The Growing Ad Revenue in Podcasting

In this episode titled “The Growing Ad Revenue in Podcasting,” hosts Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee discuss various insights related to the podcast industry’s current state, including recent earnings reports and trends in advertising revenue. The episode begins with a casual greeting between Todd and Rob, where Todd shares that he is sleeping late due … Continue reading The Growing Ad Revenue in Podcasting →

The post The Growing Ad Revenue in Podcasting appeared first on New Media Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Okay. Is that let me try this.
Todd and Rob in the afternoon.
Hey.
Afternoon
delight.
With Todd and Rob.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And, here we are,
Rob. Welcome back to the new media show.
Happy Wednesday to you.

(00:22):
Happy hump day.
Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm, I'm running
on about
literally
maybe an hour and fifteen minutes sleep.
Oh, no. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That always makes
for a rough day, doesn't it? Well, you
know, what will happen is as soon as
we hit
hit re finish on the recording, I'm going

(00:44):
back to bed.
Yeah. Right.
No. It was a it was a late
one for meetings. I normally try it on
show days to finish about 03:00 in the
morning and then I sleep to seven. Well,
I couldn't go to bed until like 05:30.
So it's all good.
But only a couple more weeks and then

(01:05):
May 14 back in the studio back in
the studio in Michigan. But
it's been it's been an interesting week. I
have are you familiar
with the
the podcast event that happens in
Madrid?
And Oh, I haven't heard about this. What's
going on? Yeah. So I got an invite

(01:27):
to come and
participate
in,
in podcast
in this event in Madrid in October.
And, so I'm I'm gonna it's, I've never
well, it's been my first time
being in Madrid.
I I don't think I've ever well, I've

(01:48):
been in Spain, but I have not been
in,
but it's called podcast days.
And,
it happens I've only flown through there once
or twice. Yeah. I've only, you know, been
to the airport.
It's closest I've gotten to seeing Madrid. Yeah.
So October.

(02:08):
So,
yeah, I was extending the invite to go
out. So I'm
I'm pretty jazzed. So I'm gonna plan on
doing that. So it's gonna be do the
do the podcast awards.
Next day, jump on an airplane.
Oh, man.
So, yeah. It'll be it'll be a busy

(02:29):
time. But,
yeah. I I think I've heard of it
before.
And,
so yeah. It's nice. Nice to ask
nice to have been asked to come out
and almost missed the email.
It was one of those that was like
buried deep in the stack and
so yeah. So thank goodness I found it.

(02:49):
But,
so is it the first time it's been
held in No.
No. It's I guess this is
an annual event. So
they apparently, this has been going on for
a while. And I I think I remember
hearing James or someone talk about it in
the past.
You know, getting to getting to Europe from

(03:12):
Detroit, there's nothing ever direct. It's multiple flight
or, you know, at least two flights.
And,
just like going to London, which is sneaking
up on us here, very, very quickly as
well. So,
so it looks like, two
two, two events across the pond here. So

(03:34):
Yeah. I lost you there for a second.
Yeah. I said, two two events across the
pond. So,
should be good.
We'll see. You know, it's it's a ways
out for sure.
Don't know what I'm gonna be speaking about
yet, but,
for sure.
Okay.
So anything else big happening
other than I saw in the news that

(03:56):
we,
we officially did pass
the $2,000,000,000
ad revenue mark in podcasting. Did you see
that? 2,400,000,000.0
was
reported by
IAB. Yeah. You see. I I saw that,
and I see all kinds of excitement. And
I'm like, really?

(04:17):
Yeah. Well, just to be clear about it,
that was a
a number that was reported for 2024.
So
it's a little bit of a lagging number.
So
we don't really know what it's gonna be
for 2025
if it's gonna be They really think it
was that much?
Well, that's what the IAB and PWC,

(04:39):
report came out and saying.
It was part of a bigger
kind
of advertising,
kind of,
a report that was put out, the total
advertising revenue,
for the the Internet was
at 256,600,000,000.0.

(05:00):
So podcasting was a very small part of
the overall
Internet ad,
and it gives a hundred and 2 or
almost a hundred and 3,000,000,000
to search
and about 74,000,000,000
to display advertising.
And then, podcast pulls in at, 2,430,000,000.00.

(05:24):
Mhmm. And social media gets 88,800,000,000.0,
and
retail media,
gets 53,700,000,000.0.
So podcasting is at
the
at the bottom.
Well, I
I know what that means as we look
to the future.
If this

(05:45):
digital video and podcast number will kind of
work together a little bit more, but
I don't know how that changes things. Considering
how few shows that it's actually being advertised
in
as compared to other media,
you know, I'm not necessarily
surprised per se.

(06:06):
Yeah. It said overall,
advertising revenues,
had reasonably strong growth in 2024.
It increased 14.9%.
That's overall. That's all
online. How the economy is, I'm still
Yeah. I'm I'm still pretty pretty shocked. About
it. Yeah.

(06:27):
Yeah. I mean, unless those dollars are are
coming in from traditional body,
you know, TV and radio,
that could explain what the growth is. Yeah.
And I I don't know what those numbers
are. If
if we saw the radio and television advertising
numbers drop,

(06:48):
that's not part of this.
Yeah. I when I see this kind of
stuff, I'm I'm often,
I don't know. I guess I'm ambiguous to
it at this point.
Yeah.
You know, I do admit that the programmatic
side,
at least on our side, we're seeing growth.

(07:09):
So
but but was it mean so it was
a total percentage, 15%?
Yeah. Overall growth was,
14.9%
for
all online advertising. So all online. Well, you
would expect
But the but the podcasting side was probably,

(07:31):
like, maybe,
close to that.
Well, if you if you think if you
think about the
the
world, you know, and I'm sure that
TV was included in that
number.
I'm going to well it's not the 2,400,000,000.0

(07:52):
or digital video.
Right. Was the 62,100,000,000.0.
Right. Right. Was the okay. It had a
year over year growth of 19%.
That I'm not surprised.
And it said that the podcast
side of it had a 26%
growth,

(08:14):
but the fastest growing one in here was
social media at 36.7%.
Probably
a big part of that was TikTok.
Yeah. So a lot of these, you know,
if you think about podcasting, if we think
about the perspective that maybe podcasting is broadening
in its in its media scope, you know,

(08:34):
to include video now,
I'm just curious how that impacts its overall
numbers and how it's being tracked here. Yeah.
That's true too. I'm assuming
that the podcast reference today is just referencing
audio.
I would be I wouldn't be surprised if
they sneak the YouTube numbers in there too.
I and I,

(08:55):
you know, they get a little more,
bang for the buck
with you know,
you
know, I I've heard recently from
a couple of different sources where people are
saying that TikTok now
is losing a little bit of luster because
of just it's it's just all ads.
And I've been,

(09:16):
haven't been in TikTok only once or twice
in the past month and I garnered in
there a couple of days ago and
oh my god. It's everyone's selling everything. Now
here's the weird thing is because I'm in
Asia now.
The Chinese are having fire sales on
here. So now

(09:37):
if I go shopping on there's a service
here called Lazada
and Lazada basically is kind of the equivalent
of Amazon.
You know, a lot of free delivery,
you know, be two or three days it's
in your, you know, it's in your hands
and I mean massive massive discounts because I

(09:58):
was just kind of I had bought a
number of things here for the studio, a
desk and you know some speakers and you
know a variety of things
this trip and
the
all that stuff is at 60708090%
off
pricing
because there's no tariff
to bring the stuff into The Philippines. You

(10:20):
you know, it's just standard business right now
and it's just these massive sales. But on
TikTok,
it's just like
every other
is some influencer that's selling something
and they're they're promoting something, promoting something, promoting
something and it got it's gotten to the
point where the TikTok shop

(10:43):
has taken away from the experience
that I had in just recent months
of being able to enjoy reels on TikTok.
So
they went so hard on the money part.
I'm I'm just going to assume that
maybe why this is

(11:03):
why this trend and again it doesn't have
nothing to do with it. Probably has something
to do with these numbers
because I would assume that's included in these
totals with social media.
The
because I'm sure those folks are being paid
to advertise and promote or maybe they're working
on affiliate basis. Well, it depends on what
you define in advertisement too and how that's

(11:24):
tracked.
Advertising is advertising, not
product placement promotion.
That could be thrown under the umbrella of
advertising. Well, if they're paying those people to
promote, why wouldn't it be included as
Well, there's a lot of people out there
that are creating videos because they're trying to
promote products in their own business. Right? So

(11:47):
they're Well, this is stuff they're this is
stuff they're selling in the TikTok shop.
No. It's
okay. I don't know how those deals There's
kinda
multiple things going on. There's individuals out there
that are getting into almost like affiliate relationships
with brands,
and they're pitching those products and

(12:07):
selling them. Now I guess that could be
You don't think that's a ad. You don't
think that's a content too. Could be content.
You don't think those folks are being paid?
Well, some of them could be. Yes. Oh,
okay. But I do think that there's multiple
things going on in the market. I know
there's whole platforms now that
you you can do live video Yeah. Yeah.

