How A Daily News Podcast Hit 2,000 Episodes And What Recap Season Really Means For Podcasters

Episode Transcript
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Announcer (00:00):
The Pod news Weekly Review uses chapters.
The last word in podcastingnews.
This is the Pod news WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Sethi.

James Cridland (00:11):
I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod
news.
And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO ofTrue Fans.
How did we get here?
It's incredible.
Brad Mielke from Start Here onmaking 2,000 episodes of a daily
podcast.
Plus, it's the RecapApocalypse.
We look at Spotify, YouTube,and Amazon.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout with the tool support

(00:33):
and community to ensure youkeep podcasting.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting with BuzzSprout.com.

Announcer (00:40):
From your daily newsletter, the Pod news Weekly
Review.

Sam Sethi (00:44):
I suppose everybody in the world is talking about
it, but I'd like to talk aboutSpotify Wrapped as well, but
with a little twist on it.
It came out this week, andaccording to Daniel Ek, over 11
trillion minutes of globallistening was done alone this
year.
That's that large number.

It is a large number, isn't it?
Yeah, absolutely.

Sam Sethi (01:05):
Absolutely.
Music wise, I mean, okay, wethis is a show about podcasting,
but very quickly I thought itwas quite interesting.
Music wise, Bad Bunny.
Now I'm sure that's top of yourplaylist.
Bad Bunny has won the numberone spot again, and he'll be
doing the half-timeentertainment at the Super Bowl.
Have you heard of Bad Bunny?

I I'm glad that you know that it's a he.
That's more than I know.
Now, K-pop demon hunters, I cantell you all about, but uh in
terms of Bad Bunny, no.
No, not at all.

Sam Sethi (01:35):
Could I just say I have no idea who Bad Bunny is,
and I have no idea who K-popdemon hunters are.

Alright, well, there you go, you see.
So I'm I'm already one up onyou.
But yes, Bad Bunny number one.
Number two, Taylor Swift,number three, the weekend.
Drake is at number four, andBilly Eilish is at number five.
Taylor Swift at number one inthe US, by the way.
What were your top threesingers then, Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:57):
A Scottish, a female singer called Brooke Coombe.
American Washington.
Yeah, she.
A feet a male singer calledJalen Ngondo, who is out of
Washington.
Yep.
And Bruno Mars.
Um come on then.
Who who were yours?
Kylie Monog?

No.
Go on.
Very, very, very boring.
And you may spot that there isa pattern here.
Number one, Archive.
It's a band uh who are a Frenchband, but they they they sing
in English because they areactually English.
Uh they're very good.
And interestingly, hard to findon music uh services because of
the word archive.
Thanks.
Number two, Paul McCartney.

(02:34):
Number three, the Beatles,number four, wings, and number
five, the Beach Boys.
Because it turns out I am veryold.
But of course, I'm not quotingfrom Spotify at Spotify's
service.
I'm quoting from YouTube Music,which is the one that I use.
They call it Recap.
And apparently I've listened to9,720 minutes of music in the

(02:55):
past year.
I'm surprised ELO's not in thatlist.
Oh, I I'm sure it is at numbersix.
Yeah.

Sam Sethi (03:02):
Sad fact, Jeff Lynn recorded the last produced the
last Beatles album.
Well, kind of.
Yes, kind of.
Which is why they sound verysimilar.
The ELO sounds very similar tothe Beatles album.

He produced he produced uh he didn't produce
Now and Then, but he did produceFree as a Bird.
And Free as a Bird and theother one, Real Love.
They are both, they've both nowbeen re-re-released on the
brand new Beatles anthologyversion four.
And what they've done isthey've uh grabbed John Lennon's
vocals and they've actuallytreated them properly with the

(03:36):
AI tools now.
So it's a much, much bettersound.
So Free as a Bird and RealLove, much, much better if you
want to go and have a listen tothose off the new anthology
album.
Go on, ask me anything aboutthe Beatles.

Sam Sethi (03:50):
I was gonna say no.
So uh your mastermind questionstarter for ten is the Beatles,
Mr.
Gridland.
You've started, so you canfinish.

Seemingly so yes.
Although interestingly, interms of the music artist that I
listened to, which is somethingthat uh YouTube Music has done,
they have this thing called MyMusical Passport.
And 204 of my artists were fromthe US, 184 from the UK, and 29
from Australia, which is quitean interesting thing.

Sam Sethi (04:19):
So do you do you think the YouTube recap is a
better or similar or or doesn'tit really matter?

No, I mean everybody has to do a recap, and
we'll talk about some of theothers in in just a second.
Everybody has to do a recapbecause Spotify ends up doing a
recap.
But I think it's interestingbecause you are seeing
first-party data, you're seeingwhat you have consumed on these
devices.
And as we jump into podcastingin just a second, I think this
is super useful data for us.

(04:51):
So, you know, I mean, in termsof podcasting, what Spotify have
shared is that the Joe Roganexperience was Spotify's top
podcast globally, you don't say,followed by the Diary of a CEO
with Stephen Barlett at numbertwo, and the Mel Robbins podcast
at number three.
How many of those do youregularly listen to?
Uh, your answer for ten, Ms.

(05:11):
Criddle, is zero.
Zero, nothing.
Oh, yeah.
I might watch a clip.
All the Americans are going tobe going, why is it?
Why does he keep on saying uhanswer for ten?

Bamber Gascgoine (05:21):
So here, all age with your fingers on the
buzzer is your first start of aten.

Sam Sethi (05:26):
Okay, sorry.
Yes.
Remember, international.
International.
Yes.

Yes, no, indeed.
Yes, I I yes, I've neverlistened to any of those all the
all the way through either.
So there you go.
There's a there's a thing.
I mean, to me, the moreinteresting thing wasn't the
details of the music or theoverall podcast uh information.
To me, the more interestingdata was the data that they gave

(05:55):
us creators.
And Spotify Wraps for Creatorsis really, really good.
So it gives you a year's datafor your show.
Obviously, all of theconsumption data is from the
Spotify app, because the Spotifyapp knows nothing more.
But it's got a ton ofinformation, uh, for example,
about this particular show.

(06:15):
So we managed to uh more thandouble our listening time over
the last year.
So thank you for listening tous longer.
131% it went up.
So that's good news.
Total new audience 905%, andtotal audience went up 88%.
So we've had a pretty goodamount of growth, which we

(06:37):
should feed back to oursponsors, Bug Sprout, and let
them know, because that would bea good thing.
Followers went up by 75% aswell, and 76 people on Spotify
have our daily podcast, that'sthe Pod News Daily, as their
number one show.

Speaker 6 (06:55):
Congratulations to you, well done.

So there's a thing, yes, and it's uh I'm
afraid only 36 for this show.
But I'll take it.
Yeah, and and the interestingthing is our numbers aren't very
big on Spotify.
This show doesn't do well, nordo any podcasts about podcasting
on uh Spotify for various, youknow, sensible reasons, I think.
And so the fact that they'vebeen able to pull all of this

(07:20):
information out from relativelyscant data is I think really
good.
And I personally I think thatall podcast hosts should be
doing this.
And you know, I mean, oursponsor Buzz Sprout talks about
start podcasting, keeppodcasting.
I think for any podcast host,the best way to keep people
podcasting and to lower theamount of churn going on is to

(07:43):
give encouraging detail likethat.
Because, you know, I mean,seeing the fact that our total
new audience, whatever thatmeans, is up by 900%.
Because I put the word TaylorSwift in a in a show title.
You know, I mean, that is thatis a wonderful figure, and that
sort of makes you want to keepon going.
So, yeah, so I I I I I thinkthis is really good data.

(08:08):
And I'm really surprised to seeuh I think there was one
podcast host last year that didsomething vaguely like that.

Sam Sethi (08:15):
Um Pocket Cast doing something like this though.

Well, I mean, Pocket Cast will do it, YouTube
is doing it as well, and andthere's various other things.
In fact, YouTube is doing itfor the first time for video as
well, so you'll actually be ableto see uh oh in terms of in
terms of users, but in terms ofcreators, no.
I don't I I don't think thatanybody's doing this.

Sam Sethi (08:35):
I I agree with you, I think this is really good, and
I agree.
Hosts have that data.
They should be able to actuallyhosts don't have that data, not
all of them.
They don't have listen time.

Sorry, just what I'm pointing out.
Hosts have got downloads, hostshave got countries, hosts have
got various other things aswell, and they can produce a lot
of the data that Spotify had.
Of course, they don't havefirst first party data such as
uh Spotify as well, but hostscan still produce an awful lot
of this information, and I andI'm you know quite quite

(09:08):
surprised that we don't seehosts doing that.
To me, that that is an obviousway of keeping your podcast
clients going.
And I'm sure that you know thelikes of Lower Street and
everybody else who rely on thatsort of thing would like to end
up seeing that too.
So yeah, so great stuff fromthe Spotify for creators uh
stuff.
If you are, I mean, you will beon Spotify, and so if you want

(09:30):
to check that,creators.spotify.com is where to
log in, and that's where you'llbe taken, you'll be handholded
to Spotify for Creators Wrapped,and you can learn more about
that.
What's Apple doing then, James?
Can't be left out, can they?
Well, Apple, I mean, Apple havea thing called Apple Music
Replay.

(09:50):
I used Apple Music for a monthor so in the middle of the year,
or a couple of months in themiddle of the year, and yeah, it
was it was alright.
And they're doing somethingquite similar to Spotify, as is
YouTube as well, in terms ofmusic consumption.
YouTube is also doing a fullrecap in terms of your main

(10:11):
consumption as well, in terms ofthe the video app on there as
well.
Interesting around YouTube isthat they have a list of top
podcasts calculated by totalwatch time, but only for the US.
So nowhere else in the worldwill you actually learn any
information about podcasting.
Again, it's Google beingtypical Google.

