SPEAKER_02 0:00

I deal with a lot of smaller creators, and programmatic is a critical revenue stream for them, if not the only one. So making it easier to skip ads, it's just going to make it harder for creators to earn money.

James Cridland 0:13

Liam Heffenen from Mercury Podcasts joins me and he's worried about Spotify's skip button plus megaphone, buggy, broken, and really worrying podcasters.

Announcer 0:23

With James Cridler and Sam Sethy. This is the Pod News Weekly Review with Buzz with BuzzSprout. Start podcasting, keep keep keep podcasting.

Who is Liam Heffernan?

James Cridland 0:36

Sam Sethy's away this week, walking through Ireland in the rain. So this week I'm joined by Liam Heffernan. Now, as a quick Google search will tell you, Liam is an aerospace engineer focused on applying machine learning to strengthen Australia's space capabilities. Liam, I had no idea. Or he's an actor and musician, the lead singer of Big Boy Foolish. And here's their debut single, Horsey. Or he's none of these things. Welcome to the Pod News Weekly Review, Liam. Tell us what you do, really.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Thanks, James. A real pleasure to be here. I'm the CEO and founder of Mercury Podcasts, though I I do wish I was an aerospace engineer. I think there's a bit more money in that. Strengthening Australia's space capabilities. Yeah, Australia's famous space programme, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So who is Mercury? Well, Mercury is I I I I still introduce it as a new podcast network, but we're a year and a half old now. We are created to kind of fill that gap in the industry that supports the best independent creators, kind of those those shows that are big enough to you know be leveling up and monetizing, but not quite big enough to get the support they need from from the big networks. That's where that's where we come in.

James Cridland 1:48

Yeah, and you you you're looking after a fair amount of shows now. Who are some of your who are some of your some of your bigger ones?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Yeah, we've uh we've got sort of 20 shows on our books at any one time in Mercury. Our biggest one is Dad's Bedtime Stories. It's a wonderful sort of nighttime podcast for any parents out there. If you if you need something to help your kids get to sleep, check it out. I'm Martin, and you are listening to Dad's Bedtime Stories. Also, Martin's just a great guy, he's a teacher, and so he he sort of turned his ad-libed bedtime stories into a podcast, and that that does very well. But we also have a few comedy shows like Ghastly Women, uh, Pastmaster, Lex Education. We have history podcasts, which is America, the story of the USA. I mean, yeah, we film and TV in off-screen, binge watch. I'm just ruling off our whole catalogue now, but just check out Mercurypodcast.com and you can see everything we do.

James Cridland 2:41

Yes, and of course, Ollie Mann, the modern man. Yes. Hello, man fans. Ollie man here with The Modern Man, your monthly audio magazine show. One of the OGs of podcasting has been podcasting for a long, long time with Answer Me This, which has come back now. But um that that took a break. But The Modern Man is a podcast that has won a British Podcast Awards Gold way, way back in 2019. And that's on your on your network as well. So a great big list of shows. You also ran Independent Podcasters Day earlier this year. What was what was that like?

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah, you know, it was very much sort of testing and building in real time because we we just came up with a bit of an idea ourselves that actually you know we've got days like uh International Podcasting Day. Uh in fact, I've completely forgotten. I mean it's International Podcast Day, isn't it? In September.

James Cridland 3:34

Yes, it is September the 31st, I'm going to tell you, but I I could well be wrong.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Yes, so so obviously that day exists, and that's a really great day, sort of bringing the international podcast community together. But we didn't really see anything comparable for independent podcasters specifically, and I think the challenges that indies face are quite unique, and we thought let's create a space that allows people to kind of come together, connect, share stories, and and and sort of celebrate the amazing work that independent podcasters do. You know, I I think it was a success this year. We got a lot of buy-in, a lot of people across the industry supporting, including yourself, James, at Pod News. But I'm excited to see where we can take this. It was very much we were just kind of we were kind of winging it for a couple of months in the first year. But I think we've kind of proven concept. I think there's some real interest in creating this space. So um yeah, we've just got to work hard at making year two bigger and better.

James Cridland 4:36

Very cool. And I can hear already somebody thinking, hang on a minute, September's only got 30 days. Why has James just said September the 31st? That's because I'm an idiot. Uh, it's uh it's obviously on September the 30th, but Independent Podcasters Day was on July the 4th, I believe, wasn't it? July 4th, yes, indeed. Yes, yeah, which isn't known for any anything else, right? No, exactly. Exactly. Uh yes, yes. Let's let's not go into all of that. Uh right.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Well, let's see what's in the news this week, then, shall we? Yes, let's do it. So

Spotify ad-skipping etc

SPEAKER_02 5:08

a few weeks ago, James, you broke the story that Spotify is testing a skipper, a skip ahead ad skipping tool for some of its customers. Um, but there's more to this story this week, right?

James Cridland 5:17

Yeah, there is. There's plenty more to this story. So we found a podcast ad that was unskippable. We had a video of the podcast ad playing, which was an unskippable podcast that you could not skip forward. So we published that. Spotify, very upset, contacted us to say that Spotify doesn't make podcast ads unskippable. And my response was, I mean, I've got a video of it, but okay. So they claimed that it was a bug and they claimed that it was fixed. So hurrah if that is the case. And they also said that that is a separate feature from the skip ahead button. We also discovered that their terms of service for creators, their terms and conditions, seemingly allow Spotify to do whatever they want with our content, essentially, to take our content, edit the ads out if they wanted to do that, host it themselves. They could do all of that with the existing terms that we've all had to sign, which is quite a thing. Weirdly, uh, Spotify didn't comment on that bit, and we did ask them three times. Liam, how how concerning is this Spotify stuff, particularly the ad skipping for you?

