Welcome to Podland Podland is sponsored by Buzzsprout the easiest way to host, promote and track your Podcast therapist. sprout.com. It's Thursday, March the 11th, 2021. I'm James Cridland the editor of pod news here in Australia.
And I'm Sam Sethi editor of Sam Talks Technology here in the UK that joining us this week is a Sean Glenn from Novell, Rob Lowenthal from And just cook Flynn from she Podcast
and I'm Agnes, cause they were from thought corn and later I'll be talking about why the future of Podcast history.
She will too. Podland is a weekly podcast where Sam and I delve deeper into the week's podcasting news, which I cover [email protected].
Get involved with this Podcast centers, a voice message, two questions at a Podland don't news, or you can tweet us at Podland news. Now this week's story, it starts off with a bit of Hamlet to subscribe or not to subscribe her. That is the question, James or what was the answer?
the answer is no, you follow Apple podcasts. Is no longer to use the word subscribe in a few weeks, which is very interesting. I noticed this when I was fiddling around on the beater version of Apple podcasts I gathered that it was covered on a couple of podcasting shows before I noticed it, but it didn't make it into any of the news. And yeah, what they're doing is they're getting rid of the word subscribe. And instead we're using the word follow. So you will follow Podland in your podcast app.
You won't subscribe to it. And there's relatively good reasons why I think Tom Webster from Edison research said a couple of years ago that the word subscribe is a word that frankly doesn't work very well. 47% of people who don't listen to it. Podcast think that you have to pay to subscribe to a podcast. And I think he's got a point, you subscribed don't you to Netflix, you subscribe to your internet service provider, you subscribed to a magazine. So I think, there's a good point there.
He described this as a stone in the shoe of podcasting's growth run. she's very poetic.
Honestly, he did say stop using the word, subscribing your call to action. So if you're using dynamic content insertion, that's going to be super simple to do. Then you just change that last part. Of course, that will be easy for those who aren't. That's
going to be difficult. Yes, indeed. And I think, when you look at. Are the Podcast apps will Spotify has been using follow for a long time. Orderable uses follow Stitcher uses follow Amazon music uses follow. So once you put all of those together, along with Apple as well, then basically the majority of all of your podcasts downloads are going to be from an app. That uses the word follow.
There are a few which use subscribe the notable ones in there, Google podcasts and overcast who are relatively big. It'll be interesting to see whether overcast copy Apple. I'm sure they will. You know, Marco loves anything that Apple does. So I'm sure that he will do that and Google podcasts. to be fair, I think that it's a good question for Google because they've got YouTube. And YouTube, you subscribe to your favorite YouTube creators, and that doesn't cost you any money.
But then on the other side, maybe they will want to align with the rest of the industry because we'll all be talking about following your Podcast in our Podcast apps. So maybe Google might change, but I think it's probably a good thing.
Todd Cochran doesn't agree. He says not once in 16 years, as the listener asked if subscribing to the show cost money. So he's an
outlier. Yes. He says lunacy. And I have to say, I'm not sure that Todd has been listening enough. certainly way back in 2005, when I was doing podcasts at Virgin radio, we were saying that you don't have to pay. And lots of people were asking, how much is it the whole question about. Are podcasts free or not, has always been an issue. So it's nice to actually see, to be honest, Apple following Spotify in this particular case, why not?
let's use the same word across all of the podcasting landscape. And I think that's, it's probably a good thing that
Matt deacon and I are on the same page here. I have to tell you, James. Because Matt suggested subscribed to follow might be ahead of a paid subscription option. And that's what I was thinking. We've talked about it for a couple of weeks now that when is Apple going to turn on subscriptions, we know that they are going to do it. eventually payments, subscriptions. This, I think must be making the way. I think it's just paving the way for it.
So move the word, subscribe out the way, stick the word following, and then we'll bring in the word subscribe to mean payments and what it's supposed to be. So what's the timeline. And what do you think?
Yeah. so the timeline for this change to be made in Apple podcasts is whenever iOS 14.5 comes out, which is typically during March. That's what most people are thinking. It might be early April. It depends. Depends. Whether are or not. There are a lot of bugs in 14.5, but the current standards that's probably when we'll see it now, Apple has said nothing about paid subscriptions. Quite a few people are pretty adamant that this has nothing to do with it.
But at least, as Matt says, it does free up that call to action in the future to be used for paid services. Yeah. I can certainly see that happening and we know full well that Spotify is going to do this. Anyway. Now
that brings on a second question. Automatic downloads. Are they going to stop automatic downloads, Apple? How are they going to keep them going?
Yeah. So on Wednesday I played a lot with the beater which I have, and I saw a number of chats from other people saying this as well, that it didn't automatically download new episodes. So you follow a new show. It then gave you a download button that you could then click on to download shows. So it wasn't doing that automatically. So I reported that on Wednesday and actually quite a lot of people said, brilliant, good. Finally we're actually seeing an intent based Podcast stat.
we will know how many listeners that we have because there won't be automatic downloads. There'll be. Just streaming on demand or progressive download on demand and everything else. So publish that yesterday. Anyway, I had an email from someone overnight. Can't tell you who, but anyway it turns out that's it. Yes. it was somebody that may or may not know a thing or two about this, and they said, this is not true. And actually there's a known bug in the current beater.
It's already been fixed around auto downloads, which has turned auto downloads. Off, but there is no change in automatic download behavior planned in iOS 14.5. And I thought, really I'll go and check that. So I went to check today, I reset my iPod touch, which is my only small Apple device. I went to reset that I'm running an anonymous install of iOS 14.5. So it's got none of my personal information in there. And automatic downloads are enabled.
By default both in the settings app and in the Podcast app itself per Podcast. So yes, there is absolutely no change in terms of automatic downloads. I thought it was interesting though, seeing that the worst, some quite positive murmurings about that actually happening, but that's not going to happen.
Now last week we reported on pod news that I heart media had announced a new partnership with novel here in the UK, a podcast producer. And I caught up with Sean Glynn, the CEO and founder of Novell to talk about what the deal means and what Novell's plans are for the future. Hello. I'm joined today by Sean Glenn. Who's the CEO of novel. Who recently did the deal with iHeart media, Shauna.
Hi Sam. Thanks for having me
pleasure. So for those who don't know who or what is novel?
So a novel is a production company based in London. We're about four years old now. should I tell you to backstory. Please. no worries. so you almost about, four years old. I started the company at that time, I was making documentaries for BBC radio four and I went to the guys there and said, I want to form my own company. And there were some other like-minded people who I thought might be able to help. So we formed the company.
and when I won the biggest supplies to radio four, which is great and around that same time to audible and Spotify, we're moving into the UK in quite a big way. And so we started making a series for those guys, and that will be in a factual space, investigations, comedies, dramas, all sorts, really. and that was all riding around very nicely. And we decided we wanted to put some stuff out into the normal Podcast space for everyone to be able to enjoy.
So we teamed up with Bellingcat and we've done a couple of seasons of that won lots of awards and great listenership And we also seen the premier league to launch a weekly show with those guys which is also doing great. And that brings us to around 20, the end of 20, 19, 2020 where we hired some more people, started taking development of ideas even more seriously than we were beforehand and started talking to iHeart about a number of different shows. and we ended up just sending them over.
We are working on cause we just want to show them everything. They were a great sort of. Group to go back and forth with ideas on. And they brought forward this idea of a slate deal for three years to do 11 big series with them which is super exciting. And it enables us to go onto the next step as a company to hire some more people and to grow novel and make it what we hope to be the most exciting audio company in the UK.
So let's take a few steps back. So what shows were you producing for the BBC? Some names possibly.
