The feed. The power of YouTube on TV. Their big bets for 2025. Plus 1 billion monthly podcast users on YouTube. Skype will be shutting down. That's the end of an era for podcasters, but... Dig is making a comeback. Here's hoping that it's in a big way. The power of the podcast release for guests. How to replace a file if you made a mistake. Podcast aggregator apps that have closed.
And stats, mean and median numbers, plus y'all, we have a new VP of marketing. Hello, I'm Elsie Escobar, Director of Community and Content for Libsyn, and this is episode 288. 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, of course, taking you inside Libsyn now.
If you would like to get featured on the show, please send in your 30 to 60-ish second promo. How do you do it? You attach it to an email and you send it to thefeed at lipsyn.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.
send us voice feedback and you can call us at 412-573-1934. In fact, you can put that in your phone and that way you could just tap if you're listening to the episode and you're like, oh my gosh. I want to talk back to them. Well, call us 412-573-1934 or you can also leave us a message over on SpeakPipe and you can find that at speakpipe.com slash the feed.
It is first come, first serve whenever we do feature audio on the show. So the sooner you get it back to us, the sooner we'll get it 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 promo of the episode of Otherwise Objectionable.
The single biggest threat to free speech in this country is the power of big tech. It's time to fight back. It is now time to repeal Section 230. Section 230. Section 230. Section 230. Section 230. Back in 1990. It's not an accident that so many of the biggest success stories of the internet are based in the United States because we have... Section 230. Now, that law is at the center of a fierce battle that will shape the future of our lives online.
This is the 26 words that created all the problems with the internet, right? We need Section 230 now more than ever. I'm Mike Masnick, founder of Techter, and I've been covering the internet since before sharing cat videos was even a thing. In this unique series... I'm digging up all the fascinating stories around one of the most impactful laws of all time.
Join me as I talk to the tech pioneers and lawmakers who were there from the beginning. It's kind of funny how shady characters like a wolf of Wall Street are behind the rules of the road for the internet. And so I sketched out on a yellow legal pad. or the beginnings of what became Section 230. We'll hear why everyone's so upset.
If I'm angry at big tech companies, then the natural direction is to say, let's look at Section 230. The word immunity is not in the statute. You know, whose neck do we ring? So where do we go from here? The biggest challenge right now is that AI is swallowing all of tech policy. The one thing that conservatives and progressives would be able to share if they repealed Section 230 is that they would be equally disappointed.
Listen to Otherwise Objectionable, the true story of the most misunderstood law on the internet, everywhere you get your podcasts starting March 12th. I'm trying to participate in this podcast in the hopes that I can help further some idiotic speech that I heatedly disagree with. Good generic time of the day, Elsie. How are you? I'm ready for springtime. I'm delighted to be here today. Springtime means March Madness. Yay!
Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. We're going to do a big March Madness pool for Lipson. So it's going to be a company. Are we now? Yes. Are you now? No, no, the whole company is going to do it. There's going to be a prize. Yes. So it's going to be an internal Lipson thing for everyone. And, you know, what happens in every one of these is the person that knows almost nothing about college basketball wins it. And the person that's sitting there going, well, this team.
They do really good against the press, and they have good three-point shooting, and this team has bad three-point shooting, and they overanalyze everything, comes in last place. Oh, my God. And then the person goes, I like the color of their... jerseys, and I like their mascot. Those are the people that win. Yeah, that would be me. I mean, I don't know if I will win, but that's probably how I'll go about it. It's all going to be looks and cute stuff. So we got some news.
A new addition to the Lipson family. We do have some news. This is from Podcast News Daily. There's going to be a link in the show notes. Quote, Brendan Monaghan, who was named CEO of Libsyn in October, continues to build the team around him. His latest move is hiring Chris Avello as vice president of marketing. It is a return to audio for Avello, who spent a dozen years at Audible, including a senior director of marketing.
In his new role, Chris will lead Libsyn's marketing strategy, including working to expand Libsyn's reach and strengthen engagement across the platform. Chris brings deep expertise in audio storytelling, performance, marketing, and leadership, making him a valuable addition to Libsyn as we continue to invest in our podcasting platform for creators and advertisers. Monaghan says in the announcement during his time at Audible, Chris led marketing efforts for its integration with Alexa.
Kindle and Fire devices. He also spearheaded international expansion efforts into new markets such as Australia, Japan, Italy, Canada and India. Following his exit from the Amazon-owned company in 2019, Avello served as head of subscriber experience at Boston Globe Media. He then... joined Catapult as VP of Performance Marketing, where he led marketing strategy for both B2B and B2C initiatives, including the launch of Catapult One, the company's first direct-to-consumer
hardware subscription business. Most recently, he was general manager of Chirp Books, overseeing strategy and growth for the audiobook marketplace. Quote, joining Libsyn at such a dynamic time for podcasting, one of the fastest growing mediums is an exciting opportunity. End quote. Chris says in the announcement.
Libsyn has established a strong foundation and commitment to empowering podcasters from independents to established creators and advertisers. I look forward to shaping the marketing strategy to further amplify its influence. an impact. Chris's appointment is effective immediately and he will be based in Boston. And I was...
Lucky enough to hang out with Chris this week. Just got back from Texas and spent a couple days with Chris. Very nice, very knowledgeable, great addition to the team, and I'm sure you're going to enjoy working with him, Elsie. Chris, welcome to the family. This was the news you sent me that made me go wah, wah, wah. Yeah. This is what I said. Skype will be shutting down. Microsoft confirmed it this past week.