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah, so uh firstly, to your point and on Spotify's response, I I'm not sure that's true. I regularly uh see ads on Spotify that can't be skipped. No, you don't. No, you don't. No, officially I don't. Um but you know, so I I'm not sure, I'm not sure where Spotify coming from there. But you know, I ha I have a lot of thoughts generally about the the value of programmatic ads. I I I they're not the sexiest way to earn money from podcasting, but you know, I deal day to day with a lot of smaller creators and independent creators, and programmatic is a critical revenue stream for them, if not the only one, sometimes. So you know, making it easier to skip ads, and certainly if they have a skip all ad button, which they've been talking about, it's just gonna make it harder for creators to earn money, and you know, that's not a good thing. I I also think that listeners generally have a tolerance for ads, but if it's made really easy for them to skip, you know, why wouldn't they? But I I I kind of see the counter to this in that if if Spotify's saying we're gonna introduce unskippable ads, then you know they're kind of offsetting that problem. But I actually think what we could see from that is firstly, some listeners will be so frustrated that they're being forced to listen to certain ads that as soon as they can skip, they're going to. Or people who are just fed up with not being able to skip ads are just going to start going to Apple and you know, pocket casts and any other platform to listen.

James Cridland 8:07

Yeah, it it's it's really interesting. I mean, we carried yesterday in the pod news newsletter something from uh Hal Rood, a crazy name, crazy guy from Strategic Solutions Research. He was quoting from the podcast study and highlighting that firstly, listeners follow creators, not platforms. So if Spotify scares enough people away, well, actually, you know, we can just move. That is a benefit that we have. But also, it says that the majority of listeners wouldn't even mind unskippable ads, which is interesting. So it was around sort of 65-70%, I think, from the podcast study last year. So so, you know, again, I mean, I think I think he he was saying some interesting things there, particularly around the fact that actually, you know, the leverage is with us. If we decide that we don't want to be on the Spotify platform for whatever reason, then actually it's up to us as to whether or not we want to pull off it.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Yeah, I I think that's you know broadly fair. I think listeners should be empowered to skip ads if they want to, and they should have the option to upgrade to premium and and not listen to any ads if they so choose. And and actually I think that's a that's a really valid solution. I think the problem with that at the moment is that Spotify are set up in such a way that if we're thinking about audio only or audio first creators, these revenue share models that the sort of premium subscription is is built on, they don't really benefit audio-first creators because they they can't opt into that. So actually, by by having these sort of the infrastructure in Spotify that basically incentivizes people to just pay for premium, which unskippable ads kind of does, what that's doing is strangling out audio-only creators because they're just not going to earn money from that.

James Cridland 10:04

Yeah, it's gonna be fascinating to watch what happens. Spotify really seems to have kicked off a fair amount of concern about uh this, but uh yeah, it's it's not the only company which is changing uh numbers and changing definitions and changing the way that they operate, is it?

YouTube changes public view counts

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yes, I mean, yeah, YouTube, lots of changes there. And yes, this week they've changed the definition of a view, so um tell me about that.

James Cridland 10:31

Yes, haven't they just so they changed the definition of a view. So apparently there's now going to be a thing called engaged views, which if you read the blog post earlier on in the week, is what a view is now, and then uh uh this new views uh number is going to kick in as soon as you start playing the first frame of a video. So already that's a big change, and that will probably mean that there is going to be quite a lot of larger numbers in terms of YouTube. Sadly, these larger numbers aren't going to be the ones that count when it comes to making money, because YouTube is not going to be using these numbers for that, but all of the public numbers are now going to be these much larger numbers, much larger views from the first frame. Now, what we've also learnt over the last 24 hours is that even an autoplay on the homepage, so if you hover over a video on YouTube main, that is now going to be counted as a view. And by the way, we should remember no audio plays at that point. So this is a play without actually any audio. Genius. Uh so we've got that too, and it'll turn into an engaged view, even on autoplay, even if you hover over a video, it'll turn into an engaged view if it keeps playing. And I will quote uh YouTube here.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

If you let it keep playing for some amount of seconds.

James Cridland 11:59

For some amount of seconds.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

For some amount of seconds.

James Cridland 12:02

Well, that's that's clear, isn't it? Wow. So yeah, so they've uh so they've made uh quite a few changes there. Rene Ritchie, who is a man with hands that will not stay still, uh, he is there in his videos saying, I've heard some people say it previously took 30 seconds for a view to be counted, and that's simply not the case.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

YouTube doesn't specify exactly how many seconds because it can vary across surfaces, and YouTube also doesn't want anyone focusing on gaming the metric, just making the most satisfying experience possible for viewers.

James Cridland 12:35

So what he's basically saying there is, yeah, I know that some people, Pod News, are saying that a engaged view is 30 seconds, but actually it isn't, but we're not going to tell you how much it is. But it does occur to me that you know YouTube were a participant. They've confirmed that in the Amper Chords. The Amper Chords, with no dissenting votes, defined a play as 30 seconds of content played. Now, of course, this isn't called a play, it's called a view, but really where we are. So what does this mean for what does this mean for somebody like you?

SPEAKER_02 13:08

I guess uh fundamentally, where the the kind of the the monetization infrastructure is still so separate between YouTube and RSS, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference day-to-day, especially in Mercury, because we deal with some smaller creators. I imagine for some networks where a majority of their traffic goes through YouTube, it's going to be a bit trickier. I mean, I think this really just comes down to the the reporting needs to catch up with the changes they're making, because if if if engaged views is the the metric they're using to you know sell advertising, then engaged views needs to be the transparent metric. It seems a little bit counterintuitive to make views public when the they're essentially rendering that a vanity metric. Also, I think semantically, I kind of respect the fact that they call it a view, and in which case, uh fair enough with the hovering over the the autoplay because technically you are just viewing.

