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James Cridland 0:00

Coming up, iHeart's Podcasts for Sale or not?

Announcer 0:04

With James Cridland and Sam Sethi. This is the Podnews Weekly Review with Buzz with Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, he he keep podcasting.

Is iHeart Selling Podcasts

Sam Sethi 0:16

James, so let's start off with what is allegedly a big story coming out of Bloomberg that iHeart is putting up its podcast business for sale. Tell me more.

James Cridland 0:28

Or is it? So according to Bloomberg, it cites apparent discussions with an investment bank. So, and they're basically talking about um potentially selling it off. Bit of a weird thing to do, given that it's the bit of iHeart which is growing. But in response, iHeart has said in a statement that it has no plans to sell our podcasting business. So I would remind you that Bloomberg also reported earlier on this year that uh iHeart was going to merge with SiriusXM, and that weirdly didn't happen either. So I'm not quite sure what's going on there. I guess so. A couple of people have said a iHeart's shares have had a dreadful time since Monday when they released their uh their uh financial uh numbers for the quarter. This has actually stopped that from going down, so that's kind of one thing. The other thing is that, well, iHeart is actually planning to split out its podcast business from its audio group so that investors can actually see how well it's doing. So that doesn't seem to me to be the sort of thing that any company that would want to sell would do. So not so sure, to be honest. What do you think, Sam? Do you think iHeart selling or or not?

Sam Sethi 1:48

I think there's no smoke without fire. I think if you keep hearing rumors in the market often and frequently, then somebody in the know is getting a bit of a message and saying, Is it now? Can I get the exclusive? Yes.

James Cridland 2:05

Yes, and somebody else has said has said where the smoke dot dot dot. Yes. And I think, yeah, I think that that's probably that probably makes a bit of sense. It may just have been a rumour just to get the stock price up. Because they've fallen by the stock price has fallen by two-thirds, two-thirds of its value in a week. So it might just be that.

Sam Sethi 2:25

Microsoft in the early days, their share price will remain pretty flat under Barmer. But when MSN was in the ascendancy, there was a lot of talk about running a side-by-side running track, a secondary share in effect, so that the value of MSN would be seen to the market, which would boost the parent share. And I wonder whether they're trying to do the same thing. Look, we've got a really successful Cash Cow. Uh well, we in the Boston Consulting Matrix, the Cash Cow, the radio, is now going into decline, it's becoming a slight dog. But we've got a rising star of this thing called Podcast, and you can't really see it when we aggregate all the numbers, but it is really good. So let's strip it out, create a separate track that you can see, and maybe you'll give us some benefit in the parent share eventually. Um, I think the other thing though that is quite worrying, they carry 4.9 billion in long-term borrowings. Again, maybe that was the rumour that they're going to sell off because they've got to pay back. I don't know.

James Cridland 3:30

Matt Deegan, friend of the show, says that iHeart still trying to recover from the crazy clear channel financing of the past, which I would certainly agree with, but potentially selling the key growing product of the business, he says, is mad. It also means the potential owner loses out on the app stroke radio cross promotion. He also says he's not sure who's big enough to buy it. I mean, Sirius XM might be. They've got a brand new CEO starting in January, so who knows what might happen there. But I think I I would agree. I mean, why would you sell the best performing bit of your business? Now, it's not the bit of the business that brings in the most amount of money. That's that that's still the legacy radio stations, but those are in decline, as you so rightly say. Podcasting is, you know, I mean, they were up 24.4% year on year. I uh, you know. I have to say, I think that this is and that this is a weird story that's probably there as a bit of a rumour to push up the share price, and that might be it. But uh yeah, I'm not so sure in terms of that.

Radio Listening Data Puts Podcasts In Context

Sam Sethi 4:35

I wanted to include this next story, James, because of your radio futurologist hat that you can ply. The UK Rajar released some figures around radio uh and radio listening across age groups and across demographics. And a friend of the show, Adam Bowie, took a closer look at the numbers as well. One of the things that stood out for me was a chart that Adam produced which showed the percentage of radio listening compared to on-demand music, podcasts, catch-up radio, audiobooks, etc. So it shows fundamentally radio still the dominant means of listening to music or listening to information compared to podcasting, which was micro-small, much smaller than I thought, you know, sub-10% in most categories. It goes back to the story with iHeart. Although it's a growing segment for iHeart, if their numbers reflect those of the UK, like 10% and the main bulk of the radio is 60 or 50% or more, then it seems crazy. So talk to me about Adam's analysis about the UK first, and then do you think this extends to iHeart's demographic as well?

James Cridland 5:57

Yeah, I mean I'll go a little bit further than Adam's than Adam's stuff from the UK, because now you'll know if you are watching this on video, but I'm looking particularly smart today, and the reason why I'm looking smart with the contact lenses and the and the slick back hair is that I have just been doing a presentation about radio, and I've been sharing exactly those figures, not just figures from the UK, but also figures from other parts of the world as well. So from the in the UK, if you look at all of the audio that we listen to, in the UK, two-thirds of that is live radio. So podcasting's just 10% of all of the audio that we put into our ears, streaming audio about 15%. So live radio is still massive in the UK. If you look at ad-supported audio in the US, which is the way that the US like to do it, then again, live radio is about two-thirds. Podcasting there, 21%. And if you then have a look at Canada, for example, which released some figures last week, then radio again, 60% of uh time to listening to audio, listening to ad-supported audio is radio, 29% to podcasts in Canada, 11% to free music streaming. So radio is still significantly larger. But having said that, as you so rightly say, podcasting is small in comparison to uh radio in terms of total revenue. So if you look at iHeart, the last time I calculated these figures was uh last quarter. I've not calculated them for this quarter, but last quarter, quarter two twenty-six, podcast revenue was nice. It was $162 million, but that's only 16.5% of the company's total revenue. So uh the company owns earns an awful lot more from the radio stations that it owns, but you know, but podcasting is clearly where things are actually growing. So I think, yeah, the you know, the there's clearly stuff going on there, but I mean, certainly, and particularly when you have a look at younger audiences, podcasting is where the is is where the growth is. You know, you look at um spoken word consumption and spoken word consumption in the US is going gangbusters at the moment. It it's really doing well, and particularly doing well on mobile phones, and a lot of that is down to podcasting, yes. But that then means that uh you know, if you want to attract younger audiences, then podcasting is the way forward. So yeah, I so that that essentially tells me that iHeartMedia can't possibly be trying to sell its podcast division. The only thing that I would say to change my view on that is CEO Bob Pittman, he's 72. There will come a time when Bob Pittman doesn't want to run iHeart anymore. And if he wants to get a sizable amount of money in his pocket and go and retire somewhere, I mean uh arguably he's got a sizable amount of money anyway, but if he wants to go and and retire somewhere, then probably selling the most valuable bit of the business is probably a good plan. So so I suppose there is always that.

Sam Sethi 9:08

72. Oh, he's young enough to start to be the president next. Come on, he's got years in him. Uh no, I mean look, it would make it would make no sense to to sell it. I agree with you totally, James. Let's see where this story goes. But I I do think, you know, the the analysis shows that yes, radio over time will decline because of the demographic, but podcasting is a growth area, but it's so small in comparison to radio still. Indeed. You know, we get very excited, you and I, in most of the industry. But this chart from Adam really did sort of make me step back and go, whoa, yeah, massive opportunity.

James Cridland 9:46

Yeah, and I would just say that that that that's not I'm not talking podcasting down. I'm actually saying that there's so much opportunity for growth in terms of podcasting, you know, which we probably shouldn't forget. So uh yes, there's some certainly some good news. Anyway, uh let's move on because we've got more good news as well, I guess.

Hosting Dupes Crackdown And COP5

Sam Sethi 10:04

Well, we have got some good news because you've been a busy boy working on stuff, but uh this is what I call the podcast problems one, two, three. The first problem is duplication. Now, a few weeks ago you investigated grown concerns about the number of copies of shows, certainly on a site named Spreaker. Now, what's happened since? Come on, update the story further, James.

