The State of Podcasting in 2025 with James Cridland

Danny Brown: 00:00:01

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

And my other co host is off on holiday this week, so it's just me. But a rather splendid guest co host who.

Who I'm sure pretty much everybody, with the exception of 1.2% of this show, will know who we're speaking with today. But it's my extreme joy to invite on James Cridland from Podnews. How are you doing, James?

James Cridland: 00:00:44

It's a great pleasure. Thank you for asking, Danny. I mean, I could do the Mark Asquith impersonation, but possibly not a good idea.

Danny Brown: 00:00:52

I tried that once, didn't go down well. It's bad enough for Scotsman that's been living in Canada for almost twenty years. Trying to do a Yorkshire accent.

James Cridland: 00:01:00

Correct. At least.

I used to live very, very close to where Mark lives now, so, you know, so I could possibly do the Yorkshire accent a little bit more, but even so, I'm not going to try. We're fine. We're all good.

Danny Brown: 00:01:14

We might keep that as, like an outtake, you know, a special option for, like, newsletter subscribers or something.

But as I mentioned there in the quick intro, I feel the majority of our listeners know who you are, but for the 1.2%, it probably doesn't or may not know who James Cridland is. Who are you and what do you do in podcasting?

James Cridland: 00:01:34

Well, you flatter me, sir. I wasn't aware that the flattering ram was on so early. Yes. So my name's James Cridland. I've worked in the audio business now for thirty-five years. Gosh.

But I write the Podnews newsletter, which is a free newsletter that comes out every day. If you are in any way interested in podcasting. Well, you're listening to this, so you are. Then you should be getting that as well.

It's completely free and it's got news and information about podcasts every day.

Danny Brown: 00:02:03

And obviously you do the weekly Podews. Podnews Weekly Review as well. And you've got your own newsletter which talks more about, I think, on the radio side of things and how that's going.

You mentioned audio?

James Cridland: 00:02:14

Yeah, yeah. No, indeed. Yeah. So I've got a radio newsletter which actually I've been doing now for, I think about twenty years, rather concerningly. But yeah.

So talking about radio, it's very sweary this week. But. But, yeah, but you know, I've been, you know, involved in podcasting really since two thousand and five.

I was working for the original Virgin Radio, which was a station in the uk, and we started doing a daily podcast all the way back in March. We came up with a word of podvertising, which was some of the advertising that you might have heard.

Thankfully, that didn't catch on, but the whole podcasting thing did, which is nice.

Danny Brown: 00:02:56

It's always nice. And one of the reasons we have you on the show today is you've just come back from podcast movement in. Was it Chicago? The Evolution show?

Yeah, Chicago, Chicago.

And you presented The Infinite Dial report this year, but you also shared through Podnews, which is your own annual report as well, the podcast Podnews Report card, which talks about how the main podcast platforms are doing in the eyes of podcasts and creators. So I thought it'd be a great excuse, as if we need one, but a great excuse to invite you onto the show to talk about both of them.

Some of the things that we sort of pulled out, you know, from these reports to get your insights on it, because obviously with in and around podcasting, we do try take the big ticket news items and make it a bit, you know, break it down for indie podcasters and creators that may not, you know, always get access to good folks like yourself. So I appreciate you coming on today, James. Looking forward to this.

James Cridland: 00:03:52

Yeah, that's a pleasure.

Danny Brown: 00:03:54

Before we actually go into the Infinite Dial report, just a sort of ten thousand foot view of this year's study. What's your takeaway from the data that you shared and you reported on?

James Cridland: 00:04:08

Yeah, and it was super exciting to actually be co presenting the Infinite Dial this year.

I don't work for Edison, but I was asked to be the other voice on that on the webinar and really enjoyed it because I've been using the Infinite Dial for years and years and years now. It's some really useful data.

It's got lots about podcasting in there, but it's also got lots about other things as well, what goes on in the car, what type of gadgets people are using, even Bluetooth headphones and things like that. So some really useful information, trending information, which I think just helps us understand where audio is going.

And of course it's got the big podcast numbers in there as well.

Danny Brown: 00:04:54

And speaking of these numbers, one of the first things I did want to ask you about, a lot of the focus this year seemed to be on the demographic, younger demographic, and the trends and their listening and I guess viewing behaviors.

And I love the report, was talking about the 12 plus audience, which to me is kind of everybody, because anybody under 12 is probably not listening to podcasts, I wouldn't have thought, but the 12 plus, so there's really focus on the demographic of the younger demographic.

But one of the numbers or one of the stats that sort of stood out for me was the biggest increase in monthly online audio listening is on the 55 + demographic, which kind of talks to me. And I'm curious, where do you see that growth? What caused that growth? And is that an opportunity for creators and brands? I guess, yeah.

James Cridland: 00:05:41

I mean, it is most certainly an opportunity for creators and brands. I'm not quite in that space, but I will be soon. So, you know, it's certainly an opportunity there. I mean, I think it's a couple of things.

Firstly, it's just that technology is easier these days, but also that people are getting older.

Ten years ago, somebody who was 55 was aged 45, he says the blindingly obvious, but we kind of forget about that, that actually every year people are migrating into the 55 plus. And so that's a useful thing just to understand where the future's going. Actually, people grow up into the future.

So from the point of view of nice growth in terms of total online audio listening, that's not just podcasts, that's things like streaming radio and Spotify, of course, and that sort of thing.

You know, the big growth there is really helpful because I think it just shows that more people are consuming audio in an online fashion than they ever have in the past.

