Announcer 0:01

The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters. The last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridlin and Sam Sethy.

Sam Sethi 0:13

I'm James Cridlin, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethy, the CEO of Tree Foundation.

Announcer 0:50

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Rob and Elsie join Captivate

James Cridland 0:54

Now, Sam, normally it's you that starts with the uh stories, but uh today I just thought I would start because this is very cheeky. Right. Uh we record this the day before, and uh I've got an exclusive which you don't know about yet, uh which I'm just gonna tell you. And I'm I'm I'm just curious to see what your reaction is. Okay. It's news about two people who we know, uh, Rob Walsh and Elsie Escobar. And the good news is that they've been confirmed as back working together in podcasting today. Captivate has appointed Rob Walsh and Elsie Escobar. Rob Walsh will be working with Captivate and Dax US on advertising and monetization, and Elsie will be creator, success, and community manager. It's almost like the gang is back together. And we've got um we've got uh uh more competition as well, Sam. Oh. Um because they will be back behind the microphone as the new hosts of In and Around Podcasting. Oh. So uh yeah, so there's a thing. What do you think of that? That's really good for Captivate, I think. I think it really shows that Captivate wants to make a thing of the US. Um, they've been a very UK-focused company so far. I also think that makes Captivate the company that has more podcast Hall of Famers than anyone else now, which is something that um their previous company used used to say. Um, but I think with Mark Asquith as well working there, um uh I think that get that gives uh three. I think that's pretty good news.

Sam Sethi 2:26

There's a few more I think who might join soon as well, but that's another story. Um here we go. I know nothing, by the way. Uh it's just me thinking out aloud. No, that's brilliant news. Uh, congratulations to Rob and Elsie. Um, I think it's a great landing place for them. Um let's see what they do next. Yeah.

James Cridland 2:45

Yeah. Mark Asquith's now Rob Walsh's boss. Who would have thought that would ever happen?

Sam Sethi 2:53

They get on very well by all accounts. So they get on fantastically. Seems like a good fit. And um, yeah, as you said, they're trying to grow into the Americas. Um, Rob's got a great track record there. Yeah. It should be a success, I think.

James Cridland 3:06

And I think it's a great move for Dax US as well. Um, Dax is a pretty good um advertising and monetization uh ad exchange, obviously, and um and Rob knows so much about that as well. I think we always think of Rob Walsh as uh as being the man who will stand up and will uh tell you slightly grumpily about how things work um in terms of um the Apple Podcast charts and in terms of some of the people trying to um um you know do things that aren't necessarily right, but actually he he knows so much about the advertising side as well. I think it uh it's a really clever move. So congratulations, Mr. Asquith. Another triumph, sir. Well done.

Sam Sethi 3:48

Now, shall we move on from that triumph to another bit of revelation? Yes, let's do that. We've

YouTube releases revenue

Sam Sethi 3:54

often said that Alphabet, the owners of Google, have hidden the YouTube numbers, but they've revealed them, James. And it seems that for 2025, in total, uh YouTube's revenue was $60 billion. That is a quite a big number.

James Cridland 4:11

Yes, that's quite a large number. It's a third higher than the amount of money that Netflix generated in 2025, which is $45 billion. Um, that they get interestingly, they get about a third of their money from subscription revenue, from things like YouTube Premium, uh, YouTube Music, obviously, YouTube TV, which is a big thing in the US and available nowhere else, um, and something called YouTube's NFL Sunday ticket, which I'm imagining has something to do with American sports ball. Um, but um, that is interesting because that is not necessarily something that Spotify has been big at um in terms of, I mean, you know, obviously there are lots of people who are uh signed up with uh Spotify for premium, but nowhere near as much as this, and nowhere near as varied uh in terms of the things that they offer. So uh yeah, I thought that was that was interesting seeing.

Sam Sethi 5:07

They're about to bring out their um TV bundles, I think is what they're gonna be calling them. So again, there'll be entertainment bundles, there'll be uh sports bundles and others. So again, they're looking at different markets, I s I assume, of where they can monetize against.

James Cridland 5:26

Yeah, I mean it's my understanding that if you're in the US, YouTube TV is essentially a cable TV service for you, and you can watch, you know, ABC, NBC, CBS, and uh and all of that on there. Um what what I'm surprised at is that um firstly that's a separate service to the free channels that um you get with a Google TV streamer, um which is weird. Um, and secondly, I'm surprised that they haven't um uh launched some international channels on there, because you would guess that YouTube TV would work quite well internationally. There are a number of international channels which are available, which have the rights and all of that, and you would guess that that would be quite useful for them, but um, you know, seemingly not quite yet. But uh yeah, so interesting to see that. Interesting to see you as well in terms of advertising revenue. Um uh you've even you've even calculated their advertising revenue against um some of the big American uh TV broadcasters, haven't you?

Sam Sethi 6:27

Yes, um the YouTube advertising revenue um is certainly bigger than Netflix and even Disney's media businesses, and I think we hadn't realised how big they are. And now Henan Lopez does a very good newsletter called Streamonomics, and um in it he's talking about the number of hours watched on YouTube as well, which is a significant number. I I just think this is uh quite exciting that YouTube have brought out the numbers. Um it does make them, you know, as a platform stand out against all the others, because before it was all hidden, and you'd think Netflix was the big beast in the market with all their podcast acquisition recently as well. Um YouTube's just knocked them out of the park, and I think uh it would be wise and often sorry that that that there's been a conversation that YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet after Google's own search engine, and there was talk when um they had the female CEO um previously about maybe they would float off YouTube as a separate entity. I wonder whether they'll ever consider putting out a tracking share, which is a secondary share that you can have in the market um to create value because now they've got the numbers that they've revealed. I don't know. It's interesting that they've revealed them. I don't know why they've done it right now.

James Cridland 7:48

Yes, and it may well be that uh, you know, they're feeling the heat from Netflix a little bit, but uh whatever it is, um, yeah, it's really interesting. And as you say, Hernan Lopez has written a very good uh long piece um all about these uh numbers and uh others as well in his uh Streamonomics um newsletter. You can get that at OWL and Co. Owl, as in uh The Wondery Owl, uh ndco.com. Um and and in there um he mentions that YouTube has 1.7 trillion hours watched last year, which is um quite a nice thing, and it's up nine percent year on year, which is probably the most uh or the more important thing. But uh yeah, so definitely worth a peek.

Spotify's numbers

James Cridland 8:33

So YouTube's numbers uh came out. Who else's numbers came out?

Sam Sethi 8:37

Well, it is the season to reveal uh Spotify next. Um they added their numbers. Now, what was interesting, Daniel Eck put a post up on LinkedIn saying this was my final quarter as CEO of Spotify, and it's a strong one, he says. Continued momentum, new records, lots of progress across the company, and I'm grateful to the teams. It's the start of the next chapter with Alex and Gustav as the co-CEOs, which, as we said, I'm not sure that ever works, but we'll see. Maybe they can. Um the numbers were strong though. The company has now more than 750 million users across the world, which is um, you know, a big uh marketplace that they've got, and they've got 290 million paid subscribers, 10% up year on year. It's all looking very good. They put it down to the Wrapped campaign. Uh 300 million people accessed it. I noticed they, but therefore 400 million people didn't, which I thought was very funny.

