SPEAKER_02 0:00

The death of RSS has been predicted since probably the the day after it was invented. I think the openness of RSS is one of the mechanisms that underpins expression on the internet.

James Cridland 0:12

Ben Richardson from RSS.com on the launch of their new video podcasting program that everybody can make money from. Plus, ACAST is buying stuff from America's backyard with James Cridlin and Sam Sethy.

Announcer 0:26

This is the Pod News Weekly Review with Buzz with BuzzSprout. Start podcasting, heat podcasting.

RSS.com launches video podcasting you can earn from

Sam Sethi 0:36

James, so we had news that RSS.com is taking video to the max. What's this one about?

James Cridland 0:43

What is this one about? Well, um, RSS.com, who are a podcast hosting company, uh, I'm an advisor for them. They have added HLS video podcasting for Apple Podcasts that you can earn from. Uh, and I think it's the that you can earn from that is the important thing here. We've talked a lot about different podcast hosting companies adding HLS video podcasting now for Apple Podcasts. But uh, yeah, um, RSS.com is letting you earn 70% of the revenue. There's no audience threshold at all, and it offers unlimited video and audio podcasts available now.

Sam Sethi 1:22

Well, I thought, you know, let's get it from the horse's mouth. And so I pinged Benjamin and Alberto, the co-founders of RSS.com, but I started off by asking them tell us more about what you're doing with uh RSS.com's new HLS video podcasting.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Today we announced our launch of Apple HLS video, but with a twist compared to many of the other offerings. We allow video with advertisement, and the creator, the podcaster, is gonna make uh 70% of the revenue, and the eligibility criteria are no criteria. You just need to get our new plan called MAX, and you can start making money from day one from the first episode.

Sam Sethi 2:11

Excellent. So you would go to the website, you would upgrade to MAX, you would use the RSS.com Paid, which I love as an acronym. Remind me, what is PAID stand for? It's very clever.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

So PAID stands for programmatic ads inserted dynamically. We want everybody to get paid. And so we came up with that acronym to convey that message.

Sam Sethi 2:31

Yeah, that's very nice. Now that's been one of the sticking points for a lot of people moving over to video from an audio only podcast, is that there was no dynamic ad insertion. So this is addressing that problem. Now, with this solution that you've brought forward, one of the things you've done as well, which I think is very clever, is not only are you allowing it to go through to the Apple channels, great. Not only are you allowing a revenue share, great. Also, Alberto, using the alternative enclosure. Can you explain more about that, please?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Absolutely. When we provide ads with content, both audio and video, there are different ways so that ads are added to this content. One is interstitials. Interstitials are what we use with Apple. It means we deliver the video as a playlist and then we deliver a separate, let's call it, file metadata, where we tell to Apple podcasts to stitch ads at certain specific points. For example, at minute one zero three, stitch ads number 001, and so on. Those are interstitials for the ultimate enclosure. Because independent apps, to the best of my knowledge, don't have out-of-the-box capabilities to interpret interstitials. We bake ads into the audio file and video file. That's exactly what we do. Which means effectively that our podcasters can make money also through the alternate enclosure, which we find it very exciting. It's a way to also keep podcasting open to leverage a very powerful podcasting 2.0 tag. And so we are very excited about also being able to have our users and podcasters make money from podcasting 2.0 applications.

Sam Sethi 4:29

Nice. Now, one of the things that Apple has done is added a fee for serving ads through the Apple channel through their API. How are you addressing that? Is there a number now that Apple has revealed that says how much they will take, or is it something that's still an industry secret on what Apple's doing?

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Well, like all contracts that Apple negotiates, I think everything is secret until they decide to make it not so. So we're not able to share anything, but I would say that we've always felt in every dealing we've had with Apple that they're fair and they are partners in the sense of how they care about podcasting and where they see themselves. Others may disagree with that, but from our perspective, they've always been a very fair partner in some respects with the workload of keeping podcasting open, of distributing it more, and keeping it a viable channel for creators to express themselves and to be heard. So video is a new thing for everybody, and I think everybody is hoping to not make bankrupting sort of decisions as we pursue broadening the distribution of creative works.

Sam Sethi 5:42

Yeah, I think the numbers are all over the place. If you look at every host, some are really high, some are really quite low. There's no medium right now that everyone's settling on. So, with the fact that James Cridland, my co-host, and Adam Curry, the inventor of podcasting, has said that apps need to get paid. And the idea that Apple has put this fee in place for any ads served through their platform. Do you see this as a way of extending payments through to apps as well?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

It's certainly a start for something. I don't think it's the end. I don't think we've seen how this is going to develop. Internally at RSS, we talk about it as not a negative, but as a positive, as an opportunity that we need to explore. And so we're doing that frequently, both on the engineering side. And what would this look like? What does this cost? What does this do to the industry itself? How can we support apps? We were one of the first supporters of streaming SATS. In fact, we did a video conference in Mexico City with James. I remember him well.

Sam Sethi 6:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

And it was wonderful to watch the SATs rolling in as people watched or listened from all over the world. So we're always looking for opportunities to do things like that. And I'll just say that if we can, we'll do it. And that's a commitment that we've had from day one. And where that will be, what it'll look like, we still haven't decided or figured out yet.

Sam Sethi 7:10

Alberto, we talked about the alternative enclosure. It's one of the things that I've never understood about the Apple API video solution. Why do you think they didn't just adopt the alternative enclosure? They've adopted the podcasting 2.0 namespace. So extending it to the alternative enclosure and supporting HLS in the primary seems the most logical thing they could have done, but they went down an API road. Do you have any insights as to why they might have done that?

SPEAKER_00 7:39

I don't have uh a real insight on the business reasons. And I agree that from an engineering standpoint, if I wear my technical hat, then having the alternate enclosure would have been desirable. But what I realize, and again, this is not Apple information, it's me inferring. I realize that video brings a lot more potential liability. There is CSAM, so it's like about pornography, child pornography, adult content. These are very important, sensitive topics. So my feeling in a workflow where you deliver a video, which is much more dangerous in these terms than audio. When you deliver a video through the alternate enclosure, perhaps the workflow is less controlled. If you have an API where you submit a video, the video can trigger internal processes, for example, controls, automatic, semi-automatic, manual. I think this makes it a much safer space. So while Apple didn't tell us the reason why they want the API, I really think it has to do in good faith with really the processes to keep a safe space, to offer a safe space for users. So I get why, and I think that's the reason.

Sam Sethi 9:00

I get that as well, but I do worry that we now have Apple requiring uploads via an API. We have YouTube requiring video via an API because the RSS uploader doesn't do the video and Spotify as well. Are we seeing, and ironically, I'm telling this to the company called RSS? Are we seeing the end of RSS?

SPEAKER_02 9:21

No, I was just gonna say absolutely not. The death of RSS has been predicted since probably the the day after it was invented. There is a very strong gravity towards open access for expression, and I think that's never gonna go away. I think the openness of RSS is one of the mechanisms that underpins expression on the internet. Now, there are companies that will try to aggregate as much as possible the creative works of anybody so that they can make money. But in regards to the free expression and distribution of expression, I think there's nothing that's ever gonna kill RSS. If you shout in the forest and no one hears you, you still are able to shout in the forest. And there are plenty of people that do it. And I think, of course, we should worry about aggregators accumulating excess profits from other people's work. But as far as the expression and the openness of RSS and what that does on the internet, I think there's no concerns.

