0:01

Welcome to Podland the last word in podcasting use.

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It's the 2nd of December, 2021.

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I'm James Cridland, the editor of pod news.net in Australia, but I'm Sam Sethi,

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the MD of reverberating I'm

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Winslow bright from premier music group.

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And later I'll talk about music licensing and the new Paul Simon autobiography miracle and wonder.

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Podland is sponsored by Buzzsprout used by over 105,000 active podcasters to host, promote and track your podcast.

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Podland is a weekly podcast where James and I delve deeper into the week's podcasting news.

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And the big news this week is it's this shiny award season.

0:40

James. It seems everyone's got a bobble.

0:43

Yeah. Have you got a book now? You've got baubles.

0:45

Haven't you? You've got. . Yeah,

0:47

I've got two of them, actually. Sam, I don't know whether I've ever mentioned this before.

0:52

Uh, it's a passing moment.

0:54

I think you have now apple podcasts.

0:57

They announced the best of 20, 21.

1:00

Uh, and or who did they announce? James?

1:02

What was the big highlight for 2021 for us?

1:06

Well, they announced loads of things, but the, uh, the big ones are a slight change of plans with mayor Shankar from Pushkin industries was chosen as best show of the year.

1:15

And, um, newcomer of the year went to anything for Selena, which is WBUR.

1:22

And Futuro, um, there's a list of top new shows and top subscriptions available in the app as well.

1:29

And obviously those lists are different depending on which country are in.

1:33

Well, I did have to look those up because they're not.

1:36

Podcast listening out. Um, but I do feel now underwhelmed in sense of my abilities.

1:42

Mayor Shanker was the white house, behavioral science team expert, and she also worked for the United nations.

1:49

So not somebody who's a lightweight, then who's just turned up with a podcast.

1:53

No indeed. So, uh, yeah, I know there are, there are some, um, really good names in there.

1:59

And what the chart also gives us actually is some understanding of how apple podcasts paid subscriptions are doing.

2:07

Because number one in the list is bad blood.

2:09

The final chapter. Now in September, they said they had 6,000 subscribers.

2:15

Which equates to about 16 grand a month in terms of us dollars after Apple's cart.

2:21

So, um, I wonder how many new people they've added since September.

2:26

And I also wonder when these charts were compiled, but those are the sorts of numbers that we're seeing at the top of apple podcasts paid subscriptions.

2:34

So not an awful lot of cash, if that's the case.

2:37

No, but I'm

2:38

sure that after this awards that Dunbar or shoot up dramatically

2:42

now indeed one, one would certainly hope so.

2:44

Although, interesting to note that, uh, today, both Pushkin, um, and slate have both announced that they are now making their paid subscriptions available in Spotify as well.

2:57

Um, and both of them talking about, we want people on other platforms to be able to enjoy our.

3:04

Um, shows. So, um, perhaps, uh, apples, you know, not being on Android is, uh, coming to bite them.

3:11

That's your bet.

3:12

Isn't it for the year that they will release a Android.

3:16

How you doing

3:18

think I'm running out of time, but we'll see what happens,

3:22

uh, down your way. The Australian podcast award winners will be announced today, uh, in a live ceremony in Sydney.

3:29

Uh, you won't be there. Of course.

3:31

Will you be.

3:32

Yes, I'm looking forward to the Australian podcast awards.

3:35

They are tonight as we record this. So I only know who's won one of the awards and that's the one that I ended up giving away a couple of days ago on video.

3:44

Uh, so I'll find out what happens there. I would dearly have liked to have been in Sydney by the way.

3:50

So would Matt Deegan, uh, as well, we'd like to have been in Sydney, but there's always next year.

3:54

Yes. And also there's going to be the big, a cast of podcasts of the year announcement.

4:00

So there'll be a gold winner, I

4:02

guess the will be in terms of Australia, which is always good.

4:06

And also the winners of the Australian commercial radio awards were announced.

4:09

There were three, I think podcasts categories, might've been four in there.

4:13

Uh, the best original podcast, which is the one that.

4:16

Uh, commercial radio Australia highlighted went to zero waste baby, which is a mothering podcast with Veronica.

4:24

Milsom produced by Southern cross Austereo is listener.

4:28

Uh, so, uh, lots of gongs there and guns in your part of the woods as well.

4:33

Yeah,

4:33

the 2021 audio production awards took place.

4:37

The production company of the year was won by listening to tainment.

4:40

Uh, and in the show notes, we'll have a link to all the winners.

4:44

Indeed. And also the Rachel bland new podcast award from radio five live was awarded this year to your, not my mum, the step-mom's side.

4:53

Um, it's a really good award that radio five live do.

4:56

It's named after the newsreader and presenter.

4:59

Uh, Rachel bland, who died of cancer in 2018 and she recorded a podcast.

5:04

Which was all about that. So, um, probably worth a listen, Katy Harrison's podcast.

5:09

You're not my mum, the stepmom side.

5:11

Now moving forward. It seems as data, data everywhere.

5:14

Again, uh, Edison research, infinite dial is coming to the UK.

5:19

What is the infinite dial? He sounds like a doctor who series.

5:23

Well, the infinite dial is actually the data that all of the podcast companies use.

5:30

It's that, um, overarching number of how many people listen to podcasts every week or every month.

5:38

Um, Brilliant about it is that it's produced in the U S it's produced in Canada and it's produced in Australia.

5:45

It's been produced in the past in Germany and in South Africa as well.

5:50

And it's deliberately produced to be, um, to be.

5:55

Um, what's the phrase it's deliberately produced to be comparable, uh, in between different countries as well.

6:02

So unlike the radar data that we have in the UK or that you have in the UK, um, this is a comparable information.

6:09

So quite useful from that point of view, again, that is today as we record this, um, you'll probably already see the results.

6:16

In a pod news, uh, in the next, um, in the next day or so

6:21

the latest share of IR study, which again is from Edison research, suggest that more than a quarter of all Americans aged 18 to 34 are listening to podcasts every day.

6:31

Now that's surprising James, cause we didn't think.

