Ep 36 Back to the future of Podcasting
English (US)
00:02.880 — 00:05.120 · Speaker 1
The podcast world continues to grow.
00:06.400 — 00:21.080 · Speaker 1
Listenership is expanding at a rate of knots in its current format. We obviously understand what it is. Podcasting apps YouTube. What is the future of podcasting do you guys think?
00:22.240 — 00:28.000 · Speaker 2
Well, I wish I had a crystal ball, which I don’t, but I can give it some good guesses.
00:28.120 — 00:30.240 · Speaker 3
I was going to say you do have some insights though.
00:30.480 — 00:59.990 · Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. So I think what’s what’s happening is the big merge of traditional and new media. So the creator economy merging with the traditional media economy, that is starting to happen now. If you look at what’s happened in Kansas, here at Mipcom, where the focus was on digital creators crossing over to to traditional media.
And that’s a small indication of where the audiences are at.
01:00.030 — 01:09.350 · Speaker 1
When a digital creator crosses over to traditional media. Is it in the same format so? Or are they just crossing over because they’re now celebrity?
01:09.670 — 01:38.390 · Speaker 2
Um. It’s both. I mean, one of the earliest big successes I saw was Vice News, who was a digital news thingamabob. Uh, crossing over to HBO. HBO licensed them. They picked the best stories, and they did very little repackaging for their linear formats. Right. Um, you see Mr. Beast doing stuff for Amazon in a new format?
01:01:38.550 — 01:01:46.430 · Speaker 1
Yeah. I suppose that example is actually kind of the same format. It’s game shows with big prizes and changes and things.
01:46.430 — 01:56.030 · Speaker 2
But they brought it a little bit more into the format world, which is a bit more formal. Traditional. Mhm. Um, licensed IP kind of stuff. It’s not just random.
01:56.070 — 02:00.180 · Speaker 1
He’s doing similar stuff like he’s not hosting a cooking show or something. Yeah, yeah.
02:00.460 — 02:23.100 · Speaker 3
The other thing that I see as a trend that really suits those in the podcasting or digital content creation space is the, um, continued growth of short format video. People are looking for batch size content. They’re filling smaller gaps. Watching something on their phone.
02:23.140 — 02:23.540 · Speaker 2
Yeah.
02:23.580 — 02:57.730 · Speaker 3
So, you know, we were in our youth watching a show on TV for 30 minutes or 60 minutes, much less, I suppose, when you consider ad breaks. Um, and, you know, I think we are still going to have TV shows that we can stream that are those length. But more and more people are watching short form content. So podcasters who are creating bite sized bits are going to find a huge audience for that content and it.
It will continue to.
02:57.770 — 03:07.210 · Speaker 2
Grow and we see it in the world of drama. Actually, if you see what micro dramas and vertical dramas have, how they’ve turned the applicant over in the last two years.
03:07.210 — 03:07.730 · Speaker 3
What are those?
03:08.330 — 04:17.390 · Speaker 2
So micro dramas and or whatever you want to call them are 2 to 3 minute episode telenovelas of 200. Well, from 50 to 200 episodes each. So very famously, Real Shorts is one of the biggest ones that comes from China. It’s huge in the US and viewership is incentivized very differently. It’s got a very different financial model behind it.
Um, you now go they put the first five apps out on YouTube for free, and you get hooked on them, and then you have to download the Real Shorts app, and then you use tokens or a coin system to keep watching, um, that the traditional industry did not see coming. And it is exploding. It’s still exploding. Um, in the rest of the world, it’s going to explode in Africa.
Um, if not, by the time there’s. This is, um. And that just shows that audiences are really liberated from the lounge and the TV. Now, um, the new generation Gen Alpha or Gen Z, they say, aren’t going to buy TVs.
04:17.430 — 04:18.030 · Speaker 3
Wow.
04:18.430 — 04:19.310 · Speaker 2
There’s not going to be TV.
04:19.350 — 04:20.829 · Speaker 3
Not even to watch YouTube.
04:21.269 — 04:32.510 · Speaker 2
No, they’re going to have projectors. Okay. They’re really doing it. They’re sitting in their dorm rooms in college with projectors on the ceilings. Mhm. This formalized shared experience of watching.
