0:00

- Good to go. Oh, I played the wrong one. Not supposed to play that.

0:07

That's a copyright violation. Neither that one there.

0:11

What am I doing, Todd? Let's get it right - Tot and drop in the afternoon.

0:17

Afternoon with Todd and Rob.

0:23

Oh yeah. - Oh yeah. Here we are.

0:26

<laugh>, after I hit 3D three buttons. Wrong <laugh>.

0:31

- Well, that was an interesting, um, introduction to the show.

0:34

<laugh>. We, we went through a few intro songs, didn't we? <laugh>? Yeah, we

0:37

- Did. And I was actually, and it was my fault.

0:40

'cause I was like looking at things earlier today

0:42

and I didn't scroll back. But by the way, your audio should be good.

0:47

- That's good. - Yeah. Because there, I've just made it now a checklist item. Yes.

0:53

We have a checklist here, <laugh>, because what I think happened last episode was

0:59

the recording's great, but the channel coming out to the TriCaster,

1:05

one channel was down, and that happened before.

1:07

So you should be good Rob.

1:11

And we. Yeah. And - Yeah.

1:13

And that raises a, a bigger question that I've been

1:16

challenged on a little bit here over the last, um,

1:19

I guess the, the last week or so is around, you know, the recording process that, uh,

1:25

typically podcasters have gotten involved in Right.

1:28

Is is pretty complicated. Right?

1:32

Uh, I mean, you think about all those things, and maybe we talked about this a little bit on the last

1:36

week's episode too, but, um, you know,

1:40

should we really have to continue struggling

1:43

with things like this, um, with audio levels just in general?

1:46

Yeah. It's, it's with the, with the technology

1:50

that we have today, we should be able to just doing it.

1:52

It comes out perfect every time. Well, - You know, when, when you have a cable

1:56

or a potentiometer that is sticky Yeah.

2:00

Then no amount of AI is gonna fix that.

2:04

You're still gonna have, if you've got a crispy pot

2:09

or if you have a sticky, you know, you know, this,

2:12

this gear's been running, this whole stack has been running

2:16

for 19 years. So I know,

2:19

- And that's, that's, that's a potential weakness.

2:23

Um, I know I built a very elaborate studio when I first

2:27

started doing, um, audio content,

2:30

and I was producing it for radio back then, but it was very complicated.

2:34

You know, I had the, these different switchboards

2:37

and so I could patch things to different,

2:39

different systems and things like that. So, I mean, things have definitely gotten better.

2:44

You know, you think about the technology that we have

2:47

now is, um, definitely better than it used to be, right?

2:51

Yeah. I mean, it was very expensive in the past, and what we've seen is things have gotten inexpensive

2:56

and, and easier. But it, it does feel like we're still living in the mid two

3:02

thousands when it comes to some degree, uh, with our,

3:05

how we do this stuff. Um, and, but the technology out there is, is enabling us.

3:11

You know, I've, I've been working with a couple of companies, you know, like, uh, no.

3:16

And some of these that are doing things, um, in a way

3:20

that is, you know, taking advantage of newer technology

3:24

and new ways of thinking about audio production and,

3:27

and spatial audio and these more advanced concepts.

3:30

So, so anyway, that's just my point. I wanna make a big deal about it.

3:33

But it, it just seems like it'd be nice that we,

3:37

we didn't have to have like 15 different settings in our

3:40

systems around audio. Right?

3:43

- Well, in, in all reality, there's not any settings.

3:47

<laugh> for me, you know, at this point.

3:49

Just, you know, we, I got, well, I

3:51

- Mean, just this road caster, Todd is, you know,

3:54

I think we talked about this last time. You know, there, there is a a, an abundance

3:58

of settings, so, right, right. You could turn off everything, right.

4:00

And not enable anything. But you've got, I've got a volume control on my road caster,

4:06

then I have a volume control in my computer.

4:09

And then o oftentimes there's a volume control on

4:11

the other end, right? Yeah. You know, through your system.

4:14

And then you've got layers and layers and layers of levels

4:17

- That are, if, if, if I had to do this all over again,

4:20

I wouldn't do what I have now, - You know?

4:22

Yeah. And I think that's my bigger point is that there is a easier way of doing this

4:26

- Because, and - Yeah, - Because if you think about it, in order

4:29

to have you on a monitor and bring you in on a screen with the current setup

4:36

that I have, yeah. I bring you in on the Mac mini on Zoom.

4:40

So I've got the audio out of the Mac Mini going to the mixer

4:44

with a mix minus so we can hear each other.

4:48

Then it gets even more complicated.

4:51

So I've got my own audio stream, compressor, equalizer,

4:55

big bottom, all the stuff that's in the current road.

4:57

But I will admit it doesn't do it as good as the,

5:00

the $900 box that I have in my rack.

5:04

Um, but, you know, then there's an audio out.

5:08

It's going over to, you know, the machine

5:11

that's doing the audio stream. There's an audio out that's going into the box

5:16

that speeds the live stream so that there's an audio going in there.

5:21

Then there's a audio out that's going into the recorder.

5:25

'cause I don't record on the road caster. I only record on a, a dun in recorder of my rack.

5:32

Then I have an IP based video going to the other room

5:37

that records the video along with the audio. Yeah. It's complicated.

5:40

But, you know, that's the only way we could do it. Yeah.

5:42

If I was gonna do this again and I didn't have a TriCaster, eh, you know,

5:49

the problem is it's, I'm, I'm invested

5:51

and it just to make a switch now would be a downgrade in

5:55

video quality for me. You talk to your stream yard folks, tell 'em

5:58

to get NDI adopted, and that would make it a lot easier

6:01

to use. But, uh, it's just,

6:04

- I mean, that's probably where it's going ultimately.

6:07

That, that, that's part of this upgrade technology I'm talking about too.

6:10

But, you know, a lot of people aren't using NDI

6:13

yet. Um, still, well, - It's the, it's the standard for most broadcast stuff now.

6:18

It's, you know, it's for - Broadcast stuff, right?

6:20

- Oh, yeah. And it, and most cameras that are on the market today have NDI embedded.

6:24

That's, you know, that's beyond a, you know, webcam,

6:29

you know, and you're just using a webcam and of course.

6:32

But, um, - Right.

6:34

I mean, I mean, the HDMI protocol

6:37

is still pretty significant. I mean, that's what I'm using to do this as HDMI to USB.

6:42

Yeah. I think that's far more common now

6:45

for online creators. Yeah. And NDI,

6:48

- So I've got, well, I, I don't know. There's a lot of NDI makes a very, very simple, if you,

6:55

you know, if you can afford the equipment to support NDI, that's, you know, that's,

6:58

- Yeah. And I think that's, that, that's the question. I mean, so you look at like an AAM

7:01

or something like that, that that's like a video switcher.

7:04

Yeah, yeah. Or kind of kind of interface that's, I think

7:07

that's more common with online creators these days. Oh,

7:10

- They're, they're using the little, uh, uh, you know, they,

7:14

yeah, they, they're just using HDMI, that's all they're using. So,

7:18

- You know, it's cheaper, the smaller version of HDMI

7:21

as well as the Yeah. As well as USB, you know, that's how they're,

7:25

they're communicating this. But I agree. I mean, NDI would be a lot better.

7:30

Uh, actually, you know, what's funny about

7:32

that is the former marketing director for Spreaker

7:35

for many years when I was working there is now the head

7:38

of marketing for NDI. - So, uh, NDI is for NDI,

7:43

they're, that's a company. There's no, no organization. It's actually NDI. So,

7:50

- Well, it's a, it's a company that's focused on making NDI products.

7:54

- Oh, okay, okay, okay. - Yeah. And it's actually in the name NDI.

7:57

So I don't know Yeah. How they got away with that.

8:00

- It was originally a new tech protocol. The new tech got bought by, uh, Viacom or Via, I don't know.

8:05

It's Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Anyway, it's, my box has a different name now.

8:09

It's not technically a TriCaster by New Tech anymore,

8:13

but anyway, it's, it's a here and nor there. Yeah. So I, I had a little, uh,

8:20

I, I'm not caught up. I, you know, I basically, when I was out,

8:23

I did really kinda tuned out podcast for three weeks.

8:27

So I'm now catching up. And, uh, I, I, I saw something

8:33

that came across in our Live and Lit that I was like, what is this?

8:37

And it says, a hundred SATs from Sam Sethy.

8:40

This is a test of YouTube video, a hundred SATs from Sam Sethy.

8:43

This is a test of YouTube video. - Yeah, I heard, I saw that.

8:47

- And I was like, okay. So

8:51

- He's playing with getting, getting video embedded video into that platform.

8:56

- Yeah, he already has. He's got it. I know he has.

8:58

But here's the thing. He's like, oh, you got an alternate closure tag.

9:02

Well, that's only live when we're live for the,

9:05

for the Lit and live. And there's no, I'm not linking

9:08

to an HLS So basically the discussion happened on the,

9:12

and again, I gotta listen to it. They happened on the Podcasting 2.0 show.

9:17

They said, well, since YouTube is gonna give podcasters,

9:21

I don't even wanna use that word, since YouTube is going

9:23

to give creators free video,

9:27

then why don't we tap it, essentially steal it,

9:31

use their bandwidth, and allow videos

9:35

that are produced on YouTube and peer YouTube to be listened to

9:39

or watch in a podcast app. And I'm like, what the

9:45

- Beep? - And I'm, you know, I was just, I'm, I'm a little, I,

9:49

I understand what they're doing, but I,

9:53

I don't wanna give ground. I I, I think this is a mistake.

9:59

You know, blueberry and others have supported video

10:02

and podcasting for years, and it's just like, okay, they're throwing up the flag

10:06

and saying that podcast hosting companies can't

10:09

support video for creators. So sense of video is so hot right now.

10:14

Then we're going to backdoor and make a solution that makes, it,

10:19

makes a video on a podcasting app that comes from YouTube.

10:25

We're going to embed that. We're gonna allow people to stream that, uh, that content.

10:29

Well, you know, here's the thing that my argument is,

10:35

and I know this is gonna be debated.

10:38

I can get on an airplane and I can watch a video podcast on Apple podcasts

10:46

'cause the media resides on my mobile device. I don't have to have an internet connection.

10:51

Anytime someone starts talking about needing an internet

10:54

connection to consume media, you've defeated the,

10:58

the ultimate value of podcasting. I, and here I live in rural America.

11:02

I drive three miles from this house, my cell signal goes to zero. And I have,

11:08

- That's how I watch, I watch on video now,

11:11

on airplanes all the time. - Well, if you have the internet connectivity on the

11:15

airplane, not all airlines allow you to stream Video United

11:20

- Doesn't. Well, personally, all the, all the airlines that I fly on, they, they

11:24

- Do. So, yeah. Then you're lucky because United doesn't allow streaming video

11:28

unless you, maybe you're paying for it.

11:30

I don't pay for internet on,

11:33

- I flew on Delta and I flew on Alaska just in the last week

11:37

or so, and I was able to watch movies

11:40

and watch, uh, YouTube videos the whole

11:42

time I was in flight. - And did you pay for that wifi connection?

