James Cridland 0:00

It's Friday , the 28th of July 2023 .

Jingle 0:04

The last word in podcasting news . This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi .

James Cridland 0:14

I'm James Cridland , the editor of Pod News , and I'm Sam .

Sam Sethi 0:17

Sethi , the CEO of PodFans .

James Cridland 0:19

In the chapters today , Kast Media stands accused of not paying its podcasters , but YouTube is offering to pay podcasters . Apparently , spotify's share price has fallen off a cliff and the user numbers are up , though , and also we hear from Rebecca Sananes on whether podcasting has lost its cool . This podcast is sponsored and hosted by Buzzsprout . Last week , 2,912 people started a podcast with Buzzsprout . Podcast hosting made easy with powerful tools , remarkable customer support and now AI to help you publish your show and promote it too , and by Pod News Live in London this September . Tickets are available now at podnewsnet . From your daily newsletter , the Pod News Weekly Review .

Sam Sethi 1:07

OK , James , let's get the show on the road . This week ,

Spotify's financials

Sam Sethi 1:10

I guess the biggest story of the week is Spotify . Its share price plunged nearly 20% in trading on last Tuesday . But that doesn't make a lot of sense because the monthly active users grew 27% and the paid subscribers grew by 17% . So in all the around figures looking at the metrics , numbers are up . Revenue for the quarter was up . What's going on ? Why did it plunge so dramatically ?

James Cridland 1:38

Well , I mean they ended up losing $272 million in the quarter , actually less loss than they have been making , and part of that loss was quite a large amount of money that they had to pay out , essentially because of their change of plans in terms of podcasting . So , for example , they spent $45 million in terminating contracts and content asset write-offs and all of that kind of thing . $45 million , including terminating contracts , seems very high , but anyway , what sort of contract deals were those ? Plus the $12 million in people charges in severance charges when they got rid of 200 people from their podcast operations . So potentially it's something to do with that .

James Cridland 2:24

I have to say there was a story in Reuters which basically said the reason why Daniel Eck is being a little bit less bullish about the future is that he's currently in the middle of big negotiations with the record companies and so he doesn't necessarily want to make everything sound as rosy in the future as he wants to , because obviously that'll help him negotiate a better price . So don't quite know about that . A friend of the show , richard Cramer , says that's bullshit . But then that's a friend of the show , richard Cramer , for you . So yeah , so we'll find out what's going on . But podcast ad revenues as well was up , wasn't it ?

Sam Sethi 3:03

Yeah , that's what I mean . If you look at it , everything they're trying to do says that it's going in the right direction numbers of users ad revenue , et cetera , et cetera . It's just the market , I guess what it is . The share prices are a reflection of the future value risk adjusted right . So what they've said to the market we all hit this revenue number and they missed it by a mile and the market's gone . Yep , okay , share price down again . And I looked at their share price . I mean it is at a close to . I think the lowest ever was $67 . It was trading last night at $145 still , or $48 . So it's not massively low , but they started their IPO at $150 . So it's below their IPO price they're currently trading at . So this is not a good direction for Spotify . The question I guess , James , is will they persist ? What do you think ? Will they continue with this model or will they have to change track one more time ?

James Cridland 4:03

Well , danny Lek actually talked about that in the earnings call , which of course is a podcast , because of course it is . It always surprises me when so many podcast companies don't actually release their earnings call as a podcast . But anyway , daniel was talking about the fact that when they started this about two and a half , three , four years ago , they frankly didn't have very much data at all . Now they've got an awful lot of data so they can actually make a decision on whether a show is working or whether it isn't .

Daniel Ek on Spotify's podcast strategy

James Cridland 4:36

There's a short clip of a couple of the questions that he was asked about podcasting .

Moderator 4:41

Okay , we've got a question from Maria Rips on podcasting . Last quarter you talked about cancelling or not renewing underperforming podcast content . Could you provide some further detail regarding how your original content strategy is evolving under more streamlined operations , and are there any audience demographics or genre types that you're more focused on now ?

Daniel Ek 5:01

I think , maria , you're rightly pointing it out . I think the biggest shift in our strategy is really around the more streamlined operations and that we're being more careful about now that we have a lot more data around doubling down and renewing the things that did work and stop doing the things that didn't work , and I think that's the primary consideration that we're going through . And then , in terms of any new genres or demographics , I think the most interesting thing from my vantage point is how the number of podcasters is growing . So you're seeing more and more new podcasters come in and do that and , unlike before , where perhaps we saw people in the very early innings that were native to podcasting and didn't do any other form of media , when we kind of made the announcement , we brought new talent to the platform . Now we're seeing a lot of internet native creators who are creating new podcasts for it . I think our video podcasting is a great example of that , where we're seeing podcasters now realizing that they have one video feed on Instagram and YouTube and all these other platforms and now uploading more long-firm content on Spotify with great success . So we're very much tailoring on the content type to these new creators , broadening the base of podcasters . Feel really good about that .

Daniel Ek 6:22

And then , on the consumer side , that tend to lead to much younger consumers getting in and starting to realize that podcasting is not just something for older consumers , but it's something that has a lot of appeal . It could be funny , it could be not just facts , but you're seeing you know , call Her Daddy a great example of younger women taking up to podcasting and loving the format , and we're seeing , obviously , something like Call Her Daddy also , then cross-reference when Alex Cooper brings musical artists onto the show . You're seeing great results in music streams as well . So nice brand halo that then shines onto the music side as well . So that's the expectations we're going for more creators , which probably will lead to more younger consumers all around the world as well , and , more importantly , of course , the big shift being that it has to be efficient .

Moderator 7:17

All right . Next question from Doug Admouth , this one on podcast content deals . Some meaningful podcast content potentially comes up for renewal later this year in three 2024 . How is your positioning , discipline and thought process different from where you were when you were building out podcasts a few years ago ?

Daniel Ek 7:34

The most notable one , I would say . Not only are we in a different climate of course , that's the obvious one and that's something I've been addressing before but I think also to set expectations . Where we were four years ago , we had very little data to back up our decisions on , so the most important thing is to contextualize it for investors . We were in a position where we thought podcast overall was under monetized and underutilized by consumers and that we had a real chance of breaking into the marketplace . But we were kind of nowhere when we entered the field and today we're number one in most markets around the world . It is proving to be a growing media category and we feel really good about it . So I think , overall , it was the right bet to make and it's played off really nicely , and I feel really good about all the impact it's having on our engagement and retention and lower shurn . So I feel really , really good about that part Now .

Daniel Ek 8:31

That said , now we also have a lot more data . We have a lot more data across the millions of podcasts we already have about what that does to new user acquisition , to retention , to conversion , to subscribers , et cetera , and , not surprisingly , what we're finding is that some of these shows work really well with our audience . Some of them don't work well . Some of them work well but during a different cost structure . So we probably overpaid relative to what we should have done . And so we're coming at this with the process of rightsizing some deals , doubling down on some of the things that worked really nicely and then stepping out of some deals and relationships . That hasn't worked out . But I think this is very , very normal , given that we kind of went in in order to really win the space and to gather as much data as we could in a short period of time , and so the data we have now is very rich and allows us to make much better decisions than we obviously could four years ago .

James Cridland 9:34

So Daniel Eck talking there in the earnings call , and yeah , you can certainly see that perhaps now that they've got a chartable and they've got pod sites and everything else , perhaps they can actually make a choice and make a good choice as to what's working and what isn't . But certainly some interesting questions being asked , I think , around . Are you going to re-sign Joe Rogan ? But I'm not quite sure that anybody quite asked as bluntly as that .

