Speaker 1: 0:00

It's Friday, the 24th of January 2025.

Speaker 2: 0:04

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

Speaker 1: 0:13

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

Speaker 3: 0:15

And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.

Speaker 1: 0:18

In the chapters today how Apple Podcasts works in China and the rise of the manosphere. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout, with the tools, support and community to ensure you keep podcasting, start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom. From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Speaker 3: 0:39

Now, James, it's been a quiet news week, I think, generally across the podcast sphere. I wonder if anyone else is sucking up all the news. But that aside, you've got a very interesting story about how Apple Podcasts works in China. Tell me more.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Yes, published today. In fact, I was given the wink by someone who contacted PodNews through their Proton encrypted email, so I had a quick chat with them and a couple of other people who are based in China. So it's quite difficult to have these sorts of conversations. But, yes, it turns out that the way that Apple podcast works in China has changed a bit, which is interesting. So the way that it used to work is it was just a specially selected list of shows, so some shows were available, some shows weren't, and that is essentially how Apple Podcasts works in China, because the Cyberspace Administration of China, which is the media regulator kind of in that country, kind of in that country were very keen in making sure that only the right sort of material was available. Anyway, it turns out that Apple have made a couple of different changes. One change is that they can now pull individual episodes off, so you can listen to, for example, the Lex Friedman podcast, and 22 of their most recent episodes simply aren't available in China.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Tucker Carlson spoke about Xi Jinping, vivek Ramaswamy spoke about China. Noam Chomsky spoke about Chinese relations with the US. All of those episodes are not that available in China, but the rest of it is, which is really interesting, because that's not a thing that Apple Podcasts has actually done before. All Apple Podcasts tell us is that only selected shows are available there. The other thing, though, which is probably more important, is that it always used to be the case that if you just push your RSS feed into Apple Podcasts and you say, ok, just take a look at this RSS feed, apple Podcasts will pull that RSS feed in and show you the show. So, if you remember from way back when that nice Alex Jones do you remember his show InfoWars, which was taken off Apple Podcasts all the way back in 2018? Now there was a really easy way of getting past that you just plug in the RSS feed and away you go. It seems that Apple Podcasts in China won't even do that, so the only way that you can even listen to an RSS feed in Apple Podcasts in China is if it's already been approved for the Apple Podcasts directory.

Speaker 1: 3:33

So, really, really interesting, and what I ended up doing, sam because you know that I would I ended up building a tool that actually checks and it works on every single show. But what I said in the Pod News article was I will leave it up to you to work out how to use it for your show, because I don't particularly want to link to it from every single show's podcast page because that would be silly. But you can work out. Am I banned in China? Am I banned in Cambodia? Am I banned in Cambodia? Am I banned in Belarus? You can do all of that, and are any specific episodes of mine banned? So, for example, I've now got this tool which lets you have a look at the Joe Rogan experience, for example, which is available in China, but, again, not some episodes. Donald Trump is not allowed in China, but also other dangerous subversives, like Dr Phil has also been taken on.

Speaker 3: 4:37

Don't get me down that road, Please move on, oh well there we are.

Speaker 1: 4:41

So yeah, so it was just really really interesting and we can talk about this, because this show, the Pod News Weekly Review, is not are. So yeah, so it was just really really interesting and we can talk about this, because this show, the Pod News Weekly Review, is not available in China. I discover why. What have you said? What have I said? And nor is the Pod News Daily, and it really isn't a case of what we've said and what we haven't said. It's the reverse. This show hasn't been allow-listed into the Chinese directory. That's basically how that works. So, yeah, so there's a bunch of shows which you know are in there. Weirdly, crime Junkie, that's absolutely fine. The Daily Show Ears Edition from Comedy Central, but not the Daily, you know. So, yeah, so if you are curious and you couldn't work out how to change the URL on the page, you can have a look and see if your favourite show has been censored in China. And yeah, it was just a really really interesting piece of work, just sort of digging in and working out what's available and what isn't.

Speaker 3: 5:40

So how do you get listed? What would we have to do to change our status?

Speaker 1: 5:45

I think that would be very difficult. I think we have to make sure that we don't talk about anything to do with China. So too late, but I think also yeah, it's just specific there is a content check that all of the podcast apps have to do there, and there are only really three podcast apps in China these days. There's Apple Podcasts, of course, there's one called Cosmos and there's one called Himalaya, which, of course, himalaya used to be a very big thing here, but is no longer so. Yeah, so I don't think there's any particular chance of us being available there.

Speaker 1: 6:25

I have to say, though, having a look at Apple Podcasts in other countries, apple Podcasts really does not censor or remove really anybody. There was a story a couple of years ago that Russia had asked Apple Podcasts to take some shows out. Those shows are back in, so far as I can see, to take some shows out. Those shows are back in so far as I can see. So I mean, even the BBC is available in Russia, which I thought was very interesting, and there's a bunch of things you know. Podcasts you know about gay people are available in the United Arab Emirates, where homosexuality is illegal, for example. You know Radio Free Malaysia, which is very critical about Malaysia and comes from London, is available on the Malaysian app store and so on and so forth. So actually, apple are really doing virtually no content manipulation here, apart from in China, where they kind of have to, because that's what the Chinese government has essentially told them to end up doing.

Speaker 3: 7:25

You say they don't, but let's wait and see. I mean, after our friend Mr Zuckerberg's recent work and Mr Cook's appearance at the inauguration, let's see. Let's see what happens next.

Speaker 1: 7:37

Well, yes, let's see what happens there. I would say, by the way, that the iTunes API still works fine, so you can still actually access that. It defaults to the US, so you can actually access that. But, of course, the podcast index is available, which is a sensor-free thing, although, of course, access to RSS feeds and to audio files may not not work depending on where you are.

Speaker 2: 8:03

The Pod News Weekly Review. With Buzzsprout Podcast hosting made easy.

Speaker 3: 8:10

Well, now moving on, James, you've got another story here. There's so much I could say.

Speaker 1: 8:16

Moving on James. Yes.

Speaker 3: 8:20

I don't want to get banned First ever podcast to be banned on the podcast index. I don't want that. Now story two.

Speaker 1: 8:29

What's this one about? Ashley Carman, and it's looking at the manosphere, those big podcast hosts who all managed to interview Donald Trump at the end of last year. But actually Bloomberg has done this really well researched article, very, very well worth reading. All about how those podcasts have you know, essentially helped the Republicans get in, but are also now building support for Donald Trump's political agenda now that he is in office. How the network operates, how it all intertwines with one another I guess you could call it a big conspiracy theory if you were thinking that way, but certainly all of the data is there.

