Buzzsprout's new tools, and Acast launches talent-voiced ads

Episode Transcript
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Michael Bayston (00:00):
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The last word in podcasting news.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Sethi.

James Cridland (00:17):
I'm.

Sam Sethi (00:17):
James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam
Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.

Alban Brooke (00:23):
This is another great thing that we can offer to
our podcasters.

Albin Brooke from our sponsor, buzzsprout, on
new integrations into Applepodcast, premium subscriptions
and more tools to help you keeppodcasting Plus you get a huge
amount of loyalty from thelisteners, right?
So the listeners don't want toskip these ads Michael Bayston
from Acast on the company's newtalent voiced ads.
To skip these ads.

(00:46):
Michael baston from a cast onthe company's new talent voiced
ads.
Plus.
Spotify's play count continuesto split opinion and youtube
looks at alternatives toadvertising.
This podcast is sponsored bybuzzsprout with the tools,
support and community to ensureyou keep podcasting, start
podcasting, keep podcasting withbuzzsproutcom from your daily
newsletter, the pod news weeklyreview so, james, look a bit of

(01:09):
fallout from spotify's uh playannouncement.

Sam Sethi (01:13):
There's been a lot of backlash.
What's this all about?

yeah, this is a really interesting development
spotify announcing something andthen all of a sudden going, oh,
we didn't, we didn't realizethat people would take this so
badly.
Yes, quite a lot of adversereaction.
Reaction to Spotify'sannouncement that it's going to
be adding play counts topodcasts on its app.
They've put something onthreads addressing creator
concerns, saying we reallyappreciate the honest discussion

(01:39):
Not sure you do, no, but anywayand then saying that they're
going to say something.
Well, as we record tomorrow,that is the last post from them
on threads, so we're not quitesure what it is that they are
going to be saying today, friday, may the 16th.
But yeah, do you think theyhandled it well, or what do you

(02:05):
think the issue is here?

Sam Sethi (02:06):
I don't think Spotify did anything wrong.
Actually, personally, I thinkthe only thing they did was not
give anyone a heads up.
But I think it's a data point.
Right, you have a downloadnumber, you have a play number.
But actually here's my biggerquestion to you, James In the
Spotify for Creators dashboard,do you actually, as the creator,

(02:27):
get better metrics like listentime, percent completed?

Yeah, they do, and they've got some pretty good
metrics that are very Spotifycentric.
So, for example, there's athing called Spotify Discovery.
So, for this show, over thelast month, 2,662 people have
seen our show in their app, 176people are interested in it,

(02:53):
apparently, and 102 people haveconsumed it, which is an
interesting thing.
But you also get things likeanalytics.
So you get the analytics areboth plays, whatever a play is,
consumption hours, so we knowexactly how long.
You know how much of this showhas been consumed, how many

(03:16):
followers we've added in thelast 30 days, and the audience
size as well.
Audience size as well.
So you do have some pretty gooddata in terms of that.
You're asking about specificsfor individual episodes and you
also have that information inthere as well.
So you've got information abouteach particular episode how

(03:41):
long was that consumed for, andall that kind of stuff.
So they've got some very gooddata.
You know, hidden away in thebackground, certainly.

Sam Sethi (03:50):
So I don't see the problem.
It's a number, right?
People don't like to revealtheir numbers about plays.
That's transparency.
If you don't like it, the onlything that Spotify could do is
to provide a user setting whichsays to the creator you can turn
this off, right, that's all itwould do.

Yeah, no, I would agree with that, and you
know, I mean, you can veryclearly see.
So this show, for example thisshow may be slightly too long,
sam 34% are still listening bythe end of the first quarter,
17% still listening by the endof the second quarter, 10%

(04:28):
listening by the end of thethird quarter, and only 14%
actually complete the show.
Interestingly, though, what youcan see from the audience graph
and I'm just talking about lastweek, for example, here, week,
for example, here so what youcan see from the audience graph

(04:48):
is you can see some real sort ofchunks now where people have
forwarded through because of thechapters.
So you can see a little peakwhere some of the conversations
were a little peak, where wewent into the tech stuff and all
that kind of stuff.
So you can very clearly seethat chapters work, which is
nice, but, yeah, so there's aton of information there.

(05:11):
I suppose there are two thingsthat people are concerned about.
One of them is that the datahas just been released, and it's
just okay.
We're doing it and we're doingit now, and maybe Spotify should
have given a heads up, which is, you know, as you say.
The other thing, though, isthat we don't actually know how

(05:32):
plays are calculated.
We know that plays of trailersand clips aren't included, which
I think is the right way ofdoing things.
Spotify have given a little bitmore information this week in
terms of how they're worked out,and they worked out the true
fans way, which I find amusing.
So a play is only counted onceper user, per session, per
episode.

(05:53):
So if you play an episode andthen you pause it and then you
start playing it again, that'sone play.
Now, interestingly, that's twoplays on Apple, and so I did a
little bit of work on this showand I thought OK, what is this
show?
How many plays has this showgot on Apple Podcasts and on

(06:14):
Spotify?
And, interestingly, over thelast 60 days, we've had a total
audience size quite a smallaudience size because of these
two platforms aren't really usedby our audience of 185 people
on both Spotify and on ApplePodcasts.
So that's nice.
So we've got some really niceequal numbers here.
So the play count on Spotify is715 and the play count on Apple

(06:37):
2,800.
Almost four times as many playsfrom the same audience size,
because Apple measures a playdifferently to Spotify.
So I think it's good if youjust want to compare shows on
Spotify itself, because you cansee Spotify's random plays
number.
But I don't think it'sparticularly good if you want to

(06:58):
then compare plays on Spotifywith plays on Apple, because
they are worked worked outobviously in a very completely
different way.

Sam Sethi (07:05):
Well, most people won't use their play count
anyway, because the number'slower than their download number
.
So people like to say bignumbers.
So, oh yes, 10,000 downloads,2,800 plays.
No, I'll stick to the 10,000downloads then.
So I don't think people willuse it anyway.

Yes, Although there's an interesting question.
I was just wondering whetherBuzzsprout tells us how many
downloads we've actually gotfrom Spotify.
It probably would, but I canonly see the top five there.
But OP3 will also tell us.
So I'm wondering how manydownloads we've actually had

(07:42):
from Spotify and whether thatcorrelates to the plays or to
indeed anything else.
But of course it's notnecessarily going to.
But Spotify is tiny for us.
It's 6% of our plays.
Apple Podcasts, interestingly,way bigger 32% of our plays.

(08:03):
So what does that tell you?
That tells you that ApplePodcasts has four times the
amount of downloads butseemingly, in terms of audience,
has the same amount of audienceas Spotify's numbers.
Of course, neither of theseplatforms actually use the IAB
anyway, so it makes the IAB looka little bit ridiculous, but

(08:24):
still.
But there we are 3.25% to truefans, which is always nice.

Sam Sethi (08:31):
Ah well, you know we're coming up the back.
You know Early days as, yes,the tortoise and the hare.
You know, let's not race alongtoo soon.
Indeed, and will the AIB be thecompany that is going to unify
this?

I don't know whether the AIB will.
I mean the AIB certainly won't.
It's run by a nice man calledSimon.

Sam Sethi (08:54):
Yes, okay, yes, yes, yes, the.

Association of International Broadcasters.
Hello, yes, but no, I'm notsure that the AIB necessarily
will, because Spotify hasn'tsigned up, apple haven't signed
up and YouTube haven't signed up.
So you know, at the end of theday, I mean, maybe it comes down
to us as an industry shoutingenough to get it fixed.

(09:17):
But on the other side, you know, spotify just wants a number,
and the only number that Spotifycan actually calculate the same
as YouTube can actuallycalculate is just the number
that they can see on their ownplatform, and True Fans is doing
exactly the same as well.
But at the very least, ifthere's something that says

(09:39):
plays, let's make sure thatwe're working out a play in the
same way, and clearly Apple andSpotify aren't.
So perhaps that's one thingthat we can hopefully work on.

Sam Sethi (09:50):
The reason I can't remember the acronym IAB is
because it's so irrelevant to me.

But anyway, hey, hey, yes, they are though
working on a new thing calledAttention Measurement Guidelines
.
The document which I've taken aread through doesn't mention
the word podcast once, which Ithink says quite a lot there,
but in terms of being able toactually say whether or not

(10:14):
somebody is actually payingattention to it or not.
But I would just sort of putthe brakes on that and say the
point of a podcast is it'sentertainment for your ears when
your eyes are busy.
So the point of a podcast is,yes, you are paying attention to
it in a way, but you're alsopaying attention to the road,

(10:36):
because you're driving at 70miles an hour down a busy
motorway and you want to avoiddying.
So there are things that youare paying attention to when
you're listening to a podcastwhich is very different to
watching a YouTube video or, youknow, looking at an ad banner
or whatever it is.

Sam Sethi (10:56):
Well, I read that report because I've been
involved in attention metricsfor about 20 years.
You know, when I spoke to StevePratt, we had a long
conversation about attention andit's something that I focus a
lot on for what we do with TrueFans, and so, in a word, when I
read that whole report, mysummary was don't waste your

(11:17):
time and attention.
It's totally rubbish.
I have not seen a bigger bag ofrubbish written I mean the
eyeball twitching moment.

I know exactly, by the way, that was 10 words
and not just one word.
But yes, exactly, it's all veryfocused on video.
Of course it is, because that'sreally what the advertising
industry cares about, hence whywe're all jumping to do video
and we're, you know, rushingaround with our sweaty cameras

(11:50):
and everything else going.
We've got to turn everythinginto video because the
advertisers are telling us andat the end of the day, it's not
what podcasting is all about, inmy humble opinion but if you
want to make cheap craptelevision, go ahead, be my
guest.
That's not necessarily what apodcast is.

Sam Sethi (12:07):
I think it's more quick money.
Anyway, moving on, james Acasthave launched this new feature
called Talent Voice Ads.
It's authentic voices inprogrammatic audio.
What do you think, james?

Yeah, well, you know, it was certainly when I
used to write radio commercials.
Sometimes we would want arecognisable voice to do an ad
for a local advertiser becauseall of a sudden that meant that
that local advertiser seemedreally, really big.
If you had Tom Baker doing anad, or if you had, I think we
had, jeremy Brett, who used toplay Sherlock Holmes doing an ad

(12:44):
, and I made the mistake ofbooking him after lunch.
That was a mistake.
Yes, what is this that I'msupposed to be saying, dear boy?
Anyway, there we are.
It'd be nice to get somebodyfrom Acast on.
So, as if by magic, you had aword with Michael Bayston from

(13:06):
Acast and you started by askinghim what are Talent Voiced Ads?

Talent Voiced Ads is an ad format that is
executed by Programmatic.
It's a 30-second ad spot which,differently for us, we have the
ads voiced by one of ourwonderful podcasters, by the
talent themselves.
So it's different to oursponsorship format, which is a
60 second long host read, if youlike, which is from that host,

(13:34):
just specifically demonstratingthat a product or services
sponsoring their show.
Instead, Talent Voiced Ads, asI said, is an ad spot, but the
brands are licensing the voiceof a much loved podcaster.

Sam Sethi (13:46):
Now give me some names, as that might be
available within the talent pool.

Certainly Well .
In fact, the way we try and dothings at ACAST is, you know,
we'll dream up an idea or we'llthink about an opportunity in
market and then we'll look tohave like a really strong due
diligence and then testingperiod.
So in fact we've already gonelive with talent voice ads in a
number of our test markets.
So that's the test markets forthe US, australia, a few others
as well.
So actually the talent that'salready got involved with talent

(14:11):
voice ads includes podcasterslike Couples Therapy, we Mean
Well and Equity Mates and manyothers as well.
We've actually seen this liftoff very quickly.
So we've gone very quickly froma test period into a sort of
live approach with lots ofdifferent talent being
approached by our teams onbehalf of brands.

Sam Sethi (14:29):
Now, is this an AI?
Is this a voice that youlicense?
For example, Catherine Ryangoes in the studio.
She does 10 lines.
We've now got her AI voice andnow you can put scripts and
scripts and scripts of adsagainst her voice.
Or is this actually CatherineRyan doing each ad?

Yeah, it's a great question and I can
completely understand where it'scoming from.
You know, with all of this inthe news about generative AI and
cloning and so forth.
So, no, to be absolutely clear,talent Voiced Ads is only the
voice of the hosts themselves.
So these are podcasters who areexclusively signed to the ACAST
marketplace.
Yeah, so the way it works is,very quickly, is that brands

(15:07):
will brief us on their productsor services, and then our
wonderful in-house accountmanagement and planning teams
they'll make a match up of theprocess, really, in order to try
and figure out which would bethe best talent for that, and
then they will approach ourtalent via the proprietary
internal tools that we'vecreated for the purpose.
Yeah, and then they wouldrecord fresh ad reads for each
different campaign.

Sam Sethi (15:28):
Again, being that they are talent, they're not
going to be cheap.
So how are you pricing thisagainst a normal host read ad or
a programmatic CPM rate?
What's the difference going tobe?

Yeah, definitely so.
In terms of our sponsorshipwhich, as I mentioned before,
that's a much longer piece,that's a full on host read.
So, for example, in the UK theycome in at a price of around
£40 CPM.
Now, your standard advertisingspot, which is like a brand spot
, if you like, which is run byprogrammatic with limited
targeting, that might beanywhere in the region of £10 to

(16:01):
£12, £13.
But talent-voiced ads because,if you think about it, it exists
in that medium ground.
We're going out to market in theUK, for example, at 25 pounds
CPM, and it's very similar inother markets around the world
because, of course, this is aglobal solution, so this is now
available globally.
Now there is one other elementto this, which is that we do ask
for a minimum spent, and that'salso relevant because the way

(16:23):
we execute this is viaprogrammatic guarantee.
So I know we'll probably get tothe weeds in a bit, but that is
crucial because we need toensure, you know, with something
, this premium, that there is aspecific amount of budget
running against us.
Now what that means is that, interms of our internal
financials, we're able to ensurethat the hosts get a really
good host read fee, if you like,because the way we calculate

(16:46):
that is that's taken from partof the revenue and then the rest
of the revenue goes on.
All of the shows that this adwill run across.

