Announcer 0:00

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

James Cridland 0:12

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

SPEAKER_04 0:18

We wanted to be the community for the whole industry because we know and understand that if you don't have people in these positions making decisions, nothing really changes.

James Cridland 0:28

Why did BIPOC podcast creators close? We talk to the co-founders. Plus, Spotify announces more new features than happens in an entire year in a new feature factory that has a feature of only making new features. This podcast is sponsored by Buzz Sprouts with the tools, support, and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with BuzzSprouts.com.

Announcer 0:50

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi 0:54

Now,

Spotify make tons of announcements

Sam Sethi 0:55

James, just when you think there can't be any more news, that everyone said everything that can be said. Oh my God, this week's going to be a jam-packed show, right? So we better kick off.

James Cridland 1:05

Yes, uh, lots of Spotify news uh today. Um and interesting that uh I didn't hear them uh making any of these announcements at the podcast show in London. Goes to show what Spotify thinks of actual podcasters when they uh insist on announcing this to their investors instead. But what did they announce to their investors?

Sam Sethi 1:27

Well, they started off with the you know the general overall view, because it's the first time that Gustav and Alex, the co-CEOs, presented the investor day. So, you know, a little bit nervous, they had to convince the investors they're the right people. So they started off saying the company is exiting the curation era and entering one of the generation era. What does that mean? It looks like it's AI for Spotify, that's where they're heading. Right. Well, as we'll find out, there is a lot of AI. And they started talking about using AI as a moat, which is the big VC word. Where's your moat to protect your business? And you know, so you have to find your moat. And uh Spotify look like they're going to be using AI as the way to protect from other people taking over their business.

James Cridland 2:15

Well, that's exciting, isn't it?

Sam Sethi 2:16

Yes. Well, it they went on to say that Spotify has more than 500 million users who've now streamed a video podcast. Really? 500 million people have streamed a video podcast, up nearly 50% year on year. Where's the revenue? Show us the revenue, Spotify. Oh, he didn't.

James Cridland 2:33

No, I mean they're they're not going to show you any revenue, but also that is have now streamed a video podcast for a minimum of two milliseconds. Right. And so therefore, and that may well have happened by accident. And I believe even when you're scrolling through Spotify and you see a video podcast that autoplays, well, that counts too. I think these numbers are um I mean, I don't want to say that they are uh misleading, but uh I I certainly don't think that they tell the whole story. Uh it's the sort of numbers that you give to people who you really want to impress, but they're not the sort of numbers that you can use to compare the Spotify platform with any other platform. So I don't think it's a particularly helpful number, to be honest.

Sam Sethi 3:16

No, but I mean these are the things that the city want or the VCs want to hear. Now, the one thing that they did say is they remain committed to their long-term goal over 1 billion subscribers, a 100 billion in revenue, and over 40% in gross at margin.

James Cridland 3:31

There I remain committed to uh making this podcast finish in 90 minutes. Um it doesn't necessarily mean that I'll manage it.

Sam Sethi 3:42

Yes. Well, you know, it's nice to have visions and dreams. Isn't it now? The thing that really stood out from this first part of the presentation was a metric that they've come up with called time well spent. They're not talking about measuring ARPOOs and measuring lifetime values, and they're not talking about uh the doom scrolling capabilities of TikTok to keep you on the platform for longer and longer. They're talking about how you use Spotify in those key moments, driving to work, going to school, uh cooking at the gym, and they they're trying to use time well spent as a new metric. They say too many platforms treat time as something to be captured and not really respected. I don't know whether this is I don't know, soft fairy stuff, but I thought it was an interesting metric that they're going to be measuring around time well spent.

James Cridland 4:38

But I mean, is it is it a metric that they've actually got any numbers for, or is it just or is it just you know, we want to make everybody smile a little bit more?

Sam Sethi 4:46

Yeah, users report feeling good almost 90% of the time they spend on Spotify. Well, uh great. The the the other thing that they did do is they broke down their user base into three categories now. Before it was two premium users and free users, and they're now adding a third category, super users. And super users are ones that spend more time on the platform who are cross-platform. So they're music, podcasts, audiobooks, they're engaged, they're premium customers. So they're now starting to look at superusers as a new category of user within Spotify.

James Cridland 5:21

Which is nice, but again, they haven't actually put any numbers next to that. Um, there's a there's a lovely image of the two co-CEOs standing in front of Graph that deliberately doesn't have any numbers on it. So, superusers, great. We've got some super users, that's nice. Doesn't really tell you very much more about um how many super users they have, what they're going to be using to focus on that. It seems to be people who will spend more than the $12.99 that a premium user spends, but not quite sure. A lot of this is platitudes to make the investors feel good. It probably explains why they didn't bother wasting their time talking to podcasters who are actually producing the content that uh Spotify is making money out of. Um, and were they to uh bother talking to podcast creators, then perhaps they would have said something a little bit of more of more substance. Did they announce any um any actual features or anything or anything interesting, or or was it all um let's all come by yarn and um let's all um uh uh jump and sing together?

Sam Sethi 6:27

Well, apart from the jumping and singing together, yeah, they did, and uh and some of them are good and some of them I don't like, so let's cover some of these. Users can now ask Spotify questions about the podcasts they're listening or watching and get answers in real time. This feature is available in the US, Sweden, and Ireland, so I haven't tested it myself, and it's only available for premium users or super users. But the the reality is I thought this was a really good thing. I I think I talked about it uh a couple of months ago that I would love to try and do this on TrueFans. I think an AI agentic interface where you can ask questions as you're listening. Oh, what did James say? What does that mean?

James Cridland 7:05

Or uh So who's in charge of the of the information that comes back? Who's in charge? As in what do you mean, James? Sorry. You're asking Spotify questions. Is it some AI thing that's just going to hallucinate what I've said?

Sam Sethi 7:17

I don't know. I I think the idea is it's an AI agent that sits alongside you that you can ask questions while listening to a podcast and ask questions of it in real time. Now, maybe it will be a poor experience, maybe it'll be a good experience. We've seen Spotify DJX, which is their music interface, AI interface. It's pretty basic, fairly limited, but we've seen them.

James Cridland 7:38

Yeah, but all but all DJX is doing is it's choosing songs for you. And that and that's all fine, you know, choose some songs and away you go. Um but what did Sam Seth he say about this? And and you get a a piece of AI hallucinating about what you did or didn't or didn't say. Yeah. And that's something that apparently the podcast creators are supposed to like, because I think that that is that is a dreadful idea, and the first thing that I would be doing is turning that damn thing off.

Sam Sethi 8:05

Oh, really? So we we would both disagree. I think it I'd love to know. If you come up with a technical term I've never heard, right? So if you said something like, Oh, we need to use TLS to authenticate uh the agent for this thing. I'm going, what's TLS? I've never heard of that expression, James. Um, whatever they're gonna call the agent. Tell me what TLS means, and it comes back and I I understand it, and then I move on with the podcast. Does that not make sense?

James Cridland 8:30

That would be searching a website, which would be different to um, you know, this is this is why I'm I I I'd like to know what what what they're saying, because you know, you you could ask this this thing, what does Sam think about um Spotify? And it could either hallucinate and give exactly the wrong information, uh, or it could give the perfect information. We don't know. I mean, the only example that Spotify have given on their blog post is at what time in this podcast are they talking about X or Y? Um and the and the thing goes away and finds out what what time they they ended up talking about that particular thing. I can see that being useful, although frankly that's what uh that's what chapters are for. But if it's going to start, you know, does James think that Spotify is a good idea? Uh if it's if it's going to start answering those sorts of uh questions, then I absolutely 100% do not want an AI tool, you know, making making stuff up about what I may or may not have said. You know, that's the last thing that I want. Why would I want that?

Sam Sethi 9:40

I I can see your point of view as well. I can see your point of view, yeah. And I think the devil's gonna be in the usage, isn't it? It's gonna be when we get our hands on it and see what it actually can and can't do. I mean, you know, lots of hype selling, maybe, and not a lot of reality.

James Cridland 9:54

Maybe somebody knows because uh it is available in the US and in Ireland. So if you're listening in those two countries or in Sweden as well, and you are a premium mobile user, then you will be able to give it a go, maybe on this show, although quite a lot of the Spotify things are on certain shows and not on all shows. But uh, if you have any good examples of that, then uh please do get in touch. Weekly at podnews.net is our email address. They talked a little bit more about um making money as well, didn't they?

Sam Sethi 10:24

I'm not quite sure. You'll know more about this than me, probably, but dynamic creator sponsorships are now available for creators in the Spotify partner program.

James Cridland 10:33

I can bore you. Go on then, do that to me. Go. So, some podcasters, for example, we have a yearly contract with BuzzSprout, and what some podcasters would do is they would put any mention of our sponsor into dynamic creator sponsorships, which means that we can whip out any mention of BuzzSprout at the end of the year and resell our back catalogue to somebody else. And uh, I mean, more obviously, you could, if we had, for example, Amazon Prime, for example, as a sponsor, we could dynamically change those sponsorship messages to mention new shows which are available on Amazon Prime, and those would dynamically set themselves uh all the way through the back catalog uh as well. So that's um that's quite a nice uh that's quite a nice tool. Um it's nice that uh Spotify has end has ended up doing that, and I believe that that's now available on both video as well as audio for the first time, which is uh quite a nice uh thing. By the way, I should also say that uh if you want to do that sort of thing with our sponsor, uh then you can because uh that's exactly what Buzzsprout offers. You can record a special message right at the beginning or right at the end, or however however you want to end up doing that. Uh, and so that's quite a cool thing that you don't just have to use Spotify for. Um, what was another thing that they uh ended up doing?

