Human Announcer 0:00

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

Sam Sethi 0:12

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

Lizzie Hale 0:17

It's incredibly valuable to us for creators to really make clear and digestible episodic titles and descriptions that helps us discover your show.

James Cridland 0:27

Lizzie Hale from Spotify on how to get Spotify to promote your show.

Neil Mody 0:32

Plus, we see video as really an evolution. We've been in the video game since day one, actually. So we've always thought it's a great place to grow.

James Cridland 0:42

Neil Modi from Headliner on the company bringing video to podcasts. This podcast is sponsored by Buzz Sprout with a tool, support, and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsprout.com.

Human Announcer 0:57

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Lizzie Hale from Spotify on getting your show promoted there

Sam Sethi 1:02

Quick question for you.

James Cridland 1:12

And I thought, oh, that's interesting. She's called Lizzie Hale, and she's in charge of dozens of people across the world working on global podcast editorial for Spotify from Germany to South Korea to the US. And if you've ever wondered how to get your show promoted in Spotify or how Spotify promotion works for podcasting overall, then well, me too. So I've asked her a ton of uh questions uh to her via email, uh Sam, which you'll see in full in Monday's pod news, but she's very kindly recorded some of her answers for us too. So um, shall we hear what she has to say? Absolutely. Yes, why not? Well, firstly, I asked how internationally focused some of the promotion on Spotify is.

Speaker 1 1:56

So one of the great benefits of having a global team is the ability to support show growth across markets. We have teams around the world who are constantly sharing standout shows and episodes that they think could travel across markets. If something really resonates, we want to reach the right audiences regardless of where it was made. At the same time, we know that listeners often connect most deeply with local voices and stories. So we prioritize making the experience feel as relevant to where you are as possible.

James Cridland 2:25

Now, is there a form to fill in to get shows promoted? And how do you discover shows to promote anyway?

Speaker 1 2:31

There isn't a formal submission process today, though we are actively working through some ideas that are scalable, accessible, and also manageable for my team. Right now, the best way to be promoted is to really focus on building something that truly resonates and drives retention. That's what our systems, both editorial and algorithmically, tend to pick up on. My team is always really looking for content that we know our users are searching for. If you do have a big moment coming, like a launch or a major guest working with your Spotify partner manager, if you have one, can it help make sure it's on our radar? And then how do you discover shows to promote? This is a really big mix of art and science. Our job is to find the pulse of culture and bring that to life on our podcast surfaces. So we're chronically online and tracking new launches, following cultural moments, and spotting the shows and episodes people are talking about. At the same time, we work really closely with our insights team to identify rising shows and tread through data. That combination really helps us find what's breaking through and then to be able to amplify it.

James Cridland 3:44

Spotify loves video, clearly. I'm wondering if podcasts have to do video to get promoted.

Speaker 1 3:51

Video is not required, but it's definitely becoming more important every day. It does create a deeper connection. Fans just don't want to hear a host's voice anymore. They want to know how they react, how they interact. That adds to a whole new layer to the experience. It also helps with discovery, especially when a listener is unfamiliar with a show, giving people more context up front and making it easier and easier to evaluate whether something is a good fit for them and their interests. Delivering in an amazing user experience for fans is one of our main goals as a team. And more broadly, listeners are starting to expect that flexibility, the ability to watch or just listen, depending on the moment. Shows and offer both formats tend to be the expectation and create a more engaging experience overall, which is what we're focused on.

James Cridland 4:45

I think that's a yes. Uh Spotify is very personalized, it seems to me. And I was curious how much control the editorial team really has.

Speaker 1 4:56

So discovery and personalization are really at the core of Spotify. There's so much great podcast content out there. And if you love podcasts, you're always looking for what to listen to next. Our aim is to close that gap. We've built some of the most powerful recommendation systems in the world to do that, and we're constantly adapting what we show you based off of what you're into and what's happening in that moment. In addition to highlighting standout shows and episodes and curating key surfaces and making sure we're reflecting those real cultural moments, not just what's already really popular. We're also embedded in product work streams. This means that we're helping to guide our recommendation systems and directly inputting how personalization shows up so it's engaging for users and really represents the diverse set of creators. It's really about building that holistic system, human and technology that surfaces the right content at the right time and really gives more creators a real shot at being discovered on Spotify. I mean, I think it really comes down to doing the basics really well. It's incredibly valuable to us for creators to really make clear and digestible episodic titles and descriptions that helps us discover your show, understand what it's about, surface it to the right places, and help listeners know what to expect. For many people, that's all they have when they're deciding what to press play on. We have actually attempted cover art with users, looking at different types of artwork and title variations, and what we found was pretty consistent. It's not the flashiest or most clever options at win. People really tend to gravitate toward the ones that are clear and informative. So this may seem like kind of designed what a wood, but of course, you have to make your cover art visually interesting, but even more importantly, very easy to read. On the back end, opting into things like transcripts and chapters helps with discovery more broadly. It means we can again understand and catalog your content at a deeper level, which in turn really enables more personalization, recommendations, and matching listeners to the specific topics and moments inside your episodes that we find really valuable.

James Cridland 7:29

Lizzie Hale from uh Spotify, really interesting. Just get the basics right, uh, as she has just said, um, you know, make sure that the cover art works, make sure that it's um uh uh, you know, the ones that are clear and informative, as she's uh said, uh, which I think is interesting. And also, you know, opting into the transcript stuff um, you know, is good as well. Really interesting. More of that uh in the Pod News newsletter on Monday.

Sam Sethi 7:56

Nice, well done. Good capture.

Spotify redesigns tablet interface

Sam Sethi 7:59

Now, uh let's move on, James. Uh sticking with Spotify though, um they've started to redesign their tablet to focus on discovery. Now, normally not a big story around podcasting, particularly, but I did find it interesting that they are actually focusing on making it a I suppose a tablet first experience rather than just taking the iPhone app and just sizing it up. And I again I think one of the things that I've always said is a Spotify secret source is their ability to be everywhere on every surface, car, yeah, desktop, uh and I think they do it really well. Uh Nicole Burrow, who's their head of design and consumer, um, and she said the tablet gives you more room to explore, so we designed it to let you browse and discover new favourites alongside what you're already playing. Do you use a tablet? I I don't, but do you?

James Cridland 8:55

Um I've got an iPad which I use occasionally. Um you'll normally see me with it at conferences and things because it's nice and easy to carry around, but otherwise, no, not really. But I think a tablet is very much more a consumption device. Um, a phone does a little bit of both. Obviously, you know, desktop is entirely different. So actually having a user interface specifically for tablets makes an awful lot of sense, I think. And you can almost see that actually it would be quite useful just to have a tablet in the kitchen or or whatever, um, always uh logged into your Spotify playlist and connected to the big speakers that you've got in your kitchen, for example. That would be quite a handy thing. So I think it's quite clever that they have looked at a particular tablet uh idea there. Um I think I think that's very neat. So as you say, I think you know the clever thing about Spotify isn't just that they are on all of these different surfaces, all of these different uh places, but also actually you are now more and more getting a very bespoke experience on each. So the TV experience, which I do occasionally, very different to the phone experience, now very different to the tablet experience. I've got a groom uh Google Chromecast, I've got a couple of those, and again the Spotify experience on that is very different as well. And so I think all of this makes uh an awful lot of sense.

Sam Sethi 10:17

I think the last part's telling, as part of the growing push towards video, the update means the switch to video toggle is now front and centre, making it simpler to move into a more immersive viewing experience. So, yeah, exactly what

The Podcast Academy, six years on

Sam Sethi 10:30

you said, James. Uh let's whiz around the world a bit more. Um, the world series of podcasting, as I've called it. Um it's six years since the launch of the Podcast Academy, and you took an in-depth look at the podcasting's membership organization. Uh what did you find out, James?

James Cridland 10:47

Yeah, I found out a lot of things. This was um, I think two and a half weeks worth of work into a little article that hasn't done particularly well in terms of page views, but that's not why I do these things. Um, but really interesting to take a look at, for example, the Podcast Academy's um uh accounts, which you can see if you know where to go. Uh, so you can work out okay, well, roughly how many members does the Academy have? Has that number gone up or down? How important is membership to that organization, or is the AMBIS the important thing? Well, I can tell you that membership is, you know, important. They've got around a thousand members, but uh the AMBI is significantly more important. It makes um um, you know, six times as much money or whatever the figure is, it's not quite six times, but it's getting there. So um the AMBI is massively important to the podcast academy. And and actually, when you have a look back six years ago to the launch of the podcast academy, which I um was actually part of and I did a QA to the original board all the way back then, Hanaan Lopez was talking about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the people who do the Oscars. And the Oscars has 11,000 members. Um, the Oscars bring in $4 million from membership dues and $150 million from the Academy Awards. So the Oscars are the thing that pays um for that particular organization. Similarly, the Ambys are the thing that pays for that particular organisation. So that was a real eye-opener. There was another eye opener. I can't go too much into detail in this podcast about it, but um lawyers, lawyers. Yes, yes, I don't want another call from the lawyer. Please no. Um but uh they're lovely people, really, are they? They are, they're lovely, they're lovely people, particularly this lawyer. Um uh very lovely. Um but anyway James, quick question.

