Welcome to Podland Podland is sponsored by buzz sprouts. The easiest way to host, promote and track your Podcast therapist. sprout.com. It's Thursday, January the 28th, 2021. I'm James Cridland the editor of pod news here in Australia.
And I'm Sam Sethi the editor of Sam Talks Technology here in the UK
and I'm Jared Edwards from Podcast radio.and later I'll be talking about how Podcast radio is growing in the UK.
And I'm Melissa and we'll go from Africa, port Podcast and I'll be on later to talk about podcasting in Africa.
And I met Teagan and later I'll be talking about the British Podcast awards and Podcast eight 24.
Well Podland is a weekly podcast where Sam and I delve deeper into the week's podcasting news, which I cover [email protected]. It was Australia day earlier this week. So I'd like to start this week by giving my respects to the terrible and Jaguar people of the UGA nation. Who are the traditional custodians of the area in Australia, where I live at work and where I'm talking to you now, it's a different world down here. Sam I'll tell you,
Please get involved with this podcast. Send us a voice message to questions at Podland dot news, or you can tweet us at Podland news.
We've been saying that for the last three or four weeks and no one yet has sent us a voice message. So if you send us a voice message, we're guaranteed to publish it. It's as simple as that properly. Anyway, this week's big stories. Sam
so the first one up is podcasting is growing fast. According to live ex live CEO, Robert Allen, the Podcast one owner recommend the future for Podcast Zim video and tell Stuart Varney that podcasting will grow between five to 10 billion in the next five to seven years.
Yeah, since Giovanni took it completely have a listen. I think that podcasting is a really exciting growth area. That will be five to $10 billion in the next five
to seven years. That's quite an advance.
That's terrific. That's terrific. what do you think the future for podcasting and video? Well,
first of all, is it podcasting if it's video? That's my one question. And secondly, I just think the guys got on telly and decided that I better say something outrageous so that I get invited back for my next
interview. Yes. And they're called live X live, which. Believe is pronounced live by live. If you're going to want people to pronounce your name live by live, surely you would spell it live by live. But anyway, probably couldn't get the URL. Yes, probably that's entirely it. So that's on one side. And then on the other side, Justin Jackson, who's the founder of transistor, which is a podcast host in Canada. He quite likes podcasting's slow and steady growth.
and he says that many investors fundamentally misunderstand the medium. You've worked with investors in the past. What are investors interested in there
in basically any fast growing rapid market? anything that says it's going to be big? A lot of them. One 20 X return on any investment. So if someone tells you whatever you're doing is going to be big, they will probably get excited. It sounds a bit frothy to me. And that's the problem. I wonder whether there's a massive, throw money into this sector. Cause it sounds like it's sexy at the moment. Spotify obviously setting the benchmark with their a hundred million into Joe Rogan and.
We are observing in most of the stories that you're writing James, that there's a lot of M and a going on. We've seen one DRI art 19 potentially to Amazon. And there's a whole bunch of Taiwanese companies buying up companies 10 cent last week bought another company. So I think the market is in M and a mode. And I think VCs are getting excited cause there's money in them Hills somewhere.
Yeah, no, I certainly think so. Justin, I think makes a really interesting point that investors have last year spent more than $1 billion into a Podcast ecosystem that doesn't have $1 billion in total revenue, and that's a slight worry. So I wonder whether or not all of this MNA activity will slow down quite fast, or whether we'll hear more people like Robert Allen. Saying that podcasting is going to go up 10 times in the next five years. Well, I think the
other side of the coin that you have to look at is if podcasting is to grow at the rate that he's suggesting, then a couple of things have to happen. One is. People's attention needs to switch from somewhere else. We only have a finite attention. So are we going to stop watching TV, stop listening to radio. Are we going to put down books and is Podcast and going to be the main audio medium that people use or how will people switch?
