435. The Golden Globes Just Changed Podcasting Forever

0:04 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat Today is Wednesday January 14th, 2026 and today it's podcast news in common day. Hollywood finally notices podcasts and gets side eyed for how it did it. Spotify claims creators are winning and the webbies make moves that have the industry talking. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button on the left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds. We'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again, podcasting. Morning, Chad. Thanks so much for being here. I am your host, Mark Ronick, and currently on stage with me. As I like to say sometimes, we've got a full house. Welcome to Ralph Estep, Dave Jackson, producer Ashley Feller, Dr. Faye, Sid Meadows, BC Babbles, Jonathan Howard and Alex Baelish, and a good morning to Mike Short who is in the audience, the first to join this morning. I'm sure we will see more of our regular community members here as the morning goes on. So yes, we're going to do the news today. First, I wanted to start with a letter that I received from somebody who listens to the podcasting morning chat, somebody that I don't believe I've ever interacted with before. We will call him Joshua because I didn't fully, I didn't get to get permission.

2:15 I found this this morning. So just to protect him, we'll call him Joshua and it'll be like Madonna. We're just giving him one name today. This is in response to yesterday's episode, episode 434, when I shared a little bit about my, well, more than a little bit about my anxiety around my presentation that happens tomorrow. I'll read and then I'll share some some updates with you as well. Joshua writes. Mr. Ronic, I want to thank you, but need to offer a bit of background. And by the way, if he's listening, I have edited down his letter because it was a very long and thoughtful note so I wanted to just get you the gist of it.

3:02 He goes on to say I used to speak to large groups of strangers as a preteen. If I had something to say, I had no qualms about protecting I'm sorry projecting it to whatever group that was. Then I became self aware. I felt like my ADHD would rear its head. This is where there are some similarities. He goes on to say I became anxious and waffled between depression and isolation and then being a class clown and life of the party. I can very much relate, he goes on. But like you, I took challenge and discomfort as a way to grow and just ignored and pressed onward. Now as a real adult, you and I know that the ongoing struggles are ever present and we won't let it stop us. You giving speeches is something you've already done, a natural progression and will give you some comfort to do it again and will continue to give you authenticity. That authenticity is what drove me to write to you. I wanted you to know then he actually had said he's been meaning to write out.

4:09 So that's why I it says I wanted you to know then that your podcast matters. Truly, people like you and Dave Campbell. Is Dave here yet? No, Dave isn't here yet. People like you and Dave Campbell are directly behind and responsible for making podcasting feel like a reality. Thank you. Thank you, 1000. Thank you's. Knock them dead at the conference. Just be you and things will be better than fine. Own your feelings. Divulge it to your growing crowd of supporters if you need to do so. They will follow you and again, thank you. I slash, we are all behind you, Joshua.

4:49 Joshua, thank you so much. As I told him it was a good reminder for me that really, if I just stay true to who I am, if I need to call out my ADHD, which you all know, I have no problem doing, and I did it at Empowered Podcasting and I intend to do it again. It helps me if I can just call it out at the beginning, even if nobody were to ever notice that I was having an ADHD moment, it gives me it, it calms me. It says to me that, OK, they all know the deal. They don't think I'm just some moron. I just lost my place in my head and I'm backing up and back, you know, and getting back my feet back.

5:29 So I really appreciated this and I will tell you guys that. Update, I was stressing after the show as well, but I had to push forward and I decided I am going to use note cards, which I know is not encouraged. In fact, I told Sean Douglas, who I told you guys is my speaking coach for all this. He was discouraging me from using note cards. But I'm OK with it because here's the deal. Once I got all my note cards together, I stood up here in my studio, I pretended I had an audience in front of me and I practiced the whole thing. And I'll tell you, I killed it.

6:13 I don't mind admitting it. I killed it. I am so much more confident now about it and I think it's going to go really well tomorrow. Those no cards I barely looked at, but they did help me in a couple of moments where I got distracted in my head and lost my place. And that's really the gist of it. And I, and some may say, but Mark, just use slides to do that. I'm doing a little bit of both because I don't want the slides to become the story. I don't want my speech on screen. Instead, I want to just glance at a note card here and there and use those slides mainly for the people that are there in the audience and a little cheating for me along the way.

6:55 So again, thank you to all of you. Thank you to Joshua for taking the time and writing me such a thoughtful note. I appreciate it, but it's time for the news. So we're going to dive right in. We've got segments today from Ralph the Business Bite. We've got BC with a new segment. And if Nick is joining us today, he's got some AI news for us as well. He's not here yet, but Matt Bliss and Alex Baelish has joined us since we opened the show. Let's do it. So as I like to do when we start the news, let's go with some data and some charts. So first, over the past week, 587,047 podcasts published at least one new episode, which according to Podcast Business Journal is up 22.7% from the previous week.

7:52 And normally at this part of this of the show, I give you Apple's number one. But I told you last week, the number one has been over and over again for weeks, if not maybe a couple months now. The Daily has claimed that spot in the US on Apple's charts, the number one spot. So what I said last week, maybe we have to start doing the top five like we do with Spotify. So Dr. is going to give us the Spotify top five along with the top five on Apple. Take it away, Dr. #5 on Spotify is The daily #4 is the Tucker Carlson show #3 is The Crime junkie #2 is Sean Ryan's show, and the number one is the Joey Rogan Experience.

