Latest / Never Post / State of the Pod: 2026

Transcript

State of the Pod: 2026 · Never Post

• 0:14
  Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post's
• 0:18
  state of the podcast 2026. This is an episode for and about
• 0:25
  Never Post itself and in which we celebrate our two year
• 0:30
  birthday.
• 0:30
  Hans Buetow: Hell, yeah. We
• 0:33
  Georgia Hampton: did it. Cakes and candles.
• 0:36
  Hans Buetow: Kicks and
• 0:37
  Mike Rugnetta: candles. Nevertheless, the pod persisted.
• 0:42
  Jason Oberholtzer: Now I feel bad.
• 0:45
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, man.
• 0:47
  Mike Rugnetta: We did one of these last year, and we're gonna
• 0:49
  do another one this year in which we're gonna let you know
• 0:51
  the chances that we will be around to make a third one next
• 0:54
  year.
• 0:56
  Georgia Hampton: And what you
• 0:56
  Mike Rugnetta: are about to hear is a chat between the principal
• 0:59
  producers of the show about how we are doing as a show. We're
• 1:04
  gonna talk about how many people listen to Neverpost, how many
• 1:07
  members we have, how much money we make, and what we spend that
• 1:09
  money on. We're gonna talk about the challenges of making a
• 1:14
  podcast. We're gonna talk about what we need to keep doing the
• 1:16
  show. We're gonna talk about all the things that we're looking
• 1:19
  forward to in our third year, including some changes to the
• 1:23
  show's format, which I think secretly all of you that listen
• 1:27
  to the show, you're all a bunch of freaks or things that you
• 1:30
  want anyways.
• 1:31
  So I don't think any of it's gonna be a really big deal.
• 1:35
  Before we get too far, we're gonna do introductions. In order
• 1:39
  of how large I assumed their cup of coffee was this morning,
• 1:44
  descending. So biggest cup first.
• 1:46
  Hans Buetow: Single cup. Biggest single cup.
• 1:48
  Mike Rugnetta: Single cup. Jason Oberholzer, Never Post executive
• 1:51
  producer.
• 1:51
  Jason Oberholtzer: It's me, your biggest boy with the biggest
• 1:54
  cup. A
• 1:57
  Mike Rugnetta: gallon. He's got one of
• 1:58
  Jason Oberholtzer: those gallon.
• 1:59
  Hans Buetow: The things that truckers have.
• 2:01
  Jason Oberholtzer: I have not successfully gotten any coffee
• 2:03
  in my hands today. I am the worst for wear because of it.
• 2:06
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, no. But
• 2:07
  Jason Oberholtzer: you could not be more incorrect.
• 2:09
  Mike Rugnetta: Could not be more incorrect.
• 2:10
  Jason Oberholtzer: This is the host we're here to trust.
• 2:12
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. This is also an episode in which I
• 2:16
  announce my retirement. Like to apologize to the audience. I've
• 2:21
  said some things that I regret.
• 2:24
  Georgia Hampton: I'm listening. I'm learning.
• 2:26
  Mike Rugnetta: No. I'd like to make it clear. I'm not learning.
• 2:28
  I'm just I'm just leaning. Hans Buto, never post senior
• 2:36
  producer.
• 2:37
  Hans Buetow: This is I'm holding it up. The mug that I drank
• 2:39
  coffee out of. So
• 2:40
  Mike Rugnetta: 10:12. Ten head. Okay. Georgia Hampton, never
• 2:44
  post producer. Not applicable tea.
• 2:47
  Georgia Hampton: Oh. You could not be more wrong. You could not
• 2:51
  be more wrong. Not only do I drink coffee, I only drink black
• 2:55
  coffee.
• 2:56
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay.
• 2:57
  Georgia Hampton: I'd say a safe, like, eight ounces. But, oh, I
• 3:01
  drink coffee.
• 3:03
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh, that's right, folks.
• 3:04
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, that's yeah. I don't mean to brag.
• 3:09
  Jason Oberholtzer: And finally, Mike Rickenetta, host of the
• 3:11
  podcast who apparently knows nothing about any of us.
• 3:13
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. It's been now We're in the third year.
• 3:17
  Mike Rugnetta: Years. I pretty much always drink iced coffee in
• 3:21
  the morning, and I think that I probably had about 16 ounces of
• 3:24
  iced coffee this morning.
• 3:25
  Hans Buetow: I think you're the winner.
• 3:27
  Mike Rugnetta: So yeah. And I'm your host, Mike Rugnetta. The
• 3:29
  four of us here make up the secret cabal that own and run
• 3:33
  the show. We build this pod with our bare hands from shiny
• 3:39
  trinkets that we find on the sidewalk. And you may be saying
• 3:44
  at this point, hold on.
• 3:46
  Georgia Hampton: Wait a second.
• 3:46
  Mike Rugnetta: Eagle eared listeners may know this.
• 3:48
  Georgia Hampton: Who the hell was that?
• 3:49
  Mike Rugnetta: You did one of these last year, and only three
• 3:52
  Jason Oberholtzer: of you were here.
• 3:53
  Mike Rugnetta: And now there's four of you.
• 3:55
  Jason Oberholtzer: And we hate change.
• 3:59
  Hans Buetow: So prepare for an episode full of change. Yes.
• 4:04
  Mike Rugnetta: Everybody strap in. Get get your favorite stuffy
• 4:07
  and Yeah. Hunk it down under that blanket.
• 4:09
  Hans Buetow: Get your own mug.
• 4:11
  Mike Rugnetta: The big update that we have to share right up
• 4:12
  top is that Producer Georgia has been made a full partner of the
• 4:17
  show. So welcome, Producer Georgia.
• 4:20
  Hans Buetow: Woo hoo.
• 4:21
  Georgia Hampton: Speech. Speech. Speech. The haters tried to
• 4:24
  sabotage me.
• 4:26
  Jason Oberholtzer: They did.
• 4:26
  Georgia Hampton: They said a girl like me could never be a
• 4:28
  partner of a podcast.
• 4:30
  Jason Oberholtzer: Name them.
• 4:32
  Georgia Hampton: I unveil a long scroll. And now I'm in. And I'm
• 4:38
  changing all the passwords.
• 4:41
  Mike Rugnetta: Actually, what what Georgia says is is
• 4:44
  relatively true. There is an amount of truth to that. Some of
• 4:47
  you may wonder, wait. Wasn't Georgia already a partner? What
• 4:51
  is the difference between then and now and so on and so forth?
• 4:54
  To which our most humble reply is, this upload is already going
• 4:57
  to be boring enough. Yeah. The most honest answer that we can
• 5:02
  give is that this means Georgia will be able to log in to
• 5:05
  slightly more That's so true.
• 5:10
  Georgia Hampton: As a little girl, I was dreaming of logging
• 5:12
  in to more websites.
• 5:14
  Mike Rugnetta: Of pushing the transcribe button Yes. And then
• 5:18
  waiting a few seconds.
• 5:21
  Hans Buetow: Alright. That's enough celebrating. Happy
• 5:23
  birthday to us. Let's be jolly. We made another year.
• 5:28
  We made in this year. Let's appreciate ourselves for a
• 5:31
  moment. It's just the four of us. Jason's gonna have the
• 5:35
  hardest time with this. Let's let's account for what we did
• 5:38
  this past year.
• 5:38
  In 2025, we made forty one and a half hours of livestream
• 5:43
  content. Wow. We published 27 newsletters. We published 26
• 5:49
  full episodes. We published nine sideshow episodes of three
• 5:54
  different shows, eight bonus and mailbag episodes, three
• 5:57
  collaborations with other shows, two T shirts, one distribution
• 6:00
  deal with Radiotopia, and zero, count them, zero social media
• 6:06
  posts.
• 6:06
  Yeah.
• 6:07
  Mike Rugnetta: There are I go and I check the never post blue
• 6:10
  sky every once in
• 6:11
  Georgia Hampton: a while. Once in a while. And our most recent
• 6:13
  reply is from someone being like, I love that you've
• 6:15
  committed to this bit, and you
• 6:16
  Mike Rugnetta: haven't posted it. You haven't posted anything
• 6:18
  since before the show technically existed.
• 6:21
  Georgia Hampton: And that's real dedication. Yeah. It's in the
• 6:23
  name. It's in
• 6:24
  Hans Buetow: the name. So how does it feel, everybody? How
• 6:26
  let's talk our feelings about this. How does that you know,
• 6:28
  like, broad sense, how do you feel about what we did in 2025?
• 6:32
  Mike Rugnetta: Good. I mean, the show is an incredible amount of
• 6:34
  work. So like, I look at '26 episodes and I'm like, really?