Speaker 1: 9:23

It's a fascinating story, really, really interesting, about how intertwined some of these big shows are. I don't know if you saw the inauguration of Donald Trump last weekend and actually standing in the room while Donald Trump was being sworn in was Joe Rogan Really, which is an incredible thing. So, yeah, it's a really really good article, which is an incredible thing. So, yeah, it's a really really good article. That was in Thursday's Pod News newsletter and there's a gift link in there which, if Bloomberg haven't blocked it, allows you to read the entire thing and is well worth reading.

Speaker 3: 9:59

It is very obvious that there was a bro culture. I mean, I heard a lovely term called the bro-ology now as a collective noun to describe all the people who run the communications run the networks. They were all on parade for Donald and, yeah, we know the podcasts that you know were pushing his agenda.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So, yes, I mean it's interesting. I mean, you know, clearly there were podcasts as well, pushing the Democrats' agenda as well. You know, I don't necessarily think there's anything necessarily wrong with getting behind one particular ideology, but it is fascinating just seeing how all of these shows have interlinked and they've interviewed the same people and they're all you know. I mean, one of the points that the article makes is they're all being hosted by people who call themselves comedians or, you know, journalists, but are actually, you know, proper. You know they have a political axe to grind and they are using their podcast to help them do that. So it's just a really interesting yeah, a really interesting read. But you know, doubtless the same is happening on the other side as well.

Speaker 3: 11:18

My favourite new network is Zateo, now run by Mehdi Hassan, and they've got Naomi Klein. They've taken on a whole bunch of interesting people. Carol Cadwallader, she's joined their network as well. She was the one who exposed the Facebook Cambridge Analytica. It's a really interesting network if you want open, honest reporting. I really like Zateo.

Speaker 1: 11:41

Yes, yes, well, certainly open reporting. I mean, who knows?

Speaker 3: 11:48

Yeah, no, it is left leaning and biased that way. Okay, fair enough.

Speaker 1: 11:52

We all have our biases, and I think what frustrates me slightly more is large organisations the BBC claiming that they're not biased. They are biased. Everybody is biased, because everybody has a human view of the world which differs from other humans' views of the world. It's just whether you recognise that bias, you know, in you. You know, is I think a thing? But yeah, the one thing that I am is is I think a thing, but uh, yeah, um.

Speaker 1: 12:24

The one thing that I am, though, um, uh, trying to um keep an eye on is um uh companies, large companies, using the, the mainstream media, as a way of um uh, as a way of uh trying to promote their stuff. I don't know if you saw, but earlier on this week there was a new podcast from iHeart, and this new podcast it's all about Donald Trump and it's the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson, and in the press release it said you know, we're promised unfiltered insights, exclusive interviews and the honest commentary you won't get from the mainstream media. Now, this is published by iHeartMedia Sam, which reaches nine out of 10 Americans every month. It's got a greater reach than any other US media company. It is the literal definition of mainstream media. So how they can claim that. Oh no, we're not. The mainstream media is astonishing. So yeah, I'm quite keen to just look and watch what's going on there as well.

Speaker 3: 13:25

Let's move on to some real podcasting news then, James, shall we? Yes, let's.

Speaker 1: 13:35

The UK's Sports Social podcast network has partnered with a German company called Wakewood. Tell me more, yeah, so Sports Social is a very well-regarded sports podcast network in the UK sports podcast network in the UK. They understand what they're doing from a rights point of view as well, because sports, of course, is full of rights negotiations and everything else. They're now working with Wakewood, which is a big German podcast studio, to essentially help them do that sort of thing as well. So that means that the shows that they're making in the UK they can export into Germany. The shows that Wakewood are making in Germany they can export into the UK as well. There's obviously a lot of people who follow the Bundesliga in the UK. There's obviously a lot of people that follow the English Premier League. Is it still called that? It?

Speaker 3: 14:18

is yes.

Speaker 1: 14:19

You can tell I don't care In Germany.

Speaker 3: 14:23

I'm glad you're still up on that soccer. Yes, yes, keep it going.

Speaker 1: 14:27

What is it? Liverpool?

Speaker 3: 14:31

You just only have to look at the top of every league and you'll see Liverpool, what Arsenal. It's fine, it's not a problem Anyway. No, you have to look further down to find them.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Yeah, much further down.

Speaker 3: 14:40

Man United. You can't even see anymore now.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Anyway. So it is interesting seeing Sports Social doing a bit of work there and actually branching out which is worth looking at and talking about sports networks. The Locked On Sports podcast network in the US is doing really well. They published some figures during the week 358 million listens and views in 2024, which is an increase of 20% year on year. Their sports channels for college sports grew by over 50% on the year. They emailed and they said that their projected total listens and views in 2025 will be over 400,000 billion and I said are you sure about that? And they said, oh, no, sorry, I mean over 400 million, but even so, over 400 million is a pretty good number. It is yeah, yeah. So they're doing well and I think you know the Lockdown Podcast Network I spoke to David Locke that runs it last year. You know that seems to be going really well and you know clearly an awful be going really well and you know clearly an awful lot of growth going on there.

Speaker 3: 15:47

I can see the two networks maybe in the future combining. You know, given that one's stateside one's now combining European networks as well, you just can see a sort of evolution into the future of maybe a one conglomerate, maybe.

Speaker 1: 16:00

Yeah, that would certainly be interesting. And I think you know Sports Social, from memory, is owned by Communicort, which is a pretty large company both in the UK and in Ireland as well. So Communicort would certainly have they've done, they've leaned into live sports as well.

Speaker 3: 16:30

So you had the Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson catastrophe just before the new year and then you've got them now getting NFL games. Amazon's doing in the UK lots and lots of Premier League football now and I think you're beginning to see live sport being a way that these streaming networks are hooking people in. I know Sky Sports in the UK was only keeping the Sky numbers up because they have that Premier League and they pay more and more to keep it and they might lose that and if they did I think everyone would just abandon ship on Sky. So I think it's the hook now that's keeping everyone in.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Yeah, and I think sport is certainly something that is keeping actually more of TV alive Over the break. Foxtel, which is the Sky equivalent or the DirecTV equivalent here in Australia, foxtel was sold by Murdoch and has been bought by now. Is it pronounced Darzen or Dazen? D-a-z-e-n, which is a big sports network in the US. They have essentially bought all of Foxtel. So that's a very clever move from that point of view, because Foxtel owns all of the rights for all of the big sports shows here in Australia and also in New Zealand as well. So quite a clever move, I think, from that point of view.

Speaker 3: 17:53

Now, not all sports networks work. Vnu, which was a combined ESPN, fox and Warner Brothers discovery. They've abandoned ship. That was a joint venture for sports and streaming and that's gone away now.

Speaker 1: 18:07

Yeah, so not everything good. And, of course, cnn and MSNBC announcing an awful lot of job cuts this week as well.

Speaker 3: 18:16

Now the Roganomics effect seems to be taking hold around the world. The Lex Friedman show is now going to India and he's going to be interviewing Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, which is a big thing. That's going to happen in February, but also in Australia, james, they're going to be interviewing your Prime Minister as well. Who's that?