8:44 And how about the top five on Apple? Top five on Apple. I'm going to relish this a little bit because he's never been read at this particular spot. Not on this. Show number. #5 The Joe Rogan experience. That's something. To say that. OK #4 is up first from NPR #3 is good hang I hit the. Wrong button. Golden OK, Golden world golden winner, whatever that was. Prime JP is number 2 and #1 is the daily. Thank you Dr. Sorry about hitting that wrong button there. Of course, that's a tradition of mine here on the PMC and let's dive in.

9:28 I also what I told you last week as far as events go, I'm really trying to limit the amount of events that we talked about to avoid, well, to stay as Evergreen as possible. So I will only talk about one event, which is people are flying out to right now. I will be in a few hours. Pod Fest starting technically today, but I guess officially all the big all the talks begin tomorrow. Mine starts at 1:45 tomorrow, Thursday. Name of my talk, Why? Community creates buy in for growth. It's part of the audience growth track. I should also mention tomorrow at 5:30 PM if you are at Pod Fest, we will be hosting an Empowered Podcasting Happy Hour that'll be at the bar of the hotel. Not hard to find by any stretch.

10:22 It's right in the center of the venue. So come join us if you'd like. And Dave, do you want to share since you're here today, when is your talk in the name of it? I would love to if I knew the date and time and the name I knew. I know. I know it's something about buffing the boring out of your podcast and getting people to share it. So it's kind of a how to grow your podcast. So I'm on the same track. I want to say it's Saturday at 3:00. That's my official guess. I'm probably, I know it's Saturday so I'm looking forward to it. And Dramamine has been consumed. So I'm I've got about an hour till my plane takes off.

11:02 I'm super excited about this. Thank you, Dave. And and this, my friends, is the difference between somebody who speaks often and someone who doesn't. In other words, Dave doesn't even remember the name or when his his talk is me. I, I've got that all locked in. I'm sure if I was doing this as much as Dave, I'd probably not really be so aware of that either. And I think Dave will be on some panels as well. So here's the the hack. Go on Hoova and just search for Dave. There you go, that'll work. Yes, Dave Jackson, I will be attending at least one of his talks because like I said, I think he's doing some panels too. I had looked this morning when I saw him pop in our room, so that's the only event I'm going to share. But we do have a special announcement that Dr. put together for us.

11:58 So without further ado. Thank you. Thank you very much. You're great time. OK. And the winner of the Discover Pod Award for the Best Educational Podcast of 2025 is Oh my God, the Podcasting morning chat. The YouTube Sexy award is their host, Mr. Mark Ronit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. It's an honor to receive this award. Yes, we happened to stumble on the fact that we did receive an award and it was from Discoverpod and I didn't even know we were up for an award. And, and in my opinion, any recognition is good recognition and I'm proud to hang my hat on it and be able to say that we are an award-winning podcast.

13:04 Dr. Do you want to tell us a little bit about Discoverpods? Who gave us this honor? Yeah, so Discover Pods is a platform built for podcast listeners and creators. It focuses on helping people find high quality podcasts through reviews and recommendations, curated lists, and industry coverage. It exists to surface shows that inform, educate, and serve their audiences, not just chase down downloads. And the Discover Pod Awards are decided with input from listeners and fans. They recognize podcasts that stand out for their content, impact and value. Winning Best Educational Podcast tells us that the work you hear every week is landing the way we really hoped it would, and we're proud of this award.

14:00 We are grateful for this community and we thank you for listening, sharing and supporting the show. And you know what? I would love it if we could get a bunch of people to sign up for their newsletter. The link that will of course be in the notes. OK. Sounds good. Thank you, Dr. Appreciate that. I'm so glad that she got to do her speech. Yeah, I mean, I we were talking about this behind the scenes and she forgot to mention a couple of people, the egg board, because without eggs and Dr., there really wouldn't be a morning chat. I'd like to thank all the little people too, you know, the ones that are under 3 foot 2, you know.

14:42 Well, DRDR was being a respectable presenter because she didn't want to thank everybody. As the presenter of the award, she wanted to leave that to me, that's why. Yes. And the whole egg joke, by the way, That's because, well, in about one minute, Dr. is going to go cook eggs for her hubby. And that that has become a thing here on the morning chat. So, Dr., go ahead. I. Will, I will take the reins completely. Actually, what we can do is I yeah, let's do this. Let's go to Ralph's segment. Here we go. Quick tip, smart move. Yeah, content creators, business fight. I still love that.

15:25 OK, Ralph, take it away. Good morning everybody. Quick follow up, I got 2 pieces of of news today. Quick follow up on one I talked about last week. Last week I talked about that podcast ad block. That's an AI tool that strips out podcast episodes and sells those things ad free. I got an additional angle in this because James Krillen reported this from Adopter Media on Pod News last Wednesday and it's pointing out that this isn't only a piracy problem, it's a listening experience problem. Tools like this don't spread in a vacuum, they spread when listeners feel like there's too many breaks, you've heard the same ad again and interruptions every few minutes. And I think the big take away for us is simple. If we want to protect revenue and protect our shows, we got to respect the listeners attention.

