The Future of Podcast Networks

Danny Brown: 00:00:12

Hi and welcome to In and Around Podcasting, the podcast industry show that shares powerful podcasting perspectives. I'm one half of your regular co hosts, Danny Brown, head of podcast support and experience here at Captivate.

My other co host isn't here today, unfortunately got called away at the last minute. Just a quick little emergency with his daughter feeling not too great at daycare or school. I'm not sure which she's at at the moment.

So hopefully Dot's feeling a lot better, Mark.

But we do have a great co host, guest co host today to talk about a topic that's getting a bit more traction online and in the industry, and that's about branded networks, large podcast networks, and where the opportunity might be for podcasters that might not quite have the numbers that would attract these larger networks and production studios. So to discuss that, I've got a great guest. He's one of my favorite people online, very vocal when it comes to indies in the podcasting industry.

Frank Racioppi, welcome to In and Around Podcasting.

Frank Racioppi: 00:01:09

Oh, Danny, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk about this topic. This is indeed one of my favorite topics, so thank you.

Danny Brown: 00:01:17

No, for sure. And one of the things that I do like, I kind of missed it there at this intro there.

You're one of my favorite people in the space that isn't actually a podcaster as well, or not a current podcaster. So who is Frank and what's your background there, mate?

Frank Racioppi: 00:01:31

Well, thanks for asking. So, quite succinctly, I'm Frank Racioppi. I am the manager and owner of Earworthy.

It is a podcast review recommendation and industry trends publication. We're in a variety of different websites, publications on social media and content aggregators.

So if you're out looking, you should definitely find us. We can be found at Earworthy.com or at Podilization on Substack. And we're just moving to Kit as well. So look for us under Earworthy.

You'll be able to find us and we'll be glad to have you.

Danny Brown: 00:02:13

And obviously I'll leave all that information in the show notes.

And speaking of show notes, remember, if you are listening to this on your favorite podcast app, recommend it to your friends or people in the industry that you feel would enjoy the show. Or you can find us over at in and around podcasting dot com. Catch up on all the old episodes there as well as where to find us online.

You can find us at in and Around, I believe on X. I haven't been on X. For a little while. So I could be wrong, but this is where Mark would be telling you all the correct info.

But, yeah, just in and around podcast and you'll find us online there. But yeah, it's an interesting topic.

And just to give a bit of a background to our listeners, there's recently there's been a lot more talk about podcasting networks and opportunities for podcasters and indie podcasters in particular, that may not have, say, the download numbers that you would normally expect to need if you wanted to attract advertisers and make, you know, a decent chunk of revenue with advertisers.

To counter this, Liam Heffernan, who is on the podcast recently just found, has founded an independent podcast network called Mercury that is geared solely towards indie podcasters and trying to go toe to toe with the big boys, so to speak. And we'll talk about what Mercury is doing and what they're doing and how well they're doing it shortly.

But, Frank, one of the quick questions I sort of wanted to open the episode with is how do you see, with your background and with your publications and how you see the industry moving, where do you feel the current state of large branded networks and let's mix in production studios, because sometimes it can be a fine line between production houses and production studios and networks. Where you see the current state of large branding networks and how they're maybe dominating in ad revenue and audience share.

Frank Racioppi: 00:04:00

That's a good question.

And I think to try to be succinct here for those large networks and studios, Tenderfoot TV and so forth, they are in the same cycle as the other media formats.

So I want to step back and say, if you look at what's happening in other media formats, for example, in movies, what do we see in movies over the last five years? What we see is derivative ip, which is rather than put out movies that are unique in nature, what do we have? We have a new Marvel movie.

We have movies that basically are sequels to other movies. This is derivative ip. We see that in. In books as well.

And so the same thing, I think, has happened with the networks in podcasting, which is they've looked around and said, you know, we know what works in these formats. So they've kind of come up with a formula. And the formula seems to be find a celebrity.

It doesn't have to be a celebrity of great note, somebody who has enough following or social media following in order to. For them to attract an audience, come up with a topic, put the two together, and then put on a show and you know, that's what's happening.

If you look at what's going on on some of these networks, they're basically taking a celebrity, coming up with a topic, these topics are fairly derivative as well, and then putting them together and basically they're almost guaranteed some level of success. You have people who have some name recognition, so right away they're going to get some attention just from the name recognition itself.

And so that's a lot of what's going on as far as the networks. And what do you think? Do you, do you see that as well, Danny?

Danny Brown: 00:06:05

,: 2020

Pandemic was here and people were looking for things to do and obviously listen to podcasts is one of the things to do. And that's when you saw obviously the Joe Rogan deal, the Caller Daddy deal, et cetera.