Sam Sethi 12:48

Yes. What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea? A good start.

James Cridland 12:53

Example I'm living on. But anyway, um uh yes, uh uh a little bit of a story that I could not get to the bottom of about a mysterious change of the executive director. So that's the staff member essentially at the top of the podcast academy. Couldn't quite get to the bottom of that. I know more than I can write, obviously. Um uh there are limits in terms of what I can say and what I can't say. Um, but that I thought was interesting, and I think certainly as a membership organization, I think you need to be as clear and transparent as you possibly can. The other thing that I did notice actually is how US-centric the podcast academy has actually become. Um, it used to be less London uh less uh uh US-centric, it is now much more US-centric. And I think that that is something that clearly needs uh working on. Um I think that there are some ideas to take forward uh there. For example, every single winner in the Ambys in 2026 was from North America, every single one. Um, some from Canada, yes, as well as the US, but that's about it. I think that the Podcast Academy should be there for everyone. And that includes, you know, obviously uh Europe um down here in Australia as well. And, you know, if you're organizing all of your events for a US time zone, that's probably what's going to happen. So um, you know, I think that there are clearly room, uh that there's clearly room to grow there, but really interesting to take a proper deep dive at the Podcast Academy. Uh, I've been a member for the last six years. Um, I will continue to be a member. I think it's a good organization. Um, but uh yeah, it's um uh um uh really interesting to just sort of peel back some of the, you know, some of the veneer there and uh have a look at what's actually going on. You'll find that linked from Pod News on Monday.

Sam Sethi 14:51

James, I I've called the Ambies the American Podcast Awards from day one, and that's what they are. And I actually don't have an issue um that they are US focused and US-centric. We have the Brits in the UK. If you look at the film awards, the Oscars are really American uh film awards. If you look at the BAFTAs, which are the British film awards, um I think you know it's very clear that trying to get an international podcast academy has proved very hard, maybe very costly as well. Um I don't know if it's gonna change. I I agree that maybe the you know if they took on the wider role of a global uh an award, but I don't think they're gonna be able to achieve it. I don't think they have the bandwidth.

James Cridland 15:37

Yeah, I mean, I I mean I think that there are very various ways of doing that, to be honest. I mean, if you go to the Podcast Academy's website, the headline is championing podcasting worldwide. That's not what that organization does. So they can't really claim that right now, but they probably should be. And I think the new executive director, uh Amy Thacker, who has worked all over the place, um, she will be a real asset to the Academy to do that, I think. Um, but I think, you know, I mean, what I learned when I was working at the Radio Academy in the UK, which is now called the Audio Academy, we had individual sort of chapter leaders in different parts of the country. So, um, you know, one in Northern Ireland, one in Yorkshire, one in the southwest, and blah, blah, blah. Some of those were really good, some of those were appalling, but but that's all fine. Um, but you end up then having geographical leaders for a membership organization. And I think the podcast academy should probably be thinking about doing that. And actually, you know, is that is there something to happen down here in Australia, in New Zealand, in Singapore, you know, all over the place? Yes, I think that that there probably is, and I think that that's something that could be done without really spending an awful lot of cash, you know, on that sort of thing. So there are opportunities there, and I'm and I'm sure that the podcast academy will get to that. I I uh you know, I do wish that the Ambis was a little bit more reflective of great podcasting worldwide, and currently it's reflective of the US industry. Um, I think the Oscars are a little bit different just purely because you know um the film industry is so focused at the US uh for various complicated reasons to do with the war. Um uh, but I think you know we we need to be sort of careful um uh there. But I think um, you know, that the the Ambis should be a bit more global. I I should point out, of course, that they've got a Spanish um uh you know a Spanish uh award now, and of course they've got the International Impact Award, which um myself and Stephen Bartlett were the first winners of. Um I don't know whether I can say, but I'm gonna say anyway, um, that uh they will be um uh giving away at least one more international impact award this year at the podcast show in London. Um don't know who it's to, um but um but I've seen that on a list, so so therefore that's that's probably happening. I better get dressed up quickly.

Sam Sethi 18:06

That's nice. Uh there yeah, I better shave for the day. Yeah, yes. Yeah, chance is fine. We'll see. Fat chance. Yeah, fat chance, I think, is the answer to that one. Anyway,

YouTube updates, including SiriusXM

Sam Sethi 18:21

um, let's move on. YouTube call. I've got a few stories here from YouTube. The first one is to do with Sirius XM Gems. What have they been doing?

James Cridland 18:31

This is a really clever big deal that SiriusXM has done. So SiriusXM media sell an awful lot of podcast ads anyway, and all of a sudden they have been announced as the exclusive advertising representative of YouTube audio advertising in the US. So um Sirius XM Media all of a sudden becomes a massive, massive player. Not that they weren't big before, but now a massive player in terms of audio advertising um in the United States. Um, they will be able to reach, just by buying Sirius XM, uh, you will be able to reach around 90% of all US adults age 13 plus. That's an uh that's a tremendous figure, I think.

Sam Sethi 19:15

James, adults 13 plus. I thought the idea was that we were trying to get teenagers off. Why do we measure from 13? I thought an adult was 18.

James Cridland 19:24

Yes, I think it's a US thing. I think US adults are normally 13 plus for some reason. It's it's just research. Um, and um and those are the those are the numbers. Uh yes, I mean, uh I would imagine that there are uh certainly in some states and definitely in some countries, um, there are rules about advertising to people under 16 or under 18. Um, but uh yeah, you know, that that's just the number that we've uh that we've got here. But Sirius XM also came out with a ton more uh numbers, and I suspect that it's because Edison Research um normally talks about US adults 13. Um Edison Research um uh we working with Sirius XM says that around 74% of US adults consume YouTube audio, which is an incredible figure, isn't it? 74% or engage in listening first behaviors on YouTube. My assumption is that that must be YouTube users um rather than all US adults, but um I don't know because I've not seen the full uh research. The one that I was really interested in, though, is 45% consume YouTube content with static visuals. 45%. So that's pretty much like any podcast that has just connected their RSS feed and away they go. Um and and if you talk to anyone, they will say that's a waste of time, nobody uses it. Well, we've got data now that says that 45% of people do. That's a pretty fine number, I think.

Sam Sethi 20:56

It is, yeah. I mean I guess I guess with the YouTube light feature where you can just you know turn the phone off, put it in your pocket, it doesn't really matter what you're watching because you're not actually watching the screen.

James Cridland 21:09

So yeah, I I guess so. I mean, you know, I I mean it says here 48% listen while video is minimized or in the background. So um, yes, you know, I'm I'm sure that there's an amount of that going on on that platform as well. But um yeah, fascinating, uh fascinating stuff, I think. So I mean that's a tremendous deal for Sirius XM. Uh it comes into force in the autumn, by the way. Um in the autumn for you lot, um, in in spring for us. Um so so that's gonna be that's gonna be interesting uh to see what difference that makes. I don't also quite understand what audio advertising means on YouTube because I'm not very aware that there is any. Um, but perhaps what Sirius XM will also be selling is audio advertising. advertising around YouTube music, which might then mean that there's more of a free tier for YouTube music. But however all of this works, it's all pretty it's all pretty good stuff, I think.

Sam Sethi 22:11

Now last week James we talked about Spotify adding more controls. They were rolling out highly requested video controls to turn off loops music videos and stuff. YouTube have just announced a way to avoid YouTube shorts on the platform. It's part of their uh way to provide uh controls I guess for young people so that they're not always watching the screen.

James Cridland 22:34

Yeah I think some of it is I think some of it is also people like me who uh can't stand YouTube shorts and would rather that they got out of the way. Um and I would just like never to see YouTube shorts in my uh in my app. I think the difficulty there is and Barrett Media wrote a piece about this uh this week the difficulty is that actually podcasting has been using YouTube Shorts a lot to make sure that it can put clips in there, it can link through um to um uh to full-length episodes and so on and so forth and Barrett Media is saying well this is a this is going to be a terrible thing for podcasting. I'm not so sure I don't think it's a massive uh issue but you know uh that I I may well be completely out of it there. Um but uh yeah getting being able to get rid of YouTube shorts, being able to personalize your experience a little bit more is quite interesting.

Sam Sethi 23:29

Yeah one of the announcements was they're actually deprecating clips. So I had to look up what's the difference between a short and a clip, right? So a short is like three minutes and it's a standalone piece of content whereas a clip is taken from an existing piece of long form video or audio content. And it looks like YouTube is providing in YouTube Studio more tools to create YouTube shorts although they're providing controls so that you can remove them. They are actually beefing up the support for them whereas they're deprecating and looking to third parties for the use of clipping technology.

