Women in Podcasting and the Rise of Female Listeners

In this episode of the New Media Show, hosts Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee come together to discuss various topics including growth in podcast listening among women, deep fakes, and AI assistants. The episode opens with Todd welcoming Rob back, explaining that he has been on vacation. Todd mentions a recent situation involving deep fakes, … Continue reading Women in Podcasting and the Rise of Female Listeners →

The post Women in Podcasting and the Rise of Female Listeners appeared first on New Media Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Todd and Rob in the afternoon.
Hey. Afternoon
delight.
With Todd and Rob.
Oh, yeah. There we go. Hey, Rob. Welcome
to the new media show. Welcome back.
Well, it's great to be back, and it
looks like, you're not using your boom mic.

(00:20):
Oh, yeah. No. I am not. I am
on a,
I ordered,
same boom mic that I have
in Michigan. So
Oh, it's an uplift one. Yeah. Comes from
below. And from the last show,
everything is I think I talked about in
the last show. Everything's running the Mac mini.

(00:40):
I'm crossing my fingers,
where
after a month or so, everything is
finally dialed in. But, hey.
I've been on vacation the last,
three days.
And, to be honest with you, you can
hear it in my voice.
A a little too much party part day.

(01:01):
Oh,
okay. That's what it is. Yeah. So I
might be reaching over here and
hitting the mic button as I'm,
clearing my throat. So, hopefully, I remember to
do that. So, hey, you know, I've,
to be honest with you, I just I
really took vacation. I didn't
check the email once and Slack once, and

(01:24):
so I got a lot of catching up
to do
Thursday when I'm back in the office. But,
podcasting space continues to rock and roll, and
I guess the one thing that,
I had saw, we had gotten something on
x
from a
a listener of the show,
and

(01:45):
they had said,
to take a look
at a deepfake.
And
it's interesting. This was a post from Rich
Roll podcast,
and he post a Substack
article
talking about
how his voice was used in an absolute

(02:08):
deep fake,
video and audio
to say things he would never say.
Yeah. And,
I guess it's caused quite the uproar, and
there's been a few people that have commented
on it. And
and he just it really he found that

(02:29):
Facebook and
YouTube and other
entities were
not at all prepared,
not at all responsive,
didn't take the content down.
And I I continue to see some of
this type of stuff that happens with Facebook
too.
Had some personal stuff

(02:50):
of, you know, of late
where they never respond. Their safety team never
responded. So,
I I just wonder
if this thing has gotten to the point
where
the Autobots are now,
you know, deciding what they wanna respond to,
and
we're gonna have to protect ourselves at, at

(03:10):
all cost
going forward
literally because
they have to.
Well, I think these tools have been around
for a while now, so I'm not,
and I've
been seeing them being used quite often,
basically around big name celebrities

(03:31):
and people that are very, very famous. So
I'm not
I've seen this a lot over the last,
probably the last three or four months.
I'm not surprised that it has has entered
the podcasting
space if that's what we're talking about here.
Or is it just Yeah. It's a podcast.
A video,
like a short video that was made. Yeah.

(03:52):
It was a couple of different things, but
the main thing is is you can see
this person's mouth moving and, you know, it
looks like him.
And,
you know, you probably I I didn't actually
watch. He just described.
And, you know, I I think
this is gonna be of the of the,

(04:13):
was it
the notebook l m is kind of like
that, but I don't know that you can
use No. Another person's likeness. No. But he
used they used his voice and used his
likeness and were able it looked like him
and it sounded like him.
And, he had no recourse. So I I
and the main thing was

(04:36):
he he he acknowledged that this is gonna
happen. But the the bigger challenge is how
did how do you
if if Facebook and YouTube are not being
responsive
to these types of activities,
then how do you protect yourself when you
need something taken down that is

(04:57):
not true?
K. So anyway, this tech
this tech now just what's it easy? It's
easy to do a date bank. And how
do you protect yourself?
Yeah. I don't know that you can.
That's the honest truth.

(05:18):
But why why did he have such a
have so much trouble
getting a response
from from Google and others.
Now that's that's the next piece.
Yeah. I think it's a it's a little
bit of a Pandora's box. Right? It's like,
well, you know,
do we want

(05:39):
AI content to be taken down?
Do we want, I mean, how much kind
of
blowback do we want to accept on AI
content?
So
I guess at the end of the day,
when it's unauthorized
reproduction
of another human being
that is,

(06:01):
fraudulently
portraying
something that, that,
that,
person that's being portrayed
is saying that never said or never intended
to put into an AI,
that's a different matter. So I don't know
how you
protect against that.
There's gonna have to be almost like,

(06:22):
in the early years, like a DRM or
something like that, where your
your likeness and your voice is locked to
some sort of a, you know,
you know, like encrypted
message in the content that,
but I'm not really sure how we would
technically do that at this point. Yeah. I

(06:42):
don't. I, again, I, at this point, I'm
not sure that you totally can.
Yeah. It's not
I don't think it can be stopped at
this point. Why not sure it's not gonna
be stopped, but I sure would like to
see,
you know, when an individual is being disparaged
and Yeah. No. I think that's the line
clearly this cross. So you should be able
to

(07:03):
activate,
you know, the safety
kind of systems that Facebook and these platforms
have to,
I mean, it's unauthorized
unapproved
deep fakes, right? That's That's a clear portrayal
here. The problem is,
is what the viewers
see

(07:24):
up to the point where it gets kind
of blocked.
That's where the danger is, is, you know,
if it's not blocked before it's published, then
it's kind of Oh, he says he's been
dealing with the damage
all week.
Oh, yes. You know? And getting emails from
people to cancel,
you know, like, I can't believe you said

(07:46):
this and, oh my god. And, you know
Oh, yeah. Peep people are hypersensitive
to Right. Saying something that isn't politically correct.
And, you know, and the and the their
reaction
is, you know, visceral.
Yeah. Well, it can be it can it
can turn to violence and threats and all
sorts of stuff these days. Yeah. So,

(08:07):
bad bad
juju.
The only other topic I had that I
was kind of,
I think we we know this,
but,
a report came out that
women podcast listenership has tripled in ten years
according to the women audio report.
Women in podcast released by Addison Research and

(08:29):
SiriusXM.
Forty five percent of all women in The
US, Sixty Million are monthly listeners,
and 52%
consume podcast in some form,
whether listening or watching.
I I have no doubt that it's tripled.
I would be surprised if it's not quadrupled.
Oh, yeah.

(08:50):
Yeah.
But again, if we think back ten years
ago,
we saw a major, major, major influx of
women.
I would say maybe twelve or thirteen years
ago.
Now not necessarily ten, but
and I think the majority of new content
being created, I think we're still seeing more

(09:10):
more women creators come on board than we
are
men, as far as percentage wise.
So Yeah. I see whole,
teams,
in the podcasting space that are pretty much
all women. Yeah.
You know, if you look at the
percentage of staffers
that are that work for a particular platform

(09:31):
now, I would say that it's
dominant
on the female side now. Yeah.
So,
you know, I mean, I just look at
a platform like a, like a spreaker or
any of these platforms. And most of the
people that work there are women. Yeah. So,
yeah. But as far as actual creators go,
any at least on my side, the number

(09:52):
of shows being produced are, you know, if
it has to be fifty fifty.
And I haven't I just it's just general
observation on my part.
So
Though I still hear hear,
women say that it's not enough. Right? There's
still,
you know, men are still

(10:13):
kind of still in their perception, still dominating
the podcasting space. So,
so anyway, it's it's just one of those
things that, you know, has been evolving for
many years. And
I've been saying for for years that I
I thought eventually women were gonna pretty much
take over the the medium.

(10:33):
So and it's definitely heading that direction.
So
Well, you know, I I I've never really
done an analysis of the top 200 chart.
Yeah. So I I think it's, you know,
just
nuts to bolts is I I think you
have,
maybe that's a bad analogy, but I think
you have a,

(10:54):
Yeah. Maybe.
Yeah. Yeah. Apples and oranges.
God.
Too early. Sorry.
It's a
you definitely have a high this high, you
know, talk about the number of listeners.

