to our podcasting community, from creators to advertisers and beyond. Our thoughts are with you as Southern California grapples with these devastating wildfires. We're here for you through this challenging time. Stay safe, as safe as you can. Wow, what a way to start 2025. The Feed. Hello, I am Elsie Escobar, Director of Community and Content for Libsyn. And this is episode 284 of The Feed, the official Libsyn podcast, the podcast that takes it beyond how to podcast into
Keeping you podcasting with podcasting tips and information for the everyday podcaster and taking you inside Libsyn. Now, in addition to discussing the devastation of the wildfires in L.A. We share updates on public domain content for 2025, the Zoom H1XLR, the Shure MV7i advice for starting a podcast in 2025. the overwhelming popularity of true crime podcasts, exploring audience insights and trends, and of course, stats, this time mean and median numbers.
Now, if you are starting a podcast or simply looking to find a new home for your podcast, use the code THEFEED, all one word, to get your first month free. Listen, folks, this podcast thrives on your voices. We would love to promote you and your show. Send in your 30 to 60 second show promo slash trailer. or even an episode trailer by emailing thefeed at libsyn.com. If you don't have a promo, but you want your voice on the show.
Ask us a question or add to the conversation that you hear on an episode and send us voice feedback. You can call us at 412-573-1934 or you can use Speakpipe. at speakpipe.com slash the feed. I'll be keeping an eye out on our email. And I will let you know when and if you are going to be featured on the show. It is always first come, first serve. So the sooner you get your info to me, the sooner I can get you in the queue.
And now on to our main conversation with Rob Walsh, VP of Podcaster Relations at Libsyn, as well as my co-host, right after the first featured voice of this episode, Sevilla Morgan. Hello there, Rob and Elsie. This is Sevilla Morgan from the Childless Not By Choice podcast and the Not Just Another Religion and Politics podcast. I'm stopping by to wish the feed a happy 20th birthday.
Thank you for all you do to keep us in the know and the know-how. I would be lost without you. No joke. Here's to another 20 years. Cheers. Hello, Rob. Good generic time of the day, Elsie. How are you doing? My gosh, what a way to start 2025. Yeah. Yes. And we are, of course, talking about the...
Fires in LA and our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those in the LA area being affected by the wildfires. Of course, thanks to all the firefighters and first responders out there doing what they're doing to help people. We know of one person that has been affected by this. I mean, we know probably more than one, but you want to talk about Lance here?
Yeah, absolutely. One of our, we actually just spoke about him in our last episode when we talked about the new inductees for the Hall of Fame, Lance Anderson. who founded the LA Podcasters way back in the day and is still doing his show and is going to be inducted. Unfortunately, they... They lost both of their studios that were in Altadena from the pictures that I saw online. And I'm going to put a link in our show notes just so that you can take a look at Lance's post directly.
to see the devastation that happened. And it is just heartbreaking and devastating. So sorry, Lance, that you're going through all of that. And we hope to be able to offer some kind of support here. Maybe something has already popped up because we are recording the week prior to when you are going to be hearing this.
you folks that are listening. So I just wanted to let you know that that's a thing that's happening and very unfortunate, absolutely unfortunate. We also know that there are a ton of podcasters based out. of Los Angeles, right? There's a ton of content creators that are based out of Los Angeles. And I follow many of them. And I have seen a lot of them. I think almost every one of them have to evacuate.
So this is impacting, I think, our industry in terms of the creator industry to see how many folks were really affected by this for sure. So it's just awful. Thoughts and prayers out to everybody, and hopefully we'll get these fires under control before you hear this episode. Absolutely. All right. Well, given our history of the show on the first episode of the year, we tend to talk about what the new public domain stuff is. Right, Rob?
Right. And well, first thing we want to tell you is we forgot, I think, the first episode of last year, which was to remind you to update your copyright field. It's now 2025. Oh, did you do it for us? No, not yet. But by the time they hear this, it will have been updated. Okay. Yes. By the time this episode comes out, it will have been updated. So yes, go in, update your copyright field. But again, of course, the public domain is the more important thing.
And that every new year means more content loses their copyright and enters the public domain. And if you want to do an audio book as a podcast or your own adaptation of a story of some book. that said farewell to their copyright at the beginning of the year and entered the public domain. Some of those books include A Farewell to Arms. See what I did there? Okay. And by Ernest Hemingway.
Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie. Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. John Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold. Plus some other books, including The Sound of Fury, The Maltese Falcon. All Quiet on the Western Front, the English version, and many, many more. So if you're looking for doing something, want to create some audiobooks, there are some that are in public domain that could use that. For those doing video...
Twelve more Mickey Mouse animations lost their copyright, including ones with Mickey's iconic white gloves. So the Mickey Mouse that we know today kind of started with the white gloves. That Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain. Spite Marriage, Buster Keaton's last silent film is available. Blackmail, Alfred Hitchcock's first talkie. The Black Watch, John Ford's first talkie. Dynamite, Cecil B. DeMille's first talkie. And on with the show, the first talkie all-color.
Feature length film is now in the public domain. No, it was not Wizard of Oz. It was on with the show. Then there are some characters that have... entered the public domain. We talked about Winnie the Pooh previously, and then the horror movies that came out about Winnie the Pooh from that. Well, Popeye and Tintin also both make it into the public domain now.
So anyone wanting to have a Popeye Tintin crossover podcast, go for it. You can even have them hanging out with Buck Rogers, who just entered the public domain as well. Yes. Well, can you imagine Popeye horror movie? I could totally see it. It's like one of those, like a slasher thing on a boat.
You know what I mean? I don't know if Olive Oil and Brutus are in the public domain yet. I don't know if they made it into the comic strips that have been released. I think that Olive Oil was in the public domain. earlier from what I read on the thing that you sent. Okay. Which is strange. Like I just very quickly scanned over that information, but there's a lot of characters now that you can create a podcast around and be okay to do that.
And then you could have some music in there if you want to create your own music compositions that enter the public domain, include singing in the rain, singing in the rain, I'm singing in the rain. See, I couldn't do that the last episode, but I can do that this episode. Can you? Okay. So, all right. I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but this is something that I'm not quite understanding. I believe that...
Is it the song that is in the public domain versus the compilation, as in like the music in Singing in the Rain is not public domain, like in the movie, right? Right. In the movie. So singing in the rain, the song, so this is composition. So this is the... I understand it. I'm not a lawyer, so double check. But I understand the composition means the lyrics and the musical tone.
That's the composition. Then there's the recording, which is the actual recording. So like we could play in the background on this episode, California, Here I Come by Al Jolson. We could take that original recording that's in there. So composition, like tiptoe through the tulips, is in the public domain. So we could pull out our own ukulele and play tiptoe through the tulips and not have to worry, but we can't play...
Tiptoe Through the Tulips with Tiny Tim on his ukulele, because that's something different. And then, let's see, Happy Days Are Here Again, and many other music compositions are available. Then you go to the recordings, again, what you can play in the background without you having to do any work. Yeah. And then the ones that are available. And these are music recordings that happened in 1924. So it's weird. Some of the... Popeye was 1929. There's like a...
