Welcome And What’s Coming

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 Steffi.

James Cridland 0:12

I'm James Cridlin, the editor of Pod News. And I'm Sam Steffi, the CEO of Tree Fans.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

The first season it got to 500,000 downloads, which was just mind-blowing to us.

James Cridland 0:24

Andrea Kosky on the secrets of a successful indie podcast launch. Plus.

SPEAKER_05 0:30

I wanted to develop an app which when I stop developing will still work.

James Cridland 0:34

Holger Krupp on a new podcast app for iPhone and Amazon Music gets video podcasts. This podcast is sponsored by Buzz Sprout with the tools, support, and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with BuzzSprout.com.

Announcer 0:51

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi 0:56

James, it's party time. Everyone's joining the HLS party, it seems. Who's the latest member to join the party?

James Cridland 1:04

Yes, this is HLS video, of course. And the latest person is Amazon Music. Yay!

Sam Sethi 1:10

So Amazon Amazon's woken up.

James Cridland 1:14

So Amazon Music are rolling out video podcasts from today, if you live in the US and if you use iOS or Android. But uh all subscription tiers, it says here. Yeah, I think that this is um pretty good. There's some uh interesting language that they used in the announcement that they made.

Sam Sethi 1:32

Can I just say I was totally confused. So I've got several questions because I'm not quite sure how it's working. So crack on.

James Cridland 1:39

Yeah, well, um um I mean I liked it because they are talking about HLS. They're starting with Amazon's Art 19, um, and so Amazon's Art 19 will be the first company to push HLS video into Amazon Music. However, what the company has said is that they will support HLS multivariate playlists, those are the things that Apple want, via an alternate enclosure in RSS, which is the thing that we've been talking about all the way through, which is really good. So that means that theoretically at least, companies who are already supporting alternate enclosure, like uh Transistor, for example, like Flight Story, all of those videos will appear at some point in Amazon Music. Now, um, a company spokesperson gave us a really interesting quote. It maintains an open RSS ecosystem, meaning podcast creators retain full control over their hosting and inventory monetization and audience targeting. And I've uh and I did clarify with them there is no private API to submit video, and Amazon Music is not charging podcast creators or networks for access to video distribution. Now, what I suspect is going to happen is that Amazon Music will be working with podcast hosting companies as partners just basically to uh scale this up and to make sure that the Amazon Music app isn't full of pornography, probably. Um so I think uh each individual podcast uh hosting company will probably have some form of allow listing in the future. Um but uh supporting standard RSS um alternate enclosures, I think is pretty good.

Sam Sethi 3:34

Yeah, and I was like, you're gonna knock me off with a feather. I mean it was great because uh it really well, the first thing it was they give a good kicking to Apple with that little subtle comment uh about no private APIs and uh not taking any money. Uh well done, Amazon. Um the second one is well done for the alternative enclosure. I was confused because obviously Amazon Music is the app and Art19 is the host, so that was where my confusion lay. Obviously, Art19 was one of the um partners announced for Apple when it was first um talked about with HLS. So they will still be paying, I assume, Apple a small percentage of any advertising that they push through to the Apple.

James Cridland 4:16

Yes, and you need to stop saying percentage because otherwise uh our friends our friends at Apple will pull up Apple and reveal what you're doing then and they'll get it right. Our friends at Apple will will pull your arms and legs off. Um it is a it is a uh a standard charge per ad served, but we don't know what that charge is yet. Having said that, um yes, um so my understanding is that um yeah, just like iHeart uh said in uh back at the end of last year, they will be doing this without charging um for the ads for any ads that appear, uh is my understanding. And um now w when you start talking about the specific um technology involved in advertising, my suspicion is that that um will be something that Amazon want to just be careful about, and um and I don't fully understand the way that interstitial advertising works for HLS. Um and so there may be a few wrinkles here or there. But I think certainly, I mean, what they're very clearly saying is if you've got baked-in ads, that's absolutely fine. And if you've got dynamic ads, then those should work. But I suspect that um the proof will be in the pudding a little bit later on in the year.

Sam Sethi 5:37

So I give Amazon seven out of ten for this. Why don't I give them a higher score? Because it's only US for now. So hello from the rest of the world. And just thought I'd let you know that we exist. Uh and um, you know, also um Does this mean that it puts pressure on Apple, James, to support the alternative enclosure?

James Cridland 6:00

I I I would really hope that Apple look at the alternate enclosure. You can see that they are you know concerned about what appears in their app, and I think rightly so, but th there seems to me to be no reason why you wouldn't want to say we will only read your alternate enclosure if we have signed a contract. Um, and that to me seems to be the clever way past this in terms of both content moderation but also in terms of advertising and that sort of thing as well. I think doing a private proprietary API, it's not particularly helpful for anyone. I understand why Apple are doing it, but it's not particularly helpful for anybody. And I rather wish that Apple hadn't done that bit. I think that that's going to harm Apple long term. And I think, you know, just being able to go, okay, this is an alternate enclosure which contains video from name of company at random, rss.com. Uh, it looks okay to us, but we just need rss.com to sign a contract with us um saying that they won't put porn on there or they won't do X, Y, and Z. Um, I think that that's perfectly acceptable. And I'm surprised that Apple haven't done that. Um, and I think anything that gets in the way of open RSS is a bit of a mistake, particularly from Apple, who have been saying very gung-ho recently, we are the home of podcasts. We are why podcasts are called podcasts, and we are the home of it. And I think it's um, you know, it it it makes sense, therefore, for Apple to just be careful that they don't ruin OpenRSS in that way.

Sam Sethi 7:44

Doesn't Spotify and YouTube have the same pawn problem? I mean, people can upload stuff, so they must have put in place some sort of detection before publication.

James Cridland 7:54

I mean, certainly YouTube, uh as you would expect, has a bunch of that. The difference here though is that's a user uploading video to YouTube or to Spotify. Uh in the case of podcasting, what it's more typically going to be is it's going to be a podcast hosting company who is connecting their systems directly to Amazon, directly to Apple, and so on. And I think that means that you can actually have a bit more of a legal relationship there by saying, you know what, actually, you know, you you just need to sign this before we'll accept those alternate enclosures from you. Um, and that may very well be what Amazon is is uh working on. When when I started asking very technical questions such as this, you you can imagine that the answers were we'll come back to you and it'll all become clear l l later on in the year, etc. etc. And I think that that's perfectly fair. So um, but I think you know, uh just to come back to the fundamental here: Amazon music, turning on video podcasts, great. Doing it in an open way, fantastic. And I think um they should certainly be patted on the back uh for that sort of thing.

Acast Claims First Video Monetization

Sam Sethi 9:12

I'll I'll have an extra piece of pizza at their party, just to say thank you. Um ACast. Now they were one of the partners that launched with Apple along with Art19 and uh Adswaves. They have just made a pretty big claim, James. What is it?

James Cridland 9:29

That yes, they have claimed that they are the first to monetize Apple Podcasts HLS video. Uh they've signed campaigns with both State Farm, which I think is an insurance company, and T-Mobile, which is a mobile phone company. And they say that 117 shows have already enabled ACAST's Apple HLS integration. Now, I had a text message from another uh company which has also um monetized very clearly monetized HLS video, um, and their comment to me was the word bullshit. So I think I think fair enough. I think that other companies have probably monetized Apple Podcasts HLS video already. I think in this particular case, Acast, um, because they have a clever and far-thinking PR department, have thought nobody has yet claimed this as a first. And if we claim this as a first, then we'll probably get this as a first and it'll look good for us. So I don't see that there's particularly too much of a problem with that.

Sam Sethi 10:28

It is now because anyone searching on pod news for the record of the day will see A-Cast claims first.

James Cridland 10:35

Well, yes, absolutely. And you'll notice that I said ACAST claims it's the first, which is correct. ACAST do claim that they're the first. Um, but uh yes, but I'm not actually saying that ACAST is the first, because that would be different. But over a thousand video episodes published today on ACAST, and access to video is invite only, something that ACAST didn't actually say. Um, but I think that that um is interesting, just seeing the amount of growth. Now, you would kind of expect that because the type of podcasters that use ACast are more likely to have video assets, more likely to be filming it on video anyway. I think the type of podcasters who are using BuzzSprout, for example, I was more surprised at hearing how well Buzzsprout's rollout has been doing as well. Um, within the first day and a half, they signed up 115 shows. Um, they'd already published 250 episodes. That's pretty impressive after a day and a half. So um I think from that point of view, I I think that's a more impressive number, frankly. Yes, there are sponsor, but I think that that's a more impressive number than ACAST's number so far.

Sam Sethi 11:47

Yeah, and now I'm gonna say I'm super annoyed, right? So you've just said there's a thousand videos that are available on ACAST, there's loads of shows on Buzzcast, and none of those are open to the open standard apps like Fountain, TrueFans, Podfirst, Overcast, Pocket Cast, none of it. None of that. All that's proprietary, all of that's behind a locked firewall. Um, we can't get to it, blah, blah, blah. It's all for Apple. So we give Spotify a good kicking for being a wall garden, and we give Apple a bypass every time because they add a few tags. But this is a complete wall garden. I can't access those videos unless I use the Apple app. Why do we give them a free pass on this one, James?

James Cridland 12:33

I think that's a good question. But also, why are we giving ACAST a free pass? Why are we giving Budsprout a free pass? There is an open standard there. Support it. Why are they not supporting it?

Sam Sethi 12:43

No, no, they're desperate to stay in the good books of Apple, right? Apple are the dog, they're the tail, right? Apple decided that they were not going to use RSS. Apple decided they weren't going to use the alternative enclosure. Apple decided they were going to use their proprietary API. And everyone fell in because they want to stay in Apple's good books. So I don't blame ACast and Budcast and others following their lead, but why did Apple force that in the first place when there was a decent open standard available?

