352-Renting a Podcast Studio: What You Need to Know

0:04 Good morning podcasting morning chat. Today is my birthday, Thursday, August 7th, 2025. And today we're breaking down a major Instagram update, shaking things up for content creators, then diving into the ABC's of renting a podcast studio without the stress or surprise fees. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse or Chatter, the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen on Clubhouse, top of the screen on Chatter. 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 Jonathan Howard, Dr. Faye, Sid Meadows, Nick Nallback, producer Ashley Feller and we also have guest mod, guest Co host today, Janaid Ahmed has joined us because as I said at the top of the show, we're going to be talking about studios, podcast studios, not your home studios that you build, but ones that you could go out and rent. It's becoming more and more of the thing these days, both the seeing all of these studios popping up all around major cities in the US and we're seeing lots of podcasters taking advantage of that more and more these days. I've got several clients this year in 2025 that are renting out studios.

2:11 And really it's the most as far as all of my clients go each and every year. It's the most in one year that I've had of clients doing that. So it's a thing and I think it's worth talking about even if you don't have experience. As I was telling Dr. if you don't have experience with a studio and you're used to just doing it out of your home, I want you to think about what if your home studio went away tomorrow and you needed a studio space? Thinking about what are the things that you would look for in a studio? So we'll get into that. But we do have some leftover news items. I should hit the music. Oh, will I hit the right button? You're convo. Nope, you're convo see, I did it wrong. It's where is it?

2:57 Is it this? It's the news. By the way, I should tell you before we dive in. So as you, some of you know, I'm in Atlantic City this week working from here, a little workation before I go off and volunteer at that summer camp for kids with the disability CMT. And all week I've we've had the condo, my in laws have a condo here. We've had it to ourselves, but they came yesterday to join us. And so it's a condo and there's no way I'm going to do a show at 7:00 in the morning for my whole family to sit and listen to as they're waking up. So thankfully, there are some places I can go in this building.

3:44 And actually, I've been in this room before doing this very show before. It's their little billiard room. And it's a little bit noisy right now. The air just kicked on. And so I'm not sure how that's going to sound. But we can't hear it. OK, good. I can't hear it at all. Good. And with Offonic, if we do, I think that'll clean it up nicely. Yeah, it's nice. I have a nice little backdrop. I'm not streaming live because I don't have a great Internet signal and I don't want to eat up the speed, but I will have some photos for you to take a look at. It's cool. Nice little backdrop of a somewhat of a billiard room behind me anyway. Oh, and we've got Alex Baelish joining us as well.

4:27 So before we get into the whole studio thing, Jonathan actually had hipped me to this yesterday and then I started seeing it all over Instagram. There is a major update that has come out for Instagram that I think you as a creator would be interested in, especially if you use the platform regularly. I know it's probably my primary social media source. They've rolled out a repost feature now, you're saying? But Mark, we can repost. I can repost people's stuff and put it in my stories. Yes, that's true. But that only lives there for 24 hours. And I don't think they do a heck of a great job either.

5:10 I just don't think a lot of people get to see them. By the way, Dr. your mic is off. Did you want to say something? Dang it. That made me laugh. OK, so anyway, yes, it's a repost feature, letting you share public reels and posts like you're curating your own feed. It's meant to help creators reach more people, but critics say, again, with the copycat moves. So I think what's going on here is Instagram is finally catching up to really what most social media platforms offer in some way, shape or form. You can repost on TikTok, you can repost on Facebook, you can repost on LinkedIn. There's never really been a good reposting feature on Instagram and it has something where you can also add a note so similar to a quoted tweet.

6:05 There is or I don't know. What do you call that nowadays when now that it's called XA quoted X? There's an option to add your own short comment via a thought bubble before you repost it. So now when you repost somebody's content, you can leave a little note and that little note will be like a pop up bubble, bubble at the bottom left hand side of the screen so that people can see that you've interacted with this, that you've reposted it, etcetera. The repost still credits the original creator and links back to that creators content, which offers a new way for creators to be discovered beyond their own audience. So like I said, many users feel Instagram is copying features from other platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and XI.

6:52 Don't look at it as a copycat move. I just look at it as a long overdue feature and I'm excited about it. I went ahead to test it out. I found I think it was Brock Johnson had posted about it and I reposted that. And the other cool thing about this feature is when you look at your profile page on Instagram, you know, you can actually swipe. What is it? Swipe left and you can see, you know, starting with your main profile page, if you swipe left, then you can see all of your reels. If you swipe swipe left again, you'll see all of your reposts. So now users can go to your profile and not only look at your content. If they swipe just a couple of times, then they can see the other content that you've reposted as well. Jonathan, anything I'm leaving out? Sorry, I was over on Instagram looking at the to see if I have repost yet.

