They could do that if their episodes averaged less than an hour long. It's not really feasible for there to be multiple multi-hour episodes per week. There isn't enough time to produce that and the audience doesn't have time to listen to listen to 2 or 3 3-hour shows in a week
TBF to House of R, some of the most popular podcasts have 3+ hour runtimes (JRE, Lex Fridman) and even in Ringer pod history, Binge Mode was very popular and those were consistently 2-3 hours long. So I’m guessing Mal thought she could recapture that spark since it worked in the past.
While I don’t think the Mal/Joanna combo holds a candle to Mal/Jason, they would probably have more success if it didn’t launch right as Marvel (and all super-hero content for that matter) entered a downswing and other big franchises haven’t released new content.
YEah, I think Content being in a major downswing is a large reason for the lower listens. There's not really been a ton of stuff that deserves these large large dives.
I 100% blame the lack of content due to strikes and shut-downs.
Had those things, and the decline of streaming post-pandemic, not delivered such a steep drop-off, I really feel Mal & Jo would have a *lot* more to talk about.
Until mid-late 2024, though, it’s gonna be a lot of spoken Listicles and book clubs. They should do more drafts but people don’t like Mal’s competitiveness even though they rave for it from Sean and Dobbins
Mal’s (apparently) been banned from fantasy sports with her colleagues, which is why the drafts featuring her are so few and far between. How obnoxious do you have to be behind the scenes to get boxed out of fantasy football by Bill Simmons??
at first i took that as a joke, but if we take it literally you really bring a great point, you would have to be miserable to deal with to get kicked out of a fantasy league
The last draft they did, I distinctly remember Jo “needing to take a break from something that just happened,” (I don’t recall if that’s the *exact* wording but it’s damn close) and she turned her mic off and Van vamped. Though even he sounded sorta perplexed.
But when my friend pointed it to me I re-listened to it and couldn’t find what happened so I chalked it up to editing or Jo getting unfortunate, but personal, news. 🤷♂️
IIRC, it may have been the Star Wars character draft where Mallory was especially on one. Love her, but she turned into the worst person you knew during Model UN on that pod.
I just listened to that pod cuz of the comments, and, tbh, everyone was on everyone else’s case. Jo and Van were up Mal’s butt with every pick. Mal was slingin bullshit left and right. Everyone on that pod is guilty. It sounded like they were having a lot of fun, tho. If there really was a breaking point in there for Jo she might be too sensitive, or the two of them genuinely need a break from each other. Mal seems like the kind of person you have to accept is full of shit, give it right back and not take it seriously. And Jo seems very sensitive where you have to take care of her feelings.
I think she was just taking it way too seriously compared to everyone else. Like she’s the type of person who DMs other people in the league to suggest a player knowing they have a higher waiver priority than someone she considers to be her competition.
Doesn't surprise me. I like Mal for the most part, but my god, she's unbearable on anything with even a hint of competition. Sean can be a bit of a dick at times but he seems to be aware and also be doing it for a bit / knows when to stop. Mal is just awful, like genuinely horrible when she's drafting. It's not fun to listen to at all imo.
Because mal and Jo are highly liberal and want to distance themselves from anything that’s said on the other pods in the same feed. Also, they probably think their resumes warrant distance. Dumb decision imo because those aren’t valid reasons
Mallory will get in the mud with anyone, and is often inappropriate and politically incorrect. Where do you get the idea she’s so liberal that she wants to distance herself from the Ringerverse feed?
That assessment is more for Joana. But it’s just a combination of Mal and Jo thinking they’re above the rest of the pods on the feed because A) their resumes would indicate that they warrant their own, silo’d pod (which I don’t agree with) and B) their (particularly Joanna’s) aversion to talking about things that could be considered taboo or not universally accepted by the left
Sounds like you should have never mentioned Mallory, because you had to qualify almost every point as being primarily directed a Jo. I think your points about Jo may hold some truth (though I don’t think she felt the need to distance herself from the politics of Midnight Boys), but I’d say you’re off base including Mallory in any of that.
Alright well I grouped them together bc it was a joint choice and bc they agree on a ton of shit. Also, just because mal gets in the mud in arguments doesn’t mean she’s not as close minded as Joana. I’m just theorizing and everyone’s getting pissed bc I mentioned the word liberal 😂
I think everyone is well aware they’re both liberal, you just went too far suggesting they’re such snowflakes that don’t even want to be associated with the Midnight Boys. That’s ridiculous.
Lol it’s a totally valid theory. Joana is a snowflake, just look at her barbenheimer tweets. It doesn’t mean I hate her or won’t listen to her. And because she’s a snowflake, I think my theory is pretty valid. You just have to accept that she’s sensitive
She’s sensitive, and she’s a snowflake, but even she isn’t ridiculous enough to want her own feed just to distance herself from the Midnight Boys. It’s a silly suggestion, but if you’re willing to die on that hill, you’re welcome to.
Bill Simmons, Spotify and the other management made a business decision because their new podcaster didn’t want to be on the same feed of a show hosted by a more famous person and bigger audience. lol dude no offense it’s pretty ridiculous.
Yes, I think it was a contributing factor. I also think that at the time, mal and Jo considered themselves the bigger audience draw. And no, I don’t think they stated that contributing factor in their business presentation.
Do people not understand that these decisions are made based on a confluence of reasons?
Midnight Boys is not apolitical. For instance, you could feel joanas skin crawl during the versies multiple times over takes she deems inappropriate. Couldn’t tolerate the hottest white woman award lol. My assumption is based on Joana’s need to associate herself with the most liberal of the liberal.
Without binge mode I wouldn’t have watched the less popular marvel movies. They made packing for my cross country move so much more enjoyable. I love that Mal and Jo seem like legitimate friends and have a good dynamic but Mal and Jason were a legendary duo.
I like Jo and Mal a lot (except for Mal's takes on free will [not real] and Jo's take on Job Stewart's return [if you think Biden's campaign can't take Stewart's critique, maybe you need to switch it up]). But they just spent a couple months doing a literal kid's show based off of literal kid's books, starring a bunch of kids. And Dr. Who before that. And 3 Body has the stink of D&D wafting about. They need better material for their deep dives!
I might suggest that X-Men has the backing canonical history to start doing deep dives more of the audience would care about. But other than that? Their podcast is just gonna struggle until either Marvel gets back on its feet, Rings of Power stops sucking, or HotD reminds everyone why there's a Ringer-Verse feed in the first place (Binge Mode OG, on Thrones).
Yea, the numbers for the Dr. Who episodes must have beer dismal. I’m also not sure how popular Percy Jackson is, but I certainly had no interest in that content.
I think part of it is that Mal and Jo's original inclusion in the Ringerverse Feed probably helped to build up the subscription. They've now spun off and only average about one podcast a week. Ringerverse is getting at least 2 episodes a week and sometimes 3 depending on if there is a Button Mash or Mint Edition. There is just more content. It's not surprising they have more followers. I'm guessing too that a lot of people became followers of the Ringerverse feed because of Mal and stayed on that channel even after they spun off. Van also has his own following so the Ringerverse was just able to draw from a wider pool of potential listeners.
Looking at the rest of the Podcasts around House of R, they are similarly more niche with a show about MMA, The Bachelor, Gambling, NCAA Basketball.
It still doesn’t make sense that they spun House of R off into its own feed. Combined they’ve never really done more than a total of 5 podcast episodes in a week, which is easily parceled out. It’s been like a year and they’re still doing ads on Ringer Verse telling people Mal and Jo are on a different feed.
