Live From Podcast Show London

James Cridland 0:01

Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters.

Announcer 0:06

This is the Pond News Weekly Review live at the podcast show in London with James Cridlin and Sam Steffi.

James Cridland 0:16

I'm James Cridlin, the editor of Pod News. And I'm Sam Steffi, the CEO of TreeFan. In the chapters today, uh Apple Podcasts and HLS and all of that. Plus, we speak to Rox Codes, not his real name, from Flightcast, as well as lots more from uh the podcast uh show. This podcast is sponsored by BuzzSprout with a tool, support, and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with Buzzsprout.com.

Announcer 0:45

Live from the talking podcast business stage at the podcast show. This is the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 0:55

Mr. Seffi, how are you?

Speaker 7 0:57

Knackered. Absolutely knackered, but very happy.

Speaker 10 1:01

Yes.

Speaker 7 1:02

It's been a wonderful few days. My liver has not thanked me, but other than that, it's very good. What has been your highlight, James?

Speaker 10 1:10

Oh, I think uh plenty of uh highlights uh here. Uh all kinds of uh things going on, uh uh obviously. We've had um lots of talk about video because of course uh video is the thing. Uh but also we've seen Janine Wright from Inception Point AI, only about an hour and a half ago. Wearing garlic, you're okay. Which was which was quite a thing. And of course, the results of the pod news report card.

Speaker 7 1:35

Yes,

The Podnews Report Card Results

Speaker 7 1:36

well, that kicked off the week. So what was the week or the day or the show? What was in the pod news report card?

Speaker 10 1:43

Well, uh, lots of things in the pod news report card, including um a lot of um very much better scores for YouTube, which was fascinating. Spotify Well, you can say just better scores for you, I was thinking Spotify slumping uh a little bit because they haven't really launched anything over the last uh year or so. But uh Apple Podcasts doing phenomenally well. Um it seems that uh podcast creators really like Apple Podcasts right now. I think particularly because of the video announcements, but also because of the uh live um uh timed links and stuff like that um and um the other uh things that they've been adding uh all year. So yeah, it's been a uh a super exciting thing.

Speaker 7 2:23

And how did YouTube come out in all of that report as well?

Speaker 10 2:26

Uh YouTube ended up um for the first time being second overall. So um it's always been Apple Podcasts, then Spotify, then uh then uh uh YouTube. Uh this year for the first time, YouTube ended up being number two, um, which is uh a big thing. So I think that's probably just more people using YouTube um more than anything else, but that's been uh uh super interesting.

Speaker 7 2:48

Last question in the report card. Was there anything in there that you thought, oh, that surprised me?

Speaker 10 2:53

I think it was interesting seeing um uh some of the Apple podcast scores going down, particularly around um support and creator support and that sort of thing. There is a lot of that um that Apple does very, very well, and it was interesting to see that going down. But you know, these numbers are always, you know, I I think you need to have a look at the trends. But I think it was, you know, it was it was really interesting. I've shared them with Apple, I've shared them with Amazon, I've shared them with YouTube. That's that's all the worry about, right? Um and so all all of those companies have been super interested in the the results anyway.

Speaker 7 3:29

And if you wanted to share them with the audience, where would they go and find them?

Speaker 10 3:32

Oh, thank you very much for asking. Podnews.net slash report card. I think we've done this before, but is the place you would you would think, although I'm I'm I'm kind of feeling that we that we possibly possibly should have spent more time in rehearsal. Um so that is uh all good.

Alternate Enclosures And Video RSS

Speaker 10 3:48

But there's also been uh news about uh video from all kinds of people, haven't there?

Speaker 7 3:52

There have. I mean, we've seen some really interesting announcements from a company called Flightcast uh who've announced uh video HLS across all platforms. That's really exciting. Um, captivate and Amazon even have joined the party as well. Um, so some of them have added support for something called the alternative enclosure. James, what is the alternative enclosure?

Speaker 10 4:14

So the alternate enclosure, and it's the alternate enclosure, not the alternative enclosure. Um so the alternate enclosure is um a way for you to basically say in your RSS feed, okay, here's our main, uh here's our main audio, that's all fine. And then here are some alternatives. And the alternative might be video, it might be audio in Dolby Atmos in the future, it might be a really low, low quality, low bandwidth version of your audio if you want to offer that. Um that's what the alternate uh enclosure can offer. But of course, that means that that's a route of getting video into additional podcast apps. So apps like Fountain, uh, apps like um uh podcast, uh Pocketcast, I believe, is going to announce this soon, but it hasn't quite yet. But everybody seems to say that Pocketcast is going to announce it. So who am I to say no? Um uh those uh sorts of um podcast apps, uh there's another one that I can't quite remember. It begins with a T. Umsistor. Um so true fans, of course. Uh all of those are supporting the alternate enclosure. Um, but it's super exciting, and I think um super exciting to hear Flightcast really pushing it with basically saying we're not gonna charge any more money. Well, I'm gonna question that.

Speaker 7 5:31

So who do we have on stage? We

Flightcast Ships Apple Video And HLS

Speaker 7 5:33

have the wonderful Rox Codes. He's the CEO and co-founder of Flightcast. Thanks for joining us, Rox. Thanks for having me. Now, you have announced support for the Apple HLS video. Yes. Tell us more.

Speaker 1 5:45

Uh yeah, as of Monday this week, uh we support video at Apple Podcasts. We pre-processed it for every single channel or every single show running on Flightcast. So all their episodes are already baked HLS, ready to go. So you can get your entire back catalog and show video in Apple Podcasts in about four minutes. Uh and it's in 4K. It's uh basically no file limit, 60 gigabyte file limit. Uh and you know, there is a limit then. Yeah. Well, that limit's because Spotify has a 60 gigabyte file limit. Uh and it would be really inconvenient to have two different numbers. Uh, but we're not charging hosting or bandwidth costs. So it is effectively included in all existing flightcast plans, video storage. We were already doing giant video storage, it's nothing new.

