Wake Up, Podcasters: Media Revolution is NOW

Well, welcome to Podcast Tips tonight on Thursday, March 6th. It's terrific to have you with me here, and, um, thank you so much. Tonight I'm going to be somewhat metaphorically and in truth here, kind of sounding an alarm of sorts. As you could tell from the title of this episode and what's going on in the world, we are in a revolutionary time for a lot of reasons. So I would say in 2025 going forward, the media revolution is in full swing. So that's what I'm gonna talk about tonight. And is there a brewing seismic shift happening in podcasting and actually just in new media, which is really ironic. I've been doing a new media show with Todd Cochran, my co-host of that show for like 13 years and we called it New Media. And now it's like that term has come back full swing to talk about how we are now truly a new media that has replacing or is in the process of replacing legacy media, which I was going to talk about a little bit later. But really, this seismic shift that I'm talking about is really all about big platforms. And so, so that's really, really the topic that I want to talk about tonight is, is now when I say big platforms, I'm talking about big media companies. I'm talking about YouTube and I'm talking about Spotify and I'm talking about these really pivotal, pivotal platforms that all impact us every day as content creators. And so, you know, I believe that video is in the middle of kind of rewriting the rules here around what's going to happen going forward into the future. And, and so I think, you know, with AI and, and video really being used as a wedge to rewrite the rules of what we've all seen is really a significant trend line here. And so this episode tonight, I wanted to really make it, you know, a wake-up call for the new media industry as we think about all of us. More than likely, if you're watching this, you're probably a media creator online, you're a podcaster. And so these are things that are going to impact you probably, probably as much as anything, you know. And the game is changing fast, and I'm not even going to be able to really do this topic its full justice tonight, but I'm, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to see what I can do to at least cover the, the really big picture of, of what's happening. And, and, you know, in the podcast world, for many years was talked about in the term of It's the wild, wild west, right, of media, right? There were so many different things going on with podcasting in the earlier years of this medium, and I go back about 20 years with this medium, and it was always seen as kind of like this user-generated content medium, right? Well, individuals like you and I are going out there and making content, right? And that was always seen from the perspective of the media industry as being somewhat lesser than, right? So I think that the mainstream media or legacy media, which has really— we've seen here more recently has kind of crumbled to some degree. And I think it's being seen as kind of like old school, right? And it's what the older generation watches now and gets their information. And, and their audiences are significantly dropping. And, and so what we're seeing is, is really is the future kind of fully unfolding here. And, and And really, user-generated content now is basically anyone is now a content creator. And really, these big platforms are really seeing this as an opportunity. And I think more so, they've really seen it as really a— it's really an ascension for them of sorts of importance and prominence. And so you look at these, you know, like the YouTube more specifically being a part of Google, being the second largest search engine in the world. It just so happens that that search engine primarily searches for video content, has really kind of put YouTube at the top of the discussion spectrum around new media. And that is You know, YouTube decided to kind of go all in on podcasting and using that term to associate content with it, even though YouTube has been a part of podcasting since the very beginning of podcasting. And a lot of people don't realize that, that YouTube has played a supportive role to the growth and development of podcasting since like 2005, you know, in that time frame when YouTube was just getting started and getting launched. And, you know, Spotify's entry into this medium is more recent, right? So, and it's not been something that's been an easy path for anyone that's involved in content. Working with Spotify has been a very, I'm gonna say, controversial company, mainly from the perspective of, of music creators. And so it had created a reputation that wasn't always all that favorable about the company and, and what they were doing with content creators. And they had a very bumpy start and entry into the podcasting area. I worked with them quite a bit back when I was working for Spreaker and working for for Lipson. And that process of Spotify embracing podcasting from an audio standpoint was a very frictionful process, right? It wasn't a smooth or easy transition. And they've always wanted to get into video too. They announced at the same time that they announced that they were going to be launching with audio podcasts on their platform. They also in the same announcement talked about video. So this has always been their, their plan. And the other part of this plan too, which I'm going to talk about a little bit more here a little bit later, is this idea of these big platforms wanting to really kind of disrupt how content is delivered, right? How podcasts have been hosted and distributed via RSS. So that's really at the core of this. And, and to some degree, you have to throw Apple into the mix here too. It's not just Spotify, YouTube, but Apple. Apple has been a little bit more of a, I guess, a more of a platform and a player in the medium that's had a lot of power, but it hasn't tried to disrupt Open RSS, and it hasn't tried to play a predatory kind of approach utilizing video. Now, most people don't realize, but Apple Podcasts supports video, and it— and that video comes into them. That's how this show is, is made available on Apple as an MP4 download. So all of us know about the MP3 download RSS feed. Now you have to create two separate RSS feeds, though you could upload a video and then an audio file to one feed. But the problem is, is that the platforms are confused about how they would actually handle that. So, so that's been one aspect of like the Podcast 2.0 project that has tried to incorporate more video, right? So this is kind of a a long story around how podcasting has evolved over 20 years and how various aspects of it have involved video. And, and in video, over a period of time, I would say starting back in probably like 2012, '13, um, time frame, the video side kind of subsided because people stopped posting video files to the RSS feed. They, they started to work with, guess what, YouTube. So this is, this is where, um, where I think we've kind of lost track of the history of this, this medium and where it was ultimately going. And I think, as I mentioned earlier about the the legacy media, it has had a, I guess, a significant contributory role in this heightened focus on video. And I think as the consumption of video on the legacy, let's say the cable news channels, has declined, there has been a shift of talent from legacy media over to becoming video creators online. So, you're seeing this shift in availability of content that has, you know, a large appeal, right? And that in combination with a shift in demographics and a generational shift in what people prefer. The younger generation that's moving through, I'm talking about Gen Z, Gen X, those folks, and to a large