
Podnews Weekly Review
The last word in podcasting news.
Every Friday, James Cridland and Sam Sethi review the week's top stories from Podnews; and interview some of the biggest names making the news.
Support the show at https://weekly.podnews.net - or hit the boost button! Sponsored by Buzzsprout: start podcasting - keep podcasting!
Podnews Weekly Review
Turning Podcast IP into Multi-Platform Revenue
We have interviews with James Burtt from the newly-launched Pivot Productions; Liam Heffernan from Mercury Podcast Network who has just announced a new partnership with the Student Radio Association; and founder & CEO Will Malnati of At Will Media on taking IP from podcasts into other platforms.
Plus - weekly podcast listening in the US has reached a staggering 773 million hours according to new data from Edison Research. This robust metric provides a more meaningful measurement than percentage reach, showing the growing intensity of podcast consumption while enabling better cross-media comparison.
• Audioboom acquires UK podcast company Adelicious, maintaining both brands to serve different market segments
• YouTube announces plans to demonetize inauthentic AI-generated content, raising questions about disclosure standards
• New and updated podcast apps include Campfire (German), Fountain and Podhome
Check us out at podnews.net for daily updates from across the podcast industry. If you want to support this show, visit weeklypodnews.net to become one of our valued power supporters.
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The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters so you can skip from story to story if you've the attention span of a toddler.
Speaker 2:The last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi.
James Cridland:I'm James.
Sam Sethi:Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.
Liam Heffernan:How can we act like a big network but support the little guys out there?
James Cridland:Liam Heffernan from the Mercury Podcast Network Plus.
Will Malnati:We spend as creators a lot of time and a lot of energy. It just feels rewarding to have created something that can go further.
James Cridland:At Will Media's Will Minati on getting the most out of your IP.
James Burtt:And the cream will always rise to the top. It doesn't matter how busy the space gets. Great shows will find an audience on getting the most out of your IP and the cream will always rise to the top.
James Cridland:It doesn't matter how busy the space gets. Great shows will find an audience. James Burt from the brand new Pivot Productions on working with the stars. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout with the tools, support and community to ensure you keep podcasting, start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly.
Sam Sethi:Review Okay, James, let's kick this show off then. Podcasting is massive. Yeah, we know that, James, but you now think there's a new way to put a podcast metric around it. What is this?
James Cridland:Yes, now, this may not come as a surprise to you if you are a long-term Pod News Weekly Review listener, but yes, I have been slightly nervous about podcasting reaches 55% of the US population every month. It's lovely, but at some point that figure is going to stop going up and it's also not particularly helpful to us in terms of telling more of a story of how people are consuming podcasting. So I've been working with the good folks at Edison Research Gabriel Soto, larry Rosen and we have a number and that number is 773 million hours a week is consumed in the US. Three quarters of a billion hours people spend with podcasts each week, which is amazing. Quarters of a billion hours people spend with podcasts each week, which is amazing. That number's gone up significantly over the last 10 years 355% increase.
James Cridland:So Edison Research tell me, because their data goes back that far and I think it's a pretty good number, because I think there are two things with that number.
James Cridland:Firstly, it shows how much podcasting is growing and that number should continue increasing because, of course, the time spent with podcasting is growing and that number should continue increasing because, of course, the time spent with podcasting is both a function of how many people are listening to podcasting, but also how long each listener listens. So I think it's good for that. But I think it's also good because it helps us financially, helps us understand where the money is, because we can increase the amount of podcasting that people consume is because we can increase the amount of podcasting that people consume. And if we do that, then we have more ad spots to go away and sell, rather than cramming more ads into the shows that we're already selling. So hopefully it's a good number. I'm really interested to hear other people's feedback, whether or not this is the headline number that we show people who are interested, just to help them understand how big podcasting is.
Sam Sethi:Yeah, and look, as you said, if people listen to this show, it's something that you and I have talked about for a long while listen time, percent completed, value paid. So is this officially now how Edison is going to measure the industry?
James Cridland:Is this something that is an official thing from them? Yeah, I mean, it's an official number from them. It's worked out using the Edison share of ear study, which they do every single quarter. So it's an official number from them. I am hoping that, as part of the big reveal for the infinite dial, I'm hoping that what you see from that is you see both here's, you know, yes, 56%, it's gone up to this year, blah, blah, blah. But also here's the headline number, because that headline number will always increase, you would hope. But that's really up to them, I think. From my point of view, I'm interested in looking at a weekly figure because they're useful. They're much more helpful than monthly figures, because the number of weekends in a month changes and the number of days in a month changes. So a weekly figure is useful. You can also compare it with other data from other countries and from other media as well. So hopefully it'll be a good, useful number as we move forward.
Sam Sethi:Does this mean that podcasters themselves should now be saying I have X number of hours per week in my show rather than X number of downloads?
James Cridland:I mean, you know, at some point we would like to, you know, obviously use consumption from that point of view as well. But you know, I think a download figure is useful. It's a kind of rough proxy for how many people are listening to your podcast and all of that. It's harder to get a total time spent listening number because the only real ways that you can get that number are from podcast apps like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, youtube, true Fans, all of those. So you can get those from those apps but you can't necessarily get it from, you know, pocket Casts or from Overcast or from any of those. So it's a harder figure to get hold of. But certainly, if you want a big number, which should always increase, then taking a look at that, certainly from a network point of view, I think makes an awful lot of sense.
Sam Sethi:Yeah, and I think this goes back to what John Spurlock was trying to do with the SPC getting data back to the hosts from the apps so that first party data can be aggregated at the host level. And then I think that's when you can have a host say to the podcaster this is how many hours across the apps that we have distributed your podcast to that you have. And I suppose that that's going to take a year maybe before we get there, but that's the goal, I guess.
James Cridland:Yeah, I think you know, certainly, seeing those, you know, seeing those numbers, we've got a pretty robust piece of research at the moment, anyway, through Edison Research. So I think, actually using that as we continue going forward for the US, you might be interested to know that we actually have a number for the UK as well. Rajaja released one, which is that podcast consumption in the UK 111 million hours a week, obviously smaller than the US, but then the UK is a smaller place. But if you look at it from a point of view of every podcast consumer, then really interestingly, every podcast listener, every podcast consumer in the US spends 7.7 hours with podcasts every week, according to Edison, and the number in the UK is 7.7 hours. It's exactly the same. Isn't that fascinating? So you know. So actually, we've got the data there.
James Cridland:We don't have data from that in Australia yet. It'd be lovely if we did. There used to be some share of audio studies done here, but the last one was done in 2022. So we don't necessarily have that, but I suspect that this is a number that quite a lot of different countries have and it's a nice big number and, as I say, it should always go up, unlike total reach. You know the total amount of people who we're hitting, which at some point is going to flatline you know we just need to be aware of that Whereas hopefully the amount of listening can continue to grow as there are better, better podcasts out there. As we do a good piece of work around marketing our additional podcasts, go and listen to the Pod News Daily. You know all of that kind of stuff is useful as well, so hopefully this is a good number as we move forward.
Sam Sethi:It also bears in mind that can we begin to measure against other forms of media? So, for example, if I spend on average 7.7 hours every week with podcasts, how many hours do I spend with radio? How many hours do I spend with TV? Can those be compared?
James Cridland:Yeah, absolutely we can. It's a really easy thing to compare, which is nice. You're probably going to ask me now what the number is in terms of radio in the UK, but I'll tell you it's.
Sam Sethi:Being the radio futurologist, I thought you'd have it at your fingertips, you know there.
James Cridland:Yes, I can tell you that UK I mean this is one of the figures that the UK releases every single quarter, so it is the number that you typically see. So I said 111 million hours for podcasts every single week. For all of radio total hours is just over 1 billion, so we do have a long way to go. It's about a 10% medium in the UK and those figures, as I understand it, much the same in the US. Podcasting is about 10 or 11% according to Edison Research, and so again, you can expect the numbers for radio to be 10 times larger right now. But of course, what we do know is that radio listening is certainly changing and it's that total hours number that we're seeing the most decline in in most markets. So you can imagine that podcasting will get bigger and bigger very, very quickly.
Sam Sethi:You can imagine that podcasting will get bigger and bigger very, very quickly. Nice numbers Now moving on Boom, boom, boom. Let me hear you say Adelicious is the song it looks like Audioboom's acquired. Yes, there is a song called that.
James Cridland:The Audioboom has acquired the UK podcast company Adelicious.
James Cridland:Tell me more, james. Yes, this is exciting. Both Andrew Goldsmith and Pascal Hughes were sending me very excited emails yesterday saying we've got a fantastic piece of news, but we can't tell you what it is yet. But we've got a fantastic piece of news. We'll send it to you at a quarter to five this afternoon and I said not being funny, but that's half past one in the morning. Tell me what it is. But yes, I know that they are both thrilled. It's a really big deal actually.
James Cridland:So Audioboom, as we know, a big podcast network who has got a lot of different shows in there. They work with a lot of different publishers. Adelicious is a little bit different in that they are very bespoke. They're very white label. White glove, I believe, is the phrase white glove, isn't it? It is indeed, yeah. And so they've got some great new shows as part of their catalogue, and so putting those both together is a very clever idea. Also, keeping Adelicious going is a very clever idea. So you've got Audioboom, which has loads of shows, and then you've got Adelicious, which has kind of cream of the crop type of stuff, and so keeping Adelicious going as a brand, which I understand is the plan there makes an awful lot of sense. So really good news for Stuart last of Audioboom, really good news for Andrew and for Pascal at Adelicious as well.
Sam Sethi:Yeah, we previously had Stuart. You interviewed him on the 17th of January on this show.