6:34

Sub 20 five-year-olds are interested in

6:36

podcasting. Well, I think sub 20, five-year-olds kind of interested in podcasting, but certainly, um, looking at that that's a daily figure, which I don't think we've seen before.

6:46

Um, this is, um, a little bit annoying because share of ear is a great study that Edison research releases every quarter, but they don't release it.

6:56

And the only way of knowing what's in there is to, um, hope that some of.

7:03

Uh, customers, uh, end up releasing some of the data.

7:06

Thank you to Pierre Boulevard, friend of the show from Cumulus media for telling us some of those, um, those pieces of information.

7:15

What share of ear essentially tells you is.

7:18

And everybody listens to in, uh, you know, in their audio, in their ears, in their headphones, in their speakers, in their cars, you know, whatever it might be.

7:28

And it shows how podcasts fit in with the rest of media consumption.

7:32

So things like, um, you know, radio consumption and Spotify, uh, music and, uh, and everything else.

7:38

So again, fascinating data. And it's the sort of data that, uh, if you ever see me talking about the future of radio, then it's the sort of data that I lean on quite heavily, because it's so useful in terms of that,

7:50

would it be that younger people are turning to podcasting?

7:54

Because one of the things that the Rachel, uh, data that came out in October here in the UK showed was that the music radio stations in the UK, certainly radio one, uh, radio six, we're seeing a drop in number of listeners.

8:10

Um, and when I talked to my 17 year old about what she does, she's not a radio listener.

8:16

She's certainly on Spotify with a playlist or Tik TOK with her friends.

8:20

And it's because all the music they listened to sadly, uh, can not be played on the radio.

8:26

Is it maybe podcasting? Hasn't got that censorship and they can find stuff that is actually more aligned to what they think and feel these days.

8:34

Yeah.

8:34

I don't know how much. To do with saucy language and, um, and having a Jeff thing.

8:39

Um, but I do think that, um, if we think about radio as being a thing to, um, deliver music, which we used to think of radio as being in the past, certainly, you know, 20 years or so ago, radio was the predominant way that people found new music.

8:56

Now, of course, it's YouTube and it's taken. And it's, um, Facebook and it's, you know, everything else.

9:02

So really, you know, if you're a music radio station and the thing that you do is play 10 great songs in a row.

9:07

Well, good luck to you because, um, I mean, that might be working for you now, but it won't be working for your, I don't think in five or 10 years time.

9:14

And it was yet more Edison research data.

9:18

So it was showing the amount of speech that is consumed particularly by young people has really significantly increased as well.

9:27

I mean, I think, you know, overall we're listening to less music than we ever have.

9:30

Um, but that's sort of one side, but I think also, you know, music is just not a thing that radio does over everybody else now, perhaps that used to be in the olden days, but certainly isn't now.

9:42

So I think that there's a, you know, change.

9:45

Uh, in terms of that, yeah. There is

9:47

now talking about music and being able to play music online inside your podcasts.

9:52

People always ask how can you license music for your intro and outro?

9:57

You caught up with somebody who knows a lot about this, James, didn't he?

10:00

Yeah,

10:00

I did. So, um, one of the most popular pages on pod news is a page, which is how can I play commercial music on my podcast?

10:07

And it's basically a 12 minute.

10:11

Uh, article, which says the word no, in lots of entertaining ways.

10:16

No, you can't. No, you can't use it in terms of fair use of probably no, you can't use it in terms of, you know, just playing 30 seconds, all that kind of stuff.

10:25

Um, but, um, there are some podcasts out there who are very good at licensing music and you'd have thought that it would be really easy and simple if you listen to people, but it really isn't.

10:37

Um, Clara, the music for Paul Simon. Audio biography miracle and wonder conversations with Paul Simon, which is out now was not very easy.

10:48

It turns out Winslow, bright spearheaded, the licensing and music supervision.

10:53

She cleared over 67 songs over eight months for a five-hour audio book recorded in nine sessions and she works for premier music.

11:03

Premier

11:04

music group is a music supervision company.

11:07

We specialize in music for advertising, film and TV and podcasts.

11:13

We work with various agencies.

11:15

We work with directors. We work with production companies, film studios, and then anyone.

11:22

Which has many people creating podcasts these

11:24

days. So let's focus on this. Paul Simon audio biography, it's called miracle and wonder it's a five-hour audio book, 67 songs in it.

11:33

You spent eight months clearing those songs.

11:36

That it seems a large chunk of time for this.

11:40

So can we just go back to basics?

11:43

First of all, if I have a podcast.

11:46

Yes. I have read on the internet that I can just use up to 30 seconds of any song and that's just fine.

11:53

And nobody will complain. Is that Fu

11:56

on the internet said that that's not true.

12:00

That's definitely not true. I am certainly not a specialist when it comes to fair use.

12:06

I. I push everyone.

12:09

If they have a fair use argument towards lawyers who specialize in that, but when it comes to using music and a podcast, generally speaking, unless.

12:19

Unless the lawyer that you work with can specifically say a reason that a song can be deemed or considered fair use, um, or that that's a stance that you can be willing and comfortable to stand behind without that the music should always be licensed, unless even if that's a gratis license, even if that's an agreement with the owners and artists, that there is no fee, but it's understood that the artist has signed off on.

12:48

Yeah. Well, we'll come back to those in a minute, but so really you do always need to ask permission and there are at least two sense of people aren't there that you need to ask for permission, music publishers and the record company.

13:01

If I got that about right.

13:02

Yep. That's correct. Um, and sometimes there can be multiple publishers on a song.

13:07

So generally speaking, there's often one.

13:10

Record label. Sometimes if there's two artists, think of two contemporary modern artists now make a song together.

13:18

Oftentimes both of their record labels own 50% of that.

13:22

It's a split. But generally speaking, there's often one record label involved, and then there can be multiple publishers depending on how many songwriters are

13:31

on the song. Right. So how do I find out the publishers and the record company?

13:35

It must be obvious just looking at the CD, but there are no such things as CDs anymore

13:39

over. Yeah, well, nowadays I do feel like it's much easier than it used to be.

13:45

You can oftentimes go on. The performing rights, societies, websites like BMI or ASCAP, see SAC PRS is the UK equivalent.