So that advertisers, because it's really advertisers have to get into this market space, have a bigger audience that they have. Generating revenue from which suddenly leads to the, positive virtuous circle of more listeners, therefore more advertisers, therefore more revenue, therefore more PR and noise and et cetera, et cetera. So do you think one of the other spaces has to give in order to allow podcasting to grow or can it grow on its own? Well,
I don't know. I think it's interesting seeing what Spotify doing and we'll talk about Spotify a little bit later on and interesting around, just. The different entrance in this space, which are trying to reinvent it in a way that podcasting has never really been, made for podcasting is deliberately a very open platform, a platform, which you can listen to individual shows on all kinds of different apps So I'm not sure necessarily that investors understand that.
And I think investors are looking for the Netflix of podcasting or the YouTube of podcasting. And I don't think the podcasting necessarily works that way. So it'll be interesting. I think. To see what happens now, we make this Podcast sound as nice as we can. And to do that, we use a nice big 192 kilobyte MP3 file, but I wonder if we should be doing more for those countries where mobile data is much more expensive as it is in Africa.
For example, I spoke to Melissa and booger about podcasting in Africa, which is growing fast and I caught her doing her preparations for Africa pod Fest next month.
Africa port Fest is the first international podcasting conference focusing on the African scene and it's going to take place on 12th of February, which is also Africa Podcast day. It's going to be a day of connections. And of celebrating the steps that Podcast has in Africa are taking to just create a very new emerging industry.
So tell me about podcasting in Africa, by the sounds of it it's being built as we speak, how's it going in terms of the growth of. Podcasting in Africa. Firstly, I should ask you where whereabouts in Africa are you? Because it's a big place. As I know, Africa is
a big place, so I'm in Nairobi, Kenya I'm based in Nairobi, Kenya and Africa Podcast is the company domiciled in. Now we want to make known to be the hub of Podcast in on the continent being also Technology forward city in Africa. What casting in Africa is. Really, really beginning to buzz and growing very fast.
over just the past year 2020, we've seen so many new podcasts coming up in very many different languages, English, French, and Portuguese, but we also have a myriad of other languages, local languages. So Podcast in Swahili, in Zulu, in your robot, just. As many languages are spoken mainly in cities which is a Podcast is taking off.
Then we think that podcasting is going to grow in the direction of a ton of languages and also a very strong focus on of course the issues that are affecting communities in the, in different parts of the continent. So podcasting is going to take shape and it's already begun to take shape in a way that. Unique to the African
context, I've done some work in South Africa. And one of the problems that South Africa has is the cost of data on mobile phones. Is that something which is still an issue? And is that something an issue in other African countries as well? Yes. The
high cost of data is certainly an issue. Many more people can afford smartphones, but they have very tight limitations on. and are very picky about what they use the data for a lot of times, people will download, they'd rather go to a place that has wifi and then download content or simply stream from where there's wifi, which would be, say the office or university, or, the neighbor's house that has wifi, for example.
So the high high cost of data is still very much a barrier to podcasting taking off, but people are still finding work arounds and. A lot of people say, we know we'll ask because radio is very big in Africa because it's free to access very, very cheap to access, Compared to anything that's on the internet. And we think that as I was very excited that the internet age continues to happen in Africa. There's still big questions about universal access. To be overcome. Yeah.
Yeah, sure. I'm sure. And in terms of those people who are doing podcasts, are they mostly doing it for the fun of it or are they doing it to earn money? And if so, how does the money come? That's
such a good question. In fact, one of the, one of the most common questions we hear is where's the money coming from to grow African podcasts coming from Podcast as themselves, most podcasters have started their projects and continue to do them from having.
A need that they've identified and are filling and they've started to do it, even before the direct sort of link with money has shown itself because they're kept sustained by knowing that if they stopped doing this, if they don't do it, no one will. If they don't serve their communities, basically. Speaking of sharing the stories that they are, the no one else is going to do it.
And for those who have started to find ways to be financially sustainable, and we see some taking contributions in the form of grants, a small number have already started to generate advertising revenue and also sponsorship revenue, as well as, just like investment funding. So like from. Friends and family and savings and communities contributing as well to keep these podcasts alive. So the question of. Where is the money coming from to grow?
The industry is still also a question, remains a question, but one that's, we are starting to see a lot of people are responding to, and beginning to pay a bit more attention to investing in podcasting in Africa.
