James Cridland: 0:02

Welcome to this pod land interview, extra I'm James Cridland, the editor of pod news.

Dino Sofos: 0:06

I'm Dino SOAs, the founder, CEO of PERA, the podcast production company. And I'll be on later talking to Sam about our new daily news podcast. The news agents presented by Emily mate list. John, so and Goodall.

Eric Nuzum: 0:21

I'm Eric Newsham from magnificent noise, and I'll be on later to talk about audiobooks, podcasting and all things listening.

Mike Kadin: 0:28

And I'm Mike Caden from red circle. And later I'll be talking about our new dynamic insertion features.

James Cridland: 0:34

They will pod land is sponsored by buzz sprout a great place to host your podcast and by squad a great way to record it. And this is something, a little different that we're trying and we'd love your feedback. Would you prefer that we added more interviews to this feed or are you here for the James and Sam stuff or both or neither? And if neither, why are you listening? The best way to give us feedback is to drop us a boost using an app like fountain or by email granddad. You want comments, pod, land.news. Coming up, Eric Newsum looks back at when he worked at audible and Mike Caden from red circle shares some new tools from the. Podcast monetization company. If your podcast app supports chapters, you can skip there right now, but don't do that because first is Dino SOAs from Percy Onica pod lands. Sam, Seth caught up with him to talk about the news agents, the new daily news podcast from global and other things.

Sam Sethi: 1:27

You've had, uh, an amazing probably six, 12 months. I dunno what it would be. Uh, and you know, you've, you'd left the BBC. You've started your own company. Let's take a, a little, uh, track back before we get into some of the newer stuff you're doing. First of all, you, you were in the BBC, you were producing two of the biggest podcasts that we have in the UK. How did that all come about?

Dino Sofos: 1:50

With difficulty actually, to be honest, um, because when I launched, well, it all started with a, a little podcast that I'm sure you, even, you, as a podcast expert may not have listened to cuz the numbers were so small called election cast in 2017. And I was basically at the BBC, um, where I'd been a journalist since kind of 2000 and. Nine, started in local radio, had worked at, in, uh, five live, always in sort of talk radio and a lot in politics as well. And I was sat in the BBC's newsroom in Westminster and it was at the time when a lot of the newspapers were launching podcasts and, and the political magazines were launching podcasts. and I just thought it was completely bonkers that the BBC. Didn't do anything similar with the, broadcasting heavyweights they had in the newsroom. So every morning at nine o'clock, there would be the, kind of the, the meeting of the day. And you had people like John pina, Laura Kosberg, Chris Mason, all. Basically locking heads together and just talking about politics. And for me, that was the most interesting thing I heard all day compared to any of the, any of our output. And actually when I thought about it, I was like, this can go out. You know, they're still being impartial journalists, cuz that's just how they are. we should turn this into a product. So at the time, the BBC didn't, I mean, now it, you know, this is, this is before BBC sounds right before there was any serious podcasting infrastructure at the BBC, uh, in terms of commissioning, uh, there was one, there was one guy at the time who was doing it and I just basically went to them and. Look, we should be doing this. Can I have a go, uh, you know, I've done some radio I think, I know, I know how to produce a, a show. Um, and he said, oh, I'm not really sure. It's a good idea. What we wanted to do in this election was kind of just clip up some bits of five live and put it out on the podcast feed. And I was like, no, please let me do this. So I eventually convinced them to let me do it. And actually I had loads of support from five lives. So it was a five live branded podcast, election cast at the first, uh, when, when it first went out. We had a crack. It was a daily, it went well, not many people listened to everybody. The key is the talent really, really enjoyed doing it. And it's this thing. That's all of a sudden they had a platform, whether they could talk like human beings about stuff they know about on a daily basis. And so that then morphed into Brexit cast.

Chris Mason: 4:21

So it's Friday, the 29th of March, March, 2019. That date that it has been a near professional obligation for us all Toro out every day of our working lives for the last two years. And as we record it just gone seven 30. We are what, three and a half hours away from what was meant to be the big departure moment. And well, it isn't. famous podcast title, as they say. So after that, the, the numbers really started to grow. Brexit was just such a huge story in the UK. And we created a space where people could come and, and, and find out what was happening on both sides of those negotiations with huge talent. Laura Kingsburg and catcher Adler, and obviously Chris Mason and Adam Fleming, who then have become, you know, since, since we did that have become huge stars. and then it spun off into the daily newscast.

BBC: 5:16

And thank you to you for joining this episode of newscast. We thought what we would do is just take an opportunity to catch up on some of the news stories that have happened in the last few days, but we've maybe not had enough time to really think about our process or consider.

Dino Sofos: 5:31

cuz we constantly evolved the, the format basically and, and used that, that feed kind of, we, we, we realized how valuable that feed was and that we constantly had to push forward and try something. And then the spinoff was America with Emily and John. So I, I saw the us elections were coming on the horizon and I thought, right. Let's, you know, roll out the format. Uh, again, um, who would, I want to present that podcast looking, and that was the brilliant thing about being at the BBC. It was like you're, you know, as a producer at that time, I was like a kid in a sweet shop. With all this amazing talent and I just thought you. Who would, I want to, to present a podcast about us politics? Well, clearly Emily Mala and John. So, you know, um, two of the biggest us politics boss in the UK. Uh, so we launched that. And again, that did really, really well. we kind of got out of the pandemic and I'd been thinking for a while, I'd been at the BBC for 14 years, that it was, you know, probably time for.

Sam Sethi: 7:01

That's a good

Dino Sofos: 7:02

it's a good, it's a good stretch. And, and, you know, there was lots of, kind of, you know, people who worked at the BBC who alwa always tend to hit the buffers where they sort of want to be producers and they want to create content, but to kind of, to climb the greasy pole, you have to take on more and more management. And at the, at the BBC that is like involves a hell of a load of bureaucracy. And I just found myself doing more and more management and less kind of content creation. And a few people were sort of tapping me on the shoulder, approaching me for jobs, but actually I just thought, do you know what I really want to? I, I, I, I feel. This is an opportunity, and this is a time for me to take a huge risk, obviously, but to, to, um, launch my own thing. Uh, so that's what I did. So, so like, yeah, this time last year, or just, just after sort of July last year, I left the be and started. Plotting to set up PERA, um, with my business partner, Tom O harra, cuz it's always important. Sam, you and I were just talking off air about all the, kind of the, the, the challenges of startup life. And I, and I'm really lucky that I've got a brilliant business partner who knows about money cuz obviously working at the BBC for 14 years. I had no idea about budgets, about accountants, about you know, contracts. So yeah, so, so, so we launched and. Yeah, we're really happy with how it's going,

Sam Sethi: 8:27

Yeah, no, I I'm. I'm really chuffed watching what you are doing from afar. Uh, it's brilliant. Um, one of the things before we move on to, uh, what you're doing today, um, two questions in my head. One is where did that name come from? Because I find it really hard to say, but I mean, there must be a great reason for it. So tell.