16:11 And that means keep an ad loads discipline, avoiding repeating the same ad in the same episode. And if you're going to stack ads, hear me on this lead with something host read so it feels native. The bottom line is this. This is the second warning light for us as content creators, not just people stealing stuff, but people are getting fed up. So here's the question for us today. Are we building trust with our listener or testing their patience? I really think that's something we need to lean into today. Mark, if you want me to hit the second one, I will. Or do we want to have some conversation here? Only if somebody wants to chime in, giving everybody a second. OK, guess not. Go ahead, Ralph. OK, cool. And I'll go to the second one. This is Spotify news, This comes from Reuters. And Spotify has made a big move for video podcasters and that might not be everybody here, but it's a pure business play. On January 7th, Spotify lowered the bar that they have to start earning with video podcast.

17:04 The requirements are now 1000 engaged audience members in the last 30 days and 2000 hours consumed in the last 30 days, and just three published episodes now. Before it was 2000 listeners and 10,000 hours consumed in 12 published episodes. Now you might be saying, why does this matter? I think Spotify's signaling something out loud. Watch time is the new currency. It's not the downloads, it's the amount of watch time 'cause they're trying to pull craters into their video ecosystem and they're open. In fact, what they're doing is they're open up a new studio in LA to support that push. Here's the take away for us as content creators. If you want monetization options, start thinking beyond downloads. So this week, my encouragement is pick one episode at a simple video version.

17:49 Tighten that for 60 seconds because in 2026, consumption beats clicks. And thank you. Thank you, Ralph. Appreciate that. And I, yeah, let's go to Matt. Matt, did you want to respond to this? Good morning. Morning. I actually read something similar from Ashley Carmen that she posted on LinkedIn talking to some Spotify execs over the weekend or a couple of weeks ago or something for Bloomberg, and they were talking to her about that. They prioritize the people who come back to Spotify often. They want to enjoy coming back. And statistics like the number of days out of every month has gone up from 21 to 25 for each user over the last five years, I think, she said. So I think the simplicity of pushing to video maybe isn't the main take away to optimize for Spotify and other things, but Spotify is definitely leaning in that direction to a degree. There's a lot to look at with it. Thank you, Matt.

18:50 Alex, did you want to say something? It's just so interesting that we've this story came up because, you know, I went on to Netflix yesterday and now they have this whole podcast. Yeah, we're going to get into that. Don't spoil. It then I'll wait. I'll wait. OK, cool. Thank you. Alex and Dave, I'm curious, Dave, if you were had, I know you're at the airport, so if you were distracted, I understand. But I was curious your response because I know you're not a big fan of the Spotify podcasting stuff. I am not a fan of Spotify anything. Well, I love their music service. From what I understand, it's either the same like because YouTube has a plan for, you know, obviously video. And from what I understand, this makes Spotify's what is that called? It's the it's the benchmark, I guess to get paid either the same or actually a little lower than YouTube. I forget which one James said.

19:42 But I know that's one of the reasons they're doing that is because they're trying desperately to get people to put video on on Spotify so that when somebody says, hey, did you see the gorilla on the bike? Like right now I'm just running to YouTube, but they're trying to get it to where if somebody says something, did you watch? They're going to think Spotify too, which I think is a really, really steep hill to climb. Up, but you know, good luck with that, Spotify. Yeah, Thank you, Dave. I'm glad you're here to give the other side of the coin. And Ralph, you wanted to chime in. Go ahead. Yeah, I just wondered Trump at what Dave said. So on YouTube, it's 3000 hours, but with Spotify, they're dropping it to two. But here's the curious part of that. It's 2000 hours consumed in the last 30 days, whereas on YouTube it's 3000 in the last 12 months.

20:31 So that I don't know that that's a different bar, but it's an interesting bar. So they are really trying to get people who are super engaged. And I think that's where, yes, it's a little bit lower, but I'm not sure that it's lower in real life. Yeah. No, I would. I would call that apples and oranges in my book. That's not even close. Agreed. Agreed. Interesting takes here and I guess to be continued. We'll see how this new change helps or hurts things with Spotify. More to come on that wrong button. One day I will have a perfect streak of hitting the right buttons.

21:14 Netflix, as Alex pointed out, is officially in the podcast era. We've certainly talked about this coming in the past. The rollout started Sunday night when the ringers. The re Watchables dropped its first live episode on Netflix under a new exclusive deal that also includes Spotify. Viewers will not see traditional video ads, but host Bill Simmons still delivers live reads for sponsors like FanDuel. The catch? These video episodes disappear from YouTube. Netflix already has similar podcast deals with iheart and Barstool Sports, and more partnerships are expected as the platform quietly builds a closed podcast ecosystem around premium shows.

22:01 Alex, did you want to say anything about that? I would love to hear Dave's take on it, but it was like exciting and sad both at the same time. I know that sounds so weird because when it popped up, I was like, all right, they're in the podcast game now and it's great for podcasting. But I think it's just me personally. I mean, I love those shows, so it's going to be fun to see how they do it. But yeah, it's exciting. But I was interested with the with me too. Yeah, I'm interested in Dave's Take Two. Dave, your thoughts on the whole Netflix podcast stuff? I just want to go, did you not see what Spotify did? Like, we've been down this road before and people that went exclusive, almost all of them, unless your last name is Rogan, when it came time to get off Spotify, they went, wait a minute. I lost half my, I don't know about half, but they lost a chunk of their audience.

