518. Is Podcasting Culture Getting Better or Worse?

Marc Ronick  0:05  
Good morning, podcasters. Today is Friday, May the 15th, 2026 And today, podcasting culture gets a reality check, from generous collaboration to spammy pitches and recycled advice. We're asking, what's improving, what's slipping, and why it matters. So, if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, top right-hand side of the screen, and share it however Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast, YouTube, et cetera, 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. The podcasting morning show is powered by Ironic Media, helping podcasters launch, polish, and grow great shows, and by Content Creator's Accountant, helping creators build real business behind their content. Good morning again. Podcasting morning show. Thank you for being here. I am your host, Mark Ronick, and currently on stage with me, my co-host Ralph Estep, Alex Bailish, Dr. BC Babbels, and also Junaid Ahmed, longtime community member and friend, is on stage. Although it looks like he's on the phone, he has the little phone icon, at least on my Clubhouse screen, we shall see if we can get a hold of him at some point in this conversation, and I'll explain a little more about the intro and why we're digging into this. First, it's time to share our first spotlight episode, or I should say, clip of our Spotlight series. So, this Spotlight series, this is something where, if you'd like your podcast to be featured on the Podcasting Morning Show for free, no strings attached, submit a 62nd clip about your show, something that gives people a real feel for your podcast. And then, if we select it, we'll play your clip on a future episode, we'll share what stood out to us, and obviously introduce your show to our community of podcasters and creators, so you can submit your clip at Podcasting Morning show.com/spotlight And once again, why don't we do this, Ralph? While I'm scrambling, why don't you share a little bit about who the Spotlight is on today.

Ralph Estep Jr  2:42  
Absolutely, good morning everybody. And today's spotlight is a show called Your Tech Makeover. It's Frank Bravo's show for the people in your life who are always asking for tech help. And on his show, he delivers practical tips and tricks that turn everyday tech frustrations into plain English fixes anyone can use. If you ever wish there was a show you could just hand to someone and say start here, this is

Marc Ronick  3:07  
it, cool. And you may have said it and I missed it. What's the host's name? Do we

Ralph Estep Jr  3:10  
know name is Frank Bravo?

Marc Ronick  3:12  
Okay, Frank, thank you for submitting. Thanks for being our first submission. Let's hear it. And again, the name of the show

Ralph Estep Jr  3:19  
now. See, you got me on the spot.

Marc Ronick  3:21  
Sorry about that. I should have known

Ralph Estep Jr  3:23  
it is called Your Tech Makeover.

Marc Ronick  3:26  
Here we go.

Frank Bravo  3:27  
Do you know the feeling when your phone is running slow, or your battery's dying by noon, or you're getting charged for apps that you totally forgot about? That's exactly what I created Your Tech Makeover for. I'm Frank Bravo, and in every episode I take one real tech headache, you know, the kind that you're too embarrassed to Google, and break it down in plain English, no jargon, no judgment, just practical tips that you can use every day. I've covered canceling sneaky subscriptions, staying safe on public Wi-Fi, protecting yourself from scams, and a whole lot more. I try to keep the episodes super short, I keep them under 10 to 12 minutes, they're to the point, and I made them for people who just want their tech to work. New episodes drop every other Tuesday. You can find it by searching Your Tech Makeover or visit Your Tech makeover.com

Marc Ronick  4:14  
Okay, so Frank, I would say he's been doing this at least for a little while, or he's figured out how to do it. In other words, he sounded really clean, really professional, very clear, and to the point. I totally connect with what this show is about. Your tech makeover, the title itself makes it very clear, right? Like, I know what I'm gonna get into when I listen to the show, at least I'm assuming that, because I'm only basing it off of a 62nd clip, but and I also appreciate that we heard from the host that it was his voice and he was sharing and explaining what his show is all about. It's definitely something that I would listen to. So I'm excited that this was our first one that we played today, and if anyone else has feedback, I think, oh, bc I think you had some feedback or. Thoughts

BC Babbles  5:01  
I did, for a first item, I'm trying to recalibrate. I loved his energy, for sure. I was a little curious as to whether or not it was the same kind of pacing and energy during the actual show. I get, we just got like a promo from him about the show, what it's about, what its purpose is, and I loved it. But to get a little bit of an actual clip from an episode where he's in the middle of doing the shebang, would have been a, would have been great, just to see if there's any change in that energy.

Marc Ronick  5:27  
That's a fair point. And I've been asking that people don't just send a clip, because I feel like some clips may not give us enough context about the show, so it's not his fault, that's my fault. You can take that up with me, BC, but yeah, I think that's..