13:55

So every country has their own equivalent, but, um, you can go on BMI or ASCAP, for example, and type in the name of the song and their databases are getting better every day.

14:06

Generally speaking, you can find the writer info there.

14:10

Um, if it's something that's. Four or older, or maybe the rights have changed over and that's not up to date that definitely can require some slew thing.

14:20

Um, and some detective work, we certainly pride ourselves on being great detectives at our company, as we often can't really just stop it.

14:29

No, we can't find this information. We have to always, you know, continue to see that.

14:33

So

14:33

you find publisher probably more than one record companies, normally one, but probably more than one.

14:39

In terms of the Paul Simon work, I'm guessing it was relatively easy.

14:43

Has he been with the same rocket company? All the way

14:46

through. So he actually just sold his publishing rights to Sony, a very big deal that he did with, with Sony ATV, uh, for his entire publishing catalog.

14:56

But that happened really this year and that goes into effect in the new year.

15:00

So it was interesting coming on when we did, because we're sort of in the middle of this transition.

15:05

And then as far as his master recording, almost all of his master recordings and.

15:11

I would say majority of the master recordings that we used for this project were all with Sony on the master side as well.

15:19

There are several songs where it's a collaboration or where there's a co-writer or something like that.

15:24

I mean, he really did write most of his work, but there are several instances where it required other approval rights with such a big artist.

15:35

With someone who has such a robust catalog and where we're licensing so many songs, um, I would say on both the publishing and the master side, there were definitely, even though it was just going to two parties in that case, Sony TV and Sony music entertainment, there were a lot of layers internally that we had to work through and aligning on fees and aligning on terms and rights and all of that.

16:01

And, um, Making sure everyone internally at both of those companies where.

16:07

Uh, proving what we were requesting or, you know, that, that we were managing all expectations, um, with both our client and then, you know, with the various layers of approvals at the publisher and

16:18

label, uh, generally because you clearly can't talk about this particular client, w how are the costs worked out for this sort of thing?

16:27

And I'm really thinking here around podcasting, but obviously audio books are, I guess, going to be a little bit different.

16:34

It all

16:35

comes down to how long a project is going to live online, where it's going to live, you know, the various terms that you're requesting.

16:43

So if you're requesting something for one year that might have one set of costs, whereas if you request something for five years or in perpetuity or 10 years, then those fees often change.

16:55

That's sort of, I would say the biggest variable.

16:58

With major labels. There's oftentimes a bit of a threshold, I would say in terms of what they're willing to consider, even if you're saying, okay, well, we actually want to only license something for two months or six months.

17:11

Like even if you limit the terms significantly, There does kind of come an admin piece with that.

17:18

And, and also they want to make sure that they're paying their artists appropriately.

17:23

The, the, I would say the term is the biggest factor in, in fee, but generally speaking, like even if you start to limit the terms, there is sort of a threshold when you're working with some of these major labels and major publisher.

17:37

And then of course, you've got the issue that a podcast is available for free, uh, typically and, uh, available without any rights management on there as well.

17:46

So of the things that you also have to agree in terms of, I will only use 45 seconds of this track, or I will use the instrumental rather than the song version or, or that sort of thing.

17:57

So with any use that we do, whether it's.

18:01

Whether it's a movie or an advertisement or a podcast, we always have to specify how the song is being used.

18:07

So whether it's the instrumental version, lyrical version, what either the sort of scene description is, or the context of the use, if it's, um, Ariana Grande's is going to be on the episode, and this is her intro.

18:21

And so a song of hers plays underneath that, or whether it's John legend is talking about Marvin Gaye and.

18:29

And they play a clip of God to give it up for context of, you know, the way that he's describing his vocals or something like that.

18:37

Every uses is different. And generally speaking, the rights holders and the artists and the writers or the estates of those parties want to know the actual context of the use.

18:50

Um, something could be approved for one type of use and under one consideration, whereas it could be denied.

18:57

If the estate of someone didn't like the way that it was portrayed or discussed or something like that.

19:03

So we always have to provide all of that info.

19:06

Um, the length of the use, the type of use the scene description.

19:10

And then, like I said, the, the term and whether it's one year or five years or six months, and then where it's going to live, is it living only on.

19:18

Apple podcasts or is it on every podcast platform?

19:21

Is there a podcast platform that, or is it available on the website of the podcast?

19:26

Um, is it being used on Instagram for social teasers?

19:30

Like all of those are things that we have to negotiate when we go to clear the rights for the media.

19:36

This is not sounding easy so far. I can see why you spent eight months doing all of this work.

19:42

Um, when I used to buy music a long, long time ago now, of course, I just use a YouTube music or Spotify the same as everybody else does.

19:50

But when I used to go and buy music, I remember finding a.

19:53

Excellent. A record store in my hometown, which sold gray imports.

20:00

So instead of buying Michael Jackson's thriller for, you know, six pounds for the cassette, I ended up buying Michael Jackson thriller for three pounds for the cassette, but it happens to be published by, I think the record label was epic, Greece and everything was in the Greek language, but nevertheless, it was the same recording.

20:17

I'm wondering how this works. Internationally as well.

20:20

I mean, clearly this audio book I'm guessing is going to be made available in more than just the U S but clearly podcasts are international in, in scope.

20:28

What's the deal there? Oh,

20:30

it depends on how the rights are, are distributed internationally.

20:34

I would say like with Michael Jackson's thriller, that was definitely probably a bootleg and they did not own that.

20:40

They just, they just made a, you know, that was just a, um, Bootleg like re like copy when we're figuring out who owns the rights to something we're always going to the original source and figuring out if this recording was released in 1959 on this record.

20:57

Who owns that record label now, who would the rights now be owned by, based on the series of purchases and acquisitions and all of these things.

21:09

And that goes for the publishing too.

21:11

It's really, you know, who retained. Now to the original master, because that's what your, your licensing and any replica would need, unless it's a rerecord.

21:21

And that's a new version, you know, I did a cover of, um, all you need is love.

21:26

Like my version I would own from the master recording, but the Beatles own their, you know, their master and then they own the publishing rights.

21:34

So, but if it's just, you know, I somehow released.

