Speaker 1: 0:00

It's Friday, the 29th of December 2023.

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

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I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News. Happy Holidays.

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And I'm Sam Suthey, the CEO of Truefans. And Happy Holidays from Me Too. Now we're not here this week, but all of our friends are yes this is a special show with a few friends from the industry who give us their highlights from last year as well as look forward to next year in podcasting, and next week it's our turn, james?

Speaker 1: 0:32

Yes, it is. I'm kind of quite looking forward to that. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout. Podcast hosting made easy with easy and powerful tools, free learning materials and remarkable customer support From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Speaker 3: 0:49

Now. We asked a number of people for their highlights of 2023 and their predictions for 2024. Let's start off with Mark Brett and, first of all, Jennifer herself.

Speaker 4: 0:59

I'm Jennifer Han, chief marketing officer at OSHA, the next gen hosting platform dedicated to audience growth. My biggest excitement in 2023 was a historic moment for podcast industry. Podcasts, or on-demand audio, surpassed, for the first time, live audio, as highlighted by your friends at Edison Research. Not only is our audience growing nonstop, but our most dedicated listeners are engaging even more, consuming more podcasts than ever before. But in the same year, my saddest news was the cancellation of she Podcast Live, followed by the postponement of the International Woman's Podcast Festival due to the lack of industry support. I propose an industry-wide resolution to actively commit to supporting women in podcasting. In a medium that values freedom of expression, women's voices need to be heard and uplifted more. My predictions Well, they were actually brought to me by a podcaster from the future.

Speaker 4: 1:56

Would you like to hear what he told me? When he books a guest, he just needs to write a prompt and, within seconds, create a fully tailored interview outlined using the latest online information about the guests, saving hours of research and leading to more tailored and vivid interviews, eliminating templated and boring questions. They can translate their show from English to Chinese, indian, french and more with AI-generated translation and voices, and listeners can't even tell the difference because the AI perfectly mimics human emotions. He lives in a world where publishing and promoting efficiently don't take longer than minutes. They effortlessly generate optimized metadata for improved search rankings, create compiling video trailers and social media posts, all revolutionizing the podcast marketing. Last year, ai was a curiosity. Now it's becoming an integral part of our daily lives. At OSHA, we're not just working with AI. We are actively exploring and developing new AI-driven features to empower our podcasters, helping them grow their audience more effectively. This is more than technological advancements. It's the beginning of a revolution in how we create, distribute and engage with podcast contents. Thank you James, thank you Sam.

Speaker 5: 3:17

Take care. Hello, I'm Brett Spencer and I'm director of the Centre of Podcasting Excellence at City University of London. My highlights from 2023 were there have been so many great podcasts this year that, despite thousands of hours of listening, I still have a backlog dating back to about Easter that I'm still trying to catch up on. At City, having our first cohort of students on the MA podcasting course has been fantastic, alongside the amazing support we've received from across the industry, including pod news, looking forward to doing so much more next year. We've had some great events and it's an incredible innovative space to be involved in.

Speaker 5: 3:54

In 2024, I think the UK will continue to see a growth in listeners to podcasts, but this may start to be matched by a decline in the launch of major titles. We might also start to see some form of consolidation. I think a couple of major production companies might combine to form something bigger than the sum of their parts, and podcasters will start to use more direct sponsorship and subscription models in the attempt to wean themselves away from being reliant on advertisers. I think towards the end of the year, the newly formed BBC Studios audio operation will start to flex their new muscle and the industry will continue to get both excited and alarmed about AI in equal measure.

Speaker 6: 4:36

Hey, this is Mark Asquith, the co-founder here at Captivate. My prediction for podcasting overall in 2024 is that we're going to see the continuation of diversity in monetisation. We're already seeing this, ironically, at the lower level. Indie creators have been diversifying their monetisation for a long time because, frankly, they didn't have any opportunity to do anything any bigger, and what I mean by this is we've seen indie podcasters selling services, selling affiliate products, selling their own products and so on and so forth off the back of their shows for years now and where we saw the bigger shows doing things like programmatic spot campaigns, big ad sales. We've also seen them do things like live events and high quality merchandise.

