How Much is The Podcast Industry Really Worth?

Intro: 00:00:01

It's not just for the geeks and OGs, this show's for those in and around podcasting.

Mark: 00:00:06

Hello and welcome to In and Around Podcasting, the inclusive podcast industry show that highlights a range of powerful podcasting perspectives.

And today, how much is this industry of ours really worth? Is it two billion? Is it thirteen billion? Growing at a crazy exponential rate that's going to take us into the stratosphere in no time? Is it something else?

And actually, who cares? Is it worth worrying about? And who the heck should we trust? That is what we're here to discuss today on the show.

But of course, it'd be rude not to do something stupid with our Stupid Stuff in Podcasting segment and it'd be silly not to finish on a high with The Flattering Ram. We're excited to do that, of course, and we've got someone that I'm actually delighted to welcome to the show.

I'm going to surprise you with our wonderful co host in just a few moments because it's. It's always a pleasure to talk to this person.

One of the most respected people, certainly from my perspective in the industry, and I know from across the industry as well. I'm going to bring him on in a second, but before I do that, I don't really want him to get mad.

Mark: 00:01:19

So.

Mark: 00:01:19

So I need to bring him on first. Gets a little bit grumpy and I think, judging by the video, I think. I think he's growing his hair. It is, of course. Danny Brown. Hi, mate.

You got a ponytail there. Have you a little ponytail going on?

Danny: 00:01:34

Well, that'd be. What would that be? That'd be a front ponytail. No, I shave my head. If you don't see the video version of this, I shave my head.

My daughter calls me bald, but I shave. I'm not bald. And when I don't shave, I get funny little tuft at the front of my forehead. So I don't know what that would be. But yeah, all good, mate.

I've just come off from a week off, so I'm expect excited to get back into the saddle with the old in and around podcast. And especially, as you mentioned, we have our awesome co host today.

Mark: 00:02:02

Yes, indeed, a podcasting luminary.

Someone that I've probably known since I got into podcasting as a brunette whipper snapper back in the day, and someone that instantly I had respect for was doing it.

It's done things that I would just never get near in podcasting, has been doing things for such a time that it's hard to imagine podcasting without him. Is, of course, the one and only Mr. Rob Greenlee.

Rob Greenlee: 00:02:29

Hello.

Mark: 00:02:30

How are you?

Rob Greenlee: 00:02:31

Hey, Mark and Danny. It's great to be here. Thanks for the invite to come in and kind of banter with you guys. I think it's. It's a great podcast you guys have here, and.

And so I'm honored to be here.

Mark: 00:02:42

Oh, it's very kind. Thank you very much. Always a pleasure to chat, number one, to catch up and to see you in person, but also to actually record with you as well.

Thank you so much for joining us. And congratulations. The Podcasting Board of Governors, as I recall.

Rob Greenlee: 00:02:56

For the hall of Fame. Yeah, right.

Mark: 00:03:00

I just said the Podcasting Board of Governors, if the. The whole of podcasting just had a. At a governorship, which would actually be quite.

Rob Greenlee: 00:03:06

We all are. Are. Are governors of this podcast space for a long time here. So.

But yeah, it's a project that I've been involved in really, I think, since twenty seventeen, when I got inducted into it and have increasingly, I guess, ramped up my role in trying to. Trying to keep it going and keep it alive.

It actually started with Podcast movement back in twenty fifteen, and then they made a decision that they didn't want to continue it.

And then we lost, like, four years of induction, you know, for obvious reasons, because of COVID and the fact that Podcast Movement wasn't holding events. So we got it back from Podcast Movement, and then now it's with PodFest down in Orlando.

So they're our new event host of sorts for the Podcast hall of Fame. And so we're on track to go from. From forty one inductees up to fifty one here in January. So.

And it's an interesting project, guys, because it's looking back at time, but it's also trying to find creators that people really, really align with. Right. And have had a big impact on the space. And so trying to go back and, And.

And also on top of this, to expand it outside of the US because it's been a very kind of US centric thing, like a lot of things in podcasting have been.

And I think what we're coming into a time is when it's expanding and podcasting is becoming, in some ways, I would say, a faster growing medium outside of the US now than in the US So it's. It needs to include the whole world here and that it doesn't come without challenges. But it also.

There's a legacy here, too, that that needs to be thought about and embraced as we look to the future. And that's what this event is really all about.

It's about telling creator stories about people that have found success in podcasting and that might be helpful to new people that are joining the medium and to have some perspective about where we've been, what we've done, and what, what successful creators have done to achieve the success that they have.

Mark: 00:05:27

I always think it's interesting to attend these events as well. I've been to a few of. A few of them over the years, and I think actually beginning in Fort Worth in twenty fifteen.

And it's really nice to see people being recognized that wouldn't ordinarily get recognized because they, you know, we're all podcasting. We're sat here in our bedroom doing our thing, and it's not always easy to realize that there are people on the other side of it.

So I think obviously we get feedback, we get engagement as best we can. But actually, you know, to, to, to.

