Ross Adams from Acast; Pete Birsinger from Podscribe; and the last word in podcasting news

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Cridland (00:00):
It's Friday, the 22nd of September 2023.

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

Oh yes, I'm James Cridland, the editor of
Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi, theCEO of Podfans.
In the chapters.
Today, new Apple podcasts iniOS 17 on iPhone and iPad Acast
slips in free music.
Sony Music announcessignificant layoffs in their
podcast division.
Also, podcasts are continuingto go global on the YouTube

(00:35):
Music app.
Where did the $4 million owedto cast media's creators go?
And Albi launches the ZapPlanner Plus.

Ross Adams (00:44):
Hey, it's Ross Adams , ceo of Acast, and Albi on
Latex.
Talk about our partnership withPodscribe.

Pete Birsinger (00:50):
Hey, it's Pete Bursinger, CEO of Podscribe, and
I will be on later.
Talk about our partnership withAcast.

They will.
This podcast is sponsored andhosted by Buzzsprout.
Last week, 3,084 people starteda podcast with Buzzsprout
Podcast hosting made easy withpowerful tools and remarkable
customer support and AI to helpyou publish your show, with even
more AI tools now available.
And we're sponsored by Pod NewsLive in London next week, next
Wednesday, the 27th of September.

(01:18):
Tickets are available now atpodnewsnet slash live.
From your daily newsletter, thePod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi (01:27):
Okay, James, let's kick this show off.
What's first up this week?
Apple's added Episode Art.
Come on, tell me what's new iniOS 17 with Apple Podcasts.

Yes, well, episode Art, that's a new thing.
So Apple Podcasts hashistorically been the only
podcast app not to supportEpisode Art properly.
It supported it for, I think,aac, enhanced AAC files or
something.
Anyway, it was a verycomplicated thing.
It didn't support it for muchelse.

(01:57):
It now supports it foreverything, which is really nice
, what it's doing in the new app, and I'm sure that you've all
had a look at the new app, andwhy did I just say you've all
just broken all the rules andI'm sure that you've taken a
look at the new app, but there'sa little overlay on there with
the main logo of your podcastover the episode artwork and

(02:20):
everything else.
It all looks quite smart.
But, yes, so they're joiningSpotify and Pocket Casts and
other podcasting 2.0 apps likeFountain, pod Friends and Pod
Fans, and we do Episode Art.
It looks fantastic in the PodNews Daily podcast and it looks
pretty good in this very podcast.

(02:41):
Some of the text goes over thetop of some of it, so at some
point we'll redo that template,but still, have you taken a peek
at it, sam?

Sam Sethi (02:52):
Yeah, I've been on the developer program from the
beta, so I have seen it and yetit's great that they've done it.
I'm excited for this releasenot because of actually Episode
Art.
I'm excited because iOS 17 hasgreater PWA support, much, much
greater, so push notifications,home screen buttons and
everything else.
I'm really excited for iOS 18,though, because I guess it will

(03:15):
be when we get Chapter Art, JSONscripts and any form of
comments and feedback.

But anyway, we'll have to wait for that next
year.
Well, yes, and I think that theydo support ID3 Chapter Art.
So that's Chapter Art, which isactually within the file.
That's not something that we doon this podcast Buzzsprout
doesn't support that but it issomething that other people do,
and if you've got Hindenburg,you can shove in the Chapter Art

(03:41):
directly in through that andfor many podcast hosts that'll
actually still stay there.
But, yes, it would be nice ifthey supported more of the
Chapter Art.
I'm possibly speaking out ofturn.
I still don't understand whyPodcasting 2.0 redesigned
chapters completely, but stillfine that's a fine thing, but I

(04:04):
think comments as well is areally interesting idea too.

Sam Sethi (04:06):
Yeah, I mean it doesn't have to be boosts,
grammes and zaps.
It can be just straightcomments, which would have been
nice.
But I do love how some of thePodcasting 2.0 apps now, I think
, have actually leapfroggedApple and Spotify in
functionality.
I think they've gone beyond interms of what the user would
want.
I think that it's been a catchup game for over two, maybe

(04:31):
three years, but I think some ofthe apps have now gone beyond
it, which is really cool, ohyeah.

No, absolutely.
I think that some of the newapps are looking really good,
but I have to say the ApplePodcast app is looking better
than it ever has, which isreally nice.
We're up to Internet Explorer12.
I think that it's done.
No, I think, seriously, it's avery smart thing.
I have actually spent the timeover the last couple of days

(04:58):
tweaking the Pod News daily feedso that it shows very nicely in
the Apple Podcasts app.
It's not my number one app byany stretch, but nevertheless
it's worthwhile making sure thatit looks a little bit nicer.
So you will notice, for that,the episode art is slightly
changed.
I've moved where the Pod Newslogo is on the episode art to

(05:19):
the bottom right instead of thetop right, so that you don't get
two Pod News logos within ApplePodcasts, and there are a few
other things that I'm doing justto sort of smarten it up a bit.
But yeah, I think it's aworthwhile thing.
There are other bits of AppleNews, aren't there?

Sam Sethi (05:38):
Yeah, Apple has put an Apple Podcast studio in
Cupertino.

Yes, it was a team of Spanish podcasters.
What was the name of theSpanish podcasters?
Oh, thanks.

Sam Sethi (05:49):
Oh, leave that one to me.
You see what I did there on thePod News daily podcast.

Yesterday, as I said, a Spanish podcaster, yes,
so a team recorded in what theycalled the Apple Podcast Studio
in Apple Park in Cupertino,directly after Apple's
Wunderlust event last week, andit looked very, very smart.
They described it in a blogpost as a generously sized
recording room that includeseverything any podcaster needs

(06:22):
to produce quality content, andI now hear that it isn't a
generously sized recording roomat all.
It's a generously sized roomwhich they use for a lot of
different things and sometimesthey put some podcast recording
equipment in it.
So it's not actually a podcaststudio at all, it's just a fancy
room, but it's nice that thisteam really, really enjoyed it.

(06:44):
Anyway, I tell you what Sam.
I mean, you know, regardless ofwhether or not it's a permanent
studio or a temporary studio, Imean this show would sound
great from there, wouldn't it?

Sam Sethi (06:53):
I think it would and you know, obviously I'd love a
little tour of the Applespaceship That'll be, nice Meet
the Men in Black.

I've never met the Men in Black, so maybe we
can go and have a look aroundthe entirely enclosed ecosystem
that the Apple Park is, and Ifeel that invitation slipping
away.

Sam Sethi (07:14):
Yeah, I think it went when I called it IE7.

Right, let's move on to story number two,
which is ACAST.

Sam Sethi (07:23):
Yeah, ACAST have announced a partnership with
something called Slip Stream,which is offering all ACAST
podcasts access to more than70,000 royalty free music tracks
.
So it allows ACAST creators toget free access for six months,
which sounds very good, James.
A little bit of music to playand again, if it's free, what's

(07:43):
to worry about?

Yeah, no, I think you know it's a smart
thing.
It's just a free trial, butthey've managed to negotiate
quite a decent free trial, so Ithink that that's quite an
interesting thing.
It does show that somepodcasters really want music in
their shows, and this is perhapsa way of doing that.

