Announcement 0:00

The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters. In YouTube, just mouse over the playback bar. Or, you know, use a proper podcast app, you barbarian. The last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridlin and Sam Sethy.

JamesCridland 0:16

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

SamSethi 0:18

And I'm Sam Sethy, the CEO of TrueFans.

NeilCowling 0:22

I still find that every time we speak to a new brand, we have to start from that low base. There's still a huge education piece to be done on how this medium works and why a brand should get involved.

JamesCridland 0:33

Neil Cowling from Fresh Air on Branded Podcasts plus Spotify's approach to AI and HLS for podcasting. This podcast is sponsored by BuzzSprout with a tool, support, and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with BuzzSprout.com.

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From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

That interview with Jeanine Wright of Inception Point AI

SamSethi 0:55

This week, uh, I just want to say congratulations for a great interview that you did last week. I really enjoyed hearing from Janine, but also just understanding more about her perspective, but also it made it very clear to me that it's not something I want to engage with as a consumer. You did say at the end of that though, that you ha didn't want to give your opinion. Now, lots of other people have given their opinion since, Adam Curry and Dave Jones, among others. Did you want to give any additional thoughts on it?

JamesCridland 1:27

Well, I mean, I I I shouldn't be giving any opinion, but I enjoyed listening to Adam and Dave. This is a little bit of what Dave Jones had to say.

DaveJones 1:36

I recommend everybody listen to James's interview with Janine Rice.

AdamCurry 1:40

What's your takeaway from it?

DaveJones 1:41

She seemed very uncomfortable. To me, that was that was a general sense that I got and and I don't blame her, I would be too. I also think that this is this sounds very much like a company who's looking to get purchased.

JamesCridland 1:57

I think he's absolutely right there, both in terms of the company wanting to get purchased, but also yes, I I found it odd that she didn't sound as comfortable as I thought that she would do, given that uh quite a lot of the things that she has been saying have been, well, how can I put this, a little bit sort of incendiary in terms of the way that she's been saying it. But yeah, but that that was uh that was my overall my overall thoughts there.

SamSethi 2:24

Yeah, I mean I I I took it as you know, the part where she said I'm releasing three thousand episodes a week.

JeanineWright 2:30

Three thousand episodes a week. I have eight people in my team, there's no way we're listening. There's no way we're listening to the overwhelming majority of our content.

SamSethi 2:37

Before it's released. I I I go Okay, so you're admitting it, that's fine. This is the Jason Calacanis play when he did it for blogging and SEO, and that's what she's focused on. She's looking at the SEO that's currently trending on Google and then throwing something out the front door and trying to get a uh, I guess, an audience that will monetize against it. That that in itself, if that's your model, that's fine. That's what you want to do. It'll be interesting whether the podcast index blocks this content onto their platform. It'll be interesting to see if apps decide to block this content onto their platform as well.

JamesCridland 3:14

Yeah, I I would certainly agree with that. I think you you know, the the one thing that I didn't hear Janine say was anything to do with the listener. So we we heard a lot about how it was very clever that they'd managed to, you know, launch a show about Charlie Kirk within an hour of the shooting. Well, very clever, but nowhere have we actually heard what the listener thinks. And the only way to find out what the listener thinks is to have a look at some of the reviews for some of those shows. And what she's essentially said in terms of that is that or and what the audience has said in terms of that is that they don't like it very much. You know, they're they're not rated particularly highly, they're very clearly AI. So I'm not quite sure, you know, what what's going on there, but you know, time time will tell. And it depends really whether or not you're an advertiser and you want to advertise in there, given that you know, if you are in there 45 minutes into an hour-long show, well, that may not be listened to because you know people may have already tuned out by that point. So that is the other sort of side of it, I suppose.

SamSethi 4:23

Well, somebody also said, I wonder if bots download the product, the the the whatever they are, these these AI podcasts. So you're getting bots downloading it. The only person that's getting then hurt in this process will be the advertiser who's paying for non-listeners.

JamesCridland 4:43

Yeah, I agree. So I think that that'll be interesting how that uh shakes out. But yeah, it's a good interview. If you want to go back and have a listen to it, you can also read it if you're if you don't want to listen. You can read it at uh podcastbusinessjournal.com.

International Podcast Day

SamSethi 4:58

Now on a happier note, James, happy International Podcast Day. It was this week. Anything that's been said or done that you noticed.

JamesCridland 5:07

I really liked there was a a post. So so firstly, uh the International Podcast Day desperately needs some organization. It doesn't have any or any organization, it's not really a thing. And uh, as last year and as the year before, I got lots of emails on the day saying we're doing this for International Podcast Day. Well, why why didn't you tell me before so that I could actually have published it on International Podcast Day? So cheers. Thanks very much by that. But anyway, there was a really nice post from RSS.com from the podcast hosting company there, which was basically saying that the RSS feed is podcasting's secret weapon. Well, of course they would say that, wouldn't they? But actually, I think that there's something of interest there in terms of where we've come from and where we're going, that actually, you know, the openness of RSS is a really important thing in terms of where podcasting is going.

SamSethi 5:59

I I I tend to agree it is the secret source, and it's something that other companies try and get rid of time and time again, and it just comes back and it comes back. So uh yeah. Nice article. Uh, thanks a lot to RSS.com for writing that. Now, let's get on with some of the stories from this week, James.

Daniel Ek to leave Spotify

SamSethi 6:17

Like London buses, James, it seems that CEOs leaving to become executive chairman is a trend. We heard about Ross Adams stepping down, we heard about Andrew Mason stepping up to be the chief executive. Um and now it seems this week Daniel Eck has announced that he is going to step up to be the chief executive and transition from being the CEO, James.

JamesCridland 6:43

Yes, yeah, so he's stepping up to be executive chairman, isn't he, from January the 1st next year. Interestingly, there are going to be two CEOs. What could go wrong? What could go wrong? Could go wrong there. So Alex Nostrum and Gustav Serdestrom will be the co-CEOs for Spotify. Essentially, what Daniel Eck has uh said is that he is very much going to be focusing on uh the future of uh Spotify and not the day-to-day stuff. And you can s totally see from his point of view that actually the day-to-day stuff must be quite dull, really, given his background, given his history of coming up with new ideas and everything else, that actually the day-to-day stuff must be a little bit boring. So I think that it probably fits him rather better, you know, in terms of that. He says he wants to spend more time on the long-term strategic decisions that will define Spotify in the next decade. So interesting to see that, certainly. I mean, obviously, Daniel has been spending some of his money on uh on drones, which is exciting, but that's sort of basically where he is.

