Spotify Layoffs, AI-Powered Discovery, NYT Audio, and PodX/Listen Merger

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Cridland (00:00):
It's Friday, the 9th of June 2023.

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

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News
in Smokey, canada.

Sam Sethi (00:17):
And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of Pod Pound in sunny.

London In the chapters.
today, spotify cuts another 200jobs.
maybe an end to exclusives too,is Tucker Carlson's first show
on Twitter, a podcast.
What's new in Apple's podcastapp coming to iOS 17 and Acast's
PodChaser launches CollectionsPlus using AI And also.

Mukul Devichand (00:41):
Hi, I'm Michael Devachan.
I'm the editor of programmingfor New York Times Audio, which
is a new app from the World'sPaper of Record, and it's a new
daily front page of audio.
I'll be talking about thatlater.

Bradley Davis (00:55):
This is Bradley Davis here with PodChaser, and
I'll be on later to talk aboutour new service, Collections
Plus.

Josh Adley (01:00):
Hey, I'm Josh Adley, the managing director of Listen
, and I'll be back on the showlater to talk about our recent
deal with PodX.
Hi, this is.

Staffan Rossell (01:06):
Staffan Rossell , I'm the CEO of PodX and I will
be back later to talk about ourinvestment in Listen.

They will.
This podcast is sponsored andhosted by Buzzsprout.
Last week, 3,445 people starteda podcast with Buzzsprout.
Podcast hosting made easy withpowerful tools and remarkable
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we're brought to you with PodNews Live, where podcasting
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(01:35):
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Voiceover (01:40):
Pod News Live Live Where the podcast industry
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Get your tickets now atpodnewsnet slash, live From your
daily newsletter, the Pod NewsWeekly Review.

Sam Sethi (01:54):
Let's start off with Story 1.
Spotify is to lay off 2% of itsworkforce, mainly from podcast
groups.
That doesn't sound good, james.
Spotify is to cut 200 jobs fromits podcasting division.
These are substantial cuts,certainly affecting podcast and
gimlet, and this is on top ofthe 600 jobs they did in January

(02:16):
, which they axed.
This doesn't sound good, james.
Tell me more.

No, it doesn't sound good And I think
particularly the jobs that theyaxed back at the beginning of
the year were all over SpotifyAnd you know that was a big cut.
These jobs 200 jobs are justfrom the podcasting division.
Now I asked Spotify how manystaff work in podcasting in

(02:40):
Spotify and they gave me a verymealy-mouthed answer which was
basically we can't tell you, butthere aren't that many people
who work in podcasting inSpotify.
If you take a quick look,gimlet has around 125 employees,
podcast has about 40, theringer about 120.
So you're not talking about anawful lot of people here.

(03:05):
So cutting 200 jobs from that isa big cut.
So I'm not necessarily surethat it's been reported by most
people, but, as you know, it'sonly just another 2%.
It's a big cut of theirpodcasting people, parkasting,
gimlet being merged as SpotifyStudios, which you can kind of
understand.
I don't know whether that'sjust an internal plan or whether

(03:28):
they are going to get rid ofthe podcasting gimlet brands
altogether, the ringercontinuing as a separate brand,
and obviously this is, you know,four years since Spotify
started really acquiringpodcasts in a big, big way.

Sam Sethi (03:45):
Yeah, i mean it does make a lot of sense.
I mean, eventually, unlessthose brands were going to be,
you know, like Wondry standalone, well-known and kept as a
separate entity, merging them abit like they did with Anker
recently.
I think it makes a lot of sense.
Bloomberg were also reportingthat something odd is happening
with Spotify.
The exclusive strategy seems tobe unbundling itself, but

(04:09):
they've now announced a certainexclusive podcast that they had,
and how can it be availableeverywhere?

Well, yes, this is something that Bloomberg are
very keen on trying to spin as astory.
I'm not too convinced, to befrank, that there is a
particular story here.
What Spotify have always doneis they've always had some shows
which are exclusive, some showswhich are windowed, so they
start as exclusives and thenthey're opened up.

(04:36):
The Obama's stuff was exactlylike that.
It sounds as if EmmaChamberlain's show Anything Goes
, which was exclusive, is nownot exclusive and available on
other platforms as well.
We hear that there are talksgoing on about armchair expert
going non-exclusive relativelysoon.

(04:58):
Now, that's interesting,because when armchair expert
moved to Spotify to become aSpotify exclusive, dax Shepard
was saying that it was athree-year deal.
It's only been two years, sotherefore, it does sound as if
they're sort of opening that up.
But, yes, i'm not necessarilyconvinced that there is a big

(05:22):
change of strategy here, and thecompany has actually said to
Bloomberg well, we'veexperimented with windowing
shows for several years and thisexperimentation about both wide
and windowing content willcontinue.
So not too short.
I think one of the interestingthings is the new Louis Thru

(05:42):
show, which appears to be beingpromoted all over the place, and
that is a exclusive at themoment, and the question, i
suppose, is what happens whenit's made available wider.

Sam Sethi (05:54):
Well, the question is will it be made wider?
I listened to the first episode.
If you're a Louis Thru fan,it's total Louis Thru.
I'm not a massive fan, to behonest, so I find it quite
boring.
But there you go.

Yeah, i mean, yeah, he does a good act is
Louis Thru And you know, and itkind of makes sense.
He's sort of well known in theUS as well as the UK, so you've
got that sort of tick from theSpotify side there as well.
So, yeah, you know, i mean itwas a very big signing for
Spotify at the end of last year.

(06:29):
But of course, you know, weshouldn't forget the Spotify
earns money either way.
They earn money on exclusivecontent because that drives more
signups to the podcast app.
Some people are writing thatit's a paywall.
It's not a paywall.
You can get in for free, it's aregistration wall.
But of course, they also earnmoney from advertising on other

(06:52):
platforms too, through theirownership of the megaphone
platform and the Spotifyaudience network.
So actually, from that point ofview, they still win,
regardless of whether or notit's an exclusive or not, which
is why I'm kind of there going.
Is this really so much of anexciting story as Bloomberg
seemed to think it is, whenactually there are really good

(07:14):
reasons why Spotify might wantto expand some of their shows
across everywhere because theyget more advertising revenue
that way?

Sam Sethi (07:23):
So maybe it's not as big a faster clock as we think.
There you go.

Maybe not.
I mean Spotify.
you know it's interesting timesfor them, of course, but yeah,
i'm not sure that there's a bigchange in terms of exclusives,
but I do understand that otherpeople might want to talk that
up.
There was a peculiar thing,though.
in their release, saharEl-Habashi, who is the head of

(07:50):
Spotify Podcast Business that'sanother person using charge of
podcasting at Spotify they endedup saying in collaboration with
the podcasting community, weare broadening our analytics
capabilities by expandingSpotify for podcasters.
So I thought that was reallyinteresting.
I never heard Spotify say incollaboration with the

(08:11):
podcasting community in the past, ever.
So I thought, well, okay,what's going on there?
I asked Spotify's PR team, andthe answer that came back made
it pretty clear and obvious tome that they didn't know what
this statement was for at all.
And, being fair, that'sprobably okay, i guess.

(08:34):
But yeah, i'm just curious asto what this collaboration with
the podcasting community thatthey've been doing is and what
these new analytics are going tobe by expanding Spotify for
podcasters.
What's that?
What's going on there then?
So if I do ever get moreclarity on that, then you know,

(08:56):
i'll obviously be able to getthat into an exhibition of the
newsletter.

Sam Sethi (09:02):
but yeah not quite sure what's going on there Well
talking of analytics, a friendof the show, john Spurlock,
released some stats for OP3.
One of those was Spotify, forpodcasters saw a slight fall in
market share for new episodes inMay.
I mean 0.6%, but they remainedthe market leader by some strong

(09:22):
margin.
So again, did you have a lookat those numbers?
anything that stood out for you?

Yeah, so these are numbers.
They're not actually anythingto do with OP3, but they're
numbers to do with all newpodcast episodes And so John
does a very good job ofbasically going through every
single new podcast episode whichhas been made available in any
given month and working outwhere they're hosted.
And yeah, spotify forpodcasters actually saw

(09:49):
tremendous growth from Januaryonwards, basically as soon as it
changed its name away fromAnker, moved to the Spotify
brand, then it's been increasingand increasing and increasing.
It's gone back a little bitthis month, but not too much
change there, but you know.

(10:09):
So maybe they were right injunking the Anker name and
putting everything into Spotify.

Sam Sethi (10:16):
Yeah, well, anker had a few other problems.
this month, 14,000 podcastershave had their Anker usernames,
emails and passwords posted on aRussian language black hat
hacking website.
So I think your advice, james,was change those passwords.

Yes, change those passwords.
And if you're not if you're,you know, using the same
password across multiple sitesthen that would be a mistake.
I would recommend Bitwarden.
It's very good and it's freeAnd, yes, and you should be
using that as I do.
But yeah, that's slightlyworrying.
So you know you can still login.
My understanding is using thoseAnker usernames and passwords.

(10:53):
So yeah, if you're an Anker,you know, podcaster, make sure
that you change your password assoon as you can.
Now, moving on to the nextquestion So yeah, if you're an
Anker, you know, podcaster, makesure that you change your

(11:16):
password as soon as you can.

Sam Sethi (11:19):
Now moving on.
Story this week in pod news wasthat Acast's pod chaser, the
company they bought a littlewhile back, has released a new
thing called AI Collections Plus.
James, tell me more.
What are AI Collections Plus?

