June 25, 2025 • 46 mins
In the podcast episode titled “Expanding Podcast Image Standards for a Better Cross-App Experience,” host Todd Cochrane starts by welcoming listeners to the show. He mentions that Rob Greenlee is absent due to personal business but will return next week. Todd expresses his gratitude to both live listeners and those tuning in later. Todd discusses … Continue reading Expanding Podcast Image Standards for a Better Cross-App Experience
The post Expanding Podcast Image Standards for a Better Cross-App Experience appeared first on New Media Show.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the new media show.
My name is Todd Cochran. Of course, Rob
is off this week.
He, some personal business to take care of,
but we will return,
with Rob here next week at 8PM
eastern
as I will, be back in The Philippines,
(00:21):
but I wanted to take some time today
and put out a show. I I've got
some stuff that I wanna share with you,
stuff that I've got on my mind, stuff
that's happening in the space.
So,
if you're here, thanks for being here. If
you're here live, thanks for that. If you're
listening later,
appreciate you for continue to, to support the
(00:42):
show.
So, very, very, very busy week
in podcasting. Lots of interesting discussions, but
one that I've been paying attention to
is a discussion that's been happening in the
podcasting two point o space.
And it kinda corresponds
with a it doesn't it it's the effort
(01:02):
was already ongoing, but
the Apple announcement
of new image specs,
not for your podcast art or your episode
art, but for
being featured and, you know, new and notable
and all those things that Apple
does,
where they've renamed
(01:22):
a show hero
artwork to showcase
hero. And,
you know, what what we're starting to see
is that and it makes sense
with the diversification
of apps,
sites,
services.
Not all
(01:43):
sites are built the same. Not all apps
are built the same, and a 1,400
by 1,400
or a 3,000
by 3,000 pixel image is not often
enough. We know that we have album art
that,
follows the Apple spec,
and,
we all know what that well is is
(02:06):
we all know well what that is, aka
a square image.
No rounded corners.
Again, 1,400 by 1,400, I think, up to
3,000 by 3,000. I make all mine 1,400
by 1,400 as I wanna make sure I,
have a little of diversity in the in
the colors, and the file size doesn't get
(02:26):
too, too out of control.
But that said,
there's
other apps that have
different different needs.
And why not provide,
if we know the specs that are available
across a variety of different apps, why not
provide
(02:47):
the the the app developers
and those that are running websites?
Why don't we provide them with
a and a basically, the image of the
size that they want? Makes all the sense
in the world to me
that that we would we would do that
because what does that do? It it it
(03:08):
increases the user experience.
We we get the ability to
to make sure that
the listeners
have the best experience on the app. So
let's say Overcast says, hey. I'd like to
have a a banner image
above every show.
And, you know, what if that banner image
is,
(03:29):
300 by 200?
Well, currently, there's there's really no spec
per se.
There's no way to get that image to
overcast.
What if we have true fans that may
have two or three different
images that they would love to have? One
for their website, one for their PWA, and
one for their forthcoming iOS app.
(03:52):
What if we knew those image sizes and
as creators, we could provide
that to them?
So,
Dave and and the team and and those
that are involved in the podcasting two point
o are are want to expand
the podcast image spec
by providing a purpose.
(04:14):
Basically,
you have the ability to have the purpose
of the image.
And, one of the let me see if
I can bring it up here.
Five, six. For those of you that are,
that's that's why that's not doing. I'll I'll
bring the screen up here in a second.
Why not provide them with the, again, that
(04:36):
very specific
image? Okay. Here we go. So there's an
example of it in the podcastindex.social
website talking about
you've got the tag,
less than podcast, semicolon,
image.
The purpose of that image is the apple/hero,
(04:57):
with the forty three twenty, and I'm gonna
assume that is pixels.
And then an example,
an href example,
with the with the link to the media.
So the href would be,
getting our newmediashow.com/images/apple_hero.jpeg.
(05:19):
Now they've also
are working on
the spec in in a,
to basically lay it all out so that
everyone can
can actually
look at what what the actual spec is
gonna be. And I know David posted
a link to that this actual afternoon, and
(05:39):
let's see if I can scroll down
and find that. Maybe it's in the thread
here. So yeah. So they've come up with,
the full spec over on the GitHub.
And I know many of you, when you
go over to GitHub, your you know, your
eyes roll into the back of your of
your heads. But we are going to depreciate
(05:59):
the the original,
version of
images. Now it'll continue to work, but they're
going to essentially,
now,
allow this new this new spec to take
place and let the apps update.
We'll definitely be doing that at Blueberry. But
I think this is a fantastic
(06:20):
opportunity.
You know, they say that expanding RSS has
no value.
Well, the value
the value is we make it we make
the experience better for the listener.
And anytime we make the experience better for
the listener,
why not? Right? Now
what has Apple done in the past?
(06:42):
You know, in the Apple Podcast app,
when you load your
show,
they kinda do a a a match color
to your show art for a background. And
then on episodes, they do the same thing.
So why not have the ability
(07:02):
to send them the exact image,
in the RSS feed? And, of course, right
now, this is this is a,
it's not an it's not a,
the tag is not being used,
I believe.
I think it's a global
setting,
but it could get down into the episode
area too if it gets that fancy. Now
(07:24):
most probably most podcasters are not gonna provide
a couple of pieces of art
for every episode,
but I'm already creating art with AI. You
know? It's it's
and it's really easy.
You know? Today's art that I put up
for the YouTube,
episode,
you know, I had Sora create that in
(07:44):
about sixty seconds.
So why not?
You know, if I can have art created
this easily,
and I'm not an artist. And and I'm
sorry for those of you that are that
may be being impacted by this.
But if I'm if I'm not an artist
and I need a variety of,
(08:05):
art that is good enough,
I'm all for it.
You sign me up. And if we can
make it so that,
and we can even generate some of this.
This some of this can get better at
the hosting side
by saying, hey. Do you want
and matter of fact, Blueberry is doing this
already. Do you want episode art? And we
(08:26):
we create that for them.
We automatically,
link that in their
their, their production in their show notes so
that it's in the feed. And so when
they hit publish,
they've got episode art.
We're doing that with AI for our hosting
customers.
So we could do this at a at
(08:47):
a at a much higher level. We could
have,
art generation tools for those that are not
artistically inclined.
I had to laugh the other day. I
took a,
an old GNC logo,
and I said, hey. Make making an improvement
on this. And, wow, it it it really
(09:08):
did.
So I used something that had been done
by an artist twenty years ago
and and really made it look better. Now
let's just be frank. You know, the art
doesn't always get it right. You know? Sorry
gave me four examples today, and, you know,
one of these was not super good.
It it came up expanding podcast image standards
for for position. What do you mean for
(09:29):
position?
And that don't make no sense. But the
other day, I had I I was on
my regular tech show.
I was talking about DeepSeek and how they've
been accused of aiding the Chinese military.
And they did a wonderful job,
you know, in coming up with not only
the YouTube art, but but also the art
(09:50):
for,
for the episode art. Just absolutely fantastic. I
think I picked
I think I picked this one. For those
of you that are watching,
anyway, you can go to Geek and Central
and see the episode art I've been using.
And, you know, this is these are these
have been done with the prompts
that, you know, to be honest with you,
(10:11):
a a kindergartner could write.
So,
you know, I'm I'm absolutely thrilled. Now sometimes
it doesn't get it doesn't get it good.
And, of course, we're I'm making art now.
We've updated our image model at,
at Blueberry, and I'm getting sore quality images
out of that.
So
(10:32):
there's lots of ways to create images, and
then this this image tag
just makes
the would make the experience richer. Now
whether or not
Ted and his team
will
pick this up,
if the Apple Podcast team will pick this
(10:52):
up is is another thing. But here's the
beauty of it.
If
Apple wants to feature someone,
they could do this almost without even talking
to the podcaster. Because sometimes you gotta fill
out an application.