(10:33):
The only company that matters,the only country that matters is
the US.
And from that point of view,yeah, yeah, we've we've released
a chart, The Joe RoganExperience at number one, Kill
Tony at number two, and GoodMythical Morning is at number
three in their podcast chart.
A show which is not a podcast,does not have an RSS feed, is

(10:54):
not available in Apple Podcasts,which I think tells you quite a
lot.
And I'd love to tell you whatthe top podcasts are here in
Australia or over there with youin the UK, but YouTube don't
care.
More to the point, YouTubeactually released their recap
thing in the US a day beforethey released it everywhere
else, because they don't careabout us.
So I don't care about them, soI've just cancelled.

Sam Sethi (11:16):
So they're but nothing nothing from Apple on
podcasting, though, because itsays Apple Music Replay, not
Apple Podcast Replay.

Yeah, so nothing from Apple in terms of direct
information to creators, no.
So we don't get anyinformation.
And again, that would bebrilliant if Apple was to do the
same thing as CreatorsUnwrapped that Spotify has done.
That would be super cool, andof course, you know, that that
will keep us going.
But in terms of Apple Podcasts,not from that, but of course,

(11:49):
they did release the mostpopular shows of 2025 in the
middle of November.
So the most popular shows ofabout uh about 17% of 2025.
Um but and if if you needreminding uh Joe Rogan at number
one in the US, the rest ispolitics at number one in the
UK, and and uh we have a fulllist of all of the countries in

(12:12):
the Pod News new newsletter aswell.
So, yeah, quite a lot ofinformation there.

Sam Sethi (12:17):
So, although YouTube didn't release an international
report for the replay, they'vereleased a global culture and
trends report, James.
What's that one?

Yeah, they did.
There's it it's got top tenlists of topics, of songs, of
creators, and no podcast unlessyou're in the US.
And yeah, so you know that thatsort of you know relatively
interesting if you are a creatorand you want to understand
what's actually going on.
But you know, I mean, obviouslyat the end of the day, this is

(12:49):
quite this is quite focusedinformation.
But the top songs on shorts,for example, song number one was
Forrest Frank, Your WaysBetter, All in Capitals, never
heard of it.
No, Atlas at number two, PasoBem, Solto, and Black Eyed Peas,
and Rock That Body at numberthree.
Right.
So never heard of any of those.

Sam Sethi (13:12):
I'm not sure why that's current and in vogue.

unknown (13:14):
Yeah.

Well, yes, I I don't understand that.
And and although top songs,Bruno Mars and Lady Garga die
with a smile at number one withYouTube as well, and another
Bruno Mars song at number twocalled APT after the after the
train.
Worst song you did of the year.

Sam Sethi (13:30):
I would imagine.
Worst song you did of the year.

And and number three, number four, and number
five are all from the K-popDemon Hunters cast.
Golden, followed by Sodopop,followed by your idol.
Right.
Um, and being the owner of a13-year-old uh girl, also the
father.
Uh I've heard quite a lot ofthat.
Yes.
Yes.
No need to call the police.
Underover, yes.

(13:55):
Yes, you're absolutely fine.
So, yeah, so there's there'sinformation there, but not
particularly useful for forpodcasters.
And I think it says everythingwhen the number three biggest
podcast on YouTube isn't apodcast.
Right.
Still, there we are.

Sam Sethi (14:10):
Well, let's move on then, James.
Amazon, let's not leave themout of the party.
Have they done anything?

No, let's not leave them out of the party.
They released their delivered,which is their recap.

Sam Sethi (14:23):
You could you imagine the marketing teams, right?
What will Spotify call thisreplay?
Right.
What other word can we use?
Rat, right, we've got that one.
Yes.
Amazon.
What have we got one?
No, I don't know what's left inthe words.
Oh, delivered, right.
We'll use that one.
Here we go.

Delivered, yeah.
Well, what it is delivered.
Well, I didn't I didn't bother,I didn't bother.
You know, the deliveredinformation came out on Tuesday.
I didn't bother reporting ituntil Friday because we had
YouTube and then we had Spotify.
And and I thought, you knowwhat?
Either I'll mention it as oneline, or I can actually get a
proper story out of that.
So that's what I did.

(14:57):
And I managed to get the theglobal charts from Amazon
because true to form, they onlyreleased the US charts.
In fact, they didn't evenrelease that.
They said, go and have a lookin the app and you'll see the
top lists.
And I said, hello, I'm I'm inAustralia.
I can't see the top list in theUS.
You probably want me to reportthat.
So top podcasts in the US, Mr.

(15:19):
Ballon podcast, Morbid, CrimeJunkie, and the Mel Robbins
podcast.
In the UK, Red Handed, Mr.
Ballon and Shagged MarriedAnnoyed.
In Germany, Dick and Doof wasnumber one.
And in India, the Desi Crimepodcast was number one.
I have put Morbid and RedHanded in in uh red in the uh

(15:41):
notes uh here.
Sam, have you any idea why?
They're podcasts you listen to.
No.
No, they are podcasts publishedby Amazon.
Oh, surprise, surprise.
They're in the top list.
And how have Amazon's toppodcasts been chosen?
Curated through a combinationof editorial insights and

(16:02):
performance metrics.
Or if you would like me torephrase that into something
that you would understand, madeup.
So that's basically where theyare.
I mean, there really is noother way of say that, is there?
Right.
I mean, that's what they'vebasically done.
But why not?
So uh if you want to see all ofthe countries for Amazon,

(16:22):
you'll find that in the pod newsuh newsletter today.
If you want to see all of thecountries from Apple, uh you'll
see those from a couple of ofweeks ago.
And all of the countries fromYouTube, tough, because there
aren't any.
And all of the countries fromSpotify.
I think we've got that data,and you should be able to find
that in the pod news newsletteras well.

Sam Sethi (16:44):
Let's move on from this.
I mean, I'm sure that everyoneelse is going to be talking
about it.
So let's move on.
I didn't understand this nextstory.
I'll be honest.
Okay.
ACast has announced adramatically enhanced YouTube
programme in the UK, allowingadvertisers to access some of
the largest YouTube podcasts.
And I sat there and I went,okay, what's ACAST doing and how

(17:06):
does this work?
So over to you.

Well, what are they doing?
They they are doing a very goodjob of sending a press release
which looked very exciting.
Look, they're working with acompany called Little Dot
Studios.
Little Dot Studios totallyunderstands YouTube.
Little Dot Studios has 11billion monthly views on the
platform.
And so, firstly, ACast hassigned an inventory partnership,

(17:28):
which I suspect means that boththey will get advertising on
those shows, but they will alsobe able to sell advertising on
those shows, you would havethought.
But also, Little Dot Studioswill be working with ACast, with
ACast's UK creators, tobasically beef them up in terms
of YouTube and make sure thatthey are both selling

(17:50):
advertising on their YouTubeplatforms, but also to grow
their video podcasts as well.
So, really, the the the storyreally here is if you want to
succeed in YouTube, then ACastare now the company that
understands how YouTube works,and that's what they probably

(18:10):
want you to know.
Right.

Sam Sethi (18:11):
Well, I'll ask them next week at their party.
But other than that, I reallydidn't understand.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it says uh Mr.
Cridland on it, but that'sfine.
That's fine.
They will never know.
Very good.
You know what the joy of doingpodcasting is no one knows what
we look like.
It's great, I can go in and doanything.

Oh, I well, yes.
Good luck with that.
Yes.

Sam Sethi (18:33):
That's all I'll say.
Yes.
Six foot seven white man.
That's what I'm going for.
Um anyway.
Wow.
Now, here's a story.
Tell me more about who StartHere is.

I'm not alone in doing quite a lot of episodes
because Start Here, whichstarted in March 2018, it's the
daily news podcast from ABC Newsin the US.
And it's published its 2000thepisode earlier in the week.
We've spoken to Brad Milke, thehost of that very show, on this
show before, and I thought,given that he's now managed to

(19:11):
do 2,000 episodes, well, or hashe managed to do 2,000 episodes?
There's a good question.

Brad Mielke (19:18):
I thought, who better to ask than I'm Brad
Milke, and I'm the host andmanaging editor of ABC's daily
podcast Start Here.

Now you launched that podcast in 2018, but on
December the first, you will hit2,000 episodes.
That's that's quite a hit.

I'm exhausted just listening to you say it, James.
How did how did we get here?
It's incredible.
Like to think of and I'msomebody who had been around the
podcasting scene even beforeworking in ABC radio.
So I know the care it takes toput together a podcast episode
of any sort.
And so then to think to myself,oh, it's not just like 2000.

(19:59):
Episodes.
It's 2,000 podcasts that we puttogether.
And that sounds justunreasonable.
Sounds unreal when you say itlike that.

Yeah.
And each one of those podcastsbeing significantly, I mean,
I've put more than 2,000, butmine are only five minutes long.
And my idea of reporting is notquite your idea.
How many of those 2,000episodes have you done yourself,
Brad?

Oh, that's a great question.
It's it's definitely more than1900.
And then our top correspondenthas more than 237 appearances.
That's just for a guest.

So you've been doing pretty well all of these.
It isn't it it isn't apart-time job at all.
You've been traveling aroundthe US, doing them, and
reporting them from andreporting from a lot of
different places around the USand uh and outside as well.

Well, yeah, I mean, we primarily have me anchoring
the show from New York.
And every day I'm speaking to,you know, several of our many,
many correspondents fanned outacross the world across the
world.
So over the course of the last,what is it, seven years, we
have done segments fromliterally every continent.
That includes Antarctica.

(21:05):
We've done segments featuringan astronaut while in space.
We've even done a segment witha diver while he was underwater,
setting a Guinness world recordfor the amount of time spent
underwater.
So literally heavens and earthis the expanse of the start here
uh destination list.

