Greg Glenday Reveals How Acast is Betting on Creator-First Podcasting

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:00):
The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters the last
word in podcasting news.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Sethi.

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

Greg Glenday (00:17):
We've always thought about the creator in the
center.
How they reach their audiencesis up to them.

James Cridland (00:23):
Greg Glenday, the CEO of Acast, on the
company's plans to keep growing,plus more AI slop and the cost
of advertising in pocket casts.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout, with the tools,
support and community to ensureyou keep podcasting, start
podcasting, keep podcasting withbuzzsproutcom.
From your daily newsletter, thePod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi (00:47):
Now, james, I was going to start this week's show
talking about YouTube'sannouncements, but I think,
given what they've announced, Iwant to finish the story off
from last week about the AI slop, because it will lead nicely
into what YouTube's announced.
But so I've called this oneQuiet Please.
I wish they would, because theQuiet Please network that we

(01:09):
reported on last week has beenputting out a load of episodes
AI-generated 3,000-plus, I think.
What they put out Now on theback of that, matt Deegan,
friend of the show, said mybiggest surprise about the
Inceptionai crowd, which is thecompany behind it all, is what a
poor job they've done with it.
Mark Francis again said they'veinflated the numbers and Eric

(01:31):
Newsom said it's all a steamingpile of hot garbage.
Now, that was last week, andthen on the back of that they
did an interview in Australia.
What happened there?

Yes, well, they were mentioned in Media Watch,
which is a very well-known andvery well-respected show.
Down here it's on the TV.
You can watch it on YouTube andon ABC iView.
And, yes, they ended upfocusing on these AI-generated
you know, unsupervisedAI-generated shows, and what

(02:05):
they turned around and said wasthat Inception Point AI was that
some of their content is onlyat a kindergarten drawings stage
was the comment that they made.
They then taken that and copiedand pasted the comments that
they made to the ABC and haveactually made a blog post out of
it, and it's a very combativeblog post as well, really

(02:25):
doubling down and saying youdon't understand what is art
anyway and you know, and allthis kind of stuff, saying
clearly, we've hit a nerve.
Linton Besser, who's thepresenter of the ABC's Media
Watch, said that he would ratherlisten to a leaf blower at dawn
on a Sunday.
Ouch, that's a very Australianthing to say.

Sam Sethi (02:47):
Yes, isn't it illegal actually?
No, that's Switzerland.
It's illegal to have a afterfive o'clock a leaf blower in
Switzerland on a Saturday.

Well, I can also tell you it's illegal to have
it going off before seven in themorning here in Australia as
well.
So, yes, yes, there you go, butno, I'm really surprised.
So this is Janine Wright, whoused to be COO of Wondery, chief
operating officer of a companythat was so poorly operated they

(03:18):
had to fire 110 people, so 110families have been affected by.
You know, I'm sure, lots ofreasons, but you know clearly,
if you're chief operatingofficer of a company, you're
hardly going to be blameless,and so she moves from that.
You'd have thought that keepingyour head down for a while
would be a good idea, but nojumping into this AI slop

(03:40):
generation tool.
One of my favorites that theabc ended up pointing out was
one show which is about thehistory of the city of of sydney
, which all of a sudden startstalking about sydney sweeney and
the history of sydney sweeney.
It's just bad.
Bad stuff, isn't?
It was the bit that.

Sam Sethi (04:01):
I read which said it uses unsupervised AI to generate
thousands of podcast episodesof Sydney Story, and if that's
the point of them to eithermonetize around any content with
ads then clearly you know thisis going to eventually end up
failing because no one's goingto be listening, right?

(04:21):
Why would you listen to thisstuff?

Well, they argue that people are listening, and
their argument is we get, youknow, 20 or 30 people listening
to any one of the shows that weput out and so therefore it is
valued by people.
What I would say back to themis that that's not quite the
case.
You have 20 or 30 downloads.
Is that that's not quite thecase?
You have 20 or 30 downloadswhich aren't necessarily listens

(04:46):
, which aren't necessarily humanbeings actually having a listen
, and those human beings whohave listened have very clearly
realised that it's AI slob.
If you look at any of thereviews, then you can very
clearly see that they do notcome out well.
So I think the argument thatthey are trying to make what is
art anyway and actually you knowwe've we've had lots of of

(05:09):
requests for, for new shows isis is, I think, missing the
point that actually that's nothow the thing works anyway so,
james, let's move on to whatyoutube announced this week.

Sam Sethi (05:22):
They've been talking about YouTube paying out $100
billion to creators and artists,but they also announced a
number of new services.
What did they announce?

They've announced all kinds of exciting
things, so one of the thingsthat they're doing is
automatically making shorts fromlong-form podcasts, which is
something that Spotify has beendoing and something that
Headliner will do for you aswell.
They're doing some cleverthings with live streams so you
can stream both in vertical andin horizontal mode at the same
time, which is very exciting,but I think the most exciting
thing for podcasters isdynamically inserting

(05:54):
sponsorship messages.
So now this sounds veryexciting.
It's something that we haven'thad on YouTube, but we have had
in terms of podcasting, so it'llbe nice when they get around to
launching that.
But my understanding is that Imean we reported that in March.
My understanding is thatthey've announced it, but that
it probably won't be availablefor most people until next year

(06:15):
at the earliest.

Sam Sethi (06:16):
Now, you like the idea of that.
I'm scared about the idea ofthat because it goes back to the
AI slops.
So there's a couple of thingsthey announced.
Speech to song is the abilityfor you to talk some words and
then, using their Lyra 2, googleDeepMinds, ai advanced music
model, will turn that into asong, which is a nightmare, and

(06:40):
then you can put that out.
And then, on top of that,they've got an AI product tagger
which then looks at the video,tags the products within that

(07:09):
video and then brings up thatpop-up that you just and then
using dynamically insertedsponsorship messages because
they can use the AI producttagger.
So you just mentioned tons ofproducts.
Bring up the pop-up and thenchuck it out the front door and
see what sticks.

Yes, I think you could well be right there, and
obviously YouTube is alreadycracking down on the amount of
AI slot that they have in theirplatform.
It's not monetizable if theyspot that you're using it.
So hopefully that will also bethe case here.
But yeah, I mean, I would muchrather to be honest, I'd much
rather that Inception Point AIwere chucking loads of crap into

(07:41):
YouTube than chucking loads ofcrap into the entire podcast
ecosystem.
But that's a slightly differentthing.
But yes, I'm sure that some ofthese tools can be used for bad
as well as good.
I mean, that whole song thingspeech to song sounds as if
that's a feature that somebodyhas been told you've got to use
AI because otherwise it'll lookbad.
So please can you shoehorn useof ai into this somewhere?

(08:04):
And I I suspect that that'sbasically as far as that's gone
well, yeah, and I think alsothey're trying to replicate
tiktok.

Sam Sethi (08:11):
You know where you go , automatically making shorts
out of long form.
I mean, that's what, uh diaryof a ceo does?
You know?
10, 20 shorts out of a threehour show.
But the biggest hit this weekon TikTok is a Brazilian song
which, by the way, is super rude, but it is super catchy as well
, and that's totally AIgenerated.

(08:33):
And OnlyFans have just putthemselves up for sale for eight
billion dollars, because theyrealize that the content that's
going through OnlyFans now is AIgenerated, or the majority of
the stuff that they see now isbecoming AI generated, and this
is reported in Forbes.
This is not, you know, somebackstreet rag.

(08:55):
So what you're seeing is thistsunami of AI from inception
through to music, ai frominception through to music,
through to explicit contentbeing thrown out and churned out
, actually at a rate that Idon't know anyone can cope with,
and I assume it's all beingdone because monetization can be

(09:17):
done on the back of it.
20 people listen to it or twopeople listen to it, whatever it
may be.
It's scary, isn't it?

It is a bit scary, isn't it?
And you know you would hopethat YouTube have the you know
the systems in place to makesure that their services isn't
just going to be full with thatkind of stuff.
But yeah, it's a big issue andI think it comes back to you
know conversations that I'vebeen having this week around

(09:44):
what technology allows you to dois not necessarily the same
thing as what human beings wouldlike you to do, and just making
sure that you know you'veactually got decent content
there, which is worthwhilecontent, which is interesting,
useful stuff, is an importantside of it as well, and if we're
not careful, we end up withservices that are totally

(10:05):
useless because they've beenoverrun with AI, bots and things
like that.