So the next Africa pod Fest is on February the 12th, 2021. There's a website, which is Africa Podcast festival.com. Is it free to anybody to take part? And is there a cost?
The tickets are available for free on Eventbrite, but please hurry and get booked your seats because seats earlier, because the space is limited. it's also free to. Sign up to, to host a community event. And of course it takes lots of resources, time, and energy to put this together. So if you feel so inclined there's a link as well on our website to buy us a coffee where you can contribute financially directly towards. Making
the festival happen, which is always a great thing. So that's on Africa, Podcast festival.com. Melissa, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate. Oh,
you're welcome. And thank you for having me. Thank
you, Melissa. That was great. I look forward to Africa. Paul Fest. and also the BBC world services international Podcast competition, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago, which was open to Podcast in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, excitingly attracted over 1000 entries, according to the one of the judges. So it will be great in a couple of weeks. Hopefully James, see who
the winners were. Indeed. Yeah. And really interesting to know that there is so much activity going on in podcasting in those countries
too. Of course, there's some work being done in Podcast index about bandwidth cost to James what's going on there. Yeah,
there is. So there's a new piece of work, which has just started around alternate enclosures, which I think is quite interesting. And so the idea is that a standard RSS feed gives you one enclosure. That's what the specification says. And so the one enclosure is that. Audio file, which your app downloads the idea with alternate enclosures is that you can actually say, yes, that's the main file. But if you want, you can download this version and this version might be a very low bit rate file.
So that might work much better for places like Africa, or it might be this show, but in video form, Or it might be this show, but in a new super-duper audio codec that hasn't been invented yet, it's called alternate enclosures. And there should be more information in the get hub for Podcast index. If you do a quick Google search for it. Excellent.
Now let's go back to the UK and. One of the things that's coming back is the British Podcast awards for 2021, which is exciting. And there's also going to be something interesting, a 24 hour Podcast conference Podcast day 24 will be in June. And we've probably hosted for the whole 24 hour period with the British Podcast awards, the Australian Podcast awards and radio
days. Yeah, that's right. And behind all of those is Matt Deegan. And I asked him about the awards. First of all. So the British Podcast
awards has really become this sort of central meeting point for UK Podcast state. What started as an opportunity to have a drink and meet up with some other podcasters has become this massive big tent. We talk a lot about it being a big tent that everyone can participate in, whether you're a Podcast that's creating a show in a kitchen, or you're one of the big international broadcasters, pretty much everyone enters. We've got an amazing.
Bunch of judges and we keep doing the key thing we wanted to do when we started, which is to spread the word about great British
Podcast. And do you have any new categories this year? It's been an interesting last 12 months. Yes.
So a few changes. So the best live category is going on hiatus for a year as there hasn't been a lot of that, but in its place, we're bringing our best lockdown category. Podcasts that have worked well in this period. We're also adding a category around documentary. We got a lot of feedback from entrance and your documentary as a format has always been popular in podcasting, but I think it's had a real resurgence in the last 12 to 18 months. And we're also adding an international award.
I think one of the things about. Podcasting is people listen to things from their own country, but they listen from other places as well. And so we're going to be getting people who read our great British Podcast email newsletter, and there's about a hundred thousand off them to suggest big international shows that they like, and we'll create a short list and then pick a winner for that too. A hundred
thousand of them. Gosh, I've got a way to go from my own, I think. so when can we enter.
So entries open on the 22nd of February. So you've got a few weeks to go onto British Podcast awards.com to have a look at all the categories and the rules, and then you can be ready to enter and then entries are going to be open for around a month. And we look forward to. To you popping
up in our system and the Australian Podcast awards back again later this year as well, but you've also launched a Podcast conference too. I seem to remember your other good at running conferences, Mr. Deagan, this one's called Podcast day 24. Tell me about the 24 bit. Well, so
radio days, Europe, organization that organized lots of audio events around the world. I've had a really successful conference called Podcast day, which was in Copenhagen for a couple of years and it was in London. Last year, they ran it online and had some of the biggest number of delegates. And we'd be talking to those guys about lots of things.