Anything after 95 years on some become public, but the recordings, the music recordings are 100 years. So anything that was from 1924 becomes in the public domain in 2025. So that's where California era come by Al Jolson, Rhapsody. blue by george gershwin mama's gone goodbye by ray miller and this orchestra and um and it had to be you uh only it had to be you anyway you know the song um by
Isham Jones and Marion Harris, that recording, and others. But you could actually put that in the background now if you had the original recording, not by someone who did it after 1924. It gets a little confusing. We have a link.
If you plan to use any of this, check it out. They give us a little bit more information than we do here. Yeah. And if you need artwork for your shows, right, because you need artwork, Salvador Dali had three pieces that entered the public domain that included... illumined pleasures, the accommodations of desire, and the great...
I can't say that next word on the show. Mas? Mas, yeah, it's a word that begins with M-A-S. Oh. Yeah. Anyway, let's just say that was Salvador Dali's frisky period. So not the melting clocks, but... Yeah, some other stuff that's not so G-rated. Oh, I was like, what are you talking about? No, not going to say it out loud. Nope, not going to do it. Hey, folks, listen, I'm just going to call this out now. Rob didn't even write the word. So I'm looking at going like the great mass.
I don't even know what's happening here. And my brain doesn't, sometimes it takes a while. Yeah, I don't need a call from HR. Okay. Anyway, point is. There is artwork that gets entered into the public domain that you can then use for your show artwork. Link in the show notes to this year's treasure trove of public domain content. And of course...
Any one of you start a podcast based on any of this or use any of this content in your podcast, let us know and we'll give you a shout out. I always like to hear if people are using any of this now that it's available. I do recommend... If you use any of this music from 1924 in your podcast, in your show notes, you state that for the episode that that music is now in the public domain so that Spotify does not kick you out because since...
November 1st, Spotify has taken down over a thousand episodes and or shows that had music in them since November 1st. Wow. Yes. So their bot is out there looking for music. Every day I get emails. Some days I get 50 to 100 emails, but most of the days it's like 10 or 15, 20. of songs that they found, the bots and Spotify found and took down. There was one that was just taken down by a friend of ours.
I won't give names because he can give approval. But anyway, he created his own music and he had his podcast taken down. He's like, why is my podcast not on Spotify? And we looked and we found the email from Spotify back on December 2nd that said they're taking his podcast down. And he's like... because of copyright he's like i created the music so always best when you use music in your podcast to say that you have the rights or the music is in the public domain just
Put something in there stating that, and hopefully the bots will see that part in the notes and go, okay, and skip over it. At least you can be snarky when they do take it down and say, look, I had it in my show notes. If anything else, if you do get it taken down, you have the satisfaction of being snarky. Well, now that we are done with some of those public domain stuff. We're moving into some fun new technology in case anybody wants to up-level their gear.
And the first thing that I'm bringing to... I don't know how... This is new to me. This might have been released, actually, Rob, prior to me talking about this. It's just popped into my feed. Maybe they're doing some really wonderful... ads? Well, it's CES, right? So you got a lot of tech coming in right now. So the beginning of the year is CES. That's where the second item you're going to talk about that you're going to cost me 350 bucks on.
The second item, it was definitely a CES announcement. Okay. So this first one here, it is the Zoom. And this is Zoom as in like the tech Zoom, right? Zoom Corp. is a handheld recorder. It's the H1XLR. Now the H1 has been around for a while and it actually was, it wasn't one of the strongest releases for them for a long time. This, I'm assuming that this is.
a new, obviously, iteration of that H1, and that is what it's called, H1XLR. All links will be in the show notes in case you want to check these out. This is a little bit of marketing speak. From the page, when you see this, equipped with two locking XLR-TRS combo inputs, the H1XLR is ready to record microphones, stereo board feeds, instruments, and more. The 3.5mm stereo input allows you to record on-camera mics, lavaliers, phones, and other sources.
Connect the H1XLR to your mobile device via the USB-C port and record professional audio directly onto your phone's video. Perfect for video podcasts, live streams, and more. 32-bit float audio interface. Connect to PC, Mac, iOS, or Android device and use a H1XLR as an audio interface while simultaneously recording to the SD card. The H1XLR is designed with accessibility for the blind and visually impaired. Navigate the menu with audible descriptions through the built-in speaker or headphones.
And you can choose a handful of languages for that. Now, what's really lovely about this little gadget, it's that it's $149.99. So it's fairly inexpensive, $150. You get a lot. You get a big bang. for the buck. And Rob, it is a tiny little thing. Like when I saw pictures of it in people's hands, it's kind of the size almost have like a phone. It's maybe even smaller, maybe even like the iPhone mini. It looks like it's a little bit smaller than the H6. So if you're familiar with the H6.
No, I don't get their numbering system. The H1 has two inputs, but the H6 has four. I think the other two... I know. I'm like, wait, don't mess with my head. I don't want to start to question their numbering capabilities. But... What's really cool about that? And oh, and you know what? That's so weird because it leads into the next thing. One of the solutions that this brings is that it allows for you, like, let's say you have a co-host that is in your location.
You are with this co-host and you are seated next to this co-host. One of the key questions that we get all the time from people that are starting a podcast is that, that if you are. With a co-host next to you, how do you now record on one computer and two microphones? this device would be the solution to that problem. So you would connect your little handheld recorder into... your computer and then input both of the microphones into the H1XLR via two XLR inputs. So you could just do that.
And that would solve that problem. So that is the $149.99 situation. But now we're moving into something I guess Rob is interested in here, I'm sure. And it is the MV7i. So we've got many MV7s. In fact, I'm using an MV7 right now to record. I have the MV7, I think, X plus. Anyway, I have one of them that I have in front of me. And this one is the I. Do you want to talk about what the I is? Right. So from there, we'll give their quote.
The first of its kind USB microphone complete with a built-in audio interface. It simplifies two-channel recording on computers, tablets, and smartphones. Connect the MV7i to your computer, tablet, or smartphone. via USB-C to enable effortless two-channel recording, plug an XLR mic, or instrument into the combo XLR and quarter-inch input and manage both channels with the Motive Mix desktop or mobile app. So the microphone itself, the MV7i, has an XLR...
slash quarter inch input jack. Yes, input, not export. Input. And then a USB-C output. So if you are doing an interview, you can have the guest mic. plugged into your MV7i, and then from there, via USB-C, you can connect both to a laptop, an iPad, or a smartphone. Note, the second mic needs to be XLR output. So that means it cannot be another MV7i. You can't have two of these, but you could have an MV7B or the microphone that you have, Elsie, or a Shure SM58.
or Yeti Pro, as long as that other microphone supports XLR output, then you can plug that into the MV7i, and then via USB, you plug that into your device.
It's not so much mobile. This would be more studio where you don't have a producer, right? This is a nice setup where you don't have a producer, but you have two mics and... you want them both to come in and you're going to record on the laptop or more likely an iPad if something doesn't have a fan and you're there and you want to monitor that while connected and this is one way to do that and have two good microphones.
I've been hesitant to get the MV7B for a long time, and knowing I need to, and I'm just thinking, okay, this might be the time I have to break out the credit card and get an MV7 series, and this one might be the one. No, I totally understand. Now, I have one comment on this, which is the part that I'm unsure about, and I believe something like this was also...
