You Can’t Milk A Cow And Expect Yogurt, But You Can Sell Washable Sofas

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcement (00:00):
The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters, and
so can you.
The last word in podcastingnews.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridlin and
Sam Sethy.

James Cridland (00:12):
I'm James Critlin, the editor of Pod News.
And I'm Sam Sethy, the CEO ofTrue Fans.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzz Sprout with the tools,
support, and community to ensureyou keep podcasting.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting with BuzzSprout.com.

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly
Review.

Sam Sethi (00:32):
I predict a bright future for Edison.
No reason.
I see what you've done there.
There he goes.
Thank you very much.
Yes, we have to get that one inearly.
Yes.
But are we going to predict abright future?
You know, a couple of yearsago, Tom Webster left.
We interviewed Edison Researchrecently, and they were telling
us how difficult it is to getthe funding for things like the
Infinite DAL, fundingsponsorship more.

Yeah.

Sam Sethi (00:56):
Is this a good acquisition for uh well, first
of all, who's acquired them andis it a good acquisition?

Yeah, I think it is a good acquisition.
They've been acquired by acompany called SSRS, who no one
will have heard of, but they'rea marketing and survey research
firm.
And they are, well, LarryRosin, who's the president of uh
Edison, describes SSRS as agreat and extremely like-minded
research company which sharesEdison's commitment to research

(01:24):
rigor and great people.
Larry is one of those peoplewho will normally email me if
I've ever carried any news storyabout uh research.
And he will normally email meand say, You got that bit wrong,
or why are you promoting thisnonsense research?
And uh and quite rightly too.
So I think that it does soundlike a good match.

(01:47):
The most interesting and mosthelpful part of that is that
Edison is retaining all of itspeople.
So as they move over to SSRS,and they've done it already,
they've got uh SSRS.com emailaddresses and everything.
So they've they've done it allproperly.
But as they move over, nobodyis being left behind, which is a
great thing.

(02:07):
So that's very good news forfor Edison, who you know really
do the gold standard researchfor the industry in a number of
different ways.
So it's good that they have along and assured future.

Sam Sethi (02:21):
So if they've got SSRS emails, will the brand
Edison retain the value?
Will it be the value brand thatthey put out, or will that
retain a new name?

I'm sure that Edison Research will be used for
a long, long time.
They've got a great name.
I mean, it's a weird company,Edison Research, because they do
two sets of research.
They do media research, sothat's research about radio as
well as about podcasting, andthey actually do quite a lot of
audiobook research.
And then they do the electionnumbers in the US.
So whenever you see theelection night, and there they

(02:57):
are with, you know, CBS News orNBC News or whoever it might be,
or CNN, whoever it might be,turning around and saying, we
predict that, you know, DonaldTrump is is in, or we predict
it's too close to call and allthat kind of stuff.
That is Edison ResearchNumbers.
So, you know, they're afascinating company because they
do two things which are kind ofthe same but not.

(03:19):
So it's interesting, you know,looking at that and seeing that
SSRS thought this is a companythat we want to get hold of.
And you know, and I think it'sum yeah, I think it's good news
for them as they go forward.

Sam Sethi (03:32):
Well, we wish them luck.
Now, talking of EdisonResearch, they've released their
top 50 podcasts for the US inQ3.
Anything good?

Joe Rogan's in there, Crime Junkie is in there.
So this is the top 50.
The most uh important thingabout this ranker is that it is
the only one that measureseveryone, and they measure
everybody by talking tothousands and thousands of
people continuously rightthrough the quarter.
So it's pretty good researchfrom that point of view, and you

(04:04):
can see how good it is becausethe figures don't change that
much.
So no change in the top four,Call Her Daddy at four, the
daily at three, Crime Junkie attwo, and the Joe Rogan
experience at one.
As you might guess, the CharlieKirk show was a tremendous
riser given that um much of uhSeptember was talking about him

(04:24):
and his legacy.
And so that has gone up anawful long way.
Interestingly, though, theMidas Touch podcast, which I
think is a left-leaning podcast,isn't it?
It is, has also entered the top20 for the first time as well.
So they're really good data,and you know, it's a really good
snapshot in terms of the mostpopular in terms of people, not

(04:45):
in terms of downloads, but interms of people, the most
popular podcasts that happen inthe in the US.
They also put a UK list out aswell.

Sam Sethi (04:54):
Moving on then, James, we talked about Spotify
Netflix, you know, doing a deal.
Seems that they're they're keento do more deals.
Who have they done another dealwith?

Yes, so uh Spotify has done another deal
with Samsung TV Plus.
So you will be able to tuneinto particular channels for
some of the Ringers shows.
I mean, it says only on SamsungTV Plus, but it's not only on
Samsung TV Plus, although Iguess you could claim that the
Fast Channel, so it'll appear asif it's a TV channel.

(05:24):
So the Fast Channel will beonly on Samsung TV Plus, I
suppose.
But yeah, so and myunderstanding is, you know,
talking to a few people at Southby Southwest last week, my
understanding is that there willbe more deals to be announced
relatively shortly.
So Spotify doing a lot ofdistribution deals with their
own shows, let's let's notforget, but with their own shows

(05:47):
doing an all an awful lot ofthese deals to get onto as many
different platforms as theypossibly can.

Sam Sethi (05:52):
Now, is there any issues with video podcasts
coming to Netflix?
Is it, you know, a nice simpledeal?

Yeah, I mean it's a it's a nice simple deal.
I mean, again, it's all ofSpotify's shows that they own
the rights for, and that's it.
But there's a newsletteractually comes out from down
here in Australia called AlwaysBe Watching, which is a really
interesting newsletter all aboutTV and media and all of that,
uh, written by Dan Barrett.
And he has said that Netflixhas a functionality problem in

(06:21):
that you can't play the audio onNetflix without the screen
being unlocked and the videobeing visible.
And that that's a pretty bigdeal if you want to consume
podcasts the way that quite alot of people consume podcasts,
which is, you know, with thescreen off, the phone in your
pocket, and away you go.
Now, uh Spotify, in terms oftheir numbers, it looks as if

(06:45):
30% of people don't watch thevideo while they are listening
to a video podcast, if you seewhat I mean.
It also looks as if uhtwo-thirds of people switch
between watching and listeningat different times.
So there's that big button atthe top of uh Spotify that lets
you turn on or off the video.
None of that exists on Netflix,and so always be watching was

(07:09):
very dubious that Netflix willbe a good podcast platform.
And then, of course, I thought,well, actually, YouTube works
in exactly the same way.
If you if you're not paying forYouTube, if you don't have a
YouTube premium account, thenyou can't play the audio in the
background at all with YouTube.
And so, you know, there's anissue there, I suppose, as well.

(07:30):
And YouTube is apparently thenumber one, as we are so often
told.
I'm still a bit dubious aboutthat, but nevertheless, so
perhaps it won't hurt Netflixparticularly much, but it does
go to show that the userexperience that you need for
audio isn't necessarily the sameas the user experience you need
for video, is it?

Sam Sethi (07:47):
I I I find you can't use YouTube without premium.
I it's just impossible.
It's about, you know, every 10seconds it feels like an ad will
pop up, or you put it in yourpocket and it it will just move
on to the next video.
It's totally useless without apremium account.
Yes.
The other thing I was gonna saywas that there's no CarPlay, is
there?
There's no options for Netflixor YouTube.

(08:08):
That would be bad driving andwatching videos, I get it.
Yes, but there's no audiocapability to put it into the
background.

No, so there's no car play, there's no Android
Auto on Netflix.
Of course, there isn't onYouTube either, but there is, of
course, on YouTube Music.
So if you're gonna listen onYouTube Music, I I was listening
to that, yeah uh using AppleCarPlay only a couple of hours
ago.
And so that bit works quitenicely.
So again, you know, it's notnecessarily going to be the user

(08:37):
experience that you wouldexpect from a podcast
consumption vehicle.
So it'll be interesting to seehow they perform, but of course
we won't know how they perform,will we?
So there is always that too.

Sam Sethi (08:48):
Now, related to video, it seems everyone else is
jumping on the bandwagon.
The latest one is our goodfriend Harry Morton at Lower
Street.
They've started their videoproduction service, James.

Yes, they have very entertaining video.
Founder and CEO Harry Mortonannouncing the company's
approach to producing video in afield with three cows,
seemingly in the pursuit of ametaphor about yogurt.
Here is that metaphor aboutyogurt.

Harry Morton (09:14):
You can't milk a cow and expect yogurt.

Very good.
Not sure.
Uh, it's yogurt in in America,isn't it?
So I don't suppose that'll havethat'll have translated very
well.
But anyway, Lower Street have aphilosophy that a video podcast
shouldn't just be a repurposedaudio recording.
So, you know, you can certainlyagree with that.
So it's a it's a fun video,it's quite funny, and yeah, I

(09:38):
think you know they they seem tobe saying please don't just do
you know crappy Zoom interviewsand release that as a video
because that's not really goingto do anything.
So uh I think they're probablyright there.