Starting in May, Skype will no longer be available. 14 years ago, Microsoft purchased Skype for $8.5 billion in cash. Jeff Tepper, president of Microsoft. 365 collaborative apps and platforms said, quote, Skype has been an integral part of shaping modern communications and supporting countless meaningful moments. And we are honored to have been a part of the journey.
We're excited about the new opportunities the team brings and are committed to helping you stay connected in new and meaningful ways, unquote. Most of the Podcast 411 interviews were done via Skype. So for me, this is, again, very, very sad news. Going forward. I do have Libsyn Connect, and I'll be using that for my interviews. And Connect does a much better job audio quality-wise, but still, nostalgically, I am sad for the passing of Skype. It's just one of those things from the early days.
that was such a staple of the podcast space. Everyone did Skype interviews. That was it 20 years ago. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's the way we all connected. It's how I think a lot of us started to record remotely overall using Ecamm. Ecamm for Skype. Remember that? That was my favorite app in the whole entire world. It was so great. Yeah, it holds so much for those of us who were doing things back in the day.
But. Yeah, what's this nostalgic other good nostalgic? So what's this? I know this is good nostalgic things. So Skype going away. But then. I just saw some news here where it is all about Digg coming back in a big way. And this is Digg as in D-I-G-G. And it is now a collaborative. effort because kevin rose who was one of the original digger like it was his right yeah you know and um he has just repurchased
And he is joining his team member and cohort for this endeavor is Alexis Ohanian, who was the founder, one of the founders for Reddit. OK. And so they were essentially competitors back in the day because Dig and Reddit were very much kind of the same-ish type of a model when they both began. And now they're coming together. to bring Dig back in a very big way. And I don't know what that's going to look like.
at all. I'm excited for it because I have seen a very big resurgence to Reddit for sure. Reddit continues to be very culturally relevant and has continued to be culturally relevant. throughout, since it began, because it continues to iterate, it continues to change, it continues to become a hub for all kinds of communities that you would never think would be using Reddit.
First, I used to think, you know, Reddit was primarily for tech heads or super nerdy people, people who were like really into technology and just that kind of stuff. And it has. now kind of become a lot more than that. And Dig was very relevant back in the day, especially for podcasting. Right, Rob?
The funny thing was, when iTunes first launched in the end of June 2005, for about a month, there was a thing where if you hit subscribe, unsubscribe, subscribe, unsubscribe, it would count each subscription as a new subscription. And you could drive podcasts up in the charts.
And Derek Calendano from Skepticality and Gary Leland from Podcast Pickle, we figured this out and we were doing this to some podcasts, driving them up. And Derek was driving Skepticality up into the top chart all the time. about the end of july someone on dignation found it and posted it and once they posted it then apple fixed it
I always remember Dignation. That's where it got broke. That's where the cat got out of the bag and Apple found out about it. Oh my gosh, you guys. But in Digg, it was one of the first places that had... podcasts like within there was a lot of conversation on dig about podcast it was one of the places where people would find podcasts to listen to because of digging things. And my podcast was there. I remember very specifically having that call to action inside of some of my... It's just so...
It brings me back because I remember recording the intro to Elsie's yoga class. And first of all... Just explaining to an audience like mine, which were people who didn't even know what podcasts were, I'm asking them to do things that are so foreign to them. And they don't know where they are. And I'm educating them about just listening to a podcast and what even podcasts are all the time. And then I'm asking them to dig my podcast.
And they're like, what is dick? I'm like, you got to go sign up here. You got to go there. You got to find my page and you got to dig it. It was such a to do. And I mean, it worked here and there. And I think that part of it is that one of the reasons that that worked for us back in the day, too, is because a lot of podcasters were people who were online. Right. And it's another way that we.
built community because we got an opportunity to support each other, even though if we weren't each other's audience, we would support the podcasts just because that you had a podcast. So if you had a podcast, you we want to support you, even though they weren't our, in quote, listener. Right. So I'm happy about this.
I hope it works out. If you go to dig.com right now, you'll see an email. You got to put an email in. So up until a week ago, they had articles and posts and I was still going to it. I still have it as a bookmark. It's on my main. But now, as of this week, it asks for your email address and something new is coming. So they're completely relaunching day. So let's see. Hopefully it's good. I know. That's going to be great. And I think I really hope that this.
I do feel that this is needed at this time, given that social media has become even much more fragmented than it's ever been before. Folks are looking for a way to gather information and also build a little bit of community. outside of the niche communities that maybe sometimes are created in places like discord or facebook groups stuff like that right where there are those are sort of dedicated communities that you can join but
Places like Dig and Reddit are slightly different because they sort of thrive on conversations among the community, but also sharing information. Because in places like Dig is where you really found... Very interesting things that wouldn't necessarily be found anywhere online because we didn't know how to use search and SEO and Google wasn't really that important at that time.
It's how we were able to search for stuff and find things. And I think there's a lot of people who are looking for that. They're looking for those gems, good articles, good podcasts, good entertainment. movies, books, you know, so many things that we could get an opportunity to share. So I'm looking forward to it. All right.
And now moving on to all kinds of information about YouTube. So on episode 286, that's a couple of episodes ago. That was like the February, early February episode that we put out. We covered that quote. Viewers watched over 400 million hours of podcasts monthly on living room devices. And that was per the Alphabet Investor's Call. from February 5th, which we covered. So please feel free to head over to that episode for the full breakdown.