(11:14):
So the the number
of women listeners are there
and a huge numbers.
So the question is, what are the ladies
listening to?
And what are the men listening to?
I would I would

(11:38):
there's a couple of shows that I listen
to that have
women in it, but not solo
lady shows. I've been listening to
shows that have women as co host.
Yeah. Or they're the host and co host,
you know, one of those types of
deals. Yeah. It goes the whole spectrum. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't think I've been I don't
think I listen to any

(11:59):
solo
women's shows.
It'd be I have to search around. I
should search around and find some and subscribe
on a on a regular basis. But I
would I would bet because true crime is
so high
in that in their genre of listening, I

(12:20):
would think and a lot of those shows
are created by men.
So I would probably,
just on a hypothetical
basis,
assume that
a lot of ladies are listening to a
lot of men's shows as well.
I might be wrong.
Just because just because they're true fans. I

(12:41):
mean, not true fans because
of true crime. Yeah.
Yeah. I can But, putting a little weight
on the scale.
Yeah. I can definitely see that. Yeah. I've
been kind of scrolling through,
x, kind of looking under the search term
deepfakes.

(13:02):
And there's all sorts of,
commentary in here that's going on about it.
One has a
a woman giving
some commentary on it saying that the house
and the senate
in The US here has,
put forth
a a bill
that's,

(13:22):
says the No
Fakes Act was reintroduced by a bipartisan
group of members in the House and Senate.
The No Fake
fakes act would protect us all from deep
fakes and voice clones by creating a personal
property, right?
Or everyone to their own voice and likeness.

(13:44):
I don't know if that stops it, but
it's,
the, the, there has to be some technology
to, to authorize
or kind of like music. Right? So it's
almost gotta have the same kind of like,
audio
authorization.
Well, I think that
Alagos
are gonna have a hard time detecting when

(14:05):
someone's a deepfake
unless there's something embedded in the creation of
the content. Yeah. No. I think it's So
I think it's an uncharted territory here. Lacking
that, we will have to deal with,
you know, hoping that, you know, they react
to take down request.
Yeah.
And then

(14:27):
they're gonna have to authorize that that the
person that's demanding the takedown
be be the right person.
Yeah.
You know? So you have all sorts
of authentication
issues that are
put before us here. Yeah.
So,

(14:48):
I see in your notes that you sent
over that you have been playing around with
some single use
AI tools?
Yeah. I think this whole,
reality that we all been living in in
the podcasting space where we've seen these, you
know, these
new companies being birthed that are

(15:10):
trying to utilize
AI technology to solve a particular problem. Right.
That we've oftentimes said on this show are
really kind of maybe a feature, not a
product. Right.
And, and I think to some degree,
this new,
platform that was introduced here at the March,

(15:31):
I don't know if you have seen it
or played around with it, Todd, but it's,
it's called,
Podcast Prepper.
Yeah. Kind of copies everything we do with
our AI tool.
Yeah. So you have these and I was
using this platform as an example of what
I'm talking about where

(15:51):
where this
I think
and I'm jumping ahead a little bit by
saying this, but I think that the future
is integration of all of these potential
time savers into one platform. So you create
a holistic publishing process.
But
in the period that we're in right now,
this is the period of,

(16:12):
and I think we saw
this in the two thousands and time frame
too, where individual startups would start up with
a, you know, an interesting idea. Right? Where
this particular one,
this podcast prepper is really all about doing
guest preparation.
Right.
To supposedly reduce

(16:33):
the effort that it takes to prepare for
an interview by 95 plus percent, Todd.
So, you know, I mean, you have to
ask the question. Well, you know, they're they're
going about in a pretty systematic way and
they're being clear about what they're doing with
the
the product.
But I I think as the podcast industry

(16:55):
starts getting pulled into AI, I think what
we're, we're being pulled into is
is more work, not efficiencies
and not granted this might offer some efficiencies.
But then again, you're gonna have to go
through and check everything in this. Oh, yeah.
For sure. You know, so you're gonna have

(17:15):
to do a lot of work around this.
It's not as simple as I say it
is here where you just
give it the guest name and and it
does everything for you and spits out Yep.
Questions and the bio and all this stuff.
I don't think it's as simple as that.
That's the problem. The way we approached it
was
guest name,

(17:36):
and you have to upload the bio.
You have to link to their LinkedIn
Yeah. And any other supporting links.
And then
we don't create
a background about the guest.
We create
what is the topic of the show gonna
be about? What are you gonna be discussing

(17:58):
with this guest?
And then
give me 10 suggested
questions.
Give me 10 suggested
topics, and then you can add your own.
I don't
at this point,
I'm not going to
bring back what the education is. I'm not

(18:20):
gonna talk about
their awards and honors.
I just think that that leaves too much
to
you need to do a little bit of
work
on your side largely because, like you said,
this data is not a % accurate
that comes out. So questions and topics,

(18:42):
that's what we restricted our tool to because
I don't wanna give,
I don't wanna risk
having hallucinations
in the outputs
because that could really spell trouble if you
if you took that just by

(19:02):
your value.
Yeah. And I'm a pro AI kind of
a person and how I look at these
things to play around with the tools. But
I also think that there's,
there's potentially, and this is one of those
areas where you're really playing around with
the, with, with the content. Right. And you're
really,

(19:23):
giving AI a lot of license,
in controlling what your content is.
And if you take it, you know, with
what it gives you and you only do
that,
then you're kind of shifting your
mental abilities as a human
over to the AI to do all the
thinking for you and all the learning for

(19:44):
you. And I think that's a, that's a
dangerous place for us to go
though. I think, you know, this can be
helpful,
but
I just wonder if it's, it should be
viewed as something that's not something that you
should
solely
use, right.
Based on its exact

(20:05):
recommendations. Maybe you can learn from it. Yeah.
To maybe do a better conversation in your,
you know, in your show
and take it as a suggestion, but don't
take it as a
as the only thing that you can think
about.
You know, it's
it's just like the output the outputs that
we put out, we we put a warning

(20:26):
on this and, hey, this is
AI generated. You need to validate
these outputs.
You know? And even in my show summary,
this show specifically,
I have to be real careful because we
cover such a range of stuff
usually during the show that
it will often

(20:47):
either get something you said wrong or something
I said wrong. I have to QA that
summary.
It doesn't it does a pretty good job
on my tech show, but this show specifically
because we go for ninety minutes,
it tries to cross correlate stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
That's a lot. And I know that there
was a little bit of a controversy that
came out this week
about the descript tool,

(21:11):
on on its audio transcription,
leaving big chunks of the transcription out from
the audio. Oh, that's not good.
Yeah. I guess that there was a bug
in there and I wasn't aware of this
and I use the
the tool as well. I don't use the
the transcript
to
to put out as content,

(21:31):
but I use it as a foundation to
maybe come up with a summary or or
that kind of stuff and do some editing.
But don't you edit by text?
Isn't the text the text
missing? Yeah. You do. But I've I've never
noticed that.
But I don't actually go in and

(21:52):
edit every
word in the text Oh. When I do
the editing. Yeah. So it's it's it's usually,
you know, there's a layer of editing that
that I do
in the Descript tool, but it's very kind
of superficial. It's like pulling out some mums
and ahs and things like that. And then
maybe some gaps between words and things like

(22:14):
that, but that's about the only editing that
I do in descript.
And then, then I export it
and then I actually will go through and
hand edit in a way better. So that's
where I actually pick up
all of the edits. So there's a multi
level. So what my goal is with, with
the descript tool is to is to cut

(22:34):
down on the editing that I have to
do,
not eliminate it entirely. So I just didn't
realize that it it just was leaving out
big chunks of
text in the transcription. Yeah. That that's that's
not a good bug, and hopefully, they get
that fixed.
Yeah. Hey. Did you But I've actually never
noticed it before myself. So

(22:56):
yeah. But anyway Did you see Brian Barletta's,
comment about them not they're basically telling their
partners
that they don't I put in the show
notes at the bottom of the Oh. Of
the show notes list. So Oh, so that
is that is a topic.
Yeah. It's a topic.

(23:17):
What it's not specifically the Brian
Roulette commenting
because
his commenting has been pretty much the same
thing that we've said over the last couple
of weeks.
So there's really nothing
new that Ryan's nice that they haven't said
multiple times. But it's nice that he's come
out and said they're recommending their partners don't
do that.

(23:38):
Yeah. And that's what we've been saying for,
like, the last three weeks. Yeah. Or actually
longer.
Yeah. Yeah.
But what what I have in the show
notes is really about Spotify's response,
which which could
draw
a little bit more clarity, I think on
what they're doing. Yeah.

