Independent Podcasts Build Massive Annual Revenue

In this episode of “The New Media Show,” hosts Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee discuss various aspects of independent podcasting, referencing the financial success of the Joe Budden Network, which reportedly makes over a million dollars a month on Patreon plus an equal amount in advertising revenue. Todd expresses his views on what constitutes an … Continue reading Independent Podcasts Build Massive Annual Revenue →

The post Independent Podcasts Build Massive Annual Revenue appeared first on New Media Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yeah. We're
live. Yep. We're live. We are live.
Welcome back to the new media show, everyone.
Rob, how are you?
I'm fine, Todd. I'm good. I'm good. I'm
good. Oh, that's,
Lots of lots of stuff to talk about
today all over the map. Yeah. It it
is all over the map. And,
you know, considering that the summer months are

(00:21):
usually the slow months where not a lot
of stuff is being announced, especially with,
you know, majority of Europe on vacation.
Definitely
a lot of things being talked about
in the podcasting space.
So,
I you know, I I'll kind of talk
with my headliner and then you can we

(00:41):
can get into your headliner. But
so what is independent podcast, Rob?
I don't know that I can define it
anymore. I think,
everybody has a different perspective on it. It's
it's almost like the same conversation as, talking
about, well, what's a podcast? Everybody's got a
different opinion. Yeah. You know, So, you know,

(01:02):
I don't know what an independent podcast is
now. So does that mean
if you're not independent, that means that you've
got you're under contract by one of these
big,
platforms like Spotify or something? Does that make
you
a non independent
podcast? Or what?
I I I can't even define it now.
Yeah. It's so convoluted.

(01:23):
Because, you know, the Joe Budden,
story has made some headlines this week a
couple of times with, you know, making over
a million
a month in,
on Patreon and then, you know, whatever else
advertising makes and, you know, something like $2.2.2
or something like that he's making a month.

(01:43):
And,
you know, I I I think the reason
people maybe joke
considers himself independent is, you know, he was
under the umbrella of Spotify for a while
and then
he guess he didn't get enough money and
they they walked away from that and they've
been able to survive.
And
I think it's I think it needs to

(02:05):
be
remembered
that
if he's independent, well, let's call him independent
and he's got a pretty big team.
But
there's a lot of what I would consider
independent
podcasts that
have taken the time and have built their
shows and
have done very well and are feeding their

(02:27):
families with
the income
from their podcast. And
it's not as many as people would want,
but I think proportionally
for television,
it probably is a higher percentage
of people
that work in the podcasting industry that are

(02:47):
feeding their families than
than those that maybe work in TV and
movies. I don't know. I they're two different
industries, but
I I do think that
if you have a strategy and if you
have good content, that's number one,
and
you build an audience,
you you can you can earn a significant,

(03:10):
a significant income.
But the, you know, with the dual strategy,
you can do value for value,
which I would kind of consider to be
Patreon support
where people are making contributions to the show.
The only thing
that Joe may wanna try is, you know,
set some variable support limits because

(03:30):
a Patreon model is locked to a fixed
cost and maybe people would be willing to
donate
more in some instances and they'd be able
to do better. But I think he's doing
pretty good of over a million dollars in
Patreon revenue.
So
Yeah. I was just thinking more about this
term independent podcast. And

(03:51):
I I think it
I mean, I can take a stab at
what I think it means,
in this new era. And
my thought is is that it's it's a
any show that's under its own kind of
content,
royalty and licensing,
it hasn't offered that to

(04:12):
to a, a platform. Right. So, like, just
just just to use an example, to some
degree, you know, the contract that I had
with StreamYard to do
a podcast on their platform
and on their channels,
I would consider that to be kind of
not an independent show. That Right. That's where

(04:32):
I've given my
rights over to a company Mhmm. To to
own the the rights to my show.
I would consider probably
Joe Rogan to be kind of not an
independent podcast.
Yep.
Although he will probably defend that because he
says,
if you if there's no editorial control on

(04:53):
him Yeah. He's independent of spirit is what
I would call Joe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So
right. So he's got that
that the the piece to but I think
this model that an independent podcaster is, like,
this solo creator that's the only one doing
doing the show, and it isn't
a a big prosperous business. So even putting

(05:14):
Joe Budden in this bucket,
is probably,
we're looking at it very simplistically. You know,
he I'm sure he has, like, maybe a
team of 15 people working with him or
but but there are examples of folks like,
like Mark Maron or
even Joe Rogan to some degree that has
a small team,
but they do have teams. Right? Yeah. This

(05:36):
this idea that we've had for many years
and an independent podcaster was a solo creator,
is true. Mhmm. I'm just not sure that
that's where the big money is now.
Well,
yes. But on the other hand,
let's just take my little tech show.

(05:57):
It's definitely
independent.
And,
you know, it is it raises a little
creator. Right. Right. So it also raises enough
revenue
to,
you know, at times. Again, it's it's it
can be like this.
At times We have to be careful of
trying to define independent podcasting as as

(06:19):
as people that are making
Oh, that's true. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or
making a little bit of money. Well, I
guess the What's the bucket? Yeah. Yeah. I
guess my point was was that it is
possible
to make a full time living
as a independent podcaster. Yeah. You may not
choose to do that,

(06:40):
but it is it is possible. And I
think there's You may have a team around
your show, but having a team and maybe
being a part of a network doesn't make
you not an independent podcaster.
Right.
So I think that's that's the other piece
here that
let let let let let's say you did
a deal with a podcast network. Right. Right?
And you're part of a podcast network, but

(07:01):
you own your content.
All you're doing is you've got into an
ad sales relationship or a promotional
Yep. Relationship.
But people will oftentimes consider,
like, a Joe Boaten button to if he's
a part of someone else's network, he's not
independent anymore. Right. That used to be what
this discussion was about, was if you were

(07:23):
if you were a part of some other
business with your show, then you weren't an
independent podcaster anymore. Yeah. I don't know if
that's fair. I think it is. But at
the same time, I think there is some
stigmatism.
Maybe it's not astigmatism. Maybe that's the wrong
word. With who cares anymore? Yeah. Maybe no

(07:44):
one cares. Yeah. I know. I'm not sure
if anybody
really cares. Potentially. But,
the point is, I think it's possible. I
think it's, you know, it's it's the key
to remember is and this is a thing
where everyone hopes
that their shows do well enough. Possible? Yeah.
What is possible here? Yeah. Yeah. Well, no.
No. I mean, I mean, what's your definition
of what's possible?