James Cridland 13:11

Yeah, well, I don't know. That will be an interesting question to ask to the folk from Apple. I'm not sure how many of the US folk from Apple are coming over next week. I think that some of them are to the podcast show in London. I think some of them are, but certainly the names that I have seen on stage include people like Susie Warhurst, um, who is um head of international podcasts, but based in London, um, who probably won't have too much visibility into that um part of um of uh Apple. But I do think that we we should be um, you know, I think that you're right. I think that we should be making more of the fact that both this is a proprietary private API, which for Apple, you can't have your cake and eat it. You can't say that, and also say, you know, we're we're there for podcasters and and um you know we we're uh you know we're the home of podcasting, which is a phrase that they've been using, um, but also uh uh start to undermine the open RSS, which of course they've been doing in the past with things like um the people tag, with things like the additional artwork that they want, with um all kinds of things. This isn't a new thing for Apple, and it's a bit uh disappointing to see Apple doing this in terms of their video.

Sam Sethi 14:37

Yeah, I mean we'd all got excited with because they turned the corner by adding chapters and transcripts. Uh so yeah. I suppose when I go to the Apple breakfast I could ask, but I'll probably get kicked out so I won't. Um anyway.

James Cridland 14:50

I mean, at least you know that there's an Apple breakfast. That's more than I do.

How Podvision Hit 500,000 Downloads

Sam Sethi 14:54

Right. I'll tell you later. So don't worry. It's having NDA. Moving on then, James. Uh there's a new there is a new podcast agency called Podvision out there, and its first show has done half a million downloads in its first season. Tell me more.

James Cridland 15:16

Yes, I thought that that was a particularly impressive number for a brand new podcast agency. It's Andrea Koskai and Julian Andrakay from Podvision. And so I spoke to them both to find out about how they did it.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

My name is Andrea Koskai. I am the founder and writer of Eurowaves, which is the go-to European podcasting newsletter. And I am the co-founder and head of growth of Podvision, which is the agency that Julian and I are building and representing together. And we're essentially supporting podcasters who are either launching, rebranding, or kind of plateauing to have a bit of a refresh into their work and us coming in to be their cheerleaders and take off all the hard, heavy load kind of work so that they can really focus on the creativity of podcasting and really get the joy out of it.

SPEAKER_06 16:12

Uh I'm Julian Andrucare. I'm the other co-founder of Podvision. I lead everything in production, design, branding, and I do a ton of content strategy for our clients. Yeah, I'm a multi-half-inate. I come from a background of design video, and I sort of got pulled into podcasting six years ago now through my freelancing work. And it's been a really great ride ever since of just learning a lot more about podcasting itself and then applying all of this sort of experience that's very adjacent in uh web design, just branding in general, video, and obviously the podcasting industry has been moving in a direction that is very inviting to that collaboration.

James Cridland 16:56

Andre, you've got a show called What Your Therapist Thinks. Uh so what's that show?

SPEAKER_04 17:03

So that one is the first end-to-end podcast that we did as PodVision. Uh the hosts are Christy and Felicia, and they came to us through Jeremy Enns, who Julian has worked with before. Jeremy helped them with their concept. So, you know, they already had their format and everything, which was really great because we had an amazing foundation. It's a mental health podcast that looks at different uh topics in this uh area and kind of unpacks them from how they're represented on social media and on the internet because there's so many buzzwords that people are either misrepresenting or misinterpreting. So that's pretty much their um their mission. So we helped Christian Felicia with the overall strategy, with the production side of things, with workflows. Join is really good at that. So the first season, it got to 500,000 demos, which was just mind-blowing to us, right? Again, it's the first podcast where we're kind of putting our production and growth brains together, and this is what comes out of it. So the first season just it it skyrocketed, and that was really thanks to the Apple Podcast features that they received. So they were in new trailers, new shows overall, and they got to be the number one mental health podcast and number one health and wellness podcasts in the charts.

James Cridland 18:30

So, Julian, how did you launch it? Um, you you worked on some great uh thumbnail art, of course, but what did you do in terms of marketing as well?

SPEAKER_06 18:40

In terms of launching, there were many things we needed to set up to set them up for success. We wanted to make sure that they were ready for both audio and video. They had this this aspiration from the start, and they really had the strategy that came with it that these podcasts would do well, both with audio listeners and uh video watchers, I suppose. So we made sure to prepare things like templates for them to uh be able to make the most of the episodes, whether that was graphics, whether that's um audio moments and flourishes.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

The thumbnails are gorgeous too, and they're so in line with the concept.

SPEAKER_06 19:18

Yeah, we're being very on point with the cover art, as it was essentially driving the entire branding for the rest of the brand, where we created thumbnails, we created different types of screens. Um very, very important has been the Apple Podcast artwork. So there's the full-page show art and the showcase hero. Those those two uh very specific artworks have always been sort of number one when it comes to packaging for the show.

James Cridland 19:47

So, Andrea, can can I ask you, did you pay for any marketing um when you launched it? Or what was the strategy there?

SPEAKER_04 19:55

Excellent question. No, we had absolutely no ad spend budget. That was not something we relied on at all because for Christy and Felicia it was also a sort of experiment, right? They really wanted to do something together. Their main goal wasn't necessarily tying it to a business, although it is brought by best therapists, which is co-founded by Christy. Um, so they were like, I mean, let's see how this goes, and if it goes well, we'll continue. And that's why there was no no budget in that sense. They focused on the concept, on the high quality production, and on growth that came uh naturally. Naturally, but also through through our efforts, obviously.

James Cridland 20:36

Yeah, yeah, I mean, but you did do something very clever when you launched it, because I remember when I uh covered it uh when it launched, uh it was next to World Mental Health Day. And I'm wondering whether it's useful to tie into things like those types of awareness days, or was that just a happy coincidence that it happened to launch then?

SPEAKER_04 20:56

It was part coincidence, part intention, absolutely. Whenever we're doing any sort of buzz building or marketing push, of course, we're taking a look at any world events or or anything that we can really tie the podcast to. I mean, when you have a new show launching, that's already great news, right? It's it's a great angle to be pitching to podcast industry newsletters, to reviewers, to any sort of outlets that would kind of get the word about the show out there. But tying into this uh to this world event, again, that is so relevant. Um, they're bringing in this unique concept, like Julian was saying, absolutely helped. And I think just everything put together the fact that um people in the podcasting industry were open to sharing it. They they saw how clear and how directly communicated their messaging was, and it just made it very easy for the get go to understand what it was about and all these elements, too. I'm sure they contributed to the Apple feature as well. So it's it's all these little elements. Um of course there's maybe a little bit of luck in there too after putting in all this work because you never know who in the editorial team is going to review your application. Um so but I think this time it was someone who truly, truly enjoyed the the show as well.

James Cridland 22:17

You're putting a lot of um uh uh of of um highlights on the Apple Podcasts uh feature. Is is that do you think what m made or broke this show? Or um was it more than just uh uh Apple Podcasts? How important was that for you?

SPEAKER_06 22:37

There's there's a really, really big um impact that I think those features really had. I I I mean I think this is also where Andrea's work has always been so important um and so powerful. Like it's very high impact. Um, and the way that she's always been so purposeful with what she chooses to feature and how she chooses to pitch pitch to the different outlets. Apple Podcasts is not the only outlet that did that, but I think with US podcasts, they've all they've always been one of the most responsive, as far as I know.

James Cridland 23:12

So uh you you mentioned um uh uh how important Apple Podcasts was. I'm wondering what percentage of um of consumption happens on Apple Podcasts for this particular show. Is it is it quite high in your experience?

SPEAKER_06 23:26

Yes, definitely. It's uh it's always been above 80%. Uh eight or I'd say it others around 85%, uh being entirely on Apple Podcasts. And I mean in the first push, Andrea did a lot of push to towards many, many podcast listening apps. And for for whatever reason this time around, and I think generally they they are, they were the most responsive uh in terms of thinking about the the topic, discussing whether this was the right time or not to put out the show, you know, on all of their featured lists and actually following through with it. Um there was there were attempts, of course, with other apps like Pocket Cast, Spotify, Castbox, right.

SPEAKER_04 24:08

But it just I think it just happened that it was a good fit for the Apple editorial team. Um because there have been other times. I mean, we have a good relationship with the with the other apps as well. Um but I think it just it really really depends on what the show is.

James Cridland 24:25

So what have you learned overall? What what can other independent podcasters uh learn about um what you've uh what what you've done here?

SPEAKER_04 24:34

I mean, I think that's really it's really the most important thing because as you know, independent podcasting is not for the week. It is so much work. And um, if you're doing it by yourself, you're just you know recording something, putting it out there into the world. It's it's kind of um it feels at least as if it's going into a vacuum, right? If you're doing it by yourself. So of course, the first thing we would say is having the right partners that will be there for you, uh, cheer you on, also tell you a little bit about the podcasting industry, if maybe it's your first rodeo, is absolutely key. Um, the fact that they had their concept and their messaging clear from the get-go, absolutely key. The production with high quality, they did have a video element, even though it was not a podcast made for YouTube. And the buzz building push was significant, um, but also most important than everything, like we were saying earlier, it was intentional, right? The way that it was connected with the World Mental Health Day, the way the way that it was highlighting what's unique about this podcast was very important. And last but not least, also the cover art. Again, I will shout out Julian's uh talent in this area because I mean there's so many cover arts that simply don't tell you what the show is about, right? I mean, that have a microphone on them, but they're not about podcasting, and it's not it's not helpful for listeners that maybe just have the person's headshot, and the show is really not even about them. It's hosted by them, right? So that is a hugely important element. And as we know, since we were talking about Apple, um, they really care about this design aspect, right? On the feed, um, everything from the cover art to their specific artwork to um uh your overall maybe episode, episode art as well, that it follows their guidelines. So all of those little brick-by-brick elements are hugely important, and it's rough and it's difficult to do it by yourself.

