The last word in podcasting news. This is the Podnews Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi. I'm James Cridland, the editor of Podnews. Happy Betwixtmas to you. And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans, and happy holidays from me too. Now, we're not here this week. I mean, obviously we are, but we're kind of not really. 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 a look forward to next year in podcasting. Now, next week, it will be our turn. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsprout.com. From your daily newsletter, the Podnews Weekly Review. Now, James, we asked several power supporters for their highlights of 2024 and their predictions for 2025. Let's start off with the wonderful Cameron Moll. Hello, James and Sam, and Podnews listeners. We are just massive fans of Podnews here at Buzzsprout. So it really is an honor to contribute to this look back and look ahead. I'm Cameron Moll. I manage design for Buzzsprout. So the UI for the tools that our podcasters have come to love, anything brand related, this all falls under my purview as head of design. 2024, well, this was a ban or a year for Buzzsprout. How it presents itself to the world and how we empower podcasters to present themselves to the world as well. And probably the most visible change of all that was this complete brand refresh for Buzzsprout. A new logo, new colors, new artwork, a new UI. I was fortunate to lead these efforts with some outstanding people, both internal and external to Buzzsprout. You know, we also launched our iOS and Android apps this year, huge effort by the team. Both apps have been received really well by podcasters. I've done this a few times in my career, this idea of like standing up apps, a zero to one effort, as we say sometimes. And it's, it's no small task. So a ton of great work by the team. There was other great stuff as well throughout the year, loads of updates, you know, like a new podcast, website themes, refreshing our embedded player, manual insertion points for mid-rolls and a bunch of other great things. Now looking ahead to 2025, I've done these end of year predictions and I've been building for the web about two and a half decades. So I've done a lot of these and most of them are related to design. And I've learned that I have no better than a 50% success rate, or in some cases, far worse than that in getting these right. And I think that's the case for all of us, but they're a fun endeavor nonetheless. So here we go. Number one, AI will again be one of the biggest stories of the year. But what I think we're going to see this year, or I guess in 2025, will be the tools that we use as podcasters. They'll be improving in such a way that AI will be so embedded in the products that we use that it will start to transition to a role behind the scenes as it should. This year, you know, a lot of companies, Buzzsprout included, were eager to promote their AI features with like sparkles and AI labels and that sort of thing. And we're not going to see this go away next year. And in fact, we'll probably still see it rise for a bit. But as AI is more naturally integrated into these workflows, it's not going to be necessary to remind people that they're using automated intelligence. So I think we'll hit peak AI by the end of next year. But until then, we can probably expect to have AI continue to dominate news headlines. And one of the areas in particular that I'll be keeping a close eye on next year is watching AI potentially go from the role of collaborator to potentially becoming like the talent behind the mic. And we've already seen some very fascinating, but also very concerning advancements with Google Notebook LM and other tools like it. And things like Spotify Wrapped, which gave users this AI podcast of their Wrapped stats, which was powered by Notebook LM, by the way. And the voices, the voices for these tools, their intonations are just remarkably realistic. Not like the six-fingered, you know, hands we saw with early AI image generation. They're just stunning. And so we can probably expect that those voices will become only more indistinguishable from human voices over time as the tools improve. But I'm not holding my breath to see if our bot overlords are going to dismantle the podcast industry as we know it. Again, I've been building for the web a long time and I've seen countless threats of technology replacing humans that have come and gone. So I'm not going to lose sleep over this. I don't think people should, but I'll be keeping a close eye on this or maybe a close ear in 2025. Number two, I think we need to be honest here and recognize that most podcasters want as many ears as possible, rightly so, listening to the content that they've worked so hard to create. And you can't argue with the gravitational pull of the big players in the industry like Spotify, Apple, and YouTube because of their ability to draw in millions and millions of listeners. But the problem, and this can be a huge problem for the long-term health of the podcasting industry, if not held in check, is that often these big players and others have shown reluctance to support or protect or maybe embrace the open nature of podcasting. part of that lies in the fact that their profit models are not necessarily built on helping you get your episodes in as many places as possible. They're built on proprietary