AudioUK, Megan Lazovick, and YouTube

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Friday, the 28th of March 2025.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
The last word in podcasting news.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Sethi.

Speaker 5 (00:12):
I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News and I'm
Sam Sethi, CEO of Truthcast.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
One of the things that we want to do is make sure
that UK podcasting is successfulinternationally and we're able
to tap into those internationalmarkets.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
That's Chloe Straw from Audio UK.
She's on later and you know Ihave reporters messaging me.

Speaker 6 (00:32):
Can you just tell me Is it going to be up?
You don't have to give me thenumber.
Is it going to be up?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Also later.
Megan Lazarevic from EdisonResearch and Most shows should
think about a video audience.
The co-founders of Podnationalso in the chapters.
Today the PSP is alive andmeeting in Chicago.
A podcast movement, our YouTubeadding DAI and Kai, chucks it
in at YouTube.
See what you did there.

(00:58):
Sam Couldn't resist that one.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout with the tool,
support and community to ensureyou keep podcasting, start
podcasting, keep podcasting withbuzzsproutcom.
From your daily newsletter, thePod News Weekly Review.

Speaker 5 (01:13):
Now, James, let's kick this off.
You did a great job with MeganLazarevic on the Infinite Dial
last week.
Did you enjoy it?
Yes, it was great fun to dothat.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, absolutely, it was a dream.
I've been using the infinitedial for a long, long time, so
it was a bit weird to beactually presenting it Nice.

Speaker 5 (01:30):
Now, what was the big highlight for you from the
results of that report?

Speaker 1 (01:35):
I mean, I think the big highlight was podcasting
being officially mainstream now.
Over 50% of Americans aged 12plus now listen to podcasts
every month, so that's prettygood news.
Also, I think actually what wasgood is that the study is now
talking to many more people.
It's got a much larger surveysize, and that's a good thing

(01:57):
too.
But, yes, some really goodnumbers coming out of that.

Speaker 5 (02:01):
Well, also, I thought what would be good is to get
Megan back on the show Now she'shad time to settle the reports
out and I just wanted to get herinsights again to some of the
findings that were in the report.
You know stuff about the car,stuff about social media, things
to do with, as you said, youknow more Americans now using
podcasting.

(02:22):
So I started off by askingMegan how long has it been going
?
The Infinite Dial.

Speaker 6 (02:27):
It is the 27th year of the study and it was started
by Edison President, larry Rosenand the team back then.
And I actually gave a shout outto Pierre Bovard who is, with
Cumulus, one of the sponsors ofthe report, but he really is the
one who came to Larry way backthen to talk about internet

(02:48):
radio and they wanted to get asense of how Americans are using
it and we're so lucky thatwe've been able to find sponsors
for the studies for 27 years sowe've been able to measure that
growth over time and all of thedigital audio consumption and
other consumer behaviors overthat time.

Speaker 5 (03:07):
You've also grown the infinite dial to be in other
countries as well.
Where are the infinite dials?

Speaker 6 (03:13):
We have many different infinite dials, not
necessarily consistent everyyear in every country.
We've done Germany, we've doneSouth Africa, australia.
That one is coming up actually.
I don't know if we've doneSouth Africa, australia.
That one is coming up actually.
I don't know if we'veofficially announced it, but you
can look for that one this year.
We've done New Zealand, manyyears ago, I think, we did

(03:33):
Ireland, uk.
So really we're trying to getit anywhere we can.
Ideally we can get to a placewhere we're doing it every
single year in every country.
So we can get the same benefitsthat we do with the US study,
where we see year after yearconsistency and we're able to
see how habits have grown.

Speaker 5 (03:53):
But it's also nice if we can only do the study every
two years to look at consumerbehaviors that way, so the study
highlights critical insightsinto podcast consumption, online
audio trends, in-car audiousage, smart speaker usage,
social media behaviors and otherdigital media.
Now, what was the big highlight?

Speaker 6 (04:14):
The big takeaway is up.
Things are up.
Digital consumption is up, butespecially podcast consumption
is up, and that's the thing thateveryone is holding their
breath for every single year.
You know I have reportersmessaging me.
Can you just tell me, is itgoing to be up?
You don't have to give me thenumber Is it going to be up?

(04:34):
So that was the great news,that every year we've previously
reported podcast listening.
That podcast listening is nowup.
70% of Americans have listenedto a podcast.
That's up from previous years.
And of course, the exciting bitof this year is that we didn't
just measure listening, we alsoasked about watching podcasts,

(04:56):
and 51% of Americans havewatched a podcast.
So you know what the majorityof Americans are consuming
podcasts through video.
And then when you sort of rollup that information and look at
the combined consumption figures, we have an even higher jump
73% of Americans have consumed apodcast either through audio or
video.

(05:16):
So it's pretty much up any wayyou look at it.
If you're just looking at audio, we see increase.
If you roll in those videonumbers, you see even more of an
increase, which is exciting foreveryone in the space.
They want to be able to saylook how much we've grown.

Speaker 5 (05:30):
Yeah, and one of the things in the report is that
YouTube is a service used mostoften to listen to podcasts,
which, again, given that they'veonly gone into the market, that
was also a staggering standoutfor me.

Speaker 6 (05:43):
Well, of course, podcasts have been on YouTube
for many years.
And actually, sam, I shouldtell you I know that you're
looking at from the tech sideI'm always looking at it from
the consumer side.
While I do work with thesurveys and the quantitative
research, I spend a lot of mytime in qualitative research,
where I'm talking to real peopleabout their consumption.

(06:04):
And you ask a real people abouttheir consumption and you ask a
real person about theirconsumption to podcasts, they
say, oh, yeah, I've beenlistening to podcasts or I've
been watching this podcast onYouTube for years.
So the consumers don'tnecessarily think about the tech
and the networks and all ofthat.
They don't see it the same waythat people in the industry do.

(06:24):
So we say, oh, youtube just gotin the space, or they finally
just talked about it in theiryearly meeting.
But no, they've been in thespace because that's where
people are.
They're heavily using YouTubefor so many different parts of
their life, so it makes sensethat they're also consuming
podcast content through YouTube.

Speaker 5 (06:42):
So I love the fact that everything's up.
But looking back over the lastsix, seven months, maybe even
the last couple of years, wetalk about a number of
redundancies within the industry.
We talk about the fact thatadvertising revenue is not going
across that 2 billion threshold.
How do we equate the two,between a growing audience
that's listening and yet adeclining industry in terms of

(07:06):
the number of people?
So where do we balance thosetwo parts of the conversation?

Speaker 6 (07:11):
I mean there's an ebb and flow in every part of
business and adjustment,readjustment, and I'm sorry I
can't necessarily speak to allof that again because I'm so in
the consumer world.
But we do know the opportunityis there and hopefully having
these new numbers can help theindustry prove their case, prove

(07:33):
that people are consuming, thatpeople are getting the
messaging and that it's reallyvaluable messaging.
And one of the other studies Iknow we'll get to later the
fandom phenomenon does talkabout the amazing relationship
that listeners have withpodcasts and how much they value
messaging through thosepodcasts.

(07:53):
So the opportunity isabsolutely there and it's
growing because more and morepeople are entering the space
every day.
So how the industry harnessesthat, I can't help you there,
I'm sorry.
The opportunity's there.
That's what you guys have tofigure out.

Speaker 5 (08:14):
Now this is, as you said, the overall consumption in
audio as well, not just purelyin podcasting, but you're also
looking at social media.
You're looking at TV YouTubehave talked about their primary
platform is now going to be TV,which is for me very weird,
because I've never really lookedat YouTube on a TV.
Again, that's what people aretelling you.
But social media itself whereare you seeing the changes

(08:34):
occurring there?
What's happening with people'sbehaviours?

Speaker 6 (08:38):
Well, can I tell you just related to Infinite Dial,
anecdotally, we used to havelots of live conversation on
Twitter.
Everyone used to watch InfiniteDial and use the hashtag and
talk on Twitter and social mediausage has been a lot more
disjointed.
You know, there's a big loss tothe X platform.

(08:59):
People have moved to otherplatforms and for the webinar
itself it was great.
All of our viewers wereactually chatting in the Zoom
platform to each other becausethere wasn't one platform that
we were all together.
So it was nice for the webinar.
I enjoyed seeing everyonechatting, but it's also
frustrating that there doesn'tseem to be one platform that we

(09:22):
are all on.
Of course there's the metaplatforms Facebook, instagram.
They're really dominating thespace.
But Infinite Dial and, I think,the podcast world, when we're
talking about more businessstuff where has that landed?
I'm not necessarily postingabout Infinite Dial on my
Facebook, so it's veryinteresting.
The space and the Infinite Dialdoes show all of the changes

(09:45):
and where people have left, whatplatforms are growing.
And actually my favoritequestion from that section was
about TikTok, because we werefielding the study in early
January when everyone thoughtTikTok was going to go away and
we wondered what would happen.
Where would people go?
So we actually added thatquestion in the study.
If TikTok were to be banned inthe US, which one social network

(10:09):
service would you use mostoften?
So we got to that hypotheticalanswer and most people said that
they would go to Instagram orFacebook.
But it did vary by age.
So the younger people were morelikely to choose Instagram,
older people were more likely tochoose Facebook.
But there was a good cohortacross all generations that said
they would use YouTube andYouTube shorts.

Speaker 5 (10:31):
So will you be doing this same presentation at
Podcast Movement in a couple ofweeks time, or even next week?
Gosh, next week.

Speaker 6 (10:38):
No Infinite Dial lives on the internet for all to
see however many times they'dlike, but I will be presenting
the fandom phenomenon.
That's a study that we didjointly with Wondery and Zensu,
and I'm really excited to talkabout how much people love
podcasting and how muchpodcasting loves them back, what

(11:02):
it gives to them in their lives, and all of the different ways
that podcast enhances people'slives.

Speaker 5 (11:09):
Well, let's talk about that report.
I was really interested in theoutcome of that report.
You sort of touched on it thatthere is a parasocial
relationship between the fan andthe creator.
Is this something that wasunexpected, or do we not know
this already?
And if we know now that thereis that relationship, how can
the creator enhance thatrelationship with their fan then

(11:32):
no, it was not a surprise.