Wow.
Wow.
And so how do you keep freshevery single day?
Because doing a daily showevery single day takes its toll,
doesn't it?

It it does.
And I think it's it really isjust about trying to keep the
listener in mind.
The listener is like first,second, and third priority here.
And so when we think aboutstart here, it's all about
taking what we find to be themost interesting news of the
day, and then trying to thinkabout why should you care?

(21:54):
Why should the listeneractually care?
We know that they get headlinespushed to them on their phone
every minute of the day.
Why should they actually careenough to spend five or six or
seven minutes on a given topic?
What makes it interesting?
What pushes it forward forthem?
And I think that's what keepsit fresh every day is there are
so many storylines that feel,even though you're constantly

(22:16):
hearing them, they still somehowmanage to feel nebulous, right?
They still somehow manage tofeel like beyond your grasp, as
if you're supposed to know a lotof background history that no
one has told you about.
And when I'm sitting aroundtalking about the news with my
colleagues, that's notnecessarily what we're doing.
There's lots of stupidquestions between journalists
where you go, like, wait, wait,wait, wait.
How did the this war start?

(22:39):
Or like, what wait, what wasthe law that he was supposed to
have broken in the first place?
That's what that's whereclarity comes from.
And the thing that I keephearing from listeners over and
over again is thank you forasking the questions that I
would actually ask this personif I were there in the moment.
And to me, that's like theexciting part that makes this a
dream job is I just keep gettingto ask those questions of both

(22:59):
my own colleagues and ofnewsmakers.

Yeah, yeah.
You can uh you can absolutelysee that.
How has um how has audience uhgrown or changed since 2018?

It's interesting.
It's been there are momentswhere it grows exponentially,
then there are moments where itlevels off, then there are
moments where it grows again,and then it levels off.
We actually have never reallyseen a real dip in listenership,
which is interesting.
Like we're apparently a verygrabby show.
Like once you hear us, youstick with it.
We've seen that in our in ouranalytics.
And then it's so interesting,too.

(23:32):
I think your audience wouldknow this better than anyone, is
like podcasts to get otherpodcasts, right?
So when we have successful ABCpodcasts where we are featured
or where we feature otherpodcasts, like those grow with
each other exponentially.
So I remember we we were doingquite well.
We were doing, you know, wewere seeing a steady growth in
listeners, but we were stillsmall-ish.

(23:52):
And then all of a sudden, ABC'sthe dropout happened.
That was the true crime podcastabout Elizabeth Holmes.
And we saw our numbers spikebecause we were always being
mentioned in the ad breaks ofthat.
So that's like an example ofhow rising tide lifts all boats,
right?
And then we've done that forother podcasts within ABC, but
you really see like the kind ofecosystem.
And then there's also the newsitself.

(24:12):
So then when there were sort oftectonic moments in the news
cycle, we see our numbers againtake a big rise and then not let
up.
So with this newadministration, we've actually
seen a significant rise inlistenership just since Trump
started his second term.

Can you see when a good story or a good episode
title has driven to morelisteners?
I mean, certainly I I I alwaysfind myself I I subscribe to a
number of daily shows.
I don't I don't listen to everysingle one, but I do choose
them in terms of the episodetitle, in terms of what story is
going to be is going to becovered.

(24:49):
Do you see that too?

Well, it's weird because, as you know, like the
downloads, we like somebodymight download it and not
necessarily listen to it, orsomebody might download and not
listen to all of it orsomething, but we do indeed see
like a huge uptick inlistenership for certain
episodes.
Like I think one of our biggestepisodes of the year was the
Diddy verdict.
I think that's what the episodetitle was called, just the
Diddy verdict.
Because again, these are thethings that you want to know,

(25:11):
like, oh, it's been floatingaround in the ether.
I want to know more about it.
How do I just get smarterfaster?
Oh, great.
Here's that 20-minute show thatI I probably already subscribed
to it, but today I need to makeextra sure to listen to it.
Or that's the day that it'sbeing shared a lot amongst
friends, or it's beinghighlighted in other platforms.
So you do see the news itselfsometimes drive listenership,
and then you've got diehards wholisten every day.

(25:33):
Are you audio only still?
We are.
We are.
We have had we we'll dofeatures with videos sometimes
when there's a particularlyinteresting interview or
something like that.
We'll make sure to tape thevideo of it.
And sometimes that gets clippedinto use, even for ABC Network,
might use that video sometimesas well if it's an exclusive
interview.
But generally we're audio only,and there's a good reason for

(25:56):
that, which is like we are aproduced show.
Like it is very different fromlike two dudes sitting and
chatting for two and a halfhours.
Like, this is something that wetake a lot of pains to condense
into the best possible 20minutes we can.
And if that means that we aregetting a grade level talent to
call us from their pajamas intheir closet, and that's the

(26:18):
only way they will talk to me.
We'll take them like that.
And mercifully, we will not askthem to put themselves on video
for that.
But that's how we end upgetting so many of our best
interviews in the moment, isbecause we are calling people at
all hours of the day and in allparts of the country, like
often when they're on scene andnot in a position to have any
sort of film team with them.

Yeah, no, indeed.
Indeed.
And you travel around the worldand travel around the US in
particular.
Are you now being re recognizedas, you know, as the man that
does start here?
Is is that something thatpeople come up to you and say?

Rarely, but it has happened.
And one of my favorite momentswas I'm at the Iowa caucuses and
I'm interviewing a young woman.
It's her first time caucusing.
She's a first-time voter,basically.
She's 18 years old, and sheasks me where I'm from, and I
say ABC.
And she says, Wait, are youBrad Milky?
This is an 18-year-old wholistens, who manages to listen

(27:13):
to the news every day.
And I always say this is howyou know Iowa voters are like a
different breed, is even theirhigh schoolers are listening to
the new, like a daily newspodcast.
But that made me go, like, ohwow, like this really does like
shape people's mornings in somany ways.

Yeah, it's always weird uh going around,
obviously we're not quite thesame scale, but it's always
weird going around a podcastconference and and and having
people coming up to you andsaying, I wake up to you every
single morning.

And I I have family members who think they don't
need to call me or chat with mebecause they just talked to me
this morning is how they feelabout it.
I haven't heard their voice inweeks.
Yeah, but they think thatthey're off the hook because in
because, like you say, it's sointimate that it really does
feel like you are having a chatwith that person that day.

So, what happens in the next 2,000 episodes,
right?

I've got so many big dreams, James.
So I I still continue to thinkthat that Start Here is at its
best when it's explaining big,urgent national and
international news the day thatyou need context for it.
Like when October 7th happenedin Gaza and in Israel, by
October 8th, we had a show upexplaining here's why this was

(28:23):
such a big deal.
And I still think that we cando better as a show in taking
our like in doing unilateralcoverage from these moments that
are unfolding as they happen.
Generally, I'm the one talkingto a correspondent in the field,
as it should be, right?
These are our experts that arefanned out across the world and
they have this expertise.
But my dream is that we're ableto continue turning this into a

(28:46):
platform at ABC that is bothpackaging news for you, but also
reporting the news the veryfirst time out there, that we
are a news gathering and newsmaking platform as well as sort
of a uh summarizing product, youknow.

And will you be doing another 1900 shows in that
2000 uh shows to come?

I'm in my dream job right now.
Like, I I truly don't know howthey've allowed me to do this.
Like they they took a reporterwho had just come off the
campaign trail, who like hadjust sort of like learned what
it was to be a you know reporterin the field for the last
couple years.
They uh said, Hey, would youever want to host this podcast?
Podcasts are becominginteresting.

(29:30):
I was like, Yeah, hello, ofcourse.
And then we've managed tosomehow make success make it
successful, and I'm somehow likestill the host of it.
Yeah, yes, please.
So I'm I'm very uh happy andexcited to keep rolling here.

There's an awful lot of talk at the moment,
isn't there, about newsavoidance and people who are who
uh uh you know don't uh catchup with the news as much as they
used to, because it's kind of Idon't know what the audio
equivalent of doom scrolling is,but it kind of is a little bit
like that, isn't it?
Is that something that you youyou and your team are aware of

(30:06):
and want to change in some way?

Well, very much so.
It it's almost surprising to ussometimes that our numbers have
actually done so much betterover the last year or two
because we keep hearing from ourcolleagues about how everyone
is completely exhausted by thenews.
We hear from our listeners thatthey're exhausted by the news.
It's a very real phenomenon,and yet people still are like
clicking us, which is helpful.
It shows that we're probablydoing things in a way that is

(30:30):
not too exhausting, but it'slike very much on my mind when I
think about how we select ourstories, how we report them in
just like the moststraightforward way that we can,
like get people just the facts,ma'am.
That's what people should behearing without too much
critique or editorializing.
And I think it's also justimportant to remember like what

(30:54):
people want to know.
There's the stuff that theyneed to know every day, and
there's the stuff that they wantto know every day.
Often they're the same,sometimes they're different, and
you're trying to offer themlike a little bit of all of the
above.
So that means that you mighthave several big political
stories today, but we've triedvery hard not to make this an
exclusively political show.
Or on days, you know, when whenwe know that there's kind of

(31:14):
one big story that's been outthere all week, of course, we're
gonna keep leading with that.
And but if there's a way we canhighlight a story that you that
might not be on your radar,we're very much gonna take a
look at that and like spendsignificant time to it too, in a
way that's not just like athrowaway.
But we always are trying tomake sure that even our off-beat
news uh is not just like quirkyand silly, like it still is

(31:35):
telling you somethinginteresting about the world
around you because it's allthere all the time.

Yeah, there's a the there's a number of uh radio
conferences that I go to andthere's a lot of talk about
constructive journalism.
And instead of telling thestory as if you're telling, you
know, a really another reallybad thing has happened, uh to
actually tell the the story in away that actually there is some
constructive goodness thatcomes out of all of this.

