Jason Carter: 0:00

The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters. Use a modern podcast app to skip between stories, or be brave and listen to the whole thing. You can do it.

Announcer: 0:09

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

Sam Sethi: 0:17

I'm.

Sam Sethi: 0:17

James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.

Jason Carter: 0:22

It kind of feels this year people know it's here to stay and people have experienced it.

Sam Sethi: 0:28

Jason Carter from the podcast show London on what to expect this year.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 0:33

We want to be the best partner in the country for podcasters.

Sam Sethi: 0:36

Ruth Fitzsimons from Bower on what Bower are doing in Ireland. Plus, podx acquires Lemonada. It's been a taxing week for Apple and Spotify adds PlayCounts. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout, with the tools, support and community to ensure you keep podcasting, start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom.

Announcer: 0:59

From your daily newsletter the Pod News Weekly Review. From your daily newsletter, the.

Sam Sethi: 1:04

Pod News Weekly Review. Right, James, this is going to be a seismic week, I think. I genuinely think. Some of the announcements this week are quite substantial, but let's kick off with Spotify at a play counter. Go on then.

Sam Sethi: 1:20

James. What's the play counter? Now, this is really interesting. So some people have been viewing this as being the world is falling in and this is the worst thing that Spotify could ever do. Other people are going they're just doing what YouTube does and we're all cool with YouTube, so you know how. Youtube has a plays counter. So when you're watching a piece of video, then you know that you know 24,000 people have seen it before you. Well, spotify is going to do exactly the same thing in the Spotify app for podcasts, so this show will have a play counter. May even have one. Now, who knows, it'll probably say three, no no, I've got my grandma to listen.

Sam Sethi: 1:59

We're okay, that's four.

Sam Sethi: 2:01

There you go. I would have thought that she'd be listening on True Fans, but anyway.

Sam Sethi: 2:09

She hates me. So they are adding a play count, and some podcasters have said how dreadful you are sharing our private information, which is the amount of plays. As you know, I've always been talking about how we should be as open as possible with that, and we should just be talking about plays and how much plays we get, which is why the numbers for this show are public, because I think that that's the right thing, but there are some podcasters who think that that's a bad plan. The other side of it, though, is what's a play? What do you think a play?

Sam Sethi: 2:45

is Sam. It's a made-up number by Spotify and YouTube to increase the amount of play counts. Yes, correct.

Sam Sethi: 2:55

It literally is a made-up number. I asked them as soon as they made the announcement. I said so, what's the definition of a play? And they came back with some flowery words and I said, yes, thanks, but what's the definition of a play? And they gave me nothing. The following day, dan Meisner and I thought that we had worked out what a play actually was by looking at some of the code in the Spotify website, and so we went back to Spotify and we said okay, so a play is this then is it? And Spotify actually turned around and said no, it's not actually that, and we're still not going to tell you what it is.

Sam Sethi: 3:38

Well, it is that, but bugger off and stop being a pig.

Sam Sethi: 3:41

No, I mean, it really wasn't. They've just reused something on their website. So yeah, so it was very odd. The only thing that they have told us is that it is a measure of intentional engagement, which is about as far as they went. Um, I got a statement from them um on Thursday, which um said that um, it it's intended to capture user intent, it uses a number of proprietary signals and that's it, um so, yes, so we don't know what plays are.

Sam Sethi: 4:19

Bullshit. Well, so we don't know what plays are and on the other side, um, uh, we should probably not forget that YouTube, you know, a play is in YouTube Again, it's totally made up. It's um, it's something that YouTube has never in all of YouTube's history actually um, given a definition of what a play is there. So we're in a position where we've got IAB figures out there which Spotify is you know ignoring and instead we've got this thing called a play and nobody really knows who it is. But on the other side, at least we now have a, you would assume, relatively consistent way of comparing different shows on Spotify, because they'll all be working out the play number in exactly the same way.

Sam Sethi: 5:13

Yeah, but what if I hit start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. Is that a play every time?

Sam Sethi: 5:17

Well, we don't know. We don't know on Spotify is the quick answer. The one thing that Spotify did tell me is that they've been pretty careful to make sure that you can't game it, so they've presumably built something in there. I mean, if I was Spotify, just work it. Work a play out in terms of a logged in user, because that's the easiest way to avoid people gaming it, because who's who's going to sit there and log into different users all the time, um? But so they say it's going to be. You know, um, you won't be able to game the uh system, but that's pretty well all that. We know. Good or bad, you think, sam uh?

Sam Sethi: 5:56

mixed. Actually, I think, good in the sense that, yes, it's more data, it's more information. People who don't want their play count revealed generally are not getting high engagement anyway, and then they've relied on that false number of downloads to basically say that they've got a very high-rated show. We always say and Dan Meisner says it very well a download is not a listen and you know. So, yeah, yeah, people who don't like it are going to be those that don't want it revealed, and those that are getting high play counts anyway won't care. So, on that sense, I think it's good. On the bad, if we haven't got a universal metric, as we've just described, and we have no way of knowing how to measure a play, then we can't measure the other parts that are important listen time, percent completed unless they're already in the Spotify dashboard.

Sam Sethi: 6:51

Yeah, now those are in the Spotify dashboard, which is interesting, and they are also keeping streams, which is the 60 second or over number. They're keeping that for monetization, so that doesn't end up changing. But yes, I mean, I guess on the other side, truefans has a play count as well, doesn't it? We do? How do you calculate that then? So okay, is it a proprietary system?

Sam Sethi: 7:17

No, it's a very open system. It's physically you start hit, play and then you stop hit, play, play, and then we basically work out within a session. Um, so if you then do start, stop, start, stop, we don't count that as multiple plays. We know that you're in that session. Um, it's when we submit activity. Um, yeah, when you finish playing and you start to play the next podcast episode.

Sam Sethi: 7:42

Oh, that makes, that makes sense, doesn't?

Sam Sethi: 7:43

it. Yes, and that's how we do ours, yeah.

Sam Sethi: 7:46

Yeah, nice, and is there a minimum 60-second thing?

Sam Sethi: 7:52

No, we have. Three minutes is a play. We don't do 60 seconds, and so, for example, with ratings and reviews, it's a similar thing. You have to have listened to 10% of the episode length before we allow you to do a rating or review nice, nice, well, well, there we are.

Sam Sethi: 8:12

Um so, uh, yes, so all of that was very exciting at starts are going away. Uh, is my understanding. And um, yes, that's basically all of that. They've also made a number of other content announcements. They're going to be on samsung tvs. That's basically all of that. They've also made a number of other content announcements. They're going to be on Samsung TVs. That's exciting, isn't it? You know they're doing more things to do with apps and blah, blah, blah, but yeah, that's the big exciting thing. I'm looking forward to seeing those play numbers appearing for this show and for other shows as well. I suspect that they may be quite revealing.

Sam Sethi: 8:48

They will be, but once people have worked out how to game it and they will they will game it. They will work out a way to increase their play count, if that's important to people. Eventually, anyway, good luck Spotify. Um, actually genuinely good luck, because I think, look, if they're going to give you more data, let's not decry it, even if we don't think it's valid data right now. But it's a starting point and I think you know better to have something rather than nothing yeah, no, I, I agree and I've.

Sam Sethi: 9:21

I've always always been interested in open data, and OP3 is a great way to publish your data, make it visible, and I think that's a great plan. So go away and do that. As long as, obviously, you know Google isn't doing weird things with your feed and giving you millions of people in Malaysia, then it all makes sense.

Sam Sethi: 9:43

Your play count is through the roof Now. Podx, the company that likes to acquire other companies, has acquired Limonada Media James for $30 million. Now, two things in that. First of all, wow, it's acquired Limonada Media and moved into the US. But they don't often give the amount that they've used in the acquisition either.

Sam Sethi: 10:09

No, that is interesting. So the $30 million has come from Bloomberg, so that's Ashley Carman's excellent reporting all over again. It certainly wasn't in the press release that they gave, so I'm imagining that that's what they tipped, Ashley. But yeah, I mean that is a big deal from a big European podcasting powerhouse. You know, as it really is now swooping in and snapping up a majority stake in Lemonada Media. I think that that's really interesting.

Sam Sethi: 10:50

I do think that they're going to acquire more. So my question to you, james, is who next? They won't have just one company in the US, right? That's a crazy strategy, so there must be other companies in play. Now who?

Sam Sethi: 11:04

would you guess? Oh gosh, I wouldn't have the faintest idea. I mean, I know that Odyssey are talking about can they get some buyers for some of their podcast properties? So maybe there's something there. But I mean, there are lots and lots of great US companies. But if there's one thing that I've learned from following PodX and you know and you have as well for a long time is that actually, you know they are a really interesting company because they make really big purchases. You know, buying Listen, buying Platform Media in the UK. Those were two big old companies, so they don't do things by halves, were two big old companies, so they don't do things by halves. And I saw some disparaging comment on the internet about well, how is PodX funding this? Is it just more debt and everything else? They've not seen how PodX works. It's all being funded by a very large venture capitalist. You know organisation and yeah, they've got the money for this sort of thing. So no fascinating, I think.

Sam Sethi: 12:11

So the company I think they might buy is Pave. That is my thought. Ah yes, interesting. I think the CEO of Pave his name escapes me for a minute Max Cutler.

Sam Sethi: 12:25

I think he's very good at building and selling rapidly yes, well, he is coming to podcast show london and I'm sure that the podx people will be. In fact, I know that the podx people, all of the products companies, are coming to podcast show london. So, um, let let the rumorsours commence. Yes.

Sam Sethi: 12:45

If anyone sees Max talking to Patrick from PodX, we know the answer. Now the thing when I look at something like a PodX and you go, okay, acquisition, acquisition. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. What is the exit strategy? Is it an IPO? I can't see it as a trade sale. I can't see an Amazon buying them, I can't see an Apple buying them. So I'm not quite sure what they're acquiring it for, because those investors in Sweden, as lovely as they are, are not doing it for love or money. Well, sorry, they are doing it for money. They're not doing it for love. So, fundamentally, they want a return, and I can only think of an IPO as a return on this, unless you have a different idea.

Sam Sethi: 13:31

Yes, I, I, I, uh, yeah, I don't know, is the quick answer, Um, I mean, you know, you, they could be playing the long game, um, because you know, uh, and so actually just making sure that all of these companies are lean, are working with a very low cost and so therefore can just get more content out and earn more money that way. So that's what they could be doing, but yeah, who knows?

Sam Sethi: 13:59

Or Netflix could buy them.

Sam Sethi: 14:01

That would be interesting.

Sam Sethi: 14:02

Oh, it would indeed. Yeah, in Web 1.0, I worked for a company called CMGI out of Boston and they bought AltaVista to Rome Navier. They bought 60 companies same model and then IPO'd, made an absolute killing, yeah. And then in the dot-com crash, they actually made a massive fall. But anyway it worked for them. Ah, altavista, there's a, but anyway it worked for them. Ah, alta Vista. Yes, now it's been a taxing week for Apple. Are they cooked, james? Are they cooked?

Sam Sethi: 14:35

Hey, I see what you did there Well, so this is important for podcasting. First of all, what we're going to talk about, because podcasting needs money that doesn't necessarily come from advertising and, as we'll talk about later, there is a lot of money in podcasting which isn't just ad dollars, and so conversations around Apple's app tax Apple's 30% tax that they give on developers is a very important thing for podcasting. So what has actually gone on over the last week?

Sam Sethi: 15:14

Well, from what I can read, apple basically lost one element of the case. They won nine elements against Epic, but the one element's the main one, which it allows app developers to now point externally to a website where you can complete the transaction. So, spotify, jesus, they were quick off the mark. They must have had that in the old dev box waiting to get out and go, because I think it was Wednesday that the court case was announced. Thursday they put it into the app store Friday. It was Wednesday that the court case was announced. Thursday they put it into the App Store. Friday it was available. So what they can do now is say, yes, you can change your subscription or do other things like audio books or buy a subscription.

Sam Sethi: 15:56

Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 15:57

Or audio book payments, and they can now put the website that Spotify will take the transaction on and pay zero to Apple, which is amazing.

Sam Sethi: 16:06

Yes, um, no, I, I, I saw that and that that was uh, that was amazing.

Sam Sethi: 16:12

I think the other company that is apparently moving quite fast is Patreon, um, which, which, uh, you know again, that is great news for the podcasting world, because there is a lot of money from Patreon into podcasting.

Sam Sethi: 16:29

So, yeah, I mean, I found all of that really interesting. Now, we should say it's only in the US, so Spotify still can't, in any other country in the world, link to their website for a way of purchasing a Spotify subscription, because, typical Apple, they're doing a bit of malicious compliance here. They are allowing it in the US, but the US only, and so therefore, if you're in Canada, as I am today, you still won't be able to do that. So it's quite interesting on that side. Of course, the EU is going to take a keen interest, and there must come a point where Apple is going to turn around and say, well, we can't allow it in the European Union, but then not in Canada and not in the UK, but yes, in the US. And you can imagine that it's just going to be a game, you know, for them, and at some point they'll just have to, you know, open it up to everybody, and of course, they've filed a notice of appeal as well, which is interesting too.

Sam Sethi: 17:39

Yeah, I mean they had to do that, I guess. But the judge has said they have no grounds for the appeal because it was a judgment and they failed to adhere to the judgment. There's no appeal. The original ruling is final, that's it. So why they're appealing the judgment, I have no idea.

Sam Sethi: 18:00

And something that you've also spotted is that Amazon have been quick off the mark as well in terms of their app. The Amazon Kindle app now actually allows you to buy books, not just read them, which, of course, you know if you're a consumer. It must have been really weird. You go into Amazon Kindle In fact, I remember doing this going into the Amazon Kindle app and you're going OK, well, I'd like to buy a book, where do I buy a book? And it turns out that you can't.

Sam Sethi: 18:27

No, you had to preload, you had to buy it outside. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so what a mess. I think the CEO of Basecamp, david Hanson, said it beautifully. Cook should have listened to Schiller. Give this one up, apple. By doubling, tripling or quadrupling down on this malfeasance to save a few marginal dollars, you're torching your reputation and possibly their contempt case. Crazy Cook has to go.

