Announcer 0:00

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

James Cridland 0:09

I'm James Cridlin, the editor of Pod News. And I'm Sam Sethe, the CEO of Truthand.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

The way I think about it is like, well, we've we've doubled our offering.

James Cridland 0:18

Brent Myers reveals a rejuvenated investigative podcast. Plus, I feel like I've got a helpful tool and I feel like I can help support growth of podcasts even my name. Wade Kingsley on helping independent podcasters reach their potential. And Apple Podcasts HMS video gets more new partners as it nears launch. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout with a tool support and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzprout.com.

Apple Podcasts video - new partners

Announcer 0:48

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi 0:52

James, James, James. Apple. It's the story that keeps on giving. Isn't it just it is? I mean, I wonder what next week's will be. Apple have extended their proprietary video API access to more hosts. That's the story I would want to write. Obviously, that's not the story that everyone wants to read. But who have they extended the hosting to? Let's start there first.

James Cridland 1:15

Yes, so if you remember, um uh you need a API access in order to publish um new fancy HLS video to Apple Podcasts. ACast, Omni Studio, Art19, and Simplecast have already got that. And Apple announced um at Podcast Movement Evolutions that Transistor, Audio Means, Podbean, Captivate, RSS.com, and Podigy have all joined. Uh, so we've got um pretty well, well, pretty well most of the big uh podcast hosts are now signed up with Apple Podcasts Video, which is nice.

Sam Sethi 1:54

Very nice, yes. Um will they be front and centre, do you think, at the London Podcast Show? Just a quick thought.

James Cridland 2:00

Uh I mean, I'm sure that uh if there is anything to say, I'm sure that they will be speaking at the podcast show in London. I mean, they spoke at the podcast show obviously this time last year as well. Uh so um, you know, I'm uh you know, they're very keen, obviously, in talking about this new HLS video thing, quite apart from anything else, because they earn money um from any ad which is shown within a video feed. So of course they want as many people to sign up to that as possible.

Sam Sethi 2:27

Now, you talked about who is joining the Apple um bandwagon, but Spotify's not on there. Megaphone, a spree car, but is Buzzsprout on there?

James Cridland 2:38

Well, uh so Buzz Sprout, which is our sponsor, they have confirmed to Pod News that they will be supporting HLS Video, uh, which is uh good news. Um, I mean, I think that they've been uh, you know, keen to produce whatever their all their users want, and I think that that's um clearly one of the things that their users want in there. Um so that leaves a couple of different companies who aren't signed up to it uh yet, aren't officially signed up. Libsin is one of those, and obviously um Spotify for creators and megaphone um are also um another one of those. Now, I would imagine that both of those will be joining. Um I I can't see any particular reason why they uh shouldn't. Spreaker, of course, is is the third which hasn't signed up, but Spreaker is owned by the same company as Omni Studio. So basically, if you're on Spreaker and you want HLS video, well, here's the upgrade. Um as with all of these, I think that uh there is an upgrade um that you will have to pay for all of these because um hosting video is very much more expensive than just hosting audio. So I think um what's next that is gonna be interesting is to actually see how much people are going to be charging for this and what the business model is going to be from every single company out there, because clearly that's gonna be um that's gonna be an interesting thing.

Sam Sethi 4:03

Has any pricing been announced by any host yet about this Apple video inclusion?

James Cridland 4:10

Not so far as I'm aware. Now I was um talking to um somebody who was um uh chatting with one of the uh podcast hosting companies around the costs to them, because clearly there's additional costs to uh serving HLS video because HLS video is complicated. It uses additional bandwidth, it uses additional storage, but most of all it uses many, many, many times additional requests, and the requests are what are charged for by some of the content delivery networks, and they are saying that easily it'll cost seven times as much to serve video as it will to serve audio. So if it's costing the podcast hosting companies that much, plus, of course, then you've got the Apple tax on top of that, then it's going to be interesting to find out well, what what are people going to be charging? And you can guess that many of these different podcast hosting companies are going to be charging in different ways. Um, clearly, we know that Captivate charges per download. So will Captivate be charging per video stream? You can uh probably guess that that's probably gonna be the case. Um, are other people like Libsin or BuzzSprout um going to be um just um putting an additional price? You know, it's an additional$20 or whatever that might be. We don't know yet. But um I I I'm gonna be, you know, watching that sort of thing like a hawk. It's gonna be probably launched in uh early April. We think that there's some clues there in terms of some of the other things that Apple have done. So clearly, quite a lot of people are gonna have to speed up quite fast in order to get this stuff launched.

Sam Sethi 5:54

One last question I will add, and I don't have an answer to it, goes back to the business model. Let's say£20 is the uh additional cost for video hosting. What will be the break-even point in your video um watching that will determine whether you are successfully gonna get your money back?

James Cridland 6:14

Well, and and you should also add, of course, that making video is uh very much more expensive than making audio because you've got to fiddle around with um uh video editors and all of that, and it adds an awful lot more additional time, blah, blah, blah. And then if you're gonna do it properly, then you need a set, you need equipment, you need uh cameras, you need all of this kind of stuff. So all of a sudden you're turning something that was quite easy and simple, an audio podcast, into something that is complicated and expensive just in terms of production, and now you're adding more costs in terms of hosting as well. So, yeah, I mean, who knows what the break-even is here? But you can, I think, probably see that we are moving into a world where there are tons of video podcasts out there doing very well in terms of their numbers, but there are also tons of video podcasts out there that are going to hemorrhage money because they're not getting enough people watching them, and so therefore they're going to be thinking, okay, well, maybe now's the time to um turn audio only, and maybe audio only is a thing that we will see a little bit more in the future.

Sam Sethi 7:29

Well, we've seen it already with Spotify, with a lot of people who moved over to Spotify video not getting the return they wanted and being thrown out of the Spotify spam programme, their advertising, and then going back because they've said, no, no, we're not getting this, we're going back. So again, time will tell.

Truefans launches video hosting

James Cridland 7:48

Yeah. Yeah, I think time will tell. And I think particularly, you know, Spotify span is uh, I mean, the there's a if I could get anybody to talk about the revenue that they're earning from span, um, then my suspicion would be it's lower and lower and lower every single month. Um all of the uh talk and gossip that I hear is that Span is having a really bad time of it. You can see that from Spotify's um financial results that they uh share every every so often. Um and uh I'm I'm not sure that uh span by itself has much of a long-term future in the Spotify um uh system. It is just that, you know, clearly nobody wants to be on the record saying our money from span has gone down by 20%, 50%, whatever it might be over the last year. Um, but I think that there's probably more than meets the eye here in terms of that, then more there's more than meets the eye in terms of what Spotify is currently doing. Um, and I will keep on uh digging. But of course, if you're listening to this and you're going, I know exactly what you're talking about, James, uh, then please drop me an email. Um I I will keep your name out of it if I have to. Um, but editor at podnews.net uh is where to go. Um, but uh yeah, there is definitely conversations going on at the moment around uh what is going on over there. Now, speaking about video, obviously we've been um uh talking about uh Apple Podcast HLS, uh, which is uh one thing, but um how's about um TrueFans then and your video stuff, Mr. Sethy?

[Ad] Financial Matters with Richard Oring

Sam Sethi 9:33

Uh well yes, I have officially sent you an exclusive uh press release, so that means it's official. Doesn't get official until James don't write about it. Yes, we've launched our video our streaming video hosting service. Um we've launched it this week and we've been testing it for the last uh three, four weeks, and uh we're very happy. The way it works is very simple. You upload an MP4 as normal, nothing changes, you put that in the primary enclosure. Um we will then deliver that in 10-second packets, similar to the way that HLS does it. Um that will work on all podcast apps that support video playback.

James Cridland 10:48

Very nice. Um, and so that's MP4 video. So, but that'll work um flawlessly in Apple Podcasts come um iOS 26.4 anyway. Uh so that is all good.

