The Pivot To Video: What Podcasts Can Learn From The Press

0:01Hello and welcome to the Media Club. I'm Matt Deegan. In the club today we're live at the podcast show to ask the biggest question facing the sector. How to switch on video and not make mistakes? If you work in press you'll be familiar with the pivot to video in the 2010s when all national newspaper titles experimented with costly adaptations where some thrived and some went out of business. So we thought we'd bring along some club members to warn of what might be. All that plus are at the ARIA Awards at the Roundhouse. And in the Audio Network Media Quiz, we're playing the weakest podcast link.

0:37That's all coming up in the Media Club, supported by Audio Network. Come on in.

0:46So welcome to the Media Club. Joining me are three club members who are no stranger to the pivot to video. Thomas Curry is head of production and development at BBC Studios Audio and no strange to the podcast show either. It's customary at the Media Club to anoint a new member, someone who's had a great week. So who would you like to pick? It's quite self-serving this week, I'm afraid. Excellent, I love that. But I'm going to bring Roman Mars with me. We just launched A History of the USA in 100 Objects. The first episode came out on Monday and it's so good. It's so much fun. Well, he can definitely join and would have great stories to tell.

1:26Also joining us is Charlotte Tobit, UK editor of Press Gazette, and someone reporting on the video exploits of Fleet Street. Who would you like to have in the club this week? I'm going to bring a journalist called Cormac Kehoe, who has just succeeded in having a libel case against him thrown out. It was also against the local newsletter publisher Mill Media. and there was a case individually against him and a case against the publisher as well and a judge called this an abusive process and basically it's kind of victory for public interest journalism that they fought it in the court and now hopefully just they can get their costs back.

2:05But yeah, that was great news this week. Well, he can definitely celebrate with us in the club. Also joining us is the former media editor at The Guardian and now founder of local news outlet London Centric with two Orwell Prize nominations under your belt. Welcome, Jim Watson. Hello. Thanks for having me. I'm nominating James Murdoch because he's been splashing cash around buying up bits of Vox, and it's just nice to know that someone still sees some future in something resembling the media. So that's just nice to see someone. Yeah, it's interesting. He's bought New York Magazine, which his dad previously owned.

2:39Everything kind of comes full circle, doesn't it, in the media? And he's also also the bits that he hasn't bought are about as telling as the rest of it. It's like I'd be a bit worried if I was at those publications. Yeah. So the Vox Media kind of podcast network and the magazine with him and like SB Nation and some other titles have been sort of shoved aside. Yeah. You wouldn't be feeling very loved right now, would you? You wouldn't. Well, before we get started, a big thank you to Audio Network, who are hosting us here at Podcast Show. So Audio Network are a global music publisher specializing in making music for content.

3:12So whatever production you're working on, Audio Network will have the perfect tracks for you. And us, actually, as you'll discover later on. We'll be back in a sec.

3:26So we've been here before. Podcasting's pivot to video has echoes of what the press went through in the 2010s. But what can we learn from that time? Jim, you were at BuzzFeed, then at The Guardian at the time of The Great Pivot. What are your memories of such a moment? My memory? So I'm the sort of most printy person on this group today. And I was at BuzzFeed, but I was very much on the website of BuzzFeed. You know, we didn't really, we were still trying to go via on Twitter and Facebook with text. And then suddenly we were told we had to do loads of video, mainly because Facebook was just chucking money at it.

4:05I mean, the budgets were crazy. I remember Facebook spending hundreds of thousands setting up me interviewing the prime minister in sort of a rig that must have cost them unbelievable amounts of money. And we burnt through so much and got so few actual viewers that were engaging with it. And that's one of those things that you sort of look back on and go, it was probably heading in the right direction, but we were just doing it the wrong way and way too expensively. Did you think of yourself being dragged to video or were you quite excited actually that this maybe this is the future for journalism?