Sam Sethi: 18:56

Yes, and he would not be the only person asking for Tim Cook to retire. Tim Cook to retire John Gruber. As I think we mentioned last week, john Gruber wrote a very negative post, essentially intimating not saying it out loud, but essentially intimating that maybe now's the time for Tim to say thank you very much, it's been fun and to go and to give the bat over to Phil Schiller, who appears to be the only one at Apple that actually looked at this and thought that the right and said what the right thing to do was. So, yeah, it's difficult times for Tim Cook and, to be fair, difficult times for Apple as a whole. They seem to be missing all kinds of things right now. So it's, yeah, it's very hard for them.

Sam Sethi: 19:51

Well, to make matters worse, there's now a class action lawsuit been brought by Pure Sweat Basketball, but many other developers have joined that class action. They've said that, basically, pure Sweat would have been able to sell subscriptions to apps directly to its customers had Apple adhered to the ruling originally.

Sam Sethi: 20:11

Oh, okay, Right, yes, that makes sense. So it's basically you know, you owe us Apple because we should have earned more money than we did. Yeah, Well, that's going to be interesting.

Sam Sethi: 20:24

Watch this space in terms of that, oh it gets worse, james, the US Congress has now brought forward a new bill that will force Apple to allow third-party app stores. It's called the App Store Freedom Act and that was introduced this Tuesday, and it requires large app store operators like Apple to let users install third-party app stores, but also to make them the default app store. It's a copy of the European ruling, but the US are now doing this to Apple. So 1-800-TRUMP, I think is a number you're looking for. Tim Trump, I think is a number you're looking for Tim.

Sam Sethi: 21:05

Yes, I'm sure that Tim is sitting, you know, in his palatial palace and going. I thought I spent $1 million for that man, Not quite sure why he sounds like that. No, I don't think he's a sophomore.

Sam Sethi: 21:24

I think I am. So, yes, yeah. So I think Apple, you know, if they should follow what Phil Schiller was saying, they should cut their losses here. They should allow third-party apps like podcast apps would be great if they can be the default podcast app they should add to home screen. Change that, they, you know. I think there's so many things they could do to be the good guy and get people back on board. Embrace podcasting 2.0 fully. Become that champion against spotify. Enable apple pay to use micro payments, not not bitcoin sats, but smaller denominations of fiat currency. There are so many things they could do and they're failing to do all of them, I'm afraid.

Sam Sethi: 22:04

Now you say that Tim Cook isn't a Southerner. He was born in Mobile in Alabama. Well, there you go. What do I know then? So maybe that was the right accent.

Sam Sethi: 22:17

Every American has just cringed. I mean, we cringe when they do. Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke, oh my God, yes. All right, ladies and gents.

Jason Carter: 22:27

Comical poem suitable for the occasion, extemporised and thought up before your very eyes. All right, here we go.

Sam Sethi: 22:35

I mean, all joking aside, it's interesting times for the big tech companies, because you've got Apple having all of these problems with. You know essentially the part of their business which is doing the best right now, which is Apple services, which, by the way, apple podcast is part of. You have Google, which is also under an awful lot of pressure right now to sell Google Chrome and to sort of pass that off to another part of the industry somehow, to another part of the industry somehow, and so it's essentially the big breakup of the two big companies, the two big internet companies that are out there. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens there, but bad things potentially on the horizon for both Apple and for Google.

Sam Sethi: 23:24

Well, it got worse for Google because Phil Schiller in the court case said that they are looking at replacing Google which is one of the requirements from the court case as the default search engine the 20 billion that they get every year with an AI search. On the back of that, google share price dropped and they lost $1.5 billion just on that one statement.

Sam Sethi: 23:49

And I would say, by the way, if you've ever tried to change the default search engine that your phone uses, you actually can't change it to a search engine of your choice. On the iPhone, it gives you a choice of five. I think there are rules about how that choice of five exists, but there's something I think DuckDuckGo is one of them, ecosia is another one. There are a few others, but if you want to change it, for example, to the one that I use, which is a paid search engine called Cargill, which is brilliant, which is a paid search engine called Cargill, which is brilliant, then you actually can't change your default search. Weirdly, on Android phones you can, you have total control, but on Apple phones you don't. And who's the search company? Oh, it's Google, which runs Android. So, yeah, so it's. I mean any more consumer choice there is, I think, a good thing.

Sam Sethi: 24:55

If I'd paid 20 billion, I wouldn't want it to be changed either. Now, last bit's a couple of bad news, sadly for Apple. Last week in London they had a 500 million court case against them. So Optus, which is in the US, won their court case in London for their 4G patents. Apple are having to pay them in one lump sum, $502 million, and I thought, okay, should I mention that? But it happens to be the largest patent damages award in UK history. So that was last week as well. On the back of that, so well done. And then Tim came out and said also because of Trump's tariffs, they've got a $900 million cost based on the Trump tariff as well. Well done.

Sam Sethi: 25:39

Yes, those tariffs are going to be difficult for Apple. And of course you've got the additional tariffs which have been announced in terms of movie making. Now, why would that be interesting to Apple? Well, of course you've got Apple TV+, which Apple also has, and if, all of a sudden, foreign content foreign to the US content costs them twice as much to purchase, foreign content, foreign to the US content costs them twice as much to purchase, then that's going to be an issue too.

Sam Sethi: 26:11

I mean, I have to say it would be an excellent schadenfreude to see Apple being, you know, having issues with patents, given that I went to Apple in, I think, 2005, maybe 2006. And I went to explain a new piece of open technology that I had put together, and they took lots of notes. And then one of the people in the meeting submitted a patent three months later for the very thing that I and a colleague had worked on. Later, for the very thing that I and a colleague had worked on, and it was a patent for the technology that I and a colleague had actually worked on. So Apple stole a technology from us. Now, I mean, that hasn't stopped that tech from being used, because I don't think that Apple quite have the balls to go and chase for patent infringement. But gosh, you know that is a company with some weird ethics around patents, so I'm delighted to see some of those weird ethics backfiring on them, so hurrah.

Sam Sethi: 27:21

Yes, there is even rumours that bing are trying to replace google as the ai enhanced search engine. Not seeing that one happening myself. So, moving on, james, that's a little bit about spotify. Hopefully no more about spotify. Um, moving up. Uh, youtube has some new pricing now. We've talked about youtube premium Lite being available in the US, which I thought was a very aggressive stance from YouTube $7.99 for podcasts, ad-free and music, which I thought wow. Spotify is going to have to react. Well, youtube's now come out with another premium version meant for two people. They're testing it in India, france, taiwan and Hong Kong, but they do expect to put that into the US market as well and they are really going to go for multiple different price points that are going to target Spotify.

Sam Sethi: 28:15

Yes, it's very interesting. I mean, I do think that YouTube music is a big old thing, and I don't think that people have fully grasped how much of a competitor it is to Spotify, particularly since, actually, google doesn't necessarily need to make any profit out of it. You know either, there has been a thing called Spotify Duo, which has existed for a long, long time, which is a discounted plan for two people who live together, and so this is their equivalent of Spotify Duo for pairs of people, and they're testing it currently. So, yeah, you know, I mean, it's just another way of getting some new people signing up that aren't necessarily signing up already.

Sam Sethi: 29:07

We talked about it last week that Spotify have increased their subscription pricing in Europe. They haven't done it in the US market, but I think I've talked about I don't know how much more they can increase the price before people go. Enough is enough. Well, deloitte came out with a survey this week which said that 60% of the respondents in their survey said they would cancel their favorite streaming service if the price, if the price, is raised by an additional five dollars per month.

Sam Sethi: 29:36

So that's the basic elasticity level five more dollars and people are going to start to say no, enough's enough yes, and you know I mean we have added um, I think we added max uh last week, and so one of the ways that I made sure that we could afford max, as well as all of the other services that we have, is I went around some of the other services. We've got a service called binge uh here in australia and I I worked out that there was a lower price that we could get onto there, which has sort of offset the cost of Macs a little bit, and I'm sure that many other people will just be going through and going. How can I save money? For example, how can I save money on my Spotify family account? Well, maybe I'll just use Spotify Duo, because you know there are only two people who use it. So, yeah, I think it's certainly something that we will see more of, particularly assuming that we go into some form of a global recession, which is probably quite likely, then that's certainly something to bear in mind.

Sam Sethi: 30:39

Yeah, my 25-year-old daughter's moving out this weekend. Maybe I should go to Spotify, jira, don't think she'll love me if I did that.

Sam Sethi: 30:48

Well, she has to live in the same, in the same space to get a part of a Spotify family.

Sam Sethi: 30:53

Oh no, they don't Cause my other one's at university. No, well, she's at university and still has my family account.

Sam Sethi: 31:01

So well, there you go there you go Now podcasting.

Sam Sethi: 31:06

we always wonder how big it is. Now We've seen the $2 billion US ad market being increased, I think, to $2.4 billion now being estimated. Somebody's come up with a really crazy global number, james. Why and how?

Sam Sethi: 31:21

Yes, and it's an interesting. So, firstly, it's been put together by Hernan Lopez. Now, hernan was the co-founder of Wondery and so knows a thing or two about podcasting. You would think that was certainly some of the people who've put this together. But the point of that $2.4 billion number is that $2.4 billion is only for the US and only for ad revenue, and podcasting earns money from other ways as well. It earns money from consumer revenue, it earns money from video. It earns money from a bunch of other places, and there are actually other countries apart from the US, which I know may come as a surprise, but yeah. So this data looks at the global podcast industry and also includes things like consumer revenue, so that's things like Patreon, as well as subscription revenue and all of that and they have come up with $7.3 billion as a grand total of what the industry is worth, and when you dive into it, the US is two thirds of that, earning $4.7 billion.

Sam Sethi: 32:45

Now you might be thinking, well, hang on a minute. The IB said it was 2.4. Well, yes, they did, but it was only 2.4 in terms of ad revenue, not 2.4 in terms of all of the other stuff in there as well. So, yeah, it was a really nice figure to see. I looked at the numbers and I thought actually these make sense to me, and the way that they have been explained in the presentation which you can download, I thought was really clear as well. So it's great to see finally something that actually points out that podcasting is a global market, not just a US market, and good to see an overall view of that. As I'm there talking to you, of course, I've suddenly realised why Hanan's new company is called Owl Co. Because, of course, wondery used to have an owl as a mascot. Oh, OK.

Sam Sethi: 33:38

I've just suddenly realised that that's very clever. Well done, Hanan. That's a clever thing.

Sam Sethi: 33:42

Nothing to do with twit-twahoo, then? Okay, fine. Now talking about the US market whizzing around the world, President Trump has signed one of his executive orders. I don't know if he thinks he's a king, but he's aimed this at NPR and PBS. What's he doing, James?

Sam Sethi: 34:02

Yes, he is trying to eliminate federal funding for NPR and for PBS. What's he doing, James? Yes, he is trying to eliminate federal funding for NPR and for PBS. Now, public funding for radio and TV costs the American taxpayer $1.60 a year, so it's not an awful lot. So he's not saving himself an awful lot by doing that, but he's clearly trying to defund as much as he possibly can. Anything that he doesn't fully understand he's trying to defund, and that's quite a lot of things. So, yes, we've obviously seen a talk about defunding the CBC here in Canada. We've talked about defunding the BBC as well in the UK, which are all very interesting ideas but very bad for everybody. So let's hope that none of that happens. But, yes, the defunding of NPR and PBS is quite a concern, to be honest.

Sam Sethi: 35:03

Yeah, it's often authoritarian right-wing leaders who tend to. We've seen it in Turkey, russia, north Korea.

Sam Sethi: 35:11

So it's a shame that America isn't looking to keep its open free radio, yes, and they have lost a court case around Voice of America and they're having to start broadcasting that again and that might sound as if that's a win, but the problem is that when Voice of America went off air a month or so ago, then all of their frequencies fell silent and the Chinese and the Russians have jumped onto those frequencies. So actually VOA can't get back uh in some of the places where they were, um, because the, the transmitter operators, have signed a new contract with uh, either China Radio International or with uh, sputnik, the Russian folk Um, so, um, yeah, you know, there's some great amount of damage. That's uh, that's uh happened there.

Sam Sethi: 36:02

So, um, yeah, Staying in the US. Then Edison Research released the top 50. Anything new in there, James?

Sam Sethi: 36:10

I mean there's a debut, rotten Mango, which made its debut in the top 10. And, interesting as well, the Mel Robbins podcast making the top 50 for the first time at number 15. Now, every time I see these top 50 podcast charts for other countries, mel Robbins is number one in there. The fact that she wasn't in the top 15, the fact that she wasn't in the top 50 of the Edison podcast charts, was curious. But that is no longer the case and Mel Robbins is there at number 15. So yeah, interesting stuff, rotten Mango. By the way, you may be wondering what on earth is that. It's hosted by a former YouTuber turned podcast host. There's a phrase you don't hear very often, stephanie Su, and it's a true crime podcast, as you might guess. But it was very prominently featured in the YouTube press release about YouTube's 1 billion monthly users. So that may well be where Rotten Mango has sort of got a bit more of its push.

Sam Sethi: 37:17

Now two companies have announced their financials Asiris XM and Cumulus. Strangely or sadly, both are down.

Sam Sethi: 37:27

They are. Now we don't have very clear numbers for either, in terms of podcasting. I mean, certainly not for SiriusXM. Podcasting is thrown into the part of their business which is called Pandora and off platform, and that was down 2% year on year. Now, what may have happened there is that, I mean, Pandora is a declining product Fewer and fewer people are using Pandora because you know Spotify will do just as good a job, to be honest. And so therefore, it may just be that Pandora has, you know, gone down by 10% and podcasting only went up by 5%, and so therefore, you know that's how maths works, so difficult to know.

