Podcast Reset and Podcast Hall of Fame, Spotify Video, iHeart Layoffs - Live

The afternoon. Hey, afternoon delight with Todd and Rob Greenlee. Oh yeah.

Hey Rob, here we are for another edition of the New Media Show, and I have my fingers crossed. I did a complete factory reset of the RODECaster Duo. If anyone has any connections out there, um, go beat, uh, the RODE software team by, you know, I just, uh, I'm, I'm, I've never experienced, uh, a more flaky USB connection. I don't have no idea where it's come from, but yeah, we'll keep our fingers crossed it stays connected today. But anyway, here, here we are.

Yeah, well, I guess, uh, uh, Rode announced a, a new kind of wireless microphone. I guess it's their smallest wireless microphone they've had Um, yeah, so I guess it's, uh, something that new came out this week from Rode.

Yeah, and, uh, you know, those little, those little itty-bitty microphones, those, you know, those tiny, uh, transmitters, those clip-ons. Yeah, they just continue to get cheaper and cheaper. It's just amazing to me, um, because I think about the professional wireless stuff that I bought years ago. Yeah, you know, $600, $700 a pair, you know, and now they're, you know, $100 or something. It's, it's, it's pretty wild. Um, but, uh, Rode and DJI and, you know, all those folks have done a, done a great job. Be honest with you, I'm, I'm a big fan of the, uh, as a matter of fact, I've got a DJI Action 4 right here. Um, that I travel with now, and that it's much better than my prior action camera. So I'm pretty—

I just got a DJI Osmo Pocket 3. I got one of those. And oh yeah, I think I mentioned that. I mentioned that before I got the Creator's Kit. But yeah, I agree with you, Todd. These new cameras and these new wireless microphones also have noise reduction technology built into them now. So Right, right. You can get really terrific audio out of, out of these things. Plus these, these little portable small cameras that they have are doing like 4K, and, and I think the, the Insta360 X4 out now supports 8K video. So, right, you know, that's a, that's another small little handheld, uh, a video camera Yeah, I've got, I've got an Insta360, but it's not the— it's not the 360 version, right?

Right, right. But it's just a clip-on, you know, a little clip.

Oh yeah, yeah, those are fantastic.

Yeah, they're incredible. Really incredible. I haven't got too much chance to use it, and part of the reason is I feel a little, um, it feels a little, uh You know, if you're in a public place, it's real easy to hide that camera. So it— I just feel a little weird. It's, it's pretty obvious when you're holding this that you're filming.

Yeah.

But when you're wearing one of those clip-ons like that, people can just miss it. And it just, it just feels a little— it feels like a creep cam almost. So I, you know, I don't— I guess the original thing I wanted to, uh, have it for was just to be out and about when I was here, and I just feel uncomfortable doing it. So if I record, I record with this, which is kind of, kind of reverse process. But yeah, last thing I want is someone come up to me and say, are you recording? And seeing some clip-on, you know, where it's obvious you're holding a cell phone or a camera up. Oh yeah, I'm recording. So I don't know, I don't know why I feel that way, but it's kind of the way I feel. But anyway, big, big week for you. You've been very, very busy getting ready, uh, with the, uh, with the announcement for the Podcast Hall of Fame.

Yeah, uh, I, I put out a news release, uh, yesterday, and it got covered by Pod News about the appointment of, uh a new board of governors for, for the organization, trying to make it more of a big tent kind of a thing, making it more of an autonomous kind of standalone organization of sorts, and, and trying to come up with some, some more clarifications on the guidelines and the process. And, and I'm going to be doing a, a little bit more of a kind of a formal voting process, but I haven't fully, fully deployed it yet. And then I also want to eventually have a, a more, I guess, a polished kind of nomination process too. So, but that, you know, all these things take time and effort, and I've spent a lot of time kind of updating the website and bringing it up to, to the new year and, and trying to work on a lot of the stuff. So it's, it's, it's coming together, and I know it's a mad sprint to January, which is coming up pretty quick. Um, so real fast Yeah, so things are going to be happening fast, and I should be putting out more information here soon about who the actual inductees are going to be. And then, and then that, that causes a cascade of other things that have to happen prior to the event, um, and then creating the actual ceremony itself. We haven't decided if we're going to stream the ceremony live or not. We would like to, uh, it just depends on what the capabilities of the facilities are for us to do that. But at the very least, we're gonna record it and then be able to put that out, right?

When does, um, when does voting start?

Um, as soon as I can get everything pulled together, um, to have— yeah, I've got all of the, all of the nominees, um, in their two separate categories. Most of them have already been kind of submitted to me from a variety of different people in the industry and And then also from the actual Hall of Famers and others that I've tapped into to get maybe some new names because we had a pretty extensive list of potential nominees even before I started gathering others. So it was more like making it kind of more inclusive. And unfortunately, when you add a lot of names, that makes the process a little more complicated. So, and it makes it more challenging on the people to vote because they're having to vote on a larger number of potential inductees. So we may at some point have to have like a middle step here that basically thins out the nominations that help the final voters select the inductees. But I haven't worked that process out yet. So that's probably something that has to be done for next year's event.

Yeah, it's not easy, is it?

No, it's not. And I'm also trying to be very, very sensitive to the current climate that we're in too, around making the event as inclusive as I can while still, you know, respecting the values of the organization and what we've tried to build here. And so trying to expand it more beyond just the U.S. borders, bringing on board members that are represent the international space. So hopefully we can make this event more of an international kind of recognition. Now, one of the challenges with the international side, though, is that the international side hasn't had as long of a history in the podcast medium. So there's a fewer set of people that will fit into that side of the fence. But, but But I think the organization needs to be embracing that as a proactive step forward. So as we move into a more substantial involvement of the international community in podcasting, that gets taken into account.

You know, but that being said, and having, you know, spent a lot of time here in Asia recently, you know, every region has their set of trailblazers that are not, that they're not often known. Even, you know, maybe they're known within this region, but they're not known outside of Asia or, you know, Europe. This kind of, we kind of know some of the players, the good big ones, so, you know, in Europe. But I agree with you, Tom. And how do you, when you talk about the Middle East, you know, they've come on strong. In a couple of years, there's, you know, there's going to be a whole host of potential candidates. Um, so I know that you've also divided this year, made it clear that there's two, two segments of basically potential nominees. And I guess I don't know, and that's inductees too.

So there's four of, or actually five from each. This year.

So 5 that are podcasters, correct?

Correct.

And 5 that have done something extraordinary in the podcasting space, right? In the space.

Yeah, yeah, that captures a lot of people that have had a significant impact on the growth and success of the medium that may not have been primarily a podcaster per se, right?

Right.

So that's the bucket that we wanted to capture people in so those people don't get forgotten about, um, because they could be podcasters, but they may have had more of a, a platform or a, or an executive role or something like that, right, that had a big impact on the medium.

Yeah, no, and I think you and I've talked about it a lot, um, based upon the couple of years that were missed, you know, we could probably do 10 of each Easily, right? Yeah. So, and I know we're— we've upped the number this year to 10. It would be nice to see, I guess, when the— how the process goes and then the award ceremony goes. It would be nice to see if we get up that number again next year because I, I just don't know how we catch up.

Well, I think one, one thing I've been thinking about is as I As I refine the process and make it more digital, make it more using technology to help kind of manage that, that maybe we can get to a point where we can have 2 induction ceremonies a year for a few. Is what I'd like to get to. Now, granted, that may be one may have to be a virtual one and one may be an in-person one. So that's something I've been thinking about, but I'm not exactly sure that I'm ready to deploy that yet.

