Is YouTube Good for Podcasting? A Deep Dive with James Cridland

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
[Mark] (00:02):
As YouTube enters the fray when it comes to podcasting and reveals its plan for the
medium, will it change the way that we think as indie creators and how will it
impact the bigger media companies amongst us? Here with me today is someone that has
probably got more experience in audio, in radio, in podcasting than the rest of us

(00:25):
combined. It is, of course, the one, the only, the founder and editor-in-chief.
of Pod News, Mr James Cridland, welcome mate, you alright?

[James Cridland] (00:36):
Thank you. Thank you very much. I have no idea where Editor-in-Chief
comes from, but I'm a fan of it. So yes, let's go with that.

[Mark] (00:43):
I think that's like a Perry White thing. That's probably my old Superman comic reading
days. And now I just think that everyone should be called that.

Hehehehehehe

[Mark] (00:52):
So I'm good with that, but we'll go with that one. And from now on, I'm going to
call you Perry. How are you? You're doing all right. Congratulations on the podcast
business journal, by the way.

Yes, yes, I'm very excited about having two things to write now. I, you
know, I'll need some stuff in a bit. That'll be a nice thing. But yeah,
so, you know, having a daily newsletter and now a weekly one that just focuses
on the business of podcasting. It's really good to be working on that and
really enjoying it.

[Mark] (01:24):
I love it, mate. Yeah, congratulations. I was thrilled when I saw it. And I think the
business of podcasting is something that for me, I think a lot of independents
are starting to think about a little bit more. They're starting to think about,
you know, actually, this is an industry. This is a media. This is something that we
as Indies get to play with before we start becoming more serious. But to a lot of

(01:44):
people, to a lot of

Mm.

[Mark] (01:46):
VCs, to a lot of... media companies, to a lot of producers, to a lot of creators,
writers and so on and so forth. This is a genuine industry. So YouTube getting involved
in this industry, it feels like quite a big deal. So I'm looking forward to getting
into that one. But first and foremost, the thing that I want to do, and I think, inimitably,

(02:06):
no one can do this quite like you can, let's just summarize what's happened. What
has YouTube done over the last three, four weeks? And then... I guess proceeded with
a beta or a beta, whoever's listening from whatever country a few

Yes.

[Mark] (02:21):
months ago. So what's going on? What have YouTube done in podcasting?

Well, about a year and a half ago, there was an awful lot of rumour about
YouTube jumping into podcasting and YouTube ended up sponsoring the podcast
show in London this time last year, with YouTube logos all over everywhere.
But you went to ask anybody at YouTube, what are you doing with podcasting?
And they said, Oh, well, we can't tell you. And then I discovered something

(02:49):
a little bit earlier than that I discovered something that YouTube were
actually going and talking to podcast customers, podcast publishers about
in terms of what their plans were. And I published one of those slides and
YouTube got very, very angry with me. So clearly this has been something
that they've been planning for a while. So what they've basically done

(03:11):
now is that, I mean, for many years, people with podcasts have been uploading
them to YouTube. This very podcast has been uploaded to YouTube in the
past as well. And if you... have a definition here of a podcast being a
piece of audio first content. So this podcast will work perfectly happily
if you close your eyes. That's absolutely fine. Joe Rogan, when he was on

(03:34):
YouTube, was a podcast. So what YouTube has now done is that they have
launched something that they call podcasts, which is a way to get these
properly marked as podcasts on the YouTube platform. And in the US as well,
you can listen to podcasts on YouTube Music, which is their music app.

(03:55):
So podcasts, as YouTube calls them, are now available on YouTube everywhere
in the world and within YouTube Music in the US, which is a real step forward.

[Mark] (04:08):
That's, number one, really interesting from a functionality perspective. But number
two, I think it's interesting because that definition to me of podcast has subtly
shifted, whether we like it or not, audio first content. Of course, we've got the
argument about delivery via RSS. I had a chat about that with myself and Danny Brown,
actually, last week when I, when I, when I published the interview that Danny did

(04:30):
with me and the thought process around, of course, that is, that is a podcast, that
is open podcasting. But If I'm a publisher, and you know, we, you and I are pretty fortunate

Mm.

[Mark] (04:41):
to see a lot of indie and we're fortunate enough to have a foot in the publisher world
as well. You know, me through global,

Yeah.

[Mark] (04:47):
you through being you.

Yeah.

[Mark] (04:50):
To the publishers, YouTube must be attractive. And as much as we can say, is it really a podcast
if it's not got an RSS feed? There is that argument of it being audio first, hence
That's the definition of podcasting. Thus, of course we should embrace YouTube.

(05:10):
Of course as a publisher, I'm going to theoretically dive straight into this and
take a look. Where does right now, and then we'll maybe speculate about this

Hmm.

[Mark] (05:20):
as well, but where does RSS sit when it comes to YouTube? And the first and most
pressing question is, do they accept RSS feeds?