You gotta tell them why,
you know, why why do why should we
be you know, why we should be featured
(11:14):
and all these other things.
And they could say, hey. We we know
of a show,
and let's let's just you know? And they
don't even have to support it
by ingesting it. They could just know that
in the RSS feed, they can find the
link to this media. And even if they
manually grab it, it's there. Right? But what
(11:35):
better if they just suck it in and
it's available within their administrative,
interface on Apple side? And the same thing
for
all the other apps. If we can update
on the wheel and it's actually integrated so
that, oh, just like when you change your
your album art or your episode art, when,
(11:55):
you know, Apple or any other app see
an update, couple days, boom. The the there's
a change. Right?
So
it allows
content creators to keep all their art modern
and up to date
on a variety of apps and services. I
I think this is just a great idea,
and it's simple.
It's very, very simple. This would be very
(12:16):
simple for my,
dev team to implement. All we'll have is
just this, you know, the standard image link,
and then we'll have a plus button below
it. And the plus button will probably have
a pull down.
I'm hoping that there will be a pull
down
of a variety of services,
And I'm sure over time, probably that list
would update. And, Dave, if you're listening, I
(12:38):
would have a JSON list somewhere,
that would allow us to
have that pull down tied to a JSON
list that could be
through a pull request, you could have
those image requirements
being updated automatically, and I don't have to
go back and recode it. We just know
that this JSON list contains
(12:59):
all the specs
for a specific,
image tag.
That to us is just gonna make it
easy
to
stay current. I code this up once. I
know where the list is to get
the to get the different, drop downs to
(13:20):
say, okay. I want something for TrueCast or
I want something for Overcast.
And I think what you'll find very quickly
is apps will start to say, hey. We
wanna get in on the game, and here's
the specs we'd love to have from a
from a creator. Now
it probably
doesn't always come without risk. You're gonna have
someone that's gonna play, stupid games. They probably
(13:42):
put something that they shouldn't, but then they're
gonna pay the price in their listing. So
I thought this was something fantastic
and just it just makes so much sense
to me that,
I'm surprised that it wasn't thought of earlier.
Now I don't know who the origin person
was
of this,
oh, so here's the new write up. So
(14:05):
the there's okay. So there's the depreciated one.
So it's gonna have a parent. It's gonna
be,
can be multiple,
and the attributes are gonna be h ref,
aspect ratio, width, height, type,
purpose,
(14:25):
and alt, which is contained. So these are
the the,
basically, the attributes of the image tag and,
purpose tokens. Now what are the purpose tokens?
The purpose attribute okay. The purpose token says
what it's for.
(14:46):
So artwork, social, canvas. So, again, this goes
beyond
just,
could be a circular,
could be something for a publisher, for cover
art.
But, again, I think what we'll what we're
gonna find out
is that there could be a huge number
(15:07):
of
of options here. And maybe,
at some point, there'll be some default
height and widths that to be expected.
So they showed some of the
use cases,
podcast image
video slash m p four. And, basically, it
(15:30):
would be a
a PCI square. So, basically, something like having
running a real intro. So So it's not
only images. It could be
it could be JPEGs, m p fours.
So there's all kinds of cool use purposes
in here.
I'll have a link in the show notes
to the,
(15:51):
the proposed
and and new spec,
and you can you can comment on it.
But,
yeah. Seems pretty exciting to me, and it
makes,
a lot of sense. I could see wide
adoption by apps and so forth. Alright. So
enough on that. So, of course, there's other
stuff going on in the podcasting space.
(16:12):
Podcasting overtakes radio in Germany.
You know? That's that's, to be expecting here.
It's this is gonna be to need to
be the news
across a lot of different,
locations. A lot of this news came out
of Pod News, so credit to Pod News.
Go over there and subscribe to the newsletter.
And Acast, they've got a new new CEO
(16:33):
over there. After eight years, CEO Ross Adam
has moved
to a strategic adviser, and they succeeded by
Greg Glende,
formerly of Shazam, iHeartMedia,
and Undertote.
So, big move there.
Of course, for the first time, and I
reported this on
my tech show as well,
(16:56):
on demand streaming has surpassed
both TV and cable.
So YouTube accounts for 12.5%
of all the streaming. So not as a
big a number as I would have thought
it would have been. But, again, on demand
streaming, on demand podcast,
audio and video via Apple Apple TV, of
course,
(17:17):
or, you know, wherever you consume your podcast,
specifically
on the television.
This on demand streaming is,
has surpassed TV and cable. So that's that's
huge.
So
what's gonna be a quicker race to the
bottom?
Broadcast radio or broadcast TV
(17:38):
and and cable? That's that's probably the the
the question, right,
of of what will go, south first.
So Spotify,
you know, it's the it's the name that
shall should not be named within the show,
but gonna talk about them. And and they've
gotten some
an interesting article that came out from Digiday
(18:01):
that reports that, major
major podcast networks remain war
I almost said Rory. Warry. Wary.
Wary of,
Spotify's video video podcast program.
And
although some independent creators,
they're yielding up to five times the revenue
(18:23):
they see on YouTube. And I just wonder
and when when I hear that type of
a multiplier,
is it because it's being propped up?
Are
they are they juicing the CPMs,
or are they actually getting true higher CPMs
than than,
(18:44):
YouTube?
So, you know, if I'm if I was
a video first
dude or dudette,
I I think that,
you know, five times revenue, if you're on
the revenue side, that that seems pretty appealing.
But, again,
is it because
(19:05):
they're
they're make they're making it look good?
And I understand people's,
wariness
are being wary. I can't I can't say
that word to save my life. And and
I like one of the comments that,
a good friend of mine has said
(19:28):
is Heather Osgood, the founder of
the two native media podcast rep agency.
Yeah. And Heather really knows what she's doing
out there. She says, I'm an ad sales
company. I'm not a views company.
It's because,
basically, Spotify is saying we're gonna pay you
for views. And,
(19:50):
again, she's not a view sales company,
because let's be
be honest with you. Our podcasters are still
being paid by the almighty download. Long live
long live the download.
But, you know, the split in this concern
comes from again you know, here's how Spotify
(20:13):
could could
could have solved this.
And this is what they should have done.
So I'm hoping Spotify is listening. You wanna
remove
all of the concern?
Make it so people can listen
when they wanna listen and watch when they
(20:33):
wanna watch.
And then the then I,
as the content creator,
I can say, alright, audience. Listen. If you're
on Spotify
and you're just listening,
make sure you use the listen button to
listen
instead of the view button and put the
v put put the phone in your pocket.
(20:54):
Because if you're listening,
we wanna make sure that our audio is
still monetized, but that's not the case. They
don't have that option. You
upload video to Spotify,
overwrite your audio, essentially.
And now
if people wanna listen,
they're listening to the audit the video audio
and the ability
(21:15):
to monetize on Spotify
through dynamic ad insertion and programmatic has truly
and ultimately been destroyed.
And, you know, the secret little secret is,
as I'm talking to people at different events
and I'm saying how what's the delta?
What are you seeing before and what are
you seeing now?
(21:36):
And it always doesn't paint a positive picture
because people are losing money,
because they're getting higher CPMs
for the audio,
the audio that's being delivered. You think about
this. Just think about for a second.
And because, again, there's no apples and oranges
here.
(21:58):
If if if Spotify came out and said,
you're getting a
$25
CPM,
and we know what that is in podcasting,
$25
per thousand,
and if you're getting a $25
CPM,
the same
measuring model,
but it's not. It's not apples and oranges.
You're getting paid for views.
(22:20):
But what is a view? What is the
view determination?
And are you get let's say you're getting
a thousand views,
and you're getting paid $6,
but that same thousand
views that Spotify is counting
is
actually only,
(22:40):
like, 250
downloads, then it would be even. Right?