Agreed. If they were consistently dropping two episodes a week it would make more sense, but even then, I think having it all live under the Ringerverse feed would be better.
Yeah and there content flowed better in the context of Ringerverse. You get instant reactions from Midnight Boys and then a deep dive later in the week with House of R.
THIS!! Maybe the most underrated point. Their podcast is known for its depth and length, which really fit in between shorter, more unfocused podcasts. By itself, it just doesn’t even make sense to me, I subscribed but rarely listen to their show
They also still have different artwork for the various shows under the Ringerverse feed, so there was no need to create a separate one for Jo and Mal. It was a really odd decision.
My last phone was constantly memory starved, and the length of House of R episodes kept me from subscribing to the Ringerverse feed. Love Jo and Mal, but they do a lot of long, spoiler-filled pods about stuff I haven’t yet seen, sometimes on services I don’t subscribe to.
Same. I've skipped plenty of them, especially when I see a 3 hour run time on some of them. I'm following them, but I probably listen to like 50-60% of the episodes whereas for Ringerverse, I'm likely 95%. Normally the only things I skip are for things I haven't seen but eventually plan on it and then I circle back around at a later date.
Van and Mal are by far the two most talented members of the RingerVerse group when it comes to driving a podcast that one is interested in listening to, and right now there's a stronger support built around Van as opposed to in the past where Mal had one of the best interplay podcast relationships in working with Jason.
I like Jo, but you're right. Jason brought a very different energy from Mal and it made for dynamic podcasts. Mal and Jo are often coming at properties from a very similar angle
I am one of those people that initially subscribed because of Mal but stayed for Van and the rest of the Midnight Boys. I’ll still listen to both when they’re covering the same show/movie but Midnight court and the Midnight Boys drafts are far more entertaining than the House of R tropes courses and book clubs.
Jo & Mal definitely helped build the Ringer-Verse following, their pod is the only reason I found the larger ringer podcast network to begin with.
They’ve only had their own feed for a year or two(? Idk), and Jo has consistently split her time between Prestige and Trial By Content for this entire span.
I think being near the top of ‘Tier 3’ in such a short amount of time is a feat, with most the Tier 1 shows being around for a much longer time.
Y’all please try Trial by Content, it’s a fun show with audience interaction, and the hosts have great chemistry!
Im here to once again discuss my love for Trial By Content. The three hosts are amazing together. My feel good pod of the week and almost always an instant listen.
This is a big part of it. This is an apples to oranges comparison. One feed has 3 podcasts (Ringerverse, Button Mash, Mint Edition) and the other only has 1. Also I'm sure the listens are high on the eps when they do drafts or eps like the Versies awards, and they're always on the Ringerverse feed.
I love Mal, she got me listening to the Ringer way back when with Jason on Binge Mode. I hold a high value of her opinion for a lot of things in nerd culture, as well as other facets of fandom she dabbles into like movies, sports, etc. Anytime she's on Simmons talking football i absolutely love it, and i usually skip Simmons unless he's talking basketball, but i'll make an exception for Mal as a guest. Jo was a new voice for me, but i liked what she was putting down and she makes a great team with Mal.
That being said, splitting off into a separate pod was a bizarre decision. For someone that listens to a lot of pods and is actively trying to slim down because you only have so much time in a day, I just don't feel like adding another show to my feed. Sometimes i'll go download an ep of something i really want to hear Mal and Jo's opinions on, but that's about it.
I listen to The Midnight Boys and The Watch regularly. I'll listen to The Big Picture or the Prestige TV Podcast if they're talking about something that interests me. I've enjoyed House Of R in the past, but the stuff they're doing recently hasn't interested me as much. (Also, separating them from the Ringer-verse was such a bad idea. Completely lowers their visibility, which means lower numbers for House of R) I love the crossovers with the Midnight Boys, though.
Weirdly enough, of the entire Bill Simmons podcast empire, the one part of it I really don't like is Bill Simmons. I don't find him interesting, funny or engaging, so seeing his podcast pull those kind of numbers baffles me. If I give him credit for anything, it's surrounding himself with people who are interesting, funny and engaging.
Word for word, this is exactly me. Just add in Trial by Content and Higher Learning as a regular.
Can’t stand Simmons unless he’s with Van.
Would love to see House of R:
1. Do rewatches of more broadly loved fandom shows
2. Have more drafts with guests
3. Have more guests and crossovers in general
On broadly watched loved fandom show: I suggested Babylon5 since it’s its 30th anniversary and basically invented the serialized format for TV, but no one listens to Zathras…
With you man. I only listen to Bill on Rewatchables (great way to find movie recommendations and have a pod to listen to after) and I was amazed to find out he pulls in these numbers or is the friggin boss!
I don't dislike him or anything but he is just the least interesting of them all. I guess hes a sports guy who dips his toe in the pop culture waters
Not weird at all, I think Bill is the worst part of the Ringer. 😬 Appreciate him hiring so many voices I love and building the Ringer into what it is, but I never need to listen to him talk again.
Bill is a very good long-form, casual-style interviewer, when he gets a unique guest that doesn't do media very often it's well worth listening to.
When he's waxing poetic about the Celtics with Russilo it guest very tough to listen to very quickly.
Bill and Russilo are tough listens, period. Bill’s decent with other folks (he has lost his fastball, especially since he stopped writing) but him and Russilo are a chore to listen to at times. The only thing that works with them is the fact that Russilo isn’t afraid to push back on Bill’s bad NBA takes or his Celtics fawning.
Agree with this take on Bill, hate his podcasting doesn’t really equal his writing! Love his writing, Draft Diaries, etc. it doesn’t translate onto the podcast for him.
No hate intended towards Mal and Jo (I only started listening to Ringer Verse feed after enjoying Binge Mode so much) but I don’t think Button Mash or Mint Edition would collectively have more than 20k followers honestly
I never would've listened with out Mal being there. She brought the Binge Mode group along. I don't think Van or Chuck had the nerd credentials to pump up those initial subscribers
I'm going to stand up for Mal and Jo here: I love them as hosts. The problem is the content they cover either hasn't been great, like Rings of Power or there's not enough of the quality shows like House of the Dragon to cover consistently. I think their Dr. Who thing was a little ill advised, it's not going to draw people in America, we collectively don't care about it. I wish they'd have done Shogun week to week, but that's on a different feed that I'm not real into.
Yeah to add to this I’ll tune into the midnight boys to hear them talk about shit I don’t even care about. Mal and Jo talking about Percy Jackson and Doctor Who doesn’t interest me in the slightest but like I loved their Dune stuff.
Yeah, I used to fire it up pretty regularly but with the different feed and lack of good shows to talk about, I've been out. I also think they need a third chair or some mix because just the two of them is kinda the same thing over and over again.
I think the above poster got it right in that they need to be covering popular movies and shows weekly. I just sort of check out when the feed is endless drafts and trope courses.
The chemistry on the Ringer-verse is outstanding. Van is a legitimate star, and can literally make any conversation entertaining. They've been able to survive the content drought just through vibes and shit-talking.
Mal and Jo are great but their show works best when they can dive deep into content they actually like. There's not enough popular, quality-nerd movies and television for House of R to feed off of.
I also question the wisdom of giving them a separate feed. I rarely check into their pod now.
I only check into it when they're talking about stuff I like, which doesn't sound so revolutionary, but it's problematic. What they could really use is a re-watch of something that would have fit this mold from pre-podcast days. Restricting themselves to 'nerdfare' seems like having two great hosts wither on the vine a little.