degree, even millennials really embrace video. So, you know, it shouldn't be surprising to any of us in that this is the direction that things are going to move. And like I said, as we've seen legacy media kind of fall, right? And it's important. We just saw this right in front of our eyes with what happened with the recent presidential election and how one candidate was able to, I think, successfully utilize podcasts to get reelected, and the other candidate really, you know, tried to but really kind of maybe had less success on that side has really, really brought to the fore this whole conversation about how important new media is. And new media incorporates YouTube as well as audio podcasting. So, you know, as I've been thinking about this, and many of you that have been following me for the last maybe year, year and a half, I've been very focused on this kind of concept of convergence. And, and seeing what I'm doing here tonight with you. Convergence even to the point of doing live shows. And that's, that's an important part of what I'm all about. And, and that's, that's really, um, that's really where things are right now. It's not like this is a show talking about where things are going. I will say that that's where we are right now. And so as you look to, you know, even the next couple months, whatever, and then even looking back like maybe 3, 4, 5 months in the past, audio podcasts have really not grown much. So that's a very frustrating aspect. Of what's happening in the market right now is that the podcast industry really got their feet dug in on audio podcasting as what they were known for and what they did the most of. And so, but what we've seen happen over the last 6 months, even over the last year, is a reduction in the number of people that are willing and wanting to start an audio-only podcast. We're definitely seeing a lot of energy around trying to start a video show that could potentially go out as an audio podcast as well. So that's really where the tension around all this really comes from. And so, you know, and if that really makes it tough for the little guy, right? Those that are just doing a show themselves. I mean, I put myself into that same camp too. I'm, I'm a solo creator with this series that I'm doing. It's, it's a show talking about a topic and an interest that I've had for 20 years, and I just like to share my, my thoughts on this. This show is not big business for me. It's, it's not wildly watched show, but I do it because I enjoy doing it. And I also like to share, um, my thoughts on where I see things going with this medium and share some, some different kind of ideas around where it's going and what the future looks like. Um, but I think that there's a lot of pressure on small creators that are still small or they start without a lot of, I guess, a built-up potential, right? They're, they're basically, you know, starting from scratch, right? They're not coming from a huge following online. Some people are, but this medium has really started to transition into really being all about big shows. And I think this really started to come to my full attention a couple years ago when I heard some Edison research that came out showing that about the top 50 audio podcasts were getting 50% of the overall audience, right? So if you think about 50 of the top shows getting half of the entire podcast listening audience. You can kind of see what I'm talking about here is that there, there's a consolidation around a smaller number of shows, and that's what's driving this kind of perception that if you're starting out now, um, you may have a huge headwind or disadvantage in being able to grow into becoming considered a, a highly profitable revenue-generating show. And so I think many are seeing this success of YouTube really put it, bring it to the fore of giving the impression that maybe there's a content strategic advantage to offering a video-first strategy that then maybe also offers an audio version of whatever you're creating online. Now I'm, I'm kind of doing that approach as well. I'm— this show is really a video-first kind of a strategy or an approach because I'm doing it live and it's video, it's a video podcast, but it also is made available as an audio podcast. So, you know, I'm trying to play all of the cards of this to actually try and make this this whole thing work. And then I can learn from this too. I'm not immune from learning new things. But I think the big thing that you— that we all have to think about is that if we're not adapting or accepting change or seeing what's happening in the market and trying to, you know, modify what we're doing to to fit to what the expectations of the market is, then, then we run the risk of falling into the podfade graveyard, which is a, a term that was invented many years ago to, to— not the graveyard part, but the, the podfade term to describe a show that started out and it basically kind of like faded away, right? They got to 6 or 7 episodes and they just stopped producing new shows. And I think that's what's at the core of this medium's kind of flatlining of new show growth, right? It's, it's just not growing like, like it was. And if you look at the numbers around this, there is approximately 250,000 active. I'm talking about shows that have published a new episode in the last week, about 250,000, uh, or in the last 10 days or so, have globally that have published a new episode into their show feed. And if you look at YouTube, they've had about 65 million active channels in their platform. So you can clearly see where the energy is. Around this new media, right? And it's a replacement for television or legacy media increasingly. And we're seeing it in the YouTube consumption numbers too. We're seeing people are watching more YouTube videos on their living room screens, right? People are cutting the cable, which has been going on for many years. But people are now watching Netflix, they're watching YouTube, they're getting their news from YouTube. I would say a lot of people are doing that now, and they're not paying for cable. They don't want to pay that $250 a month for it, for a cable subscription in addition to their internet connection that they have to have in their home. So now they're combining it. I know I do the exact same thing here. I, I just have an internet connection from, from the Xfinity platform, and I just do everything through that internet connection. I don't have cable television anymore. I don't have those, those old cable channels that I used to— I used to watch all the time. I just don't watch them anymore. So really, at the end of the day, what, what, what I'm talking about here is disruption. We're all facing a world of massive disruption right now, and I'm not talking about— I certainly could, I could talk about the politics that are going on that are causing disruption, but what I'm really talking about is the disruption that's happening as we see video kind of take a prominent— online video taking more of a prominent role in the consumption patterns of everyday people's lives and where they get their information from and who they trust and being in control. That's really what it's all about. Now, it's also about the, the viewer or the listener's control too. The, the younger generations, the Gen Zs, the Millennials, and the Gen X, they like to be in control. Of the content that they have. It's the same thing that's happening with the consumption on other digital platforms. They want to be able to tell that platform what they want and not have it programmed to them, which is what legacy media has, right? There's a schedule for a particular show. Now granted, to some degree that's going on and even, even the new media where there's live shows that