Speaker 6 (11:34):
We already knew that there was something really
special about the connectionbetween a podcast consumer and
the show.
We already knew that there wasthis level of fandom out there,
and from previous research weknew that people were more
likely to trust the messagingthat came from a host if they

(11:55):
were a fan.
So we already knew somethingwas special there.
But the intention of the studywas to really break it apart and
understand it a little bit more, to understand all of the
different ways that fandomenhances a person's life.
People talk about fandom in somany different ways fans of
artists, fans of sports, wherepeople have this crazy love for

(12:16):
something, where it's not just,oh, I like it.
It's like becomes a part oftheir personality, it becomes a
way that they see themselves,and that exists in podcasts too.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
So is it a funnel effect?
Is it that you start off with atangential relationship you
might've just heard of thispodcast Then you take five or
six episodes to gain arelationship with this podcast
and then you move down thefunnel.
You now are fully engaged.
So is it a state of mind thatyou become a fandom?

(12:49):
Is it a badge of honor that youreach, or is it day one you can
be in the fandom?

Speaker 6 (12:55):
It's not necessarily a certain path for everyone.
Everyone has their own path tofandom.
You know, some people become asuper fan of a podcast because
they already love the topic orthey already love the
personality.
Actually, you know, Amy Poehlerjust came out with her podcast
and I've loved her forever.
She's released three episodes.

(13:15):
I'm already a fan of herpodcast.
So there are different pathsand there are sort of and that's
one of the things that we triedto do with this study sort of
understanding how listenersbecome fans.
There are kind of fourdifferent endpoints.
There's sort of the connectionthat stems from feeling like
they're friends with the host.
71% of fans say that they feellike they're friends with the

(13:39):
host.
So it's connection driven.
It can also be identity driven.
One of the people we conducted,in addition to a survey, we
also conducted in-personinterviews.
One of the people we spoke tosaid I think podcasts helped me
see myself more clearly.
They've helped me understandmyself.
So there's this underlyingconnection with identity with
podcasts.

(14:00):
They can also become a fanthrough emotional connection.
Someone said podcasts help mebe more productive, they help me
regulate my attitude.
So or they make me laugh.
They 71% said.
Of the fans, 71% said they arefans because podcasts help them
escape real life, so there'slike this emotional connection.

(14:22):
And then, finally, there's thesense of community.
That's also one of the fourprimary drivers for fandom 62%
are fans because they help themfeel like they're a part of
something bigger than themselves.
So I am a fan of this podcastcalled.

Speaker 5 (14:41):
You were about to say Pod News Weekly, weren't you?

Speaker 6 (14:43):
Pod News Weekly.
Yes, there you go.
When I meet another Pod NewsWeekly fan, we go crazy because
we're like oh my gosh you listento Sam and James too, you know
there is that sense.
It's not just you, it's biggerthan you.
So those are four differentexamples, four different touch
points that get people intofandom, that sort of drive, the

(15:04):
fandom.
And it's great for podcastersto understand all of these
different endpoints, to betterunderstand you know what they're
doing well, and that's greatfor brands, too, to sort of
understand the different waysthat they can connect with
consumers through podcasts.

Speaker 5 (15:22):
Now look, if everyone wants to go and find more about
Edison Research, go and findmore about the Infinite Dial or
this fandom report, where wouldthey go, megan?

Speaker 6 (15:32):
Edisonresearchcom, and because social media is so
disjointed, look on everyplatform for us.
We're there.
Look for us.

Speaker 5 (15:40):
I think it's going to you know, like you have with
podcasting, wherever you getyour podcast, we have to have
wherever you get your socialmedia is the next state, right?

Speaker 6 (15:50):
Right, yeah, find us on EdisonResearchcom and sign up
for our weekly newsletter.
You can find a link to sign upon EdisonResearchcom as well,
because we really do make aneffort to deliver never before
seen data every Wednesday inyour inbox.

Speaker 5 (16:09):
Megan, thank you so much.
Thank you for the Infinite Dial.

Speaker 6 (16:12):
Of course Thanks.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Megan Lazarevic from Edison Research.
The good news is, I thinkInfinite Dial Australia is
currently out in the field, sowe'll get some details from
Australia relatively soon.
Also, I gather that InfiniteDial New Zealand is coming back
as well.

Speaker 5 (16:29):
It is.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
This year as well, which is excellent news.
So I'm hoping that we get morefrom other countries, because
it's really useful when you canstart comparing things.
So, yes, that's a really usefulthing.

Speaker 5 (16:41):
I also found the conversation that we had about
Wondery's report about fandomquite interesting as well.
So, yeah, again, I think that'ssomething that we're going to
touch on later in this show.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Now, indeed, and of course, Wondery's report on
fandom will be at Evolutions inChicago next week.
It's not the only big study,though, is it?

Speaker 5 (17:04):
No, there's going to be another one as well.
It's called the State of VideoPodcasting in 2025, by Coleman
Insights and Amplify Media.
What's this one about, james?

Speaker 1 (17:13):
So this is all about video podcasts, how people
consume video and whether or notvideo is a helpful thing.
Now they have released a littlebit of that data a little bit
early, saying that only 10% ofGen Z podcast consumers never
consume video podcasts.
So basically it's all aboutvideo for them, although you

(17:39):
know about 40% of Gen Z podcastconsumers only, or mostly,
consume audio podcasts.
So you know a bit of a mixedbag there.
But it should be reallyinteresting seeing that
Obviously Coleman Insights, justlike Edison Research, very
large, good market researchcompany and yes, so a ton of

(17:59):
data there, You're going to bepresenting something as well,
aren't you at Evolutions?
I am, indeed, I'm going to bepresenting the Pod News Report
Card and I've also got some datafrom PodTrack which will be an
exclusive which I'm lookingforward to breaking as well next
week.
I'd love to tell you what thatdata is.
I've got it emailed to me.
I haven't had the chance toactually open the email yet,

(18:21):
right.

Speaker 5 (18:22):
What was it entitled Exclusive do?

Speaker 1 (18:26):
not open until next week.
I mean, I basically I contactedthem a couple of months ago and
I said, oh, I'm doing thereport card again.
If you'd like a big, big logoon the screen with some data,
then do you have any interestingdata?
And they do, so that's good.
So, yes, so very much lookingforward to breaking some of that
.
I went through the Pod Newsreport card with Apple Podcasts

(18:49):
yesterday and it seemed to godown, you know relatively well,
which is nice, so I'm lookingforward to sharing it with other
platforms as well over the nextcouple of weeks.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
Platforms as well over the next couple of weeks.
Now also congratulations tofriend of the show, stephen
Goldstein, who is celebrating 10years at Amplify Media, so
maybe you and him can get in abar somewhere over in the
evolution to have a drink.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yes, that sounds like a good plan.
He's a good Professor Goldstein.
Yes, he was the person who cameup with the idea of Pod News,
interestingly.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
There you go.
Maybe you own one or moredrinks, then I think I do.
Yes, exactly right Now.
Moving on, when is a play not aplay, james?
Now we know a download is not alisten, but when is a play not
a play?
Basically, we saw this weekthat what counts as a play in
analytics in Apple podcasts canbe very weird.

(19:49):
Bumper, we're talking about itevery time you hit the play
button in Apple podcasts.
Tell me more about this.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yes, this was a sort of hidden thing in the middle of
an article from Bumper whichshows how to combine plays.
Basically, so, looking atYouTube, looking at Apple,
looking at Spotify and so on andso forth and going, okay, well,
how many total plays have wegot?
And the quick answer is there'snot an easy way to compile that
at all.

(20:15):
Apart from anything else,youtube doesn't tell us how it
calculates a play it never has.
So that's a weird one.
But hidden away in this and Ispoke with Dan Meisner from
Bumper about this was a littlething that said that every time
you hit the play button in ApplePodcasts, it counts as a play.

(20:39):
So that means that, for example, if you pause a podcast and
then hit play again, well,that's at least two plays, maybe
even three, because you've hitthat play button.
So my guess is that includes ifyou take your AirPods out and
you order a coffee and then youput your AirPods back in again

(21:02):
because that's paused it andthen played it out and you order
a coffee and then you put yourAirPods back in again because
that's paused it and then playedit.
Maybe it includes as you'redriving, you're listening to a
podcast and the podcast pausesever so slightly to tell you to
turn left.
Maybe it includes that as well,who knows?

Speaker 5 (21:19):
Who knows?
Indeed, yeah, we don't know.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, who knows?
Indeed, but I did, you know?
I mean, I did go into ApplePodcasts Connect and find that
this show actually has in ApplePodcasts has 32 listeners but
232 plays, which makes no senseto me at all, actually, if you

(21:43):
think about it, because I mean,how does that really work 32
listeners but 232 plays?
Are we really saying that mostpeople are playing it 10 times?

Speaker 5 (21:53):
No, I find that very strange.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
But anyway.
So yes, that was an interestingthing, I thought.

Speaker 5 (22:01):
So remind me, why do we have different metrics for
play through the main players?
You know, Apple, Spotify,YouTube?
Is it because no one's set astandard, or is it because they
all want to do it differently?

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Well, I think it's partially.
Nobody has set a standard, orat least nobody cares about a
standard, even if it is actuallysaid so.
Apple hasn't signed up to anyof the IAB guidelines, nor have
Spotify, nor have YouTube.
So IAB, you know, I mean it's auseful thing, but if the three
big podcast apps don't actuallyuse it, it's not particularly

(22:38):
helpful.
So, yeah, but you know, I mean,a play could be a useful number
if it actually meant something.

Speaker 5 (22:47):
But what I think is pretty clear with this is that
it doesn't actually meananything anyway you play doesn't
really matter the number oftimes you hit start, stop, start
, stop, start, stop wouldn'tactually have any relevance.
It would be actually what wasthe total aggregated time you

(23:09):
played of that episode so youcould uh.
Moving on, I just wanted tohave this uh discussion with you
.
Youtube pricing um, last weekwe talked about youtube
expanding its pricing withsomething called premium light.
Um, it's being piloted in theUS but it's extending out,
weirdly, to Thailand, germanyand Australia.
I don't know how they randomlypicked those three countries,

(23:31):
but they did.
But what's very cool about itis they're putting a YouTube
ad-free price of $7.99 per monthand that means you don't get
music, but you do get ad-freevideo and podcasting.
So I thought that was very cool.
The thing I wanted to ask you,james, is this puts a real
squeeze on Spotify, becauseSpotify have £5.99 for students,

(23:56):
£11.99 for individuals and£16.99 for family.
Spotify couldn't put out a£7.99.
No music service could they?

Speaker 1 (24:06):
No, not really.
I mean because there's hardlyanything on Spotify that isn't
music.
I mean, yes, podcasts, but yourpodcast is still going to have
ads in them.
So, no, I don't think thatSpotify can offer this, and I
think it's probably just ahistorical thing, in that

(24:27):
YouTube obviously came from thevideo world but also had a music
service that's part of YouTubePremium and they've all of a
sudden realised, well, actually,you know what, we should stop
doing the music service as well,and then we can offer a cheaper
, ad-free version of YouTube.