• 6:37
  Only 26? And then I'm like, if I made if I made more than that, I
• 6:40
  would have died.
• 6:42
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. Yeah. When you really string it out, I
• 6:46
  guess we made a lot of things.
• 6:48
  Georgia Hampton: Did we do
• 6:49
  Hans Buetow: we do folks feel like we were able to tell the
• 6:51
  kinds of stories that we wanted to and cover this type of stuff
• 6:53
  that we were looking to and that we had goals to do?
• 6:57
  Mike Rugnetta: Can I give like the my most earnest answer to
• 6:59
  this?
• 6:59
  Georgia Hampton: We're talking about our feelings, Mike.
• 7:01
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:02
  Mike Rugnetta: No. But, like, that's okay. Yeah. You know,
• 7:05
  like, I think I I just I feel like I can imagine all of the
• 7:09
  things that I wanted to do, and I got to maybe a small
• 7:13
  percentage of them. Yeah.
• 7:14
  Yeah. I can imagine, like, you know, even things that we did
• 7:17
  release, like, what more we could have done with some of
• 7:20
  those things and what what else sort of like we had to leave on
• 7:23
  the table just because of how much time we have to make the
• 7:26
  show, the resources that we have. And, like, the stuff that
• 7:30
  we put out is great, but I just can't not also think about,
• 7:33
  like,
• 7:33
  Georgia Hampton: oh, if only we could've if only we could've
• 7:36
  Yeah.
• 7:36
  Mike Rugnetta: Which is just like the nature of making
• 7:38
  something, but it's it's good because it's motivating. Right?
• 7:42
  Georgia Hampton: Totally.
• 7:42
  Mike Rugnetta: Like, we know I know we can do it. You just take
• 7:44
  that lesson forward to the next thing and hopefully hit all of
• 7:47
  those marks for future stuff.
• 7:50
  Hans Buetow: Yeah.
• 7:50
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. I totally agree.
• 7:52
  Hans Buetow: But did we have fun?
• 7:54
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh, god. Yeah. Absolutely.
• 7:57
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. Unquestionable. Yes.
• 7:59
  Georgia Hampton: I would never allow us.
• 8:03
  Mike Rugnetta: Georgia's putting on the clown makeup. Oh, she's
• 8:05
  putting on the clown makeup right now.
• 8:06
  Georgia Hampton: Clown makeup has been on.
• 8:08
  Jason Oberholtzer: This is fun. I
• 8:11
  Georgia Hampton: love fun as we all know. We had fun.
• 8:14
  Jason Oberholtzer: There are segments in the pile for each of
• 8:18
  us that have been on the pile for the entire year that I wish
• 8:21
  we had been able to do that we still will do at some point, but
• 8:24
  that is also the nature of it. Like prioritization becomes such
• 8:27
  a task. There are so many good things that I know how they're
• 8:30
  going to be made when they are able to be made, and I look
• 8:34
  forward to them.
• 8:35
  Hans Buetow: I had a lot of fun making content and making
• 8:37
  stories and hanging out with you as a crew. I think the thing
• 8:41
  that was the biggest addition this year was developing and
• 8:43
  getting closer to the audience. I felt so good getting to do our
• 8:48
  streams, getting to know the chat a little bit more, getting
• 8:50
  to field more questions in mailbags. It's one of the
• 8:53
  reasons that I was excited to do this show is to be a little bit
• 8:56
  closer to you all, and that feels like it's happening more
• 9:00
  and more, and that to me is a lot of fun. So that's been
• 9:02
  really gratifying, and I
• 9:03
  Georgia Hampton: hope to do more of that.
• 9:04
  Mike Rugnetta: This raises a a question that we did not discuss
• 9:07
  before beforehand. So I'm sorry if this is ambushing everybody.
• 9:11
  Do we think we're gonna do another survey?
• 9:13
  Hans Buetow: Let's do a survey of the audience. Do you want us
• 9:15
  to know more about you and do a survey?
• 9:18
  Georgia Hampton: Do you do
• 9:19
  Mike Rugnetta: you want us to want to know more about you?
• 9:22
  Fill out fill out this survey to determine if we'll do a survey.
• 9:25
  Georgia Hampton: It'll be in the newsletter. Don't worry about
• 9:27
  it.
• 9:27
  Hans Buetow: Well, I think it's a good teaser forward, Mike, to
• 9:30
  what we're gonna announce because there are some changes
• 9:33
  coming that we're gonna talk about later in the in the
• 9:37
  episode, and I think I would like some feedback. I would like
• 9:38
  to know more about what people think of them. And, yeah, I
• 9:41
  think it's appropriate for us maybe sometime this year to do
• 9:43
  another survey to get feedback from folks in a more specific
• 9:47
  way. Yeah. So one of our goals in 2025 was definitely to do
• 9:53
  more of the show, as we call it, on purpose.
• 9:56
  Doing the show on purpose. It's a thing we talked about at this
• 9:58
  episode last year was how we sometimes were successful at
• 10:03
  doing it on purpose, but not as often as we think we should be
• 10:06
  or want to be. And so my question for you is, you three,
• 10:10
  is did we do the show more on purpose in 2025, which was our
• 10:13
  goal?
• 10:14
  Mike Rugnetta: Yes. I think so. Indeed. I think that we could
• 10:17
  still do it even more on purpose. Mhmm.
• 10:20
  But I think we did a better job this year than we did last year.
• 10:23
  Yeah. Yeah. So just for the audience, like, let's talk a
• 10:26
  little bit about maybe what that feels like. Like, when we're not
• 10:29
  doing the show on purpose, what that means is that we're, like,
• 10:33
  just trying to get things in as quickly as possible so that
• 10:36
  they're in so that we can publish a show.
• 10:38
  And that's not to say that those things don't have we don't have
• 10:40
  standards for those things or that we don't want them to be
• 10:44
  good. It just means that we get to be slightly less intentional
• 10:49
  about those things because we don't have the time or
• 10:51
  resources. And doing the show on purpose means, like, we are able
• 10:55
  to work with intention, and we are able to put something out
• 10:58
  and be like, this might not have everything we wanted in it, but
• 11:03
  it's got everything in it that we knew we could fit in the time
• 11:07
  frame we had to work on it. Yeah. And so when it's when it's
• 11:10
  when you were when we're not working on purpose, things go
• 11:12
  out and we may really like those things, but we might like them
• 11:16
  kind of like in spite of how they came together.
• 11:19
  Mhmm. Or we might sort of be relying on luck a little bit
• 11:25
  more than we would like to.
• 11:27
  Georgia Hampton: Big time.
• 11:28
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And so the idea is that we are we are
• 11:30
  always, even when we are strapped for time or resources,
• 11:33
  trying to work with as much intention as we can.
• 11:36
  Georgia Hampton: And I think we did a good job of that this
• 11:37
  year. I think there's always room for improvement, but I
• 11:39
  definitely think it was an improvement.
• 11:41
  Hans Buetow: Yeah.
• 11:41
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I do honestly think a part of that is
• 11:44
  that the show was put into an existential crisis because of
• 11:47
  the loss of our client work, but the loss of our client work does
• 11:50
  allow us to work with more intention because we are not
• 11:53
  saddled with tons of client work.
• 11:57
  Jason Oberholtzer: Mhmm. I
• 11:58
  Hans Buetow: think that's a really good transition for us,
• 12:00
  Mike, because let's talk a little bit about the details of
• 12:04
  what all this means. Feelings are great, but what's the what's
• 12:09
  the brass tacks here? So let's talk those dirty details and
• 12:13
  what those details mean for the future of the show. And spoiler
• 12:17
  on this, There's changes that come in.
• 12:19
  Georgia Hampton: Mhmm. But first, there's ads that come in.
• 12:26
  Jason Oberholtzer: Welcome back. Thank you for participating in
• 12:31
  the very numbers I'm about to talk about. We don't
• 12:35
  Mike Rugnetta: wanna say that our audience is nothing but a
• 12:37
  number to us, but you are definitely at least part, in
• 12:40
  part, a number We, to
• 12:43
  Jason Oberholtzer: by the numbers, I think had a good year
• 12:45
  last year, and I can prove it because that's what you use
• 12:48
  numbers to do. First off, how many people listen to this show?
• 12:52
  Great question. We believe that we had 226,000 total listens
• 12:59
  last year. Now why do I say we believe?
• 13:01
  Because this is podcast metrics and literally anything is
• 13:05
  possible. You have to know this about podcasting. Every number
• 13:09
  is a lie. Yep. And yet, this is the number we're going with.