Sam Sethi (10:09):
Yeah, I mean Yuri Naval, who's one of my favourite
commentators, has talked about.
In a world of AI, we need morehuman connection and I think
that's going to be where wegravitate to as humans.
But I also worry that we'redoing the old man thing which is
oh, it's radio, it's awful, youknow, and then you know

(10:30):
decrying new technology, whenactually a generation or two
down the road from us willactually just say, yeah, that's
how we consume content.

Yes, but I think it's absolutely fair for us not
to say that all use of AI isbad.
It isn't, it absolutely isn't.
But that unfettered use of AIwith no human involvement is not
going to make for right now atleast, is not going to make for
great content, and all of theevidence is there that that is

(11:02):
the case.
So you can turn around and callus lazy Luddites all you like.
What the Luddites were angryabout wasn't the machines.
It was the impact that it wouldhave on the quality of the
products that the machines weremaking and what it also meant
for the quality of life of thepeople who made them.

(11:24):
That's what they were concernedabout.
It wasn't a knee-jerk reactionagainst the machine.
It was a bit more nuanced and Ithink we should bear that in
mind.

Sam Sethi (11:35):
Now Listen Notes has been very active, I guess, in
removing 4,000-plus podcastsfrom its database.
Since December last year it'sremoved over 29,000 plus
podcasts from its database.
Since December last year it'sremoved over 29,000 podcast
shows.
The data is available onlineand in fact has an API which you
can plug into which we'relooking at doing.

(11:56):
It also has a CSV file whichyou can then look at and map
that against your database.
So again, multiple ways thatyou know ListenNote's done a
great job of tagging.

Yes.

Sam Sethi (12:08):
But I go back to the conversation we've had for a
couple of weeks now.
James, you know, do we need anAI tag?
But I think you said six monthsago it won't come from the
podcasting 2.0 community becauseit'll probably be Spotify or
YouTube that create the contentlabelling.
That we will have to thenfollow on the backup.
But someone's got to start atsome point.

But I mean, I think you know, if you were to
read the blog post fromInception Point AI talking about
how what they're doing isactually very full of art and
very useful material and stuff,that's exactly not what they are
going to do.
They're not going tovoluntarily flag the fact that
their stuff is made with AI.
So you know, I mean, I alwayscome back with all of this stuff

(12:53):
and say it relies on honestyfrom the creator and it relies
on acting in good faith.
Neither of those things havebeen very clear from inception
point AI who've turned aroundand, you know, slagged people
off that don't think that theylike what they're doing.
So I'm still a bit dubious asto whether or not anybody would

(13:16):
actually voluntarily mark theirmaterial as AI.
And also it's more complicatedthan that.
You know the Canna Roga, sharkMedia stuff quite a lot of that
is very good, good content.
It just happens to be voiced byan AI voice, but does that
change?
You know what that content isin comparison to the Inception
Point AI stuff.

Sam Sethi (13:37):
So no, no, no, no, I don't think it does.
No, the point, the point ischoice.
I think if it's labelled AI andyou then choose to listen to it
, that is your choice.
Have produced One of those.

Has had human beings going through, checking
everything, making sure thateverything is good, and one of

(14:12):
those hasn't.
You know.
So there's a massive difference.
So a blunt tick box of doesthis have AI in it is not, is
not going to, is not going towork really.
So I this is why I'm I'm I'myet to be convinced that that's
necessarily a plan.

Sam Sethi (14:22):
Yeah, but I go to the same point on explicit tags.
Right, you know someone's rudeword is another person's
acceptable, but both may betagged explicit, right, it's
choice.
I think there are AI watermarksthat are available and again,
it may be come down to the toolcreators to actually add AI
watermarks in.
I don't think you're going toget like King Canoe.

(14:46):
You're not going to stop the AIslop wave right, it's coming,
and the only thing you can do isprovide listeners and people
with the tools to makesubjective choices about whether
this is something they want tomark as never to be heard again
or something that they go.
Actually, I really liked that.
Yeah, I'll have more of it,please.

Indeed, and I think we need to be clever about
the way that we do that.
Something that looks for AIwatermarks will ding this show
as being AI, because that ladythat says the Pod News Weekly
Review uses chapters at thebeginning is an AI voice.
That is going to be.
That is a very different, youknow, and obviously when you
have a look at our show notes,for example in the podcast apps,

(15:28):
those normally have beenproduced either wholly or
partially by an AI tool thatBuzzsprout gives us.
So, again, I think we just needto be careful.
But, yes, I do agree thatdisclosures are really important
here, and just making it clearwhat you're actually doing to a
to a creator is an importantthing now related to youtube.

Sam Sethi (15:52):
Vimeo has been acquired by bending spoons james
for 1.38 billion.
Who are bending spoons?

bending spoons are the.
You know, when anybody saysthat venture capitalists are
dreadful and they will buycompanies and then they will put
their prices up threefold andthey'll stop investing in those
companies at all and justsqueeze the companies dry.
That's bending spoons for you.
Bending spoons own Evernote.
Do you remember?

(16:20):
Evernote used to have a verybig free tier and loads of
people used it and then all of asudden it doesn't anymore and
nobody's using it anymore,because Bending Spoons bought it
and almost doubled the pricingfor that.
They've bought StreamYard anddoubled that monthly pricing for
StreamYard Meetup they own,tripled the price for that.

(16:41):
They also own WeTransfer.
They also own video hosting andstreaming platform, brightcove,
and they've jumped in andthought we can make some money
out of Vimeo as well.
I think it's very sad, becausewhat you can very clearly see
from the bending spoons whopurchase these companies is that
they stop any work knowplatforms at all and it's just

(17:05):
keeping it going and squeezingit dry of any of any money.
So that, I think, means thatVimeo, which was essentially
YouTube's biggest competitor interms of you know, in terms of a
place to put video, I thinkVimeo will will be sort of going
away as that, and so it givesmore power to the YouTube world,

(17:29):
because YouTube won't have abig competitor anymore.

Sam Sethi (17:33):
Yeah, and StreamYard used to be one of my favourite
products.
Oh well, there we go NowAudioBoom very similar.
It's one of these things I keepseeing on Pod News Daily James
companies announcing how muchmoney they've paid to creators.
We've got, you know, youtubeannouncing 100 billion.
We've got Patreon announcing 2billion.

(17:55):
We've now got audio boom sayingthey've paid more than 325
million to creators worldwide.
That's a lot of money thatcreators are making around the
world, it seems.
But you know where is all thismoney flowing from?

It is a lot of money.
I mean from Audioboom's pointof view.
It is mostly, of course, audioadvertising, although,
interestingly, about 13% ofAudioboom's revenue is coming
from video these days.
So 60% of Audioboom's creatorsproducing video podcasts, by the
way, which I thought wasinteresting.
So yeah, you know Audioboomdoing some.

(18:30):
You know they're a pluckylittle company.
They keep on growing andgrowing and growing.
We speak to Stuart, Last friendof the show.
Every now and again He'll be onin a couple of weeks.

Sam Sethi (18:39):
actually, He'll be on maybe next week.

Oh well, there you go, so yeah, so you can very
clearly see that there's somegood stuff coming out of all of
that.
But yeah, you know another bignumber and I suspect that we
will see.
You know, obviously, patreonhas a big number that they go
out and talk about.
I would guess that we will seemore big numbers from Spotify
towards the end of the year aswell, in terms of how much money
they have shared withpodcasters as well.

Sam Sethi (19:06):
Now one other platform that we know about,
acast, has got a new CEO, gregGlenday.
They've also announced a numberof products.
They've acquired.
A number of companies have hada couple of successful quarters.
I thought I'd catch up withGreg first of all and ask him
congratulations, first of of all, on becoming the new CEO.
But why have things changed atACAST?

Yeah, so I've been with ACAST now two and a half
years.
I started as chief businessofficer until a few months ago
where I moved into the CEO role.
In my old role I actually hadthe managing directors rolled up
to me, along with content andsales.
So this is really a slightchange internally that we sort
of lifted the tent.
We're focused on alignment,moved product and engineering a

(19:51):
little closer to commercial andI think for our next decade
we're just trying to get reallygood alignment for the future.
So a little bit of anoperational strategic shift.

Sam Sethi (20:00):
Nice.
Now the biggest market forACAST since you came on board
has now been the US market.
Is the US now the biggest focusfor Acast going forward?

It's funny, it's a little bit like the dog that
chases the car.
It's always been a really bigfocus.
I think when you try and launcha beachhead in some place like
the US, it's not easy.
You know.
Especially a company born inStockholm really grew and took a
lot of market share and grewthe business in Europe and then
to move to the United States andtry and sort that out after the
fact it might be easier to gothe other direction.