Dino Sofos: 8:46

Peron. Um, well, you know, sort of coming up with names for companies is always difficult. Um, and I had a, Double challenge in that the same time that I launched PERA, uh, I had my, uh, we had our first, uh, child, um, and I had to name my daughter at the same time that I named the company. And, you know, thinking of names is difficult enough and my daughter is called perse.

Sam Sethi: 9:09

Mm.

Dino Sofos: 9:09

Um, so I kind of, uh, Nicked her name to to, to name the company, but we gave it a, we wanted it to sound a bit like, um, I don't know, like a kind of old school record label, I guess. Um, because I think the ethos of PERA, one of the things is like working with huge talent and having a roster of podcasts, which are, you know, premium habit forming have got huge talent attached to it. And that kind of in my mind, uh, probably slightly. Grandly, uh, just kind of evoke the idea of an, of, of an old school record label,

Sam Sethi: 9:45

Oh, um, now I'm glad I know its background to at least I, I will try and get

Dino Sofos: 9:50

and also the handle. The web domain was available, crucially, uh,

Sam Sethi: 9:53

is it. That's the reason. Got it. Now. Um, now I've said BBC now stands for byebye content creators. I mean, it it's basically, you've seen the guys over a crowd network and a few others, you know, with the Peter crouch podcast leaving. Is, is, was this something that you felt going on within the BBC or is. A narrow channel that you had on your own, you know, did you know the guys at crowd net like, like Michael Carl, or was it a case of, no, I just wanna do this. It's not a feeling I have around the BBC.

Dino Sofos: 10:24

I was in my sort of news bubble, to be honest at the BBC. So I, I, yeah, I'm aware of other successful podcasts that were happening and that guys were leaving and setting up their own thing. But, um, , you know, at the end of the day as all good business, people will tell you. I think you've got to be convinced. No matter what's going on around you, that you know what you're doing and that you can, you think you can pull it off. So before I jumped, you know, there were conversations happening with talent, for sure. Um, and to other people, I knew that, you know, if I do this, would you like to work with me in the future? Have you got my back? You know, frankly. So, so I, so I, I, I made that decision purely based on whether I thought I could pull it off and, and, you know, and I'd had doubts. Even within the first few months of setting up post FAA, I was like, oh shit, have I, you know, have I bit enough more than I can chew here as we all do when you are lying awake at night thinking, uh should I have just taken that nice job with, uh, one of the streamers and had money coming into my bank account every month? Or, but actually, yeah, we got got through that period quite quickly with once we announced the. The launch of the, the news agents. Um, that was kind of the moment for me when I thought great. We've got the foundations here for a, a really successful, uh, production company.

Sam Sethi: 11:44

let's start off within what you're doing today.. It's one of those things that when you launched it, you've got great names. Um, but how did you approach global with the idea or do global approach you? How did that whole relationship come about?

Dino Sofos: 12:26

So the initial conversation, uh, and Emily has talked about this a bit already in, in some of the interviews she's done around the launch of news agents. Um, the initial conversation happened just before Christmas, last year. And as, and as I say, you know, I've been talking to talent, Emily and Emily, John, and I really enjoyed working on news a, on America together. That was our kind of like. We just loved it. We had so much fun. It was a creative relationship that really worked. And when I left the be, we kind of were all sort of saying, you know, one day we will work together again. Um, and that conversation started happening pretty quickly. I think Emily and I went for a walk just before Christmas and we were talking about, you know, what could we do together? And at that point, John was being lined up as political. um, and I don't think that's a secret. I think, you know, it was, it, it is pretty well known that, you know, he was, he was the lead candidate at the time. Um, and. So we just assumed that he wouldn't be interested that he was, you know, this is his dream job that, you know, probably he he'd always had his sights on. Um, so Emily I, Emily and I were kicking around other ideas and we kicked an idea around with Hugh grant, a kind of new news adjacent podcast, where we talked about news stories, but from a slightly different perspective with a journalist and a non journalist, um, uh, And Hugh sent us a lovely email saying, I think it's a great idea, but I just basically just don't have the time, um, to commit to one, which is, which is very, very honest, cuz I think a lot of talent could take a leaf outta his, outta his book when Stein podcast acknowledging that they do take time and commitment. Um, and then in the same kind of afternoon, we kind of thought, well look, can we not just do. Just a more ambitious version of Americas, but not of the BBC. And I went well. Yeah. I, I think we definitely can, you know, and, and I was having conversations already. I'd spoken, had a very early conversation when I left the BBC in set as FAA with James re at global. Um, and. I'd sort of kicked around some names of talent that I had really rated. And Emily was obviously up there and John was up there and he really liked America. So, you know, once Emily and I had kind of had that conversation about, you know, we'd like to do this and, and can we do it? Um, Emily called John up. I think that that same day. And I think he said, This sounds amazing and I'd, I'd love to be involved. So at that point, we very quickly, uh, arranged a conversation. We, we had conversations with a, with a, with a, a few people actually. Um, but it was really clear that global were just the most ambitious, got what we were doing. Um, Clearly we're we're at that point had made a commitment to push into podcasting in a big way. Um, and that global player was gonna be the future. Um, so at that stage, I think it was very clear from our first conversation, um, with, with James that, you know, I think he was surprised that Emily was gonna leave the BBC as we all were, frankly, you know, and, and the, the press reaction was, um, was, uh, was, you know, just basically showed that I think. But yeah, they were, it all happened very, very quickly. Actually it happened very quickly and we, you know, we knew that to pull this off, we need the backing of a. Huge media organization, you know, producing daily content at the best of times is, um, grueling and hard, uh, and not cheap, right. You know, it takes resource and you need, you, you also need a back office operation. So we couldn't just do this by ourselves. You know, it was never gonna happen. Um, and global have been an amazing partner. And I think you can see that from, you know, we're two or three weeks in now I've lost track. Um, But you can already see just how much impact has come from that relationship. How, it was on billboards around the country. Um, and you know, it was top of the podcast charts straight away. And I think that, that that's, that's kind of, you know, down to the content and the talent, but sure. But it's also, you know, down to the, the partnership as.