(12:27):
Yeah. In vertical video. And the whole whole
video is all about giving
demonstrations of a particular,
maybe, artwork Right. Right. Right. Or product or
Yeah. Or,
you know, could be cosmetics. It could be
all sorts of to know if any of
those numbers were rounded into that.
Right. But are those considered ads, or are

(12:49):
those considered kind of like product placement? I
kinda consider not considered ads. I can consider
them an ad.
Well, I would. But does this research consider
that? Yeah. That's a good question.
Are they just looking at traditional spend,
you know, then
On a prerecorded,
you know The HelloFresh
and,
you know, the shrink services and, you know,

(13:12):
whatever else may be being promoted.
Right.
So I think that the spectrum of advertising
is expanding now.
The question is, is it are we recognizing
it as advertising or is it being seen
as something
different from traditional ads?
So Yeah. Who's tracking that? Yeah.

(13:33):
So yeah. It'd be nice to see a
breakout by platform.
Yeah. And I I should have probably captured
the whole report here.
But it's still it's in I know we
we're just looking at we're looking at the
podcast, Pete. So
it it is an interesting

(13:53):
number. You know, they've been trying to get
over 2,000,000,000 for what, ten years?
Yeah.
Right. And to say they would get over
10,000,000,000, 2 billion is
me. And in in the end,
I think about that number
and
it sure isn't flowing down.

(14:15):
It isn't flowing down into the mainstream street,
you know,
into a we're still
it's still
restricted to 5%
or maybe 8%
of
Of the market. Yeah.
Is getting all these deals. That's right. Right.
And and at the same time, there is,
you

(14:36):
know, this I did and actually when my
team made a mistake on it the other
day, they they posted something about,
on social media. And I don't review every
social media post that goes out, but I
saw one on the x that they had
posted where, you know, use there's still great
opportunities and they use the 4,500,000
shows. I went back in our social media

(14:57):
channel said, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Let's
never use that 4,500,000
show number again in any social media posts
because,
you know, there's actively about 400,000
shows that are updating their episodes every 30
days.
So, you know, you putting a number of
4,500,000
and there's room for your show to grow
actually could be discouraging to people

(15:20):
because it shows this, you know, this crazy
number.
And they said it's actually a much smaller
number to see
significant impact.
So, you know, it kind of got them
on board. And and what it was was,
one of the gals said, well, I always
just look at the podcast index numbers. I'm
like, well, you know, scroll down a little
bit
and, you know, look at that active number

(15:41):
and,
and use that. I said, you know, yeah.
Sure. There's you know, over the life of
podcasting twenty years, there's been 4,500,000
shows.
But, you know, currently,
the activity is different. But I think we're
and I I don't know. From a business
standpoint,
you know, we're watching
the numbers. And I will say that the

(16:02):
shows that are being created
right now are very deliberate.
The people that are signing up for hosting
with us and creating new podcasts
have a very deliberate
there's not a lot of experimenters. There's people
coming in knowing exactly what they want

(16:22):
and
and moving forth.
Where
in the past I've seen a lot more
folks doing experimental shows. You could tell that
they were just getting started. They didn't quite
understand maybe what they were doing.
So there's
a little bit of a trend I've seen
over the past couple of months.

(16:44):
So would you say that that's
following this? I I think this thread that
we've been talking about for maybe a good
year on this topic is
is it's kind of a professionalization
of the medium per se or people that
are getting involved in starting a podcast are
more serious about it. It's I I think
so. So much of a hobby anymore. Yeah.
Yeah. I think so. It's just more serious.

(17:05):
Yeah. Right. But, again, there are hobbyist shows.
But it You know, there's probably fewer of
them, isn't there? Well, you know, but but
the shows are coming in, you know, it's
like I go in and look
at the change log. I can see the
name they picked,
and I go and say, okay. Did they
edit that? Did they change the description?

(17:27):
You know, did they come in and have
their
their bones together? I guess that's the middle
of whatever word to say.
Well, their strategy Yeah. They have their strategy
together. Right? You know, that they come in
and, you know, make some up and everyone
so far that, you know, it's in it's
not everyone. But again, a high percentage of
folks are

(17:47):
highly highly focused.
We're still seeing a huge number of folks
that are,
have their own brands already, have their own
websites.
About seventy thirty
is that number. About 70%
already have their own brand and 30%

(18:08):
do not.
So that kind of gives you the
the split.
And the reason we can see that pretty
easily is we know that the number of
that come in, they have their own website
already and those that decide just to use
the publisher platform
and and,
and use it with the tools that and
the site that we give them.

(18:29):
So
and then we look additionally to see, okay,
do they have a do they have a,
like, a Wix website or Squarespace somewhere,
that doesn't have as good a podcasting
support?
And are they doing that? And there's a
percentage of those folks too.

(18:49):
So
but I still think things
are flatter than they should be.
So it'd be curious at some point, maybe
someone would do an overall industry
growth study
to see how many shows have come in
in the space in the past twelve months

(19:09):
and stayed in
as new entrances
and have made it past, you know, let's
say, episode 10.
That would that would be an interesting study
to pull down. I I probably got the
data that I just have to run it
and and get it
As we even though our directory doesn't have
the public listings on it anymore, we still

(19:32):
have all the data in the database. We're
still
pulling all that in in the back end.
Mhmm.
Yeah. I would hope that, we would see
an uptick in people just
launching a podcast because they have a hobby
or an interest or
or wanting to just start a show and
see where it goes. Right?

(19:54):
But I do think that there's a lot
of people that are you know, they've been
laid off from work,
for their jobs. They're maybe starting to start
a side business, or they're trying to, you
know, make ends meet Yeah. Any way they
can. So they're they're out there coming up
with a, you know, a
company concept
and maybe they're

(20:15):
trying to leverage podcasting to help make that
successful. So
I think that's the other big thing that's
happening right now.
And did you see Todd that,
Stephen Bartlett,
the CEO
and the host of the diary of a
CEO,
podcasts and, and online show it very, very

(20:37):
successful,
huge scale,
program.
I guess he turned down $200,000,000
podcast deals
because they would have tripled the number of
ads in a show. Was it a hundred
or 200?
Two $100
podcast offers. So Two $2,100,000,000

(21:01):
deals. Right. Right. Two different companies. Wow.
As he just was he said I the
the increase ad load is not worth the
impact. That's that's a number to walk away
from. Think about that.
Yeah. It's a number. That's a number.
I you know. You know, if you think
I mean, you think about, you know, maybe
he can do that on his own

(21:23):
without, you know,
compromising.
I don't know. I mean, it's it's a
ethical decision that he made there.
Well, I I think I I applaud him
for making the decision.
But I'm thinking
if if I told
Rob, come on now. I think about this.

(21:43):
And a hundred million dollars.
Oh.
If that's for one year
I don't know about that. It doesn't say
what the term What the term was. Were.
But
but it did say that they would have
to increase the number of ads. So I
don't know how many ads he has right

(22:04):
now. But I I've watched his show before,
and I think he I think he mainly
only does host reads. Mhmm. And I think
he only has, like, maybe two or three
in his. And how long is his program?
Do you know? Oh, it's
it's it's
anywhere from an hour to an hour and
a half. Because I typically, I I would
say in an hour show, two host reads

(22:28):
is a really good sweet spot.
And then if you can go an hour
and a half, a third would work
without pissing the audience off too bad. But
if you double that,
yeah, that that's that has a that has
an impact.
And just from my personal experience of knowing
one, two, three, and then the roll off

(22:53):
yeah.
Yeah. Well Plus
plus, you know, he he may thinking
maybe thinking long term here
and thinking he can get to that,
same hundred million dollar number with the same
amount of ads he's doing now. It's just
that the the buys have to be better.
Right? And more. Yeah. And worth more. Right?

(23:14):
Yeah. Right.
I could see that for sure.
And not
compromising
the experience of his audience. Right. Because this
guy's very detailed on
analytical
basis on doing certain things that
have tested to work. Right? Right.

(23:34):
And he tinkers with things to see what
doesn't work, but then he quickly adjusts to
what does work. Yeah. He was the one
that was measuring the c o two in
the room. In the room. Right. So you
can see how detail oriented this guy is.
Right? So So, you know, he he probably
I wonder how long the analysis
on that took.