Speaker 6: 5:25

I see the merging of the two becoming more and more prominent, where smaller creators, independent creators, are able to put on live events, fill a room of 50 60 people, reasonably well-priced ticket prices, where we're gonna see more loyalty to independent creators through merchandise and so on and so forth, but more the bigger players Starting to do more live tours, starting to sell tickets for things, starting to do live recordings a lot more, starting to do More in the way of community that they've never really done.

Speaker 6: 5:57

So where we've sort of had this, here's the big podcasting over here, here's the indie podcasting over here, and the two shall never meet. I think we're actually starting to see a certainly in terms of monetization, those worlds colliding, because there is no bad monetization strategy, there's only a monetization strategy that doesn't fit. It's all about finding the right mix for your particular podcast and for your particular brand, and I think that's such an important facet of podcasting moving forward. So, just to recap, I think we're going to start to see diversity in monetization, not only from the big players looking at subscriptions, memberships, listeners, support through tips, live events, merch Product services and so on and so forth, but I think we're going to start to see Smaller creators that didn't feel they were able to get either direct sales, sponsorships or, in particular, live event ticket sales, merchandise through the door. I think that we're going to start to see more and more people seeing that range of Monetization has been their strategy, regardless of their size.

Speaker 1: 7:03

I think diversity in the way that podcasters earn their money is really important, especially in a relatively obvious Contraction of the advertising market. If you ask me, now let's hear from Lauren sky, and first the pod sage himself From the podcast index is Dave Jones.

Speaker 7: 7:20

Hey, james, sam, happy holidays. For my 2023 highlight, it has to be music, the music medium. There's just nothing else that comes close to the energy and excitement that that created. I mean, how often do you get to go into an existing industry and do something that's Truly new, that is now part of the landscape? I mean, hosting companies have put in support for this. We have apps that now have music interfaces. Musicians now have a new way to get into People's ears and make money off of that. So I think there's, without a doubt, that's got to be the highlight for me now. Is it perfect? Of course not, but it was successful and it's a game changer.

Speaker 7: 8:11

As far as predictions for 2024, I guess I have a couple of them. One of them would be I really think there's going to be a large podcast host that disappears from a merger or an acquisition this year. I think a few years ago the mergers and acquisitions were probably from a position of relative strength. I think now that's different. I think there's going to be some M&A activity from a position of weakness. Just too much has happened in the industry negatively, financially that there has to be some of this take place. There's got to be a casualty.

Speaker 7: 8:47

I think my other prediction would just be the pod roll tag being more of an important factor than we may realize. I've just started putting in support for that into the index database. In the last few days We've already got over 400 pod roll feed suggestions that have populated into the database. That's going to start coming back out in different forms that people can ingest and immediately get recommendations for other shows that are human curated. Discovery through machine learning and automation has never produced the kind of results that we had hoped, but if you can bring humans into the mix then I think that changes the game a lot. I think the lists that we can produce off of that is going to be a very big deal as a starting point for a lot of good quality data about places to start for shows to listen to. Cheers to you guys and I hope you have a great holiday season with your family.

Speaker 1: 9:53

This is James editing this on an airplane, and here is Lauren Purcell from Tink Media.

Speaker 8: 9:59

Hi James and Sam. I would love to talk about my highlights from 2023 and what I see in the future. Thank you for asking me. My highlight of 2023 was my team, the Tink team. They are creative, genius audio nerds who are better at me than everything, and they're the reason I love my job so much. We have this help channel in Slack and every time I see it light up I try to race to it to try to help first, but I never win because somebody always jumps in and helps before me.

Speaker 8: 10:38

2023 was rough for a lot of reasons in the podcast industry and there have been days when a big show was canceled. I'll never forget what the day rough translation was canceled. We all got together on Zoom and talked about it, how we felt and our worries and why we were so upset about it and what we thought it meant, and we get out our feelings. We do that a lot. I can't believe I get to work with these people every day In 2024, I'm thinking that people will be a little less willingly when it comes to starting new feeds and maybe consolidating shows and series to one place. I think it's too hard to get an audience starting from scratch and I think we saw last year that there were fewer new shows but more listeners, so I think all those listeners are going to be going to fewer feeds. I think it might actually be a confusing user experience. So maybe some tech will follow that will help separate content so that it makes sense and is easier to find. Am I dreaming? Thanks again. Happy new year.