And and like kind of a respect for all people
involved.
Like there aren't generallylike super villains out there,
right?
So even if there's like a partof the political spectrum or a
part of the country or somethingthat you disagree with, no one
everyone's generally coming froma place of good faith.
Like most normal human beingsare coming from a place of good
faith.
They might have just havedifferent ideas of how you get
there or different assumptionsof what have now shaped their

(32:22):
ideas.
And I think the key is to likepay respect to all of those
ideas and to treat as manypeople as you can like they are
coming from a place of goodfaith, and like we can like
figure this out together andarrive some sort of it doesn't
have to be a common truth, butat least a common narrative as
to what the heck is happening.

And you mention obviously doing a daily news
show.
You can't necessarily dive intoindividual stories as as deeply
as you would like.
One of the things that I'venoticed a number of the other
shows that I listen to are doingis they are beginning to do
longer, more investigativeshows, really focusing on

(33:00):
specific stories.
Is that part of where StartHere is going, or is that part
of where you're going in termsof what you might be doing in
the next few years as well?

I do think it's really difficult to put together
a daily show that covers allthe news and that makes it all
seem fresh.
And so I actually think part ofthe challenge that we've
actually decided to stick withis the tough challenge of like
delivering multiple stories aday, unless there is one story
that is absolutely blocking outthe sun.
I think it's like an actuallyunique challenge to deliver on

(33:33):
multiple stories a day, givepeople a broad sense of what the
news is that's percolatingaround them, and to do it
interestingly in a way thatdoesn't just exhaust everyone.
We have, though, done severalkind of standalone episodes, and
we'll often do these on aweekend or something like that.
Like we'll we treat, we thinkof it more like bonus content
than we do our supplanting ourregular show.

(33:53):
And in those sort of bonusepisodes, we've had like
producer-led segments wherethey're going around with like
war reenactors and going onhunting trips with people
reporting on these sort of nicheinterests.
We've done award-winning workon like the the specter of long
COVID in America.
We've looked at, you know,Americans being priced out of

(34:14):
the real estate market.
So we do do these like reallyinteresting deep dives on
things, but generally, I thinkthe key for us is to deliver on
our original mission, which islike it is hard to do multiple
stories a day, year after yearafter year, and we're gonna keep
doing it like in an interestingway.

The last time I saw you was three years ago, and
uh I was trying to convince youto come to uh sunny Australia.
Yes, because it was 10 years tothe Olympics, it's now what,
seven years to the Olympics?
We've not actually startedbuilding anything.
We're still we're still arguingabout budgets and things.
Are we gonna see you?
Are we gonna see you down herecovering our Olympics at some

(34:54):
stage in the future?

I had to see you in Los Angeles then, James.
Then that well, now now youyou're painting yourself into a
corner because now we've got tohang out in Los Angeles or
something like that before then.
I would love to go toAustralia, man.
That's the key, the key forboth of us, as you know, is like
if you're gonna do it, yougotta do it right.
So we gotta like you gotta giveme like a two-week itinerary,
right?
You can't just I can't justswing in for a weekend.

Exactly right.
Brian, it's always good to havea chat with you.
Thank you so much, and uh welldone on uh 2000 episodes.

Thank you so much.
It's really truly a a dream tobe doing it, and it's like been
a joy to talk to you over theselast several years since we've
been on the scene.
So thank you so much.

Announcer (35:31):
The pod news weekly review with Buzz with
BuzzSprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.

Sam Sethi (35:41):
Edison Research released the top 25 podcasts in
the UK.
Was it a snore fest?
Is it the same as ever, or isthere anything new?

Well, 24 of the 25 were the same as ever.
But actually, I mean there werea few re-entries, but Red
Handed from uh Amazon'sWondering made it into the top
25 for the first time.
So congratulations to them.
You may remember that they werenumber two in the Amazon list.
Goldhanger also have four showsin the list.

(36:09):
The BBC has uh five as well.
It's a decent chart.
I think uh the the reason why Ilike it and the reason why I
think it's the gold standard forthis sort of thing is that it
doesn't change.
And actually people's habitsdon't change that much.
And to see something which isreally consistent every quarter

(36:31):
is pretty good, I think.
So yeah, it's a good it's agood list.
There are a couple of of littleof little changes in it, but in
terms of uh where where they interms of you know what what the
full list is, it is, you know,as ever, lots and lots of gold
hanger shows in the top ten.
Joe Rogan at number one, Diaryof a CEO, your favorite show

(36:51):
with Stephen Bartlett at numbertwo, Sam, and uh the rest is
politics, which I do uh I dothat with.
That's one of mine.
Yes, number three.
So many congratulations to uhGoldhanger for that.

Sam Sethi (37:03):
Now, talking about bodies that measure things, the
IAB has got their 2025 CreatorEconomy Ad Spend and Strategy
Report.
Uh what was the highlight inthat one?

I mean the real highlight is that creator ad
spend, so that's ad spend withinfluencers, if you like, is
projected to reach $37 billionin 2025.
That's up 26% year on year.
I guess quite a lot of this isdown to whatever creator ad
spend really is, because itsounds as uh difficult to uh

(37:34):
work out what creator ad spendis as to what a podcast is, to
be honest.
But over the last three years,creator advertising has more
than doubled.
It's gone up from 13.9 billionin 2021 to 37 billion now.
So yeah, it's interestingseeing that and interesting
seeing ad results media's take,which is that you still need to

(37:55):
do the other advertising.
You don't replace youradvertising with giving your
product to Kim Kardashian andhoping that Kim Kardashian will
use it.
That that's not how advertisingworks.
You still need to do the restof that.
And so it it's still a good jobto advertise on audio, and I
think that that's probably afair enough thing to say.

Sam Sethi (38:17):
Just an anecdotal story.
My wife is on the board of twocompanies of which I won't
mention.
But a third of their marketingspend is to influencers now.
That's quite amazing.
Um the number when she told me,I was like, really?
Spend that much.
But they do.

Yeah, and I guess you know, when you look at
a ton of companies, actuallythey are spending quite a lot
on, you know, what they callinfluencers.
I know I'm down on the list asbeing an influencer with uh some
uh folks, so rather bizarre.
You know, so you know, sooccasionally I'll be I'll be
sent a thing and um you know,with the idea that I might I

(38:55):
might talk about it like amicrophone or something.

Sam Sethi (38:58):
But I'll still send you money.

unknown (39:00):
Wow.

Yes, money maybe not.
But uh but uh yes.
Yeah, so I get sent theoccasional thing, although sadly
roads still don't know where Ilive.
So uh there you go.
How far are they away from you?
Exactly.

Sam Sethi (39:17):
Walk one around if they want to.

Not not a not a very charming company.
Anyway, let's move on.

Sam Sethi (39:24):
People in jobs, James.
I noticed this one actually.
Obviously, we mentioned I storeleaving the Audio UK, but
actually on the PodNews DailyJobs board, uh they're
advertising for the new CEO.

That's right.
Podnews.net slash jobs.
If you want to be the CEO ofAudio UK, it is a fully remote
job, although one would assumethat you probably need to live
in the UK, because otherwisethat might be a little bit
difficult.
They are looking for anambitious commercial.
Yeah, no, no, oh my goodness,no.

(39:58):
They are looking for Anambitious, commercially savvy,
and future-facing chiefexecutive officer to lead Audio
UK into its next phase ofgrowth.
It's big shoes to fill fromChloe Straw, who we've had on
this podcast before.
But there's more information,of course, in the pod news
newsletter you've got until nextTuesday to apply.

(40:21):
So you should probably end updoing that.
Somebody that has got a job isKate Fit is Kate FitzSimons.
Now, she used to be the editorof Five News.
Five News is, you know, one ofthe big tent pole news shows in
the UK on TV on Channel 5.
She has now left that and goneto work for Pod Save the UK as

(40:42):
executive producer, which isquite a quite a move.
And so looking forward toseeing.
I think Pod Save the UK seemsto do quite well.
It's one of those sort ofhidden away shows that probably
more people should be talkingabout.
Nish Kumar and Coco, Coco Khan.
And yeah, it's a good, it's agood old show.

(41:03):
So yeah, uh interesting to endup seeing that.
And Les Hollander is leavingGlobal's Dax after six years.
He's been all over the worldand all over audio and is
seemingly a very uh good egg.
We interviewed Brian Conlanfrom Dax a couple of weeks ago
on this very show.

Sam Sethi (41:25):
Now, awards and events, James.
What's going on in the awardsand events?
Because it must be the seasonnow.

It's definitely the season.
So we had the winners of theAPAs from Audio UK, that's the
Audio Production Awards.
The organizers of Sheffield'sCrosswires Festival were
presented with the Audio UKAward.
And we've also got a full listof the winners.
A lot of the awards this yearwent to radio, not to
podcasting, because it's um, youknow, you couldn't you can

(41:53):
enter from either.
Uh so it was interesting uh uhseeing that because I think it
was the other way around a yearor so ago.
The Scottish Podcast Awardshave been announced for June
2026.
Apparently, according to theorganization behind it, more
people in Scotland listen topodcasts than any other part of
the UK.
I don't know where thatinformation's from, but it

(42:15):
sounds very exciting.
I don't know whether it'sparticularly helpful to sort of
dilute the British PodcastAwards with the Scottish Podcast
Awards.
Are we going to have theMarlowe Podcast Awards?
And in which case, we'd betterenter this one because that
would be a good idea.
But take it to come second.
So I'm not quite sure.

(42:36):
I'm not quite sure whether ornot that's a particularly good
idea, to be honest.
But you know, uh fine, go aheadand do that.
It's cultural, James.
They they just want highlights.
I know, I know.
And of course, the 30th annualWebby Awards are open.
I've already got two, I don'tneed any more.
You can enter before threestrikes and L.