So there was a lot of, you know, success for well known names in podcasts, moving some from say, video to audio, et cetera, or doing an audio version and continuing with the video. So there's definitely success there.

And if you once like you say, it's like any medium, once you see something that works, you want to repeat that, you want that, that, you know, secret sauce and that magic recipe to be repeated for your own project. So you look at Disney had great success with the MCU, D.C. had less success, or Warner Brothers had less success with the DC comics universe.

So you got the Superman and the Batman movies and the justice league and etc. Because obviously fans are different and listeners and consumers of content are different as to what they're like.

So I do see that maybe we got in a cycle where there was a lot of, because it's a well known name that might make it easier to launch a new show and to attract, you know, an audience right away.

Do you think that still you mentioned other medium forms as well there, Frank, and how maybe they're struggling a little bit because to come up with original IP and original content, it shows that there might be an audience for it, but it doesn't always attract the amount of audience needed to make the content profitable because of the amount of people involved in the show. Do you think that's something where maybe we're seeing layoffs in the industry at the moment?

Frank Racioppi: 00:07:56

Oh yeah. I mean, absolutely. I mean the layoffs in the media industry in general are all over from podcasting to film, to tv, to publishing.

So that happens all over. And I think part of that is because these companies want to maximize their investment without a great deal of risk.

I'll just use movies for an example and counterpoint that to starting a podcast. When you're making a movie and you add, like you said about the mcu, if you're making even a modest superhero movie, the budget is $150 million.

That's a huge investment. And so you want to find IP that you at least guarantee you can cover your costs.

Now flip that to podcasting and look at some of the networks that have produced somewhat derivative shows simply because it's a safe investment. And I'll give you an example of one which is definitely a safe investment. Take us.

Two celebrities that were on a TV show 20 years ago create a Rewatch podcast where they talk about episodes from that show and you've got almost a guaranteed success because you've got enough people that remember the show.

I don't want to mention one that came out recently, but there is one and I looked at some of the numbers and they have fairly decent download numbers. Rewatch podcasts are generally very successful, but they're more successful when they have the celebrity.

There's a couple of great Rewatch podcasts by people who hosted, have done a great job, who no one really knows their names, and I think they're far better than the celebrity one.

But no one really knows that because they're hard to find because they get lost in the shuffle of, oh, these are the two people that were actually on the show and they're doing this new podcast and the next thing you know, people are gravitating towards that. So it's rough for them.

But one thing I want to add because I you mentioned Joe Rogan and there was an article last year in the Hollywood Reporter that I think did a real disservice to independent podcasters.

And in the article, and there's been a lot of articles in the last couple years saying, you know, podcasting is really taking off, it's becoming more popular. I believe now it's well over $2 billion in advertising revenue. And so now these other media companies are taking notice, but to them.

So for the Hollywood Reporter, their take was, look at all these huge, well known podcasts and how well they're doing and they're getting large numbers of downloads and listeners.

Well, that sort of skews the whole concept because yes, sure, Joe Rogan and the Caller Daddy get a lot of downloads, certainly a lot but and I got this from Acast the other day, at any given time when people are listening to podcasts, 80% of all people listening to podcasts, 80% are listening to independent podcasts. So Joe Rogan may get a million or so downloads, but there are so many other terrific. And there's a great number of them independent podcasts.

His number is swamped by the number of people listening to these other podcasts. People don't, you know, get a sense of how strong the listening audience is out from for these independent podcasts.

Danny Brown: 00:11:27

Well, and that brings me on to the point of the indie podcast, the network. I mean, I want to make sure that we don't look at larger podcast networks as the bad guys, because obviously they're not.

There's great podcasts on there, there's great production teams, there's great shows and there's really solid quality. And much like anything, there's shows that counter that, that aren't so good.

And maybe it's the fact that there's, if a celeb was brought on or someone with a known audience or name wasn't a podcaster, though it's a very different thing from being an actor or a talk show.

Maybe not so much a talk show host, but an actor or a novelist or something like that, as opposed to being someone, a podcaster that can carry an episode and, you know, entertain the audience on a podcast. It's a bit different.

So maybe it's just the fact that it was too much for the person to, to manage or to take on as opposed to what they're normally used to in their day job as an actor, you know, so it may be, I just want to make that clear because I really didn't want us to be, you know, pounding down on big networks. But it does make me wonder.

Then you mentioned obviously, the skewed numbers when you get say the top 1% of podcasts that account for X amount of millions of listeners and downloads, etc.

And then you get the, the indie podcast and you've also got that audience in between, like the middle class podcaster that James Crilland I believe, coined that, or certainly talks about a lot on Pod News where these are getting really respectable numbers, but they're not seen as getting respectable numbers because you're now comparing them to, well, you're not getting 20,000 downloads or 100,000 or 1 million like these guys over here.