Speaker 9: 11:52

My name is Skye Pillsbury. I write an investigative mostly investigative newsletter about the podcast and audio industries called the Squeeze, and I guess a highlight for me was how many sources came forward to speak with me for a series of pieces I wrote about WNYC and WNYC studios this year. I definitely could not do the kind of reporting I like to do without the help of sources and a lot of them stepped forward and took real risks in talking to me and that was super inspiring. In terms of predictions, I'm terrible at predictions but I do think it's going to get worse in the podcast industry before it gets better, in the sense that there will be more layoffs and probably more canceled shows. But I am feeling optimistic that things will look a lot better in podcasting by late 2024.

Speaker 9: 12:47

I really think that after this correction that we're all having to make because of the decisions of a few people at the top that is, in big podcasting anyways money and advertising will come back in. I think it'll be a good year for independent podcasters because they've watched all this happen and they probably feel pretty good about where they are and not having to deal with as much job insecurity. But of course, it's not easy being an indie podcaster either. I guess one other prediction I am hoping will come true is that I will go to a podcast event this year, because I haven't been to a podcast event or conference or anything like that for a few years now and I would love to go. So I predict I will turn up somewhere and I hope that comes true.

Speaker 3: 13:35

Now we hope to see sky, perhaps at evolutions in LA, which is in March, and recommendation tools are really important for podcasting, and I guess that's why we've added them to true fans as well in the form of a pod role, so that we can help people discover new shows. True fans also supports video, which is very nice of us to do that, I thought, which our next voice will like as well, I think.

Speaker 10: 13:58

Hello, pod News Weekly Review, ariel Nissenblatt here honored to contribute to this year end review. To recap what was a highlight of my audio slash podcast related year for 2023, it's gotta be that Squadcast was acquired by Descript. I worked for Squadcast for almost three years and in August we announced that Descript had officially acquired Squadcast. So now I've been working at Descript and I've really been enjoying getting to know the community of users and also using the product myself. It has really transformed my production workflow and I've got a lot more resources. The company is much bigger than Squadcast, so we have the ability to put on events all the time to help creators get more comfortable with the product, and I've really been enjoying growing in that role. So that's definitely a highlight for me in 2023.

Speaker 10: 14:45

And what about my predictions for 2024?

Speaker 10: 14:49

I think we're going to see a lot of changes when it comes to individual creator mindsets on video as it relates to their audio production.

Speaker 10: 14:58

I think a lot of people are going to be experimenting with video clips for their social media content when it comes to promoting their podcast.

Speaker 10: 15:04

They're going to do this using Descript and other tools that allow you to quickly cut and create nice looking visual images and videos for your podcasts, and especially because YouTube is going to be making an entrance in a big way into the podcast space by hopefully ingesting RSS feeds soon. We're going to see more and more people trying to take advantage of that algorithm and I'm excited to see what that brings because, ultimately, if more people can discover podcasts by way of a really powerful algorithm that YouTube has, that just grows the pie for us. So while a few years ago and even still now, I was and am skeptical of video creeping into the podcast space, I do think that video can be a really powerful way to discover and I'm all about discoverability and I'm all about getting more people to find their next favorite podcast and getting more creators to find their perfect audience. So I do think video is going to be a big part of 2024.

Speaker 11: 15:55

Hello, I'm Sandy Warhead of podcasting at City, the University of London. 2023 has been an astonishing year for us at the University the very first intake of our specialist master's students in podcasting. It's been a really steep learning curve for all of us trying to make sure that, because we've launched this degree and we've really made a commitment to providing students with the right skills for the industry, we're trying to make really certain that we're doing the right thing teaching the right skills, supporting the students. They have been fantastic, wonderfully creative, an amazing small team of committed podcasters, so I'm really excited to see how they go and find their place in the industry Next year. Already for us, we're seeing a big uptick in the number of people applying to do the course, so I think the message that this is a mature industry that needs proper servicing by academics and by educational institutions that message is getting through.