Sam Sethi 12:00

Well, I think this one's quite a biggie one. They've added memberships. Um, it's the equivalent to supporting cast, Patreon, or Apple Podcasts Premium subscriptions. No pricing or details were given, but you can build recurring revenue directly from your most engaged fans, and the creators will own the relationship with their audience with direct access to subscribers and the ability to import and export across platforms. Now, this is something that they haven't had, they've normally had Spotify SOA, Spotify open access, so you could get um pay for premium content on other platforms and then use a private feed to bring in to Spotify in the past. They still do that, but this is on their own platform. I think this is a big step forward for Spotify, really.

James Cridland 12:46

Of course, it'll only work on the Spotify platform, but I think it certainly looks completely looks interesting and the right way for Spotify to go in terms of this. The devil is in the details, we don't know how much it's going to cost, we don't know how it's going to work. The only information we know is it will launch for select creators soon, which is a way for them to announce something that they haven't actually built yet and that will only be available to three different people in the next 12 months, and then that's uh all that they um uh particularly care about. So um smoke and mirrors here, very much so, but I think interesting to see what Spotify is working on here and whether or not this will be a sensible equivalent to or replacement for something like Patreon or Supporting Cast. It already sounds better than Apple Podcast Premium subscriptions in one way, in that you would get access to your audience. So you would actually know who your subscribers were, and you would actually be able to export that list and uh use that list for other things, which of course Apple doesn't allow you to do. From that point of view, it's a better product, but of course, uh Apple premium subscriptions actually exists, whereas this one doesn't yet.

Sam Sethi 14:03

Yeah, I mean uh uh all of that agreed, and I think I said many months ago that um after the court case with Apple, when Spotify realized that they could not pay the Apple tax for the in-app purchase, that they would come out with a solution to take the money that they were giving away to Patreon and Substack and Supercast, and I think this is it. So I think they're now, yes, we still do SOA, but not for long, but we still do it. So don't worry. But when memberships come up and running, we will deprecate that slowly and quietly. Yeah, I know indeed. Indeed. Now, last couple of things I do like before we get onto the things I didn't like about this announcement. One thing they did was Spotify announced that podcasts can now be marked as verified and clarified that AI can't be used to impersonate others using voice clones. Now, I think uh this is a good first step. I don't know how they've done it, I don't know what standards they're using, I don't know what uh whether this can be adapted by podcasting generally, or is it just specific to Spotify? I'm assuming it's the latter, not the former. But again, a good first step may be to get towards marking AI slop within the platform.

James Cridland 15:16

Well, now you say that, but uh that's not what Verified by Spotify does. Okay. Verified by Spotify only identifies a show as the official presence of a creator, publisher, or brand. Um, that is the only thing that verified by Spotify does. It says that the show has been reviewed against Spotify's standards for authenticity and trust. We don't know what those standards are, and it uh Spotify ends up doing that um uh identification on select shows starting today and will continue to roll out over the coming months, so we have no clue as to whether or not this show will ever be verified, for example, and presumably this is there to to stop those people who are still taking other people's audio, shoving it on Anchor as a free podcast, and seeing if they can make some money out of that. So presumably that's what it's there for. Um but there's nothing there in terms of in terms of AI uh at all.

Sam Sethi 16:20

Um unfortunately. So we've had this feature in TrueFans where you can verify and claim your podcast.

James Cridland 16:26

I mean, it's well, it's not even that because we can't claim our show on on Spotify. Uh I mean, I mean we have, but that that won't give us uh one one of these badges. It is purely just some algorithm of Spotify that we have no control over as a creator, turning around and going, oh well, this one must be verified. So so it's it's um again, and I and I don't want to sound like um I don't want to sound like a grumpy um uh you know repeating parrot here, but again, it's another worthless announcement to investors that means absolutely nothing because it genuinely means absolutely nothing. They're gonna slap a verified um uh badge on, but we have no control over whether or not they verify this show and selected shows only. Do we have to grease some palms somewhere, James? I mean, this is a bit like the the Twitter tick box, but at least with the Twitter tick box, you could actually contact them and say, look, this is who I am, here's the proof. Um, please can I have a tick box? And they gave you a tick. If they checked, you know, against you and you were public and notable enough. It doesn't work that way anymore. But in in in this particular case, you can't even contact Spotify and say, you know, uh this show ought to be a verified show, whatever that's supposed to mean. But it has nothing to do with uh AI though. Oh, okay.

Sam Sethi 17:49

It was just it said clarified that AI can't be used to impersonate others. So I was like, oh, maybe they've done something.

James Cridland 17:55

In the same announcement.

Sam Sethi 17:56

Yes, absolutely. Now, okay, one other thing I think that m is good, they've now uh added clipping. So you can now clip moments from your favourite podcast in the album.

James Cridland 18:06

And again, and again, Sam. And again, you and again, it says you can clip moments from your favourite podcast, and then it says for specific shows only. So okay, okay.

Sam Sethi 18:20

But again, we've got to start somewhere. I mean, I'm I'm just trying to get, you know, some good news out before I keep them a kicking in a minute.

James Cridland 18:28

So again, with all of this, it it comes down to oh no, this is actually this is actually a thing where uh availability expanding across more shows over time. Um I have asked two uh of the Spotify PR people that have finally remembered that I exist. Uh I've asked two of those Spotify PR people, um, what does this mean? Does that mean that it's restricted to only certain podcasts, which it seems to be the case? And how quickly will every show be available to be clipped? Again, my suspicion is that this will be another, we'll do this for a couple of shows, and then we'll sit on our hands for 12 months, just in the same way as transcripts is, just in the same way as auto chapters are. They'll do it for the top one or two percent, and they won't do it for the rest of us. I may be proved wrong on this, but you know, again, it's it's another one of these smoke and mirrors announcements that doesn't actually mean anything. But uh, as you say, uh it will allow you, there'll be a new scissors icon in some shows, which will allow you to clip a particular segment of interest from a podcast you're listening to, and then you can share it more broadly with your audience on social media or with friends, colleagues, or anyone else. I haven't seen what one of these clips looks like. I uh don't know whether or not it'll actually produce a little video which you can then share or whether it'll just link back into the Spotify app. I think I can bet what it'll do, but I don't know. But I don't know what it's going to do.

Sam Sethi 19:58

I can tell you that there are two models, right? One which it looks like they're doing because I'm looking at the graphics, is that it won't actually be a standalone clip, it will be a time uh start and a time end, and you then link back into Spotify and it will start at that time and end at that time.

James Cridland 20:16

Which of course benefits uh Spotify an awful lot.

Sam Sethi 20:18

Whereas if you use Headliner, for example, you are creating a standalone clip that is playable within the social media platform that you send it to.

James Cridland 20:27

Yeah, or indeed Overcast as well, which actually produces a video, which um you then uh share. You can share this on social media, that's brilliant. But but people who are reading this will have to have Spotify in order for them to uh actually play the play the clip, which isn't anywhere near as good as the Overcast model, which is um here's a video and you can share it.

Sam Sethi 20:49

So I I think this overcomes one potential issue that might come to bite Spotify in the backside. You and I disagree on this, so let me just put my case forward and then you can slap me down as usual. But um if you take a clip of our show and you take a full interview and you use that clip elsewhere, um we haven't given you permission. Our licence is all rights reserved. We've not given you a license for reuse, there's no Creative Commons attached to us, there's no license. So we fundamentally aren't are not allowing you to reuse it, but you do reuse it. Um where's our legal leg? Maybe we wouldn't be big enough to do anything, but maybe Opera Winfrey or or you know uh Joe Rogan might. Now, this way that Spotify looks like they're doing it, which is a timestamp where you then come back to the original podcast means you overcome any issue because the it's the a clip of the original from the original podcast that's licensed on the Spotify platform.

James Cridland 21:53

Yeah, I I would I I would agree that there are uh that probably a lawyer has had something to do with this. I would certainly agree with that. that I think overcast gives you a maximum of two minutes so you can't share the entire the entire thing. There is such a thing in copyright as a derivative work, which I think um it might it might fall under yeah and fair use potentially but um yes but I would certainly agree that this is the legally easier um way I mean it is certainly the um the more sensible way because of course they can claim everybody that then clicks that link as one of the 500 million people who have consumed a podcast on Spotify. So um you know so I suppose you know it it benefits it benefits them an awful lot as well.

Sam Sethi 22:40

Yeah. Now let's get on to some of the bad things I think they've done. One of the things I dislike and I'm not sure how it's going to work is they've come up with Spotify remix, a paid tool to let you remix songs including using AI so we're gonna get a load of AI generated music.

unknown 22:55

Happy days.

James Cridland 22:56

Yes happy days. Now maybe that's just remixing in the way that Apple Music can also remix songs to make them flow nicely into each other which they do about 80% of the time and then don't 20% of the time.