I really tried to nail that when Shure released their wireless microphones that I was really interested in. I forgot what the name of those were. But the way in which they can do... software-wise, what they are promoting here is that the recording part of it happens through the Motive desktop or mobile app. I want to know if the effortless two-channel audio recording can also happen using your DAW of choice.
That's a good question. So that's the part that I'm not sure about, only because the thing that happened with the wireless microphones. is because the way that they were able to record into true tracks was, and this was the part that I was like, oh my God, this is so great. It's because they were via Bluetooth. And as you know, recording in Bluetooth.
Or being able to route audio in and out and Bluetooth is a whole thing in itself. Like it's not something hardware can fix. It's a protocol type of a thing. It is very challenging for you to get, like, if you're using your AirPods to listen to, you know, when you're recording or something like that, you usually can't hear yourself because of the... of the way that bluetooth works like there's you just can't do that there's a delay slightly yeah and but with the wireless sure the microphones
you were able to record in two separate tracks with each one of the microphones, which was amazing. But that only happened if you were using the mobile app, because in the mobile app, the Shure team. can control and has added, like the advancement of the app itself is so proprietary to the way that Shure has done the production of this thing. So I'm wondering. If the MV7i is like that too, or because it's not Bluetooth, you can...
record in two separate tracks using your DAW of choice because there will be, when you connect it, you'll see two channels to your computer? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. And I can see the advantage of being able to do it into DAW. That way you don't have to then transfer it from their software to your software and it saves you a bunch of time. Yeah. So I don't know, but whatever. Regardless, though, this is probably one of the most innovative.
pieces of hardware that has been released in a long time as it pertains to having it be a you know a microphone and i have a feeling they probably saw what was going on with creators and the questions that keep coming up because I cannot tell you how many people keep asking the same questions. But wait, I'm starting a podcast. I'm recording with my wife.
We have two microphones. How do we do two microphones into the computer? And you had mentioned, you know, in the previous item for $149, people go, well, why don't we just use the Zoom H1 XLR? And you can do that, too. You can have the two mics coming in. Yes, you can, but you have to have those two mics. In this scenario, one of those mics, you're getting covered in that 349. So basically, you're paying $200 for an MV7 microphone.
And for another $149, they're throwing in the Zoom H1 without the recorder. So just to let you know why I'm more excited on the $349, it's the fact that, hey, here's a microphone. with basically a Focusrite in there or, you know, an M-Audio preamp, you know, mixer, two-microphone mixer in there for a microphone that normally goes for $350, and now you're just throwing that in.
Yeah, it makes sense. It's if you know what you're getting in the mix and it's the multimodality of that and the way that you can. Yeah, I mean, it just makes things easier, so much lighter. But you're right. I don't. feel that this is the gear for a mobile setup no no the mv7 series is not a mobile microphone this is Again, to me, where I see this coming into play is you have a studio, you have someone that's coming to you face-to-face for recording, and you don't have a producer.
And you want to have all of this in a nice clean little setup coming into the laptop or your iPhone or your, more than likely, again, a tablet or something like that where you don't have fan noise and you can be in a small room. each facing each other microphones pointed away from one another and do this recording or in their picture if we shouldn't dismiss this part of it you can also plug in a quarter inch which means you can plug in your guitar and you can play your guitar and
saying at the same time. But I don't sing on this podcast often. And when I do, very shortly and very low, because if I did anything, you would know why I don't sing. It had to be you. Anyway, so we'll go back to just the talkies. We like the talkies. We like the talkies. Oh, my God. In this case, again, you could plug. a Shure SM58 or an MV7B into the back of the MV7i and then plug that in via USB to your laptop or tablet or smartphone of choice.
So those are two things that are really exciting. If you know any other gear that you want us to talk about, just email the feed at libsyn.com. Send us your voice feedback if you happen to be at CES. Hey, send us some audio feedback from the show floor, things that you saw. That would be amazing.
We'll play it in our next episode. That would be lovely. Okay, Rob, I just kind of wanted to pick your brain a little bit here just to help out some of the, you know, folks are starting podcasts. Again, they always start to the podcasting situation. every beginning of the year. And I have a question for you. So from what you saw last year in podcasting, what would you advise a new podcaster that's just starting out? You don't have to do video.
Regardless of everything you're going to read and everything that you're going to hear about how last year was the year of video or this year is the year of video. You don't have to do that. If you're just starting out, you can start out doing audio. And if you're doing audio, you don't have to transition to video either, by the way. I think that's going to be part of my...
speech at PodFest, by the time you hear this, this week, when I give my Lunch and Learn, part of it is going to be like, look, you keep doing audio. Audio is easier to do. It puts you on a more level playing field. And at the end of the day, people have more time for audio than they do for video. And remember, when you do video, you're not competing against other video podcasters. You're competing against Major League Baseball.
The NFL and Netflix and Disney Plus, which Skeleton Crew, I'm liking it so far. And Landmen. which I'm really liking. So there is a lot that you're going to compete with on the video side when you get into video. So my first advice to new podcasters starting out to don't spend over $150 either. So stay audio.
Go with a microphone setup that you're not spending more than $150. See if things work out. See if you like doing it before you go out there. I mean, I've seen podcast starter kits at $1,500. Are you kidding me? That's not a starter kit. Keep your costs down and focus on a simple setup where you're worrying about the content and not the equipment. That's...
my advice for new folks. And then the other thing is pick a content that you're going to do it on that you are passionate about. Even if there's 20 other podcasts on that same topic or more, you're going to bring your personality.
And you're going to bring your knowledge base to it that makes you different than all the other podcasts about that topic. And I would have said, and we'll talk about it maybe at the end of this episode, don't do a true crime podcast, but that would have been bad advice if I said that to you last year.
So I'm not going to say that. Just pick any topic that you are passionate about. What do you listen to podcast wise? Look at your playlist. That's probably a good indicator of what you should be doing a podcast about. So there is my off the cuff.
And again, I'll talk about that a little bit more at PodFest this week. With data. Yeah, I think that if I were to say to somebody who's starting a podcast that doesn't really know too much about... podcasting, but have been creating content for a long time online that to allow yourself to be more creative or don't hold yourself. to the structure that you currently see in a lot of the YouTube podcasts that you see out there where you see two people sitting on a couch and you see the...
microphones in their faces and that it's just all set up the same. And for some reason, there's a lot of new folks that are looking at those podcasts and labeling that, only that. as a podcast. And then when you start a podcast, you also have to have couches and you also have to have a camera and you also have to have these microphones in front of your face.
That's not what makes a podcast. So if you currently, like, let's say already have a YouTube presence and you have been making YouTube videos. and you say now that you want to have a podcast, it doesn't mean now that you have to get a couple couches and microphones in front of you. You have a microphone.
You can make a podcast. You can just talk by yourself. In fact, you don't even have to have a co-host. Imagine that. You also don't have to have a guest. You don't have to have other people on your podcast. You also don't have to have all the fancy lights or anything like that. You can very easily just turn on your microphone.