Speaker 11: 16:55

I notice a lot of people around the world now doing PhDs and research projects on podcasting as a standalone genre. What is it about? What is its responsibility for journalism, ethics, particularly in relation to true crime investigations, and so on, so that's really exciting. I think the big changes we're going to have to deal with obviously AI and how chat, gpt and the like are used in podcasting and podcast ideas generation and this march towards visualization, which is a radio person, I find really rather distressing. Why do we have to have pictures for anything? I spent most of my career saying the pictures are better when you listen to a fully formed sound landscape, but I guess with some podcasting, that is certainly the trend that we're seeing. I also detect shorter, snappier, more bite-sized podcasts are heading our way and it's all terribly exciting. Hi, it's.

Speaker 12: 17:54

Lizzie Pollock, chief Communications and Brand Officer at ACAST. One thing I really loved this year is it felt like it was a year that the democratization of podcast advertising really became a thing. We launched sponsorships on our self-serve advertising platform, which meant that, for the first time ever, advertisers of any size could browse our entire catalog of 100,000 shows and book host-read sponsorship campaigns through that platform. Now what was really interesting to me was that nearly 40% of podcasters who were requested to work within this way by advertisers through our platform had never previously worked with an advertiser. That is truly making good on our commitment here to open up podcast advertising for everyone and allow more creators to earn money from their craft.

Speaker 12: 18:36

I'm weirdly excited about the fact that two major nations are going to be going through election cycles next year, so the US and the UK. I feel like political podcasting and podcasting around politics has really come into its own in the last year or so. I think that's going to set us up for some really interesting times over the next 12 months listening to podcasts, seeing how different podcasts approach those elections, whether it's analysis from former ministers and the likes of political currency which we have here at ACAST, or different takes from, perhaps reasons to be cheerful with Ed Miliband and Jeff Lloyd, through to how tortoise might approach elections with its slow news approach, I think we're in for a veritable smorgasbord of brilliant political podcasting.

Speaker 1: 19:17

It's going to be an interesting time in the US and the UK, that's for sure. Big budgets going into political advertising. Big budgets should also go into other formats too. Kathy Doyle next, but now from Edison Research, here's Melissa Kishi.

Speaker 13: 19:30

My highlight of 2023 came out of Edison's share of your study, where time spent listening to podcasts finally hit double digits. In Q2, we reported that Americans aged 13 plus spent 10% of their total daily audio time listening to podcasts, and then just recently we actually saw it increased by another point to 11%, and speaking of double digits. Early next year, share of year will celebrate 10 years of measuring the audio space. As for predictions, I think we'll see a continued enthusiasm in creating content for both ends of the age spectrum. On one end, we have our boomers. Maybe they're not currently listening in big numbers, but they have the time and the interest and they're totally attractive to advertisers. We've seen multiple clients looking into this demographic and trying to pinpoint the right type of shows and the ways to make those successfully go to market. On the other end, we have kids, those future listeners. Podcasts already have a strong reach with kids, especially when their parents are already listeners, and kids are engaged listeners with and without their parents. Hey.

Speaker 14: 20:33

James, it's Kathy Doyle. One of the things that I'm really surprised we're not talking about more in the industry that I think could have a major impact in 2024 is the recent addition of 200,000 audiobooks to the Spotify app for premium subscribers. These are not just old backlist titles. They're major books and bestsellers from the Big Five. If you're a premium subscriber, you can listen right now to the Britney Spears book or the Barbara Streisand memoir, and it's included with your current membership. Unlike other apps, you can dabble. You can get up to 15 hours of listening time and experience dozens of titles. Audio books I've seen have also been included in the search results on Spotify and I'm sure they're going to be working hard in 2024 to surface them in a more curated, powerful way. It's really a major shift in the business model for publishers and a real boon for premium subscribers. I think the industry should pay more attention to it in the new year. I know the book industry will Thanks for the chance to give you my thoughts.

Speaker 15: 21:31

Hello, james and Sam. I am so excited to be part of this and thank you so much for asking me to be here. I am LC Escobar. I am the director of community and content for Libsyn and now my highlight for 2023. James, it actually involved you as part of it.

Speaker 15: 21:54

I had an idea in my role as director of community and content for Libsyn, and it's been one of the very first times that I've had a team that I get an opportunity to work with. So we built out a content team and I envisioned creating some great stuff around predictions for the end of the year, and it's been really amazing and lovely for our team to execute on it. So we put out a video and a blog post that speaks to predictions that shares not only our own voices but other people, and you are one of the people that I asked to be part of this so it's been really great. It was a wonderful learning experience. It was lovely to be able to see something in my head and slowly start to craft it and make it come to life, so that gave me lots of joy. I can't wait for more in 2024.