James Cridland 14:12

Um well, yeah, I suppose so.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Yeah.

James Cridland 14:16

You are just viewing, you're not actually listening to it. So yes. Yes. No, I can kind of see that. I mean, what what what is particularly weird though is YouTube basically say the previous definition of a view, which is the the definition of a view that we've got until Monday, that will now be called an engaged view, says YouTube. But engaged views exist and they're a different number to the number that we currently see under view. Now, there's not much difference. For me, it's a number which is a couple different, but nevertheless, a view is not an engaged view currently. Michael Perezky from Podstock has analyzed 300,000 YouTube podcast episodes, and he's worked out that engaged views is 7% lower than the existing view count. So there is actually a bit of a difference there. And if you're selling on whatever this number is, well, all of a sudden you might be getting 7% less money than you would if you were selling on the previous views number. Yet YouTube goes and says that it's not actually changing. I am so confused, so confused now. And I'm I'm just really pleased that you know I I frankly don't care too much about YouTube because my goodness, if I cared about YouTube, this would be such such a thing, such a thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

So yeah. I agree. I mean, I just off the top of my head, you know, thinking of agencies like the fellas, I mean, they must be having a meltdown and trying to figure out how to like report this property because they're they're very much like a YouTube-first studio. And you know, there's there's a few a few others out there that I I can't name, yeah. But you know, there's a lot of agencies and networks that are YouTube first, and this is going to be tricky for them. I would say 7% isn't as much as I maybe expected as a disparity between them. But I I think the problem now that this creates is an expectation on the creators to report their numbers accurately, and you know, in some cases, okay, there might be some bad apples out there who inflate their numbers and you know knowingly mislead advertisers. But I I I do think that's a minority. I I think you probably do have a lot of people though who maybe just don't understand those numbers in YouTube. You know, it's it's a fairly complex analytics dashboard if you if you if you don't really know what you're looking at. And it would be really easy actually to give the wrong number. So I think it really would. Yeah. And I think there's a responsibility as well on the platforms, the advertisers, and everyone else to actually make sure that they can do that due diligence on shows before they spend their marketing dollars. But you know, I I think this creates a whole bucket load of problems that maybe didn't need to exist, I think.

James Cridland 17:01

Yeah, no, indeed. I think we will see the engaged views from companies like Podstock and from Magellan AI and from Podscribe as long as they are given access to those numbers by the content creators. So you can still get hold of them through the API, but you now need to give that that access, which essentially means that you know we're back to a typical podcast ranker situation where we we end up just purely not really knowing what these numbers are and only seeing, you know, sort of half of the numbers in every ranker. So it's going to be a very strange thing. I mean, what with that and the monetization qualification rules last week, which they made, I mean, you know, twice as hard in terms of numbers, but arguably far, far harder in terms of actually getting there. What what's your thoughts on on that? Has that has that impact impacted your network at all?

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Well, I just I I never I don't think I ever will understand this because and YouTube aren't the only people who who do this, but there's there's a lot of hosting platforms and YouTube is another one that have what I think quite arbitrary flaws. You know, you have to have a certain number of downloads, you have to have a certain amount of engagement before you can opt into monetization tools. And I mean the I'm I I will preface this by saying I'm completely technology ignorant, so I don't know about the nuts and bolts behind these platforms. But if they have the tech stack to enable any kind of monetization tool, why not allow everyone to use it because then smaller creators get access to it. And also the platforms just have more inventory to sell. I I don't understand why these qualification rules need to exist.

James Cridland 18:56

I think that's a really good point. I mean, there have been, of course, I mean, only last week we had RSS.com on and they were talking about being able to earn, you know, from the get-go. You you needed you needed no no downloads whatsoever in order to qualify, you know, which is certainly a uh a uh step uh forward. It will be fascinating to watch what happens with all of this. I think it's gonna be really interesting. But I mean, I I'm kind of with these last two stories, I I I've I've spent seemingly the last two weeks basically trying to understand what's going on in each of these individual companies, trying to understand what these companies are actually playing at, and really wondering what this means for open podcasting as a whole, because if you end up with you know Spotify, which is you know 30, 40% of all podcast consumption, depending on what numbers you look at, you know, what what does that mean for where we're going in the in the future? And I don't know. I've I I've had more cheery weeks, I have to say.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah, I think we've we've reached a bit of an empath in the industry where I think YouTube, Spotify, and Apple, though they've always had a necessary relationship, they've they've all been able to operate in relative silos, but now I think there's too many questions being asked and about you know the the the the future of the industry and you know as video becomes a thing, I think that integration needs to happen quick and it needs to happen effectively. And I I I I I think they're really struggling to to to answer the questions that need answering right now about how that's going to work. I I I I don't I mean I don't I don't have the answers, but I I do think that what we're starting to see now is where the last few years the focus in the industry has been on making sure the tools exist. I think now we're in a position where we have to make sure that they continue to improve and work properly and adapt, and and and that's that's where the challenges are

Video doing good things for podcasting

SPEAKER_02 21:01

right now.

James Cridland 21:01

Well, let's um move to happier news and it's news about video. Hooray! And everybody's happy, and it means that I get to play this jingle. Hello there, and welcome back to the Louis Thoreau podcast, or if you're watching it on Spotify, the Louis Thoreau slightly shit TV show. Yes, I love that. And good news from good news from a company that is uh dear to, well, I was gonna say dear to our hearts, dear to my heart, certainly.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Yeah, so BuzzSprout have launched Apple Podcasts HLS video, and uh they've now got some numbers to report, I think.

