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Where gobs of new podcasts and studios once launched on the regular, layoffs are now themorefrequentphenomenon.
The big question is, Where do we go from here?
Amid these uncertainties,This American Lifecontinues to stand firm.
(The shows website describes its episodes as little movies for radio.)
Do milestones like the 800-episode mark mean anything to you?
I just feel like listeners dont care how many yearsAll Things ConsideredorFresh Airhas been on the air.
Theres a part of me where I feel like I rebel against it.
Weve done a few anniversary shows.
We did a tour for our fifth anniversary; that was the first time I was on TV.
We hired a publicist for that, and I got ontoLetterman.
Did the med-school stuff bother you?
Oh, I completely ignored it.
I always understood what I wanted to do.
I can just shut other people out sometimes in a very single-minded way, which is not ideal.
If I remember the lore correctly,This American Lifestarted out as an experiment.
Nobody made this kind of radio in 1995, and your voice was considered unconventional for broadcast back then.
Now, theres an entire generation of producers who either sound likeThis American Lifeor are actively trying not to.
Im wondering if you’re free to recall the moment you realized you were the Establishment.
Thats an interesting question.
I think it took a long time before anyone really started to imitate us.
There was a show Dean Olsher did on WNYC calledThe Next Big Thing.
Of course, Jads use of music is so much more sophisticated than ours.
He really invented his own aesthetic after having heard our show.
I dont know when we started to feel like the Establishment.
Its interesting, the way you worded the question.
Because youre asking, Do we see ourselves as the Establishment?
Nobody ever sees themselves as the Man, you know?
Does that imitation give you any agita?
No, no agita at all.
It feels weirdly impersonal.
I also feel very aware of what a weird ground war its been.
We have to be on every week.
Its been a daily slog for so long.
A good era is one when the show gets to exercise all of its feelings.
It can be serious some weeks, silly in others, sometimes both at the same time.
Right now, were doing a very satisfying mix of funny and serious.
I feel if were too serious, the audience notices and complains and rightly so.
The show should be entertainment.
So thats a show completely out for fun.
We thought the subject would be fun to do, and its clearly designed as entertainment.
It seemed like the state did everything right in response.
It took a long time before she was willing to talk to Miki.
At the beginning, we were just a staff of four or five people.
Then we were eight people for a very long time.
Thats barely enough to get a weekly show on the air.
Right now, the staff is 36 people.
The luxury of that is we can really dig into a story; we can try stuff and fail.
Theres another thing thats different about the show these days: Its less white.
The nuance to our stories about people who arent white is where it should have been all along.
It just wasnt there for much too long.
How much do you think aboutThis American Lifeas a business?
I trigger the business.
I think about it a lot.
How did it all start?
I didnt want that to happen if our show turned out to be good.
We werent making a lot of money as a staff.
Our first business problem was, How are we going to stay alive when the foundation money runs out?
We had an advantage that people making podcasts today dont have.
But the trick you had to pull off was, How do you get onto the stations?
We were seen as a very weird show.
That dogged us for like 20 years, stations not feeling great about us because of the content.
The other thing is the stations dont need you.
There was no real reason for them to pick us up.
So Torey and I came up with this strategy that turned out to be really smart.
I had a very, uh, macho response to that.
And nobody wants to do it.
They know youre gonna ask them for money, and they dont wanna give you money.
Everything you did has to completely upset that expectation.
That was our pitch for the first year, and this is before we had a distributor.
They were putting us on at really weird times late night, times when people wouldnt yell at them.
They werent putting us on when there were a lot of listeners.
Thats how we got our first 112 stations or something.
By year five, it felt like a stable business.
Do you think it wouldve been possible to launch the show today?
I mean, telling you this story, I feel so aware of all the advantages I had.
There was infrastructure, there were public radio stations, there was a clear path to revenue.
I knew if we did these steps, there was revenue at the end.
1, figuring out how youre going to get any advertisers, and No.
2, which probably should really be No.
1, is how you get listeners.
How are you gonna let anybody know?
Speaking of which, howdidyou feel about the podcast boom?
But I imagine you mustve viewed the past nine years with some sense of oddness.
There was so much money going around.
Did you all ever grumble about that in the office?
Serialwas a real surprise.
And now there are serialized narrative podcasts everywhere.
What do you feel looking around the podcast industry today?
I still feel encouraged because there are still things that seem great to me.
Like Emily HanfordsSold a Story, for example.
Its not just great reporting; its also really fun to listen to.
She finds the right characters to tell the story and then you just get so mad listening to it.
In general, its really hard to make one of these things any good.
Theyre very expensive to make compared to any talk show.
So its understandable theyre in danger.
Im hopeful that the best ideas still find a place.
But I dont know.
I dont have much to say about it.
You probably know more about it than I do.
I dont know if I do.
I feel like I only really know more about how shitty things seem to be right now.
It seems shitty to me, too.
Well, part of the problem is that people arent paying for it, right?
Theyre accustomed to getting it for free.
Thats the hole in the business model.
Do you ever think about stuff like legacy?
I really dont care about that.
I dont need to impress anybody.
So in that sense, no.
I just want the show to be decent.
Apparently, Chez Panisse is the same thing on the West Coast, probably at a much bigger level.
I dont know enough about restaurants.
And I feel like, well, thats what we are.
Thats nice, but that wasnt the goal.
The goal was to make a decent show that people could stand.
Is there a succession plan forThisAmericanLife?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
So whats the plan?
We have a number of people who could easily host it.
At least two of them could definitely do it better than I do.
Ive been encouraging people to do lots of guest-hosting.
Theyll step in, and I step away.
Is there someone first in line right now?
Wait, whats the question?
You know, like if you had to suddenly disappear for a year.
Theres no first in line, no.
Its funny thinking about it.
They might all prefer to split it and just alternate weeks between them.
Doing it every week takes a ton of time.
You kind of need one person to be the central voice of any show.
Last question: Are you content with where you are?
For the last few years, Ive had this project of trying to work less.
That goes well, then it doesnt go so well.
But in general, um, you know, Im mostly fine.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
