#1380 - Pete Dominick

Joe Rogan (0:04)

Hello, Pete Dominick. How are you, buddy?

Pete Dominick (0:05)

Hey, Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Good to see you, man.

Pete Dominick (0:06)

Good to see you. Psyched to be here. Psyched to be in California. Psyched to be sitting across from you.

Joe Rogan (0:10)

Psyched to have you. You're a free man now.

You've escaped yourself from the shackles of satellite radio.

Pete Dominick (0:17)

The shackles of corporate media.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

Yeah, man.

See, that's the thing about dedicating so much time to a company like that. They can just get rid of you, and then you don't have a connection to all those fans. You have to reestablish a connection.

Pete Dominick (0:30)

It's been an amazing experience in the last, what, four weeks since it happened to try to... First of all, I watched my funeral play out publicly, because they had a huge community of listeners for 12 years that I created, and I was trying to respond to all of them. And I, you know, you can't say, I still can't share like certain details, right?

Joe Rogan (0:46)

How much time did they give you before the show was ended?

Pete Dominick (0:49)

The show, basically, they told me after the show that it was the last show, and then they let me have like a, they said I could do a last show, but instead, I was like, let me just record a message. I don't want to go.

Joe Rogan (1:02)

So you didn't know until the day of?

Pete Dominick (1:05)

I had a pretty good idea. I had a pretty good idea.

Joe Rogan (1:08)

Do they have ratings?

Pete Dominick (1:10)

I don't think so. If they did, I think I'd probably be in pretty good shape. I mean, like, it's a long story, but the show I was doing was pretty special. Like, it was really helping people, and we were enlightening, it's kind of like what you do here. I mean, that's why I love what you do here. You people learn, they get enlightened, they get entertained. You make people better people through this show. The contribution that you make, that's what I was doing. We were three hours every day talking about issues, talking about struggles that people are having, and it was rewarding and challenging and satisfying, and I had total editorial control. So, you know, I really can't complain. Twelve years is pretty...

Joe Rogan (1:48)

Do they know, though, how many people are listening to any given show?

Pete Dominick (1:51)

Not that I ever know.

Not that I ever know. Not that you ever know. That it was ever shown to me. And...

Joe Rogan (1:54)

See, that is a weird thing. That's a thing that you have with Netflix as well.

You know, like, if you do a special with Netflix, and they go, we really like it. It's great.

Pete Dominick (2:05)

But they don't share it with you.

Joe Rogan (2:06)

Yeah, and you go, well, how are the ratings? They go, we're really happy. Well, what does that mean? We're really, really happy.

Pete Dominick (2:11)

That's like when you first started doing comedy, and you came off stage, and your friends were like, you looked confident.

Joe Rogan (2:16)

No, it's worse than that, because you don't...

Like, business decisions can be made based on what kind of downloads you're getting, right? If Netflix says, hey, you know, four million people downloaded your comedy special, they've really loved it, we're really happy, let's do another one.

Pete Dominick (2:34)

It doesn't make any sense for the company to have the information and the host not to have the information. Why wouldn't you share it so that everybody has...

Joe Rogan (2:41)

Because they don't want you to bargain with them.

Pete Dominick (2:42)

Well, it's heavy.

Joe Rogan (2:43)

They don't want you to negotiate.

Pete Dominick (2:45)

I mean, the best thing about being fired is you don't have to worry about being fired.

Joe Rogan (2:48)

Yes.

Pete Dominick (2:49)

And so, you can do your own thing. And increasingly, I think people are taking advantage of that.

If you're a network, you have to have a million people listening or watching to keep the ratings up to sell advertising, and you're only making just so much money. If you launch your own thing the way you have and so many other people have, you're gambling with everything, which is what I'm doing now with podcasting, which is really an original thing to do, and a very difficult way to make money. But if you do, if you're good, then you control it all.

Joe Rogan (3:20)