(20:33):
So I'm really proud of the team.
I mean they've been working atthis before I got here.
So the plan was always obviouslythere's more upside in the US.
So the plan was eventually itshould become your largest
market if you're doing thingsright, and we're really excited.
We were founded in Stockholm,where we've got a lot of great
people engineering hub for us.
Uk became our biggest marketand really is our centerpiece

(20:57):
for our European expansion, andnow the US being our largest
market.
I wouldn't say that it's anymore important than anything
else, but it's nice to havethose three beachheads that we
now have.
That was always the plan whenACAST was launched.

Sam Sethi (21:09):
Now you've had a good Q1, Q2, and you are EBITDA
profitable.
When can we expect ACAST tobecome fully profitable?

Sam, that's a great question If you think
about podcasting.
Right, Podcasting is 20 yearsold, Acast is 10 years old and
to build a rapidly scalingcompany to get where we've
gotten, obviously at some pointit's like, okay, how do you pay
back those shareholders?
How do you become profitable?
So we're really proud of that.
I know in an adjusted EBITDAnumber it's still profitable.

(21:40):
So we're guiding the three to5% adjusted.
We don't guide much further outthan that.
But once you become profitable,as you know, it's not a
100-meter dash where youcollapse after the finish line.
You have to keep doing it.
So everything we're doing nowis around growing the top line,
being strategically fit for thefuture for podcasting and what
that's becoming, and doing itwith discipline so that we can

(22:00):
remain profitable.

Sam Sethi (22:02):
Now rumor in the market is you're looking to
become a full listing on theNASDAQ.
Is that something that ACOS isaiming for, this in 26?

Yeah, we're exploring the possibility of a
change to the NASDAQ, theStockholm main list, which I
think anybody who's looked atthe company.
That would be a natural nextstep.
So no announcements.
We will come to you first whenwe have one, but we are
exploring it, of course, so noannouncements.

Sam Sethi (22:25):
We will come to you first when we have one, but we
are exploring it, of course.
Now one of the things that itappears to be companies are
doing is putting out metricsSome call it vanity metrics as
well about how much they'repaying the creators that are
using their platform.
Does ACAST have a nice numberthat you can put out there into
the podosphere?

We do and it's something that we've been doing
for quite a while.
In aggregate, 10 year oldcompany, we've paid out over
half a billion dollars to ourcreators.
So I know those don't mean much, other than you've been around
a while and you know we reallydo think about the creators.
But that's a number that we'vebeen putting out quarterly for
quite a while and we're reallythrilled that it's at the level
of 500 million US dollars, soreally exciting.
But, like listens, these aremetrics that kind of give you a

(23:06):
direction for a company, but notoverly precise.

Sam Sethi (23:16):
Now you opened up a lovely new studio in London had
video capability.
I hear you're going to beopening up a new studio as well
in New York with videocapability.
So where is video within theACAST strategy?

Yeah, I think video is really important to the
future of podcasting, thefuture of ACAST.
I think its share ofconversation in the industry is
probably a little too high.
I think there's a bit ofhysteria, a lot of our creators
when we say they're asking aboutvideo, they're looking for
consultation, they're lookingfor advice.
Our belief is podcasting is sounique.

(23:45):
I think a lot of people thinkwe're at the mountaintop.
I think we're at base camp.
I really really do.
Even though it's 20 years old,the industry is just starting to
mature, like we're reallystarting to answer some of the
objections that the blue chipbrands and big creators have had
.
So as we get more professional,this stuff is really going to
sort itself out.
So when I think about video, Ithink about each creator is

(24:11):
different and I think if yourshow does not work unless
someone is sitting on a couchwith their eyes glued to the
television, the show does notwork.
Otherwise that may not be apodcast in the future.
I think that might be somethingelse.
But for us, if you have a showthat maybe is enhanced with
video, or there's some someguests where it is better, or
there's going to be some visualpresentations, that's fair game
and we've always thought aboutthe creator in the center, and

(24:31):
then how they reach theiraudiences is up to them, and we
really want to empower thecreator.
Some of them do live events,some of them do daily shows.
Some of them need to do videos.
Some of them do socialpromotion.
Some of them only use video forpromotion but not for the
episodes.
So we want again the powers inthe hands of the creator with
podcasting.
That's what makes us special.
There aren't network executivesgreenlighting things and

(24:52):
messing with your strategy.
It's you as the creator andyour audience.
So it's not up to us to get inthe way if you want to reach
them via video.
So ACAST is committed to makingsure that we focus on the
creator and however they reachthat audience.
So that means partnerships withall the video platforms and
being able to enable ourcreators to reach their
listeners.
If video is video, we'll helpthem.

(25:13):
That's why we've got I thinkit's four or five studios around
the world now that are allvideo enabled.
So that's just a natural partof what we do if the creator
wants it.

Sam Sethi (25:21):
So Spotify and YouTube are asking all of the
hosting companies to provide thefeeds without DAI right
advertising light.
Are you seeing more host-readadvertising then, led by what
you're producing for the RSSfeed?

Yes and no.
I think you know it's hard.
Again, this is a good problemand no one's going to have any
sympathy for the industry.
But we have multiple tailwinds,which is a good problem.
But I also know that sometimesit makes you feel like you're
really smart when really it'sjust the wind behind you is
blowing and revenue is cominginto our sector.
So on the transactional side,ads is really growing because

(26:00):
programmatic DSPs and ourself-serve platform marketplaces
are all growing because peopleare coming into the space for
ads and for buying podcasting atscale.
But then what's kind ofespecially in the U S, the
people that built podcasting.
We love our partners, likebetter help and all of the
performance direct responseagencies that really put
podcasting on the map in the U S.

(26:20):
So we won't turn our backs onthem.
But omni-channel and ads andbecoming more sophisticated is
what's going to help grow theindustry.
One at a time buying shows, oneat a time with live reads.
We want to make that muchquicker and easier to do, so
we're not focused on one or theother.
Again, our job shouldn't be tosort of influence either the
creator or the brands, If thebrands are looking to

(26:41):
participate in theseconversations that the creators
have with their audiences.
Sometimes that's going to makemore sense with a sponsorship,
Sometimes it's an ad, Many timesit's both, I think deep dives,
deep integrations into shows,and then with long tail ads that
bring scale to that plan.
I think that's how podcastingbecomes a place that the Fortune
500 companies insist on themedia plan.

(27:03):
It's not a nice to have.
It'll become a base part of themedia plan.

Sam Sethi (27:07):
You've got a strong background in advertising.
That's where you came from.
I believe, and I've heard frommany people within the podcast
industry, that we aren't talkingthe same language as the
advertising agencies.
Now you've released recentlysomething called the Podcast
Academy.
Is this aimed at getting who tolearn the language of the other
side?

(27:27):
So is it aimed at theadvertising agencies to
understand the podcast world, oris it aimed at the podcasters
to understand the advertisingagency world?

It's open for all.
But I will tell you, you know,we're over a thousand people
have completed the course and Iwill say we're not even at a
hundred percent of A-casters.
So externally, we're seeingeveryone from media agencies,
creative agencies, some creators, producers.
We had an agent go through likea talent agent, so they're all
getting smarter.
So one of the things we try anddo, sam, again, when we're at

(27:58):
this kind of fledgling industryand again I can't say that
enough, but I think we're reallyjust getting started we
industry and again I can't saythat enough, that I think we're
really just getting started wetry and write down the
objections we get.
You run into problems all thetime with the new industry.
What are the whole coast saying, what are our creators saying?
Then those objections and thoseissues and those obstacles
become our to-do list.
It's really simple.
This is another case of theadvertisers coming to us,

(28:22):
particularly the smaller ones.
You know like we look at ourabandoned cart, if you look at
our self-serve marketplace, ifyou look at essentially the
abandoned cart, somebody whoregisters, logs in, puts in
their information, puts in acredit card, even they go all
the way and then they don't booka campaign.
So when we reach out to them,they start giving us their
issues and three main things wedon't really have good creative.

(28:43):
Okay, we've solved that.
We now do that for them.
We've automated that.
We've got some AI tools thatare working on that.
We don't know what shows to buy?
Okay, we now have smartrecommendations where you can
put in natural language, talkabout who your target audience
is, who are your customers, andwe will spit out a great
recommendation that may not bethe types of shows you were
thinking about, right, using ourpod chaser.
So we've made all those thingseasier.

