Speaker 1: 0:00

It's Friday, the 28th of February 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, and I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of TrueFans.

Speaker 4: 0:18

Coming up. We're entering a partnership with creators. We're not just a platform. That's why we're different, right.

Speaker 5: 0:23

Morten Strunke from Podimo on why the company is successful and growing and how can you make content that isn't just good, but content that is truly appealing to that target audience, but it's also building your brand and is in sync with your brand's expectations at the same time?

Speaker 1: 0:40

Jay Nachlis from Coleman Insights talking about Podpredictor, their new tool to test your show before it launches, and Apple makes it easier to claim your podcast. Youtube says over one billion people watch podcast content monthly. Listennote says AI be gone. And happy fourth birthday to Spotify Hi-Fi. If only we knew where it was. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout with the tool to support a community. To ensure you keep podcasting, start podcasting.

Speaker 2: 1:10

keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom From your daily newsletter the Pod News Weekly Review.

Speaker 3: 1:18

Right, James. It's not only Spotify's fourth birthday for Hi-Fi, but can you imagine if Steve Jobs was still alive? He would have been 70 this week, 70. Well, there's a thing. One thing I would say is that I miss Steve Jobs because I think there would have been a device or application that he would have delivered. I still hear from Apple people saying I wonder what Steve Jobs would do. They'd still reference him. You know, it's like the ghost of Jobs.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Yes, he was on. Johnny Ive was on Desert Island Discs, if you go and find that particular podcast, and he was there talking about what would Steve Jobs do? So, yes, absolutely. I'm sure that it happens, but the folks at Apple Podcasts have, though, done something I think that Steve Jobs would have done, and that's made things a little bit easier, haven't they?

Speaker 3: 2:04

They have indeed, and I think it that Steve Jobs would have done, and that's made things a little bit easier, haven't they? They have, indeed, and I think they got a little nudge from you. I think, james, your report card from last year reported that Apple need to make their submission process a lot easier. So you know, the report card does provide feedback and it does provide action. So, yes, they've tried to make it easy you can now claim your show but they've done it in own tag as well but they are supporting the podcast TXT tag.

Speaker 1: 2:50

No idea why they've got two duplicate tags in there. It doesn't make any sense at all, but certainly using that podcast TXT tag is a good thing. I think, didn't they.

Speaker 3: 2:59

I thought they had the TXT already. I think they're just using it now for this verification.

Speaker 1: 3:04

So the way that you claim your show in apple podcasts connect and and we'll get on to why this is important in just a second but the way that you claim your show is apple podcast will say put this um code into your uh rss feed um, ideally in the podcast txt tag, um, and it'll be a six-figure number or something. And so you put it in there and hey, presto, as soon as Apple sees that it knows that you have access to that particular podcast, and hey, presto, it's yours. So that's really cool and really super. Why that's particularly helpful is that Apple have dropped the requirement to have an Apple account if you're going to submit a show. So you can now submit a show if you're with a participating podcast host, you can now just press one button and it submits it for you, which is very cool. So there are some good podcast hosts in there, including our sponsor, buzzsprout, and of course, then later on you might want to claim that show in Apple Podcasts Connect to see some of the numbers as well. So very cool.

Speaker 1: 4:12

It's got rid of two of the big bugbears that the PodNews report card kicked up last year, and I think that's essentially what the report card is there for. It's there to make it easier for somebody who's product manager, for example, for Apple Podcasts, to basically go look, here's all of the evidence that we need to fix this particular problem. Let's go and fix it. Could I have some engineering resource to go and fix it? And so the Pod News report tag is a really useful tool for that sort of thing.

Speaker 3: 4:46

Does this mean that they're building on delegated delivery? Is it part of that similar function? So now you've got the ability to verify the podcast and through delegated delivery. Are the hosts doing this or is it a separate function?

Speaker 1: 5:01

Yeah, so far as I'm aware, it's just a separate function. So hosts like Buzzsprout and many others have a way of submitting a new show to Apple Podcasts through an API. So that's easy and simple and straightforward. And then this tag as well, which allows them to actually, you know, check that you do have access to that particular show.

Speaker 3: 5:29

So does this now mean again? I'm asking you lots of questions because it's very interesting for me Does this mean that every one of the hosts that's participated with Apple now has a field within the host where you enter that?

Speaker 1: 5:41

code they do. That's exactly what it means. So that should mean that if you are wanting with TrueFans, if you are wanting to verify that somebody owns that particular podcast, then you can use the same type of thing as well.

Speaker 1: 5:58

Hooray at last, so you should be able to. So my understanding is everybody has used that particular tag in some way, shape or form. I think Apple, to be fair, I think Apple just looks through the entire RSS feed for that particular code. So you'll notice, with some shows, for example, if you have a look at their copyright information, then there's a weird six-figure code in there because at some point they've used it in there instead. So I think that's really what's going on. But using the podcast TXT field means that it's hidden away and means that nobody gets to see that random code. But it is just a really simple way of just proving that you own that particular show. So yeah, so that's the way forward. So it should mean that anybody else can actually do that same sort of thing as well.

Speaker 3: 6:54

We are working with one host to try and make this work. I did work with Tom Rossi a couple of years ago to try and get this to work, and I'm not blaming Tom. Tom came up with the same process for doing this. Um, I wasn't ready and I think tom wasn't that interested, if I'm honest, and so the whole thing fell apart. But I'm glad to see that it's working, and if you now have all these hosts using that field and updating the rss feed, then we should be able to do the same thing, which is really nice, nice, cool. I'm very happy.

Speaker 3: 7:25

But now one of the things that came out of that I had a discussion with another host this week and it was on the back of Mark Asquith's post, which was last week has podcasting 2.0 failed? And of course, the answer is no. But he then actually said why should hosts care about podcasting 2.0? What's in it for them? And I went I'm sorry, what are you on about? And he said well, all the tags that are added benefit the apps, but where's the benefit for the hosts? What do you think?

Speaker 1: 7:57

Oh well, that's an interesting viewpoint, isn't it? Yes, I mean, all of the tags benefit the listener, if we're going to be strictly accurate. So either the listener or the creator. But yes, I mean, you know, I suppose everything leans on value for value and or rather streaming payments. And so, you know, a host, obviously, as Todd has done can take, you know, a percentage of that streaming payment, you know, if they want to.

Speaker 1: 8:32

But I think, for everything else, I mean, why should hosts be interested? Well, because other hosts will be doing it and people will leave your host if you're not supporting something that other hosts do. So I suppose that that's one reason why and the other reason, you know and it's tied up with the whole thing that Buzzsprout keeps on talking about is it should make it easier to keep podcasting, because you've got more of these features available to you. Crossout comments is an obvious one that will make it much more advantageous to keep podcasting, because you can actually see what your audience is saying. So that's an obvious one, if a slightly complicated one to actually achieve, because nobody's really achieved that yet so far. But there are plenty of other examples in there, as well, I guess.

Speaker 3: 9:40

And then there's those that have no tag, and I'd say Buzzsprout's somewhere in the middle, captivate as well, and I think it was Kevin Finn who said that every tag they add adds load to the actual RSS feed and therefore they have to consider very carefully which ones they add. And I think what is missing and it's something that I think I'm having to review as an app developer is what do we do? So the verified tag is very important because if we can verify easily through a mechanism like Apple have just enabled, then we can build relationships with hosts and we can give them their first party data back from the hosts that we see that they're currently hosting. So, for example, this show, for example, we could give the data back to Buzzsprout that they could integrate into their analytics if they wanted. So I think there has to be a little bit more of a quid pro quo.

Speaker 3: 10:39

I did get stopped in my tracks when this host told me well, what's in it for me? And I went actually, yeah, let me think about it, because we're asking to put engineering cost in place, we're asking you to put extra load on the RSS feed, which is a cost to you, and then actually the first party data value comes to the apps, which is, you know, the location data or the transcript where we can then interrogate that or we can do other things, and the transcript where we can then interrogate that or we can do other things. And so he was asking genuinely, why don't we get any value back? And I just said, hmm, I'll raise the question.

Speaker 1: 11:13

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's an interesting point, isn't it? Doubtless, adam and Dave are chomping at the bit to give an answer, and doubtless you'll hear that in the Podcasting 2.0 podcast and doubtless you'll hear that in the Podcasting 2.0 podcast available wherever you got this one. So, yes, Interesting.

Speaker 3: 11:30

Moving on, then Podimo out of Denmark, lovely company that they are, have some big news to share with everyone. What was it, James?

Speaker 1: 11:38

Yes, they do. Fantastic news, and I mean, quite apart from anything else, that company which sells access to its podcast. It's a podcast subscription company. It also does audio books as well. They said that they were profitable in three of their markets. They operate in Europe and in Latin America. But you spoke to the CEO, morten Strunger, and you started off by asking why was it a good day, and does your good news have something to do with a million?

Speaker 4: 12:12

Yeah, we've announced today that we've hit the milestone of one million paying subscribers, so that's pretty awesome, I would say.