21:38

A compilation album and all you need is love by the Beatles happens to be on it.

21:42

Like, I don't own that master recording. It's the original, you know, the original master recording is still owned by whomever released that, that version.

21:51

So it is a lot of detective work and certain sort of figuring out who currently owns the rights.

21:57

And then also, you know, generally speaking, when we reach out to our.

22:03

Contacts that the labels and the publishers, they can tell you what they actually control.

22:08

I mean, I was working with somebody today and they said, you know, we control 50% of this recording in the U S and I wrote back and I said, the other publisher who's listed on this song confirmed that if this, if this is an instrumental, Then they don't have the rights.

22:24

So I believe that you actually control a hundred percent in the U S and they wrote back and they said, oh, okay.

22:31

In that case, we do and control a hundred percent of the U S but globally, we control only 50%.

22:36

And I said, that's fine. My use is only. So, I don't even think I had any of those global rights.

22:40

So, you know, it, there are oftentimes territory splits because especially with older recordings there pieces were sold off and different pieces were bought.

22:49

I mean, you still, you know, tons of labels and publishers are selling off pieces or buying catalogs and all of that.

22:56

And some people don't even know what they own. There's so much music out there.

22:58

So a lot of it, you know, we oftentimes have to go to people and say, I know you have this, I know you own mess.

23:05

Help me

23:06

help you. One of the things that podcasting has an interesting, uh, has an interesting relationship with is, you know, download numbers aren't necessarily the same as plain numbers.

23:18

You know, aren't necessarily the same as the total amount of listeners who heard it.

23:22

What sort of information do the, uh, do do the music rights holders wants to know in terms of usage?

23:30

Is it, you know, this, this got 200,000 downloads or.

23:35

What's the deal there in the film

23:36

and TV space, we have to often times advise what the total budget is for a film, what the music budget is or what the percentage is, um, of the budget that's going towards music.

23:51

So these are questions that we get asked all the time on other projects.

23:57

I feel like it will make sense eventually for podcasts to move into that kind of space, um, to have licensing fees be partially, I guess, determined based on.

24:13

The number of downloads or the ad revenue and all of these different things.

24:18

I think the business has certainly boomed in the last few years, but given how democratic the platform is that doesn't necessarily mean that every podcast is making the same amount of money or has the same amount of revenue or spends the same amount on production.

24:33

Right? So not every. Labeling publisher is asking for that information right now, but I can definitely see.

24:40

And frankly, not every podcast wants to supply that information or can supply that information, but I can see a world where.

24:49

Maybe that information is exchanged more in order to help determine more appropriate numbers, um, when it comes to licensing.

24:59

So

25:00

if you were able to, um, get direct links into podcast hosting companies to, to get the numbers directly, uh, Potentially be a help in terms of at least reporting back to the record companies and the publishers of how much, uh, how much usage something is getting.

25:21

Yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking, like, if you have a brand new podcast that you're launching and you just don't know how it's going to do that might be something that, okay.

25:30

Season one, these are the, the rates that you go for, but you know, you have to provide.

25:36

All of the data, or maybe not even see, you know, the first few episodes, you agree to a certain rate, but after a while you have to provide certain data.

25:43

I will say that the costs can be obviously variable, variable, depending on the song, depending on the rights holders.

25:50

And again, depending on the term, but sometimes I do wonder if it would be helpful to have a better insight into what the ad revenue is like.

26:00

And then also what the percentage is in terms of.

26:04

The total production costs. And then what, what the licensing fees are, you know, from a percentage perspective, just to see, like, do these fees feel fair based on the usage or do they feel so distant and out of sort of.

26:22

Yeah. You know, out of, out of line with the rest of the

26:24

project. Yeah. As I, as I would imagine that there's a big difference between someone that just would like to use 30 seconds of AC DC's back in black at the beginning of their podcast and someone who is making a, you know, tremendous.

26:38

Um, uh, you know, enriched eight hour, uh, audio book, um, you know, about, about something else, you know, I'm sure that there are plenty of podcasters out there who would be perfectly happy to spend $250 on a little, on a little bit of music, but I'm not necessarily sure it works that way.

26:56

Not, not quite yet.

26:57

Well, and there's also, obviously, you know, every artist has the right to consider how their music is used and how it's synchronized.

27:05

So, you know, you do have. W the, the artists have to have that approval.

27:11

And, um, they have every right to say, well, I don't want my music and that, you know, in that opening of that podcast, like whatever it may be, but at the same time, like, I mean more so in the.

27:24

Indie films. When you go to license music, those, those licenses are priced differently than the newest James Bond movie.

27:33

You know, like they're, they're there, the funding and the overall budget.

27:38

Like those are things that are considered and granted, those uses can be any use, can be denied.

27:43

Right. Um, whether it's because of the fees or the creative or.

27:48

Um, the context, whatever it may be, but it is something that I think about a lot just in terms of the, the variable scale.

27:55

Yeah, sure. And on the artist, one last question.

27:58

If I've gone and an interview to band and the band says, sure, you can use my new track in your podcast.

28:04

Do they actually have the rights themselves to say that?

28:07

Such a

28:08

good, great question. Um, nine times out of 10, I would say no.

28:14

Um, They don't have the sole, right.

28:18

Oftentimes, so generally I would say there's, you know, if they're commercially releasing music, then it's probably something to consider that they would be signed to a record label and then potentially have a publishing deal in place.

28:34

If you and I are in a band together, and we're both signed to different publishers, that's two publishers.

28:39

And then we have our label that, you know, technically owns the master recording.

28:44

Now they come to us for approval rights, because we are the creators of the song, but we do not have the sole right to grant, you know, the use of the project.

28:56

There's a reason why somebody has signed a contract with a record company.

28:59

Right,

28:59

right, right, right. And, you know, We might say, oh, that's fine.

29:04

Included for free. Whereas our label might be like, um, no, the going rate for this is X amount.

29:11

And even just to admin it, it requires X amount.

29:14

And, you know, we, we don't want to.

29:18

You know, we don't, we don't want to do it for less now, obviously like it helps to have the blessing of the band, but technically the kind of next step there would be to reach out to the label and say, you know, we have the blessing of the band and here are the band is on copier or here's the correspondence from the band or whatever it may be.