Sam Sethi 11:01

That should work now, actually, James, because they still support MP4 video.

James Cridland 11:06

Yeah, they do, but it's um it's not great support at the moment. If you start playing the MP4 video, it's it's like a tiny little post a postage stamp of a video, and yes, um, it's not obvious, whereas it will be much more obvious come uh iOS 26.4. So that's really good news. Um uh an interesting line in that press release videos watched on TrueFans will not be charged. Correct. So i if you're on the TrueFans app itself, uh then you then people won't be charged for those, which I think is very is very interesting. People being the podcast creators, right?

Sam Sethi 11:45

The podcast creators, correct. So you're because we charge on a streaming basis, so we know how much you stream to end users. Uh-huh. Um, we've said that yeah, if you with our audio hosting, this is exactly the same. If you have users listening on true fans, we don't charge you. Uh now with video, if you have users listen or watching on true fans, we won't charge you either.

James Cridland 12:08

Very nice. And in terms of the price point, how does the pricing work?

Sam Sethi 12:12

So we set a a bar of$30 per month. Um that gives you one terabyte of streaming data. Um if you So what's that then? What's one terabyte?

James Cridland 12:23

Yeah, I mean I mean in terms of uh is that is that uh if if I've got a a video podcast, you know, 30 minutes long, how how how much am I going to get for my one terabyte?

Sam Sethi 12:33

So uh on average a 30-minute podcast, let's say at 720, is probably gonna be about 800 meg. That's roughly what we've got. So if you have um a hundred people stream that, what would that be? Um my mouth my mouth has suddenly died.

James Cridland 12:55

Yes, that would be 80 uh gig, wouldn't it, if we had a hundred? And it's a thousand, a thousand gig.

Sam Sethi 13:01

So um so yeah, so we think we've given you enough um bandwidth in order to um you know use it. I mean it's mainly aimed at the independent podcast creators, it's not aimed at Joe Rogan. Um but if you go beyond that, then we will increase you into the next tier if you want to, and then we sell packages of one terabyte that you can buy as well as add-ons. So again, it will expand. Um and as I said, the critical part is if you don't use that one terabyte and we look at the pro-routed amount you have used, we then refund that back into your wallet for use for the next month.

James Cridland 13:37

Right, which is uh a nice plan. Um, and in terms of the video itself, is it up to the podcaster to encode that? Because obviously there's MP4 video and there's mp4 video, and you can encode it in a very uh expensive way and make it a very large um uh file, or you can encode it in a uh nicely economical way into a rather smaller file. Is it up to the podcaster to work that bit out?

Sam Sethi 14:05

It is, yeah. We will we allow you to upload 4K, 720, 320. Um, it's your choice. What you upload is what we download, uh, or what we stream. Sorry, we shouldn't say the word. Don't get that word out of my mouth. Um, yes. Sorry. Um and later this month we will be launching our live streaming service as well. So, yes, that's the next thing to come.

James Cridland 14:27

Very nice too. Excellent. Well, uh uh so um uh at least we know one person's uh cost there for uh video hosting, uh$30 a month for a terabyte of streaming data, uh, which is roughly, by the sounds of that, uh roughly a thousand views of a 30-second of a 30-minute show. Yeah. Um so a thousand views, um uh 30 uh$30 uh uh cost per thousand, essentially, isn't it? So um yeah, so it's it's gonna be interesting to see well, how will how will Bloodsprout charge, how will um uh ACAS charge, uh, etc. etc. And and I think this is the nice thing, by the way, in that Apple Podcasts um uh allows you to use MP4. So you are not locked out of video. Um you're locked out of the of the nice HLS video, but you're lot you're not locked out of video entirely if you're an independent podcaster using an independent podcast host. You still have access to video, it's just an MP4 file instead.

Sam Sethi 15:34

Uh well the other part that we also do, which you hinted at earlier, is we support the alternative enclosure. So you can add your HLS video into there. So if you upload your video into TrueFans in the alternative enclosure, you can set it to be HLS, and then we do all the work for you to encode that into multiple formats for you.

Interview: Brett Myers, Reveal

James Cridland 15:57

Now, one of the things that I was considering doing was producing a, and I already produce a special RSS feed for Apple Podcasts. Um, and what I could do is I could produce a special RSS feed for Apple Podcasts that is in video, and everybody else gets the audio version, but in video um uh Apple Podcasts just automatically gets an MP4 version instead. Um so I could be doing that, and that could just happen automatically rather than having two separate things uh appear in a in a uh RSS feed and nobody really really ends up wanting that. Um so maybe that's a maybe that's a plan as well. I don't know.

Sam Sethi 16:40

Moving on, James, then. Um in 2023, the weekly investigative show Reveal was close to shutting down. But what's happened since, James?

James Cridland 16:49

Yeah, this is a really interesting story. So Reveal is a podcast which has done really quite nicely. It's 11 years old, it's on uh NPR radio stations across the US as well as being a podcast, and um, but it was pretty well gonna be shutting down in 2023. But all of a sudden it merged in February 2024 with a company called Mother Jones, uh, which has um editorial teams of its own, obviously financial resources and stuff like that. Um, and so there was an opportunity to breathe a bit of new life into Reveal. I'm always really interested in investigative podcasts, podcasts that do proper reporting rather than just chat casts. So I spoke with Reveal's executive producer, Brett Myers, on the challenges that the podcast faced and what it's doing differently.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

My name is Brett Myers, and I'm uh executive producer of a radio show, a broadcast radio show, and a podcast called Reveal.

James Cridland 17:51

And what is Reveal for those of us who haven't heard it?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Yeah, it's a weekly investigative show. It's an hour long. The aim of the show is to reveal truths previously unknown, to go deeper than you know, any other outlet is able to do on a topic that is sort of under-reported, uh, and to bring accountability and you know, improve the world, to be honest. Like we we aim to create impact. And so like we aim to change laws uh to to bring you know to bring scrutiny to issues that need it. Uh and so, you know, it's an ambitious mandate, but that that's that's that's who we are.

James Cridland 18:35

So Reveal, which is on more than 460 NPR stations around the country, you your parents organization um merged in February 2024 with Mother Jones. What what did that mean for you? And what did that mean for the show?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

I mean, it was like a rebirth in a way. The show has always been a part of an organization called the Center for Investigative Reporting. It's one of the oldest investigative reporting news organizations in the country. Uh, has been around for longer than I've been alive. In 2022, the organization hit, you know, financial challenges. And for a year and a half, we were living in uh in a really sort of stressful, not sure if we're gonna be here in three months, uh, in six months, in a year, kind of an environment. And um, it it forced the team to make a lot happen um with limited resources in a really stressful environment. And um, in that time, a lot of people work very hard to put this merger together, which uh, you know, is that kind of timeline is it usually takes much longer to make a merger like that happen. You know, I think it's anytime an organization, this is my first merger, so I you know I can't speak with authority here. Um, but I I I've gathered that anytime this happens, there is a bit of a leap of faith, faith quality um to a merger. Um it's a marriage, you know, you put you put your socks in which drawer and and you sleep on which side of the bed, and there's so much to figure out. Um and um, you know, and I think the accelerated nature of it just led to like even more questions of like, will this work? And um, it's worked really beautifully. By the time the merger happened, um our newsroom was pretty lean. We had gone through two rounds of layoffs, we had lost a lot of really talented reporters and editors, and you know, we merged into a newsroom that's full of incredibly talented reporters and editors. So there's there's there's just a wealth of stories that that we can uh bring onto the show, tell on the show, explore on the show. That's one, two incredibly savvy business operation, um, which after having gone through what we've gone through, like great. Um three, um respect for what we do. Like they uh mother jones wouldn't have merged with um CIR if they didn't really believe in reveal. Uh and they saw reveal for like all of the value that it was bringing. And they also so they brought this sort of like tremendous respect. My colleagues brought this tremendous respect for the product and what we do, but they also um pushed us to see it in new ways. And part of how they pushed us was the launch of more to the story.