They are using the data that they know about
podcasts to be able to giveadvertisers a better list of
shows that they miss, that theya better list of shows that they
may wish to advertise on.
So an Acast has been using thisinternally for a little bit and
they've opened it up to othersnow.

(11:58):
So you know, it used to be thatyou would just choose shows
based on you know names orcategories, but now they're
going through all of the topicsthat are being talked about and
actually helping peopleunderstand what shows to be
advertising on, which soundslike a bright and clever idea.

Sam Sethi (12:17):
Yeah well, luckily I thought I'd reach out to the CEO
Bradley from Pod Chaser andfind out from the horse's mouth
what they're doing.

Pod Chaser is a giant database.
We VURSELS is sort of theintelligence engine behind the
podcast industry, aggregatingdata from all kinds of different
sources into one singularproduct and or API.

Sam Sethi (12:40):
Okay, and for most people, they just create an
account.
They get access to theirpodcasts, favorites, keyword
tracking I think there's a paidversion as well.
So you get a free version, apaid version, and if you're a
developer, there's an API aswell, isn't there?

Exactly.
We have a free version that'sgenerally for podcasters or
listeners.
Podcasters can come in, addtheir credits, add data, add
categories.
Then we have a paid versionused by marketers and agencies
and all sorts of differentorganizations to access
additional insights aboutpodcasts.

Sam Sethi (13:15):
So now you've added a new service called Collections.
Tell me more about Collections.

Yeah, so Pod Chaser was acquired last year by
this cool Swedish companycalled Acast, and as part of
that, acast's sort of bread andbutter is the ad buyer's journey
, and so a cool thing sincebeing owned by Acast is applying
our core competencies arounddata to that buyer journey, and

(13:43):
so the first project andundertaking we've done is
Collections Collections Plus iswhat we're calling it, and at
its most basic form, we'retaking a group of shows that may
seem very similar or may seemvery dissimilar, and grouping
them together based on a ton ofdifferent data attributes and
utilizing AI and machinelearning to do this much more

(14:05):
efficiently and less manual thanbefore.
What's cool about this is basedon a buyer's intent or what
they're trying to go after.
We can sprinkle some of thisdata dust on this large group of
shows and immediately spit outa group of highly selected niche
shows for that intent.

Sam Sethi (14:24):
So let's take a couple of steps back.
One of the things you're doingis using OpenAI's whisper to do
transcription of the podcastfirst, to aggregate all the data
together.
Is that step one?

Yeah, transcriptions are certainly
handy to add to the pile or thestack of data that we're
analyzing, so we utilize thewhisper technology, which is an
extremely efficient and costefficient way to transcribe
large amounts of content.

Sam Sethi (14:51):
And then, once you've got all that data together, you
said you use machine learningto find keywords and stuff.
The good example I've heardbefore use is that you might
have a podcast thattraditionally would be, let's
say, about cars, but suddenlythere's an element within that
podcast that talks about asecondary subject that wouldn't
normally get an advertiser to beaware of it.
Is that the sort of finding theneedle in the haystack that

(15:14):
you're working on?

Yeah, there's sort of content matching, which
I think traditionally has beenoh, this has forward as a
keyword and this show hasforward as a keyword.
Those shows must be similar.
So what AI allows us to do ismake predictions and inferences
about keywords that may seemcompletely dissimilar to the eye
, especially if you're lookingat, you know millions or

(15:37):
billions of different keywords.
So that's the sort of contentmatching.
There's also audience inference.
So, based on the tone orspecific words or conversations
in a podcast, ai can pick up on.
well, based on how this podcastis talking, we can predict what
sort of audience this is goingafter, and so we try to kind of

(15:58):
blend those two things togetherto create links between podcasts
.

Sam Sethi (16:02):
So I go into Podchaser.
What level of account do I haveto have?

So this first is going to be available just
through the API.

Sam Sethi (16:10):
Okay, yeah, so as a developer, then I get access to
it, so I can then go out and saythese are the keywords or the
key inferences from thesepodcasts or a group.
How would I, as a developer,want to use it?
I mean, is it for advertisingcompanies to use it?
Who's the audience?

Yeah, so the user in this case would be a
publisher or a marketplace suchas a cast.
So anyone who is over a ton ofdifferent shows is willing to
group and package those showstogether to get in front of an
advertiser.
That's the use case, Okay.

Sam Sethi (16:41):
One of the functions I would love, i guess, for me is
to go in as a user, because oneof the things about discovery
of podcasts people have beentalking about at Aerieon this is
in Blatt and the guys at TinkMedia about cross fertilizing
podcasts Again, this would be agreat way for me to go and say,
oh okay, who else should a podnews weekly go and talk to?
Oh, look, here's eight or ninepodcasts.

(17:02):
Then I can go and create an adthat will get ingested into
those.
Is that something you plan tobring?
So we have a version of thiscurrently.

It's a little bit different and help functions
And I think that the technologyfrom this will inform how we
evolve what we call similarpodcasts.
So this is a free function.
It's on the website.
If you go to any podcast,there's a tab called similar
podcasts And that uses thingslike credits, keyword,
inferences and some othersignals to basically link the
shows together.

(17:31):
You also use like the network,the category, etc.
So similar podcasts isavailable in the product And
it's also one of our endpointsfor our API.
That is going to be a bitdifferent because it's more
about the listener perspectiveof if you like this show, you'll
like this one, which is assimilar but different mix of
signals than an advertiserbuying a cluster of groups or

(17:55):
podcasts.

Sam Sethi (17:56):
Yeah, i guess that I'm thinking of a middle ground,
because I'm a host of anindependent podcast.
I'm not really looking to buy acampaign or anything, but I'm
looking to find other podcaststhat I couldn't find myself
through natural discovery.
That might, through this newcollections plus system, allow
me to go and find without havingthe API access.

(18:17):
So okay, there's the 10podcasts in my cluster that I
think.
Actually that's my collectionof comparative podcasts.
I'm going to cross fertilizeads on them.

Cross promotion is a very typical use case for
our pro product.
I think what you'll see iswithin the actual product, kind
of the ability to input what itis you want.
So say, i'm wanting a group ofshows like mine for cross promo,
or a group of shows like minefor listeners and one for
advertisers, and kind of let youplay with the ingredients to

(18:50):
spit out a collection.
That's a good idea, yeah.

Sam Sethi (18:53):
Cool Availability now .

Yeah, so this is available for any marketplace or
publisher.
now, like I said, it'd bethrough our API And then this
will trickle down into the proproduct over the next few months
.

Sam Sethi (19:09):
Cool, and if I want to go and get it, where would I
go now?
What's URL?

The easiest way is to email me or call Bradley
at podchasercom or callpodchasercom and start a
conversation.
We're really excited about theearly results that we've seen
with ACAST and think this willbe a huge deal for the industry.

Bradley Davis from Podchaser Good to hear them
.
Another great tool to help sellmore advertising, which is a
good thing.

Sam Sethi (19:41):
Going on now.
yes, i did give YouTube alittle bit of a kicking last
week and it seems that itdoesn't really matter what I say
, james, because YouTube is nowthe most utilized podcast
listening platform.
I put that in quotes in the US,29% say it's the platform they
use.
They're the most, followed bySpotify at 17% and Apple at 16%.

(20:03):
This data came from CumulusMedia and Signal Hill Insights.
How have they come about tomake, i guess, youtube the
number one podcasting platformaccording to this?

Yes, Signal Hill Insights are a good company.
They do some very good work interms of that.
They use a company called MaruMatchbox, which talks to 608
podcast listeners in April, andthey, of course, ask them all
kinds of entertaining questions,including which platform do you

(20:37):
use the most for podcasting?
YouTube was the number oneplatform in terms of that.
That's great.
I don't see that in the figuresand I don't think any podcaster
sees that in the figures.
There's that big disconnectbetween what people are telling

(20:59):
surveys like this and what isactually happening.
I'm not quite sure what isactually going on.
They also say that about 10% ofthe weekly podcast audience
only consume podcasts viawatching.

(21:19):
Therefore, that would lend meto believe that there is YouTube
stuff going on, but actuallystill there's an awful lot of
listening on other platforms aswell.
I have to say I do find it alittle bit weird that you've got
Cumulus Media promoting theheck out of this report and

(21:41):
basically saying how wonderfulYouTube is as a platform, When
Cumulus Media don't sell ads onthe YouTube platform because
they can't they're not allowedto.
Cumulus Media have nothing togain if YouTube ends up being
the number one podcast platform.
Why Cumulus Media?

(22:03):
I know Pierre Bouvard very well.
He's a good bloke, but why he'sthere promoting the heck out of
YouTube is anybody's guessreally.

Sam Sethi (22:12):
I don't know any of these people, so I defer to the
goat here in this occasion.
The goat, but moving on swiftly, according to another part of
the report, 50% of YouTubecreators now earn more than $500
per month.
But is that true, james?

(22:34):
I mean, that seems quite high50%.

It does seem really high.
Yeah, this is from a differentstudy.
It was a study that was puttogether, reported on in Search
Engine Land, which is a verywell-known and very good site.
Again, it's a piece of datafrom Aspire, which is an

(23:01):
influencer marketing platform,which is always fun, but, yes,
that seems very high to me.
But it also says that 40% ofInstagram creators and 36% of
TikTok creators earn more than$500 per month from the platform

(23:21):
as well.
So who knows what's going onthere?
But only if YouTube like you,because a well-known YouTuber,
mike Figurito he, has postedthat YouTube has basically
turned off his channel'smonetization and he couldn't get
any answers from the folks atYouTube at all.