7:46 Of course I don't. Well, you have to. You have to get an up the update. That's the only key. It doesn't. Oh, you did Really? Because I didn't have it. I updated it yesterday and boom it was there. Yeah, I still don't have trial reels either. So, you know, Instagram just doesn't like me. It's fine. But no, I think you touched on everything. I think it is an important update for Instagram. It's something that people have been asking for for a long time on the platform. And now there's a real, you know, they talk about having shareable content and having real shareable content is important, but there was never really a good way to share content. So now there's actually a good way to share content. And you can look to have shareable content and have your audience repost it, and it'll actually be reposted permanently in a home that's more than 24 hours long. So I think it's a good move for them. People are always going to complain about Instagram doing everything everybody else does because that's what they do. And again, I think that this is just a feature. This isn't a copycat at this point because pretty much every other platform has it.

8:51 But yeah, the other thing I think is important to think about, I intend to use the repost feature a lot. And I think the hope as creators, we have to hope that people will start using that feature on our content, reposting our content. Because although it hasn't really been reported yet, I'm willing to bet that the more reposts you get, the more the algorithm is going to favor that post. So now you want to create shareable content more than ever. Yeah, absolutely. Because when it's shared, that's an indicator that it's good content and that always boosts the algorithm. So it's a great opportunity for us if we're creating really good content to get more views and build our audience. Yeah, 100%.

9:38 Janae, do you have something? Go ahead. Yeah, Jonathan, good morning, everyone. Jonathan, what you want to do is repost anybody's post and it'll you'll see the tab on your profile. Just tried it. I didn't have it on my profile. As soon as I reposted somebody's content, boom, it's there. Yeah, I don't have a repost. He doesn't even have the ability to repost. Yeah, yeah. So give it time, everybody. Yeah, Go ahead, Sid. Do you get notified when somebody reposts your content like you do when they do it in your stories? That is a wonderful question. I don't know, maybe we should repost somebody's content right now and test. It that yeah. Janae, do will you find whether I don't care? It doesn't have to be mine, but find somebody's from the podcasting morning chat and repost it. That would be awesome.

10:26 Let's see what happens. That's a great question. Said I would imagine you do because you get noted like you said, you get notified on stories when it's been reposted. I would imagine you see something and like TikTok too. I know that sometimes I see my content getting reposted, especially that Blue's Clues 1 still going by the way, the Blue's Blue's Clues, the Steve starting a podcast short form video I put out still going and I see every time somebody reposts that. Yeah, they've changed the way they notify you with the reap with the share in the story. It used to be a message in the Messenger app. Now it's notification, the heart app.

11:06 You when you click on the heart app, you'll see that so and so reposted something. It moved from being in this in the message to actually just in a notification. Yeah, OK, so there you go. And Janae, I just saw it. I just got a notification on my phone that you reposted something of mine. So there you go. There, now Sid knows and everyone else, yeah, you'll get a notification when it's when it's reposted. Anyone else have any other questions before? We have a couple other updates that we want to share before we get into the whole studio talk, so I want to just make sure anyone else has anything to add. Yeah, I've got something to add about people saying, Oh my God, they're copying this feature.

11:48 Well, guess what? We're copying it by using the bathroom a specific way. Come on, this is human beings using the apps. So we are going to find these features show up in other applications. It just takes a lot of time. I mean, just looking at the data, Facebook or Meta, they have petabytes and millions of giga being served. So when you want to deploy a new technology, it takes time, effort and energy. So yes, we're going to see a delayed deployment of features that are available on other apps right now. Yeah, thank you, Janaid. And all right, I'll keep it moving and let's go to. Well, let me make sure Dr. Do you have some time to jump into the YouTube updates that we wanted to get to? Absolutely.

12:33 OK, so YouTube just gave creators a serious upgrade. It's all about helping shows grow smarter. The new Channel Insights Sharing. That's what it's called Channel Insights Sharing. It's a tool that lets monetized creators share detailed stats with brands and advertisers that that includes audience breakdowns and shopping data, especially useful if you're in their shopping affiliate program. Oh gosh, I think I just saw Billy is in the audience. Billy, come up and talk to us about this. Analytics caught a boost 2 advanced mode.

13:16 Now let's creators customize reports, compare performance, and dig deeper into what's actually working. They've also replaced the old returning viewers, quote UN quote returning viewers metric with three new categories. It's called new, casual and regular. Way more useful than tracking engagement. Live streamers get a new community leaderboard that highlights top fans with badges and rankings, and a new post Show a new I'm sorry and a new post on your channel homepage means that your posts get more visibility on both desktop and mobile. There you go.

