332 - Spotify Lures YouTubers, Apple’s Top 20, & Are AI Subscriptions Worth it?

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Wednesday, July 2nd, 2025, and today we're we've got a fresh batch of podcast news and commentary from Gen. ZS listening habits to surprising trends, new tools, bold moves from Spotify and YouTube, and more. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. Good morning again podcasting Morning Chat. Thank you for being here.

1:24 I am your host, Mark Ronick, and currently on stage with me we have my producer Ashley Feller, Dr. Faye, Nick Naulback and Sid Meadows. And as I said, we're going to be covering all the news around the world of podcasting, content creation and things that are probably going to be important to you. Staying up to date as a content creator, I think gives you an advantage because there's so much going on in this world. And I do currently speaking about podcasting and content creation and yes, so much going on in this whole world as well, but so much going on in the world of podcasting that sometimes it can feel a little hard to keep up. So we that's one of the main goals of this episode is to get you up to date.

2:14 So with that, I think I might as well just dive right in. So let's go with as I like to start with a little podcast data for you this morning. This is as of yesterday, July 1st, the number one podcast on Apple, Devil in the Desert and ABC News production. A true Crime Story, I believe, and yes #1 on Spotify. We'll hear it a little more from Dr. in a moment, but number one on Spotify, The Joe Rogan Experience. And by the way, over the last week, 195,669 podcasts produced, published at least one new episode, which is up a half a percent.

3:07 Good to hear. I feel like the last couple weeks I've said it was down, so that's good to hear. And by the way, Alex Baelish has joined us as well. And thank you to those of you who are already here this morning, live bright and early 7:00 AM Eastern. Appreciate you being here with us on Clubhouse. And a reminder, we are live on YouTube as well. We're sharing the link here on Clubhouse. I need to go share the link to Clubhouse over on YouTube. All right, so with that, Dr. let's hear your two top five lists for today. Good morning. So Spotify #5 an oldie but goodie, you know, And you'll love them. Crime Junkie #4 is the daily #3 Timpani is usually happy OK the the past weekend with Theo Von.

3:58 Number 2 is Tucker Carlson and the number one is Joe Rogan. Experience. Shocker. Yeah. All right, so what's the random chart of the week? OK, random chart of the week is education. You know, I look for these random charts. I look for something that usually doesn't have Joe Rogan's name on it. I usually look for something that is not something that I've said before in the prior chart and stuff like that. So today I think I have it. Education #5 is the Jordan P Jordan, sorry, Jordan B Peterson podcast #4 is tiny technical tutorials. OK, that's hard.

4:41 Tiny technical tutorial. That is a hard name to say. OK #3 is anything goes with Emma Chamberlain. Number 2 is let's find out and #1 you know where you love her, Sid, It's the Mel Robbins podcast. Of course it is. Yes. She's another one that is commonly on the top of the charts. And by the way, the pod, Speaking of the charts, Dr. we are still the podcasting morning chat, still in the top 40s in the how to category. I think I last checked we are at 4344. Something like that. So awesome, really cool something. Isn't there something that you would like to ask our listeners to do?

5:29 Oh, like why yes, why yes, there is Dr. That wasn't planned, by the way. I know it feels like it was, but thank you for the reminder. Yes, we are also nominated for the People's Choice Award award over at the podcast awards podcast awards.com there used. To be a fanfare kind of music when you say that. Though all I got really for fanfare. Let me see what I got where where did it go? I had it the other day for our game show. I was going to you want. Me to hum something, give us, give it to us again. We have been nominated for the Podcast awards.com People's Choice Award. Thank you, Dr. So yes, all you have to do, we need your help. We need you to vote for us so we can move on to the next round. The way you do that is you go to podcastawards.com and you have to register, which I know some people may find annoying, but it is free so and it only takes a second. So you have to 1st register or sign up to vote is really the correct terminology.

6:43 Do that and then you'll get your whole list of shows and categories to vote on. You'll see, I think toward the top, the Adam Curry People's Choice award. That's the one that we are eligible for. The weird thing is, is they decided to put us under. So it's all listed alphabetically and they have us under the TS for the podcasting morning chat. And there's a lot of them. Don't let that, don't let that dissuade you. There's a lot of them that you have to go through. So knowing that we are under T for the is very important. Yes. So please Scroll down to. When you start seeing the word the on the list, you know you're close.

7:28 And then look for the podcasting morning chat. Give us your vote and then go vote for some of these other great shows that are nominated. I know that we have several people in our community here that are eligible. Maybe I'm gonna maybe before I start announcing some and not all, I'll collect a little list and I'll I'll bring it up tomorrow so that we can all support one another. For now, please, if you don't mind, vote for the podcasting Morning Chat podcast awards dot com. We'll link to it with instructions in the show notes as well. Sid, did you have a question? Yes, good morning, everybody. Actually, Mark, it's in two categories. Oh, you found this in the second one. Yes.