(23:41):
So again, youtube absolutelyfine as long as they like you,
and if they don't like you, thenthey get rid of you and you
don't really have any right ofappeal.
You don't have necessarily anyway of getting in touch with any
of these folks.
So again, todd Cochran is rightOwnyourowncom and don't rely on

(24:06):
other people.

Sam Sethi (24:07):
I think he's got to update that one.
James, i think it's got to beOwnYourRSS Yes well, yes.
OwnYourRSS.

I think that's an important part of it as well.
So, yeah, so interesting seeingthat There's been other
research, the Gen Z podcastlistener report unveiled by SXM
Media, which again looks atpodcast listeners, but this time
only podcast listeners agebetween 13 and 24, which

(24:35):
apparently is what Americansmean by Gen Z.
According to the study whichEdison Research put together who
I'm having dinner with tonight47% say that they've listened to
podcasts in the last month ofGen Z.
They're more diverse than USmonthly podcast listeners as a
whole, and they discover showsby using YouTube and TikTok and

(24:56):
Instagram.
So again, all of the researchsaying that YouTube is a massive
, massive thing.
And in the podcast businessjournal tomorrow you'll find an
interview with Kevin Jones fromBluewire And again, kevin is
very, very excited about whatYouTube can offer him and the
creators who use Bluewire.

(25:17):
So there's clearly somethingthere.

Sam Sethi (25:20):
Yeah, i mean, as much as I might dislike the way
YouTube's done things at certainevents recently and hijacking
the word podcast seems to be topof my list I don't think people
really care, and that's theproblem, i think.
If I look at my children, theyjump between those three
platforms YouTube, tiktok andInstagram and whether they're

(25:41):
consuming the content throughaudio or through video, they
don't seem to care.
Often when they're eatingdinner or cooking dinner,
they'll have it on in thebackground, so they're not even
watching it half the time.
So, yeah, they don't.

Yeah, well, because it's because it's audio
first.
I think that's the benefit of apodcast, or regardless of what
platform a podcast is on, whoknows.
But still, there you go.
And I mean, interestingly,given that YouTube is supposed
to be the one that everybody'susing these days, downloads from
Apple podcasts are on an alltime high, according to

(26:18):
Buzzsprout stats for May.
Buzzsprout stats are so, souseful in terms of this.
What I think is going on interms of those stats is that
Apple is now, of course,correctly identifying more of
its traffic with the recentupdates to the Apple podcasts
app.
So, instead of callingthemselves Apple call media,

(26:39):
they call themselves Applepodcasts, and so, therefore,
that's where those numbers aregoing.
If you look at Apple call medianumbers, those are decreasing,
so there's clearly good newsthere in terms of Apple.

Sam Sethi (26:51):
So, talking about Apple, james, did you watch the
WWDC, the World Wide DeveloperConference?

I didn't know.
I saw some of the coverage fromit.
You're a big fan of thosestupid goggles, aren't you?

Sam Sethi (27:03):
I'm not as fan of the goggles.
I'm a fan of the augmentedreality.
I'm a firm believer that thegoggles will eventually come
down to a form, fact that we'llall end up wearing.
I mean, if I think of theoriginal phone with a battery
that you'd have to carry aroundand it was like a brick.
Do you remember, dom?

Jolly, my first job was carrying the mobile
phone for a news reporter.
Oh my God, yes, and it wasliterally there.
I was fresh out of school and Iwas carrying this great big
briefcase thing for a newsreporter who, yeah, so yes, i

(27:43):
know exactly what you mean.
So there's a big amount ofchange there And I think
augmented reality is going to be.
It's going to be interesting.
But, yeah, i'm not quite surethat that great big you know
that great big visor is quiteready at prime time, but it's
one of those things that'sreally difficult to demo as well
.
You can't really see what otherpeople are actually seeing

(28:06):
within their weird visor thing.

Sam Sethi (28:08):
So, yeah, Now I thought 5,000 patents, and if it
does 80% of what they presented, I'm seriously interested.
I fundamentally believe I'mliving in a pre AR world and I
just want to get to it because Ithink it is going to be that
interesting.
Anyway, we're not here to talkabout that.
There was, thankfully, onemention, for one second, of the

(28:28):
word podcast totallytangentially, by the way, in
relation to the Apple Watch,which I thought was very weird.
But that's the only mention ofpodcasting.

Nice.
Well, there you go, but thereis some change, though, and some
quite welcome change for theApple Podcasts app, because that
is to get a new look and newfeatures in iOS 17,.
As that comes out, it's got anice new player which looks very
spic and span I believe thatthe Australian word would be

(29:01):
schmick So it looks very smartindeed.
It's got some quite nicechapter stuff, but the exciting
thing is, episode artwork is nowbeing supported.
Now, when I spoke to Apple lastyear and asked them about
episode artwork, they said, ohno, we support that, that's all
supported.
And I said, no, you don't.

(29:22):
Anyway, they now do supportepisode artwork, which is well
they will, which is excellentWell, they will.
I think that's all veryexciting And, given that episode
artwork is supported by Spotifyand Pocketcast, i think it's
all a good thing.

Sam Sethi (29:37):
No, i think it's great.
I'll let you know when I get itworking, but the chapters work
really well And that's animprovement on I still think
they're too subtle.
The place where they are stillis a little bit subtle for non
techies or geeks.
But anyway, i'm sure peoplewill eventually find it.

(29:57):
And then the other thing thatthey've added, and I didn't
quite understand it, but itsounds cool.
If you subscribe to apps likethe Economist or Calm, you'll
get access to premium audio fromthose apps automatically.
I wasn't sure what they weretrying to do there.
Linking apps with audio is whatit sounds like, but what's the
strategy here, james?

Yeah, well, i think that they're linking
they're linking subscriptions tothat you do through the Apple
App Store, if they're linkingthose with additional stuff that
you can get hold of within theApple Podcasts app, and so,
basically, they're trying tostop, it would seem, people like

(30:41):
the Economist or Calm buildingtheir own players and instead
just, you know, just play all ofyour audio in the Apple
Podcasts app, which is, i think,quite a bright plan really.
So that's happening alongsideApple Music's radio shows, which
will now be available on demandwithin Apple Podcasts.

(31:02):
So that's what happened toBeats, one which, if you
remember, was their originalonline radio station that Zane
Lowe went to work for And it wasall supposed to be the future
of radio and it died a completedeath.
But those shows are now goingto be available in there as well
.
And, yeah, and we can playaround with those new versions

(31:26):
of Apple Podcasts.
If you live dangerously and youwant to download the Developer
Beta, then you can go ahead anddo that.

Sam Sethi (31:34):
Well, anyone can now do that.
So previously you had to have aDeveloper account and had to
pay you $99.
And Apple have made itavailable free for everyone now
to go and get the latest Mac OSand iOS downloads.

You think you've found the Apple engineer
working on the Apple Podcastsapp.

Sam Sethi (31:55):
The one engineer that exists is named Stephen
Peterson.
He's here in London and he putout.
another thing I've been workingon this year is the new player
in the podcast app, and it'sbeen super fun getting to expand
my work beyond music this year.
I thought, oh my God, i foundhim.
Clicked on his profile.
Of course he's a member of theMen in Black.
Nothing, not a word aboutworking for Apple in his profile

(32:19):
.
No links, no, nothing.
So, yes, of course not.
So he's probably been sackedfor revealing that he's worked
on the product already.
Well done, stephen.

Yes, well done, stephen.
It looks a lot nicer now.
I made friends with Apple bysaying that I really like some
of the design nods that they'vegot from Android in the latest
app, and of course, that wentdown, as you would expect.
Yes, but still, there you go.

(32:49):
Other things that happened atWWDC.
There's PWAs.
What's a PWAs?
Sam?

Sam Sethi (32:56):
So PWAs are progressive web apps, so things
like Podverse, podfriend andPodfantral PWAs.
What's really cool in thisbuild Mac OS 14, is you can now,
through Safari, click on thefile menu and click Add to
Desktop.
When you do that, it basicallysays like Save into your home

(33:20):
page, it allows it and adds itto the tray at the bottom.
And if you support in yourprogressive web app things like
push notifications, then it actslike a full blown native app
where you get the red dot badgesappear.
So you've got first hand,completely a quick way to create

(33:40):
an app on the user's desktop.
And if you use something calleda manifest, which is just a bit
of code that goes at the top ofyour website, you can detect
the operating system and you canthen prompt the user to click a
single button which createsthat app on their user desktop
and also on the tray as well.

Very nice.
It's been available in GoogleChrome for the last year and a
half, so it's always nice to seeApple finally sticking to
something that Google have beendoing for the last number of
years.
But, yes, i think havingprogressive web apps within both
Mac OS and also iOS is going tobe a very good thing.

Sam Sethi (34:26):
Let's move on Now.
our wonderful host, buzz Sprout, came out with a new feature
service last week that we talkedabout with Albin Brook, there
head of marketing, called Cohost, which is AI, generated
transcriptions, titles, shownotes and chapter markers.
James, we used it for the showlast week.

(34:46):
Actually, you used it becauseobviously you uploaded the audio
and then pressed the button.
So what do you think of it,having had your first play?

I have to say I was really impressed by it.
It gave us, i think, fivechoices of title of the show and
they were all much longer thanI would normally go for, but
that's the way of these things.
But yeah, they were really good.