(08:04):
Being being non independent or independent?
Be if if you're independent,
okay, let's say it it runs a spectrum.
And I don't think a show that has
representation
is not independent because there's lots of shows
out there that has have,
add representation

(08:24):
and they are completely independent.
But I think the point goes back and,
you know, we often poo poo and, you
know, the advertising piece.
But I think that,
you know, there's a segment of shows that
are doing, doing very, very well
as in what I would term
in my mind independent.

(08:46):
So my camera's going in. Yeah. I would
say that.
Go ahead.
I would say the very few
shows I would consider not to be independent.
Oh, well, maybe maybe well I mean, if
you think about, you know If it's in
New York Times, that's not independent.
So
Yeah. That's a corporate business program. That's part

(09:08):
of a a bigger media company. Right? Yeah.
But, you know, it's a fine line of
a difference between that and, let's say, the
Evergreen Podcast Network Mhmm. You know, that you've
done a
a deal with to help you out with
the cross promotion and the marketing and the
ad sales and
all that kind of stuff. I mean, what's
the

(09:29):
I guess the difference in my mind would
be,
does the media company that it's hosted on,
does it own the content? Right. Or does
the creator own the content? I think that's
probably a distinction
that makes more sense in this new modern
era of podcasting. One thing's for sure is,
with the cut of funding to NPR, they're

(09:49):
gonna be finding out what it's like to
be independent.
Yeah. But, Todd, that funding that corporate funding
of
of NPR was only 1% of their budget.
What?
Yep.
Look it up.
So that 1.1
bit, they're a $100,000,000,000
organization?

(10:10):
No. No. Because they thought they only I
thought they got 1,100,000,000.0
or something was cut.
Well,
PBS
gets,
I think,
either five or 10% of their budget. PBS
does. Mhmm.
But the NPR cutout
is only 1% of the NPR's budget. Oh,

(10:32):
wait for you. You watch, anything being talked
about. It's,
it's, you know, Helen Fury. It's the end
of the world. It's the end of the
world. Yeah.
Yeah. So Yeah. But if you do a
search or you look, you know, look it
up, how much does
and there's kind of, cutouts there too to
some degree because
some of the federal funding goes directly to

(10:53):
some of the public radio stations.
So that number may be a little higher
based on,
government funding going to individual,
you know, NPR stations. Yeah.
But the NPR corporate
dollars is only 11%
of their corporate budget. Going to hear hear
about they're gonna have cuts and, you know,

(11:15):
the world is falling and radio stations are
gonna close down. Gonna do that, Todd. Yeah.
It's like
make
a pay out of nothing. Right? So,
I mean, that's just a a little bit
up on their their normal
fundraising that they do. Yeah. But I would
say it's a bigger impact on the, probably,

(11:37):
the,
the local affiliate NPR stations and then also
with PBS.
So a bigger impact over there. So you
this IAB meeting that you went to, was
this an open forum
thing, or was it an invite only? Or
It had really nothing to do directly with
IAB. Oh. So it was a

(11:59):
a group of people that got together on
a a group,
webinar kind of a Okay. So this was
it nothing? It was publicly announced. It was
just a bunch of people that got in
on a call.
No. It was publicly announced. It's just that
it wasn't an IEB event. It wasn't an
IEB event.
And you from that event,
there's this talk about unifying

(12:22):
all of the metrics
under the
The person that's in charge of the IAB
metrics Mhmm.
Overall metrics,
was part of the call. Okay. So she
was talking about as it as the group
was talking about, and I raised this topic
too, that the whole
digital media landscape is kind of in disarray

(12:44):
right now because we've got,
all these different companies and all these different
mediums
that all have a different way of counting.
Yeah. Right? So if you're an ad buyer
and you wanna buy a 360
campaign
across video, audio, radio, streaming,
all stuff, you have to navigate a confusing
landscape. Oh, it's Metrics. It is a insertion

(13:08):
order from hell.
Yeah. And so that's what they're trying to
solve is they're trying to kind of bring
it together and say, well, let's let's look
at audience
from a
a consolidated
perspective, and it's leaning towards
this attention type of orientation,
towards it not so much, you know, so

(13:29):
driven by downloads or
plays or
views or all this stuff. But an attention
metric is still a
a a number
in the end.
Yeah. It is. Yeah. Right.
So as you look at each of those
downloads,
plays, views,
what's the commonality

(13:51):
across all those that can be brought into
one number? So they're saying that if they
listen or watch longer, that is a metric
that's more important than a k a a
download or play. A lot of people said
that for a long time. Yeah. Right. And
if you look at what what what YouTube
is doing, you YouTube is definitely
leaning on the algorithm towards

(14:13):
play duration,
and where how long people are listening. And
that's been involved in podcast for a long
time. I mean, I mean, you guys even
have it on your platform.
So it's just a matter of kind of
bringing all these concepts together so it's simpler
for,
I guess, brands and advertisers to buy across
this digital ecosystem, which is very confusing right

(14:34):
now.
I think that a,
getting to a unified model
will be probably one of the most challenging
things I'll ever try to attempt.
Because Nobody said it was easy. Because in
the end in the end, you have