Sam Sethi 23:12

No no no this is taking the original content and being able to to start playing and put garbage it so TikTok and Spotify got a deal from Universal. Yeah so the the element that they said within the release was that obviously the original creator will make money from this. I wonder how much money they will make from it and how much money will go to the remixer um again devil and detail yes they've rebuilt the ad platform that's going live in July James so we'll cover that later now here's the one I didn't like I I don't like this at all and I don't want to use it but here we here we go. Spotify Studio I think this one's jumped the chart for Spotify um they've launched an app called Studio that compiles whatever you want it using your own data into an AI generated podcast. Okay fine then you can ask it with your permission to act on your behalf to research topics organise information browse the web even complete tasks why do I want my music and podcast app to suddenly be my Claude Pro? Why?

James Cridland 24:16

Looking in my inbox and calendar why users can tell it to uh get them a daily brief break down their emails or give them a road trip mix based on destination now road trip mix based on destination yes fine absolutely but yes but breaking down my emails I suppose the argument that they would have is this is audio and we know that we are going to lose some audio share from things like ChatGPT and Claude that can do this sort of thing if you give them enough access to your email and please don't by the way but if you did um then those sorts of services could give you that access so therefore um that might take listening time away from Spotify so therefore we'll keep the the listening time. So it may well be that that there are that they are you know having a look at time well spent uh uh of course um so uh but but you know that that will be just my guess in terms of that but yes completely um completely agree I find it interesting that this is a desktop app which you have to download and also it's something where you get a you get an amount of uh tokens that you can use for this but then you will have to buy more tokens if you use it a lot um because of course it's using ai in in the back end somewhere I think that that's interesting because that again is pulling back to the super users that Spotify wants um those people that are going to spend more than just the base level of a premium monthly fee. So perhaps this is another way of earning additional uh cash one of the things that I particularly don't like is this AI podcast generator stuff um because that um you know in essence will get in the way of creators and I don't think that that's a good plan.

Sam Sethi 26:06

No I don't I don't like this but um again as you said maybe it's another way to increase the RPU for the super user. Yes maybe it is no that's the end of our Spotify news for this week I think yay now um let's

BIPOC Podcast Creators closes - what next

Sam Sethi 26:21

move on James because uh I don't know what this means so I'm gonna ask you uh Pod news reported a few weeks ago on the closure of the BIPOC podcast creators James what is BIPOC? Yes well so BIPOC of course is what the Americans call B A M E so um people of colour essentially um can I just point out I hate that term because it sounds like blame uh so stop using it do not use that with me I do not like it I don't talk about wasps when I talk about white people so don't label me as a babe. Thank you. End of story.

James Cridland 26:56

Move on Wow gosh there we go I I I trodden land my mayor uh so uh yes yes low indeed so BIPOC is the American uh is the American version of that and BIPOC podcast creators was a really good initiative that a lot of people got behind its run for a number of years but they announced that it was to close only a couple of weeks or so ago and what with that and the podcasting seriously award fund also closing this week as well I thought I'd learn a little bit more about the reason for the closure of the BIPOC Podcast Creators group. So I spoke to the founders to find out a little bit more.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

My name is Maribel Casala Smith and I am the co-founder of BIPOC Podcast Creators.

SPEAKER_06 27:45

My name is Tangia Alawaji Estrada and I am also the co-founder of BIPOC Podcast Creators.

James Cridland 27:51

So it was announced earlier this month that BIPOC Podcast Creators is closing. Why is it going to close?

SPEAKER_06 27:59

So not just one reason you know there were several factors that we had to consider. This was a decision that we didn't come to lightly I think we spent the better part of a year discussing it and looking for other options having multiple conversations with potential buyers not able to find a right fit and ultimately it was going to be better for each of us as individuals to let it go that our journey had just come to an end. And you know what fed into that decision were a lot of things as market factors. Like the funding situation the revenue situation has got has become untenable in 2026. It's just extremely difficult. And then you you put that on top of two women who have we each have our own growing businesses we each have small children and families and just all of the regular life stuff that everybody has to deal with and we needed to make a decision.

SPEAKER_04 29:00

It was a difficult decision and initially the thought was like Tanjia said we will transition the ownership over to somebody we maybe I was feeling confident like we could find the right fit and the right person to take it over. But that unfortunately was not the case um and so it it just came to to be that we had to close we are making a conscious decision and I'm walking away grateful for all of the relationships that we have built and happy and proud of all of the work that we did.

James Cridland 29:35

So to ask the stupid question the issue that it set out to highlight is that fixed now?

SPEAKER_06 29:42

Not even close if anything if anything we're farther away than when we first started you know our our vision for Bip podcast creators when we started it was that we were just going to create a creative home for creators of color in the industry because we were creators at that time at you know sort of at the beginning of our podcast careers and just feeling really isolated you know this is these are things that you hear from many many indie creators uh you just feel really isolated you're looking for a community that sort of understands the hustle and that you can collaborate with and just be around and just have a good time with right but what we found is when we were going to various industry events, conferences, meetups, what have you we weren't we didn't feel represented in those rooms. So we thought you know we will create that space where where those creators feel represented in that room where they feel like they have a voice where they feel like they don't have to mask or diminish themselves in any ways they can just show up and be themselves and um feel like they've come into a space where they can exist effortlessly.

James Cridland 30:57

You mentioned the uh the revenue uh side and the support side that you should have got from you know large organizations.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

How much of that is down to the change in US politics is that partially to blame that is absolutely partially to blame there were a lot of budget cuts with some of our partners that were related to those changes but even I will I have to say this honestly even right before the change of government we started to see a decline in the investment from the corporations and the spot the bigger sponsorships that we had there was just too many layoffs.

SPEAKER_06 31:41

People that were our partners people that were rooting for us inside of these companies were laid off and we started to lose our allies essentially even though we were having conversations behind closed doors where people were saying we want to support you and we believe in what you're doing out in front of the cameras or on in front of the microphone, they weren't really saying it whether it was because they weren't allowed to for budget cut reasons or they started to become a little bit afraid to we have this political atmosphere that made people very afraid and I can tell you that I had off conversations that were off the record where people were saying is we can't be seen as um funding quote unquote DEI. And the really big problem with that isn't just the obvious it's also that we were never in their DEI dollars ever. Their budgets for partnering with us always came out of marketing so what you are saying to me as a woman of colors I can't be seen associating with you financially because of the color of your skin.

James Cridland 32:50

So what what should the industry be doing for projects like these? How should they be funded?

SPEAKER_06 32:55

Well I think that the the larger question is what is the vision of the future of the industry that you see what does it mean for a country when you don't have middle class what does it mean for an industry when you don't have any creators who aren't celebrities who can't pull down a hundred million downloads an episode you know what do you do when everybody else is in Joe Rogan? You don't have anybody long term if you're pushing everybody out. So that is what corporations need to be thinking about down the road is if you want to have a healthy thriving industry then you need to think about all of these hundreds of thousands maybe even millions of creators who are never going to be a hundred million dollar person download.

James Cridland 33:39

Why would they care?

SPEAKER_04 33:41

Who the companies yeah sustainability in the short term they always cared about return on investment one big problem with the way that some of the partnerships were working was that I feel like they weren't focused on actually partnering with us sometimes they were more focused on just visibility. And so when we tried to actually create programming and bring them in to do webinars or to do events or to have to add value, real value to what they were spending on we went ignored.

James Cridland 34:15

It might have been the case that they wanted the badge uh they just wanted to be seen as being a supporter of that and not necessarily adding to it. What what should the industry be doing then? What what is the ideal in terms of where the industry moves from here?

SPEAKER_04 34:31

One major thing that the industry could do is to come together and figure out a way to continue to support the creator communities. And I'm not just talking about the BIPOC podcast creators or the women of color creators I'm talking about in general first I think the first problem is that creators are going unseen right now and they're struggling to be to to keep a sustainable process or to stay in the business or to stay creating. Even if it's a hobby there's a struggle and you know this James because of the amount of podcast uh drop-off rates of like someone producing seven episodes and then never doing it again. So that's the biggest challenge right now that the industry faces as a whole and they should be worried about it because the creators have a whole economy behind them that invests in a lot of the products that are being sold in the podcasting industry.

SPEAKER_06 35:28

I also feel like podcasting has changed so much and continues to change so quickly. And I think that there you know I keep waiting for there to be a conversation a larger conversation happening in the industry about how do we protect this space and make sure that it is able to continue to to thrive. And so I think that there's just this everybody it seems like everybody's holding their breath to some extent like what is AI gonna do what is Spotify going to do what is Apple you know what are all of these companies going to do and nobody is really figuring out again like what is the vision for the industry because you have to have something to drive to it can't be so reactive which it seems like where it is right now where it's just so reactive that it's like people are waiting for the other shoe to drop and I think that's very very dangerous for this industry. And so part of the question to be asking is like what should the industry be doing in general to ensure its ability to continue beyond I don't know 2027? Because who the hell knows if that's what's gonna happen.

James Cridland 36:49

It'll all be on YouTube by then we'll be fine. Lucky us um two more questions uh for you firstly what what data is there to come back to the BIPOC thing what data is there about the podcast industry as a whole I know that there's been some data done in terms of um people who are talking in front of the microphone um hosts of podcast shows but is there any data around actually how the podcast industry is made up in terms of senior people within that industry in terms of sales in terms of uh production staff all of that kind of thing I don't think so and that that was one thing that we always wanted to get to eventually we had actually we'd had conversations with some of our partners about funding uh such surveys or research and then even though there's no data there's a constant discussion around well what the problem is is it the chicken or the egg the industry doesn't get more diverse because there aren't people in decision making capacity and leadership leadership positions who are willing to make decisions where like we bring in different types of voices and things like that.