Sam Sethi 10:03

Yeah , I think YouTube's got that one on the books . One of the things Daniel did say , though , is a new tool in our toolbox is the ability to raise prices . Now they have raised the price of Spotify . Daniel said the company has raised prices more than 50 times in the past , although they've never done so in the US , their largest market . So I think we've talked about it in the past .

Sam Sethi 10:27

The price elasticity that Spotify has and available to them to raise the price isn't big , because if they raise it too much , people are just going to abandon ship and go over to Apple or Amazon . So I don't think he really has got the ability to raise prices as much as he thinks . I think they are between a rock and a hard place . They can't raise prices , and yet the revenue is being reduced by the amount they have to pay out to record companies to re-negotiate . It was interesting as well . Their CFO hinted that there will be more layoffs in this earnings call is what he did out , so maybe that's the only way they can get to profitability is to further reduce the costs of the business .

James Cridland 11:11

Yeah , my understanding is that the revenue that they have to pay out to the record companies is a flat percentage anyway , and so therefore , if they put their prices up by 10% , then that essentially means that they've got to pay the record companies 10% more , so they don't necessarily earn any more profit from doing that . One of the interesting numbers that I did see around this actually came from Edison Research , edison Research's infinite dial , which has been asking what do you listen to on Spotify ? And it turns out that one out of five hours consumed on Spotify is spoken word content , so is podcasts , basically , which is quite high , isn't it ? One out of five , and I was looking at that , and Variety has posted a slight drop in that figure , but I mean it's a tiny drop and said you know , the high growth era is probably over with Spotify and pouring all kinds of gloom on there . And I'm there thinking one out of five hours consumed on Spotify as podcasts is pretty good , to be honest . Yeah , 20% .

Sam Sethi 12:13

But you know , yeah , well , we'll see what they do in the next quarter . Now moving on ,

Libro FM audiobooks app

Sam Sethi 12:18

they might have some competition . Spotify there's a new company out James called Alibro FM . Who are they , james ?

James Cridland 12:24

Yes , they are a audiobooks app . It's quite an interesting idea . It's an audiobooks app that promises to share its profits with independent bookshops . So you , when you go in and you start using the app , as I've done last week , it says what bookshop do you want the profits of this sale to go to ? And I chose a local bookshop in Stone's Corner here in sunny Brisbane , so that was quite interesting . They have gone international . This week they offer monthly memberships in the same way that Audible does . They offer you know buys you go , you know pay as you go , and obviously it's lining up against Spotify and against Audible and a bit of Google books as well . They all offer audiobooks . So an interesting way , I think , of differentiating yourself from other people . If you're into audiobooks , well , with all of these troubles .

Sam Sethi 13:20

Daniel , if you're listening , I've still got a spot flick . So if you do that merger with Netflix , give us a shout . I'll give you the domain , Don't worry . Spotflickscom Dotcom as well . Yeah , it's fully ready . You know , I could paint it up if you want . You know , with a new logo as well . I'll go to one of those AIs . I'll get a brand new Netflix spotflicks logo for you . Yeah , all done ,

Interview: Rebecca Sanans

Sam Sethi 13:41

Very nice .

James Cridland 13:42

We've obviously heard quite a lot of changes of plans in terms of Spotify over the last year or so . One of the people that knows more than many about that is Rebecca Sananez , who used to be head of audio for Harry and Meghan at Archwell Audio , of course , and she wrote an article for Vanity Fair this week , didn't she ?

Sam Sethi 14:04

Yeah , I mean , I had a quick nose at it and basically she's questioning is the gold rush for podcasting over ? Is audio too corporate to be cool anymore ? And she says the word podcast itself leaves some of us cringing . I thought that was pretty harsh , rebecca . So I reached out to her and said look , rebecca , tell me what would you call it then ? If you weren't going to call it podcasting , what was the main thing keeping behind the article ?

Rebecca Sananès 14:30

You know , the truth is it came from a place of trying to understand myself , given what's happened in the industry .

Rebecca Sananès 14:37

My career really followed , I think , a very classic trajectory of this boom and bust cycle of podcasts , and so I felt uniquely privileged into seeing how some of that worked .

Rebecca Sananès 14:51

And I just kept on having this feeling like , oh , this thing that I loved , that I did from a place of service and artisan and creativity and like a true soulful place , has sort of become . The word that comes to mind is bastard eyes , and I was trying to sort of find myself in that and I thought the more that I talked to other people about it , the more other people were like yeah , I kind of feel like that too . And then also I've talked to people across industries and I have people who are like , yeah , like nobody's really interested in buying or funding podcasts anymore , like it's just not a sexy investment place right now for people outside of the industry . So I thought Branding is such like a buzzword and I thought it would be kind of funny or cheeky to be like what's wrong with the podcast brand ? Where did it come off the rails and how are the people who still make it thinking about it and interacting with this term and do they care ?

Sam Sethi 15:50

So that's really where it came from , so why do you feel it's come off the rails ? I mean , yes , advertising's taken a dip and , okay , spotify stopped doing exclusives , but the number of podcasts is still growing . Yes , of course we had a massive hiatus through COVID , everyone's home bored , spotify came up with a do it for free model , so we saw a massive spike , but generally , the upward trend of those people that are repeat episodes is upwards . Advertising CPMs are staying around the $24 , $25 mark for most people . So why do you feel that podcasting's bubbles popped and that it's become , I suppose , passe is what you're trying to say .

Rebecca Sananès 16:32

So let me be clear I don't think podcasting quote unquote is going anywhere . I think a very specific chapter in podcasting that felt exciting and lucrative and had a lot of potential has ended . So the way that I saw it is that in 2014 , serial came out and that the New York Times called it podcast first blockbuster hit . And suddenly everybody was like , ooh , podcast , this is a cool space . And all the public radio nerds were starting to be like , oh , maybe I can make my dream project over here in this wild West space and from that you get Gimlet , alex Bloomberg as well Sarah Canan both came from this American life and this starts to grow and grow . And then in 2016 , 2017 , because of the crazy election cycle , we start to see a mass burst of news podcasts because people are suddenly like I can't keep up with it . What's going on ? I need somebody I trust to explain this to me . And then in 2018 , spotify goes public and part of their IPO strategy is to buy up everything and to be the Netflix of podcasts .

Rebecca Sananès 17:42

So what I was seeing and we can talk about my own career is that for a little while , the only game in town was public radio . And then suddenly there's this big , open commercial space , and what I think I was naive to , and maybe we all were , is that corporate dollars will inherently change how we do things , how we make things , what gets made , why things get made , and what I saw is a lot of that money that Spotify , specifically , but other people were investing in podcasts , were going towards people who hadn't made podcasts and then hired the people who had made them to work for those people . And now , however , many years later , the rent is due and it didn't pan out . You know what I mean ? It just didn't pan out .

Rebecca Sananès 18:28

And so what I have observed in terms of understanding branding is , when you see a lot of headlines and you see a lot of negative trends and stocks going down and deals being broken and layoffs and Gimlet barely exists anymore when you see all of these things , it's very hard to get somebody who doesn't already love this thing excited about this thing . So that's what I'm seeing . It's not like oh , what was me ? Like celebrities are gone , so the industry is over . I'm saying it was very specific wave that had a lot of promise when off the rails and is now over , and that's hard for a lot of people , including myself .

Sam Sethi 19:10

Isn't it very much like wet one , todd ? We had crazy valuations , we had money flying into the industry . Pets are us friends reunite here ? You name it right . I remember a friend of mine , michael Burch , at Bebo 400 million . He was paid for , fundamentally , you know , a very simple , very basic social network that then was just crashed and burned . So are we not seeing that same thing ? Maybe we're seeing the first hiatus of podcasting the money's in , the money's out , and maybe that dip will come back with something else 100% ?