James Cridland 10:29

Yeah, so so just to recap a little bit, lots and lots and lots of copies of shows that were being imported into Spreeker, which of course is the biggest independent podcast host, and which was bad news not just because people were making money out of stuff, albeit not an awful lot of money from what I understand, but it was also those duplicates that confused listeners and interfered with chart positions and and all of that kind of stuff there as well. Anyway, Spreaker has now made a commitment to put in place a number of changes to fight those unauthorized copies of shows. They've committed to get all of those done by the by hopefully the end of the year and certainly by the beginning of next year at the very latest, uh, which is very good news. Not just that, actually the code of practice that partially, you know, I put forward to Spreaker as as you know what you should probably probably be doing to fix this. That code of practice has now been been accepted and signed by RSS.com, by Red Circle, and by Transistor and Captivate and Blueberry. So some good people now involved in that code of practice. And you know, it'd be great to see even more companies joining on that.

Sam Sethi 11:46

Yeah, I've called the code of practice COP. I think it's quite nice. You policing the industry.

James Cridland 11:53

Um there are only five points in there, so it would be COP5 and not COP 31 or whatever the current the current thing is going on. A little bit of politics. But yes, so very pleased to see. I'm hoping that we get to see more podcast companies. There are a few pretty obvious exceptions on that list at the moment, and I'm hoping that they will uh sign up. But I think that that is a great start. So hurrah for that, and hurrah for Dave Jones from the podcast index as well, who actually has been doing some tech work to actually help the industry police how the thing's going as well.

Sam Sethi 12:30

Yeah. How do we ensure that people stay true to it though? I mean, it's a code of conduct, it's a gentleman's agreement, it's a we will promise to. Is it you? Is it is it everyone within our WhatsApp group, you know, pointing a finger at those that go go off tangent, I guess. Yeah.

James Cridland 12:52

I d I I think it it will be policed by if it fails, then there'll still be lots of copies of shows. And and and the good news is with the copies of shows, we know exactly which podcast hosting companies are allowing those copies, so we can actually go up against them. So I think I think it should police itself, I would have thought.

Sam Sethi 13:14

Now, the bad news is that we are getting more companies joining into hosting that I don't think will adhere to any of this. One of those seems to be Meta. We talked about it, our friend John Sperlock highlighted that they he'd noticed there was a podcast that was using a URL called meta.ai to host. And now it's become clear that uh the new AI assistant from Meta, the update that they put out recently, is capable of researching content for podcasts, recording podcasts, using artificial voices and hosting podcasts on its own servers. So Meta has joined the party of AI Slop.

Meta AI Podcast Factories And Industry Risks

James Cridland 13:58

Yes, they have, and very much so. So if you are subscribed to the Podnews Extra podcast, which you probably should be, then in and amongst some of our interviews, you will also find this story as a red story for you. Just because I enjoyed doing it and I wondered how it would work. So you'll find it in the Podnews Extra podcast. But yes, it's um a chap called Charles Mayfield who emailed wanted us to promote his uh podcast that was hosted by Alex and Jordan, and it it transpired. I mean, you know, there was so much weird stuff that transpired. I mean, it it started by him sending a photograph that he claimed was the uh the team recording a podcast that was obviously a piece of AI art, and so I looked at that and then I looked at what else he was doing. He's publishing 23 hours of podcasts a day. So we can't possibly be checking all of that. It's all coming from Meta, it's all hosted on Meta, but he's not the only one. There are a bunch of other shows as well that are being uh hosted on Meta and produced. I mean, you know, this one that he's producing is all about education news, uh, hosted by Alex and Jordan. But also on Muse, you can find, and indeed in the podcast apps, you can find Agentic Mornings, which is a 20-minute briefing for people who work with AI, hosted by Alex and Jordan. AI for Builders, a daily brief for engineering leaders, hosted by Alex and Jordan. City Stage covering Open Street Festivals, hosted by Alex and Jordan, AI and Finance Daily, disappointedly hosting by Maya and Dev. But, you know, and they go on and on and on. And I must admit, I rather enjoyed copy, I rather enjoyed taking a look at this uh story. It was fun to do. But yeah, if we're not careful, I think we'll have just more and more bad AI slot, but AI slot which isn't really being policed in any way, shape, or form. And uh, you know, unlike some of the AI slot that we've had previously, there isn't even a figurehead to go and point at unless you call, you know, Mark Zuckerberg a figurehead, I suppose.

Sam Sethi 16:09

More worriedly, Muse now offers voice support, video chat support directly with your identic AI. It's going to be available on all platforms, hardware, my funny glasses. But this is the thing that worried me most. The company believes that anthromorph anthropomorph I could say this this morning, anthropomorphosizing Muse is the way that you can make consumers feel more connected to their AI agent, right? Yeah, that is what we said we Yes, exactly. With COVID and tired, it's really hard. But that said, I thought this was what we did not want AI to do. We did not want it to become humanized. We wanted it to be. I mean, Adam calls his robot for the very reason that he does not want it to be anthromorphosized. You see, I can say it.

James Cridland 17:00

And so um yeah, no, I I I would agree. And and you know, I mean, the the the there's an awful lot look, I I I don't necessarily have a problem with AI producing computer code. I I think where I have a problem with is AI re replicating, you know, human creativity in terms of producing podcasts that simply aren't checks and they can hallucinate all over the place. Or, you know, I mean there are people who have been led to do all kinds of horrible things by their AI tools. I th I think we just need to be really careful with all of this stuff. But we're certainly moving into a quite an interesting and scary world. So yeah.

Sam Sethi 17:40

Three bits of news that just relate to it. Airbnb's joining me, AI agent. It's creating an AI travel agent. Great and Gary Tan spends can you believe this? The Y Combinator guy spends $200,000 a year on tokens, James. What's he doing? He doesn't even have a business anymore.

James Cridland 17:58

I don't know. Well, I mean making porn is quite hard, I suppose, on one of these things. You know, you need to use a lot of tokens for that.

Sam Sethi 18:05

Words I never thought I'd hear in a sentence. Right. The other one that worries me now is 11 Labs. A great company. Don't don't want to diss the company, but they announced this week that 11 Labs now lets users publish publish AI generated music directly to SoundCloud. And of course, Eleven Labs Studio allows you to create AI generated podcasts. So again, we are we are we are we kinkanoot fighting back a tide of AI slop? Are we going to just lose this battle?

James Cridland 18:37

I mean, we might be, and I suppose, you know, there there is of course, you know, uh something in a two or three minute update for you know wherever you've you know for Fredericksburg, uh that that's fine in terms of AI. But I think I think you know, there are so many places where, you know, I'm I'm not entirely thrilled about AI appearing. So yeah, no, it's it's it is it is really hard. And you know, and I think it is something I wish we had some leadership from Apple on this. I think if Apple were a bit I've not heard of a single case where Apple has chucked anybody off for being an a wholly AI generated show, even when some you know particularly poor ones were pointed out to them. I I wish that they would show a little bit of leadership there. I wish that the podcast industry had a little bit more leadership in terms of AI generated stuff as well. There seems to be a void of leadership going on, you know, and and uh you know I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm very good at um I'm very good at kicking up a fuss, but my goodness, that's a fuss that I don't want to start start trying to kick up.

Sam Sethi 19:53

So yeah. Okay, let's let's move

Proving Who Is Really Downloading

Sam Sethi 19:56

on, James. Then the second problem we've been talking about for a long while now is the user agents or lack of declared user agents. But you've come up with something in Podnews Daily, a new experiment that uses the common access tools, which is an existing open standard from the streaming world. Tell me more then. How might this fix the problem?