Sure. Yes. mainly one-offs and series for BBC all the way back then. we did a narrative history of diplomacy. we did a number of different archive, our programs, a number of different investigations and lots of, point of view, radio for programs, where we worked with the journalists. We really liked to take apart a belief of theirs and challenge it and support it and so that's what we were doing for the BBC all the way back then. And
Amazon with audible. And what was some of the
shows there maybe? Sure. So hijacked histories is a great one. We did for audible. that's where the historian Dominic Sandbrook that's a real favorite of ours. We'll probably be doing some more of that for Spotify. we have done a really strange, but probably my favorite show we've ever done. for those guys called few tile attempts at surviving tomorrow should vary. Depressing title, but that's where the with a comedian and artists called Kim noble. and that's also produced by Ben brick.
Who did the, have you heard George is Podcast, which is excellent. Ben bricks is complete one-off and that's a sort of very strange combination of comedy, factual arts drama, all rolled into one which was a real experiment that turned out great. It got such fantastic reviews. So very happy about that. And I've been
brick scraped. Cause I interviewed George for one of the festivals. I did it back in March last year, so great Podcast and great producer. So well done.
So he's also done all the sound design and editing and bits of other stuff for a, our new show for BBC radio four calls sideways with Matthew SIADH. So we're doing season one is rolling out in a moment and then we're doing season two and season three later on this calendar year. he's doing great work there too. And with
iHeart media, are these going to be new shows? And is it something that you producing completely refresh? So what might that be for example, or is there nothing that you can talk
about yet? No, I can talk about a couple. so it will be 11 standalone series of around 12 episodes or so. less sort of format work, more single story arc narrative shows the likes of which we've done before with Bellingcat. we're actually working with Bellingcat on one of the iHeart shows, which will be Podcast hosted by Robert Evans who does the behind the basters podcast, but is also by Bellingcat and it's on the the attack of the Capitol in from January.
looking at what led up to that working with Bellingcat to analyze lots of the stuff that was recorded that day. And it's a great story. some really brilliant people working on it. so that's pretty exciting. And then we're also working on something called deliver us from arrival which is about the Mormon mafia. an incredible sort of backstory to that which is this guy called overkill. we've had lots of children being a moment and created this crime family in America.
And the remnants of that are now based in Mexico and a revolt with people, smuggling drugs, muddling, and there's just, hundreds of these people were descended from him. It's a, it's an incredible sort of. crime story going back many decades about Mormons.
You've been there, the nice ones now given your history and your knowledge what have you observed that's changed over the time from when you first started producing shows for the BBC today? is it the same or is there a shift in the way that you do it?
I suppose the principles are the same, which is that. I think what's allowed us to get ahead quite quickly is a very strong focus, not only on the production and delivery of programs, but really keeping an eye on consistently and constantly developing new ideas for narrative shows. So we've always got an equal number of staff developing shows we'll be do producing them. And that will continue to do that. And all the way back then the difference was that.
if radio four turned down an idea that was it, you didn't really have many other places to take it. There were a small number of other places, but not a serious competitor to them. Whereas today we love radio four and continue to make lots of stuff for them. But there's audible, iHeart, Spotify, BBC sounds global, all sorts of partners now to take ideas to. and they all want different things, radio for one stuff that go on a linear schedule, the Podcast guys want something completely different.
it's just an exciting place to be where you can develop ideas and talk to a number of different partners about.
How big a team do you put onto Podcast that you producing there? is it like a film hundreds or is it tens or is it once you know, where's the numbers in there? The team size?
Sure. So on staff, we have 15 people and there's no set sort of amount of people to work on a project. for something like we're making a big series called kill less of BMC sounds at the moment that includes free members of staff from novel and then an outside producer based in New York. and then it presents us. So I guess that would be five. And then when we get closer to actually Doing some story editing and some sound design the team might increase to about seven or eight.
so that's how it goes there and that'll be similar sized for the iHeart projects. And then other partners of ours tend to bring quite a lot of people on from their own side. So you might have story editors, exec producers brought in by the people you're working with. So it all depends on on the partner.
And two questions. what's the average time for a Podcast from idea to inception, to, hit and what's the cost roughly budget wise, for these types of shows that you're putting together.
Sure. So I wish I could give a better answer to that, but the, on the time thing, I'll give you a couple of examples. So there's something we've been working on for over a year for BBC sounds that still probably won't come out until the fourth quarter of this calendar year or perhaps even next. And that will be 12 episodes. Probably about two years worth of work for 12 half hours.
that's quite an in-depth one, but that's us doing all the original reporting and there's just a ton of stuff to get through there. whereas something like the first season of Bellingcat that's quite different, they banning cut themselves, had done all of the work or the, all the reporting. And then, we approached them and said, you do all this fantastic work. Let us turn that into a Podcast, which took about four months for six episodes. so those are the ranges there. money is a difficult thing.
I'd rather not talk about some of the different budgets from the different partners. we don't tend to, I don't want it
to be so specific, is a, Podcast like the nature's at a million pounds. There's a hundred thousand pounds or is it for peanut mountain spa? roughly if somebody's producing something. Where do you think the industry is now? I think people are interested as listeners on how big is the budget roughly? Or, towards creating a hip Podcast just as I don't want it on each show or
anything like that. sure. I'd say something like, the BBC published their numbers you're looking at around eight to 10,000 pounds for half an hour of of. What BBC radio for content and, those sort of budgets spread out per episode, and a podcast would provide you with something pretty good. needless to say, of course, that when you're working with American partners, it can be quite a lot more than that.
but something within that ballpark should be able to, get a really good presenter on board, a really strong producer. and then you've got the team already built in a staff to support those guys.
How would you market the shares? is it not down to you or is it down to you? Because there's 2 million podcasts. The noise level in podcasting is so big and there are multiple other production companies out there in the world producing great content as well. And these were, the nominations were announced yesterday. and so how do you get your podcasts above the noise level?
great question. oftentimes up to this point, we have relied on our partners. we aren't at the moment, at least launching Podcast as novel originals, they're coming out of Spotify, BBC audible projects, and they have great teams there to support those and cross promote them on their other podcasts and radio shows on occasion. we've decided something, we feel incredibly, we feel passionate about all our projects, but every now and then there's something that comes along. that we really love.
So on the project with Spotify, we worked for a PR company there just to double down on our efforts to get it in front of all the bright people and that the great, that was really worth it because if you've got something to stands out in the market, getting in front of the right reviewers and the right people who cover it on newsletters like yours, that's super important.
Or ones we have done with partners, such as Bellingcat, we've done a similar thing there where we've gone to PR companies where we know people, when they really understand audio, that's really crucial that they can't be generalists. We tend to find people who understand who are the players in the marketplace, we gotta get in front of those people and we've gone to them and that's worked out great too, there's some really.
Informed people at magazines and newspapers and newsletters who really understand the form. and it's just about getting it in front of them. Ready?
Now there's been a massive acquisition of by the big three, let's call them Amazon Spotify and Apple. Do you see that? That continues? And we know there'll be one of those because one dream go, you've seen other companies going, where do you see novel, I guess is the question?
Sure. we have some big plans here too. To, to continue to grow the way that we have. We've tripled our head count in the last. Year or so next year it looks really exciting with the iHeart deal. And, we just want to continue to expand and take our ideas to partners that we currently have potentially other partners in, in, in TV and film and books, a number of our series have been optioned and picked up by people in those industries. And that's a really exciting move for us.
we definitely be very interested in working with. directors and producers in the visual worlds, because at the end of the day, I think what we. We'd like to produce ideas. Firstly, that's what it's really about. It's about finding great access, brilliant stories haven't been told and excellent individuals who can tell them. And once you've got those things, you can do what you want with the content.
audio is perfect for us because we've got great experience in it and compared to film and other things like that, it's a relatively cheap entry point money-wise to turn. Something you put down on the page into something people want to listen to, but in future, who knows. And if we're able to take that track record of developing things that people really want to listen to, it could go into those those places, film, TV, and books too. that would be a really exciting place to go to.
