Is YouTube Good for Podcasting? A Deep Dive with James Cridland

[Mark]: 00:00:02

As YouTube enters the fray when it comes to podcasting and reveals its plan for the

[Mark]: 00:00:08

medium, will it change the way that we think as indie creators and how will it

[Mark]: 00:00:12

impact the bigger media companies amongst us? Here with me today is someone that has

[Mark]: 00:00:19

probably got more experience in audio, in radio, in podcasting than the rest of us

[Mark]: 00:00:25

combined. It is, of course, the one, the only, the founder and editor-in-chief.

[Mark]: 00:00:31

of Pod News, Mr James Cridland, welcome mate, you alright?

[James Cridland]: 00:00:36

Thank you. Thank you very much. I have no idea where Editor-in-Chief

[James Cridland]: 00:00:39

comes from, but I'm a fan of it. So yes, let's go with that.

[Mark]: 00:00:43

I think that's like a Perry White thing. That's probably my old Superman comic reading

[Mark]: 00:00:48

days. And now I just think that everyone should be called that.

[James Cridland]: 00:00:51

Hehehehehehe

[Mark]: 00:00:52

So I'm good with that, but we'll go with that one. And from now on, I'm going to

[Mark]: 00:00:55

call you Perry. How are you? You're doing all right. Congratulations on the podcast

[Mark]: 00:00:59

business journal, by the way.

[James Cridland]: 00:01:02

Yes, yes, I'm very excited about having two things to write now. I, you

[James Cridland]: 00:01:09

know, I'll need some stuff in a bit. That'll be a nice thing. But yeah,

[James Cridland]: 00:01:14

so, you know, having a daily newsletter and now a weekly one that just focuses

[James Cridland]: 00:01:18

on the business of podcasting. It's really good to be working on that and

[James Cridland]: 00:01:22

really enjoying it.

[Mark]: 00:01:24

I love it, mate. Yeah, congratulations. I was thrilled when I saw it. And I think the

[Mark]: 00:01:26

business of podcasting is something that for me, I think a lot of independents

[Mark]: 00:01:30

are starting to think about a little bit more. They're starting to think about,

[Mark]: 00:01:32

you know, actually, this is an industry. This is a media. This is something that we

[Mark]: 00:01:38

as Indies get to play with before we start becoming more serious. But to a lot of

[Mark]: 00:01:44

people, to a lot of

[James Cridland]: 00:01:45

Mm.

[Mark]: 00:01:46

VCs, to a lot of... media companies, to a lot of producers, to a lot of creators,

[Mark]: 00:01:51

writers and so on and so forth. This is a genuine industry. So YouTube getting involved

[Mark]: 00:01:57

in this industry, it feels like quite a big deal. So I'm looking forward to getting

[Mark]: 00:02:02

into that one. But first and foremost, the thing that I want to do, and I think, inimitably,

[Mark]: 00:02:06

no one can do this quite like you can, let's just summarize what's happened. What

[Mark]: 00:02:10

has YouTube done over the last three, four weeks? And then... I guess proceeded with

[Mark]: 00:02:16

a beta or a beta, whoever's listening from whatever country a few

[James Cridland]: 00:02:21

Yes.

[Mark]: 00:02:21

months ago. So what's going on? What have YouTube done in podcasting?

[James Cridland]: 00:02:27

Well, about a year and a half ago, there was an awful lot of rumour about

[James Cridland]: 00:02:31

YouTube jumping into podcasting and YouTube ended up sponsoring the podcast

[James Cridland]: 00:02:35

show in London this time last year, with YouTube logos all over everywhere.

[James Cridland]: 00:02:40

But you went to ask anybody at YouTube, what are you doing with podcasting?

[James Cridland]: 00:02:44

And they said, Oh, well, we can't tell you. And then I discovered something

[James Cridland]: 00:02:49

a little bit earlier than that I discovered something that YouTube were

[James Cridland]: 00:02:52

actually going and talking to podcast customers, podcast publishers about

[James Cridland]: 00:02:57

in terms of what their plans were. And I published one of those slides and

[James Cridland]: 00:03:04

YouTube got very, very angry with me. So clearly this has been something

[James Cridland]: 00:03:08

that they've been planning for a while. So what they've basically done

[James Cridland]: 00:03:11

now is that, I mean, for many years, people with podcasts have been uploading

[James Cridland]: 00:03:17

them to YouTube. This very podcast has been uploaded to YouTube in the

[James Cridland]: 00:03:21

past as well. And if you... have a definition here of a podcast being a

[James Cridland]: 00:03:26

piece of audio first content. So this podcast will work perfectly happily

[James Cridland]: 00:03:31

if you close your eyes. That's absolutely fine. Joe Rogan, when he was on

[James Cridland]: 00:03:34

YouTube, was a podcast. So what YouTube has now done is that they have

[James Cridland]: 00:03:40

launched something that they call podcasts, which is a way to get these

[James Cridland]: 00:03:43

properly marked as podcasts on the YouTube platform. And in the US as well,

[James Cridland]: 00:03:51

you can listen to podcasts on YouTube Music, which is their music app.

[James Cridland]: 00:03:55

So podcasts, as YouTube calls them, are now available on YouTube everywhere

[James Cridland]: 00:04:02

in the world and within YouTube Music in the US, which is a real step forward.

[Mark]: 00:04:08

That's, number one, really interesting from a functionality perspective. But number

[Mark]: 00:04:12

two, I think it's interesting because that definition to me of podcast has subtly

[Mark]: 00:04:16

shifted, whether we like it or not, audio first content. Of course, we've got the

[Mark]: 00:04:20

argument about delivery via RSS. I had a chat about that with myself and Danny Brown,

[Mark]: 00:04:26

actually, last week when I, when I, when I published the interview that Danny did

[Mark]: 00:04:30

with me and the thought process around, of course, that is, that is a podcast, that

[Mark]: 00:04:35

is open podcasting. But If I'm a publisher, and you know, we, you and I are pretty fortunate

[James Cridland]: 00:04:41

Mm.

[Mark]: 00:04:41

to see a lot of indie and we're fortunate enough to have a foot in the publisher world

[Mark]: 00:04:46

as well. You know, me through global,

[James Cridland]: 00:04:47

Yeah.

[Mark]: 00:04:47

you through being you.

[James Cridland]: 00:04:48

Yeah.

[Mark]: 00:04:50

To the publishers, YouTube must be attractive. And as much as we can say, is it really a podcast

[Mark]: 00:05:00

if it's not got an RSS feed? There is that argument of it being audio first, hence

[Mark]: 00:05:06

That's the definition of podcasting. Thus, of course we should embrace YouTube.

[Mark]: 00:05:10

Of course as a publisher, I'm going to theoretically dive straight into this and

[Mark]: 00:05:16

take a look. Where does right now, and then we'll maybe speculate about this

[James Cridland]: 00:05:20

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:05:20

as well, but where does RSS sit when it comes to YouTube? And the first and most

[Mark]: 00:05:25

pressing question is, do they accept RSS feeds?

[James Cridland]: 00:05:32

No, they do not accept RSS feeds. Not yet. What they have said and what

[James Cridland]: 00:05:36

they've been pretty consistent in saying in the last one and a half years

[James Cridland]: 00:05:41

is that they are going to be looking at RSS and they are looking at the

[James Cridland]: 00:05:45

possibility of automatically ingesting people's podcasts using RSS. But

[James Cridland]: 00:05:51

right now, if you want to get your podcast onto YouTube, then you upload

[James Cridland]: 00:05:54

it using YouTube's systems, the same system that anybody would use to upload

[James Cridland]: 00:06:00

a video. to there. Now many podcast hosts are also allowing you to upload

[James Cridland]: 00:06:05

your shows directly to YouTube through their own systems So I know that Libsyn

[James Cridland]: 00:06:09

does that. I know that there's a bunch of other podcast companies who are

[James Cridland]: 00:06:14

working on that right now And that's and that's very exciting or you

[James Cridland]: 00:06:18

can use tools like Headliner I use Zapier to to upload and those are good

[James Cridland]: 00:06:25

too But at the end of the day, it doesn't use RSS yet It uses direct

[James Cridland]: 00:06:31

uploads onto YouTube. And what that also means, of course, is for analytics.