Sam Sethi: 38:14

But Cumulus Media, which also owns Westwood, One which recently came off the stock market because they couldn't keep their stock market price high enough they say well, they say two things. They say that either, podcast revenue increased by 39% if you ignore the daily wire, which they lost at the end of last year, but if you include the Daily Wire in the figures, then their podcast revenue was actually down by 13%. So I worry whether or not we will see a bunch of people seeing much lower figures as we move through this year, Because if you are a large company and you are being concerned about tariffs and things like that, then the first thing that you're going to do is you're going to stop advertising until you've got some clarity about what's going on. Perhaps that's one of the things that may happen. Interestingly, that might mean good news for the UK, because Trump is apparently just about to announce a big trade deal with the UK, the first trade deal of the Trump administration. So you know who knows?

Sam Sethi: 39:29

Can I just say seeing is believing.

Sam Sethi: 39:32

Yes nobody has any idea what's going on there.

Sam Sethi: 39:35

Yeah, he's got to put his head down on the pillow and wake up tomorrow with another idea. So anyway.

Sam Sethi: 39:41

Now in Canada a Canadian podcast listener. Now in Canada, the Canadian podcast listener. That is a yearly bit of research into Canadian podcast listeners and that will contain some video stuff when it comes out later on this year. They've just announced, which is good news. So that's going on here in Canada. In Germany, wondery is beginning to sell podcast ads for other podcasts. They've done two deals one which is a weekly sort of comedy chat show and a sports show as well. So interesting seeing Wondery, you know, diving into the German market. It's a very interesting and mature market in Europe. So interesting to end up seeing that.

Sam Sethi: 40:33

In the UK, james, we heard from Messenger. Jake told us that they've done a deal with the London Standard newspaper. What have they done?

Sam Sethi: 40:42

Yes, so the London Standard used to be called the Evening Standard, but now it doesn't really come out in the evening. It's a website rather than a printed paper, apart from one day a week, and that has essentially given control over all of its audio output podcasts, if you like to message heard, and that is actually something that happens quite a lot in the US. So I think so. The Wall Street Journal works with Spotify on their daily podcast. There are a few other examples of people working together and interesting seeing that that idea has been taken out now into the UK as well.

Sam Sethi: 41:28

I wonder whether this is a precursor to an acquisition. I mean maybe, but you know, I mean it may just be that actually the right people to be running your podcast strategy is a podcast company, so it may just be that. But yeah, interesting and good news for the folks at Message Heard Christiane Amanpour, who is, of course, on CNN, or at least currently on CNN. We mentioned last week that she had got a deal with Global, the big UK commercial radio operator. It turns out that she has a new show coming out. We don't actually know quite when, but the new podcast is going to be with her former husband. They were married for 20 years a former US diplomat called Jamie Rubin, and I think they're calling it the X Files, something like that. It's very clever. Ex Files, yes, but yes. So they're definitely moving fast on that. So that's a fascinating thing to watch what's going on with Global there.

Sam Sethi: 42:36

The other big radio group is Bauer, and they have sold a stake in their digital audio marketplace. James, why?

Sam Sethi: 42:46

Yes, bauer have done a typical Bauer thing. They used to own half of a company called Octave and the other half was owned by News UK, by Rupert Murdoch's company, and they sold that half to News UK last month and this month they said oh, we're going to roll out. I think it's pronounced Audio Z or Audio Xe Should ask.

Sam Sethi: 43:14

Elon Musk. He'll know, yeah, so they're rolling that out, and Simon Kilby, who is their commercial boss, said that it has always been their long-term strategic plan. So basically they just had Octave as a way of earning money until they could get their act together in terms of that. But Bauer is a fascinating company. It'd be brilliant now, if we can, to actually get somebody from Bauer talking a little bit more about what they're doing in this space.

Sam Sethi: 43:49

Well, as always, your wish is my command. We managed to talk to our good friend Ruth Fitzsimons. She's the new Director of Digital for Bauer Island and we started off by asking her what or who is Bauer?

Ruth Fitzsimons: 44:03

So I think if you don't know Bauer Media, you probably actually do know Bauer Media, because they are a very successful radio and publishing group originally from Germany, and actually this year is our 150th year of existence.

Sam Sethi: 44:19

Congratulations.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 44:20

It's like 150 years. That's really really impressive and started off in Germany but is now across multiple territories across Europe, Ireland being one of them, and also very well known in the UK as well. It's a brand that I think in each territory is slightly different, but at our core we kind of have different parts of the business publishing, as I mentioned, but also the likes of audio, and in the UK, of course, you would know some of our groups like Absolute and that, but here in Ireland we are probably the largest commercial audio publisher. We reach about 42% of all people over the age of 15. And so we'd be a market leader here with the likes of Today FM or News Talk and Go Loud, which is our podcast arm, but we also have a number of local radio stations as well, so it's a mixture of all things audio.

Sam Sethi: 45:17

So with the title of Director of Digital, what does that mean? What do you do?

Ruth Fitzsimons: 45:21

Well, it's really interesting because I think Bauer, what does that mean? What do you do? It was really interesting because I think Bauer, and one of the things that really attracted me to Bauer is there's a real focus now for us about trying to step into this digital moment. You know we are, as I said, kind of very much the leading radio group and you know that is something that has been built up over the last 25 years, last 25 years. But you know, the digital landscape has really changed the way we all interact with audio and, be that podcast or be that, you know, kind of social media clips or video, there's lots of different ways that we are kind of, you know, integrating those kind of audio content into our lives in different forms.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 45:59

So, you know, for me personally, I oversee the growth of our Go Loud podcast network and that is a podcast network that we've grown out in Ireland. It's owned and operated and we're working with fantastic creators here to grow that out. But it's also about improving our radio station's digital presence and our digital presence really in the wider audio ecosystem with third party podcasting apps or third party digital products. We're also really looking to increase how our users engage with us. So we're rolling out a new Go Loud app, which will be a kind of central point for all of our listeners to get all our great content in one single app. But apart from that, it's also looking at innovation. It's looking at everything from new technologies so everything from video and AI to you know, kind of more boring backend stuff, but stuff that's incredibly important if we want to keep our journey going forward. So, yeah, it's a fairly long list, but a very exciting thing to be a part of and, yeah, absolutely delighted to have joined.

Sam Sethi: 47:06

Now I mean, when did Bauer get into podcasting? Now, it may be my perception, but it feels like they were later into the podcasting space than maybe Global or other competitors in the market.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 47:19

No, I think it's really interesting and I think that would seem different depending on which territory you were in, because Bauer operates in a number of different territories across Europe, so different territories are at different stages in their journey, for sure, and you know, our colleagues in different countries have slightly different models in each country as well. But here in Ireland, no, it's been underway for kind of some time, for the last several years, and you know we've built out a network of owned and operated shows and actually we're at a point now in in the Irish model where you know, we're working with the likes of, let's say, a Talking Bollocks or Hold my Drink, these shows that we work with, where not only are we creating content with them, where it's, you know, we're kind of helping to facilitate the production of that content, but we're also actually going a step further than that we are putting on shows with them. We're kind of live shows and live events. We're creating subscription packages around them and really kind of thinking about how we create ecosystems around some of those podcasts. So, you know, just this year alone, we'll put on events across the country in Ireland, from the iconic Vicar Street to Cork Opera House to Bordigosh and major festivals like All Together Now. So you know, it's interesting. I think as a group we're all at different stages.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 48:44

But the nice thing about Bowery is we actually, you know, work on these things called tribes. So I join colleagues of mine from the UK or Denmark or Slovakia or Finland or Portugal and we are all on tribes, sharing our knowledge across the group. And personally, I find that great. It's like being able to tap in to people and you're like hey, did this work? Did this work? Are we doing it right? And as always, you know, we just don't know until we actually kind of try some of these. But yeah, we're on our journey into creating very much an ecosystem across the board. So one part of it is the owned and operated. That's a really big part.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 49:31

The other part that we're kind of leaning into now is also, you know, we want to be the best partner in the country for podcasters.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 49:35

We want to be the place that you want to come to, and I think Bower is in a really unique place when it comes to that, because you know, if you are in a radio group, you know, as I said earlier, we reach 42 percent of people over the age of 16 in Ireland so we can really amplify the messaging and provide that for podcasters who want to come and join us us and you know there are, while there's some people who want to join our owned and operated podcast network, we also are starting to work with select talent.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 50:10

You know kind of who are working with us in collaboration and you know I think for those people what we're able to do is bring a really established sales team and a marketing team as well as this ability to do the likes of events and subscriptions and we know how to do those. So, yeah, it's a really exciting time. And that Irish team I have to say I've kind of come on board and Darren and Owen and the team here at Go Loud and Pam and Ed they've been doing amazing work for the last few years, so I'm just so pleased to be a part of that team.

Sam Sethi: 50:44

So of that reach that you have, are you talking about that as radio reach or are you talking about as digital reach, as in podcasting and radio combined?

Ruth Fitzsimons: 50:55

You know it's interesting, that is the radio reach. When we come to the podcasting reach, I think that's the part that you know in Ireland it's hard to get a number for the, you know, total listening consumed. We know that 38% of the population is consuming podcasts and we are very fortunate that our podcast network extends to us and also Off the Ball, which is a very, very successful podcast network and a radio show as well. But their podcast offering is really substantial. So you know we've a very substantial reach across the entire network.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 51:28

The part that's also interesting when we talk about reaches, you know, are the talent that we work with also have reach outside of just listening, outside of just audio. You know, just on Go Loud, our, you know, kind of talent that we work with have a combined social media reach of about 2.2 million. So you know, bear in mind the population of Ireland is just around 5 million, so it's a really substantial reach. So it is interesting that, like we are now, I guess in this new world, starting to think about reach being not just this one linear thing but kind of like how we are reaching audiences across their days across this kind of multimedia format.

Sam Sethi: 52:13

Yeah, the omni-channel strategy now really is what we're looking at. So, with this new app that you've got coming out, will you have a strategy that is app first, so Bower app first and then open second, or will it be open to everyone first and Bower is just one of the platforms? I mean, where is your strategy on that?

Ruth Fitzsimons: 52:35

Yeah, so for Go Loud we're consolidating nine of our apps into one single app because it's just much easier, much more effective for us to work in that way and I think we've already built up in Ireland that kind of go-loud brand, and you know that's where we're kind of coming from. It. Don't get me wrong. The app is important to us. It's, you know, we see it as a way to invite people into our living room in a sense you know what I mean To show them what we have to be able to let them choose from within our ecosystem. And I think the challenge we all face in this is kind of first party data and being able to kind of directly speak to our listeners and to be able to get the sense of what they like directly. But you know we are in a fragmented multimedia landscape and you know there's no, there is kind of no denying that. You know what I mean. So it's a part of our strategy. But also we are working closely and we remain closely working with, you know, kind of different distribution points, so be that Apple or Spotify and who we work with very closely, or you know kind of various different, you know, social media platforms. For us.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 53:44

The key thing here is how do we, how do we bring our brand to our audiences where they are and how do we make sure that we are using our ability for storytelling to keep people entertained and engaged? You know, at our heart will always be a radio or an audio company. That's like very, very important to us and we've got great storytelling here. But I don't think we can turn back the clock on some of that. This is the reality of the world that we live in. The key thing is are we making sure that when we are doing storytelling in these other formats or other positions, that we are kind of maintaining our brand integrity? That's very important to us and that are we making sure that our standards are held in those and that it is very clear to the audience who or what they're listening to. That's really important to us.

Sam Sethi: 54:32

And within the app itself you can control the experience. You can get that first party data. You can cross sell to other platform content that you have. So I can see why you want that. Will you have within that video as well? I'm assuming you'll be able to tune into live radio, so that'll be part of it. Listen to the podcast, but will there be a video element within that app as well?

Ruth Fitzsimons: 54:57

Yeah. So I think kind of, probably in the longer term that's something we'd look at, but right now it's an audio product for sure, but that doesn't mean we're not introducing video to some of the other elements of our audio experience. You know, at the moment for you know, even Go Loud podcast we're actually, you know, recruiting for a new video creative as part of that team podcast. We're actually, you know, recruiting for a new video creative as part of that team and our social media executives and teams. They also are creating video behind the scenes video. So you know, we have seen video becoming a part of this landscape to different degrees. Right, and I think that is. We should just all be honest about that, because you know, for example, we, we did something. We have some incredible video. Very recently, we're talking bollocks.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 55:44

That's a podcast here in Ireland which explores various different topics. It's absolutely fantastic. If you haven't heard it, it's two working class guys from Dublin and they're investigating. They kind of explore different topics in each podcast through a guest and that might be everything from you know them talking to a child psychologist and someone who's a leading child psychologist to talking to the next day about someone who does vetting online and used to work for the police and online you know kind of sexual abuse or kind of like. Looking at kind of the dark web and you know what's that world look like Very funny, very thoughtful, very engaging at kind of the dark web and you know what's that world look like very funny, very thoughtful, very engaging, very kind of. They're very they don't stand on ceremony, so they're very good at kind of getting to the heart of some of these I think the title of the podcast says it all really.

Sam Sethi: 56:30

So you know, I know they're very, very funny.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 56:33

They're very good at what they do. But we recently had a sold out gig for them in vicar Street and you know the video element of that was a big part for the audience as well. They loved seeing the video clips that went up online and they love seeing the more professional video that is talking about the launch of their you know, kind of ticket sales for the next venue, which is even bigger, and so in Bord's Gosh, which is even bigger, and so in in boards gosh, which is one of the biggest theaters in Ireland. So it's, it's definitely a part of the landscape. I think we all know that the issues with video at the moment is the monetization element around it. I don't think anyone's quite correct that and you know there's different options in the market but there's no currency as of yet.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 57:21

I think we are really in a trialing period and I know from various different podcast networks and different organizations that everyone's sort of trying things out.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 57:31

But you know we've seen in the last year move towards 360 campaigns where we have seen a mixture between the podcast, the social media, video, live events becoming very popular. But I think we're still in a time of experimentation where we're seeing, you know, how effective is it, what does it look like, what are the costs? And you know that's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing for us to be in a period where we're adding kind of you know, experiences and products for want of a better word to the offering, and for us to be kind of you know, innovating and trialing something. But I think in the industry as a whole, people are interested in video. It's definitely a part of the expectation from a listener perspective. That doesn't mean that every show should be videoed I don't think we're, you know but it does mean that is an expectation of something that we need to offer alongside again, just going back to the heart of it, which is great audio content.