(24:48):
So I think that that makes abit of sense there.
But, yeah, I think it will add asqueeze onto Spotify.
Clearly, spotify is concernedabout YouTube, because Spotify
has spent the last six months orso talking about video all of
the time and saying that videois the future for everything.

(25:11):
And you can also see, you know,in certain countries and I
don't know if you have it in theUK, but in certain countries
Spotify also has music videos aswell, which they're trying to
roll out into the US, but theyhaven't yet managed to do that,
I believe, but obviously that'san addition there as well.

Speaker 5 (25:34):
Yeah, we talked about their price elasticity.
I don't think they can go muchhigher in their price before it
snaps and then they may have tocome down to compete on this
$7.99 price point.
But, as we said last week,spotify is good for music and
then they may have to come downto compete on this $7.99 price
point.
But, as we said last week,spotify is good for music but

(25:55):
it's a poor podcast app and Idon't know if I would pay just
for podcasting as an app forSpotify.
Yeah, no, do Now.
James, you were on the mediaround table this week and you
said something quite I thoughtquite really.
Well, often you say thingsinteresting.
I was about to say.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
you said something quite I thought quite really
well, often you say thingsinteresting I'm not, I was about
to say, you said somethinginteresting you said something
interesting At last Once in alifetime.

Speaker 5 (26:09):
God, finally, no, let me try rewording that.
You were on the media roundtable and you were talking about
this topic of advertising, andwhat you said was but the people
who would then listen to theadverts are probably not the
people you want to reach.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yes, yes, because I mean, if you can afford whether
it's $7.99, whether it's $11.99,whatever that money is per
month to get rid of the ads,then that probably says that
you've got more disposableincome.
That probably says that you aretherefore a bit richer than a
listener that isn't doing that,and in which case, surely you

(26:52):
are the people who theadvertisers want.
Surely the advertisers don'twant just to be advertising to
people that can't afford to getrid of the ads.

Speaker 5 (27:01):
So yeah, send them an Aston Martin ad to somebody who
can't afford 7.99.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
So I always find it very, I always find it very odd
when companies say you can, youcan get rid of the ads, because
what does that say about theaudience that hears the ads?

Speaker 5 (27:19):
So, yeah, I do think it's something just to have a
think about.
Moving on Now, youtube could beswitching on dynamic ad
insertion.
James, tell me more about this.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah, so this is according to a report by
Semaphore.
The report basically says thatYouTube is considering making
dynamic ads in videos, so itwould allow a host readout to be
dynamically inserted andswapped out within individual
YouTube videos.
So of course, you can do thatin terms of audio podcasts,
using OpenRSS, so that's allgood, and so the theory is that

(27:53):
you can do that in videos aswell.
What I would say is this soundslike a very interesting idea,
but it also sounds like an ideaof YouTube going ah, maybe
there's some money in thisdynamically switchable ad
insertions and maybe we can getour 30% 40% of that, and so it's

(28:15):
another parking their tanks onthe lawn of folks who already
offer that particular service.
So I'm not necessarily sure it'sgood news for the podcaster.
I think, if anything, it mightmean that we see the rules about
host read ads being changed inthe future for YouTube so that

(28:38):
YouTube actually begin to getsome money from those instead of
just allowing those to be invideos anyway.
So I'm not sure that it's goodnews for creators, but time will
tell.
The only thing that I would sayis this is a report in
Semaphore.
Youtube haven't commented, andwhen I did a report on YouTube's

(29:03):
getting RSS ingestion, andthat's going to be amazing.
Youtube took nine months tolaunch that product, so I would
imagine this is very early onand I would imagine that YouTube
is busy thinking about how itworks, but we're not going to
see that anytime soon.

Speaker 5 (29:21):
No, but Simifor also suggested something about
Spotify as well, james, well, Imean they say that Spotify
already offers this particularproduct.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
It doesn't.
It doesn't have dynamic adinsertion in video and indeed
when you add video to yourpodcast episodes on Spotify,
you're getting rid of dynamic adinsertion on audio as well.
So it's a bit of a mess onaudio as well.
So it's a bit of a mess.
So you know it's not alwaysfair to point out.

(29:50):
You know inaccuracies in otherpeople's, you know in other
people's coverage, but in thatparticular case it's just
worthwhile pointing out thatnobody else offers this in.
I mean, they said that bothSpotify and Apple Podcasts offer
it.
Well, apple Podcasts doesn'thost shows anyway.

(30:11):
So no, and Spotify doesn'toffer that either.
So always interesting, just toyou know.
Keep an eye on that sort ofthing.

Speaker 5 (30:19):
Hmm.
Now talking to Spotify andvideo, um, there was an
announcement, briefly on yourfavorite platform, linkedin, of
a flight cast announcing thebeta of their video and audio
hosting platform.
Uh rocks, who is the CTObuilding the platform, said for
the past year I've been quietlybuilding a video podcast hosting

(30:41):
platform with Steven Bartlettfrom Diary of a CEO.
We're running a closed beta.
Although Steve wants to holdoff, I want to add a handful
more beta testers.
So if you go onto LinkedIn,find Rocks and then type I'm in,
he will send you a link toapply for the beta.
That doesn't mean you'll get in, by the way, but you can apply.
But what's very cool is you canupload video and audio

(31:04):
everywhere.
So they're talking about AppleYouTube, but they've got Spotify
video as well, and I know thatthey did that.
We talked about this inDecember.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Are they talking about Apple?

Speaker 5 (31:16):
Well, I assume they will be, because if you're
saying everywhere, welleverywhere says Apple doesn't it
?

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, I was curious about that because they didn't
mention Apple at all on theLinkedIn post.
I think the interesting thingabout this is they appear to be
the first podcast hostingcompany to be able to upload
video directly into Spotify.
I'm unaware of any othercompany.

(31:42):
Maybe Megaphone will do thattoo, but I'm unaware of any
other company which has accesslike that.
You can do that from YouTube,obviously, but that I thought
was really interesting.
Seeing that side of it as well,it would be great if it also
supported video podcastingthrough OpenRSS.

(32:04):
So, yeah, I'd like to.
You know, I'd like to learn alittle bit more about that bit.

Speaker 5 (32:09):
Yeah, I think when we all get on to the actual
product we'll know more.
Personally, I don't think it'syou know, hosts are going to go.
Oh my God, that's it.
I think this is a wake-up callto hosts to actually get their
act together and start to lookat this stuff.
Actually get their act togetherand start to look at this stuff
.
I mean, we had apple givingthem, you know, access to apple
connect and they've got appledelegated delivery.

(32:29):
I think spotify, hopefully,will give everyone else access.
I mean, steven b got itdirectly by asking daniel eck.
I don't think, you know,everyone else can phone up
daniel and ask him for directaccess, but if they've built it
now for flight cast, maybe theycan give that same access to
every other host.
Um, what isn't in?

Speaker 1 (32:49):
there, though useful is live.

Speaker 5 (32:51):
There's no live capability yet within what
they're doing at the moment.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, yeah, there you go watch this space now.

Speaker 5 (32:59):
Um talking about hosts, talking about the
community working together.
Um surprise, surprise, therewas a blog post from the Podcast
Standards Project, james.
What did they say?

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yes, so the Podcast Standards Project posted their
first thing since August of lastyear with you know what we've
achieved and what comes next.
And what comes next?
What we've achieved is thatthere are five features that the
podcast, six features that thePodcasting Standards Project try

(33:31):
and get implemented, and theysay that there are 427,000 RSS
feeds out there with all five ofthose features, which is nice,
and basically saying that,pretty well, everybody supports
all of those features, which isnice.
Um, and basically saying that,pretty well, everybody supports
all of those Um, you know.
So that is um good, um and um,yeah, I think this was very much
a post from Justin uh Jacksonfrom transistor, basically um,

(33:57):
uh, trying to um, give adifferent uh view than the view
that we have had on this show,which is that the podcast
standards project is a waste oftime and it's probably already
closed.
There's a long post here withlots of celebrations of all of
those shows, but also talksabout what the future might be.

(34:23):
And is there a killer feature,much the same as Tom Webster has
been talking about.
Is there a killer feature forpodcast apps that we can help
implement and all of that kindof stuff, and just the problems
that they've had in terms ofmoving forward.

Speaker 5 (34:41):
Not that anyone's ever asked and no one ever will,
but here's my opinion.
For what it's worth, they needto put money into a pot.
I think the Podcast StandardsProject is a lovely group of
people, all the people involvedindividually we know as friends.
But in my opinion, don't justtalk the talk, walk the walk.
You need to.

(35:01):
The website needs to be updated.
You need to pull in the persontaxonomy.
It's sitting on a remote sitesomewhere, never been updated or
looked at for three years.
The music licenses stuff is satwith Phantom Power Media.
The music category list is satwith Wavelake.
Daniel has a website that's gotsome other stuff on it.

(35:23):
It's all over the place.
That needs to all be pulledtogether.
That's the first thing I wouldsay.
They need to invest into seedmoney.
Now this is a controversial one, but I think they need to
invest into new apps um uh.
And then the more apps thatsupport more tags, the more
funding they get.
The quid pro quo would be itwould be an equity investment.

(35:44):
So the apps then, if they gotfurther funding or, in the
future, sold, there would bemoney back into the psp pot.
It's a bit like the norway umuh wealth fund you know they
keep investing into it and thenthey get more, more money into
that fund.
Um, and finally, I think youknow um, they the first party
data we talked about earlier,giving that back to hosts from

(36:08):
apps.
I think there would be anincentive.
And finally, they need to findsomeone who's going to be an
advantage.
I stepped up, I stepped down.
It needs to be a paid,permanent role.
Somebody needs to do it.
They need to be flying aroundto all the shows, events,
talking to the agencies, talkingto production companies,
talking to just everyone in theecosystem, and building those

(36:29):
champions we talked about lastweek James, the people who can
take on each tag and become thechallenger.
There's so much that can bedone.
I really, really, really hopethat the podcast dance project
is a success.
It's the marketing arm ofpodcasting 2.0 and it needs to
really work.
Um, so I'll end it on one thingeither go big or go home.

(36:50):
The, the, the halfway housethat it's been, is a waste of
time, and so either do somethingor or just shut up about it and
leave it alone and move on.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yes, yes, I would agree with all of that.
I think it's very importantthat we move forward with that
and actually get moving, youknow, with it.
I mean, I think it'sinteresting seeing there's a big
table in that posting and it'sinteresting seeing that, you
know, just zero support fromcompanies like Acast, libsyn,

(37:25):
podbean Spreaker, spotifyobviously, and so on and so
forth.
So, yeah, it'd be great ifthere was more people involved.
Buzzsprout, our sponsor, isinvolved with it, as of course
is Transistor, captivate, redCircle, rsscom and others in

(37:46):
there as well.
So it'd be good to see morepeople being involved with that,
as well, Now talking of RSScom,they've been active, haven't
they?