4:39No, we were a load of text-based millennials going on. What's going on? Why is everyone wanting video? And then you had the other side of BuzzFeed, which was the fun bit, which people actually enjoyed rather than us, you know, self-important news people, which was doing all the Try Guys stuff in the States. And then they couldn't hold their stuff because everyone was going off and going solo because they realized, well, why am I getting a payroll salary to do this? so it was just i just remember everything being like right we've just cracked how to go viral with words and pictures and stuff like that and suddenly the videos come along but there's not the market for it and we're just we're just sort of throwing the company up in the air at the whims of facebook uh charlotte you were working at a local newspaper in 2014 which were where were you at uh yes so like 2014 to 2017 i was at the sorry advertiser and i would carry that kind of where you dragged or ran into it i would say we were kind of dragged into it but a lot of the newsroom was kind of dragged into digital altogether to be honest um but so my personal memory of it is um being told to push facebook live very hard um and like anything that we'd leave the newsroom for practically we had to um go live with it on facebook and um the this did get you know some good engagement in the comments and stuff the trouble is it wasn't always good engagement and it was like the first time that we were really um seeing kind of the negative reaction from some readers which you know has definitely persisted and you know social media can be quite toxic now but um there were definitely like um events for example like a traveler encampment i remember um one of my colleagues going live and you know they don't want a journalist there anyway but we're told you know you have to go live and and that kind of and that ended up having to kind of be finished early because it was quite an unpleasant um atmosphere and you know usually if you're just a journalist and you go down to a scene you can you can just leave quietly if if it's not good but um that was all going live so yeah uh and Thomas in terms of like national newspapers he was doing he was doing a good job uh back then i think there was a real uh tension and it feels like that's the kind of thing that we're uh thinking about as podcasting companies at the moment between news publishers and magazines that wanted as much reach and as much audience as possible so that they could sell other things other people's products to those versus a group of publications that maybe thought we'll get a slightly smaller audience and sell ourselves like we we are the product and i feel like that's kind of the tension that's being played out at the moment uh so video is just one element of it but broadly speaking it's like do we go for as many people as possible and try and do an ad model or do we keep the audience a little bit smaller and do something uh kind of subscription space maybe that's oversimplifying it but that i think was being played out at various different publications kind of nationally.

7:44Jim, it's kind of interesting that idea of broad versus narrow. I mean, you run a local news publication and previously at The Guardian, you're writing kind of a mass for the mass market. Are you super serving an audience? Do you want it to be broad? Do you want it to be narrow? I mean, if there's any coherence to the plan of what I'm trying to do with London Centric, I haven't worked it out yet. So I run a really small local newsletter in London that's taken off quite rapidly. and so there's about 5 ,000 paying subscribers who get a digest and original investigative news. They don't get that much, but it's quite in depth and that's a sort of real community thing.

8:20And then as an experiment, I've sort of done what every panicked person in their late 30s should do and hired a young 20-something to tell me what's actually going on. And they're doing lots of really great viral video clips for me, you know, a day a week. And what's odd with that is it's creating massive reach I'm suddenly getting awareness for stories and it's bringing in absolutely no revenue. It's bringing in absolutely barely any more subscribers for the paid product that actually funds everything. And it's taking up a vast amount of time. So I'm the sort of one that going on this panel going, I've got my nice print little thing online, print equivalent as a newsletter.

9:00But I accept that that's only going to have a niche audience, but it lets me do what I want. And then the enormous time sink of doing video and the resources it requires is driving me nuts. You influence much. Obviously, you follow the media. You know how it's changed. Do you think back to your BuzzFeed days and think, am I replicating this? Is this the evolution of that? I'm always stealing every good idea that we had. I mean, the evolution of the BuzzFeed thing and the reason that people used to work there are now running lots of the old media publications is because it was basically really focused on what do the audience want and what will they actually respond to.