[James Cridland]: 00:06:37

You won't get analytics in your Captivate dashboard unless Captivate have

[James Cridland]: 00:06:42

written a magic piece of code to go and talk to YouTube. You won't get, you

[James Cridland]: 00:06:47

know, in any typical podcast host. Certainly you won't get any of those

[James Cridland]: 00:06:51

stats in there because, again, it's not using RSS. It's not downloading it

[James Cridland]: 00:06:57

from your podcast host. So actually, you know, in terms of in terms of

[James Cridland]: 00:07:01

YouTube, it is its own space. But it's as you say, it's a really important

[James Cridland]: 00:07:06

space. I mean, you know, it's a very large content platform. They say it's

[James Cridland]: 00:07:12

the second largest search engine in the world after Google. And I would

[James Cridland]: 00:07:17

probably agree with that. So I think from that point of view, you know,

[James Cridland]: 00:07:20

it's a really important place to be on. I think also we forget that YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:07:25

music is very big in some parts of the world. That's their music app.

[James Cridland]: 00:07:29

So it's a bit like Spotify in that every single music track that you want

[James Cridland]: 00:07:34

to have listened to is on that particular app. And of course, all of

[James Cridland]: 00:07:38

the podcasts are also on that app as well. And if you want to see how that

[James Cridland]: 00:07:42

works, you just have to fire up a VPN to pretend that you're in the US and

[James Cridland]: 00:07:48

automatically you can see all of these shows in there as well. And I

[James Cridland]: 00:07:51

think that's really exciting because that probably enables podcast publishers

[James Cridland]: 00:07:56

to reach new audiences than they've ever reached in the past. Some genres

[James Cridland]: 00:08:04

will work better than others, as I'm sure that will go on to. But I think

[James Cridland]: 00:08:09

it's certainly a really important audience for podcasters to be in front of.

[Mark]: 00:08:15

To that point, do you think that perhaps YouTube long term, and this is completely devil's

[Mark]: 00:08:23

advocate and completely speculating, but the idea that a publisher, so someone that

[Mark]: 00:08:28

has got resource, someone that has got potentially a team, so I'm thinking things

[Mark]: 00:08:35

like the Jordan Harbinger Show, Jordan does great content, and it's very well produced.

[Mark]: 00:08:45

is the person sat in the bedroom producing content, you know, that may, frankly, get enough

[Mark]: 00:08:50

downloads to really be well monetized, but not be classed in their mind as a media

[Mark]: 00:08:55

production or anything that requires big levels of grandeur or production levels.

[Mark]: 00:09:00

It's just good quality audio through a decent microphone. We've spoken at Lent in

[Mark]: 00:09:06

the past, and I know a lot of people have thought about this idea that podcasting

[Mark]: 00:09:10

is kind of... fractured and that sounds like a loaded word, it's not intended to sound

[Mark]: 00:09:15

as negative as it sounds, just

[James Cridland]: 00:09:17

Mm.

[Mark]: 00:09:17

the notion of it being one side of the chasm being that independent creator that's

[Mark]: 00:09:22

recording with accessible good quality technology like this microphone and the mic

[Mark]: 00:09:26

you're using versus the other side of that fracture which is the big production company

[Mark]: 00:09:31

and the media outlet and the publisher. It feels

[James Cridland]: 00:09:34

Yeah,

[Mark]: 00:09:34

to me certainly

[James Cridland]: 00:09:34

yeah.

[Mark]: 00:09:35

that the bigger people who can do good quality content multi-camera work, well edited,

[Mark]: 00:09:44

thoughtful titles, maybe even, you know, we know what it's like to grow YouTube channels,

[Mark]: 00:09:49

keyword research, description optimisation, thumbnail optimisation, all the stuff

[James Cridland]: 00:09:54

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:09:54

that we've got to do to grow a YouTube channel. It feels like the big publisher will

[Mark]: 00:09:59

benefit from that. So I suppose two questions from that are, what's your opinion

[Mark]: 00:10:05

on that? And then the follow-up is... Is there a place for YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:10:08

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:10:09

music, the audio only element of this, that may go towards helping the indie creator

[Mark]: 00:10:14

that can't offer the production values?

[James Cridland]: 00:10:19

So I mean, the talk of podcasting three, four years ago was that people are uploading

[James Cridland]: 00:10:27

their podcasts as audio to YouTube with a little graphic or maybe a little

[James Cridland]: 00:10:32

waveform that bounces up and down as you hear audio. And the talk four years

[James Cridland]: 00:10:38

ago was that the YouTube algorithm was marking that down, that they were fake

[James Cridland]: 00:10:43

video. I think somebody was calling them and that was the talk of you know,

[James Cridland]: 00:10:48

why would you do a fake video because the algorithm won't actually see you?

[James Cridland]: 00:10:53

I'm not sure necessarily that I agree with that for a start, but I think,

[James Cridland]: 00:10:58

you know, that there's a whole set of people who are perfectly happy to produce

[James Cridland]: 00:11:03

something like, for example, the Pod News Weekly Review. That's an hour's

[James Cridland]: 00:11:07

show, which is just a fancy graphic bouncing up and down. And it looks

[James Cridland]: 00:11:13

fine and people use it. And that's all good. And then you've got people

[James Cridland]: 00:11:20

like you that will spend a little bit more time in terms of the video,

[James Cridland]: 00:11:24

make sure that the video side looks good, because we're recording this in

[James Cridland]: 00:11:29

video as well as in audio as well, and that works for certain things.

[James Cridland]: 00:11:34

But I tell you what, if you're making a true crime podcast and you try making

[James Cridland]: 00:11:38

that in video, you're making a documentary. Documentaries are hard to make.

[James Cridland]: 00:11:43

You know, so so I think that works in certain genres, but doesn't necessarily

[James Cridland]: 00:11:48

work in all genres. So I think really, you know, you are going to get some

[James Cridland]: 00:11:55

larger companies who can afford, you know, the full video and the full and the

[James Cridland]: 00:12:00

full editing of the video and the titles and the and the Astons that

[James Cridland]: 00:12:04

come up at the bottom and all this kind of stuff. And that's going to

[James Cridland]: 00:12:07

be very exciting to them. But I think the difference here is now that

[James Cridland]: 00:12:12

YouTube is asking podcast publishers to mark something as a podcast on

[James Cridland]: 00:12:20

their platform, so that the platform knows that this is a podcast, this

[James Cridland]: 00:12:24

is a piece of audio first content, that to me would suggest that YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:12:31

have a slightly separate algorithm for podcasts and a slightly separate algorithm

[James Cridland]: 00:12:35

for, you know, that sort of... that sort of content. And I don't think necessarily

[James Cridland]: 00:12:43

that they're going to be, you know, marking people down just because

[James Cridland]: 00:12:47

they've uploaded a nice image and a nice piece of artwork and stuff like

[James Cridland]: 00:12:51

that.

[Mark]: 00:12:54

It feels to me a little bit Google-y this. So what I mean by that is that Google,

[Mark]: 00:12:59

if we think of Google's core product search, it's the core of everything that they

[Mark]: 00:13:03

do. It's always been about relevance. It's always been about serving the users. If

[Mark]: 00:13:09

I ask Google a question, its only

[James Cridland]: 00:13:10

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:13:10

job is to give me the best answer, which is why all these algorithm updates come out.