closed wall platforms that tend to maximize ad revenue. So I think this is something that we need to hold in check and keep in check as an industry as a, you know, a group of practitioners working to further the goals and aims of, of this beautiful, remarkable vehicle that allows people to have a voice and to have that voice be as, as present as possible in as many places as, as possible. So I'm really excited to see what next year holds for the podcasting industry. I expect nothing less than our best year ever. So on behalf of the Buzzsprout team, thanks for having me pitch in. Happy 2025 and keep podcasting. Cameron Moll from Buzzsprout, our sponsor. Thank you, Cameron, for that. Let's move on. Here's Matt Medeiros. Podcasting in 2025. Why the dedicated will define the industry's future. Every time I hear someone say podcasting is getting easier, I can't help but shake my head. Sure, you can grab a decent microphone for under $100 now and tools like Descript have revolutionized editing. But here's the truth. Running a successful podcast in 2025 will demand more dedication than ever before. Let me explain why the future of podcasting belongs to the dedicated and what that means for creators, listeners, and the industry as a whole. The dedication factor. Why most will fail. Think about this. For every hour of a polished podcast content, you're looking at roughly five hours of work. That's a stark contrast to throwing up a quick TikTok or Instagram reel. Between configuring equipment, coordinating guests, refining your workflow, editing, distribution, podcasting remains a substantial commitment. What we're going to see in 2025 is a clear separation. The hobbyist podcaster who thought they could juggle this alongside their regular content creation will sadly fade away. The celebrity podcaster who jumped in for a quick cash grab, well, they'll start questioning their return on investment, or at least their managers and partners and advertisers will. What we'll be left with is a core group of dedicated creators who understand the true power of podcasting, building trust and maintaining authenticity over the long run. The video trap. Why your boring podcast won't get better with video. Spotify wants video now. YouTube wants to own video podcasting and podcasting at large. Everyone's pushing video as the biggest thing that's coming. But here's the uncomfortable truth. Slapping a camera on your podcast won't make it any better. Adding video is like putting racing stripes on a car. It might look faster, but it won't actually improve performance. If your content isn't engaging enough in audio form, seeing two talking heads certainly isn't going to suddenly captivate your audience. Yes, video gives you another discovery avenue, but it's not the magic bullet for mediocre content. We should treat YouTube like we treat other social media platforms to leverage their network reach to push traffic back to us. I'm not saying you don't invest in YouTube from a search and discoverability standpoint, but certainly don't think it's going to help save your podcast. Trust the real currency of podcasting. What's often overlooked in the race for views and subscribers is the fundamental strength of podcasting. Trust building at scale. When someone puts in their earbuds and listens to your voice for an hour, that's an intimate connection that's hard to replicate in any other medium. In 2025, we might see the overall listener numbers decline as the market corrects itself. But here's the exciting part. The engagement quality will skyrocket, or at least tick up and to the right. I'd rather have 5,000 deeply engaged listeners, or 500 deeply engaged listeners, who trust my perspective, than 10,000 passive downloads from bots or drive-by subscribers. This is the essence of podcasting, building trust with your listener, not listeners, one at a time. It's the inconvenient truth of podcasting versus social media, quick clip video solutions. The content ownership. As AI continues to reshape the digital landscape, owning your content and distribution becomes even more critical than ever. We've watched as Google indexed our content only to have AI platforms scrape it all over again. It's the stolen from us and then stolen from us again. We didn't get any credit for it. The power of human generated authentic content has never been more valuable. This is why the fight for RSS and open standards isn't just technical nitpicking. It's about maintaining control over your creative output. In 2025, successful podcasters will be those who understand they're not just creating content. They're building a platform they actually own. You're building a catalog, an archive, a silo, a platform of your own content. And podcasting with open RSS distribution is the channel that you own. And that is the most amazing part of podcasting and even more important that you own it and it's yours. Value for value, redefining worth in the podcasting landscape. The traditional advertising model of $25 per thousand downloads is becoming obsolete. At least it is for me, the roll up your sleeves, build it my way, I own my content podcaster. Forward-thinking podcasters, again like myself, realize that their dedicated audience, though perhaps small, carries immense value. When you've built genuine trust with your listeners, you can command premium rates from sponsors who understand they're reaching the decision