9:36And I know BuzzFeed is basically falling off the internet at the moment, was just sold in a fire sale. It's hard to remember when we had an office at Oxford Circus and we're spending millions of pounds on free oysters for lunch. But it was incredible. I'm so grateful to all the venture capitalists who sunk all that money. It was the most incredibly fun time to burn through that money. um but uh i would never but it's also taught me like with my own self-funded business to never spend like there is no snack wall for my my employees and there never will be i'm disappointed there's no oyster bar at home yeah exactly well yeah i mean since you're talking about kind of other companies uh we mentioned vox media earlier um charlotte you know they went into that space and they came out of it early what was that journey like so i think that just one example you know um it was like 20 what 2016 2017 a lot of this was happening um and then by early 2018 lots of them including box media had laid off a load of people and also that was after initially laying off a load of people in order to fund like doing different stuff in order to fund the video stuff and the reason it all happened so quickly is essentially um you know we talked a bit about Facebook already it was largely based on Facebook saying this is what people want and then it came out that that in fact those metrics had largely been inflated quite significantly and it wasn't really what audiences wanted and even if they did want it did they want news video so in terms of news publishers doing it that's kind of not the same thing as just wanting other video so the audiences weren't there revenue never followed so even the people that you know kind of like Jim was saying they were doing like good video um but but it wasn't actually what people wanted i mean influencer platforms is a story that has run through this kind of the last 20 years i was thinking about do you remember now this yeah they uh as far as i remember it they actually got rid of their website entirely um and decided that they were going to deliver news and politics and culture.

11:46They had all these various different imprints. They were only going to distribute on Vine. Do you remember when that was around? Vine and Facebook and a couple of other places. And they reached enormous numbers of audience very, very quickly. I remember them putting out press releases touting billions of views, which now maybe seems a bit quaint, but at the time, it was like, how are they doing this? And then, of course, in 2018, Facebook decides to change its algorithm and actually we're not going to prioritize news publishers anymore we're going to focus on friendships and meaningful connections between people and the company fell apart almost overnight and the it's not to say that i think that will necessarily happen this time but and bear with me because it might seem a bit far-fetched but the thing that interests me is facebook obviously loses a court case earlier this year that their algorithm i think i'm right in saying is responsible for the harms to well-being for an individual if those court cases stack up then you layer on top social media bans that are happening in Australia because governments and parents around the world are realizing actually this is a bit dangerous if companies like YouTube which I think was also implicated in that court case decide that actually it's less of a headache for them to adjust their algorithm in some way I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen I just think it's something that we should be paying attention to and as we think about how to build business models as media companies um yes run at video but also think about how reliant you are on the platform uh and what changes could be coming well this crosses over really well with you know for newspapers and direct uh audience rather than audience through google or through social i mean podcasting's kind of unique in that content creators historically have created their shows rss feed goes to all the destinations they pull it up takes from your host everyone was happy now we're in a situation where you have a slightly different version for spotify you have uh an audio video choice in apple youtube you're doing something else maybe we aren't so reliant like facebook was but this kind of well what's your own platform that you want you want to send uh consumers to because charlotte it's quite tempting to build in other places on other platforms they've done the work they've they've put the money into it um what should podcasters be thinking about where they own the connections to their audience yeah i guess the one difference of podcasters is even when they're on other platforms certainly audio like we've always said um it feels like a more direct connection because they're directly in your ears so there is that benefit um but also So I think a lot of podcasters are kind of making the most of sub stack and stuff now and adding a newsletter element.

14:39Obviously, again, that is kind of an intermediary. And there is a risk that Gmail, for example, you know, doing more AI summaries of your email. So actually, could that be bad for newsletters? But currently, it's still OK. And I think that's one way to just have that direct connection again. And to be honest, this is something that kind of all news publishers are currently grappling with and panicking about as Google traffic is seriously plummeting, kind of down by like a third in two years or something over a huge network of publishers. And so there isn't like one easy answer. And I think there's a risk of being too reliant and excited on newsletters as one of the solutions, but definitely one of them.

15:25And then just being on as many platforms, but just not feeling like you have to be on every platform. You've got to work out which platforms are right for your audience. So, for example, it might just be that Instagram's the perfect audience. And that is okay to use the platforms and build your audience on there. It's just when that's too much of your revenue and your monetization in particular, then that's a risk. so um don't put all your balls in one court jim are you worried about ai summarizing your newsletter for your audience i you know what if i started worrying about everything that was coming down the track i don't think i'd ever get anything out honestly my day-to-day is normally can i just get another story out that hits hits well but what i do is every piece is original reporting hopefully telling you something entertaining intriguing or new about london and what i'm finding is that ai for that running sort of oh you're going to get swamped by a load of like emails that frankly i can't even tell if they're ai generated or not and now i'm so skeptical that i can't even i i now get nervous when reading some things going am i just reading some ai slop or not and that's a bad thing whereas mine is still littered with lots of typos and is authentically human um so you can tell that that's and you can you know you can see that we've been out there on the ground you can see that so that's that's good for me um and i'm hoping that whatever the format ends up being whether in three years i'm on a panel here talking about how we're just all watching on meta glasses and and beaming it into our brains or whatever that that the stories will get through we just have to keep finding the format i mean i think interesting kind of comparison with podcasters you run a subscription business primarily want people to pay money on on your own platform and i guess what's what are the third party platforms like i'm sure lots of people talking about bringing newsletters together and kind of re-aggregating them is that a way to make money or you worry that takes it away from what you own?