Sam Sethi: 16:44

well, yeah, global loan, the load of billboards that they bought up, they have the radio stations to help promote it. I think, I think when people say, you know, how'd you make a hit how'd you make a hit podcast. Great content. Yes. Great presenters tick, but I D know, added to that, a budget for marketing it, uh, and getting it into the, the awareness of

Dino Sofos: 17:03

Right. People have gotta, people have gotta discover it and discovery and podcasting as, as, as there are more and more podcasts out there. And, you know, and using current affairs is a big space. Sure. But it's a competitive space. So, um, you know, getting people to. Break a habit and build a new one is also a challenge.

Sam Sethi: 17:22

Yeah. I mean, most people have a space for three, maybe four podcasts in their personal, you know, uh, listening time and to get a new one in, you have to normally push one out. Um, that's generally what I've found now look, um, Moving on from, um, I'll come back to the news agent surely, but you've also got an interesting one and I just would love to know how this one came about. You do a podcast with Jupa, who I love dearly. And you, you basically not only have done a podcast with Jupa, but you've also internationalized it. who approached her? How'd you get to Jupa and don't tell me, you know, your godmother is her uncle or aunt or something.

Dino Sofos: 18:10

No, no, not at all. Um, that was, so that was a, that was Peron's first job. Um, and, uh, in his sort of industry connections, doer was, uh, do doer has launched a, um, A kind of lifestyle, uh, concierge cultural concierge brand called service 95 and, uh, which she runs herself with her, with her management. So it's not attached to the label. Um, and she wanted to make a podcast as part of that offer. Um, so the word went out that they were looking for a producer and I think they were, they were talking to, um, A variety of production companies at the time. Um, as, as you'd expect some in America, but actually at the, I think it came down to the fact purely that the, um, that her manager at the time who was kind of leading the search for, uh, a partner for this. Was a huge fan of Americas and, and really liked my work. Um, and I met them and I told them what I thought we should do with it. And yeah, we did the, the relationship gelled and we did some pilots and they sounded great. And you know, and this is not you know, this is not your typical. Pop star musician chats to their mates about nonsense. You know, this has got depth. It's very intelligent. And I think a lot of the, the, the, the, you know, the, the kind of characteristics, I guess, from the news and current affairs space that I have built, we've applied to this podcast. So, you know, We're about to do our first episode of the second series. And I can't give away who, who that episode is featuring, but it's a huge name from, uh, you know, I guess. Political history actually. Um, and it's a really, really interesting conversation and we speak to activists and as well as musicians sure. We had Elton John on the last podcast. Right. And that's fascinating, but I think, I think what we, what we've done with this was we wanted to give it gravitas and it to be a really, really warm, but, and, and something where you learn a lot from it as well. And it's done really, really well.

Sam Sethi: 20:19

No, it has done really well. And it's, it was unexpected actually, uh, not unexpected that it would do well unexpected that ju Lippa would do a podcast in the form that she's done it. But what also fascinated me about what you did was you, you, you translated the podcast into multiple languages and. I remember talking about it on pod land at the time. And we, we had a little chat. Um, again, what was that decision making process? Why did you want to internationalize it so quick? And why did you do it in the format? You've done it. Cause maybe you can explain that it's not just, um, you know, a, a, Jupa trying to talk in other languages. It's really interesting where you do. It's sort of let me just try and, uh, set it up. It's where Julie possessed something, but then it goes into like a UN style

Dino Sofos: 21:03

It's UN translation. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, look, uh, Again, you know, as with, with all podcasts, you experiment with different things and we are, and we are, when, when you launch a new podcast, you don't really know where your audience are gonna be PRI primarily. Right? And you look at the, the data of, you know, who your talent reaches already. And clearly with doer, you know, south America is a huge audience for her. Um, look, it was really hard work. We, we had to translate each episode, um, Individually, uh, and then get voiceover artists, actors who would play doer, but also play each guest. So it's a huge, huge amount of, of, of work. And, and we did that with, uh, Spanish, um, Portuguese and French. So, um, but yeah, look, I, I think that there's a, there's a, there's a lot of experimentation going in with, um, Translating podcasts into different languages. I think's a lot more common in kind of narrative podcast where it's like maybe one voice. Um, I think this kind of conversational magazine type show, interview show where you're translating it. I think we, we took a lot of learnings from that, you know, I think ultimately people want to. Um, the voice of the talent that's and that, and, and a lot of the time, that's what they're tuning in for. Um, and maybe, you know, a lot of people speak English as well in those territories , um, or, or they speak some, you know, English to some degree, but would rather listen to, you know, the, the, the, the charact, the, the people in their, in their, in their original voice. I think there's a lot of where, where I'm really interested to see this, to see where the tech goes. There are people already, and I think Google is one of. Who are, who are basically, uh, developing very, very impressive AI translation software. So it basically takes a sample of the voice and translate it, translate it. We, we tested it, some of the software that's out there already, still sounds a little bit robotic. Um, but I think if we can get to a stage where you can actually. Hear the, the original voice of somebody, but it's translated into other languages. I think that's where we want to be. Uh, to be honest, I think that, I think, I think that's, that's the future We've just done. Three episodes over the summer, just kind of while the, the, the, um, series taking a break, which completely broke the format as well. And we had three episodes, which was, one was a, was a meditation class. Do do a, leading a me meditation class. One was her doing a yoga session. And one was her doing a cooking session, cooking her favorite meal. Um, and we filmed those and put those. We put those on YouTube with, you know, uh, with subtitles. Um, so I, I think we're still experimenting at the moment, the hu I think, you know, we got a huge audience in the us, uh, and that was clear from the, from the first series. Um, we were another really interesting thing that happened as well was that we were approached by BBC sounds, um, who wanted. Uh, to host the podcast on BBC sounds, which was really interesting, cuz it's third party contract content. So the BBC, um, I think did a handful of titles as a, as a bit of an experiment. Um, and that was great in terms of driving UK listeners as well. So, so the first series, it, you know, it was hosted by iHeart. Um, obviously huge in the states, uh, and when the season had completed, we were allowed to then distribute it on BBC sounds. Uh, so I think, again, we, we, we are just trying to grow the audience as much as possible and as many territories as possible, um, and the reception to it has been fantastic. And, and it was great that the BBC wanted to kind of put this on, on sounds as, as a, as one of their flagship third party.

Sam Sethi: 25:03

That's nice. I mean, obviously given your contacts within the BBC, that helps. I mean, it's brilliant that they chose you as well. Now. Um, one thing going through my head, um, Julie's audience, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but I would say is much more of a younger audience, a, a pop cultured audience. Um, and yet she's talking on subjects, as you said, you're gonna have a political historian coming on soon.