James Cridland:Yes, indeed, and of course Andrew Goldsmith has been on this show. He was last on actually only last week as part of the interview that we had with Giles Gear, but the proper interview that we've had with him was all the way back in January 2024. So you can both go and both find both of those too. Interestingly enough, I said to them what's the big news? Have you been acquired by PodX? And the response came back saying it's bigger than that.
The voice at the beginning:Oh well, there you go, but I think it is bigger.
James Cridland:Yeah, so I think that that's probably fair. But, yeah, really interesting to see so many congratulations Again. A little bit of consolidation in the industry, but I think this is consolidation that makes perfect strategic sense.
Sam Sethi:So hurrah for them. In Inside Radio, which is owned by iHeart, it says that active podcast numbers are soaring, suggesting the number of active podcasts has more than doubled. But when you started to look around the industry, you started to question some of that, because the numbers didn't seem to back that up. So what's the scoop here?
James Cridland:Yeah, so Inside Radio. It's a competitor to Pod News, I should say it is owned by iHeart. It doesn't say so anywhere on the website, so I always enjoy owned by iHeart Whenever I mention it, it's always fun. But they released a story, which was a good story. Clearly it was a quiet week for news in the US because of public holidays and so they went looking at the stats from the Listen Notes website, which is a really good website for stats and everything else. Listennotescom slash stats is where you can find some of those. It's essentially a podcast index, but it's a proprietary podcast index. It's got lots of APIs and stuff like that and there's lots of great stuff that they report on.
James Cridland:But one of the things that I think the journalist who wrote this has got the wrong end of the stick and I have contacted Inside Radio. I think that they got a bit of the wrong end of the stick with what one of their graphs shows. So they thought that the graph said that there are twice as many active podcasts this year as there were last year, which isn't true, and I think just it doesn't really pass the sniff test, that story. So I thought, well, that's a bit weird. So I contacted Wenbing Fang, who runs the Listen Notes website, and I said how do you work that graph out?
Sam Sethi:And he gave me the SQL query for how the graph is worked out, as he would. As he would Work it out yourself, mate. Yeah.
James Cridland:And so I gave him the SQL query back of the same thing in the podcast index and ran the numbers from the podcast index, which obviously I have access to, which I don't have access to the ListenNotes data and what it basically is is it shows there's a little graph there and it shows podcasts which published their latest episode this year, right? So if you appear on that, on that number, on that 2025 number, then obviously it means that you won't appear in the 2024 graph anymore, because it's podcasts which have published their latest episode this year, 2025. So if you go back and have a look at the same data this time last year, for example, then you can see that it shows exactly the same thing. It shows, seemingly, that the total number of active podcasts in 2025 is twice as big as 2024. And that's because of the way that the query is actually done.
James Cridland:So actually, to cut a long story short, because there's lots of numbers and they won't work in a podcast, but to cut a long story short, active podcasts are soaring. The number of active podcasts has more than doubled the rate of all last year. I'm afraid, lovely story though it is, it's not actually true. In fact, the number of active podcasts this year is slightly down according to podcast index data down by 2% from 2023, which is where I have another dump of podcast index information. So, sadly, a great story. People were asking why haven't you linked to it? It's a great story about podcasting and the reason why I didn't link to it is that, sadly, it wasn't true.
James Cridland:Oh okay, I know, there you go.
Sam Sethi:Well, there's the answer to the question. Moving on then, mopod, which I know nothing about, so you're going to tell me everything about it in a minute. James has had a major update A who is Mopod? And B what's the update?
James Cridland:Yes, mopod does a number of different things. It does podcast promotion and all kinds of other things, but it has a free product which is called Mopod Charts, which I think you'll find at chartsmopodcom. The way that it has been working is that it's been looking at every single Apple Podcasts chart for the last three or four years, and you have been able to sign up for email alerts so that you know when, all of a sudden, you hit the top 10 in Saudi Arabia or you hit the top 10 in Indonesia in the business news section or whatever it might be. So it's a super cool service. So they have made a couple of changes to it. One change is that they now monitor Spotify numbers as well as Apple numbers, which is brilliant, so you can see all the Spotify numbers from right across the world, all for free.
James Cridland:But secondly, they are now working with us and we are now working with them, and so if you get your daily email from Mopod Charts, it will have some pod news headlines in there about the industry, which is lovely. And if you take a look at the pod news newsletter, then, instead of the podcast data that we used to take, which was literally just who's the number one in the US and another random country. It now shows you data from you know who was the biggest gain, for example, and who was the highest new entry, and all of that kind of information across a variety of different English speaking countries, because that's what I focused on. So really good to be working together with them and, yes, it's a good thing really.
Sam Sethi:This is similar, is it to podgagement from Daniel Day-Lewis?
James Cridland:Yes, not Daniel Day-Lewis, but Daniel J Lewis, although he would love to be Daniel Day-Lewis, I'm sure that's why he uses the J anyway. So, yeah, so it's similar to podgagement. Podgagement offers you rather more granular information and that kind of stuff, but if all you want is a quick email every single day just pointing out any big changes that happen in your podcast rankings, then Mopod Charts is a great thing and you can't beat free, then Mopod Charts is a great thing. So you know, and you can't beat free. It looks really smart as well, actually.
James Cridland:So if you take a look at the Pod News newsletter and do it on the web rather than in your email, because it doesn't quite look right in email yet, but when you have a look at that, there's a history button that you can click onto and that takes you into the Mopod Charts page for that particular show, so you can actually see how quickly it rose up the charts. You know the history that it's got in various different countries, all of that kind of information. So it's really useful stuff. So, yeah, it's a smart thing, and all for free, which is always a good thing.
Sam Sethi:How are they getting the data from Spotify and Apple?
James Cridland:Both Spotify and Apple are available through APIs. Spotify has an undocumented API, but you can work it out very, very easily by having a look at the Spotify charts website. Apple has a documented API because it's part of the Apple iTunes store and all of that kind of API stuff, which is one of the benefits and downsides of how Apple Podcasts works, and so yeah, and so it's all. It's all available at the end of an API. It'd be great if they added YouTube's one chart, but that's all that YouTube has is just one chart, but the number one in YouTube would always be the Joe Rogan experience anyway, so I'm not quite sure what we would learn from that.
Sam Sethi:Could. Could they through the API? I doubt it is the answer to my first question, but I'll ask anyway. Could they pull the listen time hours through those APIs?
James Cridland:Yeah, that would be lovely, wouldn't it? No is the quick answer and actually, as we know, the charts are different. Spotify works its charts out in a different way to the Apple charts. The Apple charts are very much trending charts. They're there to surface new things, hence why you'll see, for example, on Wednesday, when we launched this service, you'll see that the Joe Rogan experience is number one in Spotify. It almost always is, but Apple Podcasts a different number one, devil in the Desert by ABC News, which has been number one for the last sort of week and a half, but that will very, very quickly go away and we'll see other things in there as well. So, yeah, they're worked out in a very different way. So, sadly, no consumption data from that quite yet.
Sam Sethi:Okay, now look, one of the things that we've talked about is the use of AI, and you know, good or bad, it has its place. So, for example, we love how our hosts and sponsors at Buzzsprout use it. We use it very heavily for transcriptions and for episode descriptions and show notes, etc. So really useful use of AI. We also know that AI voices are going to come in. Whether we like them or not, it's the creepy line. People will get used to it and then it'll be the norm. But here you've got a story James about. Youtube has announced it's to demonetize inauthentic content widely considered to be mass-produced AI-generated material, aka I'll call it slop. Now, is this the way that YouTube's going to go and fight back against people who are just using it as a AI farm to put out content to monetize?
James Cridland:Yeah, I mean I, you know clearly, youtube wants to stop people just filling the YouTube platform with with awful nonsense, and so one of the ways that they're doing that is they're basically saying no, no, if you're filling it with stuff which is obviously artificial, then no, we're not going to pay you any money for that, or rather, we reserve the right not to pay you for that. If you take a look at Spotify, for example, pay you for that. If you take a look at Spotify, for example, spotify is earning an awful lot of money from these AI-driven pieces of music which loads of people are uploading, and that essentially means that proper artists are getting paid less because of the way that Spotify works. That's a bad thing, and I think that YouTube want to try and avoid that, I think. And so you know.
James Cridland:And so one of the ways that they're doing that is, they're basically being really upfront, unlike Spotify has, at least publicly is by turning around and saying if it's AI generated, you're not getting paid for it, which is an interesting conversation when you then start considering, okay, well, this show uses AI. We have a little AI voice right at the beginning. You know, do we not count anymore? John McDermott produces tons of shows which are written by human beings although with a bit of AI help but are narrated by AI. Does that not count either? So actually there's a bunch of these different things in there and I think it's you know, it's again another problem with us that we're there trying to grapple with what AI actually does.
Sam Sethi:Yeah, we are. And I remember we had a conversation many, many months ago about having an AI tag as part of the podcasting 2.0. We have an explicit tag and I remember the argument well, no one's going to click the AI tag, are they? Well, that's the same argument saying well, no one's going to click the explicit tag, right, but people do, they self-monitor themselves, and you know I'm sure there's podcasts that get through that don't click the explicit tag, but again that they're few and far between. So do we need an AI tag and the explicit tag? But again that they're few and far between.
Sam Sethi:So do we need an ai tag? And the ai tag can be in multiple ways. So, first of all, I don't think it matters if you generate the content through a ie. You write the script using chat, gbt, I don't think that's a problem. I don't think if you transcribe the show using ai, I don't think that's a problem, or add the show notes. But if you use a narrated voice, because they're getting so much better, should we not alert the listener to the fact that this voice isn't actually james cridland or sam sethy, that this is a ai generated voice, because it will soon be very hard to pass the Alan Turing test, we will not be able to tell the difference between the voice that's generated and the voice that's real, and so is it beholden that we actually like the explicit tag, now have an AI tag.