11:47

- Uh, I have my account through T-Mobile and

11:51

- T-Mobile houses. Oh. So T-Mobile gives you - A deal with, with those airlines to provide

11:56

- Wifi. Well, on United, they don't allow video streaming even on

11:59

with the T-Mobile deal. But I,

12:02

- It's probably per airline - Is the difference.

12:04

Right. So my, my whole point is, and,

12:07

and Sam made the comment, oh, there's no podcast host

12:10

that support podcasting 2.0 and video.

12:13

And I'm like, uh, hello. Uh, last time I checked, our live video

12:18

that we're doing right now is

12:22

podcasting 2.0 compliant. And what I put up in my RSS feed is,

12:28

has all the podcasting 2.0 stuff in it as well.

12:32

Uh, hello. At least us is doing it right.

12:36

So, you know, there's a hack

12:40

that you can use to basically play back

12:45

video in another app. Now, I just wonder how long before, you know,

12:48

YouTube starts seeing this? Well, they put a kibosh to it. I, I don't know. I

12:53

- Don't think so. It's just an embedded experience, just like

12:56

what they're enabling on a website. - So Yeah. Potentially. Yeah.

13:00

So, and then, you know, they're, and again, I, I'm, I'm of the opinion that

13:06

that's the last thing I wanna do is start encouraging

13:08

podcasters to go over and set up YouTube channel.

13:12

You know, it's, uh, come on, let's, let's, uh,

13:15

let's use the medium for what it is. And maybe I'm just, you know, being grumpy here,

13:20

but, um, I just, I think it's a bad,

13:24

it's a bad precedence. Then all of a sudden podcasts are gonna say, oh,

13:28

I'm gonna put my audio strictly on, I'm just gonna put my audio and video only on YouTube.

13:32

I'm a podcaster. And then they get demonetized

13:37

when they get de platformed.

13:40

You know, they don't realize what they're giving up.

13:44

- Well, I think that's, that's the message that we have

13:47

to communicate is, well, what's the advantages

13:49

and disadvantages and, and what's, I mean,

13:52

'cause people are gonna do what they're gonna do, Todd. No, it's true. I mean, I mean, you're,

13:56

you have a particular view on it and you have a platform that supports that view.

14:01

Um, but there's a lot of people out there that, that don't see it that way. So. Well,

14:05

- I mean, it's, but, but okay. They may not see it that way, but guess what? Yeah.

14:09

They ain't getting crap for views.

14:13

I'm, I'm, I'm actively looking for shows

14:15

that are quote unquote breaking out. And it's not, it's a 200 shows

14:19

or so that, you know,

14:21

they may even have an Apple podcast listing. Okay, well,

14:26

- There's no guarantee of success even on the podcast side.

14:28

- Oh, that's, well, it's a lot easier, - Let alone on the YouTube side. So.

14:32

- Well, it's, it's definitely less competition

14:36

- On the podcasting side. Oh - My God.

14:38

Hell yes. - Yeah. Well, that also speaks to the popularity

14:43

of the platform too. - That's fine. You know,

14:47

and granted, it is what it is.

14:50

But at the same time, you know, people, I don't want people

14:54

to become disillusioned and thinking that, oh,

14:57

I'm gonna have major success over here. And the majority of people don't. Mm-Hmm.

15:02

<affirmative>, um, 10,000 stats from Adam Curry.

15:06

OP three is open code and stats I put on most shows up there for advertising.

15:09

It's a real path forward. 10,000 stats from Adam Cree again.

15:13

Wow. IEB is initial charge over revenue. What a scam.

15:16

OP three for the win. I can't go to an advertiser

15:20

and say that, um, I have certified statistics from OP three, they don't work.

15:26

And OP three is definitely anti IEB,

15:30

which it is what it is. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But if I go to an advertiser

15:36

and tell them that my stats are from OP three, they're,

15:41

someone will gimme more questions asked.

15:45

So it just doesn't work, uh, from Yeah. But

15:48

- I'm not sure that's, that's the position that, um,

15:51

that's being taken out there as the advertising

15:53

- Connection. Well question. Well, he says, Adam says,

15:56

OP three is all open code and stats.

15:58

I put all my shows up there for advertising. It is a real path forward

16:02

from Adam himself for advertising.

16:05

It is not a path forward if I have a, if I have a podcaster

16:10

that is only on OP three, I can't sell his shows.

16:15

- Well, it's, it feels like it's a question more about

16:18

transparency or non-transparency is really the, the,

16:22

the question that we're being challenged. - Oh, the, the podcaster has a choice whether

16:26

or not he wants the stats to be public or not. - Right? It's a transparency question. Yeah. It's not an

16:31

- Advertising question. Why, why do I need to be transparent with my competition?

16:36

I don't have to be, I only have to be transparent to those

16:38

that are writing me a check from a commercial standpoint.

16:43

I don't have to be transparent to anyone

16:46

for show download numbers. Why would I be, why would I have to be, again,

16:51

I take the old school route on this, is

16:53

that my numbers are my business. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And, you know, if you wanna have,

17:00

have your stats be transparent in public, great

17:05

op three's awake for you, no problem. But I bet you if you took a survey of a hundred podcasters,

17:11

95 of 'em would say, I don't want my stats shown.

17:16

- So what's the advantage of someone having public disclosure of

17:20

- Their podcasts? Well, I think there, I think there's a huge numbers.

17:22

I think there's a huge risk. - What's the risk? - The risk is if you're doing

17:27

advertising and you have two numbers that are not the same,

17:30

then what is the question that's gonna be asked

17:33

of you by your advertiser? Okay. Oh, we see over here that you got 22,

17:38

- That's a reasonable concern. - You got 22,000 downloads showing IAB,

17:42

but you, I mean, on OP three, but you billed me 26,000 on IAB.

17:48

And then your response is, well, they're not IEB certified.

17:51

Any numbers could be opposite too. It could be flipped.

17:55

I've done my own tests. I have some preliminary data, which I won't go into.

18:01

But again, it goes back to what,

18:05

- So you have ti tested the IEB numbers

18:08

against the OP three? Is that what you're saying?

18:10

- I would just say I have, there is a discrepancy. I would just say I have data <laugh>.

18:15

We'll leave it at that. - Well, I mean, I mean, it's either different or it's

18:21

- The same. It's definitely different. - Okay. - And I like, I like what John's doing over there.

18:27

I like what, you know, John's a great guy. He is brilliant.

18:29

Don't get me wrong. Sperlock. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, he's a Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But at the same

18:34

time, um,

18:39

there is, well,

18:43

we consider the stuff we do with our stats to be proprietary, you know, our secret sauce.

18:49

That's really, you know, and it's not that secret.

18:54

But again, there's stuff that we do that others don't.

18:57

And that was one of the reasons why we had no drop in

18:59

Apple podcast numbers. - So the Twitter stream on this topic from James Cridland,

19:08

um, included links to other shows like ours that are

19:13

covering the podcast space. Yeah. Like the buzzsprout, um, buzz Cast

19:18

and the, the Pod News Weekly review podcast,

19:22

and the podcast 2.0. Uh, you know, you could click on those links in my,

19:27

in my Twitter stream and,

19:30

and be able to see all the stats from all those shows.

19:33

And it's, what's interesting to see in those stats is

19:35

that the, the audience level for pretty much all three

19:40

of those shows is almost identical as far as

19:45

weekly downloads. So it's around, I think, 15 to 1700,

19:51

I think is the number. - Well, it means you got the same people

19:54

listening to the same show. - Yeah. I mean, I, I, I just thought it was really

20:01

interesting to see that. So like the pod news weekly review,

20:05

it says downloads in the last seven days is 1,463.

20:10

Right, right. And downloads in the last 30 days is 46 18.

20:15

Um, and, and it has a bunch of stats on where people are listening,

20:20

what countries, um, Europe

20:25

top browsers and refers and stuff.

20:27

So, I mean, a lot of the same stuff. Yeah, a - Lot of the same. So,

20:30

- So I guess the question is, is that, you know, I think

20:33

for us to really make an evaluation on this is

20:37

to compare the numbers Well, um, and,

20:40

and see if the IAB is comparable to this or, or not.

20:43

I know that there are a lot of podcast hosts that are

20:47

probably, you know, looking at their, their budgets.

20:50

Right. And maybe, maybe are

20:54

o more open now to considering

20:58

not getting certified by - The end.

21:01

You know, Adam just, uh, just came in with a boost of 5,000.

21:04

He says it's a path, not an answer yet.

21:08

IBE is a trap and a ride to the bottom. Enjoy the ride.

21:11

Well, here's the thing, until

21:16

30 companies or however many of the number is right.

21:22

Basically use can consider using OP three as a standard.

21:26

It's a non-starter. You know, the, the battle we had, and then,

21:32

and this is what has to be understood, the battle we had was,

21:35

there were huge discrepancy in numbers.

21:38

Yeah. Most of it propagated by a couple of companies

21:40

that were just counting by sixes. - Well, Todd, I mean, you, you've always said

21:45

that you don't really care what the number is long, don't care - What the number is.

21:48

- Yeah. As long as everyone agrees that it's Right.

21:51

It's based on a principle that will give you

21:54

- That's right. A - A ver a fairly verifiable number.

21:58

That's right. I mean, there's always gonna be some fluctuations in the numbers. Yeah.

22:01

- Um, - Probably depends on the bots.

22:04

It depends on your profile of your distribution. Sure,

22:07

- Sure. Profile distribution has the profile,

22:10

distribution has the biggest Right.

22:13

Spread, you know, what, - What platforms are you getting Yep.

22:16

Your, your downloads from or your plays from. Yep.

22:20

And I think that the industry has wanted to have,

22:23

and this is also another little bit of an undertow

22:26

around this too, is, is having numbers that, um,

22:31

are more transparent. Now, my my blowback on that, I mean, I went

22:37

through this a little bit with Ryer when I was working at Spreaker, and maybe we talked about this a little bit last

22:40

week, is that they were doing the

22:43

same thing that YouTube was doing. They were displaying what the play numbers were

22:47

for all the podcasts that were hosted on Spreaker when I started working there.

22:51

And then I also convinced Francesco over there

22:55

to make it an option. Right. Um, give the creator the option

22:59

to turn off public stats or to leave it on.

23:02

And it was their option to actually make that choice.

23:07

Because some shows, I, you know,

23:09

I think if you really think about it from a practical

23:12

perspective, is that shows that are just getting started

23:16

are probably less wanting to display the numbers than ones

23:20

that are established or ones that have been around a while,

23:22

that the podcaster feels confident

23:25

that sharing those numbers isn't gonna embarrass them. Yeah.

23:28

- Right. That's, - That's the big part. Or compromise their, their audience growth.

23:32

Because, you know, I think we see this on YouTube too, is

23:35

that this audience confirmation happens around being able

23:38

to see the numbers, right? Yeah. So shows that get more numbers, uh, shown on the page,

23:44

typically get more viewers. Yeah. 'cause there's more confidence than it's good content.

23:48

- Right. Right. I, I think in the end, the,

23:53

the thing I have to protect as a company order is Right,

23:57

the reputation of the data, so that well,

24:01

- And the, the doing what the creator wants too.