04:32.550 — 04:32.870 · Speaker 1
The old.
04:32.870 — 01:05:11.300 · Speaker 2
School is kind of dying in the home. Um, and there’s a lot of people that’s trying to advocate for that to come back. So like take NHK in Japan who has got a very strong strategy for family viewing and shared viewing experience, and that’s they’re pushing that as a core value now in their content that they’re going to produce content that the whole family will watch together and not on separate devices.
So these are all things that are happening to the TV world that I think we’ve been resisting for a long time. And now the creators have redefined the audiences to a point where we cannot ignore the creator economy.
05:11.340 — 05:18.340 · Speaker 1
Do you think that, uh, traditional TV as we know it new it is dead?
05:18.380 — 05:18.980 · Speaker 2
No.
05:19.140 — 05:27.020 · Speaker 1
Dying? Absolutely not. I know that’s something that you you don’t necessarily want to hear, but, I mean, and it’s in the way we know it now.
05:27.100 — 05:27.500 · Speaker 2
I’ll tell you.
05:27.540 — 05:34.980 · Speaker 1
I’ll tell you. Like we are talking about creators not being ignored anymore. And that’s sort of that is fundamentally changing the format of TV.
05:35.020 — 05:36.100 · Speaker 2
Okay. So in that sense.
05:36.140 — 05:36.980 · Speaker 1
That’s what I mean.
05:37.020 — 06:38.130 · Speaker 2
Um, I still think linear broadcasts have got a massive place. Um, and they won’t disappear, especially national broadcasters, things like that. They’ve got very specific strategic objectives and they might adopt podcast style shows into their lineup now. But what makes a podcast so good is that you can select when you want to view it on linear TV.
You’ve got to put entertainment out. That’s destination viewing, and I don’t see schedulers scheduling podcasts into into that format. Um, that’s why not even the biggest podcast in the world get broadcast like this there. You would have to manipulate the podcast to be exactly a certain length, uh, abide by all the Broadcasting Complaints Commission stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah.
There’s a lot more regulation in TV. You’ve got to regulate the advertisers a lot differently.
06:38.170 — 06:47.490 · Speaker 1
When you’re talking now about TV. Yeah, you’re talking about linear, traditional satellite. Yes. Type of TV. Yes. Okay.
06:47.530 — 06:49.720 · Speaker 2
Yeah. We’re streamers is a different story.
06:49.760 — 06:50.240 · Speaker 1
Okay.
06:50.280 — 06:53.480 · Speaker 2
And as we know, Netflix is now playing with podcasts too.
06:53.960 — 07:18.760 · Speaker 3
Yeah. So we’ve heard that Netflix and Spotify are now going to collaborate and bring a few podcast shows onto Netflix, so you can stream a podcast from your Netflix channel. Yeah. Um, I think that the, um, the crossover of, of audiences across these platforms is going to happen more and more.
07:20.080 — 07:35.440 · Speaker 3
You know, for example, if you build an audience now in YouTube, I think that as your platform there grows and your audience there grows, you can then build an audience just about anywhere else after the fact.
07:35.480 — 07:38.040 · Speaker 1
Or just take your audience with you to anything.
07:38.080 — 07:56.150 · Speaker 3
Exactly. So I think that the podcasting in the way that it looks now might change, but I think this style of content is is going to exist forever. I think where we find it much change. Yeah, and certainly is already changing.
07:56.150 — 08:05.350 · Speaker 2
And just think of it this way. We are referring to podcasts very generally as podcasts as well. And that whole group of thing, we used to just call it talk show.
08:05.750 — 08:06.710 · Speaker 3
Or radio.
08:06.830 — 08:06.990 · Speaker 2
Or.
08:06.990 — 08:07.670 · Speaker 3
Radio. No.
08:07.710 — 08:38.990 · Speaker 2
So yeah. So yeah, it’s just the format isn’t new. Yeah. The the platform where we consume it is new, which gives us more access and more, uh, you know, we vote with our with our eyeballs now, um, and what Netflix is doing is reacting to the fact that they know podcast viewership is not slowing down, and they want to share of that viewership while it, YouTube and Spotify have at all.
Yeah. You know, um, so.
08:39.030 — 08:43.550 · Speaker 3
Well, didn’t YouTube take just last year the biggest revenue for ads.
