Speaker 0:00

The Pod News Weekly Review is now available in video. Only joking.

Announcer 0:04

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 True Funds.

Jason Sew Hoy 0:18

Our philosophy of Supercast has always been that we succeed when our creators succeed. And a lot of the creators that we work with trusted us well before we deserved.

James Cridland 0:28

Jason Sue Hoy on Supercast's acquisition by Red Seat Ventures Plus.

Siobhán McHugh 0:33

If this pivot to video slots off all those really mediocre, ordinary, not very riveting talk things, they're welcome to video for that, as far as I'm concerned. It might do us all a favor.

James Cridland 0:45

Siobhan McHugh on why video podcasting is different to Audio Plus more on Apple Podcasts Video 2. This podcast is sponsored by BuzzSprout with the tools, support, and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Star Podcasting, keep podcasting with BuzzSprout.com.

Announcer 1:03

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi 1:06

James, James, James. So um last week was a long show, I'd say. Was it? I think people are still listening to the end of the last show this week already. Yeah.

Apple Podcasts - some tech details

Sam Sethi 1:20

But I think it's time to go a little deeper. Let's go to the core of Apple's video announcement, I think. You've got more details. Tell me more about it.

James Cridland 1:29

Yeah, so we covered a bunch more details on Monday about the tech side of how Apple Podcasts is going to do uh video. There's quite a lot of quite detailed uh stuff in there, so probably not necessarily stuff that we need to go into. It's quite difficult because there is an NDA, and that means that there are some companies out there who have the details, but they're not necessarily able to confirm what I can see. They kind of know, but they can't quite say. So it's been quite difficult. I'm not sure that this has been particularly helpful for anyone, but uh yes, so a multivariant playlist, oh yes, um uh, which uh I think the most important thing um for anybody to uh know about this, because obviously if you're a podcast hosting company and you're a partner, then you'll get all of this detail anyway. The most important thing is that the audio for all of this stuff comes in a separate track, a separate rendition uh of uh HLS. And actually, if you fiddle around with the Apple Podcasts player, you can start playing and it plays the audio absolutely fine, and it's still sort of catching up on the video and trying to work out where the video is. But the audio plays absolutely fine. So the audio is rock solid. No matter what's happening to your bitrate in terms of the video, the audio is rock solid, and that's a really nice um thing to end up seeing. Um, but what that does mean, of course, is that when you press the turn video off button, you will still get the same audio track. Uh, you won't be able to, so far as I'm aware, you won't be able to offer a different audio mix than the one in the video. So that's one sort of really important part of this. And it does mean that you know we are going to move into a world where if you are using video in your podcasts, then the only audio that people will get is the soundtrack of your video. So you better make sure that that sounds really good.

Sam Sethi 3:30

So obviously I am under NDA, but I'm I I don't understand before we get into some more detail why Apple has precluded people from talking about it, because clearly it's going to get into the public domain once people start using it and in anger. May maybe it's only because it's not going to be what released till the 3rd of March officially. Maybe that's the only reason I can think of.

James Cridland 3:55

Um, I mean, I think it's because actually the only people who need to know the detail are the podcast hosting companies. So because the likes of you, uh well, the likes of me, um, because I c I I self-host. Yes. The likes of me, I will never know what the details are because I I I I can't sign up. Apple aren't going to be interested in me signing up anyway. So I can't sign up to be a hosting company. Um, so therefore I'll never see it, which is uh to me seems a bit of a mistake because look, at the end of the day, it's complicated enough. At least publishing the information is probably important to help us understand what is being asked for. Um and I think also, you know, the other side is that um, you know, we we it's not we've not got long. I mean, you said March the third, I don't know whether it is March the third, but it's whenever the iOS 26.4 comes out, which is sometime either in March or in April, so I've been told. Um it certainly won't be as quick as March uh as March the 3rd. No, no, I've probably got that date wrong. I knew it's a March date. Yeah, so ours Technica, I think, says either the end of March or the beginning of April. I am um I was helping a uh an advertiser for the Pod News website, you know, with here's a line in case Apple drops video, here's a line that you might want to end up using. So, you know, I mean all of that is interesting. Um and I think also, you know, we shouldn't forget it's a beta. Um things change uh in betas before they uh actually launch. Um so you know, it could well be that Apple are quite sensibly turning around and saying, you know what, we're not going to be doing any uh public uh specifications quite yet, because we uh actually the point of a beta is to test things out and see how things work. But you know, I mean, all fascinating stuff. So the audio being a separate track, that's why it works so well. That's why um um, you know, that that's why the whole thing works. Although that does mean that even the audio Apple will earn their money from when they turn on the cost per uh dynamic ad. So there's a thing there for us to bear in mind. Um the other thing that I did spot was um uh ad skipping, um, because the only thing that Apple have sent me is their main uh details, their main um uh information about ads. And that is great, but it uh talks about this attribute called XRestrict. And XRestrict essentially uh allows you to make your ads unskippable so that people can't skip them, people's uh people can't even skip past them if you turn on the no jump feature. Um, and uh and I was thinking, okay, well, if that's in the spec, and the spec says that clients should respect this particular attribute, then that probably means that Apple Podcasts are going to stop you from skipping ads, and that's a bad thing. Anyway, I have heard from a number of sources, Sam, uh, that uh that uh Apple Podcasts will not be supporting the no-skip thing. So uh if you um if you put ads in there, people will still be able to skip through them as normal. Um so that's good news for listeners, um, and probably good news for um for podcasters as well, because frankly, um that's what we're used to. So even though I was talking about the fact that it might be that you won't be able to skip ads, that's not going to be the case, and uh we will be able to skip ads in the future. So that's at least that's useful information um to have there.

Sam Sethi 7:40

The fact that they've included extra strict does mean that they have that option, and that does worry me. But anyway, we'll see.

James Cridland 7:46

Yeah, I mean they've got that option, but there again, they've got that option for things like Netflix and for Amazon Prime because you know they're using the same stuff, they're using the same HLS to deliver to Apple devices. Um, and I think the exciting thing about this is this is a really battle-worn player, it works really well in terms of um playing media, and so therefore, we are now getting access to that really good player, and that should be really good news for all of us. Um, that in the Apple Podcast app, we won't just be playing an MP3, which can fail in various different ways, we will be having something which works much, much better. So I think I think all of this is good, but uh yeah, it's um there's a ton of information, it's very, very techy, very, very geeky. Um uh the thing that I like uh uh most is if you want to make a 3D version of your podcast or an immersive video version of your podcast so you can see all the way around you. Um, for the uh nearly half a million people who've bought an Apple Vision Pro, then you can uh because that's actually in the spec, and you can actually make something which is, you know, imagine a 3D version of the Pod News Weekly Review. No, no, no, no, no. Nobody needs that. No, no, nobody wants to.

Sam Sethi 9:02

Imagine on a flight, suddenly you and I pop it up in their headphones. No, no. Right. Um, there was a couple of things that I did find interesting from what you wrote. One was a format that I hadn't seen for the audio, which is AAC-LC. I've seen obviously AAC. What's the LC mean?

James Cridland 9:20

Oh well, this is uh a version of AAC which has been named after Captivate LC Escobar. Right. Um no. Uh AAC-LC. Um it's actually just the standard, um, it stands for low complexity if you if you really care. Um but it's just the standard AAC. So you've got AAC L C, which is basically normal AAC, and then you can have AACHE, which is good for low bit rates. There's also XAAC, um uh which gets even more exciting. Um, but um yeah, but for uh normal use AAC, it's basically an AAC file.

Sam Sethi 9:57

One of the other things I noted that was analysis from John Sperlock, friend of the show. Um he talks about Art19, one of the partners having got video encoded in five sizes. Um no 4K, but 1080p, 720, 480, 360, 240. Um again, as a host, you're gonna have to support multiple versions of the video based on bandwidth. Um, but ACAST um is also supporting it. But weirdly, and and I don't know what this means again, um, the Art 19 is at 30 frames per second, and ACAST is using 23.976. My God, why? Why, why, why, James?

James Cridland 10:35

Well, I mean, I could bore you with the reason why 25.976 instead of 24. It's um uh it's 1% less than 24, is 23.976, and it's all the Americans' fault. Um, and it's to do with NTSC, um, which it which used to be the ver the way that Americans did uh colour TV. We use PAL in the UK and in Australia, or we used PAL in the UK and in Australia. The French used CCAM and the Americans used NTSC, which uh of course, as you know, stands for never the same colour. Uh that's what it's what it actually stood for. Uh no, it didn't. Um but I'm sure that it could it it stood for something a little bit more positive. But anyway, um so yes, um uh very historical reasons um uh why in Europe um you'll have videos of either 25 or 50 frames a second. Apple supports all of those, so all of that is good. Um so we're not having to fiddle around with different uh sizes, different um frame rates, and everything else. Um you know, everything is supported

Sam's unreliable trivia

James Cridland 11:39

in terms of that.

Speaker 11:40

Now on the Pod News Weekly Review, Unreliable Trivia with Sam Sethe.

Sam Sethi 11:44

Here's a trivial pursuit question for you. Why is the marathon 26.2 miles? Okay, I've got no idea why. The Queen. So the first marathon was from Wembley Stadium to Windsor Castle, and if you know Windsor Castle, it's at the top of a hill. So the Queen would not come to the bottom of the hill, which would have been the marker for the 26 mile marker, so they had to run the extra point 200 metres to get to the top of the hill where the Queen would meet them.

James Cridland 12:13

Wow, and when you say the Queen, which which Queen? Uh QE2. Um because there's because there's been quite a few of them.

Sam Sethi 12:19

Yeah, it's the QE2. Well, there hasn't really. I mean QE1 and a little bit of Mary for a while.

James Cridland 12:24

Not many Queen. I'm gonna fact check you here. No, wrong. Queen Alexandra. Really? Queen Alexandra. It was the 1908 London Olympic Games. I thought it was twenty-six miles from Windsor Castle to the entrance of the White City Stadium. But Queen Alexandra specifically asked that the marathon start in the lawn of Windsor Castle so that the young royals could watch it. Okay. Wrong Queen.

Sam Sethi 12:47

Right, right, right.

James Cridland 12:48

Um 26.2188 miles.

Sam Sethi 12:54

There you go. Everyone's so happy about that.

James Cridland 12:56

Live live fact-checking, it's like Daru, the CEO of the show. Nothing like it at all, yes.

Speaker 13:01

And that's unreliable trivia with Sam

Do people skip podcast ads?

Speaker 13:04

Sethy.

Sam Sethi 13:05

One of the things that I've incorrectly it seems said is that people don't skip ads. Well, I still believe they do, but um one of our friends of the show, Dan Meisner from Bumper, has said that based on his small sample of his clients, um, that 90% of their audience listened to the ad breaks. Is this correct, James?

James Cridland 13:27

Well, according to Dan Meisner, it is, yes. Um I mean Well, they're it's good gospel, then it's god godlike, really, isn't it? Yes, it's a small sample in terms of clients, but it's a large sample in terms of total audience. I I think it would it would be fair to just to say uh uh you know that it is still quite a large sample. It is it is um hundreds of thousands of human beings and checking that. I actually went back to Dan and I said, Okay, so you are saying that for most shows, 90% of their audience listen right through the outbreaks and they don't skip. And I said, How do you know that? Because typically, um, quite a lot of these systems will count you as a viewer or as a listener if you're consuming one second in 15 seconds or whatever it is. And so, therefore, how can you say that? And the answer is that actually the data that he has looked at is purely Spotify data, which is accurate down to the second. So you can actually see that um people are properly listening all the way through. They're not just skipping but skipping quickly enough that it doesn't actually count. Um so he didn't look at the Apple data, he just looked at the Spotify information and found that 90% listen all the way through. Although he does say that the longer your ad break, the greater your ad avoidance and the lower your ad retention. Um and that's important to remember as well. There are lots of podcasts out there, um, mostly through iHeartMedia, um, that start with three or four ads in a row and then have ad breaks in the middle of them with three or four ads in a row, and that's bad, and people are beginning to learn how to skip through those. But certainly for most shows, um, yeah, apparently most uh people listen all the way through the adbreaks.

Will it increase ad revenue by 20%?