Dino Sofos: 25:25

not a histor, not a historian, actually. It's a, a, a figure from history that you will know as soon as you hear the name.

Sam Sethi: 25:32

Okay. But, but what I'm trying to say is these are more mature subjects, right? That wouldn't maybe appeal to a 15 or 16 year old female, mainly audience. I I'm, maybe I'm just disparaging. I mean, I love Julies, so I'm not disparaging her at all, but I'm just saying that her audience would, I assume be a younger, more female pop orientated audience, and yet she's taking this genre into, so. Were you securing the knowledge that you would bring an audience through because she's growing a new audience. I thought for her podcast, which is

Dino Sofos: 26:04

Yeah, cuz cuz cuz everything I've learned in podcasting about young audiences is never underestimate their intelligence and their, um, desire to learn, um, and expose themselves to subjects that maybe slightly out of their comfort zone, but they want to learn. And I think that's what we know about podcasting, right. Is people, people yeah. Do want companionship. Sure. But they, they also, that's why some of these podcasts that, where you're just doing superficial nonsense chat about, you know, Going to the pub just doesn't, doesn't cut it anymore. People want to, if they're gonna devote 40 minutes of their day to you, they want to learn something. They want to be challenged. And actually, you know, people like Riz armed people like Megan stallion, people like Lisa today, the author, the, you know, young people are reading Lisa today's books. Right? Like I, I think, you know, the Lisa today probably has a, has a slightly older audience too, but. It's it's, it's, it's raising awareness of people in the cultural sphere, um, and talking about their lives and talking about how they develop their careers and fell into the, you know, fell into their chosen line of work. Um, and that's really inspiring for younger audiences. Um, so, you know, we, we did a punt out again. One of the things that I learned from America. We want to hear, reflect the audience, hear from the audience, encourage them to send in their voice notes and without fail. And this is amazing. And, and you know, is what every single platform aspires to without fail. 90% of the voice notes were coming from young females, I would say kind of 2020s and below really intelligent, thoughtful comments. Not just how the previous episode had, had, had inspired them, but that, but that with great questions that they wanted to ask. So yeah, I have, no, I have no doubt that, you know, younger audiences are, are wanting to plug into something that is challenging, um, and, and, and helps them learn about the world.

Sam Sethi: 28:12

Now I wanna just change tracks slightly. I mean, going back to your production company itself, um, who owns the IP to your slate? Uh, is it a joint IP? I mean, again with somebody like Jupa, you know, is it her IP that you are just producing or are you joint IP again with news agent? Is that again? Global owns it. And your produc. I, I, it's one of the things that people on, you know, when they set up a production company, they look at, you know, how are they gonna monetize all of their, their work and time? And one is only the IP. So you can resell it later on or do other things with it who owns the IP for you?

Dino Sofos: 28:48

So I can't really get into specific, uh, Contractual arrangements as I'm sure you'll appreciate because of, um, non-disclosure uh, and all that sort of stuff. So I'm not gonna talk specifically about, about contracts. If, if you forgive, if you'll forgive me. Um, but look, I think as with any production company, you, you, you definitely it's, you IP is absolutely critical. Um, but you also need to like, especially we, we know we are less than a year old, right. So it's also about kind of, um, building a business. Um, so I think it's a, it's always a hybrid model and you, you approach jobs in a different way, don't you, you go, right. You know, and it's also like how much support you're getting, um, and what the other person is contributing. So it's always a, there's never a, and this is what I think is so great about the podcasting industry at the moment is it's there isn't like a set way of doing anything and every co every podcast that. Are talking about, it might be a partnership with another production company. It may might be a partnership with a streamer. It might be a partnership with talent. We've we've just signed to, uh, uh, a really big agency. Um, I can't cuz the, the, the ink isn't dry on the contract yet. So I won't, I won't say the name of it, but you know, those conversations are all around, you know, collaborations is the word at the moment, which is so interesting. It's like, let we, we really wanna match you up with this. You. This production company in America, cuz we think that they're trying to push into different territory. We think, you know, with your experience on your belt, that's a really great, um, partnership and straight away. Yeah. You're you're you are always talking about IP, how that's gonna, how that split's gonna work. Um, And, you know, and I think that's a live conversation right now with, with the, with the big streamers as well. Right. You know how much I think, I think it started originally and there are well known stories of people who've had hip podcasts and podcast creators kind of been frozen out of the IP. And I think very people are very smart now about what they're willing to, to hand over, uh, for how long and, and, um, you know, so, so I. We're having very mature conversations with everybody about, you know, IP backend splits, all of that stuff, which is, um, which is, which is, you know, fine, but also, you know, there's nothing wrong with a good, you know, a good flat fee now. And again, right. As a production company.

Sam Sethi: 31:14

As a startup.

Dino Sofos: 31:15

Right. You know, and it's, and, and that's great. I think it, it, I think it's, as long as you've got a kind of diverse, um, ecosystem of, of, of, of revenue and monetization, um, I think that's great. And I think that's how a lot of production companies are working at the moment, but yeah, sure. IP is really interesting, uh, of course, to us and about how we take that forward into, you know, Spinoff content around live shows and TV, spinoffs, and movie spinoffs. Uh, and that's why pairing with a, with a great agent, um, is, is also really, really important to us.

Sam Sethi: 31:50

How long does it take to produce the news agent on a daily basis? I mean, how many hours is production to output?