Speaker 5 (37:56):
And what have they been doing?

Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, they have.
So they have achieved, for thefirst time they've achieved IAB
podcast measurement guidelines,version 2.2 compliance, which is
exciting.
So that is one thing.
Iab compliance obviously usefulfor you in case you are moving
podcast hosting companies andyou want to at least make sure

(38:20):
that the analytics are going tobe roughly equivalent.
And similarly, you know theyare useful numbers because quite
a lot of people actually askfor IAB compliant numbers these
days.
You know, regardless of ourissues with the IAB, you know it
is useful to at least have hadsomeone looking at your code,

(38:44):
regardless of how useful thosenumbers actually are at the end
of it.
But what also RSScom has done isthey have they're a bit late to
this, but they have now addedautomatic Apple Podcasts
submission.
So that feature, if youremember, was launched last
month from Apple.
You remember was launched lastmonth from Apple.

(39:05):
A bunch of people jumping inand doing it and it essentially
means that if you are a brandnew podcaster you can just
publish to Apple with one button.
It goes into rsscom's accountand then you can move it over
onto your own account whenyou're ready to sign up with
Apple directly.
So that's a good thing.

Speaker 5 (39:21):
They also.
I mean it's not a trade secretbecause it's on their website.
They're adding dynamic adinsertion very shortly as well.
So again something else thatthey are working on.
Yeah indeed Moving forward.
Bloomberg Ashley Carman had avery interesting report this
week, which was porn on Spotifyis infiltrating the platform's
top podcast charts.

(39:41):
Now, that is not a good thing.
It's happened before in thepast and they've taken it down.
It's a game of whack-a-molethat spotify likes to play um,
but what they were worried aboutuh, at least the the
implication was was that, um,because they've added video to
spotify's podcast.
Now that porn companies aregoing, oh, oh, there's money

(40:03):
there, let's stick some stuff upand see what we can get.
But according to Spotify, ourplatform rules will not allow
sexually explicit material and,equally, they say they would not
qualify for the partner program.
So I think, on that sense,there is no money for them to
get.
But strangely they did,according to Ashley appear in

(40:32):
the charts.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Yes, and I would imagine that, yes, there may be
no money for them to getdirectly from Spotify, but there
may be opportunities and thingsfor them to get money elsewhere
.
If you remember, quite a lot ofpeople were signing up with
free podcast hosts to be ablejust to market sex workers, and
that was something that quite alot of people were doing.
So the podcast itself didn'treally exist, but it was a good

(40:55):
and free way for them to get thetelephone numbers of these sex
workers in various parts of theworld into big search engines,
like you know, YouTube and Applepodcasts.
So, yeah, it is interesting.
I've not covered this and I'mnot quite sure.

(41:16):
It is, of course, an issue thatas soon as you turn on
particularly turning on videoissue that as soon as you turn
on particularly turning on video, then you will get adult
content.
But this has always been aproblem with Spotify.
It's always been sort ofavailable on there, and so I was

(41:38):
struggling a little bit to workout what the story was, other
than perhaps that it's the firsttime that it's actually been
seen in the top 10 charts.

Speaker 5 (41:47):
I think that's it.
I mean, everyone knows it'ssort of lingering, but when it
comes front and centre, I thinkthat's when people go oh, that's
not quite what we want.
Because I don't think I meanI've never tried, but I don't
think YouTube has that problem.
It may well do, but I don'tknow.
I know TikTok and I know X andother platforms do have that

(42:09):
problem.
I mean, in fact, x have justgone the other way and said,
yeah, bring it all on, we'llmake money from that as well.
So platforms have that problem.
It's just how you deal with it.
I think Ashley was trying tosay was the video incentive the
reason that there was anincrease in the amount of
content from porn companies?
And the answer from Spotifyseems to be no, that's not what

(42:31):
it is.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Well, now let's dive around the world if we can,
because we had some news fromJapan.
There's that song, of course,big in Japan, and podcasting is
well, slightly less small inJapan.
It's still not very big 17.2%of Japanese adults are listening
to podcasts at least once amonth.

(42:53):
That figure is 55% in the US.
Audio-only stuff in Japanreally does not do very well.
Historically there's somethingabout the Japanese that means
that audio and radio doesn't doparticularly well.
But good to see that data fromOtonal and the Asahi Shimbun

(43:13):
Company which, I have to say,apparently I'm not quite sure
why I'm glad you did.
So that's all fun.
And, of course, happy 100thanniversary in Japan for radio,
which started 100 years ago withthe name of a radio station in
Japan being said over and overand over again by a very shouty

(43:36):
man, Anyway.
So that's all good.
That's going on in Japan.
In India, the Indian governmentis making a $1 billion

(44:00):
investment in the local creatoreconomy One more country doing a
big investment in localcreators.
The previous set of companies,previous set of countries to do
that have been places like SaudiArabia and Qatar and the UAE.
So interesting to see Indiajumping in there and going.

(44:21):
Actually, the local creatoreconomy is really important for
the future of our industry.
So, yes, you know a ton ofstuff going on there and in the
UK there is an event which isgoing to happen.
It's called the Power ofPodcasting and it's on Wednesday

(44:43):
, the 23rd of April.
The event is interestingbecause it's designed to connect
brands and agencies with theproduction houses and networks
behind various UK podcasts.
It's done by a company calledAudio UK and you caught up with
Chloe Straw, who's their CEO,and you asked, firstly, what

(45:05):
Audio UK was.

Speaker 4 (45:07):
So we've recently slightly updated our kind of
mission statement and that'svery much because the way that
the audio industry has changedso rapidly over the last kind of
10 years.
So we are an industry body andwe're dedicated to advancing the
audio sector.
So that includes podcasts,radio, audio books, and that's
by fostering innovation,supporting creators and

(45:29):
businesses and drivingsustainable growth.
So we've got about 130 members,we're member funded and I think
we have about 50% in London,50% out of London, across the UK
, and they include businesseslike Sony, Goldhanger Audio,
Always, Persephone Novel, so ahuge range of amazing different

(45:50):
businesses.

Speaker 5 (45:51):
And when you say all these people are members, what
is it that you are then givingthem Guidance?
Are you giving them regulation?
What is it that Audio UKprovides then?

Speaker 4 (46:03):
So we do a huge amount of different work and it
represents the huge range ofdifferent members that we have.
So within those lists we mighthave one person who is an
audiobook producer, and theychurn out audiobooks every
single week in their home studio.
And then obviously you haveGoldhanger, who are absolutely
massive and have five out of thetop 10 Apple podcasts in the

(46:26):
charts every week.
So in the way that our membershave a lot of different needs,
we provide a lot of differentservices.
So one of the biggest thingsthat we concentrate on is
growing the industry and growing, I guess, the amount of money
coming into the industry for ourmembers.
Our members are largelyindependent.
By that I mean we don't havethe BBC as a member, we don't

(46:47):
have Global as a member, but wedo have some of the kind of
biggest independent podcastcompanies, and so I guess what
we do I split into almost twosides.
There's the tangible benefitsand the less tangible benefits.
In terms of industry growth,one of our main things this year
is we're doing a huge amount ofpolicy work, which doesn't
sound that exciting but isreally, really important, and

(47:10):
the main crux of that withoutturning this into a policy
podcast is around getting audiopodcasting recognised as a
creative industry.
So there's something atgovernment level called the
Creative Industries Council.
It has a huge amount of inputinto where the money goes for
the creative industriesrepresentation abroad and all

(47:31):
different levels of developmentaround the creative industries,
and as it stands there is noseat for audio in any form on
the Creative Industries Council,which seems completely mad to
me.
And so one of the big thingsthat I've been working on with
Hannah, who's our policy andregulation lead, is lobbying
around a seat on the CreativeIndustries Council, and from

(47:54):
that flows things like creativeaudio, tax relief for podcasting
and audiobooks, more IP fundingfor development and IP export
overseas.
So I guess if you're one of ourbigger members then you are
able to directly feed into thoseconversations.
I think one of the things Ilove about Audio UK is I keep in
fairly constant contact with alot of the founders and CEOs and

(48:18):
MDs of our companies, who arealways very open to talking to
our members about various issues, and that gives them a really
kind of direct avenue into thosemassive industry decisions.
So it's very much about growingthe industry.
Tangible benefits we provide alot of business support.
So we've just partnered with anew insurance provider on behalf

(48:39):
of our members called Riskbox,which is great.
Have a long running partnershipwith Minton Co, who provide as
soon as you join up at anybusiness level, you get access
to 30 free legal contracttemplates.
We have a partnership with HRcompanies all of those things
that you might be really focusedas a business on, like what's

(48:59):
the creative, what's an idea,but all the kind of
infrastructure of running abusiness.
We also offer that to all ofour members.
So, and many other thingstraining, audio production,
awards, which we're going tocall the apas from now on and,
yeah, so many different things Idon't know if you saw, but in
this week's news, india hasannounced a one billion billion

(49:21):
investment into its localcreator economy.

Speaker 5 (49:28):
So it sounds very similar to what you were just
describing with what Audio UKwould want from the UK
government.
So in Mumbai, neil Mohan, theCEO of YouTube, basically spoke,
and then the Indian governmentminister has announced that
they're putting in $1 billionnot rupees, thankfully and the
goal is to enable creators toscale their productions, upgrade

(49:48):
tech and tap into the globalmarkets.
That sounds exactly what youwere just describing for what
Audio UK wants the UK governmentto do.

Speaker 4 (49:56):
Yeah, I mean, that's very much what we need to happen
, I think, if I have afascinating spreadsheet which
looks at kind of the differentbenefits that other creative
industries get so film, tv,gaming, animation, theatre they
get a huge amount of governmentsupport, where historically we
got a bit of money into training, but that stopped in 2018.

(50:16):
We're actually partnering withthe BBC on training.
We're relaunching Audio Train,which will be great, but I feel
like the government should beputting money into training for
audio as well.
Absolutely.
We put in a proposal for thespring spending review around a
fund for IP development andexport.
So obviously, as we all know,one of the things that we want

(50:38):
to do is make sure that UKpodcasting is successful
internationally and we're ableto tap into those international
markets as well.
And that's another of our keyfocuses is how do we bring in
more international investment?
The kind of IP fund focuses onthat at a local level as well as
at a global level.
And also the audio tax reliefis very much around.

(51:00):
So many of our member companiesuse UK teams to make podcasts
for the US and if we had a taxrelief, you know it would just
supercharge that.
So, yeah, we just want to growthe industry, bring in more
money.
We'd love a billion dollars forthe podcast.

