This is an automatically generated transcript of the PodPod episode ‘Dan Snow: How History Hit went from podcast to platform’. We apologise for any errors in spelling and grammar.
Rhianna Dhillon
Hello, and welcome to PodPod, the podcast all about podcasting for podcasters. I'm Rhianna Dhillon and I am joined by Adam Shepherd, editor of PodPod, and Matt Hill, who runs RethinkAudio, and is the co-founder of the British Podcast Awards. Hello, both. Hello, hello. Okay, so what's been going on this week, Matt?
Matt Hill
Well, very exciting. We have the launch of the British Podcast Awards 2023. And it is bigger, better than ever, as ever. I always say that every year. But it's always true. It always is. Yeah, but no, lots of really exciting things planned. It's also crucially, as you know, anyone who hears the words, "We're open for entries!" Where you know, there's a little sinking feeling in your heart, "Oh, no, I've got to try and get those entries together." It's fine, you've got the Arias as well, don't worry, you can reuse some of that. But there is a longer period to put your entries together to this time. So there'll be a kind of an early bird entry. And then there'll be a longer period. So you can really kind of hone over the next couple of months to kind of get those entries really, really good. And we'll have lots of lovely workshops and tutorials about how to bag an award. And I'm sure Adam and the PodPod team will be doing a lot of those on podpod.com as well.
Adam Shepherd
Yes, we've got some exciting new categories for this year as well. We have got a whole range of categories across every conceivable facet of podcasting. So yeah, do get your entries in for that. This week. We've also launched PodPod's Face to Watch Awards, which is a collection of the sort of most exciting professionals working in podcasting, all of the up and comers and trailblazers, who are really setting the tone and reinvigorating the podcast world. So entries for that are now open. We are encouraging everyone from across the industry to submit nominations, whether you're in podcast creation, editing, network development, whether you're in planning whether you're in podcast, advertising, sales, presenting.
Rhianna
And so are we putting in a PodPod entry for this?
Matt
Yeah, I think there might be a slight conflict of interest.
Adam
Absolutely, you can win your own awards, right?
Matt
But I do feel that one of the exciting things about podcasting, generally as an industry is that we take some of the best talent from other people from other industries, and bring them into the liberating...
Adam
That was masterfully executed. ...steal them!
Matt
Yes, steal them wholeheartedly. So. So it's really lovely to see when we did the Rising Star Award last year, the awards that you know, like people who are coming from film and TV and music and journalism, you know, coming into the podcast industry and making it their home because they know how creative it is. And none more so than today's guest. That's right, Rhianna, I've taken your role... He's THE historian turned podcaster extraordinaire and business owner, Dan, everyone say it together: SNOW!
Rhianna
Oh, God, I can see why we're not entering this podcast.
Matt
I made myself laugh with such a hackneyed...
Adam
That's amazing. I think we should I think we just just cut it there and use that. Rhianna, you're fired.
Rhianna
That is a really interesting point, though. It does come up time and again, about how the podcast industry is essentially poaching broadcasters. But I think for very good reason. And Dan, very openly goes into this, which is one of the many really fascinating things that he talks about. What a lovely guy, he seems to be obsessed with age, I think he thought that I was maybe a teenager, but...
Matt
It's just you've got a brilliant light there. I also think actually having having worked for a number of years with Fearne Cotton on Happy Place, you know, and developing that show with her, the similarities between them, you know, I can you can sort of see two people who had a very established broadcast career, but feeling creatively hemmed in or sort of like having to compromise on their vision, or not being given the opportunity to do the kind of work they were interested in sort of branching out being entrepreneurs and finding, like as with a lot of people we've interviewed on the show that the podcast space is a great one as a kind of life raft to take you somewhere else and to discover like what you really can achieve. So again, yeah, really, really interesting conversation.
Rhianna
So here he is, Dan Snow, talking all about how to grow your Podcast Network. Hi, Dan Snow. Welcome to PodPod.
Dan Snow
Thank you very much for having me on.
Rhianna
This is very exciting. I'm really, really pleased to have the opportunity to talk to you because I feel like there's a lot to delve into with History Hit not just a podcast, definitely not just that anymore. There is so much...
Dan
It's a lifestyle choice. Yeah. So that's right. And it's it's a great pleasure to be allowed to come on and talk about my my strange hobby that turned into a real thing, a real business with actual people working in an actual building. It's cool.
Rhianna
That is the best best kind of job, isn't it hobby to career. So it was a podcast, and then it became a network. And now it's a streaming platform. So can you kind of tell talk us through the successes of how you managed to grow it from a podcast?
Dan
Well, even more strangely, I mean, it really kind of grew as a sort of Twitter slash Instagram, social media presence, I just wanted to, I just knew the internet was happening. And I was stuck on the BBC. And I was making shows when people asked me to make sure it's I was having a lovely life, and a really good time in my in my late 20s. But I was aware that things were going on, I was watching all these YouTubers who everyone laughed at initially, you're too young to remember this, but everyone's laughed at them was really snobbish about them and thought they're really childish or stupid and simple. Then they started like getting 100,000 subscribers and a million, a billion million million. And I was like, hang on a minute. And so I just thought I gotta I want to do something, I was a resource constrained at a time constraint as well. And, and I was, I was working on telly after all, I thought I was a kind of big deal. But I did sort of I started this little, I just called a Facebook page History, and I just posted articles and, and pictures and things on there, and thoughts like everybody else, and, but I couldn't pivot to it, really. And then the podcast came along, you know, suggested to me. The success of Serial, people might remember that, meant suddenly everyone's looking and thinking about podcasts. And that was that had revenue with it, you know, it's great fun sort of going viral, if you like, or being widely shared on some of those traditional social media platforms. But the podcast is the first time someone actually I thought, hang on, somebody actually gave me 10 pounds if I if I record my voice and put it into this machine. And so that was 2015. And that went pretty well. And we were still just about early enough that we kind of got to jump on most people. And there weren't that many pods compared to now around. So I think we were lucky, pure luck and got really, you know, got quite big quite quickly. So it found an audience. Netflix was having its moment in at around about the same time. And we thought, actually, not just me, but lots of people in the industry, were thinking, Oh, maybe subscription video is the way to go. And it doesn't look quite that simple anymore. But we managed to get some traction, we've now got 10s of 1000s of paying subscribers on the video channel, majority of which are in the States, which is nice. So we now serve as predominantly US consumer base, which is a weird thing. We have to keep kind of reminding ourselves in the office and we have some really interesting discussions about like, what do we think they want? Does anyone know?