And certainly, you know, quite a lot of people aged 55 or over theoretically, have children who have left the household or are just about to leave the household. They've got plenty of money in savings, quite a lot of them, and so therefore they're actually a pretty good target for advertisers as well.

Danny Brown: 00:07:14

And you'd mentioned there that the technology has obviously gotten easier from when you first started. You've been in the industry for years. I've been podcasting for about 10 years, but I've been listening to audio a bit longer.

And it always used to be really hard to listen. You have to download a file and add it to your ipod or whatever. So obviously the technology is a lot easier.

And Mark always makes a point about his mum. She doesn't care what she's listening to on, she just wants to hear what she wants to listen to.

Do you think that ties in that older demographic anyway, in that audience and what you mentioned there about technology.

Do you think that ties into the argument that we currently see online as well about it doesn't really matter if it's RSS now or where we're listening to. It's just people want to consume content, whatever that looks like.

James Cridland: 00:07:56

Well, I think quite a lot of podcast companies are seeing a lot more browsers listening to podcasts through websites and things like that now. And I think that again possibly points to the fact that most people now understand how web browsers work.

People don't, particularly on Android where there isn't an obvious podcast app. People don't necessarily know how podcast apps work.

But to be able to go to to a website and listen to your favorite show is dead easy and pretty well anyone can do that.

So I think what we're really seeing is that it's just becoming easier and easier, particularly for people who are less confident with podcast apps and all of that sort of thing. It's just becoming easier and easier to listen to individual shows.

And I think that's why if you look at any good podcast hosting company, they will give you a really nice looking podcast website.

Captivate has one, as do many others, which allows you to listen straight on that page so you don't have to fiddle around with podcasts, with podcast apps or anything else. So that certainly got something I think to do with it.

now, the old Nokia, you know,: 3210

That again, you know, adds, you know, help in terms of being able to have a listen to audio.

Danny Brown: 00:09:47

Well, I guess as well, like data plans. I'm in Canada, you're in Australia. I know Mark's in the uk, so he'd be saying something different if he was here.

I guess data plans as well with cell companies or mobile phone companies can be different and can sort of determine a lot of listening experiences. If I've got a limited data plan, maybe I do wait till I get home and go on the web then to listen online that way.

And I'm wondering if maybe next year's stats. Obviously Spotify did great this year, YouTube did great this year.

But I wonder if Apple might increase a little bit because they've got their web player now. That makes it a bit easier for everyone as well.

James Cridland: 00:10:20

Yeah, I mean that may well be the case.

You Know, I mean, I think, you know, there are lots of different ways of listening and you so rightly say that, you know, the cost of data is very expensive in some parts of the world. And Canada has historically been one of the worst countries in the world in terms of the cost of data.

You know, I mean, interestingly, it is incredibly cheap here in Australia, but in Canada, for various complicated reasons, it's always been relatively expensive.

That's changed, I understand, in the last couple of years and you will know more than I do, but I think that certainly has an effect, as does availability of data as well. Yes, some podcast apps automatically download, but quite a lot of them don't.

So when you're pressing the play button, Spotify, for example, by default it will just go off and get the file there, then what some people call streaming. And so that's fine if you've got access to data where you are.

But many countries, particularly Australia and Canada, have great big open spaces which don't have an awful lot of mobile phone coverage. So we've got that, of course, to bear in mind as well.

Danny Brown: 00:11:38

Yeah, Canada, I will say this, Ryan Reynolds, I know you listen to the show every time it comes out, Please bring Mint Mobile to Canada because we need something in here because yeah, it's ridiculous here. The cost here is crazy. So you made a good point there about listening, where people listen and how they listen.

And there was some interesting stats around people listening versus watching. I know there's the whole discussion around is YouTube music listening or is that watching because it's on YouTube in the background, etc.

And one of the stats that jumped out was 27% of respondents had said they'd neither listened or watched.

And I'm wondering, in your experience and people you speak to, maybe not so much at events because they're podcasters generally, but maybe on your travels. Is that just a non interested audience that don't really care about podcasting?

Is it tying to your point about, you know, non accessibility because of where they might live, or is it just an alternative audience that doesn't care about podcasting?

James Cridland: 00:12:44

Well, I mean, I think it's easy to look at the 27% of people who have never consumed a podcast and get concerned about that. I think if you look at the numbers who have obviously consumed a podcast, those numbers are going up every single year.

And we're at a point now where Americans, in terms of every month, more people listen to podcasts than don't now, which is a tremendous step forward. This is the first infinite Dial, which has actually showed that. So I think you can certainly see that the growth of podcasting is continuing.

There will always be people that will turn around to you and say, I never listen to the radio, or there are some people who never listen to music. There are people like that who exist.

So we'll never get to 100%, but I would be probably more focused on the 73% of people who do consume a podcast rather than the 27% of people who don't.

Danny Brown: 00:13:48

And it's interesting to think of, like, growth in other countries that traditionally might not have been large podcast creators, especially, or listeners. I think of South Africa, I think of Nigeria especially at the moment.

I know a lot of creators from Nigeria who are really pushing the community there forward. Do you feel that's an area that would appear? Because obviously the Infinite Dial is very much US Specific. It's very much geared to US Audiences.

Do you feel there can be a more global approach?

And there's obviously other reports out there, but when it comes to something like Infinite Dial, the equivalent of that for either specific continents or a more global approach to give a. A real bigger picture of that?

James Cridland: 00:14:34

Well, I think one of the nice things about Infinite Dial is it is in other countries, and it's produced in such a way that you can compare. So there's lots of data that comes out from some countries about podcast listening.

They all say wildly different numbers, and you're never quite sure what they're actually measuring. We know how Infinite Dial works, and therefore, when Infinite Dial goes into other countries, you can directly compare that.