James Cridland 21:38

Yeah, I I I because I was going to ask about how they how they pushed you and what what was changed. Obviously, um moving in with Mother Jones, you get more financial certainty, which is very helpful to you, but you mentioned that much larger newsroom and that much larger editorial team, and um from what I uh can understand the you both looked at what reveal was and you saw that there was opportunities to change um parts of the show and to um uh and to do various things. What did you do to the reveal um show, to the podcast, to the radio show? Um what were the changes that Mother Jones helped you make?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

One year ago March 5th, 2025, we launched a separate podcast within our feed called More to the Story. It's an interview-based podcast. Al Letson interviewing a thinker, a politician, an academic, a newsmaker, sort of about the biggest issues of the day. It's much more topical than Reveal had historically been. And Al is front and center. Al's an incredible interviewer. Our list, like if there's one thing we know, if there's one like thing I know about our audience from all of the audience surveys we've done in the eight years I've been here, it's that our listeners love Al. And so creating a space where he can really be front and center more has been just really good for our listeners, really good for our downloads, really good for the brand. So that's one. Two is that we have uh the reveal one hour long investigative show that drops every Saturday. Um and and we've changed that too. And I would say that some of those changes were like really long in the making. Things that as a team we've been talking about for as long as I've been here. And some of them are changes that we had never really gotten around to doing. You know, inertia's a lot of it, to be honest. Um, and you know, uh this was kind of kind of a clean reset. I came into leadership uh during this time as well. Um, and then part of the part of the opportunity for change is that the market is changing. You know, like we've seen uh we've seen public radio and broadcasting change so much over the last few years. If you look at COVID and like people not driving as much. Um and uh the you know, just last summer, Congress in the US, you know, stripped back funding um for public broadcasting. And so there are just tremendous changes throughout the industry. And so some of some of the changes we made at the show are really trying to meet our stations as best as possible and serve them as best as possible.

James Cridland 24:32

And so I was just going to ask, actually, in terms of um some of the changes um uh of just the way that we consume uh news, there's an awful lot of bad news out there and uh an awful lot of heavy news out there. And certainly an investigative podcast doesn't necessarily lend itself um to some of the more lighter things as well. Is that something that you have been aware of and something that you've tried to change in how the show goes?

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah, 100%. This is like this is a number one for us. It's it's our biggest challenge. Uh where you, you know, our mandate is what I said it was. It's it's big and serious. And oftentimes that means we're looking at big, serious, and sometimes depressing topics. Um, and it can make the show kind of a hard listen, a heavy listen. And we all knew that. Everyone who makes the show week in and week out, we knew that this, we've known for a long time that this is a challenge for for the show. And so we've made really meaningful strides. Uh uh the what we what we refer to it internally is tone, um, to to really sort of balance our tone, to make it as like listenable a show as possible without losing the fingerprint of what we're really about. And so an example, last summer we did a story about a chain of hospitals. Um, it's been buying up, there's this chain that's been buying up hospitals around the country, stripping them for parts, and then uh and then often these these hospitals uh go bankrupt. They're sitting there shells in the community, once the biggest employers in these communities. Uh, and now uh the residents have to look elsewhere for health care, the jobs are gone. And so we did this big deep dive investigation uh about this very serious topic that touches every state in the country. Um and that's like that took us for you know very long to do. That's a year-long investigation. Um and so we're still doing that. That's like that's elemental to who we are, but we're also tweaking the knobs to try and make the show, the balance of the show on a week-to-week basis more listenable. So sometimes that means um not doing one topic across a whole hour. Sometimes that means like in like creating as much lightness, as many opportunities for laughs as possible. Um, and sometimes it means doing a show that's just a departure from the like serious heavy.

James Cridland 27:14

And certainly more to the story helps with that as well, you would guess. Um, I mean, I think quite a lot of this comes down to how a story is covered and how uh constructive that conversation is. Uh, it's one thing to talk about loads of people losing jobs and hospitals closing, but actually things happen after that that are good, where you can see the green shoots of of regeneration growing again. And so focusing on that part as well, I guess, is the thing. I remember going to a big radio conference, what, five, six years ago, and everybody was talking about constructive journalism and talking about um, you know, the the the whole idea of how you frame a particular story. Is that is that something that you've that you have um been uh talking to as well?

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yeah, yeah. In the US, I think the word that gets thrown around a lot is solutions-based journalism, is uh and it's the same thing. Um, and um that that is certainly one of the ways we're playing with tone is like when there are legitimate, viable solutions that are being explored, creating room in an hour to talk about those is definitely part of something, uh part of what we're doing.

James Cridland 28:32

So what happens now? If you've you've been changing the tone of the show, you've added more to the story, you've been looking at wider varieties of stories as well. And of course, you've got a much larger newsroom to work with as well. What has that done to your download numbers? What has that done to your revenues?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Our revenue model is we're not like a show that exists from ad sales. You know, the ad sales don't do not pay all of our bills, and that's not what that's not that isn't our revenue model at all. In fact, our revenue model is um to provide the best possible content we can. Um, some amount of listeners will donate to our to our nonprofit as a result, and foundations will also um donate. So uh like has our revenue changed? Not really. Uh some we're we have we have way more real estate on our podcast to sell ads now because we've doubled the amount of offering. So yeah, we're doing better that way. But um, that wasn't the real goal. The the goal is um to you know to to basically serve our listeners better. Um, and um in terms of that, I think that the metrics bear out that like success, um, like mission mission accomplished in some ways. Uh so our downloads are up nearly 70% since the launch of Lord of the Story. Um so and the way I think about it is like uh well we've we've doubled our offerings. We're we're offering, you know, two podcasts when we used to offer one a week. Um so it makes sense that that downloads are up. But on the other hand, uh when you subscribe to a podcast, it's a compact, it's a it's it's a promise. Uh when I subscribe, I I I'm saying, you're I know what you are, you're this podcast, and you're going to give me this thing as often as like I think you're gonna give it, whether it's like every month, every week, three times a week, whatever it is. And when somebody tweaks that formula and they start giving me something else, I have to reassess the relationship and decide, is this still a thing? Is this the thing I signed up for? If not, is this the thing that I really want in like coming onto my phone? Um, and uh so I think that like 70% boost in download shows that you know, this isn't exactly what our listener signed up for. Our listeners signed up for a one-hour investigative show, and we're adding on this new product, and they're they're liking it, they're responding.

James Cridland 31:16

Well, it w which is kind of all all that uh all that matters, isn't it? Uh is whether or not people are actually are actually getting it more and you know, and and enjoying that more. You've been through this whole experience now of um of rethinking how a show works, um, tinkering with it, um working with it to uh to improve it. What would you say to other podcast creators who've been doing a show for a while um about the idea of thinking again about what that show is?

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah. Um, I mean, I think for us it really helped to have new ears weighing in on what what it is we do what we what it is we do and make. Um like more of the our our Mrother Jones partnership really helped us sort of reassess who we are and who we want to be. Um like I think a way I describe it is like you it's not a total reinvention, right? You you need to you need to still be the thing that you believe in, the thing that your listeners uh signed up for and believe in. And so how do you reinvent while also holding on to those those aspects that are elemental to who you are? So I do think some amount of um fresh ears outside um advice is always useful. Um and then I think that also like when you're making a thing as a career, week in and week out, um, you know the things that sort of feel routine, like okay, I'm I'm I'm doing this based on muscle memory. Um and I think that's that's a really good indicator of like of a of a space that like is maybe ripe for reinvention. Like if you're turning to muscle memory too often, um then it it it it's probably a place where you could uh iterate and and reinvent a little bit to and it's gonna be more interesting for you too as a maker.

James Cridland 33:21

Reveal is a co-production of the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. Um Brett, where would uh people go to learn more about you and your work?