makers, the buyers, the most valuable listeners, not just casual listeners. This is the inverse of value for value. Largely when we talk about value for value or how it's portrayed in the market is podcaster to listener relationship. If the podcaster is putting out valuable content, the listener sees that, understands it, and gives value back generally in the form of dollars or satoshis. There's other ways to go about giving value back as a listener, but let's just hold that aside for a moment. Now value for value for podcasters, or at least what I'm encouraging, is to look at that value from a sponsorship opportunity. Go to the sponsors or would-be sponsors of your show and say, I have a valuable audience. Wouldn't you like to be in front of it? If so, you won't get it cheap, but you'll get it based on what I perceive as my valuable audience. This shift puts the power back in the hands of creators. It's not about playing by platform algorithms or settling for industry standard rates. It's about knowing your worth and finding partners who value your audience connection. The essence of value for value will shine in 2025. As we move through 2025, we'll see a podcasting landscape that's more focused, more professional, and more valuable than ever. The get-rich-quick crowd will move on to the next trending platform, if there are any left, leaving space for the dedicated creator to thrive. Success in this new era won't be measured by download numbers alone, but by the strength of your audience relationships, the quality of your content, and your ability to maintain independence in an increasing, consolidated media landscape. For those willing to put in the work, understand their worth, and stay dedicated to this podcasting craft through 2025 won't just be another year in podcasting. It will be the beginning of a new golden age for the medium. The question isn't whether you can start a podcast. The question is, are you dedicated enough to build something that lasts? What do we want as an industry? Do we want podcast monetization? Do we want streaming satoshis? Do we want ad tech and dynamic filtration of content? Or do we need to take a step back in 2025 and encourage people to fall in love with podcasting again? And the wonderful Matt Medeiros there as well with some great predictions for 2025. Now, next up is Mike from the Rogue Media Network, Mike Hamilton himself. Hey, James and Sam, it's Mike Hamilton, chief creative officer of Rogue Media Network. Number one, thanks for the honor of letting me give pod news some of my probably completely wrong predictions for 2025. More live shows from smaller podcasts, I think are in our future for 2025. More merchandise and tours that appeal to specific niches. Fandoms are very specific and love those inside jokes. So I see a lot of smaller shows looking at their thousand true fans rather than their hundred thousand who might listen and just serving them better. I think audio fiction will continue to grow and get more diverse. I think smaller stories, not only of true crime, which has been very popular, but almost like indie movies. You know, these are going to be more heartfelt stories that are from lesser known writers and studios that will make fans happier by serving those small niches or groups. In a little bit of a negative one, I think StreamYard is going to feel a reckoning for their outrageous price gouging, especially for day-to-day creators. I think there are too many tools and services just like them to justify their disdain for their customers. The words podcast and show, I believe, will become synonymous. I know we as a network have already asked our creators to start shows, not podcasts. The difference being that shows are better prepared and presented. They can include audio and video segments, types of production is going to take center stage again. And I think the free-flowing conversation shows will become a smaller sector. Of course, you know, not counting Joe Rogan and Call Her Daddy. I also think that, unfortunately, Spotify and YouTube will continue their battle for supremacy with podcasters and consumers being the losers. Both of these companies will continue to squash innovation and profit for smaller creators. But not to end on a bad note, I think we are a very innovative and creative people. We always find ways around new rules and regulations. Having said that, I predict that podcasts will become podcasts again, meaning that we as an industry and collective will get back to making great content and stop worrying about our corporate overlords so much. As an American, I can't tell you what the next year looks like from a political and business perspective. But I can tell you that based on history, when faced with corporate greed and regulations, humans find a way around. When you look at something like punk rock, it emerged as kind of a backlash against political parties of the day, mainstream music, greed, corruption. It was a champion of just raw music stripped down. Let's go fast. Let's go loud. DIY, you know, make your own stuff, get smaller labels, get away from the large corporate entities. I hope that as an industry, we can take this attitude and do the same. Happy holidays to both of you, along with all your listeners and anybody in the podcast industry. I'm a guy from Texas with a dream to be creative for a living. And everyone I've met in this industry has made