Dino Sofos: 31:58

it varies depending on the episode and we are very, very much in experimentation phase still at the moment. I mean, one of, one of the things that's fascinating for me about this process is that I launched all the casts for the BBC with basically nobody paying much attention to the first few months of them, which as a podcast producer is frustrating at the time. Cuz you're like, come on guys, this is great content. But then to go from a to go from that to like basically having. People sort of do live, you know, basically like live reviews of your first episode when, you know, frankly, the first episode of anything is never gonna be amazing. because, because, you know, that's just not how podcasts work. Um, it was, was a, was a real eye. It was a real eyeopener to all of us, I think, which is just like, Okay. I mean, this is a daily podcast that we're gonna be doing for years to come. If you wanna, ju if you wanna like base your base your judgment on the first episode then cool. Uh, but that's not really how it works as we all know in podcasting. Um, so like, I think from, you know, we, we're very much experimenting, trying different things every day. So some episodes are more produced with lots more clips and, and more interviews. Um, some. Uh, like a long conversation with one person. So we did an episode the day before last with Gabriel Gatehouse. The now independent, uh, podcaster, uh, who formerly of the BBC, who is, um, came on and talks about Ukraine for half an hour with us. And that was great. Uh, now in terms of production time, we can turn that around fairly, fairly quickly. I would say other days, There are, you know, it takes, it takes a lot longer, I guess. We're, uh, to, to give you a little insight into our day, uh, I mean, you, we, we are having this chat in a little bit of downtime. You know, look I'm executing. We've got an amazing team who are, who are, who are sort of running the running the podcast day to day. But, um, we have a chat at eight 30 in the morning, uh, where we decide what we're gonna do. Then the team go off and start putting in their interview requests. I think that what's amazing at the moment is just the willingness of people to come on. The show is fantastic. So we've had some really big name guests already, but people really, we're not, we're not kind of, um, we're pushing at an open door with a lot of contributors, which is just such a great space to be. People are really excited about being on the podcast. So that makes producer's jobs a lot easier when you get a yes, rather than 20 nos, um, So then we're try, we're trying to record it. We're trying to get it out for like the drive time commute every day. Um, so. Five o'clock is when we're trying to hit. Um, but we're giving ourselves some leeway as well. You know, like today we're recording an episode that is gonna be about, um, abortion laws in the us. So we're, America's not a wait yet. So we're gonna we're gonna have to wait to record those interviews probably until two o'clock is when we're I think the team are gonna record today. So to get that from five, let's say you finish recording at three, gives you two hours to turn around an episode. Now, luckily we've. A team of shit, hot producers who are very, very quick. Um, but still you have editorial standards and, you know, people need to listen to the episode before it goes out that takes straight away. That's half an hour, you know, out of your, out of your, out of your two hours. So, um, you know, it's, it's, you know, workflows are adapting all the time and we're figuring out the best way of doing things, but that that's kind of the, the schedule of the day, you know, recording at about one o'clock-ish. Um, between well recording between 12 and two, and then getting it out as quickly as possible, because, you know, we want people to be listening on their drive time commute. We, we know that a lot people will listen when they're ready. Some people might wait until the weekend and look through our titles and choose one episode at the five. But we know there are a lot of people who are listening as soon as it drops, um, which is a great place to be. We're already creating that habit where people are, are really waiting for it, um, for their commute.

Sam Sethi: 36:03

Again, I, I may be one of those, so

Dino Sofos: 36:07

great. Great to hear.

Sam Sethi: 36:08

um, okay. Look, let's look forward a little bit. I mean, you know, you you've hit two out the park. What comes next for you? I mean, have you got other. Ideas in the pipeline. What? No, that's a stupid question. Of course. You've got other ideas in the pipeline. The question is what are those other ideas in the pipeline?

Dino Sofos: 36:24

Um, we have got lots of really, really interesting ideas. I mean, I've mentioned. Uh, I think right when we spoke last time, I mentioned that we've, we've collaborated with some, uh, TV and film production companies, uh, walk films up in Sheffield being one of them. Um, we are developing. Podcast in a slightly different space with, with, with those guys in the more sort of narrative space. Um, we are working on a travel format, uh, with Alice Levine, which is really, really interesting. So we're developing that at the moment. There's lots of stuff in the pipeline, um, that I, that I can't get into at the moment, but yeah, we're but, but what I would say is that what we're not doing as a production company, and this is, I think from our point of view, this is really important is that PERA is in this for the long game. You know, this is not me. Um, Trying to kind of like create, create a production company, raise the value and sell it in five years. We actually want to create like a really, really, um, premium podcast production company where we. Take pride in everything that we do, and we create podcasts of the highest quality. I'm not really interested in the kind of like chucking a bunch of spaghetti at the wall and seeing what, seeing what sticks I want to take time to create podcasts. And I think we've shown that already with Thea and with, um, news agents working with the biggest talent. um, working with the best producers in the industry and the best sound designers and creating stuff that is really gonna like stand the test of time.

Sam Sethi: 38:00

Brilliant. Dino, thank you so much for your time. I know that your day's very busy, so I appreciate you taking the time out.

Dino Sofos: 38:07

Really, really appreciate it. And, um, I'm a big fan and a listener of pod land, so it's always nice to be.

James Cridland: 38:12

Dino sofas from PERA in the main pod land. This week, we talked to Eric Newsum about Spotify's move into audiobooks, but he started the interview by talking about his time at audible.