Sam Sethi 10:25

So let's move on then. The solution that you're presenting is dynamic ad insertion of video, which is great. But Spotify and YouTube, two big platform players out there, are pre-requiring that all the dynamic ad insertions are moved. So a lot of hosts of podcasts have gone back to host red ads, which both those platforms don't remove. How are you addressing those two platforms? Do you have to create a special version in RSS.com for your creators so that they can also publish to Spotify and YouTube?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Well, to YouTube, we already push the video to YouTube. And and actually the video is without ads. We could push a video with ads. The reason why we are doing that, it's not because we feel that we are gonna benefit from it. It's just because podcasters want to be on YouTube. They want to be on YouTube mainly for discoverability. We have data on video podcasting for over two years, actually. We have been collecting it because we launched, I think two years ago, maybe a bit more, a product that we called the code name was PodVs. It's our audio-to-video product. And between 10 and 15% of our podcasters push, click that button so that their audio is converted into a semi-static video that ends up in YouTube. So many podcasters want to be on YouTube because of this coverability. So if you want to be on YouTube and you don't want to make your workflow more complex, you don't want to upload twice, we just integrate with YouTube. But YouTube has its own rule. So if you publish your podcast, your video podcast on YouTube through us or directly on YouTube, you're gonna have advertisement in there, you're gonna have advertisement, and you're gonna do literally anything until you are eligible to do revenue split. So, really, as a comparison, YouTube asks you to reach a thousand subscribers and either 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months or 10 million shorts views. So it's not so easy to be eligible. And so yeah, it plays by its own rules. We just facilitate the publication there. We don't do that with Spotify yet, we are considering, but we don't have a direct incentive there just because Spotify also hosts like YouTube and we don't get the analytics. So we are we're very open. We know our colleagues at Baspro just launched that, and I bet they did that because the user, the podcasters, want that. It's not because the industry is gonna benefit by that, it's about discoverability.

Sam Sethi 13:10

Yeah, I agree. I think Spotify still is the closed walled garden in our industry. Anyway, the other thing that Spotify did last week that James Crittland had the exclusive on in Pod News Daily was the skip button. Now, this is something that has gone down like a very bad smell, let's say. Not very many people are very happy within the industry. Ben, why do you think Spotify brought a skip button for ads?

SPEAKER_02 13:39

I mean, I can only go based on what they've said, and it sounds like this is experimental, only available in certain geographies. They certainly have a duty to their premium users to deliver as much of a premium experience as they can. Now, whether Spotify can offer a premium experience to a podcast listener if their chosen podcast is not available on Spotify anymore because they've decided to boycott them because they're not getting ad revenue. That's another question that I'm sure they're gonna have to address at some point in time. But I don't blame anybody for trying to give the best product they can to their customers. Where things get a little tricky is when people assume that they have certain opportunities to service those customers that are not really fair or balanced in the equitable exchange of these podcasts or any other method of expression. So I think there's still a lot of water to go. I'm not too worked up over it, to be honest with you, Sam. I mean, there's a danger. The danger is if you have put all your money in Spotify distributing your podcast and you don't even upload it anywhere else, and there's no options for your listeners to continue with you, or your watchers if you're a video podcaster. But that is building your house on a soundy foundation. And I think every podcaster's duty is to do the best for themselves, just like Spotify will do the best for themselves. And in an open and competitive market, things will work out well. Over time. Let me put that in there. It takes time, and everybody's gonna experiment and everybody's gonna try to do their best. But over time, I think things will settle out in a way that is best for the end user, which is the listener or the creator. And we sit in a position to try to service those two customers, and I think everybody's doing their best. So I don't want to I don't want to cast any aspersions towards Spotify. I hate the product myself personally, but I don't blame anybody for exploring different routes to serve their customers.

Sam Sethi 15:38

Yeah, I said to James, I think it's the AI team going, look how clever we are, and the advertising team at span within Spotify going, What the hell are you doing? So yes, I think there's left meet right. Now, Alberto, last week the EU brought in their new AI directive, Article 50, which is basically the declaration of AI within content. Not so much in the production of the content, but in the output of the content in terms of spoken. Now, you have been very much at the forefront of putting in a proposal to the podcasting 2.0 community for an AI tag. What are your thoughts on this new EU AI directive?

SPEAKER_00 16:22

So this directive is not something new. It has been around for a couple of years. And it started last week. And as an industry, I tried to be vocal because I thought there was a low-hanging fruit in the voluntary disclosure. And really, the low-hanging fruit, rather than moderation or you know, penalizing people who use AI, the low-hanging fruit is that as hosting companies, we can facilitate compliance for the user. And to do that, we acted on two different layers. The first was a very simple user interface to declare voluntarily whether you used AI significantly in your episode. So we did that, and we also shared officially on GitHub with our friends and colleagues in the podcast standard project. We shared real-world examples of user interfaces they can implement in their dashboards, control panels. So that's what we did, like practically speaking. And on the other hand, what we did was also creating a questionnaire for creators, which is at the address shouldidisclose.ai, just to help them navigate whether it makes sense to disclose or not. For example, being compliant with the EU AI Act, it's not the only requirement for podcasters. Apple guidelines also require to disclose if a material portion of your episode or episodes contain AI. So this material definition is very broad, probably deliberately. So with the questionnaire that we created, based on research, not necessarily on opinion, we facilitated podcasters. So my appeal in general is that having a disclosure, embedding it as a hosting company is just a way to help our podcasters comply. I do not think, but I don't know, we as hosting company are liable if a podcaster uses AI, doesn't disclose it, and gets fined through this EU AI Act. But in any case, regardless, because I don't know the legalities, facilitating helps the creators and also help us as an industry to show that we have the goodwill to comply.

Sam Sethi 18:52

Ben, being in America, will America even take any notice of this? Is it another, oh, it's those commies in the EU trying to stop us have fun again? What is America's view on this?

SPEAKER_02 19:02

I can't speak for America, Sam. You know that. I have no idea.

Sam Sethi 19:07

Well, there was the take an American on this code.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

I mean, I'll tell I'll tell you this, and this is the example that was going through my head. I was recently in Italy to see Alberto. I rented a vehicle to get me around. If I had done some crazy driving, like Italians sometimes do, and I got in an accident, would the rental company be liable or would the driver be liable? Would the car manufacturer be liable? Where does the burden sit? I know in the United States we have pretty significant expectations from the end user and not the person that provided the ink for the newspaper. This is all new to everybody, and it seems like the legislation is not even fully baked yet.

Sam Sethi 19:51

If I want to find out more, Ben, where would I go?

SPEAKER_02 19:55

To find out more, just come to our website, rss.com. We've got a tremendous amount of information there. You can dig as deep as you want. We produce a great blog. We have great video content on YouTube. So pretty much anywhere you want to go learn about us, just search for us rss.com.

Sam Sethi 20:10

Alberto, if I wanted to see a good example of this working today, what podcast would I go and look at?

SPEAKER_00 20:16

So you could look at the podcast from our head of relationship, Greg Wasserman. You can just search Greg Wasserman on your favorite podcast app on Podcast Index, and it's a podcast about podcast networks. And he started to do it in video. He was one of our first pilots, and I think it's a great show.

Sam Sethi 20:35

Gentlemen, it's always good to see you both. Take care. I won't be at podcast movement, but I assume you will be. So have a great time with James.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

We're sad we won't see you, Sam. We'll raise a glass for you. We'll definitely keep you in the loop on all the discussions that happen around Podcasting 2.0 and the Podcast Standards Project. We think there's a lot of open collaboration that can happen within the industry, and we're looking forward to doing that as well.

Sam Sethi 20:59

I will have FOMO, but enjoy yourselves as always.

Announcer 21:02

The Pod News Weekly Review with BuzzSt. With Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

More companies add video

James Cridland 21:11

Plenty more people adding uh video on Apple Podcasts as well. Speak Easy, um, which is uh Red Seat Ventures' four-month-old content creation platform. Uh still in uh invite-only mode, but nevertheless, that now does uh Apple Podcasts video. And uh Justin Jackson has also added a very, very helpful page, which is all about who is supporting not just Apple Podcasts HLS video, but HLS video in RSS, as he calls it, which is the alternate enclosure as well, which is uh well worth uh looking at too.

Sam Sethi 21:44

Now, uh RSS.com, as we said, has no qualifying entry for video

YouTube makes it twice as hard to qualify

Sam Sethi 21:49

ads, but YouTube on the same day announced on Monday that the new creators will have to meet higher thresholds to begin earning money from ads and subscriptions. Come on, James. What have YouTube done now?