James Cridland 21:35

Yes, and they are our sponsor, of course. Yes, they host more than 11,000 video episodes now, which is pretty good for more than a thousand shows. Um, more interestingly, the average show, say Buzzsprout, saw downloads increase by 19%, and some have seen even more dramatic growth. That's a pretty good number. Apple also the same week. Releasing some new and exciting numbers from them. Ted's How to Be a Better Human launched video on Apple Podcasts recently, and the show's unique audience has grown 93%, they say. New follows on Apple Podcasts have increased 113%. There's also Ozzy's Tony and Ryan talking about the show's audience growing nearly 40% after sticking video on. And the Meat Eater Podcast. New follows have grown 151%. What do you think of these exciting numbers?

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yeah, I mean, you know, they're they're good numbers. I think, you know, that's that's great for those shows. It's uh great for Buzzsprout, great for Apple. I, you know, I don't want to I don't want to be too much of a of a you know a debut downer about all of this, but I I I do think that what we need to understand as well as this is the actual user growth that we're seeing from video, because okay, it's great that these shows are seeing a huge increase in listeners and followers, but if the if the net users on these platforms is not going up, then that just means there are less people listening to other shows because they're tuning into these video podcasts, and that's not surprising because you know you look at Apple since they switched on video, their homepage has been rammed with promotions for video content, of course. Correct. So you would expect people to find and discover and follow these video shows. So I think what we really need to understand is okay, great, but but is the total number of users also going up?

James Cridland 23:42

Yeah, yeah. I uh that that would be kind of important, wouldn't it? And the total number of users to Apple Podcasts itself in total, is that going up? And you know, what are we actually seeing from that? Wouldn't it be brilliant if Apple Podcasts continue to go up? Because if there's if there's one company which is doing right by podcasters mostly, then it's Apple, certainly if you compare it to some of the others. So wouldn't that be fantastic? But yeah, we don't necessarily know that. Do you think that video podcasts is actually competing with audio podcasts in some way?

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Uh I mean, I I think the simple answer is yes, of course. Like they they you know they coexist, right? And uh and when someone's you know looking for a podcast, you're gonna get you're gonna get audio, you're gonna get video. I don't think necessarily people are deciding I'm going to find a video podcast today. I think people are still discovering content based on the content rather than the format it's being given to them in. But obviously, you know, video creates different challenges. I think I think it's more in the discoverability and in the algorithms on the platforms because audio-only content is struggling to find a space to get seen now, and I think that's a real problem for people who maybe don't have the resource to move into a visualized format effectively. I think there's still a huge space for audio-only content. I think that the whole reason that podcast proliferated in the first place is because it gave people an opportunity to consume content in a different way. You know, you can listen to it on the way to work while you want to walk or run or doing whatever. And I I don't think that should ever be lost. I don't think it ever will be lost. I think the problem now is in discoverability, and as platforms have a vested interest in justifying pushing video, they're going to promote video more. And so where does that leave audio only?

James Cridland 25:44

Yeah, yeah. And we did a video version of this show. July the 17th is the version. We didn't actually mention that it was a video version at all. I because I was curious to work out what would this actually do to our download figures, what would it do to our play counts? Because, you know, there's a version of this on YouTube. What what would this do, you know, across all of the different uh platforms? And we uploaded it to uh Spotify as well because our sponsor Buzz Spratt allows us to do that too. And I can I can tell you it's made absolutely no difference whatsoever. As you would kind of expect, you know, why why would all of a sudden people find your show just because it happens to have video on one particular episode? So if you're thinking about doing video because you think it's going to increase your figures, it's not. It's absolutely not. It will increase your figures if you then promote it, I I guess is the other sort of side. And perhaps that's what Apple is currently telling us if they promote the heck out of some of these shows. And Tony and Ryan, certainly, as an Apple Podcasts user, as a previous Apple Podcast user, here in Australia, Tony and Ryan has been on that front page for the last three months. You would expect it to have done rather better. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

So that what you're doing is by going into video, you're optimising the chances of of getting promoted on these platforms, right? Yeah, yeah. And and also I would add that there's quite a few shows that I listen to that have a visualized format. And where I listen to them in Spotify, they automatically play the video. And I imagine Apple would would be the same now. Though I have I don't think I've ever yeah, so that's gonna skew the metrics, right? I'm listening, but the videos playing, so it's gonna be recorded as a view, even though I'm only a listener.

James Cridland 27:36

Yeah, but of course, Apple doesn't actually split it out, so you've no idea how many people are consuming the video versus the audio. So yeah, you've got all of that too. It is fascinating times having a having a look at uh video, and I'm looking forward to learning more at podcast movement in the middle of next month.

Inception Point AI rebrands

James Cridland 27:54

Shall we shall we shift gears?

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Yes, our favorite subjects, Inception Point AI. Um what what what's the latest on them, James?

James Cridland 28:04

Well, silence please for the death of Inception Point AI, because Inception Point AI has when it's not closed, it's rebranded. Uh it's now called Liquify AI, the company behind Liquid Studios. And it says uh the company's new website suggests that Inception Point AI's Quiet Please Podcast Network, quote, was never the destination, just proof that content infrastructure works at this scale. What what what is interesting looking at the Liquid Studios website, and I mean to do this work sort of properly, but the people at the top, Jillian Wright is still there, but uh some of the co-founders of Inception Point AI don't appear to be on the Liquid Studios website anymore. So I'm kind of looking at that and going, well, I'm not quite sure what what does this mean? Does this mean that they've lost some of the people that working there? I I I I don't know what the answer is, but yeah, really interesting to end up seeing that. It's difficult to see what Inception Point AI or Liquid Studios is producing right now because of course all of their stuff is blocked from the podcast index, which is where I look to find out what is actually there. But I think you know, certainly there doesn't appear to have been any new shows for quite some time, and this would probably explain all of that. But uh yeah, do we will you mourn the uh the going of Inception Point AI?