(35:17):
And then the show notes that itcame up with very successfully
worked out what was in thatparticular show and wrote a very
nice piece about it.
So, yeah, you can well see thatfor a busy audio creator, you
could well see that this sort oftool would actually save quite

(35:39):
a lot of time.
So, yeah, i thought it was areally smart piece of AI.

Sam Sethi (35:46):
One of the things that was missing and I think
it's coming, according to Albinis speaker labels don't have
names of the hosts and theydoesn't seem to be a way to put
that in, but I think that'scoming.
And given that we just said,apple is going to support
chapter art and we do put in ourchapter art pretty much every

(36:08):
week with links, it would begreat as a version two feature
for this Cohost function to useI don't know again AI to do
generated chapter art.

That would be fun, wouldn't it?
There you go.
If the good folks at Buzz Brownare listening, they can stick
that down on their featurerequest list.

Sam Sethi (36:31):
Now here's another story we talked about.
Listen, which is a Londonproduction company, got acquired
by PodEx.
We've had on in the past DerbyDoris from Listen and we've had
Stefan Rossel, the CEO, on, butagain, james, this is a really
interesting acquisition PodExhas made.

Yeah, it's a really big deal.
PodEx already own a similarcompany called Goldhawk
Productions, but GoldhawkProductions way, way smaller.
The difference, i think,between podcast content creators
in the UK and elsewhere isbecause of the way that the BBC
works.
quite a lot of these audioproduction companies are making

(37:15):
radio shows as well, and that'swhat Listen does.
That's what GoldhawkProductions do as well.
So they've ended up buying acompany which has guaranteed
work in terms of what it'sguaranteed as you can do in
terms of their work with the BBCas well, of course, as the

(37:36):
podcast stuff that they're doingas well.
So I thought it was a reallyinteresting purchase.
No terms were given, but it isprobably one of the biggest
purchases in the UK, alongsideSony buying something else which
is a very similar company.
a couple of years ago, youmanaged to catch up with Josh
from Listen and Stefan fromPodEx to ask them a little bit

(38:01):
more about the deal.

PodEx is an international group investing in
the best podcast creators inthe world, with a focus on
Europe, the Latin America, andour mission, if you like, is to
put podcast creators in thedriver's seat, opposed to
platforms and sales housesrunning this business.

(38:24):
We think that and we stronglybelieve that the best content
will always be the core of thisindustry.
So that's how we think andthat's what we are trying to do.

Sam Sethi (38:35):
Josh, hey, how are you Now?
we briefly saw you runningaround like a mad thing at the
podcast show.
Now we had Darby Dourish on theshow a couple of weeks ago.
But just remind everyone who orwhat is Listen.
Let's start there.

Josh Adley (38:50):
Sure So Listen is an audio and podcast production
agency.
We produce premium shows and wehave a really diverse slate of
shows.
We produce a ton of radiostrands, predominantly for the
BBC, as well as lots and lots ofpodcasts, as well as other
types of work like strategyconsultancy and creative work
within podcasting.

Sam Sethi (39:08):
How long has Listen been going and when did you
start it?

Josh Adley (39:12):
So Listen was actually born out of another
business, and we did that fouryears ago.
I was with that prior businesscalled Wise Bidder.
I've been with the wholecompany for seven years.
So four years ago we launchedListen and here we are today.

Sam Sethi (39:24):
Now, the reason why you're both here talking about
ambition is that PODX is nowinvested into Listen.
Can you, Stefan, explain whatthe deal is?
I mean, how is the dealstructured?
You're not a traditional VC.
It's not like a pure moneyinvestment with an equity
release.
So how is this deal structured?

It's structured very much the same as most of
our deals.
We like to build a group whereeveryone should be incentivized
to work together and the sum ofthe parts should be better than
the individual parts.
So we want to be majorityshareholder of the companies
that we invest in And that's thebasic principle and opposed to

(40:08):
more financial investors.
We are media people Everyonewho works here have a background
in media radio, television,podcasting And we like to think
that we can actually help todevelop the businesses that we
invest in.
So we are not buying andselling companies, We are only
buying and we are helping themanagement to create something

(40:29):
better and also to createsynergies and cooperation and
format exploitation andexploitation between the
entities.

Sam Sethi (40:37):
Josh, you tapped who on the shoulder and said, hey,
do we have a little chat?

Josh Adley (40:42):
Go on, stefan, i'll let you jump in.

Yeah, because I think actually we should admit
if that's something that youadmit.
But I think we tapped listen onthe shoulder first because we
saw this very interestingbusiness and we wanted to meet
the people behind it and thepeople leading it and the people
owning it and talk about thepossible journey together.

Sam Sethi (41:03):
Okay.
So when you got that tap on theshoulder, Josh, what do you
think?
Clearly it was out the blue.
I'm sure you weren't activelyhunting for some acquisitions.

Josh Adley (41:13):
Yeah, i think it's been little bits of interest in
the business over the yearsbecause we're in a really
exciting industry And so whenPODX came I was really excited
by the conversation because itfelt like when they launched
they made a really big splash ofwhat they were looking to do
And it felt like, in the spacethat we're in, it was someone
that actively wanted to investin the sector And I'm always

(41:33):
interested in people that kindof have a long term view of our
sector and want to be ambitiouswith it.
So we were really open to thatconversation.
But ultimately you've kind ofgot to work with people that you
think that you can get alongwith and share your ambitions.
So it's not an overnightprocess.
You have multiple meetings, youhave lots of conversations, you
talk about business models, youtalk about creative, and those

(41:53):
happen successfully over aperiod of months And here we are
.
So you know it was always niceto be tapped on the shoulder and
the conversations were reallypositive.

Sam Sethi (42:01):
Just to understand how long ago was that tap.
Are we talking a few weeks ago,a few months ago, or are we
talking last year?

We're talking last year.

Sam Sethi (42:11):
Okay, all right.
Josh was like should I sayanything?

I think I, just like Josh said, i think it's
very important that both sidesshould really feel comfortable
going into a joint venture likethis.
And I think the time factor,you can probably reduce it but
you cannot take it away, becauseit takes time to get to know
people, to understand thebusiness or both businesses, for

(42:38):
the other side to build trustand to sort of agree what we
could do together and to havethat plan and agree on it.
It's not something that you doin weeks.

Sam Sethi (42:48):
Josh, what does it mean now going forward for
Listener?
What if anything has changed inyour planning?
or is it business as usual?

Josh Adley (42:57):
I think a lot of aspects of what we do will
remain business as usual.
The products of their strategyis to buy into businesses that
they trust the people leadingthose businesses, and what's
great is we've got an activemajority shareholder that we can
have conversations with and wewill have lots of conversations
with, but ultimately we'retrusted to run the business.
So the vast majority of what wedo will be business as usual

(43:18):
and is in the plan.
We've had plans for the nextfew years and those plans are in
place and they constantlyevolve.
That's how we stay ahead.
So, in terms of what's next,you're going to see some that's
more of the same.
You're going to see some newstuff that was always going to
be there, and then, through thisacquisition, it'll open up
opportunities that perhaps maynot have been there otherwise.

Sam Sethi (43:35):
Stefan does this mean ?
let's say, listener got plans.
They can accelerate those plans, but what if they need to come
back to you for further funding?
Is that also open to them?

It is.
We will continue to invest ingreat podcasting ideas and
projects, and they could be in acompany that we already
invested in or it could be in anew company that we will invest
in.
So we want to expand and wewant to help this industry to
expand and grow by making greatideas come true.

Sam Sethi (44:10):
So, absolutely, Josh, does this mean you'll go
international now?

Josh Adley (44:15):
Yeah, we've already been working in an international
way.
We've had clients andcommissioners outside the UK for
quite some time.
We're continuing to grow.
That spent some time in the USearlier this year and we've
already come back and startedworking for some clients out
there.
So I think that's always beenon the plan and certainly going
forward.
I'm excited by talking to theother businesses within the
group, excited by talking topeople within PodEx and figuring

(44:37):
out between us what we can doto supercharge what we're
already doing.
I think the key thing for us atListen and anyone that works
here will sense a level ofenergy and ambition within the
business and we've constantlyevolved it.
So we were Wisebudder and wemade that move from Buddha to
Listen and that was a reallyactive, big change From there.
We then spent the first fewyears really building a stable
business and then we've evolvedit and we've evolved it again

(44:57):
and I think the thing that's thepast year has shown for Listen
is everyone internally sensesthat we're constantly looking to
move.
You cannot stand still, and Iknow that's quite a traditional
thing for anyone to say in mediabusinesses, but I feel like
podcasting is true more than anyother industry and so that's
why we're constantly looking forother areas, and so this
opportunity is great.
Let's take this.

(45:18):
Let's see what else that'sgoing to open up.
We were already thinking thatway, though.

Sam Sethi (45:22):
Yeah, i agree.
Anyone who stands still isactually moving backwards.
The last thing what are youworking on these days?
What's in the pipeline?
What can we expect from Listen?