Sam Sethi (16:53):
Now look, we all are in the market of making money.
We all sell ads, we all makepodcasts, again hoping to get
some return.
But maybe I'm the sceptic inthe room.
One of the things that I dowith many things right now is I
skip ads or, being fortunateenough, I pay to not have ads.

(17:15):
So do you think that therelationship with the talent
voice is going to lead to ahigher engagement of listening
with these ads?

Yeah, I think that is a very interesting
question.
Ultimately, people do talkabout ads being skipped quite a
lot, but inevitably, what youfind with virtually all digital
advertising is that, beyond themetrics campaigns, they deliver
a certain amount of return oninvestment, and that is
something that we see withpodcasting.
In fact, it's something that wesee particularly with any

(17:49):
podcast ads that use the talent.
So, for example, you'll haveseen in our press release that
one of the key benefits of usingtalent within your advertising
is that you get a huge amount ofloyalty from the listeners,
right?
So the listeners don't want toskip these ads, because what
they want to do is they want tohear from their much loved and
much treasured hosts, basically,with whom they have this

(18:09):
incredible parasocialrelationship.
So, for example, we put out agreat piece of that much deeper
example with the sponsorships.
We're taking it totalent-voiced ads, which is
obviously it's a shorter periodof time that the talent is

(18:30):
speaking to them, but that'smade up for by an enormous
amount of scale that can beachieved for the advertiser and
indeed for the host actually,because, let's not forget, this
is a great promotional tool forthe host because their voice
will be heard across the entirenetwork, so we tend not to worry
too much about skipping.
We instead focus back ontrusted third-party measurement
solutions that we use in termsof things like brand lift,

(18:52):
attribution and, of course,seeing brands rebooking, and the
great news is that one of thevery first brands that tested
out this talent voice to adswith us.
Within two weeks they'd comeback and they'd rebook for the
rest of the year, so I thinkthat's a great example of a
brand enjoying a new format thatclearly delivers results.

Sam Sethi (19:10):
And where are you going to extend it?
So you've just come out of thebeta trial, which you said has
been working.
You're now live.
It sounded like you wereworking in English language.
Only territories right now.
Will this go beyond into otherACAST platform territories?

Absolutely yeah.
So as of today, this is nowavailable globally.
So anyone who's listening tothis and who's interested in
this please do get in touch withus via sales at ACASTcom or
indeed with local sales teamsthat ACAST has all over the
world.
In theory, all of ourpodcasters around the world are
up for this, but, of course, oneof the crucial things we do at
ACAST is we give the talent thechoice.
Basically, so if they want toget involved in a fantastic new

(19:49):
way to make money for themselvesand therefore they can make
more podcasts, they're verywelcome to do so.

Sam Sethi (19:53):
Do you also geographically fence these?
So if I want to campaign justin the UK or if I want to roll
it out more globally, what's thedifference?
I'd be interested to know whatthat minimum cost is.
But is there an increase inthat minimum cost?

Yeah, well, I can give you a straight up
answer to that.
So, for example, in the UKwe've decided that the minimum
spend for this should be £25,000.
Whereas in the US we've decidedon a minimum spend of $50,000.
Now every single market willhave their own minimum for this.
And again, you know, minimumswith programmatic guarantees is
not a rare thing, it reallyisn't.
So for our standard audio adcampaigns, all of our markets

(20:27):
have a minimum for running viaPG.
It's just, it's a little bitmore for this because of course,
it's the talent who arespeaking.
It's that much more premium andinfluential, if you like.
Now, in terms of the targetingpiece, yes, all of this will be
targeted by Jio.
Now, at this early stage, thetargeting that's available is
essentially it's sort of basicad service stuff.
So you know time, geo, device,et cetera.

(20:49):
And then we've also got ACoS,contextual targeting with this.
So very often a brand mightthink well, you know, I really
love this particular host, but Ithink it would probably work
best if this ad which is talkingabout my products or service,
which is from that particularhost, is if it goes out in, say,
the comedy vertical, or if itgoes out across lifestyle or
news or politics or whatever itmight be.

(21:10):
Now, in the future we'relooking to improve the targeting
on this, but for the momentthat's a great position for us
to start and we're seeing a lotof the initial campaigns using
targeting of that sort.

Sam Sethi (21:22):
It just dawned on me when you were talking through
all the categories that certainvoices will hold better within
certain genres.
I mean no offence to CatherineRyan, but her in a news or a
business podcast would not holdthe gravitas of, say, a other
person, maybe a Stephen Fry or anewsreader.
Is that something that youwould agree with?

(21:44):
Or is Catherine going to beacross the board just based on
the customer?

Well, I think that's an interesting way of
putting it, because, really,what you're talking about is a
comms planning challenge that,really and ultimately the way we
work at ACAST is very much incahoots with our customers.
If they come to us and they saymy advertiser here has got a
real hankering for CatherineRyan, ok, they absolutely love
her and they think there's areal match there, but we also
want mega scale.
We want this to go across theentire network.

(22:09):
We're not going to stand in theway of that, and actually,
someone like Catherine Ryan, Ithink, would have mass appeal
across virtually everythingbecause she is such a household
name.
But let's not forget, though,one of the great benefits of
podcasting is we've gotthousands of podcasters who are
not as well known as Catherine,and they deserve the opportunity
to speak on behalf of brands,and, frankly, some of their
audiences are probably even moreloyal to them than they would

(22:32):
be perhaps to Catherine.
But that would be another thingI think worth thinking about
and that's definitely a trendthat I've personally seen over
the last 10 years is a brand'sunderstanding that it's not just
about dropping big cash on bignames.
It is about using so-calledmicro-influencers or smaller
things who might have say 50,000to 100,000 followers.

Sam Sethi (22:51):
So really are we saying this is the advent of
what I would think of as TVadvertising brought to
podcasting?
It's that quality advertisingfrom a branded name that lends
itself to the podcast, asopposed to the host read out of
the individual who's justreading out within their own
podcast.

I think that's a fantastic take.
Actually, I really do.
Yeah, most definitely.
We keep talking about Catherine, but obviously there are many,
many other comedians who've hadthere's a long history of
comedians appearing in fantasticTV ads.
There's probably some of themone of the reasons why I even
went into marketing andadvertising, actually so I think
that's a really good take on it.
I think the thing I would add tothis, though, is that it's also
the dawn of talent beingaligned with the efficiency of

(23:35):
programmatic technology as well,and so we've not really touched
on that, but one of the thingsthat I said in my LinkedIn post,
actually early today, is thatyou know what we're doing with
this is.
You know we're bringing theopportunity for a hugely
influential element of talentwithin advertising to now be
available to programmatic buyersand, crucially, for them to be
able to run it in omni-channelcampaigns.

(23:58):
Alongside the displayadvertising they're doing on web
and mobile, the videoadvertising they're doing across
various different platforms,the stuff they're doing on
digital out of home, theconnected TV, podcasting, really
is a big part of the Omnichannel for those programmatic
buyers now, so it made sensethat we could also bring them
the power of talent voice.
But then the other piece to itas well is that there are
undoubtedly some budgets outthere that are controlled by

(24:21):
programmatic buyers that may nothave been able to come to some
of these creators in quite thesame way.
Now and I can say, you know,from this test period we've had
this clear evidence thatprogrammatic buyers are bringing
incremental budgets to usbecause of this format, which
again means new budgets going toour podcasters so that they can
create new shows and then bringin new and diverse audiences

(24:44):
for our advertisers.
So hopefully this is a reallynice and very positive addition
to our open ecosystem offering.

Sam Sethi (24:51):
One last question If I've got a podcast and I've got
multiple ads within it, so thatcan happen.
We haven't quite reached radiosaturation, thankfully, with ads
every 15 minutes, but they aregetting more and more within the
same podcast.
If I listen to certain podcastsI now get five or six ads.
If you have a Catherine Ryan,sticking with the example we

(25:14):
have, you wouldn't want the samead five times.
You would then have multipleads.
How does that fit within that?
Does that mean you're happy tohave that as a premium ad early
up and then maybe some other adsthat are maybe lower down in
terms of value?
Again, any thoughts on how yousee the premium ad, that is,

(25:36):
this new talent ad, going init's positioning, maybe at the
front and then other ads withinit?
Any thoughts?

We've not gone that complicated with it
actually, but I'm glad thatyou're thinking about it because
hopefully that means lots ofother people are thinking about
it too.
To be really honest with you, Ilove the way you're thinking
about it because it is a premiumoffering and therefore it does
deserve that sort of respect.
But I think the way we'vedecided to do it really is that
sponsorship ads at that superhigh premium, which are the host

(26:06):
is sponsoring the show.
It's a super deep relationshipthat goes on for a minimum of
four weeks.
That will always take priority.
Now we do offer the opportunityto our podcasters to sort of
decide where ads will go, butgenerally speaking, that's the
best practice.
Then we roll from that intoaudio ads.
Now, as this format rolls out,what you will find is you'll see
a mixture really.
So there'll be brand spots andthere'll be these talent voiced
ad spots, sort of intermixedwith each other.

(26:28):
We think that the premium we'veput on this in terms of CPM is
more to do with the talentvoicing the ad rather than the
position, if you like.
Now, in my career some yearsago, I worked in TV for a bit,
so I certainly know where you'recoming from.
In terms of the first in breakand all that stuff.
As we know, in TV significantpremiums are attached to first
in break, but that, if you thinkabout it, is more about the

(26:48):
positioning rather than thecontent of the ad, if you like.
So we believe that the premiumon the CPM here reflects the
premium nature of it.
One other thing I'll mention aswell is that we've decided, in
order to scale this, to go fullyscripted on these right.
So that's another bit of clearwater between this solution and
sponsorship, where sponsorshipvery often with 60 seconds, we

(27:08):
encourage the hosts to dosomething interesting and to
bring their own flavour to it.
I mean some of our real OGslike Adam Buxton and folks like
that, who are particularlywell-known for that with
talent-voiced ads.
It's the voice of the host, butwe are scripting this and that
works well, I think, both forthe host and also for the brand
from an efficiency perspectiveas well basically Now, michael,

(27:29):
remind me again.

Sam Sethi (27:30):
if I want to go and find out more about what ACAST
is doing here, where would I go?

Certainly so.
First and foremost, you canfind us across all of our
socials.
We've got a great post out onLinkedIn about this particular
thing, but of course, we've alsogot the ACAST website as well,
ACASTcom, which has just had alovely makeover recently.
So everyone go and check thatout.
It's beautiful, Super proud ofthat.
And then, of course, onceyou've had a look, you know,
make sure you get in touch withus.
You know, fire us all thosequestions over, get in touch

(27:56):
with us at sales at ACASTcom.
That's the best way to do it andI think, just in sort of terms
of signing off, our belief hereis that ACAST, as I said, you
know, it's nothing new aboutputting talent voice into
programmatic.
But we think that, because ofACAST's position as a technology
company and the world's leadingindependent pure play podcast
platform, that no one else candeliver this quite like us in

(28:18):
terms of the scale, you know,creativity and depth of our
network, Plus, of course, thisrather accommodating but premium
price point we talked about.
The other thing I'd say as wellis this is proving popular
already.
You know.
Brands really need to get onthe bandwagon.
We've got a long pipelinealready in our test markets and
other markets.
You know, in Central Europe,Germany, France, the Nordics

(28:39):
going out, Asia Pacific and soforth.
You know we've got brandsbeating our door down.
In fact, you know our revenuepipeline is well into the six
figures now.
So we're super happy with that.

Sam Sethi (28:51):
So we would love to hear from other brands to get
involved too.
Now I do have one last question.
One of the things that we asconsumers do is build up
association with a individualcelebrity to a brand.
We've seen this throughout theyears.
You know, I can't think of whohe is, but the Go Compare man is
associated to Go Compare thebrand.
If he then went and did anotherbrand, it would be a jockster

(29:14):
post.
My brain would explode.
I wouldn't understand what he'sdoing doing that ad.
Is there a danger thathost-read brands can associate
to a particular but then you getmultiple brands going to
particular celebrity?
Does that cause confusion?
Or is it a case of you increasethe supply of celebrity and
therefore actually eventually itdoesn't matter?

Yeah, it is an interesting one.
Well, look, I mean, in a way,the proof is in the pudding,
right?
So, actually, our very firstbrand partner who decided to
test this out.
They went large.
Now it was in America, soyou're hardly surprising.
But we'd sort of hope thatmaybe a first customer would
test out with one voice, withone deal, but instead they
decided to go large and they ransix different voices all at the

(29:59):
same time.
Now, there was a method behindthe madness.
Actually, again, it's a commsplanning challenge here, because
they wanted to speak todifferent audiences, basically.
So, for example, in order tospeak to a hispanic and
spanish-speaking audience in thestates, they decided to work
with our podcast, so that thatwas good.
But then they also use someother ones as well, like couple
therapies, and each of these,you know, speak to different
audiences and again, I thinkthat's one of the crucial

(30:21):
reasons why podcasting isgrowing so fast.
It's because of these diverse Ithink.
The other thing I'd say is I'dsort of speak again to our
PodPulse report that we broughtout last year, so we've already
talked about four, and five oflisteners will consider a brand
or product promoted by theirfavorite host, but you know
we've got some other fantasticstats as well.
Like you know, one in two peopletrust recommendations from

(30:41):
podcast hosts full.
So you know, yes, I completelyunderstand where you're coming
from in terms of the, theconnection between certain
talent and certain products, butI think that builds over time.
But I think the most crucialthing is actually just that
position that podcasts providesin generally in people's mind

(31:02):
space.
So another stat that came fromthat result, from those roles,
the results was reallyinteresting was about the fact
that podcasts rank top for mediato provide a sense of community
.
So that was ahead of youtube,ahead of social media and indeed
ahead of our friends in radioand television.
So I think what we're doinghere is is we're leveraging the
power of podcasting, the diversenumber of hosts that then give

(31:25):
us diverse audiences.
So I don't think brands shouldworry too much about having, I
suppose, what you might describeas that cognitive dissonance
that you were worried about them.
Indeed.