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Uh no. I I I I I mean uh maybe I'm being cynical here, but it it very much smells of them reading the room. It took them a long time to read the room, but uh I think they they knew that there was a lot of animosity about uh what they were doing, and this it it just all feels like a very fancy way of just pivoting without actually acknowledging that they realize that maybe they messed up because actually what they're really just doing is saying, hey, all this stuff that you didn't like that we said was gonna be the future that we're going all in on. Yes, that was that was just a test. We didn't we didn't mean it. Yes. Um here's our real product offering. No, indeed, indeed.

Megaphone's changes

SPEAKER_02 30:21

So let's move on to megaphone because they've announced something very recently, haven't they?

James Cridland 30:28

Yeah, I mean they've they've announced a big a big back-end change in their systems. Now I'm not a megaphone customer. Are you a megaphone customer?

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Well, yes, I am. Actually, Mercury does use megaphones, so I'm uh I because I I don't want to piss anyone off too much on this podcast, but I'm interested to know what the changes are.

James Cridland 30:48

Well, so uh of course they they made a lot of changes in late July, early August in terms of the systems that they're running behind everything. So, and those changes I I think it's fair to say have not gone entirely smoothly. There's all kinds of changes and hassles that I understand, certainly from a number of people who have contacted me, really impacting people. Some of it appears to be, you know, network ads, those ones sold by Spotify appear to be preferred by the systems over direct ads. And so the ads that you're selling appears to be thrown off because Spotify has sold something as well. And there's complications around some competitive stuff as well. There's been sort of competition, anti-competition stuff which has been added. So basically, you if you have an an ad for a beer in an ad break, then you can't have another ad for beer in the same ad break, which interestingly used to be the law in the UK. But uh yeah, maybe who knows, still is. But anyway, that appears to have been built into megaphone's services now, which is fine, except except there are some very niche podcasts who actually, you know, if you're a financial podcast, you may have more than one financial service advertising in the same ad break. But oh no, not with megaphone's new uh rules and things. So it does seem that there's quite a lot of change, and quite a lot of change that quite a lot of people don't really like that much.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

I think that as a megaphone user myself, James, there's always going to be niggles, there's gonna be things that I've experienced as well that's optimal. And I I I have seen occasional glitches in the ad delivery and things like that. What I would say, and we've done a a lot of kind of Spotify criticism on this episode, I do think megaphones still have comparatively uh a best in class ad platform, which I think sometimes you know we we can maybe take for granted. That's not to say that we shouldn't expect it to work properly, because it should, and I think particularly when we're dealing with advertisers and there's potential conflicts of interest there that are not just preferential but legal. I think you know we need to know that things are gonna work as we need them to work. Megaphone have made a lot of changes to their ad stuff this year, they've actually sort of re-sort of redesigned their entire kind of back-end campaign tools, and that's caused a few glitches. From my personal experience, I've not noticed anything that's been kind of you know a deal breaker, like, oh my god, you know, we're we we're gonna we're gonna get sued if we don't sort this out, sort of thing. But it you know, yeah, it's megaphone has been glitchy. I think Spotify just making a lot of changes, and I think the nature of Spotify's business, as we've known over the years with Spotify, is that they they do something and if it breaks, they stop doing it. You know, that's just that's that's kind of what they do, right? Yeah, um that's not to say we shouldn't hold them to account, but I do think that um, you know, when we look at the big picture of what megaphone deliver, I think they still deserve some credit for that overall platform, even if there's some issues within that.

James Cridland 34:11

Yeah, no, indeed, indeed. And so I think it's interesting Flight Path releasing some new software that will essentially go in and check your megaphone dashboard every single day and make sure that everything is still on course, which is interesting. But also, you know, posting something. There was an open letter posted yesterday that was, you know, really interesting, basically saying, you know, we we should be standing up for publishers a little bit more, and we really want to help with that, and we should be putting a little bit more of a spotlight on that. So it'll be interesting, you know, again, to see quite what happens to that, given that Flight Path and many others will all be together in New York City in just uh three or four weeks' time.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Absolutely. I I would just say a real bugbear that I've had with megaphone recently has been there, um, I think this might just be spotified for creators, I don't know where this falls under, but they have a kind of uh an AI copyright scanner, and the amount of times I've been notified in the last month that like my content has potentially breached copyright licensing. Um it hasn't, I I'm not doing anything illegal, just gonna preface that. But um but oh man, it's a hassle, just you know, because you've got to go in, you've got to manually upload your license for whatever piece of music you've you you've downloaded, and do that for every single individual copyright flag. That's a pain.

James Cridland 35:41

Yeah, yeah. And to be honest, whenever I see these things, I am looking at um some of the reports because I get a fair amount from the new podcasts.net feed that I have. And uh it what what seems to be the case is that music libraries are uploading their music to Spotify's content match thing, and then going, oh no, somebody is using our music. Well, that's the point of a music library. Um so yes, so it's a bit of a mess. So yeah, no, it's uh that that is certainly something that I know a lot of podcast hosting companies are having uh real uh issues

Round the world

James Cridland 36:16

with.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Let's go around the world starting in your neck of the wood, James.