So now prior to that investor call in December 2024, YouTube was laying the groundwork for the power of YouTube TV watching already, even though they announced that in February. Here's a little quote from an article. on the YouTube blog that is called Smash That Replay Button, a 2024 recap of YouTube on TV. And this is just a quote from the article, quote, to further fuel this growth, meaning.
YouTube on TV and support creators. We recently made it even easier for viewers to subscribe to their favorite channels while watching on TV by adding the subscribe button directly to the video player. Early tests of this streamlined button show more than a 40% increase in net subscribers through... TVs, end quote, which leads us to this article that we pushed off from discussing on last episode.
And I'm kind of glad that we pushed it off because I had it in our show notes and I was like, I'm not ready to talk about this yet. And we kind of talked about other things. And this new article on the YouTube blog says from the YouTube CEO, our big bets for 2025. And now that article opens with, quote, TV has surpassed mobile and is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. by watch time.
End quote. Is that YouTube pure YouTube or does that include YouTube TV? I don't know. For YouTube viewing, a TV has surpassed mobile. And is now the primary device. I'm assuming that this is anything that is being consumed on YouTube.com. On a TV. Right. From YouTube.com. Right. Okay. Or like an app. Mm-hmm. Right? Right. Well, yeah. I mean, almost every smart TV has a YouTube app. Obviously, Apple TV has the YouTube app. Yeah.
So that's what I'm assuming that that's what that is, whatever it is, whatever one of those set-top boxes, I guess, Roku's or any of those. But I also wanted everybody to know what... some definitions are because there are some differences. in a lot of this information. And I think that we as an industry, especially just the lay podcasting person, might just take a lot of the headlines and don't quite understand.
a lot of the vocabulary around the YouTube ecosystem. Many of the YouTube creators and YouTubers do know a lot of this stuff, but a lot of the podcasters that are starting to put their hands into the YouTube ecosystem may not. So let's break down why. because that's what they said. TV has surpassed mobile and is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. by watch time. So watch time on YouTube refers to the total amount of time
viewers spend watching your videos. And that metric is crucial for understanding how engaging your content is and it plays a significant role in YouTube's algorithm for recommending videos. And I'll have a link. To all the sources in our show notes, guys. So if you want to know anything or what the heck we're talking about, everything is linked in the show notes.
Which are the best show notes of any podcast. She does an incredible job. You really do need to look at what she does for show notes. I'm just saying. Good Lord. Good Lord. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. Thank you. And you can monitor your channel's watch time through the engagement tab in the YouTube analytics. Now, here's the thing, Rob. I have posted here a screenshot.
And you can see our podcast analytics for the past 28 days. And this means out this podcast, the feed. And we cross-post the feed using... our YouTube destination within the Libsyn UI. Okay. And all I do is publish our episode on Libsyn. That's it. I don't do anything else. It automatically goes over there. I actually I do do something else. I do go into YouTube afterwards and I do a little tiny bit of editing of the title. I just kind of move the number to the back and.
I also optimize the show notes for YouTube. So I have a little very quickly copy and paste a different, more succinct show notes for YouTube because... You can't have hyperlinks in YouTube. And I'm not going to put like 50 million thousand naked links in there. So because that's what our show notes are. So I kind of optimize them real quickly and then I'll put them out. And so based on that, we had 29% more views in the last 28 days. That's 153 more. Our watch time.
went up, this was bizarro, 169% more than the previous 28 days. So not only are we getting more people that are viewing... we're getting them viewing a lot longer. Yes. And mind you, though, this is what I wanted to address because that looks really impressive.
So when you think about 10, like, wow, that's like a lot of watch time. I was right. 10.2. I mean, if you look at it that way, but then when you look at, I sent you some screenshots too. There's like an average duration of when people are watching. But the average duration to get those 10.2 hours is four minutes. Okay. Oopsie. Oopsie. Yeah. And so that's where I'm...
I'm confused a lot by that watch time part because overall it has gone up so much, but it's still only a little bit, you know? I don't know. But we did have episode 281. That was like the beginning of the year, I believe. That one went out, 281. And we had the average... 281 would have been, no, it would have been end of November, maybe.
Oh, yeah, you're right. We started 284 here. So, yeah, it was like, yeah, it was last year, like Q4. We actually had a research. Somebody was like consuming that podcast. The average view duration for that one is 19 minutes. which is kind of like a lot, given the other ones. I'm just putting that out there because of that. Again, my expectations for YouTube, as I've said on this show before, it's more about discovery, people discovering us.
Not so much that people are going to be consuming the show on YouTube. You know, I'm hoping that some people come across us and then go and subscribe to the podcast in a podcasting app. And that's ultimately where they consume. Because there's not a lot of value in a video for this podcast or none. Yeah. And, you know, I think you're right. There's a lot of how viewers are in terms of finding us. They sometimes come directly from our channel.
Right? That's like one of the places that people find us for sure. It's just curious to me to be able to look at all the data in this fashion and as it pertains to what YouTube is saying about it. So I do see a little bit of that correlation. Also, I did share another screenshot with you, Rob, about the device types of them showing in there. And it really, it looks like if you're looking at the top.
four, right? Because it's computer, mobile phone, TV, and tablet. You see that the computer is the number one there at 47.1%. The second one is 44.4% in terms of views of where people are watching. But the interesting thing is that the TV, we have it at 4.6%, but the average view duration and consumption for there is 18 minutes and 42 seconds versus...
the computer, which is at 1 minute 45, and the mobile phone at 5 minutes and 11. They are listening. They are listening because it's not video, but they are consuming much longer on the TV. Yes, exactly. Which is nice. I mean, it's kind of nice to be able to get that type of data. Anyway, all that to say, moving to some of the things that they said on that article there, and this is what they're calling out, and I'm just...