There has been an Infinite Dial Canada, it was a couple of years ago. There are Infinite Dial, there's an Infinite Dial Australia and an Infinite Dial New Zealand, which come out every single year, which is nice.

I think New Zealand had a break last year, but it's back for this year. And there've also been Infinite Dials actually in South Africa, the metro areas there, in Germany and in the UK as well.

So they're useful in terms of being able to compare. And I think that's the nice thing about this research and Edison Research doing it, which is a tremendously large research company, is that they can.

They know exactly the right people to talk to, to field a survey in these other countries as well.

And I think one of the things I said on the webinar was it would be really good to see more international data here and international data here that you can compare. That's useful both in terms of podcasting. It's useful in terms of Radio listening, which is markedly different in many different countries.

It's useful in audio in all of its shapes and forms. And I think that would be super good to get more data coming out of different countries.

Danny Brown: 00:16:25

And as someone that's so ensconced in both podcasting and radio and the audio background, you're in a really cool, unique position to look at that information coming out. Where do you feel there might be an opportunity to help that move along to other countries?

Is that from podcast platforms, whether that's apps, hosting companies, Spotify, Apple, et cetera, along with the BBC advertisers who would be really good to drive this, to really make it a big, huge global report. You think?

James Cridland: 00:16:54

Yeah, I think if you have a look at Infinite Dial in the US this year, it was sponsored by Audacy, Cumulus Media and SiriusXM Media. Those are three large podcast companies, but also radio broadcasters as well, so you can see how it would be useful to them.

And of course, they get much more information and data than we actually get.

You know, people that have sponsored it in the past in other countries here in Australia, Commercial Radio Australia and SCA have certainly jumped in and have helped it there. So it's really lovely. Large broadcasters plus large podcast companies.

I mean, I think we see quite a lot of data and ACAST is very good at this, getting a lot of data made to prove a point that they want to make.

So they will get some data showing how popular podcasting is in Scandinavia if they want to push the scandi market a little bit more and so on and so forth, and that's fine, but it's not comparable and it doesn't necessarily help us paint a global picture. And I think a global picture would be the useful thing here, you know, in terms of that.

So I would really like more, you know, larger companies, but companies in those particular areas to basically help fund, you know, an infinite Dial in those countries as well. I think that would be a super useful thing.

Danny Brown: 00:18:26

Thing. It's funny you mentioned like, both Australia and New Zealand have infinite Dell reports.

I see this like a real competition between these two countries for obvious reasons. You know, it's like Scotland, England, Canada, the US who can put out the best report and the best stats for the Infinite Devil report.

James Cridland: 00:18:43

Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, that's. Yeah, that's kind of some of it.

But I think also Australia and New Zealand, of course, we have so much media imports from the US and from the UK because of our shared history as well. So actually being able to compare ourselves with Those two areas is a really useful thing too.

Danny Brown: 00:19:10

And one of the things that did interest me when thinking about the technology that's being used to consume podcasts especially is smart tv. Smart speakers, but sound smart TV really use anyway. Seems static when looking at the report, but in car phone integration definitely had a big rise.

at just some numbers from say: 2023

And I'm curious, as a technologist yourself, James, what opportunities does this offer creators? Does it make for an advantage of one medium over the other? So in car tech, is that more about in car audio?

Can we have in car video in the back for travelers, et cetera?

James Cridland: 00:20:08

Well, so, I mean, firstly, smart tv, it did go up. This year it went up to 75%. And smart TVs are really interesting because they put audio into a room that traditionally doesn't have audio.

So you can get Spotify for your smart tv, you can get Tunein, you can get podcast apps as well. And of course YouTube of course contains podcasts. Let's not get into that debate.

So actually, from a audience point of view, it's putting audio into a room where you don't necessarily have anything else to listen to that audio there. So it's a great marketing thing.

I mean, I remember getting the radio stations that I worked on on the TV so you could tune in as if it was a TV channel. And that was super important to us because people just weren't finding our radio station.

And so being able to help them sample that there on the TV was really useful so that they knew what to look for on their radio. So those are useful. But I think when you look at in car, I mean, in car is still dominated by AM FM radio.

It's the place where AM FM radio is consumed like no other. But podcasts there, you know, nearly a third of people are consuming podcasts in their car.

That number is of course going up, as you would expect, and particularly for younger audiences 18 to 34, then that number almost reaches 50%. So you can see that.

So cars are actually really important to podcasting because the more consumption that actually happens for podcasting, the better. Infinite Dial. Let's not forget Infinite dial is measuring people, it's not measuring time spent listening.

Edison Research has a different study for that. People are really important to Measure. Really important to measure. I'm actually more interested in the time spent listening stuff.

I'm more interested in going, okay, if we've got a podcast listener who is listening to two shows, how can we make them listen to four? How can we double their listening?

Because if we double their listening and we're earning money from advertising, we've doubled our revenue and we've not had to go out and chase a new person. So I'm always interested in seeing, yes, and reach numbers. Numbers of people are really important.

But I'm actually much more interested in seeing time spent listening as well going up. And from what I understand from that data, time spent listening for podcast listeners hasn't actually moved over the last 10 years.

And that to me is a real opportunity, as I say, to move the industry forward. So I kind of wish that we would stop talking about human beings consuming. Have you ever consumed a podcast?

And I would much rather that we were starting to look at time spent listening one stat off the top of my head, if you look at audio consumption in the UK, only 9% of audio consumption in the UK is to podcasts. AM FM radio does about 48, 49%. So it's doing fantastically well. But podcasting, you know, still has a long, long way to go.