James Cridland 36:20

Yes, let's do that. Magellan AI and uh ARN's iHeart release data on Australian podcast ad spend in quarter two twenty-six. It's uh good news, it always is good news, isn't it? Uh when they uh end up doing this. Podcast ad spend increasing 44% year on year, which is uh really good numbers. Just 5.7% of podcast episodes are ads in this country. It's 8.7% in the US, so considerably less ads here, which is good. And the biggest advertisers Airbnb, Wise, and Spotify. I should also say congratulations to Rachel Corbett, one of our power supporters, who is the boss of Nova Podcasts. They've just announced a deal about the One Daydream Network, lots of big shows joining the Nova Podcast Network as well here in Australia. Uh, and in Ireland, uh more big numbers from Magellan AI, working with a company called Audio One. Not quite sure who Audio One is. Oh, it's something to do with Bauer, isn't it? Bauer Audio in Ireland. Uh anyway, the numbers coming out of uh Ireland, 33% up year on year in terms of podcast ad spend. The big three over there Shopify, Comcast, and Novibet. Is it Novibet or Novibet? Have you any idea? Depends on your accent, I guess. Uh good answer. Good answer, yes. And ad load, in case you're wondering, is uh 5.7% again. So it's um pretty well identical in terms of the Australian market. So really good news to end up uh seeing there.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Yeah, it's it is it's good to see just ad spends going up generally, you know, in the industry. And it's it creates a good problem, right? And we've we've been talking a lot about all the you know technicalities of you know YouTube and Spotify, you know, amending and building out all their kind of ad tech. But I mean this this is a really good problem that we have where we're growing at such a speed that we're having to try and keep up with that. Um so I think I just I guess it's worth just caveating all of the discussions around the challenges that we're facing with the fact that this is actually really good. Yes, yes.

James Cridland 38:32

I mean, we are growing tremendously fast at the moment, and of course, when you do grow tremendously fast, then there are always growing pains. But yeah, so uh actually doing that is uh is really, really helpful. Uh, in terms of people and jobs, Cheryl Bromley has started as head of podcasts at Bloomberg. She's based in London. She joined from the FT and The Economist, but she posted a lovely picture on LinkedIn the other day of the view from the Bloomberg offices in New York City, which, as you would expect, was quite an impressive view. So congratulations to her. Adlarge has appointed Nicole Leyden as vice president of brand partnerships. And Greta Cohn has quietly left Pushkin Industries, according to LinkedIn. She'd been CEO from September 2023. I've asked Pushkin Industries for comment but received nothing at time of recording. But uh interesting

Events

James Cridland 39:27

to see that.

Announcer 39:28

Podcast events on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 39:32

And yes, let's move on to uh events and uh the Ambis open for entry from today. Two new categories best music and best episode of the year. I say from today, obviously from earlier on in the week. There'll be two Listeners' Choice Awards as well. Uh have you entered Ambies Awards in the past, Liam? Um no, I I haven't. It's what's your views about awards? I seem to remember. I seem to remember you have penned.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Don't open that kind of no, no, I think I think the Ambies and the podcast academy are doing really great things. And I I I actually really love how they've embedded themselves in the industry over the last few years. I I have thoughts about awards and what a good awards looks like. Yes. But maybe that's a conversation for another day.

James Cridland 40:22

Yes, I think I think awards are fascinating because there are good awards out there, there are very good awards out there, and there are also awards that are not so good. And the difference uh there is to actually work out which are the good awards and which aren't, and the and the awards that you should take note of and the awards that you should simply ignore. And the problem is uh that I don't think it's very easy to actually judge that. But yeah, no, so fascinating. If you want to join the podcast academy, it'll be cheaper for you. I mean, you you'd be stupid if you were to entry you'd be stupid if you were to enter the Ambes without becoming a member of the Podcast Academy because it's basically the same price. So you might as well. So that's a a good thing. And um news of a brand new event, which is exciting in the north of England. You know a thing or two about that country. Podfest North will be head in Liverpool on November the 13th. Uh, expect the people behind the Anfield Rap, uh, marriage to the machine. Uh the BBC will be there, other top podcasts will be there as well. Early bird tickets 50 quid if you want to end up doing that. Is it good news to have more podcast events, particularly outside of London where all of the podcast events are?

SPEAKER_02 41:36

Yeah, absolutely. I I think I think it's a great thing. Obviously, we'll get to a point where I think we reach kind of saturation with podcast events. I think we're far from that. Yeah, I mean, you look at the success of like crossed wires up in Sheffield and the podcast show, you know, in London, which has I think become the biggest uh podcast event outside of the US. And I I mean, I I think Andrea Koska from Eurowaves might argue that maybe there needs to be a few more on mainland Europe. But uh, you know, I I I think this is a great thing. I think let's let's have more events, let's let's see what that saturation point is, right?

James Cridland 42:11

Yeah, no, exactly. Uh Spotify used to run a really good one in Berlin in Germany, which seems to have uh changed a little bit, partially because of the Spotify cost cutting over the last couple of uh years. But there again, Spotify is now making profit, so maybe it might go back to that. But that was always a good one. But there are you know some good events across uh Europe, but uh more events is never a bad thing, so it's uh very good. Is Liverpool still the city of culture, or am I very old-fashioned now?

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Yeah, I think that I think that was a little while ago, but I have a feeling a mobile. I don't know. Um but yeah, Liverpool Where's the city of culture now? I mean now you're testing me, you're gonna have to cut that out. But uh but you know, Liverpool's a great city though, and uh I've I've I've been there not enough, but I have been there a couple of times, so yeah, I think that's wonderful.

James Cridland 43:03

And of course, uh New York City is having a podcast week of it coming up in the middle of September, Sounds Profitable Business Summit for the first couple of days, and the podcast study, I've already mentioned it, but this year we'll focus on discovery, loyalty, and monetization, and that will be at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit in New York City. Then there's the IAB podcast upfronts, which is supposed to be a very glitzy and exciting event. I hope so, because I'm going this year. And then there is podcast movement, of course, on the Thursday and the Friday. Are you making the trip over to New York, Liam?