[Mark]: 00:13:15

It's why results and refinements in results and the SERPs continue to develop because

[Mark]: 00:13:21

Google just wants to deliver the product, which is the information that indexes. That's

[Mark]: 00:13:27

the most basic version of Google. So I think for me,

[James Cridland]: 00:13:30

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:13:30

when I think about YouTube, it almost, there's a way to almost frame YouTube's entry

[Mark]: 00:13:39

into podcasting as more of the same, because people were doing it anyway. We've

[Mark]: 00:13:45

got tools like Headliner, we've got tools like Repurpose. I'll be honest, we at

[Mark]: 00:13:49

Captivate, you'll know this as a former advisor, we... We actually had YouTube publishing

[Mark]: 00:13:54

about two and a half, three years ago, and we never rolled it out. And the reason

[Mark]: 00:13:57

we didn't roll it out was because they kept changing the terms or the API. It was

[Mark]: 00:14:02

one of them that made it the maintenance on it was heavy compared

[James Cridland]: 00:14:05

Mm. Mm.

[Mark]: 00:14:06

to the relatively small gain for podcasters. So it feels to me as if it's potentially a

[Mark]: 00:14:13

way of saying, OK, look, people are doing this anyway. If we just give them a way

[Mark]: 00:14:19

to label it. If we just give them a way to kind of feel like this is a little bit

[Mark]: 00:14:25

more purposeful, we as YouTube can probably do a little bit more to surface that audio,

[Mark]: 00:14:30

which theoretically does two things. It helps with the discoverability challenge

[Mark]: 00:14:35

in podcasting. Okay, I can say, look, regardless of whether you're a highly produced

[Mark]: 00:14:39

podcast with video or whether you're someone in their bedroom with great audio and

[Mark]: 00:14:43

that's it, that's cool. I will give you more quote unquote views or listens or

[Mark]: 00:14:48

whatever however we term it. But the second

[James Cridland]: 00:14:50

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:14:50

thing it potentially

[James Cridland]: 00:14:51

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:14:51

does, which leads directly to the next question, is it potentially gives YouTube inventory,

[Mark]: 00:14:58

more inventory, to do more monetization with. Where they can, as you say, they can

[Mark]: 00:15:03

tweet the algorithm and adapt the way that they sell ads, adapt the way that they

[Mark]: 00:15:07

deliver ads because they know that this is audio first and it's a little bit, potentially,

[Mark]: 00:15:12

a little bit more passive. So what do we know about, as it stands today, what do

[Mark]: 00:15:16

we know about what YouTube is doing with It's own pre-inserted ads, it's own sort

[Mark]: 00:15:21

of mid-rolls as we see them where

[James Cridland]: 00:15:23

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:15:23

we get the lovely little skip ads button on YouTube. What do we know about that situation

[Mark]: 00:15:28

as it exists today when it comes to YouTube and podcasts?

[James Cridland]: 00:15:33

Well, I think there's a couple of things there. I think firstly, yeah, I mean,

[James Cridland]: 00:15:36

YouTube, at the end of the day, just like Google at the end of the day

[James Cridland]: 00:15:40

doesn't necessarily exist to put new exciting pieces of content in front

[James Cridland]: 00:15:46

of people. It exists to flog advertising. That's its main focus. And clearly

[James Cridland]: 00:15:55

by, you know, seeing the numbers out there of over 4 million podcasts and they're

[James Cridland]: 00:16:01

there thinking Wow, if we can get the majority of those to come onto

[James Cridland]: 00:16:05

our platform, then we can sell ads against those. Um, and, you know,

[James Cridland]: 00:16:09

I mean, the amount of new, um, of new podcast episodes that are published,

[James Cridland]: 00:16:14

there's one podcast episode published every naught point eight seconds,

[James Cridland]: 00:16:18

uh, right now. So, you know, if, if, if they can actually get the benefit

[James Cridland]: 00:16:23

of that, then. Wow. You know, that's, um, lots more inventory, as you say,

[James Cridland]: 00:16:28

uh, for them to advertise. And I think that's why. They've only launched

[James Cridland]: 00:16:32

podcasting into YouTube music in the US because the only place, as far as

[James Cridland]: 00:16:39

I'm aware, that they're actually delivering audio only advertising is alongside

[James Cridland]: 00:16:46

YouTube music in the US. So they're not selling audio advertising anywhere

[James Cridland]: 00:16:51

else in the world, only in the US, which is why they're rolling it out

[James Cridland]: 00:16:55

in the US for podcasting as well. And you will already hear adverts apparently

[James Cridland]: 00:17:01

if you don't pay for YouTube as I do because I'm Random enough to want to

[James Cridland]: 00:17:04

pay for it. But if you don't pay for YouTube you will hear ads appearing

[James Cridland]: 00:17:10

sometimes in front of a podcast that you want to have a listen to And certainly

[James Cridland]: 00:17:15

see them if you're playing it on the normal video app that you're using

[James Cridland]: 00:17:21

so From YouTube's point of view, great. You know, if they can get the

[James Cridland]: 00:17:25

millions of new episodes that are made every single month and they can flog

[James Cridland]: 00:17:29

advertising in front of those, then that's fantastic. And the interesting

[James Cridland]: 00:17:33

part about that is, of course, all of the infrastructure is already there

[James Cridland]: 00:17:39

to pay us, to pay the podcast publishers, because they're already doing this

[James Cridland]: 00:17:44

for larger YouTube creators. If you're a large YouTube creator and you have...

[James Cridland]: 00:17:51

have increased above the minimum that YouTube asked for for you to be a monetized

[James Cridland]: 00:17:58

channel, then all of a sudden you start earning money from the ads that YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:18:03

is selling against your particular pieces of content. So that's great news for

[James Cridland]: 00:18:08

anyone that wants to get paid for their creative passion. If they're large

[James Cridland]: 00:18:13

enough, and that's a big if, but if they're large enough... then the monetization

[James Cridland]: 00:18:19

here works in exactly the same way as it works for YouTube videos and

[James Cridland]: 00:18:23

everything else, and you get paid in exactly the same way too.

[Mark]: 00:18:28

There's a lot to unpack there and I think that leads to another couple of interesting

[Mark]: 00:18:31

questions but I just need to get to this first. I am also one of the two people

[Mark]: 00:18:37

in the world that pay for YouTube without the ads. I have a child that loves Bluey and

[Mark]: 00:18:41

loves Bing and the adverts are just, they just come between her and Bluey dude so

[Mark]: 00:18:47

I gotta pay for that thing. So maybe we'll start to see a little bit

[James Cridland]: 00:18:50

Yeah.

[Mark]: 00:18:50

of money coming back our way instead of flowing through just to YouTube.

[James Cridland]: 00:18:54

Hehehehe

[Mark]: 00:18:56

Let's think about Indy's for a second then. Let's think about the creator,

[James Cridland]: 00:19:01

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:19:02

I suppose the hobbyist, independent podcaster who thinks to themselves, okay, here's

[Mark]: 00:19:09

an opportunity to monetize potentially via YouTube if I get big enough. Here's a way

[Mark]: 00:19:14

for my podcast to be surface to more people. But actually, here's another thing

[Mark]: 00:19:20

that I've also got to do. another hour,

[James Cridland]: 00:19:25

Yes.

[Mark]: 00:19:26

another two hours per week on my already stretched podcasting schedule. How would you,

[Mark]: 00:19:33

how would you advise them to get started with this without piling on the pressure? Because

[Mark]: 00:19:41

there's so many, like there's almost like

[James Cridland]: 00:19:43

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:19:43

two juxtaposed pieces of advice that you see in podcasting, which is be everywhere.

[Mark]: 00:19:49

And that's usually from like the quote unquote entrepreneur crowd, which I totally

[Mark]: 00:19:52

understand. Just be everywhere. And then there's the other side of the coin, which

[Mark]: 00:19:56

is just focus on one place, which may be your podcast's RSS distribution and grow

[Mark]: 00:20:03

that into a meaningful channel. So how would you approach that? If someone comes up

[Mark]: 00:20:08

to you at a conference, you're on stage, you've just got off stage, Q&A with James Quidlin,

[Mark]: 00:20:12

someone says, what should I do? Should I be worried about the time it takes? Should

[Mark]: 00:20:16

I really bother with YouTube? What's the answer?

