR’s 70 active shows were streamed and downloaded a collective 154 million times in December.

The company’s success in podcasting is in part thanks to its grounding in journalistic principles and ethics, Grundmann said, although she and her team have strived to grow NPR’s podcast network beyond shows in the news category.

“We’re trying to be open to ideas from all directions, and we’re also trying to speak to what our audience tells us,” Grundmann said. “We really want to have a portfolio of shows that really reinforce the brand range of NPR and the ways we can connect with people.”

N’Jeri Eaton, director of programming and new audience at NPR

Eric Lee/NPR

Eaton started at NPR in 2016, and has since been involved in the launch of eight podcasts, including two of NPR’s newest, “White Lies” and “Throughline,” as well as 2018’s “Believed,” which won several industry awards.

As director of programming and new audience, Eaton works to develop podcasts that will reach younger, more diverse listeners.

“We want to evolve the sound of public radio so it’s more reflective of the public,” Eaton said.

By working with NPR journalists and looking outside the newsroom for podcast ideas, Eaton has been integral in building NPR’s slate of podcasts beyond traditional news shows like “Up First.”

“Believed,” a podcast produced by NPR and Michigan Radio about the team of women who won a conviction in the case of serial child molester Larry Nassar, was NPR’s first limited series and first podcast produced in partnership with a member station, Eaton said.

The show has won several journalistic honors including a Peabody Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, and a Dart Award.

Eaton greenlit the idea for “White Lies,” about a murder at the center of the civil rights movement, which was pitched to her by two reporters and a filmmaker outside of NPR, and represents the NPR investigative team’s first foray into podcasting.

Eaton also took a gamble on weekly history podcast “Throughline,” as it’s hosted by two NPR producers who hadn’t been on the air before pitching the show, but the decision paid off, as it peaked at No. 2 in the Apple Podcasts history category in the US on Jan. 28, according to analytics from Chartable.

Norman Pattiz, founder and CEO of PodcastOne

PodcastOne

Pattiz is a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame, but he also saw the rise of podcasting coming before “Serial” broke into the mainstream in 2014.

He founded his company, PodcastOne, in 2012, with a plan to sign as many people who were already doing podcasts as possible at a time when not many of them were attached to a network.

“I didn’t want to go to advertisers and evangelize about a medium until we had programs in every category,” Pattiz said.

Before PodcastOne, Pattiz founded radio giant Westwood One, which owned, managed, or distributed NBC radio networks, CBS News, CNN radio, March Madness, the Super Bowl, and both the winter and summer Olympic Games, as well as music and talk shows.

Pattiz used his own money to launch PodcastOne, then turned to advertisers he worked with at Westwood to land deals and generate revenue.

Now, the network includes 300 podcasts across genres, from true crime podcast “22 Hours: An American Nightmare,” to influencer-led content in the LadyGang network.

Like most podcast companies, the bulk of PodcastOne’s revenue comes from advertising, Pattiz said, but he’s also hesitant to oversaturate the network’s shows with ads.

“The minute you start doing that, then you start getting rid of one of the main things that makes a podcast popular beyond its content, which is that it doesn’t have a lot of commercials,” Pattiz said.

On Feb. 29, PodcastOne announced a deal with Spotify to bring its star-studded roster, which includes hosts like Shaquille O’Neal and T.I., to the platform.

Kerri Hoffman, CEO of PRX

PRX

Hoffman was one of the first members of the PRX team when the nonprofit was founded in 2003, and has served in several executive positions including COO and CEO.

PRX distributes public radio programs, but also operates a growing network of more than 80 podcasts, which are downloaded more than 70 million times per month, according to Podtrac.

In 2016, under Hoffman’s leadership, PRX launched a training program to meet the needs of independent podcasters. Facilities like PRX’s Podcast Garage in Boston allow podcasters to retain the rights to their shows while granting them access to affordable studio space, technical training, and community support, Hoffman said.

“We have an attitude of openness,” Hoffman said. “We’re very excited about newcomers to the space.”

Podcasters in the PRX network make money through grants, listener support, and ads.

Hoffman managed PRX’s merger with media network Public Radio International in 2018, serves on the board of The Peabody Awards, and was named podcast executive of the year by Adweek in 2019.

She also led the launch of Radiotopia, PRX’s podcast-only network, in 2014, and has since contributed to the network’s tenfold increase in audience and revenue.

PRX produces and distributes shows across content clusters like science and entertainment, but Radiotopia is unusual in the podcast space because it is not anchored by a genre, Hoffman said.

“Most of the podcast networks that existed at the time were similar in topics,” Hoffman said. “It felt so risky at the time.”

Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg, cofounders, and Mia Lobel, executive producer of Pushkin Industries

Malcolm Gladwell (L), Jacob Weisberg, and Mia Lobel (R) of Pushkin Industries

Celest Sloman, Kathleen Kincaid, Tatiana Flowers

Gladwell is well-known primarily for his work as an author and staff writer at The New Yorker, but when he and long-time collaborator Weisberg teamed up to launch Pushkin Industries in 2018, he made a name for himself in the audio world as well.