Substack launch remote recording

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Yeah, thank you. We're at revealnews.org. Um, but even more simply, you can follow and subscribe on all the major platforms Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.

James Cridland 33:43

And you should also uh hunt it out on your local MPR station and find out if it's there as well and support them too. Uh Brett, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

James, thank you so much. I really appreciate it too.

Announcer 33:56

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

Sam Sethi 34:04

James, now one of the platforms that I have been banging the job about is Substack. I've been watching them very closely since they went from being to the newsletter uh uh and then they've gotten to uh audio video and live. This week they've announced the new Substack recording studio, the remote recording tool, and automatically produces auto-generated tools. And from the outfit, you can also add your logos to the output. It looks very small. Now, we heard from Jalen Buffett uh at Adobe last week talking about the web uh remote recording tool. It seems like everyone's building one now.

James Cridland 34:45

It does, doesn't it? It does seem as if everybody has got the remote recording tool uh code off Claude or whatever it is. Uh but yeah, so Scott Galloway has moved his podcast network to uh Substack. Um Katie Law, um uh friend of the show, uh, she has been using uh Substack Live uh to interview her fellow Canadian Justin Jackson. So some really interesting things going on at uh at Substack if you um uh if you want to take a peek in terms of that. Some really interesting things going on at Substack. Uh the co-founder and CTO, uh I noticed, Sam, uh, is uh clearly your brother because he's called Jairaj Sethi. Yes. Um brother or cousin or or or related.

Sam Sethi 35:35

The whole continent related. We're all related. You should uh you should get him on as a guest. I reached out and hopefully he will guess. I'd love to talk to him about it because I think what they're doing is when they start creator portals that go beyond what's possible on YouTube offer first. And I think when you start seeing a lot of stuff, we're gonna start many other stuff. Um begin to aggregate all of that content one round around the brand in one place. I think that's where I see 2020 feature of podcasting for not um content in Apple Spotify YouTube and spreading all over the place. Yeah, I think you need to add to on your own.com.

James Cridland 36:21

Yes, but you you also need to be on all of those platforms as well. Um for discovery.

Sam Sethi 36:28

I think they could for discovery.

James Cridland 36:30

Of course, but you're not gonna take your podcast out of Apple or out of YouTube.

A Netflix show moves to YouTUbe

Interview: Wade Kingsley, Podtential

Sam Sethi 36:34

No, and I think the way that if you look at the way you look at what they do using StopStack is they actually bring the content from the template. Um if you look at my sound uh com you'll see the all the YouTube videos coming in, that the blogs coming in, that the audio coming in, that the live events um what studios doing. What they've always done before is provided the live capability. Um and now they can provide a um you know recording non-live capability as well. So you don't have to um produce always live, which has been the problem up until now.

James Cridland 37:23

Yeah, yeah. No, indeed. Indeed. Well, interesting to keep an eye out. They've been hosting podcasts for a while, although a very uh bare bones effort, but nevertheless, um Substack clearly appears to be having a bit of a moment, so always keen to take a look at what they're doing.

Sam Sethi 37:41

Now, zipping over to your part of the world, in Australia, a new growth platform for independent podcasters was launched, James. Who is this?

James Cridland 37:49

Yeah, it's a company called Pod Tential. Uh, the company is built around a proprietary diagnostic tool, which sounds very grand, which is used to deliver personalized coaching to help creators reach their goals. I thought this was interesting, particularly since it's aimed at independent podcasters. So I spoke to the founder.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

I'd tell you what I do from today, James, which I'm quite excited about, is I am now someone who helps independent podcasters reach their potential. Um, I don't think I've got a fancy title like yours, like podcasteologist or anything like that. But uh I have started a business called Potential, um, A, because I love a pun. But B, I think it sort of sums up exactly what I really want to help independent podcasters do. And the journey around this is that I I actually found it really strange entering the world of independent podcasting because I felt like it was a bit of a lonely ride. You know, there's lots of good resources out there, plenty of good resources, but the companionship, the collaboration sort of now seems to have moved fairly, fairly into the platform space. And I was having a chat to a mate who's at one of the platforms, and I said, if I just was going to rock up and I had a podcast and I wanted it to be acquired by your platform, what do you need from me? And straight out the bat he said 150,000 downloads. I'm like, oh, how do I do that without your help? So the idea for potential came about because I felt like early days of podcasting, the publishers were really leaning in on the help. And obviously, as that's matured and now they're dealing with bigger situations. I just felt like independent podcasters could use a bit more help.

James Cridland 39:26

Yeah, and you're doing a lot of different things. One of the things you're doing is pro. And what pro is, if I've understood it right, is it's evaluating podcasts who you're working with across 100 individual data points. You're going to say data points, aren't you? Um spanning, spanning uh areas from ambition, concepts, audience, and community, content, marketing and commercialization strategy. What what sort of things are you measuring? And and is this opinion, is this what Wade thinks, or is this data?

SPEAKER_02 39:59

No, this is data. Um, and I think the reason why I wanted to create Pro, which stands for podcast review and optimization. I told you I love a pun. Um, is I felt like that there were signals that could be collected and analyzed that could help determine whether a podcast could grow. So we all know there's no magic formula, because if there was a magic way to create a successful podcast, everyone would just do that. Um, what I thought was normally what happens in the podcasting space is if you've got an independent podcast or you've got an idea for one, you go to one of the traditional routes. You might do a course online, you might go to one of the pod schools or anything like that. And there's plenty of those around, which are great. But what are you being trained on or what are you developing or how are you growing? And for some people, they might have a great concept, but don't have an addressable audience that they can monetize. Um, some people might have good chemistry as a team, but aren't really good at earned media and marketing. So I thought I'm gonna take a step back and I'm gonna go looking for, and in my head, I was thinking maybe there's 20, maybe there's 50. I ended up with 100 because there's just so many data points I thought would be useful. And all of the data points pretty much measure anyone with an existing podcast. So I'm thinking you've got, you know, 10, 20, 30, 50 episodes, something like that. And you feel like you've got something, like you know you're onto something, but you don't know how to grow. And the reason I picked those sort of six areas across ambition, concept, audience and community, content, marketing, and commercialization is when I went researching successful podcasts, these are the themes that kept coming up and over and over again. So I guess the hypothesis, um, the subject subjectivity does come from how I've compiled it, but the data itself or the data um is something that you can literally upload an episode, we spit out a report, and of those 100 areas we go, we think you've got 65 going really well, but here are the next 20 you should focus on. And then what that does is it helps enable the education component because the analysis by pro is the starting point. Um, we give you the help you with the education, like how to how to get better in those areas. And then we want you to grow then go. We don't want to acquire you. We're not a platform, we're not gonna say your podcast belongs to us. We're a uh strategically um a support service for independent podcasters that sits in that mid-tier space. And when you've improved, you've you've gone through the program and you can see that you've grown, then hopefully it puts you in a better position to do what you want, which for some people is pay my way. You know, I I need to, it's a side hustle that's turned into a job. I need to get some money from it. For some people, it's I want to be the next hey machine handy and I want to be acquired. So, whatever your goal is, our aim is to help you grow towards that.

James Cridland 42:39

And there are quite a lot of people that frankly would just like to be able to afford a really nice meal uh every month. Um I mean, that that that's perfectly acceptable or or pay off the car, you know?

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Um Well, and that's why we start with ambition, because uh one of the things I found, we probably did about six months worth of research. One of the things I found was the amount of podcasts that don't start with a goal, I reckon is a little bit scary. Um, I'll give you an example with my quarter-hour podcast, which I just started with radio. Um, my ambition with that is not to be the biggest radio podcast in the world. It's said to have the most engaged and addressable audience. So I don't mind if there's smaller a number than downloads than other radio podcasts. What I do want is to cultivate the core listeners, the P1s, I call them, cultivate that community so they spend more time with me. So then when I'm selling that to a sponsor, I can say, look at the engagement of this addressable audience, which is people who work in radio. It's not everyone, it's this specific audience. Um, and so, you know, in in putting this to the test, um, the pro system of actually learning things myself. And that's what pro's about. I'm I don't have all the answers. I'm not saying I'm the podcasting expert. I'm saying I feel like I've got a helpful tool and I feel like I can help support growth of podcasts, even my own.