James Cridland 9:35

Um yes, but that's weird, isn't it? I mean, the amount of promotion that wrapped got, the amount of promotion that they got, and then they and then they turn around and they say, well, actually, uh, a minority of their customers actually used Rapped. Um, and it kind of makes you think, well, what what are the other people doing uh there? But um uh one of my favourite things I've been going through the Jeffrey Epstein papers um over the last over the last week. We checked, we're not in it, are we? We are not in it. But surprisingly, a lot surprisingly, an awful lot of podcasts are in it. Really? So um, yes, I'll be reporting on that in the next couple of days. But um one of the interesting things is is there you can see him signing up to a Spotify um uh account. This is back in 2011, I think. Uh signing up to a Spotify account, and then um, you know, and then you can see Spotify emailing going, yeah, we've tried to get some money out of your account, but uh your card doesn't seem to be working at all, and blah, blah, blah. And then, and then seemingly when he he's in prison, he cancels it, and all this kind of stuff. It's very bizarre. But anyway, um uh so uh but but you know, interesting uh uh data about um uh Spotify in terms of podcasting, which is probably the more important thing uh to us. 530,000 video podcast shows now on Spotify, which is a big number. Um, they also gave us another big number. Video podcast consumption has increased by more than 90% since January 2025. What does that mean? No one knows because we don't know how how much there was in terms of um January 2025, which of course is when Spotify launched their partner program. Um so without any actual numbers, uh, 90%, great, fine. But in terms of ad sales, I thought that, you know, this was interesting. Ad sales over all of Spotify has dropped slightly by about 1%. Podcast ad sales dropped in the year by almost $99 million, which is um roughly about 4%. Um, quotes due to optimization of podcast inventory, whatever that's supposed to mean. Um, but also the cost to Spotify of making podcasts decreased in 2025. I'm not quite sure how, but it did. And that meant that they have essentially earned more profit from the uh ad sales that they have made, even if they have made slightly less ad sales there. Um, but uh yeah, podcast ad sales dropping by almost 99 million US dollars is um not necessarily a good thing. I wonder how that compares to other companies. Oh no, I'll tell you in in just a second.

Sam Sethi 12:20

Okay. Well, I think you know, one of my predictions was that uh premium subscriptions and premium content payments will be uh a bigger market than advertising. I wonder whether we're seeing this start. I mean Spotify putting a lot of effort into taking money from subscribers to pay for those video podcasts. We still don't know what that number is, by the way. That's a number they've never revealed. Um and maybe that's what we're seeing here. Maybe we're seeing less effort put into Well, I mean, I think it goes back to the conversation you had with my prohofnik, uh, you know, where you said uh you're basically saying that the advertisers are reaching the people who aren't paying the premium content or the premium subscription. And it was like, aren't the advertisers trying to reach those people who have the money to pay the premium content? So, you know, what's the I I don't know. I think I think there's something in it where I think the the advertisers are maybe looking at it going, are we reaching the right people?

James Cridland 13:22

Yes. No, I think I think there's definitely something to be said for that. Um I do think it's interesting that essentially their monthly active users increased at much the same rate as their premium subscribers, also increased. 11% up for MAUs, 10% up for premium subscribers. So they seem to be doing everything right in terms of that. No wonder that their um that their share price went up, although their share price is so low in comparison to this time last year. Um it's quite it's quite a thing. Um, but um, yeah, you know, you you also saw in the prepared um in the prepared remarks very clearly, you know, Alex Nordstrom, one of the CEOs, um showing, you know, what he understands and what he's there for, and Gustav Serdestrom, the other one, um, you know, uh uh talking up his sort of side of the business as well. So it's going to be a fascinating year to watch in terms of uh Spotify. Um I should mention that this time last year I was getting probably three different PR companies sending me information about Spotify's uh finance. Uh this time round I got absolutely nothing. Um they didn't even bother telling me, which I think tells you a bit about how Spotify are now just hunkering down and operating a proper business rather than operating something where they're desperately trying to please as many people as possible by pumping out as much information as they possibly can.

Sam Sethi 14:53

Yeah, I think uh I think Alex said it was the year of accelerated execution in 2025, and then in 26 is going to be the year of raising ambition. Don't know what that don't know what the ambition is, but yeah, they're gonna raise it.

James Cridland 15:06

Well, who knows? But uh a strong fourth quarter from uh Spotify, and

Acast numbers

James Cridland 15:12

they're not the only Swedish companies um uh releasing their data because ACAST also published its quarter four twenty-five earnings report on the same day. I'm sure that they were delighted about doing that. But there we are. But um it's actually pretty good if you compare them. Spotify ad sales went down, ACast ad sales increased by 29% year on year, and in the US they increased by 60% year on year. So ACast having a fantastic time, although, of course, 60% of um not quite so much is still not quite so much. Um it's still a really important um thing to see their numbers um going up that much. Now they have slid into loss again, but only slightly, um losing two million dollars for the year. And they did make a profit in the last quarter, though, of 7.2 million. Um, and um some pretty good numbers um coming out of uh ACAST um in uh Stockholm uh under the new CEO, of course, Greg Glende. It's not quite his first full year yet. Um, so uh we shall be waiting to see what happens in that in 2026 as well.

Sam Sethi 16:20

I wonder, did they break out anything to do with the split between audio and video?

James Cridland 16:25

No, um there's very little mention uh that I saw, at least, in the information that they uh gave. Um I mean, they've talked about significant events of, you know, some of the things that they have been doing, um, but there's no highlight in terms of how much money they're making on video versus uh audio. Um, I mean, you know, they they do give a really useful number, which is their average revenue per listener number. Sorry, average revenue per listen number. Um, and that uh so that's essentially how much money they make from every single play of a podcast. And um it is uh that has increased by 21% last year. Uh all of their numbers are in uh Swedish crowns, so of course I now have to tell you how much um that is by uh typing rather noisily uh in my keyboard uh in USD. So for every single um uh listen they have for a show, they earn seven cents out of that. Now, seven cents isn't too bad, actually, if you compare, you know, how many um uh uh downloads and listens they have. Um that's quite interesting. But uh yeah, no mention of uh of uh the the the V-word uh in their results, no.

New Spotify features

Sam Sethi 17:41

Now let's zip back to Spotify. There's a couple of stories that I uh looked at. One was we talked about, I think last week, Spotify has partnered with bookshop.org um who basically provide audiobooks, but they're now detecting book mentions in podcasts and promoting them in the home feed, which is isn't that just basically what Apple do with timed links?

James Cridland 18:05

Yes, that's interesting that they have um uh taken that idea andor taken a similar idea and move uh moved forward on that. Um, but yeah, I mean it makes perfect sense if you're gonna mention a uh a book um and you can link to that book, then it of course it makes perfect sense. So they must have looked at that and gone, you know what, we can do that too.

Sam Sethi 18:26

Are they transcribing every podcast though? Like Apple?

James Cridland 18:29

Um they're still not transcribing every podcast, but they're transcribing quite a few of them. Um uh I think it's a bit weird that Spotify haven't rolled this out to every single show. Um uh and I know this because I have a show which is only available on Spotify, it's called Dog News. Um, it's a whole podcast all about dogs. Um and they still haven't uh transcribed that. Maybe I should do another episode and see if they transcribe that one. Uh although now I now I've mentioned that on this podcast, uh, they'll probably add that one in specially. Um, but yeah, so they haven't quite done that uh yet. They do seem to be sort of um rolling out some of these features quite slowly, and my guess is that they would do um, you know, um uh book uh matching only for some of the bigger shows. But of course, that's where it gets the most amount of uh use anyway.