SPEAKER_04 38:03

And one of the things that I'm very proud of was that when we created podcast creators we consciously said this is a space for all the people who work in podcasting not just people who make podcasts like make record a podcast or edit a podcast. It's for everyone who works in the industry in ad sales in in marketing in different capacities even you know people in finance we wanted to be to be the community for the whole industry because we know and understand that if you don't have people in these positions making decisions it nothing really changes.

James Cridland 38:39

And I suppose my last question to you is obviously the news is out people have been talking to you about their reaction what are you um from the conversations that you've had over the last couple of weeks what are you most proud of in terms of what you achieved?

SPEAKER_06 38:56

You know somebody gave me a call and said you know I just wanted to tell you that you really did something you two created the first and the largest unified community for people of color in podcasting. Nobody else did that no one said out to do it you decided to do it and then boom like that it happened and it grew really quickly and he just said I just want to say I'm really proud of you it made me like it it got to me on a deeper level because when you're in the work and you're doing the work you don't think too much about that kind of like is anybody proud like you wonder if people are paying attention because you're in the work all the time. But I never stopped to think that somebody else might be proud of us.

SPEAKER_04 39:45

I'm walking away proud of all of the lives that we impacted because of the community support that we provided I know that we helped some people change their course of the career that they had. We we helped people go from entry level or no level to being able to make decisions in the podcasting industry. We made connections that will last for a lifetime and I'm really proud of some of the friendships that also came out of that. The closing part is painful but I think it helps to know that there are people who still care and I I think we have built something that proved a point essentially we made a mark in the history of this industry and now we know that it can be done it just needs to be in a different capacity now.

James Cridland 40:41

I think one of the things that you have done very well is you've actually announced its closing there are too many of these types of things which just go away and you kind of forget about them. And it's it's almost like I mean it's nothing like but it's almost like an obituary of somebody you only get people saying really nice positive things after they've died. Wouldn't it be lovely if that happened before and and in this particular case although it's nothing like it is really nice actually knowing okay this has finished now but we can actually still have our conversations about what you both achieved and how it both worked you're both not out of podcasting um Maribel how can people get in touch with you and what are you doing now?

SPEAKER_04 41:30

I am running and and working every day in production through my company Diferentecreative so they can find me online at Diferentecreative com or on social media at Maribel underscore QS. I'm still on Instagram and LinkedIn so you can find me there for sure.

James Cridland 41:46

And Tanja where where are you and uh how can people get in touch?

SPEAKER_06 41:51

Yeah sure so my company is called Audacious Strategies I'm a PR and branding firm for small businesses and women founders who are tired of being best kept secret in their space. So you can find me at audacious dashstrategies.com or on Substack my Substack newsletter is called Strategy with Teeth so I talk about branding and PR strategy.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

I forgot that I have a Substack too that I will be re-upping again because yes it has been dormant for a few months uh given all kinds of situations in my life well very cool well thank you uh so much uh both of you it's really good to uh catch up and thanks for your time thank you thanks for having us the Pod News Weekly review will return in just

Podcasting made simple

SPEAKER_00 42:37

a second welcome to podcasting made simple I'm your host Alex Sanfilipo as podcast guests and hosts we are each focused on improving our skills expanding our influence and ultimately reaching our podcasting goals faster. On this podcast we respect your focus, mission and time. The format of Podcasting made simple is to provide very short weekly masterclass episodes from industry experts on either side of the mic. Every episode tactfully cuts through the noise and provides only the exact transformational steps that you need. As a result of listening you'll receive practical and actionable wisdom that will help you level up as a podcast guest or host, ultimately leading you to accelerated and elevated success in podcasting. Before you start listening I do have one request. I encourage you to go to podpros.com forward slash episodes to find the specific episode that you most need today and start there. Again my name is Alexand Filippo and I want to thank you in advance for checking out Podcasting Made Simple.

Announcer 43:31

The Pod News Weekly review with Buzz with BuzzSprout start podcasting keep podcasting James let's move on then um

Apple and Audible make a deal

Announcer 43:42

Apple and Audible have done a deal what have they done sir yes this is really nice.

James Cridland 43:46

So Apple Podcasts have uh got a um quite a nice little feature where if you are for example a New York Times subscriber as I am you can uh press a button in Apple Podcasts It will take you to the New York Times website. You can say, yes, that's me. And it will then give you access to the paid-for shows within the New York Times universe. So you get access to that and you can play those in the Apple Podcasts app. So it's quite a nice way of adding additional access to shows. And interestingly, that means, of course, that the New York Times keeps access to their subscribers directly. So potentially rather better way of doing access to paid for stuff than the standard. Anyway, it turns out that Audible has done that exact deal. So now if you have an existing Audible subscription, then you can now listen to the many of the podcasts within Audible Originals, directly within Apple Podcasts, within a decent podcast app, which I thought is a very, very clever plan. So all of a sudden, it means that Apple Podcasts will have access to all of these shows as well, which is nice.

Sam Sethi 45:09

When I first heard this, I thought, oh, okay. I wonder what technology they've used. I wonder what they've done to make this. You know, it's Spotify SOA. Hmm. Okay, very clever Apple, but I thought, you know, what's going on? Then I did a little bit of digging. They're using the in-out purchase, because it's mobile only, to verify the purchase. So now you've got a verified user, a verified purchase, and now you give content access. No need for private feeds, no need for an unsecure URL to be handed out and passed around. I think that's really clever. And I think if this is the beginning of Apple using the App Store as a mechanism for verification of payment, it could be huge.

James Cridland 45:51

Yeah, I th I I think it's pretty good. I uh the one thing I would say is that of course it's a proprietary system, it only works with Apple. Um so you've you've and Apple are worried about that? Well, so but but I mean uh I I I don't really care what Apple think, but from a point of view of audiences, um you know, again, uh this is not open to you in the Android world. Um, so that's one thing just to bear in mind, um, so far as I'm aware at least. Um and uh yeah, so I'm not quite sure that it works in that way. Um, but nevertheless, you know, it's a good uh it's a good move. I think the other thing which is probably a bit sort of hidden away here, it means that every show, every paid-for show um that Audible has, and they've uh uh according to the screenshot here, got 672 of them, every single one of those has to have a free trailer within Apple Podcasts in order to appear there. So that essentially means that Audible now has 672 adverts within Apple Podcasts, and they will appear in the search just alongside everybody else. So it's a quite a canny move from Audible and also quite a canny move from Apple because um you know you you can you can see that there's opportunities there as well. So I think I think it is quite a clever plan. Whether or not it's good for um audiences, of course, is another question, and it definitely won't work if you're on Android. So therefore, you know, you you've just got to bear that bit in mind as well. But um, yeah, no, I think it's a good uh it's a good and interesting

YouTube add curated podcast homepage

James Cridland 47:36

thing.

Sam Sethi 47:36

Moving on then, James, let's go to the other big behemoth, YouTube. Um they made an announcement at the London Podcast Show that they've got a new URL to find all the podcasts on the platform, youtube.com forward slash podcasts.

James Cridland 47:50

Now they made this announcement in the UK, which we we should just bear in mind, and it isn't a new URL, it's existed for two years or so. What's new here is that it is for the first time curated uh rather than just being totally algorithmic in the UK. Okay. So there's been a curated one in the US for some time, youtube.com slash podcasts. Um in the UK and here in Australia and in a few other places, uh, it was just an algorithmic thing of what YouTube thought a podcast was, and then it would just show you a random list, which was always not particularly impressive. Um I did notice that um both it's been turned on in the UK, but also it's been turned on here in Australia as well. We actually have a properly curated um podcast homepage. Um so that's quite a useful uh a useful thing. Um so not quite a um not quite the the announcement that um you might guess from the um you know from the look of the screenshot that has been sent around, but actually it's a bit more around curation and stuff like that. So that's um that's rather a nice uh rather a nice thing, I think.

Sam Sethi 49:05

It's very uh podcast like, you know, square images with context metadata below them, which is very uh YouTubey, which you know has big.

James Cridland 49:17

And that's really where you can that's really where you can tell that this isn't just um an automated thing, uh that that there is a bit of um there is a bit of of of uh curation in here. Um no, I I I think it's quite a nice um you know it's quite a nice way in.

Sam Sethi 49:34

Uh they also said they're rolling out auto suggestions that automatically identify your most clippable moments. So here we go. We clips again. Um so this is very much Direver CEO, you know, where they find the most clippable moments uh using a panel of a hundred people and then send that out uh uh to try and drive traffic. Well, now YouTube is saying they're auto-suggesting it, so it must be an AI interface that's finding where people are listening most.

James Cridland 50:00

Yes, no, I think that that's a smart thing. I mean, they've already got that, of course, in their player. If you hover over any uh YouTube um show, then you can actually see the most the the most watched bits, I um uh I think. So uh yeah, so that's um that's uh certainly a useful tool for any podcast creator.

Sam Sethi 50:19

And finally, yeah, we got Spotify with super fans, obviously we've got true fans, and then now we've got top fans on YouTube. So top fans, top fans, top fans, yeah. We talked about it. Collect them all. We couldn't have they couldn't have it. We got there first. Um yeah, buy me YouTube when you can have the word. No, um honestly. Uh so top fans is a new distribution option, which I think is really cool when I look at it. So uh they're rolling it out at the moment. Um, it can be watched by the 1% of fans that creators can reward for their most loyal viewers.