No, they do not accept RSS feeds. Not yet. What they have said and what
they've been pretty consistent in saying in the last one and a half years
is that they are going to be looking at RSS and they are looking at the
possibility of automatically ingesting people's podcasts using RSS. But
right now, if you want to get your podcast onto YouTube, then you upload

(05:54):
it using YouTube's systems, the same system that anybody would use to upload
a video. to there. Now many podcast hosts are also allowing you to upload
your shows directly to YouTube through their own systems So I know that Libsyn
does that. I know that there's a bunch of other podcast companies who are
working on that right now And that's and that's very exciting or you

(06:18):
can use tools like Headliner I use Zapier to to upload and those are good
too But at the end of the day, it doesn't use RSS yet It uses direct
uploads onto YouTube. And what that also means, of course, is for analytics.
You won't get analytics in your Captivate dashboard unless Captivate have

(06:42):
written a magic piece of code to go and talk to YouTube. You won't get, you
know, in any typical podcast host. Certainly you won't get any of those
stats in there because, again, it's not using RSS. It's not downloading it
from your podcast host. So actually, you know, in terms of in terms of
YouTube, it is its own space. But it's as you say, it's a really important

(07:06):
space. I mean, you know, it's a very large content platform. They say it's
the second largest search engine in the world after Google. And I would
probably agree with that. So I think from that point of view, you know,
it's a really important place to be on. I think also we forget that YouTube
music is very big in some parts of the world. That's their music app.

(07:29):
So it's a bit like Spotify in that every single music track that you want
to have listened to is on that particular app. And of course, all of
the podcasts are also on that app as well. And if you want to see how that
works, you just have to fire up a VPN to pretend that you're in the US and
automatically you can see all of these shows in there as well. And I

(07:51):
think that's really exciting because that probably enables podcast publishers
to reach new audiences than they've ever reached in the past. Some genres
will work better than others, as I'm sure that will go on to. But I think
it's certainly a really important audience for podcasters to be in front of.

[Mark] (08:15):
To that point, do you think that perhaps YouTube long term, and this is completely devil's
advocate and completely speculating, but the idea that a publisher, so someone that
has got resource, someone that has got potentially a team, so I'm thinking things
like the Jordan Harbinger Show, Jordan does great content, and it's very well produced.

(08:45):
is the person sat in the bedroom producing content, you know, that may, frankly, get enough
downloads to really be well monetized, but not be classed in their mind as a media
production or anything that requires big levels of grandeur or production levels.
It's just good quality audio through a decent microphone. We've spoken at Lent in

(09:06):
the past, and I know a lot of people have thought about this idea that podcasting
is kind of... fractured and that sounds like a loaded word, it's not intended to sound
as negative as it sounds, just

Mm.

[Mark] (09:17):
the notion of it being one side of the chasm being that independent creator that's
recording with accessible good quality technology like this microphone and the mic
you're using versus the other side of that fracture which is the big production company
and the media outlet and the publisher. It feels

Yeah,

[Mark] (09:34):
to me certainly

yeah.

[Mark] (09:35):
that the bigger people who can do good quality content multi-camera work, well edited,
thoughtful titles, maybe even, you know, we know what it's like to grow YouTube channels,
keyword research, description optimisation, thumbnail optimisation, all the stuff

Hmm.

[Mark] (09:54):
that we've got to do to grow a YouTube channel. It feels like the big publisher will
benefit from that. So I suppose two questions from that are, what's your opinion
on that? And then the follow-up is... Is there a place for YouTube

Hmm.

[Mark] (10:09):
music, the audio only element of this, that may go towards helping the indie creator
that can't offer the production values?

So I mean, the talk of podcasting three, four years ago was that people are uploading
their podcasts as audio to YouTube with a little graphic or maybe a little
waveform that bounces up and down as you hear audio. And the talk four years
ago was that the YouTube algorithm was marking that down, that they were fake

(10:43):
video. I think somebody was calling them and that was the talk of you know,
why would you do a fake video because the algorithm won't actually see you?
I'm not sure necessarily that I agree with that for a start, but I think,
you know, that there's a whole set of people who are perfectly happy to produce
something like, for example, the Pod News Weekly Review. That's an hour's

(11:07):
show, which is just a fancy graphic bouncing up and down. And it looks
fine and people use it. And that's all good. And then you've got people
like you that will spend a little bit more time in terms of the video,
make sure that the video side looks good, because we're recording this in

(11:29):
video as well as in audio as well, and that works for certain things.
But I tell you what, if you're making a true crime podcast and you try making
that in video, you're making a documentary. Documentaries are hard to make.
You know, so so I think that works in certain genres, but doesn't necessarily
work in all genres. So I think really, you know, you are going to get some

(11:55):
larger companies who can afford, you know, the full video and the full and the
full editing of the video and the titles and the and the Astons that
come up at the bottom and all this kind of stuff. And that's going to
be very exciting to them. But I think the difference here is now that
YouTube is asking podcast publishers to mark something as a podcast on

(12:20):
their platform, so that the platform knows that this is a podcast, this
is a piece of audio first content, that to me would suggest that YouTube
have a slightly separate algorithm for podcasts and a slightly separate algorithm
for, you know, that sort of... that sort of content. And I don't think necessarily

(12:43):
that they're going to be, you know, marking people down just because
they've uploaded a nice image and a nice piece of artwork and stuff like
that.

[Mark] (12:54):
It feels to me a little bit Google-y this. So what I mean by that is that Google,
if we think of Google's core product search, it's the core of everything that they
do. It's always been about relevance. It's always been about serving the users. If
I ask Google a question, its only

Hmm.

[Mark] (13:10):
job is to give me the best answer, which is why all these algorithm updates come out.
It's why results and refinements in results and the SERPs continue to develop because
Google just wants to deliver the product, which is the information that indexes. That's
the most basic version of Google. So I think for me,

Hmm.