James Cridland 22:02

Yes. They've doubled the qualification. So um you're smart. Yes. So now you need 8,000 qualified watch hours over the past year or 20 million qualified shorts views in the last 90 days. I was wearing shorts earlier on in the gym. Ha ha. Anyway. No one needs to see that. No one needs to see that. Anyway, uh, yes, so they've basically made it twice as hard um to uh qualify for money through the YouTube partner program. Now they say that they haven't changed anything since 2018. They also say that uh, you know, uh YouTube is growing. It now sees over 200 billion daily shorts views and over a million hours of watch time on TV every what uh every day and all this kind of nonsense. But um, yes, that is that makes it significantly harder for creators to get into YouTube's monetization program. That's going to be quite a difficult thing, I would have thought.

Sam Sethi 22:59

Why are they doing it, James? What what is it? Have they got too many people now on the platform making money and they're like, set the bar higher, get rid of a load of people? What is it?

James Cridland 23:08

It's the end shittification of um of everything, basically. They've uh worked out that they can probably still get the same amount of great content uh uploaded to YouTube for free. It's a great business model um and they'll have to pay out even less in terms of money. Um that's basically it, I suppose. So uh, I mean, well done, well done for them, uh given that they can do that. Now, the uh to be fair, you are also going to be able to earn more money on the platform because, as part of the announcement, uh YouTube has also said that it's expanding Premium Lite, which is their cheaper subscription, to all countries where YouTube Premium is available. So if you don't know what the difference is, YouTube Premium has music in there, so it's um a good alternative to Spotify given that it's got music in there as well as videos and no adverts. Um, premium light is just the videos and you don't get the music service as part of that. Um it's what I've got, it's absolutely fine. So um that potentially means that creators will earn more because if you are a premium light subscriber, you'll actually be giving more money to creators than they get from advertising. So um I suppose that that part of it is good news. It's just that you'll have to work harder to get some of that money.

Sam Sethi 24:29

They're not the only ones doing it though, James. Facebook and X, or is it called SpaceXAI now? I don't know what they call the company fully. Anyway, um Elon Musk's company is now revamping its creator payout. Um, they've just put the details online, it's called the only reward original content. Uh and Facebook also has a new monetization program to attract creators from TikTok and YouTube. So everyone, it seems, is hunting down creators and trying to give them the I don't know, golden egg on their platform.

James Cridland 25:04

Yeah, indeed. And of course, um everybody is hunting down creators, and instead of creators coming to the platforms with their own advertising, it does look very much as if the platforms would like you to not do that, and instead um uh they will give you money instead. Um so perhaps if you have um uh you know laid your entire business out of um by selling advertising to other people, um, you're gonna find that harder and harder by the looks of this. But um, yeah, it's um uh interesting changes in the uh in the in the world. Of course, podcasting with Open RSS doesn't change there, although you know, uh if you're throwing your um stuff onto uh YouTube, then uh I guess it will do.

Sam Sethi 25:53

Okay, I'm gonna ask this question because again, playing dumb. So Spotify and YouTube don't allow dynamic ad insertion, they only allow host red ads or ads that they serve from the platform. In in terms of Spotify video, yes. Yes, that's right. Yeah. So looking at what rss.com's done, is the only platform apart from the podcasting 2.0 apps, is the only platform, major platform, Apple, then, that will allow this to work?

James Cridland 26:21

Um, I think uh Apple Podcasts certainly will um allow these ads to appear because that's how HLS video works, and that's the benefit of HLS video. Of course, Pocketcasts and other people as well through the alternate enclosure. And my understanding is that uh that also uh gets the ads in there as well. Um, so um, but I don't think um that you'll be able to earn in that way through the paid platform with YouTube or with uh Spotify video, no.

Sam Sethi 26:52

So uh if you want to learn more about this as well from our sponsors, Buzzsprout, I just want to highlight something. Rob Greenley's new media show had an interview last night with Olban Brooke, the marketing uh person from Buzzsprout, talking about Buzzsprout's implementation of HLS and also uh advertising as well. So well worth a listen to if you haven't heard that one as well.

James Cridland 27:17

Yeah, indeed. And Rob is getting a ton of really good people on. He had Barry Kranz from uh Blueberry uh on um uh as well uh uh last week, and that was fascinating. A good sort of listen back. He's a very different character to uh Todd Cochrane, of course. Um and it was uh a good listen. But uh Rob is on fire with that show, so um uh hopefully, hopefully people will be um you know watching it a little bit more. When are you going on then? He has actually said, Oh James, you should uh you should come back on. Um but uh yes, but I'm not quite sure when that's going to be. But um yes, it would be fun to go back on. Yeah. Maybe I could talk about uh whatever whatever Spotify's planning.

Sam Sethi 28:01

Uh that might be a thing. Yes. When you know or do you know, question mark. Um you could probably talk about it. No, um the Barry Kranz interview, um, he did say something. He suggested that hosting, storage, and delivery has become a commodity. The competitive difference now comes from the tools, services, support, analytics, and distribution options as well as the human expertise. I couldn't agree more. Commoditisation of hosting now. Because as we'll talk about later in the show, it looks like everyone's pretty much now got their Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Podcast Index strategy for audio and video sorted. There's a few outliers, but nearly everyone's got there. So now what do we do to differentiate price? Yes. But beyond price, I think it is those services beyond that. So um no indeed. Well well worth watching. Moving on then,

Acast acquires Backyard Ventures

Sam Sethi 28:53

James, ACARST, who were one of the first partners for Apple's API podcast, uh video podcasting. Um they've bought a company called Backyard Ventures. Who or what is Backyard Ventures?

James Cridland 29:06

They're a pretty big deal, actually. Um, they're home to um podcasts like Piers Morgan's Uncensored. I'm sure you've heard of Piers Morgan, uh Sam. Unfortunately, yes. Yes. Yes, but but but the good news is they're also home to good stuff as well. So Ryan Holiday is on there, um, who does a show called The Daily Stoic. Um, but they are massive. Um, they've got audiences of more than 230 million people per month. Um, so they're a very large company. Um they will all stay with Acast. Um, you won't see the Backyard Ventures brand anymore because that will um move into uh into the ACAS fold. Um, but that's a loss for both Art19 and Megaphone, who are both uh monetizing their shows, and a win for ACAST. I think that's a very clever move from uh ACAST to focus a bit more on the US.

Sam Sethi 30:02

Why do they need to buy the content? Um, you know, is it now a game of everyone buying up, you know, podcasts so they've got inventory?

James Cridland 30:10

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a scale thing. I think that uh ACAST clearly needs some additional scale in the US. They've already been very successful in the UK, they've been very successful in parts of Europe. It may well be, if you look at the growth that they've been having in the US recently, it may well be that they are simply running out and they need more inventory to go out and sell. But also, Backyard Ventures is a pretty good, pretty large company, which is uh quite um uh attractive to somebody to buy. Um, they ended up buying it for $20 million, which is um, you know, I think that's um quite a bargain. So I think that they've done uh pretty well there.

Sam Sethi 30:50

Yeah, I mean they were a very successful company in their own right. They generated 16.1 million in revenue in 2025. Um they had an annual growth rate of 65%. So again, seems odd that they want to sell at the time. 20 million, no offense, seems very low.

James Cridland 31:08

Yeah, well, you know, I think uh certainly it helps um uh, you know, in in terms of growth, in terms of growth for that company, um, you can well see that uh being part of ACAST is going to be good. And there does come a point, as any um podcast publisher or as any media publisher uh knows, when you end up having a bit of a focus on um the amount of the marketplace that you have, people will be going to ACast who won't be bothered going to somebody like Backyard Ventures. Yes, they're large, but they're nowhere near as large as ACAST are. Um, and so actually, you know, scale is very important uh in terms of that. Advertising agencies are lazy, lazy people, and they would much rather go to one large publisher or one or two large publishers than go to ten smaller ones. Um, and so I think you you you can well see that actually for the benefit of all of their creators, uh, this is probably a good thing.