Sam Sethi (09:50):
Well, wait, that's what 80% of the uh political
podcasts are.
The rest is politics, the restis entertainment, the USA, news
agent.
I mean, the list goes on.

I think his argument is they will work much
better if they aren't like that.
And I think and I think I wouldprobably agree.

Sam Sethi (10:08):
But this feels like the arrow of direction, doesn't
it, for me?
We've interviewed recentlyAudio Always, ACAS, Fresh Air,
they're all doing video now.
And, you know, obviously withflight cars posting to video as
a hosting first video company.
I think can we predict, James,that those hosting companies or
production companies that don'tsupport video are probably going

(10:30):
to see their market shareshrink?

Well, I think we can probably predict that there
will be people interested invideo, but on the other side, I
mean, this is brandedpodcasting.
Branded podcasting isdifferent.
A lot of branded podcasting isdriven by ego.
It's driven by, you know, oh,we've got to pay a lot of money
to get some a decent podcast outthere.

(10:52):
The likes of you and me, youknow, it's very different.
And I have no interest in doingany video for this show.
Doubtless I'll get I'll I'llhave to get bullied into it at
one stage, but I don't reallywant to do anything that I
don't.
Oh, I don't know.
I don't know.

Sam Sethi (11:07):
Who knows?
Um I mean, if your wife saysthat you have to do video,
that's your not my fault.

But uh yeah, so you know, I I think I do think
it's the uh it's the weirdnature of the podcast industry
where you have one part of thepodcast industry which is very
much driven by whatever theclient wants.
And let's not forget, if you'remaking a video podcast, you can
charge more than if you'remaking an audio podcast.
So the likes of Lower Street,of course, want to promote video

(11:36):
because they'll get more money.
So we we shouldn't forget thatsort of side of it as well.
But I think um I think that youknow audio only podcast hosts
are probably going to be, youknow, quite happy for many years
to come, to be honest.
But I I I I'm not not sure thatyou necessarily share that.

Sam Sethi (11:54):
Uh no, I I think the long tail will always not go to
video.
I think it's too expensive.
I think the production costs,the editing costs, etc., etc.
I do think at the top of thecurve, the head, I think that is
just now a natural process nowbecause you're getting
algorithmic discovery, you'regetting parasocial, deeper

(12:15):
relationships, um, all of thosethings we've talked about in the
past.
I think video becomes prettymuch a given.
And going back to what you justsaid a few minutes ago about,
you know, you can put it on inthe background, Spotify seeing
people switching between audioand video.
I see my own children doingthat with YouTube.
I just don't see, I don't seewhy people wouldn't do it if

(12:37):
they can afford to do it.

Yeah, no, I can I can see a little bit of that
as well.
So it'll be fascinating to seehow it all works out.
I mean, in the WhatsApp groupthat you and I are in, the s the
super secret WhatsApp group, II do occasionally see, you know,
at least one voice going, well,it's it's the way the
podcasting is going.
And I I'm I'm just I'm not I'mI'm still not sure.

(13:00):
It's definitely the way thatsome podcasts are going, but I
don't think it's necessarily thetotal way.
And actually, the BBC has justreleased a bunch of figures for
BBC Sounds, and but they'vereleased another figure which is
pan BBC Audio, which includesthe visualized podcast that you
might see on the iPlayer.

(13:21):
So things like The TraitorsUncloaked and all of that kind
of thing.
It looks as if 4.8 millionpeople are listening to audio
every week through BBC Sounds,but 5.1 million, so that's only
another 300,000 people,consuming audio in both audio
and video, if you see what Imean.

(13:42):
So that's an o only another300,000 people who don't
currently listen to audio onlyshows.
And iPlayer is massive.
So I suppose you can look atthat and suggest that yes, video
is a useful thing to add moreaudience, but it doesn't
necessarily add a whole heap ofmore audience either.

(14:03):
So, you know, so who knows?

Sam Sethi (14:05):
Well, it's happening, and I think we just have to
observe it and watch whathappens at the end of the year
and our prediction show.

Now I think that's right, Sam.

Sam Sethi (14:15):
We should have him on soon.
Right.
Now, low orbit.
This is Oxford Road aresuggesting that uh advertising
works.
Now, I am that's how I read it.
Yes, that's how I read it.
Okay, I think there's more toit than that.
Um I I obviously stood on stagewith uh Rob Walsh and said that

(14:39):
I don't think it does work, butanyway, but there you go.
What do I know?
But Dan Granger, the CEO ofOxford Road, has come out with
something called Orbit, thefirst podcast ranker measured by
ad performance.
Okay, you need to tell me morebecause I've got an opinion
here.
Go for it, James.

Well, so they have looked at $1.6 billion
worth of podcast advertising.
They know what it's done toproduct sales, they know what
it's done to awareness and allof that kind of stuff.
They've got the data.
So what they can do from thisdata is to turn around and go,

(15:18):
which are the ads which work thebest?
And I think this is a reallyclever plan.
So instead of measuringpodcasts by the total number of
people listening or bydownloads, they're measuring it
by how good were the ads interms of performance.
And the weird thing about thisthis chart is well, the top

(15:40):
five, Lenny's podcast at five,the Monday morning podcast at
four, which I think is with BillBurr, the Megan Kelly show at
three, the David Pacman Show attwo, and Critical Role at number
one.
Those aren't big shows, withthe exception of the Megan Kelly
show.
So I find that that's quiteinteresting in terms of just
seeing the podcasts that reallyactually work in terms of

(16:03):
advertising.
Now you're going to turn aroundand say that all of this money
that that people spend onadvertising is totally wasted
because no advertising works,aren't you?

Sam Sethi (16:12):
No, not quite, but it's non-men non-measurable.
I mean, they're it they'reinferring that because there's a
spend related to advertising,they don't know about the
awareness.
They have no trackability in itat all.
You know, I I'm sorry.
I I still think we as anindustry don't provide the
tools.
I've heard about the vast tag,I've heard about DAI.

(16:34):
I'm sorry.
There is a lot of Emperor's NewClothes in this.
This is a belief system that itworks.
And while there's a beliefsystem, people are putting money
in.
And I've seen how corporatecompanies work.
There'll be a spreadsheet thatsays you have to spend so much,
and they will then go to the topfive or ten podcasts because
that's safe, and they'll go andput their money there, and then

(16:55):
they'll go back to their bossand report, yes, we put our
money there, and it worked.
And they have no measurement toprove it worked, but they will
continue to believe it.

They've got plenty of measurement, they've
got measurement in terms of interms of sales.

Sam Sethi (17:07):
How long do they listen to the ad for?

Which you nobody knows.
Well, but that bit actuallydoesn't matter.
Really?
The thing that matters is howmany people are buying the
widget, or if if I was going tobuy a widget tomorrow, has have
I changed which brand I'm goingto buy?
Those are the two things.
And those are infinitelymeasurable.
You ask you ask a set of peoplebefore the ad runs, you ask a

(17:29):
set of people after the ad runs.
If there's a if there's a bigdifference, of course it's a
sample.
But you but but that's that'sthe way that everything works.

Sam Sethi (17:36):
Well we were promised No, we were promised in the
digital age when the web wasborn that you know, online
trackability, because it'sdigital, we will know everything
about what's been done.
It's never been proved andnever happened.

No, but uh but on the same way, there's plenty
of money spent on radio thesedays, there's plenty of money
spent on TV, there's plenty ofmoney spent in the same belief
system.
So you're basically saying thatno advertising works.

Sam Sethi (17:59):
No, advertising works, but okay, here's a here's
a good example, right?
I went into London the otherday, went up on the tube, uh,
passed numerous buses, pastbillboards, got to the theatre.
Could I recall any single ad?
No.

No, that that that's got nothing to do with
that's got nothing to do withwith whether advertising works.
That's just that that that'sjust got something to do with A,
how observant you are, and alsoB, are you are you actually Are
you actually in the market forany of these things at the
moment?
Well what is weird is if youstart being interested in, I
don't know, buying a new car,because you know that your lease

(18:36):
is up and you and you're gonnabuy a new car.
Yeah, what's weird is all of asudden you start being
interested in the car ads thatyou see on television and you
and you start noticing the carads in the papers.
Yes, because all of a suddenyou're in the market, and and
the same goes, this is this iswhy nobody could change
cigarette brand back when peoplesmoked.