Sam Sethi (31:35):
Look lovely to talk to you.
Michael, nice to meet you.
Will you be at the LondonPodcast Show as well?

Yes, I will be .
Actually, there's going to beeight casters all over the show.
We've got quite a few panelsgoing on, and I'm actually on a
panel with our good friends atad swiss on day one talking
about programmatic audio inparticular, and there may be a
few other panels as well goingon which we're all looking
forward to and will you beattending the lp bar?
I certainly will, or otherwise,as it's known by its proper

(32:04):
name, the Acast Arms.

Sam Sethi (32:07):
Yes, of course.
Yes, yes, look, michael, thankyou very much.
Lovely to meet you.
Look forward to meeting you atthe London Podcast Show.
Congratulations on the launchof this new programmatic ad
platform and, yeah, I lookforward to speaking to you again
, probably in six months ormaybe 12 months, to find out the
success of what this programhas done.

Fantastic, we can't wait for it.
Thank you very much again, samCheers.

Announcer (32:29):
The Pod News Weekly Review with Buzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.

Sam Sethi (32:36):
Moving on now.
Youtube ran a survey of theweekend James, to make YouTube
podcasts even better.
What was the survey about?

Yes, it was.
So I was tipped.
This I was.
I was tipped off by a pod newsweekly review listener who very
kindly screenshotted all of thequestions that YouTube were
asking.
It was basically interested infan membership programs, so
things like Twitch, patreon,facebook support, youtube

(33:06):
channel memberships, for example.
It was wondering whether you'dtaken part in a paid brand
partnership, for example, orsponsorship, and it asked some
interesting questions aboutshort-form podcast content.
I'm not sure what short-formpodcast content is, but doing a
five minute show every singleday, I suppose I should know.

(33:28):
So anyway, that was interesting.
I mean, obviously, true Fansyou're talking a lot about.
What's your phrase?
Monetising fandoms?

Sam Sethi (33:39):
Yes, that is the phrase that pays, as somebody
once said.
No, I see a massive trend rightnow.
We talked about PatreonSubstack last week.
I think they are in theconversation now very firmly
when you talk about podcasting.
My three pillars are content,commerce and community, and I
see a massive move right nowtowards paid subscriptions.

(34:01):
I think more and more peopleare moving to quality content,
and I think it then brings upthis whole thing that you raised
, james, which is, if people arepaying for ad-free quality
content, what does this mean foradvertising?
Who is going to be left for theadvertisers to go and target?

Yeah, and I think you know I mean certainly
there will be a percentage ofpeople who will pay to get rid
of the ads, as I mostly do.
I either pay to get rid of theads and pay the creator, or I
pay tools to get rid of the adsand the creator gets no money.
But I don't suppose that I'malone, you know, in terms of
that.
So, yeah, I think you know.
Interesting on that side, and Ithink you're absolutely right.

(34:50):
You know there is a lot ofmoney, as we saw last week in
that data from Hernan Lopez'sOwl Co.
Showing us, you know, theamount of money which is being
made that isn't advertisingbased and, of course, streaming
payments, the thing that aresometimes incorrectly called
value for value.
Streaming payments are a goodexample of that as well.
So, yeah, interesting to seewhether or not there will be a

(35:14):
bit more talk about this at thepodcast show next week.
I know that Patreon are going,because Patreon want to meet up
with me and talk to me aboutsome of the things that they're
doing in the podcasting world.
Um, I will.
I will be asking them why didyou tell one of my, one of my

(35:34):
would-be supporters that theycouldn't support the pod news
newsletter.
Uh, the other day, no idea why,it was just this random error
message saying no, you can'tsupport them.
Um, so I don't know about that,but anyway.
Um, so that'll be interestingto uh find out a little bit more
about, no doubt now.

Sam Sethi (35:52):
Um, this is an interesting one.
Um.
Wondercraft posted about theworld bank launching a podcast
in seven languages, obviouslyusing their technology, and I
thought, wow.
And then you look at whatthey've actually done.
They've been able to produceversions in hindi and french and

(36:13):
arabic and all sorts.
Um, again, this is reallyclever and I just thought we may
talk about again how you cantake your original content and
rapidly now convert it intomultiple languages.
This is what Mr Beast's beentalking about with YouTube's
audio dub and how the metaplatforms don't have it and how

(36:35):
people now should be using toolslike WonderCraft to go and
reach a wider audience.

Now, yes, I think that this is two things.
There is all of the translationwhich is in here, and
translation is reallyinteresting.
Not everybody speaks English inthis world, even if you talk
very loudly.

Sam Sethi (36:57):
Thank you, very much people, lovely, lovely, it
always helps.
One biryani, two chicken tikka.

No, only you can do that, sam, I can't possibly
do that Anyway.
Yes, so not everybody speaksEnglish.
The other side of it is that,from what I can work out, these
aren't podcasts the way you or Iwould talk about it.
It's essentially Notebook LM orthe equivalent that Wondercraft

(37:27):
have access to, and so theyhave taken their research papers
, their policy briefs, and theyhave done some work with that.
So I think two things going onthere One, taking relatively
turgid, complicated papers thatnobody's really going to read
anyway and turning into a coupleof different versions of nice

(37:51):
shows that you can have a listento while you're doing something
else, but also, secondly,making those available in seven
languages, so Spanish, french,arabic, portuguese, chinese,
hindi and English.
So I think it's a crafty ideaas a listen.

(38:11):
I'm not sure it's going to be astupendously exciting listen
because there's not going to bevery much human connection and
shared experience in it, but Ithink as an idea for companies
like the World Bank to getthings over, I think that that
makes an awful lot of sense.

Sam Sethi (38:29):
The two things technically that I was hoping
was going to be in there.
One was that we're going to usethe alternative enclosure.
No, they don't, and that wouldhave been lovely to see.
And then the other thing that Ithink would have been nice was
the AI flag that we've mentionedin the past.
We built that into TrueFans.

(38:49):
It's like the explicit tag.
You turn it on and we put alittle robot icon next to the
content.
No one's adopted it.
No one may adopt it in thefuture.
Even that would be lovely ifthere was a standard that we
could all adopt where thecreator would flag the content
as AI spoken.
That would help.
Maybe other people then makedecisions to filter that content

(39:12):
out if they don't want it.

Yeah, I think there's definitely something in
flagging, certainly AI generatedcontent that's been generated
by AI and has been voiced by AI.
In terms of the alternateenclosure, I don't think this is
the use case for that, becauseI do think that you still need
all of the metadata to be inthat language, and so it does

(39:38):
mean different RSS feeds fordifferent languages.
But a way of linking from oneto another makes a lot of sense.
There's a standard in HTML andmaybe that standard should be
used, so this podcast, butavailable in Arabic over here.
I think that makes a bunch ofsense, but as an alternate
enclosure I don't think it works, because you do need the name

(40:01):
of the show, the description ofthe show, in that other language
as well.

Sam Sethi (40:05):
Yeah, no, you might be right there, but then maybe
just do a pod role.

Yes, well, do a pod role, which more on that
later.
So, yes, absolutely, let's goround the world, sam Indeed.

Sam Sethi (40:17):
Yes, we've done the World Bank.
Let's go round the world In theMiddle East and Africa.
Podio, who we had on the show acouple of weeks ago, have
announced officially theirpartnership with the SMC Group.
James, what's this one?

Yes, so SMC Group is a company that sells
advertising, and they will bedoing that in both the United
Arab Emirates and in the Kingdomof Saudi Arabia, and Podio is
working with them as anexclusive sales partner.
If you saw that and you thought, oh, hang on a minute, I'm sure

(40:50):
I knew about that that'sbecause, of course, you had the
exclusive, because youinterviewed Podio's CEO a few
weeks ago.
So that was a you know, youheard it here first, folks.

Sam Sethi (41:03):
Indeed.
When I read it in Pod News Down, I went.
I know this already, We've saidthis.

Yes.

Sam Sethi (41:10):
Yes, well, there you go.

Now whizzing round to Australia.
What's going on in Australia,james?
So two things.
Australia's podcast productionhouse, deadset Studios, has
appointed Sarah Dabrow as headof development and executive
producer.
Now Sarah Dabrow has worked forall kinds of people in very
senior creative roles people invery senior creative roles
Foxtel, which is our equivalentof Sky, abc Sky themselves,

(41:36):
mamma Mia, endemol, shineAustralia and ITV Studios.
So she knows what she's doingand she's working for Deadset
Studios, which is a pretty goodand rapidly growing podcast
production company.
It's headed up by Kelly Reardon.
Now Kelly Reardon used to be incharge of ABC Audio Studios from

(42:00):
the public service broadcasterhere, and there is a brand new
job which is availablepodnewsnet slash jobs which
looks eerily similar to her oldjob.
I think the title is ManagerPodcasts, which is, in true ABC
form, a very dull title, butwhen you have a look at what

(42:22):
that title actually is, it is incharge of basically all of the
podcasts that the ABC sticks out.
So if you want to be workingfor the number one podcaster in
terms of downloads in any casein this country, not in terms of
plays, no, just downloads Getthat in.
We don't know in terms of plays.

Sam Sethi (42:44):
Might be in terms of plays as well.

yes, that's the whole problem.
So, yes, so that's going on.
What's going on in America?

Sam Sethi (42:55):
Do we have to?
No, sorry, what's going on inAmerica?
No, in terms of broadcasting,right, right, yes, stick to the
story, sam.
Stick to the script, right?
Michael Tobin, the non-execchairman of Audioboom, has
bought another well near $2.6million of Audioboom shares.
I think that's quite cool.
He now owns 5.4% of the company.
They're very, very profitable.
I guess that's what you callputting your money where your

(43:17):
mouth is.

Yes, I think he's doing an interesting job.
Michael Tobin OBE, who is avery big entrepreneur.
He's on many, many boards, sothat is interesting.
That, of course, happened inthe UK.
Uh, happening in america?
I heart media releasing.
No, no that one.

Sam Sethi (43:38):
I heart media releasing wait, wait, wait, wait
, wait, wait.
Stewart, who you interviewedwas in new york.
Right, he was in new york.

Yes, no, you're absolutely right.
Stewart last is based in newyork.
Who's the ceo ofotape?

Sam Sethi (43:49):
Thank you so that's why I said America.

No worries, no worries.
Moving on, iheartmedia Seamless, releasing its quarter one 25
earnings, podcast revenue, up28% year on year.
It now represents 14.3% of thecompany's total revenue.
Chris Peterson, who used towork there, so he should know a
thing or two, says thepodcasting is now driving that

(44:14):
particular company Blimey.
It needs to.
Two things happening at iHeartthis year.
Firstly, let's not forget, theystill have debt of $4.6 billion
.
That's a big overdraft whichthey've got to pay off at some
point.
Secondly, they are planning$150 million worth of cost

(44:35):
savings this year.
But the interesting thingbecause I went into the slides
that they showed the investorsthey showed where that cost
saving will come from.
So 10% of that cost saving so$15 million will come from the
digital audio group, which isthe group that includes
podcasting.
65% of that cost savingwhatever 65% of 150 million is

(44:59):
is going to come from the radiostations.
So they are continuing to gutthe radio stations and you know,
and focus more on thepodcasting world.
So interesting from that sideseeing, you know, a typical
broadcaster doing what mostbroadcasters are doing now
really pairing the broadcastingdown to the smallest amount that

(45:22):
they possibly can.

Sam Sethi (45:23):
Well, it explains why they might be at the podcast
show then as well, if thecompany is being driven by
podcasting.

Well, yes, yes, they clearly need to be, you
know, as visible as theypossibly can be in that shape.
So, yes, I'm looking forward toseeing some of the iHeart
people there.

Sam Sethi (45:40):
Now we covered Ashley Carman reporting that $30
million was the amount for theacquisition of Luminada by PodX.
But in that piece you wrote,james, there was a little bit
that stood out for me.
Goalhanger looks set forfunding from the churning group.

How do we know that?
Well, I mean, ashley knows thatfrom somewhere.
She's a good journalist, shetalks to people.
But yeah, so Goalhanger, whichwon an award this week for the
best audio brand or somethinglike that, seems to be doing
very well.
But I think what's very clearis they're ruling the UK in

(46:23):
terms of content, notnecessarily doing that in the US
, and there's a big opportunityfor them, obviously, to move out
into the US.
So perhaps the churning group,which has put some money in the
past into other places, might behelping them with expanding
into the US.
That's just a guess, but itwould kind of make quite a lot

(46:44):
of sense, wouldn't it?

Sam Sethi (46:46):
Whizzing over to Latin America.
Who's doing what over there,james?

go.
Who's doing what over there,james?
Well, so the co-founder ofSonoro, who is a man called
Joshua Weinstein or Weinstein, Inever really know but anyway
he's been interviewed by a mediawriter called Simon Owens,
who's a very good media writer.
I think he interviewed me abouta year and a half or so ago
talking about his podcastnetwork.
Sonoro generates over 100million monthly downloads, which

(47:16):
seems to do quite well.
So if you're interested in thatpart of the world, that is
worth a read.
Just do a search for Sonoro inthe Pod News website.
Down to Egypt and the PodfestCairo event took place last week
.
This time around it was anevening of panels, curated

(47:37):
listening sessions andnetworking.
You might remember that weinterviewed Kim Fox from Podfest
Cairo on this show about six orseven months or so ago when she
was in this part of the world.
I interviewed her on my deck, Iseem to remember.
So, yes, there was a thing.