Rhianna
Who knows what Americans want? Does it actually impact the content that you put out, then?
Dan
We have decided that it doesn't, we've got some theories, and we've done some asking around and polling the audience and surveying stuff. We think that actually if you're in North America, and you want to watch massive, maybe World War Two shows or massive things about Vietnam, or you can find that locally. What you can't find is like interesting clever people taking you around Anne Boleyn's house, like in a non insane kind of way. And or in a non kind of conspiracy theory kind of aliens way. So we do think that that underserved and yet America is actually full of phenomenally intelligent people who've done liberal arts degrees and history is a huge undergraduate course in America. So we just felt that particularly in Britain a little bit as well, but particularly America, they were being underserved as an audience. And yes, there's the old mega Netflix show that goes out which kind of kind of Blitzkrieg just saturates that space for a week or two, but regular regular shows on medieval history, castles, European history, we do a bit of American history now it doesn't seem to perform any better or worse. Oddly, we've been we were hoping that that we'd see some clear evidence but it doesn't seem to perform any better or worse than our than our European show. So we just think it's it's about like having a unique authentic voice right? So if you've got Professor Suzannah Lipscomb walking around Anne Boleyn's childhood house going, I'm the world's leading authority on this. This is how it all went down. The Americans love the Tudors, they love Anne Boleyn, so that makes sense right? That you can actually get that piece of content in North America it's a weird thing that you can't get it and other the big broadcast at History Channel kind of moved away from history a bit so we slid in there and we... Yeah, it's really exciting and and obviously the best thing about starting a business as I'm learning is that you know as as you get more resource, you get more resource right? So suddenly you you initially it was we were bootstrapping it and calling in favours and shooting phones and all those kind of crazy early things you do. And we just about got some scale in which asked her to hit to hold ourselves over the next thing. You know, now we have like our programmes look like they do on the TV. And they've got, you know, visual effects and stuff. So it's wonderful isn't we've got a team of 50 people in house, it's been really fun building an in house team actually, because as someone who's grown up with freelancers, as you guys know, you make great friends and you swear eternal friendship and brotherhood and sisterhood to each other. And then you will disappear off into the next job. And what's great, so we've got this really fun team of young people who were like developing, you know, we're teaching them and some of them become presenters and some of them are becoming great directors, and some of them are learning to shoot. It's old school. It's like a 1970s newsroom. We're kind of developing talent internally. And I love that it's like, weirdly, I think it's the thing I enjoy most.
Rhianna
You've just kind of like gone through about half I'm sorry, I know, I wouldn't really know I love it. And we're going to come back to some of those. I want to delve into that a little bit more, because you've only scratched the surface. But just for those who don't know about History Hit, can you just quickly outline all of the different things that it currently provides?
Dan
I will go back and answer your original question in 30 seconds... stand by!
Rhianna
No, this is brilliant, Dan!
Dan
History Hit is an online digital history publisher, an online digital story platform. So we've got a website, there's a million uniques every month, you know, huge number of people come to the website. We have got eight I think it is podcasts now. Some of them doing ridiculously well, we've got an ancient history podcast, for example, that we grew with it with a guy in the office who just loves ancient history. He was kind of annoying in the office, and we sort of just go and do a bloody podcast. And now it's just bonkers. Like, you know, millions of people listen to that. We got a medieval one, we got us we've got ancient medieval one American one, a scientific one scientific history, with Dallas Campbell. So working with established talent, really, really interesting people, and those thankfully are doing well. We then also have a TV channel, as Forbes put it: a Netflix for history. So a subscription Video on Demand channel, it's available on online, but also on third party platforms. So Samsung and and Amazon, things like that. So people can subscribe either direct with us, or they get it through there. They can subscribe, you know, through their, through their existing providers. And that's us. And then we do we make all we have this year made some old fashioned TV for UK broadcasters as well, if we want, we can do that. So we're pretty light on our feet. And we can and we can put also we can partner up. That's nice. We, we we've partnered up with things like tourist boards, things like the Mayflower the famous ship that sailed across to America and is often seen as the sort of, well, it's the emblem of English and British settlement into North America. They they're their founders that have history. So we became their kind of media partner. And we produce lots of content for them and short form long form. So we have kind of a branded section as well. And then obviously, the audience social platforms, your TikToking and Instagramming, YouTube, YouTube has been a big success. We've just grown it to 600,000 followers in the space of a year, which I never thought... I'd say the one lesson of my experience in businesses, you always think you're too late, always too late. And it's that Chinese expression, you know, the the best time to plant a tree. Yeah, it's five years ago, obviously the best time to plant trees five years ago, but the second best time is right now. Right? So just if you've got plans, folks, listen to this, just get into when we started YouTube channels like guys, YouTube, what are you talking about? The YouTube is a thing that happened 15 years ago, the big the big channels are big. You don't I don't think you can't. And actually, I have very happy as ever to be completely wrong, that the team have just, you know, it's it's a real presence on YouTube now. And it's getting bigger all the time. And that's great. That brings in nice revenue as well pays for itself. So that's great.
Rhianna
Someone else who was there for the early days of podcasting is Matt, actually. So Matt...
Matt
I am clearly as successful as you Dan, of course,
Dan
if you were there in the early days, you must have been a school school child but it because far too young?