To be found by your peers, to be someone that's really helping the industry out, I think is really important for people. So I always applaud that and look forward to being there at Podfest.

I might have to stick a suit in the old suitcase then, just to attend and make sure I'm there looking decent, which would be rare, actually. I might have to cut my hair.

Rob Greenlee: 00:06:13

Well, most, most podcasters not exactly known for getting dressed up for, for podcasting.

I know I, I wore a bow tie when I got inducted, so I got up there with a suit coat and, you know, I was under a lot of pressure to put on a tuxedo by Todd Cochrane, my co host on my New Media Show. And, and I, I couldn't quite get there. I couldn't do the whole tuxedo thing, but I, I almost got there.

Mark: 00:06:40

You looked very snazzy. And the problem with the tux is you got to keep it on all night. No one wants that. It's okay for an hour. Well, that's right. That's true.

Rob Greenlee: 00:06:48

That's true.

Mark: 00:06:48

Well, I'm excited to be there, mate. I'm looking forward to it. Danny, we're talking about dollar, dollar bills today, aren't we? We're gonna go talk about the size of the industry.

If you're a podcaster who's wondering about how much money is there to be had, how much money is the industry worth, as I'm sure you are. You know, you sat there thinking to yourself, should I start a podcast? Better check what the industry is worth before I do that.

Which inevitably we all do. Of course we'll go deep on that.

But before we do that, tell your friends InAndAroundPodcasting.com you can get us on all of the major podcast apps. You can get us on Spotify. Calm yourself, everyone. We are on Spotify. We don't want any revolution. It's fine.

You can listen on Spotify if you so wish, and probably at some point on YouTube, although we've been terrible with that because frankly, it needs editing. We need to tighten up a little bit. But let's get into it. Danny Brown.

Is podcasting worth the two point one billion that has been speculated by Fortune Business Insights? Oh, is it worth thirteen point seven billion as speculated by Polaris? That is the crux of the show.

Mark: 00:08:01

What?

Mark: 00:08:02

Why did you think it was important to cover this? You put this idea together as you always do, because you are the ideas guy, of course. Why is this important? Dude, why is this important?

What brought it to your attention?

Danny: 00:08:12

Yeah, so I think there was a few reasons. One, as you mentioned, there's so many different figures banded about and Rob you shared a really interesting one from, I think the New York Times, that had an even bigger number, like twenty five billion by twenty thirty, twenty thirty five, something like that.

So I feel it's interesting because obviously we have podcasters that are asking about monetization and how to find sponsors and earn revenue. So when you see a big number like that banded about, podcasters are going to ask, well, where's my share? Where's my cut?

And then you look at some of the layoffs that have happened and some of the, you know, the job losses across the industry and, you know, platforms closing down or going away, etc. So if there is money there, why are people being let go?

Is it because there's not that amount of money, or is it because it's only in a certain area and some other area isn't getting it?

So I just thought it'd be interesting to talk about the numbers being banned, about where it's going, and see what that means for a big podcast and be indie podcasters.

Rob Greenlee: 00:09:10

Yeah, I can weigh on it a little bit too, if you want me to, and give some perspective on it. And this is something I've talked about before, but we're constantly seeing these projections about what the value.

And most of these are usually tracking revenue. Right.

And it's usually focused on advertising, because the agencies that put these surveys together, that's pretty much who they're catering to, is the advertising side of the market. So. And it also depends on what you're going to include in these numbers too, right? If it's only advertising buys, then that's where you're.

I think you're primarily getting that two billion number. But those that are saying eighteen billion, I don't know that they're being specific to advertising. It could be the total market valuation for podcasting.

Right. But the ones that are in that two billion range, that are associated with the IAB, those have been.

And this is where it's a little bit kind of frustrating to some degree, if you're a follower of this, is that for, like the last five years, these advertising surveys have been putting out these projections saying that the advertising market for podcasting is going to be like four billion or five billion. And they've been saying this for the last five years, every year, and we're just barely at two billion, which I'm not saying two billion is a bad number.

I'm just saying that really what's going on here is there's an inflated thing that's being done here to get people excited and to get people thinking that the industry is going to get better so investors will invest more money in the industry. And it's a little bit of a smoke and mirrors kind of a thing because it hasn't turned out.

I guess what I'm saying is that their surveys and their projections are not really all that credible. So the bigger question is, are we going to achieve those higher numbers at some point?

Whether it's next year, three years, five years from now, are we going to reach four billion in advertising? And my contention is I'm not, I'm not one hundred percent convinced that we will.

And I think that there's some gating factors that are going on that's holding advertising revenue back. And I would be happy to talk about that, too. But I want to throw back to you guys.

Mark: 00:11:38

I think it's important to deal with some of those as well. Rob, I think it's a great point.

And there's, you know, when you look back at, say, twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, just when the popular podcasting boom started to happen, you know, that, that, that time when everyone said podcasting was booming, and you'd sort of start to see that, okay, it's going to, like you said, people project. It's going to hit a billion, two billion, whatever else. But in many ways, that was a much simpler time.