29:35

So your advice would be, if somebody wanted to make a music documentary, your, your advice would be well call premier music group and we'll help you, I guess.

29:44

But it certainly sounds as if it's going to be a bit more complicated.

29:48

Originally thought. Yeah.

29:50

I mean, my, my colleagues worked on summer of soul and they worked very, very closely with Questlove and they worked very closely with all of the various rates, holders and everything, but you know, all of that required approvals.

30:05

That's a, that's a visual documentary.

30:07

And even with Paul Simon, I mean, A creator really of this project.

30:13

It's, you know, he and Malcolm and Bruce all speak very closely together.

30:17

And even, so we had to go through all of the proper channels to get all of the rights to all of the songs included, whether they were his songs or other people's songs.

30:28

Because again, he has a record label that owns those rights, and then he has publishing companies that all.

30:35

On those rights. Of course, it, it helps to be able to say, he's obviously very closely he's beyond closely involved in the project.

30:43

You know, that's like a whole other step. If you're asking someone to be involved or if you have a project that you're trying to do, um, without someone's involvement.

30:52

And it's just about them, like that obviously can be much more complicated, but I would say.

30:58

Generally speaking, unless somebody owns all of the rights to their own music outright, then you, you do still have to work through those channels.

31:08

Having them involved can be super helpful and they can also be extremely knowledgeable when you're working through decades of music as with Paul's music.

31:17

We were, you know, he's been recording music for a very, very long time.

31:22

Um, so we were able to work closely with his management and.

31:25

Work through some songs where we weren't sure who had the rights to certain recordings or who had approval rates.

31:32

So obviously they were extremely supportive and helpful in that way, but we did still have to like go through all the proper channels, which is why it took eight

31:40

months. Well, Winslow, bright spearheaded, the licensing and music supervision of miracle and wonder conversation.

31:48

Paul Simon it's out now from all good audio bookstores.

31:51

Is that what you say these days? I don't know. I don't understand this.

31:55

Uh, yeah, I think that works, uh, Winslow.

31:58

Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

32:01

Of course.

32:02

Thank you. Great chatting with you. So

32:04

Winslow bright, they go and hopefully one day, James, it will be a lot easier than the time that she took eight months to

32:11

clear. Wow. Yeah. Well hopefully it will be, but I think we understand now how complicated it is.

32:17

I mean, and that was clearing something for the artists own.

32:21

Audio biography. So imagine how complicated it must be.

32:25

If you're clearing something where the artist isn't involved.

32:29

So absolutely fascinating stuff. And I think it reminds me of I'm going to podcast movement, uh, two or three years ago, and hearing some very breathless announcements, talking about music, licensing, being sorted for podcasts, and we're still waiting for that.

32:44

It's still not really happening. And, uh, I think we can understand why.

32:48

Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much Winslow, um, for doing that.

32:52

If you want to support her and her work, then go and buy the audio biography from Paul Simon miracle and one day conversations with Paul Simon.

33:00

Now Facebook fake. They don't allow you to pirate music.

33:04

That's the one thing I actually I have found is that apple and Spotify, he put music into your pod.

33:10

They don't stop you. Um, there's no one seemingly tracking it.

33:14

Maybe there is, and they just don't care. But Facebook, they police from Facebook.

33:18

Copyright office certainly are tracking what you do, because if you put your podcast, start with any music in a, they will certainly stop it and take it down.

33:26

Um, but Facebook is growing.

33:29

Now James, if you got your podcast up onto Facebook already having yes.

33:35

So pod news itself is available on Facebook.

33:39

You can have a listen, but you need to be doing two things.

33:42

Firstly, you need to be on iOS because as far as I'm aware, it's still not available on Android, but secondly, you need to be based in the U S so for the rest, for the other 96.5% of the population tough, but what.

33:57

Really fascinating about Facebook is that, um, the amount of people consuming podcasts on Facebook is really increasing.

34:04

So Tom Webster from Edison research, again, reported that the data from the last quarter, quarter 3 21 showed that 20% of people in the U S had listened to a podcast on Facebook, the same data three months earlier.

34:21

8% so more than doubled, and it seems to be doing really well.

34:26

So if you're not on Facebook, anyone can add a podcast onto Facebook.

34:31

It takes a couple of minutes. It's relatively easy, relatively simple and straightforward.

34:36

Um, you can listen if it's your own podcast and everybody can listen if you're in the U S on iOS.

34:44

So it's well worth doing.

34:46

Further reports though, that you were talking about rains, Brad hill reviews, Facebook podcasts.

34:52

So Tom's saying that, you know, there's an increase in listing on Facebook, but reigns Brad hill are when you read their report, says in summary, click, Facebook's not ready for prime time.

35:06

So

35:07

who's right. Well, I think Brad hill is probably right there.

35:10

It's not a great experience.

35:12

Um, you know, I mean, podcasts, for example, are in a navigational section called watch, which is confusing.

35:20

He says, correct. It is really confusing to press something called watch.

35:25

To something. Um, you know, it's got a bunch of, uh, of interesting things in there, but again, you know, a brand who's, um, who's a great guy.

35:32

I've known for many, many years. He looks into, um, how the system works and he's just not particularly impressed in terms of, um, how the system works.

35:44

Yes. Comments are supported in every podcast episode.

35:47

He says, It uses rather confusing follow and subscribe buttons, which kind of do different things.

35:55

And why would you have a subscribe button as well as a follow button?

35:58

That kind of makes very little point.

36:01

Um, and also he says that, uh, Facebook has basically hidden podcasting at the moment.

36:06

It's a hidden way out of. Practically guaranteeing that few will find it.

36:11

So Brad, isn't a particular fan of it.

36:14

Um, and uh, certainly the numbers, the download numbers that I'm seeing so far are not particularly high, but it may well be that it's the same as Spotify to a degree.

36:23

And certainly Amazon podcasts in terms of.

36:27

Be a place to get podcasts in front of people that don't listen to podcasts.

36:31

And then perhaps they then, um, migrate over to using a decent podcast app.