[James Cridland]: 00:20:21

Well, my answer, I mean, with all of these things is automate as much as

[James Cridland]: 00:20:24

you possibly can, because automation is a really important thing. So

[James Cridland]: 00:20:29

if you look at YouTube and you go, there might be an opportunity there,

[James Cridland]: 00:20:33

but I'm not sure yet, then please don't spend, you know, 20% of your of

[James Cridland]: 00:20:38

your creation time every week feeding the big YouTube monster, because that's

[James Cridland]: 00:20:43

not necessarily really going to help you very much. So there are automatic

[James Cridland]: 00:20:48

ways your podcast host may offer you one certainly headliner does where

[James Cridland]: 00:20:54

you can automatically get headliner sitting there watching your podcast

[James Cridland]: 00:20:58

feed. If somebody you know if you publish a new episode it will automatically

[James Cridland]: 00:21:04

produce a video version of that and upload it into the right playlist

[James Cridland]: 00:21:08

on YouTube so that it goes into your podcast on YouTube. So and that is

[James Cridland]: 00:21:15

not taking any more time. to end up doing. So I would certainly start

[James Cridland]: 00:21:19

looking at that sort of thing. Probably won't give you the best return in

[James Cridland]: 00:21:24

terms of the amount of people who are finding your channel, but at least

[James Cridland]: 00:21:29

you're there and you're starting to publish and you can start to see if there

[James Cridland]: 00:21:32

are particular trends. And what I'm noticing with YouTube and the Pod

[James Cridland]: 00:21:37

News Daily has been there for, you know, well over a year now, what I'm

[James Cridland]: 00:21:41

noticing is that some shows do really well. and by really well I'm talking

[James Cridland]: 00:21:45

about 60 or 70 views. Some shows do really badly, about nine or 10 views.

[James Cridland]: 00:21:52

And it all comes down to what that particular story is about and what the

[James Cridland]: 00:21:56

key words that I've mentioned are. And the one that did particularly well

[James Cridland]: 00:22:02

was from March of last year, which was YouTube's plans for podcasting. which

[James Cridland]: 00:22:08

I managed to get a leak of. And so of course, you know, that, of course,

[James Cridland]: 00:22:12

did very well on YouTube itself. So I think, you know, just sort of see what

[James Cridland]: 00:22:18

works and what doesn't, and then you will know at some point in the future

[James Cridland]: 00:22:22

whether or not it makes sense for you to go into something which is a bit

[James Cridland]: 00:22:27

more time consuming, like producing video. Or there are halfway houses

[James Cridland]: 00:22:33

as well. There's a piece of technology... called Adore Studio, which is

[James Cridland]: 00:22:38

based in the US, and another piece of technology called Vizzi, which is

[James Cridland]: 00:22:43

based here in Australia. They both do much the same sort of thing, which

[James Cridland]: 00:22:47

is to add visual accompaniment to your podcast. Vizzi exports it as chapters

[James Cridland]: 00:22:55

as well for some of the new podcast apps out there too. So you can get

[James Cridland]: 00:23:00

at least a more engaging viewing experience than... just a logo and a bouncing

[James Cridland]: 00:23:07

waveform. So there is a sort of a halfway house there as well, but I certainly

[James Cridland]: 00:23:15

wouldn't necessarily give 20% of your creation time to YouTube, unless

[James Cridland]: 00:23:21

of course it's doing more than 20% of your numbers, and in which case

[James Cridland]: 00:23:26

that's probably a time to have a think about what you should be doing.

[Mark]: 00:23:30

Common sense approach and it feels very much like Spotify did in the early days. You

[Mark]: 00:23:35

know, it feels very, you know, it feels as a hosting company,

[James Cridland]: 00:23:39

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:23:39

it feels like anything like Spotify did, Amazon did even face, but when they sort

[Mark]: 00:23:44

of dipped the toe a little bit, everything seems quite limited, yet it causes quite a

[Mark]: 00:23:49

fuss because the brand name is so big. So it feels

[James Cridland]: 00:23:53

Yeah.

[Mark]: 00:23:54

that pragmatism I like

[James Cridland]: 00:23:55

Yeah.

[Mark]: 00:23:55

and I'm always, you know me, I'm always a huge fan of that and thinking about as an

[Mark]: 00:24:01

indie, how can I remove that pressure? But how can I make sure that I know enough

[Mark]: 00:24:05

about what's going on that I can assess it properly? So I love that. Now, Ashley Carmen

[Mark]: 00:24:10

wrote an article

[James Cridland]: 00:24:12

Yeah,

[Mark]: 00:24:12

saying

[James Cridland]: 00:24:12

and

[Mark]: 00:24:12

that.

[James Cridland]: 00:24:12

I think you're absolutely right in actually saying that there's a couple

[James Cridland]: 00:24:16

of different... Sorry, I was just going to say, I think you're absolutely

[James Cridland]: 00:24:21

right in terms of saying that it's the YouTube brand which is driving this.

[James Cridland]: 00:24:27

I mean, this is no different, perhaps, to a product called Verbal, which

[James Cridland]: 00:24:32

was out a couple of years ago, which asked you to upload specifically

[James Cridland]: 00:24:37

to that particular platform, and you could do X, Y and Z things on there.

[James Cridland]: 00:24:41

and nobody really bothered because, well, there wasn't really anybody

[James Cridland]: 00:24:45

using that particular platform, whereas, you know, YouTube being so big and

[James Cridland]: 00:24:50

having so many billions of users actually using it, you know, that's a

[James Cridland]: 00:24:55

really important thing. And I think YouTube can certainly deliver those

[James Cridland]: 00:25:00

numbers if you're the right genre and the right content for that particular

[James Cridland]: 00:25:06

platform.

[Mark]: 00:25:11

The size of YouTube and the fact that it's an indexed search engine, let's be honest,

[Mark]: 00:25:15

is a huge deal. And when it comes to searchability, when it comes to optimization,

[Mark]: 00:25:23

Spotify is spotty. Apple is, well,

[James Cridland]: 00:25:29

Hehehe

[Mark]: 00:25:29

Apple is Apple. The podcasting apps are not. necessarily known for their ease of

[Mark]: 00:25:35

navigation, nor for their ability to surface decent content, even when I get reasonably,

[Mark]: 00:25:43

number one, specific with my searches, but number two, reasonably specific with my

[Mark]: 00:25:46

listening behavior. It's traditionally just not fantastic. YouTube has heritage with

[Mark]: 00:25:56

this, technically, and

[James Cridland]: 00:25:57

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:25:58

in

[James Cridland]: 00:25:58

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:25:58

the mindset of users, the people I use to the algorithm, being decent enough to send

[Mark]: 00:26:05

us down a 2am rabbit hole after a whiskey or two. Will

[James Cridland]: 00:26:10

Yes,

[Mark]: 00:26:10

this,

[James Cridland]: 00:26:11

yes.

[Mark]: 00:26:11

number one, transpose to podcasting do we think? And number two, does this affect

[Mark]: 00:26:15

Apple? Does it affect Spotify? Does it just not matter to them? Where do we feel

[Mark]: 00:26:22

like that's headed?

[James Cridland]: 00:26:26

Well, I think number one is that YouTube is a really good search engine.

[James Cridland]: 00:26:30

It's run by Google. They know a thing or two about search. And, you know,

[James Cridland]: 00:26:36

I mean, I was talking to quite a senior person from Spotify a couple of weeks

[James Cridland]: 00:26:40

ago, and they were admitting that their search is not particularly great.

[James Cridland]: 00:26:44

And that's something that they're, you know, of course, continuing to

[James Cridland]: 00:26:48

work on. So I think you've got that sort of side of it. But you've also

[James Cridland]: 00:26:52

got the side, as you so rightly say, of when you get to the end of a YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:26:57

video, then YouTube will give you more that it thinks that you might be interested

[James Cridland]: 00:27:02

in. And it's got that algorithm working very, very well indeed. Guess what?