And we are teamed up with them, both the British Podcast awards and the Australian Podcast awards to supersize Podcast day and turn into Podcast day 24. So it's going to be a 24 hour Podcast in conference. it's going to start in Australia, then be in Europe and then be in North America. and we were trying to create something that obviously reflects the local scene in each of those places. But also so much about podcasting is shared or all across the world.
So I think there's a great opportunity wherever you are in the world and wherever you're listening to this, to be able to hear interesting things about the place you're from, but also about other people's locations.
That sounds fantastic. So what happens if I'm a very good speaker and I'd like to suggest myself to take part if that were the case.
So we've been putting up the speaker list. We'll be announcing that in the coming weeks, but the. There is space. And that's one of the great things about a 24 hour conference. if you go to our website, which is Podcast day 20 four.com you can suggest the speaker that might be yourself, or that might be somebody else. if there's a great story you have, or do you want to hear from do pop it in there and then we'll reach out and hopefully add a broad selection of those, to
the schedule. That sounds very good. And you can get tickets for that conference now, can you, yes. Are tickets available
now? Podcast day 20 four.com tickets for the virtual ticket and 99 pounds plus VAT, but there's a special early bird offer till the end of fair at 75 pounds
plus fats. So this is a painful conference. what happens if you can't necessarily afford to pay as there are some people in that in that state right now? So I think one
of the things about podcasting is. As we said earlier, it's a big tent and there's people who are starting out and there's big operators as well. And I think everyone is after, information and knowledge to find out what's going on. So we've have a bursary scheme for Podcast day 24. if you. Can't afford a ticket or you're from a kind of underrepresented group in podcasting. we definitely want to encourage it to remain broad.
you can apply for a free ticket just Tell us why you think you should have one. and we've got a decent allocation and hopefully we'll be started giving those out too.
That's very nice. Well, Matt Tiegan thank you so much. Thanks,
matt. I'm looking forward to that. I wonder whether we should enter James for the British Podcast awards. Oh
yes, we can. Can't we, because you are most definitely British and
you're most definitely Australian and it includes the Australian Podcast awards as well.
We can enter both of them. Excellent.
If you wait and that's not fair,
we'll both be winning. Sam we'll both be
winning. Now. One of the stories that grabbed me this week was Spotify. Now that they are launching their ads in the UK, in Germany, they've all already been available in the us. The press release though was slightly entertaining. I have to admit, it said while we've seen steady growth in Podcast globally, they've exploded in popularity. In the UK exploded. There was an 11% increase in the UK and they're expecting a 10% increase in 2021, which has an explosion.
Well, rack Patel, head of UK PanAm Emir sales at Spotify said the popularity of Podcast is rising. Exponentially in the UK. So there you go. It needs exploding expedition.
Yeah. I've been to fireworks displays like that. Oh,
did you try it? I did myself. I had a little play with Spotify Podcast ads.
Yeah. I didn't because obviously I don't live in the UK. And so therefore I can't, but they've yet to reach Australia as many things have. But yeah, I look at all of this, I think what's Spotify clearly have different Technology and Spotify are essentially for most podcasts bypassing the RSS feed. Now. Yes, they're using RSS to get Podcast audio into their platform, but they're actually using their own technology to serve it's they're using their own technology to play it and they can monitor.
What people listen to, they can monitor when people skip, and all of that kind of information, which you can't typically do in a normal Podcast app. And I think that's interesting because that essentially allows Spotify to sell podcasting in a very different way. And that's what they're doing here with. Streaming Podcast advertising. it's not necessarily, Podcast advertising sales, it's essentially in app advertising into the Spotify app and that's great.
But that doesn't necessarily move the rest of podcasting and
no, but I happened to say that off the two platform formats, download or streaming. In terms of a business head, I'm certainly with Spotify on the streaming capability, we spoke to Sam Crowder, last week from a million ads and the way that they can inject. real time ads into a stream based on metrics that are current, weather, location, and, gender, It means that the ads actually can be timely. They can be useful. And at the same time they can be measured with download.