BC Babbles  5:43  
I got your number, we'll do it left, yeah,

Marc Ronick  5:45  
exactly, yeah, but yeah, so no, no shade there, because again, that was my personal request, and I liked that, I again, this is for our community and community members, our listeners live, and podcast listeners, and the whole idea is we want to get to know our community and what they're doing, what they're up to, so that's why I've been asking to avoid the clips and just give us you and tell us about you and your show. So I think that this was a phenomenal example. We have more to come, and if you are somebody who has submitted, don't panic that we haven't played yours yet. We will get to these and keep playing them, and we need more. So, go to Podcasting Morning show.com/spotlight and submit yours today. All right, let's dig in. Today's topic was inspired by Alex Sanfilippo from Pod Match. You asked a great question on social media yesterday, and yeah, he posted it everywhere. I saw it on multiple platforms. The basic idea, the question is, the culture of podcasting industry changing in a positive or a negative way? And what's also interesting is that he's not the first. Like, I saw something on Threads yesterday, or this morning, somebody posted a very similar thing. They just actually said the podcasting industry is changing, and they left it at that. And then a lot of people were going back and forth about it, but it's a big question. So I want us to dissect this together. Are podcasters more collaborative than they used to be, are we more generous, more competitive, more sales driven, more authentic, less authentic, or are we just seeing the industry mature? So I want to dig into this, and I don't want to just go to that one question, I want to really dissect this, like I said a moment ago. So, when you look at podcasting right now, what's one thing about the culture that feels better than it used to, and maybe one thing that feels worse than it used to? If you have answers to both, awesome, and if you have answers to one or the other, I'm cool with that too. So, let's start with Ralph, and then I see Alex and BC want to chime in. So, yeah, Ralph, looking at podcasting right now, what's one thing about the culture that feels better than it used to, and one thing that feels worse?

Ralph Estep Jr  8:12  
I think I'm going to jump on the worst bandwagon, and I don't want to start off with a negative, but I think there is a growing chasm between the successful and the unsuccessful, and I feel like there is less middle ground now. There are the network shows, the heavy hitter shows, the people who are doing fantastic, and then there are the people who are not. And the sad part of that is, for independent podcasters, this is not an easy situation to be in, because as video expands, as the need to advertise, as the need to do more quote business type things expand, it really does make it more difficult for the do-it-yourself indie podcaster to be successful, because you're really throwing, I think, spaghetti against a wall and seeing what sticks, and that's not easy, and I think as the technology increases, the cost of technology increases, this becomes more of a challenge. I don't know that I have an answer for that, other than to be supportive of each other. I think that's one thing this show does a great job of. The whole thing with the spotlights was exactly that, is to try to give people exposure to your show, because you might not have a budget at all. You might not have a marketing budget or a budget to plan success. So, I don't want to be that naysayer, but I just feel like there is definitely a larger gap between the top and the bottom. I think it was James Cridlin on his show this past week was talking about some statistic, and the percentage of people who were watching the bandwidth of watching was to 1% of the top podcasters, and the rest of us was like such a small amount, and I just feel like that's where we are. I don't know how we change that dynamic.

Marc Ronick  9:52  
Fair enough. Thank you, Ralph. And again, the question I'm asking is, when you look at podcasting right now, what's one thing about the culture that feels better? And one thing that feels worse than it used to. Thank you, Ralph. I appreciate that. I'll share mine. I think one thing that feels better to me is that podcasting feels more accessible and more collaborative than it used to. There are more communities, more conversations, there's more sharing. I think that it's definitely feeling more supportive as a community than it used to, and that's not to say that it never felt that way, but I can tell you again, I know I say this a lot, but I've been podcasting for over 20 years, and I can tell you that those first five, maybe 10 years, but definitely the first five years that I was doing it, which happens to be around the first five years of podcasting, it felt a lot more competitive. It felt more, honestly, like the way that radio is competitive, as far as radio stations, radio shows, etc. Everybody felt like they were battling against each other, trying to figure this whole thing out, and somewhere that started to shift, and maybe I started to notice that shift when sometime after when Serial, the podcast, started getting its legs, and people started talking about it, because I think that it introduced that was like kind of the first wave to the mainstream audience out there of podcasting, and so I think more people got intrigued, interested in doing it, and then I think people started to become more supportive. I don't know, that's just off the top of my head what I noticed over time, but it's definitely become way more communal and less competitive, for sure, all right. I'll go to John in the chat, says I'm also going to the negative. Podcasting has become easier in the past, but because it's easier, I feel the audio and video quality has gone down significantly. Coming from a guy who's an editor of podcasting, I can appreciate that, and yeah, I think we'll dig into some more of that too. BC, coming to you,