Sam Sethi 15:18

So, in in other related news to the Apple announcement about advertising, Martin Bojost says or suggests that revenue for podcasting will increase by 20% uh if you take advantage of Apple Podcast video. I don't know how he's come up with 20%, it's a lovely number, but um I I assume that more people will jump on board. So yeah, there is an uplift, but I don't know if it'll be 20%.

James Cridland 15:44

Yes, I'm not sure about that um 20% number, to be honest, but I think it's you know, I mean, it's certainly you can you can certainly see that there is going to be more money that is um that is opened up by all of this, um, and that's gonna make life, you know, easier and uh and uh simpler. He is talking specifically about the UK in this uh case because there are various things in the UK which actually changes uh things. But I think, yeah, I mean he says it it bodes well for an industry that's punched above its weight in audience but is still struggling to finance itself properly, which you can certainly say about the majority of podcasts. And seeing, you know, he he says seeing an increase in revenue of up to uh 20%, um, he's basing that on premium video ads, uh, the cost per thousand on those, versus premium audio ads. Although, as I would say, if the issue is that um people are going to hear the same whether or not they are um they're watching the video or not, I think there's a question mark

How many video podcasts will there be?

James Cridland 16:51

there.

Sam Sethi 16:51

Now, a friend of the show, John McDermott, has also suggested that at least a third of all podcasts won't be able to put video into Apple Podcasts. And he goes on to say, I do find myself continuing to struggle to make sense of this industry desire to pivot to video. Yes. Um look, the I I I still think the top 10, 15% will move to video. I think the long tail won't, and I think you know, we will settle somewhere in uh add a number somewhere eventually where people are comfortable. Um it's more money for those people who do video, but it's also more work and more more um uh cost as well. So we'll see.

James Cridland 17:31

Well, yes, and so John has has come up with that. Uh actually I think he's he's overestimating it. Uh I think that actually um only a fifth of podcasts will be able to get video into Apple Podcasts. If you look at the share that the four uh launch partners have right now, then it's about 20%. So that means that four out of five podcasts, even if they wanted to, wouldn't put um wouldn't be able to put video into their shows. So that's kind of one thing. I mean, the other thing, you know, uh uh that I think it's worthwhile pointing out is um, I mean, there's been a number of different people uh saying this, but people turning around and saying the reason why podcasts are going onto YouTube isn't because of a switch to video. The reason why is that people want the effect of the algorithm and they want new people to see their shows, and that is why you know they are switching over to YouTube so that they get all of that effect. Apple Podcasts doesn't offer that. Spotify doesn't offer that. So the reason why people are shifting over to YouTube is for the is for as Dave Jackson calls it, the algorithm. Um and that's and that's exactly uh, you know, that's a really interesting thing because yeah, Apple Podcasts, yes, offers video, but it doesn't offer any of the comments, it doesn't offer any of the algorithm stuff more than it currently does. So I think that there's definitely a conversation there in terms of well, why why are we doing this anyway? Um, you know, I think that's one thing. And I did note, uh, I think on Wednesday, I did note that um, you know, a bunch of launches uh of new shows that are just launched in video um form. Uh so from the Telegraph in the UK, Ukraine, the latest podcast, is now in video. Uh it's available on YouTube, not available on Spotify in video form. Sports Cafe, launched in Australia, it's available in YouTube. On video, it's not available on Spotify in video form. Um Midlife Messi and Marvelous, new from uh TV Presenter in the UK. Again, it's in video on YouTube, but not on Spotify. HBO Max and TCM's Talking Pictures, it's in video on YouTube, but it's not on Spotify in video form. So I'm sitting there and going, it couldn't be easier to put video up on Spotify. It's just uploading an MP4. Anyone can do it, irrespective of where you're host it. But you've got these big companies who have just gone, we can't be bothered with Spotify, we can't be bothered uploading the video on there, we'll just keep on doing audio there. I find that really fascinating because what does that say about how people are going to support Apple Podcasts? Where not only are they not getting it for free, they have to pay to be on the Apple Podcast platform if they want to do ads. Um and certainly they'll have to pay additional hosting fees. So I've I just find that really interesting. Um that you know i e if if companies aren't even bothering with Spotify video, why would they bother with Apple Podcast video? And that worries me slightly.

Sam Sethi 20:48

I'll I'll go one stage further. I mean, the podcast 2.0 community has singly failed to implement video support. Um I think only a couple of people have done it now. Fountain certain have. I think Podhom have a little no, Podhom has said they won't. Um I think it's Fountain, I mean maybe Blueberry. I can't think Captivate certainly hasn't, RSS.com hasn't. So you don't really have a lot of choice. So you really are limiting the choice as well of where you can place your video. So yes, you're right. Oddly, you've observed that people aren't putting it onto Spotify. Will Apple be any more successful? But um YouTube obviously going gangbusters, but uh there aren't many other options, right? So we we we are forcing people if they want to go down the video route, irrelevant of the algorithm, that there's only a couple of places they can do it. No indeed. Uh

Is video-first a thing?

Sam Sethi 21:42

moving on then, James. Our friends at Detroit and Digital um have some data as well. What are they saying?

James Cridland 21:48

They are saying that podcasting is not video first. Um only seven percent of podcast consumers exclusively watch podcasts, eighty percent watch. And listen, but only 7% only watch podcasts. So don't go running away with the idea that podcasts have to be in video. That's absolutely not the case. That's part of Triton Digital's 2025 podcast report, which is a free download. And yeah, and it's interesting that that came out from Triton literally the same week as they are a launch partner of Apple Podcasts' new video service because you know it's kind of it's kind of there you go. So uh really interesting. And um Triton's uh podcast reports are always uh very good because they have an awful lot of data, um, both uh survey-based data, but also actual data from the podcast rankers that they run. Uh so a fascinating company when it comes to all of this information.

Sam Sethi 22:52

Well, the good news, James, is we've got Sharon Taylor, the Chief Revenue Officer, on next week to tell us more about this and also hopefully a little bit about what their relationship is with Apple and how they're going to implement it. Excellent news. Uh

Interview: Supercast's Jason Sew Hoy

Sam Sethi 23:07

now we talked last week about a company called Supercast, a very similar company to Patreon Member 4 and uh all of these subscription-based services. Uh we talked about how Red Seat Ventures, which is part of Fox, has acquired them. Um they didn't give any terms, uh, but it looks like they're giving out a significant amount of money, $26 million to their top 10 podcasters. Um, this is all about paid subscriptions, James. Uh I predicted that I thought paid subscriptions by the end of the year would have been a bigger revenue than the ad industry. Now I might be wrong, but that's why my prediction was.

James Cridland 23:43

Yeah, well, it'll be interesting to see um whether or not we can ever see those figures. But yes, uh, ACAST partnered with Supercast last April, uh, and Supercast also used by, I mean, massive companies like uh the Hubman Lab, uh, This American Life and uh and everything else. Uh you ended up um uh catching up with Jason Sue Hoy, who is the CEO, and you started by asking him, what is Supercast?

Jason Sew Hoy 24:09

So Supercast is uh the preferred podcast subscription platform for some of the most well-monetized podcasts in the world. So, in a nutshell, what we do is we've brought the idea of taking free listeners and moving them through to being paid premium subscribers in a way that is as natural as possible to the world that we know and love as podcasting. So we work with some of the biggest names in the space, the likes of Huberman Lab and This American Life. Also work with a number of independent creators as well as bigger podcast networks. And basically, we work seamlessly with the open podcast ecosystem. So in two taps, somebody could add the premium version of the podcast. So that could include bonus episodes, for example, it could include the ability to get a premium newsletter, it could also include the ability to join, you know, the community of your favorite podcast, and you can get a lot of that content into the podcast player of choice with a really simple two-tap sign up process.

Sam Sethi 25:19

Nice. Now, I think you generated over $26 million in revenue last year. Is that correct?

Jason Sew Hoy 25:27

So it's actually $26 million just paid out to our top 10 creators on Supercast. Just the top 10. That's right. And and so we've narrowed in on just showing that component because that has grown very steadily over time. In the beginning, after our first year, it was something like six or eight million paid to our top 10. So you can see just in and amongst a standardized cohort of our top 10 customers, that has grown as people have really got on board with podcast subscriptions.

Sam Sethi 25:57

So what was the embryo of the idea? Every entrepreneur has their eureka moment. When did you suddenly go, you know what? I think I need something called supercast and I need to build it. Why?

Jason Sew Hoy 26:09

So I think this was the intersection of a couple of different things. I myself, as an entrepreneur, my previous company was 99 Designs, where I was COO when I led the growth of that business, which is in the design space and as a design marketplace for a decade prior to starting Supercast. And it was a completely different business altogether. We helped designers, over 1.6 million of them all over the world, help money by connecting them to businesses that need logos or websites or book covers designed. And I mentioned book covers specifically because Tim Ferris was an early customer of 99 Designs. He needed a book cover design for his second book, The Four Hour Body. And he ran a contest and got just an incredible array of choice from our design community. When he in turn started his podcast, he invited us to be a sponsor. And we, of course, jumped at the chance to be able to work with him again. And just the way he spoke to his audience about how we use 99 designs and how emphatic he was about this being a new way to get design created over the internet just turned out to be the strongest acquisition channel for 99 designs for many, many years to come. You know, the connection that Tim has with his audience and being able to recommend products and services like 99 Designs really opened my eyes to the intimacy of podcasting and just the strength of the medium that gets formed between a host and their listeners. So when I got connected to Andrew Wilkinson, my co-founder for Supercast up in Canada, and this is going back to 2019, he had just started working with Sam Harris. And one of the projects that he worked on with Sam Harris was taking his existing audience and helping him build a bespoke premium subscription platform. Essentially, this was the genesis for Supercast, working with one prominent creator who at the time had his paying subscription base on Patreon. And Patreon, of course, had been around for many years prior to that, but they were a horizontal kind of solution. They're a solution not only for podcasters, but for writers, for illustrators, for video makers. They weren't tailor-made to this idea of getting people who were listening to your podcast on a free basis through to listening to the premium version also in your podcast player of choice. So as a result, Sam just felt it was clunky, it was a lot of steps, it wasn't seamless. And he could be building both a more intimate experience, but then a bigger business, a higher converting business, if there were a tailor-made tool for that. And so we built out the first version of Supercast, the Genesis version of Supercast for Sam. His business exploded. His premium audience felt much more engaged as a result. And really that was the light bulb moment for us today. Okay, well, he's not the only podcaster. Who else could we be bringing this to to be able to generate a significant revenue stream for them that is recurring and sustainable and works alongside whatever they're doing on the ad front?

Sam Sethi 29:15

One of the things I've been saying to James for a couple of years now is that the premium subscription marketplace is where podcasts are going to end up in because advertising led marketing is an interruption to the actual content of the podcast. I don't know what with all of that going on. Do we try all these different things? Did you always just go straight for this premium marketplace and say, yep, that's the features and functions we're going to add? Or did you try and dabble with advertising and other ways of monetizing, let's say, Sam Harris's platform?

Jason Sew Hoy 30:33

We've been laser focused on subscription for the last five years. And really that grew out of our experience with Sam Harris and then rolling that into other creators. Like found my fitness ronda Patrick in the health space. Huberman Lab, like followed on from that. Obviously, that's a relatively new podcast that they only started in like 2020 but exploded onto the scene. And we were able to launch a subscription with them shortly after. And then staying on that track. Some of the creators that we work with today, this American Life, for example, you know, we still have to pinch ourselves that I'm able to mention the caliber of these sorts of podcasts as people that we get to work with on a weekly basis and partner with. And I think part of that does come down to our focus. We don't see ourselves as the solution for somebody that's just starting out with their first 10, 20, 50 episodes. You can, of course, sign up on Supercast as a self-service creator if you have a show that's just starting out. But the Patreons of the world, for example, that is the long tail, as we refer to it, is their bread and butter. They invest a lot in marketing to have brand awareness for a much larger swath of customers. Whereas with our team, which is relatively smaller, and you know, obviously we've raised a lot less money and so on prior to the acquisition, we've just stayed focused on super serving the podcasters that have already built up a significant audience and want to be able to work with a partner on a really close knit basis to be able to create an offering for their audience that really fits that special relationship that they have. You know, it's not the same size fits all, you know, for each one of these creators. You know, like yes, ad-free is a benefit. But then also, you know, the common questions that come up are what should I be offering in terms of bonus content? What works for other creators? Is it extended episodes? Is it one episode a week? Is it one episode a month? Should I do AMAs? You know, AMAs are something that we kind of have built specific solutions around on Supercast so that you can give the audience the sense that they're able to drive the conversation in areas that are interesting to them and get their questions answered without it being a rod for the creator's back where they feel like everybody has a channel to them. And of course, when you're dealing with hundreds or thousands or even millions of listeners, you know, that's just not a scalable solution.