Again, you know what I mean here. But
there's no transparency
into that, and there's no transparency
in rev share.
That's the thing that blows me away. There's
you don't know how much you're getting.
So these folks that are all that are
earning five times,
(23:02):
maybe Spotify said, okay. We'll just give them
a 100%
to make it look good. We're we're not
gonna take any revenue share.
So, to to make a headline here that,
oh, everything is well. So I I don't
trust
anyone,
except for
(23:23):
when I'm doing advertising
in my show, I know what my reporting
numbers are. I know what I'm getting paid
for that. I have a very steady,
consistent,
revenue stream
based upon the performance of my show if
you know, if you're playing
advertising game.
(23:45):
And the of course, these concerns obviously comes
from podcast networks and podcast executives
because how many times we're gonna cut the
pie here? So you gotta think about that
again. Now think about this for a second.
So if I go out and do my
own deal,
what do I earn? A 100% of that
deal.
(24:06):
If I have if I'm if I'm the
podcast
ad rep agency
and we're on a fifty fifty split
and the amount of money you showed made
so, okay. On a on a I do
a deal myself. I earn a thousand dollars.
That's all my money. When you use a
agency and it's $50.50,
agency gets 500, you get 500.
(24:28):
So okay. Alright. That's what you signed up
for. You signed up for representation
to do ad split.
And, you know, that's what I hear a
lot of people are on is fifty fifty.
To me, it seems insane
that anyone would agree to a fifty fifty
split to begin with.
We're seventy thirty
when we do an ad deal for a
podcaster. 70% to the podcaster,
(24:51):
30 to us. And,
ultimately, if I'm working with an agency,
I actually only make 15%
because I take
their 15%
out of mine.
So that, of a thousand dollars, you're still
getting $850
to me, $150
to the ad agency.
(25:12):
For people to do high volume, I might
do $80.20.
Whereas, I'm only making 5%
on the deal
because
15%
or more all typically could always go to
the ad agency.
So I take a smaller cut to make
sure the podcaster is good. So we got
so let's use the $50.50 example.
(25:33):
Thousand dollars if I do it on my
own. 500
if I'm doing it with an an ad
agency.
Now let's throw a third
party in there. So your show is wrapped
by
company a, b, c, d, f, g. Let's
call them Acme Ad Agency.
Their deal with you is $50.50.
(25:56):
Okay.
So of that, let's say you earn let's
just hypothetically
say you earn a thousand dollars
on Spotify.
Spotify sends your
and and Spotify takes their cut. Let's say
their cut at Spotify was
500.
Let's say it's $50.50.
(26:16):
We don't know.
Let's say it's 50. So the ad agency
now gets 500,
and you end up with $2.50.
This is where the concern
is.
In the end,
the creator gets screwed.
So if you do a direct deal,
that's always the best.
Always the
(26:37):
best. If you're doing an ad agency, you're
paying for the pleasure of working with that
agency on whatever that ad revenue split is.
I I was talking with someone recently that
wanted to come in and help us with
programmatic,
a very, very, very big company. And I
said, what's the ad split? And I she
said, fifty fifty. And I'm like, no.
(26:59):
I'm not doing fifty fifty. Are you insane?
Fifty fifty, really, for doing nothing?
Yeah. Literally nothing.
Yes. They have back end stuff and all
that. I understand, but that's not worth 50%.
Not not no way no how.
(27:22):
So
in the end, the advertising agencies make a
lot of money because they're representing a lot
of podcasters,
and then the the podcasters end up getting
screwed.
Now again, I would be very, very careful
if I'm a podcaster that has a growing
audience and I go to do a a
an ad split deal with a company,
(27:43):
I'm gonna negotiate that split
pretty hard.
If I'm a big enough fish
and I'm delivering
hundreds of thousands of impressions, downloads, whatever you
wanna call them,
I'm not gonna settle for a fifty fifty
split. I'm not probably not gonna settle for
a seventy thirty split. I'm probably gonna go,
(28:06):
like, eighty twenty,
because they make it up in volume.
So this is where the rub comes in,
Because as soon as they go on SPP,
then
the ad agency
loses.
That's why they don't like it.
(28:28):
If you've done the deal direct,
which I don't think you can do unless
you're a big, big podcaster over on Spotify.
So
they're digging into the so all of a
sudden now,
now let's let's just, you know
now
(28:49):
media advertiser, media buyers, media agencies are seeing
feeling the pain
feeling the pain of the o l
l Spotify.
Because what did Spotify do to hosting providers?
Well, they came in and offered free podcasters.
So
(29:10):
certain certain folks you can't compete with free.
They slob all over that free offering,
not knowing what the impact is ultimately.
Oh, that didn't hurt the agencies then.
Oh, boohoo.
Boohoo podcast hosting company. So sorry for you.
(29:33):
Now
now they're coming after ad agencies money.
So now,
of course, they don't like it.
Because what happens when the podcaster says, okay.
You can represent me on everything except for
Spotify.
(29:54):
Because we're gonna opt in to the Spotify
partner program, and I'm just gonna get the
check from Spotify. I don't need you agency
anymore.
And let's say 50% of your audience is
with
Spotify,
then the agency immediately loses 50% of its
revenue if it's not but agency can say,
(30:15):
oh, no. No. No. No. No. We have
to have it all.
But
will they be able to have keep it
all?
So now,
again,
not only did the hosting companies get screwed,
but the agencies are starting to feel the
(30:35):
pinch
too. Wonder if that's the case that's happened
over on YouTube.
So
I might be wrong on this,
but I don't think I am.
And,
at some point,
(31:00):
these 800 pound gorillas are gonna cause an
impact,
and people are gonna get start getting laid
off
because the walled gardens are getting the walls
are getting higher.
Much, much,
much higher.
(31:20):
So I heard that, our good friends from
what's, I'm pulling a brain fart here.
It's not in my show notes. It's,
it'll come to me. I'll come back to
it. What what triggered me here
was,
(31:41):
people are working on audio processing quite a
bit.
And, what what's the who am I trying
to think of? I'm this is bad.
Like, I it's driving me so much. I
can't I can't handle it here. Let me
go to,
Blueberry and go to our partner's page. This
is this is horrible.
(32:02):
Don't you like listen listening to,
a show that doesn't do any editing and
it's, what is that? Yeah. Okay. I I'm
getting getting close here.
Oh, no. No. No. No. Todd. I don't
want that page.
(32:23):
Where is it?
You know, I'm gonna kick myself here in
a minute when I,
when I remember what the,
what the company's name is. Okay. Let me
go over here.
Yeah.
Okay. I'll figure it out. But,
Auphonic.
(32:47):
Needed Rob here. Aphonic is, introducing stuff where
you can,
have coughs and a bunch of other stuff
removed
from the audio. I I'm a big, big,
big, big, big, big fan of Aphonic
in a big big way. And,
I'm, I'm really,
really pleased with this. So we'll see. We'll
(33:09):
probably do some experiments. We're integrated with Auphonic
for our media mastering.
So is Buzzsprout. They use Auphonic as well.
They call it, magic
mastering or whatever, but we both use the
same company for the media mastering services for
our customers.
They're they're the they're the best in my
opinion.
(33:29):
So if they've got these new features, I
might be able to turn some of this
on for our podcasters, but we definitely wanna
test it to make sure that,
the audio really sounds real. Maybe it'll be
an option to turn that those types of
features on within our platform. We'll have to
see.
But pretty excited about this stuff that Auphonic
is doing.
(33:51):
We know that a Pocket Cast added,
generated in creator transcripts,
auto generated
ads
auto generated and creator transcripts.
Their player now shows transcripts when available. And
for plus subscribers, it auto generates them for
any episode,
boosting accessibility
(34:11):
for deaf and hard of hearing. So Pocket
Cast continues to do cool things. They've obviously
added Podroll.
