James Cridland: 0:00

It's Friday, January, the 10th 2025.

Announcer: 0:03

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

James Cridland: 0:12

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans In the chapters today. Predictions for 2025. What's going to happen in podcasting this year what will be good, what will be bad? Maybe we'll focus on the good. Anyway, this podcast is sponsored by Buzzsproutcom. One thing I can comfortably predict is that we'll see new innovations from Buzzsprout throughout the year, just like we had last year, as a reason why Buzzsprout is one of the biggest podcast hosts in the world. You can find out for yourself at Buzzsproutcom. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Announcer: 0:43

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi: 0:47

Right, james, let's kick off. This is the one show that I think I'm really excited about, because it's our prediction show. James, yes, let's start off with your first prediction for 2025.

James Cridland: 1:00

Right, let's do just that Right. My first prediction for 2025 is I think this is where the industry makes a choice between Spotify and YouTube and a bit of Apple, ie the proprietary stuff and the rest of podcasting. There is a clear benefit of proprietary solutions, if you're selling advertising, to use things like YouTube and Spotify and a little bit of Apple in there as well, but there is also a clear benefit to consumers of the openness of the industry. I would suspect that this year is going to be that year where we've got to put our flag down and go this is the way forward. So, yeah, I think that there will be a bit of a more obvious split between the proprietary platforms and the rest.

Sam Sethi: 1:57

Yeah, I tend to agree with that. Okay, my first prediction is the download as a metric will die. I know that's not very, you know, earth shattering as my first prediction, but I do think that Bumper came out with some dashboards that worked. I think we're beginning to see other companies now begin to produce those similar dashboards and I think that listen time or watch time, as YouTube are beginning to talk about and Spotify as well, will be the metric. I think people will start to say how many hours did you, or how many hours did your podcast get this week, or how many listeners did you get? I think it's active listening and active engagement with the podcast, not just the passive download. I think the passive download will die as a metric.

James Cridland: 2:44

Well, as long as people talk about completion rate rather than total hours.

Sam Sethi: 2:48

for somebody that makes a five-minute podcast every day, yeah, I think that has to be within the mix as well.

James Cridland: 2:55

Yes, I'll be happy about that.

Sam Sethi: 2:58

Prediction number two James, go for it.

James Cridland: 2:59

Prediction number two for me one large podcast company will focus exclusively on video and stop doing audio. That might be somebody like Flight Studio, Maybe that might be somebody like who else would I say? I mean not Wondery, but there are other companies like that, Maybe Qcode, maybe Pave, Some of these companies, I think they'll focus exclusively on video and they'll stop doing audio because it's boring and they can get more money from making crap TV shows.

Sam Sethi: 3:34

That'll be an interesting one to see.

Sam Sethi: 3:39

My second prediction is actually a positive one. I think more advertising monies will head towards podcasts. You mentioned when you met Rocky Thomas over in Venice that you know. She said that as far as agencies are concerned, they're not making it easy. Podcasters are not making it easy to put money into them because we're not dealing in the language or the model that they use.

Sam Sethi: 4:03

But I think what we've seen with the podcast presidential election the roganomics, as I like to call it I think people have seen that the pound for punch that podcasts deliver is now going to be worth putting money into. My only concern is that I don't think we'll see a trickle-down effect. I think we'll see money going to the top and a lot of money going to the top, but I don't think we'll see the trickle-down effect. I think we'll see money going to the top and a lot of money going to the top, but I don't think we'll see the trickle-down. I think ad agencies are pretty lazy. They don't look outside the top tens and I think we're still going to have to rely on making value-for-value and micropayments and host raids and sponsors at the long tail work, but I think, at the top yeah, we'll see a lot more of that money that goes to TV coming to podcasting.

James Cridland: 4:53

Interesting, interesting thought. Yes, James, number three for you.

Sam Sethi: 4:56

Yes, number three for me is, I think, ai oh God, there's your banker for next year.

James Cridland: 4:58

that is it Easy bankable one, ian? No, in terms of AI, I think that we will hear much more AI-driven voice content this year than we ever have. I think it's going to be much harder to tell the human apart from the AI voice, and in some cases that'll be absolutely fine. But, yes, I think, significantly more AI voice content. Up until this point, I think mostly we have seen AI being used for behind the scenes stuff you know, script writing and that sort of thing but we've had comparatively little AI voices. I think 2025 will be the year of the AI voice. Sam, what's your number three?