Sam Sethi 32:08

Now, the story you broke exclusively about Spotify's skip ahead button, Ben Richardson, as we heard, sat on the fence about that one, wasn't very uh demonstrative either way, against or for Spotify. But um Greg Glenday did say something about the Spotify skip ahead button. What was his thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Yes, indeed. He said this. We do have some creators on the ACAST platform who are not happy about this, and we will support them completely as they evaluate any recourse. ACast is working privately with Spotify to understand if we could have collaborated more on the rollout or positioning. I'm an AI voice from Wondercraft.

James Cridland 32:46

Now that's interesting because he didn't give us a statement when we asked uh last week uh for that particular story. Um I think that they probably had to have a quick think about what they were going to end up saying and saying something which is basically, you know, he's he's not necessarily saying this is a dreadful thing for Spotify to be doing, but he does sound as if he is um giving Spotify a bit of a hand slap for not talking to their partners first, and Acast is clearly a partner of uh Spotify. So yeah, I I you know um uh it is it is interesting. It's one of only a few people who've put their head above the parapet and said, what you're doing Spotify is wrong. Glenn Rubinstein is another one. He is the boss of Adopter Media, and uh he says that uh you know it's not uh it's not a good thing. Uh in fact, he says it's fundamentally wrong, uh, which is a good uh quote. You can hear him in the media roundtable podcast this week. Um I find it fascinating, although not um altogether unsurprising, that so many people who rely on podcast advertising for a living have sat on their hands and said, bugger all on this. Um when Spotify is there, and and uh I'm I'm gonna be publishing another story next week about this because I've discovered even more. Um, but when Spotify is there Don't tell other people who won't give you credit, James. Yes, semaphores. Sorry.

Sam Sethi 34:21

James, I'd say

Bumper say ignore Apple

Sam Sethi 34:22

it's just ignore Spotify. Weirdly though, Bumper is saying ignore Apple. Why aren't they saying ignore Apple?

James Cridland 34:30

Yes, this is a blog post actually as a result of this very show. So a couple of weeks ago, I I I said something which is um quoted in the Bumper um uh story here, uh saying that um Apple's uh play figure makes no sense whatsoever uh on this uh show. Um and uh they have now written a big blog post about it, which essentially says um, look, uh this is how we think the number is calculated, and uh we advise clients who are looking at the number of Apple Podcast plays to just ignore them because they don't make any sense whatsoever. Um which I thought is, you know, I mean, again, very few people put their head above the parapet and say, you know, and call Apple out in the same way that very few people put their head above the parapet and call Spotify out, possibly because they they want to make sure that the shows that they produce are still promoted by Apple or by Spotify, and they don't want to go onto the naughty step. Um, but in this particular case, yeah, I mean, you know, Dan uh at um Bumper is basically saying, you know, look, um, we advise our clients not to do anything with the play counts that appear in Apple Podcasts Connect. Um, don't add them to plays on Spotify and on YouTube because you can't do that because they're because that you know, I mean it would be nice, but it would be very wrong. Um, and there is a way of increasing your play count in Apple Podcasts Connect. Make longer episodes. No, Sam, we're not gonna make longer episodes. But the longer the episode, the less likely it is to be consumed in a single uninterrupted playback session, and so therefore you'll get more plays on Apple Podcasts. It's a nonsense thing, and I do wish that they would fix it because it makes little sense.

Ad revnue on the up

James Cridland 36:27

So yeah.

Sam Sethi 36:28

Now, James, uh, here's a story that you wrote about podcast ad revenue is up 23% year on year, according to Magellan AI. That sounds great, but there are caveats in that, which is that it feels like there's more hours or minutes of advertising, which for me sounds like the reasons apps like Podcastic and Spotify skip a head button came into um existence. So is this good news or bad news?

James Cridland 36:53

I think it's good news. Um so podcast ad revenue is up 23% year on year. That's a pretty good thing. The amount of ads in podcasting has increased, but it's only increased by six percent. Um, so uh if you look at it in total. So the average podcast is now 8.75% ads, which is up from 8.25% ads last quarter, which um if you want to know what that really means, well, during a typical hour you'll hear five and a half minutes. Now that's an average. So that means that there are some podcasts out there that are chock full of ads, and that's probably a bad thing. Um, and to to be clear, I actually have a thing about very long ad breaks. I think that um podcast apps should be skipping them. I'll be fair. Um, I think the question is how long is too long? Um, and uh, you know, and that's and that's probably a different a different conversation. Um, but no, Magellan AI's quarter two twenty-six podcast advertising quarterly benchmark report, snappy name, uh, snappy report, um, is uh available now for download. And you can also watch a webinar. Uh Cameron from um uh Magellan AI will be going through all of the results um next week. Uh uh August the 20th. Is that next week or the week after? Maybe it is indeed, yes. Anyway, um, yes, so you can uh sign up for that for free and uh learn uh a little bit more. But it's uh it's a really good piece of uh of of uh work. Obviously, Magellan AI are the Pod News Daily supporters this month. So um of course I would say nice things about them, but I would say nice things about them anyway, to be honest.

Sam Sethi 38:34

There

Around the world

Sam Sethi 38:35

we go. Let's whiz around the world, James. Uh in the US, it seems I was just thinking just now, um, if I cast my back mine back three, four years ago, um, podcasting was pretty simple. You had probably Apple as the big player, and then you had a few apps uh and a bunch of hosts. Then Spotify got into podcasting, then you got YouTube, now it's Netflix, and it seems like everyone now is getting into podcasting. This time it's Disney Plus and Hulu. What are they doing?

James Cridland 39:05

Yes. Yes. So, well, uh it I mean it's really iHeart. Um, iHeartMedia announced alongside their financial results this week, announced a video podcasting deal with Disney Plus and Hulu. They have managed to flog six of their titles to that uh particular streamer, beginning with a podcast called Hey Jonas, which is all about the Jonas brothers, um, which is uh streaming as of today. It's not, you know, I mean it may it it's it's not for the likes of you or me, Sam, but it may well be for many, many other people. So anyway, um uh but I think that does say a few things. It says that podcasting is, you know, uh certainly growing on different platforms. We've obviously had the big Netflix thing. Um, iHeart has a big relationship with Netflix. Uh now they've got their podcasts onto Disney Plus and Hulu as well. Um, and of course, The Ringer, uh, who have relaunched a gambling and sports podcast of theirs. It used to be called the Ringer's Gambling Podcast, I believe. Great name. Anyway, they changed that to be called Wise Guys, and that podcast is going to be streaming on Twitch, which again, you know, is an interesting uh move in terms of a new platform, isn't it?

Sam Sethi 40:27

Yeah, I mean, I've been wondering when Twitch was going to do something through uh lockdown when we had COVID. There was so many artists live broadcasting on Twitch, a couple of my favourite ones did, but um nothing really has grown. I mean, I'm not a big Twitch fan at all. I don't think I've been back in the last three or four years. And again, I keep looking at Amazon Prime. Will Amazon Prime start to put podcasts into the main platform? I know you've got uh Audible doing lots, and I know that you know all the old wonder stuff's going in there, but Twitch just seems such a missed opportunity.

James Cridland 41:05

Yeah, it does seem a bit of a missed opportunity, obviously aiming at a very different audience, but uh yeah, I think from that from that point of view, uh, you know, that that that's certainly uh you know interesting just seeing a bunch of different people. Uh so uh yes, that's uh that's always a always a good thing.

Sam Sethi 41:24

Okay, and let's whiz over back to the UK for a minute. Media organizations are asking the UK government to rule out advertising around BBC podcasts.

James Cridland 41:34

Now, what I understand about this is actually that um the BBC haven't said that they want to start thinking about advertising within the UK on BBC podcasts. They haven't actually said that. But the UK government apparently is thinking about letting them, even though the BBC doesn't want to, the UK government is thinking about letting them. So don't really understand w why the UK government would be wanting this, because no one at the BBC, from what I understand, and and I've got plenty of contacts within the BBC, but from my understanding, nobody's really um particularly chomping at the bit about that sort of thing. Um so uh yeah, so don't fully understand why um all of a sudden this is a thing, but anyway, Radio Centre, which is the sounds profitable for commercial radio in the UK. I'm sure that they'll be delighted hearing me talking about them in that way. Anyway, they have written um alongside another 17 other media organizations writing to the government saying please don't do that, it would be a very

People news

James Cridland 42:40

bad thing.

