June 11, 2021 • 49 mins
Dario is joined in this episode by two of the leading lights of Podcast Studies to discuss some of the major changes in podcasting infrastructure and their implications. Apple’s decision to add a mechanism for paid subscriptions to its podcasting architecture is a move that is arguably as significant as when the iTunes first specified podcasting in its audio listening directory. In a recent article in The Conversation co-written by John Sullivan (Professor of Media and Communication, Muhlenberg College), Kim Fox (Professor of Practice in Journalism and Mass Communication, American University in Cairo) & Richard Berry (Senior Lecturer in Radio, University of Sunderland) place this transformation in the context of wider shifts in podcasting's industrial and economic infrastructure. John and Richard discuss with Dario the key points of the article (Kim was unfortunately double-booked with another meeting at the last minute), including how the big tech companies are fighting for market share over content and technological delivery in various ways, what impact this will have on the ways shows are developed, produced and listened to, along with the question of whether this signals the end to the more creative, open-source democratic ethos that is often associated with the medium.
Shownotes
Richard mentions Fiona Sturges Guardian article: A real turn off: Are celebrities ruining podcasting?
Richard recommends The Lazarus Heist & Cold Case Crime Cuts
John recommends Podland Podcast & 1800 Seconds on Autism
Dario recommends Floodlines and Crushed
If you enjoy the show please consider sharing and commenting on your social media networks. If you are engaged in audio work of any kind and would like to discuss it on the show, please email d.llinares@brighton.ac.uk
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Podcast lovers academics aficionados and producers.
This is you oral cultures. Welcome to New oral cultures.
I'm Dario. Linares.
I'm really pleased this week to be joined by two of the leading
lights of podcast, studies to discuss, some of the major
(00:29):
changes. Ages in podcasting
infrastructure that have happened recently and its
implications primarily. I'm talking about Apple's
decision to add a mechanism for paid subscription to.
It's podcasting architecture andmove that is arguably as
significant as when the iTunes directory first specified
podcasting in its audio genres. So, joining me to discuss this
(00:54):
is first of all, John Sullivan professor of media and
communication at Muhlenberg College.
John nice to see you and speak to you.
How's it going? It's going great.
Thanks so much for having me da Road area.
Really appreciate being on no problem.
Always great to have you back onand listen to what you've got to
say, particularly, because this is right in your wheelhouse.
What we're going to talk about today and we just been talking
(01:16):
off off mic about your current project, your current book.
And yeah, how how is that going?And and it's it must be quite a
difficult thing to write with the Transformations that are
constantly going on with podcasting.
Platform ization and you know, all these shifts that are taking
place in the in the infrastructure.
Yeah. I always say that.
I mean, I've been reading this book for years now because it
(01:39):
always seems like you're trying to nail Jello to the wall and
it's continually changing and updating and it's quite
maddening. Actually when you when you
really get down to it because you're trying to get a bead on
what's happening in the industryand then all these and these are
not small changes either. These are quite significant
moves. So I started writing this book
(01:59):
really Long before. Spotify really kind of changed
the nature of what's happening in podcasting itself.
I now that has seemed to create a kind of domino effect in the
industry and it looks very different.
So when I was really working on this to begin with in 2016 and
2017 podcasting, it least in theUnited States.
(02:21):
And I think you can say elsewhere as well looks
radically different in 2021 thanit did in 2016. 2017, some
changes for the good, some. Changes for the worse, some
changes underway, and it's unclear where they're going to
end up. But the, the book itself I'm
working on is called podcasting in a platform age and it's
definitely trying to capture some of these moving changes.
(02:43):
So as with anything in an academic project, you just have
to realize and recognize that. At some point you have to stop
writing hit send and it has to come out and print and but I do
always get the sense when working in podcasting that
anything that we do in Say and write and publish becomes
immediately dated as soon as it emerges in print.
(03:06):
Yeah, and with the the publication cycle being so long,
you know, the they'll have to bea very heavily caveated
conclusion. I would imagine to the book.
It's terrible, the pace, the pace of, you know, review and
it's just, it's academics are soslow and it's hard to explain to
people who are working in publishing or in journalism or
in the industry writ large. When they you know, you do it
(03:29):
in. Review with them about a book
that's upcoming. And they said, great.
What can I expect this to be in print?
And I said, well, maybe 2022. If I'm lucky.
Yeah, and who knows what podcasting will be low.
So, yeah, and I'm also joined bymy co-editor from the new oral
cultures book and writer of several of podcaster Deezer
(03:53):
texts, and that's Richard Berry Richard, great to see you.
And you how dim? Yeah, I'm not too bad.
I'm not too bad. How Sounds like in Sunderland.
Are you just winding up now withthe students or if you don't
have you done and dusted with the marking and everything?
Nearly? I think one more day and I might
be there and I somebody lands a batch of moderation come my
(04:14):
depth, which is inevitable and I've got a pile of external
examining to do hoo-yeah academic life.
So I've got that to do but hopefully by maybe the end of
next week. Might be free and clear.
Have you got research planned oran ongoing for the for the
(04:35):
summer? Yeah.
I'm just a minute pulling together.
An abstract for a book chapter that I'm working on just and I'm
just waiting to hear back on to back my journal article that I
submitted sort of sort of weeks ago and I hope it's going to
turn that around and come back to us fairly soon.
(04:55):
So hopefully not too many changes with that one.
Never know. It could be.
It could be an extensive extensive rewrites.
Oh, yeah, I wanted two things kind of on the go.
Yeah. It's like building extension on
the house when you didn't reallyplan for it.
Sometimes is what happens with peer review, isn't it?
But yeah, hopefully it won't be too owners a little bit.
Yeah, - hopefully I won't be, but it's going to.
(05:18):
It's been an interesting articleactually.
And I think it's one of those that when you start to write it,
you have a sense of what you think you might be writing and
then you start to do the work. And in this case, this was
interviewing people from industry and Actually, there's a
kind of a I think there's kind of a bigger, a bigger research
project lying lying in, wait behind it.
Now, that's always good. And bad though, isn't it?
When you think to yourself actually a sort of starting
(05:42):
point article can lead you to something that may be more
significant? Yeah.
She's always going. I think this is what this might
turn out. Turn out to be and yeah kind of
this one. I think.
Do you think that? And I think there's a sort of a
theory here and then actually actually you as you're saying to
John, you know, the way this industry is changing something
that is Kind of you think thinking that's going and then
(06:02):
actually while you're writing, it's actually happening.
Is it going at the pace of change such that it is
absolutely. And I should just also say that
we were supposed to have the wonderful King Fox on the show,
but she was double booked at thelast minute and she kindly said
that we should just carried on carry on rather than rearrange
again. Because we'd re-raise this chat
couple of times and we already took to have the discussion
(06:24):
within the ballpark of the themestill being kind of relevant.
So, yeah, let's get into Into a chat about what's going on in
terms of the changing structuresof podcasting right now and what
instigated this conversation on me?
Wanting to get you guys on. Was this piece?
You written in the conversation,which is a kind of academic
blog. /. Yeah, it offers a space for sort
(06:47):
of journalistic writing where you can transpose your academic
work into more shorter, less less formal pieces, but maybe
John maybe we could start by thinking about what what is this
fundamental? Turning point in terms of
podcasting, perhaps developing into a new phase.
What are the key points around this?
Yeah. Absolutely.
(07:08):
I would say there's kind of two key trends happening right now
in podcasting and that I'm trying to map out a little bit
in the book. I'm working on and the first
kind of Mega trend is what we might call formalization.
And that's basically when you take something that's a cultural
form and you place institutionalstructures around it.
(07:28):
And you begin Into and it beginsto become much more formal to,
you know, to forms formalize andinstitutionalize, that's
happening in a number of ways. There's all kinds of large
companies corporations that havelots of Prior experience in
either radio broadcasting OR tech companies that are moving
into podcasting making huge betsFinancial bets Spotify.
(07:55):
Among them making multi-million dollar Acquisitions things like
Gimli. Media purchasing anchor dot f m
which is still the largest generator of user-generated
content and podcasting today. If you look at the sheer number
of podcasts, Amazon recently purchasing wonder--i for huge
sums of money. So there's a lot of money being
(08:15):
invested in podcasting but it's not just that it's the
development of, for example, advertising market.
So, I spent a lot of time talking about how really
sophisticated forms of digital advertising, digital audio
insertion programmatic a Advertising, which is basically
the purchasing of advertising markets through through.
Computerized means you've got the interactive advertising
(08:38):
Bureau having the podcast up front which were just this
year's podcast up fronts. We're just a couple of weeks
ago, very much looking like ad sales in other forms of media
like radio and television and ofcourse, you've got professional
organizations like the podcast Academy.
We just had recently had the 20 21 and be Awards again.
These are institutions. Shins that celebrate certain
(09:01):
types of podcast creation and the, you generally see those in
kind of formalizing Industries. And this is, of course, folding
back on how podcasters do their own creative work as well.
So I'm not actually quite interested in Richards comment
earlier about, you know, interviewing people who are
doing podcasting work because this is starting to have some
(09:23):
impacts on how they see their own work along with that
formalization, of course, is theintroduction of ER, Tech
platforms like Spotify and applepodcasts, which is rapidly, kind
of emerging as a sort of duopoly, if you will in
podcasting, the two, most important players.
And as anyone who's done research on platforms knows,
(09:43):
these platforms are sort of the cosmic equivalent of black
holes. They suck in traffic internet
traffic into them such that you cannot escape, and they become
kind of entities unto themselves.
And of course, the value proposition is that The larger,
the platform is the more users, the more useful those platforms
(10:03):
become. But then, those platforms also
begin to take center stage in shaping, the medium in ways that
are good for the platform and maybe not necessarily the best
for listeners or creators alike.So all those kinds of all those
changes are taking shape and podcasting, right?
I'm Richard in terms of apple and this decision that they've
(10:26):
made to create a page. Paid subscription possibility on
their infrastructure. Why is that?