(29:04):
And then, finally, we realizedthat a lot of people don't know
what they're doing and they geta little confused by the jargon
and it's a little different.
This isn't like buying localtelevision or print.
So we decided to just solvethat problem ourselves.
We spent several monthsbuilding out Acast Academy 101
and 201.
And I think they're great.
They're very impartial, they'renot Acast heavy, it's about the

(29:26):
industry and just basics foreveryone.
So it's been very well received.

Sam Sethi (29:29):
And just to be clear, it's free is right, because I
joked with James what a greatway for people to learn how to
use ACAS and then charge, and Ithought LP is onto a new revenue
stream.
And then James put me right, itbe right, it's actually free,
so yes.

Yes, maybe the graduate level will charge for
it, but these are free.

Sam Sethi (29:45):
Now international markets.
How are you doing across thosespaces?

Yeah, really well, that's one of our fastest
growing.
You know it's a two-sidedmarketplace and when we go into
a market we've got to go findthe content and then go find the
supply and the demand and it'sreally chicken and egg so it's
not easy to break in.
So our international rest ofthe world team, they're really,
really strong.
So we've been watching demandcome out of Singapore, for
example.
You start with programmatic andyou keep your eye on it.

(30:10):
You know, you collect somecontent, then you look at
perhaps a partner manager or apartner company that we could
work with, then maybe a managingdirector, an individual
contributor in that country, andthen you open an office.
So kind of like following thatsort of logical plane.
We see a lot of interest inJapan, asia.
We've got a couple of people inSingapore.
They're doing a lot of businessaround the world.

(30:31):
So the really cool thing aboutpodcasting and what I think is
special for Acast is our globalfootprint.
And I think People think abouttraditional media as, oh, I'm a
creator in Australia, so myaudience is in Australia and
that's how it worked for 50years.
Well, now RSS, these areborderless creators.
Tony and Ryan is one of thebiggest shows.

(30:52):
They do a show five days a weekin Australia and about a
quarter of their listening is inother ACAST markets and now we
monetize that.
They're a top 200 show in theUS and they come here once a
year.
So the fact that we can takethat and say you know what?
We now have impressions andmonetizable inventory in other
markets, that's really great forcreators.
They shouldn't be forced to gofind partners everywhere.

Sam Sethi (31:15):
So James is talking about in Pod News Daily Brazil
being a massive marketopportunity that most people are
missing, mexico being anotherone, and I think India is a
massive one that I think peopleare missing as well because it's
such an English languagespeaking country.
Where do you sit with those?
Have you got footprints inBrazil and India, for example?

Not in India yet, but we have some listening.
I don't want to say where weare in that continuum, but we
are working on that continuum Ijust described, in India for
sure.
And then we have an office inMexico City that focuses on
business in Mexico, but that'sbecoming our springboard into
Latin America.
So, again, we're working on allof these Any place that has

(31:55):
listening.
We're thinking about contentfirst.
In the chicken and the eggscenario, content first and then
driving revenue for thatcontent.

Sam Sethi (32:02):
Nice.
Now, one of the things thatAcast did very well in the early
days was it transcribed everypodcast that you had in your
platform and you use that foryour contextual advertising
platform.
But one of the things thatfrustrated me the most was that
you didn't release thosetranscripts with the podcast in
the RSS feed and I was like, oh,come on, ACOS, you've got this

(32:23):
great content, Please dosomething with it.
And up until now I'd say ithasn't been something that
you've released.
Will you support the podcasting2.0 transcript?
Apple's got on board.
Many other companies now aredoing it.
Is that something that ACOSwill do in the future?

Yeah, so as a matter of fact we have released.
You know again, our belief isthat data that belongs to the
creator you know ACAS sort of wecan provide it but that should
be up to them what they do withit, and I think that's an
important part of our ethos.
But we did recently startreleasing in the creator hub.
The creators have access.
So we've started with 2000.
Creators have access to theirtranscripts that they can do

(33:01):
with what they choose, and we'regoing to be rolling that out to
everybody.
So the creators will have theoption.
We're not necessarily going topublish it from the center,
we're not, you know, b2c,necessarily for ACAST, but the
creators will be able to do that.
So we think that's the bestpath forward.
And then of course, we do usePodchaser has 24,000 shows that
they do daily transcription.

Sam Sethi (33:28):
And we use that data to better inform the campaigns
and things like that as well.

Now you acquired a company a little while back
called wonder media.
What was that all about?
Yeah, so when I think about acast, we know like to keep it
really simple.
We've got our creators, who welove, right, and then we've got
their audiences, which arereally important to us, and
those are two different things.
I think there's a lot of brandsearly on they say they want to
buy a creator, but really whatyou're saying is you want access
to that audience.
So if we can find other ways toget that audience, so we have
the creator, we have theaudience, and then we have the

(33:51):
brands, and the brands are thirdconstituent, and then we use
all of our technology in themiddle to make those things work
better together.
So as we think about ourstrategy, everything sort of
hangs off of that, you know.
Is it good for the creator?
Does it make it easier for thecreator to reach their audience?
Does it make it easier forthose brands to participate in
those conversations?
So you know, as we think aboutthat, that's really going to be

(34:13):
our driving strategy foranything going forward.
Is it better for the creator?
Is it good and will it helpthem reach their constituents?

Sam Sethi (34:21):
So will you spend more of your cycles on branded
content.
Corporate companies.

Yeah, so in that ecosystem, wonder Media fits in
that, you know.
So there it's 25 people.
They produce original content.
They do world-class brandedcontent.
It was a piece that was missingfrom our ecosystem.
We were very mechanical as ahost and now we can do things
like branded content for ourpartners.
Wonder Media came with somegreat relationships, but mostly

(34:49):
what they do that's really goodis world-class production.
So the fact that we can bringthis to bear for advising our
creators or our advertisers thebig you know, they do a lot of
work for Nike and Pfizer and alot of their audio content
that's on demand, so it justadded a new rich layer in that.
That's enabled us to do biggerthings with big brands.
As big brands say well, whatshould we do?
How do we want to think aboutthat?
We now have creativestrategists, producers.

(35:11):
We can help them build thatstuff.
Again, going back to my earlierpoint that that was an obstacle
for us.
So we kept hearing this as anobstacle.
Let's remove the obstacle andmake it easy.

Sam Sethi (35:21):
Patreon is putting out numbers.
You talked about putting outhalf a billion, which is an
amazing number, but Patreon arethrowing numbers around of 2
billion in the last 10 years forsubscriber-based content and
you know there's a lot of pushnow for companies like Substack
as well.
Are ACOS going to get intoprivate feeds and

(35:46):
subscriber-based content as well?
Is that going to be a revenuestream that you will push?

heavily onto right now.
That's not a focus for us.
You know, for us we've leanedhard into the ad supported open
ecosystem for podcasting andthere's nothing wrong with
subscriptions.
We actually support it.
If it's right for that creatorand they want to have a dual
business where they've got subsand then they've got an ad
supported, that's wonderful.
We will help them do that withour partnerships.

(36:08):
But my opinion is, I thinkconsumers and we've watched this
happen in CTV the battle foreyeballs has gotten really
abusive for the consumer.
I've got every friend I havecomplains about how many
streaming services to sign upfor.
They just said to watch theNational Football League, you
have to have five differentservices if you want to see
every game this year.

(36:28):
It's just so it's become.
This race for content hasbecome really a detriment to the
consumer.
So for podcasting, I think it'seven worse because it's a
meritocracy, like when Ilistened to a show and we all
know shows that have faded overtime right, started out great.
They ran out of stories.
Maybe the co-hosts don't getalong anymore, but you see it
happen.

(36:49):
And the podcast that I listenedto I've got about 25.
So I might listen toreligiously every week that I
wouldn't subscribe to, but it'snot many and I want to explore
and I want our creators to earnthose eardrums.
I'm a basis.
You have to put out greatcontent, but people will stop
coming back.
So I don't see a war wherepeople are subscribing to 25
different podcasts and we wantthis to be open, where you can

(37:11):
go check out different things.
There are shows I listen toonce a month based on the guests
.
I would never subscribe, but Ido like them.
So that's our feeling is thatwe want to be in that open
ecosystem, part of the market.

Sam Sethi (37:22):
Okay, last thing then , in 26,.
What do you think is going tochange?
We are seeing regularly thenumber that's related to US
advertising sticking around the1.92 billion mark.
How do we get it to the 7billion mark, 10 billion mark?
How do we move the needlerapidly?

(37:43):
Because we all heard that theUS presidential election was the
podcast election, the influenceof podcasters like Joe Rogan.
But has that resulted in moreadvertisers coming into the
space and do we think we can gothrough that 2 billion mark
quite quickly now in 26?