Doesn't the Grammys do something like that they, they have their big show, um, with their, you know, the best actress and all that stuff. But don't— I know that there's people that get Grammys for a whole bunch of reasons that, you know, you never, you never—

yeah, it's not up on stage, right? It's not up on stage on, on TV. It's the same thing with the Academy Awards. They, they always have a bunch of awards that are given that they consider to be, you know, I guess less prominent awards, but yeah, they're more of a focus on the industry of, of creating movies and TV and stuff like that that are always happening in a separate ceremony. Yeah, so that could be the model that I, I could kind of mimic here, but what's different is, is that the event may not be able to afford to have two in-person events.

Yeah, yeah.

But that's, that's something that needs to be worked out by the board.

Well, I, you know, I fully understand it. Uh, you know, there's a— from, for the podcast awards, there's— I spend a good 3 days prepping for the ceremony. Yeah. Um, and, you know, I don't think it comes as any surprise, in order to have a good ceremony, I, I pre-record. Usually it's 2 days before I do a pre-recording to make sure that, you know, it's going to go smooth, make sure that, you know, the acceptance speeches are stitched in good, make sure the audio levels are good. You know, just because I don't have the, you know, basically the budget to do a live event in person, it's just too hard to coordinate. Getting 30 people, let alone, you know, get— just imagine trying to get 30 people to an event and, and all the logistics that goes along with that. So, and you, you know, you've— we're talking about 10, and it's still going to be hard to, you know, get 10 people to, to Orlando to—

yeah, I don't expect that we are going to get 10 people to Orlando. I mean, we didn't get 10 people to Orlando last year, so why would I expect that that's going to happen this year? It'd be great if we did. But yeah, I think creating those acceptance ceremonies as a video that can be played during the event is— it's a solution that works, especially for the video side of it, right? That can be stitched together with the in-person, with the virtual.

Right. And I think, too, the, you know, from what I've seen in the past, you know, there's been people that I was not super familiar with And yet when I heard their stories, because you give them enough time to tell their— a little bit of their story.

Yeah.

Um, there's some pretty powerful messages that have come out of the award show and those acceptance speeches.

Yeah.

Um, that are— they're more than acceptance speeches. They are why, how, where, um, What was my, you know, the inspiration? And again, the origin stories of these individuals, their shows, what they've done in the space is something that, you know, hopefully we can capture deeper. So do you think that going forward that there could even be a podcast series with interviews from each of these folks?

Yeah, I plan on doing that. I plan on creating separate social media accounts for just the Podcast Hall of Fame and be able to create content on those channels as the year goes on. So really, the Hall of Fame doesn't really ever stop necessarily, right? Just, it just moves into a different functioning phase. And then over time, you know, who knows what we can create, you know, with this event. To really create a kind of like a big tent kind of organization that really embraces, you know, authentic leadership and trustworthy leadership in the podcasting space that basically gives a forum for people to— like you shared, Todd, just now, a lot of the acceptance speeches are also an opportunity for leaders in the industry to thank other people in the industry too. So it actually has a, a, a kind of a much broader recognition of the deep contribution that the community adds to podcasters, and that's— they successful, and then it comes back and, and helps other people too. So that, that's the, that's the hope that I have with this thing, is that it, it creates a a really important legacy for podcasting that lasts beyond just the, the window of time that, right, that particular event happens.

So yeah, and in order for it to grow, um, yeah, and you know, just in— and also just so everyone understands too, you know, Rob, you're doing yeoman's work here. You're not getting paid for this.

Well, I've never gotten paid for it.

Yeah, and you know, this is a labor of love. And that's kind of the way I look at what I do with the podcast awards. So, you know, the amount of time that's invested is on my side is pretty— I've got the process down really, really well now. But still, just the— if you think, you know, think about my situation is I have to review 300 shows, you know, in the span of a week.

Yeah.

And double-check their qualifications and all this stuff. And it's drudgery, you know. It's just looking at every show, looking at the number of episodes, looking at— make sure they made their qualifications. And, you know, it can be fun. Hey, we've got a Facebook comment from Leland. Says, good evening, gentlemen. Good day to be an American. Brad Whitley says, hey, Todd and Rob, good to see you again. Thanks for joining us. Gentlemen and anyone else that's on the live stream, feel free to, uh, just say hello. And, uh, so that's first time I've used this little tool.

Oh, that's great.

So anyway, yeah, so, uh, just stay connected, device. Don't, uh, don't disconnect. Um, so I, I, I think the the Board of Governors, then what was your methodology in— I know that you've— is there anyone— there is some folks on the Board of Governors that are not in the Hall of Fame. Is that because of that? Correct. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's kind of a bigger direction that I wanted to point this board, which will probably get bigger. And I think over time that the board needs to, to represent leaders from the industry. It's still heavy people that are in the Podcast Hall of Fame today because that's the, that's the roots of this, this medium or this, this particular Hall of Fame is, is the, the people that have been inducted have traditionally been the one that has kind of managed this event and voted on who's inducted. But my bigger goal is to make the the, the event look like it's more, um, it's just larger than just the inductees, right? So other people having a say in who's inducted, right? And yeah, that's something that I'm going to expand kind of slowly, not rapidly. So I want to probably at the beginning probably expand it more on the international side, which is what I've started to do with the CEO of HubHopper, on the board from the huge country of India. So, yeah, you know, you start thinking about, you know, trying to get into Europe, and there's folks that I may still add to the board in the future that'll be from other parts of the world that can provide input into the Hall of Fame on potential nominees, right? And and people that we can induct into the Hall of Fame. The, you know, there's issues with that too, right? I mean, are those people going to travel from those countries to America, or at some point does this Hall of Fame have to take place outside of the U.S.?

Yeah, you know, another thing too is, you know, I— it— the, the makeup right now is good. It's, it's— but it is definitely a lot of inside baseball. Um, Yeah. So the question then becomes, you know, there's no charter per se yet. And probably at some point there will need to be a charter put together. But what, you know, and this should not be, you know, the board of governors should not be some lifelong appointment either. No, there probably needs to be some, you know, some process. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm thinking probably maybe a 2-year term at the most, probably at this point.

Yeah. And maybe stagger it so there's half a group that is and half a, you know, maybe every year there's a, or every 2 years at least half the board or whatever, you know, because it seems like 4 years is a pretty big commitment to be part of a process. I mean, I don't know, maybe, maybe you're right. Maybe every year, you know, half the board of governors is replaced.

Yeah, I mean, I, I kind of went through this when I was the, the chairperson of the Podcast Academy with the Ambie Awards, where we had a, a board that was, that was basically voted on at some point, but the founding board was, was basically appointed. And that's kind of what happened this time. But you have to start somewhere, so you have to appoint the initial board, and then that board decides the cadence on how, how long a term is. My term at the Podcast Academy turned out to be about 3 years because the, the end of the first year term was when, when we started to initiate the term limits, uh, and so I actually went 3 years where the normal term was only 2 years. So, right, so that's kind of what probably will wind up happening here unless I want to do it an annual thing. Um, but that's pretty quick. I mean, because we're, we're just getting started with this whole concept, really, at the end of the day. Even though this event was started in 2015, there really wasn't any organization around it. So it was really, really kind of, you know, we're back to the beginning again in a lot of ways.

Yeah, yeah. In that regards, I think that, um, at some point too, you know, if, if we're going to really embody this thing, they're probably, you know, there's going to have to be some fundraising done to—

well, it needs— it definitely needs some additional sponsors. Um, I am going to, to bring on some media partners, and then there's going to be different levels of support that can be done currently through Podfest, but It will probably, you know, as we lead into next year, it'll probably be more of an independent thing, um, from Podfest, from a sponsorship level standpoint. There may be some crossover with Podfest on that, but I want the Podfest folks to be a partner of the event, not, not the actual owner of the event.

Yeah, but it's— they're technically at this point a partner Yeah, well, they are. They don't own the event currently, but you know, you're working with Chris and the team.