Speaker 7 6:29

Just for clarity, you also support the old 10 enclosure as well.

Speaker 1 6:33

Yes. So we did a simultaneous release of Apple Podcasts uh video and uh support for HLS video, because why not? Uh and we've got uh interestingly, about twice as many people doing video in HLS as we do doing video in Apple uh as of right now. So I think we have maybe we're only a few days in, so I checked the numbers a couple days ago, but like within two days we had like a 20% of people had already turned on Apple Video, and like 40% of people had turned on HLS video. I think just because they maybe forgot their password on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 7 7:02

So has Steven from Direver CEO, is all of his content now available that way?

Speaker 1 7:08

Uh no, but it could be uh within a moment if they chose to, but obviously independently they're making the decision if they want to do Apple Video, uh, but they can now.

Speaker 7 7:17

Okay. And now you're also on Spotify and YouTube as well. So it's uh upload once, distribute everywhere, right?

Speaker 1 7:25

Yeah, we are we have finally hit the point of actually everywhere. There are there are no further hills to climb, there are no more mountains to see. Uh it's YouTube video, it's Spotify video, it's Apple video, it's HLS video, which counts as all the other possible videos. So we're done. So that's it. We did it.

Speaker 7 7:41

So when you look at this as uh the next stage of where Flight Cast is, what comes next for you as Flightcast?

Speaker 1 7:48

Oh, that's such a great question. Thank you for asking that. I I think this was like a huge undertaking because uh even though we've called it video first, in my heart, that's never what the company was meant to be, but it was what it had to be to get to where we're going now, which is a largely growth and analytics platform. Because the whole thing was I'm gonna connect all the platforms together and I might as well let you publish to all of them because then I can get all the data in from all of them. And if I have that raw data from Apple HLS and that raw data from those listeners, I can do so, so, so much with that to assist with growth, to like teach you about your show, like really help you understand your audience. And we've already had like people meaningfully change content strategy just on the analytics we could provide today, and now add in all the HLS stuff, adding all that YouTube data, all that thumbnail data, you know, it could be a hosting platform that tells you your thumbnail is bad, this intro is good, people don't like this episode here because of their comments, all in one shot, right? And that becomes very, very valuable, especially when you look at the whole back catalog. So we're gonna do a lot of like show level concepts, a lot of really trying to help you make this a better episode, really trying to help you figure out what works, what doesn't. And I I want the platform to be the reason you grew an extra 10% this year.

Speaker 7 8:59

So with HLS being a six-second package, you can say number of plays, listen time, watch time, consumption as well. So can you show within the episode maybe this chapter dropped and that chapter was accessible?

Speaker 1 9:12

Yeah, you HLS is awesome. So you literally by about a six-second fraction, can say uh a retention graph, right? The retention graph we'd be used to uploading to YouTube. You can just make that now. And not only can you make that, you can even differentiate it between audio and video because the way that HLS works for Apple specifically, uh, if you lock your phone, it stops downloading the video. It only downloads the audio until you unlock your phone, which means we can make a graph that shows you people unlocked their phone to look at the podcast for this 30 seconds. And that's like, you know, what greater signal could you have for make a clip from that? Right? Like crazy, crazy data.

Speaker 7 9:48

So uh are you also doing dynamic ad insertion in the way that Apple has with ACast and with Adswiz? So with HLS, will you be able to give advertisers back a greater return on investment by telling them that the ad was actually played and how long it was played?

Speaker 1 10:04

Yeah, so we did all the monetization from day one. So we took all the audio ads and then you add like a still video, like advertisement, your video will continue. That's pretty much what everybody's done to turn the audio ads into video ads. So we did that. Then we also support video ads now, so you can upload like a sponsorship that's video, and it will show up in your Apple video dynamically. Um, from a tech perspective, for Apple, it's in interstitials. For RSS, it's in discontinuities because that way it's not marked uh for the RSS feed. Um and in terms of you know impact on revenue and like are we able to get a higher CPM and everything, TBD, but in terms of guaranteeing that it actually happened, at least if it was streamed, yes, Apple still is auto downloads. Those auto downloads are still audio by default, they're downloading the audio from your video. So in those cases, it's we have the same info that we did. But any scenario that is streamed now, any scenario where you're hitting play on Apple Podcasts and you didn't pre-download it, yeah, we'll have that info.

Speaker 7 10:54

My last question before James said, where are you getting your inventory for the advertising?

Speaker 1 10:59

Well, the inventory is the shows. Uh, if you mean like where I'm getting the ads from, like I have various different programmatic partners. We've actually gone like really deep into programmatic advertising. I don't talk about it much because I don't feel like it's a highlight of the platform, but we work with a ton of different programmatic advertisers through Vast. Uh we even actually allow you to do custom vast. So, you know, a lot of hosting platforms are largely ad sales companies, right? And so they say, like, yeah, you're gonna use our ads. Uh Flightcast isn't, so I say, you can bring your own ads if you want to. So you can actually go work with any company, you could go call up Red Circle, say, hey, I want your ads, and you can plug them into Flightcast through Vastag, and we will get no revenue off of that. And that's completely fine with me. So if you're diary of a CEO who can maybe go get a higher CPM because you're super premium and can maybe convince an advertiser you're worth talking to special, then go get your higher CPM, bring it over. Great. Like you you deserve that, you earn that. I want you to get that maximum revenue. Um, but we have enough fill rate for for everything else.

Speaker 10 11:54

So how much is uh flight cost if if people want to um move over to uh there? I mean, obviously Buzzsprout is an excellent podcast host, which I'm sure you agree with. But um, if people were just because they wanted to try something else, uh what what what sort of uh costs are your if I were to ever fathom such a thing?