Yeah, that's an awesome question.
That is probably the thing Ithink about every day when I
wake up.
So 26, I think, is going to bewatershed, because these things
don't happen overnight.
You know I talked to.
You know, the podcast electionis one thing.
Taylor Swift getting engaged ona podcast, you know everyone
kind of jokes about that, butfive years ago that would have
been an Instagram post.
And when there's more of astory to unpack, right, when

(38:24):
there's something you want tolike, there's a narrative, I
don't want to just announce theproposal, I want to talk about
the story and why, why now andhow much all of those things.
The same thing with the podcastelection.
Nobody really knew what to dowith that information.
It's like, well, these areinfluencer shows that influence
the world, you know.
So if you're an advertiser, ifyou're a CMO, it's like it's not
a far leap to say, wait aminute.

(38:45):
If politics and all of this canbe influenced, certainly I can
change the way someone feelsabout my brand, right, top of
funnel, bottom of funnel, all ofit.
So I feel like podcasting worksacross the whole funnel.
So for us, leaning into that,inviting those blue chip brands,
inviting those blue chip brands, it takes time.
We're spending tons of time atthat level with advertisers who,
again, are curious, but it'snot like they just show up with

(39:08):
a truck full of money, sam,they're not.
It's hard.
There's things, there's brandsafety, there's issues.
It's not easy to buy.
So that's why we're focused onjust removing that friction,
because they are kicking thetires.
They are curious, they wouldlove to be here, but we just
have to make it easier.
We have to work togetherbecause every company, like all
our competitors, pretty friendly, but we all have different
processes, we all have differentlanguage we use.

(39:30):
We call different productsdifferent things.
We're not making it very easyfor the Verizons, the BMWs, the
Coca-Colas to come in in a bigway to our industry.
They will get here, but it's upto us to make it really
hospitable when they get here.

Sam Sethi (39:42):
Yeah, I mean in the old days we used to say nobody
got sacked for buying IBM, right, and the idea was it was a
safety net and I've been inlarge corporates where I've seen
it's the quarterly spreadsheetgoing back up the tree and it's
that safety.
So somebody putting their handup and say, actually I'm going
to take some of my budget intopodcasting, someone looks at me
going are you crazy?

(40:02):
Just stick it in the radio andTV like we've always done, stop
doing stupid things, right?
Have we crossed that line nowwhere actually it's not a stupid
thing to put their money intothe podcast bucket and take it
out of the TV radio buckets?

I think we have.
And again, you mentioned mycareer has always been thinking
of products like how do wechallenge the status quo?
Thinking of products like howdo we challenge the status quo?
Is it a startup?
And there's a lot of history ofthese things showing up in a
market where it's like, oh, wedon't need that.
No one thought you neededTikTok, right, there was sort of
no space in the market for them.
So we can't just rely onletting the market sort itself

(40:36):
out and they're going to find us.
We have to go make it happenand be proactive with industry
orgs.
You and I have talked about thefact that my first year I went
to every podcast show.
There was everything that saidpodcasting.
I attended and it was awesomeand everyone loves a cast.
We had a great time.
But I wound up realizing thatwe're talking to ourselves a lot
.
You know we're sort of we'redown there and that if we wait

(40:57):
for the audio buyer at an agencyto get a podcast RFP that then
they give to us, it's going totake a long time.
We have to go make that happen.
We have to go convince them,show them research, show them
insights, build some trust, dosome tests at a high level and
then more money will startcoming to the industry.
But we have to kind of do ittogether.

Sam Sethi (41:15):
Nice.
Yes, I agree, greg.
Thank you so much.
That's been amazing.
Congratulations once more onyour new role and look forward
to talking to you in 26, when wehave more news from ACAST.

Same here.
Thanks again, Sam.

Intro (41:28):
The Pod News Weekly Review with Buzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.

Sam Sethi (41:37):
Sad news this week.
Of course, it was ToddCochran's funeral this week and
a number of podcast folksattended.

Yes, it was in Quincy in Michigan.
I see some very dapper lookingpodcasters in a picture that I
think was posted here by DanielJ Lewis.
There's also Dave Jackson andRob Greenlee and Rob Walsh there
and Rob Walsh there.

(42:07):
So what I do know, by the way,is that Apple Podcasts sent a
very nice bunch of flowers fromthe Apple Podcasts Ohana, which
is something that Todd used totalk about an awful lot.
So that's very nice.
And Spotify and YouTube weirdlydidn't send anything.
Who'd have thought it?
But there we are.
One of the other things that youwill notice in the Pod News
newsletter this week issomething that you know may have

(42:28):
got some relationship with this.
It is, if something happens toyou, what happens to your
podcast, what published in theRSS feed is that people are
still trying to work out whatthe password is for the RSS feed
for that.
So, therefore, I thought it wasa good idea to write a little

(42:55):
article, which I've done quite alot of research on in terms of
what happens if you fall under abus tomorrow, what happens in
terms of your passwords andeverything else.
So there's a bunch of thingsthere.
Thankfully, we're okay on that,Sam, aren't we?
Because you have access toBuzzsprout as do I, so there we
go that's it, we're fine.

Sam Sethi (43:14):
then is it, you're my backup and I'm yours?
Excellent, right, yeah.

Yeah, that's basically how that works.

So I mean it's not as if anybody's got a
birthday today or anything.

Sam Sethi (43:27):
Yes, exactly, we'll talk about that later.
Shh, don't tell anyone.
No one's listening.
Now let's zip around the worlda bit, james, don't ignore
Brazil.

Why not?
Don't ignore Brazil?
Well, it's a top three countryin the world for podcast
consumption, according to RenatoBontempo, who's written a great
article for PodNews this week.
Ignoring Brazil isn't justshort-sighted, it's bad business
, he says.
I find it fascinating thatBrazil is so big in terms of
podcast consumption, yet whenyou have a look at things like

(43:56):
Spotify's partner programme andall those other things, you
can't earn any money if you'rein that country.
There must be some good reasonfor that as well.
But yeah, it's a really goodarticle.

Sam Sethi (44:09):
I would heartily recommend it.
You'll find it in the Pod Newsnewsletter.
Now zipping back round toLondon, Sony have announced a
podcast academy.
Seems everyone's got an academy, so what's their one?

Yes, nothing to do with the podcast academy.
I did ask.
It's a six-week in-personmentorship program.
Now it's taking applicationsfrom people who are aged under
30, emerging content creatorswho are based in London.
I think that London is ratherover-served for this sort of
thing, if you asked me, and Ithink that they would do better
to be doing this sort of thingin Manchester or in Leeds or in

(44:39):
Edinburgh or in Glasgowpersonally.
But there we are.
It starts on October, the 6th,and I think you have to turn up
and do this for six weeks.
It's a very worthwhile thing todo, but given that it was
announced on the 17th ofSeptember, I mean good luck to
them for finding enough peoplethat are free and that can take

(45:00):
part.
But it's a wonderful thing forSony to be doing so.
You'll find out more thingsabout the Sony Music Podcast
Academy in there.
Good for you if you're anemerging content creator.
Here in Canada.
Exciting things going onMonthly podcast listening
growing by nearly 20% year onyear.
According to the data, 46% ofall Canadians listening every

(45:21):
month.
Congratulations to Signal HillInsights, who has all of that
data, and doubtless they will besharing more, because Matt from
Signal Hill Insights is talkingat Pod Summit YYC, which is
here in Calgary, where I'mtalking to you from today and
that kicks off tomorrow, whichshould be good.

Sam Sethi (45:41):
Zipping over to Spain now very quickly tomorrow,
which should be good.
Zipping over to Spain now veryquickly.
It looks like the RSS podcastapp that was blocked.
Antenapod is unblocked.

Yes, unblocked by the public service
broadcaster.
So they've realised that it'sprobably a good idea for the
people that are paying for theirprogrammes to be able to listen
to them.
Who'd have thought it wassomething that we covered back
in July, you might remember, andthey said, as part of our
reporting.
They said we will look again atthe blocking and very pleased
to say that, yeah, antennapolicy is no longer blocked.
It's one of the bigger podcastapps in Android, which, of

(46:15):
course, is a massive marketshare in Spain.
So hurrah for them.
Right, let's move over to jobs.
Amelia Chappellow has joinedMIK Studios.
Don't know who they are, but Ido know that they're based in
Australia somewhere.
She is their head of content.
She was at SiriusXM and she'snow based in Melbourne, here in
sunny Australia, or there insunny Australia, I should say.