(08:05):
Of course, you won't probablyhave heard of any of the 70,000
tracks or songs that you couldactually choose from, but
nevertheless they are there.
But they are royalty free, andI think, royalty free in
eternity.
So if you are using them, thenyou know you can use them for
forever.
But obviously you get freeaccess for the first six months

(08:29):
into the directory and thenafter that you have to pay a
little bit.
But I think that that's a goodthing.
But ACAST has also been doingand of course Lizzie Pollert, lp
, from ACAST, is speaking at PodNews Live next week.
Acast has also been doing allkinds of other things, haven't
they?

Sam Sethi (08:46):
Back in August, acast also sent you a press release
saying that, from the first toSeptember, they'll no longer
accept campaigns that useSpotify's ad analytics.
They also said that ACAST willoffer attribution from
independent analytics companies,namely PodScribe, for free to
all advertisers, and I was like,oh, what does that mean?
So, james, I thought I'd reachout to Ross Adams, the CEO of

(09:09):
ACAST, and the CEO of PodScribe,peter Bursinger, and find out
what the relationship andpartnership was all about and
why ACAST wasn't going to beusing Spotify's ad analytics
anymore.
Why don't we start off with whoor what is PodScribe?

Got it.
Yeah, we, I would say we atPodScribe are a tool to help
buyers scale their advertisingand similarly for publishers to
help scale their sales, andunder that we have a couple key
components, but the two mostprominent are verification and

(09:47):
attribution, so helping buyersand sellers make sure the buys
are running as they expect andthen how do they perform.
So those are our two biggestfocuses and we we are a bit.
We've been doing theverification piece, I would say
longer, and that is probably howa lot of our strongest

(10:09):
relationships have been formed.
But I think that's really builtthe foundation for the
attribution side of things.

Sam Sethi (10:18):
And the underlying technology you're using is AI or
partly AI and partly human.

Yeah, yeah, you could.
You could say there's a mix ofman and machine in there.
So, yeah, it depends kind ofwhich part of it we're talking
about, but yeah, there is.
We do, for instance, for theverification side of things,
where we find the advertisersads in the podcast.

(10:46):
That is a mix of man andmachine, because sometimes the
transcript is imperfect, it canbe hard to tell the exact word
and ad starts and ends.
So we've got it pretty close tofully AI, but there is a level
of human review in there.
So that's just kind of oneexample, but that's how a lot of
our tools are with it, with amix.

Sam Sethi (11:08):
Ross, hello, how are you?
Hey Sam, you're on.
Yeah, very well.
Now look, august the 17th, weget a press release that says
Acast has announced that fromSeptember 1st, it will no longer
accept new campaigns that useSpotify's ad analytics.
And right at the bottom that itsaid we will offer attribution
from independent analyticcompanies, like a PodScribe,

(11:30):
free for all advertisers.
So that piqued my interest.
But let's start off with.
Why have you decided, as of 1stof September, no longer to
accept campaigns that useSpotify's ad analytics?

Ross Adams (11:43):
This isn't a knee-jerk decision from an Acast
.
It's something we've beenworking on for quite a while.
We work with thousands andhundreds of advertisers and
agencies daily across the globeand through data we make
informed decisions, and this issomething that has been spoken
to us about by different brands,especially when pod sites and
chartable got bought across overto Spotify now Spotify

(12:07):
analytics.
We champion the open ecosystem.
Acast believes clearly inindependence and kind of
objectivity.
We believe that's crucial,basically for advertisers and
the industry.
When it comes to the likes ofmeasurement and for us to
maintain impartiality, we'vealways worked with trusted third

(12:29):
party partners for measuringand reporting on campaigns.
Obviously, advertising is ourbread and butter and so relying
solely on a one publisherenvironment for data aggregation
we believe can introduce biasesand self-promotion and that
kind of hinders the objectanalysis of data across all
types of the supply.

(12:51):
So PodScribe is also worthknowing doesn't sell media.
Spotify does so again, this iskind of what's made the decision
there.

Sam Sethi (13:00):
Does this mean, though, that you might
eventually look?
I'm not putting words into yourmouth, but would you eventually
acquire PodScribe?
I mean, is the market being MNA, or is it just to be a partner?

Ross Adams (13:14):
For us as a partner.
We also partner with kind ofmany of the other attribution
sites from Clarity Assets, AI,magellan, verotonic but I think
the deep partnership withPodScribe highlights the
differences PodScribe has withany of the others in the
marketplace.
We want to offer ouradvertisers and agencies the
best tools we can, which is whywe've done this partnership with

(13:37):
PodScribe.

Sam Sethi (13:38):
Peter, so when you got the call from Acast, that
must have been a great excitingmoment for you, growing company
as you are.
What do you think you bring tothe poverty, though?
What's the thing that PodScribe, more than any other, will help
with?
Acast customers?

I think well, first off, I think, kudos to
Acast, because it's not I don'tthink it was an easy move to
take a stand like that and in alot of conversations with other
publishers following thePodSciites acquisition, I think
it's a thing that most, if notall, of them were thinking.

(14:13):
So I think definitely kudos toAcast, not only, of course, for
picking us that's great but Ithink also taking the stand on
independence, because I don'tthink it's necessarily an easy
thing to do when someadvertisers may still press them
for it.
So I think it sort of sets atone for the space to make it

(14:34):
easier for others to follow suit.
So that's the first thing.
But in terms of what we bring,I think historically our client
base is largely advertisers.
So I think we in advertisersfrom the beginning have a trust
of our verification and results.
So I think it is.

(14:55):
And there have been times when,for certain publishers, even
Acast sometimes will say, oh,this ad had this issue or that
issue, even while we weretalking about the partnership.
So I think we I don't thinkit's necessarily, I think it's
recognized by the industry thatmaybe, if anything, were too
much on the side of the buyersto provide independent,

(15:16):
impartial reporting, not onlyfor did my campaign run to get
what I paid for, but also howdid it perform.
So I think there is a strongunderstanding, at least in
circles of the industry, that wecan provide that.
So we're thrilled about thepartnership and looking forward
to growing it further.

Sam Sethi (15:37):
So, ross, we were happy to interview recently Greg
Glendane, who's just joined youas your Global Business
Director.
So what's you up to?
It's one of those questions.
When I looked at what Glenn wasdoing he's getting product
reporting to him, strategyreporting to him I was like hey,
ross is off on on sabbatical,what's Ross doing?

Ross Adams (15:58):
Yeah, no, I think you know products.
He reports to me.
So from Greg's side, greg'sbeen brought in to look after
kind of that commercial andrevenue side as well as the
content side and how we kind ofsew them all together.
You know, also, us is such ahuge market If we look at the
kind of you know you compare thelikes of maybe the second
biggest market, uk, out thereand what's the UK worth?

(16:19):
About 70 million pounds interms of commercial value,
whereas you look at the USpodcast market it's worth $2
billion last year.
So the opportunity is, you know,definitely in the States.
You know US clearly isobviously a local business.
So we need local talent whounderstand the industry here and
part of the role that I'veplayed in moving over to New

(16:41):
York is to expand and moveforward the ACAS business
alongside Greg.
So Greg's here to helpaccelerate that for us.
We also got, you know, thelikes of BizDev as a department
as well.
That falls under Greg.
So there's, you know, acas.
We wear many hats and we're nota huge organization per se when

(17:02):
you compare us to kind of someof the larger brands out there.
But you know Greg's very muchgoing to help us accelerate our
business here in the US.