(24:01):
But in, in the,
the article
and I, I ran through, I ran their
article through AI as well, and it it
extracted the key points out of it.
And
and I think,
the big one that I took away, which
I thought was interesting is video on this
is from Spotify. This is off of Spotify

(24:22):
website,
Video on Spotify
and automatically
can is automatically converted
to audio for RSS based distribution
elsewhere.
Mhmm. Elsewhere.
This is, this is an aspect that we
hadn't talked about before,
which is if you upload your video to

(24:44):
Spotify,
the audio from it will be used
in in the RSS feed that's being distributed
outside
Spotify to Right. Apple Podcasts. Which is even
which is even worse.
Right. So it's actually
re replacing
the RSS audio Yeah. As well as putting
it out as a

(25:05):
now granted this probably only for people that
are only hosting on
on Spotify for creators. Right?
So Unless they and unless case.
Yeah. For source audio from Blueberry would be
safe.
Well, it's still gonna be overwritten.
On on Spotify. Yeah. Right. It it's still

(25:26):
gonna be overwritten. Yeah.
But this is for
they're taking the audio from the video and
putting it in RSS feeds. That's gonna be
published on the creators
behalf. So they've doubled down and made it
worse.
Well, I mean, yes and no. I
I tend to want to create
separate audio from the video.

(25:48):
And what Spotify is doing here is assuming
that the audio from
the video is what you want to put
out as
as an RSS based audio Yeah. Version,
which
that also is a whole nother level of
problem in my my view. Now we're not
everyone probably sees it the same way I

(26:09):
do.
I'm I'm sure there's creators out there that
are just putting out the audio that's the
same thing as in the video. Right? That's
kind of what we do with this show.
Yeah.
So, you know, it's not a huge thing,
but I just didn't realize that they were
doing that with RSS based
external distribution. Right?

(26:30):
But one thing's for sure, it completely
destroys
any programmatic advertising opportunity.
Well,
again,
you you get what you get with Spotify.
And if you're hosted with Blueberry or Libsyn
or Podbean,
you know, you, you
you know, again, I think Barletta's and our

(26:51):
recommendation is don't put video
over the top of your audio.
Well, don't publish video into your same show
account
that you have in there for your audio
show via RSS. I think Yeah. That's correct.
What this is and that's different than what
I was just talking about. So,

(27:14):
because Spotify, I guess has their own ad
insertion technology and targeting. Oh, yeah. That's what
it talk talks about in the article.
It also says that Spotify allows megaphone publishers
to
monetize video content through direct sales
and through the Spotify partner program. So, I

(27:36):
mean,
but that's not anything new. No.
This is direct sales options include baked in
host read ads and dynamically inserted ads. So
they do have, but that's a that that's
been inside the megaphone platform Right. Right. For
for a long time. But I don't know
that it has a four video. And, generally,
to be part of the partner program

(27:59):
Right. That doesn't doesn't mean if you host
on megaphone, you're part of the partner program.
That's something that's gotta be
clarified
because
there's a small list
of networks that are in the partner program.
Well, I don't know that that's entirely true,
Todd. I think if you have a certain
plan inside of the megaphone platform and you're
a publisher,

(28:20):
I I think that gives you access to
the advertising tools. Not to the partner program.
You have to be approved. There is a
list of shows that are part of the
program.
Well, yeah. That's that's true from a a
Spotify
ad sold
publishing. I'm talking about if you're a publisher

(28:41):
and you're you're selling your own ads into
your own content, you can utilize their Oh,
yeah. Yeah. Publish ads
into your own show. Yeah. That's different
than the partner program, though.
Yeah. No. No. It is. I think what
you're talking about is those that are that
are just uploading their
content,
their video content just through the Spotify

(29:02):
for creators platform. No. Spotify has a specific
platform
for people that are on Spotify for podcast.
If you
But that's different than megaphone is all I'm
saying. I know. Again, the Spotify
partner program, not every podcaster
that's on Spotify

(29:23):
is part of the Spotify partner program. Usually,
you have to be part of a network
that's one of their partners
Spotify. Spotify to do the ad sales for
you. Do the ad sales for you. Right.
And then the megaphone piece is separate. They've
got their own tools and services. Right?
So you have
to qualify to

(29:43):
and it's just like Yeah. What YouTube is
doing. Right? Yeah. Now granted what what YouTube
is doing and probably Spotify is doing this
too, is that they're they're still gonna run
ads against your show. Well, they are. Yeah.
I mean, if you're in
if you're in the partner program,
you get a revenue share.
But if you're not in the partner program,

(30:03):
you're probably not getting any kind of revenue
share, but you're still running ads. You get
you get nothing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I
don't think they run it mid roll. I
think they run it in between.
Yeah. Like a pre roll or post roll.
Yeah. Probably. Yeah. So
But but, you know,
I
I'm trying to think what YouTube do. I

(30:24):
think YouTube runs
mid rolls
on content that's Oh, yeah. Part of their
their monetization. Oh, yeah. If you're not paying
for it, they'll they'll cut you midstream, and
they figure out where to insert an ad.
And
every ten minutes, if you're not paying for
YouTube premium, you're watching a
Oh, no. No.

(30:44):
I'm talking about the creator side. So
yeah.
You're talking about the
the consume consumption side. Yeah. I'm talking about
the creator side. Yeah. So,
yeah, you're not gonna even if you publish
content to their platform,
they're gonna run probably even mid roll ads
against your content even though you're you as

(31:05):
a creator are not part of the monetization
program. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. On YouTube.
Oh, %.
Yeah. That's how they pay for,
the ability to use that platform for free.
Mhmm. They monetize around your content for the
majority
of the folks that never reach the minimum
watch hours to

(31:26):
be monetized. So you have to keep, you
know, grinding to get those numbers before they
Yeah. They let you make any money. Right?
Yeah. And, of course, Spotify numbers are so
high that, my god, ten thousand hours a
month or something like that.
Yeah. That's that doesn't make a lot of
sense to me. Yeah. I mean, if if
they're gonna compete with YouTube and get content

(31:47):
that would go to to to YouTube,
they need to compete.
That's expensive. To eat that. The money you
know, it's it's a lot of work to
sell advertising into
videos. So
they Well, it's all automated.
So
right?
I think a lot you look at a
lot of YouTube stuff that goes in.

(32:07):
Yeah. Of course, I don't see ads in
the work because I pay pay for premium.
I just hear the baked in stuff from
the creator. So I guess that's true.
Well, there's there's
programmatic,
video buying platforms that exist out there that
have existed for a long time for for
streaming television. Yeah.
So I'm just I'm sure that's what's being

(32:28):
done here. Just programmatic. They just drop whatever
ads available
or whatever. It's called,
it's called,
let's see. The dynamic ads in Spotify
for both audio and video are inserted in
real time. Yeah.
Using Spotify's proprietary
streaming ad insertion
technology.

(32:48):
Yeah. They're S AI.
Yeah.
It says the ads
are this ensures that the ads are only
served when the user reaches
the ad slot.
So one thing
targeting and all that stuff. So one thing's
for sure, it's more about lock in and
more about do it our way

(33:08):
and,
not supporting.
You know, again, I think my recommendation
still stands.
Have two shows.
One audio, one video.
Yeah. Well, you know, that's what we've been
doing for years. Right? With RSS. That's
right. It's just, you know, it's just another

(33:31):
lack of integration of the two. Right? So
yeah. But and it really doesn't address
Brian's
recommendation or our recommendation. They just doubled down.
I think they're gonna do what they're gonna
do. Yeah. So,
you know,

(33:51):
and I'll think
Also also said in the article that's,
that Spotify is positioning
video podcasts as a major growth engine
highlighting the 270,000,000
users already engaging in video on the platform.
Well 7,000,000.
Well, you know, we've already seen the reports

(34:13):
that the engagement doesn't mean more dollars.
We've already, you know, already covered that people
that have audio
are losing money when they're putting video on
top of their audio. Their revenue is going
down.
So may have that engaging audience, but it
surely is not paying.
Yeah. They're

(34:33):
they're really,
I mean, it's either one of two things.
They either want to disrupt our assess
or they are
they didn't think about the ramifications
of their
strategy here. Well, you know, I I had
discussions with them and, you know, them wanting
us to implement the API
to be able to send video over.