[James Cridland]: 00:27:08

That's there for podcasts right now. So if you're there and you listen

[James Cridland]: 00:27:13

to a particular podcast that it thinks that, you know, at the end of that,

[James Cridland]: 00:27:18

if it thinks that you will like other podcasts, then it will give you

[James Cridland]: 00:27:22

other podcasts to have a listen to, which I think is really interesting because

[James Cridland]: 00:27:27

that could make quite a difference in terms of podcast discoverability and in

[James Cridland]: 00:27:32

terms of people finding new shows. And I think it's interesting to watch

[James Cridland]: 00:27:37

that actually Spotify have just launched something which is quite similar.

[James Cridland]: 00:27:42

Now when you reach the end of a podcast on Spotify, it will give you more

[James Cridland]: 00:27:46

podcasts that it thinks you will like. Probably Joe Rogan will be in there.

[James Cridland]: 00:27:50

because so many people use the Spotify platform to listen to Joe Rogan,

[James Cridland]: 00:27:56

so it's always going to appear in that particular algorithm. But I think that

[James Cridland]: 00:28:00

that's really interesting, and I think that that has great opportunity

[James Cridland]: 00:28:03

for all of us as creators, you know, to see our stuff in those lists if

[James Cridland]: 00:28:11

we can manage that. You know, so I think that that's a great step forward.

[James Cridland]: 00:28:17

I think also, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, Google podcasts

[James Cridland]: 00:28:20

were supposed to be so massive because Google podcasts search results were

[James Cridland]: 00:28:25

appearing in Google searches, where the difference is there, though, is that

[James Cridland]: 00:28:31

people weren't necessarily Googling for pieces of audio to go and have

[James Cridland]: 00:28:36

a listen to, whereas particularly if you're using the YouTube music product,

[James Cridland]: 00:28:40

you are literally looking for stuff to listen to. That is your user state.

[James Cridland]: 00:28:46

And so therefore, this is answering that particular user state. And I

[James Cridland]: 00:28:50

think that that's a very interesting, you know, move forward in terms of what YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:28:56

could potentially be offering. So I think, you know, YouTube's knowledge and

[James Cridland]: 00:29:01

understanding in this in this world is, I think, really interesting. I find

[James Cridland]: 00:29:06

it fascinating. You know, I get recommended the pod news daily on YouTube.

[James Cridland]: 00:29:12

When I'm there using YouTube, I'm watching, you know, there's some bloke

[James Cridland]: 00:29:16

at the moment who is doing a documentary on every single motorway in the

[James Cridland]: 00:29:19

UK And I watch and I watch his shows not because I'm particularly interested

[James Cridland]: 00:29:24

in motorways, but he's very very funny And so I'll watch that and at the

[James Cridland]: 00:29:28

end of that it'll say oh and we also recommend This version of the pod news

[James Cridland]: 00:29:33

daily and I'm there going I did that last week. Why are you recommending

[James Cridland]: 00:29:36

that? So yeah, I think that that that could be really really big

[Mark]: 00:29:43

fascinating to see the way that that could impact people especially when it comes

[Mark]: 00:29:47

to from my perspective discoverability is interesting because the power of YouTube

[Mark]: 00:29:52

for me when it comes to the recommendations is this is really cool content I would have

[Mark]: 00:29:57

never ever discovered had you as YouTube not recommended it so that is quite fascinating

[Mark]: 00:30:02

and I love the point about I was excited about Google's surfacing podcast episodes and

[Mark]: 00:30:08

I did a little bit of experimenting with that and it worked to a degree to forgetting

[Mark]: 00:30:14

ears and eyes on the content. It did, but you had to do the keyword research. You

[Mark]: 00:30:18

had to be a little bit savvy with that. However, I think you're absolutely right. You

[Mark]: 00:30:23

know, podcasts as content versus content that is simply there to answer a question,

[Mark]: 00:30:30

you know, because that's what we do in Google, isn't it? We just ask questions

[Mark]: 00:30:33

off Google and it's a very different type of search. So I'm waiting with bated breath

[James Cridland]: 00:30:39

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:30:39

to see what happens with that one.

[James Cridland]: 00:30:41

Hmm. And yeah,

[Mark]: 00:30:44

Sorry, go.

[James Cridland]: 00:30:46

I was going to say that, you know, YouTube, of course, is on so many surfaces,

[James Cridland]: 00:30:50

they call them in the business, so many devices, you know, it might be on your

[James Cridland]: 00:30:53

mobile phone. It's also on your TV. It's also, you know, on your laptop.

[James Cridland]: 00:30:59

It's it's all over the place. And I think that is something that, you know,

[James Cridland]: 00:31:04

certainly things like Apple podcasts aren't and Google podcasts aren't.

[James Cridland]: 00:31:10

And so I think, you know, again, there are more opportunities there to

[James Cridland]: 00:31:16

surface new content for you to go and have a listen to. And I think, you

[James Cridland]: 00:31:22

know, it's really interesting watching where people listen to podcasts right

[James Cridland]: 00:31:26

now, where they could be listening to podcasts and see if they can actually increase,

[James Cridland]: 00:31:31

you know, the amount of shows that people have a listen to. I mean, you know,

[James Cridland]: 00:31:35

one of the things that I surfaced earlier on in the year at the podcast show

[James Cridland]: 00:31:41

in Las Vegas was numbers from PodTrack which showed the amount of podcasts

[James Cridland]: 00:31:48

that a typical Apple podcast listener was listening to versus the amount

[James Cridland]: 00:31:52

of podcasts that a typical Spotify user was listening to and it turns

[James Cridland]: 00:31:57

out that Apple podcast users are listening to nine times as many episodes

[James Cridland]: 00:32:03

as Spotify users and so anything that Spotify can do to increase the amount

[James Cridland]: 00:32:10

of shows that their users are listening to will really help them. And

[James Cridland]: 00:32:16

exactly the same going on here in terms of YouTube as well. The more

[James Cridland]: 00:32:21

shows, the more episodes which are being consumed, the more times that YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:32:26

can flog advertising in and around those particular shows. And I think

[James Cridland]: 00:32:30

that's really exciting.

[Mark]: 00:32:33

And also to build on that, I think the exciting part from an industry perspective.

[Mark]: 00:32:39

So if we think about brands looking to enter the space and, you know,

[James Cridland]: 00:32:42

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:32:43

we as an industry, frankly, we want to see more money inevitably and continually

[Mark]: 00:32:47

more money flowing through the space because everyone does well, including

[James Cridland]: 00:32:50

Yeah.

[Mark]: 00:32:51

potentially the trickle down to creators, you know, TBC on how that's all going to work.

[Mark]: 00:32:55

But the notion that relevance plays such a big key. You know, if you think about

[Mark]: 00:33:02

brands that invest in podcast advertising, whether that is through marketplaces, programmatic

[Mark]: 00:33:07

or direct sales, host reads, whatever, the idea is that relevance creates confidence

[Mark]: 00:33:13

in brands and does click throughs and actions, whatever those actions

[James Cridland]: 00:33:17

Mm-hmm.

[Mark]: 00:33:17

might be. The idea that YouTube's algorithm is more advanced already and is, as you said,

[Mark]: 00:33:26

on more surfaces already. That's an exciting prospect when it comes to relevance

[Mark]: 00:33:30

because suddenly as a brand, as a company that's putting money from my marketing and

[Mark]: 00:33:36

advertising budget into podcasts, I can be much more confident theoretically that

[Mark]: 00:33:44

I'm going to be matched with

[James Cridland]: 00:33:45

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:33:45

a warmer set of people because the algorithm is significantly more advanced. Is there any

[Mark]: 00:33:51

merit to that? Is that just wishful thinking or is there any merit to that?

