SPEAKER_01 0:00

We're holding ourselves back and doing something that I don't think anybody that pursues any commercial interest should ever be doing, which is frustrating our customers.

James Cridland 0:08

It's with Dan Granger from Oxford Road on the new ample cord podcast measurement.

SPEAKER_05 0:15

A lot of successful podcasters are making sure they have a presence on YouTube and finding audiences there.

James Cridland 0:21

Megan Matovic from Edison Research on what the data really tells us about podcasting.

Announcer 0:29

This is the pod news weekly review with post.

The AMP Accords

Sam Sethi 0:38

James, I think this is going to be one of those shows where I think other people's input is going to be important. But let's set the scene. Oxford Road, Dan Granger stepped out to define what a podcast is, define what a play is. They've got something called the AMP group or the AMP Accord. Tell me more, James. What is this group? What is Dan trying to achieve?

James Cridland 1:02

So the group is a lot of different people from across the more commercial end of podcasting. They've been meeting for the last year that they had a big announcement yesterday and released this document which has a lot of detail in it.

Sam Sethi 1:19

What are they trying to fix? Is it the advertiser is not happy with the data they're getting?

James Cridland 1:24

Yeah, I mean advertisers aren't happy with a download. It was described to me the other day as downloads are a faith-based metric. Amen.

Sam Sethi 1:35

I've been saying that for ages. Amen.

James Cridland 1:38

Yes. And I quite like that as a phrase. Thank you, Tom Webster. Because actually it's pretty clear. We know that all downloads don't correspond to all listens. We know that even if you press play on a podcast and we've got that information, we know that some people are skipping ads. So, particularly now, as we're moving away from the uh the cheap um uh action-based advertising and we're moving more into brand building. Brand building is something that requires more intelligent information than just did anybody download this particular show. You you do actually need to know a little bit more about that. And I think the point that Oxford Road and the rest of the AMP group have been making is that there is, I mean, they say, a billion dollars worth of money simply lying on the table, waiting for this industry to have a better solution in terms of metrics, but also frankly, in terms of what a podcast is in the first place. Because if we don't know what a podcast is, as I've been saying in this podcast for a long time, if we don't know what a podcast is, then we can't actually say whether or not our industry is growing because we don't know what our industry is. So we kind of do need that as a fundamental. Then we start talking about how content should be measured and then also how it should be attributed. And that is, I think, a different uh question. But I ended up talking to the folks at Oxford Road, to Dan and to Giles, and I was curious to learn more from them.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

I'm Dan Granger, I'm the CEO of Oxford Road.

SPEAKER_11 3:27

And I am Giles Maltin, the SVP of Strategy and Measurement at Oxford Road.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

We don't make it easy on him, we just assign arbitrary titles and flip them around every month. Once every three months, it's a lot to keep up with.

James Cridland 3:41

So um many congratulations to you both. Dan, why did you pull this group together and what were you hoping to achieve with it?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

I've given my whole career to this industry. It's got so much potential, it's got so much possibility, but I think we're holding ourselves back and doing something that I don't think anybody that pursues any commercial interest should ever be doing, which is frustrating our customers. And we do not make it easy to do business in this field. I think there was a long time that there was a question about whether or not this whole concept of a podcast, this term a podcast was here to stay, or was it just going to be washed away and swept into another type of media? And I think in the last couple of years, we've learned that that's not happening anytime soon. And it's time that we take ourselves seriously and we create some legitimate standards that make it a little bit easier for all of us to do our jobs. You know, I think there are a lot of people that are approaching this in a lot of different ways and are interested in this. But I thought from where we sit in the industry, we had an opportunity to maybe bring people together in a new way and try to see if we could take a run at this thing and um and move the ball down the field a little further.

James Cridland 4:57

Yeah, and I think what's interesting about the group that you put together a year ago now is that um there are a lot of people that historically haven't necessarily had too much of a look in into this area. And um, we were talking um with uh Martin Boytosh from uh Podmasters last week, and he said when advertisers drive change, it tends to happen. And I thought that that was a really interesting um uh viewpoint uh in terms of this. So the document that you released this week, let's start with the definition of a podcast. Why um was the definition of a podcast important, Dan?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

There's a few reasons. The definition, I believe, has changed for how people use the term podcast, and I think we needed something that reflects the present day definition, but really it matters in a commercial sense. It doesn't matter if you're a consumer. A podcast is whatever you want it to be. I don't have a dog in that fight. I don't think any of us do. The consumer will tell us what they want a podcast to mean, and we can do with that what we will. But for those of us that are in the business, you know, most of the revenue in this industry, and for those of us who keep the lights on with this industry, not having a definition has real financial consequences because what happens is buying agencies or brands that buy the space, they end up with a channel that gets stuck in a no man's land. Nobody's quite sure who owns it. Is it audio's problem, radio's problem, socials problem? I see people talking about podcasting, it sits with their offline division. Yeah. And here we are trying to fancy ourselves digital, right? The consequence of that is we actually will see some advertisers pulling away from sponsoring content because it's just too much work to figure out how to get into it and whose problem it is. And so I think that if we're going to be in a multi-billion dollar industry and expect it to grow, and we want to decide what the total revenue of that industry is, and we want investments in infrastructure and private equity and venture capital and things that we need to help fuel everything that we do to continue. At some point, we're gonna have to figure out what the hell is a podcast and maybe have some agreement. So I think we wanted something that would be useful, that would honor the origins of what podcasting was that many of us came into it to pursue, but that would be realistic about where it lives today and where it's likely to go and make space for that so we could have something to work with when we're doing business and know what it is we're truly buying and selling.

James Cridland 7:48

Yeah, because if we don't know what a podcast is, we can't turn around and say, well, podcasting is a $2.9 billion industry in the US if we if we don't actually know what we're defining there. So I think this is a super helpful thing to do. There is a long form definition which uses lots of fancy words, but there's a shorthand version which I really like. If it works with your eyes closed, it's a podcast. That to me is super simple and super easy. And um, I think it's the first time that I've seen that shorthand uh uh version, Dan. Has that been useful to help um people understand what a podcast is?

SPEAKER_10 8:27

Well, I think it is because I was worried that you were gonna ask me what the definition we landed on is, and then I'd have to go look it up because it's definitely too technical to remember for me anyway, every word of A podcast is an on-demand show rooted in the spoken word and fully intelligible as audio, typically episodic and conversational, podcasts cover wide-ranging themes and formats. They are accessed as audio or video via open RSS feeds and other distribution methods.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

You've been describing it, I think, in a very parallel way, which is something for your ears to do when your eyes are busy. And I think um what we're all trying to get at is like what's the standard, what's the burden of proof to say this qualifies as a podcast? I think having a shorthand that somebody could hear and see and then say and retain gets the spirit of what we're trying to do a little further down the field. And then when we really truly need something technical, we now have that, and you know, which is something I'm I'm I'm happy to get into as well, because I think there were a couple active debates going on in our industry that we tried to settle through this process.

James Cridland 9:39

Yeah, and there's a uh good table in the document, which is how to apply that definition, and I think that that's a good thing to go and have a look at. That's clearly part of what the AmpliCords is there for, and I think that this is a really helpful thing. But then, of course, we have definitions, definitions of how people are consuming podcasts, and more technical stuff about audience exposure. Giles, there is a definition in here of a play, and that's a relatively simple definition, isn't it?

SPEAKER_11 10:14

Yes, it is. Um, it was not quite as simple as it might seem getting to this simple definition. Um, and we did have a lot of conversations about different variations of on this that had more qualifiers. Um, and as you might imagine, you know, the more qualifiers you put in, the more that sort of opens up possibilities for different parties having sort of different points of view or different interests on it. Um, and so it's perhaps inevitable that we landed on something as simple as this.

SPEAKER_09 10:45

Um, but yes, we landed on a play occurs when a user consumes at least 30 consecutive seconds of a podcast, whether audio or video.

SPEAKER_11 10:55

I mean, one thing, for example, that comes to mind immediately is you know, there's no parameter there for a window with which that will qualify. So, like might that be within 24 hours, might that be within a session? These are the types of things that sort of we discussed. And in the end, I mean, I think personally I was a little disappointed, but perhaps understandably in the end, you know, it was just not easy to get to a sort of definitive answer on this. And perhaps when this makes its way into the market and perhaps to the IAB, ultimately, that might be something that gets further clarified or codified. But for now, at least that's sort of a good starting point. And it was really excellent, I think, for at least us who were working on the task force to see, you know, Spotify announced relatively recently that they were going to adopt this 30-second standard for their plays. I think, you know, perhaps when we were chatting separately, James, you had observed, you know, or maybe in your newsletter, I think, you know, YouTube obviously have a view standard, which I'm not sure if it is sort of explicit anywhere, but I think it's fairly generally understood to be a sort of 30 seconds with perhaps some of their own, you know, tech and qualifiers for you know invalid traffic. I mean, all these things that they do to qualify consumption. But um, you know, with Spot Spotify and YouTube both being in that ballpark, I mean, that's I think very meaningful for the industry and perhaps encouraging for others to adopt that, and perhaps also encouraging for the rest of the accords in in the sense that you know it's already parts of it are getting some some meaningful traction, seemingly.