Eric Nuzum: 38:24

I'm joined by Eric Newsome. He is the co-founder of magnificent noise, a podcast production company, but he's more famous for his time at NPR and audible, Eric. Hello? How are you? I'm fine. I don't know if anyone's ever referred to my time in audio as being famous, but I'll take whatever little I can get. Right. I come on. Everyone knows who you are. So look for the very few people left in the world who don't, what is magnificent noise? Let's start off with that first. Oh, magnificent noise is a consulting and production company. That's based in New York city. Our work isn't that much different than many other production companies. We do work for higher work. We do consultancy with companies that are trying to figure out what they should be doing in audio. And sometimes those consulting arrangements end up. Becoming production relationships too. And we give advice to people from individual creators up to some of the largest media companies in the world. We don't necessarily have the answers to everything, but we are very good at asking questions. And sometimes those questions lead people to clear direction. So that's basically the work we do, and we have a really good time doing it. And how long's magnificent noise been around? Uh, it depends on how you count my co-founder and I, Jesse Baker, folk of flick and I left audible in the summer of 2018. So by that measure, it's been four years, but I wrote a book about podcasting. And Jesse had a baby right after we left. Both those things happened. And so we decided I'd write my book. She created life. And then we get back together and start working. And I started working slightly before her. So we were actually a bonafide thing in 2019, but it depends on how you count. And you mentioned it there of course, your time at audible. What were you doing there? I was the senior vice president of original content development at audible. When I came in there in 2015, audible has had a long track record of dabbling in original content production, sometimes in the us, sometimes in the UK or Germany. And they wanted someone to come in to unify it, give it some form, really make it into what you see today. Enterprise that can churn out a lot of content. And I have a photo that I love to show people when we're talking about audible of my first day, they showed me the original content division at audible. A row of broken desks and some chairs, no computers, and definitely no people. And we had to build everything from scratch. We had to build not only the editorial strategy, but all the infrastructure and the accounting and legal and everything else. And we started churning out content nine months later. So it was a pretty fun ride. When I look at audible and I've been a customer of audible for a long time. If you look at my library, they clearly started out calling everything audiobooks. But when you go to the website, now they do have a tab for podcasting. And when you look at the type of content. I can't tell the difference between what is a podcast and what is an audio book and they call it order audible original. So you've got Steven Fry, you've got Jennifer Saunders and I'm looking at the UK version cuz that's where my redirection goes. But tell me, what is the difference? Are these not just audio books? Are they not just podcasts on podcasts? Are they no audio books? Is it tomato, tomato, or is there a difference between the two? I think the reality is for the user it's tomato. That they're like, I like Stephen Fry. I don't care if it's Stephen Fry narrating his own book. I don't care if it's Stephen Fry narrating somebody else's book. I don't care if it's Stephen Fry, hosting or presenting a, an, uh, audio series. I don't care if it's Stephen Fry doing interviews. I just like Stephen Fry. So I'm gonna gravitate towards that. And so for the user, I think as the audio industry continues to evolve, that becomes less and less of an important distinction. And sometimes people will say things like, oh, I don't like audiobooks or, oh, I don't like podcasts. Believe it. There are 60% of the world who doesn't listen to podcasts. So one way to get around those biases or lack of understanding of what they are, is to not call them those terms, which is one of the things that we experimented around during our. At audible. So I think from a user perspective, it's increasingly becoming, I wanna laugh or I wanna think about something new, or I wanna hear a great story. Those are the experiences they're looking for and they can find those in all those different genres. I think the biggest distinction and one of the most troubling things to work around is that audiobooks have a very different business model around them than podcasts do. And as a result of those business models, They are distributed differently. They are monetized differently and both models have lots of problems as you proceed into the future. But one of the things that keeps them from just being one big pile of stuff are those kind of legacy business relationships that are understandably difficult to square. You say different business models. I'd like to unwrap that a little bit more. If you don't mind at the end of the day, isn't it just a case. A piece of audio content, trying to grab the user's time and attention. And in the case of audible, I've been trained Pavlovian style to pay credits and a subscription. And I just do that by nature now and say, I get why one credit, I get my one audio book, et cetera, et cetera. But yet when I come to the podcasting, well, that model of paying has been. Up until recently until apple introduced subscriptions and people started getting into that mode and I still don't believe most podcasters pay or happily pay subscriptions yet. So why has one model been so successful in its subscription model, but podcasting hasn't? Well, I always say that when you look at podcasting and audiobooks, that podcasting has all the people and audiobooks has all the money. And I think that certainly bears out. Now, when you look at the estimates. The value of the podcast industry versus the value of the audiobook industry, the audiobook industry's worth at least three times what the podcast industry is with a huge caveat to that it's larger regardless, but, uh, even I just fell into my own bias that I hate where people equate the income and revenue of podcasting with advertising. And that's something that no one should do including myself. So it's even more basically what you said. It's podcasts are predicated on the idea of free and open access and distribu. Audiobooks are predicated on the idea that this is a piece of merchandise that you market sell and someone buys and consumes someone who's in the audiobook space. Once you make that purchase decision for that audiobook, whether you're purchasing it a cart or you're purchasing it with a, a subscription service, um, that point they're kind of interested in what happens. for the most part like sales made, we're done many people in the audiobook industry don't even track. If anyone listens to those files with very little exception, there are some people who do track it, mostly for people who are new or making trial memberships, but people just don't pay attention to it throughout the audiobook industry. All they care about is sales, but in podcasting, it's the exact opposite. If you subscribe or follow or whatever, that's interesting information. It's useful information actually. But what people really pay attention to is con. will they care about that though? If they move to a subscription model, if I pay for my podcast, irrespective. Then how far I consume it becomes irrelevant. Again, it's only because it's an advertising model that we care about the length of consumption. Uh, you know, I think that podcasting is just dangerously too far into realm of paying attention to what's important to advertisers. That's what happened to commercial radio. And that's why commercial radio is in the literally decimated space that it's in. They got out of the content business and the content making and distribution business and got into the advertising. And that's when you look at some of the major players who are in the advertising support space, that's what they are. They green light and produce things because they wanna drive downloads and they green light things that will create more downloads cuz that's their metric of support. The interesting thing about subscription is it starts to turn the attention towards the other sources of revenue, which is where frankly, I think there's so much growth potential. So there's only four ways a podcaster can make. There's advertising, which we talk about. There's listener sensitive revenue, which is any time that a listener gives you money, whether it's through a subscription or whether it's through buying merch or tickets to a live event, wherever there's a direct financial or Patreon, whatever, whenever there's a direct financial relationship with a listener that's is actually I think the biggest area of. We could have in our industry as that, and in that your consumption data and listing data becomes really critical to understand not just how to get that subscriber, but keep that subscriber. Then there is institutional forms, which is grant making, sponsored content anywhere where someone is paying you to make a podcast in that other forms of revenue or not nearly as important. That's the third. And then the fourth is derivative IP, which I think people are focused on when they're fighting with distributors as to who's gonna control the IP in truth. Many of the companies that are absolutely adamant about controlling IP from creators are the worst at actually doing anything with it. They control thousands of IP properties. They sell nothing. So I always believe that should go with whoever is most likely to sell it. Sometimes it's a creator. Sometimes it's a network. Sometimes it's an agent who cares. So those four forms of revenue and every time people talk about podcasting as an industry, they only focus on the advertising number. And I think that if you added up all the other forms, it's probably equal to that advertising. Revenues and that's complete guess based on nothing, but let's assume it is then audio books are still bigger than podcasting. Okay. I take that as a given from you, given your background, but sticking with Amazon audible, why does Amazon keep audible at arm's length, but have. Podcasting within Amazon music. Is there a Chinese wall between the two or is it just two thief? Dams of corporate E executives who won't let the two merge together? Cause it seems such an odd thing to have them as separate applications within one company. So I would say that it's pretty obvious within Amazon culture. Different divisions are set up sometimes to compete with each other. It's that competition sometimes literal business sometimes is a competition of ideas. And if you look at the audible business model that is mostly focused on subscription, they have a allergy to advertising, as I've heard it expressed publicly by other people who work at audible. And if you look at Amazon music, they're much more interested in advertis. And that's very different paradigm for how to produce content. Amazon is such a large company with so many interests. I, I, I don't know this as a fact, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they really wanted to see how these two models fared against each other. We know that four outta five people don't mind advertising in podcasts, one outta five do and would be willing to pay to avoid it. That looks like a one fifth of the podcast industry is a Sable number of people. And if you add up there paying certain amount of money per month, it becomes a very substantial amount of money. And so I think that it wouldn't surprise me again. I have no insight into this at all. A lot of audible at Amazon music's movement into podcasting happened after I left, but it wouldn't surprise me if them to say like, look, there's two different paradigms for how we could be in this space. Let's try both. Before we move on to talk about Spotify's entry into audiobooks. One last question, just in my mind, what if you were still in audible, would you do differently? Wow. Well, that's a great question. It's predicated. Me having a lot of information that I don't have today. I think if I was still in audible, the primary thing I would do was ask a very existential question of what is the relationship I would want to have with my audience. so there's two things that annoy me in the world more than anything else. One is when people externalize their threats, when actually threats are internalized and by sticking to a way of thinking and a way of working in the historical way, we've done things is preventing us from having a robust future. And so if I was inside of audible, I would say, how can we recognize the past and yet embrace a different course for the. I think that is honestly what I would think. And from those questions, I think you would have a great conversation and a lot of answers. And so, yeah, one thing that always annoys me is people who don't realize that internal threats are obviously much more impactful than external threats. And the second is lazy people who just do things the same way all the time. And I'm not putting anyone in that bucket in this conversation, but I'm saying that it's very easy when you're successful to avoid asking yourself tough questions and taking risk. Yeah, the innovators dilemma. Now, just before we move on, the other thing you mentioned was within audible, potentially not being bothered about the length of consumption, given that they've paid for the product already. But one of the things I do love about audible is the element of gamification that's built into it. So it does tell me. When I've finished a book, it does tell me how many hours I've listened. It does give me those sorts of metrics. And I always feel frustrated that they don't take that one stage further. So if I'm a super listener, why don't you give me an extra credit? Why don't you give me some reward for the element of gamification that you're giving me? And I think that is one thing I wish waterboard would look at. Yeah. I think that there's a lot of businesses do spend a lot of. Trying to figure out how to keep customers engaged. And if let's say you're veracious audiobook, consumer, and you consume that book in a week, what are you supposed to do for the rest of the month? And I think that's a really good question. I have a newsletter that you can get@audioinsurgent.com. It's called the audio insurgent. Magnificent noise is at the very difficult to find website of magnificent noise.com. And you can find information about magnificent noise, my newsletter and my book@ericnewsom.com.