Rebecca Sananès 19:41

of course it will . I have no doubt said it will . I absolutely think that it will come back . I think that lots of it will survive . There are still people thriving . But unless the people who love it start talking about it publicly and figuring out what we want that next chapter to look like , then we don't have our fingerprints on it . And again , I think that's something Sam Sanders talked about , this in the article , and I have seen this too , which is when I would get into the rooms of decision makers and money holders . It was almost never somebody who had built their career in podcast . It was somebody who had come from something else and made it there . So part of my point of my article is like okay , let's pretend for one second that the people who make podcasts are in charge of podcasts . What do we want to call it ? What do we want people to know about it ? What's great about this ? What's different about it than television and why is it special ?

Sam Sethi 20:35

So in the article you did ask what should we return this ? Do you have any ideas what we should return it ?

Rebecca Sananès 20:40

No , okay , that's fine , not really . No , I don't know , I was being a little bit cheeky , right , like I don't think we're actually going to call it something else . What I've found across the board , pulling friends because , like I wasn't sure either , not everybody I talked to ended up in the article , but I think a lot of people like to say they worked in audio , that they work in audio , that they're audio storytellers , that they produce audio . I talked to one friend who works at a pretty high profile production company and she was like something about the word podcast feels like , oh , it's just anybody on the mic and that can mean video and that can mean on YouTube and it could also mean this American life . And when you put things like that and it's all just like a bucket , it's very hard to explain to people why one thing needs a quarter million dollars worth of funding and one thing you can do in your basement for fun . You know what I mean .

Sam Sethi 21:31

I suppose in my head we have these generic words . I think that we need to secondary words that will then delineate them and think that that's what we're missing .

Rebecca Sananès 21:39

I totally agree . I don't think we're going to change the word podcast in anybody's mind Part of the reason why I wanted to talk to Ira Glass , other than the fact that he's like my hero and he started this whole thing and yada , yada , yada , he was a semiotics major right , Like he studied how we interact with signs , you know , like how we experience words and ideas in the world and how that then changes our behavior , and so that's kind of what I was thinking is like , when we interact with the word podcast , are we interacting differently with the word documentary or storyteller ? And I think a criticism of the article was . So what's the point ? And I don't know if I have a specific point , except to say I want to be part of the public conversation and I want other people who care about this medium to be part of the public conversation about what it is and where it should go and how it should be funded and respected .

Sam Sethi 22:34

Cool . Then you said that you had a lot of feedback on the article as well . Give us a flavor .

Rebecca Sananès 22:39

I would say for the most part , I got a lot of people who said thank you for seeing me . This is how I feel . I am having my own existential crisis about this thing . I don't know how to describe it . I'm deeply disappointed .

Rebecca Sananès 22:51

And then there were other people that were like , yeah , this is banal , who cares ?

Rebecca Sananès 22:55

Let's talk about craft .

Rebecca Sananès 22:56

But here's what I thought was really interesting for me personally Is that really divided along the lines between the people who are able to make and start and sustain a career in public radio and those who are not and were tied to a commercial system ?

Rebecca Sananès 23:11

And I thought that was really interesting because , yeah , of course , if you've been able to pay your rent and make advancements and tell the story you want to tell for all these years and you haven't had to look at what the trends are and who the money is coming from , then of course you would be like , yeah , craft is the most important thing . But it's been interesting seeing that's mostly come from people who've worked and stayed in public radio and I'm going to add , mostly men . And I think that's really important to remember that podcasting is still like something like 70% men , that there's very few women in it , there's fewer opportunities for women in it , and so , seeing that feedback , I was like it's interesting who gets to focus on craft and who has to worry about where the money is coming from and what people think of it and how we're going to sell it and pay our rent going forward .

Sam Sethi 24:05

So let me tell you that gender discussion you just had there . Sure , do women not get involved ? So I can look at my wife , a super smart business woman of the year , blah , blah , blah . She listens to very few . If any podcast , doesn't feel the value , she would never start a podcast right . There was no desire and often it's really weird . So my wife has said before , when she's gone for a senior role , women wait until they're over qualified and men go when they're under quality . Amen , but that's not a fault of men and that's not a fault of women . It's just , it's the system , it's the generic makeup . So are you saying the reason is that there's a barrier for women coming into podcasting or are you saying that women don't want to put their selves out there front and center as much as men do ? Which is it , do you think ?

Rebecca Sananès 24:55

So this is a great question . I think that my next article might center on this idea , because I think probably the answer is both . I think that a couple of things .

Rebecca Sananès 25:04

Something that I think about a lot is people criticize women's vocal fry disproportionately to men .

Rebecca Sananès 25:12

When we do it , it's a problem . When men do it , it's just like how they talk and we still think of words like shrill when it comes to women and not men , like there are all these social constructs for women and how we hear women that would make us one reticent to get on the mic and two to make people less likely to take us seriously and want to listen to us in theory , and I think that those things still show up in this utopic , democratized space where anybody can do it . It's affected my own career . I've just seen it happen over and over again , and it's something that I want to dig into . I wish that I had a very clear and specific answer , but I think we live in a culture where we'd rather see women than hear women , and so it makes a lot of sense that in a medium where you do not see a woman , that would be less likely to want to hear what she has to say from a place of authority .

Sam Sethi 26:05

Okay , so you talked about your career , so let's have a look . How did you get into podcasting , how long have you been in podcasting and how did you get into it ?

Rebecca Sananès 26:12

So when I was in college , I was like a starry eyed , I want to save the world gal and I went to go spend a summer working at a nonprofit health clinic and reforestation program in Borneo , indonesia , like middle of nowhere to study . It was a barter economy , it was hell . It was fascinating to me and it was like a three day boat ride . But you know , it was a crazy journey . And I got there and I was like , forgive me , fuck , what am I doing here ? I am not a doctor , I'm not a botanist what ?

Sam Sethi 26:48

skills do I bring to this village ?

Rebecca Sananès 26:51

Yeah , I'm here and yeah , what am I doing ? But this particular clinic was attached to the Yale Medical School and the Yale Medical Magazine reached out to me and they said hey , like you're over there this summer , do you want to make a short documentary about what you're doing over there ? It was like a light bulb , you know . Whatever it was , I was like that is it . That's what I really want to do is go to these places , talk to people doing amazing things to change the world , people that we aren't hearing from exotic places . You know , this is like the height of the Anthony Bourdain style of journalism . And I was like that's what I want to do .

Rebecca Sananès 27:27

And then I spent many years doing unpaid internships and waiting tables and around . When I was like 25 , I had an internship at Frontline and it just didn't go anywhere . I was like , okay , well , I can't pay my rent on this . And so my mom was like why don't you apply to grad school and see what happens ? And I did it in a month because it was due the next month . I just did it blind . I never considered grad school . I did the whole thing and I got a full scholarship to go . I was like it was like Boston University . Thank you so much . You changed my life . I will say it over and over again yeah , they gave me a full scholarship and a stipend and I went , and this was before .

Rebecca Sananès 28:08

Podcasting was really cool , all I knew . When I talked to my thesis advisor , I said I want to do international reporting and I want to tell stories like I were glass . And she said have you considered public radio ? And to be honest , I was like , oh , it never even occurred to me that people get paid to do public radio , you know . But the answer was yes , and at the time nobody else was doing it . And so I got every fellowship and internship and whatever under the sun . And that was literally the same year that Serial came out . And then by the next semester , everybody wanted to do podcasting . So I really just got in .

Sam Sethi 28:44

Right place , right time .

Rebecca Sananès 28:45

And then , when grad school was over and this is one of those moments where I saw that men got opportunities that women didn't I was told , like go to a small station and work your way up , even though I had male counterparts , that like got to stay at the big station and talk into the mic , and so I moved to literally middle of nowhere , vermont .