8:10 So it's on the right hand side about the third one or fourth one down. There's another because I went through every category and voted. If I knew this show, I voted. If not, I left it blank. And I happen to notice like on the right hand side, like the third one down maybe that that that it showed up there again. What category? I don't remember, sorry. OK. I don't remember. I just was like, oh, there it is again. So, but it's on the right hand side of the page. Excuse me, the left hand side of the page, like the third or fourth one down? All right. Well, we're going to have to look that up and figure that out. I was going to just try to do it here on the fly. I have to go back and do it again. All right, well, let's keep things moving. We also have some events to share with you. Not a ton, but we do have a few.

8:55 A little reminder, Podcast movement 2025 starts August 18th in hot Dallas, TX, August in Texas. Not the best time of year, but a great event. I've been to many podcast movements now at this point and not sure if I'm going yet this year. I think it's going to be a last minute call for me, even though I get mad at people because so many of you are last minute tickets, ticket purchasers for Empowered Podcasting. Maybe that's karma. So maybe I need to just make my decision and buy my ticket now to help with the Empowered Podcasting ticket sales. We'll get to that in a second. Radio Days Asia is coming September 1st to Indonesia, pretty crazy. And Pod Summit YYC 2025 that starts September 19th and that's in Calgary, Canada.

9:49 And yes the Empowered Podcasting conference come in September 26th through the 28th in Charlotte, NC. Just like last year, ticket sales don't seem to, well I'll just say last year they didn't happen until way close to the event, nearly gave me a heart attack and then we had a very successful event of over 100 people attending. This year it seems we are trending in that same direction and I think I will have heart attack. No, I'm knocking on wood here, but seriously, I could really use your help. If you are planning on coming, please consider going to empoweredpodcasting.com and purchasing a ticket. And if you are somebody who applied to speak at Empowered Podcasting, we are looking to make the announcement, the speaker announcements this very week. So be on the lookout for your emails. We will have that announcement in there shortly. OK, and that is let me see so that in again September 28th, I'm sorry, 26th through the 28th Dr. do you want to give us do you have time before you go cook some breakfast? I do all right, so job opportunities. Yeah, so these job OPS, you know, normally we read them off from Pod News, but these came from the newsletter Pod Fest Messenger, and they're quite a few of them. I'm not going to read them all off. There's some in there that are remote. NPR is hiring a podcast engagement and curation, but that's an internship, but it is

11:22 remote. Red Balloon hiring podcast producer and content editor. Hold on, that's also. Oh, Red Balloon. OK, you did skip. I thought you. I thought you were reading Robin Hood. I'm looking at your list here. I thought you were reading it wrong. OK, I'm just gonna there's a lot of them here so I'm just gonna pick and choose some. But I will read Robin Hood hiring podcast producer in Clearwater, FL that is not designated as a remote and then also Dallas Bulls hiring a podcast host and producer in Dallas. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Very cool. Yeah, Thank you, Dr. Appreciate that. And let's go.

12:04 I'm trying to think here. All right, let's just do a a few news bites for you and we're going to get into some AI news while we're at it. But first, important to note, I think that this past Saturday, June 28th, marked 20 years since Podcasts first landed in iTunes. Yes, I said iTunes. That was a name thrown around a lot several years ago, and since Apple decided to get rid of it and created Apple Music, Apple Podcasts kind of separated everything out. We used to share iTunes with musicians. Now we have our own app. To celebrate this milestone, Apple Podcasts put out a list called 20 Years, 20 Podcasts We Love and shared a thank you to everyone who creates podcasts.

12:54 In their words, podcasting has become a global force thanks to the creativity and commitment of creators and the deep connections they have with their audiences. They go on to say the 20 podcasts that we select, selected for the 20 years, 20 podcasts we love, list our representation of this same creativity and connection found across the millions of podcasts and app on Apple Podcasts. Dr. If you don't mind, can you see or Ashley, can you see if you can pull up that list 'cause I don't have it in front of me and I thought it would be cool to mention a couple of those do. What I can do? And by the way, that quote came from Ben Cave, the global head of podcasts at Apple, speaking to Pod News, where we get a lot of our information.

13:44 Not all, but a lot. And by the way, Apple also said that these shows have made a lasting impact on listeners and the podcast industry. There's also an essential listening poll going on right now. I think that's still happening. Gathering pics from audio creators, writers and scholars. A list they'll reveal this August at Podcast Movement. And fun fact, June 26th. I know I said the 28th was 20 years of podcasting on Apple. The 26th marks the 13th anniversary of the launch of the Apple Podcasts iOS app that came out in 2012.

14:25 The one I mentioned a moment ago going on a new study just came out showing that 86% of Gen. Z listens to music or tunes into podcasts when they want to boost their mood. And this is in some ways a small follow up to the Blue's Clues Steve Burns story we did on Thursday that absolutely helped catapult us up the charts on Apple 'cause that thing is still being downloaded like crazy right now. And again, as a result of all those people finding us, they're downloading other episodes too. But this is kind of a follow up 'cause we talked about that, that audience, and I forget what other generation we identified, but that's part of his audience from back in the day. And we talked about how now he's appealing to them in a whole new way as adults, as I'll call them newer adults and, and figuring out this adulting thing.