Sam Sethi: 5:48

I think at the end of 2024, true Fans and Pod 2 came up with an idea called Secure RSS. It's based on a standard called L402. Okay, there's the techie stuff. Out the way, secure.

James Cridland: 6:02

RSS. You forgot to mention French biscuits as well.

Sam Sethi: 6:05

Yes and macaroons yes. Yes, secure RSS is a model that I think will allow podcast 2.0 apps to go to the mainstream content producers, and what I mean by that is audio book providers and music publishers, because up until now, the whole idea of pay what you want, the value for value model with micropayments or content works for independent content owners. You know it's a case of, yes, you can get advertising, but here's another great way of making money through your audience paying you, and that's great. And you know we said in 2024, it's still too complex and hopefully in 25, it'll get simpler. But I think if we want to grow the podcasting 2.0 apps and the whole community ecosystem, then we have to go and get the bigger content providers to pay into the ecosystem, and the only way to do that is to give them a surety that their content won't be copied, because OpenRSS is very easy to just copy the enclosure, and so SecureRSS allows them to use the same Open RSS model of distribution host to apps and multiple apps. But it does mean that when someone tries to click on that content, they can't play it unless they've paid for it.

Sam Sethi: 7:26

And I think, unfortunately, unless we bring that into the market, then I don't think we'll get the Sonys, the BMGs, the audio book players I mean, if you want to talk, you know, to any audio book player. We did Pushkin Industries as an example. It was a total no-go and now I think we can go back to them and there might be a chink of an opening where they go okay, you can assure that I'll get this money back and no one will copy my data. Yes, I'm in. So I think secure rss will be something we'll see adopted much more in 2025 well, I have a feeling that's your.

James Cridland: 7:59

I hope this happens.

Sam Sethi: 8:01

Uh, well it might be, and quite right too, but I would say that doing what we're doing, it's. You know, we said in 24. We said, um, value for value didn't take off, micropayments didn't take off. We said podcasting 2.0 stagnated. We said all of those things. So what did Einstein say?

Sam Sethi: 8:21

Doing the same thing again, repeating the same thing time and time and expecting a different outcome is the first sign of madness. And that's what I think we have. We have this hope and prayer that V4V through micropayments will magically take off. And it's not going to unless we can start to get people using our platforms first to see these features and functions are actually more interesting than some of the proprietary ones. And we have to get more interesting content in. And I'm afraid you're not going to get. You know, the mainstream music artists coming to podcasting 2.0 apps if the platform is open, has no DRM or has no other means of securing their content. I'm afraid that's where I stand. It's not. Yes, I hope it works for TrueFans, but I hope it works for the whole ecosystem, because you know nice independent music artists. Yes, they're going to get a couple of thousand plays and they're going to make a couple of thousand dollars in sats. That's not going to move the needle.

James Cridland: 9:18

Yes, agreed, agreed. Well, there we are, that's that yes yes, sorry about that.

Sam Sethi: 9:24

Gets off his high horse, steps down and thinks yes, right, number four, james, what's going on?

James Cridland: 9:29

Number four a pullback in podcast industry events. I don't know about you, but I think that we may see fewer podcast industry events happening, or we may see them scaled back rather a lot. It's just something in the air right now, and so I think that that may be happening in 2025. Maybe there are too many of them for the size of the industry that we are or not, who knows. But yes, that's what I fear might be happening.

Sam Sethi: 10:10

Well, again on that, I mean, you know, I've tried through various guises to get the two big events, the podcast movement and also the London Podcast Show, to do podcasting 2.0 threads, basically talking about technology, talking about something different than AI or video or advertising Right, and there's been a total pushback on it now. Monetizing Right, and there's been a total pushback on it now, um, you know, I've announced PodCamp 2.0 and I've waited until the new year now to really start to announce who's going to be there and what's going to happen, because I thought it was too long a lead into, you know, um May. But now I'll start to ramp up my um announcements. I think you're right. Smaller events, uh, more nimb events, talking about things that aren't just AI or video, and I think, yeah, people will want to find those things because I think they're a little bit bored of the conversation that's currently going on at the big events.

James Cridland: 11:06

Indeed. Indeed Right Number four from you will take hold.