(14:55):
you still have,
companies that are gonna wanna know.
Alright.
What was the total play count? What was
the total download count? What was the,
you know, what was the retention span?
Right. They're gonna did my ad get listened
to, you know, all these questions are still
going to

(15:16):
come up and they can try
to set a metric.
You know, it,
you know, look at the podcasting metric. We've
had it for how long and it instill,
you know, people are bitching about it. So
Well, this plays into what the advertiser wants.
The advertiser wants to know when their ad

(15:36):
got listened to, how many people listen to
it. So that can drive the CPMs. Right.
So it's always been this model that everybody's
been under this perception that,
you know, every podcast episode that goes out
to, it gets listened to 85%
Right. Right. Right. Of its duration. Right? That
may or may not be the case on

(15:56):
an individual Well, it over
over episode
number one. And usually when there's confusion, it's
an attempt by the advertisers to drive CPMs
down.
Of course. Right. You know, they don't It's
in their financial interest to drive the numbers
down. Yeah. They they they wanna they wanna
pay for the attention. They don't wanna pay
for the the the the episode that has

(16:18):
been downloaded and has sit on my, you
know, mobile device for, you know, two months
since they haven't listened to it. You know?
Yeah. That's why I'm a little bit a
little bit surprised that the advertisers even pay
for poster rolls these days. So Well, I'm
talking about I would I'm talking about any
type of, you know, if if I've if
I've got my phone

(16:39):
and you know, there's there's some episodes from
some shows that, you know, I only listen
to when I'm on an airplane.
You know, I don't listen to them on
a normal basis. So
it may go months before I listen to
some shows.
And it depends on the metrics platform. What
whether or not those plays are even gonna

(17:00):
be counted. Well, they Because they're already downloaded.
They are. In the podcasting space, traditionally, they're
they're paid for now.
Well, if it's if it's downloaded
Yeah. That metric has already been counted. Yeah.
Absolutely. So It was a one. If you
never listen to it Yeah. Or you listen
to it, it makes no difference. Right.

(17:21):
And that's part part of the Yeah. Crux
of the issue is that the industry is
is smart to that stuff now. And they
they just In the early days of podcasting.
They just well, in the early days, they
were we had the same questions asked in
the early days. Oh, you've got this great
medium and, wow, you can you can take
the content with this is before the iPhone.
Oh, you can take the content with you

(17:42):
and,
wow, did did they really you know if
they really listened? That was that was asked
in 02/2005.
Yeah. So, you know, that could that question
is still out there. So,
you know, it's it's And and my answer
to that was is that we don't really
know. Yeah. We don't know.
But the numbers say 85% of the time

(18:03):
Yeah. Gets listened to all the way. Right?
Well, yeah. It
depends on the show.
As we both recall,
Norm from podcast one is the one that
played that up in the Yeah.
Yeah.
I can think That's what his
his filter was on his metrics. Well, one
thing's for sure. And, you know, this is

(18:25):
what I really think about most of the
shows that are actually on YouTube today.
They're not being listened to.
They're they're they're very much segmented because they're
all putting out reels.
There's no reason to listen to an entire
episode now.
Someone made a comment I saw on Facebook
that, you know, the Hunter Biden interview just

(18:47):
happened. And, of course, it was just, you
know, everyone went
crazy over all the f words. But apparently,
that was a three hour interview. You wouldn't
know that
from the discussions that have happened,
you know, within
the media.
You would have thought that was a three
minute take and it wasn't. It was a

(19:08):
three hour interview and and someone it just
goes back to
when,
President Trump was on Rogan and it was
a three hour interview but you know they
were just taking the slices
and someone said,
they listened to the entire
interview with Hunter and said, wow, there was
some there was some stuff in there that,

(19:29):
you know,
you know, that probably would have been good
for the entire public to hear. But it
was never, you know, stuff wasn't
listened to because who's got,
you know, if if you don't like Hunter
Biden to begin with,
there's very few people that will
listen for three hours. So you get the
sound bites. So this is the issue too

(19:50):
is the average now if that podcaster or
that YouTuber
had ads in that content,
he didn't get paid for a single one
of those
because
people just took the sound bites.
Well, then you're reliant on the shorts platform
to to
to monetize. I guess.

(20:11):
There's not as much monetization and opportunity in
Shorts. Yeah.
So I think it's, you know, in the
end, here's here's this simple fact about advertising
and creators. They just get screwed.
You know, and I've I've been talking to
a lot of audiobook people and boy oh
boy, they they they're the ones that really

(20:31):
get raked over the coals. They they they
are in almost nothing.
75%
is the take that Amazon takes on an
on a on an audiobook,
which is
pretty
incredible if you think about the
the revenue take from that.

(20:51):
Yeah. So
anyway, what else? What's our next topic we
should move into?
Well,
I thought it was interesting. I mean, if
we want to, we can talk about the
audio boom thing, but I'm not sure that's
a big Yeah. Big story or anything. No.
Not necessarily. The Spanish thing is a little

(21:13):
bit interesting where the
they basically are saying, hey. We don't want
this podcast
distributed
on lots and lots of different apps, you
know. That
that brought back a lot of memories for
me back to the early years of podcasting.
Yeah.
I had to sign a
a
a royalty contract or,

(21:33):
or a rights contract with NPR to have
NPR podcasts on the platform I was working
on, at Melodio. Oh, really? I got this.
Like, 25 page,
rights contract with NPR
back then to to get have their NPR
podcast in our our mobile phone app back

(21:53):
in 02/2005.
Oh, how times have changed,
Yeah. So there was a lot of,
and yeah. I keep hearing that the the
screaming that's going on around this is that
the people that are behind that
Spanish public,
broadcaster
station don't really understand how podcasting works.
Well, I think that's pretty obvious.