(47:57):
you could hear the birds in thebackground.
And then one final thing Ialways love all of this
Advertising buyers.
People who buy advertising areso divorced from reality.
They are not like the rest ofus.
For a start, they're very young.
For a start, they're also veryhighly educated, hang on a

(48:18):
minute.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa nono, no, but I'm saying of all of
us, of all of us.
I know you're very educated,you know, et cetera, et cetera.
You're not young but you'revery educated.
Black, don't crack, I can lookyoung, but in terms of you know,

(48:39):
I have been saying for many,many years that ad buyers are
not like the rest of us, butthey make a decision based on
them, not based on you know, thepeople that perhaps their
clients would like them to makea decision on, and this is a
great example of that.
Some work from the excellentPierre Bouvard, who works at

(49:00):
Westwood One.
He reports that 85% ofAmericans commute to work, but
ad buyers aren't like the restof us.
Ad buyers only commute intowork 4.2 times a week.
Of us ad buyers only commuteinto work 4.2 times a week.
The average American commutes4.7 times a week, so they're
commuting less.
And in fact there's otherdifferences between ad buyers

(49:23):
and people who work inadvertising and everybody else.
So it's a really interestingpiece of research.
The other thing, by the way, itsaid and I think we all know
this, but Friday is lowest foreverybody in terms of commuting
time.
So don't you would argue fromthis research don't, whatever

(49:44):
you do, release a podcast onFriday, particularly a long one
that might be good for acommuter.
Oh don't, don't.

Sam Sethi (49:52):
Hey, it's great for gardening at the weekends, don't
you knock it?
The thing I took away from thisis either advertising.
People are lazier than us orricher than us.
I'm going for the richer.

Yes, well, I think probably a little bit of
both, to be honest, judging bythe advertising people I've met.
We did something when I wasworking at a radio station.
We did something which Ithought was really clever.
We couldn't afford any posteradvertising, apart from about
five sites in London when wewere advertising the radio

(50:28):
station I think it was a NewBreakfast show, I think and so
we put up the poster sites rightnext to where the advertising
agencies are in London, just offTottenham Court Road.
So if you were driving to work,or even walking to work from
the Tube, you would pass theseads for the radio station and

(50:50):
you'd see all of those ads andyou'd think, blimey, this radio
station is doing amazingly well,isn't it?
We should be advertising on it.
And the reality was that wasthe only place where the ads
were.
But I thought doesn't that tellyou everything you need to know
about people who buyadvertising?
I thought that was a reallyinteresting thing.
People News on the Pod NewsWeekly Review.

(51:14):
Lots of things going on atLibsyn.
Libsyn has hired a new VP oftechnology.
He's Andy Wright and he'sjoining from a company called
Robots and Pencils.
So, interestingly, not somebodyfrom the podcasting tech
landscape, but definitelysomebody from the tech landscape
, but definitely somebody fromthe tech landscape.

(51:38):
He's replacing Libsyn's old CTO, who left the company a couple
of weeks ago.
So that is, I think, a verygood move from that company.
I think that their tech hasbeen letting them down for a
long, long time, and so thatmakes a bunch of sense.
They've also made a number ofhires in their business
development team.
Nick Zier joins as SeniorManager of Creative Partnerships

(51:59):
.
Cliff Clinton steps into therole of Senior Manager of
Strategy and Podcast Operations.
He used to work for LemonadaMedia, ossa and AdResults Media.
You've got Scott Hurd, who isnational account director,
joining from Sonant and DailyWire, and Brittany Hall, who
comes aboard as director ofBrand Partnerships, and she

(52:20):
joins from Spotify, triton,seeker, chartable, megaphone,
sony Music Entertainment all ofthe places, basically.
So clearly Libsyn spending alot of money in um, making a
number of um big uh hires, um,which is very impressive.
I think the new ceo clearly uhdoing quite a lot of hard work

(52:42):
there yeah, look, it'll beinteresting.

Sam Sethi (52:44):
I think libsyn's one of the what you call them, the
ogs, aren't you, aren't they?
So, um, yeah, it'll be good tosee them.
You, you know, come back tolife a bit more.
I think they've gone very quiet, so this will be good.

I think the heritage podcast host is a good
word for them, but unfortunatelythey have heritage tech right
now.
So the sooner that they can getrid of that tech debt the
better, I think.
And one person who is leavingand starting a new thing is AJ
Feliciano, one of PodNews'long-term supporters.

(53:18):
He's left the roost afteralmost eight years at the
video-first company.
They of course used to ownRooster Teeth as well, the big
podcast network.
He's working on a new ventureand we find out what that is
later in the year.
He said autumn or fall, but ofcourse I can't say autumn or

(53:38):
fall because that's in a totallydifferent time of the year for
me, so I've just written laterthis year.
But anyway, it'll beinteresting to watch what's
going on there.
I'm interviewing Christina fromthe Roost on a panel all about
video podcasting and whether ornot we're going to hell in a

(53:59):
handcart, basically.
So looking forward to doingthat at the podcast show next
week Now.

Sam Sethi (54:05):
awards and events.
James the Webby's had aceremony in New York.
Who was the winner?

and ceremony in New York.
Who was the winner?
Yes, so the big winner ofPodcast of the Year was the
Midas Touch podcast forgroundbreaking contributions to
digital political commentary andcultural advocacy, which is all
very exciting.
So, yes, lots and lots and lotsof winners from the Webby's.

Sam Sethi (54:29):
there Again, I looked through the list.
Is it my imagination?
But were there only Americanswinning it this year?

It's just your imagination, sam.
In fact, one of the winners,tony and Ryan, who won an award
for best comedy show, are Aussie, and there's a really nice
email this week from Irene Hume,who does a podcast down here,
basically saying that Tony andRyan were a totally missed piece

(54:57):
of talent from AustralianCommercial Radio.
They'd worked within CommercialRadio for a long, long time.
They were clearly incrediblybright people, but Australian
Commercial Radio just droppedthe ball, never put them on air,
never really got them workingtogether.
Um, so, uh, yeah, so it's, um,it's a pretty good um, uh move

(55:18):
from them to uh get um.
I mean, they only won one webbyand not two, obviously, but
nevertheless, uh, they won one.

Sam Sethi (55:26):
I'll pick those up for you, james, don't worry.

Yes um, but uh, many, so many congratulations to
them and to brad march, theirmanager, as well, because they
have had a storming couple ofyears and, of course, the arias
took place this this week.
The arias um are a big audioand radio industry awards in the
uk.
Um Already mentioned it already, but Goalhanger ended up

(55:53):
winning the UK Audio Brand ofthe Year, so congratulations to
them.
It's mostly radio that winsthis type of stuff, so it's nice
to see podcasters also winningin the arias as well.
All of the winners for thateven the radio stations are in

(56:14):
the Pod News newsletter.

Sam Sethi (56:16):
Oh good, Is it an OP mail file?
Can I import it?

Not for the radio stations.
I mean, I suppose I could, butno.
So yes.
And finally, of course, theLondon podcast show happening
next week.
We will be there.
So if you are going to theLondon podcast show, make week,
we will be there.
So if you are going to theLondon podcast show, make sure
on day two that you are hangingaround at about four o'clock in
the afternoon.
We will be doing this show livefrom the smallest room

(56:42):
available.
No, we will be doing this showlive from one of the cavernous
rooms at the podcast show inLondon.
Looking forward to doing that.
Please come along, because theguests are going to be you and a
few other people, so that'sworthwhile you doing.
Also, please turn up earlybecause I'm doing the opening

(57:03):
keynote.
Heaven knows what that's goingto say, because I'm supposed to
have written it by last Fridayand I still haven't.
So that'll be good.
One new thing that I have justlearned about is the Infinite
Dial UK, which is being releasedat the podcast show.
Gabriel Soto will be there,along with a couple of people

(57:24):
from their sponsors, I thinkthere's also a free webinar the
week after, and the good thingabout the Infinite Dial UK is
that it's specifically designedto be comparable with other
Infinite Dial data.
So that happens at the momentin the US, australia and New
Zealand.
So we can see how big or notthe UK is in comparison to those

(57:47):
other countries as well.

Sam Sethi (57:48):
So worth a peek as well, so worth a peek.
I'm doing a on the Thursdaysbefore our event at 12 o'clock.
I'm doing a podcasting 3.0.
I know, I know, james cringe,you're going to hate it, but
that's fine, I decided it'sgoing to be so.
I hope still to be able to demo, rather than slide where, the

(58:12):
use of micropayments and also AIvoice interfaces, but I don't
know.
Again, they haven't told mewhether there's Wi-Fi in the
room yet, which is always alittle bit nerving.

Yes, well, yes, that's always a slight concern.
I believe that they do haveWi-Fi, but I believe also that
you can't necessarily guaranteeon it actually working, which is
, you know, always the way.

Sam Sethi (58:36):
My after-installing can see if I can get an account.

We will see, see if that works.
But, yes, very much lookingforward to being at the podcast
show next week.
If you are around in London,it'd be lovely to catch up.
Obviously, the two days of thepodcast show.
I'm completely chockers is, Ibelieve the phrase, but
certainly relatively free on theMonday and relatively free on

(59:02):
the Friday, on much of theFriday before I fly back.
So it'd be nice to see you.
James, at podnewsnet is myemail address.
He says thinking very carefullyabout which one I was going to
give out there the Tech Stuff onthe Pod News Weekly Review.
Yes, it's the stuff you'll findevery Monday in the Pod News

(59:22):
newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.
What have you got for us, samWell?

Sam Sethi (59:27):
Amazon seemed to have woken up a little bit.
They've got AI-voiced audiobooks now, which again, I don't
want them.
I don't want these, but anywaythey're going to launch them.

Equivalent you say here they've made a profit
of $59 billion, yes, last year,yes, which I calculated if you

(01:00:03):
were going to pay properprofessional human voiceovers,
then you could use that profitto make 39 million audiobooks.

Sam Sethi (01:00:05):
That was just me being sarcastic.
Well, no, no, they can't.

James Cridland (01:00:09):
They can't use that money, james because Katy
Perry wants to go back to space.
Oh well, yes, yes, there isalways that.
There is always that, mygoodness, and our sponsor,
buzzsprout, who we use for lotsand lots and lots of things.
They have done some really,really welcome stuff.
So you might remember thatCastos added integration of
Apple Podcast subscriptions lastweek or the week before, and it

(01:00:32):
seems that Buzzsprout have donepretty well exactly the same,
which makes life so much easier.
If you want to offer premiumcontent that's, ad-free content,
or maybe it's content which isadditional stuff, but only for
people who are paying, then nowyou can do that through the
Buzzsprout tools and people canget that through the standard

(01:00:55):
Buzzsprout way of doing thingswith a private RSS feed, but now
it interfaces directly withApple Podcasts subscriptions as
well.
At least, that's what I thinkit does.
What do you know, sam?

Sam Sethi (01:01:09):
I know nothing, as they say, and Manuel in
Fawltyulty towers.

Alban Brooke (01:01:13):
but um other than that, I thought I'd interview
alban brook, the wonderfulmarketing director over at
buzzsprout, and ask him allabout buzzsprout subscriptions
this is what we launched twoyears ago to help podcasters
offer a premium version of theirshows, and it's been growing
over the last two years and wedid really our biggest update

(01:01:35):
we've ever done.
So we added all sorts ofdifferent types of shows.
You can have bonus content andad free listening and subscriber
only shows and early access andback catalog.
We added a bunch of differenttypes of shows.
We did a lot of refinements tohow you set those up and run
them and then probably thebiggest thing for a lot of

(01:01:56):
podcasters is that we built anintegration with Apple podcast
subscriptions so that they canmanage everything from their
Buzzsprout dashboard so you'reable to offer it to everybody on
any podcast player and also runyour Apple podcast subscription
.

Sam Sethi (01:02:14):
So why and when did this decision come about?

Well, we also did some other things with Apple
just before this.
So the Apple launched thisopportunity where you could
submit shows directly to them,rather than podcasters going
through that a little bit longersubmission process.
James talked about this in thepod news report card and they
launched another way for peopleto claim the shows that were

(01:02:39):
submitted that way.
So we supported both of thoseand I think it just made sense.
We were working with them onthese other opportunities.
We were doing some upgrades toBuzzsprout subscriptions and
this is another great thing thatwe can offer to our podcasters,
because I think the ad modelworks exceptionally well for a

(01:03:01):
big portion of podcasters reallylarge shows, but the smaller
shows with really dedicated fanbases it's really hard for them
to monetize and so havingsomething like, you know, early
access episodes is going to be agood way for them to monetize
their shows.
So it just kind of worked outperfectly.

Sam Sethi (01:03:22):
Now, when I come to my Buzzsprout dashboard, what
will I see as the way?
So I've uploaded episode X.
How do I now determine thatthat episode is going to be put
behind the firewall or paywallfor couple of subscriptions?

So you'll go over to monetization and then go set
up a Buzzsprout subscription andwhich episodes land behind the
firewall, as you put it, willdetermine based on which of
these benefits you're offeringyour listeners.
So if we do full archive access, you know the archive is going

(01:03:59):
to automatically be gettinglocked.
If we do early access and wesay, hey, subscribers get access
to everything butnon-subscribers, you don't get
access for a week, and so mostof that is going to be happening
automatically.
If you're doing a show that'slike bonus content with bonus
episodes, then you have in theupload process you've got a

(01:04:23):
toggle so you can say, ok, thisis a premium episode, let's lock
it.
And the other one that I shouldmention is ad free episodes.
With those you'll upload twoaudio files to us One that has
ads or maybe is getting adsadded to it through Buzzsprout
ads, and then another ad-freeversion that we will serve up to

(01:04:45):
your subscribers.

Sam Sethi (01:04:46):
And you also do private feeds.
Don't you Like Patreon orMemberful or Supporting Cast?