22:54 And the bad news is while you were gone, your audience found somebody else to listen to. So the exclusive thing really makes me scratch my head. And then when James Kreblin from podnews.net through in the yeah, his weekly show, which gets about 26,000 downloads a month is greater than 25 or than 20% of the shows on Netflix. So we we know there are billions when not billions, but millions of people watching Netflix, but it may not be as big as we think it is because there are a lot of shows on Netflix. So when it comes down to how many are actually watching this show. So on one hand, it looks really cool to say, hey, I'm on Netflix. But I think of the long run, I'll be interested to see what Bill thinks of, you know, Bill Simmons thinks about this because you're not going to be the top priority over there. I'm kind of like Alex said, I'm excited because I'm like Google, Netflix is looking at podcasting. But on the other hand, it's another big company that didn't take, I don't know, 10 minutes to ask somebody that knows the podcasting space, what should we do here? And so they're, you know, the whole exclusive thing. I get it, they're trying to fight YouTube, but I just go, I think in the long run, I think they're going to regret that, at least the the people that jumped. But on the other hand, we don't know how much they got paid. If somebody offered me enough money, I'd go exclusive because I'll be happy to cry on the beach, you know, that's right at the bank.

24:16 But Dave, don't you think this is a different animal? I mean, you know, Netflix is probably position themselves the best to go against the Youtubes and the whatever, because people just love to be on Netflix and and if they put a show up there and they're putting it in a prominent spot, people are going to watch it. Maybe I'm drinking the kool-aid, I don't know, but I just think the downloads are not. Maybe it won't be at first, but I think it this is the best shot of being successful that they have just because of the binge ability of people that want to be on Netflix. I think I just know with, you know, our own family, we just watch it a lot. That's the advantage is from what I've heard, I know Tom Webster was talking about how it seems like YouTube seems to be watched more during the day and Netflix seems to have a little bit of advantage at night.

25:12 And this is an advantage for people to go wait, podcast what? You know, there are still those people out there and now I know a lot of people that really like Bill Simmons show, especially sports people. And so I could see those people that haven't listened to Bill's show. Now they discover it and now you have that person saying, hey, have you seen this show on Netflix? So it is an opportunity absolutely to grow his audience any better because the people that used to watch him on YouTube, you know, aren't going to get that option. Anymore. Thank you, Dave. And real quick and Matt, looks like Matt wants to chime in. But one question to call out whether you know or maybe somebody else, because you've said a couple times exclusive to Netflix and we know it's exclusive in the sense that at least according to the article that they've pulled these off of YouTube. But have they pulled these podcast episodes off of the podcast platforms like Apple and Spotify? That's a good question.

26:10 That's true because I keep thinking exclusive not on YouTube. Thank you for correcting me because. I'm not necessarily correcting you, it's just a good question. That's a good question. Yeah, because I could be wrong on that. I just when I heard they were off YouTube, I was like, oh, it's a bad idea. But you're right. If they're still on Apple and Spotify, then the only people that are going to be upset are the people that watch them on YouTube. So yeah, good point. And then maybe they're incentivized to get that Netflix subscription. If they don't have it, maybe, who knows, maybe that's what pushes them over the edge to get that subscription. Yeah, could be, yeah. We'll see. I Heart wants your podcast everywhere on everything. At CES 2026, I Heart Media rolled out new platform integrations designed to push podcasts deeper into cars, homes, and smart devices.

27:04 This is less about innovation and more about control of distribution. So here's what this means, how this integration works. Because if you were like me, I saw this and said OK, so they're adding an app. I thought they already had an app in cars and such, but no. So I'll explain this as best I can. There is deeper in car integration, I heard is now more tightly embedded into modern vehicle infotainment systems. Instead of opening up a generic app, drivers get native access to live radio, podcasts and personalized stations directly inside the car's dashboard. Experience smarter voice control. The integrations improve how I Heart works with voice assistance.

27:50 Listeners can ask for specific shows, podcasts, hosts or stations more naturally, and the system understands context better than before. Unified listener profiles. So listener listening preferences now travel with the user across devices. What someone listens to at at home, in the car or on a phone feeds into one profile, improving recommendations and AD targeting. Also, podcasts are no longer a separate experience. They surface alongside live radio and music inside partner platforms, increasing exposure without listeners needing to search a podcast app. The integrations allow iheart to serve more dynamic, context aware ads, especially in cars.

28:39 That means ads can reflect location, time of day, and listening behavior, not just broad demographics. I see this as a win if this really can take off, and I don't see why it wouldn't. If it's really more integrated into the car, more similarly to how a radio is integrated, I could just, I could see this opening things up and certainly maybe being a little safer on the roads, right? We're not futzing around with our phones trying to find that podcast we want to listen to next. It's all just kind of built in right there and it sounds like easier to search and find. Ralph, did you want to chime in?

29:19 Yeah, the one thing you said in there that made me kind of cringe was the word ads. And I'm worried about are we going down the radio track of, you know, 30% of what you listen to being ads. That's my only thing, Mark. And based on what we talked about today, I think we've got to be really careful about that because it and I know Dave Jackson and I talk about this sometimes and if you turn on something in the 1st 6 minutes or ads, man, I am done. Thank you Ralph. Did anyone else want to chime in on this? I always think it's funny how big companies love to announce things in some cases that they already do like it's new. I don't log into my iheart account a lot, but when I do, I can see all the stations that I have previously gone through and said, oh, add this to my favorite. So when they're like, oh, better, you know, you can now save your stations.

