Paramount’s UFC Knockout and Amazon’s Podcast Flameout

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw and Ashley Carman to discuss UFC’s $7.7 billion rights deal with Paramount, as well as the changing landscape in the podcast business. They begin by discussing the huge swing David Ellison took to secure the entire slate of UFC’s streaming and broadcast rights for Paramount+, eliminating the pay-per-view model. They debate where the money comes from and why UFC ultimately chose Paramount over others (02:47). Next, they discuss Amazon’s decision to fold its podcast unit, Wondery, into its Audible banner; talk about the industry’s shift into the video format; and predict which podcast has the best chance to dethrone Joe Rogan (12:19). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thetown@spotify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Lucas Shaw and Ashley Carman Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you care about Hollywood, and I assume you do if you're listening to the town, you should really be getting the whole story about Hollywood. That's what you get with Puck. I'm a founding partner at Puck, and I write a newsletter called What I'm Hearing. It's got exclusive news for insiders and analysis of the biggest stories. Puck has a bunch of great journalists. We just hired Kim Masters, who also covers Hollywood from the inside, plus media, sports, fashion,
0:21.7	politics, and finance. It's a must have for plugged-in people. Fans of the town get a
0:26.6	discount on the description page of this episode or at puck.news slash the town. Go further into
0:32.1	Hollywood by becoming a puck member today. It is Monday, August 11th.
0:38.9	Lots of movement in the digital media landscape.
0:41.4	So two topics today.
0:42.7	First, it's kind of the best and worst times in the podcast business.
0:47.1	In some ways, the forum has never been more popular.
0:49.4	55% of people in the U.S.
0:51.1	have consumed a podcast in the past month and 40 percent in the last
0:55.4	week, according to Edison research. Each measure is an all-time high. Podcast revenue was up 26 percent
1:01.9	in 2024. New hits like Amy Polar Show, Shannon Sharp, they keep launching. And the genre is
1:08.0	increasingly video. YouTube accounted for more than 30% of the U.S.
1:12.6	podcast audience recently, and that number keeps growing. Spotify and other platforms are increasingly
1:17.7	offering video as well. Yet on the other hand, last week, Amazon, they gutted their podcast
1:23.1	unit, Wondry, firing 110 people, folding it into Audible and putting people on a new
1:28.3	creator services team for celebrity shows, mostly focused around video, basically acknowledging
1:33.9	that heavily produced narrative podcasts aren't a great business. Spotify is cutting back there, too.
1:39.1	They got rid of Gimlet Media and Parcast. The Ringer, which produces this show, is one of the only
1:43.8	big studios left
1:45.0	at that buying splurge of about five years ago. And its success is an outlier. Ashley Carmen,
1:51.0	the podcast reporter of Bloomberg, she wrote that this marks the end of the serial era in podcasts,
	...

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