My final question, Sean, can you give everyone a an episode or podcast that you listened to or may recommend isn't one of yours, something that you think is a good example as well, but isn't
yours. Absolutely. so we have a listening club, but novel. So every fortnight we set something for people to go out and listen to. and then we get together on a Friday afternoon and listen and critique it and, think what we can learn from it and what, how they've done things really well. And what we did last time we did listening club last week was flood lines. a really great podcast from the Atlantic magazine in the U S all about hurricane Katrina and the sort of impact that had.
And looking at it in a number of different ways. I just wasn't. I just didn't know. It was just really great storytelling. I think the casting in it was just super herb. They chose their characters really carefully. They didn't overcrowd it and had a great presenter, really good writing, and it all just came together really beautifully. I'd highly recommend that
brilliant Glenn CEO of Nobel. Congratulations on your deal with iHeartMedia.
Sean Glenn from Novell. And I apologize for calling him novel. when I did the pod news podcast a little bit earlier on in the week clubhouse Sam.
Look, it's getting better. they've announced a few new features clubhouses as an option for higher quality audio. I'm not really sure why that's necessary, but they go, but they've included something. James called recurring clubs. What's recurring
clubs. Yeah. So recurring clubs. If you want to do a rum every Monday at seven o'clock, you can just set that automatically so that it will automatically do all of that. for you and the higher quality audio is there for music, apparently because they want people to be able to play music and sing songs on there as well. Sounds like a copyright infringement nightmare, but still there we go. Yes,
there we go. They've got enough problems. but clubhouse has rewritten its terms of service now to allow recording with the express consent of all speakers involved It previously required written consent as you do that with everybody. Anyway, hat tip to Daniel J. Lewis.
For that, I remember being on a town hall with the founders of clubhouse and being told that no, it's against everything that they wanted, but a bit like hashtags people started to put the red dot all over clubhouse to say, yeah, we are recording this. And it's pretty simple to record anyway. So I don't know why. They just don't embrace it. Maybe it's just a time thing as a feature that they don't want to put
in yet. it's interesting that you say that because the other side of the fence, Twitter has said that it will let people record Twitter spaces in future. So they are very open. For Twitter spaces to be used as a recording tool. They're also looking at scheduled spaces. So you can currently schedule a rubbing clubhouse. They're producing scheduled spaces in Twitter spaces as well.
And the good news is so far as I'm concerned is that Twitter spaces will be rolled out to everyone next month on both iOS and on Android. The the forgotten 79% of the world. So that's pretty good. I enjoyed my Twitter spaces last week. it was a nice relaxed sort of chat and it's interesting. it's a very different experience to clubhouse. Clubhouse is very LinkedIn. if you gave the worst people from LinkedIn a microphone. and that's what clubhouse is.
Whereas Twitter spaces seem to be much more friendly and much more relaxed, but it may just have been the group that I was in
is your perception though, of what this means for Podcast. that's really, where we should be focusing our attention. If you can, as we've been talking about for months now, record. Clubhouse or Twitter should Podcast has moved to recording
there. I think it depends on what type of show you're doing. It may be a very useful tool if you want to do a sort of a, phone-in show or a talk back show that I'm sure that would be a useful thing I've said in blog posts in the past that it lacks a lot of the production tools to do a proper. Nice sort of equivalent of a phone-in show or a talk back show on the radio, but it may well be useful for some people.
it's worthwhile keeping an eye on, I think, and certainly being able to record automatically and natively in the app will make it quite an interesting tool in the future. I wonder if you'll get RSS feeds out of it as well.
Yeah, it'd be interesting. the verge also keeping that third arm of this audio, social networking platform story, the verge takes a look at fireside Mark Cuban's fireside, which he hasn't renamed with some screenshots, but nothing more. Did you have any thoughts on
fireside, Jamie? Yeah. they've got screenshots of far side. Still not launched. It's going to have to be really good. Given that clubhouse has attracted an awful lot of people who are interested in this sort of thing. And Twitter spaces is launching imminently and is available to many of us. Anyway. Good luck. Fireside Mark. Cuban's Farside knocked down. Benjamin's Farside yep. But I'm not entirely convinced that's going to be a big thing, unless there's some secret sauce in there.
And I don't know what the secret sauce is likely to be. It may be payment. In which case you can see a certain set of people using it for that sort of thing. I can see
payment coming too. Twitter pretty quickly. And so clubhouse, I can't see that being significantly a USP. I think it's a case of a rich billionaire with time and looking at an opportunity, but I think Mark Cuban probably a year too late with what he's planning anyway. Time will tell. Yeah, quite
possibly.
Okay. Now one of the other stories that you've covered this week, important news was Intercom has acquired Podcast volume, the company at 22.5 million and to comms a U S a radio broadcast that owns cadence 13 and pineapple street studios Podcast gives advertisers access to podcasters. And in 2016, Google purchase, the founder's previous company, FameBit for 36 million James. Unpack that story for me, please.
I can do one better because instead of me explaining what pod corn is all about and whether or not it's a good fit we might as well ask the co-founder. She's called Agnes Qadira. And I spoke to her earlier today and I asked her what problem pod corn was set up to solve.
Pod corn is a marketplace that makes it easy for podcasters to find sponsorship opportunities and makes it easy for brands to find relevant podcasts, to collaborate with directly. We created pod corn because unfortunately through traditional advertising, majority of podcasters. That are up and coming and long and mid tail have not been able to monetize because it's so heavily based on impressions.
So we wanted to provide an opportunity where podcasters can pitch themselves on other factors that make their podcasts amazing, such as their expertise on a specific topic or the creative idea that they have for the integration or how much airtime they're giving a brand. And also brands of all budgets and sizes can have access to. An incredible independent creator ecosystem. So that's it in a nutshell.
Yeah. And it's very much around influences and around connecting advertisers with those influences. Absolutely.
we really see podcasters as next generation celebrities. With incredible influence and that's exactly it. It's tapping into those relationships in communities that they build with their listeners and letting brands be part of the conversation versus just a radio style type of ad. So we do everything from a host read ads to.
Topical discussions to interview segments, to creative integrations, unboxings, anything, and everything that brands and creators want to collaborate with that sits directly in the episode. So we don't do dynamic insertions. Everything
is new, Which is a big difference between you and maybe some of the more. Traditional Podcast advertising companies.
Exactly. that is our huge differentiator. And that's why we created Podcast. And again is because so many creators don't monetize through the traditional. Opportunities that exist and, or dental monetize enough because they can price themselves on these other factors that make them amazing. And also brands don't get to discover these creators and they have incredible conversions through native.
there's so many studies already through Nielsen and others that show that host read ads, outperform traditional ads by 50% increase in purchase intent. So that is incredible. And that's even a more for things like interviews and yeah. More engaging discussions and then podcasting is so perfect for native because you have so much real estate within the content to do something authentic.
with video, you have 10 minutes on average to do something great with podcasting, it's 15 seconds and hear the medium it's such incredible conversational storytelling and brands and creators can be more journalistic and more authentic and in their collaborations. Now,
when you look at companies like Spotify or reportedly Apple, they're talking about paid subscriptions and they're obviously companies like supporting cast or member folder to doing paid subscriptions as well. Is that part of the future, your company seems to thrive on free rather than paid
for. Yeah. I, because of the inherent association of creator made content as free content, I would argue that it's going to be very difficult for a wall garden approach to be successful with listeners, especially. When it comes to personality driven content, I think podcasting is really meant to be a democratized platform. That's free for listeners, for podcasters for advertisers. the tools for creating podcasts have already been democratized.