(22:14):
Yeah.
But then again, maybe it's a reaction because
of the the threat that they feel from
podcasting too.
Oh, that's
potentially true.
Maybe they don't wanna change their model to
as much as Yeah. Is happening. Maybe they're
trying to on it. Holding on to their
broadcast tower as long as they can. Yeah.

(22:37):
Yeah. Yeah. You you never know the mindset.
I would have loved to have been,
you know,
sitting in a chair and being able to
understand the conversation that
surrounded that and wondered if anybody within the
company pushed back. And then, you know, someone
that just doesn't get it said, no. This
is what we're going to do.
So what it sounds

(22:58):
Yeah. Some rights
lawyer is putting their foot down. Or some
bigwig in the company or some, you know,
someone that's older that, you know,
still,
you know, think that, independent creators are the
are are not the way forward.
So I don't know. I'm just
speculating. We're making your content available for free

(23:20):
on platforms. Yeah.
Now it does beg the question, are these
podcasts or all these shows
monetized?
Mhmm.
Or is this a pushback because they haven't
monetized their podcast?
No. I don't know. So, Rob,
let me,
you and I are getting a little longer
in the tooth. I'm yeah. More gray hair

(23:41):
than dark hair on top of my head.
So I actually still have hair if I
don't shave it. But when it does come
in, it's it's it's pretty white. You've got
some gray going on there.
So, twenty years ago when we started podcasting,
did you have any gray then?
I don't believe so, Todd. Yeah. I I
don't think I I'm not sure the cut
the podcasting caused it. I think it's just

(24:04):
Yeah. I know. But my point is,
you know, podcasting now being around for twenty
years,
we started with audiences
that were in their
thirties
and forties. And matter of fact, my prime
demographic of my show has always been 35
for for my podcast. So that that audience

(24:25):
has been with me for twenty five years
and 35
turns to fifty five
and forty turns to sixty
and forty five turns to sixty five and
fifty turns to 70. So this research out
of medicine,
I think we have just this audience has
moved with us from the beginning.

(24:49):
And Just like we have, Todd. That's right.
And this,
this grows is not a sharply grows. We
have moved people out of the, you know,
that peak category. Younger demographic into the older
Yeah. Because if you think about it in
the early days, the the peak was around
and let me hold up my fingers here.
The peak was around,

(25:10):
you know, 30 probably '27
to 40. That is where the peak was.
And that peak has just moved.
You know? That demographic is smaller number because
back in that time frame,
there wasn't wasn't as many people listening to
podcasts. So Right. Now we've we've shifted into
an era where there's a lot more people
listening to podcasts. So that

(25:32):
that older group that's been moving through is
not as big as the one that's behind
it. And the 18 to, you know, the
eighteen to thirty five crowd now is massive.
And,
you know, in twenty years, they'll be the
ones that are, wow, the whole
55 and above crowd is growing.
So to me, this seems just like a
natural
thing that has happened because of the age

(25:53):
of the industry.
The audience have aged with us.
You know, I wish there was some magic
formula where I could stop having birthdays.
Yeah. Well, I'm already starting to count backwards,
Todd. So Well, I I stopped having birthdays
at 18. I just have anniversaries.
So
Yeah. I got my

(26:14):
biological age back. This it's a different marker
that you can get with your blood test
than your chronological age. Oh, you're trying to
move your biological age back? Trying to get
more out of it?
I got my markers back, and it said
I was eleven years younger than my chronological
age. Well, it's too bad our looks don't
follow those markers.
Well, maybe it has. I don't

(26:36):
know. Well, I'm not looking any younger. That
that that number keeps, you know. And my
So my goal now is for every year,
you know, I get older,
I I have to work on my health
to make myself two years younger. Yeah. So
in twenty years, by the time I'm chronologically
in my eighties, I'll I'll be in my
sixties. So well, I'm I'm definitely,

(26:59):
twenty pounds down. So I'm a couple months
into this now. And
I don't know if I mentioned it or
not, but,
and this is not podcast related at all.
But any of you out there with type
two diabetes, which I have,
if your
if your health care system will not pay
for a Dexcom

(27:21):
monitoring system, a patch,
and you hate
poking,
this is the best $100 I spend every
month now.
My insurance doesn't
allow it. The veterans administration doesn't give those
Dexcom kits to
people with type two. Only with people with
type one.

(27:43):
And
what I thought I was doing well for
years and then when I started wearing
that
Stelo, it's called s t e l o.
Amazing
difference in just a few minor tweaks
to my diet and this my sugar is

(28:04):
down around eighty, eighty, 90.
You know, very rarely gets up in the
high hundreds.
And Though your most important marker is your
insulin
marker. Yeah. Most doctors don't even take that
test. Yeah. But again, it it you know,
knowing where the blood glucose level is is
is just as important and and that is

(28:25):
attributed partly to
the weight loss. So I, you know, I
I'm convinced
just on
two months of wearing this, I'm absolutely
unequivocally
convinced that if they did that for
every person or if Apple got the glucose
working in the phone,
that

(28:46):
that alone, just that self awareness would would
change
people's habits because I hated pricking. I hated
it. I hated testing.
And it made no sense to me because
I was on a specific
medical regimen. So
poking every day to me was like,
okay, this is how good are it. So,

(29:08):
yeah. Right. Anyway, it's completely off topic, but,
it'll be the best $100 you ever will
spend,
for a really
good marker to get, with your blood tests.
And if you can get your doctor to
do this for you is your a one
c. Oh, of course. Yeah. That's your three
month Yeah.

(29:29):
Glucose levels. Yeah. So what I do is
I get an a one c every,
six months.
So
I know where my a1c is. That and
what the a1c is is basically that's you
do that twelve hour fasting
and it basically
and you can you can screw up that
a1c test.