Sam Sethi 33:00

And what is your revenue stream? I was just looking through it now. Patreon is a 8 to 10% from the subscription. I think Substack is a flat fee. What was the Supercast model?

Jason Sew Hoy 33:13

Yeah, so Substack is just a 10% fee on whatever revenue you bring in. So we decided to go a different way, and we charge 59 cents per subscriber per month. So essentially the amount that we take doesn't change as the creator decides to scale up their price. And so what you can do on Supercast is have multiple tiers. So you might have bronze, silver, and gold, for example, and bronze might start at $6, and gold could end up at $15, for example. And so our fee for the service that we provide doesn't change if you go up the tiers. And so if you have a $10 subscription price, for example, that the likes of Hubman Lab or this American Life have, that works out to like 6% of the revenue that you're bringing in.

Sam Sethi 34:03

Now, given some of the changes occurring in podcasting with the advent of video, the introduction of live podcasting, how does Supercast see itself within those? I mean, going from just an audio only model. Have you embraced video? You talked about AMA, so have you embraced live as well?

Jason Sew Hoy 34:24

We have. So this is something that we've followed with a lot of interest. And it's particularly relevant to us because obviously the people that are prepared to pay for your audience are the people that are the most engaged within your audience. And what they're paying for is not only that additional content, but the access to you as a host and somebody that is playing an important part in their lives. So AMA, as you mentioned, is something that we did pretty much out of the gate with Supercast and establishing that two-way connection where Freeman listeners could not only hear an extra episode with AMA questions and the answers, but also ask their own questions. And so the way they did that was in the show notes of an episode. There would be links to go on Supercast website, submit your own questions, upvote other people's questions, and then you know, play the episode, you know, on the website with you know timestamps and so on, in addition to what you could get through the podcast player. Video we leaned into pretty early on as well. So about four years ago, we started, you know, kind of jumping in with video podcasters. The first version of that was an early iteration where we were basically embedding YouTube and Vimeo videos. But about two years ago, we flipped that into native video, knowing that video was just only going to get more and more important to creators. And so right now we have a video experience. It comes through basically the Supercast mobile-friendly web experience, and that's something that we're very much looking to invest further into.

Sam Sethi 36:02

Okay. And this is quite prescient. So you've got the platform, you've got the revenue model, you've got the users. Is this when you suddenly found Red Seat Ventures? When do they first come and tap you on the shoulder and say, hey, do you fancy a chat?

Jason Sew Hoy 36:16

So I've known Chris for a number of years now. You know, just being in the industry for a while, you know, he got introduced to me as somebody that I should know. And I was also curious about his background. He in the radio days also used to operate subscription business. So I know that he was a big believer in the model. Also, just someone who's done something pretty amazing in terms of what he's able to build up in partnership with his creators. So about a year ago, we ended up starting to work with a creator from his portfolio. That creator has built up a stream of revenue over time that has just continued to snowball. And so after Chris's own acquisition by Red Seat by Chibi Media Group, uh a little over a year ago, I reached out just to really get a sense of what that meant for him, the direction that was now leading him into, the opportunities that had opened up for him. And at the end of that call, he suggested that we go and chat to Paul Cheeseborough, who was the CEO of Chubi Media Group. We lined up another call, and about 10 minutes into that, I think we're all kind of in strong alignment that there was a really strong strategic fit to explore here, which fast forward a little bit has obviously turned into uh acquisition.

Sam Sethi 37:32

So now the acquisition's occurred. What does that mean for Supercast? Will you remain independent with your audience or are you gonna be now part of Fox and are you going to be integrated directly into their platform? How's it all gonna work? What's the path forward next?

Jason Sew Hoy 37:49

So we will continue to run Supercast on an autonomous basis, exactly as it is today. So being creator first has got us to where we are today. Like being able to go out to the likes of This American Lives and the Human Labs and to say to them, you own your audience. We want to help you convert as many of those as possible through to paying subscribers, but ultimately you're in charge of that revenue stream. It'll be your Stripe account, all built under your brand, was a really powerful way for us to approach the market and also build the trust that you know we've been able to do, you know, with the creators that we serve. So it was really important to us that none of that changes. The team is staying the same. I'm continuing to lead the business and our philosophy for the way we serve creators, none of that is changing. But what does open up in terms of possibilities is being able to run faster at the things that we want to build. So obviously, Red Seat Ventures and with the backing of Chubi gives us the ability to hire more engineers, for example, hire more creator growth resources, scale out our support team, and to be able to build out the product in a way that allows us to serve our creators better and also have them grow at even faster rates than they are currently.

Sam Sethi 39:09

One of the areas that people are looking at is obviously AI. Have you got any plans to integrate AI into Supercards?

Jason Sew Hoy 39:17

So, like everybody, I think, in the world you were following this with interest, there are certainly areas from a product point of view where assessing, you know, like not only what can we do from an engagement front, but what also can we do from a workflow front? One of the most powerful things that this acquisition enables is us to be able to bring ad revenue, which Red Sea Ventures is world class at, and subscription revenue, which were you know Supercaster's world class at, all under one roof. And that hasn't been done before. If you look out across the landscape of the creator economy and the podcast industry, typically you get players that can represent you on the ad side or the subscription side with the platforms, but they basically stick to their netting. And as a result, the creator has to stitch together all of these solutions. If they want to sell ads, that's one partner. If they want to do subscription, that's supercast or another partner. If they want to do events, you have to work with another partner again, merchandise. You get the idea, you know, email, you know, like the whole works is like it's so fragmented, it's a wonder that creators have any time to actually get on and record content. And so your question was about AI, but I think the opportunity that we see is really to bring all of it under that roof and to streamline a lot of the workflows it takes for the creator to be able to reach their existing audience, reach new audience, and then to be able to convert that audience as high a rate as possible through to being listeners of ads, but then also, you know, premium subscribers on a subscription basis as well. So AI is certainly going to come into the picture amongst all of those tenants, but I would say really we're starting with the vision of where we want to take things for creator-owned companies and media companies.

Sam Sethi 41:08

I've said to James on several occasions that back in the early 90s when the internet was first born, you would hear the term portal, you know, MSN, AOL, Yahoo, Netscape, they're all portals. I'm a firm believer what we are announcing is democratized portals where brands and creators can build their brand around a portal audio, video, email, uh live around all the things their portals and their branded portals. I'm fully with you on the idea of one stop for the brand or for the creator where they can bring their audience to I use the term monetizing phantom as the way of describing it, but there's many ways of uh saying the same thing.

Jason Sew Hoy 41:57

I would love to get there. I actually haven't been to the uh the podcast show yet. That's why I was actually looking at uh getting at there last night.

Sam Sethi 42:05

It's great, I have to say. I really recommend it. I think you'll gain a lot from it, but you'll also be able to give a lot to that audience as well. And last question with whatever monies you've acquired, have you had one, I suppose, little pleasure? Something that you've always wanted to buy or something they've always wanted to do. Have you taken that one moment to go, you know, this is what I've waited for. I'm gonna go and do something with my money.

Jason Sew Hoy 42:31

Uh, you know, I honestly haven't given that an ounce of thought. Like everything in business, yes, there are these milestones that you get to, but ultimately we're all here kind of like building things. And the day after something like this is announced, there is now another list of things to do. So to give you an example, you know, next week, you know, we've got the podcast business summit in Brooklyn, uh, and then we'll be spending some time in person in New York with the Red Seat team on the exciting stuff. There's a whole lot of work that's involved in bringing two companies together, both from a diligence perspective, like getting something like this over the line. And really, this is getting to the exciting part, the combined vision of what we can be building together and how that impacts the team, expanding the roadmap and so on. And so, yeah, to be honest, from a personal perspective, I'm sure that'll come. But for right now, these conversations are what I've been working hard to get to. So I've just been focused on that.

Sam Sethi 43:31

I think I've got one for you. Book those flights to London, bring your family and have an extended holiday on the back of it. How about that? Sounds good. Jason, if anyone wants to find out more about Supercast, where do they go?

Jason Sew Hoy 43:42

Supercast.com would be the first stop. They can obviously browse the site. There's the ability to book a demo there with our partnerships team. Or if they want to, they can also reach out to me personally at jason at supercast.com.

Sam Sethi 43:56

Jason, once again, massive congratulations as a fellow entrepreneur. Uh exiting, or in your case, getting that investment. It's super hard to get there. So massive hat tip to you.

Jason Sew Hoy 44:07

Thank you. I appreciate it. And look, uh wouldn't be able to do it without an extremely talented team. And then the trust of a lot of our creators. At the end of the day, our philosophy at Supercast has always been that we succeed when our creators succeed. And a lot of the creators that we worked with trusted us with their audience relationships and their money well before we deserved it. So if there's anything I would like to close to, it's really gratitude for the creators that we've been able to work with. It's a pleasure to see them on the daily basis. Our team and the creator economy that is working equally as hard to build everything around us.

Sam Sethi 44:45

I look forward to seeing you in London. Take care, Jason. Thank you, Sam. Jason, lovely man that he is. Very, very interesting story. I mean, they started in 2019 with this idea of a subscription-based platform, way, way earlier than a lot of people, I think, took that on board. And I love the fact that I didn't know his background. So being the CEO of 99 Designs clearly has run big companies and scaled themselves is very good. Um, but the the the secret source was obviously getting um Sam Harris and Tim Ferris onto the platform very, very early. Um, and that of course would have led to them getting Huberman and the rest of it. So yeah, well done to them.

James Cridland 45:25

Yeah, and interestingly, I think one of their original investors was Tiny Capital, um, uh a little company based up in Vancouver. Um, and uh Tiny Capital were also uh the company that um grabbed Player FM for a while, I seem to remember. Hello, James from the edit here. No, I meant Castro, of course. Castro, not uh Player FM.

Speaker 45:46

And that's unreliable trivia with James Cridland.

James Cridland 45:49

Yes, all right. I remember Jason uh Suhoy, who uh managed to get in and uh see a talk that I was giving at uh podcast movement evolutions, the very first one in 2019, um, and uh managed to get in and and watch and watch the uh the uh talk. Um it turned it turned out that you know if you're bootstrapping, you you save, you save your money where you can, and it turned out that uh he had managed to get past the door staff, even though he didn't actually have a paid ticket. So well done to Jason for doing that. Could probably tell that story now. Um so there we are. No, he's a good man, so I'm and I'm very pleased um for his next uh in the next uh chapter.

Sam Sethi 46:32

I'm sure he wasn't the first, he won't be the last who does that

Interview: Siobhan McHugh

Sam Sethi 46:35

either. Now, um last week we talked about an online symposium called I don't know what it's called, it's spelled Mikasa, right?

James Cridland 46:44

Yes, I've got no idea how it's pronounced either. Yes.

Sam Sethi 46:47

Um acronym, but it's Mikata Radio and Audio Studios Group. They did an online event, and one of the speakers was Javon McHugh, who I know, um, and she was talking about the so-called pivot to video and why stories can generate empathy, insight, emotion, and reverberations that endure long beyond the perspective of video podcasts. So I thought, why not reach out to her? I hadn't spoken to her for about four or five years, and I started off by asking her, what was the event you were at and what was the presentation you gave?

Siobhán McHugh 47:20

So the event was a symposium organized by a group called MEXA, which is an acronym for a big media communications academic study group in the UK. And they were celebrating World Radio Day, actually, but they launched with my keynote, which was called, I think it's fairly self-explanatory, Viva the Narrative Podcast, The Case Against Video. And it was really my chance to both explore the endlessly discussed pivot to video of the last two or three years, but also to use it as an opportunity to pay tribute to the narrative podcast as a distinct form that will not be convertible to video, regardless of other aspects of this debate, and to sort of look, highlight the strengths of this art form and its value, and then to really think about the impact, what will happen if podcasting, as a term that has become so familiar in the last 10 years, if that does become claimed more by video than by audio as it started out.