(42:58):
You can enter before the finalentry deadline, which is
December the 19th.
So you've got a couple of weeksto end up doing that.
Before we come back properly onthis very show, I think maybe
we'll just be doing our firstshow from it.
But Podfest is uh happeningJanuary the 15th to the 18th.
It's in Orlando in Florida.

(43:20):
It is the world's longestrunning annual in-person
podcasting conference.
You can find the uh schedule ontheir website.
And if you would like to go,then I will give you a discount.
No, not me personally, but youcan get a discount.
Podnews.net slash extras iswhere to go.
You need to be a subscriber tothe pod news newsletter,

(43:40):
otherwise you don't get it.
But it is free to do that.
So you can get a discount to goto PodFest.
I'm looking forward to it.
I am speaking, I'm speaking atsome sort of fancy VIP lunch
event that most people won't beable to go to.
But nevertheless, I am speakingand I'll be talking a little
bit about where we've come fromand where we're going.
So that might be fun.
And another place where I amalso speaking again is the

(44:04):
podcast show in 2026 in London,which I'm looking forward to as
well.
You will be there as well, Sam,I hope.
I will.
Yes, though.

Sam Sethi (44:12):
I will be we I'll be speaking, you'll be speaking,
and we'll be speaking.
Yes, we'll be doing a live showthen.

We will.
We'll be doing a live show atthe end of the podcast show as
well.
There are more stages.
They've taken a leaf out of thepodcast movement book, and they
have what they call theultimate networking party in a
historic London venue.
I am going to guess that thehistoric London venue is going

(44:39):
to be the roundhouse and they'regoing to do something big with
music up there.
That's just a guess.
I don't know anything more.
I am an advisor to them.
But I don't know anything more.
But if if if it was me, I wouldbe choosing the the roundhouse,
which is relatively close towhere the Islington Business

(44:59):
Center is, and that might befun.
But yeah, one of the otherthings that they're doing is
they have an international stagewhich is curated by our friends
at Podimo.
And I think that's a reallygood move to actually get
something which is properlylooking at podcasting outside of
the UK and the US.
I think that'll be reallyhelpful.
So looking forward to Podimohelping do all of that.

(45:21):
And again, there's a discounton our passes as well.
Podnews.net slash extras iswhere to go.

Sam Sethi (45:27):
Now, Goalhanger, who we mentioned multiple times
already on this show, they haveannounced way early, but well
done.
They've called a festivalcalled the Rest is Fest, which
is coming out in September 2026.
What's this one, James?

Wow, yes, exactly.
So they're basically takingover the South Bank Centre next
year.
28 shows, four stages, threedays of all of the big shows
that Goldhanger do, uh includingtheir newest one, which is the
rest is science, which is uhvery good, which I've been
enjoying.
And uh, yeah, you'll be able tobuy tickets for that next week

(46:05):
or next uh Thursday.
So there's a thing.
Very clever of Goldhanger to bepulling together all of their
shows, and it just makes itmuch, much cheaper for them to
put on a number of a number ofbig shows like this.
And let's hope that nobody getsuh cancelled in the meantime.
That would be a that would be amistake, wouldn't it?
Yes.

(46:25):
But it's a big thing in termsof goal hanger.
So not only have Goldhangerdone that, they've also uh done
a deal with Netflix because thatseems to be the thing that
everybody does.
Gary Lineker's show, the restis football, will be coming live
from North America during theWorld Cup and will be available
on Netflix.
Apparently, reportedly, he'sgonna get paid significantly

(46:50):
more than he was for BBC matchof the day, which he was already
earning an awful lot for.
I'm not so sure that I entirelybelieve that.
I think that that that uh thethe newspapers have done their
usual thing and uh looked at thewhole money going to Goldhanger
and assume that that's allgoing to Gary Lineker, which I
don't think is going to be thecase.

(47:10):
But yeah.

Sam Sethi (47:11):
Well he does own Goldhanger, though.

I mean he does own it, yes, but he's not he's
not gonna trouser all of thatmoney.
Uh I don't think that that's uhquite going to go.
What would be really helpful,Sam, uh, if you wouldn't mind
just sort of organizing this, isnow I know that we don't have a
full show next week, but wewill I'm sure that I could put
it into the into the feed if youif you were able to get hold of
the CEO of Goalhanger, a niceman called Tony Pasteur, uh, to

(47:35):
find out more about this.
That would be super awesome.
Would you mind doing that inthe next seven days?

Sam Sethi (47:39):
Yeah, no problem.
As always, your wish is mycommand.
Yes, we will have Tony on nextweek.

Yes.
Excellent.
Well, I'm looking forward tohearing what he has to say.
And also looking forward toseeing what Crossed Wires is
doing.
It's a fantastic podcastlisteners festival.
It happens in Sheffield.
They've released their firstwave of acts for 2026.
It's in early July.
They've got an extra day oflive shows and all kinds of

(48:06):
things.
Interestingly, BBC Radio 4 isactually doing its own thing at
the festival.
So they are taking over atheatre space in Sheffield as
well to go alongside the stuffthat they're doing in the old
Coles Brothers building, whichstill hasn't been let by the
looks of things.
So uh yeah, it's a tremendousevent last year.

(48:26):
It'd be nice if I couldactually get to it this year.
That might be a nice thing.
So we'll see what happensthere.
But uh yeah, they they aredoing fantastic stuff.
Crosswires.live is where to goif you want to find out more
information about that, andthat's crossed as in C O.
That's crossed as in C-R O S ED.
I'm glad that I know how tospell crossed crossedwires.live,

(48:50):
and that's and that's a goodthing.

Sam Sethi (48:53):
And finally, with a hundred days until the event,
Podcast a thon has revealed thatit already has more than 1,000
registrations.
Remind me, what is Podcast athon?

So this is a thing where you give one of your
shows, one of your normal showsthat you do, over to talk about
a charity of your choice, whichis such a simple idea, such a
really easy idea.
It was a French thinginitially, or a French language
thing.
It's actually from Montreal inCanada.
It's then emerged into Frenchand English and now is in all

(49:26):
kinds of different languages, 40different countries already
taking part.
And it's got support now fromcompanies like Apple Podcasts
and Spotify as well.
So many congratulations tothat.
Pod News once again is a mediapartner and looking forward to
seeing if we can push morepeople to sign up for that.

Announcer (49:45):
The tech stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday
in the Pod News newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology, and there's quite a
lot of it, Sam, isn't there?
There is this week, yes.

Sam Sethi (49:56):
Um surprisingly, as we're coming up to Christmas.
Apple this week seeded orreleased, pick your word, their
iOS 26.2.
They did it for also for MSTahoe and they've also done it
for the iPad.
What's the actual podcastingfeatures that have come out in
this release, James?

So these are the exciting podcasting features of
the automatically createdchapters.
So you get to see chapters forevery single show, which is a
good thing.
You also have uh timed links,so links appear.
If I mention a podcast name,it'll appear automatically in
your podcast app.
So you can uh instantly popover there and get that.

(50:37):
And that's particularly goodfor guests and things like that.
And yeah, so there's a bunch ofuh a bunch of that uh new
stuff.
Uh it comes out with uhobviously all kinds of other
upgrades as well.
The release candidate isavailable now.
If you can work out how toactually press the press the
terms and conditions agreebutton, which I am literally, as
we speak, hammering the agreebutton, and it's not letting me

(51:01):
it's not letting me actuallyagree the terms and conditions
maybe.

Sam Sethi (51:04):
Scroll further, scroll further, reading.

Speaker 6 (51:07):
I've scrolled to the bottom of the page.
Oh, happy.
I've scrolled all the way tothe bottom of the page and it's
not actually working.
Well, there's a bug.
Tim Apple.
Please, please fix it.
I think I'm gonna go.

Sam Sethi (51:17):
It's not a problem anymore.

He's gone.
Well, not just not just him,but also the man who was in
charge of Apple's UX, the guywho was in charge of the the
liquid glass rollout.
Stevie Wonder.
He he is actually gone as well.
So yes, I was reading a goodlong blog post from the Six
Colours blog earlier on in thein the day talking about talking

(51:43):
about that and talking about itit was a really interesting,
interesting article, actually,because he he was basically
saying, Look, I I don't want tosay rude things about Alan Dye,
who was his name.
I don't I don't want to sayrude things about him.
He was VP of Human Interface,but he then goes on to say quite
a lot of rude things about him.

(52:04):
Because at the end of the day,he was the man that was in
charge of quite a lot ofmissteps, and certainly when you
have a look at uh the theliquid glass thing, which nobody
really likes, but you know,we've kind of got to have it'll
be gone, it'll be gone in thenext version.
Yeah, well, he is going off toruin your your special glasses,

(52:25):
Sam, I'm afraid.

Sam Sethi (52:27):
I have heard, yes, yes, Mr.
Zuckerberg has poached him,yes.

Yes, he's been poached, and I I like the uh I
like the phrase, you know, inthe in the article that, you
know, I mean, you you know, yyes, he was offered a truckload
of money, but he he you know,Apple could have could have
given him quite a lot of moneyto stay, but they didn't, which
I think probably says quite alot.

Sam Sethi (52:52):
Yeah, the the worrying thing was the person
who's replacing him has beenthere 25 years at Apple.
So not a newbie, not somebodywith any new ideas, the same
old.

Yeah, well, there you go.
Anyway, moving on to other appsthen.

Sam Sethi (53:07):
Yes, let's do that.
Castomatic, congratulations.
Castomatic 12 is out.
Oh dear.
I I say oh dear because I justread the next bit, which is
they've updated it to supportliquid glass, the UI.
Oh, well, there you go.
But no, congratulationsseriously to Franco getting any
new version out a milestone.
So Castomatic 12 is out.

(53:28):
It's got adaptive playercolours, it's got new
animations, improved new sleeptimer UIs, and many bug fixes.
So give it a go.