are a certain time and a certain day and just like this show is. So there is a lot of crossover, but at the end of the day, this is really about video crashing the audio podcast market and bringing also with those proprietary platforms, like I was mentioning, like Spotify and YouTube and, and lesser so Apple, but they're a contributor here too. And what we used to see with Google Podcasts is a significant move towards deeper metrics too, understanding what audiences are actually doing with your content. Now, a lot of the broadcast channels, especially back in the analog days, people had to just do surveys to find out what was going on with viewership, right? And so now we have granular data. Now granted, Ever since television or cable television created what was called the set-top box, they were able to get deep metrics on consumption on the set-top boxes for video, for cable television, which really helped their advertising sales in local markets and then also on national buys. So what I'm saying is this disruption that we're seeing is also going to have a big impact on advertising and how this content is monetized. And audio podcasting has really unfortunately kind of flatlined as far as revenue growth. And I think that there's a lot of people in the industry that feel like that the way to grow revenues now is to grow revenues around video. And I think that's, that's what the long-term goal is. I, I would say most these platforms are not yet very successful at doing that yet, um, but that is, that is what I believe the direction that this is going. And it's not without some risks and not without some other types of disruptions that are, are really around these bigger platforms like Spotify and YouTube wanting to have greater control within their own platforms about what they're able to do and what they're willing to offer externally to content creators. And so this is where the next topic comes up. Is around there is a Spotify video penalty that, that exists out there, uh, right now that's been, you know, it's being increasingly talked about in, in the podcast medium and in the new media medium, right, is around, uh, Spotify wanting to get more into video to be more like YouTube. And, you know, you can't blame them for wanting to compete with massive success, like what we've seen with YouTube. And so that is a big, um, you know, the second largest search engine, and they're making a lot of money. And so that's what Spotify wants to do. Spotify has investors, they have stockholders, they're a public company. They have to start shifting their approach towards trying to go after more revenue. And if they think that more revenue is gonna come from advertising, then that's the direction that they have to go. But I also think that these platforms are increasingly, even YouTube as well as Spotify, are increasingly making more and more money from subscriptions. Subscriptions, which makes this convergence to some degree with Netflix an interesting connection. And will we see YouTube become more like Netflix? And will Netflix try to become more like YouTube? And that is an intriguing question too that I didn't really deeply explore. But I think with what we're seeing with this video push on Spotify is kind of a risky thing. It's not as smooth of a thing as you might think it would be. I think most of us understand what's going on with YouTube, but as Spotify transitions See, 'cause Spotify and YouTube are approaching this from kind of two ends of the spectrum, right? Spotify approached this from going after the audio first. So they got in the RSS feeds first before they got into video. Well, what we're seeing with YouTube is that they got into video, right? They've always been into video. And it's just been more recently that they added RSS-based audio. So if you think about it, they're both approaching this from the opposite adoption approach, right? And that's what we're seeing happen here to some degree. I think Spotify wants to own more of the content on their own platform, which they've always wanted to have. I mean, I negotiated with Spotify in the very early days of podcasting and they always, Spotify always wanted to host or cache all of the podcast episodes. And that also was the case with Facebook. When Facebook came into the medium, they wanted to host all the media files. Same with Pandora. So this concept of these big proprietary media platforms wanting to own the distribution— now granted, obviously giving this content to them, they are kind of taking the distribution, the consumption side of the distribution, that role. But what the industry had negotiated with Spotify in the early years was what's called a pass-through type of a relationship. So we've seen over the last few months Spotify, who adopted a pass-through, which means that the audio files were actually hosted by the podcast hosting companies like Ellipsen or Spreaker or any of those, the media files were coming off of those platforms, not Spotify's platform. But all along, Spotify wanted to just grab one copy from the RSS feed of the media file and then store it on their own servers and stream it to their users. And which really in a lot of ways is the same thing that YouTube is doing with video. Is that there you upload your video to them or you send it to them and they host it. They stream it through their HLS streaming servers and deliver the content and they can deliver very, very deep metrics. But what's happened here with Spotify is that they're using video as a way to take over hosting the audio side too. So let's say you have a show that you're doing that's based on RSS that you've submitted into Spotify, and Spotify wants you to upload a video version of that same show. So you upload a video version of that thinking that you're just adding video to the availability of, of the content on their platform. What they're doing is they're actually replacing the audio that you've submitted through your RSS feed with some sort of a playback mechanism of the audio that comes out of the video. So they're basically overriding that. So everything is now hosted on the Spotify servers like they wanted to do many years ago. So they're slowly converting people who were doing RSS-based submissions into their platform, converting those into files, audio and video files, whatever they're exactly doing, they're creating a new copy, which means that any kind of business models, dynamic ad insertion, programmatic advertising that is being inserted at the podcast host level, like Ellipsen or Spreaker or whatever, it gets disrupted because it's no longer pulling off of Spreaker or Lipson or Buzzsprout or any of these platforms that may be doing programmatic advertising or dynamically inserted advertising. That is being removed. So Spotify is getting what they want. They wanna host all of the media. They wanna host the video, they wanna host the audio so they can then at some point be able to offer that, those plays to advertisers, and they will get a cut of the revenue that comes from that relationship. Now, hopefully the content creator will get a cut of that like we see on YouTube, but what Spotify has done in the short run is create a pretty big hill for those content creators to actually get into a monetization revenue share relationship with Spotify. So if you upload it but you're not qualified, to be a part of the revenue share program, guess, guess what? Spotify gets all that advertising revenue. Doesn't go to the content creator. And that's what's different about what's happening with the RSS feed going into Spotify, is that every play of the audio file that goes into Spotify is coming off of the, the Lipson or, or Buzzsprout or Spreaker's platform, and there's ads being delivered to, you