Have a topic that you want to cover that's very specific to the types of conversations that you want to have, the types of... information that you would like to share, the things that you're curious about or the things that your audience is curious about, and you want to go a little deeper into it because... That's what I've seen in terms of the YouTube side of things. A lot of the YouTube videos tend to be around 10 minutes. They tend to pack a lot of information into these short form.
videos because they are providing a depth of information that is aimed at the optimal delivery within the YouTube ecosystem. But when you start a podcast, you can actually cover the same exact episodes of things that you've covered in the past, just in a longer format. And you don't have to worry.
about just cutting it down, I guess. You know, and I'm speaking because I know that there's a lot of folks out there that I just saw somebody that is considering quitting. In fact, I believe that they are going to quit this year. And from my understanding of why they're quitting, they found finding guests very challenging. They found the investment. I believe, they didn't call this out specifically, but from what they were talking about, the investment in the studio setting was...
becoming too much based on the amount of money that was coming back to them. Right. So they were really investing a lot more with not enough money coming back. And I just my first question was, what are you paying for? A quiet room with no echo, unlike this one I'm in. And less than $150 in equipment. You can get going. Yeah, and if you want to have a video, that's okay.
But you don't have to make the video be what you see on YouTube. That's the part that I get a little frustrated at. There's a way for you to be able to record video with your... podcast that is unique to you. That's the part that I feel is missing with a lot of the way that the video of it all started to come out is that There feels to me that we think that if we are going to be putting a video component into the podcast, it has to be that the couches and the...
Colorful lights in the background and the boco camera angle and the blurry background. And it's all very cookie cutter in the way that it's produced. I feel you can have, this is just my personal opinion. I don't know. I don't have facts or data to verify this, but I do feel you can have a video podcast with you shooting yourself. in an interesting angle, in a relatively okay location, as long as it is, there's not too many things happening in the background and you have...
decent lighting or even if you're just near a window and you just record as long as your audio is strong. I don't know, man, Rob. Like sometimes I'm in fact, I don't even think that you need to be on camera. That's kind of what I've been like looking at. I'm like. Is there a way for you to record your hands? Is there a way for you to record your desk? Is there a way for you to record from the side? Is there a way for you to have the camera facing something else and you're just talking?
I think that there's so much other ways to become creative with a video podcast that does not incorporate the cookie cutter way that people are doing videos right now. That's just my personal opinion. And then... The other advice that podcasters, you mentioned a little bit about length, is length. Don't worry about the length. Whatever you have content-wise for an episode, go with it. There's no such thing as too long and podcast only too boring. And the majority of podcasts...
are over an hour, as for the popular ones. So the majority of popular podcasts are over an hour. If you're worried about your episodes being too long, they're not. Matter of fact, if you are purposely trying to clip them short...
you're probably doing a big disservice. Just, you got 45 minutes of content, do a 45 minute episode. You got 90 minutes of content, do a 90 minute. Whatever it is that you've got, do it. So that's the other advice there on that. And then the other thing is, don't give up. After the first five episodes, yes, podcasting is harder than blogging. Commit to doing a good 25, 30 episodes. We do see the pod fading at two groups, less than 10 around episode five.
And then around episode 50, because people committed to doing a year, and then, oh, I'm not making any money. And hopefully you're not getting into it to make money. Hopefully you're getting into it because you want to do it. There's a lot better ways to spend your time and money. If you're looking to make money then in podcasting. Yeah. You got to be a little bit more focused. I think like, I guess if I were to just advise, even a new or a podcaster has been around for a long time is.
to be very intentional with why you're podcasting. And if you do want to make money, then you have to put in the work to be able to craft a business plan around that. Just because you have a restaurant and you've opened a restaurant, it doesn't automatically mean people are going to come and eat at your restaurant, even if you are the best maker of whatever. Fried chicken.
right? You have to create a plan on how to get butts in seats, how much money you're going to be spending on your food, how many people need to eat at your restaurant on the daily in order for you to be profitable. What your rent is like? I mean, there's all kinds of questions, right? I don't know why folks think that if they start a podcast, they should just make money somehow. The podcast itself is not.
an asset unless you make it so. And you've got to plan on that stuff. We want to talk about the new headline du jour. Oh my God, the new headline du jour. Goodness gracious. It's anything. Blank, blank, blank. They beat Joe Rogan. That's the headline. That's like the new. What's the other thing? Podcasting is. What is the other one, Rob? That is like that keeps coming up almost every single year.
Podcasting is dead. Podcasting is surging. Exactly. There's a resurgence. Every single year, there's like a headline that says something like that. So this is the new one. Blank, blank, beat Joe Rogan. And that's like. Oh, and then people run with it. Like they don't even read. Right. Let's just be clear. Okay. Joe Rogan is an order of magnitude above every other podcast. So Call Her Daddy is one level down. And most other podcasts are another order of magnitude below Call Her Daddy. But nobody.
has beat joe rogan nobody is close to joe rogan the daily none of them are close to joe rogan when the daily finally hit a billion downloads joe was at like two over two billion I mean, it wasn't even close. At one point in time, there were four podcasts over a billion downloads, and Joe Rogan was at four and a half when the fourth one made it to a billion. And he's gotten much more popular since then.
So what happens is they look at the Apple charts and they go, oh, well, look, in the Apple charts for the shows, Joe Rogan is now number two behind podcast du jour. And they forget that how Apple podcast charts. ranking for shows works. It's based on the number of new subscribers for the last seven days with a weighted average for the last 24, 48, and 72 hours. Apple does this to make their list very dynamic rather than it being a static list, which is smart on their part.
But unfortunately, people that report on this just look at the list and think, oh, well, that just means this show now has more download. No, a show that started a week ago does not have more listeners than Joe Rogan. It may only have... 5,000 listeners and could beat Joe Rogan in a given day because in that given day when the show launched, it had 5,000 new subscribers, well, followers, sorry. And Joe Rogan only had...
4,000 new followers that day sign up. So that's what the rankings are about. There's some other remnant thing that gets put in there that helps. But overall, the rankings are really... skewed based on new followers in the last seven days. And unfortunately, you're going to see articles about that. So what's good to note is look at who wrote the article and just keep in mind anything they write about podcasting from that point forward, you can ignore.
Because they don't know the space. And I think that that's part of the deal there where you were saying, like, there's a lot of folks who don't quite understand. how that works, right? And for some of the OG podcasters that have been doing it for a long time, they understand like they've always wanted to hit like the top 100.
And they know that when they hit the top 100, they feel proud because they know it's a fleeting thing, right? They know like, oh, my God, I did it this week. And they know that they got a lot of uptake on their latest episodes. They're not expecting to now just be in the top 100. And it's really just more about their understanding that their content is doing better than others. And then there's a level of excitement of that. They also understand that it is.
Like you were talking about, it's algorithmic and it has to do with a lot of the action that's happening within that platform. And I think having a screenshot of you above. Joe Rogan is kind of cool. It's cool, right? I think I'm going to say, Rob, host of Podcast 411, the podcast that for five years outranked Joe Rogan's podcast.
In iTunes, because iTunes was out five years before Rogan launched. So, yeah, there we go. I'll put that in my bio and see if that gets picked up by anybody. And in all honesty, it does bring attention to things, right? Because then you're like, oh, my God. Right. And you just go in there because the messaging within these headlines and or articles is essentially presenting the conversation that.