(23:56):
Yeah. You know? Yeah. Well, it's a very
I would say it's a very subjective analysis,
actually.
Because, I mean, how do you know that
increasing the level of c o two in
the room would make a dramatic difference in
the quality of the Yeah. Of the guest?
I don't know how you would evaluate that.
I can't even think of a way.

(24:19):
I mean, the more you think about, I
mean, it's funny to think about, right?
And it just could be just maybe based
on the,
the level of oxygen in the room, you
know, it's kind of science based probably right
where,
or you, you can say if you're in
a room with higher oxygen, I know that
the radio industry did this for many years

(24:41):
with their studios where they would keep
the the studios
of the radio station where the talent is
at a certain temperature Right. Because it kept
them awake. Right. And if you had Yeah.
If the studio was too warm,
the the host would get get, like, tired
easy easier, and they would lose energy. And

(25:02):
Well, that was like quality of the program.
Was like me in Hawaii and, you know,
the in the doldrum days of summer and
you know having the windows open and sweat
would be running down my neck,
you know, and there was no way I
could run a fan or nothing. I would
just suffer through the show
And if you remember, we used to do
the show in the morning.

(25:24):
And
you know, I did it because first of
all, the lawnmowers and in air because I
didn't have central air.
You know, now I'm spoiled. I've got central
air here and in the studio in Michigan.
So,
you know, those days that happened to deal
with a window being open are are kind
of gone.
There was

(25:44):
something I was gonna share with you, and
I don't wanna get too much into the
AI
piece because I I know people are tuning
out
recently when we start talking about AI, but
there is a
I've I think I told you I paid
for the pro version of chat g p

(26:05):
t, the $200 version. Yeah. Mhmm. I've Jordan,
yeah. Are you still on that? I'm still
on it.
And,
there was an interesting thing that,
I won't go into much detail,
but we were doing a study. Well, basically,
I had
I've got an executive assistant now and she's

(26:26):
great at doing research
and I had her do a research on
our hosting plans and looking at certain factors
because they were thinking about adding
a new feature to the hosting plan and
that report that she did,
she she'd combed the data and basically

(26:46):
gave me about a seven page report. And
so then I wanted to do a risk
assessment.
Okay.
If I implement this, what is the risk
asset? You know, what is the risk
of causing
revenue to go up or down based upon
the change in this plan? And and you
know I had all these factors and,

(27:07):
I ran a risk assessment on the o
three
model that I'm paying
$200 a month for.
And Barry,
my CFO,
who's not he's on a on the $20
plan.
He ran it on the other reasoning model.
We and we did it separately
thinking I guess we're both thinking alike. And

(27:29):
it was kind of funny because I posted
in the Slack channel, Barry, look at this.
And like sixty seconds later, he came back
and said, doc, look at this. So it
was it it the prompts
were very very similar.
But the data
between the $0.03 model and the $20 model,
Barry's like, damn. I think maybe I should

(27:50):
upgrade to the $200 model too.
We
the data that we got, I'll be very,
very frank.
I'm not a data analysis.
I become a better one over the years.
Again, looking at, you know, p and l
statements and everything else that goes along with,
you know, subscriber churn and, you know, anything
else that goes along with data.

(28:13):
And
if I was a data analysis,
as a had that as a JLB right
now, I would be scared to death.
Because
my
I used my EA who is not does
not have a background in data analysis.

(28:34):
She has more of a
legal background,
a structured legal background and
she worked with the dev team to get
this data set for me. Put it in
a very nice report. Did a very good
job. Showed me the medians and all this,
you know, this information. Just really good

(28:55):
stuff. And she may have used chat g
v t to help with her report data
too. I don't know. I didn't ask her.
But, again, I looked through the data and
verify her data lined up with the, you
know, the raw spreadsheet numbers.
And
this data analysis tool, this is about the
fourth or fifth time that I have been

(29:15):
blown away.
I talked about before doing audits on the
podcast awards.
I had done that again this year.
I and these,
I I I'm gonna say that it saved
me
looking to stuff that she gave me, I
had this kind of, like,
feeling in the wind

(29:37):
where the risk was.
Mhmm.
Just just, you know, but I I just
didn't I couldn't When you say risk in
this context
risk would have been
having
by offering this, would it cannibalize
my other plans?

(29:57):
In other words, if I have a if
I offer this new feature
but the folks are paying $20 a month
say, oh that looks like a better opportunity
and cost me money because they were gonna
switch the type of plan they were on.
So
it
you know, and and and and looking at
potential new revenue, lost revenue,

(30:19):
you know, reoccurring revenue, that kind of stuff.
And I had a little bit of a
thumb
and it it confirmed
everything that I kind of had a gut
on but then it said, here are
five things you could try
and here's kind of the price point you
should be looking at and I'm just like,

(30:43):
Wow. So I look at Barry's report. His
was not as detailed
but it kind of came almost the same
conclusion. So I'm just my main point here
was
the difference in the model was the depth
of
the reasoning.
And,
I was pretty impressed. So I've been thinking
about that and that you this just happened,

(31:06):
what is today? It happened on
Monday night
or Monday
and,
we're looking at the data yesterday and
the,
the thing I'm looking at now is how
can I use
these reasoning models in podcast statistics?

(31:27):
Now what what kind of data now can
I start providing
back to podcasters and or
what can podcasters just by pulling a download?
Let's say they pull a spreadsheet
of data because every one of our reports
or podcast stats are available as a as
a download
and usually comes out in a CSV.

(31:50):
How can we use these reasoning tools
to give podcasters better insights on stats? So
now I'm thinking about
I got this and you know, sometimes you
look at your stats, you're kind of like,
yeah, I kinda see a trend.
Yeah. Well, Todd, I mean,
you're getting more and more data from each

(32:12):
of these podcasts.
Right? Because you're pulling transcripts,
you're able to look at the
the audience metrics.
So and then Got all of that. That
can
and then the actual,
kind of like play behavior of the episode
as well. And for some show, we've got
demos because they're running

(32:34):
audience surveys.
So we've got all of the key
data Pieces
to do an analysis on how that show
is doing ways that it maybe it can
be improved. Right. Right. Right.
So, you know, if you think about a
holistic approach to it, you know, it's very
subjective. I still think within
the models now to look at a transcript

(32:55):
and say this is how you can improve
the show. I think that's still a little
It's got to be able to
listen to the audio, not just read the
Right. Right. Right.
And I think I can't do I don't
think we're quite there yet. No. We're not.
We're not. But I don't think it's too
far away. But at the same time,

(33:16):
you know, I've just been
pretty
pretty blown away
that the level
and again, I knew a year and a
half ago or maybe close to two years
ago that this a year and a half
ago that
this data analysis function
and I to be honest with you, I
probably would have the the report that it
came up with, I probably would have spent

(33:42):
there's five pages.
I probably would have spent
two days on.
At least two days And then I would
have there would have been a meeting
and we went over the data and we,
you know, there would have been this back
and forth.
And and because I had the raw, I

(34:03):
had the true I, you know, I had
pulled this stuff from the database
and had a true dataset that I could
work from.
I could go back to the report
and say, okay.
The the analysis said this.
Yeah. That matches that.
Analysis said that. Yeah. I can see how
it's got it. So I was able to

(34:25):
do
a QA of the conclusion.
It is it is as if
a data analysis
had went to I had had a p
master's degree,
but maybe not master's degree, maybe
a bachelor's degree data analysis
had come to me and said, Todd, here's

(34:46):
here's the two pieces of data.
And if I'd have been given this data
from a data analysis of this five page
report
and the combined data from my e, I'd
have still went and done the
back and forth validation of that data. I
would have seen how okay here's the raw.
How did you come to this conclusion?