James Cridland 50:50

So that's very clever, isn't it?

Sam Sethi 50:52

Yeah, yeah. So you've got uh number of viewing options public, everyone can watch your video, private, only you and people you choose can watch your video, unlisted anyone with the video link, members, which is different, and now this top fans, the 1%. So yeah, I think this is really cool the way to give and reward users early access to content. Uh again, I I'm I'm curious as to the gamification. How have they identified those top 1% of users?

James Cridland 51:23

Uh yes, well, yes, indeed. Um, but uh no, I think that that's a very smart uh a very smart tool. So uh you can only watch this if you're a real fan. Um uh so I think that that's um that that's quite nice. It gives you a little bit of a little bit of uh of exclusivity there, um, and also some obvious gamification in terms of I'm assuming that you would know if you're a top fan or not, um uh in the in the interface as well. But um no, very nice.

Sam Sethi 51:54

Now, the other thing they are doing. Now, I hope I've got this one right, because you said I got the Spotify one wrong, which is fine, I don't mind being corrected. Um YouTube will start automatically tagging videos that make significant use of AI, and it's making labels for AI generated content more prominent. So in the graphic, you can see it will have an AI label somewhere on the page. Um, and starting this week, it'll also roll out a new internal system to help identify AI generated content. So this is labeling, correct?

James Cridland 52:23

Yes, I have this one myself. Absolutely labeling AI content. Well, there's two things that's going on here. One of them is that they are automatically spotting AI content, um, but the other thing is that they are labeling it. Whether or not the creator has said that it's got AI in it or not, um, they are labeling it, and it's a really clear label right underneath the play window if you're using normal uh YouTube. Um, and I think this is really interesting. Uh I think this is in stark contrast to what we've managed to do in podcasting. Um, we've had an AI label proposal for creators to say this has got AI in it, um, although that hasn't gone particularly far. But we we also have Spotify who have no um no information at all, no guidelines at all about how AI can be used in podcasting. They're still thinking about how to do that. And we've got Apple who have some content guidelines around AI, but don't enforce them. So you can actually do whatever the heck you like with Apple and they don't care. Um and uh we're now at a position where YouTube have gone, this is a problem, we're gonna fix it, and here's how we fixed it. And the rest of podcasting still hasn't managed to fix any of this AI-generated material in any meaningful or consistent way. Um, and I think it it does show, unfortunately, how um you know, either it shows that uh people in podcasting don't care about AI, in which case fine, um, or it shows that um if there is something that we want to do here about being clear when something is majority AI generated, that um we, and by we I mean you know, everything from uh the press covering podcasting to the podcast standards project to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and all of those other people just simply haven't got there yet. Um, and it's a bit of a frustration, particularly when we've got you know people like Inception Point AI flooding the zone with 15,000 shows of of crap, then you know we still we're still sitting on our hands and we don't seem to think that that's a particular issue.

Sam Sethi 54:50

Well, it's Inception Point AI is a problem, but from what we've just said about Spotify allowing you know third-party uh AI uh podcasts to be created based on data that you provided, blah blah blah. That's the case.

James Cridland 55:03

Well, yeah, Spotify Spotify's making their own. Yes.

Sam Sethi 55:07

So exactly. Moving on then, last thing from YouTube. Uh Alison Lomax posted about child safety now.

James Cridland 55:13

Of course she did, and you know why she's posted about child safety. Because she's got a child, no, why? Um, I mean that that that's a uh a convenient uh thing, isn't it? Uh no, because she doesn't want um YouTube to be banned in the UK for under-16s as it has been here in Australia for under-16s. Gotcha. Um, and so of course she is there on the front foot going, look at all of the clever things we're doing about about child safety and stuff like that. Smoke and mirrors all the way through.

Sam Sethi 55:42

Ah, well spotted, sir. Well spotted. I was I was bought into hook line and sinker. I was like, well done, Alison. Yes, exactly. Well done, girl.

James Cridland 55:49

Yes, you've done an excellent job there. Yes, take a break alert before you bedtime.

Sam Sethi 55:57

Well done, yes. Now, um

HBO Max adds podcasts in UK

Sam Sethi 56:00

HBO Max is adding podcasts in Europe for the first time, James.

James Cridland 56:05

Yes, that's exciting. I wonder if Netflix has added any uh podcasts outside of the US yet. I know that they're going to in terms of um the rest is football, uh, which will be available as a University Commerce podcast in uh the UK over the World Cup. But uh yes, I wonder whether they have done that. But anyway, yes, HBO Max is is uh now offering podcasts in uh Europe. So there's a thing. It's starting with a dreadful thing from a dreadful person that I'm not even going to mention. But um Netflix. Well, okay, I'll mention JK Rowling and we'll we'll leave it at that. A dreadful, horrible, horrible, hate-filled person.

Netflix and Spotify sign Jay Shetty

James Cridland 56:46

Um, but uh interesting to see as well Netflix making another big deal. So um Pod News uh earlier on in the week covered um a story from Ankler with Roman Vassenmüller um saying that Spotify don't do exclusives anymore. The very next day, the very next day, Spotify signs an exclusive uh alongside Netflix for Jay Shetty's on purpose. Uh that deal worth $100 million. Uh Jay Shetty used to be with iHeart. Um he is your mate, of course. Used to be a friend as well.

Sam Sethi 57:20

No, used to be a friend, doesn't it?

James Cridland 57:22

No, well no, not anymore. No, so the show won't be available on YouTube anymore in video. It will still obviously be available as audio on all podcast platforms. Spotify is going to be selling the ads for that, and it will be available on Netflix as well. Um, so um, yeah, but a hundred million dollars just for the video is uh interesting.

Sam Sethi 57:47

Now, are we going back to 2020? Because that's when Spotify started doing exclusives. They spent a billion dollars and it failed. Live and learn isn't the first sign of madness doing the same thing time and time again, expecting a different.

James Cridland 58:00

I mean, that that that's exactly what Roman Vassenmüller said. He actually said we can earn more money from this if we just make it available across all platforms and sell all of that. So I find it I find it hilarious that it was literally within 24 hours. Uh so well done, them.

Sam Sethi 58:18

This is the first Spot Flix deal, James. Uh you heard it first.

James Cridland 58:23

Spotify and Netflix, yes, they won't uh sadly, they won't want your your your domain, Sam, but still think I said that they want it.

Sam Sethi 58:31

100 million, that's the current going price for it now.

James Cridland 58:35

Yes, you are absolutely right. I noticed too, uh, that Netflix is also um taking Charlemagne the God's Breakfast Club and doing some live daily video podcasts. I'm assuming they're just filming the um the radio show going out, but then that's what they've been doing anyway. So I so I I assume they're just streaming it somehow. I'm not quite sure how that works, but anyway, starting June the 1st, uh, so you'll be able to watch that if you are in the US, 6 a.m. Eastern, uh, you can wake up to to Charlemagne the God. Um, that to me is um quite a uh competitor to the radio stations that he is doing that selfsame breakfast show on. I'm not quite sure um what those radio stations think of that, but I'm sure that iHeart is rubbing their hands together with all of the additional money that they're going to get uh out of all of this. Um and uh Paramount Plus, oh yay, they're talking about adding podcasts to their platform as well, so there's a thrill.

Sam Sethi 59:37

Yes, well, everyone's worked out that it's selling attention, time well spent. Um, can we keep you on our platform? Yes, as you will see. Can we shoot TV?

Loads of podcasters are making video now

Sam Sethi 59:49

Moving on then, James. Um, this one surprised me because of the number, um, RSS are saying that 51% of their podcasters are now recording video in some form. 51% is a really high number. I know I didn't expect I'd say I would have thought 10%. I would have gone, wow, yes, that's pretty impressive. 51%, over half.

James Cridland 1:00:10

Yes, I think that's a really high number. Um, it it is a number which is quite similar to Sounds Profitable, which also released a number looking a bit like that. I'm not quite sure what that exact number is off the top of my head. But I think um, yeah, that really surprised me that of the creators um who are using RSS.com, 51% of them are recording video, particularly since RSS.com don't actually support video right now. Um so um that I think is is an interesting one, presumably means that they will have to move quite fast in terms of getting video up and running on that uh platform. Um they have said that they will be doing it, but they don't yet um uh offer it uh apart from a couple of internal test shows. So um, but yes, it it was a good piece of uh research that um uh came out from rss.com. Uh it's worth uh a read if you want to take a piece of that, particularly if you work for a competing podcast hosting company, and then you can uh learn all about the types of people on on the rss.com platform as well.

Supporting Cast does Spotify paid-for video

Sam Sethi 1:01:20

Now, talking of video, uh Supporting Cast Claim it's the first podcast subscription platform to live to deliver gated subscriber-only podcast video on Spotify. Tell me more, James.

James Cridland 1:01:33

Yes, and uh you you will notice that that the story that I wrote is Supporting Cast Claims it's the first podcast subscription platform because uh I have a thing which I'm now going to call Cridlin's law, which is that any company that claims it's the first to do anything uh actually isn't. And guess what? Supercast say that um Supercast has had creators publishing gated video using Spotify's um distribution API since April the 27th. Um and uh they're claiming that their first um uh supporting casts PR came back to me and said, well, we started in in April as well, and uh and I I can't be bothered with it. The only thing that I can tell you is that uh we have twice the opportunity now to offer video as a paid for upsell, but it's only available on Spotify. Um and of course, um uh as I uh reported again yesterday, uh, if you want to put video uh onto Apple Podcasts and then you also want to sell a subscription, then guess what? The people that are paying you money can't watch the video. Genius! Another, another, it's like that that one is that one is right next to um Apple Podcasts launches video, but it's not available on on the Apple TV. Um so uh yes, uh I'm not quite sure what's going on there. But anyway, well done, sporting cast and also supercast uh for both being first uh on that. That's a wonderful thing.