So if you are a podcaster and your
podcast host does not
have the Podroll,
feature. So sorry for you. Definitely go over
to podcastindex.org.
Click on the apps button, and then you
(34:32):
can see which host,
provide,
PodRoll. Blueberry is one of those.
There's a few of us. Not all of
the,
companies that have been, playing in the podcasting
two point o space have done it. I
believe that
Buzzsprout did because they're the one that thought
about implementing
(34:53):
that. I don't think rss.com
has it yet. Anyway, you'll have to go
over to the list and, and take a
look.
The Podcast Marketing Academy 2025
trends report
report
says their survey reveals 55% of shows shrink
in listenership this year. Well, we did not
(35:13):
see that.
They had to did a survey.
We have actual data.
It is not down.
They said 18%
doubled.
We're we're seeing strong growth
across
all shows.
I mean, really all shows. They think that
(35:35):
the,
the business interview formats
were, were the strongest,
up five percent.
So, again, I don't know how they got
this data.
They said 55% of shows shrank in listenership.
We we have not seen
that at all because here's the deal.
(35:56):
The number of
shows
being active
are are really not growing that that that
well
that are active.
You know, the the numbers still if we
look at the running average right now let
me load this up here,
(36:16):
so that I can give you the the
acts, the the the actuals.
Oh my god. Come on, Todd. I click
on this wrong. Let's go back here.
Currently, in the last,
thirty days, only 348,000
shows have updated.
That is that's down.
(36:36):
Three only 348,000.
The last three days is not bad. A
106,000,
that stays about right. And that that's always
stayed about at a 100 k.
Past ten days is two thirty five, thirty
days is three forty. And I know someone's
got a chart somewhere.
Sixty day average is 427,000
(36:57):
shows.
But even if you extend that
out to ninety days, only 484,000
shows have have published an episode.
So but, again, shows that published an episode
in the last three, ten,
thirty days.
So what is the number? What is the
(37:17):
number of active shows? I I'm gonna contend
the number of active shows is around still
around 400,000.
So
if we think about that,
and yet
according to all reports and everything that everyone
is saying and all Edison and everyone else,
listenership is up.
So, of course, listenership is focused. A lot
(37:38):
of listeners are on all the top shows,
but there is this trickle down effect, and
we've seen that.
Very few shows
have have grown. Now my show Geek News
Central had a little drop over the past
three months, but for the whole year,
I'm up.
I really am.
(37:59):
So
but on average, we can see. And I'll
have to ask the team to post some
numbers and see if we can do some
month to month averages and and see what
the actual number is. But I just go
in and I see these increasing lines of
almost every show I look
at and podcasters I talk to, they're growing.
And I'm not
(38:19):
growing, like, 35, 40%,
but, you know, three, five, six, 7%,
10%.
And maybe you don't think that's good,
but you compound that year after year,
it's it's a pretty good number.
So,
I don't know. What do you consider
(38:40):
a respectable
growth rate?
Now I never expected ever to see a
Walmart
having a,
podcast studio.
But, apparently, in Franklin, Tennessee,
the Walmart there has opened six
on six on-site Dolby Atmos ready studios for
(39:01):
podcast and vodcast and livestreams.
So
no idea how much they cost to use,
or anything more than that, but interesting indeed.
What else do I have in my stack
today here? So VidCon
(39:22):
just happened. A number of podcasters attended VidCon,
last week under a Spotify sponsorship.
I was seeing a little bit on
social about VidCon.
Now that before used to be a pretty
big event.
So
(39:42):
but if anyone win, I'd love I'd love
to hear,
from you,
indeed.
So but, you know, a lot of stuff
going on. I I think the summer is,
you know, summer is here. Europe is starting
to,
to to throttle back.
And,
for the summer, you know, a lot of
people go on vacation in Europe in, in
(40:04):
the summer. That's to be to be fully
expected.
But we're not seeing,
a drop
in,
we're not seeing a drop in the,
in totals at all.
I think one thing that I missed,
(40:25):
in the story about Germany,
the women are are outpacing the men. They're
listening to podcast.
And I tell you, the ladies, far as
creation standpoint goes,
it it's it's almost a dead heat at
this point,
from a,
(40:46):
from a new creation standpoint.
I keep showing seeing shows that come in
and
immediately, it's like I look okay. Is this
a man or a woman? And
and, the number of solo shows. Also, we're
seeing increase in solo shows, which is interesting.
So, anyway and did you see anything interesting
(41:07):
I should've talked about this week?
Was there something here that I that I
should've covered it? I should have covered, not
covered it.
Rob will be back with us next week,
and I heard some of you.
I heard from some of you,
via email,
and,
some of you were very surprised in, some
(41:28):
things Rob said,
two shows ago.
And,
you know, I think we all got a
a little bit of chuckle. Yes. Audio is
is still
fantastic.
But,
you know, we'll we'll see. You know? The
the video messaging is strong,
(41:49):
across many, many different places. But I think
if you go look at, Blueberry and you
look at,
what Apple did,
it's probably a blog post we put out
in the June,
and the Apple Podcast share was dramatically
up.
(42:09):
The main numbers we had, we they they
show saw a huge
surge.
We'll see what they end up being for
July.
You know, it it varies a little bit,
but they had a unusual boost. Matter of
fact,
we had to go back. We did a
audit to make sure that there was not,
something,
reporting as it should not be or something
(42:30):
categorized incorrectly.
And, yeah, Apple had a huge surge in
in listeners in May. So say what you
will
about where people listen
to podcast,
and,
Apple remains
king of the hill in my opinion.
(42:50):
I know my personal show, my tech show.
You know,
be quite frank.
It's like
less than 1% on Spotify,
and that's being kind, but it's a tech
show.
And people are not really listening to tech
shows on Spotify.
I get my biggest bang out of Twitter
(43:12):
or x. Yeah. And that's supposed to call
it Twitter anymore. X. Right?
But,
we'll see. We'll see where where the where
the
where things go. We're getting ready to, go
into live beta of our guestmatch.pro
website.
There's some bonus stuff. Anyone that wants to
get in there early and sign up for
the beta, we're probably gonna be on about
a three month,
(43:34):
free offering as we're building,
creators.
It's not just a podcasting
matching service. It's a creator platform.
And, we'll be looking to, if you're you
run an agency and you're you're representing,
podcasters and trying to find them,
all Blueberry podcasters,
(43:55):
that have a hosting account with us get
access to
guestmatch.pro
for free.
They can create a guest
or a,
a well, creator and guest profile.
So, that's that's forthcoming from us. We got
some other exciting stuff coming too.
Lots moving. Matter of fact, I've spent about
(44:17):
five hours today doing,
sprint planning for the next two weeks. And
sprint planning for me normally takes about two,
two and a half hours.
So we're wrapping up some loose ends and
a whole bunch of stuff.
But as always, you can support the show
by, by boosting.
We appreciate it when you do for those
of you that are still
(44:39):
using the podcasting two point o apps at
podcastapps.com.
I do wanna thank, Mike Dell for his
20,000 boost
and, Darren Schwartz for coming in here and
boosting by the minute along with a number
of other of you. Hey. This was that,
Darren, that 50 sats,
a minute was fantastic, my friend.
(45:00):
You you love the episode YouTube isn't podcasting's
king. That that one, thank you for,
those those sats per minute. And Darren Schwartz,
I think you're the number one, supporter of
this show when it comes
to streaming sats. Also, if you wanna donate,
you wanna throw us a few, shackles,
go. Well, we got a PayPal link at
(45:21):
the newmediashow.com.
So stay subscribed.
Thank you for being here. And I'm gonna
say subscribe because I'm old school, and I
can do that.
And thank you for for subscribing to the
show. And if you wanna call it follow,
that's fine, but thank you for being here.
Rob and I will be back next week.
I don't wanna waste your time. We'll get
out of here.