17:20I'm very protective of what I own and what I've built. And I quite like the fact that at the moment I have enough people putting trust in me and a very small team to go and find things that will interest them. And I'm very lucky. I also don't think that's a model that almost, I think everything's gone right with a lot of luck for what I've been trying to do. And I think the idea that anyone can just dive in, this has been in a big city with a fair wind at the right moment with a lot of luck and a lot of hard work it's just about worked for a two or three people sized business like this is not going to be a thing that the the really big legacy places will be able to sustain themselves of uh tom if you think about the platform too a lot of podcasters have built their podcast businesses on apple and spotify you know they've created their audiences um is that going to change or actually do you have to double down on that whether you like it or not one of the things that is so interesting talking with charlotte and jim is that people discuss podcasting as if it's different from literally any other media business i actually don't think that's the case so in the same way that you see some of these examples are the obvious ones but you know the new york times or semaphore or people inc really diversifying so that yes they have a text product or a magazine or a web product but they're also doing live events and subscriptions and maybe licensing deals, maybe they have products or merchandise, I actually don't think you should really think of podcasting and audio as different from any of those other media businesses.

18:52And to Jim's point, I think the thing that we're seeing happening at the moment is a kind of middle being taken out of podcasting where really small operations who are really focused and have a really specific audience, those are thriving. And bigger organizations that have the kind of structure and the ability to monetize content. That sounds like a really vampiric way of thinking about it, but genuinely, you know, that they can do the live event, that they can do the book, that they can do, you know, merch as and when it feels relevant. I think that's what's happening in podcasting at the moment.

19:32When we talk to people about video, I find that new shows pretty much are building video first. because they've got no legacy. They've got existing shows that might have had some quite good success on audio, having to change their production process quite a bit. And to sort of satisfy the desires of Apple and Spotify and YouTube, it's difficult whether you're an established OG podcaster or you're coming to it fresh. It's a very different product. Yeah. It's not that I think video is not something that people should think about very seriously and chase after. There is clearly an audience there.

20:09The only thing that interests me is what is the right area of focus for your show specifically. If you have a choice, hypothetically, between putting resource into visualizing an existing audio program versus really thinking about what the live event strategy for that show is, maybe start there and come to video later. Just think about if you only have a limited amount of time, energy, resource, where is that best spent video is absolutely one of those channels but is it the right channel for every single show as the first choice um that's just something that i think we've been thinking about a lot with all of our programs i mean charlotte when we think about you know we talked about video newspapers and sending you to do a facebook live i mean news has learned quite a lot of video skill i look at news uk their youtube channels are hugely successful part of of their business now and they're they're pushing their journalism into that direction it's quite easy to push against video is it something that people actually more aggressively should rethink applying their own skills to doing that well because that is what the platforms and what the public are after so i don't know if i'm kind of still a luddite but um press gazette's podcast is still audio only um i maybe it shouldn't be now but anyway um so um i guess i'm kind of similar to um thomas an advocate of like not just rushing into it if you're not like 100 sure that your audience wants it um or needs it um but um it's funny that you mentioned news uk because um kind of one of my examples of like an interesting um news publisher doing something right now is um The Sun and it's been like maybe about 18 months or just over a year since they kind of really revamped their video team and invested a load into it.

