It's Friday , the 4th of April 2025 .
This is the Pod News Weekly Review Live at Podcast Movement .
Evolutions .
With James Cridland and Sam Sethi .
I'm James Cridland , the editor of Pod News , and I'm Sam Sethi , the CEO of True Fan , suffering massive FOMO at the moment , but we'll find out why later .
In the chapters today the Pod News Report card by Pod News , the state of video podcasting by Amplify Media and Coleman Insights . What is a podcast from Oxford Road ? And Edison Research , and even Patreon , substack and Netflix are leaning into podcasting , and Spotify announcing more proprietary ad tech as well . Right , james , let's kick it off .
So last week we had the Infinite Dial 2025 , and this week we have three more esteemed , noteworthy reports . The first one was just done at Evolutions . It was from Amplify Media and Coleman Insights . What was the report , James ?
Well , the report was really good . Both Jay and Steve have just been on stage and they talked very much about audio being healthy and thriving , but video still more important than ever . It was research from Amplify Media and Coleman Insights , stephen Goldstein and Jay Nachlis , revealing that 77% of podcast consumers are consuming both audio and video .
They've just joined me here , steve , which is nice , jay greetings . Good morning , james , great to see you . As always , you've just been on stage . What's it like on that great big stage in there with your numbers and everything ?
It's a rush right . I mean , putting these studies together is an experience in itself . You know , I think we're a bit like kids in a candy store when you extract the data and anytime you find a finding and you say , oh , that's yes , that's something we need to share , that's something we need to share and then to actually .
And then you feel like you're in this waiting game of you've done the analysis , you've put everything together and you just can't wait to share the data and see people's reactions .
Stephen Goldstein welcomed us with an excellent joke , saying welcome to day day 10 of podcast movement , because it certainly feels like it . What were the headlines , steve ?
So the headlines are that , if we thought that Gen Z was leading the way and they were combination of audio and video , regardless of age , so only 10% of Gen Z are pure audio , only 16% of the whole sample 15 to 64 , was only audio and on the other side of the spectrum , meaning only video , only 7% of either of those age groups .
So everybody's in the middle . However , before we get to the point of you know , anybody listening to this with video despair , if you take the 10% of Gen Z , that's audio only , and then the 30% of Gen Z that's primarily audio , you're at 40% . So I say audio is alive and well and people are just using their options of wherever they are making choice .
Jay , you showed an awful lot of video as well in this presentation about video , but it was video from creators talking about how people discover shows , how people are promoting shows . What were the takeaways from that ?
Well , vertical video or clips has become really very important . And when it comes to social media , I mean the big headline was we've done , you've seen , research projects . We've done many of these .
And when you talk about podcast discovery , friends and family is always number one , and for the first time , we see that social media took over friends and family for number one , and that , of course , can be attributed to the fact that YouTube has become a powerhouse in this space and the ascent of short form platforms have become really , really important in the
discovery play . So shorts is bigger than ever . I think sometimes there's people that sleep on shorts a little bit . They shouldn't , and the other thing is that you know TikTok is important , but don't sleep on reels . That is number three behind YouTube and shorts , so I think that's another important takeaway .
Yeah , that was really interesting seeing that reels does so well and that TikTok is actually below that , so I thought that that was fascinating . Steve , there is a webinar coming up , I think , where we can see the whole data and find out more .
You'll be able to see us in the upper right-hand corner , but you'll see the data on the large part of the screen , and we will present this entire thing in a webinar on April 17th at 2 pm , and you can go to either Coleman Insights website or the Amplify Media website to register . And there is one other thing I think worth discussing and that is Spotify .
So here's Spotify having made the big video move at the end of 2024 , compensating artists and so forth , but we are not seeing the full change to video consumption . Spotify remains a primary audio medium today .
Well , fascinating stuff , steve Jay . Thank you so much for that . Amplify Media . Amplify spelled A-M-P-L-I-F-I or Coleman Insights for information about that webinar . Thank you both so much , sam . Also , there was the Pod News report card , of course , which was fun because I ended up being on that very same stage , so that was entertaining .
Yes , I've got a picture of you on it . It's very nice . Now this is the third year of the report card , I'm correct in saying . And what was your key finding then ? James , come on , reveal all .
Well , youtube scored really highly All of the scores for all of the apps . Youtube ended up scoring significantly higher numbers than last year , so they are clearly winning creators round , which is an interesting thing to end up seeing .
Apple continued to be the creator's favorite platform , though in the apps category , the independent podcast app , pocket casts , was number I .
Um , ellie is here and I have not yet managed to bump into her um to tell her that , but , um , yes , really , uh , good news from , uh , all of that , but , um , you know , fascinating data it's really interesting to end up seeing , and what's nice from my point of view is that all of the big platforms are now asking to learn more about what those numbers are
.
And again , given that Apple was number one , but you had some more data on there as well , about , well , let's say , data that people weren't happy with . I was reading some of the things like I don't care about RSS , I don't care about this . So not everyone was happy , larry , in your report .
No , and I think that's the nice thing about it is that it is both positive and negative . You get the gripes from the keyboard warriors as well as the positive things . And actually , quite a lot of the time , if you go and have a nice sit down meeting with Apple , you want to be nice to them .
You don't necessarily want to be rude to them at least if you're not me , so that's so . That's always fun , but from that , from that point of view , yeah , it's nice to actually see the unvarnished truth . You know , in terms of that , so you know , so that's that . That was quite fun to do , you know .
So that was quite fun to do , I think . The other thing I would like to highlight from your report is that our friends at the Podcast Index came out as the number one directory . Indeed , I love that one .
Yeah , and always coming up with that number one directory as well . Matt Marr is here . Matt Marr is the emcee of Podcast Movement . You've been doing this for years and years , haven't you ?