• 13:14
  Hans Buetow: There's also the added caveat this year that
• 13:16
  because we switched to Radiotopia in March, we had to
• 13:20
  switch platforms that we publish on, which means our numbers
• 13:25
  metrics change because everybody measures just slightly
• 13:28
  differently, and we're not sure, like, during that period of
• 13:32
  transition, how many are duplicated or not duplicated. So
• 13:36
  we did some really what we think is the best math to get this,
• 13:38
  but, you know, it's it's always a question mark for us. We take
• 13:41
  it roughly. Know that this is about 226,000 listens in 2025.
• 13:47
  Jason Oberholtzer: So how does 226,000 listeners stack up to
• 13:50
  our first year, 2,024? Well, that is 9,000 more listeners
• 13:57
  than the preceding year.
• 13:59
  Mike Rugnetta: So like nine nine thousand more individual
• 14:02
  downloads.
• 14:02
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. Yes. And I think that that number is a
• 14:06
  lot better than it initially looks and I will tell you why
• 14:11
  later.
• 14:12
  Georgia Hampton: Okay. Alright. Yeah.
• 14:13
  Mike Rugnetta: So tell me why.
• 14:14
  Jason Oberholtzer: But for now, know that we had more listens
• 14:16
  this year. We grew a little bit.
• 14:18
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I wanna have grown more but I'm excited
• 14:20
  to hear why I should shut my mouth. Yeah.
• 14:24
  Jason Oberholtzer: Shut your mouth and get me that coffee.
• 14:27
  One other thing that people who listened to this state of the
• 14:30
  podcast last year might recall is that we have an incredibly
• 14:33
  large amount of international listeners. And this year, that
• 14:37
  only became more true. 35% of the IP addresses we can track as
• 14:43
  listeners are international, which is 5% more than last year.
• 14:48
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. That's okay,
• 14:49
  Jason Oberholtzer: that seems crazy.
• 14:50
  Georgia Hampton: Right? Been wild to me.
• 14:52
  Jason Oberholtzer: I love this especially because one of our
• 14:54
  initial concerns going into this is that we'd not be too American
• 14:57
  centric when we talk about the Internet and try to acknowledge
• 15:01
  that it is a global service. And I think this hopefully points to
• 15:05
  some success in that regard.
• 15:07
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. And we have some cool episodes coming up
• 15:10
  that are from international spaces talking about the
• 15:12
  Internet in a couple of different places that are really
• 15:15
  exciting. So Yeah. You know, we hope that this makes everybody,
• 15:19
  that 35% of you who are not in The United States, feel very
• 15:22
  included. I mean, apparently you are because you're listening,
• 15:24
  and we really appreciate that.
• 15:24
  It's very exciting.
• 15:26
  Jason Oberholtzer: We really do. Hans, do you have the list of
• 15:29
  countries that listen to us the most handy?
• 15:32
  Mike Rugnetta: One imagines it's the it's the top four, like,
• 15:36
  English speaking. So it's gonna be Us, Canada, The UK, and
• 15:40
  Australia followed, I would guess, maybe a Brazil or a
• 15:43
  Germany.
• 15:44
  Hans Buetow: You're you're very, very close. But there's a couple
• 15:47
  of those that are out of order. So, of course, United States is
• 15:50
  first by 65%.
• 15:51
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Fair margin. Yeah.
• 15:52
  Hans Buetow: Yes. Then Canada, yes, our dear neighbors to the
• 15:55
  north. United Kingdom, nailed it, then Germany. That's right.
• 16:00
  Mike Rugnetta: So that was the thing that we discussed most
• 16:02
  recently.
• 16:02
  Hans Buetow: Yep. More Germans by almost double from
• 16:06
  Australians who were the next one after that.
• 16:08
  Jason Oberholtzer: Who are
• 16:08
  Hans Buetow: then double again from The Netherlands. And you
• 16:11
  know who beat Brazil?
• 16:13
  Jason Oberholtzer: Xi Jinping.
• 16:16
  Hans Buetow: Jinping specifically. Just himself
• 16:18
  listened to our
• 16:19
  Jason Oberholtzer: show Okay.
• 16:20
  Georgia Hampton: Thousands and thousands of times. Huge fan.
• 16:23
  No.
• 16:25
  Hans Buetow: Jason's favorite fan country. What? Wait. France.
• 16:30
  Jason Oberholtzer: No way.
• 16:31
  Mike Rugnetta: Beat Brazil? Beat Brazil.
• 16:34
  Jason Oberholtzer: I've been wrong this whole time, France.
• 16:36
  Soccer blue. My favorite country in the world, France. You did
• 16:40
  it. You're back.
• 16:41
  I just had to give you a little bit of tough love for the whole
• 16:44
  calendar year because last year you weren't listening and this
• 16:47
  is what this is what they like. They like a little bit of the
• 16:50
  harshness.
• 16:51
  Georgia Hampton: Through reverse psychology, by next year, we
• 16:54
  will be the number one podcast in France.
• 16:56
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. That's right. Should double down.
• 16:59
  Words. France, I'm still disappointed.
• 17:02
  Well, that's all very exciting. Now let's break this number down
• 17:06
  a little bit more. So by our best estimates, what our
• 17:11
  listenership number means is that per episode, we get about
• 17:13
  four to 8,000 listeners on any given normal drop, averaging out
• 17:18
  to, like, 6,600 listeners per episode, which is a bit more
• 17:25
  than we were averaging out to last year, certainly.
• 17:28
  Mike Rugnetta: I would say that the if my memory serves, the
• 17:31
  increase in that number seems to outpace the overall total
• 17:37
  listens, which seems strange.
• 17:39
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. I think we did more bonus episodes this
• 17:43
  year.
• 17:43
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh. Yeah. Okay. And this is still not why
• 17:46
  I think that that 9,000 listener gain we got over last year is a
• 17:52
  better number than you think it is. Okay.
• 17:54
  And I still refuse to tell you. Okay.
• 17:56
  Georgia Hampton: Exciting. Exciting.
• 17:57
  Mike Rugnetta: Next up. Suspense is increasing.
• 17:59
  Jason Oberholtzer: Our biggest episodes for the year. In March,
• 18:03
  we released an episode called the hardest thing to do is
• 18:05
  nothing, which was our biggest downloaded episode because that
• 18:08
  is the first one we released after announcing that we were
• 18:12
  partnering with Radiotopia.
• 18:14
  Mike Rugnetta: Hardest thing to do is nothing was an episode
• 18:16
  where Georgia did the no buy challenge.
• 18:19
  Georgia Hampton: I sure did.
• 18:20
  Mike Rugnetta: And I talked to Mike Masnik about section two
• 18:23
  thirty.
• 18:23
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. Which is a very always worth returning to.
• 18:26
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Our second most listened to episode
• 18:29
  was Any Rigid Idea About Yourself Is A Prison featuring
• 18:33
  friend of the show, host of the unraveling podcast from the
• 18:36
  Brattleboro Retreat, Kurt White.
• 18:39
  Mike Rugnetta: And we had a segment from a contributing
• 18:41
  producer that episode as well, Young Naparc, about why LinkedIn
• 18:44
  is that way. Yeah. So yeah. Sorry. Listen, we're trying to
• 18:50
  turn it off.
• 18:50
  We're trying to turn it off.
• 18:52
  Jason Oberholtzer: Our most recent episode to have done
• 18:54
  bigger numbers than usually expected is AI and new American
• 18:59
  fascism. Mhmm. So those are sort of the bigger numbers about how
• 19:02
  our audience has grown over the last year. I feel pretty great
• 19:05
  about all of this, honestly. Here are some of the reasons
• 19:07
  that I feel extra good about last year.
• 19:11
  The growth in our membership, the people directly supporting
• 19:16
  us both as free members who are getting our newsletters and
• 19:19
  staying abreast of all the things we do and as paid members
• 19:22
  who are the reason we can make a show at all, those numbers have
• 19:25
  gone up a lot this year. We have an increase of a 135% year over
• 19:33
  year in membership and we now have 889 members.
• 19:38
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. Unbelievable. Oh my goodness.
• 19:41
  Jason Oberholtzer: Now if you think about this, like, big
• 19:42
  number that we started with, like, four to 8,000 listeners
• 19:46
  per episode about, and do the math on what percentage of that
• 19:50
  889 people is, it's a big.
• 19:55
  Mike Rugnetta: It's big. Yeah.
• 19:57
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Yeah. In fact, it is so big that we
• 19:59
  have been told we are over indexing on loyalty, which is a
• 20:03
  cool business way to say that you guys fucking rule. Yeah.
• 20:08
  Mike Rugnetta: We're in meetings where people are like, people
• 20:12
  really like your show?
• 20:16
  Jason Oberholtzer: And to that end, our membership increased by
• 20:18
  a 135, but our paying members increased by 303%.