(45:44):
And, anyway,
we're gonna continue to develop the show as
time goes on,
and, the format is, definitely in flux right
now. But it's been my pleasure. You all
take care. Stay safe. Go over to newmediashow.com.
Everyone take care. Bye bye.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the new media show.
My name is Todd Cochran. Of course, Rob
is off this week.
He, some personal business to take care of,
but we will return,
with Rob here next week at 8PM
eastern
as I will, be back in The Philippines,
(00:21):
but I wanted to take some time today
and put out a show. I I've got
some stuff that I wanna share with you,
stuff that I've got on my mind, stuff
that's happening in the space.
So,
if you're here, thanks for being here. If
you're here live, thanks for that. If you're
listening later,
appreciate you for continue to, to support the
(00:42):
show.
So, very, very, very busy week
in podcasting. Lots of interesting discussions, but
one that I've been paying attention to
is a discussion that's been happening in the
podcasting two point o space.
And it kinda corresponds
with a it doesn't it it's the effort
(01:02):
was already ongoing, but
the Apple announcement
of new image specs,
not for your podcast art or your episode
art, but for
being featured and, you know, new and notable
and all those things that Apple
does,
where they've renamed
(01:22):
a show hero
artwork to showcase
hero. And,
you know, what what we're starting to see
is that and it makes sense
with the diversification
of apps,
sites,
services.
Not all
(01:43):
sites are built the same. Not all apps
are built the same, and a 1,400
by 1,400
or a 3,000
by 3,000 pixel image is not often
enough. We know that we have album art
that,
follows the Apple spec,
and,
we all know what that well is is
(02:06):
we all know well what that is, aka
a square image.
No rounded corners.
Again, 1,400 by 1,400, I think, up to
3,000 by 3,000. I make all mine 1,400
by 1,400 as I wanna make sure I,
have a little of diversity in the in
the colors, and the file size doesn't get
(02:26):
too, too out of control.
But that said,
there's
other apps that have
different different needs.
And why not provide,
if we know the specs that are available
across a variety of different apps, why not
provide
(02:47):
the the the app developers
and those that are running websites?
Why don't we provide them with
a and a basically, the image of the
size that they want? Makes all the sense
in the world to me
that that we would we would do that
because what does that do? It it it
(03:08):
increases the user experience.
We we get the ability to
to make sure that
the listeners
have the best experience on the app. So
let's say Overcast says, hey. I'd like to
have a a banner image
above every show.
And, you know, what if that banner image
is,
(03:29):
300 by 200?
Well, currently, there's there's really no spec
per se.
There's no way to get that image to
overcast.
What if we have true fans that may
have two or three different
images that they would love to have? One
for their website, one for their PWA, and
one for their forthcoming iOS app.
(03:52):
What if we knew those image sizes and
as creators, we could provide
that to them?
So,
Dave and and the team and and those
that are involved in the podcasting two point
o are are want to expand
the podcast image spec
by providing a purpose.
(04:14):
Basically,
you have the ability to have the purpose
of the image.
And, one of the let me see if
I can bring it up here.
Five, six. For those of you that are,
that's that's why that's not doing. I'll I'll
bring the screen up here in a second.
Why not provide them with the, again, that
(04:36):
very specific
image? Okay. Here we go. So there's an
example of it in the podcastindex.social
website talking about
you've got the tag,
less than podcast, semicolon,
image.
The purpose of that image is the apple/hero,
(04:57):
with the forty three twenty, and I'm gonna
assume that is pixels.
And then an example,
an href example,
with the with the link to the media.
So the href would be,
getting our newmediashow.com/images/apple_hero.jpeg.
(05:19):
Now they've also
are working on
the spec in in a,
to basically lay it all out so that
everyone can
can actually
look at what what the actual spec is
gonna be. And I know David posted
a link to that this actual afternoon, and
(05:39):
let's see if I can scroll down
and find that. Maybe it's in the thread
here. So yeah. So they've come up with,
the full spec over on the GitHub.
And I know many of you, when you
go over to GitHub, your you know, your
eyes roll into the back of your of
your heads. But we are going to depreciate
(05:59):
the the original,
version of
images. Now it'll continue to work, but they're
going to essentially,
now,
allow this new this new spec to take
place and let the apps update.
We'll definitely be doing that at Blueberry. But
I think this is a fantastic
(06:20):
opportunity.
You know, they say that expanding RSS has
no value.
Well, the value
the value is we make it we make
the experience better for the listener.
And anytime we make the experience better for
the listener,
why not? Right? Now
what has Apple done in the past?
(06:42):
You know, in the Apple Podcast app,
when you load your
show,
they kinda do a a a match color
to your show art for a background. And
then on episodes, they do the same thing.
So why not have the ability
(07:02):
to send them the exact image,
in the RSS feed? And, of course, right
now, this is this is a,
it's not an it's not a,
the tag is not being used,
I believe.
I think it's a global
setting,
but it could get down into the episode
area too if it gets that fancy. Now
(07:24):
most probably most podcasters are not gonna provide
a couple of pieces of art
for every episode,
but I'm already creating art with AI. You
know? It's it's
and it's really easy.
You know? Today's art that I put up
for the YouTube,
episode,
you know, I had Sora create that in
(07:44):
about sixty seconds.
So why not?
You know, if I can have art created
this easily,
and I'm not an artist. And and I'm
sorry for those of you that are that
may be being impacted by this.
But if I'm if I'm not an artist
and I need a variety of,
(08:05):
art that is good enough,
I'm all for it.
You sign me up. And if we can
make it so that,
and we can even generate some of this.
This some of this can get better at
the hosting side
by saying, hey. Do you want
and matter of fact, Blueberry is doing this
already. Do you want episode art? And we
(08:26):
we create that for them.
We automatically,
link that in their
their, their production in their show notes so
that it's in the feed. And so when
they hit publish,
they've got episode art.
We're doing that with AI for our hosting
customers.
So we could do this at a at
(08:47):
a at a much higher level. We could
have,
art generation tools for those that are not
artistically inclined.
I had to laugh the other day. I
took a,
an old GNC logo,
and I said, hey. Make making an improvement
on this. And, wow, it it it really
(09:08):
did.
So I used something that had been done
by an artist twenty years ago
and and really made it look better. Now
let's just be frank. You know, the art
doesn't always get it right. You know? Sorry
gave me four examples today, and, you know,
one of these was not super good.
It it came up expanding podcast image standards
for for position. What do you mean for
(09:29):
position?
And that don't make no sense. But the
other day, I had I I was on
my regular tech show.
I was talking about DeepSeek and how they've
been accused of aiding the Chinese military.
And they did a wonderful job,
you know, in coming up with not only
the YouTube art, but but also the art
(09:50):
for,
for the episode art. Just absolutely fantastic. I
think I picked
I think I picked this one. For those
of you that are watching,
anyway, you can go to Geek and Central
and see the episode art I've been using.
And, you know, this is these are these
have been done with the prompts
that, you know, to be honest with you,
(10:11):
a a kindergartner could write.
So,
you know, I'm I'm absolutely thrilled. Now sometimes
it doesn't get it doesn't get it good.
And, of course, we're I'm making art now.
We've updated our image model at,
at Blueberry, and I'm getting sore quality images
out of that.
So
(10:32):
there's lots of ways to create images, and
then this this image tag
just makes
the would make the experience richer. Now
whether or not
Ted and his team
will
pick this up,
if the Apple Podcast team will pick this
(10:52):
up is is another thing. But here's the
beauty of it.
If
Apple wants to feature someone,
they could do this almost without even talking
to the podcaster. Because sometimes you gotta fill
out an application.
You gotta tell them why,
you know, why why do why should we
be you know, why we should be featured
(11:14):
and all these other things.