Sam Sethi 29:04

I would skiing that good skiing .

Rebecca Sananès 29:06

Oh good skiing . Oh it's beautiful . Oh it is beautiful . I worked in the basement of the King Arthur flower factory .

Sam Sethi 29:13

Maybe not so good there , but yeah .

Rebecca Sananès 29:15

Yeah , like literally the middle of nowhere and I'm like 26 . I'm like a pretty young single woman with my dog . But it was the most fun job because really I was just there every day being like what am I curious about ? And then I got to go take a microphone out and have those conversations and then ultimately I won the National Murrow Award for one of my pieces there and I got pieces on NPR National .

Rebecca Sananès 29:41

But at a certain point , like it just wasn't happening fast enough . I was like I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere forever , like I want to go to a bear market , and it just wasn't happening . And at this same time was the time I'm describing where news podcasts the Daily Comes Out , pod , save America , today , explained like all these news podcasts are coming out and I had this oh , maybe my career as an audio journalist doesn't have to be tied to the public radio system , which is not giving me enough opportunities . So I moved to New York , which is where it was sort of happening at the time , and I'd lived there when I was younger and I'm from outside the city and I was a waitress and I took gig after gig after gig and I worked like 80 hours a week . I worked nonstop .

Rebecca Sananès 30:23

And eventually I got a call from my contact at Vox Media at the time and she was like , hey , kara Swisher is revamping this podcast feed that she had . They want to make it into something new . Do you want to come in and develop it with us ? And I was like , yeah . And so I did that as a gig producer for about six plus months . I was in the room before it was called Pivot . I built the original structure . I was there the first time they got together and the energy in that room was bananas crazy . Then I went internal at Vox and then later at New York Magazine and then , ultimately , I was poached . I was poached .

Sam Sethi 31:03

Somebody reached out to me from the middle of We'll come back to the poaching , so let's go back . You said how it was successful . You've not made that show successful . The chemistry is good . I mean , I'm a fan of the show and I'm amazed because for Kara to come back from those days of having Walt Mossberg to find a partner who , I suppose , come back her back . What I love about Scott is he can be rude , he can be a face , but what he can be is very informative at the same time . So Kara does actually step back when he gets into professor mode , in brand mode . She does expect that he does know he's a shit . So in that sense they have an equal standing , I think .

Rebecca Sananès 31:43

They're very good at holding one other accountable . Something that I really like about Scott personally I say this from a genuine place is he can be rude , he can be a fade , like he can be all of those things , and he can take criticism and he can say , huh , I hadn't thought about it that way . And then , of course , correct . But I think that's kind of what's special about their dynamic too , is they listen to one another , like they go back and forth and go back and forth , but they are willing to concede to the other person , learn from the other person . There's so much in their chemistry that , like , may we all find our Scott to our Kara . But this is , I can tell you from my perspective the moment that Pivot got big and from a podcast perspective , why I think that's interesting . So from the beginning , the original Pivot structure was their intro , big story breakdown , wins and fails and predictions . And predictions was , I had seen Scott was already in the business world , sort of known for his trends and analysis . I thought this was a good way to kick the show . Every week is just like come in and do your predictions . And we did that over and over again and then , relatively early on , scott got his hands on the WeWork S1 . And we started doing predictions about the WeWork tumble week over week in that very specific section that people knew to come after the break . Right , they'd already listened to their midroll , so we kept people listening week over week . That started to become the place where people knew they could hear about this crazy story . And Scott was really good at being just like one step ahead of it .

Rebecca Sananès 33:17

And that's when I really started to see things take off For Pivot . I used to cut the show at about 30 minutes , keep it really tight , and I remember the first time we did a live event , somebody came up to me and they were like my only problem with Pivot is I want more Pivot , and so that's really what ended up . Happening is like we started cutting it long and then we went to two days a week and so then we had to be like , ok , what are new segments that we can do that make people want to come to both days ? But we can still sell ads and people will listen through them . But I always thought it was really interesting , like that's how important format is and a brand that people come back to is . I think people started to associate Pivot with predictions that were coming true in sort of like the broader yeah .

Sam Sethi 34:02

I mean , they've done a great job on predicting what's going on with X , as we have to now call it . Yeah , previously , now on his Twitter . Yeah , that's not going to lie . Especially in bad branding right , exactly , yeah , oh look , I think I own Xcom . I'll rename my company . There's another five billion on the valuation .

Rebecca Sananès 34:21

Sure Like sure , just keep him with my friend . So .

Sam Sethi 34:25

OK , so Pivot's done many things . He's gone multi-day , it's gone live , it's gone international , it's done all sorts of things Sure Again . If you were still in Pivot , what would you be doing ? I mean , put your hat back on . What would you say they need to do ? Do they need to do anything to keep it fresh or change it up , or is the format good ? And stick to your knitting ?

Rebecca Sananès 34:46

What I would do personally and nobody's asked me and I genuinely am not . Well , I have , I have . I was too . Yeah , there you go , you have .

Rebecca Sananès 34:54

I think that what I would do as a Pivot universe is start doing spin-off shows the same way , like Pod Save America has , and I guess they have on with Kara Swisher and they have the Prof G show . But Pivot should be an overhead brand and then they should have young people . They should have some 25-year-old doing a Bitcoin podcast . I don't know , that's a bad idea , but you see what I'm saying . I think what they should be doing is spin-offs , Like maybe I thought it would be interesting to do one investigative piece a quarter where , like Pivot is on Tuesdays and Fridays , but it's also on Wednesdays and Thursdays , you know , once a quarter , and it deep dives into what's going on with X or whatever .

Rebecca Sananès 35:32

That's what I would do is expand it , as Pivot is the umbrella brand you know they have their conference already build it out and open up to new voices and new perspectives that are in line with their tone and their thinking and their subject expertise and use it as a flywheel Right , like you already have sort of like a marketing circle there that can feed itself .

Sam Sethi 35:56

Yeah , You've got an audience . Extend the audience brand value . I mean , we're seeing that with . I don't know if you listened to them , but there's a great two shows in the UK , once called the Restless Politics , and they've just extended that . It was Restless History then became Restless Politics and they're just about to extend that into other brands around the rest is . And then the News Agent , which is another great show of ex-BBC people . They've now got the News Agent USA because they used to be the USA BBC Correspondents . It's interesting . I mean , I guess it also fits into the fact that I don't know if Cara and Scott have got enough hours in the day to extend Right .

Rebecca Sananès 36:32

I mean , look , cara has more hours in the day . I don't know where her hours come from . You know what I mean . And she really does do it for herself . People are like , well , she must have an assistant . I'm like Cara is a machine , but I agree , it's like at a certain point there's like an oversaturation in what they can do and what they can offer . But what they can also do is sort of point to add , the people around them . And I think in a lot of ways that's what she did with Recode many years ago . But I think Pivot is a big enough brand and a big enough institution that they could start doing that .

Sam Sethi 37:03

Okay , so let's move on . You said the word you got poached . What was that call ? I didn't use that word , you did , so you must have been at home one day . Hi , yeah , we'd like you to come and work for this new company called Ardwell . Who the hell's Ardwell ? What happened ?

Rebecca Sananès 37:20

I mean , honestly , that's more or less like they didn't use the word Ardwell . So , honestly , I got reached out to on LinkedIn , as I do often , and I took the call . They were just there's a job at Spotify , are you interested ? And I looked at the job description and it was interesting and I was like , okay , sure . And the recruiter was like somebody very well known is looking to make podcasts at the intersection of entertainment and social justice , and I was like dream job , that is absolutely like if I were to . Even still , if I were to say what it is that I want to do . It looks like that . And I was like , yeah , I'm interested .

