The one part of the OZY story podcasters can’t afford to ignore

Every day it seems a new podcast company is staffing up and launching as “an innovator in the podcast industry.” That too was the pledge of Ozy Media in an overcrowded media space. Ozy was positioned as a new multimedia voice “to vault you ahead of the curve — and spark change.” Included in Ozy’s mix were six podcasts. Business was going well until it wasn’t.

While the cause was noble, Ozy’s desperation to build an audience ended up outweighing any moral compass. Pretend audience metrics and a key executive faking a Goldman Sachs fundraising call disguised as a YouTube executive brought the company’s schemes to the surface. “Fake it till you make it,” pervaded the organization, which tumbled into crisis, and is likely gone for good. The fallout is everywhere — CEO Carlos Watson even stepped down from NPR’s board last week.

Ozy Was Scrambling To Find Viewers, Listeners, And Readers To Tell A Story Of Wild Growth

The truth is, Ozy was scrambling to find viewers, listeners, and readers to tell a story of wild growth. They were buying eyeballs and listeners, defaulting to paid versus earned media. In other words, they were buying an audience to demonstrate momentum and placate advertisers — by any means possible. And it wasn’t working.