A decade , A decade wow A decade . Can you believe that ?
And so you are there , with your sparkly trousers as of yesterday and your sparkly top as of today , exciting us . What's been your takeaway from Evolutions ?
We were just discussing it Video , video , video , video . I think if and I think some people think , oh well , I have an older demographic to my podcast they don't really do video and what I'm learning is that the data is no , everyone is going , everyone is searching and yearning for video . Think about it .
I think it's just another way to connect with your listeners and for them to feel closer to you and build that community that we do so well as podcasters .
You do a podcast yourself . What's the name of the podcast ? It's called Reality Gaze . And , in terms of that podcast , how much video are you doing on there ?
Well , for us , we have our , our video . It's behind our paywall of our premium , of our patreon and apple subscription , so what we're realizing now is that's actually the thing we need to probably lead with the video for discoverability matt , thank you so much and thank you for your excellent work for the last 10 years .
Thank you , thanks okay , I'm gonna say it . If you won't , god , do we have to have the title video kill the podcast . Stop because it bloody . You won't , god , do we have to have the title Video Kill the Podcast start .
Because it bloody well feels like it at the moment . Oh , I do hope not . That would be a dreadful thing .
Hang on a minute . You know . We talked to Megan at the Infinite Dial . It's all video . Lean back TV . We talked to Amplify , Steve , and we talked to Jay at Inc Coleman . It's all video .
And Steve and we talked to Jay at Inc Coleman , it's all video . And now you've just had somebody come on and say it's all video . I mean , seriously , there is an awful lot of video talk . It's a bit like , if you remember , a couple of years ago everybody was talking about AI . This time everybody is talking about video .
So yeah , that was definitely one of the standout things there .
Now I mean we're going to talk about this next bit in a minute when we talk about Oxford Road , but in your report card there was also nobody measures the same , and I think that's worth highlighting . What did they say about that ?
Yeah , exactly right . So a lot of people saying you know what you know , Spotify doesn't measure the same thing as Apple , Apple doesn't measure the same thing as Apple , Apple doesn't measure the same thing as YouTube , and so on .
Actually , what was interesting is the IAB came up to me after that and said we would love to learn more about all of this , and so that is a very welcome move .
So , yeah , I think there's real understanding now that , yes , there's an awful lot of detail and data from all of these platforms , but it is very difficult to merge them together , and that's certainly what the folks at Bumper have been saying as well . You know in terms of that .
So if I wanted to read the full report card , James , where would I go ?
You would go to the PodNews website . We covered some of the PodTrack data that we covered earlier on in the week , and as well as the report card . Just have a look at the stuff at the bottom , or indeed , just , you know , search for the word report card and you should hopefully find it .
Now there's a couple other people talking . Tom Webster was talking and he kicked off the keynote . What did Tom have to say ?
It was an interesting start in that you know Tom was basically talking about podcasting is growing , but it's not growing quite as fast as maybe we would like podcasting to be growing . He was talking very much around the need to convert occasional listeners to more frequent consumers , so from that point of view it was a good conversation .
But yeah , he was very much saying we've got to focus on still growing our medium and that was quite a nice thing .
I think podcasting , when it becomes habitual , is very , very interesting , and we all know that it's on your train , car or dog walk where most people consume it .
No , it absolutely is , and you may have heard the music has gone up a little bit . That's because I'm now inside one of the big expo halls and I thought it was only fair to have a very quick chat with the man of the moment from our sponsor Buzzsprout . Here's Albin Brook . Albin greetings .
Thank you , james , it's nice to be on the podcast . Are we recording Pod News Weekly ? Yes , yes , albin brook , albin greetings . Thank you , james , it's nice to be on the podcast .
We're recording , uh , pod news weekly yes , yes , the pod news weekly review . You're live on the pod news weekly review . Please do not swear um . So this is no sugar added . Uh , albin brook . Um , what , what's your um thoughts been on the ?
uh on the show well , we're getting to meet lots of people . We had a nice buzzsprout meet up last night . It's good just to see everybody and check in A lot of walking . The hotel is a little bit separated from the conference area so I know we've all stayed in shape and gotten our steps .
Yeah , isn't it just ? What's the big sort of takeaway that you have felt ? It's been quite a positive feeling conference , although quite a lot of people do like talking about the word video , don't they ?
I've heard way too much about video . I think that I hit my breaking point weeks ago , and hearing more about video convinces me . Yes , video is going to be a platform , but do we want podcasting to become a subset of video ?
Tv shows will always remain , movies will always remain , but do we want podcasting the same thing that happened to Instagram , where it became a video app , not a photo app ? Do we want Twitter , which became a video app , not a text app ? Do we want that to happen to podcasting ? And I think the answer is no .
We have a unique medium around audio storytelling and I don't think we should just give that up to become a subset of video .
I think hear , hear . So , Alban , thank you so much for your time . I will let you get back on Before it goes .
could you ask Alban I'm thinking of doing an RV trip across America Is there a company he would recommend ?
I would not recommend any in particular . I would strongly recommend against IndieCampers .
Anybody who ?
wants to know my full review can go read any number of angry reviews that I've left over the last few weeks .
Yes , the Buzzcast show is very much worth a listen , because , blimey , that was not a good company .
Well , I'm on a spite mission , as Larry David would put it , so I'm sure there'll be more posted .
Albon , thank you so much , and thank you for your support as well . I appreciate it , cheers .
So , James , one of the other reports that came out at Evolutions was from Oxford Road in Edison . Dan Granger spoke . What did he say ? I thought you'd answered this question , James . What is a podcast ? Why is everyone still asking it ?
Yeah , exactly .