(18:58):
Nobody would change cigarettebrand because you have to hit
people three times or more intheir buying cycle.
And a buying cycle for amoderate smoker is buying a pack
a day.
Well, buying a pack a day,you're never going to hit people
three times in three differentdifferent places, which is the
one which is why nobody reallyswitched switched to brand of

(19:20):
cigarettes.
And the same thing, you know,happens for pretty well anything
else.
You you you have to be in theyou know, in the mind frame to
be, you know, to be going in.
But there's so much data outthere showing that, you know, if
you advertise on X Podcast oron X TV show or you sponsor X TV

(19:41):
show, then your brand lift, youthe amount of people that will
consider your brand the nexttime they want to buy whatever
it is that you sell goes up.
There's loads of researchshowing that.

Sam Sethi (19:53):
I'm sure there is.
And I know I I'll say my wifewatches Great British Bake Off,
and there's a sponsor for thatshow.
Can't recall it, no idea, can'tremember it.
You are the one whominterviewed Maya Prohovnik from
Spotify and asked her theawkward question, which was if
people are paying for premiumSpotify and not getting ads,

(20:13):
then what is the advertisergetting, right?
So you and I pay for YouTubePremium, I pay for Spotify, I
pay for so many other servicesto get rid of ads.
So where are ads appearingwithin our workflow or our
listening paper?

Well, I mean, ads are I I'm I'm still seeing
ads.
I'm not seeing as many adsthese days, but I'm still seeing
ads in various in variousareas.
By the way, Waitrose sponsorsthe Great British Bake Off.

Sam Sethi (20:39):
Thank you very much.

I just thought I'd let you know.

Sam Sethi (20:43):
In the UK I go there every week, but I can't recall
seeing the seeing thesponsorship of the ad, yeah.
Okay.

Yes.
And if you're in Great America,Great America Shire, then what
we're talking about here is theGreat British Cooking Show.
Right.
Because apparently, becauseapparently Bake Off is a
registered trademark in in theUS.
And there was a lot of verycomplicated CGI stuff.
When they hand over thetrophies at the end of the at
the end of the show, there's alot of very complicated CGI

(21:12):
stuff to hide the words bake offand to replace it with
something else.
Because yeah, bless them.
Anyway, uh, yes.

Sam Sethi (21:20):
Anyway, nevertheless I agree.

I mean, only only because you're wrong.

Sam Sethi (21:24):
We'll see.

And on that subject, Spangellin AI has
released its uh list of toppodcast companies for September
2025.
Would you like to hear thenumber one company, Sam setting?

Harry Morton (21:39):
Can I guess?
Can I guess?
Blue Apron.
It is not Blue Apron.
Better Health.
It is not Better Health.

Sam Sethi (21:46):
Okay, I give up because that's the only two I go
to.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?
Washablesofas.com has yourback.
Featuring the anime collection.

Yes, washable sofas.com.
I'm told I'm not allowed tomake a JD Vance joke here.

Sam Sethi (22:03):
I was about to say, he's got to be he's got to sell
that.

Oh no, washable sofas.
That's $7.2 million.
What are the Americans doing?
Selling Americans washable.
What are the Americans doingwith their sofas?
And would they please stop?

Sam Sethi (22:23):
There we go.
That would be that would be thebest ad ever with JD Vance
doing that.

Let's go around the world, shall we?

Sam Sethi (22:33):
I just proved my point.
Right.
In the UK, over 400 podcastingand audio businesses have signed
an open letter to the UKgovernment.
What have they signed it for,James?

Well, they are wanting legal recognition as
part of the creative industriesstrategy.
I know, I know, it's reallyboring.
Well, actually, it's kind ofnot, because if they get
recognition in the creativeindustries strategy, then that
means that they get a bunch ofquite useful things.
They get a bunch of tax breaks,they get a bunch of

(23:09):
consultation into what thefuture is.
Uh, the government is on theirback, the government recognizes
that they are part of thecreative industries.
Right now, nothing to do withaudio, including podcasting, is
part of that creativeindustries.
So Audio UK doing a really goodjob of basically needling the
UK government to say, hey, weexist, by the way, and you need

(23:32):
to be recognizing us.
Actually, uh, news also thisweek of the International
Podcast Alliance, which is AudioUK plus similar people in
France, Belgium, Quebec, andSweden.
Slightly weird list.
But the International PodcastAlliance is essentially the
alliance of companies like AudioUK, so that they're all working

(23:54):
for legal recognition, fairplatform practices, which is
interesting, not quite sure whatthat means, access to public
funding and a fragmentedecosystem is what they're trying
to fix.
But yeah, so a lot of workingtogether, both in the UK and
internationally, in terms ofthat.

Sam Sethi (24:11):
We interviewed Chloe Straw probably six months ago.
I think she was pushing forthat as well.
I can see the reason to do it.
Other countries are spending alot of money.
The Middle East, India arespending a ton of money.
I think India put one billionUS dollars into podcasting last
year.
So I think, you know, come on,UK government, let's get this

(24:33):
done, really.

Yeah, no, indeed.
Indeed.

Sam Sethi (24:36):
Now, global, we mentioned them briefly.
They've got global studios now,but they've put a bit of a meat
on their announcement.
What have they said?

Yeah, they have.
They ran their first everupfronts, which is weird because
they are a large, largecompany, and for them not to
have run upfronts in the past toadvertisers probably says
things are changing in terms ofthe of the advertising industry,
which of course, according toyou, Sam, doesn't exist.
But um Maybe they just don'tvalue them, you know, maybe up

(25:07):
launching a new sportsentertainment division, which is
called Sports by Global.
They've launched a new podcastfrom Emily Maitless.
She's talking about the blood.
No, she's talking about theblood scandal.
There was an infected bloodscandal in the UK, which I'm
sure that you know all about,and I don't really.
And the company's also launcheda thing called Global IQ, which

(25:29):
is what pretty well everysingle broadcaster is launching,
a data and effectivenessplatform to bring together
first-party data, advancedanalytics, and AI-driven
creative optimization tools.
But yeah, it looked very smartfrom the from the images that I
have seen of that particular ofthat particular event.
Curious that they ran itliterally a day before the

(25:51):
latest radio figures.
Because surely you would haveturned around and gone, and you
know what?
The new radio figures are outtoday, and we've got some good
news, because there's alwaysgood news in radio figures.
So I was um a little bitcurious by that.
They do have good news by theway, Radio X now has its biggest
numbers, although Hart hasslipped a bit.
But anyway, they seem to bedoing very well and talking

(26:13):
about numbers, BBC Sounds, Imentioned their quarter three,
25 audience figures.
Their total plays in the UK upto 675 million a year.
So that's up 8.5% for the BBCSounds app.
So they seem to be doing verywell there.
But since they've closed BBCSounds internationally and

(26:35):
they've made a bit of a balls upof the whole thing, total
international podcast downloadsare actually down from 213
million to 212 million, so notdown very much, but nevertheless
not up 8.5%.
So the BBC, in terms of theirpodcast strategy, still don't
really understand it.
What I find bizarre is sixmonths after, nearly six months

(26:58):
after BBC Sounds was closed, I'mstill hearing promos in
international podcasts promotingthe fact that I can listen in
the BBC Sounds app, which Ican't.
It's not complicated to fixthat.
So I really don't understandwhat they're doing, but I mean
they don't listen to me anymore.

Sam Sethi (27:15):
Nobody hears the ads, nobody actions the ads, it's
okay.
Just spend the money.
What the hell?
There's no tractability.

Just give the money to me.

Sam Sethi (27:24):
Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying.
No one knows.
Anyway, advertising works.

Yes.
Anyway, thank you to oursponsor, Buzz Sprout.
Yes.

Sam Sethi (27:34):
Um sponsorship works because it's you and I
mentioning direct recall.
We talk about product andpeople understand, they trust
us, it's parasocial.

Well, talking about talking about sponsors, I
am currently reading out allabout supporting cast being a
Swiss Army knife for podcastsubscriptions.
You can publish blog posts andvideos, you can send
newsletters, you can build amembers-only community and
deliver exclusive audio all inone place.
You'll find more informationabout Supporting Cast on the Pod

(28:08):
News website.
Why have I mentioned that?
Because the Verge's podcastsare now available ad-free for
its subscribers.
So if you pay to read TheVerge, then I spent 15 minutes
trying to work out who was doingthis, and it turned out to be
Supporting Cast.
No, nobody sent me a pressrelease or anything, but still,

(28:28):
there we are.
So uh yeah, so I think thatthat is pretty good.
And this is where you thinkthat all all advertising money
should be going.

Sam Sethi (28:36):
Not all advertising money, but I do think it's a
again, the arrow of direction.
I think Patreon, I thinksupporting cast, I think
memberful, I think these typesof community-driven sites where
you can brand it with your ownURLs, you can put merch, you can
put blogs.
I think that's, in my humbleopinion, the way that people are

(28:56):
going to go forward.
They want to own their onlinepresence, but not just
podcasting and video, but all ofit, live events, ticketing.
And I think these companies,supporting cast being one, are
doing a great job.
And that's where I think youbuild fandom and brand
community.