08:43.590 — 08:51.660 · Speaker 2
For ads when they for the first time exceeded. Television. Television. That’s been. Which is incredible. Yeah. Incredible.
08:51.700 — 08:52.860 · Speaker 1
I can’t ignore it anymore.
08:52.940 — 09:02.820 · Speaker 2
You cannot ignore it anymore. If you’re a brand and you’re not considering buying media in digital, um, you should really consider talking to us.
09:02.860 — 09:11.980 · Speaker 1
What I mean. Well, 100% of YouTube is that big now. If you do a podcast or video podcast, that’s where you’re.
09:12.020 — 09:12.580 · Speaker 3
As we have.
09:12.580 — 09:17.140 · Speaker 1
To be, have content. Yeah. And YouTube is also just a giant search engine.
09:17.460 — 09:38.140 · Speaker 2
It is. And Netflix I think is going we want to be that too. Mhm. Except there are different model. Right. So if I’ve got a podcast going out on Spotify and it’s big and Spotify and Netflix don’t necessarily have a huge crossover audience, that means I’m going to double my audience.
09:38.180 — 09:38.660 · Speaker 1
Yeah.
09:38.700 — 09:57.930 · Speaker 2
Mhm. Um, take me for example. I’m way more likely to watch a video podcast on Netflix, then I am on YouTube. On YouTube because of my viewership pattern. And if there’s another 10 million people like me out there, which I’m sure there is, Netflix is is going to win at the stream.
09:58.050 — 10:24.210 · Speaker 3
I’ll tell you what I’m most excited about with this colab is that podcasting is a way for you to consume. Content is going to be now taken to a broader audience. Yeah. You know, I still think that and we’re seeing it in our country. There is a huge amount of growth in in people following podcasts. Um, but I think that, you know, things like this is going to speed it up.
10:24.250 — 10:31.650 · Speaker 1
I actually just wish the name podcast would go away personally. Yeah. It’s like making it seem like something that isn’t.
10:31.850 — 10:32.330 · Speaker 3
It isn’t.
10:32.330 — 01:10:32.610 · Speaker 1
Anymore.
10:32.850 — 10:34.410 · Speaker 2
It’s just it’s just content.
10:34.450 — 10:35.370 · Speaker 1
It’s just content.
10:35.410 — 10:41.290 · Speaker 2
It’s content creation. Like I said, it’s talk. Um, and the podcast thing was.
10:41.490 — 10:42.370 · Speaker 1
Do we talk about this
10:44.520 — 10:52.800 · Speaker 1
No no, no. Not on air. But we said instead of podcast studio, we’re we’re content creators. Yeah, yeah we are.
10:52.800 — 10:56.800 · Speaker 2
We’re on content creation studio. It’s we use the word podcast that way.
10:57.320 — 10:58.040 · Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
10:58.080 — 11:11.600 · Speaker 2
But, um, it’s a Steve Job thing and it’s fading away. You know, hopefully it’s hopefully going to fade away. Um, but you’re very excited to see how podcasts. I just said.
11:11.680 — 11:13.920 · Speaker 4
Well, that’s what it is. I mean, we, you.
11:13.920 — 11:20.920 · Speaker 1
Know, are we using it too? It’s literally in the name of our yeah, content creator creation show,
11:22.280 — 11:22.920 · Speaker 1
trying not to.
11:22.920 — 12:24.180 · Speaker 2
Say what I would love to know. And I haven’t spoken to anybody at YouTube or Netflix or Spotify. Um, really. But so we were just making guessing games here. But I would like to know, are they going to hold the podcast to the same technical standard as what they currently do have for their content? Surely. Because that means the next evolution for podcasts is pushing quality to broadcast level, which is difficult for the average creator to achieve.
Yes, the standards are much higher. It’s much more complicated to do international deliveries. Yeah, you have to send out clean versions. You have to send the audio has to be mixed a certain way so it can be dubbed without messing up the music and blah blah, blah. There’s all these requirements, right?
Are they going? Are we going to see in the future that podcasts just turn into shows? Shows? Yeah. That’s produced the way we’ve been doing TV forever. Because why.
12:24.380 — 12:25.660 · Speaker 3
Pretend podcasts?
