Larry Rosin: Here Comes Hollywood

larry rosin contributor logo canvasThis guest column is contributed by Larry Rosin, President of Edison Research. It was first published on The Infinite Dial blog.


In November, as the media frenzy over “Serial” was catching steam, I was interviewed by CNBC about the phenomenon. You can read this excellent article here.

Down at the bottom you’ll find a comment I made to the reporter: “For Edison Research’s Rosin, what was ‘hugely significant’ about ‘Serial’ was the interest from ‘Hollywood and the creative classes.’ That, he said, is where the innovation — and money — was.”

Sure enough — this week brought the announcement from Discovery Networks that it is planning its own crime-related podcast for its Investigation Discovery network. You can read about this announcement in this article from Adweek.

investigation discovery

Humorously, the Discovery exec who announced it, Henry Schleiff said: “I think we were all surprised by the amount of press and attention — and indeed some of the viewership or ‘soundship’ — that the podcast got.” Let me help you out there Mr. Schleiff — maybe go with “listenership.”

While their plans aren’t yet fully baked, there is an intriguing mention of television or web-based tie-ins. The podcast roll continues — and it will be fascinating to see if video-based story tellers can successfully master the audio medium.

Larry Rosin