Matt
Well, I think what's interesting for me, I mean, listen to you talk particularly about that initial bootstrapping, and those kind of initial waves. I think that's something that we all kind of there's quite a few small businesses and startups that have formed out of the podcast market is clearly the most entrepreneurial bit of the media right now. From your perspective, having got to a place where you can actually look at your workforce and go, I've got the resource, and I can do I can plan the next big thing. What advice would you give to those coming up behind in terms of like, psychologically, as the leader of a company, do you think you wish you could have told yourself in those bootstrapping days?
Dan
Well, that is really interesting. I think there's the sort of operational things I'd say it's important to make sure like getting the individual is important, right? You can often you know, that when you're when you're founders when you're starting out, you can fall... communication is so important that those those opening those opening moves those opening moments of a company and make sure you're all clear on what you want out of it, what you want to achieve together. So your relationships with your other key founders or starters, sort of the people you're doing alongside I think are really important. And you can slightly kind of gloss over those. If you're on the pub together and go let's do this. And so that's I think, really good to get sorted and sort of in a way like formalised maybe before you even think you have to. The other thing I would say operationally is yeah, you it's so hard not having any chips to put on the board, right? You're just like desperate to launch your YouTube channel, you're desperate to make a bit of better content, your best try new little new format for your Facebook or YouTube video. And you think well, I don't know, if we haven't got the money like I did. So that's the thing that's really hard. And I don't have a clever answer to that other than keep being as efficient as you can keep, keep putting one foot in front another and if you can't do the big thing you want to do just do small bits trying and then when you do get that feedback, something works so electrifying. It's so exciting. I would also say like, if you believe in it, don't be put... Like I almost gave up in a way. It was so brutal, like when it when you just nothing works. And even when you try and execute something where it's so hard to execute things like oh, look, we've we're working with this cool archaeologist who's discovered this cool body, this should be an easy thing to do. And, you know, the person in the office like forgot where we'd put the drive with that, you know, like all those silly things when you're small. And that's fine. It's uh, we'll do it and I've lost my phone or whatever the password on it, whatever. But you keep keep the faith, you know, look at look at your evidence. Be objective, of course. But if you think there's something there like, don't be afraid to go through tough times. And remember that there's... the dream is worth it. I guess that's one thing is, I remember kind of just being coming trudging back from some humiliating failure. It was the early on and just thinking of one day, wouldn't it be amazing to... the dream here, which is worth having, as for me, as a creative person is like self commissioning, right? You basically get up in the morning and say, I'm gonna go and make a programme about shipwreck dives off the coast. Sounds interesting. Not having anyone's permission to do it. No schedulers or commissioners or editors. And I remember, that's what, that's what kept me going. That's what kept me putting one foot in front of another weirdly, just that. And now that's come to pass. Like, it's just so exciting and brilliant. And it's as good as I, you know, it's as good as I hoped it would feel. That's the nice thing. That's really nice. Yeah, it's I'm having such a great time. I've never been happier professionally. And it was worth going through some tough times. And you know, some of that old, you know, the old the old cliches that are in all the books, but you know, one of them is, you know, if it was easy, someone else would do it. Right. And it's so it was hard. Like it was it was it was touch and go at times, but that's okay. Because that's what it's meant to be like.
Matt
What was the step on your business plan that made you think, okay, we're going to be alright now? Like, what was the moment where that felt like that that extra bit of revenue or that little new product made it happen?
Dan
Yeah, that's a very good question. I think it's that when we saw that, as we did get more ambitious, and try and create better content, and then advertise that content on social platforms, we did see numbers of subscribers tick up, like it's, for me, it's weird. I don't know if this may be just me. But it's about establishing that link between effort and outcome. Like, sometimes you're just terrified, you're gonna launch whole new servers, and no one's gonna even care. So it's that idea that when you do spend a bit more money, when you do put that more effort, when you do it, people notice and like making something better works, like I was terrified, we'd make better programmes. And still, no one would come to them, you know, and instead, instead, actually, there was a real correlation between the quality of content we're producing, and, and our attractiveness to subscribers. Like that was a cool link. And it sounds ridiculous. But, you know, it wasn't not necessarily the case. Because the internet's a big place, they might not have found us people might not like history. But actually, we discovered that when we really, you know, did a D-Day programme, and we did a little season, we found some archive we could use, we voiced this, we did that, we've worked all night, and then we marketed it well, and sort of use what we learned about Facebook ads, wherever. And we're like, oh, that works. And then it makes you think well hang on do this every year. So all you got to do each year is just go June the sixth we go... so now every year we added like a piece of content, and then you have it gets richer and bigger and better every year. And so it sounds ridiculous. But it was establishing the link that there were levers we could pull. And it wasn't just anarchic and hopeless. And you know, you might get swept up to the heights or you might get dashed down to the bottom, you know, but actually, no, there are levers you can pull here. And when we pulled them we noticed very slight gradual incline and we're like, that's good. Let's just pull those harder. And so it's those moments in 2019, 2020 that I'll never forget when we looked at each other and were like, we think this works.
Rhianna
When did you realise that you could move on to something else? Something new add something to all of the multiple things that you were doing already? When did you know that this was the right time to expand to the next thing?
Dan
I'd had an old fashioned TV career in fact, it was always I've when I'm old enough that like I was on TV doing I just say that...
Rhianna
You're not old? You're you're in your 40s!