(46:36):
So I hope she likes flat whiteand I hope she likes being cold,
because that's what Melbourneis.
So congratulations to her.
Also, congratulations to JennaWeiss-Berman, who is to be
awarded a Gracie's LeadershipAward, those awards taking place
in November in New York City,which, of course, is going to be
a fantastic event.
Other events going on theIndependent Podcast Awards

(46:58):
happening October the 15th inLondon.
I believe that there will be aninvite for you, mr Sethi, for
you to go if you so wish.
One thing that I did notice,which I thought was really
interesting, is there is ashortlist page on the
Independent Podcast Awardswebsite and that links to an
independent podcast's room onApple Podcasts.

(47:18):
So they've sat with the goodfolk at Apple Podcasts and
created some editorial aroundthat.
I thought that was a reallynice thing, a really clever
thing for Apple Podcasts to bedoing, a really clever thing for
the Independent Podcast Awardsto be doing as well.
I mean, it's the sort of thing,frankly, that every podcast app
should have is some form ofawards page.

(47:39):
You're going to tell me nowthat you've already done one.

Sam Sethi (47:42):
Well, there you go.
We actually have had this inthe planning for about three or
four weeks Now.
First of all, let me say howthe hell do you find that Apple
podcast page from the front ofthe Apple podcast app?
Because there is no, seemingly,way to find it.
That's the first thing I'd say.
How did you find it?

I found it because it's linked from the
Independent Podcast Awards page,which is probably fine, which
is probably all that youactually need.
But yeah, okay, fair enough.

Sam Sethi (48:11):
So Claire Wake Brown, who does some work with True
Fans, has been putting up a lotof the winners from other awards
onto our homepage, and that'sbeen a decision we made to try
and promote the winners and thatled us to have a conversation
about well, could we create adedicated page, which we are
doing?

(48:31):
That will be live this week,and so what you'll be able to do
is go and find a playlist ofevery award and you can add that
to your own profile.
But what's nice about them?
They are dynamic playlists.
So what will happen is, as eachepisode from each show gets
updated, your playlistautomatically gets updated as
well.
So you'll always have a freshplaylist and you can edit the

(48:53):
playlist.
So if you don't like everyonein the award, you can narrow it
down to three or four shows thatyou might like.

That's very cool , and, of course, those awards
that PodNews covers as well.
You'll find an OPML file forall of those awards on the
relevant pages.
Talking about awards, the WebbyAwards are now open.
You can enter the early entrydeadline, so the cheap one is
October the 24th, so you can goand do that.

(49:19):
Similarly, the AMBIs are alsoopen for entry as well.
What else is going on this time?
Because there's a lot going on,isn't there?

Sam Sethi (49:27):
yeah, I mean there's the comedy podcast festival,
cheerful evil.
They've announced more starstaking part across london,
melbourne and new york, so checkout their website.
I'll be in madrid in the firstweek of october with eric newsom
and megan davis from a castpodcast days in Spain.
There is a new monthlynetworking event launched in

(49:48):
London and that's going to be onDean Street.
So again, think from the PodNews Daily, and I'm sure we'll
put it in our show notes as well.
So if you're interested in apodcast meetup once a month,
then there is an event now foryou.

Yeah, which looks really good.
A couple of things going on inNorth America Houston in Texas,
night of the living pod, theSpeakfest is on October the 10th
, and, of course, here inAlberta in Canada, pod Summit
YYC started today.
It's on tomorrow as well andshould be good.

(50:22):
I'm very much looking forwardto the keynote on the second day
.
Have you written it yet?
No, I'm very much lookingforward to finding out what it
is.
I say so.
That'll be fun.
Yes, no, no.
No panic there or anything, no,no get off this call right.

Sam Sethi (50:42):
One podcast that I listened to this week was
buzzcast.
I listen to it regularly andnot because they're our sponsor,
because I just like what theysay.
They have had some interestingones recently.
They talked about thechallenges that musicians have
in a couple of episodes ago andthis one they started to talk
about super fans and true fansand I thought, oh, here we go,

(51:06):
they're talking about me again.
Sadly, they weren't talkingabout me at all, or my platform,
no, but they were talking aboutthe concepts around community
and the identity of super fansand what they mean to you as a
podcaster and how those superfans can generate 80% of your
income compared to the standardfan, and I think it's a great

(51:28):
little episode.
If you want to listen to itit's the latest one from
Buzzcast have a listen on whatthey talk about and how you can
generate your own super fans aswell.

Excellent, and you'll find that in the
recommendations section of anygood podcast app which should
appear next to ours.
The Tech Stuff on the Pod NewsWeekly Review.
Yes, it's the stuff you'll findevery Monday the Pod News
newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.
What have you got for us thisweek, sam?

Sam Sethi (51:56):
Well, I'll get off my crowing nest that I'm sitting
on right now.
Last week we talked about AdamCurry and Dave Jones in their
podcast, the podcasting 2.0 show, which goes out every Friday
night live.
Normally it's an audio-onlyshow and Dave Jones wanted to
run an experiment running aPeerTube instance with HLS video

(52:17):
streaming and using the livealternative enclosure.
I think you surmised the end ofthat with hmm, that's a car
crash about to happen.
That's, I think, your passingwords.

But it all worked, didn't it?
It all worked in.
Truefans.

Sam Sethi (52:34):
Yes, I'm pleased to say that we were the only
platform where it worked.
Yes, we do have support forPeerTube, we have support for
HLS, we have support for thelive alternative enclosure and
live, of course.
And yes, it all works.
It was very nice.
It's very good to see that youremembered your login for the 30

(52:54):
seconds that you viewed it andsay, for adam curry, it's nice
to see you all pop in and popout again.
Yes, it all worked well therewe are.

I I was.
Yes, I can't quite rememberwhat I was doing at that at that
time, but but yes, no very youknow.
These have been noticed byother parts of the podcast
industry as well.
There's been renewed interestin live podcasting and renewed
interest in HLS as well.
So I think from all of thatpoint of view that was very good

(53:22):
.
Did Adam actually appear invideo?

Sam Sethi (53:25):
No, he didn't, because it was only dave who got
it running, so it wasn't.
It wasn't dual video, it wassingle video, you know.
I have to say it was great thatyou know.
It all worked seamlessly.
Podcast guru jason said thatthey support hls and they
support the live tag, which theydo.
I think fountain does as well.
It's the alternative enclosure,which is an extension to the

(53:47):
live tag, that they don't thinkfountain does as well.
It's the alternative enclosure,which is an extension to the
live tag, that they don'tsupport.
But they're making a change andI'm pretty sure the other apps
will do so in the near future.

Yeah, well talking about apps.
Lots of new and exciting thingsgoing on in apple podcasts, of
course, with ios 26, are you allliquid glassed up there, sam?

Sam Sethi (54:04):
I'm afraid I am yeah and I don't like it.
But hey, you know, it feelslike change for change's sake.
It just felt like, oh, my God,we've got to do something, let's
go with this.
Let's go with this.

Well, and what's very clear is, if you play with
any of Apple's apps, thenclearly Tim Apple has said you
have to use AI in some way,shape or form, and so for Apple
Podcasts, you will find anenhanced dialogue feature, which
is brand new, which reducesbackground noise, makes it
easier to hear voices.
It's a pretty good thing,actually, if you end up trying

(54:36):
that.
So the big thing for me is thatplayback speeds can now be
saved per show, which is muchbetter from a point of view of a
listener.
So all of that's going on.
There is a new logo.
I have asked Apple aboutupdated buttons.
Apple, I think, has a newpodcast PR person, which is very

(54:56):
exciting.
She she, she and she has comefrom somewhere else in
podcasting.
I probably shouldn't dox her,but she's come from somewhere
else in podcasting.
She knows the space very, verywell.
So very much looking forward tohearing a bit more from Apple.
I have asked them what doesthat mean in terms of what we

(55:19):
should be using for badges andthings?
And at the moment, I noticedthat Apple hasn't updated their
icons and badges yet, but whoknows what they might be doing
in the future?
What is interesting, though, isyou can see how fast people are
switching over to iOS 26 if youuse OP3, which, of course, can
actually see that kind ofinformation.

(55:40):
So if you follow John Spurlock,one of our power supporters, on
Mastodon or on Blue Sky, thenyou can follow along and see how
quickly users are switchingover.

Sam Sethi (55:51):
Yeah, john also pointed out that the iPhone 17
won't be updated for 18 months,not a year cycle.
It's going to be next May 27,.
I think he was pointing outit's going to be a long time for
the iPhone 17 before the iPhone18 appears on the horizon.
Did anyone say foldable phone?
No, I don't think they ever did.