Speaker 1: 18:39

Yes, there's a federal election this year at some point, probably April or May, because, unlike America, which has an election every four years like clockwork, and then spends three months doing nothing, seemingly waiting until somebody else comes in, it's not really how it works in most other countries and here in Australia, at some point we will have a federal election this year. The current Prime Minister, Antony Albanese, has already been on. He's been on the Squiz, which is a big independent podcast organisation here, and he did a relatively lacklustre interview on that show, but nevertheless, you know nice to end up seeing it.

Speaker 4: 19:31

It was about an hour long and is available in that particular feed as well. I think only Labour can form government in our own right after the next election. I can't see any path for Peter Dutton and the Nationals for that matter to get to 76.

Speaker 3: 19:48

Are we seeing any of the money from advertising now trickling into these big podcasts?

Speaker 1: 19:53

yet In terms of election advertising and that sort of thing I've not seen it yet and in fact that is one of the questions that I've asked the likes of PodScribe and other people if they're able to spot political advertising spend online is actually going to go down for everybody because there is no big sporting event but also there is no big election going on, and so of course that sucks quite a lot of the money out of the market. So, similarly, I suspect that, yeah, you know, we will hopefully see in the countries where there are elections of course, no elections going on in India right now because Modi ended up winning kind of the election last year but certainly where there will be elections, and that's this year, both in Western Australia but also in Australia on a federal level, you know you would imagine that there would be a fair amount of money piled into that.

Speaker 3: 21:03

That there would be a fair amount of money piled into that. Now, moving round to the UK friends of the show, who I know very well Zara Anita, paul and her husband, aaron Morris were on Dragon's Den here in the UK, which is, I suppose, the equivalent to Shark Tank, and they've got a product called Chopperty, which is basically video editing using AI, so you can find any bit of information within a video very quickly. They were on the show on last week and they got accepted for money from Peter Jones, which was quite exciting Turns out.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Do you know, peter Jones?

Speaker 3: 21:38

I do actually know Peter Jones. Yes, he does live in our village and his daughter plays netball with my daughter.

Speaker 1: 21:42

So yes, sorry, I do know him.

Speaker 3: 21:42

Wow Jones, yes, he does live in our village and his daughter plays netball with my daughter. Oh, brilliant yes. Sorry, I do know him.

Speaker 1: 21:49

You knew there would be a connection, wouldn't you? So this choppity sounds quite interesting. I mean automated video editing clearly a little bit different to automated audio editing, but still, it will be interesting to see how that works, and I gather that they are showing the thing off in London next week or so.

Speaker 3: 22:12

Yes, February the 6th, and we are going to get Zara on next week to talk about what they did. As it turns out, peter Jones afterwards it's all TV, isn't it? He accepted the offer on TV and then afterwards they refused the offer, so they didn't get the money.

Speaker 1: 22:29

Oh well, there you go.

Speaker 3: 22:31

It's actually a tactic now that a lot of startups are using, which is to get onto that show, accept the money from a dragon if they do get it and then refuse it Because the amount of equity that the dragons demand as soon as there's an interesting product, oh yes, we'll take 60 to your company for 10 000 pounds. What you know?

Speaker 1: 22:51

yes, it's not worth it but the pr is really good. This is something, sam, you should be doing with, uh, true fans. You should. You should be going on there and you should be talking to somebody like stephen bartlett and you should be saying stephen, give, give us your money, give us your money. That's what you should be doing. Just you know, see if you can do that Just for me. Africa, apva the Association of African Podcasters and Voice Artists they've published their 2024 report, which is really interesting. It's an organisation that's across Africa, which is a big place, and they've been doing a lot of work around podcasting and things. It's an organisation that I think needs a little bit more support from the likes of us. So, and interestingly, africa Podcast Day is on February the 12th, so there's a thing, something for us to celebrate. If only we were an African podcast, but that's going on.

Speaker 3: 23:44

The other thing that's going on, James, is the BBC's moving into New Zealand. What's going on there?

Speaker 1: 23:49

Yes, lucky BBC. This is BBC Studios. They signed a sales representation deal here in Australia with ARN's iHeart in November time, I think, and they've just signed a deal with NZME, which is a large media company which also owns the iHeart brand in New Zealand, so they'll be able to sell advertising within the BBC's shows there. So they've been doing a fair amount of that sort of thing. As a side note, that means that the BBC will probably appear in the New Zealand podcast ranker as well, if that was still going, because I did actually notice that the New Zealand podcast ranker appears to have stopped. From what I can work out, it's certainly not being updated on that website anymore, so maybe I've missed something. Who knows?

Speaker 3: 24:38

So what is the BBC's strategy? I mean, it's been sort of we've seen that they've got exclusives here in the UK, they have delayed release into RSS, but across the world they're talking about advertising. Then there was talk about the BBC adding advertising into the UK and that took a big backlash. Where do you think the BBC is going in 2025? What's your opinion?

Speaker 1: 24:59

So I have written a personal blog post about all of this, which is basically that the BBC at the moment has a really messy, messy strategy. But what they are going to do, I think, is that they are going to make the BBC Sounds app, which is their own domestic app for radio music and podcasts. They're going to make that a UK-only app, so we're going to stop getting access to that across the rest of the world and instead what we will get access to is all of those shows in Apple Podcasts, premiums, subscriptions and other places as well broadcasts, premiums, subscriptions and other places as well and each individual country will be able to sell the ads using the Triton technology, which Triton already has. So I suspect that we will see a fair amount of that going on. The downside is that I think that that will also cut off BBC domestic radio for the rest of the world, so the only BBC radio output that we'll be able to hear is the World Service, and it wouldn't surprise me if that happened.

Speaker 1: 26:11

I would understand why that would happen, even if I wouldn't be particularly happy about it, but I think that's what their plan is. So probably by the end of quarter two, you can expect that it'll be really obvious. The BBC will be a large commercial player, the rest of the world and in the UK, continuing on with the BBC Sounds app and their own stuff there. That's what I think is going to happen. So we've not got long until I'm either proved right or hideously wrong. I should have added that as a prediction, shouldn't I, for the prediction show, and then I would have got a guarantee. Well, you can do what.

Speaker 3: 26:52

I do, and just pick one up off the floor and just throw it out there More AI will be used in podcasting.

Speaker 1: 26:59

I will be used in podcasting Staying in New Zealand. The Between Two Beers podcast has been filched from NZME's iHeart to Acast and they've done a multi-year deal with them, which is good. Interestingly, acast saying that that partnership includes ad and sponsorship opportunities on the audio podcast, video podcast and associated social channels. If you thought that Acast are only selling podcast ads, think again, because they're selling a bunch of those other things.

Speaker 3: 27:31

Now, inspector Cridland, just before Christmas, you were sleuthing around in Italy. What were you doing and what's happened since sleuthing around in Italy? What were?