Sam Sethi 42:40

People in jobs, James, who's moving and grooving?

James Cridland 42:43

Well, lots of people going from Cumulus Media. So Cumulus Media at the moment is bankrupt or it's in its uh chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization uh thing. And um uh they have um, depending on who you read, um, either laid off the entire Cumulus Podcasts team um or they have um uh or they haven't. Um according to Cumulus, they haven't, and they still uh are very committed to podcasting. Uh, according to uh a number of people who have been posting on LinkedIn, the entire team has gone. Um, some of those people um include senior VP of Marketing and Podcasting Carolyn Chauncey, uh, but also the pod Vader himself, Jay Soderbergh uh is also one of those uh affected. He was the VP of Podcast Operations and Production, uh, as well as executive producer Tanya Bustos. Um, and uh yeah, it's not looking good uh in terms of Cumulus Media right now. Um they are busy working on a new uh plan. If you remember, Cumulus Media at the moment going through bankruptcy, um uh previous um uh was Odyssey, of course, which has come out of bankruptcy, and of course, iHeartMedia has been a Bankruptcy a couple of times. So uh it's not particularly good news for the old large radio broadcasters.

Sam Sethi 44:06

Yeah, I think the the last line in this article was Trump's ownership of the broadcaster to its lenders.

James Cridland 44:12

Yeah, that's never a good thing, is it? Um I I mean I would suspect that if Cumulus is clever, and uh that there's a debate about that, but if Cumulus is clever, what they'll do is much the same as iHeart have have done, and essentially split the company into two. So you so that you have new, shiny, and growing, um, and then you have old and has been and um not particularly interesting. Um and that's essentially what iHeart have. One of them is called the multi-platform group, and one of them is the uh is where you know podcasting and online and all of that kind of stuff is. Um and you would guess that Cumulus might do that sort of thing. But having said that, if you're firing the people that are making the new and exciting stuff, then that's possibly not great.

Announcer 45:00

Podcast events on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi 45:07

Awards and events, James. Anything to announce? I would like to know what that noise was. Were you slapping a fly? No, I didn't. I think I I I slap my thigh because I slapped your thigh.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Okay.

Sam Sethi 45:21

I don't know why I did that. It's just a weird thing I've done.

James Cridland 45:26

Well, there we are. That's staying in. So awards and events. I'm glad you are, Sam. Uh, yes, so uh the winners of the Women Who Podcast Magazine Awards. No, me neither. Anyway, they were announced. Uh there was a podcast called The Hairy Chin, which won four awards, including Best in Show. Congratulations, Captivate. That's one of yours. Uh, in terms of events, uh, we covered uh lots of exciting news from the Sounds Profitable Business Summit, unveiling their first set of speakers. Um, people like Ira Glass, um, but also representatives from people like uh YouTube and Amazon and Scalable, whoever they are, I'm not quite sure who scalable is, to be honest. Um, but anyway, um, interesting to see YouTube um and Amazon being at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit, which is the um the expensive and exclusive one rather than a podcast movement. Um, but um yeah, so looking forward to learning more about that. If you want to go, well, tough. You need to be a Sounds Profitable partner, uh, which you can join and uh take part, and that's all absolutely fine, but you can't just buy a ticket for the business summit. And then podcast movement revealing featured speakers for the events in New York City. Um uh we had that, of course, in yesterday's uh pod news newsletter. Um some of those people include uh Stephen Goldstein from Amplify Media, who will probably be using the word liquid content, uh Ainsley Rossito from Beehive on podcast communities and building audience trust. Um, also Greg Glende from ACAS uh talking about new audience research, uh, and one final person that made the press release, James Cridland from Pod News, looking back at podcasting's history while examining where the industry is headed next. Uh, in 20 minutes, you'll be lucky. Uh, anyway, that is all uh happening, uh, and you can buy your tickets now. Of course, it's in the middle of September um in New York City, which should be.

Sam Sethi 47:28

Oh, please, please tell me that Rob Walsh will give you a t-shirt so you can do that presentation.

James Cridland 47:33

Well, Rob Walsh is also speaking, I can uh tell you that with his uh usual um uh look at data, except it won't have the Libsin word uh anywhere in there, I would guess. And I would guess also that his data is going to be different because he's obviously got access to lots of different data. So I'm quite looking forward to ending up watching that. Um, there is also a big party uh going on, uh Sam, which you will be missing. Um the the uh the party is on Wednesday, September the sixth uh the 16th, um, at uh terminal 5 at the event venue all week. Uh this year's celebration will feature a live performance of Hang In with Dr. Zed. I know he's supposed to be pronounced Dr. Z, um, but I'm gonna call him Dr. Z because I think it sounds it sounds more ridiculous. Um guests also include comedians Sam Morrill and Dave Hill. So there you go.

Sam Sethi 48:30

Um I'm glad I'm staying where I am then.

James Cridland 48:35

Now now, now now. Yes, I I'm not sure I'll be making, in fact, I know that I won't be making my way to the um to the party uh on Wednesday, uh, for I have something else in my diary already. Um, but um no, I think it's going to be a good uh good event. Looking forward to uh learning more about how the whole thing is going to work. Um so uh hurrah for them, that's what I say. You can still get tickets, of course, for podcast movement. Uh, just head to podcastmovement.com.

The Tech Stuff

Announcer 49:06

The tech stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 49:10

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

Sam Sethi 49:14

Well, uh little teasers from Marco Arment from Overcast. He says he's built his new iOS 27 version. It's due out soon, it's gone to Apple for review. But it's chicken and egg. He can't get it into the review process because the version of um the store that he needs um doesn't work yet, so he can't push it. But equally, Apple's marketing is saying we want it live before the event, and can you give us all your materials? So he's sort of moaning and groaning. But it's lovely to see there is a new version of Overcast You very soon.

James Cridland 49:52

Yeah, um, I mean, I can tell you uh some of the things that it has in it, but it's got a few more little sort of tweaks for the audio effects. Um it's got uh if you're a premium user, um, it's got um uh a few uh other things, including um something called smart complete, which I think is a brilliant idea. Again, this is a premium only thing, but I think this is a brilliant uh thing. If you have less than five minutes left in an episode and you haven't listened in 48 hours, then it will just mark it automatically as completed. Um why other why other people aren't doing that, I really don't know. That's genius. So hurrah for them. Uh I think that that makes uh total uh sense. Um if you want it, $29.99 a year is the uh price for Overcast Premium. But if you're an existing subscriber, uh then that money goes up at um the end of this month from $14.99 a year to $19.99 a year, uh, which is still a snip in comparison to a new subscriber. So um yeah, that uh all looks uh that all looks good. Um and uh yes, I'm not quite sure what the differences are with uh iOS 27, um, given that I've got it on test flight anyway. Um, but um uh lots of lots of new additional features in there anyway.

Sam Sethi 51:22

I mean I I I think you know we've we've talked about Pocket Cast doing stuff for iOS 27. Uh they're doing uh a new version or exporting liquid glass, they've got a new Apple TV, all sorts of good things and CarPlay. I think uh this is a big release from Apple. I mean, I know it doesn't have many bells and whistles as a feature thing, but I do think for the podcast community, the app community, I think supporting this platform is going to be quite significant.

James Cridland 51:50

Yeah, I mean, I I think you know the the liquid glass stuff is uh much the same as iOS 26. The difference probably is that the CarPlay experience is much, much better. Um, and um although that isn't quite there on Overcast yet, uh if you're using Apple Podcasts, for example, you can now, you know, um uh pull, you know, you can scrub the audio bar so you can actually work out where you want to listen um inside a particular show and all of that. So it's um it's quite nice. But uh yeah, it's a very, you know, the big change for iOS 27, uh, if you've been playing with the public beta, you will know is all around the AI. Um, and the AI has been completely re-hauled. Some of it is really good, uh, some of it is still um taking its time. But um, yeah, but I think it's a good thing, you know, all in all.