James Cridland: 51:50

Eric Newsome. The rest of that interview is in pod land from Thursday, September the 15th, which is in this very podcast app. Just there look. And finally, I spoke to Mike Caden about his company's new features that let you, yes, you sell dynamic ads too. He's the founder of red circle.

Mike Kadin: 52:07

Red circle is a podcast hosting company. Um, but more importantly, we provide podcasters with a bunch of tools for growth and also for monetization. And so while we do podcast hosting, there's a lot of companies that do podcast hosting. Our main focus is on all the better things that we do, uh, beyond just the hosting, uh, especially in the monetization.

James Cridland: 52:26

Okay. So, uh, what are some of those better things that you do?

Mike Kadin: 52:30

Yeah. So, first of all, we have a, a product for listener payments, which lets you collect payments from your fans in exchange for exclusive content. So, um, you know, something similar to a, a paywall that you might find or a Patreon or there's a bunch of different companies that do this. Um, the difference is of course that it's integrated into your hosting. So you're not uploading your content into a different place. Uh, and you can get your a. Uh, for your downloads on your exclusive shows right next to your, your regular ones and it's all fully integrated. Um, and then probably our biggest focus is on advertising, where we do both programmatic ads, as well as, uh, host read endorsement style advertisement advertising in a fully. Automated fashion, meaning, uh, even for host reds, uh, you're getting notifications through our platform about deals that you can participate in. You're uploading your ad, read, you know, to red circle, uh, just the ad read on its own. And then our di dynamic insertion technology is integrated into the host red automation. So all you're telling us is where your ads go in general and we're taking ads in and out. Putting the money in your bank account at the end of the month. Um, so it's all a fully automated suite of tools, both for advertisers and for podcasters to enable sort of efficient host red advertising, uh, at the scale of hundreds of podcasts in a single campaign.

James Cridland: 53:43

Okay, so you you've announced some new dynamic insertion features this week. What, what are those new, uh, features? Tell us about them.

Mike Kadin: 53:51

So for a long time, we've given lots of power to advertisers that use red circle's platform for the deployment of host red ads. So they can run these campaigns across, like I said, 5,000 shows. Um, but what we haven't done for much time at all, uh, is provide similar capabilities for podcasters themselves. You know, because historically red circle makes most of its money by the ad reads that we help sell. Um, we haven't tended to focus on tools that help podcasters to make money on their own. Not because we don't want them to, you know, go, go ahead. We, we, we encourage podcasters to get dollars from wherever they can find it. Um, but just because, um, you know, we have to generally focus our engineers on the things that matter most. And what we've found is as we've grown bigger, we've started to, uh, work with podcasters that are also good at selling ads on their own more often. And so we've decided to focus here as well. So not only can we bring our own host red demand to your show and programmatic demand to your show, if you have your own. Dynamic ad campaigns that you wanna run. We're now providing you the tools to be able to do that, uh, on top of your podcast, um, things like, uh, impression caps on a campaign, things like date ranges and start to finish things like pixels that you can, uh, paste in to be able to, uh, run attribution on the campaigns that are running on your podcast. All of these tools are part of some of our paid plans now, which lets you, um, you know, be able to do, uh, add, you know, to be able to sell your own ads. In addition to the stuff that red circle, uh, is bringing as.

James Cridland: 55:14

That's very cool. Is that, is that integrated with, uh, vast tags and stuff like that? Or is it a purely a, a red circle thing?

Mike Kadin: 55:22

Uh, no vast integrations just yet, but it's definitely an interesting place we would want to go. Um, but you can upload arbitrary audio of your own creation. Um, you know, you can record your own host, right? Ad let's say your local pizza shop says, Hey, you know, we love to run an ad. We wanna buy a hundred thousand impressions and here's our, uh, pod sites, pixel URL that we want to run on there. You can upload that you can run that yourself. Um, and then in the inventory and the next slot over we'll run red circles ads. So you can sort of have fuller control over the ads you run and the ads that we also find on your behalf.

James Cridland: 55:54

That's very cool. And I noticed that, you know, there there's a bunch of podcast hosts who are adding dynamic insertion features. And, you seem to have the best of both worlds in that you are monetizing for people that want to do that, but you're also allowing, um, allowing other, um, podcasters to monetize for themselves as.

Mike Kadin: 56:14

Yeah, that's exactly right. Um, you know, for a long time we've been providing basic dynamic insertion tools. That would just say, you know, you could put an intro in or you could put, so, you know, cut something into your Midroll, but what's really new here is the sort of campaign management tools that sit on top of that for, like I said before, you know, maximum number of impressions of a particular piece of audio, uh, and so on, right. We've been giving tools to creators for a long time for, you know, random placement or, um, Or, or being able to, to cut in, you know, an ad you have for yourself, for your book tour, whatever things you wanna do with dynamic ad dynamic audio in general. Um, but now we've sort of combined this with campaign management tools as well. Um, you know, what we've found is that there's a lot more folks interested in helping podcasters to do host red ads these days than there were a couple of years. And so we wanted to make sure our creators get a chance to, to play around with these as well. And normally, if you wanna get some of these campaign management tools, you're paying big dollars to an enterprise podcast hosting company. Um, you know, red circles based here is completely free, but even our tiers that, uh, that some of these features come with are very competitively priced in the market.

