Popstar To Podstar

So, a few months ago I was sitting doing a bit of brainstorming about the podcast space; what was happening in the sector and how the progress of this super-powerful media was exploding.

I was considering what changes I was seeing, especially in the UK, and one of the big shifts seemed to be the increase of celebrity / influencer podcasts that were being released. The other element of that shift was the fact that a lot of these influencers and celebs we’re working with the major broadcast channels.

Now, don’t get me wrong, as the sector becomes more and more mainstream — which will inevitably be linked to the increase money that the medium attracts — the prominence of the big broadcasters will become more and more evident, but I think as independent content creators, agencies and even solo podcasters, we have an advantage in that we can be nimble, pivot (the word of 2020, right!) and maximise new opportunities fast, so I decided to look at the wave of celebrity shows in the pod-space as a good thing.

There’s a popular saying in the self-development world which is “observe the masses and do the opposite”, but I thought there would be massive value in “observing the masses and do it a little bit different”!

So today, I am very proud to be announcing that my podcast agency — Ultimate Podcast Group, come check us out, we are very good! — is announcing the first of our ‘Influencer Joint Venture’ partnerships.

And we’re announcing it with none other than international singer, entrepreneur and wellness influencer Natasha Hamilton.

Natasha is probably best known as 1/3 of Uber-successful girlband Atomic Kitten who dominated the charts in the mid-noughties, globally selling more than 10 million records. As well as managing a career in the cutthroat world of music, Natasha found herself touring the world whilst having a young family, running businesses and eventually had issues with mental health due to the huge stress of trying to simultaneously be a popstar and a parent, all of which she is going to share on her upcoming podcast ‘Live Better With Natasha’, which has launch show guests including the likes of Dame Kelly Holmes and TV presenter Matt Johnson.

I approached Natasha to host her own show when I saw some examples of the powerful — and empowering — content that the former Kitten was sharing with her social media followers.

Someone told me to watch a livestream on Natasha’s Instagram page and I was struck by the quality and openness of what she was sharing with her followers. It’s not often that you find someone who has been in the public eye for two decades who is so willing to be so real.

As an agency, we had been looking at a number of influencers to work alongside as a joint venture opportunity and Natasha looked like an ideal fit.

Ultimate Podcast Group’s Joint Venture Partnership has been crafted to put influential content makers in the driving seat of their own podcast shows. Through monetisation models across various syndication platforms and digital audio advertising providers, the partnership enables content makers to create revenue from their content while retaining the rights to the Intellectual Property and not being beholden to any broadcaster.

Basically, as I eluded to at the start of this blog, I kept seeing big name influencers and celebrities doing deals with the likes of the BBC and Global but, given some of the show’s popularity, I wondered if the celeb was actually getting the rough end of the deal.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a post that is designed to make you feel some pangs of sorrow for celebs, but someone like Peter Crouch for example would have been paid a certain fee for being the ‘talent’ on his podcast (which is great by the way!) but I estimated that if that show was independent — and could therefore carry advertising and sponsorships — he might actually be able to make more revenue… and still own the IP of that content, which I think is the more important point here.

You can of course ask the question “would Peter have such a popular show without the dozens of Beeb staff who work on the podcast?” And, frankly, the answer is probably not, but it made me realise there is another way to do ‘influencer’ fronted shows.”

The thing that I realised is that there are a LOT of influencers who might not get approached by a broadcaster to host their own show, but they have got big existing audiences, great content and just need some assistance in getting it out to the masses! If they had a partner who could do the technical bit — and understood how to monetise the content — then the influencer could focus on the most important part; making great shows.

So we have created a number of options where we can work with syndication platforms and advertising providers to generate revenue. We are aiming to give our partners the ability to create revenue they control and still maintain the ownership of IP — that is a win win.”

Today’s announcement is the first of our ‘Influencer Joint Venture’ partnerships, with more to follow imminently. The agency is planning to work with a variety of celebrities, experts and social media creators in the partnership format.

I’ll keep you posted on more as they’re agreed and confirmed… all I can say right now is there’s some cool stuff in the pipeline! Can’t wait to be able to share it with you soon.

By the way, if you happen to be an influencer reading this, pop me a message and lets chat about getting your powerful podcast out to the world too!