James Cridland 24:07

Yeah no uh I I I think you know um you can you can very much see that YouTube has um quite some opportunity with YouTube shorts because the shorter the video the more ads you can sell round it of course um so it's a benefit there for them and clearly they just want more shorts in there. I know that they pay creators a bit more for shorts as well I think there's um there's something going on there as well. So you know that they're very interested in terms of making that work but also adding controls and things so that um particularly for kids you know that they don't see that those sorts of things is is probably good uh too. But they're also they're not just doing that, they're also seemingly what selling um uh tickets to concerts as well. What's this story here?

Sam Sethi 24:59

Well uh two UK put out a story out of Linux uh the UK and the um at the 90,000 fans at the iconic Web Stadium uh to watch all that this was in partnership with one of their content creators of the start and you code they raised a warning six point two million for charity um and as I say it's the best example of found and the culture at its best and YouTube supported it with streamed live but it was also an in live person event um I think we're gonna be doing a lot more of them as well.

James Cridland 25:43

Now when you say YouTube supported it is that YouTube paid for some of it to get made or or is that just that YouTube put it on their platform live because that wasn't YouTube doing well I I would find these I would find these a little bit strange because you've got people like YouTube going oh look and we streamed comic relief with the BBC no the the BBC put comic relief onto your platform right streamed it. No I think it's like they streamed it on the YouTube platform. Yeah you're right it's a it's a strange one isn't it it's a it's a very strange sort of you know everybody else you know Netflix for example will spend lots of money on content YouTube just sits back and waits for people to give it content for free. It's a very strange very strange thing. But um yeah but I mean clearly the amount of live uh content now coming onto YouTube is pretty big. Um they they have got you know a number of different things that they are doing um on the live uh platform I think it's a great um you know I mean I pay for YouTube um uh to get rid of the ads uh I think it's a great product there's an awful lot of of great content on there and I think one of the interesting reasons why it works so well is that loads of people put incredible content on there. Some of it is brilliant um some of it is very carefully made some of it is just old TV that somebody has found on a VHS video and put onto YouTube and no one seems to care. You know so there's all of this kind of stuff on there but um no I think it's a I think it's a really good service and um you know there's an awful lot of live TV of live TV channels on there as well if you know where to look.

Sam Sethi 27:36

So I tell you what you should go and do is look at Alison Lomax's LinkedIn profile.

James Cridland 27:42

That lady is having a blast to work genuinely must get to work she's been at the Brit she's been at Comic Relief she's met Anton Deck she's done the football she's been over to the Bye for the billion followers summit I mean great job Alison well done I mean great yeah great job uh although somebody was saying because uh here in Australia for example we're always enthrall of the uh of the Google you know managing director for Australia oh you know such a big person um uh the ABC for example hired the Google managing director for Singapore uh which was an unmitigated disaster and the ABC lasted two years with Michelle Guthrie as their managing director and um the there was a there was a um an article that I read relatively recently that was basically saying what we have to understand is that the YouTube managing director for Singapore or the YouTube managing director for Australia is the equivalent of the Midland Bank bank manager for Milton Keynes. They have no control over anything. They are essentially just in control of the people that they have working in that particular part of the world. And there's probably quite a lot of truth to be said for that.

Sam Sethi 28:57

I I remember being in Microsoft and and we would get the night before the release from the press team about what was being put out into the public domain literally the night before. And then we'd go out and meet the channel partners as if we'd known it for months oh yeah so let's tell you what about this we've got rude news and we were briefed up to the ninth but we had what 12 hours notice. Yeah that's all we got.

James Cridland 29:22

Yeah it's brilliant isn't it that's that that's the way that these things work that's the way that these things

Neil Mody from Headliner

James Cridland 29:27

work yeah look let's move on.

Sam Sethi 29:30

We talked about Neil Modi's company Headliner uh having its eighth birthday last week and I thought you know what I'd reach out because uh one of the things that Headliner's done is been consistently delivering audiograms and now videograms and I thought I'd find out from Neil a little bit more about who is Headliner today and are they for sale? Because I keep thinking they I keep thinking they should be or they are we'll find out. Neil Modi.

Speaker 6 30:02

Headliner is really a platform that helps podcasters grow their podcast and so we have a variety of tools and solutions that really help podcasters find and grow audience across the web. And so we're most known for our first tool which takes audio and converts it into video for audiograms but we've got a bunch of other solutions that really help grow and that has been kind of the focus over the last few years growing across the web and also I'm sure we're going to talk about it but now with video podcasts as well. So glad to be on.

Sam Sethi 30:36

So yeah I mean I first came across headliner about four or five years ago and it was a great tool for creating audiograms and that was how we used it up Pod News Weekly Review we we would take a clip of the show we would add some animation to it a cover up and then that would go out to end points. The evolution of the company then you got into transcriptions and as you said now let's talk about it. How are you helping podcasters grow when it comes to video?

Speaker 6 31:09

So take a step back kind of why we started Headliner is really we've always thought that podcasting's biggest issue is that it's not present where people are it's an island on the internet that you have to travel to to consume it. Now when you're on that island most people love that island but getting to that island is a journey and so what we've always said is we need to bring podcasts to where people are so the first tool like you mentioned help them get their audio out to social media via audiograms. The next tool helped them get their audio to YouTube. So we did full length videos where kind of YouTube's main partner in getting YouTube originally into podcasting and a big publisher of getting audio out to YouTube. And then the third was getting audio out across the web in a product called disco and so when you're reading an article on the web you would see recommendations of your podcasts and that's grown as well and then the ad side of that product called podcast promo allows podcasters to pay to essentially market their podcasts across sites across the web and that's really where the growth has been and to your point on video so we see video as really an evolution and we've been in the video game since day one actually so while video is kind of a bad word and YouTube was a bad word in 2018 when we started the company we've always thought it's a great platform and a place to grow and so while we did audio to video for all those start of headliner we've now focused on video across all our tools. So every single piece and product of headliner now supports video. So you will see that in everything I mentioned so now not only can you make your audiograms on make which is the product that does that you can also make all these video clips. And so for a creator that has to make marketing materials from audio and video we think we're the best tool in the market and we're excited to actually offer it for free the video tooling as part of our eighth birthday. We've heard from many creators that the big issue with video is cost. And so we didn't want to add yet another cost or hike our fees. We're lucky to be a profitable and growing startup so we didn't need to and we kind of want to get on this video wave and meet creators where they are which I think everyone appreciates at this point and what's going on with the economy and the world. So what we're doing for our eighth birthday for creators.

Sam Sethi 33:46

Nice. I don't know if you've seen the story I'm sure you are aware but they've announced that they're deprecating their own tools for video clips and relying on third parties but they're beefing up their video shorts. So a short is a three minute clip and a video clip is like a 60 second clip.

Speaker 6 34:06

I think anytime YouTube's partnered with us in the past it's been good for a headliner. So like for that audio to video you're seeing that and yet I think some of the big guys are looking to partner with us again for video clips. You'll be one of the first people to hear when that comes out but I would say look we've been the number one company for video in podcasting for our entire lives. Now it was mostly audio to video and w we know we're not the number one company for video clips or video podcasting clips but we think this year we'll probably become that again just because first is pricing two is toolkit and we've got all the podcasters already using us for their audio to video so we're looking forward to trying to produce all these video clips. And I would say if people haven't tried it in a while it's gotten very good. Many companies and individual creators are starting to use it so I'm excited.

Sam Sethi 35:01

Neil just remind us why or how did you start Headliner? I mean we're talking eight years ago why did you start it?

Speaker 6 35:08

Eight years ago it actually got birthed out of a company we had started called Spare Min, which was a micro podcasting app back when that was kind of talked about and I think there was a few attempts so the idea being you record quick conversations and publish them to the internet very much you know one or two stops removed from like Clubhouse or Twitter spaces that type of concept. And that gained some momentum but what we realized is audio was a second class citizen on the internet. You could not post an audio file to Instagram. You could not post an audio file to most social platforms. You could uh obviously not post an audio file to YouTube. And so we made this way to convert and we did some collaboration and help the audiogram project and then over time we realized this is actually more valuable as more users were using that and it got pulled out of us podcasters who were like well I've got my recording I don't need to use your recording platform but I really want to use this like tool that gets it out to social. So we essentially pivoted the company all around it and that's what was the headliner and we really rode that wave. I mean 2018 1920 twenty one twenty two it was just up and crazy growth you know it was like you said you found it about four or five years ago. So we were just growing and growing integrating with a bunch of hosting platforms really becoming the de facto standard for converting audio to video. And now we're looking forward to doing that for video clips too. You know there's a bunch of tools out there but no one who's I think struck the right balance of price functionality and really honed in on the podcaster use cases. So we're looking forward to doing that.