Anybody can create now an incredible high quality production. Style Podcast tools are being, for distribution have been democratized same with like monetization is being democratized. and there's so much choice when it comes to content so much free choice that I can't imagine, like, why would you pay. A subscription just because you want to binge on one show or one creator when there's so much more amazing content.
and, I think the problem with wall gardening also is that it really devalues the very thing that drives the ecosystem, which is the independent creators, because it says that, this is premium and this is not. And you need an agent and you need to be behind a paywall and in order to be successful and you need X amount of listeners, but. As we've seen with pod corn and even my previous company, FameBit size, doesn't equate to results for brands size, doesn't equate to having meaningful content.
and it also, hinders discoverability for podcasters because when companies put money behind content that is paid and the they're promoting that, it makes it harder for everybody to discover the other amazing creators. I don't see it so much as winning with free
content. Yeah. And so if I'm an advertiser, isn't there a scale issue. If I want to get, 100, 200 different Podcast is talking about my specific product.
So absolutely not. So with popcorn, we actually streamlined the entire process from finding creators. Contacting them hiring them at scale. For example, one of our clients usually mines was able to do exactly that they were able to scaled their brand awareness, to collaborate with over a hundred podcasters who created over 360 unique ad formats for them, the yielded over 12.5 million listens. And that's exactly what we do. We allow brands to scale native. So previously brands would have.
To collaborate with multiple agencies, multiple networks, just to get access to enough talent that they wanted to work with. Whereas they're able to do it in a much more scalable way because we really consolidate independent creators and network creators all under one
roof. So how does it work from a Podcast to point of view? Do you as a Podcast to have to share your download information or do you, is there a prefix on there or. Or how does it work? How do you know how many downloads, for example, I have
Podcast, there's exactly that they connect to our prefix, which allows us to get all that information from their hosting providers. And we're also partnered with some incredible hosting providers, Buzzsprout RSS, PodOmatic captivate and others that we collaborate for exactly that reason too, to help their creators monetize and make it easy, just as simple for them as we possibly can. No,
it's been a busy week for you. many congratulations on your acquisition by Entercom. What opportunities is that going to open up for Podcast and support casting generally.
Thank you. Thank you. honestly we're so thrilled to be joining Entercom. They're a leader in audio. They have incredible relationships with advertisers, so obviously it opens up possibilities for driving more liquidity into our marketplace. They. I have some critically acclaimed roster of large and influential podcasts. And we have an incredible market of long and Mattel creators, also larger creators as well, but that compliments what they're doing.
And we just had so much synergies with the leadership and the team around how we see the open Podcast ecosystem and what we want to accomplish in terms of. for sizing and they share a vision and the power of native and creator, inclusivity, and changing how creators are valued and making content more authentic. And. And more inspiring for listeners branded content. yeah we're just really excited.
And our goal with this acquisition is to be the best Podcast or monetization platform and most effective influencer marketing solution for brands. So yeah, this is just the beginning for us. I think also we, given our backgrounds and previously we sold our company FameBit to Google and integrate it into YouTube. We saw firsthand the power that.
An acquisition and the right partnership can make it in terms of propelling your company forward and helping you realize your vision and helping us feed so many more creators and making the company more accessible to more brands. So it's an exciting opportunity.
they are, they're a very large broadcaster. They own cadence 13 and pineapple street as well. Do you think this is a wider move from broadcasters to leverage more from podcasting?
Yeah, I think I think podcasting is the next big creative medium. And I think, again, for us, like we just have so many synergies to, to work with their profile portfolio assets already and be integrated so well in, in what they're already doing. And that's exactly it. they really see podcasting as. As the next big thing and podcasters as celebrities and influencers as we do.
So it really feels like a match made in heaven and we feel like we'll be able to accomplish so much more together collaborating.
Yeah. And it's nice to also hear you talk about open podcasts as well as obviously the walled garden in terms of a paid subscription, but there are other walled gardens appearing in terms of exclusivity, as well. yeah. Where do you see exclusivity going in terms of podcasting? Yeah, I think there's a
lot to be learned. I think from even the YouTube ecosystem, like with multi-channel networks and agencies and how we've seen that play out and the fact that. Creators benefit from having tools to do things independently. again, because podcasting has been democratized and content creation has been democratized so well, anybody can be their own brand and their own creator and creators are so sophisticated that I think there's a great opportunity for them to do things on their own.
I that's what I see a lot of problems with exclusivities. That's why we're very open and creators. Couldn't think of a, has an Airbnb for Podcast advertising. They can come and go as they see fit and they can work with whoever they want on their terms, because we really see. Creators as brands in their own. And they have these communities, they have these lists, listenership, they know their content best. And yeah, I think that not working out so well down the road as well.
Thank you so much for your time. It's been a busy week for you. I hope you get plenty of rest over the weekend. Thank you. It's been
such a pleasure
to chat with you from. Pod Korn, who I hope is having a long, nice rest now that she has successfully sold that company to Entercom. Although she did say to me, after that recording, she said, this is where the hard work starts. And I think that's probably absolutely right. That's the earn-out. Yes, but really good to hear her talking about how she and Entercom see the future of podcasting as being open.
and you can see that there's some obvious synergies in what she does with the radio folks that are at Entercom as well. So really good for her to give us some time on this podcast.
Another story that you covered in pod news was art nineteens director of data chat. Hollowed said, wow. We're now seeing 72,000 new podcast episodes per day. That's five new podcasts, every six seconds. That is crazy James,
isn't it? Yeah. So it's five new podcast episodes, every six seconds. And that's a tremendous figure. I think it just shows the growth of podcasting. The amount of. content, which is out there.
we're recording this on Thursday, the 11th of March in the evening, my time in the morning, your time, we'll find out a little bit later on today from Edison research, what their numbers are in terms of people consuming podcasts in the U S as well, and seeing the rise there, but there's doubtless going to be a rise and it's, I'm fascinated to learn by how much yeah. Five new podcast episodes. Yeah. Every six seconds is quite a number. I think
links to a story that you covered about the Podcast index. It's a proposal by Benjamin Bellamy talking about Podcast recommendations where podcasts is, could recommend other podcasts to their listeners. I think. The one of the biggest problems is the volume of Podcast coming out. Discoverability is now the biggest problem, within the podcasting world, have you had a chance to look at this
Podcast recommendation? Yeah. it's a good idea. The idea is that you as a Podcast, maybe what we would use it for is you would see in your podcast player, you would see Podland recommends the pod news Podcast and recommends. Sam Talks Technology and that would be to, relatively obvious recommendations that this Podcast could do that, frankly, no algorithm would necessarily be very good at picking up. And that's basically what this strategy is.
But as an idea, I think it's a great idea to actually allow individual podcasters, to be able to link to different shows that they think their audience will really like.
Excellent. Now, if you listen to sounds profitables podcast with Brian, Bellizzi, you'll hear all types of dynamic content insertion. It's
very clever. It is very clever. And the company Brian Barletta is using is called . And it's an Australian company down from Sydney. you talked to their CEO, Sam he's called Rob Lowe and Tal to learn more.
In a previous life. I used to be the CEO of a radio network in Australia called Macquarie radio network. And it was a network of Talks stations across the country. And when I worked there, I realized that podcasts were taking off. A lot of our listeners work with tuning in and trying to catch up on the content that they'd missed in the morning or in the day. But at the time I remember I used to. Got him, a digital manager and ask him how we were performing. And he used to answer me in terabytes.
So last month we did a number of terabytes and I always thought that was an unsatisfactory answer for a digital technology. So when I left Macquarie radio, I decided to build a technology platform to help Podcast is. simply track their analytics and manage their content. There were other hosting providers in the world at the time.