James Cridland 12:26

So um yeah, no, I think I think that's a very helpful thing. I mean, what what's to ask the stupid question, what is wrong with a download?

SPEAKER_11 12:35

Well, I I think it was always somewhat problematic for those of us that were paying attention to these things. That said, I mean, for most of podcasting's life cycle, you know, it's not really mattered that much because I think we all just accepted that the download was the currency. But I think as video has come in, it's just a different type of consumption, it's a different type of content, it's a different type of distribution, and it's very different from a download, which is just data being sent to your device so that you can play the podcast later on. And in many cases, you know, that content ends up not being played. And so with this new video era where all these metrics of view or a stream or a play are you know reporting something quite different from a download, that's where I think the issue has really been forced for the industry. And one of the reasons that the time is right for this type of work that we've undertaken here.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

James, you've seen it since the beginning. Who's been funding the industry? 15 years ago, it was Amazon affiliate links that you know, Adam Carolla or whoever would say, make sure you use the link, go to my website, click the banner, and go buy stuff on Amazon. And that we'll get a share of that. And that was how they funded the shows a lot of times.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

And then we start getting into the advertising world 2010, 11, 12, around the time we started coming into the picture, you could actually start to monetize. But who was buying that? It was all direct-to-consumer, kind of e-commerce, disruptive brands that cared about one thing, which was ad performance. What they didn't care about was a verifiable impression. They didn't really care about a CPM. And this whole business, I think, was built for a decade on the backs of companies that were looking at um performance outcomes and not buying, you know, kind of flying by control as you do when you're buying impressions. And so the industry has gotten to a place now where it's time for the big brands to come in. There's consolidation. Oxford Road is a great example of that, where we've consolidated. We have a bigger appetite. We need to move this whole industry up market. We can't just work on direct response only advertisers, whether or not we want to be in the outcomes business. And you just simply cannot win the trust and credibility of global blue chip companies. If your only measurement is that, we'll count your promo codes and you'll see how good it is. They need something that's more reliable than that. And so I think a lot of this is growing pains, and what got us here doesn't get us to the next phase of growth. And I think that we were able to skate by with what we had for a long time. But as the marketplace matures and the and the appetite for revenue matures, we have to get more sophisticated in our instrumentation.

James Cridland 15:35

I mean, uh, some people would argue that radio has had virtually no comparable data for many years, but it seems to have done okay. Uh, it's still making much more money than podcasting is. So why should podcasting be, you know, any different, I suppose?

SPEAKER_01 15:51

I I don't know that radio is really the model that we want to follow. I think that um, you know, it is uh listen, I love radio. I spent the first decade of my career in radio. I know we all, you know, most of us in this space had some version of that, but we did leave for a reason, and I think that everyone in in the space would acknowledge it's an iceberg that is melting slowly, and it is likely not the future that anybody sees as being a rich opportunity. So I just, you know, I think I think the growth numbers that we've experienced as an industry are gonna be hard to keep up with as we go into the future, and it's gonna require some reinvention.

James Cridland 16:30

So we've got definitions in this document, we've got definitions of plays and audiences and definitions of what a podcast is. I suspect that the headlines are going to be around the exposure metrics, the data that is being talked about in this document to help advertisers.

SPEAKER_10 16:49

Chunk timestamp range, timestamp consumed, show and episode identifiers, user agent, from consenting users, IP address, and optionally the mobile ad ID and a hashed email address.

James Cridland 17:04

There is a lot of data um being asked for uh here, uh Charles, from podcast apps. I'm curious who has to do the majority of the work uh here in terms of making their stuff um, for want of a better word, AMP certified?

SPEAKER_11 17:21

Yeah, it's a great question. And um when we put the technical guidance together for exposure metrics that was authored by Pete Bersinger of Podscribe. We were leaning quite heavily on HLS. It's interesting to see that seeming uh to get sort of more and more interest and adoption in the market, which is encouraging for the work that we've done. But it was actually you, James, that uh highlighted to us that that very first package of of data that gets sent in the HLS um stream is about a minute's worth of data. And so if with a 30-second standard, I think originally we were thinking that the hosting platforms would be able to do the job for us in terms of the 30-second chunking or whatever it might be. But you know, I think you what you highlighted was that actually it's quite likely or even certain that the actual endpoint players where the shows are actually consumed would be the ones that would eventually need to share that data with us for most precision, at least. So, yes, there's nuance there that we didn't foresee at the time. And again, this is the type of thing that I think as an industry and you know, hopefully IAB, you know, will get sort of deeper into and become more precise. But um there may be uh some reliance on those players, and I think you've made some interesting observations about that.

James Cridland 18:46

There's data in here that you're wanting from players, things like user agents, which um they already produce, IP addresses, which is a whole conversation that um we could do two hours on. Yeah, but also things like uh if people are opted in mobile ad IDs and potentially hashed emails. Actually, that's something which uh is going on uh here in Australia, where we have a number of different radio and podcast apps who are all theoretically using the same type of identity. Um so you don't know who somebody is, but you do know that the same person that consumed this on this app is the same person as uh that that's consumed that on that app. So you know there there is certainly stuff going on here. The aim in this document is for this data work to be achieved by the end of this year for all of the major players. So that's um those who are above 1% of all consumption. How realistic do you think that is going to be?

SPEAKER_11 19:50

Um I thought that we had sort of targeted some meaningful progress by the end of this year, but it allowed room for it.

James Cridland 19:57

Sorry, meaningful progress.

unknown 19:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_11 20:00

Well, no, because I think expecting the whole market to have moved by the end of this year, I that's not my recollection of what we ended up with. Um I know that we were sort of targeting perhaps like one or more of the major platforms implementing some of this work. Um, I think we had allowed for it to progress into 2027.

James Cridland 20:17

There's certainly quite a lot of work there in terms of um making sure that the major players are all turned on. I mean, I guess you know, the difficult question is going to be well, uh uh firstly, let me just um let me just backtrack slightly. Who was on the group from the podcast app developers?

SPEAKER_11 20:34

Well, we had only major platforms represented. Um, and I'm not sure even exactly who I can mention, Dan.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Um Well, I think James, you've reported who we can mention, I believe. If if we if you haven't reported them, that doesn't mean they weren't there, but it does mean we can't mention them.

SPEAKER_08 20:54

Select AMP members include representatives from Oxford Road, Spotify, BetterHelp, DraftKings, United Talent Agency, Libson, and Podscribe.

James Cridland 21:06

It's been reported elsewhere that uh YouTube was uh on there, and I've got um agreement from YouTube that they were, so that's a a good thing. I guess the worry that I've got is we we already know that Overcast, which is a major player, has th 3 plus percent of all um podcast downloads, which are not the same as plays, but we know that Overcast won't implement any of this. We also know from history that Apple Podcasts is going to be very unlikely to be implementing a lot of what is being asked for here. Podcast Addict is one person, um, and so we need to work out whether that one person is going to be implementing this as well. I I guess my question is if more than half of all current podcast consumption won't implement this, what's uh the next uh step for where we go with this?

SPEAKER_11 22:01

Well, um I think that the push for better data and better metrics is it it's sort of an evolutionary thing, really. So, you know, if this effort does not help deliver that, I think you will see parties in the industry which would include Oxford Road, I'm sure, to continue their exploration for better data and whatever that can be found. You know, you have companies like Flight Path, you know, who are building a sort of very interesting tech stack that, you know, if people are hosting there, I think that there's going to be different levels of data available to those types of platforms and what at least we are typically used to seeing as an agency, similar type of story with you know other companies that we're we're having conversations with and exploring in a pod stock or Pompo, whoever it might be, you know, the the a new sort of era of data is appearing in a way, but it's sort of quite patchy still. But I think you know this is indicative of the type of evolution we're seeing. So that if if we find that you know the players won't get on board, you know, you sort of said over 50% if the majority won't get on board, then, you know, I mean maybe there are ways to to to work with them or to to help incentivize them for this. But if we can't make that work, I think again, like the evolution is inevitable. I can't guarantee what it's going to look like. But I think the pressure will continue.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

James, just for uh for my benefit, so so basically your concern is that the way that we have described actually accessing impression data, exposure data is outside of what you think will be compatible with Apple of all the main constituents we need to win over here?