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Uh I won't be this year, but uh it it comes at a weird time.

James Cridland 43:41

My daughter's just starting school, so Oh well, you should you should be there for that. Uh yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Well, yeah, yes, but uh you know, 2027 on uh sign me up. All right, I'll pass

The Tech Stuff

SPEAKER_02 43:53

that on.

Announcer 43:53

The tech stuff, tech stuff on the Pard News Weekly Review.

James Cridland 43:58

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every month. Monday in the Pod News newsletter, here's where Sam talks technology. Well, here's where I talk tech, in fact. But ask Liam some questions. Firstly, Transistor has added an MCP server. Oh, thank goodness for that. Uh, it'll allow you to connect it to Claude, Chat GPT, and other AI assistants. Liam, are you using AI in any of the stuff that you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 44:21

Yeah, absolutely. But we, you know, we use it to improve our workflows, you know, we we use it sort of streamline some of our production processes. I mean, I I think AI can be really valuable, and I think actually used in the right way can can provide enormous value to especially that independent creators who are time poor. So I'm I'm I'm all for this. I'm I'm all for you know sensible integrations with AI. I think the the the breaking point is obviously companies like Inception. I think at the point that you surrender all editorial kind of production control to a robot, I think that's the point it goes too far.

James Cridland 44:58

Well, let's see your view on Mato or Mato. I'm hoping it's MATO, but if it was Australian, it would be Mato, most certainly. Uh, it's a new tool that creates your podcasts with AI hosts that interview real experts. It listens to what a guest says and picks up on that, and it's follow-up questions you don't say. What an amazing thing. Just like a real human does, but without any of the pesky payments I wrote when I when I covered it. Good idea or bad idea?

SPEAKER_02 45:27

I mean, it's it's it's a gimmick.

James Cridland 45:30

We shouldn't have to think about this, should we? No.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Like I just I just don't how I don't know how that's gonna work in practice. Like, yeah.

James Cridland 45:38

Yeah, I mean, I mean, to be fair, we had on this show last year, we had uh the ghost of Michael Parkinson, Michael Parkinson's voice, who was interviewing people, and that was doing a little bit of this, but I think the the gimmick there was that it was Michael Parkinson. Yeah, I mean it wasn't, it was an AI, it was an AI cloned voice, but I think that was the gimmick. Whereas this, I mean, to me, it seems that if you are running a podcast where you are interviewing experts about a particular part of, you know, maybe your business or your chosen career or whatever it is, it it seems to me that the real benefit that you get from that is actually having an excuse to ring these experts and talk to them. And so to give that to an AI host seems the most backwards thing that you could possibly do.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

Yeah, I mean, I think that for the host, like why would they agree to be interviewed by AI? Yeah, and and for for the content creator, like I'm very much of the opinion that if you can't even be bothered to make your own content, how can you reasonably expect anyone to listen to it?

James Cridland 46:47

Yeah, no, I I totally, totally agree. One one other uh very, very techy thing. There's a long, complicated paper from UC Barclay and Adobe. I don't know what UC stands for in UC Barclay. It's probably, I don't know, Upper College or something. Anyway, it's a very long and in-depth academic paper talking about a piece of software called Drama Rater, which is a specific tool to help with object-based audio editing for audio drama production. What was interesting about this is that it cut production time for one episode from 16 and a half hours to just three and a half hours. So it did a pretty good job in terms of that. But my goodness, I mean it's a it's a dense piece of work if you wanted to end up reading it. But I thought it was interesting that it's both the university working on it, but also quite a lot of people from Adobe. And um, I suspect that we will see that in an Adobe uh platform at some point next year. But yeah, some quite sort of interesting things there. Would you use AI to help you edit stuff?

SPEAKER_02 48:00

W within reason. Uh I mean, you know, I think you could argue that a lot of plugins that you would get for audio editors uh like Adobe are essentially AI tools anyway. I think you you there still has to be a certain amount of just human qualitative control over an edit. I think okay, find nice ways to automate it, but I'm like I I trust that Adobe are trying to do something awesome and trying to do it in the right way. Cutting a 16.7 hour job down to 3.7 hours, I I'm a little bit skeptical about that.

James Cridland 48:42

Well, there's a long paper for you to read if you fancied reading that, as you can get get to that if you like.

Announcer 48:48

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

James Cridland 48:57

Yes, so many different ways to get in touch with us. Voicemail by using the link in our show notes or email as well. Neil Vellio gets a slap on the wrist because he has sent us a voicemail literally as we were recording. But this is from Neil.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

And yeah, that's very idealist. I like it. Ignoring it though, that only works if everybody does, and we know that everybody won. Once that engaged view goes off the public API, there's no way for a buyer to check on anyone. So the honest publisher that shows a small number is up against the chancer who's showing an enormous one, and the money's gonna go to whoever looks bigger. Let's face it, that's just the reality of this situation. So, what's the actual answer here? I mean, I thought that the Amper Courts were supposed to deal with all this. Do we now just accept that YouTube numbers a marketing copy and stop pretending otherwise and just try and turn a blind eye when anyone with a course can amplify their numbers and sell based on a lie?

James Cridland 50:08

Wow. Well, what do you think of that? I think you've you've already said that uh yeah, we need to be as open and as transparent as we possibly can.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Yeah, I mean I think it starts with just YouTube flicking a switch and making sure that the visible metric is engaged views rather than just views. Yeah. There's obviously more work to do there, but you know, it at least make the right metric the publicly visible one. Yes, yes.

