How Dropout found success streaming comedy for $6 a month

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Tv & Film, Business News, News

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Sam Reich bought CollegeHumor from Barry Diller’s IAC for pennies in January 2020, the comedy site was long past its heyday. A few months later, the pandemic hit. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if CollegeHumor had vanished entirely. Instead, Reich pushed the company to lean into Dropout, the subscription streaming part of the business, and create more improvised comedy content that lent itself well to viral clips on TikTok and YouTube. Today, Dropout has a dedicated fanbase of hundreds of thousands of subscribers and is even talking about establishing a revenue-sharing model with its employees. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks with Reich about how he turned it all around, and what it’s like to be on-camera talent and everyone’s boss. Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode More to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape. About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Recode Media at Peter Kafka. That's me. And as you all know, the internet is a great place to find funny things, a great place to be funny intentionally sometimes. It's not traditionally a great place to make money doing funny things. But my guest today says he has figured out how to do just that. Please welcome Sam Reich from The Dropout.
0:23.9	Is it Dropout or The Dropout?
0:25.9	It is Dropout.
0:28.4	There is no The.
0:29.9	Because there's a movie called The Dropout.
0:32.3	Yeah, there is, which we're still battling on Google for first search result.
0:37.0	If you are old, like me, you may remember a site called College Humor. which we're still battling on Google for first search result.
0:43.1	If you are old, like me, you may remember a site called College Humor, and that is the,
0:44.7	what do we say, antecedent, predesident?
0:46.7	Yeah, something like that.
0:48.5	It's the origins of dropping. Very recently was the limb that we cut off.
0:51.9	So, Sam, why don't you briefly explain sort of what dropout is? And then the next
0:57.6	question, I'll just tee up for you in advance, is how did you move from college humor to drop out?
1:02.4	I am fully incapable of speaking today. So apologies to everyone. Hey, listen, it's 9 a.m. in L.A.
1:09.3	we'll stumble through this together.
1:11.6	It's in New York. I have no excuse.
1:16.0	Yeah. So, I mean, college humor had a labyrinthine history, but basically started in 99.
1:25.3	So it's like a new media dinosaur by Ricky Van Veen and Josh
1:29.7	Abramson. There were a couple of other partners, Jake Laudewick and Zach Klein, who started
1:33.1	soon after that. College kids in Maryland, right? Literally making it sort of like, send us your
1:38.5	beer bong photos. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was sort of both aggregator of humorous college content
1:48.8	as well as simply funny content from all over the internet. It was kind of like the college
	...

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