Josh Adley (45:31):
There's a lot and a lot of varied content, which
kind of comes back to themission behind Listen, which is
diversity of our output.
So we're working on a follow-upto 28 Ish Days Later, which was
a huge show that we did for BBCRadio 4 and BBC Sounds.
We've got the follow-up to thatconfirmed which is in
production, which will probablylaunch early 2024, which is
going to be a landmark show forthem.
We've got a few really excitingalways-on entertainment shows

(45:55):
where we're building podcastbrands so that's video as well
as audio that are going to havea huge presence across TikTok,
youtube, instagram, not just inaudio feeds.
We're doing a load of reallyexciting creatives and strategy
work for some huge organisationsglobally at the moment, so
working out what the rolepodcasting can play is for them
and we're kind of seeing howthat can evolve.
So there's loads to come, lotsto announce and a few more

(46:17):
really exciting shows for bigbrands as well.

Sam Sethi (46:19):
Well, gentlemen, it just leaves me to say
congratulations to you both.

Thank you very much, sam.

Thanks very much .
Appreciate it.
Josh Adley and Stafan Rossellfrom Listen and PodEx, which, of
course, is now one of the sameand, yeah, really interesting
hearing about their plans.

Sam Sethi (46:39):
Yeah both gentlemen will kindly be at our London
event on the 27th of September,so we'll hear more from them.
Excellent, we will indeed.
I did try and find out how muchthey got for the deal.
You know, lip's worth the ill.
So I started doing things likeHave you bought a Ferrari?
Have you bought an Aston Martin?
Just to see what Josh's eyesdid.

(47:00):
There was a few smiles there,that's all I'll say.
There was a few smiles.

Very nice, very nice, but that's a fantastic
organization, so I'm reallypleased for that.

Sam Sethi (47:12):
Now.
We also talked a little whileback about the New York Times
launching their audio app.
James, tell me more about thisnew app.

Yeah, so it's called NYT Audio.
It includes an exclusive showcalled The Headlines, which is
basically a nice way to keep upto date with the latest news.
It's got a few other thingsthat you would expect being a
subscriber-only app.
It has the DisAmerican Life aday early, for example.

(47:42):
It's got a range of narratedarticles from the New York Times
and other organizations.
iOS only for now, for someweird reason, but you, of course
, sam Sethi.
you know everybody in thisindustry and you're a big friend
of someone who works there.

Sam Sethi (48:02):
Yeah Well, michael Devichand, who's the editor of
programming Yes, i haveinterviewed him before for my
previous podcast, sam TalksTechnology.
He's a lovely, lovely guy.
I've been trying to get him onto the show for months and
obviously he couldn't until theyreleased the product.
So, yeah, i reached out toMichael and I said hey, let's
have a chat about this new appof yours.

So New York Times Audio.
Let me tell you what my journeyhas been with them.
So, as you say, two years ago Iwas very privileged to be asked
to join The Times and I movedfrom London to New York, and
everyone who listens to thispodcast will know that The Times
, even two years ago, hadalready was well underway with

(48:43):
its journey in audio.
In 2017, it launched The Daily,which, it's no exaggeration to
say, i think changed the podcastworld, really invented a new
form of audio journalism Andbeyond that, before I joined,
that sort of one story a dayidea was already being built
upon into a much morewell-rounded audio report is the

(49:08):
way to phrase it.
So you can engage with TheTimes in audio in lots of
different ways.
For example, new podcast titleRun Up or Hard Fork Ezra Klein
Show.
But also The Times had acquiredAutumn, which brings long form
magazine journalism to Life in Oand Serial and the big one yes,
and the partnership with theAmerican Life.

(49:29):
So that was the kind of amazingmix that I was privileged to
get to come and kind of engagewith, and what we have been
doing is developing a way toexperience that audio journalism
and The Times is journalism,bringing more of it into audio
in a new way, and that is whatjust launched.
So it's a new app, new YorkTimes Audio.

(49:49):
It's available to timesubscribers at the moment on iOS
.
And really, what is it?
It is a daily front page toldin audio.
It's curated and produced byTimes editors, it's powered by
the New York Times' newsroom Andwhat's in it is a roster of
exclusive shows and output, adaily playlist, which is really

(50:10):
your distilled way of engagingwith a wide range of New York
Times journalism quickly, ideas,culture and essential listens.
And that's the kind of weekdayexperience.
And then at the weekend itkicks off with a new episode of
This American Life, available aday early.
In the app And infused throughthe experience are new audio

(50:31):
formats, like narrated articles,which turn New York Times text
articles into a new audio format, but also articles audio from a
number of other publishers likeRolling Stone, new York
Magazine and so forth.

Sam Sethi (50:47):
Yeah, it looks very comprehensive.
You've got an interesting space, though, that you're coming
into.
Obviously, apple has its ownnews.
You've got the BBC as well,which is part of your heritage.
One of the questions, though,that I was curious you've made
this only available to existingsubscribers.
Was that a premeditateddecision to keep it tight to

(51:08):
begin with And maybe you'll goopen later, or is it only ever
going to be available tosubscribers?
Is this the way that you wantto monetize content through the
New York Times?

It's a good question And what I'd say is
certainly so much of our audiojournalism is part of the
podcasting ecosystem and willcontinue to be, and there's
plenty of development there andwe're growing there, and it's
really important.
This app is a paid for service.
It's available, it's actuallyincluded in your existing Times

(51:42):
subscription, whether you're anews subscriber or what we call
an all access subscriber.
And what I'd say is, as well asbeing a really established
leader in audio journalism, theNew York Times also led the
world and the journalismindustry in developing a direct
paying consumer relationship And, simply, we believe our

(52:03):
journalism and these productsare worth paying for when
they're envisioned together, andthat's what New York Times
audio is.
It adds incredible extradimension and value to your New
York Times bundle And the NewYork Times bundle.
Honestly, sincerely, i wouldsay it's already quite a
wonderful thing, right?
Not only does it provide reallylike world class journalism

(52:28):
that is not available elsewhere,but also games, cooking, but
the athletic and now a newlistening experience that really
adds value to your life as aTimes subscriber.
So the way we see this is thatwe're creating more and more
reasons why being in thatrelationship with us is better
than not being.

Sam Sethi (52:49):
Yeah, one of the statements that came out was New
York Times wants every secondof your day, and I think Alex
Rayner was a Times head of audioproduct said that the New York
Times is aiming for what theycall yellow up for grabs blocks
of times, jim, commute, commutehome and chores.
So is this a 24 seven typeplatform that you're trying to

(53:11):
aim for?

I think what we have done and what we do in
programming the app is we'reaware that and I don't need to
tell you this, sam, because youlike listening to stuff, right,
yes, but smart, curious peopleare engaged with us and want to
be engaged with us through theday, through the week, and it

(53:35):
was just a fantastic way to toconsume ideas, to consume
stories, to consume journalism,and so what we are doing is
finding ways to make more andmore of work of our journalists
available in ways that suit themoment of your day, that suit,
you know, the frames of mindthat you might go through

(53:57):
through the day, And we thinkthat's a service And, as I said,
it's, to use the jargon, at asubscriber benefit and can be a
wonderful service for people andincrease your level of access
to what is some of the mostimportant journalism that you
know you can consume, that helpsyou understand the world.

Sam Sethi (54:18):
So one question that James will ask, i know because
he has an Android phone whenwill it be on Android?

Back on again, sam, in the future, and we can
have that chat.
At the moment, we are focusingon the iOS audience And, to be
honest, that is where wenormally launch a new product.
So that's where we are at themoment.

Sam Sethi (54:36):
Now, given one of your backgrounds, i remember
when we last spoke at the BBC.
You were producing an AI botfor the BBC.
Can you remind me what it wascalled?
I was searching back through mybrain.

Thank you for remembering Sam.
That was part of the BBC soundskind of team And we were
developing a bunch of servicesfor smart speakers like, for
example, the interactive audionews and the BBC sound skill.
One of the things that wepiloted in beta was a BBC
synthetic voice called Bebe.

Sam Sethi (55:11):
Right, that was it.
Now, given your history andyour knowledge and background,
and with the AI glory days thatwe're having again, is there
something that we can expect youmight be bringing to the New
York Times?
Is AI going to be helping yourecommend articles, summarising
stuff for me, and are you goingto be doing any of that sort of

(55:32):
thing with the New York Times?

To be honest, the audio app is really about
bringing audio content from thereport, hearing the voices of
our reporters, And that's reallythe focus.
So my background is not yes,that was a great thing to work
on, But I was an audio.
We used to call it radio.

(55:57):
I was a radio producer for manyyears at the BBC, doing sort of
serious journalism, And I thinkthe privilege of this job is
really much more about findingways to bring so much of the
Times' daily report is availablein audio, but actually still a
lot of it is not, And so much ofit has great audio storytelling
potential.
So what I'm thinking about isabout how to bring in more and

(56:21):
more of that more tones, morerange and create this distilled
New York Times experience eachday.

Sam Sethi (56:28):
Okay, it's very specifically called the New York
Times Audio app.
Obviously, we're now living ina TikTok generation.
Youtube is certainly becomingmore interested in podcasting.
Whether they're successful ornot, the jury's out still, but
again, i can imagine I'm on thesubway in New York.
I'm with my New York Times app.

(56:50):
Maybe I get the app out.
Would video be the nextevolution of this, bringing some
audio content into videocontent so I can watch as well
as listen?

I love the fact that you keep on asking me
about the far future.
We just launched it, But Ithink I can say definitively,
our focus for right now is verymuch on the ear and the
listening.
I think this is something that,in some ways, we haven't really
seen.
I don't think there's any kindof direct comparator to what
we're doing here.
Like where this comes from.