13:59 So there's for our YouTube Youtubers, some new updates and admittedly I'm not familiar too familiar with all their shopping features and their shopping affiliate program. I, I it's clearly something I that I'm guessing is similar to or at least an answer to TikTok shop. It's YouTube's answer to it, but I'm not familiar with that program. I think that's why Dr. was saying, hey, Billy, if you know anything, come on up. But no pressure, Billy. So yeah, there you go. There are. Some no pressure Billy. Come on. No pressure Billy and come up OK Kitchen. Yep. All right, so Dr. is going to make some eggs for the hubby and I was going to give you one other update and I thought we could talk about this. I saw this over on Pod News and it was something from yesterday that we didn't get to.

14:49 There's a new iOS app. All right, Android users, stick with me. Don't jump Chip, because I think the topic is worth a discussion. A new iOS app called Mail Pod, which reads your inbox to you like a daily podcast. It's designed for commuters, creators, and anyone who wants to save time and stay informed. Hands free, the app promises to save users roughly an hour a day by summarizing and narrating important messages. It's it uses automated summarization and text to speech tech to turn e-mail content into digestible audio. It's gained early buzz and traction after being introduced to the tech community there.

15:37 And podcasters, consultants and professionals with high e-mail volume can use it to streamline workflows. So my first question really is, would you ever want to do this? Would you ever want your emails read to you like a podcast? And why or why not? I'm curious. So Nick's got the 100% emoji. Nick, you're, you're all in on this. You would do this? Yeah, I like that idea. I've been wanting something like that for a while because I'm constantly on the move and driving and can't really have my phone open while I'm driving. So it would be awesome to have the ability to like have stuff read to you as opposed to needing to actually.

16:22 Open up the device and look at the screen. Yeah, agreed. And some people may say well, but you know, there's, I'm sure there's dictation features on your phone, etcetera, to read you that stuff. But this is actually, I guess doing it similarly to the Google Notebook LM that we talked about a few months ago when that was the hot thing where you could feed it any information and it would turn it into a podcast. This is the same idea. It's actually reading it to you more like a podcast. I saw I think Jannade had thumbs down. Jannade, you're not into it. You don't like? No, like Ashley said, it's going to be narrating a whole lot of junk which reads mine as well. So no thanks.

17:04 Unless they have a better feature of cleaning out the emails and only reading the primary folder. Maybe I'll give it a try. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know that I would have it read to me, but I used to summarize the AI summaries on my e-mail all the time and it is really useful and does save a ton of time. So for those don't know who don't know, Jonathan, how does that work? What, how and what is it? Give me a little more of information on what it's summarizing and how it's displaying that to you. So Apple will auto summarize your emails if you wanted to. I'm on iOS 26 and it automatically happens in my e-mail. I'm not sure I can go into my e-mail and it'll up. At the top, there's a summary of what emails have come in since I last opened the app.

17:54 And then in each e-mail there's a summary of the e-mail as well. So you can use those summaries. It's great because it gives you exactly kind of, hey, this person said this, this person said this, you know, you can respond emails. It's it's. They do the same with text messages now as well on iOS 26. I think it is something that when you get the app or the iOS updates, it's something you can say, yes, I want to do the AI summarization. I have that too. And I know a lot of my notifications out, even in addition to my e-mail. It summarizes lots of different things for me. Sometimes I like it a lot, sometimes I don't, but this feature as far as reading your e-mail to you and somewhat of an, I guess somewhat of an entertaining way being that it's doing it in a podcast format. I wanted to see, let's see.

18:46 All right, I know Dr. wanted to speak to that too. So let's hear ADR. Did you want to say something? Sorry, I actually have that ability. And Nick, so do you. I purchased Speechify and so I can have my e-mail read to me by Snoop Dogg or Gwyneth Paltrow. Wow. So I'm guessing that, yeah, I'm guessing that they probably gave the rights to do that for those apps. I don't think they're illegally using their voices. I hope not because if they are, that app will be going away very soon. That's cool. I like that.

19:27 Now that I would have to try, if I could have Snoop reading me my e-mail or telling me about my e-mail for the for the day first thing in the morning, I would really enjoy that. I love it. Was anyone else strongly for or against this before we move on? OK, then we will move on. I think that this is a good point, a good place to shift gears. So those were just some of the the leftover news items from yesterday's show. And if you missed that, just go to episode 351 and you'll find all of the all the news from this past week. And now it's complete with today. So let's dig into this whole thing of a podcast studio. Imagine that your home setup disappears overnight.

20:10 You've got an interview tomorrow and you need to rent a studio. And let's be a little more realistic. Let's say you've got an interview over the next few days. And you need to rent a studio. What do you do? Maybe what we should do is first talk about what do you look for? What's the first thing that you want to make sure of when you're looking to rent a podcast studio? And I'm going to go to Janae first. Janae as our, our resident studio builder. I don't know, you can come up, you can share a better name than that. Then then I've come up with as that studio builder. What do you think is the number one thing a podcaster should look into when it comes to renting studio space?