(34:55):
And we said no
because of this exact
discussion point, and they are hell bent on
going the course
with,
you know, with what with what they have.
So
Yeah.
You know, they made it a a business

(35:16):
decision.
This is what they're gonna do.
And I think anyone that is,
thinks otherwise may be in for a surprise.
So I guess, you know, we and Brian
and others,
SoundsProfitable,
been spreading the alarm,
but they have not

(35:38):
you know,
look at
the company reach that SoundsProfitable
has, how many companies they're working with.
And for them to basically tell their members,
hey. You're getting you're getting screwed.
Don't,
don't publish,
you know, your video on YouTube on top
of your audio.

(36:00):
That's a pretty strong statement. That's that's Yeah.
James James Cridland's been saying the same thing
too. Yeah. So, you know and so what
you have is
the industry
or as Adam kindly referred to as it
is the, you know, the podcast industrial complex,
have made their

(36:21):
have made their
their stand and said, this is bad.
And Spotify is basically said,
screw you.
This is the way it's going to be.
And that's fine. So people know the know
the playing field. Now they have to make
a business decision on
which way they're gonna roll.

(36:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'm like,
I know which way I'm gonna roll.
And that's not rolling with Spotify. That's for
sure.
I don't know why they felt like they
had to
to do this practice of stripping the audio
out of the video,
to have it a separate thing. I mean,

(37:04):
especially if that show is already in their
catalog via RSS. Ease of publishing. Just leave
it alone. Just leave it alone. Well, they
want That's all they have to do. They
want one step publishing.
They want you to publish the video and
we'll take care of the rest that, you
know, they're making it as a convenience
to the podcaster that doesn't have a clue.
Yeah.

(37:26):
Video video first people
don't care about the audio
unless they got dialed in.
But it comes across as,
not realizing
even their own infrastructure.
It's like, it's almost like an engineer decided,
well, oh, we might as well just do
this because
it's easier. It's easier. I oh, I I

(37:46):
am absolutely convinced that's the case.
Yeah. Oh, for sure.
I mean, without regard to,
I mean, all you have to do is
just block the audio from replacing the RSS
feed. Right. Audio.
That's all you have to do. It's not
really any more complicated than that. Yeah. It's
fine if they want to strip the audio
out of the video and put that out

(38:07):
as
a MP three file to external RSS. That's
fine.
I mean, if if that's what the content
creator is okay with, then they'll they'll enable
that. How about an AB option? Yeah.
Right. Just a choice. Right? Mhmm.
Or I can upload my own audio version.
So,

(38:28):
you know, th th this whole thing that
Spotify wants to decide,
that your audio from your video is going
to be your show,
I think is
either was done with,
you know,
less than stellar intentions here or it was
just done because it was easier, which isn't

(38:49):
a very good excuse. Right.
So
yeah.
Anyway Well, you know, and at the same
time, they're they're jumping in on audiobooks.
So they've invested some money there.
And
at the same time, a cast is
signing some former Spotify exclusive shows.

(39:11):
So, you know, so people continue to
shift around here and there.
So Yeah. I don't know. I guess we'll
see.
Yeah. Do you see the
the Nielsen stats that showed up in the
pod news re report today

(39:32):
that was gauging total TV and streaming snapshot.
Oh, yeah. I did see that.
Yeah. And it's showing that
YouTube is just dominating.
Oh, I have no doubt.
Yeah. So it says for March
2025,
YouTube is at the top of the list

(39:54):
for
Wasn't there some wasn't there something else higher
than that in YouTube? Wasn't there a a
go to No. It's it's it's the biggest
one. Oh, yeah. 1212%.
Twelve %.
The next closest one is Netflix at 7.9.
Yeah. And then other streaming, 6.1, whatever that

(40:14):
means.
5% Disney, three point five % Prime Video.
Other is probably
the OTT apps out there. But it's surprising
though. They say that broadcast is still 20.5.
I just I I just
find it hard to fathom.
24%
still cable,

(40:35):
and 11.7%
is other. What is other in TV? You
got broadcast cable
in streaming. What what is other?
Other
probably would be other kind of smaller tier
OTT apps. Probably. Yeah. Maybe.
Yeah. But it was What's interesting here is

(40:58):
that
I I would bet
if if I was a gambling man,
the cable industry
is still
heavily reliant on sports
because
it's still not always clear where to get

(41:21):
a,
a sports program
If you because, you know, they they they
move around.
The NFL sold sold so many the NBA
sold so many episodes to or so many
games to one network. And so they're either
on Fox Sports or they're on ESPN or
wherever they may be
broadcast.

(41:42):
And then trying to find the live stream
of those sports are
is
can be challenging. So I'm assuming
because sports is so heavily tied in broadcast
that
a lot of people still have
cable subscriptions as largely because of sports.
Now what's funny

(42:03):
here What's the difference between broadcast and cable
now?
Well, broadcast is supposed to be, you know,
your your rabbit ears on your TV.
That's my assumption.
But
I thought everybody was getting it through a
cable box now pretty much.
Well, there's no cable where I live, but
I can still get television stations.

(42:24):
Mhmm. Okay. So But again percent of the
people are getting over the air television.
Shocked.
I would be shocked.
That to me seems like a high number.
I get what four channels over the I
know. That's what I was gonna say. The
the number of channels is extremely low. Right?
And and sometimes it doesn't even work. You

(42:47):
know, depends on how much foliage is on
the trees.
Yeah. It depends on the the direction of
the antenna and all that stuff. I know
I've Yeah. I've done it before. I know
how much of a struggle it is. I
know RVs have
TV antennas on top of them that that
have like a little crank that you crank.
Yeah. All the to get the TV signal
to match up with it. The older ones

(43:08):
do. The newer ones don't.
You know? I had a I had a
pretty new one too, and it it still
had a little crank on it that you
had to crank it. A lot of them
now just have a Starlink adapter.
Oh, right. Right. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But that's a different kind of
a that's like taking you into the streaming

(43:29):
side. Yeah. For sure.
But, yeah, it's just
interesting how cable and broadcaster
holding on.
Yep. If you combine them together, it's based
on this Nielsen study. It's what? 44 and
a half percent. So it's the biggest chunk.
Yeah. Well, you know, if if you think
about it too, where where I live, DISH
is the only thing you can get if

(43:50):
you want.
If you want, maybe that's what they're considering
broadcast is DISH and and,
you know, those because where I live, that's
it. You know, there's no cable. So you
have to have dish. So maybe they consider
that broadcast.
Could be.
Yeah. I would assume where that's come because
I can't imagine people are using rabbit ears
very much.

(44:12):
But, you know, people don't even what the
hell are you talking about rabbit ears?
Yeah. And your signal is sucks too on
that. But if you look at it at
44%
for broadcasting cable and 43, it's almost even
steven here.
Yeah. Which is also a shock. Yeah?
I don't think so. Because my my kids
are

(44:33):
yeah. I'm like still that that many people
that are
still living in a different time.
Well, you know, if you if you think
about the percentage of people that live in
rural America,
that's the only option they have.
Yeah. So if we ask, you know, what
is the percentage?

(44:54):
What
what is the
percentage
of people
in
my god. I can't type this morning.
Rural America.
I guess 12 or 13%, something like that.

(45:15):
20%
So live in defined
rural areas.
So that makes sense. If you have, a
number
that's in the report that's, what, 24%,
you know, that would that accounts for
all those rural subscribers

(45:35):
that are on a Yeah.
Broadcast. Almost exactly 2020%.
But I I I don't think all my
neighbors have. Well, I think about it.
I think about driving down my road
that I live on.
Mhmm.
Yeah. Almost everyone has a dish

(45:58):
from DISH Network.
Yeah.
So that must be I just don't know
if they're lumping that in under cable or
they're on your broadcast.
Yeah. Like, cable's cable.
Yeah. So
and if you have cable, then you have
cable Internet. So
Yeah.
Right. Then, you know, then that number

(46:20):
then that streaming number, those that have cable
then can have
so I I would I would
adventure
that there's a portion of people
that are on cable that are also,
you know, part of that YouTube streaming and
Netflix. It has to be. Well, we we
we do it.
You know? I do it here.
Yeah.