Yeah, no, I think I think so.
And I think, you know, I mean,the the difference, the big
difference, of course, betweensupporting cast and say Apple is
that supporting cast, you canactually see who your
subscribers are.
You've got their emailaddresses, you know, all of that
sort of thing.
So that's all that's all quitehelpful.

Sam Sethi (29:33):
And of course, it's the same, it's the same, James,
with Spotify and YouTube, right?
YouTube, you can't really buildcommunity in there.
There's no blog, there's nothere is a bit of merch, there
is I mean, there's elements ofit, but you are in very clearly
a YouTube world, same asSpotify.
Whereas you can go into thesesites, these memberful sites,

(29:53):
sporting cast, etc., and you cancustomize them.
They don't look like you knowthe standard.
Cut and paste from let's say aYouTube.
You land on a YouTube page andanother YouTube page, you're all
very clearly in the YouTubeworld.
And that's where I think thedifference is.
YouTube's great for discovery,algorithmic discovery.
I think same with TikTok, samewith you know many other shorts

(30:17):
and reels.
But I don't think that's whereyou want to build, you know,
your community because it can bejust removed from you.

Yeah.
No, indeed.
Indeed.
It's uh always the scary thing.
So always build your own.
It's always a good plan.
Anyone moving in grooving,James?
Well, ACAST has appointed a newCFO.
His first name is Anders, hislast name is H, and then A with
an umlaut, and then G G.
How do you pronounce that, Iwonder?

(30:44):
Hag.
As in Hagendas.
You think?
Yeah, but Hagendas is just madeup, though, isn't it?
Hagendas isn't isn't real.

Sam Sethi (30:51):
Well, I wouldn't tell Anders that.

Here's a website called Forvo and a man called
Anton Pedersen, who's fromSweden, who's going to tell us
how to pronounce it.

HÄGG (31:02):
Haig.

Hague.

HÄGG (31:03):
Hague.
Hague.
Haig.
Hague.
Okay.

All right.
Anders Haig will join thecompany early next year.
Now, where has Anders movedfrom?
I'm sure you'd love to know.
Well, he's moved fromMcDonald's, because of course he
has.
So he was CFO of Food Folk,which is McDonald's in the
Nordics.
He's also worked at Arla Foods,which makes all kinds of
things, Unilever and ScandyStandard.

(31:26):
So he will be changing to avery different industry.
The current CFO, Emily Villat,who I once uh who I once dared
to use the the Swedish wordsmorgasboard in a financial
report, and she did, which Ithought was brilliant.
She is she is going.
So yeah, so new and excitingthings going on in in uh ACAST

(31:50):
with Anders.

Sam Sethi (31:51):
Hey.

I'm a fan of that.

Sam Sethi (31:54):
Now sadden you, so chalk and blade is to close,
James.

Yes, they are a well radio and podcast
production company.
Chalk and Blade, of course, isuh how you used to edit uh audio
with a blade and with chalk onmagnetic tape.
That's a skill that I can stilldo.
Totally useless skill.

Sam Sethi (32:13):
But still I was gonna say you've not been asked to do
that for how many decades?

I have not.
I have not.
Now, if you uh if you if you'rethere with your with your
blades, with your razor blades,playing around with uh chalk,
you'd you you'd uh you you'd betaken to the to be uh told off
anyway.
Chalk and blade, yes, sad newsfor them.
The 10-year-old productioncompany is winding down.
Now they've still got somelaunches still to come, and we

(32:40):
will see some of those, but theyare closing gradually and
dignifiedly by the end of March.
So good luck to everybody whois uh currently working there.
Awards and events, the BlackPodcasting Awards, celebrating
its 2025 winners, a first everin-person ceremony, which is
quite a thing.
Anna DeShaun winning fourhonours, including the

(33:03):
prestigious Legend Award.
There's an award that I want.
And fellow indie podcasterLisa.
But you trump.

Sam Sethi (33:12):
I want a Nobel Prize, give me one.

Yes, I'll have that.
And uh Lisa Woolfork fromStitch Please got three awards
in essentially all three of hercategories as a full list on the
Pod News uh website.
So many congratulations to theBlack Podcasting Awards.

Sam Sethi (33:29):
Yeah, I liked looking at what the awards were, and I
did a little bit of researchinto how it all started.
It was great.
It started in a tweet onFebruary the 15th, 2020, where
it went, F it.
Let's start our own BlackPodcasting Award.
Nobody sees us till it benefitsthem.
So hell with them, which wasTracy Clayton.
Yeah, you know, if you can'tbeat them, start your own one.

(33:52):
So yeah, it's good to see thatthe awards have developed.
We were hoping to have somebodyon from the awards to talk
about it this week.
Shh, sadly, they're not goingto be available this week.
So yeah.
But uh, congratulations to allthe winners.

Yeah, no, indeed.
I think that that's a finething.
And it must have been great tohave actually been there with a
bunch of, you know, with a witha bunch of other people actually
doing that um in real lifeinstead of on the end of a Zoom
call.
So that's a good thing.
Talking about awards, if youwant to win a Golden Globe Award
for your podcast, then mygoodness me, this sounds like a

(34:28):
racket.
I'm sure it isn't, he says,being very legally careful.
But there's a report by acompany called Status.
They have a uh they've got holdof a deck from a company called
Penske Media.
Now, Penske Media runs theGolden Globes, it runs Variety
Magazine and a bunch of othermagazines.
And what it wants to do is itis selling a Variety Creative

(34:52):
Impact Award.
It's only 75 grand, Sam, if youwant to get our name in front
of the judges.
Yeah, only 75 grand.
But we, I mean, it's aguaranteed award because you're
paying for it.
So that so you can buy coveragein a Penske Media magazine in
order for you to perhaps bechosen as an award winner in a

(35:15):
Penske Media Run award ceremony.
I don't know.
I'm I'm not too convinced aboutthis, particularly given that
the eligibility list is a listof all kinds of people from Joe
Rogan and Megan Kelly to peoplethat perhaps would really
appreciate a creative impactaward.
People like Tucker Carlson,people like Ben Shapiro.

(35:37):
So I'm not quite sure what'sgoing on there.
I mean, obviously, you know,it's uh Status's story and not
mine, but yeah, that very muchlooks as if that is an award
which is up for sale.
And it's not good news forawards in general if if award
organizations do that sort ofthing.

Sam Sethi (35:56):
No.
Now look, we were just talkingabout the uh black podcast
awards.
Stephen Bartlett, he's a busyboy, isn't he?
He's started something calledLegacy Black.
It's set to become the world'sleading media brand for black
entrepreneurship, business, andwealth.
The goal is to drive over $100billion of economic impact.

(36:17):
It was co-founded with Dr.
Ralph Safuluk.
I don't know him, but he isbasically running the UK Black
Business Show.
This sounds very good.
It sounds like an initiativethat clearly Stephen wants to
get behind recognizing blackentrepreneurship, which I think,
you know, again is somethingthat sadly gets missed quite a

(36:40):
lot.
So congratulations to Stephen.

Yes, I think this looks really good.
I mean, it's typical StephenButler, typical flight story,
you know, slight over egging ofpudding here, talking about uh
the bold ambition to drive over100 billion pounds and all this
kind of stuff.
But nevertheless, it issomething that that that uh
clearly needs to be done.
So yeah, that looks uh reallygood.

Sam Sethi (37:04):
And again, related to this, as South Asian female
podcasters shine on the Bali.
By the way, happy the Bali toyou, James.
You know, being the world'sbiggest coconut that I am, I
really don't celebrate it.
But hey, you know, what can Isay?
The the whole thing about itthough is that there was a
lovely shot of six female Indianpodcasters who are, you know,

(37:28):
doing great work.
You've got Veenia, Priti, uhSmith Ajoshi, uh Reshmat Hadnan,
and Anjali Siddha, and ofcourse, friend of the show,
Sangita Pilal, who they've gottogether.
It's a very cool, if you if youget the luxurist, which I
don't, um I'm glad that youclarify that.
Yes, just in case anyonethought, there's a lovely photo

(37:52):
of all six of them intraditional Indian dress.
But really, what they're tryingto do is highlight again an
underrepresented community.
74% of South Asian or blackwomen in the UK felt
underrepresented in inpodcasting.
That was a Spotify study.
And I think you did one aswell, which said 57% of
multicultural women who listento podcasts wish there were more

(38:13):
shows focusing on women ofcolour.
So I think what they're tryingto do again, a bit like Stephen
with you know Legacy Black, Ithink they're trying to raise
the awareness of multiculturalcommunities in popularity.

Indeed, and a very wise thing to do.

Sam Sethi (38:29):
Events, James, anything going on?

Anything going on?
Well, if you want to know howto win awards, then City
University of London.

Sam Sethi (38:38):
£75,000, yes.
You're told.