me feel so welcomed. And I'm honored to be a part of this. Happy holidays. Mike Hamilton from the Rogue Media Network. Interestingly talking about audio fiction, of course, and talking about the loss of the word podcast. Now, formerly of Libsyn, now of Podpage. Here's Dave Jackson. James and Sam, it's Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting. I'm not going to do anything very bold for a prediction here, but say, I think we're going to continue to see the price of programmatic ads go down. And the reason for that is simple. If we go back to banner ads on websites, it used to be you could get paid decently for those, but then everybody got a website and the prices fell through the floor. And I think we're going to see that with podcasting as well as more and more media hosts are now adding dynamic capabilities. The thing I want to watch, it's not really prediction, but I'm really going to have my eye on is video. We've been promised so much about video from YouTube and Spotify, and I'm just going to be interested to see if they can fulfill the dreams that they've now set out for us to chew on. Because my guess is maybe July of next year, you're going to hear a lot of people go, hey, this isn't working. So we'll see, I guess. Thanks for the show. Keep up the great work. Now, Dave Jackson there from the future of podcasting. So he should know what's coming up in 2025. Yes. Now, next up is the wonderful Rachel Corbett and her predictions and look back at 2024. Hello, James. Hello, Sam. Thank you so much for asking me to be a part of this episode. And thank you very much for the show that you do. I support it because I get a lot of value out of it every week. And I really appreciate that there is one central place I can go to, to get my head around everything that's going on in the industry. And then I can get on with the other many things that need to be done. So I appreciate you both doing this every week. My highlights of 2024. I'm going to start with a controversial one because everybody talks about how it might be the end of all our jobs, but AI. Wow. There are a lot of things in the process of podcasting that have been made a heck of a lot easier this year by the incredible rise of AI. A lot of the stuff that has been an absolute pain point for podcasters. Like, how do I come up with social posts for every different platform? Now, is the content that they spit out immediately? Great. Can you just copy and paste it? No, you can't. But is it a lot easier to edit something that exists and start with a blank piece of paper? Yes, it is. So I think anything that can simplify a lot of the steps in the process is a great thing from my end. And then finally, every year for me, a highlight is just the students that come through my online podcasting course. Independents have built this business and it is an absolute privilege to be a part of the early part of people's podcasting journey to kind of give them the tools that they need to jump in. Hopefully not podfade because they understand exactly what they need to do, but also just see what incredible ideas people are coming up with. So that is really exciting and very personally fulfilling for me every single year. In terms of predictions, I think next year we are going to see the true impact of video. Where does it actually sit? At the moment, everybody is obsessed with it in a way that has made people think, if I do not have a video podcast and full episodes of my podcast are not up online, then I am not going to be able to be a successful podcaster. That is not true. And it is important to note that the people really pushing video and the importance of it are the video platforms that can monetize it. So I am not saying by any means that you should ignore video. It is an essential part of your promotional strategy. And for some podcasts, it will work brilliantly well. But I think a lot of people are feeling like they can't get into podcasting because video is a requirement. There are a lot of shows that are working at the moment and are up to their necks in work and cannot possibly add video into the mix and are thinking, if I do not do this, I am going to lose out. And the truth is that for some shows, it is going to work brilliantly for others. It's not going to be important. So I think as long as you are able to create content every single week that connects with an audience, if you can film a couple of bits of videos and get it up on social, fantastic. But the idea that you have to have a full production set up at your house and you're editing full episodes, it's not true. You don't have to do that. However, let me say that the people that are going to be doing and really leaning into the video stuff are going to benefit massively from the fact that the platforms want to push them. So there are going to be huge discoverability benefits for being on those platforms. But ultimately, I think a lot of people are going to try the video thing. People are going to think this doesn't actually work as well as I thought it would. And then they'll pull back. And I think next year we'll have a more realistic understanding of how important video is in the podcasting mix. Also, the other thing is, sorry to go on about this, but I feel very passionate about it. The whole push to the idea that a podcast has to be video first, that moves away from every point that people had on the list of