Sam Sethi (17:11):
Brilliant.
And again, congratulations onthe promotion for Lizzie.
She's done well.

Ross Adams (17:16):
Yes, thank you, sam for that.
That was all you, mate, I'dlove to take credit for nothing
there.

Sam Sethi (17:23):
Absolutely nothing, but thank you very much.
Just one other story that cameout last week You've done an
announcement with Slipstream.
What's that one about?

Ross Adams (17:33):
Yes, a slipstream.
What it does is anyone who ishosted with Acast as an Acast
customer allows you to use thatservice for free for six months,
and it gives you access to70,000 song and music beds to
use within your podcast, whichgive you the rights to be able
to use them.
Basically, so it helps promotethat service, but it helps

(17:53):
promote another service to ourcreators to make better content
for the ecosystem.

Sam Sethi (17:58):
Cool, look, I won't take up much more of your time.
This deal sounds interesting.
It's gone live now.
First of September has passed,so this is now active.
What's the uptake been like?

Ross Adams (18:09):
I mean from our side we deal with thousands and
thousands of customers.
So I think it's landed verywell, this deal, and a lot of
customers already use PodScribeanyway.
So this just excels thepartnership and brings new
measurement to new advertisers.

Sam Sethi (18:28):
Peter, thank you very much.
Glad to meet you, Ross.
As ever, good to see you againfrom my friend and look forward
to catching up with you soon.
Take care.

Ross Adams (18:35):
Thanks.

Sam Cheers Ross and Peter from Acast and from
PodScribe and great to hear fromboth of those and of course,
lizzie Pollitt is speaking atPod News Live next Wednesday
along with a bunch of otherpeople.
There's also been othermovement in the whole brand
safety, contextual targetinganalytics and all of that kind

(18:59):
of stuff going on Adlarge,flightpath and Sounder
announcing an integration tooffer a mega package to their
customers, and NPR, who'verenewed a brand lift measurement
solution with Veritonic as well.

Sam Sethi (19:13):
So James moving on, then Sony.
Now this is not good news.
Sony's announced significantlayoffs in their podcast
division.
What's been happening?

Well, yes, sony haven't announced them, but they
have sort of come out through acouple of leaked emails and
everything else.
And all we really know so farand actually Carmen has done a
very good job of doing, you know, of reporting on this All that

(19:44):
we really know so far is thatthere is a very large, seemingly
amount of people who are beingmade redundant from Sony music
podcasts.
So the piece talks about asignificant percentage of the
division.
According to a Sonyspokesperson that Ashley spoke

(20:07):
to, the company wasn't morespecific.
She says which is worthwhilespotting.
So I'm not quite sure how manypeople are going.
They're also getting rid of apodcast as well.
Hi Lo with Emily Rattachowsky.
How do I pronounce that,rattachowsky?

(20:28):
She's a model and author, sam,and I bet you know her.
So how do I pronounce her?
Sam Rattachowsky?
Oh, there you go, yes, well,anyway, they do a podcast with
her and they're getting rid ofit.
And this is brilliant.
This is US Myopia encapsulatedin one sentence.
The program attracted a largesegment of listeners

(20:50):
internationally, but struggledto sell advertising because
brands primarily wanted to reachUS consumers.
So a brilliant.
Apparently, no one outside ofthe US buys anything.
Sam, we don't buy a thing.
Yeah, that's fine.
We don't need any advertising.
It's pointless advertising tous.

(21:10):
And the fact that they havepeople tuning into that program
from other parts of the world,obviously there's no way of
making money out of that at all.
It's impossible.
So just so myopic.
But anyway, there you go.
So I'm looking forward tolearning a little bit more about

(21:33):
what is going on when theyactually say something, and that
would be nice to know.

Sam Sethi (21:38):
Well, maybe they can't say anything because
they're advertising for anaccount direct to do, to do
global podcasting, and they'regoing to be based in London, so
maybe that's why they can't sayanything.
Whoever that new person is,maybe the spokesperson in the
future?

Well, yes, I mean, maybe that is the case.
Yes, podnewsnet slash jobsactually has that particular job
which is currently available.
So you do kind of ask yourself,well, what's going on there
then?
But I'm sure that I'm sure thatthere's a plan.

Sam Sethi (22:06):
Just don't necessarily know what that plan
is.
Talking of companies that don'ttell you what their plans are.
It looks like podcasts aregrowing globally on YouTube.
What's happening, james?

Well, yes, so I was tipped off that if I
searched for a podcast here inAustralia then I would find it,
and in fact, it's not just herein Australia.
I got the VPN out, sam.
So far, I found podcasts now inthe YouTube Music app in

(22:38):
Australia, new Zealand, cambodia, india, indonesia, japan,
malaysia, the Philippines, southKorea, singapore and Thailand,
and probably quite a lot ofother countries as well Not Hong
Kong, nowhere in Europe, notSouth Africa, but in quite a lot
of other places.
So, yes, that is interesting.
They're only available at themoment if you search for them,

(23:00):
so they don't appear otherwisein the UX, but I guess it's the
first step in making podcastsavailable everywhere in that app
.
And of course, I'm using theword podcast with inverted
commas because they're nothingto do with RSS feeds.

Sam Sethi (23:15):
Now talking of RSS and podcasting not being the
same thing.
On YouTube I saw thisannouncement.
It was in obviously Pod NewsDaily.
You had one of the Pod Newsreaders, Katie, Send to a
picture from the LondonUnderground of Audible's new
podcast series with Steve Cooganfrom the Oath House and I
thought hang on a minute.

(23:36):
Okay, that's great.
So I'll go and find the RSS andI'll ingest that.
So I went to podcast index,typed it out Nope, nothing there
, Not Audible, Nope.
So again, why are they allowedto call it a podcast when it has
no RSS feed?
It's the same as YouTube, butwe never give Audible, aka
Amazon, any hard time in thesame way we do YouTube, I

(23:57):
suppose.

No, and I think of that as an absolutely fair
enough comment.
So this is the season three ofSteve Huckins podcast from the
Oast House, which is a buildingin southern England designed to
dry hops, the chief ingredientof beer.
And yes, and we never reallypick them up for calling it a
podcast.
It isn't a podcast, it's just apiece of audio that you can
pick up within the Audible appand that is it.

(24:20):
At some point it might bereleased everywhere else.
It took, I think, four yearsfor West Cork, which was an
Audible exclusive, to bereleased everywhere else, but
it's a great podcast.
You want to go and have alisten to that one.
So yeah, we should be a littlebit stronger in terms of that.
I have to say Pod News doesn'tcover new shows ordinarily from

(24:44):
Audible, because we can't linkto them, because we can't do
anything with them, we can't getthe artwork or anything else.
I have, I think, asked the PRpeople who I talked to five
times now please could you putme in touch with somebody at
Audible where I can actually getsome form of API into your
directory, and that has nevergone any further than I'll see

(25:09):
what I can do.
So yes, it's a bit of a strangeone, but yes, I don't normally
cover these things.
It was in there because it wasa photograph that Katie, who's
on holiday from Canada, hadtaken on the on the Tube in
London of an advert for thisparticular show.

(25:31):
And there is a little featurein the Pod News newsletter,
which is podcast promotion inthe wild.
Given that 58% of people don'tlisten to podcasts in the US,
it's probably a good idea thatwe don't just advertise podcasts
on podcasts and we actuallyadvertise them elsewhere as well
, and so that's kind of thepoint of that.

