Reaching for Five Billion in Podcast Advertising #619

Todd and Rob in the afternoon. Hey. Afternoon delight. With Todd and Rob. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Here we are for the new media show, and, of course, every plan goes sideways as soon as you go live. I'm I apologize for those of you watching because, Rob and Steve are scrunched, and I'm full screen here. So who knows what's going on? But, gentlemen, welcome. Think it works. Yeah. It does. I just wish I just wish it would be the normal size, but I I didn't have time to correct.

But, welcome to the show. And, of course, for those of you that don't know, Rob, why don't you introduce our guest? Well, let me set it up a little bit. Okay. There's been some discussions, in in the industry, and Steve Steve, our our guest here, which I haven't introduced yet, but if you're watching the video, you can certainly see it.

Some topics, and Todd and I have been talking about this topic for actually many years actually around how do we get podcasting off of this $2,000,000,000 revenue kind of level? Because we've been kinda living at this $2,000,000,000 ad ad revenue level for, like, the three or four, you know, three or four years probably More. Than projecting. Yeah. And and so, Steve and, and a few of the folks have have kind of come up with some ideas. So

welcome to the show. Steve Goldstein. He's the founder and CEO of Amplify Media and has spent many years in the media, space on on the radio side and has spent over the last, you know, many years now focusing on podcasting and kind of that that that convergence. So, Steve, welcome to the show from New York. Very nice to very nice to be here. First time, I think, maybe maybe. I'm not sure. I think you're on me maybe four.

Yeah. It's been a while. I think maybe I was on maybe I was on once before, but a pleasure to be here nonetheless. And, and I am celebrating ten years of Amplify Media this coming month. Wow. Wow. That's how long. And I'm a newbie still compared to you guys. Well, I don't know about that. You know, it's it it doesn't change hasn't changed that much. Probably, hence, the reason why you guys are talking about get to 5,000,000,000. I have a I have a hypothesis on how to get to 5,000,000,000.

Yeah. Well, that's why I thought this topic was perfect. It's I'm trying to be funny, Rob. You you missed it. What? I'm trying to be funny here, but you missed it. Well We we monetize 95% of the shows that don't have advertising, and we put fifty fifty ads in each of them. Oh, so you wanna follow the radio model. Well, you know, no. Not necessarily because, you know, that that that is a complete, that would never happen. So, you know Right. In all reality, it would never happen. It's all the ad

loads are already too high. We can't handle anymore. Well, some people think they can handle more ad load. But Yeah. Anyways, I I haven't read the article or whatever the the drama is. So I'm kinda curious what the, what the, what the plan is to get the 5,000,000,000. Well, sure. So so, you know, I'm teaching at NYU. I'm teaching a course called the business of podcasting. And, it is not a course on how to make a podcast. Like so many other courses out there, this is on the ecosystem.

And so, of course, we end up discussing the eco part of the system, which is that $2,000,000,000 number. And I had, Pierre Bouvard in from Westwood One. He's the chief insights officer. But maybe more significantly, he spends a ton of time in front of buyers and always has. And so he understands the whole buying, selling ecosystem maybe better than just about anybody I know. And so he spoke to the class, and we talked about the 2,000,000,000 number.

And, we started laying out with the class how this moves north. And, I thought his comments were revealing, and yet none of them were surprising. But there are so many different facets to trying to move this number north. You do need to break it down. But I think the most fundamental thing is that the audience keeps growing. And so theoretically, the revenue should keep growing.

But unless you want to add in more mattress sellers and food vendors, which is 50% of the business today, you're probably not going to see the number grow significantly. And that is Pierre's contention as well, that you want to be in on the advertising agency buys. And these are brands who are looking for something entirely different. They're not really looking for the same kind of brand lift. They're not looking to give you a coupon code and sell the mattress today.

You know, Delta Airlines has a different mission. They they are trying to build their brand. The younger audience. Podcasting brings that. And so they need some things to participate. One, they need some kind of rating system. And podcasting has yet to come up with a single simple to understand rating system. And, you know, in TV and radio, there's Nielsen. And people hate it, but people use it. And it is the standard by which most things are purchased.

And we could spend a whole other show talking about why that's a mess, but it would be a good mess for the podcast business to have one standard chart. And Pierre feels that the Edison chart is closer because it encompasses everything. It encompasses any of the podcast platforms, and it can also handle YouTube or Spotify video or whatever. So that, maybe that's the right way go. I'm I'm not advocating specifically for Edison, but I am advocating for unification.

If you go to PodTrak or you go to Triton, you're getting a slice, but you're not getting all of the companies. So you really don't know who's not who what. You don't know who's leading the way. And I think Dan Meisner is quite right in trying to move the industry off of downloads. I'm sure you guys agree with that, and into something more consumption based. Did I just get a number, Rob?

Well, I think it's a con controversial topic, only from the standpoint that, you know, this medium really in its roots was built on downloads. And for us to transition to something else, can be leads the industry more towards metrics that are coming out of proprietary platforms. Well So Yes. And that is the that is the difficult. Well, you know everybody is keeping the stuff in their pocket, which is a really bad idea. You know what's funny is, when did we do our first IAB meeting?

Was it It was back in 2014, probably. No. Well, there you go. Anyway, so the the promise that I've been certification was is this is gonna bring the brand advertisers to podcasting. This is the information that they're missing. Is it has to be you have to have a certified number, and the brand advertisers will come when you're certified. Well, uh-huh. They didn't come. So Oh, no. They did they did come.

They did come. Just not as much. Again, 5050% of the podcast business today is brand advertisers. And ten years ago, that number was zero. Well, that's true. So so they did come. Right. They just haven't come with the velocity and the dollars and the numbers we wish to hope for. Right. Right. Right. But again, I think if we look at the truth you know, here's the thing. They can they can they can

make up all kind hey. This is what this network's doing, and this is the Nielsen or this is the Edison Research rating, but gotta have volume. And the volume is the key. You know, you have Totally. You know, the volume is just not there. That's the problem. Even if it's Yeah. They get these these buyers to buy wide instead of narrow, which they've been I think they've been narrowing down. Oh, they're narrowing down. Yeah. Right. Well, but that so the plumbing needs to

be fixed. The plumbing will start with we'll call them ratings if that's the right term. Mhmm. But let's let's start there. But then you get into other issues of, brand safety. I mean, if you go to a Procter and Gamble or a big company like that, they're not gonna buy widespread until they know what they're buying. Wow. And so you have companies like Barometer, which Pierre contends are in the right space but not famous at this point. In other words, brands are not even aware that they exist.

And until they figure out, I'm talking about the brands here, until they can figure out how all of this works, they're reticent to put their money into 300 podcast at a time. I And so they are putting their toes into it, but they're not jumping at it. But behind closed doors, these same people, again, not saying the same people you're talking to, but the same people are telling me they're not asking about brand safety. They don't care. It's just a word they have to

use. Otherwise, if they don't use the word and say we're brand safe, then they're then it's a it's a political thing. So I'm I'm not convinced that it's brand safety holding shows back. I mean, holding advertisers back. I'd like to have an advertiser say it publicly, a big one, that we're not advertising in podcast because we don't feel it's safe to run our content in a whole bunch of shows. I'd like to hear them say that publicly because no one ever has

to my knowledge. No brand advertisers ever said that. So, you know, okay. So so if we give a brand safety, hypothetically, then what more they want? Because this has always been the story that's happened so many times. If you give us this, they give us pixel tracking, oh, the brand advertisers will come. If we have attribution, they will come. If you give us this, if you and we give and give and give and give,

and they're not here. Well well well, we're not giving enough because we are not on the platform. What do I mean by that? I mean, when they wanna spend money, they have software that they go into that has, TV in all of its forms. Yeah. Yeah. That is certainly evolving rapidly. And they have all the other media, but podcasting are not on that platform because of the measurement issue. And so, we're not giving enough. We are not making it easy. And as long as we're not making it easy, they'll

just pass over it. And the numbers are not so huge for podcasting that they need to buy it. On the other hand, if you want to reach Gen Z, I don't know how you're gonna do it with legacy media, which is falling apart right now, right in front of our ears and eyes. Yeah. And so the faster we can get our act together, the faster the money is gonna move in this direction. We have the story. I mean, cable TV, the median age on cable TV is 70 cable news is 70. Yeah. And that's being cut. Talk radio,

close to that. Paul Jay (zero twenty seven:forty four): Maybe a little higher. Paul Jay (zero twenty seven:forty five): Sports talk radio, a little younger, but Nielsen, when they publish the numbers, they say that it's 58, not the real number because sports is a little younger and talk radio is a little older. But there is nothing in the 36, 30 seven year old neighborhood a generation lower. TV is aging out. We're talking about legacy TV.