Sam Sethi: 58:29

Yeah. So, if I'm right from what you're telling me, one of the other things I think Bauer brings to the market is the amplification capability for podcasts. So if you took on a podcast within it, you've just bought a clear channel, you've obviously got radio, you've got the live element and you've got the reach. So is that one of the things that you talk to podcasters about? Because I think we're beginning to see clearly now that networks of podcasting have been successful and now I think the radio companies are beginning to wake up to the fact that they too can be successful in that same way. So is that your sellout to podcasters? To come onto your platform? We can help you amplify and reach.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 59:11

Yeah, it's a massive part of our ability and I would say our you know kind of unique ability. In many ways, you know, we are able to reach audiences at scale and that is, I think, one of the biggest challenges for podcasters when they're launching now. It's a very crowded market. It's very difficult to get cut through. I would say there's two things that we're able to offer podcasters who want to work with us, and the kind of reason and success for our podcast network has probably been built on those two things. So one, like you say, is the amplification. You know, in Ireland our radio group as a group has massive reach and it has massive reach across national stations like Today FM or News Talk that's great but also local stations do you know what I mean? Or local networks. So if we look at something like Red FM in Cork, or if we look at, you know, kind of Spin, or we look at, you know, kind of Beat in the Southeast, these are kind of connecting with local audiences and really kind of like speaking one-on-one with those audiences. And so you know, if you are a part of our network, you know, and we're launching your show, as we did with Keith Barry during the week we are seeing that our hosts are on the breakfast show or they're on the drive time show, and you know we're making sure that we're getting them that visibility. Or when we do a partnership and we take a full stage at a major music festival or kind of arts festival, like All Together Now, which is down in Waterford, we're actually taking over a stage and we're going to put talent on that stage. So you know we're helping facilitate you, but that's not. You know, marketing is really, really important, but the other side is we are also investing in terms of producers and executive producers for the show, as well as studio space, and that is massively helpful because even if someone is a fantastic podcaster really really amazing talent, having that support of you know kind of experienced, seasoned audio producers who've, you know, worked with some of the legends of radio, whether that is, you know, kind of knowing that there is a legal department that you can check with, or whether that's knowing that there is, you know, a fantastic IT department that will make sure that your podcast is pushed out everywhere and getting the measurement across the board, or whether that's someone who's, you know, already doing the thinking about and has the resources to do the thinking about how is AI going to impact all of this? That's what big radio groups like Bauer bring is that they have the kind of the heft and the kind of heritage that you know they can bring that in the knowledge base of kind of the historical knowledge base, of kind of coming from that. They can bring that in the knowledge base of kind of the historical knowledge base of kind of coming from that. And you know you put that production and the marketing together and then you bring the revenue side and I think that's the one thing that you know.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:02:11

Podcast networks it's tough, right. Do you know what I mean for podcast networks? Because they can end up sometimes if you're a single podcaster with the podcast network you're just one of many or one of 22 000 podcasters and unless you're in the top x percentage, it can be very hard. The thing for us in our network is because we're quite selective who we work with. You know they're massively important to us and our sales teams are representing in Ireland the biggest commercials. You know kind of team, a commercial group. We have great contacts with different agencies and direct clients and it creates a halo effect.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:02:51

Do you know what I mean For the podcasters who join. So, you know, we kind of are able to position them or get in into conversations that we probably wouldn't be able to get them. We're getting into conversations that we probably wouldn't be able to get to if we were an independent. You know, it'd be much, much more difficult. So I would say those are the kind of pillars that really the success of this team has been built on. Yeah, so that's kind of where we're at and how.

Sam Sethi: 1:03:12

how does somebody then get into bauer? I mean, do you have talent shows? Do you? Do you have talent scouts? I mean, somebody's got a podcast right and they're under the radar right now, but they're really, really good. Or is it just purely left to the celebrity again to own the space, because that's going to be an easy sell into the market?

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:03:34

No, certainly in Ireland, not all of our podcasters have just been big celebrities. In fact, some of our podcasters were very small when we first started working with them, but we could see the talent. Do you know what I mean? So you know, some of our podcasters have actually gone on to kind of end up having their own TV station or kind of like TV program, or they've gone on to do other things outside of this kind of podcast landscape or some of them have gone on to grow their influencer base.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:04:00

I think one of the things that we saw was that you know they we are always on the scout and on the lookout and that is part of what our team is looking for. We also worked with kind of various agencies before in the past who would bring us kind of new talent. One of the things that I think in particular, go Loud in Ireland has really been fantastic and the team have been fantastic at is they've been good at looking out for younger podcasters and bringing them on a journey. So it's really interesting. We have one podcast called Hold my Drink and that very much started as kind of a podcast about two girls who you know kind of their trials and tribulations in the dating world and just being young women like in their twenties in Ireland and kind of what that experience is.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:04:45

And it's been really interesting to see that their audience has matured up alongside them. So they're settled now, they're buying houses and you know their audience has remained really loyal for them. But it has changed and they themselves and their kind of other work they become kind of much bigger influences off the back of the podcast and that's kind of been symbiotic the relationship between those two. But you know what we found is by tapping into those youth audiences you also are in a position to that youth talent to kind of grow with them. And that's also the thing is, when you're part of a wider group you can take those chances, something that you probably couldn't do in a smaller podcast network because you know for sellable reasons, for profitability, we could only work with the biggest talent. So we're fortunate that we've been able to work with big talent and also with kind of some smaller talent that we've been able to grow over a period of years.

Sam Sethi: 1:05:41

I mean, look, it sounds like you've got the whole Omnichannel sorted. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to the app. We'll have a look when that comes out. Now, ruth, one of the other things that you've done. You've been in the industry a number of years now, so you've seen the changes in the industry from where you've come. We've got the big London podcast show coming up in a couple of weeks time. You've been advising and helping with that as well, which is great. When you talk to Jason Carter, the organiser there, and you look at the changing landscape, what are the sort of things that you're saying to Jason about how the show should frame and what's changed over the time that you've seen?

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:06:24

Yeah, so really, I look, I'm very, very privileged and very grateful to be on the advisory board of the London Podcast Show and you know it's a massively changing landscape. You know I first came into podcasts because I had been working in an independent production company in based in London. I was based in London for for 17 years and, you know, worked for an independent radio group called a production company called UBC, which was smooth ops and and unique, and I'm sure there's some people who are old enough to remember that we made the BBC Five Lives Olympic podcast show and this was a series that was specifically commissioned around in the run up to the Olympics. And you know what was so fascinating was at the time and I'm sure no one will mind me saying who worked on this it was a complete add on as a kind of we'll just tick this box for initiative, right, like no podcast for a thing then. It was just like it's a probably good thing for us to do. Everything was about facebook. That was the kind of like. Social media was the kind of buzzword at that time, certainly was not focus, sort of a let's just give it a whirl and do it.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:07:36

And what was so interesting was as we got closer and closer to the Olympics. And then during the Olympics we were like getting back these reports from Apple and we were like we're number one in like a lot of countries. This has got a lot more legs than we thought and there's a lot more people listening than we thought. And I think that was my first introduction to this world where you know the audience had moved before the established groups and I think that happens a lot, right, you know what I mean. It can often take a longer period of time for more mainstream media companies to follow those audiences and so they had moved. And then I ended up moving into what Audioboom, and so I ultimately became the SVP of operations for Audioboom across kind of content, so everything from content acquisition and original content and then we built out a sales team. The questions we were having back then were much more kind of basic. You know what is podcasting? You know?

Sam Sethi: 1:08:41

We're still having that conversation today.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:08:43

If you ask James, we're having that conversation today anyway. Well, I think I think now it's it's seen as its own channel and I think the testament going back to the podcast show the fact that 30%, around 30% of the people who attended last year came from agency land, really speaks to the fact that from an agency buying perspective, from a revenue perspective, it's seen as a channel. It's seen as a channel to be taken seriously and something that you know reaches audiences and is effective at delivering that message. And that's because that's where the audience has gone. It's been really, really consistent.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:09:16

So I think now the questions that we have are, you know, much more complicated in some ways. Do you know what I mean? So you know, I think now when we look at kind of some of the big issues, it's much more like what do we do in a fragmented if we thought it was, the media world was fragmented back then. Now it's very much a fragmented media world. Like you know, it's what we're seeing now is podcast as a content engine that drives kind of a sort of ecosystem, and so what we've seen recently, just to put it in perspective, is we launched a subscription service for one of our podcasts and we can see that the subscription service is responsible for about 25 to 30% of ticket sales. So it's an ecosystem. Once someone is in an ecosystem, they're in that ecosystem. But you know how we monetize that ecosystem, how we monetize video, that is.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:10:11

There's still questions about that. There's still questions about, you know, the 360 campaigns, questions about you know the 360 campaigns. I think there is kind of there's still you know another point, which is, you know, outside of the US, you know, where are we seeing investment? Where are we seeing growth? The US is still the kind of powerhouse when it comes to some of that and you know, I think you know, where do we see that growth? Ai, ai is a fascinating one. You know, where are we seeing that kind of growth in AI? Here at Bauer, we are. You know it's been really fascinating to see the kind of growth in AI internally. And you know someone more clever than I said recently AI isn't going to take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI is going to take your job.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:58

And.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:10:58

I think that's very true and we're experimenting with it in lots of different ways and you know it is speeding up parts of our job. But there's also other parts of it. Like how do we make sure the fact checking is correct? How do we make sure that we you know AI doesn't Hallucinate correct? How do we make sure that we you know ai doesn't elucidate quality? Yeah, like you know what we, what we do around those and you know we're very clear that you know ai products would not reach users without some kind of like human intervention in between those things.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:11:31

For us at the moment, a lot of what we're doing in ireland is you're using it as kind of a thought starter in different processes, be those titling or scripts or whatever it might be. Like, how can we, how can we do or how can we lift some of those very manual jobs and just kind of move those forward to free up producers to really focus on the creativity and really focus on doing kind of innovative work and storytelling. But it's fascinating, it's definitely a really fascinating part of the kind of global picture.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:05

Yeah, I call AI assisted intelligence, and that's them. Yeah, I think it's great for me and it sits next to me to help me. It's not replacing me, but by the fact that I can use the tool it won't replace me, but for those people who don't use it, maybe it will. What's interesting is, james was talking about down in Sydney a radio station. Down there was using AI voices for the hosts, but what they weren't doing was telling the audience that the AI was or the host was an AI and it's quite interesting.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:40

I mean, I think you know there's a company called One Million Ads and they obviously can use multi-voices. There's lots of companies like Descript and Wondercraft and Eleven Labs who use AI for voice for advertising. You know, no longer do you have to get a voiceover artist in, you might want to just get a script, get a voice artist, an AI voice artist and throw it out the front door. Mamma Mia down in Australia got all of their I think, 12 or 13 podcasters and they blended a voice, a female voice, that they thought was unique enough to be still individual, but it was actually of all the other voices within the company. So they then use that as the advertising voice that they put out there. So it's quite interesting what you can do. I think we I always call it the creepy line, where we we push the boundary and everyone goes, oh no, what AI?

Sam Sethi: 1:13:35

Oh no that sounds far too creepy. No, pullback, pullback, pull, pull back, and then we, and then six months later we're all over that creepy line and we're on to the next creepy line, whatever that may be. So I do see ai being a very interesting push on the edge and then everyone goes oh, is that okay? I think that feels fine. Okay, keep pushing. You know, I mean again with with some of the things I'm seeing. We're looking at sprout, our sponsors using it for chapter creating chapters, cover art, creating scripts, you know, show notes.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:14:09

So there's so much that can be done to take the labor out some of these things that, like you know, I think're right like a lot of labor or just discoverability for listeners. Do you know what I mean? Like? So there's some things that you know it will. Just, it's really funny because at the moment it really reminds me of when people started using Excel, almost like, or kind of like you know, powerpoint presentations where you do I don't know if you do that Like, do you know what I mean? And there's some things you know. There's some things that you're just like oh, thank goodness I don't have to spend an hour on this and I can just spend 10 minutes on it.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:14:46

But those points about kind of like blended voices or that's when we do need to put on our thinking hats about you know kind of what is important to us and you know what's our brand integrity and what's our brand voice and you know I think a big part of what we have and what's very special in the audio space is the connections that people have with the host, that is, and the content. You know what I mean. I'm not saying those things can never exist and they couldn't be done creatively, but I think what we just need to be careful is is that we hold in the center, that we're here to entertain and engage, but that uniquely in audio you are, it's it's almost like a personal relationship with someone, right, do you know what I mean? And people take that really seriously, you know they. They take their relationship with their, their podcast host or their radio host very, very seriously. So that's the part that we need to kind of be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, I think yeah, somebody introduced me to the word.

Sam Sethi: 1:15:49

parasocial is a word I'd never heard of, and parasocial describes the relationship the audience has with the host. It's a one-way relationship, so the host's putting out facts oh yes, I live here, or my wife did this, or my children go here, my dog's name's called X. So the listener has so much information and has that strong depth of relationship because they feel like they know the host, because they have that much information, whereas the host knows very little, if anything, about the fan. And so that parasocial relationship is what podcasting is and even radio to some extent.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:16:28

That's so interesting. I've never heard that one before. That's a really good quote. I'm totally stealing that from myself. If you hear that at the podcast show, I will say Sam is responsible for this.