Yeah, yeah, indeed.
And you know, liquid glassisn't for everybody, but the
benefit of upgrading to that isthat you get all of the changes
to to liquid glass as Applemakes them, because you're using
exactly the same SDK.
So it does make sense and itmakes for a much more cohesive
experience on the on the phoneas well.

Sam Sethi (53:58):
Now, Olby, yes, James, it's still alive.

Right, I'm I'm I'm just I'm just off to make
myself a cup of tea.

Sam Sethi (54:08):
Come back, it's about money.
You know that you love it.
Talk to us about bit177.
Yes, the uh Bitcoin improvementwhat was it?
It's a Bitcoin improvement uhproposal.
It's basically all be a newrelease of their hubs come out
to support bit 177.

(54:29):
What is bit177?
It really is trying to get ridof some of the confusion around
Bitcoin numbers.
So, for example, you might seea transaction that says
0.0000043 Bitcoin.
Uh-huh.
And of course, that is a reallyawful thing to write.
So now what they're suggestingis you just put that as 43

(54:50):
bitcoins.
Uh-huh.
And what they are actuallysuggesting is the removal of the
word SATS or Satoshis andreplacing it just with Bitcoin.
So you won't be talking about aBitcoin being a one big number
and then decimal points of itbeing SATS, you'll talk about
bitcoins and that's the onlything.
And already Olby supported thisas a proposal.

(55:13):
Cash App has supported thisproposal as well.
So if you go into your Olby hubnow, you can actually see it in
action where they've changedall the numbers to Bitcoin.
But you can, if you are stillinclined, switch it back to SATS
if there is a settingavailable.
I quite like the idea of justgoing to Bitcoin as a single

(55:34):
number.
I think SATS as a word I don'tthink is caught on in the
mainstream.
I don't think I ever reallyhear people in the press or on
TV or in the news talking aboutit.
But you you know that you couldwalk down the high street and
99% of people will say they knowwhat the word Bitcoin means,
even if they don't know how tobuy it or use it.

Yeah, so it's a it's a revaluation, uh kind of
to stop us from talking uh yeah,about uh all of these not
point, not not not one, which ofcourse has happened with other
currencies as well.

Sam Sethi (56:08):
So that's a bit 177.
Uh also Square, which is JackDorsey's company, uh, has
already uh said they're going toaccept Bitcoin payments.
So uh uh again how many umthey've got four million plus
small businesses using theSquare terminal.
Again, that's nice.

(56:28):
Um I'll go up to the villagestore on Friday.
Lots of the people have Square.
I'll see if I can get my umwallet to work there.

Yes, I think I think will will accept Bitcoin
payments, but I I wouldn't haveimagined that they will
instantly accept Bitcoinpayments, and certainly that may
well be a US only and notavailable everywhere else.
So yeah.
It's also going to be free toaccept Bitcoin and it's for the

(56:57):
first year, and after that it'sgonna be one percent, which is
interesting because obviouslycredit cards are three percent,
so you know one percent isbetter than three percent,
certainly.
Oh, yes, and I've just foundthe small print.
Square Bitcoin functionality isnot available to sellers that
are located in New York State oroutside the US.

(57:17):
Right.
There we are.

Sam Sethi (57:19):
Won't be going out to the village store and trying
that one then.

Speaker 6 (57:22):
You won't be.

Sam Sethi (57:23):
No.
But look, you know, again, it'sit's along the path of
progress.
I mean, you know, uh I thinkwhat we're seeing here is uh
people normalizing it, trying tomake it much more acceptable to
the mainstream.
And again, the more that it'savailable in outlets or in
square terminals, even if it'snot available internationally, I

(57:44):
think it's got to be a goodthing.
I saw Cash App this week haveannounced that you can now use
either your local currency orBitcoin to pay, and they will do
the uh translation in thebackground to whatever wallet
switching or splits might beoccurring in the background.
So yeah, you can you can justpay in a normal fiat currency
and then they will work out theum uh Bitcoin translation.

(58:07):
Yeah, that's nice.
That's nice.
Uh now the other thing that uhstruck me, sticking with money
just for a second, was Stripehas agreed to acquire a company
called Metronome, which I'dnever heard of, which offers
APIs to help SaaS companiescharge customers based on usage.
And I uh originally I looked atit and I was like, oh, okay,
this is really clever.
Nathan Gathright, when he firstcame out with his

(58:30):
transcribe.fm, uh used L402, theprotocol to allow you to
basically uh use his API to geta transcription based on usage,
and it was quite clever.
So you would upload yourtranscription, he would see how
big the file size was, and basedon that size, he would then
give you a price fortranscribing it.

(58:51):
And it looks like Stripe havebought this company for a
similar reason.
It's real-time API usage.
Uh-huh.
And I think this is where we'regoing with the industry.
We're going from a place wherepeople charge just a fixed fee
to a company or service thatwill charge you based on usage.
And I just thought it wasinteresting that Stripe had

(59:12):
bought this company.

Yeah, it's certainly interesting seeing,
you know, a bunch of changeshere and a bunch of, you know,
charging customers based onusage sounds so easy, but I know
that it it isn't easy to dothat at all.
So yeah, it's it it you know,it's always fascinating watching
the different payment models inthere as well.
Talking about different paymentmodels, Podcast Guru has uh

(59:34):
just done a little bit of workwith their boosts.
So if you get a boost throughuh Podcast Guru, you will be
able to uh currently just clicka link and uh see what the
message was.
And it says here, I've beenworking in isolation too much
and wasn't really aware thateveryone else was trying to
solve this problem, too.
Hello.

(59:56):
We'll consider our own APIendpoint alpha state.
And hopefully we'll allcoalesce on a working standard.
I mean, you know, podcast gurussats are still coming through.
Just more than you can say forsome others.
So that that's a wonderfulthing.
But uh no, I it's it's beengood to see their information
certainly is appearing in mystrike app, and it'll be good to

(01:00:18):
have a little link that will beclickable at some point in the
future.
So uh yeah, I think uh the moreof that, the better.

Sam Sethi (01:00:26):
Now, here's another one that came up that um I was
interested in.
Chad F, who does a lot of workon the MasterDon with a lot of
the podcasting 2.0 companies,launched a platform last night
called Stablecraft.
Stablecraft is a V for V musicapp which supports singles,
albums, playlists, andthankfully publisher feeds as

(01:00:47):
well.
Now, Chad's done a little videoas well, so if you want, you
can go and find that on YouTube.
But stablecraft.app is reallynice.
He's basically taken in severalhundred music tracks.
Uh huh.
He shows them uh singles as youwould expect, but you can then
which is the one benefit of thepublisher feed, because most
people haven't adopted it.

(01:01:08):
You can now group all theartists around their uh what's
the word I'm looking for?
Sorry.
Discography, that's the word.
Yeah, um yeah.
So you can basically thepublisher feed will then show
you all of the tracks from thatartist.
Uh-huh.
And he's done a really nicejob, but also you can do boosts,
you can do uh streamingpayments.

(01:01:29):
That's a really good demobecause it's not it's not a
real-time thing, it's Chadfeeding and updating it.
You can't really update ityourself yet.
But uh it's a lovely little uhdemo of what we can do with
music.

James Cridland (01:01:44):
Nice.
So stablecraft with a K,stablecraft.app is where you can
go to uh play with that, bothon mobile and on desktop.

Sam Sethi (01:01:53):
And you've also got stablecraft.app forward slash
radio, where you can just put iton and leave it on in the
background, which is an equallynice thing to do.

Speaker 5 (01:02:01):
Yeah.

Sam Sethi (01:02:02):
And not to be left out, Sir Libra has also
implemented a for his ownplatform called V for V Music.
He is also supporting thepublisher feed.
Uh and again, it's good to seepeople beginning to finally
understand what the publisherfeed is.
I know we at TrueFound havedone it for a while.
Oscar and DobbyDaz came up withthe idea originally from

(01:02:22):
Fountain, but uh I haven't seenmuch work implemented in
Fountain itself, which is ashame.
But yeah, it's good to seepeople finally understanding how
publisher feeds work and wherethey fit within the podcasting
ecosystem.

Yeah, well, maybe I should be doing a little
bit of integration with thepublisher feed into the Pod News
Podcast pages, and at least itwill be visible there as well, I
suppose.

Sam Sethi (01:02:45):
Yeah, no, that'd be lovely.
Now, Podverse, yes, they'restill alive, James.
Mitch Downey posted it's longoverdue, but I think the
Podverse 2.0 website will befinally available in beta before
the end of this month.
And so congratulations, Mitch.
He's been working hard on a newversion and it looks like it's

(01:03:06):
gonna come alive very soon.
He's also supporting podcastingas we would expect, but also
video and music.
He's supporting the alternativeenclosure.
Congratulations.
And live streams as well.
So great news that Podverse 2.0is alive and it will be
available very soon.

Very cool.
Yeah, it's it's a it's a greatlooking app as well.
If you use Android, you'll feelright at home with this.
It's very cool.

Sam Sethi (01:03:33):
Other news, James, Pod Radar has launched uh a pod
hunt-like product for podcasts.
Tell me more about this one.