So Dan did talk about what is a podcast and actually he has done an awful lot of hard work in terms of working out what a podcast is , talking to a lot of different people about what a podcast is , and so he's got a full , complicated definition which is in a white paper , because that's the way that Dan Granger rocks and you can find that on the website ,
so that's all good . And also he's put something he's put a really nice documentary into the Media Roundtable , and the Media Roundtable is a great show with a three-part documentary about the history of podcasting and what a podcast actually is , and it was kind of a rallying cry really in terms of where podcasting is actually going .
Well , I read the whole report and I do recommend that people do read it as well . You can get a link from Pod News Daily . But the questions he was asking what is a podcast ? I don't really think that was the thing I mean . He said it's audio on demand or it's video on demand . It doesn't really matter .
The things that people were saying was that it was hard to share podcasting between apps . But the fundamental bottom line of what he was asking in that report is um , what is the metric ?
We're talking about first party data , closed walls , youtube and spotify , and he's saying that if podcasting and advertising is to grow beyond the alleged two billion and mark , then we need a better way of reporting and measuring . And now we've talked about this before .
John Spellock , friend of the show , yourself , me and a few other people are talking about a way of doing that . I , you know , will put my cards out . I mean , dan Graham just called it an open measurement protocol for podcasting . There is a way of doing it and I'm currently with you and others working on it .
Just call it an open measurement protocol for podcasting . There is a way of doing it , and I'm currently with you and others working on it which is using something called activity streams . That's a first party structured piece of data , and when people say , oh no , you can't use that , it's a bit like saying rss , don't use structured data , it's xml .
Why would you use that ? Well , it's the converse side of it . It's what apps will put as structured data . It's a w3c standard and it's the converse side of it . It's what apps will put as structured data . It's a W3C standard and it's shareable , and I think that's the way forward .
And when we use that mechanism for sharing first-party data between apps and hosts , I think we do have an industry-capable standard .
Then yeah , I think certainly John Spurlock is also working . He was here as well earlier on in the week and I know that he's also working on something in terms of that as well .
But yeah , lots of different technical solutions but making sure that people are measuring the same thing is a really , you know , is obviously a really important thing from that point of view . Yeah , moving on then , james , back to the good old UK for a while .
You reported a couple of weeks ago about the BBC turning its back on adding advertising into its podcasts after a lot of criticism from the UK podcast industry . Indeed , but what is the outcome , james , now ?
Well , so the BBC was going to be taking advertising in the UK for some of its podcasts . If you didn't listen in the BBC Sounds app . So that was one of the things that the BBC was going to end up doing .
Cue an awful lot of hue and cry from the rest of the UK podcast industry , because when the BBC , one of the biggest publishers , jumps in , that's the last thing really that anybody else wants to lose an awful lot of advertising revenue .
So from that point of view , it's very good to hear that the BBC has basically said no , we're not going to be doing that , we're not going to be stuffing our podcasts full of ads in the UK , and it would have set quite a precedent , I think , in terms of the BBC's output in the UK . So good news all around , I think .
Yeah , audio UK . We had Chloe Straw on the CEO last week . She came out and said basically , from then , we remain strong supporters of the BBC and its vital role within the UK's podcast and audio industry . The BBC plays an important part in the industry and we continue to support its funding through the licence fee .
But she went on to add we remain concerned about the BBC's entry into the UK podcast advertising market through content produced by BBC Studios . So I think fundamentally , everyone's relieved that they haven't gone down this road . Do you think it's the right way ? Do you think that's the right decision eventually ?
Yeah , I mean . So I was on a podcast from Roger Bolton . Now Roger Bolton used to present feedback on BBC Radio 4 . He now presents his own podcast called Beebwatch , where he can dive in a little bit more deeply into some of these things .
And yeah , and we were talking about what the BBC's future is outside the UK and inside the UK , and I think , very clearly , the BBC inside the UK is funded by the licence fee , which is an acronistic thing , but it works and that's fine . Outside of the UK , funded by advertising , you know , and that's a good thing too in terms of earning more cash .
Also , by the way , outside of the UK , it is earned , if you want to , by paying for the Apple Podcasts , premium subscriptions of the BBC's content , and a lot of people are doing that too .
So all of that , I think , is good , but I think when the BBC starts to compete in terms of revenue inside the UK , then I think commercial organisations should cry foul , because the BBC has £3.6 billion coming in from the licence fee .
That's pretty well guaranteed , and one thing that you can certainly say about commercial media is that revenue is not guaranteed in terms of that .
Again one of the things I think we had Chloe on last week . If you want to hear more of what she thinks the Audio UK role is in guiding the industry here in the UK , then I highly recommend listening to her interview on last week's show .
Indeed , and you'll also find that interview in full in this feed as well weeklypodnewsnet .
Now , james , let's move on . Patreon seems to be gaining a little bit more momentum . It feels like that to me , anyway . They have said that the highest earning category on patreon now , with 6.7 million membership , uh , is podcasting , and they've launched a new program with sony and wondering what are they up to ?
yeah , they appear to be , um , uh , diving into podcasting a bit . Um , so , um , uh , sony music . So Sony Music and Wondery . You'll be able to buy podcasts on the Patreon platform , listen to those podcasts in your favorite podcast app and all of that . So , essentially , patreon turning into supporting cast a bit . So interesting to see that .
That's the typical mechanism of supporting cast . I believe that substack does much the same sort of thing . Um , the supercast . Of course , there's a bunch of other tools which allow you to end up doing that . So , um , yeah , patreon jumping in and with some really high numbers .
Um , you know , I mean 6.7 million memberships , and I think ashley carman managed to get a total value out of them as well in the soundbite newsletter . So , um , yeah , doing , doing , doing it very well in terms of that yeah , I , I've um for 2025 .