22:08Got a new director of video, like hired loads of new roles. But what's interesting for me is that what's working is that the kind of more niche stuff they're doing. So, you know, you think of publishers like The Sun and you think they're trying to reach everyone with kind of, you know, big news stories and big celeb stories and all of that. But actually, it's the kind of smaller little defense franchises and parenting and things like that. So actually, but again, it's probably not that new. It's just a new way of doing it because, you know, newspapers always had these different sections. So it's just a different way of viewing it.

22:49and now it's evolved. But I do think that, yeah, a lot of them have invested a lot into that. It is showing. I guess we'll find out in a year or two if they keep doing it, whether it's worked. Jim, what should podcasters learn from news's pivot to video? It's a long pivot to video. Well, the long pivot, I mean, also the fact that we're just talking about news's pivot to video is weird because it turns out that people just didn't want news a lot of the time. And that we were, why BuzzFeed in 2015 was putting me on a stage interviewing david cameron and thinking a youth audience is going to watch a half hour interview with the prime minister it's like clearly that was mental it was very fun to do but like what were we doing um and but also like we're talking a lot about like video of a whole podcast here right whereas basically like the short video clip is the default chunk of content no one forwards an audio clip into a whatsapp group chat no one sticks that on their uh on i don't even know where people share content does anyone actually share content who's like normal now um that isn't a brand um but but when that when the little video clip is part is basically the default unit of internet content if you're not making that you're not going to end up there and the problem is then i mean how many people here we all have podcasts we feel like oh yeah i know they were discussing that the other day and you realize you haven't actually listened to an episode in in months but you feel oh yeah no because i know they were talking about that it's like you haven't you don't know that you just watch the 30 second clip like everyone else that was doing the rounds and that's a really weird place to be in so you have this weird cultural salience for your product and then absolutely no well not absolutely no but not an enormous number of actual engaged listeners and not enormous number of people paying you or earning you anything i mean i put my i i you know i have not nailed short form video but i put my tiktok earnings uh public the other day because It was just, I think I was just trying to tidy the sock drawer and I was bored.

24:41But it was one point, well, an impress gazette linked to it and then it blew up a bit. I didn't really mean to. But it was something like 1.5 million views. Obviously, all views are rubbish. So let's say that maybe a tenth of those are real humans. And then it earned 150 pounds. It's like, that's great. I've spent a few hundred pounds, several hundred pounds making all of these. They've taken half a day and then I'm earning a fraction of that back. and I'm not even sure if it's sending anyone back to my own product. So what's any of this? Why are you doing it then? It's quite fun. Quite interesting.

25:13And I'll tell you why I'm doing it as an investigative journalist. It's reach that's bringing in sources and that's not something I ever expected. I think there's also something about what are the objectives of all these things. So it isn't always money. It can be audience or it can be contacts. These things can do different jobs, can't they? Okay, my thanks to Jim, Charlotte and Thomas. in a moment. We're on the winner's run at the Arias. We'll see you there. Thank you.

26:04out their work in the show notes. Best station went to the hits, and I caught up with some of the other winners. Congratulations, Hits Radio team! Thank you so much! It has been quite a night for you, just one station of the year, but there's a few awards tonight too! A huge shout out to our news team tonight, I mean, they've, like, news and commercial radio are so important, and what they've done, and what they've achieved tonight is phenomenal. I couldn't be proud of those guys this evening. And then these guys, wow, it's, I'm buzzing, I'm not going to lie, I'm buzzing. It's been a big year for the station, lots of changes but you must be proud with the output and the win.

26:40Yeah, yeah I mean these guys as everyone does in this industry works tirelessly because we all we all wanted to work in this as kids didn't we and we've all achieved that and I think what these guys and our teams across you know the broadcast centers do day in day out is is phenomenal and I couldn't be proud of them tonight and like the future for Hits Radio we really hope you know our ambition is to become the UK's biggest pop station and I'm so proud of what they've achieved tonight. I'm buzzing. This is absolutely for them because they work tirelessly every day for it. James, Breakfast Centre at Hits.

27:10You must reach up for this. Amazing. It's like, yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? I feel like we, we often feel like we're the underdog in the industry, but we aren't. We're pushing really hard and we are coming for everybody's listeners. 100%. And like, we do so much work. It's not just about playing Hits and like having a little chat in between. We are constantly working on incredible documentaries. We're trying to make a difference to our listeners' lives. We're talking about things that other commercial radio stations just wouldn't go anywhere near. And I feel like we get that response from our listeners.