Speaker 1: 27:40

you doing and what's happened since. Yes, this was the story that we covered just before Christmas about LicenseSync, which was a collection agency which was sending invoices of. They didn't send one to me, but they did send a few to people that I'm aware of, sending invoices of about 7,000 US dollars to podcast directories just for listing podcasts that they claimed to represent. And I did a little bit of digging, talked to a lawyer or two about it and wrote a piece about it, and essentially all of the people on that website that said that they were supporting that particular company weren't, and it all looked a little bit dodgy. It looked a bit like a racket. Anyway, I went to have a look at their website the other day because I was curious as to whether or not they had changed anything, and their website has been suspended. They have clearly not paid their bills for that, so perhaps they've gone away, which is probably a good thing.

Speaker 3: 28:42

Well, talking about you sleuthing at the beginning of last year you were talking about also a company called Audia. What's been happening with Audia?

Speaker 1: 28:51

Yes, they launched a podcast app that strips the ads and, if you remember, they said that. You know, yeah, we're just going to strip the ads out of podcasts and you will pay. You know the listener will pay us, you know, I don't know, $4 a month and we'll strip the ads out and we might share some of that with some of the podcasters, but we probably won't, you know, and all of that, and that's basically about as far as it's got. Anyway, they have launched a new share offering because they need some more money, but in the documentation that comes with that new share offering are all of their accounts, which is fascinating. So I went digging into the accounts. Here's how their accounts worked for the first nine months of 2024.

Speaker 1: 29:39

Total operating expenses 5.6 million US dollars. The chairman, ceo and CFO all got, in total, just over a million dollars worth of money in salaries and in share options. So a million dollars went into the salaries of those three people, and the company's total revenue, though, during that time, was nothing at all Zero, absolutely nothing. I mean, how you can go? I am fascinated. I mean I know that OpenAI is doing much the same thing, but how can you go to the market and say we think you should be buying shares in our company. We are earning absolutely nothing. We're paying ourselves a million dollars in terms of salary for the C-suite alone. I mean, how can you possibly do that? It's just bizarre.

Speaker 3: 30:37

This is the Peter Thiel School of Marketing.

Speaker 1: 30:39

I mean Peter Thiel fundamentally said to you now careful because he's he is very, very, very legally written.

Speaker 3: 30:46

The book it's fine, he's written the book about this it's not contentious good, all right um, and you know, there's several vc agencies in the us, uncorked capital being one who's run by two friends of mine. Um, their view is in the way I said it. Peter Thiel says you go for zero revenue if you have to, but you go for market share, so you undercut the market, you do everything to get market dominance and then you turn on the revenue tap and you never know. They may have turned around to their investors and said look, we see an opportunity to strip out the ads. We will give a few shekels back to the creators, but we'll keep the majority. It might take us three years to get to the point where we see revenue, but if you invest in us over the long term not the short term we might be able to turn the market on its head. Now that may be their pitch to VCs or investors, or in their share document.

Speaker 3: 31:42

I don't know. I haven't read it, but there is a school of thinking that, you know, don't make revenue. Look at Amazon. They made no profits, they didn't issue sorry, they made revenues and profits, but they didn't issue dividends while they were growing. And you know, obviously shareholders were like, well, I want my dividends. And Bezos was like no, you can't have dividends, your share value increases all you're going to get from me. And of course, he reinvested everything back into Amazon and grew rapidly. So there is a model out there that says you don't have to make profit, but in this case, not making revenue is a bit worrying.

Speaker 1: 32:20

It's not making revenue is the thing, isn't it? I mean, you know, not making profit is one thing, but I think not making any revenue whatsoever, just, you know, a zero, in fact it was a dash, you know, is just fascinating. So yeah, I just found that really really interesting. But yes, but still. But there we are.

Speaker 3: 32:47

All I'd say is caveat. Emptor by a. B1f. Yes, yes, exactly. Now moving on to people and jobs. James, I saw two jobs listed on your brand new jobs board that were very interesting, from a company called Libsyn. What are they doing?

Speaker 1: 33:02

Yes, so there is a job going for Director of Podcast Strategy and Operations and a job going for Director of Creator Partnerships. Now, I thought that Creator Partnerships was Rob Walsh's title, but it turns out that no, rob Walsh is CEO.

Speaker 3: 33:21

CEO no.

Speaker 1: 33:22

New title CEO no no, no, it's certainly not CEO, because they've got a new CEO. No, rob Walsh is Vice President of Enterprise and Platform Partnerships and I'm convinced that he used to be podcast partnerships or creator partnerships in the past. So interesting new people going there. You know Libsyn has gone through quite a hard bit of shrinkage over the last year or year and a half. So nice to see that they are growing again, so that's good. They were speaking, of course, at Podcast Expo both Rob and Brian Cottington, who is their video designer and editor as well, and of course, dave Mansueto was inducted in to the Hall of Fame as well. He was the co-founder, so all of that is good.

Speaker 1: 34:22

Also, going on in people and jobs John Morris has been hired as chief product officer at Soundstack Now. He used to work for Odyssey and before that, wide Orbit, which was a podcast hosting company of its own, and before that he worked for Abercast. And I remember with Abacast when I was at Virgin Radio 20 years ago. Abacast was an amazing thing where it was for live broadcasting. But because bandwidth costs so much in those days, this would be a little plug-in that would go into Windows Media Player and it would automatically share the stream that you were listening to peer-to-peer, so that if anybody else on your network wanted to listen to that live stream, then they would just connect to your machine rather than connect outside, you know, using another connection outside. So, yeah, some fascinating, you know history there. But John, now working for Soundstack and soon on this show, I believe. But John now working for Soundstack and soon on this show, I believe Rocky Thomas, who's their chief strategy officer, will be on to talk to us about all of that.

Speaker 3: 35:27

She will. She will indeed, just trying to tie her down for a date. That's all, as they say. Now moving on awards and events. What's happening in the world of awards and events, james?

Speaker 1: 35:38

Well, we had an exclusive with the 2025 schedule for On Air Fest, which is the most expansive lineup ever. It's in Brooklyn, february the 19th to the 21st, and all kinds of people being involved. There are tickets available on the website. Also going on the iHeart Podcast Awards, march the 10th at South by Southwest, by the way, quite a few interesting people speaking at South by Southwest as well, which everybody from Scott Galloway, david Duchovny, mark Maron and so on and so forth. So a bunch of some quite interesting people speaking at South by Southwest in some way shape or form. Quite interesting people speaking at South by Southwest in some way shape or form. Also going on Evolutions in Chicago, unipodfest 2025 in Birmingham in early April and PodCamp Toronto, which is next month. Now, podcamp 2.0 is your thing and that's in London, the day before the podcast show in London. What's going on with PodCamp 2.0 then, sam?