Sam Sethi 19:22

In addition to that, the Spotify officially launched, we talked about it before, Page Match, which is very dull, is basically introducing the ability to have your physical book linked to your audiobook. Um I'm not quite sure how that worked. Um, but they're also introducing something called About the Song, which I think might be more interesting, which um is a new way to explore stories behind the music. So, what they're doing is providing a short, swipable story card for what's now playing. And my my thoughts on this was I can imagine this being extended eventually into podcasting because again, it could just be a podcast summary of what's going on, or maybe it's a story about what's in the background related to the podcast. Yeah.

James Cridland 20:06

Yeah, that would that would certainly be really interesting. I mean, yes, you know, having the story behind, you know, get back by the Beatles would be but would be really nice to be able to watch um or to read in the in the app. So that's um that's a really nice idea, I think.

Sam Sethi 20:23

And uh equally they've also announced that they're going to display what you're listening to inside the messages. Um they're calling this a listening activity. It is opt-in, so it's turned off by default. If you're not actively listening, your most recent song will be shown instead. So they've always had a social sidebar if you want it. And this is now going to be looking at what you're actively listening to. It doesn't say music, so I'm wondering whether it's actively listening to a podcast. I don't know.

James Cridland 20:55

Oh, it could well be, couldn't it? Yes, it could well be. Isn't that interesting that they haven't used the word music there? That's a good spot. Thank you very much. Yes. Uh so uh they they haven't copied that from anybody, have they?

Sam Sethi 21:09

I I'm seriously gonna have to check which Spotify executives on TrueFans, because it seems they do. Um you know, we had this feature about a year ago. We call it CoListen, um, and we're extending that with a live chat shortly. Um but this week they you know they they copied my awards feature last week, you know. This week they're copying that that one. Might as well just give them my roadmap and say, There you go, mate, you know.

James Cridland 21:33

Yeah, that would be that would be entertaining. But no, well that's a good feature.

Sam Sethi 21:37

It's good.

James Cridland 21:37

Yeah, well that's well, that's very cool to see. And um uh yeah, no, it is interesting. I mean, I I used to use the social um uh view quite a lot when I could see it. I've got no idea where it's gone. Um, but um when I could see it, I used to use that a fair amount of just oh yeah, okay, yeah. I I wonder what uh I mean you're always listening to Soul or something, so yes, I am, yes. Yeah, so I don't bother with any of that.

Sam Sethi 22:03

I've got a filter for anything from nineteen sixty not to be displayed, so you know you don't know.

James Cridland 22:10

Well, there we are. Gosh, there's a thing. Um, but uh yeah, and and interesting that you're talking about messages in at Spotify. Again, more Jeffrey Epstein uh uh news. There is quite a lot in the Jeffrey Epstein files of his friends sending him songs to play on Spotify, which is just like this weirdest thing of you know, some random Ukrainian real estate or Prime Minister, uh, you know, real estate manager sending him, oh, you know, um uh uh uh here's a fun song you might like. Um just very, very bizarre. Um so I thought I'd send him one if he was alive, bang bang, the mighty fool. So that's been fun to

Acquisition time - Supercast

James Cridland 22:54

do. Um there's been a big acquisition this uh uh this week. Um, and it's a really interesting acquisition for uh certainly for people like Sam who've been wittering on about how the future is um pay too.

Sam Sethi 23:08

It's nice to know my pontifications are wittering.

James Cridland 23:12

Um so uh uh who bought whom, uh Sam?

Sam Sethi 23:18

So Red Seat Ventures, which is part of Fox. Um they've acquired uh Supercast. Now, Supercast have been a sponsor of Pod News daily, I believe, in the past, but Supercast is very much like Patreon and Memberful and um Substack. And so it's this whole idea of putting premium content inside a paywall and asking your users to pay a subscription amount or a monthly fee um to access premium content. It's been uh well, according to this, Supercast top 10 podcast has grossed more than $26 million last year, um, which is a decent number. It doesn't, of course, um compare to Patreon's two billion dollars that they buy now. No, exactly. But this is really cool. Um, ACAST has partnered with Supercast since last April, and Supercast is also used by Huberman Lab and This American Life. So I think it's really interesting that again, it's one of those things, I think in my 2026 predictions, I think that premium content is going to be the way forward. And you look at Substack as well, for example. Um, I always quote zateo.com, customized domain, blogs, video, audio, merch, live events, books, you know, and I think Supercast is of a similar nature. So I think this is really exciting.

James Cridland 24:42

No, I think it's uh it's it's been fascinating watching that company. I remember in 2019 going to Podcast Movement, the very first podcast movement evolutions in the hotel in LA where they recorded um where they filmed Ghostbusters. And um uh yes, and uh Jason Suehoy was there uh and learning as much as he possibly could about the podcast industry. Uh and uh here we are in 2026, and he's successfully sold that on to Red Seat Ventures. I should point out that Jason Siouhoi will continue to operate that company, uh, which will be um a good thing. And I believe that we have him on the show uh shortly.

Sam Sethi 25:23

Yes, we do. Yes, he's um I pinged him and he said yes, he'd love to come on, so that's great. Um I I don't think terms were revealed about how much the acquisition was up.

James Cridland 25:32

Yes, I've asked, I've asked, and uh he didn't he didn't even bother replying to my emails. Was that from the Ferrari car showroom that he called you? Quite possibly.

Sam Sethi 25:42

You you you you and him both. Oh no, no, no, no. If I ever get the monies, it's an Aston Martin. Come on, British. We're not gonna be able to. Oh yes, of course it is. Yes, of course it is. Yes. Aston Martin is still actually owned by a British a British company? No, it's owned by an American company. In fact, the funniest thing is I have had an Aston Martin in the past. I'll just tell you a quick story. And um what's funny about what the Aston Martin had at the time is most of the parts in it were Ford uh components, so the gearbox uh knob wasn't actually uh out of a Ford cortina or a Ford whatever. Um so it was it was really weird. You've got this Aston Martin, but with loads of Ford car parts in it, it was just not quite right. They they subsequently changed that, by the way. But yes.

James Cridland 26:25

Yes, well, I'm I'm driving an MG, good British brand, uh made in Shanghai.

Sam Sethi 26:32

And of course, I think I've told you, but my next door neighbour, but two is the marketing director in the UK for MG. He's very proud of it.

James Cridland 26:38

Oh yes, oh yes, there you go. There you

Podcasting in Nigeria - interview, Tony Doe

James Cridland 26:41

go. Right, let's go uh a little bit round the world. We'll start in uh Nigeria, um, because uh we've learnt things about Nigerian podcasting. For example, they are much less likely to podfade. Uh 74% of shows remain active in the country. Um, Spotify for Creators is the number one podcast host in the country as well. And I thought this is really interesting because we hear an awful lot of shows, uh, an awful lot from um uh from uh you know the UK and from the US and from Australia. We hear very little uh coming uh out of uh Africa. So uh I thought, well, let's find out a little bit more. So in a first for this very podcast, joining us live from Lagos uh is uh the person who put this uh work uh together uh is uh Tony Doe. Uh greetings, Tony.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Hey James. Thanks for having me. Hi, hello Sam.