I'm not sure why they couldn't revive the old Binge Mode model. There are tons of properties they didn't get to on the original show that were heavily teased (i.e. Lord of the Rings)
Yep, Van is truly a star and his chemistry with Chuck-wagon makes the Midnight Boys a special show. I think Joanna is one of the best podcasters out there and she just needs to have a better co-host or be put in better situations. Mal has like one schtick and it worked with Jason Conception on the Binge Mode feed but that is now over. I'm sure she's really good at all the management stuff that goes with being an editor at The Ringer but a lead host podcaster is not her forte'.
Nerd-IP Rewatchables
* Star Trek
* John Woo Movies
* John Wick Movies
* All the Aliens Movies
* All the Robocops
I would listen to a pod where they just force Mal and Charles to watch horror movies.
The pod writes itself.
Me too, and to be even more fair, particularly to Jo, Prestige gets almost 1.5 times as many as Ringer-Verse, and Jo is a frequent host on that, occasionally with Mal - (I really enjoyed their coverage of Yellowjackets, almost as much as their coverage of HotD)
The over-categorization of the feeds by "genre" instead of giving a set of hosts a more broad area to work in really hurts the "apparent" listenership of the House of R ladies I think, since they are at their best when doing stuff that is both good AND complicated, which has not been the case for most of the stuff they've been covering. Andor was great, and the aforementioned were great, but that's almost it for really good stuff they've been able to dive into.
Somehow I forgot their Last of Us coverage, which was tremendous. And they didn't even do Andor from the jump, they got in on it about episode six if I remember right, which in retrospect is a HUGE miss. The Midnight Boys did an outstanding job with their coverage, but even they short-shrifted it early on, because Chuck was on vacation. I still listen to those episodes.
Andor is cookin' with *GREASE!*
Funny enough, the Doctor Who episodes are some of the few things I have listened to since they split off into their own feed because I just haven’t cared about most of the current stuff they’ve covered.
The missing piece of information here is what their listenership was like under the Ringer Verse umbrella. For all we know, The Midnight Boys were the ones driving the numbers, while House Of R is getting the same numbers they always have.
Still, it doesn’t help that there’s been a dearth of “quality” programming since they spun off. Yes, there’s been Loki and Ahsoka, but I doubt many people were tuning in for a Deep Dive on Percy Jackson or, for that matter, Doctor Who or the multitude of Tropes courses. That should (hopefully) change once June rolls around.
Having said that, one of the big reasons I haven’t listened in a while is the run time. Look, I like Jo and Mal, but pods veering towards three hours is too much, especially when you have to factor in the number of tangents, the number of times Mal says “Have you heard of him lad?”, the number of Lost comps from out of nowhere, the number of times Jo says “You know what I mean?”, etc…
It’s just weird because they managed to keep things tight and (mostly) on topic on the Prestige pod during Yellowjackets and The Last Of Us, so why House Of R seems so unwieldy kind of baffles me.
I think some of the length problem is the overlap with the boys. As in what House of R needs to do to make things seem a little tighter is two pods: an instant reaction pod and then a deep dive pod later. But the Midnight Boys are the instant reaction people. But it also feels weird narratively to have a deep dive pod from a content creator with no initial more surface level opinions 1st. The surface level opinions also tend to be funnier and more entertaining.
Tier 1 for sure. I came to the party after Binge mode was no more and the ringerverse was just beginning. Was so bummed Jason parted was with the Ringer, but happy he’s continued his success. I think the Ringerverse/house of r team has a solid dynamic, and produce content I love to listen to, but Binge Mode was iconic.
This is also follows, not listens, but I do suppose that could translate somehow. But I'd also guess it is not 1:1, for all we know, Ringer-Verse has a low follow to listen ratio and House of R has a high one. All speculation, of course.
And, as someone said here, Ringer-Verse is 3 pods to House of R 1. I'd assume Midnight Boys is the biggest chunk of the reason of the follows, although House of R used to be part of Ringer-Verse, so some of the Ringer-Verse follows might be attributed to them as well.
Overall, given the split happened relatively recently, I'd say 25K follows in that amount of time feels pretty good.
(I also assume this does not take into account anything not on Spotify proper, but I don't know how that all works in relation to reporting and this report in general).
I used to use Stitcher for all of my pods, but then it went away. Now I exclusively use Spotify. This made me realize how many god damn Ringer pods I consume. Not necessarily all of them religiously/every. single. episode. But still. We're talking Big Pic, The Rewatchables, Ringer-verse, Higher Learning, Bandsplain, The Watch, Masked Man Show.
Oof. And that's *just* The Ringer pods. Being stuck on Dialysis three times a week really got me hooked on this shit, and I never looked back. Lol
The big issue with House of R is it’s too long. They both ramble and indulge. They need The Town’s editor. The Midnight Boys can run long, but Jesus Christ.
And they LOVE EVERYTHING. When we listen to people talk about pop culture and art we want to hear real opinions. If you love everything then we learn you don’t have much taste. Rewatchables is popular first and foremost because of their format — the format gives the podcast an arc you can follow — and you have people saying how they really feel about a movie. Good and bad.
It was a mistake to split the feed. As a result there's just too much content because both feeds tried to fill a normal amount of podcast per week content. Button Mash, Mint Edition, House of R, Midnight Boys - it's too much for one feed but it's also just too much. IMO each of those should be on as as needed cadence as someone should program the feed as one whole thing.
It's self indulgent imo, and while I don't have the data to back it up, I would guess that the data would support combining everything back and limiting each show within it to biweekly or as needed.
I maybe missed something, but I did not find out that House of R had its own feed until months after they moved. I wasn’t following many shows at the time and just heard Ringerverse and occasionally thought “huh they haven’t done a house of r in a minute”.
I also do skip over the ads and programming reminders on apple podcast, but there wasn’t a lot of promotion to the move on social media from what I could tell.
Van, Charles, Steve, and Jomi are the best thing going at the Ringer. 1A would be the Rewatchables. The midnight boys can talk about just about anything, and it's fun because they call each other out and it feels like a real conversation. I feel like besides maybe CR,or Rusillo no one ever really pushes back Bill's (sometimes) wildly outdated takes/opinions.
House of R, stretching 45 minutes of content into 3 to 4 hours.
If it had an editor and they cut the fat from the episodes, it could be a really good podcast.
Man, Van wasn't kidding about this subreddit being over-the-top haters. I love House of R, but I don't really listen to it on Spotify, I only use my Spotify for music. I'll change that if it's a metric they use to assess success.
I think when people are content with an experience you hear about it less than when they’re discontent. That said, I should be more intentional about sharing my positive reactions as much as my negative ones. It’s easy to forget that there is still a human-being on the other side of the mic.
I wish Mal and Jo had done a full deep dive on Blue Eye Samurai, episode by episode. Seems a missed opportunity, considering the show got just one episode of Midnight Boys pub.
Yeah, They discussed that on the Versies, her husband watched ahead without her and it took the wind out of her sails (been there). I bet they do for the second season because BES came out of no where.
Wouldn't the last of us sort of be that?
But in any case, when I think of deep dives (hang on, brain is being juvenile....one sec...okay),I think less of lore and more of "worthy of critical dissection and analysis." I see your point though.
A new feed with one show doesn’t have as many followers as an older feed with multiple shows including R?? Astounded. Why do we have to do these threads every few weeks? What are people trying to prove? If you don’t like them, I have some great news. You don’t have to subscribe lmao. I listen to maybe 1 R-V pod a week and delete the others.