And that's great news for all of us, I think.

Danny Brown: 00:23:50

Well, I also wonder, I know you do the POD news, I mentioned it earlier, you do the pod news weekly review with Sam Samsefi, and he's the founder of TrueFans. And one of Sam's big pushies, if you like, for want of a better word or for lack of a better word, is live and. And community listening.

So, you know, you can go live almost like a radio show. As a creator, you can go live with your podcast and listeners will get tagged with that and can jump in and listen.

But Sam's also really keen on community, like group listening. So someone else can jump in and see that you're listening to Podcast X or POD News.

I'm going to listen along with James and we can comment to each other. Do you think something like that, technology like that is a good way to try pushing additional listening?

Because now each other can recommend to others, hey, we've just finished this one, why don't we listen to this episode of this podcast, etc.

James Cridland: 00:24:42

Yeah, I think that is an interesting plan.

It's certainly, you know, back in the day when I allowed Spotify to look into Facebook, I would quite often see what some of my friends were listening to and Go. Oh, that's interesting. I've not heard that particular band, so I think that that's certainly useful.

But there again, also useful are things like Pod Roll, where you can recommend other shows that people might want to have a listen to and also just different ways in to podcasts. I think, you know, Adam Curry's talking a lot about this at the moment. We've been really focused on podcast apps as the front door to podcasts.

But actually there are so many more ways of people finding great audio content that doesn't have to start by pressing the bit big purple button on your iPhone or pressing whatever it is that Google has this week on an Android phone. It's much more, you know, it's much more around, you know, well, where else can podcasting be?

Is there something, for example, where you jump into your car, you're off on a road trip, you've got five hours of driving, you're going to have to stop at some point.

I know this is just a trip to the shops for you, Danny, but you know, you're going to have to stop at some point, get in the car, find a podcast about somewhere which is on your route. That's a really interesting way of using podcasts, really interesting sort of move.

But would that, if that was given to you in a nice, clear user experience, would that be something again that turns people onto new shows that they haven't heard in the, in the past? If I am driving past a famous battleground or something, you know, I could learn more about that before I actually stopped and had a look at it.

You know, there are all of these additional things that you could do and I think, you know, podcast apps are important. Adding community, you know, cross app comments is something that, which I've been very excited about. We've, we've not seen it, it.

But adding community like that would be really useful. But also all of the other ways of finding shows as well.

Danny Brown: 00:27:05

And I think one of the cool things that you mentioned there, which ties into like the live feature you mentioned, I think it was in today's pod news, might have been yesterday's about knowing about wineries in Adelaide, for example, can you get podcasts that talk about wineries in Adelaide?

And with the amount of podcasts that now appear on in flight, you know, stations on airplanes, that's an opportunity if I'm flying into London for the podcast show. So London, for example, what is there to do in around that area?

And what podcast can I listen to to recommend, you know, little bars, restaurants, you know, tourist Spots, et cetera, off the beaten track. I think that's a great way that you maybe pull in casual listeners that want to find out more about a tourist destination, for example.

James Cridland: 00:27:45

Yeah, no, indeed. And, you know, and so quite a lot of this is, I'm sure, you know, something which could be. Which could be. Had a look at.

I mean, I launched a new podcast feed called newpodcasts.net which you can go and find in any podcast app. And what that allows you to do, for example, is just to hear trailers for new shows, new and noteworthy shows.

So if you are looking for something to listen to, but you're not quite sure what, then that particular podcast will give you a whole list of new shows that you might want to go and have a listen to.

I think it's things like that that historically, podcast apps haven't been very good at, because podcast apps have been really incentivized by people downloading and in many cases, paying for the podcast app. But in terms of keeping using that podcast app, well, there's no real incentive for the podcast app, you know, developer to spend time on that bit.

And I think if there's ways that we can fix that, if there's ways that we can actually help them share in the success of a podcast app that keeps you listening for three times as long, then that would be great. And I think, you know, we.

We had the glimmer of that when we were talking about streaming, you know, streaming payments and boosts and all of that, where a percentage of that would go to the podcast app developer.

You know, I'm sure that there are more things that we can do there, because everybody, you know, should be able to share in podcasting's success here. And if podcasting does really well, well, great.

Let's make sure that not just the podcast creator benefits or the podcast hosting company benefits, but the podcast app developer as well. And I'm not sure that we've got too much of that going on right now.

Danny Brown: 00:29:41

That's a really nice segue. Actually.

see is one big change in the: 2026

James Cridland: 00:30:02

That's an interesting question. I mean, I think the benefit of the Infinite Dial is that it's been going for over 20 years, and you see just incremental change Every single time.

I think if there was a big change, then that would be cause for alarm. The benefit with the infinite dial is that there aren't big changes.

There are always little incremental changes, little increases in this, little decreases in that. And so I think from that point of view, that's all cool. I would suspect that we will see.

You mentioned that there's a little bit in there about people watching podcasts rather than than listening to them. And I suspect that we will see a bit of increase in there.

But you know, let's not forget that quite a lot of the infinite dial is put together by literally asking people what podcasts they have consumed. And that means not actually what a podcast is, but what that person thinks a podcast is.

You know, and that's an important thing just to bear in mind as well. Is Joe Rogan, when you're watching on YouTube, a podcast, I don't know, but certainly that listener will have a view.

And so that will drive some of the numbers that you actually see there.

Danny Brown: 00:31:18

Well, we shall see with interest what next year holds. Speaking with interest, I really do want to speak about the podcast, the POD News Report Card.

This is in its fourth year now, or this is its fourth annual report, I should say. And if you're not aware what the POD News Report Card is, James, you.

