Speaker 1: 0:01

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

Speaker 2: 0:09

We joined today by Annalise Nielsen. Now she is Head of Podcast Strategy and Development at Pacific Content. Annalise hello, how are you?

Speaker 3: 0:18

Thanks.

Speaker 2: 0:20

So let's start off. Last year, lower Street bought Pacific Content and you're at Pacific Content. You were there at Pacific Content when it was purchased. What's changed? What's life been like now as part of Lower Street, within the Pacific Content bubble?

Speaker 3: 0:37

Well, in a lot of ways things are similar. I would say like my role is pretty similar across both companies, so I sit sort of between marketing and sales, I put together proposals for clients, I write our newsletter, I do a lot of thought leadership kind of content and plan events for Lower Street. So that's maybe something that's new for me at Lower Street, but still sort of within the same wheelhouse as what I was doing at Pacific Content. And I would say, like the difference between the two companies or like where we're at now. You know, pacific Content was previously owned by a very large media conglomerate, so that definitely impacted sort of day to day business and now part of a scrappy startup. So there's a lot more flexibility that comes with that.

Speaker 3: 1:28

We are also a global team, so there are people all over the world across lots of different time zones, which is pretty cool, and we all work remotely and so, yeah, those are the main sort of differences. I would say Lower Street also, like with the acquisition of Pacific Content, has much more of a broad offering, I would say, than Pacific Content did. Pacific Content was known for a very specific type of project, whereas Lower Street, you know, we sort of run the gambit in what we can offer to different clients. So those are, I would say, the main differences, but overall a lot of similarities. A lot of my colleagues from Pacific content came over to Laura street as well, so a lot of familiar faces where I am too.

Speaker 2: 2:14

Now I was going through LinkedIn and I saw you writing about YouTube and, of course, youtube is now the flavor of the month. Everyone's talking about it allegedly being the place that podcasting should be, and everyone's going to it, but, of course, the big thing in 25 is about video, video, video, video video. That's all you seem to hear about Now. You wrote a report recently which was all about YouTube and video content, so I thought I'd pick your brains. Really. What are your initial thoughts? Where is youtube in the podcast landscape and where is video, more importantly, within that podcast landscape as well?

Speaker 3: 2:51

so I think those are sort of two different questions. I think that, in a lot of ways, we conflate video with youtube, and I don't necessarily think that those are the same thing, but, to start to level set, a lot of the conversation around YouTube started when it became clear that YouTube was now the number one platform that people are using to consume podcasts. So YouTube beat out Spotify and Apple podcasts for the first time, and that was a huge deal. It is a huge deal. We should definitely be thinking about that data. The reality, though, is that it's YouTube, and then there's every other podcast platform that exists out there, and, for the most part, YouTube is the only platform that people are using to watch video. Now, I know that there's exceptions there. I know that Spotify is pivoting towards video. I know that Apple has video capabilities. I know that lots of podcasts, like Podcast 2.0, there's lots of video watching capabilities. Most people don't even know that they can watch video podcasts across these other platforms, particularly Apple, which has always had video podcasts across these other platforms, particularly Apple, which has always had video podcasts, and so, for the majority of the video podcast consumption, that's happening on YouTube. And then the other thing I will say is like YouTube still only makes up about 30% of the podcast consumption that we see. So yes, it's more than Spotify, it's more than Apple Still about a third of the consumption. So if we sort of take all of those things together then we can say like video consumption primarily happening on YouTube, that's really still only about a third of the consumption that's happening.

Speaker 3: 4:19

I also would say that out of all of the consumption that's happening on YouTube, not all of that is video, actually video watching. A lot of that is consumption of podcasts that were published on YouTube but don't have a video component. So this is like, you know, podcasts that are published with just a static image, or podcasts that are published on YouTube music without a video component. So that's a big part of that as well. And then there's also you know the consumption that happens where there is a video element of the podcast but people aren't actually watching that. They're minimizing their screens.

Speaker 3: 4:52

I think we know now a huge amount of YouTube consumption is happening on people's televisions, so they're putting it on and then they're doing other things in the background. This is a huge trend that we see with YouTube now and YouTube's really leaning into that. You know there was a recent report that they're beating out traditional television for consumption on televisions, and that's. You know that consumption makes a lot of sense. It's something to put on in the background. Does that mean that people are watching those entire videos, those entire you know one, two, three hour long episodes? They're not right, it's something that's on in the background. So I think all of those things are important for us to think about when we think about our video strategy.

Speaker 3: 5:30

When it comes to podcasts, I think you know there's a lot of nuance in this conversation that I think we're missing. When we just look at this data of you know, YouTube is winning podcasts and we all need to pivot to video Like maybe maybe video makes the most sense for your podcast project, Maybe it doesn't make the most sense for your podcast project. Video comes with a lot of additional costs the majority of the time, and to do it right especially, um, there's a lot of costs involved and there's also a lot of sacrifices involved in making a video podcast, because it means that you're sacrificing the ability to do things that you can do with audio only projects. So that's sort of the basics of my thoughts on youtube yeah, no, I, I I can see the trend.