Speaker 15: 22:53

So I'm going to start off with predictions for 2024. And I'll start with podcast marketing. So podcast marketing, I feel, is yet in another massive inflection point. Inflection one was right at the beginning of podcasting, where simply having a podcast was enough. Then the growth of social media platforms moving into mainstream, where folks could share their stuff with so many other folks and build communities. That was number two.

Speaker 15: 23:30

And now social platforms are substantially decentralized, algorithms are going through some pretty serious growing pains and the people are looking for their place to be, which means that, for podcast marketing specifically, what worked in the past is not working now. It's not getting the same results. In fact, what worked six months ago or even three months ago is not working now in the same way. So we, I feel, as an industry, are collectively trying to figure out how in the world to reach our people, and it is a massive inflection point, recalibration of what's going on. 2024 will also be the beginning of the letting go time to move on era time for podcasting. So it's podcasting's 20th year, right, and in two decades that's a long time. The OG podcasters, the podcast people that for many, many have been there forever, will be saying goodbye and evolving to the next phase in their life and their work, and I'm sure all of you have experienced the ending of something that you didn't think was ever going to end. Podcasting is now old enough to experience that more, and more.

Speaker 15: 25:09

Thanks guys.

Speaker 1: 25:10

Great to hear from Elsie. Big changes ahead, she thinks. I wonder who she thinks will be retiring from the industry next year. Who could she possibly mean? Possibly shouldn't get into trouble.

Speaker 16: 25:20

Hi Sam, hi James, it's name Araza, from Vox Media, where I executive produce and can be heard on the podcast on with Kara Swisher. You can also hear me occasionally on the podcast Open to Debate, formerly known as Intelligence Squared. I don't know if it's a highlight, but my most memorable moment of this year, at least technically, is when our fantastic engineer, rick Kwan, told me that Descript had rolled out an AI update that would allow it to create a quote artificial version of my voice that would then create speech that sounds like me. I'm actually using that feature to send you this voice note. I'm kidding, I didn't actually give it permission and it scared me, but AI is already changing how podcasts are being made and also raises a lot of challenges for the conundrum of what's real or what's not.

Speaker 16: 26:09

In 2024, which is obviously a big election year here in the United States and likely to see a lot of disinformation, misinformation, deep fake video and audio, and that is going to be an issue for journalists to grapple with in the year ahead, my prediction, I think in 2024, you're going to see a lot more independent voices and independent news shows, coming out of a year where we saw the shuttering of many shows and many layoffs across the industry.

Speaker 16: 26:41

I think talent really abounds and, while networks might be wary of taking risks in this economic environment, I anticipate and really, really hope that creators will do so on their own and I'd probably add to that if they think 2024 is going to be a big year for more global growth of podcasts outside of these primary markets in the US, uk and Canada. I think YouTube, evolving as a listening platform, is already pushing that forward in terms of global audience, and I just think world events where we are now demand much more global audio coverage than we currently have. Fresher voices outside perspectives and I look forward to hearing that in the year ahead. That's my prediction. Thank you, guys, for having me. I hope you have a great end to the year and hope to see you in 2024. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3: 27:29

And talking about global growth, james, let's fast forward over to Mexico, where you were with Nemo Nunes from RSScom, and see what he thinks.

Speaker 17: 27:38

Hello, james and Sam, thank you for inviting me to your list. I think the highlight for me during 2023 was definitely organizing and holding the first RSScom event in Mexico City. Podcastmx was a great opportunity to get people who are interested in podcasting more information about what is happening in Mexico and what the things to come are in the future. As far as predictions for 2024, I think the growth of podcasting in Mexico will continue and the business side of podcasting will definitely make a big leap. As the year goes on, more companies and brands, as well as podcasters, are putting a lot of attention and effort in making this a very viable alternative and as Mexico's podcasting industry grows, it will promote and launch better ideas, not only for Mexico but for the rest of Latin America. Thank you, guys, and hope to see you guys in 2024.