20:54 Great question and a great topic part. Thank you. I like to call myself the home studio architect. There you go, I like it. So number one thing it all comes back to, hey, it's my pod is the podcast that I want to record. Am I doing video or am I doing audio or am I doing both? Well, you know, you get the point. So knowing if the studio provides an audio only or a video audio as well. So once you got that dialed down, then you want to check that. For example, if they offer both solutions, maybe you just want to do an audio podcast. Back at Podcast Movement a couple years ago, we had a studio set up with video, but all they wanted was the audio because they were like, hey, we can come in here, have our conversation, record the audio, and we're good to go.

21:41 So again, that's the first question you want to ask. Hey, do you record audio or do you also do video? So I want to hear for a second a little bit more about the podcast Movement Studio. When you say they said they just wanted audio, are you saying the people that were actually using the space you were providing didn't want the video? Correct. Interesting. I would think for sure they would. No, they had their laptops open up and they're just looking down at their laptop or reading off of the scripts and whatnot and they're like, hey, we're just going to use the audio. They just need a place to sit and do that. Got it. OK, interesting, Interesting. I just, yeah, especially a couple of years ago where, say the video component of podcasting wasn't as popular as today, where I would think people would want to take advantage of that when they're at a podcast movement.

22:32 And if they're not using video would be a cool, a cool add on. But OK, that's cool. I see Mike Short has joined us from the audience. Good to see you. Mike. What did you want to add to this conversation? As we're talking about these resources and and studios, one of the things you may want to do is check local libraries. So when I I left Richmond, VA about four years ago and about six months before I left, they had renovated one of the libraries in Richmond and they had actually built in their two studios, 1 specifically for podcasting and one that was specifically for YouTube, which could also be used for podcasting.

23:13 So before you run out and look at a studio space to rent, there may be free options in your area that you may want to look into a. 100% I definitely know a few people that have taken advantage of that and I know the the best one that I've seen in a library to date, and I've only seen a few at this point, but the one that really just blew me away was the Cosset Library in Memphis, TN. That's in Dominic's neck of the woods. That's when he invited me. He and the event coordinators invited me to speak at a podcast day that they had on International Podcast Day a couple years ago. And it was at the Cosset Library and they had just a beautiful studio set up there.

23:59 It's own isolated area. It really when you walk into the area and walk into the studio, you feel like you're almost at a radio station. It's it's got everything you need and it's completely, completely free. You can just rent them out. Just put by putting your name on it. Go ahead. Yeah, that's the A That's the way the studio in Richmond was. It was really nicely set up. And it's funny you said that. I'm in the car driving to Memphis, TN right now for a family wedding. That's so funny. That's so cool. And if you have a chance, I highly recommend just stopping by the Casa library and checking that out. Mike and I know wedding weekends can be very busy too, but yeah, check that out.

24:41 There was. Oh, and there's also sometimes you can find. And real quick before I jump off the stage, happy birthday. Oh, thank you Sir. Appreciate that. Appreciate that. I was telling Dr. and I'm not fishing here, OK, but DRDR. And I were talking about my birthday before the show and whether or not to even acknowledge it, you know, And because I don't, I really look, yes, for me, birthdays are very special and I do appreciate them a lot. And I don't want to sit here and make this show all about me. But yeah, we were talking about it. And I was telling her, this is really not to make everyone feel guilty because I really don't care. But I on my 50th birthday two years ago, we had a room. We were doing a room and not a single person said anything to me.

25:27 So thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. I appreciate the warm wishes. And again, I'm just just poking fun. I really it's fine. But yeah, thank you, Mike. Appreciate that. Yeah. And also, you know, sometimes the Co working spaces, those have free, sometimes you have to pay. But sometimes I've seen in a couple instances where you are allowed to just rent them out just by putting your name down, reserving the space. So these are great options to look into, especially if you are doing your own production because you go to a library, you go to a Co working space, most of the time you're not going to have an engineer or somebody there to assist you, somebody there to take the files and then edit it for you.

26:15 It's all on you. And for a lot of us podcasters who are independent and doing it on our own, that's no problem. But for people who are just getting started especially, or those who just never really got into the production side of it and had somebody else do it, you have to consider those kinds of factors for sure. Billy's on stage, by the way. Good morning to you, Billy. Did you want to add to this conversation about studios? Yeah, Good morning. Studio as a business plan, not my favorite one I've ever tried. So really to study that world before you decide to build 1 and try to rinse it out. But then also there's a bunch of business incubators in some cities where they just have these and they'll have like free resources to small business owners and, and in the city or whatever.