And they could say, hey. We we know
of a show,
and let's let's just you know? And they
don't even have to support it
by ingesting it. They could just know that
in the RSS feed, they can find the
link to this media. And even if they
manually grab it, it's there. Right? But what
(11:35):
better if they just suck it in and
it's available within their administrative,
interface on Apple side? And the same thing
for
all the other apps. If we can update
on the wheel and it's actually integrated so
that, oh, just like when you change your
your album art or your episode art, when,
(11:55):
you know, Apple or any other app see
an update, couple days, boom. The the there's
a change. Right?
So
it allows
content creators to keep all their art modern
and up to date
on a variety of apps and services. I
I think this is just a great idea,
and it's simple.
It's very, very simple. This would be very
(12:16):
simple for my,
dev team to implement. All we'll have is
just this, you know, the standard image link,
and then we'll have a plus button below
it. And the plus button will probably have
a pull down.
I'm hoping that there will be a pull
down
of a variety of services,
And I'm sure over time, probably that list
would update. And, Dave, if you're listening, I
(12:38):
would have a JSON list somewhere,
that would allow us to
have that pull down tied to a JSON
list that could be
through a pull request, you could have
those image requirements
being updated automatically, and I don't have to
go back and recode it. We just know
that this JSON list contains
(12:59):
all the specs
for a specific,
image tag.
That to us is just gonna make it
easy
to
stay current. I code this up once. I
know where the list is to get
the to get the different, drop downs to
(13:20):
say, okay. I want something for TrueCast or
I want something for Overcast.
And I think what you'll find very quickly
is apps will start to say, hey. We
wanna get in on the game, and here's
the specs we'd love to have from a
from a creator. Now
it probably
doesn't always come without risk. You're gonna have
someone that's gonna play, stupid games. They probably
(13:42):
put something that they shouldn't, but then they're
gonna pay the price in their listing. So
I thought this was something fantastic
and just it just makes so much sense
to me that,
I'm surprised that it wasn't thought of earlier.
Now I don't know who the origin person
was
of this,
oh, so here's the new write up. So
(14:05):
the there's okay. So there's the depreciated one.
So it's gonna have a parent. It's gonna
be,
can be multiple,
and the attributes are gonna be h ref,
aspect ratio, width, height, type,
purpose,
(14:25):
and alt, which is contained. So these are
the the,
basically, the attributes of the image tag and,
purpose tokens. Now what are the purpose tokens?
The purpose attribute okay. The purpose token says
what it's for.
(14:46):
So artwork, social, canvas. So, again, this goes
beyond
just,
could be a circular,
could be something for a publisher, for cover
art.
But, again, I think what we'll what we're
gonna find out
is that there could be a huge number
(15:07):
of
of options here. And maybe,
at some point, there'll be some default
height and widths that to be expected.
So they showed some of the
use cases,
podcast image
video slash m p four. And, basically, it
(15:30):
would be a
a PCI square. So, basically, something like having
running a real intro. So So it's not
only images. It could be
it could be JPEGs, m p fours.
So there's all kinds of cool use purposes
in here.
I'll have a link in the show notes
to the,
(15:51):
the proposed
and and new spec,
and you can you can comment on it.
But,
yeah. Seems pretty exciting to me, and it
makes,
a lot of sense. I could see wide
adoption by apps and so forth. Alright. So
enough on that. So, of course, there's other
stuff going on in the podcasting space.
(16:12):
Podcasting overtakes radio in Germany.
You know? That's that's, to be expecting here.
It's this is gonna be to need to
be the news
across a lot of different,
locations. A lot of this news came out
of Pod News, so credit to Pod News.
Go over there and subscribe to the newsletter.
And Acast, they've got a new new CEO
(16:33):
over there. After eight years, CEO Ross Adam
has moved
to a strategic adviser, and they succeeded by
Greg Glende,
formerly of Shazam, iHeartMedia,
and Undertote.
So, big move there.
Of course, for the first time, and I
reported this on
my tech show as well,
(16:56):
on demand streaming has surpassed
both TV and cable.
So YouTube accounts for 12.5%
of all the streaming. So not as a
big a number as I would have thought
it would have been. But, again, on demand
streaming, on demand podcast,
audio and video via Apple Apple TV, of
course,
(17:17):
or, you know, wherever you consume your podcast,
specifically
on the television.
This on demand streaming is,
has surpassed TV and cable. So that's that's
huge.
So
what's gonna be a quicker race to the
bottom?
Broadcast radio or broadcast TV
(17:38):
and and cable? That's that's probably the the
the question, right,
of of what will go, south first.
So Spotify,
you know, it's the it's the name that
shall should not be named within the show,
but gonna talk about them. And and they've
gotten some
an interesting article that came out from Digiday
(18:01):
that reports that, major
major podcast networks remain war
I almost said Rory. Warry. Wary.
Wary of,
Spotify's video video podcast program.
And
although some independent creators,
they're yielding up to five times the revenue
(18:23):
they see on YouTube. And I just wonder
and when when I hear that type of
a multiplier,
is it because it's being propped up?
Are
they are they juicing the CPMs,
or are they actually getting true higher CPMs
than than,
(18:44):
YouTube?
So, you know, if I'm if I was
a video first
dude or dudette,
I I think that,
you know, five times revenue, if you're on
the revenue side, that that seems pretty appealing.
But, again,
is it because
(19:05):
they're
they're make they're making it look good?
And I understand people's,
wariness
are being wary. I can't I can't say
that word to save my life. And and
I like one of the comments that,
a good friend of mine has said
(19:28):
is Heather Osgood, the founder of
the two native media podcast rep agency.
Yeah. And Heather really knows what she's doing
out there. She says, I'm an ad sales
company. I'm not a views company.
It's because,
basically, Spotify is saying we're gonna pay you
for views. And,
(19:50):
again, she's not a view sales company,
because let's be
be honest with you. Our podcasters are still
being paid by the almighty download. Long live
long live the download.
But, you know, the split in this concern
comes from again you know, here's how Spotify
(20:13):
could could
could have solved this.
And this is what they should have done.
So I'm hoping Spotify is listening. You wanna
remove
all of the concern?
Make it so people can listen
when they wanna listen and watch when they
(20:33):
wanna watch.
And then the then I,
as the content creator,
I can say, alright, audience. Listen. If you're
on Spotify
and you're just listening,
make sure you use the listen button to
listen
instead of the view button and put the
v put put the phone in your pocket.
(20:54):
Because if you're listening,
we wanna make sure that our audio is
still monetized, but that's not the case. They
don't have that option. You
upload video to Spotify,
overwrite your audio, essentially.
And now
if people wanna listen,
they're listening to the audit the video audio
and the ability
(21:15):
to monetize on Spotify
through dynamic ad insertion and programmatic has truly
and ultimately been destroyed.
And, you know, the secret little secret is,
as I'm talking to people at different events
and I'm saying how what's the delta?
What are you seeing before and what are
you seeing now?
(21:36):
And it always doesn't paint a positive picture
because people are losing money,
because they're getting higher CPMs
for the audio,
the audio that's being delivered. You think about
this. Just think about for a second.
And because, again, there's no apples and oranges
here.
(21:58):
If if if Spotify came out and said,
you're getting a
$25
CPM,
and we know what that is in podcasting,
$25
per thousand,
and if you're getting a $25
CPM,
the same
measuring model,
but it's not. It's not apples and oranges.
You're getting paid for views.
(22:20):
But what is a view? What is the
view determination?
And are you get let's say you're getting
a thousand views,
and you're getting paid $6,
but that same thousand
views that Spotify is counting
is
actually only,
(22:40):
like, 250
downloads, then it would be even. Right?
Again, you know what I mean here. But
there's no transparency
into that, and there's no transparency
in rev share.
That's the thing that blows me away. There's
you don't know how much you're getting.
So these folks that are all that are
earning five times,
(23:02):
maybe Spotify said, okay. We'll just give them
a 100%
to make it look good. We're we're not
gonna take any revenue share.