This specific topic of this specific podcast also is important. It's also a show that you need to follow. And look, Joe Rogan isn't. all of that, right? We can also beat him. And I just feel that, I mean, I understand it from the PR perspective, because it does bring... eyes on newly launched shows, right? It brings PR. It brings headlines. It brings curiosity. You might...
be able to reach an audience that maybe you wouldn't have reached. Meaning if they read that headline, they're like, oh, I wonder what that show is about. So that you do create that sense and they might get some new audience members based on that. So that in itself is great.
But I guess the reality is it's a totally different ballgame. Like, why would you even want to beat Joe? There's no beating Joe Rogan. It's sort of like I don't even have an allegory. Like if it's like I'm going to get an Oscar this year. You know, just going to win an Oscar. I'm not. I don't even live in LA. I'm not even acting. It's kind of like that, like why that's not a goal that I might maybe I can win something for the local, you know, I don't know, creator of the year in my municipality.
That's something I could aim for. Something like that. But I'm not going to sit there and put myself in that. It's a totally different ballgame. Anyway, that's just making me angry because there's so many headlines that are just moving into this and I'm like...
Just stop it, people. Yep. And I tried to stop it online, trying to explain to people, no, this is not. And I'm like, okay. They don't care, Rob. They don't. They honestly don't care. It doesn't matter how much you know, and it doesn't matter how much you explain. They don't want to know because they beat them. Okay, just go about your business. Then go do the thing. So here is an email. Hi, Robin Elsie.
I've recently been getting a lot of traffic from a user agent called WM Player. Never seen it before and wondered what you can tell us. At the same time, been getting a lot of international traffic. I'm U.S. based. Could these be related? Regards, KJ. So WM Player saw an uptick for some users in October, and then it was gone. And then looking at KJ's stats... All of the WM player downloads were in October, and there are none since November 1st.
And yes, they're international. So it's something we're looking into, but it was a weird anomaly came in and then again, gone. So sometimes these happen, a new service, something. launches, they come in and it's a new application, update to an application sometimes, and the user agent is off. There's a lot of different reasons for this. But on this one, we...
We checked it down, and again, it was a really short burst in a couple days, and we noticed it as well. But it has since not come back. So that's the long and the short. Sorry, it's not. New listeners. The answer that KJ is looking for is, did I get a whole bunch of new listeners? And the answer to KJ is no. Sorry. And in kind of staying on that conversation, we had another email. Hi, love the podcast. Our podcast hosted on Libsyn is Relentless Health Value.
I have a question about user agents, which you covered before, but thought I'd follow up to see if others might be seeing this. Or if you have any further insights, in 2024, we've seen the user agent Firefox grew quite a bit versus... the same period in 2023. And I can't figure out where these downloads are coming from. Any advice what to look for, or maybe some aggregator app is using the user agent Firefox slash Mozilla.
Stats below showing Firefox coming in as number three, which just don't feel right. For what it's worth, I think that Firefox numbers are coming out of the Lipson Classic feed. Thanks. This is from Tom. Tom, short answer is Firefox and our stats is a mixture of Firefox, the browser, and the media player used by it that is also used by multiple other apps.
Right now, sadly, Firefox is more than just Firefox. So when I talk about stats and I mentioned Firefox, it's really Firefox and other, to be more accurate. We're looking at getting that broken out in the future, but right now just note that, yes, you are correct in your assumption that it is more than just Firefox, that there are user applications that are using the Firefox Media Player. There you go.
And now moving on to PodTrack's top 25 new shows of 2024 that was released, obviously, at the end of year last year. Can you put in here that it was really depressing? It was really depressing. Almost all of them are true crime podcasts. I mean, really, folks. Yeah. Are you not burned out enough on podcasts about people killing people or maybe not killing people?
I get it. I totally understand, Rob. And here's my take on this, is that, yes, there's still the salacious, murderous types of true crime podcasts, right, that are... very much like getting the tea on horrible things. But there's also a whole slew of true crime producers and podcasters. that are doing very interesting, innovative work. And true crime is actually expanding to include a lot more than just like murder and essay of some kind.
Right. And some of them, I realize some of them are focused on, well, this person didn't kill that person. Right. So it's not. Correct. It's not. Yes. Depending on how you spin it. And some of them are. Obviously, there was the one, what was the name of the girl from Thanos, right?
And there's about her. And that had nothing to do with murder. That was amazing, by the way. Yes. One of my faves. And I'm sure there's more than one or two about Sam Bankman fraud. Well, fraud. Whatever you want to call him. Okay. SBF, right? They're not all, I realize they're not all true crime podcasts. One are about true crime or two about murder, but they're all in that genre.
You know, if you had asked me a year ago what to tell people not to do, I would have told them don't do true crime podcasts. And I would have been wrong, clearly, because most of these were popular ones were true crime. I mean, come on, can you do some nice history podcasts? How about some more about, you know, where they talk about armies killing people? Shoot, that doesn't work. Darn. Still, death. How about AI podcasts where it's about AI killing people? All right. Never mind.
And when I say almost all of the top 25 are true crime, it's actually 18 of the top 25. That's a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is a lot, but there are some things that are not that. Now, all of the top 10. were true crime. And I'm going through the list, and I literally thought I was looking at the top 25 true crime list for 2024, not the top 25 of all genre list.
Literally, I'm like, oh, this must be the wrong list I'm looking at. This must be just the true crime list. And then it got to number 11, and it was not true crime. I don't think it is. It's Dan Bongino, so I don't think it was meant to be true crime. Anyway, so... Let me just give you the, here are the top 10, by the way. Mortal Sin was number one. Two, Blood is Thicker, The Harrigan Family Killings. Three, Murder in the Hollywood Hills. Four, Happy Never After, Dan and Nancy.
Five, The Rise and Fall of Ruby Frank. Six, Murder 101. Seven, Kill List. Eight, The Man in the Black Mask. Nine, The Price of Paradise. And ten, To Die For. So those are your top 10. Number 11 is Bongino Report, early edition with Evita. 12, Back to True Crime, Fallen Angels, a story of California corruption. 13, The Butterfly King.
Fourteen, three, the word spelled out, I have no idea what that one's about, but it says it's true crime. Unlike seven, I guess this one is just a shortened version of that. 15, hey, we get back to not true crime, if all else fails. That's 15. Number 16, back to true crime. Criminal attorney. 17, also true crime. Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder. 18.
Work It Out, Wombats podcast from GBH and PBS Kids. Not true crime. 19, Where's Dia? True crime. Also true crime. Radioactive, the Karen Silkward mystery. And then 21 through 24, not true crimes. Landslide. Prof G. Markets. Redacted. Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna. And 24 was Lost Patience. And then 25 Dateline Originals, Back to True Crime. So that is your top 25 podcasts according to PodTrack for 2024. So I guess my advice is if you want to make the top 25...
Do a true crime podcast. That's your biggest chance to get in the top 25. And yes, replay this clip to me over and over so I can just cringe every time I hear myself saying that. But it's not just you, Rob. In fact, we had this is a nice segue. Yes. We did have this amazing presentation study, actually, that was sponsored.
by us with the Sounds Profitable team. And you can actually watch this. It's on our YouTube channel. I can have a link in the show notes there. And it was hosted by Tom Webster, where he presented some very specific data around true crime. podcasts, consumptions, and audiences. And it was co-hosted along with Melissa and Mandy from the popular podcast, Moms and Mysteries, which is a Lipson Ads exclusive.