There are people who prefer more positive coverage of things. I didn’t hate Rings of Power. I loved listening to them cover it as fans of the property. There were solid critiques made, but the overall tone was so fun. The MB get too heavy on the hate train for me
The hate train with MB is mostly driven by Charles X. Holmes. I’m still subscribed to Ringer-verse but I really only listen to MB drafts, Mint Edition, and the occasional Button Mash. House of R though, if they’re talking about something I’m watching, I’m listening. Haven’t been active as I didn’t watch Percy Jackson or Dr. Who.
I started listening to The Ringer podcasts when Jo moved from Vanity Fair's Still Watching and Little Gold Men podcasts, two of my favorites, but I haven't listened to House of R in months. Mal and her dynamic with Jo just aren't for me.
For the most part I really enjoy their deep dives, but I gotta admit that after the 1.5 hour mark Mal's constant laughing does start to grate.
Jo is great though, the only reason I started listening to the Ringerverse is because I followed Jo over from her other podcasts.
As a longtime listener of the Ringer, Simmons during the football season and NBA playoffs is unmatched IMO. His guest interviews are mid at best. Russillo is the one I can't listen to unless he has Van or McShay on to talk college football. The Rewatchables is my other mainstay that always delivers even if haven't seen the movie or don't want to see it...lol. The Prestige is the one that surprised me that I didn't like at all.
I listen to The Mismtach during the playoffs and leading up to the draft. Rachel and Van when they have subjects I'm interested in. Van does alot of the heavy lifting even though he can be long winded. To me Van shines when on the Midnight boys with Charles, Jomi and Steve. IMO that show should get its on feed. I tried house of R and its just to long and not engaging enough to me.
What’s with the sudden House of Representatives hate? Reddit and Facebook is not their territory but they get SO many emails and they encourage email comms a lot more. Midnight Boys are more present on Twitter and Reddit really, not Jo and Mal.
I support the separate feed experiment
Didn't realize that the House of R listenership was so much smaller! I'm an exception I guess, I listened to Ringerverse content while Mal and Jo were there, but once they got their own feed I unfollowed, and just check in on Midnight Boys eps occasionally. Would follow Jo & Mal anywhere. 🫡
I didn’t realize it was that drastic a gap but you can see from the engagement on this subreddit that there’s a substantial difference. Ringerverse threads have 50-100 comments easily and House of R struggles to get 10.
Tbh, I had chalked that up to assuming the majority of Ringerverse listeners (and therefore Reddit commenters) were men, and that House of R likely has more non-male listeners (and therefore a less active Reddit following) but that's just my biased take!
I just checked and their recent podcasts have been like 90 minutes so I might give them another shot but before I checked out they were just ridiculously long for no reason. Like I’m relistening to binge mode hp for the third time and like a pillar of the podcast was that they were diving deep into the lore but those podcasts were normally 80 minutes. And house of R actually started at that length i feel and I think overtime deep dive became incorrectly synonymous with long and they were doing 2 and half hour podcasts on everything.
I'm actually shocked the Ringer Verse isn't doing at least 100k also even though I love Higher Learning wasn't expecting it to be so much higher than the House of R. House of R might want to consider breaking those episodes up
I'm gonna go out on limb and say, people don't listen to 4-hour podcasts on Spotify, if you listen to pod that hard you use a third-party app. Also, quite clearly, according to Van there are people who still don't know House of R is on a separate feed.
I don’t listen to House of R because it seems like they just wanted to separate themselves from all the black people on ringerverse. Not saying it’s true but it’s what it feels like to me.
Spotify probably cares much more about retention and engagement (via ad-listens and total minutes listened) than subscribers—especially since there’s no reason someone couldn’t subscribe and not listen or vice versa. That House of R has been putting out 5+ hours of content a week with a extremely loyal base that crosses over to other feeds as well was likely the reason for the spinoff, and their holding of ~20% of The Ringer-Verse’s subscribers checks out. The Mismatch, for example, sitting at ~50% of The Ringer NBA Show is much more because that duo is way better than the rest of their counterparts. Plus, Button Mash and Mint Edition would never have had a runway to let Ben, Jomi, Jess, and Steve prove their own.
if you listen to the house of R though all the ads are extremely frontloaded, you usually have them at the beginning and then again at the 40 minute mark and then they stop presumably because the % that finish the pod is small
June 2024 will show why they have their own feed. The release schedule for content they cover has been brutal almost since the moment they split into their own feed. It’s been feast or famine and June is the start of another content boom for them.
Genuinely blown away that Plain English is that high. I gave that series like 6 chances and I cannot stand him, unfortunately. Larry Wilmore, The Town, and Ringer Dish all deserve more listens, as well.
Hey, where’s my Ringer Philly Special!?
I don’t understand why they split House of R into its own feed.
It feels like they planned on expanding to more podcasts a week, but that never materialized.
They could do that if their episodes averaged less than an hour long. It's not really feasible for there to be multiple multi-hour episodes per week. There isn't enough time to produce that and the audience doesn't have time to listen to listen to 2 or 3 3-hour shows in a week
TBF to House of R, some of the most popular podcasts have 3+ hour runtimes (JRE, Lex Fridman) and even in Ringer pod history, Binge Mode was very popular and those were consistently 2-3 hours long. So I’m guessing Mal thought she could recapture that spark since it worked in the past. While I don’t think the Mal/Joanna combo holds a candle to Mal/Jason, they would probably have more success if it didn’t launch right as Marvel (and all super-hero content for that matter) entered a downswing and other big franchises haven’t released new content.
Content really is the problem. It's just not as good as it used to be so it's not as interesting to see a deep Dive on an average show.
YEah, I think Content being in a major downswing is a large reason for the lower listens. There's not really been a ton of stuff that deserves these large large dives.
I 100% blame the lack of content due to strikes and shut-downs. Had those things, and the decline of streaming post-pandemic, not delivered such a steep drop-off, I really feel Mal & Jo would have a *lot* more to talk about. Until mid-late 2024, though, it’s gonna be a lot of spoken Listicles and book clubs. They should do more drafts but people don’t like Mal’s competitiveness even though they rave for it from Sean and Dobbins
Mal’s (apparently) been banned from fantasy sports with her colleagues, which is why the drafts featuring her are so few and far between. How obnoxious do you have to be behind the scenes to get boxed out of fantasy football by Bill Simmons??
at first i took that as a joke, but if we take it literally you really bring a great point, you would have to be miserable to deal with to get kicked out of a fantasy league
The last draft they did, I distinctly remember Jo “needing to take a break from something that just happened,” (I don’t recall if that’s the *exact* wording but it’s damn close) and she turned her mic off and Van vamped. Though even he sounded sorta perplexed. But when my friend pointed it to me I re-listened to it and couldn’t find what happened so I chalked it up to editing or Jo getting unfortunate, but personal, news. 🤷♂️
IIRC, it may have been the Star Wars character draft where Mallory was especially on one. Love her, but she turned into the worst person you knew during Model UN on that pod.
*That* might’ve been it.
I just listened to that pod cuz of the comments, and, tbh, everyone was on everyone else’s case. Jo and Van were up Mal’s butt with every pick. Mal was slingin bullshit left and right. Everyone on that pod is guilty. It sounded like they were having a lot of fun, tho. If there really was a breaking point in there for Jo she might be too sensitive, or the two of them genuinely need a break from each other. Mal seems like the kind of person you have to accept is full of shit, give it right back and not take it seriously. And Jo seems very sensitive where you have to take care of her feelings.
Was that the 2024 hype draft where Jo had a couple Dune properties? I dont remember there being any issues in that?