Speaker 2: 6:12

Um, I think what we're seeing is the high-end podcasts that have significant budget or significant teams that can afford to have both an audio and video strategy are going. Okay, we'll put our video strategy onto YouTube, but we will also have an audio strategy that goes onto other platforms. We're also seeing a lot of the video, as you said, in the pocket, but you have to be a subscriber, right? If you try and put a video in your pocket, you you'll get ad interruptions. You will get the YouTube app not liking it and glitching in your pocket. It won't minimize. So they're driving you down a paid subscription model in order to have that capability.

Speaker 2: 6:54

So one of the things that I've noticed recently, though, with the high-end podcasts is that they are moving to live as a core strategy. So, if you look at podcasts like the news agent or the rest is politics, or even zateo or um rest is politics, usa, some of the politics podcast I've watched, so you know now what I listen to or watch, right, but they've gone live. Why do you think they are also moving to live? I get the lean back model of tv. My teenage or early 20s daughters will have a video on not watching it, but will listen and then lean into watch something if it grabs their attention. So I can see how that all works. But live seems to be another trend that's coming. So we've gone strangely from Apple Spotify to YouTube. We've then gone strangely from audio to video and it feels like we're now going video, live video. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 3: 7:58

I see what you're saying and I do see that trend as well. I don't know. I think that there's always been a bit of a live element in podcasting. It's just that we had a lot more live in-person events back in the day Before COVID. That was a huge business line for a lot of podcasts. Right Like my Favorite, murder would have massive tours that they would do of live shows. Criminal still does like massive live show tours. They feel like they're constantly on tour. So I think that's kind of always been there as a bit of an element.

Speaker 3: 8:30

I think the difference is now it's just moved to being more of a digital experience rather than an in-person live experience. I think probably part of this comes from a desire, I think from the audience, to interact more with podcasters. You have this like very deep parasocial relationship that builds between a listener and a podcaster. You know we know that like podcasting is very it's cliche to say now, but it's a very intimate medium. You're listening to them by yourself, usually with headphones on, although maybe that's changing now with the rise of YouTube and people putting it on in the background on their TVs on, although maybe that's changing now with the rise of YouTube and people putting it on in the background on their TVs. But for the most part, you know, that's what's sort of been. A strength of the medium is sort of this relationship that builds between the listener and the podcaster.

Speaker 3: 9:12

And I think, you know, most podcast platforms do not really support interactivity in the way that a lot of other platforms, a lot of other digital media does.

Speaker 3: 9:23

Right Like, social media really is built on that interactivity that's what it's for is for us to have that, you know, connection to somebody and being able to go back and forth with them. And YouTube also really prioritizes interactivity between the creator and the audience. And I would say that, you know, a live event affords that type of interactivity in a way that we don't really get in other spaces in podcasting. So maybe that's where part of this is coming from and also maybe that's part of the push on YouTube. Right Like, youtube has a comment section that is usually very robust and oftentimes creators are in that comment section responding to people. It's more of a conversation compared to a lot of other podcast platforms. I know that there are lots of other podcast platforms that do have the ability to allow people to leave comments or to leave reviews, but that type of interactivity is not something that's been prioritized or emphasized across other podcast platforms, so maybe that's part of it.

Speaker 2: 10:26

Yeah, I think there are three elements. Live gives you that feeling of being in the room with the people, even if you're not. I think YouTubers, you said, have comments, but I think the chat live chat actually takes it one stage further, and I think super chats give you that monetization that you can gain from those live events. Overall, though, if you were talking to a client for Pacific Content or Lower Street, what would you be saying, right? Would you be saying yes, 100%, you have to have a YouTube strategy. You cannot miss out because it's now the dominant platform. Or would you say horses, for, for courses, you're a crime thriller, don't really need to see the video, because that's then tv, because that becomes a much bigger thing. So is it just a talking heads platform for podcasters, right? What's your thoughts there?

Speaker 3: 11:16

I would say first of all, yes, always. Youtube. Having a youtube strategy is always part of the conversation, regardless doesn't matter who the client is or what the type of project is. There needs to be some strategy around YouTube. So that could be that we just, you know, are publishing on YouTube music. That could be that we have a static image and we're publishing episodes there.

Speaker 3: 11:37

Sometimes the YouTube strategy like, as you said, if it's a true crime show, we're not producing full-length video episodes necessarily. And so, yeah, like that's often the case, I would say probably the majority of the time, we're pushing people towards that as a strategy. But YouTube needs to be part of the story, no matter what. I think you would be foolish to miss out on. You know a third of listeners potentially discovering your show that way, and we know like YouTube is much more robust for discoverability. So I think it would be bad advice to say to ignore YouTube altogether. That being said, as you say, like some podcast formats don't lend themselves to full length video episodes. Sometimes it makes sense to make video clips instead of full length video episodes. You know you can still record video for all of your interviews. You just maybe aren't editing it together as a full-length episode. Maybe you're just releasing, you know, a portion of an interview or like a segment of the episode or just a clip that's being used on TikTok and on YouTube Shorts. That's also a legitimate and really good strategy. For a lot of our clients it does really depend.