(29:49):
Don't go eat seafood
though two or three or four days before
an a one c test.
If it's part of your normal diet and
don't change it. But if you load up
on shellfish and shrimp and stuff before an
a one c test,
you're going to have an elevated a one
c
just because of the those products

(30:10):
drive a one c up
for a longer period than food will.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That resting a one c
is
is the key. And that's you know, that's
how they determine if you're pre diabetic. 5.750.8,
5.960.1.
Yeah. But anyway this
is a great device. It's a good little

(30:30):
yeah.
Tip to
So A lot of people are
battling this because of
the type of food that's in
in
America. The processed food is just absolutely Sugar
and
carbohydrates,
all that stuff. You gotta cut it. I
eat no processed food here when I'm here.

(30:52):
Zero.
There's everything is comes from raw ingredients.
You gotta be careful if you're in a
restaurant. They're throwing in soy sauce and
oil and all this stuff, you know, and
MSG
and, you know, loads of salt that, you
know, that is
a thing. But
my sugar is always good when I'm here

(31:12):
versus in America. You know, go go go
eat McDonald's one time and and having one
of these devices and watch your sugar go
straight
straight to the roof.
It's They're just eating any bread. Bread.
Yeah. We'll we'll do it rice,
potatoes. Even even the supposed quote unquote good
breads are still shit. So

(31:34):
anyway, let's get back to you. Any difference
at all?
You're gonna spike your goo. Yeah. I don't
care who I don't care what it is.
If it has wheat in it. Yeah. If
it's got it, you know, if it's got
the most, you know, the most worst taste
in the world, this is the most
Yeah. Even sourdough, which people said, oh, that's
that's better. It's it'll still spike your Yeah.
But it does help to to have,

(31:57):
fiber before you have,
carbs. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So you can
get the the fiber in your body before
the carbs.
That's why that's why in most meals, people
eat their salad first and then they have
the whole meal. Right? Right.
And and it does protect your blood sugar
a little bit. So wanna load up. There's

(32:17):
a lot of stuff going on with Apple
podcast. It's kind of behind the scenes and
that people may Oh, well, that's good to
hear because I'm not hearing about it. Well,
you know, it's it's a combination of stuff,
you know, you've you've covered here that,
they need a hero if you want to
be featured
in their new artwork policy. But at the
same time,

(32:37):
you know,
this is going to be a monumental impact
because
they've depreciated the iTunes
summary
tag
and they don't want people
they want people only I think they ever
I mean, it's been years since they actually
used it. Haven't they?

(32:57):
I don't know.
But, you know,
a
lot of
third party because it's the same thing as
what the description was. Right? Well, it doesn't
have to be and that's where the trick
was. Right.
You could have a description that would be
much more richer than
the description of the episode.
So what we're facing is,

(33:20):
we still have the iTunes
summary tag in
the feeds
and we still have people that are placing
two versions
of descriptions
in the description in the show notes.
It's not everyone, but you know, real savvy
folks have done that for years because they
get a little bit of an edge when

(33:40):
it comes to
some apps that are still recognizing
summary.
So
with,
the podcast standards project talking about this, you're
gonna start seeing,
the iTunes
summary
taken out of RSS feeds.
It's it's gonna be removed.

(34:02):
And Yeah. I think it should be. Yeah.
It should be. And also, they don't want
content encoded
used
either.
They just want stuff in the description.
So
now,
you know, this is what you're gonna be
faced with and
if you like

(34:22):
that
marginalized
summary,
or the perception of I marginalized
summary Or the shorter version of it. Is
that what you mean? Yeah. You're gonna have
to understand this is
no longer
you no longer supported.
And,
you know, we've had some people recently said,

(34:44):
hey,
why isn't this working?
You know, why does it look why is
my description being used here?
Now the general public doesn't under the general
podcasting public
really doesn't know that these these changes
have happened. So,
but some stuff is gonna change here soon

(35:07):
just like iTunes owner and it's no longer,
no longer needed.
ITunes keyword no longer supported. ITunes order
no longer supported.
So
there's gonna be some think that the summary
tag ever supported HTML.
No. It did not.

(35:28):
I didn't think so. Right. But
the challenge then becomes is
the wrapping of that data.
And this is the thing that we deal
with on the support side all the time
is
the apps have not done a good job
and have any unified
description.

(35:48):
They don't honor all the HTML
in the description.
That's just simple
fact. And what it ends up happening is
if someone has a bullet list or if
they have, you know, and these are very
basic HTML tags,
They don't support that. Then in their their
description in the app just looks like crap.

(36:10):
And sometimes it just like looks like a
run on sentence.
So I think it's a dual thing that
the app developers have to get better at
supporting
rich HTML
in descriptions
so that their
description listings in the apps look better.
Yeah. Because I think if, if you're a

(36:31):
podcaster and you're copying the same description that
you're putting into the main description,
field,
but you're also copying and pasting the same
one into your summary
because if you don't know any different Right.
That's what's gonna,
there's no reason to do that. Plus, if
you have HTML in there, it's just gonna

(36:52):
look like garbage.
Yep. So If it ever does get displayed
somewhere in some app. Yeah. And and
we haven't went and did a comprehensive
audit to look at all the apps and
see how many of the apps are still
Pulling that. Pulling that supporting that tag. Not
too many. I would be surprised. I'm sure
they will default back to description if not

(37:14):
there. I'm going to assume.
So
Yeah.
Yeah. So Yeah.
I think it's a good move. Yeah. I
think pulling that out was unnecessary.
But,
or having it in there Yeah. Right. It
was unnecessary. In the beginning, it was unnecessary,
you know. But I did use it to

(37:35):
my advantage a few times and being able
to have one thing in my RSS feed
as the description and the iTunes summary being
separate. So
yeah. I think the idea behind it originally
was good because it gives you the opportunity
to put a, like, a shorter version of
your description. Yeah.
A true summary, right, of your of your