And it was really eye-opening. I mean, regardless of whether or not you have a true crime podcast, maybe you're like the farthest thing from it. The listener landscape. that Tom presents is really insightful. It's an entertaining presentation with Tom as always because he is very entertaining and humorous. And then also Melissa and Mandy are amazing.
So it was it's a really great watch. You could put it in the background if you want to. You don't have to watch the whole thing. But I guarantee you will learn something and you will get a little bit more insight into audiences, which. Y'all, we all need to be interested in who is consuming content. And this is really a wonderful thing for you to kind of like put in your education, just so that you know.
I'm going to have chat GPT or actually Grok. I'm using Grok all the time now. I'm going to have Grok work me up a true crime podcast. We're going to figure out. Oh my God. What's going to hit all the buttons. That would be an instant top. Oh my God. 25 podcasts. I'm going to have Brock do it all for me. That would be so hilarious. So here's the other thing that I just had this idea and I'm curious if it's going to do it. So I started using Notebook LM last year.
And it was primarily because I like the privacy aspect of it. And I also like the fact that depending on the notebook that you're using, it only delivers. the information and insight from the data that you give it, right? From the sources that you provide it so you can ask a question based on sources. And that's my favorite thing. It's kind of like just researching my own information. But how about if we had like at the feed all of our stuff?
of the feed, things we cover. And then we asked it to give us, pitch us a true crime podcast based on the feed. That would be hilarious. I think that would be funny. I did create a true crime podcast one time. Did you? Yes. It was the Meta Monday murders. Oh, that's right. Good Lord. Yeah, it was about a serial killer that only killed true crime podcasters. And he did it every Monday morning at like 4.59 a.m. with a Harry's razor. So you can actually find that the Meta Monday murderers.
podcast. Wow. All right. Okay. I only got to the A on the alphabet. I was going to go through the alphabet and find all the different podcasts. Anyway. But now speaking of murder, no, I'm just kidding. Now we're talking a little bit about the charitable prefix that was previously removed from at least the Lipson interface.
Right. So we had mentioned we were going to bulk remove the charitable prefix, and we did so back on December 5th or early December 6th, depending on where you would live. And knock on wood, all looks to have gone well, so well, actually, we were receiving emails asking us about...
how to remove the charitable prefix four to five days later when it was already removed. People did not realize it had been removed already. To me, that's a sign that things went well. And then speaking of charitable, you have this email. Hi, Rob. Recently, we've been using Chartable Smart Links for our podcast. We like it because we can set it to route Apple users to Apple Podcasts, Android users to Spotify, and all others.
to a landing page where they can choose. Since Chartable is going away, do you know of any other options for achieving something similar? Thanks, NR. Hi, NR. Well, it's not a... but does kind of what you're looking for per Smart Links, and it's podfollow.com slash podcasting dash tech. And we'll have a link to it. So it's from PodFollow. So we'll have a link in the show notes. I personally have not used it, but others have told me this does what you are asking about.
So again, podfollow.com slash podcasting dash tech link in the show notes if you're looking for the smart links part of it. There we go. All right. And so now we have our second. actual promo of this year. And this is She's All Over the Place podcast. Tune in to She's All Over the Place. She's really all over the place. Hi, I'm Katie Chinakis. Currently, I am in Thailand. I've been here for about a month now. I have wonderful guests on. Artists, entrepreneurs, you name it. Scientists.
neuroscientists multi-billionaires directors hollywood golden globe award-winning actors directors grammy award-winning musicians trust me if you like to go all over the place like me and you respect our art, culture, fashion, lifestyle, and minimalistic luxury, I think you'll like my show. Come on over. We're on season six right now and we're growing strong for you. Let's go. Happy New Year. Awesome. All right, Rob, your turn. All right. Stats. To start, 2025, median, mean, and...
These are numbers that you can measure to see how your show measures up or your client show. And the media mean numbers are based on all episodes released on Libsyn and Libsyn Pro in the month of November with downloads measured until the end of December. On average, each file was about 45 days old. This is, again, for all shows hosted on Lipson Lipson Pro. The median number for November was 122, which was down a bit from 128 in October.
The adjusted mean average where I throw out the top half percent in any aisles with three or less downloads, the adjusted mean for November was 1168. That's up a little from October when it was 1132. 5.7% of all downloads for EPS released in November were in the 5k range or greater for downloads. This is the same as September and October. All three months were 5.7%.
And here are some numbers to measure against. Again, put things into perspective. If your episodes are getting over 122 downloads after 30 days, you are better than half the shows.
If you're getting over 500, you're better than 72.1% of the shows. That puts you in the top 27.9%. If you're getting more than 1,000, you're better than 80% of the shows, more than... 2,700, you are better than 90% of the shows, more than 5,800, you're better than 95% of the shows, more than 15,000, and you're better than 98% of the shows, and better, more than 28,000, and you are better than 99% of the shows out there.
November numbers were for the most part up a little or the same compared to October's numbers with the exception of the median number, but all the others were up a little or the same. So there you go, something to measure against. And then next into the, where have we been? And I was interviewed on two different podcasts and those podcasters have not sent me the links. So I think one of them may have gone.
So we'll mention it on the next episode. But yeah, when you interview somebody, make sure, folks, before it goes live or as it goes live, that you send out links to that person you interviewed. Send them. a enclosure or send them the embed code for the players, send them the direct link, send them the link to your show in Apple podcast and your show in Spotify, send them a whole bunch of stuff and let them choose what they're going to mention.
But send them something to let them know the episode's live so they can promote it. Okay. There's a sense of snarkiness in my voice, yes. Because if you have me on, let me know when it goes live. Where have you been, Elsie? I actually haven't been anywhere, but I did start working a little bit more. And I'm just on my website, y'all. Listen, I kind of during the holiday, I worked on my website. I do have a sort of a I can't say it's a little membership.
I'll put a link on it in there. It is something that I'm planning on working on throughout the whole year where you'll get access of how to plan with me. It's called Podcast Kaigi. It's more about... taking inventory of the things that you're doing. And the ultimate goal for that is that I've seen a lot of folks who are disillusioned about podcasting and or don't know who to ask questions about if they don't know what next steps to take.
And how to actually do the work of planning for yourself that aligns with your own goals versus a, it's not a do these steps and magically you'll get stuff. So I have that, but I'm also publishing a lot more on my blog because I'm not into social that much anymore. I have to be there, but I just, it is an incredibly volatile place now.
The way that it's shifting and changing, the people that really are curious even about the stuff that I'm working on are not going to see it. And the conversations that are being had is just not something that can be nuanced at all. And so I'm publishing more on my blog. And don't think I'm writing like these blogs, these long, thought-provoking, very highly researched blog posts.
I literally am just posting my thoughts as I would on threads on a blog. It's like 500 characters. That's my blog post. So if you guys want to follow my blog via RSS, hey, imagine that. That's like my new thing for everybody is fall back in love with RSS feeds, with RSS feed readers.
in the way that you curate information, curate your own personal feed. Just have the things that you love come into your ecosystem and don't give other people the time of day. That's all I'm saying. Take back control, people. All right. That is it for me. All right. And we did have, back in December 16th, we had the podcasting solo step-by-step guide.