Speaker 3: 12:45

I would say a big factor in deciding how we approach this would be who's your target audience and what is their consumption habits. For example, when it comes to Lower Street, we produce a lot of B2B content. A lot of the time, that content is targeting CEOs and executives. We know that CEOs and executives are listening and they're consuming podcasts far less on YouTube than the average population. They're very busy. They're multitasking. They're listening to podcasts while they're exercising or while they're traveling or while they're in the car or on plane rides. They don't have time to sit down and watch full length video episodes on plane rides. They don't have time to sit down and watch full length video episodes.

Speaker 3: 13:26

So does it make sense to produce these like pretty costly full length video episodes when your target audience isn't going to be sitting down and watching them?

Speaker 3: 13:31

It doesn't really make sense. That's not that that strategy maybe isn't the best strategy here and actually we should be producing shows that are maybe a little bit more tightly edited, because we know that these people don't have a lot of time and we want to respect their time, and that also doesn't lend itself to full-length video episodes. So in that case I would say we would steer them away from producing full-length video episodes. On the other hand, if I was working with a client who was making a B2C podcast and their target audience was 18 to 25-year-old men, I would definitely be thinking about producing a full-length video podcast, you know, a more chat style show, because that's kind of content that they're familiar with. That's what they recognize as a podcast. You know there's going to be better opportunities for cross promotion with other podcasts with a show like that. So these are all things that we would think about and discussions we would have in the early days to sort of decide on the strategy there.

Speaker 2: 14:26

Yeah, I fully agree with your thought process around shorts, reels, tiktoks, because there was a great report out recently about, fundamentally, the follow model is maybe not the model that we should be looking at now, because early discovery from algorithms YouTube's algorithm and also TikTok's algorithm means that new content is being delivered to people even if you're not a follower, and you're getting great discovery in that mechanism. Now, look, let's get off YouTube. Enough YouTube, let's move on to the other beast, spotify. Now they recently came out saying they want to do video. We all know that and Daniel X has been very bullish on it.

Speaker 2: 15:08

The numbers have started to come out around how they're going to monetize video content. So we know that if you upload video to your audio RSS account, they will replace the audio episode with the video episode and then you can't go back to the audio. They both YouTube and Spotify ask you to remove dynamic ad insertions, so we know that that's no longer so. We've seen now that some people are coming out and I know you reshared one of the posts as well I think that's how I discovered it, actually which was a person telling their client they've lost a thousand dollars because they didn't get anything from the Spotify ad network, but they were getting money from the video side, so is it just early days or is it something that we should be aware of that? Actually, the amount of money that you may gain from a video strategy on Spotify is always going to be lower than their audio driven strategy.

Speaker 3: 16:07

Yeah, I don't know that it's always going to be lower. I think it is fair to say that it is early days. You know, like to be fair to Spotify it is, it is early days. It will take time for advertisers to jump in and for them to be able to fill all of the inventory that they have available to them. You know advertising you could opt into advertising through anchor and there was a good period of time where their inventory was going empty or it was like mostly being filled with ads for anchor um internal ads from Spotify. So you know it takes time for advertisers to jump on board and for them to sell through all of that inventory and I think that that's fair.

Speaker 3: 16:50

I guess my bigger concern with Spotify's strategy this is going to be pretty critical of Spotify, but it kind of goes twofold. So I would say that I have concerns about the fact that this pivot to video is being tied to Spotify's recent positive earnings reports that have come out. I think that that's a huge mistake to correlate the two and to conflate the two. I don't see them as being related. Spotify had huge cuts and they let go of a lot of people and they made really big, drastic decisions on their spending and that, I think, has impacted their overall bottom line drastically. But because it's happened sort of at the same time as this pivot to video, the two are sort of being connected and that's the narrative. We're being told that, like this is the right strategy for Spotify to lean into video.

Speaker 3: 17:41

I'm not seeing that. I'm just not. I'm not seeing that in people's consumption day to day. I don't know anyone who consumes video on Spotify, so I struggle with that being correlated. The second thing that I would say about Spotify that I have concerns around is I think Spotify is really, rather than listening to creators and hearing what the concerns are for creators and then addressing those needs, they're constantly chasing somebody else and copying other people's models. You know, like we saw this with their pivot to short form video. They wanted to start doing short form video to compete with TikTok. That has been pretty much a flop. I think it's fair to say A hundred percent yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:24

Yeah, people have not consumed that kind of content within Spotify. You know we've seen this with, I mean you could argue, even podcasting in general. Spotify, like getting into the podcasting game in general, was trying to copy somebody else's model and they have, overall, not really proven to be able to pull it off because they're not, they're not really looking to fix a problem that already exists, they're just copying somebody else's model. I think that there's opportunity to fix problems that exist within podcasting on podcast platforms. I think if we you know where I see Spotify having a lot of opportunity would be a marketplace and being able to sell ads for creators, for smaller creators, so smaller creators can opt in and then they fill their inventory with ads automatically. You know Spotify could really take the reins and do that for on the audio ad side.