Sam Sethi 52:44

Now you mentioned it earlier, the podcast standards project has published a list of hosting platforms and apps supporting HLS video. Uh what's more significant is those that are using the alternative enclosure like uh RSS.com are doing, like Transistor. Uh I think it's really good. I think Fountain, TrueFans, Captivate, Flightcast, Um, Podbean, Prodigy. I mean, there's a long list worth reading who is supporting now both HLS and the alternative enclosure as well.

James Cridland 53:15

Yes, uh, Justin has done a very good job of that. Buzzsprout, our sponsor, have committed to shipping uh support. Whisper it, if you ask them nicely, they'll give it to you. Um, but um currently uh it's not quite there yet. Um but yeah, it's um it's actually looking really good in that um yeah, there are many more podcast apps now supporting HLS video, which is um probably a good thing for all of us. Talking about our sponsor, um, the WordPress plugin for Buzz Sprout. They've got one. I didn't know, but um mind you, I don't use WordPress. But anyway, it's been refreshed. Does anyone use WordPress anymore? Lots of people use WordPress. My goodness, Dave Weiner loves it. Um and uh yes, lots of people use it. Um and uh BuzzSprout have made um their plugin much, much better. Now you can add an episode with a slash command, whatever that means. You can choose the player size and you can also embed your latest episode, a specific episode, or a playlist. Um, it's very nice. And if you're a um if you're a cheapy person and you're hosting on WordPress.com, well that's fine because for the first time, Buzzprout embeds work on that as well. It's very cool. Um you can go and find it in the WordPress plugin, catalog app store thing, whatever it's called, on there.

Sam Sethi 54:33

Now, one of the things we've been talking about on this show for a few weeks now, or maybe even a few months, I'd say, is AI Slop. LinkedIn is the latest platform to crack down on AI Slop. Uh it's that's funny actually, because they're one of the biggest creators of AI Slop in LinkedIn itself. 41% of long form posts on its platform weirdly are AI generated. So LinkedIn has added a Seems like AI Slop button now. And uh yes, long may it actually work because there is so much AI slop appearing in LinkedIn now. It seems like everyone just presses the button for the comment, you know, oh yeah, I'll answer it with an AI response.

James Cridland 55:14

Yeah, and I I quite like the idea of a seems like AI slop button, and it occurs to me, why hasn't a podcast app done that? Uh would that be would that be interesting? Is that something that podcast apps should be doing? To have a bit of reporting um from the consumer saying, Yeah, this this isn't this isn't what it it should be. Um we uh uh the pod news uh website have reporting on things like events or jobs which aren't actually what they um what they uh seem to be. And similarly, I suspect that you can um uh probably build that sort of thing into a podcast app as well. So maybe that's a plan for the future, who knows? If you scroll down, you'll see it. You're gonna tell me now that uh that TrueFans has already done it. Yes, we have, yes, we've done it for ages, yes. Brilliant.

Sam Sethi 56:07

Well, you know, you would like to be ahead of the curve, James.

James Cridland 56:10

Yes, why would you? Although that's under a button marked report this show. I think you could be doing. I think you want it more visible, would you? Yeah, I mean, maybe. Anyway, don't take don't take advantage advice on your product from me. I mean, look at my website. Uh so uh so that's LinkedIn, but um uh but also some kind of good news from Anthropic, kind of, um, because they're gonna be making it easier to spot uh AI slop, aren't they?

Sam Sethi 56:41

Yeah, they're putting a watermark in the text and files generated. I don't know how you then detect it. I think there are ways that you can detect it as well. But of course, immediately I saw there are tools to remove it as well. So uh yes, game of whack-a-mole, I guess, with this one.

James Cridland 56:57

Yeah, and uh Spotify also allowing you, if you are an AI-generated music artist, to whack an AI persona uh tag on there. Again, it's all part of this uh EU's AI Act, and that will allow them, uh allow artists to self-disclose uh nothing for podcasting, because why would Spotify care about podcast creators?

Sam Sethi 57:23

Well, I think I think to be fair, I'm not I'm not you know trying to knock Spotify here. I think they're gonna start with the easy one, which is easy to detect and uh a music artist because it's probably the whole track, uh, and there's so much of it now available because of uh apps like Casumo or and and other others. But um I think they will, but the question will be the one that we have raised in the past, how do you determine the percentage of AI within a podcast before you start labelling? We use AI for some of our intros. Um would we be labelled if they said it's just you know anything with AI? Would we have an AI tag attached to this podcast?

James Cridland 58:03

Yeah, well, uh uh so firstly we don't uh anymore, by the way. But also secondly, um this is very specific for um for artist profiles um to allow the that artist to report themselves, if you see what I mean, to mark themselves down as being AI. So reporting comes later, but um this is all about self-identification. Um and uh I I don't understand why uh that couldn't be something that they wanted to see him. Um so I don't know whether why that is something that um Spotify couldn't roll out for a podcast um uh either. Uh if this podcast is wholly generated by AI, well you know, have a have a tick box for that, surely. Um but uh anyway, that that's clearly not going to happen right now because you know, as I say, why why would they bother?

Sam Sethi 58:59

So I've got I've got two quick questions for you, and and you may not know the answer. But you know, on LinkedIn, if if it's got a button, it seemed like AI Slop and I report it, what happens? Does they does the post come down? Does the comment get removed?

James Cridland 59:12

I would imagine that that is a signal, and um, if enough people in a given time period mark it as AI slop, it does get taken down automatically, but otherwise it gets referred up uh in the same way as you know, most of these things are signals, um, and they wouldn't automatically remove um you know a particular posting, I wouldn't have thought.

Sam Sethi 59:34

Okay. Just wondering, uh, you know, again, with the AI persona, would you?

James Cridland 59:38

I mean, I'm sounding I'm I'm sounding very male male and confident about that, but I don't really know, obviously, is the answer.

Sam Sethi 59:45

But you know if in doubt, blag it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Cridland 59:49

It seems to work for everybody else.

Sam Sethi 59:52

Yes. Um now, a couple of other stories you wrote about. Um, one that's quite interesting, Gate 32. Tell me more.

James Cridland 59:59

Yeah, so these are in fact, the these are two different um products which I just looked at and I thought these products will be really good for podcast hosting companies. So the first one is a thing that runs in your browser and it automatically um transcribes um your audio into text format. Um so there's no firing up um, you know, uh, you know, additional um additional EC2 instances and all of that stuff to do um to do uh transcripts. Just do it in the user's web browser when they upload a show. Uh seemed to me to be an intelligent plan. Uh so this is a website called Gate32, which does that without it leaving your browser. So you just um uh go to the website and you um uh in the vertical commas upload the audio, but you're not actually uploading it anywhere other than into your browser. Uh and your browser does very, very quickly um a uh a uh transcript of it. Um and I, you know, so as I say, could be really handy for podcast hosting companies that want to offer transcriptions but haven't yet worked out a cheap way of doing that. Then there's a second one, which is audio TLDR, which both runs a transcript but then summarizes it for you. And again, I wonder whether that is something that um could be done automatically in a browser these days. Um, and again, if you're a podcast hosting company, you can automatically do that sort of thing as well. I have also seen companies doing um uh things a bit like orphanic, you know, making everything as loud as possible and you know, and cleaning up audio and stuff like that, and doing that in the browser as well. Um, and it does occur to me that actually for a next generation podcast hosting company, well, you could do all of this in the user's browser as they're uploading stuff, and that would be quite a nice thing to do. Worth looking at, I think.

Sam Sethi 1:01:59

Worth looking at.

Inbox

James Cridland 1:02:00

Yeah.

Announcer 1:02:01

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

James Cridland 1:02:09

Yeah, so many different ways to get in touch with us. There's voicemail by using the link in our show notes. We love voicemail and email uh too. While we record, uh somebody has just uh sent us a voicemail. It's Martin Lindescog, and here it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

From T40 Media. I will not read the Fibonacci sequence in Swedish. The Swedish show. Have a good one.