However, I just thought that there was an opportunity for some of the larger enterprise Podcast, as who needed some sophisticated technology to manage their content, their hosting, their distribution, and so on. And that's how we got started.
And when you got going, what were some of the plans? Because I've noticed you've got things like private Podcast, you've got enterprise podcasting. So where's your main focus? Is it on the business side of the world or is it with consumer podcasting?
we've certainly evolved over the five years since we launched the product, we initially started out providing Podcast is with a free platform, a free hosting platform. And we were commercializing based on advertising insertion. But over time, we've migrated more towards a system that it's a license fee base for Podcast is. And we're also focusing now heavily on larger enterprises, including companies. So we've developed a lot of ad technology over the years, and that was aimed at.
Certain broadcasters who were using our technology we've used other technologies before, but we always thought that they had built a product that was built for a streaming environment, streaming radio sort of insertion or ad replacement model, not necessarily for the Podcast world. So yeah. We've built out a lot of ad technology tools and they're available on all of our plans. We talk about dynamic insertion these days.
Like it's something new, but of course it's been around for years and we've made those tools available for podcasts for at least a couple of years now. But we've over time now. We've seen more opportunities arise in the business. Podcast so since Corona last year, a lot of companies now have. A need to communicate with employees over the years, we've talked to them about, Hey, why don't you do a podcast? And often their responses. We don't want to share our secret recipe with the competition.
And now that we've enabled private podcasting, it means that they can communicate via audio with their employees in a medium that as we all know, it's very engaging, but it's also private now. So it means that it's a bit more difficult for the competitors to tune into what you're saying, but of course, Private Podcast can be consumed on Apple podcasts and podcasts just like that. So there's less friction in the process for a listener to actually consume that audio.
And if they're an employee, they might listen to your podcast or Joe Rogan or whoever it is. And now the company's podcasts is sitting alongside their favorite content. And we're saying that a lot of companies are saying our staff are suffering from zoom fatigue. So our answer to that or our solution is tell them to get up, walk away from the desk, give them a Podcast and encourage them to go for a walk and listen to your CEO's update on message. So that's been a big focus of ours over time.
We've just had two fundamental things that we've been trying to provide, and that is we want to help Podcast to save time and make money. So all of our tools have those two things in mind. Great
for Podcast is thank you very much. Now you talked about dynamic content, insertion, or dynamic ad insertion, the industry users, the two terms interchangeably. Can you explain how your platform uses those two? What tools you have available?
Oh yes, certainly. So a Podcast on any one of our plans will upload their audio file into whisker, just as you do with your host, they insert cue points into that audio file. To identify the placement of the ads, where they want an ad to play in that file to cue points can be pre-rolls mid-rolls post rails. You can have a large number of those key points in each episode, and you can identify where and how you want. And add the advertisement to play or a piece of content.
A Brian's a really interesting use case because he's pushing the boundaries of the Technology. Every time he publishes an episode,
this is Brian Barletta from sounds profitable. A friend of Podland, someone who's taking what you've developed and pushing it, I think to his extreme. It's absolutely.
If you think about the number of possible combinations of episodes that he can generate, if you're living in Armenia, you're probably going to get a different episode than if you live in New York and London and Sydney, but, and that requires a lot of work on his part. But what he's trying to do is use the technology and identify how it can be used much more broadly than has. Been done in the past.
And so we've got a whole bunch of features that were really built for enterprise, but they're available on all of our plans and he's taking those tools and saying, Hey guys, Make the most of your back catalog make the most of give every listener a unique experience. But we always say that the most important thing in podcasting is to make great content.
That's 95% of the hard work is being a brilliant Podcast, but you've got this other 5% of an opportunity to optimize your content so that it's at least personalized for your audience. And Brian's doing that with the ad technology with digital ad insertion or digital content, insertion, whatever you'd like to call it.
I was listened to his last episode and it was great at the end. It said if you're based in the UK and it didn't sound like it was someone throwing it in at the last minute, it sounded smooth. But I know that if you'd been in another country that would have said another location. So he's done a great job and he's inserting various bits of content. I'm a big admirer of Brian and what he's done with it and the platforms. What are your plans going forward with what's next?
So one of the things we always talk about is helping Podcast save time and save money. So make money can be saved money as well. And I still feel like the process of recording and publishing a Podcast requires you to be paying a subscription to too many different pieces of software. You've probably got an audio gram subscription. You've got a squad car subscription. You've got your hosting payment. You've got all those different things.
We've built a lot of those tools and features into our platform. So you can publish a video highlight. You can generate one from Worcester. You've got a transcript. You've got, we have text-to-speech if that's something that you want to use. So we've got all of these tools. So the next one that we will vote a cloud recording and editing tool as well. But the next one we launched will be a multi-person audio recorder. So you can record an interview with.
A number of different participants and have it safe straight into your cloud library inside of whisker, that'll say it in five, second chunks so that it's constantly updated into your folder. And then you can mix it down inside of Oscar and add some fighting's some music and fade out and crop audio and add multiple tracks and do what it is that you need to do to make it sound great.
So that's probably coming in about three weeks and that's got our attention at the moment, but once again, it's just about helping Podcast is. Login is one piece of software. Get the job done and move on. And
the final thing, Rob, what is it that keeps you awake at night with wash gum?
the challenge being your own boss and running your own business. My challenge is deep down. I've got to, I don't have anyone screaming at me making me wake up the next day and go to work. So my challenge is making sure I stay motivated and do the hard work and do the work that's sitting on my desk. Occasionally I started dreaming and I've off with the fairies thinking about some new feature that we should be building. And my developers come back to me and tell me I'm crazy.
So I've just got to stay what my biggest challenge and the thing that keeps me up awake at night is maintaining focus and just executing the work every day.
He's a nice man. Isn't he? Sam yeah.
I could go for a drink with him.
He'd be a lot of thought, I think. Yeah. Yes. I last saw him in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, rather than in Sydney. I've been to Sydney less than I have Malaysia in the last 12 months, which is a bit strange, but still, but there we are. I'm talking about Australia. A Podcast Australia have released a sounds smart report. There's a very weird photograph. From that presentation, which was done to a bunch of advertising agencies. And it's lots of people in a room sitting next to each other.
Sam can you think of such thing anyway? You talk,
what world is this that
you talk off? Exactly. but they released a bunch of data claiming 37% of Australians have listened to podcasts in the past. Three months, I would have liked to see the one month figure, but the past three months is still I suppose. Okay. 37% of Australians, which is pretty good. And that's your
summit, just imagine what you'll be doing in your winter. You'll all be listened to more
podcasts. yeah. for whatever we get in terms of winter, it's just slightly less hot. That's basically how it works. Are you an Australian yet? I am not an Australian yet. So what happens is you have to pass a test, which I did. It got a hundred percent. Thank you very much. Thank you for asking. And then you hear nothing for about five or six months. And then eventually the local council for some reason, get in touch and the local council says, good news.
You've got a citizenship ceremony that you have to attend and they've managed to choose the one day in the year. Yeah. I can't make it, which is the data I'm getting married. So therefore that it's not going to happen. I did say to my wife to be, I did say it'll be all right. I just pop off for an hour and do you can get a very good face. yes, even as you can hear, even the dogs, I'm happy about it. yes, but still there we go. So not yes in Australia, but thank you for asking now
it was international women's day on Monday, and lots of things were going on. New shows, newer dos from Spotify, Amazon, and other people. What did Spotify announce James?
Oh, Spotify announced a loads of things, which is the Spotify way. Isn't it? And they announced a new focus on women creators it's called equal, which includes a set of new playlist content. It establishes an equal board offering a grant to 15 organizations across the world to make the audio industry more equitable for women creators. lots of stuff from Spotify, lots of stuff from Amazon. And it's, it was a real thing I think on Monday, but there's a Podcast conference.