James Cridland 26:45

So, where do we go to learn more about podvision?

SPEAKER_06 26:48

Yeah, you you guys can and any listener can find us on our website at pod.vision. Um we're also on LinkedIn, whether that's the company or Andrea and I, Andrea Koskay on LinkedIn, Julian Andrukay on LinkedIn. Um yeah, that's pretty much where we're really active right now. Of course, shouting out Eurowaves as a really great place to get to know Andrea and her work.

SPEAKER_04 27:13

Um Yeah, and Eurowaves is uh not just for European podcasters, it's really for anyone interested in international podcasting, first of all, but then also in the in the European market. So definitely join the community. We also run a Google group, which for those who don't know is just uh the Gmail emailing group. I don't know how you'd describe it, but it's a really great resource to share news and connect with other people. It's called Eurosound. So if you'd like to be added, you can reach out to us and we'll we'll happily add you. There are around 500 members at this point from all over the world, from the independent to the executive level in podcasting. So again, it's a really great community.

James Cridland 27:58

It's been great to catch up. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 28:00

Thank you so much, Jean. And looking forward to catching up too in London.

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Hello, and welcome to PodViz, the money behind the mic, a podcast about the business of podcasting. I'm Norma Jean Balenke of NJB Media, podcast and media strategy, marketing, and audience development.

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And I'm John Kiernan of Podhouse Productions, your one-stop shop for everything podcast production, from ideation to editing and recording, and so much more. We're your co-hosts on this journey into this world of podcasting as a business tool.

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Sam Sethi 29:18

There's a story I saw in uh variety. Um it's about disclosure of AI labels. Now, we've been talking about AI slop quite a lot on this show, and I think the industry of podcasting is struggling with some of that. But a London-based uh company called Media on Scene has reportedly unveiled a new disclosure standard for film and TV. And they're going to be revealing that at Cannes Film Festival. Can we learn anything from the film and TV production side here?

James Cridland 29:52

Well, I think we might be able to learn at least something from them in terms of having clear uh labels. Um, they are talking about no AI used, assistive AI or generative AI. Those second two seem a little bit blurry to me, but they are talking about these labels and attaching those labels to things that they are producing and things that uh you know that many other people are producing as well. And I think that um it is interesting now, you do end up seeing on some um films, on some TV shows, uh only humans were used during the making of the show or all of that kind of stuff. I'm not sure actually that you could say that about most shows these days. Um, but I think certainly when you start generating um uh the actors that you see on screen, uh then of course it it moves into a very different world. Um so is there something we can learn? I think so, because at the moment there is no disclosure standard that has been um accepted by any of the podcast platforms, in terms of Apple, in terms of Spotify, in terms of uh YouTube, and so on, that actually allows anybody to um say whether or not they've used AI. Um I tell a lie, Apple does have one, but so far as I can work out, they're not enforcing their rule, so it might as well be printed on bog paper for all that I care because it's it's totally useless. Uh, if you if you're gonna make a rule that says that you should be saying that something is generated by AI and you don't enforce it, then it's a waste of time. So hopefully um the platforms will get a little bit um more focused into doing this, or on the other side, the platforms might turn around and say, normal people don't care, James, and shut up and and pipe down. And and who knows, that might be a uh a fine thing as well.

Sam Sethi 31:55

Yeah, I mean the IAB, we've been told, is also looking at producing AI disclosure labels. Should we be waiting for the IAB?

James Cridland 32:04

Well, I mean, for advertising, um uh perhaps that's a plan. I think doing something which is recognizable the world over makes sense. At the moment, um, if you are watching a TV show in the UK, there's this little symbol that appears at the start of a TV show to point out if there's going to be product placement in it. Similarly, um, if you're watching, you know, certain shows um uh on um you know TV networks in the US, then there's a particular symbol to show whether or not you have transcripts or those sorts of things. So I think actually having um iconography and having labels that are clear the world over is a very important thing. And so if the IB can help us with that in terms of advertising, well, the actual content might want to use those labels too.

Sam Sethi 32:55

We did talk about this where rss.com was proposing an AI label for podcasting. I think TrueFans, RSS, and Spreaker all implemented this proposal. But it seems to have died a death again. No one's jumped on board, uh, it's not been approved as a tag yet. Do you think it'll go get any further? Has it got legs?

James Cridland 33:14

Well, it might have legs, but it needs the podcast apps to want to do it. And at the moment, the podcast apps don't want to do it. I mean, Spreeker is there. Spreaker, until very recently, was Inception Point AI's um podcast host. And um Spreaker had not turned the AI uh flag on for anything that Inception Point AI was doing. So that doesn't really tell you an awful lot. Um so you know, I I think it needs to be something that the podcast consumption apps, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, all jump on board with. And until that's the case, I don't think really that we will end up moving forward. I think there are two things that Alberto has done. One of the things is that tag, which, you know, uh as I say, needs needs agreement to move forward with. The other sort of side of that is what you say and when you should be disclosing whether something is AI generated. And I think that work is brilliant, and that work probably needs to be folded into um an industry-wide standard. Hopefully, that industry-wide standard is going to be talked at at the podcast um standards project meeting, which is going to happen at the podcast show in London next week. That would be um that would be good to end up seeing. Um but yes, it it all comes down to whether or not Apple, Spotify, and YouTube uh and Amazon Music um want to put that sort of uh um want to put that sort of label into their app.

Spotify Hosts AI Slop Shows

Sam Sethi 34:54

Neil Mohan was talking big at the beginning of the year about all their AI detection and what they were going to be doing to protect YouTube. So again, not seen any of that roll out so far. James, let's move on. Oh, James, I've just read. Why Spotify? Why? Come on, what am I talking about?

James Cridland 35:14

Inception Point AI has found a new podcast host. They've bought them, have they? Inception Point AI has found a new podcast host. Um uh this won't have been in Pod News yet. Um it is Spotify's megaphone. Spotify's megaphone is now hosting Inception Point AI's AI produced shows. Now, when I went to have a look at some of the shows which have already moved over, there is no mention at all, whatsoever, about the content being produced by AI. So megaphone don't care by the looks of things. Um I have uh comment out to both Apple asking why it's in their uh catalogue, if uh if it's against their content guidelines, and I have comment out to um Spotify, just uh I mean essentially asking what the hell are you doing? Um and uh hopefully when the Pod News newsletter comes out, we have that and I can report on this properly. But how disappointing to see megaphone being the people that jump in and go, you know what? We don't care about creators, and we don't care about creators so much that we're going to add 15,000 new shows produced by this AI slop company and this tsunami of shit we're now going to be responsible for. Well done, megaphone. That's uh that's a slow hand clap for you, and I look forward to making this point possibly again and again and again over the next couple of weeks and seeing what happens there.

Sam Sethi 36:47

Well, it's a London podcast show. Wonder what will people be talking about there then?

James Cridland 36:51

Well, Janine Wright is going to be there, and Janine Wright will be talking about um podslop and all of that sort of thing. Um uh I mean she won't be talking about podslop because she thinks that that's a uh very old-fashioned uh term for her podslop. So we will see um quite how that works. But uh yes, uh it's gonna be it's gonna be interesting to end up seeing that. Um I have um I've uh I've uh chucked a couple of people who wanted to meet with me at that time so that I can hide in the back and listen to what she has to say, because I am fascinated to hear how she justifies some of this stuff. I mean, uh particularly how she justifies having AI um voices that call themselves doctors talking about how to beat gambling addiction. Oh, that's my question one to her. Yeah. I mean uh I mean it's just it's just uh dreadful.

Sam Sethi 37:45

Spotify, it wasn't the place that you and I had a bet or or had a belief that it would go to.

James Cridland 37:51

No, it wasn't.

Sam Sethi 37:53

No, we had a very different home.

James Cridland 37:55

It's a good job. It's a good job we edited that out then, wasn't it?

unknown 37:58

Yes.

James Cridland 38:00

I'm i i th this story I just find incredibly depressing that someone who worked for one of the most um interesting, most uh forward-looking podcast uh production companies, Wondery, um, with somebody like Hernan Lopez, for somebody to then m waltz away from that job and then waltz into this and making crap that not even her staff listen to. It's it's just I find it so depressing. Um, and people are going to tell me, and I mean Rob Greenley, who is AI's biggest fan, is going to tell me, well, you know, people are listening. I don't even believe that people are listening once they realise it is actually AI.

Sam Sethi 38:47

It'll but it'll be the bots. It'll be the bots.

James Cridland 38:49

Well, it'll be the bots and it'll be people who are duped into going, oh look, it's another Charlie K uh, it's it's another Charlie Kirk biography. Brilliant, I'll go and have a listen to that. And then they hear three ads back to back at the beginning of the show, and then all of a sudden they go, Oh no, this is a this is an AI thing. And then they stop listening. But by that point, you know, Inception Point AI has their money. It's it's a you know, it it's it's just so depressing. Um, and I'm really depressed that's that um Spotify have have gone, oh yeah, we'll host that for you. Um it just uh just just makes me very depressed. So let's move on.

Sam Sethi 39:31

Tell us what you feel, James. Um talking of Spotify and their PR, it says that Spotify drives 1.5 times more podcast consumption than YouTube. Um and it's not their PR, I should stop that statement. It's according to pod stock, actually.