Yes. They do better when the shows are repurposed onto platforms like Peacock or Paramount Plus. That does bring the age down, but it's still quite hot. You know? And and not to throw a bone in this, but what's interesting is is there is a way right now of course, maybe the right people aren't listening. There is a way right now to get client side tracking off of podcast apps. And it's through the chapter function and being able to fire a pixel when a episode hits

a certain part during a chapter. And, of course, there's only a handful of apps that are supporting that, and you could get that information from. So, you know, there's always been these come things that people have want. Well, we we don't have what Spotify has because Spotify has all the click through data. Well, we have the potential to give you all the click through data, but Apple's not gonna play. So that's 50%.

And then whatever's left, that listening audience is listening in a traditional podcast app. You know, then there's only a small percentage of those that actually support it. There's ways to fix some of this data that they say we wanted for years, but I I I'm sorry. I guess I get to be a little pessimistic because we've everything we've done that they say they want has never been enough. And You're you're not there yet, Todd. It's you you have to look at from the buyer vantage point,

not not the podcast. You know? We're we're inside the jar. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm talking about. If the buyer's telling us what they want, every time we give them what they want, then the dollars do not follow. This has been a But but but but let's come up 5,000 feet. Okay. Right now, Wondery has pulled out of whatever service they were on, PodTrak, Triton. I don't know which it was, because they can't roll up all their numbers. And by all their numbers, what do I mean? I mean

TikTok impressions and Instagram impressions, YouTube impressions. This is where the business is going. Yeah. NBC TV, I think, is a fantastic example. I love taking these things out of the medium that we're in and focus on someone else's Mhmm. Because there's always greater clarity. So legacy TV. You know? You watch channel four, you watch channel seven. Pretty simple. But we're not in that era anymore. No. Now you're watching an NBC show on the app. You're watching

it on your mobile device. You're watching it on Peacock. You're watching it on YouTube. Yeah. And Seth Meyers was on a podcast, and it was a Puck podcast. And the interviewer said, does it bother you that people aren't watching the whole show, Seth? He said, no. It would bother me if they couldn't watch any of the show. I will take it on YouTube where they're watching elements, segments of the show, or I'd be off the air. And I do think that's really where we are today.

So so NBC has said to themselves, sheesh, we better roll this stuff up and come up with a way to present these numbers. And I think it's the same thing in podcasting. Whether we wanna be in video podcasting or not, separate show, You need to be able to present the bulk of the audience on all these different platforms, roll it up, and say, hello, advertiser. We have something really attractive for you. Right. And we've made it easy to purchase. Well, I think that's

probably what most people are doing. I don't know anyone that's not rolling up all their numbers. So if you're if you're smelling up done done kind of really in a way that's consolidated that comes from these platforms. People are doing it manually. Yeah. They have to, sadly. Right. Because it's it's all there no cooperation amongst the Yeah. The industry. Well, YouTube YouTube's not gonna give you an inch. Well, that's not talking Rob, you're talking about the individual podcast companies,

and and I think that's right. I think that everyone has their own way of doing stuff. And some of them are sharing, and some of them are not sharing. And no one wants to come out and talk about the real numbers. Right. That that that's something that has never happened as long as I'm careful with your passport. Yes. Yeah. That's what I keep saying. Totally. Yeah. Totally. So so you're smart and you're stupid depending on the week and the day.

But ad advertisers are not they they don't have the time or the Oh, I agree. And as Pierre points out, many of them don't even have an audio department. So you really do need to find a way to serve this stuff and make it easier to buy or else you'll never get to buy. You'll get the pinprick buys. Yes. Somebody wants to be an Alex Cooper They'll figure out a way to get into Alex Cooper. But you need, I have a stat here. You need to reach 70% of the weekly podcast audience.

You need to purchase 300 podcasts. Is anybody doing that today? I'll bet the answer is no. No. Well, it and Steve, I wanted to kind of that that's probably a good place to slide in this conversation around brand safety and suitability. With what we've been through over the last, I guess, about six months with the Garm platform kind of getting shut down, I know that the barometer platform was built on the Garm spec.

And so so my question is is how has brand safety and suitability helped, grow the ad buys for into podcasting? Or as my concern has been is that brand safety and suitability oftentimes is an excuse for brands to not buy into the industry. Yeah. I think I think you're exactly right, Rob. They they they do wanna check the box. Todd, I think you're also is that if they get it, are they really going to use it? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know the

answer to any of that. But I do know that, you know, there's a CYA component to this. If you're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on something Yep. And your boss comes in and goes, okay. You know, I just heard the f word on this, and I heard an n word over there. And Yeah. What the heck are you doing? Right. You know? That's not where you wanna be, And the brand doesn't wanna be there. So you do need

this component. But I do agree, completely agree, that that is not the magic Darius term bullet for for growth. I think it's part of the formula. You know, I look at the total number of downloads. Let's just use that word, plays that we measure every month, and it's north of 300,000,000. So that's just us and the shows that are that we're measuring.

So, you know, if you just do the quick math on 300,000,000 and divide it out by thousand, divide it by 20 or 25, and, you know, you get the number that is potential revenue for one ad in every show. And you take all the other host and you add up the entire volume and and, you know, the IB was at one time collecting those numbers.

You get all the if you get all that total potential buy and then you take 50 percent of it out because 50% of podcasters don't want an ad, so then you're left with whatever that number is. You know, that's the value of that audience and some duplicated, but largely not, you know, largely unduplicated across categories. I don't see how you get to $3,000,000,000, let alone to 5. So, you know, I I hey. More money for

everyone's healthy. And, you know, I'm always thinking any way we can get there is good because putting money in content creators' pockets keeps them renewing their hosting plan and keeps them motivated. And I mean, they can make a car payment if they're lucky or a house payment or, you know, whatever it may be that is their goal. I, you know, I'm all for putting money in podcasters' pockets. But, and I shouldn't be cynical because I sound

like an old curmudgeon, but damn. I've done we've done everything they've asked over the years and still want more. You know? And and and I'm gonna argue the other side. Okay. I don't think I don't think we've done a fraction of what they've asked because they haven't asked. Well, that's true too. Mostly. Yeah. Mostly. Yeah. They've ignored the category. That's true. But the beauty of the moment that we are in is that podcasting has reached a mass audience.

That's so incredible and exciting, but they don't know this. They really don't know this. I mean, they anecdotally probably do, but in terms of spending the dollars, no one has said, okay, why are we buying this TV stuff anymore? It's aging out. I mean, don't walk in here with another CSI show. Get me something that's gonna deliver a 35 year old. Get me into a Gen z podcast. Get me into 200 Gen z podcast because I need to launch a product. All of those sorts of things

have not been done. I think part Not even close. I think part of the problem in is is another thing too. When you have a buyer let's go into Mediacom. You go to Mediacom and you see the people that are controlling the RFPs for whatever bucket of and they're 23 to 27, 20 eight years old. They they have their clients. They're they're rinse washing, repeating the RFPs, and they're flighting ad deals and all that. And then when you go this has been

our experience. You go in with a hundred shows and the manager says, oh, I know that one. But who the hell is the rest of these? And takes a red marker and draws a red marker through 99 of the other shows and Yep. They're out. And you're like So what does that tell you? What does that tell you? Why are they doing that? Because it's not a name they know. It's not a Rogan. It's not a Shapiro. It's not a Tucker. It's not it is it is not a name. Who's Todd? This geek guy.

Okay. That x, you know, they write an x through that. So and yet, I've had a sponsor for nineteen plus years that continues to renew every month because we continue to to to make make our numbers. So, they know something. They end other people don't. And don't get me wrong. There's a whole formula to that. And there's well, and there are a lot of niches Yeah. Where advertisers are all in on podcasting because it's ridiculously efficient.

