Turning Podcast IP into Multi-Platform Revenue

Episode Transcript
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The voice at the beginning (00:00):
The Pod News Weekly Review uses
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Speaker 2 (00:07):
The last word in podcasting news.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Sethi.

James Cridland (00:15):
I'm James.

Sam Sethi (00:15):
Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi,
the CEO of True Fans.

Liam Heffernan (00:20):
How can we act like a big network but support
the little guys out there?

Liam Heffernan from the Mercury Podcast Network
Plus.

Will Malnati (00:28):
We spend as creators a lot of time and a lot
of energy.
It just feels rewarding to havecreated something that can go
further.

At Will Media's Will Minati on getting the most
out of your IP.

James Burtt (00:42):
And the cream will always rise to the top.
It doesn't matter how busy thespace gets.
Great shows will find anaudience on getting the most out
of your IP and the cream willalways rise to the top.

It doesn't matter how busy the space gets.
Great shows will find anaudience.
James Burt from the brand newPivot Productions on working
with the stars.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout with the tools,
support and community to ensureyou keep podcasting, start
podcasting, keep podcasting withbuzzsproutcom From your daily
newsletter, the Pod News Weekly.

Sam Sethi (01:07):
Review Okay, James, let's kick this show off then.
Podcasting is massive.
Yeah, we know that, James, butyou now think there's a new way
to put a podcast metric aroundit.
What is this?

Yes, now, this may not come as a surprise to
you if you are a long-term PodNews Weekly Review listener, but
yes, I have been slightlynervous about podcasting reaches
55% of the US population everymonth.
It's lovely, but at some pointthat figure is going to stop
going up and it's also notparticularly helpful to us in

(01:41):
terms of telling more of a storyof how people are consuming
podcasting.
So I've been working with thegood folks at Edison Research
Gabriel Soto, larry Rosen and wehave a number and that number
is 773 million hours a week isconsumed in the US.
Three quarters of a billionhours people spend with podcasts

(02:03):
each week, which is amazing.
Quarters of a billion hourspeople spend with podcasts each
week, which is amazing.
That number's gone upsignificantly over the last 10
years 355% increase.
So Edison Research tell me,because their data goes back
that far and I think it's apretty good number, because I
think there are two things withthat number.
Firstly, it shows how muchpodcasting is growing and that
number should continueincreasing because, of course,

(02:25):
the time spent with podcastingis growing and that number
should continue increasingbecause, of course, the time
spent with podcasting is both afunction of how many people are
listening to podcasting, butalso how long each listener
listens.
So I think it's good for that.
But I think it's also goodbecause it helps us financially,
helps us understand where themoney is, because we can
increase the amount ofpodcasting that people consume
is because we can increase theamount of podcasting that people

(02:48):
consume.
And if we do that, then we havemore ad spots to go away and
sell, rather than cramming moreads into the shows that we're
already selling.
So hopefully it's a good number.
I'm really interested to hearother people's feedback, whether
or not this is the headlinenumber that we show people who
are interested, just to helpthem understand how big

(03:09):
podcasting is.

Sam Sethi (03:10):
Yeah, and look, as you said, if people listen to
this show, it's something thatyou and I have talked about for
a long while listen time,percent completed, value paid.
So is this officially now howEdison is going to measure the
industry?

Is this something that is an official
thing from them?
Yeah, I mean, it's an officialnumber from them.
It's worked out using theEdison share of ear study, which
they do every single quarter.
So it's an official number fromthem.
I am hoping that, as part ofthe big reveal for the infinite
dial, I'm hoping that what yousee from that is you see both
here's, you know, yes, 56%, it'sgone up to this year, blah,
blah, blah.

(03:49):
But also here's the headlinenumber, because that headline
number will always increase, youwould hope.
But that's really up to them, Ithink.
From my point of view, I'minterested in looking at a
weekly figure because they'reuseful.
They're much more helpful thanmonthly figures, because the
number of weekends in a monthchanges and the number of days

(04:10):
in a month changes.
So a weekly figure is useful.
You can also compare it withother data from other countries
and from other media as well.
So hopefully it'll be a good,useful number as we move forward
.

Sam Sethi (04:24):
Does this mean that podcasters themselves should now
be saying I have X number ofhours per week in my show rather
than X number of downloads?

I mean, you know , at some point we would like to
, you know, obviously useconsumption from that point of
view as well.
But you know, I think adownload figure is useful.
It's a kind of rough proxy forhow many people are listening to
your podcast and all of that.
It's harder to get a total timespent listening number because

(04:59):
the only real ways that you canget that number are from podcast
apps like Apple Podcasts andSpotify, youtube, true Fans, all
of those.
So you can get those from thoseapps but you can't necessarily
get it from, you know, pocketCasts or from Overcast or from
any of those.
So it's a harder figure to gethold of.

(05:20):
But certainly, if you want abig number, which should always
increase, then taking a look atthat, certainly from a network
point of view, I think makes anawful lot of sense.

Sam Sethi (05:33):
Yeah, and I think this goes back to what John
Spurlock was trying to do withthe SPC getting data back to the
hosts from the apps so thatfirst party data can be
aggregated at the host level.
And then I think that's whenyou can have a host say to the
podcaster this is how many hoursacross the apps that we have

(05:54):
distributed your podcast to thatyou have.
And I suppose that that's goingto take a year maybe before we
get there, but that's the goal,I guess.

Yeah, I think you know, certainly, seeing
those, you know, seeing thosenumbers, we've got a pretty
robust piece of research at themoment, anyway, through Edison
Research.
So I think, actually using thatas we continue going forward
for the US, you might beinterested to know that we
actually have a number for theUK as well.
Rajaja released one, which isthat podcast consumption in the

(06:24):
UK 111 million hours a week,obviously smaller than the US,
but then the UK is a smallerplace.
But if you look at it from apoint of view of every podcast
consumer, then reallyinterestingly, every podcast
listener, every podcast consumerin the US spends 7.7 hours with

(06:46):
podcasts every week, accordingto Edison, and the number in the
UK is 7.7 hours.
It's exactly the same.
Isn't that fascinating?
So you know.
So actually, we've got the datathere.
We don't have data from that inAustralia yet.
It'd be lovely if we did.

(07:07):
There used to be some share ofaudio studies done here, but the
last one was done in 2022.
So we don't necessarily havethat, but I suspect that this is
a number that quite a lot ofdifferent countries have and
it's a nice big number and, as Isay, it should always go up,
unlike total reach.
You know the total amount ofpeople who we're hitting, which

(07:27):
at some point is going toflatline you know we just need
to be aware of that Whereashopefully the amount of
listening can continue to growas there are better, better
podcasts out there.
As we do a good piece of workaround marketing our additional
podcasts, go and listen to thePod News Daily.
You know all of that kind ofstuff is useful as well, so

(07:49):
hopefully this is a good numberas we move forward.

Sam Sethi (07:53):
It also bears in mind that can we begin to measure
against other forms of media?
So, for example, if I spend onaverage 7.7 hours every week
with podcasts, how many hours doI spend with radio?
How many hours do I spend withTV?
Can those be compared?

Yeah, absolutely we can.
It's a really easy thing tocompare, which is nice.
You're probably going to ask menow what the number is in terms
of radio in the UK, but I'lltell you it's.

Sam Sethi (08:24):
Being the radio futurologist, I thought you'd
have it at your fingertips, youknow there.

Yes, I can tell you that UK I mean this is one
of the figures that the UKreleases every single quarter,
so it is the number that youtypically see.
So I said 111 million hours forpodcasts every single week.
For all of radio total hours isjust over 1 billion, so we do

(08:51):
have a long way to go.
It's about a 10% medium in theUK and those figures, as I
understand it, much the same inthe US.
Podcasting is about 10 or 11%according to Edison Research,
and so again, you can expect thenumbers for radio to be 10
times larger right now.
But of course, what we do knowis that radio listening is

(09:11):
certainly changing and it's thattotal hours number that we're
seeing the most decline in inmost markets.
So you can imagine thatpodcasting will get bigger and
bigger very, very quickly.

Sam Sethi (09:24):
You can imagine that podcasting will get bigger and
bigger very, very quickly.
Nice numbers Now moving on Boom, boom, boom.
Let me hear you say Adeliciousis the song it looks like
Audioboom's acquired.
Yes, there is a song calledthat.

The Audioboom has acquired the UK podcast
company Adelicious.
Tell me more, james.
Yes, this is exciting.
Both Andrew Goldsmith andPascal Hughes were sending me
very excited emails yesterdaysaying we've got a fantastic
piece of news, but we can't tellyou what it is yet.
But we've got a fantastic pieceof news.
We'll send it to you at aquarter to five this afternoon
and I said not being funny, butthat's half past one in the
morning.
Tell me what it is.
But yes, I know that they areboth thrilled.
It's a really big deal actually.

(10:12):
So Audioboom, as we know, a bigpodcast network who has got a
lot of different shows in there.
They work with a lot ofdifferent publishers.
Adelicious is a little bitdifferent in that they are very
bespoke.
They're very white label.
White glove, I believe, is thephrase white glove, isn't it?
It is indeed, yeah.
And so they've got some greatnew shows as part of their

(10:37):
catalogue, and so putting thoseboth together is a very clever
idea.
Also, keeping Adelicious goingis a very clever idea.
So you've got Audioboom, whichhas loads of shows, and then
you've got Adelicious, which haskind of cream of the crop type
of stuff, and so keepingAdelicious going as a brand,
which I understand is the planthere makes an awful lot of

(11:00):
sense.
So really good news for Stuartlast of Audioboom, really good
news for Andrew and for Pascalat Adelicious as well.

Sam Sethi (11:09):
Yeah, we previously had Stuart.
You interviewed him on the 17thof January on this show.

Yes, indeed, and of course Andrew Goldsmith has
been on this show.
He was last on actually onlylast week as part of the
interview that we had with GilesGear, but the proper interview
that we've had with him was allthe way back in January 2024.
So you can both go and bothfind both of those too.
Interestingly enough, I said tothem what's the big news?

(11:36):
Have you been acquired by PodX?
And the response came backsaying it's bigger than that.

Oh well, there you go, but I think
it is bigger.

Yeah, so I think that that's probably fair.
But, yeah, really interestingto see so many congratulations
Again.
A little bit of consolidationin the industry, but I think
this is consolidation that makesperfect strategic sense.

Sam Sethi (12:19):
So hurrah for them.
In Inside Radio, which is ownedby iHeart, it says that active
podcast numbers are soaring,suggesting the number of active
podcasts has more than doubled.
But when you started to lookaround the industry, you started
to question some of that,because the numbers didn't seem
to back that up.
So what's the scoop here?