SamSethi 7:51

Yeah, that drone investment of 600 million euros uh hasn't gone down very well. Lots of music artists are removing their content from the Spotify catalogue, saying they don't want to be uh linked to a company that is investing in war machines. But you know, I'm sure Daniel will keep doing that. He is on the positive note invested into a very interesting healthcare company, and it opened in London about a year ago. So that's one to watch out for. So he is putting his money where his mouth is, I guess. The other thing, if you're interested though, David Senra, who I've never heard of, by the way, so uh apologies to David, is a brand new podcast out this week, and in that episode he does interview Daniel Eck, and maybe that's something worth listening to. I haven't had a chance to listen to that. Do you know who David Senra is, James?

JamesCridland 8:41

I've never heard of David Senra. He's something to do with Andrew Huberman, who shared the episode in his feed as well, and so obviously Huberman's feed is really big. The only thing I know about him is that he studies greatness and understands it. Oh which doesn't sound awful at all. It sounds very LinkedIn like, doesn't it? But yes, so absolutely no idea who David Senner is. Note to self, don't appear on David Senner's show because you'll probably lose that job within uh within a week after going on the show. That's seemingly what's happened to Daniel Eck. But anyway, there we are. So worth a listen anyway if you want to uh get behind his uh thinking.

Spotify's plan for AI

SamSethi 9:20

Now we we talked about AI content generation. It seems that Spotify is waking up to the idea that music artists are having their content AI, I don't know, generated, or certainly some of the sampling and then reused through AI. So what have they announced, James? They've got some new tools, haven't they?

JamesCridland 9:40

Yeah, they've got some new tools. It was quite a good blog post, uh, actually, I thought. Uh I thought it was very uh understanding of what the issues are. The first bit in the blog post, really, they were talking about the balance of the different types of AI that there is.

AdamCurry 9:57

At its best, AI is unlocking incredible new ways for artists to create music and for listeners to discover it. At its worst, AI can be used by bad actors and content farms to confuse or deceive listeners, push slop into the ecosystem, and interfere with authentic artists working to build their careers. That kind of harmful AI content degrades the user experience for listeners and often attempts to divert royalties to bad actors.

JamesCridland 10:28

So I think they understand what the difficulty of AI is. It can be used for good, but it can also be used for bad. And I think most interesting was when they started talking about transparency and an AI tag. And as I've been saying all along here, an AI tag that just says is AI or isn't AI doesn't necessarily work.

AdamCurry 10:51

The industry needs a nuanced approach to AI transparency, not to be forced to classify every song as either is AI or not AI.

JamesCridland 11:00

And they've come up with a uh standard. They're working with uh a company called DDEX, and they they say that they're going to use it.

AdamCurry 11:10

We're helping develop and will support the new industry standard for AI disclosures in music reddits developed through DDEX. This standard gives artists and rights holders a way to clearly indicate where and how AI played a role in the creation of a track, whether that's AI-generated vocals, instrumentation, or post-production. This change is about strengthening trust across the platform. It's not about punishing artists who use AI responsibly or downranking tracks for disclosing information about how they were made.

JamesCridland 11:44

And I think again, you know, that that's something that is important because I think it it's very easy just to go, oh well, tick AI, and then shows won't be in in some directories or or you know, etc. etc. But actually it's it's much more than that, isn't it? It's a much more nuanced conversation, as you know, Janine Wright was saying as well. So I thought it was a pretty good post. I thought being music only is interesting, and they clearly don't see that there is a problem with podcasting. Perhaps that's because they don't pay royalties out for podcasts, I don't know. But what what were your thoughts on that, uh Sam?

SamSethi 12:23

Well, very much in line with what you said. I think it's nice that they understand the problem. I think it's good that they see it not as a black or white AI or not AI issue. I've never heard of a DDX myself. I did look at it. As it's an industry standard, I'm not sure how that is applied. It'll be interesting to see that when this comes out and then whether we, the podcasting community, can adapt it to what we do within podcasting. I know various people, Daniel, Jay Lewis, and others have proposed a podcast disclosure tag. So it may be something that we can adapt once we see what Spotify, YouTube, and others have used for music. So again, it's keep those eyes peeled and let's wait and see what comes back.

JamesCridland 13:10

Yeah, I will I would certainly agree. And you know, the one thing I would say about any tag is that they need to be programmatically understood. The podcast disclosure tag is utterly useless in the the it's just raw text in there, so you can say whatever you like, but that doesn't help any any systems understand what to list and what not to list. But I think as long as it's programmatically understood, which it looks as if the the standard from the music side uh is, then I think that that will work quite well. But yeah, interesting to have a look at that. Interesting also to have a look that YouTube is doing more AI stuff, a new initiative dedicated to exploring the potential of AI on YouTube. Basically, they are launching a AI-generated sort of radio DJ type thing designed to deepen your listenering, your listening experience by sharing relevant stories, fan trivia, and fun commentary about your favorite music on the YouTube Music app. Sign me up. So that's available in the US only, and you may be able to sign up to it on YouTube Labs. So there's a thing. And of course, Riverside has just launched a new way of editing your audio, and this I think is is quite interesting. We should have Kendall on the show next week, I believe. But talking about uh editing audio just basically using a prompt saying, please give me a 30-second, you know, a 30-second clip of this show so that I can share it on socials and it will go off and do the 30-second clip. So, or please remove all of the filler words, or please edit this show down so that it's uh only an hour and a half long, all that kind of uh stuff. So I think that that is interesting. So again, you know, AI not all bad, but certainly worthwhile having a think about in terms of how these things work.

SamSethi 15:02

I think my challenge with all of these AI things is what I call trust. Trust that they're gonna do a better job than me. Yeah, trust that the output that I get is gonna be what I want, and maybe that's learning how to better prompt it. I mean, D Script's got something called Underlord that does very much the same thing as well, and we will have Laura Burkhauser on as well, the new CEO. So I'm not sure. I mean I'm still you use AI, I think, more than I do right now. You're you're more comfortable with it. I'm not a Luddite, but I'm I'm also somebody who looks at it and goes, I could probably do this quicker and better myself still. And so I'm not quite there with it.

JamesCridland 15:45

Yes, no, I agree. I I've not used AI that much, to be honest. I'd like to, you know, explore a little bit more, play a little bit more with it, particularly for incoming email, which I think is a real benefit there, but haven't yet understood, frankly, where the where the APIs are that I can use that won't cost me an arm and a leg. So, you know, still still sort of working on that.

SamSethi 16:07

Yeah, well, we'll need to talk to both of them about AI credits and how much you have to pay. Yes, exactly. You use AI credits with Wondercraft, don't you? So you know how that model works very well.

JamesCridland 16:18

Yes, indeed. And yeah, so you know, Wondercraft works very well, and I should thank Wondercraft for voicing the bit of the Spotify blog just then. But yes, I I I think that, you know, AI is a fascinating tool if used well, but uh, as with any of these things, you can use it badly as well.