Well, I'll let you explain what it is and then I shall dig into some of the stats around it. From this year's report card.

James Cridland: 00:31:41

Yes, I mean, it's really a way to capture thoughts on podcast platforms from those in podcasting. So where they're doing well, where they can improve. And we both ask scores, which we'll talk about a lot, I'm sure.

But we also ask for individual comments. And I think we had more than 700 comments this year. In fact, I think it was even more than that. The amount of comments that we actually.

That we actually got, and we share all of those with the large companies, Apple, Google, Spotify and so on, so that they can actually see what the pain points are around the apps that they produce, the dashboards and everything else. And it's made real change.

I think over the last couple of years, we've seen some real obvious things that we have made a big thing of, and those platforms have fixed those. So it's been nice seeing that in the past, and I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing a little bit more of that this year as well.

Danny Brown: 00:32:50

Well, certainly before or just before this year's dropped, or maybe just after this year's dropped Apple announced they were removing the hurdle that many podcasters saw about getting the show on Apple podcast. So you didn't need an Apple idea, you didn't need to go through podcast connect. It was just a one click, like a Spotify, like on Amazon, etc.

And I feel that obviously came from a lot of feedback that was given to Apple's team last year's report. So it's great to see the report card making a difference like that.

And you mentioned numbers and statistics, so let's have a look at some of them, shall we? So, interestingly enough, YouTube did really well in this year's report card, but YouTube Music did not do quite as well as YouTube.

And YouTube Music was actually a little bit down bottom of the heap in some of the feedback. And the comments that you got there was the one guy hates them all. So it doesn't matter if it's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, he just hates them all.

Is YouTube music, because obviously that replaced Google podcast. So that's the sort of spiritual replacement for Google podcast.

Do you think YouTube are still continuing to miss the boat when it comes to audio podcasting and how they approach?

James Cridland: 00:33:58

I mean, I think YouTube music, I mean, I use it as a music app and it's very good as a music app. It's got some great algorithms and everything else.

Podcasts seem to be a bit shoehorned into that app and, you know, done in a relatively lackluster way.

I think one of the biggest problems with that and I mean, interestingly, YouTube music plays RSS feeds, so it is possible to listen to any podcast that you want to in YouTube Music, but it's almost impossible to actually tell somebody how to do that. So we've. I think I spent nine months with the YouTube team saying it'd be really good just to have a link.

Can we just have a link so that I can press the button and I can start listening in YouTube music? And they finally fixed that. But, you know, So I think YouTube music is a. Is a weird one.

It's also really confusing in that you've got an audio product that is branded YouTube that has YouTube podcasts in there, but also has RSS feeds in there. And then you've got YouTube or YouTube main, which is what they call it internally, which of course is the.

Is the video thing that we all know and love and use, and that's a different product and I think it's a bit confusing.

But certainly if you dive into YouTube Studio, you can actually have a look with one of the reports in there, how many plays you're getting from YouTube main, how many plays you're getting from YouTube TV and how many plays you're getting from YouTube music. And I'll lay a bet that the amount of plays on YouTube music are next to nothing, which is a real shame, I think.

Danny Brown: 00:35:43

Well, it's also confusing as a podcaster, and I've spoken to a lot of podcasters that have the same kind of confusion is when you opened up the RSS submission, which is great to get your podcast on a YouTube, you could just upload it fairly easily. But if you already had a YouTube playlist, which was a podcast, and now you've got an RSS feed, it duplicated the podcast and people were confused.

Do I go through that, assess, do I have to replace my playlist, do I still keep my playlist, etc.

And it feels like I know they made some changes to the team this year at the, you know, higher up on the YouTube and podcasting team, you feel that's like an area where YouTube can maybe improve. Looking at the report card from creator relations is to confusion around where should I be, what should I be posting it as, et cetera.

James Cridland: 00:36:34

Yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely confusion in terms of, you know, how do I. I mean, you know, some of the feedback. YouTube has taken something fairly easy to do on other apps and made it unnecessarily convoluted.

Another person saying, you know, Spotify and YouTube are pretty challenging, requiring too many steps to get a show on the platform. I think making it as easy as possible, as Apple have shown us, is a great thing to do.

Now YouTube has APIs that they have built for podcast hosting companies, so you can just press one button and it goes into, you know, into YouTube there. Whether that's the right thing or not is a different conversation, of course. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's complicated.

It's complicated in some ways because what am I saying? Am I saying listen on YouTube music? Am I saying watch on YouTube, watch on YouTube?

Sounds weird if I've not actually got any video and none of the shows that I do have full video to them. So the whole thing is just a little bit complicated, I have to say.

And I think anything that would make it easier and simpler would make an awful lot of sense.

Danny Brown: 00:37:54

And I know we'll speak of analytics in a sec. I know. It's interesting, though, to hear. When I saw the report card come through, people were saying it was difficult to get podcasts on Spotify and.

And I know a lot of people like to put Spotify down, but I find that one of the most simplest ones because it's just a one click, unless you want to get on Spotify for creators, for extra analytics, et cetera, then it can be a bit more, you know, a bit more steps to go through. But to actually submit is really simple. So I'm wondering if there's maybe confusion about what part of Spotify they're going to. Because Spotify.

Spotify calls Spotify for creators, both their hosting offering and the podcast, the portal dashboard for podcasts that are hosted elsewhere.

James Cridland: 00:38:34

Yeah, and, you know, I mean, I think, you know, you and I, we understand what RSS feeds are, we understand how podcasting works.