Yeah, so Inside Radio.
It's a competitor to Pod News,I should say it is owned by
iHeart.
It doesn't say so anywhere onthe website, so I always enjoy
owned by iHeart Whenever Imention it, it's always fun.
But they released a story,which was a good story.
Clearly it was a quiet week fornews in the US because of

(13:02):
public holidays and so they wentlooking at the stats from the
Listen Notes website, which is areally good website for stats
and everything else.
Listennotescom slash stats iswhere you can find some of those
.
It's essentially a podcastindex, but it's a proprietary
podcast index.
It's got lots of APIs and stufflike that and there's lots of

(13:25):
great stuff that they report on.
But one of the things that Ithink the journalist who wrote
this has got the wrong end ofthe stick and I have contacted
Inside Radio.
I think that they got a bit ofthe wrong end of the stick with
what one of their graphs shows.
So they thought that the graphsaid that there are twice as
many active podcasts this yearas there were last year, which

(13:46):
isn't true, and I think just itdoesn't really pass the sniff
test, that story.
So I thought, well, that's abit weird.
So I contacted Wenbing Fang,who runs the Listen Notes
website, and I said how do youwork that graph out?

Sam Sethi (14:00):
And he gave me the SQL query for how the graph is
worked out, as he would.
As he would Work it outyourself, mate.
Yeah.

And so I gave him the SQL query back of the
same thing in the podcast indexand ran the numbers from the
podcast index, which obviously Ihave access to, which I don't
have access to the ListenNotesdata and what it basically is is
it shows there's a little graphthere and it shows podcasts
which published their latestepisode this year, right?

(14:32):
So if you appear on that, onthat number, on that 2025 number
, then obviously it means thatyou won't appear in the 2024
graph anymore, because it'spodcasts which have published
their latest episode this year,2025.
So if you go back and have alook at the same data this time

(14:52):
last year, for example, then youcan see that it shows exactly
the same thing.
It shows, seemingly, that thetotal number of active podcasts
in 2025 is twice as big as 2024.
And that's because of the waythat the query is actually done.
So actually, to cut a long storyshort, because there's lots of

(15:15):
numbers and they won't work in apodcast, but to cut a long
story short, active podcasts aresoaring.
The number of active podcastshas more than doubled the rate
of all last year.
I'm afraid, lovely story thoughit is, it's not actually true.
In fact, the number of activepodcasts this year is slightly
down according to podcast indexdata down by 2% from 2023, which

(15:39):
is where I have another dump ofpodcast index information.
So, sadly, a great story.
People were asking why haven'tyou linked to it?
It's a great story aboutpodcasting and the reason why I
didn't link to it is that, sadly, it wasn't true.
Oh okay, I know, there you go.

Sam Sethi (15:57):
Well, there's the answer to the question.
Moving on then, mopod, which Iknow nothing about, so you're
going to tell me everythingabout it in a minute.
James has had a major update Awho is Mopod?
And B what's the update?

Yes, mopod does a number of different things.
It does podcast promotion andall kinds of other things, but
it has a free product which iscalled Mopod Charts, which I
think you'll find atchartsmopodcom.
The way that it has beenworking is that it's been
looking at every single ApplePodcasts chart for the last

(16:30):
three or four years, and youhave been able to sign up for
email alerts so that you knowwhen, all of a sudden, you hit
the top 10 in Saudi Arabia oryou hit the top 10 in Indonesia
in the business news section orwhatever it might be.
So it's a super cool service.
So they have made a couple ofchanges to it.

(16:51):
One change is that they nowmonitor Spotify numbers as well
as Apple numbers, which isbrilliant, so you can see all
the Spotify numbers from rightacross the world, all for free.
But secondly, they are nowworking with us and we are now
working with them, and so if youget your daily email from Mopod
Charts, it will have some podnews headlines in there about

(17:15):
the industry, which is lovely.
And if you take a look at thepod news newsletter, then,
instead of the podcast data thatwe used to take, which was
literally just who's the numberone in the US and another random
country.
It now shows you data from youknow who was the biggest gain,
for example, and who was thehighest new entry, and all of

(17:36):
that kind of information acrossa variety of different English
speaking countries, becausethat's what I focused on.
So really good to be workingtogether with them and, yes,
it's a good thing really.

Sam Sethi (17:49):
This is similar, is it to podgagement from Daniel
Day-Lewis?

Yes, not Daniel Day-Lewis, but Daniel J Lewis,
although he would love to beDaniel Day-Lewis, I'm sure
that's why he uses the J anyway.
So, yeah, so it's similar topodgagement.
Podgagement offers you rathermore granular information and
that kind of stuff, but if allyou want is a quick email every
single day just pointing out anybig changes that happen in your

(18:18):
podcast rankings, then MopodCharts is a great thing and you
can't beat free, then MopodCharts is a great thing.
So you know, and you can't beatfree.
It looks really smart as well,actually.
So if you take a look at the PodNews newsletter and do it on
the web rather than in youremail, because it doesn't quite
look right in email yet, butwhen you have a look at that,
there's a history button thatyou can click onto and that
takes you into the Mopod Chartspage for that particular show,

(18:42):
so you can actually see howquickly it rose up the charts.
You know the history that it'sgot in various different
countries, all of that kind ofinformation.
So it's really useful stuff.
So, yeah, it's a smart thing,and all for free, which is
always a good thing.

Sam Sethi (18:58):
How are they getting the data from Spotify and Apple?

Both Spotify and Apple are available through
APIs.
Spotify has an undocumented API, but you can work it out very,
very easily by having a look atthe Spotify charts website.
Apple has a documented APIbecause it's part of the Apple
iTunes store and all of thatkind of API stuff, which is one
of the benefits and downsides ofhow Apple Podcasts works, and

(19:26):
so yeah, and so it's all.
It's all available at the endof an API.
It'd be great if they addedYouTube's one chart, but that's
all that YouTube has is just onechart, but the number one in
YouTube would always be the JoeRogan experience anyway, so I'm
not quite sure what we wouldlearn from that.

Sam Sethi (19:42):
Could.
Could they through the API?
I doubt it is the answer to myfirst question, but I'll ask
anyway.
Could they pull the listen timehours through those APIs?

Yeah, that would be lovely, wouldn't it?
No is the quick answer andactually, as we know, the charts
are different.
Spotify works its charts out ina different way to the Apple
charts.
The Apple charts are very muchtrending charts.
They're there to surface newthings, hence why you'll see,
for example, on Wednesday, whenwe launched this service, you'll

(20:13):
see that the Joe Roganexperience is number one in
Spotify.
It almost always is, but ApplePodcasts a different number one,
devil in the Desert by ABC News, which has been number one for
the last sort of week and a half, but that will very, very
quickly go away and we'll seeother things in there as well.
So, yeah, they're worked out ina very different way.
So, sadly, no consumption datafrom that quite yet.

Sam Sethi (20:38):
Okay, now look, one of the things that we've talked
about is the use of AI, and youknow, good or bad, it has its
place.
So, for example, we love howour hosts and sponsors at
Buzzsprout use it.
We use it very heavily fortranscriptions and for episode
descriptions and show notes, etc.

(20:59):
So really useful use of AI.
We also know that AI voices aregoing to come in.
Whether we like them or not,it's the creepy line.
People will get used to it andthen it'll be the norm.
But here you've got a storyJames about.
Youtube has announced it's todemonetize inauthentic content
widely considered to bemass-produced AI-generated

(21:22):
material, aka I'll call it slop.
Now, is this the way thatYouTube's going to go and fight
back against people who are justusing it as a AI farm to put
out content to monetize?

Yeah, I mean I, you know clearly, youtube wants
to stop people just filling theYouTube platform with with awful
nonsense, and so one of theways that they're doing that is
they're basically saying no, no,if you're filling it with stuff
which is obviously artificial,then no, we're not going to pay
you any money for that, orrather, we reserve the right not

(21:59):
to pay you for that.
If you take a look at Spotify,for example, pay you for that.
If you take a look at Spotify,for example, spotify is earning
an awful lot of money from theseAI-driven pieces of music which
loads of people are uploading,and that essentially means that
proper artists are getting paidless because of the way that
Spotify works.
That's a bad thing, and I thinkthat YouTube want to try and

(22:23):
avoid that, I think.
And so you know.
And so one of the ways thatthey're doing that is, they're
basically being really upfront,unlike Spotify has, at least
publicly is by turning aroundand saying if it's AI generated,
you're not getting paid for it,which is an interesting
conversation when you then startconsidering, okay, well, this
show uses AI.

(22:44):
We have a little AI voice rightat the beginning.
You know, do we not countanymore?
John McDermott produces tons ofshows which are written by
human beings although with a bitof AI help but are narrated by
AI.
Does that not count either?
So actually there's a bunch ofthese different things in there

(23:06):
and I think it's you know, it'sagain another problem with us
that we're there trying tograpple with what AI actually
does.

Sam Sethi (23:13):
Yeah, we are.
And I remember we had aconversation many, many months
ago about having an AI tag aspart of the podcasting 2.0.
We have an explicit tag and Iremember the argument well, no
one's going to click the AI tag,are they?
Well, that's the same argumentsaying well, no one's going to
click the explicit tag, right,but people do, they self-monitor

(23:35):
themselves, and you know I'msure there's podcasts that get
through that don't click theexplicit tag, but again that
they're few and far between.
So do we need an AI tag and theexplicit tag?
But again that they're few andfar between.
So do we need an ai tag?
And the ai tag can be inmultiple ways.
So, first of all, I don't thinkit matters if you generate the
content through a ie.

(23:55):
You write the script using chat, gbt, I don't think that's a
problem.
I don't think if you transcribethe show using ai, I don't
think that's a problem, or addthe show notes.
But if you use a narrated voice, because they're getting so
much better, should we not alertthe listener to the fact that

(24:16):
this voice isn't actually jamescridland or sam sethy, that this
is a ai generated voice,because it will soon be very
hard to pass the Alan Turingtest, we will not be able to
tell the difference between thevoice that's generated and the
voice that's real, and so is itbeholden that we actually like

(24:37):
the explicit tag, now have an AItag.

And I think I would say, as I normally say
whenever people start talkingabout these disclosures, it
depends Get off that fence, mrCridland, and I'll use the Milli
Vanilli test.
So in the 1980s and the 1990s wedidn't require stickers to be
put on seven-inch singles thatyou were going by saying this

(25:03):
song may contain the use of adrum machine.
Of course we didn't.
It's part of what music soundslike.
However, you might rememberback to Milli Vanilli when they
were singing on various TV showsand everybody was going oh,
this is a good band.
This is a good band, isn't it?
Yeah, really good.
And then we realised that theyweren't actually singing at all

(25:26):
and they were just miming and itwas somebody else doing the
singing.
People were really upset, andso I think a lot of this comes
down to what do we, you know,what is it responsible to tell
audiences about, and when doesit matter?
And I think it matters when youare building a relationship

(25:46):
with the podcast host, forexample.
I think it matters then, butdoes it matter that this
particular track on thebeginning of this show, you know
, is AI?
Does it matter that we startour show with an AI voice, sam?