James Cridland 20:19

Yes, and you say I've come up with it. Not only have I not come up with it, but the person that has come up with it is Tom Rossi from our sponsor, BuzzSprout. So congratulations to Tom for doing this. Okay. Um yes, but yes, so common access tokens are the thing. They're an existing open standard from the streaming world, and what it basically does is you put a public key on your own domain, and then you sign something when your app requests that requests a piece of media so that the podcast host can go, okay. This says that it's Apple Podcasts, but is it really Apple Podcasts? I will check that this has been signed correctly. Oh, it hasn't. Okay, well, in which case, at least I know that now. And that's as far as it's gonna go. All right, so it's not blocking. You could use it for blocking if you wanted to, but it's not it won't build the blocking into the into the whole thing. It's just purely another signal for you to be able to go, okay, this possibly is a proper podcast app, or this isn't a proper podcast app. This isn't what the podcast app says it is. And this all comes from the difficulty that you've got where you've got a whole heap of badly behaved podcast apps which are pretending that they're either Apple Podcasts or pretending that they're just safari, which means that nobody can block them. If we can if we actually have proof that a particular podcast app is what it says it is, then that's a a real help. Now I've not properly taken a look at the spec here, but the spec seems to be quite nice and easy. For a podcast app developer to do. So I'm hoping also that it can be done as something that a website can also do. And if that's the case, then you know I might build it in and see what and see what happens. But it looks a pretty smart thing. So hurrah to Tom Rossi for doing that. And let's see whether or not that goes any uh further.

Sam Sethi 22:22

So just quickly remind me, as a user, do I care? No. As a host, I'm the only person who cares, right? Because I'm getting AI bot related podcast apps, scraping data, not declaring their user agent, and then fundamentally the analytics is coming up as either unknown or incorrectly being put as another user agent, such as Overcast or Pocket Casts and inflating numbers.

James Cridland 22:52

Yeah, no, exactly right. Exactly right. So I think I think I mean the people who care are the podcast hosting companies, but also I would I I would also suggest the people that care are the are the podcast apps. Because if Overcast d starts doing something which looks really bad and podcast hosts start blocking Overcast, well it'll be in Marco's arm Marco Arment's best interest to be able to prove that it's really overcast doing that bad thing or not doing that bad thing, or it's somebody spoofing overcast doing that bad thing, if you see what I mean. So it's actually in the podcast app's best interests to be able to say, no, it really is me. Because if if if their app is seen doing bad things, then podcast hosting companies will block them. And if that's the case, then their app will look really bad, even if it wasn't actually their app that was doing the bad things in the first place.

Sam Sethi 23:49

Okay, so we've had the duplication problem, we've got the user agent problem, and we seem to have some solutions.

Ad Load Growth And Radio Comparisons

Sam Sethi 23:57

The third problem is ad load. Podcast ad spend is up 18% year on year, according to Magellan AI's Q3 2026 report, which sounds good. Podcast ad load continues to increase, it says it's up 8.86%. That doesn't seem very good, James, because if we're ad stuffing, then people will start ad skipping.

James Cridland 24:22

Yes, and I don't know whether this is bad news or good news. So if podcast ad spend is up 18%, thank heavens we don't have eighteen percent more ads. We have around six percent more ads in real terms. So so that does seem to suggest that the podcast index is beginning to get a handle on its yield issue here. But yes, a typical ad, a typical podcast now, a typical ad, typical podcast now, has around 20 seconds more advertising per hour in it than it had this time last year. Now, 20 seconds doesn't sound a whole lot, but if we continue increasing, then it's probably bad news for the industry. So we just need to be careful, you know, in terms of that. But I think, yeah, you know, it's good news, I think, in the at least at least it's not go at least podcast ad load isn't going up at the same speed as the ad spend. But even so, I still think that we should be careful in not putting too many ads into the shows that we do.

Sam Sethi 25:26

Remind me again, given your radio background, how close are we to the same saturation of ad levels that radio stations have?

James Cridland 25:37

It's yeah, that's difficult to know because it depends really what radio stations, and it really depends what time of day and all of that sort of stuff. But I'm trying to do the maths vaguely in my head. I mean, if every podcast is 8.86%, then what's 60 6? So that tells you that, you know, I mean, we we've still got uh what's that, six minutes of ads an hour? Six minutes of ads an hour is much lower than where radio is. Radio is normally hovers around between nine and twelve minutes an hour, it can be significantly more. So we're still doing better than radio, but then of course, you know, I suppose the difference is you can skip the ads on podcasts, but you could also skip the ads on radio because you can punch the uh punch the button and find another radio station. So so there are issues on both sides, really. So but at the moment, not as bad as radio, which is a good thing.

Sam Sethi 26:34

Okay.

AI Video Versions That Actually Work

Sam Sethi 26:35

Now let's move on to an experiment that you were doing a couple of weeks back with a company called Liquid Studios, which used to have a different name. Now, you inception point AI. Now you uh worked with Jeanine Wright to create a visual version of Podnews Daily, and I accept that, you know, when I first heard about it, I fell off my chair, but then I decided to sit back on it and listen to what you said. How did it go, James? What's the upshot of working with Liquid Studios? Is this something you're going to be doing as an ongoing thing, or is it thanks but no thanks?

James Cridland 27:16

Yeah, well, I was really interested in seeing how it would do. So we ran it for a week, which isn't probably long enough for a pilot such as this. But Liquid Studios ended up making uh so they turned the Podnews Daily podcast, the uh the daily podcast that I do, they turned that into a video. There was a landscape version for YouTube, there was a vertical cut as well that could have gone on TikTok if I was on TikTok, but I'm not a 14-year-old girl, so I didn't. And also little clips there as well, and that was all completely built by Liquid Studios. They use mostly AI with some human checks to go alongside that. And I've written a long article about what that meant in terms of making it, but essentially it was no change from my point of view, and what it meant from the numbers, and it was good news in terms of YouTube, more engaged views, more views overall. YouTube's algorithm seemed to have noticed, which was nice. So we seemed to get a little bit more recommendations, which is good. LinkedIn it seemed to work quite nicely. Spotify, no effect whatsoever. Zero, no effect whatsoever on the algorithm either. Maybe we didn't give it enough time, I don't know. And audio downloads, no effect whatsoever, as you would kind of expect. So, so you know, did it work? I mean, I think you know, it would be something that any podcast that wants to produce some visual augmentation could use. It's quite cheap as well. It's I believe it's ten dollars per minute, which is not the world's most expensive thing. So, you know, would it work? Uh yeah, I think it would work quite nicely. Is it something that Podnews is going to do? I'm not so sure that Podnews is going to keep on doing it. Well, Podnews is not going to keep on doing it. Um, and the reason sorry, who do you need to question that with? Let me think it and ask myself again. I'll ask myself again. So Podnews itself isn't going to continue doing that, but that's a strategic conversation more than a conversation about what Liquid Studios was doing. So I do a podcast because I think that it will get more people subscribing to the newsletter, which is all I care about. So that podcast currently is getting 43,000 downloads a month, which is a nice number. But the newsletter has the equivalent of 675,000 cents. That that's where I earn my money. So I would rather be doing that. So I think you know, my job in terms of video is to occasionally do stuff to camera and say, you'll never believe a story in Podnews today, and do those sorts of things, which work much better than doing this sort of thing. But as I say, I think actually, if I was a normal podcast and I was earning in terms of downloads, then this may well be something that uh makes financial sense to end up doing, because if you get more more consumption as a result, then you seem to do quite nicely out of it.

Sam Sethi 30:13

Can I just say, Jeanine's listening? And I was the CEO of your company, I would just give it to James for free, just to have his name on the bloody roster. I mean, geez, Louise, talk about shoot yourself. No, I must charge you. No. Why don't you just let James have it and then use him as a case study?