BC Babbles  12:06  
I'm gonna start off with the worst part, and I think what's worse about the culture is that, not because of the culture, but I think technological advances are forcing podcasters to have to try to accept an unnecessarily expanded definition of what podcasting is. You know, we were just talking about how there are these AI product descriptors on Amazon, and like all these other things that have no involvement from the human perspective, but they're being called podcasts, and I think, and I noticed when you asked the question, my immediate mental perspective was to isolate. Okay, what's natural podcaster humans, us humans, us storytellers, we're the podcasters. How do we feel different? So I think that's a negative element on the culture. Positive element on the culture is I think because of that, and because of these weird advances we're seeing all over the place, is that to your point, kind of, we are seeing people really try to seek those communal connections and really try to preserve, I think, what the core idea of what being a podcaster is, and really work to try to keep that original idea and essence alive within the culture, so it's a weird, it's a weird caveat, or a weird dichotomy, but that's what I'm seeing so far.

Marc Ronick  13:25  
Yeah, fair enough. Thank you. BC, does anyone else want to comment on this? Share a positive and negative as far as when you're looking at podcasting right now, and specifically about the culture of podcasting. Yes, Janae, go ahead.

Junaid  13:41  
Good morning, everyone. I love this topic, because, and that this is something I told Alex Sanfilippo, you know, the culture of the podcast, or culture of literally anything, is going to reflect on who you surround yourself with. So, if you're surrounding yourself with, or who you not just surround yourself, but who you're hanging out with, and sure we can call the entire 340,000 podcasts as a culture, but I don't think that's the right way to look at it. I think the podcasting is going in a very positive direction, because number one, it gives us the ability to speak out what's on our mind right right now we are in a time space where literally every single media is owned by a corporation, and unfortunately a lot of the independent podcasters are looking for those corporate buyouts, but I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Think where we are, where we are right now, we have the most independent and to create content that serves our audience, that serves us, that serves to create that platform for what we're talking about. So that's what I think.

Marc Ronick  14:53  
Yeah. Thank you, Junaid. I'm going to keep things moving. You make you all may notice I'm not making lots of comments after everybody. Shares this morning, because we do have also have a segment, wins from the week, coming up here toward the end of the show, so stay tuned for that. Sid, I saw you wanted to chime in live from London. Sid, good morning to you. How was your trip?

Sid Meadows  15:15  
Good morning, everyone, and unfortunately, I am not live from London. I am live from Dallas Fort Worth Airport.

Marc Ronick  15:21  
What?

Sid Meadows  15:22  
Yeah, my flight did not, after mechanical issues, flight crews timing out. The flight did not leave at 450 as it was supposed to, and it 1o'clock this morning. They told us they updated the departure time to 4pm today.

Marc Ronick  15:40  
So, wait, airport until one in the morning.

Sid Meadows  15:43  
Yeah, yes, I was. And then I, along with a whole bunch of other people, took a shuttle to the hotel that one of the hotels was in the airport, and so yeah, I'm going this afternoon. Wow, watch my.. I post, I did post an Instagram reel about it, and perspectives about it. So yeah, I'm hanging out at the airport. No reason to go home taking me an hour to get home. I didn't get home because my son would have been asleep, the dogs would have gone crazy, right? And it would have just disrupted him. So, like, I stopped here. I was so tired, too,

Marc Ronick  16:13  
man. One of my recent trips, I was in that same boat, where they just kept delaying it, delaying it, delaying it for hours, and then they're like, okay, we'll do it tomorrow, yeah, really annoying, but okay. So, Sid, the question we started with this morning is, when you look at podcasting right now, what's one thing about the culture that feels better and one thing that feels worse? What did you want to say?

Sid Meadows  16:35  
So, I think the good, the worst part, I think what's making the culture of podcasting difficult for people is podcasting has become a business, and you need to run it like a business, and a lot of people aren't familiar with how to be a business owner, because you're owning your own business. We've talked to this for you, you're owning your own media company, right? But I think that's challenging the culture of podcasting when people don't understand, you know, what they need to do in order to make it successful, because they're running their own business. I think what's really good about the culture of podcasting, and I'll tag on to what Janae just said, is you get to do whatever you want to do. There are really no rules around it, and you can share the content you want to share, you can share your voice, you can share your opinions on things, good or bad, and so I think that's really exciting that you have a platform, especially if you have a mission or you are on a, you have a message you want to deliver. I think that's a really good thing, because there's not really been places before for you to do that in the way you can with podcasting, and yeah, you could write blogs and things like that, and articles, but podcasting gives you a medium that can really amplify your voice, and I think that's a really good part of the culture of