12:25.660 — 12:46.850 · Speaker 2
We need the yeah, the pretend podcast. I mean, we’re using these mics. We don’t. Like, if I was doing a TV show, I wouldn’t have this here. This has become a style. Mhm. Um, we in TV used to hate seeing a microphone. This is just a prop. This stage they’re on, I promise. But, um, we don’t. We don’t need them.
12:47.130 — 12:50.169 · Speaker 1
I like to imagine that it isn’t going to just
12:51.330 — 13:07.970 · Speaker 1
become what we used to have, just TV shows, because there’s a reason it exists. It’s a reason why I kind of sprung up on these other platforms as a sort of a result of not of wanting to produce content, but not being able to produce it to the same.
13:08.010 — 13:10.530 · Speaker 3
But then would it not just look like YouTube?
13:10.930 — 3:11.210 · Speaker 2
Yeah.
13:11.250 — 13:13.970 · Speaker 3
You know, because in YouTube your quality can be.
13:14.090 — 13:14.770 · Speaker 1
It does range.
13:14.810 — 13:15.530 · Speaker 3
Very basic.
13:15.570 — 13:21.370 · Speaker 1
The basic quality that man gets at home is maybe not broadcast quality, but a lot of it is really good.
13:22.050 — 13:22.490 · Speaker 3
Hmm.
13:22.570 — 13:59.240 · Speaker 2
That’s debatable. So yeah, I would say it’s it’s the good shows, the ones that’s been around for a while. The quality is definitely a a pressure to produce better. Yeah. Whether that’s content quality or visual quality audio quality, it’s just quality in general. And I know YouTube has always said put.
Bring up the quality to improve your viewership. They’ve always, always said that, you know, they’ve got the cats and kittens business and then they’ve got quality content. So they also acknowledge audiences do respond to that quality.
13:59.280 — 14:00.520 · Speaker 3
Yeah yeah yeah.
14:00.560 — 14:15.120 · Speaker 2
And what that quality is is debatable. But I definitely think we’re going to see a lot more pressure on on creators to produce at a higher level. Um, it’s getting easier to produce at a higher level.
14:15.160 — 14:21.400 · Speaker 3
I also think that the take that you can get now, um, as an entry level content creator.
14:21.440 — 14:21.880 · Speaker 1
That’s kind of.
14:22.040 — 14:23.560 · Speaker 3
Even just the phones.
14:23.560 — 14:27.920 · Speaker 1
You can you can make something look pretty damn decent on YouTube with.
14:28.600 — 14:29.560 · Speaker 3
With minimal.
14:29.600 — 14:31.240 · Speaker 1
With, with minimal equipment.
14:31.480 — 14:33.720 · Speaker 3
Equipment. But, um.
14:33.760 — :14:34.120 · Speaker 2
That’s.
14:34.120 — 14:34.400 · Speaker 3
True.
14:35.120 — 14:45.390 · Speaker 2
But let’s see what Netflix does because they’ve got approved equipment lists for acquire acquisition. So you can’t use certain cameras to.
14:45.430 — 14:50.990 · Speaker 1
I think I think in the Netflix Spotify Colab it is going to be very highly produced.
14:51.270 — 14:51.670 · Speaker 2
Yeah.
14:51.710 — 14:53.670 · Speaker 1
Mhm. TV show stuff.
14:53.710 — 15:17.230 · Speaker 2
But in the future maybe the iPhone gets Netflix approved. We’ll see a lot more stuff. So. So it’s a really interesting space. I think it’s all merging. What I’ve always said to people is don’t worry about the platform. So much entertainment is always going to be key. And that’s why I’m in this industry. I’m not a platform because I.
15:17.670 — 15:26.870 · Speaker 3
Would like to argue a little bit on that, in that I believe that YouTube will be the best place to start.
15:28.310 — 15:28.830 · Speaker 4
Until.
15:28.870 — 15:29.590 · Speaker 2
Until something.
15:29.590 — 15:29.830 · Speaker 4
Else.
15:30.190 — 15:34.700 · Speaker 3
Way to get an audience. Okay. Right now with the information I had. Yeah, Yeah.