27:48We are definitely making a difference. I saw one of your posts talking about a text you got from a listener this week. Yeah, I was just talking about being gay. And we had a message from a mother of a trans son. and he basically had never heard mainstream media talking about queer issues before on a breakfast show and it made a big difference. I never had that growing up. I never had that growing up. So, yeah, it's cool. Well done, everyone. Congratulations, man. Thank you. Trevor Nelson just won Special Recognition Award at the Arias. Bit of a surprise. Mate, that was... I had no idea. I mean, no idea.

28:31Yeah, it's happened to me years ago once, and I'm just so grateful. I mean, you know, I've done 30 years at The Beebe and 40 in total as a broadcaster. I mean, I know I only look about 25, but, you know, and I live for this. You know, I absolutely live for this. I love radio, and it's just amazing. When you walked into Kiss with your records, what would that person think about this moment? No way. I'm serious, I'm not even exaggerating people say to me all the time so did you dream of being on Radio 1, Radio 2 and I said, I'm a kid from Hackney we didn't dream I've dreamt of having a job the only thing I loved was music that's the only thing I was naturally into, like music so, you know to me, this sort of thing is just a bonus I earn a living out of playing music that would do me getting awards I mean, this means a lot.

29:33It means a lot. There's not many people that have done commercial radio, pirate radio, commercial radio, radio one, one extra, now radio two. That's quite a journey. What's it like being on radio two in the afternoons? Who would have guessed that? Do you think that says something about the way the world's changed, the way music's changed? I think there's a few things going on here. I think that for me as a broadcaster, there was a time I was on one extra. I was on Radio 1 and Radio 2 at the same time. And it meant that I was talking to someone's kid, then talking to the dad, and then talking to maybe the granddad, all in the same week.

30:10And I think you learn. You learn the skill out of connecting with your audience, even though you can't see them. And I'd like to think that that's one thing I've become better at, you know, over the years, just connecting with the audience and making, you know. And I don't, I'm not a presenter, I'm just a DJ, you know. You know, I don't present. I sort of just say stuff. I think you can call yourself a presenter now. Well, yeah. You've managed it. Congratulations on the award. Thank you. I seriously appreciate this award. Honestly, what a surprise. Thank you very much. Michelle Hussain, congratulations.

30:41Radio Times Moment of the Year. What a lovely award to win. It is a really special award to win because it's the listeners, it's the public, so it really, really means a lot to me, and especially because my podcast is so young. We haven't even been going for a year, so it really feels a very special moment. Have you settled in at Bloomberg? I have. It has been a whole new journey of every kind. New workplace, new team, new vibe and of course a massive change in going from live radio into podcasting. But I'm loving being able to really go deep into one conversation. I feel like it's the right moment for me and it's where so much of our industry is going so I'm just like happily riding the wave.

31:27So how do you feel in that interview? How do you think it was going? How did you think when he said, what's in the clip? Listen, love, you're trying ever so hard. I was asking him about Russia, and I don't think he liked it very much. But, look, I like to think I have my own way of, you know, not beating people up and just, like, trying to do the best I can to really delve into what they think and why they think it. So I guess that was an example of it, because talking about Russia and his thoughts on it just took us into territory that's quite important for a future prime minister, maybe. Well, congratulations.

32:08Thank you so much. Johnny Karagasorium from BBC Sounds. Yeah. Congratulations, Audio Brand of the Year. That must be a nice one to have. Yeah, it's great. I mean, in truth, it is an award for so many other people. because when you're a platform, you're only as good as your content, all the people who make the product, all of the live radio stations and their schedules. And so it is a massive win for the whole BBC because the whole BBC goes into the platform. But that being said, and maybe I should have given them more of a specific shout out in the speech, the teams behind BBC Sounds, who Jono, who you know really well, you know, Marshalls, we work every day really, really hard.