James Cridland: 57:20

I notice, um, uh, you were at, uh, podcast movement as was I, and, um, there was some new research, uh, that came outta sounds, profit. Talking about host red ads versus, uh, an announcer red, which is very confusing because here in Australia, the host of a show is called an announcer. So, uh, that, that, that blows my head. But anyway, um, host red versus spots and things. What what's your, um, what's your experience in terms of how well each of those work, uh, did you see the same sort of thing that actually both of them work pretty well identically? Or do you see host read as working significantly better?

Mike Kadin: 58:00

Uh, we see, I mean, I thought the data showed that, uh, that host read was significantly better, but both of them were good. And I think that's generally what we see as well. And that's why we run programmatic ads, uh, as well. Cause we think those can perform. We sell those actively and then, but, but we do think, um, especially for a middle class podcaster, which is the type of podcast that we focus on, um, that host read is just so much more lucrative. And so if you're a podcaster, that should be what you're interested in as much as possible. Um, in terms of performance. Um, to me, the thing that matters the most is something a little bit more complex than what was, uh, studied in that, in that study, which is, you know, how good is this podcaster at doing the host red endorsement? Right. I think more interesting would be to give the same talking points to. 50 different podcasts and see the, uh, you know, maybe perhaps measuring the demographics and seeing, okay, let's find 50 true crime podcasts with 90% millennial women listening and give them the same set of talking points. It's got very similar audiences. You're gonna see drastic, you know, multiples of difference in performance between those different shows. And so, um, you know, what we're in the business of at red circle is helping brands to find. You know, those diamonds, those, those hosts that have really close connections with their audience and can really sell stuff. Um, because those are the ones where you're gonna find the best performance and, you know, the little five or 10% difference that you're gonna get between, um, you know, whether it's, uh, preproduced for that host or whether they're sort of riffing and doing it on the spot. I don't think matters that much relative to those huge, uh, uh, shifts in, in how connected that host is to the audience and how good they are at, at doing ads.

James Cridland: 59:34

And you said earlier that you, um, that you accept listener payments and things like that as well. Um, what, what, uh, amount of people on your platform are using are using those or is it, is it mostly ads or is it, uh, or, you know, are you seeing more and more of the, of those payments happening as well?

Mike Kadin: 59:54

Um, I mean, I think, uh, it, our business is mostly ads, but we have several podcasters, a good number of podcasters that are making a lot of money through payments. So, uh, that's more about, I think our focus than. Like industry, uh, you know, insight. Uh, what I will say is that the podcasters that make the most money on red circle per thousand downloads. So for their audience size are the folks who use our listener payments tools. So if you can convince enough people to spend. You know, $5 a month and you only have say a hundred or 500 people listening. If you can convert a good percentage of those folks, you have a much better chance of making good money, uh, with listener payments than with ads. Um, but the most effective podcast, uh, on the platform in terms of conversion, uh, does both ads and listener payments, and there's no ads on the, on the paid for podcast. And they also do. It's a sports, a daily sports news show. They do Monday through Thursday. Is a free show with ads. And then on Friday after you've been listening to this guy, give his spiel every day for four days in a row, you know, you're addicted to it and you need to hear the news on Friday. Well, certainly you're gonna pay $5. So, you know, it really depends on, on your setup as to how you can get people to convert, but it can be quite lucrative as a podcaster, uh, in the, in the end. You know, I think if you look at Netflix now is gonna start having ads. I think most people, uh, like to think of things in simple terms, but as far as red circle is concerned, we believe in the future of both of these styles of Monet.

James Cridland: 1:01:18

Yeah. And in terms of the new podcast name space, in terms of, uh, some of the new features, uh, in there, do you support any of those where, where where's your sort of head at, in terms of that

Mike Kadin: 1:01:30

my head is at a much further along place than where the business is. And that's just always the case about all the features that I want to implement. Um, we do the G U I D. That one was. We have three or four other things in our pipeline. We're thinking about transcripts in a more general sense, but once we have our sort of head around what we're doing with that, there's no reason why we would do anything else, but use that tag for that purpose. Um, there's some stuff that's hard for us. Um, like the chapters, um, It's doable but complicated because of dynamic insertion. So we, we stitch together these audio files on the fly, the minute somebody hits play. Right. And so, um, every single download of a given episode is, uh, is unique to that particular, uh, IP address pressing play. And so the result of that makes it a little more complicated for how we can do chapters, uh, when we don't know exactly how long an ad break is gonna be until that moment. Um, So there's some stuff we wanna do. There's some stuff that's hard. Um, you know, some basic stuff like transcripts, uh, or the locked, you know, tag, some of these things feel really easy to implement, but we just have them sitting on a long list of things that are easy to

James Cridland: 1:02:36

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah. And I, and I can see, you know, that particularly around dynamic ads, how difficult actually chapters, and to be honest, closed captions are, um, and, uh, it strikes me that there's probably some changes that need to be made to the, to the podcast name space in order to actually achieve those. And I think probably a relative time stamp. Rather than a, you know, um, so that you actually know when you're coming back from an ad break from here, you know, from this particular point 10 seconds after then you can do that and blah, blah, blah. And so that may be a, may be a plan, but, um, something to have a look at I'm sure. But,

Mike Kadin: 1:03:17

yeah, you can't tell people where the ads are though, or somebody will develop a client that fast forward through

James Cridland: 1:03:22

Uh, I agree, which is always a, always a little bit of fun. Isn't it always a little bit of fun. Yeah. No, very cool. Um, well, Mike, uh, thank you so much for your, for your return. I really appreciate it. If people want to learn more about, uh, red circle, then, uh, where should they be going?

Mike Kadin: 1:03:38

it's just, uh, our, our domain is red circle.com and, uh, you can find us on Twitter or other social media as well.

James Cridland: 1:03:44

Mike Caden from red circle. And that's it for this interview extra. Let us know whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. You can drop us a boost using a new podcast out like fountain, or if you handker, after the olden days, then drop us an email. If your arthritic hands can cope with that, the email addresses comments@podland.news. We're sponsored by squad and by buzz sprout music is from studio dragonfly. This was edited in D script. I'm James Cridland. Keep listening.