15:25 So anyway, this is from the Gen. Z report put together by Edison Research and SiriusXM Media. The report also found that people ages 13 to 24 are most concerned with the economy, social justice and political division. Also, I think that's kind of common things that younger people are into, right? So that doesn't surprise me, I guess is all I'm saying. And also another little note, when Gen. Z is looking for something new, most of them start by searching on YouTube. Also not terribly surprising these days. OK, I want to go back to that top 20 list.

16:06 Dr. or Ashley, did you, did you guys look at Apple's 20 years 20 podcasts? We love list. They have Serial on here, Obviously Serial the show that they say the show that changed everything for podcasting. And I would, I would agree with that. 2014, I was working for that pretty large podcast at the time. I've mentioned before the Mike O'Mara show and we were certainly doing really well. And then when Serial came out, I remember that being a thing for us and us talking about that because it really catapulted everything. It really did change the game, including Listenership where that show as well, more people were discovering podcasts and then as a result discovering our show as well.

16:52 Acquired is on there. I'm trying to see The Daily is on there and of course, Call Her Daddy is on there as well. And that's, you know, that's just coming on the scene after a few recent years, but they've made that 20 years list. I'm curious, has anybody seen or finished watching the Call Her Alex documentary? We talked about that last week. I'm just curious if anybody has started it or finished it. But I don't see anybody raising their hands, so I guess not. Ashley did. Did you? I started it. And I don't want to sound too critical, but I don't know if I can watch Part 2 y'all. Really. You didn't like it?

17:34 How come? It felt kind of like, you know how when you watch reality TV and sometimes there's that force narrative that just seems like they pushed it too much. I just think they tried a little too hard. I don't know. I'm probably not the target audience for that show though. Yeah. And I think though, as a content creator, a music creator, etcetera, I think that there you could find something interesting about that. And I respect that. I've, I've read some reviews about that, the people saying similar things. And I do admit there's a moment in Part 1 where I guess one of their very important crew members was unhappy. And I am just trying to be careful about spoilers for those who may want to watch it.

18:20 And I do remember thinking it felt a little, I just was questioning, is this true or is this a plant? So, Marcy, Yeah. That was exactly the. Part that caused that thought in my mind. I thought they tried too hard to being careful what I'm saying. Cast a shadow on that guy, so to speak. Yeah, yeah, I did think that too. So that's interesting. If anybody ends up watching, we'll bring it up, I'm sure. Again, I'm curious what others think about that. But when I got past that part, it yeah, at least, you know, questioning that part. Overall, I was still really fascinated with her story. Admittedly haven't seen Part 2 yet and I plan to, but I was kind of hoping I would get my wife to watch it with me.

19:05 I see here. And also they have Apple has this list categorized from 2005 to 2010. Then they have their next list from two 2011 to 2015. So that's interesting to see him. Let's see it. Song Exploder was another one. I remember that one being really popular. I don't. Are they still around? I don't know if Song Exploder is still around. I haven't seen any or heard anything about it. Also acquired is another one. And then when we look at anything from recent history, the past say four years, Huberman Lab, that's definitely one I hear a lot about and have listened to regularly or at somewhat regular, somewhat regularly. They've got here Sweet Bobby.

19:49 They have baby. This is Keke Palmer and therapist with Jake Shane. I don't know, therapist with Jake Shane. So there you go. There's Apple's top 20 list. Also, by the way, shout out to Dominic Lawson, who has just joined us on stage. Dominic, where in the world are you? I feel like I've seen some status updates from you on social media and it feels like you're bouncing all over the place. Where are you And good morning. Good morning, hope all is well. I'm at home. Oh, OK. I just got back from New Orleans but I am on my way to Atlanta later this week so. But I'm home right now. Glad to be home. Nice and can I ask it I saw your your status said you had recorded a late night recording and then had an early recording the next day. What are you working on if you don't mind sharing? Oh, that was me working on a new episode of Rewritten. I had to get that out, so it actually just came out this morning.

20:45 So there you go. Nice, so you're able to record those on the go? You don't have any problem doing it remotely from from your usual setup. Yes and no. I prefer to do it from home, but if I have to do it on the road, then you know the show must go on as they may, as they say in entertainment, I guess. So it just has to be done. All right, So what? Sorry to put you on the spot. What does an award-winning Apple podcast featured podcaster carry with them remotely when they have to record episodes away from home? What do you got on you? So I have a Zoom F4 that I use that I was able to kind of acquire recently actually.

21:26 And so it gets the job done. I'm not well versed in it because I was, it was given to me as a gift, but it definitely gets the job done. It's one of those field recorders. And so I just kind of hook up everything, bring the EVR E20 mic with me and just make it happen, man. That's about it. I love it, I love it. Awesome. Thank you Dominic. There you go. So if Dominic can do it, we can all do it. It's not it's, it's really just takes a matter of getting used to being in a different place, right. If you all you need is a mic, those those little mixers are also really handy 'cause it just gives you a lot more flexibility and preferably you have a set of headphones as well or earbuds and you're good to go. So we can learn a thing or two about how Dominic's doing it. And yeah, that's mental health rewritten. In case you're curious what which show or what show Dominic's talking about.