James Cridland:And I think I would say, as I normally say whenever people start talking about these disclosures, it depends Get off that fence, mr Cridland, and I'll use the Milli Vanilli test.
James Cridland:So in the 1980s and the 1990s we didn't require stickers to be put on seven-inch singles that you were going by saying this song may contain the use of a drum machine. Of course we didn't. It's part of what music sounds like. However, you might remember back to Milli Vanilli when they were singing on various TV shows and everybody was going oh, this is a good band. This is a good band, isn't it?
James Cridland:Yeah, really good. And then we realised that they weren't actually singing at all and they were just miming and it was somebody else doing the singing. People were really upset, and so I think a lot of this comes down to what do we, you know, what is it responsible to tell audiences about, and when does it matter? And I think it matters when you are building a relationship with the podcast host, for example. I think it matters then, but does it matter that this particular track on the beginning of this show, you know, is AI? Does it matter that we start our show with an AI voice, sam?
Sam Sethi:No, ai voice, sam, no I, I think you know. Again, it's percentage of we. We are not fooling anyone by having a ai voice. There's a bit of humor at the front, but I think if the lion's share of this show ie you and I, or one of us was purely generated by ai, correct, I think it would be good to alert the user because yeah said it just now it's that parasocial relationship, if you're going to build up a relationship with an AI. By the way, there is a report out at the moment that says which is not related to podcasting that kids are now building AI friendships more than they're building real friendships. So it is possible to build a parasocial relationship with an AI.
James Cridland:Yeah, no, I agree. There was a story. I think it was in the BBC website. It might have been. No, it was in the Guardian last week and it was a story of people who are marrying their AI companions and there was a picture of one person who had married their AI companion and he looked exactly like you would expect somebody who was marrying an AI companion to look.
Sam Sethi:It was astonishing, did you say the word incel.
James Cridland:Yes, absolutely yeah, no, I think you know it comes down to you know disclosing the right thing, disclosing it when it matters. But also it comes down to you know disclosing the right thing, disclosing it when it matters. But also it comes down to being very realistic. The people who are who, who wants to use this kind of technology for bad, probably won't be too keen to disclose it anyway. So you've always got that kind of side of it as well.
Sam Sethi:Yeah, look, as I said, the explicit tag is there. People use it. Those people that don't use it are the bad actors and stuff will get through, but for the majority of people who have fair usage, I think we put the explicit tag on last week's show, right?
James Cridland:No, absolutely, we did yeah, so, yeah. So it comes down to that, and I think you know it's important to not to mislead, which, at the end of the day, is the thing. We should leave. The last word, I guess, to this person.
The voice at the beginning:I'm the voice at the start of the Pod News Weekly Review. Hey, you two, stop talking about AI and get on to the next story. Oh, that's all Right.
Sam Sethi:Well, that's all. There you go Right. Well, there you go Over to our overlords and moving on. Then the company called Kaleidoscope has raised $5 million. This sounds good, but I don't know anything about Kaleidoscope.
James Cridland:Well, it's a children's toy that you can hold up to.
Sam Sethi:That's what I thought.
James Cridland:Yes, no, indeed. So it's one of these new exciting podcast studios which is founded by an Emmy award-winning producer and a former iHeartMedia senior VP, and it's one of these companies which is taking shows. They start a show as a podcast and then they, and then they change it and move it into TV and film if it takes off.
Sam Sethi:It only raises the eyebrows because of the, the amount they raise. So clearly they've convinced somebody that they can create IP value across multiple platforms. I guess with their background with iHeart and various other things, I'm sure they've got enough people around them that they know that have deep pockets. So anyway, congratulations to Kaleidoscope for getting $5 million.
James Cridland:But even better if you are an independently owned podcast company and you've managed to do this without putting yourself $5 million in debt. There's a CEO called Will Malnati who has done exactly that. He owns At Will Media, and I thought I'd ask him what At Will Media is.
Will Malnati:I think what started as a podcast company has now really grown into more of a content creation studio, and we say that just because we've kind of gone from podcasts now into more narrative, long form journalism, into event activation, around work that we do for big brands and clients on the studio front. So we touch a lot of different areas, whether it's for studios or whether it's for our original IP, but in both you know, in both sides of the business, we touch a few different areas that all come back to content. You know, really creation at heart.
James Cridland:Yeah, I'd like to talk about the way that you create content, because I think it's quite interesting Just from your bio. I'm curious you started working as Live Planet, as a producer, but then you worked for a restaurant brand and I'm wondering it's not the point of the interview at all, will, but I'm wondering is that a usual career move?
Will Malnati:No, it was a very unique path and my family's in the restaurant industry, and so I think of course any you know 16, 17 year olds who's looking for what their next step is and going to college, what their. If there's a family business in the mix, of course that's going to be on the table, and no pun intended, I guess. And yeah, and so there was a conversation around whether I would join the family business and I went to school, for I was one foot into that concept of a career path. I was also one foot into production and the entertainment industry.
James Cridland:What did you learn from that part of your career that you've been able to move into this part?
Will Malnati:that you've been able to move into this part. Well, first, I just want to say so many people have the thought of pivoting their career at 30 and they don't do it because they've just spent, you know, the last eight or 10 years, you know, building their career. And why would you, you know, step towards something different? And so I say that because it was. It's not like it was an easy thing. And to your question, there's the entrepreneurial side of building a restaurant industry, a restaurant business that you know is similar to what I've now built with Atwell Media. Now built with Atwell Media. There is the culture piece, you know, creating culture within a team that will always, you know, be transferable. There is the how to run a business and how to look at a P&L state. You know how to look at a business objectively and figure out where changes need to be made in order to create profit.
Will Malnati:And I think I, because I had that experience, had the advantage coming now into this, into Atwell Media, I think more so than a lot of these other. You know, you see these creatives or journalists starting a podcast business, but they've never actually run a business before, and so they find themselves like lost a little bit and for me it was like right, I understand the pieces of a business coming into this that will always apply. A business coming into this that will always apply. And so I've always been really diligent about cutting costs and staying healthy and being smart about decisions when it comes to the business, because we're a profitable business and I can say not a lot of companies, especially in entertainment right now are because it's just a difficult. It's a difficult time.
James Cridland:Yeah, no, and many and no, and that's a fantastic thing and something that, as you say, is relatively unusual right now. You know which is a thing? Let's talk about some of the content that At Will Media has been making. We're right in the middle of Easy Money, the Charles Ponzi story, the first nonfiction podcast for Apple TV+. How did that show come about? Is it tied into a show on Apple TV+ or is it a separate piece of work?
Will Malnati:So, to be clear, it's the first nonfiction show that also drama, dramatized recreations, right right for apple. So they've done, of course, the the journalistic, you know non-fiction, long-form narrative stuff. This is that because it is led by a reporter, but because the story is from 1920 and everyone that you would want to interview like a normal yeah non-fiction documentary you know would is is sadly passed.
Will Malnati:We we thought of how to bring these characters to life in a way that really played alongside of of the reporting, in a way that didn't feel like, you know, cheesy or forced or anything. And so, yeah, so we had Sebastian Maniscalco, who's this like really dynamic, not only comedian but actor, come and play the role of Charles Ponzi, who is just a very charismatic person, or who was a very charismatic person, and and, yeah, it's, it's just a really unique way of telling a story, especially for Apple. This is our second project with Apple TV Plus. Apple doesn't, you know, do a lot of originals for on the podcast space. Our first one was called Wild Things, siegfried and Roy, which you know has been announced that it's going to series as a TV show, and so, you know, with this one, we love working with them. They're incredible partners, you know, of course we think about those same things is what could be adapted well from audio to the screen, and this was a way to tell a really interesting story in a different way.
James Cridland:So the At Will Media secret sauce, I guess, is to take something that works fantastically well as a podcast and can be proven to work fantastically well as a podcast, to then develop that into other things, like a TV show.
Will Malnati:Yeah, and I think in the beginning you know I was early to the game, a bit earlier, you know, in terms of the podcast industry, you know, I, I, I started the business in 2016 and I think at at first, it was a, it felt like a bad, like, a, a bad word or like, or it was like a no, no to, to say that you were doing that Like, like, it couldn't just like, like, it had to be audio to be audio, and that was, you know, otherwise, why are you in this business?
Will Malnati:Yeah, and for me, I was always thinking about like, I love audio absolutely, and that is has been something that I've learned and continue to evolve creatively with, as the industry has, and and it's always been, you know, a passion of mine and a goal of mine to be able to create something at at zero, you know, have an idea and create something that could then be the basis for something, you know, larger, I guess, for lack of a better term and that you know, now that we've proved it or are proving it out with with Siegfried and Roy, it just feels like right. So I wasn't. That's not a crazy thought. This is something that actually can be done. And so now our work in journalism, our work in you know these other, you know areas of IP and content, we can, all you know, point to that and say like this is a goal. That of course not for everything, but for a lot of the work we do, we look to do.
James Cridland:Yeah, and I guess you know, whenever I see that sort of approach, yeah and I guess you know, whenever I see that sort of approach, I'm always there thinking two things.
Will Malnati:Firstly, is audio the small thing and the first step towards something that's bigger and better? I think that audio is something that I love and something that, of course, I've been in the game now for nine years, so I obviously have to love audio, and if it doesn't make it to something else, that's okay. But I will say this we spend as creators a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of years creating some of these works that are. If you can create something that goes, it starts in one place and goes and has a continuation, or or is able to go beyond that in terms of content, well it's, then it's like, of course, like that that that feels rewarding. Forget the monetary even. It just feels rewarding to have created something that can go further and that all this work that you put into the first thing can continue.