James Cridland 27:39

Hey, how are you, Tony?

SPEAKER_01 27:40

I'm great, you go.

James Cridland 27:42

See, look, this the the technology works, which is a fantastic thing. Um Nigeria is massive, isn't it? 224 million people who live there.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

And counting.

James Cridland 27:52

Yeah, and counting. 60 million people speaking English. Um 64 million people speaking Housa. And one of the things that I was interested in on this data is that um the data which comes from the Nigerian Podcast Index, over 90% of shows are in English. Um and um Houser is, I think, from memory, something like 2.7%. What why aren't there more shows in uh Hausa, Tony?

SPEAKER_01 28:20

There are lots of shows, but not enough shows registered as podcasts. Ah Housa, yes. There's but when it comes to radio, there's a lot of content. There's a lot of house content on radio, live radio, um, community radio, communal radio. But when it comes to podcasting, and I'm still searching, so it's not as if the journey is over per se, but it comes down to platforms. Um, there's a limit to language options in terms of primary um speech for content creators. So we're dealing with major languages, um usually English, French, maybe Spanish, um, languages that seem to have more um more global appeal. And only until recently um we started having platforms that decided to look a little inward and create content, or rather, and create a place or a home that would allow local language podcasts to thrive. Another thing is you know, education as well. If they know that platforms exist, then they can come on board and speak their languages with a bit more ease. Um, a lot of them don't know that they can do that yet.

James Cridland 29:34

Yeah, and I guess I guess if you were to use uh Spotify for creators, then all of that I'm I'm I'm gonna guess is in English, is it?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

It is. Everything is in English, even though the ones I managed to get on the index actually belong to a service, a new service, I think RFI or so. And they're not exactly based in Nigeria, but they do cater to local languages and then have podcast structures.

Sam Sethi 30:02

Tony, uh hi, it's Sam here. Um, talking of Spotify, the top podcast app in Nigeria is Spotify.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yes.

Sam Sethi 30:10

But for the benefit of our sponsors, BuzzSprout, who is the most popular podcast hosting company?

SPEAKER_01 30:16

There are a lot of um podcasters using BuzzSprout. I have friends who are using BuzzSprout, um, and not just using the platform, but actually uh benefiting from all the features of the platform, which means they're actually monetizing with it, which is not uh which is not exactly as popular with other podcasters, but I do know a few people who um who are using Buzz Sprout. But Spotify has a massive, massive gap. I think Buzz Sprout is next or ACAST. I'd have to go through again.

Sam Sethi 30:49

Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Yes, yes.

Sam Sethi 30:51

Well, I suppose because it's free, right, Tony? Just I mean, just on the very basis that it's free that people are gonna go there first.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Yes, that. And um um let's not forget the you know what it was before it became Spotify for creators, which was Ancore. Um besides the fact that it's free, it's the nature in which it was even created. People could from their phones record their content and publish directly. And what Ancore was doing at the time was also submitting on behalf of the creators to the podcast directories. So a lot of people who didn't even know what was going on with the RSS feeds ended up in actual podcast directories. So there's a lot of um there's a lot of content coming from that time, and then you know, maybe now people, you know, are starting with what they see as free. But a lot of people actually started podcasting when Ankor was available, and because of the nature of Ancor itself, and a lot of them have remained on that platform since, even with all the transitions.

James Cridland 32:01

Yeah, you make a you make a really good point because I mean I remember going uh to uh I I did some uh training in Ghana and talking about what to put on your radio station uh on your radio station website, and I suddenly realized, of course, that that um most people are accessing the internet through mobile phones, not necessarily through a laptop or a desktop. And of course, Anchor was brilliant at that because Anchor had an app that you could use to record stuff straight into Anchor and publish and away you go. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Yeah, and I think that's what's missing in the space now, and um I think people would actually look forward to some something like that happening again, or a resurgence of that type of um that type of availability, and it's not it's not there anymore.

James Cridland 32:53

Yeah, there you go, Sam. There's another there's another hint and tip for how true fans work.

Sam Sethi 32:58

Yeah, I'll stick that on the uh 2027 roadmap. I don't think we're gonna get that anytime soon, sorry.

James Cridland 33:05

Yeah uh it's it's now Tony, I I was looking at the um at the genres of of the shows, and religion and society and culture are the two big uh genres, which are um uh much the same actually as in um the UK or the US or here in Australia. What but what's the big difference between podcasting in Nigeria and in the UK or the US?

SPEAKER_01 33:29

I'd say ours is um culturally driven, really. Um our lifestyles, our attitudes uh towards things, um, our perspectives on issues as uh hope and faith are really what drives um what we do when we create. Um we're a very um communal society. Um we find excuses to gather at places, which is one of the reasons uh remote work was kind of difficult to introduce to the workspace in Nigeria. Because people like seeing you, people want to see you. You even if you're not doing anything, uh people won't see you, and then we like having conversations, loud ones too, talking over each other, and that's why a lot of the shows you find in the index are chat shows, more or less, um co-hosted shows, um, hosts bringing in guests, panels, four to five hosts sometimes. And then the reason religion kind of works is because there's already a system that supports it in terms of um its recording and preservation or archiving. Um, long before podcasting, we used to have cassettes, we used to have um Bibles on tapes, um, we had preachers who would actually put a series of um monthly sermons or uh quarterly sermons in cassettes and then have these sold. And then when CDs became a thing, it continued with that tradition as well. And as soon as the digital um audio space became available for this kind of content as well, it also uh moved into that space as well. I wrote an e-book a while ago um dedicated to um pastors and ministers, uh, teaching them more or less how to turn their sermons into podcasts because it was it the content already existed and it just helped with um proliferating the messages and uh helping them understand that sometimes uh even if the message was um preached alive to a local audience, there could be someone somewhere far away who could still benefit from that message as well. Um, I was with a church for a while, and for the two years I was handling their podcast uh management, there was a difference, there was a huge difference, and it also impacted on the way um the pastor himself began to preach because where he felt um you know who else would listen apart from everybody in here, he was able to expand on his messages and then also bring in views that he thought you know would also help expand the views of his congregation as well. And then he, you know, he testified of um having people reach out to him and tell him that they heard his message from miles away. And why was that? They found it on Spotify. Tony, very quick question.

Sam Sethi 36:36

How do people make money in Nigeria with podcasting?

SPEAKER_01 36:41

That is the million dollar question, it is the money question itself. The honest truth is They're not making a million dollars, that's for certain. No, they're not. And then again, um, it's kind of a guarded situation. Um, I can only speak to what I know for certain, which is the fact that the successful podcasts are tied to local networks, which means that the creators themselves may not even be involved in the monetization process. They probably just get paid fees or salaries, like they're coming to regular jobs, and then all the work is being handled by the networks themselves. Now, these networks are the ones who then put the shows on platforms like Boss Sprout, ACast, RSS.com, and you know, so on, and then create um the relationships with the podcast advertising agencies who place ads on these shows and you know make things work. Um for the for the tougher independent ones, me for instance, I don't exactly monetize my show, but there are skills that I exhibit through my show that enable me to monetize, one of which is voiceover work that I do. I also produce podcasts, I also produce um radio commercials and jingles. So these are like audio adjacent things I do.