Dan
No, I'm very young, you're right. But no, so I weirdly, I started my career like five years before Facebook launched. I think... was YouTube 2006? I think I guess so it's like just so I was in that last era where if you wanted to watch the video content, you pretty much had to turn on the telly box and watch it. And like I was on I was on the BBC. I was on Discovery in the US. So I was like, I had an actual career. Like, I was kind of an interesting TV presenter. And I remember all these things happening. Then when I was thinking, Wow, I'm so cool. And then I was thinking, what's going on here? I was a digital native, like, I actually had email at university, like I'd had devices and things like they didn't have video on them. But I was a, I was somebody grown up doing digital just. And I was aware that like, this is madness, like, on demand is obviously what, like madness. Now this makes my first I remember my second ever programme went out and it was two against the Olympic opening ceremony. And the next day in the newspaper, I walked past a shop and on the front page of newspapers, "Record TV audience tune in for Olympic opening ceremony," like, yeah, pity the guy on BBC Two! And I remember thinking, this is wild. I just spent a year of my life making that show. We were travelling and having adventures and hauling cars out of riverbeds that goes, and then no one watched the show. And I'm like, that doesn't work for me. Like that's not a good way to spend your life. Yeah. So I was very clear from the beginning and which is what I was always doing weird stuff. I was always trying to make little videos for museums and trying to get and always like pitching weird things to the Imperial War Museum. And eventually, I just, no one got it. No one wanted to invest money and I completely understand - but no one was like, You're right, here's a hundred grand, go and make five documentaries about the First World War and we'll stick it on our website. Like, I understand why no one did that. I would say though, that if some of those pitches had worked, we'd be sitting on like monumentally large social media platforms now, but I'm glad they didn't work because I then eventually just had I got to do this myself. Like, I've just got to, and podcasts in 2014, 15 became a way where you could do it yourself. And actually, someone's going to pay you money, you know, so it's not, it's not that terrible thing of creating, like a, you know, idiot, like I was I was on Twitter, like being like, all pleased with myself, because I was going viral. And like trending. But no one ever gave me one penny, no one ever gave me a penny, like, literally never. And so I was like, this is I'm on the right, I need to get on a platform where you can enjoy success, and then someone's going to pay for your producer and a microphone and what you know, whatever it might be. So I guess it was just it was that time and I and also I was getting it to having young kids that the shine was coming off TV presenting a bit. So I thought I've got to try and can take some control in my life here. And that led to that led to this adventure.
Rhianna
In terms of all of the different things that you do, what do you find takes up the most time? And is it worth it in terms of revenue and audience subscribers and all the rest of that?
Dan
Well, you know, that's a very good question I really thought about, I feel like you have been a life coaching session here, which I'm very grateful for, because that's the most time I think most time is still the podcast, because I'm the creative director at History as well as still hosting one of its podcasts. And you know, you have to try and read books and have thoughts and be interesting when historians come on and who know what they're talking about stuff. So actually, I do think that takes up a lot of my time. But it's very seasonal, because then if we do launch into a big TV project, as you guys know, and then suddenly you're just like on the road for three weeks, don't do anything else completely obsessed, don't have time to, you know, talk to your family, discover that your house has fallen down in the meantime, go back, your wife has left you all that kind of stuff. So actually, there are super intense periods where you're away with on TV-work that are all encompassing, and also hustling, like I'm a hustler. So my job now is create directories like a couple of weeks ago, there was a story about some human remains found on the battlefield of Waterloo. And I was like that's I want to that's got to be that we're going to be the partner that we're going to break that news to the rest of the media it went well it got in several newspapers widely shared and, and so that was like, the archaeologist came to us because they liked us. We've worked with them before we did the right thing by them, they approved that the way that we handle their content, their ideas, we celebrate their work in an appropriate way. And so people come back again, so I'm calling I'm emailing. I'm checking in on people I know, digging up shipwrecks, finding treasure, finding metal detecting so in US, Canada here, Europe, so I'm doing a lot of that and that's great. When you're small like us, we live or die, I think by our earned marketing. So like our earned PR so where we are when we're in The Times okay, like another story in history at this week is that they've discovered a team that they're involved in has discovered a battlefield for the American War of Independence. And I think that's where people just take us more seriously if we keep creating news and being shared in other media outlets without us having to pay Mark Zuckerberg lots of money for it. I think that so that that's what I see is kind of a really important role for me at the moment.
Rhianna
What do you find is the easiest way of growing your subscribers like you know, there must be some sort of flow where people find you either through the podcast through the YouTube channel, what do you find is probably the the easiest way that people have of accessing you?
Dan
For our TV subscribers. Facebook traditionally, better than Twitter, and Instagram, TikTok, we've just gone live with TikTok ads which are working. I was a little bit surprised by that. But yeah, that's great. Another, as you'll be hearing from this interview, I'm just basically constantly wandering around shocked. I mean, the key thing of the other great thing about growing to scale is you start hiring people, right? You start employing people cleverer than you are, and that's the joy of it. So I now walk into the office, I'm like, Oh, hello, dozens of people who are absolutely brilliant at what you do, I've got no idea how I would do that job. If I'd like. That's what you want. It's amazing. And it's, you know, it's a force multiplier. But be it's very rewarding to just surrounded by really good people who are digital marketing, for example, we got a little digital marketing department, and they're just they're learning all the time. Traditional ads on Facebook, TikTok, initially, we actually went to, we went to in person events. And we got that advice from someone who started a kind of pony or a sort of horse, a horsey, a channel, as far as, which is, you know, go go to the people, like just grab them and get them in a headlock and just go, please subscribe to this thing. And so we will go to some history festivals and ducks for their shows. And actually, that does help you get to a bit clearly that's not scalable on one level, because you can't sort of just get but I felt that got us a chunk of subscribers. And my gut is they're going to be stickier those subscribers, they're less likely to churn because they've met you. They've looked in your eye, they've hung out with the team, they've seen us all on the stall. And we've told them about our future plans. So I do think that initially, it was quite good actually the in person, I'm not sure it's going to be super useful any more. Yeah, it's a weird, it's counterintuitive, isn't it? And then more recently, obviously, ads, paying Samsung, and basically people are watching TV, where they're watching the TV would then you can push ads at them whilst they're watching TV, it's much better than on the tube when they're looking at Reels on Instagram or when there's less likely to subscribe to a history lesson channel on the tube on the way to work or on the subway, if you're listening on the States. The last thing is creating in a small and geeky way. But creating moments that people in your niche need to be part of right. So like the Waterloo skeletons, you're like, Hey, guys, if you want to see them there, they're over here. And it's yeah, it's through a paywall. But I mean, I think, now luckily, the stigma around but but I mean, again, 15 years ago, everyone was like, everything should be free all the time. And then we realised that was just destroying a version of the media that actually could be pretty responsible and pretty good and pretty professional. We all know what the effects that were. And that's why we have a whole range of like stuff that's free and stuff that's subscription. And then also, after about a year or two, we'll release stuff behind our paywall onto the YouTube channel. So like, you know, you'll be able to get our content if you don't ever pay us a penny. And I think that's kind of I didn't mind that's okay. But yeah, so I think we create little moments, we partner up with people, and that does drive people to subscribe. If you're in the history community, you're like, actually, I kind of need to see that I need to, I'd like to see that interview with that D-Day veteran or the other Waterloo bones or some, you know, sort of thing that happens. So that those that those are the sort of ways I'd say that we drive subscription.
