Explicit Versus Non Explicit Podcasts: How to Know If It's The Best Time to Edit or Not

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Hi and welcome back to Feed you'd Brand. I'm your host Tom, along with my co host today, Alexandra.

Hello everybody.

And we've got a really great subject to talk about that is relevant to just about every podcaster out there and even any of you that are future podcasters who are listening to this episode. And it really has to do with the subject of whether to make your podcast explicit or listed as explicit on itunes and the other distribution channels or not to. And then even a little deeper dive topic into what you can do regarding editing your podcast if even if you have a clean show and your guest then uses a four letter word or something that is not officially clean according to the guidelines of itunes. Because we've come across some new things recently with a lot of the podcasts that we produce and have developed a new practice we wanted to share with you for you to consider for your show. Yep. So let's talk about explicit or not explicit because this comes up with pretty much every new podcaster and we had a new podcast which actually we could talk about now because it's launched, called Get Wealth Fit, hosted by Dustin Matthews and the company is called Wealth Fit that he is now a part of.

Great keyword choices there.

Oh my gosh. Isn't it? But they followed our recommendation and launched their show with 25 episodes because they really wanted to kill it out of the gate on itunes. And that's not really the focus of this episode. But they did just that from the time we're recording this. They launched their show last week. So let's say they launched it on October 24 and as soon as it was listed on iTunes, within 36 or 48 hours, wasn't it, Alexandra? They were already ranking very high in the business category on itunes and the business investing category on itunes. I mean, within the top 200 and anybody could look it up. This is publicly available information, but I think initially they were in the top 100 on the general business category and well under the top 25 or 50, I forget, in business investing and continues to be that today. And that's just purely a function of. It was all organic because they hadn't even promoted the show yet.

Not even social media posts.

They hadn't sent an email out to their list yet. This was organic on itunes. And I think that's very interesting. And just so you understand that one of the reasons that it gained quickly is they're in a very hot category, the business category and the business investing category. Any of those business related categories, but.

Especially investing, I find even more than just general business, people love listening to podcasts in that category.

There is, I think, a very big market of listeners. When a new show shows up, they take notice.

Yes.

And they also managed to get, I think it was like 44 reviews within that first 48 hours. And again, that was unsolicited.

Yeah. Now this being said, Dustin Matthews is a very high level speaker and he's trained speakers. So he had a bit of a following with to his name before he started the show. So he probably got a lot of those reviews because people who are already listening to podcasts who already knew who he was sort of found him and were like, oh my gosh, I love Dustin. This is amazing, let's do a review. But also that that's not just 44 reviews. Some of those just happened because it was an awesome show that they discovered.

Right. But still, you're right about Dustin. He is a very well known person in the business and entrepreneur community for sure. He's been a well known figure in that, in the entrepreneur community for at least a decade, if not more. But he did not had, he had not sent out an email or a social media post or anything yet by this time. So anyway, the reason I'm telling you about this, about Dustin is because this subject about explicit or not explicit came up and in his recording of those foundational 25 episodes, the first ones, he had some guests use some four letter words. So the reason I wanted to reference Dustin's new podcast is this issue came up about explicit or not to make his show explicit or not, because as he recorded those foundational 25 episodes, he had some customers just in the way they normally speak and in the context of what they're talking about, said, oh my gosh, we've got a load of customers who do this. Or you know, another one was I really don't want to half doing this or I don't want to do this kind of process or venture if I'm going to do it in a half way. So he struggled with whether he wanted to edit out these swear words, maintain it as a clean podcast, or whether to leave them in and mark his entire show explicit. Because it was to the point where in enough of these first 25 episodes, there were a handful at least. I mean, a good number of guests that were using profanity, not in a vulgar way or anything, but in just a way that was natural in speech for them and the way they talk. And ultimately, Dustin decided to mark his show as explicit and just to make sure he's covered. And we've talked about this issue in past episodes where if you don't mark your show as explicit and you do publish any profanity in any episode, if someone, a listener, like someone who's listening in their car and their kids are in the car and it's playing over the open speakers, hears this profanity, if you have not labeled your episode as explicit, then if they complain to itunes, you're at risk, you're at risk to have your show completely taken down and delisted off itunes. So we certainly don't recommend that. So in this case, Dustin decided, all right, for now, let's list it as explicit. We can always, you know, if we have to go back and re edit and change that decision in the future. But there is another option, and this is what Alexandra and I were discussing today, just in reference to clients in general, because this has come up with some other clients. And one of the things that people struggle with is if you are insisting on having a clean show, which I think most shows are, meaning they're not explicit. If you were to just remove the swear words that are said, edit them out as if they were never there, and then air the episode in certain situations, that creates a bad context in terms of listening to the audio. Meaning what is said by your guest just doesn't make sense when you take that swear word out of context. So this brings up the quandary of what you do.

Right. And so we came up with the idea to do what they do on television, which is to just bleep it out so that way it can still make sense and any adult who is listening will be able to fill in the word. But it's still clean and follows iTunes rules for explicit versus non explicit.