[James Cridland]: 00:33:56

Yeah, I mean, I think there's certainly merit to advertisers being more comfortable

[James Cridland]: 00:34:01

with YouTube in general, because advertisers have in many cases already used

[James Cridland]: 00:34:06

it, so they'll understand how the thing works. The world of podcasting

[James Cridland]: 00:34:11

is in many cases quite alien to them. So being able to help them understand

[James Cridland]: 00:34:16

something is really helpful. And of course, you know, they get different

[James Cridland]: 00:34:19

analytics from YouTube. YouTube has excelled in the sorts of analytics where

[James Cridland]: 00:34:24

you can see exactly where somebody is fast forwarding, exactly where

[James Cridland]: 00:34:28

somebody is skipping through a video, where people are coming in, where

[James Cridland]: 00:34:32

people are leaving, all of that kind of information, YouTube is very,

[James Cridland]: 00:34:36

very good at. And again, advertisers are comfortable with that, they're comfortable

[James Cridland]: 00:34:42

with the demographic information that they get from the platform and so on and

[James Cridland]: 00:34:48

so forth. So... I think giving advertisers, you know, I mean, at the end of

[James Cridland]: 00:34:52

the day, advertisers are very lazy. They want things that they understand

[James Cridland]: 00:34:55

that they don't have to learn, and they want things that they can earn money

[James Cridland]: 00:34:58

out of. And YouTube seems to have shown itself time and time again that

[James Cridland]: 00:35:04

that is certainly, you know, part of that model, that they're very, very

[James Cridland]: 00:35:08

good at doing that. And I think, you know, again, that's one of the reasons

[James Cridland]: 00:35:11

why we're seeing the staggered rollout for the audio only version. because

[James Cridland]: 00:35:16

it has to tie in with the availability of audio advertising on the platform,

[James Cridland]: 00:35:20

which of course is something that Apple Podcasts doesn't necessarily have

[James Cridland]: 00:35:23

to worry about. And Spotify using as a loss leader really in many parts

[James Cridland]: 00:35:29

of the world, they're only now rolling out the Spotify audience network

[James Cridland]: 00:35:33

in parts of mainland Europe. So, you know, I think... There are opportunities

[James Cridland]: 00:35:41

here that you can see YouTube going, okay, as we roll this out, we can see

[James Cridland]: 00:35:45

that there's going to be more and more growth, you know, coming from this

[James Cridland]: 00:35:50

and more inventory, yeah.

[Mark]: 00:35:53

Demographics you mentioned there, which is a really interesting word in podcasting,

[Mark]: 00:35:57

because it's very difficult to get demographic data and to get any other kind of data on podcasts,

[Mark]: 00:36:03

consumption,

[James Cridland]: 00:36:04

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:36:05

you know the drill. YouTube can get that because it's essentially a closed ecosystem.

[Mark]: 00:36:12

So I upload my audio, even if I ingest that audio via RSS, you would imagine that

[Mark]: 00:36:19

YouTube... And this is pure speculation. You would imagine that they'd maybe want to

[Mark]: 00:36:23

still host that data and to host that audio. So

[James Cridland]: 00:36:26

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:36:26

they can give the

[James Cridland]: 00:36:28

Yeah.

[Mark]: 00:36:28

data that the advertisers are already used to, to them so that they can do what we've

[Mark]: 00:36:34

just said. So is this just another wall garden in podcasting? And what does it mean

[Mark]: 00:36:42

for the open podcasting ecosystem, for that landscape that we're striving to maintain

[Mark]: 00:36:47

and to help to thrive?

[James Cridland]: 00:36:51

Well, I think if this was anybody other than YouTube, the podcast industry

[James Cridland]: 00:36:55

would be up in arms and saying, no, you know, this is a bad thing. We shouldn't

[James Cridland]: 00:36:59

be involved in it, go away. You might remember Mark Cuban, who was doing

[James Cridland]: 00:37:04

something that vaguely sounds as if it might be a bit like this two and a

[James Cridland]: 00:37:09

half, three years ago, very, very quickly changed his mind. It's not a thing

[James Cridland]: 00:37:15

that the podcast industry is interested in. Having said that, I think

[James Cridland]: 00:37:19

it is a thing. in terms of YouTube, because of course YouTube being so

[James Cridland]: 00:37:24

large. So I think there's a there's, you know, a bit of a bit of a difference

[James Cridland]: 00:37:30

there in terms of will it be a closed platform? I mean, YouTube are talking

[James Cridland]: 00:37:34

about using RSS feeds, but I think they're talking about using RSS feeds

[James Cridland]: 00:37:40

as methods of ingestion, as methods of pulling in the audio once. so that

[James Cridland]: 00:37:46

they then serve the audio. And if there's one thing that I get frustrated

[James Cridland]: 00:37:50

about in terms of the podcast industry, is that we seem to have this sort

[James Cridland]: 00:37:55

of religious belief that the audio that our users upload to our platforms

[James Cridland]: 00:38:02

is not to be played with in any way, shape or form. And I think that's

[James Cridland]: 00:38:06

a bit of a mistake because actually what YouTube has shown us is that

[James Cridland]: 00:38:10

they will... pull in a piece of video, they will make lots of different

[James Cridland]: 00:38:15

versions of that video so that it works on any bandwidth, it works on

[James Cridland]: 00:38:18

any phone, any device. If you happen to have something which deals with

[James Cridland]: 00:38:22

the AV1 video codec, which is a new super great video codec, then great,

[James Cridland]: 00:38:27

but if it only deals with an old version of MPEG-4, well that's fine

[James Cridland]: 00:38:32

because YouTube has a version of that as well. And so I think that YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:38:36

will continue using that. It's one of their... strengths I think. And

[James Cridland]: 00:38:42

so we'll continue to see YouTube's network being used as it is. I mean apart from

[James Cridland]: 00:38:48

anything else, my understanding is that YouTube in many of the large internet

[James Cridland]: 00:38:53

service providers, they have their own caches actually within there to save

[James Cridland]: 00:38:59

the ISP's money in the same way that iPlayer does in the UK, that Hulu

[James Cridland]: 00:39:04

does in the US and so on and so forth. So, you know, anything that YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:39:10

does, they get the benefit of. And enabling pass through to RSS so that

[James Cridland]: 00:39:17

it goes and grabs the initial audio files, it's not necessarily, I wouldn't

[James Cridland]: 00:39:22

have thought, anywhere on YouTube's, you know, you know, ideas. I don't

[James Cridland]: 00:39:30

think that that's ever going to be a thing that YouTube gets particularly

[James Cridland]: 00:39:33

interested in, which means, of course, that Dynamic advertising is going

[James Cridland]: 00:39:39

to be much harder, if not impossible. And of course it very dramatically

[James Cridland]: 00:39:44

changes how advertising works in the podcast industry. And I don't think

[James Cridland]: 00:39:48

the podcast industry necessarily has woken up to that yet. That actually every

[James Cridland]: 00:39:53

podcast that you hear on YouTube, you won't necessarily be able to sell, you

[James Cridland]: 00:39:58

know, certainly dynamic advertising in that's going to be really hard. You can

[James Cridland]: 00:40:02

probably sell baked in advertising. But everybody keeps on talking about dynamic

[James Cridland]: 00:40:08

and programmatic advertising, and that just simply won't work on the Google

[James Cridland]: 00:40:12

platform unless you buy through Google. So I think there are quite a lot of

[James Cridland]: 00:40:17

changes to happen there. And I wonder whether or not many of the podcast

[James Cridland]: 00:40:24

industry in that, you know, in that field has actually properly thought

[James Cridland]: 00:40:29

about what that means for their business.

[Mark]: 00:40:35

I could spend another full episode and perhaps we will on that one because I have

[Mark]: 00:40:41

a lot of thoughts as you know about that side of things and particularly the

[James Cridland]: 00:40:43

Yes.

[Mark]: 00:40:43

way that a lot of us in the podcast industry think because let's be honest it is

[Mark]: 00:40:49

now an industry as much as we might want to fight it but that is probably for another

[James Cridland]: 00:40:54

Yeah.

