The Voices in Blue America’s Head
- 7 years ago
The Voices in Blue America’s Head
Whenever a knotty issue arose in Obama’s White House, Pfeiffer
and Vietor, who worked in the communications department, and Lovett, a fellow speechwriter, would taunt Favreau: “We need a ‘race speech’ for Simpson-Bowles,” or: “Write a ‘race speech’ for the BP oil spill.”
The night before, at the National, an 800-seat theater in Richmond, Favreau
and his co-hosts performed a sold-out live taping of “Pod Save America,” a liberal political podcast and the flagship offering from Crooked Media, the media company that Favreau, Lovett and Vietor started in January.
“I have finally arrived!”
During the 2016 campaign, Favreau, Lovett, Vietor and Pfeiffer — mostly as a lark — hosted a popular politics podcast for Bill Simmons’s sports-and-pop-culture website The Ringer called “Keepin’ It 1600.”
But with Hillary Clinton expected to be sitting in the Oval Office in 2017, “we didn’t want to be the people who criticized the White House just to be interesting, nor did we want to be to the Clinton administration what Hannity now is to the Trump administration,” Pfeiffer says.
When the Politicon organizers first approached them about appearing, the “Pod Save America” hosts recoiled at the idea — “Some of
these people are despicable,” Lovett complained to the organizers about the other invitees — but they eventually reconsidered.
An executive at another podcasting company told me
that assuming standard industry rates, Crooked Media is most likely bringing in at least $50,000 in advertising revenue for each episode of “Pod Save America” — which at two episodes a week is about $5 million a year.
Whenever a knotty issue arose in Obama’s White House, Pfeiffer
and Vietor, who worked in the communications department, and Lovett, a fellow speechwriter, would taunt Favreau: “We need a ‘race speech’ for Simpson-Bowles,” or: “Write a ‘race speech’ for the BP oil spill.”
The night before, at the National, an 800-seat theater in Richmond, Favreau
and his co-hosts performed a sold-out live taping of “Pod Save America,” a liberal political podcast and the flagship offering from Crooked Media, the media company that Favreau, Lovett and Vietor started in January.
“I have finally arrived!”
During the 2016 campaign, Favreau, Lovett, Vietor and Pfeiffer — mostly as a lark — hosted a popular politics podcast for Bill Simmons’s sports-and-pop-culture website The Ringer called “Keepin’ It 1600.”
But with Hillary Clinton expected to be sitting in the Oval Office in 2017, “we didn’t want to be the people who criticized the White House just to be interesting, nor did we want to be to the Clinton administration what Hannity now is to the Trump administration,” Pfeiffer says.
When the Politicon organizers first approached them about appearing, the “Pod Save America” hosts recoiled at the idea — “Some of
these people are despicable,” Lovett complained to the organizers about the other invitees — but they eventually reconsidered.
An executive at another podcasting company told me
that assuming standard industry rates, Crooked Media is most likely bringing in at least $50,000 in advertising revenue for each episode of “Pod Save America” — which at two episodes a week is about $5 million a year.