Bringing it to our attention because I do feel it's worth the conversation. So something that they're predicting for 2025 as it pertains to YouTube is that YouTube, this is the number one thing, YouTube will remain the epicenter of culture. And this is what it says. says in the article, quote, for over a decade, our mission has been to give everyone a voice and show them the world. That means we provide a platform for free speech and creative expression unlike any other.
One of the most relevant formats driving culture podcasts is thriving on YouTube. YouTube is now the most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S. And quote, and that. Most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S. is a hyperlink to Edison Research's Edison podcast metrics, right? So in that Edison podcast metrics.
That's where they interview 20,000 weekly podcast listeners ages 13 and older about the shows they listen to, in addition to calculating the weekly reach of podcast networks and shows. So the reason I'm bringing that up there is just because we had that conversation, remember, about server side and survey side. And I just want to remind everyone, Edison podcast, it's not metrics, it's survey.
So it's not actually measuring. Metrics is measuring. This is survey data based on questions asked to people on how they answered. So you have to take it with a grain of salt when you actually look at how people... For most podcasts they're consuming, it's still Apple Podcasts, especially from the RSS feed. So I always want to make sure that we point that out, that the Edison survey information is skewed because the people are talking to...
Mr. Beast is a podcast. Right. But and again, Rob, remember that what we talked about on episode 286 is that the sweet spot for this stuff is to be able to provide server side data that merges with. survey data. And that's what these guys are doing here. They've got their information because they own YouTube and they are linking to a survey that is able to back up.
And or it's like here, this is what's happening on this side. This is what people are saying. This is what is reflective in our information, right? Back to the YouTube article, quote, we've long invested. In the podcast experience and creators have found that video makes this format even more compelling. This year, we'll roll out more tools to support podcasters, improve monetization for creators and make it even easier to discover podcasts. End quote.
question for me is how because when they say the last part make it even easier to discover podcasts okay that's an algorithm what they're doing is they're talking about algorithm and i know they said they have free speech here but YouTube is known to de-algorithm people. Oh, my God. I was going to mention that. Yes. Go ahead. Continue. Yeah. I mean, Roseanne Barr got de-algorithm for being anti-Semitic and she's Jewish. Right. So.
If you get the algorithm, and I know many people that have gotten the algorithm on YouTube, you can wind up not showing up. I mean, the perfect example was when you went to search for Trump Rogan interview when it first came out. It didn't show up. I know YouTube says they're free speech, but their algorithm is not free speech. If you get the algorithm, that's not free speech. So when they have all this power...
And they can bury a show if they want to bury a show, which doesn't happen in podcast land on RSS. I do know that outside of what you're talking about with that is that there's also the demonetization part of it, right? where based on content, they can demonetize a video. And because I am consuming a lot of podcasts on YouTube lately. In all honesty, it's kind of a different type of behavior. In the evening, I tend to watch podcasts and I do recognize that.
Those podcasters who are video first and they have a channel, they absolutely understand what language they can't say. And so they will self-censor. certain terms and certain words because you can't say those. And they actively say they will correct themselves and or use. Any other word like they usually say abbreviations or sounds like and then they will insert whatever because they have had experience with their own.
podcasts, episodes being demonetized and or their own peers have said, hey, I said these things and then I had to do that. And so there is that. That does happen. And there are sometimes some terms that are simply not prioritizing the algorithm. There was a point in time if you had said COVID came from the Chinese Wuhan lab, you got dealgorithm. You got pushed down. You got...
monetized. The FBI and the CIA now say that's the most likely scenario that happened. So that's always my issue with these dealgorithming things. They're making a judgment on why. I cringe a little bit when they talk about free speech. when they have this algorithm that they use. And right now, it may go after some people that you don't agree with, but eventually, they'll turn the algorithm on people you do agree with. That's always my concern when it comes to real free speech.
So that is a thing. And going back to my question of how they are all going to make it easier to discover podcasts. So my question is, and to your point, Rob, that you were talking about the algorithm of it all. What I'm thinking through this is that making it even easier to discover podcast is having the creators optimize the podcast playlist for YouTube because that's how they are.
Is that the answer to this? By adhering to existing YouTube best practices for videos. So you have to learn how to be good. on YouTube stuff, like you got to get very wise as to what works well on YouTube. In terms of naming your episodes, in terms of the description stuff, in terms of the thumbnail, using keywords and like, is that what's going to happen then? So that it whatever title you decide is a great.
title for your episode, you're going to then have to shift and change it for YouTube because titles like this work better on YouTube? Yes. Short answer I think is yes. Or is this more of a podcast playlist discoverability play, right? So meaning you optimize your podcast playlist, you... What do you put in your description? Is that coming up? Are you using keywords there? So there's a whole thing here where they say make it easier to discover podcasts. But that really is also.
Us, as the people who are creating these podcasts, are going to have to do a lot more work, right? It's not set it and forget it. It's not working on your podcast episode and being done with your podcast episode. You work on your podcast episode. Now you have to massage that title. Now you have to really think through the thumbnail. Now you have to see what are the keywords that you're really looking for here. What are you going to tag that podcast episode?
So it just becomes, I feel, a little bit more complex. I don't think it's as easy as, let's just bubble up my podcasts. Well, I think you've got to do everything, right? It's not just this or that. I think you've got to do everything.