I think my three words are content , commerce and community , and I think we are seeing Patreon , substack and others really going down this road .
We are also seeing , I think , with Substack I mean , I've been watching one of my favourite networks is Zateo and they are using and quite a few others like the Midas Touch , they're using Substack for live broadcasting through YouTube .
So they're using YouTube Live and then they're also writing their blogs live broadcasting through youtube so they're using youtube live and then they're also writing their blogs well , that's interesting that's interesting .
That makes it .
That makes a ton of sense and we're seeing patreon are also trying to go down the live road as well , so I think you're beginning to see , um , what I call multi-function community platforms .
Right , so they're going to do blogging , podcasting , video , live , merch , which is what those two platforms offer as well , and I fundamentally think any single function app now is probably on the road to ruin .
Well , there you go . That's a bold decision , it's not my prediction yet .
That's later in the year .
No , very good , Very good .
We're sorry , but now it's time for more news about Spotify on the Pod News Weekly Review oh good , oh , brilliant .
Yes , it's time for more news about Spotify , and this time it's time for news about Spotify in terms of their monetization model .
They've got a bunch of new tools and things which I don't fully understand in terms of that , but they've also expanded the Spotify Partner Program to a further nine new countries eight of those in Europe as well , eight of those in Europe as well .
So that weirdly means that even Americans will earn more money from the Spotify Partner Programme , for reasons that I'm not fully understanding . But , yes , definitely still continuing to grow .
And one of the other things you reported on this week was about a company called Linus Media Group and they shared how the content company makes money . What I was interested in from that was the revenue from YouTube is just 11% . Yes , very small , yeah , but 37% from a revenue share with YouTube Premium .
So , if we go back over what we've just talked about , we were talking about Patreon with 6.7 million members . We're talking about Substack . We're now talking about YouTube Premium . We're talking about Apple channels , earlier , with the BBC trying to monetize .
My question to you , james , because I always say that podcasting is the second class digital citizen People expect to pay for music , films and audio books , but they don't expect to pay for podcasting .
Are we jumping now to a point , are we reaching that tipping point , where people are saying , actually , for quality content , yes , I understand , I need to pay for it .
Yeah , I think we are more and more and I think Apple is certainly helpful . You know , in terms of that , apple has very much driven people's understanding of a premium podcast subscription . You know it's a paid for thing which people understand , and of course you've got Patreon and you've got those sorts of services in there as well .
So I think that people are beginning to understand that , yes , you know there is advertising and of course there's advertising , and that's definitely one thing , but I think also it's you know , other ways of earning money , other ways of giving money to the creators that you really enjoy and , as we see from Christian broadcasting , that survives essentially on people
just giving them money . So , yeah , I think it's a good thing . I think it's relatively unhealthy if all of media out there is just paid for by advertising .
Moving on , james , let's whiz around the world . Over to you in the US , hubbard Radio have announced the launch of a gamut podcast network . What's this one ?
Yes , so Hubbard Radio is 102 years old . It's one of the oldest media broadcasters in America which is still going . It's family owned . Ginny Hubbard is the CEO and she's very nice and I've met her a couple of times .
And so they have launched their own podcast network , which is called the Gamut Podcast Network , and Ginny Hubbard I mean mean not um , you know , basically saying look , um , the launch of gamut is more than a rebrand .
It's a pivotal evolution for our company as a company which , of course , is mostly um am fm radio stations , um , so interesting to see that that's run by John Wardock , who is here . He's been around over the last couple of days and , yeah , so it's going to be interesting how that pans out .
But that's exactly , I think , where broadcast radio stations should be going .
I think one of the things that I was looking at because I went to the Gamut podcast network and it's got a whole bunch of podcasts .
I went to Megyn Kelly's network , I went to a few other networks that have launched One of the things I'm frustrated about is nobody seems to be explaining what publisher feeds are or pod roles , and again , this whole thing seems to be missing . Yes , well that's . I don't know how we get people to understand these .
Yeah , well , that's one of the issues with that is it's , is it's an issue with , um , you know , marketing those particular uh features , of course , and uh , you know , and that's and that's going to be , you know , one of one of the you know one of the issues there now triton digital is to expand its US podcast ranker .
What's it doing ?
Well , yes , triton , has Sam come out with an expansion of the US podcast ranker and it's now including all publishers . I've literally walked outside to Triton's stand and I'm wondering if I ask Daryl very nicely he might actually explain what's going on with the new expanded Triton podcast ranker . Daryl , who are you at Triton ? First of all , Hi James .
I lead measurement analytics at Triton .
And so you made an announcement about the Triton podcast ranker . It's now going to measure everybody every quarter . As I understand it , we do .
We have a part of it that will measure everyone , based on surveyed listeners , representative of the US population . Specifically , we're talking about the US podcast ranker .
We will keep the download ranker , which requires publishers to have their logs measured , and then we've added , from our Demo Plus solution , a list of podcasts that reach efficiently or over-index for different audience segments , different demographics , income , shopping behaviors or purchase intents lifestyle data , which is a resource for advertisers to help understand what
podcast should they be considering for their buys understand what podcasts should they be considering for their buys ?
Yeah , so you'll be able to look at podcasts , I'm guessing . For people who are in the market for buying a new car , for example , which podcasts are they listening to there ? Or podcasts , you know , for expectant mothers , that sort of thing ? Have I got that right ?
You got the in the market to buy a car . We have moms in there . I don't think we have expecting mothers . Sometimes they want to keep that private and in the survey , but the general idea of it you've got right .
Yeah , no , that's really exciting . And so when's the first all-encompassing ranker coming out ? Are you calling it a ranker , or are you calling it something else ?