Isn't there sandwiches, especially for women as well.
Yeah, it's cool. She Podcast, and I thought I'd catch up with Jess to talk about it. She's a lovely lady and we had a long conversation about the.
Challenges she's gone off putting on a real world Podcast event this year, as well as a hybrid event and the uncertainty that she's got around, whether people will attend or not, and the etiquette around how they should be behaving at a real world conference, we've seemingly either got to create new rules or we've forgotten how to be in a mass crowd with people. Anyway, let's see what Jess had to say. hello. I'm joined by the wonderful Jessica Catherine. She is the organizer of sheet.
Podcast Jess. Hey, how are you? Hey. Good. How are you? Very good indeed. Now, Jess, for those who don't know, tell us a little bit about, she Podcast tell us a little bit about Jess.
I'll start with she Podcast she Podcast is an online support group for women and non-binary members who want support in starting and maintaining a Podcast. it was originally just a Facebook group a couple months later, the woman who started the group with me, Elsie Escobar, and I started a Podcast Elsie is the community manager for Libsyn. and she and I have been. Good friends for a lot of years. we did a podcast. We had the free group, it grew enormously.
when podcasting conferences started, we started doing some events, mini events and little classes at the beginning and end of some of these other podcasting conferences and then a few years into it, we decided we wanted to have our own. So we have, she Podcast live. we did it one year, the pandemic started. And so we started a membership so that we could maybe maintain some of that VIP level of support without being in person.
So we now have the Facebook group, which is free Podcast, which is free a conference, which is going to be handled this fall. And then we have a membership called the super squad, which is a monthly membership fee. So far, that's it so far?
Yeah. So far you haven't got anything else planned, obviously
network the other day, but I'm not sure if my brain can handle anymore, but yeah.
Okay. Now why did you start podcasting? What was the, what was your reason for it?
being in sore need for attention, to be honest. I. Had a business at the time, it was a branding and marketing business. And I was trying to figure out how to become a speaker and sort of scale that business. Because when you're a web designer, you have one client, one, maybe two clients at a time and you don't really work with people that often it was a little lonely. I was actually looking to see what shows I could be on.
And when I looked at iTunes, I saw Derek Halpern John Lee Dumas Lewis house. It was like white dudes interviewing other white dudes. and so I got discouraged. Like they're never going to have me on because they keep having each other on and that's it. I thought about all the amazing women entrepreneurs that I knew. And I thought, this could be my show. I should be doing a show. I'm I've always wanted to have a tonight show of my own kind of. So I was excited to buy this.
And then I started a show called lady business radio, where I interviewed all kinds of women entrepreneurs. I did that for about a year before I started. She Podcast and it wasn't my idea to start. She Podcast the show Elsie asked me to do it with her. I'm not specifically a podcasting. Teacher I'm much more of like a marketing and growth kind of teacher, but it works out because Elsie is into, the tech of podcasting, the mic and the voice, and also, community management.
So we, we balance each other out quite well. Cool
now, just because I may have missed it. How long has he been Podcast
yeah, I started that show in 2013 and then we started, she Podcast in 2014 and then later that year I had a baby. And then when I came back from maternity, there were other shows about women and business. Biz chicks Podcast had popped up and Katie biz women rock, but there were still no other groups for women in podcasting and LC. And my maternity leave was like juggling, like crazy people were pouring into the group and asking a billion questions and she was like, thank God, you're back.
so I I didn't mean to necessarily ditch one for the other, but I've been working solely on shoe Podcast for about six years now.
And what has changed in the time from when you started to where you are now, what would you feel podcasting has done in that time?
Oh, so much has changed since then. if we wanted to talk about the industry specific, it went from being media's best, kept secret to an explosion of how can I get my hands on this money with all different. Companies and things like that. no media company had ever thought about podcasting until that.
Explosion. It might've been 2016, I think was when serial came out, maybe it's 2015 and once serial was done, it seemed like over the course of that year, every single media company started to have its own podcast. Every magazine had its own podcast, every newspaper lots of television networks were starting to do it. And That's a huge difference because what I was teaching back then is just how to get, people how to listen to podcasts. It's much less of a lesson.
Now lesson right now is how can yours be found in the sea of all the other ones? Just like yours. That was not even a thing. When I started in fact for women, especially a lot of the women I know started the first. Women's show for X, the first pregnancy show the first working moms show the first shipping. Podcast all about the shipping industry. And there was a blacksmith at the time that was doing a Podcast and women blacksmith. lots of more, innovation than now.
still there's a lot of amazing idea. I hear amazing ideas for shows every day stuff. I would never think of.
Okay. So with the conference how has that changed since COVID? So describe to me, like the first conference know I would have been offline real world. And then describe to me what's happened since, because COVID obviously has changed your plans. And last part of that question is of course, you've got one coming up. So tell me more about that.
So the first one that we did was in 2019 and it was over in October and then I started helping Chris work on pod Fest for about four months. And then as soon as that was over, the pandemic had hit and everything was over. So I didn't really get a chance to get too in deep with planning 20, 20, I had a venue, but that was pretty much it.
And I was really worried that with the pandemic, that the venue was going to be a bit of a stickler about either making me go through with the event or having me pay for an event that didn't happen. I was worried about it cause it's not a Marriott, it's a privately owned hotel. It's a family owned hotel. So I was very worried about that. We ended up refunding a lot of tickets that people bought. People had bought tickets during the first event.
And I ended up having to refund a lot of those this entire year, I've just been hoping that the situation would remedy itself by next October. I still, even though it's planned, and I'm certainly further along than I was for 2020. But There's a couple of things. I don't know. So I'm reaching out for sponsors right now this week, this month. And I even in my reach out, I still can't promise it's happening. I can't promise how many attendees are going to be there.
And I can't even speculate how many we'll have a virtual ticket. I've been asked like how many do you think we'll just do the virtual and not come in person. And what kind of plan do you have for that? all I have are some remnants of what I think would be good ideas for virtual component, but it's not going to be something that anyone else has necessarily done before.
I think Podcast movement will have some aspect of that too, but like for our virtual ticket, we want it to be as interactive as possible. I don't want our virtual ticket to be Let's just give you a crap ton of recordings in a month. That's not a virtual ticket to me. I want them to have a swag bag. I want them to be able to interact with one another. that stuff I've never seen happen before. I have no idea how I'm going to do it. I'm just telling you right now. I have no I want to do it.
I know people that can help me do it. I have no idea how it will be executed or if it will be done well. all I know is I would love for the people who are doing it virtually to have a live. Interaction quality to it so that they're not just waiting a month for their part of the ticket. I just think that stinks.
and actually it's something that now that I think about it, we should have been doing all along because of course, they're going to be people who can't travel, who gets sick, who last minute, can't get a babysitter or whatever. And up until now they've been getting a raw deal.
Yeah, I think 20, 21, the world of 2021 is going to be hybrid. And I think we'll see a lot of people put on real-world events because I think they're one of the things, I guess, maybe you feel the same that I've come to realize about humans, humanity, humans, whatever you want to call us is humans. Yes. Is the is touch, hug feel Group community, I've worked from home for 10 years, but I'm a very huggy person.
When in real world, I love to hug people and say hello in a very, and the whole code when I meet people now, it's like that distance, that space that you feel that loss of connection to that part of humanity, I think. Some people will be more risk accepting and others will be risk averse. And I think, from what Biden says, you're going to have a hundred million people vaccinated by a certain time in the summer.