James Cridland 23:44

I mean I think I think the data that's being asked for is uh very non-Apple in terms of the data that would be sent back to publishers. Um but I guess on the other side what what we currently have in the AMP Accords is that we have a a menu of all of the things that the AMP group would like. And it strikes me that actually there's probably conversations now, negotiations now in terms of okay this is all of the stuff that we would like but what are you comfortable which of these things of these menu items are you comfortable in doing now? Are the things that we can do now are the things that need to be pushed back because of legal concerns because of privacy concerns whatever what whatever that might be so that we end up moving forward into a place where at least I mean you know for example Apple's definition of a play even if you're not getting direct data from Apple Apple's definition of a play ends up being the same as Spotify's and the same as YouTube's that would be super useful. And at the moment Apple's definition of a play well I've been on record as saying it's useless because it doesn't measure anything like what anybody else is go is going to measure.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

And so I think this is a stepping stone document isn't it towards yeah towards where we'll where we'll get to yeah I think that's right and and I think Giles said it well and I think he'll he'll he'll probably um improve on what what I'm about to try to say but where our thinking was in this process was to say all right what do we think is the best case scenario that we could imagine haven't violated any lines in the sand of these players. We tried to do our best to say how do we work within the art of the possible and where have they said there's a red line here we're not going to go over it. And let's try to accommodate that because if you don't have the big three on board it's going to be really hard to do what we're trying to do which is to say basically anything consistent is better than a good inconsistent one and a bad inconsistent one put together. So we tried to also define these things in such a way that if one of the key participants was not going to give us access to information we would need to fully execute they would at least be able to give us access to information that was consistent with what we could get from the others so that it matched even if it needed to sit outside of the ideally blended aggregated sources we might get our information through a separate source and say well it's not as verifiable by a third party or it it has these limitations for whatever reasons but at least we're using the same language and using the same you know definitions and then there's still questions of how many people's word do you have to take yeah for it that it's actually good.

James Cridland 26:44

Yeah yeah and and of course you know we are lucky in that we do have HLS data for some of the shows uh that will be for more of the shows and even if a certain amount gets pre-downloaded onto a device you you can still work out what a user has actually consumed from that that's certainly a helpful step uh forward so I think all of this is really useful helpful steps towards something that isn't just a download where frankly we've got no idea of whether or not somebody has actually consumed that content and somebody is paid to be in that content well are people actually hearing their stuff so um I can totally see that there's real opportunity here there's also data around attribution as well and we're we're in a pretty good place in terms of attribution I think for podcasting anyway in terms of the data that the AmperCord talks about in terms of attribution is there much more being talked about here that companies like Magellanai, Podscribe and others are already you know are not doing already?

SPEAKER_11 27:54

Yeah there are definitely some developments and you know I don't know if I would necessarily agree that we're in a good place as an industry on attribution. I think we have we've got a good infrastructure for pixels in place but I think a lot of advertisers at least you know that we talk with still question those results you know quite regularly and they still have to earn the trust you know of a lot of buyers and so what we are doing here is trying to put in place a set of attribution standards or capabilities that would would do even better job at you know earning that trust or earning it more quickly. Part of the attribution proposals that we had sort of hinged on that prior exposure section where we were looking to build the attribution not simply off a download, but off an actual consumption and ideally a consumption of an actual ad rather than simply just the first 30 seconds of playing an episode. So building that attribution of what did was was the ad exposure actually verified. And then the other piece that I think is really important you know and it has its own section in the in the document was just about the use of of control groups you know and and holding out a randomly selected group of of users which you know gives you a sort of a control group against which to measure performance. And that's one of the ways that you can overcome that trust barrier much more quickly. And I I think if people are able to implement that and I've been given some encouragement about that actually that a lot of the hosting platforms should be able to implement that without too heavy a lift. So you know we're we're somewhat optimistic about that one. And I think for for people in the industry who are a bit further away from sort of the brands you know we're very close to the brands and we're sort of further away from some of those people who are doing all that or would need to do like all that hard work, you know, the engineers you know on the players or whatever it might be they maybe don't see the importance of this type of rigor in the attribution space and it's not the type of thing that you know the IAB at least in podcasting have sort of thought much about before historically I don't think at least not to my knowledge. So you know it's it's interesting sort of having a group like we did. Obviously it's weaker in some areas because it represents the whole industry. And so there's not sort of the really strong technical focus that you would get with an IAB group but it's a much broader sort of industry group and we're sort of trying to bring to market the awareness of like if we can crank up the the robustness the quality the trust in the attribution area like that's really an area where we can unlock potentially a lot more spend for the industry. And people sometimes ask like who stands to benefit from all of this. But really like if the advertiser spend can start flowing in because there's more confidence in the ROI of the platform, that really should benefit everybody. And you know Dan's been very vocal about that and and there's not really a special interest group there. I mean yes you know it can benefit us in Oxford Row but it benefits our clients and the brands that are spending it benefits the creators it benefits the hosting platforms you know I mean you mentioned the players and and like I think you've given us a great challenge when we talk privately about this that there could be a real opportunity to to bring some benefit to them as well. And I I think that's very much the sort of mindset that we've tried to bring it's like we we think that there's opportunity for the whole industry here and I hope that we'll be able to find a way for that to really happen.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Just going back to the premise of the question I think that through pixeling the Magellans and the podscribes and the cleritos I think that the industry got very comfortable with that being a standard way to measure even though it can be arduous and there's a lot of ways to get it wrong and you know you really have to work at it. But I think it was it was pretty good for we had a moment in time when we were kind of settled right and then YouTube starts becoming an X factor that just takes everybody out at the knees because suddenly it's incompatible and your your instrumentation is not working for a large part of you what the audience you're buying you just don't know how much and so I I think that forced us to have to say you know this there has to be a bit of reinvention to deal with the video component. Yeah you can well see that so it is a uh a really um detailed piece of work it's it's uh a piece of work which I don't envy anybody uh putting uh together Dan you posted something on LinkedIn last week where you you you were basically saying um we're going to be publishing this thing not everybody's going to like it even I don't like it um why why did you say that you know it probably goes back to um family of origin issues that I need to work out in therapy but I I think um and how much time we've given to this thing um but no truly it it's been a labor of love and um you know the amp accords don't happen uh if if it weren't for a few people and Giles is first on that list um because we did need somebody that actually knows what they're talking about or or sounds like they do and he is certainly um all of those things doesn't hurt we either way um you know I think people worked really hard on it and um you know it's like well should it be 30 seconds or 60 seconds? Well I think it should be 60 seconds right but it doesn't matter what I think um really you know I think for uh e-commerce you really need to do we need to abolish vanity URLs and we need surveys and second layer surveys with auto-populated predictive text and you can do holdouts from that like I think I think there's different ways of achieving some of the objectives we're trying to achieve and at the end of the day who cares what I think I I think that what matters is that we have a standard that everybody can deal with because what's happened is there's been we know there's been this great fragmentation in media and with society and culture and everything but this is a great manifestation in media and in our business where everybody has gone their own way and built these islands that speak a different language. And if we want to cooperate in any way for our mutual benefit and mutual gain, we need a common language. And you know the fact that one of them rolls their tongue and I can't roll my tongue doesn't really matter. At some point we just have to pick a language and go or else we're gonna keep talking about it and we're gonna be frustrated and we're gonna have, you know, we got the greatest thing in the world with this podcast medium. It is truly like the shining city on a hill as far as media goes and we can't get out of our own frickin' way to actually to to to not spike our customers' tires when they drive into the parking lot. It's like let's make it a little easier and friendlier to do business whether or not it satisfies my personal preferences and if everybody says that we might get somewhere.

James Cridland 35:17

Agreed consistency is a wonderful thing. Where can we go to learn more?

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Uh ampacords.com that is ampacords.com promo code we know we don't do those anymore we don't do those anymore and of course there's the media roundtable podcast which is a good podcast to go and learn oh thank you more about everything that you folks uh do as well uh Giles and Dan thank you and many congratulations on this work.

Sam Sethi 35:44

Thank you James thanks for thank thanks for helping that was a great interview James I really enjoyed that I think I've listened to it already three times. How many plays is that though?

James Cridland 35:53

Well within the 24 hour period it could be one who knows um the defin the long definition well first of all James what was the short definition tell me the short definition that you came up with or they came up with yeah so the the short definition that um that they've come up with is if it works with your eyes closed, it's a podcast which I really like actually I think that that's quite neat and and tidy. It's not it's not um a great perfect definition for the industry but I think as a shorthand it's a pretty nice shorthand.

Sam Sethi 36:24

Okay I feel a t-shirt coming on for that one. Similar to the one that you've got for your definition I think Dan said it quite well that you know whatever a podcast is from the consumer is fine, you know, Netflix, YouTube, whatever. I think he then said the definition is more for the industry is much more stricter. Look it's a good start

What to do with independent podcast apps

Sam Sethi 36:49

right what was frustrating was the question that you asked Dan how many app developers were included in the conversation I think the answer was pretty much zero wasn't it?

James Cridland 36:57

I mean obviously Spotify is an app developer as is YouTube. Okay fair enough all right so I suppose the answer is that but yes the point that I've been making for example in the Pod News newsletter uh today is that actually the podcast app developers not just need to be part of this conversation but need to be cut into the money because right now they're not being cut into the money at all. Podcast apps don't earn a cent from the revenue that the podcast industry generates. And you know it's it's a weird little industry this one in that we've got independent podcast apps who have access to exactly the same content as Apple Podcasts and Spotify do. Yet those little independent podcast apps, which by the way are 36% of all RSS downloads so it's a big chunk. It's more than a third of all RSS downloads don't come from Apple Podcasts or from Spotify. But none of those apps are actually earning from the podcast industry. So I think that that should probably change. I think that there is a good reason why that might change and perhaps that changes in return for those podcast apps sharing the information on consumption. And perhaps there's a middle ground there where we can start to share the same amount of money that Apple is going to be getting from HLS video. Perhaps we can share that same amount of money with um other podcast apps as well.