Sam Sethi 48:30

Before we get into a little bit more depth about what you said, can you just define for everybody what is a narrative podcast?

Siobhán McHugh 48:39

So a narrative podcast is usually a storytelling, serialized, long form podcast format. So we have episodes and cliffhanger techniques, just as you would with your favorite streaming thing on Netflix or whatever. And I see it as a kind of usually a hybrid of art and journalism. So it doesn't have to be made by journalists. There are lovely podcasts made by people about their life story or whatever it might be. But usually journalists do it very well because it lets journalists off the leash. It allows them to really play in that space. They're not constrained by time, they have the capacity to communicate well, to use words well, but also, and this is key and new even for some journalists, to use sound to aid and abet the storytelling. And one of the key points that I made in my talk and that others have made is that the absence of pictures in a narrative audio podcast is not a negative, it's not a handicap. It doesn't mean we are less than something on Netflix. It means that we are other than, we are different from. And in fact, using sound only and not providing images is very liberating in many ways, both in terms of imaginative possibilities and also in terms of what you don't have to worry about. So I'm sitting here thinking, oh my God, have I am I having a bad hair day? I've got to worry about what I look like. Whereas in front of a microphone, and more importantly, when I'm sitting down trying to get somebody to tell me their story, which might be nuanced, sensitive, difficult, even traumatic, I want to limit as much as possible the intrusiveness of my reaction with them and just focus on that personal connection. And audio does that so much better. So you get much more, much richer core material to work with when you're telling a story if you do it right with audio. And then you can play with this beautiful kind of what I call the choreography of sound, where you know you only have to hear a seagull squawk, and in your mind's eye, you're suddenly off by the Atlantic coast. For you, it might be remembering a summer holiday. For me, it might be sounding mournful like the loneliness I felt walking on a beach one day or something like that. Whereas if you plonk an image of Brighton Beach, all you can see now is Brighton Beach, and we are limited in what we can where we can go to in our imagination. So it constantly annoys me, actually, that people who sprook video always act from a place as if it's better than audio, as if we are somehow the orphan cousin of the media, that are down the scale in terms of sophistication. We are not less sophisticated than people doing video or even people doing great films. We are just different.

Sam Sethi 51:44

Yeah, I mean, we still have radio, we still have TV. People listen to serialized programmes on radio and they don't feel that that has to be transferred to TV. They each, as you say, have their place. I love the fact that you describe the sound that generates its own image within your own mind, which means that you know you are the producer of your own I guess, you know, audience uh participation really. This is how I'm interpreting the narrative. But do you feel that the the pressure of video, which is what we're seeing now? I think it's more to do with I'm not sure in the narrative space there is that pressure, but certainly within the interview style space, the the the two-head space, uh it feels that there is more pressure. We talk about parasocial relationships with the audience, right? The the audience uh comes back hopefully as fans time and time again listening to the uh hosts of their favourite podcast. And people say video uh enhances that parasocial relationship because you get the nuance of facial gesture or or gesticulation. But that that I think is where video maybe have a benefit. But do you see any space where narrative would adopt a video as well? Or is that just a you know a no-go?

Siobhán McHugh 53:10

Well, firstly, uh I do think that obviously a video podcast format uh will work well for a talking head uh type of show. So essentially chat television. And I can see the advantages for people who make that kind of show in that they will get more reach, in that they don't really have to make much of an adjustment. It will just translate. But at the same time, the limitations of that are that you're tethered to a screen. You can maybe be walking around a room and have it on in the background, and we know that people both watch and listen to those formats, but what does it really add? I was looking at Louis Thoreau and he was interviewing Marina Abramovich, the great performance artist, and I've watched in her installations at the Museum of Modern Art and stuff in the past, and to my surprise, it was so static. You know, it was just Louis and Marina. She's a regal-looking woman, she's remarkable, she's very poised. But I've seen still photographs of her, so I know what she looks like, and it didn't add anything for me. They didn't do any cutaways, they didn't go to her, some kind of literally an installation where she's moving around or doing eye contact things with people in a museum. It was all just a set that was there, and yes, we can see expression, but we can hear expression in the voice too. And sometimes that's more potent because we're not distracted by thinking, oh, she shouldn't have worn that color or it's a bit high for her complexion or whatever it might be. You're actually able to focus more and absorb and engage with. And we actually have statistics that show that audio, people who are taking in content through audio retain it longer and there's more cognition, and advertisers, of course, salivate about this. But so, unless is there something that video can provide that's a plus? Well, yes, and some people are recognizing that. So I was interested to note that have you heard George's podcast, That Fabulous Duo, they are re-re reshaping, reworking their past catalogue for their YouTube platform to make it more video friendly, more visual friendly. And I think that's great because that will be a new artifact, that's a new thing altogether. And that's where I think people might need to go. That instead of just doing a cheapskate dump of a video version that is really just somebody set and two talking heads, and if they talk for two or three hours, they're not going to keep me listening, I can assure you. Um, but if they do something a bit more inventive and creative, yes, of course it can work. Otherwise, I really do feel it's just a cheapskate version of a TV show, and I'm sure the TV execs are very happy with that idea because they don't have to provide unionized crew and hourly rates and minimum wages and all the rest of it that goes with a long-established TV industry. So, of course, there are things that work well on video. The Colbert show, which is coming to an end soon, I can't see that working as well as a podcast because he uses visual gags. He's brilliant with his eyebrows, not to mention all the slides that come up and the TV imagery. But other well-established podcasts like the rest is politics, they are very lazy. All they do is throw up the odd little background slide of a comment on X or a screenshot of something, and we see Rory in a bedroom and in his hotel room, and we see Alistair at a desk with a mug of tea or something. But it's not really visual rich content, and I can't see that it adds much that you wouldn't get on audio. And in audio, you also have the absolute winner of portability. So you can be out walking the dog or driving, as I'm about to do. I have 90 minutes ahead of me, and I'll be listening to podcast content with absolute undivided attention because we also know that you can drive and listen at the same time. So, in terms of, I'm losing a bit of your question, but um I really think that they are different formats, and they somehow the messaging about video has got caught up with the marketing, and it's all about style rather than substance. And this was brought home to me in a kind of a ridiculous way, where I remember seeing uh a thing on one of the social media of a podcaster with the big designated hefty mic and the headphones, and he was selling some kind of message, and it turned out afterwards that the mic wasn't attached to anything. He didn't have a podcast, he wasn't even in a studio. It was just the imagery, the cachet of being a podcaster that he was trying to harness. And I think that kind of sums up the hollowness at the heart of this pivot to video, if you like, that I'm I'm more of a content person. And I in a way I'm happy because if this pivot to video sloughs off all those really mediocre, kind of ordinary, not very riveting sort of end of talk things where people are just hammering on about something that they are trying to get advertisers for in a very niche way. They're welcome to video for that, as far as I'm concerned. It might do us all a favor.

Sam Sethi 58:41

Yeah, I mean, you said it beautifully there, so I won't I won't you you you took all the aspects I was hoping. James succinctly says podcasting is something for the ears while the eyes are busy. Perfect. Yeah. Now, moving on a little bit, let's find a little bit more about you. How did you get into podcasting and and you know, what was your entry into it? Did you just start as a podcaster before you moved into being, you know, a consultant, a critic, an author?

Siobhán McHugh 59:09

Well, I started out like many people in radio. So I was sold on audio from way back in my twenties. I used to work at Irish Public Radio RTE, and I learned then what we all know the magic of audio, the intimacy of audio, the authenticity, the theatre of the mind, and the connecting capacity where you could have people weeping, sitting in the car. I remember looking across at a traffic lights, and one of my programs was playing, and this person was just standing there, just weeping. And I knew because in those days people were tuned to the public broadcaster, I knew they were listening to the voice I'd recorded. It's just a marvelous, evocative and affecting medium. So I was already in the audio camp, but what brought me into podcasting proper was a newspaper in Melbourne called The Age, which is rather big here. They do the Sydney Morning Herald. They had brilliant top-rate journalists who were desperate to make their version of serial the year after serial, like so many people. And so they brought me in as a consultant because they realized they had started making their own version and it sounded terrible. I actually, when I get my first listen to what they gave me of what would become a great podcast called Phoebe's Fall, I said, I'm sorry, this sounds like audio toilet paper. And what I meant by that was it was just one long linear screed that was absolutely undistinguished or differentiated. So there was no light and shade. They had no sense of pacing or texture. That comedians make good podcasters because they understand timing. Timing is the great strength of audio and of audio podcasting. And you need you can't just be too dense or people will resist it and their attention will wander. And sometimes you put in those pauses through music or something like that. Sometimes they're natural pauses, but they couldn't get this straight up because they were print people. And also they weren't writing for audio. They were writing in this more stiff, formal way, using things like they will see what will happen instead of saying, they'll see what will happen, with the way a conversational mode. And also they were doing things not hearing, they were talking over their interviewees and not letting them speak so that we had freedom to edit that voice separately. So there were all kinds of 101 for audio journalists, but even for these terrific storytelling journalists, audio was a surprise medium. And they just, I remember one of them said to me, It sounds like a dog's breakfast. Why? What are we doing wrong? And I and a couple of others were able to give them the tips. And to be fair, they picked it up fairly quickly. And Richard Baker is now a force in Australian podcasting and has his own company. He quit the newspaper where he was a regular front page writer. So I suppose Phoebe's Fall, which launched in 2016 and went on to be mentioned in Parliament. It was about a young woman who tragically died. And the family asked us to investigate was it an accident, was it murder, was it suicide? And it explores all of those personal storytelling aspects that audio podcasting does so well. Now I know that's been hijacked into the ubiquitous true crime podcast genre. And again, I'd be happy to see some of those, the more salacious tabloid end of that, go into the video bracket and leave us with the thoughtful ones that really go to interesting places, that go into the psychology and the behavior of people and the ethics behind things. I think we know the classics there. But after Phoebe's fall, I did two other podcasts with the age team. I really enjoyed the last voyage of the Pong Sioux, which was where a cargo ship from North Korea, absolutely bizarrely, one morning tried to dump 150 kilos of heroin on an Australian surf beach, to the amazement of the locals. And we had lots of these dry laconic locals talking about, right, I went down the beach and there's all these cops there, and it's just fantastic. But we use that as a to go into the background of the North Korean regime and to try and understand what happened to those sailors on the ship, North Korean men, as much as what happened at the Australian end with the cops, who gave us this extraordinary 14 hours of surveillance tape they had of these drug mules waiting to get the deal. And there was this magic moment in the podcast where this poor guy, who was only there because he had a gambling debt and he was had to do this work, and he says to the older crim, he says, Do you think the cops are listening to us? And we hear his mate say, Nah no, mate, only the FBI can do that. And then we cut to the Australian cop who's cackling away and saying, We had a good laugh when we heard them say that their goose was cooked. So audio could do things that really humanized the experiences behind the 3D storytelling and personal storytelling and audio podcasts in that long-form way are a marriage made in heaven. I will always believe that. But you have to know how to do it. There are skills involved in making a narrative podcast. And sadly, the executives on the top floor don't realize how important and difficult and rare these really highly skilled people are, because if you do it well, it sounds effortless. And so it's invisible. I've got a chapter, The Invisible Art of Audio Storytelling, which tries to unpack and deconstruct the architecture that goes into a narrative podcast, but that can only be seen if you do it wrong. And this is why those executives, and I've had my own brushes or encounters with these, are loathed to fund narrative podcasts properly. And this is, I think, why the bubble burst for narrative podcasting to a degree last year. Because they think that it just makes itself. They think it's only talk. How hard can that be? There's no film crew involved. Why do we have to pay X amount for and the reason is because it takes time to listen endlessly through and through again and doctor the script and restructure it and make it so that it flows cohesively and compellingly. Just as it would if you're looking at House of Cards or Breaking Bad or any of the great series that we all remember, which yes, they're more complicated, they're in a different medium, but the principles are the same, really, in terms of drama and storytelling.

