The Tyler Woodward Project

The podcast explores the challenges and limitations of streaming audio metrics, highlighting the lack of independent verification and the selective use of data by streaming platforms. It also compares streaming metrics to broadcast radio and discusses the impact on royalty pools and reclassification of premium subscriptions.

Takeaways

• Streaming metrics lack independent verification
• Streaming platforms control how streams are class...

The conversation explores the concept of hidden data signals and focuses on the Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) in the UK. It compares the UK approach with US systems and discusses the shutdown of the RTS after over 40 years of operation.

Takeaways

• Hidden data signals
• Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS)

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction to Hidden Data Signals
• 09:14 US Approach vs. UK Approach

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The Hidden Structure of Podcasting: Why It Matters

Turns out, the core of podcasting isn't just about the content — it's about a tiny XML tag that nobody owns but everyone depends on. That one tag keeps the entire industry running, yet it leaves questions about measurement and control hanging in the air.

In this episode:

The origins of RSS and the enclosure tag

Why no one owns the main infrastructure

How platforms like Spotify tri...

You press your ear to the radio and wonder what’s buried in the static. Turns out, there’s a tiny data protocol still riding shotgun inside FM signals after all these years—RDS and RBDS. It’s the reason your car’s dashboard knows what’s playing, and it’s holding up a lot more than most folks realize.

Key topics:

History of RDS/RBDS

Technical workings of RDS/RBDS

Impact of RDS on modern radio an...

This is my opinion as someone who works in broadcasting and spends probably too much time thinking about radio. Take it for what it is.

Cable news channels have the infrastructure, the staff, the brand recognition, and the content volume to build genuinely compelling audio products. They have people who know how to talk and news gathering operations most radio stations can only dream of.

Instead, they route the 24/7 TV audio feed to ...

The fight over AM radio isn’t about whether you listen to it — it’s about what happens when the infrastructure it relies on looks like a pile of scrap metal. Despite a steady decline in licenses and increasingly valuable real estate, AM's role in emergency warning and national security remains critical. But for how much longer?

You’ll discover how radio towers are worth more than their signals, why copper the...

Ted Turner died on May 6, 2026. He was 87. Most of the tributes are going to focus on CNN, on the Gulf War coverage, on the $1 billion he gave to the United Nations. All of that is real and worth discussing. But from a broadcast technology perspective, the most interesting thing Ted Turner ever did happened on December 17, 1976, at a satellite uplink in Atlanta.

That's the day he beamed a struggling UHF station up to RCA's Satcom 1 ...

Most of America's radio stations have lost their chief engineers, and nobody’s really noticing—until towers go dark or FCC fines pile up. When that one station sat silent for six months because no one knew the transmitter failed, it wasn’t an accident. It was a sign that the heart of local broadcast engineering is disappearing.

Chief engineers used to keep the signal clean, the lights on, and the emergency systems ...

Most stations are blind to how exposed they are the moment their FCC public file goes online. These aren’t just dusty binders anymore—every missed report, late political ad, or gaps in the issues list can cost tens of thousands in fines or threaten license renewal. If you’re not keeping a close eye on what’s in that digital folder, you’re playing with fire that you can’t see.

The FCC moved the pub...

Moving a file three feet shouldn’t require a round trip to a distant server. We unpack a better way: LocalSend, a free, open source app that moves files, folders, and text directly over your own Wi‑Fi with end‑to‑end TLS and no accounts, ads, or tracking. If you live with mixed devices—Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS—this is the rare tool that treats every platform like a first-class citizen and just works...

Walk into a big box store with full bars and walk out with a flood of missed notifications—what gives? We pull back the curtain on why signal collapses inside Target, Walmart, Costco, and giant groceries, and how to fix it in seconds without swapping carriers. The short version: buildings act like leaky shields and crowds create digital traffic jams. The long version is a guided tour through metal roofs, concrete walls, steel...

Your phone call might have just traveled 22,000 miles through space with zero protection—and someone with an $800 satellite dish could have heard every word. We break open a new study from UC San Diego and the University of Maryland that intercepted real, unencrypted satellite backhaul: voice calls, SMS messages, login credentials, and DNS queries spilling out across geostationary footprints. No spy gear. No secret access. Ju...

Local radio stations are going dark across the country, and blaming streaming only tells half the story. In this episode, Tyler breaks down how media consolidation, voice tracking, and corporate cost cutting hollowed out AM and FM radio from the inside. You will hear why stripping local DJs, local news, and real community connections turned stations into zombie facilities running cookie-cutter feeds from another state.

Tyler explain...

FM radio has a dirty little secret: the coverage map looks bold and confident, but the real audience listens six feet off the ground, weaving between buildings, hills, and interference. That’s where signals get chewed up, where audio turns fluttery and hollow, and where listeners quietly tune away. I walk through why this happens and why the old “just add a booster” approach can actually make things worse in the o...

The FCC's router ban just put foreign-manufactured consumer routers on the covered list, and if your broadcast facility is running one of those boxes in a mission-critical spot, it's time to take a hard look at what's in your rack. In this episode, Tyler breaks down what the new rules actually say, what's still unclear for brands that design in the US but build overseas, and why the real risk isn't the policy itself but what happen...

I finally stopped waiting for the “Ugly’s Electrical Reference” of networking and built my own. When you’re standing in front of a switch at 11 p.m. and you need the exact Cisco IOS command, a clean Wireshark filter, or a subnet answer right now, generic documentation and endless search results are a trap. I wanted something fast, narrow on purpose, and organized the way my brain actually works.

I’m a b...

A nearly 100-year-old American radio news network is about to go dark and we’re all supposed to treat it like background noise. CBS News Radio ends May 22, with roughly 700 affiliates impacted and the radio news team eliminated, and I can’t shake how backwards this feels: not a relic being retired, but a working system being switched off because it stopped fitting a spreadsheet.

I break down why network radio news isn&rs...

I hit a point where rereading the same sentence three times stopped being funny and started being exhausting. I’m almost 40, and I finally decide to get evaluated for ADHD and autism because “just try harder” is not a plan, especially when focus, working memory, and noise in my head turn everyday tasks into a grind.

I rewind to school, back when neurodivergence was poorly understood and kids like me got parked unde...

They didn’t just tweak a feature—they blurred the words to your favorite songs and called it premium. We dive into YouTube Music’s decision to cap free lyric views and sell the “unblur,” and we unpack why charging for basic comprehension is the wrong kind of innovation. From the first time a warning counter appears to the full-screen upsell, we trace the play-by-play of how a working feature gets downg...