24:05

- 'cause that's true. Uh, - This is,

24:07

this should be an optional thing. It shouldn't be required.

24:11

- I can probably count on one hand the number

24:14

of requests in the past five years we've had for podcasters

24:17

to turn on their data public. They have a way. Now they can do that through our, um,

24:24

through our media kit. And our media kit updates their numbers every 24 hours.

24:29

But we provide them a private link that that's not public,

24:33

that they can share that with media buyers. - Yeah. And this, this OP three do DV, uh,

24:39

project is, is based on a prefix.

24:43

Right. Um, which means that it's, you have to embed a redirect.

24:47

Yeah. Is what I gather is how this will work.

24:50

And I think you've proven through research in the past

24:53

that redirects are not always - Percent after.

24:56

Oh, you're even five to 13% of downloads on the table. So, because

25:00

- It just doesn't capture Yeah. It can't, the data, because the transaction can either

25:04

happen too fast or too - Slow.

25:06

Well, let me, no, it's not that it's about qualifier,

25:09

it's about qualifying the download. And again, the only way you can qualify,

25:14

really build a model. And again, it goes back to a model.

25:18

I, I get a whole bunch of stuff. I see everything that

25:22

- Comes through server, the server transfer

25:25

of information is where it breaks down.

25:27

- Well, no, I, I, I have a full collection.

25:30

I know the ip, I know the user agent. I have all that data.

25:34

Right. And in an instant, it passes through.

25:36

But the challenge becomes when you need to qualify that

25:41

to make sure that was valid or not. And then because of the nature of a redirect,

25:46

there's no hosted log data. You know, you know, it's basically a redirect

25:50

pinging, pinging, oh, that's a one. Well, it wasn't a one. And you, what we had

25:55

to do was take hosted data, hosted log data along

26:00

with the redirect data, marry those up and see where the,

26:05

- Where the deltas were, right. - Where the deltas were at. And then from that delta

26:10

apply a model to the redirect

26:14

to basically reduce,

26:17

because if I counted every redirect, the numbers, um,

26:22

would be way beyond what the download numbers were.

26:25

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I had to apply a model based on hosted data logs.

26:30

And that model has to, I validate that model every 30 days.

26:33

And it has to be tweaked a little bit in order to make sure

26:37

that technically we have to throw out a lot of stuff.

26:42

And why the stats will be five to typically five

26:46

to 13% less than a hosted log file will be.

26:51

So I would encourage, um, um,

26:57

the folks over at, uh, John over at OP three to

27:01

start grabbing and get some, get atoms

27:04

and get, uh, pod newses and get all their raw log files,

27:09

and then do ab comparisons on running those log files.

27:12

And you'll see where the delta is.

27:15

And there isn't, there is, there will be a delta.

27:19

Um, because you can never

27:22

get enough qualifying information from the redirect.

27:25

That's why you have to throw so much of the redirect stuff out.

27:29

Um, it's just the way it is. And again, I over qualify downloads too, so I go

27:36

beyond the IEB spec and always have.

27:38

And quite frankly, because we, when we went through

27:42

that initial battle, and Rob, I don't know if you were in those meetings or not.

27:46

I think you were. - I mean, some of 'em were in their early

27:49

- Days. Yeah. Yeah. And you can, you know, some of that, you know,

27:52

that what was tried to be shoved

27:55

through, oh my god.

27:58

You know, Angela at the time was about losing his damn mind.

28:02

Yeah. And you know, he, you know, I I, he wasn't one

28:06

to cuss too much, but, you know, I heard a few tirades

28:10

with him being upset because his essential, his essential

28:17

premises was that they're trying to cheat. Because my, my, well, there was a lot

28:22

- Of that going on back - Then, right. In my, in my, um, my instructions

28:27

to him day one when we started building Rob's blueberry

28:31

stats was, I don't care what the number is, long

28:33

as anyone know what the number is, get rid log files are.

28:38

Okay. So just telling you, uh,

28:42

log files are the, are ground truth. Adam just sent another 5,000 sets.

28:47

He says log files are for beeps. So, um,

28:51

but log files are ground truth to what has happened

28:54

with delivery of that data. And especially if you've got your CDN set up to be able

28:58

to see all the data.

29:00

And that's another thing too, is depending on how your CDN reports, the download

29:05

and what's in the log file, we had extra flags turned on

29:09

and still do to this day, extra stuff turned on so

29:12

that we could see the chunks of data being served

29:15

and everything else to be able to recreate the download.

29:19

And then what, what's that really for? You know, that's really to get us into, within a two

29:23

or 3% range to be able to report to an advertiser.

29:28

Now with a redirect, you're gonna have no problem. You're gonna be five to 13% under no matter

29:35

what's, so you'll be, you'll be under reporting anyway if

29:37

you're doing it for advertising. The key is if,

29:41

- Yeah. I think that's an important point to make here.

29:44

That is, I think, being lost in the conversation.

29:47

Um, and, and it's getting, you know, I hate to say,

29:51

but, you know, some transparency within the industry of how,

29:55

you know, what methodology is being used to generate even the OP three numbers. Um, and

30:00

- How works Well, it's open source so you can go look at it <laugh>.

30:04

- Right. - So - And so, I mean, if that's happening,

30:07

then that's terrific. Well, - I'm not, and I'm not saying, John,

30:10

- The question is, is that are we on a redirect basis

30:15

or on a prefix basis, are we ever going to be able

30:18

to achieve the kind of reliable numbers

30:21

that we have currently with the IEB system?

30:23

- Never. Never. And the only reason my,

30:28

and again, when we first did our first IB certification,

30:30

the redirect wasn't certified on the first round.

30:33

It was too hard. And then we spent a lot of time,

30:37

we spent two years trying to figure out, okay,

30:39

how can I validate this to get it right?

30:42

And that's where we came up with our model method. And I don't know what Podtrac did.

30:47

I don't know what other charitable and others have done.

30:49

I'm assuming they've had to do the same thing again.

30:53

I don't know, uh, how they got their,

30:55

how they got their redirect certified. 'cause I was pretty shocked when

31:00

initially got the redirect certified. 'cause we didn't have our certified.

31:03

I'm like, how can you do that? 'cause there's just, you know, lack of data.

31:07

There's just was too many holes. So we knew that the raw data was no.

31:14

'cause I had hosted log and I had, this is where the difference is.

31:18

I had both, I had, and I still collect, redirect data today.

31:21

Redirect data. And I have two sets of two sets of numbers.

31:25

The hosted log files is what get processed

31:27

for the hosting customers. And then those are just using stats.

31:30

We use the redirect logs. But again, then they're run

31:33

through the run through the model. And in the end they get, they get a number.

31:41

Um, and I have the a I can do an a b switch

31:44

within our admin. Like for my show, I still run the redirect, but I'm hosted.

31:48

So I can go and look at both sets

31:50

of numbers and every show's different. Again, it all depends on the makeup of

31:55

how many Apple podcasts, how many third party apps,

31:58

how many people are doing a web browser. There's this, there's this conglomeration

32:02

of a formula <laugh>. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. It really depends on,

32:06

'cause there's no one case fits all. Now, if your audience

32:09

and my audience were exactly the same,

32:12

exactly the same makeup, the spread should be the same.

32:17

- Right. - Yeah. Between raw log.

32:20

- Okay. If you, if you back up and you look at this from let's say a 60,000 foot

32:24

view, what do you see?

32:28

And, and I'll speculate on this too, but I'm a little bit, I'm unclear about

32:33

what the goals are of doing this and why, of doing why it's important to,

32:39

to disclose numbers. I mean, oh, what it plays into the, to the justification

32:44

that YouTube has had. Right? Well, what around

32:46

- The - Goals, numbers being public, - Here's the, here's the goal of the OP three

32:51

double fingers to IEB. That's the, that's the goal.

32:55

And you had, you have folks that do not like,

33:00

- Yeah. But is it really that, or is it just this,

33:02

- Uh, I think it's part of it. - This, this kind of mindless pursuit of transparency.

33:08

- I think it's 50%. They don't, people don't like the

33:11

IEB and that's understandable. It's expensive to be the maintaining membership,

33:15

- But they're never gonna replace the IEB with this because

33:18

- No, they'll never replace it. This - Is a prefix standard.

33:20

Right. This is a prefix methodology. - But you can get a prefix qualified under IEB.

33:25

- Well, you can, yeah. Right. But it's not the primary.

33:28

It's, it's not like the OP three is gonna be adopted

33:31

by blueberry or lipson as their primary metrics

33:34

- Standard. No, no, no, - No. I mean, is I, I guess, and that's the question, is

33:37

that the goal here is to achieve that,

33:41

- Well, I'm sure they want everyone to use OP three,

33:44

but they don't know what they're asking for from a,

33:47

you know, you start doing 300 to 400 million downloads

33:54

a month and that, you know, like I say, my EWS bill,

34:00

I have, there's no more credit card can handle that.

34:02

It's a bank transfer <laugh>. - But Todd, it feels like this OP three project

34:07

is something separate from that. It's not. - Oh, it is. It's a, you know, and again, it's not,

34:11

- It's not something, I mean, it's, it's reason

34:14

for existences in my view, is more

34:17

of like this ideology around transparency.

34:20

- Well, I think that's probably 50% of it.

34:23

- Okay. Well then they're not telling us the other half of this

34:26

- Stuff. Well, you know, it's, it's, to me, it's implied

34:30

because certain, certain parties,

34:35

James doesn't like the IEB. - Well, then they should just come out

34:40

and say that then that the, what the goal

34:42

of this organization is, is to create an open,

34:45

- Well, they've - Said that podcast metrics, they've said that standard actual an actual standard, not a,

34:51

a guidelines, which the IEB has put out there that, but who

34:55

- Sets, there's still a lot. But who sets, who sets the standard, John, you know?

35:00

- Well, I think we're closer as an industry to coming up

35:04

with a standard than we were back when the IEB

35:07

guidelines was established. - Well, just remember that the IEB is not a standard.

35:11

It's, it's a, it's a, it's a guideline.

35:13

It's a guideline. Right, - Right.

35:16

But should we be, as an industry

35:21

moving towards a standard, not a guideline.

35:25

- I, you know, I, I think at this point, I think Adam's,

35:28

Adam just sent us another boost 20 years of podcasting,

35:33

and we're still arguing about downloads B or B forever.

35:36

<laugh>. Well, you know, and, and, and, okay. So Well, and

35:41

- We're under threat right now because a lot of people want to, want to get rid

35:44

of the download metric entirely. - Right? I mean, right. Yeah. They wanna get

35:47

rid it, rid of it completely. - That was a topic on the media roundtable with, um, yeah.

35:52

Steven Goldstein and, and Dan Granger just last week. Yeah.

35:56

Is it, is it time for us to move on and beyond the download?

36:01

Right. Which takes us into the round, well,

36:03

how's this media being delivered? It's being delivered as a stream. Right.

36:07

And if that's a stream, then that plays into

36:10

a different kind of media delivery. - So, so if that's, if it, if we move to the stream,

36:16

God help us, then you completely,

36:18

and maybe it's in 2023, maybe it's not an issue no more.

36:22

Maybe enough people have connectivity, but they don't live where I live

36:27

and where there is no connectivity in places.