Speaker 3: 36:46

So we are still moving forward. We've got two big new sponsors to announce next week for you. I'll be sending you a press release before James, so you will have the exclusive. And we've got two new big speakers as well I want to announce, but I've got to confirm them today. So, yeah, no, very excited, it's really taking shape. We've got also I think I mentioned last week Julie Costello and the whole of the Costello army coming over for a concert. So that's all in full gear now. That's full planning ahead. And I just realised 2.0 days on, uh, the 20th. So it's very nice, it's 20th of may, which I think is 2.0 day.

Speaker 1: 37:25

So oh nice. Oh, I see what you've done there.

Speaker 3: 37:28

Yes, very nice so, um, all good, all good. Um, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do at the pod camp in toronto. Um, but again, I don't think it's similar to what we're planning on doing with PodCamp 2.0. The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Speaker 1: 37:46

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology. What is in here, Sam? Are you going to talk about Spotify a lot?

Speaker 3: 37:56

I'm sorry, it's not a lot, but I mean, look, look on the bright side, it wasn't in the main stories, it was further down this week, right, okay, eventually we'll drop it off the bottom. It won't appear at all, but at the moment, pocket Casts version 7.8 has come out with added support for podcast descriptions that contain HTML.

Speaker 1: 38:24

I didn't think it was a big thing, but you know, it's nice to see that there's new features coming into Pocket Cast. Yeah, it's a nice thing. It seems to be something that a listener has done, has gone into the app, has gone into the app's open. You know source code and added that support. So, very good, it should have been in there all along, if you ask me. But Spotify is doing a ton of very interesting things, as you say. So now you can filter your Spotify library to show only podcasts and courses. So is that in addition to just podcasts?

Speaker 3: 38:52

It is indeed yeah, they've been trialling in the UK.

Speaker 1: 38:56

Oh yes, look, it's in mine as well. Podcasts and courses.

Speaker 3: 38:59

If you keep your eyes out, you know. You don't use Spotify, though, do you? No, you use YouTube Music.

Speaker 1: 39:04

I'm using Spotify at the moment, actually, so yes so there it is. Podcasts and Courses yes.

Speaker 3: 39:12

And Courses being new. Of course. They did trial it in the UK last year and what they've now done is they've rolled out courses for everybody and I think again that's another revenue stream that they're bringing on. I think it's quite exciting what they're doing. We did a trial with a pod home Barry and myself last year to test medium equals courses. It works. We have a payment mechanism. It uses both fiat and sats as a mechanism for payment and it all works. We just haven't had any adoption from it, but it's good to see now maybe, that Spotify courses is available. Other people begin to look at how they can put their courses through RSS as well.

Speaker 1: 39:52

Very good, very nice. They've also added a few other things. There's a create button for some people not for me which allows you to create a playlist and a folder, but also create a jam with your friends and create a blend, compare your tastes with friends. No idea, yeah, I'm not sure. No idea how that bit works.

Speaker 3: 40:16

Interestingly, should we do ours, james, yours being Kylie and mine being Bruno Mars. We'll see what the blend is and, interestingly, Shall.

Speaker 1: 40:22

We do ours, james, yours being Kylie and mine being Bruno Mars. We'll see what the blend is. Well, I mean, I would just say that I have friends on Spotify, and seemingly I have three friends on Spotify, one of which is a guy who used to work in Australian radio who I haven't seen for four years. A guy who used to work in Australian radio who I haven't seen for four years, one of which is a guy that I used to quite like at the BBC, but he's turned, oh, he's turned. And then one of which is some guy called Sam Sethi, with actually a decent photograph there, sam, which is very good. It makes you look a little bit like a saint. It's quite a fun little photograph that you should use that more.

Speaker 1: 41:03

Anyway, yes, so I can spy into your music, but I don't have access to this blend thing, so there'll be none of that going on here, but I noticed that Chris Messina certainly does. So, yeah, so Spotify is still doing a bunch of things. They are talking about educational courses coming to the US. I don't necessarily see any courses and I'm not quite sure how I would get in to see the courses here, but I can certainly see that. I mean, it definitely now says podcasts and courses. So yeah, who knows whether that'll change to shows and courses relatively soon as well?

Speaker 3: 41:49

We will see. There's an interesting article as well. If anyone wants to read more about what Spotify is doing In the Wall Street Journal, they have Spotify's head of editorial Journal. They have Spotify's head of editorial, sulina Ong, whose team curates thousands of playlists and discovers new artists. So yeah, if you're interested in reading more about what they're doing. Sorry, that was the Wall Street Journal, not the New York Times.

Speaker 1: 42:11

Yes, Very nice. You've also noticed that Apple have some new terms in the new Apple Store app, which says something around AI and data. Now, the Apple Store app just remind me, the Apple Store app is the app that you use when you go into an Apple Store and you want to buy something without having to find somebody with a blue T-shirt. That's the app, isn't it? So it's not data, you know. It's data about the things that you are buying, not all of the rest of your data in your Apple iCloud account.

Speaker 3: 42:57

I'm assuming. Well, it's a case of if they're starting here, where are they going to go next? Right? And the obvious one is the App Store. Right, that'll be the next one, and also the Apple Podcast apps. I think this is a safe way of starting it and seeing what the feedback will be from people going Apple no, no, no or okay, we're not bothered.

Speaker 1: 43:15

There's been a lot of pushback. I notice that the latest version of Apple Photos automatically looks in the background to work out whether or not you're at the Taj Mahal or the Eiffel Tower or you know, or the Houses of Parliament or wherever you happen to be, and it is doing that with a bit of AI, but it is also sending portions of your photographs back to Apple, from what I understand, and quite a lot of people have become rather upset about that. So, yeah, clearly Apple is sort of trying, you know, playing around with this sort of thing.

Speaker 1: 43:55

Well, yeah, I mean, I still think they are pretty good, I mean certainly in terms of Google. They're pretty good in terms of that, but even so, it's just a little bit of a slippery slope, but still, there we go.

Speaker 3: 44:09

Now, another story I saw was from Castapod, benjamin Bellamy. They've done something really interesting Now. Benjamin has been a big advocate of ActivityPod from day one, and what they've done is they've taken all their shows and they've integrated them with activity pub with a one-click follow option, which is really neat now. So what you can do is go on to cast a pod, go and see your favorite show, and now, instead of having to cut and paste the name of the show and then put it into your master don the client and then follow it there, you can now click the follow button and just say what instance you're on. In our case, my case it's podcastindexsocial and it instantly then starts me following one of their shows.

Speaker 3: 44:54

So very simple. It uses a um. I had to look at how they did it and I am going to mention we will replicate it, because it's a very clever way of doing it. There's an authentication instance. That's all you have to do with the activity pub, and then what you do is it allows you to follow it via a nice little button rather than having to cut and paste everything around. So, yes, very well done, benjamin.