Yeah, so it's it's a bit like product hunt,
you know, that sort of thing,where you submit new episodes.
If you're an indie podcasterand people, and you can then
encourage your listeners to votefor it, and it will appear at
the top of the ranker the nextweek, is the idea.
It's quite a nice idea, so it'suh worthwhile taking a peek at

(01:04:01):
that.
It's free to submit a show.
Not quite sure how it's goingto pay its way in the future,
but you know, they these thingsare probably a good thing.
But anyway, thepodradar.com iswhere you go for that.
AudienceLift is doing somethingquite neat.
They are a company that helpsyou advertise your podcast on a
bunch of websites like the WallStreet Journal and Yahoo and the

(01:04:25):
New York Times and everythingelse.
So that if there is a storyabout cheese and you are doing a
podcast about cheese, then yourpodcast might appear in the
advert, which is very neat.
Anyway, Audience Lyft havelaunched an API now.
So that will allow podcasthosting platforms and big
networks to automate all of thatstuff rather than annoy some of

(01:04:47):
the people via email.
So I'm sure that they'll bedelighted about that.
You can go and take a uh peekat that.
And in fact, newpodcasts.net,uh, which is our new podcasts
feed, is uh powered byAudienceLift.
So thank you to them for that.
Now, this was very cool, wasn'tit?
Matt Medeiros.
He has produced an automatedAI-powered analysis tool for

(01:05:12):
podcasts.
Now he is not a developer, buthe has uh you know vibe coded
this thing.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Go, Adam Curry, eat your heartout.
Matt Medeiros.
Yeah.
But he has done a tremendousjob on this show.
And he's he's done a fullYouTube video all about it.
It's a full report showing allof what we have talked about

(01:05:36):
this year.
He's even posted the code inwhich he ended up doing it.
So unique brands are in there.
How many people we've talkedabout?
50.
Uh, how many hosting platformswe've talked about, 35.
Thankfully, the number onehosting platform that we talked
about was Buzzsprout.
That was the first thing that Iwent to check.
Renew.
Reneal time.

(01:05:56):
And and the amount of podcastapps we talked about, 33 podcast
apps, apparently.
So really, really nice, really,really neat.
John McDermott is the personwho we have spoken about the
most, which uh John sent me anemail saying that he was
absolutely he found thisabsolutely hilarious.
So, yes, who'd who would havethought it?
Who would have thought it?

Sam Sethi (01:06:17):
I think he I think John's gone down to Prontoprint
and got a poster made up for hiswall now.

Yes, yes, exactly.
Yes, exactly.
Kinko's, by the way, he meanshe do you just mean prontoprint.
You've you've never heard ofprontoprint in the in the US.

Sam Sethi (01:06:32):
I haven't been to Trump's Danistan for ages.

I don't know.
Prontoprint.
Kinko's or FedEx.
Anyway, yeah, um uh reallycool.
What did you think?

Sam Sethi (01:06:43):
No, I really liked it.
And I I think what I love aboutit more is it's a bit like when
Apple transcribed everything,right?
And you go, oh, okay, what areyou gonna do with this?
And then they come up withtimed links, right?
As a valued feature from thebase work they did, and then you
know, they've added chapters.

(01:07:03):
And I I've always said that,you know, once you get all that
data in place, what you can dowith it is gonna be amazing.
And what Matt's done isactually shown just for this
podcast, but imagine now if youcould do that across multiple
podcasts, you know, abstractingdata, not just uh on the
individual podcast, but acrossall, you know, has this person

(01:07:24):
appeared in 10 differentpodcasts?
Has what's the hottest topicthis week?
I mean, there's so much thatyou could do once you've got
that base data.
So yeah, I was very excitedabout what he showed.

Yeah, no, it's uh very cool.
So it's well worth a peek.
You'll find that linked in thepod news newsletter.

Announcer (01:07:40):
Booster, boostergram, booster grand, super comments,
zaps, fan mail, fan mail, superchats, and email.
Our favorite time of the week,it's the Pod News Weekly Review
Inbox.

Yeah, so many different ways to get in touch
with us.
Fan mail by using the link inour show notes or super comments
on TrueFans or boostseverywhere else or email.
Uh, we share the money that wemake as well.
So thank you for that.
We've uh received a number ofthings from the using TrueFans.
What does this say?
I agree.
This is from Neil Vellio.
I agree.
My fan mail was harsh and a bitoverpersonal towards Kendall.

(01:08:16):
And that's me saying that, saysNeil Vellio.
But the Riverside hosting offeris as disappointing as
everything else, rushed out,covered in glitter, and needing
far more time to develop.
I think I would probably agreewith that.
I don't think I've madeparticularly many friends
Riverside by saying that, butyeah, I don't think that was
ready for prime time quite yet.

(01:08:37):
But I'm sure it will be.
Uh, they're a very they're avery decent company.
So yeah.

Sam Sethi (01:08:42):
Martin Linderskog, Lyceum, said, James, I wouldn't
mind a free pass for cargisearch of the service that you
use.
So yes, there you go.

Yes, I sent you one.
You did?
Yes.
I bet you haven't used it.
Nope.

Sam Sethi (01:08:54):
There you go.
Thank you very much.
Very kind.

He also says you have you mentioned that you
have tabs on incoming donationsvia Fountain and TrueFans.
Which service do you use?
Is it possible to integrate asimilar service like Helipad
into TrueFans in the future?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, look, I will tell youwhat's going on with the
messages that we are getting atthe moment.
I am getting boosts and thingswhich some of the from Fountain,

(01:09:21):
for example, have a complicatedlooking URL that I can copy and
paste into a browser and seewhat the message is, which is
pretty cool.
So thank you to Fountain fordoing that.
And one day uh Stripe willStrike will integrate with that.
If you send us a boost viapodcast guru, then currently I
can't see what the boost is, butI can know that at least you

(01:09:45):
have sent it.
So Brian and Sminger, thank youvery much for listening.
So that's where we are, and interms of TrueFans, well, I
should be able to see the thesats coming into my strike
account.
Not sure I can at the moment,but I know that Sam's working on
it, so that's okay.
But um actually, but that willhave a that will have a link in

(01:10:07):
the future because that will usethe same tech as Fountain is, I
believe.

Sam Sethi (01:10:12):
Yeah, now I mean James, if you scroll up in our
script back up to where we weretalking about Albi.
I left a screenshot.
Now, from that Bitcoin payment,that's from the Albi hub.
Uh you will see there's areceived payment there, which is
from Fountain, and it says RSScolon payment with a that's what

(01:10:35):
I see in my strike account.
Yeah.
Now, what we intend to do isalso support the same model that
Fountain have done, which is away of attaching them the boost
message inside of the mappayment.
It's a separate uh link, butit's with the payment.
And what that will allow us allto do is to then abstract what
that URL is and then display thecomments.

(01:10:57):
So this isn't quite cross-appcomments, but it's close to
cross app comments because whatwe can do in the same uh Albi
hub, which is what the TrueFanswant here, is we can see all the
payments that are received andsent, and we can therefore uh
try and abstract them.
So this is uh something that wewill work on over the Christmas
period.
So hopefully have it in the newyear.

(01:11:19):
But yeah, that's what we needto all do.
So when Podcast Guru is talkingabout working in isolation and
having their own boost bot, umthat's very similar to what uh
the Stephen B was doing, and Ithink we've moved on from that
now, sadly.
Um so Podcast Guru, you need toprobably jump on board to what

(01:11:40):
Fountain have done, because Ithink that's the right way
forward.

Yeah, but it's very easy as soon as you get
that link and you just uh go andvisit that link, then you can
actually see all of the detailsaround what was sent and who
sent it and everything else.
Yeah, and so it's a super easyway of actually uh seeing seeing
uh stuff.
So so uh yeah, certainly goodto to end up seeing more of

(01:12:03):
that.
So that's what we're currentlyusing.
So there's what we've had todo, Martin, really is we've had
to kind of move before we wereready because everybody wanted
the LN address, everybody wanteda way of paying that wasn't a
you know a random number, an IPaddress if you like, but is but
that is instead just a domain oror an email address.

(01:12:25):
It's it's as easy as that.
And then that then puts theonus on to people like Sam and
and and Oscar and everybody elseto look up that and work out
where to send that particularpayment.
Exactly.
But that's currently where weare, and yes, it would be lovely
if it was all fixed, butcurrently probably isn't very
fixed.

Sam Sethi (01:12:45):
Let's say the word transition.

Yes, let's say that.
And two messages from SethGoldstein.
Returning listeners would be anamazing metric.
Yeah, it would be an amazingmetric.
I bet Sam would work that oneout for you.
Uh as well as saying thatbumper's metrics sound so good.
Uh, they are pretty good.
They are pretty goodinformation.
So, yeah, definitely worthhaving a look at that, Seth, or

(01:13:09):
indeed having a look at PodAnalyst.
And uh, we were going to hearfrom George Legneen.
We will next week.
Sorry, we will uh well I wasgonna say next week, but we
probably won't, will we?
We will next year, at thebeginning of next, at the
beginning of 2026.

Sam Sethi (01:13:25):
Yeah, he's got a new version coming out, and so we
thought it'd be best to delaythe interview until that new
version.
And so, yeah, we'll probablyhold that interview.
We'll do it next week, butwe'll hold that interview till
new year.

Well, that makes sense, and thank you so much to
the 22 Power supporters, peoplelike Matt Medeiros.
Matt Medeiros.
Gotta keep saying it.
Skew skewers numbers.
Yes, exactly.
Matt Medeiros and MattMedeiros.
Um, so thank you, MattMedeiros, and everybody like

(01:13:57):
Matt Medeiros if you're verykind.
He he was complaining on theYouTube video.
I don't know if you noticed.
Uh also Star Tempest, EliasStrand, Ralph Astep Jr., and
Will Clark.
Thank you all so much for yoursupport.
Really appreciate it.
It goes into Sam's wine fundand into my beer fund and other
things as well.
So thank you for that.
So, what's been happening foryou this week, Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:14:19):
Well, one thing I wanted to note was the return of
two podcasts, which is good tosee.
The new media show, obviouslyabsent since Todd's sudden
passing, uh, came back lastnight, co-host with Rob
Greenleaf for the first show, aswe predicted, was Rob Walsh.

Speaker 6 (01:14:35):
That's right, Rob.

Sam Sethi (01:14:38):
I'm imagining it's how it doesn't sound like that
when I have it on 2X.
Um But yeah, no, it was good tosee it back, and good luck to
the show.
Uh, there's gonna be numerousdifferent people replacing
Todd's hot seat.
Rob was in it last night.
I'm not sure who else will doit.
It's gonna be a video firstlive, very similar to what they

(01:15:01):
did before.
Good luck, that's all I'd say.