There are lots of people out there and you'll know, you know, replying to some of the support tickets you get that have not the faintest idea about how RSS feeds work and how all of this stuff works. I've had companies who have launched a new podcast have sent me a press release about it for the POD News newsletter.

And I've gone, well, where are you? And they say, well, we're here on Apple podcasts and we're here on Spotify.

And I've looked a little bit closer and what they've done there is that they've uploaded their audio to Spotify, but only made it available within the Spotify app. And they've uploaded their audio to Apple because you can do that and only made it available in the Apple app. App.

And I said, well, you don't really have a podcast then. You've just got audio which is in Spotify and which is in Apple podcasts. And you can just see the complication is already massive.

So, yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's very easy for us that have been in the industry for a long, long time to go, yeah, I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? You just connect your RSS feed to the blah, blah, blah, and there are lots of people who will just go, sorry, connect the what now?

So, you know, and it's.

I do wonder sometimes whether or not a real dummy's guide to how podcasting works is something that I should write, because I think that would be a very useful thing just to explain. You've got an RSS feed, It's here, it connects in this way.

And just to explain to folk a little bit more, because, you know, I mean, every single day, if you look into some of the Reddit, you know, groups or whatever, you'll get people complaining that Such and such a podcast host hasn't uploaded to Apple podcasts today. Well, that's not how it works. But I think that we can make, we can hopefully help by making things easier.

And, you know, good podcast hosts do a really good job of doing that. But not all podcast hosts out there are good, sadly.

Danny Brown: 00:40:52

No. And that's a fair point you mentioned. Obviously we've been in industry for a few years, we're old hats. So yeah, that's a fair point.

We shouldn't just assume that it's simple for everybody to get the podcast published and out there. There's a lot of steps still to go through to do that. You'd mentioned YouTube analytics there and what data you can look at.

So YouTube main, YouTube music and then YouTube TV.

And one of the things that popped up again this year, which I was kind of expecting, is the fracturing of analytics or there's still, you know, all the places you need to go to to get the full big picture of analytics. And this kind of ties in a little bit more, a little bit to the chat we had about the Infinite Dial Report.

Do you ever see platforms come together that are really, I mean, there's no real benefit to big platforms like Spotify and Apple releasing that data.

But you think this not holds podcasting back, but makes it harder to either grow or understand your data because there's so many places that you need to get information from.

James Cridland: 00:41:53

Look, I think there's two things. I think that firstly, the amount of data that we get from some people is not particularly great and it could be better.

But I also think, you know, and yes, there's the hassle of logging into all sorts of different places to get your numbers, but that's something that could be fixed relatively easily. The real problem, Danny, I think, is that no one is measuring the same thing.

So Apple doesn't use the IAB standards that podcast hosts like Captivate do. So therefore there's no IAB standards there in terms of counting downloads.

You know, I mean, I don't know if you've covered on this show how the Apple Play button works, but if you look into Apple Podcast Connect and you see a number next to Plays, then that is how many people have pressed that. It's not how many people, it's how many times that play button has been pressed, which is not the same as a play.

Because if you think about it, you're there, you're driving along, your phone pauses your show because it wants to say, at the next junction, turn left. And then it Presses the play button again. That's a play. So is a play when you are in Starbucks or second cup and you're getting a cup of coffee.

And then at the end, and so you pull your earbud out, your podcast pauses, you ask for a latte, you put your earbud back in again, it automatically hits that play button again. Again, that's another play. Nonsense. Utter, utter nonsense. So you've got Apple not doing that. You've got Spotify again with their own metrics.

YouTube fun fact has never published once what a play is in YouTube. There's no official definition for the word play in YouTube at all.

So you've got all of these things, which they're just not measuring the same thing thing.

So you can't go to YouTube and then to Apple Podcasts and then to Spotify and add up all of the plays and say, well, that's the total number of plays. Because, you know, I mean, it's, you know, I hesitate to use the phrase it's. It's apples and apples and oranges, but it kind of is, isn't it?

So, yeah, so there's. So there's real, you know, there's real sort of anger there in terms of no one measuring the same thing.

You know, comments saying, you know, why isn't there an industry metric for a download? There needs to be a standard definition that all of these services use. So that, that's a really important part of that. YouTube's data is amazing.

Apple's data is actually amazing once you know what you're looking for, in that it gives you all kinds of retention information and everything else.

Spotify does much the same too, so you can actually get a ton of additional information that you won't get from the Captivate Dashboard or wherever else you get your information from. And all of that data is really, really good, but it's just a real frustration that nobody's really measuring the same sort of thing.

Danny Brown: 00:45:12

And wonder. I know you had him on last week's episode or this week's, I guess, episode of the Pod News Weekly.

I reviewed John Spurlocker friend John over at OP3 Analytics.

I know he's really keen on providing or trying to provide a standard when it comes to podcast apps anyway, so your pocket cash, your good pods, overcast, etc. And maybe that's an opportunity if, like, the big boys don't want to play in the yard.

For lack of a better analogy, maybe this is where the podcast apps you went to. You know, you mentioned how to reward podcast Apps from, say, a hosting point of view, a listing point of view with streams, etc.

Maybe that's an opportunity there to maybe standardize some of the data, at least when it comes to podcasters.

James Cridland: 00:45:52

Yeah, and what John's work is all about is actually helping data come back from podcast apps in a standard way and in a way that only the podcast host can see. It's a very clever solution to that.

Interestingly, what it doesn't do is it doesn't look at what that data actually is, and a standard way of working out what that data is. We've got the IAB for that. They do a pretty good job of doing that sort of thing. So we should probably keep them going while they do a job.

So we should probably keep them going in terms of that.