Sam Sethi 36:51

Beyond video then what are the plans for headliner going forward?

Speaker 6 36:54

So podcast promo and disco have been actually the large part of our growth over the last few years. So when we saw kind of at the end of COVID when we saw audio kind of decreasing in terms of its creation rate, consumption was still growing but in terms of creators coming in and producing audio we thought we needed to build something more than just audiograms. And we bet on this product that really no one had in the market which was very similar to our previous company before all this which was getting content out across the web on articles. And that took a little while to get going but it's now grown into a a very large kind of part of our business and podcast promo is part of that. So if you have a podcast and you want to market it we think we could be the best tool for marketing at a but I think with attribution and the tools we've built we think we could be the best advertising platform for all of podcasting. And so that's actually grown like I said almost as much as our SaaS revenue getting there. And like I said we're kind of excited for where that goes and what I'm super excited for is across the board everything's now supporting video and video podcasting. And so I see while it's been eight years and the journey's been mostly up a little bit down during the like post-COVID creation slowdown. We've been lucky that we've been growing since video podcasting and disco and growing podcast promo over the last few years so even more ahead of us than behind us.

Sam Sethi 38:30

So one of the things that came up was your support for creating clips to TikTok I remember you did that a little while back. Do you now support other social platforms like Blue Sky um Threads and I don't know Mastodon. You know where are you in that market to social media?

Speaker 6 38:48

Yeah we'd like to be everywhere where people are and that comes with the cost and time and energy but to to answer your question yes we have blue sky support yes we have thread support we don't have mastodon I don't think it's hit that mark of usage yet that we feel like we should you know s add support for another platform. As you probably know with true fans even these platform integrations while they're easy to set up they're harder to maintain because each platform has changing APIs, various different requirements for their integration and things break and generally this is what people are paying us to do, right? Keep all these things and the pipes working. So we look to add any platform that's gotten to a critical mass. So we see threads threads has actually grown a good amount this past year. I'd say blue sky was growing a little bit more before we still mostly post to YouTube and Instagram. TikTok's probably a close third LinkedIn has been growing as well as a medium as you probably know they've invested heavily in podcasting and also video clips. So we've been publishing to LinkedIn as well more than I expected. So we'll follow where audiences are again back to our mission which is if you've made great content make sure people hear it and now see it. And we think that we need to put it in front of people and not make them go find it. So wherever people are we'll try to get it to them.

Sam Sethi 40:16

So one of the things I've talked about is hosts you know the traditional role of a host was to upload your audio and distribute it to as many endpoints using RSS. I said that the modern day host really should be looking to also create clips and distribute to as many of the endpoints but things you just mentioned right because I think the discovery of shows has been really good through short term clips across social media. You know I don't think I've ever seen a Joe Rogan show or a Darova CEO but I've seen enough clips to get a a feel for them. So my question is and I joke with James on a regular basis that Headliner you know is an acquisition because you've got such a great platform. It seems such a a logical fit to take what you do and bring it to a host or are you going to follow the current trend like TrueFans Fountain, Riverside and others and become a host and then you do the whole thing? Where's where's Headliner in that?

Speaker 6 41:15

Excellent question for us it's easy. We've got integrations I think with over a dozen hosting platforms and hopefully we can have one with true fans too and so we do not want to become a host. I think we like playing on our land and what we've got and we like to work with the hosts that are there. And many of the hosts that have built out this infrastructure realize it's not their core competency. Several including Omni pivoted like I think ACAS and Omni are two examples that integrate with us when they had spent engineering time and effort and realized keeping up with threads, TikTok oh now YouTube Shorts supports up to three minutes. I've got to change all this your roadmap is defined by these third parties that are ancillary pieces of your platform not a good strategic decision. And so they've outsourced that stuff to us which for us it is core and central and so we are doing it. So that's a long way of saying we love our hosting partners we want to integrate with more video clips given the conversation about video is already integrated with a host Hub Hopper. I don't know if you caught that release of we've done video clips for that host I think three more coming in the coming weeks a month all in various stages of testing our integration and we believe the host should be the central hub for the creator and we would love to integrate with you and any host out there and we've kind of we've kind of kept on building. I think many of these hosts that are building are going to realize over time there's only so many hours in a day and every engineering decision has opportunity cost and what is your core competency as a host is it the social posting or is it actually some other aspect whether it be monetization or delivery or you name it.

Sam Sethi 43:00

Okay so you're not gonna become a host but you like integrating and yes we will have a conversation after this. But when's enough for Neil Modi? When does Neil Modi say 10 years, 12 years? You know, when would you want to exit from headliner, you know, how long's a piece of string I guess but do you have any plans to exit?

Speaker 6 43:19

Well we've had uh interest many times as you can probably imagine and we've maybe chatted about this before we're lucky enough that we had an exit behind us and my general thought is exits are thought of as positive in the community but actually as a second time entrepreneur exit in some ways is somewhat a failure. We built this company to be the biggest platform for getting your audience out there across the web. And I would say we we don't toot our own horn but I would probably argue that more people have discovered podcasts via headliner than almost any other platform including Apple, Spotify etc. The power of social and YouTube, now that YouTube's in it, obviously I think We've spearheaded YouTube's growth for all those audio episodes we bring into YouTube. So that's not to say that there's gonna be someone who wants to win this entire market and reach every person on the planet with podcasts. That partner and if they that goal like we have, I would say there's eight billion people on the planet. If only 500 million are listening to podcasts, we're still doing something wrong. YouTube was a big reason I think we can hit a billion users. But there's eight billion people on the planet. Again, we should be hitting podcasts, should be hitting four or five billion people. And we think far from kind of the data, we don't we don't get all of it because a lot of people post themselves. But we think we're in many hundreds of millions of touch points. And so we think we have a good chance to try to get more users, whether it be independently or with another entity that sees it the same way. But yeah, we like what we're doing, and like I said, it's hard, it's hard to complain when you're a profitable growing startup. I miss the days of everyone wanting to be a podcaster for sure. We were growing even faster then. But like I said, the last few years we've we've picked up dramatically with podcast promo and discovery. And I'm excited for video podcasting too, given video's been our thing since we've started.

Sam Sethi 45:18

So if anyone wants to find out more about headliner and the features and functions we've discussed, where would they go?

Speaker 6 45:24

Yeah, sure. Headliner.f is our web present. And they can always email me, Neil N-E-I-L at headliner.f. So it's H-E-A-D-L-I-N-E-R dot A-P P. Neil at headliner.app.

Sam Sethi 45:38

And Neil, will you be in London for the podcast show?

Speaker 6 45:40

I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully we can knock back a pint and enjoy and hopefully see you and everyone there.

Sam Sethi 45:47

We will.

Speaker 6 45:47

Thanks for having me on. Pleasure.

Human Announcer 45:49

The pod news weekly review will return in just a second.

The School of Podcasting

Speaker 9 45:53

The School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson.

Speaker 2 45:59

Hey, I'm Dave Jackson, host of the School of Podcasting. If you want to start a podcast or make the one you already have better, this is the show for you. Every week I share tips, insights, and proven strategies to help you podcast with more confidence and less confusion. No hype, no BS, delivered by someone who's been helping people understand technology for over 30 years. I do my best to make everything fun as well as easy. Here's an example. Want to follow the show and never miss an episode? Just go to school of podcasting.com slash follow. That's schoolofpodcasting.com slash follow. See what I did there? We're reinforcing my brand, schoolofpodcasting.com and giving you one easy link to follow. There's a lot more lessons. Just go to school of podcasting.com slash follow.

Human Announcer 46:56

The pod news weekly review with Buzz with Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Sam Sethi 47:05

James,

Audio Primes

Sam Sethi 47:06

we talked a little bit about CSXM and the number of people who were 13 plus uh that they could reach. But Sounds Profitable have released new research on audio primes.

James Cridland 47:17

What are audio primes, James? This is great data. So uh sponsored by RSS.com. This is all about the people who listen more than they watch. In fact, listen to at least 75% of their content as audio. These are people who prefer audio, um, which is about 22% of podcast consumers. Um, so some really good figures uh in terms of this. Now I thought, okay, uh, people who uh prefer audio rather than video, they'll be old, um, you know, they'll be uh probably they're not particularly interested because, you know, they're not particularly rich, and so therefore they don't have a decent screen or blah blah blah. None of this is true. None of this is true. So um they're actually they actually over-index for younger folk, and by younger here, I'm talking under 54, that much younger, but they over-index in terms of that, uh, which is really interesting. They over-index in terms of being more educated, of being higher earning. Um, so they are absolutely nothing that I assumed that they were. Plus, they actually don't hate video, they actually use video more as well. Um, so they use YouTube more than uh everyone else, they use uh uh you know uh streaming TV, um uh they use TikTok more than everyone else. So they actually like video as well, but it's just that they really appreciate audio. Um and I just thought, what what a clever um slice of the data to actually show what people who really enjoy audio podcasts rather than video podcasts, what sort of people they are.