Round the world

James Cridland 1:03:02

Right, let's go around the world and uh in the UK. Uh Global announced a new premium advertising capability on YouTube. They are the only company uh or one of the only companies that can actually sell YouTube uh directly. Um, and uh interestingly, that means that if you buy with Global, then you can buy uh video through YouTube, you can buy audio on their radio stations, on their podcasts, and you can also buy outdoor as well. So uh Global really have it all covered. Uh Dax US has um done a deal with a company called Basis to basically uh make it easier for political advertisers to buy audio, which is good. Um, that should hopefully mean more revenue coming into the uh US podcast ecosystem. Uh, and also in the UK, smart TVs are the new place to watch podcasts. That's according to new data released this week from Signal Hill Insights and Flight Story. Almost half of UK podcast consumers are using their smart TV to watch podcasts, which is quite a high number.

Sam Sethi 1:04:06

Uh again, I think I I find these numbers 51% of RSS.com, 44%. I mean, these numbers seem look, I'm not uh you know, uh discrediting the statements, but they just feel wrong.

James Cridland 1:04:19

They don't feel like they just feel really high, don't they? So um uh 21% of those people, by the way, use their smart TV just to listen. I was there thinking that nobody would want to um watch just a logo, but actually uh a fifth of those people are, um, which I think is interesting. The other thing that uh I pulled out of that data is that um uh that there is probably a thing here in terms of marketing, because 42% say that they consumed a podcast on a smart TV with someone else. And that is actually really low for listening to audio podcasts on a phone. That number is about 10%, so 42% is quite high. So co-listening is a thing on a on a smart TV, but um, yeah, more details on that in Thursday's um uh pod news uh newsletter. Um, what else have we got here? Well, we've got um Adam Bowie who did some really good research on the UK podcast landscape. He presented it at um the podcast show. Lots of details about ages of the hosts and uh uh whether they were available on video and sentiment analysis and all this kind of uh stuff. It's a really good piece of uh work. I've asked Adam, would you mind doing that for the US numbers as well? Um, and to his credit, he hasn't said no. So um I mean he I mean he hasn't said yes yet either, but he hasn't said no, so that's uh pretty good. 72% of the hosts of the top 25 shows were male in comparison to 49% of the British population. So still very gender imbalanced there. I'm curious to see whether. The US is any better.

Sam Sethi 1:06:01

I bet it's not.

James Cridland 1:06:02

I bet it's not. Uh and um uh two other very quick things. Um uh Independent Podcasters Day is a thing. It's July the 4th. I thought that it might be more fun to call it Independence Day, as in Independent Day, and then and then you realize that it doesn't really work in audio, does it? So there's a thing. But anyway, that's being organized by Orbit and Mercury. You can pledge your allegiance, whatever that means. I've pledged my allegiance uh on the Independent Podcasters Day website, uh, which you'll find linked from the uh podcast, and uh we will learn more about that. Um on the oh look at you on the Creators from True Fans uh podcast.

Sam Sethi 1:06:48

I just thought I'd add that, you know. Well, you know, he's on there. I just thought I'd add it. Very nice. That'll hit the cutting room floor, we're okay.

James Cridland 1:06:57

Um and finally, some big news from Edison Podcast Metrics UK. I thought this was really interesting. Um, it is showing that the biggest uh the biggest shows are getting even bigger. Um, they are grabbing more more listeners, and if you wanted to, for example, to reach 50% of all podcast listeners in 2023, then you'd need to advertise just on the top 43 shows. So already a lot of consolidation there. But uh now you only need the top 27 shows. So basically, those top shows are attracting more and more and more people um tuning in to them, which I thought was really interesting. It's part of um Edison Research's UK Podcast Consumer 2026, which will be coming out uh later on in the uh summer. So some really good and interesting numbers from Edison uh podcast metrics there. Let's move on to some um awards, shall we? Yes. Yes, uh Australia has a new um podcast award. Yay! It's called Can we go for it? Can we go for it? It's called I mean we could, I think, although it's got 35 categories, and I'm not quite sure whether any of those uh will be any good for us. Uh youth youth and family award, no. No, um Entertainment and Lifestyle Award, no. Maybe News and Public Discourse Award. So it's about as close as we'll get there, possibly. Um Female Creator Excellence Award. Oh um, so uh yes, so there's a bunch of uh these uh things. The interesting thing is that this is the first podcast award, which isn't just podcast, it's also radio, audiobook, and voiceover. Um so uh so there's a thing. Uh that's happening later on uh this year. You'll be able to enter, I think, from the first of June, if I remember uh correctly, or certainly from uh June uh or so. Um so uh yeah, it's uh all looking uh quite smart. Um also there's um oh great, the National Magazine Awards has presented a trophy to a podcast. Weird. Um Pablo Torre finds out uh was the winner of uh that. Um and uh as I mentioned earlier on, uh the Podcasting Seriously Awards fund has been sunset. This was a fund to help you afford the price of an award entry to basically mean that more uh smaller people could enter awards. Um it's given over fifty-seven thousand dollars in grants, um, but uh yes, that has disappeared all over. Uh that has disappeared now, um, which is uh a sad thing, but I think it had a good run.

Sam Sethi 1:09:43

So the London podcast show is over for 2026, James, but they've already said they're going to be announcing tickets for 2027. The event will be again May the 19th in London at the Islington uh Business Design Centre.

James Cridland 1:09:58

Yes, the 19th and the 20th, of course. Um do you have any uh if Jason is listening, do you have any uh ideas of how to make it better?

Sam Sethi 1:10:06

Well, did you know Jason's half Indian? I didn't know that. Anyway, moving on. Um blue eyes, brown hair. Doesn't work, Jason. Anyway. He says he is, he is. I think he was bonding. I can see that. Um no, I I would like the event to go over three days. I think I missed three days? Well, I know, but think about How tired were you at the end of the second day?

James Cridland 1:10:28

Knack and knees. Um how hungover were you at the beginning of the second day?

Sam Sethi 1:10:32

I didn't go to any parties, and I was a good boy in my drinking this year. Um I didn't go to any parties. Um okay, pre-show that we did, I'd had a few sherbet, but um after that, no, I didn't um I didn't I went home early every day. Um I didn't go to the parties. Um I thought I'd be good. Um, but I do think I missed so many panels that I'd love to see, just can't fit them in. Uh, too many clash at the same time. Um, I've said again and again and again I'd love some more technical sessions. There's so many companies there. The PSP has a meeting off-site, all right, because we can't get sessions in the actual show. Uh, and there's so many companies involved there, and I think that would help with podcasting 2 to 0 and people understanding what's going on. Um, and then again, I want to see you know, it broaden out. You just talked about the uh national awards, you know, talking about audiobook awards and talking about TV and radio awards, and we talked about you know, Charlemagne the God going to Netflix, a radio show going live. I think podcasting is much broader than just audio podcasting or video podcasting. I think music, TV, and radio is now part of it. And I think, you know, maybe we can start just with little panels to begin with to introduce the concept. It doesn't have to be a full-blown thread, but I think these are the things that will make it more interesting than just another AI or video panel.

James Cridland 1:11:54

Yeah, and maybe actually um the entire show doesn't end up being three days because it would kill us all. But I think um uh certainly having on the Tuesday, for example, um using some of the space in the venue to have um you know to have meetings and to have technical sessions and all of that might be quite useful. Um and I think you know, if you if you could do that, I think that that would certainly be helpful.

Sam Sethi 1:12:23

If I only knew somebody who was uh on the panel.

James Cridland 1:12:27

If only if only you did, yes. And and uh so here's here's hoping that that that that I get signed up once again uh for that. I think that would certainly help. I think also, to be frank, um uh the podcast show has an interesting logo in that it says the podcast show in very big letters, and then there is a sort of rectangle where it says the word London on there. And I I'm just there thinking there's a rectangle that says London on there, but it could very easily say other places in the world, couldn't it? Um and I think wouldn't that be interesting to take the excitement that the podcast show in London generates and see what you could do with that in some other places in the world as well. You'd have to be very careful and clever how you would do that, but I think that would be really interesting.

Sam Sethi 1:13:13

I do remember a Mr. Cridlin once saying that was a really crap idea because it would remove the buzz and energy because then the Americans wouldn't come if they knew there was a podcast show in America.

James Cridland 1:13:23

Now I think certainly the podcast show in New York, yes, would do exactly that and would kill that event. Um but I think uh but I think that there are other places where you could have an event such as this, and I think that might be interesting to just sort of have a think about what you could do, maybe at the other side of the year, what you could do in order to um bring the sort of feeling um that you get from the podcast show elsewhere. That said, I I don't know what this new podcast show in New York is going to be like, um, the podcast movement. Um I don't know what that's going to be like. It may well be that actually having podcast movement in the same venue, which I hope that they would do um uh over a number of years would actually end up being just as exciting as the podcast show in London is. And so perhaps the plan there is that um podcast movement New York ends up being just as exciting. Um, but we'll uh have to wait and see, I think, in terms of that. Not convinced,

The Tech Stuff

James Cridland 1:14:29

but go on.