YouTube Consumption Claims And Reality

James Cridland 39:49

Yes, um, and I I think we knew this, didn't we? That actually um the story here isn't Spotify is a brilliant place for your podcast. The story is YouTube is not a brilliant place for your podcast if you're looking for consumption numbers, because uh 99% of YouTube plays are you play the first three seconds and you go, Oh no, this isn't for me, and you click away. Um and that's what a lot of people are seeing, which drives the average podcast consumption down tremendously on YouTube and tremendously on that particular platform. So I think the story is YouTube not very good for podcast consumption, Spotify and Apple and TrueFans and anybody else actually much better. And I think that's about as far as we go.

Sam Sethi 40:33

Moving on then to a good news story, James. I I think it's a good news story. Ali2 has been acquired.

James Cridland 40:40

They have. They've been acquired by a software developer called Rocketable. Now, if you go to the Rocketable website, then it explains what they are. They're a software company that basically take um successful SaaS companies like Ali2 and using AI supercharge their um their their business basically. Um so there's a bit of AI stuff going on in there. Now it turns out that the acquisition occurred a couple of months ago. People um uh some people have lost their jobs, uh sadly. Colin Gray is now leaving the company because the acquisition is now all the way through. Uh he'll be at the podcast show in London. He's coming to our Super Secret Drinks. Um, so that's all nice. Um, and it'll be interesting to hear what next steps are for him. But um, yeah, I mean, you know, it's a good story if the story you want is somebody who has built a business and sold it. I think that that's certainly a good story. I think the question is whether or not this is going to be another bending spoons, another company that essentially squeezes that particular asset dry uh or not.

Sam Sethi 41:52

Now, uh iHoot Media's just released their financial results for Q1, James.

James Cridland 41:57

Any good? Yes, I think so. Um, I mean, certainly in terms of podcast revenue, that was up 27% year on year, up to$147 million. I think that means that they're doing uh pretty well. Um, here is the silver-tongued Bob Pittman speaking in the earnings call.

SPEAKER_11 42:15

Within the digital audio group, our podcast revenue momentum continues and was$147 million for the quarter, up 26.9% compared to prior year of$116 million, above our guidance of up low 20s, and approximately 50% of our podcasting revenue was generated by our local sales force. Our podcasting EBITDA margins remained accretive to our total company EBITDA margins, which we achieved by applying rigorous financial discipline, and we believe we have the most profitable podcasting business in the United States. In fact, we're the number one podcast publishers measured by both Podtrack and Triton, and we're also the podcasting industry's number one podcast sales network. And one more thing to note a major key to our success in building our podcast business has been our broadcast radio assets. If Netflix is in essence TV on demand, then podcasting is radio on demand. And as the number one radio company in America, that gives us a great advantage. And if you're looking for further validation of the power of our broadcast radio assets and our radio personalities, out of all the video podcasts that appear on Netflix, in the first quarter, one podcast got over 40% of all their podcast views, according to Samba TV, and that's our own Breakfast Club with Charlemagne. Why? Because they talk about it on the radio every morning. One more way we're quantitatively proving the value of broadcast radio to advertisers and marketers.

James Cridland 43:38

So Bob Pittman, making um uh a couple of things uh uh I think from that. Um firstly, 50% of podcast revenue came from iHeart's local sales force. They've got more than a thousand people working uh for them in local sales. 50% of local revenue that is a pretty big thing for podcasting, and I'm unaware pretty well of anybody else who is doing. That. So I think that that's definitely something to watch there in terms of revenue from local businesses going into podcasting. I can't imagine too many, I may be completely wrong on this, but I can't imagine too many local businesses are doing too much advertising in other places. So that I thought was um that I thought was uh really interesting. And I liked the way that he was talking about Charlemagne the God doing very well on Netflix because he's talking about it on the radio. I'm sure that the program directors are slightly less uh pleased about that, but still in any way. Um uh also there was a man called Mike McGuinness, um, who's their chief financial officer, and he ended up speaking in the earnings call as well.

SPEAKER_11 44:45

There's a new thing called video podcast, which appear to be incremental to audio podcast. It's not the same usage case, it's another time in which people are doing it, and now we're able to get the video podcast in there. So it opens up a new revenue stream for this business called podcasting. And Netflix, I think, is the first example of that. But are there others that would like to carry our video podcasting? And by the way, the iHeartRadio app we are now carrying just beginning to to roll it out this month, beginning to carry video versions of audio podcasts too. And uh and you're seeing the same with Spotify and Apple, um and uh and certainly YouTube, you know, has been doing it. Um so I think that's the big concept here is that you found uh yet another market that we can play in.

Video Podcasting Data And Niche Wins

James Cridland 45:35

I love the way that he starts that by saying there's a new thing called video podcast. Um he sounds like the oldest, oldest granddad when he's there. But um I like the way that he slips out that the iHeart app has begun rolling out video for some of its shows. Now, we reported um that they would do that in early January, that the iHeart app would begin um uh supporting video. Um I'm interested in learning more. My understanding is that that is supporting the alternate enclosure, which is good. Now, back in early January, they were talking about supporting MP4 files through a uh alternate enclosure, but that's before, of course, Apple jumped in uh and said HLS video or nothing. Um so um not that Apple have said that because Apple, of course, still accept MP4. But um I wonder whether, therefore, iHeart is going to be using HLS video as well. It would clearly make sense if they were. Um so I look forward to learning a bit more about what iHeart is doing there.

Sam Sethi 46:41

Another story you covered was uh million podcasters published the state of video podcasting in 2026. Bit early in my opinion, but what have they said?

James Cridland 46:51

Yes, this is um really good information, but also, I mean, beautifully designed. Um I I I think having taken a look at this a little bit uh closer, there is a pretty standard um uh um library um that they have used, but it's a beautiful thing. Anyway, they've analyzed 34,000 English language video podcasts. They've found all kinds of information about it, and it's well worth a peek at the data that they have. Really uneven in terms of what worked, what doesn't. They say 7.7 million podcasts of episodes are available in video right now, but they say that the top 1% gets nearly half of all consumption. So there is a very big sort of hockey stick in terms of um the 1% and the remaining 99%. Um, and that inequality, of course, because it's podcasting, um, also extends to who's behind the microphone. So twice as many video podcasts hosted by men as women. You can also um do some um uh interesting scoring of your own show on there as well. But some really nice uh research put together by Million Podcasts, it's well worth a uh well worth a peek.

Sam Sethi 48:11

Uh and lastly, you had a story about niche podcasts may lose on scale. This was a really good read, actually. Um what was it all about, James?

James Cridland 48:20

Yeah, it is good. This is a strategist called Losh Mudali. Uh Losh has written for Pod News before. She's um written uh again for Pod News this time around, and she's basically saying, look, niche podcasts, they're nowhere near as uh large as other shows, but they actually outperform in terms of making sure that they um get closer to their audience uh in terms of the context of what they're doing. I mean, this show, for example, is a good poster boy in terms of that, in that this show, you know, we we get download numbers. Uh of course we get download numbers, and those download numbers are okay. Some people say that they are um some of the largest for a podcast news um show such as this. But even so, they're not massive, you know. 5,900 downloads in April uh is what we did. But in in terms of Buzz Sprout, they are 5,982 of the right people who they want to um go out and um and and uh talk to. So you can understand why companies are keen to get themselves behind a smaller podcast such as this. But if you were a standard ad buyer and you were just buying in terms of total reach um or total scale, then um a niche podcast wouldn't kind of look right to you. Um so I think it's a really good piece and um uh definitely worthwhile um uh uh you know taking a read uh of you'll find it in the Pod News website, podnews.net slash articles.

UK Recognition Plus Cars And Research

Sam Sethi 49:58

Let's whiz around the world, James. Uh in the UK, the audio and podcasting uh industries now gained an official classification. What's this one?

James Cridland 50:09

Yes, um so um uh hallelujah, podcasting and audio publishing will be formally recognized in the SIC 2026 framework. Why does that matter? Well, it matters because that means that podcasting and audio publishing is actually a business according to the government, and that means that we will be measured, um, and that means that um the economy in terms of podcasting and audio publishing is going to be um a thing that government cares about. Um, up until now it was not the case, and they probably cared about television production, but they didn't care too much about podcasting and audio. So brilliant news um in terms of that. Um, Audio UK has been pushing quite hard to make that happen uh alongside um many of their members. Um so that's um good news uh coming out of the UK, even if it is uh seemingly quite dull and quite in inconsequential. Actually, it'll be quite consequential, I think. Um so even if full adoption will be um uh only in 2031. Uh so we've still got a time to wait.

Sam Sethi 51:20

Uh talk about dragging your knuckles.

James Cridland 51:23

I know, I'll be 60. Uh oi, oi, easy. Imagine being 60. Oh my goodness.

Sam Sethi 51:32

I don't know, I don't know, no yet.

James Cridland 51:36

So um, so that'll all be uh fun. Also going on in uh the UK, the new radio figures are out. Um Matt Deegan, friend of the show, has written a very good piece. Uh it's probably at mattdegan.com, as most of things are, as most of these things are, uh, talking about um the benefit, uh interestingly, the benefit of specialization, the benefit of a radio station having a job to do and doing it well. Um, because those radio stations that have a clearly defined audience um seemingly have seen their figures going up, whereas the more general uh radio stations seemingly appear to have gone down. Uh, so that's certainly worth a look and harks back to some of the stuff that Losh was talking about earlier on. Um, and talking about radio, um Bauer Media Group and the EBU and the BBC and uh a fair uh uh other set of uh people have this thing called radio ready, and it's um to make sure that radio is still visible in a car. Why does this matter for podcasting? Well, it matters for podcasting because actually um radio being uh visible in a car and being easy to find in your car is important for podcasting as well, because podcasts should be too. Um, and the the one thing that I would say, and you've written a question in the show notes here, which is I think a brilliant question. Would you like to read it out?