Speaker 3: 12:19

Yeah, that is pretty awesome. I mean, Podimo was only started in 2019. So we're talking of a very rapid six year growth. So tell me more about the way that users use Podimo and how they subscribe to Podimo.

Speaker 4: 12:34

Yeah, I mean we launched just over five years ago as a subscription service in Denmark and today we're live in seven markets in total and essentially our proposition has evolved.

Speaker 4: 12:45

But if you zoom in, it's a subscription service around seven eight euros per month and then you get unlimited access to exclusive podcasts that you then also consume through our own app and the creator side, but also the app experience, which we put a lot of effort into building out in terms of helping discovery, bringing creators and listeners closer to each other through community features and so forth.

Speaker 4: 13:11

I think we've evolved since then in terms of our model has changed somewhat that we don't just have our subscription service. We actually own studios in a lot of the markets we're in and we also own the advertising sales side. So we have a lot of our content that lives on the open rss broadly available to build listenerships and reach, and then we monetize that content through advertising. And then we also, next to that, have our subscription business where we gradually bring over the most loyal audience towards our subscription service. So we've, over the of years, we've actually invested heavily, both through acquiring production companies, through acquiring ad sales and season networks, in order to become an even better partner for creators in terms of not just helping them monetize through a subscription, but also now being able to maximize their reach and maximize their monetization with both advertising and subscription.

Speaker 3: 14:04

So the content creators you have generally are local language content creators, right, rather than the generic UK, us type ones that we'd see. So these are exclusive to Podimo. You talked about them being open in the RSS mode so available to every app, but then you bring them back into the platform and make them a subscription, so they're exclusive just to your platform when they're in that subscription. Do you also have shows that are totally exclusive, that you never let out into the open RSS marketplace?

Speaker 4: 14:38

Yeah, it's a combination. It depends on the content type and the show. So some shows we have fully behind our paywall, some shows we window out onto the open RSS. So say documentaries for example, you might get the first couple of episodes available broadly, but if you want to listen to the full thing straight away, then you have to sign up for Podimo. And then we also do, as mentioned, backwindowing, so content that we first release on potimo and then we window it out to the open rss and then we actually, through our network, have shows that fully live on the open rss and not on potimo, because that's the best thing for that show, that it's not suited for subscription and it's a better cater to in terms of building listenership and monetization on the open rss.

Speaker 4: 15:21

So it's actually a combination. Um, could see it a bit more like a. Essentially it's a freemium model, right? Like you, instead of just using our own app, we use the reach of other platforms to build listenership and then we monetize through advertising and then we gradually bring a certain share of that audience back to Podium or the subscription side of the business.

Speaker 3: 15:40

Nice.

Speaker 4: 15:41

So let's talk about two things that are hot in terms of engaging and a lot of users prefer to watch video, but obviously it hasn't beaten the power of audio and there's still a lot of audio listening. I think what's exciting for us with video is that suddenly you go from consuming the content with your phone in your pocket to having your phone in front of you. That plays really well together with our community features. So on our own platform we have a lot of community features where creators can ask the listeners questions. Listeners they can answer, they can engage in commenting, they can do emojis as you listen through and the feelings that are created and, obviously, having your phone in your hand, and then we see a lot more engagement on these community features, as we call it, which is great to see as well. So there are many reasons for us doing video. But it's not just about, for some listeners it's the preferred medium to consume in, but it's also because it unlocks a lot of other use patterns on our platform as well, which is great to see.

Speaker 3: 17:05

So do you also do live video? So one of the things that YouTube does very well is having podcasters or videocasters do live video and then have content, communication with their fans coming straight back with super chats. Is that something that Podimo does as well?

Speaker 4: 17:21

Yeah, we do, we have started to test it and it is something we're looking into scaling more. But we have done a number of tests on Exactly Live and we have a very important show in Denmark, for example, that is live every Friday where you can watch it live as well. And obviously I mean, for some content it doesn't make sense where the editing part of it isn't important as well, but for other content types it makes sense to engage closer with the listeners and co-create the content together with the listeners, as you recall. So it's definitely it's not going to be a shift where suddenly everything is live, right, but I think it is interesting for us to see that the medium is evolving, right, both with video, with live, but also with these kind of community feeds. Right, that it's becoming a different and a new medium that expands the value that we can create to both creators but also to listeners, right.

Speaker 3: 18:09

So what markets are you in? Remind me, and then what markets are you going to be in in 25?

Speaker 4: 18:14

So far we're in seven markets. So we're in Denmark, norway, finland, we're in the Netherlands, we're in Germany, spain and then, lastly, mexico. So there's still a lot of growth to capture in the markets we're in. So both in terms of the existing verticals that we're catering to in terms of content, but there's also a lot of new verticals that we don't have on our platform today that can unlock a bigger audience and a bigger growth potential for Podimo. So we'll continue to invest heavily into the existing markets. We're actually increasing investments in those markets, but then, late this year, we're beginning to look towards expanding into new territories again can't say which yet, but excited that we're beginning to expand again.

Speaker 3: 18:55

You mentioned expanding slightly in content, so you're talking about podcasting, you're talking about video, talking about books, tv. The two that are missing in there are music and live events and ticketing within that. Is that within your remit to go into those areas as well?

Speaker 4: 19:12

Music is not on the roadmap, but live shows is something that we're already doing and that we're beginning to create more structure around. We have sold out theaters across multiples of our markets and some of the shows are selling out fully within hours after announcing live shows. So piggybacking on that strong commitment and that relationship between the listeners and creators for live shows is definitely very meaningful. I think when I talk about more verticals, it's more about beginning to bring more content types to a platform, such as, if you're taking example, it could be sports, for example. We don't have a lot of sports on our platform, so beginning to invest into those verticals so that we open up and talk to new audiences.

Speaker 4: 19:52

Fiction is a category that I have a strong belief in. I mean, fiction don't exist in short form, really right. Why doesn't it? I mean we spend an enormous amount of time consuming fiction when we turn on the TV or we open a book right, but it's because the ecosystem hasn't been in place to allow for investments into those kind of content verticals. Kit content is something that we're also looking into. So there's a lot of verticals that haven't found their way into short form audio and podcasting that I think we can help bring to market as well.

Speaker 3: 20:20

Will you be on the acquisition hunt? Are you going to be going acquiring more companies?

Speaker 4: 20:24

I think we're very proactive in that and actually saying yes we are. It is part of our core strategy to do more M&A and it's fully aligned with our board and our investors as well. We've done two acquisitions last year that have worked out really well and are trying to identify more acquisitions, both in the markets we're already in, but also for launching new markets. It might make sense to get to scale faster through acquisitions. So both technology acquisitions within the field, but primarily production companies, ip and ad networks is something that we're looking very much into. So consolidation and M&A is definitely part of our growth strategy as well.

Speaker 3: 21:00

What is the one barrier that you think? Oh my God, if I could get rid of this, this would accelerate Polymo. What is it that you think you could change? That would actually increase the growth of Podomay.

Speaker 4: 21:11

Actually, we have changed a lot since we started. I think when we launched, we just had our subscription service and a paywall service, right. That is more costly and takes a longer time to jumpstart such a model, right. So what we have evolved into now, where we have studios and we have content live across multiple platforms, maximizing the reach for creators and maximizing the monetization, that model is actually working really well and that's what we're scaling now. We did that through the acquisition in the Netherlands last year of Tony, next to the acquisition we already made, and we're looking to do further acquisitions and also building out organically what we call Podimo Studios, essentially. So we are already doubling down on the learnings we have and which is a more efficient growth model for us.

Speaker 4: 21:55

I think where we've also made progress is on the profitability side, which is a barrier, right. If you want to grow faster, then you need capital to grow and to be able to attract capital, you need to show not just growth. You need to show there's a clear path to profitability and that you're actually operating a sustainable business model, and there we've made significant progress as well. We have three markets that are fully profitable, cash flow positive as well, and have two more markets looking to turn profitable this year. So in an industry that's so early on and that we're still growing as we're growing, but also, at the same time, demonstrating big steps towards profitability, at the same time demonstrating big steps towards profitability, that's a good cocktail to be able to also go out and get more capital on board so we can accelerate our growth even more and expansion as well.

Speaker 3: 22:39

Morten, congratulations. One million, it's a massive achievement, well done.

Speaker 4: 22:43

It feels really good. At least it's really good. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2: 22:46

The Pod News Weekly Review with Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Speaker 1: 22:54

Morten Strunke from Podimo, and fascinating looking at the differences between the European podcast market, where Podimo clearly doing very well in terms of paid for podcasts, and there was some data not so long ago out of Sweden which seemed to show that one in 10 podcast listeners are paying for a podcast subscription, which I thought was really interesting as well. So, yes, very good, his company seems to be doing very well.

Speaker 3: 23:23

Yeah, I love this model, I think. I mean they're a host, they're an app. They are doing freemium podcasts. They're doing paid podcasts. They're doing multiemium podcasts. They're doing paid podcasts. They're doing multi-language. They've got their own advertising studios. They've got their Podimo studio for creating unique content. I think you know they've got the recipe. Now, if you listen to Morton, you know we're profitable here and you can hear in his voice they're going back for money, they're going back to the VCs and they're going to get a ton more money. They raised 75 million first time round, which is a truckload of money, and I think they're going to go and raise a bigger amount now.

