Unlike his usual comedic content, in a video titled "This Man Defrauded Our Podcast", Theo outlined very serious allegations against Colin Thomson, founder and CEO of Kast Media.
According to Theo, Colin's business model was to work as an intermediary between talent and advertisers. Instead of podcasters having to work out individual deals, Kast Media would pay a flat rate. Speaking on behalf of himself and numerous podcasters who had worked with Kast Media, the 43-year-old comedian bluntly explained the situation that has been brewing in the background for the better part of a year.
"Our podcast was defrauded, we were stolen from. The company that did it was Kast Media and the man that did it is Colin Thomson. In total, just from talking to folks, there's up to $4 million that I'm aware of."
Having allegedly not paid numerous other podcasters as well, Colin's team eventually offered severance in the form of a new partnership. Being that Kast Media was likely to file for bankruptcy in the near future, Colin offered clients of Kast Media the opportunity to retain some of their earnings by joining a new podcast network -- Podcast One.
Podcast One would acquire Kast Media's existing clients, and in exchange for promotion, would pay back some of the earnings over a 2-year span.
As Theo shares:
They say if you come over to our new network, Podcast One, we'll pay you some of what you're owed in stock... but the stock hasn't gone public... it felt like, to me, they're trying to leverage our podcast and other podcasts to then make their stock do well... and then if that happens, we'll get a share of our money... The whole thing to me felt really seedy."
All of this with Colin Thomson, still brokering deals.
The video quickly went viral and caught the attention of Coffeezilla, a YouTube journalist who has become wildly popular for hunting down scammers. Coffeezilla reached out to Colin for comment, who had this to say:
"During the period from February 2022-2023... our revenue per download dropped by 58%."
However, through speaking to multiple podcasters, Coffeezilla found that late payments were a common occurrence dating back to 2018. Speaking to hosts of The Fighter and the Kid podcast, Brendan Schaub and Bryan Callen revealed they are owed $1.6 million from Kast media across their various podcast channels.
And, upon further research, speaking to Colin's business partner, Dustin Knouse, Coffeezilla revealed that upon seeing financial trouble in the future, Colin began hiding financial assets, including buying a $1.7 million house the same year Kast Media began seeing financial troubles.
"I also found out that right about the time he was talking about declaring bankruptcy, he moved that house into a trust where the trustee was a Wyoming LLC."
Looking suspiciously like Colin was trying to hide assets just before declaring bankruptcy, Coffeezilla reached out to Colin for further comment. Colin stated that he actually "anonymized [his] address because we were getting threats" after a disgruntled podcaster, Jim Cornett, allegedly leaked the area in which Colin lived.
But, after hunting down the episode in question, Coffeezilla found that the episode aired one month after Colin had moved his address and set up the LLC.
With increasing suspicions that Colin had set up a trust as a shell company to protect the assets he bought with money owed to podcasters, Coffeezilla looked up the website Colin used to create the LLC, and was met with the following marketing copy,
"Wyoming Trust & LLC Attorney -- Asset Protection is Our Only Focus."
Upon sending screenshots, as it seemed clear as day Colin had bought and moved the home into a shell company to hide it from creditors, Colin responded with this message,
"I can't speak to what's written as marketing material on a website. I didn't write it."
Closing out the 21-minute video, Coffeezilla explains what he believes to have happened,
"I think he bought a $1.7 million house the same year as he had trouble paying people... I think he overpromised people money to attract new talent... And, in the end, I think he tried to sell it all to a bigger company and force these podcasters into raw deals... And, worst of all, this is not a new story."
You can watch Coffeezilla's full investigation, on his YouTube channel, below:
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