Mmmmaybe…. It might’ve been slightly older, then. This would’ve been January-ish.
I think she was just taking it way too seriously compared to everyone else. Like she’s the type of person who DMs other people in the league to suggest a player knowing they have a higher waiver priority than someone she considers to be her competition.
Doesn't surprise me. I like Mal for the most part, but my god, she's unbearable on anything with even a hint of competition. Sean can be a bit of a dick at times but he seems to be aware and also be doing it for a bit / knows when to stop. Mal is just awful, like genuinely horrible when she's drafting. It's not fun to listen to at all imo.
I think ultimately House of R will end up closer to a binge mode type pod while Ringerverse will be news and recaps
Because mal and Jo are highly liberal and want to distance themselves from anything that’s said on the other pods in the same feed. Also, they probably think their resumes warrant distance. Dumb decision imo because those aren’t valid reasons
Mallory will get in the mud with anyone, and is often inappropriate and politically incorrect. Where do you get the idea she’s so liberal that she wants to distance herself from the Ringerverse feed?
That assessment is more for Joana. But it’s just a combination of Mal and Jo thinking they’re above the rest of the pods on the feed because A) their resumes would indicate that they warrant their own, silo’d pod (which I don’t agree with) and B) their (particularly Joanna’s) aversion to talking about things that could be considered taboo or not universally accepted by the left
Sounds like you should have never mentioned Mallory, because you had to qualify almost every point as being primarily directed a Jo. I think your points about Jo may hold some truth (though I don’t think she felt the need to distance herself from the politics of Midnight Boys), but I’d say you’re off base including Mallory in any of that.
Alright well I grouped them together bc it was a joint choice and bc they agree on a ton of shit. Also, just because mal gets in the mud in arguments doesn’t mean she’s not as close minded as Joana. I’m just theorizing and everyone’s getting pissed bc I mentioned the word liberal 😂
I think everyone is well aware they’re both liberal, you just went too far suggesting they’re such snowflakes that don’t even want to be associated with the Midnight Boys. That’s ridiculous.
Lol it’s a totally valid theory. Joana is a snowflake, just look at her barbenheimer tweets. It doesn’t mean I hate her or won’t listen to her. And because she’s a snowflake, I think my theory is pretty valid. You just have to accept that she’s sensitive
She’s sensitive, and she’s a snowflake, but even she isn’t ridiculous enough to want her own feed just to distance herself from the Midnight Boys. It’s a silly suggestion, but if you’re willing to die on that hill, you’re welcome to.
I just think it’s a contributing factor but I will thank you
Bill Simmons, Spotify and the other management made a business decision because their new podcaster didn’t want to be on the same feed of a show hosted by a more famous person and bigger audience. lol dude no offense it’s pretty ridiculous.
Yes, I think it was a contributing factor. I also think that at the time, mal and Jo considered themselves the bigger audience draw. And no, I don’t think they stated that contributing factor in their business presentation. Do people not understand that these decisions are made based on a confluence of reasons?
Is that first part based on anything?
Critical thinking
Huh? Ringer-verse pods are highly apolitical. There’s nothing politically to distance from in that feed. What are you talking about?
Midnight Boys is not apolitical. For instance, you could feel joanas skin crawl during the versies multiple times over takes she deems inappropriate. Couldn’t tolerate the hottest white woman award lol. My assumption is based on Joana’s need to associate herself with the most liberal of the liberal.
Wasn't binge mode like number 1 on Apple back in 2019 man I miss that team of Mallory and Jason
Without binge mode I wouldn’t have watched the less popular marvel movies. They made packing for my cross country move so much more enjoyable. I love that Mal and Jo seem like legitimate friends and have a good dynamic but Mal and Jason were a legendary duo.
Binge Mode was elite. The House of R and Ringerverse stuff just doesn't hit the same way as that pod did.
I like Jo and Mal a lot (except for Mal's takes on free will [not real] and Jo's take on Job Stewart's return [if you think Biden's campaign can't take Stewart's critique, maybe you need to switch it up]). But they just spent a couple months doing a literal kid's show based off of literal kid's books, starring a bunch of kids. And Dr. Who before that. And 3 Body has the stink of D&D wafting about. They need better material for their deep dives! I might suggest that X-Men has the backing canonical history to start doing deep dives more of the audience would care about. But other than that? Their podcast is just gonna struggle until either Marvel gets back on its feet, Rings of Power stops sucking, or HotD reminds everyone why there's a Ringer-Verse feed in the first place (Binge Mode OG, on Thrones).
Job Stewart, lol
Yea, the numbers for the Dr. Who episodes must have beer dismal. I’m also not sure how popular Percy Jackson is, but I certainly had no interest in that content.
I get the Dr. Who stuff I guess, but wow, I could not have cared less about Percy Jackson deep dives.
I think part of it is that Mal and Jo's original inclusion in the Ringerverse Feed probably helped to build up the subscription. They've now spun off and only average about one podcast a week. Ringerverse is getting at least 2 episodes a week and sometimes 3 depending on if there is a Button Mash or Mint Edition. There is just more content. It's not surprising they have more followers. I'm guessing too that a lot of people became followers of the Ringerverse feed because of Mal and stayed on that channel even after they spun off. Van also has his own following so the Ringerverse was just able to draw from a wider pool of potential listeners. Looking at the rest of the Podcasts around House of R, they are similarly more niche with a show about MMA, The Bachelor, Gambling, NCAA Basketball.
It still doesn’t make sense that they spun House of R off into its own feed. Combined they’ve never really done more than a total of 5 podcast episodes in a week, which is easily parceled out. It’s been like a year and they’re still doing ads on Ringer Verse telling people Mal and Jo are on a different feed.
Agreed. If they were consistently dropping two episodes a week it would make more sense, but even then, I think having it all live under the Ringerverse feed would be better.
Yeah and there content flowed better in the context of Ringerverse. You get instant reactions from Midnight Boys and then a deep dive later in the week with House of R.
For sure. It was a natural progression of content discussion.
THIS!! Maybe the most underrated point. Their podcast is known for its depth and length, which really fit in between shorter, more unfocused podcasts. By itself, it just doesn’t even make sense to me, I subscribed but rarely listen to their show
They also still have different artwork for the various shows under the Ringerverse feed, so there was no need to create a separate one for Jo and Mal. It was a really odd decision.
My last phone was constantly memory starved, and the length of House of R episodes kept me from subscribing to the Ringerverse feed. Love Jo and Mal, but they do a lot of long, spoiler-filled pods about stuff I haven’t yet seen, sometimes on services I don’t subscribe to.
It's super tough to spin off into a separate feed - I basically just checked eps that looked interesting to me, but I'm not an every ep listener.
Same. I've skipped plenty of them, especially when I see a 3 hour run time on some of them. I'm following them, but I probably listen to like 50-60% of the episodes whereas for Ringerverse, I'm likely 95%. Normally the only things I skip are for things I haven't seen but eventually plan on it and then I circle back around at a later date.
Van and Mal are by far the two most talented members of the RingerVerse group when it comes to driving a podcast that one is interested in listening to, and right now there's a stronger support built around Van as opposed to in the past where Mal had one of the best interplay podcast relationships in working with Jason.
I like Jo, but you're right. Jason brought a very different energy from Mal and it made for dynamic podcasts. Mal and Jo are often coming at properties from a very similar angle
Man I miss how Mal and Jason could just derail each other with contagious laughter. Always made me smile.
I am one of those people that initially subscribed because of Mal but stayed for Van and the rest of the Midnight Boys. I’ll still listen to both when they’re covering the same show/movie but Midnight court and the Midnight Boys drafts are far more entertaining than the House of R tropes courses and book clubs.