James Cridland 30:32

I I I can't I can't talk about what our financial arrangement might have been if we had continued on, but that may have been the financial arrangement. Okay. Fine. But from my point of view, from my point of view, it doesn't fit with the strategy, as I say. It's not, it's not a it's not a payment thing. It's it's fitting with the strategy of, you know, can I actually, you know, does this make sense in actually doing? And at the end of the day, my main job is to get people to get the newsletter. The newsletter is the thing that pays its way. The newsletter, frankly, is where the value is for anybody. If you just get the podcast, well, that's great, but the newsletter's better. So so it's more it's more around that, to be honest. But yeah, but you know, as I say, I th I thought it was a pretty good, a pretty good tool. So uh yeah.

Sam Sethi 31:21

Okay.

Unified Creator Dashboards And Missing Plays

Sam Sethi 31:22

Moving on. Uh ACast has launched a unified analytics dashboard for creators. ACast has introduced new analytics dashboards that bring together audio, video, social audience data for podcast creators in one place. It sounds very good. You can now see audio downloads for Apple Podcasts, video views, social media followers from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, all within a single dashboard. This sounds good so far, James. Have you seen or read anything about it yet?

James Cridland 31:53

Yes, I I've uh certainly read what they have said. There's a couple of nice quotes from a podcast which has used it already. And yeah, it looks uh looks smart. It looks what a company that's invested in creators as ACAST is very much highlighting itself as uh saying it looks like exactly like the sort of thing that they should be doing. So now I've not seen the dashboard itself, and the one thing that I would be very keen in learning, and I I've asked the question, but I haven't had an answer yet, is whether it shows plays, i.e. I was thinking of the ampers.

Sam Sethi 32:30

Exactly. That's that was my thing. This sounds lovely in PR speak and absolutely lightweight in actual deliverable.

James Cridland 32:41

Well, I don't know whether I don't know whether that's fair, Michael. Oh, come on.

Sam Sethi 32:45

If it's only if it's all it's measuring is TikTok follower counts, YouTube follower accounts, and downloads.

James Cridland 32:52

No, no, I mean it's it's measuring audio, it's measuring video consumption, it's measuring all of that kind of stuff. It's putting in data from YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and all of that. So I think it's pretty good. And and I mean the one thing that it does do is that it de dupes so that uh you don't end up having a massive number because you've got somebody who has followed you on three different three different platforms at the same time. It's actually making sure that you're not double counting, which makes um which makes a bunch of sense. I think it's probably fair enough. Yeah, I think it's probably fair enough. I would love to know if it includes plays. I mean, my I I I I can probably answer that. No, it doesn't. Um but it would be nice to hear that from the company. But uh, you know, that that's probably the the one thing. If you spent time producing something, then um, you know, it'd be nice, wouldn't it, if if it had that plays count in there, but you know, we'll see. We'll see.

Sam Sethi 33:47

Yeah, I mean look, for me the only metrics that matter are plays and listen time and percent complete. I don't think any of the other metrics really matter. I looked to Buzzsprout's latest update to their dashboard, it's beautiful, really nice, got some extra features in there about the YouTube numbers, all sorts of things. But it's still measuring downloads, nothing else. That's that's the bottom line. And I still think unless we we've moved to an HLS world, we can do this. This is not hard. I'm sorry.

James Cridland 34:14

I well we we we we can we we kind of can, but we can't because HLS doesn't give us m second by second consumption numbers. It g it gives us better numbers, yes, absolutely. But it doesn't give us second by second consumption numbers because HLS will preload a certain amount. So yeah, let's not let's not run it.

Sam Sethi 34:37

Within an estimate, it's better than downloads, isn't it? Come on.

James Cridland 34:40

I I would I would agree with that, and but what I would also say is in the words of the great Rob Walsh, don't crap on the download.

Sam Sethi 34:48

I thought you were going to say the words of the great Rob Walsh, if Apple hasn't done it, I ain't doing it.

James Cridland 34:54

No, sorry, sorry. Well, that as well, but I think um but I think that that's probably important. I mean, uh you know, we're we're at a point at the moment where Apple Podcast Connect has uh totally different random numbers to Spotify, which has totally different random numbers to YouTube. And I think from my point of view, it would just be really nice if the three big companies would actually get together and measure the same thing. That would be really helpful. As a by the by, I am hearing all sorts of conversations around Apple Podcasts Connect. The numbers that are appearing in there, just not really having much, you know, sense of reality at the moment. I was helping a podcast earlier on this week looking at their numbers in OP3, which they're in, which is helpful because it uh allows me to at least see that stuff, comparing that with what Apple Podcasts Connect was saying. Apple Podcasts Connect was saying that they'd lost half of their audience. OP3, even when you filtered it just for Apple Podcasts consumption, says that they hadn't. So I'm there going, well, one of these sets of numbers doesn't make any sense, and I probably trust OP3 a little bit more than I trust the random numbers that you get out of Apple. So, you know, I think that there's a story there as well, but let's uh let's wait and see until I've got more evidence than just one podcast. That would probably be helpful.

Memberships Newsletters And The Funding Tag

unknown 36:22

Yeah.

Sam Sethi 36:22

Let's move on then, James. Now, look, you know, I'm not a fan of the ad models particularly. You know that I prefer to move towards premium content. And I'm seeing I like to keep myself, you know, quiet. Now, we've seen many new companies forming, you know, Sub Supercast, uh Beamly, Substack, Patreon, and of course, we are seeing companies like Goalhanger and others adding memberships and doing very well. Well, the news agents has now joined the club. It's got News Agents Plus, which it's launching with exclusive content, QA sessions, new podcasts. It's a subscription-based model, and of course, they've added the newsletter as well. So, again, we're seeing all of these things that are coming to pretty much all of the big large podcast platforms. What I find really interesting now is that we have created this portal. I I again Global have now done it on their own platform. What are your thoughts around what I guess the news agents are doing? Let's start there.

James Cridland 37:32

Yeah, I mean, I think you know, they're doing nothing particularly different to anything else, to anybody else who is doing this, uh, of basically adding a ton of new and interesting things, whether it's the news agents with Global, whether it's Goal Goalhanger and the membership plans that they're doing, or indeed Supercast or Supporting Cast. But I think, you know, we are seeing more and more podcasters doing this. And I think probably the wake-up was uh Jack from Goalhanger. When I was interviewing him at uh podcast uh movement in Dallas, when he was essentially saying that they get, I think it was a third of their money from the membership side. They use supporting cast, and I think people's ears pricked up then and went, Oh, so there's a way that we don't have to be focusing on the vagaries of the advertising market, and we can actually get money from the audience directly. It's a very different model from you know, value for value, but I think it's a model that you know the corporates understand little a little bit more, and you know, and certainly it seems to be working nicely for them.

Sam Sethi 38:36

I actually think it is value for value. It's five pounds a month gets you a extra podcast, gets you a newsletter, gets you a whatever. I think there is a direct. And I mean, I you know, Pivot with Cara Swisher and Scott Galloway are doing a live tour of the US and the title sponsor is Beehive. You know, and it's amazing. And the pivot newsletter is now on Beehive.

James Cridland 39:00

And I think what I would say as a creator Yes, those two things may be uh may of course be uh be related. Yes, I think they are.

Sam Sethi 39:10

Yes, yes, um pay to play. But I mean I what I would say is that this is one way of looking at more sustainable, regular, measurable income. You know, seven pounds a month, got it. X number of fans got it, as opposed to the variable advertising CPM rate, stroke, listen, stroke, whatever. Which again I completely agree.

James Cridland 39:36

Completely agree. And and and I would and I would also say, by the way, you know, with all of this, the podcast funding tag is our secret weapon here, because that funding tag was built so that the button doesn't just say donate or you know, or give us some money. The button can say whatever you want it to say. The button can say join the newsagents plus if you want it to, and can then lead to the website where you can end up doing that. So actually, the podcast funding tag is a great step forward. It's not perfect, but it's a great step forward in terms of making this kind of stuff more visible on all of the podcast apps out there.