[Mark] (13:30):
when I think about YouTube, it almost, there's a way to almost frame YouTube's entry
into podcasting as more of the same, because people were doing it anyway. We've
got tools like Headliner, we've got tools like Repurpose. I'll be honest, we at
Captivate, you'll know this as a former advisor, we... We actually had YouTube publishing

(13:54):
about two and a half, three years ago, and we never rolled it out. And the reason
we didn't roll it out was because they kept changing the terms or the API. It was
one of them that made it the maintenance on it was heavy compared

Mm. Mm.

[Mark] (14:06):
to the relatively small gain for podcasters. So it feels to me as if it's potentially a
way of saying, OK, look, people are doing this anyway. If we just give them a way
to label it. If we just give them a way to kind of feel like this is a little bit
more purposeful, we as YouTube can probably do a little bit more to surface that audio,

(14:30):
which theoretically does two things. It helps with the discoverability challenge
in podcasting. Okay, I can say, look, regardless of whether you're a highly produced
podcast with video or whether you're someone in their bedroom with great audio and
that's it, that's cool. I will give you more quote unquote views or listens or
whatever however we term it. But the second

Hmm.

[Mark] (14:50):
thing it potentially

Hmm.

[Mark] (14:51):
does, which leads directly to the next question, is it potentially gives YouTube inventory,
more inventory, to do more monetization with. Where they can, as you say, they can
tweet the algorithm and adapt the way that they sell ads, adapt the way that they
deliver ads because they know that this is audio first and it's a little bit, potentially,

(15:12):
a little bit more passive. So what do we know about, as it stands today, what do
we know about what YouTube is doing with It's own pre-inserted ads, it's own sort
of mid-rolls as we see them where

Hmm.

[Mark] (15:23):
we get the lovely little skip ads button on YouTube. What do we know about that situation
as it exists today when it comes to YouTube and podcasts?

Well, I think there's a couple of things there. I think firstly, yeah, I mean,
YouTube, at the end of the day, just like Google at the end of the day
doesn't necessarily exist to put new exciting pieces of content in front
of people. It exists to flog advertising. That's its main focus. And clearly

(15:55):
by, you know, seeing the numbers out there of over 4 million podcasts and they're
there thinking Wow, if we can get the majority of those to come onto
our platform, then we can sell ads against those. Um, and, you know,
I mean, the amount of new, um, of new podcast episodes that are published,
there's one podcast episode published every naught point eight seconds,

(16:18):
uh, right now. So, you know, if, if, if they can actually get the benefit
of that, then. Wow. You know, that's, um, lots more inventory, as you say,
uh, for them to advertise. And I think that's why. They've only launched
podcasting into YouTube music in the US because the only place, as far as

(16:39):
I'm aware, that they're actually delivering audio only advertising is alongside
YouTube music in the US. So they're not selling audio advertising anywhere
else in the world, only in the US, which is why they're rolling it out
in the US for podcasting as well. And you will already hear adverts apparently

(17:01):
if you don't pay for YouTube as I do because I'm Random enough to want to
pay for it. But if you don't pay for YouTube you will hear ads appearing
sometimes in front of a podcast that you want to have a listen to And certainly
see them if you're playing it on the normal video app that you're using

(17:21):
so From YouTube's point of view, great. You know, if they can get the
millions of new episodes that are made every single month and they can flog
advertising in front of those, then that's fantastic. And the interesting
part about that is, of course, all of the infrastructure is already there
to pay us, to pay the podcast publishers, because they're already doing this

(17:44):
for larger YouTube creators. If you're a large YouTube creator and you have...
have increased above the minimum that YouTube asked for for you to be a monetized
channel, then all of a sudden you start earning money from the ads that YouTube
is selling against your particular pieces of content. So that's great news for

(18:08):
anyone that wants to get paid for their creative passion. If they're large
enough, and that's a big if, but if they're large enough... then the monetization
here works in exactly the same way as it works for YouTube videos and
everything else, and you get paid in exactly the same way too.

[Mark] (18:28):
There's a lot to unpack there and I think that leads to another couple of interesting
questions but I just need to get to this first. I am also one of the two people
in the world that pay for YouTube without the ads. I have a child that loves Bluey and
loves Bing and the adverts are just, they just come between her and Bluey dude so
I gotta pay for that thing. So maybe we'll start to see a little bit

Yeah.

[Mark] (18:50):
of money coming back our way instead of flowing through just to YouTube.

Hehehehe

[Mark] (18:56):
Let's think about Indy's for a second then. Let's think about the creator,

Hmm.

[Mark] (19:02):
I suppose the hobbyist, independent podcaster who thinks to themselves, okay, here's
an opportunity to monetize potentially via YouTube if I get big enough. Here's a way
for my podcast to be surface to more people. But actually, here's another thing
that I've also got to do. another hour,

Yes.

[Mark] (19:26):
another two hours per week on my already stretched podcasting schedule. How would you,
how would you advise them to get started with this without piling on the pressure? Because
there's so many, like there's almost like

Hmm.