(37:55):
episode
and then having the longer version be the
full description. Yeah.
I'm
I just think a lot of people misused
it. They just copied the same and put
it in both. Yeah. Put the same date
in both. So podcast movement is fast approaching
and,
obviously, they've been announcing a bunch of
speakers.
I I will say that the podcast standards

(38:17):
projects is gonna have a meeting room.
A couple of the,
folks donated some money.
We're gonna throw some money in for
food for meetings.
And basically,
they're gonna have a little bit of an
agenda.
Not massive.
Maybe two or three different

(38:38):
events at podcast movement. So if you're attending,
make sure that you pay attention to the
podcast standards
project
website.
And,
and hopefully, James and others will cover it
as we get that,
get those meetups
firmed up, but, be a place to,
tucked away where we'll be able to have,

(38:59):
even one on ones and stuff as well.
So
nice to see. That was,
basically,
the folks over at Transistor
took the initiative to get the meeting room.
So
Yeah. I'm pretty excited to see,
what we can make use of the room.

(39:20):
Probably be It'd be great to get a
lot of people across the industry to attend
and
and if there's any kind of,
structure
to to this
type of thing or is it just a
networking opportunity?
Yeah. Well, baby baby steps now.
Right. Let's just bring people in the door.
Yeah. And and be able to have people

(39:42):
talking. Yeah. And trying to get more
of the industry people in to have,
and we're not gonna limit it to industry.
I think it's gonna be pretty open to
anyone that wants
to have some input.
Well, podcasters need to know about it too.
Yeah. So it'd be good.
But,
the lineup, you you've noticed a lot of

(40:03):
corporate speakers. I don't think that's changed so
much, has it?
No. I wouldn't say that this
this whole thing is,
anything too new.
Okay. Yeah. The information in in this post
was not entirely correct.

(40:23):
So it's it's kind of
a direction that podcast movement has been moving
for a couple years now is it's it's
it's really becoming more of a corporate event,
and and we've talked about that a lot
in the show. So,
it's not really a place that, you know,
startup podcasters
go to or anything like that. It's really
the the larger companies

(40:45):
in the space send people there. And, you
know, I I think advertisers
hopefully,
it can be a place where the industry
itself can get together and not
it's not a content event really anymore.
Although the stuff I'm gonna be doing is
content related, so I guess we'll see how
many people show up.

(41:07):
Your your particular session? Yeah. But it's an
AI session. So, you know, AI is
Well, there's all always a certain amount of
podcasters that will go. Right. It's just it's
probably not the vast majority of the And
definitely not not new podcasters
either. Right. New podcasters is probably

(41:27):
definitely not going there.
Yeah. So it's I think this is a
watershed moment for podcast movement.
I think they're on the crust
of
it tipping one way or the other.
So we'll see. You know, I'll make a
decision at the event if we're gonna repeat.

(41:48):
I you know, I so
go ahead.
I was just gonna mention, is it a
tipping point in their mind or a tipping
point in everyone else's mind?
Well, it's a tipping mind. It's a tipping
point in my mind as a vendor.
Right. Right.
Yeah.
You know, it used to be a the
you said you have to attend Podcast Womb

(42:09):
because it's a flagship event to be there
to raise a flag to show that you're
still in business.
Well, if the people that you do business
with are not at the show
Yeah. Do I need to be at the
show?
I've never gotten ROI out of podcast movement.

(42:30):
From a
new customer standpoint, I made relationships
and had some networks, but nothing that would
justify,
you know, 15,000 or $20,000
that we'll spend at the end.
So was there a time in the past
when there was a strong ROI? Before COVID.

(42:52):
Before COVID.
Yeah. Yeah. Because Back when back when they
were getting over 3,000 attendees. And where there
was new podcasters
that you could talk to and influence
and, you know, do the sales pitch.
You know, we're we're gonna be primarily focused
on

(43:12):
our new product, guest match dot pro. We're
gonna be promoting the hell out of it.
And we still have a blueberry banner, but,
you know, we're gonna be wearing guest match
pro shirts. And,
you know, so,
you know, for us, that is a potential
market for new customers because,
yes, there's a couple of competitor, competent competitors

(43:33):
in the space, but they typically never have
a booth.
So we'll see if it helps us.
Yeah. Amazing,
to see
how many of the podcast hosting platforms actually
have a presence or
have a booth or something like that at
the event too. So keep your eye out

(43:54):
for that too. Yeah. Libsyn is one of
the folks that definitely has a private meeting
room.
Matter of fact, I've got I think I
can I talked about this last week? Let
me
I have the map.
Of all of the exhibitors? No. Of the
people that have meeting rooms.

(44:14):
Oh. So
Art nineteen.
Of course, SoundsProf will have their big lounge.
Magellan and Libsyn,
they're the only
three
that I see have meeting rooms. So that's
to me is

(44:34):
on the floor.
They may have a meeting room in the
hotel. Oh, yeah. Well,
you're probably
yeah. There's meeting rooms from Spotify and iHeart,
all those that are Not part of the
show floor. It didn't pay Not part of
the show floor. Right. That they didn't pay,
I would assume So are they on the
show floor, though?

(44:55):
Libsyn, Michelin.
Yeah. They're on the they're in the well,
wherever the meeting room section
is. I don't know if it's on a
different floor or what. Are all those companies
having, booths
as well? I don't know.
I haven't looked at the
floor map recently. So
I see.

(45:18):
It's probably the
and I again, I haven't been on the
site in a while, so I don't even
know if they show the show floor or
not
and who's exhibit.
Well, they usually have a list of all
of the
of the
exhibitors,
but
that may or not be up yet. I
I don't know. Yeah. We'll see.

(45:40):
So podcast movements, August 18 through the twenty
first in Dallas.
And it looks like,
let's see if there's any list of
booths.
Their website's changed a little bit. I don't

(46:02):
see the actual
they're learn more and buy tickets.
I don't see
sponsors.
I'm sure the sponsors are on here somewhere.
Yeah.
Keep scrolling here.
Okay.