22:18 So go check out that show as well. And Dominic, you weren't here this at the start this morning. The podcasting morning chat I share with you because you've been an inspiration to so many of us to apply for awards. We are nominated over at podcastawards.com and encouraging everyone to go over there and vote for us for the Adam Curry People's Choice Award. And we're under the TS. It's alphabetically listed and they list us under T for the podcasting morning chat. So everyone, please give us a vote. And we know for sure we're under the Adam Curry category, but there's also one other category that we're under that is I found it OK. So it's under the People's Choice and then then education and I put it in the chat.

23:06 Those are the 2 categories. Awesome. Thank you, Sid. Appreciate that. And Nick, did you want to, did you find it too? Is that why you had your hand up? I just saw it since comments in the chat so I was just going to mention it. OK, cool, cool. Alright, I'm gonna jump into some AI news and then we'll get to other news stories as well. I'll start and then I'm gonna hand it off to Nick. First, YouTube is rolling out two new AI features to help people discover content more easily. First, they're adding an AI powered search results carousel that can suggest videos and give you topic descriptions straight from the creators across the platform. And if you're a premium member in the US, you can try it now for searches about shopping, travel or things to do in a certain location.

23:59 In the next few days, YouTube says they'll also start testing their conversational AI tool with some non premium users in the US. This feature, which first launched last year for paid members, can answer your questions, suggest related content, and more, all while you keep watching your video. So be on the lookout for some of those new features. And Nick, you got other AI news for us that that matters to content creators. Hey, good morning everybody. So here's what I'm going to do. I have a couple different headlines that I want to touch on, so I'll briefly just hit some of these quick bits and you guys can stop me if you want to discuss any of those.

24:46 But then what I really want to talk about is this article that I had found about people paying for AI tools. It's kind of really fascinating. The first article that I wanted to mention, Dr. actually tipped me off to this and I started seeing more and more articles about this. But Meta is currently in the process of trying to coach open AI employees to come work for them. And what is absolutely nuts is they are offering these employees there's, there'll be some of them $100 million signing bonuses to come work for them. $100 million signing bonuses just to. Just to switch teams coffee out of my nose you. Said that.

25:34 Oh. My God. So yeah, that's a lot of money. And the Winless article was written. I kind of feel like it was a little click baity. Open AI said that they're shutting down for a week. Wait, before actually before you go to that one, I just wanted to say I also heard that even with that offer of $100 million signing bonus, I had heard that so far, at least the last I heard, which may have been a few days ago, so far they say that Open AI, none of those employees have accepted the offer. They actually turned it down to stay at Open AI. And Nick was saying to me early this morning how shocked he is that nobody would have bitten on that. And I, although I won't name the person, I do know there's a person in this space in the creator world that rubbed Nick and I the wrong way.

26:31 And I asked Nick, so if that person came to him and offered a similar type of offer, would he take it? And I think Nick kind of answered touché. So I guess I guess there is a, there is a what? What's the word I'm looking for there? There is a time where Nick will say no to a certain amount of money, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. Well, that was that was fair. That was well played. So yeah, in a way to kind of counter this is kind of how the whole open AI being shut down for a week thing kind of happened. If they worded it like that, but it made it sound like they're giving the employees time off, they're kind of including that in their package.

27:17 So I think from the article I was reading, I said these guys are working 80 plus hours a week, so they're non-stop. That makes sense. And if they're, I mean, if they're a lot of them are choosing to stay despite the $100 million banking bonus offers, I mean a week, is he just going to sweeten the pot? Yeah. I'm really wondering about all those people that are supposedly staying that sounds, that sounds hard to believe to me that everyone would say no, I don't need a, what was it, 100,000? I don't need 100,000. I'm I'm good. It just seems really hard to believe. So now now we know that Dr. does have a price and she she can be bought off so be careful. Was it 100,000 or 100 million?

28:04 100 million. Give me a party to go. I'm I'm I'm out of here. Wow, yeah. Have some really good coffee at that open AI. Yeah, Yeah. Go ahead, Sid. It's a very interesting thing to offer a signing bonus to your competitor, perceived competitor to get them to switch teams, right? That much money, if it's real, if it's a true, I mean, it's a story is true, right? That much money, it must have a ton of strings attached to it. You're not going to give somebody that much money and then come for 30 days and then leave, right?

28:45 So. There. Has to be not just that, but there has to be I mean that's that's more money than most people will ever make in a lifetime, right, right. So you have to be really, really good at what you do. Except for Bill yeah. Or have some area of expertise, right, that they don't have it Meta. And then I would imagine the document that you have to sign, you'll spend $10,000 having an attorney review all the language with it. So. And I do think though, it is a legit story because I saw Sam Altman being interviewed about it and that's actually the source. That's where I heard that. According to him, none of his employees have taken the offer. So it is a story, It is real.

