| For over a decade, podcaster Tim Ferriss has interviewed guests weekly, including everyone from actor Terry Crews to comedian Sarah Silverman to fellow yapper Dax Shepard. All told, Ferriss has had on more than 700 people. Then, this past May, he went silent. He took a four-month sabbatical during which he released episodes featuring old interviews. When he returned, Ferriss wrote a blog post about his time spent reflecting. The ultimate conclusion? Interview-style shows, like his, had become a saturated market, and he needed a new challenge to stay interested. As such, he instituted new rules for his show. The first: “no more book launching-episodes.” He wrote a blog post about the changes, noting that “the podcasting circuit has largely become the same authors appearing on 15–30 podcasts in any given week or two for book launches…For authors, I totally get it, but I’m over it, and I know a lot of my podcast friends are over it. It’s boring for everyone.” He’ll make exceptions for truly close friends, he said, so long as they can join him at least three months before their book publication date, meaning Ferriss would be early on the list of pitstops. The second rule: he would be implementing a “90/10 barbell strategy for future guests.” The idea is that guests can either be super famous, where 90% of listeners have heard of them, or so obscure they’d be new to 90% of listeners. His final two rules carved out exceptions for “living legends” and also for experimental episodes. Since his return, he’s released several solo episodes while the majority continue to be interviews with people who fall on the 10% side of the barbell. But Ferriss isn’t alone in his push for a new way forward in podcasting that doesn’t rely so heavily on well known, often over-exposed guests. Recently I’ve been hearing from a growing number of people in the space about their desire to shift away from interviews, which is how they currently fill up their podcast, in favor of monologue-esque episodes, or perhaps by bringing on a permanent co-host. The reasons for the shift can vary. It’s labor intensive to regularly book guests and ensure the conversation is interesting enough to sustain an episode. Also, to make a sticky show that people want to return to, programmers know they need reliable personalities — regulars, who the audience come to know and love. Jack Davenport, co-founder at Goalhanger Podcasts, the network behind The Rest Is History and the Rest Is Politics franchises, told me his team tends to design shows without interviews. “I don’t want our pods’ success to live or die on someone external to it,” he said. “We’ve always focused away from interview-style shows.” He noted that interview shows can be more expensive to make because they require guest bookers and researchers. Every week, he said, he receives dozens of inquiries from potential guests — another reminder of just how much publicists have come to rely on the medium. (I previously wrote about the burgeoning business of guests paying podcasters for coveted interview slots.) Amid the current glut of over-exposed interview subjects, if a guest actually proves to be lively and fresh enough, a podcaster might consider them for a full-time co-hosting gig — or recruit them to anchor a spinoff show of their own. The blueprint already exists. Kara Swisher of On, interviewed Scott Galloway for her former podcast Recode Decode in 2017. The two hit it off, and the episode performed well. They then recorded another episode to test whether that initial success was a one-off fluke or real. Now, the two of them host the popular Pivot together, and Galloway has spun up a bunch of additional shows. (Earlier this month, he shared that his Prof G podcast portfolio is projected to make $10 million in revenue next year.) In a YouTube-focused, clips-oriented world, knowing who tends to say things that can go viral or travel widely helps make decisions about who to highlight. At the very least, it’s good to know who makes for a good hang. Even some of the biggest interview shows, like the Joe Rogan Experience, often return again and again to the same people they’ve had on in the past, essentially setting up a broader constellation of familiar personalities. Lately, I’ve been fascinated with the most extreme version of the emerging, no-guest format — the recurring monologue host. Tim Dillon, Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens all regularly speak to the camera without a co-host to bounce ideas off of. All of them are able to maintain their audience’s attention while flying solo. As podcasting becomes more tied to YouTube, I imagine we’ll see more pre-planned clips, designed to go viral, and more personality-driven shows that sprinkle guests in judiciously, from time to time, rather than using them as the anchors of each new episode. | 
