The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
What Comes After the Podcast Election, Scott’s Advice to Federal Employees, and an Update on Scott's Company, Section
Wed, 12 Mar 2025
Scott discusses the evolving role of podcasts in political influence and campaign spending. He then offers advice to a federal worker worried about DOGE cuts, and wraps up with an update on his company, Section. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the role of podcasts in political campaigns?
I've been thinking about your post-election analysis, where you discuss podcasts becoming the dominant campaign medium in the next election, potentially replacing traditional door-to-door outreach. This brings me to my question. How do you envision monetizing the monetization of political campaigns on Podcast Evolving?
Are we going to be listening to you read, this ad was paid for by friends of Candidate X, as is required for all political ads? I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how you think this emerging campaign medium will develop and how would you maintain your authenticity and credibility with your audience? Look forward to hearing from you and keep up the great work.
Chapter 2: How are traditional media companies adapting to changes in political ad spending?
Thanks for the thoughtful question, Jake, from DC. The 2024 cycle was the most expensive election in American history, with political ad spending totaling over $11 billion. However, it wasn't all disco for broadcasters. This was the first election where their share of total spending fell below 50%. Since the 2020 election, ad spending increased over $2 billion.
But traditional broadcasters only saw 100 million of this growth. First off, I think it was Hearst or one of the big family owned media companies was really smart. About 20 years ago, they went and bought all these local TV stations in swing states thinking, okay, these are shitty businesses for about 20 months every two years.
And then for four months, they're amazing businesses because they quintuple their ad rates and campaigns which think, okay, old people vote. What do old people do? They want to watch the weather and see that handsome, handsome young thing talking about the news. And they turn on their local news.
And they can trap old people and they can run ads basically saying that, you know, the other guy is a pedophile and she's addicted to diet pills and you should vote for our guy. It's really weird. Human condition, it's much easier for us to believe something negative about someone than something positive. So as Newt Gingrich convinced his party 20 odd years ago, go negative, go early.
Anyways, they bought these stations and they've been the gift that keeps on giving. They were able to scoop them up fairly inexpensively and they're just cash machines. I think that is about to come to an end for two reasons. First reason, Joe, second, Rogan. And that is when Trump went on Rogan, he got about 15 million downloads on audio and about 40, 45 million views on YouTube.
So call it 60 million. For Vice President Harris, who by the way, totally fucked up and should have gotten on a plane. Joe Rogan is now more important than her or was at that point. to Austin and done an interview. I think Joe actually would have been kind to her. He's not about calling people out. He's pretty good that way. As a matter of fact, he doesn't call people out enough.
Oh, mRNA vaccines alter your DNA. Really? Really? Oh, okay. You're not a fucking quack spreading misinformation that results in unnecessary death, disease, and disability. Really? Oh, that makes sense. No, it doesn't. Anyway, she should have done it. But for her to reach the same number of people, she would have had to go on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox every night for three hours for an entire week.
As a matter of fact, a woman I really respect a lot who has a, I believe it's a Sunday morning show on CNN, asked me to come on every week and do this thing like, what's on your mind, where I talk for six to 10 minutes. And I said, I've done the math. No one 25 to 54 is watching CNN. And for me to do the work I would need to do because I like you and I think you're smart,
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Chapter 3: Why are podcasts becoming more influential in politics?
It's just not worth – the juice isn't worth the squeeze. And I would have killed to go on Anderson Cooper or Michael Smirconish or Stephanie Ruhl. By the way, all three friends, all wonderful people. Or any of these guys. I occasionally go on Chris Cuomo because I like – I only go on with my friends. I know I'm name-dropping right now, but – It's just not worth it.
The people I'm trying to raise, I'm trying to reach a young man. I'm trying to reach young people that want to develop economic security. And guess what? They're not watching fucking CNN. Get this, the average age, the average person watching MSNBC is a 70-year-old white woman. Oh, but it makes sense for politicians to go there.
What do you think a 70-year-old white woman has made up her mind around who she's voting for? Having said that, podcasts, 34-year-old male. 34-year-old males, what do they vote on? They don't vote on issues or values. They vote on economics. They're at a point in their life where they're trying to build economic security, and the economic issue is more dynamic. What do I mean by that?
Every two or four years, it's not entirely clear which party will become the party of economic growth or become more favorable in the eyes of voters around economics. Traditionally, Republicans are the business people, low taxes, but people are starting to pay attention that under Democratic administrations the last 50 years, there's been 50 million jobs created.
Under Republican administrations, there's been 1 million jobs. The markets tend to go up more during Democratic tenure. So people are kind of saying, okay, whoever can sell me is going to get my vote at the age of 34 if they're a male, whereas a 70-year-old woman, so where is everyone going to go? I think to podcasts.