Speaker 3: 24:00

This is quite exciting.

Speaker 1: 24:01

They're doing very well and it's great to be in a position where you can go back to your investors and go look, we're already making money in these markets already. Let's have some more money so that we can launch into additional ones. Of course, the big nuts to crack is the UK, the US, frankly, any English speaking you know any English speaking market, so any of those will be really interesting to see if they move into. But yeah, it's doing great guns and really difficult if you're launching in lots of different markets that speak lots of different languages as well.

Speaker 3: 24:43

There's a question I really didn't ask you. Last week we talked about Wondery pulling out of Mexico and I didn't really say why. I mean, has the Mexican market tanked or something? Because one of the big markets for Podimo is Mexico, one of the big markets for RSScom is Mexico. So why is Wondery pulling out of Mexico?

Speaker 1: 25:04

Yeah, a great question. My suspicion is that Wondery is just wanting to focus, and I think if you are going to launch in a big country like Mexico, you need to have the focus to actually make that work. And either you've got the management focus and you don't mind spending one day out of five on Mexico, which is still a relatively small market, or you don't. But I think that that's probably one of the reasons why.

Speaker 3: 25:36

Now related to this, I heard an interview this week with the CEO, Jack Conte, from Patreon. He was on the Colin and Samir show and I'm not being hyperbolic I think this is possibly the best podcast interview I've heard in the last couple of years about the future of podcasting and the way you make revenue. It was just minute after minute with information that I thought. I'm in this industry and yet I'm still learning constantly through this interview and I think I've heard about it four times so far. It's that good.

Speaker 1: 26:11

Yeah, you sent me a message on Signal yesterday. I did, James. This is possibly the best episode of a podcast I've ever heard on the subject of podcasting and revenue generation. There you go. Link to truefansfm.

Speaker 3: 26:24

Well, I had to give you some way of listening to it? You know, obviously other podcast apps wouldn't have had it by then. You know, that's.

Speaker 1: 26:32

Quite right, but no, it is on my list. Mr Sethi, it's on my list.

Speaker 3: 26:39

Anyway, I highly recommend it to everyone else as well. Now YouTube. You know, the old expression is first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win. That was a Gandhi expression, and it looks like YouTube may be winning, james, because they've announced that they have one billion people watching podcasts every month, and the word watch was the critical word that I sort of picked up on.

Speaker 1: 27:02

Yes, so YouTube say more than one billion active viewers of podcast content on YouTube in January. So more than 1 billion. So let's put that into context. Spotify when I saw Spotify crowing how many listeners they had, they were talking about 120 million. That is a tenth of the size of YouTube. A tenth of the size of YouTube. So Spotify talking about 120 million, if the data is correct. Apple Podcasts is less than that. So it's less than 120 million. So that is a big number from YouTube.

Speaker 1: 27:46

Now, worth remembering, though a listener to a second of podcast content on YouTube, even if it's just been automatically played to them and YouTube does an awful lot of automatic plays, unless you turn it off even if you listen to a second of podcast content or watch a second of podcast content, you will automatically be a podcast user on that platform. So just bear that in mind. That reach doesn't necessarily translate to time spent, but it does, though you know, go alongside some of Edison Research's figures that we saw. I was curious as to what a podcast was. Are you curious as to what a podcast is in this data?

Speaker 3: 28:33

Well, we're not the only ones. Hernan Lopez did say that. Do you know how? Youtube defined a podcast for this metric, and?

Speaker 1: 28:40

I don't know of that either.

Speaker 1: 28:42

Oh, go on, then I do. I asked and a YouTube spokesperson told me that the company follows the lead of creators marking a playlist as a podcast when they upload. So basically, if you've ticked that box that says this is a podcast, then you now count in terms of podcasts. Now I went to have a look at the YouTube podcast's homepage in the US because I thought, well, that might be interesting, it might be worthwhile taking a peek at, it might be worthwhile taking a peek at. So on the YouTube podcast homepage in the US, there is NBC Nightly News. That's a full TV news show. There's Maybe that's ABC, but anyway one of those.

Speaker 1: 29:37

If you just watch a little bit of that on YouTube, then that counts as a podcast, which is weird. But then you have a look and you go well, there are actually audio podcasts for both NBC Nightly News and PBS NewsHour as well, and similarly here in Australia, if you have a look at Australia's podcast's homepage, there are individual news stories from Seven News which you can watch, and they're in a YouTube playlist called Seven News Just In, which is marked as a podcast, and there is also a Seven News Just In audio podcast as well. So what is a podcast. It begins to get very, very complicated, but I think you know, at the end of the day, whatever a creator says is a podcast is what YouTube is measuring here, and it's still pretty big. I have to say YouTube's blog post was authored by a guy called Tim Katz. I had never heard of Tim Katz. Had you heard of Tim Katz before?

Speaker 3: 30:34

No, but he seems someone who's become fairly senior.

Speaker 1: 30:37

Doesn't he? So he describes himself as VP Partnerships Podcasts on that blog post and I went to check and that is the first time he has ever used that job title. So if you go onto LinkedIn, he's director, head of sports and news, so not podcasts. Back in 2023, he was interviewed as director and global head of responsibility and in 2024, he was global director of responsibility and leader for the Canada and Latin America region. So he seems to be a jack of all trades and has given himself a title of VP Partnerships Podcasts for this particular post.

Speaker 1: 31:19

So it's just, you know, typical large organisation. You know, we'll just front some product manager, you know. But clearly, you know, tim Katz, you know, has not got a podcast background. I'm peculiar as to why it wasn't Kai Chuck, who is head of podcasts and has been head of podcasts for the last two and a half years, why it wasn't him blogging about this. But no, he was interviewed in Bloomberg. Ashley Carman ended up interviewing him and he started talking about, you know, YouTube podcasts. On YouTube, he said, existed, but it was a matter of us pouring some gas on it to get it to move a little bit more.

Speaker 3: 31:58

So yeah, he said he reminds me of my days in corporate world. He's probably seen that the growing part of YouTube is podcasting. Therefore, move and get yourself involved.

Speaker 1: 32:11

Move over there.

Speaker 3: 32:12

Yes, oh yeah, no, I mean, I've seen so many corporate colleagues in the past. Oh, where's the growth within the company? Get yourself in that team fast, yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:21

No, indeed, indeed. Well, there's been some reaction from the industry. Justin Jackson from Transistor believes that the podcast industry is fundamentally misdiagnosing YouTube's role in consumers' lives and overestimating the benefits it'll get from the platform. Why don't you tell us what you really think? Justin Wondery's founder, hernán López, he's a Canadian. He doesn't say nasty things, no, exactly, he's awfully polite. Polite people yes, wondery's founder Hernán López people yes, wondery's founder Hernan Lopez suggested to keep in mind the bigger picture, and I love this as a stat. So YouTube, in this release, also repeated their stat that 400 million monthly hours of podcast watching on TV sets happened. 400 million monthly hours Sounds like a lot. No, that's against 30 billion hours of YouTube spent on TV sets. So 30 billion hours, only 400 million of those were podcast watching, but it's a weird thing, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3: 33:25

I've never thought about turning on my TV to listen to a podcast.

Speaker 1: 33:28

No Well, I mean me neither, and you know, yeah, I'm very aware that there's a lot of great shows on there that are made in video, but why, you know? Why would I watch it Either. Why would I watch the video. Or, with the case of NBC nightly news, why would I? Why would I listen to the audio only? I mean, that's bizarre. So you know, justin Jackson pouring a little bit of cold water on it, hernan Lopez pouring a little bit of cold water on it, and then, as you may have noticed, in the Pod News newsletter yesterday I quote myself because, obviously, why not?

Speaker 1: 34:05

I was speaking at the podcast show in London back in 2023. And I did say on stage at that point that if YouTube is the only platform out there, it will kill almost every part of the value chain within the podcast industry. It'll kill hosting companies, it'll kill dynamic ad insertion tools, analytics companies and, yes, podcast apps, mr Sethi. So we just need to be careful. What we wish for, right, that's it Block. I'm blocking them. So, yeah, but you know, I mean a fascinating number that only YouTube could have produced, and I mean significantly bigger than Apple, although what I would say is I think Apple is still bigger in terms of total downloads of podcasts, Because I think that, actually, if you were to have a look at all of the individual time spent with a podcast, apple is probably still up top, and there's some data again from PodTrack back in 2023 that we linked to, which I think really shows how big Apple is in comparison to everybody else. So, yeah, just worthwhile bearing that in mind too.

Speaker 3: 35:20

So, james, moving on, then you've got a really interesting interview with a guy called Jay Natlis.