(57:22):
A little bit is a strong signalthat I think I'll say I
personally can relate to it, andmaybe you can, but I think a
lot of people out there feelthat the podcast ecosystem is
basically both wonderful butalso a little overwhelming.
There's a sheer volume of whatto listen to, and it's exploded

(57:44):
in recent years.
You guys do the stats right.
I heard your thing aboutYouTube.
I don't know, After listeningto that, maybe it won't be on
YouTube, but the sheer volume ofwhat's available to it has
really kind of gone up.
I think that leaves people witha problem of deciding what's
worth listening to every day.
right, And especially for whatwe care about here, which is
informed people, journalism.

(58:06):
What do you listen to?
New York Times audio is oneanswer to that.
It makes it easy for you tofind something worth listening
to every day.
It is completely anchored inthe world around you.
When you open it, you'll get asense of what's happening in the
world.
You get the top stories, butyou'll also discover what our
editors and that's actually meand my team at the times are

(58:29):
picking to meet the moment Tellthe story of the day.
It's really like audiojournalism from the ground up.
It's a front page, And that'swhy people come to the New York
Times in print and we hope thatyou will come to us in audio,
right, It's stories that aredifferent every day.
We change the mix.
We look at what's happening inthe world.
We look at what's going on inthe culture.
We want to catch you up, but wealso offer you serendipity.

(58:54):
We want you to go deeper oncertain things.
So I think the choice thatwe're offering and this is where
we're doubling down, okay, Thisis the relentless focus is we
all go to big platforms and youcan go to big platforms and
there you will find a volume ofcontent and it'll be very varied
and you will have to siftthrough it, Or you can come to

(59:15):
us and we'll create a reallyessential, interesting,
high-quality audio journalismmix, And that's what this is
about.

Sam Sethi (59:23):
Yeah, I mean newspapers.
Traditionally, that's whateditors did They picked the best
of the day and got greatwriters aggregated all together
and presented that to your frontdoor, which is what you're
doing, Correct?
I get that.
In terms of interactivity,being a digital medium, is there
any mechanism for me to commentfeedback?
Because obviously I havenewspaper as a single, one-way

(59:45):
broadcast medium.
Right, It's telling me, I readit and that's it.
And in the old traditionalwords, you used to write a
letter to the editor and get itpublished.
Right, We're here in thedigital world Again, not having
had the privilege of using theapp yet.
Is there a mechanism for me, asthe subscriber, to say oh, I've
just read this lovely article,Now I want to comment back on it

(01:00:05):
?

Mukul Devichand (01:00:05):
Yeah, look, i think there's a theme in a lot
of what we've been chattingabout.
Right, we've been talking aboutsome of the stuff that I did at
the BBC.
You talked about video andinteractivity, and what I'd say
is that one of the greatattractions of joining the New
York Times has been that.
I think you know, and, look,you say you haven't got a
subscription so you should havea go.
But even just look at itwithout the subscription, like
the world of digital media, ithink it's maybe 170 years old,

(01:00:30):
so it's a very traditionaljournalistic organization.
It's the paper of record inAmerica and, i think, the world
really.
However, we have been verysuccessful at putting that
marriage of really journalisticthinking with new forms of
storytelling that really workfor the mobile or the
technologies that we're in rightnow, and so you definitely you

(01:00:53):
will see interactivity,innovation with video,
innovation in storytelling,woven through the New York Times
report.
It's not like an afterthoughtthat they do.
The newspaper is still veryimportant, but it's really the
digital product that is, formany people, the focus, and so
audio.
I think we'll be part of thatas well.
We have just started, but youknow, for example, there's the

(01:01:15):
playlist features that we havethis daily playlist, which is
really a frictionless hit playStart with the news and then
carry on through the daily, butthen also an app exclusive range
of culture shorts, picking fromthe latest music that's out.
Or this morning we have thiswonderful piece in which two of

(01:01:37):
our top theater critics kind ofdebated what's two of the
biggest plays on Broadway rightnow, and then we ended it up
with another culture piece.
But we end up often with thenarrated article, which is this
was profiling the Disneyexecutive who's pushing in that
you know, then the new liveshows, right, so it's kind of
going deep on that, i think.
Tomorrow we're featuring anarrated article that is to do

(01:01:59):
with a piece looking back at thehistory of wildfires So very
topical right here in the UnitedStates, but a very deep piece
of journalism which is making itinto all because of what we're
doing.
And so the innovation right nowis very much about
understanding your day, whereyou are, the uses that you might
be in, and trying to providejust the perfect listen for that
.

Sam Sethi (01:02:18):
So one of the criticisms of newspapers today
is that obviously they can'trefresh continually through the
day because it's printed, it'sin the shop, that's it.
So sometimes by the time youpick the paper up, the story's
moved on and it's pretty dead.
So with the app, do you reprintthat continuously through the

(01:02:40):
day?
Is that a download once andthen the download again, like
the newspaper?
So I'm just trying tounderstand, with you being the
editor of programming, do you goright?
no, that story's moved on.
We do it.
Or is it an audio fixed copy ofthe newspaper editorial?

It's a good question And I think it's
probably a little bit of both,in the sense that we really aim
to keep a fresh mix each day andthe principle kind of refresh
is done for the New York morning.
It's actually done from London,but we think really about the
mix that you're going to getthat day.
There is news and there is kindof we do follow the latest news

(01:03:21):
.
for example, in the headlinesthis morning we had something
about wildfires, we hadsomething about CNN and Chris
Licht and all of but it's.
but as well as that, i thinkyou'll probably agree, the
strength of audio is often thatit can be a journey.
It can be it's.
you know, there's very strongstorytelling here.
It is programmed to meet themoment of the day.

(01:03:44):
It's not a live news app.
The New York Times has a livenews app.
This is a listening app andcertainly includes elements of
that.
So, yes, of course I have anews background and I'm very
much aware of what is happeningthrough the day, but really the
mix is much more like alistening menu Like, and we're
not just thinking about what'sin the news although we are

(01:04:06):
thinking about that but we'realso thinking about the themes
and the culture.
We think a lot about how itfeels on a Friday and how it
feels on a Saturday, because youmight feel differently on a
Friday and on a Saturday.
So we're trying to make the mixhit the moment.
But, for example, like, thisweekend is the Champions League
final And I think tomorrow nightit's Djokovic against Alka Rez

(01:04:28):
in the French Open.
So we're quite aware of that.
We're working with the athleticto get some special material
ready for that.
We're not going to While thegame's on.
You probably won't follow itthrough our audio, but we'll
certainly offer you somethingfor either the sports fan or the
non-sports fan to havesomething to listen to.

Sam Sethi (01:04:47):
Yeah, you actually pre-empted one next question,
which is would it ever be audiofirst rather than news first?
And what I mean by that iswould you commission content
purely for the New York Timesapp that didn't actually come or
generate itself from the paper?

I think we're doing that now, in the sense
that a number of our podcasts,some of the stories I think we
are part of the New York TimesAnd a lot of what comes out of
the Times newsroom comes fromthe same journalists.
But the way that you experienceit in audio, the way you tell
the story, will be different.

(01:05:24):
And there have been greatthings like I don't know if
you've caught the latest seriesof Serial, but that was with Kim
Barker, a New York Timesreporter, and they told the
story of what was going on inthis town of Laramie in an
original audio way.
It's a wonderful listen.
But even I think I mentionedearlier that in the app this

(01:05:45):
morning and this is exclusive tothe app there's a New York
Times short.
This is one of the sort of newexclusive strands that we've
created for the app And that istwo of our top critics talking
about the theatre, but they'renot reading out their pieces,
they're going back and fortheach other.
They're actually critiquing eachother's reviews of two of the
best pieces.
There's a wonderful moment inthis morning's where one critic
says to the other I can'tbelieve you didn't give that one

(01:06:07):
a critic's choice, and I don'tknow whether that's breaking the
third wall or the fourth wallor something, but it's something
you couldn't do in text orcouldn't do as easily in text
storytelling.
So it's really interesting asan editor, what an amazing
opportunity to take thejournalism of the New York Times
and bring it into audio, and inso doing I think we do create
something original a lot of thetime.

Sam Sethi (01:06:29):
Michael Davichand.
Thank you so much for your time.
Congratulations on the launchof the app.
Look forward to getting myhands on it.
I will go and do that veryquickly.
Then, if somebody does want tosubscribe or wants to get a hold
of the app, where would they go?

Well, at the moment, as we've discussed, it's
on iOS.
You can go to the app store,download NYT audio And, as a
time subscriber, you can sign inthere or you can get a
subscription, and it's certainlyavailable in the UK and across
the world And it's right therefor you.

Sam Sethi (01:06:59):
Thank you, congratulations and thanks for
your time.

James Cridland (01:07:02):
Michael Davichand from the New York
Times, and great to have them onthe show.
Shall we go round the world,sam.

Sam Sethi (01:07:10):
Yeah, where should we start?
Oh, i know, let's start inSpain.
Ivoex has launched monetizationusing Dynamic Advertising for
its Spanish language podcasters.
Is that Dynamic Ad Insertion?
Is that what they've done now?

Yeah, that's exactly it.
So Dynamic Ad Insertion in muchthe same way that other podcast
hosts are doing iVoex or iVoexdoing the same thing in Spain.
They're based in Barcelona,where, of course, we will have
an event later on in the year,so that's a good thing.
In Africa, chirulemba is to bethe face of the upcoming African

(01:07:46):
podcasters and voice artistsaward season.
It's born in Zambiae lives inSouth Africa these days, and the
awards are to be sponsored byAfri Pods.
So good luck if you haveentered those.
Finland podcast listening takestime away from traditional
media, according to a study.
Who'd have thought it?
Yes, traditional media.