[Mark] (19:43):
two juxtaposed pieces of advice that you see in podcasting, which is be everywhere.
And that's usually from like the quote unquote entrepreneur crowd, which I totally
understand. Just be everywhere. And then there's the other side of the coin, which
is just focus on one place, which may be your podcast's RSS distribution and grow

(20:03):
that into a meaningful channel. So how would you approach that? If someone comes up
to you at a conference, you're on stage, you've just got off stage, Q&A with James Quidlin,
someone says, what should I do? Should I be worried about the time it takes? Should
I really bother with YouTube? What's the answer?

Well, my answer, I mean, with all of these things is automate as much as
you possibly can, because automation is a really important thing. So
if you look at YouTube and you go, there might be an opportunity there,
but I'm not sure yet, then please don't spend, you know, 20% of your of
your creation time every week feeding the big YouTube monster, because that's

(20:43):
not necessarily really going to help you very much. So there are automatic
ways your podcast host may offer you one certainly headliner does where
you can automatically get headliner sitting there watching your podcast
feed. If somebody you know if you publish a new episode it will automatically

(21:04):
produce a video version of that and upload it into the right playlist
on YouTube so that it goes into your podcast on YouTube. So and that is
not taking any more time. to end up doing. So I would certainly start
looking at that sort of thing. Probably won't give you the best return in
terms of the amount of people who are finding your channel, but at least

(21:29):
you're there and you're starting to publish and you can start to see if there
are particular trends. And what I'm noticing with YouTube and the Pod
News Daily has been there for, you know, well over a year now, what I'm
noticing is that some shows do really well. and by really well I'm talking
about 60 or 70 views. Some shows do really badly, about nine or 10 views.

(21:52):
And it all comes down to what that particular story is about and what the
key words that I've mentioned are. And the one that did particularly well
was from March of last year, which was YouTube's plans for podcasting. which
I managed to get a leak of. And so of course, you know, that, of course,

(22:12):
did very well on YouTube itself. So I think, you know, just sort of see what
works and what doesn't, and then you will know at some point in the future
whether or not it makes sense for you to go into something which is a bit
more time consuming, like producing video. Or there are halfway houses

(22:33):
as well. There's a piece of technology... called Adore Studio, which is
based in the US, and another piece of technology called Vizzi, which is
based here in Australia. They both do much the same sort of thing, which
is to add visual accompaniment to your podcast. Vizzi exports it as chapters

(22:55):
as well for some of the new podcast apps out there too. So you can get
at least a more engaging viewing experience than... just a logo and a bouncing
waveform. So there is a sort of a halfway house there as well, but I certainly
wouldn't necessarily give 20% of your creation time to YouTube, unless

(23:21):
of course it's doing more than 20% of your numbers, and in which case
that's probably a time to have a think about what you should be doing.

[Mark] (23:30):
Common sense approach and it feels very much like Spotify did in the early days. You
know, it feels very, you know, it feels as a hosting company,

Hmm.

[Mark] (23:39):
it feels like anything like Spotify did, Amazon did even face, but when they sort
of dipped the toe a little bit, everything seems quite limited, yet it causes quite a
fuss because the brand name is so big. So it feels

Yeah.

[Mark] (23:54):
that pragmatism I like

Yeah.

[Mark] (23:55):
and I'm always, you know me, I'm always a huge fan of that and thinking about as an
indie, how can I remove that pressure? But how can I make sure that I know enough
about what's going on that I can assess it properly? So I love that. Now, Ashley Carmen
wrote an article

Yeah,

[Mark] (24:12):
saying

and

[Mark] (24:12):
that.

I think you're absolutely right in actually saying that there's a couple
of different... Sorry, I was just going to say, I think you're absolutely
right in terms of saying that it's the YouTube brand which is driving this.
I mean, this is no different, perhaps, to a product called Verbal, which
was out a couple of years ago, which asked you to upload specifically

(24:37):
to that particular platform, and you could do X, Y and Z things on there.
and nobody really bothered because, well, there wasn't really anybody
using that particular platform, whereas, you know, YouTube being so big and
having so many billions of users actually using it, you know, that's a
really important thing. And I think YouTube can certainly deliver those

(25:00):
numbers if you're the right genre and the right content for that particular
platform.

[Mark] (25:11):
The size of YouTube and the fact that it's an indexed search engine, let's be honest,
is a huge deal. And when it comes to searchability, when it comes to optimization,
Spotify is spotty. Apple is, well,

Hehehe

[Mark] (25:29):
Apple is Apple. The podcasting apps are not. necessarily known for their ease of
navigation, nor for their ability to surface decent content, even when I get reasonably,
number one, specific with my searches, but number two, reasonably specific with my
listening behavior. It's traditionally just not fantastic. YouTube has heritage with

(25:56):
this, technically, and

Hmm.

[Mark] (25:58):
in

Hmm.

[Mark] (25:58):
the mindset of users, the people I use to the algorithm, being decent enough to send
us down a 2am rabbit hole after a whiskey or two. Will

Yes,

[Mark] (26:10):
this,

yes.

[Mark] (26:11):
number one, transpose to podcasting do we think? And number two, does this affect
Apple? Does it affect Spotify? Does it just not matter to them? Where do we feel
like that's headed?