Rebecca Sananès 37:58

And we had a good conversation and I happened to have been at the 2016 International AIDS Conference as part of reporting that I had done around that time with the Pulitzer Center , and Prince Harry had been there , and so I think , even that conversation , I had mentioned something about that and I left the call and I was like who could this be , you know ? And I looked around I was like , is it Eva Durer-Nay ? And I was like I think this is Prince Harry and Meghan Markle . Like , oh my God . And lo and behold , it was .

Rebecca Sananès 38:24

And then from there . I can't really talk too much about it , but I would say a good three month long interview process and a lot of conversations and a lot of what do we want to do and what are the goals and what do you want to do ? And yeah , nothing will be more surreal in my life than that . I mean truly . I'm like anything , that is that nobody could have told me in the basement in Vermont telling stories for local public radio that was going to happen one day . And this is a reminder to answer your inbox , because you don't know who's knocking . You know Exactly .

Sam Sethi 39:01

How much input did you have in the direction of it ? I mean , as I said , your role in editorial and production . What side of the fence were you ? Hey , I'm the expert podcast , so let me tell you how they should run in the format . Or was this ? We are the Royals and let me tell you how we want this to play out . Where was the bounce ?

Rebecca Sananès 39:19

I wish I could talk about that , but I really can't talk about that on the record , okay .

Sam Sethi 39:23

Can you tell me , did you curtsy the first time ? That's all I need to know .

Rebecca Sananès 39:27

No , I very much did not , and let me say that they are very warm people . Okay , you know , like I didn't feel like that was expected of me either .

Sam Sethi 39:36

No , I wouldn't have thought so . Now they had some negative press around from podcast saying the horrible word was used was grifters , not talking about the individuals . But do you think those types of exclusives within Spotify actually work ? Because I don't think it's just them that didn't work particularly , I think the Obamas didn't work . I think Michelle Obama's one didn't work .

Rebecca Sananès 39:58

I think you look at the work In Kardashian , ava DuVernay , like the list goes on . I have lots of opinions on this that I can only share privately , but I think Megan and Harry became the poster child for something that happened in a lot of different places and I think I don't think that there was ill intention from anybody . I think that there was . This is again why I wanted to write this article is I think there weren't enough people in the room who were like I make audio . That is my career . That will be my career after this . This was my career before this . There weren't enough people who really understood the fundamentals of what works and how it needs to be done , and that kind of strategy won't pan out .

Sam Sethi 40:42

So , given , I think , the quarterly returns for Spotify showing increased user numbers down on their ARPU , though , so average revenue per user increasing the price where do you think Spotify is going next ?

Rebecca Sananès 40:56

I couldn't really begin to know , but from the outside because I'm no longer inside I think they're hunkering down . I think that they are reassessing . I think my guess is they don't really know where they're going next . I think what they're trying to do is trim the fat everywhere and get out of the limelight a little bit until they're a little bit more clear . What I will say that I thought was interesting is they've made a deal with Trevor Noah which I think is in a better direction , because at least he is proven to be somebody who can do consistent on-mic talent , and they did it as a one-off right , like they aren't doing these overall mega-million dollar how many shows deals . But that being said , they're still leaning into celebrity who might not fully understand .

Rebecca Sananès 41:40

I think there's imagination in podcasting where it's like oh , you just talk into a mic and you can do it anywhere and it's super easy , and I think that will never end well . So I don't know . I think Spotify is tamping down , is looking internally , is trying to figure it out . I think there's been changes in leadership over there . When I was talking to Devi Gardner , we both agreed like anybody who tells you that they know the future of audio probably does not know , like nobody knows right now . I think we are in the let's figure it out phase of this , yeah .

Sam Sethi 42:09

I think so .

Rebecca Sananès 42:10

It's the commercial part of this industry .

Sam Sethi 42:12

So let's figure out where you're going next then , because you might not figure out the whole industry . But where does Rebecca go next ? What's for you ? You're an award-winning editor and producer . Have you checked your inbox ? That's the question .

Rebecca Sananès 42:26

So that is a very great question and I'm being very honest when I say part of writing that Vanity Fair article is me trying to out loud , figure that out for myself , in hopes that other people will feel seen in my doing that Like I don't really know where I've landed is . I've always loved the craft and that's always been the thing that's felt most fulfilling . My favorite job I've ever done still remains reporting from the basement of Vermont Public Radio , even though that place wasn't right for me . I'd like to get to a place where I can do more of that . I'd like to get funding for my own show . I'd like to do more writing . I'd like to help other people make great shows . I'd like to be inspired by great creators . I want to make new things . I want to be part of this restructuring and restratatizing about like how do we make this something that values craft and people can make a living in it and it's not blocking out non-white , non-male creators ?

Rebecca Sananès 43:29

But I am when I tell I am figuring out day by day . Every morning I wake up I'm like how am I going to do this ? What's the difference between my career and my craft and my ego and my finances ? And like all of these things I'm juggling all the time . I guess at the end of the day I want to make stuff and I want that stuff to be good , and any way that I can do that and pay my rent is how .

Sam Sethi 43:52

I want to do that . Yeah , I'm paying you right , that's the key .

Rebecca Sananès 43:55

And pay your rent .

Sam Sethi 43:57

So , look , you talked about earlier women and voices , but it sounds like you may want to go from back room to front office right To be on the mic . What area would you be interested in doing ? You've talked about news . Is that something you'd want to come back into , or would there be another area that we don't know about ?

Rebecca Sananès 44:14

Rebecca , that's a great question . Look , I think if I look back at my work time and time again , I'm attracted to women's stories and other marginalized people who might live and feel in that spectrum , like from the beginning of being in middle of nowhere , indonesia , like I've always been attracted to that . I've always felt like there's a part of me that understands that experience and wants to help make that a more visible experience in a way that people feel excited to learn about and not lecture that . I don't know exactly what you call that . I think I want to do things at the intersection of news and entertainment , social justice and entertainment . I don't know exactly what that looks like . I'm interested in exploring the world from the perspective of women in our current moment in culture .

Sam Sethi 44:58

Okay , one of the other things she talks about and I thought it was a really perceptive thing was women's voices , but women's looks . Video is becoming a much more dominant platform . You've talked to audio , but audio and we've talked about the word podcast being a generic term . Right , is video on demand YouTube ? Is that a podcast ? There's a big debate going on . I'm less worried about it because I did a show last night with Rob Greenlee . It was recorded as a video live . He pushed it out to YouTube , but it's also an audio thing . The editing and the construction of the presentation of the product was still done in the same way . It was just distributed into two different mediums . Do you see yourself going into video then ? Maybe Is that another area that you want to go into .

Rebecca Sananès 45:48

This is such a good and complicated question because I think that there are some things that you can do just as well by recording it and putting it on video . I think that there are some things that you can't , and I think it's important to know the distinction . I think video offers a bigger top funnel . Why wouldn't you do that if you could do that ? On the other hand , I do think video can detract from great conversation . I'll give you an example that I hope I don't get sued for sharing .

Rebecca Sananès 46:19

When we did the archetypes interview for Mariah Carey , that happened over video . These were these two extremely busy women that we see out in the world as these mega-glamorous people , barefoot in their homes , in between putting their children to bed . I think had we said and this has to be on video and we have to see you and the world is going to know you that would not have been the same intimate conversation and it would have been almost impossible to produce . I think just a reminder to people that there is something uniquely special about voice-only conversations that I think especially for women because there is so much pressure to do that . But also talking to Sam Sanders for this same piece , he said podcast is a service industry and if that's where the audience is , I guess that's where I go . If that's where the listeners want me to be , I guess that's where I'll be .