Speaker 1: 45:17

Yes, that's very good. If you want to follow your favourite podcast on the Fediverse, by the way, go to the Pod News website, search for your favourite podcast and press the little Fediverse icon and you can do much the same sort of thing for any podcast under the sun. But clearly, from the CasterPod point of view, they're not just linking to the podcast, to the podcast index, um fediverse stuff. They're actually doing it for themselves, because every single caster pod show is on the fediverse by itself, which is very neat now you had a story, james, about an alternative podcast namespace for audio fiction.

Speaker 3: 45:56

What was this one?

Speaker 1: 45:57

about. This is a very strange thing that someone has come up with the idea of looking at what the new podcast namespace is all about and going, oh well, that looks good, but we are AudioFiction podcast and we are special and we deserve our own namespace with all kinds of additional tags and additional features. And so they've just built one, and it's everything from doing formats, whether it's a role-playing game or a drama or somebody reading a book. It talks about how it's been written, it talks about whether it's completed yet. Well, that kind of already exists, but they've sort of grown that a little bit who the voices are, who the narrators are, all this kind of stuff. So it looks really good.

Speaker 1: 46:58

But I have to say, the audio fiction world in podcasting is essentially, in my experience, after seven or eight years of writing about this space, the audio fiction world in podcasting appears to be a number of people who are very aggrieved and angry about everything, hissing by the sidelines, saying we're not taken seriously enough, nobody wants to play with us and the rest of the industry never deal with us, and then all of a sudden do something like this, which you know, I mean, had they come to speak with Dave or with Adam or with anyone else involved in the new podcast namespace. Most of this stuff could have been incorporated into that. I mean, you know, most of this stuff could have been incorporated into that. I mean, you know, most of this stuff is useful for any podcast. You know, has it been written, is it scripted, is it improvised or is it machine generated? Well, that would be useful for any podcast, not just an audio fiction one.

Speaker 1: 47:56

So I do wonder whether it's, you know, another case, I'm afraid, of audio fiction sitting there in a in a quiet, dark room, going nobody wants to talk to us, without actually reaching out and trying to talk to other people, which seems a little bit strange. Think anybody has actually used it in terms of both a podcast app or indeed a podcast host. But if they are, you know, I'd love to know about that. But yeah, it's just a very strange choice, I think to you know, jump in and go. Well, we're just going to do our own thing all over again.

Speaker 3: 48:36

I did look at it and, yeah, it's got some more features and functions around specifically to do with audio fiction, but, as you said, they just could have reached out. It could have been integrated with what we're doing in the podcasting 2.0. Yeah, there is a lot of overlap and adding another namespace doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me to what we're doing with. Certainly with TrueFans we wouldn't be looking at this at all.

Speaker 1: 49:02

Yeah, yeah, and just, you know, some of it fits very nicely in with everything else. I mean, you know, it'd be great to, instead of having an explicit tag which is on or off, to be able to actually say, okay, this is suitable for children, or this is suitable for young adults, or this is only for an adult audience, all that kind of stuff. Really good, really helpful, useful tags for any podcast. So I don't really understand what the deal is here in terms of, you know, it's just an audio fiction thing, but still, but I've linked to it and you know people have hopefully taken a look at that and seen if it's, you know, for them it wouldn't be the last, you know additional namespace for the podcasting world. But yeah, I think good things happen when we work together.

Speaker 3: 49:52

Two quick things for you. James. Media RSS, which came out of Yahoo, I think many years ago. That still exists, I think. Is it only YouTube that supports it, or does Spotify as well?

Speaker 1: 50:05

YouTube certainly supports just one thing, which is media thumbnails. And yeah, so that is the way that you give a 16 by 9 image to YouTube is you put it in a media thumbnail and use the media RSS? As far as I'm aware, I think OmniStudio support that. I'm not aware of any other podcast hosting company that supports the media RSS namespace, but it certainly exists, yeah is it worth going back?

Speaker 3: 50:35

I mean, I've never, I've not really looked at it properly. Is it worth going back into it? The reason I asked that question is you went back into the original rss 2.0 spec and you were talking about comments as a tag that existed and it was like, oh okay, maybe there's other tags. We should go and have a look. Maybe we've overlooked. Or I think there was a very interesting conversation on the future of podcasting with Daniel J Lewis and Dave Jackson about. You know, they want cross app comments, the famous thing that we all want in the podcasting space but they can't seem to get that yet and they were thinking that that comment field that you highlighted was one of the things that might be a way forward. Now, if that's the case, is there anything in the media RSS that we should be going back to and saying, oh yeah, we should take that out of it or we should adopt that?

Speaker 1: 51:27

Yeah, I mean I don't want to go too far into what we should have done, too far into what we should have done, but you know, I mean the media RSS specification includes complete comments. Whether or not it's the right thing to do to put into the full RSS feed, I don't know, I would suspect not. But it also includes things like licenses and it includes things like rights to enable you to do various things with, and credits, and you know I mean it's got credits for, you know, author and composer and director and editor and all that kind of stuff that the people tag does. In many ways, what we ended up doing when the new podcast namespace appeared is there wasn't necessarily, I think, the due diligence there of going back into both the original RSS spec and also into this and going, okay, what exists anyway, and I think quite a lot of it is just wanting to just pull everything into one namespace that we control. You know that we obviously have access to namespace that we control.

Speaker 1: 52:36

You know that we obviously have access to, but I do think that there's definitely stuff that we could be using, you know, out of this, had we looked at, for example, the media thumbnails tag, the thing that YouTube is using prior to doing the podcast images tag, which is useless, which nobody is using and which still hasn't been rewritten. So far as I'm aware, then people might actually be using that particular tag, but I'm unaware that that has happened. I'm unaware that pretty well. Anything has actually happened in terms of that and those new comments that I was talking about. I've heard nothing more in terms of whether or not it's still a good idea and whether or not anybody would like to take that further. So I think you know there are some people that would quite like cross out comments. I think most people don't really care, and that's fine too.

Speaker 3: 53:24

I think people do care. I think people want it, I think it's it's. It feels like a very obvious way of integrating all of the apps together as a first step. I don't think people can find a route through it, though. That's the problem, yeah, I mean uh, unfortunately, or fortunately depends on which way you want to look at it. You know, fountain and true fans have taken separate directions. Um, obviously, oscar's going down the nosta road, we're going down the activity pub road. Never the twain shall meet, it feels right now. And I don't know. And actually, to be brutally honest, we're so up against the coalface doing other things. It's not a priority right now. You know it just isn't.

