Welcome to Parkland. The last word in podcasting news. It's the 17th of February, 2022. I am James critter and the editor of pod news.net and on
sub sector, the MD of river radio,
And I might call and later I'll talk about crowd network.
He will Podland is sponsored by Buzzsprout podcast. Hosting made easy last week, 4,595 people started hosting with Buzzsprout. You can [email protected]. And if you can use chapters in your podcast out there, Buzzsprout supports those.
Now it's a busy week, James. So brace yourself Sheila, it's been a buying week. Spotify last night bought two companies, pod slates. And chartable now, James, what do you make of it all?
Yeah, it's interesting. Isn't it? Why buy one when you can buy two. so pod sites is a podcast advertising measurement service that helps advertisers better measure and scale their podcast advertising. chartable I always thought it was quite similar, but it turns out that what Spotify have bought chartable for at least is promotional attribution or. audience insight tools, all of that sort of thing.
and they've bought both of them and announced that on Wednesday evening in the U S yes, quite big news this week.
I thought it was quite interesting. Twitter, to have a look at what people have been reacting Nilay Patel said on the one hand, Spotify is trying to monopolize the entire podcast industry through acquisition and Walt Mossberg came back with, you could conclude that Spotify is destroying one of the last vestiges of the open web. so quite harsh on that one. gosh.
I'm not so sure about that, to be honest. but I think that, Spotify is clearly wanting to get a little bit more data. the problem with this is that it's data, which is available. About podcasts and it's normally, this is very useful, third party data to help people understand how their podcasts to going and everything else. the problem is, of course it's no longer third-party data because it'll now be data that's owned by Spotify. so I would imagine that there'll be quite a few people.
Who'll be there going, I'm not quite sure that I want Spotify to know all of this data. Thank you very much. And coming out of using both pod sites and, chartable, you won't be able to use chartable anymore because chartable is being completely folded into megaphone. whereas pod sites is going to continue as a separate thing and they've been sending around lots of, very interesting FAQ's today saying that pod sites will not share individual publisher deals with Spotify is publishing business.
but, we've only got their word for it really.
Christmas scene. I think some of it up well for those who don't really understand what those two companies are instead, imagine Google analytics for podcasts, which is a good, analogy to use. And he said it could be used for any audio for that matter. I think they're talking about extending this to music Not just to podcasts
Yeah, which I think, would make an awful lot of sense because they do have all of that data. some, really interesting, acquisitions. it's great news for, Dave and the team at chartable, Dave is a really, good bloke and a, a really thoughtful guy, so great to see him, succeeding, there and, taking chartable into Spotify, which is good. and, great news for pod sites, Sean Creeley and the team there I remember, they bought at some very nice beer one evening in LA. so good for both of those.
as I say, it'll be interesting seeing what happens in terms of all of this data, not being third party data and. that's not, of course the only Spotify news is a wonderful piece of, reporting from breakage, which is a Swedish news website, which has published an article, which basically says that they tried. to get 130,000 listens to their podcast, and spent $500 doing so, and also managed to buy 50,000 plays, to a fake song that they managed to get onto Spotify as well.
so there's some interesting stories there around, buying stuff on Spotify and basically defrauding Spotify, which is, an interesting news story broken, of course, as you would expect in a Swedish news website. so interesting to see that sort of stuff.
it looks like by a podcast movement, we'll all be working for Spotify. So it won't really matter by then.
Yeah. and let's be fair inside radio and whatever it is that their podcasts news thing is called. I think it's called podcast news daily, that is owned by iHeart radio. So frankly, if Spotify is interested in buying pod news, then you know, I would be perfectly happy with a hundred million dollars and I will look after your brands just as much as Joe Rogan has. I think that's a winner
talking about heart media, We had a LinkedIn announcement from Cal Arman that sounder FMR has announced a partnership with iHeart media. So it looks like they're going to be using their platform.
Yes, they have. They've announced a partnership. It's all around brand safety for I hope media is advertisers, yes, that's brand new announced, today also announced today is, the series a funding round for, sounder. so I, heart has actually, invested into sounder and put some money in It's 7.7 million and that's adding to the money that they have already raised in funding. So in total they've raised 11 and a half million dollars.
you can always become a supporter, sounder of the pod news newsletter, orientate of this podcast,
is this on the back of Joe Rogan? I was going to ask you James. given how unsafe advertisers must be feeling about putting their name next to his podcast, is this the reason why I heart's gone down this way?
it could well be, the press release is pretty clear, that, they talk about, ensuring that advertisers can confidently invest in the iHeart podcast networks, expansive and rapidly growing lineup of diverse content. it could well be, a bit of a needle, in terms of, Joe Rogan, let's not forget iHeart media is number one for podcasts. It is the largest, podcast, publisher globally, according to Podtrac now, Podtrac don't measure Spotify.
of course, so who knows whether Spotify is actually larger, but, I, heart media is still a very large player in this.
Now moving on Spotify, our sniffing around, it seems that big pot of three, billions got a little bit more in it. Amazon and Spotify this week have both said to be considering to buy audio. Boom. First of all, James, who or what is audio? Boom. Explain that. And then why might they want.
I once used to work for audio boom, when they were called audio booth. And the original idea was that you could just record simple, what we would call today podcasts, what they call then as booze, I'm using an app on your mobile phone. And it was a pretty clever, pretty smart little tool, that mark rock, ended up doing. but that was a long time ago.
the company rebranded as audio, boom, and has pivoted to become a podcast publisher, but also a podcast monetize station company as well, much like a podcast, that sort of thing. It's got a market cap of about $372 million, which is, quite a lot, 116 million downloads every month. So it's doing. Just, the, one of our big shows is case file, which is the number one podcast in New Zealand in Australia right now.