32:52curation discovery growth content strategy working with different commissioners building the relationships that we need in and out of the bbc so it's a big win for them it's a big win for all the other people in the bbc as well i mean also making an app is hard yeah it is difficult you've got a big one there's a lot of stuff in there giving that show on the road it's difficult yeah and i would say that every time that you hit a snag you just have to stay in the lane and just keep going and kind of be resilient and keep pushing through there's so many things that we didn't think that we'd be able to do that we can do now launching new streams and sounds launching podcast tabs and sounds thinking about all of this different functionality that would like make the content just more easy to kind of discover because the bbc at any one time has 80 000 hours of content on it mix of archive view so it's about something that is good enough for our offer is Well done.

33:47Thanks, Matt. Elizabeth Day from How to Fail. Yes, that's me. Award winning. Congratulations. Thank you. Look at this. I know. For your work with Dove. Yes. Best commercial partnership. Yes. Money's quite important for podcasters. We would be nothing without our advertisers, so I'm incredibly grateful that they give us the liberty to do what we do. And a great commercial partnership, like the one that we have with Dove, really allows us to be ourselves. And they worked with us so seamlessly. it was a really beautiful thing it never feels like we're selling out and it's incredibly important to me as the creator and host of out of fail that our integrity is intact so to work with a brand like dove who totally got that they were really aligned with our values was so exciting you talked a little bit there about the start of your podcast quite a journey uh talk about failure it's a great success you've just won an award yes how do you feel about where the show is now and today i feel thrilled where the show is now it's transformed my life it's transformed some of the lives of my community who listen and watch it every week and I'm so incredibly grateful for that and I feel like we're only just scratching the surface of what our potential is so it's a tremendously exciting time and I'm just so thrilled I get to work with this amazing team of people who are behind the camera right now but they are amazing and it feels like such a collaborative effort so onwards and upwards and ever more greater guests congratulations thank you so much

35:17We're here at the podcast show with Paul and Claire from Audio Always. Hello both. Hello, lovely to see you. Lovely to see you too. We were chatting earlier, you're doing an interesting thing. I think it's an interesting thing. Promoting shows is hard. Audio Always, you run lots of shows, video, audio. What are you doing that I found interesting? Tell me about it. So we're running continuity announcements across our podcast. Yeah, so I wanted to pause that. continuity announcements. Yeah. That's quite like an old-fashioned telly thing. How does it work with podcasts? Well, it works on TV, right?

35:52That little announcement before the next show comes up, telling you what else is going on on the station. Why can't we have that across the podcast as well? So we've started doing this over the last couple of months. And between myself and one of my other colleagues, we record these announcements that are teasing content coming up on similar shows. So, for example, Help I Sex My Boss. We're teasing what's coming up in the week ahead on the Team Commandments. I've got a similar crossover audience and we think the audience of Help By Sex and My Boss would really enjoy what's coming up on Sarah and Claire's show.

36:20So it's a great way of giving a bit of a personal touch as well because we know the content that's coming up on there so we can tease it directly and we're having good results with it as well. Seeing those audiences jump over to the other show, adding it next in their queue as well. So we're giving them direct call to actions. So does it run at the end of an episode in the middle of one? It runs right at the start. So we play it right at the beginning. Right at the beginning. So as soon as someone hits play on it, it's one of us popping up saying your show is going to play in a moment. But just before we get into that, we've got loads of great stuff across our network that you're going to love as well.

36:52It's just those little pointers, those little directions so we can bring the audience back into audio all ways and keep them listening to our shows. You've obviously got a presenter background as well in your career. Do you think that helps in writing those or recording those? Of course it does. I think you know exactly what the audience want, having presented for quite a few years i'm quite tuned into what grabs attention what they want to hear and those kind of little hooks that give a little bit away but it's always about the teasers so we've been doing a lot of that as well giving enough away but making people want to go over and hear the whole episode uh paul if it's pre-roll that's quite a premium spot to put to put on shows is it kind of that important to push people to your other content i think so i think you know we've talked a lot internally about there are different ways we can do this but our sense is potentially a 30 second promo might not always be the best vehicle there are lots of promos running on lots of podcasts and they're all promoting something and so as we grow out the network and we're now operating at quite significant scale we've been really big growth over the last 12 months doubling the size of our listens and views on a month-to-month basis what we're trying to do is understand audience communities rather than show by show communities so actually the girls bathroom and leave a message and the jack and ash show are sharing lots of audience let's make sure that we're driving cross-pollination across those communities and i think actually whilst it's a premium spot hopefully it's more effective and meaningful for the audience yes um any feedback from listeners about it have they noticed well we've had some great numbers already we've been working with ACAST, looking at the amount of audience that's jumping over to the podcast that we're recommending.