Speaker 5 (51:16):
Wouldn't we just yes.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
A bit less than that at the moment, but you know
anything.
I'd take anything right now andthen we'll work up to a billion
Less than that at the moment,but you know anything, I'd take
anything right now, and thenwe'll work up to a billion.

Speaker 5 (51:26):
Now, this event that you've got coming up, it's on
the 23rd of April.
Tell me more about it.

Speaker 4 (51:29):
So that's another real focus for us this year
actually.
So, aside from policy eventsand so on, we obviously work
with a lot of the biggest andfinest production businesses,
production houses and networksin the UK, as I've mentioned,
and that's one of the things Iabsolutely love about Audio UK.
It's the ability to bring allthese incredible businesses

(51:52):
together, and one thing that wedo is we have a podcast leaders
lunch.
So it's for Audio UK membercompanies.
They don't necessarily have tobe the biggest.
Obviously the biggest comealong, but it's the CEOs and the
MDs and the co-founders ofthose businesses who come along,
and something that I love aboutthe industry is that they're
obviously all competitors, butthey're also very happy to share

(52:16):
insights, which I love becauseI love partnerships.
I think good things happen outof partnerships, and so we run
these leaders lunches everyquarter or so.
We obviously put on lunch, geteveryone who we can together to
come along and discussopportunities and challenges
within the industry, and one ofthe biggest challenges and
opportunities that came up wasaround advertising in podcasting

(52:40):
in the UK, and I mean you knowthis as well, if not better,
than I do.
You know podcasting in the UKin terms of ad spend still has a
long way to go in terms ofbeing recognised as a really
good place to put your money.
We all know that it's a greatplace.
We know that the statistics aregood.

(53:00):
We know that audienceengagement is good.
We know that the kind of returnon investment is good.
The kind of structure andconvincing the ad agencies and
the media buyers of that stillneeds a lot more work and I
spend a lot of time withstatistics because I love data
and so we know.
The obvious comparison is the USand the UK, both primarily

(53:22):
English speaking countries, andI think my most recent
calculation is if you look atthe podcast ad spend per person
in the UK it's 1.2 pounds perperson and if you look at it in
the US, it's $7 per person.
So it's not just that the US isbigger because population size
it's bigger per person, and soone of the priorities that came
out of those lunches was aroundhow do we convince advertisers

(53:48):
that podcasting is a good placeto put their money?
We know it, but there'sobviously a bit of a disconnect
there and obviously there'sgreat work being done already by
Acast, by Megaphone, goalhanger.
Do their own outreach aroundthat.
A lot of the businesses that wework with do outreach around
that, but I think it's reallypowerful to bring all of these

(54:10):
businesses together and get thebrands and advertisers together,
to hear from such an incrediblebunch of businesses At the same
time as we'd come up with that.
I know Meera Kumar quite well,who's obviously a fantastic
producer, and she brought asimilar idea to me, and the
beauty of Meera is, if it hadbeen left to me because I have

(54:31):
40,000 things to do at any onepoint it probably would have
stayed.
Oh, that's a good idea,shouldn't we do that Whilst?
I answer all my emails and shecame to me with the idea and has
been really instrumental injust driving it forward, which
is fantastic.
We also have Martin who runsPodmasters helping out and a few
other people.
So, yeah, I think the mainpoint of it is around

(54:55):
demystifying advertising, and Ithink the reason we wanted to do
it is because in advertising,there's so many different
stakeholders, isn't there?
There's kind of the platforms,the production houses, the
agencies so many differentstakeholders.
Isn't there?
There's kind of the platforms,the production houses, the
agencies, the media buyers somany different things.

(55:18):
And I think, again, one of thestrengths of Audio UK and one of
the things that I love about itis the ability to hear straight
from the horse's mouth.
So we are bringing these brandsand advertisers together with
the production houses and thenetworks who sell their content,
make their content, distributetheir content, and we want to
talk to them about why it's sobrilliant and just do a really
good job of showing them whypodcasting should be on their

(55:39):
buying plan for the next year.
I think it's a difficult task.
We are different from the US inhow we're set up.
I was reading a reallyinteresting report recently and
one of the points around it isthat podcasting still sits under
audio in terms of ad buying,and I think, if you look at
America, podcasting sort of itsown branch of buying, and I

(56:03):
think that's something that'sreally interesting for us to
look at.
For me, this is a really goodfirst step in tackling and you
know, it's not just us doing it,a lot of people are doing it
but if we all tackle the needfor more money to come into
podcast advertising andsponsorships, I think it can

(56:24):
only be a good thing.

Speaker 5 (56:25):
Now, outside of talking to government and trying
to change policy and runningevents, what else does Audio UK
do?

Speaker 4 (56:33):
So, yeah, I must give a big shout out to the APAs,
which are our annual awardsceremony.
Katie messaged me beforehandand was like make sure you
mention the APAs, chloe.
So they're at the BFI inNovember.
I think it's November.
Actually, I don't want to give.
I'll get the date wrong, whichis classically me.
So I was going to give you anexclusive date reveal Somewhere

(56:54):
in November, it's around.

Speaker 5 (56:55):
Then We'll let you know.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
On a Wednesday towards the end.
I should have briefed myself abit better on that.
So we do that, do that, as yousay, we do a lot of events.
So I would absolutely sayplease join Audio UK if you are
not sure if you're eligible tobe a member.
We're broadening the membershipmore and more.
As I say, our key driver isvery much about growing this

(57:19):
industry, about bringing moremoney into it for our businesses
.
We all do it for the love, butyou need to earn the money to
keep going as well.
But we are primarily memberfunded and so the more people
that join, the merrier.
We have a join us button on ourwebsite and as part of that,
everything that I've spokenabout, we are doing an

(57:39):
increasing amount of eventsbecause we find that members get
a huge amount of benefit fromthat.
So we recently ran an event withPACT, who are the TV and film
equivalent of us, which was a TVversus podcasting networking
event.
Obviously, as we all know,podcasting's not just audio,
it's every single different IPextension you could possibly

(58:02):
know about.
And what was really nice aboutthat event was we brought PAT
members together with Audio UKmembers.
They were able to network.
We had a presentation fromKarina at Buzz16 and from Tony
Pastor at Goalhanger, and it wasjust a great time.
For you know, people might havea podcast idea but they don't
know how to exploit the TV IPextension or people in TV might

(58:25):
want to learn more aboutpodcasting.
So we're trying to do more andmore of those events that grow
people's businesses, grow theiropportunities.
I'm a huge collaborator.
We are relaunching our audiotrain platform this year, which
is very much about providingopen access training to the
whole podcast, audio radio,audiobook industry.

(58:49):
It's in the early stages butwill very much be around a kind
of series of training videosfrom industry experts.
So if you want to know how tostory edit, you want to know how
to monetize your podcast, youwant to know how to market your
podcast, you want to know aboutaudio drama, there should be a
video for everything.
So I'm very excited about thatand we also are generally at

(59:12):
most of the events we get aroundquite a lot.
So the uni pod fest is comingup on the 4th of april see you
yeah, great.
And bernard uh, ashton pong, whois the vice chair and obviously
founder of Unedited, he and Iare doing a workshop and so,
yeah, we'll see you there, andI'm really excited about the
podcast show.
I do love the podcast show.

(59:34):
It's an opportunity to see allyour work, friends, and it's
increasingly international,which is important for us.
So we've announced our firstpanel there, which is called
2025 to 2035 predictions for thefuture of podcasting.

Speaker 5 (59:49):
Seat one, row one, I'll be there.

Speaker 4 (59:51):
I know I mean it's a little bit tongue in cheek, but
I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 5 (59:54):
Mystic Chloe.
That's the new title.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
I want the audience to put their predictions in, but
I'm chairing that and thenthere's going to be Megan
Bradshaw from Amazon Music,tiffany Ashtay from Acast and
Jessica Cordova-Kramer fromLemonada Media.
So I think incredible amount ofknowledge there, and we've
already made the joke that we'regoing to have a swear jar if
anyone says video, becauseobviously there's so much out

(01:00:21):
there, like every time onLinkedIn and so happy to read
about it, but it's like is videothe future of podcasting?
And we think we know that videohas got a part in it now.
So our promise to you on thatpanel is, if we say video, we
have to put a pound in the jar.
I tell you, the drinks thatevening are going to be amazing
and we've also got a couple morethat I'm really excited about,

(01:00:43):
but I can't announce yet, sohopefully they should come and
yeah, all the other things.
But, as I say, we're realfocused on pushing really hard
to grow this industry that welove, whether that's through
bringing more money in fromadvertising, through getting a
seat on the Creative IndustriesCouncil, we're just sort of
hammering away at the moment.

Speaker 5 (01:01:05):
Hopefully, more people will hear this and join.
More people will also ping youto come along to your event.
And we will all see you,hopefully, at the London Podcast
Show.
Chloe Straw, thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
Thanks for having me there you go.

Speaker 5 (01:01:20):
Chloe Straw, the lovely Chloe Straw, yes, I hope
to be going along to that eventon the 23rd of April.
Chloe also talked about, as youheard, that the UK government
isn't making the investment oreven doing anything with the
podcasting community really, andthat's counterintuitive when
you see countries like Indiamaking a $1 billion investment.

(01:01:43):
And you know, when will the UKgovernment wake up to the
creative industries thatpodcasting provides?
We've got great companies youknow Goldhanger, persephone,
curr Crowd Network there's tonsof them you know in the UK that
are doing great, great workaround the globe, like the music
industry that we have.
But I don't think the UKgovernment sees any value right

(01:02:03):
now.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Yeah, that may be the case.
It may also be the case thatthe UK government feels that
because the BBC does such a goodjob of working together with
some of these companies thatthey don't necessarily need to.
And of course, you know, the UKis not a rich country anymore,
seemingly has no money, and Ithink in the budget statement

(01:02:26):
that was made earlier on, Bringback the empire.

Speaker 5 (01:02:28):
That's what I say.
Bring back the bloody empire.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Sorry, sam Sethi, you would know all about the empire
.

Speaker 5 (01:02:39):
But strangely, if anyone knows me well, that is
the last thing I'll be talkingabout BS.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Yes, indeed, but yeah , I mean, it is interesting just
different countries' attitudestowards the creative industries.
The UK, of course, has one ofthe most successful creative
industries in the world in termsof music.
That does very well indeed, andI guess there could be an
argument to say we've alreadygot a fantastic creative

(01:03:08):
industry, they don't need anyhandouts from the likes of us,
which may be a differentconversation.
And finally, in Canada well,this is interesting.
Both in Canada and in LAthere's a women-led boutique
network which is called PodcastNation and it represents over
three dozen shows apparently.