£75,000, yes.
No, better awards than that.
You can go and see some awardwinners uh for the from the
British Podcast Awards at CityUniversity.
It's the 11th of November.
You'll find more details atpodnews.net slash events.
Also, the On Air PodcastBusiness Summit in LA is back.
Uh November the 12th is when itis on.

(39:02):
Ashley Carmen is looking aftermuch of that.
There are speakers from theMidas Touch, speakers from well,
there's the manager of TheoVaughn, which is very exciting.
Janine Wright, everybody'sfavorite AI podcast company CEO.
She will be there doing adebate about AI in podcasting.

(39:23):
And uh you have veryexcellently booked Ashley Carmen
for after the event, so we canfind all of the tea in terms of
what happened there.
Indeed.
And finally, Soundwave's ofcourse also happening in County
Limerick in Ireland in November,which is a summit for music,
podcasting, and contentcreation.
Go back to episode 35 of seasonthree, and you'll find Dylan

(39:46):
Haskins in this very show.
And the IAB.
Now, interestingly enough, theIAB is making changes next year.
So IAB New Fronts is moving aweek after South by Southwest in
March, and they're pushing theIAB Podcast Upfront in with
similar events for gaming andinfluencers into an event that

(40:10):
they're going to be calling IABCreator Fronts.
And that will be held uh inmid-September in New York City,
which of course is when PodcastMovement is going to be held in
mid-September in New York City.
Now, we still don't have anyword on a confirmed venue or any
dates for that.
So not still not very surewhat's happening with Podcast

(40:32):
Movement in New York, butthere's still plenty of time to
get all of that stuff sortedout.
Podcast Movement, the nextpodcast movement event, by the
way, of course, will be at Southby Southwest in uh March.
And news on that in the nextcouple of weeks.
So all kinds of uh entertainingthings going on in September.
It's going to be a busy, busy,busy month.

Sam Sethi (40:53):
And finally, the Ambies submission deadline has
been extended to November the28th.
So you can still enter if youwant to join the Ambis Awards.

The Tech Stuff.
Tech Stuff on the Pod NewsWeekly Review.

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday
in the Pod News newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.

Sam Sethi (41:12):
Well, we're going to start with you, James.
You have been busy, busy, busy.
You've been updating the PodNews daily website.
What have you been doing?

Yes, so we have episode lists on our podcast
pages, and we are now supportingthe podcast location tag for
creators.
So if you are posting fullversion 2025 tags, which have uh
open street map IDs and variousother things in there, then
your your recording locationswill appear.
Hooray in that episode list.

(41:42):
And um, so there are a bunch ofpodcast hosts that support the
version 2025 version of podcastlocation.
Buzzsprout doesn't, but rss.comdoes.
I'm an advisor.
Adam Curry likes it when I saythat.
And there are and there areother organizations which are
supporting that as well.
So and I'm on the hunt for apodcast which is already

(42:06):
supporting the rel equalssubject.
So that's the this podcast isabout thing.
And I'm trying to find podcaststhat support that so that I can
um work on the code for that aswell.

Sam Sethi (42:16):
Did you automate the location of recording into your
pod news daily?
Because you were doing thatmanually at one point.

I was doing it manually, yes.
No, I've written all of thecode for that.
So yeah, so the way that itworks in the RSS feed is as per
the spec, there is one in thechannel, and that is the
default, which says Brisbane,Australia.
And then if I'm anywhere else,then I just type in the name of
the place where I'm in, and itgoes off and finds all the

(42:45):
information for that and sticksit into the in into the RSS
feed.
And in fact, over the lastcouple of days, I've I've I've
also been changing all of thelocation information that I use
elsewhere, so that I'll behaving the OpenStreetMap IDs in
there as well as the you knowthe geo links and all of that
kind of stuff, so that in futureI can support that tag all over

(43:06):
the place.

Sam Sethi (43:06):
So let's have that discussion again, James.
Why OpenStreetMaps versusGoogle or Apple Maps?
Why?

Because OpenStreetMaps is open for a
start, and uh it's not owned byanyone.
I mean it's opened by theOpenStreetMap Foundation, but
that's it.
Whereas Google or Apple areclosed and nobody can really
edit them other than Google orApple.
But the other sort of side ofit is you can do so much more

(43:32):
with something that isn't just apoint on a map.
So a point on a map is fine,but it doesn't tell you anything
about what that point is.
Um, just a geo, you know, alatlon point.
Whereas if you're usingOpenStreetMap IDs, then you can
actually go, oh, that is the IDfor a cathedral.
And there seems to be anotherfive IDs for cathedrals here.

(43:56):
So I can put in a page on mywebsite which is find all of the
podcasts about cathedrals ifI'm running a cathedral website.
So you can begin to do somereally interesting ways into
podcasts by using much more richinformation, and all of that
comes back to the OpenStreetMapID.
I could have used the GooglePlaces ID, that would have been

(44:19):
absolutely fine as well.
But you know, again,OpenStreetMap can be, you can
download the entire databaseonto your own machine and and
and use all of that if you like.
So, yeah, so that's whyOpenStreetMap rather than Google
or Apple, and why ideally, ifyou see an OpenStreetMap ID in a
podcast location tag, youshould be linking to somebody

(44:41):
that uses OpenStreetMap becauseyou'll get a much better map out
of it.
You'll actually get instead ofa point, when somebody says I'm
recording it in Paris, insteadof a point, it'll actually draw
all of Paris for you.
So that makes much more sensebecause you know the point will
just be wherever the you know,wherever the system thinks that

(45:01):
Paris, the the centre of Parisis, it'll be Notre Dame, I'm
sure.
But actually, you don't wantthat.
You want you want uh, you know,for it to actually show all of
Paris because it was recordedthere, and that's very different
from recording in deliberatelyin the Notre Dame Cathedral, if
you see what I mean.
So so yes, OpenStreetMap forthe win, or indeed any ID for

(45:25):
map objects, but uh preferablyone that's uh open.
So so that's that.

Sam Sethi (45:30):
Cool.
Now, Justin Jackson, friend ofthe show, he's heading up the
podcast standards project.
He's suggesting a new processfor adopting new features and
standards.
What's he uh what's he said,James?

Yeah, he's basically saying, and I uh you
know, I've not spoken to Justinabout this recently, but my
suspicion is that he's got somepushback from some people about
HLS, some piece some pushbackabout you know various other
things to do with the podcaststandards project.
And he's I think realized thatyou need a system to get a broad

(46:06):
consensus on whether or not youshould adopt a new feature.
So it's fine turning around andsaying, well, I think we should
support HLS.
Who's with me?
But actually, that's not goingto be particularly helpful to
anybody, really.
So so actually having a plan onhow you adopt a new feature,
how you put one through for, youknow, for for consideration,

(46:28):
how it gets voted on, all ofthat kind of stuff.
That's a grown-up thing to do.
It shouldn't be up to Justin interms of or Dave Jones or
whoever it might be to choosewhat the next standard is going
to be.
It should be up to theindustry.
And I think that all all ofthis makes a bunch of sense,
actually.

Sam Sethi (46:47):
Look, I I I've got a close understanding of how that
was all working, because youknow, I put my hand up to try
and do the evangelistic role.
It's a dedicated role,actually.
It's not, you know, here's anevent, let's all meet up, let's
chat about it, and let's nottalk about it for six months.
It just can't work that way.
And it's an education role aswell, because you know, the

(47:09):
person who's in charge has to goto companies, media production
houses, agencies.
We still haven't really got anyof the big events, podcast
movement or the London PodcastShow, to give a dedicated
podcasting 2.0 track.
I mean, we're trying, we hopeit'll happen this year, but it's
not happened.
You know, so what do you get?

(47:29):
You get, oh, let's talk aboutAI, let's talk about
advertising, let's talk aboutvideo, rinse and repeat.
So I think Justin, you know, Icongratulate him for taking on
the role.
But there's so much more.
You know, one of the thingsthat I wanted to propose before
the podcast taxonomy was createdages ago, back in 2020.
It was done by a totallydifferent group of people who

(47:52):
aren't involved in podcastinganymore.
The website doesn't evenproperly work, and we haven't
extended the podcast person tag.
We don't have access to thattaxonomy.
That should be under the PSP.
The podcasting2.org site thatyou and Daniel J.
Lewis are working on.
Again, great resource, but thatshould also come under that.

(48:13):
We won't see HLS videoadoption, just there isn't a
need, there isn't a bite, peoplearen't wanting it within the
podcast community.
It just doesn't feel like thatthat's gonna go anywhere.
And you talked about it lastweek, you know, there is a
podcast font.
Where's that?
What's what's going on withthat?
Who owns that?
Where is it?
I looked it up, and obviously,you know, I was gonna look in

(48:35):
and say, well, should shouldTrueFans switch to it, you know,
based on what you were saying?
It's half there, half notthere.
We can't use it fully, so we'renot going to.
We talked last week aboutpodcast standardization of
icons.
Again, something the PSP coulddo.
Again, none of this is gonnahappen, James, sadly, because no
one's dedicated to it.
Justin's got his own company torun.