30:07 And I'm like, yeah, I think I've been able to do that for about 10 years. So that was the one thing that made me kind of chuckle. Agreed and I got to stop and pause real quick and say is anyone else surprised that Dave says he's at an airport because it sounds super quiet in the background? Like it's, he could have told me he's in his family room and I would have believed it. Dave, are you like in a in a private area? I am now moving. Yeah. Here we go. There's the lovely announcement for you. Yeah, that or my or my earbuds or just. That's what drowning them out. Yeah. And that could very well because I think I don't. Do you have the latest air pods or anything? Like that. Not the latest greatest, but the version beforehand.

30:48 Yeah. And I think that one does it too, where it helps now reduce background noise. So I think maybe that's what's going on. That's so interesting. Cool, cool. All right, so we'll keep it moving and we're going to introduce a new segment that we have not officially named, nor do we have a bumper or a Stinger for it. BC why don't you explain what we're developing here for your segment and then give us the story. Yeah, well, as we all know, we got plenty of celebrities out there who have their own podcast. We share the airwaves with some notable people, and for the most part, it's a great way for us to connect with our favorite people of notoriety outside of their characters on the screen. But sometimes they don't make the best choices while they're on the mic, so we're going to discuss a couple of those instances this morning. All right, let's do it.

31:36 First story here is happened actually this this past week. This one I'm going to call Las Culteresas versus Representative Jasmine Crockett. So Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers are the 2 hosts for the Las Culturistas, a pop culture commentary podcast. Matt Rogers is a otherwise a television and comedian personality. Bowen Yang is a former SNL star and recently starred in the two Wicked movies that just came out this past weekend. They made an unusual veer into political commentary, which is something they don't usually touch on. They talked about Democratic Party's future, some state politics. But the take that really kind of took off for them in a negative way was how they discussed or fervently stated their thoughts that donating to Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett's Senate campaign for Texas would be a waste of money. Roger specifically said that Crockett likely wouldn't win statewide, citing past losses for the Democratic Party, and suggested that a less defined political voice might have a better shot.

32:41 Bowen Yang agreed with him in the conversation. This spurned immediate backlash from countless people on across social media. There's accusations against them being kind of out of touch, specifically with these two comedians having a large audience that have no and having no real political expertise, but then commentating in this way seems to be really just kind of tone deaf. There's also issues about responsibility when you have a large audience like that, and that audience may take their political cues from the host without actually looking into the subject of their discussion. They did release a couple of apologies, Matt Rogers saying that the phrasing was not right, Bo and Yang saying that they should have been more careful in how they weighed in. But overall, people are really aren't taking the apologies for what they seem to be.

33:35 And we want to see if there are any potential commentaries from the show's audience this morning, or should I move on to the next story? Anyone want to respond Dave? Yeah, just lesson #1 don't talk politics on a show that's not about politics, or you will lose 50% of your audience. I mean, that's very wise, yes. Yeah, I agree. And that's why we don't often do it, right? I mean, this is a story about how politics affected that podcast, right? But yeah, that's we specifically avoid talking politics here because this is not a show about politics. And I don't really honestly care about anyone's opinion about politics that it's in this room during this hour. I don't care.

34:17 Ralph, did you want to chime in? OK, I'm going to take a counter position here and I'm just going to say that sometimes if it speaks to who you are, as in your character, your personal brand, I let that slide a little bit, but that's just me. I think that if people tune out, then those aren't your people anyway. But that's my personal opinion. And in real life, I'm with you there, Ralph. I think during the hour of the podcast, new morning chat specifically, I just don't feel like there's a good place, there's a real place for politics. Alex, did you want to chime in? I would say stay in your lane, but the same time, hey, if you're going to say something, then there's a reaction to things. And I think that's the thing. You can't have the, oh golly, why are people so upset attitude.

35:02 You're going to ruffle flathers when you start diving on that. And I think that's the biggest problem. But hey, it's your podcast. You can do what you want. Here's what we're going to do. Thank you, Alex, BC I think we're going to, we're going to skip the second story for time's sake because we've got a couple of things to do, but we need to come up with a name for this. I feel like you had one working title for this segment. Yes, I was thinking like celebrity mic mishaps or like maybe like mic moments, something like that. I'm not quite sure where to go. All right, we're going to keep playing. And if anybody listening is wants to weigh in and give us a title for this celebrity gossip ish type of segment, by all means send it our way. But let me go to Sid who wanted to comment. Go ahead, Sid.

35:43 I think that this talks directly to something that Dr. talked about a few minutes ago, which was the number five position on Spotify and the impact of political conversations, though Rogan is very political, but he has started to, I don't listen to his podcast, but he has started to take positions against Trump and that is costing him his audience. He's talking very openly about certain things that that his base does not agree with. And so he's losing his audience and his drop in the charts is a direct example of that. So there is definitely, even for really famous people like him, there is definitely an impact that can be had when you venture to Alex's point outside of your lane, but he's really in his lane. But when you really start talking about things, especially political related and hot topic related, it can cost you your audience.