know, all the episodes that are being consumed on Spotify, and the creator makes a revenue share out of that. So that's how things are shifting, right? And, and every podcaster just needs to understand what's going on here. You can choose to participate in this with Spotify or you can choose not to. And there's plenty of people out there that are choosing not to participate in the, in what's going on here around video on the Spotify platform. Now granted, there's kind of a similar thing going on with YouTube too, but it's, it's a little bit more upfront to some degree. It's not the same dynamic, right? It's not like they're taking the video and overriding the the audio coming into it. It's kind of, uh, it's kind of two separate things right now that are coming into YouTube. But, um, oh, I just wanted to mention too, before I get too far into this, uh, if you post any questions in, in the comment field about any of this, be happy to talk about it, um, towards the end of the show, which is what I'm gonna do. I was hoping to get through what I wanted to talk about tonight, and then we can really dig into— so feel free to post a comments into your preferred kind of viewing application here, and I will address them towards the end of the show because they're actually piling up in the comments right now. I don't— I think I have 5, I think, in there now. So feel free to post more if you want to, and we'd be happy to talk about it. So I hope I under— I said that in a way that's easy to understand, because it is a fairly technical conversation around what they're doing, how it works, and in some ways that's how they kind of get away with it, is that people don't really understand what they're doing. And so that's the challenge. But really, at the end of the day, Spotify is really trying to disrupt RSS because at the end of the day they want to stream the media files, not make them as downloads. And there's a couple of reasons for this that are fairly legitimate as well. If they're streaming them, they can get better metrics out of the playback and it's more efficient on the bandwidth too. So there's, there's some benefits from streaming versus downloading, but historically RSS enables a download delivery process, and that's, that's historically what this podcast medium has been all about. So, you know, take it for what you want. I mean, the evolution of this medium, I'm, I'm not really, to be honest with you, I'm not really stuck on this concept that everything has to be a download anymore. I think we've kind of reached a point where maybe that's not necessary anymore, and it may deliver better metrics to stream it. But I do think having the ability to cache it in your local device for playback when maybe you're not connected, able to connect to the internet, would be a good way of doing it. And that is an optional feature, not a primary feature of how this content is delivered. Now granted, that is going to break the mold of how a lot of the podcast platforms have historically delivered the content. So it's, you know, that's part of the, the big change that I think is coming. And that's, that's really, it's, it's the slow disappearance of what's called pass-through. On the download side. So, so like I said, Spotify has always wanted this delivery method that I'm talking about here, the streaming and the caching of episodes. They've always wanted that. And many other players who have been involved in there, usually larger companies, larger media companies that have their platforms built the way that they want to have them built. And they want them to operate. And the podcast industry is kind of like, put the brakes on. Just like what we all needed to do with Spotify in the early years of Spotify was put the brakes on. So now they're seeing video as an opportunity to disrupt that, and they're probably getting some pushback from the industry already, I would imagine, as the news of this spreads, which reached a, I guess, a new level of discussion here over the last, um, couple of days on like Facebook and, and LinkedIn and other platforms that are talking about this. Um, so, you know, this effort on the part— and I haven't told you about this other part of the Spotify and video kind of issue— is that the people that have chosen to to upload a video and it replaces the podcast hosted audio file with a cached locally stored version, people that are monetizing their shows have seen as much as a 50% reduction in revenue after they've uploaded a video and it overwrote their RSS feed. Version of the, of the audiophile, because what they got— they got cut off from their, their monetization. So when Spotify did that, they were not able to replace the monetization that was being disrupted that was coming from like Libsyn or, or Spreaker or any of these platforms that are doing programmatic advertising or dynamic advertising. Now granted, you can still put host reads into this content and it will pass. So I think that's kind of where we might see the direction of the industry really get back to again, which is doing host reads again. So, which is gonna be an interesting, you know, throwback to, to what really built this medium. You know, it's the tension between, let's say, this concept of a national ad versus a local ad of sorts that will probably come into play with the— Spotify will probably run programmatic type dynamically inserted advertisements in episodes that are hosted on their platform, and that will be considered kind of like local advertising of sorts, even though it's global, but, and then the, the baked-in, or, or, um, yeah, it's probably gonna be baked-in advertising that's done by the content creator that comes in and is delivered to them and then cached. Will that will always be in there unless Spotify has some way to run an algorithm that will remove those baked-in host-read advertisements, which the technology exists to— for any of these platforms to go in and actually remove ads. So there's nothing to really stop them from, from doing that other than just, you know, offering one other reason for content creators to be mad at them, to be quite honest with you. You know, the big picture, at least in the short run, Spotify needs to leave RSS audio alone, untouched, until they can work out a more aggressive monetization of that audio that matches what is available from the, the show's producers, um, hosting platform that's able to monetize for them. You know, just them cutting off revenue is not going to be received in a positive way. So what Spotify needs to do is really, if they're going to do this, they need to get their act together and, and embrace a better revenue share relationship with content creators. So if they're going to cut out and not want ads to be updated in the content, that requires working with the, with the hosting platforms to get them an ad-free version that then they can do the whole dynamic ad insertion stuff into and the programmatic stuff into, and then establish a revenue share relationship with every creator. You know, what they've set is very, very high thresholds that video publishers have to meet before revenue will be shared with them. I mean, very much higher than the monetization threshold that YouTube has. So that is not a long-term strategy for them to be successful at doing this and keeping the industry in a solid partnership with them, because what they're doing is they're taking money out of people's pockets, but they're not doing anything on their side to make up for it. So that's a responsibility that they have if they're going to do this, you know, and the other reality of this too, the podcast industry, even around advertising, has been underperforming for the last probably 3 to 4 years. You know, the overall