Sam Sethi 40:15

Yeah. I mean, I would say Micropayments 1.0 hasn't succeeded. I think 2.0 will come back into vogue at some point when the technology is simpler for people. And in the interim, I think we are going to premium content and we're going to membered payments, which are measurable, and you know, you can grow that as a significant business, anyway. Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. I agree.

Webby Credits As A Career Ledger

Sam Sethi 40:43

This is a weird one. I don't even know what this means, James, but the webies have created a registry that launches to recognize podcast creators, it gives them credits for what they do with the webbies. Who gives a whatever?

James Cridland 41:05

Why'd you say that, Sam?

Sam Sethi 41:07

Well, the webbies are gonna be a small group. So if somebody turns around and says, I've got 50 webby credits, am I supposed to go, that's great, or do I get a badge that I stick on my website, or do I get a medal? I don't know. What what what's the benefit here?

James Cridland 41:26

So I think, and I should preface this by saying I've won two webbies. How many points you got then? Two webbies. But I think for uh in terms of this, to employer, I think it's quite a canny move from the webbies. Because I think to employers, for you to be able to turn around and say, I I was the managing editor of that particular website that won that webby in 2005, then actually that's quite a useful thing for my employer, my potential employers to know about me. And we have IMDB in terms of credits for for shows that we might have worked on. And I think having Webies, having the Webies be able to, you know, prove that uh you were involved in that particular piece of work that won a Webies, that won a Webby. I think that that's uh quite canny from the Webby Awards. I can see that being useful. I have filled out the form and I've said I won these two awards and actually this one as well, this nomination as well. Please can I have the uh the piece of paper that shows that I have that that I was involved in that? Because all you can see from the the website, of course, is just Virgin Radio, which is where I worked at the time. So hopefully they come back to me and they say, Yes, we've uh we've checked that you were that you were that person at that time and and and uh hooray, because they've got all of the paperwork. I think it's a good idea.

Sam Sethi 42:59

Sorry, sir. Well as I'll never get a webby. But if you have had a webby and you're an eligible professional, you can claim your profile from November the 10th. Winners.webbyawards.com forward slash credits. Or you can just look up James and just let him gloat.

James Cridland 43:17

Yeah, I mean, I would do that. But I'm I'm sure that you know, I mean, true fans can win a webby at some point in the future. You know, there's no there's no reason why not.

Sam Sethi 43:27

Right. I'm 60, remember, James. I haven't got forever. Now Crikey. 60 with COVID. I'm I'm in a very dangerous position.

James Cridland 43:42

Oh, good lord.

New CEO Watch And Company Collapse

James Cridland 43:43

Right. Well, let's move on then quickly while Sam is still alive. And um take a look at people and jobs. There's there's one big job, isn't there, Sam? And it's uh Sirius XM, which has announced a new CEO. Are they going to be serious in doing that job, Sam?

Sam Sethi 44:00

Well, in my opinion, no. I mean and and Jolly Sood has been the CEO of Vimeo. She's been recently or is currently the CEO of Tubi. She's probably a lovely lady. I've never met her. She's I I first got my attention to her when she was the CEO of Vimeo, 'cause I was using that a as a platform. Um look, she's a corporate career person. I suspect that she's gonna do her two years at Sirius and then she'll be Disney Plus or Netflix or she'll be on the board of Meta or something else. She's a very clever lady, I'm sure, but this feels like the stepping stone of a corporate ladder.

James Cridland 44:39

Well, I mean, she's posted something very exciting onto LinkedIn where she used the word audio a number of times. She sounds very enthusiastic about it. I mean, you know, I I'm sure that both of those two things could be uh true. I think Jennifer Wits, who has been Sirius XM's CEO for a long time now, you know, she is moving on. She she wrote something saying, I will always be a supporter and a subscriber of SiriusXM. And I was there thinking, of course you'll always be a subscriber for Sirius XM, because you'll get it free, just like you get it free at the moment. So of course you will. So that well, that was a bit of a weird thing to end up saying. But yeah, no, I mean the the thing about Anjali is that she's been on the board since March of last year, so she doesn't know about the company, so she's not starting from uh from a standing start, if you see what I mean. So I think that that's helpful. I will be interested to find out how many other boards she is on, because I think that that will probably give you an idea of where her head is at. But yeah, I think it's you know, I think Sirius XM probably is in need of a few new ideas. They seem to be doing very well, they seem to be nicely in profit and all of that. But I think you know, some new ideas won't probably hurt them, and and and Anjali may may be the right person for that. I don't know.

Sam Sethi 46:01

I wish her well, but uh I also look forward to in two years saying where she's gone to next.

James Cridland 46:06

Yeah. So I told you so.

Sam Sethi 46:10

Yes. Yes. Now, sad news that you posted this week, James. Message heard has gone into voluntary liquidation. What's going on?

James Cridland 46:19

Yeah, so this is a UK podcast company. We have to be relatively careful about what we say. I had heard and I was working on a story about them not paying their freelancers, which apparently, according to one of the freelancers who contacted me, they hadn't been paid for a couple of months now. And as I was working on that story, I heard that that the company has been has gone into liquidation. All of the uh staff uh have been made redundant. They weren't given any notice of this, although I think uh it's been relatively known that the company has had some financial issues. I mean, you can peek into how these companies work in the UK quite a lot more than you can in the US, because every single company has to give their filings into the company's house, so you can actually see how particular companies are doing. There's some interesting things around MessageHerd, who have been behind some of the best podcasts out of the UK in many years. But there's some interesting things coming out of there, including, I mean, you know, they've lost a lot of money in the last four years. Uh, they they've lost, I mean, last year they lost $1.8 million, sorry, in 2025, I should say. 1.8 million pounds is how much they lost, £1.5 million in 2024, 468 is a half a million in 2023. So that that they've been losing money for some time. The the the the weird thing about Message Heard is that it's a family-run business, so it's run by Jake and Andrew, who are brothers, Max Warren, who is dad, and Louise Beaumont, who is stepmum, as I understand it. And Max and Louise have put quite a lot of the money in. So, you know, so the there's some sort of interesting stuff going on there, and some interesting timing in terms of directors leaving the company, and in terms of, you know, some of the some of the timings going on. But it's, you know, it's it's it's it's a really bad time just before the the Christmas break for all these people to have lost their their uh their job. So obviously we do wish them all of the very best in terms of where their next step is. And you know, and I hope that Jake Warren reappears somewhere else soon. He's clearly done a fantastic job in terms of the creative, but I think you know the business side, you know, by the looks of the core uh uh of the company's house stuff at least hasn't done quite so well. So yeah, we will watch this

HLS Video Rollouts And Broken "Video Podcasts"

James Cridland 48:59

space, I guess.

Announcer 48:59

The tech stuff on the Podnews Weekly Review.

James Cridland 49:04

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Podnews newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology relatively quickly. Uh what have you got?

Sam Sethi 49:12

Sam you hear his stomach crumble.

James Cridland 49:15

Um I'm just I'm just looking after the the ill old man. That's that's what I'm looking after.

Sam Sethi 49:24

Pocketcast adds HLS video, it seems. I thought they had, but it a lot of people talking about that it's gone live, which is really cool. So well done to the guys at Pocket Cast. I'd love to catch up with Ellie when she's ready, so we'll see how that goes. Max Stories as well has added HLS. Again, it's good to see people adding HLS video to the platforms and adding it within their podcast. So uh again, good job there. Now, people who've done a bad job though, so Kathy Newman from Sky News has got a new podcast called Backstory, and it says a new video first podcast series from UK Sky News. So I thought, okay, I'll go and add it, check out on True Fans, and I'm sure that I can get the video. No, no video in the podcast, nothing in the RSS, it's purely on YouTube, and I just go, I threw my hands up in despair. I was like, really? Why are you calling this a video? Just call it a YouTube video. It just annoyed me. And then on the back of that, Gwyneth Poultro, yes, it's a video podcast, Gwyneth. Only available on YouTube or Spotify. Thanks, great. The RSS feed itself, pure audio. I I it's 2026 and and whoever runs this technically, I'm blaming Gwynneth Poultro she's too busy with her candles and and whatever she does with them. But the but the thing about it, James, is the technical people should know better. And they don't. And I I I don't know when the penny will drop for these people, or do they just not care? I don't know.