Sam Sethi (26:02):
No, ai voice, sam, no I, I think you know.
Again, it's percentage of we.
We are not fooling anyone byhaving a ai voice.
There's a bit of humor at thefront, but I think if the lion's
share of this show ie you and I, or one of us was purely
generated by ai, correct, Ithink it would be good to alert

(26:23):
the user because yeah said itjust now it's that parasocial
relationship, if you're going tobuild up a relationship with an
AI.
By the way, there is a reportout at the moment that says
which is not related topodcasting that kids are now
building AI friendships morethan they're building real
friendships.
So it is possible to build aparasocial relationship with an
AI.

Yeah, no, I agree.
There was a story.
I think it was in the BBCwebsite.
It might have been.
No, it was in the Guardian lastweek and it was a story of
people who are marrying their AIcompanions and there was a
picture of one person who hadmarried their AI companion and
he looked exactly like you wouldexpect somebody who was

(27:06):
marrying an AI companion to look.

Sam Sethi (27:08):
It was astonishing, did you say the word incel.

Yes, absolutely yeah, no, I think you know it
comes down to you knowdisclosing the right thing,
disclosing it when it matters.
But also it comes down to youknow disclosing the right thing,
disclosing it when it matters.
But also it comes down to beingvery realistic.
The people who are who, whowants to use this kind of
technology for bad, probablywon't be too keen to disclose it

(27:36):
anyway.
So you've always got that kindof side of it as well.

Sam Sethi (27:40):
Yeah, look, as I said , the explicit tag is there.
People use it.
Those people that don't use itare the bad actors and stuff
will get through, but for themajority of people who have fair
usage, I think we put theexplicit tag on last week's show
, right?

No, absolutely, we did yeah, so, yeah.
So it comes down to that, and Ithink you know it's important
to not to mislead, which, at theend of the day, is the thing.
We should leave.
The last word, I guess, to thisperson.

I'm the voice at the start of the
Pod News Weekly Review.
Hey, you two, stop talkingabout AI and get on to the next
story.
Oh, that's all Right.

Sam Sethi (28:25):
Well, that's all.
There you go Right.
Well, there you go Over to ouroverlords and moving on.
Then the company calledKaleidoscope has raised $5
million.
This sounds good, but I don'tknow anything about Kaleidoscope
.

Well, it's a children's toy that you can hold
up to.

Sam Sethi (28:47):
That's what I thought .

Yes, no, indeed.
So it's one of these newexciting podcast studios which
is founded by an Emmyaward-winning producer and a
former iHeartMedia senior VP,and it's one of these companies
which is taking shows.
They start a show as a podcastand then they, and then they

(29:09):
change it and move it into TVand film if it takes off.

Sam Sethi (29:14):
It only raises the eyebrows because of the, the
amount they raise.
So clearly they've convincedsomebody that they can create IP
value across multiple platforms.
I guess with their backgroundwith iHeart and various other
things, I'm sure they've gotenough people around them that
they know that have deep pockets.
So anyway, congratulations toKaleidoscope for getting $5
million.

But even better if you are an independently
owned podcast company and you'vemanaged to do this without
putting yourself $5 million indebt.
There's a CEO called WillMalnati who has done exactly
that.
He owns At Will Media, and Ithought I'd ask him what At Will

(29:54):
Media is.

I think what started as a podcast company has
now really grown into more of acontent creation studio, and we
say that just because we'vekind of gone from podcasts now
into more narrative, long formjournalism, into event
activation, around work that wedo for big brands and clients on

(30:21):
the studio front.
So we touch a lot of differentareas, whether it's for studios
or whether it's for our originalIP, but in both you know, in
both sides of the business, wetouch a few different areas that
all come back to content.
You know, really creation atheart.

Yeah, I'd like to talk about the way that you
create content, because I thinkit's quite interesting Just from
your bio.
I'm curious you started workingas Live Planet, as a producer,
but then you worked for arestaurant brand and I'm
wondering it's not the point ofthe interview at all, will, but
I'm wondering is that a usualcareer move?

No, it was a very unique path and my family's in
the restaurant industry, and soI think of course any you know
16, 17 year olds who's lookingfor what their next step is and
going to college, what their.
If there's a family business inthe mix, of course that's going

(31:23):
to be on the table, and no punintended, I guess.
And yeah, and so there was aconversation around whether I
would join the family businessand I went to school, for I was

(31:44):
one foot into that concept of acareer path.
I was also one foot intoproduction and the entertainment
industry.

What did you learn from that part of your
career that you've been able tomove into this part?

that you've been able to move into this part.
Well, first, I just want to sayso many people have the thought
of pivoting their career at 30and they don't do it because
they've just spent, you know,the last eight or 10 years, you
know, building their career.
And why would you, you know,step towards something different
?
And so I say that because itwas.

(32:27):
It's not like it was an easything.
And to your question, there'sthe entrepreneurial side of
building a restaurant industry,a restaurant business that you
know is similar to what I've nowbuilt with Atwell Media.
Now built with Atwell Media.

(32:49):
There is the culture piece, youknow, creating culture within a
team that will always, you know, be transferable.
There is the how to run abusiness and how to look at a
P&L state.
You know how to look at abusiness objectively and figure
out where changes need to bemade in order to create profit.

(33:09):
And I think I, because I hadthat experience, had the
advantage coming now into this,into Atwell Media, I think more
so than a lot of these other.
You know, you see thesecreatives or journalists
starting a podcast business, butthey've never actually run a
business before, and so theyfind themselves like lost a

(33:31):
little bit and for me it waslike right, I understand the
pieces of a business coming intothis that will always apply.
A business coming into thisthat will always apply.
And so I've always been reallydiligent about cutting costs and

(33:52):
staying healthy and being smartabout decisions when it comes
to the business, because we're aprofitable business and I can
say not a lot of companies,especially in entertainment
right now are because it's justa difficult.
It's a difficult time.

Yeah, no, and many and no, and that's a
fantastic thing and somethingthat, as you say, is relatively
unusual right now.
You know which is a thing?
Let's talk about some of thecontent that At Will Media has
been making.
We're right in the middle ofEasy Money, the Charles Ponzi
story, the first nonfictionpodcast for Apple TV+.
How did that show come about?

(34:28):
Is it tied into a show on AppleTV+ or is it a separate piece
of work?

So, to be clear, it's the first nonfiction show
that also drama, dramatizedrecreations, right right for
apple.
So they've done, of course, thethe journalistic, you know
non-fiction, long-form narrativestuff.
This is that because it is ledby a reporter, but because the

(34:58):
story is from 1920 and everyonethat you would want to interview
like a normal yeah non-fictiondocumentary you know would is is
sadly passed.
We we thought of how to bringthese characters to life in a
way that really played alongsideof of the reporting, in a way

(35:23):
that didn't feel like, you know,cheesy or forced or anything.
And so, yeah, so we hadSebastian Maniscalco, who's this
like really dynamic, not onlycomedian but actor, come and
play the role of Charles Ponzi,who is just a very charismatic
person, or who was a verycharismatic person, and and,

(35:44):
yeah, it's, it's just a reallyunique way of telling a story,
especially for Apple.
This is our second project withApple TV Plus.
Apple doesn't, you know, do alot of originals for on the
podcast space.
Our first one was called WildThings, siegfried and Roy, which

(36:13):
you know has been announcedthat it's going to series as a
TV show, and so, you know, withthis one, we love working with
them.
They're incredible partners,you know, of course we think
about those same things is whatcould be adapted well from audio
to the screen, and this was away to tell a really interesting

(36:33):
story in a different way.

So the At Will Media secret sauce, I guess, is
to take something that worksfantastically well as a podcast
and can be proven to workfantastically well as a podcast,
to then develop that into otherthings, like a TV show.

Yeah, and I think in the beginning you know I was
early to the game, a bit earlier, you know, in terms of the
podcast industry, you know, I, I, I started the business in 2016
and I think at at first, it wasa, it felt like a bad, like, a,
a bad word or like, or it waslike a no, no to, to say that

(37:21):
you were doing that Like, like,it couldn't just like, like, it
had to be audio to be audio, andthat was, you know, otherwise,
why are you in this business?
Yeah, and for me, I was alwaysthinking about like, I love
audio absolutely, and that ishas been something that I've
learned and continue to evolvecreatively with, as the industry

(37:46):
has, and and it's always been,you know, a passion of mine and
a goal of mine to be able tocreate something at at zero, you
know, have an idea and createsomething that could then be the
basis for something, you know,larger, I guess, for lack of a

(38:09):
better term and that you know,now that we've proved it or are
proving it out with withSiegfried and Roy, it just feels
like right.
So I wasn't.
That's not a crazy thought.
This is something that actuallycan be done.
And so now our work injournalism, our work in you know
these other, you know areas ofIP and content, we can, all you

(38:33):
know, point to that and say likethis is a goal.
That of course not foreverything, but for a lot of the
work we do, we look to do.

Yeah, and I guess you know, whenever I see
that sort of approach, yeah andI guess you know, whenever I see
that sort of approach, I'malways there thinking two things
.

Firstly, is audio the small thing and the first
step towards something that'sbigger and better?
I think that audio is somethingthat I love and something that,
of course, I've been in thegame now for nine years, so I
obviously have to love audio,and if it doesn't make it to
something else, that's okay.
But I will say this we spend ascreators a lot of time and a

(39:21):
lot of energy and a lot of yearscreating some of these works
that are.
If you can create somethingthat goes, it starts in one
place and goes and has acontinuation, or or is able to
go beyond that in terms ofcontent, well it's, then it's

(39:45):
like, of course, like that thatthat feels rewarding.
Forget the monetary even.
It just feels rewarding to havecreated something that can go
further and that all this workthat you put into the first
thing can continue.
For me, that's really what it'sabout, and it's not saying that
audio is less than or any ofthat.

(40:06):
It's just it's a different typeof format.
If I was to start somethingvisually and then it could
convert over to audio.
It's the same idea You're ableto extend the life of that
content and that's important toanyone.
I would think that's creatingsomething and spending a lot of
time doing it.

Absolutely Spend as much time as you can on the
idea and get that out in as manydifferent ways.
I guess I look at the businessbehind it and I wonder whether
that actually allows you toproduce something that doesn't
necessarily need to pay foritself in terms of an audio
podcast, because you know thatit's hopefully going to lead on
to something bigger.

(40:46):
So it's a bit like a lossleader.
But you've already said you'remaking money, which is great.