The company’s inaugural podcast hosted by Gladwell, “Revisionist History,” was racking up about 3 million listeners per episode by mid-2019, according to The New York Times, which is more than even “The Daily” gets in 2020.

Pushkin scooped up several iHeartRadio Podcast Award nominations in 2020, including podcast of the year and best ad read for “Revisionist History,” best music podcast for “Broken Record with Malcolm Gladwell, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam,” and best male host for Gladwell. “Revisionist History” also scored a win for best history podcast.

Weisberg, Pushkin’s CEO, and Lobel, the network’s executive producer, are both former executives of Panoply, the podcast tech company now known as Megaphone.

Lobel has been making podcasts since 2007, producing shows like “Revisionist History” (pre-Pushkin) and “Empire on Blood” when she was managing producer at Panoply. Weisberg was a cofounder of Panoply, as well as former CEO of the Slate Group and former editor-in-chief of Slate Magazine.

Considering Galdwell and Weisberg’s background in the written word, Pushkin relies on a strong lineup of writers to front several of its shows, such as New York Times media editor Bruce Headlam and journalist and best-selling author Michael Lewis.

“Most of our hosts are writers, and many of them haven’t worked in audio before,” Weisberg said. “We’re helping them turn their strong authorial voices into literal voices.”

Pushkin podcasts span categories, but are united by careful sound editing and hosts with strong points of view, Lobel said. The network is currently home to nine shows, which have either been developed in-house or pitched by creatives from writers to filmmakers.

Julie Shapiro, executive producer at Radiotopia

PRX

Shapiro is the executive producer of PRX’s Radiotopia, which includes the “Ear Hustle” podcast, one of the organization’s most successful shows.

“Ear Hustle,” which explores the stories of people involved with the American prison system and is partially produced from inside the San Quentin State Prison, has been downloaded over 30 million times since its launch in 2017.

Radiotopia’s first seven podcasts came to the network fully developed, Shapiro said, but “Ear Hustle” started from scratch. The show, which is now in its fifth season, won Radiotopia’s Podquest contest out of more than 1,500 submissions from 53 countries. Shapiro led a team of 11 staffers and producers in narrowing down the entries, and eventually chose “Ear Hustle.”

The podcast has won many awards, including Webby Awards in 2018 and 2019, and the 2019 iHeartRadio Podcast Award for best social impact. It was also a Peabody Award nominee in 2017 and 2018.

Shapiro has also helped several other shows navigate the podcast space, keeping a close eye on diversity of content within the Radiotopia network.

“We’ve been trying to pull more voices in so more people hear themselves reflected in the Radiotopia network,” Shapiro said.

“Adult ISH,” for instance, is a culture and advice show hosted by two 23-year-olds, Nyge Turner and Merk Nguyen, and “Passenger List” was the network’s first original fiction show.

Before joining Radiotopia in 2015, Shapiro was the executive producer of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s creative audio unit, and cofounded the Third Coast International Audio Festival, which has become known as radio’s equivalent to Sundance.

Jack Hobbs, president and CEO of Revolver Podcasts

Beau Bumpas

Hobbs was an early entrant to the podcast space, and launched his company Revolver Podcasts in 2015 after 25 years at Spanish-language TV network Univision.

Revolver is dedicated to creating bilingual podcasts in English and Spanish for audiences in the US, Mexico, and the rest of Latin America.

With 57 shows in its network, the company averages more than 5 million downloads per month, Hobbs said. About 70% of Revolver’s podcasts are in English, and 30% are in Spanish.

Hobbs, who pitched for the Minnesota Twins and the Seattle Mariners before he began his media career, has also worked for the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation, where he built the company’s radio network. In 2013, he joined the Spanish Broadcasting System as executive vice president leading the newly launched Aire Radio Networks.

Hobbs said he saw a gap in the audio space when it came to Hispanic audiences, so he sought out his former Univision employees and other diverse talent to build Revolver.

“It’s an incredible and vibrant and young audience,” Hobbs said. “We are getting quite a call for demand to take programs from Latin America, Central America, and South America and put them on our platform.”

Revolver is home to popular hosts like Mario Lopez, Univision journalist and Emmy Award-winner Teresa Rodríguez, and basketball stars like Channing Frye and Richard Jefferson of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Univision became a strategic investor in Revolver in 2017, Hobbs said, and Latin music company Latido Music also invested in Revolver in 2020.

The company also has a deal in the works with another major US media company, which Hobbs declined to name on the record as the details of the deal have not yet been made public.

Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, cocreators of “Serial”

“Serial” co-creators Sarah Koenig (L) and Julie Snyder (R).

Sandy Honig

“Serial” revolutionized the world of podcasting and is considered far and wide to be one of the best podcasts of all time, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that cocreators Koenig and Snyder met while working on “This American Life.”

Koenig, who was trained as a newspaper reporter at publications like The New York Times, and Snyder, who started producing “This American Life” in 1997, set out to use their skills to tell an in-depth story in audio with “Serial.”

Serialized installments weren’t yet popular in audio storytelling, but after a year’s worth of reporting on the case of Han Min Lee for season one, “Serial” launched with praise from media outlets like Slate and Buzzfeed.