So I'm wondering if that's where the opportunity for an indie podcast network and indie networks or indie production houses that focus on indie creators has an option to come into the industry and sort of stir things up. So I know you've been on your earworthy publication, Frank.

I know you talk about this a lot and you recommend what indie shows, branded podcasts or sponsors should work with or buy or, you know, sponsored, et cetera. So what are you seeing? What's your take on that?

Frank Racioppi: 00:13:34

Well, first of all, I have to go back and agree that I'm not trying to characterize the big networks and the studios as necessarily bad guys. However.

And I'll add a however, here they have the opportunity, like Liam in the Mercury Network, instead of adding the current podcasts that they are, the shows that they are, to draw in to their network these very high quality independent podcasts in which they could make as much revenue and maybe even more so than they currently do with these networks.

I don't know the economics behind what Liam did with Mercury as far as drawing them all in together, but if you look at some of these independent podcasts, like you said, that have modest numbers, but the difference is that they have a great deal of listener loyalty. I mean, as some people tend to forget that podcasting started with a niche audience.

You know, there are not a lot of people that started podcasting with this broad general audience, if you remember, from 20 years ago, and I do remember, a lot of these podcasts were very niche. One of the first podcasts that's been around, I think 20 years is film spotting and it's a movie review podcast. It's still going strong.

Those were the kinds of topics that podcasting started with when it was small.

And as you said, those kinds of niche topics can still attract enough people that knitted together as a network can not only draw a respectable audience, but can build a profitable and sustainable business. It's just that other than Liam and a few other people, not a lot of people have done that.

I don't totally understand the economics of why, but I do know that there is an opportunity and maybe he will set the tone for other companies to look and say, yeah, we can, we can do this too.

Danny Brown: 00:15:41

Well, I wonder if it comes back, you mentioned the economics behind it and I wonder if it comes back to thinking that you need to have to be profitable anyway. You need to have X amount of downloads and that's how you attract advertisers and sponsors.

And we know that you can attract sponsors by being very niche and, you know, having.

And I'm going to do air quotes here, only 100 downloads or less per episode, which you know, doesn't sound a lot in the grand scheme of things, but if you've got 100 people that are very loyal to you every episode, that's a good solid audience to deliver to potential sponsors on, you know, hyperlocal or, or local sponsorship. But I wonder if some of it comes back to the economics. I know I'm speaking to Liam and again, we'll leave these details in the show notes.

He launched the Mercury Podcast Network, unofficially, I guess, at the end of last year, officially the start of this year, so it's not been around long.

There are seven podcasts currently in it, but he just announced on LinkedIn that since launching, they've delivered 2 million ads, which I feel that's a really good amount for a brand new network that only deals with indie podcasters. So there is a market for it.

But going back to your niche point about how podcasting started in the film Sporting Podcast, why do you think as podcasts? And it may be tied back to the celebrity conversation we had earlier, Frank.

But why do you think as podcasting got more popular and there was more dollars coming into the space, some of these podcasts didn't get picked up. Even though they had loyal listeners who'd been around a while, they got their format locked down.

So as opposed to starting brand new, why do you think some of these podcasts didn't get picked and picked up the way that new shows got launched around the same topics?

Frank Racioppi: 00:17:21

Gosh, that. That's a question I really wish I had an answer to. But I can, you know, I can only suppose why that's the case.

But part of that is, I think going back to what you were just saying earlier is there's a fixation with downloads because for the larger podcast networks, download numbers equate to CPM and equate to advertising revenue. So but for smaller, more niche podcasts, they'll never. I shouldn't use word.

They generally don't have a large enough audience in their topic to generate enough downloads to make enough advertising revenue. Revenue. So that will never be their way to sustain the podcast. But there are other ways to do that. So let me take a side note for a second.

There's a guy in Kentucky, Gentleman, that has an H Vac podcast, which is heating, air conditioning. H Vac. He's an H Vac tech. He's had this podcast for a couple years. He doesn't really have ads, but what he has is he's a very smart guy.

What he has is he's got five sponsors, the five Sponsors, they are a furnace sponsor, a air conditioning compressor sponsor, and three other. Since most of his listeners are H Vac tech people, three other companies that make tools for H Vac people.

So when I interviewed him and reviewed his podcast, he's doing fine.

And the reason he's doing fine is that he's smart enough to realize I'll never be able to generate enough listeners with my niche podcast to actually make money from advertising. So I need to find another way to do that.