Matt
I've got his little pet theory, Dan, about what makes a successful podcast. So just even the very first one that you did, like in terms of just history here, but also the whole network. And that is that no matter what your show is about, you've got to have a central philosophy. A thing that you're testing every week. The reason to come back to the show, and I wondered, do you have like, as aside from history is great. Let's explore history. What is the thing that drives history hits and all the shows on your network?
Dan
So I think it's I think it's underserved. I think it's because we make history for superfans. And that's the opposite of the old media. That is the opposite of my training at the BBC, which is basically look guys, it's a history show, count yourself lucky because we'd rather do something else. And and also, everyone hates history. So make this just try and find a way to make it interesting. But that was that was that No, and that's fine. That's the starting point. And I can understand and they can have a very wide playing field. Well, maybe maybe I mean, I don't really agree with it, but that you know, I can that's fine. That's their point of view. We just come at it from a completely different angle we go there are people out there that are totally obsessed with it. And we want to just be a media organisation that and that's and you see that across America, North American sports. I mean, I remember making it my my mom's Canadian, my Canadian family. They were listening to like niche broadcasters about the Toronto Blue Jays, the Maple Leafs, years and years and years ago, and I remember going to kind of listening to this thing and it's kind of weird, but of course it's right. And the internet allows you to access those superfans. They allow them to communicate with you. So that's what I think that's what I think it is. On top of that, personally, in my podcast, I hope that quite often it is taking it sits in between history and journalism. So I hope it's taking our most successful episodes like Ukraine, Royal brothers fighting, a British financial crisis like we had under Liz Truss in the autumn fall this year, last year. And it's when you go right this is this is your 25 minutes with a total don of a historian who is going to basically go she is going to tell you exactly why Vladimir Putin thinks Eastern Ukraine is part of Russia, right? And so I really like that history and that we easily could have just crossed genre. So you see real history fans like that. And I think you get other younger people to go look, I think I should probably know about this, like, what's going on with this thing? You know, you're creating a safe space for enthusiasm and enthusiasts. And that's what's funny about TV like when I turn on the World Cup I watched Gary Lineker be like in depth discussion about the offside rule. I'm like, How come those guys don't have to like justify themselves to the audience know why when a history show goes on the like, Hey, everybody, sorry about this. Bear with us, bear with us! But it's like, actually, of course, what does everyone love on TV in the old days, they love Top Gear, they love the football, they love geeking out and kind of ridiculous. We've been we've been given the space and the permission to, to do that. But I think it's certainly our Ancient podcast is wild like that. See, our Ancient podcast does so well. And I listen to it and I'm like, this is a bit too much for me, I think. And I'm someone who knows my triumvirates and ancient Rome, but I'm like, this is hard core. But the people love.... And again, that's that's big international, big international. Because if you live in Australia, and the US there just aren't geeky people... I love Tristan, but you know, like sort of geeky enthusiasts, let's get okay, we're going to do the Second Punic War here. And we're gonna go deep. So like, buckle up. And that's like, that is a global, it's a it's a global phenomenon. You know, it's great.
Matt
And you mentioned in passing hardcore, and of course, I was just thinking about your rivals, like, how do you see yourselves in comparison to other history podcasts out there? Particularly American ones? Because it is a huge genre.
Dan
Yeah, but it's a huge genre. But I'm fairly convinced there's enough. You know, it's always tough when there's loads of rivals now. And it's always like, Okay, another rival. My view, though, is like, I mean, is there a finite like, are we going to hit a number of ears that we're going to, we're going to max out, I don't know, like, I have to believe that a rising tide floats all boats. And I know that when we launched, we had lots of people coming in. Well, I got into history because of Hardcore History. And I found you and I know those people have moved on to other pods now and that's, I think that's okay. And, you know, like YouTube point I was making earlier like YouTube demonstrates, you can start a channel and get to, you know, half a million subscribers in a year. That does not suggest that the market is kind of saturated. Right, I don't think it will. Obviously, that's because podcasts free to listen, right. So I do think it'd be tricky if someone launched another history SVOD platform, right adjacent to us right now doing the same stuff. I'm like, that's a bit annoying. But, but then, the other thing is, I have to say, competition makes you better. I don't want to sound like an old capitalist here. But like, there have been times on the pod when we've just been like effortlessly adding loads of listeners all the time. And I've got pretty lazy like, I was lying in bed talking to some historian on Zoom, like home, eyes half closed. But you know, there's nothing like, you know, having a slightly lower rate of ascent, to just get your get your game on. And there's nothing like seeing other podcasts go viral. Like you're like, Okay, fine. We're in a bit of a scrap scrap here. So weirdly, I do think it's kind of it's quite creative, actually. And it makes you want to be better.