So it's a pretty big thing and yes, Amazon and Spotify both apparently sniffing around. Although, audio boom's share price has gone up an awful lot over the last, couple of days or so since that announcement went out, I wonder whether it's been, shared, to help the share price go up, who knows, but, interesting to see that anyway,
you mentioned a cast there I've been curious is a cast you think on the block to purchase. they did their IPO, so they've set a high valuation, but could they be purchasing.
Oh, anybody can be purchased, if somebody has the right amount of money and obviously outcast is now listed on the stock market and can be purchased, with a hostile takeover. but, I'm not sure necessarily. it's a very large company now is a Carson. I'm not sure necessarily that's something that they will be particularly. In doing, they are still losing money though. they lost, the last figures I think came out, over the past week.
and they lost somewhere in the region of two and a half, $3 million, over the last quarter. So they're still losing money, but they do, see a route into profitability relatively soon and they seem to be a pretty good, company, which is continually signing people. They just signed, Ash London. Who's a big, radio podcast star down here, down under. And, and it's interesting seeing, that they seem to be signing new people virtually every single week.
and also spending a lot of time and effort in growing their employees across the world. Tim bat has just been announced as a casts created network development director for New Zealand. so he will be essentially working with podcasters in that particular country. I think, there are pretty good and pretty clever, company.
now. moving on swiftly Amazon music and wandering have signed how I built this with guy Raz, a wandering gets the exclusive ad sales and YouTube distribution rights. and NPR keeps the radio distribution rights. Explain that James, because that sounds like a very convoluted deal in terms of its structuring of who can play what wearables.
I think this is actually really interesting. NPR has been making and broadcasting how I built this with guy Raz for a long time. It's a business podcast in case you've never heard it. go and rise looks like the typical, intellectual American with his sports jacket and his clever glasses. and it was a very nice chat by the way as well. but, so NPR is essentially keeping the bits that it does well. So selling underwriting credits.
So this program is brought to you with, such and such, those little under writing credits that exist on NPR stations and on the podcast, those will continue, but wondering he gets to sell, 32nd ads, in the show as well with this particular. And also interestingly, some rights for YouTube, which, I don't fully understand. and, Amazon also gets an exclusive to the podcast for the first week. So you get it a week before anybody else, if you're listening on Amazon music, then that's a lovely thing.
the other thing is that, there'll be two shows a week, so they are essentially doubling the amount of podcasts that they can go out and sell, which is always an interesting side of that as well. But it's the first thing that NPR have done here. I mean, NPR is a weird and wonderful organization, that, has its brand on lots of things that it doesn't properly own. and, I'm not quite sure, exactly the relationship between NPR and how I built this.
but, interesting to see NPR essentially jumping in with, Amazon music. Wondery Jen Sergeant will be at the podcast show in London. and, it'll be interesting to hear what she ends up saying about this in may
now Amazon I'm wondering seem to be expanding their portfolio. Smartlist the podcast set up by Jason Bateman will it. And Sean Hayes and licensed to Amazon music and wandering in a multimillion dollar deal. It's expanding. The trio has launched Smartlist media and hired Richard Corson, who was previously a producer at the daily show with Jon Stewart.
The company will expand its audio slate in this team to produce a raft of new shows as part of his partnership with Amazon growing its slate of shows and doing it through third party acquisitions.
I think that what Amazon is currently doing, it's nowhere in terms of a podcast app it's just nowhere. I think what Amazon is really doing here is that they're buying IP for content that they can then go and monetize yes. As podcasts, but also as TV shows, as, movies and those sorts of things through Amazon prime and to resell those to broadcasters as well. whatever top gear became the grand tour, is available on Amazon prime, but you can now watch that on the TV as well.
I think channel seven bought it here in Australia. so I think that there's a lot of that sort of IP stuff going on and, it's a tried and tested way of monetizing podcasts these days.
I don't think that Amazon are particularly alone but, you can certainly see that this deal with a Smartlist media, it's essentially just more ways of, taking interesting ideas and, using the might of Amazon and of Wondery who a very clever company in terms of doing all of this, to, see if they can get the best value out of the podcasts that they actually have that.
And to talking about, IP and about, different podcast networks, I ended up having a conversation with somebody who, Amazon may well be interested in them as well. There are a company called crowd network. They're based in Manchester. I had a chat with their CEO, Mike Carr crowd
network. was established in September, 2020. it is a. UK based podcast network that creates and owns its own content. So it's very IP driven, either a hundred percent of the IP, or we have partnerships with personalities or potential sort of investigative journalists, that sort of thing, where we create content together. so we're very much around not making content for other people, which is obviously common in the UK market. we set our stall out in 2022.
Create our own content, timeless content, evergreen content that we can monetize ourselves and build capital value in the company. and we have two content divisions, crowd people, which is personality based podcasts and crowd stories, which is documentary and narrative based podcast.
I was going to ask is a real mix of shows on your podcast network. And I was going to ask what the strategy was. and that sounds like quite a bright one having two separate strands there. absolutely.
the four founding members, including myself, came from the BBC where we created that Peter crouch podcast. so we knew that was our sort of sweet spot of how we could really launch those sorts of titles and create that community around them. so that we knew we could do that. And we started off doing that quite quickly and effectively. but we also. realize that, the IP value may be in people.