And I'm thinking realistically of two, two major perspectives that highlight that. The first one being the video complication wasn't there. There was just no video complication at all.

You know, because right now, when we think about what's the podcast advertising industry worth, or even the entire industry, you know, on the whole, including assets and whatever else as part of the industry, none of that really included video. You know, the. Now we've got to start to say, well, does that include, you know, our video podcaster?

Thing is, if I put my podcast on YouTube, is that revenue accountable? There's so many different layers to it.

And then the second layer is the idea that way back then, if you think about, you know, advertisers doing ad spends and the allocating marketing budget, they're allocating advertising budget per year. At that point, podcasting was a punt, and it even still is to many advertisers now. You know, the early adopters have been in there.

You're starting to get much more accessible businesses now thinking about advertising. In podcasting back then, everything was sort of a bit of a punt.

They didn't really have to argue for renewal of budgets because it was, well, we're going to try podcasting as a percentage of ad spend now. Fast forward five, six, seven, eight, ten years. The boardroom looks more like, well, why are we. Can you justify continuing to advertise on podcasts?

Because what's the ROI? How are we measuring this? What are the deliverables?

So it just feels like the industry has actually shifted since those, quote, unquote exciting times. And I'm flippantly saying quote, unquote exciting, because we hear this every single year. But times have changed, haven't they, Rob?

Like, it's not, it's not as simple anymore as just look how exciting this is. And where we're going. Actually, there are challenges now that will affect where this will go. It's not just open season anymore.

Rob Greenlee: 00:14:01

Yeah, I think that the big question in the industry right now is what do we all consider a podcast to be?

And I think if we're tracking numbers on revenue based on a very kind of historical and narrow definition of what a podcast is, those numbers, those revenue numbers are probably going to be held back based on that, because the audience is. It doesn't care about that. It doesn't care about that. They, they listen to it off of an RSS feed.

They don't care that, that the industry doesn't consider a podcast to be something that's on YouTube and the audience just wants the content. Right. And. And so at some point we have to decide, you know, if we're a big ten, big tent medium, right? Or are we a small tent medium?

And I think to some degree, taking the mentality of the past and applying it to the present is kind of putting our head in the sand about what is really going on in the market. And I think I've been talking about this for the last, probably the last year, but I do think.

And podcasting does have a history with video that goes back to the early days of podcasting. They were whole startup companies that started in the early days of podcasting that were just doing video podcast.

That's, that's putting a MP3 file or an MP4 file into an RSS feed. And I do that today with two of the shows that I do is that I have an audio feed and I have a video feed.

Now, granted, this isn't the solution to increasing the revenue for, for these, you know, for the advertising industry and podcasts. I'm not saying that RSS with video is the answer.

I'm just saying that we have to think about how broad do we want this definition of the word podcast to be? And then we can have this discussion about what do we pile into that? Do we count revenue from YouTube?

Do we count increasing video revenue from Spotify, as Spotify calls the video on their platform video podcasts? YouTube doesn't really call video on their platform video podcasts.

So it's, they are using that term to describe a playlist, but I don't know that that's, that's in their, their terminology that they're, they're using. And I do feel like RSS is a little bit under threat right now.

And I think we've seen trends in the industry that have been, I know, since the very early days. And Mark, you may remember this, when Spotify entered the market, they wanted to cache all the episodes, right?

So they just wanted to capture the file out of the RSS feed and redistribute it. Facebook wanted to do that too.

When they entered podcasting and the industry, we, as the host providers, I used to work for a bunch of different podcast hosting platforms. We pushed back against Spotify and says, well, we'll only give you access to our shows if you make it a pass through, right?

And, and this is the argument that happened with YouTube too, is we want it to be passed through on the audio side. But the problem with YouTube is that YouTube doesn't want audio. They want to take audio and convert it into a video.

So the whole concept of pass through really doesn't work that well on the YouTube platform.

So anyway, that's kind of a long winded story because this is a complicated topic and I don't know that the industry has really got their, their heads around it. You know, I think the content creators and the audience are moving in one direction and the industry is moving in another.

Mark: 00:17:45

Well, I also think that Spotify is starting to lap everyone without the industry knowing.

Rob Greenlee: 00:17:50

I feel like Apple's losing market share fast. Right, Absolutely.

Mark: 00:17:54

And, you know, everyone, you know, from the hosting companies onwards are arguing about what's a podcast. And I tell you who's not arguing about it, and you alluded to it, is the customer.

The customer is not arguing about what a podcast is because they don't care. And the fact of the matter is, Spotify has understood that.

And everyone talks about Spotify being the big bad because they're putting this wall garden up and so on and whatever else. But, you know, ultimately, why would you not if you're Spotify, you know, I'm not advocating for, you know, I love open rss.

I've got, I run a business that builds RSS feed. Like, we have the most to lose.

Rob Greenlee: 00:18:32

Yeah, course.

Mark: 00:18:33

But it's, it's, it's, it's not needed. It's not needed. I wrote about this in twenty eighteen and I got lambasted.