Will Malnati:For me, that's really what it's about, and it's not saying that audio is less than or any of that. It's just it's a different type of format. If I was to start something visually and then it could convert over to audio. It's the same idea You're able to extend the life of that content and that's important to anyone. I would think that's creating something and spending a lot of time doing it.
James Cridland:Absolutely Spend as much time as you can on the idea and get that out in as many different ways. I guess I look at the business behind it and I wonder whether that actually allows you to produce something that doesn't necessarily need to pay for itself in terms of an audio podcast, because you know that it's hopefully going to lead on to something bigger. So it's a bit like a loss leader. But you've already said you're making money, which is great.
Will Malnati:Yeah, I think, look, we have a really great studios side of our business. That's where we started back in 2016. And with just really kind of capitalizing on what I again like taking what I learned in hospitality, which was working with, you know, clients by way of events and you know, like getting to know what those like marketing folks need from your restaurant or using your bar, you know like these are. It's all the same thing. They're trying to put on something or trying to show the people in their company something, and so I was able to kind of take some of that and carry it over to podcasts where, you know, I I sometimes tell this story that there's my, our first client paying clients for this like work for hire side of our business was someone who had been a regular at my restaurant, you know, back in the day, and I always just thought of her as like a great customer and you know, at the restaurant.
Will Malnati:And then, once I was starting this new thing, I was like, oh, you know what, she works at Hearst. She probably, you know, has some need for some audio and sure enough, you know, one thing led to another and she was. She helped us get our first big you know, client and now we work with the biggest clients in the world. We work with, I mean FX, amazon, apple TV+, morgan Stanley only these top level businesses that trust us to really create premium content for them and since we've been in the game so long, we really understand how to, you know, have that white glove approach and and make money doing it so that we can yeah, we can help this other side of our business really grow.
James Cridland:So what's next for Atwill Media? You've you've looked at 1920s America. You've looked at magicians. I'm guessing space is next right.
Will Malnati:America. You've looked at magicians, I'm guessing space is next, right? Well, not far off, we're launching a podcast. Actually, yesterday, the trailer came out for Alien Earth, which is the new FX series that everyone's very excited about. Yeah, we have another show coming out next month that'll be announced soon with a big partner. I don't think I can say what that one is yet, but we yeah, we are.
Will Malnati:We're always looking to be challenged, you know, and we're always looking to explore areas that maybe haven't been explored and those are hard to find, and so I think, like you know, we are, we're good at finding them and and we're excited to to find the next one. And, you know, I will say one thing that is new for us is we are, we are involved in a whole activation at Comic-Con this year for one of our shows. You know, we, we, we just put on this Tribeca film festival event for for, for easy money, and you know, it's just this interesting area that we've been able to. We've been able to really be more heavily involved in lots of different, you know, there's lots of different ways and areas of content. Live events are are very much a part of that, and and so it's exciting to kind of be entering that too and I'm guessing if you're running one of those events, then the finger food is going to be fantastic.
James Cridland:Well, it's been a great pleasure. Thank you so much for your for your time and best of best of luck. Hopefully see you soon at one of these events yeah, I would love that the pod news weekly review. With buzz, with buzzsprout, start podcasting, keep podcasting so, james?
Sam Sethi:uh, interesting story mercury productions, which is run by Liam Hefner, have done a deal with the Student Radio Association. What's this one?
James Cridland:Well, yeah, so they've done a deal to essentially let the indie network Mercury distribute all podcast content from the Student Radio Association, the SRA. So just to sort of go back a little bit, lots of student radio stations in the UK. They're very different to student radio stations, for example, in the US. Student radio stations in the US are mostly just radio stations. The student radio station, for example, in Washington DC is the big NPR station I mean, you know, it's a bit of a weird old one Whereas in the UK it's very, very different, and this is where a lot of the new talent for radio comes from, comes from student radio.
James Cridland:So Mercury have jumped in and they've gone. You know what we would like to help the Student Radio Association. They're all students, they have no money. So we will give you free hosting, distribution and we will sort all of that, and they will also help monetise those shows as well, which makes a bunch of sense, because if you're a small student radio station maybe you're Radio Ram Air in Bradford then it's very hard to get money from some of the podcasts that you're doing. But wouldn't it be great if you could? And so I think it's quite a clever idea for Mercury to end up doing that.
Sam Sethi:I thought it'd be good if we reached out to Liam to find out more about this story, and I started off by asking him you've just announced a new project, Liam, with UK universities. Tell me more.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah, so Mercury are delighted to announce today that we are going into a podcast partnership with the Student Radio Association. So anyone in the UK is probably familiar with them. They represent dozens of university radio stations around the UK and I mean the pipeline of radio stars that they've nurtured and sort of given a platform to over the years is just ridiculous. Nurtured and sort of given a platform to over the years is just ridiculous. And now they're starting to look at podcasts and we had a couple of conversations with them and realised actually we can really help them with that. So we've given them a platform to distribute and launch whatever podcast they want to do as an organisation, but also for any of their member stations. And, yeah, really excited about it Brilliant.
Sam Sethi:Now, how did that come about? Who did you know at the university? Who approached? Who had it all materialised?
Liam Heffernan:Well, it was a bit of a cold outreach on my part, to be honest. You know I've done a lot of work over the years in hospital radio so we've kind of overlapped there a little bit. But you know, mercury, in the five months that we've been going, our focus is on supporting independent podcasters and not just current shows that need support. But how can we kind of facilitate and support new entrants into the industry and really help that next generation of podcasters come through? So to me it's a natural partnership.
Sam Sethi:You know working with the student radio association the way that they will gain from it is through your distribution. Will you be providing any other soft skills like training and recording, editing any of those other areas?
Liam Heffernan:they want, with full creative autonomy. But yeah, we want that relationship to go further. We've had discussions as well about how myself and Mercury can support the student radio network through training, talks and any kind of skill sharing that we possibly can. I don't want this to just be a simple kind of one-way transaction that they pop their podcasts on our network and that's that you know. I think there's a real opportunity there for Mercury to really support student radio in making that pivot into podcasts, because it's not an easy thing to do. I think often that can be underestimated, but I think the nuances now between radio and podcasts are not insignificant.
Sam Sethi:It's actually something that I'm talking about quite a lot. I think the difference between radio and podcasting is so small. The content is the content, right, whether you record it for radio or you record it for podcasting. The mechanism of delivery is where it differs, right. So if I have a radio station and I want to deliver it over DAB or FM or web or mobile or Alexa, that's fine, and live being a large element of that, if I have a podcast, I can now deliver it over web and mobile, but also I can deliver it through the live item tag, which is part of the podcasting 2.0. And I think live podcasting is the new radio.
Sam Sethi:One of the big things I've noticed in media channels and I'm talking about radio and TV is that they were the gatekeepers would have to pay significant amounts of money to transmitter companies who have the control over the transmitter £15,000 a month as an example. Or it may be that you wouldn't get a license from the bodies that control radio themselves, so Ofcom wouldn't give you in the UK, for example, a license. So you have the license cost and you had the transmitter cost. And now I think democratization of radio is podcasting. That can be done over live podcasting.
Liam Heffernan:Yeah, and I agree with most of what you said. But I think where it really differs is like cause. You're right, the mechanisms are the same. You know, if you have all the kit you need to to broadcast a radio show, then you probably have all the kit you need to make a podcast, right? But I think let's look at tv, like over the years.
Liam Heffernan:So you know, 25 years ago we were in this era where the tv schedules dominated, right? You looked at the tv guide, you picked a channel, you watched what, what was on, and that was that streaming services come along and I'm talking, you're not even netflix, you know, years before then, channel 4 launching sort of 4od on youtube. That changed the game, and not because the content was necessarily any different, but suddenly it. It changed consumption habits. It changed how we watch and over the years that has had a drastic knock-on effect on the type of content being created, how it's being created and how it's being consumed, and I think that's what we're seeing happen now in audio, just a few years later will you be extending?
Sam Sethi:yes, beyond the training and distribution, will you be extending and adding live functionality. So will you, as mercury, provide a live capability?
Liam Heffernan:well, I mean, nothing's off the table for mercury's future. I mean, we are still we're a we're a little baby network at the moment. You know, we're five months old, we're we're still building that infrastructure. But that also means, you know, we have the freedom to adapt a lot quicker and and you know, put those changes in faster than other networks to sort of meet the needs of our creators and the people we're supporting. And you're right, like live podcasting, I, I think, is overdue. It's something that I'm surprised isn't already here in force, but it's coming and I think it'll come quite quickly now. So, yeah, we we need to work out exactly how we adapt to that and support that, but but avoid it.
Sam Sethi:Have you other things in the pipeline as well that you're working on, that you can tell us about?
Liam Heffernan:So, yeah, I can certainly tease you. So the thing that I'm most excited about with the student radio partnership is it does fit into our long term plans. You know, up to now we've been able to build a really strong roster of independent shows and we want to build on that. We want to keep adding some awesome shows. But I think that mercury has an opportunity to do so much more for the industry. I think that we've we've really filled a gap and and touched on something that I've had nothing but but support for.
Liam Heffernan:I don't think that independent podcasters, certainly the sort of that top echelon of indie podcasters, are really being supported in the way that they need to be supported. And right now, you know, our focus is on OK, how can we build an offering that does support that? But when you look below that, you've got this whole infrastructure, this whole industry of podcasters that are where our podcasts were a year or two back. So how can we support them? How can we not leave them in limbo figuring out for themselves how to grow, and then a network kind of jumps on the coattails and kind of cashes in on that right. So I I kind of want a podcast network to be more than that. I want it to provide that bridge from people just starting out to those that are making their show a real success. And I think for us you know it's been a lot of work it's because we can't ignore the the lights on and we're having to kind of find that path and figure out a way to move forward with that.