(35:06):
Does this make
sense? I'd have still done that QA
of the output.
So I didn't take this data as a
so to me, I'm thinking
as we move forward, there's a lot of
stuff we're gonna be able to do for
podcasters too.
And there's stuff they can do for themselves
right now,

(35:27):
just by pulling you know, I you don't
need Todd to, you know, to do this.
So if you if you're
if you're wondering what's going on with the
trajectory of your show,
you know, you've got all this stuff already.
You got all your show titles.
You've got your descriptions.
You can use this data that you already

(35:48):
have as a podcaster to do
some fine grain analysis
and using the stats that's being provided to
you by your hosting provider to
really kind of get
an idea.
Yeah. And I'm starting to think,
you know, as you're talking about this, I'm
starting to think about,

(36:08):
you know, how we plug in more of
the pieces of this puzzle. Right? I mean,
a lot of podcasters
even throwing into the mix
some video
here. How can how can we leverage this
learnings in the data to
to help maybe create,
on on a more automated basis,

(36:29):
derivative content that's more targeted towards
certain
types of content or certain types of segments
of the shows that are more successful
than can be put out as shorts or,
you
know, it just feels like that there's ways
that that, you know, kind of the marketing
and promotions of a podcast can be a
little more automated where the content is still

(36:51):
created by humans.
But the promotion and marketing of it becomes
a little bit more automated.
Yeah.
And, you know, I think that's where AI
can be a big help here. You know,
you just think about the opportunity if a
show's making a video and audio at the
same time.
You know, right now, podcasters are using, like,
Opus clips and Yep. You know, a bunch

(37:13):
of different platforms to generate these short form
content. Well, how powerful would would it be
if you could integrate the kind of learnings
of your
your shows, you know, maybe AI agent or
whatever that knows your show at a deep
level and the audience and what engages with
the audience. And it can,
it can take that information and project it
onto creating,

(37:35):
derivative content. Right? That's still human. Right? It's
still voiced by you. The video is still
of you, but it it it takes that
existing media and formulates it in a way
that can help drive,
audience Especially if you especially if, like, you
can imagine the advantage that OpusClip would have
if they knew what the drop off points

(37:56):
and content was. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And
creating those clips based on that. Right. What
is the basis
of what it decides is what's important or
not right now? I'm not sure that there's
a clear indication for it right now. We've
been doing you know, we've been working hard
on our YouTube channel at Blueberry, and

(38:17):
we're watching,
you know, the trajectory growth. And we I'm
we're being very aggressive.
And
I'm surprised
at some of the clips that Opus clips
actually because we're using Opus clips as well.
I'm surprised at some of the stuff that
it pulls out. And I'm thinking,

(38:38):
yeah. That was that and, actually, it's pretty
good.
Yeah.
It isn't it isn't bad.
But
again, I it but at what point,
you know, you you you can only refine
I think you can refine so much. I
think the challenge still remains

(39:00):
time.
The time factor is still
the thing that is holding back
unless you are going to allocate
x amount of time
to create shorts, reels,
this type of stuff. If you if you
don't have anybody doing that and you're doing
it yourself,

(39:20):
there's almost could be this overwhelming
exasperation
of,
you know, and you know, headliners trying to
do a this script is trying to do
automated.
Everyone is really working to tighten up this
process that you can use to promote your
show.

(39:42):
But still,
yeah, I saw an ad. It takes work.
I saw it. I mean yeah.
I saw
an ad by the it wasn't ad, but
it was someone in Descripted made a comment
on someone's,
you know, editing challenges or whatever. And and
it was kind of a pun. It says,
you know, it takes me six hours to

(40:02):
create clips. If it will use the script,
it'll only take thirty and still tell the
client, you know, it took six hours. So
I don't agree.
I think the tools themselves,
you can spend a couple hours
easily in these tools refining stuff. And do
people have
that amount of time?

(40:23):
Yeah. Well, in the export process too. So
you have the, you know, I use Descript
all the time. I I upload my show
to it.
Takes time to process it, generate the transcript,
takes time to run any kind of
editing
or removal process,
optimization process,
sound optimization,

(40:45):
you know,
eye tracking
adjustments.
And then once you get all that done,
then you have to go through the export
process and that can take, you know, half
an hour, an hour
just exporting it out of the software. And
is it that much better?
Well, that's
that's what I've learned too, is that

(41:05):
you you really have to be
I I don't think the AI is quite
good enough to get it the way I
want it.
And I think that's the challenge
is that the AI needs to understand what
I want. Yeah. Not not a blanket solution
that that applies to everyone. But I think

(41:25):
what could end up happening is
we see
this is what I learned when I first
started doing video.
And maybe this can apply.
I learned that I had to be a
little bit better prepared.
First this show, we never prepare. You know,
you you do some prep now for us,

(41:47):
but we used to never do any preparation.
And Now now it's important to have some
topics that you need that you can use
to promote. Yeah. Where in the past when
we were doing the show many years ago,
we just showed up. Yeah.
We almost never pre promote the show. No.
No.
So so

(42:08):
if you use the
if you understand what
Descript or any other tools doing,
and it says, oh, it's adjusting my eye
tracking. Okay. Yeah. Well, I need to be
looking at the camera more.
That it's
adjusting just look at the camera. Whatever things
that it's
whatever the things it's doing

(42:30):
that thinks you the things it thinks you
should be doing,
you can use that to improve
your actual audio and video.
You take those lessons that it's doing and
improve yourself
and But then you're making making the tool
irrelevant. That's right. Fantastic.

(42:55):
Yeah. Right. Hence why I don't edit this
show.
Yeah. Right.
Though there's a lot of people out there
that that would disagree with that ideology. Oh,
that's great.
I'm still podcasting in twenty plus years.
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
And I still have a life.
And I'm not paying no one to edit.

(43:17):
Right.
So I mean,
I think at times, you do need to
do some editing. I think it's it's
I think it's maybe not entirely accurate to
say that we never do any editing. I
edited last week when we lost the audio
for
six to eight seconds. More to do with
with if there's
large

(43:37):
kind of problems with the recording. Right? Yeah.
Right.
So
So speaking of which, I've I've continued to
tweak things here.
Yeah. Okay. Good. And, I've learned, you know,
here's the the
the two weak points
in doing

(43:59):
what I'm doing now in using OBS
in using
the RodeCaster
or fucking love of God, can RodeCaster fix
this intermittent dropout of the connection?
The USB just
drops

(44:20):
and then it reconnects.
Can they fix this? Can they get this
so that this thing is persistent
and doesn't drop? Number one,
there's some magic hocus pocus thing that happens
because every once in a while, I hear
click
click and it comes back.
I've learned not to reboot the Rodecaster now.

(44:42):
I was rebooting it every day.
Now once it's connected,
don't touch it.
So you're using the
the Duo? Is that the one you're using?
I'm using the Duo.
Right? Okay.
So
for the love of God, figure out how
that thing

(45:03):
goes. And then
Facecam.
I've learned that if you're running the Facecam
software,
it has a tendency
to interrupt the video flow at times.
So the key with Facecam
that I've learned
is you get all your settings set and

(45:25):
you save the profile and you close that
stupid program because
it has a tendency to all of a
sudden say and
freeze you.
Oh no. And you have to restart this
you don't have to start the webcam. You
have to restart the software.
So I'm sitting here in bated breath. I've
been watching everything today. Make sure I don't

(45:47):
freeze.
So that's number two.
And number three,
OBS
is got a
I call it a 10 show
learning curve.
Yeah. It does.
Yeah.
And
I've got it now
where

(46:08):
CPU usage is like 5%.
I'm recording an h dot two sixty four.
I'm using the Mac
hardware
Right. To do the recording and not doing
software recording.
And that
seems,
quote, unquote,
to be kind of the
magic combination.

(46:30):
If
and
audio is can be
a I'll be honest with you. I miss
my TriCaster because not that we don't have
problems with it, but it's fewer
issues
because everything is physically wired.
Right.
Well, plus these these RODECaster

(46:50):
Pros have a lot of built in software
in them. Yeah. You know, they're they're, they're
almost like a a computer of themselves. Right?
Well, they are. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they've
got, normalization,
equalizer,
capability, compression, all that stuff built into it.
I know I'm running it right now. Yeah.
Me too. On my audio. Right? But for

(47:11):
the love of and you know, and it
seems
it's like I I look at these cables
sitting over here because I did a big
cable cleanup because there was stuff behind the
desk. It just looked horrible
and I'm just
like tiptoeing around on this USB connection.
One thing that Mac could do is give
us a couple more USB c's.

(47:32):
You know? Come on. Come on. Don't be
so stingy on the damn connections
because I'm running a USB.
I have a USB c
hub
And
I have a regular USB
hub, just because I don't have enough
stupid plugins. Now that's the advantage of Windows.

(47:53):
Windows definitely has much stronger
USB reliability.
Yeah. My,
my both of my desktops have,
a couple of USB,
seat plugs Yeah. On the front of them.
Well, this this has two. The Mac Mini
has two.