James Cridland 38:15

I think Dave Dave uh Jackson says that uh you don't monetize podcasts, you monetize your audience and you monetize the people who you reach through the podcast, which is I I think makes uh makes a bunch of sense. Um stupid question, uh Tony, but are um uh the podcasts that are in the Nigerian podcast index, are they mostly listened to in Nigeria itself, or is there a diaspora that also listen, or you know, how does that bit work?

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Um it's it's a bit of both. And the interesting thing is the index doesn't just concern um podcasts created in Nigeria, it actually contains podcasts created by Nigerians abroad. I found some very interesting ones. There's a there's a high percentage of um diaspora listeners, but the bulk of listeners are still Nigerians, interestingly. And um many of them are I I wouldn't know what class to put them in now because we really don't have uh the middle class anymore. But many of them are predisposed to digital um or many of them are digitally savvy, so it's kind of easy. Um you're talking to people in universities, you're talking to young um professionals and corporate society, banking, infrastructure, oil and gas, and you know, these are people who are growing up on realists with the technology, so they're pretty much exposed to it. Many of them eventually travel, and um you know the listening is really heavy locally, but there's a growing audience of um listeners abroad, but probably still Nigerian listeners abroad, those who miss home and still want a taste of home without the limits, you know, of radio.

James Cridland 40:03

Well, if you've got if you've got 224 million people who live there, uh you would imagine that there are going to be quite a lot of people that um that that that are currently uh uh overseas as well. So there is always that. Um what's the best way to get in touch uh with you? Uh you can obviously find out more about the Nigerian Podcast Index by searching the pod news newsletter, but um, where else should people be having a look?

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Um the website is up, Nigerian podcastindex.com. Um, my email is Tony at Nigerian Podcast Index.com. You can find me, Tony Doo. I'm everywhere. LinkedIn, um, Instagram, X threads. And if you search Nigerian PodcastIndex slash Tony Doo or whatever, you'll probably find me lurking somewhere.

Sam Sethi 40:46

Tony, thank you so much, and uh congratulations by putting together the index.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Thank you, Sam.

Sam Sethi 40:52

Thank you so much.

James Cridland 40:52

It's been it's been great having our first live guest.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

Thank you. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, James.

James Cridland 40:57

Thank you, uh Tony. That's uh uh super interesting, and I do think that there's a bunch of really interesting things um uh going on in parts of the rest of the world that we uh don't know too much about. So uh yeah, always, always

Changes at Apple?

James Cridland 41:12

fascinating. Uh one um weird thing as we continue going around the world is Apple is being nice to the UK government. What's going on there, uh Sam? No, they're not.

Sam Sethi 41:22

No, no, no, no, no. We've seen this before. It's capitulation. It's just pure, it's pure PR capitulation, nothing will change. They claim that they're going to make a number of commitments, the UK government, including uh that Apple will rank apps in the app stores in a fair, objective, and transparent way. What does that mean?

James Cridland 41:41

Well, I thought this was interesting because as we know, Apple Podcasts, the directory, uses the same systems as the App Store. Uh, the ranking is worked out the same. Uh, the ranking for apps is recent installations, the ranking for podcasts is recent follows. It it it's it's the same thing, right? So I thought to myself, okay, there's definitely something of interest there uh in terms of um what this might mean, because this could mean that podcasts get ranked in a different way as well, in a fair objective and transparent way, um, because they're not necessarily transparently ranked right now. We don't necessarily know all of the details of how things are ranked. So I thought that that was interesting. I wondered as well whether or not that would um make any changes to ratings and reviews, which are a pretty murky part of what Apple does. Um it allows people to say all kinds of rude and unpleasant things about your podcast or about your app. Um, and uh if it doesn't break any Apple rules, if it's not uh hate speech, for example, then if somebody is accusing you of doing something which is illegal, Apple will keep it up there and Apple will say, well, it doesn't break any of our rules. Um so uh, you know, so I was curious to see whether or not they do anything on that. I think that's probably a watching uh a watching brief uh for that.

Sam Sethi 43:06

I'm curious to why the UK government's even bothered. I mean, of all the things they've got to deal with, asking Apple asking Apple to rate and rank apps fairly.

James Cridland 43:16

Please could you make sure? I mean, all that they're doing is please could you make sure that Apple Maps doesn't appear higher than Google Maps or whatever it is. It's just yes, I would agree that uh in the UK, which appears to be, I mean, I you know, I don't want to be rude, Sam, but it appears to be falling apart.

Sam Sethi 43:32

Well, since you let just just since you let come back for a given, hurry up.

James Cridland 43:37

Yeah, right. Um then uh yes, gosh. Um, but uh yes, it does seem a a pretty of a a bit of a strange thing for the UK government to get um uh excited about, particularly since it doesn't necessarily have um a big tech um uh um you know uh sector of its own in terms of mobile apps and and that sort of thing. So um yeah, who knows? Apart from obviously the mighty, the mighty true fans.

Sam Sethi 44:04

Well, you know, uh look, hey, it's the podcasting capital of the world. You know, if you look at, you know, Fountain and ourselves, we're coming for you. Yes, yes.

James Cridland 44:14

Well, there we go. Now

More news from round the world

James Cridland 44:15

uh a few other things going on in the UK. Uh BBC Studios is launching a technology podcast called The Interface, um, which will be available um on BBC Sounds in the UK, which means that we can't get it. BBC.com internationally, hooray! Um, and it'll also be available on YouTube as a video series, um, which is interesting. Not available on Spotify as a video series, but available on YouTube as a video series. So um that's the BBC Way. Um, there's also uh a new uh Louis Therew um uh show, or rather, you know, a continued Louis Thoreau show from Mindhouse Podcasts, which are the companies that make um uh that um uh show. They're also making a documentary for Netflix. Um and um there's some uh other things going on with Deep Fusion Films. You might remember we interviewed Mike Parkinson a while back. Um Deep Fusion Films is joining John Gore Studios, which will essentially just mean a larger and more capable uh studio there. So um so that's interesting. Uh what's happening in Canada, Sam? I have no idea.

Sam Sethi 45:24

Mark Carney hasn't told me. No, um there's something about a bridge. God knows. Um the CBC is a podcast incubator for audio creators, journalists, reporters, and storytellers from across Canada, and they're calling for pitches. It's open till April the first. Um, so yes, they're asking for people to pitch. What are they asking them for?

James Cridland 45:45

Yes, if you want to pitch, if you want to pitch a good podcast idea to them, you do not have to be Canadian, you do not have to apologize all the time. You can just pitch um straight uh uh with them. Um they're looking for you know independent producers, production companies, co-productions, and so on and so forth. Uh, I think one of the things that came out of this process a couple of years ago um was a BBC and CPC uh co pro, and they've also done co-pros with the ABC here in Australia, which is nice. Talking of which, um, Australia's favourite podcast was an award, apparently, at the Australian Academy of Cinema and California.

Sam Sethi 46:23

Oh, you've got another award, have you? Congratulations.

James Cridland 46:27

That's not us. That's not ours, I'm afraid. I'm terribly sorry, but yes, the Actor Awards, A A C T A. Uh, anyway, shameless uh won that. Um, so that's exciting, isn't it? Uh, it's the first year that podcasts have been recognized as that awards, and there've also been some awards in Portugal as well. Uh, the Pod uh Podes Po Podcast Festival uh in Portugal. Um uh all of the winners on that are in the uh Pod News uh daily uh newsletter.