Sam Sethi 1:05:42

Yeah, I I think there's a couple of points I wanted to pick up on. First, you've observed that SAGAFRA is not being used a lot now, and Netflix is buying cheap podcasts and they're doing that very well. The second part is this whole skill set about creating the narrative podcast. I think the challenge we've got, we've seen with companies like Inception Point AI who just want to churn out thousands of podcasts for monetization through advertising. So within the narrative podcast genre, do you think the author is obviously very important, but do you think the the voicing of it is very important or can AI replace any of that element as well?

Siobhán McHugh 1:06:21

I don't think AI can replace the voice of a host who is central to a narrative podcast. No, because thankfully in my view AI cannot sound authentic. I've just listened to the Parkinson AI series and it was spine chilling. Spine chilling. I heard a sportsman, I don't know these UK people as much as you would, but he confessed to some little tick he had he liked eating in bed and but it was a naughty little thing that he liked to do. And instead of giving a little chuckle as you or I might have or whatever, the AI parky goes in this robotic way relaxation is an important part of everybody's life. Now he might have had the Yorkshire accent but he did not sound like the real Michael Parkinson we knew and loved. And actually it felt like a desecration of that man to have him repurposed in this way. And and then he said well moving across to a different this is the robot voice, moving across to a different topic, let's talk about your blah blah and even the guest said whoa that's a bit of a sharp turn because it didn't have any normal narrative flow. It was a programmatic response obviously and yes of course AI is getting more sophisticated by the minute and yes it does have its place in terms of other useful things it can do. Obviously transcripts maybe mining material just to make it accessible to the actual host to be able to synthesize large amounts of data so that they can do a better interview or something. But in terms of providing that real parasocial relationship where we want this host to be our friend no those Henny Penny the fee the finance woman that Inception AI has come up with I listened to the cooking woman no we have a great woman in Australia who does a show called Tin Eats and she tests everything on her dog and you know she's real we love her. We love the poor dog died of old age recently and we all had a moment in honor of the lovely golden retriever she had you cannot fake that thank God you cannot fake feelings and feelings is what comes through in audio and actually wearing an academic hat I've written endlessly about that the effective power of voice because I kind of cross over into academia as well but inception AI to me is a hideous it's it's a hideous concept it's a desecration of all that we love about communication. I understand that podcasting is also a great medium for the transfer of knowledge in an intermittent entertaining way. I personally like podcasts like Empire with William Dalrymple and Anita Anand it's a great way of understanding world history events and all the rest of it while being entertained and I do remember some part of what they tell me and I learn things. But at the other end of that scale there's this insatiable need to absorb knowledge is it because people are trying to better themselves for a career move or something and again I understand that in a poor country where you don't have access maybe to formal education this can be life changing. I'm not going to denigrate that but somehow to me the idea that there's just this endless need to feed people stuff, data, information that they can get at 2.3 speed via these thousands of podcasts where's the insight where's the human making sense of that happens in a normal kind of podcast communications mode it's not there. And to me it's like making us into slaves of casting and of marketers and I don't like it and I hope it goes belly up very fast.

Sam Sethi 1:10:22

Here here now I think one of my favourite authors is Yuri Noval Harari who wrote 21st Rules for the 21st century I saw him with Stephen Fry on stage and he said simply in a world of AI more human connection and more humanity is what we need. And I think what was very interesting were the notebook LM characters that they you know they were putting out shows show after show and then at some point somebody pointed out to them that they weren't real and these AI characters had a a a shock moment. What do you mean we're not real? And as Yuri Naval said they had no backstory they didn't raise kids they didn't go to school they didn't have friends they didn't do so you can fake it until you make it. And in this case they couldn't fake it or make it right they they they literally came to a screeching hole in a realization that they were just computerized AI characters with no backstory. So I think you know that's where I think you're right podcasting has to in a world of excessive marketing and monetization and in a world where as you said 2.3x data transfer of information the humanity of podcasting probably is one of those things that humans as we get you know bombarded will want to grapple towards more not less.

Siobhán McHugh 1:11:41

Absolutely the signature characteristics for me of podcasting apart from the obvious and fated one of intimacy is authenticity and was it Grouch or Mark who said if you can fake sincerity you've got it made you can't and every interview I've done and I've done an awful lot in my lifetime was based on empathy and finding empathy for the other person. And sometimes that comes from your backstory and sometimes that comes from your ability to put yourself in their shoes even in difficult circumstances when they might have done something that you're struggling to understand and certainly aren't able to condone, but you still want to know why, what made you do that I cannot see that we can program any large learning model host to find that sort of aspect. And it was clear in those parky tapes the AI Parky series which I understand was an experiment there's it's a valid experiment I think because it does open up potential for use of archives in an interesting way but you can do that in a better way Division Street Revisited which is up I think for an Ambes at the moment is a lovely reworking of Studs Turkle the Chicago oral historian and they've taken they've dug into the tapes and they've refreshed them via new eyes and getting somebody today to comment on what was said back in the 60s.

Sam Sethi 1:13:03

So there are ways around it by all means let AI do what it can do well but no it cannot replace our humanity thank goodness for that thank goodness indeed now look if somebody wants to find out more about you follow you where would they go?

Siobhán McHugh 1:13:21

Well um I'm on um LinkedIn is is where I'm posting most LinkedIn or Instagram and also my talk for Mexo will be published in Radio Doc Review. Coming out in about a week or two it'll be online so you can just Google Radio Doc Review which is a free website journal of criticism of audio stuff that I actually founded about 12 years ago.

Sam Sethi 1:13:46

Now you've also written a book a little while back called The Power of Podcasting so if I it is I'm going to ask is it an audiobook as well can I hear you tell me about the book or do I have to just read the book?

Siobhán McHugh 1:14:00

I think I'm afraid you will have to read it I I would love to have done it as an audiobook but because I refer to and analyse so many podcasts the rights issues was a nightmare. However I'm very chuffed to note this was mentioned on the Opera Winfrey Network some time ago last year. And even though it's a funny book to describe there's a lot of history in there there's a lot of storytelling by me because I can't help myself I'm Irish everything's a story but there's a lot of hard how-to advice on how to make narrative podcasts what works and what doesn't as well so hopefully uh you can find it on the usual Siobhan McHugh it's lovely to see you again congratulations on everything you've achieved and and look forward to reading and hearing more about what you're doing in the coming years. Thank you very much Sam it's been really lovely to talk to you as well after all this time.

James Cridland 1:14:53

Siob McHugh is a very very clever person. She uh spoke at podcast day 24 in Sydney when I was running it a couple of years ago really good. And I totally uh agree where she's coming from in terms of w what video gives you which is whatever you know you're being told to um to visualize in your mind and what audio can give you. And a really good example of that is when you're selling a holiday for example and you want to you know argue that you know um what what sort of holiday would you like? And your idea of a beach holiday and my idea of a beach holiday might be entirely different but if we use the words correctly then you see your ideal beach holiday and I see mine. I think it's you know it's it's um you know I I I mean you know I've I'm sure that we've all lost count of the amount of times that we've seen the people who we've only heard for a number of years. PJ Vote for example uh who does that great um podcast called Search Engine. I've always had an image which isn't a great image of what PJ Vote I thought looked like. Anyway I saw a video of him a couple of weeks ago and he's like a male model and you know it's buff and everything else absolutely not what I thought that he looked like so uh yeah I think there's an awful lot to be said uh for that and she's written an excellent book as well which you should go out and buy.

Sam Sethi 1:16:21

Yes funny enough Adam Curry before he ever saw me on video uh thought I was a blonde blue-eyed English public schoolboy.

James Cridland 1:16:30

There you go.

Sam Sethi 1:16:31

Well um he got he got one bit right yeah I know those blonde highlights um not that um Chris Kelly wrote on LinkedIn which I also thought was quite interesting in relation to this uh he said I can see words in my mind he says people who use D script to edit fundamentally are seeing the transcript based editing um as the culprit because there's more information in the audio than just the words and I think what he's saying is that we we then remove the emotion of the audio by just editing a transcript. I don't know it's an interesting thought.

James Cridland 1:17:08

Yeah absolutely and you know um just the pauses and things like that are really important for for you to understand what's going on for you to understand what the what that person actually thinks and there are quite a lot of services out there which will take all of those pauses out and that seems to me to be a real a real mistake so uh yeah I think we need to be very careful which is why you know again I'm not particularly impressed at the whole idea of video um uh video soundtracks being used as audio podcasts because they are different they really are

Ausha launches YouTube to Podcasting tool

James Cridland 1:17:45

now we've talked about how much of audio is going to video but OSHA uh are doing it the reverse way around what are they doing James? Yes so um uh this is the French uh podcast company OSHA um they have added a tool to turn YouTube videos into audio podcasts so you might remember Blueberry's vid to pod service a couple of years ago uh OSHA has um jumped in and said we'll do that too um so um you can set it to automatically convert an entire YouTube playlist into a podcast um you can then say every new video that I upload automatically turn it into a podcast it's a really bright idea I know that it did quite well for Blueberry once it first launched so that was a good thing um so uh hopefully we will see more of that in

Aussie Podcast Ranker whinged about

James Cridland 1:18:34

the future. Let's zip around the world James over to your part of the world the Australian pod ranker it says it fails to measure video podcasts according to Prithy Day from Spotify why is it failing to measure it yes I I I thought this was such a a mean thing to do because Prithy who I know well and she's a nice person but she was um quoted by Mumbrella which um uh has its um problems with uh all forms of rankers and measurement and everything else it's not put together by very clever uh uh journalists anyway um but they grabbed um a clip of her basically saying that uh the Australian podcast ranker isn't fit for purpose uh it doesn't measure video podcasts um it doesn't capture any video streams uh and so and so therefore it's crap and you know the reason why it doesn't capture any video streams it's because Spotify themselves won't actually give them the data um and uh I've talked to somebody that works on the Australian podcast ranker and they have said we would be delighted if Spotify wanted to give us the video streaming data um then we would be perfectly happy to include that in the Australian podcast ranker but they don't so we can't um and so for Prithy Day to turn around and say it's really important to have a third mar a third party measurement platform that provides greater transparency and clarity in the ecosystem um it's fine for her to turn around and say that but if if she's not supplying the data to the third party measurement ecosystem in the first place what's she moaning about what's she crying up about don't really understand it I think it's just a bit mean. You know step up and fix it for yourself uh if I were you um so naughty naughty naughty um that's one thing which has gone on uh

Ted Sarandos from Netflix

James Cridland 1:20:27

back in the UK did you hear Ted Sarandos on uh BBC Radio 4 earlier on in the week? No but I do listen to a lot of Radio 4 but no missed that one yes so we ended up um talking about all kinds of things uh he talked about um giving a million pounds to the National Film and Television School hooray uh talked about various other things but here's a little clip of him talking about YouTube and talking about podcasts.

Speaker 4 1:20:52

Let's talk about the wider industry. Is YouTube now your main rival more so than any other streaming service?

Speaker 3 1:20:57

Well look we've we've identified YouTube as a competitor 10 years ago. If you go back and look at all of our our our earnings calls and our public announcements we've always identified YouTube as a potential competitor. In the last several years they've become much more meaningful here in the UK as you know they're growing faster than everybody else about 55% of all YouTube watching is now on the television. It's not on your phone it's not on your laptop so it is clearly a television competitor. And remember that's a zero sum game. The time that you spend on a connected TV uh if you're watching one uh one app you're not watching broadcast you're not watching BBC you're not watching ITV or and you're not watching any other streaming service including Netflix. So when you look at that you'd say of course this is the landscape and they are uh today about nine and up close to nine percent of television time in the UK and what surprises me all the time is um the the studios and the networks around the world including the BBC actually are just continue to feed them free programming uh and but of course they're growing so fast and then and then and then they want to people will make an argue whether or not it's television. It is literally television. So yeah so so in other words I I actually think there's a great opportunity of that what this says is it's a recognition that consumers change their habits the way how people watch, how young people watch particularly because it'll influence the next several decades of television. But I think that there's probably a better distribution relationship than just turning over your content and making pennies on the dollar.

Speaker 4 1:22:24

Talk about those new habits just talk about podcasts. When I interviewed you in 2019 I asked uh why you weren't going to go into live sports and you said I love live sports. My question is just always what's the best way to spend the next 10 billion? You've since then moved into live sports and you've also moved into podcasts. So you've got Gary Linick as the rest is football during the World Cup. How do you see podcasts in the Netflix future?