Rob Greenlee: 00:18:40

I know you did.

Mark: 00:18:42

I really did. By people that we all know and love and respect for them. But they're like, no, you're an idiot. You don't know where it's going.

I was like, well, we'll see. Fast forward. We can submit via API. We could read JSON files. We could do ever. It's just a delivery method.

And I'm not saying I would want it to go away or I don't respect its heritage. What I'm saying is that unless we start thinking like that and talking like that, they're going to keep lapping us.

They're going to keep lapping us because the thing that Spotify are really good at, regardless of whether we agree or not, the people that pay them agree, which is they're good at experience. You know, they're good at experience. And yeah, there's nuance to their podcast ui. And the UX is not dedicated to podcasting.

But it doesn't matter because the experience is good enough. It's like the Evernote problem. All right, Evernote has perennially been in trouble because notes is good enough. A pen is good enough.

Evernote's amazing. But is it worth paying for? No. And it's the same issue. It has to be a Compelling offer to take you elsewhere when you're a general audio lover.

And that's what Spotify like it all that has really done well, Danny. The.

The argument around video is fascinating as well, because if we continue to fight this, it's not really a podcast unless it's delivered via rss, and it's, you know. You know, some people will say, unless it's audio only. The.

The longer we argue that, the more our customers are listening to other things because there are videos from the other creators and not us. We're sort of arguing. So, like you, you are deep in podcasting, mate. Like you, you create more podcasts than anyone that I know.

Where do you stand on this? The whole, I suppose two questions. Number one, the whole video as podcasting, you know, and that as a. As a mechanism to podcast.

But number two, like, the inclusion of video in the net value of the industry, like, where does that sit with you, Danny?

Mark: 00:20:41

Yeah, but. So my wife, she does a lot of driving, takes the kids to sports activities, so they have a lot of audio in the car. She's got Audible.

She calls it a podcast.

She's listening to an audio book, but she comes back and says, hey, I listened to this great podcast on the way down to Barrie to drop the kids off. What was it? And she says, oh, but that's a book by Stephen King. Yeah, but it's a podcast because I'm listening to it, so nobody cares, right?

It's like, does that make your hair curl?

Mark: 00:21:06

Sorry to interrupt, but I'm just imagining you, like, kicking off when she gets back.

Danny: 00:21:10

Yeah, no, well, I don't have any hairs to curl. But, yeah, if I did. Nah, you know what?

Maybe five, six years ago, I might have been really protective and pretentious and, you know, saying, it's only podcast if it's on RSS and it's audio only. But at the end of the day, like. Like you've both said, quite rightly, the consumer doesn't care, right?

They just want content and whatever that's on demand. If it's video, if it's audio, if it's an audio audible book, whatever it is, that's what they want.

I do agree with Rob and yourself, Mark, that we have to include video when it comes to revenue. The problem with the IAB stats, I think that's the IAB one, is the one that's like the two point one billion worth, if I recall.

But I think the problem with that is they're probably concentrating more on the audio kind of side of stuff because YouTube's measurement is a bit different from obviously the IAB measurement and what counts as a playlist and view, et cetera. And I've said it to podcasters at events and that if you're looking for sponsors, you have to include all your audience. Touchpoints.

If you've got a newsletter with five hundred people, include that. That's five hundred valuable people to a sponsor. If you've got fifteen hundred on social, if you got like two hundred on a Discord community, include all that.

If you got a YouTube channel, include that. Because it's your audience, it's all your audience and they'll consume whatever they want to consume, where they want to consume it. Right?

So we have to include that. And I think that's when we start to really.

If you look at the money Spotify spent over the last five years and they just renewed, obviously Joe Rogan got renewal, Amazon's put a good chunk of money up for the Kelce brothers, et cetera. So we have to include all the different areas that, that are providing content.

When we're looking at the industry, the valuation I feel to give it a true representation of how much this industry is actually worth to bring more people into and can continue bringing good people and good companies into the space.

Mark: 00:23:00

One of the interesting challenges I feel then, so you know, I mentioned earlier that if you're Spotify, why would you not wall garden it? Because your goal, and I'm using Spotify as the big elephant in the room, the big example.

But any first party platform, things like this, why would, why would you not want people consuming things on your app?

Why would you not want people doing the things that you want them to do so that you can measure those things and then tell the advertisers more and more about those people so that targeting works better, so that interaction and engagement works better, so that ad spend can be measured more accurately.

Rob, I feel like as we see the fracturing of, I want to say, I don't want to say the fracturing of podcasting, but it's becoming more of a creator economy. Spotify last week, it's not Spotify for Podcasters, it's Spotify for Creators.

Because that line is getting blurred and way more blurred every single week as creators start to work, and I'm wording this very carefully, start to work with fractured toolkits across the range of what could be deemed to be a podcast. And measurement across each of these platforms is very different.

You know, Spotify first party data, Apple first party data versus IAB track downloads which then raises the question of anonymity. Opt in, opt out of training. And we've seen these arguments before. How do we balance that problem of advertisers?