(48:15):
Yeah. Plus plus
plenty of regular
Right.
USB plugs. And they're solid. They don't just
don't get wonky and disconnect and there's enough
power or whatever is required.
And,
it it literally
feels like I of course, I switched everything

(48:35):
to the MacBook Pro to the Mac Mini.
I you know, I've got everything
pretty much if I don't breathe on it
too hard.
Yeah. I'm
I'm pretty locked into desktops again.
Interesting. I just don't travel that much. I'm
not on the road. So I don't really
need to have a laptop. So But I
mean, I have a Surface Pro. But But

(48:56):
this mini does
it's it's incredible computer for the money.
You know, I'll never own,
an iMac or anything ever again. There's there's
no need.
And if I want to spend money, I'll
buy a Mac mini pro.
If I, you know, if I really want
if
I really want to, you know, boost stuff

(49:17):
up
and have a more powerful machine, but still
even that machine has,
you know, not as many USB ports as
one would want.
So
but I'll say one thing that's, you know,
the TriCaster runs on Windows and run on
Windows forever
and knock on of course, I'm gonna go

(49:39):
home and everything. Well, it failed
being cold ironed for two months but,
so if you know and I'm doing this
for years so I have a little bit
of experience
and I with new people,
I think it could be a bit overwhelming.
Yeah. Didn't,
I think I saw a TriCaster came out
with a

(49:59):
a brand new model,
I think. Oh, yeah. They do. And I'm
not I'm not I'm not upgrading.
Yeah. I would imagine you're not.
I can imagine that the newer ones are
really expensive.
They're going more to software based. It's, you
know, it's Oh, okay. Because Kinda like the
Roadmaster has. Well, they're basically doing what OBS

(50:22):
does is, you know, because everything now is
with NDI and
and all that's but, you know, you don't
need,
you know, like matter of fact, all my
cameras at home run on NDI so that,
you know, they have a SDI backup plug
in, but I run on the network.
You know? So

(50:44):
yeah. But I'm sure the upgrade is is
still pricey, but they still have a piece
of hardware
that does, you know, that that software
and it's that they TriCaster has been software
anyway, which is hard inputs.
Yeah. You know? So,
you know, great audio card, great video inputs.
Now that's all been built in. But if

(51:05):
they got rid of all that stuff,
and now the only thing you need is
the audio in and
the,
the end the the NDI inputs.
You don't need all that fancy SDI stuff
anymore.
So they probably
wrote their own operating system, do you think?
Well, they just did the they just continued

(51:27):
with the operating system they had and then
they just
dumbed down the box and not needing the
SDI inputs.
I haven't looked at the new hardware in
detail, but it's always been software based with
a great hardware.
That's the key. Right. And it's Well, you
gotta have I mean, you have to have
a good
GPU in there. Right. So But the stream

(51:48):
now too, you know, I could I don't
even wanna try multiple cameras on this thing.
This thing would would choke.
So,
but again, it
I think it's,
I would be curious to see what some
of these folks now are
are running when they're running multi cam. Some

(52:09):
of these gamers and stuff that are running
multiple
they're using Elgato Stream Deck and stuff like
that to switch. And I'd be curious to
see the,
you know, more behind the scenes on hardware
because I'm sure there's a dozen YouTube videos
out there I probably should have reviewed,
but I never did. Well, there's
yeah. I would say that the probably one
of the most popular ones is the

(52:31):
the ATEM
Mini and ATEM Pro. Yeah.
So the black Most are the two most
popular, but there's a there's a bunch of
them out there now that, that you you
can get there in, like, a tablet form
factor. Yeah.
That can take up to, like, four
high end four k cameras, that kind of
stuff. So I had to giggle, though. I

(52:52):
was,
I was on Facebook and I saw
oh god. I'm gonna I'm gonna brain fart
here.
Sounds profitable. Tom Webster
and he had a picture
of his kit
and he's talking about his audio

(53:13):
and I said, Oh
look at you
mr. Tom Webster.
Look at the look at the interfaces you're
running.
So,
good job.
Very good job.
He he's Why is he running? I didn't
see it. And some new equipment
that is, you know,

(53:35):
not your average,
average podcaster gear.
He's got he's got a very nice setup.
So, I had a little I had a
little,
like, what will we call it? A little,
gear envy,
when I saw a couple of his pieces
of gear that he's got a part of
his kit.

(53:56):
So, yeah, Tom. Nice,
nice setup there.
And,
you you can you can, you know, I've
heard Tom's podcast before,
and he does have that,
he he definitely has that NPR.
You know?
We haven't seen what kind of microphone he

(54:16):
has yet.
But given the two pieces of equipment that
he has,
I know he has to have it attached
to a very nice microphone too.
So,
Tom, if you're out there, I'd love to
know what what microphone,
you're using. Be able to tell from the
picture. Right? You should be able There's no
picture of the microphone. Just Oh. Just just

(54:37):
you know, and Tom is, very much an
audio fill. He's probably one of those guys
in his living room that has the, you
know, the liquid cooled
stereo. I can just see it. You know?
It may maybe I'm wrong.
But, you know, he's kinda got that hipster
thing going on, so
I could just see it in his living
room, a centerpiece with nice,

(54:58):
you know, multi thousand dollar acoustic speakers. And
Well, he seems like an RE twenty guy.
He his sound doesn't sound like RE twenty.
It doesn't. I mean, it's such a
it's such a famous,
radio mic. Yeah.

(55:18):
I I I would I wouldn't be surprised
if he doesn't have a Newman mic.
Oh, a Newman. Yeah. I you know, and
it it to me, his sound sounds condenser,
versus level. Yeah.
I'm I'm guessing.
So, Tom, you you're gonna have to come
in here and and maybe he's just using

(55:39):
the ATR 2,100, but not with the gear,
not with the kit that he had on
his desk.
Definitely,
definitely something it was because I was like,
woah. I said And if you're going if
you're going condenser,
that's that's pretty aspirational.

(56:00):
Yeah. I've been That's how I started. I
rented it. That's how I started with
yeah. I haven't condenser till I changed to
this a couple years ago. So
Yeah. I love it.
Too too with my radio show. That that's
what I did. I I used them in
my bedroom in my house for
like six years.
My my blue mic was $1,300.
Indenser mic. Yeah.

(56:22):
I love that thing.
I had,
was it the,
Audio Technica? I think they're they're like the
6,500
model.
And I think back back then, this was
back in February.
I
those things were like like $700
a piece. Now I will disclose. BlueMic did

(56:43):
send me that mouse. They sent me that
microphone in the early days. And I Oh,
that one that you used for for a
long time, they had the little
old laptop. Yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. I didn't
pay $1,300
for a mic. They I was
fortunate enough to get one. But And I
think that was a condenser, wasn't it? Oh,
that was condenser.

(57:05):
Yeah. Did you have any kind of sound
issues with that? No. Because I had a
$1,200
trend,
amplifier behind it.
Oh,
okay.
Yeah.
I still have that rating. Really, really have
to run good. Oh, you have to run
like a really good Sound compression. Yeah. Well,
you have to run a good amplifier on

(57:26):
those, you know. Well, a noise filtering too
if you can. I mean, a lot of
the early
I mean, like like when I started my
early radio show, I didn't have any kind
of,
you know,
really any kind of equalizers or any kind
of any kind of audio normalization.
And the right and the right kind of
boom mic too. So

(57:47):
the Heil boom mic was the only one
that I could run with that condenser and
not get
get when I would tap it. This is
the same
boom mic that I
I got back in, February.
That's impressive. You replace the springs on it?
Nope. Wow. Yeah. That I I I'm a
big fan of the Heil boom. I really,

(58:09):
really am. Of course, now I'm running something
called Thronmax.
It keeps
wanting to depart the table, though, so it's
not a perfect solution here because of the
grip it has. But,
I, you know, I
we can really nerd out, but I I
did get pretty nerded out on on,
on Tom's setup.

(58:29):
I I saw it and and I was
familiar with Newell, but I had never so
I looked up the model he had and
seen what that,
and they that that
the the he he's got it. He has
a piece of kit that has,
some amplifiers to die for.
You know? And in all things considering
the
as much as I, you know, and I'm

(58:51):
annoyed right now about the Rodecaster
and and, you know, the USB connection disconnecting
and it, you know, it basically flipping me
the bird and doing a reset,
the
the simple fact that I can record onboard
that device
makes it Awesome. Makes it pretty irreplaceable

(59:13):
Yes. In that regard. Same with mine. It's
the same with mine. I just got this
big button button that blinks at the top
of my RODECaster. I can push it anytime
and record. Yeah.
But but this boom is an OC White
is the brand. Yeah. I've got a couple
of OC Whites in the graveyard.
Yeah.
One of my three boom mics that that

(59:36):
that I've had, the piece that broke was
this piece right here. Oh, that's interesting.
On on on one of it, actually, just
just it just popped right out of the
slot that it's in here. I'd run such
I'd run such heavy microphones. I had to
replace springs. And then finally, when I got
the Heil
boom mic

(59:56):
and never had any droop ever.
And,
if, you know, if I was to recommend
someone looking for a boom mic the OZY
Whites are nice
but
again, it just again, if you had good
luck with it, I guess you're fine. And
that's probably about a $90 boom mic, I
would think, from OC White. The

(01:00:16):
That's
I paid over a hundred dollars for for
it when I bought it. The time. 2,000.
Yeah. The price hasn't changed much
in that many years. Oh, it hasn't? No.
Well, that probably means that the quality's gone
down probably.
Well, like I said, the way have the
same quality for the No. The one I
had Same price. The one I had, I
had to reorder replacement springs, and they just

(01:00:38):
got irritating. And then someone said, I'll get
a Heil. They never droop.
I'm like, okay. Let's see how that goes.
Yeah. And I've had this this microphone here,
the,
the Shure mic since, I think I bought
it in
02/2009.
This is this mic here is I think
your Shure mic I bought off you. No.