Well, the way we would do that is like a
subscriber only show.
So if you don't want to run aPatreon in addition to your
Buzzsprout account, you can justset it up and say, hey, pay $5
a month, you get the feed fromBuzzsprout and you don't have to
go set up a second or thirdservice.
We are trying to serve as indiepodcasters and we want to give

(01:05:12):
them as many ways as possible tomonetize their show to be
successful and not have to jumpto a bunch of hoops to make any
money.
The prospect of, hey, we'regoing to do bonus episodes every

(01:05:36):
week wasn't a great option,because if you've only got a few
hundred listeners and nowyou're promising a bonus episode
to the two people that sign upto pay, that's not sustainable.
It's actually why I really,really love that we added early
access to this, because earlyaccess you really align all of
these interests right.
You've got the podcaster who'salready creating the show and

(01:05:57):
the listeners who are getting it.
All the back catalogs stillopen.
You still have the maximumgrowth opportunity, but there's
a real benefit to yoursubscribers that they hit the
end of all the shows and they gooh, there's actually two behind
the paywall there.
I'd love to get early access tothose and they can be end of
all the shows and they go.
Oh, there's actually two behindthe paywall there.
I'd love to get early access tothose and they can be a patron

(01:06:17):
of the show.
They can support you and helpyour show grow.

Sam Sethi (01:06:21):
That's super cool, by the way.
Now, if I want to then take aApple subscription episode off,
can I do that in my dashboard onBuzzsprout, or do I have to go
to Apple and take the episodeback?
How, how does that work?

You would just inside of Buzzsprout, so you set
up your Buzzsprout subscriptionand then you would log into
Apple podcasts connect and thenyou'd get your API key, you'd
set up your Apple podcastsubscription.
You'd hook that into Buzzsproutand we're trying to do as much
as we can so you don't have togo log back in to anywhere else.
And so if you take a episodeand you say, oh, this is locked,

(01:07:02):
then it's going to be locked inApple podcast subscriptions as
well.
And if you take it off and youmake it public for everybody,
it's public for everybody.

Sam Sethi (01:07:10):
Okay Now, because I can do this within my rss feed,
within buzzsprout.
What happens to other podcastapps other than apple?
When they see a subscriptionbase, do they get any way that
they can access that as a paiditem, or is it just no, you
don't get this episode becauseit's specific to apple so that's

(01:07:32):
why we wanted to build outBuzzsprout subscriptions as well
.

Apple Podcasts is the largest podcast player.
It's the most important.
This subscription offeringworks really well, but if you're
someone like me who usesOvercast a lot, well, the best
way to do it would be to go signup for a Buzzsprout
subscription.
I pay for the podcast, maybe Ipay for Pod News Weekly Review
Plus, and then I get a feed thatis unique to me and I can just

(01:08:02):
add that RSS feed.
So any podcast player thatsupports adding a custom RSS
feed, I will be able to listeninside of a podcast app Perfect
RSS feed, I will be able tolisten inside of a podcast app
Perfect.

Sam Sethi (01:08:17):
Now, one of the questions that I asked James
this morning, when we said wewere going to interview you, was
is there a worry withinBuzzsprout and, by extension,
all other hosts that the actualaudio is being hosted by Apple?
Is that giving away the crownjewels to Apple, in effect,
because you are a host?
Should you not be?
Because the way that it workswithin Spotify with SOA, you go

(01:08:40):
and get a token authorizationand so it gives the controlling
let's say, patreon or member forwhere the service has been paid
for some control over whatSpotify does, because they can
remove that authentication.
But fundamentally, from what Iunderstand, you're enabling the
Apple subscriptions and theaudio goes there and then the

(01:09:01):
person's paying.
Is there any worry at all?
Or is this just a partnershipdeal and you just accept it?
That's how it goes.

No, I think this works really well the way we're
doing it.
I mean, we're able to controlwhat's being delivered and
what's available via the API, sowe can technically manage it.
That's not going to be an issue.
As far as, like a strategicquestion, is it a bad idea to
let them host it?
We're coming up on the 20thanniversary of Apple adding

(01:09:29):
podcasts to iTunes and, from myvantage point, they've done
nothing but support openpodcasting for 20 years.
And Apple podcast subscriptionsis not an attempt to become our
competitor.
It's a really nice value addthat, as a platform, they're
able to offer a seamless way forpeople to pay for premium

(01:09:52):
content inside of a podcastingapp while still leveraging the
open ecosystem.
So I I see it as a win-win.
I don't really see it as astrategic concern.

Sam Sethi (01:10:05):
Now as a paid subscriber to Buzzsprout.
Will I get this as a freeextension to subscriptions, or
is this an add-on pricing thatI'll be expecting to see?

Oh, this is out for everybody.
So everybody on a paid planright now has access to the
updates to Buzzsproutsubscriptions and this
integration with Apple.

Sam Sethi (01:10:27):
Cool, nice.
Thank you, buzzsprout.
Now moving on, we haven't hadyou on the show for a long while
, it feels, and you've been busyworking on other things as well
.
One of the things that I waslistening on Buzzcast actually
Kevin was talking about isyou've got your beta of your
transcriptions currently running.
So I remember interviewing youwhen you first brought that out

(01:10:49):
and you were talking about thethird party provider I think it
was Rev that you used, and soyou are currently in beta
testing for all Buzzsprout usersfor transcriptions.
Two things, then why are youlooking to change and how's it
going?

Man, you mentioning Rev, I forgot that we
ever used Rev at some point.
Transcriptions have changed somuch in the last 10 years.
You know it was a really,really painful process.
It was super advanced and so wepartnered with I think it was
Rev first, and we had a dealwith Otter at some point, and
then Rev became Temi and youknow we added so many different

(01:11:31):
things, became Temi and you knowwe add so many different things
and really, as we've moved moreinto offerings with co-host AI,
so we want to be able to domore on the AI side for
Buzzsprout.
We need really high qualitytranscripts and we worked on the
transcript tag years and yearsago because we thought just

(01:11:52):
having transcripts of podcastswas important.
Well, the combination is hey,this is something that the
technology has improved and wecan bring it in-house.
We think we can do a reallygood job.
Doing a really good jobin-house also means we can lower
the price, so we don't have tocharge as much for transcripts.
I mean, if you just look acrosstranscription services right

(01:12:14):
now, you can find some whereyou're paying a dollar a minute
at the high end and some whereit's very, very inexpensive, and
I think that we want to be ableto leverage, you know, those
cost savings so that we can passthem on to you know.
120,000 indie shows onBuzzsprout, you know 120,000
indie shows on Buzzbro.

Sam Sethi (01:12:33):
So with the beta now, what's the sort of feedback
you're getting?
I mean, I personally think thetranscription was pretty good.
You've got the data comes back,you've got then the speaker
labels, you've got sampling, andit all seems to work.
We pull it into apps likeTrueFans and it works
beautifully.
So you're hoping, I guess, toget a higher quality transcript.

(01:12:56):
Is that one of the metrics thatyou've been going to be looking
at?

Yeah, I think there's probably three metrics
to think about with transcriptsyou want higher quality, you
want it to be faster and youwant to be able to offer it
inexpensively.
Another benefit is the more ofit that we control that whole
pipeline, the more we canoptimize it, and so we can.
You know, for people who want toedit the transcript and make

(01:13:21):
updates, we can control the UIand make it a seamless editing
experience.
One of the benefits from havingpartnered with so many
different companies over thelast 10 years for this has been
we've seen the pieces of eacheditor that we really like,
We've seen limitations and we'vehad customers who've used all
sorts of different options, andthey're all giving feedback on

(01:13:45):
the transcripts we're offeringnow, so that we're able to
continuously refine it,continuously refine it.
I think that's one of thethings we often consider when
we're looking at are we going topartner with a company or are
we going to do somethingourselves?
Is, are we going to be able tobring something unique to the
table that we can iterate onthis for years and keep making
it better?
I mean the same way that we'retalking about Buzzsprout

(01:14:06):
subscriptions now.
Being able to iterate onsomething for years is always
going to provide a much betterproduct in the end.

Sam Sethi (01:14:13):
So, oldburn, two features that I'd love to have
and you don't have to answer,you can just give me the nudge
and the wink if it's in there,but keyword summaries would be
one of the things and dataextraction of key references so
maybe someone's mentioned a book, or somebody's mentioned a
restaurant or a location.
These are sorts of featuresthat you're hoping to add to the

(01:14:35):
transcript within what you'redoing now in the version you're
building.

Well, we never have anything planned more than
six weeks out, and I always saythat because it really is true.
We just started our I know whatwe will work on for the next
six weeks and I don't thinkeither of those are in there.
But if you want to tell me moreabout it, so you'd hope that
the keywords that we put in foryour episodes, that those be
automatically detected right,that would be a summary that I

(01:15:04):
think would be really useful.

Sam Sethi (01:15:06):
So you bring the transcript in.
You then summarize it downusing the AI so I can quickly go
through the summaries of apodcast and say, yeah, that's.
That's a really cool thing.
I want to see and there's fivebullet points maybe that the AI
summarized that whole thing on.

(01:15:27):
That could even be used in myshow description if I wanted.

Well then we've built this.
Oh, okay, cool.
We rolled out, since the lasttime we talked, an update to
Co-host AI, where we're writingmultiple descriptions for you
now, and one of the descriptionswas the version that I wanted,
and I think most podcasts thatwhen I listen to them, I don't

(01:15:53):
want a long written outdescription.
What I wanted was one to twosentence and then bullet points
of the main topics, exactly, andthen give me the chapter
markers, and so co-host AI willdo that.
Now we run the transcript, thenwe do the AI piece, so we give
you both of those so you couldselect.

(01:16:14):
Give me the bullet pointversion that'll show up in your
description, then you can goover to the chapter markers,
where I feel like we've beendoing refinements on these and
they're getting much, muchbetter at finding the key
moments where the topic ischanging, something interesting
is happening and labeling itcorrectly.
But I guess I should mention,you know, a few other things off

(01:16:36):
the top of my head We've donefor co-hosts.
We've added more things so youcan share content.
So, sharing to social mediacontent, we'll write a blog post
for you.
We're doing a lot around titles, anything we can to make that
last step of publishing thepodcast easier.
We are going to keep tacklingthat because I find you you prep

(01:17:00):
the interview and then you dothe interview, and then you edit
the interview and you're kindof like, oh, I'm done.
And then to go in and go, ohyeah, I didn't keep tabs on
where the chapter markers were.
Oh, now I've got to sit downand write a description when I'm
kind of need a break.
It's really nice for co-host AIto come in and do that work for
you, rather than you need to gothrough the episode for a fifth

(01:17:23):
time.

Sam Sethi (01:17:24):
So two of those things I really love.
So you're creating a socialmedia written clip.
What I'd love is an audio clipput into the soundbite
automatically so that itactually goes with the RSS feed
as well.
That would be genius for me,because then I don't have to go
and create soundbites.
The AI is creating me fivesoundbites and they're ready to

(01:17:46):
go and I just choose one ormultiple.
That would be awesome.
And then the other one is withthe blog posts.
I'm actually using those blogposts within Pod News Weekly for
TrueFans because we have ablogging capability within the
platform and, again, I can copyand paste that straight over.
I will privately send you anemail, if you don't mind, about

(01:18:09):
how you could actually, I think,maybe extend that into the RSS
as a new tag where we wouldactually take from Buzzsprout a
blog entry for that episode andthen we could pull it in as well
.
That would be my two highwishlists, please.

I love it and we need to make sure that if we
launch any of these features atany point, that you clip this
piece of the interview and say,ah, you could see where I
suggested this to Buzzsprout andthen they built it years later.

Sam Sethi (01:18:37):
Yeah, I'm loving co-host AI, and I'm just curious
as to know what's in inBuzzsprout's roadmap along those
features, cause I think eachone of those is adding or
simplifying the workflow, whichis what I love about it.
Now, one of the other thingsthat you did is also improve
your websites, so tell me moreabout why you did that and what
you're planning.

Well, podcast websites are important for
people to have kind of a home onthe internet that is platform
agnostic, so you can send peopleto one page and then they can
click and they can go listen tothe podcast in any app that they
choose.
They can read the transcripts,they can read the descriptionss,
they can read the descriptions,they can learn about the show,
they can see your pod role andso many of these new new data

(01:19:20):
has been collected.
The hosts their photos and wewent.
You know we can make a muchbetter website than we did a few
years ago, and so we wentthrough.
We pretty much tore them downand rebuilt much, much more
beautiful websites that are muchmore full featured, and those
again were focusing thesewebsites on indie podcasters.

(01:19:41):
So we rolled them into allbuzzsprout plans and you can go
and see the one for buzzcast,you could go see it for pod news
review and we've got tons ofother examples up on the
Buzzsprout website.

Sam Sethi (01:19:54):
So are the blog posts within the website.
Is that going to be anythingthat merges into the two, so
that you offer both an audio tab, maybe in a blog tab, just as a
thought?

We don't have any plans for that now, but in six
weeks we will probably have awhole new batch of things that
we will come up with to build,so I don't mean to be evasive
with it.
We we honestly we try to keep,you know, ourselves focused on
what's the next best idea, thatwe have to make things better
for indie podcasters, andsometimes that means, you know,

(01:20:32):
kind of keeping the blinders onand focusing on what's right in
front of us, you know.
So I'm I'm over here working onenamel pins that I want to take
to podcast movement in a fewmonths.

Sam Sethi (01:20:43):
Now with the, with the work that you're doing on
websites as well.
One sorry I'm, I don't get totalk to you all, but enough,
clearly.
So well, one sorry I'm, I don'tget to talk to you, albin,
enough clearly.
So I'm giving you all of mywish list.
One of the things that james ofart and I've mentioned in the
past is actually, what would belovely is a landing page within

(01:21:05):
buzzsprout, which would be theaggregated view of some of your
best podcasts, because whatyou've got is a single page
podcast, which is great.
So ours is weeklypodnewsnetLovely, it's a, you know, a
customized domain.
Thank you very much.
But actually what would bereally cool would be a bit like
the pod roll, but actually aBuzzsprout landed page,

(01:21:27):
somewhere where I could actuallysee thumbnails of some of the
other cool podcast webpages thatare available by Buzzsprout
that I can oh yeah, let me clickon that or maybe even by
category.
So what other podcasts doesBuzzsprout host that are
business technology newspodcasts, and then go and see
theirs.
And again, I don't know if thisis something that you go no,

(01:21:49):
we're never going to do that,but I just thought I'd throw
that into the pool.

if this is something that you go, no, we're
never going to do that, but Ijust thought I'd throw that into
the pool.