Sam Sethi 38:30

One of the reasons I think Fountain and both true fans moved into the hosting side was because we weren't making any money and I've said it before I don't think premium app requirements, you know, in terms of the volume of people paying for it is is going to be sufficient. So yeah um I've always said that the money's on the hosting side but we're gonna talk later in this show about a comment from Adam Curry last week on podcasting 2.0 where he said that streaming stats is pretty much dead. So the the question here is how how the money will be divvied up.

James Cridland 39:01

How do you get programmable money that gives you the ability to divvy up between the app, the host, the creator, etc Yeah and I I think that's a different question than the question that I've been trying to fix in the opinion piece today, which is to say that look, you know, Apple Podcast is saying that they want money every time an ad is played on HLS. Let's assume that that's $1 cost per thousand we don't know how much it is but let's just assume it's going to be that um so one dollar per thousand ads served in other words. Now Apple is one of the three richest companies in the world and now they're going to be getting more money from podcasting and if Apple Podcasts manage to double the amount of um consumption that happens in the Apple Podcast app as a result they double the amount of money that comes in. And it's not a small amount of money either it's um uh the way that I've worked it out it's somewhere in the region of um you know five five hundred you know uh five hundred million or three hundred million or something I mean it's it's not it's not entirely insignificant in terms of the way that uh the way that Apple runs but from my point of view that should be going to any podcast app that is delivering the compliant consumption data that the advertisers want and supporting HLS. If you want to earn money from your podcast app all you have to do is deliver the the right consumption data that is agreed by the industry whatever that um consumption data is and support HLS because that's important to all of us and if you can do both of those things then you get that $1 cost per thousand as well. And there's a whole different conversation around well where did the creators get their money? The creators get their money through the advertising in this particular case. But I think but I think in terms of this there is definitely a way of sharing that money if we've agreed that Apple have deserved it which we appear to have done then why are we not saying that other podcast apps should get that money either. No I I like it. I like it it's it's the right way for the I thought you might I thought you might podcast app developer show me the money. Yes uh no I like it and it's a simple model yeah yeah and and I think it's a simple model it doesn't get in the way now you could you could obviously um add um you know pro programmable money and splits and uh and stablecoin and everything else on top of that if you wanted to but I think this is just purely on the advertising side and we shouldn't forget that 90% of podcasts out there don't make money from advertising. So this is this is a small amount of the cream of the crop if you see what I mean. But there's still quite a lot of money out there in terms of in terms of that 10% that do take advertising. So uh yeah.

Sam Sethi 42:01

Yeah it doesn't require any of that thing I I was saying about programmable money because it's it's an accounting thing. You know let's say it was a car serving the ads, right, and they were pushing it out. There's a simple number we served so many times to you therefore we owe you X amount of money and that's a 25, 50 100 pound payment, right? Whatever it would be.

James Cridland 42:20

Yeah exactly and actually we've we've already got that in another part of of our industry. We've already got that in terms of the record companies because if you think about it the record companies um uh Sound Exchange, PRS for music, APRA AMCOS, those type of companies are all doing two things. Firstly they're they're collating consumption data how many times has a song been played on the radio how many times has a song been streamed. And they're also functioning as a payment collection agency. So they are taking the money in and then they are sharing that with all of the artists. No reason why we couldn't have a uh a clearinghouse in the same way for independent podcasting. Apple probably won't want that Spotify probably won't won't want that but pretty well everybody else well why not have one one company one organization which is that clearinghouse which can then do individual contracts with um podcast apps and podcast publishers and everything else and then that is essentially you know that third of the industry all covered from one company that might be quite a good plan I think does the percentage of the podcast streamed audio or video play into this in any way or is it a flat fee? I mean it does play into it in some ways because it's one dollar cost per thousand of the ad which is consumed and it has to be consumed in order for you to to earn the money. So if you've got a pre roll a mid roll and post role and somebody only listens to the pre roll and the mid role then you're not going to earn your money from the post role if you if you see what I mean. So actually it's really it's really important that the Longer you listen, the more money that you will make. That's how advertising works. That should therefore be how the payment works to the podcast app developers.

Sam Sethi 44:08

And how do we last question, because it's curious I'm curious. How do we ensure that the data recorded or uh presented is valid? You know. So for example, let's say there's three ads within it. Um we then are shown the total time spent and the percent completed. So we're we're shown that those ads were played, or at least um part played. That's down to the apps then to send that information back, is what we're saying to the host, in this case, maybe an A Cast or a Simplecast or Adswiz. And then do they have to reconcile that in any way before payment?

James Cridland 44:51

So my my suggestion is that it goes through a clearinghouse that would get all of that all of that information, and that clearinghouse would end up doing their due diligence to make sure that you're not trying to cook the books by pretending that lots of people have listened, because you should be able to also compare, you know, the total amount of downloads that have gone to TrueFans, for example, with the total amount of plays that TrueFans is is uh claiming. So there is a you know, there is a sort of there is a sort of a back end um uh there as well. Um and you know, and we we've already got this sort of thing with the IAB, of course, haven't we? The IAB has certification. Um the IAB will um uh crawl through your software to work out exactly what um ways you're using to calculate stuff. So perhaps that's you know part of um you know part of uh where we go with that.

Sam Sethi 45:48

Now one of the other things that AMP required was the user agent, and then we've been talking about this for I don't know, four or five weeks now, maybe a bit longer, about the issue of user agents and signing of user agents and the whole thing. Again, if I'm reporting my numbers back with my user agent, at least that has to be a valid user agent. I can't go back and say that I'm or somebody else can go back and report as me or vice versa. I mean, I don't see why they'd report as me because they wouldn't get the money, but yeah, exactly.

James Cridland 46:17

Because then you will get the money. So actually it it it almost makes the user agent bit work now, because um without that accurate user agent, um then you know it's in your interest to make sure that you are not hiding the fact that it's true fans in in this particular case downloading these particular shows or streaming these particular shows, because your user agent is essentially your your billing, you know, your your your invoice. Um and so therefore, if you really do want to hide h hide who you are, well that's fine. Nobody gets the money then. So it's uh so it's a self-m-policing plan. I hadn't even thought about that. So uh so yeah, so I think I think there's something in there, and I think that there is um the way that I've worked it out, it it it's essentially about a five percent cost to the industry, which is you know, I mean that's the same as a credit card payment. It it's not a massive amount of money to be asking for, and in return they get much more data. So actually, every everybody wins out of this. And if you work out a way of completely changing the UX of the TrueFans app so that all of a sudden um your users are consuming three times more sh more more podcasts than they used to, because you've cracked a new method of discovery, or you've cracked um a location-based browser, or you've cracked something, um, then you actually stand to win out of that. Because you know, if if you double the amount of of um of podcasts that are listened, you get double the amount the amount of money. Um at the moment, you have absolutely no benefit if people are using your app twice as much to have a listen to podcasts, because you know, you you you you don't benefit out of that. So I think um I think it might be quite interesting for the industry as a whole for people to actually start going, okay, well, how can I make podcasting even more exciting to people who

Another ad-blocking podcast app

James Cridland 48:24

are listening?

Sam Sethi 48:24

Now, look, what we've been talking about is is fundamentally how can we get better measurement for advertising within podcasting in order to grow the community and grow the pie of revenue. Well, other people, James, are trying to remove ads from apps, but they're doing it in a very, well, let's say, underhand way. There was an app called Podcast Adblock that came out in January that was removing ads that then went away. But there's a new one that's appeared on the horizon called Podastic. So tell me more about all of this.

James Cridland 48:58

Yes, so um Podcast Adblock was um a uh uh a developer, adventurer, and entrepreneur called Ben Bowler, who lives in the UK, who's got a hat named after him. No, he hasn't. And um he produced this thing uh in January called Podcast Adblock, which was um a uh it would download a copy of a podcast, work out where the ads were, cut out the ads, and then host that podcast on their own servers so that uh you could then buy access to that podcast. None of that money was going back to the podcast creator, just going back to um Ben Bowler. So um that was obviously a copyright um infringement, and um uh I reported on it, and uh many lawyers earned a lot of money sending um uh polite letters to um to Ben and saying uh you need to stop doing this and you need to stop doing this now. Um and uh and it was helped by the fact that, of course, I worked out what the IP address was, published that, and so that was very easy to block. It turns out that he is back. He's back with a new podcast app, it's called Podtastic. Uh, and it works in much the same way. You spend money and it gets rid of the ads for you. Um, but it works a little bit differently in that the app is doing the download, so it comes from your IP address, Sam, not the IP address of um, you know, um the the uh wherever the server for podcast ad blocks.

Sam Sethi 50:38

So you can't block one place. You can't block one place.

James Cridland 50:41

Secondly, um the user agent um uh doesn't say pod testic in it, it just claims that it is a copy of mobile safari. So basically you can't block it from a user agent either. So it's impossible to block, basically, because if you block it, you'll block every single web browser out there. Um so uh we can do nothing as an industry about this particular app. Um and um for $2.99 you can sign up in either the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. For $2.99, it will get rid of a certain amount of ads for you. And to be fair, it did a job in terms of getting rid of the ad in the Pod News Daily Podcast. It uh correctly worked out which of me talking was the ad and which wasn't. Um, so that was quite nice. Um, but they've clearly, you know, Ben has clearly done it in a different way this time, and he's been very legally clever because I think that it's going to be difficult to claim that this is doing something which is um against copyright. Um, because you can, you know, it's not it's not illegal to s to skip a podcast ad um uh on your app, which is all that this thing is doing. Um so not quite sure what's uh going on there. I suppose the question that I would have is um Apple is earning 30% of this guy's revenue because it's $2.99 a month through the Apple App Store. So is Google. Do we think that that's entirely ethical and right? Is is that the right thing?