Sam Sethi 49:01

Do you define yourself then as an audio prime?

James Cridland 49:04

Yes, absolutely. I would not uh I do watch um uh I do watch uh uh video, but I watch um stuff made for video. And um so there was a piece that the Wall Street Journal released this week. I don't did did you see that, this piece from The Wall Street Journal? Yes. It was brilliant. So there was a this piece from the Wall Street Journal, uh, which I loved, and it was basically, you know, how video podcasts are making audio podcasts worse to listen to. And it was talking about podcasters referring to things on screen that you can't see and blah, blah, blah. Um, and the piece starts by quoting a podcast listener who says that she's annoyed by this sort of thing. Somebody called Jordan Blair, a 35-year-old from Idaho. She's not that old, is she? And there is a picture of Buzzprout's Jordan Blair um uh wearing some uh very intelligent-looking horn-rimmed spectacles. Um uh totally un you know, um uncredited as working for Buzzsprout or working for a podcast company. No, she's just a listener, and she really hates this sort of thing. And I thought, brilliant, good on you, Jordan. So uh yes, very, very impressive that was. Um so yes, I the Primer, Miss Gene Braudy. So I am I am definitely uh I'm definitely on the Jordan Blair scale. Um uh I prefer um uh I prefer audio shows that are built for audio. If they happen to have video, that's fine. But if you're telling me stuff that I'm now missing out on because I can't see the screen, well, that's a bad thing. So I'm on Team Jordan, most definitely. Excellent. You'll be in London.

Sam Sethi 50:50

You can you can chat about that uh Wall Street Journal article with us.

James Cridland 50:55

The Wall Street Journals, Jordan Blair, everybody.

Sam Sethi 50:58

Now, um James,

The Bumper Score

Sam Sethi 51:00

what's your score? Now, not the football score. Uh, this is a bumper have launched the bumper score, a new tool to build uh close trust uh and close the gap between podcast listenership and advertiser confidence. What's the score all about, James?

James Cridland 51:17

What is the score all about? So this is a new score that uh bumper um are bringing out. It's based on verified metrics, so metrics like um Apple Podcasts, uh what watch time, listen time, uh YouTube watch time, listen time, all of that kind of stuff. And it ends up giving your podcast a score between zero and two hundred. If you're above 100, you're above the average, is the plan. And um and it basically shows uh advertisers uh how good you are at keeping people engaged and all of that. Um now you asked what the score was. We don't have a score yet, but it is going to be free to everybody. If you want to join the wait list, you can. Uh, wearbumper.com slash score is where to do that. Um it's an interesting idea. What do you think of the idea, Sam?

Sam Sethi 52:11

Well, you know, I'm a big fan of bumper, both the guys, uh Dan and Jonas. I think the score is an interesting metric. Um with my CEO of TreeFound Tatum, of course I support listen time, watch time and those metrics. The only concern I have is how much is that score just a bumper score, or how much is it going to be an industry score? Because if it's just a bumper score, then well it's great for their clients, but it doesn't really add value across the industry. But if they can make that metric and the way that they measure that score available and others can then jump on board and use the same methodology, then yeah, the score could become interesting. So it's it's how how are they going to open this up to everybody, or is it just going to be their own little score?

James Cridland 53:00

No, I completely agree with that. And I think, you know, I I I I it it's it's to me, you know, the bumper score uh and the fact that we don't know how it's actually calculated. We we know what numbers go into it, some of the numbers that go into it, um, uh, but we don't know how it's calculated. I I'm there thinking, I you know, I hope that you know you can't build a trust gap with something that is a proprietary thing that we don't know how it's calculated. So from that from that point of view, that that's my that's my issue with it. I quite like the idea. Um, and what I would be interested in is seeing whether bumper would work with Oxford Road, who have Orbit. Orbit is their very clever uh tool that um uh helps them know how successful a podcast is in terms of advertising, how many things that that particular podcast sold. And I would be interested in seeing how the bumper score, which is all about um people paying attention to that show, um, links with uh Orbit's score as well, because uh th that would then at least show that the bumper score is useful. I'm not sure necessarily that we know that yet. And so I think the jury's a little bit out in terms of that. Dan is very excited. Dan has told me that they will be public in terms of how the score is generated, and I think that that makes sense. Um, and um, yeah, so the proof will be in the pudding, as they say.

Sam Sethi 54:27

Yeah, I look forward to meeting Dan in London actually, and hopefully can sit down with him and find out more about this because um yeah. He's very good.

James Cridland 54:34

He's got it, he's got a very good radio voice, as you as you'll know, having he has, hasn't he? Yeah, yeah, very good.

Sam Sethi 54:40

So's Matt Cundle. I mean, what what is it with these people? And so's Tom Webster. Something's wrong here. Right, moving on.

Acast and Netflix numbers

Sam Sethi 54:49

Uh ACAST have published its annual report, James. What was it? Good, bad? Did they get an A plus or D minus?

James Cridland 54:57

Yeah, I think they got, I think I'm I think I will give them an A for A Cast. Um possibly not an A plus because uh they did make an overall loss of minus $12 million. Um so there is always that, but sales growth, lots and lots and lots of sales growth. Um North America is having a great time, uh, 60% up year on year. Uh overall sales grew by 30% year on year, so they are doing pretty well in terms of their sales numbers. Um, there is obviously cost of sale and cost of content and all of that, um, which is why there is a small overall loss. Um, there's also a lot more employees as well. It was uh 364 employees they used to have a year ago. Now they've got 429. That's a big step up, isn't it? Um, but you should assume, I suppose, that uh with those additional employees they should see additional revenue coming from that. Um but yeah, I thought it was uh pretty good, um, pretty good overall for uh for uh ACAST. They seem to be probably the most international podcast um sales company uh that is out there. Um there's a lot of very big successful ones that only focus on one particular territory, and I think ACAST has done a very good job of going, you know what, we're going to cover everywhere. Um and so they've got teams in Singapore, uh Timmy in Singapore, Henrik here in in Australia, um uh alongside Guy and lots of other people. And I think that is um ACAST's secret source in that actually, you know, when some countries don't do particularly well, you can look at Europe for that. North America helps them out. And similarly, when North America won't do very well, Europe will help them out. So I think it's a good thing, you know, overall. Yeah.

Sam Sethi 56:47

I think for me, when Apple announced their proprietary API for video and ACAST and simplecast slash ads whiz were in it, I was very bullish for ACAST because I think if Apple video isn't successful, ACAST I think will be at the forefront of making that successful. Um it'll be interesting to see their next results and the effect of that Apple video. Did it make any doubt or or was it you know a roaring success? So it'll be interesting to watch that one.

James Cridland 57:17

Yes, indeed. I think a fascinating company to watch.

Sam Sethi 57:20

Netflix. They've Netflix. Yes, they've released every cells. I only mention it because they're now doing podcasting, otherwise I wouldn't be bothered. Um he was bullish on podcasting though, James, wasn't he?

James Cridland 57:30

Yes, he was. This is uh Ted Sarandos's answer. Listen for the bit that'll make you cringe.

Speaker 3 57:37

I think what's most exciting about it, even though it's very early days, uh, what we're seeing is some data that would indicate that we're gaining uh incremental engagement to the platform. And how do we know it's incremental? Well, two things really jump out. One is the daytime viewing. So podcast consumption indexes to daytime hours on Netflix, uh which allows us to capture uh a time where we don't we historically have less engagement during the day. Uh, the other one is that it indexes much more mobile. So podcasting being more mobile than professional TV, and professional TV and film historically makes up a pretty small percentage of mobile viewing. So it's great that we get to meet our members where they are, even when they're enjoying other forms of entertainment.

James Cridland 58:18

Professional TV, Sam. Oh wow, that's a burn, isn't it? Yeah, podcasting money does so much better than professional TV. Oh, professional TV, eh?

Sam Sethi 58:30

Okay. And I didn't know I was a member. That's nice. I'm a member. I'm a member of Netflix. Yeah, you're a member of Netflix.

James Cridland 58:38

You're a member of Netflix, and you're probably watching quite a lot of that there, professional TV.

Sam Sethi 58:45

Well, I think it's what we said a few weeks ago when they got into podcasting. You know, Netflix and chill is really a nighttime experience on the big TV. Yeah and clearly they want the attention on the daytime, which is what was talking about.