No, nobody said anything about that.
But that is interesting, isn'tit?
Because that's a big change ifthey're going to change up when
the new hardware comes out.
So yeah, gosh, when the newhardware comes out so yeah, gosh
.

Sam Sethi (56:26):
Now other apps.
James Out of Germany, podigy,has added a number of new 2.0
features.
What have they added?

Yes, they are adding them as we speak.
The full announcement is onOctober 1st.
They will be supportingcreator-led podcast
recommendations, aka Podroll.
They will be supporting instantnotifications of new episodes,
aka pod ping, and they're alsosupporting the podcast location
tag.
And I was a bit dubious when Isaw their write-up of what it is

(56:55):
that they were announcing.
I thought, oh, I wonder ifthey're doing it properly.
Anyway, they are doing itproperly.
They're doing it really nicely.
I've been shown a video, whichI'm not going to repost or
anything, but it shows how theUX works.
It's exactly the way that itshould be.
So really pleased to end upseeing that they're a good and
big podcast hosting companybased out of Germany, so worth

(57:17):
keeping an eye on there.
So excellent news from that Acouple of apps that are doing
little intelligent summaries andswipable key points, so you
don't have to listen to thisshow at all.
You can just read theintelligent summary instead.
One of those apps is calledSkimmer S-K-I-M-R.
Yes, it produces all of thatkind of stuff Also.

(57:38):
Metacast is another one ofthose apps.
Metacast is now supportingprivate RSS feeds as well, which
is interesting.
So, yeah, they're doing all ofthat kind of stuff too Nice as
well, which is interesting.

Sam Sethi (57:47):
So, yeah, they're doing all that kind of stuff too
Nice.
Now you've found another toolnot directly related to
podcasting, but it's calledOpenRSS.
That's what I've heard forOpenRSS.

Yes, I just thought it was interesting.
Openrssorg, it's a website.
If you have an RSS reader andyou are using RSS to read stuff,
as I do quite a lot, and you goto you know, log on a website
that doesn't actually have anRSS feed Apple then you can
actually go and go to openrssorgand make one.

(58:17):
So it's a very nice little toolthat makes RSS feeds for
websites that don't have them.
So that's a nice thing.
Quick question, because it'sbeen one that I've tried to find
the answer to Is there a pageanywhere on the web that shows

(58:37):
the RSS feed structure for blogposts?
I mean, that would be thestandard RSS, you know, 2.0 or
whatever it is these days,wouldn't it?
But yes, I mean I don't thinkit's changed forever, okay, but
yes, so probably the old Harvard, the old Harvard thing, yeah,
Okay, I'll check them out again,didn't it didn't come across as
obvious?

Sam Sethi (58:55):
Now, hannah Campbell has a website and an app called
podcast review.
What's he done?

Yeah, so he's added an API into that.
So if you want to show yourreviews on a webpage, then you
can through this podcastreviewsapp, which is nice, and
he's added an API into that.
So if you want to show yourreviews on a web page, then you
can through thispodcastreviewsapp, which is nice
.
He's also added some additionalpaid extra widgets if you want
more than one widget to appearon your website.
It's a little niche product butit might be useful for some, so

(59:22):
worth a peek.
You'll find that atpodcastreviewsapp.

Sam Sethi (59:30):
Now Pocket Cast turned on their ads this week.
James, they're now live out ofbeta.
How much do you think for aseven day ad on pocketcast?
it costs oh, who knows, whoknows go on now a giddy five
thousand,000 per week toadvertise A bargain A bargain
and that is not actuallyanything more than just views.

(59:54):
So there's no click-throughs.
So this is CPC-basedadvertising.
There's no CPA, there's nomeasurement of clicks, there's
no measurement of plays.
Even so, for $5,000, with norefund if you don't hit the
numbers, and it's just look welldone for producing it.
I think this is another way ofmonetizing content.

(01:00:15):
But, geez Louise, $5,000 perweek.

James Cridland (01:00:19):
Yeah, carousel ads.
Now that is the most expensiveone, five grand.
You can be in there a littlebit cheaper, but the ads are all
over the place and I have tosay the users are not happy.
And if you, I have a watch onthe Pocket Casts subreddit and
there are lots of people who areusing Pocket Casts for free and

(01:00:40):
all of a sudden they're goingoh, it's full of ads.
Now it literally is full of ads.
So expect change, I think,think in terms of that.

Sam Sethi (01:00:48):
But they've got to, they've got to pay for
themselves.

Somehow don't they.

Sam Sethi (01:00:52):
Yeah, no, look I, I question.
They offer a pro version, whichis hopefully then ad free,
because you can't stick ads andthen offer a pro version yes, I
mean again, that's quite apricey product as well that pro
version.
So again, I mean, you knowthey've got their target

(01:01:13):
audience, they're going afterand I assume that they're saying
yeah to your point, james weneed to make money and if we're
going to make money, this is thegoing rate.

Yeah, no, and I mean you know, to be fair, I
think if you're advertising inOvercast, it is still quite
expensive.
I don't know what advertising inPlayer FM is like, but they
seem to be advertising in thePod News website every now and
again, saying that you shouldcome and advertise there.
So clearly they're making moneyout of that too.
So it is a thing you know.

(01:01:43):
I just wish that, instead of itbeing advertising based, it was
more sharing in the revenuethat the creators are getting,
which, of course, would make anawful lot more sense.
But the whole streamingpayments thing is currently I
mean it'd be wonderful if thatcould work properly.
Notice that there's been a fewpeople this week doing some work

(01:02:05):
on the on the documentation onthe on the podcast index website
around how streaming paymentsworks to make it a bit clearer,
and so hopefully that means thatthere's more work going on in
terms of how that's going towork, but that that, to me, is
that is the best way.
Actually, the more thatsomebody uses a podcast app, the
more money you earn as adeveloper seems to be the most

(01:02:27):
sensible way of doing that, butthat can only work if it's
streaming payments, I think yeah, and look, I think we all have
to move to ln address.

Sam Sethi (01:02:36):
That's what we're doing.
Key send, though much easier.
I think there's a wholemisconception about the metadata
I.
I think people are doing itwrong, but I'm gonna keep my
keep myself out of this one,because there's too many chefs
in that kitchen and I don'tthink one more indian in it's
gonna help mix my metaphorsthere, if I can should we move

(01:03:03):
on, james?

yes, let's move on.
What have we got?
We've got a few test comments,one from somebody called Sam,
one from somebody called Sanjeev, one from somebody called
Martin Quibel.

Sam Sethi (01:03:15):
Don't send out all my test messages.
No.

Let's not read those out.
Martin actually says he waslistening to the Pod News Weekly
Review and just sent a TrueFans zap.
What is a True Fans zap?
Is that just like a like orsomething?
Yes, yeah, very nice.
Thank you, martin for that.
Justin Jackson, looking forwardto seeing you in Calgary at Pod
Summit.
James, yes, excellent, I'mlooking forward to seeing Justin
Jackson here in Calgary as well.

(01:03:39):
Silas on Linux sent us a numberof rows of ducks, one of them
saying I really thought thephilippines had internet, but
that can't be possible if theydon't use credit cards.
Those are the internet's money.
It was the philippines, right,james?

Sam Sethi (01:03:56):
yes argument.
That wasn't it months ago thatthe, I think you put forward
that the credit card was theinternet's money?

was the credit card was the internet's money.
I think the I I still thinkthat the credit card is the
internet's money.
The credit card was theinternet's money.
I still think that the creditcard is the internet's money in
Western countries, but veryclearly not in places like Asia.
But they've got their ownpayment systems.
But yes, good point.
Thank you, silas.
Filling up my sats again, hesays to boost in my sadness
about Todd Cochran In London.
He says I showed himbouncepadlive cochran in london.

(01:04:31):
He says I showed himbouncepadlive, my crap in depth,
my crap in dev web app tailoredto live rss feeds, and he
immediately got it and said thisis good, this is really good.
It hasn't moved on a lot sincemay for a number of reasons, but
I'm in the process of rewritingthe front end because that part
is really, really bad and noone visits it.
I would have liked him seeing areally good version of it.
Bouncepadouncepadlive thatsounds interesting.
Live.
That sounds interesting toSilas.

(01:04:51):
And one more thing 1234sats.
He's using Fountain Sam, soyou'll need to you know, fix
that.
I remember you saying youwanted to use React Native for a
TrueFans app some months agoand then more recently heard
you're wrapping the PWA now toput in app stores.
What has changed that?
I am fully making the new frontend in React Native and it
seems significantly nicer techthan a PWA.