29:30 It's just a matter of maybe some of the details could be false. But it sounds like they Facebook is making a big play for their competition next. So keep it, keep it going. You were just sharing something else about open AI. Just that they were shutting down for a week. Which to me made it sound the article more sounded like they're giving time off then they're actually shutting down because I have a hard time believing with how many customers they have. That kind of rounded out that quick little AI bit. The next one is for all you Apple fans that have been waiting for Apple's AI to finally become good or existent. Apple was actually testing and looking around at other AI models to potentially ditch their own AI model. So they are actually testing with Open AI and Anthropic the maker of Clod to basically have that model now run Siri instead of their own AI.

30:33 The other day, the other day you told me that, yeah, it is funny. The other day you told me that Perplexity was on their hit list. Is that? Yeah, they. So not in this article, they didn't talk about that, but just the other day that was another name that popped up that they were seriously talking about. I think they wanted to purchase Perplexity is what I had seen. OK, gotcha. Which would be a little bit of a different scenario, but still interesting nonetheless. You know, if that happens, I'm going to be really upset. All right, the next one, last quick one, I'm can dive into the article. So Gemini for education, I haven't seen a whole lot about this until recently, but Gemini is releasing a suite of tools for the education space.

31:16 From what I could tell, a lot of it is for helping teachers plan curriculum and lessons and also helping students. I mean we've kind of seen it with notebook LM, they have their study guide features and things like that. But they are expanding on these tools and making a more robust for the education space and for students, which I think is awesome because we've talked about how these tools can help for things like this. And we haven't really seen anything hatered specifically to that industry. And with how fast AI is growing and a lot of people are starting to adopt it, I think this is such a brilliant move to get people comfortable and help educate and teach how to use these tools effectively. I just thought that was an interesting one. Yeah, very interesting.

32:03 The next one, the big headline that you shared with me this morning, I think that's even more interesting. You want to share a little bit about that? Yes, this article was called Are AI Subscriptions Worth It? Most people don't seem to think so. Despite nearly 2 billion global AI users, only about $12 billion have been made annually, and most of that numbers come from open AI. I think it was about 10 billion of that was open AI specifically. Now this is saying of those users, only 3% of people are actually paying for the AI tools.

32:46 Most people just ride with the free versions of it and are perfectly happy with that, which completely blows my mind because I'm surrounded by a ton of people. But I do want to pose the question in this group of any AI tools that you use, give up like a thumbs up or a thumbs down? Are you paying for any of those AI tools? I don't have a thumbs up. I do pay and probably too much for too many tools. I agree, I'd probably make up 1.5% of that paying customer base. You can't make one of those custom GPT's without paying for it, right? I don't know anymore. I feel like now anyone can make a custom GPT without having to pay for open AII think. That's now a feature that everybody can access now, but maybe to a limit.

33:33 I'll find out. You can keep going, Nick. Can I say something real quick? Yeah, go for it, Dominic. Oh, no, I, I was just going to say honestly, for some of the things that I use, me and Kendall talk about this often, I, I would pay more if I'm being honest, especially from Kendall, you was talking about the Gemini Sweden education, stuff like that. She definitely would pay more for what she does and I probably would too because I think I just see, I think we both just see the value in most of the tools that we use. So not only do we pay for a lot of them, we would actually pay more for some of them. I agree. That's fascinating.

34:13 Yeah. I mean, look, I would too because I just, I see how much value they bring me. But I just based on what I see and what I have experienced other with other apps and things like that. It seems like people, if they can get any kind of free version, they will do whatever they can to make that work so that they don't have to pay for the upgrades. I'm wondering if that the population that that study highlights, have they done like you know, custom made GPT? How deep into AI are they? That's the question. I have a question. This doesn't surprise me at all because we're in a very unique situation where we want to use these tools. The average person doesn't even know AI is part of their life. I pay for a lot of this stuff and I don't use it as much as I should or I could.

35:09 And I think the bottom line is it's still too new. I mean, a year ago we were talking about, I believe it was coming and we were having rooms upon rooms about how AI is doing all these fancy things. And then you did your custom GPT for podcasting, which by the way, I still use. But I'm just saying I think it's going to probably take not 5 or 10 years, but the generation that's I think it's going to invest our lives more on a regular basis where people actually understand it in the next couple of years. I know I'm probably wrong, but I think it's here. People know about it, but there's people like you, Nick, that are really pushing the envelope.

35:54 And then there's the rest of us that are just like, OK, you know, when it gets here, it gets here. It's kind of like, you know, and I hate to use this analogy, but like Android versus Apple, like the people that use Apple, they don't want to deal with any of this crap. Just fix it, find it, have the people in the depths of time fix it and then just put it on my phone and I'll figure it out. That's what I think most people are doing and they're just waiting for it to kind of invest in their their lives on purpose, not by accident. They're not going to go seek it. You're you're. Touching on a lot of very specific points that are actually and I've touched on in this article because right now it says that the most AI is used most in five categories of daily life, which 19% of people are using it to help read write emails and 18% of people are using it to manage to do lists. So those are a pretty.