James Cridland 58:58

Exactly. So on daytime, you know, the unprofessional TV uh is what people watch. Or as Louis Thoreau says. Hello there, and welcome back to the Louis Thoreau podcast, or if you're watching it on Spotify, the Louis Thoreau slightly shit TV show. Yes. So I can't get enough of that clip. Uh so yeah, um, so um, you know, here we are in the unprofessional TV world. Uh I can see what Ted is saying. Uh I think possibly he meant polished. Yeah, but anyway, um uh so yeah, but yeah, cheap he's looking at. Or cheap. But um, yeah, I mean, you know, um uh but that's all of the information that they shared around podcasting. Uh of course, podcasting is still only available in the US because uh to Netflix, nothing else exists and nothing else matters. Um, but um from that point of view, um at least uh at least we know a little bit more, but no um consumption information there at all in terms of how they've um how they've worked. They have also announced some more podcasts on their platform, which aren't podcasts, which aren't available any anywhere else. Um so you know, and again, don't get me started on what is a podcast, but uh that is clearly an issue as well.

Sam Sethi 1:00:13

One thing that they do not do yet is break out their podcast revenue stream. So it's I mean it's super early, but they don't at the moment. I mean they've increased their revenues to 12.25 billion, which is 16% growth. But the share price fell on the announcement that their co-founder Reed Hastings is departing the board. So you know, it's all change at Netflix. Um, you know, they didn't get Warner Brothers, that was a big loss to them. So, you know, I don't think Netflix is as strong or a secure, you know. Yes, the revenues are going up, but I don't think they're quite sure of where their direction is going forward, I think.

Around the world

Sam Sethi 1:00:53

What's going on around the world, James? Uh, Fox One have added podcasts, I understand. What's this about?

James Cridland 1:00:58

Yes, Fox One is another streaming service run by uh the uh the excellent Rupert Murdoch. Won't hear a bad word said against him, although ten might be fine. Um uh it's called uh Fox One, and eight podcast shows will be available on that platform, sourced from the ever-reliable Fox News and Red Seat Ventures. Um, also, Hulu has more podcasts going onto that platform as well. Headgum uh have signed three more shows to appear on Hulu. Interestingly, this isn't an exclusive deal, this is just a uh View First deal, um, which I think makes much more sense. Um, so uh those are on the way over to Hulu and CNN will have a video podcast. Ari Shapiro has joined CNN as a contributor and will co-present a video podcast alongside Audi Cornish, who of course used to be an NPR. Um the video podcast is audio only on Apple Podcasts. So it's not a video podcast, is it? But it's also available on video on YouTube, Spotify, and CNN's streaming service, whatever CNN streaming service is called these days. Is it just called CNN now? And anyway, there is now another um another streaming um uh platform. Well, it's a streaming sort of um service called Sane TV, save America, news and entertainment television. Uh it's from Crooked Media. Uh weirdly, they have not called it crooked TV. Oh no, I understand why now. Uh and uh they have a 24-7 stream of political analysis, culture deep dives on Amazon Prime Video, um, and plans to expand further in Fast TV and all of that. Um uh uh which looks uh which looks interesting. I think you know, fast TV, there's definitely something there uh in terms of how all of that works. Um so I think from you know that that uh from that point of view, I think uh I think yeah, you know, crooked media to get involved in that sort of thing, of course, makes a ton of uh sense.

Sam Sethi 1:03:00

Now, one of the things that's interesting is I think it's the number two or three podcast, or it has been for a while, Call Her Daddy with Alex Cooper. But not all is well in the world of Alex Cooper. What's going on, James?

James Cridland 1:03:14

Yes. Um, or as I or as I captioned this, is Alex Cooper's podcast network feeling a little under the weather because it's because it's called the Unwell Network. You see, that was a joke. Very good, yes, very good. Anyway, this is Ashley Carmen, friend of the show, um, who has written a long article for her uh paid um newsletter, and uh all kinds of uh things that uh I didn't feel entirely comfortable about legally repeating. Um uh but uh stories about high employee turnover, um some bad behaviour, apparently, allegedly, from CEO Matt Kaplan. I'm sure that Matt would deny it all. Um, and uh yes, and uh but basically all of that. Um uh but um Ashley has also pointed out that actually, if you were to take a look at the Unwell Network, they've not got any other hits other than call her daddy. Is the Unwell Network just a one-track pony? Um uh or a one-trick pony? Um, you can be a both a trap and a trick uh there. But yes, um, so from all of that point of view, um uh yeah, it's a really interesting. It's I'll tell you what, it's an interesting article to read, particularly interesting article to read, knowing that Bloomberg have lots of lawyers, and this has gone through lots of lawyers, and um they have allowed uh Ashley to get away with all kinds of things that I don't think I would be able to actually do. So Ashley is clearly very well sourced and can back up all of this stuff. But uh yeah, it's a fascinating article. Uh if you want to read that, it's in uh it's in Screen Time actually, which is um one of the Bloomberg um newsletters that you can uh that you can pay for, uh, or if you know how to get past Bloomberg's um paywall, then you can use that too. Um but uh yeah, fascinating.

Sam Sethi 1:05:09

Don't tell everybody.

James Cridland 1:05:10

No, yes, yes, no, nobody. Do you know uh it it would be against the DMCA for me to explain how to do that? So don't now you're in enough trouble with lawyers, we don't know. Yes, enough trouble with lawyers. Let's yes, let's move on. Uh and then finally the Australian podcast ranker came out for March. Um, interestingly, the number one show here in Australia is Mamma Mia Out Loud, which is a women's podcast. A women's interests podcast is probably the easiest way of explaining it. Lots of people will turn around and say podcasting is really male uh dominated and it's all men and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Not in this country, it isn't. They have double the total downloads of the number two show from Hamish Nandy, uh, Mamma Mia Out Loud, which is well um and truly um uh in front of anything else. Um, news is the number one genre uh here, Al Jazeera is a new public. To the Australian Podcast Ranker. And yeah, but just interesting seeing how well Mamma Mia is uh doing, you know,

Awards and events

James Cridland 1:06:09

in terms of that.

Human Announcer 1:06:10

Podcast events on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 1:06:13

Yes, awards and events. And um, yeah, we had a good um a good scoop uh this week. It's been it's been a good couple of weeks for the Pod News newsletter, I think. We had a good uh uh scoop with all of the winners for the annual Webby Awards. Uh all of the winners um in there. I even wrote a little bit of code uh that would pull all of the um uh artwork thumbnails from the winners list um so that I could then use it in the um uh in the header image, which I felt very uh clever about. Um but uh yes, so uh a great big list, uh including iHeartMedia winning the Webby Company of the Year award for podcasting. Uh best new podcast was goal hangers, the rest is science. Good hang with Amy Polar won four awards, but a show that I have not heard of before, the Jamie Kern Lima Show, won five awards for an episode with Michelle Obama. So realistically, and I don't want to be rude, but realistically, Michelle Obama has won five awards. Because that's basically what happened there. But good on Jamie Kern Lima um for uh for entering it and entering as many uh categories as she obviously has. Um it's a really interesting list. Um, loads of uh people are there. Um, we should say um uh congratulations to Things Bakers Know, the King Arthur Baking podcast, um, who are uh hosted on our sponsors, Buzz Sprout. Uh also the Murderer Killings, a true crime podcast that won scripted fiction, also hosted on BuzzSprout, the Broken Ground podcast, which is all about sustainability and environment. It was uh Earth Day this week, of course, as well, also hosted by uh Buzz Sprout as well. So Buzz Sprout, in fact, got four winners. Uh the Murderer Killings got uh two uh awards in the uh Webbies. So congratulations, hurrah um to Buzz Sprout as well.

Sam Sethi 1:08:15

Yes, well done. Now uh moving on to events, James. Fountain are hosting an event in London to do with music. What's this one about?

James Cridland 1:08:24

Yes, um, there's a very famous East End pub that does a lot of live music. It's called the Old Blue Last, and uh Fountain uh is hosting a live event next Thursday, April the 30th. Um, and um it's kind of part uh conference and then part um concert. Um listen to me, how how old am I? Part concert, part gig. Um but uh yes, so you can go along uh between 4:30 and 6 on Thursday and um enjoy an introduction to the new music economy. Oscar Merry will be giving a talk around uh how music can be hosted on RSS and how you can get paid for that. And then there's a night of live music um at the old blue last with lots of upcoming UK um bands uh which will be streamed live on Fountain and TrueFans uh and other supporting podcast apps. You will have the ability to pay the artists directly as you listen. So all of that will work fantastically. And uh yeah, it's a pretty cool thing. Um it's a it's a very um uh early beginning for uh RSS-based music hosting. But uh yeah, I think it's um I think it's definitely a thing. It's uh I think free to go, or maybe there's a very small charge, but not very much of a charge, but you should be s supporting all of this anyway. Uh Thursday, April the 30th in London. You can find out more details, fountain.fm slash live.

Sam Sethi 1:09:55

Yeah, I'm hoping I'll get Oscar on the show the week after uh to talk about what happened at the event. So that would

The Tech Stuff

Sam Sethi 1:10:02

be nice.