36:35 And again, I think Rogan is an example of his drop in the charts. Thank you, Sid, appreciate it. And BC, did you want to add one more thing before I want to go to Dave Jackson in a second because one of our news stories today, something about Pod Page and Dave is a part of the Pod Page family. So who better to go to than him? So BC I'll give you the final word and then we'll check in with Dave and then we'll talk about the Golden Globes. Yeah. And I think just from that take right from right there, you know, it kind of reminds us that, you know, you got to be mindful of how you built up your audience in the 1st place. You know, if you cater to a certain side of the conversation when you pivot, that's when, you know, Joe would almost have to decide to create a whole new show, building an audience onto that new take and keep the Joe Rogan experience separate so that he can almost maintain both of them. It probably doesn't make sense, but be mindful of how the foundation was built, otherwise it's going to fall out from under you.

37:34 Thank you BC Dave, I'm hoping you haven't started boarding yet because I have here on our list that pod page promises an SEO boost without the extra work. And I thought, why am I going to do this story when you're right here on stage? So would you tell us a little bit about it? It's called auto Link and in the past, if you like, I listened, there's a guy named Matt Monte. He's a really huge SEO guy and he always talks about when you post A blog post or a podcast episode. Go find three other pages on your website that are related to the post that you just posted and find a way to link those. You know, you don't want them to be completely disjointed, but if it's somewhat related, find a way to have a link from the other pages to the one you just wrote. Well, pod page just made this automatic. You basically go in.

38:25 This is an elite feature, but if you go into your episode, you can set a keyword. So let's say the keyword was celebrity news, since that's what we're kind of talking about here. Any place on my pod page site that had the phrase celebrity news would automatically turn into a link and link to that one page that you just said, hey, this is the page on my website where I talk about celebrity news. So it makes all these backlinks, which then makes it more your site, more indexable. It backlinks, even if it's from your yourself, can boost your SEO and so you basically just type in a couple words, hit save and pod page does the rest. Love that.

39:05 Thank you Dave. Yeah, I watched your video, your short video tutorial and got really excited about it. It is making me now consider going up to elite status. Yes, podcasting. Morning chat is a member of the pod page family. I am a proud member. Love the website, love how it easy. It makes everything. I don't feel like it's another extra, another burden in the process of podcasting. It makes everything so much more simple. And doing something like that would be great for someone like me who tends to unfortunately avoid SEO stuff because it hurts my head. And this, this definitely makes it easier. So check out podpage.com and we'll put a link to it. Just Full disclosure, it is my affiliate link. So basically that just means I get a little piece of the action should you decide to go the pod page route. So check that out.

40:09 I'm skipping the line and jumping to the main headline today and I have a feeling this may take us through the rest of the episode. We'll see because I do have some other stories I wanted to share if possible. So if you haven't heard, if you've been under a rock, Hollywood finally noticed podcasting and immediately hands the trophy to a celebrity shocker. So the Golden Globes introduced best podcast for the first time, which I would say is a major signal that podcasting is now considered or heading toward mainstream entertainment. That doesn't mean that what we're doing, in my opinion, the rest of us, what we're doing, it doesn't mean that's going away, but it does it it is making an impact on mainstream.

40:58 Amy Poehler won for good. Hang with Amy Poehler beating heavyweight shows like Call Her Daddy, Smartless, Armchair Expert, NPR, etcetera. To many, the tone of the presentation came across as as mocking the medium, not celebrating it, especially the jokes around rambling hosts and AD reads. Many pros felt like the Globes used podcasting for cultural relevance without showing real respect or understanding for the craft. There was frustration that celebrity LED network backed shows dominated the category, reinforcing the idea that indie and career podcasters were invisible.

41:43 Several industry voices pointed out that podcasting was treated like a novelty, not a mature, influential medium, and a reoccurring segment was that Hollywood is still looking at podcasting from the outside rather than as a legitimate peer to film and TVI will say Spotify leadership called the win a defining moment for podcasting, reinforcing the platform arms race around prestige and awards. I have clips that I want to play for everybody for more context. And then I want to talk about this because I do think there are two sides to this. I think I heavily lean toward what I'll say is the opposite side of me. But first, let's play some of these clips for you. This is this first clip.

42:34 Oh yes, this is Snoop presenting the award. Or at least this is him walking in starting the whole presentation for best podcast and it it cracked me up. Stop the Music needs y'all to loosen up a little bit. This is the double G's. The double G's is the Golden Globes and you with the DO double G. So make sure you enjoy yourself. Don't be no stiff biff. Move around a little bit. Best podcast is a very important category for me because before a podcast I was what you all listened to driving around in your car.

43:17 To you podcasters, y'all better hope I don't get in that game. Actually, I'm in that game. Represent podcast. It's popping right about now. Believe me what I tell you. But here are the nominees for Best Podcast. Roll the tape. And then of course, they go and roll the tape. At first I did note, I feel like there were some fake applause that the Golden Globes was using during the whole thing. But look, I, I think the best part of that little presentation is the fact that, I mean, he was kind of calling it out in a serious way, right? He was calling out the fact that, yeah, you all were listening to my music before podcasting really took off, quote, UN quote. And now you've pushed me aside and you're playing podcasts instead.