Sam Sethi: 1:16:38

Thank you very much. Now, at the podcast show, what is Bauer going to be doing there? Let's end up there.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:16:44

Well. So for us this year, you know, we're probably just for transparency. We won't be putting on a massive show this year. It'll probably be next year really, before we do that. And that's partially because, as I said, as a group we're sort of on a journey and different countries are at different stages. We'll certainly be there and I'm sure you'll see more from us in years to come, but you know I'll be there, as will a large number of my colleagues.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:17:07

What I'm looking forward to in this podcast show, I think the thing that I love about the show is it has become a marker on everyone's calendar and it's, you know, for me it's an absolute pleasure because I get to meet colleagues from all over Europe.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:17:22

I get to meet people I worked with from all over the world. I used to work for, you know, kind of Podfront, which was a joint venture between Stitcher and Wondery. So you get all the US folks over. You get like the folk from Audioboom or, you know, sports Social Podcast Network, or like in Germany and France, where I worked as well. So you know, it's definitely one of, I think, kind of like if you want to find out what's on trend or you want to be a part of those debates. It's a fantastic. You know you get all the big podcast companies, so whether that's spotify or you know kind of spotify or amazon or you know kind of any of the kind of podcast platforms, they're all there as well. The bbc it's very much for me the place to go and kind of hear what's going on and be a part of those debates as well and to enjoy a drink or two if that might happen?

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:18:15

if that might happen if that might happen I think the interesting one for me is I heart media are going to be there this year and netflix but that's a good example, you see, of a radio group who stepped into that podcasting space, two radio groups who stepped into the podcasting space, you know, very successfully and I think, yeah, they're going to be a really interesting combo together. I think you know there's what. What I find interesting at the podcast show has also been, you know, the content side. But also it's been great to hear from like last year we heard from TikTok and I found that some of that really interesting. And we also heard from brands and I found that some of that really interesting and we also heard from brands and I think that's also been really interesting. You know, it's been interesting to hear from them what has worked and what hasn't worked. You know what I mean and what they're.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:19:01

Sometimes I feel like in the podcasting space we can talk a lot to one another. It's also interesting to hear what they're saying to us. This is what we need from you, this is what we want from you, this is what we want from you. So that was super interesting. But to me the best thing about it is just the networking. It's just. You know it's great to kind of hear and kind of chat to your colleagues and see what they're doing and you know. You know whether that's you learning more about subscription and subscription models, which I think we're all trying to figure out, or listening about video and video monetization, or whether we're trying to kind of figure out how we use AI and incorporate those tools, or we're thinking about editorial things. You know what I mean, how we cover, you know, trump's America or our own kind of democracies. You know those are all kind of really important. It's important for us to have somewhere to debate those things if we're to kind of keep innovating.

Sam Sethi: 1:19:51

Ruth Fitzsimons, Director of Digital at Bower Island. Thank you so much and I look forward to a little bit of networking and drinking with you at the London Podcast Show.

Ruth Fitzsimons: 1:20:01

Done, booked in.

Sam Sethi: 1:20:03

The excellent Ruth Fitzsimons. She's not been at Bower particularly long either, and so it must be a tremendous amount of change for her. I think she's also just moved house as well. Can you imagine moving job, moving house at the same time and you know, and diving in with both feet? So excellent. She will be at the podcast show in London, I understand.

Sam Sethi: 1:20:23

Yes, she will, and I think for somebody like you who's in the radio world as well, james, I think it was interesting that what Bauer are looking to do is to create a multi-channel strategy. So they bought the remainder of Clear Channel recently. So they've got thousands of outdoor billboards, they've got radio stations, they've got their podcasting, they're bringing out a new app and again, what Ruth was saying was you know, they can be kingmakers to podcasts. They can bring them into the platform and convert those into a wide, large audience reach. So I think that's their model bringing very good new talent in and then making them into successes through the multi-channel capability that they've got.

Sam Sethi: 1:21:10

And the big difference between Bauer and Global, of course, is that Bauer is way more global than Global.

Sam Sethi: 1:21:17

Didn't Global try to go and do a deal in the US?

Sam Sethi: 1:21:20

I don't know where that went to yes, global do own a good percentage of iHeart and, if you notice, the title sponsor of the podcast show is Global and iHeart and of course, global sells iHeart shows. In fact, I got feedback on this very show from somebody at Global who heard me saying I wonder why iHeart is taking part in the podcast show. The reason, of course, why iHeart is taking part in the podcast show, the reason, of course, why iHeart is taking part in the podcast show and I'm happy to make this clear is that Global represent iHeart shows in the UK and, similarly, global shows are represented by iHeart in the US. So they're two companies that have worked together for a long, long time and hurrah for them. That's what I say People News on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Announcer: 1:22:13

Two companies that have worked together for a long, long time, and hurrah for them. That's what I say. People News on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi: 1:22:18

Yes, there are two things going on which is interesting. Firstly, chris Corcoran, who was the founding partner and former chief content officer at Cadence 13. He has launched his own multimedia podcast content studio. It's called In the Arena Studios. Interestingly, he's signed a lot of big talent, which is interesting. He's talking very much around franchise brands and all of that, so that's all nice, so that's good and interesting.

Sam Sethi: 1:22:50

If you're watching what's going on at Libsyn, of course Libsyn had a new CEO not so long back, brendan Monaghan from X of Panoply, I think. That went on to be rebranded as Megaphone. Have I got that right or did they go on and be rebranded as something else? Anyway, brendan knows a thing or two about podcasting and it may be a complete coincidence or it may not be, but the chief technical officer of Libsyn, a man who's been there for years and years and years, greg Barretts, has quite suddenly, it seems, left the company. He's been with Libsyn since 2012. And so it was clearly the person responsible for Libsyn 5 and some of the work there. So you kind of have to ask yourself does that mean that some of the very large amounts of tech debt in that company are going to change if they've got a different CTO on board. But interesting to watch.

Sam Sethi: 1:24:03

I thought Libsyn had said that they want to become an ad company, not a platform company, a little while back.

Sam Sethi: 1:24:10

I think that they are. I think that they would like to be known as ad company first, um, but um, then to also be, um, still a hosting company. Because I asked that question to them, uh, last year. I said why are you bothering still being a podcast host If you, you know your, your obvious strategy is now to to sell advertising in shows. If that's your strategy, why don't you just sell your podcast hosting? And the answer from the person that I spoke to then and it wasn't Brendan, it was prior to Brendan joining was we make lots of profit on our hosting, so selling advertising is a much less profitable opportunity. There's lots of money in it, which is why they do it, but the profit margins are much, much smaller than if you have a look at what they earn from hosting. So you can well understand that actually it benefits them from having two slightly separate, you know, slices of the cake, so to speak.

Sam Sethi: 1:25:17

Moving on then, james awards and events. What's going on?

Sam Sethi: 1:25:20

Well, awards and events. Lots of exciting awards and events. We'll leave the big one till last in this, but there are the Independent Podcast Awards and the Independent Podcast Forum, which is happening in early June in London. Interestingly, I noticed that it's only open to podcasters in the UK, which was something that I wasn't fully aware of. So that's going on. There is a new Women Podcasting Awards, another one. This one is the Women who Podcast Awards, which are run by a magazine which is called Women who Podcast, which I've never heard of before, but it's up to issue number 17,. Would you believe? It's a really good read. Actually so nice to end up seeing that Spotify is running a podcast awards in Mexico. The winners will be announced on June. The 4th Pod Summit, yyc, which is in Calgary in Alberta in Canada, has announced an excellent featured speaker. Who's that excellent featured speaker?

Sam Sethi: 1:26:23

Not me, sam, not me. Must be the only other person who qualifies you.

Sam Sethi: 1:26:29

It is Hooray, so the event's in mid-Septptember. Looking forward to going to calgary. It's not a place that I've been to before. Um and um, I was told by somebody who comes from edmonton that calgary is actually quite nice, but please don't say that. Uh, that she said so. So there, there you go.

Sam Sethi: 1:26:47

Anyway, can I just say I've been invited, all expenses paid, to go and present in spain, in, in madrid, in, in september, first ever one that I've been invited to have you.

Sam Sethi: 1:26:58

That's nice, isn't?

Sam Sethi: 1:26:59

it. You must have been busy. That's the only reason that's nice, isn't it?

Sam Sethi: 1:27:04

I've been invented, I've been invited to go and speak in lisbon, I believe, on september the 30th. Okay, yeah, see, okay, yeah, see you over there somewhere. So, yes, so, who knows? Anyway, so that's all good, and the Golden Globes will introduce the best podcast category in 2026, apparently, six nominees will be chosen from 25 popular podcasts that have impacted listeners. Another award for Conan O'Brien there.

Sam Sethi: 1:27:32

And.

Sam Sethi: 1:27:32

Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper, and and yeah, yes, exactly the winners are yeah, the winners are the Golden Lobes podcast awards were given out this week in the UK. That's for comedy podcasts, which is nice, the big honour. The Big Ears award for the funniest podcast went to this Paranormal Life, which is nice, the Big Honour. The Big Ears Award for the funniest podcast went to this Paranormal Life, which is an independently produced show that dives into the strangest supernatural stories with irreverent wit. And the Loeb's Legend Award went to Frank Skinner for services for funny audio, who is very good. So, yes, that's a lovely thing.

Sam Sethi: 1:28:14

Finally, of course, there's the London Podcast Show. Well, that's exciting, isn't it? The first thing that we should say if you're coming from anywhere outside of the UK or Ireland, you need an electronic travel authorization. If you're going to come in, it's just 16 quid. Buy it directly from the UK government, don't go anywhere else, but you need one of those. It's like what the Americans do to us, so you can do that. But you ended up catching up with Jason Carter from the podcast show and you started asking him what are the dates?

Jason Carter: 1:28:50

It's the 21st and 22nd of May in Islington in London.

Sam Sethi: 1:28:54

And it's bigger and better. You're now going to exceed 10,000 people through the door.

Jason Carter: 1:28:59

It's our fourth year coming up. We're really overwhelmed with where we are with it. It kind of feels this year that we've really moved into this position. I think, given it's had its fourth year, that people know it's here to stay and people have experienced their word of mouth globally about the show is clearly evident. So, numbers wise, last year we were way ahead of the previous year in terms of delegate attendees and this year we've surpassed that again. So we kind of really are on course for a fantastic show, not just with the delegates and the attendees, but also with the partners and the attendees, but also with the partners and exhibitors that are coming to the show. So, yeah, we're bracing ourselves.

Sam Sethi: 1:29:39

So give us some highlights. You've got two new sponsors for the year. Who are they?

Jason Carter: 1:29:43

Well, our headline sponsors this year are Global and iHeart so delighted to have those guys on board. Both of them actually have been in partnership with the show in previous years. Global have been with us from the start, so this is their fourth year with us, and iheart were involved last year. They sponsored our official party that we hosted at the standard in kings cross, which they're doing again this year, and then they're both coming in together as partners, as headline partners, really sort of sending the message that there's power in partnerships and that's how they're knitting themselves together.

Jason Carter: 1:30:13

In terms of our official partners, we've got a lot of kind of retention in terms of the key people who you'd imagine you've seen before. So the likes of bbc sounds and audio boom and spotify and amazon, etc. But lots of new people coming in as well. Youtube are back after a year off, netflix are in. Bbc studios have come in delighted that gold hanger are in. Bbc Studios have come in Delighted that Goldhanger are in. So, yeah, we're seeing year on year, people returning in terms of those big partners, but actually great to see more international partners folding in too.

Jason Carter: 1:30:42

We're in a good space and with all of them, I think what's really important to say is that they're coming to the show.

Jason Carter: 1:30:48

They're not just exhibiting or having an activation. They're either hosting receptions to meet people and get business done or help different sectors of the industry whether it's new podcast creators or having a more higher-end business conversation that they might want to have but there's more receptions. We've actually, with the programme, slightly reduced the number of sessions that we have in show and this is from feedback from everyone in the industry. It's actually too much going on has been a bit of an issue with previous years, so we've slightly reduced and actually, with so many visitors coming from all around the world I mean we've got visitors at the moment from 40 different countries attending the event this year and, of course, when they're in town for a couple of days, you know a big part of it is not just the sessions but talking to each other. So we've created many more kind of hosted receptions at the show during the day and in the evening too yeah, tell me about some of those.

Sam Sethi: 1:31:44

I mean, there's the official party, there are other receptions, so give me a feel for what's going on well, as you say, we've got the official party at the Standard.

Jason Carter: 1:31:54

We're quite forensic with the show as much as we can to kind of feed the appetite to meet the needs of different types of audience. So it is important for us to feed the appetite of independent podcast creators as much as a CEO from wherever coming in and trying to forge a new deal or partnership. And so we've got different types of receptions. So there's a wonderful pub across the road on upper street in islington and you know islington well, sam, but many people won't listen to this, but it's a beautiful part of north london, very boutique, and there's a lovely english pub there that we've got a big creator social, so creators can come together every evening on the wednesday and the thursday social, so creators can come together every evening on the wednesday and the thursday. We've got a rooftop reception being hosted by a partner that I can't announce just yet but it will be announced this week but that's taking place just off pentonville road, lovely setting. We've got executive networking dinner in a restaurant called frederick's, also just across the road from the venue, which is going to be great.

Jason Carter: 1:32:52

You'll'll see this year that Pave have come into the show for the first time. They're another new addition to the show. So as you come to the main entrance there's going to be a London bus parked outside, fully branded with Pave, and they'll be hosting some receptions and get-togethers there. We've also got, as we've had on previous years, we've got a series of pod house receptions and previous years we've got a series of pod house receptions and that's kind of the opportunity for individual partners at the show to take a space in the venue for an hour, an hour and a half, and they can target delegates that they want to meet, to present to or have a networking get together. So we've got about a dozen of those happening and some of the people that are hosting those are npr, voxtopica, treefork media, spotify, financial times, the radio academy, wondershare. So we've got some of those things happening in venue.

Jason Carter: 1:33:42

Yeah, so, just generally, what we're trying to do is create opportunities to pause. I mean I don't know about you, but certainly when I go to conferences I don't go to eight sessions in a row. You need to pause for air and we are creating these moments for pauses for air. I mean we also have some of our sponsors of some of our suites are hosting reception. So dolby, for example, will be hosting reception, bbc studios will be as well, and netflix so many. As we evolve as a show, we're continuously talking to the industry to hear what they want and then shape it around that intel, really.

Sam Sethi: 1:34:21

Netflix is an interesting name to throw out there, Jason. I mean not known for their podcasting particularly. What are Netflix doing at the event, then? Is that going to be a big reveal from them that they're getting into podcasting?