Human Announcer 1:10:02

The Tuck stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 1:10:06

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

Sam Sethi 1:10:10

Yeah, uh a couple of things here. Uh Adomi Premiere Pro now offers a new on-device speech to text transcription tool. Seems a lot of people are now looking to offload the transcription to the device rather than do it in the cloud, James.

James Cridland 1:10:25

Yeah, I think um, you know, this is happening more and more. Partially, it's a privacy thing. I mean, if I'm working on a news story that will take down the government, the last thing that I really want um to in order to make that story is for the audio that I've got to be transcribed on the cloud where the government will be listening. So um, so Hindenburg Pro has offered um uh, you know, uh on your device transcription for quite some time now, for almost uh two years, I think. Adobe Premiere Pro, um, their uh video editor um is now offering the same sort of thing. Um, so that allows you to transcribe both video and audio. The interesting thing is that it says that the tool claims it can transcribe an hour of audio in less than a minute. Wow. If that's true, and obviously it must be true because it, you know, it's from Adobe, they would never lie. But if it's true, then wow, is that a pig that I've just seen flying past? That's that's inordinately fast. I cannot believe that to be the case, particularly on a crappy laptop um that isn't actually um you know in the cloud. I'm not sure that that's entirely true, but I'm sure that it will do an hour of audio in less than 10 minutes. Yes, absolutely. But less than a minute, really? Gosh. Should we try it?

Sam Sethi 1:11:43

I'll um I'll I'll I'll crank it up and we'll do this show and we'll see what happens.

James Cridland 1:11:47

Well, if you've got if you've got Adobe Premiere Pro, um uh and of course you will do because you live in a castle and and you and you drive a Range Rover, so of course you've got a very nice friend. I have a very nice friend. Of course you're gonna be paying for that. Um yes. Anyway, let's move on. Move on.

Sam Sethi 1:12:08

Uh lastly, uh Million Podcast comes out of beta. What's this one?

James Cridland 1:12:12

Yeah, so this is uh company that which is based in Mumbai in India. Um it's a searchable database of podcasts, essentially, but it's built for people that um are essentially looking for shows to pitch clients or themselves to and all of that. Um there is a free tier, so you can go and have a look at what it's got in it, um, but you can't necessarily see all of it. I think it's useful for people that want to spam podcasters, unfortunately, but I think it's also good for people that um do genuinely want to get in touch with um individual shows um and uh see how all of that works. It's it's got some pretty good information actually that it's managed to find for this for this very show, for example. Um, so I think it's done uh it's done quite a nice job, you know, in terms of that. Um but uh yeah, it's um from uh um from Anoj Agawal, um who um yeah who has been uh working on other things as well. Um but uh yeah, so I th I thought you know it's um a bootstrap company based in in India, it's probably quite interesting, I think.

The inbox

Human Announcer 1:13:19

Boostigram, booster grab, boostergram, super comments, zaps, fan mail, fan mail, and voicemail, voice our favorite time of the week. It's the Pod News Weekly Review inbox.

James Cridland 1:13:32

Yes, uh so many different ways to get in touch with this fan mail by using the link in our show notes or boosts or email, and we share all of the money that we make uh as well, uh, which is all good. Um, thank you uh to the uh many people who have been uh streaming this uh show uh on an app like TrueFans or Fountain or Podcast Guru. Uh you have streamed 7,800 sats, which is up 127% week on week. So hurrah for you. Uh thank you very much. And thank you also to a bunch of people that have got in touch with us um using BuzzBratt's fan mail, uh, which is linked uh from the top of our show notes, uh, including Thomas Verheim, who has left us this message. Hi guys.

Speaker 1:14:18

First of all, I want to thank you for a great show. My name is Thomas Verheim, and I'm working for Shipstar in Norway. Previously I worked for ACAST. So my question is why do you think YouTube is topping the charts in almost every country when it comes to podcast listening? I struggle to believe that. Because when I listen to podcasts on YouTube, and mostly on my bike on my way home, I have to press play to make sure the screen is on, and then put my phone in my pocket. And after like two minutes, there's an ad break. And manually ad before I'm able to keep listening. So do you think it just has to do with how the question is asked? Or do you think people just have a different opinion on what a podcast is?

James Cridland 1:15:05

There's a question. Why do you think YouTube always ends up as being number one?

Sam Sethi 1:15:10

Is it because they just do auto plays and ha count one second as a play?

James Cridland 1:15:15

I think it could be a bit of that. I think it's also probably people versus consumption still. I know that Edison's infinite dial has told me I'm wrong, but I still think it's um I still think YouTube is probably number one in terms of uh the amount of people who are consuming something that they consider to be a podcast. But when you look at total time spent listening, my own uh uh thought is that that can't possibly be true. Um, but uh Edison's uh Infinite Dial very clearly says no, it's num number one for consumption as well. So yeah, I don't know, Thomas. I I genuinely don't know. It's a great, great question because the more people who you talk to like us, the more people who turn around and say, I'm not sure it is, I'm not sure it is number one. Um but the majority of the research that we see seems to show it is number one. So perhaps that just sh shows how out of touch we all are with the real world. Maybe it's that. I don't know.

Sam Sethi 1:16:16

Well, uh, did we get any other fan mail James?

James Cridland 1:16:19

We did. We got um uh we seem to be big in Alaska. Oh, we're big in Alaska. Um uh what have we got? We've got one from one from I don't know, one from Glenn Allen. Are we going on tour there?

Sam Sethi 1:16:32

Are we? Are we going on tour to Alaska?

James Cridland 1:16:33

I mean, I mean, you know, I mean, why not? Um uh one from uh Glen Allen in uh Alaska. Where is Glenn Allen? Uh I wonder. Um uh I'm pressing the button. I'm just finding out. I'm just curious as to whether it's on his name.

Sam Sethi 1:16:49

That's not his name.

James Cridland 1:16:50

That's not his name. I was curious as to whether it was close to Anchorage, and the answer is uh uh no, not really. Um but uh yes, uh so something from Glenn Allen. With regard to your recent comment about Overcast being an opinionated podcast app, which I called it, which I think is fair. Um I don't think anybody will mind about that. Uh a number of years ago, when creator Marco Arment stated that he didn't want any money from anyone who disagreed with him politically, I complied by cancelling my subscription and requested a refund. Apparently his declaration was political posturing more than anything else because he ignored me and I never got my refund. Ouch. Yes, I missed I missed Michael Arment saying that sort of thing. Um, but that sounds a very Marco Arment thing to say. But yes, uh, I think Overcast is one of those apps which um, you know, very clearly it's a particular use case, a particular built for a particular user, and and there's nothing wrong with that in terms of podcast apps. I think it's a great thing. Um thank you, Mr. Anonymous or Mrs. Anonymous from or Master Anonymous or Miss Anonymous from uh Glenn Allen in Alaska and uh just up the road in Anchorage. Um regarding the AI copycat of podcasts, I would think there is a legal remedy. Many companies have sued copycats for similar, though not identical, uh artwork and similar but not identical logos and so on. Yes, correct. And um it's uh a thing called the uh I'm gonna call it the Lumen Act. It's not the Lumen Axe, but I can't quite remember what it's called, but it's it's called something about that, and it's uh uh and it's a rule around passing off, um, which is the thing. So uh yes, uh totally get that. I suppose the question though is if you're a small podcaster and you just produce one little show and it's a side hustle, um, then do you want to get lawyers involved to stop these people from doing something like that? Or would you prefer that people just didn't do it anyway? I think I would lean onto the just just behave. I think that would be good. Yes. I think that would be stop it. Yes, exactly. Stop it. Um, and uh and uh this person from Anchorage goes on, um, with regards to the AI copycats, uh, this may actually be one of the few situations where a DMCA takedown notice works for the benefit of individuals as opposed to corporations who tend to use them and abuse them. Yeah, DMCA is a fascinating thing, and um what uh I, you know, essentially will um uh quite often do is I will pull stuff off while I look at whether or not it's it should be coming off in terms of DMCA um or in terms of any other legal challenge. Um and then sometimes I'll just stick it back on there quietly, stick it back on there, um, and say, no, I don't, I don't, I don't necessarily agree with you. Um probably if I had a proper American lawyer, um, then they would tell me that that's a bad idea. But um uh yeah, but uh I think definitely DMCA is a fascinating thing. So do we have any boosts and things from uh true fans? What have we got?

Sam Sethi 1:20:09

Well, I mean, I'm glad to see that in runway, because I've got an image here, that you are receiving them loud and clear. So that's good news. Um, some of them by the looks of things. Yeah, but yeah, I'm not sure why you're not getting all of them. So I don't know. We'll have to have a look at that one. Um you didn't get one of them.