But I think, you know, John's idea for a standard way of getting podcast consumption data back to podcast hosts and therefore the creator, is a really useful tool. Again, the question comes back to who, who pays for that?

Should the developers of Antennapod spend the equivalent of US$10,000 on engineering time just to produce that one particular feature? I think that's a difficult ask, but it would be wonderful if more podcast apps was to share the limited consumption data that we know that they have.

Danny Brown: 00:47:13

Well, and speaking of podcast apps and the data that's shared you mentioned, Apple does a great job. And like you say, if you go into podcast connect and really dig into the data, it's amazing information. Spotify's got great data. YouTube has as well.

One of the platforms, one of the big platforms, I guess if you were looking at name and brand alone, is Amazon Amazon Music. But they continuously come pretty far down all the scores.

And Amazon Music came out for podcasting, what was it, 20, 21, 22 they launched, I think something like that. Have they just missed the boat completely? Have they started taking missteps? What's up with Amazon? It's a huge company.

Where have they gone wrong in your eyes?

James Cridland: 00:47:55

Well, so imagine my excitement when every year, just before the podcast show in London, I am ushered into a room in Amazon HQ in the city of London and told to go through the podcast, the POD news report card, where Amazon is almost always very close to the bottom of the list. And you can see the will to live from the people who work at Amazon Music.

You can see the will to live draining from their faces as I go through in here's another graph where Amazon Music is at the bottom. So you can certainly feel that from the their point of view, they would like, of course, to be higher.

I have to say there are two things about Amazon Music. Firstly, the first thing is they're actually mid table in terms of standards, and that's something just to bear in mind. They support proper RSS.

They're not doing anything weird and proprietary like YouTube or Spotify is. So from that point of view, they have historically always been above YouTube and Spotify in terms of standards in the report card.

So that's one good thing.

I think the other thing that Amazon Music does is actually it's doing some very clever, innovative things in terms of how podcasts work on that, on that platform. If you're an Amazon prime subscriber, or I think maybe an Amazon Music Premium subscriber, it's one of those two.

But anyway, you get a lot of the podcasts that you listen to without any ads whatsoever automatically, and Amazon shares the music that it shares the money that it makes directly with the creator. I mean, that's an amazing thing. Wouldn't that be interesting to explore for other podcast apps to end up doing as well?

But I think, you know, at the end of all of this, the reason why we started doing the Report card, you know, four years ago, was that one big podcast, apparently app came to us and said, we have real difficulty internally trying to convince people that we need more engineering resource, trying to convince people that this thing here is broken and we would like to fix it.

And so if the report card can help with that, if the report card can actually give, look, here's 700 people, 700 comments from big podcast creators showing, you know, really helpful information for you to. To then justify more engineering resource or more marketing resource or whatever it might might end up being, then that's quite useful for them.

So I think, you know, hopefully we've managed to help in that regard.

Danny Brown: 00:50:45

I wonder if it's a bit of education, because I didn't know that Amazon Music shared the revenue back to, you know, know, the creators.

And I should know that because I'm in the space as employee, I guess, but I'm also in the space as a creator on the funding side, and I didn't know that. So that's something new I've learned today. I've learned a lot of new things today, I should say. And I just learned one thing from you today, James.

I'm going to recant that. So I wonder if it's more about awareness and education and getting that message out as to what Amazon can do for podcasters.

James Cridland: 00:51:19

I think it is. I mean, they're the number two podcast app in India. India is a massive, massive place.

But they're the number two global podcast app in India, which, you know, came as a surprise to the team as well when I was showing, showing them that information as well. But I think, you know, it's a big app. It's got a lot of people using it. I think they're number two in Japan as well.

It's got a lot of people using it. I think what Amazon doesn't do a particularly good job of is marketing that and actually helping people understand that.

And of course, in typical large company fashion, they've got a completely separate app which also contains podcasts. Audible. And Audible has some podcasts. It may have this podcast in it.

I don't know, it may have other podcasts in it, but it's got a bunch of its own podcasts that it has paid for that only Audible customers can access. So typical large company form, Amazon Music has two separate podcast apps or Amazon has two separate podcast apps.

So that would be a good job to fix that at some point. I keep on saying this every time I see them. I don't suppose that they will ever listen to that.

But, you know, so, you know, and actually some of the stuff that they do, one of the things we do when we collect all of the comments in the report card is we put the country of that person next to the comments so that people can understand, you know, is this a particular issue that we've got in this particular country? So, you know, Apple podcasts, for example, they do have editorial people in Canada as well as in the US as well as here in Australia.

They don't have editorial people on the ground, at least in some other countries, like New Zealand, for example. Is that something that you can spot from this information and from Amazon's point of view?

Actually they do really well in the uk, really well in Europe.

And quite a lot of that is down to the fact that they are much closer to the creators in those countries than they perhaps are in in North America, where Amazon is just a very large, big company.

They do some really nice things in the uk, certainly about promoting the shows available on Amazon Music, promoting, you know, creators, getting them all together for a big, you know, for a big party. I think they have awards in there as well. So they, they do a really nice job.

And I think that that's something that, you know, again, we don't see an awful lot of because, you know, from a more international, you know, view, we kind of don't see that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's a fascinating, fascinating organization.

Danny Brown: 00:54:18

So you'll be looking forward to next month's trip to London then for that pre show gathering?

James Cridland: 00:54:24

Yes, that's always a, that's always a slightly embarrassing highlight. So looking forward to that.

Danny Brown: 00:54:31

you back on next year for the: 2026

We'll jump to one of our sections, our segments. But just to wrap up this discussion, James, if you were, well, you are a creator.