If you think about the history of podcasting and history of
apples relationship to podcasting, in terms of being
this all-encompassing directory,why is that an important thing?
You know how might we sort of understand how that shifts what
(10:51):
we have what people like us and creators and even producers are
working in the industry? How might that shift?
The very nature of what we can see for.
Casting as, yeah, I think it's, I think it's interesting for a
lot of reasons that John's outlined in terms of sort of
apples position, if you like as a platform and it's kind of,
(11:12):
it's been that has been a key part of podcasting
infrastructure forever. Obviously, the name derives from
that, you know, had they not invented?
The iPod would podcasting be called podcasting.
Would he still be here? Maybe kind of what?
What? People really seem to have done
up until now is they've just sort of used it as kind of cool
(11:34):
points. If you like.
It's going to saying, you know, if you look at how they
advertise that, their product isnot saying, how much RAM you've
got, is not saying how much space is.
Look at all these cool things you can do.
If you have an Apple product, you know, you can, you can make
make a make a movie. You can, you can go to the gym
and listen to all of you, all ofyou music, you can take
photographs and share it with your grandma and all that kind
(11:55):
of stuff. But it has a monetized.
It other than the fact that it'strue.
Try to make itself, sort of likethe center of the ecosystem, but
then Spotify comes along as thisbig sort of Swedish, Juggernaut,
and really starts to kind of to threaten that if you like, so, I
guess, the four apples point of view.
This is kind of paid by. This is, how do we make money
(12:15):
out of this? And I think that's always been
an issue. It's always been a challenge.
You know, how do you monetize podcasting for those creators
who want to monetize it? So it Richard just to interrupt.
It's it's interesting because it's a completely different kind
of Of economic model between Spotify and apple historically,
isn't it? So in a sense, what you're
saying is Apple is making money from selling Hardware selling
(12:39):
bits of kit that you listen to content on, but apple is not
interested. That on historically has not
been interested in the content. Whereas Spotify has now come
along and challenged, the fact that you would kind of
automatically just, listen to podcasts on Apple devices.
Most of the most of podcast listening still goes through
Apple devices and Well, you don't need Apple devices
(13:01):
anymore. We've got all this great content
over here and you can kind of listen to that anywhere and
we're going to we're going to kind of ring fence that content.
So you come to us and that pull this kind of thinking.
Well, does that mean then that our automatic position is that
as the definer of what podcasting is is now
disappearing. Does that kind of sum it up?
Really? I think so.
(13:21):
I mean I think, you know apple, apple are there tech company
there at that? They are ostensibly a hardware
company as Spotify are not that there are platform effectively,
but I think it's been, it's beensort of a Business Solution in
business problem, in search of asolution until now.
And how do you do we could do patreon, or you can do
(13:43):
advertising or you can do kind of reads or things like that and
find or, you know, the sort of the Night Vale model where?
My colleague, the shows will make them for free, but we're
going to come around on a tour and that's when you kind of
contribute. And that's when you kind of chip
in, if you like, you know, that's what you know, they've
done and people like Richard Herring, you know, who says, you
know, we don't really do advertising but come and see me
(14:05):
at the theater. Buy my merch Bama DVDs.
That's how you buy me a coffee effectively.
So this sense that actually whatthey've created is this kind of
almost an e-commerce platform effectively, you know, charge
what you like. We'll take a commission.
You want to be free. You'd be free.
You want to keep it in platform,keep it in platform.
So they've kind of the both taken that, that kind of model
(14:28):
and that clearly has taken some time to develop if you like, but
I think it's significant becauseit marks that Milestone at which
it says, right. Actually we're in this, put a
period of sort of medium maturity where actually we think
the listeners will pay and thereare creators who want to go down
that route. John.
(14:48):
What do you think about being atthat Tipping Point?
Right. Now, in terms of here, is this
medium that is essentially developed and and it's almost
its identity is correlated with this idea, being a DIY culture
and open-source ethos on all that kind of stuff.
And the the creativity that has emerged from that has allowed,
(15:10):
all these different kinds of weird and wonderful different
sorts of podcasts, you know, that might have Micro audiences
or be completely and utterly Niche.
Are we reaching this that point now?
Now we're enough people understand what a podcast is and
they are willing to be able to say.
Okay here is this arena for the content that I want and I will
(15:31):
pay for that. Are we at that point or is this
still a kind of little bit of a gamble in that sense?
I think it's less of a gamble Than People realize, but what I
see is the eventual kind of end point of this is a kind of
hollowing out of the middle if you take my meaning, so you're I
have some podcasts that by theirvery nature, because they
(15:56):
feature celebrities who have huge social media or other media
followings. You know, the Joe Rogan's, the
Michelle Obama's, the decks Shepherds of the world that are
going to monetize through eitheron their own or through these
platforms and they're going to generate huge amounts of traffic
towards them and listeners and downloads and with them a lot of
(16:17):
advertising dollars that follow them and and then you're going
to get everyone else which is, you know, the Indies those
people who launched a podcast and maybe they have Ultra Niche
content, something like that. It's they're going to
increasingly find it difficult to get that kind of that launch
(16:37):
so that they can get a kind of consistent audience.
That makes it at least close to if not financially viable for
them close to financially viable.
That they might either generate some supplemental revenue, or
for many of these individuals. They want to leave their day,
jobs and turn to podcasting full-time, that kind of pull
(17:02):
yourself up by your bootstraps, Rise To Riches through
podcasting, as as uncommon as itis.
Now could become even more rare as a result of this.
So we might have this kind of bifurcation.
Are we going to lose independentpodcasting?
Definitely not. That's still going to be there.
And if Spotify has anything to say about it.
(17:24):
They are /. They are prepared and poised to
even monetize, even the smallestpodcast through their anchor
service. Because any any kind of content
that shows up on anchor, they can drop in advertising and get
some kind of revenue from whatever traffic that small
podcast gets. So spotify's playing both ends
of the of the gamut here. They are actively courting
(17:48):
high-profile Talent like Joe Rogan the number one podcast.
Ass in terms of downloads to sign them to exclusive contract
deals, but then yet they're alsomaking a play for the smallest
podcast that new podcast throughtheir anchor service, and they
can monetize around that collectively.
So, whereas one small podcast may have a tiny audience.
(18:08):
If you combine all the listeners, for all anchor
podcasts together, that's a hugenumber of listens, but only at
scale. So the scale is important here.
Is then that the driver Richard of of kind of creativity in
terms of, if you think about it.Historically, you know, that
this Source, this sort of idea that anyone could upload their
(18:32):
content to the the internet, if you can find an audience and you
can expand then anything is possible.
Is there a sense that that is now going to be totally
reversed. Are we re already there, where,
when these big tech companies are looking to put content out,
it already has to have say, A star name or some kind of
branded or specific thematic that the monetization seems like
(19:00):
it's going to other. There's going to be enough of an
audience that monetization will follow.
And is that a problem? Yeah, I think it's some, it's a
complex one. I mean, I think the celebrity
thing. Yeah, there's quite a good piece
in the guardian recently. As it furnace turd use wrote
about kind of all these flat every celebrity now seems to
have a podcast and they did themin lockdown in life.
Please please stop because they're getting dull and there's
(19:23):
some quite some sort of a chatter within the industry to
the radio industry, sort of the past past weeks.
I in the UK booty 5 live or justlaunched a new podcast series
about sugar, just a racehorse, the went missing back in the
back in the 1980s. It's an Irish racehorse.
When nothing went missing in theUK and they've got Vanilla Ice
(19:43):
to present. I couldn't believe it.
When I saw that, apparently, he's into racing, but It doesn't
feel like a fit. So are they just getting in a
big know? Maybe, maybe not.
But that's certainly was kind ofthe feeling of people need like
don't understand this. And as I said earlier, I was
doing some research with some production companies and their
(20:04):
of a similar feeling that yes, you do need to attract a big
name, particularly if you're going down that ad model and you
need to fund it or advertising and you've got to be in the top,
you know, 1% really of downloadsin order to be.
Making good money and well, and this what he said, you know, you
get 10,000, you know, you're making all right, 400,000.
(20:27):
You making very, very good money, you know, so some people
will do that. What I think is interesting,
though is actually they say, well, this proves the long tails
are myth and that you can't get from being, you know, an amateur
in your bedroom to being the biggest podcast on the world
because of all that. But actually, you might still be
number one in your Niche. And that Niche might not be be
(20:48):
very big. So, The companies I was talking
to work in branded, and so they say, actually, if you're working
within an industry where they say, 6,000 people in the UK and
you're hitting 3,000 4,000 of them, you're doing really well,
and your client is going to pay you money to make that.
So, and and the Indies, you know, you might be doing a
(21:12):
podcast about, you know, knitting, or board games, or
1980s, soap star, so, whatever it might be, B-but in the that
your discipline in your community, you might be number
one. You might be done / 2 and
actually that might be enough. There might be something there.
There might be a career there, or it might be augmenting other
things that you do. So, I think, I think it's not a
(21:34):
kind of a binary either. You're a big success or you're
not that thing is, John said, I think that's an interesting idea
that this Middle Ground, these Middle Ground shows are going to
struggle, because they're not super windy and super Niche.
They are trying to break across into that.
Mainstream put, it's difficult because you need to find the way
(21:54):
of funding that and, and that be, you know, I mean, I
discovered recently that kind ofSony, Sony Music.
Quite now big in terms of investors into podcasts.
So they've got a few deals around the world and they're
putting money into them to seed,funding into these, and helping
with distribution. So, it could be.
We see these Brands coming into that middle ground into that
(22:15):
sort of middle to top and space finding ways of supporting.
Eating podcasters to produce work that then ultimate will pay
back in another way. So yeah, I think you know, I
think will will you be a big bigname?
Well, maybe but you've got to have a name attached to you to
start with, you know, mean, you know, they say, oh, well these
(22:35):
did it but they were famous in other areas, you know, maybe
that's part of the kind of Mythology of podcasting that
needs to be sort of debunked a little bit that even back in 20,
you know, 2012 or 11 that, you know, there are all these people
making amazing podcast that werethen got discovered in 2014 2015
(22:55):
and you know, and it relates I think that's very true.