Sam Sethi 52:18

No, because no, I don't think it is. But you know, um to be fair to both of those organizations, I mean, there's a how many billion apps within within their platform stores. So, you know, unless they've been flagged up to them, they're not gonna know. I mean, you know, hopefully the work that you've now done, which is to, you know, bring light to a dark corner, hopefully Apple will then React and then Google as well. But wouldn't hold your breath on that one either.

Interview: Megan Lazovick, Edison Research

Sam Sethi 52:46

Moving on then, James, uh, Edison Research uh at SSRS have been putting out lots of reports this month. Um the main ones that they've put out are with highlights that audio remains the bedrock of podcasting, that audiobook listeners prefer some AI narrators over human voices. The big one though is they put out the UK Podcast Consumer Report, which showed that YouTube is now the most popular service used for podcast consumption in the UK. But Apple Podcasts is the fourth most popular after Spotify and BBC Sound. Lots and lots of good data coming out of uh Edison Research, James.

James Cridland 53:25

Yes, loads of good data. So you thought, well, let's find out some more good data. And so you had a quick chat with Megan Lazovic.

SPEAKER_05 53:34

The big headline there is that YouTube surpasses Spotify as UK's preferred podcast platform. So 29% of weekly podcast listeners ages 15 and older in the UK choose YouTube as the service they use most to consume podcasts surpassing Spotify at 28% for the first time on record. Now, often what we see with the UK research is it lags a little bit behind of what we see in the States. So this was a big announcement a few years ago when we saw a similar flip between Spotify and YouTube in the US.

Sam Sethi 54:14

Yeah. That's normally the way that it goes. US leads, we have a lag. But what is causing the change from Spotify to YouTube? Now, let's say three, four years ago, that age group demographic, that young age group would be music first, Spotify would be the place they would go to, podcast would be then a secondary that they would look at. Is it now that they're doing video first and podcasting is a secondary within that? Because I can't imagine that in either platform, podcast is the driver for them to use it first.

SPEAKER_05 54:44

Yeah, well, I can't say for sure what the causation is, but certainly the young people grew up on YouTube and their behavior on all types of platforms and devices can dictate how they choose to consume other content. But I think also the world of podcasts, while many successful shows have been on YouTube for many years and found an audience, the world of podcasts have kind of woken up to the opportunity there on YouTube. So a lot of successful podcasters are making sure they have a presence on YouTube and finding audiences there. So the audience was already there, but some of the content is moving over and people are finding it. I think people are also getting really smart in using YouTube as a content discovery source, doing small clips of their podcasts. We did see some evidence that reported in this report exact actually that people are discovering podcasts on video, and then if they like that content enough, eventually adopting an audio listening behavior.

Sam Sethi 55:49

The other thing is where we are mirroring the US, it seems that smart TVs are now becoming a predominant device for consumption.

SPEAKER_05 55:57

Yeah. Well, it makes sense if there is more great podcasting content on YouTube, and you know, YouTube is a default for some people for consuming content that they're going to want to watch it in the center of their home. Our Infinite Dial study has chronicled the adoption of smart TVs. Now, pretty much, can you even buy a TV that's not a smart TV? I'm not so sure. So you get those TVs in the center of the home, and now people can access that content in the center of a home. People have more choices now when it comes to what content they want to watch. And if now they can access it through their TV, why not?

Sam Sethi 56:30

The other surprising fact that came out of the report was that Apple Podcasts has dropped down to number four in the UK. Why is that?

SPEAKER_05 56:37

Again, it's hard for me to explain causation, but I think it speaks more to just the strength of the other players in the UK space. YouTube having increasing audience in podcasts, Spotify still going strong, and really BBC Sounds that again is strength of the content. People are going to the platforms for that content. Apple is, if you think about player preference, Apple's available to people who own iPhones. And that's not the entire population. Whereas YouTube, Spotify, BB Sounds are all available on every device.

Sam Sethi 57:13

Yeah, maybe that. I think also, this is just my personal belief is that Apple's strategy is individual apps. So you get Apple Podcasts as a standalone app, Apple Music as a standalone app, Apple Audiobooks as a standalone app. And I think the integrated nature of both Spotify, YouTube, and to some extent BBC, although sounds and iPlayer are separated, means that I think people go to the integrated app for one thing and then switch to the other while they're in it.

SPEAKER_05 57:41

Totally. I think it makes sense. I remember when we were doing research, and forgive me, I can't remember the year, but when Spotify integrated podcasts into their players, and all of a sudden we were seeing the numbers tick up for that younger generation who really were heavy Spotify consumers. They were discovering podcasts because all of a sudden it was in their daily feed.

Sam Sethi 58:03

Now, Apple's recently added video to the Apple Podcasts app. Are we seeing any data yet of an uptick in usage of video on the app? Could that be a way that Apple climbs back up the ladder? Because obviously YouTube and Spotify have had video for some time now, and BBC iPlayer has now got podcasts in video format on its platform. Or is the data too soon for this report to show the effect of Apple Podcasts with HLS Video?

SPEAKER_05 58:33

I would say it's too soon. The Edison Podcast metrics team is on it though, and making sure we're measuring how people are consuming audio versus video. So maybe eventually we'll see that behavior, but I think it's likely more tied to the content. People don't just decide, oh, I'm going to watch podcasts instead of listening to podcasts. It's not something that they're going to just make a decision to change. But what will change them is the content. So if all of a sudden there's content that they have heard about that has a buzz that they really want to see, and that is available on Apple Podcasts, maybe we'll start seeing those numbers change more quickly.

Sam Sethi 59:17

Now, one of the players that entered the market is Netflix. And uh one of the reports that Edison put out recently was the top 50 podcasts in the US, with the Bill Simmons podcast joining from Netflix into the charts for the first time at number 17. Are you seeing Netflix now becoming more and more prevalent in your research? People saying, Oh, I watch podcasts on Netflix? Or again, is that too soon?

SPEAKER_05 59:45

We did record that in the Edison Podcast Metrics US study and reported it in Q1 2026. Fourteen percent of weekly US podcast consumers, age 13 and older, said that they currently ever watch or listen to podcasts through Netflix. And then we also captured 4% who've said they ever watch or listen to podcasts through Tubi. So some of these channels are starting to show up in our data.

Sam Sethi 1:00:13

Is this a zero-sum game? We've all got 24 hours in a day. We have limited time and attention. So are we seeing that eyeballs are being removed from YouTube and going over to other platforms? How are you seeing the changing landscape? Are people spending less time on YouTube and Spotify and thus more on Netflix? Or is it not affecting at all?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:35

I will have to ask our Share of Ear team. So Share of Ear is a study that we do to track the amount of time that people are spending with different audio. So I have not heard about a shift in terms of time. Again, it's a lot easier to measure reach. Have you ever done this behavior? It's going to take longer to really start seeing a change in the amount of time that people are spending, choosing one platform over the other in that way. And actually, it's funny, for so long we've been measuring the growth of reach of podcasts and reporting how much bigger podcasts have been getting. At a certain point, you get so big that you do have to start shifting and thinking about all right, everyone already listens to podcasts. What metrics are we going to pay attention to? And that's when we start thinking about time. So we will have to dig into the data there in share revere. I don't know if it's been big enough to really see a change there in time.

Sam Sethi 1:01:34

Yeah. The Edison Research Share Revere for Q1 was saying that 20% of time spent with ad-supported audio is podcasting, but radio still remains three times bigger. That's fine. It's a growing market. Somebody put a lovely term the other day. I heard that radio is like a melting iceberg. It's just slowly disappearing. And again, we haven't seen yet the crossover in terms of more podcasting listened to than radio. Or is that something that you've seen already?

SPEAKER_05 1:02:03

Well, first of all, that statement about the iceberg makes me really sad because I started my career in radio. And we all didn't I think that it still has so much to offer. It's still so important. And yes, people are choosing content through on-demand sources. There's a reason that it's still so big. People forget that radio still has such a large reach, such a large share of people's time and attention. So I just want to defend radio in that way. Yes, the digital content is coming for them, but a lot of that content is also from radio producers. But in terms of the trends that we've seen with linear audio, so which actually when I talk to young people, I have to explain that linear audio, what linear audio is, like AMFM radio, where you turn on a station and and it's already programmed for you and you have to listen to what is actually there. Versus on-demand audio, where you can choose what you want to listen to at any time. Those trends from share of year, the amount of time that people have been spending listening to audio, we had linear audio much higher than on-demand audio in terms of time spent listening 10 years ago. And over time, those two lines converged in about I think it was 2023, where we finally saw, in terms of share of time listening to audio, it was equal between linear and on-demand audio. And then that has since the lines have diverged again. And on-demand audio it has more time spent listening than linear. So we're definitely seeing those trends change over time for sure.