So for new podcasters or even those that are looking for some advice, we'll have a link to the YouTube video for that. And you want to talk a little bit about that? You did that with Brian and Emilio. Yes, we did. So we really want to talk through. Brian did an entire walkthrough of basic editing for a solo podcaster, somebody. And he walked through the main points of how to.
swiftly be able to edit your show. Then I took it over with the metadata aspect of it. I did a condensed version of my show notes, best practices for what should be on show notes and also artwork. Canva stuff, those types of things. And then Emilio went into it with the, once he got the podcast episode, he went through the process of uploading it over to Libsyn.
We really wanted to make it so that it's helpful to everybody. It's not necessarily Libsyn-centric because everything that we did there was all, you could do that with the podcast host of your choice. Obviously, we are a podcast hosting company and we would love to have you host your podcast.
with us. So that's the UI that you see, but everything that you see within a podcast host UI, you put all the same metadata that I did in the show notes and stuff. So Amelia walks you through all of that stuff. Oh my gosh, Rob, you know what we're having at the end of this episode? I completely forgot. We are going to have a special episode that Brian and I recorded. It's like a 10 minute episode.
where we talk about hot frosty. Okay. So we actually recorded an episode for this and we said that we were going to have it in the... At the end. So after this show is over, there's going to be a little 10 minute addendum. And if y'all want to listen, you can listen to that. It's fine. So don't go anywhere.
Stick around after the show. Yeah, this is after the show, after the show. So where we are going, if you listen to this when this episode comes out, or the day after, or this week, I'm going to be in... Orlando, Podfest in Orlando. And we have the 2025 Hall of Fame induction ceremony. We've talked about that. So hopefully to see you folks there in Orlando, come by the booth, say hi. We'd love to see you.
In Dallas in February, we'll be at NRB, the National Religious Broadcasting Show. If you're going to be there, let me know. And then Podcast Movement Evolutions is in Chicago in March. And then NAB Las Vegas in April, and obviously Las Vegas. And then finally, we're going to have someone at podcast show in London in May. So at least the first five months, we will be out there somewhere.
We'll talk more about later in the year. Obviously, there'll be the main podcast movement in August and some other shows as well. As always, folks, if you're not going to the show, as I mentioned, and you host on Libsyn and want your cards at the show, please send me an email, rob at Libsyn.com. And then switching gears from where we're going to where are you going?
And if you are looking for a job in podcasting, make sure to go to podcastingjobs.com. As of the beginning of 2025, we had one opening still listed there. It is for payroll specialists to be located in Pittsburgh. So again, go to podcastingjobs.com. to learn more about this opening and potentially others. Right on. Awesome. If you're looking to start a podcast or switch up your podcast home, you can use the code.
the feed, one word, the feed for a free month plus with us. Woohoo. All right. So you get the rest of the month as you sign up in air free and all of the following. And then finally, don't forget to send in your feedback. for anything we did or did not mention on this episode. You can record that feedback and email to us, thefeed at libsyn.com, or you can call us, 412-573-1934.
Or finally, you can use SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com slash the feed. Whoa. All right. Now, stick around at the end. There's 10 more minutes of captivating content coming your way. That's right. It's very fun, you guys. It's very fun. And if you don't want to listen now, just keep it in your queue and then wonder why later. Don't hit those buttons. Don't touch those dials.
No. All right. Well, thank you so much, guys. And we will chat with you in a couple of weeks. Ciao. Bye. Did Netflix just give Mean Girls an unexpected holiday sequel? We're talking hot frosty today on Brian and Elsie Talk Movies. I am Elsie. And I'm Brian. Hey, how about that? So hot frosty. Here's a quickie synopsis. Widow Kathy magically brings a snowman to life. His innocence helps her heal and find love again. They bond before the holidays, but he's doomed.
To melt. All right, Ryan. Initial gut reactions. I'll be honest with you, Elsie. I hated this movie so much. For our one and only episode of Brian and Elsie Talk Movies, you picked this one. I know. Well, listen, I cannot say that I loved it. I can say that I had a hard time. Keeping going. I rolled my eyes countless times. I thought, do I really have to keep on watching this? I did have that feeling. But...
The first shot of the hat and the way that it was laid out, I had high hopes because I have an emotional connection to the cartoon Frosty. It's one of the very first times that I would cry over and over when Frosty melted when I was a kid. kid. And so I had a that was my favorite movie. It may have me gave me all the feel. So when I saw that hat, I thought, Oh, my God, I got that emotion. And then it began.
And then it began and I was very not OK with it at all. I really hated it. I hated it. But it won me over. I think it won me over after I got over the initial. like hot guy naked part. I didn't appreciate it until he became very earnest towards the second half of the movie when he became himself and he was not a naked dude.
acting dumb because that's literally what he was doing then he became a lot more just full human and his essence as a man kind of like as a total human being started to come through and you saw how genuine he was and how lovely he was and how earnest he was and how he really just wanted to help people, all that stuff. So those things I loved. I actually did like The Widow. Lacey Chabert. Yeah, I loved that character was... think was very solid. I think she did
what she needed to do with that character. I enjoyed her being on screen. She never gave me the ick like he did. He gave me the ick for the first half of the movie. I'm curious, was it because the fact that he's running around naked with only a scarf on his jacket? I was like, what? Actually, it was the acting. It was the acting because it was so like, I'm such a dumb dude. And then it was such a dumb dude. But also.
He spoke English and he knew about clothes. There was just so many things that I was like, that's not. Aligning with happy birthday from Frosty, you know, where he doesn't know what's up. This guy knew what's up. He knew he had to go get clothes on. There were all these other things that just didn't line up.
Right. But again, I did like his arc. I liked the fact that he was bringing goodness to the town overall and that he was a kind hearted guy. Some of my favorite moments, I guess, were in how he really. just wanted to help people and he kept trying to find solutions. And I think what was really interesting to me is how when he was asked to go help at the dance or whatever, I don't even remember what it was that he was asked to go help.
it was the school winter dance yeah he was very committed to that like he's like i'm hired to do this thing and i have to show up and i just thought that i like that i like the fact that he did that um Obviously, the plot points of this whole thing of how he was a snowman and he became like an actual man.
I know it's a Christmas movie and you're supposed to have it be magical and all that. But I just felt like people accepting him being a snowman and then turning into a man was just a little too easy. I'm glad you brought that up. All right. So anyway. turn that I'm glad you brought that up because that right there Elsie is if I had to boil down why I hate this movie so much it is that point it is the suspension of disbelief
OK, when we watch a movie, there is always a suspension of disbelief. You have to believe what you're seeing on screen to be emotionally invested in it, to be to follow the plot and just care. about what happens to the characters. Right out of the gate, everyone in the town is just cool with the idea that, hey, yes, I believe that this man actually is a snowman. And yeah, it's cool.
