Luminary is a subscription
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...
network,
that launched on 23 April 2019.
History
It was launched by Luminary Media LLC, a venture-backed company, that was co-founded in 2018 by Joe Purzycki,
and Matt Sacks.
Preceding the launch, the company had raised $100 million in
venture capital
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
,
from
New Enterprise Associates
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With ~$25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of the w ...
and Sinai Ventures,
among others.
Nicholas Quah
Nicholas Quah is a journalist for Vulture and is the creator of the Nieman Lab newsletter Hot Pod News.
Career
Quah was the creator of the ''Hotpods'' newsletter. Quah worked for BuzzFeed in 2015 while writing the newsletter. Vox Media acquir ...
, writing for
Vulture.com, described Luminary's launch week as "horrific",
with licensing and permission issues,
and other controversies. In late 2019, Simon Sutton replaced Matt Sacks as
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
.
In May 2020, ''
Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi ...
'' called Luminary a "money-losing podcasting startup" with an app that "has struggled to find an audience since its debut in April 2019. Only about 80,000 people who tried the app have remained paying subscribers" per sources.
[ ] ''Bloomberg'' reported that the company had received "$30 million in a new round" of investment and was looking for additional funding due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
.
Nicholas Quah, for ''
Nieman Lab
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University is the primary journalism institution at Harvard. It was founded in February 1938 as the result of a $1.4 million bequest by Agnes Wahl Nieman, the widow of Lucius W. Nieman, founder of ' ...
'', commented that in light of ''Bloomberg''
's report "it would seem that Luminary's fundamental problem is that it didn't end up signing anybody who had a powerful enough pull to drive that many paid listeners. Sure, it assembled a catalog of interesting stuff, but it doesn't have a world-building
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern (born January 12, 1954) is an American radio and television personality, comedian, and author. He is best known for his radio show, ''The Howard Stern Show'', which gained popularity when it was nationally syndicated on terre ...
/
Bill Simmons
William John Simmons III (born September 25, 1969) is an American sports analyst, author, podcaster, and former sports writer who is the founder and CEO of the sports and pop culture website '' The Ringer''. Simmons first gained attention with ...
-level asset, plain and simple".
Early 2022, Rishi Malhotra became CEO.
In March 2022,
Dave Chappelle
David Khari Webber Chappelle ( ; born August 24, 1973) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known for his satirical comedy sketch series ''Chappelle's Show'' (2003–2006), which he starred in until quitting in the middle of p ...
's Pilot Boy Productions invested in Luminary with an undisclosed sum; Chappelle's podcast is also hosted by Luminary.
Later that month, Jacob Kastrenakes, for ''
The Verge
''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts.
The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...
'', commented that "maybe Luminary's subscription-only podcast model still has legs".
However, after scanning "the company's website before my chat with Malhotra, and nearly all of the shows featured on the front page hadn't posted new episodes in the past six months. In fact, if you look around Luminary's website, it's hard to find ''any'' shows that have updated recently. That's a tough sell for a service with a monthly subscription fee.
..Luminary shows will continue to start and stop publishing throughout the year, Malhotra said, being produced in seasons more like a TV show".
Programming
References
{{Reflist
Podcasting companies