Speaker 1 12:14

Yes uh yeah and if and if you didn't want to start podcasting or keep podcasting. No, you didn't. Uh and you instead wanted to flight cast ink nope, didn't land. Uh but you could uh flightcast starts at 50 bucks a month. If you do a year, it's $42 a month for the basic plan. That covers uh everything, and you get $50,000 downloads a month. So for pretty much every show that's starting out or any like small or like growing shows, that's great. And then it's fifty bucks a month for the basic, hundred bucks a month for pro, which where you start to get into the clips, and then two fifty a month for Legend, where you get uh as many clips as we can physically do, uh, and also a lot more download capability. And then enterprise from there.

Speaker 10 12:51

From there, call me. Yeah, and I think 50,000 downloads would just just about be enough for this show, wouldn't it? Uh just pushing it. This episode specifically. Yeah, this episode specifically. Absolutely. If it records correctly this time.

Speaker 1 13:04

Now that would be the first time.

Speaker 10 13:07

Which would be good. Rox, thank you so much for coming. I really, I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you. Uh Sam, what else have we got?

AI Slop Debate And Real Harm

Speaker 7 13:14

Well, I think some of the highlights have been, and I think everyone at the show's been talking about is AI Slop. Janine Wright. Now, I think James, you were in the room as well. Yes.

Speaker 10 13:24

What was the it was really interesting watching Janine uh talk? Uh she was there with uh Nikki Birch, who works on AI for the BBC, and uh Nikki is both producing stuff but also um thinking very carefully about the ethics behind that and everything else. It was a really interesting uh uh uh time. I mean, we've got an audience, we might as well find out what uh what what some of the audience um thought about it. I'm gonna ask this man because he does AI as well.

Speaker 22 13:51

John McDermott, um co-founder of Calaroga Shark Media, and we make podcasts. How did you think that uh Janine um uh went? I'll I'll steal for myself. I just threw up a sub stack about it. I compared the session to how podcasting was back during the Roman Empire. There were people cheering and jeering, and uh it was very feisty. I think there was another hour or so to be had for that. Um messaging.

Speaker 10 14:17

Um it was the only session that I've seen where actually the music started playing them off. Yes, yes.

Speaker 22 14:24

Yeah. Yes. Uh I was at a session earlier in the day where the conversation was more around training LLMs. Uh in this latter session that we're referring to now, it seemed to be more about uh the content desert.

Speaker 10 14:40

Yeah.

Speaker 22 14:40

And whether or not those two things are aligned or not, I'm not sure. I haven't had time to process it yet. So thank you for putting me on the spot. Um but that definitely a very feisty, interesting panel.

Speaker 10 14:51

It's really interesting. And uh uh and and the reason why I'm asking you, of course, is that you'll you use AI as well, but you you you use AI in a very different way, don't you?

Speaker 22 14:59

Yes, thank you. Um so uh my quick rap here is we're a two-person company, and sometimes for shows, um neither one of our voices are correct. So we'll have an AI narrator read this stuff, for an example. We we did a podcast last year about uh what would happen if there were a new Pope. And I sound like this, and maybe I could smooth it out and use it. So we used an AI narrator, and James and I have had friendly discussions about the decision process behind that. Um so we'll use that sort of thing. Um I have also, this is the first time I'm saying this publicly, quietly trained myself. I wrote some weather bots just to see what happened. I'm not promoting them, don't care about them. They just exist because I don't want to become a dinosaur, and I've learned how to do that. And if you connect an API to the National Weather Service and 11 labs, you can make a weather bot. These are things that can be done. Yeah, so so these are the ways we're using it, and but but it's a weather bot. It's not you know a doctor giving health, which is one of the things that came up during that week.

Speaker 10 15:55

Which is one of the things uh that that came up during it, and actually one of the reasons that I was you know interested to actually um uh hear. I wonder if I can ask Dan. You you were there and you asked Janine a question, didn't you?

Speaker 16:08

I did. Um, I'm Dan Kendall from healthpodcast.org. We curate incredible content from health professionals and health leaders, uh, people who can speak about the parent, uh, the patient experience as well as the professional experience of practicing health. And uh I I spoke to Janine yesterday uh about having an ongoing conversation with her, with the concerns that I have and many people in the healthcare industry have around the positioning of these AI characters as doctors representing medical and health content and mental health content to an audience. And I look forward to speaking with her. I express my appreciation for that, but I wanted to ask her to commit to the audience. Now that she knows that these con this content is still available and still being published, uh would she commit to taking it offline? And would she further commit that these 12 humans that she says she has in this review process of reviewing hundreds of episodes per day, would she commit to being transparent about the clinical medical uh professionals who are reviewing that in the process that they're following?

Speaker 12 17:15

So, first of all, I'm not gonna make any commitment from stage. I will commit, as I said, you and I will engage in the conversation, we will look at that, and I am I will commit to developing with you what the standard should be going forward. Uh we have we have not taken down any content we have ever made. And that means that I have two and a half years of, you know, some of the stuff that we made at the beginning was frankly really bad. You know, somebody will listen to something and be like, I heard a show that you made, and that was so terrible to me. And so we've had a lot of debates internally about you know, do we go through and pull this record of everything that we have ever made, um, with respect to quality standards, with respect to how we've you know evolved our fast fact-checking standards, et cetera, et cetera. And to date, we've felt like, you know, in part, this is like a beautiful record of the way that we have evolved and the way that this technology has evolved. But the the reality is that at some point, like many other companies that face this, like BudSpeed and you know, other organizations that had big back catalogs of content that they had to figure out what to do with, and it did, did it continue to meet its evolving standards as to what it should have available. We will like when we go through and do some culling of our network, but we have not um undertaken that effort yet.

Speaker 18:38

Do you think that she gave you an answer? I know she gave me no answer. And um, that is actually partly why I asked her in public. I do look forward to talking with her in private. Indeed. But I did want to give her an opportunity to express what I feel she may convey to me in different terms privately, because this is a this is a very large community, uh, large concern for those of us in the health community, and I think everyone should be concerned about AI characters positioning themselves as as doctors.