• 20:24
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. They
• 20:24
  Hans Buetow: have 613
• 20:27
  Jason Oberholtzer: paying members. Thank you. Incredible.
• 20:31
  Hans Buetow: Thank you.
• 20:32
  Mike Rugnetta: Literally, the the reason the show exists.
• 20:34
  Yeah.
• 20:35
  Georgia Hampton: It's true.
• 20:35
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. So what did that all amount to
• 20:36
  financially? This is where take out your calculators here. This
• 20:40
  is where we get down to hard maths. Last year, we made
• 20:46
  $40,000 from members.
• 20:49
  To be exact, $40,111.52 from our members. In addition, we made
• 20:56
  almost $4,000 from making t shirts. Yay. And let me tell
• 21:01
  you, this is just gross revenue. So when I say we made that much
• 21:04
  money on t shirts, we made $0 on t Yeah.
• 21:10
  Mike Rugnetta: If we also, like,
• 21:11
  Georgia Hampton: if we include Jason's time in fulfillment, I
• 21:13
  think we probably lost money. Yeah. Yeah.
• 21:15
  Jason Oberholtzer: Well as paying two designers to make the
• 21:18
  t shirts, paying an amazing printer to print them out.
• 21:21
  Hans Buetow: We look so good.
• 21:23
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Yeah.
• 21:24
  Mike Rugnetta: So I mean, they are the best. They are some of
• 21:26
  the best shirts that I own. They're so Yeah.
• 21:28
  Jason Oberholtzer: They're amazing. And it's worth it. It's
• 21:30
  it was fun as hell and now we get to wear these t shirts. So
• 21:34
  are we gonna do more t shirts in the future even though they
• 21:36
  amounts to $0 at the end?
• 21:38
  Georgia Hampton: Absolutely. Yeah. Definitely. For sure.
• 21:40
  Mike Rugnetta: Can I just sidebar that my mom bought the
• 21:44
  punk design and she, like, wears it out when she goes to, like,
• 21:47
  her pottery studio?
• 21:50
  Georgia Hampton: Yes.
• 21:51
  Hans Buetow: I love it.
• 21:53
  Georgia Hampton: Does your mom need a shirt for the pottery
• 21:55
  studio? Come to never post.
• 21:59
  Jason Oberholtzer: And one last note on the t shirts.
• 22:00
  International t shirt desirers, they're on their way. We had to
• 22:05
  figure it out.
• 22:06
  Mike Rugnetta: I think yeah. We basically just don't want them
• 22:09
  to show up and then to also have them show up with someone
• 22:11
  requesting lots of money from you.
• 22:13
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. So are on their way. I promise. And
• 22:17
  then the final piece of the pie here, $7,500 in ad revenue. So
• 22:24
  altogether, that means that we made for this year, gross
• 22:28
  revenue, $51,594.79.
• 22:35
  Oh.
• 22:36
  Mike Rugnetta: That's pretty good. That's not nothing.
• 22:37
  Hans Buetow: That's not nothing. It's a big improvement. Big
• 22:39
  improvement on 2024.
• 22:41
  Jason Oberholtzer: Right. It is a big improvement over 2024
• 22:43
  because in 2024, the only money we made was from our dear
• 22:48
  founding members who showed up for the first year for us. And
• 22:51
  across the whole membership base, made $14,000 and some
• 22:56
  change there. So we have added
• 23:01
  Mike Rugnetta: Go ahead and just do that in your head right now.
• 23:07
  Jason Oberholtzer: 37 ish thousand dollars.
• 23:10
  Mike Rugnetta: Thought we're gonna have to turn you off and
• 23:11
  on again.
• 23:12
  Georgia Hampton: Hans, you're gonna cut the, like, twenty
• 23:14
  minutes that that took for Jason to do the math. Right?
• 23:16
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:17
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. I'll I'll drastically re breathe the
• 23:20
  entire time.
• 23:21
  Georgia Hampton: It was really intense. He was crying. It was
• 23:23
  pretty rough. Wow.
• 23:26
  Jason Oberholtzer: We're all doing our best. So where did
• 23:29
  that money go to? That money went to contributing producers
• 23:32
  like it always does. We had some great contributing producers
• 23:35
  this year. Tori Dominguez Peak, of course, delivering more
• 23:38
  amazing segments.
• 23:39
  Yagna Park in the aforementioned, why is LinkedIn
• 23:42
  like that segment? Melissa Locker who talked about Oasis
• 23:46
  fan clubs with us and friend of the show, Meagal Jenardin
• 23:50
  talking about her own struggles with attention. So we had
• 23:54
  brilliant contributor pieces, we made t shirts,
• 23:59
  Georgia Hampton: and
• 24:02
  Jason Oberholtzer: we maintained all of the softwares as a
• 24:05
  service that we know and love so much. All of our hosting and
• 24:08
  production tools, everything we have to subscribe to.
• 24:11
  Hans Buetow: We need to make sure we have lots of logins for
• 24:14
  Georgia.
• 24:14
  Mike Rugnetta: Yes. It's
• 24:15
  Georgia Hampton: true. I need to be able to log in.
• 24:19
  Jason Oberholtzer: And then finally what we did is we
• 24:21
  basically refilled the coffers off of the ad dollars we had
• 24:25
  spent in 2024.
• 24:28
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. That's what I was gonna ask, Jason. My
• 24:30
  impression is that also a fair amount of this went towards
• 24:32
  recouping charts and leisure's costs over the first year, which
• 24:37
  were, let's say, not insignificant.
• 24:40
  Hans Buetow: Yeah.
• 24:41
  Jason Oberholtzer: So the first year, we spent, I think, around
• 24:45
  $20,000 on ads. And we spent probably as much on PR and other
• 24:51
  functions to launch the show. Now think about this. This is
• 24:58
  where I reveal the prestige. Oh.
• 25:01
  If in 2024, we spent, let's call it $40,000 of marketing budget
• 25:08
  to get 217,000 listens. And in 2025, we spent $0 to get 226,000
• 25:19
  listens. Does that 9,000 listener increase feel like a
• 25:25
  $40,000 worth of investment increase?
• 25:29
  Mike Rugnetta: The prestige.
• 25:31
  Georgia Hampton: I see what you're saying.
• 25:32
  Jason Oberholtzer: This is really good because this is the
• 25:34
  year we did not market. We established a relationship with
• 25:38
  Radiotopia.
• 25:39
  Georgia Hampton: They have
• 25:39
  Jason Oberholtzer: helped us immeasurably on this. We have
• 25:41
  engaged our own listeners and fans and supporters to help us
• 25:45
  get the word out. We have sent out newsletters. We have
• 25:49
  collaborated with other programs, but we have not spent
• 25:53
  any of this money in direct marketing like we did last year
• 25:56
  on Pocket Cast and Overcast and all the other casts that you
• 26:01
  could do this on, and yet we have more listeners than last
• 26:04
  year. Entirely owned by the things we made, not the money we
• 26:07
  sent out.
• 26:08
  So I think that is actually incredible.
• 26:12
  Mike Rugnetta: That's organic growth as you call it in the
• 26:14
  business. Yeah. Mhmm.
• 26:15
  Jason Oberholtzer: And that's like a huge part of the runway
• 26:18
  of this show is can it persist organically without that
• 26:22
  marketing budget engine pushing on it? And this was the year we
• 26:25
  wanted to find out, and this is the year I believe we found out
• 26:28
  that, yes, that this is where we are.
• 26:30
  Hans Buetow: So Jason, to summarize, 300% growth in
• 26:33
  members
• 26:34
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes.
• 26:34
  Hans Buetow: Two big membership drives, distribution deal. We
• 26:37
  didn't spend money on the things on the marketing. We, you know,
• 26:41
  brought in more gross, all that sort of stuff. Did we do it? Did
• 26:44
  we hit our big goal?
• 26:45
  Our financial goals that we had set for 2025, which is to become
• 26:49
  self sustaining.
• 26:51
  Jason Oberholtzer: Everyone all at once. One, two, three. No.
• 26:59
  Mike Rugnetta: I I will be the outside voice. But hold on. You
• 27:02
  we made $50,000.
• 27:04
  Hans Buetow: Fantastic.
• 27:05
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Another way to think about this is I
• 27:07
  think we have organically grown to a size that is a fairly
• 27:12
  standard hobby podcast size for a person or two. And for if you
• 27:18
  were making a podcast as a person or two and you got to
• 27:20
  this size, in two years, you would be thrilled and you would
• 27:23
  probably be able to devote around half of your time to this
• 27:27
  and feel sufficiently remunerated for that time. But
• 27:30
  our aspiration is to be something larger and to be that
• 27:33
  we need to be the size of team that we are. And we need to use
• 27:37
  the budget that we have to have contributors come in and work
• 27:41
  with other producers and maintain the relationships that
• 27:44
  we have.