What you said there about the getting away from that binary
thinking and and even some of the ways I've talked about in
the past this idea of this institutional podcasting,
there's independent podcasting and one's good and one's bad.
It doesn't really work in that way.
I suppose, my, my thought is that maybe, I don't know.
(23:16):
We're doing a podcasting on it, a podcast on it today.
But it's that sense that, you know, all the newsletters are
about monetization and about size and about audience, share
and about who's bought who and all this kind of stuff.
And really one of my socks bugbears John is this idea that,
you know, there's so much more about podcasting that needs to
(23:36):
be talked about. We try and do that in a podcast
studies sense, but it does seem that the conversation makes it
seem like like there's this hugeindustry that everybody is kind
of looking to make a buck out of.
But really, I don't think that That really encapsulates.
What podcasting is and what's going on.
And is true and it still remainsTrue to this day that there's
(23:57):
only a very small number of podcasters that actually either
looking to monetize or are doingit in any way, shape, or form.
So, the vast majority people were releasing content on
podcasts are not monetizing either by choice or because
their downloads and their audiences too small.
Or it's not an audience that advertisers care about, or
(24:20):
whatever they're just there, or they have other reasons for
doing it. Richard pointed out Brandon
podcasts. That's the point is to actually
Reach people with a message about your brand.
And so you're not trying to sellthem other kinds of things.
On top of that. You're really like you're the
whole point of your podcast is to actually create brand
(24:40):
awareness for your product or service.
And then there's a lot of peoplewho are using podcasts that
organizations and institutions using it as a form of internal
communication. It's a huge growth area.
So large Nations. Have you might have a weekly
podcast where the CEO or CFO or someone is interviewed and then
this goes out to all your employees on a closed RSS feed
(25:04):
and it's the equivalent of a kind of internal company memo.
But yet it's taking the form of an audio podcast.
So there's a lot of that going on as well.
But the other thing that's kind of inevitable about about this
is that as more and more people jump into podcasting you Back to
2005. 2008. 2009 Lee you look atthe number of podcast that were
(25:28):
out there that were a healthy amount, but look at it now
between 2020 and 2021, the number of podcasts available
through the Apple podcast. Directory doubled from roughly
around a million to over two million, two million podcasts.
So now it's, you have as a listener.
You have an amazing amount of choice for the podcast that you
(25:53):
You listen to, but you only havea finite number of hours in your
day. You look at research, from
Edison research, does in their infinite dial research, every
year people even people who are hardcore podcast enthusiasts.
They can listen to or do listen to her, have the time to listen
to a maximum of maybe eight podcasts a week.
(26:14):
And that's a lot. So, if you take the podcast
audience and even if you assume being generous that each of
those audience members is, To a podcast a week, There's no way
you're going to be able to have distribution even distribution
across that two million plus podcasts.
So the key to the future of the medium and the thing that's
(26:34):
going to be a challenge for anyone who's got a small podcast
or is launching a podcast or thinking about launching a
podcast, is how you get discovered discoverability, is
the number one will become the number one, kind of Bane of the
industry. And that's where these
platforms. Are going to come in and play an
(26:55):
enormously powerful role becausethey can draw audiences to
certain types of content if theywant to, if you login to Spotify
and you see the Spotify recommends and there are two or
three podcasts on your home screen that in and of itself is
going to increase the probability that you find new
(27:17):
audiences. And the reverse is also true.
If you, if you never show up on that new and noteworthy.
The or on that front home screenor something like that.
Or if you never get recommended by an AI algorithm, you can be
effectively invisible on those platforms and finding an
audience for your content. Can be that much more
(27:37):
challenging. I think that's the biggest thing
is that God knows this sort of professional sense of what
you're doing and there's a whether you've got a star name
attached to you or you just really good at marketing and
getting your name out there and bang.
Beyond the door. I did some research Gideon years
ago, about this kind of early days of podcasting, and I spoke
(27:59):
to the woman who's running KCRW in Santa Monica about online
radio and podcasting. And she said, oh, well, we knew
the guys are coppertino. So we went up there and we had a
chat with them. We told them what we did and we
got ourselves in on the you'll noteworthy thing on the iTunes
homepage. Because they knew people who
(28:20):
work that because you know, they'll that same kind of
California can attack community and and I think, yeah, you write
that you being on the homepage does that?
But how do you get on that? Apple are not going to find you
accidentally, you know, it's going to be all right, we know
that person because they were inthe movies or because of
musician or because they've got the marketing muscle of Sony
(28:44):
Music, wonder--i, the BBC and PR, whoever behind, who have got
all these direct lines of communication.
So, you know, but the Hope mightbe the, actually, what end, what
ends up we end up with. Maybe he's kind of more Indie
app start to develop and they goactually, you know, what Spotify
Apple you just get on with it, you know, like sort of the
(29:05):
string platforms of Amazon and Netflix they so we'll just do
our own thing over here, you know, and if you want to find an
app, you know, for not find a podcast about art.
Well, he's an art Apple here, isthis apple and whether we'll see
these kind of Indie communities growing up, because they just
realized that. That is a train that they're not
going to be able to keep up on because, yeah, because it just
(29:29):
they haven't got that Financial Muscle behind them.
I'm wondering as well. How much this is going to make
it more difficult for people whoare new to podcasting to get
into it. I know it's kind of like it
seems sort of I've spoken to people who just this week, a
couple of more people. Like just explain to me how
(29:50):
podcasts work again and it's like it does sort of You know,
for us it kind of blows your mind, but that sense of the
interface between you know, thatthere's podcasting in terms of
the abstracts notion of what that is, but then somebody says,
okay. I'm going to listen to a podcast
and they get their phone and howdo they where do they start?
(30:10):
Do you think that like Spotify and apple are going to try and
make that a little bit more streamlined in terms of the, I
know you talked about in the article this idea of channels
where it's going to look more like Like a TV Guide that you
can that you can follow a littlebit more easily.
I think there's no question about that and all the when you
(30:31):
look at the sort of growth and new listeners, that's going to
happen through these platforms because that's what people are
using to access audio content, right?
Whether they've got an Apple device and they just default to
using Apple podcasts or whether they are, they've got a Spotify
account. And now if you're listening to
music on Spotify, there's a whole whenever you log into to
(30:53):
the app. Now, there's recommendations,
not just for music but also for podcasts on the bottom half of
the screen and that's new so that that's going to that's
going to generate a lot more newlistening and new traffic and
it's a good bet that those people who are unfamiliar with,
let's say the history of the medium or how it emerged, or the
(31:16):
fact that I emerged as the results of this kind of open
architecture that Harkens back to the earliest days of Of the
World Wide Web that there is this kind of DIY amateur ethos
surrounding this medium. That's all going to be that's
information. They can't access because what
we understand as podcast today is this thing that that Spotify
(31:39):
is serving up to you because it's convenient because it's
available, right? Because you're already there
anyway, to listen to your album or other music that you're
interested in. And suddenly you might get
interested in a podcast or Spotify might say to you.
Hey, you seem to like listening to this particular artist, you
(32:01):
know, that people on Spotify wholisten to this artist.
Also like this podcast. Check this out.
So and that's great for Discovery in a way of kind of
like channeling that, but it does kind of reorient.
The whole nature of the medium. I mean, I talked a lot about
I've been doing a lot of research about how the whole
(32:22):
mechanisms Or measuring audience, feedback and
listenership has really matured in podcasting, over the last
five to seven years. So, there's a sense in which, if
you're part of a new medium where you have some rudimentary
download numbers, but really, you're kind of Flying Blind.
(32:42):
You have no idea, you know, the extent to which your content is
being consumed or what people think about it.
You might get some reviews on Apple podcasts or on the any of
these. Of the directories.
You might get an email now and again, things like that, but
it's kind of different animal when you can get
moment-by-moment stats about in particular who it is Spotify, is
(33:06):
telling you, not just how many people are listening to your
podcast, but some demographics about them.
What are the kinds of music? They listen to you and Spotify
and at what point or moment during your podcast you see
declines in listenership, so youcan you Go and kind of
moment-by-moment basis and see where your content was failing
(33:27):
to connect with listeners and all this stuff is kind of
marketed as this kind of wonderful thing so that you can
deliver even more value to your listeners, but it also
commodifies and it it turns yourthis connection that you have
this wonderful thing. This intimacy that we keep
(33:48):
talking about with podcast. It turns that into a number and
a Numbers relationship. And that reorients the
relationship between Creator andlistener in a kind of
fundamental way. And that I think is something
that that it's a loss in a sense.
Yes. It's better for ad sales and
(34:10):
it's better for, you know, all kinds of getting all this
detailed consumption, but it also means that that kind of
folds back on your own labor andinteresting kinds of ways.
There's lots of great research on how that kind of Level of
moment-by-moment audience feedback through internet
traffic data is folding back on journalists for example, and is
(34:31):
changing the way in which they see their own work and suddenly
that their own within their organizations.
Their whole evaluative structures are being greedy
oriented around the internet traffic, that their stories get
on the say, the website. And suddenly, you know, if
you're looking for that promotion, you're frantically
(34:51):
hitting Refresh on. Your browser to see how many
hits your article is getting online.
That's that's changing the nature of your work.
So suddenly it's not about the quality of the journalism you
do. It's how much, how much it
drives clicks on your website. Yeah, and I mean that's a huge
problem kind of it. The internet.
(35:12):
More broadly is now you mentioning journalism there.