James Cridland 1:20:26

Oh, I tell you what it is. I'll tell you what it is, because you fixed it on Saturday. Yes, that's what happened there. So actually, um the ones from uh Claire and Neil and Seth that you're just about to read out, yeah, uh it came while it wasn't working, but I think it's all been fixed again. So I'll read the ones that worked. Yeah. Um The ugly quacking duck. Uh thank you, Bruce. Um, another row of ducks. Double two, double two sats. Um, how about a video podcast on how bots have taken over the world? Slop slop and more slop all over. Uh wait, maybe it has already been done, or maybe it should be. Seven three. Yes. Um uh no, I'm not making a video podcast, uh, Bruce. But thank you for your idea. Um, that's very kind. And Martin Lindescog, um, using uh true fans. Uh it is all good fun. I agree, James. You are good at bleeping out the word fk. Uh yes, I enjoy bleeping out the word fk. It's good fun. He's gonna miss it one week.

Sam Sethi 1:21:25

You know he's gonna say this, and he's he's gonna he's gonna be rushing out the door to do something and go, did I did I get that one in? Did I bleed that fan?

James Cridland 1:21:33

Oh fucking hell, I didn't. Yes, exactly. Uh so anyway, here's a row of sticks. Yes, uh, double one, double one sets. More satoshis next week. Oh, good. Uh thank you very much for that.

Sam Sethi 1:21:43

That's very exciting. Yeah, Claire Wait Brown said, Thanks for not switching over the people news this week. Yes, yes, well done. Yes, we didn't. Um, Neil Vellia said exactly a tidal wave of shit, bravo. So, yes. Um, yes, that was my phrase about uh AI, wasn't it? Yes. Uh and he sent us also um uh a lovely set of uh stats as well saying please call Inception Point Podcast what they are. AI slop. Yes, we will continue to do that, Neil. Don't worry.

James Cridland 1:22:12

Yes, indeed. And uh thank you to our many power supporters. Um you are the reason why we will be able to afford drinks at the London Podcast Show. Uh more details of that to come a little bit closer to the time, but you are the reason why. Well, you know, I'll put some of my money behind the bar anyway. Um but sorry, sorry, are we are we opening up the cridd and wallet? Well, uh uh hey, what what are you saying? Um yes, I think we we may be opening up a criddle and wallet a little bit. Um, although what I have been saying, the few people who I have already invited to our our our drinks, what I have been saying is uh please pretend that you're a customer of Buzzprout, because then they will buy them.

Sam Sethi 1:22:55

No, no, no, we're okay. No, I in as part of our agreement, yeah. I agreed that we would invite people that we from PodNews normally invite as well. Excellent. So that's you're okay, you're covered.

James Cridland 1:23:07

There's a thing. I'm not quite sure what the agreement says about who's paying, but let's cover that later. Um uh so thank you to people like uh Rachel Corbett, uh Dave Jackson, uh Mike at the Road Media Network, and Matt Madeiros for your very kind uh support. We really appreciate that. So uh thank you so much. Um,

Sam and James's week

James Cridland 1:23:26

what's happened for you, Sam?

Sam Sethi 1:23:27

Um well, first of all, I noticed a really interesting job from MessageHerd just on the Pod News job board, which Spanish language video podcast editor, paddle sports podcast. Oh god. Oh, paddle, uh paddle.

James Cridland 1:23:43

So what else failed? You could work for Jake Warren in uh uh MessageHerd. Yes, yeah. Uh couldn't you? Yeah, very good.

Sam Sethi 1:23:50

One problem, I don't speak Spanish, but other than that, I'm excellent, Jake. Don't worry. Yes, very good. Okay, excellent. Um uh I added support for Dave Jones's new spam API. So on TrueFans, we took that API, we ran it through our local database, and we discovered over a thousand podcasts that Dave had marked as spam, so we removed those. And now we have a process that runs basically when we add new episodes, we check it through the spam API as well. And if they're in there, we don't add them.

James Cridland 1:24:22

Nice, nice, very smart. What else has uh TrueFans done this week?

Sam Sethi 1:24:26

Uh we we added a bot blocker. Um so one of the things TrueFans does is we stream content we don't download. And because of that, we've noticed that there are a load of bots that were also streaming. And normally that's not a big problem, but uh the charging model we have is that we charge per megabyte of streaming. So um if bots are streaming, then guess what? The creator's paying. And that didn't seem fair. We could hide the bots post-streaming, that's what we did before, which would give you a true indication of your plays and listen time. Uh-huh. But we felt that users would want a way to bot uh block the bots. So we've done that now. So you can now physically block a bot and the bot cannot stream your content anymore, which is great. Um, we're being very cautious with it, obviously, because I think you know some people might get a little bit bot block happy um and could cause themselves from problems.

James Cridland 1:25:25

Has anybody um has anybody mentioned you uh in a positive way on LinkedIn recently?

Sam Sethi 1:25:30

Well, I have to say, young Matt Deegan, I'll call him that now. Um yes, he said, I think what true fans are doing with podcast stats is really interesting. A combination of splitting out bots and measuring consumption is something worth watching. I was pleasantly pleased last night when I saw that. Thank you, Matt.

James Cridland 1:25:46

No, very good. I'm looking forward to seeing him uh at the podcast show uh in uh May as well. Yes. Now, James, uh what's been happening for you? Oh, I was on the teddy again this morning. Um uh yes, talking about talking about the radio. Uh it's really interesting. When you do something now when you do something a second time, so you turn up to the same TV studios, you know what to do, you know where to go, you know what to expect, you know where you can put notes and where you uh don't, you know, and all of that kind of stuff. When you do that, it's so different, isn't it, to when you just don't really know what's going on. Um and so uh yeah, so it was it was great to be on and um uh great to be on talking about Kyle and Jackie O all over again uh on national uh national television, which sounds really impressive until you add in Australia to the to the end of that sentence. Um but that was very good. So I enjoyed uh doing that, and I also enjoyed listening to well I'm going I'm going to uh uh pretend it was a podcast, it was on the radio, so actually it wasn't, but you can get it as a podcast. Um there's a show called Conversations, which is one of the biggest shows um here in Australia. It's an hour-long interview with different people, but it's an hour-long interview with different people done by somebody who is a really properly good interviewer. They have teams of researchers, um, quite similar to Fresh Air in many ways, um, but it's called Conversations here. It's done by a man with the unfortunate name of Richard Feidler, which if you write that down, you'll realize why that's slightly more unfortunate. But anyway, it's a great uh it's a great um uh show. And um there was an in uh there was an interview that he did today with Sandy Toxvig. Uh and Sandy uh will be well known to many people who listen to this as being an English comedian, she's not, she's Danish, um, but an uh Danish English comedian who hosts QI. Um but my goodness, she's got an incredible backstory, and what her family did and what her great great grandfather did, and all this kind of stuff. Really, really interested. And I listened to the first 40 minutes of it, and I was thinking, this is fascinating, and they'd only got Up to her at university, um, 40 minutes in. So uh, you know, it's a really, really good listen. So I would heartily recommend that. You'll find conversations wherever you find your um your podcasts. Um, but uh yeah, if you know who Sandy Toxvig is, if you don't know who Sandy Toxvig is, it's it's of total total not non-interest to you. But if you do know who Sandy Toxig is, my goodness, it's worth a listen. So uh heartly recommend that you're gonna recommend that later then. Yeah, heartily recommend that. Um and I have and I have one more question for you. Uh when is unreliable uh when is unreliable trivia coming back? Because um I I I've I've I'm missing unreliable trivia.

Sam Sethi 1:28:38

Oh well, I've got a good one for you. You know, why do we say the word goodbye? Hang on.

Human Announcer 1:28:43

And now, unreliable trivia with Sam Sethy.

Sam Sethi 1:28:47

Go on, Sam. So the word goodbye comes from in the 16th century, we used to say God be with you, and then it changed to God be with ye, and then it shortened to goodbye.

Speaker 4 1:29:00

That was unreliable trivia with Sam Sethy. Trivia may not be truthful. Please check all facts before acting on them. No guarantees are given. Use this trivia with caution, especially in a pub quiz or a similar situation. Terms and conditions apply. Good.

James Cridland 1:29:11

Uh I just I just wanted to use those. Uh and that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories taken from the Pod News Daily Newsletter at Podnews.net.

Sam Sethi 1:29:20

Uh you can support this show by streaming Sats. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout thumb mail or voicemail link in our show notes, and you can send us a boost or become a power supporter like the 24 Power Supporters at weekly.podnews.net, who we hope to see at our drinks as well.

James Cridland 1:29:36

Yes, more details of that coming uh soon. And the only place, by the way, that you will learn about the drinks will be this very podcast. So make sure that you have a listen because my goodness, uh, I'm not saying it's to 33,000 people. That would be a mistake. Uh our music is from TM Studios, our voiceover is Sheila D. Our audio is recorded using CleanFeed. We edit with Hindenburg, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Human Announcer 1:30:02

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.