And yeah, I think, I think some of the branding of the website and some of the things that were used in the ceremony last year, like the background, had the Podfest, uh, logo on it. Logo, right. So the event really needs its own kind of branding behind it, and I would actually like to update the branding as well. So that's, that's kind of like another phase that needs to happen with it too, because I think the, the actual branding of the— with the logo and things like that needs a, needs a little refresh, right? And yeah, but I just haven't gotten to that yet.

Yep. It's like, like I said, uh, you're doing yeoman's work here, and, uh, this is amongst other things that you're doing to try to make sure you can put food on the table.

Right. Yeah, small things like that, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, James Crittland says, uh, good to see you both. Uh, so hey James, thanks for joining us. Yeah, and James and I are about on the same time zone. Hi there, fellas. So from Mark Roddick. And, uh, so good, glad you— some of us are joining us in the evening and some joining us in the morning like me.

Right, right.

Actually, this makes it easier now for me, Rob, doing this show, because, um, I'm, I'm an hour, 13 hours ahead now. Okay, so I didn't have to get up at, at 7:30. I got up at, uh, 8, 8:30 in my time.

Wow, you got to sleep in.

Oh, oh, James says, James says I'm not on your time zone, so he must be, uh, either he must— I'm in on AWST, so Um, oh, he's in— James is in Los Angeles, so, uh, I'm in LA just to confuse everyone. Well, okay, good.

Yeah, it's like, you know, James is clearly like a Where's Waldo kind of paradigm, I think, right? He's bouncing all over the world, right?

He's getting his freaking flyer miles, uh, and, uh, keeping his and getting those upgrades so he doesn't You know, that 13-hour flight back to Australia has got to be just— it's, you know, I know coming over here, it's a butt kicker. And it takes you 3 days to get on schedule, then it's time to go home. So, and vice versa.

I think James went to a Spotify event tonight. So, oh, hmm. Yes.

Interesting. What were they? What are they doing? Any rumors?

Oh, it was just like a conference type of thing for, for Spotify, and I guess James got invited, I guess, somehow. And, and yeah, so in the, in the newsletter tomorrow, there's going to be some breaking news about iHeart, so which— oh, we can talk about maybe, maybe a little bit.

So, oh, there's going to be breaking news about iHeart?

A little bit, yeah. Well, there's, there's, there's been a bunch of, a bunch of layoffs over there, so, and some cutting back and streamlining and, and like, uh, like the elimination of BlogTalkRadio, things like that.

Oh, I did hear about that today. They're doing it right around the holiday.

And just so everybody knows, BlogTalkRadio was acquired back when I was working for Spreaker. Yeah. So, so they're— Spreaker and BlogTalkRadio are now kind of part of Triton. I don't know if everybody knew that either. And then Triton is owned by iHeart. So there's been some consolidation. Yeah, a lot of the— yeah, a lot of the Spreaker team now works for Triton.

I wonder, I wonder, because we haven't heard a lot about BlogTalkRadio because it hasn't been promoted a lot, but there was a lot of shows over there that were doing live. Yeah. So I just wonder what the effect is, how many, how many shows are now going to be either forced to go to Spreaker or— but didn't a lot of them, but didn't a lot of them migrate already, or Yeah.

The reason that Spreaker kept it going was because, like you just said, Todd, there was a large group of shows that were wanting to continue on the platform. And so they— the platform was still profitable, so there wasn't any motivation to shut it down. There was a lot of tech that was shared between the BlogTalkRadio platform and Spreaker in the early, earlier days. This was many years ago now. That, that helped Spreaker kind of add dynamic ad insertion capabilities and things like that. Back then, I would say BlogTalkRadio was one of the earliest platforms to implement dynamic ad insertion going back to their early days. So I think there was only a handful of companies back in like the 20, 2010 timeframe or 2008, 2009 that were doing dynamic ad insertion, and BlogTalkRadio was one of them.

Well, I, I know strategically, um, we've been doing a lot of things behind the scenes too. Um, you're gonna see, see some things come next year. We, we talked about it in a newsletter, so we didn't hide one of the things. Um, You know, we're going to be launching a site called Creator Connect. It's going to be a standalone product. Not, not, uh, it's going to compete with some, some, some sites out there. It's basically a matchmaking site for podcasters and, and guests. But the, the difference is it's, it's not podcast, uh, It's, it's, it's obviously going to have a podcast component because we have a large number of podcasters that are going to get access to it immediately from Blueberry. But, um, the, uh, the product is not going to be 100% podcast. It's also going to be open to YouTubers and any creator. So it's not, it's not pipe— stovepiped as a, aka, podcast product. So I think, you know, what you're going to probably see from us is this realization of this changing world we're in. And we don't want to be so piped and left hanging out to dry as a medium kind of shifts a little bit. So that's one of several things that we're going to be, you know, our first quarter of next year, I think there's going to be a couple of big surprises. And stuff that we release, um, more standalone products. And some of the products we have internally currently available to Blueberry customers are going to become standalone products too. So that— because every, you know, every time says, oh, I have to have a hosting account, just like people that are using our statistics, they get— they think, oh, I have to be a hosting customer of Blueberry to use your stats. Well, no, you don't. Um, so we're, you know, gonna work hard to make sure that from a positioning standpoint, people understand that, yeah, Blueberry has podcast hosting, but Blueberry also, you know, this new product Creator Connect by Blueberry and a couple of other things we're going to come out with are— because otherwise, um, you know, it's still a tough business, um, environment right now. Yeah. And, uh, you know, we're watching revenue. Revenue's, you know, still okay, but we haven't grown really the way we, we had hoped in the past, really, 12 to 18 months. So, um, you know, you either, uh, you either look to the future or you die. And, um, yeah, so, um, James is saying that BlogTalkRadio has about 3,200 podcasts and it's going to close in January. So the question then is, are they gonna— I'm sure they've got a migration path for those folks into, into Spreaker, right?

I would, I would assume those folks just automatically Well, I know that in the early days of the acquisition of BlogTalkRadio, there was a concerted effort to try and get them to move over to Spreaker.

Well, they're forcing them now, right? And so, but there's a whole changed environment now, so there's so many more options. Mm-hmm. Look what we're doing today with Restream.io. Do you need BlogTalkRadio anymore to do the live stuff that they were known for? Is there a better interactive way to do a show now than being— of course, they've been just audio only.

Yeah, well, I think that's the big aspect of it that you have to think about here is the fact that, you know, the industry is moving to simultaneous audio and video streaming, not so much just audio streaming, though we're seeing on like platforms like X, you know, there's Spaces that's primarily audio right now, but that's more of— that, that's more of a, like, a Clubhouse model more than it is anything else. So, but that's not to say that that's not a valid model, but the problem is, is that, um, the model that BlockTalk Radio was using is not the cutting-edge model.

So, right, right.

Yeah. So as we look to the future, it actually makes sense. So I don't know what they're offering, um, those 3,200 podcasters. Yeah, I suppose they could do what they're doing on Spreaker today because it is a live live stream platform. But I wouldn't even say that live streaming is really the priority of Spreaker anymore either, though, though you can get the tools to do it. I'm just not sure that that's, that's a big priority for them. So I'm not really sure about those 3,200 shows. Maybe some of those shows will move over to Live 365, or there's other live audio platforms out there like Spaces or things like that.

But what was the revenue model over at BlogTalkRadio? How much was that service costing? I don't even know anymore.

I think it was similar. It was a little more expensive than a Spreaker plan. Oh, um, but not much.

So they're willing, they're willing to sacrifice 3,200 customers?

Yeah, I think it's what we're seeing with a lot of these platforms right now is really, um, kind of a, an organizational restructuring to cut down expenses, um, would be my guess. One other piece of this too is that iHeart announced a 5% staff reduction too. So there's been layoffs that have happened inside of that large company, right? Um, and part of that is being, being driven by radio revenues are not really kind of keeping up and trying to keep those companies well flush with cash to keep large staffs. And I think this— yeah, go ahead, Todd.