And that's available wherever you get your
podcasts and on YouTube as well.

Sam Sethi (01:15:06):
And it was also good to see Dave Jackson and Daniel
J.
Lewis return with the future ofpodcasting.
Episode 63 was out.
Again, always good to hear fromthem.
And so, yeah, nice to see themback as well.
I'm not sure what's happened toMark Asquith at Captivate with
Danny Brown.
Their show seems to have goneoffline, but I'm probably really
busy, mate.

(01:15:27):
I'm really busy.
Well, counting my money asabout to exit, no.

No, I don't think so.
Hey, he's bees bees a busy bee.
He's a busy bees doing allkinds of stuff.
Uh yes, the the episode of uhthe future of uh podcasting was
uh all about the present ofpodcasting and the changes that
they've seen in the last six orso months.
It's uh definitely worth adefinitely worth a listen.

Sam Sethi (01:15:52):
Then I had a a lovely surprise this week.
I was researching you know thenews for this podcast, doing my
my producer bit, and uh in myemail was a report that simply
said podcast hosting in 2025.
And I thought, ooh.
It said uh well, I thought I'dbetter read it and it had news
about rss.com and variousothers.
And much to my surprise andjoy, little old true fans got a

(01:16:16):
mention in there as the mostinteresting experiment in
podcast monetization, we got theeditor's pick.
So it gave me a little skip.
So thank you very much, CodyMcLaughlin.
It's in the podcast tech stackif you want to read about it as
well.
And of course, it'll be in podnews daily, I'm sure.
Yes, I'm sure it will.
I'm sure it will.
And finally, James, what's theOxford word of the year this

(01:16:38):
year?
Don't look in the notes.

I had already heard.
It's not one word, it's twowords.
Rage bait.
How can you have a word of theyear which is two words?
Uh I don't know.
Brain rot.
Two words.
There you go.
Do do they do they knownothing?

Sam Sethi (01:16:58):
No.
Ah, dear.

Can't get in staff.

Sam Sethi (01:17:01):
No.
But rage, I thought it wasgonna be AI slop.
I really thought that would bethe word of the year.

Yes, well, I mean, it would kind of make
sense, wouldn't it?
But yeah, no, it's uh strangeold thing.

Sam Sethi (01:17:13):
Yeah, Yuri Novell Harare, who I like reading.
He's he calls social media thejunk food for the brain, and we
all know what junk food does foryour body.
So again, I think rage baitingis what the algorithms try and
do, certainly for the metaplatforms.
And yeah, I think it is brainrot, rage bait, AI slop.
It does worry that they're thewords that are coming out for

(01:17:35):
the words of the year, really.

Yeah, and it was interesting.
I was I was at a I was at a bigsort of get-together thing for
a radio station, which which,you know, and we were asking
them what the future of thatparticular radio station was,
and and they were reallyconcerned about what AI is going
to do.
Really concerned.
And you know, the amount of AIslop out there is is quite a

(01:17:58):
thing.
It's quite a thing.
So yeah, there's a thing.

Sam Sethi (01:18:02):
I think what it's doing is turning people off to
technology.
I I I I find, well, we'vetalked about it before.
I find I don't spend any timenow on social media.
I I which is a good thing, Ithink, for me.
But you know, I I very well Idon't go on to X, I I I'm not on
threads, and I'm not on BlueSky.
I mean, I am physically, I'vegot an account to stop someone

(01:18:24):
hijacking it, but I don't spendany time looking at it.
And I don't miss it, if I'mhonest.

No, well, there you go.
So, what's happened for youthis week, James?
I've been having a really, areally interesting week.
So YouTube is about to bebanned here in Australia for
under-16s.
Well, actually, no.
It I mean, it's worse thanthat.
You YouTube isn't going to bebanned for under-16s, but
YouTube accounts are beingbanned for under-16s.

(01:18:52):
So instead of YouTube knowingthat somebody is logged in as an
under-16 and and is thereforegoing to, you know, and
therefore we'll we'll only showthem this stuff, YouTube doesn't
know at all.
And which to me is worse.
But still, anyway, you know,I'm sure that the Australian,
I'm sure that the Australiangovernment knows knows what

(01:19:13):
they're doing.
But anyway, so we ended upshifting as a family over from
YouTube Music onto Spotify, andthat's been a really interesting
experience because I had noidea how popular Spotify is with
kids of my of my daughter'sage, but also how much of a
social experience it is.

(01:19:34):
She instantly went to find allof her friends on there, she's
instantly listening to herfriends' playlists.
All of a sudden, all of that isgoing on.
And interestingly, Sam, shesaid, We'll get rid of YouTube
music once the recap is out,because I want to see my my
numbers.
And as soon as we see that,then I can get rid of it.

(01:19:54):
And I thought, There you go,there's an interesting thing.
So yeah, so that wasfascinating.
And it's been reallyinteresting just sort of having
a play with you with uh Spotifyand seeing what all of the new
features are and all of that.
They've got this thing, I'm I'msure that you know, but they've
got this thing when you'redriving in the car and you're
using Apple CarPlay, there'sthis thing called a jam where

(01:20:16):
you can basically, you know,allow my daughter to also have
control of the music that getsplayed in the car.
Yeah.
So uh yeah, I think it's areally good, really smart thing.
So I've been enjoying beingback in the Spotify world, you
know, paying for a full family mmembership and you know, and
shifting all of the all of herplaylists over and everything

(01:20:38):
else.
So that's been that's been afun thing to do.

Sam Sethi (01:20:41):
Yeah, and part of uh Spotify rap for the first time
this year, they allowed you tostart a jam with it.
So right at the end of it, youcould then start sharing your
music taste with your friends.

Great.
Yeah, no, I think I I thinkit's a really smart thing.
So so that was that was reallyinteresting just to play around
with.
Thing number two is I have uhswitched microphone this week.
I've switched back to the ShawMV7.

Sam Sethi (01:21:04):
So I thought you sounded clearer.

So in case you're wondering why I sounded a
little bit different, that'swhy.
I can't work out.
It sounds quite compressed tome, and I can't work out whether
or not, but I'm connected intothe roadcaster and and all of
that.
I I don't really understandwhat's going on.
But anyway, it's uh to me itsounds much better at my ears,
so that's all okay.
And the other thing is I don'tknow if you heard the uh the

(01:21:29):
BuzzCast podcast from a coupleof weeks ago, which is of course
the podcast that is uh releasedfrom our sponsor, Buzz Sprout,
and and they were talking aboutthe sponsorship of this show.

Sam Sethi (01:21:42):
Um trying to find this, I couldn't find it.
So yes, I'm glad you found it.

Kevin at Buzzsprout (01:21:45):
Yeah, so here's a here's a little clip.
If you can be strategic aboutfinding who these companies are
and then presenting anopportunity to them to be a
sponsor of the show, andsponsorships are they're like a
partnership, they're not atleast we don't view them.
Um when I say we, like we BuzzSprout, we don't view our
sponsorship of the PodNewsweekly Review as something
where to us it's not strictly abusiness transaction.

(01:22:07):
It's not us wanting to put ourname on the Pod News Weekly
Review and run an advertisementthat then returns more than
we're investing.
I mean, that's part of it forsure, but there's also this we
like what the Pod News WeeklyReview is doing.
Like they're covering all thenews and and happenings in the
podcasting industry, they'retalking about interesting
things, they're raising up newpeople who are starting in

(01:22:29):
podcasting and giving them thevoice and giving them an
opportunity to introducethemselves to the podcasting
community.
So they're doing a lot of goodthings in a space that we're
passionate about, and we've gotto know the people behind us.
So we know James and we knowSam and and we we like them
personally, so we want tosupport them personally as well.
So there's a whole bunch ofstuff that goes into that
equation for us.
And if it was strictly a, oh,this sponsorship is going to

(01:22:51):
cost us this much, we have tosee that much come back, it may
or may not make sense.
I don't know.
But Alvin and I don't run thosenumbers.
We listen to the show, welisten, we read the newsletter,
we're fans of what they'redoing, and then we ask them what
would it cost for us to supportthis in a sponsorship type
package.
They run numbers on their sideand they say, How does this
sound?
And we said, That sounds great.
It's as simple as that for usas a business to come in and

(01:23:11):
support something that we likethat's happening in our
industry.

But isn't that a lovely thing?
So we're we're super excitedthat the Pod News Weekly Review
will move on into 2026, beingsponsored by Buzz Sprout.
And I'm sure that when theywere saying that you might only
be reaching 50 people, they'renot talking about this show.
Uh but no, it's uh it's areally good, it was it was

(01:23:35):
really nice to hear them.
So thank you, Kevin.
And yeah, it's a wonderfulthing to be still here, still on
the Buzzsprout platform.
We like it, it works.
So so hurrah.

Sam Sethi (01:23:46):
Indeed.
Thank you.

And that's it for this week.
All of our podcast storiestaken from the Pod News Daily
Newsletter at Podnews.net.

Sam Sethi (01:23:55):
You can support this show by streaming Sats.
You can give us feedback usingthe Buzzsprout fan mail link in
our show notes, and you can sendus a super comment.
Good luck.
Uh or a boost.
Well done.
Or become a power supporterlike the 22 Power Supporters at
weekly.podnews.net.

Yes, our music is from TM Studios.
Our voiceover is Sheila D,which is why she appears quite
highly in Matt Madeiros's list,because I I I say our voiceover
is Sheila D every episode.
So that would explain that one.
Our audio is recorded usingCleanFeed.
We edit with Hindenburg, andwe're hosted and sponsored by
Buzz Sprout.

Announcer (01:24:31):
Get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnews.net.
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