Sam Sethi 46:59

Who won it, James? Go on.

James Cridland 47:01

Uh well, it was a narrative podcast about three Portuguese sisters returning to Portugal after Angola's decolonization. This is what I said in the Pod News Daily podcast the other day, as you may remember, because I I wasn't going to try and pronounce the actual name of it, because I'll just butcher it. I'll just uh this was, by the way, in the same episode that I also tried some Swedish. So clearly I I care less about upsetting Swedes and more about upsetting the Portuguese. But still we are. Um The Ambiz.

Sam Sethi 47:37

The Ambiz. Yes. Yes. They've announced that it will be hosted by Wyatt Senack. Uh, it's who's Wyatt Senack, James?

James Cridland 47:46

Uh well, he he was a comedian on The Daily Show, uh, way, way, way back when Jon Stewart was doing it full time. Um, but uh he's also a writer and producer. Um, he is being uh joined. This is the thing that is weird and wonderful and exciting. He is being joined by somebody called Don Will. Don Will will serve as the evening's official house DJ. And in the middle of the show, uh, because awards shows are never long enough, in the middle of the show, he will be doing some musical accompaniment. Um, so that's gonna be exciting. It's part of the On Air Fest in Brooklyn at the end of this month, February the 25th to the 26th. I think it might be on the 24th, actually. Um, so that's gonna be good. Um, they've also unveiled a Vanguard Jewry, which is a collective of industry leaders and emerging voices dedicated to shaping and elevating the podcast medium, all of them apart from one from the US. Um, and they have uh selected uh the 2026 Vanguard Podcaster of the Year, uh, who they haven't announced yet. Um it's not gonna be me.

Sam Sethi 48:48

I haven't heard that word in about 18 centuries.

James Cridland 48:51

I know, Vanguard, it's a wonderful word, isn't it? Um I was looking at it and going, what? The the financial company, the people that um the people that put those uh that put those weird funds together. Um but uh it's got nothing to do with that. Um but yes, it's a good word, Vanguard. So um hurrah for the for the podcast academy. That's what we're gonna do.

Sam Sethi 49:10

Someone's been reading the Emily Bronte, haven't they?

James Cridland 49:13

Yes, haven't they just?

Events

James Cridland 49:15

Events, James. Events, let's go on and uh talk about those. Um the uh 69th Annual New York Emmy Awards are open for entries, and the press release said video podcasts are specifically mentioned as being eligible for the talk program category. Uh so if you're doing a video podcast that you think should win an Emmy, then firstly, what are you doing listening to this? And secondly, you can enter uh and see if you can win an Emmy. Uh, I should uh remind you that we use CleanFeed to record this, and CleanFeed won an Emmy for this very tool that we are talking on right now. So there's a thing. Um DScript are doing a um uh tech week by A16Z. Um for some reason. Dscript have also changed their logo um from blue to red in honor of the recording button.

Sam Sethi 50:07

I wonder what agency they paid million quid for that answer.

James Cridland 50:11

Yes, exactly. Well, just turn it red. Yes, that'll be four million dollars, please. Um and for the first time ever, D Script uh now does transcripts in British English. Um, which uh to me I'm there looking at and going, really? You haven't offered that before? But yeah, um, so the word colour was spelt wrong and the word honour was spelt wrong uh and all of that. Um and so they're now doing it in British English as well, if you want that. Um, but they can't uh they can't work out whether somebody is British or American, so you have to press the button uh in the app, apparently. Or Australian, of course, which is uh a weird mix of of the two. So so who knows? We so we we spell program the American way and we spell colour the correct way. Right.

Sam Sethi 50:56

Um You know why you know why the Americans uh changed those words, don't you? Uh uh because they couldn't spell? No. It was uh after independence, they didn't want the Oxford English. Um they wanted their own version of English. So Merriam Webster dropped all the U's and um various other letters so that they could call it American English.

James Cridland 51:17

That's brilliant. Wow, there you go. I had no idea. Um and finally, in terms of uh in terms of uh events, the uh the big event that I should uh tell you about, even if we are no longer um uh directly connected in terms of um a uh company uh is uh Podcast Movement, Podcast Movement Evolutions, which is happening March the 13th to the 15th in Austin in Texas. Tickets are free, free, free. Uh you need to pre-register. Um that will help because that will give you uh more access to people just rocking up um uh off the street. And if you've got a South by Southwest ticket, then firstly, you should be sending that some of that money to us, weekly.podnews.net, click on the support button. Um, but secondly, um uh then you'll also get in um uh as well and beat the cues. But um they have announced um an evening of live performances and storytelling from a um company called Companion Podcast, which is a supporter of Pod News. Uh very good. Um they do a lot of um good stuff, and so that should be good. Maya Hawke and Andy Grammer um will be um taking part in that. Maya Hawk, of course, who starred in Stranger Things.

Sam Sethi 52:29

There you go. I haven't still seen Stranger Things, yeah.

James Cridland 52:32

Don't uh I I still haven't seen Stranger Things, no. Um, but uh, you know, uh but I read the press releases.

The Tech Stuff

Announcer 52:40

The tech stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 52:44

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology.

Sam Sethi 52:49

Yeah, there's a couple of bits and pieces here. Um, Castomatic, the podcast app, uh, has a new beta out which includes many new features, but one of those is the ability to support Nosta Wallet Connect. Now, badly named term, it has nothing to do with the Nosta protocol. It's an open protocol that allows you to bring any wallet into the app, which is very cool. Um, it was supported by Olby Hub first of all, and I think Fountain supports it as well because I know you can bring strike uh wallets into Fountain. Maybe they don't fully support NWC, but um it's not a big leap for them to do that, I think. But it's great that Castomatic's done it. So, bottom line is you can bring any wallet it feels into the Castomatic um app and use your micropayments and SATs and Bitcoin within your wallet within their app.

James Cridland 53:44

Well, it's very cool. Um uh yes, it's um it's nice, and you you will find that um uh Castomatic also uh now supports um the Boost Box API, which essentially means that you can uh see all of the information of people sending you messages and stuff uh through that uh as well. No Noster required, uh, which is all good.

Sam Sethi 54:06

I'll answer the question before you ask. Yes, it's on the roadmap. We are we'll get it done next week. This time next week I will be able to send it.

James Cridland 54:12

I'm not pushing, Sam. I'm not pushing. Um, so uh thank you for that. Um and uh yeah, and uh apparently you can work uh strike with that as well, um, with uh Customatic, which is uh nice. Strike is available pretty well everywhere, um, with the exception of New York State. Uh so tough if you're in New York State, but pretty well everywhere else, including the UK, uh, you should be able to get hold of that. Quickly, how's runway? What are you doing with it? Runway, uh well, runway is interesting. Uh I was um uh playing around with it uh literally 10 minutes before I uh before we came on air, uh as they say. And um yes, it's been it's been interesting. Uh it's working fine, uh, it's working nicely. Um, so that's nice. Um, so what runway does, in case you missed this last week, is um it connects to your strike account, pulls out all of your payments, works out who they're from. Um so I can see, for example, that Brian Entsminger is being uh very nice and is listening to lots of the Pod News Daily shows, uh, which is good of him. Um, and I can also read some of the messages that um the uh the ugly cracking duck has been sending us and all of that kind of stuff. Um it's been really interesting. One of the interesting things that Strike has done um is that they've put their API behind one of those um Cloudflare protection things. So every so often you try and hit the API and it comes back and it says, Are you a robot or or are you a human being? Which is not great for an API. So I've reported this to them uh um and hoping that they'll fix that because that there's nothing I can do about that. Um so we'll see uh quite what happens there. But you know, accepting that, um uh it's my first uh you know piece of work working with um the uh browser's inbuilt uh database. That is um it's not particularly brilliant, but it it works fine. Uh so that's nice. So yes, it's been uh it's been fun.