Sam Sethi (25:52):
Now, in my best Tom Cruise impersonation, James,
show me the money.
That's really bad actually, butI'd like to know where four
million dollars went to.
So James, tell me why castmedia's four million dollars has
gone walkabout.

Yes, that was quite a thing, wasn't it?
So, yes, there's quite a lot ofmoney seems to have gone
missing from cast media.
Now, of course, we have coveredthis in the past in terms of
that, but, yeah, there was areally interesting and really

(26:31):
good piece of reporting that wasput together by a man called
Coffeezilla, who put together areally good video which was
explaining what had gone on withcast media and where all of the
money went.
He spoke to Dustin Knouse, whois somebody who actually worked

(26:53):
for the company a while ago, andDustin had his own theory for
where the money was going.

Speaker 6 (26:58):
I would say that, honestly, most of the money
probably went to the minimumguarantees of other talent
instead of to the people that itwas supposed to go to.

So basically he's saying that there was lots
of minimum guarantees and theyjust were given out to other
people and basically robbingPeter to pay Paul and that sort
of thing.
But then he did a little bitmore digging around Colin
Thompson, and Colin Thompsonessentially managed to sell his

(27:29):
house to a trust, which is avery strange thing.
Why would you do that, saidCoffeezilla?
Why would you do that if youknew that you were going
bankrupt?

Speaker 6 (27:41):
Right about the time he was talking about declaring
bankruptcy, he moved that houseinto a trust where the trustee
was a white oming LLC, he said,which, from where I stood,
looked a lot like hiding assetsfrom a bankruptcy right before a
bankruptcy.

It's a really good piece of reporting it's
well worth a look at.
You'll find it on YouTube, ofcourse, and lots of people have
ended up seeing that.
So, yeah, that was quite athing, hmm.

Sam Sethi (28:10):
Yeah, moving your assets out isn't a very good
sign of you trying to do theright thing.
Anyway, I'll leave that withthe law courts in America, I'm
sure.

Yes, yes indeed, and from what I know, I am
aware of at least anotherpodcast network who's done
exactly the same thing and iscurrently unable to pay their
creators on time.
My difficulty is that I don'thave enough contacts to be able
to back that story up and tomake the allegation.

(28:43):
And then, of course, we havereported on Odyssey both
cancelling their minimumguarantee with APM and
Tenderfoot TV's agreement withCadence 13, which is owned by
Odyssey, where Tenderfoot TVclaimed that they haven't been
paid by Odyssey and claim thatOdyssey have basically scrunched

(29:04):
up their minimum guaranteecontracts as well.
So this is not a one-off thing.
It's not just Colin Thompsonbeing a dreadful man if indeed
he is.
It's rather more than that, andso I suspect that we're going
to find out a little bit moreabout this in the future.

Sam Sethi (29:21):
Now moving on, james, around the world, let's have a
little look.
In Canada, triton Digitalunveiled its Canada podcast
trends report.
What was the outcome?

Yes, they ended up saying that Canadians are
listening to lots of podcasts.
Three hours of podcasts onaverage per week Always good to
see total time spent listened.
Figures coming out of this kindof thing more, please.
Three hours of podcasts onaverage per week is nice.
Imagine if we were able to bumpthat up to four.
That would mean potentially 25%more revenue into podcasts if

(29:54):
you're charging your podcastsout by cost per thousand,
because you can fit 25% more adsin.
So that would be a good thing.
They also found out that TrueCrime is the most popular
category.
Of course, in Canada, I thinkthe number one podcast there is
NBC's Dateline, which isessentially a true crime show.
So that's a good thing.
And there was data aroundpodcasting in Kenya, from

(30:18):
Spotify or Kenya, if you preferit.
Better that way If you're asold as my dad is and that ranks
podcasts by total hours oflistening again, rather than
total audience.
And of course, spotify knowsexactly to the second how long
people are listening to apodcast.

(30:39):
So the number one show.
Well, now, as I look at itright now, all of the numbers
have been taken out of therelease that I linked to, so it
did have full numbers in termsof, you know, thousands of
listening for the number oneshow, which is it's related, I
promise, and it actuallypublished all of those numbers

(31:02):
in there and all of a sudden,all of those numbers have
disappeared.
So maybe Spotify has gone.
What on earth are you doing,publishing those numbers that we
gave you, which is what they'vedone to me in the past?
So find out.
Find out what's going on there.
That'll be a trip to thearchive later, but there we go.

Sam Sethi (31:21):
And back in your hometown it says that Monolith
is an Australian horror filmabout podcasting which has got a
cinematic release on theOctober 26.
So I assume you're going to goand see that film then, James.

Too bloody, right, mate?
No, I'm not going to go and seethat.
But yes, an Australian horrorfilm about podcasting.
It was premiered at theAdelaide Film Festival last year
and was at South by Southwestearlier this year as well.
So a horror film aboutpodcasting presumably it's got.
It's got some really bad editsin it and it's got a little clip
of Joe Rogan.

(31:54):
I'm imagining that that's thehorror.
What do you think?

Sam Sethi (31:59):
That would.
That would be about right.
Yes, I think so, yeah.

I think so.
And then, finally, edisonResearch is releasing the Latino
podcast listener reports 2023on October the 5th.
It's an excellent piece of ofreportage, an excellent piece of
data, so looking forward tohearing from that as well.
Let's take a look at some jobs,and Audio Hook has announced

(32:25):
David Krulwich or DK to hisfriends as the company's chief
revenue officer.
Presumably he's taken the ideaof calling himself initials
after LP from from Acast.
I'm just guessing.
Any west of Elts, the founderof the critical frequency
podcast network, has received afancy journalist of the year
award from Covering Climate Now,which is a journalism

(32:48):
collaboration.
Nielsen has a new CEO, butthere again, they've just been
making tons of people redundant.
How do I pronounce his name Sam?
Is it Karthik or Karthik?

Sam Sethi (32:59):
Oh, I'm going to go with Karthik, yes.

Karthik Karthik Rao, who has replaced David
Kenny, who becomes executivechairman.
So worthwhile keeping an eye onthat.
I put in, slightlysarcastically, that the company
was purchased by Private Equitylast year and has since had two
rounds of redundancy, becausethat's that's what Private

(33:23):
Equity does, doesn't it Tighten?

Sam Sethi (33:27):
the ship, cut the costs.

Yes, indeed, and yes.
So there's a bunch of all ofthat stuff going on.
And if you're looking for a job, pod News has podcasting jobs
across the industry and acrossthe world on podcasting's
largest jobs board, except nosubstitute.
They're free to post as well.
It'll just take two minutes toadd a new role at podnewsnet
slash jobs, the tech stuff Onthe Pod News Weekly Review.

(33:54):
Yes, it's the stuff you'll findevery Monday in the Pod News
newsletter.
Here's where we do all of thetech talk the podcasting 2.0
Music Top 100.
That was an excellent thing.
It now updates hourly.
There's also different feeds ofthat via OPML and via a remote
item RSS playlist.

Sam Sethi (34:15):
So, james, it sounds very exciting that it's done
this the remote item RSSplaylist.
And now I'm going to ask youwhat is a remote item RSS
playlist?