James Cridland 1:03:04

Wow. Uh attack, Martin. Uh that's uh that's excellent. Thank you for that. First first Swedish we've ever had on this show. Stay off the juice, Martin. Also, uh it's a regular Hello chabs, Neil Valley over here.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:22

Glad you enjoyed my roadcastery pitch last week. It was very nostalgic in my days doing morning radio in Oxford, bleeping myself in real time, just so I could get away with saying mild swear words and sounding edgy without getting fined. Talking about getting fined regarding the EU AI Act, you talked about whether Brussels will actually police it and whether a line in the show description even counts as clear disclosure. Both fair points. James, you drew the line though. You were saying denoising, fine, repair, fine, generating or manipulating, not so fine. The software doesn't draw that line anywhere. So the same app that strips the ums out of an interview will also rebuild a sentence that your guest cocked up in your guest's own voice, and nothing pops up to tell you you've just walked from repair into generation. So there's an entire tier of producers about to become non-compliant when they think they're just tidying up audio. Will the EU come after 40 million dollars from a bloke working out of a studio in Swindon? Doubt it.

James Cridland 1:04:20

Yes, I doubt it as well. I don't I I think if if the software is just rebuilding a sentence that your guest cocked up, right? In your guest's own voice, I think, you know, yes, that's manipulation, but I don't think that's necessarily generation in terms of generating something that didn't happen in the first place. It might have been rebuilt slightly to fix it. Um but I don't think that that's necessarily um, you know, generated AI in the same way as making you know, making Neil Vlio say something that he clearly would never say.

Sam Sethi 1:05:00

Um I think it's about intent, right? I think it's intent. I think if you intend to uh you know mislead somebody by using AI to generate something that was never said, I think that would be somewhere and you don't declare it. I think that's where they might draw the line. I think if you're, as you say, regenerating what was already said, I don't think anyone's gonna come down at you.

James Cridland 1:05:21

Yeah, yeah. So but I think it is it is interesting. Clearly the EU will go after the big bucks because they can get more money out of um big offenders. Um, but I wouldn't necessarily say that that allows you to do whatever it is that you would like to do. Uh Seth Goldstein, 1545 uh sat. Thank you, Seth. He says Spotify has never had the podcast industry's best interest at heart. Spotify's skip advert button is different from YouTube Premium, as you guys stated, because YouTube Premium is paying the creators. So skipping the host red ad isn't as detrimental. Isn't as detrimental. Spotify is just a schmucky company through and through. New word, schmucky. Seth agreed. And well, just wait until next week. That's that's all I will say. Um Martin Lindescog uh sending us um uh a message um with uh a set of uh sats as well. So we had the Fibonacci sequence in sats and also a row of ducks. Um he said, I used Speakpipe for my first podcast, uh, which is very fancy, yes, which is a way of uh leaving voicemail um there. I think Daniel J. Lewis's pod gagement has this audio messaging feature as well. Uh Sam, will you add this kind of super fan feedback feature to true fans uh in terms of uh audio uh fan mail?

Sam Sethi 1:06:53

Maybe in the future. It's not it's not high on my priority list right now. I think uh we've got much more bigger fish to fry in the roadmap. But yeah, it's a lovely way of having people interact back. I mean, we like it here, you know. If you look at what we enjoy, you know, uh Neil's uh snarky messages are funny and we enjoy them. And you know, Martin just left a message. I think they're great for podcasts, so it's a cool fan-based feature, but yeah, it's not high in my priority list right now.

James Cridland 1:07:22

Uh and if I was in charge of your PR, uh Sam, I would be saying that you you should just respond with a uh TrueFans never comments on future plans. Yes, but you know me, I'd rather be honest about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

Yes, it does.

Sam Sethi 1:07:37

Yes, yes, and next week I'll be announcing the future.

James Cridland 1:07:41

No, yes. Um, and uh we should uh say 24 supporters, of which Martin and Seth and Neil are all um power supporters. You can be a power supporter as well. You get access to the Super Secret WhatsApp group, um, which is uh great fun. It occurred to me that we should probably put some folks from Buzzsprout in there as well, I suppose. That would probably be the nice thing. No, they have be the nice thing to do. Yes, they have. So we should probably do that as well. Um but uh weekly.podnews.net uh is where to go. Uh if you would like to uh join them, that would be very excellent.

Sam and James's week

James Cridland 1:08:21

Uh what have you been doing, Sam, this week?

Sam Sethi 1:08:25

Well, uh the madness of mad dogs and Englishmen out in the midday sun. I completed the 100 mile South Downs Walk, which is Winchester to Eastbourne. We did the Seven Sisters Walk, which is the last leg. So that was uh good fun. I say good fun, it wasn't good fun at all, it was hard work, but uh glad to have finished that.

James Cridland 1:08:44

Yes, yes, yes, no, indeed. Uh and and you're not here next week, are you?

Sam Sethi 1:08:50

No, I'm away in I was gonna say sunny island, but it's probably gonna be rainy island.

James Cridland 1:08:55

No, it's rainy island, it's always rainy island. You're not you're not going to the far uh the the far uh uh west of Ireland, are you? Because that's where it's that's where it's always rainy. Yes.

Sam Sethi 1:09:07

Yeah, we're walking from Galway all the way down to Dunquin, uh going over the two highest peaks in Ireland. So yeah, madness. I don't know why I I agree to this. My wife is trying to kill me. Somebody help.

James Cridland 1:09:21

And I love the uh I love the um the the little uh um image that you have put in our show notes. Uh it says showers, 50 to 60 percent chance for virtually every day. And then at the bottom of it it says weather shown is estimated for mid-August. Irish mountain weather can shift quickly, bring layers, and expect fast changing coastal and mountain conditions. Indeed, yes, yes, it's it's going to be it has been beautiful. It's winter, of course, down here, but it's been absolutely beautiful down here. So uh I very much enjoyed it. Yeah.

Sam Sethi 1:09:59

Well, we've had the hottest ever summer in the UK now, recorded, even hotter than the night of the uh 1976 summer, which you probably remember as well. Yes. I was very young. Yes, yes, you would have been five, I think. I was, thanks. Yes. Um and uh yeah, we had the um full solar eclipse last night, so the whole country was out. Um we got 97% solar eclipse, but uh, Spain, Mallorca, and Ibiza got 100%, yeah.

James Cridland 1:10:30

Yeah, no, it's um yes, it's uh yes, quite uh quite a thing at the moment, all of this weather. I'm looking forward to, of course, our entire country bursting into flames in six months. That's what that's what would normally happen. Um, you've appeared in Forbes, which is very impressive.

Sam Sethi 1:10:48

Thank you very much. Yes, well, I didn't have anything to do with it. It was Claire Waite Brown who did all the work, but uh Frank Rassiopi, kind man that he is, uh yes, put a lovely article in Forbes for us. Uh TrueFans creates the one-stop service for all podcast stakeholders, talking about creator portals and some of the things that we do. So, yes, thank you. Um, you'll be seeing us in several other places as well, very soon as well. Oh, very nice. It's interesting. I was thinking about it, you know. I I I love telling the industry what we're doing, but it doesn't really reflect back in any um growth in the platform, right? You know, it's like uh navel gazing, you know. Oh, you've done that, well, we've done this, you've done that, they've done this, right? It's it's great and we all have that fun, and I love the industry that we're in. But it doesn't actually move the needle on users. So we're looking at things like Bloomberg, New York Times, uh, London Times, places like that, where I think you know, users are we uh are more curious as to what we're doing than I think if we were talking to, you know, um the group that we always talk to. I think it's just uh so we're trying to stretch outside of the normal market. Well, we saw a massive spike this week on the back of it. Now, I don't know if that's exactly aligned with the article, but weirdly, the the numbers just went up massively this week. So yeah.

James Cridland 1:12:09

You've also added a thing called premium blogs and um now and uh premium podcasts as well. So you're uh most certainly jumping on the premium uh wagon there.