Yeah. So think about. I think I see this most often if I'm watching maybe the Tonight show or watching the late show on cbs. And usually, of course, a guest isn't caring or even thinking about the fact that they're being recorded on TV and they will let squares fly here or there. And I think that they struggle with the same thing. It's like, well, if we edit that out, I mean, it's chopping up the interview. It isn't going to make a whole lot of sense, especially when it's in video. I think that chops up. I mean, they have different camera angles, so they could probably make it work, but it's a lot more work. And usually what they decide to do is to just bleep it out. Usually you can tell the host, like, I've seen Stephen Colbert just sort of smile, as that said, while he thinks about, all right, well, how do I pick up from there? But I've actually seen it happen where even the host of the show decides to swear in their opening monologue and more and more they tend to bleep it out. And so I think the reality is if you're listening to an episode and somebody says, wow, we have a bleep load of customers. And obviously I'm not making the beep sound as I say that, because I think that would sound a little silly for me to do that, but. Or that we don't want to half bleep that we don't want to do something in a half bleeped way. Right. To take out those swear words. And that probably sounded really dumb the way I just said it. But anyway, I think that in the reality it would. I think that it would make the most sense for people to understand the full context of the situation if you do that. But again, we're here to tell you there's no right or wrong answer here. So in reality, this is a decision that is in the hands of the podcast host and it is a business decision. It is a personal preference or style decision. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. You just have to decide what makes the most sense to you. You want to leave it in, have your show be truly authentic and market explicit. I honestly don't see any evidence in the history of all the podcasts that we work with and all the downloads that we see that having it marked as explicit reaches fewer people than if it's marked as clean. Because in general we're involved with businesses and entrepreneurs, individuals podcasting to market and grow their brand or their business. So you're dealing with adults all the time, right?

Yeah. And it doesn't discourage them from listening to the episode. Especially if you're in a self help field. You don't have to worry about that at all because a lot of self help field deals with love and relationship building and so you end up with some explicit topics anyway. And So I think especially in that category, you do not have to worry about whether you're explicit or not because most of the podcasts in that category are going to end up being explicit. But in the business category also, we haven't seen evidence of any difference. We have some people that decided to march their whole show as explicit, others that decided to keep it non explicit and bleep out their words or cut them out completely, and there doesn't seem to be any difference in viewership.

I agree with that. And actually get well Fit podcast hosted by Dustin Matthews is case in point. His show was put out as a brand new podcast. Everything marked as explicit, whether there was any language in it that needed it or not. In particular, there's some episodes that didn't need it. And he is ranking in the top charts from the get go. So certainly we don't see any evidence that says that's a problem. However, we have another friend, Chris Kramistos, who is one of the founders of the Podfest Expo that has the kid friendly joke of the day podcast. And clearly something like that that's intended for a youth audience has to be marked as clean and you have to keep it clean because clearly kids are going to be hearing it.

Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. I think it's more explicit or not explicit. It is more of a warning to the person who's listening it, like, hey, maybe don't play this one in your car with your kids. And I think that's what's more important about marking your show as explicit or not. It's not necessarily about it being quote unquote bad content or not bad content, but like bad words. It's like there's just bad words in it. It's also about is the content appropriate for minors or not? And that I think is truly how podcast listeners view explicit or not. And that's why there doesn't seem to be a difference in listenership. It just tells the person, hey, times to listen to it, maybe are not in your car and maybe are not putting it on the speakerphone when you're out somewhere in public, like cap headphones, that sort of a thing.

And I was just thinking, Alexandra, one of the places that people listen to podcasts a lot more and more these days, not just in the car example I gave, which is I think where a lot of people list, but over smart speakers, it's becoming more and more popular. And so if you're listening in your, like we have our Alexa in our kitchen. So while we're cooking whatever we're listening to some podcasts, multitasking.

Or Google Home.

Or Google Home, same thing. That you can understand how that's an open environment, or if you have any kids in the house, they're gonna hear it. But it brought up a question to me, Alexandra, that I don't know the answer to. And I think we need to go find this out and get back to our audience on a later date on it. That is. I've never heard Alexa tell me when I go and listen to any old podcast on there, have it, tell me. Fair warning, this is an explicit podcast. Before they play it, I think they just go and play it.

No, they do just go and play it. But I do know that on TuneIn, which is the app you use on Alexa, and on Google Podcasts, which is the app Google Home uses on both of those platforms, when you view the podcast on their platform, like on a phone or on the computer, it does show you whether or not it's explicit. But no, they don't speak that before you play it, which is interesting.

That's interesting. I wonder if that's a. That's gonna change in the future as the smart speakers become more popular. Because, I mean, I think you as parents, I would want a little warning that please be aware this podcast is marked explicit, and then play it right. So you have the opportunity to say, okay, Alexa, stop, I'll listen later. You know, something like that. But so that with the emergency smart speakers. Yeah, I think some more things like this, they're gonna have to address those issues. But anyway, so we just wanted to bring you some thoughts we were having recently on this issue. Cause I know everybody as a podcaster, this issue at some point in time, whether you have a clean podcast or not. We've had it happen occasionally where a guest says something that should be marked explicit, and we either have to edit it completely out or here's another solution that we're suggesting today, right? You can keep the integrity and authenticity and the full context of your interview with your guest without having to mark your show explicit. Or if it's no big deal, hey, mark it explicit.

Right?

It works.

Yeah, definitely. So this was Tom and Alexandra on feed you'd brand today.

Sam.