Well, I think number one is that YouTube is a really good search engine.
It's run by Google. They know a thing or two about search. And, you know,
I mean, I was talking to quite a senior person from Spotify a couple of weeks
ago, and they were admitting that their search is not particularly great.
And that's something that they're, you know, of course, continuing to

(26:48):
work on. So I think you've got that sort of side of it. But you've also
got the side, as you so rightly say, of when you get to the end of a YouTube
video, then YouTube will give you more that it thinks that you might be interested
in. And it's got that algorithm working very, very well indeed. Guess what?
That's there for podcasts right now. So if you're there and you listen

(27:13):
to a particular podcast that it thinks that, you know, at the end of that,
if it thinks that you will like other podcasts, then it will give you
other podcasts to have a listen to, which I think is really interesting because
that could make quite a difference in terms of podcast discoverability and in
terms of people finding new shows. And I think it's interesting to watch

(27:37):
that actually Spotify have just launched something which is quite similar.
Now when you reach the end of a podcast on Spotify, it will give you more
podcasts that it thinks you will like. Probably Joe Rogan will be in there.
because so many people use the Spotify platform to listen to Joe Rogan,
so it's always going to appear in that particular algorithm. But I think that

(28:00):
that's really interesting, and I think that that has great opportunity
for all of us as creators, you know, to see our stuff in those lists if
we can manage that. You know, so I think that that's a great step forward.
I think also, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, Google podcasts

(28:20):
were supposed to be so massive because Google podcasts search results were
appearing in Google searches, where the difference is there, though, is that
people weren't necessarily Googling for pieces of audio to go and have
a listen to, whereas particularly if you're using the YouTube music product,
you are literally looking for stuff to listen to. That is your user state.

(28:46):
And so therefore, this is answering that particular user state. And I
think that that's a very interesting, you know, move forward in terms of what YouTube
could potentially be offering. So I think, you know, YouTube's knowledge and
understanding in this in this world is, I think, really interesting. I find

(29:06):
it fascinating. You know, I get recommended the pod news daily on YouTube.
When I'm there using YouTube, I'm watching, you know, there's some bloke
at the moment who is doing a documentary on every single motorway in the
UK And I watch and I watch his shows not because I'm particularly interested
in motorways, but he's very very funny And so I'll watch that and at the

(29:28):
end of that it'll say oh and we also recommend This version of the pod news
daily and I'm there going I did that last week. Why are you recommending
that? So yeah, I think that that that could be really really big

[Mark] (29:43):
fascinating to see the way that that could impact people especially when it comes
to from my perspective discoverability is interesting because the power of YouTube
for me when it comes to the recommendations is this is really cool content I would have
never ever discovered had you as YouTube not recommended it so that is quite fascinating
and I love the point about I was excited about Google's surfacing podcast episodes and

(30:08):
I did a little bit of experimenting with that and it worked to a degree to forgetting
ears and eyes on the content. It did, but you had to do the keyword research. You
had to be a little bit savvy with that. However, I think you're absolutely right. You
know, podcasts as content versus content that is simply there to answer a question,

(30:30):
you know, because that's what we do in Google, isn't it? We just ask questions
off Google and it's a very different type of search. So I'm waiting with bated breath

Hmm.

[Mark] (30:39):
to see what happens with that one.

Hmm. And yeah,

[Mark] (30:44):
Sorry, go.

I was going to say that, you know, YouTube, of course, is on so many surfaces,
they call them in the business, so many devices, you know, it might be on your
mobile phone. It's also on your TV. It's also, you know, on your laptop.
It's it's all over the place. And I think that is something that, you know,
certainly things like Apple podcasts aren't and Google podcasts aren't.

(31:10):
And so I think, you know, again, there are more opportunities there to
surface new content for you to go and have a listen to. And I think, you
know, it's really interesting watching where people listen to podcasts right
now, where they could be listening to podcasts and see if they can actually increase,

(31:31):
you know, the amount of shows that people have a listen to. I mean, you know,
one of the things that I surfaced earlier on in the year at the podcast show
in Las Vegas was numbers from PodTrack which showed the amount of podcasts
that a typical Apple podcast listener was listening to versus the amount

(31:52):
of podcasts that a typical Spotify user was listening to and it turns
out that Apple podcast users are listening to nine times as many episodes
as Spotify users and so anything that Spotify can do to increase the amount
of shows that their users are listening to will really help them. And

(32:16):
exactly the same going on here in terms of YouTube as well. The more
shows, the more episodes which are being consumed, the more times that YouTube
can flog advertising in and around those particular shows. And I think
that's really exciting.

[Mark] (32:33):
And also to build on that, I think the exciting part from an industry perspective.
So if we think about brands looking to enter the space and, you know,

Hmm.

[Mark] (32:43):
we as an industry, frankly, we want to see more money inevitably and continually
more money flowing through the space because everyone does well, including

Yeah.

[Mark] (32:51):
potentially the trickle down to creators, you know, TBC on how that's all going to work.
But the notion that relevance plays such a big key. You know, if you think about
brands that invest in podcast advertising, whether that is through marketplaces, programmatic
or direct sales, host reads, whatever, the idea is that relevance creates confidence

(33:13):
in brands and does click throughs and actions, whatever those actions

Mm-hmm.

[Mark] (33:17):
might be. The idea that YouTube's algorithm is more advanced already and is, as you said,
on more surfaces already. That's an exciting prospect when it comes to relevance
because suddenly as a brand, as a company that's putting money from my marketing and
advertising budget into podcasts, I can be much more confident theoretically that

(33:44):
I'm going to be matched with

Hmm.