Speaker 10 19:09

Yeah, indeed. Indeed. Does anybody have anything else other than Inception Point AI that uh they have really taken back from this uh conference? Is there anything particularly exciting uh uh to people? No. Well, that's

Show Floor Voices And Industry Trends

Speaker 10 19:24

good. Uh so in which case uh I will say that I have spit I have spoken to many more people on the uh show floor. Uh these are some of the people I spoke to.

Speaker 13 19:34

My name is Tom Rossi. I am one of the co-founders of Buzzprout. And so you are here uh at the podcast show for the first time. What do you think? Yes, this is my first time just checking out to see uh you know if this is where our independent podcasters like to hang out. So far it's been great. Met uh met a bunch of different people and uh it's a great venue. Are you gonna be back next year? Uh yet to be decided.

Speaker 10 19:56

Oh I think so. Are there lots of good uh speakers that you're planning to see? No.

Speaker 13 20:04

Mostly just meeting all the different companies here.

Speaker 10 20:06

Yeah, yeah. I think that makes uh that makes a bunch of sense. Tom, always good to see you. Thank you for your support for this show as well.

Speaker 19 20:11

Good to see you, James. Jay Nacklis, some vice president and consultant of Coleman Insights. Uh, we're here to present insights from a brand new study about podcast trailers. What can you tell us? We've always been curious about whether or not trailers um drive listening intent and really what people remember from trailers. And I'm talking specifically about audio trailers. I know that there's a lot of uh a lot of focus on video these days, but wouldn't it be fun to actually do an audio study? So this one takes uh essentially an A-B test of uh four different uh four different shows, and we test uh a different variable for each of them. So one of them, for example, is AI versus authentic, one is uh third person voice versus the host, one we just take out the first 15 seconds and change that. And so for each of them, they're both the same, they're 60 seconds of audio, but we change a variable and we don't tell the respondent what the variable is, right? We're just we want to know what they remember. And then we ask them which one is their favorite, and then completely open-ended, what do you remember about it? And what was interesting was with all of that kind of free range, they essentially compartmentalized into five key themes. So we're gonna show you what are the five things that people took away from these trailers, and then we're gonna ask them uh what their likelihood of listening was for each of them. And so what specifically from those comments drives listening intent? Those are the lessons that are gonna come from this study.

Speaker 10 21:47

Well, I'm looking forward to learning how all of that works. Hopefully, uh AI does worse than uh human beings, but uh we will we will see what happens. Uh is this your first time at the London podcast show?

Speaker 19 21:58

It isn't, is it? You've been here. This is our second year. I was here last year uh and in fact did um a presentation of state of video podcasting last year with Steve Goldstein. We also presented a uh branded podcast study uh that I had done with a company called Munchkin, which is a uh baby lifestyle brand. And so it's uh it's really exciting to be back. I love this show. Jay, it's great to see you. Thank you, James. Great to see you too.

Speaker 21 22:23

Um my name is uh Hirowaki. Nishimura. I'm uh heading up uh B2B side of the Sony uh camera business at this moment.

Speaker 10 22:31

And so Sony is here in terms of cameras and things for the first time. Why are you here at the podcast show?

Speaker 21 22:38

Uh it is actually a no-brainer that uh we uh see a lot of uh video podcasting demand these days, and obviously Sony has been industry for a while when it comes to uh video capturing and content creation. So I well, we feel like this is uh right timing for us to uh get our presence uh to the great podcast show that we have in here in London.

Speaker 10 23:00

What are you uh actually showing off here?

Speaker 21 23:03

So uh not only the cameras that we uh traditionally do the business with, but uh here the suite of this as well. It's unfortunate I cannot show this on audio only setup, but uh we have this uh whole setup of uh cameras as well as uh uh switching system where we can uh offer free of charge, actually, one of the applications that is called monitor and control, very useful for multi-camera setup, which is a typical uh podcast setup, uh video podcast setup these days. So that's something that we like to ensure that uh we do not only deliver the camera as hardware, but we do also offer some um NASA software solution in disabilities.

Speaker 10 23:40

So you see real real opportunity in video podcasting. That's obviously you know why why you're here. Of course, we all know Sony as um I think you can't be a proper podcaster if you don't have one of the MDR uh headphones as well. Um, so you know, Sony is Sony is very well known, I think, for some of the broadcast quality um stuff that you operate.

Speaker 21 24:03

Yeah, obviously, yeah. And uh the the biddy side of it is it is like it we are really well recognized as hardware provider, but I I think we can do much more to help uh podcast studios with uh the power of software as well. That's the reason why we're trying to uh get ourselves in the show and get to meet and know people so that we will collect the uh the feedback from the industry. And we'll yeah, we'd like to uh move towards the next step where we can provide a further added value solution with our software. Yeah.

Speaker 10 24:33

Thank you for coming. It's always always nice to see a big brand like uh Sony here. And I look forward to seeing you maybe uh again here next year.

Speaker 21 24:40

Yes, of course. Thank you so much for the time.

Speaker 20 24:42

Uh who are you? What do you do? I'm Glenn Rubenstein, I'm the founder and CEO of Adopter Media. Glenn, what are you doing here today? So, this is our first podcast show London, and we're really excited to be here. We've heard great things about that. There's a real spirit of community here. And I have to say, the energy here, it's like no disrespect to you know our friends at podcast movement, but podcast movement probably hasn't felt this way since Philadelphia, where there's this much optimism and energy and just presence of industry here. It's really just amazing to see people coming together, communicating, and collaborating.

Speaker 10 25:14

It's a really good event, isn't it? Who uh what what surprised you about this event being here?

