You’ve probably heard of the episode of the “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast in which he interviewed President Obama. That particular episode has set a couple of records. It is the most downloaded episode of Marc Maron’s podcast. It is also the first time a President of the United States has been interviewed on someone’s podcast – and in the podcaster’s garage studio.
The episode of WTF that included President Obama was recorded on Friday, June 19, 2015. It was posted early on Monday, June 22, 2015. The New York Times reported that the episode had been downloaded 735,063 times in the first 24 hours that it was up, and that it was downloaded more than 900,000 times in the first 36 hours that the episode was available.
Those very impressive stats came from Libsyn, which distributes the “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast. The episode with the interview with President Obama broke Maron’s previous record for most downloaded episodes. The previous one included an interview with Paul Thomas Anderson. It was posted January 5, 2015, and had over 200,000 downloads the first day it was available.
I cannot help but wonder if the popularity of this particular WTF episode will inspire other politicians to accept request for interviews from podcasters. It feels like a very big thing for podcasting in general to have the President of the United States come to a podcaster’s home for an interview.
Will future Presidents start seeking out podcaster’s shows to be interviewed on? There’s no way to know for certain. What we do know is that the President’s appearance on a podcast sure sounds like a sign that podcasts are important, worth listening to, worth advertising on, and here to stay.