SamSethi 16:34

Now,

Interview: Neil Cowling, Fresh Air

SamSethi 16:35

let's move on. Fresh air. No, we're not talking about uh just you know things in the vapor. It's a company. Neil Cowling is the founder and CEO, and Neil contacted us about the fact that they are moving into more branded podcasts. They also have moved into original podcasts as well. Have you come across Fresh Air much, James, yourself?

JamesCridland 16:57

Yes, they've been exhibiting at the podcast show over the last uh few years. I've had some nice chats with uh Neil as well. They're a really interesting and clever company and working more around measuring their success based on listen time and attention rather than downloads. They must have been talking to. The good folk at Bumper, you caught up with Neil and you started off by asking Neil, who are Fresh Air?

NeilCowling 17:25

Yes, so Fresh Air is a specialist podcast company for brands. So we are an agency for brands, both on the production side of podcasting and also on the media side. We came for many years from being a traditional radio indie, and then about 10 years ago, decided to focus very much on this branded space. We our first client was the National Trust in the UK, and then built from there into doing lots of corporate work for brands like Barclays or Hewlett-Packard Enterprise or wide variety of both finance and tech and cultural companies, so really wide range of companies that we now make podcasts for and decided to make brands very much our thing.

SamSethi 18:09

So, with branded podcasts, is this something that people are now understanding that this is the way forward where they can get their communication out, or is it an education process that you're still having to get people understanding that podcasts are a good means of communication?

NeilCowling 18:26

Come a long way. For a long time, I had to start every pitch by explaining what a podcast was. So thankfully I don't have to do that anymore. So, yeah, that was starting from a low base at that point. A much, much more recognized medium, of course, but it's still a very misunderstood medium. I think there's a lot of brands. We sort of went through a process during COVID, huge growth, a lot of brands who wanted to get into podcasts because podcasts were cool and because they also had a lot of brands during COVID had a video budget that they couldn't spend, and therefore they decided to make a podcast. But there were also a lot of vanity projects during that time. So there were just a lot of projects where we made a podcast and we enjoyed it and the brand loved it, but we couldn't really justify at the end why they'd done it. You know, it was difficult to measure, the ROI was difficult to quantify. So we've had to come a long way from that point of really helping brands to understand, okay, so you want to make a podcast, but what is that going to achieve? How are we going to measure it? How are we going to prove that it's successful? And how are we going to do it in a way that genuinely entertains people and informs people, but also treads the tightrope between doing that and getting a piece of communication out there. So it neither is it a long advert, but also neither is it just a vanity project that doesn't work for the brand. So that's been quite an education for everybody involved. And the brands that we have worked with who've done it long term have done it really brilliantly and really built up their understanding of why podcasting works. But I still find that every time we speak to a new brand, we have to start from that low base. Okay, so it's not what is a podcast, but there's still a huge education piece to be done on how this medium works and why a brand should get involved.

SamSethi 20:18

You talk about metrics to measure. I mean, how are you measuring success? Because each brand will have a different thing. Is it brand awareness? Is it number of downloads? Is it an advertising revenue reach? What's the metric that they're using?

NeilCowling 20:30

It's a lot of brand awareness, often brand awareness and thought leadership and building authority in a particular space. So most brands that we work with, they're not looking to create something that is number one in the podcast charts. They're looking to create something that speaks to a niche audience and gives them something really useful. So, for instance, the show that we make for Barclays is aimed entirely at mortgage brokers. So it's presented by Phil Spencer, who's quite famous in the UK in the property sector. So he has a bit of celebrity sparkle, but the topic is really tightly controlled and really tightly targeted at a specific group of people. So that audience are really valuable to Barclays. And therefore we measure it through, yes, it's downloads, but it's also the brand, they do brand studies to understand how that group of people are regarding Barclays as opposed to how they they used to regard them. Listen through rates are obviously really important. And we use the measure that Dan Meisner at Bumper came up with a while ago, that sort of cost per minute of attention. And that always just starts to help brands to understand that that investment is all about attention and the amount of time that that really valuable audience is spending with the brand. So it's quite rare that we're purely looking at downloads. On a branded piece, you're looking far more carefully that level of attention and the value that you're giving that niche audience.

SamSethi 22:03

100% agree. That's the metric that people should be using. Because as Dan says, a download's not a listen. So it doesn't really matter. Now you've also gone into original content production recently. Why is that?

NeilCowling 22:15

It was to broaden the range of types of work that we do. It's not a huge diversion away from the branded work because we're known for branded and we're experts in the branded. And my worry with originals has always been that it's a distraction from the core of what we do. So it's sort of dropped in our laps a little bit. It's called That's Just Wild with Steve Backshaw, who's a brilliant and and sort of heroic wildlife presenter. So we saw there was a gap there, and it's also sort of flexing different types of creative muscles from our point of view. So we think there are models for funding original content that probably haven't been fully explored yet. And so at the moment, this is a traditional original where we're building it up from scratch and we're funding it through advertising and sponsorship. But the beauty of what we do, of course, is we have conversations with brands and platforms a lot. So we are able to hopefully see sources of advertising and sponsorship that others wouldn't spot.

SamSethi 23:20

So you talk about other means of funding it. What are they?

NeilCowling 23:24

Well, I'm interested in looking towards brands really broadly to see how they can fund original work in the future. We've not gone down the commissioning model very much. We've not really worked very much for Wonder and elsewhere, but we do work, for instance, for platforms such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and TripAdvisor and BBC StoryWorks. And so that's one route for us of making work for publishers who work for brands. But I also think there are probably models for funding podcasts and original work that haven't even been touched on yet. I think if you look at TV, there are barter models, for instance, the where programs are made and media is exchanged and sold at a profit. And those are ways that programs get funded through intermediaries. And yes, they're more complicated than the traditional podcast models, but they're really unexplored. And I really think there are ways of working with talent, for instance, that haven't been explored. If we're looking at big global talent who really need good money, big money to make a podcast, then they're not going to be in it to make odds and sods of money along the way. But when we're talking to really big talent, we need to find ways of getting brands involved from the off so that those shows can be funded through a combination of sponsorship and live events and all sorts of other routes that get them the funding and the money that they need right from the start to get involved, rather than this idea of having to wait, you know, six months before it pays for itself, because clearly top-level talent aren't in it for that. So it's a funny one because I don't even know what the end model will be at the moment. We're sort of working on it and thinking it through and exploring it. But there will be models emerge in the next year, 18 months that I think hopefully sort of fill the gap left by Wonder and move us beyond just thinking that there are only two routes to making originals, which are ad funded or commissioner. There's something in the middle there that we're all trying to work out. And it's sort of fun to work it out, but it's definitely it definitely involves brands. It definitely involves some sort of TV type model and brand funded type model that will come together.