Sam Sethi 56:09

Sirius XM James. Uh back in December 2021, you reported that the National Association for the Deaf took Sirius XM to court for not providing transcripts in its apps. That's led to a flurry of apps since supporting transcripts. Well done to the National Association for the Deaf.

James Cridland 56:28

Yes, I think I think it was a brilliant piece of work um from uh them. So um uh since that happened, there was a standard, um, the podcasting uh namespace standard. Um transcripts were put live in Apple Podcasts, uh in Pocketcasts, and in Spotify, and in Antennapod and various other places as well. Um Sirius XM themselves have also released a new app with transcription. So it may come as a bit of a surprise to find out that the court action is still going. Um and uh two sets of lawyers are happily trousering lots of money, um sending exciting letters uh back to themselves and uh sending uh another exciting letter um to um uh the judge, uh the honourable Jeanette A. Vargas. Um and uh yes, and everybody's earning an awful lot of money. Um so I'm I'm sure that that's great. Um, but I I simply do not understand why that legal action is still going on. And surely the National Association for the Deaf um has better things to be spending its money on um than its uh lawyers and Siri and similarly Sirius XM as well. Um so it's just a really weird one from my point of view. I don't understand why they're still um uh fighting. What are they hoping to get out of it? Money, I suppose, but you know, um yeah, it's a strange old thing. Anyway, um worth a peek uh at uh Ultimate Pods sounds brilliant. Um it's a new app that builds itself as the future of books and podcasts. If we were on it, if we signed up, then you could pay $4.99 a week to use this app, and you could pause the podcast, and you could ask either Sam or I a question, and we would answer in an AI voice saying something that I have no idea what I would say. Um so it sounds like a hideous idea from my point of view, but anyway, apparently come on you laggard.

Sam Sethi 58:31

No, no, no, this is this is this is the future. No, I I I I think there's some merit in it. I think No, there isn't. Yes, there is. No, look, let me try and explain. Right. So um we talked about um the um podcast app that was using uh Apple's local LLM on the device for AI. And I think uh this again, whether it's a local AI or it's a cloud service AI, I uh I talk about the fact that I think there is a space where an AI assistant to podcasting, a voice-enabled one, is a really useful tool. We we've seen this uh in SNPT out of uh Switzerland. They do some stuff as well. You know, look, I want to take a note. Um you can ask it to take a note. But I think I was I wasn't even thinking about this, where you know you can just have a generic voice, you know, supporting uh what did that term mean? What does vanguard mean? Tell me what vanguard means.

James Cridland 59:28

Yeah, but you but but so you could you could pause this podcast and then you and then you could say, Sam, do you like beer or do you like wine?

Sam Sethi 59:37

That's rubbish.

James Cridland 59:38

And and and the AI in your voice would say, Well, I think wine is a bit rubbish and I pr much prefer beer.

Sam Sethi 59:46

Well that would be wrong then, wouldn't it?

James Cridland 59:48

Correct. Correct. You've you've understood my point.

Sam Sethi 59:54

Yes, but if it was related to the topic of the podcast episode, then it would make sense, right? If if, for example, as we asked earlier, what is Vanguard, right? Yeah, maybe you could say, what does the term vanguard mean or where does it come from? And you then go, Oh, okay, thank you. Continue playing, right? That's where I think AI could be useful, where it's an assistant. Adding it in our voice, I think, is a is a uh interesting twist. It would mean that you and I would have to give over our voices, first of all. But outside of that, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see.

James Cridland 1:00:27

And by the way, we have given our over our voices because they're they're on 300 podcasts. Yes, but we have we given permission. Aye, permission, shemission. Who needs that? Anywho, uh anywho, yes. Uh one other app to uh tell you about, this is a web app, um, is an app called Podley. Um what Podly does is it builds RSS feeds for guests, not for podcasts, which is interesting. Um, so if you want to, you can subscribe to an RSS feed for everything with Jordan Peterson in this. I'm not quite sure why you would, but nevertheless you can. Um, and um uh yeah, so uh some interesting work from uh Podley there. That's P-O-D-D-L-E-Y, one of those uh exciting names that you can't quite read out, uh, which is a thing.

Sam Sethi 1:01:19

So my question is they generate the feed what? By looking for all the episodes that Jordan Peterson's been a host and or guest in, or what?

James Cridland 1:01:28

I think all that they are doing is they are uh transcribing um uh the biggest podcasts, and then they are looking for the words Jordan Peterson, um, and working out whether that means that he's in the podcast or not. Uh, I think it does really come down to that. It may even just be as simple as looking at the uh at the episode notes. Um uh I I'm not sure how clever and crafty it is. Podley is, you know, it's one of these companies that has um a bunch of um interesting things that it can do with podcast content. So it's reading in all of these shows, it's working out, okay, well, we can do, you know, um you can search podcast transcripts uh for all kinds of things. Um and um yeah, but you know, so I I think that that's all all that it's actually doing. I don't think it's using any of the um guest uh links. And in fact, you know, I mean the most recently added things on their homepage is is all Piers Morgan Uncensored, which yes is a podcast, but it's also really a YouTube channel. So um yeah.

Sam Sethi 1:02:36

I mean, I I understand the idea. I mean, I think uh we've seen now that transcripts have become a building block for podcasting, that there are great value-added services being built on top. We talked about uh Apple's timed links. We we will see that from other companies. We will see um the ability for transcript summaries, for example. We will see the idea of keyword search within them. I mean, like a Google alert, you know, you might want to have James Cridland because you're mentioned on multiple podcasts, but you don't know about it, and so there's an alert that you get. I can see all of that. I think this could be done as a playlist. I mean, you could you could aggregate all of the code, couldn't you? You know, and I don't know why it's an RSS feed, but hey, that's just me.

James Cridland 1:03:20

There you go. I've just uh searched for myself in in this um tool because of course I have. Uh and uh no results found. We couldn't find any matches for your search. Please try again. So um there you go. Uh so apparently I've never been on a podcast, so that's so that's good news. One a day is not sufficient.

Sam Sethi 1:03:41

Indeed.

Inbox

Announcer 1:03:42

Boostergram, boostergram, boostigram, 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.

James Cridland 1:03:55

Yeah, so many different ways to get in touch with us. Fan mail by using the link in our show notes, boosts, or email, and we share uh any money that we make uh as well. Um, in terms of uh streaming sats, thank you so much to Silas on Linux, uh, who's using Fountain. Uh thank you also to user 75137829. Um uh great username you got yourself there. Uh I would imagine that that's just a uh standard, you haven't changed your username. Uh, but thank you for the sats uh as well. And thank you to our streamer of the week, which is uh Brian Ensminger, uh using podcast guru, uh, who has sent us a nice amount of sats. Uh Brian, uh, thank you uh so much uh for that. Um TrueFans has its own uh boosts and things. And um do we have any boosts in there?