36:32

Shocking. And yes, that's probably 50

36:35

or 60% of the United States landmass,

36:38

but probably 1% of the people that occupy it

36:41

because, you know, everyone is centered

36:43

around metropolitan areas and have great internet.

36:47

- Well, Todd, if if, if Elon Musk gets his way, um,

36:51

well starlink is gonna make internet access ubiquitous.

36:54

- Well, it already has it fixed my issue at home. Right.

36:57

But it doesn't, it doesn't fix the situation when I drive

37:00

outta my driveway and for seven miles there's no signal.

37:05

- Well, it could, - Right? Well, they could. Yeah.

37:08

If he connects it to, I think it could change it for sure.

37:11

- I think Elon was quoted in saying that if he needs

37:14

to make a mobile phone, he would. - Yeah, he could. But again,

37:17

I don't think it's arguing about downloads. And again, only a, here's the thing too.

37:21

That's all, all things aside, I do an IIV certification.

37:26

It's probably spent upwards of $20,000 a year

37:29

for my membership and my re-certification for about three

37:33

or 4% of my user base. 'cause the rest of 'em don't give a grab. Mm-Hmm.

37:37

<affirmative>. But it's that three or 4% that are my high-end users that need good reporting

37:42

to go back to their advertisers and say, Hey, you know, this month I got 82,000 downloads.

37:48

So who, who am I? You know, I'm, I'm a realist here. You know,

37:53

- <laugh>. - Yeah. I think it's interesting that, um, all, all three

38:00

of these podcasts that they sent links to, um,

38:05

and I've seen the numbers for even, um, Lipsons podcasts,

38:09

the feed, and I don't think any of the,

38:12

the podcast topic shows are, are much over. Um,

38:18

- So Li Lipson's actually used no P three?

38:20

- No, no, no, no. I've, I've seen their number in the

38:23

- Past. Oh, okay. - Um, - My po our, our show at Blueberry,

38:27

the podcast insider show is in, maybe,

38:32

maybe tops 2000.

38:35

- Yeah, that's, yeah, that's kind of what I was gonna say.

38:37

I haven't seen any of these shows that are bigger than, yeah.

38:41

2000. Um, - Yeah.

38:44

The company show, I, I, you know, that per week. - Yeah. Now granted their weekly shows.

38:49

Right now, the Pod News Daily show has had 11,000

38:55

in the last seven days. That's, - That's good numbers. Um,

38:58

- But that's five days a week. - Yeah. But that's still, still good numbers.

39:02

- Yeah, it is. I mean, if you split that number in, well,

39:07

in half, right. Um, I mean, if it's a seven day a week show, if you split

39:13

that up over seven, or actually it's probably five episodes.

39:17

So there'd be about 2000 a day, right? Or 2000 a week.

39:22

Well, yeah. Per episode. - But I also have a fiduciary duty

39:30

to my company Mm-Hmm.

39:32

<affirmative> to make sure that we're serving our customers

39:38

in what I feel is their best interest.

39:42

We Right. They, they, we've made it available so

39:45

that any blueberry customer using power press

39:48

or our dashboard can opt into Opre.

39:51

They can use it No problem. We haven't stopped anybody.

39:54

Yeah. It's a prefix. It's a prefix. It's just a prefix.

39:56

Yeah. Right. They're free to use it, but it doesn't mean I have to endorse it.

40:01

I have a OP three section in our podcast 2.0 introduction.

40:05

It's not a negative in there. I explain what it is.

40:09

And, um, but again,

40:13

I wanna make sure that, 'cause I've been, so, you know,

40:17

my perspective is just a little bit tainted in that

40:22

I've been involved in audits other companies audits other Right.

40:26

And audited their numbers, which end up being very, you've been

40:29

- The bearer of bad news. - Uh, not only the bear or bad news,

40:31

but if I had, if they could have shot me dead,

40:34

they would've filled me with nine millimeter holes in their office.

40:39

Literally, I've had companies

40:43

give their double finger to me saying, no,

40:46

you cannot have our data for audit. And the advertiser says, yes, you will,

40:52

or we will cut you off. Wow. Now, do you think that makes me the most

40:57

popular person in a room? No. No.

41:00

Especially when the, when the results of that audit requires

41:04

that company to write a big smoking large check

41:07

back to the media buyer. Right. And that was one of the, and why, why,

41:14

because I had a trusted system. We took this attitude,

41:19

and we don't care what the number is as long as we know what the number is.

41:24

Never over-hyped data. I don't have to report my download numbers

41:31

to GoDaddy my sponsorship. They've never asked me, ever for a download report.

41:37

All they care about is conversions. That's all they care about. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

41:42

And in the end, that's their metric for this show

41:46

or my show, my tech show. And, uh, they just, matter of fact,

41:51

they just made some changes to my deals

41:53

that are not necessarily, I feel was a good move.

41:57

So I do have a concern about what's gonna

42:00

happen with them going forward. So I'm gonna have to work double hard

42:04

to make my numbers with, with them. But at the same time, you know,

42:09

it's been a pretty long run since 2005, so I can't complain.

42:14

So the value for value model, you know,

42:19

is definitely one that, but I've also, I've had to split hairs

42:23

because I've always had an advertiser, never been faced

42:27

with not having an advertiser. So what happens if I, let's say they pull the plug, then

42:34

what is, what am I left with V for V, you know, or go out

42:38

and find another advertiser for the show, which should not be an issue.

42:41

But again, do I make that transition at that point?

42:45

Um, it would take a lot of work to replace

42:50

that income with B four B.

42:52

That would be a lot of work. Um, but maybe the audience would support it, you know,

42:58

because they know now there's not a sponsor.

43:00

There's no, um, AKA,

43:05

um, you know, they don't,

43:08

they know I'm gonna make my, my budget every month.

43:10

They normally keep the lights on, keep the insurance paid, all that stuff.

43:14

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So, yeah, I might have to downsize,

43:18

may not have to have this beautiful office I have anymore.

43:20

Might have to work from home. But, you know, <laugh> - Yeah.

43:24

- That's life, right? - Yeah. It's, it's not such a bad outcome working from home.

43:29

- No. <laugh>, you know, except, again,

43:33

starlink is my only option. And streaming a show on starlink is not necessarily

43:39

proven to be, it's not - The best choice. Right?

43:41

- Yeah. Yeah. So it does

43:43

- Have some occasional cutouts, uh, from what I'm hearing.

43:46

- So maybe, maybe no more live. Maybe I have to go to just recording a show,

43:51

you know, and, and putting it out. But, you know, yeah. That's always a potential as well.

43:56

51 50 SATs from Matt enjoying the show.

43:59

I'm glad you are, Matt. And by the way, yes, we are Lit Live

44:02

with those great new beautiful apps from podcast apps.com.

44:07

You can get in on the action and be part of this boosting too.

44:10

I don't know why we can't hear the Boost coming in.

44:12

Do I have something? Oh, I think I know what's going on.

44:15

We should be able to hear the, the boost come from now on.

44:19

So, but you know, I, again, I,

44:22

I can't talk enough authoritative on it,

44:25

but this whole thing of incorporating

44:30

YouTube videos in a podcasting app, I'm just,

44:34

this makes my skin crawl a little bit. - I mean, I think it makes sense for some creators

44:41

that wanna, wanna do it. I mean, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't

44:46

be able to do it. I just, um, if that's

44:48

what their chosen distribution method is for video.

44:52

Yeah. I mean, it would be, it think it would be

44:56

- Best to kind of, and they don't have to pay for band - Buying those together. Right.

44:58

- They don't have to pay for bandwidth. Um, right. But

45:02

- Let's, that's the reason podcasts are over there already,

45:05

uh, or, or video shows or over there already is

45:08

because it was too expensive to host video on a podcast platform.

45:13

- Well, we have customers doing it, and they don't Oh, yeah.

45:17

- You know, - It's, but again, you know, they, we always caution, you know, full disclosure,

45:22

always caution shows they're starting to do video, because I'm like, listen, you get real popular.

45:26

You know, you're, you're your per gigabyte cost, uh,

45:31

can add up pretty quick. Yeah.

45:33

- And, and you gotta keep your, probably your video files fairly compressed if you wanna

45:38

- Yeah. You know, you only keep your cost down. You only can compress 'em so far

45:43

- Right before you started rolling in quality. Yeah. - Right. Yeah. Right. - Yeah. There's no question.

45:47

Well, Todd, there's been, and I think maybe we covered it a little bit last,

45:50

last week, but the, there's definitely some fud, I,

45:54

if you don't know what the term FUD means, it's fear,

45:57

uncertainty, and doubt. Oh, did you, about the podcasting space,

46:01

- Did you see twit? What happened over there? Yeah,

46:03

- I saw that whole thing with twit. Yeah, man. - Yeah. - Um,

46:08

- So what's interesting to me about this,

46:14

and again, thank goodness my business is not solely driven

46:17

by advertising revenue. It's, it's a component.

46:21

It's a set and forget component for us, luckily, uh, mostly Mm-Hmm.

46:25

<affirmative>. Um, oh,

46:27

and I do have some, maybe early next year we're gonna

46:34

have something cool to announce in regards to, uh,

46:37

programmatic and, uh, transcripts.

46:39

That's all I'm gonna say. I'll let you do your own. Yeah.

46:42

I heard, - I also heard somebody say here on online that they think

46:47

that programmatic advertising is, is dying

46:51

or is dead or something like that. It's up. I've heard that that comment too.

46:54

- It's up. CPMs are maintaining.

46:56

So, but CPMs definitely is a longevity play

47:01

because CPMs start out lower when you're new

47:03

and then raised over time. It's kind of weird how it works. This is what we've seen

47:07

- As you prove yourself, right? Yeah.

47:10

- But there is definitely, there's, there's some people

47:14

that are definitely concerned.

47:20

- Yeah. I keep hearing, you know, even James Cridlin says,

47:23

um, you know, even with the news about Spotify

47:28

and, and, and, you know,

47:31

and now twit, you know, are, is in trouble.

47:35

Well, I don't know that it's safe to say

47:37

that everybody is in trouble. That's in the podcasting space.

47:41

I, I think that there's just been a, you know, it,

47:45

economic impact here. Well, - There's been - It's lining that's causing people

47:49

to get laid off, but that, that's not the end of the medium.

47:51

- There's a, there's an economic impact to advertising.

47:56

- Right. And if you built your whole business on advertising

47:59

- Years, yeah. - You're gonna have an impact. That's right. Right.

48:02

- Yep. - And that's, that's what a lot of, uh,

48:05

especially podcast hosting companies

48:08

shifted over the last two years into really embracing advertising.

48:12

And they invested a lot of money in it. They invested a lot of effort into the advertising side.

48:18

And I always thought that, you know,

48:20

that was gonna be pretty vulnerable to economic, uh, of course conditions.

48:24

- Of course. - And, and

48:27

- It was the story, it's a problem. The story of raw voice, blueberry, when we started,

48:32

we are a hundred percent media company with a stats measurement system.

48:37

Right. And thank God I, you know, I was living the,

48:42

and breathing this stuff 20 hours a day.