Liam Heffernan:But what we do have on the horizon is a lot more growth in the very near future. You know the student radio is just the first step. A lot more growth in the very near future. You know the student radio is just the first step. We're putting the pieces in place so that we can extend our support a lot wider and to a lot more podcasters. We're going to be levelling up on the PR side and on the sales side so that now we've got our shows and we're helping them, we want to really ramp up, how you know, the growth and the monetisation of those shows.
Liam Heffernan:And when we do that, we can then start extending further in the ways that we really want to. And I I realize that's a terribly wishy-washy, vague answer that it's really me saying that in the next three months I think people are going to start hearing a lot more about mercury, because our real ethos was how can we act like a big network but support the little guys out there, and I think we've really now found the way to do that. So I'm not going to jinx anything until we've dotted the I's and crossed the T's, but there's some really exciting stuff coming.
Sam Sethi:Okay, cool. Well, I will keep an eye out for it. If I want to know more about Mercury, or I want to read more about what you've done with the student union, student university, what, where or how, where would I go?
Liam Heffernan:Well, the first port of call would be our website, mercurypodcastscom. I've spent the last week with a lot of sleepless nights trying to give it a little bit of a refresh, so hopefully that's nice and new looking for everyone. Alternatively, we're on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. Drop me an email, connect with me and I will happily talk for hours about what we're on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. Drop me an email, connect with me and I will happily talk for hours about what we're doing.
Sam Sethi:Liam, congratulations. Thank you very much, Thanks. Sam From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review. James, a story that I thought we'd buried, or at least the company had, Au Revoir Audio. It was a company that promised to launch an ad skipping podcast out back in November 2023. It ran out of money, had no earnings, it paid its executives a ton of money and now it seems to be rising from the dead again. What's it doing?
James Cridland:Yes. Well, I don't know whether it is rising from the dead. I think it's just having a quick turn in the grave that it's in before going in a slightly different direction. So Audia a couple of years ago yes, they did promise all kinds of exciting things in terms of a podcast app that would automatically skip the ads, and I wrote a piece about them saying, well, how are you going to give the podcasters money? And they said you know, and how are you going to help podcasters opt out of their service? And they said, well, they don't need to opt out because no harm is being done. So wasn't particularly convinced about that.
James Cridland:Anyway, what's happened is that Michael Lawless is retiring. He's their current CEO. Now I looked at that and I thought has he been sacked? And then looked at how old Michael Lawless probably is, and I think no, I think he's retiring Properly, is retiring, so that's all fine. And instead there's going to be a new CEO who's been the company president for a while, called Jeff Thramman. But what I think is interesting is that Audia is going to be restructured. It's going to be turned into a subsidiary of an AI company which will own Audia from here on in. They say that they have worked out a new strategy for the future of the Fader app, which is the app that does the ad skipping in both live radio and in podcasts, but they haven't quite said what that new strategy is. I will guess that a new strategy is to close it if it's earning no money at all. But yeah, so the bigger AI company is just going to be a company that goes out and sells AI to large corporates, and hurrah for them.
The voice at the beginning:Hey, enough of this audio stuff, let's go around the world you got a new toy.
Sam Sethi:I've got a new toy. Yes, now look, we. We've just been talking about numbers hours and now raja has released its quarterly midas study, talking about percentages of the uk. So it says podcasts are now listened to by 25 of the uk every week. That's great, but we've just said that actually, that isn't really a useful number anymore.
James Cridland:Yes, we have, and so I can tell you what the UK number is. It's 111 million hours of podcasting consumed every single week in the UK. That's actually in this MIDAS study as well, so it's nice to see a number from the UK as well. So, yeah, the MIDRE study is really interesting. I think it stands for something around measurement of internet delivered audio, and it pulls a lot of different data out, both, of course, in terms of radio, which RAGE-R is paid to do, but in terms of other platforms as well things like Spotify as well, of course, is in there and various other things. They say 7% of all audio time is spent with podcasts and 65% of all time with audio spent with radio. So some really interesting data. If you want to take a peek at that, it's rajarcouk is their website.
Sam Sethi:Whizzing around very quickly. Then the UAE the Dubai Press Club has launched its second edition of its five-week Arab podcast programme. So if that's interesting to you, you'll find that full story on Pod News Daily. In Madrid, the winners of the Primeras Ondas were announced. The podcast of the year went to La Arruña. I've probably absolutely butchered that whole thing to death, but hey, what do I know? And finally, a story that seemed to be a little bit negative in Canada, pod the North. The wonderful newsletter asks is the Canadian podcasting industry caught in a death spiral? And I wonder what they mean, james.
James Cridland:Yeah, I think Canadian podcasting right now is not having a good time of it and I think part of this is being driven by Canadians wanting government recognition of the podcast industry, particularly in that country. Particularly in Canada, there is a lot of government money which is poured into the media to keep Canadians thinking Canadian and rather to stop Canadians thinking American, and I suspect that this is part of that. Sabre rattling and saying podcasting is in a pretty bad way government. We need some more help. Obviously, the administration of the podcast exchange TPX in the country has also sort of shaken a few people up in that part of the world as well. But it's a good read. Katie Law does a great job with the Pod the North newsletter. It's well worth getting, and you'll find that linked this week from podnewsnet.
Sam Sethi:Anyone moving and grooving James? Anyone got a new job?
James Cridland:There are two. One of them goes back to the conversation that we had earlier around AI. One of them goes back to the conversation that we had earlier around AI. Npr now has a vice president of a thing called NPR's AI Labs. It's a new department which will oversee NPR's AI strategy and the vice president is somebody called Erica Osher. She moves from National Public Media and yeah, so really interesting seeing a large broadcaster like that having a big head of AI strategy. I'm sure that there are many other AI strategy people in other large podcasters, but nice to end up seeing that.
James Cridland:And going back to Canada, bob Kane is to leave Libsyn at the end of this month. He's the Canadian country manager for Lipson. At the end of this month he's the Canadian country manager for Lipson Ads. He's a really nice chap. It's always good. Whenever I'm in Canada, it's always good to see him. He's always a friendly face and he was a co-founder of the Podcast Exchange. He's worked with CBC, chorus Entertainment, all that kind of stuff. He told us this week that he's not done and he's open for opportunities, so up to you to get in touch with him.
Sam Sethi:Awards and events. Podcast Movement is coming up in Dallas August the 18th. You will be there, I will not. What's the big announcements from Podcast Movement then?
James Cridland:Well, adam Curry is going to be speaking, which is very exciting, as you may have seen earlier on in the week. So I am seeing if I can grease some wheels. At the moment, adam Curry is going to be speaking on Soundstack's stage.
James Cridland:Now, soundstack's stage is one of those stages in the middle of the exhibition hall, so it won't be one of the biggest stages and I am suggesting that it might be good if he was in a bit of a bigger room, I think. So Rocky would be an amazing person to interview Adam, as I'm sure she's going to do at her current stage. But wouldn't that be good to be one of the big, big keynote things at the podcast movement event? That would make an awful lot of sense. So we'll see what happens there, but that's going to be really exciting. There are people talking about Podcasting 2.0 there, including Daniel J Lewis, who's very excited to be talking about that although obviously Adam will be talking about that and presumably Godcaster and the Podcast Index and all that kind of stuff. And we're still waiting for the big keynotes.
James Cridland:But if history tells us anything, it tells us that the cost of tickets for the event goes up every single week because they're clever at podcast movement. So if you're thinking about going, think no longer and go and buy your tickets if you use the code podnews, and then you'll save well, potentially 75. I'm not quite sure whether that's that must be still true, because it still says that in the advertising. Yes, so code pod news will save you 75 if you want to end up doing that and try and stay in the hotel as well. That that would be my tip, because you get all kinds of entertaining things happening late at night.
Sam Sethi:Well, that means we're going to have a few sherbets. It's not far to get home, correct?
James Cridland:Yes, absolutely. It's just a slightly wobbly lift ride. So, yes, looking forward to that, assuming that the United States immigration allows me in. And why wouldn't they? Because I'm a big fan of everything out of the United States of America and I'd just like to make that clear one additional time. What else is going on?
James Cridland:The British Podcast Awards is happening in October. Maisie Adam, who's a big UK comedian, northern comedian she's being confirmed as the host, so that is good. The APAs from Audio UK has announced its Pay what you Can scheme, which is a really nice thing that Audio UK does every year. It's helped by Amazon Music and Wondery and they offer free and discounted entry to the awards if you can't afford to enter the awards or you can't afford to go and pick up your massive prize. So that's always a nice thing. And our friends at Edison Research they have a very important webinar which is well worth a watch. It's happening next week. It's all around the Podcast Consumer 2025. The study uses data from the Infinite Dial Share of Ear and Edison Podcast Metrics and it's basically all about who is listening and watching podcasting, who are our audience. It's a really useful piece of data. So you can watch that webinar as it goes out. Just follow the links from the Pod News website.
Sam Sethi:Now a couple of things here. One of the things that during the week I do and you do as well, I know, but as I find other stories that I find interesting and there's a couple of that I just wanted to highlight we're not going to go into them in too much depth. In the Press Gazette I had an interview with Crowd Network's Michael Carr and it was just a couple of things. It was called how Social and Video Drive Revenue and he starts off by saying we don't really call them podcasts anymore.