Now, having said that, your notion is how do they monetize it or how do we monetize it? I don't see why it would be any more difficult to run a 30-second ad saying, he fucking sucks, and then having the candidate go, I approve this ad. I think you're going to start to see Political ads.
The reason I know that the sphere of influence is massively shifting, and I'm not exaggerating here, I bet 50% of the candidates, mostly Democrat, but also Republicans, I'm seeing as somewhat moderate, have reached out to me for quote-unquote advice. When people reach out to me for advice, it's not because they care about what I think.
It means they want help finding a job, they want money for their campaign, or they want to come on the podcast. And I think that there's probably a hundred senators and congresspeople and governors who look in the mirror every morning and say the following. Hello, Mr. President, or hello, Madam President. And I've heard from most of them. And they claim they really are interested in my advice.
And they say, hey, wouldn't it be a great idea for me to come on the pod and talk about it? What's interesting is the political candidates don't do well on podcasts. People would much rather hear from, I don't know, Kim Kardashian or a guy like Fareed Zakaria gets unbelievable downloads. He does so well. Anthony Scaramucci does incredibly well.
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Chapter 4: How can political campaigns monetize podcasts?
And if you have attention and influence, which podcasts will have, they're going to be able to grab a disproportionate amount of that what it'll probably be 15 or 20 billion going into the next election.
So if you have influence and attention, you'll figure out a way to monetize it, whether it's ads, sponsored events, I don't know what have you, but we're gonna see, I think we're gonna see for the first time these local news stations start to feel some of the same pressure that every other media company has felt
And then we're going to see a massive transfer of influence, attention, and monetization to podcasts. In terms of conflict of interest, I read ads. I don't do crypto ads anymore because I worry it's gambling and I worry there's too many young men staring at their phone, losing money or making money on crypto. But I have no problem advocating for products.
And if it's a conflict, if I'm talking about a company, I'm an investor and I try to be transparent. I'm here because I enjoy this, but I am a close second here because I want to make money. And I don't think people mind that. So what I think they mind is when they feel like you're abusing their trust and not being upfront about your intentions or your investments.
So as long as you're transparent, I think that's fine. But coming your way, I'm Joe Bob and I approve this ad. Thanks for the question. Question number two.
Hey, Prof G. Love your show. Question for you. What advice do you have for federal workers considering leaving public service? As you know, the Doge efforts are cruel and chaotic. They've created a stressful work environment that leaves me full of anxiety. wondering if I'll be the next to lose my job. I joined the federal workforce as a military spouse five years ago.
Prior to that, I spent my career in the private sector. Despite high evaluations, leadership programs, and a graduate degree, I'm still concerned I could lose my job. I live in Virginia with a high concentration of federal workers. Should I jump ship before the job market is oversaturated? Should I stay put? Am I overthinking this? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Anonymous for Virginia. The first is, I'm really sorry you're stressed out. It's sort of the unknown sometimes is more stressful than the actual known. And that is a means of, I think, trying to assuage your stress. And there's the basics, spending time with loved ones, working out, meditation, breath work. I tried breath work.
I tried this straw method from this guy named Dan Reeves, who I love, who's fantastic, this very soulful guy who does this 10% Happier podcast. Here's the straw method. Breathe in. Two seconds, then breathe out. Four seconds. Okay. That shit does not work for me. It does not work for me. The breath work does not work.
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Chapter 5: What advice does Scott have for federal employees facing job uncertainty?
They're pretty soon going to realize they need people to actually run the fucking organization and the top of the pyramid. will quite frankly get broader and that is you might find that you're in a position to be promoted sooner than you thought because there's fewer people around.
I've always told people when there's a transaction in the private sector, when their company gets acquired or there's layoffs, stick around because churn and chaos results in a lot of anxiety, oftentimes a lot of negative things, but oftentimes a lot of opportunity because the company is being reconfigured and you might wake up with a bigger and a better job. So in sum,
find things and people that help manage your anxiety. Two, it's never a bad idea to do a bit of a market check and talk to people. And three, think to yourself, what could go right, right? We're always about what could go wrong. Well, what could go right?
Maybe the organization, maybe people get laid off, maybe you're good at what you do, and maybe it ends up creating more avenues or arteries of opportunity for you. I appreciate the question, Anonymous from Virginia. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us. Masterclass is the streaming platform that brings insights from the world's greatest minds directly to you.
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Chapter 6: What stress-relief techniques does Scott recommend?
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Welcome back. Question number three. Hey, Prof G, this is John Ward from Los Angeles. I took a marketing class from your company, Section, a couple of years ago, and it was called Section 4 and really enjoyed it. Can you give us an update on the company? Has it gone as expected? What's working? What's not? Have you taken more money?
Just really interested in that as an entrepreneurial journey and what's going on with that company. Thanks so much.
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