48:44

Literally, I was, I wasn't sleeping for, for years.

48:49

And I was on this, right. And we were small.

48:53

We only had one employee that was actually full-time getting paid.

48:57

We were subleasing an office. The cash flow was good.

49:01

But I kept seeing, all of a sudden about the time Corolla came on the scene

49:05

with his podcast Mm-Hmm.

49:07

<affirmative>, I started watching the advertising dollars.

49:11

My budgets were getting smaller and smaller on a quarterly basis,

49:14

and his was getting bigger. And the bigger shows were getting the bigger, bigger,

49:18

the bigger spread of the money. And I basically said, oh, we are in trouble.

49:25

We are a one trick pony. We are going, we are, we are going to go the way

49:30

of the dinosaur if we don't diversify.

49:34

So, so that was the time we started the journey of

49:39

monetizing stats, starting hosting, you know,

49:42

this is why we were, you know, we are six years

49:45

behind Libsyn. We were, we were a long ways behind Libs Synn. Right.

49:49

And you know, the question I got asked by some

49:52

of the folks over there that time, why are you becoming a hosting company?

49:56

I said, because the advertising's going down. And we didn't have, we were older. We weren't Hollywood.

50:03

We weren't New York. You know, I remember the first time we went to New York

50:07

to talk to ad buyers, and I went into an office.

50:10

This gal brought me in. I did the whole, and matter of fact, the thing, Adam

50:15

and his team had been there the week before and brought them something super nice

50:18

because the g the gal told me, well,

50:21

I had brought a macadamia chocolate nuts. And I guess the team, whoever was in there a week

50:25

before had brought 'em iPods. So, you know, okay.

50:29

<laugh>, you know, pay to play type of thing.

50:31

You know, my Mac chocolate macadamian nuts didn't go too far.

50:35

And I had a, I think it was a Macy's suit,

50:41

and, you know, it was a stretch, it was a stretch for us,

50:44

for me to go to Hawaii to New York and do the, do the circuit.

50:47

Right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I remember being walked

50:50

out of the office and the, the, the gal

50:54

that was the in charge of the agency, she grabbed my,

50:58

my suit jacket, pinched it right about my shoulder level.

51:02

Yeah. And she says, don't ever come in here.

51:05

And she called it a JC Penny suit. Don't ever come in here and present to my team again

51:09

with a JC Penny suit. And I thought, I thought, oh man.

51:16

So what did I do? You know, I spent the big bucks, went to Brooks Brothers,

51:19

bought a nice suit, still in, still in my closet.

51:22

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And when I went to New York,

51:25

Brooks Brothers, when I was on the West Coast, it was a publisher.

51:28

You know, they didn't care. And Right.

51:32

To me, it was like we, at that time,

51:35

we are fighting the same stupid battle that seems to be going on today.

51:39

Explain your numbers. Explain your numbers.

51:42

You know, they're not validated. They're not, you know, we don't have any, any, you couldn't,

51:48

they were used to having all this information even back then.

51:52

Mm-Hmm. They're used to having the client side data. And of course, we didn't have the client side data.

51:56

We still don't have the client side data. Right.

51:58

So therein lies the, the, the issue.

52:03

Well, what happened to you, Rob? - Oh, I'm, I'm just popped up a, a, a tweet

52:08

that Sam Sethy made and just wanted to kind of,

52:13

- Oh, it's absolutely true. The, this make problem with podcast

52:17

advertising is not a measure of this. This has been known since the beginning of time.

52:21

This is nothing new. A download is not a listen unless you measure time. Listen.

52:26

But here's the thing, Sam,

52:31

there is a way Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, there is a formula

52:34

that you can use to be able

52:36

to determine if someone's actually listening to a podcast over time.

52:41

But you need about three months worth of data,

52:43

consistent data month to month to be able to see what size

52:47

of an audience is, whether or not the show is still continuing

52:50

to be automatically downloaded. It's not perfect, but it's a system we've used for 18,

52:55

19 years, and I can get the numbers

52:59

damn close, and I don't go in. I think

53:03

- That's the bigger takeaway here, is I, I think making a statement that podcast

53:07

advertising it's not measurable or accountable that's wrong,

53:10

is probably not, not, not entirely

53:13

- Accurate. That's false. - Right? - The sy medic,

53:16

- I think it has been all these, see, advertisers wouldn't have come in and, and,

53:21

and supported podcasting. - But, but guess, but guess - What? It's really not,

53:24

I mean, really at the end of the day, it's not really about measurement

53:28

or accountability to the advertiser.

53:31

What's really important to the advertisers is ROI.

53:34

- No, what, and here's the thing. This is where, this is why we built the retention graph.

53:39

I can tell. Okay. See, this, this is, that statement to me is just like, uh,

53:45

sorry, Sam, you, you need to start talking to some companies

53:48

and seeing how we're actually doing this. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So let me give the example.

53:55

We have the ability, okay? So if someone is followed or subscribed to a podcast,

54:01

and they are actively listening, that download happens

54:05

as immediately, as soon as that RSS hits the street, right?

54:09

It's gonna happen. That's gonna be 70, 75%.

54:12

And now as years go on, it's less so it gives my data even better data.

54:17

60%, 65% that's downloaded in that first 12, 18 hours,

54:21

whatever it may be, retention data.

54:26

If you have the right CDN and if you have the right constraints set,

54:31

you can see on certain apps when they hit play

54:35

and the data's chunked out, some apps, when you hit play,

54:37

just it gives it to you all. So it looks like a download.

54:41

But on some apps, you can see where they quit,

54:46

where the thing rolls off, - Right?

54:49

- And again, it's a, it's a, it's a small portion.

54:53

- Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> - Of the active plays

54:57

that I get to see that data. And we're talking seven, maybe 8% of, of the total Yeah.

55:03

- Through like the Apple, right. Um, podcast stuff. Right?

55:06

- Well, and again, depends on the app, and I'm not gonna talk about that.

55:09

Do your own research and the,

55:13

and I can see where people, how long they're listening,

55:18

where they drop off, and then taking into account, okay,

55:23

let's say they have Apple podcasts, which the majority

55:26

of shows do at least 50%. And we follow the rules as published by Apple Podcasts

55:32

to know that after three, five, whatever the number

55:35

of episodes is, they'll quit automatically downloading the show.

55:39

- Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. - Now, if you have intelligence brought into your stats

55:43

where you can see all of a sudden, oh, we just had 10 downloads of catch.

55:50

Does that mean that all 10 of those episodes are gonna be listened to?

55:54

Probably not. But we can tell when someone has hit the

55:57

button again and said, Hey, gimme all these downloads that I miss.

56:03

Do they go back and listen? No. But again, if you watch over a long enough period, if you,

56:08

if you average the amount of downloads,

56:12

plays, retention data. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> over a long enough period.

56:15

And Mike, I mean, you still have the screen up

56:19

and just in case forgot. - Well, I was going to talk about the next thing. Okay.

56:25

Um, on here where Lou talks about, um, how,

56:29

how programmatic advertising is dead

56:31

and why there is a, uh, flight to quality content. It's not

56:35

- True. It's absolutely not true. Well,

56:38

- Well, what's your definition of quality content?

56:41

You know, that's always kind of a red herring to me that Yeah.

56:45

You're, you're assuming your view of

56:48

what quality content is, right? You're not really taking into account

56:52

what audiences think is quality content.

56:54

So, and it may be different than your view. If - You look at a long enough period of a show,

57:00

and I built into our campaign advertising management

57:02

system Cams. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I can look at a show, I can take

57:08

how many of episodes I set the, let's say I set the four months

57:13

and I just do a simple math equation, take all the downloads, add 'em up, divide by the number

57:19

of episodes, and I get a pretty close average.

57:23

- Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, - Let's say

57:25

that show's doing 5,000 downloads plays per episode.

57:30

When I do a, when I do a advertising campaign, I put

57:33

that show down for 5,000 per

57:37

episode for that campaign. If they deliver 4,800, I bill for 4,800.

57:42

If they bill for 5,200, I bill for 5,200.

57:46

But what happens is, is because we've looked at a long

57:49

and big enough spread of time for a show,

57:54

we have a pretty good feeling of where it's going to land.

57:57

And of course, the media buyer's gonna come back.

58:01

And if performance isn't where it needs to be, I'm not

58:04

so concerned about going, look, looking at the listens in plays.

58:07

I go look at the content. How is the con, how is the run done?

58:12

Is audience actually match? That's why we have all of our podcasters do

58:18

a listener survey. So I have stats, I have listener demographic data.

58:24

- Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> - And tied it all together.

58:27

I have this trifecta information that gives me a pretty good idea

58:31

what a show is capable of doing. Is it perfect? Nope.

58:35

Don't claim it to be perfect, but as long as we meet performance, that's all that matters.

58:41

It's all that matters. If the advertiser come back, so you,

58:44

you hit my CPA, I'm gonna pay you CPM,

58:47

but as long as you hit my CPA, we're happy, or they come back and say, Hey, we're under,

58:52

we're underperforming. Give me a make good. I've never ever, ever, ever,

58:58

in 19 years given to make good, I deny them.

59:01

I say, no, they just didn't resonate. It's not my fault.

59:06

We did all. So when someone says

59:11

what he says, it's technically true.

59:16

But those of us been in the space long enough.

59:20

We know the history of shows.

59:22

We look at the data and we're able to make educated

59:25

decisions on, okay, it does that show really appear

59:30

to have 5,000 listeners listening every episode.

59:33

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And if the numbers are all over the

59:36

place, well that average is gonna be lower anyway. Right?

59:40

- Right. - And that's all I guarantee.

59:44

- And I do think that we, uh, as an industry, um,

59:49

have been progressively moving towards this model,

59:52

like what's been in radio for many years.

59:54

And that's radio thought of themselves.

59:57

Really, their customers were their advertisers. Right.

1:00:00

And so they were gonna do everything

1:00:02

that the advertisers told them to do, because then they felt like

1:00:06

that was gonna unlock more budget for 'em.

1:00:08

Yeah. Right? Yeah. So there was a monetary connection

1:00:11

between catering to everything that the advertiser wants,

1:00:16

uh, versus catering to everything that the audience

1:00:20

or the content creator wants or is willing to do.

1:00:24

So you have this kind of negotiation that's been going on,

1:00:27

and this is a, this was a little bit of a thread

1:00:30

that happened between, um, myself and Heather Osgoode

1:00:35

because she made this comment about, um,

1:00:39

transparency in the podcasting advertising market.

1:00:42

Right. And, and my comment to her was as well, um,

1:00:47

the advertisers want the podcasters

1:00:50

to have ultimate transparency on everything.

1:00:53

Right. But they're not willing to have any transparency back

1:00:58

around performance. - Well, I'm gonna be honest with you.

1:01:01

They, I can count on one hand the number

1:01:06

of times that the advertisers come back

1:01:08

and told me the exact performance

1:01:12

- Numbers, what is working and what isn't working. So they're for the advertising industry to hold

1:01:17

to force the, the podcasting industry

1:01:21

to make all these accommodations. They have to be willing to make some accommodations on their

1:01:26

side, but they don't want to, because that's gonna put them in a position where they're,

1:01:30

they could be asked for higher CPMs.