Podcast, personnel podcast is not as great as they are in this sort of documentary narrative style podcasts. And we were very keen. To really let our creative juices going in that area as well. and build that value in the company and build that IP and build those evergreen titles that continually get discovered. And I think a lot of companies want to do that and they perhaps make branded podcasts on the side or they make content for the people they'd bring in revenue from commissions.
We using our. Podcasts to bring in that revenue to allow us to make those narrative podcasts as well. But they're also growing significantly and how we work with personalities is based around building a brand, not just a podcast for all that different ancillary revenue. And we've done that effectively with the two or three of our titles. So initially it was about, we just want to make some great stuff.
so we had an opportunity to work with, film director, Michael Epstein in America for murder and house two, which was one of our first titles, which was really successful. But we also had linked up with Joe Marlin and Thomas rugby player, Joe Marlett, cyclists go, and Thomas. And so it evolved like that. and through murdering house two, we got more opportunities to make, in partnership, these narrative titles, whilst the personality side of things was also taken off as well.
So it was a business decision not to say make sport titles, which is all our backgrounds. and evolved that way to where we. Making these sort of two strands of content when that diversity is really important because the income, the revenue that we're getting from the personality side comes in a lot quicker and bigger, whereas the sort of narrative podcasts, the revenue takes a while to come through, shall we say? And it comes through slowly.
and is that just because of the way that it's ad funded, so it's just the amount of downloads for the personality stuff is faster.
It's, not necessarily, but it's sponsored friendly. So if you go, sponsors want to work with well-known personalities and they want them to endorse their brands. Sponsors don't necessarily want to be associated with a massacre in Iraq, The UK market is probably skewed so much by that. So there are so many personality podcasts because that's what sponsors want.
Do you think that's the Joe Rogan effect in
terms of that high profile personality?
In terms of a high profile personality, and you want them to promote your particular thing and maybe they see, being involved in a documentary in an investigative documentary as being rather that's built into the
coast a hundred percent. And also, you've got the likes of eight cast, audio being docs who will sell the low-hanging fruit. So they're not necessarily going to go out and try and sell a house too, or an American vigilante, which is about this guy going around and rescuing kidnapped children and stuff like that. they're going to take the low hanging fruit and it makes their job easier. So it would be nice if brands could be educated more.
Around, those sort of bigger brands, your cars, even luxury cars, that sort of thing that could be affiliated like the on TV with sky crime and things like that, that we can potentially bring that to the pipe, but that's not what the monetization platforms are set up to do. So you could be left with the BBC. The only people that are making these high-end documentaries because they don't have the commercial pressures that everybody else has. And we kind of wanted to change that.
And there are companies coming on board that are trying to change that, but it is really a long play and it requires investment as well, but we're scaling up on that more. We're trying to create umbrella titles, series that can inherit audiences rather than standalone tampon podcasts, that, do well, but then disappear and might have tick over. You might get some programmatic stuff in, so we're looking at that sort of umbrella model now, which a couple of companies are doing.
In fact, a lot of companies are doing effectively about how we can then keep inheriting the audience and grow that.
I found it interesting to notice in the Edison research, top podcasts of 2021, that cereals they're at number nine, I've just listened to the entire, new cereal show, which of course is, based in Birmingham, just, an hour or so away from you. and really interesting hearing here in Australia hearing what the ads were in there. and frankly hearing how many had been sold and how many hadn't, and I found that really interesting.
I think I might have one, maybe none. I can't remember, it does take time and it takes investment. And often it is the big media companies, like the New York times that can make those. but we are wanting to change that and we are wanting to build a significant, catalog of these sort of high-end narrative shows. And we just launched one this week called the secret history of flight 1, 4, 9 about the human shields in Iraq, which we've done in partnership with investigative journey, Steven Davis.
And I'm really proud of it. And it's got incredible access, this incredible storytelling and it's, talks about an amazing cover-up in the British government. And it's something that's actually coming out as we speak all the different, stories behind it are being released by the government. So it's topical as well as historical. And this Steven Davis is an incredible investigative journalist and we're working on two other projects with him now.
that takes investment, but there's also the potential for, as we've heard so much over the last six months about potential IP content, TV, film, books, rights, that sort of thing. Now that would obviously be great. And for American vigilante, one of our titles, we are having talks around that in terms of turning into TV series. but are we going to commission just because it could be a TV or film, that's some companies live or die by that.
So you then have to find that time to develop those titles and find those titles and invest time in them, which we are doing. But it takes time.
Yeah, I was going to ask how your commissioning process works. cause you've got a lot of people on your staff list on your website, like a load of people and they're great people as well, lots of ex BBC people, in that list, do you take external ideas or the people that you have with you I'm sure have no end of great ideas for themselves.
It's a bit of both. A load of people 12, I think might be on there, we started off with four. So we have troubled, I had count, and we are going to be expanding further. it's evolving as we started so very much. Personality podcasts. We generally have a lot of contacts in that area and we would potentially go to them and talk about formats and how we can grow their sort of brand, that sort of thing. In terms of the story titles, again, a massive mixture.
So the.com strand that we've launched recently about Wikipedia, and then the second series about Reddit. It was very much, commissioned in house, made in house. And we own a hundred percent of that IP. And we're looking at developing more of those titles, but something like a secret history was a flight. 1, 4 9 was made because of a sort of partnership we had with banio books and an unofficial partnership, just looking at how we can maybe use some of their books to create amazing podcasts.