(46:42):
Except I have IPTV here. I get every
channel in the known universe through some
and god knows where they they originates. But,
in on America, it's a well, here, I'm
sure it's illegal too, but it's everyone has
it has IPTV.
Have you noticed just an explosion?
Or is it just my perception of of

(47:04):
all all the podcast awards?
Yeah. There's a lot.
It's it's really it's really blown up. Yeah.
There's a there's a whole bunch.
Last two years. I mean, a lot of
them are happening now over in in Europe,
which is adding to it and up in
Canada and Australia.
And so it's it's getting scattered all over

(47:26):
the country, all all over the world. Yeah.
So
but it's just
remarkable
how many there are. They're just in pod
news
from
the fourteenth. Yeah.
There's,
I think, mentioned of at least two or
three awards.
It's funny. I've,
I've had some recently had some more offers

(47:48):
on podcast awards. They people wanted to buy
it.
And,
I just put a ridiculous number on it.
You know That'll
keep them away, won't it? Well, you know,
you it's
it's a valid number.
Yeah. You know, if you look at it

(48:08):
from an acquisition standpoint,
yeah, here's here's the number.
You want it, write the check.
And,
the the problem with it though is I
I'm I'm gonna pay full tax on that.
You know, it'll be
first, it's a bad problem to have, right,
when you have to pay tax?

(48:28):
I know. I guess so.
I just got done with my writing the
the check to the IRS and sending it
on the fourteenth.
Oh, you did?
Oh, god.
Yeah.
No fun. Yeah. And I look at the
look at the number, and I'm thinking, god.
If I had I could just have
I could just have 1010%

(48:49):
of that back.
Yeah. Yeah. You know?
Or or 25%
of it back.
It'd be nice to get
a get a,
tax relief here. Right? I don't think it's
gonna happen.
Well, from what I I'm I'm starting to
learn that,
taxation

(49:09):
in this country isn't really needed.
Well
Depends on how you look at the monetary
system.
You know, they they gotta tax something. It's,
you know, I I here's the thing. You
know, it's completely non potty esque related. But
if they could just eliminate
property tax

(49:29):
nationwide,
if there was no property tax nationwide,
that means when you are getting older
and
I I look at the property tax that
my sister, my mom, I pay.
And I think Especially for for retired people
or older people

(49:51):
after a certain age. That just doesn't make
sense. The the property tax,
just my that my sister pays,
I don't know how they would
keep the house. They they planned well for
retirement
so they're gonna be fine.
But I'm just thinking how
how do you afford

(50:13):
Yeah. $12.14, $15,000
a year in property tax
Yeah. On a property you own outright
in retirement if you have a right. Well,
that's the problem. Right? Yeah.
So plus for I'm starting to learn from
some economists that are

(50:35):
saying that based on the monetary system that
we have in this country,
the government, when we pay money to the
government,
they just destroy
that that money because it just the Federal
Reserve makes money. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's the
problem with that's how I mean, you're not
really

(50:56):
giving the government money. They already have the
money. Yeah.
They they loan that money to us.
All we're doing is paying it back. Yeah.
So right? I mean, it's all based on
debt. The whole thing is based on debt.
Yeah. And I'm also hearing that the that
US government debt clock that's out there, that
36,000,000,000,000,
that's actually a count of how much money

(51:18):
that the federal government has put into
the economy of The US. That's been bought
up by other people as part of the
debt. Right. That's how much has been
put in as a loan Yeah.
To to all of to to the economies
of the world and the American people. Yeah.
And so when we pay taxes, we're actually
paying back the government on the loan that

(51:39):
they gave us. That's right.
So, you know, I think all of us
have this perception of what our money is,
and it's not what we are being Yeah.
That's why that's why people are big into
gold and silver.
Right. It's it's all funny money. Yeah. It
doesn't really have any
inherent value to it. Yeah. That's why, you
know, inflation's such a it's brutal. You know,

(52:02):
I look at my military retirement and Well,
inflation is a real thing because the more
money money the government makes to put into
the system
as that
that supposedly debt clock number goes up. Yeah.
That's that's an indication of of, inflation. Yeah.
What it is.
Yeah. And I I Anyway. I just look
at how,

(52:23):
you know,
and when I retired, it's pretty pretty nice
number.
That was in 02/2007,
you know. Yeah. 40,000,000,000,000
in debt means that there's more money out
here for us. So that means there's less
value for my retirement.
Right. Exactly.
Exactly. Your buying power drop, but there's more
money for everybody to have. Yeah. And we

(52:43):
go to the grocery store and, you know,
where where that $400 go? Yeah. Right. Yeah.
It's hard to go to the grocery store
and not spend $200 now. Oh, it's that's
the min. You know, that that was that,
you know, it used to be go to
Costco, spend 400. Now you go to Costco
and spend 8, and you go you go
to the grocery store. I try not do
that. You go to two. That's just me.
Yeah. Well, me neither.

(53:05):
Yeah. So but, yeah, I used to
you know, a couple of years ago, I
used to walk out of Costco and and
think, wow. I made it out of here
for only a hundred bucks. Wow. How did
you do that? Did you go I know.
You stole that.
Yeah. Right. Right. But back in those days,
it was reasonable.
I started shopping at Costco back in 1988.

(53:26):
So that's all I've been doing. In in
Hawaii, we had to have
Costco. Otherwise, we we wouldn't survive just because
We wouldn't survive. No. We we wouldn't, honestly.
I would we would have starved.
Yeah.
See what else has happened the last week
here.
Oh, yeah. I just keep seeing the the

(53:47):
these new tools coming out like PodPaste. Did
you see this,
podcast
speech normalization
tool now that was launched? PodPaste?
Pod pace, p a c e. Oh. Pod
pod pace.
And it's it's an audio normalization tool?
Yeah. Okay. Upload your audio file.

(54:09):
It it analyzes
the speaker
and and,
uses
assembly
AI to,
to normalize the audio, I guess. So what
does that cost a month?
It doesn't say.
Let's see here.

(54:30):
It doesn't look like
it's
it doesn't look like it has a fee.
It looks like it's it's a free thing.
Well, we'll see how long that last.
Yeah. And it's a bunch
of, downloadable
code files,
JSON files. And
yeah. It's really

(54:51):
usable for everyday podcast.
Oh, okay. Yeah. He's that's a little being
sarcastic
here. Yeah. Right.
Yes. Build your own normalization
tool on your computer. Oh.
That's kind of For the super geeks out
there.
Right. That there's so so many of them.
Just remember,

(55:11):
Podpace.
Most podcasters,
some don't know what the right click button
on the mouse is.
Yeah. We've been fighting that one for years.
Yeah. Right?
That's that's interesting.
Yeah.
So I don't know. There's not you know,
I don't know, Todd. I mean, be honest
about it. Is there a lot of stuff

(55:32):
going on in podcasting or are we kind
of in the It's it's pretty quiet right
now.
The
the doldrums to some degree. Yeah. We you
know, we've been head down pretty hard on,
trying to get Guessmatch Pro
launched, you know, at least in the beta.
So, you know, I got my that's what
my team's focused on. And

(55:52):
and then we've got another project we're gonna
start on soon that's big.
I did a call with the the podcastl
folks.
I I don't know if you're you're familiar
with that platform, but it's a platform
out of Europe.
And I guess they've built,
you know, a complete
publishing

(56:13):
editing,
kind of creation tool. It's a it's kind
of a one stop shop for
for creating a podcast. Right.
Kind of like what the notebook LLM
is trying to do. Right.
But,
the piece that I,

(56:34):
I learned is that they don't have any,
metrics that are connected to this. It'll it'll
create your RSS feed. It'll do all the
AI stuff for it. It'll get it into
an RSS feed. It'll get it into all
of the platforms,
all the listening platforms.
But the piece that's missing in their platform
is any kind of metrics.

(56:54):
So there's no counting of plays or downloads
or
anything in the platform.
So
let alone
IAB metrics. Right. Right.
So,
yeah. So we're still in this age of
incomplete
platforms.

(57:14):
Right? That can't do it all in one
place.
And is that where we're gonna wind up,
Todd? What's your thought? Are we gonna have
a handful of platforms that are gonna integrate
all these AI functions and tools
into one publishing work stream? We are.
It's just
when are we gonna see it and who
do we think is gonna build it? Well,

(57:36):
you know, we're probably 85%
of the way there already.
Yeah.
So Again, but again, there's more there's more
there's podcasters need more than publishing
and production
tools.
They need the social piece, the social promotion.
Marketing. They need all that stuff. Right? Yeah.