(46:23):
Okay. View all sponsors and exhibitors. It says
Oh, there you go. Presenting sponsor, Lipson, Airwave
are are the presenting sponsors.
And then
you look at
Adobe, Sirius, Amazon, Art nineteen, Odyssey, ASHA, Bourbon
Barrel.

(46:43):
Love that show. FM,
CNN collection cohost, consumable,
dystopia,
iHeart, Magellan, Pay, PodMatch,
podcast professional association sounds profitable sound stack,
podcast study exhibitors.
Let's just look at
hosting companies. You've got

(47:03):
Blueberry,
Libsyn,
Odd Bean,
MarCircle,
Red
Circle,
Etsy.
Spreaker.
There's Spreaker. Oh, yeah.
I don't really consider them a host anymore,
but
one Spreaker, but they are. I forget that

(47:23):
they still have hosting.
They're the second largest,
podcast host in the world. One, two. Yeah.
Okay.
+1, 23455
or six
podcast hosts. So the the, you know, the
ones that are generally there are there.
Yeah.

(47:43):
But the exhibitor list is only
one,
two,
three, four, five. Let me do this. It's
it's Rosa four one, two,
three. Six twenty four twenty five exhibitors. That's
horrible.
Wow.
Yeah. That's that's

(48:05):
Wow. One, two, three.
Yeah. That's it? 25
exhibitors. That's it?
That's it? That's bad.
So what that they have a big one
there. A very short list.
Yeah.
Now I'm sure
maybe these other folks that are event sponsors
will have boost too. And if they do,

(48:26):
then that raises the number to Yeah. It
does.
That raises number to one, two, three, four,
five, about 50. So that's a little better,
but
that's
Well, SoundStack is also in the sponsor list,
not in the exhibitor list. Yeah. So they're
probably I don't know if they have a

(48:47):
booth or not. They have a stage.
So yeah. Yeah. It's still, you know, not
a for an industry that's twenty years old,
that's very small number of exhibitors.
Yeah.
And I don't see
as far as the presenting sponsors,
there isn't any really big companies.
Just Libsyn and Airwave.

(49:10):
I wouldn't consider Airwave to be a big
company.
But they wrote a big check.
Yeah.
Yeah. They did.
And the other ones wrote some sort of
check.
Right. The event sponsors one, like Adobe podcast.
Yeah. Yeah.
And Sirius and Amazon music podcasts, Art 19.
As an exhibitor, my check was about $5

(49:33):
something around there for to have my exhibits,
my exhibit space.
Yeah. The Odyssey podcast,
ASHA,
CNN, cohost,
Quill,
Dystopia,
iHeart,
which is really Springer. You know, I again,

(49:55):
I
if you're you're watching your pennies,
which we all are in this time, you
know, you just I can't write these big
checks anymore to be a silver or gold
or platinum or Right. You know, there's not
because okay. Is your name's up there on
a banner?
But,
oh, it's pretty for a picture and social,

(50:16):
but is it giving me true ROI? And
I I answered my board of directors on
these events.
Yeah.
Yeah. I just,
this this sponsor list,
is pretty short, actually.
And maybe that's in an event event sponsor

(50:39):
could have bought,
you know,
Pat, I mean, the the lanyards.
You know, they could have wrote a check
for $5,000
for the lanyards or whatever the number was.
Well,
the other folks that are not showing up
in this list,
which is interesting, is there's very few people

(50:59):
from the advertising
industry side of podcasting,
from the ad
ad representation
companies
or,
Well, again, well, they They just don't see
their names. Have they done something within the
resort that's outside of podcast movement and
they didn't get any of that money? Usually,

(51:20):
the resorts protect that
and don't And I don't see any any
of the big,
ad buying brands
involved in the event,
as a sponsor as well. So
they could be there just going to meetings.
I know one person that goes there and
he just
he
he just books meetings like crazy

(51:43):
before the event and
sits at a table and has one on
ones entire
entire show.
Yeah.
Anyway, we'll see. We'll see what it's gonna
be. It's gonna be, you know, I'm flying
home specifically to go. So
Mhmm.
And then this event in Madrid, it's gonna

(52:04):
be interesting that I'm going to
in, October.
So that'll do it for me for events
this year unless I get invited to go
somewhere else.
If I'd have been here in Asia, I
probably could have gotten into Radio Days Asia,
but
I'm just not gonna be in

(52:24):
I'm not making a special trip to to
Malaysia
or wherever they're having it
Yeah. Or a couple of day event.
Yeah. It's interesting.
Yeah. The Tom Webster received another CMI content
marketing award. So good on Tom for that.
Congratulations.
I think this is his second. I think

(52:44):
he did Yeah. It is. It's his second
one. Second one. So,
you know, Tom does a good job in
data storytelling. That's true. I don't think anyone
does
does it better than him. Right. Yes. That's
true. In his in his,
I don't even know about this content marketing
award. So I it's my first exposure to

(53:05):
it.
Yeah.
Plus,
yeah, you I I can't remember if we
talked about last week the the announcement from
Triton Digital about the the AI generated host
reads.
That they're
No. They're starting to move towards. They Lovely.
Announced
a deal

(53:26):
with a company called
Ekoz
or e k o z
dot a I and it's
in, and they're set to,
to deliver AI generated host read ads based
on the hosts
cloned voice.

(53:47):
So this would slide right into the programmatic
side. Yeah.
So,
Here it comes.
The on the question I'd like to hear
some of those ads.
Yeah. And I was there's been some talk
about it on,
I think it was on LinkedIn,

(54:07):
about it. I was involved in a thread
that was on there too. And it
it begs the question from a couple different
directions, you know. Is the host of the
show gonna wanna have, the brands that advertise
on their show,
put
words in their mouths?
Well, Well, I I would assume
the host will have to approve the copy.