SamSethi 26:03

One of the things that I've heard is that you talk about working with original talent or high-value talent, is they're often contracted to things like YMU or other agencies. So how do you deal with that? Because obviously you're now having to include them in the splits of the revenue funding, maybe, and or get them out of contract. I mean, what's the complications of working with celebrity?

NeilCowling 26:28

I think agencies like YMU and big talent agencies in many ways hold the key to making these models work. Because there's no point in trying to fight against the relationships that talent have with their agencies. We often get approached by agencies saying, My talent wants to make a podcast. Can you find the brand that will fund it, please? It's never quite that easy because approaching a brand completely blind with an idea that doesn't exist yet and asking them to pay for it isn't the easiest route to market. What we start with is what associations does your talent already have? Because those agencies often have long-term relationships with brands, and brands want to get involved with talent. But if that relationship already exists, then that's a far easier starting point. So I don't see the agents as a barrier to making these things happen. YMU have been trailblazers for a long time in creating talent. They're obviously working really closely. They've obviously helped Fern build Happy Place, high performance, you know, was a YMU product. Davina's obviously closely in with Stephen Butler and Flight Story now. So all those things can come together really well. And also those agencies know that if they get it right, it's a really good brand extension for their talent as well. So all these things are coming together to create new models. And brands are definitely in that. But they're nervous. They're nervous about whether this medium works for them. They're nervous about the amount of investment that it can take. And, you know, not all podcasts are going to be smash hits overnight, but especially when you're talking to brands because they have brands, you know, they work on a sort of annual budget. So they're not necessarily in it for the next five years. They're saying, okay, if I launch a podcast in January, how quickly will it be huge? And what talent can I work with? And again, if that podcast doesn't already exist, they're taking a gamble for a big audience or a big investment to raise an audience. So having talent and having agents behind that talent tightly involved is a really helpful piece of insurance for them to make it work.

SamSethi 28:47

Are you getting demand for video-based podcasting rather than audio-based podcasting? Where's the line now falling for you?

NeilCowling 28:55

It's all video, if I'm honest. We very rarely, when we're talking to brands, we very rarely get a brief that doesn't involve video. And that's two reasons. And I I don't think it's a bad thing. When I think about the evolution of branded podcasts in the last 10 years, there was a sort of slow build-up. Then there was COVID when I say it went huge, and everything was all was really audio during COVID. Then there was a bit of post-COVID, there was a bit of a period with brands of, oh, everyone's got a podcast now. So it's a bit old hat. We'll go back to making our videos. What video's done with brands is make it feel like a premium product again. And they see Dire CEO or they see high-quality video podcasts, and it helps them to grasp a little more how that can feel premium. The other thing it does with a brand is make a podcast content engine at the heart of their strategy. So when they're looking at all their content and thinking, how do I feed the machine that you know I'm being asked to create all this content that has my brand on it and aligns with my brand, a podcast that's Video feeds into all those channels because obviously you're creating a long form video for YouTube, you're creating the promotional clips that go alongside it, all of that can go out on the brand's social channels. If you're just making an audio product, it only lives in the audio channels. So I'm an audio snob. I spent 30 years in radio before doing this, but fresh air is becoming as much of a video company as it is an audio company. And that's keeping up with the demand. And also just answering that question of why make a podcast? And the answer is it's a content engine that churns out all this stuff for you and some multiple channels in a way that an audio podcast unfortunately doesn't.

SamSethi 30:42

Do you find that you are courted by Spotify and or YouTube because Spotify is the upstart, the young, hungry video podcasting platform? Do they knock on your door and say, hey Neil, can we have it here exclusive? Or hey Neil, what have you got that we can use? Or is it a case of you having to go to them now?

NeilCowling 31:03

A bit of both. I think it's it's obviously you're right, Spotify is hungry for video content. And therefore, that's driving both the expectation, again, from the clients, from the brands, they want to be on Spotify. They want their podcast to be big on Spotify. And in truth, Spotify are only really interested in promoting content that is video. So those two things kind of feed into each other. It helps it helps just kind of create this swirl of demand and supply that is really just means we are making video content in order to get it promoted on Spotify, but we're also making it from the brand's point of view to help it go big. And on YouTube, most of the time, brands have their own YouTube channels. So again, it's sort of feeding that demand. If we take legal in general, is an example of a client that we work with, and they are looking to create content for young people to build themselves a sturdy financial future and speak to people really sort of certainly under 40 about how to build solid finances. YouTube is the channel for that. Most people maybe will watch that video on YouTube and then open another tab and listen to it. So it's still an audio product in a sense. But if a brand isn't putting their podcast on YouTube these days, then again, they're missing a trick. There's a whole channel there that they're not getting the full value for what they're paying us.

SamSethi 32:39

So where do you see the next stage of all of this then? Where do you see the branded podcast evolving into? Is it going to just be this again rinse and repeat, or is there a model that we can evolve into?

NeilCowling 32:54

With branded podcasts, I think there will there will be one angle that goes bigger and bigger. So if we take Dish, which I think is the sort of gold standard really for a mass market branded podcast, you know, what the guys have done with that show is extraordinary. Lots of brands want the next DISH because they want it to go huge and for their content to become what their kids see on Instagram and what they see on Instagram. So I think there will be bigger and bigger shows like that that are more ambitious and have big talent. Like I say, whether they will be funded to that degree or whether those of us who do this have to find ways of making bigger and bigger shows with more modest budgets, I'm not sure. I would like to think that some of those bigger shows and bigger brands come together with really significant budgets. Because you're, you know, Dish is a TV show, really. It's got a lot of funding behind it. But that shows the ambition that Waitos had with it. And I would love to see more brands do Waitros and create something of that scale. But at the other end, I also think that this attention metric and this attention economy is really important. And the more that brands can grasp the idea that high attention media has a really good value to it, the more that branded podcasts will be effective and be popular. ACast and other platforms like ACAST have done a brilliant job at making podcasts a kind of easy, lazy buy for media agencies. The key really to whether brand podcasts are successful and grow in the future is whether those media agencies can be more ambitious with what they create. Because it's very easy when your brand goes to their agency and says, I've got X amount of money to spend, I can fancy doing something in podcasting. It's very easy for that media agencies to say, great, okay, well, we'll stick that onto a CPM, another line on the spreadsheet, and it goes alongside the radio and the TV and the outdoor without any more thought behind it. But you know, dish doesn't come out of that mindset. And the sorts of work that we make doesn't come out of that mindset. If an agency can think, okay, how can I make something really exciting that will win us awards and that the brand will love and will make a really big noise in this medium? Then they need to think beyond just chucking it on the spreadsheet. They really need to think about what's the alignment with talent, what's the objective that this podcast could create that could make something really unique and could turn into the next big Spotify podcast and the next big Spotify video? What's going to create a podcast that spills content for the next three years across all our social channels? And how does it sit right in the middle of that strategy? So encouraging media agencies and their clients to view podcasting as an exciting, adventurous, ambitious place is the key to creating a really strong future for branded podcasts.