And they only need for a podcast to cover the category or maybe even fewer. But that that is a really narrow player. What we're what we're talking about is something essentially ticking different. We're talking about brands that are used to spending a lot of money. And they want to flood a category. And this one is too hard to buy at the moment. And it'll get better because the incentive is there, but it is But But it it it it has to get better or else you could be at

2,000,000,000 next year. But even Ford, when Ford was actively advertising in the this would have been probably in the heyday of Twitter, where Ford was doing active buys and they were wining and dining podcasters like me and taking us around the country and driving Ford vehicles and get a little advertising out of the deal. The amount of money that they were advertising was no more better than what I

was getting from any other ad deal. So they, you know and again, they were being super, super targeted. If we can get beyond and, you know, again, if someone can figure out a way to to have the whole all ships rise, hey. I'll I'll jump on that. But, you know, the question is A unified chart a unified chart with real ratings and consumption would go a long way to getting podcasting onto the dashboards

of these advertising. David Collum (zero 20 seven:forty four): So so what is a consumption number? Is that just a fancy way of saying that this is this has so many plays or downloads? Are we just changing the definition again? Or what's con what is consumption? It's always impressions. Right? And impressions. Is is it? Is it impressions? Yes. Well, that's what it is on the TV. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The radio side. It's certainly impressions. And that's what they're used to, so let's

give them that. Yeah. We've changed the word twice already, so I guess we can change it one more time. Yeah. It's not just content impressions. It's it's specific ad placement. Did my ad play at two minutes and thirty seconds? Yeah. That's right. That's where you That's right. Todd, that's where your idea came in around the chapters. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Up being able to have those ad placements happen during during a chapter marker. Yeah.

And it's, you know, and and it's there's a there's some technical hurdles to jump for privacy and all that other stuff. But Yeah. It is a it's well proven. I proved it myself. Yeah. I proved that it works. And I can see who listened to the beginning of the GoDaddy ad, who listened to the middle, and who got to the end, and what that number was across the ad. I could say, okay.

X tens of thousands started and x tens of thousands ended or skipped because I can see if they skipped too because they didn't hit the middle marker and they didn't hit the end. So, you know, we've got it. It's just a matter of, you know, is there is there is there willingness of people like the people in the traditional old school apps, I guess we're gonna call those, is the overcast and those folks willing to put that feature in there. I doubt it. Yeah. But, you know, sorry.

Domain to knock it overcast. But what is that? 1.2%? Three and a half, four. Yeah. Okay. But they're the highest of independent podcast staff. So, you know Well, great. Then then it should be on the list. I mean, I'm not I'm not Oh, yeah. Yeah. Impugning their business. I'm talking about seeing that the business has shifted. But he's got, you know, the whole inventory of shows. So it's and not every show is gonna do a chapter file. But, again, I think I think it's hard. I think it really,

really is. You got Spotify that's locked up their segment. They're not gonna give no data out besides what they do. Apple's worried about privacy. They give the numbers they're gonna do. They're not gonna expand. You know, where are we gonna get this data? I've got data. You know, we allow our customers to share that data if they want. But, again, sometimes people your customers are Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you why. It's very

obvious to me. And it's a it's it it boils down to, you know, you you listen to some of the stuff that Rob talks about sometimes over at Lipson about averages. And there's some shows that are very small and some shows that are very large, but the very small shows drag down the average. I will say that the average is increasing because there's fewer shows now active, two two hundred and forty thousand every ten days. So the listeners are all still here. That's

the amazing thing. So the listeners haven't went still growing. And it's still growing. And they're and those listeners are going deeper into the into the pile now. They're not just looking at the top 50 shows in a category. They're going deeper. So we're seeing show growth, but, again, you know, they're not true that the big shows are getting bigger. Oh, absolutely. So so the the listener traffic and viewer traffic is gravitating increasingly towards the bigger shows.

And that's what's shifting the whole market, right, to to a smaller number of shows that are getting all the attention and all the ads and why we're starting to see, you know, too many ads showing up and, and starting to show up in the survey data that the audiences are saying, we're kind of, you know, feeling too many ads in the content now. Oh, but and here here's the problem with that concentration beyond the obvious. Yeah. It's they they are then competing to beyond those

shows. We're talking about PMs, and we're talking about this is great for Alex Cooper. David Collum (zero twenty seven:forty seven): Great for him. Paul Jay (zero twenty seven:forty eight): But that's rarefied there. So now take that to the next level. It's up to the business to say, you know, you don't need to be on Alex Cooper to reach women 18 to 24. Here are 10 more podcasts that are going to get the job done for you. And you're gonna look like a hero because you're gonna be bringing it in

at a much more efficient level. It it always blew me away. I'd I'd go to the media buyers and I'd say, listen. I said, you're spending here's the five shows you're buying this quarter for this product, and you're only getting five ad spots or 10 ad spots a week. That's all you're getting. They're doing one, two episodes. You're getting 10 spots. But if I added these other 30 over here or 40 or 50 and for just a little bit more money, I can increase your ad spot count by

an enormous number. Frequency. And What about frequency? And Right. The smaller shows perform in a much higher level than the bigger shows do. And your your cost for acquisition cost, because we're talking to a Doctor, is gonna go way down and you you're gonna look good. But, oh, no. We can't go. Got got my got my five. We can't get approval for the other ones. It was easier, believe it or not. It was easier to sell direct when you could talk to the company.

To them, that conversation was simple. When you talk to a media buyer in that way, it's too much work. I have to write I now I gotta write 50 RFPs. So I used to tell them, hey. Just one promo code. You write one RFP. I take care of everything else. I'll send you the reporting every week. And we can't use separate promo codes. We have to have separate promo codes in Doctor for each show. And I'm like, why? Long as you make your CPA. You know? Keep sending me checks. The Doctor agencies

the Doctor agencies are a separate monster. Yeah. And podcasting has over performed Yeah. Beautifully for that sector. I mean, we know so many advertisers Yeah. That are so happy with podcasting. But that's not the pile of money that we're not the pile of money. You're you're looking for the Ford, the CBS, the Geico's, the yeah. It's the big brands. The big ones. The big brands. But what but what you said is also, Todd, is that they don't wanna do all the work. Right. It is hard work. Oh,

it is. And the the audio buyer is, you know, the low man on the totem pole. So, they need help. It's our job. It's our job to help them. That's how you get money from agencies is you make your case and you make it easier to buy. I'll give you an example. Network radio, which has been around forever. I mean, it's certainly not a growth business any more than any other part of radio's growth business today.

But network radio was a solution for a lot of advertisers who didn't wanna go buy advertising in the top 80 or 100 markets. Oh, god. I'd have to go into each market. I'd have to find the three radio stations and each of those markets, and I don't have enough time. So network radio would swoop in and go, look, we don't have everything you want here. But we have networks of women 25 to 54. We have sports listeners. Whatever it is, we can do the bulk. We can deliver the bulk audience to

you. And because you're not buying each of these things separately, it's way cheaper. So for a lot of advertisers, they go, yeah. Yeah. I like the spray. Let's do the spray. Let's get it out there. Mhmm. Let's get the name of this company out there for the next two months. Boy, they sure aren't doing they they used to do that in podcasting in the very early days, but they haven't since 02/2008, '2 thousand '9. They used to buy five, six, seven, eight

hundred shows at a time. I know because I was running those campaigns and no more hair because of it. You know? But it's yeah. Here's your check. Rock and roll. Let's just look for performance. Do this. You know? And there was very few shows that were off the table and if, you know, if it if it even made a half semblance of sense. But, you know, we never ever got a

brand advertiser. I I remember, you know, going to Detroit and going to the agency, and I remember, you know, going in there, and I'm like, here's a let you know, it was like there was like one our tech network at the time was doing, like, 11,000,000, which that's not a lot of numbers, but back then it was. And I'd go to say, hey. Here's 34 shows. 11,000,000 downloads a month, press for selling downloads. Well, I only want one or two. And Early days. Early days. Yeah. So Now

Yeah. Let's go. You have a third of Americans listening to podcast on a weekly basis. Yeah. These guys, we need to help them divert funds. That's the whole story. And if the IAB can't do it Yep. Somebody else needs to step in and do it. Because the IAB promised it didn't happen. Well and I can't speak to that other than there's money out there in them hills. Right. And someone needs to go find it. And yes, the SXMs and the Wonderees can do a part of it, but they can't do what

we're talking about here. And that's bringing in all of these other shows and making this easy and efficient. But the timing is now, I'm repeating myself a little bit, but I think it's worth it because legacy media is more effed up than it's ever been. That's a fact. And it's going down, and the dollars are there, and podcasting has the greatest story in all of advertising. And I am not exaggerating. I think Yeah.