If you were putting your creator hat on and you were filling out your own report card from a creator point of, of you. What's the, you don't have to mention any company names or anything like that. What's the one big point you would get across ferociously?

James Cridland: 00:55:06

Ah, the one big point I would get across. I mean, I think, I think at the end of it, I am really interested in making sure that podcasting doesn't just turn into another channel in YouTube.

That, that is a real worry to me.

Me, a lot of the podcast industry will just wither away if we have no more, you know, if we have no more access to open RSS and all of that kind of kind of thing. So I think from, from that point of view, that's probably one thing, one point that I would make again and again.

You know, in terms of this, I mean, I think, you know, the only other thing that I would say is actually, you know, when you have a look at apps, the second most popular app according to the pod news report card, and it got more than 50 votes. So it's a fine statistical number.

The second most popular podcast app is PocketCasts, which is the independent podcast app that's available on both iOS and Android.

I think we should be pushing that app more as an industry because Pocket Casts really is what podcasting is all about to an extent that YouTube isn't, to an extent that Spotify isn't, and to an increasing extent what Apple Podcasts isn't either.

So I think the more that we can do to promote Pocketcasts as the independent place where you can listen to shows, I think the better for the entire industry. And I would really lean into that if I, you know, if I could.

Danny Brown: 00:56:46

And I will back that up.

Their community team, led by Emilyn, does an amazing job with the outreach to creators, you know, to, to get them featured on lists along with some bigger podcasts that really helps them, you know, get a bit more awareness in the eyeballs and ear. Not earballs, ear buds, I guess. Earbuds on their. Their podcast. So, yeah, Pocket Cast.

I love Pocket Cast and that's probably my second biggest app as far as my own shows go, is pocketcast. Love what they. They do. So, as I mentioned, James, I really could talk to you for hours on this, but a. I'm weary.

It's breakfast time for you in Australia and I'm not sure if you've had breakfast yet. So I don't want to turn you into a starving man. So we're going to flip the script a little bit at the moment.

Thankfully, I guess I don't have a stupid stuff this week, which I was surprised at. I did see some stupid stuff, but I've covered it up before on the.

James Cridland: 00:57:36

Oh, and there's plenty of stupid stuff.

Danny Brown: 00:57:38

There's plenty. I mean, if you have one, by all means, mate. But we've spoken about.

Obviously we're talking about how it might be fun for you to have certain discussions next month when you hand in the report card, you start to talk to some companies about the report card. So just to sort of raise the levity or the brevity? The levity. Not the brevity. The levity.

Just to raise things a little bit, we are going to jump over to our flattening run and this is a point of the episode where we ask our guest to shout out to someone, something, some who, some what, whatever that sum is finished off with. So, James, who or what would you like to shout out to for your flattening ram?

James Cridland: 00:58:22

Well, I think they don't necessarily get quite as much.

Quite as much positive comment as they should, but I think Adam Curry and Dave Jones from the PODPodcast Index Podcasting 2.0, the new podcast Namespace. There's an awful lot of hidden work that they do in terms of corralling people in terms of moving that project forward.

I know that there's been aided and abetted by this show. I should point out, Danny, quite a lot of negative comment recently.

But the positive changes that they have made to independent podcasting over the last couple of years have been immense.

So if I was going to add anybody to the flattering ram this week with that lovely jingle, then I would say that it should be Adam Curry and Dave Jones for everything that they do for the independent podcast industry.

Danny Brown: 00:59:24

That's ishow second that. And we weren't negative. I just want to. We weren't really negative. Discussion started. We had lovely clear on from the podcast.

James Cridland: 00:59:35

Constructive, I believe, is the phrase.

Danny Brown: 00:59:36

There we go. Constructive. Thank you, thank you. No, no, I mean we're all in the same, but we want to see podcasting rise up.

And yeah, I completely agree what these guys are doing, you know, with the podcasting 2.0 movement. It really does, you know, lift all podcasters up. So, yeah, that's a great show.

And I will definitely leave links to these chaps in the show notes in case you don't know where to find them.

I'm pretty sure the majority of listeners of this podcast do, but I'm not going to assume because I assume Dell are about making it easy to get RSS on to Apple and Spotify, and James rightly corrected me on that one.

So that's a great shout, James, for anybody that wants to read the report card for themselves and look at all the stats, that wants to look at the infinite dial, wants to listen to any of the wonderful podcasting shows that you do in your newsletter. Where's the best place to find all that and connect with you online or even meet up with you in person?

James Cridland: 01:00:28

Well, the best place is obviously my Bebo page, which. No, I'm joking. The best place is my website, which is podnews.net which is nice and easy.

If you're curious about some of the radio stuff that Danny and I were talking about earlier on, assuming that that made it into the edit, then that's at my personal website, which is james.credland.net but you'll find certainly everything there and.

Danny Brown: 01:00:54

I will be sure to leave all this information in the show notes and link out to it. So if you're listening on podcast app or online on the website, check out the show notes and everything will link out.

You can find James where he likes to hang out best. So again, James, I really appreciate you joining me today and discussing the topics for the Infinite Dial and the POD News report card.

James Cridland: 01:01:12

Thank you very much. It's been wonderful to be on this show again.

Danny Brown: 01:01:16

Thanks for listening to in and around Podcasting. If you enjoyed this week's episode, we'd love you to share it with your friends and anybody interested in the podcasting space.

And if your podcast app of choice that you're listening on at the moment has a review option, we'd love some little stars or reviews there. That'd be nice and always appreciated by myself and Mark. Until the next time, keep doing what you're doing in the podcasting space.

It is valued and appreciated. Take care.