36:48 I mean when you're looking at it in terms of do I need to pay for AI to help me do this? Yeah, you there's not a lot that you need the AI to do for you in order to perform those kinds of. Tasks. But but Nick, I think it does make sense when kids come out of college, I'm talking freshmen or even high schoolers, they're the ones that are really going to push the envelope and we're going to be forced to. You're going to get that kid that's going to say, oh, well, you can do this, this and that. We'll be like, oh, OK, I think that's the thing. It's just not there yet. And we've been on such a ludicrous speed with this stuff. We don't know. We don't know, and I think it's just too fast. And thank God there's people like you that want to know this, because you're saving us from ourselves. I'm curious how many people are using these tools indirectly and don't even realize it.

37:39 Because now and more and more is being integrated into things we do on a normal basis, right from the doctor's office to your car to everything. So it's like, I understand they're not paying directly for maybe an open AI, but what are they using where AI is being slowly integrated into what they're already doing? Like we have refrigerators now they use AI. I'm curious about that part. Maybe the article addresses it, maybe it doesn't, but I'll be interested in knowing what that stat would be. Most people if they're Googling, that's AI. They're. Using AI about to say that predictive you just put in one word and it starts.

38:19 What did you mean this? Did you mean that? Yep, exactly, exactly. We're using it more than we think. It's going to be interesting to see what we're because we feel, I mean, I at least I feel, you know, we're at the best it could be, right? AI is here and it's doing all this stuff, but like, where is it going to go and how far is it going to really go? I mean, again, that's not an answer for right now. I, I keep going back to when you first started, you and Nick and every day we would talk about this. It's amazing. The question is where is it going to go and how much is it going to be invested in our lives, like Diamond said. I'm not joking when I say this, but robots. I believe that we will have AI operated robots in our lifetime. I think every one of us here will see that. We'll see it where it's a more commonly owned household product, for lack of a better word, which I'm sure in the future that will be considered, you know, insulting to the AI race, right, to call them that.

39:23 But the truth is, is, yes, I think that we're going to see that more quickly than we actually believe we will. I mean, I know we're seeing some of it already, but I believe we will see it in more households in the near future. Right. So Will Smith will be right and they will go bad, and I'll be I. I didn't say that just out of optimism. I'm hoping that's not the case. For instance, I mean, there's a lot of people that have the Roomba, the vacuum that knows exactly where to go. There's even those I used to, when I worked for Home Shopping Network, I used to sell them all the time. So there's these virtual walls that you can put up these little boundaries. If you don't want it to go into the kitchen, you put up these little boundaries.

40:07 And it mines where you put these boundaries. So it's just one little tiny step for the AI to happen with that. And I don't know, I'm trying to think where else it could go. We're going to have assistance. We're going to have humanoid looking robots that will be doing all of our chores for us, running errands for us. It's driving the AI. Sounds awesome to me. I'm sorry, it sounds great. Taking you, taking the robot in the AI powered car. I mean, yeah, I, I really think we're going to see a lot of this as long as this, as long as this society and worlds hold holds up. I think we will see that at some point in the near future.

40:49 And that also goes back to jobs like, what are they going to be the new jobs that are going to be lost? In exactly, yeah, what are what? We'll have a lot of jobs lost, I think, and I think there are going to be new types of jobs that we can't even fathom right now. Pivot. That's right. Yeah, OK, Listen, I want to keep things moving and get back into some more podcasting content creation stuff. Nick, do you feel like we've covered this story and can we move on? There's so much in that article I would recommend. I think Mark put it in the chat or it'll be in the show notes, but go check that out because there are a lot of interesting tidbits inside that article. Yeah, we can move on. OK, cool. Thank you, Nick. Thanks for bringing that this morning. Let's get to a few headlines.

41:32 I mentioned this at the top of the show. Spotify is in the news again. They want Youtubers. They're offering big ad credits and a new home for video. So their internal deck leaked to the Angler and it reveals A strategic push into hosting video content beyond video podcasts, signaling a full on attempt to court top YouTube tubers and capture a bigger share of the creator economy. This is pretty fascinating to me. So first, some highlights from the article.

42:15 Aggressive shifts into video that like I said, this leak, it urges creators to upload all video content, not just podcasts, revealing its intentions with monetization and incentive. I should say with monetization incentives, Spotify is offering money and marketing support, including up to $5000 in free ad credit for new video creators. I don't I can't tell you where to go yet cuz this is a leak. That's far less than 100 million. That is, and it's still a lot of money for a lot of independent, especially new independent video creators. These credits can be used in Spotify Ads Manager to boost show visibility and engagement, a major draw for creators looking to grow their audience. And then they have creator migration in action. So big name podcasters creators have already uploaded non podcast video libraries landing in Spotify's podcast charts. Spotify's disclosed a 44% year over year increase in video watch time with over 70% of users consuming video in the foreground.

43:29 That statistic bothers me because sure, there's going to be a big jump in the increase in video watch time because adding video they're. Going from. Nothing. They're going from nothing that this is a a relatively new feature, especially in the podcasting space of Spotify. This is a newer feature. And when I say newer, I know it's been around for at least a year now, I believe, maybe longer, but still, yeah. So we're comparing from very few videos to lots more videos, especially since they've been pushing it so much to and pushing how important they believe it is to have video. So sure, there's going to be a 44% increase.