44:04 And I, I loved that. I respected that. I thought that was a great nod to the popularity of podcasting. Now I'm going to play Amy Poehler's acceptance speech for you. Wow. Thank this is this is exactly how I pictured it. Snoop giving me the award. Thank you so much. Wow. I, I, wow. I don't know about award shows, but when they get it right, it makes sense. Thank you so much for this. First of all, thank you to Jenna Weiss Berman, the best podcast producer in the biz. I share this win with you.

44:45 Thank you to Joel Lovell. I love you. Thank you for everything. Thank you to Spotify and to Bill Simmons especially, who got this from the beginning. Thank you to everyone at The Ringer and Paper Kite who make the show with me. Oh my God, what else? I was going to say so many cool things. Oh, thank you to Ben Davis, Brad Slater, Sharon Jackson, Dave, Becky Warrender and Louis K Jeff Moleman for always having my back. And I just want to say that I know I am new to this game. I have great respect for this form. I have great respect for all the people that I am nominated with. I am big fans of all of you except for NPR. Just a bunch of celebs phoning it in. So try harder.

45:35 But this is an attempt to try to make a very rough and unkind world filled with a little bit more love and laughter and laughing with people, not at them. And we just have such a good time making it. And thank you so much for letting us make more. Archie and Abel, I love you. Congratulations to Amy Poehler. I liked her speech. It made me smile and I I don't have a problem with the Golden Globes recognizing podcasting and only focusing on celebrities. To me, this is publicity for the industry. And of course, there is a whole side of podcasting that's currently being ignored by the Golden Globes.

46:17 But we got to start somewhere. This is the first step. To me. It doesn't bother me. It just doesn't bother me. But I know it bothers others. But I'm curious among the group, did the Golden Globes, was it, was it funny what they were doing for podcasting or did it feel uncomfortable? Do you think they were disrespecting it? Go ahead, Alex. I'll start with you. I think it was great. You have to kind of poke fun at it because you know what? At the end of the day, they can laugh at it all they want, but they're all making money off of it and they're all laughing straight to the bank until they can do their quote UN quote real job. I use that in quotes, but I equate that award to when they started with the Grammys with best rap and best heavy metal, and Jethro Tull won and everybody's like, Oh my God, they're not even a heavy metal band. So I mean, you got to start somewhere and you could have your own pocket.

47:14 I mean, obviously you could have your own podcast. How do you define a whole genre with one podcast? I mean, that's the hard part. But hey, you know, she won. I loved, I loved her quote about NPR because they kind of put a bow on the whole industry that it's not just a bunch of celebs. There are people that are doing real work and there's people from all genres. One thing that I think is flying over some people's head in the industry is the fact that the entire Golden Globes at least up and I stopped probably watching after the podcast category. And that's just 'cause I'm not so into those shows. But leading up through through through that segment, everybody was being made fun of.

47:58 The industry, the shows, the movies, the celebrities in the audience. It was a giant roast. So it would have been weird to me if all of a sudden podcasting, whenever it's talked about, we're all of a sudden respecting the the art and the platform. That to me just wouldn't have fit. That's a really good point because they did. They roasted everybody. And who do you roast? You roast people you love. When you're with your best friends and you're hanging out and you all start cracking on each other. You don't do that to a stranger. That would be mean. The thing that just made me cringe was they did a parody. I have that of a commercial. I could OK, they make fun of the ads and to me, when you do a parody of something, you find one thing.

48:45 So when you know, Dana Carvey back in the day was interviewing George Bush, you know the whole not going to do it. Like he never really said that, but he kind of did it and Dana exaggerated it. And so there's a little bit of truth there and then you exaggerate it. That's what makes it funny. And so here they're picking on the ads, especially in the one part and I, I really believe, especially with AI, that's, you know, the, the companies that are doing 3000 downloads an episode, those people will take whatever CPM you offer them, no matter how low it is. So thank you and welcome to the race to the bottom. But I listen to a couple shows that have gone from used to be, Hey, all your news in less than 10 minutes is now, Hey, all your news in less than 15 minutes. We got to, we got to cram a couple more ads in here because I got kids to feed.

49:33 So that was the part that made me cringe, but it made me cringe because it's kind of true. It's not always true, but it's kind of true. So that, But now the flip side of that is, like you said to me, I remember so ecstatic when Saturday Night Live made fun of cereal because I was like, wait a minute, we are mainstream. If it's on Saturday Night Live, it's mainstream. And the fact that it is the Golden Globes and realized there's got to be some sort of weird political thing going on there. So Joe Rogan wasn't even nominated. I'm like, come on. Like, we talk about him on this show all the time, how he's always on the top list, but he didn't get even a nomination. So I'm not really worried about who won. But the parody thing was kind of like, and especially when they're pulling actual clips, it wasn't like they were making this like, no, no, this is an actual part of a podcast. That was the one that was like, yeah, the truth kind of hurts sometimes.

50:25 Agreed. Yes, Dave, thank you for your take as well. And yeah, I just a couple other little notes that I have here is, you know, one thing, I think it might have been Elsie who posted something about this, or if it wasn't, it was somebody that in the industry and they were recognizing the fact that Amy Poehler, if you go back and watch her first couple of episodes, they were really thrown together. It felt a little bit more like what we all here know of as far as podcasting goes, right? She she really threw it together there that she didn't have a fancy studio yet. It seemed like she was kind of winging it as she went. And you can see as as she goes, the evolution of the show. Granted, she's got it more of an advantage than a lot of us do, right?