His solution, which I think is a good one, it doesn't work for everybody, but it works for him, is I'm going to have paid sponsors on my show, and he does that. And, you know, he'll talk about them a little bit. And of course we know that host red ads are very effective, but that works and that works for him.

And I think that for most podcasts that are independents that have a niche topic, they need to do something other than to generate enough downloads in order to get advertising revenue. But one of the ways they can do that is I'm going to relate independent podcasts to the restaurant industry.

As you probably know, making money in the restaurant industry is difficult, exceedingly difficult. A lot of restaurants go out of business, and it's one of the industries with the highest mortality rate in it.

But I remember talking to a local restaurateur who owns seven restaurants, and I said to him, mark, how does that work out for you? And he said, frank, here's how it works with restaurants. If you have one restaurant, you're going to make a very little amount of money.

If you have seven restaurants, you're going to still make a little amount of money, but multiply that seven times now, you're making a lot of money. And that's his whole concept. And that's where I see back to the Mercury Network.

And this idea of pooling together independent podcast is you bring a whole bunch of independent podcasts that can make you a little money, but before you know it, based on size and scale, you're making a lot of money.

Danny Brown: 00:20:46

Well, I also wonder if there's an opportunity there and it's not going to happen every time because obviously it comes down to skill sets.

But if you think of the whole value for value model, not on the funding side or like the bitcoin side, but the actual value for value model where you trade services, for example, and I wonder if you brought podcasters in that one was a really good marketer for his podcast, one was a really good website designer for her podcast, and so on so you've now got people that have certain skill sets, an editor, production editor.

You've now got podcasters that have got certain skill sets for their own shows that they can now share out to the podcast on the indie network, which makes the podcast a lot more polished and professional, if it wasn't already. Because generally, the podcasts that have been picked up, you know, by the likes of Liam's network are very polished and entertaining podcasts.

That's why I picked them up. But I wonder if that's an opportunity as well for other indies to create their own little networks and bring in skills, you know, like Liam Neeson.

I've got a certain amount of skills, you know, bring.

Bring Liam Neeson mindset to the network, and one person helps with marketing for other podcasts, one person helps with editing for other podcasts, et cetera. That now makes it really a functional team that can now focus on just getting their podcast made and promoted.

Frank Racioppi: 00:22:00

I absolutely love that idea. So, in essence, you're bringing a team effort to all of these podcasts that are knitted together now.

And so, as you say, everybody else, everybody has maybe a different skill set that they can now bring to the team, which they didn't have before. And I see that in dealing with a lot of independent podcasters, some of them are very good at marketing other people.

I know of one indie podcast which is so terrific, yet she's so frightened and terrified of marketing.

So she would really benefit from, you know, your concept that you just mentioned, because she could have somebody else in the network, another independent podcaster, help you out. So I think that that's a great idea.

And that's another reason why I think the Mercury Podcast is a forerunner on this whole concept, hopefully picked up by other networks and production studios.

Danny Brown: 00:22:57

Well, I wonder if that gives them an opportunity as well, I think of going back to tv. So welcome to Wrexham. For anybody that hasn't seen the show on, I believe it's Disney or Prime, can't remember offhand, Apple tv, right?

Frank Racioppi: 00:23:12

Because I watched the show.

Danny Brown: 00:23:13

Yeah, Yeah, I didn't even get. Well, I watched the show. I haven't watched the third season yet, but Apple. So Apple TV. So welcome to Wrexham.

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McIlpenny, both Hollywood actors, purchased a stake or took over ownership, full ownership, I believe, actually of Wrexham Football Club, or soccer club in Wales in the uk. Tiny, tiny, small club that was in the National League, very small league.

And they went in with the mindset of not just investing money into the club, but investing money into the community investing in the people of Wrexham as well as the team. And they were passionate about making this succeed.

And since then they've had back to back promotions, which meant they've gone up a league one year, up a league the next year.

And currently they're going, they're pushing for promotion to the championship, which is one league below the English Premier League, which is the big tier in England.

And I wonder if some of the podcasts, like larger networks or even studios, stroke networks that may sort of cross the line between the two if they had an option to maybe incubate smaller shows along the large ones and take a risk on investing in a smaller shop. So they've got their dedicated, large, big name podcasts that are succeeding and doing well for them.

But even as a tax write off, where some startups have a tax write off, you can take a risk. And if it works, great, you've taken a new show and you've got the next blockbuster.

If it doesn't, you've not really spent a lot, but you've spent a lot for that indie creator.

And I wonder if there's an opportunity there to kind of follow or to take a lead from the Mercury model, but for the larger networks to maybe act as incubators.

Frank Racioppi: 00:24:53

Oh, I do love that idea. I think that's a great idea and I think it can work.