36:36

So perhaps that's how it's going to work

36:38

be dice. If they turn it on outside the U S as well, that'll be

36:41

helpful. Wouldn't it? And I don't understand.

36:43

I simply do not understand why Facebook one meter are not turning it on outside.

36:48

The U S there's no legal reason to do that.

36:52

Um, you know what I mean, even if you just turn it on and the may be a language translation conversation, but even if you just turn it on for, um, people using an, an English device, then that kind of work, I don't really understand why Facebook, uh, dragging their heels in terms.

37:08

Yeah. Uh, one person though, did see an interesting feature coming to Facebook.

37:14

A subscriptions to podcast may be coming to Facebook.

37:17

EagleEye Twitter. Steven Robles has spotted a subscribe button, which is what you were saying earlier.

37:22

And again, if you, I, I did read the report from Brad hill.

37:26

Um, it seems that the follow button is for the page that you're on and the subscribers for the podcast.

37:34

That you want to subscribe to.

37:36

Oh, okay. Whereas the course on apple follow is for the podcast.

37:40

Yes. And subscribers, if you want to pay yes.

37:45

This isn't going to get confusing at all. Is it

37:48

once Facebook turn on the money-making part of it, then they'll follow up.

37:52

Well, I'm sure. Uh, naming

37:55

convention. Yeah, no, indeed.

37:57

None of that makes any sense.

37:58

Now, moving on the BBC plans to monetize its podcast as well.

38:02

Uh, we had some analysis from Dan Barnett, um, and he looked at what the BBC is doing beyond the shores of the UK.

38:10

What was he

38:11

thinking? So he's been looking at how the BBC is, um, uh, trying to make money out of its podcasts, why they have to make money.

38:19

They're doing to make money and so on and so forth.

38:21

He says that they're in a weird place, um, where it needs a certain level of success to justify its existence, but too much success would result in other content providers complaining that it's abusing its position.

38:33

He's got that dead right from the couple of years that I worked at the BBC, uh, it's really difficult to try and work out exactly what's going on there.

38:42

It's. Difficult that you can't be very successful because then people shout at you.

38:48

Um, but, uh, if you're not quite successful enough, um, then people say that it's bad value for money, and it's just really hard.

38:58

You're in a no win situation. If you work there.

39:01

And as an example of that, Jon Ronson today has apologized to audiences who are unable to hear his BBC podcast.

39:09

Um, he's said on Twitter, it'll be freely and easily available in the new year.

39:14

And he's very embarrassed at the fact that, uh, quite a lot of his audiences BA is being geo locked out.

39:20

It's on BBC sounds in the UK only it's called things fell apart.

39:24

It's promoted on BBC sounds across the world.

39:26

But the play button doesn't work genius, well done, BBC and other triumph.

39:31

And on apple podcasts, it's available as a paid subscriber.

39:36

But in the U S only. And again, there is absolutely no reason why that should be the case.

39:41

They've got the global rights. Of course, they've got the global rights.

39:45

Why on earth are they doing this as a paid for thing in the U S only that makes no sense whatsoever, but then trying to second guess the BBC on many things, uh, is quite difficult.

39:55

Maybe, and Facebook should get together and understand geopolitical ranges.

40:01

Yeah, maybe who knows. That's an interesting conference now.

40:05

Podcasts apps may be buying ads for your podcast in Google search without you knowing someone's been buying podcasts apps, haven't they with your name, James?

40:14

Yes.

40:15

Um, that was a bit weird. So if you do a search for podcasts, Um, particularly if you're in the U S but also if you're in the UK and a few other countries, then you will see a cast advertising.

40:26

They're saying you can listen to pod news in a cast, which is kind of, okay.

40:32

It just leads to a web player. It's not particularly helpful to pod news, but still though we are, um, the podcast app is also advertising Amazon music though is advertising that you can listen to our podcast for just $7 99.

40:46

Which is slightly misleading, I think because, um, uh, you can listen to pod news for free even on Amazon music.

40:53

Um, so it's just a bit weird.

40:56

I mean, it's not against Google's terms of Google.

40:58

Google can use that trademark if they want to, or Google advertisers can, but, uh, from my point of view is kind of not great to see lots of advertising, uh, particularly advertising that is could well be a little bit confused.

41:15

And claim that, you know, podcasts cost, um, quite a lot of money when in reality they don't.

41:22

So, yeah, that's a bit of a weird one, so, okay.

41:24

Powerful it being weird. James, why are they doing

41:27

it? Well, they're doing it obviously because they want to drag as many people to use their app as possible.

41:32

Whether it's a cast or the podcast app or Amazon music.

41:35

I mean, a cast is a bit weird. They do have an app, but really is that really what they want people to use?

41:42

Don't really necessarily see that as being the fundamental plan that a cast has.

41:47

Um, uh, so yeah, I, I, you know, that's probably why they're doing it.

41:52

Um, and you can well see that, you know, Amazon music on a wider scale.

41:57

Maybe what they've done is they've basically ingested the entire catalog of Amazon music and forgotten to take the podcasts out of Amazon.

42:06

Um, when they've put that particular advertising campaign into Google ad words, I don't know.

42:11

But, um, however it's working. Um, yeah.

42:14

Um, I can't really think that I'm particularly happy about it.

42:17

So you're not planning on retiring then. Oh, I didn't say that.

42:22

Um, but I think

42:24

I was thinking from the proceeds of all of this advertising revenue that you're getting shared with.

42:28

Well, uh,

42:29

yes, but of course I'm not getting any of the money for that.

42:32

Uh, it's just purely advertising that goes to Google.

42:36

Um, so I'm not saying any of the money nor would I be getting any of the money from, um, Amazon music.

42:41

If people post it up$7, 99 or seven pounds, 99, which is even worse.

42:46

Um, so, uh, yeah.

42:49

You know, I, I'm kind of there thinking, okay, well, fair enough.

42:53

But, uh, you know, a heads up, we'll be nice.

42:56

I think

42:57

now they're not the only ones who are starting to put a bit of money around other podcasts, uh, Eagle eye Christmas.

43:03

Siena's spotted that, uh, the. Desktop version of Spotify is now got a little section for sponsors.