James Cridland 51:07

But Well, I suppose the the there are the questions around there are questions around the support of HLS video in the alternate enclosure, which means that it'll play in pocket casts, for example. I don't know whether Captivate, who are the podcast hosts for Sky News, I don't know whether Captivate support that. I'm not sure that they do. I know full well that Megaphone do not support that, and that's the Goop podcast. I'm not even sure whether Megaphone supports Apple Podcasts yet, but perhaps they they do, I don't know. But I would point out that, you know, even the Goop Podcast, which is Gwyneth Paltrow's one, only has the audio in Apple Podcasts as well. So they're not even using them the super secret API that Apple really hates being called the super secret API. So, you know, I th I think that's kind of that's kind of one thing. I think also though, I mean, I'm still getting releases even now of people launching new video podcasts where they're not even doing video to Apple Podcasts. To me, there's no excuse for doing that. If you're doing video in YouTube and you're doing video into Spotify, then you should be doing video into Apple Podcasts as well. Why would you not do that? And every time I ask somebody, I get absolutely nothing back. Why haven't you put this into video on Apple Podcasts? You know, I think the alternate enclosure will come as people go. I'd like to watch this in video on you know pocket casts or on any of these other large, large apps. If Marco, you know, supports it at some point, then that would be good too. But I think you know, the first step is Apple Podcasts, and you have to ask yourself why, at this point in time, why podcast producers still aren't supporting Apple Podcasts video. There must be a reason for it, and I don't know what that reason is. Maybe it's just that they can't monetize it yet. I don't know. I don't know.

Sam Sethi 53:00

And then the one that really annoyed me, I guess. Uh here we go. OGs, right? Rob Walsh, Elski, LC Escobar. Two OGs of podcasting, captivate one of the biggest podcast hosts, Mark Asquith, great friend of the show. And yet, in and around podcasting, no chapters, no transcripts. What the F are you doing over there? Let's pontificate about the industry and tell everyone how to run it and do it, and then not even bloody do it for yourselves. Get a grip over there, please.

James Cridland 53:39

Yes. Well, I I'm not I'm not going to instantly sit around and say, I mean, that that's a weird one in that it was in video I you know, I I think it's been in video for Apple Podcasts once. I I don't think it's in video anymore. But you know, look.

Sam Sethi 53:57

I'm not even worried about the video part. I mean, it's you know, Elsie's lovely. I don't really need to see Rob, but I mean chapters and transcriptions.

James Cridland 54:07

and chapters is kind of is kind of important. And if they're not, you know, well, you know. I don't wanna I don't wanna go I don't wanna go into one there. But yes, I mean I I'm surprised Uh there's a lot of things that surprise me about some of the podcasts around podcasts. And and there are many podcasts out there that aren't supporting all of the things that they probably should be supporting. So it'd be nice if they if they ended up doing that. I mean, I should hold my hand up here and say I am no longer adding chapters to this very podcast. Uh it's Buzzsprout's tool, which is adding them for me automatically. And the reason why is I don't know how to add chapters into video. Sorry. If I if I find out how, then I will, but I don't know how to do that yet. So I I am not doing that. But you know, yes, I mean we we should be better as an industry, but better at sort of highlighting all of this uh stuff, and it surprises me that we're not.

Shopping Live Streams And Platform Power Plays

Sam Sethi 55:06

Now, going back to what we were talking about earlier, we were talking about portals and and memberships and newsletters and all that good stuff. One of the other things I think that's coming very soon, certainly a lot more in terms of monetization, I think is going to be the integration of shopping into podcasting art. I think we've been quite woeful, really. Kelsey, Casey Kelsey, or the Kelsey brothers, that's it, have got a very good example of integration with the Amazon store. And I think we are beginning to see uh Amazon is waking up to AI shopping, YouTube is waking up to video shopping. I think we're gonna see the second coming of uh voice commerce. I think the first voice commerce failed, and I think it failed because the AI agent that Alexa was using was working for Amazon and never worked for me. As in, I never believed it was finding me the best price or getting me the best option. I thought it was always finding Amazon's best price and Amazon's best option. But I do think we are going to see Muse, we're gonna see AI agents, we're gonna see all of these platforms now. And so the question I guess is how should a podcasting 2.0 start to look at adding this as another tag feature extension? You know, we talked about the funding tag being fairly generalistic in terms of being allowed to, you know, do both donations and memberships. Do we need to create a new tag, James? Do we need to even involve ourselves in this or do you think it's something that is going to pass us by?

James Cridland 56:49

I mean, you know, my views on this. I think unless the app developers earn money from this, then uh why would they spend the time doing any work? It's hard enough to ask them to to put the funding tag button in. If there's something which is much more complicated in terms of product listings and all of this kind of stuff, I I I simply can't see it. But that might be something that changes in the future, who knows?

Sam Sethi 57:15

Last few things then. Foxcorp has bought Roku for 22 billion, and the only reason I mentioned it is because you've got Supercars, Red Seat Ventures. So it seems that they've got the hosting service, they've got the content, they've got the app. This looks like they're now getting the platform. It seems to be they're going end-to-end on this one, James.

James Cridland 57:36

Yes, it's it's pretty good. So they had they had said that they were buying Roku a little bit earlier on this year, but they weren't expecting to close on it until 2027. So they've closed on it already now, which is which is interesting. Roku, of course, doesn't really do very much in most parts of the world, but does tremendously well in the US and Canada, and that's you know clearly where the excitement is from Fox Corp's point of view. So hurrah for that, I think. So uh yes, good for them. And Supercast, of course, which is also owned by Fox through Red Seat Ventures. They have just launched live streaming, so you'll be able to use that for whatever it is that you wish to use live streaming for. Keep your clothes on.

Sam Sethi 58:21

I mean, I I I see a lot of live streaming on Substack now, and I see a lot of live streaming on other platforms. So again, I've said that there's something that you know the podcast apps need to adopt quickly. Castro, uh, which was bought recently by Maple Media, there's a new version for that. I don't know if you've had a play yet, James.

James Cridland 58:42

Yeah, there is a new version. The only real difference is there is that you have to agree to Maple Media's privacy policy, which is a little bit more onerous in terms of uh sharing information about you. But accepting that, my suspicion is that Castro will turn into a skinned version of uh Player FM before too long. And certainly when you have a look at Castro's website and you go to the support section, then it's Player FM's support section with just a little extra thing saying Castro on it. So that's what I suspect is going to happen there. And it makes sense if you're going to advertise in Player FM for those ads to appear across Player FM and the skin for Castro and the skin for a podcast app or whatever it is that they're called and and you know, and all the other things that they end up doing. So yeah, I don't think it's a particularly bad thing. Our friends at Headliner have added some uh nice tools where you can schedule stuff and you can uh see a calendar of those of your social uh media stuff in the future, which is uh quite nice. And podio uh unveiling a complete platform overhaul uh Web Summit. So podio, a big podcast host. They don't want to be called a podcast host, but they've launched a new free podcast host, but don't call it one, Sam. Have you taken a peek at that?

Sam Sethi 1:00:01

No, at the point when it said we're the infrastructure for the voice economy, I just turned off.