But that, you know, it relates to that this sort of world that
we live in now where the antagonism and the Go systems
that we all exist in kind of driven by this idea that the
most lowest common denominator or arguments, or things that are
(35:34):
going to spike a load of interest in a very short period
of time are the things that thatpeople want to produce because
that that has the possibility ofgetting the greatest audience
and that at that sense of being reflexive about, you know,
developing a piece of art is becoming more and more
difficult. In fact, if I was ever a space
that allowed that before it was it was podcasting and yeah
(35:58):
Richard in terms of teaching howdo students sort of think about
that when they're producing work, you know, when you're
working with them. In terms of I do you really try
and make them think about just piece of audio that they're
they're producing, making it thebest it can be or is there a lot
of thinking about? Well, you know, this will appeal
to that audience or this will appeal to a different kind of
(36:19):
audience. It's kind of both really, I
think it depends on Which bear the cost that happens inside of?
Yeah, I mean in Canada stuff. That happens in third year and
I'm post-grad. Then yes, we're thinking, right?
That, how do we get the quality of?
How do we get the creativity of what can we do?
(36:39):
But also, I mean I think audience, whatever we try and
teach, you know, is at the heartof it.
Yes, who you trying to talk to? What do you want them to?
What are they doing? What are they interested in?
So you then can think about how?You're going to frame the
podcasts that you make. So on second year, our students
(37:00):
make and distribute this, a short series of podcasts.
It's like, so, what are you doing?
What's your angle? You know, so you are you want to
do news? Okay, right.
So you can use the podcast, willwatch your angle.
Who do you think is going to listen to this?
Why they're going to find you why you're going to be
discoverable, you know, and whathave you got if you like within?
(37:23):
And within your Armory, you know, so it is kind of thinking
about about you audience. I think you know stuff that John
was saying that you then have the data and you get a sense
then I suppose in terms of how that's how that's working
because think I can, you know, with creative work in some ways.
The worst thing that that sometimes students do is they
go. Well, did he just something
(37:45):
that's there? See there's convenient or this
is well, I'll interview that person because I know them and
they make something that is fine.
Yeah, but they've not thought about well, why is this person
interesting to somebody who's not related to them if you like?
So, yeah, I think I think in this, in terms of that, you
(38:06):
know, and they are about, I think.
Yeah, I think that there is a loss there because people are
saying what I'm making this because it's the right thing to
do. And I'm doing this in this way
because it's right for, for the topic and probably a lot of
podcasters will still do that even if they have access to
data. I'm one of them.
That's for sure Gloucester Tina.That's the first five because,
(38:27):
you know, it's like that's in some ways, you know, your reader
of your audience's. They are who they are, you know?
Yeah, but it's interesting that the say, for example, you know,
you would have said maybe beforehe became the sort of number one
in downloads, the idea of a kindof center-right UFC commentator,
slash comedian doing a three hour, you know, monologue, or
(38:50):
guest interview. Would why is that the most
interesting podcast or why? Is that the most downloaded
podcast in the world? It's tight, you couldn't pitch
that. You know what I mean?
So it's that work. That, that sense of
discoverability of what is interesting.
Maybe be may have come to an endin the form that we've, we've
understood it with podcasting. Think, I think, you know, I
(39:11):
think that is, it's in the niches, you know, my Dad wrote a
porn again. That's not something that would
have got through a pitch becauseit's like so.
So, what's the show? Well, I'm going to sit around at
my flat with Friends, and I'm going to read out these
pornographic novels that my dad had self-published.
Why would anybody listen to that?
But millions of people do, thousands of people have been to
(39:35):
see them doing live shows in theaters because this something
in it that has a an appeal if you like.
So, I think, you know, for me for podcasting, you know, when
students coming up with ideas orsay that should be a podcast,
like, To mainstream to brought your not, that sounds do on the
radio. So, radio Studio that go and do
(39:56):
that on the radio. When you thinking about your
podcast. It's got to be it's got to be
Niche. There's a niche anyway, you know
to have that resonance that cut through and there's there is
also there that kind of focus asI kind of almost like
confessional type of genre, right?
(40:17):
So even even when Do podcasts. And as lots of lots of our
colleagues around the world writing on podcasts, have talked
about the sense in which even journalists who were meant to be
remote third party when they do a podcast, the podcast becomes a
(40:38):
kind of confessional self narrative.
They insert themselves into the narrative into this journalistic
narrative and that lends kind of, it makes it much more
compelling because because you're listening to someone's
experience in their own words, coming through your earbuds or
your headphone or whatever and you're that that creates that
(41:00):
kind of bond and something that that has that if it doesn't
have, that kind of confessional type of orientation to it.
It becomes less into it becomes more.
As you pointed, Richard, may become more radio, you know,
that's fine for radio, but for podcasting you really want to
know. What kind of impact did this
have on someone's individual life?
(41:23):
So that, that, there's that, that element of it, the
celebrity aspect Oak is a way ofbypassing that I think are it's
used as a way of bypassing that.So, like, say for example, you
know, if you've got a podcast that just starts and it's an
unknown person, you have to spend the labor, building up,
that that sense of narrative andthat sense of experience.
So that a connection could be made over time.
(41:47):
And I think what pop gasps, whatthese big companies Are doing is
say okay. Let's take somebody that the the
people already know. So so they're already feeling
some sense of connection or authenticity, or whatever.
It might be, you know, connection to them.
And and then we could just get on with being funny or whatever,
whatever it is, but I think thatthat kind of misunderstands the
(42:10):
idea of where, you know, podcasting intimacy, if you want
to use that phrase, but that thefundamental sort of depth of of
what people, get out of podcast,it kind of I passes that a lot
of the time. And it's the kind of decision
making that you that makes economic sense when you're
sitting at a desk in an office at a multinational media
(42:30):
conglomerate, but as far as likea listener or Creator in the
podcasting space that makes a lot less sense, but you can see
how the Logics start to percolate through organizations
like that. And then you get a quote, of
course, the copycat effect. As soon as there's one podcast
that, you know, one pot. Is that, that becomes a kind of
(42:54):
Cornerstone of the medium, say cereal or something like that?
It's then suddenly decision making becomes centered, or on,
can we make another podcast? That's different, but similar to
that and that's when you get thekind of CopyCat phenomena and
then it kind of rolls down a hill and then you get.
Lots of podcasts that are produced by Major podcasting
(43:17):
networks and corporations whether it's iHeart Sirius XM.
Whatever. And then suddenly it becomes a
lot less interesting because it starts to sound a lot more
formulaic and a lot more homogeneous, and then you're
right back, you know? Right back by radio is and
that's why people are fleeing radio to begin with.
(43:38):
And so there's there's a tensionthere and we're still working
through that that tension. I don't think podcasting as a
kind of broader community of creators listeners and Al's has
really come to terms with the the nature of some of those
contradictions on the one hand podcasting is wonderful because
(43:59):
it's intimate. It's confessional.
It's community-oriented, you have the, you've cultivated this
relationship, everyone talks about relationships with your
listeners. You have an obligation to them,
to put your best foot forward tobe truthful and honest and
authentic with them. And in the same breath.
(44:19):
On the other hand, the podcast industry is telling itself all
about these sophisticated data mechanisms for analyzing your
audience and packaging your message.
Just right? So you meet the audience's needs
and you expand your audience based, which would seem to be a
kind of conflicting argument with the first.
(44:40):
So there's, there's a tension here.
There's a tension that's that's continually unresolved.
And that's what I find. So, fascinating about this
medium is because on the one hand, you can have this It's
kind of celebration of community.
Onion, the other hand, you have this celebration of consumption
and the two of those things, sitside by side in an uneasy
(45:02):
tension. Well, thanks for taking the
time, guys. It's been really fun to talk to
you. Both as usual.
Either of you got a recommendation that we could end
on something, perhaps that maybepeople won't know about.
As always, I kind of, I have about 90 million different.
Podcasts. I'm about halfway through.
(45:25):
So one that I've been trying to work my way through the BBC,
World Service has some fantastic.
I'm going to big budget shows. They're just doing a series of
the minute called The Lazarus Heist, which is about a North
Korean hack. Following one.
They didn't Sony Pictures stealing mother.
A lot of money from the bank of Bangladesh.
(45:47):
She's really good. Just wait for the new episode to
drop. Another show of really enjoyed
recently is a bit more kind of it's sort of semi Indie.
I suppose I think I mentioned tofix few people before.
So wonderful spoof of the cerealkind of truce crime series
called Cold Case, crime cuts, which is a wonderful show that
(46:11):
rig moves that kind of sort of investigative reporter immersing
themselves in the story and giving us all these wonderful
little little side stories that actually leaders.
Nowhere to really understand what their the shows about that.
That's been that's on the UK in the UK podcast.
(46:34):
So so those are two that I'd recommend looking up.
Brilliant, John, I listened to almost exclusively to podcasts
on podcasting. So all of my recommendations are
things like, you know, pod news with James cridland and puddle,
and they looks more long form version that he does with Sam
Sethi, which is always a very good, but I have a personal
(47:00):
connection in my family to autism.
So, I've been kind of delving into this BBC, sounds podcast
called. 1800 seconds on autism, which is narrated by young
people with Autism and that has been really, it's quite
(47:21):
wonderful and an empowering to hear some of these young people
talk about their experiences. So that has some personal
resonance for me. Awesome.
Well for myself, I'm I really like the the sort of enclosed
series that are almost kind of documentary podcasts about a
particular event and often when you you know, you could watch a
(47:42):
film about it or watch a, you know, watch a TV series about a
particular moment in time that you know about but you want the
ins and outs of it. And I always liked the way that
podcast really allow those events to be personalized.
So the first one is podcast called flood lines, which is
about Hurricane Katrina, which Ireally, really enjoyed and sort
of went bit crosses between the sort of political decisions, the
(48:06):
people in charge of those political decisions.
I'm how they impacted on people who are on the ground.
So they interview people from both of those, both of those
groups. Let's say and then kind of get
them together while giving you this overview of really, the
reality of what was, what was going on.
In terms of Katrina. One of the interesting things
about that podcast is the way that the news narrative actually
(48:26):
drove, you know, the way that America thought about New
Orleans and particularly about the, you know, the community
living there and the stereotypesof poor people and black people.
All that came through and we're automatically taken as as Truth
by the media narratives. So that was a great lesson.