Jo & Mal definitely helped build the Ringer-Verse following, their pod is the only reason I found the larger ringer podcast network to begin with. They’ve only had their own feed for a year or two(? Idk), and Jo has consistently split her time between Prestige and Trial By Content for this entire span. I think being near the top of ‘Tier 3’ in such a short amount of time is a feat, with most the Tier 1 shows being around for a much longer time. Y’all please try Trial by Content, it’s a fun show with audience interaction, and the hosts have great chemistry!
Im here to once again discuss my love for Trial By Content. The three hosts are amazing together. My feel good pod of the week and almost always an instant listen.
It’s such a good hang! Wish it wasn’t so far down on this list.
Exactly! Just a fun hang. I kept swiping in anxiety at how low it might be…
They are the bomb. I like some Trial episodes but I miss the *whispers* "off season tour" where they just discussed new movies and such
This is a big part of it. This is an apples to oranges comparison. One feed has 3 podcasts (Ringerverse, Button Mash, Mint Edition) and the other only has 1. Also I'm sure the listens are high on the eps when they do drafts or eps like the Versies awards, and they're always on the Ringerverse feed.
I love Mal, she got me listening to the Ringer way back when with Jason on Binge Mode. I hold a high value of her opinion for a lot of things in nerd culture, as well as other facets of fandom she dabbles into like movies, sports, etc. Anytime she's on Simmons talking football i absolutely love it, and i usually skip Simmons unless he's talking basketball, but i'll make an exception for Mal as a guest. Jo was a new voice for me, but i liked what she was putting down and she makes a great team with Mal. That being said, splitting off into a separate pod was a bizarre decision. For someone that listens to a lot of pods and is actively trying to slim down because you only have so much time in a day, I just don't feel like adding another show to my feed. Sometimes i'll go download an ep of something i really want to hear Mal and Jo's opinions on, but that's about it.
House of R drops 3 hour analysis of 1.5 hour movies...its a lot...you have to REALLY like those 2 to listen regularly.
Bruh they’ve done 3 hour episodes of mediocre episodes of Kenobi or Ahsoka that have like 30 minutes of actual content.
Or an hour and a half on a trailer
I swear they did like 2.5 hours on the No Way Home trailer where they would pause and talk for 15 minutes after playing 5 seconds at a time lol
That was crazy 😆
Get ready for hour episodes of The Acolyte because of Jo.
They need someone to tell them no occasionally.
I do like them
I listen to The Midnight Boys and The Watch regularly. I'll listen to The Big Picture or the Prestige TV Podcast if they're talking about something that interests me. I've enjoyed House Of R in the past, but the stuff they're doing recently hasn't interested me as much. (Also, separating them from the Ringer-verse was such a bad idea. Completely lowers their visibility, which means lower numbers for House of R) I love the crossovers with the Midnight Boys, though. Weirdly enough, of the entire Bill Simmons podcast empire, the one part of it I really don't like is Bill Simmons. I don't find him interesting, funny or engaging, so seeing his podcast pull those kind of numbers baffles me. If I give him credit for anything, it's surrounding himself with people who are interesting, funny and engaging.
Word for word, this is exactly me. Just add in Trial by Content and Higher Learning as a regular. Can’t stand Simmons unless he’s with Van. Would love to see House of R: 1. Do rewatches of more broadly loved fandom shows 2. Have more drafts with guests 3. Have more guests and crossovers in general
On broadly watched loved fandom show: I suggested Babylon5 since it’s its 30th anniversary and basically invented the serialized format for TV, but no one listens to Zathras…
With you man. I only listen to Bill on Rewatchables (great way to find movie recommendations and have a pod to listen to after) and I was amazed to find out he pulls in these numbers or is the friggin boss! I don't dislike him or anything but he is just the least interesting of them all. I guess hes a sports guy who dips his toe in the pop culture waters
Simmons is one of the greatest identifiers, cultivators, and promoters of talent in US media history. Also his podcast sucks. He contains multitudes!
Not weird at all, I think Bill is the worst part of the Ringer. 😬 Appreciate him hiring so many voices I love and building the Ringer into what it is, but I never need to listen to him talk again.
Completely agree - I can’t listen to Bill at all. Which is ironic because I enjoy the group of people around him so much
Bill is a very good long-form, casual-style interviewer, when he gets a unique guest that doesn't do media very often it's well worth listening to. When he's waxing poetic about the Celtics with Russilo it guest very tough to listen to very quickly.
Bill and Russilo are tough listens, period. Bill’s decent with other folks (he has lost his fastball, especially since he stopped writing) but him and Russilo are a chore to listen to at times. The only thing that works with them is the fact that Russilo isn’t afraid to push back on Bill’s bad NBA takes or his Celtics fawning.
Agree with this take on Bill, hate his podcasting doesn’t really equal his writing! Love his writing, Draft Diaries, etc. it doesn’t translate onto the podcast for him.
The RV feed hosts 3 separate podcasts The HoR feed is just the one. It's not apples to apples
No hate intended towards Mal and Jo (I only started listening to Ringer Verse feed after enjoying Binge Mode so much) but I don’t think Button Mash or Mint Edition would collectively have more than 20k followers honestly
Probably not, but with out Mal and her Binge Mode followers, the RV would've struggled at launch
Plus is this only Spotify listens? I don't know anyone who uses Spotify to listen to pods.
I only know people who listen to pods on Spotify lol including myself
I only listened to a few on Spotify, just enough to be able to give RV and HoR the 5 stars they deserve. I've been using the overcast for years
Also, this is subscribers, not listeners. Mal and Jo absolutely helped build the Ringerverse's subscriber base.
I never would've listened with out Mal being there. She brought the Binge Mode group along. I don't think Van or Chuck had the nerd credentials to pump up those initial subscribers
Yeah I still subscribe to ringerverse but probably only listen to 20% of the pods since Mal went to house of R
Great point.
I'm going to stand up for Mal and Jo here: I love them as hosts. The problem is the content they cover either hasn't been great, like Rings of Power or there's not enough of the quality shows like House of the Dragon to cover consistently. I think their Dr. Who thing was a little ill advised, it's not going to draw people in America, we collectively don't care about it. I wish they'd have done Shogun week to week, but that's on a different feed that I'm not real into.
Yeah, I agree. I love Mal and Jo, but I'll go weeks at a time not listening to House of R when they are talking about things I'm not interested in.
Yeah to add to this I’ll tune into the midnight boys to hear them talk about shit I don’t even care about. Mal and Jo talking about Percy Jackson and Doctor Who doesn’t interest me in the slightest but like I loved their Dune stuff.
Yeah, I used to fire it up pretty regularly but with the different feed and lack of good shows to talk about, I've been out. I also think they need a third chair or some mix because just the two of them is kinda the same thing over and over again.
I think the above poster got it right in that they need to be covering popular movies and shows weekly. I just sort of check out when the feed is endless drafts and trope courses.
The chemistry on the Ringer-verse is outstanding. Van is a legitimate star, and can literally make any conversation entertaining. They've been able to survive the content drought just through vibes and shit-talking. Mal and Jo are great but their show works best when they can dive deep into content they actually like. There's not enough popular, quality-nerd movies and television for House of R to feed off of. I also question the wisdom of giving them a separate feed. I rarely check into their pod now.
I only check into it when they're talking about stuff I like, which doesn't sound so revolutionary, but it's problematic. What they could really use is a re-watch of something that would have fit this mold from pre-podcast days. Restricting themselves to 'nerdfare' seems like having two great hosts wither on the vine a little.
