PodcastOne co-founder and CEO Kit Gray is a war dog of media who has built a platform with a tsunami of infotainment for the world to enjoy, and it all started in a bar in Chicago.
“I went to business school and I was a financial analyst for a couple of defense companies in Orlando, Florida. I literally couldn’t stand it. It was awful,” Gray recalled.
So Gray, a native Bostonian, traded the Sunshine State for Chicago’s shore on Lake Michigan. “I lived with some friends [and] was a bartender downtown,” Gray effused. “I met a lady there who worked for a company called Katz Media Group, which is part of the iHeart, Clear Channel world.”
This chance encounter ignited Gray’s career. Working in New York, Boston, and then Los Angeles, Gray landed what he thought was a dream gig at iHeart in 2002. “I had always wanted to live in Los Angeles,” Gray said. “It was a different, obviously a very different world back then [and] I’m a flip-flop, beach kind of guy. So it just kind of made sense for me to live in California, and I really loved it.”
From Vision to Public Company
Gray won iHeartMedia’s Salesman of the Year Award multiple times before moving on to a start-up company. “Right around 2007, the RAZR phone came out, and it was starting to get content on the phone where you’d have games and a little bit of social interaction, even some NBA broadcast games and stuff like that,” Gray, a visionary, affirmed.
He already could see where the media would be headed next. “It was very early-stage content on the phone, but you could really see the trends of where media was going and the consumption of media.” So he ditched the start-up company and did what he does best: sales.
“I sent an email to Adam [Carolla, who had just started his own podcast] on his website. I got an email back a day later from his team, and I went in and met with Adam at his studio in Glendale. We talked and I said, ‘I think I can bring some advertisers to you.’ And I did,” Gray boasted.
His pitch, to both Carolla and the advertisers, was simple: “If there were a lot of people who were out there downloading podcasts to listen to them, that, in the radio world, is what you call a P1. And a P1 is — those are your super fans. They listen every morning, they go to the remote radio station things, they sign up for the email. Those are the super fans.”
Turning P1s Into PodcastOne’s Breakout Success
But in 2007, if you were a person who was going through the then-laborious process of downloading an MP3 on the regular to listen to your favorite podcast, Gray had a different category for you. “Those are super P1s, right? And if I can bring those to advertisers, that would be a really cool, great experience for the advertisers and the shows so they can make money and get better and bigger.”
The idea didn’t initially land with all their advertisers. “When we took ProFlowers to Adam the first time [just before Valentine’s Day], I told the media buyer ‘it’s going to cost about a thousand bucks to do a spot on Adam’s show’. The buyer said, ‘that’s more than K-Rock morning drive. I’m not doing that,'” Gray recalled.
He and the buyer settled on $15 per person who used Adam’s code to order flowers. After Valentine’s Day, the buyer called Gray back, saying, “We owe you a check for almost $46,000.” Gray’s ability to spot super P1s before anyone else in the industry is what helped launch the success of PodcastOne.
The company continued to grow, and in 2023, PodcastOne went public on the NASDAQ as PODC. “Now we’re not only in the audio space, YouTube has become the number-one discovery spot for podcasting. All of our podcasts are on YouTube. We are able to add the video and audio numbers to get more impressions to deliver to clients,” Gray added. “We’re now actively selling social media. So really, we’re bringing communities to brands, and that’s what we do.”
Meeting the Goal
Gray noted that today’s technology has evolved where the audio experience kind of replicates the digital experience in terms of targetability and accountability. “We have attribution now.” He elaborated: “podcasting is the beauty between old-school radio, where you use endorsements, and the digital world to maximize the medium and work with brands, and [the brands] love it.”
For podcasters, Gray and the team have one simple goal: “to take a lot of the daily responsibilities and costs off the table. That means production, marketing, social media clips, rate and inventory maximization, talent booking, booking you on and off network for more promotion, running promos in our shows with special events or new programs coming on in our existing community of podcasts, video clips, all of it.”
“We do everything soup-to-nuts for them so they can do more of what they do, which is great interviews, more content, promoting consumption of backlog content, because in many cases, a lot of our content is evergreen. Once people discover a podcast, they go back and listen to certain episodes, and we can monetize that experience. So we’re in the world of doing more for our partners, and in turn, they do more for us.”
Staying Humble Amid the Success
Even with his success, Kit Gray is still a hardworking, flip-flop-and-shorts kind of guy, living his best life in the Florida panhandle. “Second to none, I’m really lucky. My right-hand man is Eli Dvorkin, who’s been with me since day one. Sumac Numera has been with me for six years. Stacey Parra, who’s our head of production, has been with me for nine years. Head of talent booking, and even some salespeople, have been with me for seven, eight, and nine years,” Gray boasted. “This is not a Kit Gray operation. This is a team, and I think they’re tremendous. They love the business, and that’s what makes PodcastOne great, those guys.”
For those visionaries who are looking toward their own media ventures, Gray said, “Don’t be scared, you know. Go out, try new things, be bold, learn, be kind, don’t get into politics. And just test everything, learn. And when you say you’re gonna do something, come through with it. That’s the number-one thing.”
Gray added, “If you can be honest, upfront and true, and come back and say you did what you said you’d do, that’s it. That’s really everything. And that’s how you’re gonna be a good podcaster, a good person, a good business person. That’s everything.”
Krystina Alarcon Carroll contributes features and columns for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.