Just doesn't give us and maybe. Is download a legacy of the time when bandwidth wasn't great. And we had to download to listen, but it's download now really relevant. When, if I click a YouTube video, it streams immediately. If I click a Netflix video, it streams immediately is download really. Have a
value now? No, and I think that's, an absolutely valid thing to say, if you look at Google podcasts, which I've gone back to as my main podcast app, that streams by default. So I'm listening to every single podcast as a stream. Just for those of you who are already sharpening your red pens. Of course, I don't mean streaming. a progressive download, but nevertheless, it's the same sort of. Thing. So that clearly is using streaming. So therefore I could have very up to the minute ads in there.
And actually when you have a look at the amount of traffic, which comes from Apple core media, which is any device on an iPhone that is streaming rather than downloading. There's a lot of that. There's about 20% of all Podcast plays are done through streaming through a progressive download play. So again, All of those could contain adverts for, tomorrow morning's breakfast show or whatever it might be. So I think that there's a bunch of interesting things going on there.
And I think you're right to say that, a download is becoming less and less interesting in terms of the way that podcasts are being. Delivered, but it is still a major way that podcasts are currently given to people. I don't think we're sounding the death now of the downloaded podcast quite yet.
No, I don't think he's going to die, but I do think people certainly, if we're going to see anything like the sort of increase in Podcast in gross, that was predicted then. I think, yeah, it has to have a way of measuring accurately. The number of ads that have been listened to rather than downloaded and say there were three ads in that download and pay me for all three. I think advertisers are going to get much more. Show me the data and tell me what was actually listened to.
By how many people.
And I certainly hear that, but I also hear on the other side, if you compare radio advertising with Podcast advertising, that's remember that radio, you really know very little about, you know, whether somebody has ticked a diary or carried a pager around with them for a little bit and everything extrapolated out from their radios revenue last year.
Was somewhere in the area in the U S of $18 billion and podcasting hadn't yet broken $1 billion in the U S so if advertisers have a problem with a lack of data, then what are advertisers doing still advertising on the radio? so I think you, there's sort of horses for courses that either advertisers really want to have that pinpoint data from every single play. Or they want to reach people because they know and trust the medium. That's why they're still advertising on radio.
And hopefully podcasting can actually engender that sort of trust as well. We've got a pretty good sample size in terms of Apple podcasts. And you can actually see very clearly there where people have stopped listening, where people have skipped the same goes for Spotify as well. Both of those added together about 60% of all Podcast plays. Surely we've got the data that we need anyway. Well, let's see what
happens in terms of is Spotify on the right track?
Talking about Spotify, by the way, Spotify is consumer podcast. Hosts. Anchor has had a redesign. It's got a new logo, which I think is supposed to look like a wave. It's got a new typeface. It's got a new direction in photography as well. I love a good redesign. And so the head of marketing at anchor whose name I think is Anna Sean, but doubtless I'll be told that I've pronounced her surname wrong. Anyway, she'll be on this podcast next week. I was hoping you were going to have
a woo. You did the wave logo, a new wave
logo. It's a very exciting logo. I'll tell ya. It's animated as well. Now here
in the UK, we get lots of different radio stations, including one called Podcast radio, 24 hours a day radio station with nothing, but Podcast on it. James spoke to Gerrard Edwards to ask more about Podcast radio.
What it is, it's a radio station and it's not a radio station in that we have a radio station attached to us. Well, we have to also call ourselves a platform because we get a lot of listeners and a lot of countries connecting from overseas on an average about four or five times a month. And they're listening on average for about 40 odd minutes at a time. So we're really happy with the stats in year one, but Podcast radio is a platform where you can drop in here. Podcasts curated.
You get your news bulletin. You might hear interviews with the Podcast is so similar original stuff, but mainly. Full podcast episodes. And the idea is of course, because it's radio as well as just an online platform, we are reaching the masses with whatever Podcast we air in that moment. That was a long answer. Sorry, James. No,
I think that's a great answer. And you talk about being on the radio. You're on the proper radio, aren't you, a radio with a speaker on an Ariel you're in quite a few places as well. London, Manchester, and Glasgow and stuff like that.
Full blown. Broadcast radio. And that was the first thing in the process of making Podcast radio. That was the very first thing we signed our lives away on.