James Cridland 43:52

And there's a lot of coaching out there, which is coaching about the technology of podcasting, which is coaching about, you know, how to upload an MP3 and um minus 16 lufs and you know, all of this kind of stuff, which is great. But then there's all of the other uh training, there's all of the other understanding of working, you know, your your background is radio. Um, and so I'm I'm guessing all of that stuff in terms of chemistry, in terms of interview technique, in terms of all of that, is part of this as well, right? It is, it is.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

And and I'm going to be cultivating a community of educators as well. So think of me as the marketplace. I've got a demand side of podcasters coming in, a supply side of people who have actually got the tools to be able to sell and help people. And my aim is to say what based on the pro report, we think, for example, sound design is a really important missing piece of what you've got. Pro tells us that the next step is what you can do about that. That's where we introduce people who do really good sound design, who can provide not only the education as part of the program, but could provide ongoing services to them.

James Cridland 44:59

So this is the service providers that you've been working on, the partner network that you've been working on there. So actually, people who you've worked with, people who you would recommend for certain things.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Yeah, that's right. And and you know, part of being in the partner program for potential comes, I guess, with the stamp of approval, if you like. Um, there are plenty of people out there, and and you're one of them, James, who does really good consulting space in and around podcasting strategy setup, but you're also very good technically and other things as well. But there are some disciplines that don't get a lot of air time. And I'll give you an example. I think marketing is sort of not really anywhere near podcasters. If it is, independent podcasters can't really afford marketing, right? Now, there are great marketing agencies, and and we know that um our friend Matt in the UK is one of those. He does a great job with his business. But most people, that's a bit of a stretch. And when you think of marketing, again, most independent podcasters don't have a paid media budget. They don't even know where to start with that because they're trying to be themselves, right? But there are things that they can learn. Um, there's a great book called Um Hooked by Nia EL, which is about um getting people uh habitually addicted to your products. No surprise, it's based on social media and the and the tricks they play to get us hooked. But there's something in there that is actually one of our data points. So when we look at the marketing component, one of the 100 data points asks the question is there an external trigger? Now, external trigger is is there something that's happening in the world that would make people think of coming to your podcast? There's a news event that's going to drive downloads. But an external trigger can be anything, it's just something that doesn't rely on your content alone dragging people in in the same way that like sport does. You know, AFL podcasts do really well on a Monday because people want to get the analysis and downloads. So the external trigger is the sport itself. Um, but podcasts who are two guys sitting around talking about life not necessarily have an external trigger, and that just helps people focus on what their marketing could look like and more importantly, what their content could look like to drive more usage.

James Cridland 46:58

That's really interesting. And so a lot of that comes down to marketing, you know, again, but a lot a lot of that I'm guessing also comes down to things like, you know, search engine optimization, particularly in terms of where you appear in Apple Podcasts, where you appear in Spotify and all of that.

SPEAKER_02 47:12

Yeah, AI as well. I mean, and that's one of the things that, you know, one of the data points that's gone in is around AI searchability. And that sort of raises an interesting point too about the hundred data points, is they're not set and forget. They're not the same hundred data points that will be there in three, six months' time. Things will come in and out, just like an algorithm. We'll improve it and optimize it over time because we know that things change. Um, but also a show bolts out of nowhere. We want to study what makes it successful, so we can then use that to influence data points. So it is a fluid thing. You know, people who come into the program in April, they might have 100 data points. People come in in May might have 95 of the same, but we've swapped five in or out. Um, again, because we don't have all the answers, but it's about trying to say we think we can at least help you grow in the areas that you need to.

James Cridland 47:58

In terms of you, um uh Wade, you're coming at this from uh commercial radio. Yes. Uh you've worked for a bunch of the big um commercial radio companies, but you're uh talking to a bunch of other people as well. Yes. Here you are leaning into podcasting. Is that because radio's dead or is there something else at play here?

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Well, I I think it's no surprise to say that when I was looking at my own business strategy, um, and I've been employed as a radio consultant for the last sort of nearly 10 years, um I don't expect those jobs to be just sort of everywhere. So the origin of this when I was talking about podcasting and wanting to experiment myself and talking to the mate of the publisher who said, you know, you need to have all these downloads before you can talk to us. Um, the opportunity emerged and I started thinking about what contribution can I make. I'm not going to be the world's best podcasting expert, but if I can be the person that provides the marketplace, that's interesting. It's interesting because I want it to be something that it's an ecosystem that everyone can lean in on. Suppliers, publishers, podcasters, um, with the aim is that there's improvement afoot. And what I'm now doing pretty much as a full-time job from today onwards, is being the conductor of the orchestra, um, making sure that the program participants um feel validated and heard, have access to pro, make sure that the suppliers are coming in with great products and services and I'm spending time, you know, working through who those are. And every day is different, right? Every day is re-evaluating what makes podcasting successful. And I think if I can continue to be that support for independent podcasters, then that's a good reason to get out of bed every day. So I've totally dodged your question about is radio dead? I know that, but um, I feel like I'm going where the growth is. Why don't we say it like that?

James Cridland 49:39

No, I think that that's absolutely fair. And uh, I mean, kind of a a uh a connected question. Um, are you doing video? Is your idea of a podcast something with um three three cameras and lighting or it or everything else? Or are you really focusing on the audio side?

SPEAKER_02 49:55

Well, that's interesting because I'm not gonna sit here and say one's better than the other. Now, I think for certain formats it works, but that's a that's a me opinion thing. But there is a data point in pro which asks and looks at video. Because for some people, video doesn't mean actual video, it means making sure your podcast is easy to find on YouTube. Um, it's about saying, is it video friendly? Is it compatible to be video? Do you have a video that might be more animated-based, more quote-based, so people can watch something even if they're not watching you? So I'm agnostic on that question because I don't want to be influencing what everyone's ambition and and data point is, but certainly video works for some, it doesn't for others. Um, and the data points will help flush that out because it ties back to your ambition. Where do you want to go with this podcast? If you actually want to be famous, then video is probably going to be helpful. Uh, if you're actually talking to a smaller group of people and you just want to earn some money to keep it going and you can see where those people are and they're not fans of video, that could be a bit of wasted time and effort.

James Cridland 50:50

So, where do people go if they want to find out more?

School of Podcasting graduates

SPEAKER_02 50:52

Potential.com. As of today, the website is live and we're taking our first cohort in April. So it's not far away. Um, we've been busy behind the scenes with everything ready to go, and I'm gonna be talking about it a bit at Radio Days Europe next week. Uh, but yeah, from April it's And you've potential.com as well, haven't you? Yes, we've set up a little studio, the potential studio for anyone to come and use. It's a free service if you want to. So there'll be mics and ferns and everything you need for a podcast sitting there. So if anyone who was going to Radio Days Europe wants to use it, you absolutely can. It's gonna be uh in the centre there somewhere with lots of nice signs pointing to it. Very nice, Wade. Thank you so much.

Sam Sethi 51:27

James, so talking of uh companies doing personalized coaching, um, a very good friend of ours this show here is Dave Jackson. Um Dave Jackson's School of Podcasting looks like it's graduated. What's it done?