Yeah, I think, look, we have a really great
studios side of our business.
That's where we started back in2016.
And with just really kind ofcapitalizing on what I again
like taking what I learned inhospitality, which was working
with, you know, clients by wayof events and you know, like

(41:13):
getting to know what those likemarketing folks need from your
restaurant or using your bar,you know like these are.
It's all the same thing.
They're trying to put onsomething or trying to show the
people in their companysomething, and so I was able to
kind of take some of that andcarry it over to podcasts where,

(41:34):
you know, I I sometimes tellthis story that there's my, our
first client paying clients forthis like work for hire side of
our business was someone who hadbeen a regular at my restaurant
, you know, back in the day, andI always just thought of her as

(41:55):
like a great customer and youknow, at the restaurant.
And then, once I was startingthis new thing, I was like, oh,
you know what, she works atHearst.
She probably, you know, hassome need for some audio and
sure enough, you know, one thingled to another and she was.
She helped us get our first bigyou know, client and now we

(42:16):
work with the biggest clients inthe world.
We work with, I mean FX, amazon, apple TV+, morgan Stanley only
these top level businesses thattrust us to really create
premium content for them andsince we've been in the game so
long, we really understand howto, you know, have that white

(42:38):
glove approach and and makemoney doing it so that we can
yeah, we can help this otherside of our business really grow
.

So what's next for Atwill Media?
You've you've looked at 1920sAmerica.
You've looked at magicians.
I'm guessing space is nextright.

America.
You've looked at magicians, I'mguessing space is next, right?
Well, not far off, we'relaunching a podcast.
Actually, yesterday, thetrailer came out for Alien Earth
, which is the new FX seriesthat everyone's very excited
about.
Yeah, we have another showcoming out next month that'll be
announced soon with a bigpartner.

(43:18):
I don't think I can say whatthat one is yet, but we yeah, we
are.
We're always looking to bechallenged, you know, and we're
always looking to explore areasthat maybe haven't been explored
and those are hard to find, andso I think, like you know, we
are, we're good at finding themand and we're excited to to find

(43:39):
the next one.
And, you know, I will say onething that is new for us is we
are, we are involved in a wholeactivation at Comic-Con this
year for one of our shows.
You know, we, we, we just puton this Tribeca film festival
event for for, for easy money,and you know, it's just this
interesting area that we've beenable to.

(44:01):
We've been able to really bemore heavily involved in lots of
different, you know, there'slots of different ways and areas
of content.
Live events are are very much apart of that, and and so it's

(44:25):
exciting to kind of be enteringthat too and I'm guessing if
you're running one of thoseevents, then the finger food is
going to be fantastic.

Well, it's been a great pleasure.
Thank you so much for your foryour time and best of best of
luck.
Hopefully see you soon at oneof these events yeah, I would
love that the pod news weeklyreview.
With buzz, with buzzsprout,start podcasting, keep
podcasting so, james?

Sam Sethi (44:52):
uh, interesting story mercury productions, which is
run by Liam Hefner, have done adeal with the Student Radio
Association.
What's this one?

Well, yeah, so they've done a deal to
essentially let the indienetwork Mercury distribute all
podcast content from the StudentRadio Association, the SRA.
So just to sort of go back alittle bit, lots of student
radio stations in the UK.
They're very different tostudent radio stations, for
example, in the US.

(45:24):
Student radio stations in theUS are mostly just radio
stations.
The student radio station, forexample, in Washington DC is the
big NPR station I mean, youknow, it's a bit of a weird old
one Whereas in the UK it's very,very different, and this is
where a lot of the new talentfor radio comes from, comes from
student radio.

(45:44):
So Mercury have jumped in andthey've gone.
You know what we would like tohelp the Student Radio
Association.
They're all students, they haveno money.
So we will give you freehosting, distribution and we
will sort all of that, and theywill also help monetise those
shows as well, which makes abunch of sense, because if
you're a small student radiostation maybe you're Radio Ram

(46:08):
Air in Bradford then it's veryhard to get money from some of
the podcasts that you're doing.
But wouldn't it be great if youcould?
And so I think it's quite aclever idea for Mercury to end
up doing that.

Sam Sethi (46:21):
I thought it'd be good if we reached out to Liam
to find out more about thisstory, and I started off by
asking him you've just announceda new project, Liam, with UK
universities.
Tell me more.

Yeah, so Mercury are delighted to announce today
that we are going into apodcast partnership with the
Student Radio Association.
So anyone in the UK is probablyfamiliar with them.
They represent dozens ofuniversity radio stations around
the UK and I mean the pipelineof radio stars that they've

(46:51):
nurtured and sort of given aplatform to over the years is
just ridiculous.
Nurtured and sort of given aplatform to over the years is
just ridiculous.
And now they're starting tolook at podcasts and we had a
couple of conversations withthem and realised actually we
can really help them with that.
So we've given them a platformto distribute and launch
whatever podcast they want to doas an organisation, but also
for any of their member stations.

(47:11):
And, yeah, really excited aboutit Brilliant.

Sam Sethi (47:13):
Now, how did that come about?
Who did you know at theuniversity?
Who approached?
Who had it all materialised?

Well, it was a bit of a cold outreach on my
part, to be honest.
You know I've done a lot ofwork over the years in hospital
radio so we've kind ofoverlapped there a little bit.
But you know, mercury, in thefive months that we've been
going, our focus is onsupporting independent
podcasters and not just currentshows that need support.
But how can we kind offacilitate and support new

(47:43):
entrants into the industry andreally help that next generation
of podcasters come through?
So to me it's a naturalpartnership.

Sam Sethi (47:49):
You know working with the student radio association
the way that they will gain fromit is through your distribution
.
Will you be providing any othersoft skills like training and
recording, editing any of thoseother areas?

they want, with full creative autonomy.
But yeah, we want thatrelationship to go further.
We've had discussions as wellabout how myself and Mercury can

(48:24):
support the student radionetwork through training, talks
and any kind of skill sharingthat we possibly can.
I don't want this to just be asimple kind of one-way
transaction that they pop theirpodcasts on our network and
that's that you know.
I think there's a realopportunity there for Mercury to
really support student radio inmaking that pivot into podcasts

(48:45):
, because it's not an easy thingto do.
I think often that can beunderestimated, but I think the
nuances now between radio andpodcasts are not insignificant.

Sam Sethi (48:55):
It's actually something that I'm talking about
quite a lot.
I think the difference betweenradio and podcasting is so small
.
The content is the content,right, whether you record it for
radio or you record it forpodcasting.
The mechanism of delivery iswhere it differs, right.
So if I have a radio stationand I want to deliver it over

(49:18):
DAB or FM or web or mobile orAlexa, that's fine, and live
being a large element of that,if I have a podcast, I can now
deliver it over web and mobile,but also I can deliver it
through the live item tag, whichis part of the podcasting 2.0.
And I think live podcasting isthe new radio.

(49:41):
One of the big things I'venoticed in media channels and
I'm talking about radio and TVis that they were the
gatekeepers would have to paysignificant amounts of money to
transmitter companies who havethe control over the transmitter
£15,000 a month as an example.

(50:04):
Or it may be that you wouldn'tget a license from the bodies
that control radio themselves,so Ofcom wouldn't give you in
the UK, for example, a license.
So you have the license costand you had the transmitter cost
.
And now I think democratizationof radio is podcasting.

(50:24):
That can be done over livepodcasting.

Yeah, and I agree with most of what you said
.
But I think where it reallydiffers is like cause.
You're right, the mechanismsare the same.
You know, if you have all thekit you need to to broadcast a
radio show, then you probablyhave all the kit you need to
make a podcast, right?
But I think let's look at tv,like over the years.
So you know, 25 years ago wewere in this era where the tv

(50:49):
schedules dominated, right?
You looked at the tv guide, youpicked a channel, you watched
what, what was on, and that wasthat streaming services come
along and I'm talking, you'renot even netflix, you know,
years before then, channel 4launching sort of 4od on youtube
.
That changed the game, and notbecause the content was
necessarily any different, butsuddenly it.

(51:10):
It changed consumption habits.
It changed how we watch andover the years that has had a
drastic knock-on effect on thetype of content being created,
how it's being created and howit's being consumed, and I think
that's what we're seeing happennow in audio, just a few years
later will you be extending?

Sam Sethi (51:30):
yes, beyond the training and distribution, will
you be extending and adding livefunctionality.
So will you, as mercury,provide a live capability?

well, I mean, nothing's off the table for
mercury's future.
I mean, we are still we're awe're a little baby network at
the moment.
You know, we're five months old, we're we're still building
that infrastructure.
But that also means, you know,we have the freedom to adapt a
lot quicker and and you know,put those changes in faster than
other networks to sort of meetthe needs of our creators and
the people we're supporting.

(52:00):
And you're right, like livepodcasting, I, I think, is
overdue.
It's something that I'msurprised isn't already here in
force, but it's coming and Ithink it'll come quite quickly
now.
So, yeah, we we need to workout exactly how we adapt to that
and support that, but but avoidit.

Sam Sethi (52:15):
Have you other things in the pipeline as well that
you're working on, that you cantell us about?

So, yeah, I can certainly tease you.
So the thing that I'm mostexcited about with the student
radio partnership is it does fitinto our long term plans.
You know, up to now we've beenable to build a really strong
roster of independent shows andwe want to build on that.
We want to keep adding someawesome shows.
But I think that mercury has anopportunity to do so much more

(52:43):
for the industry.
I think that we've we've reallyfilled a gap and and touched on
something that I've had nothingbut but support for.
I don't think that independentpodcasters, certainly the sort
of that top echelon of indiepodcasters, are really being
supported in the way that theyneed to be supported.
And right now, you know, ourfocus is on OK, how can we build

(53:05):
an offering that does supportthat?
But when you look below that,you've got this whole
infrastructure, this wholeindustry of podcasters that are
where our podcasts were a yearor two back.
So how can we support them?
How can we not leave them inlimbo figuring out for
themselves how to grow, and thena network kind of jumps on the

(53:28):
coattails and kind of cashes inon that right.
So I I kind of want a podcastnetwork to be more than that.
I want it to provide thatbridge from people just starting
out to those that are makingtheir show a real success.
And I think for us you knowit's been a lot of work it's

(54:02):
because we can't ignore the thelights on and we're having to
kind of find that path andfigure out a way to move forward
with that.
But what we do have on thehorizon is a lot more growth in
the very near future.
You know the student radio isjust the first step.
A lot more growth in the verynear future.
You know the student radio isjust the first step.
We're putting the pieces inplace so that we can extend our
support a lot wider and to a lotmore podcasters.
We're going to be levelling upon the PR side and on the sales

(54:26):
side so that now we've got ourshows and we're helping them, we
want to really ramp up, how youknow, the growth and the
monetisation of those shows.
And when we do that, we can thenstart extending further in the
ways that we really want to.
And I I realize that's aterribly wishy-washy, vague
answer that it's really mesaying that in the next three
months I think people are goingto start hearing a lot more

(54:47):
about mercury, because our realethos was how can we act like a
big network but support thelittle guys out there, and I
think we've really now found theway to do that.
So I'm not going to jinxanything until we've dotted the
I's and crossed the T's, butthere's some really exciting
stuff coming.

Sam Sethi (55:07):
Okay, cool.
Well, I will keep an eye outfor it.
If I want to know more aboutMercury, or I want to read more
about what you've done with thestudent union, student
university, what, where or how,where would I go?