Announcer 1:14:30

The tech stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 1:14:34

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter, and uh here's where Sam talks technology. Five minutes left. Sam, how are we going to fit all of this in? Okay.

Sam Sethi 1:14:42

Well, very quickly, we had a podcast standards project meeting, loads and loads of companies turned up. It's really good to see new ones like Amazon supporting Castophonic there. Um, you know, Hop Hopper turned up, you know. So it was great, it wasn't just the usual faces, so well done to those new people joining. Uh, four proposals came out of it. Uh, some I agree with and some I don't. Securely signed video requests. Now, this is something that Boss Browse Tom Rotti is trying to propose, which is to use the TLS to verify, and John Sperlock and many other people are against it. Um so that there's the whole issue around how do you stop bots? Um, and there are things like OPOG lists, and there are other ways of doing it. So it's uh a big, big conversation, but yeah, uh signed video requests may not be the right way forward. We'll see. Um AI disclosure, we talked about RSS.com's uh Alberto Botello, so he's writing something up, but we've just seen the whole industry look at labelling, so God knows where that's going to end up. Uh item level podcast pod roll recommendations seemed very specific that somebody, one person wanted, so there you go. Um and yeah, don't know. It wasn't me. It wasn't me.

James Cridland 1:15:53

Uh just I think you could have that once pod roll recommendations are more used. I think I think we wait until you can have later, but yes, okay, fair enough.

Sam Sethi 1:16:04

Yeah. And then you've got a standard for private podcast feeds. Now I think this is a really big one. Um, I think we're seeing more and more premium content. We talked about Audible and Apple, we talked about um supporting casts, we've talked about Patreon. Um, I think there's a massive opportunity. Um Hernan Lopez said it was now worth $2.2 billion. Um, I think that the way that it currently works, private feeds, works because it allows you to share equally. But it it once you've paid for the feed, it's just got a uh a block capability, so it's not uh tag, so it's not available for SEO, but it can be shared with anyone, it's not secure. Uh and I on Reddit there was a post that said PocketCast app has been frequently redistributing or leaking your private feed links. Right? I'm not blaming Pocketcast, I think that could have been any other app that supports private feeds. They're not great, and I think this whole space needs to be reviewed very quickly because I think it's very good for revenue, but I think it's very poor for creators because there is no verification in it at all.

James Cridland 1:17:09

I would definitely agree with that. So I think um working on something that works better. It I mean, it strikes me that um private feeds um uh and video feeds both uh frankly are looking for the same solution there in just having some sort of control over who actually gains access to them. Um I agree, that's a good point. Yeah, and so those two just seem to be the same thing, basically. But uh yeah, we'll see.

Sam Sethi 1:17:40

The other thing that you picked up on was something called Auto Discover RSS. Uh now um I'll let you say his name because I can't say it. Yelder.

James Cridland 1:17:50

Yeah, so Yelda Kudibergen. Uh he this is brilliant. This is a really, really clever idea. You may remember a couple of years ago when we were talking about this idea called fast follow. And fast follow was um you would put um uh you would put a hash at the end of your um at the end of a uh website address that you linked to um with then a fast follow code after that, and that would essentially be a GUID or something which would allow a podcast host to look at that hash and go, oh, uh that is this podcast. I will subscribe you to this particular podcast. So it works in terms of being a normal URL, but it also works in terms of um being something that a um the an enable podcast app would go, ah, I know exactly how to subscribe to that. So you could scan a QR code with your podcast app and away you go. Um that was fine, um, but uh Yeldar has come up with an e even easier way, um, and and I think this is uh such a simple way. If you go to most websites, most websites that have RSS feeds will have a link rel right at the top of the website, and it'll say in the HTML, and it'll say here is where the RSS feed is, so that you can copy and paste that URL into an RSS reader, for example, and it will find the RSS feed for that particular blog that you're having a look at. Um and you can also scrape all of the page, even if that doesn't exist, you can scrape all of the page to look for RSS feeds. And if you find one of those, then you can actually, you know, you you you can realize that that's an RSS feed. So uh again, away you go. And so what Yelda has done is he's gone, well, this works perfectly for podcasts as well. So you can start to have a QR code on your uh leaflet or something for your podcast that links to your own website, and as long as you are linking somehow to the RSS feed from your website, then any podcast app should be able to just go, Oh, you know what? Yes, we can um uh I uh that there's a podcast on that page, and I will I will, you know, sign you up for that. Um, which I think is a really smart idea. Um uh he's called it direct flow. Um, and uh the uh really good news is that every single pod news podcast page supports it. My own personal blog supports it automatically. Um the pod news front page supports it automatically, and probably every page in um uh oh, and by the way, every BuzzSprout um podcast page also supports it. Um so it's already working, and it's working absolutely fine. So what a clever idea. Um I really like it. So uh basically it means that anybody who um has a podcast app can now um just add a little QR code scanner and away they go, and that's a really easy way um to uh to get a ton of a ton of shows onto your um uh onto your app.

Sam Sethi 1:20:59

Um yeah, I thought it was such a good idea. It was one line of code we added.

James Cridland 1:21:03

There you go, one line of code, and it's all done. So uh yeah, no, really, really clever. So uh uh I think that's excellent. The question, of course, is uh what happens now? Does Yeldar spend a long time for the next um for the next year talking to loads of loads of people about it? Or um does it go into pod news and people go, oh yeah, that's a nice idea, and then promptly forget about it and nothing gets done. And I don't know what the answer is.

Sam Sethi 1:21:33

But um yeah, I think it uh it's like all these things, it it's quick and simple to add. If people think there's value in it, they'll add it quickly.

James Cridland 1:21:42

Um we'll see whether people add it first and then whether people it works perfectly on most sites anyway, already. Um so I think from that from that point of view, it's already supported by pretty well every by pretty well everybody by accident. Um, and so therefore it really needs just a few podcast apps to add this sort of thing uh into their into their app and away they go.

Sam Sethi 1:22:09

Right, last couple of bits of quick news then. Uh Podpage has added support for poding, well done. So now you can get um websites on Podpage can now update the minute you publish a new episode. Well done to them. Uh buy me a coffee of launch membership recovery, which I was thinking about you, James, from your Mastodon post when I saw this. Um the idea is that instead of letting someone unsubscribe immediately, what they will do is offer you either a discount, start a conversation, uh, show them what they'll lose before they go, or ask when they're leave why they're leaving. So again, uh again, we all have this issue about people unsubscribing, subscribing, and I think buy me a coffee is put in place. Look, it's been done by many others. I'm not saying it's new, but it's nice to see them trying to at least address the problem of people leaving their platform and asking why or trying to keep it.

James Cridland 1:23:01

No, it is. I I think it's a very smart idea. Um, I mean, interestingly, if you unsubscribe from the the the pod news newsletter, then you get an automatic thing saying, Why why do you do that then? Um uh which is uh uh a cent. Um I mean, wouldn't it be brilliant if you could do that for podcasts as well? Um but uh yeah, so uh yeah, I so I've I've been doing it since forever on the the the pod news website. Almost everybody ignores it, but a few people um will go, oh I didn't know that, or or whatever, and um some people will reply and you know, and all of that. Um if you try unsubscribing, if you're in Gmail and you try unsubscribing using Gmail's uh unsubscribe uh thing, then I will send you 10 of those because uh thanks, Gmail, you've got a bug. So uh yes, anyway. Um, but yes, no, I thought that that that was a smart thing.

Sam Sethi 1:23:59

And finally, goodbye and good riddance. Uh in January, PodNews covered an app that copied podcast strip the ads from them and sold them. That uh developer was Ben Bowler's uh podcast ad block. It's been deleted, the YouTube video's gone, and uh yes, goodbye, good riddance.

James Cridland 1:24:15

Yes, he doesn't seem to want to um to be proud of that anymore, which is uh oh dear, never mind. Um amusingly, he also has closed a couple of AI-based music um uh apps uh because he couldn't get the music industry um to agree to him basically copying all of all all of their stuff as training uh for his AI music stuff. Good try. Good try. Bless him. I mean, you know, he's tried, I suppose, but

The inbox

James Cridland 1:24:47

still there we go.

Announcer 1:24:48

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

James Cridland 1:25:00

Yes, so many different ways to get in touch with us. Fan mail by using the link in our show notes or boosts or email. We share all of that money that we make too, and we spend it behind bars and things. Uh another, it's not it's not just alcohol. I mean it's mostly alcohol. Um, yeah, we're gonna go on it. Um Martin Lindescog, thank you so much for your um uh uh 122 uh sats uh reposting my super comment from May the 16th. Oh uh James uh and Sam, thanks for your kind remarks. I look forward to see the new gamification features like levels, karma points could be cool to have. Uh I want to congratulate Neil Vellio for being number one fan of the Pod News Weekly Review. Thank you, Neil, for doing that. Um, I am around 20,000 Satoshis short at the moment. Uh I'm super fan of 58 podcasts. Wow. And I'm a fan of a hundred plus podcasts. Here's he here's your super user, Sam.

Sam Sethi 1:25:58

Yes, he is. He is he genuinely is. So yes, good lord.