See if this will actually show up. James says, while this is their quote, while there are no other platforms to offer live guest call-in option, we do want to let you know about our sister company Spreaker, where we can place an easy direct, ensure the safety of your podcast. We can also offer a great discount. Yeah, if you are interested in any of the available plans. So, you know, what a way to just bend over, grease up, and take it.

Um, Yeah, there was a lot of talk about closing, closing BlockTalk Radio down very soon after Spreaker acquired it.

It's always a horrible time to do this. You know, we're starting in next, next week, you know, for at least in the United States, you know, really starting the week of— and I kind of call it the, the 5 or 6 weeks of Christmas. You know, we start next week on the 25th. Really kind of in a period, 5-week, 5- to 6-week period of a U.S. holiday for Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

Um, then we go into December leading into Christmas. So there's this kind of this middle time between Thanksgiving and Christmas where a lot doesn't get done. And then the New Year holiday and people on vacation. So really from the 25th of November to about January 7th, it's kind of, I call this doldrum time, and, um, you're still working, but part of your staff is out. So if you have a show, if you're, if you're doing a shutdown that's happening in January, now you've added stress to these creators to have to migrate to a new platform. Why not do this in June? You know, I, I just, it seems, I understand, new year, new, it's a public company, Todd. Yeah. It's all about the stockholders and keeping them happy.

Well, I think that— I mean, I think the bigger picture here, Todd, is that I think that there is a certain anticipation of a, um, of a, of a recession that's coming that may be deeper than what we've been through before, um, that's coming after, after—

that's— you think that's January? You think that's what people think is going to happen is a recession?

Yeah, I think that there's an expectation that there's going to be something that impacts the economic climate that these companies are preparing for, not the least of which is that, you know, these are public companies. The ones that we're talking about today are, you know, this particular company, iHeart, is the largest radio company in the, in the world, and I don't think radio is doing that well. So, you know, I think if we project that maybe podcasting is doing better than radio is as we look to the future, then you can kind of see what may be going on here.

It's, you know, what's kind of interesting, every week during our marketing call, we do a basically with the sales numbers You know, we look across the board, how many new customers came in, who did, you know, additional add-ons, how many cancellations. You know, we look at all that data in our marketing meeting every week. And the week following the election, which is, you know, basically right now, uh, we had a pretty good week last week.

Um, yeah, I think that the optimism is up a little higher now.

My—

much more clear of the election.

Yeah, my prediction was that a lot of people were were waiting. They weren't invoking to see what happened. So, you know, and we'll see if this continues, but it was a, it was a very, I was like, oh shit, that's a, that's a good number, you know, for, um, for what had been pretty lackluster. And then I went and did a deeper analysis. I say, okay, who are these new customers? What are these shows? Are they politically based or are, you know, what is the makeup? And I pulled each of the shows up, spent a couple of hours looking at the shows, and they were all across the board. It wasn't a bunch of people watching political shows. It was a whole bunch of— and it was— there was probably heavy presence on business shows. So anyway, that, you know, that's probably an interesting project for somebody. That's out there that's monitoring the new shows that are coming on is what type of shows are being created. And that might show some trending too. I would say that there was probably 40% of those new shows were business-related shows. So, you know, maybe it was just a simple fact that those businesses were waiting until the election to make a— to pull the trigger. You know, we went to social, social, we went into social darkness surrounding the election. I just basically said, hey, let's, you know, preceding and a few days after, let's, let's just be quiet in social. I don't, we don't need to be adding to any, I don't want anything posted is taken as any type of reaction and such stuff is neutral anyway, but The— so we just did a bit of darkness during— surrounding the election. Um, so I don't know, maybe it's because we did— we're quiet. Oh, Blueberry's, you know, talking again or something. I don't know. But anyway, it was, it was a pretty good week on our regard for sales.

Yeah, I think that they— it's interesting how the markets responded to the the kind of completion of the presidential cycle and how we saw, you know, I think it, I think it would have— Bitcoin has just skyrocketed.

Yeah, I think it would have. I think it— I honestly think it would have reacted the same way regardless of who got elected.

It's just finally decided.

It's because this is done, you know. Anyway, um, who knows the markets. It is what it is. But Bitcoin, holy Yeah, $90,000.

Well, and also the big uptick in Tesla too. That's the other one that really—

oh, I haven't— wasn't following them. I did a little bit of a cash out when it hit $76 on Bitcoin.

I wish I would have held at this point, but yeah, yeah, it, it went up almost $100, so for sure.

Wow. Well, okay, with We probably shouldn't talk about that. There's a lot of people pissed off about Elon. So, um, all right, we've got some other stuff to talk about today, but yeah, sure. 5% of iHeart. Wow.

Yeah, I guess they have a 10,000-person workforce, and so that's 500. Yeah, so it's not a huge layoff, but I did hear it's a city thing.

It's a shitty time to lay people off. You don't lay people off before Christmas or Thanksgiving, you know. Come on, you know, you, you let people get through the holiday. I guess it gives people the opportunity to say, oh, we, we can't spend very much money.

It's all about the stock, Todd. It's all about, uh, signaling to your investors in the stock market that you're trimming costs. You're also you know, what also has come out is that, you know, this was basically across the board— on-air talent, programming, sales, regional management. And I heard of a couple of people that were let go at Spreaker. So I'm sure there were others that were let go at maybe Triton and others at Omni and other parts of the, of the company. And, and then this, this elimination of BlogTalkRadio, you can kind of see a pattern here, right there.

Yeah.

They're basically focusing down and reducing any kind of redundancies that they have. And I've often talked or wondered about this redundancy that they have in the platform between Omni Studio and Spreaker, right? That having two different products. But what they've done is they've made the Omni Studio be more of a, like an enterprise product, and then Spreaker is more of a consumer side with, with an enterprise component. So they've been able to accomplish not unlike like what Spotify has been able to accomplish between the Spotify for Podcasters platform and then the Megaphone platform. So the question that I have is, at some point, will all those platforms merge together into one platform that has all the capabilities in it? But we'll see.

So I had something interesting come up this week, and I've got to reach out to Ted. One of our customers Basically, the show just disappeared off the Apple Podcast. Um, no, no strike, no email, no weird content. This happened in, uh, July.

It just disappeared. It just didn't show up.

Yeah, it was, it was, it just was gone. And, um, there's folks at Apple that are looking into it. I need a little more backstory, but the, the, um, the podcaster had a podcast consultant. I won't say who his name is, um, but they, instead of— they immediately basically submitted another show, and this show had a pretty good following. They had about, um, Probably 2,000 listeners per episode. And when the show went away, the listing went away. And then they submitted a new show. So they did it. Something happened, but yet Apple then finally brought the other show back or whatever happened. There was two show listings that were a second show listing that was created. And, um, we didn't hear about any of it until later. Um, they didn't come to us and say, hey, my show's off Apple Podcasts, help me, help me. Uh, which, you know, I would have immediately, you know, sent an email off and said, you know, what, what's going on with this podcast? And, um, they've had just, it's been devastating for them. Um, they haven't recovered on the, on the subscriber standpoint. So to their audience, they just look like they— look like they disappeared.

They just vanished.

Yeah, they just vanished. Now, the podcaster is not very technically adept. Um, they, they have a great show, but as far as the tech side goes, um, long story short, it's just like that, you know, they know that it disappeared, they don't know why, and they— and so we're trying to help them recover. Um, so I just want— has anybody else seen that? Has anyone just had a listing just disappear? Um, again, I'm going to reach out to Ted and, and see if I can get someone. But so far, the person that's working this at Apple, the— basically the, the The podcaster says they've been very responsive and they're, you know, they're in contact with them via email. So they're trying to get to the bottom of it, but it's just a weird one on our part. We've never— this is the first time I've ever seen this particular issue.

Yeah, I've never heard of it either before.

I'm surprised.

Yeah.