Speaker 20 25:20

So far, it seems very interesting. The enthusiasm and interest um of the people attending that really just have a curiosity to learn and discuss and figure out how to apply some of the great things that we've learned uh from US podcasting and podcast advertising, especially, how that can be applied to the UK market and even seeing the attendance enthusiasm at panels. I think it's uh, you know, if you go to any conference about podcasting, you kind of feel like it's the same panels, year in and year out. And what I like here is the panels are a little different, but a lot of this information that we think is sort of old hat is definitely new and relevant to this audience.

Speaker 10 25:57

Glenn, it's great to see you. Thank you for your support. I appreciate it.

Speaker 11 26:00

Of course, thank you. I am Nick, I'm the co-founder of Fountain, a podcast hosting platform and mobile listening app. And what are you doing here, Nick? Researching. I'm trying to find as many podcasters as I can and figure out which problems we can help them with, which you know is it's hard because this place is full of media networks, advertising, tech, and but you know, there are some around.

Speaker 10 26:21

And how are things going with Fountain at the moment? You we we were talking about your wonderful uh music uh event that you held a couple of weeks ago, which I know that Sam ended up going to. Um, what what's keeping you busy at Fountain right now?

Speaker 11 26:35

Uh we're doing a lot of things, as you can tell at a podcast company doing music events. Uh doesn't sound like something that's a natural fit, but you know, the music event was a great success. Um as we were just saying just now, I'm uh we're trying to really get back to the basics of like how we can help solve problems for podcasters because I think there's a lot of unmet needs out there that maybe we aren't catering for. Um, so really thinking about um particularly like how AI slots into the podcaster's workflow increasingly through agents and other things. Um yeah, just building tools that can be helpful that maybe aren't accessible in other places.

Speaker 10 27:08

And what surprised you about the show?

Speaker 11 27:12

Um I don't I don't think anything's surprised me just yet. Um I mean I've only been here a few hours. Um, but uh it's it's great to see it as busy as ever and uh still as hard as ever to find other people. So that nothing's changed there.

Speaker 10 27:26

Absolutely right, Nick. It's good, it's it's really good that you found me.

Speaker 11 27:29

Yeah, well, I've just hijacked your meeting uh with your person that never showed up, so it's a great chance encounter. Yeah.

Speaker 10 27:35

Very good to see you.

Speaker 11 27:36

Likewise.

Speaker 18 27:37

My name is Ami Tucker. I am the executive producer for the podcast academy.

Speaker 10 27:41

So the podcast academy is here at the podcast show again, I think, because I remember you being here last year. How uh this is your first time though, isn't it?

Speaker 18 27:50

This is my first time, yes. It is awesome. I'm quite impressed with the show and the conference, um, the layout. Yeah, everything feels great.

Speaker 10 27:59

Have you been stuck at the stand all the all the time or have you been able to see something?

Speaker 18 28:03

Um, a lot of stand time, but you know what? It's really nice to talk to members, current members. I don't get a chance to do that, and also talk to people about what TPA is, because I think a lot of people know us through the Andes. Um, but it's nice to let people know that we do a lot more year-round.

Speaker 10 28:23

And you're giving away some awards uh at the show as well.

Speaker 18 28:26

Yes, we gave away two international awards yesterday, uh, the Impact and Governors Award. Um they are uh voted by the Board of Governors. Um, and so we had a little very mini ceremony yesterday with a very mini happy hour. It was just fun.

Speaker 10 28:42

It's it's the best award to win, I believe.

Speaker 18 28:44

I believe so.

Speaker 10 28:45

Great to see you. I hope you uh maybe um uh come back in next year. Who knows?

Speaker 17 28:50

Yeah, I just need to bring a bucket of coffee and pour it on my head. I'll be ready. Yeah.

Speaker 5 28:55

Thanks so much. Uh I'm Colin Gray and uh I'm uh I work in audio in general now. I'm unemployed at the moment. That's good.

Speaker 10 29:03

We know you, of course, from uh Alitu and the podcast host. You are uh here at the podcast show.

Speaker 5 29:09

Uh how what do you think of it so far? Uh it's great. It's always great to catch up with everyone. I love the fact that we've got a show now in the UK that actually has the the clout to attract across all the Americans, all the Canadians, everyone from around the world. So it's really cool. Yeah. And why are you here? I'm here. I I just love the industry. I like to be on audio and just look at sort of what's going on in the world to keep up with you know, new products, new gadgets. I'm a it got me into in the first place is just being a nerd around equipment. That was how I started the site, the podcast house, reviewing mics, gear, all that kind of stuff. So it's just great to kind of catch up and see what is coming out, all the new stuff.

Speaker 10 29:45

Yeah. So what's the ideal uh job for uh Colin as you move forward?

Speaker 5 29:51

Um I I think the thing I became better at than average was just coming up with the creative ideas type of thing, the strategy behind it, like trying to think of I don't know, an idea for a show, an idea for an IP, and then actually figure out how to turn that into something that works, that actually attracts people in. It's finding that specific hook from a specific type of person. You know, that's the bit you know this as well as I, James. Like so many people coming up with that. I'm gonna do a show about uh marketing. And you're like, well, but uh, there's a lot of them around. It's turning that into what about marketing? What's the angle? What's the creative aspect of it, all that kind of stuff? So yeah, I just I enjoy working with shows or brands or anything on that type of thing. Yeah, figuring that out.

Speaker 10 30:33

Well, Colin Gray, better than average. Uh, it's been really good to see you. Thank you, James.

Speaker 14 30:38

So I'm Dave, founder of a podcast geek. We're a B2B podcast production and gold company.

Speaker 23 30:43

Very good. And Terry? Yes, I am the operations manager at a podcast geek. So I'm looking after the day-to-day running of the company. It sounds as if you've got a voiceover voice. I do have a voice-over voice, and this is a real person doing a voiceover, not a synthetic voice, just for anybody that's wondering.