And also I really liked recentlylistening to crushed, which is a
(48:49):
baseball podcast and it's about the steroid era of baseball in
the 1990s with the big hitters and how they all sort of were
part of this conspiracy of silence and all taking all
taking anabolic steroids. And what have you and how the
league took so long to even admit that that was taking place
and even now Now it's sort of a,an Open Secret and a lot of the
(49:11):
stories that came out with just so fascinating, about about this
period of time. So, yeah, if you're into sports
documentaries, I definitely recommend that.
But that's it for this week on new oral cultures.
Thanks for taking the time out, Richard and John great to see
you both upon. Yeah.
Thanks so much. And yeah, we'll catch you again
on the next episode and you all cultures.
Podcast lovers academics aficionados and producers.
This is you oral cultures. Welcome to New oral cultures.
I'm Dario. Linares.
I'm really pleased this week to be joined by two of the leading
lights of podcast, studies to discuss, some of the major
(00:29):
changes. Ages in podcasting
infrastructure that have happened recently and its
implications primarily. I'm talking about Apple's
decision to add a mechanism for paid subscription to.
It's podcasting architecture andmove that is arguably as
significant as when the iTunes directory first specified
podcasting in its audio genres. So, joining me to discuss this
(00:54):
is first of all, John Sullivan professor of media and
communication at Muhlenberg College.
John nice to see you and speak to you.
How's it going? It's going great.
Thanks so much for having me da Road area.
Really appreciate being on no problem.
Always great to have you back onand listen to what you've got to
say, particularly, because this is right in your wheelhouse.
What we're going to talk about today and we just been talking
(01:16):
off off mic about your current project, your current book.
And yeah, how how is that going?And and it's it must be quite a
difficult thing to write with the Transformations that are
constantly going on with podcasting.
Platform ization and you know, all these shifts that are taking
place in the in the infrastructure.
Yeah. I always say that.
I mean, I've been reading this book for years now because it
(01:39):
always seems like you're trying to nail Jello to the wall and
it's continually changing and updating and it's quite
maddening. Actually when you when you
really get down to it because you're trying to get a bead on
what's happening in the industryand then all these and these are
not small changes either. These are quite significant
moves. So I started writing this book
(01:59):
really Long before. Spotify really kind of changed
the nature of what's happening in podcasting itself.
I now that has seemed to create a kind of domino effect in the
industry and it looks very different.
So when I was really working on this to begin with in 2016 and
2017 podcasting, it least in theUnited States.
(02:21):
And I think you can say elsewhere as well looks
radically different in 2021 thanit did in 2016. 2017, some
changes for the good, some. Changes for the worse, some
changes underway, and it's unclear where they're going to
end up. But the, the book itself I'm
working on is called podcasting in a platform age and it's
definitely trying to capture some of these moving changes.
(02:43):
So as with anything in an academic project, you just have
to realize and recognize that. At some point you have to stop
writing hit send and it has to come out and print and but I do
always get the sense when working in podcasting that
anything that we do in Say and write and publish becomes
immediately dated as soon as it emerges in print.
(03:06):
Yeah, and with the the publication cycle being so long,
you know, the they'll have to bea very heavily caveated
conclusion. I would imagine to the book.
It's terrible, the pace, the pace of, you know, review and
it's just, it's academics are soslow and it's hard to explain to
people who are working in publishing or in journalism or
in the industry writ large. When they you know, you do it
(03:29):
in. Review with them about a book
that's upcoming. And they said, great.
What can I expect this to be in print?
And I said, well, maybe 2022. If I'm lucky.
Yeah, and who knows what podcasting will be low.
So, yeah, and I'm also joined bymy co-editor from the new oral
cultures book and writer of several of podcaster Deezer
(03:53):
texts, and that's Richard Berry Richard, great to see you.
And you how dim? Yeah, I'm not too bad.
I'm not too bad. How Sounds like in Sunderland.
Are you just winding up now withthe students or if you don't
have you done and dusted with the marking and everything?
Nearly? I think one more day and I might
be there and I somebody lands a batch of moderation come my
(04:14):
depth, which is inevitable and I've got a pile of external
examining to do hoo-yeah academic life.
So I've got that to do but hopefully by maybe the end of
next week. Might be free and clear.
Have you got research planned oran ongoing for the for the
(04:35):
summer? Yeah.
I'm just a minute pulling together.
An abstract for a book chapter that I'm working on just and I'm
just waiting to hear back on to back my journal article that I
submitted sort of sort of weeks ago and I hope it's going to
turn that around and come back to us fairly soon.
(04:55):
So hopefully not too many changes with that one.
Never know. It could be.
It could be an extensive extensive rewrites.
Oh, yeah, I wanted two things kind of on the go.
Yeah. It's like building extension on
the house when you didn't reallyplan for it.
Sometimes is what happens with peer review, isn't it?
But yeah, hopefully it won't be too owners a little bit.
Yeah, - hopefully I won't be, but it's going to.
(05:18):
It's been an interesting articleactually.
And I think it's one of those that when you start to write it,
you have a sense of what you think you might be writing and
then you start to do the work. And in this case, this was
interviewing people from industry and Actually, there's a
kind of a I think there's kind of a bigger, a bigger research
project lying lying in, wait behind it.
Now, that's always good. And bad though, isn't it?
When you think to yourself actually a sort of starting
(05:42):
point article can lead you to something that may be more
significant? Yeah.
She's always going. I think this is what this might
turn out. Turn out to be and yeah kind of
this one. I think.
Do you think that? And I think there's a sort of a
theory here and then actually actually you as you're saying to
John, you know, the way this industry is changing something
that is Kind of you think thinking that's going and then
(06:02):
actually while you're writing, it's actually happening.
Is it going at the pace of change such that it is
absolutely. And I should just also say that
we were supposed to have the wonderful King Fox on the show,
but she was double booked at thelast minute and she kindly said
that we should just carried on carry on rather than rearrange
again. Because we'd re-raise this chat
couple of times and we already took to have the discussion
(06:24):
within the ballpark of the themestill being kind of relevant.
So, yeah, let's get into Into a chat about what's going on in
terms of the changing structuresof podcasting right now and what
instigated this conversation on me?
Wanting to get you guys on. Was this piece?
You written in the conversation,which is a kind of academic
blog. /. Yeah, it offers a space for sort
(06:47):
of journalistic writing where you can transpose your academic
work into more shorter, less less formal pieces, but maybe
John maybe we could start by thinking about what what is this
fundamental? Turning point in terms of
podcasting, perhaps developing into a new phase.
What are the key points around this?
Yeah. Absolutely.
(07:08):
I would say there's kind of two key trends happening right now
in podcasting and that I'm trying to map out a little bit
in the book. I'm working on and the first
kind of Mega trend is what we might call formalization.
And that's basically when you take something that's a cultural
form and you place institutionalstructures around it.
(07:28):
And you begin Into and it beginsto become much more formal to,
you know, to forms formalize andinstitutionalize, that's
happening in a number of ways. There's all kinds of large
companies corporations that havelots of Prior experience in
either radio broadcasting OR tech companies that are moving
into podcasting making huge betsFinancial bets Spotify.
(07:55):
Among them making multi-million dollar Acquisitions things like
Gimli. Media purchasing anchor dot f m
which is still the largest generator of user-generated
content and podcasting today. If you look at the sheer number
of podcasts, Amazon recently purchasing wonder--i for huge
sums of money. So there's a lot of money being
(08:15):
invested in podcasting but it's not just that it's the
development of, for example, advertising market.
So, I spent a lot of time talking about how really
sophisticated forms of digital advertising, digital audio
insertion programmatic a Advertising, which is basically
the purchasing of advertising markets through through.
Computerized means you've got the interactive advertising
(08:38):
Bureau having the podcast up front which were just this
year's podcast up fronts. We're just a couple of weeks
ago, very much looking like ad sales in other forms of media
like radio and television and ofcourse, you've got professional
organizations like the podcast Academy.
We just had recently had the 20 21 and be Awards again.
These are institutions. Shins that celebrate certain
(09:01):
types of podcast creation and the, you generally see those in
kind of formalizing Industries. And this is, of course, folding
back on how podcasters do their own creative work as well.
So I'm not actually quite interested in Richards comment
earlier about, you know, interviewing people who are
doing podcasting work because this is starting to have some
(09:23):
impacts on how they see their own work along with that
formalization, of course, is theintroduction of ER, Tech
platforms like Spotify and applepodcasts, which is rapidly, kind
of emerging as a sort of duopoly, if you will in
podcasting, the two, most important players.
And as anyone who's done research on platforms knows,
(09:43):
these platforms are sort of the cosmic equivalent of black
holes. They suck in traffic internet
traffic into them such that you cannot escape, and they become
kind of entities unto themselves.
And of course, the value proposition is that The larger,
the platform is the more users, the more useful those platforms
(10:03):
become. But then, those platforms also
begin to take center stage in shaping, the medium in ways that
are good for the platform and maybe not necessarily the best
for listeners or creators alike.So all those kinds of all those
changes are taking shape and podcasting, right?
I'm Richard in terms of apple and this decision that they've
(10:26):
made to create a page. Paid subscription possibility on
their infrastructure. Why is that?
If you think about the history of podcasting and history of
apples relationship to podcasting, in terms of being
this all-encompassing directory,why is that an important thing?
You know how might we sort of understand how that shifts what
(10:51):
we have what people like us and creators and even producers are
working in the industry? How might that shift?
The very nature of what we can see for.
Casting as, yeah, I think it's, I think it's interesting for a
lot of reasons that John's outlined in terms of sort of
apples position, if you like as a platform and it's kind of,
(11:12):
it's been that has been a key part of podcasting
infrastructure forever. Obviously, the name derives from
that, you know, had they not invented?
The iPod would podcasting be called podcasting.
Would he still be here? Maybe kind of what?
What? People really seem to have done
up until now is they've just sort of used it as kind of cool
(11:34):
points. If you like.