Speaker 3: 19:18

So the Spotify podcast ad network, like I see there's a huge amount of potential there because that's gap, that's in the industry that we have. You know that's an area that there's not a lot of other opportunities for that for creators. But I mean, on the video side, it's like you're so far behind where YouTube is, like why even try to become the new YouTube? I don't know, it just seems like there are other problems and gaps in the industry that they could be filling. For creators, and it would be much faster to be able to accelerate their growth if they were to fill those gaps rather than just chasing the you know what's popular now.

Speaker 2: 19:57

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things in there I agree with and a couple I probably disagree with. So the first thing I think is that Spotify had to go and find new revenue streams. I think you're right Conflating the two. Returning to profitability may have been through cuts, but I think they also know that if they're going to beat the market, they have to find new revenue streams I agree with that.

Speaker 3: 20:21

I I also would say their audiobooks have that. That pivot has been pretty successful, I think, for them.

Speaker 2: 20:26

You know, I think a lot of people are listening to audiobooks and, well, maybe not revenue wise yeah, I don know if the numbers to back that up, but, again, with the audiobook strategy, I believe that that was a separate revenue stream that they were bringing to the play Totally. That was different to the music revenue stream, and, again, they were hoping that podcasts the ad revenue stream would be another revenue stream. I think video is just another revenue stream, and I think video is just another revenue stream, and I think, like we talked about YouTube, live, james and I believe that Spotify will get into live in a big way, but I think live more with music concerts being able to go and see the Bruno Mars concert because it's sold out, but you can watch it online, or guess what you can watch? You know, the weekend I can't get to Canada, but I can watch them from the UK, right, so I think that could be a big marketplace.

Speaker 2: 21:13

One of the things I often say, though, is if you remove the music element from Spotify, would it make a good podcast platform? Would it be a standalone, good app? What do you think? No, no, exactly. I don't think it's a great client, right.

Speaker 2: 21:29

And that, I think, is their problem. I think they haven't got a good ui. I think they're stuck with their music ui that they've tried to adapt to a podcast, ui that they're trying to adapt to a video, ui. Um, I think it's too expensive in not well, it's not too expensive. They've got enough money, but it's too risky for them to do a complete ui change and I think they've bolted it. But I think the one thing they have to do is they have to try and go after these new revenue streams. I think they have to go after video.

Speaker 3: 21:58

I do agree with you. I don't agree that it needs to be video. I agree that they need to diversify their revenue streams. I think the chase to video is not. I think that's not how people consume things on Spotify. It's not how people think of Spotify. So I think that's not how people consume things on Spotify. It's how people think of Spotify. So I think it's too vast of a pivot for it's not considering user behavior and user consumption.

Speaker 3: 22:22

I think that when you were talking about the UI for podcasts, it's funny because I think actually Spotify had a lot of opportunities with podcasting to make that into something really great. Like Spotify became such a huge app for music because they have a lot of strengths that could then be applied to podcasting. You know, for example, spotify's algorithms and recommendation tools were far, far, far ahead of everybody else, at least back in the day maybe not so much nowadays, but back in the day and they were using AI for recommendations like far before everybody else. They were like way advanced on those things and that hasn't translated into podcasting. Like we don't see really great recommendations coming for podcast listening on Spotify's app. Actually, I think it's gone down in quality. I think it used to be even better than it is now. You used to get like pretty good recommendations on the podcast homepage on Spotify and I think it used to be even better than it is now. You used to get like pretty good recommendations on the podcast homepage on Spotify and I think it was human curated at one time and now it's now it's not.

Speaker 3: 23:18

I don't know, and I think it differs from country to country too. I think in the States it's better than it is in Canada probably, and probably better than it is in the UK. But why hasn't there been any kind of effort put into discoverability for podcasts on the Spotify app? Because that is something that they are known for and we're we're known to be very, very good at and it's a big problem in podcasting. Like, if you could solve that problem, you know, then you could, you could really make a case for why people should be using Spotify to listen to podcasts, but there's been no effort put into that. So I don't know. I I do agree with you on the diversifying thing. Like they did need to diversify. You can't just stick to music. I get that.

Speaker 2: 23:58

I'm not sure that that video is the way to do that necessarily I think the problem they've got is and I've said it on uh on news weekly with james on several occasions they have a pricey elasticity problem. There is a point, a snap point, at which the price for their subscription will become detrimental to renewal. So if I said to you, are you happy to pay 19.99, are you happy to pay 25.99, 35.99, 50 quid, right, there will be a point which you go, I'm not really that sure I want to pay that anymore. So I don't know where that point is. But because they're taking the video revenue that they give to creators out of that subscription model. If they are to give creators a greater revenue share, then they have to increase that price elasticity and their subscription costs. So I don't know what's going to happen.