So, to to make a headline here that,
oh, everything is well. So I I don't
trust
anyone,
except for
(23:23):
when I'm doing advertising
in my show, I know what my reporting
numbers are. I know what I'm getting paid
for that. I have a very steady,
consistent,
revenue stream
based upon the performance of my show if
you know, if you're playing
advertising game.
(23:45):
And the of course, these concerns obviously comes
from podcast networks and podcast executives
because how many times we're gonna cut the
pie here? So you gotta think about that
again. Now think about this for a second.
So if I go out and do my
own deal,
what do I earn? A 100% of that
deal.
(24:06):
If I have if I'm if I'm the
podcast
ad rep agency
and we're on a fifty fifty split
and the amount of money you showed made
so, okay. On a on a I do
a deal myself. I earn a thousand dollars.
That's all my money. When you use a
agency and it's $50.50,
agency gets 500, you get 500.
(24:28):
So okay. Alright. That's what you signed up
for. You signed up for representation
to do ad split.
And, you know, that's what I hear a
lot of people are on is fifty fifty.
To me, it seems insane
that anyone would agree to a fifty fifty
split to begin with.
We're seventy thirty
when we do an ad deal for a
podcaster. 70% to the podcaster,
(24:51):
30 to us. And,
ultimately, if I'm working with an agency,
I actually only make 15%
because I take
their 15%
out of mine.
So that, of a thousand dollars, you're still
getting $850
to me, $150
to the ad agency.
(25:12):
For people to do high volume, I might
do $80.20.
Whereas, I'm only making 5%
on the deal
because
15%
or more all typically could always go to
the ad agency.
So I take a smaller cut to make
sure the podcaster is good. So we got
so let's use the $50.50 example.
(25:33):
Thousand dollars if I do it on my
own. 500
if I'm doing it with an an ad
agency.
Now let's throw a third
party in there. So your show is wrapped
by
company a, b, c, d, f, g. Let's
call them Acme Ad Agency.
Their deal with you is $50.50.
(25:56):
Okay.
So of that, let's say you earn let's
just hypothetically
say you earn a thousand dollars
on Spotify.
Spotify sends your
and and Spotify takes their cut. Let's say
their cut at Spotify was
500.
Let's say it's $50.50.
(26:16):
We don't know.
Let's say it's 50. So the ad agency
now gets 500,
and you end up with $2.50.
This is where the concern
is.
In the end,
the creator gets screwed.
So if you do a direct deal,
that's always the best.
Always the
(26:37):
best. If you're doing an ad agency, you're
paying for the pleasure of working with that
agency on whatever that ad revenue split is.
I I was talking with someone recently that
wanted to come in and help us with
programmatic,
a very, very, very big company. And I
said, what's the ad split? And I she
said, fifty fifty. And I'm like, no.
(26:59):
I'm not doing fifty fifty. Are you insane?
Fifty fifty, really, for doing nothing?
Yeah. Literally nothing.
Yes. They have back end stuff and all
that. I understand, but that's not worth 50%.
Not not no way no how.
(27:22):
So
in the end, the advertising agencies make a
lot of money because they're representing a lot
of podcasters,
and then the the podcasters end up getting
screwed.
Now again, I would be very, very careful
if I'm a podcaster that has a growing
audience and I go to do a a
an ad split deal with a company,
(27:43):
I'm gonna negotiate that split
pretty hard.
If I'm a big enough fish
and I'm delivering
hundreds of thousands of impressions, downloads, whatever you
wanna call them,
I'm not gonna settle for a fifty fifty
split. I'm not probably not gonna settle for
a seventy thirty split. I'm probably gonna go,
(28:06):
like, eighty twenty,
because they make it up in volume.
So this is where the rub comes in,
Because as soon as they go on SPP,
then
the ad agency
loses.
That's why they don't like it.
(28:28):
If you've done the deal direct,
which I don't think you can do unless
you're a big, big podcaster over on Spotify.
So
they're digging into the so all of a
sudden now,
now let's let's just, you know
now
(28:49):
media advertiser, media buyers, media agencies are seeing
feeling the pain
feeling the pain of the o l
l Spotify.
Because what did Spotify do to hosting providers?
Well, they came in and offered free podcasters.
So
(29:10):
certain certain folks you can't compete with free.
They slob all over that free offering,
not knowing what the impact is ultimately.
Oh, that didn't hurt the agencies then.
Oh, boohoo.
Boohoo podcast hosting company. So sorry for you.
(29:33):
Now
now they're coming after ad agencies money.
So now,
of course, they don't like it.
Because what happens when the podcaster says, okay.
You can represent me on everything except for
Spotify.
(29:54):
Because we're gonna opt in to the Spotify
partner program, and I'm just gonna get the
check from Spotify. I don't need you agency
anymore.
And let's say 50% of your audience is
with
Spotify,
then the agency immediately loses 50% of its
revenue if it's not but agency can say,
(30:15):
oh, no. No. No. No. No. We have
to have it all.
But
will they be able to have keep it
all?
So now,
again,
not only did the hosting companies get screwed,
but the agencies are starting to feel the
(30:35):
pinch
too. Wonder if that's the case that's happened
over on YouTube.
So
I might be wrong on this,
but I don't think I am.
And,
at some point,
(31:00):
these 800 pound gorillas are gonna cause an
impact,
and people are gonna get start getting laid
off
because the walled gardens are getting the walls
are getting higher.
Much, much,
much higher.
(31:20):
So I heard that, our good friends from
what's, I'm pulling a brain fart here.
It's not in my show notes. It's,
it'll come to me. I'll come back to
it. What what triggered me here
was,
(31:41):
people are working on audio processing quite a
bit.
And, what what's the who am I trying
to think of? I'm this is bad.
Like, I it's driving me so much. I
can't I can't handle it here. Let me
go to,
Blueberry and go to our partner's page. This
is this is horrible.
(32:02):
Don't you like listen listening to,
a show that doesn't do any editing and
it's, what is that? Yeah. Okay. I I'm
getting getting close here.
Oh, no. No. No. No. Todd. I don't
want that page.
(32:23):
Where is it?
You know, I'm gonna kick myself here in
a minute when I,
when I remember what the,
what the company's name is. Okay. Let me
go over here.
Yeah.
Okay. I'll figure it out. But,
Auphonic.
(32:47):
Needed Rob here. Aphonic is, introducing stuff where
you can,
have coughs and a bunch of other stuff
removed
from the audio. I I'm a big, big,
big, big, big, big fan of Aphonic
in a big big way. And,
I'm, I'm really,
really pleased with this. So we'll see. We'll
(33:09):
probably do some experiments. We're integrated with Auphonic
for our media mastering.
So is Buzzsprout. They use Auphonic as well.
They call it, magic
mastering or whatever, but we both use the
same company for the media mastering services for
our customers.
They're they're the they're the best in my
opinion.
(33:29):
So if they've got these new features, I
might be able to turn some of this
on for our podcasters, but we definitely wanna
test it to make sure that,
the audio really sounds real. Maybe it'll be
an option to turn that those types of
features on within our platform. We'll have to
see.
But pretty excited about this stuff that Auphonic
is doing.
(33:51):
We know that a Pocket Cast added,
generated in creator transcripts,
auto generated
ads
auto generated and creator transcripts.
Their player now shows transcripts when available. And
for plus subscribers, it auto generates them for
any episode,
boosting accessibility
(34:11):
for deaf and hard of hearing. So Pocket
Cast continues to do cool things. They've obviously
added Podroll.
So if you are a podcaster and your
podcast host does not
have the Podroll,
feature. So sorry for you. Definitely go over
to podcastindex.org.
Click on the apps button, and then you
(34:32):
can see which host,
provide,
PodRoll. Blueberry is one of those.
