Q&A: Chris Giliberti, Head of Gimlet Pictures at Gimlet Media

This week, The Idea caught up with Chris Giliberti about adapting podcasts to the screen. Subscribe here to our newsletter on the business of media for more interviews and weekly news and analysis.

Can you tell me a bit about yourself and your role at Gimlet?

I’ve been the head of Gimlet Pictures, which is a TV and film production company, since July 2016. I was the first business hire at Gimlet and was brought on as chief of staff. I did all manner of things, from sales to finance to marketing to HR to operations. I grew with the company and ultimately found myself in this role building the TV and film business.

What is the strategy behind Gimlet Pictures, and how does it relate to Gimlet’s broader goals?

Gimlet Pictures serves a variety of purposes. First is revenue. Gimle is predominantly an ads business, but selling a television property or feature off of a podcast is obviously a nice revenue opportunity for the company and for the creators of the podcast.

Second is a talent play. Many times, I sit down with a writer or a director to speak about TV, and they’ll also mention they have a podcast idea.

Finally, it’s another way to reach people with our work. We’re first and foremost an audio business, but when you produce a TV show off a podcast (like Homecoming on Amazon), people will come back to revisit the podcast afterwards.

How do you decide what content is a good candidate for adaptation and whether it should be for film or TV? How much do metrics play a role in that decision?

First and foremost, you have to be able to see what the series or movie could be like. When I listen, I ask, does this want to be visual? Would a visual layer really enhance the storytelling? For some audio properties or podcasts that are very grounded in audio, it’s hard to imagine opening them up visually.

Once you’ve established if it wants to be visual, then you think about whether it should be TV or a feature. Is this story more open and shut in a two-to-three hour time frame, or is it a big world that can be explored over multiple seasons?

Metrics don’t really play a role. They can help in certain instances to frame the conversation, for example when pitching, to establish that there’s an audience that’s interested. Really, people tend to be on the same page: either you see the potential for the screen or you don’t.

What do film and TV executives see as the advantages and/or limitations of adapting podcasts?

There aren’t really any limitations. The marketplace is really excited about podcasts as a source of material. Audiences are looking for podcasts in greater and greater numbers, and as podcasts penetrate the cultural zeitgeist, TV networks and film studios pay attention to a big audience that would turn out to a movie or a series.

Also, with scripted TV specifically, podcasts are already broken down into episodes. It [thus] becomes really clear to a TV buyer how the source material would transpose. Whereas with a novel, it’s not as clear where the episode breaks would be. Further, fundamentally, you’re going in pitching with a set of scripts. A radio play is not a teleplay, but it reads a lot like one, which further clarifies how it could translate.

What is the future of Gimlet Pictures?

When we entered into TV, we looked a lot like a licenser. We would give IP to producers, who would package it, make big creative decisions, take it out, sell it and produce it. We realized quickly that we’d like to be in the driver’s seat. The next evolution has been establishing ourselves as lead producer, [making] creative decisions ourselves, and getting to decide the ultimate destiny of where a property will wind up and how it comes together.

We’ve established ourselves as lead producer on our current slate of projects. We’re looking to grow the volume as well, as our audio slate is growing, which gives us a lot of opportunity to sell and produce.

[Upcoming Gimlet projects include TV show The Horror Of Dolores Roach, produced in partnership with Blumhouse, and feature film Man of the People, produced in partnership with Annapurna.]

What’s changed (or hasn’t) since Spotify acquired Gimlet in February?

Nothing has changed. I have the same marching orders of packaging TV series and films based on podcast IP. That remains the same.

What is the most interesting thing you’ve seen in media from an organization other than your own?

I’m interested by what’s happening with email newsletters, and how businesses like Axios and Morning Brew get built. The email newsletter format and the growth we’ve seen there is interesting.

Also, all the other stuff in the podcast space. It feels very much like early days, with experimentation still happening and formats yet to be cracked.