Speaker 10 30:58

And are you saying that because you've seen a lot a lot of AI here at the podcast show today?

Speaker 23 31:02

Yeah, so we just came from a talk there from um three ladies that were talking about advertising in AI and advertising, and there was a kind of a glee across the board about how they can just copy people's voices now. Not necessarily they don't even need people's voices, they're synthetic voices with regional accents that they can change depending on the local radio station or you know, advertising locally through smart speakers. And really, there's no need for human beings anymore. So, you know, where my my question to them, we didn't get to ask questions at the end, but would be where's the line? Where are we going to draw the line? As you were saying yesterday in your talk, the the market's being flooded now by synthetic voices speaking to each other in podcasts. Should there be a warning label at the start? Should there be an audio warning label that this is you're not listening to actual human beings? So I'm becoming more and more passionate with you know, where where is the line and where's the morality in this using synthetic voice?

Speaker 10 31:53

Yes, I I think I may have used the phrase cavalcade of crap, uh, which I I I enjoyed doing. Uh David, what have you seen uh at the at the show?

Speaker 14 32:01

Yeah, it's I'm here to really see what AI is doing in the industry now and what kind of where we're headed. And I'm just so far, the whole not a lot of crazy innovation. It's just kind of seeing what's coming down the future. I myself personally am obsessed with Claude and Code and building, helping our company get faster workflows, etc. Um, I'm excited to see if there's any more of that today. But yeah, more leaning into AI, what we can learn from it. Um, not synthetic voices, but workflows and helping things uh get done faster and more efficiently, but uh always human check. So yeah, that's what I'm leaning in on to see what we can find out. This uh so far, not a whole lot of innovation I've seen, but I'm still it's still the game isn't over yet. And uh is this your first time? No, we've been here four times. It's my fourth time here. I always love it. Uh great networking opportunity, uh lots of opportunity to see where the trends are and uh what the excitement is every year. Um I can see AI is always going to be something of interest every year, but uh yeah, more so than this year than ever, like what's happening now is the big thing.

Speaker 3 32:59

David Terry, thank you so much.

Speaker 14 33:01

You're welcome.

Speaker 3 33:02

Hi, my name is John Rostal, and I'm the CEO of Triton Digital. It's great to see you uh here, John. Is this your first um podcast show London? It can't be. This is my second podcast show London, James. And how's it been for you? It's been extraordinary. You know, Podcast Show London is either the first or maybe second most important conference of the year for uh Triton and VoxNest and Spreaker. Uh we come here in strength. So as you look around our booth, you'll see we've got a lot of folks here. And uh we really think it's a great, super concentrated opportunity to interact with a lot of our clients, a lot of our prospects, a lot of the creators, and basically everybody in the podcast ecosystem. Great show. And you've got a load of clients uh over here in Europe, haven't you? Well, I find that I'm meeting with more New Yorkers here in London than I do when I'm sitting in my office in New York, which is not unusual for conferences. But yeah, there are a lot of folks from the States here, but also a lot of folks from uh from many different places. It's remarkable to me how many people have traveled from as far away as Australia to get here as well. Yes, I hear it's a thing.

Speaker 10 34:01

Uh and in terms of um in terms of uh trying, I think every single week I get I get a press release from you in some way, shape, or form.

Speaker 3 34:09

You've just um released something with uh Sounder AI. That's right. Well, if you're getting a press release every week, it means we're doing our job. The and the announcement we made in regard to Sounder is with the Trade Desk, uh the largest DSP. And uh what that means is the Sounder Contextual Targeting and Brand Suitability Data S, which uh is essentially uh an index of podcast content that scores that content against the IAB's taxonomy for brand suitability uh and allows you to target against contextual elements, is now available for buyers using the Trade Desk platform.

Speaker 10 34:43

John, it's always good to uh see you. Have a good rest of the conference. I think we're in the middle of day two here, and uh I I sense the energy is beginning to flag. I don't know about you.

Speaker 3 34:53

I'm exhausted.

Speaker 16 34:55

It's very good to see you. Thanks for your time. Great to see you too, James. My name is Rune Schwarz. I run the Danish office of the production company Monk Studios.

Speaker 10 35:04

And uh is this your first time here or have you been uh to the podcast show London many times before?

Speaker 16 35:10

I was here last year for the first time, but uh but I'm enjoying this year very much. Yep. And why are you here? Well, to create context and to get insights in the business, uh to see where it's going. Standing in queue with you for an AI uh you know uh talk is really uh yeah, it says it all.

Speaker 10 35:28

Yeah, that's how that that's how it works. What have you what what have you seen so far that you're going to tell other people about?

Speaker 16 35:34

That's a good question. I mean, I've I I I wouldn't say that there's one particular uh thing, but um let me just think about that.

Speaker 10 35:42

Yeah, yeah, I don't Are you good are you um uh do you come to many of these of these events uh across Europe or do you go over to the US or any of that?

Speaker 16 35:52

I go to the European ones mostly, and uh and a lot of people from overseas come here as well, I've noticed. So I guess uh I guess we have some really good conferences here, and uh I'm happy to be here. Uh Runner, it's always good to see you. You two likewise.

Speaker 4 36:07

I'm Neil Vallio and I'm the founder and director of PodNose Podcasting.

Speaker 10 36:12

Uh we we recognise your voice from all of those uh all of those um uh voicemails, uh Neil. Um so how how has it been? You've been here for the for the last couple of days?