So, and again, who— you never know what has happened. Um, again, if you have a customer that's not super technical And did they do something in their Podcast Connect account? You know what, yeah, you know what, what may have happened, we don't know.

They accidentally clicked the wrong button, the delete button, you know.

I don't think— yeah, there is a— you can remove this.

Yeah, you can.

Yeah. So, uh, yeah, so I guess we're gonna hopefully get to the bottom of that, but I just wonder if any— because that seems so un— And there has to be a human element. Does something have been done? Especially when there wasn't a— the show wasn't removed because it had, you know, it wasn't weird content. Matter of fact, it was— it's great content, very helpful content, right? So, hey Felix, uh, he said hello to both of us. Uh, he said, hey Todd, hi Felix, hey Rob. So anyway, that's the weird one I've had for the week that I've head-scratcher on anything. The guy's got a sponsorship, so he's coming up upon a renewal, and, uh, this could affect their livelihood. Um, so it's— and I don't know if anything can be saved at this point.

Yeah, if it's gone, they've likely lost all their subscriptions too.

Well, you know, and again, if they restored it— and again, I, I'm just trying to decipher the what's happened here because I'm coming in 6 5 months later and asked to look at things. And, you know, even if it went away and then come back, that those, those followers could be gone.

Well, it could be because in the early days of the iTunes platform, they had a separation between the catalog and your, your library or your, right, your, your personal on-device listing of your subscriptions, right? And, and so even though something disappear from the catalog didn't eliminate all the subscriptions, right?

Right.

But now that they've integrated those things together, once it's gone, you're—

who knows, right? So anyway, Ted, you'll be getting an email from me if you're listening. And he did this— did a search for his name here, um, during the show, and I'll get you the details. But it's just one of those things that's out there that makes you go It's scary.

Yeah.

Anyway, let's go ahead and watch your— we got a couple more topics today, right?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think there's a couple that are, um, bubbling around out there. One is, um, uh, what was I gonna talk about here? Let's see. It was Spotify's out there continuing to talk about their video offerings. I guess they're, they're starting in January of 2025, Spotify will offer an ad-free video podcast viewing to premium subscribers in the USA, UK, Australia, and Canada. So, um, so they're going to offer an ad-free version of the, of the video experience.

How much more is that going to cost?

Yeah, well, that's, that's the question, right? It says the platform plans to compensate hosts who achieve a specific viewership milestone which is what you've been saying for a while, Todd, and aim to attract creators with higher per-view payments.

Now, do you notice they don't talk about listener compensation?

Well, they're talking about video here. So there—

Oh, I know. But how come they're not doing compensation for podcasters that have audio-only podcasts? Why are they now going to give compensation This, they see, this pisses me off.

Yeah, well, I don't think this is going to be widespread that they're doing this. I think they're going to do it with selective shows, um, that have achieved a certain viewership milestone, which could be kind of high.

Have they laid that out?

Well, I think what they're trying to do is compete increasingly with YouTube. And if you look at YouTube's model, right, there's a viewership threshold you have to reach in order to be monetized, right? So I think that they're, they're just trying to copy what, what YouTube is doing, and, and because they're trying to capitalize on the growing trend of video consumption and, and leverage their fantastic Spotify discovery algorithms to boost their video podcast viewership. So are they actual video podcasts? Is the is, is the ongoing question that we always have to ask ourselves. Um, does, does the videos on YouTube, uh, does YouTube call all their videos on their platform podcasts? No. So, but Spotify calls all their video videos on their platform podcasts. So it's, it's an interesting kind of rejuggling of the of the consumption environment around online content right now. It's, you know, everybody's playing a little different game.

Yeah. Meanwhile, ladies and gentlemen, don't forget that we have this very, very cool thing called RSS, and, uh, you can continue to be seen and heard on multiple podcast apps by having both an audio and video podcast. So we need to keep remembering that. And you, and you can monetize, of course. You're probably— these folks are going to be able to monetize inside their videos if they want. But it goes back to the discussion we had a couple of years ago with someone that was on the show that said, oh, Spotify is going to pay me for my, uh, you know, give me a cut of revenue. Uh, no, they're not.

Well, they're, they're, they're about to, right? So they haven't done it yet. For video.

Yes. Let's be very, very clear.

For video. Just for video, right? At this point.

Yeah.

Yeah. So the CEO Daniel Ek said that, um, that video podcasting has seen higher growth on Spotify with an 88% increase in viewers just over the past year. I don't know what the base was, but if it's a relatively small base, 88% wouldn't be hard to make.

So yeah, um, but anyway, it seems like it's definitely, uh, increased focus of the same 40 shows are going to get paid, and that's what it boils down to.

Well, I think what we need to figure out is what's this, um, threshold, this specific viewership threshold milestone What is that? And, you know, like, we know what it is with YouTube, YouTube, right? Yeah, yeah.

So by the way, um, for those of you, you can monetize from day one at Blueberry with programmatic advertising. You don't have to hit a threshold, right? Now, you're not—

every, every player, every download, right?

Your earnings may not be that great when you're new, right? But you can. Yeah, anything. It's, it's a, you know, I, I don't know. I'm just— we're still seeing strong, strong support for audio, so I— yeah, that, that hasn't changed.

Yeah, I don't think it's going away. Uh, I guess that, that's just a foregone conclusion that audio is not going away, but, um, So I wanted to also talk about a, a quote that was out there, um, put out by SoundStacks' Rocky Thomas, which we both love. Rocky, yeah, I've known Rocky for a very long time. I guess she was a speaker at the ASI, uh, radio and audio conference in Venice, I guess, a day or so ago, and offered this observation that, uh, podcast ads are too difficult to buy.

So I think that's true.

And buy means buying advertisement. Um, so when we say that word, it's to imply buying advertising in a podcast.

It's laborious.

Yeah, there's immense and varied ad options, but she did add the brand suitability brand safety tools have brought many new advertisers into the medium. And she called for more precise data and alignment with language used to sell radio ads. So this has been a common complaint around the ad sale side of podcasting for many years, is that everybody uses different buzzwords and terms to describe things. And there isn't— there was an effort, um, a couple years ago to create a taxonomy of terms in podcasting. I'm just not sure that everybody has embraced that.

Well, you know, a lot of the companies, and when I hear them talking, have really tried to pigeonhole it into a radio speak, right?

That's right. Or creating a competitive advantage using radio terms to describe something that doesn't necessarily apply to podcasting.

And yet here we have iHeart, which is laying off 5% because, uh, radio is dying. So, you know, is that the— is that the correct methodology we should be going down? I don't think so.

Yeah. And I know this past week, and we talked about it on the show last week, is this, this growing feeling and impression that the the legacy media out there is basically in its last throes of existence. And there's all sorts of talk about these big cable channels being bought and how they're, they're in a state of decline and nobody's watching them anymore and all this kind of stuff. So there is a shift happening right now, and I wanted to talk about that a little bit. Is— are we— what kind of things are we seeing, um, around is the industry kind of resetting right now? I mean, are we going through a certain reset in how this— how podcasting is perceived, how it's monetized, and the type of content that's in it?

I know that, you know, my perspective is, is that podcasting is fine. The challenge that you have, there's just a lot more creation outlets now.

Yeah, there's lots of options, right? Lots, lots of options and lots of formats, lots of different ways of, yeah, of doing it.