(48:56):
It's just, I'm sorry, untilthis becomes someone's full-time
dedicated job, then it won'thappen.
And there doesn't seem to be aninclination right now for
anyone to put any money into akitty to fund an individual to
do this job.
And so we'll have lovelyconversations and we'll all meet
up and we'll go for lunch andwe'll talk about what we should

(49:19):
do, and I'm afraid nothing willhappen.

Yeah, I think that that is fair enough to a
degree, but I think also, youknow, it's not it's not just an
evangelist's role, it's it'sactually making sure that we are
all going in the samedirection.
And if we're not even going inthe same direction within the
PSP, then you know, then we'vegot problems there anyway.

(49:43):
So I I think there's a lot ofreally good there's a lot of
really good ideas coming out.
Quite a lot of the ideas, weseem to be building stuff
ourselves instead of lookingaround and seeing what some of
those ideas are.
I don't agree with you in termsof the the person taxonomy.
There was a there was a groupset up to produce that taxonomy.

(50:09):
It existed, it was it was stuffthat people had worked on, and
there's absolutely no point inus building our own.

Sam Sethi (50:16):
No, but there's no extensibility to it.
Right.
So I spoke to Julie Costello alittle while back, and she
wanted, for example, there wasno music-related titles within
the podcast taxonomy for theperson tag, there was no
capability of multi-namedcapabilities.
So, for example, I'm a singerand the songwriter, I'm the

(50:38):
drummer and the guitarist, I'mthe host and organizer.
We still don't havemulti-person capability.
But who who's gonna determine,James, if I want to extend the
podcast taxonomy within TrueFanswith extra roles, which I've
done anyway, and it only worksin TrueFans, so it's extra
roles.
Who who's the arbiter of yes,we're going to add this new

(51:03):
title into the podcast taxonomyso that we can all use it as a
shared resource?
No one.
No one's doing that.

Well, uh, I mean, nobody's doing that yet.
I mean, you know, Podchaser ispart of the podcast taxonomy
group.
They could be, you know, theyhave 40 other partners from the
podcast industry.
The other organizer is staff meup.
Just reach out to some of thesepeople and say, hey.

Sam Sethi (51:28):
But the website's gone down, James.
I tried to get a link to it.
It doesn't exist anywhere.
Well, support at podchaser.comis where you will be able to get
in.

I'm not in touch what I'm trying to say.

Sam Sethi (51:39):
All of this should be under the PSP, right?
I think we should just grab allthis stuff into it.

And I don't and I don't agree because I don't
think there should be onemassive large organization which
is in charge of absolutelyeverything because that's not
how podcasting works.
And at the end of the day, mostof the standards that we have
aren't the podcast, aren't thepodcast indexes standards,
they're not the podcaststandards project standards,
they're Apples with a little bitof random stuff from Yahoo in

(52:06):
there.
Um so you know, so I I I youknow, I I'm not I'm not sure
that it benefits anybody to jumpin and go, you know what, we
will, you know, we we just wantto run everything.
I think we just we we just turnaround and make sure that we
are carrying people with us.
We're carrying the podcasttaxonomy people.
Yes, the the website seems tohave fallen over, so we should

(52:29):
get Cole involved in that again.
But we should chase the thethose those people.
We should chase, you know,OpenStreetMap.
You don't want to build yourown map, do you?
We should chase a bunch of thisstuff so that we're working
together with the rest of theweb.
And there've been unfortunatelyquite a few missteps in the
podcast in podcasting 2.0, wherewe've built something that

(52:52):
actually already existedsomewhere else.
And we've tried to build, youknow, comments and things which
already exist in the RSSspecification.
Um, but we've decided thatwe're not going to be able to do
that.

Sam Sethi (53:03):
I think it's more to do with monetary booster graphs
of those where we've got to dothat.

But you know, we want to build we want to build
all kinds of all kinds of thisstuff, and we haven't sort of
properly considered how to buildany of them.
So you know, I I'm I'm not surethat centralizing everything is
is a plan.
I think, but I do think thatbringing everybody along with us
uh is something that thepodcast standards project has

(53:29):
failed to do, podcast you know,the podcast index has failed in
m many ways to do, and we justneed to keep on pushing through.
But I mean, I have to also sayit's not that easy to do any of
this.
If you have a look back in uhback to 2017, Sam, 2017 is when

(53:52):
Apple launched a thing calledepisode numbers and season
numbers into podcast RSS.
So if you're using ApplePodcasts or you're using Pocket
Casts or yes, true fans, thenyou can see season and episode
number.
If you're using anything else,you won't, because no one else
supports it.
Here's the weird thing Spotifyfor creators supports episodes

(54:15):
and season numbers in theirhosting platform, but the
Spotify app doesn't supportepisode numbers or season
numbers.
I mean, it's just bizarre.
And that has been part of theInnovatic Commerce standard
since 2017.
And most of the podcast appshaven't even been bothered to
put that in place because nobodyhas been jumping up and down

(54:35):
and going, you know what?
Actually, episode numbers arereally helpful and we should be
putting those in.
You know.
And if we can't manage that inif we can't manage that in the
last seven years for somethingthat Apple is doing, then of
course we're not going to managemuch else.
But um, you know, so I don'tthink it's necessarily as big of

(54:56):
an issue as it is, but I justthink that I think it's right
for Justin to turn around andgo, actually, it shouldn't just
be me turning around and going,HLS, it's the future.
We need to have everyoneagreeing and going, you know
what?
Yes, that is actually actuallythat is going to help us.
That is going to help uscompete against YouTube or

(55:17):
compete against Spotify, ifthat's something that we want to
end up doing.

Sam Sethi (55:21):
Well, that was the point, wasn't it?
That was the that was theargument put forward.
How do we compete?
And then the argument from mosthosts was we can't compete
because it's just too expensive.
Delivery of one gig or two gigtype video files is just not
feasible within the pricing,which hadn't increased for 20

(55:42):
years, yeah, of hosting.
So it it it was it was alwaysfor me this weird chicken and
egg, right?
Well, just to have a video proversion plan, and those people
that want to use your servicefor video pay the amount that
you think's deemed right forthat, you know, service.
But no one seems to be doingit, and so HLS was seeing as

(56:03):
well, maybe we could do it thisway, that's another way of doing
it.
But again, Apple doesn'tsupport their own standard.
It there's a lot wrong, we knowthat.
But going back to the PSP, Ithink Justin's doing a great
job, and and so I don't want tobe totally negative to what is
happening, but I do think thatsomewhere along the lines we've
got to have a grown-upconversation about how we fund

(56:26):
the PSP so that it's not just ayou know gentle, joy, joyous
club of when we get together atevents, which I love doing, and
it's great seeing everyone, butand then we all get very excited
about yes, that's what we'regonna do, and then it dissipates
into nothing, and then we waitfor the next event.
I don't know.
I just think something has tochange.

(56:48):
You you're the one who talkedabout the the IAB and that there
needs to be a podcastadvertising standard, right?
Yeah.
Uh you've talked about who'sgonna run that, James.
Well, yeah, exactly.

I mean, you know, the IAB is a good
organization to run that sort ofthing if we really want to give
the power of the podcastadvertising bureau to the IAB,
who also sell punch the monkeyad banners.
That that's fine, that that'sfine.
We can we can absolut we canabsolutely do that.
But but yeah, I mean it's uh itit it it I mean from my from my

(57:22):
point of view, the IABcontrolling how advertising is
is you know sold in this in thisindustry is just a bit weird.
But I do think, you know, andagain, it's it's bringing people
forward.
And actually the IAB has done apretty good job of bringing
people forward, of of takingpeople, helping them understand

(57:43):
how podcasting should should bemeasured and helping people
understand how podcasting shouldbe sold as well.
They've done a pretty good jobin terms of that.
So yeah, I think there's athere's a fair amount of good of
good stuff there.

Sam Sethi (57:57):
So related to the podcast standards project, so in
my little head, I always seethe podcast standards project as
the marketing arm, and I sawpodcast index as a development
arm.
Now, phase eight of thepodcasting 2.0 is due for I
don't know what, actually,James.
It started or it was opened onthe first of November 2024 by

(58:21):
Dave Jones, and here we are fastapproaching the first of
November 2025, and I can saypractically there's nothing been
added to phase eight.

No, and that's probably a good a good plan.
We've got we've got plenty ofthings that we still need to be
working on.
But uh yes, if you want morethings, then of course, you
know, more more things we shoulduh we should end up pushing
for.

Sam Sethi (58:47):
Yeah, look, and again, I I think we've reached
the point of with the GitHub andthe phase eight of a total slow
slowdown.
I think podcast follow, whichNathan Gathright's wanted, is
going to be part of it.
The enhanced location tag thatyou know you suggested, I think
may be part of that.