Sam Sethi 52:59

Uh yes. Who speaks for the podcast industry?

James Cridland 53:03

It's a great question, and I'm glad you asked, because really there's no one who is talking to the car manufacturers and saying, Well, where's podcasting here? We know that podcasting does actually quite well in cars. Uh, Infinite Dial tells us and various other things tell us as well, but there is no one from the podcast industry who is talking to car manufacturers. Is that something that sounds profitable should be doing? I don't know. Is that something that um somebody else should be doing? You know, my ideal of a um podcast advertising bureau, perhaps, um, is that is that something that should be happening? I don't know. But at the moment, um the radio industry appear to be finally, 20 years later, getting their act together in terms of this. It'd be nice if the if the podcast industry uh was uh similarly trying to do that.

Sam Sethi 53:53

The other thing that the BBC in the UK has said is there were 231 million downloads of its podcasts on third-party apps. And part of me was like, hooray, and then part of me was like, How many plays in uh BBC? How many listens? How many what was the consumption on that? And they'll have no data on that, so I was like, I don't care really.

James Cridland 54:14

Well, and and and therein lies lies the issue. Uh uh, Sam. You have two lanes. You have one lane, which is uh everybody signs in, there's no RSS in the world, and you have all of the play information, and the other lane is um uh people talk about downloads and you have open RSS and they're available on third on third-party apps. Pick a lane, but you can't have both.

Sam Sethi 54:39

Go on, let me be um Go on, let me have both.

James Cridland 54:42

The reason the reason why I mention it is of course the BBC is pushing people towards the BBC Sounds app in the UK. It's not it's not available for us outside the UK anymore. Um, that figure is up 1.7% quarter on quarter, and what that figure probably means, um, because it is a global figure um rather than just a UK figure, what that figure probably means is more money for the BBC, and that is potentially a good thing. Um, so uh at least there is that. Um, and there is also some more data uh coming out of the UK just in time for the uh London podcast show, which I must stop calling the London Podcast Show because that's not its name. The podcast show in London. I keep on finding myself writing the London Podcast Show as well, and I should I should probably stop doing that. Uh anyway, um uh some new research which has come out from Sound Insights and Sounds Profitable, which says that podcasting reaches more 18 to 34 year olds than broadcast TV, which is quite a statement. Uh, not TV overall, just broadcast TV, should just point out. But anyway, um Ben Robbins and Tom Webster will be covering more of that data uh at the podcast show in London uh on Wednesday at 10 a.m. if you want to go and learn more about that.

Sam Sethi 56:02

And finally, there was a report that you were a contributor to, James. It was the Reuters Institute. Uh, and again, highly recommend going on to Pod News Daily, finding the link and reading it. It was it was talking about pretty much what we talk about on this show here about the the changing landscape from uh you know from listening to watching, from the name of podcasts to shows. Um what was your contribution to all of that? How did you get involved?

James Cridland 56:28

Yeah, so I ended up um uh speaking to Nick Newman, who was the person that wrote this particular report. Uh Nick used to be at the BBC, he used to run the BBC News website. Um, so you know he knows a thing or two about all of this sort of thing, and he's been writing reports for the Reuters Institute uh for quite some time. My favorite joke about the Reuters Institute, uh, who wrote that report? Quite a lot of Reuters. Anyway, um uh it's a it's a good uh report, it's uh well worth a read. Um, like any good report, it is available without having to sign in, without having to give your name and email address, so you get lots of spam. You just have a little download button that has download the PDF. And even better, you don't even need to download the PDF, you can just read the whole thing on the website. Uh it's very good, and I would uh heartily recommend it. Um paid for by Google though, paid for by Google's um local news initiative. So thank you to Google for paying for it, I guess. Uh, two more countries to go to. Uh the US, Edison Research, has published the top 10 podcast networks in the US for weekly reach. Spotify is number one, Sirius XM number two, iHeart Podcast is at number three. And in Japan, the podcast expo 2026 happened uh over the weekend in Tokyo. More than 12,000 people went. It looked pretty amazing from the photographs that I was sent. One of the things that really struck me is that there was a marketplace, and it was literally a set of market stores at the venue, where more than 150 podcast creators sold merch and they hosted signing sessions as well. Um, and there's loads of photographs. I put a few of them in the pod news newsletter uh yesterday, Thursday. Um, and I thought, isn't that a really interesting idea uh to actually get podcast listeners together with the creators that they follow? Um, and for you to uh you know, for you know, Sam and I to stand a day um at a market store somewhere and actually sell um you know exciting exciting merch and stuff like that. I thought isn't that an interesting idea? And the fact that they had, so they claim, 12,000 people shows that there's certainly some legs to that, even uh a place like Japan, which isn't necessarily particularly audio focused. So um, yeah, it's um uh quite a thing. Uh worthwhile a peek at the photographs and everything else uh there.

Announcer 59:00

Podcast events on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 59:04

Right, time for some awards and events and things. Frank Racciopi in Forbes, uh, brilliant article from him this week saying podcasting has too many awards and no way to stop them. Uh and he talks about all of the different types of awards there are out there, and some of them very good. And yes, and some of them he did. He gave us an award. It's the only award this show's won. So uh yes, uh, I think uh it's a it's a good article. It's worth um uh it's worth a peek. Of course, the big, the big, the big event is uh the London Podcast Show. I've said it again, the podcast show in London, uh, which is on uh next week, Wednesday and Thursday in London. And um very much looking forward to uh taking part. Um Apple Podcast will be there. Susie Warhurst, who's head of international podcasts, will be speaking about video. Interestingly, joined by two folk from ACast, ACast's Laura Hagen and Aussie Podcasters Tony and Ryan. Clearly, ACAST again doing some very clever things in terms of PR. Um, they've got sharp elbows of ACast, haven't they? My goodness. And day two, um, YouTube's Steve McClendon and Stella Binns um uh will be speaking a deep dive into the platform's global podcasting strategy and the evolving creator landscape. Both Steve and Stella coming to our Super Secret Drinks, by the way. Um, so that should be uh good. Uh very much looking forward uh to that. Uh here's a hint and a tip for you for next week. Uh Essex Road Station is 12 minutes away from the venue. It's a train station, not an underground station, and it goes all the way to Mooregate, and from Moorgate you can change to the Elizabeth Line, which is a train line, not an underground line. Why might that be important? Well, there might be a troop strike next week in uh London. Now, apparently it doesn't cause anywhere near as much of a hassle as it used to, primarily because the Elizabeth Line exists now, and so therefore it takes a lot of the uh hassle away from getting around. Um, but yes, Essex Road Station is a good tip if you want to work out how to get from anywhere in London to the podcast show. Um uh Essex Road is uh the place to end up uh going. So uh there you go. And by the way, uh if you queue up for a ticket uh in any London Underground station or any London uh train uh station uh in terms of getting around London, if you queue up for a ticket, then we know you're a tourist because you don't have to just use your contactless bank card, that's all you need. Uh so uh there's a thing. Um a few things going on at the podcast show, which I thought was interesting. One of them is Sony will be there, but Sony, as in cameras, um broadcast cameras, uh, they are going to be there. We'll have them on the show next week. And um uh I I find it fascinating that they are showing off all of Sony's broadcast ecosystem. I'm using Sony headphones now, um, but they're not showing off their headphones. No, they're showing off their fancy cameras, so that tells you um about the direction of travel, uh I think. Um, and also uh the podcast academy giving away two awards at the podcast show in London. Uh brilliant, uh the podcast academy. Um they're giving away uh one award for the rest is history, which um is the International Governors Award, and they're giving away the International Impact Award, which is the one that I won last year. Uh they're giving that to a load of Americans. Well done. Uh Wisecrack from Tenderfoot TV.

Sam Sethi 1:02:42

Well, if you give it in London, they're international, aren't they?

James Cridland 1:02:46

Yes. Uh Wisecrack from Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, um, which um uh so the International Impact Award recognizes a podcast or individual based or set outside of the United States, whose recent work has had a significant positive impact on the global podcasting landscape. Wisecrack, of course, uh winning the Ambys for Best Podcast, so that's presumably a significant positive impact. Um uh it is, of course, set in Edinburgh, and uh one of the people on that show is a UK comedian, so I guess it's all okay, really. But uh so yes, are you going uh who who are you going to end up seeing?

Sam Sethi 1:03:28

Yeah, well, there's a an odd person called James Craigland at 9.15. I think I might go along and see what he's got to say.

James Cridland 1:03:36

Yes, uh that's the Pod News Report card. By the way, it only opens at nine, so uh so you'll have to run, run, run, get your coffee off to the origin case.

Sam Sethi 1:03:46

Don't don't wait for your coffee. Um no, there's a couple of people I'm looking forward to seeing. Um Global's Vicky Etchels. Um I'd like to see what she's got to say. Substacker there, um, Justin Jackson's doing something interesting in the podhouse. Dino and Megan Bradshaw are on the same stage together. Patreon bumper. So there's a lot of good things that I'm looking forward to seeing.

James Cridland 1:04:08

You want to see Piers Morgan?

Sam Sethi 1:04:10

I don't. I want to see Pave, but uh he comes with Piers Morgan. I can't really kick Piers Morgan off, can I? Um yeah, Steve McClendon from YouTube, uh, Greg Glendate, and of course, uh Janine Wright from Inception Point AI as well. So lots and lots of good stuff to go and see.