Need more, want more, will always want more.

In terms of targeting, specificity, measurement, analytics, data, how do we measure that against the difficulty in evolving the open podcasting space to meet those needs?

Rob Greenlee: 00:25:02

I'm probably going to say something that maybe is contrary to my. My beliefs on.

On, especially if you look at my history in the medium and what I've done and what I've advocated for, is that I think we are coming into a new era in podcasting. And I think the unfortunate thing is, is that podcasting, by the definition that we have embraced and loved over the years, is. Is likely going away.

I mean, it's not. And it's going away for some business reasons. It's going away for audience reasons.

But in some ways, I think what we're doing is we're coming out of a shell, right? Or a bubble might be a way of saying it. And it's going to make people uncomfortable.

Like a lot of things that are going on in the world right now that are making people very uncomfortable. This is a time of change and a time of shift. And I think we may be moving into this because I feel it myself, being a.

Being a creator, I create a lot of content, too, and I did that intentionally because I could see this shift happening and this change happening, and for me to understand it, I had to be involved in it. And. And so that's why I'm doing what I'm doing right now. And. And it's. It just feels like we're. We are beginning the early stages of moving.

Being a creator, Mark, like you said, to be much more broad in its perspective. I think we're already there, actually. And thinking of yourself as a podcaster, we have a choice as an industry.

We can either be a big tent industry or we can be a small tent industry. And it was said on stage at Podcast Movement in Washington, D.C. by Stephen Bartlett, who does a gigantic show on YouTube and is also a podcaster.

This phrase that he said just lodged in my brain, and I can't forget it, is that he felt that podcasting was a small medium, you know, was small. That was the comment that he made. And being a YouTube creator, he thinks that the opportunity of that is vast and broad and significant. Right.

But he saw that the audio side was small, and I had to really step back. And I think. Is that really true? I mean, is this very popular Creator stating something that's right in front of us that we're not seeing.

I'm not saying small from the perspective of audience. I'm not saying that.

I think podcasting is still huge, and it's been growing and the audience numbers are still growing, but in the minds of creators and in the minds of audiences, I think video is now, and I think to some degree, it has always been larger than audio.

And I think when you combine that with what we're seeing with mainstream media, kind of failing of sorts, and what we just went through with this presidential cycle was the significance of podcasting in driving a presidential election was significant this time. And this has been building for many years. I mean. I mean, a president being on a podcast is not something new.

But I think what's new here is the audience that's been gained for those presidents, and the reach that it has now is at a point where it's a mainstream media platform.

I think what we have right now with podcasting, and we as an industry just have to decide do we want to be part of the future or do we want to be considered small? And. And I think that's. That's the choice that we have.

Mark: 00:28:51

I would also. I agree with that, all of that. And I. I feel that the.

The role of video, and we've talked about this before, Danny, you and I, the role of video in podcasting can differ between the idea of video being a content method, you know, a delivery mechanism. I. E. I will take my podcast and I will put it on YouTube, or I'll take my YouTube video and I'll make a podcast RSS feed out of it.

I know a lot that do that. Like the Johnny Mitchell the Connect show does that. And it's.

It's to the detriment sometimes of the listener experience, because it's clear that the audio is pulled from the YouTube video, but with a tiny bit of editing, it can be just as good. And I. I just feel that the other side of it, Danny, again, you and I have spoken about. And Rob, I know you'll be. You'll.

That you'll be cognizant of this as well, is the idea of platforms like, you know, Instagram with The Reels feature, YouTube shorts, TikTok, the role that they play in the marketability of a podcast.

You know, if we use Stephen Bartlett as the example, you know, podcasting small, but he's built an amplification and marketing agency, very recently launched the Davina McCall Show. But actually, it's a way of launching A person as a creator across a range of outlets and building that brand reach.

And yeah, absolutely, you will get podcast downloads from that, you will receive that. But I also might consume your Entire podcast in 30 second bite side bits on Tik Tok.

So at least get the salient bits, you know, the Blinkist style, salient pieces of the puzzle from Tik Tok because they're the bits that go a little bit viral, although we think will go viral, so we stick them on Tik Tok. And so what happens there is you, you become part of this awareness cycle. I've done it with the Michael Rosenbaum podcast. I'm a huge Smallville fan.

He's the best Lex in, in the Superman on screen canon, shall we say? At least he's got a podcast, interviews, loads of specific people, actors, whatever.

And all I do is I see it on Tick Tock or I see it not on Tik Tok. Actually I see on usually Instagram took me two years, Rob, but eventually I was driving along and I thought I could do with a.

Could do with a new podcast to listen to. And eventually the recall kicked in from Instagram and I searched for his podcast and I listened to the full EP and now I listen to them.

So I suppose the point that I'm getting at here is that when you're trying to value the industry, when you're trying to look at the where the industry is and how we look at this from an advertising perspective, the independence in my view have always been aggregating brand reach.

When we're going to direct sponsors, if you're a small creator and a sponsor, a local sponsor comes to you and says, well, I'd like to chuck a little bit of money at you to get my butchers out there and try and get it into the world.