Speaker 1: 35:26

Yes, I do. Yeah, he's from Coleman Insights. Now Coleman Insights have been advertising their Pod Predictor in the Pod news newsletter for the last couple of months and you know how sometimes it is when you take a look at some advertising and you go what actually is that? So I thought I would check in with Jay and find out a little bit more about their tool. It tests your show basically before it launches. So if you're going to throw a bunch of money at a new podcast, then it will actually test and see whether or not you should have one host or three, or test and see whether or not you should have music in there or what a good title is. It sounds like a good idea. So I called Jay and I said tell me a bit more about Podpredictor.

Speaker 5: 36:20

Podpredictor is essentially A-B testing for podcasts and the idea behind it is you know, before you go and invest lots of time and energy and money into podcasts. We know that a lot of times, podcasters are wrestling with lots of different ideas, right, it's not like one idea comes out of the chute and that's what it's going to be. There's a lot of things that are thrown up against a wall and brainstorming. That happens and what title would be good and how should we pitch it. And that's what pod predictor is all about is, before you launch it it's meant to be pre-launch and test a couple of concepts against each other. The best way that it works is when it's the same show but different concepts of the same show, right? Um, and so, in other words, you've got a, you've got a news podcast and two different titles, two different ways of pitching it. We test it with 500 podcast consumers of the US and and then analyze the results in many different ways.

Speaker 1: 37:23

So I mean, the show might cost, you know, tens of thousands of dollars to make, if it's a big show, but it makes sense, I think, first to throw the idea in front of people, particularly different types of people, different ethnicities, different ages, just to see what sticks right.

Speaker 5: 37:40

Exactly. And so you know we're looking at it overall. We're also looking at it against other podcast concepts. Ideally that works when it's fans of the same category, right? So we would, you know, we like like to.

Speaker 5: 37:52

When we do a pod predictor, if we're testing comedy concepts, for example, it's best if you do it with comedy fans, right? That have more propensity to be interested in it, for sure. And then you're looking at it overall. How do they test against each other? How do they rank against other concepts, against other concepts? But then also, as you point out, how does it rate by age, gender, ethnicity? We're also looking at fans of. You know, we're looking at category, andrew, so you might be surprised, for so I think, in part, it's a it's strategic for you to know which one is more appealing, but it's also strategic from a marketing standpoint, right, strategic from a marketing standpoint, right? So you have a good idea of I know that fans of this particular concept are also fans of podcasts in this category, right? So maybe as part of my strategy, I should go and look to be guests on podcasts in this category, or I should look to advertise in this particular category. So it serves both of those purposes.

Speaker 1: 38:50

Sounds really clever and do you have any examples of some of the ideas that you have taken in front of audiences and something? Maybe that might have surprised you a little bit?

Speaker 5: 39:01

Yeah, a number of different things, for sure, but I'll give you a couple of examples. One is there is a this was a health and wellness show that was was about plastic surgery, and the this was one where they had a couple of different names of the show. One of them was more specific to the client themselves. So so the brand was about them. And, you know, it was an interesting litmus test because, well, how well known was that brand? And certainly nationwide, it wasn't really that well known and the way they were pitching it was was focused on their own doctors, naming people that, again, may not have real brand recognition of a small circle of their current base. And as part of that, I said, well, because I'm willing to help as part of that process, right, you don't have to necessarily, if you want some guidance as to, well, what are some other good concepts to test, happy to be part of that. And that was the case in this one right when there was a concept that we tested against that. That was a little bit that. And that was the case in this one right when there was a concept that we tested against that. That was a little bit broader and it was more about what it was actually about rather than actually about their brand. And you know, and they were able to discover that that other concept tested better. They were able to see, I think, a couple of surprising things, but they were able to see age think, a couple of surprising things, but they were able to see age-wise. You know where is the wheelhouse of this particular concept. So you know, those are some learnings of that.

Speaker 5: 40:40

There was another one that we did for podcast radio. That was an interesting, unique one, right where they were actually trying to determine and they made these results public. They were interested in determining, based on the pitch of podcast radio and what it is, how does that appeal to radio listeners in the United States? So that was not a typical usage of PodPredictor, but it was essentially the same kind of methodology just done in a bit of a different way. And that's really one of the beauties of PodPredictor and almost every study we do is it can be customized and tweaked based on the strategic goals.

Speaker 1: 41:19

So you can tweak it for format, or you can tweak it for name of the show, or you can tweak it for all kinds of things like that, I guess.

Speaker 5: 41:28

Yeah, you can also test. It's almost unlimited right. Like, if you want to test, for example, uh, show art against each other, you could do that. Um, if you wanted to test marketing, other marketing messages, you could do that. Um, trailers, I mean. I think trailers is a great usage case too, uh is, if you wanted to test different trailers, you can.

Speaker 5: 41:49

And that's really a lot of the stuff that we do at Coleman. You know we're brand and content people. Right, we've been doing brand and content work for media brands for 45 years. And in the podcasting space, that's really something that we're trying to get podcasters to focus on is don't just look at those numbers, but look at your brand and how you can build the brand and how can you make content that isn't just good, but content that is truly appealing to that target audience but it's also building your brand and is in sync with your brand's expectations at the same time. And so there's lots of ways to go about that and lots of ways that we do that, whether it be in the moment content testing, whether it's larger scale studies that really dig into target audiences and their usage and perceptions and habits, and then it's things like PodPredictor, which really was designed to be something that you know. Even the independent creator that, uh, that isn't doesn't necessarily have a big network behind them, can utilize it.

Speaker 1: 42:57

I guess I hadn't considered, of course, that um people who are making shows will probably include this sort of idea in their pitch. Um to the client to basically say we will test this stuff before we make it for you.

Speaker 5: 43:11

Yeah, and you know, the biggest interest level in the conversations by far has come from agencies. Editors, right, it's people that work with a lot of different podcasts and that's their zone, that's their wheelhouse and they're helping these podcasters right from start to publication and so, as part of that, they're taking them through this launch. You know a lot of them have a launch package, right, and they're taking them through that and they're it's everything from coming up with the concepts to the editing, to sometimes, their SEO and digital marketing and and all of it. And so they're looking at pod predictor and saying, okay, how can I offer this as a service to my clients as part of it?

Speaker 1: 43:55

Yeah, Now I know Coleman Insights, as many people do, from the work that you do in terms of radio. How much is podcasting sort of changing that? Are you doing an awful lot more podcasting stuff now?

Speaker 5: 44:10

I mean it still remains, sure, because historically we do so much work in radio. But the podcasting I think we've been at for about probably six or seven years now and it's been a nice progressive growth and the clients are across the board. It's not one set and it's interesting right Like. There, for example, is a hosting platform that was really interested in learning about their user persona and so, when it was going through a process of redesigning the website and thinking about what the marketing messages are and who that user is and how to reach them, that was a study that we were able to do and that type of study can be very effective. For you know, we've done a study like that for a network. We've done a study like that for a branded podcast where it's trying to really understand who is my target consumer.

Speaker 5: 45:07

And I think in branded in particular, that's a really interesting area, because I wrote a blog about this recently is that you're not just thinking about putting out a podcast and making sure the content is great, but you're talking about a brand that probably is pretty well known and you've got to make sure that you're thinking about that really strategically. And I sometimes worry about with branded podcasts that they do a podcast because they think they have to. But right, but you know, go do a podcast. I think everyone says we should do a podcast, let's make it part of our marketing plan, but the reality is it should be treated with the same delicate care that they would any other campaign that they do. And if you're going to put, if you're really going to invest in all your other marketing, why wouldn't you do the same thing and understand, you know, the best strategic direction for your branded podcast?

Speaker 1: 46:03

So I guess you've got a website to find out more about PodPredictor.

Speaker 5: 46:07

We do. The website is colemaninsightscom and you can learn about Podpredictor there and also other types of research that we do for podcasters.

Speaker 1: 46:17

Very cool, and are you talking at Evolutions in Chicago in a couple of weeks?

Speaker 5: 46:22

Yes, I am, and actually we'll be doing one of the keynote presentations of a follow-up to a study that we debuted at Podcast Movement in 2020, late 2023. So this is about that. One was called the new rules of podcasting on YouTube, and so we're going to, you know, at that time it's really funny, james, to think about the fact that I went back and looked at this to make sure I wasn't crazy that particular podcast movement had one session focused on video podcasting and it was ours.

Speaker 5: 46:57

And then of course, last year there was 15, and now everyone's got a track and everything else. So I think it's going to be interesting to see, because we're going at it at a few different angles. I think last time the study was really focused on understanding where video plays in the full funnel. This time we're going to probe in a much deeper way video podcasting but we're also doing it from the creator side, which I think is going to be an interesting angle, because we want to not just see how consumers' habits have changed over the last year and a half, but I also want to see how creators are wrestling with this, because there's so much for them to think about and whether or not it's worthwhile and whether or not the investment of time and money is worth it and where should I put it and is it just a trend or is it here to stay? All these things, and that's going to be part of this presentation and study which I'm excited about.

Speaker 1: 47:53

Jay, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it today.