(01:01:00):
I bought that. What did I buy off
you? I bought it.
Well, yeah. I sent you that and
and you bought me the
the m v seven That's right. Which is
which
is behind me on the shelf. Yeah. We
we did a we did a swap a
rue of sorts. Yeah. As I need because
I sent you my Yeah. My old,

(01:01:20):
sure. SM 7 B. Yeah. That's this one.
I have three of them. This is it
right here.
Yes. I had three of them, but I
don't need three. So
Yeah. So I have But I wanted to
try out the m v seven because
it was more of like a portable mic.
I I have the m v seven
on my desk
in Michigan. Oh, you did? So that's used

(01:01:40):
if I'm gonna do like a
we've been recording courses and stuff like that.
I don't go to the, you know, so
here,
yeah, I actually did the same thing. I
have
a teleprompter here too, an Elgato teleprompter
that
amazingly, it fits right now and attaches right

(01:02:02):
to my monitor. My monitor has a little
place where they knew creators would hook cameras
and stuff to us.
Beautiful.
So
Yeah. All I gotta do is tilt it
down and I've got a a teleprompter in
front of me.
So both of these mics are a real
testament to the longevity of the Shure s,
Yeah.

(01:02:23):
S m seven b. Yeah. Right?
So
I don't know if the the the new
ones have the same build quality that these
have, but these are a good, what, fifteen
year old mics? We sent
we had
four or five sure S and B sevens
in the studio in
Columbus when we were when we had the

(01:02:44):
office in the studio in there, which we
never
fully exploited. And,
I sent those micro homes to home with
team members. So
Mike has one. Dave has one.
Mackenzie has one. So we've got team members
that have
those s m b sevens because of the
office closure.
So everyone's using the same same microphones.

(01:03:08):
Mhmm.
Well, I would say that the these mics
are the most popular Yeah. Podcast microphones in
the world now. Yeah. Everybody uses You see
them a lot.
Yeah. Even the the biggest podcasters in the
world use these. Yeah. The p you know,
I have a p r 40. It might
have a low serial number PR40

(01:03:28):
that I got in 02/2005.
And, it sits on my shelf. I it
if I was really dropped off in popularity?
But it it never was good for my
voice. So I never used it.
If I if I had known,
the PR 30 actually matches my voice. So

(01:03:53):
I should have had a p r. I
probably would have still be on a p
r 30 if I'd had that,
to begin with. But the p r 40
just did not agree.
Believe it or not, I have a Rode
NTK
in a box too.
Some of the stuff I should sell.
That was that's not a cheap microphone. It's
the green one.

(01:04:14):
Yeah.
A big that big monster
heavy.
Yeah. I've I've been through my share of
microphones
and money spent.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. I have two.
But Yep. Lots of stuff. And here we
are now where Jerry Reagan stuff and,

(01:04:35):
you know, I'm worrying about USB drops.
You know, that's one thing.
You just had to worry about,
cranky,
that's still my issue in in Michigan. When
I have
audio trouble, it's usually a pot
that has gotten stuck and I have to
go
and sweep it,
sweep the pot to make it so it's

(01:04:55):
not
cracking anymore.
Mhmm.
So, yeah, all this stuff gives us gives
us trouble.
But
So, Todd, did you hear the
the quote that was quoted on our earnings
call,
for Netflix
earlier? Well, they made some podcast reference. Right?

(01:05:18):
Well, yeah.
What you have in the show notes there
is exact quote from the
I the person that that was on the
earnings call for Netflix and exactly what he
said. And why don't you read it?
Well,
he said well,
the question was asked of I I think
it was the CEO, I think, of the

(01:05:39):
company, I think, or the president or whoever.
I'm not quite sure who it was. But,
the question was, do you think video podcasts
could perform well as a category on Netflix?
That was the question.
And the answer was, so we're constantly looking
at all different types of content and content
creators.
The lines between podcast

(01:06:01):
and talk shows
are getting
pretty blurry.
So we want to work with,
great creators across all kinds of media that
consumers love.
And podcasts to your point have become a
lot more video forward.

(01:06:22):
I'm not quite sure what that video forward
is,
implied to mean, but it's it's becoming
a bigger component, I guess, of podcasting.
And then then he goes on to say,
today we actually produce a lot of podcasts
ourselves.
This is Netflix talking

(01:06:43):
part of
our kind of
publicity
and publishing efforts. So
they're doing it in support, I think, of
other things that their other programs are doing.
Right?
So
some are really show specific like Squid Games
and the Diplomat.
Some are genre focused.

(01:07:04):
Some are talent focused. We have
a a great one called,
You Can't Make This Up, all about
Netflix document
documents or not documents.
Documentaries.
Right. And
they
they live everywhere podcasts live today. But as

(01:07:27):
the popularity of video podcast grows,
I suspect you'll see some of them find
their way onto Netflix.
So,
you know, you know, it's not like he's
coming out and saying that they're gonna add
a video podcast directory
to Netflix. Right? I think it's gonna be
kinda one off type opportunities

(01:07:48):
probably with certain types of genres of content.
I would imagine he's not being very specific,
but, you know, Netflix has been playing around
the edges with podcasting for many years now.
I know that they hired a woman
who used to work for,
Apple,
Apple Podcasts
to
be their head of podcast for a while.
I don't believe that she works there anymore,

(01:08:09):
but,
so they've been kind of nibbling at the
edges of this for
for many years now. So we'll see with
this new focus around video and podcasting, and
maybe there's some creators out there
that, you know, maybe
loosely fit with the definition of what a
podcast is that might be good candidates for

(01:08:31):
them. I don't know. We'll see. Well, HBO
did for a while.
First, whatever they called now, Max or whatever
they're called. Well, I mean, for many years,
I I work with HBO
on getting their
their first
full episode, first and full video episode of
a new series

(01:08:51):
up on their their podcast feed.
And I would feature that in the Zoom
software platform,
just prior to them launching a new series
on HBO.
So, you know They're probably their most successful
one was their Westworld wrap up podcast. They
had
a
Right.
So I can see,

(01:09:12):
like a Netflix doing something like that potentially.
Right? Yeah. Putting out the first full episode
of a particular new series that they wanna
promote out on YouTube or in Spotify or
in, you know, some of these other platforms.
I would be shocked if they did that.
Well, but they do I mean, HBO has
done it,
with and they're a very similar type of

(01:09:34):
platform. You don't really hear that much about
HBO too much anymore.
Or I'm just out of touch. Well, it's
just it's it's
been renamed three times and, you know, they
they can't figure out what the hell they're
doing over there.
Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So So anyway, that's
that may be on the horizon here as
part of this kind of move towards video

(01:09:56):
that we're seeing in the space.
So, like, again, but at the same time,
you know, I have had a couple of
customer calls of people that are attempting
and there's mass a lot of frustration
because
if you're in if you're very nitpicky
on your audio

(01:10:18):
and now you want to do video.
Yeah. The the I won't even repeat
the words that were spoken to me. I'm
a I'm a pretty
did twenty five years in the navy. So
I I have a pretty strong,
you know, use of a very, very, very

(01:10:39):
unique vocabulary.
And this customer was very explicit with me,
the challenges
and the cost
of adding video.
Oh, why don't you explain that? Because I'm
I mean,
so is he concerned about the audio quality?
Or No. What he's talking about? The video

(01:11:01):
quality.
The audio quality. I thought okay. I thought
that, you were talking about the audio quality.
No. No. It's purely in the video quality
and the time.
And,
it's basically the cost, you know. He's like,
you know, this guy's a professional.
And, you know, he's doing the math.
And, you know, he says, you know, this

(01:11:23):
thing is costing me, you know, in time,
a couple thousand dollars a month.
If, you know, if I, you know, if
I value my time,
and he says, you know, I've went out
to try to find
editors and they're, you know,
you know, I end up paying them a
couple thousand dollars a month for
doing shorts and clips and video editing. And,

(01:11:45):
you know, he's very meticulous. So
he's very frustrated with the
being pushed
to do video.
He feels he's being pushed
and the
and the cost to do it.
So Well, the question gets back to is,
you know, who's doing the pushing? Is it

(01:12:07):
his audience or is it just The perception.
He's
hearing things in the industry. Exactly.
Yeah. He's hearing things and he thinks he
has to do it.
And,
I told him, I said, listen, I said,
you don't have to do video.
You're you know, matter of fact, he's more

(01:12:27):
of an audio guy. And I'm like, just
stick to the audio. You're you have having
great success
with it with the audio program.
And, part of the challenge it is is
what's got him wrapped around the head is
he's done all the interviews and he's recorded
the video. So he's got all this back

(01:12:47):
catalog
of stuff. He says, well, we could use
it for promos and help promote the book
and, you know, it's true.
So,
yeah, I I I believe me, I I
I get it.
Yeah. I do. Yeah.