1:01:32

- And another thing too is, oh man, man,

1:01:37

oh man, this opens up some history. Oh,

1:01:40

- Well, it opens a Pandora's box that many people

1:01:43

that look at one side of this issue Yeah.

1:01:46

Of transparency on the content creator side

1:01:49

and not hold the advertisers accountable.

1:01:53

And that's one of the, the challenges - Here.

1:01:56

Nine out of 10 times, I'll ask an advertiser, what is your,

1:02:00

let's say you spend 50 grand - Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,

1:02:04

- What do you consider success on this campaign?

1:02:07

And you spend $50,000, and again, again, a lot of this has been direct response.

1:02:13

- Mm-Hmm. - <affirmative>. And then we see now more lift campaigns, of course.

1:02:17

But let's just talk about direct response. We'll leave the lift campaigns out.

1:02:21

What is your measurement of success? And, you know, 90% of the time, they would never tell me,

1:02:26

they would never tell me if we get, if we get 200 activations, we're happy on a $50,000 spend,

1:02:32

they would never tell me that Citrix GoToMeeting made the

1:02:35

mistake of telling me one time

1:02:39

what our performance was and how we were beating.

1:02:43

Man, I took back to the bank. So Right.

1:02:46

This goes way back it

1:02:49

before, oh, someone's gonna have to go back.

1:02:52

And I, and if these numbers are off by 50, $60,

1:02:55

then, you know, don't sue me. But it's, I publish, it's somewhere in my archive somewhere.

1:03:01

But at the time, print was getting them, they were,

1:03:04

they would have to spend, uh, like $230

1:03:09

or something like that to get a Citrix Goating meeting

1:03:12

customer via a print ad, print,

1:03:16

television, radio. I was delivering customers at $27. Right.

1:03:24

So if they spent a thousand dollars, which they weren't,

1:03:29

they were spending a half million to a million dollars a quarter.

1:03:32

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I was delivering them customers at 27.

1:03:35

And, you know, they got pretty greedy with that,

1:03:38

to the point where the performance was so high,

1:03:42

the media buyer was getting such huge bonuses.

1:03:46

They had to reengage with another media buyer

1:03:48

because Citrix was, had a performance clause that they had

1:03:52

to pay the media buyers out this massive,

1:03:54

they were making more money than we were, I'm sure.

1:03:57

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And they changed media buyers.

1:03:59

They changed the tactics so that they really killed, I mean,

1:04:03

we were, it was Rob, it was a money printing machine.

1:04:05

It was, it was amazing. I mean, it was freaking amazing.

1:04:10

And that's the only time that I was actually told, this is

1:04:14

what you're delivering me customers for compared

1:04:16

to XI would love, I would love to hear from anybody else.

1:04:21

It's actually gotten a real number from a, from a marketer

1:04:26

on what the response is. So we were delivering nine,

1:04:29

10 times better performance than print and radio.

1:04:32

Man, we went to town with that. Right. That was right in our deck. And it got us. And

1:04:36

- That's not what they, they, they want, they want

1:04:38

to take advantage of this medium, get as much ROI

1:04:42

as they can, and not have to be accountable for massive

1:04:45

- Windfalls. That's that's right. From, right. So, you know, in my opinion,

1:04:51

you don't get companies spending a million, 2 million,

1:04:53

$3 million a quarter, and they're not seeing massive success.

1:04:56

These folks, these folks aren't stupid. Right. Right.

1:05:00

And, but yet, who ends up getting screwed? The creator,

1:05:05

- It's the content creator always gets screwed. - Always. - It's just like the farmer

1:05:09

<laugh> growing produce always

1:05:11

gets screwed by the grocery store. - Always, always gets screwed. Right. Right.

1:05:15

- It's, it's the same thing. It's the, it's, it's the one

1:05:19

with the money is the one that usually - Has the power.

1:05:22

So let's, let's flip this now. Alright. And I know Adam and the rest are like, stop.

1:05:29

- Well, there's two sides of this argument. And - So, so yeah.

1:05:33

So now, all right. Everyone's heard what we've said.

1:05:36

This is, we've talked about this on the show before.

1:05:38

This is no, no new. Oh yeah. This is no new territory for us

1:05:42

- For years actually. Yeah. - What, what the new territory is.

1:05:47

Alright, let's say you're a small show

1:05:50

and you're getting, let's say, let's say you're making two 50 a month on Advertis.

1:05:56

It's 10,000 downloads. You're making $250.

1:06:02

Or let's say you have a thousand listeners

1:06:05

and you would only make $25 on CPM.

1:06:08

- Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> - Going to value for value route

1:06:13

and doing it correctly and asking for a donation for,

1:06:21

again, time, talent, or treasure. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> giving value,

1:06:25

and I know everybody hates the word donation, giving value back for value given, if you focus on that,

1:06:32

small shows will do much better

1:06:35

over the long term than they'll ever make from

1:06:38

advertising dollars ever. If they really focus on that.

1:06:43

Now, a show that's got a hundred thousand mm-Hmm.

1:06:45

<affirmative>, well, they could probably convert it, but it's hard to take yourself away from the nipple,

1:06:50

you know, because if you're getting $25,000 a month

1:06:54

for a single advertising deal Mm-Hmm.

1:06:56

- <affirmative>, - It's pretty hard to pull yourself away

1:07:01

from, from the booby because it's not hard.

1:07:08

Right. But if advertising dollars are going

1:07:11

away, there is a way.

1:07:17

- Yeah. There's an alternative. Right. - Okay, I'll podcasting 2.0 people raise your fist. Come on.

1:07:23

I just gave you the thing. So, right.

1:07:27

- Well, and Todd, there's a reason why the podcast

1:07:30

industry somewhat to some degree, has capped out at $2 billion. Right,

1:07:34

- Exactly. - Is it, um, - I know exactly why Is

1:07:37

- It, is it because of our transparency?

1:07:40

Is it because the download is not a good metric? Is it?

1:07:44

I mean, what is the, the, the rationale,

1:07:48

and this is all catering to what the advertisers want.

1:07:51

- I have, which - Is Right, which is a gatekeeper to their

1:07:55

control over, um, um, the CPMs

1:07:59

that also controls their, their ROI.

1:08:03

- Why haven't we gone beyond 2 billion?

1:08:05

I'm gonna say three words. - I know. It's, - It's media buyers. Maybe it's four words.

1:08:11

Media buyers are lazy. They, they don't, they're not willing

1:08:18

- To take risks - To monetize the 40%

1:08:23

of the podcasters at the top that want to be monetized.

1:08:27

They, they would rather run 10 ads

1:08:30

and some top level program and cause everyone to go 30 seconds advance on their phone

1:08:36

to skip the ads or use the new app

1:08:38

that's gonna bypass the ads.

1:08:41

They would rather do that than work

1:08:44

and say, okay, Todd, uh, put put 500 shows on an ad buy

1:08:49

or a thousand, they won't Mm-Hmm.

1:08:51

<affirmative> they won't. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. - And there really isn't any reason why they

1:08:56

shouldn't. It's, - They're lazy. It's,

1:08:58

- It's just, - It, it's, it's also ego.

1:09:02

Alright. So can you imagine

1:09:08

like someone, some 22-year-old that's in charge of account

1:09:13

goes into his boss and said, here's the 500 shows we're gonna

1:09:17

run on a campaign. And the boss looks at the list

1:09:21

and he says, oh, I know the first three. Who, who the hell,

1:09:25

- I've never heard of the other ones. - Who the hell are these folks? Take them off.

1:09:28

- Right. And transparency of numbers

1:09:31

through this OP three is not gonna magically solve

1:09:34

- It. Won't fix that at all. - Right. - You know, they, so, you know, it

1:09:40

- Could contribute to advertisers getting access to data,

1:09:44

but most of these advertisers are buying off

1:09:46

of buying platforms that have access to the data. So,

1:09:50

- So it's, I don't know. You know, the reason we're never gonna get beyond 2 billion

1:09:54

and probably going down is because, well,

1:09:57

- Right now it is, I'm - Sure Right. Is because media buyers don't wanna dig in the pool.

1:10:02

So I, this is why any podcaster that's listening

1:10:06

to this podcast, if you have 10,000

1:10:09

or fewer listeners, you better be all in on value for value.

1:10:13

- Yeah. - Unless you have your own deal

1:10:17

where you're promoting your own product or service.

1:10:20

And again, and we understand that 50% of you could care less

1:10:22

to make any money to begin with, which is fine too.

1:10:25

- Right. And oftentimes people that

1:10:30

complain about this, um, on on the advertising stuff,

1:10:34

don't really understand how the advertising stuff works anyway.

1:10:37

Um, so, and what's, what's driving these, these

1:10:42

decisions on the part of the podcaster

1:10:44

and the, the ad agency and then the, the actual brand, what the dynamic is

1:10:49

between all those and how, um, really unfair

1:10:53

to the content creator it typically is. Um, and we're not focused on that

1:10:58

because we're always focusing on trying to cater to,

1:11:01

you know, placating these, these ad buyers

1:11:05

that are, that are playing us. - It goes back to what I said more than a year ago. Right.

1:11:11

All right. If you want to, if podcasters really want

1:11:15

to control their destiny and be able

1:11:18

to potentially evoke some dollars outta someone,

1:11:22

get a coalition together and leave Spotify leave,

1:11:27

take a hundred thousand shows off Spotify tomorrow,

1:11:30

all of you disconnect. That may not do anything,

1:11:37

but it definitely would be newsworthy creators always get screwed.

1:11:43

- Right. And I know people keep raising this

1:11:47

issue around Spotify. It's like, well, do we want podcasters

1:11:51

to get treated like the music artists created?

1:11:54

- No, they don't. They don't even wanna give, you know, - I know - They don't even wanna give

1:12:00

- Go, go ahead Todd. - They don't even, okay.

1:12:03

So on the podcasting 2.0 show, Adam

1:12:08

and Dave were talking about, uh, an artist

1:12:10

that disclosed their royalty check from

1:12:14

Spotify was like $78 for the year.

1:12:17

Right. And the show was

1:12:22

in a, um, in Adam's boost to Grand Ball.

1:12:25

And the number of boosts that they got in one episode

1:12:29

was like four times the amount of money they made in a single year from Spotify.

1:12:35

Spotify does not care about creators.

1:12:38

And this is what podcasters

1:12:40

and anyone that creates content needs to wake the hell up.

1:12:44

YouTube doesn't care about you either.

1:12:47

They are gonna run ads against your content

1:12:50

for people that aren't paying. They're gonna run ads that you'll never know what was run.

1:12:57

And you may have a disagreement with the ad

1:13:01

that was run against your content. You'll never know. You will never know. Yeah.

1:13:09

And they don't care about you. They care about controlling your content

1:13:13

and keeping eyeballs on their platform.

1:13:17

That's all they care about. - Yeah. - And until people wake up and understand this,

1:13:27

- Well, I think most content creators understand

1:13:29

that's the relationship that they have. It's just, uh, it's hard to translate that into some sort

1:13:35

of proactive action that would be more beneficial

1:13:39

to them given the, the power

1:13:41

that these platforms have over creators. Um,

1:13:45

- I might be, nobody - Wants to be popular

1:13:47

and make a million bucks on, on, on YouTube.