Well, the first port of call would be our
website, mercurypodcastscom.
I've spent the last week with alot of sleepless nights trying
to give it a little bit of arefresh, so hopefully that's
nice and new looking foreveryone.
Alternatively, we're onLinkedIn.
I'm on LinkedIn.
Drop me an email, connect withme and I will happily talk for
hours about what we're onLinkedIn.
I'm on LinkedIn.
Drop me an email, connect withme and I will happily talk for
hours about what we're doing.

Sam Sethi (55:39):
Liam, congratulations .
Thank you very much, Thanks.
Sam From your daily newsletter,the Pod News Weekly Review.
James, a story that I thoughtwe'd buried, or at least the
company had, Au Revoir Audio.
It was a company that promisedto launch an ad skipping podcast
out back in November 2023.

(56:00):
It ran out of money, had noearnings, it paid its executives
a ton of money and now it seemsto be rising from the dead
again.
What's it doing?

Yes.
Well, I don't know whether itis rising from the dead.
I think it's just having aquick turn in the grave that
it's in before going in aslightly different direction.
So Audia a couple of years agoyes, they did promise all kinds
of exciting things in terms of apodcast app that would

(56:30):
automatically skip the ads, andI wrote a piece about them
saying, well, how are you goingto give the podcasters money?
And they said you know, and howare you going to help
podcasters opt out of theirservice?
And they said, well, they don'tneed to opt out because no harm
is being done.
So wasn't particularlyconvinced about that.
Anyway, what's happened is thatMichael Lawless is retiring.

(56:52):
He's their current CEO.
Now I looked at that and Ithought has he been sacked?
And then looked at how oldMichael Lawless probably is, and
I think no, I think he'sretiring Properly, is retiring,
so that's all fine.
And instead there's going to bea new CEO who's been the
company president for a while,called Jeff Thramman.

(57:13):
But what I think is interestingis that Audia is going to be
restructured.
It's going to be turned into asubsidiary of an AI company
which will own Audia from hereon in.
They say that they have workedout a new strategy for the
future of the Fader app, whichis the app that does the ad
skipping in both live radio andin podcasts, but they haven't

(57:34):
quite said what that newstrategy is.
I will guess that a newstrategy is to close it if it's
earning no money at all.
But yeah, so the bigger AIcompany is just going to be a
company that goes out and sellsAI to large corporates, and
hurrah for them.

Hey, enough of this audio stuff,
let's go around the world yougot a new toy.

Sam Sethi (57:56):
I've got a new toy.
Yes, now look, we.
We've just been talking aboutnumbers hours and now raja has
released its quarterly midasstudy, talking about percentages
of the uk.
So it says podcasts are nowlistened to by 25 of the uk
every week.
That's great, but we've justsaid that actually, that isn't

(58:18):
really a useful number anymore.

Yes, we have, and so I can tell you what the
UK number is.
It's 111 million hours ofpodcasting consumed every single
week in the UK.
That's actually in this MIDASstudy as well, so it's nice to
see a number from the UK as well.
So, yeah, the MIDRE study isreally interesting.
I think it stands for somethingaround measurement of internet

(58:42):
delivered audio, and it pulls alot of different data out, both,
of course, in terms of radio,which RAGE-R is paid to do, but
in terms of other platforms aswell things like Spotify as well
, of course, is in there andvarious other things.
They say 7% of all audio timeis spent with podcasts and 65%

(59:04):
of all time with audio spentwith radio.
So some really interesting data.
If you want to take a peek atthat, it's rajarcouk is their
website.

Sam Sethi (59:13):
Whizzing around very quickly.
Then the UAE the Dubai PressClub has launched its second
edition of its five-week Arabpodcast programme.
So if that's interesting to you, you'll find that full story on
Pod News Daily.
In Madrid, the winners of thePrimeras Ondas were announced.
The podcast of the year went toLa Arruña.
I've probably absolutelybutchered that whole thing to

(59:35):
death, but hey, what do I know?
And finally, a story thatseemed to be a little bit
negative in Canada, pod theNorth.
The wonderful newsletter asksis the Canadian podcasting
industry caught in a deathspiral?
And I wonder what they mean,james.

Yeah, I think Canadian podcasting right now is
not having a good time of itand I think part of this is
being driven by Canadianswanting government recognition
of the podcast industry,particularly in that country.
Particularly in Canada, thereis a lot of government money
which is poured into the mediato keep Canadians thinking

(01:00:11):
Canadian and rather to stopCanadians thinking American, and
I suspect that this is part ofthat.
Sabre rattling and sayingpodcasting is in a pretty bad
way government.
We need some more help.
Obviously, the administrationof the podcast exchange TPX in
the country has also sort ofshaken a few people up in that

(01:00:35):
part of the world as well.
But it's a good read.
Katie Law does a great job withthe Pod the North newsletter.
It's well worth getting, andyou'll find that linked this
week from podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi (01:00:47):
Anyone moving and grooving James?
Anyone got a new job?

James Cridland (01:00:50):
There are two.
One of them goes back to theconversation that we had earlier
around AI.
One of them goes back to theconversation that we had earlier
around AI.
Npr now has a vice president ofa thing called NPR's AI Labs.
It's a new department whichwill oversee NPR's AI strategy
and the vice president issomebody called Erica Osher.

(01:01:11):
She moves from National PublicMedia and yeah, so really
interesting seeing a largebroadcaster like that having a
big head of AI strategy.
I'm sure that there are manyother AI strategy people in
other large podcasters, but niceto end up seeing that.
And going back to Canada, bobKane is to leave Libsyn at the

(01:01:32):
end of this month.
He's the Canadian countrymanager for Lipson.
At the end of this month he'sthe Canadian country manager for
Lipson Ads.
He's a really nice chap.
It's always good.
Whenever I'm in Canada, it'salways good to see him.
He's always a friendly face andhe was a co-founder of the
Podcast Exchange.
He's worked with CBC, chorusEntertainment, all that kind of
stuff.
He told us this week that he'snot done and he's open for

(01:01:55):
opportunities, so up to you toget in touch with him.

Sam Sethi (01:01:59):
Awards and events.
Podcast Movement is coming upin Dallas August the 18th.
You will be there, I will not.
What's the big announcementsfrom Podcast Movement then?

Well, adam Curry is going to be speaking, which
is very exciting, as you mayhave seen earlier on in the week
.
So I am seeing if I can greasesome wheels.
At the moment, adam Curry isgoing to be speaking on
Soundstack's stage.
Now, soundstack's stage is oneof those stages in the middle of
the exhibition hall, so itwon't be one of the biggest

(01:02:32):
stages and I am suggesting thatit might be good if he was in a
bit of a bigger room, I think.
So Rocky would be an amazingperson to interview Adam, as I'm
sure she's going to do at hercurrent stage.
But wouldn't that be good to beone of the big, big keynote
things at the podcast movementevent?

(01:02:54):
That would make an awful lot ofsense.
So we'll see what happens there, but that's going to be really
exciting.
There are people talking aboutPodcasting 2.0 there, including
Daniel J Lewis, who's veryexcited to be talking about that
although obviously Adam will betalking about that and
presumably Godcaster and thePodcast Index and all that kind

(01:03:14):
of stuff.
And we're still waiting for thebig keynotes.
But if history tells us anything, it tells us that the cost of
tickets for the event goes upevery single week because
they're clever at podcastmovement.
So if you're thinking aboutgoing, think no longer and go
and buy your tickets if you usethe code podnews, and then

(01:03:35):
you'll save well, potentially 75.
I'm not quite sure whetherthat's that must be still true,
because it still says that inthe advertising.
Yes, so code pod news will saveyou 75 if you want to end up
doing that and try and stay inthe hotel as well.
That that would be my tip,because you get all kinds of
entertaining things happeninglate at night.

Sam Sethi (01:03:58):
Well, that means we're going to have a few
sherbets.
It's not far to get home,correct?

Yes, absolutely.
It's just a slightly wobblylift ride.
So, yes, looking forward tothat, assuming that the United
States immigration allows me in.
And why wouldn't they?
Because I'm a big fan ofeverything out of the United
States of America and I'd justlike to make that clear one
additional time.
What else is going on?
The British Podcast Awards ishappening in October.

(01:04:24):
Maisie Adam, who's a big UKcomedian, northern comedian
she's being confirmed as thehost, so that is good.
The APAs from Audio UK hasannounced its Pay what you Can
scheme, which is a really nicething that Audio UK does every
year.
It's helped by Amazon Music andWondery and they offer free and
discounted entry to the awardsif you can't afford to enter the

(01:04:47):
awards or you can't afford togo and pick up your massive
prize.
So that's always a nice thing.
And our friends at EdisonResearch they have a very
important webinar which is wellworth a watch.
It's happening next week.
It's all around the PodcastConsumer 2025.
The study uses data from theInfinite Dial Share of Ear and

(01:05:07):
Edison Podcast Metrics and it'sbasically all about who is
listening and watchingpodcasting, who are our audience
.
It's a really useful piece ofdata.
So you can watch that webinaras it goes out.
Just follow the links from thePod News website.

Sam Sethi (01:05:24):
Now a couple of things here.
One of the things that duringthe week I do and you do as well
, I know, but as I find otherstories that I find interesting
and there's a couple of that Ijust wanted to highlight we're
not going to go into them in toomuch depth.
In the Press Gazette I had aninterview with Crowd Network's
Michael Carr and it was just acouple of things.

(01:05:44):
It was called how Social andVideo Drive Revenue and he
starts off by saying we don'treally call them podcasts
anymore.
Europe's fastest growing podcastnetwork network, which is what
he says, has changed rapidlysince 2020 and they call them
shows now.
So five years ago we launchedit was all about audio and now,

(01:06:05):
with spotify chucking millionsof pounds at companies and loads
of podcasts and it's quicklydisappeared, so now they're very
much focused on video andcalling them shows and having
multimodal, I guess.
So social media was kind ofused as an aside to promote our
shows, he said, and to drivethem to the audio, he said.
That's absolutely turned on itshead.

(01:06:27):
Now Podcasts are shows.
We don't really call thempodcasts.
And the other thing he said wasour teams are built around all
video producers and social mediaproducers Interesting.
I just wanted to see what yourthoughts were.

Yeah, I think it's very interesting, very
similar to what Max Cutler wassaying from Pave Studios the
other week when we were talkingto him and he was again saying
we don't call them podcasts, wejust call them shows.
I think there is certainly apart of the industry which
thinks in that way, but, as weall know, because Rob Greenlee
this week has clarified it forus, he's clarified what a

(01:07:03):
podcast is, which is very kind,excellent.
So, yes, if there was any doubtabout what a podcast is, then a
podcast is deep breath.
A podcast is an on-demand audioor video programme released in
episodic format, often centredon specific themes, stories,
stories or conversations.
While traditionally audio-based, many podcasts also include
video versions, which audio andvideo can be distributed via
open rss feeds or platformspecific.