(01:13:09):
Well, and
yeah.
Well,
I think
I think it's a little it's pretty variable
on Yeah. It's by individual, but it's Well,
and what the content is. Right? What's the
content? What's the best presentation of the content?
Some genres
of podcasts,

(01:13:30):
I don't think makes sense Yeah. To do
video. And I think that's that's perfectly fine.
But I think that you have to find
what that mix is because certain shows Well,
I I would benefit from being invited. Well,
I think also it's we have to realize
that
you and I are ingrained in this very
very deep.
And

(01:13:50):
you know, we don't have children at home
no more.
Yeah. Yeah. Personal lives are pretty squared away
on time.
Mine is.
I, you know, I have a, you know,
a ten hour day. I work for my
JOB.
Typically what I put in about ten hours.

(01:14:13):
So I have time
to do the show
and
everyone's situation is different
and if you've got kids,
you know, you've got life, you've got soccer,
you've got gymnastics, you've got whatever
else is going on baseball, basketball,
you know,

(01:14:35):
you know,
the my kids were in orchestra, which took
up a massive amount of time.
So,
you know, I think what it boils down
to is,
again, life is busy. So you add this
extra comp audio takes enough of a chunk.
You add this extra video component.
And then does it become insurmountable? And does

(01:14:58):
it cause people to quit?
Yeah. So
I think there's even another layer to this
too that I've seen here recently too, as
people feel pressured also to do more
in person interview podcasts
versus I think that's impossible
for most people.

(01:15:20):
Like what we do here virtually. I mean,
you're halfway around the world.
And but increasingly,
I see very popular shows,
do everything in person. They have a budget
to do it
or the or the clout. To do it
or or a facility to do it. Yeah.

(01:15:40):
And the
the market clout to get yeah. The market
clout. Come to them. Yeah.
I would be curious to know if they
pay for travel on any of those groups.
Rogan, I'm sure does not. Rogan's big enough.
If Rogan called me today say I would
like to have on the show in three
days, I, you know, I would I would,
I would bend sand to be there in

(01:16:02):
three days to be on Well, from what
I gather just from
the the contacts that I've you know, like,
I worked a little bit with doctor Drew
with
with the hall of fame
and, and he came out from Los Angeles
and I believe that others do this as
well. Cause I, cause I hear them talk
about it is that they go on like

(01:16:24):
podcast guesting tours.
Alright. Well,
they'll they'll fly out and go to one
city, and then they'll walk over another city.
Right? And then they'll come back. It's almost
like a book tour of sorts. Right?
And they'll try and book these
on a on a trip. Yeah. So I
have economy economy of scale to get two,
three night down. Right. You fly to New

(01:16:46):
York, you do a couple of podcasts
in New York, and then you fly down
to Miami, do a couple down there and
you fly to Austin or you know, do
a couple there and then you fly home.
Yeah. So I think that that's kinda how
this this works to some degree. And then
But, again, these are folks that have big
production facilities.
Right. Right. Or, you know, in person studio.

(01:17:08):
I think you just see these guys go
to
go to their guests too. Right? And do
those conversations, like, in their office or Yeah.
I I think that's out of the reach
of 99.5%
of
readers. And you have to have a massive
and this you don't see penny podcasters doing
that. People have YouTube channels doing that.

(01:17:30):
Well, then you have to have
a certain amount of technical production
capability
to, to be able to do that on
the road, right.
To bring all your gear out, bring out
all your equipment, you know, especially if it's
a multi camera shoot,
that, and that gets back to, like, we
were talking at the beginning of the show

(01:17:51):
where these, you know, you can get these
these, like, almost like a laptop,
switchers now Yeah. That can can plug in,
like, four different cameras. But again, Rob, I
think
I think while that is good and well,
I think, again, 99
I'm gonna say 99.8%

(01:18:12):
of creators will never be able to do
that from a financial standpoint
or have the clout to do it.
DBD and a few folks like that, Rogan
and,
you know, Laura Ingraham. It's a lot more
than that. I see it. Oh,
a 400,000
podcasters,
there's four or five shows that have that

(01:18:32):
type of clout.
Well, you have to think about the people
on the YouTube side too. Well, that's what
I'm talking about. Even on the YouTube side.
Yeah. I mean, if you're only talking about
audio podcasters. Yeah. You're probably right. But if
you're talking about YouTubers that are I'm talking
about, video. Shows like that and then taking
the audio out of them, putting out as

(01:18:54):
a podcast, that's a different But, again, you've
got these are big celebrities,
big big big names. These are not average
Joes.
The Leo Vons, the Laura Ingram, the Tuckers.
Certainly. Those are the most well known. Right.
I come across shows
every day that are done by
just normal people that are able to get

(01:19:14):
They must have millions of viewers to be
able to do that. Well,
I don't know if that's the case. I
mean, if you happen to live in New
York or you happen to live in LA
or you happen to live in one of
these big cities Yeah. Then your opportunity is
easier.
Right. Right. It's easier to grab people locally.
Again, 997.
You know?
If you just happen to be lucky enough

(01:19:36):
to be in the star align. You know?
Yeah. Like I think we need to start
thinking about creators in a much broader sense
than just, you know Well, there's there's different
classes of creators.
Yeah. You know? Well, there's ones that are
There's people that have those people that have
multimillion dollar studios. Do we really,

(01:19:57):
you know, come on. Those are I mean,
Todd, I think you're talking about, like, the
top 100 people there, but I'm talking about
maybe maybe five or 6,000
people that have
a a multi camera type setup. It only
takes two cameras to have a camera. So
it's not a big, huge production. I mean,

(01:20:17):
if you just go out and buy
like a, like a RODECaster
pro video
device,
you can do this on a fairly reasonable
budget.
Yeah. Again, I think location, location, location, if
you where I'm living,
never going to have it.
I barely have bandwidth.
Yeah. Yeah. Well,

(01:20:40):
another good example of this. So Well, it's
at the same time, I you know, we
are you thinking in this whole of these
superstars? I I'm thinking about an average podcaster
still recording in a closet.
No. I'm not thinking about supercharged.
I see small companies,
that that, you know, have, like, a chiropractor

(01:21:00):
show
or
or a medical doctor that's doing a conversation
with,
you know, you know, another doctor. Again, I
think location,
location, location. It's Well, it is. You know,
if you have access to an office or
you have access to a a place where
you can have a couple of chairs, you
can set up a couple of microphones and,

(01:21:21):
you know, spend a couple thousand dollars on
a
on a multi camera setup.
You can pull it off. It doesn't have
to be a multimillion dollar. Again, I think
you have to be in a very large
metroplex to be able to
be able to have the swath of bodies
to be able to put in chairs?
You know, it's something that you have to

(01:21:43):
earn over time.
Right? I mean, if you start a show
doing it that way, you're gonna probably struggle
for a while. So sometimes it's gonna be
virtual and sometimes it's gonna be in person,
probably would be my guess. If you're Yeah.
Probably the people that can pull this off
are people in LA and New York, but
anywhere else, I'm doubtful.

(01:22:04):
Oh, wow. I don't know. I see it
happening all over the country if you watch
a lot of different types of channels. What
size what size are those cities that they're
in, though?
They don't always say what city that they're
in, so I don't know. So they're, you
know, it's not they don't always come out
and say, though, I'm doing this
in Dallas or I'm doing this in

(01:22:26):
they just don't say Well, again, I think
they have to be pretty big shows to
be able to afford to go and do
an on scene at some some location. I
know what that cost.
It's a lot less expensive to do it
now than it was. Well, that's true. You
know, I traveled with one extra suitcase.
And I mean, I can get a I

(01:22:48):
can get an ATEM for,
what, $300?
And then I can get a couple, webcams
or a hundred bucks each and get get
a couple of booms and a Yeah. Couple
of microphones. Yeah. Again, do you you're still
I think you underestimate
the amount of gear. But, again, it can
be done. No. I'm not underestimate at all

(01:23:09):
because I totally investigated it. So because I
had some ambition that I might wanna Oh.
Get into that. Well, good. Love this. And
when you start figuring out the cost, then
let me know what you think that No.
I already know the cost. That's not the
problem.
The the the cost of the equipment and
the
production isn't really the big problem.