1:13:51

And that's what drives this. It's the same thing that's been going on in

1:13:54

podcasting for a long time. Yeah. It's the, it's the appeal of, um, popularity.

1:14:01

Right. It's the appeal of stardom. Yeah.

1:14:03

It's the appeal of, it's like, you know, you shouldn't,

1:14:06

you know, you, you don't need to get paid by the platform

1:14:09

because what, what the, the platform is giving to you is

1:14:12

- Peanut - Is fame and, and maybe fortune.

1:14:15

- Oh yeah. May very few are getting fortune. Fortune. Yeah.

1:14:19

Right. And not everyone can be a, what is his name,

1:14:22

Mr. Bean or whatever his name is. I don't, I don't know whether Mr. Beast, Mr. Beast. Yeah.

1:14:26

No one. Very few. And Mr. Beast has about 80 people working for him.

1:14:30

So, you know, he's got his own headaches. So,

1:14:33

- But if you watch there, there is a documentary on YouTube about how Mr.

1:14:38

Beast got started. And it's very interesting

1:14:40

because it, it, it talks about a kind

1:14:44

of like a very grassroots beginning for him.

1:14:46

I mean, he started out as like a 14-year-old creating stupid

1:14:49

videos on YouTube. Right. <laugh> and,

1:14:52

and grew into this power creator

1:14:56

that was basically build his whole platform on this concept

1:15:00

of, of giving back to others.

1:15:05

Hmm. Right. Whether it be money, whether it be food,

1:15:07

whether it be anything, and helping other people.

1:15:11

So he would actually just throw money at people on his show,

1:15:15

uh, or give them food. Or he would, he would basically,

1:15:20

he did a whole episode about going in

1:15:22

and buying all of the food in a grocery store

1:15:27

and cleaning all the shelves out of this grocery store

1:15:30

and taking it to a food bank. - No way. - That's, that's how he built his popularity,

1:15:35

was based on that kind of stuff. You - Know, uh, we, we'll work, we'll work for food here,

1:15:40

we'll take, uh, Ruth Chris gift certificates.

1:15:43

And uh, - His first video that turned viral was him walking out

1:15:49

to a homeless man that had a sign up Right.

1:15:53

Begging for, for two bucks ever. And Mr.

1:15:57

Beast gave this, this homeless person an envelope full

1:16:00

of $10,000 and this homeless guy just

1:16:05

like, loved all over him. And, and Mr. Beast had a big smile on his face.

1:16:10

And, and so that's what, that's really where,

1:16:14

which is really fascinating if you think about it. It's, it's getting back to, you know,

1:16:19

this very human connection. - Adam just makes a great comment.

1:16:24

5,000 SATs and another Boostgram.

1:16:26

I would love for someone, anyone

1:16:30

to show me the 2 billion in podcasting.

1:16:33

I can't get past 500 million <laugh>. You know what?

1:16:38

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, the, well,

1:16:41

- That's actually a very good point, Adam. - Uh, it is. - I don't know that there is any, I mean,

1:16:47

if you really think about it, most of these numbers are estimates.

1:16:50

Well, because there's no consolidation of reporting.

1:16:54

- Well, someone has that number. I'll tell you who has it.

1:16:58

Really. Anyone that's an IEB member has

1:17:00

to submit their advertising sales report.

1:17:03

- Oh, IEB would have it. Right.

1:17:06

But not everybody is a member of IEB though.

1:17:09

- Well, the majority of hosting companies are maybe not production companies.

1:17:16

So we'd have to look at that. Spotify's not a, I don't think as a member,

1:17:20

but there would bet think everybody's a part of that. There would be a consolidated report. But

1:17:25

- I mean, it would give you a ballpark, but, - And that it's - Probably likely.

1:17:29

- And that's if and if they don't lie.

1:17:32

Because the more money you've made,

1:17:34

the higher your renewal fee is. - Right. They're actually probably gonna underestimate

1:17:39

it. Probably. Right. - You know, that's why they're switching next year.

1:17:42

You have to actually report revenue. You have what your revenue as far as your membership, so,

1:17:50

- Well that, I mean, how is that verifiable anyway?

1:17:54

- Don't - Know. Do you have to send in tax returns or - Something?

1:17:57

<laugh>? I don't know. Our tax returns usually are like six months late because we never get 'em in on time.

1:18:02

Um, yeah. I, you know, it, you, you have something there.

1:18:06

You know, because I've often, there, there was some times I did some,

1:18:11

I did some spreadsheet work and

1:18:17

- I mean, 'cause oftentimes these numbers that,

1:18:19

that we hear about the advertising market are survey data

1:18:24

- Fm. Right. You know what FM is Beacon Magic.

1:18:31

- Yeah. <laugh> - Be beep Magic - Freaking Magic.

1:18:34

Right. <laugh>, I think there's another

1:18:37

word, but I'm not gonna use it. - <laugh>. Right, right. <laugh>. So, you know, 500 million.

1:18:45

I probably between five and one, uh, you know.

1:18:50

- Right. And why is there such a big discrepancy

1:18:52

between radio and podcasting on that?

1:18:56

- 'cause radio's local, all, all RA radio advertising here is local.

1:19:01

Very rarely do I, you know, when I rarely turn into commercial radio,

1:19:05

it's about the car dealership on the street of these little radio stations

1:19:09

or making enough money to keep their staff employed.

1:19:12

So, you know, they're, they're probably running a million,

1:19:14

2 million per per station.

1:19:16

Little tiny stations. - Yeah. And there's, there's less metrics on radio

1:19:22

radio than there is about - Podcasts. There's no metrics. And so

1:19:24

- It's, you know, it's like this, it's always been this funny thing about, yeah,

1:19:29

- This contrast we're help the higher standard. - Right. It's like we're thought of as like a,

1:19:35

like a sponsored link ad on Google versus radio,

1:19:39

which kind of GI gives this wide ber of, of survey data.

1:19:44

I mean, I've, I think I've mentioned on the show before,

1:19:46

but I, I did one of those diaries for Nielsen at

1:19:50

- One point. Yeah. Me two got your three bucks. - Yeah. <laugh>, I think it was two I think.

1:19:55

- Yeah. - There was inflationary. Right.

1:19:58

- So tell you what, tell you what we're gonna do,

1:20:03

it's, we'll use the new media show it email address

1:20:07

because I know, I know a lot of you are listening

1:20:10

that are out there in podcasts earning Monies land.

1:20:13

You'll never admit it. But we, we see, uh, where, you know, people from New York

1:20:18

and in California are two of our, you know, biggest, uh,

1:20:22

biggest listening regions. Uh, get yourself a fake Gmail account.

1:20:29

Now, someone, you, you, you're gonna risk a little something here, um,

1:20:33

[email protected]

1:20:37

and get yourself a fake Gmail account or even a proton account, something where, you know,

1:20:41

where we can't track you and send this anonymous email with,

1:20:44

uh, with a company name and a number.

1:20:48

And, uh, I won't, we won't announce the,

1:20:53

the companies, uh, by name.

1:20:56

We'll add everything up and come up with a number.

1:20:59

Now, don't lie to boost the numbers.

1:21:01

'cause one of you knuckleheads will send me a billion dollars for a certain company and you'll have lied.

1:21:06

And we'll exclude that. Don't lie.

1:21:09

Tell us what your real annual advertising numbers are.

1:21:13

And, uh, or Rob you can send, you know, maybe it better go

1:21:18

to Rob and, uh, Rob can anonymize the data

1:21:20

that way you're not sending this to me. Um, and, and Rob can anonymize the data and uh,

1:21:28

and, and give us, give us, uh, give us a total.

1:21:31

Uh, I think that would be fun to do. Uh mm-Hmm.

1:21:36

<affirmative>. But, you know, I think, you know,

1:21:39

it's a certain amount of trust here. <laugh>. Yeah. Send 'em to Rob.

1:21:43

'cause you know, Rob doesn't work for nobody right now. <laugh>

1:21:47

- Send 'em to me. Right. - Right. Send 'em to you. You know. Right.

1:21:52

But, uh, no one's people are gonna be too scared to do that.

1:21:56

- Yeah. Yeah. - We wouldn't reveal it though.

1:21:58

But we do, like our secret sources, we don't, we don't have too many.

1:22:02

- I think that the numbers would be, I think they're quite a bit lower than 2 billion.

1:22:07

- I believe so too. I think they're much lower.

1:22:10

- There's a reason why it's, it's never gotten much over 2 billion in like,

1:22:14

the four years that they've made proclamations Yeah.

1:22:17

That it was going to. Right. It's, - But if you listen to certain shows though, you know,

1:22:21

they're definitely putting seven to 10 ads in these episodes

1:22:24

and I'm sure they're just amazingly effective.

1:22:28

- Well, that's the other end of the spectrum, right? Is that the big shows are just getting

1:22:33

either completely bought out. Yeah. Or that they have too many ads in the shows.

1:22:37

- Well, too many. - That's what's driving this, this also this metric in the research that's showing

1:22:43

that there's increasing sensitivity on the part

1:22:47

of listeners to ad load, - But at the same time it's going to drive And Merick,

1:22:52

I didn't get a chance. I had hardcore meetings all day.

1:22:55

Did anybody listen to Sounds Profitables thing today?

1:23:02

- Did you, did you miss that? Well, they were doing it at the same time that we're doing this show.

1:23:04

- Oh, okay. Well, we'll have to go back and that'll be a good one for next week.

1:23:09

- Right. - There'll probably some, there'll probably be some slides out

1:23:12

on the internet at this point. But, um, yeah,

1:23:18

2 billion, I, I, I, again, I, most

1:23:23

of my business is service business. I'm, thank God I, I'm not reliant on advertising.

1:23:28

I wish, you know, I wish my advertising was a little higher,

1:23:31

just like anything else when you're trying to drive more revenue.

1:23:34

But I'm pretty happy with our programmatic, where it's at now.

1:23:38

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and contrary to what everyone's saying there, I have not

1:23:40

seen a rake to the bottom yet. So because its programmatic stuff is running in content

1:23:46

that would basically you'll never hear on a,

1:23:50

as a host endorse, it just never is gonna

1:23:53

make it into host endorse. - And I think that the commenting about advertising

1:23:59

and podcasting is, I think we should all kind of back up

1:24:02

and get a, get a view on this that's realistic

1:24:06

because we've been playing this advertising game

1:24:08

and podcasting for I don't know how many years now, Todd

1:24:10

- <laugh> 19. - You know, and if it, if it's constantly stalling out

1:24:16

and it's not progressing, all this kinda stuff,

1:24:18

maybe it's just not really meant to be

1:24:21

as big as everybody would like it - To be.

1:24:24

Well, there we go. Value for value baby - <laugh>.

1:24:27

Right. So there needs to be an alternative, and I've had this, this thought myself for many years, is

1:24:30

that there needs to be something else.

1:24:33

Right? You can't, it just doesn't, well,

1:24:37

it's just not a natural fit. Well, there advertising with podcasting,

1:24:40

- There's not a lot of options. - It's kinda like oil and water.