Well, yes, because there are two in the
world.
There's this one, and that'sthe one that Pod News runs.
The new podcast trailerspodcast is also available as a
remote item RSS playlist.
What it's basically saying is,instead of downloading the audio
and uploading it to your ownpodcast host and then that's bad

(34:44):
because you're essentiallycopying other people's work just
link to that individual itemdirectly.
So there is this thing called aremote item, and very few
podcast apps actually understandit so far, but the technology
behind the remote item is alsothe technology behind wallet

(35:05):
switching technology, which ishow music gets paid for in music
value for value podcasts.
So it's a really helpful pieceof tech, which actually exists
there, but, yes, I would imaginethat not very many people are
using it right now.
The good thing, though, is thatit contains all of the data,

(35:27):
all of the information, that youneed to do a music show for
yourself, because it's got allof the right numbers and IDs and
everything else.

Sam Sethi (35:35):
So, as I learned not so long ago, Now the reason why
I'm putting my app hat on here.
So thank you very much.
Yes, it doesn't quite fit yet,but I'm trying.
The pod role was one of thethings we did.
A few months back it came outand that was the idea of a

(35:58):
podcast creator being able tosay right, using the remote item
feed, I can say this podcast,this podcast and this podcast
are three that I recommend and Ican add that to my RSS feed,
and many of the podcast and twoto O apps began to support that
and I know where to place that.
That's, james has got a pod roleand so we can share all of his

(36:22):
episodes in one tab and his podrole in another tab.
But when I looked at thisplaylist that you've got, I was
like where do I present that?
How do I present that?
Because it's a series of, Isuppose, remote episodes.
So am I now supposed to put thepod role and your playlists in
your podcast page, because it'syou who's created it?

(36:45):
This is we support usergenerated playlists and they go
in the user's profile, which isthe logical place.
So is this a creators playlist?

Yeah, it's kind of that.
It's, I mean, it's reallyinstead of so I mean, the new
podcast trailers podcast is agood is a good case in point In
that if you look at the standardRSS for that, then you will see
a lot of things that look as ifthey are audio files on my

(37:17):
server.
Now, in fact, they're not,because I'm redirecting them,
but they look as if they'reaudio files on my server.
That's a bad thing if you wantto properly link, including all
of the payment information andthe you know chapter information
and everything else.
If you just want to link tosomeone else's show or someone
else's episode, and so what theremote item RSS playlist

(37:41):
basically says is okay, go andhave a look at this RSS feed and
use this episode from it.
So you're actually getting.
It's a bookmark, it's ashortcut, if you like, or an
alias, I guess, if you like.
So you're getting a direct linkto that, to that episode, and
if the creator then wants toedit the audio or perhaps delete

(38:02):
it or whatever, it willautomatically get taken away
from everywhere else as well.
So it's kind of a bit likeshortcuts, but if you were going
to show that remote item RSSplaylist, it would just look
like a normal podcast in podfans.
It would be just a list of alist of episodes, and those
episodes happen to be comingfrom somebody else's RSS feeds,

(38:26):
the thing that we're doing is wealready sport playlists.

Sam Sethi (38:29):
We're now going to allow you to export them as a
remote item playlist.
So that's what we'll do.
We're going to have to testwhether we can import remote
item playlists and then presentthem in the right manner.
So there's a lot of work to bedone there.

Yeah, yeah, indeed, and it comes back to the
conversation that we werehaving two or three weeks ago
around pod fans, saying thatyou're supporting version 2.06
of the RSS, of podcasting RSS,and actually it's easy, it's
worth your while to sit andsupport remote item RSS

(39:06):
playlists when there are two inthe world and where, frankly,
there is no benefit in yousupporting them right now.
No, you know, there isabsolutely no point in you
supporting it for the newpodcast trailers.
The only reason that there is aremote item RSS playlist there
is because I could make one.
They're quite literally sothere's no point in supporting

(39:30):
it there and arguably there's nopoint in supporting it really
in the music top 100 either.

Sam Sethi (39:37):
No, but I do think there is a point where we have
playlists, that we let userswithin our own pod fans sort of
click on episodes and then namethem and save them into their
profile.
But actually on the share outwe're just doing a link to that
page.
But actually on the share outwe could do a remote item
playlist and then of coursethat's in a standard structure.

(39:59):
The question is then willanyone ever use that file?
I mean, it'll be a case ofother pod find as other podcast
apps being able to ingest it.
I guess you could startsomewhere, but what was
confusing me was when you did itas a creator, where would I
stick that as a podcast?

(40:20):
That's what was confusing me.

Anyway, yeah, and I think it would just come
up as a podcast the same as anyother podcast.
That's the way that I wouldpersonally do it.
But yes, and I get, because itwas interesting actually using
the remote item RSS playlist ofthe top 100, because that had
all of the information that Ineeded to be able to put
together a random, anotherrandom show thing, another

(40:47):
random music show thing.
So I did the top 10 countdownfor the for the top 10 last week
and rather enjoy doing it.
My microphone sounds awful.
I need to work out how to makethe microphone sound better, but
accepting that was great, funto do and much, much easier the

(41:11):
second time to put together,because I learned two things.
I learned, firstly, that theopml contains all of the
information that I need for the,for linking through to the
individual tracks, to make surethat everybody gets paid, and
then, secondly, hindenburg,which is my audio editor, has a
thing called a music report I'venever seen in the past, but the

(41:31):
music report essentiallyoutputs a very dumb looking text
file which shows you what,which music tracks you played
when you started and how longand how long they were, which is
exactly the information that isrequired in the in the RSS feed
.
So actually it made life anawful lot easier.

(41:53):
Putting that RSS fees together.
The only one thing that I wouldsay is I haven't bothered with
chapters, because chapters ishard and that does mean that
certainly on fountain there's noartwork and I'm kind of sitting
there and going surely theartwork should be.
I mean, if you're playing aremote item and there's no

(42:16):
chapter going on, then surelythe artwork should automatically
come from that remote item.
You would have thought,wouldn't you?
But maybe that's not correct.

Sam Sethi (42:25):
Well, I'm looking at it because I did look at your
show and, yeah, there is nochapter artwork in there, and
that's.
Although basically it's goingback to what we said right at
the beginning with Apple it'sfundamentally episode artwork
and then going down that onelayer to chapter artwork.
But if there's no informationin there as to how to get that

(42:48):
specific data, then, yeah, wecan't display it either.

Yeah, but there again, of course, you've got all
of that information becauseyou've got the remote item which
links through to all of theinformation of that particular
track.
So maybe there is a way ofdoing this so that you don't
need to.
You know, if there aren't anychapters, then actually it just
pulls that information from theremote items in there.

(43:16):
That would make sense, so maybethere's a plan.
Anyway, that was exciting,wasn't it?
What's for me to talk about you, but what's for me?
There are a couple of otherthings going on in the world of
platforms.
Castos is now offering freepodcast transcripts for all
shows.