It's going to saying, you know, if you look at how they
advertise that, their product isnot saying, how much RAM you've
got, is not saying how much space is.
Look at all these cool things you can do.
If you have an Apple product, you know, you can, you can make
make a make a movie. You can, you can go to the gym
and listen to all of you, all ofyou music, you can take
photographs and share it with your grandma and all that kind
(11:55):
of stuff. But it has a monetized.
It other than the fact that it'strue.
Try to make itself, sort of likethe center of the ecosystem, but
then Spotify comes along as thisbig sort of Swedish, Juggernaut,
and really starts to kind of to threaten that if you like, so, I
guess, the four apples point of view.
This is kind of paid by. This is, how do we make money
(12:15):
out of this? And I think that's always been
an issue. It's always been a challenge.
You know, how do you monetize podcasting for those creators
who want to monetize it? So it Richard just to interrupt.
It's it's interesting because it's a completely different kind
of Of economic model between Spotify and apple historically,
isn't it? So in a sense, what you're
saying is Apple is making money from selling Hardware selling
(12:39):
bits of kit that you listen to content on, but apple is not
interested. That on historically has not
been interested in the content. Whereas Spotify has now come
along and challenged, the fact that you would kind of
automatically just, listen to podcasts on Apple devices.
Most of the most of podcast listening still goes through
Apple devices and Well, you don't need Apple devices
(13:01):
anymore. We've got all this great content
over here and you can kind of listen to that anywhere and
we're going to we're going to kind of ring fence that content.
So you come to us and that pull this kind of thinking.
Well, does that mean then that our automatic position is that
as the definer of what podcasting is is now
disappearing. Does that kind of sum it up?
Really? I think so.
(13:21):
I mean I think, you know apple, apple are there tech company
there at that? They are ostensibly a hardware
company as Spotify are not that there are platform effectively,
but I think it's been, it's beensort of a Business Solution in
business problem, in search of asolution until now.
And how do you do we could do patreon, or you can do
(13:43):
advertising or you can do kind of reads or things like that and
find or, you know, the sort of the Night Vale model where?
My colleague, the shows will make them for free, but we're
going to come around on a tour and that's when you kind of
contribute. And that's when you kind of chip
in, if you like, you know, that's what you know, they've
done and people like Richard Herring, you know, who says, you
know, we don't really do advertising but come and see me
(14:05):
at the theater. Buy my merch Bama DVDs.
That's how you buy me a coffee effectively.
So this sense that actually whatthey've created is this kind of
almost an e-commerce platform effectively, you know, charge
what you like. We'll take a commission.
You want to be free. You'd be free.
You want to keep it in platform,keep it in platform.
So they've kind of the both taken that, that kind of model
(14:28):
and that clearly has taken some time to develop if you like, but
I think it's significant becauseit marks that Milestone at which
it says, right. Actually we're in this, put a
period of sort of medium maturity where actually we think
the listeners will pay and thereare creators who want to go down
that route. John.
(14:48):
What do you think about being atthat Tipping Point?
Right. Now, in terms of here, is this
medium that is essentially developed and and it's almost
its identity is correlated with this idea, being a DIY culture
and open-source ethos on all that kind of stuff.
And the the creativity that has emerged from that has allowed,
(15:10):
all these different kinds of weird and wonderful different
sorts of podcasts, you know, that might have Micro audiences
or be completely and utterly Niche.
Are we reaching this that point now?
Now we're enough people understand what a podcast is and
they are willing to be able to say.
Okay here is this arena for the content that I want and I will
(15:31):
pay for that. Are we at that point or is this
still a kind of little bit of a gamble in that sense?
I think it's less of a gamble Than People realize, but what I
see is the eventual kind of end point of this is a kind of
hollowing out of the middle if you take my meaning, so you're I
have some podcasts that by theirvery nature, because they
(15:56):
feature celebrities who have huge social media or other media
followings. You know, the Joe Rogan's, the
Michelle Obama's, the decks Shepherds of the world that are
going to monetize through eitheron their own or through these
platforms and they're going to generate huge amounts of traffic
towards them and listeners and downloads and with them a lot of
(16:17):
advertising dollars that follow them and and then you're going
to get everyone else which is, you know, the Indies those
people who launched a podcast and maybe they have Ultra Niche
content, something like that. It's they're going to
increasingly find it difficult to get that kind of that launch
(16:37):
so that they can get a kind of consistent audience.
That makes it at least close to if not financially viable for
them close to financially viable.
That they might either generate some supplemental revenue, or
for many of these individuals. They want to leave their day,
jobs and turn to podcasting full-time, that kind of pull
(17:02):
yourself up by your bootstraps, Rise To Riches through
podcasting, as as uncommon as itis.
Now could become even more rare as a result of this.
So we might have this kind of bifurcation.
Are we going to lose independentpodcasting?
Definitely not. That's still going to be there.
And if Spotify has anything to say about it.
(17:24):
They are /. They are prepared and poised to
even monetize, even the smallestpodcast through their anchor
service. Because any any kind of content
that shows up on anchor, they can drop in advertising and get
some kind of revenue from whatever traffic that small
podcast gets. So spotify's playing both ends
of the of the gamut here. They are actively courting
(17:48):
high-profile Talent like Joe Rogan the number one podcast.
Ass in terms of downloads to sign them to exclusive contract
deals, but then yet they're alsomaking a play for the smallest
podcast that new podcast throughtheir anchor service, and they
can monetize around that collectively.
So, whereas one small podcast may have a tiny audience.
(18:08):
If you combine all the listeners, for all anchor
podcasts together, that's a hugenumber of listens, but only at
scale. So the scale is important here.
Is then that the driver Richard of of kind of creativity in
terms of, if you think about it.Historically, you know, that
this Source, this sort of idea that anyone could upload their
(18:32):
content to the the internet, if you can find an audience and you
can expand then anything is possible.
Is there a sense that that is now going to be totally
reversed. Are we re already there, where,
when these big tech companies are looking to put content out,
it already has to have say, A star name or some kind of
branded or specific thematic that the monetization seems like
(19:00):
it's going to other. There's going to be enough of an
audience that monetization will follow.
And is that a problem? Yeah, I think it's some, it's a
complex one. I mean, I think the celebrity
thing. Yeah, there's quite a good piece
in the guardian recently. As it furnace turd use wrote
about kind of all these flat every celebrity now seems to
have a podcast and they did themin lockdown in life.
Please please stop because they're getting dull and there's
(19:23):
some quite some sort of a chatter within the industry to
the radio industry, sort of the past past weeks.
I in the UK booty 5 live or justlaunched a new podcast series
about sugar, just a racehorse, the went missing back in the
back in the 1980s. It's an Irish racehorse.
When nothing went missing in theUK and they've got Vanilla Ice
(19:43):
to present. I couldn't believe it.
When I saw that, apparently, he's into racing, but It doesn't
feel like a fit. So are they just getting in a
big know? Maybe, maybe not.
But that's certainly was kind ofthe feeling of people need like
don't understand this. And as I said earlier, I was
doing some research with some production companies and their
(20:04):
of a similar feeling that yes, you do need to attract a big
name, particularly if you're going down that ad model and you
need to fund it or advertising and you've got to be in the top,
you know, 1% really of downloadsin order to be.
Making good money and well, and this what he said, you know, you
get 10,000, you know, you're making all right, 400,000.
(20:27):
You making very, very good money, you know, so some people
will do that. What I think is interesting,
though is actually they say, well, this proves the long tails
are myth and that you can't get from being, you know, an amateur
in your bedroom to being the biggest podcast on the world
because of all that. But actually, you might still be
number one in your Niche. And that Niche might not be be
(20:48):
very big. So, The companies I was talking
to work in branded, and so they say, actually, if you're working
within an industry where they say, 6,000 people in the UK and
you're hitting 3,000 4,000 of them, you're doing really well,
and your client is going to pay you money to make that.
So, and and the Indies, you know, you might be doing a
(21:12):
podcast about, you know, knitting, or board games, or
1980s, soap star, so, whatever it might be, B-but in the that
your discipline in your community, you might be number
one. You might be done / 2 and
actually that might be enough. There might be something there.
There might be a career there, or it might be augmenting other
things that you do. So, I think, I think it's not a
(21:34):
kind of a binary either. You're a big success or you're
not that thing is, John said, I think that's an interesting idea
that this Middle Ground, these Middle Ground shows are going to
struggle, because they're not super windy and super Niche.
They are trying to break across into that.
Mainstream put, it's difficult because you need to find the way
(21:54):
of funding that and, and that be, you know, I mean, I
discovered recently that kind ofSony, Sony Music.
Quite now big in terms of investors into podcasts.
So they've got a few deals around the world and they're
putting money into them to seed,funding into these, and helping
with distribution. So, it could be.
We see these Brands coming into that middle ground into that
(22:15):
sort of middle to top and space finding ways of supporting.
Eating podcasters to produce work that then ultimate will pay
back in another way. So yeah, I think you know, I
think will will you be a big bigname?
Well, maybe but you've got to have a name attached to you to
start with, you know, mean, you know, they say, oh, well these
(22:35):
did it but they were famous in other areas, you know, maybe
that's part of the kind of Mythology of podcasting that
needs to be sort of debunked a little bit that even back in 20,
you know, 2012 or 11 that, you know, there are all these people
making amazing podcast that werethen got discovered in 2014 2015
(22:55):
and you know, and it relates I think that's very true.
What you said there about the getting away from that binary
thinking and and even some of the ways I've talked about in
the past this idea of this institutional podcasting,
there's independent podcasting and one's good and one's bad.
It doesn't really work in that way.
I suppose, my, my thought is that maybe, I don't know.
(23:16):
We're doing a podcasting on it, a podcast on it today.
But it's that sense that, you know, all the newsletters are
about monetization and about size and about audience, share
and about who's bought who and all this kind of stuff.