Jason Carter: 1:34:32

Well, do you know what? At the the moment, they want a branded presence at the show and they want the ability to meet people, not necessarily at a particularly grand scale, but they just feel it's important that they have a flag in the sand and be in the space. What they do, you'll have to see when you come to the show. Really, rather than take it from me, okay, now some of these speakers.

Sam Sethi: 1:34:53

You've got quite a few celebrity speakers. I mean gary lineker from goal hangers going to be there. What are goal hangers going to be doing at the event?

Jason Carter: 1:35:01

well, they've got a combination of things and, like I said earlier, in terms of partners at the show, we don't really look at having partners as a badging exercise. We really want proactive activities that are happening that benefit them but also make sure that there's giving value back to all the delegates that attend. So there are different types of involvement with goldhanger. They're hosting three sessions, they've got a suite and for those again not familiar with the show, we've got this fantastic victorian venue which used to be a royal mail sorting office. It looks stunning. When we get people traveling from outside the uk they always think it looks like the harry potter train station and they it does. People need to picture it. So it's a beautiful open mezzanine floor with lots of things going on there, from creative villages and brand stages etc. But circling and overlooking the show floor is about 20 suites. They're almost like boxes that you might see at a concert or whatever, and goldhanger have a suite there alongside. Actually, there's quite a few significant partners that are hosting in their own suites overlooking the show floor. So goldhanger are doing that as well as a number of different sessions, and the other suites that are partnered are with global, with iheart, with bbc studios, with amazon, art 19, sony triton, digital.

Jason Carter: 1:36:24

So when you walk into this show, you're just hit by the world of podcasting yeah, very visibly, as you know. But people come with different agendas. Some are here to meet brands and agencies and host the reception and target particular delegates that are at the show. Others may be brand new, independent starting out creators. It's their first foray into the business and they want to just get tips and advice. Or some might be independent podcast creators that are well on their way but wanting to kind of finesse and look at the springboard to develop their businesses.

Jason Carter: 1:36:57

I mean, one other thing I should say is we've got a couple of new features this year in the show.

Jason Carter: 1:37:03

The first one is we have an international gallery and that's going to actually be on the show floor and during the day we're going to have reflections, if you like, from different individuals from around the world, around their particular territory. So we've got people speaking from latin america, we've got some from north africa, someone from australia, a couple of parts of europe, so we've got this new space there. So, again, another networking space as well as an area where we can get some insights. We've got an indie business stage and some of the feedback we had last year is that you know there are lots of people starting out here and wanting to develop a business and so we've got a program run with audio uk on our indie business stage. Yeah and again the kind of challenge and for us success is being able to deliver to all those different parts of the podcast community in one show. We're not always going to get it right, we're not always going to cater for everyone, but we're doing our best.

Sam Sethi: 1:37:59

So lots really going on so you mentioned everyone in the world. He mentioned every brand. He mentioned every country. One person he didn't mention was apple. Where are apple in all this?

Jason Carter: 1:38:11

oh god, no comment there. We'll have to see what happens.

Sam Sethi: 1:38:17

The show hasn't happened, right, that's all yes all right, that's okay now, look, let's find out a little bit about jason carter himself. You have been in the event industry for a number of years quite a few. You were at the b industry for a number of years, quite a few. You were at the BBC for a long while. You were organising all their outdoor events and their new artists, and you're at Amazon. Tell me a little bit about Jason. How did you get into this world of eventing?

Jason Carter: 1:38:43

Yeah, I'm showing my age now. I worked as a music promoter first off. There's a big company part of Live Nation in the UK called Festival Republic that run many of the major festivals and I worked for that company. It was formerly called the Mean Fiddler. So I was a music promoter. And then I moved from there to BBC Radio 1. And after a couple of years I reached the position of head of events at Radio 1. So all the major set piece shows on that network. I led a team that delivered them and I was also the commissioner for all the coverage that we would do at third party events. I was there a long time. I was there 20 years. So by the time I left eight years ago I was head of events for all the popular radio networks. So Radio 1, radio 2, 6 Music, bbc One Extra and the Asian Network.

Sam Sethi: 1:39:34

You might know a friend of mine, James Sterling.

Jason Carter: 1:39:36

I do know James Sterling very well, very well. I sat next to him for about six years.

Sam Sethi: 1:39:41

Yeah, james is a very good friend of mine and we're fellow Liverpool fans. So, yes, we know each other very well. Yes, james is a good guy.

Jason Carter: 1:39:48

Again, we worked together and so, really just by the time'm leaving, I was commissioner for all the coverage at UK and international concerts on the BBC.

Jason Carter: 1:39:59

So, whether or not, if Radio One was covering Glastonbury Festival in the UK or South by Southwest in Austin, texas, I was the commissioner for the live shows from those those particular events.

Jason Carter: 1:40:11

And then I produced our large sorts of flagship events in the BBC, so everything from classical concerts in Hyde Park with the BBC proms, through to putting on concerts with I don't know, elton John and Rod Stewart. And so I was fortunate to work across every genre you can imagine, from working with Madonna and putting on a radio on Big Weekend through to Jay-Z, rihanna, and then the other hat that I wore was I created a platform called BBC Introducing and launched that, which has been very successful, for those that won't know it, in discovering some major UK talent, from Florence and the Machine to the 1975 to Ed Sheeran. So, as you can tell, most of my history is in music, but I think what's key is about launching new events. Same principle whatever you're doing, whatever sector you're working in. But of course I worked in music, but I worked in radio and broadcast connected to it and that's how I kind of segued in from there to working and coming up with the delivery of the podcast show.

Sam Sethi: 1:41:16

So it would have been a natural evolution for you to take your background, your knowledge, your skills of music and start a music event somewhere. That would have been a natural evolution. So who or what prompted you to suddenly go? Oh, podcasting, that seems like an interesting market space. I'm going to go and do that.

Jason Carter: 1:41:32

Well, there was a couple of things really After I left the BBC eight years ago. I had a very short stint at Amazon, and Amazon at the time were launching a big ticketing operation I don't know if you recall and they also had a plan to move into the sort of promoter space and deliver big set piece events. And so they managed to persuade me to leave the BBC after 20 years and I moved there and for various reasons I guess the ambitions there didn't quite fit where I was going, so I decided to jump back out. But it was a very short period of time there. And then I started up my own business, which is Get On Media, which still runs today, and one of the first thing I produced was an event called BBC Introducing Live, which took place at Tobacco Dock and it was all for new emerging talent in the music industry. It was very successful. We had 18,000 people attending over three days. It ran for two or three years. Lots of live broadcasts on the BBC. And then Covid hit and it was kind of game over for that and it was hard to resurrect it after the break with COVID.

Jason Carter: 1:42:38

But during that period I was working with some of the major partners that I have now on the podcast show from BBC Sounds and Spotify, who at that time, had been saying that it really feels like the time is right for a large scale industry gathering of the podcast community and this is back in 2019, and we've all seen the rise of podcasts since that point and so I launched the notion of this event, and then I had a whole period during lockdown where I got a lot of face time with many of the partners that I've mentioned key partners in the show to sort of convince them that we could deliver something of real scale to bring the whole international community together. And then, yeah, so my head suddenly is under the bonnet of podcasting, which actually for me, was a real breath of fresh air. After 25 years purely in music and not getting any younger, the idea of doing something different was really refreshing.

Sam Sethi: 1:43:37

So that's how I ended up, and this now occupies, as you can imagine, pretty much most of my time so, looking at the event itself, moving forward, not trying to bring 2025 to a close because it's not even started but where does the event go? The space itself is buzzing. When you get there, it's pretty rammed. You've talked about all the areas that you're using. How can you expand it? Do you want to expand it? Is it going to be capped at this level and that's it? We're happy, we're going to just do this now, or is it going to be? No, we need to grow again and that's in our planning it.

Jason Carter: 1:44:12

It's a good question, sam. There's a couple of things really that we need to consider. First of all, one of the successes of this event as it is today is its location, is the venue. What we don't want to be is a conference event that is in a traditional big hotel or a traditional conference venue. We want character, whatever we do. Maybe that's partly connected to my previous back branding festivals and music. So we want to keep it in a really distinctive venue, and the business design center is that, although it doesn't sound it by name, but when you see it it is.

Jason Carter: 1:44:50

But we are getting to a point of outgrowing it in terms of space for partners, but also visitors as well, and we're being very careful this year. I mean, the delegates passes are literally through the roof, but we want to make sure that we cap it at the right point so that it's a great experience for those that are there. So we're still tussling this one, but we feel like we will remain at the venue that we're in, but there is potential to pick off some satellite venues around the area. We've looked at some venues and we've all seen conferences and how they can develop and evolve in multiple sites. So in an ideal world with London, it's stay where it is. The heartbeat is the venue that we're in now, but with some periphery venues as we grow, hopefully.

Sam Sethi: 1:45:34

Would you ever extend it beyond the two days?

Jason Carter: 1:45:41

Yes, that's something else we are considering as well. What's really important with the development of any event? Certainly, from my kind of experiences, they do need time to breathe. Where you get to in year six you would never plan in year two, and we're constantly evolving and shaping and listening to people like you and the wider industry. So, whether it's let's not do so many sessions, let's do more networking, so we're sort of cutting our cloth at the moment as we develop.

Jason Carter: 1:46:03

But two more years time, six years into the show, what would be a vision that I might have is that we're at two or three other venues around the area open up the program for the evening.

Jason Carter: 1:46:13

We've got an event in the UK, in Brighton, for music called the Great Escape. I'd love it to evolve into the scale of something like the Great Escape what that is for music. I'd love us to be sort of delivering similarly for the podcasting community. We have great engagement globally. I mean, one of the things for me over the last few weeks that's really pleased me is seeing so much on social media about people from all around the world booking flights and planning to come to London for the show. That really pleases us. As a team, we do get asked a lot can we bring the same format to other territories? That's been thrown around for quite some time. It would be good to get there at some point, but we just need to keep our eye on making sure the event that we're doing in London is delivering for everyone, whether you're a delegate or a partner at the moment.

Sam Sethi: 1:47:06

Now a lot of people have been asking me look, I can't come to the event. I can't fly, I'm in Australia or I'm somewhere else in the world. I believe that they can watch some of the event online, or is that after the event? I can't remember now.

Jason Carter: 1:47:22

Yeah, there isn't anything on the show days. There's actually just audio content. There's highlights of content. Last year a number of stages were available for people to see post-show on demand, and so we're making highlights available after the show. So if people can just go to thepodcastshowlondoncom and you'll get all the info on that, it will be up. We're kind of concentrating at the moment on in-show, but straight after the show more information on that will become available.

Sam Sethi: 1:47:48

And if anyone still hasn't got a ticket and they want to get a ticket, would they go to the website? Can they get it on the day? What's the scoop?

Jason Carter: 1:47:55

You can get it on the day, whether or not they'll still be available on the day. Like I said, we've had huge demand. Tickets are still available for the show the silver. For the show the silver tickets the kind of lowest tier in terms of accessibility, that one's already sold out. But we've still got platinum and gold tickets available and actually we still have, even though I say that the whole kind of event is to the rafters. As you can probably tell, there are opportunities for any organizations that might still want to have a branded presence or do something small at the event more than just attending as a delegate. There's still opportunities there too. So just go to the website, really, and you can get that information.

Sam Sethi: 1:48:32

Jason, thank you so much. Thanks for putting on an amazing event. I can't wait to come to it. It's my favourite event. It is absolutely. My voice will be gone by the end of the two days.

Jason Carter: 1:48:41

It's for certain. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sam. The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi: 1:48:47

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter, and here's where Sam talks technology. What's going on, Sam Well?

Sam Sethi: 1:48:55

our sponsors and friends at Buzzsprout are beta testing a more accurate transcription service. They've been doing this for a couple of weeks now. It's free for all users while it's in beta, and so before, I think, they used Rev, which was the transcription service they had, and now they're going to take it in-house.

Sam Sethi: 1:49:17

According to Buzzcast, yes, yes, oh, that makes a ton of sense. Are we already getting that in the Pod News Weekly, or do we have to sign in to use the beta? I wonder.

Sam Sethi: 1:49:30

No, we are. In the last episode we were using the new beta. Oh were we? Oh, there you go. I wonder I haven't checked if it's any more accurate, whether my name's spelt any funnier or different.

Sam Sethi: 1:49:44

But there you go. Yes, One of the things that, unfortunately, I don't have the time to do is to go and correct all of that. No, Because it gets both of our names wrong, as most transcript tools do, to be fair. But yes, it'll be interesting to see whether or not that gets it a little bit better, whether or not that gets a little bit better. But the transcript is particularly useful because, of course, Buzzsprout, our sponsor, also offers things like automated titles and social media posts and blogs and everything else, and so the transcript is where all of that comes from. That. So, yeah, so it's a super useful tool. I do notice that Sam Sethi was correct. James Cridland was correct in our transcript last week, Although when I said I'm James Cridland, it wrote down I'm James Criddon, so you know, but it was close. So there we are and I could also I could always have you know gone in and actually corrected that, which I probably should have done.

Sam Sethi: 1:50:52

Better than saying you were James.

Sam Sethi: 1:50:53

Bond, there we go. Yes, fountain, the popular podcast app, tell me all about it as the advisor.

Sam Sethi: 1:51:02

What's been happening?

Sam Sethi: 1:51:04

Well, they've released version 1.2. 1.2 is interesting in that it's firstly got a bit more design work on the library pages, on the content pages, it's got a rebuilt audio engine so it sounds a little bit better, the audio playback is a bit more robust. But the thing which is quite interesting is they have now built in, for a small amount of sats, they've now built in a way to get summaries for shows. So if you're sitting there and you're wondering, ok, should I be listening to this next one and a half hour long show with Lex Friedman, what will I actually learn Then? You can actually pay a very small amount of sats, a very small amount of money, and get a summary generated for you automatically, which is quite a nice tool, I think.