We had the radio channels before we even had the name Podcast radio, because we knew it was going to end up doing this service or this discovery platform of introducing a lot of people in one go live, of course, in one moment to a new podcast and we played around with other names, James, but we won't go into which ones where you nearly chose. Cause they went right.
So to ask a stupid question, what's the point? Cause like podcasts are available online. They're just a click away. You can start listening whenever you want. What's the idea of the radio station and what makes you a little bit different? I come from a
broadcast background. So I've known that you put a song on radio. People hear it, you put something funny and alive breakfast show, it gets a reaction. And of course he put some ads up, same pop down to this shop. There's the 95% discount people show up at the door and want that discounts. That's radio advertising and that's broadcast reach. That's been going for a hundred years. And with that comes a lot of power of whatever you're airing at the time.
Now running alongside my career and radio parallel. I started a podcast with an old co-host, who was a comedian. He went to his standup big shows and said, download my podcast with me. well with him, his name's Dave. So it was Jerry and Dave. So week that was, and it shot up the rankings. We saw this Podcast when we were just playing early days, we didn't really understand the industry. It shot up to number eight in the UK, and we thought, brilliant.
Now we watched it on Apple rankings for about two weeks thinking we'd nailed it. It's easy. Then we disappeared because he wasn't getting new sign-ups every week. And he wasn't doing a live show every day. All of a sudden. It disappeared. No one hears it, but we couldn't get people to go and listen to it. So what you've pointed out there is it's there, you can go and click on it. You can go and find it, however you have to go and find it.
And so that pain point, that problem of podcasting of an over-saturation, you've got quite literally millions of subjects and voices to choose from. When you go on gateway apps. Spotify and Apple. And so the radio station does it in reverse. We take a handful of content each week. We curated into what we think is a very clever schedule. It's not just randomized content. We then contextualize it with an introduction from one of our presenters or. Pod jock, terrible words.
I know, but we had to pick something again. and we also have a news bulletin to make it that traditional radio listen, we hear, and luckily we're getting the feedback in the UK on the radio. People just throw it on while the working in the shed or in, out in the garden and they leave it on for about six hours and all of a sudden those people. Have had and been introduced to Podcast they would never have gone and found, never have known existed.
And the best example in year one was Alan Alda, the Hollywood legend. It's one of the best podcasts I think, on the planets and loads of people have now heard that on Podcast radio and say, Oh, isn't that a great podcast yet? The same feedback is they didn't know it existed. They didn't know Alan Alda had one. And that is the point where connecting listeners with a Podcast they otherwise may not have heard. And that is effectively.
Hopefully I'm answering the question, the problem we're solving in podcasting. And over-saturation the idea that there are millions of choices. And of course there are millions of people getting in the way of
each other. Just announced a number of salespeople.
that traditional radio listen, we hear, and luckily we're getting the feedback in the UK on the radio. People just throw it on while the working in the shed or in, out in the garden and they leave it on for about six hours and all of a sudden those people. Have had and been introduced to Podcast they would never have gone and found, never have known existed. And the best example in year one was Alan Alda, the Hollywood legend.
It's one of the best podcasts I think, on the planets and loads of people have now heard that on Podcast radio and say, Oh, isn't that a great podcast yet? The same feedback is they didn't know it existed. They didn't know Alan Alda had one. And that is the point where connecting listeners with a Podcast they otherwise may not have heard. And that is effectively. Hopefully I'm answering the question, the problem we're solving in podcasting.
And over-saturation the idea that there are millions of choices. And of course there are millions of people getting in the way of
each other. Just announced a number of salespeople. you've announced a head of sales. you've announced somebody who is threatening to get friendly with journalists. My goodness. and you've also joined the radio center, which is the big lobby group for radio broadcasters in the UK as well. It sounds as if your you're having a great time. What's the plan
there. Pushing through Corona, just like everyone else. In 2020, we had to make a few decisions and we said this thing's working. organically people were discovering that they could discover on Podcast radio and without spending our marketing dollars or pounds just yet. People were floating in because, but we curated it.