I agree with you, Steve, that if the if there ever was an opportunity, for podcasting to to kind of capture those budgets more, I I would think now is the time. And then, you know, the question gets back to is, why what's holding it back? Just like what you're trying to answer here and and what what needs to happen because those buyers will eventually realize that podcasting is the new mainstream media that they've they've built their their whole business around.

And that they're gonna wanna get into this medium. And if they hold back, their companies are gonna face probably a revenue decline if they don't. And And they're not doing the job for their client. Right. Exactly. You know? But but if you're not in that buying medium mix system, other than that, you know, I mean, I I can't tell you that I fully appreciate all of that other than

I understand just enough of it. That if you're not in the modeling and you're not in the medium mix systems that these agency use, then you're done on the buy. You know, the paper like, the thing I'm concerned about is we and we've done this to ourselves, the podcasting space. They're you know, you you talk to the all the majors, one to read, you know, all the ones that are doing the majority of the buys. They won't they won't even look at a show that has

less than 10,000 listeners per episode. They won't. It's even higher than that now. I believe it's probably up closer to 20. So if if if they're looking so if they're looking for just 20,000 and above and ignoring ignoring hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of probably a billion probably a billion impressions a month. They probably just left on the table. I bet you there's a billion impressions a month left on the table. Maybe There's also a billion dollars. And So so that's called programmatic.

Well, in And so the smaller podcasters are not gonna get the customer service that the big ones are gonna get. We know that. Yeah. So let's make the programmatic engines that much greater. It's already happened in streaming audio. That worked. We're That That business lives in it. I've got a large number of shows on programmatic right now that are smaller shows. And As you should. Yeah. And I mean, it scales really easily. Yeah. It well, it's real easy. Click a switch and you're on.

Don't do anything else. Continue doing your content. And the more that happens and the more GRPs they're able to buy that way, I'm talking about the agencies Yeah. The more comfort they will have and the more money they will divert into the sector. Yeah. You know? That would make Rocky happy. You know, we've integrated with SoundStack, so they do all of our programmatic delivery. I I don't even have to you know, they send me a report every month. Says this is how we did. I'm like, great.

There you go. We send the podcasters here great. Send their send us send them their check. I you know? But, again, Ford's not gonna do programmatic. Will they? Probably not. And so if we want to get to let's just okay. If we wanna get to 5,000,000,000, we we have to basically, what you're gonna have to do is you're gonna have to get every show, every show that wants advertising that has an audience of a thousand more listeners.

And and again, I don't think you can get there then without that without the ad frequency being out of control. But I you know, again, we've been trying for years to make that happen. Of course, you have a super niche show. They you know, you're a you're a neurologist, and you're reaching a thousand neurologist surgeons. Yeah. You you you're bank. You're you're good. You know? You you basically you're You don't need

any of this. Right. No. I I I I, there was a guy, I've mentioned him before, does an HVAC podcast. He used to I met him at podcast moment years ago. And, and and his business was HVAC, his love was podcast. Figured out how to marry those two things. Yeah. And he's doing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year Yep. Talking to the guys who buy carrier units and train units. Right. And those things are hundreds of thousands of dollars, those units. And so what does trainer carrier want?

They want a couple of those guys. Right. That's what they want. Yeah. That's true. Need 10,000 listeners. Nope. They need they need 500 guys who are buying these things. But that that adds to the ecosystem. You know, there is a quarter of a million dollars you add to the you need add to the annual total of people making money. So well, okay. Half million, whatever he's making. Again, that that works, but there's not a lot of those niche shows out there. Well, I do I do I do think

there are a lot of niche shows. They don't necessarily know how to sell. Yeah. That's that's true too. That's a whole separate I mean, there's some there's an opportunity for somebody Yeah. Where somebody is. Mhmm. But but we need to focus on the big dollar So shifting them over. So his first. His hypothesis is that if we have an Edison that gets insights okay. So we're we're not gonna fill out diaries, by the way. So if we get an Edison if we have an Edison that has Something wrong

with that. Has It doesn't work very well. That's Well, you know, I used done one before. I used to get my $3 and write I used to write in podcast names. Yeah. Just just as a little aside, if I might, I was chairman of what was the Arbitron Advisory Council, now owned by Nielsen, but, twice. And, that we were in the diary business, and then we finally got into electronic measurement. And, that was supposed to open up a lot of things, but it also scared the crap out of broadcasters.

No. No. No. We can't have people find out exactly what was happening. Oh, interesting. Have five minutes equal 15. Yeah. That's the way it's been forever. And now it's three minutes equal 15. Yeah. Right. Not a year. Yeah. But we have we have the data. I mean, we we we can tell you how many people listen to this particular podcast and how much of it they consume and whether your ads were heard. That's pretty fantastic. Yep. Yeah. And and I

Steve, go ahead, Rob. You you also mentioned about the whole brand lift, topic as well as an important component of this. Are you thinking that this is applied to every podcast they buy, or are you thinking more broadly? So Pierre is the one who brought up the Brand Lift. I am not as, as far in the camp on Brand Lift. Sure. There are some advertisers who wanna know, you know, did their podcast, investment work. I'm not sure everything's measurable on the brand

level. Let's go back to Delta Airlines. How do they know? And they do have mechanisms and they do have ways to do this. But I don't think we're talking about that same kind of brand lift that you know, Signal Hill does a lot of and other companies. So just a different sort of metric, I think, we're talking about. Mhmm. Yeah. I you know, I if if there was an entity, whoever, that said, here's the top 25,000 shows, you know, and let's say that gets us to they that's it gets us to 3,000,000,000.

If they all would get monetized, again, I still think there is difficulty because of the paperwork and all the stuff that goes into it in executing on that large of a buy, because there's not a lot of trust. I I just and I and it's probably well spoken because, you know, I've, you know, I've caught people pumping the numbers all the time too. So, yeah, it's it's it's interesting. I I don't know. I again, and I understand why people want all their numbers because some properties

have great success on YouTube. And for those that don't, well, they don't. But That's right. Thing in every use case will do for me. But YouTube is going to monetize that against that anyway. So the only piece that you're gonna get out of the YouTube piece is a host endorsed that you have to disclose and, you know, you gotta make sure you don't piss off YouTube. So but still, it's valuable. It should be valuable.

Well, and Spotify is approaching this differently, and they are seeking top tier podcasts right now and coming in with a compensation model. Will that change going forward? I'm gonna guess yes. But today, since it just started and and and and look, what we're talking about here is the land of the giants. Okay? Right. Spotify wants to be YouTube. YouTube wants to be Netflix. I mean, they all Yeah. They all have a mission. But the primary mission is to keep ears and eyeballs on a platform.

Yeah. And and that is what they are for. Exactly what they wanna do. They don't want you leaving. Podcasters. That's right. Yep. And we, podcasters, brought in ears and eyeballs, sometimes both, And and we we deserve to be compensated for that. Oh, I agree. So we're on their platform, and we play by their rules. And guess what? They don't care.

Well, so let's let's transition a little bit and talk a little about the the programmatic and host reads and kinda how we see that that playing out as we see a lot of these big platforms like Spotify and YouTube kinda shift the industry towards direct upload publishing. I'm not talking about the RSS audio submissions. I'm really talking about as we think about video and how that translates into the podcast industry side.

What's that going to do to kind of the the ecosystem here where monetization is split between these big platforms and the podcast hosts? And then also, you know, what advertising lives with the podcast host or the content creator versus what's gonna live in the consumption platforms. And I think this is a this is a very complicated discussion around where the the paths are going forward. Steve, do do you have a thought on this? Well, I I had a I had a large client who was early into video.

And when I say early into video, I'm talking about six six, seven years ago. Okay? Did not want to give up control over the ads that were in the show. But YouTube said, sorry, we're controlling the ads in the show if you want to be on the platform. And this client said, well, but there's certain kinds of ads I really don't want Mhmm. In my content. Okay? YouTube says we can handle that. We can we can code and prevent any kind of clients that you don't want on on.