27:02 And you can go in and schedule it and, and use it for free as well. I, I surprisingly found a bunch of those in the small town I lived in and was like, oh, didn't know this was no wonder I can't rent studio space. There's a bunch of free stuff everywhere. Yeah. Thank you, Billy. And so, Billy, you actually attempted to have a podcast studio, like as a business? Yeah, it was a disaster. Hated it. Never, ever, ever ever, ever do it again. How long did it last to end? Give me one reason why it was so terrible. I'm curious. I think we didn't for right around a year or so. And I think the number one reason that I hated it, well, one, I didn't set it up properly to do like a key fob and like, hey, let me bring you in and show you how the equipment works.

27:52 And here's a key fob and I got camera, so don't steal anything. Like I should have done that, but I was like, Oh no, I want to be there. I'll be part of it. I'll engineer it, whatever. And dude, I had the craziest request. Like somebody was like, I need to be there at 5:00 AM. I'm like, give me a bit. The price just went up $300.00 an hour. What are we talking about? So you get the craziest request of when people can record and that would drove me bonkers. So I'd rather get work at a gas station honestly. Wow. OK, so here's one piece of advice for everybody. Really consider whether or not you want to start a podcast studio business and if you are, think about all of those different areas.

28:36 No, that's not what you get from it. It's Billy. It's what? It's just don't work with Billy with this stuff. I do have a question though. What is provided in a studio space like that or what's not provided? That's a great question. Yeah. Thank you for that question, Alex. And let's let's ask, let's ask Janae, our studio architect. Janae, what? Yeah. What say you? And most of the studios, what's provided is they might have multiple cameras, they might have multiple audio. So you get multiple camera angle footage as well as audio that is cleaned up so that you can then use it or put it together. So a lot of the places that I've seen, they're out there, they'll say, hey, for this price, we'll give you all of the raw footage that you capture here per hour and you're like, OK. And if you have a team in place, I'm like, hey, I got this footage, take it and make it, make good with it. Other places they'll say, you know what, you can come in here and for this price, we'll put your entire episode together, We'll create extra reels, we'll create a trailer, all of those things and it's this price per hour. So now somebody starting out, they might be like, OK, that's pretty cool.

29:54 What else do you have offer? A friend of mine who has a studio on Florida, he said, you know what, we have a membership model at this price per month. You can come in, record 4 episodes, take the footage and you're good to go. But if you want us to work with it, we can then offer a different price model. Again, there's multiple things that you do get when you are going to a places place like this because not only have they've been doing podcasting for a while, they know exactly what a podcaster needs. So not only are you getting support, but you're also getting tools to use that you might not have funds to allocate and build for yourself. Thank you Janae, and something caught my ear. Did you say you have a friend that has a studio in Florida? Yes, the Biz Brothers OK Studio in Florida, down in Tampa. Down in Tampa, OK, I don't think that. So this this whole conversation.

30:51 It's in Jacksonville. Jacksonville, OK This whole conversation, the idea was inspired by one of my newer clients who's looking for studio space and wanted my help. You know, what are the right questions to ask? And that's what inspired this whole conversation. And she is in Florida. And I'll tell you, so far, she's struggled with finding a studio that will only rent her the studio time. A lot of the studios she has come across so far, and that's just a handful, but what she's come across so far is most of them want to do everything. They want you to come in, record in their studio and then they'll produce it, they'll edit it, they'll do all the things.

31:31 But she's already hired me to do that. So she's finding that challenging to to find one that'll just allow her to record. And I know they exist because I have other clients that are doing it that way. But for whatever reason, in Florida, she was having a hard time. Maybe we'll talk a little bit more and I'll get hooked up with those guys and I can ask them if they have any, any ideas or leads that I can pass along to her. Dr. You had something right? Yeah, two things. One, we just had the grand opening of something that we've already talked about on the show, which is a studio at one of our local Walmarts here in Nashville.

32:14 Now it's only there at Walmart is at because the property owner that Walmart, the property that Walmart is on, that owner decided to put a studio there. And I think it's a brilliant idea putting it like right there at Walmart. It's just so great. So we talked about this, what about a month ago? I guess they had their soft open then, but now they had their grand open. So that, that's cool. That's actually in Franklin. It's about a 20 minute drive from me. I wanted to know, I'm going to talk about prices a little bit because how would I know what is completely outlandish?

32:56 How dare you, Sir, That kind of outlandish or hey, that's reasonable. How? How can I gauge that? OK. I actually I have some information that I think can speak to that. So I will answer that in a second. I saw Sid had a question. Go ahead, Sid. Actually, I had a response to this, but Jonathan's hand went up first. OK. Thank you. Go ahead, Jonathan, and then we'll hear from Sid. Peer Space is your friend. So I just put in into Peer Space studios in Florida and there's 125 recording studios in Florida, USA that are rentable on Peer Space and they range in price from $60.00 an hour to 150 an hour.