[Mark]: 00:40:54

episode. Let's wrap up with... a quick visit to the Bloomberg article written by Ashley

[Mark]: 00:41:03

Carman, which

[James Cridland]: 00:41:04

Yeah.

[Mark]: 00:41:06

is an interesting article because it's a sound bite. It's a short one. And let's kind

[Mark]: 00:41:11

of preface this with the idea

[James Cridland]: 00:41:13

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:41:13

that this is early days for YouTube. It's early days for the publishers that have

[Mark]: 00:41:17

jumped on there.

[Mark]: 00:41:21

The basic headlines were NPR, Slate, New York Times have popped podcasts over to

[Mark]: 00:41:30

YouTube, they've theoretically finished in slates, I think in slates words, they've

[Mark]: 00:41:38

finished that move, if you like, but the views

[James Cridland]: 00:41:42

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:41:42

are not there. But then in complete dynamic contrast, you reported on Upfront with

[Mark]: 00:41:51

Simon Jordan, which is a, and I'm going to air quote this quote unquote podcast. just

[Mark]: 00:41:57

to placate

[James Cridland]: 00:41:58

Hehehe

[Mark]: 00:41:58

some people for a laugh that launched over on YouTube.

[James Cridland]: 00:42:02

It's a real podcast, it's available on RSS as well, but yes, but I know

[James Cridland]: 00:42:06

what you mean. And that is doing fantastically. So, you know, I mean,

[James Cridland]: 00:42:11

actually, of course, one of the drawbacks of publishing stuff on YouTube

[James Cridland]: 00:42:16

is that people can see your playback numbers, which we don't have in podcasting.

[James Cridland]: 00:42:21

So quite a lot of people wish to, you know, if you're not using new technology

[James Cridland]: 00:42:26

like OP3, which I know that you do on this particular show. But otherwise,

[James Cridland]: 00:42:32

no one knows what your downloads are unless you tell them. That's not the case

[James Cridland]: 00:42:36

on YouTube. You can see the view numbers. And so Ashley has very cleverly,

[James Cridland]: 00:42:40

because she's a good journalist, gone through and checked, for example, NPR's

[James Cridland]: 00:42:47

numbers, 168 million global downloads in April. And then she's gone and

[James Cridland]: 00:42:52

looked at YouTube, which, of course, is different numbers, looked at

[James Cridland]: 00:42:56

YouTube and worked out what the average View number is on an NPR show and

[James Cridland]: 00:43:03

it's well 178 Nowhere near nowhere near what it should be And so she has

[James Cridland]: 00:43:11

quite rightly Questioned the people at NPR and Slate saying were you expecting

[James Cridland]: 00:43:16

this to be higher? You know, why have you spent all of this time? Getting

[James Cridland]: 00:43:21

onto onto the YouTube platform, you know, and of course one can assume that

[James Cridland]: 00:43:27

it is going to grow and everything else. But I think that that was a fascinating

[James Cridland]: 00:43:31

article. But then people reaching out to me and saying, actually, we're seeing

[James Cridland]: 00:43:35

completely the opposite. So Folding Pocket, who make up front with Simon

[James Cridland]: 00:43:41

Jordan, which if you're interested in sports ball, it's absolutely for you. But

[James Cridland]: 00:43:47

that particular show. number one sports podcast on Spotify, number one sports

[James Cridland]: 00:43:51

podcast on Apple podcasts right now. It launched last week as we record

[James Cridland]: 00:43:56

this. And so therefore, you know, it probably would be because of the way

[James Cridland]: 00:44:00

that those charts work, but even so it's also done more than half a million

[James Cridland]: 00:44:05

views on YouTube in less than a week. And that's particularly striking because

[James Cridland]: 00:44:10

it's a UK podcast or UK show. And that means that the YouTube music effect

[James Cridland]: 00:44:17

isn't there because in the UK, you guys don't have YouTube music with

[James Cridland]: 00:44:23

the additional podcasts in there. And I do I do think that this comes

[James Cridland]: 00:44:28

down to just different genres of stuff working on different platforms. I

[James Cridland]: 00:44:34

have yet to find a podcast about podcasting that does very well on Spotify.

[James Cridland]: 00:44:40

And it occurs to me that all of the podcasts about podcasting that I ever

[James Cridland]: 00:44:44

see, and the PodNews Daily is one of those, we get useless numbers out

[James Cridland]: 00:44:49

of Spotify, completely useless, because podcasters are not using Spotify to

[James Cridland]: 00:44:55

listen to podcasts. They're using a proper podcast app. And so, of course,

[James Cridland]: 00:45:02

those numbers are going to be down. And my suspicion is that some of the

[James Cridland]: 00:45:08

typical NPR listeners Some of the typical slate listeners aren't necessarily

[James Cridland]: 00:45:14

using YouTube in the same numbers as they are some of the other platforms.

[James Cridland]: 00:45:18

Whereas sports, you know, sports fans certainly are and younger people

[James Cridland]: 00:45:23

certainly are, you know. So I think it is a genre thing, but I think it's

[James Cridland]: 00:45:29

not necessarily fully understood yet which genres really work on those platforms.

[James Cridland]: 00:45:36

And of course, it will be different in every single. country as well,

[James Cridland]: 00:45:40

which is the other side to bear in mind as well. You know, Brits watch

[James Cridland]: 00:45:45

different things in different places than Americans do, than Australians

[James Cridland]: 00:45:49

do, than people in Indonesia or Japan do. And so, of course, you know, we'll

[James Cridland]: 00:45:53

end up seeing different genres going on there. I mean, you know, Japan is

[James Cridland]: 00:45:58

so, so different that the Amazon Music app is the number three most popular

[James Cridland]: 00:46:03

app in Japan. Imagine that. So you can imagine how different all of these

[James Cridland]: 00:46:10

individual countries are. But yeah, I think it's fascinating. Do we know

[James Cridland]: 00:46:15

what's going to work on YouTube? No. Do we know, you know, what will be the

[James Cridland]: 00:46:20

runaway successes? I think we can all make guesses, but yeah, it's quite

[James Cridland]: 00:46:25

hard to work it out.

[Mark]: 00:46:28

What fascinates me about that as well is that the real kind of fundamental background

[Mark]: 00:46:35

to, you know, NPR, the New York Times and Slate, they pop everything over on YouTube.

[Mark]: 00:46:42

Of course, the people that give the 168 million downloads aren't going to just

[Mark]: 00:46:47

go, okay, do you know what? Today, I ain't going to listen there. I am going to

[Mark]: 00:46:50

go over to YouTube and I'm going to listen in this new place. It's just, it's,

[Mark]: 00:46:54

it's... It's simply not the case, which then leads me to the upfront with Simon Jordan

[Mark]: 00:47:01

show, which

[James Cridland]: 00:47:02

Hmm.

[Mark]: 00:47:02

has some very interesting differences for me. Number one, it's a very highly produced

[Mark]: 00:47:06

video show. Secondly, as you rightly pointed out, it's UK based. And one of the

[Mark]: 00:47:12

first episodes is Graham Suen, he's a very famous football manager known for, you

[Mark]: 00:47:19

know, it's not a wallflower. All right. And... The title is a nice sound bite that

[Mark]: 00:47:24

has been pulled out of the interview and the point that I'm getting at is twofold.

[Mark]: 00:47:29

Number one, it feels like YouTube for those kind of companies is an opportunity to

[Mark]: 00:47:34

gain new listeners through new strategies. So that's the first thing that struck me. The

[James Cridland]: 00:47:39

Mm,

[Mark]: 00:47:39

second thing was,

[James Cridland]: 00:47:40

yeah.

[Mark]: 00:47:40

as you pointed out, of course certain content will do much better on YouTube and

[Mark]: 00:47:45

something like that upfront with Simon Jordan is almost guaranteed. in the climate

[Mark]: 00:47:52

that we have right now to do better than a podcast about podcasting, because the

[Mark]: 00:47:57

UK is full of really good, if we just take football or soccer, if you're in the US,

[Mark]: 00:48:03

it's full of great shows. Ben Foster's show under the kosh that

[James Cridland]: 00:48:07

Yeah,

[Mark]: 00:48:07

are revealing

[James Cridland]: 00:48:08

yeah.