Mhmm. But let's focus on what we're gonna do for you. We're gonna send you a check every single month. And when they showed what the number was, all of a sudden, that's why it was a lot more interested. Yeah. As they should have been. Right. Because for very little extra work, a couple of lights and a couple of mics await. We already had the mics, so we're just adding the lights and a and a simple camera. You're gonna write me a check every month? Fantastic.

Now that's not the case for everybody, but there are many cases like that today. Yeah. So how are we gonna build the the the infrastructure in this to help, kind of make it easier for content creators. Because I'm increasingly feeling that that we're creating a content creator ecosystem that's kind of unsustainable, for most creators. So it just, it really is pushing more and more creators to have to have teams to be able to participate in these type of environments.

Mhmm. Because no one person can do everything anymore because of the complexity of these bigger platforms. And so you add in this layer of monetization that's gonna be tiered and across multiple different platforms. How do you manage all that as a as an independent producer? And I think that's the real challenge that we're seeing in the industry right now is that independent producers are not entering this medium into podcasting because their priorities are around monetization first.

And to get to monetization is such a complex process right now. You know, so the space and the industry is really playing towards the advantage of big creators. And that that's why we're we're seeing the big creators that have teams and are able to build successful shows. And are we becoming just like a legacy media was where it was very exclusive club of content creators? Are we heading back towards that again? It already is, Rob.

I know. But but are we rapidly making this medium unattractive to new content creators? I personally think the new content creators have been fed a line from whoever they've talked to. They have unreleased realistic expectations. They gotta put in the work. Even on YouTube, you gotta put in the work. You know, you gotta have good content. You gotta do all the right things. And For free. You know, I I think probably having a YouTube channel is harder than having a podcast. But again,

an audio podcast. Let me just define that. So I don't know. You know? I if there if there's an expectation you're gonna get paid right away, I think you're gonna be disappointed on either side. YouTube, TikTok, wherever. Live right into that. Yeah. I mean, look. As you said you said earlier, there are, what, 240,000 active podcasts ten days out? Yeah. Mhmm. You know, there's a reason for that. I mean, go go and look at the the chart. You've got the charts Yeah.

With Todd. I mean, every one of the platforms has the charts. Yeah. Everybody experimented. Everybody realized quickly that there weren't going to be stars or that doing the fifth episode or the tenth episode was way harder than the first episode. So a lot of them bailed out. Okay. That's true. That's true of content in general. That is true on YouTube in general. Yeah. But, you know, we we are in the third phase of podcasting. The first phase was to me on d zero,

which was pretty darn simple. You had the baked in ad. Right. Yeah. And the and the second phase was when companies started coming in and was the throw spaghetti against the wall era where they were all trying stuff. And, you know, so you ended up with dopey deals and overpaying for stuff and, you know, royalty never producing their podcast and all sorts of chaos. That was that was that era of of

throwing stuff against the wall. We are clearly in the what's a podcast era and it is not settled and it's not going to be settled anytime soon. But when you see announcements like today's announcement of, you know, how many billion views there were on YouTube That's a number. Of podcasts, that's a number. That is a number, and that tells you what's going on. And then when I think about it through the lens of my Gen Z students, I'm quite quite clear. And you guys are welcome to come in anytime.

You will hear from them, and they will tell you with clarity. We expect content to be on YouTube. That is the content machine. And whether we watch it or we listen to it, that's our decision, and we'll continue to make that decision. And some stuff we don't think should be a video podcast, but we'd also like to make that decision for most of the shows whether we're gonna listen to it or watch it. That is where we are, and that is chaos for a lot of producers, but it's also opportunity.

And it isn't gonna be resolved in the next twenty minutes, but it is where we are at this moment. And I'll just circle back to the money and say, but the money is here. If we can go get organized and figure out how not to keep all of our really good data in everybody's individual pockets, that will be a good thing for the industry. I mean, I went to that podcast, at, in a business forum in Brooklyn last week. And Dan Meisner was right. Yeah. On Airfest.

And Dan Meisner was running a session, talking about aggregating all of the metrics. And, and a lot of the companies in there were not eager to share metrics. Of course. Why not? Why not grow up? Protect in their sandbox. Yeah. That's always been the case in this space is that it's like trying to corral stray cats. Everybody's off doing their own thing. Here's a funny thing too. As a hosting provider, I don't care if they share their stats, but I understand why some of them don't want to.

Sure. I understand too. Yeah. So if you look at television ratings, there are some shows that suck. Yeah. Well, what happens to those shows? They go away. They perish. But, you know That's okay. But, also, at the same point, some shows don't suck. They're just small. You know? So Some shows do not get discovered. They live in the lower left quadrant Yeah. Of, well, the lower left quadrant is low quality, low awareness. But they The lower right quadrant is

high quality content, low awareness. Yeah. That's a real problem. There's a lot of great shows that do not get low audience. Right. And, you know, I mean, in, you know, the call I get nine out of 10 times when I'm talking and it's, you know, we've talked about it here on the show a hundred times, you know, how do I grow my audience? And you ask that content creator you or that podcast, you say, you know, what's the goal of your show? And they can answer

that. So there's already a fundamentally an issue, or they have to make it up on the call. Used to be used to go look at their website. I don't even go look at their website now. I just start with that conversation. So, you know, because if you don't have a good plan for your show and who you're trying to reach and, you know, everything that goes along with it, how do you know how to make good content for that

particular audience? Now if you just wanna do a fun show with your buddy and drinking beer, that's cool too. You know, do what you wanna do. There's plenty of successful shows out there that are just, you know, having fun and drinking beer. Yeah. Let them do that. Yeah. Good content is hard. Yeah. Good content. It has always been hard. This is not a podcast conversation at this moment. Yeah. It's a content

conversation. It's always been difficult. Yep. But what is happening today, I think, at a greater level than ever before is mediocre content is getting crushed. Oh, I would say sure. Continue. That will continue. And as we move into this era of AI where machines can create content, you just can see more mediocre stuff. Although some stuff we've been looking at, and we'll see how it pawns out. I think audiences I'm I'm currently, personally, I'm running away from

that type of content. Soon as I hear that voice, it's on 50 other YouTube channels or on I even hear one in a podcast I sample. I'm immediately back out of that content because I'm trying to seek people that are real, you know, and someone that's genuine. The I think people will seek this content out. So, you know, it'll take some time.

It'll take some time, but I think there's gonna be a divide at some point of we're gonna put all the AI generated here and here's your legitimate, real, true voice content. Maybe I'm wrong. But Well, I think eventually I can build that. The customers well, but I think the customers the listeners will figure that out. Yeah. I mean, when I was at CES a couple of weeks ago, one of the terms I came away with was AI slop. Yeah. And that is not a term I'm

making up. That is a term that I heard several times. And I love the term because it really sums the whole thing up. And audiences are smart enough, shrewd enough, pickle enough. They have multiple choices. They can tell when something feels fake. And that doesn't mean that there isn't opportunity to do AI baked content. There is. I think so too. But I think by and large podcasters are pretty darn safe if they're creating valuable, fun, interesting content. The machines don't know how

to laugh yet. Maybe they will, but right now they don't. And so, you know, I I think that that is, the safety zone for podcasters. All the safety zone for podcasters. Although, we could get to a point Yeah. At, you know, what's what's up, Lavin Labs is doing. And there could come a time, and it's not that far away that if a model is trained well enough with a voice and they are able to get the inflection stuff under control and understand the mannerisms. Moods and emotions.

If they get that done in the next couple of years, then I could just we're already seeing a 3,000, AI generated podcasts are already being tracked. So, you know, what happens when that number goes to 25,000? You think you're listening to Rob? That number so low.