Speaker 2: 24:49

And in that sense, the one thing that's missing from all the detail and data that they give us is how much do you pay? Is it a per minute watching payment? Is it a percentage completed payment? So if you watch a video, is it 10, 50? Do you have to watch 100 before a payment is made? We don't know. Know, for example, I think it's 30 seconds or more is considered a music play, and then that goes to their data mix right, and that's what forms part of the payment to musicians, but we don't know if that's true with podcasting. Yet we don't know Because they're not paying for the podcast, which would be lovely, but they're paying for the video element of the podcast, which would be lovely, but they're paying for the video element of the podcast. So it's very weird.

Speaker 2: 25:33

And I think also with YouTube, you know, they came out with this one billion plays and James and I looked at the numbers and John McDermott, a friend of the show, also looked at the numbers and there was a number of. We're not quite sure. That's quite good because it's. You know how long is a play before it gets registered? Is it a logged in, logged out play? So there's lots of things. Okay, look, annalise, given that you're not a betting lady, I'm assuming, but if you were a betting lady, would you say that spotify or youtube, by the end of 2025 is going to be the biggest player? Who's going to win?

Speaker 2: 26:05

I think it'll be youtube and is that your podcast client of choice yourself? That wouldn't be my choice.

Speaker 3: 26:12

No, Well, personally I use Pocket Casts. I like supporting a smaller podcast player. I have used Spotify in the past, particularly when they had gated podcasts. I did listen to a lot of Gimlet shows on Spotify back in the day. That was also when I paid for Spotify premium, so I was in there a lot more.

Speaker 2: 26:36

I don't pay for Spotify premium anymore so I don't use spotify basically at all.

Speaker 3: 26:38

I mean, you're not in your parents account like every other, every other young person my parents don't even pay for spotify, they use like google music or so I don't know right it doesn't exist anymore, something like that.

Speaker 3: 26:49

Um no, I use Tidal now, actually, which I chose them because they have a higher payout to creators, so that's why I switched to Tidal and it's the same price also, I would say, and it has the same music, and I didn't like the UI for listening to podcasts on Spotify anyways, so I didn't feel bad about leaving that behind. I did use Apple Podcasts for a long time as well and I liked Apple podcasts. I do like Apple podcasts. I like the homepage of Apple podcasts and that there's editorial recommendations on Apple and I actually find those to be much more they're human edited. I know Pocket Cast is similarly, there's a human doing the editorial decisions, but it's Apple, is country specific, so I find I get a lot more recommendations that are more specific to me in Apple, which I like. So I use Apple Podcasts on my desktop and I check it pretty regularly for new shows and that's how I discover a new podcast a lot of the time. But for day-to-day playing I use Pocket Casts, because I found Apple was really glitchy.

Speaker 2: 27:52

Okay, nice. Now look one of the other things that day-to-day playing, I use pocket casts because I found apple was really glitchy. Okay, nice. Now look one of the other things that you've been sharing and talking about is something called an attention diet. Now, I think that came from a friend of pacific ex-pacific, actually steven pratt, friend of the show. What is an attention diet and why do we need one?

Speaker 3: 28:11

Yeah, this was Steve's idea and the basic framework is he was recommending that we all think about our attention diet, sort of like you think about your, your food diet, your daily, you know food pyramid. What are you? What are you eating every day? Are you getting enough vegetables? Are you getting enough grains? Are you getting enough protein? So basically, the idea is he was recommending we think about the health of our attention diet. So do we have a healthy attention diet? Are we spending our time on things that are actually helping us to grow or are we, you know, mindlessly scrolling for hours on TikTok? I am very guilty of that, so I should probably try to build a healthier attention diet. So that was sort of the concept that he had. He was recommending, you know, we start tracking our consumption of, and where we're giving our attention to, and think about how we can turn that into something that might be a little bit more healthy for for us in terms of our consumption, the idea that we sort of took from that. So my colleague Hannah, who is head of audience development at Lower Street, she saw this article and really liked it and then had the idea to think about how we can apply this to our clients and their needs that they might have and think about it in the framework of like, what is our listeners attention diet?

Speaker 3: 29:22

So every time we go to launch a new project, we spend a good amount of time thinking about the listener profile of that we're trying to target. And that includes thinking about you know what are their habits, what are their. You know challenges that they might have Thinking about. You know what are their habits, what are their. You know challenges that they might have. Obviously, some demographic, any demographic insights we could pull, but a big piece of that puzzle that we need to start thinking about even more is what is their attention diet, what are they spending their time with already? And we do this a little bit already. We have done this in the past a little bit already when we think about what other podcasts are they listening to. So we would do like sort of a competitive analysis of you know what other podcasts are maybe targeting this audience, what? What are they spending their time listening to already?

Speaker 3: 30:05

And the goal there is to make something that is both unique but also familiar, so something that is going to be filling a gap in in the market If you just go to market with the same show that's already out there, then why would anybody pivot and switch to listen to your show? Right, it doesn't make sense. Um, but you also want to make something that feels familiar enough that they're going to want to click play. It's kind of like when we were talking about, you know, the YouTube strategy. If I'm making a show for 18 year old men, I'm probably going to make a video podcast, because I know that that's what they recognize as a podcast and so that can help us to figure out like a marketing strategy and develop a show altogether.