You know, if you think about it, we had a, we had a period of time where audio was really, um, podcasting itself, you know, there was no distractions. Um, you know, the very beginning, it was You know, it was like, wow, I can have this, this show online and get this massive distribution. And then Facebook and all these other platforms started showing up. And then so all of a sudden now you, you can be distributed. You know, it comes with a penalty because you never know when you're going to be deplatformed. But at the same time, or de-algorithmed, where you're going to be not seen. Mm-hmm. So, you know, and folks are still seeing that. They're still seeing instances where all of a sudden they, they can't talk to their business, uh, you know, the folks that they've got their groups or whatever, because whatever changes they've made, they don't want you leaving platforms. So, um, you know, from a, from a protection standpoint, podcasting is probably still reigns king and being able to you know, assure that you can't be deplatformed and, you know, and have a situation where all of a sudden your listing is missing from a directory. Um, yeah, so, you know, again, this is where these new podcasting apps, you know, and if you have all your eggs in one basket, in other words, if you have only been promoting Apple Podcasts Um, it's time to diversify. So again, that goes back to the previous conversation we had, but the— I just think there's a lot of choices right now. Um, and you know, it's, it's the shine, it's the shiny lure in the middle of the stream that the bass says, oh, that looks cool, let me go over and bite on that one. And you know, you catch a record set and a record-sized bass, and all of a sudden, oh my God, look at the success over here. And, you know, a bunch of people run over there, and then they say, oh, this, this— I'm not having any success here. And then they run over here, and they— it's— in the end, it's about the content. You know, good content is going to succeed wherever it is. Shitty content is not.

Yeah, but there's so many different ways to, to slice it now. I also hear a lot of people talking about creating, you know, short short videos now. And now, granted, and that's even beyond just the vertical format of, right, of, of the current craze right, right now on Shorts and things. Uh, it's, it's around creating content that's very concise, very focused. Now, granted, this has been going on on YouTube for quite some time, so I don't think it's any kind of a new trend here, but it's, it's just more to do about clear communication, very focused, you know, Eye, you know, eye connection, you know, with a clear message and having passion and enthusiasm for what you're trying to communicate is getting people's attention. And that's an interesting kind of trend too, whether it's long form or short form. And I kind of see it not one or the other is what people should do. I think what you have to do is you have to pick one that you may be good at. Maybe you're really good at doing long-form content, and that has a place out there too. But maybe doing short-form content has a, has a valid place in your strategy too. So I've been playing around with both myself, trying to create long-form and short-form, but I'm tending to lean towards doing shorter-form content a little bit more and more. And I'm not, I'm not really sure that that's the right strategy for a podcast, right? So it's just striking this balance, right, of what's, what the feeling in the market is around what people are, have time for and what they expect with the content if they're going to invest time in it. There's people out there that appreciate short content and there's other ones that appreciate the longer form content. So what's the expectation of the content when it's longer form? Look at what Joe Rogan does. He does, you know, 3-hour interviews. It's the biggest podcast in the world. So, you know, and there's others that are successful at doing that too. But then there's other huge, you know, video creators that are doing 10-minute videos that are getting, you know, 100 million views. So it's, you know, it's, it's what your strength is, I think.

And this is maybe it's just nothing, but this is— we're having a conversation, actually recording a podcast with the, for the company. And, um, a comment that, uh, Mackenzie made during the recording of that, she says, if I see a reel, she says, and it doesn't have a caption on it, she says, I don't, I don't watch it. I'm like, what do you mean? She said, I have the, the, the audio turned off, right? And I'm like, what?

So she's reading the video, not, not listening?

Yeah, you're, you're, you're watching reels and reading and not having—

yeah, I do the same thing, Todd. I'm the same, you know. I don't always have my sound turned up on my mobile phone because maybe I'm around other people or something like that.

Well, you did, you know, that's what earbuds are for. So to me, I was baffled by the— by the— because I would not even imagine watching a reel without hearing the audio. So it was— I guess it— to me, it was just— it just struck me.

Why is it there then, is the question? Why is the transcription layered?

Well, there must there must be a— she's on to something there, that more people are doing that.

Yeah, so I could totally see it in my own consumption, is that there are certain videos that I don't want to have the audio turned up on, but I still want to watch them and consume the content. So if I can read what's being said, then— but sometimes I find it if the person speaks too fast, that the the transcription goes by too fast. You don't get a chance to read it. So I think the comprehension can be a little less on that.

Yeah, I've been trying to catch up on my podcast listening. I'm a little bit behind on some of the shows that I normally, normally follow. So it feels like when you take a 2-week break from listening to podcasts, all of a sudden you feel like you're a year behind. So for me, you know, I very rarely take a break from listening. And it's been a little discerning to me because I go into this mild panic. It's like, what did I miss? You know, and now I'm, you know, basically doing 8, 10 hours a day of catch-up of listening to, you know, content that I haven't been, uh, paying attention to. Um, I don't— maybe it's just me, but it's just— and these are AI shows, podcasting shows. Um, and it's just like the world is moving so quick. Just taking a 2-week break, um, it has basically caused me to have a little bit of anxiety, uh, in having missed conversations.

So Yeah, you're falling behind, right? And right, yeah, in what's happening. It's so easy to do that now where you— unless you're watching and consuming all the time, it's easy to have that feeling that you're falling behind because the world is moving so, so fast now, so quick. There's so much, you know, breaking information that's coming out all the time about all sorts of things that you might have an interest in.

Yeah, I think people are, uh people disconnect. When they do disconnect, uh, I think people just say, screw it, I'm gonna be behind and I'm not going to catch up. But being a business owner, you don't want to do that.

Yeah, it's your peril, right? Is that right? It's always this, the, the saying, if you don't really know what's going on out there, how can you adjust your sails to— yeah, to keep moving forward?

Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, well, you know, it's an ever-evolving world of podcasting.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, in, in 2025, it's another year of the industry trying to get over $2 billion in revenue.

So a few companies that are doing pretty good, they've had some pretty good growth. Uh, you see some of these reports that have come out, uh, you know, they, they've had, they've had, they're taking market share from somebody, um, or adding more ad inventory. Uh, it's kind of, you know, you see some numbers out there like, wow, that's impressive. Uh, and then again, you have other people laying people off, right?

And I did see that there was a guy that and from Triton, uh, said that the UK is just, uh, has a 6% share of all podcasting, has a 6% share of all audio listening in the UK. That's all it has. That's horrible. 6%. It says, um, many publishers in the UK have a video-first strategy for their podcast right now. And but are only monetizing their audio. Isn't that interesting? Well, so that plays right into Spotify's strategy, right? Is that they're making money on the video side, right?

So I don't know if that they're making more money on video than they are on audio, but well, well, audio, first of all, let's just be continue to be frank here. Audio is cheaper to produce. Yeah, much, much cheaper.

It's also probably more expensive to have ads and video than it is in audio though.

So it's more—

what? It's probably more expensive to traffic and to, and to have video ads than it is to have audio ads.

Well, from, you know, from some of the stuff I've been, uh, researching lately and buying into videos and advertising into videos and audio. Audio is, um, a better value for sure.

Yeah, I'm sure that's true. It's probably more profitable on the audio side is what— so I think the whole video side is rapidly catching up on the monetization side, I think, is what we're seeing with Spotify and what this Guy out of the UK is saying is that most of the creators are moving towards a video-first strategy, which we've talked about on the show before, is that I think that there's going to be a time when there's going to be creators that are audio and video first, not audio or video first, right? Which is where I think we are right now.

Well, you know, I don't have a face for video, and to be honest with you, the only reason that I did video to begin with is, you know, I was doing it because I wanted to read the comments. James says, whoa there. He says, whoa there, the number isn't too different in the US.

So that is true, James. I mean, I agree with that. I wasn't trying to create a comparison to the US. Um, yeah.

I don't know, what is the US number?

Yeah, I think the key takeaway that James is pointing out is the fact that all audio listening, so that includes audiobooks, includes radio, streaming audio, all this stuff that all gets rolled up under the all audio listening.

So Stuart says consuming audio versus consuming video is based on your activities. I believe that's true too.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I've been doing at the time—

yeah, yeah, because I've been doing less, uh, you know, less commuting. So I did a lot of audio listening while I was— when I'm in the US, I do a lot of, you know, a lot of go somewhere on the weekend and get in my car and drive 3 hours somewhere. Here I'm not. So that's one of the reasons why I wasn't listening as much. James says share podcasting in all audio listening in the U.S. is 10%, so pretty low too. Yeah. And he says here's a pie chart. There's a pie chart at Edison Research, search of year.