Yeah. now he has said that every adult should have a vaccine by may. Yes. So I'm going off of that, even though it may be slight exaggeration and I have no idea it could be possible. but I. I, if I'm vaccinated, I feel safe and hugging people, but I have an immunity of steel. My husband is immune compromised. He's not as excited about me doing that because even though he's got his first vaccine yesterday, he got his first shot yesterday. he's nervous.
And there are some people like me who are just sitting around waiting to go outside because I either had it really early and had no idea, or I just don't generally get sick that much anyway. And so I'm just like patiently waiting for my turn to leave the house. and then there are people like him. Even who aren't immune compromised, who are just now scared to go out and who have been more traumatized by this than like my thick brain would ever be traumatized.
So I think that, each person has their own separate level of fear. And I, as an event planner, I can't necessarily predict what percentage of people will do that. I did think though, of. For the in-person event having badges that they can put on their lanyard to say I'm a hugger or, still nervous about catching things, don't hug me so that when you walk up to someone, you don't make the mistake of being like, I'm going to put my hand out or should I put my arms around you?
I'm not sure you can just read that the person is like, please stay six feet away from me. I like seeing you, but don't touch me. there's gotta be some cute way that I can do that. That makes people reduce that social awkwardness.
Cause I do think some of my social skills have diminished a little bit and I'm gonna, and I just can tell that by walking down the street with my neighbors, if I, if you see your neighbor, I see people crossing the street when I'm taking a walk and before I would consider that quite rude. And now I'm just like, thank you. Hi, it's weird.
So we, on some level, aren't going to know how to act, but I'm hoping that I can make it as easy as possible for people to just, and also, extra sanitizer stations and, seating distances, having less of an attendance so that people can space out. If they feel uncomfortable. I just want people to feel comfortable being there. In whatever capacity they can be there. Okay. I'll just do my best. I'm a hugger too though.
And I also think when you're in person, if we were in person, like you, you lose that sense of fear a little bit for better or for worse. Like you see someone that you love. You're just like, I forget, I'm just, I have to hug you because your face, like I love your face and I must touch it and hug you. And there's some level of inhibitions dropping when you're in person. And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but. Yeah.
Now is there a theme for this year's show venue?
There is a theme. Thank you for asking. we didn't have a theme before. but I decided to do a theme called together, we rebuild and it's not necessarily about rebuilding our podcasts or rebuilding our businesses or our growth schedule or even our lives. What's what it's mostly about for us is. the knowledge that podcasters have this huge amount of influence over their audiences, however, large or small. And so as content providers, we have the power to shape the way we think society should be.
I think. And so what I want to challenge our sponsors and our content creators, our speakers and everyone involved is to think about. How they're going to rebuild our society now, not just from the pandemic, we've had so much happen in our country over the last year that it feels like so much more is broken besides just our healthcare system. It's our interactions with one another it's diversity, it's sexism and racism. and if you're the talker, how can you encourage people?
To do the right thing or to live in the world that, is ideal is more ideal than what we're living in now. So what we'd like to do is try and rebuild our society as best we can. It's not only our responsibility, but I do think it's a larger responsibility.
Yeah. And I think, it has to start somewhere. We have to start rebuilding from some ways. Where it better replace that. What was interesting this week, and this month is international women's day in, into a international women's history month. What does that mean to you?
I think international women's day is nice. I can see, as a man, how come they get a day and we don't, but I don't think that. It has been revealed all the different ways that women are not treated equally in both our country and the rest of the world. So I think international women's day is just a blip in the effort to call attention to that, that when you celebrate women, you also take a moment, even if it's, even if it's subconscious to think.
Am I treating all the women that I know equally and fairly do I, just even if it's just like a subconscious check-in, I think it's important. I think that's important as far as the month and women's history month. that's important in the sense that we can call attention to how soon it's been, that we just got the right to vote a hundred years ago. and You know that there's still so many inequalities. So learning about where that came from and what women she Rose did about it up until now.
I think that's really important. I, as a woman, never felt that I was being held back, but I can say that I've been mansplained to an irritated on more than one occasion. and I haven't always had the tools to be able to say, Stop explaining this to me. I, I know more than you are. I know what I'm talking about or don't interrupt me if it's a, if it's a sales meeting. And I also think that encourages bravery by learning about it, by recognizing it, there's going to be a young woman out there.
Who's going to say, I appreciate your expertise, but I have a doctorate in this. She let the adults talk, cause I don't think women were taught to do that historically. And Yeah, I like the direction that pulls things in, even if it's a small bit at a time,
I hope he noted. I didn't interrupt you once in that
you're being very good. No, I'm
well-trained I think is what you're trying to say.
I'm sure you are
now. is there a podcast that you love listening to?
when I used to commute, I heard a lot more podcasts than I do now. I like to answer instead with the first one I ever listened to because the ones I listen to now are normally four. Clients sakes. I don't necessarily get to listen to a lot for pleasure. So the first one that pulled me in and made me love podcasting was the Ricky surveys show. and he would sit with his two friends Karl Pilkington and Steve merchant. they were so funny. They were hilarious and record your visas.
Laugh is absolutely contagious. And I had a very long Workday and I hated where I was working and I just sat with my earphones in and it like made my life bearable that Podcast and that is the first time I realized, The power of it, the undivided attention that I gave it so that when it was presented to me, gosh, five years later, as far as a medium for getting publicity I was really much more excited to start my own.
And I really did feel like I was charge my own Ellen shower or something like that.
Can I just tell you, Jess? Ricky lives down the road from me. Shut your face. He does. He literally lives down the road from me just to let you know, he lives in mall, which is where I am and he never fucking. I'd like to say yes, but knows the answer to that.
I don't care. I'll be there in a couple of days.
We've got, Ricky's just literally moved in
a battle so exciting. You can go. Podcast he's a funny dude. I love every one of his shows. the office is not even my favorite, believe it or not, but yeah, he just put him with his friend, it's actually, he does something that every good comedian I think. Does he finds someone else? That's not funny on purpose. And then he shows the world how funny that person is, even though they're not doing it on purpose. I feel like I attract people like that. And you're like, my husband is hilarious.
Never on purpose, never, but he's so funny to me. Cause he's ridiculous. Do you know what I mean? there's certain things he's just I, this makes no sense to me, but it's hilarious. So he's very good at that. And I enjoy it immensely. Good.
Now, final couple of questions. One of my challenges having run my own podcast, my own festivals is getting females. To speak on podcasts and at festivals and both James and I are trying very hard to reach out to the female community at Podcast is to come onto our show, but we're not being very successful. I have to be honest and say, we are being a typically male in that most of our guests are male and we are talking to males and we are trying very hard. What are we doing wrong?
Why are women notes? Are they more comfortable just talking to other women or are they less comfortable on the mic or are we just dipping in the wrong pool?
Are you saying you're asking and they're saying no, or is it not? it's
that the challenge we've got? If we look around many of the companies in our space that we want to cover happened to have male CEOs, male CTO is male. Founders And so of course you want to hear from the CTO, the founders, the people who are running the businesses and they just happened to be many more by chance males. So what is causing that disparity?
Because we, we'd love, we're finding there's a lot more women in the side of production and creation and that element of it but what is causing that disparity? Oh, women happy on mic. I'm not asking you to talk for everyone in the world. That would be crazy. just based on your experience, do you find that you find it easy to get female guests or is it a hard uphill struggle?
So I'll just say this. when I did the event in 2019, and I opened a call for speakers. I felt like every podcasting company out there, simple cast Triton pod fund, they all pushed forward. Their women, employees to speak. They, I felt like they saw an opportunity. Like finally, someone wants to hear from me.
And so even though they weren't the CEOs and the CTOs or whatever, they were encouraged by their companies to go to be part of the conversation to sponsor, like even the ones that sponsored only sent their women, they didn't send the CEO, the CTO, they sent the women to talk to the women.
