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Never Post is joining Radiotopia · Never Post

• 0:00
  Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello. Mike here with a very important
• 0:04
  announcement. As of today, Wednesday, March 19, Never Post
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  is joining the Radiotopia Network of Shows. And I wanna
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  explain what that means for us, hopefully a lot. What it means
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  for you, hopefully not much at all, and whether it
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  fundamentally changes anything about Neverpost, how it works,
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  and what kind of show it is.
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  The short answer there is, it does not. If you don't know
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  Radiotopia, you probably know its shows. Hyperfixed, Normal
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  Gossip, Song Exploder, Articles of Interest, The Memory Palace,
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  Wait For It, and a bunch more, including now this one. Does
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  this mean Never Post is no longer an independent podcast?
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  No.
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  Absolutely not. It does not mean that. We remain independent and
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  employee owned. Radiotopia is a network of individually produced
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  shows who team up to share resources and to fundraise
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  together. And we're gonna talk more about what fundraising
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  means in a few minutes.
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  But the long and short is Radiotopia has not purchased,
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  does not own, and is not paying us to make Never Post. It
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  remains ours and no money has changed hands as a direct result
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  of this deal. So why would we do it? First, the folks who run
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  Radiotopia and the other folks who have shows on it are great.
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  They're an amazing, smart, thoughtful group of people.
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  I mean, you heard that list of shows up at the top of this
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  announcement. It's just I mean, what better company could we be
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  in? And many of them are already pals. So this solidifies and
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  expands our relationship with that crew in a way that's it's
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  just nice. You know, we're all in a slack together.
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  It's cozy. It's good. Second, Radiotopia organizes network
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  wide cross promotional placements for their shows,
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  which can result in hundreds of thousands of impressions. That
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  means if you listen to some of those other Radiotopia shows,
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  you may now start to hear ads for Never Post. And you're also
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  gonna start to hear ads for other Radiotopia shows on Never
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  Post.
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  This is great for us. It means getting in front of new
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  listeners, and probably the largest single marketing push
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  that we've ever had. And third, Radiotopia is gonna help us
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  broker and place ads. Right now, every ad that you have heard has
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  been arranged and placed by us, the team. And it's a lot of
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  work, and we're really thankful to have some folks on our side
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  whose job it is to think about that stuff, and I really cannot
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  overstate how much that rules.
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  It's probably also worth here, being explicit that Radiotopia's
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  ad ecosystem is huge and complex. We are plugging into a
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  really big machine, and there's a way that they do things. This
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  probably represents the biggest change for you, our listeners,
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  if you are not members listening on the ad free feed. You're
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  gonna start to hear more stereotypically podcast y ads.
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  We are able to approve every ad, so that's really exciting, and
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  we're gonna try to be thoughtful about what we allow to run on
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  Neverpost.
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  But of course, if you hear something that is just truly
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  heinous that you don't think we should be running ads for,
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  please let us know. It probably slipped through the cracks, and
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  we're gonna do everything in our power to make sure that we're
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  like, you know, that you're listening to things that are
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  actually useful to you. But broadly speaking, I hope that
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  this context helps you stomach them, and it helps you know that
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  like, in general, the ads are very good for us, and they're
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  gonna help us pay to continue making the show. Which now,
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  maybe is causing you to wonder if membership is gonna change at
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  all. The answer to this is very simple.
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  No. Membership is not gonna change in any way. If you're a
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  member, you're gonna get the same things in the same places.
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  You don't have to move anywhere. If you become a member, you're
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  gonna join all the other great folks already supporting the
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  show, and you're gonna get the same things that they're
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  currently getting.
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  A % of that membership money goes right to us to never post.
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  We do not split it with Radiotopia. We do not give them
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  any of your information. Nothing like that. Our members are our
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  members.
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  The end. So why then would Radiotopia do this? NeverPost
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  gets a community of great shows, cross promotional placements,
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  and ad infrastructure. What do they get out of it? Well, they
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  get us and I don't know.