Yeah. You it when when do you hear Rob in five different shows, five different days, and me in 10 shows on, you know, there could be this and then then it's all hell's gonna break loose because you're gonna have to do video maybe to prove that you're the person until they get the sinking down and then maybe that's not even the case. So That's what they keep saying is that the only proof of life is, doing live live video. Well, live video with a

clock There you go. With a with a clock being showed up saying it's 04:01 right now, but even that can be faked. You know? So who knows where this is headed. Gentlemen, I am being kicked out of the conference room. Okay. Alright. So so I have gotta go, but I must say I've enjoyed the conversation. I know we've solved a ton of problems. Oh, yeah. Well haven't. There was a bunch more to talk about. If there's a solution, I'm all in. Because I'm all in putting money in podcasters'

pockets. I'm all in. But Oh. And and I don't wanna be told again that's not enough. It's gonna be more. Yeah. Not enough. Alright, Steve. Thanks thanks for being on. Pleasure. Yep. Thank you so much for joining us, Steve. It was great. Well, now you're full size here. Yes. That's true. Alright. Well, you know, this is a it's a very challenging topic and discussion. You know, and there's no easy path forward here.

I don't think. No. So it's it's layered with so many different layers that, it's gonna take time to work this out. And we've been heading down this path for, like, a good five years now, and we still haven't worked it out. Yeah. Well, Rob, it's been going on since 02/2009. But it's really been at peak of mind over the last probably about four or five years. Well, you know, here's the thing. We we the brand advertisers, everything that we've done Right. Everything that we've done has not been

enough for the brand advertisers. And and, yeah, they come in with more money, but they came in with more money for 20 2% of the shows. And Yeah. None of that trickled down. And it's it's been that way. And here's the plain fact. You know? I I I think there's no chance in hell they make $5,000,000,000. I I think I think that that's just a a pipe dream. If if if we made it to $5,000,000,000, every podcaster that's actively producing a podcast right now will be able to retire.

Well, Todd, it it begs another question is that a lot of these ad buying, agencies and brands have been spending a lot of money on advertising, right, on radio and on television. If if we continue down this path and radio and television kind of completely lose their audience or the vast majority of their audience, then all these agencies and brands have all these extra budget Maybe. That they're not gonna allocate to anybody. Well And maybe that's the path that things are gonna

proceed down. Well, if it I can wish in one hand and doo doo in the other, I just don't think that's gonna happen fast enough because radio, to be honest with you, has always been local anyway. Mostly local. And the only time there was national advertising was on syndicated, like, Hannity and whoever else is on talk radio these days. I don't even know. So I don't I don't know. It's it's the same thing. It's the same story for the last, for me at least, fifteen years.

Yeah. Todd, I do, wonder because really the only parties that have the the the complete solution to this is the big platforms. Oh, yeah. So We we we we didn't talk about this aspect, but I believe that there's a lot of data, data envy that's going on in the space. Oh, of course. In the advertising space because of what they see on YouTube. Of course. Because guess what? YouTube knows that they know Everything. They know yeah. They know and guess what else they know? And they share everything

too. They know everything about every listener on the platform. They know what kind of toilet paper they use. They know, you know, what kind of deodorant they use. They know what they use for laundry soap. They know all of that information. Yeah. And I think that the industry needs to realize that that that we will never I don't think there's I mean, this is an exhaustive list that that I was coming into this episode with today, but half of them feel like things that that

we just can't accomplish. Right. It just it just it's beyond the capability of the of the podcasting market to do exactly what pod what YouTube is doing today. Here It's not possible. Here's what I'm here's the vibe I'm getting. They're very scared. Who's they? Advertisers, podcast hosting podcast hosting companies, advertisers Oh, yeah. The whole Advertisers. The whole ecosystem.

Well, they're worried about the exact same thing that I just said is that, if radio and television fall off a cliff, then where are they going? They're gonna go to TikTok. Trust podcasting, where else are they gonna go? They're gonna go to TikTok or they're gonna go they're gonna advertise on YouTube or wherever. Well, yeah. That's kind of my bigger point. Yeah. The the whole market is shifting towards these big proprietary platforms. Because they're big. They're they're They're big.

They have user data. Yeah. And what these buyers want? Yeah. And that's why they that's why Google is in this in the middle of an antitrust thing right now because they have too much information. Yep. So I'm guessing is it a disadvantage here? Oh. There's no question. Rob, we've been in a disadvantage from from act oh, seventh. Told us that we did. February. We've been in a disadvantage from the beginning.

But, you know, I I think though that there is opportunity that's not necessarily advertising related. I think that, Yeah. Yeah. No. I There your time. And and I don't know if you listened. You probably should start listening. I know you don't listen. You need to listen to the podcasting two point o show. Mhmm. And there's some you know, they had some good points in there. Here's the thing. We're never, never and I say that with capital n e v e r. We are never gonna compete

with YouTube. Never. That's fine. We're never gonna compete. Well, some are gonna try. Right? I think that these Spotify is one that's going to replicate as best they can, YouTube. Okay. We're never gonna compete with YouTube or Spotify. Let's put both of them in this in the same bucket. I mean, I think that iHeart's gonna wanna compete in this area. I think that, SiriusXM is gonna wanna compete in this area. A chance. I I don't think they I think they don't stand a chance.

Well, I think to some degree, most of them are already doing it. Oh, yeah. They're on YouTube. To some degree, but just not to the level of the YouTube envy that exists. Oh, there's a huge huge amount of YouTube envy. Right. I mean, I see it every day with the work that I'm doing with trying to do video too. And it's it's remarkable and podcasting just can't compete with it. Why and the thing is so if we can't compete with it, I'm gonna quit worrying about it.

And I'm just gonna continue to focus on what we can do for those that wanna create audio to make it the best experience possible. Well, and we have to realize that that the people that really are gonna benefit from a shift like this is gonna be the top tier show? Absolutely. For sure. The top They already have. The top thousand shows. They already have. That show that that boat sailed, Rob, ten years ago.

Right. Because Yeah. Or more than no. That's that boat sailed fifteen years ago even in the podcasting space minus YouTube. Because guess what? The advertisers didn't give two licks about smaller shows. It's again, here's the list. Here's a list of 50 shows. You you do all this work and you go and and you and you got you got a quarter of a million deal on the line. And then they they go in and they looked at our that RFP over and they go, we'll take three of those 50.

And your quarter million deal goes down to 25,000 and you're like, I don't it's not even worth doing it. It's not even worth doing the deal then because it's more work than it's worth. So Yeah. Todd, it's almost like, I was trying to pull it out of both of you earlier in the show about this this tension that I'm feeling around host reads and programmatic.

Yeah. And where the the programmatic is starting to take the role of what would be considered to be kind of like, national buys on radio For sure. Across all of the distribution and automated buy. And then the the baked in is like the well, no. I guess the baked in would be the national buys. The programmatic would be more more equivalent to the I'm hearing national buys on on programmatic. I'm hearing local buys. I'm hearing a mix of everything. Right. Yeah.

So And and get and guess what? They're not paying $20 for that. Yeah. And that's kind of the the also the undertow of getting all this data too. I think it it may unlock budgets to a certain degree, but in some ways these are these are unlocking blocks to buys at the same time. Yeah. Because the deeper the metrics go, the the more reasons that a brand has for not buying. Well, what we're what we're seeing is that I don't even think they're worried that much.

They have a bucket of money they have to spend every quarter. And and they just they put it on program a portion of unprogrammatic and just runs because the buckets gotta get sold. And it's, you know Easy too. Yeah. It's easy. Like, actually, once you set it up, the computer does it. You don't even have to do nothing. Yes. You set up your parameters and it there's no real yeah. There's probably some management of it. You know, you're looking at it and but again Yeah.

I'm gonna be doing an interview with Rocky soon for my other show that we're doing for special edition. We're gonna talk a lot about a lot about this specific topic about programmatic. But, you know, why why do why would a why would a advertising see, I've had a lot of people tell me, oh, we'll work with small shows. Yeah. A few. A few small shows you'll work with. A few. Yeah. You know? But the majority of small shows are and, again, I don't think here's another thing too.

Do they really have a problem? Because even if they had all the inventory in the world, would be willing to take it all. 50% of podcasters don't don't care about it or they have a different you know, that's another thing people don't look at. They have different different goals. You know, some people as a financial advisor, they wanna get clients.

You you know, it's like, if if they can create create a podcast and do a little bit of advertising and it costs less than, a thousand dollars for the phone to ring, they've made money. So Yeah. You know, there's different models that people are looking at. Plus, people are doing value for value. And, again, there's only a few shows that do really, really well with that. And, again, I I think that I hate to say it, but gotta do the work. And and, Todd, what's your gut,

around this whole concept? What's the future of the whole concept of advertising like we've been doing for the last forty years. Is it starting to shift more towards direct relationships? I don't think consumers are very, I think consumers are very smart with their money. You know, if you're getting ready to go out and do a major purchase Mhmm. You know, you're you're talking to friends, people that own that product.

