When Sam Reich bought CollegeHumor from Barry Diller’s IAC for pennies in January 2020, the comedy site was long past its heyday. A few months later, the pandemic hit. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if CollegeHumor had vanished entirely. Instead, Reich pushed the company to lean into Dropout, the subscription streaming part of the business, and create more improvised comedy content that lent itself well to viral clips on TikTok and YouTube. Today, Dropout has a dedicated fanbase of hundreds of thousands of subscribers and is even talking about establishing a revenue-sharing model with its employees. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks with Reich about how he turned it all around, and what it’s like to be on-camera talent and everyone’s boss.
Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode
More to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.
About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hank Green on everything YouTube, Tik Tok, podcasting, and Montana
How to run a newspaper in Hong Kong: South China Morning Post CEO Gary Liu
Why Fox bet $450 million on Tubi and free streaming
How Netflix became a streaming giant
W. Kamau Bell wants to help you understand racism
Wondery CEO Hernan Lopez wants to make the Marvel of podcasts
Conferences were a great business — before the pandemic
Twitter, Trump, Facebook and George Floyd with NYT’s Charlie Warzel
HBO Max is here!
Meet the man who made Netflix’s most popular movie
Joe Rogan takes his podcast to Spotify
It’s Twitch’s Time: Talking live streaming with gamer Dr. Lupo and journalist Bijan Stephen
How Tara Reade told her story
Michael Jordan's Last Dance, with director Jason Hehir
The man behind The Office brings you the future, on Amazon
Matthew Ball on how the pandemic will remake TV, movies and video games
How the Atlantic is thriving in the pandemic
Jeffrey Katzenberg's $1.75 billion bet on Quibi
TikTok, Facebook and podcasts respond to the pandemic
Making people laugh during a pandemic, with Jon Lovett and Jon Gabrus
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Pivot
Land of the Giants
Recode Daily
Recode Replay
Re/code Replay