James Cridland 1:00:08

Yes, the infrastructure for the voice economy. I think it's interesting that Acast, from what I can see, is stopping using the word podcast a lot and is going to lots of creator conferences and less podcasty conferences, and similarly, podio here, literally not using the word podcast at all. And yes, infrastructure on the voice economy, focusing on the three things every voice does create, reach, and earn. But yeah, certainly worth a look at least. It comes out of the Arab states. I think it comes out of Dubai, so it's uh worth a look. When are you changing Podnews to create news then? Creator news. Well, this was Stephen Stephen Bartlett's plan. It was it. Yes, if you remember. Yes, he's he's he's sort of launched a lot of things around the creator economy and everything else. So yeah, you know, it's um it's a thing.

Sam Sethi 1:01:03

Now, our friends at Calaroga Media have launched something, James. What is it?

James Cridland 1:01:08

Yeah, this is Linit. It's an AI-powered media production platform. We should probably have John or Mark on to talk about this a little bit more. But um, yes, it's basically uh there's lots of AI coding in here. There's lots of there's it's got a thing called God Mode, which will turn a single prompt into a complete first draft of an episode, including script, narration, music, artwork, and video. It sounds horrendous. But um, but actually looks as if it's been done quite nicely. Some of the stuff that Cal that Calaroga Media is producing at the moment is really good. And I I listened to an entire an entire show of theirs recently, knowing full well that it was AI, but very much enjoying it. It had some very funny jokes in there, and it had some and it had AI music in there as well, because it was a DJ doing a countdown, and it had some AI music, and it was very funny. So I enjoyed that. So I think that they know what they're doing. Worth a peek at Linnet. I haven't played with it, but it looks very cool from the video that you'll see on the website where you can go and learn more.

Sam Sethi 1:02:11

Now, on your next flight, James, you'll be pleased to know that you will now be able to log in with your Spotify account and get all your podcasts and all your music in your airplane.

James Cridland 1:02:22

Huppy? Yes, well, I won't, because I don't fly United unless unless somebody is unless somebody has picked my as you know, to basically tell me that I can't fly with anybody else at all. But no, you know, they look okay, I guess. Um it's an answer to feature where you wave a your your mobile phone at a QR code and then you can play with Spotify on the seat back. The one thing that I would say is this is going live on their planes that have Nazi internet, that have um whatever Elon Musk's thing is called, Starlink, which should probably mean that you will have internet access anyway on your phone, and you'll probably have headphones anyway. So what's the benefit of watching it on the on the in-flight entertainment screen? I don't really know what the benefit is, other than perhaps not using your phone's battery. I suppose might be it. I don't know. But anyway, yes, it's quite nice, but yes, it's part of their it's part of Spotify's secret source, isn't it, Sam?

Sam Sethi 1:03:30

It it is. I think they are very clever at getting onto every surface being, you know, universal. Yeah, yeah. No, indeed, indeed. Finally, James uh Road, the the company that never talks to you, they've got an Android version of their video and recording app.

James Cridland 1:03:49

They do, finally. Uh so they launched on iPhone in 2023. Wow. They promised that it was coming soon in April. If they'd have been clever, they could have said in April that it was coming this spring. And everybody would have assumed, oh, so it'll be coming at the end of April, beginning of May, but of course no, they were talking about the Australian spring. That's what they could have done, because they're an Australian company, but no. So yeah, I I I it's one of the problems of a hardware company also producing software. That's taken a heck of a long time. If you had bought some of their wireless microphones and you had an Android phone, then you would be very annoyed by this point. And I should also say that the Rodecaster Pro 1, the original Rodecaster, that has software that runs on a Mac. And that software that runs on a Mac is going to stop working at the end of this year, and there's absolutely no sign from the company that that they're going to be making a new version that works with Apple silicon only. So, you know, it's it's one of the it's one of the issues, I suppose, of having hardware companies working

Listener Mail Discovery Metrics And Wrap

James Cridland 1:04:58

on software.

Announcer 1:04:58

Fan mail fan mail and voicemail. Our favorite time of the week, it's the Podnews Weekly Review inbox.

James Cridland 1:05:06

Yeah, so many different ways to get in touch with us. Voicemail by using the link in our show notes or email as well. We've we've had a fan mail, haven't we? We've had three, actually, James.

Sam Sethi 1:05:16

Yeah, we we had one from Sci Jobling.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:18

Sci Jobling, yeah. I'm out on my dog walk here, and just heard that I've left the industry. Which was news to me. I think what's happened is my uh credit card was flagged as fraud, and then I've never renewed it. And so I need to fix it. And now you know what happens when that happens not left the industry. I've been living podcasting since 2005. I'm not going anywhere. So I'm going to be crazy.

Sam Sethi 1:05:51

Yeah. Well, let me just be clear, this is a hundred percent on me. I'd spoken to James Burnett and he said he was leaving the industry to join a car industry. And Cy, you were on my brain for some reason as well at the same time. And so I got you and James confused. So my apologies. Cy Jobling is not leaving the industry. He's very much part of it. But he has renewed his power supporter.

James Cridland 1:06:15

Yes, Cy, thank you very much. And James Burt, thank you very much as well. Much appreciated. A message from someone with a Jacksonville, Florida telephone number. Who are based there? Oh, our sponsor Buzzsprout. So it may be from them, who knows? But anyway, it says it's not that we didn't think about moving content from YouTube to Spotify, which uh Flightcast launched last week. It's that it's against YouTube's terms of service. No idea if YouTube will ever enforce it, but we prefer to follow the rules. Ooh, get you. So yes, so there we are. And one from Rob Dalrymple, who says, Jimmy, Sammy.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:55

Sorry, that's very American of me. Hey, this is Rob with the Softball Central Podcast. I just wanted to call and leave a voicemail because you guys sounded so melancholy that you weren't getting any voicemails. So here's a voicemail for you. I love the show. I look forward to it every Friday. Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting turned me on to this. And so I have his show on Mondays and your show on Fridays. So thank you guys. Love all the stuff. Love the tech stuff. Very nerdy like that. So thanks again. You guys have a great weekend. Talk to you later. Ciao.

James Cridland 1:07:31

Thank you so much, uh Rob. Much appreciated. That's very kind.

Sam Sethi 1:07:35

And the final one is from regular voice guest, Neil Vellio.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

James Sam, Neil Vellio here. First, cheers for the shout out on Pop Masteries 100th last week. I really appreciate that. Also lovely to be called Vellio. My besties called me that. So that was really nice, James. Right, Dial Flipper, like you, spent a lot of time in radio, and I've got news for whoever built that app. You've reinvented radio. Dropping someone in the middle of a conversation and then seeing if they stick around. That is literally definition breakfast show. Radio's been making followers that way for a hundred years. Nobody went searching for their favorite presenter. They tripped over them during a trip to work or to pleasure somewhere and then came back every morning for a decade. That's literally how our most famous presenters got their careers. So question for you both if Discovery goes fully algorithmic, should we stop obsessing overreach and start just measuring who comes back? And then how are we gonna do that? Who's gonna give us those numbers?

James Cridland 1:08:39

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:39

Ponders.

James Cridland 1:08:40

Thank you, Neil. Yes, should we stop obsessing overreach and just start measuring who comes back? Well good luck with that, because as you say, who is going to give you those numbers? That's going to be quite difficult to do. One of the benefits of podcasting is that it can be, if you wish it to be completely anonymous as to who listens. And uh the only information that a podcast host learns about us, can learn about us, is our IP address, and that's it. So given that, it's going to be difficult to work out. But yeah, I think that that's I think that that's interesting. I mean, I'm on a podcast tomorrow about the radio industry, and one of the things that they are talking about is a new sports show that this radio uh group is doing. And the reason why they're doing sport is reach. It's the amount of people who you uh can get tuning into your radio station. Sport is a really good way, it's an expensive way, but it's a really good way of getting people to tune into your radio station who wouldn't otherwise if all you care about is reach, and reach will certainly help you. So, yeah, but I think we should we we can probably be a little bit cleverer in terms of that. I don't care too much about reach, I care about action, I care about what people do, I care about how many people say that they've heard this particular show, and you know, etc. etc. So sort of more interested in that. But Neil, thank you so much. It's very good to hear your dulcet voice, your dulcit tones once more. Dulcit voice. Thank you also to the uh 25 power supporters that we have at the moment. WhatsApp is a special place that only the power supporters can go into, and there's usually some good chat in there, and we share uh any money that we make uh between Sam and I as well. Weekly.podnews.net is where to end up going. So, Sam, you've mentioned COVID earlier on. Uh what's been happening for you this week? How's your PAX week been?