You got to optimize in different places for different ways, right? The playlist and the description of the playlist is one thing. Then you have the episodes. You got to optimize those on a per episode basis. And you have to understand what's going to get you in trouble. You know, what is the current... Phrase that is persona non grata, that will get you de-algorithmed or, you know, demonetized. Unfortunately, that's sad on the YouTube side. But that's the way it is. Yeah.
So number two here is YouTubers are becoming the startups of Hollywood. And that little part of the article says, quote, like startups everywhere, creators are also getting savvy about finding new ways to build their businesses. And we're unlocking more ways for them to earn.
Last year, more than 50% of channels earning five figures or more USD on YouTube made money from sources other than ads and YouTube premium. Shopping recommendations are also becoming a key revenue stream for many creators like Bora Clair. recently shared with us that she generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales from a single video reviewing cashmere cardigans. And last year, we saw more than a 40 percent increase in channel memberships and quote. Here's what I would like to know.
channels earning five figures or more, right? What's that number? And what is that as a percentage of YouTubers? Because I can't find that anywhere. I looked. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a great question. It's great that there are some people that are making five figures, but is it 0.003% or is it 3.4%? The big difference, right? And how many overall channels are there and what's that percentage?
that are getting that five figures, you know, 10K or more in a year. So I really would love to know that. I did search for that. Even Grok didn't have a good answer. So for me, you know, when I read that, the message, as I understand it from YouTube. is that they love when producers do their own thing, right? They are positioning themselves as we're here to support however you make your money. And that's fine. I mean, that's what we all want, right? But that doesn't mean...
And here's the key, guys. That doesn't mean that YouTube is going to help you do what you want to do. Meaning I'm sure Bora Clair, and I actually don't know. I can't say I'm sure. I don't know who Bora Clair is either. The woman who shared in a single video, you know, reviewing cashmere cardigans. That person, that channel, they did that on their own. I don't think YouTube helped. There are a lot of YouTubers that get direct.
host red ads and product placement. Right. I would imagine iJustine, almost all of her revenue. Is that right? Yes. But she gets hired to make the video. YouTube's not helping her make the money. She's built that on her own. You're buying iJustine. She's the one that has the power. So, yeah, you make your money and you happen to have a podcast that helps you market and sell your thing. Great.
But the expectation, I don't want anybody who's thinking that they're going to go into YouTube and YouTube is going to magically help them do it. YouTube has tools that help discoverability, algorithm, optimization, all those things. But ultimately. You make your money your way and you do your thing your way. And YouTube kind of amplifies it because of the tool set. But that doesn't mean they help you do it. There's the viral video monetization they help with. Charlie bit my finger, right?
That's different than iJustine or MrBeast or folks like that that have this direct relationship that are able to get advertising. And it is great, and I'll say this, that YouTube allows... the folks to get their own direct monetization they don't cut them off so that is good again you have to tell the line that you don't get the algorithms so you know like what happened with rogan trump It just wasn't available. That is a bad thing. Number three here is that YouTube is the new television.
I don't disagree. And for the new generation like YouTube is where they go look for content. So it needs to be a very special thing for the newer generations to make the leap from snippets of content to the long form. of anything. So I'm only saying this because I did see this, like who's going to be watching all of the Oscars, like all of the Oscars, if you can get the snippets on YouTube.
Why would I want to sit through almost four hours worth of a, if I only want to watch? And if you sat through three and a half hours on Hulu, you missed the last two, which was the best actress and the best picture. Yeah, exactly. Ouch. Ouch. Correct. This is what I'm saying. It's like you're sitting there waiting for those things. And nowadays we are not even just with the children, for sure. They're just waiting for the quick. Just give it to me.
little snippet and I can watch all that stuff. And, you know, my youngest is like that. Her exposure to the condensed story is all she wants. There's a small percentage of the time when she will make the leap into watching the full thing. where something interests her enough and she's seen enough short form video content for her to go, you know what? I want to watch the whole TV show. I want to watch the whole movie. But that's few and far between. And they are content.
just getting the bits. And YouTube is one of the biggest forms to be able to do that in the evening. That's like the routine at our house. It's YouTube shorts on TV. Anyway, I'm going to skip number four. You guys can like look at the article there, but we are going to go into this last announcement that that everybody's talking about.
which was that celebrating 1 billion monthly podcast users on YouTube. And that came out into the YouTube blog. And that is, quote, today we are announcing that there are more than 1 billion monthly active viewers of... content on YouTube. This milestone underscores how YouTube has come to play an essential role in podcasting for creators and audiences and how our investments to improve the podcast experience on YouTube are paying. Off end quote. So I do have questions.
I asked this to YouTube and to the YouTube Insider account on Threads, which is run by Renee Ritchie. I said, I have a question about what the definition of active users is, because in the research that I've done, it doesn't look like active. viewers is defined anywhere. So I can't find, I can find unique viewers, I can find new viewers, and I can find returning viewers. But I don't know what active viewers, and I'm assuming that that's an...
All of them. Maybe they have to have viewed more than a certain amount of time. I have no idea. So I haven't gotten a response yet from that. And maybe I will, because that's... Because I did, I wanted to know like, okay, what's the definition of active viewers on podcasts? I'm assuming it's those three things into one, I guess. Anyway, they continued on saying, quote, podcasts with video are more than just a trend. They meet audiences where they are on YouTube.