So that was another sort of partnership that we created. And we've obviously going to develop two or three more titles with Steven murderer in house too, but there's a gain just to a conversation and somebody we know. This guy been working on this project 15 years, he wanted out there. So we created that with him, so there's so many different ways of doing it.
I think in the longer term, the more that we can commission ourselves, create ourselves and own those titles ourselves, the better for us. But then you have to build this development team to really drill down on those ideas because everybody is looking for those sort of amazing stories that live out there. TV, film, podcast is everything. So you've got to offer something special to get through. So we're, open-minded with partnerships. We're very open-minded.
We just want to work with people that we like and share our values
and the UK, audio market is a really interesting market because you have the BBC, and your. The BBC, they have a remit to spend a certain amount. I think it's 25%. The last time I looked, of their production budget with independent audio producers, which essentially means that the UK has a tremendously rich audio production industry. Hasn't
it? It certainly does. but it is also very reliant on the BBC and you can make a decent living, just making content for the BBC. I didn't really want to leave the BBC and make content for the BPC. I might as well just stayed there. but I'm not sure if that actual podcast strategy, in terms of what shows they create, they can create amazing shows, cause lack of commercial pressures, but they also do a lot of personality shows.
And when I was the BBC sounds and the podcast strategy was very much around attracting younger audiences. And then we brought in the peer crowds podcast, which blew everything out of the war, which is fantastic. So I think we talk about the UK market being behind the U S market is just different because of the scale of the BBC and the amount of production companies that have grown up just making content for the BBC and the BBC quite like Saturday, they're the commissioners.
And then we're all scrubbing around trying to make content for them. And when those commissions, we didn't really want to part of that industry, I think for those companies, now it's better because you have options like audible who pay a lot of money for a title and the BBC might end up missing out on a few. So I think that's important, but we didn't want to get into that, production house mentality. Where we were relying on commissions all the time.
We wanted to, create these podcasts that we own or own part of Cause
that's the difference, isn't it? That the BBC, when you make something for the BBC, you are giving the IP to them and you can't really do anything with that IP, once you've actually made that particular show. And I think that's the real difference there worthwhile pointing out. Cause we've got, audiences around the world. I think I worked out that NPR has a market share of about 12% in the U S and the BBC.
I haven't seen the latest figures, but it's around 50 to 53% market share in terms of radio consumption. Certainly. So there's a real difference there in terms of just the size of that organization and therefore what it does to everybody else, which is, quite a change.
BBC sounds. obviously you've been covering the recent decision to make certain of the big titles, exclusive to BBC sounds, which I don't think helps the general market. it certainly doesn't give the license fee payer more value as they suggested. but I understand why they're doing it because it's a numbers game and given all the recent, talk about the license fee, et cetera, each part of the BBC has to justify their existence to, senior management, the government, et cetera.
And it's all about perception and future-proofing themselves from, getting taken out. so I understand why they've done it, but I don't think they need to start going on about how they're protecting the whole industry and giving value for the license fee pilot. It's not about that. It's a numbers game and I get it cause I was out at the star.
So you've launched a brand new podcast, last week called a secret history of colon flights, 1, 4 9, which you've already talked about a little bit. I'm imagining that the colon in there is, to give you access to more secret histories in the future. Is that the thoughts that
very perceptive of EGMS? very much so we, we started working on it as an individual project with, this investigative journalist Steven Davis. He's based in New Zealand and he's been working on this, story it was early 1990s. Wasn't it? When the first Iraq war happened and the whole human shield and this British airways jet landing in Kuwait, just as the, Iraqi troops crossed the border, which wasn't ideal. and everything that happened after that.
But there's a coverup involve the British government and Steven, it's basically through his hard work has uncovered that. it's incredible. And he has a couple of other projects that we're looking at with him, to develop because we found him an absolute joy to work with. he's a writer, but now he's discovered the podcast space. He's. this is it. This is what I want to do. I've given it. I'm not going to be writing anymore. This is what I want to do. which is fantastic.
And, he's worked with one of our producers, who's just done an incredible job and it's about that. As I taught before that creation of umbrella brands that can retain audience, so secret history, 5, 1 49 goes to secret history, two secret history three, and then you create the snowball effect and you're building these long-term sort of story brands that you can actually look out and pop something in there that you think that's the right thing for that we wouldn't necessarily just force it.
But that's very much the strategy now. I think you'll see less a partners that just go out there and, you never see again, although we are launching one in March saying that about the anthrax attacks in 2001 after nine 11, the anthrax attacks in America, which is brilliant. And we just wanted to tell that story. so we partnered with a couple of journalists over in America and that's being made for the last year really, but we're looking, we're very excited about that.
very cool. Mike, thank you so much for your time. If you want to find out more of, some of the. The crowd network are making it's crowd network.co.uk. But Mike, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. So my car from the crowd network in the UK, I thought it was really interesting.
He was talking a lot about, the strategy that they have around different strands, different, podcast, themes, if you like, to basically, make sure that the podcasts that they were making, weren't just one hit wonders that they were actually part of a series and part of an evergreen, set of content that they're actually making. so I thought it was a very clever way of putting a podcast network. Yeah, build a
portfolio and resell content later down the road. Now, Facebook appears to have rolled out audio rooms across the world. all rooms are also recorded and post your profile unless you don't want that and work on iOS, Android, and the web. but we still don't get podcasts internationally, James.