Speaker 4 36:22

Yeah, I've done both days. Uh I was delighted to obviously have the company of yourself and Sam at the uh the Pod News Drinks with Buzz Sprout, which was a wonderful chance to get together with all our friends and colleagues, and then of course the show. Well, that's its own beast, isn't it? It's been it's been good. It's been really good this year, actually. I'm delighted that the team have really taken on board some of the past comments about the show and really sort of embraced the education for creators as well as the business side of it, which has really been the standout point for me this year. It's been really good. What what in what in particular has been good? What in particular have you been enjoying? What I've really been enjoying, actually, is how there has been more of an emphasis on educating around with the video stuff. I know that you're with me on this, that like you don't have to do video, and that seems to have been the narrative of the industry that if you don't do video, you're cooked, because that's where you're gonna get found from now on. But what I've really enjoyed is people have been sort of explaining the benefits of being on YouTube, but not sort of like making creators that don't have the budget feel small, which I felt felt was something that was around maybe last year and the year before. So, what I've really enjoyed is people sort of coming at this and having the opportunity to say, okay, can I add video to what I'm doing? I don't need to add video, but is there an advantage to it, which I think is really beneficial? Will you be back again next year, do you reckon? Absolutely. Every single year I will be here. It's always good to see you, Neil. You too, James. Take care. Thank you.

Speaker 8 37:55

So, Jason Carter, co-founder of the podcar show London. Is it your first time at the podcast show this year? No, James, it's the fifth time. How's it gone so far? It's been brilliant. It's uh I'm over the moon, I have to say. It's um it's our fifth year, it's grown as an event, it's grown, yeah. Just I'm absolutely bowled over by the international representation here. Just everywhere you move, you hear a different voice from Austria, Germany, Australia. So really blown away by that. And particularly last night, all the different events and parties that were happening, hearing people saying that they're I heard one individual say that he flew from Germany as a top German executive to meet Germans to do business because it was easier to access them at our show. So really over the moon with that, and it just it really feels like the show has has become that just destination for um you know the international community.

Speaker 10 38:51

Now, normally we we would ask at any at any show, we would ask, you know, how many people have come, but that that's a pretty static number, isn't it?

Speaker 8 38:58

It is a static number, yeah. It's um it's just over 6,000. Um this the it fluctuates a bit, but um, as you say, we keep it static really because we don't really want to go beyond that with with this particular event because it starts to become a bit uncomfortable at the show, but it's very busy and people have really got into the swing of it this year. It feels like delegates are returning year on year, know where they're going, know what they're doing, likewise with partners. So yeah, I'm I'm really over the moon. We're still not finished, uh uh a couple of hours to go, but yeah, it's great. Yeah, and uh any changes that you're planning to make for next year?

Speaker 10 39:31

Any any announcements that you're making?

Speaker 8 39:35

I said this to I said this to Sam Stephanie, watch this space. Uh yeah, we we are we are developing some ideas, and uh you'll be the first to know, as ever. Jason, it's really good to catch up. Many congratulations. What a what a great show. Thank you very much, Jay. Cheers. Thank you.

Announcer 39:50

The Pad News Weekly Review with Buzz with Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Amazon Alexa Plus Makes Fake Podcasts

Speaker 7 39:58

The negative to Amazon this week, James, is that there's more AI slop coming from Amazon. What do you think on Amazon's Alexa Plus now being able to produce AI-generated podcasts?

Speaker 10 40:09

Yeah, I think this is interesting. This is news that has literally broken over the last 24 hours. Um, Amazon's Alexa will now be able to produce what they call podcasts, extended answers on any number of different topics, which is essentially Janine Wright's um, you know, uh uh shtick, um, that uh has been completely compiled using AI. And um yeah, uh it's it just seems I mean what what what what did you take from the from the announcement that uh Amazon gave?

Speaker 7 40:39

I think they're struggling with the Alexa. I mean, anyone who's got an Alexa, I have six at home, five of them are now collecting dust. Um, the other two do timing for my cooking and maybe a bit of music occasionally. Um, I think Amazon failed dramatically in the home automation market, um, and they've had to start from scratch again. And I think they're struggling to find a business model around the Alexa, and this may be a way to get people to start to create a lot of silly content that they can use. Yeah, um, I think this is just gonna be another one of those moments where people use it, find it exciting for five minutes, and then it collects dust again. It's is it a podcast, Sam? No. Um, okay, I'm gonna define it. I think Janine Wright said it this morning, right? I think in a world of AI, the more human-to-human connection we can have, the better it is. And I think podcasts are human. Um, we can have content that is given to us from a computer, but I wouldn't call that a podcast.

Speaker 10 41:42

Yeah, does anybody anybody have some thoughts about that? Though that that was a round of applause. And and and you know what that means. That means you get the microphone to explain why why the round of applause. Oh god, what do you think a podcast is?

Speaker 6 41:58

My name's Indy. I'm I've run an online garden club called the Tender Shoots. Um, and I think a podcast is something for my eyes when for my ears when my eyes my eyes are busy. So I that's a really good idea. Yeah, I'm not sure. That's great.

Speaker 10 42:18

I've never I've never heard that before.

Speaker 6 42:20

I think I might trademark it. Um I love listening to podcasts when I'm gardening or weeding or whatever, and and I just get really frustrated by the amount of just auto-generated stuff and not just commercials, um, but also even on um YouTube these days, when I'm looking to do some research, I have to sift through hundreds of you know videos at AI slop until I find somebody who's genuine. So uh yeah, definitely. Um I love anything that's uh human generated really. And if they could actually advertise it and mark it as AI generated, then I could do a filter. Unfortunately, things like YouTube don't do that.

Speaker 10 42:50

Yeah, no, that's that's really interesting. And I I I think you know, there is, and in fact, there's a story today in the uh in the pod news newsletter all about um the global uh podcast economy, which um is now nine point two billion dollars. So the amount of money that uh we all make in podcasting, I'm sure that most of it is in this room. Um 9.2 uh billion uh dollars. And one of the things that uh Hanan Lopez from Allen Co., who's who who has uh produced this uh data has said uh is that actually one of the problems now in compiling this data is not quite sure what a podcast is. Um and I think that is um I mean it is something that I've been saying quite a lot. Um, but I think that that's certainly something um that is worthwhile just sort of bearing in mind.