these are all of the reasons why podcasting has become such a successful medium. Like it's an antidote to screen fatigue and it can be fit into my day perfectly without me having to look at the screen because I can walk the dog and do the shopping and do other things. I know that people often say, well, having videos on YouTube, people are watching it in the background. I tell you what, I'm not setting up a whole set at home and putting makeup on for people to have it on in the background while they're cooking. Like you can do that with my audio, you know? Anyway, don't get me wrong. Video is important, but it's just not a silver bullet, okay? For everybody, not every show is a diary of a CEO. Anyway, that is me done. I did have some thoughts on some other commercial things, but I think I've gone on long enough and it's probably time to give somebody else a go. So have a great holiday season, everyone. And thank you again, Sam and James. Rachel Corbett, who has a new podcast out and is incredibly busy down there in sunny Sydney. And thank you to her for that. Let's move on. Here's Cy Jobling. Hey, pod news family. This is Cy Jobling, one of the weekly sponsors who has been asked to provide some thoughts and opinions of the podcasting industry from the past year and what to expect next year. So I've been podcasting for quite a long time as a casual hobbyist, not necessarily as a professional, but I've loved to watch the evolution of what's been going on over all those years. And I really appreciate everything Sam and James provide on a weekly basis. I look forward to my Friday morning walk with the dog in around my village Creek, which has been featured in the past. And again, I just think it's great opportunity to think what has been great about this year, what's not been so great and what I might hope to happen next year. So I think the, one of the main highlights I've noticed over the past year is the kind of purge of podcasting as a industry. I think it's been an opportunity to consolidate and focus. The reality has hit that advertising on podcast is not necessarily as lucrative as originally proposed, but there have been some success stories as well across the globe. And even especially in the UK, there's been a great shift towards podcast as a medium. I use the word in inverted commas because I appreciate podcasts is misinterpreted in many places, e.g. BBC Sounds. But it's great to see the fact that good content is prevailing, the not so great or the less regular content is managing to keep up and the influencers and celebrities are either persisting or moving on or finding different ways of being creative as well. It's great to see that. I had great fun at the podcast show in London back in May. It was really interesting and fascinating to hear all those insights and stories from the media heavyweights. So a little bit of contradiction to what I just said, but it was very enjoyable just to dive into some of those technical conversations as well, especially when I got to be part of that pod news weekly recording. What I also enjoyed about the conference, as always, was meeting up with old friends and you. Those people I've been recognising and appreciating in the industry over the past few years. And I've really enjoyed having those random conversations and keeping those relationships alive. The final thing I'm really pleased to see this year is how True Fans and Falten have been constantly pushing the envelope with all the new Podcasting 2.0 tags and features, especially with the shift towards more open social network protocols like ActivityPub and NOSTA. It was wonderful to see how quickly True Fans deployed that truefans.social website with all the verbs, really iterating on that over the weeks and see where that's going. Ideally, if I can get some transferable analytics out of it next time as well. So as I started hinting towards the future, I've got a few areas that I'd like to see grow over the time. I think AI is a buzzword, but it's here to stay and it'd be great to see some better transcriptions and show notes with AI. I'd like to see AI make better use of understanding where websites are referenced in a conversation and maybe just append links to the descriptions or show notes so it's easier for listeners to click through. It'd be great to see transcriptions understand those nuanced accents. Me, for example, I have a Midlands twang from the UK and I know that some AI struggles with that and some AI even really struggles to understand my Brummie wife as well. So it'd be great to see some of those AI models trained on real world examples beyond the main hotspots of posh British English and the accents around the States as well. Again, with AI, I'd like to see more personalized podcasts so we can maybe use news sources to create a very curated, filtered news source in a podcast medium, very much like what James does on a daily basis. But it gives the users a chance to pick their topics and pick a voice that they're comfortable listening to. Remember, people follow people and humans and personalities. We like to be able to relate to these individuals. But if we can try and get a bit cleverer with what content lands and curating it to the audience, that'd be a really interesting wet shift. It's why I have a variety of podcasts I listen to, ideally with a bit of a satirical comical edge as well. That's something you cannot