Sam Sethi 1:10:29

Very, very lazy actually. I've just been in bed. I've done and achieved very little. Thank God I've done it.

James Cridland 1:10:34

You haven't been lazy, you've been busy getting better. How did you catch the COVID?

Sam Sethi 1:10:40

No idea. I was playing paddle and then no problem at all, then came home that evening, and then literally, next thing I know, the whole weekend was ruined. No fireworks.

James Cridland 1:10:50

So the answer is So the answer is playing paddle.

Sam Sethi 1:10:56

Yeah, but as outdoors, I wasn't hugging anyone or getting close, so God knows, who knows. Anyway, feeling a bit better now, so uh we'll see. Good and then I keep getting La Wally president David sending me emails, uh, well, not even sending me emails, posting LinkedIn posts saying we're stealing his content still, trying to explain to him how RSS works seems to be ridiculous. So we blocked vodio.fr. I think we said we were gonna do it last week. I tried not to, but he he's insistent. And I don't really care. It's not so much that he doesn't understand it and that you know there's a miscommunication. What I'm really annoyed about is that he's trying to publicly shame me by posting on LinkedIn. That's not very cool because you've got it completely wrong, as you then admitted once I responded to you. The decent thing to do my email is all over the internet. Just email me, call me, send me a DM, do anything. Let's have a conversation. If I had got it wrong, I would have corrected it. I didn't get it wrong, but instead you think you're very clever doing what you did, which is public shaming people. I don't think it's very clever at all. No, no.

James Cridland 1:12:11

Uh the one good thing about LinkedIn is that if you block somebody on LinkedIn, then they can't mention you at all. Uh and so that actually ends up being rather rather nicer because then your your contacts don't end up seeing what these mad people end up saying. But um but but I would say, you know, uh what what it does mean is that is that you know, true fans is getting big enough for you know for you to uh unearth some of the weird people, and that's actually that's actually probably probably a good thing at the end of the day. Yes because it because it shows that you are that you are growing and that um more people are ending up seeing you. It's um you know unfortunate that that you get the weird the weird people you know going around. I I have had a troll for the last probably for the last five months emailing me, being very, very angry that I've been absolutely totally useless at being a journalist, and this is what you should be, you know, looking at and blah, blah, blah, and and all the way through, and realizing a couple of things. Realizing, firstly, that that that they were working with uh Chat GPT to come up with some of their invective, which was interesting, which they were very upset about when I when I pointed this out. And secondly, pointing out that actually at the end of the day, they didn't know what they were talking about, and and it turned out when I did start doing the digging that they were pushing me to end up doing, that there wasn't a story there in the first place. And so it just turned it it was just a total waste of waste of time with this troll pushing and pushing and pushing. So, yeah, you know, you're you're unfortunately that's the price of doing a job well, maybe.

Sam Sethi 1:13:51

Anyway, on the positive news, we created a radio page. Now, had no real reason to create a radio page. I like the idea of a radio page, so the the aim of it is to show all of the HLS servers that are posting content. And so we started to build that. It's going to be international. We've we've only just started it. But what we are doing is we're linking it to the publisher feed. So if you listen to Capital FM, you can go and go onto the global publisher feed and then find things like the news agents. So we're trying to form another way of discovery. I don't know. We'll see. It's just something we built, it's a bit of fun. When we have our own live servers, again, I think that's coming very shortly. You saw Supercast do it. I think that's a smart idea. I've been talking about it for ages, so that's the next thing I want to get live. And combining radio, I think hyperlocal radio stations would be great for live podcasting or live streaming. And I think live podcasting, you know, video and audio. Anyway, that's a little thing we did. And then we have our new membership stuff coming live shortly as well. So again, working very busy on getting ways that you can make certain features of TrueFans member-based or free or fan-based. So you choose the level that you want to give to the fan that you've got. So, yeah, again, we are trying to keep up with the likes of Supercast and Beehive and others, because I think that's where I want us to go. And in that relationship, I I think we talked about it a couple of weeks ago. We added newsletters to the creator's dashboard for all podcasters. So now we've got newsletters, memberships, blogs, and yes, we will be doing merch, the thing I was uh asking you about earlier, James. So yeah, still busy, very busy, busy still. And finally, we are supporting the industry. So we did the IPA awards, we sponsored those, you know, not not anything massive, but it's a good step. We're now going to be doing Frank Rassiope's Earworthy Awards that went live, I think, today. And we're going to be doing things with Cheerful Earful and Podcast a thon in the new year with Jeremy. So I am trying very hard to support the industry where I think it's appropriate for TrueFans to do it.

James Cridland 1:16:22

Yeah, no, I think that makes a bunch of sense. And yes, and I hope that works in terms of ROI, but it also, you know, just gets the name out a little bit more. Yeah, it makes a load of sense. Yeah.

Sam Sethi 1:16:32

So what's happening for you, James?

James Cridland 1:16:35

I've had a relatively quiet week. I've been uh playing around with a new ebook reader, which I managed to get through the post from Hong Kong. So I was sent this tiny little Well, I I was sent, I bought.

Sam Sethi 1:16:47

You give them money, they send you things. It's how it's worked for ages. Yes.

James Cridland 1:16:50

This is this is normally how it works. So I was given this a very small little ebook reader, which I which is quite nice. I've had something that's similar to this. This is a books picko. And a picko. What what's interesting about this is that it's running an open firmware, so so there are people working on the firmware to make it better. It's not up to books to make better. So that's one sort of interesting thing. The other sort of interesting thing about this one is that it's got a backlight so you can read it in bed, which is uh very nice, which my previous one didn't. So hurrah for that. So that is good. And apart from that, yes, just had a nice quiet week, which is which is nice. So uh I've been um enjoying spending time home here, which has been a good a good thing. I I've been in in case you've been watching the video version and you've been thinking, uh, gosh, James is looking uh smart. That's because I've been speaking to the Swedes earlier on in doing a conference there, hence why I'm in my uh you know, in my conference finery here, wearing a fancy shirt and uh and with my hair all properly done and everything else. So uh yes, buffon is what I would say. It's not buffon. No, that's it's it's the opposite. It's the opposite of that. Slick back. Slick back, yes, definitely. It's not buffon. I'll tell you that for now. Anyway, so that's been uh so that's been nice. But that's it for this week. Uh all of our podcast stories, of course, taken from our daily newsletter, which you can get at podnews.net.

Sam Sethi 1:18:22

You can give us feedback using the bus browser voicemail link in our show notes. You can become a monthly power supporter, like the 25 power supporters at weekly.podnews.net.

James Cridland 1:18:32

Our music's from TM Studios. Our voiceover is Sheila D. We edit with DaVinci Resolve, and we record with uh Riverside. And uh what I'm enjoying about the view from uh the view from the southeast of England at the moment is that the the sun is now catching on your computer screen and giving this sort of very nice sort of dappley effect now for you, Sam. You're looking you're looking very you're looking very sort of hidden behind the sun, uh, which is uh which is very nice. It's not it's not it's not gonna last for long. So don't enjoy it.

Sam Sethi 1:19:10

It'll go down in a minute.

James Cridland 1:19:12

And we're hosted and sponsored by our good friends at Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

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