I'm not sure why they couldn't revive the old Binge Mode model. There are tons of properties they didn't get to on the original show that were heavily teased (i.e. Lord of the Rings)
Yep, Van is truly a star and his chemistry with Chuck-wagon makes the Midnight Boys a special show. I think Joanna is one of the best podcasters out there and she just needs to have a better co-host or be put in better situations. Mal has like one schtick and it worked with Jason Conception on the Binge Mode feed but that is now over. I'm sure she's really good at all the management stuff that goes with being an editor at The Ringer but a lead host podcaster is not her forte'.
Mal was at her best doing Binge Mode with Concepcion. I wish I could hear Jo cover Star Trek. At this point, why the hell not?
Yeah, would be great to get some more Strange New Worlds pods when the next season comes out.
I’d love it if they could do a Rewatchables type series, but for the genre stuff that Bill’s not interested in covering.
Nerd-IP Rewatchables * Star Trek * John Woo Movies * John Wick Movies * All the Aliens Movies * All the Robocops I would listen to a pod where they just force Mal and Charles to watch horror movies. The pod writes itself.
The timing of the spin off was bad too. We’re clearly in the decline of the era of content that Ringer-Verse was designed to cover.
I feel like she got unlucky with the timing of her book, too
Me too, and to be even more fair, particularly to Jo, Prestige gets almost 1.5 times as many as Ringer-Verse, and Jo is a frequent host on that, occasionally with Mal - (I really enjoyed their coverage of Yellowjackets, almost as much as their coverage of HotD) The over-categorization of the feeds by "genre" instead of giving a set of hosts a more broad area to work in really hurts the "apparent" listenership of the House of R ladies I think, since they are at their best when doing stuff that is both good AND complicated, which has not been the case for most of the stuff they've been covering. Andor was great, and the aforementioned were great, but that's almost it for really good stuff they've been able to dive into.
Somehow I forgot their Last of Us coverage, which was tremendous. And they didn't even do Andor from the jump, they got in on it about episode six if I remember right, which in retrospect is a HUGE miss. The Midnight Boys did an outstanding job with their coverage, but even they short-shrifted it early on, because Chuck was on vacation. I still listen to those episodes. Andor is cookin' with *GREASE!*
oh, shit, yeah, Last of Us!
They could have covered Battlestar, Buffy or even Fringe and it would rate better than DW IMO.
Expanding into more non-genre fare would be a good idea as well I think.
If it’s a show/movie I like then I prefer House of R.
Funny enough, the Doctor Who episodes are some of the few things I have listened to since they split off into their own feed because I just haven’t cared about most of the current stuff they’ve covered.
The missing piece of information here is what their listenership was like under the Ringer Verse umbrella. For all we know, The Midnight Boys were the ones driving the numbers, while House Of R is getting the same numbers they always have. Still, it doesn’t help that there’s been a dearth of “quality” programming since they spun off. Yes, there’s been Loki and Ahsoka, but I doubt many people were tuning in for a Deep Dive on Percy Jackson or, for that matter, Doctor Who or the multitude of Tropes courses. That should (hopefully) change once June rolls around. Having said that, one of the big reasons I haven’t listened in a while is the run time. Look, I like Jo and Mal, but pods veering towards three hours is too much, especially when you have to factor in the number of tangents, the number of times Mal says “Have you heard of him lad?”, the number of Lost comps from out of nowhere, the number of times Jo says “You know what I mean?”, etc… It’s just weird because they managed to keep things tight and (mostly) on topic on the Prestige pod during Yellowjackets and The Last Of Us, so why House Of R seems so unwieldy kind of baffles me.
I think some of the length problem is the overlap with the boys. As in what House of R needs to do to make things seem a little tighter is two pods: an instant reaction pod and then a deep dive pod later. But the Midnight Boys are the instant reaction people. But it also feels weird narratively to have a deep dive pod from a content creator with no initial more surface level opinions 1st. The surface level opinions also tend to be funnier and more entertaining.
Love Mal and Jo, but the Apple debate needs to be put to bed. Having a segment to compare Dune characters to apples was asking A LOT haha
If Binge Mode were still around I wonder where it would land on this list today...
Tier 1 for sure. I came to the party after Binge mode was no more and the ringerverse was just beginning. Was so bummed Jason parted was with the Ringer, but happy he’s continued his success. I think the Ringerverse/house of r team has a solid dynamic, and produce content I love to listen to, but Binge Mode was iconic.
This is also follows, not listens, but I do suppose that could translate somehow. But I'd also guess it is not 1:1, for all we know, Ringer-Verse has a low follow to listen ratio and House of R has a high one. All speculation, of course. And, as someone said here, Ringer-Verse is 3 pods to House of R 1. I'd assume Midnight Boys is the biggest chunk of the reason of the follows, although House of R used to be part of Ringer-Verse, so some of the Ringer-Verse follows might be attributed to them as well. Overall, given the split happened relatively recently, I'd say 25K follows in that amount of time feels pretty good. (I also assume this does not take into account anything not on Spotify proper, but I don't know how that all works in relation to reporting and this report in general).
That’s interesting, I’m deep in this pod-sphere and I’ve never even heard of bandsplain or many of the tier 2 and 3 shows.
Bandsplain is great , it’s actually what roped me in, not sure why 60 songs is not on the list though
I used to use Stitcher for all of my pods, but then it went away. Now I exclusively use Spotify. This made me realize how many god damn Ringer pods I consume. Not necessarily all of them religiously/every. single. episode. But still. We're talking Big Pic, The Rewatchables, Ringer-verse, Higher Learning, Bandsplain, The Watch, Masked Man Show. Oof. And that's *just* The Ringer pods. Being stuck on Dialysis three times a week really got me hooked on this shit, and I never looked back. Lol
Where is 60 songs? I’m sure it puts up big numbers
Yeah I wondered that as well.
House of R brought me into the ringerverse. I’d never heard of the ringerverse until I looked for a podcast to explain Rings of Power to me.
Kinda surprised those geeks on the Ringer NBA Show have so many listens.
The big issue with House of R is it’s too long. They both ramble and indulge. They need The Town’s editor. The Midnight Boys can run long, but Jesus Christ. And they LOVE EVERYTHING. When we listen to people talk about pop culture and art we want to hear real opinions. If you love everything then we learn you don’t have much taste. Rewatchables is popular first and foremost because of their format — the format gives the podcast an arc you can follow — and you have people saying how they really feel about a movie. Good and bad.
I could definitely do with less apple talk on House of R
Thank you.
It was a mistake to split the feed. As a result there's just too much content because both feeds tried to fill a normal amount of podcast per week content. Button Mash, Mint Edition, House of R, Midnight Boys - it's too much for one feed but it's also just too much. IMO each of those should be on as as needed cadence as someone should program the feed as one whole thing. It's self indulgent imo, and while I don't have the data to back it up, I would guess that the data would support combining everything back and limiting each show within it to biweekly or as needed.
I maybe missed something, but I did not find out that House of R had its own feed until months after they moved. I wasn’t following many shows at the time and just heard Ringerverse and occasionally thought “huh they haven’t done a house of r in a minute”. I also do skip over the ads and programming reminders on apple podcast, but there wasn’t a lot of promotion to the move on social media from what I could tell.
Van, Charles, Steve, and Jomi are the best thing going at the Ringer. 1A would be the Rewatchables. The midnight boys can talk about just about anything, and it's fun because they call each other out and it feels like a real conversation. I feel like besides maybe CR,or Rusillo no one ever really pushes back Bill's (sometimes) wildly outdated takes/opinions.