Sam Sethi 1:04:44

We do, yeah. We've got Agent 99, whoever that may be, but I uh TTS, text-to-spee, is not a new term. I worked in IVR, okay, T L A, um interactive voice response systems, phone applications in the 90s to 2010, and we are using TTS for dynamic data to convert to voice. It appears podcasts with playback of transcript or AI are now coming to the TTS party. What is old is new again.

James Cridland 1:05:12

Well, there you go. This was um us us mentioning about uh uh John Sperlock, um, who's been who's been uh surprisingly quiet about my comments, um, although has been noisy about all sorts of other things. So uh yes, uh anyway.

Sam Sethi 1:05:28

Um iOS 26.4 release coming out.

James Cridland 1:05:34

Yes, um uh I mean it makes your phone like behave well again. Um so uh it's worthwhile getting from that point of view. Um Siri works. Oh I won't I wouldn't go that far. Um well allegedly that's what Apple says, yes. But um no, I think they're pushing they're pushing quite a lot of that stuff back. Apparently the keyboard works now, um so so that's that's always a benefit for a phone. Anyway, let's not go there. But do we have any other boosts?

Sam Sethi 1:06:05

Yeah, Seth has sent us a couple as well. So he said, Oh, good grief. More AI slot. Why would I want a fake AI podcast from a Sony character telling me drivel? Good God. Yes, good grief. And then he also said that's so true. Video is banger for marketing. People get to see who they're listening to on a regular basis and oftentimes they get to see what's being talked about if there's a visual. But as James always says audio let's do other things while consuming. I don't think you quite say it like that. Something for your ears while your eye hands are busy or eyes are busy. This is good news he says though. And then finally he was talking about regen. Very cool. Need to test this out.

James Cridland 1:06:45

Yes. Regen. Oh yes that's right yes the the new tool from uh waves yeah which is a good uh uh a good tool to use um all good well thank you so much for those um for those super comments uh on uh true fans boosts everywhere else um uh if you want to use your fancy new uh podcast app then please do that would be very kind um it does enable uh Sam and I to do all kinds of uh fun things with uh our friends in the industry as well uh so we very much appreciate that weekly dot podnews.net uh is where you can go um and it's also where you can go to become a power supporter uh we have 23 of those um and um there are some excellent people in that uh list uh I'd just like to thank you all for doing that that's uh most uh kind so uh

Sam and James's week

James Cridland 1:07:35

what has happened for you Sam this week well I found uh a quote from Cory Doctorow um a wonderful speaker that I thought you would love streaming is just downloading with the save file button removed oh nice with the save file button removed yes nice uh yes uh uh um yes I think he's probably right there it's because you because you're always telling me streaming is not streaming it's just downloading yeah so I thought I thought I'd find that no I think I I think that's right streaming is just downloading with the save file button removed. I think that's that's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:08

Yes.

James Cridland 1:08:10

It's been a long time since I've read anything from Cory Doctoro that I agree with but um that that that's probably one of them so um so hurrah. There you go you have been doing I was I was uh sending you a uh uh a signal message earlier on uh in the week um uh uh while you you know while while I wasn't getting uh information about uh about invading Iran and um you you you you replied back and you said something like I'll look at it in a bit I'm currently walking the South Downs walk um where where did you go and how far? Uh we started in Winchester we're going to Eastbourne which is about a hundred miles um so we did the first 30 miles uh we're doing the next this Sunday um so yeah it's um I'm I'm writing to the uh British tourist board for um fake um news it's not called the South Towns it should be called the South Ups and Downs because it's bloody hilly um that's all I could say very good so um yes other than that no we we we um yeah we should finish it in the next three four weekends um yeah it's quite nice it's a lovely walk right gosh well there we go uh Crawley Court in Winchester um uh is um uh more than uh 50 years old it's a um uh it's where the um the independent broadcasting authority um uh folks uh uh exist in terms of uh television broadcasters and radio broadcasters um so uh a big company called Arkiva these days um which is all very exciting um so uh yes you'd have uh walked past the home of um all of the broadcasting in the UK um which is a missed that yeah um no but Winchester's very pretty I mean it it's got a cathedral it was the home of the royals um Alfred the Great was there and um it's got some lovely um old streets really I mean it is a pretty pretty old town um we are going to Seven Sisters soon and that's meant to be very pretty and then we'll end up in the OAP retirement area called Eastbourne yes absolutely yes I was thinking Seven Sisters that's not pretty I've been there on the tube but that's uh that's a different uh a different Seven Sisters uh yes I don't think I've ever been to Winchester it's got a cathedral yes um it's very pretty which is very nice it's on the round table in there as well it's on the well where the knights the knights of the round table wow gosh there you go there's a thing uh it's on the river Itchen uh 60 miles southwest of London uh so yes there's a there's a thing gosh um what's happened for you James what's happened for me James stop reading Wikipedia James uh so the last time that my uh my my daughter went to a uh school camp um about a year or so ago and it was um just at the beginning of the uh no it's just after the big um the big cyclone that we had here so uh horrible weather for two weeks and it poured it with rain and everything else and so there she was in a camp um somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Australia um um being rained on and absolutely miserable and quite cold and uh yes um anyway she's going on a uh a school camp on Saturday and so true to form it hasn't rained here for the last three and a half weeks and um the heavens opened about two hours ago and and it's gonna carry on raining until at least Tuesday. We've got we've got a um we've got a uh an alert which has been sent to all of our phones saying uh 400 millimeters of rain uh is about to happen which is um you know I mean that's half a meter I don't know how how many how many American feet that is um but uh yeah that's uh that's gonna be quite uh quite a lot of rain so that'll be fun uh have you taught her how to dig a trench around her tent I think she'll need that thankfully I've discovered that they're indoors for this particular one so that's okay that's uh yes gosh so uh yeah so that's gonna be fun uh but no apart from that it's been a relatively uneventful week I've had my head full of um of coding uh runway which has been fun um I did write something about it on Monday um in the Pod News newsletter you know totally rewrote how to make Bitcoin um and indeed stablecoin in the future from your podcast wrote all of that and um uh firstly uh um it was clearly an old piece of copy because I had used the tip word so Adam Curry was not happy um and uh secondly um I had m uh talked about runway and how I'd built runway and everything else but I hadn't actually linked to it so nobody could find it so that was clever of me um another triumph um but um but uh but still there we are but that's been my world uh for the last week um and that's it for this week all of our podcast stories taken from the pod news daily newsletter at podnews.net I'll say that again without dropping a pen. And that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories were taken from the pod news daily newsletter at podnews.net.

Sam Sethi 1:13:36

You can support the show by streaming Sats. You can give us feedback using the Buzz brow thumbnail link in our show notes and you can send us a boost or become a power supporter like the 23Power supporters at weekly dotnews.net Yes our music is from TM Studios our voiceover is Sheila D.

James Cridland 1:13:53

Our audio is recorded using the AMI award winning clean feed we edit with Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout start podcasting keep podcasting get updated every day subscribe to our newsletter at podnews.net tell your friends and grow the show and support us and support us the pod news weekly review will return next week.

Announcer 1:14:17

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