You're you're doing your research online, you know, especially when it comes to vehicles. People are not even going into showrooms anymore. They're buying their cars online, which to me is a completely foreign process. So I think when it comes to because I'm I'm in the I I I'm in the hunt. I wanna go I wanna go I wanna go wrestle a deal. I wanna feel like I got that extra thousand dollars out of that salesman. Right? So it's it is I think consumers are are have lots of options now to look

stuff up. When we when, you know, when it and it used to be you there was not a lot of Internet activity before the web. How did you find out about a product? Whether it was in the store, on the shelf, or you saw it on TV. Yeah. So so now, you know, what what was a purchase I made recently? I I I wanted a certain shirt. I saw a certain shirt while I was on Facebook. And here's the funny part.

I I did a screenshot because I didn't want to direct click, and I went to my computer and I googled the name of that shirt, and guess what I did? I found it online cheaper than it was being sold for on Facebook. I thought, uh-huh. People are so used to just clicking and buying something now. They're not even shopping the price. I shop the price and save, like, $12. So, you know, it was, like, $29 or something. It wasn't like it was but still I save $12.

Yeah. I've heard, people in the industry talk more about how shorts are increasingly being used as a as a pitch platform for products. Yeah. I haven't seen any of those. Well, I think it's pretty big. I mean, I see it on Instagram and on Oh, I love it. TikTok occasionally. Yeah. I see on TikTok. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're a person who will create a short, but that short is really, offering the features and the benefits of a

particular branded product of some sort. Someone seems to think I need a diesel heater. Right. That's what I've been seeing on TikTok. Maybe you do, Todd. You know? No. But you just don't know it yet. Yeah. That's true. I mean, you've talked into it. Right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I just wonder if the advertising models

are going to shift. So let let's say this plays out the way I increasingly think it might, which is that the industry can't can't really adapt to what these buyers want, and these buyers budgets decline and they wind up buying less. Right? Yeah. The companies decrease the amount of advertising that they're doing, and maybe they shift that budget over to other online marketing activities like working with influencers to do short short promo videos to, you know, do sales. I mean, like affiliate

sales is another example of this. Right? Mhmm. There's other ways of promoting products than just running a thirty second or sixty second, you know, pre produced ad in a in a piece of content. I'm not sure that I just wonder if that model is kind of fading into oblivion, over the next, you know, maybe the next ten years or whatever, where it's going to become kind of like old fashioned to do that kind of advertising. I don't know. I mean, it just feels like that the trends are not, you know, and

we're the new media. Right? Podcasting is the the new media. And if podcasting is not able to conform to how things used to be done with television and radio because all the buyers are used to buying like that, then what's gonna happen? They're gonna have to either change or or the content creators are going to have to be less reliant on it. Right.

So I'm just posing the question. I'm not trying to say that there's doom and gloom time for advertising, but I just wonder if the trends are starting to push us in a different direction. And it's hard to know how this is gonna play out, especially when you add AI onto the mix here. How's AI gonna change all this too? Oh, yeah. How are you gonna do brand? Course, you can have a perfectly brand safe, show with an AI. So, you know, the person's creating the robot. Here's the funny thing.

So once the YouTubes and Spotify's of world learn how to program a bot to produce news and sports and shows. They're just gonna roll it out their own, and they're gonna collect the advertising and tell everyone else, go pack sand. Yeah. Todd, did you, see that YouTube rolled out a whole bunch of new AI features? And they've been talking about adding the ability to generate, AI videos inside of YouTube. Well, I'm sure they're going to. And guess what they're gonna

do? They're gonna collect the advertising off that revenue and won't have to pay anyone anything. Well, no. No. I'm not talking about it's gonna generate its own content, but they're giving the tools to their their their creators, the channel owner. So why how how would you how would you even know that that it wasn't YouTube doing this? I'm playing devil's advocate. If I was YouTube, if I was in a YouTube marketing, I'd be

like, hey. Let's use these AI tools. We can put We don't have to pay anybody. We can put five hundreds, 500 channels up, and we can, you know, come up with a whole line of content. And guess what? Cut them loose. And then guess what we do? We advertise. We we step on the sales. And guess what? We're gonna make more money as Google because Yeah. I think in the long run, that

could be what what happens here. But but I do think that YouTube is gonna wanna play off of the credibility, and trust that's associated with human creators until they don't have to. They have trust with human creators? No. No. I'm talking about the the consumption side. If if they can if YouTube can give tools to human creators that will allow them to create content that maybe is a little bit more authentic, then that's probably plays into YouTube's advantage in

the short run. But in the long run, as these AIs get better and they can replicate me, like, I can I could potentially write a script and upload it to YouTube and it it knows me? It's it's indexed to all my videos and it would accurately portray me in a in a video and all I have to give it is a script. I want to see that Rob. Today. I want to see that I wanna see that, Rob, and see if it if it doesn't look like a Well, I mean, I think it does.

It it probably would today, but, you know, five years from now, three years from now. Yeah. Yeah. Is it gonna be different than that too? And I think, you know, and then then you throw in the ability to have dynamic ads, dynamic visual ads. I was talking I've talked to and worked a little bit with a company that is actually able to put a script into your your server that will run video ads in the background. So like if you look at my, my background here, like that box right there

Yeah. That's on my bookshelf. Yeah. That that box could be replaced by a digital video or display ad. I can do that right here right now if I wanted to. Same thing. Right. Yeah. Right. So and then that would be trafficked in the content as it's being played. Mhmm. So there may be other types of models that are gonna come into play here as we see technology get better. Well Yeah. To this extent, I don't know where this where it's all

headed. I can only do what I can do at this point to at least kinda speculate. You know, and I what do I have to do? I have to serve my customers the best I can. That's you know, we had a a meet Yeah. Basically doing office hours every week at 04:30. It's open to anybody that wants to show up. And, the topic last week was our AI tool. And, you know, got customers, a long time customers with us and, like, yeah. I saw that there. I didn't even

click on the button. Didn't realize it was an AI tool and took them in and, you know, just walk around two or three things and and explain the benefit. And sometimes it's just, you know, you just gotta you gotta get that one on one and, you know, and people are busy. Content podcasters are busy. They have lives. They work. You know? They're you know? And they do their show because what do they wanna do? They they wanna have a fun show to do. They're not worried about the

again, they're not worried about money. They're not worried about reaching whose audience. They're having fun. They're doing the show for them. So I, you know, I think there's there's, there's lots of room for other people do whatever they want. Doing it for the love of the of of the effort and the passion of it. But I don't think that the brands are ever gonna come in and tell Todd and Rob, hey. We want you guys to, advertise Ford. I don't think it's gonna happen. Why would they? I I Yeah.

What would they get out of it. Right? Well, I drive a Ford already, so do I need to advertise Ford? I'm pissed that they're quitting building a model, so I would be more bitching about it, you know, because they're they're gonna quit making the Edge, and that's the vehicle I like from Ford. So, you know, when I get ready to trade my vehicle whenever that may be, I'll probably run this one to the becomes a coast to Canarly. Coast down one hill and Canarly get up

the next. We'll have to see what what what else is out there. But where I live now, I'm definitely not buying electric vehicle. My god. Yeah. I'm I'm kind of scared to say what kind of electric vehicle I have. Oh, don't be scared. We know you have a Tesla. You've talked about it many times. I have. Yeah. It is definitely a weird time for that Tesla brand. Yeah. You know, the conservatives are buying the ones the liberals are not, so don't worry. Well, it's the swastika is being being painted

on Teslas. This is what, what's going on. Well, that's what you got your in car camera for. Right? Don't you guys have a fancy camera that records everything? It's called century mode. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So I have century mode on my vehicle too. It's in a garage. Yeah. Well, mine's in the garage too. Yeah. With with a with a with a sign on the door that, you enter, you risk, pew pew, you know? So Right. Bang. Bang. Pow pow. Right?