Speaker 3: 30:43

So, yeah, so we were already using that sort of mentality, but then applying this idea of an attention diet sort of broadens it even further, because then we're thinking about things like you know, are they spending a lot of time watching Netflix?

Speaker 3: 30:58

Is this a demographic that is still reading Forbes every day?

Speaker 3: 31:02

Is this a group of people who spends a lot of time listening to music and do they subscribe to a paid Spotify account?

Speaker 3: 31:10

All of those things are really helpful for thinking about, not just you know, what is the show that we're going to build, but also how can we get our podcast in front of this audience. You know, would it be helpful to have a feature in Forbes to promote the podcast? Um? Is that going to get in front of this audience? Is it helpful to you know, build a show that is easy to put on in the background on YouTube, on your TV? Um, because we know that this audience has their TV on. You know they there may be, like I know we used to. We always say like two screens, but I know now we're talking about like three screen audiences. Maybe they're like a three screen zoomer, and we want to have something that they can put on in the background on their TV. Those are, all you know, important things to consider when we're developing a show and figuring out how to market it. So, yeah, so that's how we've applied this idea of this attention diet to our our podcast process with our clients.

Speaker 2: 32:02

Nice, nice Now. You were in New York recently. You were on Airfest Um. What were your takeaways?

Speaker 3: 32:10

Um, so I think probably my big you know it's funny cause, like, after these conferences, people like to sort of get a gauge for, like, are things feeling positive or are things feeling negative in the industry? I would say that for once, I don't think I walked away feeling either way about it. If I'm totally honest, I got the impression that in New York City right now, people podcasting is not their priority. People have a lot of other things on their mind and are maybe a little checked out of podcasting right now. So that's the vibe in America that I was picking up on anyway In terms of conversations that I was having around podcasting, though I would say that, like I think that amongst people who work in the industry, there is a bit of a frustration with this constant push towards video.

Speaker 3: 33:03

That's not because people are not thinking about video or they're not willing to pivot to video or they're not willing to explore video or anything like that. There's a frustration that podcasting is becoming synonymous with a video talk show, because there is so many other formats that a podcast could take and it could be so much more creative and so much more interesting than that, and I think people are feeling sort of a lack of creativity in the industry right now and that's very frustrating. The other conversation that I was having a lot was around video clips and the value of video clips, and I would say like I think that there's sort of an understanding amongst most of the people that I spoke to that video clips are worth it. Because of what you said about you know, discoverability and the algorithm putting them in front of people who have never, who don't follow you, who have never been connected to you at all, who don't follow you or who never been connected to you at all. I think that there's a lot of value there and also, a lot of times, video clips don't necessarily lead to new downloads, but they serve sort of another purpose and that people can consume clips without ever going to listen to full length episodes of the podcast and that that's still valuable and that's still okay. Think, like, when I look at my own consumption, that's definitely the case, that that's still valuable and that's still okay.

Speaker 3: 34:17

I think like I, when I look at my own consumption, that's definitely the case, like there's a lot of podcasts where I love seeing their clips show up on my for you page.

Speaker 3: 34:24

I will never go listen to the full length episode of that podcast. It's just not the type of podcast that I would typically consume and I don't want to listen to like a whole two, three hour long episode of it. But I really love the clips and it introduced me to new creators and I still you know, I'm introduced to this world of the podcast Um, and I would follow them on social media. But like I'm not interested in listening to the full length episodes, I think there's a lot of value there still, and so if we only measure it in terms of like as a, as a discoverability tool or as a marketing tool, I don't know that clips have a whole lot of value in terms of that. I don't think that they necessarily generate a lot of downloads, but I still do think that they do hold a lot of value for creators and for brands and for podcasters. So that was another sort of takeaway, I guess, from from that time.

Speaker 2: 35:14

I think shorts do help with brand awareness because I think it's through osmosis over time. I think if you're repetition, repetition, repetition, you eventually get oh, maybe I'll click and listen. I don't think it's an immediate download return. I also think that you know in the world that we are. I think what you've said through the whole of this interview, which has been quite interesting, is discoverability is being a big issue and it still always is. I mean, james thinks I believe that there isn't a big discoverability issue. I think there is. That's where we differ and I think we're learning that shorts are a great way for a new customer discoverability, introduction to something through an algorithm. But I think we're seeing youtube's algorithm as another form of good discoverability and whether whether we can build community from the shorts leading to long form podcasts, leading to community, so repeatable customers. That's an interesting part and I think we're seeing a bigger push towards people talk about community. We talk about fandoms, we talk about monetization of fandoms and how that can happen now. So I think that's where I think we are in 25. And I think I find Spotify may be in the squeezed middle. I think they could be the squeezed middle, which is they're not YouTube and they're not really video, but they're not really shorts. As we said, they didn't really have a TikTok strategy that worked.