Rebecca Sananès 47:17

I don't have a great answer to that . I guess it's balancing . There is something unique and special about that voice-only , non-physical conversation . There's an intimacy that builds and we need more audience if that's where people are listening from . Why wouldn't we do that ? I would do it . I'd have to get over myself a little bit . But yeah , I think the video question is so complicated . I think everybody's thinking about it all the time .

Sam Sethi 47:44

I think people are trying to work out , if there's an audience that why wouldn't I go there ?

Rebecca Sananès 47:48

Why wouldn't I ? Yes , yeah , I certainly wouldn't begrudge anybody . I guess what I would say is don't think of it first . If you want to make a podcast , make the best podcast you can make , and then , if it lends to video , like sure , of course , put it on YouTube , but don't make everything all at once . Make the best thing with the biggest why and the most intention possible , and if that does include video , fabulous . But if not , don't stretch yourself , because you're not going to make a good product at the end of the day .

Sam Sethi 48:17

Okay , final couple of questions . Sure , who would you love to work with ? Who's that one person ? You think you know what I could really make you better , or I'd love to just work with you ? Who's that person ?

Rebecca Sananès 48:30

Okay , this is like not the answer I'm most proud of , but it's the thing that came to mind , so I'm going to tell you is Larry David . I really want to make a podcast with Larry David .

Sam Sethi 48:39

Okay .

Rebecca Sananès 48:39

The creator of Seinfeld and Curve your Enthusiasm . But the truth is I want to work with people who are making cool stuff . I've heard there is great stuff out there . I was just recommended the podcast Classy , which I'm going to mispronounce his last name , but it is a reporter named Jonathan and he makes great stuff . Like , I want to make stuff with somebody who's going to make my stuff better , make me think differently , challenge me . You know , like that's part of why I put the bit in my article of iriglass pushing back on me , because I like that . I want somebody to be like you can be smarter , you can be tighter , you can get better voices , you can think of things differently . So I don't know if it's a specific person , as much as anybody who wants to make great stuff and can make me better . Oh , and then my other answer is if Greta Gerwig is listening and she ever wants to make a podcast , a narrative podcast series , call me immediately .

Sam Sethi 49:33

Excellent . Okay , last one . What are you listening to currently ? Good question .

Rebecca Sananès 49:37

So , like I said , I just started listening to this podcast , classy , which is very good . It's a really smart conversation about class and how we interact with it , and done very creatively . I recently loved a podcast called you Didn't See Nothing . I don't know if you've heard of this .

Sam Sethi 49:53

And the worst person to ask I listen to technology and business only . I don't read books like novels , I only read technical manuals . I'm a really dull , typical male , so no , Got it .

Rebecca Sananès 50:05

Yeah , I'm the opposite . I'm like I love novels , I love think pieces . I'm a typical dork in that way , but you Didn't See , nothing was really good . It was part memoir , part true crime , about a beating that happened in Chicago from a white kid to a black kid that then became sort of like a poster story for race relations I say this in quotes in the 90s and this person who was involved in it rediscovering it and it was so good .

Rebecca Sananès 50:35

And something that I think is really interesting worth noting is it was co-produced or financed by Universal and I was like , hmm , ok , so movie studios have arms now that are run by their heads of IP and acquisitions that are funding to make podcasts . And it was great . It was an exceptionally good podcast and that made me feel excited about the future . There is life after love for audio , for sure , and it's coming from somewhere , and this was one of the places where I felt hope , where I was like this is a basically great piece of journalism and entertainment and highly well produced and interesting voices . That was clearly well financed by a less than obvious benefactor .

Sam Sethi 51:20

Yeah , I think we've seen Netflix do a few of these IP podcasts and a couple of other big network platforms do it . I think it's a good testing ground Is there an audience ? Can we build up a pre-hype , et cetera , et cetera . There's a better way maybe sometimes than going out with a cold film trying to then build an audience rather .

Rebecca Sananès 51:36

Well , also podcasts . I mean we crashed on Apple and the dropout on Hulu were both almost verbatim taken from their podcast IP origins , and those podcasts had episodes already built out . They had cliffhangers , they had developed characters like in a podcast or so , much closer to a screenplay that's ready for the visual than perhaps an article or some of the other IP origins . I think it's a great idea everybody .

Sam Sethi 52:06

Rebecca , thank you so much for your time . It's been brilliant talking to you . Finally , we've tried to do this for a few years , you finally did it .

Rebecca Sananès 52:12

It's been a pleasure , an absolute pleasure .

Sam Sethi 52:14

Thank you so much for having me and look where can people find you if they need to get out of you ?

Rebecca Sananès 52:18

Well , you can look at my website , which is Rebsayscom R-E-B-Z-S-A-Y-Scom , and all of my social media follows those same things and I really am somebody who I answer my messages , I want to hear from you , I want to work as much with the person ahead of me as the person who's coming up behind me , because I think young people who maybe aren't getting the funding still have great ideas and great talent . So , you know , reach out .

Sam Sethi 52:46

I did . It was amazing . It was one o'clock in the morning in my kitchen . I reached out to you and you answered it's pretty quick with it . Bruce was in the living and that's why you Great Rebecca . Thank you so much . And look , if you're an LA podcast movement in 24 , I don't know if you'll be there , but if you are love to catch up with you . Oh absolutely .

Rebecca Sananès 53:05

Thank you so so much for having me Pleasure .

James Cridland 53:08

Rebecca Sanane . It's really good to hear from her . Yeah , it was a really interesting piece in Vanity Fair and thank you so much for reaching out . You've known her quite some time , I gather , but there again you can say that about virtually anybody .

Sam Sethi 53:21

No .

James Cridland 53:21

I know one or two people , that's all . It is James .

YouTube is paying creators

James Cridland 53:24

Hey , YouTube is doing something interesting as well .

Sam Sethi 53:26

Yeah , I was listening to last week's podcasting 2.0 with Adam Curry and Dave Jones and Adam was talking about YouTube offering to pay to get him onto their platform . Is this a ?

James Cridland 53:40

good thing , james . Well , youtube have done this twice now .

James Cridland 53:42

They've contacted Adam Curry , I suspect not knowing who he is , and said oh , you know , we've got that's what I think as well , they don't know They've got a podcasting on YouTube now and yeah , and they were talking to him about a grant and talking to him about all kinds of things and yeah , that was an interesting idea . He was offered access to the company's RSS ingestion pilot as well , offered the idea of a grant if he wanted to do his show in video form , but , as he told Dave Jones in the podcasting 2.0 podcast last week , he refused .

Adam Curry 54:23

I can read you what I wrote , the reason why . In my opinion , this is a hijack of the term podcast at best and a disingenuous use of the term to build up a competency on the backs of thousands of developers and content creators over a span of 20 years . It's not a good look . I cannot support Google calling as offering podcasts . Then will in fact speak out against it .

Jim Cornette 54:43

Did you follow that up by saying oh , can we talk about the grants and more .

Sam Sethi 54:48

So yeah , there you go , Adam's . Basically , I think it's the sticking the finger to the man I think is what he was doing there , but basically , yeah , that's about as best you can put it . Talking of this are YouTube ingestion . When do you think they're going to make it much more public , though ? When ?

James Cridland 55:07

what's your time frame ? Well , who knows I mean , who knows when they're going to launch it in more than the three countries that it's currently properly launched in as well ? That's another question . It's only available in the US , brazil and Canada at the moment , properly with a proper front page and available in the YouTube music app . So when's that going to be launched across the rest of the world ? But there's all kinds of opportunity , I think , for us to ask questions , because Kai Chuck , your friend , will be at podcast movement next month in Denver in Colorado . He , of course , is YouTube's head of podcasting . He'll be interviewed by OSHA's CMO , jennifer Hahn . So if you want to get your questions to him , then you can , and you'll find a link in pod news where you can submit a question , which would be quite fun . So pop along there and see if you can get your question asked by Jennifer to Kai Chuck , which would be great fun , I think , right .