Yeah. If you go back and— I would say if you go back and look in the history of that, uh, tracking of that, I, I think in the, um, like maybe 10 years ago or so, it was probably like 2 or 3%. Now it's, it's been growing pretty substantially over the last probably 5 years, and it's gotten up All the way up to 10%, Todd.

Well, you know, I think again, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting. But one thing's for sure is I have not listened to a radio program, true AM/FM radio program, in A long time. I can't even remember, to be honest with you. It's, it's been that long.

Yeah, I think if I, um, if I think back, if I've listened to any radio, it's been a music station and it's been a talk station.

Yeah, but even that I don't think has been Hmm, yeah, I, I don't even remember, to be honest with you, when I listened to. But I am out— I'm also probably one of those weird birds that, uh, don't listen to a lot of music. I'd rather experience music in a live venue. One of those folks that purposely seeks out a jazz channel, or again, I, I think most people do. I'm just one of those weird birds that It doesn't.

So yeah, I stream a, a music channel, uh, from LiveOne, which is the, the owner of PodcastOne for a while, into my, yeah, into my Tesla. So also I wanted to mention too, the Pocket Casts has just announced that they're going to finally change their subscribe button to a follow button, Todd. So they, they're finally catching up.

They're acquiescing. So we did have a boost come in, uh, not today, it was a week ago, from Brian. Um, he says, maybe it's my tin hat moment, but I think the real driver behind the industry push towards streaming is about unskippable ads. I think the other stuff is potentially true and tangential. But not the real reason. We could make the case it's particularly metrics, but I think that's just semantics. I think it's unskippable ads. And this was in relation to the conversation we had about stream versus downloads, or, you know, whatever.

Well, I think it's, it's dual. I think he's correct, but I think that there's another component to it, and that's metrics. Um, you know, you can get deeper metrics off a stream than you can off of a download, but Right. There is some convergence there of data that's valid too. I know you're, you're capturing data off of a download that could be mapped somewhat to a stream, right?

Yeah. Well, we're looking at the partials, but again, it's just a percentage of downloads that we can do that because with the internet speeds the way they are now, when, you know, there's not all apps, you click and you get the whole thing. Yeah. So, right.

And it depends on the speed of your connection too, right?

Yeah. But, you know, audio is still pretty small. And the networks have gotten so good that, well, not here, but usually the, you know, a large percentage of the apps download the media so quick that even their chunking will not Uh, you know, just, it just is done. Um, so there's only a small percentage of— not small, maybe 15%— where we can actually look at that data and get any tangible information out of it.

So, Todd, I wanted to ask you about a topic that came up with the conversation I had with Sam Sethi, um, who's out of the UK with the True Fans platform and works with James with the Pod News podcast. And, and so he mentioned to me again, and I think he's mentioned this to you before, of the possibility of being able to use our RSS feeds for this show to be able to have, have like each of our feeds have primarily what they are, right? You know, one's video and one's audio, but then to have an alternative enclosure, right, that would have the other media. So the video RSS would have primarily video in the, the main enclosure, but then to have an alternative enclosure in there that links to the audio and doing that with the audio file too is what—

yeah, but here's the thing, um, who's going to support it, right? He's the only one that supports it, and maybe a few of the free— a few of the new podcasting apps support it. Um, I've been, I've been remiss in putting the link to the YouTube video in the— they have it, it's not the alternate enclosure tag anymore, there's another tag.

I think it's content tag or something.

Content tag, yeah. So I've been remiss in putting the YouTube link in the, in the content tag, but I'm not going to. I'm too old school and too much— I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to put the video in alternate enclosure in the audio feed and vice versa, just because it's largely not supported on the majority of podcast apps.

And I think the goal of that would be to have one RSS feed that has both, right? Yeah, that's the goal.

If we're hacking two RSS feeds, that's, you know, that's not sure what we're accomplishing, but Apple and others are never going to do it. Look at Spotify, they don't honor it, right? So there, there you have 60, 70% of consumption.

Yeah, but isn't that the argument for trying to push forward with the podcasting? Of course, 2.0 project is to push the envelope on this and get some— get it deployed.

And at least we have it available in PowerPress and in Blueberry Publisher. It's just my personal choice not to do it because I guess I could do it. What, what difference does it make? I guess, you know, just more work for me.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, I mean, unless it's as simple as, as you're uploading the audio and the video, it's a cut and paste, right? Like, it's easy to just add it to the, to the vice versa.

Typically on this show, the way I do it is I publish the audio version of the podcast first. That's usually preceding the video by half an hour or so. And it largely is because I get the audio done, it's up, it's ready to go, and I publish it. And then the video is lagging either because I'm downloading from Restream and then editing and then re-uploading. Uh, it just takes longer. So, um, I would have to go back and update the audio file with the video link, which, you know, probably is not a big deal. It's just a cut and paste. Um, but again, it's additional, additional work.

Todd, I saw that Chris Wallace from CNN has— yeah. Has decided to leave the, the, the CNN network to go off and start his own independent, uh, show.

Well, probably streaming and podcasting, considering how their ratings are.

Probably a smart move, right? Right. I mean, you could just go, go through a litany of lists of all of these big, big media creators that have gone off and done their own shows like a podcast. That's And they're much bigger than they were on, on, on the, on the network, right?

It brings up an interesting topic, and it probably sensitive to some, but there was some about 4, or from what I could tell, because I'm on watching YouTube and, you know, doing other things, I was reading some news where 4 or 5 real high-end YouTubers specifically liberal YouTubers, basically the day after the election saw a mass exodus of subscribers and paid followers. But if you think about it, when you're in the heat of a political campaign and there's lots of stuff going on, people are going to want— people are more interested in what's going on. And the election's over, and if you're a one-trick pony and all you're talking about is the presidential election, Of course people are going to leave immediately following the election. You know, they've been devastated, a candidate loss. They don't want to hear it anymore for a while. So I don't, you know, they were all panicking that they were losing high percentages of their paid subscribers, Patreons and all this. And I'm like, yeah, you have a, it had been the same on the, I'm sure it happened on the conservative content as well because people were done. They've been inundated for 2 years and they don't want to listen to the shit anymore. It's just—

well, it's like going to a football game, Todd. You go to the football game all excited because your team's going to win, and then you— you— the game's over and your team lost and you left and you're depressed, right?

Man, sometimes people throw their, you know, their jerseys in the trash. You know, they get so mad Yeah. So, you know, and it takes some people some time to recover and re-engage. So, you know, when they talk about a mass exodus from mainstream media too, well, it's because people are fed up. They're sick of, you know, they'll tune back in at some point, but, you know, it's like they almost have to grieve for a little bit and then come back.

Well, in the side that I think perceived as lost has been going through a lot of introspection. I'll just put you that way here, where they're, they're reassessing what, what they did and things like that, which is natural. I mean, I did that as a sports player too, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I would look back and try and gauge what— where I made my mistakes and learn from it and I think it's a natural behavior, right?

Yeah. Again, I don't want to get into the whole he said, she said, why said, how come, you know, why the country did what it did, because we're going to get political at this point, right? Yeah. But I think the main thing is, is, you know, these creators are freaked out. Um, the key is to have a diversity of content if you're going to be a political commentator. —and doing it.

It was so rewarded, Todd, to take extreme positions, right? I mean, I think that's the takeaway that I have.

Well, again, let's not talk about the messaging. Let's just talk about if you're do— if you're going to be a political podcaster or YouTuber, then have some diversity, some width, and, you know, and varying—

people don't want to hear that though, Todd. I mean, I think if you think about it logically at this point It's almost like if you create more centrist content, all you do is piss off everybody because nobody's interested.