Speaker 3: 28:34

And yeah, there you go Talking about other countries. Let's continue to go around the world, James, starting with your neck of the woods.

Speaker 18: 28:41

Hey, I'm Kyron from the MIRMODELS MIRMODELS Book Reviews and Value for Value Podcasts. My highlight for 2023 was the realization of the greater connectivity I can have with my audience as the fruits of podcasting 2.0 start to bloom. As a relatively small podcaster here in Australia, I've always felt not only geographically but also digitally isolated from my audience, and the solutions offered by the social media platforms and other forms of communication haven't really served me. As my supporters start to use these new apps, which have podcasting 2.0 features, we're able to create a bond that never existed previously. When someone sends a message natively within the app that comes directly to me and to my co-host with a payment attached, or receives a notification of when we're going live and then being able to listen in live directly within the app. It's this instantaneous experience which is a real connection point.

Speaker 18: 29:37

My prediction for 2024 is this will be the year of collaboration. We're already starting to see other forms of digital media and content entering into podcasting, this being music and live radio, and I think this is only going to continue with anything and everything that can be digitized. Imagine a book review podcast with an intriguing image in the chapter, art provided by a graphical designer, perhaps with the help of AI, using a backtrack of value for value, music provided by an independent music artist referencing a quote from an audio book provided by the writer of that actual book, with an alternate enclosure for a podcasting app that wants to show video using a visualizer and perhaps a translator typographer who is translating it into another language for those who are trying to help read and study along at home.

Speaker 19: 30:30

Hello Pod News. This is Marie Le Roux of the League of Visionaries podcast, based in South Africa. Our highlight for 2023 is one I hope many podcasters are sharing building the right media partnerships, sponsorships, guests and audience. For us, this meant a media partnership with a professional speakers association of Southern Africa for its convention 2024. Now this has meant that we give the event exposure it has never had before in a wider realm. We give the speakers a platform to be interviewed as expert guests and, of course, the podcast wins all the way with these outstanding guests. A great partnership and an opportunity to showcase our services to what happens to be our ideal clients. Prediction for 2024, let's have more of this the right media partnerships, the right guests and the right audiences to build our podcasts and really serve the people we are there to support.

Speaker 20: 31:39

Hi, my name is Alexander Sadyakov. I am the head of podcasts at Meduzaio. It's an international Russian language independent news media outlet based in Riga, latvia, and it's been a tough year for us and our industry. We had to leave Russia in 2022 after the full scale invasion in Ukraine started Because Putin and the authorities almost banned independent journalism and our honest work is illegal now inside the country. But our main audience still lives in Russia and we try to reach our readers and, of course, listeners. Despite pressure, blocking foreign agent labels and undesirable organization status that was given to Meduza by the government In 2023, our shows were banned and deleted from some popular Russian audio streaming services. Despite all the difficulties, we accepted the challenges. Our tech stuff is working hard to make all the shows accessible from Russia in Meduza mobile app and other platforms without VPN. We launched 3 new podcasts in 2023, 2 more are on the way. Each episode of our ongoing daily news show what happened, what's happened in Russia reaches top 3 in Apple Podcast chart in Russia, and Apple is the main platform for our listeners. Also, this year, we developed our YouTube podcast channel. There are 100 000 followers there.

Speaker 20: 33:02

What else do I expect from 2024? We will continue to search new ways to deliver our content Mobile app, youtube and we are excited to use new RSS features soon on YouTube, messenger, audio newsletters. I think we will try as many channels as we can to help people get the information they need. And also, I hope next year AI could help us transcribe our shows, because now, unfortunately, just a few programs still can transcribe Russian language correctly. You see our experience and our colleagues experience from other Russian media in exile. Our situation is a little bit different from the other part of western English language podcast industry. By the way, we have one English language show too. It's called the Naked Pravda. It's a news commentary show about Russia hosted by Meduza in English managing editor Kevin Rothrock. You know, share and subscribe if you want to understand better what's going on with Putin, russia and us.