(01:07:23):
In addition to open rssdistribution, podcasts may be
uploaded directly to proprietaryplatform distribution and offer
through paid subscription basedaccess models.
Podcasts strange from ongoingseries to limited run or short
series programs and commonlyfeature conversational,
narrative or thematicstorytelling formats.
So if anybody asks you what apodcast is, now you know.

Sam Sethi (01:07:39):
Did that have a catch-all in it?
I mean literally.

I mean, I did speed it up just then, but yes,
I mean I don't agree with it.
Actually, he posted this onLinkedIn oh no, it was Facebook,
I think a few days ago, and Isaid no, I think a podcast has
to be on OpenRSS.
It can be in other places,absolutely fine, but you don't
get to call it a podcast if it'snot on OpenRSS.

(01:08:06):
Full stop, end of story.
And he's there going oh, Ithink that's very.
You know, I think that's quiteclose, james.
I think you need a more openview, but yeah, anyway.
But there we are.

Sam Sethi (01:08:18):
Anyway, now, crowd is a very good company.
It's up near Manchester, andthere's another company that has
launched recently.
One of our power supporters,james Burt, has launched a new
company with the Englandfootballer, jermaine Genas.
The company's called PivotProductions, and I thought I'd
find out more about it.

James Burtt (01:08:38):
I'm a power supporter but a fan first and
foremost.
I'm having a fanboy moment.
If Cridland was here as well,it'd be too much.
I'd have to leave.

Sam Sethi (01:08:44):
I was going to say I mean, I'm the second, you know,
second best option for you.
I'm sorry we couldn't getCridland here, but it by some
swimming pool with his pinacolada or something.
I don't know what he's doingit's well deserved.

I think he's due a few of them, to be fair.

Sam Sethi (01:08:57):
Yes, now, james, tell me more about pivot yeah.

So we've launched this literally this week.
So we went live with it onwednesday the idea of it, sort
of the initial meetings andstuff were happening, sort of
january time.
But I I had a big realizationabout this time last year that
I've been in the podcastingspace for a long while, but
mainly in the paid for sort ofproduction realm.
I looked at it I was like thisis the thin end of the wedge.
When I was looking at what thelikes of Peter Crouch doing and

(01:09:23):
what Gary's doing withGoalhanger and what the fellow
studios are doing.
There's a big opportunity here.
But the bigger opportunitycomes with obviously bigger
risks and therefore biggerrewards.
I was just at a point I was likeI can't just keep doing the pay
for production thing as itstands.
I wrote a blog about five yearsago which I think James
actually published in Pod Newsand I was like why doesn't Peter

(01:09:45):
Crouch leave the BBC and runhis own thing?
Because if he owned the IP ofit he'd earn loads more money.
Ironically, I've subsequentlyfound out that Peter Crouch
actually read that blog.
I'm not saying that's why heleft the bbc and started his own
thing.

Sam Sethi (01:09:55):
Take it, james blog I'll take it, claim it is your
idea.

Don't, don't be shy , absolutely yeah, so that was
the rationale before sort ofaround it.
Essentially there's a massiveopportunity in podcasting right
now and I think we're veryuniquely placed in terms of the
sort of the celebrity talent wecan reach, plus the experience
that we've got, that we canactually help people to really
maximize the, the valueopportunity that there is right
now for people to own their ipand build platforms rather than

(01:10:22):
just having a podcast as a paidfor you know, 500 quid, a
thousand quid session talentsort of thing so why pivot?

Sam Sethi (01:10:29):
because I mean obviously cara swisher might be
coming after you yeah.

So pivot productions group.
I very carefully checked.
There is nothing that has copywritten that is also for for me.
So I got into this businesswith who's obviously very well
known for football.
He's very well known as playingfor england, playing for
tottenham newcastle.
He's also a very well knownbroadcaster.
He's very well known that heleft that broadcaster very
swiftly last year when he wasunceremoniously sacked.
So we sat there one day.

(01:10:53):
I was well, this is a pivot forme because I've been in the
production space, but it's adifferent direction.
He went well.
It's definitely a pivot for me.
As we all know, weiss was likedo you know, I actually like
pivot and also he played incentral midfield, which is the
pivot role.
I was like this just works, sohe's got a.
I mean, you know, is it just?

Sam Sethi (01:11:07):
to create a platform for celebrities and then
monetize it, or, you know, yousaid it's wider than podcasting.
I think one of the things weare seeing now and it'll be
lovely to hear your take on itwhich is, you know, audio-only

(01:11:30):
podcasting.
So I assume you're going to bevideo, I assume you're going to
be multi-platform.
So where are you going to start?
What's the first show andwhat's the format?

Yeah, so we're calling it Visualize, because
that's what the cool kids inShoreditch are calling it
apparently.
Bbc.

Liam Heffernan (01:11:45):
Speaks, that is.

Yes, okay, fine, oh , maybe I'll retract that then
and we'll just go video.
So yeah, so it's already up andrunning literally again as of
this week.
So the first show we'velaunched, jermaine is one of the
co-hosts of it.
The other co-host is famousinternational heavyweight boxing
legend, derek Chisora, who isagain a very interesting
character hence the name, why itfitted under the Pivot brand

(01:12:07):
and we've launched a show calledLet Me Tell you Something, and
it's really an opportunity, forDerek and Jermaine are actually
really good friends, but peopledon't know about it.
They're basically getting onlow of their celebrity powers to
have conversations that youwouldn't otherwise hear in a
podcast format, becauseobviously they know stuff about
each other that other peoplewouldn't ordinarily.
So we've already recorded thefirst sort of 10 episodes.
We've got Catherine Ryan, eddieHearn, lethal Bizzle, joe Cole,

(01:12:30):
michael Venn and Page all somereally really cool people.
He drew some really really coolpeople, but to that extent,
like Michael Venom, page came onand normally I've only ever
heard him talk about, you know,the UFC cage and fighting.
He talked about his conversionto Islam, which is a really
interesting conversation thatyou wouldn't necessarily think.
You're going to get on apodcast with MVP Definitely not
one that's co-hosted by Jermaineand Derek as well.

(01:12:51):
But that's what we want to docreate content opportunities
that surprise people.
And to your question aboutwhat's the bigger picture here,
as I say, I spotted theopportunity in 2021 with
celebrity talent.
I was like why don't peoplejust own the IP?
But it has to be bigger thanjust the show.
It's monetized the audiolistens via programmatic insert,
add sponsorship, etc.
But where I think theopportunity is biggest at the

(01:13:13):
moment is building thatcommunity and I know community
has been the buzzword formarketing since 2023.
I think it was like word of theyear, wasn't it?
In the marketing space butpeople who get it genuinely
right and can have opportunitiesfor their listeners and their

(01:13:34):
viewers and their watchers tocome and see them in a live show
, but also do watch alongs andhave an opportunity to come down
to recording sessions and wherewe're uniquely placed, because
obviously we've already got somesort of celebrity quote,
unquote clout in terms of thepeople behind the business.
But also I've run lots and lotsand lots of podcasts over the
years, so we know you're goingto get a really good show.
So I think it's going to giveus the opportunity to show
talent in a different way andgive them the opportunity to be

(01:13:54):
seen in different ways as well.
Because that's another bigthing that I've done in my
career is help people to reallycommunicate the brand message
that they want to communicateand when you understand what
you're trying to put out thereas the perception, you build
content around that.
So it's definitely not for usthe case of, like some sort of
big networks of like anyonewho's famous, anyone who's got a

(01:14:15):
bit of a TikTok following,let's get them on and do a
podcast because we can monetizeit for five minutes.
I don't think everyone shouldhave a podcast.
As a man who's launched 187 forclients around the world in the
last seven years, shouldeveryone have a podcast?
No, absolutely not.
You know some people are onlyinterested in 15 second short
form TikTok videos and that'sabsolutely fine as a medium and
that's not to disregard it.
But that doesn't mean thatshort form, short attention,

(01:14:37):
audience wants or needs to comeacross for longer conversations.
You know somebody who's dancingto TikTok trends.
Does anyone care about theirthoughts on?
You know deep seated psychologyand manifestation for 45
minutes.

Sam Sethi (01:14:49):
Probably not, so OK, so we get that.
One of the interesting trendsthat James and I are talking
about, obviously, is more andmore content going behind
paywalls.
People are beginning to valuequality content.
Finally, you know podcasting.
I've always called the secondclass digital citizen, because
the expectation is free, withads wrapped around it, right as

(01:15:10):
the way of monetizing it andadvertising isn't generating for
most people the type of returnthey need in order to grow.
So we are seeing a lot of moneybeing put into patreon member,
for we're seeing sub stack.
We're seeing a lot of youtalked about watch alongs again
people paying super chats, soit's very interesting.

(01:15:30):
Zateo is uh medihasan, who Ireally went onto Substack.
We had a couple of people talkabout not putting their content
onto YouTube because they wantto own the IP.
They don't want to lose controlof it.
So, as the IP creator, whatplatform are you going to put
your content through as thefilter?

(01:15:52):
Is it going to be on Substack?
Are you going to put it toPatreon?
Are you going to leave it tothe open podcasting world?
Are you going to go to YouTube?

I think, moving forward, and it depends on a
show to show basis.
I think one thing that we stillnot cracked in the podcasting
space and I've been obsessedwith podcasts since 2010, and
I've never seen the sort of thediscoverability challenge.
I know you guys talk about itregularly on the show, but the
person who cracks thatdiscoverability challenge is
going to be, you know, do verywell for themselves, but we're
not there yet.
So, fundamentally, I'm of thebelief that you need to go and

(01:16:21):
build an audience.
I'm of the belief that you needto go and build an audience.
You need to go and be wherepeople are.
You know, if people like Applepodcast, even though they
haven't done anything veryinnovative in the last 20 years,
apart from making BatterseaPowers for a night, then so be
it, and I'm one of those people.
By the way, I know that Spotifyhas got a bunch of new shiny
bells and whistles and they, youknow, serve me up clips and

(01:16:41):
blah blah, blah, blah.
I just don't like it as a userexperience.
I prefer apple.
So we need to be on apple, weneed to be on spotify, we need
to be on youtube.
However, there will beextensions and brand extensions
which will be put behindpaywalls, which will be behind
subscriptions, but I think it'salso got to fit.
So something like let me tellyou something, which is a very
varied entertainment basedpodcast.
I don't know because we're.

(01:17:02):
One week we've got you, youknow, catherine Ryan, who's
obviously a massive comedian,then we'll have UFC, then we'll
have football, then we'll have,you know, music with Lethal
Bizzle.
I don't think you're going toget the sort of audience that's
going to go right.
I'm going to pay for theadditional content because it's
so varied.
However, obviously, withJermaine's, again, there's a big

(01:17:24):
sort of market, a big marketopportunity.
With that.
I do think that there would bea lot of additional revenue
streams.
That could potentially bethings like, you know, being
behind a paywall.
Would it be a patreon?
Would it be?
If we're going to bring in anelement of fantasy football,
would we let people join ourleague?
Would we come and do watchalongs?
We would let people come and doyou know, can we do something
with the ballers league, forexample?