(01:05:14):
Why did you end up choosing aPWA Sam?
Was it just speed?

Sam Sethi (01:05:18):
No, no, no.
We all of our front end is inReact and we use that there.
Yes was a speed issue.
We were going to go and usereact native, build actual new
versions of our ios and androidapps.
When I spoke to mo, my cto, welooked at six months or more to

(01:05:39):
replicate what we'd built as thepwa in react native.
We haven't got six months ormore.
I mean, we we would have been,you know, probably dead by now,
I think, because everyone wassaying well, you're not an app,
we don't want to use you the waythat we've done.
It is allowed us to get intothe app stores and play the game
and then, when we get ourfunding and we build up our team

(01:06:00):
, then we will go back and buildthe React Native versions as
well.

Yeah, no, I think that makes a bunch of
sense.
So there you go, silas.
Now you know.
One final message here fromLyceum 10,000 sats, which gets a
jingle Thank you, lyceum,that's so kind, he says for the
beers, so hurrah.
And we did enjoy our beers,didn't we, sam?
We should talk about that justa second.

(01:06:24):
Firstly, let me just thank ourpower supporters.
There are 23 of them, johnSpurlock being the very latest,
martin Lindeskog, also being abrand new supporter, as well, as
well as David Marzell, jimJames, rocky Thomas and Neil
Velio and many others.
You can join them if you like,if you wouldn't mind, at

(01:06:45):
weeklypodnewsnet.
So I got to see you face toface this week, Sam.

Sam Sethi (01:06:51):
We did.
Yes.
We met in a pub in the middleof London, near the BBC, One of
your old haunts.

I'm guessing it was.
Yes, yes, a very bizarre pub,but it was great.
It was really nice to havechats with all kinds of folks,
so it was good to see the peoplewho turned up there.
Yeah, no, it was.

Sam Sethi (01:07:08):
It was very nice and yeah.
So what else has happened forme this week?
Well, my mother-in-law turned94.
That's a good old number.
Yeah, she's going very strong,so who knows?
Centurion on the way.

It's also your birthday today.

Sam Sethi (01:07:24):
Yes, the 18th of September, so yes, Well, happy
birthday to you, Thank you verymuch Happy birthday to you.

Do you now get cheaper bus?

Sam Sethi (01:07:33):
No, I'm not on that milestone yet.
No, I'm still sub 60.
We're not saying how far sub 60.

Greg Glenday (01:07:42):
I am, but we are sub 60.

Sam Sethi (01:07:44):
That's critical and, yeah, I can announce we have
closed our funding.
I will be sending you the pressrelease once the investors have
made the announcement to themarket.
I cannot reveal until they makethat announcement.

That's brilliant , that's such good news and you
must be very pleased and thatmust be a weight off of your
shoulders in terms of that.
So so that's funding for, fortrue fans.
So that means that true fans isnot going to go away anytime
soon.
Well, a good day.

Sam Sethi (01:08:16):
I mean, I could do a runner.
No, I'm joking, in case they'relistening, just in case they're
listening.
Just no, it's no, it's great.
And yeah, we can reveal moreabout that, probably next week
or the week after.
I'm not allowed to say anythingpublicly yet.

Still no well, you better wait who they are,
your new bosses.
Your new bosses turn around andsay yes, Until Daniel Eck turns
around and says no.

Sam Sethi (01:08:42):
That would be so funny if it was.

That would be so funny, good Lord, a few things
that have happened for me.
Obviously, catching up inLondon was lovely.
I went to the Museum of Brandsin Labrador Grove, which was
interesting.
If you like cereal packets andold radios, then you would like
the Museum of Brands, I'll tellyou.
And that's about it, but still,there we are.

(01:09:06):
The one thing, though, that Idid notice my flight was
cancelled in order to get overto the UK, and so Qantas ended
up sticking me on a Qatar flightwhich flies from Brisbane up to
Doha, and I got onto thatflight.
That's a 14-hour flight, sam.
So I get onto the flight, Iknow, and I think, oh no, it's

(01:09:30):
dreadful, but you know, at leastone of the things I can do is I
can write tomorrow's Pod Newsnewsletter, because there's
always that going on in the backof my head.
When am I going to write thenewsletter?
So I cracked open the laptopand then I went I wonder how
much they're going to fleece mefor the internet and how
expensive it's going to be.
So I opened up the website, andyou know, and there was a Wi-Fi

(01:09:53):
connection.
So I thought, brilliant, I'llconnect to that.
And then I just got Wi-Fi and Ithought this is weird, so I'm
not having to pay.
And then I thought this seemsvery fast.
And then I thought this seemsvery fast so I did a speed check
.
I was getting 250 meg down,which is unheard of for an

(01:10:14):
aeroplane.
And about 40 meg up and guesswhat it was?
It was Starlink.
So what Qatar have done is theyhave junked all of their old
Panasonic Viasat nonsense andthey've just gone for Starlink
and they've rolled it out onevery single one of their Airbus
planes.
And they are rolling it outright now, and they rolled it

(01:10:35):
out six months ahead of ahead ofschedule because it was so easy
to put in and it wasastonishing.
So we were there flying, youknow, flying flying to Doha, and
I could stream live TV over theairport Wi-Fi.
It was incredible, it wasreally really good.
So hurrah for them for that andI thought to myself excellent.

(01:10:58):
Well, I'll leave writing thePod News newsletter, actually
until my next flight out of Doha, because I'm shattered and I'll
just go to sleep.
And, of course, that aeroplanedidn't have it and had the
crappy old version.
So there we are, hence why oneof the pod news is.
This week sounded as if it hadcome from a from oh, in fact it

(01:11:20):
was Friday last week.
Sounded as if it was comingfrom a Costa Coffee in Heathrow
Airport, because it was wascoming from a Costa Coffee in
Heathrow Airport because it was.

Sam Sethi (01:11:27):
Right.
So I'm both happy and sad foryou.
Actually, James.
I'm happy that Starlink worksand that it was such a great
experience, and I'm sad as hellthat it's owned by Elon Musk.
Yes, I know the guy who askedfor a government overthrow and
who live videoed into afar-right fascist rally in

(01:11:50):
London.
And basically he did it inGermany a little while back and
he's sticking his nose in whereit's not wanted.
He's an apartheid racist and Iwill never use Starlink on that
basis.

No indeed, and so I was very conflicted,
because that is a brilliantproduct.
But yes, but absolutely.
You know you're using ElonMusk's.
You know horrible, taintedstuff, so you know, I mean
there's obviously all of thenews this week about Jimmy
Kimmel, who said something thatwas relatively sensible but has

(01:12:21):
got cancelled for that, and youknow all kinds of stuff going on
in the US.
The interesting thing from mypoint of view was, you know, I
had to fly into the US and thenback out again to get up here to
Canada.
That was very, very smooth, sodoing some kind of test for that

(01:12:42):
flight, and so I found thatincredibly smooth.
I didn't even have to pick upmy bag or anything for that
flight, and so I found thatincredibly smooth.
I didn't even have to pick upmy bag or anything.
So more of that from my pointof view, but I have a feeling
that the way back via Chicago isnot going to be anywhere near
as easy.
You know, sadly, but yeah, no,it's interesting times, isn't it
?
Sadly, yes, sadly, yes, butstill there we are.

(01:13:03):
And that's it for this week.
All of our podcast storiestaken from the Pod News daily
newsletter at podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi (01:13:10):
You can support this show by streaming stats.
You can give us feedback usingthe Buzzsprout fan mail link in
our show notes.
You can send us a super commentor a boost or, better still,
become a power supporter likethe 23andMe Not me personally,
that's just what I've calledthem Superfans at
weeklypodnewsnet.

Yes, very good.
Our music is from TM Studios.
Our voiceover is Sheila Dee,who we would like to give a big
virtual hug to.
She has lost her job this weekand so is looking for more jobs
and things.
So best of luck to you, sheila,and I hope that you find
something very nice and quick.
Our audio is normally recordedusing Clean Feed.
This hotel does not have goodWi-Fi, so we are using a mix

(01:13:52):
this week of Clean Feed plus abit of Descript for Greg's
interview, plus, most of thishas been recorded on Google Meet
using Audio Hijack.
Oh yes, old school.
We edit using Hindenburg andwe're hosted and sponsored by
Buzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.

(01:14:13):
Get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnewsnet.

Greg Glenday (01:14:19):
Tell your friends and grow the show and support us
, and support us.
The Pod News Weekly.
Review will return next week.
Keep listening.

Sam Sethi (01:14:28):
We made it to the end .

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