Lacey Chabert that he's living with you in your house as some weird guy who just discovered food and just discovered clothing. And yes, it's not concerning at all. So the bar. was really really low in terms of suspension of disbelief for this climax of this whole movie is that he is melting to death yes okay in a prison yes and
The whole town comes together in a very Hallmark-esque scene and just says, we all believe he's a snowman and no one questions it. Other thing is that it's just about bail. We can't let him out without paying bail. He has to pay the bill. Says who? He's melting. He's like, if we just let him melt, what are you going to do?
Who says that he has to have the bail? Like, I don't see a judge. I don't see anyone there saying this melting man needs to have his $2,000 bail for him to go outside. And then the other thing, too, is just like this movie has. good-ish actors in it, but it uses them so poorly. It's just really bad. I've seen Craig Robinson... He is hilarious. He's been in so many good movies, you know, Zack and Mary. And, you know, it was in Hot Tub Time Machine. You know, he's really funny.
He is not funny in this. And it's almost like they went out of their way to make him not funny. Okay. And make him kind of this, you know, kind of stick in the mug sheriff. Lacey Chabert, I've seen her in. good things and she's acted really well but this just to me felt like she was phoning it in and phoning in kind of like you know the the lowest level of hallmark holiday movie
I'd say her best line was more or less referencing Mean Girls while she's watching Lindsay Lohan in a TV screen. And you did. Yeah. It's so weird that they planted other movies. There were two movies that were planted in the movie. Yes. Actually, movie playing in the movie. This is technically, if you really want to think about it, a holiday sequel.
To the original Mean Girls, because Lacey Chabert literally references Lindsay Lohan's character in the TV and says, like, I think I went to high school with that girl. So, like, it's all shared. It's a shared universe. I also really didn't like Lauren Holly's character because she's just goofy for goofy sake. And she's like, let me take that cougar kind of mentality.
amp it up to an 11 with the snowman yeah like especially when he's like fixing her car like i i rolled my eyes and just was like this is so dumb the whole sexualization of the guy it's really bad it's really bad and it's not done in a great way because there are times when you do when it's it wasn't earned i think that that's what it is it wasn't an earned thing it was earned in the sense that
he's got this dude's got a really nice body which good for him which good for him i'm okay with objectifying the male species that's fine yeah but i just did not like the way that it just didn't land that's what it is it's like when it's done really well It's just done really well. We are all in it. We're all like, oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, my God. Do you think maybe that it was because of the fact that the snowman, I don't even know the man's name, was kind of naive about everything?
So, like, when you see all of these people taking advantage of and sexualizing him in that way, that it feels really icky and just like, this guy doesn't know any better. You know, one, he is melting quite literally every single time the man goes inside of a house. So what is he going to do? He's going to take off his shirt or he's going to wear, you know, you know, a shirt that is ripped off a smaller shirt. Yeah.
Yeah. And do it outside publicly to keep cool. So it's like it's just that they're. Taking advantage of a naive person. That is exactly what it was. That's what I didn't like about it. The tone actually did change. Yeah.
once he started to come out of his shell or he started to show more personality his personality versus just the way that he looked and then the it's it seemed like the entire town count kind of was okay with that meaning they weren't doing that to him anymore yeah and they were a lot more pro hey dude get together with this girl she you guys are great together kind of a thing and they all kind of rallied around that whole situation keep in mind they're still
believe that he is, in fact, a snowman who has turned into a real person. They're all cool with that. And it all happened so fast. Yeah. Within a day. No, not even within a day. Don't you remember when he did like at the end where it was like he was melting and then he was a real man? Because it would be very strange for him to still be a snowman. And for her to continue to have a relationship with him. Yes. Because springtime is going to happen.
And Lacey Chabert is going to roll over in her bed and be like, oh, no, it's just a puddle. No, Joe, it's just a puddle, which is not great at all. No, it's not good. I'm not sure I would suggest people watch. the movie i can't i think it's a little bit of a waste of time i think this is a writer's strike version of a hallmark movie it could oh okay okay all right writer's strike version of a hallmark movie writer's strike happened last year
Probably we're making this around the same time because the turnover on these movies is like six months to eight months. And they kind of botched it. And we're like, we need to get a holiday movie out. Netflix has given us a bunch of money. Throw it out there. Let's see what happens. And that's what we get. It's less than a Hallmark holiday film. Yeah, it is. Those have an appreciation. People love those or they hate them. But they still kind of – there's things that come up every year.
And it's become a meme almost. This is just bad. This was just bad. Because I have seen, I haven't seen any other ones this year. I mean. other new holiday movies. But there's been a few that I've been very surprised at. There's been some really cheesy ones that have gotten me, right? Where it's like, it's cheesy. It's still like you have to suspend that disbelief, but I end up buying into the magic, right? I end up buying into the magic of the holiday, whatever, essence, right?
And even if people get together, the whole love thing and falling in love so fast, that happens all the time. But I just, I just could not get over it. I was going to say, what's your final rating? Elsie. Two and a half stars. Let's be really generous. Is it? Okay. I give it a half a star for crying.
I give it half a star for trying. That's really bad. Yeah. Half a star. You get the participation point. There you go. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I think you know why I gave it that. Because of the second half. If it would have started at that level, I don't think I could have done it. And I also started judging the movie so hard, even at the beginning with the opening scenes when she was so cold and putting all the stuff on. And like there was just like.
All this weird stuff that I could not get over where the fact that she was so cold in the morning and her makeup was perfect. And also she didn't like she put all these things on and then she changed really fast. And then she went outside in the cold. Yep. And was wearing less clothes than when she was in the house in the cold. And then she didn't stay in her business. She kept coming outside. And I was like, listen, if my house was freezing, I'd be inside where there's heat.
The whole time, I would not be going outside at all because my house is cold. Regarding that, just real quick, I found it laughable that a woman who owns her own business and has a restaurant that is... thriving in a town filled with snowmen that...
She still just can't afford to like, you know, pay to have the heating fixed or I think she's just you know what it is. I finally got it. At first I was like, oh, no, she doesn't have the money. Right. Because that happens a lot of the time in holiday movies. They're money. But I did understand.
the concept she's just over it it's too much it's too much to even call like listen I've been there I've been there where it's like all I have to do is ask make the phone call all I have to do is just pay for the thing And I just can't do it. So I understand that. It's just like. But waking up cold every day. Every day. Might be like.
The kick to like, hey, maybe I should go get the heating fixed. Correct. And also the weird thing is at the end, she fixes it. With a magical book that she got from the snowman. Excuse me. Real boy. Real boy. And he didn't do it, right? No, he didn't. He's upstairs. He's a real boy, but he's lost that ability to be helpful and fix things.
Well, he did it at the beginning. Yeah, that was when he was a snowman. Now he's a real boy. He's like, I'm done. I'm done. Magic's gone. She doesn't. I was only helpful when I was a snowman. Oh, man. Anyway, if you want to go ahead and take on Hot Frosty, please feel free to do that. And if you want to give us feedback on this, why don't you reach out to either Brian or I?
On social, wherever you find us. I am at the LC Escobar everywhere. How about you, Brian? I'm at BrianCoddington85 on Instagram. And also my own podcast, Cinema Psycho Show. Yeah. On all the podcast platforms. That one's explicit. So that was, it's, it's got naughty words in it. Yes. But this was fun. Well, all right. Well, thank you all. Have a good time watching your holiday movies.