First of all, again, going back to the whole idea of making a movie, those film budgets are in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Incubating a podcast, working with an independent podcaster for a large network, even for a somewhat sizable production studio is not a tremendous amount of money, especially if you're doing the incubating. And they're the ones that already have the studio, they have the listeners. You're there to help them with marketing, distribution, some other things.

I think that's a perfect opportunity to merge independent podcasting and network supported podcasting together for a joint purpose. And there's an example of that. There's a podcast called Gastropod. It's a podcasting that's about food through the.

It's called podcast Gastropod through the lens of history and science. It's a great podcast. It's been out for years. Cynthia Graber and Nicole Twilley. So they had an independent podcast a few years ago.

They linked up with the Vox Vox network. They're still independent and they still actually have Patreon page.

They look for donations, but Vox does some of the managing of parts of that podcast for them. So they're a bit of a, a bit of a hybrid and there's a few other ones like that as well.

And I was never sure why that never caught on with other indie podcasts with other networks. Because it's a great model. It's basically the incubation model that you just described. So there's an opportunity for a lot of shows like that.

Danny Brown: 00:26:50

I'm wondering if the I keep saying I wonder anytime I mention a sentence start sense. I have to work on that. But I wonder if there's an opportunity. We've talked about the unfortunate layoffs that we're seeing in the industry.

Certainly over the last six to 12 months it seems to have increased a bit.

And I know with the ones really offs that's currently happening, there's supposedly dozens of teams or dozens of team members in the content and advertising team that's been hit the hardest, which suggests that maybe some of the podcasts aren't bringing in the advertising revenue required to make them profitable because they've had the bigger teams behind them, you know, from production point of view and the marketing and the promotion and all the content is needed to create a good great podcast. So there's possibly an opportunity there, you know, for someone like a Vox who showed it can work to do the same and continue with the larger ones.

But now we're going to take some of the exclusive dollars that we're going to give to maybe a larger name and put that behind 10 indie shows and really give them a run at it for the next six to 12 months and see how that works.

Because that would, I would imagine, would be a lot more profitable to take an indie show that doesn't need multi tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars behind it from a production viewpoint and try raise their game up a bit and then see the success of that that comes in a for the podcast. But if the podcast succeeds, Bob, you'd imagine the network or the publishing house is going to succeed as well.

Frank Racioppi: 00:28:21

Sure. And I think you're onto something and the numbers bear that out. People tend to think of independent podcasting as a small numbers game.

And again, I'll go back to that original. My original statistic is that on any given day, 80% of people's people are listening to an independent podcast.

So there's a lot of independent podcasts, but there's also a lot of people listening. But there are are independent podcasts out there that have a, you know, pretty fair audience.

I know of one that has, they have about 10,000 downloads every week. But what they also have in addition to that is they've, they've been around for a while and they have a very loyal audience.

She's really good at Patreon. She does a lot of live events and so she brings in money in a lot of different ways. Ways in which network supported podcasts don't really do.

So based on what you just said once you for those network supported podcasts, their source of revenue tends to be advertising revenues from the number of downloads. But if you look at independent podcasters, they generally have multiple sources for revenue, the good ones anyway.

And so now if you bring these people into the fold, like you said, as an incubator, now what you have is you've actually brought in podcasts that can make money for you in a multiplicity of different ways, not just through advertising.

Danny Brown: 00:29:58

And it would be an interesting like for example, Em that has a verbal diorama podcast, she's part of the Mercury Network, signed with them. I think she was one of the first podcasters actually to, to sign with Mercury.

I'd love to see her do like a director's cut where if she was part and I'm not saying this to take her out with Mercury Network. So Liam, if you're listening to this episode, that's not one suggestion.

But if she was part of a bigger entertainment branded network, for example, and they could bring on actors or directors that could give a director's talk or a behind the scenes talk with Em about bonus content episodes about the stuff that wasn't shot like that wasn't published or deleted scenes in movies, for example. It'd be cool to see that kind of crossover where okay, we're going to be a big studio, we're a big network. This is how we're going to support you.

We're going to provide this talent. You're going to do what you do normally and we'll see how that goes. Maybe, you know, that's a potential way forward for niche podcasts as well.

Frank Racioppi: 00:30:57

Oh no, I mean I absolutely agree and I do know M. McGowan and her podcast. For those of you don't know, Verbal Diorama is a movie podcast, so it's not a movie review podcast.

She goes over the history of the movie. She's really quite good. She's really quite good about it and I recommend anybody to listen to the podcast.

But going using her as an example and I used her and there's a woman named Aisha Khan who has a podcast called Every Single Sci Fi Film Ever. She's also UK related and she's not part of the network, but she. They do know each other. Anyway, these.