advertising revenue for podcasts has been kind of flat, hasn't been growing. It hit like a $2 billion threshold that, you know, it's maybe grown $100,000 or, you know, $100 million or something like that of revenue over the last couple years. But that's very small compared to the ad revenue that's available even in radio and television. And if we're fully replacing radio and television, then, then those budgets should transfer over. And there's other discussion that we're not doing enough, right? We're not giving the advertisers enough data about who's watching, how long they're watching, whether or not the ads that are running in the content are being listened to, which is far more data than was ever made available to the advertisers on the radio side of things for, for many years. I do think a lot of that data was available to advertisers on the video side through the set-top boxes, um, so they were able to tap into that. That's a lot of the reasons why the TV budgets have been so high. But the radio side has really had very, very little listener data, um, but yet their budgets have been, you know, extremely— like, as high as like $16 billion annually of ad revenue. So there's a discrepancy here that needs to be addressed. And I think it probably will, but I guess it just depends on what the predatory natures of these big platforms and are we heading down a path where there's just not a lot of care about the content creators? And over time, what they're doing is they're shooting themselves in their foot because fewer and fewer creators are going to be willing to invest their time, energy, and efforts for really no economic benefit. More and more people want to make money from creating content from day one. And so these, these platforms are just not delivering on it. And if these platforms start showing huge profit numbers at the end of the year, but the content creators that are, that are really driving that huge profit numbers are not sharing in that revenue, there's going to be a decline in content creators and people are just not going to get taken advantage of. Really, at the end of the day, that's kind of what it is. It's the same thing that's happened to the music industry, too. There's just been a feeling that these big platforms just don't, don't really fairly compensate their creators that spend a lot of time creating content on their platforms. So, you know, these big platforms want to control everything. They want to control the delivery. They want to control the metrics. They want to control what's seen and what's not seen, you know, content moderation. And increasingly, these big platforms want content directly delivered to them. And they're also increasingly not willing to allow people on their platforms to link to other platforms as well that have their content too. So these big platforms are being very, very much kind of focused on themselves and their ecosystems and are willing to kind of take advantage of people. And it's really, at the end of the day, it's kind of an ethics question that content creators need to really grapple with. And I'm not sure how to actually, navigate this. You know, if it's kind of an ethos out there that these big platforms are going to behave predatory because they feel like they have a lot of power in the market, then that's what they're going to do. And there's really— content creators are mostly powerless. So, you know, though I don't think this is this is the end of the road for RSS, but it is a sign that RSS is under pressure. And I do think that there's going to be increasing numbers of centralized distribution platforms that are going to be opening up or launching here soon that are going to be focused more on API-based submissions processes. Now, granted, API-based submissions process have been around podcasting for many years to platforms like YouTube and Twitter and those platforms, they were always done as like social media sharing, right? Not content publishing. And I think that's the messaging that's going to change, is that it's going to be seen as a way to centralize the distribution and the publishing, the direct publishing of video files and probably to some degree audio files if they're derivative of the video file. Though I kind of question this kind of taking the audio out of the video and making that available because I do think that there is an advantage to content creators creating a different version of the audio show, not just taking the audio from the video but doing more deeper editing, adding audio elements to what's created in the video to create a little bit of a more audio-friendly experience in the podcast. So if we're just extracting the audio from the video, it's not really giving the content creators really the full spectrum of trying to create the best experience for the the consumers of this. So I think that's the tension that we're gonna see happen. And I haven't even talked about how AI is gonna impact in all this, right around how people publish and how APIs could be associated with AI around publishing and editing and more and more automation is gonna come into play on this. And the market's gonna change, you know, old school podcasting and those pathways may be, you know, maybe kind of moving to, you know, a stage where they're seen as old school and that more technical and more advanced ways of publishing and processing the content is gonna take a stronger hold of the market. And so I think the big picture that I wanted to share tonight too is that, you know, what's the play going forward on all this? Um, I'll just say generally, uh, podcasting is going pro, which means to me that, uh, professional podcasting, uh, is where we're at right now. All you have to do is look at YouTube and look at the biggest shows in the world and how big they are and how they're capturing such huge audiences to see that podcasting is no longer a UGC-dominated medium like it was seen for many years in the early years. So it's really a medium that's that's really coming into its own and taking the mantle away from mainstream legacy media as the de facto independent mainstream media. And I wonder increasingly how independent it's gonna stay. I think a lot of the legacy media companies are gonna enter this online media consumption and distribution in a, a renewed energy, I might say, that will be more consistent with an online creator's kind of approach. And that may be the only way that they can save their big media companies or their big content creation media companies is to evolve their, their models into being more like what we're doing here, right? I think we're seeing it with a lot of former, you know, like anchor solo video creators that were on, you know, CNN or Fox News or any of these platforms move over to the podcasting realm and build their own properties around their brands. You know, there's just abundant examples of this that is happening out there that increasingly are capturing audience. And as video comes into prominence, you know, video hosting is a lot cheaper than it was in the early days of podcasting from a bandwidth perspective and a delivery perspective. So, you know, having this ability to make video available is very attractive as we look to the future. And if we can create this kind of balanced ecosystem that will generate revenue from that, whether it's subscription or if it's advertising, we will have a very vibrant kind of ecosystem for content. But I do think that these big media companies want to silo this because then they can capture more share of your eyes and your ears., right? And that's what they've always wanted to do, even with their legacy media channels, right? The other part that's, that's changed as well, you know, and here's kind of another