SamSethi 36:21

One of the things that James and I have been reporting on recently is the use of AI-hosted podcasting. Now, there is a company who is chucking out the front door 3,000 SEO-based podcasts a week, right? And they're using AI to generate the content. Do you think that you might move down the road with brands to an AI-driven host? Because celebrity is an expensive acquisition, it has complications, there are time-bound limits around celebrity. Would you rather move to a creating an AI host that has a character that eventually, you know, if you look at something like Go Compare, the character is a character of it, and the mere cats are a character of the brand. Could you envisage creating an AI host that is a character that fronts a brand?

NeilCowling 37:12

Well, when you put it like that, I suppose so. I mean, I I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. No, no, no. I think it's it's really interesting. Last year we made a show for Wendy's called The Burger Files, which was a spoof true crime show about the crimes that take place in theory of burger bars. And so that was pure comedy and pure character-driven. And so I suppose in that scenario, I can imagine using AI voices because it's quick and could you know it works with a script rather than conversation. I really struggle, like I say, that sort of niche podcasting for a super interested audience where engagement and understanding of a niche topic is really important. You know, I can see why an AI presenter could scrape all the information they needed off the internet. But what brands come to us for is a really genuine connection between the brand and the audience. And I think it's hard enough anyway to think why would someone listen to a podcast brought to you by a brand? Because there's a sort of transactional relationship there that everyone understands is going on. So you're already asking people to say, here's a podcast created by X brand who obviously have a sort of ulterior motive to create the show, but they also have something useful and interesting to show you, and therefore this is worth your time. The idea that you would bring an AI presenter in seems to make that such a transactional relationship that it really wouldn't be worth the investment for the brand. So all we really have to trade on is that human voice, that human understanding, that human relationship. So I can't imagine it, and I can't imagine myself being happy getting out of bed in the morning to create AI podcast for brands. But then who knows? In five years' time, it might be all we do.

SamSethi 39:16

I'm 100% with you, but we did interview Michael Parkinson's son, Mike Parkinson, about using Michael Parkinson's voice for a podcast. It was very weird having Michael Parkinson interview people again, but it was Michael Parkinson's voice. You could understand that. Very odd. Anyway, let's let's move away from that. So if I want to see more about Fresh Air, where would I go, Neil?

NeilCowling 39:38

So it's freshair.audio is the website, and we're pretty big on LinkedIn. We do a weekly newsletter, so you can find out all about us on there. And yeah, we are always in the market for brands who want to speak to us, for brands who want to explore podcasting, and anyone else who's got a message they want to get out in this brilliant medium.

SamSethi 39:57

So are you going to be any of the big events? So you're going to be in New York for podcast movement, are you going to be at the London Podcast Show? Are you going to be anywhere else?

NeilCowling 40:06

We're always at the podcast show. I'm going to Atar Festival in Riyadh in October, which is really interesting. I think there's some really interesting work going on in the Middle East, and particularly in this sort of arena that we do, is a place that I think has a lot of potential to explore that meeting of brands and audio. Yes, and we'll be at Cannes, at Media360, at Madfest, lots of the marketing shows rather than podcast-specific shows. But yeah, you can normally find this in bright t-shirts, thoroughly branded up at those events.

SamSethi 40:36

Excellent. Neil Cowling, founder of Fresh Air. Thanks a lot.

HLS for podcasting

Announcement 40:40

Pleasure. The Pod News Weekly Review with BuzzSprout. With Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

SamSethi 40:49

Soundstack has launched its HLS for podcasting. Now, HLS is something that the Podcast Standards Group's been trying to promote. I've been certainly banging the drum longer than that about how I think HLS is the way forward. There is something called low latency HLS as well. And it's good to see that Soundstack has, with its increased CDN, I think about three or four months ago, they they increased the capacity of their CDNs by co-locating in London and Far East and other places. So, James, did you have a chance to read the press release from Soundstack?

JamesCridland 41:29

Yeah, indeed. It's a really interesting press release. It it highlights the benefits and the capabilities of HLS as being faster playback start, better monetization, expanded content options, for example, live and that sort of thing, as well as multiple formats, audio to video, automatic bandwidth adjustment, and more accurate measurement. So there are lots of good reasons why HLS is a good thing. Of course, this works when you have access to an internet connection rather than downloads, because you can still download an HLS file, but it just turns into a download at that point. But there are some very interesting things in there. I guess the question from my point of view is it's it's only supported by a few podcast apps, TrueFans being one of them, of course. And so I suppose the question is, well, why why are they doing it if hardly anybody supports it? But I guess you know there is a chicken and an egg thing here, and and they've and they've you know announced it and are moving on.

SamSethi 42:37

Well, I think there's a background story to this. Obviously, Rocky Thomas and I met probably well, we certainly met at the Lon Poca show with a large m conting of the Soundstack team, and we went through a lot of what HLS could or could not deliver. Um I have one concern issue. I'm not sure what the right word is. If you use the same infrastructure that you currently deliver MP3, MP4 for, you're not going to save any money. You're actually going to increase the amount of money you spend because you're creating multiple stored versions of the same audio or video file. So you're creating 320, 720, 4K, whatever. So you're not actually saving any money. So my question has always been where's the money value saving? Because if all you're doing is speeding up the user experience by a nanosecond, I think Todd Cochran said it many times, you know, there isn't actually a user, you know, concern or problem. You know, he didn't have people going, oh, that video didn't play quick enough, or that podcast didn't play quick enough. So there wasn't a driver from the user experience side that says let's make HLS work because the current model doesn't work. So for me, yes, all the benefits of auto-detecting the bandwidth, the ability to have preload, which is what fundamentally allows the quick speed of the video or the audio to play because you've preloaded six seconds. So I like all of that. I think the only value for me, as somebody who's looking at this quite closely, has to be that the download of a complete episode may be, let's say, 50 meg or 100 meg for this show. If we then have HLS and somebody only streams 80% of this show, then you've actually saved the amount you've downloaded. So that then means companies like Soundstack have to model their payment structure around the amount downloaded and give a measurement. So I might have a half terabyte capability for my entry level as a creator, and I need to know, therefore, if I'm downloading or people are downloading my episode or streaming my episode, sudo streaming, then I'm actually saving money, or I'm saving because I'm not using up all my bandwidth because the download isn't completely the episode. That's the only value in it to begin with.