(57:57):
Yeah. And and well, and you have to
think about the monetization parts too.
Yeah. There's a lot of pieces to bolt
together to come up with something. But I'm,
I'm increasingly thinking that this
the agentic
movements in in the AI world are going
to make that possible like we've never seen
before. But. Yeah, we'll see. I don't I

(58:19):
don't know if it's going to be put
together with agentic
capabilities,
but I'm sure there'll be some element of
it
in a platform that does all this stuff.
Because that assumes separate components that do separate
things. Well, you know, we built,
part of our matching a logarithm
where GuestMatch Pro uses AI. So,

(58:43):
you know, we're
leveraging that to do,
you know, to do something that would have
been
ordinarily something very complex and it, you know,
not so complex when you
Yeah. And you can, you know, do Southern
API calls. So
Yeah. I just wonder if, you know, there's

(59:03):
platforms right right now that you can get
access to that you can
you can manually,
assemble a
a workflow,
right? Yeah. Of a AI,
by plugging in components that will do various
things and then passing data from
one component to another component to another component,
and it gives you an output. Right. So

(59:25):
I guess
what we're probably building here is like what
you're building, which is kind of like a,
one stop shop kind of experience,
but the user itself of the platform doesn't
realize that it's using agentic,
tools
or, or agentic type workflows. All they see
is the input and then the output. Yeah.

(59:46):
You know, it's simple things sometimes too is
Yeah. Something that you and I consider
really, really simple
for a new podcaster can be a roadblock.
And,
we're building something right now that we've learned
as is hindering
as we've watched, you know, using Hotjar and

(01:00:07):
different things on the website. We've been watching
new podcasters come into the platform.
We see stuff that they should do, but
they don't do,
which then ultimately ends up being
maybe a deterrent to them getting to episode
one.
So,
you know, we're building stuff to really completely

(01:00:28):
lower the barrier
a %
to getting them to it, you know, to
that first episode
and and flowing them through.
It's, you know, it's
we didn't have to do this ten years
ago.
But now we have to, you know, provide,

(01:00:49):
I don't wanna call them baby steps, but
it's a checklist
of sense
that allows them, okay, I've done this. Now
I gotta do that. You have to do
this. I gotta do that. Okay. I'm ready.
You know, four or five and it's not
that many steps.
Just a few steps of, you know, critical
things.
And then those
situations
where

(01:01:12):
as an example, do you
do you need help in creating the description
for your show?
Yeah. And,
and if it says yes, then I I
can open a query box and I can
say, you know, type in,
you know, what you think your show is
gonna be about. We'll help you create a
description.
And,

(01:01:33):
and, you know, what categories
you know, another thing is what category should
my podcast be in?
And people, oh, I don't know what I
said, well, you can pick three, you know.
So, yeah, here's the three suggestions based upon
the description.
And just kind of stepping people through
and, you know, given the option to manually
set it, of course. But

(01:01:55):
taking, you know, because they don't understand why
they need to set a category.
Only we know they have to,
for them to be, you know, properly placed
in Apple Podcasts.
And, you know, the other things that need
to be in there so that when they're
ready to to submit and, you know, produce
their episode zero, they're ready to go.

(01:02:17):
Yeah. And that way, it it reduces the
support calls.
And because it the challenge is not the
existing podcasters that are creating content.
The it's the challenge on my end is
the is the new podcaster
and educating the existing podcasters on, hey, by
the way, we've, you know, we've got this
tool

(01:02:38):
you can use.
And I think what happens too is podcasters
get in a production flow that they're very
comfortable with.
You know, whatever they learn the first time,
if they're using Hindenburg or they're using Descript
or they're using Adobe edition or whatever they're
using from a tool standpoint.
When you come in and say, hey. We
can save you time here by using this

(01:02:59):
tool.
People have a
they're
they're used to doing it in their their
workflow. So getting people to
consider,
a new workflow is very, very difficult
unless you train them from the very beginning
to do this workflow.
Yeah.
And then you hope that the, you know,

(01:03:21):
the
the creators will come in and say, okay.
You know, what you're doing here is gonna
help me how. And that really is the,
you know, what is the why? Why should
I use this? You know, what what what
is the benefit? The why and the what?
Yeah. But That's true. Totally, it's still in
this in in my opinion, we're we're still

(01:03:43):
in a situation where,
you know, getting
if I could get
well, it's just 50% of podcasters never get
to episode one.
Right.
Yeah. They, you know That's true. They don't
even just get it. And they say, I
wanna do a podcast and
they sign up and then, you know, we're
watching, you know, we have a

(01:04:05):
a dashboard that tells us all these new
shows that are on thirty day trials.
And sometimes
they add their billing and then it's month
two and they still haven't done episode one
and we're like, hey,
you know,
and with this new law out,
there's a new law out that basically says
you have to

(01:04:25):
tell
your
your podcast
subscriber,
hey, in seven days, we're gonna hit your
credit card.
Now we were doing that already for people
that were brand new. But now this new
law
requires you to send an email on a
reoccurring
charge
that says, hey. We're gonna hit your credit

(01:04:47):
card in seven days. You're gonna you're going
and if you don't want to
have us do that, here's the cancel button.
They made that the FCC or one of
those groups made that mandatory
for big fines if you don't. Because, you
know, it's it people have difficulty finding the
cancel button and
and companies have made it hard. So the

(01:05:08):
FCC
came in and said, okay. You're you that
are collecting a reoccurring payment,
You know, by law, you have to inform
them that
you're gonna hit their credit card in three
days or whatever the number may be.
Yeah. They give them ample opportunity to cancel.
Right.
And companies that don't do that are subject

(01:05:29):
to big, big, big, big, big fines.
You want me to pull up
a a deep fake
video. That's a good contrast between
what is real and what's fake. Sure.
Pull it up.
Let's see here.
Let's see here.

(01:05:50):
I share.
Okay. Here it is.
Share sound.
I would like to welcome you to the
era of synthetic
reality.
Now

(01:06:11):
I am not Morgan Freeman,
and what you see is not real.
Well,
at least in contemporary
terms, it is not.
What if I were to tell you that
I am not even a human being?
Would you believe me?
What is your perception of reality?
Is it the ability to capture, process, and

(01:06:33):
make sense of the information our senses receive?
If you can see,
hear, taste, or smell something,
does that make it real?
Or is it simply the ability
to feel?
I would like to welcome you to the
era of synthetic reality.

(01:06:55):
Now
I am not Morgan Freeman.
What you see is
so then what if Morgan Freeman Freeman
doesn't like that?
They've used his likeness.
What what happens next if Oregon says, hey,
I don't want my likeness being used even

(01:07:15):
if they've disclosed I'm not real.
This is a virtual synthetic.
Yeah. How that's
pretty convincing.
Yeah. Well, even this is probably not something
that Morgan would approve of.
Right. But Even though it's clear that it's
a Yeah. So I'm saying how does he

(01:07:36):
have that taken down?
Yeah. You know?
Or does he care? I I would think
he would care.
Where we get into this gray areas, he's
considered a public figure. Right? Well, still you're
you're using his likeness and his voice. Yeah.
You are.
Right. Right.
So they're nice to shine. To

(01:07:58):
kind of new territory here. And
I guess it's this capability has been around
for a while. It's just getting better.
It's yeah. It's it's getting to a point
where you can't really tell anymore.
Yeah.
I would have probably
I wouldn't have I wouldn't have been able
to tell on that one.

(01:08:20):
That one was pretty good.
Mhmm.
So
at what point then does I just show
up and
do the podcast
and people not know that
I'm some
agent
doing the show.
Yeah. Right. No. I think that we'll I

(01:08:41):
think there's a good chance that we'll get
there, Todd. Oh, I think so. For sure.
I mean I mean, I don't see any
roadblocks.
So then I can then I can create,
you know, content five days a week and,
you know, sip margaritas.
Well, the question gets back to is whether
or not people are gonna use AI to
create the

(01:09:01):
the the transcript. Oh. And then used in
the video. Oh, I'm sure.
So even our our words aren't even ours.
Right. Oh, they're they're already doing that. I
know of a guy that's doing a show.
It's an audio podcast. It's completely created by
AI.
%,
end to end,
and

(01:09:22):
it's a new summary show.
Yes. Every word that he says probably comes
out of It's not even AI
generated transcript Yeah. That he then
paste into a video Into an clone of
himself. Right? Absolutely. And it's not even the
clone of himself? He's not even using his
own voice?