• 27:44
  And so there's more we need to do with this. Yeah. And so we
• 27:47
  need to figure out ways that our listener base can also grow
• 27:51
  alongside us and support the rest of the growth that we need
• 27:54
  to do. And yet, I think we should acknowledge this is like
• 27:57
  a pretty incredible achievement for a show no matter how many
• 28:01
  people go into the making of it, that we have achieved a sense of
• 28:05
  stability at a reasonable size for a audio program in a couple
• 28:10
  of the weirdest years to be an independent audio program Yeah.
• 28:13
  There have ever been.
• 28:15
  Mike Rugnetta: So I think the upshot in a lot of this is that
• 28:18
  while the show is growing and we're feeling good about its
• 28:21
  growth, we're still not making something that, like, barring
• 28:25
  various circumstances, we'll definitely continue to be around
• 28:29
  for, you know, the next two to five years. Like, we are
• 28:33
  constantly I mean, we have these meetings. Like, we've had them
• 28:36
  as recently as a couple weeks ago where it's like, are we
• 28:39
  going to keep making the show? And we all continually agree,
• 28:42
  like, yes. It's hard, but we will continue to make the show.
• 28:47
  And so, you know, in looking forward to the next year, we're
• 28:51
  looking at 2026 to 2027. Like, what do we need? And, like, in
• 28:56
  one sense, the answer is really simple. We just need more money,
• 28:59
  more supporters, more members, more listeners, like, more of
• 29:02
  everything. And, like, if we don't get those things, like,
• 29:05
  does the show still exist?
• 29:07
  And that's just as much a question now as it has been for
• 29:11
  all of the show's existence. There's nothing in our rate of
• 29:16
  growth or our circumstances at the moment that let us say,
• 29:19
  like, yeah, we're definitely like, we're crushing it. We're
• 29:22
  not going anywhere. This is easy to do. And, like, we are
• 29:26
  definitely gonna be able to keep doing it indefinitely.
• 29:30
  You know? I think in a lot of ways, that puts us in a similar
• 29:33
  boat to probably a lot of things online that you like and listen
• 29:37
  to and watch and enjoy. It's a time that's really, especially
• 29:41
  in media, defined by precarity.
• 29:45
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. It is wild how net how
• 29:49
  many of the imprimatures of success we have walked through
• 29:53
  and then the the material returns on them.
• 29:58
  Mike Rugnetta: I have friends I have friends who are like, oh my
• 30:00
  god. How's the show going? It seems like it's doing really
• 30:03
  well. And and I get to be like, well, we've won a bunch of
• 30:07
  awards.
• 30:09
  Hans Buetow: We have a good time.
• 30:10
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Which,
• 30:13
  Mike Rugnetta: like, I don't wanna seem ingrateful
• 30:15
  Hans Buetow: Yeah.
• 30:15
  Mike Rugnetta: For the awards. I love the awards. Love the
• 30:19
  recognition.
• 30:19
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Yeah. This is the environment right
• 30:21
  now where, like, you can win a lot of awards. You can have a
• 30:24
  wonderful dedicated audience. You can make a show that you
• 30:27
  love and that people respond to, and it is still not enough.
• 30:32
  Georgia Hampton: And A Webby doesn't pay your rent.
• 30:36
  Mike Rugnetta: As a matter of fact, a Webby costs you money.
• 30:38
  Yeah.
• 30:38
  Georgia Hampton: It actually super does.
• 30:40
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. And so we we should, and I am grateful
• 30:44
  for all of the the luck and the good breaks and everything else
• 30:48
  that we have had so far. And, like, if anything at Omi
• 30:51
  furthers my sense of, like, solidarity and despair at how
• 30:57
  difficult it is to be making anything right now for
• 30:59
  everybody. For real. Yeah.
• 31:01
  If we had done all of these things ten years ago, we would
• 31:03
  not be worried. And I'm sorry everyone's worried out there,
• 31:09
  but I am too. So
• 31:11
  Mike Rugnetta: speaking of, like, the people who listen to
• 31:14
  their show and their habits and what they're interested in, you
• 31:18
  two, Jason and Hans, were in a really interesting meeting with
• 31:22
  the, like, audience and analytics people at Radiotopia
• 31:25
  where they talked they, like, really did some divining of the
• 31:29
  analytics and the numbers and said some really interesting
• 31:31
  things. So I would like can you guys share some of that with the
• 31:34
  audience?
• 31:35
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. They
• 31:37
  Hans Buetow: with our need to grow, helped us understand that
• 31:40
  we are not really growing at a rate that we're talking about.
• 31:45
  And they said, like Jason said earlier, we over index on loyal.
• 31:50
  So we have super duper consistent numbers. You freaks
• 31:56
  love to download an episode when it comes out.
• 32:01
  Mike Rugnetta: And we download downloads. Oh, they would love
• 32:03
  to download those shit
• 32:05
  Hans Buetow: goes for downloading.
• 32:06
  Georgia Hampton: The show
• 32:06
  Hans Buetow: is called never post, not never download.
• 32:08
  Georgia Hampton: Always download. And we love you for
• 32:12
  like, it
• 32:12
  Hans Buetow: is it's the reason that we can have the membership
• 32:15
  numbers that we do is because there's no No. Guild team in
• 32:18
  Georgia Hampton: It's the best.
• 32:20
  Hans Buetow: But we need that, plus we need a bunch of other
• 32:24
  stuff that they told us we don't have. One of the things that
• 32:26
  they said that we don't really get, which really, really
• 32:28
  surprised them was any meaningful back catalog
• 32:32
  listening. Mhmm. Which means no one is going back and listening
• 32:36
  to stuff we have already done. They're really just consuming
• 32:40
  the the right now of things, the most recent episodes, despite us
• 32:44
  doing mostly evergreen content that could be consumed kind of
• 32:48
  at any time.
• 32:49
  People are not going back to it.
• 32:50
  Mike Rugnetta: My impression after you guys left that meeting
• 32:52
  and you described it to us was that as weird as it is, the the
• 32:56
  degree to which it is weird that people will seemingly the bulk
• 33:01
  of our audience will download every episode when it's dropped.
• 33:08
  It is weird how little movement there is in older episodes once
• 33:13
  they've dropped.
• 33:14
  Hans Buetow: Yeah.
• 33:15
  Jason Oberholtzer: I have a theory about this behavior that
• 33:16
  I've been calling the New Yorker theory of content consumption.
• 33:24
  Georgia Hampton: TM. TM.
• 33:25
  Jason Oberholtzer: Picture this. A fresh New Yorker comes in the
• 33:28
  mail. Oh, boy.
• 33:32
  Georgia Hampton: Could you squeal with glee?
• 33:34
  Jason Oberholtzer: I'm gonna open that bad boy up, and I sure
• 33:37
  do. And I sit down at my couch, and I open up my coffee table,
• 33:41
  and I start reading to that New Yorker.
• 33:43
  Georgia Hampton: Open up coffee table.
• 33:48
  Hans Buetow: Jason. This
• 33:49
  Jason Oberholtzer: is why you
• 33:49
  Georgia Hampton: have trouble.
• 33:50
  Jason Oberholtzer: Where I keep my readers, and I take my
• 33:52
  reading glasses out of the coffee table, put them on my
• 33:55
  face, and then I open up New Yorker the magazine. And I start
• 34:01
  reading and boy, I'm having a good time. And then I get up
• 34:04
  there, oh, the first big story is about to start. I get a
• 34:06
  couple pages in and then, oh, someone's calling me on my
• 34:10
  phone. I gotta talk to somebody.
• 34:12
  It's Mike and he wants to talk about esoteric noise music.
• 34:15
  Well, there it goes the day. And the New Yorker sits there on my
• 34:20
  coffee table, which I haven't even shut.
• 34:26
  Hans Buetow: You've got the best of intentions, you wanna return.
• 34:28
  Jason Oberholtzer: I want you so badly. But then it's almost
• 34:30
  dinner time, I gotta make dinner. So next thing I
• 34:33
  Georgia Hampton: know I'm calling again to talk
• 34:35
  Mike Rugnetta: about s
• 34:35
  Georgia Hampton: It's always something. The music is only
• 34:37
  getting noisier and less diatonic. More esoteric. S
• 34:43
  Chasing missed call list is just me. It's just Mike every day.