JamesCridland 45:10

And you have to build well, the only the only value really is i is in it for the podcast hosting company. Yeah. And it uh that won't be passed on to the consumer because blame you, how complicated would that be?

SamSethi 45:24

Uh I wouldn't say that. Uh I think watch is space.

JamesCridland 45:27

Well, okay. Well, well, I'm saying I'm saying from a from an understanding how the consumer works point of view, you know, all I care about is a is a download. Now, if if I get more downloads for my money, then that's great. But that's really all that all that I really care about, I suppose. But I think, yeah, the the the proof really will be in terms of how many podcast apps start supporting this sort of thing and what that means in terms of you know in terms of take up. But I think you know it'll be interesting to find out, you know, how that bit works, I suppose.

SamSethi 46:05

Now you've undertaken a little experiment, haven't you, already?

JamesCridland 46:09

Yes. So if you want to play around with HLS, I think I've got it working correctly. You can the Pod News Daily Podcast has a 320k AAC format audio file, which is now delivered via HLS. So if you want to uh play with that, you'll find that in the alternate enclosures. One of the things that I have spotted is that I'm not quite sure how a podcast app is supposed to know whether it's audio or video, because the the MIME type is exactly the same for the playlist. So I'm not quite sure how that bit works, and I'm hoping to uh find some some clarity in the specs in terms of that.

Round the world

JamesCridland 46:47

Let's move on, let's go around the world. And uh in the US, Pew Research released a new podcasts and news fact sheet. 54% of US adults have listened to a podcast in the past 12 months, according to that particular study. A third get their news from podcasts at least sometimes. Uh interestingly, if you're Republican, you trust podcasts twice as much as if you're a Democrat. Not quite sure really why that might be. Is it just because there are more Republican podcasts out there, more right-wing podcasts? I don't know. But anyway, under 50s and the more educated are more likely to listen. It's some good research and worth a read.

SamSethi 47:27

Related to that was uh there was a report out about high attention media is more profitable for advertisers. High attention media, what's that, James?

JamesCridland 47:36

Well, I I have always said that radio, for example, particularly speech radio, is high attention media. You are listening to it. So therefore it's very difficult to close your ears. So when the ad comes on, you listen to what the ad says. In the same way, podcasting is much the same sort of thing. Because it's speech, you're listening there for the speech. That's very high attention media in comparison to something like out of home, something like an ad banner. This is a this is a very different thing. So the the so I think we can we can probably agree that high attention media, media that people are paying attention to, is going to work better than low attention media, than media that you just you know walk past or or whatever. But would the interesting thing that this study came out is that ad investment is shifting away from the high attention media off to the low attention media, off to the to the ads that you skip past on TikTok or on or on X or whatever it is. And I think that that's really quite interesting that the advertising agencies are spending more money on stuff that doesn't actually sink in as much. So some good good research, I thought.

SamSethi 48:51

In your backyard, James, you're gonna have the South by Southwest, not literally in your backyard, that'd be a very uh busy place, but in Sydney, what's going on?

JamesCridland 48:59

Yes, this is South by Southwest Sydney, and um they will have a full dedicated podcast stage next month, as well as many other things. I say next month, this month, of course, because we are in October. MIK Studio is doing a bunch of panels and conversations, so is uh ACAST as well. I think I'm gonna be there on the Thursday, maybe on the Friday morning as well. I'm not quite so sure as yet, but I will be popping down to go to South by Southwest Sydney because I've not been there before. So that should be quite fun. There's a South by Southwest in London as well, which is a big thing. I've never been to a South by Southwest, so this is a good start, I thought.

SamSethi 49:39

Awards and events, James. What's happening in the world of awards and events?

JamesCridland 49:43

Yes, lots of exciting awards going on. Uh the Signal Awards releasing their finalists for this year's awards. You can vote for the Listener's Choice Awards in every category. Similarly, the Lovey Awards announcing their finalists. Uh, you can vote for that as well right now. If you vote for both of those, then it'll be pretty obvious that they're run by the same company because it's just the same website with a different logo on the top. So that's pretty that's pretty obvious. They're both run by the Webbies, in fact. Right. But worth a peek at that. Road has just announced its Creator of the Year Awards 2025. Lots of uh prizes to be won in there as well. There are the Black Podcasting Awards, which will be held in person for the first time on Friday, October the 17th. 71 podcasts being nominated for that as well. And October the 15th is the Independent Podcast Awards in London. You'll be handing out an award there, I believe.

SamSethi 50:43

Yes, I don't know which one and why or how, but yes, I will be there.

JamesCridland 50:48

So that'll be very good. And in terms of events and things, there is a Speak Fest, Night of the Living Pod happening on October the 10th in Houston in Texas. And also, well, going on right now, you are uh I mean not right now, but you are in uh Madrid. Please not right now.

SamSethi 51:08

Yes, well, when you hear this, yes, that's correct.

JamesCridland 51:11

So you will be speaking at podcast days in uh Spain, which I look forward to finding out more about next week.

SamSethi 51:18

Indeed. If I'm still awake, I've got a three o'clock get up to clap catch a six o'clock flight, and then oh boy, what a day. Oh, well, that a day.

JamesCridland 51:27

That'll be all okay. At least you won't be suffering from jokes.

SamSethi 51:30

I feel like I'm living your life, James, you know.

JamesCridland 51:32

You must be used to doing that. At least you won't be suffering

The Tech Stuff

JamesCridland 51:34

from jet lag.

Announcement 51:34

The tech stuff. On the Pod News Weekly Review.

JamesCridland 51:39

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology. Bosbrout, our sponsor, has done something clever, haven't they?

SamSethi 51:46

Yes, they've come up with a podcast name generator, which, you know, I guess that's a really cool thing to do because and the other thing, it's free, by the way. But the name generator, I guess, is one of those things when you first have your eureka moment. I want to do a podcast. I had a friend up the road ask me about this, and the first thing I said to her was, let's check what other podcasts are named in the thing you want to do. And you go, Oh yes, no, you're okay, you can do it, you can have that name. So no, this is quite nice.

JamesCridland 52:15

Yes, no, indeed. It's very smart. I think the big difference is that it boasts it it both comes up with names for you, but also it checks whether or not the names already exist. It uses the podcast index for that, which is very neat. I tried typing in, you know, a daily newsletter all about podcasting, and it came up with daily pod news update, which I thought I thought was quite interesting. Don't go using that. It's my trademark.

SamSethi 52:44

Surely that's on the blacklist. Get on to Buzzsproutes.