As far as why they're not CEOs and CTOs and CFOs, that is the point of international women's day is because women just aren't given those opportunities because, we are classically not given C O opportunities because we have families to raise or because we have kids and it takes our career, for whatever reason, that's an overwhelming every industry problem.
Is that women just aren't in as many leadership positions as men that said when you start thinking about I'll use diversity and event planning, when, when you start thinking about diversity or let's just say you don't like Podcast movement, pod Fest, et cetera, you do your show, you take the speakers, you assign speaking positions you're done and you don't, you're not a racist person.
So you don't necessarily think about whether or not you have a problem in your show because, or in your event, because why would you're not racist. So this means nothing to you. But the problem is that you have to take extra special care to make sure that you have an even amount. Of women versus men or of, people of color versus non people of color are Yvette had 50% women of color LGBTQ or both. And that was not easy. It was hard. It was hard to say no to people who were proven speakers.
It was hard to say no to people who get huge ratings every time, but in order to have a fair representation, You have to say no and say, I need someone new. I need someone different. So I'm not going to say you're barking up any wrong trees. And I'm not going to say that they aren't willing to come on your show.
I think what I would say is knowing that you want to have more women is a good first step, but the next step I think is going out of your way to find all the women owned podcasting businesses and reach out to them specifically and just say I'd really like to talk to you about your business and then whether or not you make that show about having a women owned business is your choice.
But there are women's networks and, frequency media is a company owned by a woman that does huge Podcast for brands like Coca-Cola and stuff like that. I think it's just, if you're not a woman, which you're not, it's hard to know all the women who are doing these things, it's if you're white, you tend to not, it's I looked at my show, my lady business radio show, and I realized I don't know as many black women as I thought I did because I've had 20 episodes and they're all white crap.
And then you re you know, and I think, and it was even with, like, when I went on, when I was looking for those first podcasts, John Lee Dumas and Lewis house, like they were all having. guys like Tim Ferris on their show and it's that's great. We want to interview who we want to emulate. We want to interview who inspires us. And if you're a white man, that's going to be white men. If you're white, that's maybe going to be white people. if you're men, that's going to be men.
If you're women, that's going to be women. But I think. that's who interests us first because that's who we want to emulate on some level. And that's normal. That makes sense. It's only when you think, wow, I could really use some different opinions here that you then start to reach out and say, okay, who else can I get that? Isn't the same guy is that guy and that guy, it's a harder, it's a little, it's a little more effort, but I think it's worth it.
speaking of diversity I, until I think we just did a, there's a, w there's a women in color podcasters group and they have a directory. And until they started that directory, I had no idea how many women of color had production companies or even were editors. I only knew white men.
And then if three white women, and that's not because I. Have no diver, it's really because that's who because that's who people promote because that's who gets speaking gigs and so on and so on, which is why I'm saying it just takes a little like extra effort to make sure that other people are represented. It has to be like a. It has to be a commitment that you have to be committed to finding voices. No one has heard.
No one has heard, regardless of, and even the, I think the, I know I'm talking a lot. I'm sorry, I'm rambling. But like even the CEO and the CTO, those are people's gets because they have a bigger audience. They have more influence. They're going to be, podcasters want to interview the people who are the top bananas, even if they are similar. Lee represented everywhere. So I also think, I don't think it's a matter of not wanting to have other voices.
I think it's just natural to go after people with the biggest audiences. And then later on you realize, Oh, they're all going to be white men because of course they are, you just don't realize it. It's why I think it's so great about changing our society. But yeah, I think if you. Found a directory and started looking at w women owned businesses or, who, I'm trying to think off the top of my head, like simple cast is a good example. She's the head of marketing.
She's not the CEO, but that's who came and spoke for us. PRX is mostly women run. the CEO of Libsyn is a woman. But again, like it's not that long of a list and it's only a list that I know in my head because of the event without that event, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't even know who to recommend to you.
so James and I will work harder. I promise
that I really didn't want to imply that. But for everyone who looks at their list and goes, Oh no, that's, it's because you have to commit to it.
Yeah, it does. It does. You're right. It does take extra. Effort and it's worth the effort. Okay. So Jess reminded everyone very quickly. When's the event and how they can get
tickets. The event is October 14th through the 17th, and you can go to she Podcast dot com slash register. And if I can just take a minute to say that. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is invited. The reason we have an event that's women centric is simply because we want to have advertisers that speak to women. We want to have atmosphere that speaks to women. We want to have food and swag and all the things that are, meant just for them. It doesn't mean that men can't come.
it just means that, the content may be more female centric. It doesn't mean we're talking about menstruation. It just means, although it could come up.
it shows there's a Podcast on that as
well, somewhere many podcasts on that, but yeah, it just, if you are listening and you are male, God bless you. I do love men so much. she podcasts.com forward slash live, and you can learn all about the event and register.
Brilliant, Jess, thank you so much for your time. Have a great day.
How does more information at she? podcasts.com. So James,
what's going on in Podland for you this month.
it's busy I've managed to talk myself into writing a chapter of a book. So that was a clever plan. but still, but there we are looking forward to today's Asia in a couple of weeks time, lots of good Podcast type people are speaking. there's a discount code in the pod news newsletter at the moment, radio days, Asia dock. Calm. I'm also speaking at the pod Fiesta summit on April the 10th, which is in three weeks time and that's in Adelaide. I will be here in the home studio in Brisbane.
I said, own studio in the office in Brisbane. Sam how will you be celebrating the 32nd birthday of the web tomorrow?
I will be remembering having it. Lunch with Tim Ben is lead before he was , uh, uh, naturally asking him. So what do you do? which was probably the stupidest question. That's for
the man who invented the internet, the man who owned NBC said, will he appeared on the Olympics? we're not quite sure who this guy is, that
guy. So yes. And Netscape lunch in which I had the honor of sitting next to Tim and I literally had no idea who he was at the time. Now I would die for that company, the station. I would absolutely want to ask him a hundred questions, but right then and there, I didn't know who he was and I didn't know what he'd done until he explained. But he'd invented the weapon and I went, Oh, okay. I don't even think I was that impressed. I think
I just went, could you pass this? Could you
pass the salt? I think it was to that extent. It was so crazy. Oh my wow. Anyway, tomorrow's it's 32nd birthday. One of the things I find truly amazing in the chronology of the web is that. If you haven't read the book of Steve jobs life it's basically Steve jobs left Apple created next, gave next first computers to CERN and gave them to Tim because he needed a powerful computer. And that's where the first web pages were built. So I find it really quite weird that Steve jobs was involved in.
Some way tangentially creating the web as well.
Gosh, dreadful man. So I'm not quite sure how I feel about that, but it's still there. We are. I love my bombshell. That's it for this week. If you enjoyed your trip to Podland come back again. Next time you can follow this podcast on all the major Podcast players. See what I did there Sam or visit our website at Podland dot news. And if you enjoyed
this episode, So thank you. And please tell your friends by sharing us on your socials, we'd love to have your comments by anything on the show today. Send us a voice comment to questions at Podland dot news or tweet us at Podland
news. And we do have a question, but what we just got no time for it this week. So we promised we'll do it next week. If you want daily news, you should get the daily pod news newsletter. It's free a pod news.net, and that's where you'll find all of the links for all of the stories we've mentioned this week. I edited a subscribe out of that bit too. you'll be impressed to hear music is from ignite jingles. We used squad cast for our interviews this week, as well as possibly zoom.
What do you use?
Sadly, zoom and
squad cars. Yes. So him and squat cast and we're looking forward to trying Riverside in the next couple of weeks as well. Anyway, it was edited by me on Hinton, bow journalist pro, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. We'll see you in
Portland next week. Keep following.