(43:37):
There is a but there, and thebut is that they're not yet
supporting the podcasting 2.0transcript tag.
So they're offering freepodcast transcripts, but they'll
just appear within Castos,which is not particularly great,
but Craig tells me that he isgoing to be adding it as a
feature in the next couple ofweeks.
Blueberry is doing somethingwhich is very cool, so they have

(44:00):
a product which is calledpodcast mirror, which is a RSS
feed mirroring platform, so abit like Feedburner, if you
remember that you used to usethat to mirror your blog RSS
feed, and in the same way, thisis exactly the same sort of
thing but for podcasts.
But what Todd and the Blueberryteam have added is support, at

(44:24):
least at the channel level, formany different podcasting 2.0
features.
So everything from you knowvalue for value, payments, the
host tag, you know all kinds ofother you know pod paying, all
of that will work.
So a whole host of other ideasin there.
So if you are hosting withsomebody that doesn't support

(44:47):
the new podcasting namespace,then podcast mirror is your
savior, because podcast mirrorcan essentially layer on all of
those particular features foryou.
So if you're with megaphone orsomebody cool, just use podcast
mirror, point people to thatversion of your RSS feed and,

(45:07):
hey Presto, you can get all ofthe new podcasting 2.0 goodness.
So that's a very cool, quiteniche but very cool thing that
Todd and the Blueberry team haveput together.
So quite a smart thing, I think.

Sam Sethi (45:23):
Yeah, I was reading about all of that yesterday and
it reminds me of sovereign feedsbasically, where, you know,
stephen Bell, you can go in andtake an RSS feed and then
enhance it and then save it andthen export it out, so it looks
like you know podcast mirrorsexactly the same thing, but on a
more commercial basis.

Yeah, yeah.
Now I think it's a very goodand very smart thing.
Finally, alitu has jumped onthe AI bandwagon, has launched a
thing called the Alitu showplanner, which auto generates an
entire podcast action plan forfree, has a podcast name
generator and an auto generatedscripts for the show's initial
trailer.

(46:02):
So if you lack any of thetalents required to put a
podcast together, then hooray.
Now you can just follow whatthe AI tells you to do, and
that's a wonderful thing.
Colin does some really good,good tools at Alitu not
necessarily convinced about thisone, but nevertheless it's a
good thing to see him try newthings Now.

Sam Sethi (46:26):
Rode you use, sure, don't you feel, mike, and I use
Rode.
But they've said that the newMacOS Sonoma, which went live
yesterday, they've said do notupgrade if you're using an Intel
Mac.
So thankfully I'm not, I'm onan M1.

Oh, only an M1.

Sam Sethi (46:47):
Hey, I'm not moneybags like you.

Yes, yes, so it was actually.
It actually comes out onTuesday September the 26th, so
the day before Pod News Live.
I wouldn't necessarily installit then.
But yes, if you're running anIntel Mac, then Rode is saying
don't upgrade.
And in fact it's not just Rodeproducts, it's basically quite a

(47:16):
lot of other products as wellwhere apparently they've messed
something up.
Rode have told Apple time andtime again that there's a
problem here and Apple haven'tnecessarily fixed it.
So that is going to catch anawful lot of people out.
So I have deliberately not goneanywhere near the new MacOS and

(47:37):
will be waiting until at leastuntil I'm home again from the UK
to upgrade.
But yeah, that's a concern.
Not quite sure what happens.
Whether or not it works at allis one thing.
It seems to be something to dowith the USB connection, so

(47:59):
don't fully understand that.
But yeah, that's going to catchan awful lot of people out if
we're not careful.

Sam Sethi (48:04):
Yeah well, I am using a Sonoma on the beta, the final
beta, and I am using aroadcaster pro 2, so happy days.

Well, yes, well, that's a good thing.
So, yes, as long as it works,then that's all that matters.

Sam Sethi (48:19):
James, you came up with something really
interesting.
You came up with a simple,straightforward way to promote
your podcast by embedding youraudio in an email, which I
thought was quite fascinating.
So tell me more.
What is it and how did you findit?

Well, so it turns out that 58% of people,
astonishingly, use Apple Mail toopen emails either Apple Mail
on iPhones, on iPad or ondesktop, or they're using
something which is using Apple'swebkit under the hood.

(48:56):
So I use a great mail programcalled MimeStream, which is
brilliant, which integratesperfectly with Gmail, and, yeah,
and so all of these people areall using Apple Mail in some way
, shape or form.
Now, apple Mail is interestingbecause it supports and, by the

(49:17):
way, no one else does, but itsupports the audio tag, so the
standard audio HTML tag in email.
So you can basically embed anaudio tag in your HTML email.
It'll give you a little playerwithin your email that appears
if it's supported, and you canpress the play button and it

(49:39):
goes off and downloads yourpodcast and plays it back to you
as if it was a normal podcastapp.
So a really easy,straightforward way of getting
people to hear a podcast thatyou have shown off.
So I thought, well, I wonderwhat would happen if I was to

(50:01):
give that a test.
Send it out to the 29,300people that get the podcast
daily newsletter every singleday and see whether or not the
bots go crazy, whether or not itdoes anything for our
deliverability, etc.
Etc.
And everything just worksperfectly.
So, yeah, it's a really goodway.
If you want to promote yourshow maybe you've really got a

(50:24):
newsletter, maybe you've reallygot something else then embed
that HTML audio tag.
If it works, you'll see a playbutton and if you hit that play
button, it will appear in yourpodcast analytics as a normal
download, because it is it's anormal download and you can even
keep listening to it as you gothrough the rest of your email.
It won't actually stop untilyou, until you go and stop it

(50:49):
directly.
So it's a really good way ofsharing audio from the podcast
that you actually have workswith DAI and everything else.
So, yes, really interesting.
There's a full report on thatat the pod newsletter.
Podnewsnet.
Slash articles is where to findthat.

Sam Sethi (51:07):
There was.
I thought it was reallyinteresting.
Only on the basis that I canimagine someone using soundbites
and then being able to put thatsoundbite in the email.
Would you recommend, though,putting your full podcast?
I mean, I suppose you could,because you just said it would
count as a play, but we hadBrian of London saying, well,
how are you going to get yourmicropayments to that?

(51:29):
And I said, well, I don't know,so probably just put soundbites
or clips would be the onlything I do.

Yes, or indeed, if you were wanting to promote a
new, a new season or something,maybe you might put a trailer
in there, and you know.
So there's all kinds ofdifferent things.
So my theory is, when I'm braveenough to do the coding, my
theory is the bit at the bottomof the pod news newsletter where

(51:57):
it has all of the new showswhich are now available for you
to go and have a listen to.
My theory is to put a playbutton next to all of those so
that you can actually have alisten if you want to, That'll
be pretty cool.
Yeah, and I reckon I can do thatin a way that pressing the play
button will actually appear asa play on the original podcast's

(52:18):
analytics.
So that would be quite a nicething if it's possible to end up
doing so.
Yeah, so I think that there'san awful lot of interesting
things.
I think Todd Cochran'sBlueberry runs a thing called
subscribe by email, where youcan actually subscribe to a
podcast via email if you want toget an email when a new episode

(52:42):
comes out.
So again, what he could dothere is he could actually embed
the audio directly into theemail.
It's two lines of code.
It's really really easy.
So, yeah, there's all kinds ofthings you could do with that.
Nice Like it.
Good find James.
Good find Two other things.
Just to round up the tech stuffOpen AI's whisper, which is the

(53:02):
speech recognition software.
There's a new update of that,the first update for a while.
That includes improvements toword timestamp accuracy.
So it's particularly good ifyou're doing those fancy.
Jason, you know karaoke stylethings.
I know it's not properlykaraoke, but you know what I
mean and so you can downloadthat.