[Mark]: 00:48:10

little stories and tidbits. It's almost like when you watch Gazaron, an interview you're

[Mark]: 00:48:13

like, this is brilliant. I've seen Gazaron TV 30, 40 times in the last 10, 20 years, but

[Mark]: 00:48:18

something So it knows where it's aiming. It knows what it's trying to be. And right

[Mark]: 00:48:26

back to that beginning point earlier on that when we sort of discussed that YouTube,

[Mark]: 00:48:31

it's almost like YouTube probably had to get into podcasting because people were

[Mark]: 00:48:34

doing it anyway. It almost feels like something like the Simon Jordan show was made

[Mark]: 00:48:40

for YouTube, but thought about and strategized and designed in such a way, and even edited

[Mark]: 00:48:45

in such a way that it's just good audio as well. And That then brings me back to the

[Mark]: 00:48:52

old, and you'll appreciate this, the kind of mum factor. My mum doesn't care whether

[Mark]: 00:49:00

this is delivered via audio first RSS. She doesn't care whether or not it's on YouTube

[Mark]: 00:49:06

or on

[James Cridland]: 00:49:06

Hmm

[Mark]: 00:49:06

Spotify. All she cares about is the topic that she enjoys. She can enjoy where

[Mark]: 00:49:13

she chooses to enjoy it. And that feels like... the big thing that we really deeply

[Mark]: 00:49:22

embedded in the industry, a lot of us have yet to figure out, because like you said

[Mark]: 00:49:28

earlier on, there's a lot of holding on to... I don't want to say beliefs, but to

[Mark]: 00:49:36

holding on to old tropes that may need to develop. And I just find it fascinating.

[Mark]: 00:49:42

I'm not going anywhere with that with the question. I just find that to be a massive

[Mark]: 00:49:47

challenge. for us within the industry, you know?

[James Cridland]: 00:49:51

Hmm. Now I think it's fascinating and I think that there are so many changes

[James Cridland]: 00:49:56

happening at the moment in terms of, I mean, the media in general, of

[James Cridland]: 00:50:01

course. I mean, you only have to look at some of the large incumbent broadcasters

[James Cridland]: 00:50:05

in the US who are seeing considerable additional money coming in through podcasting.

[James Cridland]: 00:50:12

But the rest of their business is falling apart. while they sit there. And

[James Cridland]: 00:50:16

it's fascinating watching. It's a very different world in Europe, but

[James Cridland]: 00:50:20

it's fascinating watching that happening in the US. And I do wonder whether

[James Cridland]: 00:50:28

some of the more outspoken people in the industry, particularly in the

[James Cridland]: 00:50:34

podcast industry, are there being outspoken because they are worried about

[James Cridland]: 00:50:39

what these changes might actually mean for them personally? rather than necessarily

[James Cridland]: 00:50:44

what it means for the entire industry as we move forward. I think there

[James Cridland]: 00:50:49

are fascinating things happening and I'm really excited about the possibilities

[James Cridland]: 00:50:55

that a strong podcast platform in YouTube might actually give us. I think

[James Cridland]: 00:51:04

that that's really interesting in terms of what that means to audio. And clearly,

[James Cridland]: 00:51:12

I think it will only work for certain genres. I mean, audio fiction,

[James Cridland]: 00:51:18

working on YouTube, I find that that's going to be really hard.

[James Cridland]: 00:51:25

So I'm not necessarily sure how that bit is going to work. But I think

[James Cridland]: 00:51:29

that certainly for certain shows in certain genres, YouTube is going to

[James Cridland]: 00:51:34

be really interesting. Spotify is already really interesting again for certain

[James Cridland]: 00:51:39

genres, not for every single genre coming up. And I think the big change

[James Cridland]: 00:51:46

which will happen at some point, because they will do this because they're

[James Cridland]: 00:51:50

not stupid, is Apple podcasts launching an Android app. Because Apple podcasts

[James Cridland]: 00:51:56

can't sit on their hands for the next five years and watch while Spotify

[James Cridland]: 00:52:01

and increasingly now YouTube takes away all of the opportunities that Apple

[James Cridland]: 00:52:07

has by being the market leader there. And so at some point, Apple is going

[James Cridland]: 00:52:14

to have to launch an Android app. And that again is going to be really interesting.

[James Cridland]: 00:52:18

That's gonna be a real reckoning for Spotify that's been able to run away on

[James Cridland]: 00:52:23

that particular platform and be number one in most countries, just because

[James Cridland]: 00:52:27

it's the only real platform that anybody's heard of. I think that's gonna

[James Cridland]: 00:52:31

be a tremendous. opportunity for us going on. So I'm hugely excited about

[James Cridland]: 00:52:37

where the future is going. And I think watching what YouTube does is going

[James Cridland]: 00:52:44

to be a fascinating glimpse into where podcasting goes and how podcasting

[James Cridland]: 00:52:52

earns its money.

[Mark]: 00:52:55

James Cridland, always insightful and always, he's always fascinating to chat to

[Mark]: 00:53:00

you, mate, and I'm looking forward to doing it in person. And the very final question

[Mark]: 00:53:04

I'm going to ask you is actually, we all love seeing you face to face, mate. So

[Mark]: 00:53:08

where will we see you for the rest of 2023? You're heading over to London for the

[Mark]: 00:53:12

podcast show, so I hear, will we see you elsewhere?

[James Cridland]: 00:53:15

Yes, I'm speaking at the podcast show. I am the first speaker. So please turn

[James Cridland]: 00:53:20

up early. 9.10. I'll see you in the Amplify room, which last time they put

[James Cridland]: 00:53:26

me in a tiny little room, which I think seated 100 people and nobody

[James Cridland]: 00:53:31

could get in because it was full. This time they've done the opposite and

[James Cridland]: 00:53:35

they've put me into a room that seats 400 people. So please, if you're

[James Cridland]: 00:53:40

going to that, if this goes out before then, then that would be a good

[James Cridland]: 00:53:44

thing. But also, PodNews is doing two live events in the UK. One in June

[James Cridland]: 00:53:55

in Salford in Greater Manchester, or Salford next to Greater Manchester, I should

[James Cridland]: 00:54:00

possibly say. So that's... people get very upset. Salford, Manchester.

[James Cridland]: 00:54:06

But looking forward to that, which is in the middle of June and then in

[James Cridland]: 00:54:10

the middle of September, in fact, the day just before the British Podcast

[James Cridland]: 00:54:14

Awards. Pod News Live will be in London and I can probably tell you where

[James Cridland]: 00:54:21

it's going to be, which we've not actually mentioned yet. We're actually

[James Cridland]: 00:54:25

going to be in the old television centre in White City, which is gonna be an

[James Cridland]: 00:54:31

incredible venue. really looking forward to that. Sam came to me the other day

[James Cridland]: 00:54:38

and he said, right, so I've got these three venues. The first one is Inside

[James Cridland]: 00:54:42

Television Centre. Right, that's it. Don't even want to know what the

[James Cridland]: 00:54:45

other

[Mark]: 00:54:45

Hahaha!

[James Cridland]: 00:54:45

ones are. That's the one. So hugely looking forward to both of those.

[James Cridland]: 00:54:50

It's a day that we've specifically built to be a day all around... all around

[James Cridland]: 00:54:58

talking to other people in the industry. So it's very much a networking

[James Cridland]: 00:55:03

event, just as much as it is great people talking as well. But podnews.net

[James Cridland]: 00:55:09

slash live is where to find out more about those.

[Mark]: 00:55:14

Thank you very much. Looking forward to being there for both of those. It's always

[Mark]: 00:55:17

great to see you and the great work that you and Sam do. So once more, James Cridland,

[Mark]: 00:55:21

thank you ever so much, my friend.