James Cridland 1:04:29

That's gonna be a classic. It's gonna be a classic. I'm looking forward to that one.

A Serverless Open Source Podcast App

Announcer 1:04:32

The Tuck stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 1:04:36

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

Sam Sethi 1:04:40

Yeah, I noticed I went onto the podcast index um and I was looking under the apps, and TrueFans has been the number one listed app. And I suddenly found a new app that was listed above us. I was like, Humbridge, what the hell? So I started counting tags. Um, okay, we'll be back at the top shortly. Um, but it's called Up Next, and I was like, okay, well, um, who the hell's up next then? Let's find out. And it's a lovely German guy called Holger Krupp, and he is a by day a jet engine uh designer or rocket engine designer. Um he's basically very, very clever. Uh not another one. Yes. And uh um and by night, just for fun, he's written a iOS uh podcast app. Um, and what makes it quite unique is it's serverless. Um, and what also makes it unique is he doesn't want any money. And also the third thing that makes it truly unique is he's open sourced all of it. So I thought I'd get hold of Holger and find out why he started to build Up Next.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:45

Up Next is uh a podcasting app that completely lives on the device. There's no server behind, no reliability issues with internet, except of downloading new episodes, of course. But everything happens on the iPhone. Yeah, this is what I developed. I wanted to develop an app which when I stop developing will still work.

Sam Sethi 1:06:05

Now it's iOS only. That's the platform you've chosen. So what features and functions could I looked at the podcast index and you've got 28, 29 of the tanks supported. So how long have you been building up next?

SPEAKER_05 1:06:20

I started developing a podcasting app in uh 2014, the first time. So I've been a podcast myself since 2011. And we made a small podcasting meetup here in Hamburg, and I met some people and they said, Oh, it's difficult if I want an old person to listen to my podcast, it's difficult, difficult to explain what is a podcatcher. So I developed a podcasting app with only one podcast inside. So I really customized it for each podcast. It was a one-trick pony podcasting app. I did this in 2014, and then after a while, I stopped, lost interest in it, and it stopped working, and I had other things to do. And I was using another podcasting app myself, which I was very happy with until it stopped working because it was relying on a server. I could not update my feeds, which I had on my phone, they could not be updated because the server was not reachable. I could not export the feeds to use them in a different podcasting app because the server was not working. So I was really annoyed by that fact. So I started developing a podcasting app without the server behind in 2024. I launched it, had a first alpha, worked okay-ish, had some performance issues. But then this podcasting app, which I used for many, many years and paid for it for many, many years, started working again, changed the owner. So I was happy I stopped developing my app. But then there was again some issues with that app, and I wanted to have some features in the app I'm using which were not in this particular app. So I started working on it again in April 2025. And when Apple introduced the new liquid glass design for iOS, I thought, okay, I will start really working hardcore on this app to launch it with the new iOS design on the first day. And this is what I did. So in the 15th of September, when the new iOS 26 launched, my app was in the store. Yeah, it featured basic things. So you could of course subscribe, you could import a list. OPML, eh?

Sam Sethi 1:08:32

Yeah, OPML, yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:34

Um markup language, OPML. You had your chapters. So one of the things I always supported from the beginning was chapter markers, both included in the files, MP3 or MP4 chapters, but also what I included in the very first was something called potlauf simple chapters. I don't know if if you're aware about this. Good German chapters, I have good German podcasting ideas. I I had this, I yeah I supported deep linking. So if you are if you want to share a clip out of it, you can directly link to this minute what you're playing at the moment. And then I it added additional features like clip exporting. You can say I want to export this, you can cut a little bit of the audio and share it as a video on social media or wherever. Then I I supported transcripts, WebBTT, SRT, and then I I noticed the podcasting 2.0 specification, and I thought, okay, they have transcript, they have JSON transcripts. I can support JSON transcripts. And I I started slowly, slowly, slowly putting more and more of the tags into the app. Yeah. I support a lot of tags. I think I pass more and I I support more than I should, because for example, there's one tag which I think is called locked, where it's more for directories. So I show this tag, I pass this tag, I show this tag, but it's not really useful for the app at the moment. I think. Yeah.

Sam Sethi 1:10:00

So you've got a couple of I I looked in the list. I think you've got a couple there, like blocked and locked, and a few others that are host-based ones, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:09

Yeah, yeah. So I will this is also what I'm currently doing in my app, also the build I have on my phone. I'm trying to revamp a little bit the UI, implement the text a little bit smarter than they are currently text. So, for example, if the the episode is just a trailer, somewhere in the text is written trailer. Now, in the in my new build I have, and which will come, I don't know, in the next month some someday into the app store, in the overview of all the episodes, they will be marked trailer. So I think it's more useful than so this is currently my work.

Sam Sethi 1:10:42

And so one of the other things I thought that was quite nice because I loaded the app today and I was playing with it, is you've got on device transcription as well.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:52

Yeah, yeah, yes, but oh this is not nice. I I'm using Apple's transcription engine, of course. I don't have my own, and I I use what's there, and it's really restrictive. So the time slots or the audio you can give to it and and and get a piece of text back is very short. It takes a lot of power and and makes the phone really, really hot. But it's quite fast. So one out of all you what I put, I put an option at least that you can always do it if you want, but you can also set it up that it's only automatically started when the phone is on the charger. In that case, it doesn't matter if it takes a little bit more battery.

Sam Sethi 1:11:31

Have you found the use of local transcription difficult? And are you gonna stick with it or are you gonna well it's it as you say, it's not a server-based app, so you haven't really got a choice. You've only got local transcription, really.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:46

Actually, I exactly. I have either feed or yeah, feed provided transcriptions or local transcription. There is one thing I'm planning to implement, and there is this podcast search engine feed, FYYD, which I'm also using as a directory, and they also do transcriptions on their server and have them in their back end. So, my plan is that if uh feed does not provide a transcription, I first ask the food podcast search engine, do you have a transcription for that file? If yes, please give it to me. If not, then I only start the automatic transcription. One problem with the feed provided transcriptions is that automatic ad insertion is a killer for that feature. You have a transcribed podcast, but when delivering the file, ads are introduced. This messes up the transcription, the timing of the transcription.

Sam Sethi 1:12:44

Yeah, the dynamic ad insertion is a killer. Yeah, that's a well-known problem.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:50

I don't know a way around at the moment.

Sam Sethi 1:12:52

I would suggest talking to a certain James Cridland, he might know the answer for you. Send him an email. Now, look, this is uh a new app. You've been iterating on it. And will you be bringing out an Android version? Will you be bringing out a premium version? How do you plan to make money?

SPEAKER_05 1:13:11

So I am not bringing out an Android version at the moment. I I do have uh Android phone which is provided from my company, but I'm not using that privately and I'm not developing Android stuff. And I'm using so many of Apple's technologies from the phone, it would be difficult for me to translate into an Android version. I have a build for iPad and Mac OS, which I'm working on. There, I have the issue of synchronization of the status, it takes quite a long time. So I'm trying to figure out how I do this that the user directly has the same status on the Mac or on the iPad. If I figure that out, then I will release this. You ask me premium version. There will not be a premium version. There is no premium version, there is no upfront cost, there is no subscription, and there are no ads in the app. I really don't care about making money about the app. I only want to have a good app for myself because I have a good job. I started trying to make money with my apps, but the effort to do all the tax declarations and what I have to do was not worth it. So I'm just doing it as a hobby.

Sam Sethi 1:14:17

I also noticed, I mean, on that basis, you're not going to be charging. I also noticed that you've got an access to the whole source code within the app. So one of the options is you can take the source code. That's really cool. So is that a licensed source code or is that just an open source code?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:33

Take it and my MIT license, do whatever you want.

Sam Sethi 1:14:37

Wow, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:39

Yeah. And I'm trying to take out some parts and put them in separate modules or Swift packages so that other developers who don't want to use the whole app, but they can take, for example, my MP3 chapter reader, which is not a function which is provided by iOS, which I've wrote by myself, they can take it and put it in the app. No upfront charge. No, I don't I don't want anything from it.

Sam Sethi 1:15:01

Very cool. I know a certain David Marzell who'd be very excited by that. Now, who is Holger? You say you've got a really good job. So what do you do? What is your main gig then?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:12

I am an aerospace engineer working on hydrogen aircraft for big European aircraft manufacturers.

Sam Sethi 1:15:19

Okay, that's pretty impressive. Well done. Wow. Okay. So building a little podcast out doesn't really take a lot of effort for you.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:28

It is still it's a completely different challenge. When I started thinking what do I want to become as a job later, I I thought about studying computer science, but actually I didn't want to sit in front of the computer the whole day. So I thought I'd do something more practical, but in my job I still sit in front of the computer all the time.

Sam Sethi 1:15:49

So let's look at the future of Upnext. What is Up Next for Up Next? What are you planning? Will you get to the point where you go, right, I'm done. That was a great project, or will you maybe look at a server-based implementation? I don't know. What's in your head for Up Next?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:07

I'm still not done with the app. Functions at the moment, I think it's quite complete. I I now have share pictures, I have playlist support because a friend of mine wanted to have playlist support. He wanted to have a function to listen to the backcutter look of a podcast in order how it was released, and I thought, okay, for that I need a specific playlist, so I put this in the app. Currently I'm refining it, making it a little bit more smoother, a little bit more faster, cleaning up the UI a little bit more readable, more improving the accessibility of it. And then I'm waiting for what Apple will introduce in the next WDC to see if there's anything interesting for me to put in the app. Otherwise, I will work on small things. Always when I think I need a new function for the app, I will implement it. And I keep it updating because it's my main podcasting app. I'm using myself. I want to have an app which is nice to use. So it has CarPlay because I'm I'm driving to the to work every day for 30 minutes, so I need CarPlay. All the functions which are implemented are because I need them for my podcasting listening experience. If somebody else has an idea, feel free to send me an email or put an issue in GitHub. Maybe if I think it's a good idea, I will implement it. If not, maybe not. We'll see. But there's no idea to stop working on it.