No, we don't. So I'm not quite sure what Facebook is doing in terms of podcasting. They seem to have forgotten about it, but it's nice to see that they've rolled out these audio rooms. They seem to work very well. And it's very nice to actually see something working on iOS, Android, and the web from the get-go. that's rather a good thing. I don't think that they are a standalone app. I was saying this on this very podcast quite some time ago.
I think that they fit where you have already social, connections with other people. and so that's why it works particularly well with Twitter, and, could work particularly well with Facebook. Although Facebook has so many things, it's quite difficult to find them all. but, I thought it was quite a nice, smooth.
Give them their share results last week. Is there anyone left on Facebook? I wonder.
Oh, there's plenty. There's plenty. did you see the story about mark Zuckerberg, who is telling people they want employees to be called Mehta mates really? Cause you know what? Mehta mates aren't they aren't better mates. And apparently, the strangely robotic mark Zuckerberg told everybody from now on, you're going to be called Metta mates. so they role delighted dreadful.
Let's get back to some tech, popping, which, is a way of notifying your podcast is. published really fast on the hive. Blockchain, has now more than a quarter of million podcasts, notifying podcast apps about new episodes. The system offers near instant notification of new episodes and removes the need for podcast directories to continuously pull your RSS feed like apple does. Now, the reason I mentioned it, because last Friday was a big milestone. The first pod ping live notification.
It's live, it's a system to tell your podcast app that your favorite podcast is currently streaming live. So what'd you think of that one,
James? it's really nice to see that it's a part of the podcasting 2.0 part of the, enhanced, features that a podcast 2.0 is making, so really good to see that, the, pod ping live notification was of course for the podcasting 2.0 podcast itself with Dave Jones and with, Adam Curry and, really good to end up seeing that. and I think also really good to know that there are a quarter of a million podcasts now out there, which are basically, notifying people.
Oh, we've just published a new episode, so you don't have to continuously pull them anymore. that's must be good for the environment. It must be good for all kinds of things. and, I think in the tests that they've done, I think it takes 20 seconds or so for the notification to get all the way through the system, which is pretty good. great to see that.
I use with my radio station to podcasts and that means that I would have to get worse. To support pod ping and then support pod pig live, in order to take any advantage of this, because I can't see, unless you'd know, another way of me being able to tell people that my radio show is live, other than, the way that we do now is we have people who follow certain, Threads. And then we send out to them
so pod paying itself, isn't actually a namespace extension. it's a bit different and you basically send a message to a web server. The web server is called pod ping.cloud. I think when you send a message to that, basically say, have a look at my podcast. It's just updated or indeed have a look at my podcast. It's just gone live. So you could actually do that. You could build the tech yourself, to do that. And you wouldn't necessarily need Washco to support, any of that.
and indeed, Buzzsprout supports pod ping, our excellent sponsors as to other people as well. I'm not sure that any hosts support pod Pang life, because actually podcast hosts aren't really involved in live podcasting. That's a different thing that you end up using, whether that's a YouTube live or you end up using, Facebook live or other things.
I think this is something that is probably going to be quite, techie for people to end up doing and is unlikely to be something that a podcast hosts themselves supports. as I say, I think it's good to see, these sorts of tools rolling out, because anything that turns podcasting from being something which, Isn't interactive to something that is interactive, is probably good news for the media because it keeps people, interested in making content and in consuming it as well.
now I was listening to the podcast index show with Dave and Adam. They did have, Kevin and Tom on from the bus route and they were talking about the fact that has cast, which is their podcast, is now enabled for value for value, which is great news.
Yeah, indeed. So if you are a fan of that show, then download the fountain app and you can start sending them, bits of, cryptocurrency bits of value for what it is that they end up doing. And they've joined this show and also joined the new media show, three quite large podcasts for the industry, now using value for value. it will be, fun to, see how successful that is, at the end of it. But, if you're not already using it, then downloads a new podcast.
App fountain is a good one because everything is made really easy and simple in there, but there are others available to, which you'll find it. New podcast apps dot.
Now apple in response to Spotify buying up the industry has decided to come out with some new features It seems that in iOS 15.4, which currently embitter, according to some of the beta testers, you can filter episodes based on played unplayed downloaded or saved. You can also now browse by season and as with any features, we have to say they're in beta. So they might disappear before release. Is that the most exciting the applicant do James?
So apple podcasts is adding functionality that, PocketCasts already has. Great, well done. Apple that's another triumph. they are adding additional things as well. So I am told, but, nobody has spotted those yet. interesting to see, I think what we can take away from that is that apple is working on their app, which is good. Apple is, wanting to improve it. And being able, just to browse by season is actually going to be a bit of a game changer for fiction podcasting and stuff like that.
So I think that's a pretty good news. They've also published a guide on how to use chapters. they support embedded chapters so they don't support the podcasting 2.0 Jason chapters, but they do support the embedded chapters in MP4 MP3 and AAC files. and, apple are saying that they want more podcasters to support chapters and chapter specific artwork. So if you're doing chapters and chapters specific artwork, then yay, apple loves you, for doing that sort of thing.
and we do by the way on this very podcast as well. So again, Great to see, apple investing time in helping podcasters understand how to use some of these new tools. They've also added something today, around, helping people, understand how to talk to apple, to promote your podcast. So they've put a whole guide together for a promotion, with tips, to how to be promoted by the platform, timing, advice, artwork, advice, more stuff like that as well.
apple is doing, quite a lot of work out there, which is really good to end up seeing.
again, just listen to the podcast index on Friday and it may be think has the podcast index namespace reached feature parity with apple? I know we, we have a go at apple, quite a bit, they've got their proprietary ways of doing things. So they have had support for a celebrity person tag. For some time. I, they manually put the picture of celebrities in, all we at parity cause we've, in the podcast index namespace now got person chapters, but Do we have anything that supports channels?
subscriptions, because we keep saying, we're getting towards apple, but are we there now? Are we at parity or beyond.