(01:09:43):
Yeah. It's a it's an AI clone voice
and AI clone video. Just Or you go
to ElevenLabs and you license a voice. I
know people that have submitted voices to ElevenLabs
and you're you you pay
to
to license the voice by the minute.
Yeah.
I have a good a good friend. It's
a, you know, very loyal Blueberry customer that,

(01:10:05):
his
his voice is available on Levon Labs. The
man the man has some chops.
He's got a voice that's made for for
radio, made for podcasting.
A deep barbelling voice, you know. It's just
like Yes. Yeah.
Like the movie trailer voice. Yeah. Or, you
know, or you can just think about,

(01:10:27):
you know, some iconic radio people.
Howard Stern or,
you know, folks that were just, you know,
world renowned.
And
all of a sudden their voices are available.
Now Howard Stern's probably not gonna make his
voice available.
But
what happens to people's people that are dead,

(01:10:48):
Right. Voices that are being used. You know,
that's already an issue.
Yeah. There's
And then again
pass. We we can say at the beginning,
hey, I'm real. But what if I say,
hey, I'm real in a
have the AI say, hey, I'm real.
Then,

(01:11:10):
you know, you can cheat disclosure. Oh, I'm
real.
And if you know, it's just like,
what do we have on this show? We
have
600 plus episodes.
That's about nine how many hours is that?
That's probably about
nine hundred hours of content.
I'm very certain if we took those nine

(01:11:31):
hundred hours,
they would completely lee
learn our
mannerisms,
our preferences,
and I would have no doubt that we
could create the show
in the coming
couple of years
completely with an AI tool.
You know, one thing that I've noticed with

(01:11:52):
some of the AI platforms that I've talked
to that are doing
the voice cloning is that when they started
doing voice cloning, this was a few years
ago,
they were requiring people.
And I remember Descript required this too in
the early years
where you had to like voice,
you know, an extensive script and go through,

(01:12:14):
like, four or five different
versions of it and tell a story. And
and that's what created the
the voice clone was these deep
training data that we were giving it through
giving them a recording. Well, I've noticed that
the more modern ones,
like the script and this one that I

(01:12:35):
talked to
just, just the other day,
that podcast
is taking,
like a five second audio clip.
That's what they're using to generate your voice.
So it's like seems pretty narrow.
But it's like this focus on trying to
make it faster to get it done. Right?

(01:12:58):
Yeah. Less of a hurdle to get it
done. But my comment to them was is
that, well, what's the quality of the output?
Yeah. Sure. You're, you're helping,
but their comment back was, well, we only
need fifteen seconds of your audio
in order to do this. And I'm like
going, well,

(01:13:18):
how does it know how to
do all your accurate,
voice inflections and your emotions and your It
doesn't. Causes.
I mean, is it is it just making
it up? Or I think it's just
I think I destroy the English language enough.

(01:13:40):
And if I had a perfect show
it's like it's like this morning, you know,
I've had to mute myself a dozen times
here this morning because
of congestion and, you know, I'm raveling my
voice and, you know, and then and, you
know, no one wants to hear that. So
it's

(01:14:01):
how do if if your voice is perfect
every day,
you know, we all get colds. We all,
you know,
we have morning morning voice, nighttime voice.
It it all depends. I got on the
headset this morning before you got on. I'm
like, oh my god. I sound horrible. I
started reaching over to adjust the

(01:14:21):
the the the tuning of the and I'm
like, no. I just need to drink more
water and
Right. Just because my voice is, you know
Yeah. It does Oh, yeah. Does raise
right? It it does raise a lot of
questions around,
you know, this concept of training data. I've
been thinking a lot more about this lately
is
and I think, you know, as I think

(01:14:43):
about, you know, like Tesla or whatever, my
car getting
getting better and better and driving based on
training training data. Right. That it gets from
my car and millions of other cars.
But
I was starting to to think about this
at a different level too.
I don't know that you want to give
the AI.

(01:15:05):
Okay.
Let's say you want the car
to drive as safely as possible, right?
If you give it a bunch of training
data that tells it that it's okay to,
you know, do things that are not legal
right in the training data, then it's going
to think that's what it needs to replicate.

(01:15:26):
So,
so that's what kind of pushes this issue
around.
He only giving the AI
training data that
is perfect, right? Or or tells it that
this is the right way to react to
something or the right interpretation of something
versus
giving it everything.

(01:15:47):
And
and it knowing all the flaws and
the and the errors. Right? Well, you just
heard what OpenAI did. They made it so
it can remember
the conversations you've had with it.
And now it as a matter of fact,
the first prompt that said is,
you know, test tell me what you know
about me.

(01:16:08):
And kind of scary on that out. But
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've I've I've done that
test many times.
But it's just just do it now when
they just switch the memory on.
Yeah. And but it does really make you
a question, you know,
the quality in quality out thing, right? Oh,

(01:16:28):
yeah.
I mean, if it's learning
how to
think about you as a person,
you probably don't want to give it all
the negative things about you. You only want
to give it the positive thing, right? Or
you want to give it
the safe way to drive. If you're a
car and an AI that's driving a car,
you want the car to know how to

(01:16:49):
drive safely, not,
you know So so here's Unsafely.
So here's the here's one that mess your
mind up.
Alright. So,
this thing's getting smarter.
Yeah. Some people argue with me on that.
But it's it's it's learning our algorithm. Let's

(01:17:09):
just use it that way. It's it's learning
it's learning our
patterns of speech and writing and questions that
we've asked and everything.
So
are we
not are we agents already?
Are we are we in the matrix?
Are,
you know, are we really here right now?

(01:17:31):
Well, well, I think that the same concepts,
of our our existence
is exactly that. Each each each
one of us operates autonomously. Yeah. Right?
And we connect with other things. Yeah. Right?
We transfer information from one place to another.

(01:17:52):
That's the exact definition of what an AI
agent is. So, you know, I I just
hope the AI agent makes me a lot
of money. I hope it makes me he
figures out a way to make, like, a
million dollars a year, and I can retire.
I think that that's that's the big thing
that I can't really get my head around
is that, you know, how is AI gonna
be

(01:18:13):
any better than us
when it's
only been trained on us?
The only thing it's gonna get better
at so for example get other other input.
Well, you think about it's the speed. So
let's let's just break it down. Speed is
a different Let's think about the science piece.
And, you know, talk about looking for cures

(01:18:34):
for cancer.
Now
they can run
instead of you know, took it takes so
long to build profiles.
Now they can have this thing building profiles
and, you know, running 20 fourseven. And they
have all this additional data, they got to
do a they've got to do that.
So I think what will happen is

(01:18:56):
the breakthroughs will come
from
the ability of the AI to be faster.
Now how does that affect us?
If it's truly a agentic,
what I could say is, hey, you know,
keep your eye on
the the United prices going to Heathrow.

(01:19:18):
And predict,
you know, when the lowest price is and
then buy that ticket.
Right. You know, so it could save us
money. It could or it could end up
putting us in first class and spending $10,000
on a, you know, on a on a
seat that we didn't want. So you you
never know how this is gonna work. Depends
on what that priority is. Right? Yeah. Is
it comfort? Is it,

(01:19:40):
being able to sleep? But if all of
us are using that same tools, then the
the playing field is level. Then, you know,
then it's a again, you're you're all competing
for that one ticket that's, you know, 10%
less or whatever it may be.
So I don't know. We'll we'll see. It's
it's it's an untold frontier here.