And really one of my socks bugbears John is this idea that,
you know, there's so much more about podcasting that needs to
(23:36):
be talked about. We try and do that in a podcast
studies sense, but it does seem that the conversation makes it
seem like like there's this hugeindustry that everybody is kind
of looking to make a buck out of.
But really, I don't think that That really encapsulates.
What podcasting is and what's going on.
And is true and it still remainsTrue to this day that there's
(23:57):
only a very small number of podcasters that actually either
looking to monetize or are doingit in any way, shape, or form.
So, the vast majority people were releasing content on
podcasts are not monetizing either by choice or because
their downloads and their audiences too small.
Or it's not an audience that advertisers care about, or
(24:20):
whatever they're just there, or they have other reasons for
doing it. Richard pointed out Brandon
podcasts. That's the point is to actually
Reach people with a message about your brand.
And so you're not trying to sellthem other kinds of things.
On top of that. You're really like you're the
whole point of your podcast is to actually create brand
(24:40):
awareness for your product or service.
And then there's a lot of peoplewho are using podcasts that
organizations and institutions using it as a form of internal
communication. It's a huge growth area.
So large Nations. Have you might have a weekly
podcast where the CEO or CFO or someone is interviewed and then
this goes out to all your employees on a closed RSS feed
(25:04):
and it's the equivalent of a kind of internal company memo.
But yet it's taking the form of an audio podcast.
So there's a lot of that going on as well.
But the other thing that's kind of inevitable about about this
is that as more and more people jump into podcasting you Back to
2005. 2008. 2009 Lee you look atthe number of podcast that were
(25:28):
out there that were a healthy amount, but look at it now
between 2020 and 2021, the number of podcasts available
through the Apple podcast. Directory doubled from roughly
around a million to over two million, two million podcasts.
So now it's, you have as a listener.
You have an amazing amount of choice for the podcast that you
(25:53):
You listen to, but you only havea finite number of hours in your
day. You look at research, from
Edison research, does in their infinite dial research, every
year people even people who are hardcore podcast enthusiasts.
They can listen to or do listen to her, have the time to listen
to a maximum of maybe eight podcasts a week.
(26:14):
And that's a lot. So, if you take the podcast
audience and even if you assume being generous that each of
those audience members is, To a podcast a week, There's no way
you're going to be able to have distribution even distribution
across that two million plus podcasts.
So the key to the future of the medium and the thing that's
(26:34):
going to be a challenge for anyone who's got a small podcast
or is launching a podcast or thinking about launching a
podcast, is how you get discovered discoverability, is
the number one will become the number one, kind of Bane of the
industry. And that's where these
platforms. Are going to come in and play an
(26:55):
enormously powerful role becausethey can draw audiences to
certain types of content if theywant to, if you login to Spotify
and you see the Spotify recommends and there are two or
three podcasts on your home screen that in and of itself is
going to increase the probability that you find new
(27:17):
audiences. And the reverse is also true.
If you, if you never show up on that new and noteworthy.
The or on that front home screenor something like that.
Or if you never get recommended by an AI algorithm, you can be
effectively invisible on those platforms and finding an
audience for your content. Can be that much more
(27:37):
challenging. I think that's the biggest thing
is that God knows this sort of professional sense of what
you're doing and there's a whether you've got a star name
attached to you or you just really good at marketing and
getting your name out there and bang.
Beyond the door. I did some research Gideon years
ago, about this kind of early days of podcasting, and I spoke
(27:59):
to the woman who's running KCRW in Santa Monica about online
radio and podcasting. And she said, oh, well, we knew
the guys are coppertino. So we went up there and we had a
chat with them. We told them what we did and we
got ourselves in on the you'll noteworthy thing on the iTunes
homepage. Because they knew people who
(28:20):
work that because you know, they'll that same kind of
California can attack community and and I think, yeah, you write
that you being on the homepage does that?
But how do you get on that? Apple are not going to find you
accidentally, you know, it's going to be all right, we know
that person because they were inthe movies or because of
musician or because they've got the marketing muscle of Sony
(28:44):
Music, wonder--i, the BBC and PR, whoever behind, who have got
all these direct lines of communication.
So, you know, but the Hope mightbe the, actually, what end, what
ends up we end up with. Maybe he's kind of more Indie
app start to develop and they goactually, you know, what Spotify
Apple you just get on with it, you know, like sort of the
(29:05):
string platforms of Amazon and Netflix they so we'll just do
our own thing over here, you know, and if you want to find an
app, you know, for not find a podcast about art.
Well, he's an art Apple here, isthis apple and whether we'll see
these kind of Indie communities growing up, because they just
realized that. That is a train that they're not
going to be able to keep up on because, yeah, because it just
(29:29):
they haven't got that Financial Muscle behind them.
I'm wondering as well. How much this is going to make
it more difficult for people whoare new to podcasting to get
into it. I know it's kind of like it
seems sort of I've spoken to people who just this week, a
couple of more people. Like just explain to me how
(29:50):
podcasts work again and it's like it does sort of You know,
for us it kind of blows your mind, but that sense of the
interface between you know, thatthere's podcasting in terms of
the abstracts notion of what that is, but then somebody says,
okay. I'm going to listen to a podcast
and they get their phone and howdo they where do they start?
(30:10):
Do you think that like Spotify and apple are going to try and
make that a little bit more streamlined in terms of the, I
know you talked about in the article this idea of channels
where it's going to look more like Like a TV Guide that you
can that you can follow a littlebit more easily.
I think there's no question about that and all the when you
(30:31):
look at the sort of growth and new listeners, that's going to
happen through these platforms because that's what people are
using to access audio content, right?
Whether they've got an Apple device and they just default to
using Apple podcasts or whether they are, they've got a Spotify
account. And now if you're listening to
music on Spotify, there's a whole whenever you log into to
(30:53):
the app. Now, there's recommendations,
not just for music but also for podcasts on the bottom half of
the screen and that's new so that that's going to that's
going to generate a lot more newlistening and new traffic and
it's a good bet that those people who are unfamiliar with,
let's say the history of the medium or how it emerged, or the
(31:16):
fact that I emerged as the results of this kind of open
architecture that Harkens back to the earliest days of Of the
World Wide Web that there is this kind of DIY amateur ethos
surrounding this medium. That's all going to be that's
information. They can't access because what
we understand as podcast today is this thing that that Spotify
(31:39):
is serving up to you because it's convenient because it's
available, right? Because you're already there
anyway, to listen to your album or other music that you're
interested in. And suddenly you might get
interested in a podcast or Spotify might say to you.
Hey, you seem to like listening to this particular artist, you
(32:01):
know, that people on Spotify wholisten to this artist.
Also like this podcast. Check this out.
So and that's great for Discovery in a way of kind of
like channeling that, but it does kind of reorient.
The whole nature of the medium. I mean, I talked a lot about
I've been doing a lot of research about how the whole
(32:22):
mechanisms Or measuring audience, feedback and
listenership has really matured in podcasting, over the last
five to seven years. So, there's a sense in which, if
you're part of a new medium where you have some rudimentary
download numbers, but really, you're kind of Flying Blind.
(32:42):
You have no idea, you know, the extent to which your content is
being consumed or what people think about it.
You might get some reviews on Apple podcasts or on the any of
these. Of the directories.
You might get an email now and again, things like that, but
it's kind of different animal when you can get
moment-by-moment stats about in particular who it is Spotify, is
(33:06):
telling you, not just how many people are listening to your
podcast, but some demographics about them.
What are the kinds of music? They listen to you and Spotify
and at what point or moment during your podcast you see
declines in listenership, so youcan you Go and kind of
moment-by-moment basis and see where your content was failing
(33:27):
to connect with listeners and all this stuff is kind of
marketed as this kind of wonderful thing so that you can
deliver even more value to your listeners, but it also
commodifies and it it turns yourthis connection that you have
this wonderful thing. This intimacy that we keep
(33:48):
talking about with podcast. It turns that into a number and
a Numbers relationship. And that reorients the
relationship between Creator andlistener in a kind of
fundamental way. And that I think is something
that that it's a loss in a sense.
Yes. It's better for ad sales and
(34:10):
it's better for, you know, all kinds of getting all this
detailed consumption, but it also means that that kind of
folds back on your own labor andinteresting kinds of ways.
There's lots of great research on how that kind of Level of
moment-by-moment audience feedback through internet
traffic data is folding back on journalists for example, and is
(34:31):
changing the way in which they see their own work and suddenly
that their own within their organizations.
Their whole evaluative structures are being greedy
oriented around the internet traffic, that their stories get
on the say, the website. And suddenly, you know, if
you're looking for that promotion, you're frantically
(34:51):
hitting Refresh on. Your browser to see how many
hits your article is getting online.
That's that's changing the nature of your work.
So suddenly it's not about the quality of the journalism you
do. It's how much, how much it
drives clicks on your website. Yeah, and I mean that's a huge
problem kind of it. The internet.
(35:12):
More broadly is now you mentioning journalism there.
But that, you know, it relates to that this sort of world that
we live in now where the antagonism and the Go systems
that we all exist in kind of driven by this idea that the
most lowest common denominator or arguments, or things that are
(35:34):
going to spike a load of interest in a very short period
of time are the things that thatpeople want to produce because
that that has the possibility ofgetting the greatest audience
and that at that sense of being reflexive about, you know,
developing a piece of art is becoming more and more
difficult. In fact, if I was ever a space
that allowed that before it was it was podcasting and yeah
(35:58):
Richard in terms of teaching howdo students sort of think about
that when they're producing work, you know, when you're
working with them. In terms of I do you really try
and make them think about just piece of audio that they're
they're producing, making it thebest it can be or is there a lot
of thinking about? Well, you know, this will appeal
to that audience or this will appeal to a different kind of
(36:19):
audience. It's kind of both really, I
think it depends on Which bear the cost that happens inside of?
Yeah, I mean in Canada stuff. That happens in third year and
I'm post-grad. Then yes, we're thinking, right?
That, how do we get the quality of?
How do we get the creativity of what can we do?