Sam Sethi 56:11

Now I know that I'm going to ask I'm going to send Jennifer the question directly as well what if they supported the person tag , transcript tag and , more importantly , the alternative enclosure tags in that RSS ingestion ? That would be a game changer .

James Cridland 56:25

Yes , it would . There will be all kinds of interesting things that YouTube could be doing . So I'm actually very excited . If you remember , only a year and a half ago in Los Angeles , we all crowded into a room and Kai Chuck was there talking to a company called Cast Media , who we'd not heard of before , and , yeah , they made a tiny little announcement that was basically saying oh yeah , podcasting is great on YouTube . And that's about as far as they went . So the fact that he is now going to answer , theoretically , I guess , any question that is put to him by OSHA's CMO is , I think , going to be really interesting . So , yeah , so I'll be there Tuesday 2.30 , podcast movement in OSHA's sponsored track . They're getting their value there , so I think that's a really good thing .

Kast Media apparently not paying creators

Sam Sethi 57:22

Now talking of Cast Media , james , seems they're not paying their bills , though they might be on YouTube , but they're certainly not paying their podcasters . What's happening ?

James Cridland 57:30

Well , that's the allegation . It's from Jim Cornette and Brian Last , who talked for an hour of one of their latest shows of the weekend , talking about claims of Cast Media's behavior . They basically say that they haven't been paid and Cast Media is trying to be bought by Live One and if they sign an agreement then they wouldn't even get all of the money that they're owed even then , because the final third would only be paid in shares and Cast Media , according to Cast Media's own lawyer they say , is going to go bankrupt if they don't do that deal with Live One . Now that deal was announced two months ago . I have asked Live One for comment and they have not come back to me . But yeah , they are not happy . They ended up saying this in response to the company's emails .

Jim Cornette 58:30

No , no , we're not taking this deal . No , this is probably going to court . No , this guy goes from paying us every month for our advertising to , all of a sudden , he misses a check . What's going on ? Oh no , they're just industry issues . And then we get one the next month , but is it for what we thought we should have got ? And then we don't get one the next month .

James Cridland 58:57

So yeah , they're not happy at all . I've been doing a little bit of digging . Colin Thompson is the CEO of Cast Media , who got in contact with me to send me a threat , which was nice , and then said it wasn't a threat . I was just looking up libel laws and I thought you might find it interesting . Oh yeah , cheers , thank you for that . And he has been sending me a lot of emails all week whining at my coverage .

James Cridland 59:27

But I did notice a number of shows have left the network and a number of people have left the network as well . The person who I asked for comment , who used to send all of their press releases to me , harris Lane , resigned in June . Mike Jensen , who was the company's former chief business officer , he has launched his own podcast network , which Jim Cornet is now with . That podcast network is called Rhapsody Voices . He'll be coming to podcast movement I wonder if Colin will be . Who knows ? And there was another big announcement back in February about Cast Media taking a number of shows . That agreement only lasted five months and in July their shows are now being monetized by advertised casts . So yeah , some quite interesting , quite interesting stuff going on there .

Sam Sethi 1:00:20

Well , I'm guessing Colin's hoping that you'll shut up so that Live One won't get a drift of this and will actually acquire them and then he can pay his bills . That's what I think he's hoping .

James Cridland 1:00:32

So yeah , yeah , and I think the best way of the best way of me shutting up is to stop sending me winding emails , because that's not making friends with me , colin . So there we go . But yes , so Cast Media and I should say Cast Media were supporters of the Pod News newsletter until their credit card bounced in May , oh dear

People News

James Cridland 1:00:58

. People News on the Pod News Weekly Review .

James Cridland 1:01:03

Yes , talking about People News . What is the job title that should be at every company ? There was a really interesting white paper published by Oxford Road this week . A number of marketers also took part in it . They are saying that every large brand needs a chief audio officer to help those brands unlock the power of audio advertising . What do you reckon to that , sam ?

Sam Sethi 1:01:27

It's not a bad thing , I think . If you don't have someone's job role that's focused on a particular task , then often it gets through the cracks . It's not mine , it's not yours , to you , to me . I think podcasting as a medium look , spotify earlier put out its quarterly return report using a podcast . I think there's a lot of internal podcasting that companies are beginning to use . I was talking to our friends at Message Heard last week and they do branded corporate podcasts for other people . The pickup in the number of listeners and the amount of people who are using them is much higher . Why ? Simple , you can be walking , going to work , in the car , at the gym listening to this report , rather than sat at home flicking through papers or a PowerPoint . There is a big pickup and I think , yeah , a chief audio officer if that's what big companies want who's specifically targeted at internal and or external comms using audio Not a bad idea .

James Cridland 1:02:32

Yeah , it's not a bad idea at all . I did a really interesting interview for the podcast business journal last week with Bjorn Thorliefsen , who looks exactly like an Icelandic person should look in his photograph . He works for a company called Amp Sound Branding , which is a sonic branding agency . He's talking again about it's more important than ever to get the sound of your brand right not just a little jingle that you can sing along , but actually a little bit more than that Make sure that you have a whole toolkit around sound . It's fascinating read at podcastbusinessjournalcom .

James Cridland 1:03:11

One else is going on . Grace Carrick has been made head of US business development for Signal Hill Insights . She was working for Midroll Media , who are now Stitcher , of course , and Westwood One . Magellan AI has just hired Shawnee Cook as a business development manager . They said we couldn't be more excited to have her . She's from have Us Edge and Ad Results Media , somebody who would be a great guest for this very show . Dmg Media's new head of podcasts . They are the publisher of the Daily Mail , but we'll forgive them just this once . A nice man called Jamie East . He's coming on .

Sam Sethi 1:03:51

He's already said yes .

James Cridland 1:03:53

Gee , you know that's fantastic , because I had no idea about that . There you are . There you are . You've already booked him . Excellent , he's next week . This is how this should work . That's brilliant . Well , if you're looking for a job , pod News has podcasting jobs across the industry and across the world , and they're free to boast as well . It just takes two minutes to add a new role . Podnewsnet slash jobs

The Tech Stuff

James Cridland 1:04:14

. The tech stuff On the Pod News Weekly Review .

James Cridland 1:04:18

Yes , it's the stuff you'll find every Monday In the Pod News newsletter . Here's where we do all of the tech talk . Riverside has done something exciting . They have a new AI-powered tool called Magic Clips that basically goes through a video that you have recorded on their platform and works out what the most exciting bits are . What it'll also do is it'll also get rid of those awkwardly long silences . It'll do all of that . Nice to see them focusing on some fun AI stuff .

Sam Sethi 1:04:57

Now moving on . Friend of the show , john Spurlock , who runs the OP3 , the Open Prefix project , now has over 700 podcasts participating in his analytics , which is a great number . Tell me more about OP3 again , james .