Speaker 3 1:22:43

So I I actually think podcasts are just an extension of chat shows of chat shows. It's like it's the new generation of chat shows where you don't have to make one show that appeals to everybody the way you know I grew up with Johnny Carson you know forty forty five million people used to watch the show every night. But we're now with podcasts where you do have a much more passionate but often smaller more specialized audience and you can support hundreds or thousands of them. I think there's a million podcasts now literally around the world.

Speaker 4 1:23:09

Some better than others. Yeah I agree but they come with they come with a back catalog which can be refreshed every single week and they're pretty low to produce at low cost.

Speaker 3 1:23:16

And again which lowers the expectation of the need for a you know for to make the audience bigger and broader all the time.

Speaker 4 1:23:21

So do you think podcasts will be an increasingly big part of your future because Simon Cornwell uh the uh the exec producer behind The Night Manager we spoke to recently said that the future of television is very expensive and very cheap. It's going to kind of bifurcate in that way.

Speaker 3 1:23:33

Is that your sense it's likely something like that, but obviously I think what it is is just the when people have a lot of choices, um the you you could support a broad variety of genres and formats and ambitions actually. And I think in that in the world of uh the where YouTube is growing in in engagement, they're not really investing much in people. So the creators have to pick take their own make their own choices and have to make put up their own money. And if it connects there might be some you know some money back in the form of revenue share of the advertising. But it you know it ends at the end of the day ends up being pennies on the dollar to the industry. So I think it's in t in total it could be a much more diverse industry. But I also think that people flee to quality and look for kind of ambitious storytelling. But I think there are more things can exist on television uh because of these new kind of direct-to-consumer models.

James Cridland 1:24:27

Ted Sarandos of Netflix thank you very much Steve for coming in to see Ted Sarandos on uh BBC Radio 4 on the Today program you you could um uh a couple of years ago have listened to that on the BBC's international website these days you can't uh and so that's why I grabbed about a third of that uh interview there I thought that that was fascinating uh uh Sam I I thought you know him talking about podcasts being an extension of chat shows shows just so much misunderstanding of what podcasts are you know astonishing well and I also thought his n his numbers were uh were a little off I mean one million not quite right but again um he he's correctly identifying youtube as his attention time competitor also turning around and saying YouTube doesn't pay creators which is uh which is horseshit you know they they absolutely do um but they only pay the successful ones um so uh you know I don't know so I I I just found I just found the whole thing was fascinating. Yes he uh absolutely the most conservative number for the amount of podcasts is is um about three million uh that's the amount that's on Apple Podcasts more on uh Spotify more on uh in the podcast index um but yeah you know I I just thought it it he he does sound as if he is someone that doesn't actually have much of a grasp of the business that he's in which I I I just found fascinating.

Sam Sethi 1:25:53

Well everyone I I hear talk about him says he's a very very smart man and and does know his his you know um business very well but um maybe he just doesn't know podcasting very well but I think I think it's interesting they've gone down the exclusives paying a lot out I don't know why they're doing that they've seen Spotify fail on that market um they talk about Garilinika it seems like a temporary one for the World Cup so will that just come and go again um I think they've got into cheap TV as you call it and I think that's what they want to do to grip get more attention eyeballs but but will it be a sustainable business model? Who knows? I think the other thing I find interesting is um Spotify here so we talked about Spotify video being available I don't think I've even on my desktop mobile to really watch video on Spotify yet but also when I do watch my Fire TV and I've got BC1 and I've got Netflix and Prime they're all front and centre of my um TV experience you know they're literally icons there ready. The Spotify icon isn't even on the front page you have to go to other apps to find it and I also think placement on the remote control will be a significant purchase. So on the remote control I've got I've got a Netflix Prime and there's no YouTube dedicated button there's no Spotify dedicated button. I think those again um if I had marketing money and with the deep pockets that both those companies had I would start to go to manufacturers and say place our button on your remote control.

James Cridland 1:27:34

And that's certainly how some of these very cheap boxes there's a a box you can buy in Walmart for about 30 or 40 dollars is basically you know that though the money from YouTube and from Netflix for the buttons on the remote control is you know half of the money that's paying for this hardware in the first place. So I think that there's some really interesting stuff there. But yeah, you know I suppose the question is Is Spotify synonymous with video? And actually, is Apple Podcasts synonymous with video? I mean, not right now, it's not, but surely Apple TV um is the thing. And so I'm I'm kind of there thinking, I'm a I'm I'm a bit confused. What what will the audience think? If they want to watch the Joe Rogan show, then they'll watch it on Apple Podcasts, presumably at some point in the future. Um but if they want to watch another TV show that you know The Martian or something, then they'll watch it on Apple TV. I I I don't really understand where, you know, the there's um there's a the there's a bit of a complicated user journey there um in a way that um we haven't hitherto had in terms of podcasting, but obviously we have had in terms of TV. So um yeah it's um it's a peculiar one, isn't it?

Sam Sethi 1:28:51

Yeah, I mean we we say the word Google to mean search, we say Hoover to mean vacuum cleaner, we we uh I probably say we're gonna Spotify it uh in our minds for music, um and I'd say YouTube for video, and I think you you'll find it hard, as you just said, you know, for people to jump to their first reaction to watch a video to be to another platform. Yeah, no, indeed, indeed.

Crooked shows on MS NOW

Sam Sethi 1:29:16

Here's an interesting one that you wrote about. Crooked media podcasts will be shown on the US news channel MS Now. So are other TV companies now going, oh, look at what Netflix are doing. We better get a bit of that podcasting love over here.

James Cridland 1:29:31

Well, um, so I think that's what CNN have thought. Look what CNN uh look what uh Netflix is doing. We will buy some podcasts and put them onto the CNN streaming platform. Uh this is kind of a little bit different in the MS Now, which used to be MSNBC, that is now putting a uh compilation show of crooked media podcasts on the telly at nine o'clock Eastern on Saturday night. Um, not really a very high um peak time for a uh rolling news channel, particularly MS Now, but nevertheless, you know, it's it's um it's a thing. So perhaps they're seeing it as it's a cheap way to fill an hour or two hours. I don't actually know how long it is. Um so perhaps they're just purely seeing it as that. But I thought that was an interesting plan. Uh interestingly enough, uh it's all of Crooked Media's US shows will be in there, not Pod Save the UK, um, which is a co-production. They uh they're not going to be putting any of that onto MS now, but they will put you know lots of clips of um of those shows, uh of those other shows onto the uh onto this particular um uh show. It won't be uh exclusive in any way either, uh, which is important to to uh to have a look at. But I just think it's you know it's a cheap piece of programming that will do both of them, you know, some some good. It'll give them some advertising to, you know, to to sell and um and and will be good for uh for you know people to learn more about the the uh shows that um that they uh stick out. So I think it's um it's good on both sides.

Unreliable Trivia with Sam Sethi

James Cridland 1:31:13

Just a trivial question.

Speaker 1:31:15

Now on the pod news weekly review, Unreliable Trivia, with Sam Sethy.

James Cridland 1:31:19

Do you know what the MS stands for or in MS Now? More trivia. Excellent. That's what we need. Yeah. Uh yes, I mean MSNBC was Microsoft, wasn't it? It was MSN and an MBC. And so um, but what I find weird is um Microsoft sold its stake in the TV channel in 2005, but it's still called MS Now. I know. That's why I find it really weird. That's just like, okay, that doesn't seem to make any sense. What what's it got to do with Microsoft now? Nothing. Um, actually, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what it stands for now, according to Wikipedia, so it must be true. My source for news, opinion, and the world.

unknown 1:32:01

Oh, come on.

James Cridland 1:32:02

Yeah, that's it's not an acronym, it's a backronym. That's what can I hear the barrel being screened there? Yes, I can.

Speaker 1:32:09

And that's unreliable trivia with Sam Sethy.

People news

James Cridland 1:32:12

Moving on to people in jobs, James. What's been happening? Audio UK has a new CEO. How do you pronounce his name, Sam? He's called Chris Baugan. Baugan. Okay. That's how I'm going with it. Right, I'm running with that. Um, Chris Bourne, I kind of vaguely think it might be, but I really don't know. And they didn't tell me. Uh, anyway, um uh a new CEO for Audio UK. Of course, we've had uh the previous CEO, Chloe Straw, on this show a number of times. Uh so we should get Chris on and maybe he can tell us. Already in the pipeline. Oh, look at this. There you go. Um he joins, if you don't know, uh I think most recently uh uh at Global, I want to say, but I could be wrong there. Uh but he's also been at Wonder E, Spotify, and Deezer, so he knows a thing or two. So that'll be interesting uh to watch. Riverside has a new creative director. Um Ari Kutchar, uh Marshall Lewis has been appointed head of Audible Content Um in North America. Um that's not head of content which is audible, that's head of content which is on Audible, uh, in case you're confused. Uh he used to work for Wondery uh and uh joined Audible after, of course, Wondery um was all sort of broken up and um and uh absorbed by other bits of the Amazon uh world. Matthew Passey has joined Produce Your Podcast as director of strategic growth. He joins from Libsin, of course, and the podcast consultant. So congratulations to Matthew. And um Louviza Olson um uh used to be head of content at PodX. She was employee number one. Uh she's just left. She has um new things on the horizon at some point in the future. Um but uh it's always interesting when you see employee number one leave. Uh so pod X, of course, bigger and bigger and bigger. They're now in a big chunk of Lemonada Media alongside everything else.

Podcast Events

Announcer 1:34:03

Podcast events on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 1:34:07

Yes, it's time for some events and awards. And um we'll start with some awards and then we'll talk about uh events. Um so firstly, uh the Ambis were this week, of course. Uh the American Podcast Awards. Actually, I should uh have checked, shouldn't I, uh how many were uh British. I I can probably already tell you um because I did uh type in the uh the full list uh uh uh yesterday. Um I think it's all Americans again. Um so uh I don't think there's anybody from outside of certainly outside of North America.

Sam Sethi 1:34:40

I just think they should just be honest and call them the Ambi is the American Podcast Awards. I just don't think they should pretend.

James Cridland 1:34:46

I I mean having having won an Ambi, I I of course have nothing bad to say about them at all. Uh I think that they're perfect. Um so uh yes, there's a full list of those on uh the website. It was postponed uh by 24 hours after the snowpocalypse in New York. Uh so many congratulations um to them for um fixing that and making that work. That's a big, big, big deal, isn't it? To have to move an entire awards ceremony one more night. Um, but many congratulations um for that. Of course, Clara of course Cara Swisher, also given the governor's award uh in that uh too. And events. Um only yesterday, Sam, we covered the exclusive uh news of um the new podcast movement, um, which is uh happening in uh New York, uh, of course, at the end of uh well in the middle of uh September. Uh it really exciting to see how well that uh they they're actually planning things. So if you haven't yet seen uh the announcement and Sam hasn't seen the announcement at all because um because uh this is actually going out uh after we record. Um but yes, um it's an entire week. Um podcast movement and sounds profitable. Uh September the 14th to the 18th in Terminal 5 in New York City. It's in the uh Hell's Kitchen area of New York City. Uh Terminal 5 is a big um sort of venue that does uh music and stuff like that. Uh, it's going to be a really exciting venue uh to be at. So basically, the first two days is the Sounds Profitable Business Summit with um lots of stuff for Sounds Profitable partners who get early access. Um if you're not a Sounds Profitable partner, then you will be able to purchase tickets later, um, but um only one ticket per organization to uh make it better for you to join Sounds Profitable is my understanding. Then on September the 16th, everybody takes a break because that is when the IEB upfronts is happening. So everybody crosses town to watch the IEB and to watch people um uh sell their wares uh over at the IAB. And then uh after some parties that evening, uh then there is um podcast movement, which is uh September the 17th to the 18th. That's um I think Thursday, Friday, if my memory serves me correctly. Um but that will be um that will be all of the creator stuff, all of the stuff which works fantastically for uh the podcast movement audience. Um so looking at um, you know, all of the uh content and experience stuff, uh all of that. There'll be panels, there'll be showcases, uh obviously networking events as podcast movement is very uh well known uh for. So I I think it's gonna be a really uh I think that's a smart move on uh Brian Barletter's part. I think that's a really smart thing for him to do. So we've got so you can go to the entire week if you want to. Um the business stuff first, then a little break for IB upfronts, and then the creator stuff. Uh I think that's quite neat. So um it should be interesting to see how all of that bit works.