I looked at Spotify and iHeart and just looked at the tenor of their shows. There's an entire area of topics and genres where they don't have a lot of representation.

But if you look at the independent podcast and going back to your idea of the incubation and bringing them in, they could actually fill out those, those genre areas by bringing them in to that. There's areas you would think with iHeart with having a couple hundred, what are they, a 500 podcast, they would be fill up every genre.

But that's not really true. They fill up kind of the same genres and there's some of them that are not simply don't have a lot of representation.

Danny Brown: 00:32:21

I'm looking at the, the iHeart. It's funny you mentioned that. It's weird. So iHeart audience network. I'm just looking at the PodTrack analytics at the moment for top U.S.

publishers and networks. And iHeart has 20,690 active shows, which is a huge chunk. Now, I don't know if they're all iHeart podcasts, I'm not sure.

Or the podcasts are under there. Iheart podcast itself though has 832 podcasts. So there's a big disconnect there between the network and then the actual podcast, iHeart podcast.

But yeah, if you look at NPR's got 69 podcasts. So it looks like there's Walt Disney Company has 127 podcasts, as you mentioned.

It looks like there's an opportunity there for underrepresented niches and categories to fill a space as opposed to larger networks having to spend a large amount up front where they can go to either an indie or one of the middle class podcasters that are having medium success. They're not quite reached that 1%, but they're above the newer indie podcasters and indie creators.

ion. If you want to look at a: 2020

Frank Racioppi: 00:33:37

Sure. And when you brought up NPR, I think that they're an interesting study in podcasting because there are some. So NPR is not a smaller podcast network.

However, I think you might agree with this and hopefully a lot of people will as well. There is sort of an NPR signature to all of their podcasts.

So if I didn't know it was NPR and I started to listen to it, would you agree that you would know, I think this is npr.

Danny Brown: 00:34:06

Yeah, yeah. You can tell by the production quality right away and just the approach that they take.

Frank Racioppi: 00:34:11

Yeah, and I think the topic, how they handle different subject matter, their hosts, but it does have sort of a signature, like a fingerprint to it. So going back to, again, Mercury and a smaller network is.

A smaller network could bring together a group of independent podcasts that have either a similar topic, a similar sound design, a similar genre, put them all together, or a simple similar outlook, put them all together and make a network that is a lot like some of the TV network or the streaming networks, where there's a theme, there's an overall theme to the network.

Danny Brown: 00:34:56

We could talk about this for another 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, whatever, I feel. But just to wrap things up before we head into our usual segments, Frank, what's your predictions for the podcast and landscape?

And you don't have to go like, you know, super specific, but just what you're seeing at the moment. What you'd like to see, for example, maybe in the next.

I'd originally thought maybe the next two to three years, but podcasting changes a lot quicker than that. So let's go the next 12 to 18 months. Where do you see podcast networks, indie creators, and in between?

Frank Racioppi: 00:35:28

Well, trying to keep it short, I would say I would like to see, I would like to see more independent podcasts represented in production studios and in larger podcast networks. Do I think that will happen? What I can say is I hope it will happen.

And if these podcast networks are smart, and they obviously are, because they're running successful multi billion dollar businesses, they would look at what Mercury's doing and try to adopt the same process. But I do agree with you, Danny, that podcasting is moving very quickly. I mean, there's, there's a lot of balls to juggle here.

You've got the video podcasting component, you have YouTube and it's, you know, non RSS, a whole podcasting platform. So there's a lot going on there. And then, then you have.

The one thing we haven't addressed, which we could talk about another time, is that podcasting is, at least for right now, at least from the listener point of view, very generational. When you look at numbers, people over 50 years old, those numbers drop off significantly the older you go.

Part of that's a technology thing, but I'm hoping that that will change. So anyway, to wrap this up, podcast podcasting will change a lot.

And I think because independent podcasters, because of technology improvements, have been able to Address the disparity in quality and sound design. I think they will become even more competitive with the network supported podcasts.

Danny Brown: 00:37:03

I almost wonder if there's an opportunity. I said I was going to wrap this up. This is just a quick sound bite to that Frank, because I agree completely.

We're seeing Apple podcasts support the podcast in 2.0 initiative a bit more with features that they're really simulating and have made it super simple now to get podcasts on the platform. Having seen their market share, I guess being taken by a Spotify and YouTube, you know, and eating because Apple was always.

Or itunes was always the number one and now depending on, you know, what reports you look at, maybe number one it might be number two, maybe number three. I always feel if Apple will take an opportunity to focus a bit more on channels and create channels based on podcasts and topics and hosts, etc.