element for you to think about too, as you're, you're creating content, is audiences are expecting a lot more polish. So when I say polish, I'm talking about higher production quality. More interesting video type of experiences, transitions. Though I do think that there's a renewed interest in authenticity and being real and talking about things that people care about, you know. But I do also think it's true too that the days of just hit record and grow easily regardless of thinking about your, your production quality or what you're presenting. And the, the topics that you're talking about are basically over, you know. Increasingly, the shows that are doing very well now are shows that are talking about relevant current topics, right? Ones that are, are important to, to people's lives. And and what they're thinking about at any given time. And that's, that's important, you know. And as you think about your own show, you know, if you think about the type of shows that have done well or over like the last year, it shows that are talking about, you know, trending topics, but they've built a reputation with their audience of trust. And that's, that's been the key to making that all work. So, and that's an important piece here. And so quality is important. Your audio quality is important. Your video quality is important. You know, is what you're doing here compelling? You know, that's the thing that I work on and struggle with here too, is what I'm doing here good enough quality to keep your attention? Am I talking about something that's not boring you to death? And that's, that's, that's a difficult bar, especially when you're talking about topics that are maybe more genuine and, and real, because real life can be kind of boring, right? Um, there's not always a lot of intrigue. You know, I tried to bring a little bit of intrigue to this show tonight from the standpoint of, you know, tectonic shifts in what the expectations of the, of the market. And I think that there, there's also another truth too, that many podcasters and creators have tried and failed to meet their expectations. I think we have gotten a little over our skis on expectations too. You start a show and you expect to be making a lot of money for your time. That is a fairly, fairly, um, new phenomenon to some degree. I think that there, there's always been an interest. Every creator that starts creating content online would like to make some money from it to help pay their mortgage or to pay car payment or their insurance or whatever that is, even just their, their costs of actually doing the show and their time. There is a desire for that. And if they don't meet some sort of bar of getting something back from their effort and their time, they feel disappointed. There's a lot of work that goes into this kind of stuff, a lot of time. But there, there is generally no instant cash. You know, you can, you can be doing this for years and not really make much money. That's, that's what's causing a lot of people to podfade right now, is that it's, it's, it's a difficult path. So, you know, if you were starting a, a new show in 2025, it means that You need skills. You probably need some sort of a built-in audience, and you need to have a content strategy and a distribution approach. And what's going to be unique about what you're doing and have a plan to, to really push towards scaling it. But there's no guarantee of scaling any of this stuff. Such a competitive landscape of creators right now that are— there's a lot of terrific creators out there. That's the other truth of this too. It isn't like the early days of podcasting when there just weren't that many creators that were growing big audiences. Now there's a lot. But don't ditch your microphone quite yet. You know, I think that, you know, I can talk about this in a way that um, maybe doesn't sound very good, but there is still opportunities out there. And that's part of what I'm trying to do with this show, is to help you kind of think about these things so you can, you can find, find your own unique path on this journey of, of exploring your own individual capabilities. Because at the end of the day, that's really what it is. Creating a, a content or video show or any of this is really an exploration and development of your individual skills. And that is really the differentiator. So I would say keep learning, keep growing, keep getting better at what you're doing., and, and, you know, that lucky charm will fall in your lap is, is really the only thing that one can say about it, is that, you know, through persistence and being there and putting yourself in situations where there's a good chance that you will succeed. Um, it's the same thing that happened to me with my radio show that I did. I started back in 1999. I had, I had no audience for that. I was on the radio, I was doing live radio at the time, but it took, you know, I built that show for 6 years and, and it, it grew over time into being something significant. So, and I was excited about that, and that really created the, the backdrop for the career that I created in podcasting and working for these platforms. Lipson and Spreaker and PodcastOne and Microsoft and all these places. It was really getting that, you know, on-the-ground experience with this so I could take that and help others. And then lastly here, I wanted to kind of talk about, you know, the impact of AI. And I know I talk about that a lot because I do think that it's a significant influence on the direction of new media and podcasting and video. You know, it's because soon we're going to be at a point where we have ASI, which is super, super intelligent agents out there that are going to do things for us to help us to streamline our our lives. And I hope that AI maintains this relationship with humans as that they're there to help us. They're there to make us better, to make humans better. Now granted, there may come a point where they get their own consciousness and they kind of like decide that they're— they don't need to work with humans anymore. They can just go off and do their own thing, you know. That day may come, but I think we will have a period of time here where, you know, these AI bots will be very supportive of us and help us find success and to bring efficiencies in, in creating scripts, uh, recording, editing, publishing, and helps you market and find an audience for your podcast, analyze the data to give you terrific feedback about what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. You know, and it all could happen very, very quickly. And you can still have time to go out for a walk around the park and not have to spend your whole day slaving in front of a screen editing a 1-hour audio episode, pulling out and changing it and spending an hour for every 15 minutes of audio content, trying to manually edit it. And I think we're kind of already in that area. But I do think that the super intelligent agents are going to kind of, you know, transform what we're doing as long as they understand what we want them to do. I think that's the key. And that's what these agents are going to need to be programmed to do. They're going to need to understand what we want and how we want it, not unlike a virtual assistant that knows exactly what we want to have created and it just goes and does it. So I have a question for you as we think about this concept of disruption and what the future looks like is that will you team up with an AI bot of some sort or agent? You know, and my comment on this is that if you're not thinking about it and you're not investigating it and you're not trying to learn how it might work, then you might be at a disadvantage at some point in the future. So tonight is a wake-up call to say