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  I think we're pretty great. We know a lot about the Internet
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  and, audio and all kinds of stuff, and we're excited to be a
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  resource for other shows in the same way that they're a resource
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  for us. Radiotopia also gets our show, which they like, and
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  they're excited about having us associated with their
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  organization as much as we're excited about being associated
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  with them. Radiotopia get a cut of our ad sales, and also they
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  get the ears of the audience on our public feed to tell about
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  Hyperfixed and Ear Hustle and the recipe with Kenji and Deb.
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  And they also get our help fundraising.
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  I told you we'd be back to this. Radiotopia is a project of the
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  public media organization PRX, the public radio exchange, and
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  so its funding model depends in part on donations. Every year,
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  as you'd expect from a public media based org, there's a
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  fundraiser, and we'll ask you as will all the other shows on the
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  network to contribute to the fundraiser. The money that gets
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  donated by listeners to Radiotopia gets split between
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  the shows and Radiotopia. Cash is doled out to shows based on
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  their audience size, and I feel pretty comfortable saying that
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  if we are not the smallest show on the Radiotopia network, we
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  are very close.
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  Now, this is important. Joining Radiotopia isn't a panacea.
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  We're still gonna have to work really really hard to continue
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  making the show. Joining this network of independent shows is
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  amazing, and it's great for us, but it does not mean by any
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  stretch that we've made it, and we can sit pretty knowing that
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  the show can continue indefinitely, that it will
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  become our jobs, anything like that. I wanna tell you this
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  because we owe it to you as the folks who ultimately have the
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  greatest impact on making it possible for us to make this
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  show now and going forward.
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  And also, of course, so that you understand it, and so you
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  understand that this doesn't change what Never Post is. We
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  remain an independent show. We remain employee owned, and we
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  are now in partnership with a bunch of other independent
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  employee owned shows. Membership remains far and away the best
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  way to support us. We may make a few more ad dollars here and
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  there, but it is vanishingly likely that ad income ever gets
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  close to equaling member support in both amount and impact.
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  Regardless of how small or big Neverpost is or becomes,
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  membership is always more sustainable, more reliable, and
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  mutually beneficial than any other economic arrangement for
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  the sustainability of the show. I also wanna tell you, because
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  you've listened to this far, so you must be a real freak for the
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  podcast details, what I think about this, honestly. We've been
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  working on this and negotiating with the folks at Radiotopia
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  since last summer. So this took a long time. All the really fine
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  details, like stuff that's not really worth going into here,
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  like how do we factor in derivative works of Neverpost,
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  who can cancel this arrangement, for what reasons, and with how
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  much notice.
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  My ability to be making this announcement explaining these
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  very details to you in explicit terms right now, both the
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  Neverpost team and the Radiotopia team came away
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  feeling like we got a really good deal. We really liked where
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  we landed. We're working with really rad people, and I it's
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  I'm really excited, for the next chapter of the show. If you have
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  any questions about any of this, please send them our way. You
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  can call us, leave a voice memo in the air table, email us,
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  comment on the website.
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  We're gonna answer those questions in our next mailbag.
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  We are happy to talk about any and all of this. And finally, at
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  the end of this long, probably over long explanation, I I also
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  just wanna say thank you. As if it isn't already clear, this is
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  a big deal for us, and we could not have done it without our
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  listeners and especially our members, showing us that this is
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  a show that people like, they appreciate, they want more of
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  it, and it's worth continuing to invest all of this time and
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  energy into. So I just wanna say thank you.
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  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, right. And one other change.
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  At the end of every episode, you'll also start to hear a
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  sound which, for as long as I've been listening to podcasts, has
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  meant that the show you've just heard has been lovingly created
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  completely independently, and now and in the future will
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  absolutely be worth your time and your energy and your
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  thoughtfulness. To say that we are proud and excited to end our
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  shows this way now would be an understatement. Radio Tokian
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  from PRX. Okay. We'll see you in the main feed next week.
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  Stay safe out there.