15:34.740 — 15:45.980 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. But I think the calls point is that right now YouTube, it’s YouTube. Yes. You want to see when you get to see the best content. It might be something else next year, but it’s still just about the best content.
15:46.020 — 16:09.180 · Speaker 3
I think what I’m what I’m getting at is that if you look at just the example of our show and the growth on two different channels, we have the same content. The one channel has has grown tremendously compared to the other. So if you’re looking for an entry point for your content right now, I would say.
16:09.180 — 16:09.540 · Speaker 1
YouTube.
16:09.700 — 16:10.260 · Speaker 2
Yeah I.
16:10.260 — 16:14.060 · Speaker 1
Agree. I agree with that. Especially for a video podcast.
16:14.140 — 16:16.020 · Speaker 3
Yeah, I’m assuming video. Yeah.
16:16.060 — 16:46.930 · Speaker 2
But I mean, it’s also possible these days, um, to create your own platform. So and we recommend this for people that’s doing courses and training. Uh, yeah. And fitness stuff, all of that. Create your own platform. Why do it on YouTube? Um, once you’ve you’ve got a viable product and you can market it properly.
People don’t really care so much that it’s not on YouTube. They want.
16:46.970 — 16:48.930 · Speaker 3
But what about discoverability?
16:48.970 — 16:50.450 · Speaker 2
Well, that’s why you market it on YouTube.
16:50.490 — 16:52.770 · Speaker 3
Oh, okay. All right. So you’re still on YouTube also.
16:53.170 — 16:55.290 · Speaker 2
Yeah. But you’re not putting your content there. You advertise.
16:55.330 — 16:56.930 · Speaker 3
Okay. You advertise there. Okay.
16:56.930 — 17:58.280 · Speaker 2
So you’re moving people off of YouTube onto your platform. And there are advantages. There are. You control the analytics so you get all the info. YouTube only doesn’t decide for you what info you get. Um, you can create packages. You can create whatever you want. The experience is totally customizable for your consumer.
Now YouTube has added some features like that, um, which is very interesting, but you can still own your own platform and you can publish it to Apple TV, to Samsung TV to, um, Android to. Roku to. To wherever you want it. And it’s hugely profitable for those kind of businesses because they don’t have to share the revenue with the platform.
They are the platform. So I really think in the future there’s going to be a different way of discoverability other than YouTube. YouTube cannot hold the monopoly on that.
17:58.320 — 18:08.320 · Speaker 3
And are you talking about those those creators having a subscription model? Is that why the revenue is so much better on that platform, their own platform?
18:08.360 — 18:21.120 · Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s why it’s working for training and stuff like that. So yoga classes and they can run live classes and they can run recorded stuff and whatever. Coaches life coaches doing nutrition coaching.
18:21.320 — 18:33.870 · Speaker 1
Whenever we’ve done stuff like that. The videos themselves are hosted on YouTube or Vimeo or something embedded into the LMS platform or whatever we’ve created. Are you suggesting a full.
18:34.190 — 18:40.030 · Speaker 2
Yeah. No, I’m suggesting totally. You own everything. So you’ve got your own Amazon S3 server.
18:40.070 — 18:41.070 · Speaker 1
Running the video and all of.
18:41.070 — 18:54.790 · Speaker 2
That running the video. You’re controlling everything. Um, I could you could literally do it overnight. It’s that accessible. Um, and yes, it’s a bit more higher level. But remember, content is a business.
18:54.830 — 18:58.950 · Speaker 3
Well, that’s what I was just going to say. I think the beauty there is that you get all the rounds.
18:59.070 — 19:33.690 · Speaker 2
Yeah. So you don’t need 1 million subscribers anymore? Yeah. You need a thousand and you’re making more money. Yeah, yeah. Than what you would be doing publishing your stuff on somebody else’s platform. And this is where this is where the battleground is. Yeah. If if a brand can own their media. Yeah. Platform.
Why the hell not? Red bull has done it. Red bull TV. Yeah. Is everywhere. um, to the point where they licensing out their content, not to other brands. They don’t have huge viewership.
19:33.730 — 19:34.090 · Speaker 1
Mhm.
19:34.130 — 19:51.730 · Speaker 2
Mhm. It’s done immensely well for them. You know it’s a huge success story. So. And they were one of the first to do their own. Those days we call it OTT uh over the top network. So I think with with technology becoming more accessible.