And you've got a local podcast, how much your pitch is always, well, I've got these amount of downloads, as you said, Danny X amount of newsletter subscribers, these on Twitter, these on Facebook. We've always done brand reach. But now everyone, even at the highest level, that's going in pitch decks, you know.

So if you work with Stephen Bartlett's agency, for example, I would imagine it will be, we'll get you these downloads, we'll get you these YouTube subscribers, we'll get you these views on TikTok, we'll get you these on reels, we'll get you these on Facebook. And to fit that bill, you already have to have a bit of a platform to amplify that content yourself as well.

And that's A really different offer that then, you know, further down the line, it hits the issue of how do you value the industry? Because actually, and this is another point of.

I suppose the next point of comment for you guys is, is the perception of a podcast now, just the fact that I am talent. I put an interview out with someone and it. That's a podcast, no matter how I watch it, listen to it or consume it, it's the fact it's an interview.

And I just like, have we got to that? I don't know.

Rob Greenlee: 00:32:54

Yeah, I think we have. I, I think that's, that's really the.

If you want to put the cherry on top of the whole issue, I think that's, that's it right there is that the audience thinks that they're watching or listening to a podcast and, and it doesn't really matter to them how it's delivered to them and in what form and what duration. Each individual consumer of content likes short form versus long form.

They like the vertical videos because they can sit there and look at their phone mindlessly and scroll through videos as an escape from the world. And then there's other people that are very intentional about pulling up a long form content and watching it on their big screen tv.

So, you know, that's the spectrum that we've got here to deal with. And I think the industry is trying to hold on to what has been what they architected themselves to embrace as a business. Right.

And, and I think that makes sense. But there is a whole nother side of this that, you know, do we want the name podcast to basically describe all online media, Right.

Or do we want podcasting just described just audio? And I think that's the, that's the top of the line question that we all have to think about.

And I think increasingly the market is deciding that for us. And, and I think it's going towards people wanting to, to see podcasting as a, as a much broader definition.

And I think if we don't do that, then we risk losing the significance of the word podcast in the world. And when we go back to the terminologies that television have used, which is a show, right?

And a lot of people embrace that and that may be where we're going. And I think we're also heading towards a dominance, and I think we're already there to some degree.

We just don't like to see it is the dominance of proprietary walled garden platforms. And once you start getting down that path, then open RSS starts to be a question mark. Right.

And especially if there's winnowing down of consumption apps that can embrace the distribution of content.

As we see Spotify and YouTube really start to dominate the market and Apple is losing market share, is that there is a shift going on and it's a shift going on over to platforms that are embracing more video. That's the common thread.

Mark: 00:35:38

An interesting point there, which is sort of just flicked a little switch in my brain around how we articulate this is, you know, if you think, think about like the entrepreneur gurus, you know, let's use those as a great example. They always say go where your audience is. And that's actually now just what podcasting is doing.

If you create, let's, let's use that top level word of show. You create a show and if someone said to you, do you know what?

You can put that show in a place that gets you a hundred downloads or you can put it in two places that gets you five hundred. Or you could sort of do three, that'll probably get you a thousand. Like you're just going to put it in the three, aren't you?

And I think that's where we end up with this, is that you, you do create almost by design and a platform agnostic show and a piece of content that you just take to where your audience is. Because you know my, this is potentially a generational thing as well. Like my mum is always gonna, she's just gonna put the radio on. That's cool.

But she does like a bit of YouTube so she'll watch the thing on YouTube and I'll probably listen to it in the car, which is fine. I'm. I only watch golf stuff on YouTube. Got to try and get better.

But like my wife Sam, she probably spends more time watching TikTok than she does talking to me, which is probably testament to my entertainment value. But the point is she, we where we go where the audience is and no one's going to say no to that.

All we're doing is taking the thing that we've created and saying well, do you know what? We as a creator will come to you.

Whereas I think a lot of the time in podcasting certainly, you know, if we think probably the same like websites and stuff, but like we always used to think it was a build and they will come and it's clearly not the case. So. Yeah, thank you. That's. That's actually sort of flick to switch in terms of how I would articulate the way the industry. So. Thanks Rob.

Danny, a quick one for you. In order to keep this Value rolling through. We've got to become, we've got to become more valuable to advertisers. Right?

We've got to become more valuable to advertisers. How the heck, as a packed out creator do we make sure that, yeah, we've got a bit of value in our audio. How the heck do we make our video valuable?

How do we make that thirty second video on TikTok just as valuable as a thirty minute video on YouTube? And I, you know, we might not have the answer.

I'm just sort of thinking out loud here because it just, it feels like for the creator, every time there's a shift in the industry, it requires more money to take advantage of it. And the indie creator sat in the bedroom creating, doesn't have that and doesn't have the time. So I don't know, what's your take on that?

Danny: 00:38:31

Yeah, it's interesting. You use that example.