43:12

Now, I think it's a test cause it seems that potluck news, when I looked it up is sponsored by, uh, HBO, max Squarespace, Casper, and smile direct club.

43:23

But I don't think we're sponsored by

43:24

any of those. They are not sponsors. Um, and there's also a weird, sort of a strange.

43:29

Image above which I don't fully understand.

43:33

It's part of a test. According to tech crunch, it's a episode sponsors section for podcasts in the app.

43:39

They are testing it in the U S um, with a few different things.

43:44

But, um, yeah, I mean, quite why it says that Casper and Squarespace has supporting this podcast.

43:51

I really don't know. Cause they clearly aren't, unless those are the ads that Spotify is putting in front of this podcast.

43:58

If you listen on a Spotify free account, which I guess maybe.

44:03

Case in which case I'm hooray and we love our Casper mattresses.

44:07

Um, but, uh, don't um, I tried to, uh, see the particular screenshot, which you've shared, which will be in our show notes, but, um, uh, it's not showing up for people down here.

44:20

So maybe, uh, Spotify being a bit more fed income down here who knows.

44:26

It would be interesting to see whether I did ask Chris last night, whether we, as the.

44:31

Podcast owners will be allowed to opt-in for which sponsors we want on our podcast.

44:38

Uh, or are we going to opt in and have a generic, we will play sponsors into you because you're in a vertical.

44:46

So is it us asking for sponsorship or.

44:49

Delivering sponsorship against us.

44:51

Well, or let's put this the other way.

44:54

Uh, and I know the views of both Adam Curry and Dave Jones on the podcast index, but if there was a way that we could highlight our sponsors in the RSS feed, is that something that would be good for podcasting overall?

45:11

Is there a way of us saying, you know, um, giving a sponsor tank with a link and various other things in our podcast feed.

45:19

And if you are a good podcast app, you would show those pieces of information in the podcast app.

45:26

Um, but I mean, uh, you know what this is, again, is it's, um, it seems to be Spotify doing another proprietary thing.

45:34

Another thing where they're, you know, holding up one finger against.

45:38

RSS and going well, you know, we know better.

45:42

And I wonder whether it's that. Um, but could you see a future where we were actually able to just as we can in the Buzzsprout dashboards, say who our sponsors are, um, also be able to, um, carry that through, into the RSS feeds so that it appears properly.

46:01

In, uh, any participating podcast app.

46:05

Um, I know that, um, you know, the, um, many of the people who are working on the new podcast namespace are vehemently anti advertising.

46:14

Um, but it might this be a more pragmatic solution to help those podcasters that do take money out of a sponsorship as well.

46:22

Well,

46:22

let's see, there'll be a post-Christmas haiku.

46:26

Released now your favorite time of the week, James.

46:29

It's that time it's Brewster ground corner

46:33

boost to Graham corner. Can't get more top 40 than that.

46:37

It is it's booster Graham corner talking about money and, uh, thank you very much to, um, Adam.

46:44

Pod father who starts with happy birthday to pod land.

46:48

I'm thankful for the show and both salmon James on this Thanksgiving.

46:53

I believe that Thanksgiving is some sort of American thing.

46:56

So thank you very much. 5,000 sets sent using Curio caster, but he also has a slight criticism for you, Mr.

47:03

Seth, he doesn't eat all

47:04

day. Uh, I missed the questions about podcasting today.

47:09

Oh. During the Lisa interview. What's up with that.

47:11

Yeah. I know Adam. I actually thought about it and other thought, you know what?

47:16

I don't think she's going to say that they're doing anything with podcasting two dot.

47:20

Oh. And. I think it was just going to be a very simple, no, we're not doing this.

47:25

I should have

47:25

asked. You're right. This was the interview last week with Lisa LaPorte from the Twitter network, um, which is well worth a listen.

47:34

And Lisa was kind enough to, uh, tweet.

47:38

A link to this podcast. So hello to you if you're a new new user, because of that particular tweet, a good of Lisa to have done that.

47:48

Um, yeah, I mean, I think we need to be careful.

47:50

This is not the podcasting 2.0 podcast.

47:53

I believe that there is one of those already. Um, and, uh, you know, we need to be, I think, careful not to just dive down that particular rabbit hole, but I think it, you know, it is a useful thing, which I will certainly ask.

48:07

Uh, every so often when I'm doing that, uh, Brian of London says you don't seem to have a funding tag I'm using castomatic, but the funding button is gray.

48:16

Brian. I think there's a good reason for that.

48:18

And the reason for that is that POS product don't support the funding tag quite yet.

48:22

Uh, it would be lovely if they did. Um, and, um, we will put a, um, a recommendation in that they do support the funding tag.

48:31

Um, that will be a good thing, but, uh, you will find us in all of the usual places.

48:35

I'm sure.

48:36

Uh, finally mere mortals.

48:38

Thank you. Uh, Kyron. Very kind of you to say, James, I try my best.

48:42

The chat with Adam will come out. Two weeks time as well.

48:46

Happy birthday to us. He says, uh, you in James and you become a staple of my Fridays.

48:53

Thank you. That's

48:54

very kind of him talking about, um, his, uh, interview with Adam Curry, which will be out in a couple of weeks.

48:59

So thank you very. Uh, for all of those, uh, boosts and boost programs.

49:06

If you have a boost button in your podcast app, then hold it down now.

49:11

And if you don't have a boost button in your podcast app, you should get a better one, a pod news.net/new podcast apps.

49:18

Now, if I called you. Mr beast, James, would you understand that?

49:21

Anything of that

49:22

sentence? I have no. The idea about this, Mr.

49:26

Beast person, you've been reading something from friend of the show, Matt Degan and have you not?

49:31

Yeah, I did unload and I'll put my hand up and say it like you.

49:35

I had no idea who Mr. Bass was, but this week Matt wrote something called what can audio learn from MySpace is video success.

49:42

So I had to obviously shift over to YouTube, have a look, and the guy is unbelievable.

49:49

Basically creates videos.

49:52

Uh, this week he created a video that copied squid game, all the games completely.

49:58

He spent over $2 million on the set alone.