JamesCridland 52:47

I'll be very upset. But there we are. So it's uh worth a play with. You can find it by um uh doing a search for Buzz Sprout in the Pod News newsletter.

SamSethi 52:57

Now I feel like podcast index, the the board meeting must be our sister publication or something, because here we go again. Adam Curry and Dave Jones talked about Cloudfare partnering with Coinbase to create something called the X402 Foundation. Uh did you listen to this part of the show, James?

JamesCridland 53:14

I did not listen to this part of the show. Uh uh well, I I read and uh as I'm doing for every Monday, I I am at least reading what they say in the in the board meeting. Okay. But uh yeah, so X402 is essentially, potentially, a way to enable micropayments for podcasters. It allows all kinds of things to exchange value on the web as they call it. It uses stablecoin and all kinds of exciting things.

SamSethi 53:43

Well, it doesn't yet. Oh no, it doesn't use stable coin. This is his aspiration to use it, right? The the roadmap goal. But what they're they're looking at is fundamentally the same as L402. I don't know why they've called it X402. So what you have is a HTTP request for let's say you come to a website, a bot, a crawler, or even a human and you request content, you get a response back of a 402, which simply says payment required. So it's simply saying, no, you can't access this content. It's not a 404, there's not an error, it's a payment required. And on that challenge, apps can then say, right, well, actually, let's not just come up with this horrible X402 or 402 response. Let's actually then put in a UI experience, which is what we did, Russell and I, with Secure RSS, which is what the basis of this. So I've read the documentation now, it's no different, it's basically the same back and forth between the content owner that's requesting an amount. You then invoice it, it has the macaroon, all the same stuff that we talked about before. So it's really cool that they are applying it because what it means is I think there is a wider community now that will start to look at this as a way of having encrypted premium content, whatever you want to call it, whatever the word is. Yes, the eventual goal may well be that you want it to have stable coins when stable coins become much more common fair. I mean, I know Stripe bought a company related to stablecoins, so expect Stripe to implement something there. I also think the other thing that you have to be aware of, it can go back to straight fiat money. So the the protocol itself is not the predeterminant of the currency. So it could be could be a lightning micropayment, it could be a stablecoin, or it could be a fiat currency. The X402 part is just simply a challenge, and then the app has to do something with it.

JamesCridland 55:46

Right. And the reason why it's not L402 and it's X402 is that Lightning Network released L402. So L402 is very much focused around Bitcoin and Lightning, whereas X402 is kind of everything, is my understanding of that. Okay. But uh yeah, it's it'll be interesting to see whether or not that means uh anything for streaming payments. You would kind of hope that there's something there, but in terms of paying for content, then potentially there's something here as well.

SamSethi 56:19

Yeah, I again I I've made it a very plain goal. I I want to get rid of Patreon, and now I'm never going to get rid of Patreon. But I think the way that private feeds work and the way that Patreon does it, and they make a lot of money doing it, is the market model that I'm after, because I think you can put freemium and premium content in the same feed. Going back to what we said about RSS.com, saying the magic source of podcasting is RSS. I still think this is where hosts can make a lot of money by hosting premium content, having this capability to allow apps to challenge the content and say, right, no, this needs a payment, having that payment, and then the host makes money from that, just as Patrons making it, but you're not having to send your users over to Patreon to set up another account to then pop a populate a private fee back into your favorite app. It's a total mess. And I think this is the way forward. Get off my hobby

The inbox

SamSethi 57:17

horse, Sam.

Announcement 57:17

Boostergram, Boostergram, Boostigram, Super Super Comments, Zaps, Fan mail, fan mail, super chats, and email. Our favorite time of the week, it's the Pod News Weekly Review inbox.

JamesCridland 57:32

So many different ways to get in touch with us. You can use fan mail by using the link in our show notes. Super comments on TrueFans, boosts everywhere else. You have to reinvent everything. Uh, or or email. And uh we share any money that we make as well. A ton of boosts, which is very kind. One, two, three, four SATs from Silas on Linux uh saying, good interview with the Inception Point person. I think you mean Janine. I'm so excited to stop listening to human-made content and opinions. I still have too much human interaction in my life, even though I try to keep it as a minimum. How good that finally I can only listen to only computers as well. I think he's being sarcastic, something tells me. But uh, Silas, thank you for that. Uh 1701 SATS from Brian Ensminger. Boosting because I thought I was streaming SATS, but my Albi wallet had disconnected. Oops. Thank you, Brian. Much, much appreciated.

SamSethi 58:25

We've got 611 SAT from Curecaster. Similar to podcast guru apps like Castomatic, Cure Caster, and Podverse all still work because they still use Olby. And the same Olby account works with all of them like it always has. Yes, the the the point I made last week was it was great to see not just boosts or super comments from TrueFans, which we had for a few weeks. It was lovely to see Fountain, Podcast Guru, and now Kurocaster. So the the death knell of micropayments and streaming SATS seems, you know, a bit premature. I think there are complications and some stuff that is being worked through, but I do think the Olby model is still working, the Keysen model is still working within the podcast community. What we need to do is evolve it to support LN address without going into the technicalities. But that means that you know all the apps are working on that, and I think I don't know, six months from now or less, you know, it won't be an issue again. But the the core point I wanted to make was it's lovely to see more than just one app again sending through boosts and micro payments.

JamesCridland 59:39

Yes, no, indeed. So super helpful with that, and thank you to whoever it is, because I don't know who it was in Castomatic. Uh Customatic. Yes, I think it may well be. Anyway, 1234 sats is actually how much we got from there. I got 50% of that. I'm not quite sure why. I'm finding it fascinating seeing where the where the percentages come in. Because you get forty-eight percent, I think, or forty-nine percent. I think you get forty-nine percent, I get forty-nine percent, and then two percent goes to podcast index. I think that's how it works.

SamSethi 1:00:13

Yeah. So you asked the question to me actually on email, so we can reveal behind the curtain why why the percentages were not going the way that you thought they should be. That's because we haven't got support for full LN address. So your strike wallet, which has a percentage going to it, doesn't receive it, right? So what happens is it goes. What we do is because we don't support it, we then change the percentages, and so you get the percentage in your umbrella different to what you would from say fountain, which does support LN address.

JamesCridland 1:00:43

So it'd be nice to support LN address, obviously, on on your side a little bit more. But I mean, I'm fascinated by I'm fascinated by all of the splits here because you know, I can see some here at 50%, some at 48%, some at 44%. No idea why I'm getting different different splits for everything in here.

SamSethi 1:01:02

I can tell you why, because it'll be the percentage that also the app might take as a fee.

JamesCridland 1:01:08

Uh so there's so TrueFans, TrueFans is keeping 6% or something by the looks of that. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think we were at five, but yeah.