44:09 Sure, 70% of users are going to consume video in the foreground. Duh. And also another key piece of the article I found was that with over 300 million users watching video podcasts on Spotify versus YouTube's billion, Spotify is certainly, in my opinion, looking to grab the YouTube audience and creators. So with that, how tempting is it 'cause I know there are some people on this stage, some people listening that don't like using Spotify to distribute their content. Back to the similar question I asked earlier of Nick with the would you take $100 million deal to go work for somebody you don't jive with? How tempting does $5000 in free Spotify credit sound to you as a creator?

45:00 Would you, would you move to that platform? Sid says no. Why not Sid? Just not a Spotify person. I don't listen on Spotify. I don't go to Spotify. I don't even literally go even check out the stats of my show on Spotify because my people that listed on Spotify is really low. So I don't even go and stack up the stats there. So $5000 is not going to get me to start creating content specifically for Spotify when it's a not an app that I use. OK. And you currently to distribute your content, you're using Buzz Sprout if I'm not mistaken, right? Yes, correct.

45:41 We just upload it to Buzz Sprout and it sends it to all the places. Yep. OK. And to be clear, I mean, that is what one way, that's one way I believe you could get this $5000 credit if you were to switch from Buzz Sprout. I just want to make it clear. Doesn't mean you have to be a Spotify user. It just means you'd have to use Spotify for creators to distribute your content. That's how they're offering the five grand. Although again, I don't see like a, a special link to where to go to take advantage of that. And I think that's just because this is currently still part of a leak. I don't think it's something that has at least publicly rolled out yet, as far as I know. To begin with, this little statement with over 300 million users watching video podcasts on Spotify versus the YouTube's billion, Spotify looks to crack loose attention from incoming.

46:35 Now it feels weird to me that, number one, I'm not part of a number of 300 million, and it feels even more weird to me that I'm not part of a billion people 'cause I don't watch podcasts, I listen to them. So. But you use YouTube for you watch other things or? Oh, I do use YouTube, but this says watching video podcasts. That's what it does that. So it feels weird to say that I'm not part of 300 million or a billion. That's the first thing. My other thing is that obviously Spotify is making a play to be YouTube's like #1 competitor.

47:18 And I mean, they keep acquiring all of these companies and gobbling them up. My only hope is that when they do get to a point where they are neck and neck with YouTube, that they don't call everything Spotify. Like the one of the big problems that I have with YouTube is YouTube Music, YouTube proper YouTube standard YouTube this YouTube that they need a little bit of some kind of difference in their names, like, you know, something something different because it's very, very confusing to old people to old people. I don't think just old people.

48:00 I'm sure that that can get confusing. Yes, I'm very curious to see how Spotify evolves, if this is the direction they're going in. I always say there is a place for audio too, and I think that that's not going anywhere. I think Spotify will continue to offer audio content, but I'm just very curious to see where it goes from here. So to be continued, and I want to go DRT back to you and discuss a little bit with the last several minutes. We've got here this new trend report and some of the findings that are in there. So some of you might know the name Jeremy Inns. He is a one of the leading podcasting, what would you call them?

48:46 Leaders, gurus. I'm not quite sure what the word is. OK. And I've taken a couple of his courses to be to be perfectly honest. And so every year he comes out with the training. Whose courses hasn't Dr. taken? That's what I want to know. That's the that's the more interesting question. I'm starting a course. I'm actually starting a course so Dion can take it. Yeah, hey, sign me up. Sign me up. Sorry, keep going. The podcast Marketing Trends report is something that he comes out with every single year. And I'm telling you, I was thinking about it this morning as we were gathering news. So the next time that he makes a call for, you know, please, please fill out this questionnaire.

49:33 I think we need to make, you know, do a drive for him to make sure that all our listeners do because your voice is truly can be heard in these numbers that he comes up with. So the podcasting Marketing trend report 2025 is out and there are a lot there's a lot in here for creators to pay attention to. The report digs into podcasts that are growing, how people are using video, and what's actually working for creators right now. You'll find real data on downloads, details on budgets, and solid ideas for connecting with your audience if you want to. If you want a clear look at the current podcasting landscape, this report delivers new insights and practical takeaways for the year ahead. So this is broken down.

50:23 Mark broke this down for me. And Mark, you and I are going to ping pong through this. OK, no problem. OK, so the number one thing is growth patterns. Who's winning and who isn't. Now the key points of this one is over 1/2 of podcasts saw a drop in downloads over a year. Smaller shows sometimes grew while bigger ones struggle. And just to cut you off real quick, that was over half of podcasts saw a drop in downloads year over year. Right, year over year. And the second highlight is median downloads increased slightly, but this hides the most growth. But this hides that most growth was among smaller shows, not the big ones.