38:41I think in the first month's trial, we had over 191 ,000 people following the direction that we've given them. Now, of course, there's lots of data flying around there. Maybe they're listening already, but they hadn't in that previous month listened to that podcast that we'd recommended. So we're taking that as a positive sign that people are moving over. And just to kind of channel in at some of the specifics as well, especially across our true crime slate we're really seeing a big impact that's such a tuned in audience true crime the true crime people are so hungry for new content aren't they it's i guess it can be less of a promo and just it satisfies a need like what else can i consume it's a beast that's got to be fed and i feel like we're kind of doing that with those continuity announcements pointing them in the direction of other stories that they can get in whether it's a series or another always on show we've got so much to offer it makes sense to be able to point them in the direction of their next listen.

39:33Paul, I'm sure you've been on the podcast show, I think you were here yesterday, here today as well. A lot of business chat, it's kind of moving perhaps a little bit more as the business of podcasting than it is sort of the creator, single creator world. What's kind of keeping you busy already always? What are you thinking about for the next 12 months? I think for us, the big thing is that community piece that we talked about before, and we're working a lot on roles that allow us to understand those audiences data is going to be much more important we've signed up to podstock in the last few months who are a team they're here this year which allows us to see all our data from audio video and socials all in one place for the first time which i think is is going to be super important i think yeah that community piece podcast community management is an important new role in our business in the last 12 months that kind of social piece um and where i'm looking to next and where we're starting to hear conversations in the room is those kind of brand and licensing opportunities and Help Access My Boss has just gone live on MTV four nights a week in the UK and we think there's lots of opportunities there from TV, from books and beyond maybe not groundbreaking there are other people in this space but I think that's where my focus is going to be for the next 12 months Paul and Claire, thank you very much Thank you.

40:52Okay, we're back at the podcast show and there's just enough time for the audio Network media quiz.

41:00Three new stories hidden within an existing media property. This week, it's the weakest podcast link. I'm Romesh Ranganathan. There have been scores of new announcements here at Podcast Show, but can you deduce the ones that have been greenlit from those that have been made up by our producer? And once again, Alex Audio Network has taken that very slight brief and carefully curated a playlist of music to score today's game and then added in post just like on the telly sorry live audience uh you're taking turns to answer so it's weakest link style i'm gonna go around all of you you just gotta say um whether it's true uh or it's made up uh okay let's uh start the clock uh a cast to create 3d podcasts made up uh sony music uh launches choose your own adventure true crime podcast true made up uh uh i suppose you should have banked uh because of thomas there uh uh jim uh global announced a new premium advertising capability on youtube i mean that that's that's actually boring enough to be real that's true correct uh radio caroline announces the death of king charles true it is true uh survey suggests most podcast listeners own a pet Christ True No that was made up That's more of a demographic Jim Celine Dion chat show True No made up Spotify Spotify to verify podcasters True Correct British scandal to launch season on Saxgate I feel at some point one of us has to say Chuck Khan But instead I'll just say false It is false Pod News says YouTube is winning podcast creator hearts.

42:50True. It's true. Rest is history to cover Epstein files. Made up. Is made up. And finally, Diabas CEO announces live experience. True, surely. Fortunately, it's not true. Well done to the team. I suppose we should just say, who there did you think was the weakest link, Jim? I think it was me. I do want to I mean the ideas are really good there's a lot of free IP going there who's the weakest link pick one of your competitors oh is it unfair to do Charlotte Tom I got every question right I don't think I understood the rules of the game Tom who's the weakest link clearly it was Charlotte Thomas yes Thomas just before we go how can people We'll keep up with your work.

43:46Jim. Google London-centric. Excellent. Tom. Sadly, LinkedIn. And Charlotte. PressGazette.co.uk or LinkedIn. Excellent. Thank you to all our guests and thank you to our audience. Thank you very much. Thank you.