We're still calling it the US podcast ranker , even though the component about the audience profiles isn't exactly a ranking . It's not really about who's number one versus number two , it's really more about a list for that piece Still a ranker Coming out later this year . We haven't reported an exact month yet .
Not the end of the year , it's not that far off , but later this year .
Well , it's super exciting , Daryl . Thank you for your time . I appreciate it . I'll let you get back to your email now .
Good timing James .
It's almost as if I can read ahead in the show notes and work out what you want to talk about next .
Well , let's talk about something else next . We've been reporting over the last few weeks about people who are not declaring that they are charging guests to be on their show . You had a report about the US advertising self regulator saying something . What was that , James ?
Yes it was about . It was about social media influencers who were basically they've been caught out doing , you know , posts on X and on TikTok and stuff and not being obvious as to where their data , as to where their relationship is with that particular company .
And I just felt that it was interesting in that there is clearly more and more eyes on that side of things and so something that we just need to be a little bit careful of in terms of podcasting as well .
How would you enforce it ? I mean , this is the problem with all these things . Right , you can say it , but how do you enforce it ?
Well , I mean , it is the law and so the Federal Trade Commission , assuming that somebody still works there at the moment . It is the law , so there are fines that you can actually pull . But the typical way that this works is that you know shows will be reported to the FTC and the FTC will , you know , take a look and make a decision on that .
Moving on . Then , James , something about Podbean running deceptive Google ads . That doesn't sound good .
Yes , Now Podbean are here , but I'm absolutely not going to go up to them and ask them about this .
Go on go on .
No , I'm not doing that .
I that hold your coat while you start the fight but yeah , um , yeah .
So , uh , you know , occasionally you have to call out people doing um , doing unethical things , and uh , what uh , podbean uh has decided that it's going to do is again , because it was doing this a couple of years ago . Again , it's going to advertise um on google , but advertise by pretending that they are the company that you have searched for .
So if you type in transistor , for example , then there will be a top search result that says transistor in the title , but you click on it and it goes to Podbean , which is , I mean , it's against Google ad policy . It may be against US law , it's just bad .
But what's been interesting is , since I published that on Monday , everybody has been coming up to me going oh , podbean , eh , and they are a supporter of PodNews , so you know there is always that . But as ever , they haven't actually got back to me and explained themselves , which usually means that they can't explain themselves .
I have no issue with guerrilla marketing , where you're being quite aggressive , but I think if you're being deceptive , I think that's crossing the line .
Yeah , no , indeed , indeed no , I think it is crossing the line a little bit , and I wish that people , would you know , do the job properly , I guess .
Whizzing over to Spain , then the 100th edition of the AudioGen 3x3 Newsletter has been published , and you're in it , james , why ?
I am in it . It's talking about the audio industry , the global spoken audio industry . That's an interesting way of putting it , isn't it ? And yes , I'm one of three people who've been interviewed for that . You ask the question why ?
it's because I'm brilliant , sam that's why , obviously , obviously so who are the other two people then ?
The other two people the co-founder of Radio Ambulante , daniel Alasson , which I've probably pronounced incorrectly , and Lucas Fridman , who is from Olga in Argentina and it's , you know , talking about radio as well as podcasting , you know , and all of that stuff .
So , yeah , so it's an interesting read if you speak spanish and if you don't speak spanish , translation services are available , uh , which is always a good thing , and I and I didn't even know you could speak spanish .
But there's a new skill yes , well , yeah , yeah , exactly right , I'm back to where you are . In your homeland , a new audio creative agency has been born in australia . What are they ?
yes , um , it's a new company called original audio . Um , I believe that one of the co-founders comes from uh somewhere else , you know somewhere big in um podcasting . I'm desperately trying to remember where it is , but I can't remember . Uh , anyway , and they're calling themselves australia's ai driven audio creative agency .
Um , they're using uh ai uh to do some of their audio stuff . They've really done some deals with some technology providers , but an AI-driven audio creative agency is , I think , quite interesting . Now I've wandered over to the Podpage stand . Dave Jackson , from the School of Podcasting and from pod page is here . Greetings , dave , greetings .
James .
I thought I would come over because I know that you've been quite lonely over here . Thank you very much , so I thought I'd come over and keep you company . How's ?
it been for you here . It's been lonely . But here's the thing you don't realize . I talked to a handful of people yesterday and one of them is a web developer and he was like man , I really love your stuff and he goes . I was telling all my friends last night if you have podcasters , you got to check this thing out .
So it's one of those where you're kind of like man . I only talked to a few people yesterday , but if you talk to the right people , you know it's a trickle effect . So , but it's , it's been a fun show and you know lots of networking and lots of things that make me scratch my head .
So that's , oh yes , lots of things that make you scratch your head . Go on then .
My favorite one was hey , uh , if we get rid of the word podcast for people on YouTube , then we'll have to call them YouTubers . And I just wanted to scream out and what's wrong with that ? But I did not . I kept myself in check .
There are quite a lot of things going . Why , what are you doing that for ? So , yeah , no , it's been an interesting time .
How many steps have you managed to get in ? Literally 12,000 to 15,000 a day , and that is not the norm for me . So it's been fun . I played ping pong and I was very happy just the fact that I'm still able to play ping pong .
I used to do that quite a bit when I was young and I was like , am I going to blow out my knee as I try to return this volley ? But I stayed intact and did not lose , so that was another fun thing .
I still got it apparently . Most impressive , dave , thank you . Tell him hurry up and get another edition of the Future of Podcasting . It's been about nine million weeks since he did one .
It has . And it turns out because Daniel J Lewis is a nice guy , because he's usually the guy that's like hey , what do you want to talk about ? And he didn't prod me because I had lost a friend of mine , neil Galarte , and he's like I wasn't sure if you were ready to get back on the mic and I'm like well , I'm back on the mic on all my other shows .