emulate with AI. So I just want to see that experimentation to see how it comes out. And I really like to see how creators can make better use of tools like Activity Pub and other distributed social networks and try to engage with their audiences better, not just limiting yourselves to the wall gardens of Spotify, Apple and YouTube. But how can we use these open protocols to really connect with the listeners and get some really good interaction going on with it as well? Finally, I'm really carefully watching what Spotify and YouTube are doing when they embrace and push video as so-called podcasts. I love video content. I get it. And I know it's where the future is. But I don't like the use of word podcast when it's just someone with a microphone in view on a camera. I do miss that openness of early video podcasts. Remember Dignation? One of those early ones with Kevin Rose that finally came back this year, actually. And I'm really glad to see that with those lads. But again, they are limiting themselves to the walled gardens of YouTube, Spotify, and those ones not necessarily embracing the open podcasting sphere. So they're my thoughts for 2024 and 2025. And I can't wait to hear what Sam and James think of them. A side jobling there. And he's probably walking the dog now or on his way to the pub. But either way, say, yes, AI with a Birmingham accent will be in 2025. Next up is Jim James. And he is talking about various things from 2024. Let's find out what Jim has to say. It was called the podcast election in America. And Trump was able to get in front of 50 million listeners, all by using what was traditionally seen as a hobby medium. So for me, 2024, podcasts became the mainstream media. My name is Jim James. I'm the host of the Unnoticed Entrepreneur Podcaster in the UK. Now three books also under the Unnoticed Entrepreneur title. I have also been excited in 2024 by the full impact of AI on the ability of indie podcast creators like me to generate content at scale. We've got innovators like Descript embedding tools like Underlord, which is able to ease my workflow and enable me to create multiple language versions of my podcast. I've also been able to use the Google notebook LLM to take an article that I've written and to make a podcast, which is just amazing. So 2024, podcasts have gone mainstream and the technologies empowered indie podcasters like me to create content at will and to compete maybe with the large companies. What do I think about 2025? Well, one is that the AI is obviously going to get more and more powerful and that's going to create new business models. In my own case, I've been able to take my podcast episodes with entrepreneurs and to create three books, which have then been published by the New York publisher Wiley. I couldn't have done this without AI at each stage of the process. And so I'm excited to see what comes next. And I think we're going to see a blurring of the lines between human and AI created podcast content. One prediction that I have is that we're going to see podcasts being created by corporates as they've seen the power of having a direct conversation with their audience. My final prediction is that we're going to see more citizen podcasts in local areas where local newspapers stations have been closing down due to their high costs of operation. Citizen journalists producing podcasts will fill the need for community news and engagement funded by local sponsorship. Finally, with the Ukrainian boxer Vladimir Klinshko offering to talk to Joe Rogan on his podcast about the Ukraine war, my prediction for a new word to be added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2025 will be Podlomacy, Slava podcasting. Jim James, very excellent. And where are we? We're about in the middle of all of these. If you would like to be a power supporter for next year, of course you can. You can do it right now. Weekly.podnews.net is where to go, armed with your credit card. And anything that you share on there will be shared with Sam and with me directly because that's where this money goes. So much appreciated. So let's move on. Somebody who I sat down for a very nice pizza with, I think, in Venice when I was there earlier on in the year. Here's Rocky Thomas. Hello, Podnews Weekly Review listeners. This is Rocky Thomas, Soundstack's newly minted Chief Strategy Officer. If you want an idea of what's in store for podcasting in 2025, just ask these three questions. Open web or walled garden? Video or audio? What is a podcast? It is a Nietzsche-level existential crisis and that is okay. It's what happens when a medium starts to be called mainstream and podcast interviews are considered earned media. If podcasting was a young person, we would call it adulting. It makes for crazy, exciting times full of possibility. So what can we expect in 2025? After years of dynamic ad insertion replacing most ads, direct and programmatic, publishers will need to brush off their direct baked-in shops to fully optimize the revenue of all platforms. In order to count baked-in ads and measure mixed platform audiences, analytics will need to adapt, increasing the need for metric platforms to count more than just audio downloads. Podcasting might not be exactly the same on the other side of 2025. And again, this is okay, just as long as the story stays the same, because great content will always find the audience. Thanks, James and