[Mark] (33:45):
a warmer set of people because the algorithm is significantly more advanced. Is there any
merit to that? Is that just wishful thinking or is there any merit to that?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's certainly merit to advertisers being more comfortable
with YouTube in general, because advertisers have in many cases already used
it, so they'll understand how the thing works. The world of podcasting
is in many cases quite alien to them. So being able to help them understand
something is really helpful. And of course, you know, they get different

(34:19):
analytics from YouTube. YouTube has excelled in the sorts of analytics where
you can see exactly where somebody is fast forwarding, exactly where
somebody is skipping through a video, where people are coming in, where
people are leaving, all of that kind of information, YouTube is very,
very good at. And again, advertisers are comfortable with that, they're comfortable

(34:42):
with the demographic information that they get from the platform and so on and
so forth. So... I think giving advertisers, you know, I mean, at the end of
the day, advertisers are very lazy. They want things that they understand
that they don't have to learn, and they want things that they can earn money
out of. And YouTube seems to have shown itself time and time again that

(35:04):
that is certainly, you know, part of that model, that they're very, very
good at doing that. And I think, you know, again, that's one of the reasons
why we're seeing the staggered rollout for the audio only version. because
it has to tie in with the availability of audio advertising on the platform,
which of course is something that Apple Podcasts doesn't necessarily have
to worry about. And Spotify using as a loss leader really in many parts

(35:29):
of the world, they're only now rolling out the Spotify audience network
in parts of mainland Europe. So, you know, I think... There are opportunities
here that you can see YouTube going, okay, as we roll this out, we can see
that there's going to be more and more growth, you know, coming from this

(35:50):
and more inventory, yeah.

[Mark] (35:53):
Demographics you mentioned there, which is a really interesting word in podcasting,
because it's very difficult to get demographic data and to get any other kind of data on podcasts,
consumption,

Hmm.

[Mark] (36:05):
you know the drill. YouTube can get that because it's essentially a closed ecosystem.
So I upload my audio, even if I ingest that audio via RSS, you would imagine that
YouTube... And this is pure speculation. You would imagine that they'd maybe want to
still host that data and to host that audio. So

Hmm.

[Mark] (36:26):
they can give the

Yeah.

[Mark] (36:28):
data that the advertisers are already used to, to them so that they can do what we've
just said. So is this just another wall garden in podcasting? And what does it mean
for the open podcasting ecosystem, for that landscape that we're striving to maintain
and to help to thrive?

Well, I think if this was anybody other than YouTube, the podcast industry
would be up in arms and saying, no, you know, this is a bad thing. We shouldn't
be involved in it, go away. You might remember Mark Cuban, who was doing
something that vaguely sounds as if it might be a bit like this two and a
half, three years ago, very, very quickly changed his mind. It's not a thing

(37:15):
that the podcast industry is interested in. Having said that, I think
it is a thing. in terms of YouTube, because of course YouTube being so
large. So I think there's a there's, you know, a bit of a bit of a difference
there in terms of will it be a closed platform? I mean, YouTube are talking
about using RSS feeds, but I think they're talking about using RSS feeds

(37:40):
as methods of ingestion, as methods of pulling in the audio once. so that
they then serve the audio. And if there's one thing that I get frustrated
about in terms of the podcast industry, is that we seem to have this sort
of religious belief that the audio that our users upload to our platforms

(38:02):
is not to be played with in any way, shape or form. And I think that's
a bit of a mistake because actually what YouTube has shown us is that
they will... pull in a piece of video, they will make lots of different
versions of that video so that it works on any bandwidth, it works on
any phone, any device. If you happen to have something which deals with
the AV1 video codec, which is a new super great video codec, then great,

(38:27):
but if it only deals with an old version of MPEG-4, well that's fine
because YouTube has a version of that as well. And so I think that YouTube
will continue using that. It's one of their... strengths I think. And
so we'll continue to see YouTube's network being used as it is. I mean apart from

(38:48):
anything else, my understanding is that YouTube in many of the large internet
service providers, they have their own caches actually within there to save
the ISP's money in the same way that iPlayer does in the UK, that Hulu
does in the US and so on and so forth. So, you know, anything that YouTube

(39:10):
does, they get the benefit of. And enabling pass through to RSS so that
it goes and grabs the initial audio files, it's not necessarily, I wouldn't
have thought, anywhere on YouTube's, you know, you know, ideas. I don't

(39:30):
think that that's ever going to be a thing that YouTube gets particularly
interested in, which means, of course, that Dynamic advertising is going
to be much harder, if not impossible. And of course it very dramatically
changes how advertising works in the podcast industry. And I don't think
the podcast industry necessarily has woken up to that yet. That actually every

(39:53):
podcast that you hear on YouTube, you won't necessarily be able to sell, you
know, certainly dynamic advertising in that's going to be really hard. You can
probably sell baked in advertising. But everybody keeps on talking about dynamic
and programmatic advertising, and that just simply won't work on the Google
platform unless you buy through Google. So I think there are quite a lot of

(40:17):
changes to happen there. And I wonder whether or not many of the podcast
industry in that, you know, in that field has actually properly thought
about what that means for their business.

[Mark] (40:35):
I could spend another full episode and perhaps we will on that one because I have
a lot of thoughts as you know about that side of things and particularly the

Yes.

[Mark] (40:43):
way that a lot of us in the podcast industry think because let's be honest it is
now an industry as much as we might want to fight it but that is probably for another

Yeah.