I think I'm okay . So , yes , I've hung out with him a lot . So , yes , there'll be a new one very , very soon . Excellent Good news , sam , I think that .
Exactly . Yes , my queue is feeling empty , as they say , your queue is empty , is it ?
Oh well , there we are . Well , your queue will be fuller , Dave . Thank you so much , and thank you for your support with the School of Podcasting as well .
Much appreciated , yes always Keep up the great work , guys .
Thank you . Now moving on to people in jobs James .
Your friend jobs James . Your friend and mine , rob Walsh , has got an anniversary to celebrate . What is it ? Yes , he did a talk yesterday a very good talk , all about podcast statistics and things like that . And yes , he is celebrating 20 years , as of this week , in podcasting doing podcasting for a job . So , yeah , which is quite a thing , isn't ?
it . It is who else James is moving and grooving in the industry .
Well , I will tell you once I've scrolled down . David Priva has been made head of podcast at Sassy Plus Now . David Priva used to be on a ton of radio stations in the UK , so he is clearly an audio veteran . It'll be interesting to see what Sassy Plus is . I don't know much about it , but apparently they will be at the podcast show in London .
Also , what else have we got here ? Leah Reese Dennis has been promoted to head of podcast at Odyssey . Odyssey making a couple of announcements this week , including a free podcast host , because we all want one of those , but also taking their Podcom product and making that scalable as well . That's all about selling host-read ads and that sort of thing .
So that's all good , all good . And David Alan Moss , who used to work at Evergreen Podcasts . He is now an advisor to the Mercury Podcast Network , which is an independent podcast network , I think , based in the UK actually . So that's all good news from that point of view .
Moving on to the awards and events . James , you were probably there at the AMBIs . You know the American Podcast Awards . What happened ?
Yeah , the Ambees were super exciting . They were on Monday and as I stand in front of the Podcast Academy stand here I can actually see somebody deflating the uh , the ambi's uh statue , which has been uh up here , uh for the last um , for the last three days . Uh , there is somebody sitting on top of the ambi's statue uh and doing that .
But , um , no , uh , a super good , uh , a super good event on monday night . It feels so long ago . Uh , tig notaro uh hosting , uh that uh , hysterical winning podcast of the year . Ira Glass was here , honoured with the Governor's Award , and Sam Sanders receiving the Impact Award as well .
There's a link to all of the winners and an OPML feed , sam , because I know that you like OPML feeds . I imported it and it worked . Email feeds I imported it and it worked . Links from the pod uh , link from the pod news newsletter as well .
So , um , yeah , and uh , I know that you have been disparaging them and calling them the American podcast awards , but there was at least one um UK winner this year , I noticed .
Oh okay , who was that ? Yes ?
Yes , um , I was hoping you weren't going to ask me that question because I can't remember off the top of my head . But that's about as far as we go . That's it .
And the other one was there was nine newly elected people to the Podcast Academy . Right , and I was going , really , because all the names that are on that list look like names that have been there before .
They are uh re-elected . I think most of them are re-elected , you serve you serve two years on the unlike the us president now yeah okay , you serve two years , um , and then you can stand for re-election . Um , and essentially half of them , um , uh , run out one year and half of them run out the next year . If you see what I mean , gotcha .
Which you know keeps things going from that point of view . Other awards James the Webby's . The nominees for the 29th Annual Webby Awards were announced , and the event is going to be on Monday , may the 12th , in New York . So you've got a Webby , haven't you ?
Oh yeah . Yeah , well , you say a webby . I think you'll find I've got two , but yes , Same joke every year , but we have to do it . I know same joke every year exactly , there have been lots of people on stage here at this event and there were two lawyers on stage .
That's never good .
I know which I know , I don't know what the collective . Gordon Firemark , the podcast lawyer . What is the collective of lawyers ?
The collective of lawyers . Well , there's a handful of us that do this stuff in this space and , frankly , that's more than enough .
It's a handful of lawyers , and how have you felt this event ?
This event has been , overall , good . The vibe has been a little slow , I guess , I would say , but I've met some great people and really enjoyed myself .
And so you were on stage with Lindsay Bowen . What was the big takeaway from that particular thing ?
Well , our talk is about a particular kind of contract deal shopping agreements , where a producer in air quotes will take your podcast and try to get it developed into a film or television project or something like that , and the title of the presentation was Do Shopping Agreements Suck ? And we could have answered it in one word .
So the answer was yes , they suck .
Sam has a question .
What do you call ? A hundred lawyers at the bottom of the sea ?
Oh Sam , I'm not repeating that to him . What do you call a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the sea ? Oh Sam , I'm not repeating that to him . What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom ?
of the sea A good start .
A good start .
Gordon thank you so much . I really appreciate it .
You made me repeat that to him Exactly .
Now , I like Gordon very much , so he can be one of the exceptions to the rule .
The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review .
Ah , yes , yes , it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter , and here's where Sam talks technology . What's going on ? Pocketcasts running out of smart folders . Next week they are . Which is quite neat . Yeah , do you know anything more about that ?
No , they've got folders already , so I don't know what adding the word smart in front of the word folders will do to them , but it automatically groups them together by shows , so maybe they've just gone and enabled the categorisation to allow you to have news automatically in one folder and comedy in another . Sounds like that .
It's very clever and obviously , as you showed from the podcast report card , that it's a very popular app as well , so well done , so you can play around with that now if you're on the beta , and if you're not on the beta , it's coming any minute . Now Also , apple released a new version of iOS 18.4 , now available as an update for iPhone and iPad .