Rhianna
You're obviously growing your audiences all the time, you're expanding to younger audiences, obviously through TikTok, I'm assuming they're younger, far younger than me. Anyway, I do not have a TikTok account. But then thinking about being representative of those audiences, how do you ensure diversity across your platforms, not only regarding the stories you're telling, but also the people telling them?
Dan
Yeah, it's a huge, you know, that's a massive part of what we're all doing at the moment. And we've been able to monitor yourself and be good at it that year. And, and so we have got a pretty good gender balance that are hosting the pods, we're going to launch another In fact, it's been really good week, we kind of had a launch Kate Lister, whether you call it it's like a sort of sex and social history pod. And it skews very female. And, and I was like nervous about launching it. And I was because I didn't know if our audience we're just like a bit blokey. And it's done was one of the best parts we've got now. And I'm so I'm absolutely over the moon about that. But yeah, we were just, it's all a matter of working with making sure that we've got a range of voices and people on the channel like it like any organisation, it's just trying to be honest yourself and trying to trying to make progress on that front for sure. And we are pretty good. We can be better, but we're pretty good. But it's but it's something obviously, that we still think we're always thinking about. And it's like, especially around when you're talking about diversity, like especially if we, when we're expanding like what does that diversity means? It means we've got the subscribers in the States they need to see themselves represented and all their diversity that so yeah, it's a work in progress. But I'm pretty proud of the team for what we've done so far.
Rhianna
Where do you think History Hit is going next? Do you have your eyes on anything particular that you haven't managed to cover yet with your empire your history empire?
Dan
You know, there's discussion about other silos like do you just literally kind of go right? We've done history like do we do science or something? I mean, that's a huge project. And I think that's kind of beyond us at the moment. And it's always tempting, but
Rhianna
Is that something you'd be passionate about, because obviously history is where your…
Dan
It’s a good point I think that would probably say actually I think I might sort of struggle with that, whether I'd be the right person to kind of play a leading part in that journey. I don't know, probably not really, because it's not something I kind of know what's going on in history, I kind of feel when I see little rumblings on little weird places on Twitter where we all hang out that there's new studies come out and you think new thinking about this? And you thinking about that? I'm like, Well, okay, well, like I think there's something here, that wouldn't, I just wouldn't be able to perform that role in the space of science or other factual silos. So that's why it would involve really serious expansion. I think, obviously, we got podcasts subscription coming out, we've got AI we got, we got augmented reality. So I think it's about deepening and widening what we're doing at the moment and finding new ways to reach people. So I think it's not more land grab, but it's intensifying. It's intensifying the relationship with people that we do have.
Rhianna
I'm slightly confused as to the kind of relationship between History Hit and Little Dot. Can you expand upon that? Do they own History Hit?
Dan
I sold it to Little Dot in 2020. Yes. So we sell it, we sold the business. And then that was great for us. Because suddenly, you're in a bigger family, there's huge help with legal and HR and all the stuff that you need help with as a small startup. And then me and the creative team are kind of we're set free to keep doing what we do. And you know, the good thing about working on a company like Little Dot, I think, is that they know what they're doing in the creative worlds. There's no they don't buy companies then make them do something different like they can. They bought us never like okay, you do what you do. Just good luck. And here's the compliance don't sound crazy, but you know, go for it. So they've been amazing. And it's given us a kind of certainty and security that has allowed us to kind of expand massively, basically, yeah, it's been great. I'm an unusual founder, because I actually kind of, I have lots of founders found it and then want to move on. And I'm like, I want to stay. I'm actually having a great old time.
Matt
That's partly because of the creative aspects, presumably like these are this is your name at the front of this. So yeah, in a way. Yeah.
Dan
What’s not to like, I get to meet with a team every Monday and we say what's going on this weekend? It's like, well, hang on, there's some interesting stuff going on. There's an interesting dig going on in Yorkshire we go look at some Roman coffins being opened. I'm like, let's do that. That's a great idea! And what an amazing what a lucky person and then the team all go up there. And, and again, it's a team they know, it's just the team from the office that we shoot, we direct there we present just for the people around the table. So it's yeah, it's a good feeling. So I'm, I'm Yeah, it's a thrilling, it's a thrilling place to be at the moment and we got, you know, we get all the creativity with with very little stress.
Rhianna
Do you have much of a critic so you have this production meeting, which sounds brilliant because as you were talking earlier, as a freelancer, that's something that I'm incredibly envious of, just to be able to get together with the same group of people week in week out and keep those relationships going from the social side as well. But in terms of content, editorial, and all the rest of it, how do you decide who gets what is there ever a fight over stories? Or who gets to cover it on their podcast or on their channel?
Dan
Yeah, that's a good point. There's times like awkward moments. I think we I think we're pretty collegia and what what so what else on that what we'll do is that we trail the other we repeat episodes successful episodes of the other podcasts on my podcast, that's when they're as we build their audiences. So sometimes I'll be like, Look, Doctor Cat Jarman, and she's very brilliant. medievalist, I would like you take this one, and then let's stick that your pod out on my feed. You know, when it's in a week's time, so we all benefit enormously. You've got to ask other people in the business, they may feel I'm total bully and I take all the best days.
Rhianna
Do you?
Dan
You're asking the wrong guy? I don't think so. I think I think also less and less like, you know, especially as I also I'm, I'm not as hungry to be on in front of cameras. I want to watch so that's so that's good. Like, I'm not like that. We had a top 10 shows last week and I wasn't in the top 10 of all our channel. I was like, thrilled by that was great. So it was that? I mean, that sounds that shows you're doing something right. You know, so it's sustainable, and it can go on forever. So but yeah, I mean, sometimes, I think I think if someone brings a good story in I don't steal it, you can't steal someone else's, if they've cultivated amazing research or academic or something. And they're gonna get them on the pod and I just go nowhere nicking that one. You can't I can't do that, like so that we find a way to kind of amplify it.