Sam Sethi:Europe's fastest growing podcast network network, which is what he says, has changed rapidly since 2020 and they call them shows now. So five years ago we launched it was all about audio and now, with spotify chucking millions of pounds at companies and loads of podcasts and it's quickly disappeared, so now they're very much focused on video and calling them shows and having multimodal, I guess. So social media was kind of used as an aside to promote our shows, he said, and to drive them to the audio, he said. That's absolutely turned on its head. Now Podcasts are shows. We don't really call them podcasts. And the other thing he said was our teams are built around all video producers and social media producers Interesting. I just wanted to see what your thoughts were.
James Cridland:Yeah, I think it's very interesting, very similar to what Max Cutler was saying from Pave Studios the other week when we were talking to him and he was again saying we don't call them podcasts, we just call them shows. I think there is certainly a part of the industry which thinks in that way, but, as we all know, because Rob Greenlee this week has clarified it for us, he's clarified what a podcast is, which is very kind, excellent. So, yes, if there was any doubt about what a podcast is, then a podcast is deep breath.
James Cridland:A podcast is an on-demand audio or video programme released in episodic format, often centred on specific themes, stories, stories or conversations. While traditionally audio-based, many podcasts also include video versions, which audio and video can be distributed via open rss feeds or platform specific. In addition to open rss distribution, podcasts may be uploaded directly to proprietary platform distribution and offer through paid subscription based access models. Podcasts strange from ongoing series to limited run or short series programs and commonly feature conversational, narrative or thematic storytelling formats. So if anybody asks you what a podcast is, now you know.
Sam Sethi:Did that have a catch-all in it? I mean literally.
James Cridland:I mean, I did speed it up just then, but yes, I mean I don't agree with it. Actually, he posted this on LinkedIn oh no, it was Facebook, I think a few days ago, and I said no, I think a podcast has to be on OpenRSS. It can be in other places, absolutely fine, but you don't get to call it a podcast if it's not on OpenRSS. Full stop, end of story. And he's there going oh, I think that's very. You know, I think that's quite close, james. I think you need a more open view, but yeah, anyway. But there we are.
Sam Sethi:Anyway, now, crowd is a very good company. It's up near Manchester, and there's another company that has launched recently. One of our power supporters, james Burt, has launched a new company with the England footballer, jermaine Genas. The company's called Pivot Productions, and I thought I'd find out more about it.
James Burtt:I'm a power supporter but a fan first and foremost. I'm having a fanboy moment. If Cridland was here as well, it'd be too much. I'd have to leave.
Sam Sethi:I was going to say I mean, I'm the second, you know, second best option for you. I'm sorry we couldn't get Cridland here, but it by some swimming pool with his pina colada or something. I don't know what he's doing it's well deserved.
James Burtt:I think he's due a few of them, to be fair.
Sam Sethi:Yes, now, james, tell me more about pivot yeah.
James Burtt:So we've launched this literally this week. So we went live with it on wednesday the idea of it, sort of the initial meetings and stuff were happening, sort of january time. But I I had a big realization about this time last year that I've been in the podcasting space for a long while, but mainly in the paid for sort of production realm. I looked at it I was like this is the thin end of the wedge. When I was looking at what the likes of Peter Crouch doing and what Gary's doing with Goalhanger and what the fellow studios are doing. There's a big opportunity here. But the bigger opportunity comes with obviously bigger risks and therefore bigger rewards.
James Burtt:I was just at a point I was like I can't just keep doing the pay for production thing as it stands. I wrote a blog about five years ago which I think James actually published in Pod News and I was like why doesn't Peter Crouch leave the BBC and run his own thing? Because if he owned the IP of it he'd earn loads more money. Ironically, I've subsequently found out that Peter Crouch actually read that blog. I'm not saying that's why he left the bbc and started his own thing.
Sam Sethi:Take it, james blog I'll take it, claim it is your idea.
James Burtt:Don't, don't be shy, absolutely yeah, so that was the rationale before sort of around it. Essentially there's a massive opportunity in podcasting right now and I think we're very uniquely placed in terms of the sort of the celebrity talent we can reach, plus the experience that we've got, that we can actually help people to really maximize the, the value opportunity that there is right now for people to own their ip and build platforms rather than just having a podcast as a paid for you know, 500 quid, a thousand quid session talent sort of thing so why pivot?
Sam Sethi:because I mean obviously cara swisher might be coming after you yeah.
James Burtt:So pivot productions group. I very carefully checked. There is nothing that has copy written that is also for for me. So I got into this business with who's obviously very well known for football. He's very well known as playing for england, playing for tottenham newcastle. He's also a very well known broadcaster. He's very well known that he left that broadcaster very swiftly last year when he was unceremoniously sacked. So we sat there one day. I was well, this is a pivot for me because I've been in the production space, but it's a different direction. He went well. It's definitely a pivot for me. As we all know, weiss was like do you know, I actually like pivot and also he played in central midfield, which is the pivot role. I was like this just works, so he's got a. I mean, you know, is it just?
Sam Sethi:to create a platform for celebrities and then monetize it, or, you know, you said it's wider than podcasting. I think one of the things we are seeing now and it'll be lovely to hear your take on it which is, you know, audio-only podcasting. So I assume you're going to be video, I assume you're going to be multi-platform. So where are you going to start? What's the first show and what's the format?
James Burtt:Yeah, so we're calling it Visualize, because that's what the cool kids in Shoreditch are calling it apparently. Bbc.
Liam Heffernan:Speaks, that is.
James Burtt:Yes, okay, fine, oh, maybe I'll retract that then and we'll just go video. So yeah, so it's already up and running literally again as of this week. So the first show we've launched, jermaine is one of the co-hosts of it. The other co-host is famous international heavyweight boxing legend, derek Chisora, who is again a very interesting character hence the name, why it fitted under the Pivot brand and we've launched a show called Let Me Tell you Something, and it's really an opportunity, for Derek and Jermaine are actually really good friends, but people don't know about it. They're basically getting on low of their celebrity powers to have conversations that you wouldn't otherwise hear in a podcast format, because obviously they know stuff about each other that other people wouldn't ordinarily. So we've already recorded the first sort of 10 episodes. We've got Catherine Ryan, eddie Hearn, lethal Bizzle, joe Cole, michael Venn and Page all some really really cool people. He drew some really really cool people, but to that extent, like Michael Venom, page came on and normally I've only ever heard him talk about, you know, the UFC cage and fighting. He talked about his conversion to Islam, which is a really interesting conversation that you wouldn't necessarily think. You're going to get on a podcast with MVP Definitely not one that's co-hosted by Jermaine and Derek as well. But that's what we want to do create content opportunities that surprise people.
James Burtt:And to your question about what's the bigger picture here, as I say, I spotted the opportunity in 2021 with celebrity talent. I was like why don't people just own the IP? But it has to be bigger than just the show. It's monetized the audio listens via programmatic insert, add sponsorship, etc. But where I think the opportunity is biggest at the moment is building that community and I know community has been the buzzword for marketing since 2023. I think it was like word of the year, wasn't it? In the marketing space but people who get it genuinely right and can have opportunities for their listeners and their viewers and their watchers to come and see them in a live show, but also do watch alongs and have an opportunity to come down to recording sessions and where we're uniquely placed, because obviously we've already got some sort of celebrity quote, unquote clout in terms of the people behind the business. But also I've run lots and lots and lots of podcasts over the years, so we know you're going to get a really good show. So I think it's going to give us the opportunity to show talent in a different way and give them the opportunity to be seen in different ways as well. Because that's another big thing that I've done in my career is help people to really communicate the brand message that they want to communicate and when you understand what you're trying to put out there as the perception, you build content around that. So it's definitely not for us the case of, like some sort of big networks of like anyone who's famous, anyone who's got a bit of a TikTok following, let's get them on and do a podcast because we can monetize it for five minutes.
James Burtt:I don't think everyone should have a podcast. As a man who's launched 187 for clients around the world in the last seven years, should everyone have a podcast? No, absolutely not. You know some people are only interested in 15 second short form TikTok videos and that's absolutely fine as a medium and that's not to disregard it. But that doesn't mean that short form, short attention, audience wants or needs to come across for longer conversations. You know somebody who's dancing to TikTok trends. Does anyone care about their thoughts on? You know deep seated psychology and manifestation for 45 minutes.
Sam Sethi:Probably not, so OK, so we get that. One of the interesting trends that James and I are talking about, obviously, is more and more content going behind paywalls. People are beginning to value quality content. Finally, you know podcasting. I've always called the second class digital citizen, because the expectation is free, with ads wrapped around it, right as the way of monetizing it and advertising isn't generating for most people the type of return they need in order to grow. So we are seeing a lot of money being put into patreon member, for we're seeing sub stack. We're seeing a lot of you talked about watch alongs again people paying super chats, so it's very interesting.
Sam Sethi:Zateo is uh medihasan, who I really went onto Substack. We had a couple of people talk about not putting their content onto YouTube because they want to own the IP. They don't want to lose control of it. So, as the IP creator, what platform are you going to put your content through as the filter? Is it going to be on Substack? Are you going to put it to Patreon? Are you going to leave it to the open podcasting world? Are you going to go to YouTube?
James Burtt:I think, moving forward, and it depends on a show to show basis. I think one thing that we still not cracked in the podcasting space and I've been obsessed with podcasts since 2010, and I've never seen the sort of the discoverability challenge. I know you guys talk about it regularly on the show, but the person who cracks that discoverability challenge is going to be, you know, do very well for themselves, but we're not there yet. So, fundamentally, I'm of the belief that you need to go and build an audience. I'm of the belief that you need to go and build an audience. You need to go and be where people are. You know, if people like Apple podcast, even though they haven't done anything very innovative in the last 20 years, apart from making Battersea Powers for a night, then so be it, and I'm one of those people. By the way, I know that Spotify has got a bunch of new shiny bells and whistles and they, you know, serve me up clips and blah blah, blah, blah. I just don't like it as a user experience. I prefer apple. So we need to be on apple, we need to be on spotify, we need to be on youtube.