[Mark] (40:54):
episode. Let's wrap up with... a quick visit to the Bloomberg article written by Ashley
Carman, which

Yeah.

[Mark] (41:06):
is an interesting article because it's a sound bite. It's a short one. And let's kind
of preface this with the idea

Hmm.

[Mark] (41:13):
that this is early days for YouTube. It's early days for the publishers that have
jumped on there.
The basic headlines were NPR, Slate, New York Times have popped podcasts over to
YouTube, they've theoretically finished in slates, I think in slates words, they've

(41:38):
finished that move, if you like, but the views

Hmm.

[Mark] (41:42):
are not there. But then in complete dynamic contrast, you reported on Upfront with
Simon Jordan, which is a, and I'm going to air quote this quote unquote podcast. just
to placate

Hehehe

[Mark] (41:58):
some people for a laugh that launched over on YouTube.

It's a real podcast, it's available on RSS as well, but yes, but I know
what you mean. And that is doing fantastically. So, you know, I mean,
actually, of course, one of the drawbacks of publishing stuff on YouTube
is that people can see your playback numbers, which we don't have in podcasting.
So quite a lot of people wish to, you know, if you're not using new technology

(42:26):
like OP3, which I know that you do on this particular show. But otherwise,
no one knows what your downloads are unless you tell them. That's not the case
on YouTube. You can see the view numbers. And so Ashley has very cleverly,
because she's a good journalist, gone through and checked, for example, NPR's

(42:47):
numbers, 168 million global downloads in April. And then she's gone and
looked at YouTube, which, of course, is different numbers, looked at
YouTube and worked out what the average View number is on an NPR show and
it's well 178 Nowhere near nowhere near what it should be And so she has

(43:11):
quite rightly Questioned the people at NPR and Slate saying were you expecting
this to be higher? You know, why have you spent all of this time? Getting
onto onto the YouTube platform, you know, and of course one can assume that
it is going to grow and everything else. But I think that that was a fascinating

(43:31):
article. But then people reaching out to me and saying, actually, we're seeing
completely the opposite. So Folding Pocket, who make up front with Simon
Jordan, which if you're interested in sports ball, it's absolutely for you. But
that particular show. number one sports podcast on Spotify, number one sports

(43:51):
podcast on Apple podcasts right now. It launched last week as we record
this. And so therefore, you know, it probably would be because of the way
that those charts work, but even so it's also done more than half a million
views on YouTube in less than a week. And that's particularly striking because
it's a UK podcast or UK show. And that means that the YouTube music effect

(44:17):
isn't there because in the UK, you guys don't have YouTube music with
the additional podcasts in there. And I do I do think that this comes
down to just different genres of stuff working on different platforms. I
have yet to find a podcast about podcasting that does very well on Spotify.

(44:40):
And it occurs to me that all of the podcasts about podcasting that I ever
see, and the PodNews Daily is one of those, we get useless numbers out
of Spotify, completely useless, because podcasters are not using Spotify to
listen to podcasts. They're using a proper podcast app. And so, of course,

(45:02):
those numbers are going to be down. And my suspicion is that some of the
typical NPR listeners Some of the typical slate listeners aren't necessarily
using YouTube in the same numbers as they are some of the other platforms.
Whereas sports, you know, sports fans certainly are and younger people

(45:23):
certainly are, you know. So I think it is a genre thing, but I think it's
not necessarily fully understood yet which genres really work on those platforms.
And of course, it will be different in every single. country as well,
which is the other side to bear in mind as well. You know, Brits watch

(45:45):
different things in different places than Americans do, than Australians
do, than people in Indonesia or Japan do. And so, of course, you know, we'll
end up seeing different genres going on there. I mean, you know, Japan is
so, so different that the Amazon Music app is the number three most popular
app in Japan. Imagine that. So you can imagine how different all of these

(46:10):
individual countries are. But yeah, I think it's fascinating. Do we know
what's going to work on YouTube? No. Do we know, you know, what will be the
runaway successes? I think we can all make guesses, but yeah, it's quite
hard to work it out.

[Mark] (46:28):
What fascinates me about that as well is that the real kind of fundamental background
to, you know, NPR, the New York Times and Slate, they pop everything over on YouTube.
Of course, the people that give the 168 million downloads aren't going to just
go, okay, do you know what? Today, I ain't going to listen there. I am going to

(46:50):
go over to YouTube and I'm going to listen in this new place. It's just, it's,
it's... It's simply not the case, which then leads me to the upfront with Simon Jordan
show, which

Hmm.

[Mark] (47:02):
has some very interesting differences for me. Number one, it's a very highly produced
video show. Secondly, as you rightly pointed out, it's UK based. And one of the
first episodes is Graham Suen, he's a very famous football manager known for, you
know, it's not a wallflower. All right. And... The title is a nice sound bite that

(47:24):
has been pulled out of the interview and the point that I'm getting at is twofold.
Number one, it feels like YouTube for those kind of companies is an opportunity to
gain new listeners through new strategies. So that's the first thing that struck me. The

Mm,

[Mark] (47:39):
second thing was,

yeah.

[Mark] (47:40):
as you pointed out, of course certain content will do much better on YouTube and
something like that upfront with Simon Jordan is almost guaranteed. in the climate
that we have right now to do better than a podcast about podcasting, because the
UK is full of really good, if we just take football or soccer, if you're in the US,

(48:03):
it's full of great shows. Ben Foster's show under the kosh that

Yeah,

[Mark] (48:07):
are revealing

yeah.

