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
Home Box Office of the Dragon
Why the Democrats finally got on TikTok
Land of the Giants: Why Instagram Broke Its Square
B.J. Novak on “Vengeance”, podcasts and the downside of the streaming boom
What is the metaverse, when is it going to show up and who’s going to run it?
Ken Auletta on the Harvey Weinstein story he wrote, the story he couldn’t write, and the one he’s publishing now.
Netflix has a huge hit with Peaky Blinders — and Caryn Mandabach owns it.
The future of: Crypto criticism; Substack and ABC News
Is this a Netflix problem or a streaming problem?
Bill Simmons on podcasts, celebrity interviews and life at Spotify
Why is this VC on your TikTok?
Engineer Molly White explains why Web3 isn’t going great
Is Big Tech getting better about misinformation?
What can you learn from the guy who built the iPod?
Ronan Farrow: “We are living in a post-privacy age”
Behind the scenes at Apple with journalist Tripp Mickle
NYT’s Wesley Morris on writing, podcasting and staying off TikTok
Can Elon Fix Twitter? Can Reed Fix Netflix?
Elon and Twitter: A love/hate story
Disney vs. Itself vs. The Right
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Pivot
Land of the Giants
Recode Daily
Recode Replay
Re/code Replay