Sam. I'm also predicting there will be a magnificent 100 in 2025. There you go, the wonderful Rocky Thomas, who will be on the show in 2025. Now she's got her new role as Director of Strategy. Next up is Neal Veglio, a name that most people will know. Neal, what have you got to tell us about 2024 and coming up in 2025? Hi, James and Sam. Thank you so much for this podcast. Once again, it's been 12 months of absolutely riveting content. Really appreciate you guys. This is Neal Veglio, the owner and founder of Podnos Podcasting. This year, I have been absolutely blown away by the growth of indie podcasting. I don't mean in terms of the value of the space. I mean, in terms of the quality of the space. Earlier this year, of course, we had the Independent Podcast Awards for a second time. And hearing some of those entrants, the quality, the time being invested into these productions, it was quite astounding. And I'm loving seeing how that space is developing. My predictions for 2025, of course, everyone's probably going to be leaning into the video podcasting thing, aren't they? I'm going to push against that. I'm going to say that this coming year is going to be more about audio again. And I know that we've all pretty much written Apple Podcasts off when it comes to innovation and any new ideas. I think they know that they've got to catch up with Spotify. And look at what Spotify is up to. Of course, not being the number one podcast app in the ecosystem, which, you know, obviously the research and all the surveys are saying YouTube now is and Spotify is number two. I think we all know that actually Apple Podcasts still dominates just about the market. And once they start leaning into this new Clips idea that Spotify have seemingly quietly introduced into the Creator Hub, that's going to change the game in terms of discovery. Of course, a lot of podcasters, these newbies, are saying, ah, podcast discovery is terrible on the podcast apps. That's, of course, because they don't know how to optimize audio content. And that's why they think video is the savior. I'm going to say Apple Podcasts and Spotify are going to really change the game on this in the coming 12 months as clips of your soon-to-be favorite shows begin to emerge in the main feats. The excellent Neal Veglio, I would imagine that he will, one of his other predictions is that he will post even more incendiary comments on LinkedIn. Is that possible? He's very, very good at that. It was good to meet him at the Independent Podcast Awards late in the year. Now let's move on. Somebody who is podcasting about Podcasting 2.0 is Claire Waite-Brown. Hi, I'm Claire Waite-Brown, host of the Creativity Found podcast and of a new show releasing in January called Podcasting 2.0 in Practice. My podcasting highlights of 2024 have really been the range of live events I've been able to attend this year from Podfest in Orlando to the pub get-togethers surrounding podcast show London, as well as the show itself, of course. And other IRL and online events, for example, with the Everybody Collective, Content is Queen, UK Audio Network, Mike's Podcast Club, and probably some others. Please excuse me if I've forgotten you. The best thing about these events is the people I meet, whether familiar friends I've made since starting podcasting or new podcast pals. I don't have a prediction as much as a wish for 2024, and it relates to my love of making podcasty people connections. This is for the widespread adoption from hosting companies and listening apps of my favourite podcasting 2.0 feature, and I know we all have one. Mine is Podroll. Podroll is super easy to implement and means you can recommend other podcasts that you like, so people who love your show will be encouraged to listen to theirs. For those of us who don't have massive marketing budgets, this is a super friendly, supportive, and simple way to improve discoverability for independent podcasters built on trust between show hosts and their listeners. Thank you. There you go, Claire Waite-Brown. She was on the show last week, James. She's got her new podcast coming out on the 1st of January called Podcasting 2.0 in Practice. Have a listen to that when it comes out. It's really good. And finally, up next is James Burt. Thank you, James, for being a power supporter. And let's see what you have to say for 2024. Hello, I'm James Burt. I run a podcast production company called Phonic Content, and I'm also the co-founder of PodSchool, which is fast aiming to become the number one hub for content creators who are serious about taking their podcast to the next level. For me, the most exciting thing that happened in podcasting this year is the fact that Donald Trump won an election because of a podcast. I realise that's quite a bold statement and I might not be entirely factually correct or accurate with that. But I genuinely believe that the way that the swing states voted in large part was predicated on him doing the Joe Rogan podcast. I think it's difficult to deny that fact. Now, I'm by no means a political media expert, but it seemed that across the board, those that are political media experts were universally in agreement that the podcast that he appeared on or the number of podcasts that he appeared on had definitely moved the needle. I think we're getting to a point now where people want authenticity and whether you like or loathe a particular party