Alex Cooper's company Unwell took its first outside investment, from Patrick Whitesell's WTSL, at a $500 million valuation. Every podcast expert on LinkedIn immediately pointed out that this is more than iHeartMedia. I went to check that, because I don't repeat numbers I haven't checked, and I got several different answers from several perfectly respectable financial sources on the same day. Turns out iHeart has multiple classes of share and the best part of $6 billion of debt strapped to its back, so depending which bit you measure you can have whichever number you fancy. It's less a valuation and more a horoscope.
But here's what survives all of that, and it's the bit nobody's saying.
The story doing the rounds is "creator wins, platforms lose."
That's rubbish.
I'll explain why.
In this episode:
— What a humming shed in a field had to do with your career for 100 years
— Why "it's worth more than iHeart" is a number nobody quoting it has checked
— Barstool, Spotify, SiriusXM: three tenancies, one landlord
— The bit where I admit I didn't clock any of this for years
— Why you've been feeling rubbish about yourself on the wrong scoreboard
— One number to look at instead, today
Note:
Unwell has been the subject of reporting this year, including a Vanity Fair investigation, alleging a difficult workplace culture. Cooper disputes it. Nothing in this episode is a comment on that either way — the point here is structural, about who owns what, and it would hold regardless of who the owner turned out to be.
This is Podmastery: Podcasting Opinions — the spinoff from Podcasting Insights. Insights is where I think properly about something. Opinions is where something's happened in the industry and I've got a view.
Podmastery goodies you can grab:
💬 Work with me one-to-one — https://podmastery.co
I'm Neal Veglio, the Podmaster — podcast producer and consultant, 25+ years in radio and audio, founder of Podknows Podcasting.