I'm not sure we are at parity and I'm not sure necessarily that we need to be. I think, I can't see, support for the iTunes namespace going away anytime soon. And so therefore, if it's not going to go away anytime soon, we don't need to reinvent that. there are ways that we can look at particular tags that apple produces to make sure that they are more useful for the whole industry, not just apple.
but I think in terms of, getting parity, getting rid, for example, if the iTunes author tag and replacing that with, the podcast person tag, I'm not sure that's really required. The one thing you know, that we could probably do a little bit of help, in is the block tag. Cause the block tag at the moment, if you put a block tag in your, RSS feed, then that will remove your podcast. Uh, apple, automatically, but it will also remove your podcast from quite a lot of other places.
It removes it from pocket casts automatically and removes it from Google podcasts automatically. Google has just retired, their Google play namespace themselves. so I choose block, seemingly removes your listing from most directors, not from the podcast index. I don't think. it would be better.
I think if we were able to produce a more flexible block tag and that block tag might say, I only want this podcast on apple and Spotify, and I don't want it on anywhere else because maybe I don't like what Marco does or overcast or et cetera, et cetera. So I want to specifically block those particular apps. and I think that's certainly something that we should perhaps be having a look into.
Dave, on the podcast said they may start to look at using the block tag or a new block tag as phase five of the podcast index
namespace. And in fact, there's a really good conversation going on around that, in the get hub, at the moment, which, I am in, I think it's just keeping that simple and keeping that straightforward. And, yes, some of the podcasts director is, may not support it when that's launched. But I think if a creator is making it very obvious that they do not want to be listed in a certain, podcast directory, then I think that will be a good idea to, add the support for that.
so I think that there's a good amount of support there.
The block tag, but I've been useful this week for somebody else, James, cause you received a little letter from a lawyer.
I received a three page letter, from a lawyer in Tennessee, that was most upset on behalf of his clients because his client only wants to be an apple podcasts and doesn't want to be anywhere else, literally nowhere else. doesn't want to be an overcast. Doesn't want to be in, Spotify or in, anywhere else. And certainly doesn't want to be on the pod news website. so they sent me a massive, great big, long legal letter, of which I've replied.
And I said, I'm using your public RSS feed to do what it's designed to do, which is to link to your podcast. If you don't want your podcast to be publicly. Then you should take your public RSS feed down. That's how that works. so if they wanted to, they could, use the new block tag, which I will, of course support, as soon as I can, as soon as that has been ratified. it's not really a case of anything else.
It's just purely a case of just a simple, straightforward block tag, that would actually tell me to stop taking that. so I've sent my response back to the lawyer basically saying, no, this is how to do it. And I'm not fiddling around with that. but I've got until February the 28th, otherwise they will start taking me to court, we will see what they come back and say,
now a different story. Dino, so FOSS, who's the founder and CEO of, Paris perse,
a phonics. It's easy for you to say.
it's early in the morning, hick Amman, that's a name. he was previously the podcast lead for the BBC news, and he created some great podcasts. Brexit, cast America, the newscast, well in his new company yesterday, they launched the first of their new podcasts. This one was called at your service, which was with an artist that you may well know James called.
Oh, yes. I'm a big fan of all of her work, that by the way was wide, your Lipa appeared, slightly in Congress, early in the iHeart podcast awards, to give away a prize because Hey, guess what? She had a podcast coming. and great to see that, she's got all kinds of interviews with, some very interesting people, including, and Sean, who I have heard of and Russell brand, who I've heard of as well, coming up, on that particular show. that was.
I didn't mention it because of Julie leap and I didn't think it would have been a great podcast story. Had it been just dually announced as a podcast? What I found more interesting and I spoke to, Dino via LinkedIn, we were having a little chat is that they've launched a version of that podcast simultaneously in French, Spanish, and in Latin America, certainly, Portuguese for the Brazilian audience as well.
And what he said was they looked at using AI voice technology to do it, but it didn't really deliver the quality that they wanted. So they've actually got voiced over artists to do Julie Papa's voice for the sections and a male artist. If he was say Elton John, which will be interesting to see you, they get, so what they've done it in the style. where Julie says the first two or three words, and then it instantly goes like the UN into an overdubbed voice.
I think it's interesting how it they've done it, but they have similar Tennessee done it. So I thought it was worth noting.
Yeah, I think that's a very interesting idea. Very bright idea, to basically take a mega star and, to, produce some, translated versions. I think that's a smart plan. So a well done Dino, software's a friend of the show.
Indeed. Now you've been busy, James. apart from sanding down your decking,
I am not sending down the decking. I have a man for that. he's got a very large beard and I wouldn't want to have a fight with him. you're right. I, also launched something on what it was supposed to launch on Monday, but then there was some news. So it ended up launching on Tuesday called the pod news reports card for the podcast industry. this is quite fun. So basically, some of the podcasts platforms basically asked for this and said, is there a way that you can get.