or their politics or a politician themselves, I think that even if you disagree with their politics, you can relate to them more as a human being if you've heard them in a long form content format. And I think this was proved with the interview with Joe Rogan. I also think that, you know, just from the UK side of things, obviously a lot less clickbaity in nature, but I think that Keir Starmer appearing on Diary of a CEO is another sign that politicians are really starting to understand the power of podcasting. I think for me, 2024 was probably the year that we'll look back and go, do you know what? Podcasting became mainstream that year. And I think that's exciting. I know a lot of the podcast purists are becoming less and less sort of fans of the mainstream nature of podcasting. But for me personally, all boats rise in a high tide. The more attention this amazing media can get, the more eyeballs and earbuds that come to this sector in this space, the better. From a business perspective, I would say that 2024 has been the most challenging year that I have had of trading. I started the agency in 2020. So four years later. Now, obviously, we have seen in the time that I've run an agency, we've seen podcasting become more and more and more and more popular, which is obviously a great thing. I think this year, 2024, was the great readjustment, potentially. I feel like we've almost gone through our own podcasting version of the dot-com boom. And I think there's been a readjustment. Now, I think a lot of people have gone, oh my God, abandon ship, slam on the anchors. There's a lot of panic in the marketplace, I think. And if you are solely making your revenue through sponsorship and advertising, then I can completely understand that. I think, though, overall, this will be seen in the longer term as a blip on the horizon. I don't think this is a sign of the industry going backwards in any way, shape or form. I think it's probably just a readjustment to align back with the value versus the audience that podcasting has now got. My prediction for 2025 is that video is going to become more and more and more important. Now, I am a audio guy, first and foremost. I started off working in radio and I love radio. And this, I think why I fell in love with podcasting, because it was like a newer version of radio, the evolution of radio. And when podcast video started coming in, I was a bit reticent. I was a little bit standoffish from it. But you can't fight against the tide forever. As an agency, we've obviously had to jump on board with videos in a big way over the last couple of years. And I can only see that that's going to increase. I generally believe that the battle for long form attention is now being fought in short form platforms, such as TikTok, such as YouTube Shorts, such as LinkedIn. And whilst a lot of the podcast purists, the audio lovers amongst us, didn't necessarily want the podcasting space to be about who's got the best clickbait video. I think that's kind of the direction that it is going in, because it's never been easier to make content, yet it's never been more difficult to get people to generally hear the message you're trying to deliver. I think also the other big change that's coming in 2025 is going to be the increasing dominance of Spotify. I think what they are building out, what they're attempting to build out with Spotify for creators is really exciting. The fact that they're trying to make an ecosystem, the fact that they're trying to give a home to content creators is going to be really interesting and really telling. I remember when Spotify first started taking steps in the podcasting space, and I was thinking at the time, is anyone going to knock Apple off their perch? But I think in 2025, we might see Spotify do exactly that. Thanks for including my predictions for 2025. Big shout out to you, James and Sam, for the work that you do in the sector. Thank you on behalf of the podcast industry. Thank you for what you do. As a growing independent medium, I think it's super important for us to have independent media that holds the sector to account. So thank you guys for the work that you do. Look forward to bumping into you at an event in 2025. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. James Burt and those are our power supporters. And those are the predictions as well. Lots of talk about video in there. Lots of talk about Spotify in particular. A number of people. Apple needing to catch up to Spotify, said Neal earlier on. And Mike Hamilton also talking about Spotify and YouTube and Cameron describing them as a threat. Anything that came out for you in there, Sam? No, I think one, Mike Hamilton talks about fandoms and the ability to create community. I think that's going to be a very big theme for 2025 as well. And building trust with fans one at a time. Again, that's from Matt Medeiros. I think that's true. I think there's a real push for people now to start to talk about community as well. So they're two themes apart from AI and video, which I think everyone had. Well, so next week, we will look back at the year, the highlights and the lowlights of that. And then the week after, we will do our predictions. But that's it for this week. You can subscribe to the daily Podnews newsletter at podnews.net or find us on the socials at podnews.net on Blue Sky. 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