Sam Sethi 1:17:27

You mentioned that you have video support. Are you supporting MP4 video or I am not yet supporting videos?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:35

I have put the alternative and closure tag and you can link to a video and open it in a browser. But they are not yet opened directly in the app. But this is also something I would like to have because even back in 2005, I was uh listening to uh video podcasts at the time, so I would like to have it back in the app.

Sam Sethi 1:17:58

So if someone wants to go and try Up Next, where would they go?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:02

Either search in the App Store for Up Next or go to my website extremely successfulapps.com because they are not they are not successful. Uh and you can find a link there.

Sam Sethi 1:18:14

Excellent. Holger, thank you so much, and good luck with the rest of the development. I'm very, very cool on open sourcing it as well. Well done.

Pod News Adds Video Detection

SPEAKER_05 1:18:22

Thank you for having me.

Sam Sethi 1:18:23

James, you've been busy um with I don't know, Canva or Photoshop. What have you been doing?

James Cridland 1:18:31

No, not Canva or Photoshop. No. You're talking about um the fact that Pod News now correctly marks video podcasts on Apple Podcasts. If you have an episode or more in video, um then we will automatically do that and we will use a watch on Apple Podcasts badge instead of a listen on Apple Podcast badge, um, and uh and all of that. Um now there's no way of doing that through the um API. So what I'm doing is I'm uh scraping the page on Apple Podcasts and looking for the existence of a video icon, essentially. Uh it's a little bit more complicated, but not really. Um so I'm doing that. Um but I think that that's um that that that's nice. So we will begin to learn the sorts of shows which are available in video as well as in audio, and we'll have some data around that, which is uh good. And one thing that I did notice, uh Sam, while I was doing that, is that Apple Podcasts has lots and lots and lots of schema of um of uh easy to read for computers data in their web pages now. They are using a schema called Creative Work Series. Now I was using Podcast Series because I saw somebody else using that, but um Apple, oh no, they're using Creative Work Series, and they've got lots of information in their uh HTML um all about each individual podcast. And I thought, okay, well, I will switch mine over. So I'm no longer using podcast series, I'm using creative work series because that's what Apple Podcasts are using, and uh Apple Podcasts are rarely wrong.

Sam Sethi 1:20:10

They haven't caught up with you. You were right, and they were wrong.

James Cridland 1:20:13

No one I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But anyway, um that is now uh that is in there, but um uh very interesting um seeing all of that. Um so I thought that that was good. And by the way, I didn't make all of those badges. Um uh Apple Podcasts now has badges that are there for um listen, watch, um find on Apple Podcasts, and I think there's Discover on Apple Podcasts as well or something. So I'm not quite sure what those other ones are for, but um, yes, um, so all all very nice, and you should be able to see that if you take a look at the listing for Buzzcast, um, that's one listing that I know has been upgraded, um, which now includes the um the video stuff on there, because that is available in video, or at least one of the episodes was.

Sam Sethi 1:21:02

Now, talking of uh people like who are clever, much more clever than I, um Alberta Botella, the co-founder of RSS.com, has produced something called a pod roll atlas. What's this one, James?

James Cridland 1:21:14

This is very cool, and actually the only reason that he can do it is that Dave Jones from the Podcast Index has his beautiful new page on the podcast index now, which is called Datasets, which is all of the public data sets. And it turns out that there was a data set for recommendations. And Alberto got very enthusiastic and excited about this and um whisked up an app which allows you to have a look through all of the podcasts that are being recommended. Um, and there's some really good, interesting stuff in there, uh, which sort of really shows you um where these podcasts are being recommended from and you know, and all of the connections. The Mel Robbins podcast, for example, it's massive, it's recommended by 158 podcasts. It itself makes no recommendations, but that doesn't matter. Um, it's still doing really large. And of course, you can then go, well, I wonder what source of shows recommend it. And then you can have a look. You know, there's one here called Through the Mental Lens, there's one here um uh which is called uh The Women Are Plotting. You know, you can you can see that there is sort of different types of shows uh in here that are recommending other shows, and I find all of that really interesting. So um, yes, um Alberto has done a uh very nice job. Uh if you want to go and see this, atlas.rss.io uh is where to go. Atlas.rss.io. Um it's a one-page um piece of code. Uh it's got lots of uh cleverness in the back end, as only Alberto can do, and uh very, very smart. So uh yes, very cool.

Pod Roll Atlas Plus Listener Messages

Announcer 1:22:56

Boostergram, boostergram, boostigram, super super prominence, zaps, fan mail, fan mail, and voicemail. Our favorite time of the week, it's the Pod News Weekly Review inbox.

James Cridland 1:23:07

Yeah, so many different ways to get in touch with us. Fan mail by using the link in our show notes or boosts or email. Uh we share any money and we put it behind the bar um uh at um at the podcast show and uh other places. Uh, not that we're doing that this time, but you know what I mean. Thank you, BuzzProud. Um, but uh yes, uh we've got some messages. Um uh I've got a message from Justin Jackson through TrueFans because I did a full video pod news show earlier on in the week. Uh hidden away. I didn't say anything about it, and you had to spoil it by telling everybody.

Sam Sethi 1:23:41

Um, I'm just so excited. Um I was going through it, checking my for a reason I was checking, and then suddenly you popped up afterwards. Oh, what's he been doing?

James Cridland 1:23:51

Well, there you go. Um, so yeah, so uh Justin Jackson uh or Spanky Mustard, as I call him, because that's his Reddit's that that's his Reddit name, which I don't think he likes. Uh anyway, um uh I know James isn't a fan of video podcasts, but I have to say as a fan, it's kind of nice to see what his recording space looks like. Also, while some hosts seem awkward on video podcasts, I think James is a natural. Uh thank you for your patronizing comment, Justin Jackson. Um, but uh no, that's uh that's a very nice thing. So um so excellent. And he sent over um uh 2,528 sets over. Justin, uh, thank you very much uh for that. That's uh that's very kind.

Sam Sethi 1:24:33

We've had uh 999 sacks from RW Nash on fountain.fm saying go podcasting. That's right.

unknown 1:24:42

Thanks.

James Cridland 1:24:42

Yes, go podcasting. Yes, yes, that's right. Uh Martin Lindescog for the record, I'm giving up the gamification battle. Ah, yes, this is uh the gamification that goes on in the TrueFans um uh app um where uh there's a bit of uh there's a bit of fighting going on between Martin Lindescog and the late bloomer actor. And uh Martin appears to be giving up. Boo!

Sam Sethi 1:25:05

Uh don't give up, Martin.

James Cridland 1:25:07

I can't reach the top position for now. Congratulations to the late Bloomer actor on the leaderboard for Pod News Daily. And the late Bloomer actor himself says, extra boosts and streaming. No mention of the gamification battle between myself and Martin Lindescog again, LOL. It's been a tough ride at your benefit too. Hold on to the super fan in TrueFan's spot. Yes, we should mention the superfan, I suppose, shouldn't we, at some point? Um uh yeah, so uh thank you both for fighting to be the uh the super fan. Uh that's very kind.

Sam Sethi 1:25:37

We're going to change the gamification rules, so Martin, look out. You never know.

James Cridland 1:25:41

Oh, well.

Sam Sethi 1:25:43

Well, we can the thing that we've got with gamification is it's good fun. We've built it and it works, but we can now put weighting into certain activities. So we can say playing or listening for longer, or maybe we'll say sharing or commenting. So we're going to re-weight the index for gamification, nice. Which will have an effect on who's the super fan.

James Cridland 1:26:05

Is there a recency um built into that as well? What in what way? Um, so the way that uh the way that I've done gamification for other websites in the past is if you stop coming to the website, then your score begins to go down, your karma score in that in that.

Sam Sethi 1:26:22

No, we haven't done that. That could be a good bun to add. No, we don't do that.

James Cridland 1:26:25

Yes, and it sends you emails saying, Oh, yeah, you haven't been to the website in the last week, your karma score's gone down, uh, which I I quite liked. It just kept it just it just kept things fresh, but it also reminded people to come back again, uh, which is quite nice. Um uh anyway, that was uh 20 years ago. I'm not quite sure why I'm talking about it now. Uh Claire Waite Brown, um, I especially like the bird song from James's Outside Broadcast this week. Yes, um uh I enjoyed it too. Uh so uh thank you for that. Um and um and also uh somebody that listened to that show last week was the inventor of clean feed, Sam, who was who was very excited to hear you say, wow, the audio quality of that was amazing. So uh he is coming to the to the uh to the to the uh drinks as well. So um lovely. Good to end up seeing him.

Sam Sethi 1:27:18

Yeah. And finally, uh Seth Goldstein, Inception Point AI. Maybe they they're giving up ha ha. God, I hope so. Sadly says no.

James Cridland 1:27:28

Sadly says it seems not. Oh, and we've got some voicemail as well, uh Sam, which I'm very excited by. We've got two pieces of voicemail. Uh let's have this one first.

SPEAKER_10 1:27:40

Hey guys, Dave Jackson. You're talking about Stephen Robles getting his uh you know double the video thing. The third thing isn't Steven the guy that's like the the Apple shortcut king, which would be another reason why Apple would be promoting him. Just a thought.