(36:39):
But also, I mean I think audience, whatever we try and
teach, you know, is at the heartof it.
Yes, who you trying to talk to? What do you want them to?
What are they doing? What are they interested in?
So you then can think about how?You're going to frame the
podcasts that you make. So on second year, our students
(37:00):
make and distribute this, a short series of podcasts.
It's like, so, what are you doing?
What's your angle? You know, so you are you want to
do news? Okay, right.
So you can use the podcast, willwatch your angle.
Who do you think is going to listen to this?
Why they're going to find you why you're going to be
discoverable, you know, and whathave you got if you like within?
(37:23):
And within your Armory, you know, so it is kind of thinking
about about you audience. I think you know stuff that John
was saying that you then have the data and you get a sense
then I suppose in terms of how that's how that's working
because think I can, you know, with creative work in some ways.
The worst thing that that sometimes students do is they
go. Well, did he just something
(37:45):
that's there? See there's convenient or this
is well, I'll interview that person because I know them and
they make something that is fine.
Yeah, but they've not thought about well, why is this person
interesting to somebody who's not related to them if you like?
So, yeah, I think I think in this, in terms of that, you
(38:06):
know, and they are about, I think.
Yeah, I think that there is a loss there because people are
saying what I'm making this because it's the right thing to
do. And I'm doing this in this way
because it's right for, for the topic and probably a lot of
podcasters will still do that even if they have access to
data. I'm one of them.
That's for sure Gloucester Tina.That's the first five because,
(38:27):
you know, it's like that's in some ways, you know, your reader
of your audience's. They are who they are, you know?
Yeah, but it's interesting that the say, for example, you know,
you would have said maybe beforehe became the sort of number one
in downloads, the idea of a kindof center-right UFC commentator,
slash comedian doing a three hour, you know, monologue, or
(38:50):
guest interview. Would why is that the most
interesting podcast or why? Is that the most downloaded
podcast in the world? It's tight, you couldn't pitch
that. You know what I mean?
So it's that work. That, that sense of
discoverability of what is interesting.
Maybe be may have come to an endin the form that we've, we've
understood it with podcasting. Think, I think, you know, I
(39:11):
think that is, it's in the niches, you know, my Dad wrote a
porn again. That's not something that would
have got through a pitch becauseit's like so.
So, what's the show? Well, I'm going to sit around at
my flat with Friends, and I'm going to read out these
pornographic novels that my dad had self-published.
Why would anybody listen to that?
But millions of people do, thousands of people have been to
(39:35):
see them doing live shows in theaters because this something
in it that has a an appeal if you like.
So, I think, you know, for me for podcasting, you know, when
students coming up with ideas orsay that should be a podcast,
like, To mainstream to brought your not, that sounds do on the
radio. So, radio Studio that go and do
(39:56):
that on the radio. When you thinking about your
podcast. It's got to be it's got to be
Niche. There's a niche anyway, you know
to have that resonance that cut through and there's there is
also there that kind of focus asI kind of almost like
confessional type of genre, right?
(40:17):
So even even when Do podcasts. And as lots of lots of our
colleagues around the world writing on podcasts, have talked
about the sense in which even journalists who were meant to be
remote third party when they do a podcast, the podcast becomes a
(40:38):
kind of confessional self narrative.
They insert themselves into the narrative into this journalistic
narrative and that lends kind of, it makes it much more
compelling because because you're listening to someone's
experience in their own words, coming through your earbuds or
your headphone or whatever and you're that that creates that
(41:00):
kind of bond and something that that has that if it doesn't
have, that kind of confessional type of orientation to it.
It becomes less into it becomes more.
As you pointed, Richard, may become more radio, you know,
that's fine for radio, but for podcasting you really want to
know. What kind of impact did this
have on someone's individual life?
(41:23):
So that, that, there's that, that element of it, the
celebrity aspect Oak is a way ofbypassing that I think are it's
used as a way of bypassing that.So, like, say for example, you
know, if you've got a podcast that just starts and it's an
unknown person, you have to spend the labor, building up,
that that sense of narrative andthat sense of experience.
So that a connection could be made over time.
(41:47):
And I think what pop gasps, whatthese big companies Are doing is
say okay. Let's take somebody that the the
people already know. So so they're already feeling
some sense of connection or authenticity, or whatever.
It might be, you know, connection to them.
And and then we could just get on with being funny or whatever,
whatever it is, but I think thatthat kind of misunderstands the
(42:10):
idea of where, you know, podcasting intimacy, if you want
to use that phrase, but that thefundamental sort of depth of of
what people, get out of podcast,it kind of I passes that a lot
of the time. And it's the kind of decision
making that you that makes economic sense when you're
sitting at a desk in an office at a multinational media
(42:30):
conglomerate, but as far as likea listener or Creator in the
podcasting space that makes a lot less sense, but you can see
how the Logics start to percolate through organizations
like that. And then you get a quote, of
course, the copycat effect. As soon as there's one podcast
that, you know, one pot. Is that, that becomes a kind of
(42:54):
Cornerstone of the medium, say cereal or something like that?
It's then suddenly decision making becomes centered, or on,
can we make another podcast? That's different, but similar to
that and that's when you get thekind of CopyCat phenomena and
then it kind of rolls down a hill and then you get.
Lots of podcasts that are produced by Major podcasting
(43:17):
networks and corporations whether it's iHeart Sirius XM.
Whatever. And then suddenly it becomes a
lot less interesting because it starts to sound a lot more
formulaic and a lot more homogeneous, and then you're
right back, you know? Right back by radio is and
that's why people are fleeing radio to begin with.
(43:38):
And so there's there's a tensionthere and we're still working
through that that tension. I don't think podcasting as a
kind of broader community of creators listeners and Al's has
really come to terms with the the nature of some of those
contradictions on the one hand podcasting is wonderful because
(43:59):
it's intimate. It's confessional.
It's community-oriented, you have the, you've cultivated this
relationship, everyone talks about relationships with your
listeners. You have an obligation to them,
to put your best foot forward tobe truthful and honest and
authentic with them. And in the same breath.
(44:19):
On the other hand, the podcast industry is telling itself all
about these sophisticated data mechanisms for analyzing your
audience and packaging your message.
Just right? So you meet the audience's needs
and you expand your audience based, which would seem to be a
kind of conflicting argument with the first.
(44:40):
So there's, there's a tension here.
There's a tension that's that's continually unresolved.
And that's what I find. So, fascinating about this
medium is because on the one hand, you can have this It's
kind of celebration of community.
Onion, the other hand, you have this celebration of consumption
and the two of those things, sitside by side in an uneasy
(45:02):
tension. Well, thanks for taking the
time, guys. It's been really fun to talk to
you. Both as usual.
Either of you got a recommendation that we could end
on something, perhaps that maybepeople won't know about.
As always, I kind of, I have about 90 million different.
Podcasts. I'm about halfway through.
(45:25):
So one that I've been trying to work my way through the BBC,
World Service has some fantastic.
I'm going to big budget shows. They're just doing a series of
the minute called The Lazarus Heist, which is about a North
Korean hack. Following one.
They didn't Sony Pictures stealing mother.
A lot of money from the bank of Bangladesh.
(45:47):
She's really good. Just wait for the new episode to
drop. Another show of really enjoyed
recently is a bit more kind of it's sort of semi Indie.
I suppose I think I mentioned tofix few people before.
So wonderful spoof of the cerealkind of truce crime series
called Cold Case, crime cuts, which is a wonderful show that
(46:11):
rig moves that kind of sort of investigative reporter immersing
themselves in the story and giving us all these wonderful
little little side stories that actually leaders.
Nowhere to really understand what their the shows about that.
That's been that's on the UK in the UK podcast.
(46:34):
So so those are two that I'd recommend looking up.
Brilliant, John, I listened to almost exclusively to podcasts
on podcasting. So all of my recommendations are
things like, you know, pod news with James cridland and puddle,
and they looks more long form version that he does with Sam
Sethi, which is always a very good, but I have a personal
(47:00):
connection in my family to autism.
So, I've been kind of delving into this BBC, sounds podcast
called. 1800 seconds on autism, which is narrated by young
people with Autism and that has been really, it's quite
(47:21):
wonderful and an empowering to hear some of these young people
talk about their experiences. So that has some personal
resonance for me. Awesome.
Well for myself, I'm I really like the the sort of enclosed
series that are almost kind of documentary podcasts about a
particular event and often when you you know, you could watch a
(47:42):
film about it or watch a, you know, watch a TV series about a
particular moment in time that you know about but you want the
ins and outs of it. And I always liked the way that
podcast really allow those events to be personalized.
So the first one is podcast called flood lines, which is
about Hurricane Katrina, which Ireally, really enjoyed and sort
of went bit crosses between the sort of political decisions, the
(48:06):
people in charge of those political decisions.
I'm how they impacted on people who are on the ground.
So they interview people from both of those, both of those
groups. Let's say and then kind of get
them together while giving you this overview of really, the
reality of what was, what was going on.
In terms of Katrina. One of the interesting things
about that podcast is the way that the news narrative actually
(48:26):
drove, you know, the way that America thought about New
Orleans and particularly about the, you know, the community
living there and the stereotypesof poor people and black people.
All that came through and we're automatically taken as as Truth
by the media narratives. So that was a great lesson.
And also I really liked recentlylistening to crushed, which is a
(48:49):
baseball podcast and it's about the steroid era of baseball in
the 1990s with the big hitters and how they all sort of were
part of this conspiracy of silence and all taking all
taking anabolic steroids. And what have you and how the
league took so long to even admit that that was taking place
and even now Now it's sort of a,an Open Secret and a lot of the
(49:11):
stories that came out with just so fascinating, about about this
period of time. So, yeah, if you're into sports
documentaries, I definitely recommend that.
But that's it for this week on new oral cultures.
Thanks for taking the time out, Richard and John great to see
you both upon. Yeah.
Thanks so much. And yeah, we'll catch you again
on the next episode and you all cultures.
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