(01:17:45):
Well, I think that lends itselfmore towards it.
One of the big things and youknow they haven't re-invented
the will, but I think the restof this football has been very
much driven the growth of thatshow via a newsletter?
I mean, again, they haven'treinvented the will.
Newsletters have been a thing,but podcasters haven't
traditionally used them.
Does a show like Let Me Tellyou Something need a newsletter?
No, I don't think it does.
Does one about football?

(01:18:06):
Yeah, I think it will.
So we're going to do it on acase-by-case and a show-by-show
basis.
We won't be going one size fitsall.

Sam Sethi (01:18:13):
Right, let's chuck everything onto all the
platforms for six months andthen we'll do a half ananger and
the rest is is their suite ofpodcasts.
Are you going to go through themoniker of naming all your
shows in a very similar way toget a brand stable environment

(01:18:34):
of them so there's brandrecognition, or are you going to
go and individualize your shows?

the plan is to individualize them because the
people who are behind them areall individuals.
I think whatal Hangeraccidentally hit on with one
show name.
Really working has been abrilliant bit of branding.
Brilliant, to be fair, ourfirst episode, sorry, our first
show.
Let Me Tell you Something thatlends itself really nicely.
Let me tell you something aboutfootball.
Let me tell you something aboutboxing.

(01:19:01):
Let me tell you something about,but we'd already sort of
brokered the deal in a way thatthat wasn't going to work for us
.
So, because there's actuallyone of the sponsorship networks
who were in initial talks withlike that's a brilliant brand
and brand extension, I was likeyeah, it really is annoyingly,
but we can't really use it inthat instance.
I also think that I think thatthe rest is as a brand is good

(01:19:22):
because all the shows arebrilliant.
I don't think you necessarily.
You know, maybe 2% of thataudience growth is down to it
being part of.
The rest is stable.
The rest of it is down to itjust being really really good
content.
So, yeah, we're going to godown the individual option.
Had I have brokered the IPrights agreement, or let me tell
you something, that might be adifferent conversation, but

(01:19:43):
hindsight is 20-20.

Sam Sethi (01:19:50):
It is indeed.
Now look what keeps you awakeat night.
What?
What's the thing that worriesyou?
Is it?
Is it market saturation?
Are you going into a marketthat's a very congested space?
Is it?
Is it a revenue growth?
Do you fear that you know we'replateauing or there's much more
growth to come from podcasting?
What keeps you awake at nightwhen you start this idea?

I don't think anything really keeps me up at
night other than just literallythe workload of launching a new
show.
You know, anyone who's donethis before knows how much work
goes into it.
When you add into the fact thatyou've got sort of big name
talent, you've got lots oflogistics and there's a team
involved in it and all that kindof stuff.
So logistically it's been avery like fraught couple of
couple of months.
But in terms of what keeps meup at night, in terms of from a

(01:20:25):
fear perspective, I think we'vejust got so much further to go
with podcasts.
You look all the the stats youknow.
Still under 50 of people arelistening on a on a monthly
basis.
It's just over a quarter peopleare listening on a weekly basis
.
I I still think we're we're notquite blue ocean in the
podcasting space, but we'redefinitely not red ocean.
We may be like a bit of a murkybluey purple realistically, but

(01:20:47):
I also think that the creamwill always rise to the top.
It doesn't matter how busy thespace gets.
Great shows will find anaudience and there's a great
opportunity.
And the brilliant thing withhow we're doing it in terms of
shared ownership with our talentand shared IP with.
Our talent is that everyone'sgot a vested interest to pull as
hard as each other in the samedirection, and we're also in a

(01:21:08):
really fortunate positionbecause we've got, you know,
sort of.
We've already had three or fourpeople literally the last day
go oh it's amazing what you'redoing.
Can we work for you?
Three out of those four arecompletely not right for us as a
fit, so we're bootstrapping itand we're not taking on vc money
to get this up and running.
We can decide who and what wewant to work on really, so it's

(01:21:28):
just the only thing that we, Iguess, would keep up at night is
the, is the excitement aroundthe opportunity and how big this
can be.
Really excellent.

Sam Sethi (01:21:35):
So that's the way to do it.
Stay awake at night thinking ofbig dreams.
That's better than oh my godand fear yeah, james.
Look, congratulations on pivot.
Tell everyone if they want tofind out more about it.
Where would they go?

thank you, sam.
So they can go to pivotproductions group dot.
Co dot uk.
For more information, you cango and check out our first show
on the slate, which is let metell you something which is on
apple, spotify and youtube andnot behind any paywalls
excellent james burt.

Sam Sethi (01:22:02):
Thank you so much, mate.
Good luck and congratulations.

James Burt and you can become a power supporter
just like James atweeklypodnewsnet and join the
terrific 21.
More on that in a little bit.

Sam Sethi (01:22:17):
Now one new podcast that's launched this week that I
think is worth people wholisten to this show probably
listening to.
It's called's called pod bizand it's from a norma, gene
balenki and john kiernan.
Now pod biz is going to betalking about the business of
podcasting and focusing reallyon where's the money in
podcasting.

(01:22:37):
Have you had a chance to listento it yet, james?

I not.
Not just have I had a chance tolisten to it, I've had a chance
to be on it and I will be onlater on in the series.
Yeah, it's really good tounderstand where the money is
being made from podcasting now,but also looking at some of the
other revenue models.
So not just, you know,sponsorship and DAI and those

(01:23:00):
sorts of things, but also onother things as well, and those
sorts of things, but also onother things as well.
Probably not too much talkabout Podcasting 2.0 quite yet,
but I'm sure that as the seriescontinues, I'm sure that they
will be doing a little bit moreabout that.

Sam Sethi (01:23:16):
And related to that, there was a piece of information
that I think was put out by you, from John Spurlock says that
the funding tag, which is one ofthe things that we want to
focus on in making money, is thesecond most widespread of the
podcasting 2.0 features.
It's now available on 70,000podcast feeds.

Yes, it's very big, the funding tag and hurrah.
It will be really interestingto see what we can do to get
Marco Arment to put it back intoOvercast.
He came up with the idea kindof originally.
He was looking through podcastinformation to see if they
linked to Patreon or Buy Me ACoffee or a couple of the other

(01:23:59):
tools, and although he said thatfew people used it, well, yeah,
a few people use it, but fewpeople is better than no people.
So it'd be really interestingto see whether or not we can
convince him to put it back intothat podcast app, because
that's a big old podcast app,certainly on iOS.
The Tech Stuff on the Pod NewsWeekly Review.

(01:24:20):
Yes, it's the stuff you'll findevery Monday in the Pod News
newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.
There's a bunch of new apps,aren't there, Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:24:28):
So there's one out of Germany called Campfire.
I don't know if this is new ornot, and I don't think you do
either, james but it's calledCampfire.
You can join the community andchat with other fans and get
exclusive bonus content.
And yeah, again, I haven'tplayed with it.
I don't know if you've lookedat it.

It looks a bit like GoodPods plus Instagram.
If you put both of thosetogether.
It's got comments in there.
You can post pictures, all thatkind of stuff.
It looks very interesting and,I think, very bright of the
developers not to launch anEnglish version but to go
straight to a German languageversion, because obviously you
know, if you super serve aparticular part of the podcast

(01:25:10):
community, then you're going todo rather a lot better.
So I thought it was interesting, certainly to take a peek at.
I know that there've been many,many companies called Campfire
in the past, so this is justanother one of those.
But, yes, worth a peek if youspeak German, if you sprechen
sie Deutsch, which I do not.
So there we are.
Fountain also posting a newversion of its podcast app with

(01:25:34):
a nicer player design.
It's got video playback, hlsplayback, using alternate
enclosures.
So they're copying you there,sam.
No, no, no.

Sam Sethi (01:25:48):
As much as we had it a year ago're not copying, but
welcome to the party, but theydo it very, very well.

They've also added support for chromecast and
airplay, which is also a goodthing.
So, yes, so that was good toend up seeing what.
What was barry from pod homedoing?
Well?

Sam Sethi (01:26:02):
barry from Podhome, for those who don't know, is a
host and they're based out ofHolland or the Netherlands,
which one I never know Right.
Anyway, barry has been workingquietly on a listening app, and
so he's now just got in beta aniOS and Android app.

(01:26:24):
Congratulations, it'sinteresting.
This is a trend that I put inour prediction show back in 2024
, actually, I went back andchecked that I did, but I did,
and so I'm beginning to see thebeginning of it happen.
Look, we saw Fountain and RSSBlue, which are now called
Fountain Blue, although I don'tthink they've put out a press

(01:26:46):
release to you yet, have they?
I haven't, no, but unofficiallyacross the industry, it's now
Fountain Blue, and that's a hostdirectly combined with a
listening app.
And I think Barry here isanother one who's got Podhome.
I haven't seen his beta.
I tend to make a steer awayfrom doing that just till

(01:27:08):
they're available, but good luckto him.
Yeah, so I think it's aninteresting trend.
Indeed, looks good.
And lastly, podcast Addict putout a LinkedIn post which says
their beta build may fail toplay, which isn't great.
The workaround is to grantnearby devices permission in
settings.
A fix was published yesterday,but pending Google approval.

(01:27:31):
Good luck with that.
After answering 500 emailstoday, I've hit my Gmail daily
send limit and I cannot reply toany more users.
So, podcast addict, there is abeta out but it didn't work.
But you can do a workaround orwait for the next build.

Yeah, so many different ways to get in touch
with us.
You can use fan mail by usingthe link in our show notes, you
can use super comments on TrueFans boosts everywhere else, or
email, and we share the moneythat we make, sam and I.
It doesn't go to the rest ofthe 400 people in the pod news
empire, exactly That'd be nice,wouldn't it?
We've got some fan mail, whichis a thing that Buzzsprout.

Sam Sethi (01:28:21):
I don't know if it's fan mail.

It's a thing that Buzzsprout makes.
Yes, I don't think it is fanmail, is it, sam?
But anyway, it's that link thatyou'll find in our show notes.
It's free for everybody whouses Buzzsprout, and it converts
messages into texts and sendsthem straight through.
What does it say here?

Sam Sethi (01:28:43):
Hi James and I have an idea for you.
If you make a youtube newssting, we're sorry, but we have
more news about youtube on thepod news weekly review.
It's time to go smash the skipbutton.
Best devon from california, soI think she wants a.
I assume devon is a she, soapologies if it's a he but the.
They want a smash button interms of the jingle we have for

(01:29:06):
Spotify.
They want their jingle forYouTube.