(01:03:28):
We spoke to the co-foundersbehind PodNation.
We were curious to find out alittle bit more about how they
were considering YouTube and howthey grew and all of that.
So Sean Howard, for the PodNews Weekly Review, started off
by asking them what PodNationwas.

Speaker 8 (01:03:50):
I'm Cleo.
I founded Bouge Media about 14years ago, and so it started as
a digital marketing agency and,as you know, this industry just
changes so much and so quickly,and we've evolved with it and
with some of the influencersthat we worked with, we really
got introduced to the podcastspace, and then that's where the

(01:04:11):
inception of our sister agency,podcast Nation, came from.

Speaker 7 (01:04:14):
Yes, and I came on board back with Clio.
I started actually with BoojMedia early early days when Clio
first founded the company andthen came back about five years
ago to start the Podcast Nationdivision of Booj, because I was
just a podcast fan myself and Ithink I actually introduced Clio
to start listening to podcastsback in the day and I oversee

(01:04:35):
the operation.
So I'm involved with everythingfrom sales and production and
beyond.

Sean Howard (01:04:40):
How would you describe what your audience is
now, or even as you started andwhere you are now?
How would you sort of talkabout your audience?

Speaker 7 (01:04:48):
I think really simply , our audience is millennial
women.
That's kind of our sweet spotand but a millennial woman has
lots of different interests thatthey might have.
You know, listen somerelationship podcast, mental
health podcast, pop culturepodcast.
You know there's a lot ofdifferent categories to touch
within that listener demographic.

So you were sort of bringing that focus of
representing like someone whohas other channels and would
expect to still run thosechannels versus Exactly.
Like a radio approach, whereyou now, this is your format.
We're changing your format now.

Speaker 7 (01:05:18):
Yeah, and I mean part of it was that we, we I think
we we thought from an earlystage that brands were going to
get on board for wanting to workwith you know talent in a
multifaceted way, like it didn't.
It doesn't make sense for youknow HelloFresh to work with you
know these influencers on theirsocial and not be tied into
their podcast.
It could only make sense for itto all be um integrated from a

(01:05:39):
brand's perspective.
So I think finally we're seeingthe industry kind of come back
to that and think about like hey, let's work with talent really
strategically as opposed to inthis one niche platform.

Speaker 8 (01:05:49):
Yeah, we really are so happy to see that brands are
finally starting to find ways topromote cross platform, because
we just think it's a win-winacross the board and, coming
from the talent side, weunderstand the importance of
like your brand and like to notdilute it or to be as true to
that as possible, becauseconsumers are getting smarter

(01:06:11):
and smarter and they can.

Speaker 7 (01:06:13):
They can tell if it's not, if it's not real, and then
the other piece of it, on theon the execution side, I think.
I think it took so long for theindustry to start getting on
board with cross-platformcampaigns with talent, because
it's hard to execute right likethe audio agencies don't know
how to execute social, thesocial agencies don't know how
to execute podcasts.

(01:06:34):
It is a very different, they'revery different worlds and so
everyone's trying to navigatethose differences and I think we
have the advantage because wecome from the social side of it,
the talent management side ofit, that we already know.
That's our, that was our breadand butter for years.
We already know that side of it, so we can easily plug in and
it's, you know, it's seamlessacross our teams.

I was just listening to some of your
podcasts today and I started onYouTube because dear Shandy was
there and I was really amazedhow much presence you guys have
on YouTube, because that'ssomething that a lot of networks
still are struggling to getthat presence.

Speaker 7 (01:07:08):
Yeah, and I can see why they're struggling, because
it is a huge investment forshows to go on YouTube, but we
all know that's where theindustry is headed is to video.
You know there's still going tobe the audio listers, of course
, but you also most shows shouldthink about a video audience
depending on the content exactly, but most shows should think
about how to also providecontent to the video consumer as

(01:07:31):
well.

Speaker 8 (01:07:32):
And if you can be successful at both.
Again, we always say you'redoubling, let's say, like your
revenue, but now you have twoplatforms and if you're really
committed at creating goodcontent, you know, yes, it's
going to take longer and itmight be more work, but now you
also have more opportunity tomonetize it.
And again, if you're looking atbuilding your brand, you're now

(01:07:53):
tapping into new audience.

I want to thank Nadine and Cleo again for
joining me today.
You can find out more aboutthem at podcastnationco or
bougiemediacom and you can findthe entire article with an
amazing conversation that we hadat flightpathfm.
People News on the Pod NewsWeekly Review.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Yes, in People News, Greg Wasserman has been hired as
head of relationships at RSScom, which will be good to see that
, and I think we covered thefact that he had left Cast Magic
last year and apparently thatwas what got the two companies
talking to one another, whichwas nice.

Speaker 5 (01:08:35):
Nice, you see.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
Yes, so that's a nice thing.
Where's our commission?
Where is our commission?
Indeed, exactly, correct,correct, a bunch of things going
on at ACAST.
There's now a director of brandmarketing, simon Franklin.
That's a promotion there.
Also, lots of promotions inQueensland in Australia, where
ACAST has moved into the beststate.

(01:09:00):
Australia's top state is Ibelieve the phrase that I should
be using because that'sgeographically accurate whereas
the best state most certainlyisn't, but anyway.
So that is all good, but the bignews is that Kai Chuck is
reported to have stepped down.
Mark is reported to havestepped down.
He was, it says in Tube Filter,its first head of podcasts and

(01:09:25):
he has moved on.
We don't actually know too muchmore, other than there has been
a statement from YouTube sayingto better serve podcasters on
YouTube, we're bringing thepodcast partnerships team
together with the news andcivics partnerships teams.
We're grateful to Kai Chuck forall his contributions over the

(01:09:50):
years.
Well, that would explain whylots of news content is
appearing in the podcast pagethen on YouTube.
So, yes, not quite sure what isgoing on there, but Tim Katz
will continue to lead the Newsand Civics Partnerships team.
And you might remember that,tim Katz, it was the first time

(01:10:12):
that we had actually heardanything about him, and of
course that would now make anawful lot of sense that those
two teams are moving together.
Bad idea in my idea, but still,there we are.
At least they've done something, I suppose.

Speaker 5 (01:10:29):
Maybe Amazon can take a leaf out of their book anyway
, Maybe.
Now awards and events.
James, what's going on in theworld of awards and events?

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
Well, there's tonnes of awards which have just been
launched the Signal Awards, openfor entries.
Todd Cochran's People's ChoicePodcast Awards, also open for
entries as well.
Of course, the AMBIS, theAmerican Podcast Awards, are
being given out on Monday, whichwill be fun, sam Sanders being

(01:10:59):
honoured with the PodcastAcademy's Impact Award at that
event.
So that is all good.
And what else is going on?
Of course, evolutions is nextweek.
Looking forward to being atEvolutions, we will doubtless be
recording this show somehow,maybe from somewhere at the

(01:11:23):
event.
Sounds like a song Somehowsomewhere.
Yes, somehow somewhere, it maybe from the hotel room, it may
be from somewhere better, right,we'll certainly find out.
So all of that is good.
There's South by SouthwestLondon, which is starting
relatively soon.
Seen the price, yeah, how muchis it Sam.

Speaker 5 (01:11:45):
1,300 a ticket.

Speaker 8 (01:11:46):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
That's inclusive and open and really wanting lots of
people to come to.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
Yep, yes, that's 1,300 pounds, so that's even
more in American dollary dues.
Yes, so, yes, a significantamount there, so I don't think
I'll be going there.

Speaker 5 (01:12:03):
No, Not, unless you're a speaker.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
The Tech Stuff.
Tech Stuff On the Pod NewsWeekly Review.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the
Pod News newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.
What have you got?

Speaker 5 (01:12:14):
for us, sam, just very quickly.
Not much.
Generative audio ai company, aiacoustics um has raised five
million dollars, which is reallywell done for them.
The company aims to bring in aipowered studio quality sound.
I don't really understand thesethings.
We had a company last week thatdid one thing that was then

(01:12:35):
licensed to wondercraft.
We have another company herewho does one thing.
I think single functioncompanies seem a bit odd to me
yes, uh, yes, I would agree withthat.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
But, um, still, raising uh, 5.4 million us
dollars in funding is not a badthing.
So, um, yes, they're based inberlin.
Um, ghost.
Um is interesting.
Ghost is a blogging platform.
Um, it is now doing things onActivityPub, so if you want to
play around with all of that,then that is definitely there.

(01:13:08):
I've been reading all of theinformation about that for the
last year or so, as they've beenplanning how they were going to
support it.
So, yeah, it's just going to beinteresting to see whether or
not that has much take up.
I noticed that Mastodon didvery, very badly in the Edison

(01:13:31):
Infinite Dial, but, of course,if you talk about Mastodon, then
you're not necessarily fullyunderstanding what the Fediverse
is and what ActivityPub is.
There's another set oftechnology which hasn't really
sorted out its marketing at all.

Speaker 5 (01:13:48):
I think what's interesting from the Ghost
release.
I mean I wasn't going toparticularly cover Ghost as a
platform.
I mean, if you like Substack,then this is the open source
equivalent.
But they talk about the opensocial web now.
They don't talk about thefediverse, they don't want to
talk about activity pub, theydon't want to talk about those
terms, and I think that's theright way to go, because for the

(01:14:09):
majority of the mass market,those are too technical and I
think the social web as acatch-all is a a better term.
I mean, it's the same reasonwhy I don't talk about boosts or
boostergrams or zaps or Nostraor lightning networks.
Nobody understands them,they're geeky words that nobody
needs.
I mean, as Ghost said, you know, people who use email don't

(01:14:30):
need to know what SMTP is Agreedand they don't need to know
that it's an activity pubprotocol underlying it.
Yeah, so, james, one of theother things that um I noted
this week um has happened isthere's been a lot of new
celebrity podcast networkslaunching.
Megan Kelly has launched herown podcast network called MK

(01:14:51):
media network.
Uh, we talked about Alex Cooperhaving her network called
unwell network.
Um, we've seen uh, the uh, uh.
Megan Markle and Michelle Obamaare launching new podcasts.
One thing that is missing fromthe conversation and this is
more the techie side of it ispublisher feeds.