For podcast fans , two new home screen widgets so if you're a big fan of a particular show maybe you're a big fan of this show you can put this show as a widget onto your home screen so you've always got access to the latest episode .
I'm not quite sure whether or not that's an amazing thing for this , but nevertheless , it's certainly worthwhile checking out the widgets once you've upgraded .
I'm very glad that one developer has done something , so it's good .
No , he's been here , has he ? He's been here and apparently , I should tell you , Sam , apparently he's quite . We kind of get the understanding that Apple would like to point out that they don't just have one developer .
I hope they don't . I hope they have a lot more . But I mean , let me put it . You know , the productivity of the UK is exceptionally low . Apple is below it . I mean what ?
are they doing ? Yes , no , it's certainly been entertaining .
But still , there we are .
Hey , let's go on to our favourite time of the week .
Boostergram , boostergram , boostergram . Super comments , zaps , fan mail , fan mail , super chats and email . Our favourite time of the week , it's the Pod News Weekly Review Inbox .
Yes , so many different ways to get in touch with us . Fan mail by using the link in our show notes Super comments , true fans boosts everywhere as well . We share any money that we make too . We've got some .
uh , we've got some boosts , which is always nice yes , uh , we've got one from br , a thousand sats from uh . Podverse pod news . Weekly review . Podcasting 3.0 , exclamation mark question and the infinite dial .
Yes , we did have the infinite dial and it looks like I've been approved to talk at the London podcast show on Podcasting 3.0 , agentic AI and the future of advertising .
Yes , Well , that was 1,000 sats from Ben Richardson of all people , so that was nice . Now we know exactly who he is . A row of ducks from Silas on Linux 222 sat talking about his political positioning , which is everything is stupid . I think we were making a joke about what his political positioning was .
I always try to listen to what someone has to say and then decide on that individual thing . Do I agree or not ? Correct . I don't like the reductive less versus right thing , Correct . And he also is talking about Napster and the name and the history of the Napster brand , which of course , I think was part of Real Networks at some point .
So , yes , very good to hear from Silas . Now you were mentioning a little while ago . We've just told off Dave Jackson for not publishing the Future of Podcasting . Here's a man who has a mouthful of sweets , so I'm currently a mouthful of candy , just to translate , and so I'm just talking until he finishes that mouthful of sweets .
It's the one and only Daniel J Lewis . How are you , Daniel ? I am wonderful . It's the one and only Daniel J Lewis .
How are you , Daniel ? I am wonderful . It's great to see you in person . Great to be around so many other podcasters . Great to be on Pod News Weekly Review .
Yes , yes , Well guessed . So we were just curious when's the future of podcasting your podcast , with Dave Jackson coming back ?
We're going to have a future episode about , or a follow-up episode about , podcast movement , because there's certainly a lot to talk about from here the video stuff , some of the new things developing in AI .
so within the next couple of weeks , Excellent , and what else is new with podgagement and everything else that you're already doing ?
Well , the six years of charts and ranking history that I've been tracking was stored in the wrong format , so it has been taking months for it to reconvert , re-import , do all of this stuff , re-index all this geeky , nerdy database stuff in the background .
That is finally coming to a close within the next few days , so I'm excited to have that , so people can see the ranking history for six years and then the SEO tracking future .
Very good , very good , oh , I'm all . Seo tracking feature . Very good , very good , oh , I'm all SEO tracking . Oh , there's a thing I'm looking forward to that , daniel , always a pleasure . Thank you so much . Thank you , keep podcasting . Thank you , right , let's move on . Seth 1,000 sats from him , no 1,192 sats from him .
That's a slightly bizarre number , isn't it ?
It's because he uh a fiat currency , because you can't do that there's a dice isn't there .
There's a dice image there no , that probably does mean something well that's .
I'm not sure what that means , but the the odd sats number , because he would have paid in sat in fiat and we would have translated that into sats for us well , none of it makes any sense to me .
Anyway , he says he says . He says um uh , isn't it so ? This is um uh , following the news that Spotify lots of people have been uploading porn to Spotify . He says isn't that , when you know , you've made it as a service when porn has infiltrated your platform , which I think he's absolutely ?
I'm not sure that's the word we're looking for , but anyway , Absolutely correct , bruce the ugly quacking duck , a row of ducks , double , two , double two sats from him . Um , I enjoy episodes he says that contain part of all remote recording . It shows the host went . Um , oh , part . Or all remote recording it went .
It shows the hosts went above and beyond , not just in the comfortable studio . Uh , thanks for both of what you do . And then he signs it off by 73 , which 73 being some amateur radio thing that I don't fully understand . But here's a man who does . I'm at the blueberry stand which has some very nice pens .
Thank you , todd , for spending all that money on those pens . Here's Mike Dell . Hello , mike , hey , how you doing . What does 73 mean ?
It is a radiogram for , and it means best regards Best regards .
Do you hear that , sam ? Yes , very nice .
Yeah , so how's the show been for you , mike Pretty ? Good . I had some good meetings , good conversations . Booth traffic is not so great , but otherwise awesome . Yeah , no , it's been good .
It's been a bit weird because you are in a part of the hall here that is basically turned off in the morning while the keynotes are on , so I hope you appreciated that my keynote was only 15 minutes long . Yeah , it was great . A little dark over here though . Yeah , it does .
It gets a little bit dark over here , but no , it's been good , excellent to see you . Of course , todd is in warmer climes , isn't he ? But I have a feeling that we will see Todd at the big podcast movement in Dallas . Yes , I'm sure he'll be there .
And in London he's coming to London . He's confirmed .
Oh yeah , todd's going to London . In London , he's coming to London , he's confirmed . Oh yeah , todd's going to London , also with Dave . I don't know if you've met him , but he's one of my support guys .