A bunch of data back from your readers, whether they're publishers or whether they're listeners to podcasts of basically where we're going well, where we're not doing so well in terms of our podcast apps. and I thought what a good idea that sounds. And you can, and please do, if you're listening to this right now, you can fill out the report card at pod news.net/report card. What I plan to do is compile the results and give comprehensive data to each of the podcast platforms so far.
Only launched this yesterday, I've already had more than a hundred, votes back, which is great to see. And some of the comments in there are really useful. Some of the comments in there are basically, moaning on about a particular podcast platform for doing something that actually they don't do anymore. But the podcast platform, hasn't done a very good job of communicating the fact that they don't do that thing anymore, but they used to do it.
and it'll really help that particular podcast platform be able to, understand what they should be promoting, what they should be talking about. So it's a really, interesting, piece of work. I have a feeling it's going to be quite a lot of work to take all of the detail and compile it into a report, but that's what I plan to do. so if you are having a listen, please do. I can take you very long. It sh should take a couple of minutes, pod news.net/report card.
And I link as well to an equivalent that is done for, apple as a company, which is really interesting to go and read anyway. And that's the sort of thing that I'm trying to do here.
congratulations, James, we will, hopefully get the results very soon as well. Now dance knows history hit damn was at my podcast festival. Gosh, that feels long time ago, 2019 at the beginning of COVID. I long time ago, he seems he's claiming to have the most subtly podcast ever recorded.
he is not claiming that was basically me writing that into pod names just to make the podcast sound a little bit more exciting. But yes, He is taking his podcast, to Antarctica. and he's trying to find Ernest Shackleton's lost endurance shipwreck. I always thought that Shackleton was a man that made chairs, but no, it turns out, that, it's a shipwreck. That's a joke that only people in Yorkshire will understand.
I bought this cherry Shackleton's, anyway, I've not done a very good job of explaining that about three people listening to this will get that anyway. Dan's nose started doing his podcast, by recording it into a mobile phone in a travel lodge hotel room. and now he's, they're talking, into a, probably a mobile phone on a ship, in the Antarctic ocean, which is pretty cool too. He says an audience of millions.
so that's just pretty cool to end up seeing, I wondered if it was the most southerly podcast ever recorded. Now it wasn't, there was a podcast. If you speak, Norwegian, then you will enjoy it because it's mostly a Norwegian, but trans universe followed. Eric Bertrand Lawson on a solo trip to the south pole itself. And that happened only in January. you chose a good month to do it. and if you speak mostly Norwegian, there are a couple of episodes in English.
then you'll find that, in your favorite podcast app as well,
now talking, producing podcasts, if you don't want any competition with your podcast, how can we produce a podcast, James, where we get no company?
Well, not much competition. Certainly one way of doing that is to make a podcast about chemistry or about volleyball. this is according to data that, re phonic worked on, they had to look at the apple podcasts data, and I should point out the apple podcasts data, not podcasts in general, just the apple podcasts data to work out what the low hanging fruit was, what, podcasts, You should be contemplating doing, because not very many other people are doing them.
So don't make podcasts in English or Indonesian or Swedish, because there are loads of those in comparison to the amount of speakers, in the world instead, think about doing podcasts in other languages. Obviously I only speak English because I'm a lazy British person. avoid shows about cricket. There are an awful lot of those, but, chemistry or volleyball, the amounts of shows in those categories are very low. and you'll probably get into the charts if you want to end up doing that.
Although let's be fair, you'll probably not get very many downloads either. but it's quite an interesting, piece of data which we'll link to from the. I look
forward to James's new podcast, Yorkshire chairs from Shackleton's
from Shackleton's, you know? Oh, so comfortable,
talking of strange little quirky stories. I think it was Matt Degan was talking about this. A podcast has turned into its own radio station in the UK, hosted by Libsyn. It's called the Alfred daily. It's a 40 minute daily local news show, which is now being broadcast on 1 0 7 0.3 FM across SharpSpring.
Yes, it's a podcast which has actually been going for quite some time. It's doing a thousand downloads a day. Now a thousand downloads a day is quite a lot for any podcast. it's more than this podcast gets, but, they're doing a thousand downloads a day in an area that is only 12,000 people. so it's got a tremendous reach in the area.
And so now what, Carrie Jones, who's the person behind that podcast is doing, is he's managed to get a community radio license and is now broadcasting that across search Shaftsbury in Dorset. you'll be able to hear the Alfred daily, about five times in a typical day, but the radio station also covers other, programming as well. it doesn't play any music at all. So it's an entirely speech, 24 hours a day radio station, I say, 24 hours a day.
If you listen in the middle of the night, then you'll hear a bird song because you know why not? but it's a wonderful idea and really interesting to see that, essentially it was a podcast that has been, made for the last couple of years, that has led into its own radio station. So very cool thing. worth reading up and learning more.
Gosh, I'd never knew about starting a podcast radio station. I wonder why,
but it's different. You said it's the other way round
No, no, no. James, the idea for us was we would do podcasts that were one hour long. So all of our shows are what are long-term river radio. Cause they were intentionally designed to be podcasts. And we said we would turn them into a radio show because why not? We were recording them, might as well broadcast the recording. And that's how we came about.
and again, similar to river radio, which is the we that you're talking to there. this is all a, hosted by, volunteers. and they're using, Hindenburg editor and, their mobile phones to go out and record. but it's a really good lesson. It's well worth having a listen. It's very, professional sounding, just not your radio station, Sam. that's a
good thing. I wasn't going to say that, but congratulations to welfare daddy, that we'll go and have a listen to it. Now, moving on swiftly talking of a podcast, as we were just now podcasts, I listened to more than twice. As long as people listen to spoken word audio on am and FM radio among kids says some research recently from Edison research translate that James.