(53:23):
Now.
The good news is that it alsobetter supports the podcast
namespace as well in there aswell.
So there's all kinds of thingsthat you can add to the command
line to make it spit out thecorrect versions of that.
If you want to see what theoutput of that looks like, then
you will find that in thepodcast which uses whisper as

(53:45):
its speech recognition in there.
So that is nice.
And PodPage has released PodPageElite, which is a premium
subscription for creators whichoffers all kinds of entertaining
things, including episode deeplinking, link tracking, seo
analysis and stuff like that.
If you are producing a podcastand you don't have the time or

(54:06):
the skills to produce a websitefor it, then PodPage is a smart
thing.
To go and use PodPageco no,it's PodPagecom slash PodNews
will, I think, get you a specialdeal, I think, if my memory
serves that right.
Anyway, podpagecom slashPodNews, I think, is where to go

(54:30):
for that, but it's a very coolthing.
Brendan, who puts the thingtogether, is a very bright chap.
Also understands an awful lotabout crypto and NFTs.
So one would assume that atsome point there might be a bit
of Albi integration.
He'd be mad not to, I don'tthink.

Sam Sethi (54:48):
He would be.
If you understand it, get aheadof the curve.
That's all I'd say.
Anyway, events, james, what'scoming up?

Well, of course it's International Podcast Day
on September 30th.
I've been involved in a fewarticles which are coming out on
that date on different websitesand stuff.
It is, of course, podnews Livenext Wednesday in London in West
12.
Podnewsnet slash Live is whereto get tickets and stuff.

(55:18):
That seems to be going quiteswimmingly, sam, so far as I can
see.

Sam Sethi (55:22):
It's going really well.
I am sending out all of theagendas to the speakers and bits
and pieces.
The numbers of people that arethere are great.
I think you'll be a really goodevent.
We're going to go for drinksafterwards.
Our friends at ACAS have saidthey're going to sponsor those
drinks, so drink up is all I'dsay.
The night before James, wemight even have a little drink

(55:44):
ourselves.
So there you go.

Yes, that would be nice.
I will treat you to a hoppyexcitement and a beer as well.
The British Podcast was, ofcourse, the day after, which
will be a marvellous event.
The International JournalismFederation is having a
conference in Athens on theFriday where I'm speaking.

(56:07):
I have no idea what I'mspeaking about, but I have a
call, I think, later on today,so I can find out a little bit
more about what it is that I'msupposed to be talking about.
I think so far I've seen thatI'm one of three people and
they're basically saying thebottom has fallen out of
podcasting, it's all going tohell in a handbasket and what on

(56:29):
earth are you doing, stillinvolved in podcasting?
So I think I will be arguingfrom the other side as well.
But there are more events, bothpaid for and free, at Pod News
virtual events or events in aplace with people, and if you
are organising something, tellthe world about it.
It's free to be listed.
Podnewsnet slash events.

(56:50):
Boostergram corner cornercorner on the Pod News Weekly
Review.
Oh, yes, it's our favourite timeof the week.
Boostergram Corner.
If you have a podcast app thathas a boost button, press it,
see what happens.
Go on, put a large number inand work out what's going on
there.
Sam, what have we got?

Sam Sethi (57:11):
Well, gene Bean sent us a row of ducks 2222 and he
said I think something is wrongwith your chapter art.
I don't see Sam's graphs or anyothers.
Haven't seen any art in acouple of shows actually.
I also checked in Podverse.
Yeah, okay, hand up, gene, itwas my birthday and I am trying
to get Podfans out.
So, snacker, yeah, exactly, itwas down to me.

(57:34):
No, it wasn't a technicalproblem.

You had one job Settie Apart from organizing
PodNews.

Sam Sethi (57:42):
Yes, and trying to get this Podfans out and no
nothing else, and trying toentertain myself for a birthday
because no one else was going todo it for me, right?
And all of that meant yes,sorry, gene, but I did update it
.
So then I got another row ofducks from him 2222, saying not
sure what changed, but both appshave chapter art in that.
So few, I actually got my jobdone, james.

Well, there you go.
That's a nice thing.
Dave Jones sent us 5150sats andhe says whoa Sam ends the show
with a sick burn on James.
What was that about?
I've completely forgotten that.

Sam Sethi (58:19):
When you said you weren't a proper journalist, and
then at the end of the show,when you said something, I said
yeah, you're not a properjournalist.
Yeah, that's right.
Yes, but then again, nor am I.
So it's okay, it's fine.

Yes, and Dave also pointing out that there is
a JSON, opml and RSS formatversion of the top 100 chart
data.
Thank you, dave.
You see this is how you getfeature requests into the
podcast index.
You just mentioned it on theshow and again you get that done
.
Silas on Linux should be comingto the Pod News Live get

(58:53):
together, but he can't.
He says, really annoyed, thatI'm in London now until the 17th
and I don't have any morevacation days at work.
Normally I listen from Germany.
Cheers Silas.
Well, cheers Silas.
I hope you've been enjoyingsome good British beer with all
of the additives that areillegal in Germany.
So I hope that you've beenenjoying that anyway.

Sam Sethi (59:15):
And then mere mortals .
Our friend Kieran sent usanother row of ducks two, two,
two.
It seems to be the flavor thisweek.
He said did you end up going tothe Brissy podcast meetup,
james?
I think that's aimed at you.
Rigi Digi, I would say, meansauthentic, whereas Fair Dinkum
is more of an expression to beused for miles.
Surprise, there will betranslation with this episode

(59:39):
Australian is an option.

If you want it Now, kieran, I think you're
wrong.
I think Rigi Digi is straightand above board, and I think
Fair Dinkum is similarlystraight and above board, but a
bit less so.

Sam Sethi (59:52):
I think you both talk the Queens English and stop
making up words.

It would be really easier, but anyway, I
didn't end up going to theBrisbane podcast meetup.
The Brisbane podcast meetupwanted $25 to go.
I was there thinking I'm notsure that that's for me, so I
didn't end up going.
But I did end up listening toKieran doing his show live,
because Fountain told me thathis value for value show was

(01:00:19):
live and that happened to be at10 in the morning on Wednesday
and so therefore I had to listento it and it was rather fun
having listened to it live.
He does an awful lot of singingPrior to him actually going
live.
He's there going.
It's very, very strange, butstill, there you go.
Did he watch the SwedishMuppets?
Still, he's great.

(01:00:40):
Hootie, hootie, hootie.
Too soon If you get value fromwhat we do.
The Pod News Weekly Review isseparate from Pod News, sam, and
I share everything from it.
It goes into paying for thingslike Pod News Live.
Frankly, we really appreciateyour support, though, that we
can continue making this show.
You can become a powersupporter with your visa or
Mastercard or your AmericanExpress or your weird Chinese

(01:01:03):
one with the funny colors on it.
Weeklypodnewsnet is the placeto go Weeklypodnewsnet with that
.
Or you can support us with Satsby hitting the boost button or
indeed just streaming, as quitea lot of the money comes from.
If you don't have one,podnewsnet slash, new podcast
apps will help you find a newapp.
So there was a mystery personat the door about half an hour

(01:01:26):
ago, sam, in a piece of thepodcast that we have since
edited out.
What else has happened for youthis week?