Sam Sethi 1:03:40

I think radio isn't going away, by the way. I think it's just going to change. So when I had my own radio station, we had a very expensive DAB license and we had to pay a transmitter company to transmit. And actually, so many local radio stations have disappeared because of those costs, but also because of the way that big stations aggregate everything at the centre. But I think live podcasting, when live really does take off, I think Substack's done a pretty good job of it. I think certain other companies like StreamYard, I think there are live podcasts, but I don't think they're in the same sense like a radio station. Because I think if you look at the content of a radio station, it's no different to that of a podcaster, apart from the music shows, obviously. But fundamentally, the means of distribution is either through a DAB or FMAM's transmitter or through the web. And I think we'll see more web-related live podcasting, which fundamentally to me is radio. So I don't think I'm press live podcasting. Nice. Nice. Go for it. Now, one of the other things that you also looked at was a study related to audiobooks, and listeners seemingly prefer some AI narrators over human voices. That surprised me. What was that one about?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:01

Yes, this was a really cool study because up until now we'd only done research around the idea of AI. We would ask consumers, what do you think of the idea of content being narrated by AI? And when you ask people's perception of AI narration, it doesn't perform well, right? People don't like the idea of humans being replaced, especially in the podcast space. A host has such a role in a listener's lives. There is such a precious relationship between the listener and the host. And the idea of introducing AI into that equation feels icky to some people. But this study that we conducted with Spoken, which is an AI audiobook production company, they wanted to test how people react to actual audio clips for an actual audiobook. So what we did was we did a blinded study where people We're told to listen to clips of an audiobook. Half a sample got the human narrated clip, and the other half got the spoken's multicast clip. So there's a difference there too. We're comparing a single narration to the multicast where the voices can play multiple characters. So the production style is a little different as well. So each blinded group listened, rated what they heard, heard, rated the narration style. Both clips performed well, but the multicast, Spoken's multicast version, tested a little higher. So when you say the word prefer, we didn't ask somebody to listen to one clip and then the other and tell us what we prefer. It was more we were asking them to rate them. And guess what? People rated the AI narration highly. What is interesting about that is A, we're able to test it without people's preconceived notion, right? They did not know going into it that it was AI. So we could really get their rating without knowing that. But then after the fact, we revealed to them that it was AI. And there was some drop in terms of would you listen to this knowing it's AI. But still, a large percentage of these folks said that they would be willing to listen. It improved their experience, they liked that multi-voice experience, and it's something that they would be interested in listening to.

Sam Sethi 1:07:22

That's interesting because in contrast to the UK report, which one of the findings was the majority of UK listeners see AI as a threat to podcasting.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:32

Yeah, and I think it makes sense. It's a completely different scenario, right? It's a threat to podcasting if you're somebody you listen to and trust all of a sudden isn't who they say they are, right? Whereas in the world of audiobooks, there's already one step between the author and the listener. The listeners expects that the voice that they're listening to isn't necessarily the author. They just expect somebody to be reading the book to them. And actually, the cool thing about this space is that you could choose if you want that single author experience, you can choose that. Or if you want a more interesting produced production with sound effects and multiple voices, that's now available to you as a listener. Those do exist, but those are really, really expensive projects. Like I think there's a new Harry Potter audiobook experience, right? So you could do that, but you'd have to wait around for the next heavily produced Harry Potter. Now, with this technology, if you prefer consuming it this way, you have access to it. And it does sort of open it up to a world of people who maybe thought audiobooks were boring and they're not anymore. Sort of in the same way when I talk to people about podcasts and they say, Oh, I'm just not a podcast listener. And I say, That's not true. You haven't found the right podcast. There's like what you know about podcasts is so little if you say you're not a podcast person. There is content out there for you. You just haven't found the content that appeals to you. And that can be the same in audiobooks. People can say, Oh no, I don't like to listen. I have trouble listening to things, but maybe that's not true if it is produced more like a movie.

Sam Sethi 1:09:10

Yeah, I'm a big audiobook consumer, and that's actually was my gateway into podcasting. So I started listening to long-form books. In fact, I cheated on my MBA, and this is how long ago my MBA was. I used to buy cassettes from the US that got sent to me for all my books that I had to read on my MBA course. And so instead of actually reading the physical book, I got a book summary and then an audio book on a cassette that I listened to. Yes, I am that old.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:38

Well, I'm actually getting my MBA right now, Sam. And let me tell you, it's almost difficult in the opposite way because there's so much temptation when I see a question in my online program. Don't use it. But yeah, trying to expand my brain.

Sam Sethi 1:09:54

Yeah, don't use AI. They've got tools now that check and you get kicked off. Yes. You're doing it now. I did it when I think Alexander Graham Bell just started the phone when I did mine. But anyway. So now one of the last questions I wanted to ask you was when will Edison start to include platforms like Substack and Patreon and Supercast? What I call the creator portals, because I see the trend that more and more people are building brands around themselves, podcasting being one arm of the brand. They'll have merch and they might have blogs and they might have events. Rather than the singularity of, say, an Apple Podcast platform or an overcast. Do you think that Edison will start to add those or track those platforms into share of ear and into consumer behavior?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:45

We already are tracking that in some of the custom research that we provide our clients. We're constantly getting asked more and more about this idea, especially since video podcasts became a thing and the world became so blurry when it comes to podcasts. We actually did research on what is a podcast last year.

Sam Sethi 1:11:07

What was the answer?

SPEAKER_05 1:11:09

Oh, don't let me get into it. It's very different because it's who are you asking? If you ask a consumer, they don't necessarily care. So it's really hard to narrow down when the people in the industry really want a definition and the consumers really don't care. They just want good content. Right? So that'll have to be a whole other call, Sam, about what is a podcast. I know James has his opinions. I have actually I have James's stick on my lap. Something for your ears when your eyes are busy.

Sam Sethi 1:11:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:42

Is the bumper sticker James gave me.

Sam Sethi 1:11:44

Yes, t-shirts will be available at podcast movement from James Crickland. James just interviewed Dan Granger from Oxford Road for this episode and the AMP Accord, which is a group of people trying to define what is a podcast, have come up with a formal definition of it. And then, as you said, Dan very rightly said, as a consumer, they can call a podcast anything they want to. Whether it's just two people on a video talking with no RSS feed or on Netflix or whatever it may be, audio or video. To them, that is a podcast, so that's fine. But to the industry, I think again, what is it? Is it audio video? Yes, it can be. Has it got an RSS feed? Yes. And those are the criteria. Whether that formal definition of podcasting is what gets adopted finally, we'll see. But I think it has legs, and you know when you see it, as I say, what is a podcast?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:39

Yeah, but back to your original question about brands and living in this giant ecosystem across many different platforms. We absolutely are working on research solutions for that because I think it's going to be more and more relevant.

Sam Sethi 1:12:55

I guess the last question then is when's the next report from Edison out? What's your next one down the line? What are you producing and working on today?

SPEAKER_05 1:13:03

So we spoke about the AI narration study. We will have a webinar coming up. I wish I had a date for you. I don't yet. But if you don't already subscribe, if your listeners don't already subscribe, make sure you subscribe to Edison's Weekly Insights because that announces all of the upcoming things. And we do every week release a new data point, usually relevant to the world of audio. And so that's something to look out for every week. And then when I have more exciting announcements, it'll be included there.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:35

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:35

As you said, we had a big July. So give us a break.

Sam Sethi 1:13:40

Most people don't do anything over July and August. It's called the summer holidays. But you guys didn't seem to get the message. Well, enjoy your August off. And yes, you'll be at Podcast Movement in September, I believe.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:52

I will be. Looking forward to it.

Sam Sethi 1:13:54

Yes, James will be there as well. So hopefully the two of you can connect. Look, Megan, thank you so much. Thanks for all the great work that you guys do. And yeah, come on, Spotify. You've lost your crown. Get back on it.

Announcer 1:14:06

The Pod News Weekly Review with Buzz Sprout. Keep podcasting.

Acast results

James Cridland 1:14:14

So a couple of other interesting stories. We have Acast, who've just released their quarter two 26 financial report. Lots of good growth for them, but particularly, so sales growth is up by 28%. But particularly this time last year, Europe was in the doldrums, going up just by 9%. This time up by 25%, and up by 34% in North America. So ACAST appears to be properly now globally increasing, which is really good. The company's back in profit, made a profit of 3.3 million US dollars. It also says that total consumption is up, which is all good. So all good news from ACAST, which is nice to end up seeing.

Sam Sethi 1:15:00

Yeah, I was hoping there would be a breakout. Maybe there isn't the detailed report, maybe I need to read it more. But is there a breakout for the amount of revenue they've generated since they supported Apple Podcasts video versions?

James Cridland 1:15:16

They are very excited about Apple Podcasts. And do you remember that they claimed that they were the first company to make money from Apple Podcasts video? And I said on this show, that's not true. Anyway, what it now says in their financial report is that they're the first company to make money from Apple Podcasts video at scale. Oh, right. Two extra words. Two extra words. Good work.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:41

Get out of jail, Cost. Well done. At scale. Um, but uh yes, but we don't know what that scale is.