There's a few of us. Not all of
the,
companies that have been, playing in the podcasting
two point o space have done it. I
believe that
Buzzsprout did because they're the one that thought
about implementing
(34:53):
that. I don't think rss.com
has it yet. Anyway, you'll have to go
over to the list and, and take a
look.
The Podcast Marketing Academy 2025
trends report
report
says their survey reveals 55% of shows shrink
in listenership this year. Well, we did not
(35:13):
see that.
They had to did a survey.
We have actual data.
It is not down.
They said 18%
doubled.
We're we're seeing strong growth
across
all shows.
I mean, really all shows. They think that
(35:35):
the,
the business interview formats
were, were the strongest,
up five percent.
So, again, I don't know how they got
this data.
They said 55% of shows shrank in listenership.
We we have not seen
that at all because here's the deal.
(35:56):
The number of
shows
being active
are are really not growing that that that
well
that are active.
You know, the the numbers still if we
look at the running average right now let
me load this up here,
(36:16):
so that I can give you the the
acts, the the the actuals.
Oh my god. Come on, Todd. I click
on this wrong. Let's go back here.
Currently, in the last,
thirty days, only 348,000
shows have updated.
That is that's down.
(36:36):
Three only 348,000.
The last three days is not bad. A
106,000,
that stays about right. And that that's always
stayed about at a 100 k.
Past ten days is two thirty five, thirty
days is three forty. And I know someone's
got a chart somewhere.
Sixty day average is 427,000
(36:57):
shows.
But even if you extend that
out to ninety days, only 484,000
shows have have published an episode.
So but, again, shows that published an episode
in the last three, ten,
thirty days.
So what is the number? What is the
(37:17):
number of active shows? I I'm gonna contend
the number of active shows is around still
around 400,000.
So
if we think about that,
and yet
according to all reports and everything that everyone
is saying and all Edison and everyone else,
listenership is up.
So, of course, listenership is focused. A lot
(37:38):
of listeners are on all the top shows,
but there is this trickle down effect, and
we've seen that.
Very few shows
have have grown. Now my show Geek News
Central had a little drop over the past
three months, but for the whole year,
I'm up.
I really am.
(37:59):
So
but on average, we can see. And I'll
have to ask the team to post some
numbers and see if we can do some
month to month averages and and see what
the actual number is. But I just go
in and I see these increasing lines of
almost every show I look
at and podcasters I talk to, they're growing.
And I'm not
(38:19):
growing, like, 35, 40%,
but, you know, three, five, six, 7%,
10%.
And maybe you don't think that's good,
but you compound that year after year,
it's it's a pretty good number.
So,
I don't know. What do you consider
(38:40):
a respectable
growth rate?
Now I never expected ever to see a
Walmart
having a,
podcast studio.
But, apparently, in Franklin, Tennessee,
the Walmart there has opened six
on six on-site Dolby Atmos ready studios for
(39:01):
podcast and vodcast and livestreams.
So
no idea how much they cost to use,
or anything more than that, but interesting indeed.
What else do I have in my stack
today here? So VidCon
(39:22):
just happened. A number of podcasters attended VidCon,
last week under a Spotify sponsorship.
I was seeing a little bit on
social about VidCon.
Now that before used to be a pretty
big event.
So
(39:42):
but if anyone win, I'd love I'd love
to hear,
from you,
indeed.
So but, you know, a lot of stuff
going on. I I think the summer is,
you know, summer is here. Europe is starting
to,
to to throttle back.
And,
for the summer, you know, a lot of
people go on vacation in Europe in, in
(40:04):
the summer. That's to be to be fully
expected.
But we're not seeing,
a drop
in,
we're not seeing a drop in the,
in totals at all.
I think one thing that I missed,
(40:25):
in the story about Germany,
the women are are outpacing the men. They're
listening to podcast.
And I tell you, the ladies, far as
creation standpoint goes,
it it's it's almost a dead heat at
this point,
from a,
(40:46):
from a new creation standpoint.
I keep showing seeing shows that come in
and
immediately, it's like I look okay. Is this
a man or a woman? And
and, the number of solo shows. Also, we're
seeing increase in solo shows, which is interesting.
So, anyway and did you see anything interesting
(41:07):
I should've talked about this week?
Was there something here that I that I
should've covered it? I should have covered, not
covered it.
Rob will be back with us next week,
and I heard some of you.
I heard from some of you,
via email,
and,
some of you were very surprised in, some
(41:28):
things Rob said,
two shows ago.
And,
you know, I think we all got a
a little bit of chuckle. Yes. Audio is
is still
fantastic.
But,
you know, we'll we'll see. You know? The
the video messaging is strong,
(41:49):
across many, many different places. But I think
if you go look at, Blueberry and you
look at,
what Apple did,
it's probably a blog post we put out
in the June,
and the Apple Podcast share was dramatically
up.
(42:09):
The main numbers we had, we they they
show saw a huge
surge.
We'll see what they end up being for
July.
You know, it it varies a little bit,
but they had a unusual boost. Matter of
fact,
we had to go back. We did a
audit to make sure that there was not,
something,
reporting as it should not be or something
(42:30):
categorized incorrectly.
And, yeah, Apple had a huge surge in
in listeners in May. So say what you
will
about where people listen
to podcast,
and,
Apple remains
king of the hill in my opinion.
(42:50):
I know my personal show, my tech show.
You know,
be quite frank.
It's like
less than 1% on Spotify,
and that's being kind, but it's a tech
show.
And people are not really listening to tech
shows on Spotify.
I get my biggest bang out of Twitter
(43:12):
or x. Yeah. And that's supposed to call
it Twitter anymore. X. Right?
But,
we'll see. We'll see where where the where
the
where things go. We're getting ready to, go
into live beta of our guestmatch.pro
website.
There's some bonus stuff. Anyone that wants to
get in there early and sign up for
the beta, we're probably gonna be on about
a three month,
(43:34):
free offering as we're building,
creators.
It's not just a podcasting
matching service. It's a creator platform.
And, we'll be looking to, if you're you
run an agency and you're you're representing,
podcasters and trying to find them,
all Blueberry podcasters,
(43:55):
that have a hosting account with us get
access to
guestmatch.pro
for free.
They can create a guest
or a,
a well, creator and guest profile.
So, that's that's forthcoming from us. We got
some other exciting stuff coming too.
Lots moving. Matter of fact, I've spent about
(44:17):
five hours today doing,
sprint planning for the next two weeks. And
sprint planning for me normally takes about two,
two and a half hours.
So we're wrapping up some loose ends and
a whole bunch of stuff.
But as always, you can support the show
by, by boosting.
We appreciate it when you do for those
of you that are still
(44:39):
using the podcasting two point o apps at
podcastapps.com.
I do wanna thank, Mike Dell for his
20,000 boost
and, Darren Schwartz for coming in here and
boosting by the minute along with a number
of other of you. Hey. This was that,
Darren, that 50 sats,
a minute was fantastic, my friend.
(45:00):
You you love the episode YouTube isn't podcasting's
king. That that one, thank you for,
those those sats per minute. And Darren Schwartz,
I think you're the number one, supporter of
this show when it comes
to streaming sats. Also, if you wanna donate,
you wanna throw us a few, shackles,
go. Well, we got a PayPal link at
(45:21):
the newmediashow.com.
So stay subscribed.
Thank you for being here. And I'm gonna
say subscribe because I'm old school, and I
can do that.
And thank you for for subscribing to the
show. And if you wanna call it follow,
that's fine, but thank you for being here.
Rob and I will be back next week.
I don't wanna waste your time. We'll get
out of here.
(45:44):
And, anyway,
we're gonna continue to develop the show as
time goes on,
and, the format is, definitely in flux right
now. But it's been my pleasure. You all
take care. Stay safe. Go over to newmediashow.com.
Everyone take care. Bye bye.
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