19:52.250 — 19:52.690 · Speaker 4
Yeah.
19:52.730 — 20:15.050 · Speaker 2
Why why even do it. Filmmakers are even going. Why why give my film to a Netflix? Um, I can publish it myself. Vimeo actually helped with this a bit, you know, and create my own income. I need a lot less fans, but fans that are dedicated, that’ll give me some bucks.
20:15.090 — 20:25.850 · Speaker 1
Yeah, I think in the past it’s almost been like a technological limitation. That that is why people have used YouTube and it’s and and that now that that technical.
20:26.880 — 20:27.480 · Speaker 3
Barrier to.
20:27.520 — 20:31.960 · Speaker 1
Barrier to entry has gone away. So now you can just start doing your own thing.
20:32.000 — 20:52.240 · Speaker 2
Yeah. And that’s what the mini dramas did. They went, why should we give YouTube all the audience? We’ll use YouTube. Great place to find our stuff. Yeah, they’re the search engine, right? Yeah. Um, but we’re going to push them off to our own platform. Yeah. And they’ve been the most successful example of moving somebody off a platform onto another.
20:52.440 — 20:52.880 · Speaker 1
Another.
20:52.920 — 21:01.720 · Speaker 2
Um. Hands down. Millions and millions and millions of people, uh, will bail off YouTube to go onto real shorts like that.
21:01.840 — 21:02.520 · Speaker 1
Okay.
21:02.720 — 21:04.160 · Speaker 2
So I think the.
21:04.160 — 21:04.680 · Speaker 4
Future.
21:05.360 — 21:07.400 · Speaker 2
Is unpredictable.
21:07.440 — 21:07.960 · Speaker 4
It is.
21:08.160 — 21:23.760 · Speaker 2
Nothing I’ve said will absolutely come true. But there will be YouTube in the future. They will be Netflix with creator content on. There will be linear channels with creative content on. There will be YouTube where TV shows on like there is now.
21:23.800 — 21:25.510 · Speaker 1
It’s. Yeah, it’s really a thing.
21:25.550 — 21:31.030 · Speaker 2
I think the options are just going to get broader and broader and broader markets. Jobs are going to get harder.
21:31.030 — 21:32.430 · Speaker 4
And harder and harder.
21:32.750 — 21:44.070 · Speaker 1
And well that’s interesting. Like as they say, AI is going to take over marketing’s marketer’s jobs. There’s just more and more platforms to manage and stuff. So our job actually just gets bigger and bigger.
21:44.110 — 22:06.790 · Speaker 2
It just gets bigger and bigger. And it’s I think it gets more exciting, to be honest, because there’s so much more opportunity to be creative in these spaces, to create traction channels that your competitors aren’t doing. You know, um, one of the things I’m the most passionate about is creating dramas for brands, because in the past that was not possible.
22:06.830 — 22:07.550 · Speaker 1
Not a thing.
22:07.590 — 22:44.740 · Speaker 2
You couldn’t do that. Now we can. And why not? It’s the number one entertainment. Uh, on the planet is drama. Uh, reality TV was cheap to produce and brands get involved with that, which I still also love. But drama is now Ready for the taking. Why not? Yeah. Um, so I think it’s really exciting. The future.
I think the more technology comes involved, the more creative we can be. Um, last year and canon, I was talking to this guy. They’ve got the geo stuff linked into content. So when you walk into a certain space, gets pushed to your phone, this content.
22:44.900 — 22:45.340 · Speaker 1
Oh, right.
22:45.380 — 23:00.300 · Speaker 2
Yeah. It’s like Minority Report if you ever watched that phone. It’s happening guys. It’s the future of of content and and marketing is obviously intertwined because that’s how it’ll always be funded. But it’s absolutely incredible what’s going on.
23:00.460 — 23:05.860 · Speaker 1
Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining us. We look forward to call TV launching soon.
23:06.460 — 23:08.900 · Speaker 4
Um, hi. Oh. Come on. Hi, TV.
23:08.940 — 23:18.140 · Speaker 1
Yeah. What do you guys think of the future of podcasting? Is, uh, and the future of content in general. Let us know and we can do it. Episode on it in the future. Cheers.