Season one was honored with awards like the Peabody in 2014, the first time that prize was given to a podcast.

Now with three seasons under its belt — the latest launching in 2018 — “Serial” continues to hold a spot on Podtrac’s list of top 15 podcast publishers. Together with “This American Life,” the shows had about 18 million global streams and downloads in December, and about 5 million unique listeners in the US.

Serial Productions, which also produced hit true crime podcast and 2017 Peabody Award-winner “S-Town,” is coowned by Koenig, Snyder, and Ira Glass, who serves as an editorial advisor.

In January, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company might be exploring a sale, citing sources familiar with the matter and listing The New York Times as a potential buyer.

Chris Bannon, chief content officer at Stitcher

Stitcher

As head of content development and production, Bannon is leading Stitcher’s charge to ramp up creation of original podcasts.

When it comes to originals, Stitcher is most recognizable by comedy network Earwolf, a pioneer in the audio comedy space and home to popular shows like “Comedy Bang! Bang!” and “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.”

Stitcher Originals exists as a separate network, which includes Marvel’s “Wolverine: The Long Night” podcast, the “Heaven’s Gate” podcast about the cult of the same name, and shows hosted by Katie Couric and LeVar Burton.

Earwolf was already producing comedy podcasts when it merged with podcast ad sales company The Mid Roll in 2014 to form Stitcher’s parent company Midroll Media, which in turn is owned by EW Scripps.

In 2015, when Bannon joined the company, Midroll acquired Stitcher, which at the time was a podcast platform, not a production company like Earwolf.

“When I arrived here, we had four engineers and one producer, with two networks and a total of 40 shows, and five months to build a premium service,” Bannon said. “That’s a lot of moving parts to pull together.”

Now, Stitcher launches about 10 to 17 new shows per year, Bannon said, and is planning to roll out several non-comedy networks in 2020.

Prior to joining Stitcher, Bannon worked at WNYC Studios, where he helped to develop the “Death, Sex and Money” podcast, as well as Alec Baldwin’s radio show and podcast “Here’s the Thing.”

In his role as chief content officer, Bannon coordinates with agents and talent to grow Stitcher’s list of owned-and-operated shows. Bannon puts special emphasis on developing content for an increasingly diverse audience.

Earwolf launched “Doing Great with Vicky Vox,” a comedy interview show hosted by drag queen Vicky Vox, on Jan. 27 as part of that effort.

Ira Glass, host and executive producer of “This American Life”

Sandy Honig

Glass started working in public radio when he was 19, and has since become known for hosting popular radio show and podcast “This American Life,” and for his work on the legendary podcasts “Serial” and “S-Town.”

“This American Life” was originally created for radio in 1995, and is credited with opening doors for the launch of radio shows and podcasts in the narrative journalism category.

The show now has a larger audience as a podcast than it does on the air, Glass told the Tampa Bay Times.

Glass began his audio career as an intern at NPR, where he filled roles such as newscast writer, editor, reporter, producer, and stand-in host of radio shows like “Talk the Nation.”

“This American Life” won its first Peabody Award after just a year on the air, but Glass told Mashable in 2016 that the show wasn’t financially stable right away. It took four years to reach one million listeners per episode, Glass said.

Now, the show has won six Peabody Awards and reaches over 2.2 million listeners on more than 500 public radio stations each week, with another 2.5 million downloads on each episode of the podcast.

Glass told Mashable the key to the show’s success has to do with the sheer amount of reporting his team does, although as much as half of their work never airs.

“We will kill between a third and half of everything we put into production,” Glass said. “We kill a lot … that’s like the secret sauce to the whole thing, is that to end up with three or four stories, we’ll [pursue] sometimes seven or eight stories.”

Hernan Lopez, founder and CEO of Wondery

Wondery

Lopez got his start in audio at a radio company where he grew up in Argentina, and now heads up Wondery, the largest independent podcast publisher ranked on Podtrac.

With more than 80 shows, Wondery saw about 52 million downloads in December, with more than 10 million unique US monthly listeners, according to Podtrac, rivaling podcast heavyweights like The New York Times and PRX.

In 2019, Wondery doubled its revenue and unique global listenership, up to 20 million listeners worldwide per month, the company said.

Before founding Wondery in 2016, Lopez spent 18 years as president and CEO of Fox International Channels, where he started as part of the company’s sales team.

“For about half of the time I was there, I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” Lopez said. “I was particularly interested in how consumers were going to interact with stories in different mediums.”

Then, like many other founders in podcasting, he discovered “Serial” and “StartUp.” Six months later, he launched Wondery.

The company has since collaborated with major media outlets like The Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe on podcasts “Dirty John” and “Gladiator” respectively.

“Dirty John” spent a season as a TV show on Bravo, and popular Wondery podcast “Dr. Death” has already been cast with Jamie Dornan, Alec Baldwin, and Christian Slater leading the limited drama series ordered by Universal Content Productions.

The company’s latest podcast, “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork,” peaked at No. 2 on the Apple Podcasts charts across categories on Jan. 31, according to Chartable.

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from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/top-podcasters-power-players-of-original-audio-production-list/

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