Almost like a network. But now they're putting together here if you like this. Because they do that anyway right now if you like this, you might like this.

But create a dedicated channel or dedicated network if you like for these kind of podcasts that pull from, you know, less well known names.

It'd be an opportunity if they want to sort of, you know, look at really being podcast friend as Maybe Spotify and YouTube look to close down the walls a little bit and keep listeners on Spotify or keep watchers on YouTube. Maybe an opportunity for Apple. But again, another topic, another discussion, another time.

Frank Racioppi: 00:38:20

I think that's. No, I would love to see that as well.

And one other thing I'll add is that the podcasting industry as a whole or the outlets that people listeners use in order to listen to podcasts, they are in one sense closed down to independent podcasters quite a bit.

So in Apple, once you're out of the new and newsworthy section of the Apple podcast, a lot of times you're gone, you're in, you're invisible, you're there for a certain amount of time and then you're gone. So you have your short period in order to attract people and then you're off after that. I currently use Pocket Casts for my iPhone and I like them.

I kind of switched over the years and they're good. But if you. When I'll look, look up a podcast and then down below it'll give you a list of other podcasts to look for.

I keep looking at them and what I see is that they're recommending to me almost all network supported podcasts.

And I what I don't See is that even if I put in there in my search parameters that I want to see a film review podcast, I'm not getting verbal diorama and I should be.

And so that's something where the, the entire industry, or at the very least the access points for podcasting should be made fairer and more open so that all podcasts can, not just network ones, can compete fairly.

Danny Brown: 00:39:48

So a definite opportunity for, for the industry.

And again, like I say, we'll have to revisit this topic because I do feel with the launch of someone like, you know, Liam's Mercury and opportunities there, there may be a shift in how networks approach podcasters. So we understand to revisit this.

But as mentioned, we are going to switch up to AMTAC now into a couple of our favorite sections and we've got a special one for this particular segment, Stupid Stuff in Podcasting. Now, normally I run the gauntlet with this one because I've gotten a reputation for being a miserable sod that just likes to look for stupid stuff.

But today Frank is going to kindly take over that mantle and he's got an interest in stupid stuff.

Frank Racioppi: 00:40:34

Thank you, Danny. I'll try not to be miserable, although this will sound a little whiny.

However, as much as I'm a fan of independent podcasting, there are times when you listen to one of them where you scratch your head and go, are you really looking to get more listeners or you just doing it for yourself?

eview Planet of the Apes, the: 1960

They never really got to the movie simply because with six people talking, describing their weekend, by the end of the episode, they just barely even scraped the surface of the film. So there you go. That's my complaint is for if you're doing an independent podcasting, for God's sake, don't have six people as a co host.

Danny Brown: 00:41:38

Well, I think that's especially if you're new, you might not realize that when you're having a conversation offline, just on a sofa, a bunch of sofas and chairs and someone's basement or someone's front room or whatever, you can interchange, you can talk over each other and you can, you know, have a laugh, etc.

But trying to replicate that and make it sound cohesive on a podcast is a little bit different, especially if you're not in tune with the editing and what crosstalk means and how to get rid of crosstalker and that kind of stuff.

And like, you see, you don't want to discourage people ever from starting a podcast and talking about the passion and doing it, especially if you've got friends that enjoy it with you.

But like you say, if you do want to make it as an option to make revenue or to, you know, to attract listeners and downloads, etcetera, you do have to have a bit of quality control. So how long was the episode? Just out of curiosity, the episode was.

Frank Racioppi: 00:42:36

About 45 or 50 minutes.

And if I can mention one other thing which I find is interesting, between this example and the difference between video and audio podcasting, I listened to a network supported podcast that was about health and fitness. It had four co hosts. So I listened to it, an audio version, had no idea who was talking. It was all women and they all kind of sounded alike.

So I wasn't quite sure who was who. Then when I found out it was a video and I watched it.

And in fairness to them, once you saw the video and you could see who was talking and the podcast was actually quite well done, it was a totally different experience. It was excellent, they were good, they were all articulate, you knew who was talking, it was great. But when it's audio only, you couldn't do that.

And so that's one of my things, is that if you're going to do audio and video, keep in mind that they are to come at the listener or viewer from a totally different sensory place and make sure that you understand that when you make your podcast, and.

Danny Brown: 00:43:43

I think that's where the recommendation comes in, you see it online a lot and it makes perfect sense.

Completely agree is if you're a podcaster, you should listen to other podcasts to see how they do it, especially in your niche, see how they do it, what you like, what you don't like, what works, what doesn't work.