James Cridland 1:05:12

Yeah , so it's a free and open analytics service . Open in two ways Open because it's open source , so you can actually see how it does everything , but also open in that your numbers are open . If you use this particular service we do you can go and see our numbers , along with all kinds of other people as well . If you want to see some of those numbers , then you can go and have a look at more than 200 shows . Who are making their show download figures public through OP3 , podcastbusinessjournalcom slash data , where you'll find a great big list of those shows . But , yeah , it's great to see more people using the Open Prefix project . We can learn so much more from it . One of the things that I'm hoping that John works on are a couple more bits of API to allow podcast users to pull some of the data off there , but also to start having a look at the overall numbers as well , because it would be really interesting , wouldn't it , to be able to understand , okay , how is Apple Podcasts doing these days ? What's going on on the Android platform , all that kind of stuff . So all of that information is certainly there and is certainly available . It'd be great to have more podcasts using this . Op3.dev is where to go and you can add it onto your podcast to make sure that all of your information is going into there as well . It's something that individuals should do , because obviously not everybody wants their podcast information public . I think one of the things that I'm quite keen that people do is that they actually do put all of their information public , particularly if you are earning money from the public . If you are a podcast which is taking money from people who are supporting you , like we are , then I think it kind of makes sense to actually give the stats back so that people can actually see how well you're doing and all of that . So I think that that's a good plan .

James Cridland 1:07:31

Time was when I worked at the BBC in 2017 , no , when I worked at the BBC in 2007, . Then one of the things that they were doing at that time was they were releasing podcast download numbers very , very quickly , stopped for tedious technical reasons and have never started again . If you go and you try asking the BBC for any podcast download figures , they won't give you any . I think if you're being paid for by the public , I think that's a pretty bad thing . To be honest , the more people that can use OP3 is , I think , a good thing If you're with Captivate , if you're with RSScom , I think , and if you're with a couple of others . Certainly Captivate does , and Transistor . They both offer OP3 as a drop-down in their system , so it couldn't be easier to add it as well .

Events and Awards

James Cridland 1:08:26

Brilliant .

James Cridland 1:08:26

Let's take a quick look at some events now . Shall we Shall I rattle through some of these ? Yes , please , yes . Well , there's the People's Choice podcast awards . It's called Cochran gothisowncom 18 years ago . This is the 18th edition of that . You can participate now to vote for the nominations . Go for that . The Audio Production Awards 2023 have been announced by Audio UK and you should be entering those as well if you are a UK production house . There's also the International Women's podcast awards . You've been told mid-September to enter those as well . And News from London's Evening Standard talking about anger from podcasters . It's always exciting to read , isn't it , as the British podcast awards charges £300 to attend , that's $388 to attend .

James Cridland 1:09:27

We did talk about this many , many months ago , if you remember I went to look and I discovered that tickets last year do you know how much tickets last year were £34 ? Yes , £75 . About $99 . So they've basically put up the prices four times . Now they do say that they've moved the venue from a tent in a field to a fancy swanky London .

Sam Sethi 1:09:53

Oh , please it wasn't just a tent in a field that is such a .

James Cridland 1:09:58

That was me , not them .

Sam Sethi 1:09:59

Oh okay , I was going to say that was a swanky tent . That was really really good .

James Cridland 1:10:04

But yeah , £300 to attend is quite a thing , or not to attend or not to attend . There is also a bursary scheme that you can apply for . So if you feel up to going to the organisers and saying I've got no money and I can't really afford £300 , can I come in for nothing , then they might give you a free ticket . But I always think that's a bit of a cop-out , to be honest . But still , but there we are . Hopefully I'm going , so I shouldn't possibly be too rude about it , but nevertheless , the British Podcast Awards you can't vote anymore , I don't think . I think all of the voting is closed . Maybe the people's choice voting is still open , but anyway , the actual event happens the day after Pod News Live in the end of September and events talking about events , because that kind of is an event the awards themselves , more events going on , of course , podcast movement happening in Denver in Colorado . Very much looking forward to that . Rob Greenlee will be there , which is nice . It was almost as if he wasn't going to be there , but no , he's going to be there , both on the StreamYard stand , of which he is an adviser , and the no Mono stand , of which he's an adviser . There . I will also be there as well , not doing too much , really , but hanging out , and it would be great to meet as many people as possible .

James Cridland 1:11:28

Also going on Podcast Day Asia , which is in September , early September , september the 6th , in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia . Lots of entertaining people speaking there , which is good . And the London Podcast Festival coming back between September the 7th and the 17th in King's Place . And , of course , not forgetting Pod News Live , which is on the 27th of September in West London . Podnewsnet slash live is where to get tickets . You've been speaking to a lot of the speakers , haven't you ?

Sam Sethi 1:12:03

Yeah , I mean Dino Sofar , jack Davenport , morton Strungen , ross Adams . I mean , the list is brilliant . We still are waiting for the final confirmation for somebody , so we can't . I am trying desperately to get that person across said line . They've been a bit busy this week , let's put it that way , but they let's not give any clues . Well , you know , that could be anybody really . But yeah , no , I've been told by the PR people that it's looking good , so I'm fingers crossing , as they say , and in the school of I Know Everybody , I don't know this person well enough to commit yet .

James Cridland 1:12:39

Well , there you go . That's exciting , isn't it ? Podnewsnet slash live is where to go , and we thank rsscom for their sponsorship of part of that event and others to come too . And there are more events , both paid for and free , at PodNews virtual events or events in a place with people , and if you're organizing something you can tell the world about it , it's free to be listed . Podnewsnet slash events .

Boostagram Corner

James Cridland 1:13:05

Boostergram . Boostergram Corner . Corner Corner On the PodNews Weekly Review .

James Cridland 1:13:11

Yes , it's our favourite time of the week , boostergram Corner , although we've only had one boost this week and it's from the late bloomer actor whoever you are and he says , or she says , regarding the strike you mentioned , some top actors are licensing their voices and or likeness and are very happy . Yes , of course they are . They're making great financial deals that work in perpetuity , with income coming in and then to their estate once they leave us , but they account for one to two percent of actors that I've heard as a person says . The issue is that the big studios don't want to follow suit for the smaller actors , paying them one day's pay by using their likeness in perpetuity . That's just wrong . Thank you for the comment . 1,000 sats as well . We much appreciate that and if you do get value from what we do the PodNews Weekly Review is separate from PodNews Sam and I share everything from it . We really appreciate your support as well , so we can continue making this show . You can become a power supporter at weeklypodnewsnet with your MasterCard or your Visa card , or you can support us with sats by hitting the boost button in your podcast app and if you don't have one , podnewsnet slash new podcast apps will help you find a new app .

Sam and James's week

James Cridland 1:14:23

Now I'll tell you what's happened for Sam this week . He co-hosted the new media show with Rob Greenlee and talked about pod fans and value for value and the podcast standards project and all of that sort of thing . He said he had a reunion with Adam Street members , including the calm CEO , michael Akson Smith . You see , he knows everybody and pod fans . Also launched its new feedback app , which is very clever . They now pay users to submit bug reports and feature suggestions and all of that kind of stuff with sats , which is very nice . There's also Roadmap , which has been published , and there's a new blog platform that supports the podcast namespace with person tag and medium tag and boosts and zaps and all of that kind of stuff . I'm sure that Sam will talk more about that next week .

James Cridland 1:15:11

Can you tell that Riverside broke and that we lost the final five minutes of this podcast ? I bet you can by now . But there we are . So that's Sam's week . My week , well , has been mostly sitting at home and getting emails from whiny people . So that's that and that's it for this week . Thank you to our guests . You can give us feedback by using email to weekly at podnewsnet . Nobody does or send us a boostergram . If your podcast app doesn't support boosts , then go and use one that's good and does like Fountain perhaps I'm an advisor for them or , if you like it better that way , podfansfm See if you can get onto the big list there . Music is from Studio Dragonfly , our voiceover is Sheila Dee , and we're hosted and sponsored by Pod News Live and by Buzz Brown . Podcast hosting made easy . Get updated every day . Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet .

Daniel Ek 1:16:11

Tell your friends and grow the show . And support us . And support us the Pod .

Jingle 1:16:15

News Weekly Review will return next week . We'll see you in the next video .