James Cridland 51:39

Oh, nice. Oh, I should have used that. I should have used that as the line. Uh yes, it has. It's uh it's uh now has a new owner, Podpage. Uh now Podpage are Dave's employer for um much of the week. And uh Dave's other employer has been his own school of podcasting, which launched in 2005. Uh Dave, if you don't know, um, is an educator. Um, he's a qualified, you know, education person, uh and he's really, really good at making complex things really, really simple. Um, and so Dave is really excellent at that sort of thing. Anyway, um that uh scenario has now finished because Podpage has acquired School of Podcasting, so now um Dave is working on that as part of his full-time job, which is a much better plan to come with that um acquisition. Uh, a free tier of education courses as well as access to one-on-one coaching with Dave and the team. There will be um more expert guest instructors as part of the School of Podcasting, and it's a pretty good thing, all in. Um, what I was particularly um pleased to see is that it's a cash deal, it's not a creative press release, it's a cash deal. So Dave gets some money, he also gets ongoing revenue share, so therefore, actually, he will do very nicely out of it as well. So very uh pleased and excited to see that for Dave. Very pleased and excited to see that for Brendan Mulligan, who runs Podpage as well, who, by the way, Brendan was on the Podcasting 2.0 podcast last week. Um, I I think that's really good news. So well done, everybody uh involved in that. Hurrah.

Sam Sethi 53:25

Hopefully it means Dave Jackson could come to the London podcast show now.

James Cridland 53:29

Let's see. Oh, yes, that would be good. Has he not been before?

Australia data

Sam Sethi 53:34

No, he's talked about it, but you know, the cost is quite high, and maybe, you know, fingers crossed, it'd be lovely to see him.

James Cridland 53:40

Well, let's hope he makes it over, because that would be excellent, wouldn't it? I know that there are lots of other people uh coming over. It sounds as if uh we don't want to spoil anything, but it sounds as if Buzzsprout are coming over as well. At least some of the team of Buzzsprout are coming over. Um, they are our sponsor, of course, so we should see if we can do something. That would be uh quite fun. Um but yeah, really looking forward to the podcast show in London. That's the next big thing, which is in uh the middle of May in London Town.

Sam Sethi 54:10

Before we get to London Town, let's whiz back to your part of the world, James. The ACMA, the Australian Media Regulator, has released new data on viewing and listening in your country, James. What have they said?

James Cridland 54:22

That's right, mate. Yes, it's called the ACMA. The ACMA. Um so uh yes, there is some detail about uh podcasting in there. Um, it's done some research. Um now the research says that Spotify has 59% of podcast listeners using it. 59%. YouTube Music is number two, and weirdly, Apple Music is at number three with 13%. So 13% of Australians have told the ACMA that they're using Apple Music to listen to podcasts, which is impressive because Apple Music doesn't have any podcasts in it. I have asked the regulator, please could you um uh show me what the uh the respondents were allowed to tick, you know, was this a problem in your report or was this a problem in the questions being asked? And of course, the regulator, who I pay for, has not bothered replying. So um, so who knows? Anyway, they also say that the number of Australians listen to podcasts every week has remained steady at 52%. If that's a weekly figure of 52%, that means that podcasts are bigger in this country than they are in the US, although the Infinite Dial works things out differently, and dare I say it, a little bit more, a little bit better. So, but it's a good um, it's a good uh otherwise, it's a good piece of uh data. It's um it's uh worth a read. It's also, by the way, got revenue numbers in terms of podcasting, in terms of radio, in terms of TV. Blimey, the TV uh revenue figures are not good looking. Um, the amount of money that is hemorrhaging out of TV right now is is is astonishing. Uh so uh yeah, it's a good uh read if you want to have a look at TV and go, ha ha.

People news

Sam Sethi 56:14

That's probably. Could you say the same about radio as well, James? I think.

James Cridland 56:17

Actually, you couldn't. Uh radio revenue is still doing pretty well. Um radio revenue uh in this report shows that it's continuing to go up. Um there's also been um just uh record uh revenue figures in the UK in terms of radio revenue. Um the US they're worked out slightly differently and they are going down, but um in most parts of the world, actually, radio is a pretty good business in terms of incoming cash, which is nice. But uh how long that'll last, who knows?

Sam Sethi 56:48

Let's move over to people and jobs quite a few this week. Um DaxUS has hired Jennifer Tang as uh SVP of programmatic.

James Cridland 56:57

She joins from Spotify, James. She does, uh, where she was director of US Automation Sales. So Jennifer will be working with people like Rob Walsh, um, who is also working for DaxUS as well as working uh with uh Captivate uh on uh programmatic advertising there, which is a good thing. Spotify has also hired a new head of podcasts for the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands, which is a weird combination. Talia Stolerman has worked with Spotify since 2020. She spent five years uh before that as well. Umbey she does. Maybe she does. Uh is that racist? Probably.

Sam Sethi 57:40

Uh that was just a very good impersonation of Adam Curry, I thought.

James Cridland 57:45

Maybe I was listening to the uh to the podcasting 2.0 um uh show, and uh there was one bit where Adam did sound a bit Dutch, actually. Uh so yes, I don't know, don't know what was going on there. Uh other people news, uh Henrietta Harrison has joined Persiphonica as an executive producer leading on factual and current affairs. Uh she has joined the company from Bauer Media, but she's also worked for the BBC and Loftus Media, so she's got a good track record. Persiphonica is definitely a company uh to be watching for, uh, I think. Um, other things going on. Millie Boates, who was VP of products at ACAST, uh, she has left and she's joined a bank. So uh that's that's a thing. James Cater, who was head of international strategy and partnerships, has left Wondery. And Tom Whiter, uh, who is the GM of politics at Goldhanger? My goodness, how many people do Goldhanger all of a sudden have working for them? Uh, he's looking for an executive producer for the rest is politics. Good luck with that one if you're considering doing that. And finally, we should say that the longtime co-host of No Agenda, John C. Dvorak, is recovering well after double bypass heart surgery. What's the best thing to happen if your husband automatically goes into double bypass heart surgery just after he just visits uh his uh doctor? What's the best thing? Uh well, the best thing appears to be to co-host No Agenda to get to get her mind off it. So Mimi Smith Dvorak has been doing that particular show uh for the last week and a bit. Um apparently one of the nurses listens to No Agenda as well, but um uh but uh I've been listening to John C. Dvorak for well probably 20 years or so now. I used to listen to him on uh Twit. Um he gets no spam, apparently. Uh that's one if you're very old. Um anyway, um, get well soon, John, and uh hopefully he will be back on uh no agenda, and one of these days I might listen to one of those.

Sam Sethi 59:51

Well, it seems to be a trend, James. I mean, uh Charlie Kirk, you know, passed away sadly, and um his wife took over. Um, you know, I should talk to your wife. What will happen if you go?

The Tech Stuff

James Cridland 1:00:04

Yes, I think not. Right, awards and events. Uh, congratulations to Giggly Squad, who won podcast of the year at the 2026 iHeart Podcast Awards. Uh, also good hang from Amy Polar won the best comedy podcast, Wisecrack, uh, which was podcast of the year. The Amby Awards won the best crime podcast. You can see a full list in the Pod News newsletter. Um, also the Indie uh PAC Awards Podcasters and creators is what PAC stands for. Uh that was uh released. Tim Ferris, Stephen Bartlett, and Hannah Taha among the winners of the new awards for independent podcasters and creators. I was a judge uh for that, and that was fun to do. There's also the winners of the NYC Podcast Awards as well, uh, which was uh good.

Announcer 1:00:57

The Tuck stuff. On the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 1:01:01

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

Sam Sethi 1:01:07

So let's have a look. Peertube, um, which is an alternative to YouTube. I may say alternative, but I mean we're not quite there, are we? I'm not wrong, hundred million a day. Well, we're on PeerTube. No, don't ask. Um but the good news is if you want an alternative, there is one. Uh it use uh it uses HLS as well. So um again, if you want to go and try an alternative to YouTube, PeerTube 8.1 is out.

James Cridland 1:01:35

Well, there's an excitement. Uh also Podfriend is now available in beta. Um that should be fun. We should uh play with that. Uh um I think I know that some of the things that Podfriend is doing is um doing uh access uh to uh the Fediverse and things like that um for comments. Uh so come to the Pod News uh Daily podcast and you'll find that you can comment on that. That would be nice. Um Spreaker has added support this week for the AI generated uh tag, um, which uh I'm sure will please everybody uh that really likes that tag. And uh John Sperling.