There's a podcaster over in Calgary, where I was earlier this year for the PodSummit event, called Jeff Humphreys and he's got a podcast called the Calgary Sessions. And basically what he does, it's a video and audio podcast, but he doesn't really promote the full length version of the video podcast.

He creates shorts for TikTok, for reels, et cetera, for shorts. And he promotes them and he uses a top level show call to action. If you want to watch my show, it's on YouTube.

If you want to listen to my show, it's on your podcast app. That's it. But he will use podcast and show interchangeably and he'll only create little shots and then drive that back really to the audio version.

And again he tells. And these like these shorts, these little videos get hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok with every single one.

And he showed that he did a talk at the Live Record and then a bit of a talk at the Pod Summit event and he showed how that actually drove traffic back to the audio version, which was really impressive to see. So that's quite interesting, you know, on that topic there.

Yeah, I feel like for an indie podcaster that doesn't have a lot of money to put into a top of the range, mirrorless Sony camera and you know, the best editing software, etc. The good news is there's lots of videos on YouTube, ironically, get off podcast and go YouTube and watch how we make a short.

But there's lots of education out there how to, you know, maybe adjust light and stuff like that. There's lots of great AI tools now that will create Opus, for example, and they'll create clips. Headliner does it. Others done it for years.

So there are ways.

I think the main thing is to make the best product that you can and then grow a real loyal audience around that, because it's your loyal audience that's going to make you attractive to sponsors and revenue coming in, and that's where more revenue will start to come in from big brands, smaller brands, local, you know, for hyper local advertising and sponsorship, there's so much untapped stuff at hyperlocal level that I feel that's where the industry's got a real opportunity to counter and combat, say, other platforms and other revenue going out of the way, if that makes sense.

Mark: 00:40:34

Yeah, it does. I think it might come. It's sort of coming back full circle.

Rob, if you, you know, we've always said that everyone said that, you know, loyal listeners build the brand, you know, the whole classic. You know, if you got a hundred people in a room turned up every single week for you, be delighted, like, and it's all valuable stuff. But, you know, this.

I feel like it's like the old space shuttle. You know, we've been the rockets and the fuel tanks.

The audio podcasting has been the rockets and the fuel tanks, and the shuttle of podcasting is now leaving us in the atmosphere. And, you know, we're falling back to Earth. And we'll keep creating.

We'll still keep building those things and building the loyal brands and the loyal audiences that love these brands, but, you know, we'll never get out of orbit. That's as far as we can go. And it just. It feels like the split. The split might not be a bad thing.

You know, the rest of the industry taking off can only turn people on to the fact that podcasting exists. So I'm fascinated by all of this. We are going to switch segments in a second, but, Rob, any final thoughts on that overall?

Rob Greenlee: 00:41:36

Yeah, I think the analogy you just played out was really interesting around the analogy of what's happening in the podcasting space with a rocket. Right. A multistage rocket.

And in some ways, I think that's what's happened here, is that we launched, and it really ties into a lot of the historical aspects of technology, too. And that's the other part of this, too.

As we saw through the years, podcasting was a medium that had its time under the open RSS and the download for bandwidth restriction, and so that's why it happened the way it did. And then it's just evolved over time. And and it's the expectation of the advertisers.

And I do think that the advertisers have an out weighted influence on the direction of all this. And I'm not sure that they're always a positive influence on the direction of independent media or podcasting.

I think that this is one of the things that got in the way of broadcast radio and broadcast media in general is that those companies started to think about catering more to the advertisers than they did to the audience.

Now, I think to some degree, broadcast television and commercial radio have been very good at creating content that connected with people, creating community.

There's a lot of things that I think podcasting can learn from the legacy media, but there's a lot of things that they shouldn't learn from legacy media too at the same time, and that's one of them is the over commercialization. Because in a lot of ways one of the reasons podcasting even exists today is a, is a rejection of over commercialization.

And I think that some degree that is also impacting podcasting today is that I think the very large shows, the ones that the advertisers tend to gravitate towards supporting in a, in a significant way over supporting independent creators or smaller creators on a much larger scale. They have weighted the, the, the impression that audiences have had around advertising and podcasting.

And the research is over the last probably three or four years I've been tracking it in the Edison research, is that we're increasingly seeing pushback from audiences, saying that maybe there are increasing amounts of ad load that is making me push back on this and say, well, maybe that's too much.

And so I think with the decline of mainstream media shifting their energies over to podcasting or online media, I think that that revenue focus, that advertising focus is influencing the industry in a significant way now. And that's also going to drive the move towards the industry moving more towards walled garden proprietary platforms increasingly.

And I think that's what we're seeing happen. So if we cater to the advertisers first with everything in the industry, then we may lose sight of why this medium exists to begin with.

And then also are we losing sight of the audience side of this and creating probably less than optimal experiences for audiences and that may come back and bite us. So I don't know what you guys think about all that, but that's, that's a historical look and a future look.

Mark: 00:45:14

I think it's fascinating. I think we should, I think we should dive deeper into that on another episode to Be completely honest. I think we could.

Even that aspect of it is, warrants an hour chat.