Sam Sethi (01:21:54):
So the idea here is it's like a pod role where you
could select other podcasts, butinstead of taking you to the
podcast index, we'd be takingyou to the buzzsprout website so
that you could get a bit moreinformation about the podcast
yeah, and just you know, andthen if I wanted to click on
their web page and have a lookthrough theirs and see more
about them, so it's a landingpage of thumbnails, in effect,

(01:22:16):
for want of a better visual thatI can then go okay, now I've
got here.
Oh, that's an interestingpodcast.
I hadn't heard it.
It's a discovery mechanism.
That then, yes, and then thenext extension would be I want
to add that to my pod role aswell.

Yeah, we.
I like that idea, especially aswe recommend more that people
build their own websites.
You know we could add theoption for the pod role to point
towards a website.
It's not a bad idea, and we'vehad people I mean as long as
I've been at Buzzsprout, so overa decade saying I'd love a
Buzzsprout directory.
I've always resisted it a bitbecause I'm like you know the

(01:22:54):
podcast index is a greatdirectory, apple podcast is a
great directory, spotify is agreat directory.
We've got all these directoriesand I'm not sure if there's
something unique aboutBuzzsprout that makes the
content any better, and so Idon't know if I'm thinking I
want a list of all the websitesthat are hosted on AWS.

(01:23:14):
Also, if that makes sense, I'drather go to ChatGPT or Google
and say, hey, find me the bestwebsite you can for me with this
query.

Sam Sethi (01:23:24):
Yeah, it's just one of those ideas that was bubbling
through the head and I thought,yeah, put that to the cutting
room floor now.
So, based on everything youwere doing and based on the
market, a lot of people aretalking about video podcasting.
Right, and where doesBuzzsprout sit with video
podcasting then?

My feeling and I'm not speaking for, I think, the
whole company because I think westill have some debates going
but my feeling is that I'm notall that interested in video
podcasting.
I watch YouTube.
I really enjoy YouTube.
I watch TV shows.
I really like TV shows.
I like movies.
I like podcasts for somethingdifferent and I love that it's

(01:24:08):
audio and I love that it doesn'ttake over my whole life.
It's perfectly happy that I'mat the gym or I'm out for a run
and I'm also listening to theshow.
So I don't dislike that.
A bunch of my favorite podcastsalso have a video component,
but I'm not really drawn to itand I keep running into this

(01:24:29):
feeling that as podcasters we'rebeing told hey, you've got a
nice thing going on there, butyou know you would be really
cool if you made that into a TVshow.
But the next thing that youhear is you know it'd be really
cool if you made that like TVshow into clips.
And we just basically startcreating new content for TikTok

(01:24:51):
and we all just get TikTokifiedand I don't really want every
app and every medium to justrush towards short form video.
I really love the craft of audiostorytelling.
I loved books on tape.
As a kid I loved listening toradio dramas and I love
listening to podcasts, and evenif podcasting is never a tenth

(01:25:16):
as big as YouTube and video, I'mOK with that.
We don't have to be everythingfor everybody and it's exciting
to be part of something you'rereally proud of, rather than
being part of a larger industrythat you kind of think is.
It's not really healthy for usall to be on our phone watching
TikToks for seven hours a day.

(01:25:37):
But if podcasting isencouraging me to go on a road
trip with my brothers and listento a show together and have a
group experience, that's cool.
Or listen to a podcast when I'mout for a run, that's a cool
thing.
So I think I'm most excited andBuzzsprout is most excited
about leaning more and more intowhat makes podcasting unique,

(01:26:01):
and that's audio and helpingpeople make great audio shows.
And then if some point, thepeople that we help lean into
audio say I also want to dovideo and I want to put on
YouTube or I need to gosomewhere else to do video, I
think I'll be very happy forthem that they found what they
really wanted to do, becausewhat I'm excited about is audio

(01:26:23):
podcasts.

Sam Sethi (01:26:25):
Yeah, I'm with you on that one.
You know, I listen to a lot ofradio stations.
I don't need to watch the radiostation, and that's
fundamentally how I see it.
I listen to radio that now ison YouTube, but I children, for
example will watch YouTubepodcasts but not actually watch

(01:26:58):
the YouTube itself until maybethere's something that's said
that they lean into it and thenthey'll look away from it.
So again, there are two schoolsof thought, but I agree.
I think you know, if we try andbe everything to everybody, I
think we'll be nothing to nobody.

So Well, I feel like this is the lesson that
podcasts have taught me over andover for a decade is you get
podcasters and they come in andthe biggest red flag for a new
creator is what's the mostfavorite famous genre, what's
the biggest?
I want to be big and they tryto be everything to everybody,
and so what they do is theypitch basically a Joe Rogan show

(01:27:35):
.
That they do and they're likeoh, I'm going to talk to anyone
I find interesting.
I'm not going to do a lot ofprep and I'll just be
charismatic enough that it willbe big and I go.
That's actually a really badformula.
What you have is a uniqueskillset and a unique life
experience and a unique storyand a unique perspective.
Lean into that.

(01:27:56):
Yes, the audience is naturallygoing to be limited, but the
audience are going to be peoplewho are actually interested.
The reason that we've got someof these kind of really big
interview shows is because thosepeople are celebrities or
they're comedians or they'vebeen working on this for 15, 20

(01:28:17):
years.
They've been honing a craft andthey're pretty good at it.
For us to say I'm going to beeverything to everybody is bad
marketing for a podcast.
It's bad marketing for an app.
It's just not a great place tobe and it's also just not what
gets us excited.
Just not a great place to beand it's also just not what gets
us excited.
I think if we spent the nexttwo years working on video

(01:28:39):
podcasts, it would just be lessexciting and it wouldn't be what
we were passionate about.

Sam Sethi (01:28:44):
Yeah.
So it does draw me into onemore question, though, holben,
which is live podcasting, whichisn't a video live podcast but
is an audio live podcast, verymuch like adam and curry and
dave jones do on a friday nightpodcasting 2.0.
Is there going to be anythingfrom buzzsprout that says, okay,

(01:29:06):
we're not going to lean intovideo, but we will lean into
live podcasting?
Maybe we'll offer our users thesupport for the live item tag.
Maybe we'll provide an HLSserver.
You know you can time split,that you can charge that as a
premium service.

Is there anything in your thinking around that as
a feature?
From my personal experience notreally speaking for Buzzsprout
I don't love listening to manythings live the.
I really love reading books andwatching movies and listening
to podcasts that were createdand edited and they're tight and
they're really thought out, andI also really love doing

(01:29:49):
in-person events with people,and the middle ground of a
happening in real time on theinternet has never been that
compelling to me.
I'm honestly, I'm not even afan of like zoom calls, you know
, and so it to me doesn't landis like we've got to do it just
because I, as a consumer ofmedia, am not clamoring for it.

(01:30:12):
I'm also not, you know,watching Twitch, but I know that
Twitch and YouTube live aremassively popular, so just kind
of giving, I guess, my feelingson it.
It's not the most excitingthing.
I'm more excited that you knowwe did premium podcasts or that
we updated our websites or wedid more with mobile, because
those are all things that, as apodcaster, I will use.

Sam Sethi (01:30:41):
And again.
Last question then, really,with the podcasting 2.0, I know
that you guys follow it quiteclosely.
I know that you're greatsupporters of the podcast index.
Every Friday night we hear awonderful donation from you guys
.
So is there anything on theroadmap from Buzzsprout?
James has been workingdiligently on the new location
tag.
There are some other tags thatare in the offing that people
are pushing, like funding tag,which was now at the episode

(01:31:04):
level rather than the channellevel.
Is there anything in that space, then, that you are working on
or thinking about?

Well, again, we don't have anything that we're
currently working on right nowover the next six weeks, but I
think it's very important as aindustry that we consider if we
think there's value inpodcasting being open and
decentralized, then how do webuild on some kind of consistent

(01:31:31):
framework?
We have some standards acrosslots of podcast hosts and lots
of podcast listening apps andlots of aggregators.
How do we make sure there isstuff moving forward so that
there's innovation happening,that's not just innovation from
the YouTubes and Spotify of theworld?

Sam Sethi (01:31:51):
Alban Brook.
Thank you so much for your timeand again.
If anyone wants to go and findout more about Apple
subscriptions, buzzsproutsubscriptions, the websites,
where would they go?

You can come to buzzsproutcom and if you ever go
to buzzsproutcom, slash new,you can see all the new things
that we release and that's wherewe throw all our press releases
and photos, and so you can seewhenever something new comes out
of all our press releases andphotos, and so you can see
whenever something new comes out.

Sam Sethi (01:32:16):
And sadly you're not going to be in London.
Are you for the London PodcastShow?

No, we won't.
I will be at Podcast Movement,so hopefully I will see you
there.

Sam Sethi (01:32:26):
Alban.
Always a pleasure to see youand good luck with your trek
this weekend.
I know you're going to be doingthe Grand Canyon, so good luck
with that.

Thank you, sam, I appreciate it.
The excellent Albin Brook fromBuzzsprout, and thank you to
them for their support.
Lots of interesting thingsgoing on with Apple Podcast
Premium subscriptions theAtlantic, for example, just
jumping in there, according toAxios, and uh, various uh other
people um getting involved.
Um, I have a feeling that Applemay be, um, just you know, uh

(01:33:03):
revving up to make anannouncement about how
successful that has been, um, uh, and I only say that because
whenever I talk to anybody fromApple, I'm saying you should
share how successful thisproduct is, and so hopefully
they've had a listen to me andhopefully they're going to
actually turn around and say youknow what podcasters have made

(01:33:25):
X million since we launched it,or whatever.
But we'll find out next week, Iguess.

Sam Sethi (01:33:30):
Now moving on, james, sticking with Apple for a
little bit longer.
They've unveiled some newaccessibility features.
Not that I normally look atthose, but what's in there that
might appeal to podcasters?

Yes, so there are a few little things Now.
Obviously, apple Podcasts hasprobably led the way because of
the transcripts that theylaunched in March 2024.
But there's a thing baked intoiOS called live captions, and
live captions have beenavailable in a few English

(01:34:02):
languages and that's basicallybeen about it.
So now it's available in manyother languages, and so that
essentially adds live captionsfor any audio on your device.
Android's had this for quitesome time as well, so that'll be
good to end up seeing.
There are a few otherinteresting things.
I had no idea that half thisstuff existed in the iPhone.

(01:34:23):
They've got a thing called LiveListen, which gives you
captions on the screen of yourphone, so you can basically turn
it on and get captions from anyconversation that you're in.
So you can basically turn it onand get captions from any
conversation that you're in, andthey've now done it so that
those captions can also appearon an Apple Watch as well.

Sam Sethi (01:34:42):
Can I tell you, can you tell you something?
Sorry, Jay.

Yeah.

Sam Sethi (01:34:46):
There is a naughty way of using that feature.
If you use your, take one ofyour earbuds and you stick it in
another room and then walk outof that room, you can actually
have that as a listening deviceappearing on your phone.

yes, so yes, yes yes, or or just leave your
phone, uh, in in the room aswell.
That also works.
But, yes, and they've also gotthis thing um, if you're, um, if
you're one of these people thatloses their voice quite
regularly, they've got thisthing called a personal voice,
which is a voice cloning system,and you used to have to read 15

(01:35:24):
minutes to this tool to get itto clone your voice, and even
then it didn't do a particularlygood job.
Now you say 10 sentences to it,literally, and it gives a much
better clone of your voice thatyou can then use on those
occasions where you lose yourvoice.
You can then use that to chatwith your friends and family.

(01:35:47):
I've had to do this once.
What?
Three, four years ago, I lostmy voice for about two days.
Three, four years ago, I lostmy voice for about two days and,
yeah, and I was typing thingsout on my Android phone getting
the phone, to say it out loud,which is quite a thing.
So, yeah, so that's built intothe iPhone, so they're doing

(01:36:10):
some really interesting things.
The last thing, probablyworthwhile knowing if you're an
app developer, is that they'readding accessibility labels so
you'll be able to see does thisapp support?
You know magnified text?
Does this app support?
You know black on white ratherthan white on black?
You know, et cetera, et cetera.

(01:36:31):
So there's quite a lot ofchanges.
They're all coming later in theyear, but, as we know, we are
getting a brand new version ofiOS which apparently, according
to all of the leaks, is going tobe quite a big change.
So perhaps this is part of thatquite big change.

Sam Sethi (01:36:50):
Now Metacast.
They've launched a new sharingcapability, james.
What have they done?

Yeah, so Metacast is a podcast app.
It's nothing to do with Meta,the makers of Facebook.
It's much nicer and they've gotsome nice new sharing UX in
their app so you can share bitsof podcasts and stuff.
Part of what they've done is,you know, when you look at the

(01:37:16):
URLs, you actually know what itis that you're likely to get.
The URLs are written in Englishinstead of just some
impenetrable ID numbers.
So that's all very nice.
Metacast is worth a peek at andwe should probably get the
developers of that on.
I think that would beinteresting.

(01:37:37):
Talking about apps, fountain isdoing interesting things.
It says here the bigannouncement will be revealed on
Podcasting 2.0 with Adam Curryand Dave Jones in two weeks.
Well, that's what.

Sam Sethi (01:37:49):
I was told when listening to last Friday,
they're going to be guests onthe show for the big
announcement.

That's definitely what I heard on the
show as well.
So, yes, more information onthat is doubtless going to come
out in a couple of weeks.
Obviously, I know what theannouncement is, but I can't say
anything.
I can't even say it to you, Sam.
So there we go.