Sam Sethi 1:02:16

Hang on, wait, wait, wait, it means you can actually then, if an app supports it, uh you can block Inception Point AI.

James Cridland 1:02:24

Well, uh uh if Inception Point AI mark their shows as being uh as being AI generated, of course.

Sam Sethi 1:02:31

Right, it should be Spreaker who is doing it, I think. Anyway, we'll see.

James Cridland 1:02:34

Oh well, yes, yes. Anyway, we will see how all of that bit works. And John Spurlock has also um dug deep into HLS video. Um, he has taken a look at um Acast, Art19, and a Podogy feed as well, um, which is uh good. We don't see any feeds yet from Triton or from Simplecast or from indeed any of the other partners quite yet, but they've still got time. Um but um yeah, but the audio track, um, in case you care about these sorts of things, the audio track will be AAC, so it'll be uh better quality, and the audio track's bitrate is uh anywhere between 128 and 160k. I mean, you could theoretically produce different versions of the audio track as well, although nobody is yet doing that. Um, so uh so there's a thing. I was doing HLS just for audio in the Pod News Daily uh feed, but I've stopped doing that um because you know nobody was using it, and actually uh the world has moved on. Uh, we should be having a look at how this HLS video thing works. So um I'm very keen to have a play with the FFmpeg uh commands to build the correct multivariant playlist that would work with Apple if we ever signed up with Apple, which we won't. So that's uh so that's a thing. Hypothetically, if I ever do it, which I won't.

Sam Sethi 1:03:57

Yes.

James Cridland 1:03:57

Hypothetically, if I ever do this, which I I mean I can't see Apple um doing individual deals with individual people that produce one podcast, which is five minutes long and won't contain any ads. Um so yes, I I would doubt that very much. Um Spotify launching something. Uh should I be excited by this, Sam?

Sam Sethi 1:04:17

Well, I think it's interesting. I mean, um Gustav Sonderström, the the new co-CEO, announced at South by Southwest that they will be uh launching it in beta. It's a Spotify taste profile. Now um normally you would go, oh, well, what what's this all about? You know, um so far they've algorithmically generated models before. So things like uh Spotify wrap when you get at the end of the year, or Discover Weekly or maybe you have all been done algorithmically based on what you've been listening to, but you haven't had the opportunity for a tweak that profile and in the household maybe yours just you know you've got a young person who's listening to music and you've got different taste books on your account, then that actually will become part of your taste profile. So what they've said is that they're gonna now allow you to access the data that they hold on you for not just for music, but more interestingly for for podcasts and audiobooks as well. So the home page will reflect a different set of suggestions if you start to tweak your taste profile.

James Cridland 1:05:22

Very nice. Uh where can I uh play with this then?

Sam Sethi 1:05:25

Uh well, first of all, you can't because it's only in New Zealand. But when it does roll out, um it will be under your profile. So you access the taste profile users, tap on the profile pick, then scroll down, and then you can make changes using natural language prompts.

James Cridland 1:05:43

Well, there's a thing, and good old New Zealand gets things like this first. Normally it's the Australians getting things like this first, but no, it's starting to be done. An even smaller country.

Sam Sethi 1:05:55

You've done something. Yeah.

The inbox

James Cridland 1:05:58

Anyway, um uh good to see uh Gustav uh Serdestroom doing that, and I do like carbonated drinks. Uh actually, um, on that, um, I've been playing around with uh Spotify, and one of the things that I really like now, uh, my new playlist of choice is my light songs, which has um gosh, quite a lot of uh songs in there, um 2000 odd. Um, but also it's it's now got this thing called Smart Shuffle. Had it for a while, James with it for a while. Yes, I know. And and you hold Smart Shuffle down. and it puts songs in there that it thinks you might like based on all of the other tracks in there. And that that that's been great. I've been really enjoying that. So that's been essentially every every couple of songs I know and then it plays um and then it plays one that I uh will probably like but I haven't uh marked so well it works nicely it's uh very small have you used your um spotified DJ uh have I used my Spotify DJ yeah once or twice it's not it's not very good I've I've met the Spotify DJ I've met him face to face how big is he is he taller than you he is actually taller than me yeah yeah I would imagine I would imagine he was a baseball um yeah he was a baseball uh uh uh player or something in his youth but yeah yeah yeah he is massive I think he's called Xavier and he is really really big and um but it was a lovely it was a lovely r reveal it was a proper smart reveal where the the bloke from Spotify who was showing us round um played um DJX on the app on his iPad and he said I don't know if you've played with DJX is what it sounds like and he pressed a button and it was hey I'm DJX and blah blah blah blah blah and then all of a sudden around the corner came DJX himself saying hey I'm DJX and uh it was it was just like a really nice really nice thing so um yes so hurrah to them his nickname you know his nickname go on shadow he's so big he causes a shadow as he walks in a room really have you have you just made that up or I have excellent more more unreliable trivia with Sam Sefi exactly booster gram booster booster gram 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 yes so many different ways to get in touch with us fan mail by using the link in our show notes boosts or email and we share any money that we make as well in the last seven days you might like to know that uh in total we have earned 4277 sats which is up 113% it says here from 3768. So clearly my maths my maths is making chat GPT oh there's a bug need to go and have a look at that anyway it's up 13% that's what that'll be up. Did you ask Trump for for percentages? Because he's very good at percentages. It's up 13% that's all it's up 13%. Anyway um exactly so uh thank you uh especially to Brian Ensminger who is um uh our uh streamer of the week again 1,035 sats um uh is what I got from a 222 sat uh donation uh tip I should say we we have to use the phrase tip now uh for reasons I'll go into in just a second. Uh the ugly quacking duck I know no you you just wait uh the ugly quacking duck using podcast guru he says sounds like Adobe is doing well with the software yes we spoke to JalenBeff last week especially for video and pictures audio shows promise thanks for the episode 73 uh and um the OLD podcast optimal living daily podcast uh who is a longtime supporter of the Pod News newsletter uh 1111 SATs using Fountain do you guys happen to know which hosts have the best DAI fill rates and stroke or the hosts that have the highest payouts for podcast ads well the quick answer is no um but what you should be looking at is um podcast hosting companies that have access to multiple different uh ad systems um and um uh so if you're looking at earning money from advertising Buzzprout our sponsor is not one of those um but I would uh potentially recommend RSS.com because I'm an advisor um and they their systems under the hood talk to lots of different ad exchanges uh so if one of them is sold out then that's fine they'll talk to another one and if that one is sold out then that's fine they'll talk they'll talk to another one. So you should make a little bit more money using uh that if that's where you want to go but of course there are many other ways of earning money uh as well uh like the um the weekly uh supporters that uh we have which we'll go into in just a minute thanks to our friends at Buzzsprout uh do we have any uh boosts and things in uh TrueFans we do uh Seth Goldstein um sent us a boost uh well he sent it in dollars um but we're showing it here in pounds because it's from my account£2.35.

Sam Sethi 1:11:17

I get where Sam's coming from with the stream versus downloads. I just don't think the industry could handle not having the metric right now maybe in the future I agree I think look um a thousand mile journey starts with the first step you you you have to change it and then see what gets adopted or if it doesn't get adopted well we still have the download as a metric if you want it but I think you know the flow of the way that I think the industry's moving is towards upstreaming numbers, plus actual plays, actual listen time compared to downloads which we know um is not actually a play. So yeah.