50:01

He had 456. People come along and they played the games and the winner won 450, $60,000.

50:12

Uh, and it, all, it was was a 25 minute video.

50:15

He didn't extend it. He didn't build a series.

50:18

He didn't try and explain this show.

50:21

He just played, it was a one-off show.

50:23

And that was it. It sounds like a. Advertisement for not getting the best value out of your content there, but maybe, maybe I'm being cynical, old media person.

50:33

I don't know.

50:35

That is exactly what Matt would call you then. Cause what Matt was trying to say was that we need to change the way we think we, you may, Matt probably himself would have extended that out and tried to sweat the equity or the content.

50:49

But no, this guy's getting over 11 billion views in total

50:54

tech stuff. I'm, I'm quite excited, Sam

50:56

for the first time ever. I'm not because I have no idea what the next sentence I'm reading means.

51:03

Umbrella has been updated to version 0.4 0.9.

51:07

Haley part is due to be released this week by Dave Jones.

51:10

I. No idea what this is all about.

51:13

Umbro is a piece of software that allows you to run your own Bitcoin node.

51:19

So your own bank in your own house keeps your Bitcoins nice and safe.

51:24

And of course, SATs that are part of a value for value for podcasting, uh, is part of, of course is part of.

51:32

So, um, umbrella allows you to do that.

51:35

What heli pad is, is it gives you a, um, uh, an overview.

51:42

If you like, see, see what we did, the helipad overview.

51:46

How many pat gives you an overview of all of the boosts and boosts programs that you have been receiving, because if you have one of these umbrella nodes as I do, then you can't very easily see who is giving you a boost to Graham who is giving you, um, you know, boosts where this, uh, additional cryptocurrency is coming from.

52:08

And so heli pad is a really simple, straightforward thing that will show boosts and booster grams in real time.

52:14

Um, it looks very cool. It's at version, not 0.1 0.3, which you may guess means that it hasn't quite been released, but Dave Jones in the podcast index.social today said that he is submitting it to the umbrella app store tomorrow.

52:31

So that should be. It appears in the next version of Umbro whenever that comes out in the next couple of weeks.

52:38

So I'm very excited because that will mean that I can lower my reliance on the Satoshi streams, uh, thing, which I've been using and everything can point directly to my own node.

52:49

Um, I find it very exciting, although I can see a sound familiar blank expression.

52:54

But, uh, you are slightly less excited than I am, but still area.

52:58

Just trying to think. I have to read something that says how to set up a node now, before I even get to setting up an umbrella and then a heli part, it just feels very complex to me, but I'm sure it has a lot of

53:10

value. It does. It's got a lot of value.

53:12

We should get you. We should get you in. We should get you into this.

53:16

Um, I love that fact.

53:18

You're an early adopter and earlier, you know, you

53:20

have to play around with these things. You have to, you have to kick them and see what works and what doesn't.

53:25

Um, and talking about kicking them that clubhouse.

53:28

Oh dear. Oh, dear

53:29

idea. Yeah. Nice link James.

53:32

I liked that one, a business insider posts, an article today, uh, inside the rise and fall of clubhouse, a pandemic poster child of the VT back hype.

53:42

Hobbled by drama rooms, unhappy creators, dwindle users, and dubious advertisable let's just go for it.

53:51

Um, yes, it's saying that daily average users are down 80% since February.

53:57

So is clubhouse going to go away?

53:59

Well, no. Is the quick answer. It's got $110 million worth of cash.

54:03

It's not going to go anywhere. Particularly quickly, but that is a withering piece from business insider.

54:10

Um, so, uh, yeah, not good to see that about clubhouse, which to me seems as if it's, um, absolutely.

54:17

I was going to say dying on the vine, but that was of course was Twitter's thing, which.

54:21

Also died. Um, uh, and talking about dying things that nobody's using fireside chat, uh, is enabling streaming of shows to YouTube.

54:31

So that's exciting. I spotted a change in their terms and conditions, um, which says that you can use the YouTube API, or you will be able to soon.

54:40

And they're also making transcripts of chats available, which they put in their pages, but you, as a ordinary user, can't actually see them.

54:50

They appear in Google search results, but they don't appear if you just look at the webpage.

54:56

So I built a page as a proof of concepts as an educational tool.

55:01

Um, I've temporarily. Um, had a lawyers put up a tool to pull those transcripts out of the pages.

55:07

So if you just copy and paste the URL, then you can actually see, um, uh, all of the, uh, transcripts that a fireside chat is hiding away from you.

55:19

Kuli a thing to do. So

55:20

that's it, James. So what else has been happening for you in Portland this week?

55:24

Well,

55:24

I am on a podcast, surprise, surprise.

55:26

It's called voice works, sound business.

55:30

And I sat down with Jim salverson to talk about the current value in the podcast market.

55:34

And I apparently made some bold predictions as to what might change in the industry over the next two to three years.

55:39

It was a couple of weeks ago. I've completely forgotten what I said.

55:42

Uh, and then I may, may or may not be true.

55:44

A well-worth Alyson voice works, sound business, and also I would recommend.

55:49

A podcast called before the bar opens.

55:52

It's a podcast about people who make use and love music.

55:56

AMA Clark's latest episode interviews.

55:58

Chris Stevens. Now you have heard Chris Stevens, his work because Chris Stevens is the person who composed the Podland.

56:06

Theme which you here at the top and at the bottom of every single episode and also the music on pod news, his podcast, and he also owns a jingle company in Dallas.

56:15

Um, it's well worth a listen before the bar opens is called that now what's um, uh, how's your week been?

56:22

Sam?

56:23

It's not been a cracker. Uh, my dog broke her leg.

56:26

That's all. I'll say. Excellent.

56:29

That eventually led to a car hitting her. So, yeah, she's got a broken front leg, but she's mending she's back home.

56:36

So it'll, it'll mend. She's young

56:38

enough. So great week for you, Sam.

56:41

Well, I hope that she gets better soon and that's it for this week.

56:46

Please

56:46

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56:51

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56:54

Don't mean if you want daily news, you should get pod news.

56:57

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57:05

And we use chapters

57:06

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