• 34:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: Next thing you know, a whole dang week has
• 34:50
  passed, and I'm finally getting ready to sit down and finish
• 34:53
  that beautiful New Yorker article and what's this? A knock
• 34:57
  at the door? It's my mailman. He says, Jason, great news. And I
• 35:03
  say, yes, Paul.
• 35:04
  And he said, you're new New Yorker. The magazine is here.
• 35:08
  And I said, goddamn it. I'm so excited. And I rested out of his
• 35:12
  grubby little hands and slammed the door on him.
• 35:14
  And I go back to my coffee table, which I have to reopen.
• 35:19
  Put my readers on, and start digging into my new New Yorker
• 35:22
  sitting right on top of the old one, which I never even had the
• 35:26
  time to finish.
• 35:27
  Hans Buetow: So that was the analogy that Jason came up with
• 35:29
  in this meeting, which I think is actually pretty apt, but it
• 35:32
  was a really eye opening meeting for us. They put a thank you,
• 35:36
  Radiotopia, for putting that much work into really helping us
• 35:39
  understand the numbers that are happening. But it got it start
• 35:43
  it kicked off this months long conversation for us about we
• 35:46
  need to grow the show. We need more folks. We need more money.
• 35:50
  We're having these specific behaviors. How can we add to
• 35:54
  those specific behaviors with the growth that we need?
• 35:57
  Mike Rugnetta: And actually, I don't know that we mentioned it,
• 35:59
  but this is a very important part of the puzzle. Audience, we
• 36:03
  love you. Yeah. We really, really love you. We love that
• 36:06
  you listen to every episode.
• 36:08
  We love that you write in, that you call us. You send us emails.
• 36:12
  You send us voicemails. Not a one of you is finishing an
• 36:15
  episode.
• 36:17
  Hans Buetow: Did you how
• 36:17
  Mike Rugnetta: many of you know that there's a poem at the end
• 36:20
  of every episode?
• 36:21
  Georgia Hampton: And there yeah. There has been every time.
• 36:25
  Mike Rugnetta: So and we say that that is not again, like,
• 36:28
  that's not a judgment. That's a note for us. Yep. Right? And I'd
• 36:32
  say this sort of half joking, like, yes, there are a bunch of
• 36:34
  you that actually do listen to a 100% of every episode.
• 36:37
  But percentage wise, of the number of people who start an
• 36:39
  episode, who download it, which is huge, the number of people
• 36:44
  who are listening through to the end of, let's say, the second
• 36:47
  segment, if we do a set if we do two segments, is relatively low.
• 36:51
  And so that's a problem that we need to solve. That is a problem
• 36:54
  with, as far as we see it, the design of the format of the
• 36:58
  show.
• 36:58
  Hans Buetow: So we made some decisions.
• 37:02
  Georgia Hampton: Mhmm.
• 37:02
  Hans Buetow: We are gonna change things.
• 37:05
  Jason Oberholtzer: We're buying the New Yorker.
• 37:08
  Georgia Hampton: Is that New Yorker the magazine, Jason?
• 37:12
  Jason Oberholtzer: I just need 40,000 more dollars, and I think
• 37:15
  they're gonna say yes.
• 37:17
  Georgia Hampton: How much could New Yorker cost the entire
• 37:20
  company? So when we come back,
• 37:23
  Hans Buetow: let's talk about it. Our plan for 2026, the stuff
• 37:26
  that you can expect to shift, the stuff you can expect to stay
• 37:28
  the same, and how it all relates.
• 37:36
  Mike Rugnetta: Alright. We're back. So I think the headline
• 37:39
  here is that I think we're just gonna be doing more of what the
• 37:44
  show already has been doing over the last couple months. More.
• 37:48
  More.
• 37:48
  More. The Like, we're not we're not actually going to change too
• 37:53
  much. We are just going to acknowledge in a more official
• 37:57
  capacity what it seems like has been working over the last
• 38:01
  quarter of a year. And that means essentially uploading more
• 38:06
  things that are just a segment and sometimes even just a
• 38:10
  segment with no news. And so we're just gonna do more of that
• 38:16
  because based upon our analytics and based upon the feedback that
• 38:19
  we've been getting, it feels like that's what people want.
• 38:22
  People get excited when there's a new Neverpost upload that
• 38:25
  shows up in their feed. They we we get, like, all kinds of
• 38:29
  emails and notes from people being like, I love the show. If
• 38:32
  a new Neverpost shows up, I will stop a podcast that I'm
• 38:36
  currently listening to in order to listen to it, which is just
• 38:40
  like I mean, that's a massive compliment. And so we just are
• 38:43
  gonna increase the frequency with which that's done. That
• 38:47
  means overall that uploads will be shorter, but there's gonna be
• 38:52
  more of them.
• 38:53
  Does that mean news is going away? No. News I mean, we'll
• 38:57
  see. We're gonna be testing this out over the next couple months
• 39:00
  to see, like, what works, but the plan right now is that there
• 39:03
  will be one news episode per month at least, possibly two,
• 39:09
  and that between those, you're gonna get other uploads that are
• 39:13
  just classic segments.
• 39:15
  Hans Buetow: And I think this is gonna be really good for folks
• 39:18
  because it addresses another problem that we had, which we
• 39:21
  actually demonstrated earlier in this episode. When Jason was
• 39:24
  listing off the most popular episodes of the year, all four
• 39:27
  of us had to go to the feed to figure out what was on each of
• 39:31
  those episodes because we can't even remember what we've
• 39:34
  published in any individual episode, which means the
• 39:37
  discoverability is not high. We think this is gonna make it much
• 39:39
  easier for you to find, share, and remember where your favorite
• 39:44
  episodes are so that you can get back to them more easily, and
• 39:48
  they become more useful in the back catalog. But but Hans
• 39:52
  Mike Rugnetta: Yes. Yes, Mike. That's only true for episodes
• 39:55
  going forward. Right? What about what about episodes from the
• 40:01
  back catalog that our audience may have missed?
• 40:04
  What a good question.
• 40:06
  Jason Oberholtzer: Wait a second. What's that? Is there a
• 40:10
  knock at my door? Let me go get it.
• 40:13
  Georgia Hampton: Paul's gotta
• 40:14
  Jason Oberholtzer: go. Paul's demanding to know what you're
• 40:18
  gonna say next.
• 40:20
  Hans Buetow: Boy, Jason, if only we had an answer to that
• 40:22
  question. What do think?
• 40:22
  Georgia Hampton: Paul, calm down. I'm I'm I'm getting right
• 40:24
  to it. He's waving the gun around.
• 40:26
  Jason Oberholtzer: Baby, please listen to me, Paul. So what
• 40:30
  we're gonna do, Paul, calm down, is we are going to release old
• 40:34
  segments from the past two years that have heretofore lived in
• 40:38
  the middle of a full never post episode behind a bunch of
• 40:41
  minutes of news between interstitials next to another
• 40:44
  segment, between that poem no one bothers to stick around and
• 40:48
  listen to. Paul, calm down. We're gonna bring them back in a
• 40:53
  timely fashion as they make sense to the events of the day
• 40:56
  and as they feel good to bring back. But we're gonna bring them
• 40:58
  back on their own, so they are discoverable and shareable and
• 41:02
  you can actually instead of saying like, oh, yeah.
• 41:04
  I heard that in this great Never Post episode a couple months
• 41:07
  ago, that is some oblique title, and I'm not sure exactly where
• 41:11
  it is in that. You can just say, oh, yeah. It's about this, and
• 41:13
  it's called this, and
• 41:15
  Hans Buetow: Here's a link.
• 41:15
  Mike Rugnetta: A link.
• 41:16
  Georgia Hampton: Yep.
• 41:16
  Mike Rugnetta: Right. There is no reason for any of you to
• 41:19
  remember that Yungna Park's segment about Yep. LinkedIn is
• 41:22
  in the episode that is titled Any Rigid Idea About Yourself Is
• 41:26
  A Prison. Yep. Titled so for Kurt's segment.
• 41:29
  Yep. I and since we've been thinking about making this
• 41:33
  change, I've talked to a number of friends who make podcasts
• 41:37
  that are in segments. Like, there's a sort of thing that
• 41:40
  they do, and they do multiple of that thing per show. And I'm
• 41:43
  like, how do you solve the titling and the metadata problem
• 41:47
  of, like, you know, you've got something buried in the middle
• 41:50
  of an episode. You can only do one title.
• 41:52
  How do you make it clear to people who are looking for it
• 41:55
  later where it is? And every single one of them was like, I
• 41:57
  don't we don't know. We have no we have
• 42:00
  Georgia Hampton: no clue. Yeah.