Sam Sethi 1:38:00

Well, if I was going, it'd be interesting. I'd be going from terminal five to terminal five. That'd be quite fun. Um I won't be going because I'll be turning the grand old age of 60 that week.

James Cridland 1:38:10

Wow. There you go. So uh I'll be turning the volume up. Pardon? That's what I'll be doing. What? What? So yeah, so that should be really good fun. I'm I'm looking forward to seeing how podcast movement works. Um I'm looking forward to obviously the sounds profitable stuff at the beginning of the week is really interesting. It's interesting that you've got a split of business and then creator, but I actually think that that it it probably works because you can go to both anyway.

Sam Sethi 1:38:40

Um, I think it's uh it's good use of time if you if you do that as well.

James Cridland 1:38:44

Yeah, no, and I think that means smaller venue, but actually it means that you get more energy from that sort of venue as well. So um I think all of that is very good news. Um so sponsorship opportunities, tickets and all of that stuff going on sale soon. Now, I was talking to Brian earlier on in the week. He said that he was going to be announcing ticket prices and stuff like that this um uh in the in this announcement, but actually he's decided not to. They're really trying to keep the cost of the tickets, particularly for podcast movement, down as much as they possibly can. They appreciate that New York is is an expensive place to be, but it's also a cheap place to be. It just depends where you want to stay and how you want to get into the city. Um, but um they're really trying to work hard. And I think this is a nice venue change. It's not in a hotel with swirly carpets, it's in a proper venue, uh, which is gonna be decent. Um and I think that then allows you to do a lot of different things. Um when you're stuck in a in a hotel, you know, next to the airport somewhere, you really can't do very much. Um, so I think it's gonna be a really nice, uh, really nice experience. So um I'll have to get a new Esther, but um maybe I will do that and uh and and go along and um and take

The Tech Stuff

James Cridland 1:40:04

part.

Announcer 1:40:04

The tech stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 1:40:08

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

Sam Sethi 1:40:13

You said last week about a new proposal for a MetaBoost tag and an API standard from Alex Gates, and um I said something along the lines of, well, um I've got higher priorities at the moment with video podcast hosting and live podcast hosting. So when the micropayment stuff settles down and we've got some consensus, then I'll probably put some dev time towards it. So I put that out on, I think, Mastodon and uh along with um a chart that showed that the share price of Bitcoin had halved in the last six months. Oh my god, did I get absolute vitriol from the Bitcoin bros? You don't know what you're talking about, it's rubbish, Bitcoin's brilliant. Why would you go to stablecoin? I'll never recommend true fans. I had Jupyter Network, you're rubbish, you're totally rubbish. Thanks, Chris. Um yeah, so I'm just like, yeah, just come up with a non-moving quicksand standard that we can all work around, and then yes, I'll get on it, but I'm not gonna waste my time. Um, you know, if you want to stay a fountain fanboy, Chris, stay there. I don't need you, um, so fine. But really, it's just it's myopic. It's so myopic sometimes. They they they they can't look outside the box.

James Cridland 1:41:35

Yes, I mean I think that there's two things there. I think I think showing the um chart of Bitcoin's value, um, whatever it is that you said, halving in the last six months. I mean, I think that that that is a different conversation. And you know, we're we're not in this to invest in Bitcoin. Um, we're in this um to use Bitcoin because it's a cheap method of getting money um from one place to another. And there's nothing to stop you from instantly translating or transferring your Bitcoin back into um real money, into pound sterling or whatever it is that you want to end up doing. So I think that there's two things. I think you were knocking Bitcoin as well as knocking the whole the whole micropayment standard thing, and I totally agree with you in the whole micropayment standard thing. Um, if it keeps on changing every two weeks, then nobody's gonna develop anything for it. Um uh I think that there's a different conversation around Bitcoin's shit, isn't it?

Sam Sethi 1:42:33

I conflated two things, okay. Fair enough.

James Cridland 1:42:36

Yes, but you know, there we go. But um yeah, it's um it is a bit of a frustration though, certainly.

Sam Sethi 1:42:42

So uh Adobe, very interesting company. I don't really look at it that often. Um uh I find things like Photoshop too complex for my little brain. But um Jay uh LeBeuf, who used to be at D Script, is over there now.

James Cridland 1:42:57

By the way, Jay Lebeuf.

Sam Sethi 1:42:59

Yes. It's French, LeBeuf, surely. No, okay.

James Cridland 1:43:03

Sadly, LeBeuf. My French teacher. That's how he pronounces it, is it? Yes, but yes, uh, so he he is their head of AI. Yeah. Uh and he's coming onto this show, isn't he, next week with a big announcement. What's he coming on? What's he coming on for?

Sam Sethi 1:43:16

Well, I can't tell you the big announcement because he's gonna send you a press release. I can't tell you that part, but they have been working on their video editor. So they've got three products they've got Adobe Podcast, they've got Premium Pro, and they've got Adobe Firefly. And so what Jay does do is he comes on the show uh and I've already done the interview, so it's great. Um, he's gonna define what each of those products is there for, how they integrate well together. Um, they've already got a video editor in the Adobe Firefly, and it then does some very clever stuff to create footage and b-rolls for you. It's a feature called Quick Cut. That's not the big announcement. So um next week we will have uh Jay on the show. Um, they've also got, like Spotify, prompt-based editing capabilities as well, so the AI can uh help you edit uh videos and stuff.

James Cridland 1:44:03

But um please could you make this show sound good? No, that's beyond AI. Come on. Wow. Well, I'm looking forward to that. Jay LaBeuf next week uh on the Pod News Weekly Review, um, and a couple of other interesting things, uh at least I thought that they were interesting. Podlytic, which is a new analytics platform, it's pulling uh analytics together for your podcast, particularly if you switch from one host to another. Um so um uh weather peek. And um David McGuire, who used to work at Adolitious, um now uh has been working for himself for a bit, making a new thing called Fanswoon. Um and I looked at this and I thought fanswoon, that's um surprisingly close to true fans. Um, but it's a creator intelligence tool.

Sam Sethi 1:44:53

I think only fans is close to true fans. I can't quite say well, yes.

James Cridland 1:44:57

I mean, uh to be fair, yes. Um so uh so it's a creator intelligence tool. No, no, no. Well, I should, I should, I should hope not, although you know you do have video. Yes. Um so fanswoon, back to fansoon, focus. Um, the latest version of Fanswoon. Um, it's basically for you if you create podcasts, but also videos and songs and newsletters and everything else. It will pull all of the data in from the various platforms, track that data. Um, it's got some AI in there, so the AI will look at that data and tell you things that it thinks that you might find interesting. Um, it's all kinds of stuff in there. You can follow two things for free if you want to in the on the fanswoon uh website. Uh so it might be worth giving that um a play. Uh, where is the fanswoon website? It's at fanswoon.com. That's f-n-s-w-o-o-n.

Inbox

Announcer 1:45:50

Boostergram. Boostigram. Booster grand 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 1:46:03

Yeah, so many different ways to get in touch with us. Fan mail by using the link in our show notes or boosts or email, and we share any money that we make uh as well. Um, I should uh uh uh thank the excellent Brian Enzminger, who is yet again our top um uh streamer uh in terms of streaming sats. So thank you, uh Brian. Um Oscar uh Merry from Fountain um sent 9,999 sats, which gets him this jingle. Yes, congratulations, uh Oscar. Thank you. Uh he says great coverage of the Apple Podcasts video integration, excellent interview with Justin. Let's get Apple adopting alternate enclosure. I have a feeling that things may freeze over before that might happen.

Sam Sethi 1:46:50

Don't use that phrase. I'm in trouble for that phrase. Don't use that phrase.

James Cridland 1:46:53

But I've got no idea why. But you'll find out in a minute. Oh, okay. Uh, but Oscar, thank you. Um and also thank you to the ugly quacking duck who sent um 2,222 sats using podcast guru. He says it looks like more control and censorship heading down the pike for the podcaster. I think he's probably uh saying that about Apple Podcasts. Not sure I'd agree. Uh, but Bruce, thank you uh and much appreciated. Um there are uh super comments on uh TrueFans, which I can see uh now because you fixed that bug, but also so can so can you. What what uh what have we got in there then?

Sam Sethi 1:47:30

Well, uh Seth Goldstein sent a couple. One was I'm glad Apple is doing this, even if HLS is still catching on. I'm excited to see where this goes, and that was great. And he said, I'm excited for all these developments in HLS. HLS will be epic. Will be epic. Martin Lindesgog he said, I'm interested to test video podcasting. The question is how it could add value to the listener viewer with busy eyes. Do you think that podcasting services will add video editing uh features in the near future? I'll have to check if Ali2 and Boomcast could provide me with the same editing tools. I'm not so sure that I will have the energy and time for editing plenty of frames. Yeah. So um the answer really is yes, I will expect to see more video hosting coming to the uh traditional hosts. You know, we've seen it with companies like Flightcast and and obviously Fountain announced theirs. Um, but I do think more of them will. Um so let's see, um, given what's happening with the adoption of video. Um he then also said I I have to send a third booster gram by the dip.

James Cridland 1:48:41

Yes. Not sure. So he's he's he's talking with you about the the price of Bitcoin again.

Sam Sethi 1:48:47

The thing with Bitcoin, I think, is people are beginning to treat it as a value of store, not as a value of transaction. And that is my problem. I think people are because it's not pegged to anything, I think people are beginning to see it as a speculative way, like they do with gold or silver. Um so that's where um But the US dollar isn't pegged to anything. No, but it is well, you've got US Treasury bonds. Well, it is, and it's the world currency, and also you've got US Treasury bonds and the Fed behind it. So there is an element of security and stability.

James Cridland 1:49:23

Um, you know, if the But the U okay, so the UK pound, the pound sterling.

Sam Sethi 1:49:27

Yeah, but but it's no longer the world currency anymore, and it hasn't got a gold backing to it. The two biggest currencies, by the way, that have strongest gold backing are uh the Chinese yen uh and the ruble in Russia, they hold the biggest gold currency.

James Cridland 1:49:41

Yeah, I mean, you know, look. You see, I mean, I I I think so so I get paid in American dollars, um, but obviously I uh um live my life in Australian dollars. And so the differences are quite a lot. And when the American dollar is worth less, um then that means. that um you know that I get less money in my um you know in my in my pay pay packet um so to speak or or maybe the other way around but you know what I mean so I don't I don't get a um I don't get a standard amount every single month which is weird um and that's exactly the same with with with with this I suppose um but yes I I can I can certainly see that uh and I can certainly also see from Martin's point of view it ruins all of the numberology um because you know um Rose of Ducks 222 sats well how how do you end up doing that with you know um if if if I'm getting paid in Australian dollars and you're getting paid in pounds sterling no none of none of that bit works anymore um so I can kind of see all of that stuff as well. I I think look I think at the end of the day um you know we we need to um think of Bitcoin when it comes to paying uh podcasts um I think we need to think of it as a um as just the the mechanism uh of how the money gets there um and to turn it automatically in and instantly back into pound sterling or back into whatever it is that you want to the the Polish zlotti um then uh they use the euro now I think but uh you know what I mean I think I think that all of that works well.

Sam Sethi 1:51:21

Yeah um the story we just zipped over I'm just gonna mention it now um stripe are considering the purchase of PayPal which I think's significant um oh good lord well I only mention it I only mention it for one reason that um we talked about YouTube paying creators in stablecoin via PayPal and I think uh given stripe's strong uh investment into stablecoin and PayPal's investment into stablecoin I could see yeah that being a really interesting acquisition if they go ahead uh both I mean Stripe is a private company so it would be a paper deal I'm guessing um I think that would be really interesting and then I do think well I've I've said in the prediction show I think stablecoin would be the way forward for micropayments.