Speaker 2: 36:44

I think, as you said, purpose of Spotify for most users is music, not podcasting. For some reason, there isn't. I think there was supposed to be an easy transition between if you talk about the attention diet I'm listening to music, I'm now going to switch over to my podcast. I'm now going to go back to my audio book. Now I'm going to go and watch a live event, if they did that. Now I'm going to do something else and staying within the garden wall of Spotify.

Speaker 2: 37:07

But I don't feel that that's happening. I do feel that Apple is missing in action. I just feel that they're just lost. I have no idea what Apple is doing. Hello Apple, 164,000 of you. I don't know what you're all doing, but someone wake up the donut because no one's at home. I really don't know what Apple's doing and they hate me for saying that, but generally I just believe they're missing every opportunity and I don't know what they're doing. But okay, look the last part I wanted to cover. It's international women in podcasting, right, and what does that mean? What does that mean for you as a woman. What does that mean for us as an industry? Where do men fit within that conversation?

Speaker 3: 37:50

So let me go back to one of the points that you made. That was around discoverability, that you said that you think that there is a problem and James said that there isn't, and I think I agree with you that I do think discoverability is a problem. I think it's always been a problem in podcasting and we haven't solved that problem yet, but I think that it used to be the case that discoverability was the issue and that if people took a little extra time to dig, you could find really, really amazing, great content. I'm not saying that that's not true today. I know that there's a lot of amazing podcasts being made, but I think that we are slipping into a space where there is also a content problem. The quality of the content that I'm seeing come out today it's not the same as it was five years ago. It's just not. We've seen like huge budget cuts. We've seen pivots towards quantity over quality, really because there's an understanding that if I can just throw a bunch of ad markers into this podcast and pump out content every other day, that I'm going to make more money than I would if I were to invest in quality content that got a lot more downloads over a much fewer episodes and I think that, like when I I talk to, when I have friends, that friends reach out all the time and are like what are you listening to? What should I listen to? I don't have recommendations like I used to have for them. So I think that there's a real risk in that and I bring this up now because I think with that has sort of come there's there's a huge diversity problem in podcasting. That it's always been there again, but it is getting much worse. And being in New York, I think that was really highlighted for me.

Speaker 3: 39:23

I think there are definitely on the gender side of things. Podcasting has always been much more male dominated, you know there was it sort of started as like a tech product and it was definitely gated and very difficult to get into if you were a woman. Back, even when I started getting into podcasting about 10 years ago, it was very hard to find anybody who would help me to learn in the space as a woman. There wasn't a lot of welcome spaces for me. There was a lot of jargon that was being thrown around without any sort of, you know, attempt to sort of let me into that space, and it took a lot of persistence to really push through it, to even figure out how to set up an RSS feed, frankly, which is crazy back then. So you know, I think there's always been that sort of as a through line in podcasting and that's something we should be working towards fixing for sure. I think we've come a long way. I think podcasting has gotten a lot more accessible for women.

Speaker 3: 40:27

But if we zoom out beyond just our industry and see how people perceive us, they perceive podcasting as being a space for for white dudes sitting around a microphone right, that's what podcasting is to a lot of people. That's, that's problematic. And I would say, like, beyond women, like there is a huge lack of people of color who are on microphones right now and podcasting and it's. It's alarming to me, like at On Air Fest, I really felt that I'm not. This isn't a dig. At On Air Fest, it's just's just. You know, looking around the room, um, it's gotten worse, we're going in the wrong direction.

Speaker 3: 41:02

I would say, um, and that is alarming. And I think again, I think that comes with the lack of budgets, um, huge budget cuts, unfortunately. You end up with women and people of color. Their shows get cut from those budgets. So, yeah, I think that's part of the problem. I also I would say, like, as I'm saying this, I think that there's a little bit of a misconception too, that you know, when you have the people in charge be primarily white men who are making these decisions, they view podcasts that are hosted by women and are about women's issues as being niche or like not scalable, and that's why they get cut early on or they never get made in the first place, and that's just not the case at all. So, yeah, I think there's also probably a little bit of that happening.

Speaker 2: 41:51

I think budgets has a role to play. I think the market opportunity, as you said, for the female-led podcasts or people of color podcasts. But there are more women than men in the world. That that is.

Speaker 3: 42:05

That is a known fact also, women make all of the purchasing decisions for their families, but women are the primary consumers. So if we're talking about like potential for revenue, I mean, for god's sakes, how many brands are targeting women primarily, especially millennial women, uh, who are taking care of their children and their parents at this stage? They're the sandwich generation and they're making all of the purchasing decisions for not just themselves, but for their children and for their parents. So when you talk about who is most monetizable, it's women as consumers. So it's a huge missed opportunity from a revenue perspective.