(54:28):
I can't imagine.
Yeah. Well,
yeah.
You would think so. Right? You would think
so.
But that's gonna slow down the speed of
approval.
Yeah. I
don't want my name. I don't want my
voice being associated with
certain products and services. So I would be
very On your own podcast. See that's the

(54:48):
thing. Yeah.
So
and is that going to put the brands
in a position where they have to script
into the cloned voice a testimonial
about their product? Right?
Where's that coming from? You know, so what
happens when you get a Chevy commercial and

(55:09):
your audience knows that you're a diehard Ford
fan or
you're hard die hard Tesla driver and a
Ford ad comes in in your voice.
I don't even know if Ford's buying podcast.
Well, I know. I'm just that's the example.
You know? Yeah.
So But but yeah. It raises a lot
lots of questions

(55:30):
and I heard that
mentioned as well about the host test to
approve it and that takes me back to
the gonna cut down the speed of approvals.
But at the same time too,
I'm not sure that
I think you're
you're cheating your audience. It's a disingenuine

(55:51):
you know, I I take pride in talking
about GoDaddy on my show.
Right. I use their products and services
and,
I want people to know that. And I,
you know, my audience can text me or
send me an email if there is a
issue with their GoDaddy account and I take
them right to the top of the food
chain over there if there's a problem.

(56:14):
And, you know, when you have a direct
line to the vice president at GoDaddy and,
you know, he's directly in charge of this
the support team,
There's nothing better than that. But what happens
when
my voice is used to promote some product
and then
and I know maybe

(56:35):
baby gets to play, I don't even know
anything about it.
You know, it's just like
the the mattresses. What was the mattress that
was big there for a while?
Casper? Casper. They say that I'll be honest
with you. What a piece of shit. I
that Casper mattress was,
you know, and I refused.

(56:56):
I refused to run the ad because I
couldn't
How many backaches came out of sleeping on
that? Right. You know, and and and you
hear you heard people, oh, this is the
most fantastic. I'm sleeping on this as my
daily sleeper. And I'm like,
one of the best investments you can make
as a human being is buying a good

(57:18):
mattress.
Right.
You know, this is something you do not
go cheap on. If you're sleeping on a
$300
mattress
and you have a backache, there is a
reason you have a backache on that $300
mattress. Now some of you have backs of
steel and you sleep just fine on a
$300
mattress. But I tell you Right. The difference

(57:40):
between a $300 mattress and a $3,000
mattress
is night and day.
Alright.
Yeah.
The mattress I have here,
that was one of the very first things
when I went to rent this unit
was I pulled the,

(58:01):
I pulled the cover,
the mattress cover off to see what brand
the mattress it was. And I looked it
up because if it was
junk, I was going to ask the landlord
to change it out.
I'm that serious about it. So
I have
here
equivalent
to a very expensive mattress here. So the

(58:23):
quality was exception. So
Yeah. So what happens when your voice is
used for Casper ad?
I think that I don't know if they're
still in business.
Yeah. I don't think they're doing podcast ads
anymore. But,
yeah. And it does make you wonder if

(58:43):
it's
it has the potential of
of eroding the
the high CPMs that traditionally
host reads
have garnered because
the market gets flooded with,
you know, ads in your voice
that Mhmm. Are not genuine. Trust. Yeah. Then
you don't you're not trusted. And that could
cause loss of audience, the whole nine yards.

(59:05):
Yeah. It's a slippery slippery slope.
Rob, we are Patient has its challenges.
Yeah. We're at the top of the hour
here. We've made it through and
still have stuff on the the list here.
Yeah.
Yeah. There's always a lot. Yeah.
Was there anything that was important important? Let
me look.

(59:26):
I don't
think
I think we covered most of it.
Yeah.
Oh, actually, this yeah.
Creepy clones is what
Creepy clones. Yeah. When you when you have
an AI doing your ads
for you, that's a creepy clone. Yeah.
And will will YouTube allow it?

(59:49):
Yeah.
Well, they're already cloning
the host voice for the content. Yeah. So
that's their international
translation
strategy that they have. Right? So
So I They might subsequent.
They might do it. I I just think
this whole element of,

(01:00:14):
the audience is really the bigger question.
Is it gonna work? Is it gonna garner
CPM?
Right.
Well, maybe some of these creators don't load
the CPM. Maybe creators don't care. They just
want the money.
Hard to say.
Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, what's your thoughts? You
can very easily give us your commentary, todd,

(01:00:36):
at blueberry dot com,
at geek news on x. I'm at Geek
News at Geek News dot chat on Mastodon.
Yeah. Or just post in the threads Oh,
yeah. Of the of of the live streams
on all that we're going out here and
in the podcast apps. Or at NMS
podcast
on x as well or there.

(01:00:58):
Yep.
So, Rob,
what's the what's the
four one one for you?
Rob greenley dot com is a great way.
Two e's on the end.
And I can be found on YouTube as
well at Rob Greenley. And, you can send
me an email, [e-mail].
Love to hear from you. Just like what

(01:01:19):
Todd said, if you have any,
ideas or feedback or anything like that, that
would be terrific. So
we'd love to hear from you. I'm on
all the social platforms too.
So
how are you guys liking the one hour
show?
Yeah. Especially for Rob, it's 9PM where he's
at. So I as I was telling before
we started today, I got five hours of

(01:01:41):
sleep today, which is
a miracle on a show day.
So,
anyway It's early for you. Yeah. It's early.
I'm done the opposite end. But I, you
know, I worked at 03:00 in the morning
too. So
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, everyone. Thank you for
being here. We'll see you next week,
on the new media show. Everyone take care.
Bye bye. Alright. Thanks. Bye.