51:13 She's a celebrity. She has money. She's got a a production company behind her. She's got a network behind her. There are lots of factors that we don't have. But still, I like the fact that, yeah, she's newer. She started rough and grew from there. And I think that's really important to to point out. I can play this clip. You know what? I'm not going to play it because it's hard to translate when it's just audio. It was a spoof off of if you go, if any of hear anyone still here goes to the movies on occasion. If you go to an AMC theater, it's the whole Nicole Kidman. It's a parody of her introducing AMC and movies and how wonderful and special they are.

51:57 And this was a parody with Nikki, Nikki Glaser doing the same thing but with podcasting and really poking fun at the whole thing. And like Dave said, making fun of all the ads and all the other things that that go on in podcasting. I thought that was cool too. BC did you have anything you wanted to add? I know you earlier I saw you flash that you wanted to say something. I wonder if part of that awkwardness that we're feeling regarding our place in this arena is more internalized. You know, we're both the the new kid in the room, but we're also getting a lot of attention. It's like looking at all the other categories being like, yeah, hi. You know, we know that you're used to being here, but we're we were invited.

52:37 So get used to it, you know? So I'm wondering if that's kind of what we're experiencing is we're talking about this possible awkwardness. But that's right, That's all. Speaking of awkward, the last thing I'll say, which isn't directly, well, which isn't podcast related at all, they had this year, they had two people doing commentary throughout the whole thing. So instead of having the professional voice over, you know, saying tonight's winner is Amy Poehler, this is her first year podcasting, blah, blah, blah. As she's walking up to the stage, right? There's that announcer that's doing that thing. This year they had two commentary, 2 commentators. These much like you would see almost when you're watching football, right?

53:19 They're like talking a little bit about the person and it's a little more casual. I did not like it, but I think what would have been better is if they had two really polished podcasters, and maybe these guys are, and I didn't even know it, but I don't think so because one was a guy from maybe E or one of those shows, but I have two podcasters doing it, people with the gift of gab. I think that would have been interesting and it would have been a nice nod, the podcasting doing something like that. Another idea maybe if your name is called, go to the stage, don't stop, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go to the stage. It took people like 5 minutes to get to the stage and that's why people had to vamp. I was like, and I guess you can't set them up front because then everybody knows who's going to win. But it just seemed like it took forever to get to the stage, which is why you had these guys vamping. And they're like, okay, we've got 2 paragraphs to sit here. And like you said, Amy Poehler, this is her third nomination and first win.

54:22 And then and then they were kind of like ran out of stuff. And they're like, yeah, I did just. So that was just awkward for a lot of the broad. Yeah, it was awkward. And it was funny, too. They took her forever. Amy Poehler forever. Like, she was looking around, like, how do I get up on stage? How do you not know how to get to the stage? You've seen other people do it. And she was fumbling around trying to find her way. Alex. Yeah, I think the Golden Globes are a little bit different because one, it's a dinner and I am trying to give them a little grace because the Golden Globes has always been like that versus all the other ones because they're all half, they're all half baked or half drunk because they've been drinking all day.

55:02 And the table settings, I totally get what you guys are saying. I'm just saying that's the one that's really not conducive for award for lack of a better term. But I think you know what, you have to start somewhere. And in terms of that skit or whatever it was, I thought it was great because all I was thinking was Sid with when he's listening to Mel Robbins or whatever, whatever he's doing. And he's, that's exactly what I was thinking of. Like with all the damn commercials. That's right. I was too. So funny. That's funny to say that Sid did come to mind for me too when he was sharing. Yeah. All he does is complain about those damn commercials. But it's true. I mean, do better guys. Thank you, Alex.

55:44 God, Dave. One of the thing when part of that, if you aren't aware of what a podcast is and you think they're just crammed full of ads and nonsense, when they hear your show and it's not crammed full of nonsense and ads, they're going to go wow. They kind of set the bar low in a way for those that have never listened to a podcast. So maybe that's a good thing. Yeah, maybe that's true. I didn't get to all the stories. I do want to get to Ralph real quick because Ralph is going to be taking over the first chair, as we call it tomorrow when I am at Pod Fest. And Ralph, do you want to tease what's coming up for tomorrow? Absolutely. You know, we usually do a podcast. Evaluation on Thursdays.

56:26 Well, tomorrow we're going to talk about how you can make yourself open for feedback without getting defensive. That's the whole thing of what we're going to talk about tomorrow. So I hope you join us on tomorrow's It's my first time, you know, facilitating this, so bear with me, but we're going to have a great discussion. I know Ralph can handle it and I know the. Team is standing by to support Ralph, so come join if you are a listener, come join live here on Clubhouse YouTube. Well tomorrow it'll just be Clubhouse. So come join us live on Clubhouse, support Ralph, support the team and learn a few things while you're at it. I will join when possible. I may pop in tomorrow and I will do my best to also pop in Friday to give you a quick update on how my presentation went. So stay tuned for that.

57:12 And thank you in advance to everybody who's holding down the Fort while I'm gone. So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody take care.