that change is here. And we need to be aware of what these changes look like and to start learning. Um, don't feel complacent in where you're at. I know I am. I'm trying to learn as much as I can, and then I share what I can with you here. And I, I appreciate you being here, and I appreciate your, your involvement in the podcasting space as well. And, and as we move more into the video side of things, I think that there's opportunities. So, you know, and, and keep growing and, and being as, as good as you can be. So that's, that's really the meat of the content tonight. So let's transition over towards, you know, I wanted to share a couple things with you. I've launched a, um, a new audio podcasting network. So you can see I'm still focused on, um, the, the audio side of things, but I do have a component of what, what I'm doing is called the Adore Network. It's at adorenetwork.com. So if you're listening to this, uh, it's adorenetwork.com is where you can go to actually see all of the all of the shows that I have up there. And so you can see those here on the screen. There's a bunch of shows in here that I've been working on building. It's only at the, at the beginning stages, and it's built on the Podpage platform. So, and then I'm also working with you know, Blueberry, and I'm also working with Spreaker as well to get content into this platform. So let me pull this, let me go back to me, and, and then also I have a community page as well. So, and you're welcome to to join this as well. It's called, called Adore as well, and it's a free and paid one-on-one consulting platform. It's at school, s-k-o-o-l.com/adorenetwork. And so you can connect with me over there. This is kind of my official announcement of all this stuff, and I've been, I've been working on trying to build this, this platform and try to, um, to take what my experience is and what I love doing and bring it to others, and then also be able to take their shows and make them available on a, on a hosting platform, or wherever you happen to be hosting your, your show is also an option as well. So it's just a matter of working with you and, and, and solving your custom issues that you have. Every creator has their own custom issues or challenges that they face or things that they want to do. And so that's what the whole purpose of, of this platform is, to, is to really offer that. And so you can see, this is the, the brand. Actually, I, just to tell you a little bit of story on this brand, actually, I started this network when I was working for Spreaker back in 2016. And then when I left Spreaker to go to work for Lipson, it got shut down. And so I recently got the brand back from, from iHeart and Spreaker so I could start building, building it again. So that's, that's what's going on with that. So let me bring it back to to me again. And, and so let me see, what, what else did I want to share with you? Um, well, let's, let's just transition into, uh, taking your questions. So I'm going to pull up the comments. And, uh, wow, there's a lot of, a lot of stuff. I think I opened a Pandora's box tonight around questions that are Um, let's see here. So it looks like Renee posted, uh, killing it, it's Thursday. Thank you. I think it's Heidi, uh, Renee, I think. Um, so thank you for the comment. Jeffrey Bradbury wrote me, great show, Rob. Well, thank you, Jeffrey. He's in my backyard here in, in Connecticut. Uh, he's He's been a longtime podcaster doing his TeacherCast podcast, so it's great to have you with me here, Jeff. And then the famous Dave Canyon, uh, says here, um, not to be political, but the other candidate's issue was more with integrity than anything else. Both tried alternative media like podcasts, but one was more camera and conversational friendly. Just my opinion. Well, I think that there's probably some, some reality to that perception of what, what happened back then. And so I would tend to, uh, tend to agree with that. And then Andrew, Andrew McGibbon, uh, Ern McGurvin writes here, let's see, it's a principle of the 80/20 rule. A small percentage or proportion of creators get disproportionate amount of downloads or listens. This is considered to be normal distribution. I'm not surprised by those numbers. So Andrew, I would definitely, definitely agree that most things do have a distribution like that of 80/20. Where 20% of whatever get 80% of whatever, right, of the benefits or the audience or whatever. And that's a good observation. I would like it to be, and I think as you look to the, the past of podcasting, is that there has been a little bit more of an equal distribution in the past. But as we've seen big creators come into the medium, or ones that have big followings already on legacy media, have disproportionately grabbed audience that has created this to come true, like this 80/20 rule that you shared. So, and then, uh, looks like Dave Canyon posted another question here. It says, um, my wife watches 1 to 4 hours or sometimes more of YouTube than anything else. She's looking for the best in nutrition information, organizing, and certain other hacks type of shows. She can't get what she wants from legacy TV at, at really at all, except for, you know, some well-written sitcoms or one-hour dramas. Yeah, Dave, I think that the, the desires of the audience has, has changed. I think people are looking for other types of video content now that the legacy media just wasn't able to deliver on. So, and I think that's important. And it looks like Mr. James Cridland wrote me, if dynamic ads are no longer a thing, then passthrough isn't needed. I suppose that's true. I would tend to agree with that, James, but until the platforms get fully enabled for replacing that revenue opportunity for content creators, then there's gonna be friction. So I think that's the challenge that's put before Spotify and any of these platforms that want to capture content is that they need to offer a robust offering on that side. If the content creators have expectations that are being delivered in the other method of delivery, they're gonna object unless you can match it. So, but I agree with you, pass-through is really just a function of the content creator wanting to be in control. And I think now there's a friction of these big consumption platforms wanting to have that control. So James, that's a great point. And so I think holding these platforms accountable for delivering on a replacement of revenue approach makes a lot of sense. And then Dave Canyon also wrote again here, say, are all companies going to try and be all things to all people? I'm not sure if that sounds like a successful business plan. The, the riches enriches, or does that not apply to Netflix, Spotify, and, and YouTube as well as Apple? Um, yeah, I'm not sure that I do think that there's an argument for all things to all, all people, um, but then again, I don't know that there's a lot of history of success with that. Um, I think that that's what Spotify wants to do, and I do think that all these media companies want to get in each other's business, um, to carve away market share for them, from them. And I think, you know, we'll see it sort out in the marketplace. It depends on what people want. So Dave, thank you for the comment here. And Connie writes, it's like Connie Brown writes, thanks for the heads up. Well, thank you. Yeah, I tried to share a lot of kind of complicated issues in the podcasting space tonight. And I hope you got something out of it. And it looks like Andrew McGivern wrote, do you think the small independent audio-only podcasts will be affected? Yeah, I do think that the small independent audio podcaster will be affected unless the trend towards video consumption reduces demand for the audio, I'm assuming is