Sam Sethi (01:08:08):
Is that the obvious study?
Is that the obvious study?

Well, this is data from Podomo.
It's actually from a companycalled Nordstat, which was
released by Podomo And Podomoclaiming in Finland 40% growth
in subscribers since thebeginning of the year.
So that's pretty good.
From then, the Australianpodcast awards have just opened
in Australia And finally inVietnam.

(01:08:31):
Pod news this week had ourlatest look at podcasting in the
East And absolutely fascinatingarticle Guangjin Yeo, who has
written this series of articlesfor us.
He'll be speaking at Radio DaysAsia in Kuala Lumpur in early
September.
He's done a really good job ofgoing through the history of how

(01:08:55):
Vietnam podcasting works, whyit's a bit different in that
country.
It turns out that because theroads are so dreadful, actually
there's not very much listeningto podcasting cars, as one
example, or indeed on the backof your motorbike.
So that's quite interesting,but it's a great, great read.

(01:09:16):
So if you have any interest inunderstanding how podcasting
works in Asia, then you shouldabsolutely be checking out some
of these articles.
You'll find all of thosearticles, including the deep
dive in Vietnam, at podnewsnetslash articles.

Voiceover (01:09:36):
The tech stuff.
Tech stuff On the Pod NewsWeekly Review.

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday
in the Pod News newsletter.
Here's where we do all of thetech talk.
There's quite a lot of it,which is exciting, But we'll go
through some of the new things.
Disco Free by Headliner waslaunched this week.
On Product Hunt, which is anAI-driven podcast discovery tool
It's a very clever thing thatbasically surfaces your podcasts

(01:10:03):
in articles that are relevantto that, which is quite nice.
Pocket casts did you have alook at their self-serve ad
booking system, Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:10:14):
No, no, i haven't had a look at all.
No, so I can pretend, but thereality is no.
So over to you, mate.

Well, i tell you what.
There's clearly a businessthere, because prices for you to
promote your podcast they startat $1,700 in this app and they
go up to $5,000.
So you're paying anywherebetween $1 and $10 per tap,
which sounds tremendously highto me.

(01:10:41):
But yeah, it's probably a thing.

Sam Sethi (01:10:43):
Hang on a minute.
Wow, hang on a minute.
Those CPM rates are minty.

Yeah, they're mental, aren't they Absolutely
mental?
I couldn't possibly justifyrunning an ad for this show in
there.
I mean, that doesn't make muchsense at all.
But yeah, i mean it's a popularapp and people are using it, so
I suppose that they can go andcommand those sorts of numbers.

Sam Sethi (01:11:07):
When you're paying $40 for the app, i suppose those
app prices don't matter.
Those app prices yeah.

Yes, indeed, but yeah, and it's new from
Pocketcast, because you used tohave to go through a human being
to book advertising, and nowit's just a self-serve ad
booking system, which is verynice Codenamed Blaze, i say,
because that's what the URL isblazepocketcastcom, i think.
So that's all very fancy.
They've also updated theirprivacy policy.

(01:11:36):
I couldn't really see any bigchanges.
It just looks as if they'vespent lots of money on lawyers
for a new privacy policy.
The one thing that I would say,though, and what I quite like,
is that they've made theirprivacy policy available under
Creative Commons.
So if you want to nick it anduse their privacy policy for
something that you're working on, then go right ahead.

(01:11:59):
I mean, obviously, change theinformation, because otherwise
that wouldn't be your privacypolicy.
So go right ahead, which is, ithink, quite a nice plan, and so
Harajah Automatic for doingthat, and also Albi is
partnering with Podcast Guru tooffer value-for-value payments
to podcasters in the PodcastGuru app, which I downloaded the

(01:12:21):
other day and promptlyuninstalled again, but
nevertheless had a quick look at, and it's a nice app, and I
think their supporting boostsdidn't look as if they were
supporting streaming sets, butmaybe I didn't look as closely
in there, as I possibly shouldhave done.

Sam Sethi (01:12:37):
Now talking of value-for-value.
The Podcast Index 2.0 Phase 6has now formally closed last
week.
These new tags that have beenvoted in need to be formalized,
but some of them are very cool.
We'll go through a few of them.
The Podcast Remote Item TagJames.
What is it?

Yes, and, by the way, i should say that the
phrase was voted in invertedcommas.
It's basically enough of thecommunity thinking that they are
a good idea to move themforward.
So that's what's really goingon.

Sam Sethi (01:13:12):
Daniel said yes, that's it.

No.
Daniel says no.
I think more to the point, butyes, so there's no actual voting
going on there, just in caseThat's important to anybody
listening Adam Curry.
So, yes, the Remote Item Tag ispretty cool.
It allows other episodes oritems to be referenced, and it's
particularly being used aroundthe value time split.

(01:13:38):
So it's being used around beingable to play, for example,
music in a podcast and knowingthat the right people are
getting paid for that music.
So the Remote Item is beingused in that And that, i think,
makes an awful lot of sense.
I think the other plans forusing Remote Item, bluntly,

(01:13:59):
don't make an awful lot of sense.
It's great to see it's beingused in a place which does make
an awful lot of sense, so thatis nice.
The other few that I'm going tomention are Podroll, which you
and I have spoken about on thisvery show before, which is a way
for us to recommend other showsin a list that might appear in

(01:14:21):
your podcast app.
The Pod News Daily RSS feedsupports this, as I think does
this one too.
I think the Pod News Daily RSSfeed supports it in the new
proposed way, whereas I thinkthis one I'm not sure whether
it's the new proposed standardor whether it was the original.
But anyway.

Sam Sethi (01:14:42):
Yeah, i can tell you, because PodFans obviously
supports it as a client app Andyeah, so we supported both And
we still do.
Oddly, because of this show notsupporting or being updated,
but Buzzcast updated their showthis week, the Immortals does,
so it's quite a few of the earlyadopters who've implemented it.

(01:15:02):
It takes a few minutes to doAnd it's really, really useful
as a new tag.

Yeah, so it's a good way to share other shows
that you should be having alisten to.
So you'll find that also on thePod News podcast pages as well.
There's something called AcceptGuests, which was my idea, and
I think it's a bad idea And Ithink we should take it away
again personally.
So that's always fun, andthere's a few more as well.

(01:15:31):
Update Frequency is the otherone which Nathan Gathright came
up with, which is a way for acreator to indicate when
episodes will be made available,and that's actually a pretty
good, well-specced piece of codethere, particularly specced to
help.
If you are a fiction podcaster,for example, and you're

(01:15:56):
producing six shows and theycome out on these particular
dates, then you can actuallyspecify that.
So it's a good piece of work.
So all of these go forward andhopefully will be incorporated
into the standard, and thatstandard is, of course, the new

(01:16:17):
podcast name space, which ispart of the podcasting 2.0
podcast index work.

Sam Sethi (01:16:23):
Yeah, i think the other two that are interesting,
just very quickly, is podpingAgain.
That's the ability for apps notto have to continually poll
hosts to see if there's anupdate to the RSS, but this is
then a push notification in someways, and now you can put in
your RSS feed whether you arepodping enabled or not.
So that's quite nice.

(01:16:43):
And the last one is the onethat I think Adam's most excited
about, which is Value TimeSplit, which is a really
interesting ability for you tobe able to have within your
podcast, both live or recordedthe ability to suddenly switch
out where the value for valuepayment is going.
So you might, for example, havea music track that you're

(01:17:03):
playing in your podcast and youwant to pay the music artist,
and you can then set that withthe Value Time Split for pay.
Now, 90% of any streaming sati'm receiving for the time of
this recording of this show.

Yeah, it's a really good, really interesting
thing.
It's obviously got a real usefor music in there, but it also
has Use, for example, forinterviews.
If we were to enable it on thisparticular show, then maybe you
know the interviews that you'veheard.
Maybe some of that money goesto the people being interviewed,
you know, which, again, is agood thing.

(01:17:41):
So really interesting seeingall of that.
Yes, it's time to have a quicklook at some events and, of
course, pod news live in soulfood in Manchester is happening
next Tuesday, which i'm lookingforward to going.

(01:18:01):
Our sponsors have been sogenerous to us that we can give
the last few tickets away forfree.
So if you want to get hold ofsome of those tickets, pod news
link slash Manchester is whereto get hold of those pod news
link slash Manchester.
And yeah, you've, you've,you've organized an awful loss

(01:18:24):
of this, haven't you say?

Sam Sethi (01:18:25):
Yeah, i mean it's great.
We're at the lorry theatre inManchester, which is by the
Bebsi media centre.
We're in the compass from onthe top, so So long as it's not
raining in Manchester it shouldbe quite nice the views, and
we've got some amazing speakersthere.
We've got Mark as with fromcaptive a might car from crowd
networks, jim Salverson fromvoice works, a whole bunch of

(01:18:48):
people talking.
Obviously, james is going to bedoing a keynote and there's a
few other people like myself inmy right to the end of the day
do one as well.
But other than that, come alongand meet, mingle and chat.
It is a very focused event.
So you know we are talkingabout the business of podcasting
rather than The generics ofpodcasting yeah, and i'm really

(01:19:10):
looking forward to it.