Yes, yes.
Well, we'll consider that,devin.
That's good of you.
Thank you for getting in touch.
Also, a bunch of boosts, whichis always nice.
Seth sends in his 425 sats.
Listening to the show last weeksaying HLS sounds like an
awesome solution.
I'm really excited for it.
Yes, I think it should be goodif we can make the maths work,

(01:29:31):
which makes a bunch of sense.
A tonne from Silas as well.
We've had a total of what?
5,000 sats from Silas, which isnice.
What's he ended up sending?

Sam Sethi (01:29:43):
I call them the 20.
No, we won't say that it's avery rude word in the UK, that,
yes, it is indeed.
Well, it's a rude word anywherein the world really.
I call them the 20-somethingsbecause they annoy me with using
the government-mandated made-upcurrencies instead of the good
stuff.
Like me, I'm joking.
Of course I love all the powersupporters.

(01:30:04):
Yes, we love them too, but yes,they are.

They're using the government mandated, made up
currencies, things like poundsand dollars.
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you, silas, also sayinghey, james, since Visa and
MasterCard are the Internet'smoney.
Yes, and the Internet is peerto peer.
We should test how peer-to-peerthese cards are.
Please send your credit cardinformation so I can test if

(01:30:30):
it's peer-to-peer like an LNaddress and the internet.
I think I wouldn't necessarilyagree that the internet is
peer-to-peer in that way, buthe's added a little smiley thing
, so that's nice.
Anyway, silas, thank you verymuch for all of those.
Also, thank you to Justin, whois seemingly TrueFan's biggest
customer, given the amount ofsats that are flowing our way

(01:30:53):
now.
Thank you, justin Jackson, whosaid totally agree that PSP
certification needs to go beyond.
Is the tag visible in the RSSfeed?
This is what I was saying lastweek and talking about a better
form of certification which is alittle bit more fierce than
just.
Can you support it vaguely?
This is something we'll discussin Dallas.
You'll discuss in Dallas,justin.

(01:31:14):
I won't be there.
You don't allow journalists in,and nor should you, but having
more robust standards for tagsand XML formatting is something
that he will will do, and he hasalso given us another another
comment here for my cheekycomment good taste in shirts.
Well, I mean, you see, you knowhe's a he's, he's, he's a
fashionable chap, is young,young justin jackson, young

(01:31:38):
justin jackson.

Sam Sethi (01:31:40):
Yes, you sound like what's it?
Oh, I'll leave that.

Oh, I won't suggest what it was Too soon.
Yes, I wonder how old JustinJackson is.
That'd be an interestingquestion, I tell you what he's,
not Justin Jackson, the Canadianprofessional basketball player,
because he would only be 27.
I don't see colour, sam, hewould only be 27.
So I don't really know what'sgoing on there.

(01:32:07):
But anyway, that's quite enoughof that, and we should also say
thank you so much to Will Clark, who has become this podcast's
21st supporter, which isterrific news.
Will, thank you so much, will.
In case you don't know him, heproduces the Grey History

(01:32:29):
podcast.
History isn't black and white.
He says yes, absolutely correct.
So currently that is in aseries about the French
Revolution.
Will, thank you so much, reallyappreciate that.
That's very kind of you, andhopefully we will get the chance
to say thank you to you inperson one of these days.
So that's very kind.
Other people are in that listStar Tempest, ralph Estep Jr and

(01:32:53):
Brian Ensminger, and you canbecome a power supporter as well
.
Weeklypodnewsnet is where to go, or just press the funding
button in your podcast app.

Sam Sethi (01:33:03):
Yeah, it means they're now Vicinarians, james,
vicinarians Good, a personbetween 20 and 29 years old is
called a Vicinarian.
Well, I suppose a supersupporter or a power supporter
is called a Vicinarian at themoment.

Well, today I learnt.
So what's happened for you thisweek, Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:33:24):
And yesterday it hit the cutting room floor.

Yes, well, you never know.
Have you been?
Have you been walking again?

Sam Sethi (01:33:33):
yes, god, I'm tired of walking.
Now I want to get there.
I've got one leg left, one anda half legs.
So, yes, we're nearly there,god, it was hot, but we've done.
We're now beyond.
We're beyond Swindon, if youknow where that is, uh, you do,
of course, but if anyone elsedoesn't.
And we're nearly at sirensester, which is the end.

Yes, yes, swindon, of course, is where the
office was originally filmed.
The you, the uk version of theoffice a long, long time ago.
And not the only famous thingabout swindon about, possibly
about the only famous thingabout swindon, except, if't it
Possibly about the only famousthing about Swindon, except if
you go there now, theneverything has been knocked down
.
There's a very good YouTuberwho went and did a reshoot of

(01:34:13):
the office opening credits ofSwindon, how it looks now, and
there's even a Costa coffee inthere now in comparison to what
it was.
So, yes, there's a thing.
So you are True Fanzies on theApple Podcasts app store, which
is nice.
So it's been there for a weekor two.
Are you on the Google Playstore yet for the rest of the

(01:34:36):
world?

Sam Sethi (01:34:38):
I would love to say the answer was yes, but God, I
think I've screamed, shouted andswore a lot this week, but
according to Google, as of thismorning, I can now publish my
app to the Google Play Storethis morning, somehow.
I have no idea how I'm going todo that, because the buttons
I've seen there don't actuallysay publish or anything else.

(01:35:00):
So the Swahili code that Googlegive me, I will work it out,
but all I would say is Google isa total foster cluck.
That's what I think.

Nice, that was easy for you to say yes.

Sam Sethi (01:35:13):
I'll put the teeth back in later, but what's nice
about it?
We use just behind the curtain,we use PWA Builder, and so that
allows you to get all thebenefits of, you know, being in
the stores and some of theaccess to the hardware layer.
But what I found is we don'thave to submit changes to Apple
or Google, so we can now put newfeatures and functions in once

(01:35:37):
have been approved, into the appstores without having to get
their approval.
Happy bloody days.

Yes, that's quite a thing, isn't it?
So I mean, obviously they'llhave to approve it at some stage
when you have to make a newlogo for iOS 32 or something,
but until that point, yes, theywon't theoretically be taking a
peek, unless somebody hits thereport button or something, I
guess.
But still, there we are.

Sam Sethi (01:36:02):
It says yeah, they don't need to be republished to
their respective listings whenyou update the content of your
apps and I tried that this weekwith the iOS app and it worked
we added new features and itworked Excellent.
Happy days.
One of the other things we didwe have added a social web
capability.
We talked about this before.
It's all about discovery, andwhat we allow you to do is take

(01:36:28):
your activity stream, yourlisten time, percent completed
and value paid and choose whichsocial web end points you want
to publish that to.
So you might say I want topublish my play activity and my
comments to blue sky true fanssocial, which then gets copied
over to Mastodon, twitter or X,and so you can set up your

(01:36:49):
accounts and then chooseactually what's nice now, which
is new the percentage of timecompleted as well.
So instead of every activitybeing published to your social
web endpoints, you might sayonly publish things I've
listened to more than 50 or 60%of the time.
So you can now say you know thegranularity of the percent

(01:37:11):
completed as well.

Very nice.
Well, that's yes, it's alllooking very smart.
I noticed that there's Blue SkyX, LinkedIn and Threads, but
there's no Mastodon in in there.
Is that what you're callingtrue fan social?

Sam Sethi (01:37:26):
yes, because what we do is we have our own mastodon
or activity pub server right andwhat you do is you look up your
account through the search onmastodon and then you follow
that true fan social account Isee.

So you can't, you can't get it to add it to my
Mastodon account somewhere else.

Sam Sethi (01:37:47):
Not at the moment.
No.

Liam Heffernan (01:37:48):
You have to give it permission.

Sam Sethi (01:37:51):
Well, there you go.

It's all looking very smart and worth a play.
If you haven't already had aplay, True Fans is available on
the App Store.
If you have an iPhone, ifyou've got a real phone, then
you can.
I can't really say that nowI've got an iPhone no, you've
got a real phone, then you can.
I can't really say that nowI've got an iPhone no, you can't
A sponsored iPhone.

Sam Sethi (01:38:09):
Anyway, my little joke.
Yeah.
So, james, I spotted somethingthat happened for you this week
before you tell me all about it.
Really, james Clubhouse.

Are you on MySpace now?

Sam Sethi (01:38:20):
as well.
I mean geez Louise Tumblr.
What's your?

Tumblr account.
It's a podcast.
It's a podcast.
They just happened to record iton Clubhouse.
Mark Ronick ended up doing itthis week and it was a podcast
all about.
Well, it's called thePodcasting Morning Chat Podcast,
and they record it on Clubhouseevery day, 9pm my time, which
is 7am Eastern time, so theyrecord it and then they get it

(01:38:48):
out relatively quickly.
It's quite a fun little thing,and, yes, so I was there talking
about Podcasting 2.0, mainly,in fact, helping them understand
what Podcasting 2.0 is.
So that was a good thing.
You can find that in yourfavourite podcast app and if you
scroll down a little bit more,sam, you'll see the AI image
that Mark has made of me, whichlooks really good, doesn't it?

(01:39:10):
I mean that almost looks likeme.
Yes, yeah, it's very smart.
So, yes, that's quite a thing.
So thank you for that.
What else have you been doing?
I also wrote Sam Breakgeer orGaia, I don't know how to
pronounce his surname.
Anyway, he wrote in and saidI've talked about the microphone

(01:39:32):
that I use when I'm at home,but what's the microphone that I
use when I'm travelling?
And I started replying to himin an email and then I thought
hang on a minute, this is anarticle, so I stopped replying
to him in an email.
No-transcript and no prisonswhole podcasting setup that I

(01:40:27):
travel with when I am away fromhome.
Then you can take a peek at thesetup that I use on the Pod
News website, but it'sessentially one tiny little
microphone that I carry.
I don't carry anything else.
So there's the thing, andthat's it for this week.
All of our podcast stories, ofcourse, taken from the Pod News
daily newsletter at podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi (01:40:45):
You can support this show by streaming search.
You can give us feedback usingthe.
For this week, all of ourpodcast stories, of course,
taken from the Pod News dailynewsletter at podnewsnet.
You can support this show bystreaming search.
You can give us feedback usingthe Buzzsprout fan mail, like
Devin did this week In our shownotes.
You can send us a super commentor a boost or become a power
supporter, like Will did.
Like the Binesarian I probablykilled that already.

21 at weeklypodnewsnet yes, our music
is from tm studios, ourvoiceover is sheila d, and
there's that ai thing fromwondercraft, which is called
something else, but it doesn'texist.
So who cares?
Our audio is recorded usingclean feed, we edit using
kindenberg and we're hosted andsponsored by Buzzsprout.

(01:41:24):
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.
Get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnewsnet.

The voice at the beginning (01:41:33):
Tell your friends and grow the show
and support us, and support us.
The Pod News.
Weekly Review will return nextweek.
Keep listening.

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