We've specially developed our podcast product experience to make it easier for fans to find podcasts they love. Discover new ones and watch or listen wherever they want. We've also added more and more podcasters into our revenue sharing program, the YouTube Partner Program. As a result, YouTube is now the most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S. And there's a quote. Again, it's a highlight, right? It's a hyperlink to the Edison research.
thing. So again, server side data, which they are presenting to us and the survey side data to tell their story. And again, refer back to episode 286 for a breakdown of all of that stuff. All right. For those that do interviews, we're going to switch gears here, podcast interviews, where you have a guest on your show, having a release form for them to sign is a really good idea. We've talked about this before. It's been a while.
And again, something we highly, highly recommend. Our friend Gordon Firemark, who is a lawyer for podcasters, has a free release form you can use. He says this per why you should have a release form. So this is Gordon quote, using a release allows you and only you to decide how your show is edited, distributed and monetized.
Without a release, a disgruntled former guest could demand you edit their episode a particular way, demand payment for the continued right to distribute your show, demand you remove their episode from your feed. issue a DMCA takedown notice to your hosting provider, jeopardize your business, sue you for damages or an injunction, and also make your life miserable for months or years.
Yikes. Yeah, this one simple step can help you avoid all the headaches, hassles, and legal fees. This flexible release... Agreement template can be embedded in scheduling forms, used in onboarding, or sent for e-signature, unquote. And I can tell you firsthand. We have had to take down episodes before because a guest filed a proper takedown notice, went ballistic, had lawyers. I've seen hosts struggle with disgruntled guests many, many, many times.
protect yourself, save yourself a major headache, and get a release form for your guests to sign. Note, when you do go to the link in the show notes, you will need to give your name and email address to get said release form, and you will be signing up to an email list. So I do want to point that out, but you can always unsubscribe after you get.
the form, download it. Thank you, Gordon, for making that available. Yeah, we'll have, I think we have a link in the show notes so that you can check that out also, folks. We have an email here. Hi again. By the way, I heard my question a couple months ago brought up on the feed and I was excited to hear it. Anyway, I have another question that I'm getting different answers about on Reddit, etc.
Sometimes you have to replace your audio file for a recent new episode upload. Recently, we had to edit a name that we mixed up a few hours after going live. My question is, can I use the exact same MP3 file name as the original when I go in and remove the original in Libsyn and upload the replacement? Will Apple and Spotify, my main concern, pick up that this is new even if the file name is the same? I have...
An odd reason to keep them the same having to do with our website that has a player and points to the original URL to the audio file in the original feed. Long story, not worth getting into. So I guess my question is, what is the recommendation? method for doing this, and is it bad to keep the file name the same? Thanks again. And this is from Tom. That's a great question. We get that one a lot. Tom, not only can you keep it the same,
you should absolutely keep it the same, including case. And the best way to replace the files is via FTP. In your Libsyn account, there is an FTP folder called Dropbox with a small d. Not to be confused with Dropbox.com. And you simply place the new version in that folder and it instantly replaces the original. If you have the file name exactly the same. And if you mess up the file name at all.
then it harmlessly just goes to the FTP queue. No harm. You just go in and you delete the misnamed file and then rename it correctly and then re-upload via FTP and then it does replace it. That's the... best way to do it. It's the easiest way to do it, especially if you have multiple ones, but it's bulletproof. Some people get scared by FTP. FTP is not a big boogeyman. It's really easy to use. CyberDuck is a great FTP-free app.
Doing this way will ensure that Spotify does not trigger additional downloads and that your episodes will continue to work when you click play in Apple Podcasts. See, Apple caches the file URL. So when you change the file name... For about 48 to 72 hours, the file will not play correctly when someone clicks play at Apple Podcasts after an episode's been released. So there's a lot of reasons to keep the file name the same. That is...
what we highly, highly, highly recommend. Do not change it to be EPP-286B when it was EPP-286A for the original. Just if it was EPP-286... then the new one should be ep286.mp3. And again, same case, upper and lower case for the letters. It has to be identical. But yes. That is easy. And if you have any questions, Tom, you can email me or anyone has questions. Rob at Lipson.com. I'll send you tutorials on how to use FTP with Lipson, but it is so easy and it's bulletproof.
Okay. Yay. And now we have a little update from our friends over at Transistor, actually. The Transistor.fm blog has a really cool blog post. Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. It's cool. It's sad, but cool kind of podcast apps that are gone. Right. And they're listing 23 podcast apps that have been closed. The most recent one they have is Google Podcasts 2024, then Radio Public and Repod and Potty all quote-unquote closed in 2024, although Potty app still works and you can still download it.
And it's Potty, P-O-D-D-Y, by the way, y'all. Correct. Then there's Stitcher, which closed in 2023. Reason app, Shuffle, Listen app, Acast, all closed in 2022. Breaker, BitCast, Synth, Swoot, Broadcast, all close in 2021. Tongue.fm, Google Play Music, close in 2020. Podcast 9, they have it listed as closing in 2019.
The app still works. I have it on my phone. It still works. And you can still actually download it. So the site's kind of gone, but the app still works. It wasn't the best. They have iTunes listed as 2019. I disagree with that because... It still lived on in PCs until 2024. So I would say. I see. Yeah. I mean, you could still, if you had a PC, the directory was still there in 2024. I'm not sure. I don't know if it works today. Bumpers.
Auto Radio, Pod Wrangler are all closed in 2018. There was Instacast back in 2015. That was one of the early ones. And then, of course, Google Listen, one of the earliest ones to be closed down. But here's what's... Interesting, though, when you look at many of them that were closed down, there was a common thread beyond them, not hitting any realist users. And that was...