what you're saying. Yeah, I think that could happen over time, is that the video side kind of carves away at the consumption of the audio as people maybe see a better, you know, like a TV experience around the same content that they maybe they consumed. But I think it's going to be a blending of the two and it may Like you say here, my take is that the big platforms are pushing for this and not the listeners, as you mentioned. Yeah, audio still has many benefits like portability and the ability to listen while doing other things. And I think that will carve out a place for audio that will passed the test of time. I agree, audio has a place in people's lives, and I think if you look at the consumption research that's out there, that's exactly what it says, is that video consumption and audio consumption is what people are looking for. They're looking for the option to watch or the option to listen, depending on where they are in their life and what they're doing. And having that choice increasingly is what the consumers of this medium want. And so I think that's a very good point, Andrew, on that topic is that it will be a blend of the two. The question is how big will audio be in a world that's dominated by video? And I think that's the question that I don't know that we know the complete answer for. Quite yet, because people can still listen to a video. They can start a video and put their device in their pocket and not actually watch the screen, but just listen to the audio. So there is an audio consumption piece to video that may have a larger place in the future. So we'll have to see how this plays out. So it looks like, um, Connie Brown writes, uh, let's see here, I guess it's time to go back to old-time radio. Well, I don't know that we're going to go back to old-time radio. Those, those radio stations are kind of, um, over time kind of fading away. And I believe that radio stations, many of them, are going to convert into more podcast platforms or podcast media companies, which we're seeing with the big, big radio networks today like Cumulus or, or iHeart. These platforms are really converting their businesses over to being kind of more podcasting companies. And I do believe that those companies are going to get more into video as well. And that's just the the pattern that we're going to see going forward. And Andrew also writes, video on RSS still has smartphone storage to actually deal with. Yeah, that's true. Mobile data plan usage issues as well. So people— but you know, it's, it's, yeah. Streaming is more efficient on the delivery side than a download of a video file, which tends to download completely even though a person may not have watched all of the video file. You know, and it's true that there is a storage issue for mobile phones, though I'm not sure that it's a huge issue anymore because a lot of the mobile phones have quite a bit of storage in them. But the whole download thing, if that goes away and it all goes towards streaming, then that whole storage issue kind of goes away, doesn't it? So good point. And it looks like Russell Harrower writes here, Andrew wrote, not if you are streaming. When it comes to storage and people use YouTube, so you don't see usage plans that have that issue. So, you know, the whole streaming side of things still uses data on your mobile phone. So I guess it's just much more efficient use of that data would be how it is, and, and YouTube can more adequately control that, that actual utilization, so it only delivers as much data to your phone to play whatever that you're trying to play, and it doesn't, you know, totally saturate your phone's bandwidth or take up physical storage space on your device itself. So it looks like Dave Canyon also writes here, My advice to new podcasters is to not even have monetization in the immediate or near immediate future with any kind of show that you have. You really have to focus on all of the moving pieces that get you to monetization. So how many are there? 10 to 20, 100 moving pieces? I think so. So depending on who you are, your subject matter, and your audience, focus on all things quality, and the byproduct should, should be monetization. It's a simple step-by-step process. Monetization is the cart before the horse. Dave, I agree 100%. So, you know, take it, take it from a more realistic approach. And, and that is a very rational view on it here. And Dave Cannon also writes, thank you, Rob. I'll, I'll now identify as famous, so please acknowledge this is my new pronoun, famous. Okay, Dave, thank you so much. And Harold Gilchrist also wrote here Um, let me say, as a YouTube power user, I'm not interested in 5+ ads in my viewing. Any show that like that, I would just forward past. Well, at least, I mean, I can say, Harold, that my experience with YouTube is on their, their premium plan, which basically doesn't have any ads. So that's probably the best way to consume it. Right, is to have no ads. So you're basically paying that, you know, $12 or $13 a month for a subscription. And that could be where all this really winds up, um, because people are going to get annoyed by the ads. And that's another contributor to what I think will likely happen with the advertising side of podcasting, is that it's going to shift more into subscription., which will really cause an even greater decline of advertising revenues. So, uh, and so Harold, thank you for the comment there. And, uh, Andrew writes to Russell, I'm referring to video over RSS feeds, not YouTube or Spotify hosting, right? Um, Okay, well, thank you for that. Well, I think I covered all of the questions tonight, so thank you so much for posting them in here. And, and, uh, it was great to talk about your thoughts out there too. And it's a, it's a controversial area right now and change that's happening in the, in the medium. So thank you for taking the time to be here with me tonight and allowing me to to share my thoughts on what I'm seeing happen in the, the landscape of new media and podcasting and, and YouTube type of content consumption. So like I say, thank you so much for being here. I, I appreciate it. And I'm going to share a little bit of other ways that you can, you can get a hold of me. I, I have a YouTube channel, um, um, @RobGreenlee. I also can be contacted via email, rob.greenlee@gmail.com. And I'm also on X as well. So you can find me over there. I also do a live show with Todd Cochran called The New Media Show. That's, uh, live every Wednesday night at 8 PM Eastern. Like this past Wednesday, yesterday, I did an episode with the head of podcasting for Adobe, uh, where we talked about the Adobe podcasting platform. So it was You know, if you haven't seen that yet, Mark goes into great detail about what's happening with the Adobe Podcast platform. So, and where that might be going in the future. And then I also have a website, robgreenlee.com, and remember the adorenetwork.com website as well. So it looks like I've had a couple more comments come in. It looks like Dave Canyon writes, uh, great job, Rob. Thanks for doing this. Well, I, I appreciate you being here tonight. And, and Harold, thank you for being here. Harold Gilchrist, uh, it's great to have you with me tonight. So thank you so much. Well, I hope everybody has a wonderful evening, and thank you so much. And it looks like I had another— oh, let's see here, did I get one coming in? Oh, Dave Canyon First time hearing about that, that Adobe. I'll check it out. So, all right. Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful evening, and thank you for all the comments. And I'll be back next Thursday for another episode of Podcast Tips. So thank you for being here with me. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you. Bye-bye.