Rhianna
Something that I would notice on your YouTube, you know, one of your channels is that you have something where you look at the historical accuracies or inaccuracies in films, which that must be a lot of fun to do, but also a lot of work is that do you have to do a lot of prep with that? Do you have to watch the films first find out all of the detail and then re watch it on camera and highlight particular bit
Dan
though we have to watch a lot of movies of which, honestly, those YouTube films like I'm trying to I'm casting on YouTube for something that I can do that anyone wants to watch and so far not having much success. As the only thing that is working is these movie reviews that just go bananas like I can't tell you. So I have millions of views on the I've done two of them. We're gonna do a few more now, obviously. And I'm like, Oh, I just want to do like explainers about the Seven Years War in North America. Saving Private Ryan again. So we, we do Yeah, we I mean, yeah, we watch the films, I mean, some films I know a lot about like, so that some periods, I'm able to do my own stuff others, I have to research into the accuracy of the movies and stuff and read articles from the historical advisors. It's some it's good fun. Yeah, it's really good fun.
Rhianna
But perhaps not necessarily something that you want to be doing daily.
Dan
If I turned 50, like in many years time, and my great imprint on this planet of ours has been he's the guy who, who reviews historical movies on YouTube. I just think in some ways, some I have a very nice life. But in some ways, I just not sure that it's been the best use of a life. So as long as that's just a part, we've got some other plans on YouTube this year, we're going to see if we can extend next to widen the interest of the audience. But no, those things are absolutely bankers extraordinaire.
Rhianna
Well, yeah, those are those are huge. But then what about, you talked earlier about some failures? But can we just dig into those for a second? Are there things that you were really hoping would do well, that perhaps didn't get the traction that you wished it had?
Dan
Yeah, I mean, I think the key point is that nearly everything fails in some respects apart from movie reviews, because of course you keep thinking when you're in the content biz like us, I'm sure you guys feel it. You think every single one so just going to suddenly do with gonna go absolutely bonkers like that documentary of may. But the Uganda civil war in Uganda that just led to some made created a kind of media empire overnight. That's not how it's gonna write us. It never those things happen once in a lifetime. And it's not going to be you. But yeah, so all that every you know, whether it's the Waterloo bones recovery, I keep thinking, this is going to be the one we can they're going to lead the 10 O'Clock News with our content, it's going to be watermarked History, you know, so, so in a way, I'm like a terrible optimist. And so nearly everything doesn't work. And then I just collapse, pick myself up and just do the next thing. So but yeah, something but yeah, so and some things really, really don't work. And you just have no idea why, and it's gutting. The great thing about having your own channel is you don't you've got more more rounds in your chamber if you'd like. So you go well, that really that Second World War show like really didn't work. If your channel for you, like do we can the Second World War for the next four years or four months? Now we just go oh, well, let's see if the next one does better. And then if we get a run of like, but so far, we've never, our failures so far have been quite random. We don't seem to have like a strange, you know that the audience absolutely hates Chinese history or absolutely hates X history. We've never discovered that. We've had sort of like episodes that haven't done well. And we thought like, why is that? And then we'll have a similar episode. They'll do fantastically Oh, God, I don't know. Like, it's so yeah, so lots of things fail. And I think you should not panic. Like, I think the traditional broadcasts used to panic quite heavily when things fail. They're like, right, we're not doing any more boats for years to come. And you're like, alright, whereas we’re just like, why did that fail? And was it luck, or is there something else? And and should we try something again, let's let's test it again. And then you test it again. So and that's the joy of having your own smaller platform where a bit more agile, things cost less you can make you can put a few more chips on the board you're not It must be very stressful. Again, if you're Netflix you make you make one history show a year. And it doesn't work you're like I hate that history is never happening again. You know, like if you make one really expensive million dollar an episode bonkers history show every year. And if it doesn't work, you know, you're gonna you're gonna pay for it. Everyone's gonna get annoyed in the boardroom and all that kind of stuff. That's just not what we're doing. You know, so we don't we don't have those kind of, we don't take those gambles. Maybe we should. I sometimes do wonder whether we should like a House of Cards. Now, when you put the you bet the farm on House of Cards, like the early days of that was Netflix, wasn't it? Yeah. And they just, they just bet the farm on it. And they will just make the most expensive drama ever made, even though we've got no money and see what happens. I do sometimes wonder like, if we went down that route of going, let's make the ultimate story of the Second World War or of American history or something 20 parts, like, break ourselves. And then that's kind of we just hope that that attract attracts lots of new subscribers. But I wonder that we're never gonna do that too risky. But I think the moment we've we're just able to, we're able to spread ourselves out a bit more. So failure doesn't is not ever the end of the world.
Matt
So I know this is a podcast about podcasting. But I'm tempted to ask if you were suddenly magically given the role of like, head of factual at the BBC, BBC television, what would you take from what you've done on the outside back to the Beeb to make it you know, different and better in terms of history programming?
Dan
Whoa, that's crazy, unexpected question. Pretty much like I have no idea. I'm always by the way, it's very i The people I don't think I could do a better job and then it's a nightmare. Imagine being at the BBC you got politicians you got Chairman doing this, you got people saying to be more commercial, less commercial, more popular, less popular. Your sheduler puts things against some like Champions League game on the ITV like this is just miserable, it's miserable. Okay,
Matt
But in history, in history terms?
Dan
I guess I would, I guess I'd say I think the one thing I have learned, and this is a, it's a, it's a trite thing. So but it is true is like, you've got to let, you've just got to let creative run a bit more wild. And therefore you got to have some failures, because some of the programmes are gonna be a bit weird and not very good. But attempting to like squeeze everything into it with a kind of hierarchy and expense. Because hierarchies are quite expensive. And therefore, when they're rewriting scripts, you're like, that's actual money that you could have spent on flying to, you know, Machu Picchu and taking a cool drone flight around it or something. So, I would say, just put devolved decision making a bit lower, accept then that you're gonna have some dodgy shows, because one of those producers you've talked to might be a bit rubbish. But then of course, but then you're also going to create some actually astonishing things, because they're going to be slightly less cookie cutter, because they won't have gone through the machine quite as much. But that's what I would say. And that's what we try and do it. We try and make sure that people at the coalface are people who come up with ideas are able to write them, shoot them, get edit them, get them on the air. And then, you know, yeah, sometimes a grown up comes in and goes, I think it could have been a bit better. But the fact is, it's creative. And it's a bit you know, it's that's that's what, that's what I think, but, but I don't envy those people at all.