Many of them were focused on the social aspect and would help you discover a new podcast based on what others were listening to or some spin thereof. Except that's not what listeners ever really said they wanted. They wanted an app that made it easy to listen to the podcast they already knew they wanted to listen to, i.e. what Marco focused on with Overcast. Yeah, some were closed for political reasons, not political and...
Democrat, Republican, but political internally in companies like Stitcher, Google Listen, and Google Play. Those were all internal political casualties. ACAST closed theirs down just because they... Didn't want to spend any more time and money on it and wasn't getting big uptick. But no, the number of apps that actually closed is actually much larger. This is, they don't have all of them. There are many others that have closed and they didn't have Samsung podcast listed.
which is a big one that just closed. But there are others, and I need to go through and go through some of the other ones that have closed over the years. People realize there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of podcast aggregator apps. many of which are not focused on English. There are Hindi ones, there are Hungarian ones, there are Germans. There are ones that are focused on specific languages. So when you go into the App Store...
There are many, many of these apps that have come and gone over the years that you don't know. I see them in the user agent reports when I'm doing this stuff, so I get to see a lot of them. I always talk about, oh, there's all these other ones. There are a lot of other ones. There are a lot of other ones. But it was nice to see this in one place where they had some screenshots and things. And it's just a reminder, it's really, really, really tough.
to make an app that gets any market share for podcast consumption. And whenever someone comes to me, I mean, I had this happen a couple of years ago. Someone came to me and said, oh, I'm starting this podcast app. And I thought they were joking. I laughed. I go, that's funny. And they go, no, no, serious. I was like, oh, sorry. I thought you were joking. Oh, no. I know. I remember. Yeah, you told me about that. So that was, it was like awkward, but it's really hard to pick up market share.
People have spent a lot of money and a lot of time, and they often think, oh, I'm going to come on this niche. This isn't being addressed. And they think about what the podcaster wants, but they have to think, first and foremost, what does the listener want? That's how you design your app.
Overcast focused on that. Marco gets it. CastBox gets it. All right. So there are some apps that got it and they have some market share because of that. There are others that try to be gimmicky, never picked up any audience. Yeah, I'm still really curious at how SOFA does. We talked about SOFA, I think, in the last episode, because I do feel that there's something to that app, not necessarily...
Because it's straddling this really interesting area of consumption overall, things that you consume. If you're like a heavy consumer of media and having podcasts in that app might work. So that's one thing that I'm curious about that. But to your point, it's very hard for me to decouple consuming podcasts versus engaging.
with conversations and sharing on social and like doing all these other things related to it. I haven't gotten into that at all. Like I don't go somewhere to do these things. I have a harder time to do that stuff. anyway again link in the show notes and then we have a Really quick announcement from the Spotify team. They sent out an email. Many of you probably got it. It said, we're writing to let you know that account admins can now grant team members access to your show.
with customized permissions including for episodes, analytics, and fan interactions. Users who have previously successfully added your show to their Spotify for Creators account. admin access, have admin access by default. Again, this is where you go to podcasters.spotify.com. Note, admins can update access levels for all users within the team.
making it a little bit easier to have multiple users in the admin. Oh, and then some exciting news. I was on the edge of my seat on this one. Meghan Markle is back with her podcast. Oh, my God. This time, quote unquote, it's launching on Lemonada Media in the spring. They just re-released the first 12 episodes of Archetype to the feed. Those were the ones that Spotify way, way...
Way overpaid for. Just saying. I definitely will take the under on them getting to 50 episodes. I hope Lemonada did not pay for this as an MG and are just doing a rev share deal. That's all I have to say. No, but hey, you know what, though? She's you know, she has her Netflix show that she just released. There could be some potential for cross posting in there. So I hope that it works out and onward.
I mean, she came back. There's not very many people who come back. And this is an interesting strategy. Meaning it's an interesting strategy in the sense that it left one place, it went to the other place, and they're re-releasing the episodes. I'm not sure I've seen that in the past. Yeah, it depends on what the rights were. A lot of people will leave one place or another.
It's tougher when it's exclusive content like it was originally. Mega Marcos was just on Spotify back when Spotify was doing that exclusive, but they just never released content. They were supposed to release a whole bunch of content. It just kept getting delayed and never getting released. It was a very strange, strange deal. Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. Okay, so now we're moving on to our stats, but...
We are going to be doing our second promo of the episode and this one is from a new podcast actually. It's called Ad Stops and it is all about... keeping podcasting advertising on track with all kinds of info about podcast advertising. So here we go. Welcome to the new AdOps podcast from Adopter Media. My name is Tiffany Rubenstein, and I'm going to be joined by my co-host, Angela Stuyvesant. And this podcast is going to talk all things AdOps from AdOps professionals working.
in podcasting in YouTube and beyond. So if you are interested in learning more about ad ops, ad trafficking in podcasts, what makes for a good, effective ad for brands, insights from other industry professionals. and just learning more about the entire process of ad ops in podcasting and YouTube, this is the place for you. All right. Thank you. Well, as a note though, Rob, you do know. that our very own Sydney Dennis was just on the show. Oh. Yeah, so she really talked all about covering...
all kinds of stuff about podcast ad operations. And the title of her episode is called The Critical Role of Ad Ops, Proactive Strategies for Success. So I'll have that linked in. Our show notes as well, if you guys want to listen to Sydney talk about podcast ad ops and all of that fun stuff. So, dun-dun, you can test out that episode. All right. Now we're going to get into stats, median and mean.
