Media entrepreneur Ric Salizzo has spent four decades dancing ahead of the curve, often by refusing to play the game as written. "I’m pretty strange," he laughs. “It's too much energy to pretend to fit in.”
That contrarian streak, plus a performer's love of story, took him from failing journalism school to pioneering VHS releases, building the SportsCafe show on pay TV and now doubling down on an independent studio model built for the algorithmic age.
His through-line isn't chaos; it’s strategy disguised as spontaneity. When he and a partner shipped "The Good, the Bad and the Rugby" direct to service stations and book shops in 1989 before VHS distribution networks even existed they still sold in six figures. SportsCafe followed the same instinct: bet on the platform before it peaks .
Why Independents Win Now
For Salizzo, today's media environment is paradoxically wider and narrower: unprecedented access, unforgiving competition. A phone outguns the 1980s truck he once needed to shoot; upload is a button, not a boardroom. But scale breeds volatility.
“Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube they change their algorithms every couple of weeks. You’ve got to be really, really agile.”
That's almost impossible for legacy organisations with millions sunk into processes and formats. For a small shop, agility is an advantage, not a handicap.
He's blunt about the platform shift: “YouTube is now the number one place people consume podcasts.” That changes the job audio needs to look good. It also changes distribution economics. Streamers are circling video-native shows; platforms like Netflix have begun signing top visual podcasts. The signal is clear: great, trusted voices with an on-camera presence travel across screens .
Trust Is the Only Moat
In a world of short attention and shorter loyalty, Salizzo insists trust is the sacred currency.
“If you say you’ll have something in the show, you’d better have it and early .”
Clickbait might get a quick hit, but it costs you a relationship. His audience taught him that years ago, when he tried to wrap SportsCafe. “They bombarded me: ‘Who the hell do you think you are? That’s our decision.’” The lesson: deliver what you promise and let trust compound. Break it once and the cost is permanent .
Grow It, Don’t Blow It
Another unglamorous truth: the first episode is almost always bad. He remembers the debut SportsCafe so clearly that he can still feel the cameramen avoiding his gaze. Salvation came from a producer friend: " That was shit, but there’s something there."
The same pattern played out on a TVNZ news parody he fronted with veteran reader Tom Bradley and a band called Flight of the Conchords. Critics hated it , TVNZ tried to erase it. “I still liked it ,” Salizzo says. "There were magic moments." Iteration would have found them.
"The most important thing you need is time."
That’s the fundamental difference between network logic and independent logic . Networks put all the weight on episode one and panic when it’s imperfect. Independents ship, learn, adjust and let the audience grow into the show instead of pretending a brand-new format arrives fully formed.
Careers at Half-Time: Change, Don't Calcify
A big chunk of Salizzo 's appeal is to people contemplating a second act. His advice to mid-career operators: ditch entitlement, keep ambition.
“As people get older, they get less open-minded. ‘Why doesn’t the world owe me this?’ I relate, but that’s not how it works .”
Instead, bend your IP into new shapes. Test cheaply . Iterate in public. Grow audiences rather than chase opening-night highs.
And don’t do it alone. Salizzo credits much of his momentum to the believers who refused to wait for permission . “JK and Macca” John Kirwan and Mark Ellis (former All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby team) were the voices in his ear saying, “Let’s just do it.” When commissioners said no, they made anyway . Those relationships aren’t nostalgic trophies; they’re compounding assets.
Advice to the Young and Restless
Young creators ask him how to “make it” all the time. His counsel is practical: learn the platforms as they are, not as you wish they were; balance craft with audience need; be consistent; and guard trust.
There’s also a temperament piece: stay curious, stay 23 in your head. “My eyes are wide open. The world’s amazing .” That mindset keeps you meeting new collaborators and keeps you changing when the algorithm does.
Trust the Universe But Move Your Feet
Salizzo is not a manifest-and-wait mystic. He’s a hustler with a tolerance for uncertainty. Still, he believes in the nudge.
"Sometimes you think you should go left, but everything’s telling you to go right. Maybe go right and find the thing you didn’t know you were looking for."
The real regret isn’t failure; it’s not shipping the idea . So he keeps shipping .
What’s Next
He’s going "boots and all" on a slate of shows built for today’s distribution: easy to try, fast to adapt, audience-first. The landscape is both generous and brutal: anyone can publish; very few will be watched. That tension energises him.
" Creatively, it challenges you. Know your audience, find your niche, be good at it and even then, sometimes great content won't get seen."
The response isn’t to stop; it’s to keep showing up until trust compounds.
One last thing: He 's not excited about vegetables. Especially peas. “If it was up to me, peas would be banned.” In Ric Salizzo 's media universe , the enemy isn’t the algorithm. It’s peas.