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Wondery: Eventually streamers will add podcasts

April 2, 2020

Maribel Ramos-Weiner

Hernan Lopez Wondery

Just like stories come and go from the screen to the podcast and vice versa, audiences are also on these two media. The increase of podcasting becomes an opportunity for platforms with the aim to add content in this sense.

“Sooner or later, streamers will being to add podcasts, since those who listen to podcasts are great consumers of Video On Demand and vice versa,” believes Hernán López, CEO of Wondery, one of the most important podcast production companies in the US.

Symbiosis already happens when agreements are signed for adaptations, which is an important mechanism to monetize podcasts, albeit not the main one since very few podcasts reach the last stage: a production order. “Many stay in the option,” warns López, who is currently working on 12 TV projects based on podcasts from his production company.”

In these cases, Wondery packs the literary rights together with their services as a production company and also with first-line actors who work with them, such as Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd, as well as showrunners like Patrick MacManus.

“My colleagues and I are executive producers in all the adaptations based on our properties, but of course, each one has its own showrunner. In the future, we will likely become co-producers”.