And this is the median and median numbers to see how your show measures up or your client show. Median and median numbers are based on all episodes released on Lipson, Lipson Pro in the month of January with downloads measured until the end of February. And on average, each file was about 45 days old. This is, again, for all shows hosted on Libsyn and Libsyn Pro. The median number for January was 127. That was down a smidge from 129 in December.
The adjusted mean average where I threw out the top half percent and any files with three or less downloads, the adjusted mean for January was 1143. That's down a little from December when it was 1190. 5.7% of downloads for episodes released in January were in the 5K range or greater for downloads. That was down a smidge from December's 5.8%.
And here are some numbers to measure against. To put things in perspective, if your episodes are getting over 127 downloads after 30 days, you are better than half the shows. More than 500, you are better than 71.6% of the shows that put you in the top 28.4%. If you get more than 1,000, you're better than 80%. More than 2,600, better than 90%. More than 5,800, better than 95%. More than 15,000, you're better than 98%. And more than 27,000, you're better than 99% of the shows out there.
January's numbers were, for the most part, either down a little or the same compared to December. So just an awful smidge there on those numbers. All right. On the next week. In our next episode, two weeks, we'll have user agent information and geographic stuff. So where have we been? You finally got an episode, right? Which one? I know. I know.
Listen, I was on the Sound Off podcast. Thank you so much to Matt for having me on. Please go ahead and listen to the Sound Off podcast. It's a really amazing podcast overall. getting into all of the behind the scenes of podcasting and audio and all kinds of stuff. He's gotten some amazing interviews in there. So thank you so much, Matt, for having me on that show. And I was also on Blueberry's podcast Insider. So Todd Cochran asked me to be on the show and we talked all about.
We talked about you, Rob. Of course, we talked about you. We talked about how I got into podcasting. It was really nice to be able to reminisce like an entire trajectory of like what I've been doing for almost two decades in the space. It was really great. So and then they wrote an article also, which is amazing. I'll have that link in the show notes. There's video. I'm not sure if there's like an audio only side of it all, but.
You're welcome to go check all that out. I'm going to put all of those links in the show notes. And again, Todd, thank you so much for having me on. That was very kind of you. And we had a really nice time catching up. I was interviewed on S&P Global podcast, but they have like 20 different podcasts. And they didn't tell me which specific one it was going to be. And all they said it was going to be live Thursday, which was yesterday. But they never sent me the link.
So maybe by the next time I will have a link to it. But we talked all about podcasting and getting into podcasting. But yes, folks, when you interview someone, please, please, please send them the link. That would be good. Yes. And of course, where I was, I was in Dallas in the last two weeks twice.
And I did training sessions at NRB. One was how to create assets for a podcast. And then the second one was how to set up and distribute said assets. So those two sessions went really well. I got to meet a lot of them. A bunch of people at NRB, a lot of our podcasters that already host with us came by and said hi and met a few, obviously, potential folks that are getting ready to launch podcasts. So that's always a good show for us. And then where we're going.
Uh, so you want to, we have, well, podcast movement evolutions in Chicago. We got a bunch of sessions that we're going to be doing. I know we have Matthew Passi, a studio on a budget for the Create track. Rob Walsh, how to tell if, you know, all kinds of marketing stats are BS in 2025 with new titles somewhere. Anthony Civelli and Steven Pickens, two sessions, hostredads.work, authenticity is the new ROI for the profit track and YouTube ads and beyond the rise of video podcast dollars.
Then we have Brooke Collins and Karen White with audience targeting campaigns, podcasts versus streaming for the industry and brand track. We have Brian Coddington for video podcasting on a budget, quality content without breaking the bank. I'm assuming that's the creator track. Then we have Steven Pearlstein unlocking YouTube analytics for podcast success. And then Bob Kane is also moderating.
panel whose title is TBD. I do believe there's also going to be another little something something coming in there. We don't know exactly what yet. So we have we we can't even mention that at the moment. But alas, our team is going to be there for sure. I won't be there, but a lot of other people will. Yeah. And then NAB in Las Vegas in April, right after that. I leave Thursday night from Podcast Movement Evolutions. I fly home Thursday night. Friday, I spend the day home.
and getting laundry done, I guess. And then Saturday morning early, like 5.50 flight or something like that, I fly back to Vegas. I fly to Vegas for NAB. Oh, my goodness gracious. Yeah. Yeah. So. Really quick turn on that. Holy monkeys. Yeah. And then we have the podcast show in London in May, although we won't have like a booth. There will be Libsyn representation there walking around, I believe. So.
At least you will know that there, yeah. Yes, absolutely. All right. Please, folks, let us know if you're going to any of these shows. Just email us, let us know, and come by and say hi. Switching gears to Where Are You Going.
Well, if you're looking for a job in podcasting, make sure you go to podcastingjobs.com. As of the beginning of March, we had two openings listed there, both remote, Director of Creative Partnerships and Director of Podcast Strategy and Operations. Again, go to podcastingjobs.com. to learn more about these openings and potentially others. If you're looking to start a podcast or switch up your podcast home, you can use the code THEFEED, one word, THEFEED, for a free month plus with us.
And 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 it to us, thefeedatlipson.com, or you can call us. 412-573-1934. Or finally, you can use SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com slash the feed. Right on. We will be chatting with you very soon, y'all. And remember, but for realsies, y'all, send us your promos. I would love to get some more promos on the show.
your feedback. If anything made you think, if you were just like, why are they talking about that? Or, hey, I have a question. Send it over. 412-973-1934. And we will chat with you in a couple of weeks. Ciao. Bye.