33:39 OK, interesting. All right, there you go. So that that's really helpful. Thank you, Jonathan. And yeah, that's what I'm finding too. So what I did earlier this morning was I went to ChatGPT and did a deep, deep research feature. I took, you know, they have that feature where they really does a deep dive into the research. And I asked it to give me pricing based on 2025 pricing in major cities around the United States. And what it came up with was, yeah, it's similar to what Jonathan said in Florida specifically, but across the board, you're looking at anything anywhere from $75.00 an hour to maybe up to 160 an hour, depending on the location and the services.

34:23 And I also had a breakdown the difference between studio space and studio space plus production. I'll give you guys those details for the five major cities that I've pulled here in a moment. Let me check back in with Sid. Yeah, I did a quick Google search this morning about and I just typed in podcast Studio near me right And there was a couple of several that came up. If you just wanted to rent this space, It was ours in CN. Podcast Studio is the one I found if you just wanted to rent the space, which is a setup with lighting and cameras and microphones and chairs and a set right, it was $100.00 an hour. If you wanted them to do their editing and all that for you, it was $200.00 an hour.

35:17 So it's pretty close to what you discovered with ChatGPT. OK, cool, cool. And yeah, I mean, those are numbers that I've seen over the course of the past year to two years. So I think I, I believe ChatGPT, it seems on point and it seems on point with your Google search. What I'm finding here is if we look at a city like New York, if you want a studio that you just want to rent, studio only, you're looking on average around $125.00 an hour. And then if you want full service rental, it could be anywhere from 150 to 200 an hour. And that's right like that, that's averaged out, right. In other words, they also, you'll find studios that may have separate packages where it's not necessarily by the hour, but we're just taking, we're factoring in those package prices and averaging them out into an hourly rate since a lot of what you're going to see are hourly rates for studio space. So we're just trying to make it easy. And I know I'm butchering how I'm trying to explain that. Los Angeles, $75.00 an hour for studio only. Again, these are averages and $100.00 an hour or more for the full service rental and closer to Sid, but not exactly Austin, TX.

36:36 Yeah, that's like 120 an hour for studio only and 125 and up for full service rentals. Another free option besides the libraries. One of the Chamber of Commerce in my in my area just put a podcast space. So if you're a member of the Chamber of Commerce, you can use it. And it's not full service. It's just, I believe it's just microphones and recording equipment. All you have to do is just sit down, plug in and your way to go. Awesome. Yeah, Thank you, Alex. And by the way, anybody I see we've got a full audience here this morning. And if any of you have any experience renting studio spaces, good or bad experiences, we'd like to hear about it. So come on up.

37:20 I want to encourage you to come up and share on stage. And if you can't for whatever reason, sure, share more in the chat. We'd we'd love to hear about it. Janae, I want to talk about red flags. What are some red flags we should look for when we're renting a podcast studio? What's something that we should say, oh, this may not be the place for me? Anything we should look out for Janae? That's a great question. One thing that you do might want to look into is let's say you find a place there's like hey, it's 55 bucks an hour. Go deeper into it. They might show you that hey, for 55 an hour, you have to book a minimum of two hours and then we only give you 1 video feed or one audio feed for that price. If you want additional video feeds, additional audio, that's going to add up.

38:11 So make sure you look into those pricing. I think that would be look into those experiences, but red flag wise, great question. I'm I'm one who away stays away from red flags or don't think about it, but I would love to listen in other people's experiences here. Yeah, I can share 1 red flag that that client I was just telling you about in Florida, the 1st place that she met with it was actually first over a Zoom call and she was telling them pretty much early on upfront, hey, you know, I want to rent space. I don't need you to do the production. I've got somebody I know and trust and have hired to do that for me and that's yours truly and this she said the studio, the people on the other end of the Zoom kind of gave her that cock headed it look like like what? Why would you do that?

39:07 And they basically said to her, no, we, we do it all for you and that's your only option. And she's like, but I really just need the studio time and then maybe somebody to sit with me to engineer the whole thing. And they said, no, we can't do that. And then here's the big red flag in my opinion. They then said to her, what even if we wanted to do that, we couldn't because the file format that we output isn't a typical normal file format. Most people can't work with it and that's the only format we can spit out. And I said to her, well, they're lying to you because if they're a podcast studio, there's no way they're only limited to one unique type of file format.

39:50 They need it to be able to convert to an MP3128 kilobits per second. It needs needs to fit a certain format to be able to be accepted onto platforms like Apple and Spotify and all the rest. So when you're, if you're told something like that, that should be a big red flag for you. I'd love to know what format they use. Yeah, me too. Because yeah, it makes no sense. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's clearly. That's their way of saying A, we don't want you to work with other people, we want you to work with us and B, we're going to say anything we can to get the business and we and. But it's insulting.