(01:20:02):
And on the creator side, it's pretty exciting.
But at the same time,
I I still go back to my hypothesis
here that, you know, people are gonna be
seeking out original voices. Maybe not. Maybe the
AI voices will get so good that, you
know, they won't wanna hear Todd and Rob
banter about,
economic reform, what we did just a few

(01:20:22):
minutes. You know, that that five minute segment
would be gone.
Well, if the
if the AI gets
better, right, than us,
if it's smarter about what's happening in podcasting
and it's
it knows more about what's happening in podcasting
than we could ever comprehend.
And if it,

(01:20:43):
doesn't make any
voice mistakes and the audio is always perfect
and
the video is great. But but People get
get value out of it. But Why wouldn't
people watch it? With the reporting be
but the thing is at what point?
Okay. So if if we're just gonna say
as an example,

(01:21:05):
Android app and Tenepod version 3.8
has been released.
Among some new features are you can leave
comments at the so basically you can you
can report on that. Now Yeah. It's like
a news product, but but like what you
do with Right. Geek news central. But but
what I will do and again, I'm just
using this example. So a Tenepod, I'm not

(01:21:25):
picking on you.
I could say, well, that update sucks.
Will the AI say that? Probably not.
Will it be able to form an opinion?
Will it be able to have an argument
like we have sometimes on things here where
I play devil's advocate? Or,
you know, is is that gonna come into

(01:21:47):
the mix?
Maybe? Yeah,
maybe.
Maybe it's a weighting scale. Maybe in the
weighting scale is okay for 10% of the
show, allow one of the hosts to play
devil advocate, and it will, you know, pick
an opposing side to a topic,
maybe it will play against each other. But
then again,

(01:22:08):
then do we cease to be humans anymore?
Do we cease to be creators and
creative
and this allows some machine to do something?
It's kind of scary.
Yeah.
And I do kind of wonder about, you
know,
the whole thing. I don't know if you
use the,
the spoken word version of

(01:22:29):
open AI chat GPT where you can have
a conversation with the Yeah. I've used it
before.
Where
you'll ask it a question,
and it always says, that's a great question.
Thank you for asking that. Right? Yeah. And
it's always so appreciative
of everything
when you're, like, going

(01:22:50):
I I asked you a a very serious
question. You're, like, going, that's a great question.
Thank you for that. Well, that's And I'm
like, oh, and, you know, I just challenge
your intelligence.
Well, this this is the this is a
challenge we had in the AI in writing
the emails for the show summary.
The challenges I had was it all, this
was a great episode. You need to tune

(01:23:11):
in. It had all these accolades and I'm
like,
this audience
so what we had to train and it
was very difficult. It was the hardest prompt
I wrote was to get that stupidity out.
Get me into remove the accolades, remove the
flowery language, remove,
just give the information the audience already knows
this podcast, they already have a relationship with

(01:23:32):
the host. You do not need to
harvest them. Yeah. You know, you know, oh
my, you know, you know, this is the
best episode ever. You know, don't don't do
that. It may have been the worst.
Yeah. Right.
You don't want to overplay something that could
have been bad. Right? It's not like you
don't wanna

(01:23:52):
make a, you know, like an astroturf scenario.
If it was a great episode, I'm gonna
I'm gonna add to the email. This is
a great episode.
You know? You need to tune in.
Right. Or or this episode kinda sucked. I've
done that before. You know?
You know? But I wasn't feeling good.
Where's the sarcasm when you need it? Well,
you know, give give them a few years.

(01:24:14):
Maybe they'll figure out the sarcasm. Who knows?
But that comes from actual learning
real human training data. Yeah. But if we're
only feeding it,
you know, the the accolades and the positive
and the the that was a great question.
Yeah. No matter what you ask it. Right.
Right?
Then it kinda loses a little credibility, doesn't

(01:24:36):
it? It does. A little bit in people's
perception. You know, it's just like clickbait on
YouTube. I get so pissed off about the
clickbait.
You know, I'm quitting.
This is the last episode of this.
Or you know, you know, the the end.
Yeah. You know, and and then you turn
on it. It's the end of, washing the
dog or, you know,
it it has nothing to do with the

(01:24:56):
end of a channel. You know? So Right.
Right.
Do you need to quit now? Yes. Yeah.
So yeah. The clickbait on YouTube is out
of hand.
Rob, we've we've made it to the bottom
of the hour even with our technical difficulties
today.
Okay. Alright. I will send you a master
file to replace the,

(01:25:18):
the stylus audio.
So Okay. I have editing to do.
Edit it down a little bit. That'd be
great.
Yeah. It sucks to edit.
Oh, yeah. So anyway, you guys
have heard heard this live,
or heard we listened to this via,
podcast delivery. Yeah. There was a big blooper

(01:25:39):
today. So you you didn't hear it. And
all. Yeah. So it wasn't AI, so you
can count on that. Yeah.
The road RodeCaster decided to just you know,
it's kind of amazing. It's like, you got
all this stuff. It's supposed to work,
and then RodeCaster just disconnects.
I'm like, what the hell?
And I had reset it. I had turned

(01:26:00):
it off, turned it back on, thought I
was good.
It's just one of these things. Nothing is
seems like nothing's I guess I truly love
my studio in Michigan because
everything is wired. But then the problem is
is the wires get scratchy, and then I
have scratchy voice. So it's it's a whole
whole different set of issues.

(01:26:22):
Sure.
Yeah. It's gonna be fun to turn the
system back on from cold iron when I
go back in about three weeks.
Mhmm. Yeah. Okay. So you'll be back. That's
right. In May. May eleventh, I fly out.
Just before Okay. The podcast show
in London.
Oh, that's right. You're flying to London. Yeah.
We got my airline ticket. And,

(01:26:44):
company didn't pay for it, but I paid
I paid for my own upgrade. So out
of my own money because I don't wanna
sit and coach.
So yeah. So you say
May 11 is when you get to London?
No. May 11 is when I leave here.
You leave there? Yeah. So that would be
on a

(01:27:05):
Sunday on Mother's Day.
I get home
on the eleventh, but I'm really not I
I won't be on the train on the
twelfth. So we'll be able to do the
show on the fourteenth.
Normal time on the fourteenth.
I thought that they okay. So you're not
going straight to No. I'm going I'm going
back to America First.
Oh, you are? The cost to fly from

(01:27:26):
here, I was gonna just leave from here
and go to London.
But Yeah. The cost didn't make sense. It
was it's cheaper for me to fly home
and then fly to London.
Really? Yeah.
Yeah. The routing out of here takes you
through Doha and it's on there's only a
few routes. It's very expensive
with Qatar or somebody like that.

(01:27:47):
Yeah.
And if I wanted to fly United out
of here, they still take me to San
Francisco, then they take me to London. So
Oh, that's a long flight from San Francisco.
Well, it's
To London.
Yeah. And it's a long flight from here
to San Francisco. So
I figured have a week in between
and,

(01:28:07):
plus I'm gonna be suit casing stuff to
London.
If you go into London, by the way,
and you're from America, they have new entry
requirements. You have to get something else. I
think it's a what do they call it?
See if I Is that a Visa? It's
not a Visa.
It's a

(01:28:29):
where did I put it?
That's not in that email.
Here.
Yeah. There's a word for it. So if
you're from America and there's a number of
countries.
Let's see here.
It's called ETA.
It's an ETA application.
And once you get it, it's good for

(01:28:50):
two years.
So, yeah, you have to have an approved
ETA.
You get a number.
Was it like
a like a TSA
type of Some sort of yeah. Some sort
of clearance
and,
it's good as long as your passport number
doesn't.

(01:29:12):
Oh, right.
I've drank nearly a whole bottle of water
here.
Alright. So, anyway, if you're going to London,
make sure you get your ETA before you
go. That's changed from last year. Last year,
you just show up with your passport,
The United States and smiles the camera and
walk through the gate.
So Where do you get that from?

(01:29:37):
It's on
a UK website.
Yeah. I have to anyway, just just search
for ETA UK, and it's on the gov.uk
website.
They say two to three days. Mine was
two to three minutes.
Oh. It proved to in almost instantly.

(01:29:58):
It's a pain. They have an app,
and the biggest pain is the app is
scanning.
You you gotta scan your
a bunch of stuff, and then you have
to find your eSIM
in your passport. And if you've got a
new one, the instructions is wrong. The new
if you have a new passport, the eSIM
is on the hard page

(01:30:18):
of your,
it's on the hard page of your passport
picture.
So I don't know if you've got one
of those new passports or not, Rob, but
they better
like, the second page is hard as a
rock.
It's almost like
a laminated page.
Yeah. I mean, I've got one one like
that. Also has, like, an IR chip in

(01:30:40):
it. Yeah. Yeah. The older passports, the
the eSIM is on the back page
of the passport.
So,
the app tells you to scan the back
page while the new passports is not. It's
on the second page
on the hard on the hard bar.
Okay.

(01:31:01):
Anyway, [e-mail]
x at geek news at geek news dot
chat on Mastodon.
Yeah. I'm at,
rob dot greenley at g mail dot com.
It's a great place to reach out to
me.
And I'm on x and Facebook and YouTube
under my name. So you can find me
over there pretty easily.

(01:31:23):
So
it's been great to do the show, Todd.
Yeah. We'll be back next week, I assume.
Yeah. Next week. Same time. Same channel.
Alright, everyone. Okay. Take care. We'll see you
next time here. Alright. Bye bye.
Good night.