This is why I do a tech show and why we do the New Media Show where we try to stay away from politics. And we went into danger zone again here.

Well, no, I wouldn't say it's danger zone. It's, you know, and that's part of the problem of the media landscape right now is that we're not really dealing with really honestly what's been going on in the medium, because everybody's scared, right? Everybody's scared to say something wrong. And that's part of the, the bigger problem here is everybody's scared to— but, but for, for quite a bit of this time though, everybody's been taking very extreme positions. So it's just, it's just one of those things that's really odd. I haven't really been through a phase like this before where people are scared to, to speak their mind.

Yeah, well, it's not just politics.

No, it's, it's a lot of things, right? Right, it's a lot of stuff, but they do tend to get wrapped up in politics.

Yeah, but it's, it's, it's, you know, it, it's everything from, you know, it's— there's just such a wide variety of stuff that people have to tiptoe around Right. And to be frank, again, tinfoil hat time, people, if someone called me on the phone and asked me to take a, basically do a survey, I want to be very reserved in what I tell them.

That's why polls are not very accurate anymore. Exactly. Because they're people lie to the pollster.

Because, you know, I'm, or, you know, I'm not going to answer that. Um, right. Or maybe people, because they don't want to answer, maybe like you said, maybe they lie, uh, or they, or don't want to participate. I've been called. I've been, you know, people think I still live in Hawaii because I have an 808 number, so I'm getting called all the time. And it was during, during the election, I was getting called all the time, and it was Hey, we're doing a, you know, we're doing a such-and-such poll. And I said, I don't want to. I said, I don't live in Hawaii no more. I don't want to participate. So that was my excuse. But it just seemed like I was getting, you know, 2, 3 calls a week. And basically because I, you know, they see that 808 area code and, oh, you're, you know, you're, you're Dakine, you're, you're local. So I just basically refused. To participate because I don't have a skin in the game anymore in, in Hawaii, uh, especially, you know, I don't— what's kind of weird though, they sent me a ballot even though I'm registered. How does that happen? I'm registered in Michigan to vote, and don't they cross-check? And if you're registered to vote somewhere else, don't they take you off the voting rolls?

They're supposed to. I mean, I had that happen when I moved from Washington State to Connecticut. Yeah, I, I contacted them to, you know, Washington State to find out if I was still on the voter roll over there, just curious. And I— they did have me tracked that I moved to Connecticut and took me off.

That's really bizarre because they didn't do that.

I don't know that everyone all the states do that. So you could get in a situation, it sounds like, where you could vote in two states.

Well, I basically told Shoko to shred the— right, you know, shred the ballot.

And I think that's illegal.

I think what, to shred a ballot?

No, to vote in two states.

Oh, it's illegal.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Yeah, you know, so, but it's— and maybe it's because I still have a home in Hawaii, and I still have a— I'm still paying, uh, property taxes. So maybe that's why.

Well, you probably didn't contact them. Yeah, no, they're, they're tracking your kind of like move through your registrations or something. I'm not sure how they're doing that, but yeah, I don't, I don't know either.

But anyway, I did get 2 ballots, uh, One, and I only voted once, so just so everybody knows, you're clear of that, uh, possible criminal charge, right? Yeah, right, right. I'm not gonna go down that route and get 5 years in jail because of some stupidity, right? Um, but anyway, we are— we made it here, 90 minutes. Wow.

Yeah, we did, just in time. Yeah, exactly.

Um, so here's the thing, we're— we are, uh I'm good to go next week, the 21st. Excuse me, the 20th. Okay. For the show, what's your plans for the week of Thanksgiving? Are you going anywhere? Thanksgiving's obviously Thursday the 28th. Because I'm a day ahead, so technically— Um, I, I guess I can do a show that Thursday morning of the 20th. For me it's the 28th, but still, for you it's Wednesday evening. Um, so if you're, if you're good with doing a show the day before Thanksgiving your time, I'm, I'm okay. But let me just, let me know your schedule.

We could do it either on the 26th or the 27th if you wanted to. If you want to push it back one day.

Yeah, it doesn't Doesn't— I guess it depends on how much I'm partying and if I want to wake up in the morning, which I'm not really doing any partying.

So that's why all the— all those Thanksgiving, um, partying that you're doing over there. Yeah.

And here, you know, here basically they, you know, you, you have to go somewhere to get a— the, the American Legion here does a, uh, there's a Legion, um because there's a lot of expats here, um, they have a Thanksgiving dinner. So I've reserved, uh, you know, my spot to have a little turkey and fixings, uh, being in Asia. So, and probably with some, some fried rice and pancit and adobo and some not so traditional American Thanksgiving spread stuff.

Yeah, there's probably no turkeys over there, you don't think? There is.

You know, I found— I— it's kind of curious. There is a, a shopping group called SNR, and, um, it's a membership club, a shopping, um, area. And, uh, I, I basically bought a membership, and it's, it's basically— they have, um, it's a Costco, but it's in the Philippines, but it and it's not all Costco stuff, but I can still— like, I go in the meat section and there is Kirkland hamburger, Kirkland frozen. So I thought, oh, so you— it's kind of funny, you can see some. So I don't know if SNR has a— uh, if Costco is an owner in it or if they have distribution, but it's the one place where I can get American. I'm not— for those of you in Australia I'm sorry, I don't like your beef. It leaves an aftertaste. Yeah, Australian beef to me, and does it taste a little wild? And I think, I think Australians say the same thing about American beef. But if I, when I eat Australian beef, it just leaves me with a funny taste. Oh, I don't know what it is. And it's, I think it's maybe because of the way it's range-fed. It's different. But it definitely tastes different than what I'm used to. But I'm pretty spoiled too because my family buys a beef that is, um, grass-fed and grain-finished. And it, you know, it's really top-tier meat. So when you've had that, and then again, don't— Australians, don't get pissed off, but, um, I'm glad I have an outlet to get American beef here. That's good. Um, because I just— you eat a hamburger, you're like, what's that taste? It's not bad, it's just something different, you know?

Yeah, it's not something you're used to, right? Yeah.

And it's, it's just like being— it's like anyone else that moves to another country and they taste a certain type of food. Um, you know, even the McDonald's here tastes a little different. So not that I go to McDonald's, but I did once, and it's just like, okay. And they have chicken on the menu too, for whatever reason. Fried chicken's on the menu at McDonald's here. So, uh, it— and you can get rice. All right.

Well, Todd, let me know, uh, if you want to do it on the 20th, on the 26th or the 27th. I can probably do both, but— Okay.

Sounds good.

Let's just talk about it.

All right, everyone. Make sure you follow us on X at NMS Podcast. Of course, make sure you go over to newmediashow.com. Follow or subscribe to the show. I'm Todd at blueberry.com. I'm @geeknews on Twitter, then @geeknews at geeknews.chat on Mastodon.

You can find me on X, um, @robgreenlee. You can also go to my website, robgreenlee.com. And if you want to go to the Podcast Hall of Fame, just go to podcasthall.com or podcasthof.com. Also goes there as well. So, and you can send me an email if you want: rob.greenlee@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you if you have any tips or anything like that, that comes across that you want to share with us, or any comments about the topics that we've talked about. Please let us know. So, and I'm on LinkedIn and YouTube. I have a YouTube channel that I'm creating a lot of content on right now at Rob Greenlee as well.

So it's a miracle the, uh, the RODECaster stayed connected the whole show. Maybe the factory reset fixed my issue.

Well, mine's connected too. That's what's recording this, is a RODECaster.

Yes, as a backup. So the RODECaster Duo, maybe, maybe the reset cleared whatever the issue was. We'll knock on wood here. Everyone, thanks for being here. Uh, we'll see you back here next Wednesday at the same time, 8 PM Eastern is our go time for the show right now. If you want to watch live, we have been live and lit, so make sure you get over to podcastapps.com. So thanks everyone, see you next time. Take care.

Bye.