Sam Sethi 1:12:22

Yeah, they're slightly different to the good of folks at Substack and Patreon, because they allow you to create a premium piece of content, then you get a private feed to take back to your own app like Apple or or wherever you might want to listen to overcast pocket costs. We didn't want to do that. I mean, yes, you can export the premium content out of Truth Mans, but what we wanted to do is include it within the same RSS feed. So we've done that. We're gonna put in the GitHub a proposal about what we've done. It's not it's not rocket science, it's using L402 and and um F402 and eventually X402. So again, some techy stuff there, but but the reality is I think RSS feeds or super feeds as we're calling them should have uh pod roles, publisher feeds, premium events, merch, all in the same one alongside uh your blogs and your audio or video content, you know, and the user or the sorry the creator gets the option in their admin to choose which uh bits of that gets added to their RSS feed that that gets published. So you know, of course it's a slow burn because nobody on the other end is going to be able to read the premium blog or read the um premium podcast because apart from Fountain, no one else is supporting uh those standards. So, you know, chicken meat and great.

James Cridland 1:13:44

No, indeed, indeed. I was reading about true fans on uh on Reddit as well. Anyone know anything about true fans? That's your fault. I got that is your why is it my fault? I got an email that my podcast has been added to yet another podcasting app that calls itself an online marketplace for podcasts. Sounds like a total scam, and I'm assuming it is, but I thought I'd ask here. And I love the first comment uh the first comment who replied uh from somebody called Boats Podcast, um, who said, I don't know about the email, but TrueFans is a legit company. The CEO is the co-host of Pod News Weekly Review. Look at that. Uh and links straight to uh the TrueFans entry in the Pod News Directory, which all of a sudden I'm there thinking, oh, the Pod News Directory might be a way of actually showing that companies are legit. Uh so um yeah, so that's that's quite a nice thing.

Sam Sethi 1:14:38

Yeah, I only blame you because you I've not touched Reddit forever and you mentioned it last week, and suddenly there's a bloody thing in there going on.

James Cridland 1:14:57

Uh and may I suggest that you have a um that you put that into your RSS reader or your Slack or whatever it is, um, and just chuck in you know true fans in there. Um because that that will catch that will catch everything. It's what I do. Um and so if anybody mentions mentions um pod news, I think. Uh I don't think I searched for me. Uh I don't think I'm that uh I'm that absorbed, but for Pod News itself, it's just quite useful in actually seeing um you know what people are actually saying. Yeah.

Sam Sethi 1:15:33

Well, I'd I'd like to thank Claire again, head of community for the job. She did the job. She dived in there. Yes. She dived in there and started responding, which is exactly what I would want her to do. So thank you, Claire, for doing that. And uh last thing, um Claire and I are just uh going to be launching the new fanzone, which is all about the admin and creators dashboard stuff. So all of the features from a creator side, uh, what you can do on TrueFan. So again, that's coming out shortly.

James Cridland 1:16:00

Yeah, no, very cool, very cool.

Sam Sethi 1:16:03

And lastly, I don't know whether we should do this as a regular feature, maybe not in this section, but maybe higher up. Um, a shout out to other places that we're reading during the week. I mean, I know Pod News Daily is that in some ways, but uh I find, you know, just uh Rob Greenley, as we mentioned earlier, interviewing Alban Brook, I think it's worth a listen. I listened to that last night. Um, you know, again, I wish that he'd moved to HLS. Come on, Blueberry, get him on there. I wish he'd support the lit tag, but you know, those are things that we can wait for. Um Martin Quabel, you know, friend of the show, has got a newsletter called Podbites. Again, it's very long, Martin. Um, might be worth getting that to be shorter and more often. Um Seth Goldstein, I think you're going to be doing a lecture with Seth, aren't you?

James Cridland 1:16:48

Um over in New York when you're Oh, uh uh uh you mean uh Stephen, Stephen Goldstein. Um Stephen Goldstein, sorry. Absolutely, yes. So he has been talking about um he's been talking about uh only whether only ten top podcasts really have video uh and all of that, which isn't necessarily true, but it's you know it's always a thing. Um but yeah, it's um it's a good read. Stephen is one of the thinkers of this industry. He is also a listener to this very show. Uh he won't have got this far. Um but um he's always he's always telling me it's too long. James, it's too long. Your mum and my mum then listening, right? Just yes. But uh he is one of the thinkers, and in fact, he's the person that um uh that uh in a restaurant. I normally uh tell a story that it it it it was in a pub uh because of you know uh branding, but it was in a restaurant, uh, where he uh he leant over to me and he said, James, where do you get your news about podcasting? And I said, Oh, there isn't anywhere to get news about podcasting, is there? Maybe I should uh maybe I should launch something. And he said, Yeah, I think that might be a good idea. So it was all his idea. So yes.

Sam Sethi 1:18:06

There you go. Very good. Well done, Steve. Very good. Um, and lastly, Paul Rismendel uh from Signal Hills has written written a uh good article about uh the Apicords, and he asked 4,819 Americans in the Sounds Proper Podcast Landscape Study uh what they thought a podcast was. Uh again, you'll find these available, they're worth reading. Uh good background to what's going on currently.

James Cridland 1:18:32

One of the answers to that, by the way, was something people waste time watching or listening to. Okay. Which is uh, yeah, so there you go. Probably a gamer. That's probably a gamer as well.

Sam Sethi 1:18:45

Quite possibly. Quite possibly. So come on, James, what's happened for you this week?

James Cridland 1:18:49

Uh apart from uh apart from uh the very the very depressing experience of watching people um uh write about a story that I I I broke and um and giving it to somebody else, which is a very depressing thing. Um, but probably my fault, I didn't uh I didn't send as many emails as I should have done. Uh so that's a learning for next time. I if I break a big story, another big story coming next week. Uh if I break a big story, then um uh send emails to the right people um so that they will uh properly give you a credit and a link. Um apart from that, um it's been an it's been it's been another boring week of looking at my solar panels and trying to understand. Oh, uh there's something here marked uh firmware update. I guess I should probably do that. And so making sure that everything works properly. Um uh so that that's been sort of interesting, trying to get everything to work as correctly as I was hoping that they might work. Um so that's been fun, and uh my niece has been over from Welsh Wales, and uh she has been uh staying in the house and has been uh going out and enjoying everything that Brisbane has to offer. I'm not quite sure what she's been then doing in the afternoon, but nevertheless, um so that's been uh that that that's been quite uh quite uh entertaining. One of the things though that I should be doing is probably writing the presentation that I'm giving at Podcast Movement in in a few weeks now. That would probably be a good plan, wouldn't it?

Sam Sethi 1:20:25

And you also had somebody called Robert Tushman give you some very nice words. I'm very I was very proud when I read his words about you, James. As a friend of mine, I was very well excited.

James Cridland 1:20:36

Yes, he ended up saying some very um uh positive things about being reported in um uh now. This is this is somebody that has launched three businesses, all three have got into the Inc. 3000, or is it the Inc. 5000? It's one of these big lists. Five. It's one of these big lists, and you get in there if you have managed to increase your revenue um in the last three years very significantly, and you get in there, and so he has done a very good job of that. Um, I reported his his press release essentially, um, and he ended he he ended up saying something very, very positive on low reading twice.

Sam Sethi 1:21:19

Yes, when James Grisman writes about your company, you stop what you're doing and read it twice. James is a podcast hall of famer and the founder of Pod News, the newsletter that every serious person in podcasting reads every single morning. It is the paper of record for our industry. When pod news covers something, it matters. There you go, James. I fully agree.

James Cridland 1:21:38

Well, thank you. That's uh that's a nice thing. Uh so yes, no, it's always good uh to get that. He is based in New York, it turns out, so um, who knows, and maybe seeing him um uh in a few weeks. Um and that is it for this week. All of our podcast stories, of course, taken from the pod news daily newsletter at podnews.net.

Sam Sethi 1:21:59

You can give us feedback using the Buzz Brow voicemail link in our show notes or become a monthly PAL supporter like the 24 PAL supporters at weekly.podnews.net. On mute sorry, you didn't.

James Cridland 1:22:12

I was just gonna say all of our podcast stories were taken from Semaphore. No. Our music is from TM Studios, our voiceover is Sheila D. Our audio is recorded using Clean Feet, we edit with Hindenburg, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

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