Sam Sethi (01:38:10):
Well, no, that's fine and I don't mind, because they
actually revealed on Mastodonwhat it looked like half of the
new UI was on there.
So yes, yeah well, yes.

Well we will see if that's really what they're
announcing.

Sam Sethi (01:38:26):
No, it's great, and I think the more that Fountain
does.
I mean they are leading thecharge on the podcasting 2.0
apps so great It'll beinteresting to see.
They've been secretlysquirreling away for a long
while, so it'll be good to seewhat they've come up with.

Indeed, it'll be fun, and I think one of your
predictions was that hosts willbuild or buy apps.
I think you said yes.
Is that because you've seensomebody else building a?
Is it?
Is it pod home, who arebuilding an app?

Sam Sethi (01:38:59):
yeah, well, I think one of the predictions at the
beginning of the year is, Ithink, the there will be more
requirement of hosts to getfirst party data.
Now we've talked for a coupleof weeks about, you know, john
spurlock's idea of gettingmetadata given to third parties.
We've talked about how,possibly I don't know you know a

(01:39:21):
host could do partnership deals, but maybe another way of doing
it is just go around the appsthemselves altogether and build
your own app.
So, yes, podhome is buildingtheir own native client app.
There were some screenshots ofit flying around on the web
recently.
I don't know any more about itfrom you know, the guys over
there, but Barry hasn't saidanything, particularly given a

(01:39:46):
date or anything.
But yeah, this is quiteinteresting.
I suspect, though, that ifhosts start building apps, I
wonder whether apps will starthosting podcasts.

Ah well, there's a thing the wheels have changed
.
Eh, the wheels have changed.
Now, what's this about JasonCalacanis?

Sam Sethi (01:40:06):
Jason Calacanis.
Oh, yes, your friend JasonCalacanis.
Yes, count your fingers, right,jason?
No, he's lovely, he really islovely.
Yes, I'll say that, says thelawyer.
Um, now, uh, jason wants adamto be on the show with him.
Um, so he actually, to be fairto jason, started talking about

(01:40:30):
podcasting 2.0.
He started talking about thefunding tag, uh, and podcasting.
He even knew about the lit tag,which I, you know.
Again, that's really cool andwe, you and several other people
have been promoting this toAdam and asking him to go and do
it.
So I hope Adam will say thathe's going to go on the show

(01:40:51):
with Jason to go and do a bigpush for Podcasting 2.0.

Yeah, that would be great if he could.
Here's a clip of what Jasonsaid.

Jason Calacanis (01:41:01):
I heard Adam Curry and Chauncey Dvorak on the
no Agenda podcast, which I kindof like.
They're kind of like two.
It's kind of like Walter andStatler, Is those the yeah
Statler and Waldorf.
They're the old Muppets,Statler and Waldorf, the mean
Muppets guys on the balcony.

Yeah, they're the old, mean Muppets of the
back, if you want the who makefun of Kermit and Foz.

But, in fairness, adam Curry's not mean,
but John C Dvorak is very mean,right?
I get what you're saying andAdam Curry is, I think, the
cocaine in his system fromreleased.
I don't know that he didCooking News, I'm just joking,
but a great show and they weretalking about it and I just
happened to.
You know, if I'm having a hardtime sleeping, I put on no

(01:41:38):
Agenda.
It's just like my own personal.

I'm joking, it's just a zing.
The godfather of podcasts.

He is the podfather.
I want to have him on theprogram and he's doing really
interesting things.
I'd love to do a live show withhim.
Podcasting 2.0, podcasting 2.0,he's created this great
standard.
Number one in the standard adonate button.
The donate button is set in theRSS feed and so I've been
giving it to the Spotify peopleand Apple.

(01:42:05):
You guys have to stop breakingpodcast standards.
I want this podcast standard,daniel.
This is a message to you.
Tim Cook, apple, eddie Qmessage to you guys you have to
support standards or I'm goingto be on your asses big time and
I'm going to tell people to useOvercast or other podcast
players as the default player,because I want these standards
Perfect.
The other thing you can set isthe live tag.

(01:42:26):
So if we go live, as I was justmentioning at the top of the
show, we go live on a bunch ofplatforms.
We could pick whatever platformwe like most.
If we're like a YouTube shop,great.
If we havethisweekinstartupscom slash live
or Leo Laporte uses his ownproprietary one, and Twitter,
you just put in the RSS feedwhen you go live and then all
the applications will sendpeople to the same stream.

(01:42:46):
Is this just like an updated?

RSS form specifically for podcasting that
contains the features youmentioned.
Just to make sure that Iunderstand, it's the upgraded
standard.

He keeps adding to the standard and he added to
the standard.
These two absolutely brilliant.
I really do think Adam Curry isa brilliant technologist
because he does his own tech, heedits his show, he uses the
soundboard.
He's kind of like he was alwaysinspired by Howard Stern and he
had an influence on Joe Rogan,adam Curry and Howard Stern.

(01:43:15):
One of the things Howard Sterndid very well was he controlled
the sound deck so he was able todo timing better and all this
stuff.
Adam Curry does all this stuffhimself.
He vibe codes, he does RSSfeeds and he always has.
Which inspired me.
Remember, like I don't know, acouple of months ago I was
getting frustrated and I waslike this, I'm doing my own
lights.
I did my own lights, I did myown camera, I did my settings.

(01:43:41):
I found the pool that cools theback of your camera before my
own tech team found it.
Then I said send it to theseguys Like I'm on it.
I tested three differentcameras, four different light
systems.
I'm on.
And that was because I was likeyou know what Adam Curry's
right If you're the artist andyou want to really be the tip of
the spear, you got tounderstand the brushes, and if a
new brush comes out, you needto try the new brush, you need
to understand it, you need to AB test it.
If a new canvas comes out, youhave to be in there and roll up
your sleeves, shout out to myguy, adam Curry.
There you go.

So the thing that confuses me about some of
that is Jason talking that hewill switch people to Overcast.
Why would you want to go toOvercast when Overcast supports
nothing in terms of podcasting2.0?
Nothing, zero.
There isn't a single featureUnless Jason knows something we
don't know.
Well, yes, maybe.

(01:44:23):
So yes, and interestingly,given that Pocket Casts have
been doing some interestingthings, I've actually switched
away from Overcast.
I'm sorry hell has frozen over.
I know hell has frozen over, andI've switched over to Pocket
Casts, and I was there thinking,you know, I bet the playback

(01:44:45):
engine isn't going to be as good, and the playback engine isn't
as good, but it's nearly as good, but the UI is so so much
better.
Pocket Casts is just about toannounce something new as well,
though, isn't it?

Sam Sethi (01:44:59):
Thankfully, they're adding more and more 2.0
features and the next one on theline is the pod roll.
So they're adding that, butthey're calling it similar shows
, and I think this isinteresting.
It's something I wanted to askyou about, which was language.
How do we position it?
Because I don't call them podroles in True Fans, because

(01:45:23):
unless you're as old as we are,james, no one knows what a blog
role is.
I mean, I've talked to peoplewho are much younger and they
don't know what a blog role is,so adding a pod role made no
sense to them.
It only made sense to us olderpeople who were nostalgic for
the past.

Well, yes, exactly.
So there are a few things here.
What Pocket Casts is launchingis two things.
Firstly, it's launching afeature called Similar Shows,
and Similar Shows will always bethere and they're algorithmic,
as they are in Apple, as theyare in Spotify.
People who like this also likethis.

(01:46:00):
They're calling it similarshows.
So that's what Pocket Casts islaunching.
But if you, as a creator, areusing the pod roll feature the
pod role feature um, then theshows that you recommend will be
top of that list, um, which isexactly the way that it should

(01:46:24):
be.
So, so there will always besomething in there that says
similar shows, Um and um, andanyone will be able to.
You know, jump into um.
You know, jump into that andsee, um, uh, similar shows to
the show that you are currentlylistening to.
But the beauty of this is that,for those podcasters who have
added, you know individual showsusing the pod role tag, then

(01:46:48):
those appear at the top, and itappears at the top in a little
thing which says recommendedshows by the creator, which is
exactly what should be happening.
So, if you want to add, ifyou're hosting with Buzzsprout,
as we are, and if you want toadd some shows to your pod role

(01:47:09):
and you go into the dashboard,you go into podcast info and
then underneath there is a thingwhich is called pod roll, which
explains what it's all about,and we recommend three shows
currently in this feed and, yeah, and so all of those three
shows will actually appear,including one that I'm not
updating anymore, so I shouldprobably get rid of it, but I,

(01:47:31):
um, but I think that that is ais a brilliant way of um getting
around the fact that this won'tbe, uh, supported by absolutely
everybody quite yet.

Sam Sethi (01:47:41):
No, but I, I I okay, so similar shows contains both
the algorithmic and the usergenerated or creator generated
podcasts.

Yes, um, so similar shows will do both, but,
um, if you have, if you haveany shows in your pod role, then
that appears right at the topand under a little subtitle
called Recommended Shows by theCreator, which is really good.
Well, you know what are wecalling this?

(01:48:12):
Because some people are callingit Podroll, which is an awful,
awful name.
Some people are calling it butyou know, it's just a tag, it
doesn't matter.
Some people are calling itother things.
I think I call it shows, youknow, shows that you might like,
or something, and I've noticedit appear in other places as

(01:48:34):
well.
It appear in other places aswell, and I've recommended to
the podcast standards projectthat they stop calling it pod
role and they call it somethinglike creator recommendations or
recommendations for creators, orsomething, because the word pod
role makes absolutely no sense.
Maybe this is one of the thingsthat the PSP could actually

(01:48:55):
work with their members with, ofactually working out okay, what
are we going to call this,what's the right wording for
this, and why don't we all agreeon recommendations for creators
or some form of those words?
And nobody really should seethe phrase pod role in any UX.

Sam Sethi (01:49:14):
I would have thought really should see the phrase pod
role in any UX.
I would have thought Well, whenI was at Microsoft, one of the
things that happened in theearly early days was that the
Excel, word and PowerPoint teamsnever talked together and so
there were different icons forthe same function within
different apps and it was justvery hard for user training.

(01:49:38):
And then some smart aleck overin Seattle decided to create the
Microsoft Ribbon and Office asa single package and they
unified it.
One of the things I do try anddo is look at some of the other
apps and what icons they'reusing, and try and look at those
apps and see icons they'reusing, and try and look at those
apps and see that we're usingthe same apps within TrueFans.

(01:50:00):
And one of the things that wouldbe lovely for the PSP would be
not just the terminology butalso the iconography, and I
think it would be really usefulif we could get a
standardization.
So if somebody was looking for,um, I don't know, uh, the
funding tag icon, it would beuniform across all of our apps

(01:50:23):
so that you know somebody goesoh yeah, no, that that's where
it is.
Okay, I'm just in pocket cast.
Now I'm in popverse.
Oh, no, that's the icon.
I understand it straight away.
It would be lovely, because ifwe have seven different icons
for the same function, I thinkit's just yeah, it's going to
cause problems.

Yeah, and I'm not.
I'm not necessarily sure aboutexactly the same icon for
everybody, but I think certainlyit should look like some money
or it should look like a dollarcoin or something like that, so
that you know it does look thesame sort of thing, in the same
way that a save icon isn'talways and this is a really bad

(01:51:00):
example but a save icon.
When you do see a save icon,it's redrawn by everybody but
it's still obviously a floppydisk, rather bizarrely.
So you know what I mean and but, but yes, I mean, I think I
think all of that you know is isis really important of just
getting you know the gnarly bitsof getting the UX right is

(01:51:24):
something that I think the PSPcould be doing a really good job
with.

Sam Sethi (01:51:29):
They have a meeting in London.
Maybe that'll be one of theitems on the topic list to talk
about.
Now, spotify this is one that Iget more excited about than you
, james, I think.
At the moment they have finallylaunched their interactive AI

(01:51:52):
feature.
Now, a couple of unbeknown tome.
You've actually met DJX, butother than that um, yes, other
than that the the feature andfunction was basically I would
click my DJX in Spotify and itfundamentally went through my
playlist and then gave me whatI'd actually chosen in the past.
So you know it was.
It was nice, it was affirmating, but it wasn't actually very

(01:52:14):
useful and it got very boringafter a while because I knew
what it was exactly going to dowith each playlist.
But they've now added theability to hold down the AI
agent icon and now made itinteractive.
Now it listens a bit likeShazam, a bit like I don't know
what else would be interactivein that way, but it allows you
to now speak to it.

(01:52:35):
Oh yeah, the Netflix one, theNetflix agent AI Now, when you
can say to it I'm in the moodfor something romantic and it'll
find you films.
But I think it's a reallyinteresting use of the AI and
that's just been revealed.
I don't know if you've tried it, if it's in Australia yet, but
Danielette was very excitedabout it.

Yes, I've not tried it quite yet.
I mean the idea of the AI DJtaking music requests.
Well, you know that's nice.
I mean, I've been A.
I bet it'll be rubbish.
I love a band an English band,but they're in France called
Archive.
Imagine talking to a voice tooland saying I'd like to hear a

(01:53:20):
little bit of Archive, and thenit plays me something from you
know 1940 or something.
Yeah, exactly, it never works.
So I think, I think, yeah, butyou know, so we've had voice.
You know those sort of voicethings in the past.
I mean, as I think I said whenwe mentioned this the first time
, I said it's basically copyingwhat YouTube music has made

(01:53:41):
available for quite some time interms of AI.
You know AI playlists and AItools, such as that.
So I'm not very excited by it,but I can see why, you know,
some people are going to beexcited in terms of some of
these tools.
Doubtless, you're going to tellme next that all apps will have

(01:54:05):
some form of AI interface andprobably then tell me that
you're going to be demoing it orsomething.