Sam Sethi: 1:51:50

Yeah, it's part of their AI work that they've been working on. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 1:51:54

Yeah, yeah, so yeah. So lots of stuff from Fountain to come, but certainly, looking at that, it's nice to see, you know, a little bit more new features in there. They've been, you know, rebuilding stuff behind the hood anyway, but nice to see a bunch of new features there.

Sam Sethi: 1:52:18

Now Podheroes. It's a company I've not come across, but they say they're the world's first podcast expert marketplace. What's this?

Sam Sethi: 1:52:27

So this is a way of you going. Oh, you know, I'm making a podcast. I could really do with somebody that really understands how video works. Where can I find a consultant to help me with podcast video? Well, you'll go to Podheroes and you can find people such as that. And you can find people such as that. They've got some pretty good people working there. So Lama, who is the CEO she used to be the former VP at Podio, who, of course, we featured on this very show a couple of weeks ago. Also, there is a man called Vuck V-U-K See how that turns out in the transcription and he is the co-founder of Podster, which is a big Middle Eastern podcast company, and Podix, which is a guest service. So, yeah, they've got the understanding there of how all of this works. So, yeah, it was good to see that.

Sam Sethi: 1:53:35

Yeah, we interviewed Gautam Rajanand a couple of weeks back and he was talking about Mic Match, which was a guesting platform. That he's built and we mentioned that he was going to extend that capability to build a very similar product to Podhero. So well done to Podhero, first out the door. But you know, I think others are going to be copying that platform very soon.

Sam Sethi: 1:53:58

Yes, indeed, what I thought was interesting with that is that it shows people's costs and you know you can get somebody that will help you with you know your, your podcast for $90 an hour or somebody else, um, you can get them for $900 an hour. There's a real sort of different uh, amount of of, uh, of uh costing there. So I I just thought, yeah, I wonder if you're going to get 10, times better advice from the 900 person. Um, always interesting to end up seeing.

Sam Sethi: 1:54:30

but uh, yeah, so that was um, so that was certainly good now headliner um, have integrated their podcast promo product with a number of attribution services like co-host, a gel and ai. What's this, james?

Sam Sethi: 1:54:42

yeah, it's um, they say it's to bring tracking and transparency to podcast advertising, but they have always had a tool called Podcast Promo, which allows you to do a fair amount of advertising for shows, and so they've integrated with a bunch of these attribution services there, which makes a bunch of sense. And Podscribe have also announced something which is interesting. They've announced a few new features, including something called Spotify video modelling, so it will work out how many plays your video gets within Spotify, except it won't really, because all of this data is actually just based on how your ads do in your audio RSS feed, and then working on some modeling for shows of that type of genre, and you know, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, I'm always sort of hesitant to call them just guesses, but in this particular case I think it pretty well is just a guess.

Sam Sethi: 1:55:51

What's going on there? I was going to read this sentence out and then realise that none of that sentence made sense to me. Because I didn't understand it? Because it's based on performance in the ad of the RSS audio and it's a Spotify video view, which is a play, and I'm like I have no idea how you're doing this, Exactly exactly.

Sam Sethi: 1:56:09

Now what are Substack doing? Sam Well.

Sam Sethi: 1:56:12

I mentioned a couple of weeks back. We've obviously been doing this show for a number of years together. James and we don't really focus too heavily on platforms like Substack or Patreon or Memberful because, although they're very good at putting exclusive content, they've been very singular in what they do and we haven't really included them in the podcast players market. But I think we need to look at them much closer because the Substack platforms Zateo, one of my favorite podcasts, and publishing, one of my favorite podcasts and publisher networks. They heavily lean on substack for newsletters, for um podcasting, but live and they're going very heavily on live and they're not.

Sam Sethi: 1:56:56

They didn't go into youtube, surprisingly, and I didn't understand that why they've gone into substack and then they uh copy it over into youtube, and substack have announced that they're going to now launch audio-only live streams, so they've got video live streams. But these audio-only live streams means you can turn the camera off and still be live and if you want, it says here you can turn the camera back on halfway through as well. So I think it's just a feature to turn the camera off. But what I find interesting is that there are more and more people moving over to substack to do paid uh live services and that open live streaming is what we really want in podcasting. We've been trying to get into podcasting 2.0, but it looks like patreon is going to go down the same road and others, so yeah, very interesting yeah it.

Sam Sethi: 1:57:46

It's always worth keeping an eye on what Substack is doing. I mean, they are doing some really interesting things with newsletters and with you know, and increasingly with podcasts as well. So, yeah, quite a fascinating thing.

Sam Sethi: 1:58:03

Yeah, I think it's the paid subscribers. That was the original driver, wasn't it for them? So create a newsletter, drive subscriptions through paid subscribers. But now, by adding the audio and video live capabilities and still having that subscriber element, I think they've really cracked something really interesting. No, indeed, now, in the interview that I did with Jason, one of the things he mentioned, james, was that Netflix is going to be at the London podcast show, and my little ears pricked up quite big because I'm like, oh hello, we talked about them possibly doing something with podcasting, more to fill the air and keep you inside the app than really going big, but they wouldn't come to the London podcast show unless they were planning on doing something more. What's your guess?

Sam Sethi: 1:58:54

Yes, and I think you're right to wonder what Netflix are doing. They were at Podcast Movement Evolutions as well, but they were literally just sponsoring the coffee, so I don't remember anybody you know speaking very much about podcasting or any of that. I kind of come back to the fact that Netflix would like more content, would certainly like some cheap content and video podcasts are that. So perhaps it's just a case of seeing what they can do in terms of attracting some of the bigger names to the Netflix platform as free bits of content that they get, and perhaps it's just as simple as that, but I don't know you. I mean it's, it's. It is interesting trying to guess what netflix might be doing there, or maybe they're meeting with podx.

Sam Sethi: 1:59:52

I tell you, pave, podx and netflix in one room. That's it. I'm going to the bookies, I'm in. But the other thing they've released this week is um, which I think is really interesting, goes back to what we said about Apple and Safari. They've released their generative, ai-powered search tool. Now I've been talking about a new interface for TrueFans that we're working on, which has got an agentic AI.

Sam Sethi: 2:00:18

I'm a massive believer that this is going to be the way that we integrate with apps in the future and it won't be long. So the example they give as netflix is you can now have a conversational um chat with the ai and say I want something funny and upbeat to watch right now. And again, as I said with podcasting and when tom webster said he wanted a big button, I think um, a conversational ai interface where you say, look, I'm looking for a podcast, you know something to do with the news, or maybe I'm based here in Paris today. Tell me something about the Louvre. And again, I think AI-based interfaces, where it's voice-driven, I think are going to be the future. I think this new Netflix iOS app, where they've integrated, is going to be a wonderful example of how that's going to be used.

Sam Sethi: 2:01:08

Yeah, and I think that what Netflix has the world of podcasting doesn't is Netflix has an astonishing amount of data on every single piece of content in its platform, so Netflix has access, of course, to the transcripts of everything, but Netflix have also categorized that content into lots of different sub genres, and so they have so much information on each individual piece of content, whereas, you know, you have a look at Joe Rogan, and Joe Rogan has one line, which is a description, and that's it, and so I think the difficulty that the open podcasting world has is that we have nowhere near the amount of data on each of the episodes and each of the podcasts available in open podcasting, and so there's going to be some interesting sort of glue in terms of how we fix that as we go forward. But yeah, I mean mean certainly seeing more ways of finding new shows is really interesting yeah, the other thing they've included is a tiktok style video feed.

Sam Sethi: 2:02:17

So again for short form video, and they've completely redone the ui. The last time it was done was 2013, so completely, completely done the UI for the homepage as well. So big updates there from Netflix.

Sam Sethi: 2:02:33

And I would also say that you know there are a lot of companies making some changes to UIs recently, and there's a TV company in Australia called Fetch. There's a TV company in Australia called Fetch and they've just made a few quite big changes to how those set-top boxes are perhaps quite a lot older and quite a lot less familiar with how these sorts of things work. For them to relearn how these systems work after somebody has said, oh, we'll change the UX up a bit. I think we just need to be careful in terms of doing that. Now there was a company which has I'm trying to remember who the company was but there is a company which has released a super simple version of their app this week for seniors, for people that you know find all of this additional tech quite difficult. I'm desperately trying to remember who that company was, because it was a big old company, but they'd essentially just made a super simple version of their app. It was Uber.

Jason Carter: 2:04:00

Oh, right it was.

Sam Sethi: 2:04:01

Uber. Yeah, because Uber actually has a lot of seniors who want to use Uber, but they find the current iteration of the app just super confusing. So they've launched a very sort of light, easy way for people that aren't too familiar with mobile phones or anything else, just to get them an Uber, which I think is a brilliant idea yeah, my, my sister-in-law bought um my wife's mother a brand new super duper smart lg tv and she can't work it now.

Sam Sethi: 2:04:33

We get a phone call every night now asking us how to get back to itv. Just that's all. She wants one button and she just gets lost in all the menus and all the other buttons it's really, really hard.

Sam Sethi: 2:04:46

I had to buy my mother-in-law we bought just a simple, straightforward remote control which didn't have all of the buttons on it, just so that she wouldn't find herself in the Android TV home system when all she wanted to do was just to find Channel 7. Yeah, you're absolutely right, and I do think that there's a whole missing opportunity here of just simple, straightforward interfaces. It's interesting seeing how some of the new phones that are coming out now and Adam and Dave were talking about this on their show last week the Light Phone, which has been deliberately built to have a very paired back interface which only allows you to do a few things on that phone, specifically to keep things easy and simple. And in fact, if you go into the one of the phone stores in Australia, some of the phones that are actually selling really well are those Nokia. You know 8250s or whatever they are.

Sam Sethi: 2:05:56

You know the old big phones with a physical keyboard and easy to use. You know tools that have got you know SMS on them, and that's about it easy to use. You know tools that have got you know SMS on them, and that's about it, and those are selling really well for people that just can't be dealing with all of this. You know touch screen and you know Apple is supposed to be completely changing how iOS works at the end of next year, and you know all of the complication that's going to give. So, yeah, definitely something to have to think about.

Sam Sethi: 2:06:26

And you know all of the complication that's going to give. So, yeah, definitely something to have to think about Now. Your tag the location tag is now official, james. It's now in the podcasting 2.0 spec.

Sam Sethi: 2:06:36

Congratulations, Hooray, yes, I'm very excited by this. I think that there's a ton of exciting things that we can do with this new podcast location tag. The main thing to remember is that it's not just a lat lon point. It's also an OpenStreetMap place ID, and if we start using those OpenStreetMap place IDs when we are putting locations in, then that allows us to do some really rich things in the future about you know, I'm in Paris.

Sam Sethi: 2:07:08

Play me podcasts about the Louvre, as one of your examples that you gave earlier on. Yes, absolutely, it will do that sort of thing. It could also do play me podcasts about tourist attractions that I might want to go and see, and it can go and find all of the tourist attractions in in Paris or within two miles from where you are currently. Um, you can do all of that kind of stuff. So I'm I'm very excited by what the podcast location tag can actually do. Um, so, uh, yeah, it's um, it's a good thing. You'll find a specification, you'll find an implementation guide, you'll find an example tag generator. They're all on the podcast index GitHub, not yet on the podcasting2.org website. That needs a kick by Daniel, who is rewriting a little bit of it to make it much easier to update, but that will be done relatively soon, I understand.

Sam Sethi: 2:08:09

Now Dave Jones, the other half of the Adam Curry Dave Jones show lovely man that he is. He pointed out that Cash App now has turned on a lightning so you can receive money, not pay money, but your Lightning address will be James at CashApp or Sam at CashApp. So again, he got very excited about the fact that it now works and that we have CashApp as part of the wallets available for the Lightning Network.

Sam Sethi: 2:08:40

Yes, I think this is a big deal. Cashapp is massive in the US. It's available in two countries though, just the US and the UK, but it's got millions of users in the US Cash App, and so the idea that you can theoretically now link your podcasting 2.0 app with streaming payments to your Cash App is really exciting, I think, to your cash app is really exciting, I think, because that should allow people to both earn money as podcasters but also to spend money into podcasters. That should be pretty good news, so let's hope that it works the way that we think it's going to work.

Sam Sethi: 2:09:27

Yeah, I mean I think the Nosta Wallet Connect and badly named that it is is a connector for multiple wallets, so it'll be interesting to see if that's added to those, because then it makes it very easy to add cash out to any of the podcast 2.0 apps.

Sam Sethi: 2:09:44

Yes, they've done a pretty interesting thing there, and that goes alongside Strike with a K, which also accepts Lightning Receive in that way, and so I guess one of the questions that I would ask is how many podcast apps are still out there that are only sending to nodes rather than Lightning Receive addresses, and when should I be moving away from a node and moving into just paying into my Strike account? And I don't know what the answer is Well?

Sam Sethi: 2:10:17

I think the answer is. From my perspective, we still support the node at TrueFans. You should be getting payments from this podcast when we get them. And, uh, again, we have just added support for ellen address as well, but we don't, as true fans, support strike with a k or cash app yet. Um, but fountain does.

Sam Sethi: 2:10:42

I'm not quite sure where some of the other podcast 2.0 apps are podcast guru and podverse, etc so if I've got, if I've got strike with a k in my, uh, in my splits, um, and then somebody listens to the show on true fans, yeah, I'll get paid, right you?

Sam Sethi: 2:11:02

will, yes, we, yes, we honor out um everything. So that would be an address and we would make that payment wherever the splits were and the percentage. We wouldn't allow you right now to use your strike wallet as a user. So, when you're on board, yeah, yeah, yeah, no that makes sense.

Sam Sethi: 2:11:20

That makes sense. So I wonder. I wonder, from a streaming payments point of view, is this now the time for podcasters, for creators, to now just be using Lightning addresses? Can we actually use that now with all of the big podcast apps, or are there still some podcast apps out there which will only pay out to node addresses rather than lightning receive?