We put a lot of effort into it and we're quite modest in the fact we know if something sounds amazing on Podcast radio, it's probably be made by someone else and they need to be benefit from that by having their content broadcast and introduced to new listeners. But as those numbers came in, We thought, look, we need this thing to really go for it next year and the model to work. So we crowdfunded got over a hundred thousand pounds late last year.
We've got a couple of investors from the States and what you're seeing, I just moved. So we'd promised in that crowd funds, their content broadcast and introduced to new listeners. But as those numbers came in, We thought, look, we need this thing to really go for it next year and the model to work. So we crowdfunded got over a hundred thousand pounds late last year. We've got a couple of investors from the States and what you're seeing, I just moved.
So we'd promised in that crowd funds, we've got a business and strategic plan here. But at the heart of it is if a Podcast was featured, we want the service to work for them. It's a free service by the way, for any independent Podcast to, to be featured on Podcast radio. that comes of course, with its limitations in that we've only got 24 hours a day to actually broadcast content. But that also means that, there's a bottleneck of applications, thousands and thousands.
We can't get through, but we are working through them. And it means if you're featured, it's even better for that. Podcast so we think we're doing it well, the most exciting part, I think for all the announcements that have come out is just. Strangers keep finding it in different countries and returning and using it as something they enjoy, which is the love of podcasting. So we benefit from all the great contents of every podcast we feed yet.
We're just creating this vehicle that people can actually access without having to go and find it. And on demand is an amazing tool. However, You have to curate your own on demand listening. we take that part that's pain
point. Yeah. Fascinating. A hundred thousand pounds is 140,000 us dollars just in case anybody wondered. So what's the best way for podcasters, but also listeners to get in touch. What's the website address?
The website is the Podcast radio.co. Dot UK, but the idea is, of course we will be growing this thing it's growing quite quickly. So you'll catch us on a couple of the gateway apps within the next few months. We've got some more announcements coming out and gateway apps, of course, Spotify, Apple, Google. Podcast. I can't tell you what's happening there, but there are things happening behind the scenes that will basically start to make people question.
Are they a Podcast radio station or are they this platform? Because we're already inside. These are where I'm going with that is you can catch us on tune in on your smart speaker. You can listen on radio player. Our own app is available for downloads on Android, as well as Apple, of course. And there's a whole list of places that you can catch us, but just head to the website or if you're in the UK, most importantly, an easily flick on your radio. And there it is, Podcast radio.
And that is one of the benefits of Podcast radio. We saw an opportunity very early on where. We could get the transmission licenses and get the transmission costs costly enough to have these channels. And that's what we've bene fitted from, rolling the dice and you
very good, Jerry. Thank you so much. Thanks James. Really appreciate it. And he was a nice man. Wasn't he? how's your radio station going? Sam Oh, thank you
for asking. Yes, river radio is coming along nicely.
Oh, you didn't even tell us the name. Last time we spoke about this. Well,
it's called river radio. And you can get it on multiple digital platforms so everything from web to your good old Alexa and why should I listen? Why should you listen? we have got a really exciting roster of programs. We're not trying to do the traditional radio. So fundamentally a little bit like Gerrard. each show is more of a Podcast, but a live recording of a podcast. And it's going to be a wine show. There's going to be a sex and relationship show. There's going to be a gardening show.
It is about local content from where I live. But we are trying to change it, less music, more chat, really. we think that's the
way forward for radio. That sounds very exciting. So you're launched now already.
We're not launched doing test broadcast. So if you go to river.radio, you can listen to us or you can ask your Alexa to play river radio live, but we go longer. We've owned the 1st of
March. Very good. Well, good luck for that. And I hope you get plenty of lovely ad revenue and talking about ad revenue. Jordan harbinger,
right? Yes. He's spending almost $40,000 every month on host read ads. He hasn't asked us yet James for his podcast, according to sounds profitable, Brian Barletta describes how hard and who does it. How, what he looks for from Podcast hosts. He says for every $1 invested, Jordan sees approximately $3 back in advertising revenue and an increase in downloads in the tens of thousands every
month. Yeah. Podcast advertising works according to Jordan harbinger, which is a fantastic thing. I have to say. I've known Jordan for a while. Now he's a advisor for captivate, which is a podcast hosts that I. Advice for, and he's very bright. He's very clever. He does a lot of very clever.