Sam and James's week

James Cridland 1:11:56

Yeah well um and£235 thank you uh thank you for that that's about four dollars or so in um in uh American dollars uh or four thousand two hundred sats so uh Seth thank you uh for that any other mention any other mention neil velo says spicy debate I love it well done guys I think he most people like you when you and I what was that for I can't remember I have no idea again you and I oh well probably Apple and streaming again or download something in that I think yes and he's also spotted he's also spotted a little magical um uh feature in uh true fans he's m uh marked um uh Neil as a super fan I believe he's a super fan of this show yes he's the the most um he's got most points for listening or commenting or whatever uh but Neil you have one something you get one percent of the SATS flow oh well there you go I didn't I I didn't know about that I mean that's that's that's that's that's more money than I'm getting from true fans at the moment but that's uh but that's a separate conversation um so so yes no oh that well that's uh well that's very nice so uh congratulations Neil now we talked about the uh power supporters weekly.podnews.net is where to join we have 24 of those now hooray hooray uh thank you Ralph E. Owens now Ralph I need to know a bit more about you because currently I know very little about you um so I'll do some uh I'll do some uh activity some work on that uh over the next um uh over the next week or so uh you may be the Ralph Owens who is a uh a podcaster a US Navy veteran and a two times Houston CIO of the year finalist you may be that person or you may be some somebody completely different so I'm gonna go and find out and learn a little bit more before I go shooting my mouth off. Can you can you also find out what the E stands for please uh yes uh excellent is I believe what it stands for Ralph excellent Owens yes that's what that stands for uh so uh Ralph thank you I will uh drop you an email and uh but that's uh very kind also uh a big thank you uh to some of our other uh weekly supporters um Ralph Estep Jr. Will Clark Martin Lindescock and John Spurlock I mention Ralph Estep Jr. um uh and I mentioned the word tips earlier on um and I know that Adam Curry is now grinding his teeth don't grind your teeth uh Adamester they they cost a lot of money his teeth don't grind them they're still new don't grind your teeth anyway I know that he's going tips um but uh but actually was that Dutch I know he sounds nothing like that I don't I don't know why I put on Todd's voice um but anyway um he's probably saying uh he's probably saying I wish they'd stopped talking about tips uh the reason why I'm talking about tips is that you may have noticed in Wednesday's pod news that there was a new article by Ralph Estep Jr. called No Tax on Tips what podcasters and creators must know now and it turns out that if you are accepting tips um then it counts for you not just if you are waiting in a bar but it also counts for you if you are running a podcast and people are sending you tips. As long as they aren't getting anything special from that you don't have to pay tax on those tips. Hang on a minute I like to think our show is a bit special yes but you're not paying you're not getting something like uh a membership um that gives you more stuff you're not getting perks you're not getting paid courses you're not getting uh you know guaranteed promotion um all this is is it's a voluntary um a voluntary tip uh correct uh it's not tied to a promised product or benefit it's not required and it's given because the audience member simply wants to support you um if that is the case then um the so-called one big beautiful bill um was talking about no tax on tips and that lasts for uh the next three tax years until the end of 2028 so really interesting particularly for streaming sets um because that's exactly um the uh the analogy here um uh no us tax needing to be paid uh just go and take a peek at the pod news website podnews.net slash articles is where you will uh see it so Ralph uh uh uh Ralph V E Step Jr., a Delaware based licensed accountant author and podcast host uh thank you so much for writing that's really interesting. Uh so what's happened for you uh this week Sam?

Sam Sethi 1:16:58

Well um as we talked about earlier we launched our video hosting so let's see how that goes it's early days.

James Cridland 1:17:04

Yes um but I had the most surreal Saturday I've ever had in my life on Saturday James uh yes yes you should probably explain what you've been doing with the racists thank you very much yes I attended the Nazi Party rally no um I got invited and they weren't racist by the way I should just say I should just say given that some of the names you're just about to drop these are not so where did you go on Saturday? So in other news Sam where did you go on Saturday?

Sam Sethi 1:17:38

So James I went to the a parkland ballroom I was invited to Lord Ashcroft's 80th birthday party not that I know Lord Ashcroft it's through my wife um and the the first part of the evening was was painful beyond belief it was with the reform party members being there so Nigel Farage and uh Tysh and Pretty Patel was there and Anne Whiticum a list of people that I would never um basically put on my Christmas list. Wow and then added to that was all of the ex-Tory MPs and I stood next to Liz Trust for a while she was actually on my table which was very painful and so I wanted to say so many things said nothing kept my gold shut off past the lettuce Liz I really wish that that was oh that's a good and then um but the the other side of it was Rory Bremner the impression impressionist was there of course in the Halloween and then you had Catherine Jenkins who's stunningly beautiful she's absolutely stunningly beautiful and her voice is very good as well she called using it in the song and I had the photo if I could have been allowed to take photos Amy Badnoff the leader of the Tory party stood up and started working I swear not in the middle of the room followed by Lord Ashcroft standing behind her pretending to slap her bottom this was the photo of the evening if I could have got it I would have got it but I didn't.

James Cridland 1:19:17

Wow yes wow anyway but the reason I said it's the most surreal evening because just to top it all off Elton John decided to come on stage and play a whole set wow good old Reg Dwight yes excellent so the most surreal evening of my life yes well well I went out for dumplings on Saturday So what else apart from dumplings then James what have you been up to well I have had my goodness it's been a busy busy busy week um so uh this time yesterday uh I was already quite tired because I had got up at uh five in the morning uh to go on uh national Australian television uh six in the morning and I had to go to the TV studio which as you know is only a five minute drive from this house but I had to go to the TV studio to be interviewed about some radio stuff here. And so yes I was um live on the telly and then live on the telly again in the afternoon but from my house um this time um but uh yes so lots of radio stuff going on uh here but that was um that was really bizarre all of a sudden being grabbed by a ton of different broadcast journalists and being asked to go and uh talk so uh yes go and go and talk about things that I wasn't particularly interested in but yeah so that was that was really interesting um so I had a uh a good day I tell you what um the amount of um uh I mean you know we talk about how poor television is uh in terms of the revenue which is coming in you can really tell that when you go into a TV uh studio uh here you can very much tell that this was a very rich company about 20 years ago. Oh right and everything I mean to go into the contribution studio to to do this live TV uh cross um you you end up walking up the fire escape uh you walk and you walk into this tiny little room which has all been you know covered with blankets and things for soundproofing and things but it's still it still sounded as if as if I was coming from a cupboard. And the room smelt of blankets that have been there for five years. You know what I mean? It was just very bizarre. Very bizarre musty I think is the word you're looking for musty musty is exactly the phrase I was looking for. But yeah so um uh so that was fun and I went to um uh yeah so I was uh on there um doing my stuff on the uh Australian Today show um and uh I will uh share with you um although I'm not necessarily going to share with too many other people but I will uh share with you um uh a link to the uh TV um uh thing uh as well actually I've put it on my mastodon haven't I um yeah you know so there's always so there's always that too um but uh yeah so that was uh it was just very bizarre what a what a week what a week that was looking for sticking for Kyle nice yes exactly exactly right uh so yes uh but apart from that um uh packing away we're recording this on Wednesday because um packing uh for uh a flight uh tomorrow to uh Riga in Latvia um and uh so that's gonna be fun looking forward to that um and um uh that is where I will be well where will I be speaking to you next week from there's a question that we need to answer to at some point yes exactly um but uh that's all good if you are in Riga in Latvia uh please let me know that would be uh fantastic to meet up uh I hear the beer is very cheap um uh drop me an email that would be great uh and that's it for this week all of our podcast stories taken from the Pod News daily newsletter at podnews.net uh you can support this show by streaming sats like the wonderful Brian Enzminger you can give us feedback using the Buzz Sprout fan mail link in our show notes you can send us a boost or become a power supporter like the 24 power supporters at weekly dot podnews dot net our music is from TM Studios our voiceover is Sheila D. Our audio is recorded using CleanFeed we edit with Hindenburg they're going to be in Riga looking forward to seeing them and we're hosted and sponsored by Bud Sprout start podcasting keep podcasting.

Announcer 1:23:52

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