Speaker 1: 54:03

Yeah, yeah, no, I think you're right and I think you know. Yes, it does seem as if all of a sudden, the wind has gone out of quite a few people's sails. Seem as if all of a sudden, the wind has gone out of quite a few people's sails, you know, in terms of new things, and perhaps we won't. You know, it's just gone a little bit quiet in terms of innovation, and probably part of that is due to Adam and Dave obviously working on their new project. You know, which is an important thing too. Yes, it's our favourite time of the week. It's Boostergram Corner, and you can get us messages all over the place. There's a little link in our show notes for you to send us a message.

Speaker 1: 54:51

Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting has done that and he says I vote to put the full interview into this feed, the full interview into this feed. You have chapters and a fast forward button. Then I can choose to listen or not, without extra episodes or feeds. Who cares what the length is, in my honest opinion. Thank you, dave. Talking about that email, weekly at podnewsnet, stephen Goldstein from Amplify Media has sent an email saying his second New Year's prediction has been blown, that James and Sam will never go more than 130 minutes with their podcast. Yes, it was a long one. Think it was more than two hours, though I think he's um we've never done a rogan, I don't think it was.

Speaker 1: 55:37

I think it was one hour 40, 40 minutes or so.

Speaker 3: 55:41

Uh, last time I think we've had three interviews in the show. Yeah, that has pushed.

Speaker 1: 55:46

That was one hour 40 minutes or something like that. I think. I think that was fine, but anyway, I mean he won't be listening by by this point. So um so point. So it's fine we can ignore him. And 100 sats from the late Bloomer actor, david John Clark. And he says my streaming sats was off. Oh no, so sorry team. Anyway, he says welcome to 2025. I feel it'll be a big year. I think you accused him of being a secret member of the SAS or something last time. I think you accused him of being a secret member of the SAS or something last time.

Speaker 3: 56:15

He keeps saying he's going off. It's now just an in-joke. He keeps saying he's going off to camp and he'll be away on exercise. I'm like that sounds very secretive. The late bloomer actor sounds like you're.

Speaker 1: 56:28

You know what you tell the world but really you're just going off on exercise with the SAS. I don't understand what's going on there, but anyway, he says he's not quite SAS, but I can run with that to keep the real secret there you go, maybe he's a. Navy SEAL or something.

Speaker 3: 56:44

Yes, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 56:45

Talking about David John Clark, he sent a prediction, didn't he he?

Speaker 3: 56:50

did, and it fell through the cracks somehow, James.

Speaker 1: 56:55

It did. It fell through the cracks because of you know, boring administrative things, but we thought, since we don't have anybody else on the show this week other than us two, we thought that you might want to hear the prediction. That nearly didn't make it, so here with his prediction for 2025, the late bloomer actor, David John Clark. Hi, my name is.

Speaker 5: 57:15

David John Clark.

Speaker 5: 57:16

I am an actor and also host of the podcast, the Late Bloomer Actor, as well as a huge advocate for PodU's Weekly Review, hosted by James Cridland and Sam Sethi, of course, and a huge fan of True Fans for my podcast listening. I've been asked to give my podcasting highlight for 2024, as well as my predictions for 2025. On my show I chat to acting industry guests that I have met on my journey, but this year was a standout, was my end of year special, with 11 incredible podcast hosts that I listened to, both acting and podcasting. We explored the intersection of acting and podcasting in ways I never expected. Two major themes that crossed over both realms was the idea of community and the concept of storytelling. The highlight among so many this year was to have the honour to feature James Cridland and Sam Sethi from Pod News Weekly. Their insights into the world of podcasting, from trends to technologies, were invaluable for both podcasters and listeners and actors themselves. Their dedication to innovation in podcasting continues to shape the industry. For two stalwarts of the podcasting industry to find time to be on my little show was just absolutely fantastic. So that is certainly my highlight for 2024, as I said, amongst so many, but absolutely fantastic for those two gentlemen to come on my show and we had just some wonderful conversations that just crossed over with everyone, so that was fantastic.

Speaker 5: 58:45

Now for my predictions for 2025, well, I don't know how many of us are very good at predicting Certainly not in predicting the value of Bitcoin, but that's another discussion. Fortunately for me, my prediction is the same for both the acting world and podcasting world. I predict that AI will continue to influence both industries For acting, not just in tools like self-taping platforms, but also in creating new opportunities such as virtual actors or AI-enhanced coaching. Similarly, in podcasting, ai will play a significant role, I feel, in personalized recommendations, automated editing and even generating dynamic content tailored to individual listeners. So that could be good For actors and podcasters alike. The key challenge will be maintaining authenticity and a human connection in the digital-driven world. I talked about that a lot with Sam. So this intersection of AI, acting and podcasting highlights how both fields can leverage technology without losing the heart of storytelling. Again, that was a big discussion point in my end of year special, as well as throughout the year for all my guests.

Speaker 5: 59:59

You know, the scariest part of this prediction for both industries, I feel, is the replacement of the human. We're already seeing it in virtual actors, as I mentioned, or now the prolification of AI-generated podcasts, with hosts that an observant listener could call out as AI. That's what scares me. I wish everyone listening an awesome 2025. I do also predict many positive changes along the journey, so that's what I'll be focusing on, and I hope you do too. James and Sam, thank you very much for everything you've done this year on your show and everything you do in the podcasting world. It doesn't just affect podcasters, as I've hopefully shown today. It also reaches out to so many other people and so many people that don't even know how this industry affects themselves. So thank you very much, happy New Year and all the best for 2025, people Cheers.

Speaker 1: 1:00:55

Well, thank you for sending that through. If, ms Eileen, if you would like to send through a prediction, then you're more than welcome as well. But, yes, predictions, of course, to everybody who was on the sensational 16. Those are our power, power supporters, the 16 people who are helping us every single month with the uh, with giving us some value back from the value that, uh, we appear to be giving them. Um, david john clark, of course, james burt, john mcdermott, claire wake brown, miss eileen smith, uh, neil velio, rocky thomas, jim james, david marz, si Jobling, rachel Corbett, Dave Jackson, mike at the Rogue Media Network, matt Medeiros, marshall Brown and Cameron Moll, and Sam and I share any money that comes in this way in between us and it doesn't go to anybody else in the big pod news headquarters.

Speaker 3: 1:01:51

None of it goes, yes, Well, apart from that person we've just sacked for letting that administrative issue go through. Yes, none of it goes to our security team?

Speaker 1: 1:02:01

uh, our cleaners? Uh, none of it goes to uh, to uh. The accounts team? Uh, yeah, it's uh, it's all there, um yeah yes, we don't pay ourselves no, that's absolutely true. So what's happened for you this week, sam, other than all of that?

Speaker 3: 1:02:18

um, well, we, we, you know we we're still pressing ahead with new features and functions. So, um, one of the things that you may well be aware, we've tried to simplify the verbiage around podcasting 2.0, certainly for the user community that I'm trying to address. So I'm not a fan of Boost and Boostergrams. It adds more vocabulary that I think people are not aware of and I think people understand what a like is and what a comment is, and I think that's such a simpler way for people to get on board. So we have renamed Boostergrams to Supercomments and I think it falls in line with what YouTube do with Superchats. And one of the things I was talking on the podcast in 2.0 show with Adam and Dave was, you know, we will be integrating XMPP chats into TrueFans for live shows and, yes, we will call those Superchats. So Supercomments and Superchats. So, yes, that's the way that we're going forward anyway with what we used to call Boostergrams Very nice.