Speaker 5: 47:56

Thank you, james, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 47:57

Jay Naklis from Coleman Insights talking about Pod Predictor and, as you just heard, he will be at Evolutions in Chicago talking about YouTube and talking about more stuff about that, so that'll be a thrill. What we should do, sam, is we should have a little jingle that says and now more news about YouTube, oh great.

Speaker 3: 48:21

Yeah, exactly, I was going to say we've got one for Spotify and we need one for.

Speaker 3: 48:26

YouTube. Yes, absolutely. I was going to say that that interview with Jay was interesting because I think we reported many months ago that Flight Studio Dyer of the CEO use a predictor tool as well. In a very similar way, they have a panel of people who listen to the long form of the show before it goes out and then they give feedback using the space bar and visual indicators to say where they found the show interesting, that's where they clip it all up and then that's how they put it out Again. I think it's very interesting that people are building tools to do pre-testing before launch.

Speaker 1: 49:02

Yeah, no, indeed. And you know, I mean they know Coleman Insights know. You know, as I said, they've worked in the radio business. They know an awful lot about this kind of stuff, so they're very good at testing formats and things, and so you know why wouldn't they jump into the podcast space? But they've been in that space for a number of years now and they seem to do that very well.

Speaker 3: 49:25

Time to whiz around the world. James Off to Sweden first. What's happening there?

Speaker 1: 49:29

Yes, so Sweden. Well, guess what? Podcasting is continuing to grow. Who knew?

Speaker 4: 49:36

It's dark, it's cold.

Speaker 3: 49:37

It's not surprising.

Speaker 1: 49:42

It gets nice there. It gets nice there. I had a very good time there when I was there in November. But yes, according to new data from Dargan's media, acast is very big. Swedish radio obviously very big. It's the big public service broadcaster there. Podspace is the podcast hosting company which is growing fastest. It's up 23% year on year. I was sent this by a man who I then discovered is an advisor to Podspace, so therefore, of course, they would highlight that, wouldn't they?

Speaker 3: 50:15

Doing his job. Doing his job.

Speaker 1: 50:18

But Podspace was one of the two non-US podcast hosting companies that was in Apple's announcement as well, which I thought was interesting. The other one, osha. So yes, so Sweden, everything is going gangbusters, which is nice. Audiochuck things going on in the US. Audiochuck has received $40 million in investment from the Chernin Group. The company is already turning profit profit of $45 million last year. You kind of wonder why they want $40 million in investment if they've already just made $45 million last year.

Speaker 3: 51:00

It's the VC game, james. Yeah, you play the VC game. So you go, you show profitability, you set a value for the company. You then go and get investment to ratify that value. So now the value is, I don't know, 150 million. And then you go ah right, now that the company is worth 150 million because we've got a 40 million investment, let's go and raise another round again. Now it's 300 million. Let's do the IPO Now it's half a billion. Oh look, we're all happy and the investors take their money out. And then everyone is all happy and rosy and goes home nice it's a game.

Speaker 1: 51:33

It's a game, yes. Well, there you go, it's uh. Yes, um, I mean, ashley is looking to expand her staff to 130.

Speaker 3: 51:42

Um, I know, which is uh, which is uh, quite a thing now, I don't really know this guy, dan bongino, but I I clearly hear from many other people that he's quite famous but he's joining Donald Trump to do something he is.

Speaker 1: 51:55

He's joining Donald Trump, so Dan Bongino had Donald Trump on his podcast before the election. It's a pretty big deal in that he does a show which does relatively well 322,000 downloads per episode, according to one tool that I have access to. He's also on American Talk Radio as a replacement for Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh was a massive, great, big star and he was the replacement that quite a lot of people took. Anyway, he has been named the Deputy Director of the FBI.

Speaker 3: 52:35

Yes, I can see the skill set transferring over amazingly well.

Speaker 1: 52:39

Yes, yes, I mean being fair, he's got a little bit of history. That isn't just talking in front of a microphone and being quite sweary. He does have a little bit of history. I think he was a Navy SEAL and I think he was involved in some protection thing and blah, blah blah. But anyway, he's now the Deputy Director of the FBI. On a totally unrelated note, here's a quick track from the 70s by the Specials.

Speaker 5: 53:05

The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Speaker 1: 53:11

Ah, that was nice, wasn't it Right? Let's move on. Iab Australia Ooh, that's from down my way. They've published the audio advertising State of the Nation 2025. Good news for podcasting, but actually very good news for podcasting, and even though commercial radio and audio have welcomed it here, you can imagine that they've welcomed it with gritted teeth, because 79% of agencies say that they will spend more on podcast advertising this year, and that is more than advertising with streaming radio or streaming music. So basically, podcasting is winning in terms of the budget. So hurrah for podcasting is what I say. There was a big IAB audio conference this week in Sydney. There'll be a big IAB audio conference next week in Melbourne. I'm going to neither of them, but there we are. But, yeah, they seem to be at least releasing quite a lot of useful data for the industry, which is a good thing.

Speaker 3: 54:19

Now one of the things you predicted in the UK, james, has come true. What is it?

Speaker 1: 54:22

Yes, the BBC is to close BBC Sounds, that's its music radio podcast app for international users. So you can now get BBC podcasts on the bbccom app and on the international website, but you will be losing, if you haven't lost them already. You will be losing the BBC's domestic music radio stations. So you'll get World Service and Radio 4, but you won't get any of the other music services and you won't get any local radio, which I believe is upsetting quite a lot of people. So, yeah, that's no longer going to be available outside of the UK. Probably makes quite a lot of sense, unfortunately, because the BBC can't make any money out of that without all of a sudden getting liable for all of the music rights which they simply can't afford and can't deal with anyway. So I think all of that is interesting. But yes, I said that this would happen in November. I genuinely did not know that this was the plan, but it turns out it was the plan and yes, and so they are, and so I have downloaded the BBC Sounds app. Interesting.

Speaker 1: 55:33

They did say one interesting thing in that release which they did tell me under embargo a couple of weeks prior, but obviously I couldn't. I couldn't say anything. They said in the release that BBC Sounds will continue to work for people who live in the UK who go on holiday temporarily. How Well, how Exactly?

Speaker 1: 55:56

So I think what's going to happen there is. The first thing that they'll do is they will take BBC Sounds out of all of the app stores outside of the UK so that we can't install it All right. So that's a good first step. Then, I suspect what they will do with the audio links is that they will actually tie it into your BBCcom ID, so you will have to log in, as you do at the moment, to listen to that particular station, and so I suspect that that's what's going to happen. So that will mean that BBC Radio essentially dies for anybody with an internet radio device or a smart speaker or any of that sort of thing. But I really don't know. I mean, that's just a guess, but I thought it was an interesting little bit of information there that BBC Sounds will continue to work for you if you go on holiday outside of the UK temporarily. So yeah, there's a thing.

Speaker 3: 56:57

I bet it still works with my VPN, even if I didn't do that.

Speaker 1: 57:01

I absolutely bet that it'll continue working with a VPN. Certainly iPlayer does, which is their TV app. You have to. You know you have to choose a VPN relatively carefully, but you can get it to work. So, yeah, I'm absolutely sure that if you have a VPN, it'll continue to work. But on the other side then that's the customer or the listener bypassing somebody else's security. So I think that they are relatively safe on that. But I think you know, as with all of these things VPNs or DRM, you know, rights management or any of that stuff it's a tax on the un-techie and just stops them from doing things that if you're techie enough, you know how to do anyway.

Speaker 3: 57:50

Correct. Now, over in the Middle East, james iHeart are launching a regional podcasting hub in Qatar.

Speaker 1: 57:57

Yes, or Qatar. Is it Qatar or Qatar?

Speaker 3: 58:00

I never know.

Speaker 1: 58:02

I actually don't know, I never know, I actually don't know. But anyway, yes, so they got quite a lot of their big stars over to Web Summit in Qatar. I'm going to say Qatar from here on in.

Speaker 3: 58:15

Okay, let's see, let's see if I'm wrong, it's all right. I'm calling Elon Musk's company Doggy now. So we're okay, you go Qatar. Well, there you go.

Speaker 1: 58:23

There you go, well, anyway. So, yes, so this was a big announcement that they made at the Web Summit. They got a ton of their stars over there, which was nice, and now they have said that they are going to launch a regional podcasting hub. The Qatari government is basically turning around and saying we will pay for that. Just please come and show us how this stuff works. That's what I would expect. Interestingly, that happened last week. Also, last week was the Saudi media summit in Riyadh as well, so lots of media conversations going on in that part of the world. My understanding is that quite a lot of the Arab nations, firstly, are seeing an explosion in creator economy and that kind of stuff, but also, secondly, seeing that they have to be fun places to be for the young generation of today, because otherwise they just leave and they don't want a population drain of young, bright people just upping and leaving, which is why you're seeing quite a lot of these places open up.

Speaker 3: 59:40

Finally, in Europe. Andrea Koskaj, who was on the show a couple of weeks back. In Europe, andrea Koskaj, who was on the show a couple of weeks back, has launched Eurowaves, a Google group. It's a European group for podcasters and they've already got their 200th member which is quite cool.