So the fact that he is spending $40,000 every month on advertising and sees the equivalent of what a hundred thousand dollars plus back really shows the benefits of Podcast advertising and advertising in the right place as well. Yeah. Maybe he'll
ask you to read one soon.
James, maybe, although reading the article. he does aim specifically at podcasts that, he reckons he can get lots of people converted from which I'm not necessarily sure is going to be this Podcast. But who knows also we need to bump our numbers up and Podland is sponsored by Buzzsprout this week. I've been looking at the stats for this show. It looks like the most popular podcast player is overcast. So hello to you. If you're using that second, most popular is Apple podcasts.
Third, most popular at the moment is pocket casts. And if you wondered, Spotify is number seven. Google podcasts. Number eight, very different to the pod news daily podcast. What I like about Buzzsprout stats is that they use refers and open user agent data. It's pretty good stuff. Actually. 71% of you listening on mobile, only 13% of you are using a proper phone, 57% of you using a toy phone with a picture of some fruit on the bank. but yeah, really good stats.
If you're not with Buzzsprout you can take a look at stats for all the shows they do. That's at the very readable buzzsprout.com/global_stats. and we thank them for their sponsorship. They're not the only sponsor by the way other sponsorship opportunities are available. Thank you. Clean feed for your support too. And you can email questions at Podland dot news to join the sponsors. Podcast talking about
ads, Miguel and AI has launched a place to find really good Podcast ads. People can search hundreds of Podcast ads by industry name, Podcast genres, Podcast titles and specific brand names. Really good Podcast ads it's free. And they say, we hope it will serve as a source of inspiration for the Podcast advertisers and help marketers see what their competition is offering in Podcast ads. Have you tried Miguel and AI? James.
Yeah. this really good Podcast ads.com website. Really good. Actually, it's very, very simple. If you just want to go and listen to a podcast out about mattresses, for example, then you can, it's just a click away and just a very clever, neat idea. Apparently it was an idea that they came up with in our company hackathon. And if you ever want inspiration for how a Podcast read should be. My suggestion is to go and listen to some of the ones from Conan O'Brien, which you'll find on there.
cause he is really good at doing a host read ad. So really good Podcast ads.com. I thought it was quite good. So Sam, what's coming up in Podland for you this month,
interviewing Paul Clark, the ex CTO of Ocado. And he's telling me more about what Acardo is What I found most interesting is it's basically a baby Amazon. They're doing autonomous. Vehicles. They're doing drones. They're doing a neuro linguistic programming. They're doing robotics much more than I thought every day. I just thought they were delivering me, my meat and
vegetables. That's, that's definitely a thing. As soon as you mentioned the word Acardo, I was there singing the, the radio ad that they used to have about 10 years ago, which used to sing a Cardo in a knowing way. I wonder if I can find a clip of it. If I could find a clip of it. Here it is all car old
car
Ocado, Ocado, Ocado groceries from Waitrose Ocado, Ocado. Nice that wasn't it. and we've announced a whole set of Podcast speakers for radio days, asia.com. You can enjoy me and Brian by letter from sounds profitable. We'll be speaking as well as Podcast companies and producers from Singapore, from the Philippines, India, China, and most of the large Podcast is in Australia and a panel that I'm looking after. I've got five people. In a panel session, that's going to last 25 minutes.
I'm not sure that it's going to be a very good panel session unless I'm really, really, really good at moderating it. But anyway, we'll see what happens. tickets are available for the two day event at radio days, asia.com and that's it for this week. If you've enjoyed your trip to Podland come back again. Next time you can subscribe on all the major podcast players or visit our website at www dot Podland dot news. And if you enjoyed
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And that's especially if you want to be a guest as well. that's always a fine thing. If you'd like. Daily news, you should subscribe to the daily pot news newsletter. It's [email protected]. And that's where you'll find the links for all the stories we've mentioned this week. Music is from ignites jingles. We use clean feed pro for the audio you heard today, Podland was edited by me on Hindenburg journalist pro, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. We'll see you in Portland next.
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