James Cridland 1:26:02

Um so uh yes, uh Martin, it's great to hear uh from you. Uh also quick mentions here from Seth Goldstein, um uh talking about Inception Point AI, uh saying uh it's it's all it's all a bit outrageous. Uh agreed. Uh Neil Vellio, great job as always, guys. Was awesome to be part of it. Also delighted that it recorded properly. Yes, it did record properly, didn't it? Excellent. Enjoy catching up with your sleep. Yes, that that's not quite happened uh as I was expecting. Um, and uh Seth Goldstein saying, Glad you're having a blast at the London Podcast Show. Yes, we did definitely have a blast, did we not? Yes. And uh thank you uh so much to our power supporters, 25 of them. Hurrah! Including James Preston White from Lean and Loaf, who are very excellent. Uh also Dan Kendall from Mission Based Media.

Sam Sethi 1:26:55

Best question to Inception Point AI, by the way, Dan.

James Cridland 1:26:58

Indeed. Indeed, yes. No, I thought that that was a good, a good question. Um and uh Silas, who we saw uh as well, and uh various other people. Uh, thank you all so much for your support. Very much appreciate uh all of that. It uh helps keep us

Sam and James's week

James Cridland 1:27:15

going. Um so what's happened for you uh over the last week then, uh Mr. Sethi?

Sam Sethi 1:27:20

Well, welcome to Greek Corner, James. Um I feel a bit like Sisyphus. Now he was the guy who was forced by Zeus to push a rock up a hill, and when it got near the top, it rolled back down. He had to do that for eternity. And the only reason I feel like that is because every time we think we've got a new feature or function or we're making headway, um, along come the big boys and seemingly just stamp all over you and and build stuff. So you then have to go to the bottom of the hill again and start to push up your next rock. So it was a little bit uh yeah, a little bit hard last week, I have to be honest. There were many things I was like, really? Can we do this? How are we gonna do this? Here we go again, right, and then You do you girdle your loins and you go back. But yeah, there was a bit of that last week where you know we've been talking about HLS and Apple just come in. When you talk about AR labels and they come in, and you talk about any, you know, it just feels like every time you come up with anything that might give you a competitive advantage, it seems to get taken away from you. And it's very hard, you know, when people say, Well, why would I use your platform when I can use Apple? And you go, Yeah, that's fair enough. You know, some days you have to think, it's the default, they have the market share, they are the you know, blah blah blah. Yes. And then other days you go, you know what? I still think I've got something unique and different, and I can do this, but hard, hard times sometimes as a startup. I think if you look at Podverse, Podcast Guru, Fountain, all of us boys, you know, we're trying to build something new and different, and sometimes we just get stamped on. And it felt like that last week.

James Cridland 1:28:46

No, indeed. It's uh yes, it's um it's uh hard, hard work sometimes. Yeah, absolutely.

Sam Sethi 1:28:52

Uh the other thing is I learned that I'm a neophile. Yes, Greek corner, as I said. Um I didn't know what a neophile was, but uh the um the the term is a person who has a strong affinity for novelty, new experiences, and innovation. So now I'm gonna call myself a neophile. Yes, I'm very happy.

James Cridland 1:29:08

A neophile. Do you do you do the supermarket shop?

Sam Sethi 1:29:11

I do, yes.

James Cridland 1:29:13

Yes, I I do the supermarket shop as well in this in this household. And uh there's a very easy way to get me to buy anything, and that's to write the word new on the packet. Literally, literally. Do you know what I found today? I found uh in the supermarket, I found McVitti's digestive raspberry flavour. I'm sure that they'll be I'm sure that they'll be vile, but nevertheless, they're new. You didn't, of course it did. New. Oh well, I've got to try them.

Sam Sethi 1:29:44

Yeah, um I did the same with orange wine, by the way.

James Cridland 1:29:48

Orange wine. Orange wine, yes. Sounds entirely wrong. Fruit-based drink for the lady, yeah.

Sam Sethi 1:29:55

Little pinky staking up, yes, yes, that was me. Oh dear, good lord. Um, so the other things we we are pushing ahead with our premium RSS implementation. So I think, well, I don't know if it will be, but I think when we look at insecure private feeds, I think they need to be more secure. I think some of the work that Oscar and I have been doing around the premium RSS that was called secure RSS, is fundamentally a private feed with secure uh capabilities, uh, might roll into what Justin's writing about. So we'll see. I don't know, but we're we're we're pressing ahead on that. Yeah, um, and then a couple of podcasts I just want to recommend. Access, as I mentioned earlier, uh, is Substack CEO talking about AI slot, free speech, and taking on YouTube again in his free speech part, he will not remove Nazis from the platform. Yeah, not a good thing, Chris. Not a good thing. Uh the new media show has Rob Greenley. I I saw you mention it in Pod News Daily, has Janine Wright from Inception Point and Robert Scoble, uh Blast from the Past, who's come back. Um I'm on the show next week. Oh, are you? We'll see. Yes. So we'll see what Rob asks me. I have no idea. That's right, Sam. Yeah. And then finally, Matt Deegan's Wonderful Media Club. Uh, they recorded it at the podcast show like we did our show, and the show focused on the pivot to video. I thought um it was very good.

James Cridland 1:31:18

Yes, it was very good. I very much enjoyed, I watched it on video. Uh, and uh you get uh Matt walking through the show doing the intro, which is uh very fancy. Uh there's a man who's been doing some training. Yeah, uh so uh yes, no, very good that was. It's uh well worth a peek, uh the media club, which you'll find everywhere you find your favourite podcasts and also on YouTube. So what happened for you, James? Uh well, I've been mostly trying to recover from the jet lag, and of course of course, this time next week, uh I will be talking to you from British Columbia uh in Canada. Um so um won't that be a thrill uh where I'll have jet lag all over again. Um so very much looking forward to that. Not. Um but nevertheless um uh that'll be uh that'll be fun and entertaining. Um but uh yeah, so I ended up writing a trip report of that. Uh if you're a fan of uh tedious trip reports, then um uh knock yourself out. You'll find that on my personal uh website, james.cridland.net, um, which is good. Also, um I got uh I and I found this absolutely fascinating. I got a radio diary. Um, this is a a little sort of booklet that you get given by a research company, and you have to fill out what radio stations you listen to and when you listened to them and everything else. I wasn't filling it out. Um, I just asked a researcher, oh, would you mind? Can uh uh do you do you have a radio diary? And they said, Yes, we do. Um, and so they gave me one, but absolutely fascinating to have a look in inside it, given that you know that that is basically how radio people get paid, um, and seeing how the thing works with stickers and and everything else, and you're there thinking there must be a there must be a better way of of doing this, and then you think to yourself, and actually there isn't a better way of doing this, genuinely, this is the right way of doing it. It's just weirdly old-fashioned. So, uh is there an advertising diary?

Sam Sethi 1:33:21

Because it sounds very similar. Did anyone listen to this hour? Oh, yes, I did, tick. Yes, I listened to it for ages, it was wonderful. Did you buy a product? Of course I did, sir. Yes, no, you didn't, and you have no friggin' idea. But anyway, moving on.

James Cridland 1:33:34

So uh yeah, so that was so that was fun. Again, uh more on that uh on my personal blog if you really want to read that sort of thing. Um, but uh yes, that was uh that was good. And uh yes, I think next week, um yes we I'm just not uh might I I'm hoping to catch up with Justin Jackson because Justin lives 40 minutes up the road, uh up the lake from where I'll be in Canada.

Sam Sethi 1:33:58

Uh so that should be a quick canoe up the lake for you.

James Cridland 1:34:01

Yeah, so that should be quite fun. I still have to work out uh who's who's coming to who. Um but uh yes, so that that should be good. But um no, it's uh it should be uh it should be all fun.

Sam Sethi 1:34:12

Um in a couple of weeks we need a new co-host because I'm going on holiday.

James Cridland 1:34:16

Oh well, look at you. Well, we'll we'll have to we'll have to find one. Yes. Um maybe I'll just on a postcard to James Crickland. Yes, if anybody wants to, by the way. Um don't do that, James. You're gonna be flooded. Especially if you're a power supporter, uh then go for it. Uh drop us an email, weekly at podnews.net. Uh that would be lovely.

Sam Sethi 1:34:37

Size 11 shoes to fill, that's all. You'll never size 11 shoes. Um, yeah, it's weird. I told you I was adopted, right? So I've got size 11 feet and I'm only five foot seven. I should have been taller. I was malnutritioned at birth. That's all I can say.

James Cridland 1:34:52

Yes.

Sam Sethi 1:34:53

Gosh.

James Cridland 1:34:54

Well, you know what they say, big shoes.

Sam Sethi 1:34:56

Exactly.

James Cridland 1:34:57

I'm not I'll leave it there. Big feet. And that's it for this week. Uh, all of our podcast stories taken from the pod news daily newsletter at podnews.net.

Sam Sethi 1:35:06

Uh you can support this show by streaming Sats, you can give us feedback by using BuzzSprout Thumbnail. Uh, the link is in our show notes, and you can send us a boost or become a power supporter like the 25 power supporters at weekly.podnews.net.

James Cridland 1:35:20

Yes, our music is from TM Studios. Our voiceover is Sheila D. Uh, we use CleanFeed to record this audio, and we edit with Hindenburg, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Announcer 1:35:33

Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnews.net. Tell your friends and grow the show. Support us and support us. The pod news weekly review will return next week. Keep listening.