Speaker 1: 59:59

Yes, they've got a lot of them and there's an intro thread on there which has a bunch of fascinating people in there. So, yes, worthwhile taking a peek at. If you are in any way interested in podcasting in Europe and talking about that, there's a free radio and podcast festival in a place called Ascoli Pinceno in Italy. It's called Dire Fare Ascoltare, which is just fantastic, which I think means say do no, say make and listen, and it's a free radio and podcast festival April 5th to the 6th. In case you happen to be in Italy I believe it's somewhere near Rome is Ascoli Piceno it's somewhere near Rome, is Ascoli Piceno.

Speaker 3: 1:00:49

I was going to say. Those Italian classes you were talking about last week at school seem to be working. Then Beautifully announced yes, well, we'll see.

Speaker 1: 1:00:53

But I've probably pronounced that entirely wrong. But anyway, yes. So if you want to go to that, then podnewsnet slash events is where to go and take a peek People. News on the Pod News Weekly Review. Yes People News, kim Curtin has been hired as head of podcast partnerships at Nova Entertainment in Australia. I remember being in the Qantas lounge in Singapore and somebody rushing up and saying you're James from Pod News, aren't you? How exciting. And it was, kim, slightly embarrassing.

Speaker 3: 1:01:28

Once only in my life, but I enjoyed the moment.

Speaker 1: 1:01:30

Yes, yes, so that was fun. Actually, I seem to remember it was on the way into the lounge and I said are you going into a lounge? And she said no, no, I can't get into a lounge. And I said, come into the lounge and guested her in. But yes, so congratulations to her. I know that she is totally chuffed about that. And also sad news If you've been to a podfest, you will know Neil Gillarte. He has died after an accident. He was only 51. He has died after an accident. He was only 51. He directed the podcast documentary film the Messengers, which is, of course, a Dave Jackson thing. It's got lots of people in there Harry Duran and all kinds of other people. He used to DJ at Podfest and all of that. And so all very sudden there's a GoFundMe page for his wife and his daughter if you want to go and help, and you'll find that linked from the Pod News newsletter this week.

Speaker 3: 1:02:34

Moving on then, james awards and events. The British Podcast Awards are back, james.

Speaker 1: 1:02:41

What are they doing this time? Yes, they are going to be at Indigo, at the O2, which is the nightclub in the Millennium Dome, as I would call it because I'm old, back for the ninth year. I understand getting quite a lot of flack for being very expensive to enter, but you know, I think that's where you are with the British Podcast Awards. One of the things that I did notice was quite interesting is that they have three new categories, one of those being Video Innovation. And if that doesn't point to the future of podcasting, what does it celebrates outstanding visual podcasting, including editing, production and audience engagement in video format. So there we are.

Speaker 1: 1:03:27

Sponsored by YouTube probably. Well, you know, who knows, who knows. But yes, so it's a decent awards. It's been going for nine years now and, yes, it'll be rather fun. I've been to Indego at the O2. I've actually stood on stage and given away a prize at the Student Radio Awards a long, long time ago, and it's quite a large place and all of a sudden you feel, oh gosh, I'm. You know, I feel very small on this large stage, but still, there we go. So that should be fun.

Speaker 3: 1:04:05

The award's happening on the 2nd of october now I heart, who we just talked about briefly, has announced the return of the black effect podcast festival, which is going to take place in atlanta in the usa on april 26th yes, and before that, of course, evolutions on the 31st of March and on in Chicago in the US.

Speaker 1: 1:04:28

I will be there kicking off one of the days and looking forward to doing that, so that should be good. But what's your thing? How's your thing going? Because I see here a very beautiful looking leaflet which has podcast show branding on it, as well as pod camp london.

Speaker 3: 1:04:48

this is very exciting sam, well, I didn't produce it. That's even more exciting. That's what I love, um, this, uh, yes. So a quick update. Um, why have I not been pushing it harder? Um, the reason is we had a venue and that venue now has fallen through. So I've got a conversation with somebody else. So once that's secured, I'll then start announcing a lot more.

Speaker 3: 1:05:09

But we have some great sponsors. We have captivate a cast and also a podcast movement, and if you want to sponsor us, please contact me. But, um, julie costello um is bringing over ainsley costello and, uh, there's a whole bunch of other people. There's going to be an event at Dingwalls which is very exciting, a concert very similar to the ones they did in Nashville. It'll be live broadcast on all the Podcasting 2.0 apps as well and the whole thing is coming together very nicely and Julie's pulling together all of the bits and pieces to do with that concert. I've been talking to a number of well-known uh podcasting 2.0 apps and hosts about uh speaking at the event and they've all pretty much said yes, so that's very exciting. So I'll be putting panels together and announcing that, probably in the next couple of weeks very cool.

Speaker 1: 1:05:59

so, yeah, it's all coming together. Yes, all coming together. The thing that I like the most here is in this, which is probably a mock-up schedule, but the mock-up schedule says, at five o'clock in the afternoon, cocktails and questions. Okay, sounds good. Questions get better as the cocktails get better. Yes, so remind us, it's the 20th of May, so it's 2.0, 20th of May. See what we did there PodCamp in London, and the website address podcamplive.

Speaker 3: 1:06:30

Podcamplive or podcamp2.live, both work. Yes, there you go.

Speaker 1: 1:06:34

It's almost as if you've done this before. Yeah. The tech stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review. Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology Pod 2, our friend Russell. What's he up to? Well?

Speaker 3: 1:06:53

he had a new player called PlayerPod, which I've never heard of, so I had to look it up and they were basically making too many requests to his servers. They were making from the app. They have set a hundred downloads for every episode that they can get their hands on and that's their default. So Russell was getting, I think, gigs and gigs and gigs of data requests and he was like who's doing this and it's costing him a lot of money. So he says, look, he reached out to them and I don't think they're quite interested, so he's had to ban them, which I think is quite, you know, harsh. But you know he said look, I can't. I've been polite, I've gone to them. I've said your app requires or sets a default download of 100 episodes. I don't know why you're doing that. And they haven't changed.

Speaker 1: 1:07:47

So when you subscribe to a new show, it downloads 100 episodes of that new show instantly, instantly, even if you know you don't need more than three.

Speaker 1: 1:07:56

Let's say that's not brilliant, although, weirdly, that was exactly what Apple Podcasts was doing prior to iOS 17. So maybe they've learned from the best. So he was talking about using um. Well, firstly, he was talking about um, uh, a new tag which would indicate to podcast players how many, um, how many downloads they could actually take and how often. Um, which um I mean, which I looked at and I thought why, if you're a player and you don't understand how to download podcasts anyway, why would you possibly take any notice of whatever that said? So I think that was a non-starter he's now trying to use. There's a standard status code which the PodNews website uses as well, actually 429, which is come back later. Too many requests come back later, and so he is suggesting using that, which I know that some podcast apps already support, which is nice. That's not going to fix his costs in terms of bandwidth. It's just going to slow down the amount of requests that he gets.

Speaker 3: 1:09:12

Yeah, I mean, I think it's the King Canute model, right, he's not going to be able to stop the waves, he's not going to be able to stop the downloads, but at least he can put a yellow card up for somebody and say you need to slow down, pull back a bit and I guess you get the red card if you don't. So I don't know what other hosts think. You know, I mean you know, russell's an up and coming young podcast host, but some of the big ones, like Buzzsprout or Captivate Blueberry, et cetera, I wonder what they think of apps like this that are doing it.

Speaker 1: 1:09:44

Yeah, Well, I know that there are.

Speaker 1: 1:09:48

I mean, there are a number of things built into both Amazon, CloudFront and CloudFlare that actually would slow any of these podcast hosts, podcast apps, down.

Speaker 1: 1:10:00

I mean, I think you can see the problems that it was causing, because this was, as I say, what Apple Podcasts used to be doing when you came back to a show that you had subscribed to but then you'd lapsed for you know 50 episodes or something, and then you came back and it would download all of the ones that you missed all at the same time, which, if you're just serving static audio files, then that's one thing and frankly, you should be able to deal with that and I'm not quite sure why you can't. But if you are serving programmatic ads into those shows, then obviously you know you've got servers that are rebuilding all of those MP3s for you every single time, and that's where it gets difficult if you are asking for 500 shows at the same time. So that that, of course, is a you know is a bad thing. So I'm sure that people will be, you know, building that into their, into their hosting, you know platforms, if they've not already done so.

Speaker 3: 1:11:04

One of the things I learned I mean again, I'm still on a learning curve with many of these things was that Apple now use a head request to try and see if there's actually a change to the file, rather than request the file itself every time.

Speaker 1: 1:11:16

Yeah, so Apple have always sent both a head request first to find out a little bit about that file, check that it's actually there, and blah, blah, blah before they download it, and there are a few other uh apps that uh do that. Now, if you are charged by the request, as I am, then that doubles my costs. So there are benefits and downsides in doing that. But I'm charged by request as well as being charged by bandwidth, as Russell is as well. So you know, we, we, you know that that is also a thing, and the ideal is to um, not to um, cause so much hassle on someone's server that uh it just times out and you then have to go and request an episode again, and then again, and then again, because again, that was what was going on with the apple podcast thing and why they ended up having to change it. Um, so, yeah, so I think you know. Yeah, again, it's just, it's just making making sure that everything is a little bit more calm on the on the podcast hosting side now moving on.