• 42:01
  Mike Rugnetta: So it turns out it turns out the right answer is
• 42:04
  maybe the simplest answer, which is everything should just be
• 42:07
  uploaded by itself. Yeah. Yeah. However so we all really love
• 42:13
  the Neverpost format of, like, the magazine show. Mhmm.
• 42:18
  You've got the intro, the news, a segment, the interstitials,
• 42:21
  like, this sort of, like, packaged up thing.
• 42:24
  Hans Buetow: And clearly, the people who listen also love it.
• 42:26
  Also love So,
• 42:27
  Mike Rugnetta: Jason, is that going to go away completely?
• 42:31
  Jason Oberholtzer: No. It is not gonna go away completely. Here's
• 42:34
  another thing we learned from the analytics. You love the
• 42:37
  news. You get falloffs every time we transition to a new
• 42:41
  segment because that's just natural listening behavior.
• 42:43
  We give you an opportunity
• 42:44
  Georgia Hampton: to put your phone down and take
• 42:45
  Jason Oberholtzer: a break and you do. But everyone likes the
• 42:47
  news. Everyone listens to it and you download and listen to the
• 42:50
  show within moments of it coming out. So there's something about
• 42:53
  the timeliness and the newsiness of it is helpful. And we wanna
• 42:56
  preserve that and still give you news episodes, not just
• 42:59
  disembodied segments all the time.
• 43:02
  And those are the moments where I think we are going to push
• 43:06
  into exploring more of the classic Never format and some so
• 43:10
  if you think about, like, an episode coming out at the end of
• 43:13
  a month that's going to dive into what has happened to that
• 43:16
  month, I think that's largely going to feel like Neverpost has
• 43:20
  always felt. We are going to try to stretch and explore and
• 43:23
  figure out the most interesting way to provide something that is
• 43:25
  newsy and relevant and encapsulates the feeling of what
• 43:29
  a month has felt like for all of us, and it's going to give you
• 43:34
  all of the magazine feel that we also love about this format and
• 43:38
  we don't want to give up just because we're releasing segments
• 43:41
  on their own so you can also find them. We're gonna try to
• 43:44
  have our cake and eat it too. Oh, Paul is losing his mind.
• 43:47
  He's so happy about this.
• 43:48
  Paul, stop crying. I know, buddy. We had a plan the whole
• 43:51
  time.
• 43:52
  Georgia Hampton: So some
• 43:53
  Mike Rugnetta: of that original never post flavor will persist.
• 43:56
  And I think that this is, like I think if you think about what
• 43:59
  we've been doing over the last few months, like Hans's
• 44:03
  Minneapolis episode, Meigle's attention episode, which, like,
• 44:08
  really was just like a double wide single Yeah. Exploring a
• 44:12
  single thought. Yeah. Like, we've been uploading more things
• 44:16
  that are just themselves.
• 44:19
  Jason Oberholtzer: Mhmm.
• 44:19
  Mike Rugnetta: Uploads have a single identity as opposed to
• 44:23
  being this kind of multivalent, multipart thing where where a
• 44:27
  theme might be oblique or not clear or even nonexistent. And
• 44:32
  the response has been either positive or nonexistent, which
• 44:36
  is another way to say positive. Right? Like, when you change
• 44:39
  something and no one in the audience is like, wait. What the
• 44:41
  fuck are you doing?
• 44:42
  Stop it. That's good. Right? That means that it seems like a
• 44:45
  natural evolution of the show. So think we're just gonna lean
• 44:48
  into what we've been doing so far.
• 44:50
  Just try to do it as we talked about earlier, more on purpose.
• 44:54
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. And I think another thing that's going
• 44:56
  to help with intentionality there is that in conversations,
• 44:59
  we're starting to treat the whole feed as if the whole feed
• 45:02
  were the magazine rather than every episode being the magazine
• 45:05
  we're releasing. Yep. In some ways, like, the flexibility of
• 45:08
  any given release in the format that we've created for this is,
• 45:11
  like, really freeing and allows us to do everything, but it's
• 45:14
  also constricting and that you need to pack all of your ideas
• 45:18
  into the same container every time we release. And the further
• 45:21
  we're stretching through that, the more I'm starting to see,
• 45:24
  like, a lot of open space in how we can fill the feed in new and
• 45:27
  surprising ways
• 45:28
  Mike Rugnetta: Yep.
• 45:29
  Jason Oberholtzer: And continue to make the feed feel more like
• 45:31
  every single episode drop. And that's getting me really excited
• 45:34
  to figure out how to program next year.
• 45:36
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. Surprise episodes, strangely sized
• 45:40
  episodes, oddly comprised episodes. Just prepare. It's
• 45:45
  gonna we're gonna have a fun time this year.
• 45:47
  Mike Rugnetta: And speaking of which, Georgia, do you wanna
• 45:49
  talk to us a little bit about streaming?
• 45:53
  Georgia Hampton: Why, yes. So we did do, as we previously said,
• 45:58
  over what was it? Forty hours Yeah. Of livestreaming.
• 46:03
  Mike Rugnetta: Which I think if if memory serves, we are gonna
• 46:07
  do a numb another stream week later this year.
• 46:10
  Georgia Hampton: That is
• 46:11
  Mike Rugnetta: on the books. Okay.
• 46:13
  Georgia Hampton: Far as we know, that is happening again.
• 46:15
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. Was more than half of that forty hours. Yeah.
• 46:17
  Yeah.
• 46:17
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Oh, big oh, I I'm sure it was.
• 46:19
  Mike Rugnetta: But between now and then.
• 46:20
  Georgia Hampton: But between now and then, we're going to be
• 46:22
  doing quite a lot more streaming on our Twitch channel,
• 46:27
  twitch.tv/theneverpost. We are also going to lean a lot harder
• 46:35
  on making streaming content for you and make a lot more of
• 46:39
  Hans Buetow: it,
• 46:40
  Georgia Hampton: which includes a monthly stream of our
• 46:44
  editorial meeting that we have every Monday, where we pitch
• 46:48
  ideas, we bring in ideas from other people, and we are going
• 46:51
  to do that live for you, where you can be in the audience and
• 46:56
  see how the Never Post Sausage is made and also contribute to
• 47:02
  how segments get put together in a lot of different ways. That
• 47:06
  was extremely instrumental when I was making that episode about
• 47:09
  witchcraft and anti witches.
• 47:11
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Like, we have already done this and it
• 47:13
  has ruled. Like, we get great sources and ideas from people
• 47:16
  and it validates the things we're trying to see if they're
• 47:18
  sticky or not. These are so fun and so valuable to do.
• 47:23
  Hans Buetow: But aren't there four Mondays in a month? Maybe
• 47:25
  five?
• 47:26
  Georgia Hampton: Why, yes, there are, Hans. But I have wonderful
• 47:30
  news for you about the remaining Mondays where Wait, Paul's here
• 47:36
  now. Paul, how did he get to Minneapolis? Oh, god. He's on
• 47:41
  the way to me.
• 47:43
  But, yes. So on other Mondays throughout the month, we will
• 47:49
  also be live streaming other things like teen chats, maybe
• 47:53
  some gaming. Definitely some gaming.
• 47:56
  Mike Rugnetta: Georgia, certified professional gamer
• 47:59
  girl.
• 47:59
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. It's finally happening to me. Yeah. I
• 48:03
  got the call once in a generation.
• 48:07
  Jason Oberholtzer: So Mondays is gonna be the big day. 11:30
• 48:11
  eastern on Mondays. That's when the editorial call will be once
• 48:14
  a month. And other Mondays, we will have other programming for
• 48:17
  you there. Sometimes the gaming will probably be in the
• 48:19
  evenings, but we'll let you know.
• 48:21
  Just hang out. We'll figure it out together. And once again,
• 48:24
  that is twitch.tv/theneverpost. Hang out with us there. So one
• 48:29
  of the things I know we're gonna be doing on Mondays at 11:30 on
• 48:34
  some Monday on 11:30 is we are going to be having live
• 48:37
  recordings of the team chats, little monthly yap fests which
• 48:42
  we are going to release for the members.
• 48:46
  As part of our membership benefits, we are gonna be doing
• 48:49
  a monthly team chat. And if you wanna watch us record that live,
• 48:52
  you can come to twitch.tv/ then ever post and watch us, or you
• 48:55
  can become a member and listen to the edited output of that
• 48:59
  coming out once a month and starring friend of the show and
• 49:03
  yapping extraordinaire, Meaghel Janardin.
• 49:05
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. This gets us, I think, into the last thing
• 49:07
  that we wanted to talk about, which is maybe one of the more
• 49:09
  important things, which is, is anything gonna change for
• 49:12
  members? And the answer is yes. I mean, you know, things are
• 49:16
  gonna change insofar as the show itself is changing. Your feed
• 49:20
  will change in ways that I think are will be easy to understand.