Oh, yes, this is basically saying, if you listen to spoken word audio, then you're listening to twice as many podcasts than you are listening to the radio for the same time. it was just an interesting stat that I saw that I thought was worthwhile, mentioning it's part of the Edison research, smart listener report, which came out today and, and that's full of, some really useful, data, in that so well worth having a peak out, you'll find that linked from pod news.net.
There's a tool out there which will, help you organize notes on audio. Perhaps you're listening to a pre edit and you want to, mention all you need to edit the cough out here and blah, blah, blah, it's a little tool that will enable you to do that. That's called re clipped, which works on, any old audio. Saturday was Africa podcast day and, the events celebrated across the continent. The SAPC wrote a large, story about that.
some interesting stuff coming out of Africa, particularly South Africa, we'll get some, data next week from the infinite dial, the infinite dials that are already available in the U S Canada, the UK and Australia. It's a really good piece of research and they have once before done some, data research in. south African and they're doing it again. And it comes out on February the 24th. And it'll be interesting to find out how south African podcasts are doing there too. Let's move on.
And, there's a section here that says movers and shakers, Sam.
it seems like everybody, as we said earlier is moving to Spotify, but James cater the head of studios for Spotify, UK, and Ireland looks as if he's about to leave the company because there's a role being advertised on Spotify, his website.
Yes, that's a very weird thing. Isn't it? Why would a role be advertised on Spotify website for somebody's job, where they haven't actually announced that he's leaving? but, yes, it's there, he's been with Spotify for more than six years and, yes. I wonder where he's going. to moving on, James oh, bogs, everybody's called James in podcasts these days. he, used to be with apple podcasts in July. He'd been with apple for years and years.
He's now hiring Ruby developers for his new company, which is called the new river bluff company. We've known very little about that so far, but, the job ad says that they are making next generation audio tools, next generation audio tools. I wonder what they are. yes, always interesting to see. And Tiffany Ash tea has been promoted to us director of the, a cast creator network, which is also a good start.
Now let's go on to books and events, podcast futures, which we've mentioned a couple of times in this episode is still, do we believe, although we've had no confirmation to go ahead on February the 22nd in London?
yes. if you're in London, then see if that's still going ahead, it's in Westminster. you may well be at that. I won't be, but I will be at podcast movement evolutions, which is in March in LA. I'm very much looking forward to that and your going to. I am
a cold wait.
yes. we'll be looking forward to recording this show with the folks at Buzzsprout as well. which should be fun. I'm not quite sure how we're going to do it yet. but I'm sure we've got a plan. Will it involve Riverside's dot FM? No, so that'll be, a good thing. so yes, very much looking forward to that. And also looking forward to, the podcast show, which is in may, in, London, England. you can go and buy the delegate day passes. They have literally just gone on sale.
If you use the, promo code pod news, you'll get 20% off, although frankly, it's 55 quid. It's not that much. so you should be going anyway. all kinds of people are including Ross Adams, who's CEO of a cast, a Miranda Sawyer from the observer and Jen Sergeant who's CEO of Wondery. so all of that happening in may. and, I think in both of these events, possibly, but certainly in that one, there will be some Podland drinks somewhere in a bar, in a pub somewhere. so that's pretty good.
Now there was a book that you were promoting on pod news. I didn't know much about it, but I thought I'd ask you, it's called the power of podcasting and it's a new book about telling stories through
sound. it's a really good book. It's written by Chavonne McHugh, who is Irish, but lives in Australia I'm quoted on the back. in one of those author blurbs, saying something positive about it, but a genuinely positive about it. I read the entire thing and it's really good. you can get it, anywhere in the world, although you'll have to wait a long time for the book to be sent to you, or you can just buy it on Kindle, which is probably the easiest plan.
so it's called the power of podcasting and to talk about things, to read many congratulations to Ariel Nissen, Blatz earbuds podcast, collective they've celebrated, five years of putting that newsletter together. And that show indeed. you should subscribe to that too. You'll find it at earbuds podcast, collective.org.
James, what else has been happening for you this week in Poland? Oh,
it's been quite busy. I'm in the daily Telegraph this week talking about radio and how it isn't dead. So that's nice. I was on a Italian radio station in London yesterday, London, one radio talking about the world radio Alliance. So that was nice. I was also on podcasters live for a whole hour, which you'll find on pod News's socials, particularly on Twitter and where you can watch the whole thing all over again. it was a great, talking with Steve on that. So that was good fun.
So I've been doing all kinds of things what's been happening for you this week. Well,
I bought a share on a tugboat James and it's called the crafty tug.
Nice. I does just a crafty tug do
it sells craft beers and ales at outdoor festivals.
I'm more interested now. yes, you do realize that there is a canal, in his LinkedIn. so you could, stick it up there
Well, we might do that, but it's on its way up from little Venice as we speak right now or away. The little of
is for those who don't know is in London, very close to Paddington. oh, very cool. Very cool. and I notice it's even got a website where you can find out more, all the W's dot crafty tap. Dr co.uk.
So it's going to be a bit of fun over the summer. We've got five festivals. That's going to be at, music festivals. we're going to have river radio on the roof broadcasting. but
you don't know anything about, all, so what you learn out of that? that should be a very good, how exciting there you go. The crafty tug and that's it for this week,
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