No, the the the I think the location tag has
gone through.
It's uh it's a standard.

Sam Sethi (59:11):
But but it was is it is it is it part of phase eight
or has it just been pulled intothe standard and just enhanced?

It's it's already pulled into the
standard, yeah.
I think I think it was in thesame way.

Sam Sethi (59:20):
Is that the same with the images tag as as well?

Yeah.
Yeah.
I think the images, the imagestag and the the location tag
were the last two things to gothrough.

Sam Sethi (59:29):
So I've talked about pinned episodes of something
that Spotify did ages back, andI think it's a great way of
allowing creators to not onlyjust say this is the trailer,
but this is the episode I thinkyou should jump into if you've
never heard my podcast.
Super simple to do.
Yes, we've done it in truefans.
Person tag, multiple roles.
We've talked about this foreverand a day.

(59:49):
I can go back, I've writtenloads about it.
We're not doing it.
So I think the problem is arewe going to do anything with
phase eight as well?
And I I I thought.
Like you, I would look at whathas currently been out there.
So we've got transcripts.
I think that's a success.
I think locked is a failure,funding success, chapters,

(01:00:11):
soundbites I think is a failure.
I won't read all of them out,but you just mentioned seasoned
episodes, the license tag, Godknows what's going on with that,
particularly.

James Cridland (01:00:21):
We can go on that well, and the license tag
is a great example of a set ofwell-meaning geeks talking about
stuff that they don'tunderstand, which is copyright
and licensing.
And not a single personinvolved in this conversation
has had any understanding of howcopyright works, of how
licensing works, of how you needto do a license, how you need

(01:00:46):
to do copyright.
But we've just sort of thrownsomething in there.
It's the same as the medium tagof having courses and radio in
there.
Who is asking in terms ofpodcast apps?
Me, actually.
Me.

Harry Morton (01:00:59):
Who is asking for apart apart from true fans?

I'll I'll put my hand up for true fans.

Sam Sethi (01:01:05):
If I'm in the wrong, I'll stick my hand up.
That was me.

But you know, but you know, and and there may
well be the the reason why quitea lot of podcast hosting
companies don't want to beinvolved in video, and indeed
why Apple Podcasts might notwant to be involved in video,
the reason why is they don'twant a slew of porn onto the
platform.
And so they've got to work outwell, how are we going to
moderate for all of the all ofthe porn there?

(01:01:30):
It's one thing in terms ofaudio, it's another thing
entirely in terms of video.
And then you move from you knowfrom porn to CSAM and goodness
knows what happens.

Sam Sethi (01:01:40):
Oh well, open A OpenAI has just announced a new
porn generator.
So here we go.

And so and so I think I and so I think, you
know, this is this is what Imean by br by by you know
everybody h holding hands andmoving forward at the same time.
If there are if there are goodreasons why we shouldn't be
doing things, and there may bevery good reasons why we
shouldn't be doing video, ofbecause as we said earlier, the
only people interested in videoare the really big shows or or

(01:02:09):
branded shows.
If if there are good reasonswhy we shouldn't be interested
in that sort of thing, then wekind of shouldn't be.
And we we can all agree,actually, yeah, you know, we'll
we'll leave video to YouTube andto Spotify because we don't
really care about it, and hereare the reasons why.
But the conversation has to behad, it it can't just be uh
Exactly, which I think is whyJustin has put together this

(01:02:32):
blog post which you can find onthe Podcast Standards Project
website, which is very muchlaying out here's how we think
about new features, here's whatwe do in order to get those new
features moving.
Now, none of that gets in theway of podcasting 2.0.
Podcasting 2.0 can come up withwild and wacky ideas like a

(01:02:52):
license tag without anyconversation with anybody that
understands licensing, or adisclosure tag without any
understanding of how any of thatworks in in any in any other
business.
We we can have that lovelyconversations, but I I've always
seen the podcast standardsproject being the grown-ups who

(01:03:12):
who are basically turning aroundand filtering through some of
these tags and going, you knowwhat, that one's a really good
idea, and this one we're notgoing to bother about.
And the locked tag seeminglywent all the way through.
But anyway, another thingthere.

Sam Sethi (01:03:29):
My last comment on this one then is the publisher
one is part of the standard, andI'm really, really disappointed
that no one's adopting it apartfrom us at TrueFans.
I actually had hoped, and I'mgonna get regret what I'm about
to say now, because I'll getcastigated, but I had hoped that
Godcaster would have actuallyadopted the publisher tag

(01:03:50):
itself.
They they don't, they they havea RSS feed on an RSS feed, and
it's yeah, I was really hopefulthat Adam and Dave would have
used the publisher feeds for theradio feeds that they have
aggregated together.
That's the way it should havehappened, they don't do it that

(01:04:10):
way.
So, yeah, I think the publisherfeed is dead and buried because
I don't think anyone issupporting it.
We have it, we've got over 150of them, but we don't get them
from hosts, we self-generatethem.
It's yeah, but they're reallygood.
They're really good, they'relike pod rolls, they work really
well.
We did them for the awards thatwe just did, right?

(01:04:32):
So we have publisher feeds forthe awards, and they work really
well, but no one seems to wantto jump on board with this one,
anyway.
James, let's move on tosomething else.
You went down this week.

I have a I have a feeling that that is going to
be one mighty chapter.
What do what do we end upcalling that?
Sam's rant.

Sam Sethi (01:04:53):
What do we call it?
Podcasting.
Oh, I don't know.
We'll we'll come up withsomething at the end.
I don't know.
Um who knows?
Well, okay, you can call it arant, but these are the issues
that aren't being addressed, andwe'll bury them again.
My point was, it was the firstNovember 2024 that we opened
phase eight.

(01:05:14):
It's first of November 2025coming, nothing's changed.
The podcast starters project.
I I put my hand up to dosomething, I can't do it on the
freebie.
I walked away.
Justin's finding the sameproblems, nothing's changing,
and we're just going to be goinground in circles.
I'm sorry.
If we want to just go around incircles, great, let's keep
going.
But that's not the way I thinkwe should be going.

Well, and on that bombshell, let's move on.
There was one other piece oftech news really this week,
wasn't there?

Sam Sethi (01:05:42):
Well, Amazon Web Services failed.
I mean, it affected you, James.
It affected many other people.
It turned out that US East One,the data center, had some
problems.
It was to do with DNS.
The biggest thing that I sawcoming from the UK was that many
UK banks and UK companies gotaffected.

(01:06:05):
And there's been a big hoo-haover here about hang on a
minute, with GDPR, why is ourdata being held in the US?
So why were the UK banksaffected by a US East One data
center?

Now I have nothing hosted in US East One
yet.
Pod News was affected duringthe AWS fallover.
And I think it's because USEast One is the master, it's
where everything comes from.

Sam Sethi (01:06:33):
It is the biggest one, yeah.

I mean it's it's by far the biggest one, but
that runs a bunch of things likeCloudFront, for example, which
is the Amazon CDN.
And so the only issue that Iwas getting, everything was
working, but the only issue thatI was getting is I couldn't
flush any of the pages, which ishow I normally get a new a new
episode onto the front page, isthat I I I flush the cache.

(01:06:57):
But I couldn't do that becauseit wasn't it wasn't flushing.
Turned out it was essentiallyit was a it was about a
20-minute queue and then iteventually got through.
So I think it was probably alittle bit of that.
But yeah, I so I I think the USEast One, because it runs so
many things, I would imagine aswell that Route 53, the DNS

(01:07:19):
stuff, just runs there.
I would imagine that's wherethe you know the main
centralized systems are.
So that's probably the reasonwhy.
But yeah, it was interestinghow many things fell over.
Signal fell over, and that gota lot of people nervous about
the fact that it just takes onecompany and and and you can get

(01:07:39):
rid of an entire m messagingservice, which I suppose is fair
enough.
But Amazon systems deliver 63%of all podcast episodes, and at
some point, I mean I know ofmany podcast companies that were
caught out by this, and so atsome point it's going to it's
going to hurt them.
Yeah.

Announcement (01:07:58):
Boostergram, boostergram, boostergram, super
comments, zaps, fan mail, fanmail, super chats, and email.
Our favorite time of the week,it's the Pod News Weekly Review
Inbox.

Yes, so many different ways to get in touch
with us.
Fan mail by using the link inour show notes, super comments
on TrueFans Boosts, everywhereelse, or email, and we share any
money that we make as well.
We have a bunch of boosts.
Let's quickly whisk throughthem the ugly quacking duck, a
row of ducks, 2222.
Listening to pod news on thiscool Sunday morning here in

(01:08:33):
Southern Illinois.
Finally, it got rain, and it'sa perfect morning for a bit of
tea and the podcast.
Thanks for a new episode toenjoy.
73.
Thank you very much, Bruce.
That's very kind of you.
I should tell you that it is 34at the moment in uh Brisbane.
It's 7 o'clock at night.
34, and that's in centigrade.
So whatever that is in oldmoney, it's it's quite it's

(01:08:56):
quite hot and very humid.
So, yes, there we are.
But uh thank you for that.
That's very kind.
93, by the way, in case you'rewondering.
Claywait Brown, 2222 sat.
Yes, please, to standardize 2.0icons.
Oh, do we have to go back tothat?
On podcasts you were the onewho came up with it last week,
not me, remember?
On podcasting 2.0 in practice.