51:10 Yeah. So that's interesting that there's really, the smaller shows grow, the bigger ones don't as much. I guess that you could make the argument that it's just because the IT is a new show. So if they're properly getting the word out there, they'd probably have a big rush to that new show. And yeah, as the shows go on and on, then it starts to plateau at some point. That seems to be the current trend, yeah. Right. So Mark, you just mentioned at the top of the show that we are now on the charts number. What? What did you say? I think it's around 4243. OK. So how do you measure knowing that, how do you measure podcast success for your own show?

51:52 There's a lot of different criteria that can kind of. Get. I do think that looking at download numbers is part of it. I just don't. And I want to make it clear, I don't think that they are the only thing to. Pay attention to yeah. Because I'll tell you, yes, I get the dopamine hit, I get the rush, seeing the hundreds and hundreds of downloads some of our recent episodes are getting these days. And one of the next things I do once I get that little dopamine hit is I go and I look at retention and I look at these episodes that people are downloading and seeing like, OK, so great that they're downloading these. Are they actually listening? And yes, it looks like those episodes, people are consuming at least half or more of them.

52:41 So that's great to hear. And there is what, oh, and also what I'm noticing how I'm measuring the success is that now on Spotify, people can leave comments and the, these, you know, especially the Blues Clues episode we did last week, more, I'm getting more and more comments on those episodes. So that's a good sign that people are listening, especially 'cause I can tell from some of the comments, like they're addressing specific things we discussed throughout the episode. So it's a, it's a good sign that yes, that people are actually hitting play and then sticking around. So those are just some of the ways I would measure it. Right. I'll take the next one Dr. because I want to try to get through most of these if we can. Yeah, I know we only have a few minutes left, but then this is on video and YouTube talking about it being an untapped growth engine.

53:35 Hard to believe it would be untapped considering how popular it is, but nearly 50% of podcast consumption now happens on video platforms according to Jeremy's study, especially on YouTube. YouTube view time. However, this is that retention I was just talking about. This is something important to focus on. YouTube view time averages 7 1/2 minutes per session, compared to 24 minutes for audio. Yet many podcasters still don't optimize for video, and maybe that's why, right? Maybe that's a reason because I'm not going to rush to do heavy editing, heavy post production on say, a 30 minute video if on average people are only watching for 7 minutes or so.

54:26 That seems like a lot of work or a lot of money if you're going to pay somebody to do it. We're only 7 1/2 minutes of watch time. Now, granted, this is an overall average, so that's going to vary depending on your target audience for sure, but it is a pretty common average across the board, so it's something to think about. Most creators spend very little time on things like YouTube thumbnails and video titles. That was another key point. This is shocking to me. Yeah, and those are probably, and I'm telling you if you change those on the fly, if you have a video that you are just certain or content that you are certain it is quality and your target audience would eat that up, go play with the thumbnail, change it, Go play with the title, change it and see if it happens.

55:17 I have done this countless times and more times than not I see a spike after I make that change. It does make a difference. It does make a difference. I'm now outsourcing all of my YouTube stuff from my clients and ever since we started with her the she's doing the thumbnails, she's doing everything. Yeah, and I'm going to keep it going. This section here, Marketing muscle versus budget paradox. Here's some of the key points in this area. High Growth podcast reported the lowest monthly marketing budgets. Big spenders didn't always see bigger results. Also shows that spent more time and money didn't necessarily grow faster. Sometimes the opposite.

56:01 And efficiency and strategic focus matter more than simply throwing money at marketing. Yeah, that's basically summing up what we're saying here. Really fascinating to me that people are putting more money into the shows, more time, but it doesn't necessarily equate to more. More audience, more view time, etcetera. I'll end it here with audience research and strategy. The biggest shows have about twice as many one-on-one conversations with listeners, but it's still less than you'd expect. And just to be clear, that is literally the host or the people working on the shows actually reaching out and connecting with speaking with their audience directly. One one-on-one unique show concept in quotes was cited as the most important factor for growth. While show packaging, also in quotes, was often the weakest part.

56:57 Shows that regularly connect with their audience seem to have an advantage. Keep that in mind, please. So when you're thinking about Oh yeah, Mark is because I know I talked about this, Mark. Mark encourages that one, one-on-one connection. Reach out to those listeners, those viewers that are commenting on your content, send them Adm thank them for it. It's such a waste of time. It's not. It makes a difference. This study shows an overwhelming response to the biggest shows having twice as many one-on-one conversations with their audiences. Consider doing that. It does make a difference. It means a lot.

57:38 Once you can convert a listener into a raging fan, they're going to go and spread the word, share it with more people. And part of that recipe is to reach out to them individually. OK, so we're back tomorrow at 7:00 AM Eastern Time. We're going to be, if you recall, I asked you yesterday. So keep thinking about this. What are some of the things in your life over your time that you've said yes to that's gotten you to where you are today? Especially in your podcasting journey? What are the things that happened on your timeline that you said yes to or no to that brought you here today, that got you put you in this room on this show, whatever it is, putting out podcasts regularly.

58:27 What did you say yes to? What did you say no to? Bring it. Tomorrow morning we're going to talk about it. I think it will be a fascinating conversation and I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say. So until tomorrow, make it a great day. Everybody take care.