Sam Sethi: 11:20

I thought this was going to happen in 2024. I love listening to Dave and Adam on the Friday night show. I love listening to Todd and Rob, but it hasn't really taken on. We thought rsscom were going to announce the inclusion of live video as a service to their customers. That didn't happen. We haven't seen any of the other hosts embrace live, but I do think that we will see. We talked about Spotify. James in two shows ago had the green room and they're looking at live events and the notifications and matching that with music events and ticketing. I think we're going to see live becoming much more prevalent. We already see it a lot in YouTube. I watch a lot of live video in YouTube with super chats and I think that whole space has to come into podcasting, and live will cross and blur the lines between radio podcasting and video. I think live is going to be something that people want. Again, that's one of my predictions. Live will take hold.

James Cridland: 12:21

Well, live will take hold. There's a thing, and I think my number five is I'm very aware that my predictions so far haven't been very positive, have they? But my number five is, I think, a little bit more positive at least, and that is I think we will see an industry-wide campaign for Open RSS happening in 2025. I think the bits of the industry that aren't YouTube or Spotify will wake up to the fact that they're being squeezed out, and I think we'll see a bit more of a concerted effort to promote, maybe, the benefits of open RSS, maybe the benefits of audio podcasts, but I think that we will see a bit more talking about the benefits of openness, of wherever you get your podcasts, all of that kind of thing, rather than trying to force us into the Spotify app or the BBC Sounds app or whatever it ends up being. So an industry-wide campaign for Open RSS is what I think might happen in 2025. What's your final prediction, sam?

Sam Sethi: 13:31

Well, because I shouldn't end on a negative, I should always end on a positive. Oh, should you.

James Cridland: 13:40

I was going to say more cuts to the injury because of AI, but I think I'll leave that on the cutting room floor, because I'm sure that, oh yes, you're going to mention something about sunglasses then, are you?

Sam Sethi: 13:46

I am, yes, my meta ray balance you told me that you'd edited this out. No, I said. I said that I would choose the last one. So instead of ending on a negative, I'm going to end on a positive and go on.

James Cridland: 13:59

Then tell us about your toy glasses but they have a podcast relationship right.

Sam Sethi: 14:04

Okay, so are. I have seen metal ray bands, I think as the product of 2024 in terms of tech. Um, they are, you know, they look good, but they also have a smart functionality and audible books have come to the meta ray band so I can now, um, not just ask for music, I can ask for podcasts and audiobooks. Okay, that's not a big thing, I mean, you can just play it in your pocket and put an airpod in. But one of the things that is coming is location-based podcasting, and Ray-Bans now have a live capability for you to not say, hey, meta, what can you see? But you can literally have and then it takes a photo.

Sam Sethi: 14:43

Now you can have video and I think, combined with AI, I think these are the augmented reality glasses that we'll see, that will go mainstream, and I think we talked to Ian Forrester a couple of years ago actually, that the BBC had a technology called SMARL, which was an XML standard for location-based information, where the podcast would change based on your location. And I think, again, james O'Bogg with his company Spooler is working on something in this space as well, and I think location-based podcasting, where it combines AI and location, I think is going to be really interesting. And the device I think that might be the way of doing that is something like the Meta Ray-Ban glasses.

James Cridland: 15:28

Well, those are our predictions for the year, which will be interesting to work out which of those succeed and which of those don't. Please do me a favour and don't go out and buy any Ray-Ban glasses and then I'm guaranteed to win one of those. But yes, it should be all fun trying to find out what happens during 2025. Sam and I will be back next week with our usual show and thank you all for your support. If you wish to support us for the shows coming up in the year, then either hit that boost button if it still works, or you can go to weeklypodnewsnet and sign up and become a power supporter. We would really appreciate it.

Sam Sethi: 16:22

Thank you very much, guys.

James Cridland: 16:24

And that's it for this week. You can subscribe to the daily PodNews newsletter at podnewsnet or find us on the socials at podnewsnet on Blue Sky podnews at socialpodnewsnet on the Fediverse like Mastodon, or we're on X in between the proclamations from President Musk. We're called Pod News over there as well.

Sam Sethi: 16:43

You can support this show by streaming payments in the new podcast app. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail link in our show notes and you can send us a boostergram or become a new power supporter at weeklypodnewsnet.

James Cridland: 16:57

Our music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila Dee. We use clean feed for our audio, we edit using Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

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Sam Sethi: 17:15

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