James Cridland 1:15:49

And um uh there is mention of HLS in there, but everything um certainly in the documents that I've read so far um are very focused on uh giving a total number. Um I did think it was interesting though, uh I mentioned that total consumption is up, it's it's up by 2%, but total average revenue per listen or view is up 26%. So going back to um talking about uh yield management, ACAST is clearly doing a good job of that. Um, because if consumption is up 2% but the money that they're making is up 26%, well, uh there's a company that knows how to price things. Uh so congratulations to ACAST for those uh numbers. The beers are on you, uh podcast movement, I'm sure.

Sam Sethi 1:16:36

Yeah, you you'll be enjoying that free beer there. Now, um moving on then, James, awards and events.

Awards and events

James Cridland 1:16:43

Yes, awards and events, the International Women's Podcast Awards. Have you entered yet? Just $50 to enter. I don't qualify. I don't think you won't talk to me.

Sam Sethi 1:16:53

You won't talk to me.

James Cridland 1:16:54

Well, you can qualify if you self-identify. Uh those are those those are the rules. Um, but anyway, uh, it's under the ownership of Tink Media these days, and you can enter anytime until the end of the month. It's just fifty dollars. You can enter from any country in the world, and I would highly recommend that. Um, Lauren and the team at Tink Media know what they're doing, uh, they're excellent people to work with, so um you should definitely uh give that a peek. Just do a quick search for Tink Media and you'll find that. Um, and uh also talking about uh awards, uh the British Podcast Awards uh released a long list last week. Now they've released a short list. Uh next week they'll be releasing a tiny list, followed by an ultra list. Eventually they'll release the winners. Um, but you'll have to wait until October the first uh for that. Anyway, those are linked to from the Pod News uh daily newsletter uh as of yesterday. And um a couple of events to tell you about, of course, podcast movement coming up. Um all of the voting for the um speakers has now finished, and it's up to the committee, uh which includes me, uh, to uh work out who else is speaking as well. I'm uh very much looking forward to um to that, of course, in uh New York in mid-September. You should be buying tickets for that if you haven't done so already. $199 uh to get there, and of course, uh you can stay wherever you like, so you can stay uh in somewhere that's nice and cheap if you wish. That is all good. Uh also going on is the tenth year of the Festival del Podcasting. Um I can't believe that's its real name. Anyway, it's in Milan, in Italy. Uh, two separate days this year, which is interesting. One for the industry, then one for the creators, including the Pod 24 Award. If you are in Italy or you speak Italian, then you should be going uh to that again. Uh, tickets are available on

The Tech Stuff

James Cridland 1:18:51

their website.

Announcer 1:18:51

The Tuck Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 1:18:55

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

Sam Sethi 1:19:01

Well, has the stream run dry, James? Um last week's show with Adam Curry and Dave Jones, they talked about the fact that the voltage node for lightning payments that they have has uh cost them more than they're earning. And I think this statement was forget streaming payments, streaming payments is not going to work. It's over, which I thought was a bit harsh considering it works very well on TrueFans, and we still have it.

James Cridland 1:19:28

It works very well on TrueFans and Lot Fountain. And it was also a bit of a sort of throwaway comment oh, streaming payments is over, um, because they were focusing on the boosts. And I think one of the things that I tried to do with Runway is to really focus on how much money actually streaming payments was making. So if you're unfamiliar with streaming payments, really simple idea. You basically say, I like this podcast, I'm going to pay them a tenth of a penny per minute to listen. Um, and automatically um uh I will send a tenth of a penny um uh from my money into their money. That's basically how how it worked. And that was doing for this show, that was doing the majority of the money that we were making. Uh, and uh it was very nice, it was something that just sort of sat there and earned money. And it's a bit of a shame to hear, as an aside from the main point about them closing boosts and things like that, um, oh, forget streaming payments, streaming payments is just not gonna work. Um, so I thought that was a bit sad. Having said that, one of the things that I have been talking about quite a lot is for podcasting 2.0 to own the things that haven't worked. And sadly, very clearly, um, the technology behind, well, not necessarily the technology, but the um but the take up of uh streaming payments hasn't really taken off in a way that we were hoping. Um, and so I can I can kind of see that, but it was very sad to hear actually.

Sam Sethi 1:21:02

Complexity has failed simplicity, and I said it for don't know how long. The KYC requirement of getting a wallet was OTT. Um if you ask my wife, who is technically savvy, that she wants to listen to a podcast but had to do all that in order to make a small micro payment, she's like, get lost, not doing it. And that's the problem. And I think we need something that will come from mainstream banking where people have a high level of trust in their bank, um, which will then provide some sort of digital wallet automatically that will then be available to not just podcast apps but across the internet. The internet needs a micropayment system irrelevant of podcasting. And I still think V for V is a great model. I still think micropayments, the concept, is a great model. I think the underlying tech and the methodology that we've inducted with lightning payments may be the reason that it hasn't seen wider uptake. I'm not throwing out the baby with the bathwater right now.

James Cridland 1:22:00

Yeah, no, I agree, I agree. Now, what Adam and Dave are talking about is we should all be using the podcast funding tag. Uh, that is the thing that powers a little button that um says support this show. Um uh and uh you press it, if you press it on this show, it'll take you to how to become a power supporter. If you press it on the Pod News Daily podcast, then you'll find it takes you to a nice, simple, clean payment page on Stripe, um, which asks for your credit card and tells you, you know, you can leave us a message as well. Um so you can do all of that kind of uh stuff. Um certainly the podcast funding tag I think deserves um to be supported by everybody. I can understand why some people don't, uh, but I wish that they would just go, you know what, um, for one-off payments, yes, absolutely, why not? Um so I think that that'd be quite a good thing, yeah.

Sam Sethi 1:22:52

Yeah, I mean, look, we've talked about on this show Patreon paid over two billion to creators, uh Supercast paid 26 million to its top ten creators. That's all through the subscriber-based monthly payment, aka the funding tag. Um so the model works there as well. We know it works. Um, I think streaming payments and boosts or super comments, as I call them, are a layer on top. Um, and there are multiple other ways to monetize um podcasts. But yeah, we're gonna go back to making the payment through the funding tag. Fine. Let's start there again and work forward again.

James Cridland 1:23:30

Yes, let's move on from that, I think. Yeah.

Sam Sethi 1:23:33

Yeah. Now, talking of podcasting 2-0, Podbean, uh, the latest podcast host, it says here, that uh supports HLS video. Um, but you think it's also supporting the alternative enclosure, James, as well.

James Cridland 1:23:46

Uh yes, um uh I think uh reading the information that they have just posted in their blog, I think that they are now supporting the alternate enclosure to allow other podcast apps to access the video version if you want to upload a video uh version. Of course, this show is never going to be in video. Um but um uh yeah, so I think I think in terms in terms of that, um uh it was just nice to see I uh you you know, I mean a really weirdly written blog post, um, but uh it read to me as if they were supporting um the alternate enclosure without actually saying the phrase alternate enclosure. Um but uh if they're supporting that, then excellent. Um and the and the one thing that I'd just like to mention in terms of um uh Buzzsprout, in terms of the video podcasting that BuzzSprout produce is, and I think this is really clever. I don't know whether this is as intended, but I think it's really clever. If you have magic mastering, which is the way that you can um throw all of your audio through an automatic leveler and it gets rid of any noise and it's it's just uh a much better thing. That still runs if you upload video to it. It runs for the audio version. So if you're only listening to the audio version um on uh any non-HLS uh capable um podcast app, then you will get uh still the nice dynamically processed uh version, which I think is exactly the way that podcast hosts ought to be doing. So hurrah for our sponsor there, because I think that's a neat trick.

Sam Sethi 1:25:22

Last couple then. Uh CastScribe is a new AI-powered tool. Ugh, go on, James, what's this one?

James Cridland 1:25:29

Uh it does transcripts, articles, show notes, and more. If you're on BuzzSprout, just use uh Co-host, which is uh just as good and is available for you as a BuzzSprout um uh customer. So uh you you should end up uh using that. This one has an integration with WordPress, CastScribe does, so there's a thing. And also Audio Linter, which is a WordPress plugin that can make sure that your audio is loud enough, make sure you don't have any big gaps in there. Um uh it can dynamically compress your audio, all of that type of uh thing. Again, if you're a Buzzbrower customer or our sponsor, just use Magic Mastering. Uh, it's much, much better. But it's nice to see these tools appear for people on other podcast hosts.

Inbox

Announcer 1:26:13

Fan mail fan mail and voicemail our favorite time of the week. It's the Pod News Weekly Review inbox.

James Cridland 1:26:20

Yes, so many different ways to get in touch with us. Voicemail by using the link in our show notes or email too. We've had a voicemail which has come in as we are recording this, Sam. Oh, right, okay. Yes, and here it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:34

Hi, Steve, love the Oh, sorry, wrong podcast. Hey James, Sam, Neil Velli over here from PodNose Podcasting. I just wanted to throw in a quick one on the alternative enclosure bit that you were talking about around BuzzRout. And Sam, you called it your bugbear, talking about how Apple was basically taking everything in and building it into its own ecosystem and the video disappearing into the Apple only void the moment that it leaves a Buzzsprout with them testing their alternative enclosure. Um you've just been vindicated by your own sponsor, really. Buzzsprout testing this properly isn't actually tech news in my view. It's an industry more or less admitting, without actually probably intending to, that the open RSS crowd had it right the whole time. Build for the open format first, then let the platforms come and take what they want, not the other way around. So good on BuzzSprout for doing that, rather than just picking a winner and building everything for Apple.