40:35 It is, you know, it's just so insulting. And I know they probably say this too. If, if she was a man, they would probably say that too. But there's something inherently thing about she's a woman and they're feel like a power play. And does she feel that way? She. Did she felt that way too? And I'll say this though, like I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that this isn't a sexist thing. I think what this could be is a studio taking advantage of a new podcaster who doesn't know everything about podcasting yet. And she has admitted to me many times it's one of the reasons she hired me is she's not technically savvy and doesn't know the insurance and outs and it intimidates her.

41:20 So I would imagine male, female or gender neutral. I think it's less about that and more about taking advantage of a new podcaster who doesn't know the insurance and outs yet. But. But Mark, this is the part of the of business that just really is short sighted on a lot of people. If she's a new podcast, let's say she didn't come across as a new podcaster and all she said, I mean, even if she is a new podcaster, hey, listen, I have someone that's doing my editing. All I need is the raw feed or whatever. Just give me the recordings and I just want to go about my way, whether I produce it or not, you know? I mean, it's easy money for them. Yeah.

42:03 It's actually less work and people don't realize how much business owners ruin sales for themselves. I'm with you there. Yeah. I mean, it should be a slam dunk. And look, I've been doing this now as far as working specifically with independent podcasters for I guess going on six years. And I think that what people need to realize is we can, we can we do this already. We are independent podcasters and we like to save money, right. And if we're, if we're getting businesses that are pushing us away because we're looking to spend our dollars, how do I say appropriately, we want to spend it on just studio time? We know how to do this.

42:50 We can do all the editing. You're, you're losing business, you're turning people away because you you want to just do it all for them. And I think that that's going to hurt you, especially with independent podcasters as a business. And by the way, I have been thinking lately about opening up my own studio, even though Billy has made me second guess that. But I have thought about that at times doing it in the Asheville area because we really don't have any. But but Mark, would you want to work with Billy? Yeah, if he wants to run the studio for me, I would be happy. To and I don't mean that to be funny. I understand what he's saying because when you have people using your your equipment, it's very, yeah, frustrating because something always breaks and, and yeah, it's a catch 22, but I know Dr. wants to pop.

43:37 Yeah. And I will say I was just thinking about it and I don't know why this popped in my head as you were sharing. But I think one thing that I would say I would look for if I'm going to go rent a studio space, especially if I'm not an experienced podcaster, I want somebody in the studio. I want an engineer, I want somebody running the equipment so that if something goes wrong, I don't have to stress about it, right? The to me, that's an advantage of renting out a studio is to have somebody who knows the equipment that can be there for you if something goes wrong. That's an just an important area for me. Dr. Go ahead. I'm going to preface this question with a metaphor.

44:20 So before I was married, if I had to take my car to a mechanic, it would be there's just no way I would be so out of my realm. They could charge me everything and and there'd be like, you know, well, you just need a little Freon or whatever goes into a car. I have no idea. So knowing so my brother-in-law used to come with me to talk car language. Do you know what I mean to the mechanic. So with that in mind, have you thought about asking your client for give me a couple of telephone numbers? Let me make the call for you just to, you know, have you thought about that I. Have.

45:03 And I did tell her that. And yeah, she's compiled a list. And when I get back from volunteering next week, I'm going to make some calls either with her or I'll just make some initial calls for. Her. I don't think it's a a man woman thing. I really think it's a experience inexperience. Well, yeah, it could go. It could go either way. I mean, if you want to go back to my metaphor, I know nothing about cars and what's under the hood and but my brother-in-law knows enough to talk the talk. What I'm saying is if Mark actually educates her enough and if she's open to it like you or Ashley could probably, as long as you know what the going rate is, you could probably negotiate just as good of a deal as.

45:56 Anyone else as anyone else? I think in this world I'm like in cars, I'm just using cars because it's such a cliche. As long as you're knowledgeable, I think. I think really in this world, knowledge is power and the lingo is power. But yeah, no, I see what you're saying. Absolutely. I do think, and I have questions, I should have had something set up. See, OK, here's a lesson for all you podcasters. If I was smart and prepared, I would have had a CHEAT SHEET all ready for you and a call to action for you to do something so that if you wanted my CHEAT SHEET, I could send it to you. In the meantime, if you want my CHEAT SHEET, what I'll say is e-mail me markmarc@ironicmedia.com, put in the subject line studio CHEAT SHEET, and I will send you a list of the questions that I put together for my client to ask so that she does come across as knowledgeable or knowledgeable enough to a studio so that you can ask the good questions. I think that once you start asking good questions again, male, female, gender neutral, inexperienced, experience goes out the window because you sound like you know what you're talking about, right?