Speaker 1: 1:03:18

I think that makes a bunch of sense. Just get rid of as much of the jargon as possible. Whenever you have jargon in something, it just slows it down for new people to get involved. So I think that that's a very good thing. And you've added something called True Fans Support. What's True Fans Support?

Speaker 3: 1:03:40

Yeah, now, one of the things that you do, I know, with the Pod News Daily. You've got a link out, I think, to your PayPal account, is it?

Speaker 1: 1:03:52

It's to Patreon. Yes.

Speaker 3: 1:03:54

Yes.

Speaker 1: 1:03:55

Yeah, absolutely, podnewsnet slash Patreon. By the way, if you would like to have that Now, if you've got a URL in the funding tag, then we obviously honour that.

Speaker 3: 1:04:07

We will just put an icon on your podcast page and when a fan clicks on it, they will go to wherever you've asked them In your case, patreon. Some people have PayPal, other people have buy me a coffee, but we also noticed that probably 90 percent of the podcasts that we have in true fans or more do not have anything in the funding tag, and so we've just given an option now where you can turn on and we do it by default the funding tag within TrueFan. So now what happens is you will click that button if you want as a fan, and it will then pop up and say do you want to pay $3, $5, $10? So we do it in fiat currency or you can switch that to sats if you prefer, and the fan can then give you a monthly subscription. What's the difference? We don't have to pay the Apple 30% tax and we don't take 12%, which will Patreon take. So we do only a 5%. That's our fee and everything else goes directly to the creator, and that's how we've integrated it.

Speaker 1: 1:05:06

Yeah, no, it looks. It looks very smart, so that's a. That is a nice plan. I like the idea as well that the creator only gets the money if they deliver new content, because you're kind of pushing people to create new stuff. That's something that may be a discussion at some point, but it's a nice starting point to actually start with there, I think.

Speaker 3: 1:05:32

What's been happening for you, James?

Speaker 1: 1:05:34

Well, I'm still waiting for my brand new car. It's going to be very exciting. Should get it next week if everything works well, it got the rest of the family.

Speaker 3: 1:05:45

Is it coming from China?

Speaker 1: 1:05:47

Weirdly it is coming from China yes, because that's where it's been built, but it comes down on a boat to far north Queensland, basically at the top of Queensland. That it could possibly get to, presumably because it's the closest place to China if you're on a boat and from there I think it's just chucked on the back of a lorry and then driven all the way down, but it's a long way far north Queensland. I mean it takes something like 20 hours to drive up to Cairns, let alone anything else. Anyway, should have it this time next week, unless something has gone hideously wrong, in which case you know, we'll find out. But yes, so that has been going on. If I'm sounding ever so slightly different, I mean I shouldn't be, but if I am, that is because we moved the office around last weekend the biggest amount of work ever and I still haven't quite finished. My side, the wife, is delighted, but I still haven't finished quite my side.

Speaker 3: 1:06:50

Where are you in the garage now?

Speaker 1: 1:06:55

still haven't finished quite where you in the garage now, uh, still still in the same room, but um, uh, I'm now facing a wall, uh, and she's now facing a wall, but actually it means that we've got an awful lot more space and the camera lines are better, because you know video and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, so it's going. It's um, it's interesting, but it's just um, yeah, you know how it is when you have to unplug everything and plug it all back in again and not everything works again. And yeah, so that's been entertaining. What else is going on? I've got some new logos for a new thing that I'm launching in early February. New thing, new thing, yes, and I said to the partner that I'm working with on it. I said I can do the tech, that's fine, but I can't do any graphical layout because it'll just look as if a bank has done it. It'll look like pod news and you don't want that. Yes, so I've got a beautiful, colourful logo which I'm looking forward to integrating Very nice.

Speaker 1: 1:07:49

So that's a nice thing. And I speak to you, sam Right, very nice, so that's a nice thing. And I speak to you, sam Right, after 53 years of successfully avoiding any form of exercise, I speak to you after the second gym appearance that I have made. Are you in shock? Yeah, it's not fun that I have made. Are you in shock? Yeah, it's not fun. Yes, the doctor has said that unless I want my bones to crumble away, I need to go and do exercise and go to a gym, and so that's what I've been doing. And yes, and it's very, very bizarre, isn't?

Speaker 1: 1:08:30

the dog walk sufficient? Sadly not, no, dog walk is not sufficient exercise for stopping your bones from crumbling away. So, yes, you do need to do much more exercise. It involves weights and things, and it's all very confusing and I frankly don't know what I'm doing. But anyway, they're all very positive and polite doing. But anyway, they're all, they're all very, they're all very positive and polite. And uh, by the time I leave to uh to fly to uh to uh switzerland, and then won't be there for a week or so, uh, I'm sure that they'll begin to miss me, uh, but still, but uh, yes, gosh you'll be talking creative at me next.

Speaker 3: 1:09:08

I can see it now I will absolutely not.

Speaker 1: 1:09:11

I'll actually not. It's what's been quite funny. So I basically said look, um, I suppose I have to come here, because the doctor says I have to come here because otherwise my bones, will you know, crumble away. But I won't be able to see whether or not I'm having any success with that at all. But I said is there a way that you can get rid of my belly? And so that's what they're currently aimed on. At least I'll see something if I see that. But gosh. Anyway, on that bombshell and on that bombshell.

Speaker 1: 1:09:44

That's it for this week. All our podcast stories taken from the Pod News Daily newsletter. You can subscribe to that at podnewsnet. And by all means, all means for this podcast, go hard on the five stars. Sorry, I'm getting fine. Yeah, I know he keeps changing scripts. I've copied that from somebody else right.

Speaker 3: 1:10:02

I didn't think it mattered.

Speaker 1: 1:10:03

I thought ratings and reviews didn't matter oh well, that may be a story for next time.

Speaker 3: 1:10:08

Oh right, okay moving on, then you can support this show by streaming sats. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail, like Dave Jackson did. The link is in our show notes. You can send us a boostogram or become a power supporter, like the Sensational 16 at weeklypodnewsnet. Who's going to be sweet 17,? James, I wonder.

Speaker 1: 1:10:27

Yes, who is going to be number 17? Go on weeklypodnewsnet, it might be you. Our music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila D. We use clean feed for our audio. We edit with Hinderberg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, Keep podcasting. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet.

Speaker 4: 1:10:52

Tell your friends and grow the show and support us, and support us. The Pod News. Weekly Review will return next week. Keep listening.