James Cridland 1:27:34

I'm a big fan of fan mail that uh comes in and basically says how good our sponsor is. I think I think we should have more of that. Yes, double our payments if we keep the endings.

Sam Sethi 1:27:46

Albin, is there a threshold of how many voicemails we have to have before you double it?

James Cridland 1:27:51

I would I would doubt that very so very much, but uh Neil, uh yes, thank you for that. And I think um uh, you know, again, not to blow too Much smoke up the buzz sprout fundament, but um they have always been very aware of the openness of the industry. Um uh and uh you you just have to look at their relationship with uh Spotify until recently um to know about that. So I think uh yes, I would I would certainly agree with all that you end up uh saying there as well. Nice. The late Bloomer actor uh has sent us a message, hasn't he?

Sam Sethi 1:28:27

Not going to be doing video anytime soon, hey James. Uh in reference to pod news as I watch on TrueFans, lol.

James Cridland 1:28:35

Ah yes. So this time last week we were actually in video, and I was curious. I I was curious if we made no mention of it. I was curious how many people would notice.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:46

Do you know how many people have noticed, Sam, that we were in video last week? Three. Three Oh, I was guessing.

James Cridland 1:28:55

That was it, that was it. Three. Um Justin Jackson, I was expecting going, oh man, this is really cool. This is really cool. You know, in typical Justin Facts Jackson fashion, no. Uh nothing, not a thing. Three people uh uh spotted that, uh, including the late bloomer actor, another power supporter, thank you. Um, so so that was interesting. Yes, uh, this show last week was edited on iMovie. Oh, yes, I know my editing tools. Uh and um, yes, and the whole thing's on video, which you can watch on TrueFans, you can watch in Apple Podcasts, you can watch in Spotify, uh, and on YouTube. Um, all thanks to the muniscifants of our uh excellent uh uh sponsor. So um thank you for them for enabling us for doing that. We will be in video again at some point, but um there are things that I would like to fix before we do that, I think. So uh yes, but um what the backgrounds, the lighting, yes, uh and all of that. But um, yes, I had a very good conversation with another power supporter, uh James from Lean and Loaf, um, about um things that we might wish to consider for a video version of this as well. They've even got editors in Australia, it turns out, uh, which is quite nice. So, anyway, we will uh see what happens there. But um thank you for that, uh David, and thank you also Seth Goldstein. Great show today, chaps. Again, that's the sort of feedback that we like. Um, so thank you both for your uh boosts using the using the it's ended. Uh let's not forget, you know, let's forget about it. Um uh technique of sending us um very small amounts of Bitcoin. Um uh thank you uh so much, Seth, for uh doing that. Uh if you would like to send us some money, uh the easiest way is to become a power supporter. We've got 24 supporters right now. Weekly.podnews.net is where you can do that. Sam and I share any money that we make. Um there is also a super secret WhatsApp group where only power supporters can get in. Uh, the first invites for that uh have been uh sent. If you uh haven't yet um uh seen one, then you should tell us somehow uh and we will add you there. Uh we'll be going out, the rest of them will be going out. It's just me catching up. There

Sam and James's new week

James Cridland 1:31:13

you go. And um what's happened for you, uh Sam, this week?

Sam Sethi 1:31:18

Well, it's a mate's 50th birthday, so we did a chicken wings pub crawl round London. Uh he likes spicy chicken wings. Um, the first place we went to scared the hell out of me because we had to put rubber gloves on to eat the chicken wings, they were that spicy.

James Cridland 1:31:34

Can I just uh query this because rubber gloves, because they were so spicy, but you're putting them in your face.

Sam Sethi 1:31:43

I know. I I was very nervous because I'm not a massive chicken wings fan personally, but my friend Todd, whose birthday is, loves hot, spicy chili anything. Yes, and when we had to put gloves on in order to pick them up to eat them because the chili would be so hot, I was like, whoa, this is not a great start to a pub crawl. But we didn't have to do that anywhere else. We went to weirdly Michelin star-based chicken wings place called Fowl.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:09

Well, of course you did, Sam Zephanie. I mean, where where else would you go? But a Michelin Star Chicken Wings place. Wow.

Sam Sethi 1:32:18

Well, you know, uh, but we you know, we ended up in Hackney as well, you know. You know, we went all over the place. No, it was good fun. So we did that. Um, and then to uh burn off all of that, my wife decided to take us on the horseshoe of Penny Fan, which is one of the highest uh mountains up in Wales. Um, everyone said we had luck because we had uh a clear sunny day and we took the dog up with us as well. Uh, there were 12 of us who did that, which is great fun. Um, and I'm off to Ireland in August to go and do um, I don't even know how to say this, Caron Toolhill, which is uh the highest peak in Ireland. So I'm gonna be doing that. Uh and this weekend I'm off to complete the South Downs walk that we started. Um, so the hundred kilometre walk. So we're doing the Seven Sisters. So yes, Boyam Naked. That's all I can say. Boy Am Naked.

James Cridland 1:33:17

I don't know. But uh yes. Um uh but uh I've probably murdered that as well. I should um I should contact my Irish friend uh who would uh tell me. Um well that all looks good news. Do you have any disappointing, sad news that you wish to uh uh share with us? Uh no, I'm going to see Britain. It says here you're seeing Bruno Mars.

Sam Sethi 1:33:38

I was looking at my list, I was going, I don't think there's anything sad in here. No, uh Bruno Mars. No, I'm excited. Bruno Mars in at Wembley. Good. Started my 60th year of presence. Yes. So there you go. Well, there we go. Very nice. Very nice. You'll you'll know what it's like in a few years' time. Yes, I will. Um uh one podcast I'd like to recommend uh channels with Peter Kafka. They interview interviewed um Chris Balfe. He's the CEO of Redseat Ventures. We've been talking about them for a few weeks. Balfe? Oh, I don't know. Is it?

James Cridland 1:34:16

Oh, I I I'm I may I may have been pronouncing it wrong. I should go and I should go and take a listen. Um, yes, uh, so uh of course, CEO of Redseat Ventures, um, and of course, Redseat Ventures now part of Fox, and so therefore, uh all kinds of information to hear in there. So that should be well well worth a listening.

Sam Sethi 1:34:35

They've been buying up lots of things like um supercast and stuff like that as well. So, yes. Um, new episode out this week with Claire and I, Claire Wake Brown for Creators from TrueFans. So if you have a charge, please do listen in. Um, it's quite good. And uh we've also added private feeds now. So finally, uh if you can't beat them, join them. Um, we have premium content within TrueFans within the app, so you don't have to leave the app, go to another platform, set up your private feed or your premium content, and then have them bring a private feed back. That's been the old way of doing things. Uh, I think it should be within app, but we still have to bridge the gap, and so we decided that we would import private feeds that people had from Substack, Patreon, Memberful, etc., and they get added to your library, and that all works now. So, yeah, that's a feature we've added this week.

James Cridland 1:35:28

Very nice, very nice indeed. Gosh, you've been uh you've been busy, busy, busy, uh, which is awesome. Indeed. Now, what's happened for you, James?

James's new t-shirt

James Cridland 1:35:36

Uh, I have bought a new t-shirt.

Sam Sethi 1:35:38

I love that t-shirt. I want that t-shirt.

James Cridland 1:35:40

Yes, uh, you can you can see a picture of it. It's um uh I might put a picture of it in the chapters uh there again. I might not. Anyway, it's a it's a uh it's a um t-shirt that says clean up Clacton, vote Count Binface. Um uh who of course is uh Count Binface is um uh uh um uh taking part in a by-election um against your friend Nigel Farage. Uh can we please put that in quotes? Do you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:36:13

You've you've you've been in the same room as him more than once. I happen to know more than once, far too many times, yes. I happen to know.

James Cridland 1:36:21

So, anyway, I am uh if if I was if I lived in Clacton, then firstly, my goodness, I'd be moving.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:27

But also, secondly, I would be voting Campbin Face. So uh so hurrah.

James Cridland 1:36:32

Um, so yes, uh absolutely fascinating.

Sam Sethi 1:36:35

Come on, Britain. Do your thing.

James Cridland 1:36:37

What I am very much looking forward to is uh being the only person in Australia with a vote countbin face t-shirt and no one understanding what it's about. Uh so that should be quite funny. Anyway, that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories taken from the Pod News Daily newsletter at podnews.net.

Sam Sethi 1:36:54

You can give us feedback using the BuzzSprout voicemail link in our show notes, or become a monthly power supporter like the 24 Power Supporters at weekly.podnews.net.

James Cridland 1:37:05

Yes, our music is from TM Studios. Our voiceovers, Sheila D. Our audio is recorded using CleanFeed, we edit with Hindenburg, and we're hosted and sponsored by BuzzSprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Announcer 1:37:17

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