James Cridland 1:27:55

Just a thought and a great thought as well. Yes. Uh yes, so this was Stephen. Robles, who was doing amazing stuff with his new video podcast through Transistor. Um and uh yeah, I think I think uh Dave makes a good point. You must, by the way, uh Sam, take a listen to School of Podcasting, uh, where this week he interviewed Alban Brooke and he also interviewed Justin Jackson. Um but it was just like beautifully put together, wasn't it? It was just it we it wasn't two interviews, it was here's here's what Dave said, you know, here's what Alban said, here's what Justin said, uh, you know, lots of those clips all the way through. And I was thinking, blind me, that must have taken such a long time to produce. It was really well done. It was really well done. Uh so really good. Uh heartily recommended. Um uh go and take a listen to the School of Podcasting uh podcast. That's uh definitely a good thing. And of course, Dave is um our third uh power supporter uh as well, who's been supporting us for over two years. So Dave. And he'll be at our drinks. And he'll be at our drinks. Oh, is he coming over? Excellent. He is excellent. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing Dave Dave Jackson in his jacket and his um and his podpage t-shirt. Uh so that'll be good.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:09

And by popular demand, hi James and Sam. Neil Vellio from Podnos Podcasting here. Ask and you shall receive. You asked me to leave a voicemail on the last episode. Here I am. I just wanted to come off the back of that Apple Podcast's video case study.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:23

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:24

Uh the one about posting video means doubling your place. Yes. Um, fair play, James, for flagging this because I think most people sharing that headline over last week won't have included the bit where you pointed out that Apple is basically pushing that content at the moment because they want to show off their shiny new toy. That's what all platforms do when they roll out a new feature. It's algorithmic, it's not a result, it's just a wonka golden ticket. And of course, once the golden tickets stop coming, you know, everyone loses heart because the moment everyone piles in, they're gonna restrict the results. They will do. Uh so yeah, it was really good to hear you pointing that out, and hopefully it will give people a moment to stop and pause before they order their ring light on Amazon.

TrueFans Player Upgrades And Live HLS

James Cridland 1:30:10

Before they order their ring light on Amazon. Good, and of course, you could always tell an ex-radio DJ because he talked up to the 60 seconds, didn't he? It's good to hear your voice, Neil. Uh, thank you for that. Looking forward to drinks as well. Yes, looking forward to hopefully seeing you at the drinks. I've invited quite a lot of people to the uh to the uh drinks, so I'm hoping that's right. Yeah. Uh dear, we may we may have to have a conversation. Well, yes, we may have to have a conversation about that because I think we might have to pay for some of it. Uh anyway, uh start sending in those sats quickly. If if we've invited so many people. Uh anyway, very much looking forward uh to all of that. What's happened for you uh elsewhere this week, Sam?

Sam Sethi 1:30:57

Well, I'm really excited because um we finally cracked, I think, our media players for both mobile and desktop. We've sort of had them and I've not been a hundred percent happy with them. But we we redesigned them this week. Um, we took a leaf out of Apple, actually, if I'm truthfully known. Um, so in the mobile player, we now have a um turn video off and on capability, same as the Apple one. But the the UI is much nicer, it's much slicker for us. And um there's a picture of you, James, in our show notes for the video you did for Pod News Daily. And um, but when you click on any of the buttons below, then you can put uh you can follow along with the transcript, you can see chapters if they existed, um, you can leave a comment. So it's in on page while you're active rather than having to come off it and do something else. So I was quite pleased with that. Um, and on our desktop, we've got full screen desktop as well with um show notes, side notes, and you can go, you can remove the show notes away and go full screen as well. So it's just much nicer and much slicker, it works really well, and then there's all sorts of user settings where you say, I don't want any video, turn it off so we'll play audio first rather than video first, or I don't want full screen, I just want it in a little postage stamp, so that's the default. So you've got all those settings where you can change it around as well, so you're not forced down.

James Cridland 1:32:18

Well, you've got you've got user settings in TrueFans. Oh, we have one of three thousand, yes.

Sam Sethi 1:32:24

Yes, yes, that that that page is the page to be redone next week, yes. Yeah, yeah, no, very cool. So, yes, that was one of the things we did. Um, the other one was we've been testing our live streaming server. So it's an HLS live streaming server, it's not um a shout cast ice car. So very excited about that, and it'll be both audio and video, and that seems to be working well with the lit tag, so good news. No configuring of the uh lit tag fields we do that all for you, so it's just click a button to go live and set a time and a date. Nice and simple.

James Cridland 1:32:59

Very nice, very nice. And you've done some more analytics as well.

Sam Sethi 1:33:02

Yeah, well, because we've got listen time and watch time already for streaming data, we we can now take the data for each episode and start to aggregate some of that. So, one of the things I want to look at was the average listen time per episode. So we take all the listen times that you have for each of your episodes and we aggregate that obviously to give you the average, and we did the same for the average listen time per user as well. So you might say this podcast is listened to for um 28 minutes on average or 60%, or maybe um of the fans that I have, um, the average user listens to 90% of the show, right? Whatever the numbers come out. So, again, little data points that you might be interested in. Same for average revenue earned and average streaming costs, because we charge by the megabyte. You can then look at what each individual episode has cost you, but then you can see your average across all your episodes as well. So just some nice little data points, really.

James Cridland 1:33:59

Very nice. Gosh, you've been busy.

Sam Sethi 1:34:04

James, what's happened for you then?

James Cridland 1:34:06

Well, uh, I have been putting together the slides for the Pod News report card, and I've been doing a few uh private presentations of that report card to some of the companies who have been interested in the results of that, which I've enjoyed doing so far this week. But I did notice right at the end I asked a question which was um if there was one thing we could do to make pod news better, what would that be? And quite a few people have decided that this is a good idea to give us some feedback for this show. Right. Now, now this show is not the the you know, the pod news report card, right? I just read some. No, I know exactly. So, anyway, here we go. Um, so the first one, interview this great guy called Chris Stone on the Pod News Weekly Review about his business podcast crew. I, for one, would love to hear from him, from Chris Stone, presumably, um, in the UK. Reduce the political opinions and ongoing banter about the US. As a Canadian, I do not follow US political news and don't expect to see what flag is being waved on this podcast. I come here for podcast news, not Trump or Elon update. Enough of that. Let's get back to the independent podcasters, the soul of podcasting, and remaining the voice of podcasting news.

Sam Sethi 1:35:21

So if I say Mark Carney's a lovely guy and I think he's great, shall I stop?

James Cridland 1:35:26

Says somebody from Canada. Right. Uh, who who clearly, who clearly, I mean, uh, yes, uh, whereas there's another one from the US saying, stop being such liberal weenies. Watch all what a weenie is. Are we a sausage? I I uh yes. Um tell Sam to stop giving made up facts on the weekly show. Okay. Uh I've passed that on. I like giving up made up facts. Yeah. Spotify's number one.

Sam Sethi 1:35:57

Sorry, was that made up? No.

James Cridland 1:36:00

Uh uh, somebody else from the US. I feel like Sam and James are recording content every second, they're not asleep. Gosh, uh, is the show that long? And uh one final one from uh Stephen Goldstein of New Jersey. No, uh one final one from uh Germany somewhere. Um the weekly show should be no more than an hour long, please. Well, sorry.

Sam Sethi 1:36:27

Well, if you listen to us on 2x, it's only one hour long.

James Cridland 1:36:30

The week uh, in fact, if you listen to us on 1.5x, it's only uh an hour long because um uh there is a hard stop for this podcast of an hour and a half. Um, and uh that is exactly where we are right now. Um, and I've still got to get the interviews in. So I'm imagining.

Sam Sethi 1:36:47

Wait, do you remember when I first asked you, hey James, you do a three-minute podcast? Would you like to do a half-hour podcast with me?

James Cridland 1:36:54

I know, and I kept on saying, yes, let's do a half-hour podcast. Let's not do an hour and a half.

Sam Sethi 1:37:01

Well, John McDermott wants us to do three shows a week, that would cut it down to three half hour shows.

James Cridland 1:37:05

John John McDermott wants us to do a breakfast show every every single day. Uh, and we're not gonna do it. We're not gonna do it. He's coming as well.

Sam Sethi 1:37:13

Hey, Justin Jackson wants you to do video. He's he says you look good.

Where To Follow And Support

James Cridland 1:37:18

Yeah. Oh dear. Anyway, uh, thank you if you took part in the uh in the Pod News Report card. Um, and uh yes, I was kind of expecting um uh constructive feedback for the newsletter, not for this post, not for this show. But anyway, uh that's what we got, and so there we are. Um uh actually there's some uh there's a couple of really good ideas in there which I'm going to do. So um uh so I'm quite pleased in asking that question. That was a new question. I think it was just what do you think of Pod News? And and everybody said, Oh, it's brilliant, James, it's really good. Uh and I didn't want that this time round. I wanted I wanted to know where I was going wrong. And only one person has actually said uh bad bad things in there. You wait till next week. Send them email. So we will we will see. Um, and anyway, that is it for this week. Uh, if you want to read more about those podcast stories, uh then you'll find them in the pod news daily newsletter, podnews.net.

Sam Sethi 1:38:19

You can support this show by streaming chats. You can give us feedback using the Buzz Sprout thumb mail link in our show notes. Uh, in fact, I think Kevin actually came back to me after last week's show when I said we people can't find it on weekly.pod use and like that. He said, I'll fix that. Um, so that's good. Um, you can send us a boost, you can become a power supporter. They're not going to sponsor our drinks now, James. Um, like the 24 power supporters at weekly.podjuce.net. I must stop criticizing. Right, move on.

James Cridland 1:38:48

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.

Announcer 1:39:00

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.