James Cridland 1:52:05

That would be fascinating and I think you know PayPal is um is an interesting company that has inchitified itself quite a lot and Stripe for all of Stripe's you know good and bad um Stripe seems to do a pretty good job um and they don't appear to have m m messed themselves up in certainly in the last 10 years or so since I've become a customer of theirs. So hopefully that means good news for PayPal um and um yeah so that that would be fascinating to keep an eye on um Martin also says that um you know the these micro donations could be recognized by cool tools such as runway comma helipad etc I like how runway's first in that um so thank you uh Martin um yes I mean you know the the more the the more that we can get um uh I think you know that that would be fantastic so runway at the moment only works with a strike account but there's no reason why it couldn't work with all kinds of other accounts in there as well um as long as there's an open API so uh yeah worthwhile uh keeping an eye on and Neil Vellio two messages from him um including uh again another 9900 uh sats so uh Neil you get one of these yes uh he says excellently explained well worth a four day wait between announcements to listen thanks always thanks as always for the deep dive guys fabulous journalism as always James steady on nothing to do with me and also and also he mentions um uh we were talking about ad conversions and uh and uh stuff and uh Neil quite rightly points out that lots of ad agencies don't seem to understand conversions in podcasting they go by impressions anyway I would go even further and I would say lots of unlots of ad agencies don't understand how advertising works Neil um I have been astonished by some of the ad agencies that I've had to deal with over the last seven years. Mostly you know the advertisers in the Pod News website are direct but some of them go through ad agencies and it is always such a lot of pain and hassle because really they don't understand what they're doing. I'm always astonished at it. So yes uh totally hear what you're saying there Neil uh thank you so much uh for those uh thank you also to our 23 uh power supporters uh including the excellent John Spurlock um and also and also a bunch of others who can I remember from the top of my head Ms. Eileen Smith I can remember her off the top of my head yes okay I will put the list in next week and Seth of course um but no thank you all so much uh for that we really appreciate it it helps us um sort out things like um uh drinks at events and stuff like that so um uh please if you would like to uh join and be part of the 23 supporters then weekly.podnews.net

Sam and James's week

James Cridland 1:55:06

so um what's happened for you uh Sam in uh our last few minutes because you've got uh you've got a meeting to go soon um Buzzcast I thought I'd listen to see what they said about Apple podcasts and their support for video wow opens up one Sam says hell will freeze over if we support video I'm like yeah I probably did say something like that.

Sam Sethi 1:55:30

Um my view was that a couple of years ago when I was prompting to see if Buzzprout would support the alternative enclosure and any form of video and that whole discussion they may not have said hell freezes over but they were certainly very strong in their rebuff of the support for video and they were talking about it's too costly and this and which was the embryo for the conversation in the podcast standards group for well why would we not look at something like HLS then instead of MP4. So instead of downloading the whole MP4 maybe we could stream or or have a smaller bandwidth version using HLS and that was where that conversation started. So yes it was a conversation I was having with BuzzSprout health readers over probably too strong but I do wonder whether BuzzSprout will support the the BuzzCast show seemed to suggest that they're still not going to support video that video is still you know maybe not what their audience is going to want to do.

James Cridland 1:56:32

I mean I think that that that they are saying they will support video when it makes business sense for them to do. At the moment they can't quite work out the business sense um but at the moment frankly they've not had um you know hundreds of people asking can we do video um because you don't need Buzzsprout in order to upload video onto Spotify. In fact Buzzsprout won't be able to help you with that anyway um and you don't need Buzzsprout to um upload video onto YouTube. So actually nobody is asking Buzzsprout for for video right now. When we see Apple Podcasts release probably at the end of March beginning of April then I would guess that there'll be a bunch of people saying well I want to do video on the Buzzsprout platform now. How are you going to help us do that? And I think that'll be worthwhile you know keeping an eye out for but um yeah so well Henry Ford Unreliable trivia with Sam Sethy.

Sam Sethi 1:57:31

Well Henry Ford when he said if he asked his customers what they wanted they would have said faster horses not a car. And I sometimes think we've talked in the past about you have to support certain tags first before the adoption because users don't know what they don't know. And so the alternative enclosure for example will be interesting to see if Bus Sprout supports that. You know and if they do then that opens the door maybe to the next stage of them adding video into that before Apple adopts you know HLS in the primary enclosure. So I don't know. I mean what I'm what I'm saying is yeah maybe I was too strong in hell freezes over but I'm also still a a believer I said earlier I don't think many of the traditional hosts have given users the option of video and so they've all been drifted towards YouTube as the only place to do it really.

James Cridland 1:58:26

Well it'll be interesting to see what happens there in terms of that uh you did um uh say uh you know you you've been uh you've been interrupting this podcast all the way through Sam with Trivia Corner trivia trivia corner when did ford uh when did Henry Ford say um whether people uh whether whether people really wanted a faster horse instead of a motor car? No idea go on never ever did he never said it did it he he never said it uh the Henry Ford Museum doesn't include the saying on uh its list of more than 200 verified quotes doesn't appear in the uh in in their archive it doesn't appear in his autobiography uh either and in fact the first time that it was ever quoted as fact was 1999 I still think it's a great quote I'm sticking to it I'm getting yeah ignoring that fact yes fake news as they say and that's unreliable trivia with Sam Sethe.

Sam Sethi 1:59:28

Have you been listening to any exciting uh exciting um podcasts recently yeah I think there's a couple worth listening to uh Matt Deegan friend of the show his podcast The Media Club had a good review of Apple Podcasts they had a guest on there from the Daily Mail group Jamie East who we we've had on this show before uh Matt Matt won't hear us talking about his podcast because uh as he said to me many times your podcast it's too long um so you certainly won't be listening to this the other Matt does listen I do know because I had a drink with him and he was telling me how he loves the show so there you go ah well there you go the other Matt um that uh the Matt and Matt who used to put together the British podcast awards before they uh they got all corporate and sold it and why not um and um and uh you've been listening to another show well I haven't quite listened to it yet I've just noted it um the uh 411 show podcast 411 which is uh Rob Walsh's um has a new episode out and of course it's Mark Asquith the coaching to his boss now is he yes he is yes yes yes first show back get the boss on um yeah they talk about their their love of superheroes uh ai slop and of course the origin of captivate so um yeah so Rob as we've mentioned is now part of the Captivate family along with Elsie Escobar so yes worth listening I think and of course Mark Asquith uh is the newest British uh addition to the um podcast hall of fame technically the only British because you're not British anymore.

James Cridland 2:00:59

I am British. You can't be British you're an Australian aren't you I'm British as well. I'm British as well yes yes I actually stood there and I said and I said I am the first British person to get into the Podcast Hall of Fame for at least the next five five minutes until Mark gets in.

Speaker 7 2:01:17

So yes.

Sam Sethi 2:01:18

And lastly um we had a lovely conversation um on the WhatsApp private group that we have um and it was all about Justin asking whether there was an option to highlight an episode of your podcast so that you know people coming to your podcast page could say oh let's listen to that one first rather than the trailer only. And I sent him some screenshots and said yes we copied this time the Spotify feature because Spotify has had this tagged feature for a while and I proposed it in October 2023 and it's been totally ignored by everybody but it is there in the GitHub and it is coded by TrueFans and so yes you can sort by most popular you can sort by um so again the it did bring up a discussion I had with um Russell from uh pod two is um who makes the final decision on which tag gets um approved and it feels like it still goes back to Dave and Adam who I love dearly both of them but nothing seems to be getting approved anymore.

James Cridland 2:02:24

It just feels I think I think now it basically if enough people think that it's a good idea and enough people start coding it in then that's how it gets approved. Anyone can put um can put a um you know a thing in there anybody can put a a new tag in there a new feature in there I I think it's just really up to you know let's make sure that it's in a number of different um a number of different apps a number of different hosting companies and and yeah and I think that that's probably the right way of doing it rather than you know rather than trying to convince Dave and Adam who are working on other stuff as well. So you know um yeah that that's my humble opinion. It's it's in GitHub if anyone will wants to uh implement it congratulations we have already yes and I should say David Marzel has been doing an excellent job over the last couple of weeks of tidying up the podcasting 2.0 GitHub he's done a fantastic job for some reason I get uh a message every time uh any um uh any uh issue in the GitHub is commented on or closed or whatever and uh there've been some days when I've um woken up to my email full of David Marsell so he's done a really good job uh of uh doing that that will hopefully mean that the the GitHub is rather a more useful thing um so that's um certainly a good thing um I was remiss in um uh when we were talking about Buzzsprout um video hosting I was remiss in turning around and saying well when are you gonna host video then?

Sam Sethi 2:03:58

Yes well are you asking now?

James Cridland 2:04:00

Um yes yes when are you gonna host video then?

Sam Sethi 2:04:03

Uh next week uh we'll you will get the press release it it's only official until you get the press release. Until then it can be anything you like but yes um you will have a press release next week for video hosting um we are going to do MP4 streaming so it's not a download. Okay. Well in your world it's a download it's six seconds downloads but yes it's technically a stream. So yes and now I'm gonna I'm gonna knock you on there.

James Cridland 2:04:32

So last week we talked about the global player and you said to me yes Pod News Daily's in there and I went oh excellent and you're gonna get Pod News Factual but you said and I can play it back to you if you want uh we'll get Pod News Weekly review in there as well and I went and did a quick search it's not there yet no I haven't uh haven't haven't uh tapped up your post tapped up your um yeah connection anyway so what yeah so what's happened for you James um so uh uh I bought a new pair of headphones uh I've been using the road headphones for a long long time which I know that you use as well they're heavy they're unpleasant they don't sound very good don't like them so um there's the sponsorship gone then damn yeah well I mean that wasn't a sponsorship that was going that was going to happen anyway um so I have turned into um American public radio because everybody in American public radio and therefore everybody that makes podcasts in America uses the Sony MDR 7506s um they're the only one in Sony's range in Sony's MDR7 range which Sony still make because literally they are the only podcast the only um uh headphones um that anybody buys in the US as far as I can work out who works in radio um and you get used to how they sound and you get used to how they feel and everything else and so uh that has been a good purchase so hurra for Sony um for still making these these uh things they first came out about 20 years ago apparently um so um so yes that's a good thing I've enjoyed that and I'm I'm very near to launching a brand new website Sam gosh because obviously I do I do uh enough websites but I'm very uh close to launching a brand new one except it's not a brand new one really but I am the new um I am the new curator of it um so uh do you remember that uh blueberry actually owned its own news website for podcasts and it was called podcasternews.com um and it was really interesting actually you can go all the way back on podcaster news to to 2014 um which is a significant time ago um and you can see that there are stories in there about Spotify launching podcasts and you can see that there are you know stories in there about um you know about uh different companies um uh buying different things and obviously you know Spotify buying megaphone and all of that kind of uh stuff so it's some really nice archive material from a very different world in terms of podcasting to what we've got now um so uh when I was at Podfest I sat down with uh Barry Kranz who's uh Blueberry's acting CEO and I said I want to make sure that podcastnews.com doesn't go away and I think that um it would be really nice if we could archive that and make that into a website that sits there that is very clear that it's an archive website that sits there that pushes people towards blueberry if they want hosting pushes people towards pod news if they want brand new news um but is a big list of all of the news that is in that particular uh site and um very nicely he has said yes so um so that's what I've been doing all week is I've been trying to um pull all of the WordPress stuff into um uh into uh Hugo which is what I'm going to use to make it static and simple and straightforward and then I can upload it and forget about it. Um but that should be really cool. So I'm licensing that uh for a while from the good folks at um Blueberry and that should be a a lovely thing I think uh and so um you know I'm thrilled that um that uh the team over there I mean Dave Jackson wrote for it Mike Dell wrote for it you know loads of people there's a brilliant article from Todd actually um only a couple of years ago uh basically this long angry article about why you shouldn't trust spotify and it goes into all kinds of all kinds of rants and raves about spotify and you know how dreadful they are and blah blah blah and it's uh I mean it's classic Todd uh so uh yeah it's a good thing to excellent yeah okay read that time looking forward to getting that uh live and up probably in the next week or so um uh by w by which time I'll be able to actually talk about it a little bit more but still there we are.

Sam Sethi 2:09:07

Good um and that's it for this podcast um you can uh of course find more information uh uh about all of the podcast stories uh in the Pod News daily newsletter at podnews.net uh you can support this show by streaming sites just don't leave Brian on his own anyone else can join in uh you can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail link in our show notes and you can send us a boost or a super comment or become even better a power supporter like the 23 power supporters at weekly dotnews.net Yes our music is from TM Studios our voiceover Sheila D.

James Cridland 2:09:41

Our audio is recorded using Clean Feed we edit with Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout.

Announcer 2:09:46

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. Keep listening