SamSethi 1:01:19

I mean, so yeah.

JamesCridland 1:01:20

Yeah, well, there you go. Anyway, moving on. Seth, 916 sats. Thank you. There definitely needs to be an AI tag, and it should be a standard, especially with Janine's impact with Inception Point AI's slop. Your words, not mine. Seth, thank you for that. Appreciated. I think the does, but I think it needs to be a little bit more nuanced. Lyceum. Martin saying, giving us 420 sats. I have to check out the Museum of Brands, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I like serial and radio receivers. You meet you and me both. Have you been to the Radio Museum in Gothenburg? Have you checked out the Centre for Business History in Stockholm? No and no. I have done neither. I can't think radio museums. You know, I'm very interested in radio, but radio museums I'm just not interested in at all. There's no interest in that from my point of view. So can I just say you might have to cue for no minutes to get into yes, exactly. I mean, to be fair, I didn't have to queue to get into the Museum of Brands either. But yes, I I just I yeah, they they they leave me entirely cold. But anyway, Martin, thank you. And uh he's also sent through a row of ducks, 2,222 sats saying, Congratulations on the funding. When are we gonna learn about your funding, Sam? When are we gonna learn about your funding?

SamSethi 1:02:35

Give me a few more days and we will get there. There you go. Just leave me alone for a minute. Let me enjoy it for Christ's sake.

JamesCridland 1:02:42

Three years of pulling my hair out. Yes. Martin also says, How did you celebrate your birthday?

SamSethi 1:02:47

Nice meal on the river with my partner Jill and uh some friends, and that's pretty much it. It was a it was a quieter one this year. Next year's the big halibaloo, so this one was a quiet one.

JamesCridland 1:02:59

Oh well. There you go. And thank you to everybody who is a power supporter. You can become a power supporter too, weekly.podnews.net. Lots of excellent people in there, including John McDermott, uh, including Neil Vellio, including Jim James and Cy Jobling. Thank you to you, and especially to John Spurlock, who is our newest and latest person. Much appreciated, particularly since I saw some data this week saying that only six percent of podcast listeners subscribe or donate to their favourite podcast. So thank you. I wonder what that says in terms of how many how many listeners we actually have. If only six percent. Yes. If only six percent are yes, uh does that mean that we've only got skewing lower than six, hopefully. Yes, exactly. I think that means that we've only got 238 listeners, so we've got more than that. Anyway,

Sam and James's week

JamesCridland 1:03:49

so what's happened for you this week, Sam?

SamSethi 1:03:51

Well, in light of what's going on with Soundstack, what I'm doing with Pod 2, and some of the hints I'm giving you about new hosting measurement tools, our CDM is live. You can just play with it if you want, it doesn't do anything. Cdn.truefans.fm, you can click on it, it's there, it's live. So that's where that's going. The new pricing pages will be up shortly, and you'll be able to get on the wait list and you'll see how we're changing. I think the way that you will be getting your hosting. But anyway, yeah, we'll see when it comes all live. There you go.

JamesCridland 1:04:26

There you go. And you're building a you're you're branching out into some editorial here.

SamSethi 1:04:32

Well, in line with what we're doing with our hosting, I think it's equally good for us to do a high hosting price comparison feature. So, why would you host with TrueFans compared to someone else? And what can you as a creator benefit from? So, one of the things we are doing is unlimited podcasts similar to Captivate, and then we have a um download streaming tool that measures the amount of data you've used, and so you'll be able to see within your tariff how close you are, and we're going to measure that against other hosts. So, yeah, just and of course, one of the things we do is we support every podcasting 2.0 tag, and so we'll measure what other hosts do or don't support.

JamesCridland 1:05:18

Very nice, very nice. Well, enjoy enjoy Spain as well. Uh, I hope that you uh bump into a ton of a ton of people over there.

SamSethi 1:05:25

If you I would love to just go and play paddle out there, actually.

JamesCridland 1:05:29

I'm sure you would. I'm sure you would. What do the Spanish call paddle? Padel. Yes, but what do they really call paddle? That's what it's called.

SamSethi 1:05:42

Right, James. What's happening for you this week, mate?

JamesCridland 1:05:44

Well, so I I have been so I I have a media directory website, which has been going for about 25 years or so, and costing me an arm and a leg to run at the moment. And the reason why it's costing me an arm and a leg to run is that there are lots of naughty streaming set-top boxes out there. You know those set-top boxes that you can buy from a man down in the pub and it gets um, you know, 7,000 free TV services on it. Well, those are available and those are pulling all of the television station logos from my website, it turns out. So I've tried to send 404 errors for all of those uh logos because it's 97% of all of the traffic that go that comes out of that website is doing logos for hooky for hooky uh streaming boxes. So I've I've tried to give 404, so that doesn't appear to have worked. So now I'm just r replying to every every request of an image with a really obnoxious red flashing gif. And it sits there and it flashes, it flashes, you know, sort of really bright red to white flashing to really annoy people. I did think about putting something worse on there, but I thought actually just a really annoying flashing gif file will be probably enough.

SamSethi 1:07:01

So we will James, James. You you need to use X402. You need to use what Cloudflare is designing.

JamesCridland 1:07:08

I I can't use X402 because at the end of the day, just a 400 error just gets ignored by their by their uh their their uh platforms. So I can't, you know, sadly I would love to do, I would love to get some money out of it, but that's clearly not going not going to happen. So so my plan there is to really annoy the users of these of these set-top boxes, and maybe they will then force. How do you get rid of all these horrible red flashing red flashing icons? Yeah. I mean, I'm assuming that the Android set-top boxes, because they're all Android, aren't they? I'm assuming that the Android set-top boxes will decode a flashing GIF file, you know, just you know, perfectly adequately. And I'm assuming that that will be much more annoying than just a broken image, which may just be hidden on these on these platforms. So we will see what effect that will have. But I tell you what, it really did make me think that the amount of money that I'm paying to Amazon for essentially blocking these these files, it's very clear that you know, if you if you want to cost a company a lot of money, then just sit there and download lots of lots of files from their website because it'll it'll cost them an arm and a leg. So yeah, and there's nothing I can do about it other than you know accelerate the amount of uh annoying red red flashing gifts I'm producing. So yeah, it's been really interesting. But yes, anyway, so that's so that's what I've been doing for most of this week.

SamSethi 1:08:40

So now you all know what James's side hustle is, right?

JamesCridland 1:08:44

I've got no idea. No idea what you're talking about there. Uh-oh. Anyway, so that's all good. And that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories taken from the pod news daily newsletter at podnews.net.

SamSethi 1:08:57

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JamesCridland 1:09:11

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Announcement 1:09:23

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