(01:15:12):
Now, oscar and Dovidas came upwith the idea originally and
they were brilliant to do that.
They are the equivalent of podroles, but from a podcast
production side.
So a podcast company can say inan RSS feed, here's a link to
all the other podcasts that weproduce, and then apps like

(01:15:33):
TrueFounds or Fountain canactually look those up and then
create a dedicated page of allof the other podcasts.
But nobody seems to bepublishing publisher feeds.
Even Adam and Dave, with theirnew app, created a weird
aggregated new feed of episodesrather than publisher feeds, and

(01:15:54):
it's part of the spec.
And yet Adam didn't even use it, and I'm totally, totally
baffled by that one.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
But nobody else seems to be using it either well,
when you do a search forpublisher feeds, it's very
difficult to actually uh findthe specification.
As ever, um, there's a proposal, um which dates from October uh
, 2023.
Um, but, um, it's quite hard toactually find um a publisher

(01:16:23):
feed.
Um, uh, you know an example ofa publisher feed and it all uses
the um, the GUID, um and um theGUID, uh.
As we know, um adds adependency on the podcast index,
um, and without that, um, we'rea little bit, we're a little
bit stuck.
So I'm not surprised thatpeople aren't doing the

(01:16:44):
publisher feeds.
I mean, I'm not doing themeither.
I don't think.
Maybe I am, who knows, um, butI'm not sure that I am you are
because we've got yours.

Speaker 5 (01:16:52):
Yeah, you are, we've got yours yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
Well, well, there you go.
But, um, yeah, I mean, you know, if we don't have the tools to
help people understand wherethey're going I mean, from my
point of view, the publisherfeed, just like the pod role and
everything else it should alsolink to the RSS feed directly,
not just the GUID.
The GUID is useful if youhappen to be using the podcast
index, but if you're not usingthe podcast index, the GUID is

(01:17:23):
next to useless because it's notreally supported by very many,
if any, podcast hosts.
So you know, I mean again, youknow I'm sorry to be the boring
person saying that it's not fitfor purpose, but it's not fit
for purpose yet it's been.
It was signed off in a hurrywithout actually any proper

(01:17:46):
thought put down by it in termsof how the thing works.

Speaker 5 (01:17:51):
So, yeah, you get what you deserve when that
happens, unfortunately, Well, Ihope they do get implemented
correctly, because they are very, very useful.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Oh yeah, I can well see that, and certainly I mean
Apple Podcasts, of course, haschannels, which achieves a
similar but not quite the samething.
So channels are sort of vaguelyuseful, but there's no API into
the channels unless you startscraping stuff.
So, yeah, so that's so, that'sa thing.

(01:18:22):
But, yes, agreed, it would be auseful thing to have.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
Boostergram, boostergram, boostergram, super,
super comments, zaps, fan mail,fan mail, super chats and email
.
Our favorite time of the week,it's the Pod News Weekly Review
Inbox.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
Yeah, so many different ways to get in touch
with us.
There's fan mail by using thelink in our show notes, which
nobody uses.
There's super comments on truefans, or boosts everywhere else,
which lots of people use, or,of course, email as well.
We share any money that we makebetween us as well.
So a ton of boosts and fan mail.
One for the Pod News Daily fromLyceum A row of ducks, 222 sats

(01:19:04):
.
He says James, did you recordthis episode at Changi Airport
in Singapore?
Do they have a podcast studio?
Have a safe flight, all thebest, martin.
Well, Martin, I will tell youthat, yes, I did record it at
Changi Airport, as you would seeif you're using the podcast
location tag, exactly BecauseI've been good, haven't I you
have?
Yes, yes, top of the class, mrCridland.

(01:19:27):
Top of the class, yes, exactly.
So, yes, changi Airport,absolutely.
Do they have a podcast studio?
No, I was just holdingmicrophone, uh, in the rather
busy Qantas lounge, uh, so thatwas what was going on there, um,
and I did have a safe flight,uh, so thank you, uh, for that.
What else have we got here?
Silas on Linux.

(01:19:48):
What does he say, sir?

Speaker 5 (01:19:50):
uh, sam got me there with the Portugal walk thing.
Wow, I'm so pissed off andimpressed and amazed at the same
time.
Thank you very much, silas.
Don't be impressed.
Um, it's, it's something thatyou know it's going to take a
while to do, but, yes, I'm goingto do the Camino way, which is
a lovely walk, so yeah, Silaswas using Fountain Bruce the

(01:20:10):
Ugly Quacking Duck 2,222 setsand so a nice row of ducks.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
Using Podcast Guru and he says if I add 2.0 and 3.0
together, I should get 5.0.
If I divide that by two, Ishould get 2.5.
All the while I still get topodcast, I do enjoy the progress
that's been made.
I understand none of that.

Speaker 5 (01:20:30):
I do.
So I actually would say, Bruce,you're very right.
I would say we've gone past 2.0.
We're not quite at 3.0, so 2.5is probably where we are.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
Good, I'm pleased that we're not at 3.0.
It's a bunch of charlatans at3.0.

Speaker 4 (01:20:43):
No moving on.
Nobody wants to go anywhereclose to there, by the way.

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
Bruce did finish a message last time with, I think,
73.
And I think I said, gosh, is he73?
No, that's not what that means.
Apparently, 73 or something isham radio for okay, roger and
Out, or something like that.
So, yes, somebody quietly toldme, radio futurologist.
Yes, yes, somebody quietly toldme.

(01:21:10):
So there we are, dave the podsage using fountain 48,000 sats,
nice, yay, you earned one ofthese.
Yes, so thank you so much, hesays.
If we ever said that we namedthe show Podcasting 2.0 to piss
off Dave Weiner, we were justjoking.
Well, that's what Adam Currysaid very clearly, but anyway,

(01:21:33):
he said that didn't happen.
I think Adam just came up withthe name because it sounded fun
and future oriented, by whichI'm sure he means orientated.
Thank you, dave, for that.
Thank you for your generousboost as well and for all that
you do.
Seth 358 sats here.
I adore Matt Medeiros.

(01:21:53):
He's such a great steward andeducator in the podcasting space
.
He is indeed, indeed, yes, sothat's a nice thing.
And then, finally, lots fromsilas on linux.
Um, so what?
What is he sent here?
He sent love listening toyoutube and spotify weekly
review.
Yes, youtube and spotify weeklyreview.
Maybe that's what we shouldchange it.

(01:22:15):
Um, he then goes on to say I'mnot surprised younger guys are
going into extremer things.
They got locked into their, notallowed to go to school or do
anything for years and prettymuch the only people against
that were extremist idiots, atleast in Germany anyway.
Well, we know what side of thepolitical spectrum you're on.
And on the question of shouldthe index ban shows, I don't
think so, because essentiallyit's just a database.

(01:22:37):
Somewhere in the US, probably,morals and laws change based on
where you are, and apps shoulddo it themselves.
I just implemented a reportsystem in the secret project I'm
working on last week, becauseyou kind of need that for legal
reasons.
Yes, that's pretty well what Iwas saying as well.
In terms of that, I think itshould definitely still be in
the index.
But yes, it depends what youend up doing with it.

(01:23:02):
But yes, and then he also sayshopefully the last message for
this episode you keep on sendingthem at a thousand sats each.
That's absolutely fine.
I think banning and getting ridof content is almost a last
resort.
What I believe ends uphappening is people are going
from commonly used platforms offto weird websites and uncommon
places with no moderation.

(01:23:23):
Most things can get resolved bytalking it out.
I don't think someone havinghis favourite show banned and
looking around and eventuallylanding on some extreme free
speech Mastodon server or otherplace is helping.
If not careful, that becomes aworse outcome.
I think that's got some truth tothat and I think it is
interesting seeing as we moveaway from Twitter and Facebook

(01:23:46):
and we move into lots of otherplaces.
Actually, the amount ofmoderation that is going on on
Blue Sky, for example, is nextto none.
There's no moderation that goeson on the Fed.
Really.
I mean, there is a bit, but youknow it's really up to each
individual instance.
So I think there is somethingto be said for that, and it

(01:24:08):
becomes much harder to actually,you know, be clear of some of
these, of some of these you know, of some of the nasty stuff.
So, yes, I thought that was aninteresting comment.

Speaker 5 (01:24:20):
I would just add look , morals change right, tastes
change.
Mary Whitehouse in the 60swouldn't allow Benny Hill, for
example, or tried to ban it.
Now that seems tame bycomparison.
I think banning stuff is a stepthat we have to consider.
Sometimes, I think, when you'retalking about rape and

(01:24:42):
prostitution and I think that iscrossing every line that I have
as a moral standing and I won'tallow that content from that
man on my platform.
But you know, everyone's gotdifferent morals.
So, yeah, how do you deal withthat?

Speaker 1 (01:24:59):
Thank you so much to our power supporters, or our
fandom, our super fans.
I think power supporters isnicer.
Pick the terms yes, exactly yes, I think power supporters is
nicer.
But anyway, everybody in theexcellent 18, including the
mysterious Star Tempest, who westill don't know very much about

(01:25:21):
, He-she, we don't know.
Yes, exactly He-she, they.
So please do get in touch andtell us a little bit more about
yourself.
That would be fantastic.
But also Cameron Moll, marshallBrown, matt Medeiros, mike
Hamilton, dave Jackson, rachelCorbett, cy Jobling, david

(01:25:42):
Marzell, jim James, rocky Thomas, neil Velio.
Get well soon, neil, ms EileenSmith, clare Wake Brown, john
much appreciated.
We should get some stickers outor something.
That would be fun, I think.

(01:26:03):
So, yes, that would be a goodthing.
If you would like to join them.
Weeklypodnewsnet is where yougo armed with your Visa card or
your MasterCard or your I don'tknow diner's card, whatever it
is, then that would be all good.
So what's?

Speaker 5 (01:26:21):
happened for you this week, sam well, as we mentioned
earlier, we added support forpod love chapters and true fans.
Um, we've added support forblue sky.
Oh, what a waste of time.
Uh, because we did all the workfor social interact tag.
We did all the work for bluesky and I don't see anyone using
it still, but anyway, we'vedone it.
Um, we're working, as we talkedabout, with the conversation on

(01:26:43):
the GitHub about activitystreams for outputs.
I also just wondered, james, oneof the things we want to do is
to also export and import yoursocial graph.
I think that's one of the bigthings missing across social
media, every website or everysocial network, you go on, you

(01:27:04):
create your social graph andthen, guess what, you can't
export it to the next onebecause they don't want you to
leave and so they won't give youthat access to your data.
Fundamentally, um, I'm lookingat because we have a follow
model in TrueFans, a standard.
Now, I don't know, I'm lookingat old technologies called XFN
and FOAF as a way of doing it,but I don't know if that's the

(01:27:28):
right way.
So, again, one of the thingsI'm looking at is social graph
exports of your friends.
It would be lovely to do importas well, and that would
actually give data portabilityacross podcast apps.

