Improving Michelle Obama’s IMO Podcast’s Popularity
Former American first lady’s new podcast co-hosted with her brother, IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, was supposed to rake in hundreds of thousands or millions of views per episode on YouTube given her touted popularity. However, those numbers aren’t coming in.
According to Sean Burch in an article for Yahoo News, “Michelle Obama’s New Podcast Is Off to a Slow Start on YouTube,” it had 65,000 views for two episodes by March 13, the day after its launch. It appears that the numbers didn’t get much better across platforms leading to some media and journalists describing it in withering terms.
Evie magazine called it “a total flop,” Sky News Australia reported that it fell flat with critics deeming it out of touch, Outkick called her podcast’s numbers “pathetic,” Daily Mail described them as “embarrassingly low.” Hindustan Times called the podcast “flat and boring,” conservative journalist, Benny Johnson dubbed it “an utter failure” while the Financial Express said it failed to impress, calling the viewership “dismal.”
Michelle’s podcast has been compared with episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience and California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new podcast from the same period, both of which received over 700,000 views shortly after their release.
Newsweek says to give her time, reminding readers that her 2020 podcast on Spotify was successful. But it looks like she needs more than time to right the ship of the IMO podcast. The subscription, views and listenership from the launch of a podcast after massive promotion are terribly important because that is when people’s attention is supposed to be highest, some out of loyalty to the host, some out of interest in the guests and topics to be discussed, some out of plain curiosity. It’s like a movie’s opening weekend ticket sales. If you don’t hit those high numbers right away, the whole thing will probably tank. For a podcast, with very low numbers like hers, it becomes hard to subsequently climb up the ratings against the competition.
What Michelle Can Do To Shore Up Her Podcast’s Numbers
I think Michelle needs to find more relatable guests and topics to add spark to her podcast. People feel she lives in a bubble and inviting her rich friends to talk about their “struggles” will not elicit much public interest.
Michelle herself needs to become more likeable, actually, not in terms of media hype. She can’t do that by dunking on her husband, former US president Barak Obama, as I saw her do on clips of the podcast that I saw. Even if you’re having problems with your spouse, denigrating him in public for views is likely to backfire.
Barak isn’t perfect (no one is), but she’s probably alienating the millions loyal to him by talking disparagingly about him. The reason I’m saying this is that she’s not even trying to do it nicely like comedians do when they joke about their spouses’ faults.
She can also talk about her own faults and mistakes. People appreciate such moments of humility and frankness.
Her bitter, give-no-ground politics needs to go too if she wants to grow her likability and the favourability of her podcast. Skipping President Donald Trump’s inauguration and even former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral appeared a bit too much, According to The Independent, Michelle was “reported to have skipped Trump’s inauguration because she doesn’t want to ‘plaster’ on a smile for someone she fundamentally believes is a threat to American democracy.” Uhmmm, this is a kind of hard-to-justify stance. And the attitude that she just can’t bear to be in the same space with her political opponents is neither a winning strategy nor a strong foundation to build a successful business.
People like Gavin Newsom understand this and he launched his podcast by inviting conservative activist, Charlie Kirk. Following up on the success of that episode, he invited conservative radio/podcast host and former White House Chief Strategist during Trump’s first term, Steve Bannon. Newsom doesn’t like them, I think, but he had conversations with them.
While Michelle’s podcast may not be strictly political and she has declared she has no interest in contesting elections, sounding divisive or blacking out half the country isn’t going to help her podcast. And whether she likes it or not, politics is inescapable and it does pull in the big numbers.
Speaking on Sky News Australia, comedian and YouTube personality Alex Stein said Michelle can grow her numbers by declaring support for Trump. 😃 Trump’s name does seem like a magic wand in capturing media and public attention, but I don’t think she needs to go that far. That’s like pivoting 180 degrees – it wouldn’t even sound authentic.
The Sky News host who interviewed Alex, Rita Panahi, suggested Michelle could pull in a diverse crowd by disagreeing with Democrats on some issues. That could work, even if it’s only one or two issues, like discouraging vandalism and violence as means of political expression and persuasion. After all, her podcast is named “In My Opinion” – surely there must be something on which her opinion is somewhat different from that of her party’s leadership and base. Refusing to march in lockstep with Democrats on every single issue may cost her some of them, but bring in a wider audience. After all, it’s not like they have been watching her that much to begin with, hence her pitiful numbers.
This brings me to a related point – successful podcast hosts not only exhibit openness, they seek truth and facts. That is why they fact-check their guests and ask them to substantiate their views. Opinions are only as good as the knowledge they are based on. Opinions based on ignorance or misinformation are worthless. They may sell for a while but they will be discredited with time and will damage the reputation of those peddling them.
So, on what are Michelle’s opinions based? Regurgitating mainstream media talking points is a failing approach since most people have realised that they push false narratives on many issues when they’re hot, only to catch up years down the line to report the facts they had strenuously debunked. This is why their ratings are in the toilet and they are laying off staff in droves. Michelle should have a team of researchers to dig into issues she wants to discuss so she actually knows what she’s talking about. Podcasts give room for unfettered, sincere conversations. Ideological posturing without substance is not advisable on them.
Podcasts are so important in today’s media landscape. Trump made good use of them by accepting invitations to some really big ones like Joe Rogan’s and Lex Fridman’s. Some say those appearances made a big contribution to his victory. That is why Newsom launched a podcast to further his political career as many know he has presidential ambitions.
But while there is room for non-political podcasts, the hosts need to have some integrity and self-awareness. They have to talk about what many people are actually going through, and be open to people of different stations and those with different views. And at the end of the day, a little bit of politics, even if it’s an occasional side glance at recent events in the news, won’t hurt those numbers.
I wish Michelle good luck with her podcast.
What else can Michelle do to improve the popularity of her podcast?
Image credit: Michelle Obama’s Facebook page