Speaker 3: 1:12:23

Uh, we talked about Justin Jackson from Transistor. He's now posted a list of 23 podcast apps that have closed. And then he puts a tip don't launch a social podcast player. What is a social podcast player in the first place.

Speaker 1: 1:12:38

Well, it's all of these podcast players. They will either say you know, we're the cleverest thing because we can do clipping and so you can share clips with your friends, which nobody wants, and so lots of podcast players go to market with that, and the other set of podcast players, a bit like Good Pods and Fountain to a degree, have promoted themselves as social podcast players so you can invite your friends and you can leave comments and all of that stuff. And all of those have died, with the exception of Good Pods and Fountain.

Speaker 3: 1:13:16

I was going to say I don't think they were on the list, james.

Speaker 1: 1:13:20

Yes, no, no, exactly, but you can very clearly see that if you are a podcast host which offers either clipping or the concept of being a social podcast player, then you are more likely to fail. 23 podcast apps in there that have closed One of them, of course, google Play Music, which was only a podcast app in the US and in Canada, I notice and there was also a little mention of Google Listen. Now I've been chatting to the person that invented Google Listen, or one of the people that invented Google Listen. I've learned some amazing things about Google Listen, and so at some point, when I've got enough time to sit and write the article, I will be writing an article about Google Listen, the best podcast app that we never had, genuinely, because, my goodness, it was capable.

Speaker 1: 1:14:16

You know the ideas behind it was so, so great, but it was a typical piece of Google 10% time that never really moved forward to anything else, but actually was Google's first attempt at YouTube, would you believe, because Google Listen went onto the Google TV box, the first ever Google TV box before Google had bought YouTube. It was that long ago, so yeah, so it's a tremendous story and I'm looking forward to writing it up when I've got time, spotify, we'll whisk through this so we don't have to play that jingle. But four years ago this week, spotify announced Spotify Hi-Fi Still the largest resolved mystery of our time. What is going on with Spotify Hi-Fi?

Speaker 3: 1:15:08

I don't know. I mean we can surmise that it's licensing. We can surmise that they want to increase the price and they're saving it for last. I don't know, but I mean YouTube, amazon, apple all offer high quality audio already. I don't really get a sight or sound of why they wouldn't do it.

Speaker 1: 1:15:29

Well, I did read something on the internet a couple of days ago and I thought, oh well, maybe this is it. It's a product which they are launching, uh, relatively soon, called spotify music pro. It's a new premium tier called spotify music pro was reported in bloomberg, actually which will introduce, in inverted commas, cd quality audio. What does that mean? Um, something it first promised back in 2021, and so, yes, and so it does look as if they've actually dropped the name Spotify Hi-Fi completely. They're calling it Spotify Music Pro, and instead of Spotify Premium being $12 a month, it's now going to cost you $18 a month to get Spotify Music Pro, which seems to me something that I would not buy, to be honest. But still, there we go.

Speaker 3: 1:16:29

Well, daniel Ek was crowing about something called Spotify Singles this week, which I'd never come across. He said back in 2016,. We launched Spotify Singles, a music series where artists reimagine their own songs and record one-of-a-kind covers, and it's now passing its 10 years and 10 billion streams. And I went. I've never even heard of Spotify singles, let alone played one.

Speaker 1: 1:16:53

I do remember Spotify recording their own stuff in because they used to have a band area in London I know, I know that and clearly they've got a band area in LA as well. And it's a great way, of course, for them to have cheaper music Because all of a sudden, with a Spotify single that you record Coldplay singing Yellow again, then you don't have to pay EMI for the record company because the record company you've got rid of the record company because it's your own recording. So it's a great way of saving yourself a bunch of cash, and the fact that they've now hit 10 billion streams of Spotify singles worldwide seems to show that they've done quite well. In terms of that.

Speaker 1: 1:17:41

I should point you to a radio station here in Australia. It's run by the ABC here. It's called Triple J and it has a feature which they do every single week called Like A Version. It's a bit like Like A Virgin, you see, but it's not, anyway, and that is essentially the same thing. So they record one-of-a-kind, a kind covers, um, and so it's a band that you know recording another song that you know, uh, and that does incredibly well on YouTube, incredibly well in various other places. And again, you know real opportunity because you own the masters. So um, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:18:20

Moving on then. Uh, apple looks like we're getting a little stocking filler late christmas presents from apple. Um, ios 18.4 now has updates to the carplay interface not the ones that I thought they were going to bring out. Um, the exciting news is they now allow you to have a third row of apps on the home screen well, that's exciting, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 1:18:43

Apple CarPlay apparently, on some cars you can say whether you want the little buttons to the left of the screen or to the right of the screen. On my car, it doesn't have that setting and it just chooses. Is it random? So sometimes the buttons are on the left, sometimes they're on the right. Good old Chinese software. That's what you need. Uh, apple also, um, adding a few new things. Uh, apparently, um, from the podcast's app. Um, I don't know where you've got this information from, um, because I'm just pointing out that, of course, I'm being a good boy and I'm not reporting on the beaters. Um, because nobody, nobody reports on the beaters because you're not supposed to.

Speaker 3: 1:19:24

Well, apart from the whole of the bloody internet.

Speaker 1: 1:19:25

Clearly I'm reading this Apart from the whole of the internet, I know I know exactly. There are also, hilariously, two new Australian voices for Siri in 18.4. One of them is called Kylie, one of them is called Jason Hilarious, no actually they aren't, but I thought I'd leave that in there for you.

Speaker 3: 1:19:46

But they do have two australian voices. Yes, now moving on swiftly and then swiftly being the core word um, gordon firemark, friend of the show, who's the podcast lawyer. Um, I don't normally listen to his podcast, sorry, gordon, but it is very much about legal issues. But the current issue, episode 177, was quite interesting because all about ai law and and he talked about the first AI generated art to get copyright and it was really interesting. It wasn't the end product that got the copyright, it was the human squiggles on a piece of paper that got the copyright and the AI was just the output. So quite interesting where the copyright law will sit with this one legal ruling. He also talked about a major fair use victory for podcasters at the Copyright Claims Board and he points to a website which I didn't even knew existed, called plagiarismtodaycom, which is covering the story, which I thought was quite interesting.

Speaker 1: 1:20:50

Is it all original content?

Speaker 3: 1:20:51

plagiarism today Very good. It's basically a copyright podcasting use, a TikTok video of a attorney and the attorney was not very happy, but they caught overrule that they had fair use. So again, if you want to hear more about what they were doing there, it's quite interesting how podcasters can use other content and their use of that content is upheld as fair use.

Speaker 1: 1:21:23

Well, gordon Farmark will, I'm sure, be at Evolutions in Chicago. He normally makes it his business to go to all of those things, so we should watch out for him there.

Speaker 2: 1:21:35

Boostergram Super comments, zaps, fan mail, super chats and email. Our favourite time of the week, it's the Pod News Weekly Review Inbox.

Speaker 1: 1:21:49

Yes, it's our favourite time of the week. There are so many different ways to get in touch with us. There's fan mail by using the link in our show notes, or super comments on True Fans, boosts, or email, and yes, and basically any of those. We've got some messages here, haven't we? Through Blue Sky, yes, what's the first message here?

Speaker 3: 1:22:13

Well, you enabled Blue Sky through the social interact tag onto your website. So now you're picking up these comments and it's John Spurlock with a tip Don't launch a social podcast player. Yes, he's joining in with Justin Jackson. Yes, note to self. Do not launch a social podcast player. Yes, he's joining in with justin jackson. So, yes, note to self. Do not launch a social podcast player. Right, all those features coming out? Um, he said perhaps it's time to come to terms with the fact that, although many podcasters say they want social podcast apps, almost no listeners do. Podcast listening is inherently para anti-social listeners do. Podcast listening is inherently para-antisocial.

Speaker 1: 1:22:49

Live streams, on the other hand, I guess, are different. Yeah, yes, no, he is absolutely correct. Danny Brown also left a Blue Sky message. This is why podcasters also need to be listeners of podcasts. I've seen a lot say they don't bother, which is fine if that's your preference, but you just miss out on a lot of insights and listener preferences by doing so. Being just a podcaster skews the bigger picture view. He's replying to John there, I would guess. But yes, absolutely. I'm always flabbergasted by people in radio who I meet who don't listen to the radio. It seems bizarre. And people who make podcasts that don't listen to the radio, which seems bizarre. And people who make podcasts that don't listen to podcasts. I was absolutely flabbergasted by that.

Speaker 3: 1:23:34

You can also send or CEOs of podcast companies that don't have a podcast studio app or headphones?