Speaker 1 (01:27:39):
Yes, that would be interesting, wouldn't it?
I think always one of thedifficulties with this sort of
thing is, you know, it's finebeing able to export a list of
the Twitter handles that Ifollow, but that's not actually
useful at all to any other app.
So it's that difficulty ofactually, well, you want to, you

(01:27:59):
want to export more informationthan that, but does the, does
the service have moreinformation?
And blah, blah, blah.
But I think, uh, yes, thatwould be a really good.
I logged into last FM for thefirst time in about five years,
uh, last week, just just just tosee if it was still there, and
it is um, oh, I've got a goodone for you, napster.

Speaker 5 (01:28:20):
Do you remember that one?
Yes, napster, sold for 207million this week.
Wow, who the idiot?

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
bought that.
I mean yes, and that presumably, is just the name.
It can't be anything more thanthat, can it?
I mean they don't have aproduct under Napster anymore.

Speaker 5 (01:28:38):
No, but somebody told me MySpace is still sticking
out there somewhere as well.

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
Yes, I believe that MySpace is still out there and,
yeah, there are a lot of these.
And, of course, dignation isback.
There are a lot of these oldbrands from 20 years ago.
I mean Napster.
I remember I was working atVirgin Radio.
We were getting quite pallywith the folks at Virgin Digital
, the online music retailer thatVirgin owned, and we were

(01:29:07):
getting quite pally with themand building in integrations and
all of that.
And then the sales team comesupstairs and says good news,
we've just signed on Napster asuh, as our exclusive uh music
seller.
And I thought, oh, brilliant,it's not really what I want to
do here, but still, but there weare.
We were doing a Napster chart,I think.

(01:29:29):
For a while, I'm not quite surewhat the point of all of that
was, so that was good.

Speaker 5 (01:29:34):
And then the last one was uh, I listened to Tom
Webster last week on podcasting2.0.
I, I listened to Tom Websterlast week on podcasting.
I was a little bit disappointedin that.
They didn't cover half thethings I hope they would.
But that's fine.
They can choose what they wantto cover.
But I have to say Tom's got agreat voice.
Never did radio, strangely,should have done.
He's very funny.
I don't know him as well as youbut and I'm very engaging.

(01:29:54):
So well done, tom, and it'svery engaging.
So well done Tom.
But I'm a little bit annoyed.
He mentioned we need a newreference app.
That is such an old idea thatwas dismissed many years ago.
We don't need another referenceapp.
Most of the apps now supportmost of the tags.
We just need to get moresupport into those apps.
We talked earlier about a podfund, psp.

(01:30:16):
Hello, come on, you're themarketing arm.
Do something please.

Speaker 1 (01:30:24):
Why don't you say what you think?

Speaker 5 (01:30:25):
Yeah, well, I'll try not to Now, James, what's
happened for you?

Speaker 1 (01:30:30):
Well, I'm talking to you today from Dublin in Ireland
, and very nice it is to hear,so that's all fun.
So I'm over here for a radioconference here, before going
over to Chicago on Saturday, Iwas going to be doing a 15
minute warm up in front of theTaoiseach, the Irish Prime

(01:30:52):
Minister.
That was going to be veryexciting.
I was looking forward to doingthat.
Now the Taoiseach has had to goto paris because you know
ukraine, um, and so there willbe, um some other minister from
the uh irish parliament uh thereinstead who is on before me.
So, um, yes, he's your warm-up,then he's your warm-up he's my
warm-up, yes, so yes, maybethat's how that works anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:31:15):
so that's going to be fun, and how was your last
night warming up for RickyGervais?

Speaker 1 (01:31:20):
Yes.
So I'm in the hotel where thisconference is at.
It's right next to the ThreeArena, which is the big arena in
Dublin, and the downside isthat it's a bit out of Dublin.
You have to jump on a tram toget into Dublin and everything
else.
But anyway, I thought to myself.
I finished my work at about halfpast five last night so I

(01:31:42):
thought to myself right, well,I'll go downstairs.
I've seen a couple of nice, youknow, restaurants close by.
I'll pop in for a Thai meal orsomething like that.
So went downstairs and it wasreally really busy Busy in the
hotel, busy outside, busy in thehotel, busy outside.

(01:32:04):
There's one pub close to us andthat was absolutely jam-packed,
rammed, and I thought what isgoing on?
Did a quick search on my phonewho is playing at the three
arena?
Anyway, it's Ricky Gervais,isn't it?
So Ricky Gervais was on lastnight, he's on tonight, as we
record this, and so I know thatit's going to be very difficult
to get any food or anything.
So still, there we are, butwe've got dinner laid on for us

(01:32:27):
this evening.
I was going to say otherwiseyou could have done.

Speaker 5 (01:32:29):
Don't you Know who I Am?

Speaker 1 (01:32:32):
As if that's going to happen.
Yes, and a couple of things onmy blog that you might want to
go and read, perhaps.
Theoretically, that's atjamescridlandnet.
One of them is the definitionof a podcast, which I actually
posted as a comment on LinkedIna while ago, but I thought was a

(01:32:54):
good plan to actually stick iton there.
And it was just pointing outthat in the US, the radio people
said that basically radio, theonly thing that counted as radio
, was AM and FM radio, and so,as a result, radio is in decline
in the US.
Everybody is losing their jobsbecause they're running out of
money and blah, blah, blah.

(01:33:14):
Because they defined radio asbeing AM-FM, when about 20% of
all radio listening now happenson the internet, on satellite
radio.
It's also a big thing.
And of course, podcasting is abig thing, which quite a lot of
other markets have claimed astheir own.
So I basically said don't belike US radio, but theoretically

(01:33:37):
worth a read.
And I'm still trying tounderstand what's going on with
the podcast downloads for thePod News Daily, which jumped
from somewhere around 3,000downloads a day to well, what am
I currently getting?
I'm currently getting somethinglike 20, no 37,000 downloads

(01:34:03):
10x, 12x growth.
Yes, easily 12x growth.
Now it's all IAB, verifieddownloads and everything else.
But it's also pretty obviousthat they're all automated and
that they're all automated andthat they're all coming from
something to do with Google News.

(01:34:26):
So it's been a real frustration.
I've raised this a few timesnow with Google and I've said
what is going on.
I'm not sure I can continue toafford this extra bandwidth
because it is costing me quite alot of money.
The file that I'm feeding themis now a 32K mono AAC file.

(01:34:46):
It's not the world's nicestsounding file ever, but yeah,
but even so, it's still going toprobably cost me an extra $300
this month because of all ofthis data.
Anyway, I'm now hearing fromanother podcast company which is
seeing similar not quite asobvious as me, but they are

(01:35:06):
seeing similar as well.
So perhaps there is somethinggoing on at Google News that
Google don't necessarily want totalk about, but it seems to me
to be that Android phones arerandomly downloading audio that
they shouldn't be and weirdlydownloading the Pod News Daily

(01:35:27):
podcast for some reason.
Don't really understand whythat would be the case, but
anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:35:32):
Well, there was a report that open source sites
are under attack from AI botsscraping them.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
Yes, well, that is definitely the case.

Speaker 5 (01:35:43):
Yes, yeah, absolutely .
And I wonder whether yours iscoming under some sort of attack
in a similar way, because,being a three-minute podcast and
a daily podcast, you are aperfect test site for many
people because you have thatconsistency every day, but it's
also small enough a size filenot to be a problem for many
people because you have thatconsistency every day.
Yeah, but it's also smallenough a size file not to be a

(01:36:04):
problem.
I wonder whether that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
Yeah, no indeed, it may be that.
I mean, it's very clearly theGoogle News feed that they're
using, because I give GoogleNews a slightly different file,
so it's very clearly that.
But the weird thing is is thatall of the downloads are
happening from Android phonesdefinitely from Android phones,
very clearly that.
But the weird thing is is thatall of the downloads are
happening from Android phonesdefinitely from Android phones
and also all happening fromeither Malaysia or Indonesia,

(01:36:28):
and that's it.
So if I was to, I mean, I couldblock Malaysia and Indonesia
entirely, which would be one wayof doing it.
But yeah, it's just very, verystrange.
But the frustration is thatGoogle say that they are
investigating, but they haven'tasked for any of my files, any

(01:36:48):
of my log files, any of myinformation.
They haven't asked me anyquestions at all.
So I doubt that they're reallyinvestigating, and so I think we
just need to put a little bitof uh, you know of, uh, of, of,
um, of, uh, you know um hardwork on them to actually get
them to uh understand what iswhat is going on.

(01:37:08):
But I'm seeing, I mean, youknow, some of these downloads
are just ridiculous, you know,in terms of the um, uh, in terms
of what I'm actually gettingthere.
So anyway, so that's been,that's been fun to be playing
with.

Speaker 5 (01:37:19):
Doesn't it go on to prove?
Downloads don't matter as ametric and it's listens that
actually matter.
Because if you wereunscrupulous, what you could do
is go back to every one of yoursponsors or advertisers and say,
hey look, we've got a 12xincrease.
Can we have more money from you?
And I bet you many, many peoplewould have done that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:41):
Yes, I'm sure I mean it's lovely for the figures.
This is the first time, forexample, that I've had over a
million downloads in the lastmonth and, as it stands, I think
I'm going to get over 3 milliondownloads in the last month.
So I mean it's wonderful forthe figures, but it's very
clearly automated and veryclearly.

(01:38:03):
Poor people in Malaysia andIndonesia are paying data bills
to download my show for somereason.
I think it's a bug, but they'recertainly not listening to it.
So I think it's yeah.
So anyway, I would like to findout what's going on there.

(01:38:25):
If you think you can work itout with me, then you'll find
there's a long blog post whichis called Odd Podcast Downloads
on my personal blog,jamescridlandnet.
And that's it for this week.
All of our podcast stories weretaken from the Pod News Daily
newsletter atcridlandnet, andthat's it for this week.
All of our podcast stories weretaken from the Pod News Daily
newsletter at podnewsnet.

Speaker 5 (01:38:44):
You can support this show by streaming sats.
You can give us feedback usingthe Buzzsprout fan mail link in
our show notes.
You can send us a super commentor become a power supporter,
like the excellent 18 atweeklypodnewsnet.

Speaker 1 (01:38:58):
Our music is from Studio Dragonfly.
Our voiceover is Sheila D.
I'm meeting Studio Dragonfly inan hour and a half.

Speaker 5 (01:39:05):
Yeah, for a coffee, that's nice, get her to do the
YouTube jingle yes, our audio isrecorded using Clean Feed.

Speaker 1 (01:39:15):
We edit with Hindenburg.
We're hosted and sponsored byBuzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.
Get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnewsnet.

Speaker 4 (01:39:27):
Tell your friends and grow the show and support us,
and support us.
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Review will return next week.
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