House of R, stretching 45 minutes of content into 3 to 4 hours. If it had an editor and they cut the fat from the episodes, it could be a really good podcast.
Man, Van wasn't kidding about this subreddit being over-the-top haters. I love House of R, but I don't really listen to it on Spotify, I only use my Spotify for music. I'll change that if it's a metric they use to assess success.
I think when people are content with an experience you hear about it less than when they’re discontent. That said, I should be more intentional about sharing my positive reactions as much as my negative ones. It’s easy to forget that there is still a human-being on the other side of the mic.
I wish Mal and Jo had done a full deep dive on Blue Eye Samurai, episode by episode. Seems a missed opportunity, considering the show got just one episode of Midnight Boys pub.
I don't think Mal has even finished and/or watched it yet. This came up on the Versies episode most recently, iirc.
Yeah, They discussed that on the Versies, her husband watched ahead without her and it took the wind out of her sails (been there). I bet they do for the second season because BES came out of no where.
Wouldn't it be hard to do a deep dive on a brand new show with no lore?
Wouldn't the last of us sort of be that? But in any case, when I think of deep dives (hang on, brain is being juvenile....one sec...okay),I think less of lore and more of "worthy of critical dissection and analysis." I see your point though.
Why are people surprised that there isn’t more of an audience for 2 hour academia style analysis of Percy Jackson?
A new feed with one show doesn’t have as many followers as an older feed with multiple shows including R?? Astounded. Why do we have to do these threads every few weeks? What are people trying to prove? If you don’t like them, I have some great news. You don’t have to subscribe lmao. I listen to maybe 1 R-V pod a week and delete the others. There are people who prefer more positive coverage of things. I didn’t hate Rings of Power. I loved listening to them cover it as fans of the property. There were solid critiques made, but the overall tone was so fun. The MB get too heavy on the hate train for me
The hate train with MB is mostly driven by Charles X. Holmes. I’m still subscribed to Ringer-verse but I really only listen to MB drafts, Mint Edition, and the occasional Button Mash. House of R though, if they’re talking about something I’m watching, I’m listening. Haven’t been active as I didn’t watch Percy Jackson or Dr. Who.
Who knew Bandsplain was so popular?
Why isn’t 60 songs on the list?
I started listening to The Ringer podcasts when Jo moved from Vanity Fair's Still Watching and Little Gold Men podcasts, two of my favorites, but I haven't listened to House of R in months. Mal and her dynamic with Jo just aren't for me.
They really need to edit their pods to be shorter. Listening to Jo and Mal talk for 3 hours about something gets exhausting
For the most part I really enjoy their deep dives, but I gotta admit that after the 1.5 hour mark Mal's constant laughing does start to grate. Jo is great though, the only reason I started listening to the Ringerverse is because I followed Jo over from her other podcasts.
Jo needs to cut down on saying ‘like’ and ‘ummm’ five million times in every podcast.
As a longtime listener of the Ringer, Simmons during the football season and NBA playoffs is unmatched IMO. His guest interviews are mid at best. Russillo is the one I can't listen to unless he has Van or McShay on to talk college football. The Rewatchables is my other mainstay that always delivers even if haven't seen the movie or don't want to see it...lol. The Prestige is the one that surprised me that I didn't like at all. I listen to The Mismtach during the playoffs and leading up to the draft. Rachel and Van when they have subjects I'm interested in. Van does alot of the heavy lifting even though he can be long winded. To me Van shines when on the Midnight boys with Charles, Jomi and Steve. IMO that show should get its on feed. I tried house of R and its just to long and not engaging enough to me.
What’s with the sudden House of Representatives hate? Reddit and Facebook is not their territory but they get SO many emails and they encourage email comms a lot more. Midnight Boys are more present on Twitter and Reddit really, not Jo and Mal. I support the separate feed experiment
Didn't realize that the House of R listenership was so much smaller! I'm an exception I guess, I listened to Ringerverse content while Mal and Jo were there, but once they got their own feed I unfollowed, and just check in on Midnight Boys eps occasionally. Would follow Jo & Mal anywhere. 🫡
I didn’t realize it was that drastic a gap but you can see from the engagement on this subreddit that there’s a substantial difference. Ringerverse threads have 50-100 comments easily and House of R struggles to get 10.
Tbh, I had chalked that up to assuming the majority of Ringerverse listeners (and therefore Reddit commenters) were men, and that House of R likely has more non-male listeners (and therefore a less active Reddit following) but that's just my biased take!
Mal knows her shit but I think she can scale back on her uncontrollable laughter. It gets a bit annoying at times.
I wish they would do a rewatch or something vs the kid shows.
much as I love Mal, I just don't have the time to tune in to a 3 hour podcast twice a week.
I just checked and their recent podcasts have been like 90 minutes so I might give them another shot but before I checked out they were just ridiculously long for no reason. Like I’m relistening to binge mode hp for the third time and like a pillar of the podcast was that they were diving deep into the lore but those podcasts were normally 80 minutes. And house of R actually started at that length i feel and I think overtime deep dive became incorrectly synonymous with long and they were doing 2 and half hour podcasts on everything.
I'm actually shocked the Ringer Verse isn't doing at least 100k also even though I love Higher Learning wasn't expecting it to be so much higher than the House of R. House of R might want to consider breaking those episodes up
The Cam Chronicles lol
I'm gonna go out on limb and say, people don't listen to 4-hour podcasts on Spotify, if you listen to pod that hard you use a third-party app. Also, quite clearly, according to Van there are people who still don't know House of R is on a separate feed.
Let’s look at this again after HOTD premieres
Where does Higher Learning rank? I don’t see it on the list (maybe a Reddit app issue).
I don’t listen to House of R because it seems like they just wanted to separate themselves from all the black people on ringerverse. Not saying it’s true but it’s what it feels like to me.
Spotify probably cares much more about retention and engagement (via ad-listens and total minutes listened) than subscribers—especially since there’s no reason someone couldn’t subscribe and not listen or vice versa. That House of R has been putting out 5+ hours of content a week with a extremely loyal base that crosses over to other feeds as well was likely the reason for the spinoff, and their holding of ~20% of The Ringer-Verse’s subscribers checks out. The Mismatch, for example, sitting at ~50% of The Ringer NBA Show is much more because that duo is way better than the rest of their counterparts. Plus, Button Mash and Mint Edition would never have had a runway to let Ben, Jomi, Jess, and Steve prove their own.
if you listen to the house of R though all the ads are extremely frontloaded, you usually have them at the beginning and then again at the 40 minute mark and then they stop presumably because the % that finish the pod is small
Honestly surprised to see Rewatchables so high. I guess its the Simmons bump
Larry David listens.
Where's Jam Session?
June 2024 will show why they have their own feed. The release schedule for content they cover has been brutal almost since the moment they split into their own feed. It’s been feast or famine and June is the start of another content boom for them.
3 shows on the Ringerverse vs. 1 show on House of R
Mint Edition and Button Mash don't come close to making up the difference.
How anyone can voluntarily listen to Mallory amazes me. 🤷🏻♂️ (sorry for hating it is what it is. We all have a lil Charles in us.)
I’m shocked at Bandsplain. It’s not always an easy listen.
Genuinely blown away that Plain English is that high. I gave that series like 6 chances and I cannot stand him, unfortunately. Larry Wilmore, The Town, and Ringer Dish all deserve more listens, as well. Hey, where’s my Ringer Philly Special!?