[Mark] (48:10):
little stories and tidbits. It's almost like when you watch Gazaron, an interview you're
like, this is brilliant. I've seen Gazaron TV 30, 40 times in the last 10, 20 years, but
something So it knows where it's aiming. It knows what it's trying to be. And right
back to that beginning point earlier on that when we sort of discussed that YouTube,

(48:31):
it's almost like YouTube probably had to get into podcasting because people were
doing it anyway. It almost feels like something like the Simon Jordan show was made
for YouTube, but thought about and strategized and designed in such a way, and even edited
in such a way that it's just good audio as well. And That then brings me back to the

(48:52):
old, and you'll appreciate this, the kind of mum factor. My mum doesn't care whether
this is delivered via audio first RSS. She doesn't care whether or not it's on YouTube
or on

Hmm

[Mark] (49:06):
Spotify. All she cares about is the topic that she enjoys. She can enjoy where
she chooses to enjoy it. And that feels like... the big thing that we really deeply
embedded in the industry, a lot of us have yet to figure out, because like you said

(49:28):
earlier on, there's a lot of holding on to... I don't want to say beliefs, but to
holding on to old tropes that may need to develop. And I just find it fascinating.
I'm not going anywhere with that with the question. I just find that to be a massive
challenge. for us within the industry, you know?

Hmm. Now I think it's fascinating and I think that there are so many changes
happening at the moment in terms of, I mean, the media in general, of
course. I mean, you only have to look at some of the large incumbent broadcasters
in the US who are seeing considerable additional money coming in through podcasting.

(50:12):
But the rest of their business is falling apart. while they sit there. And
it's fascinating watching. It's a very different world in Europe, but
it's fascinating watching that happening in the US. And I do wonder whether
some of the more outspoken people in the industry, particularly in the

(50:34):
podcast industry, are there being outspoken because they are worried about
what these changes might actually mean for them personally? rather than necessarily
what it means for the entire industry as we move forward. I think there
are fascinating things happening and I'm really excited about the possibilities

(50:55):
that a strong podcast platform in YouTube might actually give us. I think
that that's really interesting in terms of what that means to audio. And clearly,
I think it will only work for certain genres. I mean, audio fiction,

(51:18):
working on YouTube, I find that that's going to be really hard.
So I'm not necessarily sure how that bit is going to work. But I think
that certainly for certain shows in certain genres, YouTube is going to
be really interesting. Spotify is already really interesting again for certain

(51:39):
genres, not for every single genre coming up. And I think the big change
which will happen at some point, because they will do this because they're
not stupid, is Apple podcasts launching an Android app. Because Apple podcasts
can't sit on their hands for the next five years and watch while Spotify

(52:01):
and increasingly now YouTube takes away all of the opportunities that Apple
has by being the market leader there. And so at some point, Apple is going
to have to launch an Android app. And that again is going to be really interesting.
That's gonna be a real reckoning for Spotify that's been able to run away on

(52:23):
that particular platform and be number one in most countries, just because
it's the only real platform that anybody's heard of. I think that's gonna
be a tremendous. opportunity for us going on. So I'm hugely excited about
where the future is going. And I think watching what YouTube does is going

(52:44):
to be a fascinating glimpse into where podcasting goes and how podcasting
earns its money.

[Mark] (52:55):
James Cridland, always insightful and always, he's always fascinating to chat to
you, mate, and I'm looking forward to doing it in person. And the very final question
I'm going to ask you is actually, we all love seeing you face to face, mate. So
where will we see you for the rest of 2023? You're heading over to London for the
podcast show, so I hear, will we see you elsewhere?

Yes, I'm speaking at the podcast show. I am the first speaker. So please turn
up early. 9.10. I'll see you in the Amplify room, which last time they put
me in a tiny little room, which I think seated 100 people and nobody
could get in because it was full. This time they've done the opposite and
they've put me into a room that seats 400 people. So please, if you're

(53:40):
going to that, if this goes out before then, then that would be a good
thing. But also, PodNews is doing two live events in the UK. One in June
in Salford in Greater Manchester, or Salford next to Greater Manchester, I should
possibly say. So that's... people get very upset. Salford, Manchester.

(54:06):
But looking forward to that, which is in the middle of June and then in
the middle of September, in fact, the day just before the British Podcast
Awards. Pod News Live will be in London and I can probably tell you where
it's going to be, which we've not actually mentioned yet. We're actually
going to be in the old television centre in White City, which is gonna be an

(54:31):
incredible venue. really looking forward to that. Sam came to me the other day
and he said, right, so I've got these three venues. The first one is Inside
Television Centre. Right, that's it. Don't even want to know what the
other

[Mark] (54:45):
Hahaha!

ones are. That's the one. So hugely looking forward to both of those.
It's a day that we've specifically built to be a day all around... all around
talking to other people in the industry. So it's very much a networking
event, just as much as it is great people talking as well. But podnews.net

(55:09):
slash live is where to find out more about those.

[Mark] (55:14):
Thank you very much. Looking forward to being there for both of those. It's always
great to see you and the great work that you and Sam do. So once more, James Cridland,
thank you ever so much, my friend.

Thank you. Thank you.

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