Speaker 21: 33:59

My name is Ajay and I host the KJ Masterclass Life. So podcasting is growing and will continue to grow globally. But in terms of pod faith, that is also a big challenge In 2024, we will see a lot of this changing. A lot of podcasts are now looking towards monetizing directly from people who are profiting from it. A lot of guests are profiting, a lot of people are writing books, a lot of agencies, a lot of podcast agencies, public relations from. So that equation has to change. In my case, I've seen I've done more than 700, 800, you know live podcast and my feeling is that if that changes, a lot of people will look at content much more seriously, will be able to do more justice with the content, get more people with some earning, you know, better outcomes out of them. Then it will be good for everyone. If not, there will be a lot of pod faith and industry will continue to face challenges. This is what I think. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 35:02

Fascinating to hear from Alex in Latvia with his work to continue reaching the Russian people. Let's end with three more voices about revenue, which Ajay will like. First, rocky from Soundstack, who I think would applaud Alex's aims to reach audiences however they listen.

Speaker 22: 35:19

Hello my fellow audio freaks and geeks. This is Rocky Thomas, chief revenue officer for Soundstack, offering industry predictions for 2024. The major macro trend I'm seeing is the most bang for the content creation buck. Make it once distributed everywhere, how is this going to look? The podcast to broadcast trend will continue to increase as broadcasters look to repurpose content and podcast verticals. We'll likely see a reduction of separate podcast development departments within traditional media companies, similar to the recent changes at WNYC and WNYC studios. There will also be an increase of FAST, which stands for free, at supported TV and broadcast TV creating podcasts from their linear feeds. We'll also see the inverse, with podcasters exploring new distribution channels, including creating linear streaming channels, youtube distribution and category specific by the Lena podcast into larger on demand play listing.

Speaker 22: 36:16

Publishers will also continue to gait extra content for subscribers to access exclusive content and participate in show communities. On the advertising front, podcast publishers will start to implement stricter creative length standards for personal endorsement and direct response campaigns. Proving well edited, thoughtful messaging is better for the advertiser and the listener. Programmatic advertising will continue to drive brand spend, while the industry tries to balance the buyer's needs for increased publisher transparency versus increased legislation around stricter data production regulations. After 25 years of developing digital audio products, what I am most grateful for is that there is never a dull moment in our industry. Have a prosperous 2024, everybody.

Speaker 23: 37:01

I'm Sophie Hind, managing director of VoiceWorks Sport and the Sport Social Podcast Network. My personal highlight from this year has to be the growth of our sports social podcast network. We set ourselves some really ambitious goals and we've absolutely smashed them with more than 350 podcasts working with us now. Particularly pleasing has been the number of official sports rights holders who've entered the market this year and we're fully expecting that trend will continue next year. There's some really big sporty events on the calendar, including the Olympics and the Euros, and we believe that's going to give advertisers a very exciting opportunity to utilise sport podcasting and sport audio to help activate around those events.

Speaker 24: 37:44

Hello, I'm Ross Adams, ceo of Acast.

Speaker 24: 37:47

This year has been a massive one for the world of podcasting, and some of my personal highlights have been witnessing the strength of the open ecosystem and the central role we at Acast play in it be realised by so many throughout the industry.

Speaker 24: 38:02

This year, we inked innovative deals with the likes of major players like Luminary, warner Brothers, discovery and Higher Ground to distribute and monetise their podcasts. What excites me so much about these partnerships is they're all so different, which shows the strength and flexibility of podcasting. Podcasting allows creators to truly distribute and monetise in a way that best suits them and their listeners and that, of course, is great for advertisers too. Looking into 2024, I think these opportunities for advertisers are going to become even richer with the rise of audience based targeting across campaigns. For example, at Acast, we've developed advertiser tools like first party data targeting and partnered with Proximate by ComScore to enable cookie free targeting through their predictive audiences capability, which is based on consumer behaviours. As advertisers continue to see that targeting podcasts on the audience level rather than the show level creates even greater returns on their investments, I expect that the demand for these audience targeting tools will become even more prevalent and more money will spread to more creators, which is a very, very good thing.

Speaker 3: 39:23

And that's it for this week. That's it for this year. Actually, james, it is, isn't it? Yeah, next year it's our turn, james, to look back at the year and, yeah, what's going to come forward in 2024?

Speaker 1: 39:34

Yes, our music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila Dee. We use clean feed for this audio and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout Podcast hosting made easy. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at potnewsnet.

Speaker 9: 39:51

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