47:13 For example, you could ask things like what kind of microphones and recording equipment do you use? Do you offer video recording? Will an engineer be present, present? And then here's one that I know would show that you know what you're talking about. Do I get a multi? Do I get multi track files or just a final mix? Can I plug in myself? What do you? Mean can I use my own? Can I just use my own computer? Yeah. Or. My own microphone. Maybe you have your own, not. Even microphone. But can I just plug into the mixer? Into the microphone? All I need is the space. You don't need the recordings. I just need a mic and a mixer. Yeah. What formats do you use?

47:59 Yeah. Can I get all the videos like like Jenny said? How many cameras do I get? Yep, yeah, I think that's a great question too, because most of these studios these days do have video options. And I would ask especially if there's more than me, let's say it's me and a Co host, me, a Co host and a guest. Those kinds of questions then raises questions like how many cameras are you using? If I have two or three people, I would prefer personally to have at least two cameras. Ideally, I would have three. I'd have one camera isolated on me. I'd ask for 11 camera isolated on my guest and one on the both of us.

48:40 Like that should be the basic set up from a studio's perspective for sure. Anyone else want to add anything before we wrap up on this conversation about studios and renting studios? Yeah, go ahead, Ashley. Thank you. 2 things I would. Ask. Do they offer a trial like for example, if you're newly coming to the studio and you're not sure if you fully want to commit, you're not sure if you like what they offer, I would ask, you know, can we have a trial period before I sign up for a full blown subscription? And the other question to ask is many interchangeable props and sets do they have, because I'm not, I'm not trying to say anything negative about our local studios here, but I have noticed that the podcast I'm seeing coming out of them, although they're all different shows, they kind of have the same look because they all have the same set. I'm with you there, Ashley.

49:33 Yeah, I would love to see and work with a studio that has some versatility because if it's a popular studio, well, then it's going to start looking like my podcast is going to start looking like a lot of other local podcasts. And granted, I don't think there's going to always be a ton of crossover, but to me, I want, I want my show to stand out. I want it to feel unique and there are lots of things that podcast studios can do to help you do that. Whether it's with green screens, whether it's as simple as maybe it's a monitor that's behind you that's on camera that, you know, has your logo in it, even just something like that, just to change up the different logos. And maybe if they have LED lighting that you can change colors of the room so that you can really brand it to your brand colors as opposed to just being stuck with whatever they've got there, right.

50:28 So I think those are great questions, Ashley. Yeah, thank you for that. OK. I think then we're going to wrap things up here this morning, dear, did you say? Yeah. What plans do you have for today, your birthday you're going to be doing? So yeah, thank you for asking. I'm in the Atlantic City and my plan today is to take it easy. I cleared my schedule today. I so I have a little work to do but no calls and it's finally going to be a nice day here. We've had overcast weather all week. It's supposed to be 78 and sunny here. The the beach is right across the way here from the building.

51:09 I can see it from my in laws condo. And so we'll probably spend a little time at the pool. I am a pool person over beach person. Sorry, don't hate. But yeah, I mean, I do love going on the beach, but it's just the convenience of the pool is my preference. So I'll probably spend a little pool time, a little beach time. Admittedly, even though I've seen Fantastic Four, I haven't seen it on IMAX and I'm dying too. And there's an IMAX theater not too far. I may try to squeeze that in. And this evening, my parents are in town as well. So I'll be having dinner tonight with my folks, with my in laws, and of course, with my wife Amy, celebrating the birthday this evening. So thank you for asking, DRI.

51:51 Appreciate that. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Happy birthday buddy. Thank you. When are you? When are you leaving? For my for the volunteering, yeah, that is Friday afternoon. I am out of here and I'm not back until the following Saturday. OK. No, I was just going to say because you're not that far away. Yeah, that's true. But actually I'm leaving. Yeah, I'm leaving Jersey tomorrow if you, if you come to the Jersey Shore. Let's get together, Alex. Yeah. You're not the Jersey Show. You're in Atlantic City, which is that's. True. That's true. That's true. New Jersey is not its own state. We're either part of New York or Pennsylvania or Philly or we we don't.

52:32 We don't identify with anybody. So, but have a wonderful time. Thank you. And by the way, if you're curious, everyone, we will still have shows all next week Tuesday through Friday. I will try to pop in when I can, but it will be a little more challenging for me to do that. So the the crew has already got plans. Everybody will keep things rolling for us. Thank you in advance to all of you for picking up the baton as I am out. And again, we are back tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern, of course, celebrating our wins from the week as we do every Friday. And we'll probably dig into the mailbag a bit before we start sharing wins. So come join us. Help us answer some podcaster questions tomorrow morning, 7:00 AM Eastern.

53:17 And until then, make it a great day. Everybody. Take care.