James Burtt:However, there will be extensions and brand extensions which will be put behind paywalls, which will be behind subscriptions, but I think it's also got to fit. So something like let me tell you something, which is a very varied entertainment based podcast. I don't know because we're. One week we've got you, you know, catherine Ryan, who's obviously a massive comedian, then we'll have UFC, then we'll have football, then we'll have, you know, music with Lethal Bizzle. I don't think you're going to get the sort of audience that's going to go right. I'm going to pay for the additional content because it's so varied. However, obviously, with Jermaine's, again, there's a big sort of market, a big market opportunity. With that. I do think that there would be a lot of additional revenue streams. That could potentially be things like, you know, being behind a paywall. Would it be a patreon? Would it be?
James Burtt:If we're going to bring in an element of fantasy football, would we let people join our league? Would we come and do watch alongs? We would let people come and do you know, can we do something with the ballers league, for example? Well, I think that lends itself more towards it. One of the big things and you know they haven't re-invented the will, but I think the rest of this football has been very much driven the growth of that show via a newsletter? I mean, again, they haven't reinvented the will. Newsletters have been a thing, but podcasters haven't traditionally used them. Does a show like Let Me Tell you Something need a newsletter? No, I don't think it does. Does one about football? Yeah, I think it will. So we're going to do it on a case-by-case and a show-by-show basis. We won't be going one size fits all.
Sam Sethi:Right, let's chuck everything onto all the platforms for six months and then we'll do a half ananger and the rest is is their suite of podcasts. Are you going to go through the moniker of naming all your shows in a very similar way to get a brand stable environment of them so there's brand recognition, or are you going to go and individualize your shows?
James Burtt:the plan is to individualize them because the people who are behind them are all individuals. I think whatal Hanger accidentally hit on with one show name. Really working has been a brilliant bit of branding. Brilliant, to be fair, our first episode, sorry, our first show. Let Me Tell you Something that lends itself really nicely. Let me tell you something about football. Let me tell you something about boxing.
James Burtt:Let me tell you something about, but we'd already sort of brokered the deal in a way that that wasn't going to work for us. So, because there's actually one of the sponsorship networks who were in initial talks with like that's a brilliant brand and brand extension, I was like yeah, it really is annoyingly, but we can't really use it in that instance. I also think that I think that the rest is as a brand is good because all the shows are brilliant. I don't think you necessarily. You know, maybe 2% of that audience growth is down to it being part of. The rest is stable. The rest of it is down to it just being really really good content. So, yeah, we're going to go down the individual option. Had I have brokered the IP rights agreement, or let me tell you something, that might be a different conversation, but hindsight is 20-20.
Sam Sethi:It is indeed. Now look what keeps you awake at night. What? What's the thing that worries you? Is it? Is it market saturation? Are you going into a market that's a very congested space? Is it? Is it a revenue growth? Do you fear that you know we're plateauing or there's much more growth to come from podcasting? What keeps you awake at night when you start this idea?
James Burtt:I don't think anything really keeps me up at night other than just literally the workload of launching a new show. You know, anyone who's done this before knows how much work goes into it. When you add into the fact that you've got sort of big name talent, you've got lots of logistics and there's a team involved in it and all that kind of stuff. So logistically it's been a very like fraught couple of couple of months. But in terms of what keeps me up at night, in terms of from a fear perspective, I think we've just got so much further to go with podcasts. You look all the the stats you know. Still under 50 of people are listening on a on a monthly basis. It's just over a quarter people are listening on a weekly basis.
James Burtt:I I still think we're we're not quite blue ocean in the podcasting space, but we're definitely not red ocean. We may be like a bit of a murky bluey purple realistically, but I also think that the cream will always rise to the top. It doesn't matter how busy the space gets. Great shows will find an audience and there's a great opportunity. And the brilliant thing with how we're doing it in terms of shared ownership with our talent and shared IP with.
James Burtt:Our talent is that everyone's got a vested interest to pull as hard as each other in the same direction, and we're also in a really fortunate position because we've got, you know, sort of. We've already had three or four people literally the last day go oh it's amazing what you're doing. Can we work for you? Three out of those four are completely not right for us as a fit, so we're bootstrapping it and we're not taking on vc money to get this up and running. We can decide who and what we want to work on really, so it's just the only thing that we, I guess, would keep up at night is the, is the excitement around the opportunity and how big this can be. Really excellent.
Sam Sethi:So that's the way to do it. Stay awake at night thinking of big dreams. That's better than oh my god and fear yeah, james. Look, congratulations on pivot. Tell everyone if they want to find out more about it. Where would they go?
James Burtt:thank you, sam. So they can go to pivot productions group dot. Co dot uk. For more information, you can go and check out our first show on the slate, which is let me tell you something which is on apple, spotify and youtube and not behind any paywalls excellent james burt.
Sam Sethi:Thank you so much, mate. Good luck and congratulations.
James Cridland:James Burt and you can become a power supporter just like James at weeklypodnewsnet and join the terrific 21. More on that in a little bit.
Sam Sethi:Now one new podcast that's launched this week that I think is worth people who listen to this show probably listening to. It's called's called pod biz and it's from a norma, gene balenki and john kiernan. Now pod biz is going to be talking about the business of podcasting and focusing really on where's the money in podcasting. Have you had a chance to listen to it yet, james?
James Cridland:I not. Not just have I had a chance to listen to it, I've had a chance to be on it and I will be on later on in the series. Yeah, it's really good to understand where the money is being made from podcasting now, but also looking at some of the other revenue models. So not just, you know, sponsorship and DAI and those sorts of things, but also on other things as well, and those sorts of things, but also on other things as well. Probably not too much talk about Podcasting 2.0 quite yet, but I'm sure that as the series continues, I'm sure that they will be doing a little bit more about that.
Sam Sethi:And related to that, there was a piece of information that I think was put out by you, from John Spurlock says that the funding tag, which is one of the things that we want to focus on in making money, is the second most widespread of the podcasting 2.0 features. It's now available on 70,000 podcast feeds.
James Cridland:Yes, it's very big, the funding tag and hurrah. It will be really interesting to see what we can do to get Marco Arment to put it back into Overcast. He came up with the idea kind of originally. He was looking through podcast information to see if they linked to Patreon or Buy Me A Coffee or a couple of the other tools, and although he said that few people used it, well, yeah, a few people use it, but few people is better than no people. So it'd be really interesting to see whether or not we can convince him to put it back into that podcast app, because that's a big old podcast app, certainly on iOS. The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.
James Cridland:Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology. There's a bunch of new apps, aren't there, Sam?
Sam Sethi:So there's one out of Germany called Campfire. I don't know if this is new or not, and I don't think you do either, james but it's called Campfire. You can join the community and chat with other fans and get exclusive bonus content. And yeah, again, I haven't played with it. I don't know if you've looked at it.
James Cridland:It looks a bit like GoodPods plus Instagram. If you put both of those together. It's got comments in there. You can post pictures, all that kind of stuff. It looks very interesting and, I think, very bright of the developers not to launch an English version but to go straight to a German language version, because obviously you know, if you super serve a particular part of the podcast community, then you're going to do rather a lot better. So I thought it was interesting, certainly to take a peek at. I know that there've been many, many companies called Campfire in the past, so this is just another one of those. But, yes, worth a peek if you speak German, if you sprechen sie Deutsch, which I do not. So there we are. Fountain also posting a new version of its podcast app with a nicer player design. It's got video playback, hls playback, using alternate enclosures. So they're copying you there, sam. No, no, no.
Sam Sethi:As much as we had it a year ago're not copying, but welcome to the party, but they do it very, very well.
James Cridland:They've also added support for chromecast and airplay, which is also a good thing. So, yes, so that was good to end up seeing what. What was barry from pod home doing? Well?
Sam Sethi:barry from Podhome, for those who don't know, is a host and they're based out of Holland or the Netherlands, which one I never know Right. Anyway, barry has been working quietly on a listening app, and so he's now just got in beta an iOS and Android app. Congratulations, it's interesting. This is a trend that I put in our prediction show back in 2024, actually, I went back and checked that I did, but I did, and so I'm beginning to see the beginning of it happen. Look, we saw Fountain and RSS Blue, which are now called Fountain Blue, although I don't think they've put out a press release to you yet, have they? I haven't, no, but unofficially across the industry, it's now Fountain Blue, and that's a host directly combined with a listening app.
Sam Sethi:And I think Barry here is another one who's got Podhome. I haven't seen his beta. I tend to make a steer away from doing that just till they're available, but good luck to him. Yeah, so I think it's an interesting trend. Indeed, looks good. And lastly, podcast Addict put out a LinkedIn post which says their beta build may fail to play, which isn't great. The workaround is to grant nearby devices permission in settings. A fix was published yesterday, but pending Google approval. Good luck with that. After answering 500 emails today, I've hit my Gmail daily send limit and I cannot reply to any more users. So, podcast addict, there is a beta out but it didn't work. But you can do a workaround or wait for the next build.
James Cridland:Yeah, so many different ways to get in touch with us. You can use fan mail by using the link in our show notes, you can use super comments on True Fans boosts everywhere else, or email, and we share the money that we make, sam and I. It doesn't go to the rest of the 400 people in the pod news empire, exactly That'd be nice, wouldn't it? We've got some fan mail, which is a thing that Buzzsprout.
Sam Sethi:I don't know if it's fan mail.
James Cridland:It's a thing that Buzzsprout makes. Yes, I don't think it is fan mail, is it, sam? But anyway, it's that link that you'll find in our show notes. It's free for everybody who uses Buzzsprout, and it converts messages into texts and sends them straight through. What does it say here?