You know, show and tell is always a good thing,
so it should be.
It should be really good.
Other events going on podcastmovement in Denver.
I've just put my tickets forthat, which is August twenty
first to the twenty fourth.
I'll be there.
I'm not currently speaking,although i do like moderating
panels.
So just saying the britishpodcast awards at the end of

(01:19:34):
september, with our own pod newslive the day before, on the
twenty seventh of september,which should be good fun.
Again, more information aboutthat.
Pod News dot net slash live andand yeah, and a few other
things as well pod fest, ofcourse, happening next year, the
beginning of next year, inOrlando, in florida.

(01:19:56):
There are more events, bothpaid for and free, at pod news,
virtual events or events in aplace with people.
And if you're organizingsomething, it's free to be
listed to at pod news dot netslash events.

Boost a gram, boost a gram.
Corner, corner, corner on thepod news weekly review.

Sam Sethi (01:20:15):
It's our favorite time of the week.
Sam, it is indeed.
It's boost a gram corner, james, and we've had some boost a
grams in james, one from KevinFinn.
He sent us a thousand starts.
He said a quick test did thevalley for valley code, added to
the feed along with the updatedpod role, appear?
can you confirm by receipt andi'll send you a proper boost.
Well, kevin, i can confirm, yes, we, we got your first boost

(01:20:40):
and we also can confirm, yes,your ninety percent split to bus
sprout and ten percent thepodcast index worked very well
and also all of the updated podroles using the remote item
worked as well yes, it's allvery.

It's all very nice and fancy.
And yes, it's nice That ourvalue information is now in this
podcast rss feed rather thanrelying on the podcast wallet.
Podcast wallet is great, but itis a bit of a bit of a clutch,
isn't it?
and it's nice to be in the inthe rss feed properly, so that's

(01:21:14):
some good in terms of that.
Also, a couple of other messagesjust in M from the optimal
living daily podcast, who sentus seven hundred and seventy
seven sets for James, using theword moist in a podcast.
Indeed, i think i was trying topromote radio days Asia And

(01:21:37):
saying that it's very moist inKuala Lumpur.
But justin was saying my wifeis Malaysian and we were going
to try and visit during radiodays Asia so i can expense the
trip.
But your, your description ismaking me rethink this.
I mean your, your wife, shouldknow how warm and humid it is in
Malaysia, heavens.
But still, there we go.

(01:21:58):
What else we've got?
we've got quite a lot of them,haven't we are kairin row of
ducks.
Double two, double two sets.
My feet have always beensqueaky clean, he says, which is
nice.

Sam Sethi (01:22:12):
Yes, not, not a hundred percent.
Ninety nine point nine, kairin,you know and i know.
So, yes, that's why he'schocolate nervous.

Five thousand cents from Brian and Sminga.
Have i pronounced thatcorrectly, brian?
i hope i have talking aboutyoutube and Brian says, in
addition to the end of allhosting companies, it'll also be
the end of having Realrelationship with your audience,
where there's not an algorithmin between, constantly trying to
distract them and get controlof their listening habits.

(01:22:42):
It'll be like waking up to ajukebox to ask for songs from an
artist only to be served almosteverything but that, yeah, i, i
i share an awful lot of concernabout, about our new overlords
of youtube, and i willcompletely agree with you, brian
.
So thank you for sending that.

Sam Sethi (01:23:04):
Anonymous.
I wish we knew your name, butit was under anonymous great
show this week.
I think you're spot on aboutthe gas lighting.
Thank you also.
That was a great chaptergraphic explaining it well.

And again, thank you very much to to to set a
duck yes, and Adam curry, thepod father himself, ten thousand
sets talking about the castmedia announcement and whether
or not he felt that it was a.
It was a kosher announcement ornot.
Yes, which i should probablynot read out because you know

(01:23:38):
lawyers.
But if you get value from whatwe do the pod news weekly review
is separate from pod newssalmon.
I share everything from itreally appreciate your support
so we can continue making thisshow.
You can become a powersupporter if you like weekly dot
pod news dot net.
You can subscribe in applepodcasts if you like to maple
apple dot co slash pod news.
I was only obviously notandroid.

(01:24:00):
Or you can support us with setsby hitting the boost button,
which works in android as well,in your podcast app.
You don't have one pod news dotnet slash.
New podcast apps will help youfind a new app, like fountain.
So what's happening for youthis week, sam?

Sam Sethi (01:24:15):
i still.
I think i came down i don'tthink it was covered, but i came
down with something prettyawful.
I was out for about five orseven days, so i have been flat
out.
On top of that, my developer onpod fans had a car accident, so
he was out for three days, soit's been a great week.
And then i realized have i gotkey man insurance?

(01:24:37):
so quickly scrambled for keyman insurance.
So, yes, other than that, no,not a lot.
Prepping for Manchester is theother thing.
What's key?
what's key man insurance?
When you have a start up, oneof the things you have to do is
get yourself key man insurance.
If you're Significant point offailure in your business might

(01:24:57):
be the developer or you or yourcity or somebody else, you can
get insurance in case they fallunder a bus or die a bit like
life insurance, and you get alot of money and then maybe able
to replace them.
But yes, it's called key maninsurance.
Wow, and it's actually calledkey man insurance it should be

(01:25:19):
called key person insurance, buthe's called genuinely is called
key man insurance.

Wow, gosh.
Yes, although i do notice thatsome people call it key person
insurance.
Yes, that's Canada.
Canada life, for example.
Yes, but gosh.
Well, there you go.
The world of.

Sam Sethi (01:25:41):
What's been happy to be a.

Well.
So, yes, i'm in here in Canada,i'm doing a keynote tomorrow.
I tell you what scary thing.
So i walked into this hotel andthere's a big vinyl post like
this start up a good joke.
Yes, well, there's this bigvinyl poster of Daniel, and
stand it, who did the keynotethis this morning.
Great big vinyl poster of hisgrinning face looking at me,

(01:26:08):
with details of the of thekeynote and everything else.
And so i took a photograph ofit and i stuck a tweet out
saying you know, obviouslythere's one of me here isn't the
right.
I mean, they wouldn't haveforgotten me, would they?
you know, right?
anyway, i then go to the looAnd as i'm coming out of the loo

(01:26:29):
, there's my face on one ofthese great big vinyl things
staring at me promoting my, mysession tomorrow morning.
So that was a.
That was a rude awakening, itell you, but that's all, but
that's all fun.
So radio days North America isit's part of Canadian music week
, which is a big, a big musicevent, but radio days Is

(01:26:53):
focusing on the radio and alittle bit of podcasting in
terms of, in terms of the eventhere.
So, yeah, it's a good.
It's always nice to see thewonderful Canadians.
They've made me feel very athome because, you know, coming
all the way from Australia up toCanada, they've made me feel
very at home by setting fire totheir own country so i can smell

(01:27:16):
all the wood smoke outside andgo.
I reminds me of home.
So that's very kind with themanother moose on the barbie that
yes, so, yeah, so that's beenfun.
And then, of course, making myway to pod news live in soulford
next week over the weekend.
So that should be.
That should be good fun and youhave a nice holiday after the

(01:27:41):
pod news live, which isexcellent.
So there will be a guest hostThis time next week, maybe.
Maybe it might be a Canadianguest host.
Maybe i can have a chat tosomeone who is here And get them
doing that.
But yes, that might be fun.

Sam Sethi (01:28:02):
As they won't need that poster of you again.
Yes, how are you fitting itinto your suitcase?

do you know.
The wife has already asked forit.
So when you're away they canleave it in the lounge and i
will tend to still there andi've said, i've said no, i'm not
, i'm not bringing it back.
but the first, the weird thingis that they're not.
you know, if i've walked pastand i think this is tells you
everything about where we are interms of technology if i've

(01:28:31):
walked past that Being shown ona big flat panel screen, i'd
have gone oh yeah, that's nice,i walk past.
it is the fact that it'sprinted out on vinyl And stuck
up somewhere, so it's not apiece of, you know, online
ephemera, it's actually a big,great big, you know vinyl, you

(01:28:52):
know poster.
isn't it interesting how justthe difference of something not
being electronic but actuallybeing a physical artifact makes
such a difference?
You know?
so yeah, it's really reallyinteresting.
so So you haven't answered.
how are you fitting in your nottaking it home, absolutely not

(01:29:12):
take my.
Can't think of anything worse.
And it's got a beautiful podnews logo on there for some
reason, and had they asked mefor the version of pod news to
go on a dark background, i wouldhave given them one.
You can't read it at all, butstill, there you go, but it's a

(01:29:32):
great.
It's a great event.
It's wonderful to be here.
I was here this time last yearand canada was still closed,
basically because of thepandemic, and very, very few
people here and really not anawful lot was going on the place
.
The place is completely changedand, yeah, and the city is full

(01:29:52):
And pride month is that is isup and running here in a massive
way and it's just a really busyplace to be and that was
certainly not the case last year.
So that's really good Andthat's it for this week.

Sam Sethi (01:30:09):
Thank you to our guests.
You can ask us questions usingemail to weekly at pod news dot
net or send us a booster grantfor feedback.
If your podcast that doesn'tsupport boosting crab and you
want at pod news dot net,forward, slash and you podcast
apps.

Yes, our music is from studio dragonfly, our
voice over is Sheila D, andwe're hosted and sponsored by
buzz sprout podcast hosting madeeasy.

Get updated every day .
Subscribe to our newsletter atpot news dot net tell your
friends and grow the show andsupport us and support us the
pot news weekly review willreturn next week.

Sam Sethi (01:30:48):
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