Speaker 7 43:39

Spotify just released uh labelling for AI content now, and they are very heavily leaning into the idea that this is human based content that they need to make clear delineation. Um this is for podcasts now, isn't it? Yes, yes, and they've also brought out Spotify DJ for podcasting, so I don't know what that's gonna do, but I think it's Good that Spotify come out with labelling. Now, uh, one of the other highlights from this week has been a meeting for the podcast standards project, which is an all steer group of hosts and apps that get together. And one of the hot topics last year was HLS and look where we are today. And one of the hot topics this year was AI labelling and also AI disclosure. And I think we'll see a lot more hosts and a lot more apps making that available. RSS.com, Spreaker, and TrueFans have already implemented a pilot project to show how that works. And maybe that's why Janine left Spreaker. But other than that, I think it's a good step forward because you said, Indre, uh, you know, you want to filter to be able to then take the labelling and then filter it out. I think that's the natural evolution of where we will go with this. It's just going to take another six months, probably, for it to uh permeate through the whole industry.

Speaker 10 44:53

Yeah, no, uh uh certainly I'm sure that that's the case. Uh 9.2 billion dollars of that that that podcast revenue, but interestingly, 2.2 billion uh dollars is not advertising. So it's everything else. It's to do with um money that you might get from Patreon and supporting cast and all of that. So I just thought that that's um uh also interesting uh in terms of that.

Supporters Inbox Drinks And Closing

Speaker 10 45:16

Uh shall we move on to the onto the pod news inbox because there's some good news in there? Yes, there is. Thank you, James Preston White.

Speaker 9 45:23

What's he done?

Speaker 10 45:24

James Preston White has become uh our latest um power supporter, uh power supporter number 25. Can we have a round of applause for James from Lean and Loaf? Uh Lean and Loaf are the company that make uh some great podcasts, make some great video podcasts for all types of people, including uh iHeart. And uh, I gather, um, this may be uh news that I'm not allowed to tell you yet, but uh I gather that they've just sub uh sponsored the Podbiz podcast as well, and they'll be making uh that uh as well. NJ Balenki was in here, but she's now run away. Spend all the money. There you go. She's gonna she's gonna miss her moment of fame, moment of me mentioning it on stage. Um so uh so that's a thing. Um I did take a look um through uh some of the messages uh that we had, mostly from our friend the ugly quacking duck, and he has uh uh said um he's given us another row of ducks, which is very exciting, and uh said something like um he wasn't sure if uh the boosts were working. Uh they are working. Thank you very much for that. Um if you do get value from what we do, the Pod News Weekly review, separate from Pod News, Sam and I share everything from it. We really appreciate your support. So thank you for that. Um, and you can become a uh power supporter like James has just done at weekly.podnews.net. Gosh, this script is three years old, isn't it? Uh it's fantastic. Um now uh so what's what's happened for you this week, Sam?

Speaker 7 46:50

Um I think the PodNews drinks was great. We did those on Tuesday night at the castle. Uh thank you for the everybody who came along to those. I hope you enjoyed it. Sorry to those who didn't come along to it, you missed out. Um, and thank you to Buzz Sprout, our sponsors, who also paid for the drinks.

Speaker 10 47:05

Yes, which was uh super good. So uh yes, very much enjoyed that. Very much enjoyed also seeing loads of ads for podcasting around the venue here. Uh very clever. Anyone would think that Global own half of the outdoor advertising and Bower Media own the other half. Uh but uh really clever to see tons of advertising, whether it's in the tube. Uh fun fact uh Angel uh Underground Station has the longest uh escalator on the tube system. Fun fact, it's now closed. Let me let me just correct. Let me just correct that. Fact, uh the London the yes, that was my little my little joke.

Speaker 9 47:42

Yes, go on. Oh no, oh you you only just got it now, yes. Yes, um, yes, uh brilliant. Now I was gonna ask you what what what you've been up to. Oh, well, thank you very much. You'd think we do this every week, wouldn't you?

Speaker 10 47:56

I ended up going to um uh I ended up landing uh on Sunday morning, um uh first thing on Sunday morning, and I thought, right, this is gonna be really easy. I'm gonna go in using the Elizabeth line into into London and then catch a train from London Paddington to Bristol. Um and I will drop my bag off at my hotel, and everything's gonna be uh easy. Of course, the Elizabeth line wasn't working, and then I went um uh had to go via the underground to Paddington, and guess what? Uh half of the trains in Paddington weren't working as well. And I thought, welcome back to the UK. That's definitely how that works. But um, but everything worked on the way back, so that's okay. There was the there was actually a ooh from the from the audience there. Oh dear, too soon. Sorry. Um but um no, so that's been uh fun, but it's just been great to um uh have so many talks with so many people, um catch up with uh all kinds of uh all kinds of people. Uh the the uh the shy and retiring Neil Vellio, who's over there in the audience, uh uh it was great to sit next to him during Janine Wright's uh uh thing and um and uh and him loudly applauding anything that anybody else had said, which was uh particularly good. But no, it's always it's always a highlight of my uh of my uh week. Um and that is it uh for this week. Uh for the show. And for the show, yes, that's right. Um uh uh all for all of the news, of course, you can uh go to the podnews uh uh uh newsletter at uh podnews.net.

Speaker 7 49:27

Uh if you'd like to give us feedback or if you'd like to become a passporter, you can go to weekly.podnews.net. Yes. My god, I'm tired. And uh you can send us a Boostergram or you can send us a super comic. Um thank you very much, everyone, who came here today. Uh, and we'll leave it at that.

Speaker 10 49:45

Yes, and I I should just say our music is from TM Studios, our voiceover is she is Sheila D. Which company is doing our audio mixing? It's Aztec Event Services once more. Excellent! And we're hosted and sponsored by our friends at BuzzSprout podcast hosting made easy.

Announcer 50:04

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