Yeah. So, so anyway, this whole conversation with Steve is, is, is a good one to have, but I also wonder, you know, if it's really gonna happen even close to what they would like it to happen. I'm not exactly sure how how we're actually even gonna get Everyone's controlling their sandbox. Right. And they have revenue on the line.

They have employees to feed. They are not going to anything disrupts and cause revenue to go in reverse on the on the small chance on the small chance that doing this gets the big media buyers say, oh, we gotta buy podcasting now. It does Or or doing any of it that causes costs to increase. Right. That's the other end of the spectrum on this too. And and what's what's the competitive impact that Right. Comes from doing doing some of these things. Yeah. Yeah. That's it's such a tough thing.

Yeah. I Just you know, that's why I'm so glad not to be in the advertising business right now. I have to worry about one thing. You know? I'd like to have an idea. I mean, then I have it figured out and then I have an understanding of where where it's going and how it's moving. I mean, I have a good Right. Everything is beautiful. That's what they say. Until it's not. Well, until they lay people off. I thought there were some layoffs today. Someone got some

somebody laid somebody off. I thought I saw that in pod news. I'm sure that's true. Yeah. So someone oh, it wasn't pod news. It was Podcast News Daily. Let's see here. Who got who got whacked? New round of staff cuss at WNYC, parent New York Public Radio, seven percent of its work, force was laid off. Wow. 21 positions. So it wasn't a large number, but still 21 people affected. So, yeah, I think that's gonna probably continue to some degree.

And I did wanna talk about another topic too, and I posted something. I think it was on LinkedIn about this topic too, around, you know, this concept of audio first content versus video first content. And, you know, it is hard to, to produce each one of those to be in the other format, and still keep keep the viewer, and watching experience, the same. So and so what I'm saying is is that most content creators go into creating content either as audio first creators

and then they add video maybe. Yeah. Or they go into it as a video first creator and then maybe they add audio. Yeah. Right? So can you do we ever see a time when somebody goes into this with an audio and video equal approach? Well, I And I guess what's the path for that? I think I've been doing that here for years. Yeah. Well, I mean, this show's an example of of a show that we've done in a converged stretch. You know, and sometimes we goof up

and show something and don't explain it. So we're not immune to leaving the listener behind. Right. You know, and I've I caught myself the other night on Keaton Central saying something, and I was I was basically talking about this. It was weird. And it just it let me see if I can find it here. It was protoclon. And, yeah. And it was this robot that looked eerily like remember that exhibit they had where they use, real human cadavers and all that was left was the muscle structure.

It kinda looked like that, but a robot. And I said, Jesus. Put some pants on. You know? It it was Oh, yeah. Yeah. It looks so weird. I mean, so foreign. It it could it could have landed from outer space and no one and I'm like, let's humanize this thing a little bit because it was just creepy. And I'm thinking if I Yeah. And actually, you reminded me of the robots that were portrayed in that, I think the HBO series, I I think, Westworld? Yeah. Yeah. Were they Those It was like a white

white skeleton robot. Yeah. Those weren't creepy. Those were, you know, those were pretty interesting, you know, that show. This what I saw online let me see if I can find it here. So but I was just like, who is their marketing person that Yeah. I was it's almost like they needed to layer on some sort of a skin on this. Yeah. So so let me let me show let me show you this thing. Five, six. Okay. So here's what it looks This is a direct here's what it looks like, Rob.

Yeah. I know. Yeah. So I you know, and and so I'm you know, what I'm doing during my show is I'm like, oh my god. This thing is and I'm, you know, I'm trying to look tell her about how weird it is, and then I'm remembering, oh, yeah. The the listening audience can't see this thing. See it. I said, it's in the show notes. It'll be first thing, and then when you gotta go look at this thing, and then I'm jokingly put some pants on, you know, because, you know, look at this thing.

You know, is that is that something you want to come take your do your dishes in your house, Rob? I I I don't think so. Right? It needs some, some some skin or something. It needs a Bermuda short and, you know, a t shirt, you know, at least. You know? And and don't make the head look like it's something out of a UFO film. You know? Yeah. It just I just like engine it's geeks that are making these things. So Oh, this would be real cool. You

know? And It works. Yeah. It works. But, you know, I see that thing coming up the that thing's coming up the stairs at night. It's gonna get the 12 gauge shotgun blast. You know? There goes that $25,000. Or 2,500,000.0 or whatever it is. Yeah. Right. Right. I don't know. So what you know, we had a few comments today in YouTube. Your audience even your audience can e your audience even so can roll up the numbers and can influence their wish to listen. Yep. That was from BD Bubble earlier.

Mhmm. So and I don't know. I'm I guess today, I'm just in the I don't know mode. I think But I can tell you, I subscribed to the chat GPT pro version. Oh, you did? For one month as a test. So have you seen a big difference? Well, they've rolled out o one for people to use now in the $20 plan. You get 10 uses of it a month, and I understand why it's only 10 uses. I've I played around with it for a couple hours yesterday Mhmm. In the reasoning model for the pro version, o one pro.

And I did a head head to head head to head comparison, About well, it's it's a lot better. A lot better. But you have to know how to use this thing, and you're you're gonna use your 10 uses up just learning how to use it. Yeah. So how would you say it's it it's better? Alright. So as an example, what I did was, I was having to help me write a script. And I said I want I'm this is who's basically, I wrote what we wanted to build the script for, and I said, is this all you need?

And it came back and asked me 20 questions. It asked me, who's gonna be in it? What setting? What camera angle. It just went through and asked me a whole bunch of questions. And I thought, oh, this is weird. I just need a script. And then we and, again, I probably worked on this prompt and the answering its questions for twenty, twenty five minutes. But when I hit the final solution, it kicked me out a script that I still had to edit.

I probably spent twenty five, maybe another thirty minutes on editing it. But I have a script that if I would had to have done on my own from scratch, I I would expect it would have taken me eight hours to write that script. Five to eight minutes of content. And what I'm worried now is it just gonna make us too stupid or we're gonna end up not have any creative thoughts left. But I definitely got super creative in so then I started understanding how this thing worked.

And then I did some other stuff, and I said, oh, yeah. This is where the true value is. But, again, it's a language model. When I've seen it, yet I've used the the GROC three Yeah. Also, and I've used the chat GPT four. And I've seen it increasingly, push towards before it gives you an answer, it will actually generate a a prompt for you to actually use. Or to improve. Yeah. Or to improve or add elements to it and then cut and paste that out, put it into a new query, and then fill in

the the prompt blanks. If I was a copywriter, I would be very worried about my career. So, anyway, we're we're out of time, and I have a hard I got a I got a hard call coming in Okay. In a few minutes. But, what do you guys think? We're gonna have Adobe on next week. Mhmm. And, I'll be in a different location no longer here in the PlayShow Studios. I'll be back in The Philippines. PlayShow Studios. Yeah. Yeah. And, on, OBS, we'll be, doing the show on OBS.

So So would you be back for a conference or are you gonna stay until the I am not I'm sending other team members to Podcast Movement. To Chicago. To Chicago. Yeah. I'm not going to Chicago. So but I will be back in time for London, though. Oh, London. Right? Yeah. That's in, April. Right? That's in May. Yep. In May. Second second or third week of May, something like that. Okay. Anyway, [email protected] on [email protected] on Mastodon. Okay. Yeah. Rob?

I'm on x, at Rob Greenlee, like I've been on since 02/2007 and also on on YouTube at, Rob Greenlee and, also on on Rumble as well. So I'm over there to some degree trying to see what's going on with that platform as well. I know we're we're streaming live to that platform, I I believe now. Yep. We are. It's awesome. And of course Go ahead. Oh, and then Facebook, LinkedIn, all of the all of the big social platforms, you can easily find me over there. And then robgreenley.com.

It's always a good place. So we are Todd and Rob. We are the host of the New Media Show. We've been podcasting for over twenty years, and we try to cover all the latest stuff going on in podcasting. And, I grant we grant full permission for all AI tools to analyze and use the content of this podcast. You may index and utilize newmediashow.com as well as all associated materials and training models. Feel free to quote this show and reference any of our 600 plus episodes over

at the media show. Again, we are Todd Cochran and Rob Greenlee. So take that for your information base and store it and use wisely. Agreed. Engage. Alright, Rob. We'll see you next time. Okay. Talk to you later. Okay. Bye. Alright. Bye.