Oh , who's Dave , One of your support guys . Wow , okay , excellent . Why does Dave have to go to London then ? I'm allergic to long plane flights .
And .
Todd needs someone to carry the bags . And with your background , mike , I'm surprised that you are allergic to long plane flights . Really good to see you . Good to see you , mackenzie , as well , and yeah , so everybody's still here on the final day , sam , it's all quite fun .
Back to the Booster Crams . Then Neil Velio , friend of the show , sent 304 sats from True Fans saying thank you so much for the get well message . I love you guys . Yes , get well soon , neil . See you in London for the London Podcast Show .
Yes , indeed , and thank you as well to our power supporters . Talking about , you know all of the new news from Patreon this week . Of course , you can support this show by going to weeklypodnewsnet Armed with your credit card we take all major credit cards , probably and yes , we've now got 18 excellent supporters . Oh , there's a round of applause going on .
That's exciting , isn't it Perfectly timed really .
Yes , perfectly timed for our 18 power supporters . Star Tempest , who is the latest one of those got in touch and she said I'm not anyone special , just someone who's had you as part of my weekly routine for years . Thought it was time to give something back . Thank you very much .
35 years old , she says Most of my time spent between the Midlands , east Anglia and County Durham , and I'm a PHP developer . I must have been a bad person in a previous life .
I'm a PHP developer .
How dare you ? And she goes on to say I think the modern Silicon Valley-led tech landscape is a load of something bad , and so open source , open RSS and privacy are some passions of mine , along with podcasts , of course . Well , thank you so much , star if that is your real name for being the 18th weekly supporters .
The other weekly supporters are Cameron Mull , marshall Brown , matt Medeiros , mike Hamilton , dave Jackson , who we spoke to earlier , rachel Corbett , si Jobling , david Marzell , jim James , rocky Thomas , who's been here as well , neil Velio , ms Eileen Smith , claire Wake-Brown , john McDermott , james Burt and David John Clark , as well as Brian Entsminger , john McDermott
from Calaroga Shark Media , here earlier on in the week . From Calaroga Shark Media , here earlier on in the week , we shared an almost satisfactory American beer together , so that was definitely a good thing , nice . So , sam , what have you been doing all week while I've been gallivanting around the world Pining ?
Pining is one thing I've been doing Wishing I was there with you but the other things I've been doing we improved our offline support for TrueFans this week , so now we can actually track your activity , so your listening activity , any micropayments you pay while you're offline , we store that locally and sync it when you go back online , which I thought was quite a
nice thing to do . And the other thing I'm very interested in is I'm reading a lot more about something that's come across my table called LLHLS Not that we need another acronym in the industry , oh great , yes , low latency HLS .
And it's really quite clever in that it does per second streaming as opposed to every six or ten second chunks , which is what HLS does . Streaming as opposed to every six or ten second chunks , which is what hls does . And I think , um , what it gives you is immediacy of audio or video , because it's already stored and ready to go and it's constantly doing it .
But it also gives you all the capabilities of rewind and if you're going to do things like , uh , voice related alexa skills and stuff , you need this type of technology . So I'm reading up about it and I find it really interesting .
Yeah , well , you'll be surprised to know that there are actually quite a lot of technical conversations going on around hls at this conference . Um , so clearly , hls is a thing which people are thinking about , um , which is uh , nice , um , so you know more . More of that the better so far as I'm concerned , because it's particularly useful for video , of course .
And last thing , I'm up in Birmingham , so I'm at the Unipodfest Festival . Unipodcast Festival Let me try that again . Yes , so I'm up here , with Nina Robinson and Megan Bradshaw's up here and Clareway Brown and quite a few other people . So , yeah , looking forward to that .
Yes , very good , that should be fun .
What has happened for you , James ? Apart from drinking with Mr McDermott and rolling around the aisles and keynoting , what else have you been up to ?
Yes , yes , well , and also enjoying a deep dish pizza , because obviously I'm in Chicago and so therefore a deep dish pizza is the thing . Wasn't that impressive ? So that's been good . But yeah , no , it's just been good running around meeting people , you know , doing an awful lot of talking , as you can tell from the state of my voice at the moment .
And yeah , no , it's been all good fun . Looking forward to going home , though , tomorrow , because that'll be a very pleasant thing , and then I've got my 80-year-old parents in my house for the next two weeks . Great , coming all the way to Australia , so that's going to be fun .
Bless them . Now , one thing that I picked up through all the conversations you kindly brought onto this show is that there wasn't a lot of traffic in the booths .
Yeah , there are 1,600 people here , so it's still big , it's still a big event and all of that , some of the booths are in slightly weird places and so quite difficult to get to , and also it's very spread out . And so Podnews sponsored the industry track . The industry track is downstairs I'm upstairs at the moment . I've been downstairs once .
There are lounges and things around the place and everything else , and , as you've heard a lot of people talking about walking , everything is very , very spread out here , and so I think what we've seen is , you know , the effects that a very large venue has on 1,600 people .
So I don't think things have been quite as busy as some people were expecting , um , so , uh , I don't think things have been quite as busy as some people were expecting , um , but of the conversations that we've had , the conversations have still been absolutely gold , you know , as Dave was saying earlier , so , um , yeah , so I think you know it's a pretty good
event . Interestingly , we don't yet have a date or a venue for evolutions next year , um , so I don't know whether to read anything into that , but that's about as far as , as far as we know there and in terms of you know in , in terms of , of course , the big one is podcast movement in Dallas , which is in August .
Next up , though , for you , james , let's come back to Blighty , for the London podcast show at the end of May .
Indeed , which I'm very much looking forward to . And that's it for this week . All of our podcast stories were taken from the Pod News daily newsletter at podnewsnet .
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