Sam Sethi (01:54:13):
Well, you might say that, yes, I think that's
exactly what I'm actually goingto say to you.
I think AI is, you know, anddrink if you're playing the AI
game.
I think we've seen it withNetflix, I think you're seeing
here with Spotify.
There will be other platformsand if you go back to what Tom

(01:54:35):
Webster was asking about, whichwas the button of serendipity, I
think this is where you get thebutton of serendipity, so you
can literally press a button andthen use what is a voice medium
anyway on podcasting, to use tofind you stuff, to leave
comments, to get content thatyou want, um.

(01:54:57):
I think this is the way forward.
I think it is the ui interfacethat we will start to look at
now.
Time will tell, but I do thinkabout it.
Daniel ek did an interview inthe new york post imagine the
world where he said where allseven million of the platforms
podcasts now are available in arange of languages, from arabic
to albanian, um.
And he said you know it'spodcasts now are available in a
range of languages, from Arabicto Albanian.
And he says you know it'saffordable now to translate from

(01:55:20):
English to those languagesusing AI.
And I think they've got to dealwith Wondercraft, don't they,
if memory serves me right.

Yes, I think so, Something like that, yeah, so
yeah, no, I you know, I mean Ican certainly get it.
I can get why some people wouldfind that exciting.
I'm not so sure that Inecessarily do, but yes, no
absolutely Fan mail, super chatsand email.

Announcer (01:55:53):
Our favourite time of the week, it's the Pod News
Weekly Review.

Inbox so many different ways to get in touch
with us Fan mail by using thelink in our show notes, super
comments on True Fans, boostseverywhere else, or email, and
we share all of the money thatwe make as well, and some of you
may be able to drink some of itback in London next week as
well, and some of you may beable to drink some of it back in

(01:56:20):
London next week.
We've got a number of commentsfor this show, but this is where
I read comments from the PodNews Daily as well, because I
can't really read those out.

Michael Bayston (01:56:28):
Although I might read, yeah, maybe not
1,000 sats from C Brooklyn.

I've been trying to work out how much 1,000 sats
is in real money, but I'vecompletely failed in working it
out, hang on, I'll tell you, goon, you keep talking, I'll tell
you there you go.
Anyway, somebody called CBrooklyn.
Very nice of you, C Brooklyn,who sends a message to the Pod
news daily saying all thecompanies and topics you cover I

(01:56:55):
would never listen to or use.
This is all many stream junk.
There are more interestingthings being done in podcasting
than this drivel.
So wow, there you go.
Thanks for the thousand sats.

Sam Sethi (01:57:09):
C brooklyn uh, one dollar, 77 aussie dollars.
There you go well, one dollars.

There you go, well, $1.77.
There you go.
So I can afford a chocolate baron that.
So thank you.
Please send more invectiveusing the boost button to the
Pod News Daily.
That's very kind of you.
The Pod News Weekly Review lotsof entertaining stuff.
Neil Velio sends us threemessages, one of them saying he

(01:57:35):
loves the intro about chapters,which is nice.
One of them saying that theApple patent story is outrageous
.
I agree, why is it?
They come off squeaky cleanwhile Spotify comes in for all
the icky rep?
Ah, of course, because Appleare sneaky about it.
He says you said that, not me.
And finally, yeah, becauseyou've got a meeting.

(01:57:57):
So no.
Yes, I've learned to, yes, bitethe tongue on certain things.
And finally, something aboutLibsyn and the CTO.
Neil, thank you so much.
He's speaking at the podcastshow in London.
After slagging it off andbasically saying, oh, I can't

(01:58:18):
get anybody interested in what Ihave to say, All of a sudden I
think he's on three panels orsomething, so it should be
interesting to see him there.
We've got something from Sethwhich I'm not fully sure I
understand.
Seth, which I'm not fully sureI understand.

Sam Sethi (01:58:36):
Yeah, always gives me a smile and it's often
different too.
What a treat I'm just maybe thewhole show.
I think that's a reply tosomebody else in True Fans that
comes through.
Oh, maybe he's replying.

Ah, maybe he's replied to Neil Velio saying I
love the intro about chaptersBecause, yes, that would make
sense, Right?
Yes, Well, there you go.
There's a feature request.
How can you make that moreclear?

Sam Sethi (01:59:06):
Label them as replies .
Yeah, I'm literally sat theregoing with the same with you.
I'm going damn one more featureto add Sugar, yes.

And finally, one from John McDermott 2,969 sats.
If we're going to make videopodcasts and upload them to all
these services, can anyone getSpotify and YouTube to agree on
thumbnail size?
Spotify recommends 1920 by 1080.
Youtube recommends 1280 by 720.
Help me, james, I will help you.

(01:59:35):
John.
Just upload80 by 720.
Help me, james, I will help you, john.
Just upload 1920 by 1080.
Youtube is perfectly happy withthat.
It asks for 1280 by 720, butyou can upload bigger, as long
as it's the correct.
What's the phrase you know?
Width versus height proportion.
That's the phrase I was lookingfor.

Sam Sethi (01:59:58):
I'm so glad.

Thanks for your help there, sam, what was going?

Sam Sethi (02:00:00):
through my mind is not programmable.

Thanks for your help there, sam.
So yes, so yes, just upload1920 by 1080, you're fine.
And then he says also, sam,because this comes from true
fans also, sam, you've made itvery easy to top off a wallet.
Thanks, gents.
Well, thank you, sam, formaking it easy for John to put
more money in his wallets, tothen send it to us.

Sam Sethi (02:00:24):
It's an interesting conversation going on about.
I was listening to the futureof podcasting with Daniel J
Lewis and Dave Jackson and gosh,I want to go on that show and
correct so many of theirmisconceptions.
Um, they boy, oh boy, oh boy,they, they.

(02:00:46):
They are not.
Um, yeah, I was.
I was screaming at the uh, atthe car.
Yes, their their view of howand where we are with value for
value and micro payments.
Um, yeah, they need to change.
Yes, that's all I will say,gents, gosh, that's all I will
say.
Well, yes because it is mucheasier now to do it and it is

(02:01:07):
much simpler and I think it willget even easier with the way.
Oh, yes, it will get mucheasier.
Sorry, I forgot we have a newsupporter.
I forgot to add that in yes,sorry, I just saw you
highlighting it.
I'm going buggered.
No, no, no, sorry.

No, we are all good, and so thank you to all of
those boosts and things.
Use the boost button if yourpodcast app has one or the super
comments button, and if itdoesn't, then you should be

(02:01:50):
upgrading to a new podcast app.
That would be a good thing.
Or, of course, and the onlyreason why I was highlighting
that particular phrase is I wastrying to think of something
that begins with an N for 19.
I'm going Paul Hardcastle everytime.

Sam Sethi (02:02:08):
I hear that number.

Noteworthy 19?
I don't know.
Anyway, yes, we've got a brandnew person and that person,
super kindly, he went to supportPod News, the Pod News Daily
podcast, and very kindly endedup doing that.
Then he sent an email and hesaid Hi, james and Sam, I

(02:02:33):
finally got around to pledgingyou guys a monthly amount
through Patreon.
I wanted to pledge around $10,but only got one option for
around $5.
Patreon's UX is not the best.
Please let me know how I canincrease the amount.
It's not much, but it'ssomething.
I will increase the supportbeyond 10 when I can.
I really appreciate the podcastand the work you do, so thanks

(02:02:53):
for the efforts.
This is from somebody calledElias Elias Strand.
Elias, thank you so much.
I said well, you're supportingthe Pod News newsletter, which
is brilliant.
If you wanted to, why don't youput $5 into the Pod News Weekly
Review as well?
Um, and in fact, he's put 10 umin for us, um, so that's very

(02:03:16):
kind.
Weeklypodnewsnet um, so, uh,that's very kind.
The only thing I know about uhelias is that, uh, he is in uh
norway, uh, because he's paid inuh norwegian, uh crowns.
Um, he did say, as I enjoy thepod news newsletter and the
weekly review both.
I think it's good to supportSam as well, so that he can keep

(02:03:38):
the lights on in his house inPortugal.
I don't want anybody walkingaround in the dark.
He adds he's in Norway, hewould know, so yes so that's,
all nice.
And he works for a tech startupcalled Ukumi.
Ukumi has actually advertisedin the Pod News newsletter

(02:04:00):
before, and yes, so that's agood thing.
And he says by the way, domention the Monsters of Design
podcast by John Sonstag, AdrianCrabtree and John Delman.
They deserve it as well.
Ok, well, we will.

They deserve it as well, okay.

Well, we will do just that.
So, elias, thank you so much.
Tak, tusen, tak is, I believe,the phrase that I should be
saying, unless I've said that inDanish instead of in Norwegian.

Sam Sethi (02:04:27):
You have?
Yes, have I.
Well, I think it is Danish.
Yes, because my favouriteexpression in Danish is ul tak,
which means beer, please.

Yes, there you go.
So, elias, thank you, and thankyou to the other 18 excellent
18 power supporters, muchappreciated.
Weeklypodnewsnet is where to goif you want to join Elias.
So what's been happening foryou this week, sam?
Have you had any excitingparties in large rooms with
strange?

Sam Sethi (02:04:56):
people.
Yes, I somehow got taken to aNazi party book launch that's
the expression.
My wonderful wife works withLord, one of the well, the
ex-chairman of the ConservativeTory party, and he had a book
launch called Red, which was ahit job on Keir Starmer and Jill

(02:05:22):
said do you fancy going alongto a book launch in London?
I said you know it's a Tuesdaynight in London or whatever.
Let's go for it.
I walked into the room and wehad Hartley Brewer, aaron Banks,
nigel Farage, richard Tice andthe rest of the German high
command and I absolutely hatedit, I can't think.

(02:05:47):
And then the whole room wasLord so-and-so or Baroness
so-and-so, and it was.
I mean, they were like bees tohoney around Nigel Farage.
I'm just thinking what am Idoing here?
So we had a couple of glassesof champers and I took off very
sharply and you stood on a tableand you told them all off.

(02:06:10):
Well, can I point out as theonly brown person in the room?
I don't think I was the mostpopular person in the room
either.

Good Lord.
Yes, the book is called RedFlag, the Uneasy Advance of Sir
Keir Starmer.
It's all about the currentprime minister in the UK by Lord
Michael Ashcroft.
I wouldn't recommend it because, who knows, sorry, I called him
Michael Ashcroft.
He is of course Lord Ashcroft.

(02:06:37):
Kcmg, pc, pc.
How hilarious.
He's got two PCs after his nameand he used to work at the
Conservative Party, anyway.

Sam Sethi (02:06:49):
No, to make matters worse, James, his next book is
with Nigel Farage.

Oh, brilliant.
Well, he's also written a bookabout Angela Rayner, called Red
Queen.
He's written a book about KemiBadnok, called Blue Ambition.
He's written a book about RishiSunak, called All to Play For
the Advance of Rishi Sunak, goodLord, yes.
And he's written somethingabout Boris johnson's wife one

(02:07:18):
of them, anyway, uh, and so onand so forth.
Gosh, he writes a lot, doesn'the?
Um?

there's a thing anyway, yeah.

So apart from apart from that, have you been?

Sam Sethi (02:07:29):
and then, and then the next night I went to see my
sister-in-law, who is now thenew mayor of Windsor and Maiden
in Royal.

Borough.
Honestly, it's how the otherhalf live.

Sam Sethi (02:07:44):
Yes, very good, I thought that would tickle you
Very good.
Yes, so what's happened for you, james Gosh?

Well, I was on a podcast this week.
It's the Media Roundtable andit's all focused on what a
podcast is.
It's a conversation that I hada couple of months ago now.
Larry Rosen is also on it.
Nick Giorgio from SimpliSafe,who's been advertising on
podcasts forever, was on there.
I amazed everybody by sayingthat Robin Williams was the

(02:08:13):
first podcaster, which isactually true, although nobody
really wants to know that.

Sam Sethi (02:08:22):
So, yes, All I will say to you James is nanu nanu.

Nanu nanu, indeed, so the Media Roundtable
is that podcast which is there.
It's been lovely being homehere for a week because, of
course, last week I was inCanada, and what I've learned
about Cathay Pacific, let metell you, is that all of their
fancy lounges which I can getinto are lovely, if you can find

(02:08:48):
them.
But what they've basically doneis they've got this big sort of
black door with a logo which isalso in black, so you can walk
past the Cathay Pacific Loungein Vancouver Airport, for
example, three times withoutknowing it's there.
So, yeah, so that was fun, butI eventually got in and got some

(02:09:12):
free noodles, so that was allgood.
I'm looking forward to landing.
I think I'm landing very earlyon Sunday morning in London and
I've got basically a free day onSunday before doing a bit of
work on Monday, and then themadness begins Tuesday,
wednesday, thursday of next weekwith the podcast show.

(02:09:33):
So looking forward to beingthere and to seeing a bunch of
my English friends.

Sam Sethi (02:09:38):
Well, I've got a 25 mile walk on Sunday so I won't
be around.
But there's a number of peopleand we can talk off air James,
who would like to meet you onthe Monday.

Ah, uh, oh.
Well, I look forward to that.
I'm looking forward to alsohaving a beer with Clean Feed
with one of the marks from CleanFeed on the Monday evening,
which would be nice, given thatwe use Clean Feed to record this
show, and that's why this showsounds so excellent.
Well, that's possibly one ofthe reasons.

(02:10:08):
So there we go, and that's itfor this week.
All of our podcast storiestaken from the Pod News Daily
newsletter, which you shouldsubscribe to it's free at
podnewsnet you can support thisshow by streaming to that.

Sam Sethi (02:10:21):
You can give us feedback using Buzzsprout's fan
mail link in our show notes.
You can send us a super commentor a boost or become a power
supporter, like the noteworthy19 at weeklypodnewsnet.

Our music is from TM Studios.
Our voiceover is Sheila D, ouraudio is recorded using Clean
Feed, we edit with Hindenburgand we're hosted and sponsored
by Buzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.
Get updated every day.
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News Weekly Review will returnnext week.
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