(01:09:17):
Well, this is the point, isn'tit?
On podcasting 2.0 in practice,which is Claywait Brown's very
excellent podcast that youshould go and listen to, she
says, I often have to say, onFountain, click on the icon that
looks like this.
On TrueFans, the icon issomething else.
On podcast guru, the icon issomething else.
You get the idea.
And then sometimes the appschange their icon and sometimes

(01:09:38):
terminology as well.
Pod roll to recommendations,Clay Wait Brown says.
I would also say boosts versussuper comments.
And I have to record an update.
So okay.

Sam Sethi (01:09:50):
Can I first of all say yes, that's me?
Okay, hand on heart.
But you, James, were the onewho said don't use pod rolls.
You said nobody knows what theymean.
Use something more English.
That's why we went withrecommendations.
I agree.
I agree.
Put your hand up for that one.
Yes.

Uh although what we should have done is we
should all have agreed what theUX would have said.
That would have been moreclever.
Answer from Vincent Sats fromthe Late Bloomer Actor.
Great, you brought up the superfan fight.
Yes.
Sorry today to Martin, though.
He's been outflanked by two bigspenders as Pod News Weekly
Superfans.
Well, you can carry on playingthat game as long as you like,

(01:10:25):
so far as I'm concerned.
Exactly.
And Lyceum has sent a veryconfusing, well, he sent three,
in fact.
Row of Duck saying he likes theidea of a soundbite service.
Well, nobody uses it.
The next thing is to put theseactivities into the workflow in
a good way.
It's a bit overwhelming attimes as an indie podcaster.
Yes, and I would agree with alot of that.
There is so much to do when youupload an episode if you want

(01:10:48):
to do it properly.
And I very rarely want to do itproperly.
So yes, completely agree withall of that.
So thank you for that.
He also said, I don't think Iwill watch or listen to
SpotFlix.
Good luck with battling theAlphabet Company.
Yes, agreed.
And finally, sending a symbolicboost.
I don't understand any of this.
Selling a symbolic boost of 242sats.

(01:11:09):
Well, it says 222 sats in here.
So this this is a good start.
But anyway, 242 sats, front 242electronic body music band from
Belgium.
Ah, okay.
And he's sending it for thenews about DJ Target.
I have no idea.

Sam Sethi (01:11:26):
I think the spin lofty translation.

Oh, it's for Pod News Daily, that's why not for
Pod News Weekly Review.
And I must have mentioned DJTarget in a moderately sarcastic
way.
That's exactly what I did.
So yes.
And thank you for that.
Very kind of you.
And yeah, so it's 242 sats, butI can only see 222 sats of
that.
I should be able still to see242 sats, shouldn't I?

(01:11:50):
If that was really 242 sats.
Anyway, let's not go there.

Sam Sethi (01:11:55):
Depends what he sent.
I can check it.

It does, doesn't it?
And thank you to the bigballers, the people who use the
internet's money, Visa RonMasterCard or American Express.
Weekly.podnews.net uh is whereto go to become a power
supporter.
There are 23 of them.
The most recent is JohnSpurlock here of OP3, which
didn't uh go down at all duringthe AWS uh issue, by the way.

(01:12:18):
Also, Will Clark, Ralph EstepJr., who has sent me a press
release uh a week ago, and Istill haven't covered it, so I
must do that.
Brian Ensminger and JohnMcDermott for being power
supporters.
That's very kind of you.
You can join them too,weekly.podnews.net.
Uh so what's happened for youthis week, Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:12:35):
Well, I just said happy is Bali to you.
So that's been going on.
Uh annoying people with uhfireworks in the middle of the
night.
Not a lot of people are happywith that one.
Nice.
Not where I live with thehorses.
I completed the Thames Path.
So we did from the mouth inWoolwich to the source in
Crickdale.
So yes, we finished that lastweekend on Sunday and had a
bottle of champagne tocelebrate.

(01:12:55):
Very nice.

Well, there we are, and there's a lovely
picture of you in the rain, inthe British rain.
Yes, yes, wearing a veryimpressive hat.

Sam Sethi (01:13:05):
That came from Australia actually while I was
over there.

Well, there you go.
There you go.
And two very wet dogs.
So congratulations.

Sam Sethi (01:13:14):
Thank you.
Uh we're going to do the uhChiltern Way next.
No, the Cotswold Way, sorry,Cotswold Way.

And what and what is the Cotswold Way?
It's Stroud's bar.
That was uh that was kind of ajoke, but okay, Stroud's bar.
What is the Cotswold Way?
Oh, it's a bit like this.

Sam Sethi (01:13:32):
Yes, I'll be pretty well.
I'll be doing a John CleeseMarch.

Yes, yes, exactly right.
And you've you've mentionedyou've you've you've mentioned
we switched our first podcast toTrue Fans for hosting.
What's this?

Sam Sethi (01:13:47):
So it's not a secret.
We've talked about it brieflythat we're going to be getting
into the hosting game, and so wehave been doing our tests.
So we moved our first podcastoff another host onto TrueFans.
And uh yeah, we can now testit.
We're going to be doing sometesting the remainder of this

(01:14:07):
week.
Today is Wednesday recording,so by Friday Thursday recording,
so by Friday it should beready.
But yeah, so fans own our ownpodcast will be hosted on our
own platform.

There's a very exciting link in your footer on
truefans.fm that says pricing onit.
Yes.

Sam Sethi (01:14:24):
And you can't click on it yet.
No.

But you can't but you can't click on it.
Also, about as well.
You can't you can't click onthat live.

Sam Sethi (01:14:30):
Those both editors, I'm under a lot of pressure to
get those live today, by theway.
So yes, no pressure.
No pressure.
Anyway, before you have to runoff, anything that's happened
for you, James.

I know that.
I know that well.
Anything that's happened forme, no, not really.
I have I have mostly been, damnEugene Bean, I have mostly been
trying to get my home assistantto work out when to charge the
car.
Because I realize that thereare certain times in the day

(01:15:02):
when I'm using more, I'm usingless power than I'm producing
because of the solar panels, uh,particularly right now because
it's very hot and sunny here.
And so can I automatically turnon the car charging when I am
using more using enough, youknow, not using enough
electricity, if you see what Imean?
Yes.
So uh yes.
Um so the answer is yeah, yes,I can, but it's but it's hurting

(01:15:25):
my head a bit.
So uh maybe by next week I'llhave I'll have fixed that.
But yes, that was a thing.
And I was and I was alsoplaying around with a terminal.
Are you aware of what aterminal is?

Sam Sethi (01:15:35):
Green green screen with with flashing dot like ping
pong.

No.
No.
I mean, sounds good, but no.
No.
No.
So a terminal is a little quitea beautiful little else little
e-ink screen, and it lets youput information on there
automatically, and it sitsthere, and so you can just hang
this screen up somewhere, and itjust sits there and and
updates.
And so I made, because therewas no Australian news, I've

(01:16:03):
made an ABC News plugin so youcan just get the ABC News on a
on a on a picture on the wall.

Sam Sethi (01:16:09):
You mean you didn't do what we used to do at school
with the Casio computers and puttype in boobless?

No.
No, that would be a very sillything to do.
And that's it for this week.
All of our podcast storiestaken from the Pod News Daily
Newsletter at Podnews.net.
You didn't mention your coldeither once in this podcast.

Sam Sethi (01:16:29):
I'm sure everyone else can hear it, but no, I
didn't mention it.

No, I think that gets better soon.

Sam Sethi (01:16:34):
Uh yes, so do I.
God, you can support this showby streaming Satch.
You can give us feedback usingthe Boss Sprout fan mail link in
our show notes.
You can send us a super commentor a boost.
Better still, become a powersupporter like the 23andme and
become a power fan or a powersupporter at weekly.podnews.net.

Our music's from TM Studios.
Our voiceover is Sheila D.
Our audio is recorded usingCleanFeed, and we edit with
Hindenburg, and we're hosted andsponsored by Buzz Sprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.
Podcast disclosure tag.

Announcement (01:17:05):
Get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnews.net.
Tell your friends and grow theshow.
Support us and support us.
The pod news weekly review willreturn next week.
Keep listening.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}You Can’t Milk A Cow And Expect Yogurt, But You Can Sell Washable Sofas

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

All Episodes

You Can’t Milk A Cow And Expect Yogurt, But You Can Sell Washable Sofas

Stuff You Should Know