1:24:44

It's trying to blend them together. It, it, it's, it's ideology is

1:24:48

completely contrary to each other. Yeah. - It's, you know, it's all about now it's, you know,

1:24:53

I've run a PayPal on my website since,

1:24:56

since I started the show. Mm-Hmm. So, you know, it, it brings in some dollars,

1:25:01

but it doesn't, you know, it, it doesn't pay the bills.

1:25:05

- You know, so I think this, this value for value kind

1:25:08

of model, you know, it, it could be the model, the,

1:25:13

the foundation and the early kind of foundation

1:25:16

for something new in podcasting that could be different.

1:25:19

- Rob, uh, come on. Now, you, you haven't obviously been listening

1:25:23

to No Agenda recently or any of those.

1:25:26

- Well, that's not my, my, my point here.

1:25:29

My, my point is, is that that is an emerging model

1:25:34

- Yeah. - That, um, could replace advertising in this medium and

1:25:40

or augmented or being in a, in addition.

1:25:45

And it will continue. I don't think it's widespread yet.

1:25:48

I think it's still early days for value. For value.

1:25:51

- Um, I think what it is is making, you know,

1:25:54

the education piece on this is, - Yeah. It's

1:25:59

- Daunting. Yeah. It's daunting. Um, I, I think the, I I, and

1:26:04

- That's what's holding it - Back, don't get me wrong, you know, I love the boost that come in,

1:26:09

but at the same time, you know, I think that the majority

1:26:14

of people, even though the processing fees suck, you know,

1:26:18

are used to doing fiat donations with the PayPal

1:26:21

or credit card or something like that.

1:26:23

And I think, you know, it's, it's a dualhead model

1:26:27

if you have both capabilities to get Piot funds

1:26:32

and PI again is dollars or pesos or yen.

1:26:37

Yeah. You know, some national currency,

1:26:39

- Conventional currency. - Yeah. Um, a combination of that

1:26:44

and a combination of value for value in strictly in regards

1:26:48

to Satoshi's, you know, I, Dave Hamilton

1:26:52

and I had a discussion, uh, a couple of,

1:26:54

maybe it's been two months ago, and we, we talked about this quite a bit in a call.

1:27:00

And, uh, Dave and I, you know, I, I love the Value for Value program

1:27:05

with Boost and stuff like that. The engagement is, is fantastic.

1:27:08

You know, look what we've happened here in the show today. You know, Adam's been giving us feedback.

1:27:12

Matt's been giving us feedback. We got feedback from the last show.

1:27:16

Um, this makes it engaging

1:27:19

and that the, the engagement's worth more than the value

1:27:22

of the SATs that have come in. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, um, I haven't run the numbers

1:27:26

at Blueberry recently. I need to do so and go back

1:27:28

and see how much people have earned up to date, um, from,

1:27:32

from, from don't, from basically from Boost

1:27:35

and streaming SATs. But if we convert enough of the listening audience to

1:27:41

a modern podcast app and we get them to start, I, I can, as I've said

1:27:48

to my tech audience at Geek Central, if every one of them

1:27:52

gave me just $2 a month, just two, well, 50%

1:27:57

of them gave me $2 a month, uh, Rob,

1:28:01

holy shit. I would, I would be, I'd be able to hire five people.

1:28:07

- Yeah. - Just two bucks. - Yeah. Doesn't take much. I - Agree. But again, on a,

1:28:14

- On a per listener basis, and add up to a lot, if you have a decent sized

1:28:18

- Audience, and again, it's about, and,

1:28:21

and Adam just hit us again, another 5,000 sat,

1:28:23

the V four V only works if you create content of value.

1:28:28

That's not a big group compared to spray

1:28:30

and prey programmatic advertising. That's true. Programmatic advertising

1:28:34

is definitely spray and prey. We know that. Yeah.

1:28:38

But if I can, if podcasters are making more from spray

1:28:41

and pray, then they are convincing their audience

1:28:46

to give back in value. But the thing is, we have to train a generation

1:28:50

of podcasters that don't be afraid to ask

1:28:53

for this value back time talent, treasure.

1:28:57

- Well, and, and I dunno if you've noticed Todd,

1:28:59

but the Bitcoin value has been going up.

1:29:01

- Oh yeah. My, I was actually looking at my, uh, I,

1:29:05

I've doubled, I think in my, my SAT holdings right now are about about double,

1:29:12

which is gonna make it interesting for this tax year.

1:29:14

Sure. <laugh> - Well, you don't have

1:29:17

to pay on un unrealized gains quite yet, so

1:29:21

- No, you still have to report it. And then, because Bitcoin prices like this every day,

1:29:26

then you have to export a port. And you know, it's, it, I heard someone talk,

1:29:30

I think I heard Adam and Dave talk about last year,

1:29:33

but I'm definitely gonna have to report it this year. There's no way I am not gonna

1:29:38

get on the wrong side of Uncle Sugar. I've been, been there, done that. I'm not doing that again.

1:29:44

- Well, I know that there's a, there's an effort on the part

1:29:47

of the Biden administration to actually push forth this wealth tax, which includes a, um,

1:29:53

unrealized gains tax. Yeah.

1:29:56

- They're always trying to dip their hands in our pockets.

1:29:59

- Well, it's like, you know, if you have a $200,000

1:30:02

of equity in your home, you would've to pay

1:30:06

Apple gains tax on, on that equity, whether

1:30:09

or not you have the money or not. - And I think that doesn't matter if you,

1:30:14

that's not even talking about, uh,

1:30:18

inheriting something we're talking about. You know, they need to, they need to quash

1:30:22

that stuff. Everyone will, it is just

1:30:24

- A way, it is just a way, way for the government

1:30:27

to just get more revenue into their,

1:30:31

and then they think that they're accomplishing, you know,

1:30:33

some equality kind of, - Well, there's only two things guaranteed

1:30:37

in life, death and taxes. Those are only two things that are guaranteed in, in life.

1:30:44

Yeah. But I think, again, going back to the value

1:30:47

for value thing, you have to give value back.

1:30:52

And, and I think part, and I, I talk about this

1:30:54

with podcasters I talk to all the time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know,

1:30:58

especially when they're like, oh,

1:31:00

I've only got a thousand listeners and I'll bring up a Google image of a thousand people.

1:31:07

And I say, that's the audience that you're talking to.

1:31:10

And you know, I I say, print that out

1:31:13

and put that somewhere where you can see it when you're doing a show.

1:31:17

And then you, when you realize how many people you're actually reaching,

1:31:23

you may have a little bit different approach

1:31:27

to prepping for your show and the quality of content that you put out

1:31:31

because a hundred thousand, 10,000, if you don't visualize

1:31:36

10,000 listeners and can see what that looks like.

1:31:41

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, think, think about, Rob,

1:31:44

if you and I were to walk on a stage in front

1:31:48

of 15,000 people, I guarantee you

1:31:52

and I will spend a couple hours being prepared at a minimum.

1:31:58

Before we, we went out and talked to 15,000 people. Yeah.

1:32:02

What, what do we do during this show? We just drop the mic on and go <laugh>. So

1:32:10

- Hope for the best. - You know? Yeah. Spray and pray. Right.

1:32:14

So I, I think that is the,

1:32:18

that's the thing podcasters have to really understand too,

1:32:23

is in order to make value for value work, you, you have,

1:32:27

you have to make a great show. And probably if you make a great show,

1:32:32

your audience is probably going to grow. Yeah. And opportunities will open up.

1:32:39

I don't, I think a lot of times people think this is just

1:32:41

gonna be magic and it's just gonna happen. - Yeah. - It's hard work.

1:32:48

- Yeah, I would agree. - And some of us are blunting enough to do the hard work.

1:32:52

You know what, we're already over, dude. - I know we are. - Holy cow.

1:32:57

- Where'd the time go? - It went well.

1:33:04

What have you got to say about this show?

1:33:11

Are you asking me? No, I'm asking the audience.

1:33:13

- Oh, okay. - And if you haven't been here,

1:33:16

all this stuff is in the archive that we've talked about today.

1:33:19

This is not something we haven't talked about 25 times at least.

1:33:24

- Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, - Um, oh, by the way, Mike Dell

1:33:29

sent me, um, let's see if I can find it.

1:33:34

There's a company called 11 Labs.

1:33:41

- Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm familiar with 'em. Yeah.

1:33:43

- Um, I don't know if you'll hear this. Let's see if we can hear this. Peter

1:33:47

- Piper picked a pick of, - Oh, wait a minute.

1:33:49

Let me turn the volume down so you can hear. It's a

1:33:52

- Voice cloning - Platform. Yeah. You wanna hear my voice? That's been cloned.

1:33:56

Mike did a little sample, let's see if I, can you hear this?

1:33:59

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

1:34:02

Do you hear that? That - Sounds pretty close.

1:34:04

- Sounds per close. Now listen to the other one he created.

1:34:07

Let me turn the volume up a little bit. I think we need to give Mike a hundred thousand dollars.

1:34:13

Sounds pretty close to my voice, doesn't it?

1:34:15

- Yeah, it does. - Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

1:34:20

- Ther doesn't seem to be that good though. - No. The peck of pickled peppers.

1:34:25

But Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

1:34:28

- It's almost like you're talking into a condenser microphone that you're too close on.

1:34:33

- Yeah. But I think we need to give Mike a hundred thousand dollars.

1:34:38

That is better than what I would've expected.

1:34:42

And he only gave it a small sample to train from.

1:34:46

- Yeah. They're, they're training these off of, uh,

1:34:49

I I think it's like 15 seconds to 30 seconds of audio.

1:34:52

- Right? Yeah. Alright. Geek [email protected].

1:34:57

Geek [email protected] at Geek News on X at Geek

1:35:01

[email protected] on Meson.

1:35:06

- Okay. I'm on Twitter X at Rob Greenley

1:35:10

and you can reach me via email. Rob [email protected] is a great way.

1:35:15

And you can go to my website rob greenley.com

1:35:18

and that's like a launching off point for articles

1:35:22

and all the other podcasts that I'm involved in, in doing every week.

1:35:26

I'm doing about three live shows a week right now. So

1:35:29

- Someone must have sent out the bat signal because we've had quite a people come onto the company

1:35:34

that shall be not named a live stream.

1:35:38

Uh, we had quite a boost. They must have said that Todd

1:35:41

and Rob were trying to talk something about the industry

1:35:45

so someone set out the bat signal.

1:35:48

But if you've been watching on one of those new modern podcast apps,

1:35:50

we appreciate, appreciate it. If you've been streaming SATs, we definitely appreciate it.

1:35:56

Yeah. And, uh, it's been our pleasure.

1:35:58

We'll be back here next Wednesday for another edition of the New Media Show.

1:36:02

Everyone, take care. Be safe out there and, uh, we'll see you next week.

1:36:05

Uh, comments are open. Our secret lifeline is open to report earnings on,

1:36:11

uh, advertising. Let's see if we can figure out

1:36:14

how much money's really coming into the podcasting space.

1:36:18

Um Right. If we get any emails, I'll be shocked. So yeah.

1:36:22

Alright everyone. See you next time. Take care. Thanks for being here. Okay, bye-Bye. Alright,

1:36:26

- Bye.