Because the podcast could have been a really fun podcast, but when you do have six or seven people trying to talk and add to comments, et cetera, it can lose focus. Whereas as you mentioned on a video, you can now see. All right, well, yeah, yeah, he's talking, she's talking. I can see what they're saying.

I can sort of tune this person out because I want to focus on this person. So, yeah, if you're making a podcast, just as you say, it's solid advice, think of your listener or think of your watcher. So There we go.

Frank wasn't miserable, but you don't think and made a good point.

But we always do like to finish on a positive slant on the podcast because sometimes we can get a bit down in the dumps or talk about stuff that's impacting industry negatively. So we're going to finish with our favorite, the flattering round. And Frank, this is where we like to have you as our guest co host.

Give a shout out to someone, some people, something, some platform, some tool, anything at all in the podcasting industry that you feel is doing good things and helping the industry move forward. So over to you, good sir.

Frank Racioppi: 00:45:05

Oh, Danny, thank you for the opportunity based on what's going on in the world today. And there's a lot going on, some of it good, but a lot of it bad. There's a podcast by a gentleman named Robert Peter Paul.

So, first of all, anybody that has three first names in their name, you know, has got to be a good person. And he is not an independent podcaster. He belongs to the Broadway Podcast network.

So on Broadway in New York City, they actually have a network of podcasts about theater and Broadway shows and whatever. And he has a show on, and the show is called the Art of Kindness. And this is what I like about Robert Peter Paul.

He interviews a theater celebrity in every episode, but he does it from a different perspective.

The first thing he asks is, when he talks to the celebrity is, what is it that you think you can bring to the world as far as more kindness into this world? And then the celebrity talks about that from that perspective.

And at the end, kind of like what you're doing here about positive things in podcasting, he does the same thing with the celebrity as far as kindness and a world now where we have a whole host of problems that this is not the appropriate venue to get into. I love the fact that Mr.

Peter Paul, in his podcast, he every day focuses on the whole idea of kindness and solicits ideas from celebrities about the same thing. And so kudos to him for making the world a kinder place to live. Thank you, Robert.

Danny Brown: 00:46:52

Well, and as soon as you mentioned his name, I was already making a mental note to check out the podcast because I just mentioned anybody that has three names, three first names is got to be an interesting person to check out. So I will definitely leave that in the show notes.

So whatever app you're listening on, or if you're listening to this online on the website, be sure to check out the show notes. We will link out to Robert Peter and Paul's podcast, correct?

Frank Racioppi: 00:47:14

Yes, it's the Art of Kindness.

Danny Brown: 00:47:16

The Art of Kindness. Awesome. That will be left in the show notes. So thanks for that, Frank. And I'm going to have a quick flattering ram because Mark's not here.

So I'm going to steal one actually and I'm going to ping it over to you.

Frank, I really appreciate I mentioned it briefly at the start of the podcast, but I really do appreciate your vocal support of indie podcasters in general. I think the industry needs more of that, so it's really nice to see. It's great to see.

And you bring it with a level of expertise and deep dives that really make me get to know the podcasters that you highlight. So thank you for that, Danny, thank you.

Frank Racioppi: 00:47:47

This was a real pleasure. I'm sorry I missed Mark, but I had 50 minutes of Danny Brown and that's always a pleasure.

Danny Brown: 00:47:55

I know people that would disagree, my wife being one and me, maybe even Mark, but I appreciate that. So again, just to remind people, where can they find you online? And again, we'll leave that in the show notes.

Frank Racioppi: 00:48:05

Danny, you can find me on Earworthy and a variety of different platforms. Just go to Google search and search for Earworthy. You can get podcast reviews, especially independent podcasts. You can get industry trend lines.

We have an article coming out on Thursday about this very topic about what I called in the article virtual Podcast Networks. So what happens? For example, what happens if Danny and I, if Danny and I had a lot of money, what will we do?

What podcasts would we pull into a network? So it's a sort of a what if scenario in the article. So check that out. But check us out at Earworthy. We'd be glad to have you.

We love to have as many readers as possible because they help out podcasting and that's what we're here for.

Danny Brown: 00:48:51

And we will certainly look to send readers over to the publication. I look forward to reading that article. So again, Frank, thank you for appearing today on in and Around Podcasting.

Frank Racioppi: 00:49:00

Danny, thank you. I appreciate it.

Danny Brown: 00:49:02

Thank you for listening to In Around Podcasting.

If you enjoyed the show, and you know some would enjoy it too, be sure to send them over to in and around podcasting.com where they can catch the latest episodes or recommend it on their favorite podcast app. And if you'd like to leave a review of the podcast, you can do that at in around podcasting.com/forward/review.

Until the next time, keep doing what you're doing in Podcasting. It's important. Take care.