• 49:26
  Like, you're gonna get the same parceled out uploads that
• 49:30
  everybody else gets. But you're also going to get, as Jason
• 49:34
  said, these members only Yapfests. There's essentially,
• 49:37
  like, an extra chat show now that's gonna come out every once
• 49:41
  in a while that's just for members. But Hans, do you wanna
• 49:45
  talk about the other member feed changes that are gonna occur?
• 49:49
  Hans Buetow: Absolutely. Because what we're gonna do is condense
• 49:52
  things down into one feed. Right now, it says on every episode in
• 49:55
  the show notes, subscribe, become a member, and you get
• 49:58
  access to all of our different feeds. Well, those feeds are
• 50:00
  gonna become one feed, so it's easier for you. You don't have
• 50:02
  to remember which ones you're subscribed to, figure out, am I
• 50:05
  do I have never watched or not never watched, whatever?
• 50:07
  Everything's just gonna go down one feed, and frankly, we're not
• 50:11
  gonna be feeding a whole lot more down that feed. We are
• 50:14
  gonna not be doing extended interviews anymore. We just
• 50:18
  don't get big numbers on them, and we struggle to be able to
• 50:21
  take the time to go produce them considering all of the other
• 50:24
  things for doing the regular show. So we're just gonna let
• 50:26
  those go. If this is a huge deal breaker for you, let us know.
• 50:31
  Mike Rugnetta: I have a feeling it's not because the best
• 50:33
  versions of those interviews always just end up in the
• 50:35
  segment. The puzzle
• 50:36
  Georgia Hampton: is kind of like punishing the members. Like,
• 50:39
  here's the version that isn't as good.
• 50:42
  Jason Oberholtzer: Do you
• 50:42
  Georgia Hampton: wanna pay us to listen to
• 50:43
  Mike Rugnetta: something that's, like, maybe, like, 10% worse?
• 50:48
  Hans Buetow: If yes, and you'll cancel your membership because
• 50:50
  Mike Rugnetta: of that, please let us And we
• 50:52
  Hans Buetow: can we can we'll talk about that. But you're
• 50:55
  gonna get a bunch of stuff. It's gonna be much easier to access,
• 50:57
  and it's gonna all funnel through one feed. So you'll get
• 51:00
  more details about that if you're a member as we figure out
• 51:03
  exactly the mechanics of how that's gonna work.
• 51:06
  Jason Oberholtzer: One feed, a monthly Yapfest roundtable with
• 51:10
  the crew, assorted oddities when we make them, and ad free
• 51:15
  episodes of everything we put out. That's a pretty good feed.
• 51:18
  That's a pretty good feed.
• 51:20
  Hans Buetow: Alright. Great.
• 51:20
  Mike Rugnetta: So Can I can I put a what should be a survey
• 51:23
  question to our audience? Sure. I would love to know if there
• 51:27
  are podcasts out there that have member feeds that you love. I
• 51:32
  would love to know what they are.
• 51:33
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. Yeah. That would be so helpful.
• 51:36
  Mike Rugnetta: Like, what podcasts have something that is
• 51:37
  forward facing where the member content is something that you
• 51:41
  think slaps and, like, is really great, and it's all in one feed?
• 51:45
  I would love to know.
• 51:46
  Hans Buetow: So that's our plan. 2026. It's coming. It's here,
• 51:49
  and we're gonna lean into all the stuff that we learned from
• 51:52
  2025 and continue to try to grow the audience. We wanna spend
• 51:57
  more time with you, our audience.
• 51:59
  We wanna grow the revenue, obviously, because we need to
• 52:02
  make this sustainable for all of us to be able to spend the time,
• 52:06
  which we love, doing this for you, whom we love. We hope to
• 52:10
  work with more contributors. We hope to have more partnerships
• 52:12
  externally. And crucially, we hope to do even better this year
• 52:18
  at making Neverpost on purpose. Well said, Hans.
• 52:22
  Jason Oberholtzer: Well said.
• 52:22
  Hans Buetow: So this is all gonna start in February. So
• 52:26
  February 2, which is a Monday. Tune yourselves in 11:30 eastern
• 52:31
  time and come to watch us stream our editorial meeting. And from
• 52:34
  that point on, you will start to notice differences in all of the
• 52:37
  feeds. We may have a couple of super secret fun tantalizing
• 52:41
  things coming at you between now and then, but that should be the
• 52:46
  next thing you should expect after this.
• 52:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: And I do wanna say again, thank you to
• 52:51
  everybody for making this a successful year, a year on the
• 52:54
  path to sustainable growth. We are still not there yet. I know
• 52:58
  we say this so many times. Like, every six months or so, we have
• 53:01
  to say it again, but we are still not there. This is a
• 53:03
  meaningful step.
• 53:04
  We have, gained some support without having to spam marketing
• 53:09
  dollars out there so that you know we exist. Like, enough of
• 53:11
  you know we exist. We are a real show. And people can find us,
• 53:14
  and we're trying to help more people find us and help us grow
• 53:17
  more. We still need to grow a lot to be sustainable enough to
• 53:21
  make this the amount of our jobs that it is the amount of our
• 53:24
  lives.
• 53:25
  We all spend about 50% of our work week on this show. And thus
• 53:31
  far, we have not made money for doing that. And this year, with
• 53:34
  your contributions, we will be able to split up some of that
• 53:36
  money after it goes to hosting and contributors and all the
• 53:39
  other budgets it goes to to pay ourselves a little to do this
• 53:42
  and that is incredible. Thank
• 53:44
  Mike Rugnetta: you. That's really great.
• 53:44
  Jason Oberholtzer: Like, this huge step. It's not a lot for
• 53:47
  us, but it is something. And like coming from nothing to
• 53:50
  something is like an unbelievable step. So thank you
• 53:54
  so much for that. Yeah.
• 53:56
  And please continue to tell people who you think would like
• 53:59
  what we do that we exist because we need to be at a new growth
• 54:04
  stage when we do this same report to you next year. We need
• 54:07
  to be bigger. We need to be able to take up more of our time with
• 54:11
  this show and, I think that we have a chance of getting there.
• 54:14
  We're certainly closer than we were last year. It's a long
• 54:17
  process.
• 54:17
  I know we all kind of thought when we got into this, oh, shows
• 54:20
  take about four years to establish. It's one thing to
• 54:23
  know that. It's another thing to feel it and To live it. Do it
• 54:26
  every day. But if we're about halfway to getting this show to
• 54:30
  where it's maybe sustainable, that's amazing.
• 54:33
  It feels possible, but there's a lot more work to do. But But
• 54:37
  it's been very satisfying work thus far, and I have to thank
• 54:40
  all of you for helping us make this a reality and making this a
• 54:45
  satisfying place to spend half of our work weeks.
• 54:48
  Mike Rugnetta: I think that's really well said, Jason. And I
• 54:49
  think the other thing that we think about a lot when we do
• 54:51
  these kinds of updates is that, like, you know, Never Post is a
• 54:54
  show foreign about the Internet, and the show is is a part of the
• 54:58
  Internet. And so this is also us trying to take a look at what
• 55:02
  it's like to make something now and to try to do it in such a
• 55:06
  way that isn't unhealthy and doesn't drive the people who
• 55:09
  make it insane and isn't irresponsible to do. And that's
• 55:14
  a real balancing act. It's hard.
• 55:17
  We, like, have to make sacrifices. We have to have,
• 55:19
  like, tough conversations about, like, what work we can shoulder
• 55:22
  and not shoulder and what we can do with the show over the next
• 55:26
  year as it relates to, like, all of our other work and, like, it
• 55:30
  feels good and necessary for us to share that with the audience.
• 55:36
  And so I guess, you know, just to echo what we've been saying
• 55:39
  over and over again in this, like, thank you everybody for
• 55:42
  listening. Thank you for your support. I know that these
• 55:46
  uploads are maybe a little like in the weeds and navel gazey,
• 55:50
  but like, it's also like this is what it's like.
• 55:53
  Yeah. This is, you know, which I hope also is just interesting. I
• 55:58
  hope that you enjoy this for the reasons that you enjoy the other
• 56:01
  parts of the show because we think of these things as being
• 56:03
  very related. Definitely. Alright.
• 56:06
  We'll see you with an episode, a much more normal Neverpost.
• 56:11
  Well, you know, a Neverpost that is like the Neverpost that
• 56:15
  you've come to expect. Yes. In a couple weeks. Okay.
• 56:20
  Bye.
• 56:20
  Georgia Hampton: Bye. Tell
• 56:22
  Mike Rugnetta: your friends about the show.