Sam Sethi:Hi James and I have an idea for you. If you make a youtube news sting, we're sorry, but we have more news about youtube on the pod news weekly review. It's time to go smash the skip button. Best devon from california, so I think she wants a. I assume devon is a she, so apologies if it's a he but the. They want a smash button in terms of the jingle we have for Spotify. They want their jingle for YouTube.
James Cridland:Yes, yes. Well, we'll consider that, devin. That's good of you. Thank you for getting in touch. Also, a bunch of boosts, which is always nice. Seth sends in his 425 sats. Listening to the show last week saying HLS sounds like an awesome solution. I'm really excited for it. Yes, I think it should be good if we can make the maths work, which makes a bunch of sense. A tonne from Silas as well. We've had a total of what? 5,000 sats from Silas, which is nice. What's he ended up sending?
Sam Sethi:I call them the 20. No, we won't say that it's a very rude word in the UK, that, yes, it is indeed. Well, it's a rude word anywhere in the world really. I call them the 20-somethings because they annoy me with using the government-mandated made-up currencies instead of the good stuff. Like me, I'm joking. Of course I love all the power supporters. Yes, we love them too, but yes, they are.
James Cridland:They're using the government mandated, made up currencies, things like pounds and dollars. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, silas, also saying hey, james, since Visa and MasterCard are the Internet's money. Yes, and the Internet is peer to peer. We should test how peer-to-peer these cards are. Please send your credit card information so I can test if it's peer-to-peer like an LN address and the internet.
James Cridland:I think I wouldn't necessarily agree that the internet is peer-to-peer in that way, but he's added a little smiley thing, so that's nice. Anyway, silas, thank you very much for all of those. Also, thank you to Justin, who is seemingly TrueFan's biggest customer, given the amount of sats that are flowing our way now. Thank you, justin Jackson, who said totally agree that PSP certification needs to go beyond. Is the tag visible in the RSS feed? This is what I was saying last week and talking about a better form of certification which is a little bit more fierce than just. Can you support it vaguely? This is something we'll discuss in Dallas. You'll discuss in Dallas, justin. I won't be there. You don't allow journalists in, and nor should you, but having more robust standards for tags and XML formatting is something that he will will do, and he has also given us another another comment here for my cheeky comment good taste in shirts. Well, I mean, you see, you know he's a he's, he's, he's a fashionable chap, is young, young justin jackson, young justin jackson.
Sam Sethi:Yes, you sound like what's it? Oh, I'll leave that.
James Cridland:Oh, I won't suggest what it was Too soon. Yes, I wonder how old Justin Jackson is.
James Cridland:That'd be an interesting question, I tell you what he's, not Justin Jackson, the Canadian professional basketball player, because he would only be 27. I don't see colour, sam, he would only be 27. So I don't really know what's going on there. But anyway, that's quite enough of that, and we should also say thank you so much to Will Clark, who has become this podcast's 21st supporter, which is terrific news. Will, thank you so much, will. In case you don't know him, he produces the Grey History podcast. History isn't black and white. He says yes, absolutely correct. So currently that is in a series about the French Revolution. Will, thank you so much, really appreciate that. That's very kind of you, and hopefully we will get the chance to say thank you to you in person one of these days. So that's very kind. Other people are in that list Star Tempest, ralph Estep Jr and Brian Ensminger, and you can become a power supporter as well. Weeklypodnewsnet is where to go, or just press the funding button in your podcast app.
Sam Sethi:Yeah, it means they're now Vicinarians, james, vicinarians Good, a person between 20 and 29 years old is called a Vicinarian. Well, I suppose a super supporter or a power supporter is called a Vicinarian at the moment.
James Cridland:Well, today I learnt. So what's happened for you this week, Sam?
Sam Sethi:And yesterday it hit the cutting room floor.
James Cridland:Yes, well, you never know. Have you been? Have you been walking again?
Sam Sethi:yes, god, I'm tired of walking. Now I want to get there. I've got one leg left, one and a half legs. So, yes, we're nearly there, god, it was hot, but we've done. We're now beyond. We're beyond Swindon, if you know where that is, uh, you do, of course, but if anyone else doesn't. And we're nearly at siren sester, which is the end.
James Cridland:Yes, yes, swindon, of course, is where the office was originally filmed. The you, the uk version of the office a long, long time ago. And not the only famous thing about swindon about, possibly about the only famous thing about swindon, except, if't it Possibly about the only famous thing about Swindon, except if you go there now, then everything has been knocked down. There's a very good YouTuber who went and did a reshoot of the office opening credits of Swindon, how it looks now, and there's even a Costa coffee in there now in comparison to what it was. So, yes, there's a thing. So you are True Fanzies on the Apple Podcasts app store, which is nice. So it's been there for a week or two. Are you on the Google Play store yet for the rest of the world?
Sam Sethi:I would love to say the answer was yes, but God, I think I've screamed, shouted and swore a lot this week, but according to Google, as of this morning, I can now publish my app to the Google Play Store this morning, somehow. I have no idea how I'm going to do that, because the buttons I've seen there don't actually say publish or anything else. So the Swahili code that Google give me, I will work it out, but all I would say is Google is a total foster cluck. That's what I think.
James Cridland:Nice, that was easy for you to say yes.
Sam Sethi:I'll put the teeth back in later, but what's nice about it? We use just behind the curtain, we use PWA Builder, and so that allows you to get all the benefits of, you know, being in the stores and some of the access to the hardware layer. But what I found is we don't have to submit changes to Apple or Google, so we can now put new features and functions in once have been approved, into the app stores without having to get their approval. Happy bloody days.
James Cridland:Yes, that's quite a thing, isn't it? So I mean, obviously they'll have to approve it at some stage when you have to make a new logo for iOS 32 or something, but until that point, yes, they won't theoretically be taking a peek, unless somebody hits the report button or something, I guess. But still, there we are.
Sam Sethi:It says yeah, they don't need to be republished to their respective listings when you update the content of your apps and I tried that this week with the iOS app and it worked we added new features and it worked Excellent.
Sam Sethi:Happy days. One of the other things we did we have added a social web capability. We talked about this before. It's all about discovery, and what we allow you to do is take your activity stream, your listen time, percent completed and value paid and choose which social web end points you want to publish that to. So you might say I want to publish my play activity and my comments to blue sky true fans social, which then gets copied over to Mastodon, twitter or X, and so you can set up your accounts and then choose actually what's nice now, which is new the percentage of time completed as well. So instead of every activity being published to your social web endpoints, you might say only publish things I've listened to more than 50 or 60% of the time. So you can now say you know the granularity of the percent completed as well.
James Cridland:Very nice. Well, that's yes, it's all looking very smart. I noticed that there's Blue Sky X, LinkedIn and Threads, but there's no Mastodon in in there. Is that what you're calling true fan social?
Sam Sethi:yes, because what we do is we have our own mastodon or activity pub server right and what you do is you look up your account through the search on mastodon and then you follow that true fan social account I see.
James Cridland:So you can't, you can't get it to add it to my Mastodon account somewhere else.
Sam Sethi:Not at the moment. No.
Liam Heffernan:You have to give it permission.
Sam Sethi:Well, there you go.
James Cridland:It's all looking very smart and worth a play. If you haven't already had a play, True Fans is available on the App Store. If you have an iPhone, if you've got a real phone, then you can. I can't really say that now I've got an iPhone no, you've got a real phone, then you can. I can't really say that now I've got an iPhone no, you can't A sponsored iPhone.
Sam Sethi:Anyway, my little joke. Yeah. So, james, I spotted something that happened for you this week before you tell me all about it. Really, james Clubhouse.
James Cridland:Are you on MySpace now?
Sam Sethi:as well. I mean geez Louise Tumblr. What's your?
James Cridland:Tumblr account. It's a podcast. It's a podcast. They just happened to record it on Clubhouse. Mark Ronick ended up doing it this week and it was a podcast all about. Well, it's called the Podcasting Morning Chat Podcast, and they record it on Clubhouse every day, 9pm my time, which is 7am Eastern time, so they record it and then they get it out relatively quickly. It's quite a fun little thing, and, yes, so I was there talking about Podcasting 2.0, mainly, in fact, helping them understand what Podcasting 2.0 is. So that was a good thing. You can find that in your favourite podcast app and if you scroll down a little bit more, sam, you'll see the AI image that Mark has made of me, which looks really good, doesn't it? I mean that almost looks like me. Yes, yeah, it's very smart. So, yes, that's quite a thing. So thank you for that.
James Cridland:What else have you been doing? I also wrote Sam Breakgeer or Gaia, I don't know how to pronounce his surname. Anyway, he wrote in and said I've talked about the microphone that I use when I'm at home, but what's the microphone that I use when I'm travelling? And I started replying to him in an email and then I thought hang on a minute, this is an article, so I stopped replying to him in an email. No-transcript and no prisons whole podcasting setup that I travel with when I am away from home. Then you can take a peek at the setup that I use on the Pod News website, but it's essentially one tiny little microphone that I carry. I don't carry anything else. So there's the thing, and that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories, of course, taken from the Pod News daily newsletter at podnewsnet.
Sam Sethi:You can support this show by streaming search. You can give us feedback using the. For this week, all of our podcast stories, of course, taken from the Pod News daily newsletter at podnewsnet. You can support this show by streaming search. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail, like Devin did this week In our show notes. You can send us a super comment or a boost or become a power supporter, like Will did. Like the Binesarian I probably killed that already.
James Cridland:21 at weeklypodnewsnet yes, our music is from tm studios, our voiceover is sheila d, and there's that ai thing from wondercraft, which is called something else, but it doesn't exist. So who cares? Our audio is recorded using clean feed, we edit using kindenberg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet.
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