James Cridland 50:32

No, I would uh certainly agree with that. Martin Lindescog sending us a message, 1701 SATs, which apparently is a spaceship boost for some reason. Anyway, uh he says, Tuck to me and to Sam. He says, best premises with frying fish. I have no idea what that means. That may be a Swedish chef reference. I don't know. Anyway, he's going to send us another voice fan mail in the near future. Martin, thank you so much for that. We've got 24 supporters, power supporters, we call them. We share any money that we make from those. There's also a WhatsApp group that you can get into as well, where only power supporters can uh get into. You can find out more about that in weekly.podnews.net.

Liam and James's week

James Cridland 51:15

Now, here's something I haven't warned you about, Liam. What else has happened for you this week apart from the world of podcasting?

SPEAKER_02 51:22

I mean, uh as I I ranted to you before we started recording, I'm at the back end of summer holidays, so I'm I'm surviving on energy drinks and three hours sleep while my four-year-old runs rings around me. So uh really, I it's I'm I'm just surviving right now. And and uh and so whereabouts are you in are you in the UK? Uh so I'm Kent, Southeast, um UK. Um yeah, so back end of a heat wave as well, which is which is nice. We had rain yesterday, we had actual rain.

James Cridland 51:51

Yes, back end back end of a heat wave. Of course, it's the winter here. Of course. So it so it only goes down to about the same as you've been having all summer. Uh so that's been uh that's been entertaining and nice. But yeah, so what what's the uh yeah? I mean, summer holidays with a four-year-old is is pretty hard work, isn't it? Yeah, I mean that you're looking forward to school.

SPEAKER_02 52:15

I I am I I should probably not take too much credit because my wife has been doing most of the heavy lifting during the day. There is always that. And I think you know, I'm I'm like ragged enough right now. She is I I think she needs therapy after this, but it's yeah, but it's you know, it's it's busy. Uh you know, on the podcast front, lots of stuff, lots of great stuff happening as well. And I would I I I would say, you know, the podcast show for us as a business was absolutely transformational, just being able to get that face down with people, and and even now we're still seeing the sort of the effects of that and lots of really exciting stuff happening. So anyone that's listening to this that hasn't been to the podcast show, just just go because honestly, like we've been really busy since May, and because of that, in in all the best ways.

James Cridland 53:01

Yeah, it's a fantastic uh show. I uh caught up with Jason Carter earlier on in the week. Every sentence he said to me started with the words confidentially. So therefore I can't tell you anything that he ended up saying. But uh next year is going to be even bigger and better, which is really good. I think the nice thing about the podcast show, and the thing that I hope will happen with podcast movement as well, is that it's in the same place every single year. And so what we're seeing year upon year upon year is more people going because they know where it is, but also more people doing things around the event because we know where the decent pubs are, we know where the decent bars are, we know what to do and where to stay. And so it's much less scary than or much less pointless than going to Denver International Airport, as uh as podcast movement was about two or three years ago, which weirdly, I have a friend who who lived there and we went out shooting, so that was uh that was a peculiarly American thing.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

The the the all-American experience.

James Cridland 54:00

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we weren't shooting people, but nevertheless. So that was uh so that was entertaining. But yeah, so the podcast show next year I know is going to be even bigger and better in the UK, and you know, I mean, I mean, frankly, that they should be doing more of those in other parts of the world as well. So, you know, so let's see what happens there.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

But what's happened with you this week, James?

James Cridland 54:23

Uh I have so this is the this gets very, very geeky. So OpenStreetMap, listeners to this podcast will understand that OpenStreetMap is a very good thing. It's open, uh, it's an open map, basically. It's a bit like Google Maps or Apple Maps, but it's open and anybody can edit it. But more to the point, it means that if you're using the podcast location tag, for example, then you can mark yourself on that map. So you can actually say this is a show not just about Paris or about this particular spot in Paris, but this is a show about the Notre Dame Cathedral, or this is a show about the the bookshop, which is, you know, which is just over the other side of the the river or whatever it it ends up being, so that people can actually find you through a location search rather than find you through a podcast app. That's the kind of plan. Anyway, there is a yeah, it's it's it's it's brilliant. And there will be more on that in the next couple of weeks if I've convinced Alberto to build something and also Dave from the podcast index. But anyway, on that, there is a there is a account on the Fediverse on Mastodon and things like that, which is called Small Town Australia. And if you search for that, then every single day it posts a a place in Australia, and it says this place could do with some better mapping. And lots of people go to that place during the day and they map and they you know they draw the roads and they draw the the buildings and stuff like that. And it's a brand new, it's a brand new account which only has been going for the last uh week or so. And I was one of the one of the people that actually got that account up and running, which I'm delighted about. So anyway, it's been really good and really interesting actually, going in and going and seeing a random tiny little town in this this uh country and going in and you know, going along on the street view and and r researching what's in that particular place and everything else. It's been a really interesting way of learning more about this country that I've lived in for the last ten years, but I've certainly not been to any of these, you know, small you know, hamlets in the middle of nowhere. And so it's been very good. So small town Australia is what to search for if you're on the Fediverse. Nice. Um and you can and you can join in. Uh and that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories taken from the Pod News Daily Newsletter at Podnews.net.

SPEAKER_02 56:55

And you can give us feedback using the Bussprout voicemail link in our show notes or become a monthly power supporter like the 24 other power supporters at weekly.podnews.net.

James Cridland 57:05

Our music is from TM Studios. Our voiceover is Sheila D. Our audio is recorded using CleanFeed. We edit with Hindenburg. I've probably used uh Voice Regen as well for this week's episode, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting. Thank you so much, Liam. Thank you, James.

SPEAKER_02 57:24

That was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that.

Announcer 57:26

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