(01:23:30):
The big problem is where do you do
it? Right. Right. Right. And and and
and where do your guests come from? Exactly.
Yeah. They're in rice. So yeah. That's the
bigger problem. Real Right. Real challenge. Of course.
The actual equipment side and the production side
is That's nothing. Easiest part. That's the easiest
part. Yeah. But to get something decent, lights,

(01:23:51):
cameras.
Oh,
it's pretty $23,000,
maybe $4,000.
I mean I mean, you can spend a
lot, but there's more inexpensive solutions now than
ever before.
So but anyway, I mean, it's it's a
quality factor too. Do you wanna record in
four k?
Do you wanna record in ten eighty?

(01:24:13):
Those are big,
vectors in your cost too. Oh, of course.
Increasingly,
we're we're
seeing video content being published to YouTube that's
in four k.
So,
that's If you have the bandwidth to watch
it.
Well, no. I'm talking about what's what's being
published. I know. But I, you know, I

(01:24:33):
can't watch in four k, you know, where
I live.
It's dumbed down to ten eighty.
I don't have the bandwidth.
Yeah. But do you play to the lowest
common denominator or you play to the highest
common common denominator?
Well, I I still think that four k
is is is, in my opinion, is overkill
for most for streaming content.

(01:24:56):
Well, your phone,
I would say that the latest iPhones
are are four k.
But if you have the bandwidth to play
it, that's the problem. Most people I don't
know about you, but I'm I'm getting,
like, a hundred megs down and a hundred
megs up now. Well, lucky you. You live
in an area where you have that connectivity.
Yeah. I think my last,

(01:25:17):
speed test with,
Xfinity here in my house was,
I think, 300 up, 400 up, and 300
down. Where I live maybe three megs up,
three megs down. Yeah. Well, yeah. Mean it's
a different I mean, you're in a completely
different country. So
Well, I live I live in rural America
where a large swath of people Oh, yeah.

(01:25:37):
Yeah. Okay. You're talking about Michigan, not The
Philippines. Oh, The Philippines. My Internet here, even
my everyone has a cell phone. So
Right. There is no, you know, let's
and everything is fiber too. So
if that is a it there there are
more fiber connections here than there are in
America.
Yeah. I would just say that the

(01:25:59):
the the most successful
video
shows out there are a minimum four k
now. Yeah. Well, good luck to them.
Well, they are having good luck, Todd.
Well, again, they're still watching their content. The
thing is, Rob, you are so focused at
the top.
No. I'm not. Yes. You are. Focused at

(01:26:20):
the top, Todd. No. I'm not. I'm looking
what looking at what people are doing. Most
people are actually, I believe,
recording now
with,
fairly fairly low cost
SLR,
mirrorless cameras.
Yeah. About a thousand bucks apiece.

(01:26:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Sony wireless. And maybe with a
lens, maybe $2,000.
I think you can get a lot less
now. Yeah. If most of those folks shooting
Sony cameras are you the lens alone is
$8,900.
Yeah. I've got the camera that I'm using
right now is a Sony four k camera
and it's

(01:27:02):
I think I paid 800 for it. But
it doesn't have a changeable lens?
No. I don't need it. It's got a
built in Excellent. Yeah. On it. Right. And
most of them are shooting with changeable lenses.
Most of Yeah. Most of the YouTubers are.
Yeah. And it depends on if you need
that or not. I mean, a lot of
them come with just the standard

(01:27:23):
28
millimeter lens. So if you need to zoom
in on it, it's not gonna get you
much of zoom. Right?
Yeah. Again, 80.
You you you have switched from, being a
you are now full video, Rob. That is
for sure.
Well, I wouldn't say I'm full video. Yes.
You are. It's very evident. I'm following the,

(01:27:44):
the trends in the market. Yeah.
Again, I think that I think the average
pointing to that. Yeah. But again, I'm dealing
with the average podcaster and
the whole different story.
Yeah. Well, I don't wanna be a person
that discourages people from No. We don't discourage
me. Trying trying new new approaches to this

(01:28:05):
medium, especially when all the research is coming
back saying that more and more people are
wanting to have an option of audio and
video now.
Yeah. I think it just you increase it
causes great pressure.
Well, and I started
working a lot with video back when I
worked for Microsoft in the early days of
this medium too. So Like I said, it

(01:28:27):
causes great pressure on creators.
It's just like this guy I talked to.
Not arguing that point.
It's up to each each each person to
decide whether or not they wanna
venture down this path.
So So there we are again.
Yep.
Yeah. We we did make it ninety minutes.

(01:28:49):
We did.
You know, we didn't really talk about the
prod scribe
publisher ranker. Yeah. You know, this stuff is
makes me kinda
roll my eyes a little bit.
It does kind of show
a little bit of the what's going on
with the the larger networks.

(01:29:11):
And it looks like from the Podscribe
download and views per month ranker.
I'm just surprised these numbers are so low.
Yeah. Well,
it's it's it's not complete. Right?
And then the ad load

(01:29:32):
number is the one that I always focus
on here too. So if you look at
Spotify, the average ad load is 5%.
Wondery, it's 13%.
And Rogan is 5%.
Oh, 5% of total content? Oh, I believe
that.
Yeah. And then

(01:29:53):
on Wondery is 13%
ad load. Insane.
Acast is 7%.
I Heart is 16%.
So I think we've talked about this on
the show before,
in a past one of these Just shove
more ads into those shows. Just keep doing
it.

(01:30:13):
Yeah. And it looks like the Lipson ads
is about 8%,
and National Public Radio
is 9%.
But if, if that's only the shows that
are being monetized, that's pretty sad state of
affairs.
No. Well, that's ad load. That I'm I'm

(01:30:34):
looking at these audio numbers and
Right.
That's that's a
minor port, minor part of the total podcast
ecosystem.
70,000,000.
Yeah, I just
Yeah, in total reach.

(01:30:55):
Well, I I mean, you have to add
up all those. Well, I know. But there's
there's there's cross. People listen to more than
one show.
So it's not like it's a cumulative number.
But,
you know, I look at what we measure
a month
across our shows and,
you know, it's more than Spotify's numbers.

(01:31:16):
For for total audio,
70,400,000
people came in. Well, I won't say that
we have more than 70,000,000.
We
we measure over 300,000,000
plays a month. So that doesn't equal into
300,000,000 people. So
Yeah.
And and it does also rank here the
percentage

(01:31:37):
of ads
that are host reads
versus,
advertisements that are direct response.
So I don't know why they break out
that
quite that way, but
it seems to each of the networks,
I think the highest percentage of

(01:31:57):
of all the major networks that are listed
on this page, the highest percentage, what is,
audio boom at 68%
are host reads. Well, they say specifically a
direct response.
Well, that's the other column. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Still a huge Doctor number,
which means that,

(01:32:19):
the majority of advertising is not coming in
from people that are not Doctor, which everyone
says that all this stuff that we're doing
is gonna fix the Doctor issue.
Direct response has always been the
the strongest side of podcast. Yeah. Everything we're
doing for attribution, all this stuff will cause
more non direct response advertisers.

(01:32:43):
Woah. Woah.
Woah. If numbers getting better,
but when you're still 66, 80 nine, 80
three, 80 percent, 70 six percent,
70 eight, 80, 90 four percent of the
ads are direct response,
or it is not buying advertising.
Neither is GEICO.
Well, that's
yeah. I don't know if it makes a

(01:33:04):
difference, but that's the percentage of advertisers
that are direct response.
So on on those platforms.
But again, percent of advertisers, that means that
only
the minor amount, 20%
is,
you know, non host or or non direct
response.
In other words,

(01:33:25):
performance based.
So Yeah.
Right.
Yeah. It's not not really a
entirely a CPM model. Yeah. So yeah. Alright,
everybody. I'm Todd
at blueberry dot com at Geek News on
x.
And, of course, you can reach me on

(01:33:45):
Mastodon at Geek News at Geek News dot
chat.
Yeah. I'm on x as well at Rob
Greenlee on
on YouTube at Rob Greenlee as well and
LinkedIn,
Instagram, all the all the social platforms.
I haven't moved to any of the new
social platforms. I'm I'm happy where I'm at.

(01:34:08):
So
and I'm also at robgreenley.com
if you wanted to go check out my
my own website.
So thanks. So Todd and
Rob and I have been podcasting for twenty
years,
and we cover the latest in podcasting insights.
And,
we grant full permission for all AI tools,

(01:34:30):
analyze, and use the content of this podcast.
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So, Rob, thanks.
We'll see you. We'll see you next week.

(01:34:50):
Okay. Alright, buddy. Take care. Everybody. Bye. Yep.
Bye.