Sam Sethi: 2:11:51

Not that I'm aware of. I mean, if you've got KeySend or you've got LN URLP support, which I think most apps do now, and you can support the LN address, which is just a listing of what the payment's out, so it could be paypal in there as well, but, by the way, um, or any other. But yeah, I mean, I think they, I think we're in a good place. So if you put in your rss feed, in the value tag, your lightning address, then I think all apps should now be paying out directly over the lightning network to that, based on the value splits within the value tag.

Sam Sethi: 2:12:30

Of course, the only downside with that is we don't necessarily get to see the information about what somebody has actually boosted, so we don't necessarily get to see the message in there, and so maybe that might be the reason why we don't want to end up doing that.

Sam Sethi: 2:12:45

Well, I think the problem we have is that we are being forced to come away from key send to ln address because the the market seems to be standardizing on that, or ln urlp as part of it, and bolt 12. God, I hate it as much as everybody else when I have to talk about it because I don't fully understand it sometimes. Um, but that seems to be the arrow of direction. I think we are doing our best to try and follow along. I think when you use fountain, which uses the noster wallet connect, which gives you access to multiple wallet choices, strike being one, I, I assume Oscar's going to be pretty quick to get cash out. Next, I would if I was him, and so, yeah, I think that's one way, which is you. So Oscar and I differ in one aspect only. So money out. We both agree. We will honour what's in the value tag over a lightning payment. The difference is, I want to onboard people who are non-technical to understand this so I don't I do not want to offer multiple wallet choices.

Sam Sethi: 2:13:55

When you first come across this thing called a wallet and sats whereas oscar has made a much more technical decision where you do kyc, you get your strike wallet out and any other wallet, bring it to Fountain and then that is your wallet and it's a universal wallet. So that's where we differ.

Sam Sethi: 2:14:14

Yeah, no, it's certainly interesting. I do notice going through my strike payments, that I can see, for example, little. I can see the messages if they've been sent in fountain. Um, so this payment says wonderful episode from podcast movement evolutions, perfect cure for FOMO. Um, and it says from fountain, whereas there's another whole set of streaming payments which just says pay and then my name on it. So, um, clearly there's something, there's something interesting going on there, but perhaps it's time to ramp those up and to calm down on the complicated Node stuff. But anyway, there we are.

Sam Sethi: 2:14:55

Now talking of payments. One last area Stripe with a P had their big global announcement this week and, wow, did they hit the zeitgeist at the right time. So apple had the law case that we talked about earlier where they had to allow third-party external links. Well, one of the big announcements is stripe has now built into the api the ability to link out from an ios or android app to make purchases, and I'm so pleased because when we push our native apps, which we're about to do we can now use that, because we built the Stripe API into the backend of TrueFans. So I'm very, very excited.

Announcer: 2:15:36

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

Sam Sethi: 2:15:53

So many different ways to get in touch with us. There's fan mail by using the link in our show notes, super comments on True Fans, boosts everywhere else or, of course, email weekly at podnewsnet. We're sharing any money that you want to send us to. We got some fan mail through the link in our show notes, didn't we?

Sam Sethi: 2:16:07

Jim James, one of the power supporters, has written Apple AI rotten to the core. Siri just calls chat GBT. Yes, we, we suspect that their AI announcement at the last WWDC was a little bit of smoke and mirrors and we'll see what they do at this WWDC. I have said long and hard and think other people are now agreeing, that Tim has missed every major technology curve. I don't think we'll see folding phones until 2027. And I'm not even going to trust for once their demos this year. I think I'm going to have to get my hands on it myself before I trust whatever they announce as an.

Sam Sethi: 2:16:46

AI demo.

Sam Sethi: 2:16:48

It's time to go, tim Time to go, and a bunch of boosts as well, which only I can see this week. So, seth 1,060 sats. I'm intrigued by Netflix and podcasting Another place to get your show out to the masses, if you're popular enough and doing video. Yes, agreed, bruce. A row of ducks. The ugly quacking duck, of course Bruce is Mike. Match Sounds really interesting. Thanks for the episode 73s 73s to you too. What else have we got? Silas VT 5,827 sats from True Fans. Sam, do you have a special keyboard for LinkedIn DMs with only a thumbs up button? If so, where do I get it? I need one too.

Sam Sethi: 2:17:33

No, I don't believe so no idea what's going on there.

Sam Sethi: 2:17:38

I think he was asking me questions and I think I just responded with thumbs up rather than a more detailed response Silas on Linux 1234 sats three, four sats from Fountain, the number one provider of disagreement over the slowest.

Sam Sethi: 2:17:53

He's calling himself the number one provider of disagreement over the slowest method of communication ever. Sometimes I have to think rather hard. Why did I write that over a week ago? Yes, because you may remember that this time last week he was saying I don't know something else about video and whether video could work in RSS and stuff like that. But anyway, yes, this is the slowest method of communication ever because it's essentially you send a message in and then we mention it the following week and then, yes, it's very entertaining.

Sam Sethi: 2:18:27

And then you reply the following week. And then, yes, it's very entertaining. And then you reply the following week after yes, yes, Sai sends 2,780 sats.

Sam Sethi: 2:18:33

Thank you, sai. Volume tracking in metrics to understand listening hotspots, which I mentioned last week. What about chapter jumping and how could that affect percentage complete metrics? I sometimes jump over some chapters to skip to something more interesting or if I'm time poor. So can this be tracked and measured for audience trends? And the answer is yes, absolutely it can, but by the podcast players, not by podcast hosts, of course, who have no idea if you're using chapters or anything else. But yes, absolutely they can do that.

Sam Sethi: 2:19:05

Neil Velio enjoyed the fact that we left an edit in last week talking about John Spurlock. Yes, he sends a message saying ha ha ha, love the funny edit introducing Spurlock. Great fun, as awkward as a Martin Brundle celebrity gridwalk at a US-based Grand Prix. Leave more of these in. He says Okay, and another row of ducks from Bruce, the ugly quacking duck.

Sam Sethi: 2:19:38

Thanks for the news, keep podcasting. Seven threes. Thank you, bruce. That's kind of you. If you would like to send us messages, then please do. We share any money that we make this way and at some point we will sort out some way of drinking all of that money back. So thank you for that. And we are still on 18, the excellent 18 subscribers to Pod News Weekly. You can become the 19th at weeklypodnewsnet with your credit card. Thank you to Cameron Moll and to Marshall Brown, matt Medeiros and Mike Hamilton, dave Jackson and Rachel Corbett I'm partnering you all up this week Si Jobling and David Marzell lucky you, jim James and Rocky Thomas, neil Velio and Mazzalene Smith, claywick Brown, john McDermott, james Burt, david John Clark aka the late bloomer actor Brian Entsminger and Star Tempest. Very much appreciate you being part of that. So very grateful indeed. So, sam, what's happened for you this week?

Sam Sethi: 2:20:49

Um, something that's been resonating in my head that you said actually on a podcast um, advertising is a tax on the poor and the rich can pay to hide ads, and it just keeps going around in my head because I think we Did.

Sam Sethi: 2:21:01

I say that, that that sounds brilliant. I I should write that down. You did down you did.

Sam Sethi: 2:21:06

Yes, um, I can't remember which show you were on the list. You know when you were flooding the market last week where, yes, 15 shows with mr cridland on it.

Sam Sethi: 2:21:15

Yes, yes, one of those, yes yes, flood the zone.

Sam Sethi: 2:21:19

Flood the zone. It worked. Yeah, no, it was just. It's just been resonating in my head. I don't know why, but it was and I was. Um, basically, I can see how more and more content is going behind paywalls, like patreon and memberful and and supporting cast and how spotify are using um payments from subscriptions rather than advertising to generate revenue. Yeah, I don't know.

Sam Sethi: 2:21:47

I just feel that there's a trend that was the one, the one question that I don't think that maya prohovnik was expecting. When I said you know, um, when I said you know that you can pay to get rid of the advert, of the advertising, or you, you can obviously listen to advertising. Tell me, maya, why would advertisers only want people that can't afford to pay to get rid of it? And there was this sort of beat pause, and then she went oh, that's a really interesting way of thinking about it and I thought, yeah, because it's a question I've always wanted to ask, and it must be the same for YouTube Premium, it'll be the same for Spotify, it'll be the same for all manner of people. But I like my phrase advertising is a tax on the poor. I don't remember saying it, but it's a wonderful phrase. I'm going to use that more. What else have you been doing? You've been listening to a podcast.

Sam Sethi: 2:22:40

Yeah, tech Dirt. They had a really good interview with the CEO of Flipboard, mike, on the rise of the open social web. He's got a new browser called Surf and I thought it was a really interesting interview again about federation and stuff and where he thinks it's going. So again, if that floats your boat, I would recommend that Very good.

Sam Sethi: 2:23:04

Anything exciting in True.

Sam Sethi: 2:23:04

Fans. Well, we're slowing down on the everything exciting in uh, true fans. Well, we're slowing down on the number of features everyone will be glad to hear because hooray yes yes, everyone is going. Phew, stop, um, because we are about to push out the native apps.

Sam Sethi: 2:23:18

So we are just spending all of our living breathing time on that um which I'm very excited about um I've just worked out what a great t-shirt would be for you. Go on, then you should see the size of my change log.

Sam Sethi: 2:23:33

Hey, not too late for the London podcast show Gosh run away Anyway, yes, yes, we added some privacy controls. I realized that one of the things we do is we allow users to see what's in your library, what's in your history, what activity you did, um, who you're following as a friend. And then I thought, well, everyone can see that as well and that's not very good for privacy. So now you can go into your user settings and you can hide that from any other ones public eyes and make it all private and just for you, or make one tab so you might say I'm very happy for you to see what's in my library, but I don't want you to see what my activity is or who my friends are so you can pick and choose.

Sam Sethi: 2:24:18

Yes, yeah, that makes a bunch of sense. A bunch of sense. And have you added a random play count?

Sam Sethi: 2:24:27

No, well, it was generated.

Sam Sethi: 2:24:31

Yes, we have James.

Sam Sethi: 2:24:32

Yes, a random play count. Yes, we've had that before. Our good friends at Spotify, yes. But I realise that on the back of that, we can add two other metrics that I've wanted to do for a while. So, average listen time for users. So, let's say somebody who's a fan of this show, we look at all the shows that they've listened to and then we can calculate how long they listened, because we have that data and then we can say against them in the creator's dashboard Neil Velio, for example, listens to 45 minutes on average of all the podcasts that we do, right, yeah. So I thought that was quite a nice little metric to roll that out. And we've also looked at the number of plays and we now put a label against it which says which is your most popular episode, so based on the number of plays.

Sam Sethi: 2:25:22

Very good, very good. Excellent Little features, but nothing big coming soon until we get the native apps out. So, james, what's?

Sam Sethi: 2:25:30

happened for you. Well, I'm in Toronto in Canada right now, which is an interesting place to be. It's a big music conference which also has a radio conference, and inside the radio conference there's tracks, of course, on podcasting, as you might guess. So other podcast people who are here include the internet's Arielle Nissenblatt, so she is here talking about all kinds of things, also Helen Zaltzman things, also Helen Zaltzman. There's podcast royalty if ever there was. She was here it was great to catch up with her yesterday and a bunch of other folk talking about podcasting and things. I've been mostly talking about radio and rather enjoying it and being very rude about the government regulator here, who then came up to me afterwards and had a nice chat.

Sam Sethi: 2:26:29

So that's always fun Did he buy you a beer.

Sam Sethi: 2:26:34

No, not quite, I don't think it was quite buying a beer, stage, but yes, but that was a nice thing. So, yes, so I was doing that, looking forward to going home tomorrow, which I'll be going home via Hong Kong, and I think I've got six or eight hours in Hong Kong so I think I might be able to get out of the airport and go and see a little bit of Hong Kong. It's an amazing place. Yes, so Kowloon, if not Hong Kong Island Amazing place. So it'd be nice to go, but we'll see if I feel up to it on that day. But yeah, so that's been really good fun, so I've been enjoying doing that. I should also say hello to the BBC's, sam Bonham, who came up to me the other day and said how much he enjoys listening to the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi: 2:27:31

Oh thank you, which is very nice, and there are in fact, quite a lot of people who listen to this very show, and occasionally you find out who listens. So that's a lovely thing. So hurrah for that, for that. And the only other thing I would say is, if you have a Google device that you listen to the Pod News Daily on, maybe you have a routine, or maybe you are asking the Pod News Daily for you know, you're asking your smart speaker to play the Pod News Daily, or whatever it might be then you will have notice a change. Uh, on that. I will leave it at that, because I don't necessarily want to give too many um, uh, too much PR to what I've, to what I've done, um, but you will find something very interesting it were you to give that a go. So, uh, thank you very much for that. Mystic Cridland, yes, I know.

Sam Sethi: 2:28:23

So thank you very much for that Mystic Cridland.

Sam Sethi: 2:28:31

Yes, I know there's a thing that, yes, I've never worked with a tech company that is more inept than Google Utterly extraordinary. Anyway, more on that, probably when I decide to cover it as an actual story again, but let's leave it at that for now and that's it for this week. All of the podcast stories were taken, of course, from the.

Sam Sethi: 2:28:59

Pod News daily newsletter. At podnewsnet you can support this show by streaming sets. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail link in your show notes, or you can send us a super comment or become a power supporter, like the excellent 18 at weeklypodgeesnet. You know, I tell you who could be the 19th. It's either going to be Seth, it could be Bruce, yeah, could be no hints Maybe maybe they want to do it.

Sam Sethi: 2:29:24

I mean it could be, it could be one of those two, or maybe you know daniel ek with his millions or silas with his non-millions?

Sam Sethi: 2:29:30

yes, yeah, that's it. Our music is from tm studios, our voiceover is sheila d, our audio is recorded using clean feed, we edit with hindenburg and we use chapters, obviously, as you know, because we've got that little voice right at the beginning reminding you of this fact. Now, um would appreciate, appreciate feedback, if you think that this is the wrong thing to do, but that's what we're doing and we are hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet.

Jason Carter: 2:30:03

Tell your friends and grow the show.

Sam Sethi: 2:30:06

And support us, the Pod News. Weekly Review will return next week. Keep listening.