Sam Sethi (01:01:32):
Power Cuzz at four in the morning.
No, that was fun.
We've thankfully finished themobile PWA for Pod Fan, so, as
of Monday, we will officially bea beta product.
Oh, that's very exciting.
Yes, so Manifest is beinguploaded as we speak today.
On Friday, and then over theweekend, we'll just do a little

(01:01:54):
bit of checking and then, as ofMonday, yes, we'll open the
doors, remove the wait list, andyet it will be a full, proper
beta.

James Cridland (01:02:02):
Excellent.
Well, that'll be very exciting.
Have you bumped into?
I think this time last week youwere telling me all of the
important people who you livenext to and everything else.
Is there anybody else in yourvillage that we should know
about?

Sam Sethi (01:02:17):
Well, we're trying to get him out of the village now.
Yes, Russell Brand lives in ourvillage as well.

You are joking, no.

Sam Sethi (01:02:23):
I'm not.
I've got Chris Evans, chrisTarant, I've got Ricky Gervais
and Russell Brand, yeah, so Ihope he gets his hands to
himself.
Yeah, no, my daughters are nownot going out, no, anyway.
Yes, so Russell is persona nongrata in the village at the

(01:02:44):
moment.

Yes, yes, he denies all allegations.
Indeed, he does, which I shouldpoint out.
He denied all of theallegations without actually
knowing what the allegationswere, which is always a good one
.

Sam Sethi (01:02:57):
But I would say, on a more serious note, and I'm sure
that Adam will probably coverit on the Friday show he has had
, he's been cancelled basicallyoff many platforms and, unless
I'm wrong, the law used to beinnocent until proven guilty, as

(01:03:17):
opposed to guilty on socialmedia and then de-platform.

Yes, I think I mean he's been.
So what?
He hasn't necessarily beende-platformed, but what's gone
on is YouTube music.
So in case you don't know, he'sbeen.
He's a comedian in UniversalCommerce in the UK and he's been
accused of a number of quiteserious sexual allegations, and

(01:03:41):
my understanding is that YouTubehas demonetized him, although
Todd and Rob were very or atleast Rob was very keen in
suggesting that he may have beendemonetized because the
advertisers didn't want to beadvertising next to his content.
So it might not have beenYouTube actually making that

(01:04:02):
decision, it might have been theadvertisers who basically said
no, he's no longer brand safe.
But in any case, he's beendemonetized from his YouTube
channel, where he had 6.
Something million people.
So that's quite a thing.
A few shows have been taken offiPlayer and whatever the Channel
4 app is called these days Ithink it's just called Channel 4

(01:04:24):
, isn't it?
But whatever it, however, itworks.
A couple of episodes have beenpulled off there.
I know that the BBC have beensniffing around BBC News, which
is journalistically independentfrom the rest of the BBC.
I know that they've beensniffing around the podcast
companies wondering whether thepodcast platforms are taking

(01:04:46):
down Russell Brand content.
So I have been helping themwith their inquiries.
But, yeah, it's a very strangeconversation and, as you say,
he's not been convicted ofanything, although, I mean, the
evidence is relatively strong,evidence which he denies, but
nevertheless, and so you arethere going.

(01:05:09):
Well, you know there is a limit, I think, in terms of how far
you go.
But yeah, I mean, I have to sayI was listening to the news
agents a couple of days ago andthey started with a clip of
Russell Brand talking to JimmySavile.
Oh yeah, that was just adreadful, dreadful thing.

(01:05:32):
If you don't know who JimmySavile is, wikipedia him.

Pete Birsinger (01:05:36):
Don't, don't, we're not we're not going to go
to that.

But anyway, yes, so Russell Brand lives in your
village.
There's a thing, there's athing, Not for long.
Well, he wasn't, he wassupposed to be here in Australia
in a week's time performing ata comedy festival, and he's been
.
Well, I was going to say he'sbeen cancelled.
He and the festival have agreedthat they will, that he will no

(01:06:04):
longer be available on thefestival.
So, yes, I think.
I think all of a sudden hewon't be very busy for a bit.

Sam Sethi (01:06:12):
Oh well, I've got a long to cut.
Maybe I'll ask him Now James,what's happened for you?

I've had a relatively quiet week.
I have to tell you, it issweltering here.
It's early spring but for somereason we've got a heat wave
right up the east coast ofAustralia and so the temperature
here went up to 33 today.
So it's been it's been aproperly hot, humid Brisbane

(01:06:40):
spring day, and I'm not quiteready for that.
So you know, I had to get outthe shorts and everything else.
I know, imagine, imagine it.

Sam Sethi (01:06:51):
I'm trying not to no.
No, you bring those to.

London, are you Certainly?
I'm not.

Sam Sethi (01:06:58):
With your digital.

Well, I don't know actually, because I'm going
to Greece straight afterwards,so who knows, maybe I will, but
yes, that was, that was quite athing.
So, yes, so that's so.
That's been fun.
But no, apart from that, I'mjust busy playing around with
the RSS feed for the main pod,news daily podcast, so that I

(01:07:21):
can give people who are usingApple podcasts a slightly
different experience.
That looks as good as I canmake it for that platform.
And yeah, that's basically beenall I've been doing this week.

Sam Sethi (01:07:33):
Are we getting another show?
You know another DJ show fromyou.

No, I don't think.
I don't think we're going toget another DJ show for some for
some time.
I did enjoy doing it, but yes,and I have to say, if I sounded
that good when I was doing so,you'll find this show it's
called James's Random Music Showthing and you'll find it in any
podcasting 2.0 compliant app.
And I have to say, if, if Isounded as good as that when I

(01:07:59):
was actually doing a chartcountdown and getting paid for
it then it, then I probablystill be doing it, but I got
very lazy, so stop doing all ofthat.
And, of course, we didn't havesuch a thing as the Internet
when I was actually on the air,so I was being able to look up,

(01:08:19):
you know, the people who I wasplaying and find out more
information about.
It was actually really hard.
So, yeah, so people have it soeasy these days.

Sam Sethi (01:08:30):
Oh, these DJs don't know how good they is, do they
yeah?

exactly, and that is it for this week.

Sam Sethi (01:08:38):
Yes, you can give feedback to James and I by using
email at weekly at podnewsnet,we prefer send us a boost to
Graham.
If your podcast app doesn'tsupport boost, what are you
using it for then?
Then grab a new app frompodnewsnet.
Forward slash a new podcastapps Now.

This time next week we will, of course, have
just finished podnews live, andI suppose the question is are we
actually going to have a shownext week, Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:09:07):
Depends if you're in Greece and I'm still on stage
cleaning up after your mess?
No, I don't know.

So there is a possibility that we do a
slightly truncated version,maybe record that on Thursday
morning.
There is also a possibilitythat there may not be one, and
in which case we may see youback in two weeks, but we will
see how we go.
I think we are written down todo 50 shows a year, so perhaps

(01:09:38):
this is one of our two weeksthat we can take off, who knows?
Although there again, you know,I'm sure that we can very
quickly put something out.
Our music, by the way, is fromStudio Dragonfly.
Our voiceover is Sheila Dee.
We use clean feed for our mainaudio and we're hosted and
sponsored by podnews live and byBuzzsprout podcast hosting made

(01:09:59):
easy, and we'll see you inLondon next week, indeed.
Get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnewsnet.
Tell your friends and grow theshow.

Pete Birsinger (01:10:11):
And support us and support us the Pod News
Weekly Review will return nextweek.
Keep listening.

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