Speaker 2: 42:40

And also podcasts are wonderful for multitasking, right. So the audio podcast capability look, I'm doing the shopping, I'm at the gym, I'm picking up the kids, I'm whatever they may be and I don't mean to be stereotypical on my way to work as well, right? So let's not just say it's those roles, but those are opportunity times where audio in the ear works very well, where video does not work very well because you haven't got the time to sit and watch. I think the other thing, though and again I think it's a gender thing that I've observed, I mean in my time, you know, as a young boy, a boy will put his hand up in class when a girl won't. A young boy will climb that tree. When a girl won't, or is not won't, is told not to even right, let alone won't. So my daughter will tell me well, you know, I wanted to climb the tree, but I was told not to climb the tree because I'm a girl, and so those things happen. So I wonder whether sitting behind a mic is that typical male bravado. Yeah, I'll just do it. I don't know if I'm good or bad, I don't really care, I have no issue, whereas the female podcaster may think more carefully about that I do know. For example, men will go for jobs when they're underqualified and qualify into the job, whereas women will wait till they're overqualified for a job before they take it as an example. So I don't know if those stereotypes play into podcasting.

Speaker 2: 44:06

I think video plays worse into it because, again, the expectation on the female is to be made up to have, you know, her makeup, her hair and everything else done. I could rock up half bearded and nobody would probably care, right? So, although I'd like to point out to those people who can't see, I am fully clean shaven today, just in case. But I think those, those are the things. And then again, you know it's difficult, but does International Women's Day, going back to the question, does that help raise the bar? Do you find that you're getting more female voices now because of the awareness? Because it's been going for a few years now, it's not just this year. So do you think, from the conversations you might have had with some of your friends, that it's been a positive thing?

Speaker 3: 44:56

Big question I think all of your points I totally agree with. I don't know, I mean, I don't think it's a bad thing. Big question I think all of your points are I totally agree with. I don't know, I mean, I don't think it's a bad thing.

Speaker 2: 45:04

No, no, it's not a bad thing. Look, raising the awareness is not a bad thing. But my, my question is look, we can talk about black lives matter, and I think black lives matter doesn't make any difference, Right?

Speaker 3: 45:44

I just don't. I think, at the end of the day, you can have DEI, black Lives Matter and many other initiatives and I don't. I don't know that it makes a huge difference, but at the same time, it is one time a year where you do have to like. For example, I was putting together a playlist of podcasts that we one of the blog posts I wrote recently was like podcasts that we want to recommend to our clients that they listen to. We want to recommend to our clients that they listen to. In putting together that list, because of some of these initiatives like DEI and like you know, because we have these conversations about, you know, why don't we have enough women in power, why don't we have enough people of color in positions of power. Because of that I'm I'm hyper aware of like. I don't want to put together a list of a bunch of white dudes talking. I'd like a list that has a little bit more diversity, that represents and also that represents more than just my listening right Like that represents podcasts that are targeted towards other people as well and might not be made for me specifically, but in making that list, it was really hard to find podcasts that are made by non-white people Harder than I would say it ever has been. My listening has gotten like far less diverse than it used to be.

Speaker 3: 46:45

Um, and and I think having that awareness is like kind of the first step to fixing the problem like I don't know how, unless you're aware of that and you're thinking about those things, are you making efforts to sort of fix it? Because, like, as you said, because so often it is the boys that are the first to jump in and the first to sort of like volunteer to be the hosts, and it might take a little extra work to find a woman who is, has the confidence to step up to the mic and wants to do that and wants to take on that role. And it might take a little. You know, maybe you have to take a chance on somebody who has a little less experience, or maybe you have to, you know, do a little extra training to make that happen. And if you don't, if you weren't aware of these things, if you weren't like seeking it out actively, then how do you fix it? You know, like I just feel like we'll just fall back into the same cycles over and over again.

Speaker 3: 47:36

So I know what you mean and I don't totally disagree with you. Like I, you know International Women's Day kind of comes around every year and like I agree that I don't see it making a huge difference. Like a lot of it is sort of like silly corporate bullshit. Frankly, that's like not actually moving the needle. But at the same time, if it does, kind of if trying to put together your list for International Women's Day of inspiring women that you're going to post on LinkedIn just to get some likes and show that you're, you know, holier than thou because you care about women. If, in putting together that list, you realize that it's really hard to find women to highlight because there aren't enough in these positions or you don't have enough in your company, maybe that's a wake up call that you need to then actively try to fix that, you know.

Speaker 2: 48:25

Yeah, Maybe it's an awareness day Just to bring that awareness to light to the conversation. Annalise, I think we could talk lots more, but I think the time will go on and James will be editing this very heavily. Anyway, Look, thank you so much. Thank you for your insights into the thoughts on YouTube, Spotify, short form branded content, lots that we covered, so thank you very much. Now are you going to be at Chicago for podcast movement? Are you going to be in London for the London podcast show? Where can people find you?

Speaker 3: 49:00

So I would love to be at both of those, those, but actually I am heading off on maternity leave as a congratulations. So thank you very much. So, yeah, I will be on a bit of a break from about a year, but I will be back in full swing again 2026.

Speaker 2: 49:15

So yeah, well, look congratulations and look when you come back. I look forward to meeting up with you. Thanks a lot.