Speaker 1: 1:23:41

Yes, Correct, Correct, and I think yes, there is definitely an article in that which at some point I will write, which is which of the CEOs who work in podcasting actually make a podcast for themselves, because I'm always astonished by who doesn't. We've had a number of boosts and things A row of ducks from Anonymous Podcast Guru User that's a good name, you've got there. Thanks for the entertaining news and conversation. Bruce from the Ugly Quacking Duck Okay, 1,308 sats, so an amount of British sterling. From Neil Velio through True Fans. Neil says I agree Adam would be an excellent evangelist for 2.0. I don't understand his resistance to repping what he made. Such a shame. If I'd invented this tech, I'd be sharing my passion for it until I made people roll eyes about it. I enjoyed listening to Adam on the Podcasting 2.0 podcast last week where he basically says I'm not interested in keynoting at conferences. Not interested, I have no interest in that. Oh, I'm looking forward to keynoting at this conference coming up. What?

Speaker 3: 1:24:58

Yes, it was just so perfect he was going. No, no, I'm never going to do that. No, anyway, next week I will be keynoting and talking about podcasting 2.0. And I'm like that's all we want you to do, adam. That is what we want you to do.

Speaker 1: 1:25:13

Honestly, 5,150 sats from Matt Cundall. I think we mentioned his SoundUp podcast in the Pod News Daily. He sent us a boost that just said cheers, which is nice, and that is it for those. What's the phrase? I've reached the delimiter and thank you.

Speaker 3: 1:25:38

I think the bottom of the barrel is the other word you're looking for. That's exactly it.

Speaker 1: 1:25:41

And thank you to our stupendous 16. Who will be number 17? Will it be you, dear listener? You can go to weeklypodnewsnet and we would love to see you as a power supporter, as our 17th power supporter. You can be in there for just $3 a month. I mean you spend more on that than coffee. That would be a lovely thing. Anyway, the 16 that we currently have are Cameron Moll, Marshall Brown, matt Medeiros, mike Hamilton, dave Jackson, rachel Corbett, cy Jobling, david Marzal, jim James, rocky Thomas, neil Velio, ms Eileen Smith, clare Waight-Brown, john McDermott, james Burt and the late Bloomer actor. And number 17 could be you, weeklypodnewsnet. Go on, go on. You know you want to. So what's happened for you? Quickly, sam, yes, yes quickly Right.

Speaker 3: 1:26:34

We continued with our exercise in moving to cross-out comments, so we had blue sky in and out last week, very similar to what you did with Pod News Weekly and what Transistor did. We've added Twitter now and so you can also post, if you choose, to Blue Sky Twitter and Activity Park clients like Mastodon.

Speaker 1: 1:26:56

So if you're a Nazi, you can still use TrueFans. Good news everybody.

Speaker 3: 1:27:01

No, no, no. I have to say you'll hear in a minute that it's going to be the last thing we do with Twitter, because they want to charge $10,000 for the API access per month, per month.

Speaker 1: 1:27:13

Wow.

Speaker 3: 1:27:15

So, yes, you can take your API and stick it where it doesn't shine.

Speaker 1: 1:27:18

Mr Elon Musk.

Speaker 3: 1:27:19

Wow.

Speaker 4: 1:27:20

Yes.

Speaker 3: 1:27:20

There's a thing. I'll explain that in a second. We also so the image that you can see in the show notes, james, is actually the image of Pod News Daily in X that I was listening to. So you get all the listen time percent completed and the value I paid as well, and a link back to it. So, yeah, that's what we did. As I said, queen Elonia of Gilead, as I'm going to now call him once 10,000 a month, just to use a single feature. We built two years ago a really cool tool which would allow you to authorise your account on X. We would then pull in your followers and you could then invite them to TrueFans, and it worked beautifully. But it was too early, so we sort of parked it away and we thought, right, we're pretty much ready to start that feature again. So I told mo, my cto, let's put it back. That feature's been moved to the enterprise api version. As I say, ten thousand dollars a month, so you won't be doing that gosh, do you know?

Speaker 1: 1:28:17

do you know you've? You've been saying gilead, um, uh, now, this is the third week in a row that you've been talking about gilead what at some point I I am going to have to come clean and say I have no idea what you're talking about.

Speaker 3: 1:28:33

Gilead is the name of the place for Handmaiden's Tale, where they took away women's rights.

Speaker 1: 1:28:40

Aren't you the well-read.

Speaker 3: 1:28:45

So, yes, the other things we're doing, I think are quite cool Import-export of OPML finally, we needed to do that and that was quite useful. And now you can highlight text in a transcript and then just save that in a private note or even start a blog post. So, again, using the transcript for more than just reading along with it. And finally, I'm very excited, we are relaunching Fan Zone with Claire Waite-Brown, so Claire and I are currently recording what is Fan Zone. Fan Zone is a podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:29:19

It's another product that sounds eerily close to OnlyFans. I'm just wondering what it is. It's a podcast, is it? That's all right.

Speaker 3: 1:29:29

Well, I'm going to be using that picture of me as an inner mankini and seeing how much money I can make from it.

Speaker 1: 1:29:33

Yes, so it's a weekly podcast about all things new at True Fans. Yes, yes, you should go and find that in your favourite podcast app. It will be everywhere. You should go and find that in your favourite podcast app and in YouTube it will be everywhere.

Speaker 3: 1:29:50

Yes, no, no, no, no, not on YouTube. No, we're not going to go there. No, not yet. No, but yes, it's been something we should have done, and I was. I hate doing solo podcasts. I'll be there and I'll admit it. Well, there you go. Claire's done a brilliant job of podcasting 2.0 in practice.

Speaker 1: 1:30:11

And so she's helping me do this and it's brilliant, so I'm very excited for that. Yes, and talking about podcasting 2.0 in practice, claire's guest this week is Jordan Blair from our sponsor, buzzsprout. Yay, talking about Podroll. Yay, so you should go and take a listen to that. Podcasting 2.0 in practice is obviously available wherever you got this show, which is nice, james, come on. What's happened for you, then? Well, two things. I launched a new website. That's exciting, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 1:30:40

I launched the podcast. You launched the website Excellent.

Speaker 1: 1:30:43

It's newpodcastsnet and it is our feed of new shows to help you find your next favourite podcast Newpodcastsnet. It looks all pretty and jolly because I got somebody to make a logo and some assets which I've not properly fixed yet. Go on a desktop. It looks nicer than going on a mobile. Is it a PWA Right now? It's not a PWA, no.

Speaker 3: 1:31:09

I know, just wondering.

Speaker 1: 1:31:11

But anyway. So it is there. But it is also the way that you can get your podcast into the Pod News newsletter. Just go there, sign up and away you go. It's free.

Speaker 3: 1:31:23

I'll go and put Fan Zone in then.

Speaker 1: 1:31:24

Yes, well, yes, why not? Newpodcastsnet is the place to go for that, and you'll find the New Podcasts podcast itself in your favourite podcast app and it's called New Podcasts. You'll find it impossible to find in Spotify, because what Spotify does is it makes it very difficult for you to find a show which has the word podcast in it, so I need to fix that somehow. But anyway, let's play with that later. And I've read a book.

Speaker 1: 1:31:54

I've actually finished a book this week, which is amazing. It's a brilliant book too, and I would heartily recommend it. It's by a man called Ed Conway, who I believe is a reporter for Sky News in the UK. The book is called Material World the six raw materials that shape modern civilization. If you need to know how, on a knife edge, pretty well everything in the world is, then this is an incredible book for you to read.

Speaker 1: 1:32:26

It turns out, for example, that um, we, we need sand. We really need sand, but not just any old sand. We need sand from a particular mine, and the particular mine has one road leading to that mine, and if that road has any problems, then that essentially means no more silicon chips anywhere in the world at all, because all of the silicon chips in the world are made with the particular type of sand from this mine and you can then roll that out to lithium and all of the conversations that are going on in Ukraine right now. You can have a look at oil. It's just absolutely fascinating, and you end up reading the book and thinking literally everything is just luck that we are where we are right now. Absolutely fascinating, so it's definitely worthwhile. Gosh, I gave that a write-up, didn't I? And I think that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories were taken from the PodNews daily newsletter at podnewsnet.

Speaker 3: 1:33:33

You can support this show by streaming sats. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail link In our show notes. You can send us a super comment or a boostergram or become a power supporter like the sensational 16 at weeklypodnewsnet yes, please do do that in case.

Speaker 1: 1:33:49

Um, you know, because I'm getting bored talking about 16, I would rather talk about 17. Our music is from studio dragonfly. Our voiceover is sheila d. We use clean feed for our audio. We edit with hindenburg and thank you to hindenburg founder, nick Dunkley, for including this show as one of his top 10 shows, which I thought was fairly amazing. Alongside Radiolab and you know other, much better shows.

Speaker 4: 1:34:15

So thank you to him for that.

Speaker 1: 1:34:17

Thanks for promoting us. Yes, there you go. And we are hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting. Get updated every day.

Speaker 4: 1:34:27

Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet tell your friends and grow the show and support us, and support us.

Speaker 2: 1:34:34

The pod news weekly review will return next week. Keep listening.