Rhianna
Dan, thank you so much for joining us. That was brilliant, fascinating, really in depth. And congratulations again, on the success of History Hit. What an incredible inspiration it is.
Dan
Rhianna and Matt, thanks so much for having me. I'm honoured to be on.
Rhianna
Thanks so much for joining me in that interview, Matt, you asked some really interesting questions that I would have…. I don't know where you pull them from. They're brilliant. And they always make the interviewee kind of really think,
Matt
yeah, I can tell you now it comes from a place of massive insecurity. A sense of everyone always doing slightly better than you are. So I'm only ever speaking from a place of absolute jealousy. Professional, jealousy, jealousy. See you back here next week for more professional jealousy.
Rhianna
That was a really interesting chat. Adam, what did you kind of take away from it apart from the fact that apparently history is one of the most successful genres that you can talk about on podcasting now? Apparently?
Adam
Yeah, well, one of the things that immediately jumped out at me was, he mentioned that the history his website gets a million uniques a week, I think, which is just like a unique visit, like a page view, basically. So they have a million different people every week, coming to the History Hit website, which is crazy numbers. But also, the most encouraging thing about it was just how much fun it seems like he's having Yeah, like podcasting is an inherently fun medium to work in. But Dan Snow was one of the most joyful podcasters I think, I think I've ever listened to,
Matt
it's really interesting as well, how much of his audiences US base, particularly the subscribers, and yes, that is something which, you know, in a way, that I think a lot of a lot of British podcast production houses need to make a bit of a choice as to whether they're creating content for domestic audiences, or whether they're going after the more established American market. And there is a very long history, of course of like, you know, for example, in the film and TV industry is of British creatives being really good at their craft, but essentially making it for Hollywood, where whoever, and I think there's a there's a chance that might happen here, I'm not saying it's inherently a good or bad thing. But, you know, there are choices to be made about the kind of content we want to make and who it's for.
Adam
Well, this is very similar to what Ross Adams from Acast was saying. Last week on on the podcast, he was saying, you know, he was speaking about the ad market in particular, but he was saying that UK, the UK kind of creative travels, you know, a lot better than US does, in a lot of cases, because it does, in a lot of cases tend to be more thoughtful, higher quality. And you know, that I think that's reflected by the success of stuff like History Hit in the US where you've got this kind of formidable and here's something I've mentioned on the podcast before that this formidable kind of BBC training and backing that then is applied to a less geographically restricted medium and It just goes bananas in terms of success.
Rhianna
It's interesting that Dan was talking about having sold, essentially the IP to Little Dot Studios. And that seems to have coincided with, as he put it, you know, the happiest time that he's ever been in his career, do you think that that is, we should have asked how much he sold it for? Do you think that is about the kind of lack of admin that he has to do, because I guess for most podcasters, they're having to kind of do absolutely everything. So he gets to offload while still being creative director and still doing the thing that he loves the most. And I wonder if that makes a huge difference when it comes to, as you say, being one of the most joyful, enthused people that we've ever spoken to.
Adam
I'd imagined so I mean, it's all the, it's all the fun bits of running a podcast network with, I imagine a lot less of the stress a lot less of the admin and a lot less of the responsibility, ultimately, because now, if you know, something happens and History Hit starts to, you know, start to tank and lose money. Suddenly, that's not just his sole kind of problem and responsibility to deal with, you know, there is a lot of that that's now abstracted away by being part of a larger brand. And of course, there are often strings attached to being part of the larger organisation. You know, indeed, that's part of why a lot of people seem to be leaving the BBC, for example, but I think there is a sweet spot where you have a level of support, but you don't have quite as much kind of red tape, as it were. Yeah,
Matt
it doesn't always make sense for every great idea to build their own company around it, you know, I mean, if everyone did that the amount of people reinventing the same office procedures, you know, sort of having to invent their own, you know, bonus payment structures or whatever, when you could happily be able to use existing infrastructure by a large company, you know, sometimes that is the better situation to be in. But it doesn't work for everyone. And actually, you know, your culture does change when you come into a larger organisation. And so, it's really great that Dan and his team have found a culture you know, with Little Dot and I think that who are in turn owned by All3Media, that kind of chimes and works really well. So you know, that's, that's part of the gamble that you take. And I think, arguably, that's probably Dan's big one big risk.
Adam
Or maybe you've got some kind of fairly recent experience of of that very thing. Having sold the Podcast Awards get to Haymarket not that long ago.
Matt
Exactly. I have to say the culture at Haymarket is excellent. I have to say it's in the contract.
Adam
Blink twice if you're being held against your will.
Rhianna
…actually making me choke. Thank you so much, Matt, and Adam, for joining me. And of course, thank you to our special guest, Dan snow, for joining me to talk all about podcast networks and history podcasts. And of course, the British Podcast Awards, which is just launching. You can find out more on pod pod.com all about that. And you if you sign up to our daily email bulletins, you will never miss an episode of pod pod because we're always be there to remind you.
Matt
Bit threatening.
Rhianna
Yeah, I know.
Matt
Bit threatening.
Rhianna
Do subscribe and rate us and we would really love to hear from you as well. If there's anything that you want us to cover here at PodPod or any questions that you have, please do get in touch. The podcast is produced by Emma Corsham for Haymarket Business Media and I've been your host Rhianna Dhillon, and I will see you won't I next week. Bye. Bye.