But I think just to kind of summarize my initial view on that, I think the challenge is always that, you know, the advertisers want more ad load and we want more money in the industry.

But in order to do that, we either increase the ad load and annoy the audience, which is potentially attritional, but then the only other way to do it is to increase the audience size and thus give them more options, more shows, more opportunity to advertise on different things. And I think the fortunate thing is that the audience saturation is not yet. It continues to grow.

The number of podcasts or shows that people consume on a weekly basis has got masses and masses of room for growth.

You know, even if we stop thinking about gaining new people listening to podcasts, the number of shows that each person can listen to in any given week is not near saturation. So I think we should do another. We should certainly do another session on that because I think we could revisit that and go deep into that one.

We are coming up to time, but we're going to finish on one of our wonderful segments, which. Danny, I'm a bit nervous about this. You're in charge of the soundboard today, are you? You want like a drum roll on this one? What are we doing?

Danny: 00:46:36

I'm going to go for it. Just go. Brace yourselves, lads.

Mark: 00:46:45

The flattering ram. Now, Rob, this is where we finish on a high. We give a shout out on every episode to something or someone that we just love in podcasting.

I'll give you an example. I could just shout out and flatter Harry Duran's wonderful hair just because I love it. It doesn't need to be anything crazy.

It can be something as beautiful as that, or it can be someone doing amazing work, someone that builds platforms, builds content, work in community, or whatever you feel is valuable. So being our esteemed co host, the flattering ram is with you, my friend.

Rob Greenlee: 00:47:24

Well, I, I'm really a fan of Arielle Nissenblatt in, in what she's doing.

You know, she left the Descript platform and I think it kind of gave her wings of sorts to, to do, do something new and to have an increased kind of, kind of impact on the medium. And, and it's not unlike what I did. I've. I'm not working for any particular company right now and I'm doing.

Doing my own thing and still doing a lot of the same things that I'VE done when I was working for a company. So it's, it hasn't changed a lot.

But it's going to be interesting to see Arielle, actually, she just wrote me, so it's, it, it was top of mind on that as she's demonstrating, you know, her, her work in the medium and in her collective that she has the Earbuds Collective, which is something that if she left a full time role, she could fall back and do that. And I think that's the key to survival these days is to always have a backup plan at all times.

So there's a lot of layoffs going on in the industry continuing and there's a lot of people out there that are, that used to work for large companies and small companies that are, that are starting out on their own and having to do things for themselves, you know, so it, it is a significant shift moment for podcasting, just to take it back to that. And, and there are a lot of terrific people in the industry. Mark and Danny, you two are having a very positive impact on the medium as well.

And that's, that's the big reason why I do the Hall of Fame is to, is to showcase people that are, that are fantastic. And that's, that's a positive thing for me and it's a positive thing for the medium. So, Arielle, thank you.

Mark: 00:49:14

That's very kind, my friend, and we appreciate the kind words. And yeah, Arielle, we love. We've got a lot of.

In fact, Danny, I would say that if we were to run a leaderboard, which would actually be quite cool with the Flattering Ram, we probably would find Arielle pretty close to the top of that one.

Danny: 00:49:27

I would say so. Yep, most definitely.

Mark: 00:49:31

Danny, who you shouting out this week?

Mark: 00:49:32

We always.

Mark: 00:49:33

You always shout someone out, don't you?

Danny: 00:49:35

Yeah, I saw you. That's my pay for the show. This is my revenue. I'm actually gonna, I'm actually gonna give you a quick shout, Mark, for your analogies.

I feel you bring like your A game when you use analogies and I always get entertained when you make an example like the, the space shuttle. Yep, I, I like that one. So, yeah, that's my shout out today.

Mark: 00:49:56

Thanks, mate. My brain works in weird ways. I am like the classic ADHD talker.

Like there, there is, there is a lot of wild stuff goes on in my head and sometimes it comes out in weird orders. But analogies are a strong suit. So thank you. I appreciate that. All right, lovelies, we are going to wrap up right there.

I think my mic's a bit close to my mouth today, Danny, so good luck.

Danny: 00:50:18

Get that proximity effect.

Mark: 00:50:19

Good luck. I know, right? I feel like I'm distorting. I feel like I'm some sort of old rock star getting the overdrive going today.

I am also quote unquote, professional podcaster, so eat that distortion. This has been a fun episode. I've really enjoyed it.

Like I said earlier on, you can find us at InAndAroundPodcasting.com you can get us and choose where you want to listen at InAndAroundPodcasting.com/listen and of course you can tell your friends all about us, Danny. Always a pleasure, sir.

Danny: 00:50:49

Have a good one. Thank you again everyone for listening in.

Rob Greenlee: 00:50:52

Thank you.

Mark: 00:50:54

Thank you, Rob. Always a pleasure. We will be back with another session. Rob, I think we should do that again and dive a bit deeper into some other aspects of that.

So thank you, sir. Congratulations on all you've done and all you continue to do for the industry. We love you and appreciate it, my friend.

And to everyone else, bye bye for now.