Marc Ronick  17:47  
it. Yeah, and I think that part, and I think we'll get into this in a little bit of a different perspective, but that part about it becoming more like a business, and that's a challenging thing for some podcasters. I also think, though, that some of those podcasters, they get sucked into that mentality when they don't have to. Right, there are some podcasters that are doing this as a hobby, they're doing it for fun, or they're not necessarily in it for the money, maybe they're just in it for other things. But the problem is that there's so much advice out there about making it a business, making it a business that sometimes those hobbyists forget that they're doing it as a hobby, right? It's just again, it's being in touch with your goals, in touch with your vision for your podcast, and yeah, if you're in it to help a business or in it to make your podcast a revenue stream, then yeah, you gotta treat it like a business, there's just no way around that. Yeah, thank you, Sid, appreciate that. Okay, so my next question on this topic, and maybe it should have been the first one, but that's okay. What do we mean by podcasting culture, right? How are we defining that, and I'll share that what I mean by podcast culture, it's a way that podcasters treat each other, and maybe also how we talk to each other, how we learn from each other, and how we show up in spaces where we gather together. It's what happens at a conference, or using us as an example, in a Facebook group or LinkedIn or here on Clubhouse, right, and it's even in the DMs, and certainly collaborations, but it's the difference between people feeling like they have to compete with everybody or feeling like they're part of something where people actually want to help each other get better, and I think culture shows up in the little things also, like whether we celebrate someone's wins another, or maybe we answer a beginner's question without making them feel stupid, right? And I think we do a really good job of respecting people, and where they're at, at least this community, and I've seen. It in the podcasting community as a whole, for the most part, or we recommend someone else when we might not be the right fit, right? That to me is how I look at culture, especially in this space. BC, you want to add to that?

BC Babbles  20:17  
Yeah, I like that. And to be complimentary, I kind of see it in this context also as kind of a hive mind external perspective. How do we as a collective kind of look outward and kind of define the parameters of this space that we are all seeking to exist in, thrive in, build and innovate from within, and especially as we are seeing so many alternate definitions kind of be placed on us by again those technological advances, so it's kind of like how we are trying to maintain our collective individuality, which might sound like a, like a oxymoron there, but that's that's what I think about when I think about podcast culture,

Marc Ronick  21:02  
yeah, I'm with you there. Anyone else want to add something to it? If not, I can move to the next question. Just want to make sure. Yeah, Ralph, go ahead.

Ralph Estep Jr  21:10  
Yeah, I want to jump in here because I actually think that the community is maybe what's holding the community back, and I think we need to expand the community, and you and I, BC, here's where I'm going to disagree with you a little bit. I think the expansion of the content creator is where we need to go. I think by calling it a podcast, and this is something that Mark and I probably disagree on

Marc Ronick  21:33  
somewhat,

Ralph Estep Jr  21:34  
but that said, I think that if we want this community to expand, if we want this community to be better, to grow, we've got to take in other content creators, the YouTubers, the TikTokers, the blogs, all those things. I think we have to, because I think when we try to create this walled garden of, well, if you're not a, you don't have an RSS, you're not a podcaster, I think that's a huge mistake.

Marc Ronick  21:57  
Yeah,

Ralph Estep Jr  21:57  
and I think that's, I think that is what is destroying some of the podcasting community right now, because there are so many people that, and you're what you say is correct, bc the idea of what a podcast is changing, but I think the old curmudgeons who continue to say, well, if you don't have this and you don't have that, you're not a podcast, you're just pushing people away. Yeah, there are a ton of influencers out there that are pushing record button on their TikTok and pushing record button on YouTube. We should welcome those people into the community and stop calling it this walled garden, this silo of podcasting, because it is going to destroy the community. That's my personal belief. I know that's very strong, but I truly believe that. I think the more we can expand this and bring, because the truth is, we're all trying to convey a message, we're all trying to create content that we want people to hear, and that's the thing I think we need to do. We need to embrace people and stop getting so hung up on the word podcast.

BC Babbles  22:55  
I like that,

Marc Ronick  22:56  
you know, Ralph. I, we don't disagree. I agree with you on that as a whole, and I think we're just behind the scenes. I think where Ralph is going with the disagreement is we've talked about the idea that is calling this show podcasting morning show, and yes, I know we've already just changed the name, but is calling it podcasting morning show appropriate? Do we want to? Does it feel too pigeonholed? Do other content creators look at the title and think, "Oh, this is not for me, because it says "podcast. When we.. I think Ralph and I both agree this show does serve more than just the podcaster, it does serve content creators. So, the question that Ralph raises is, are we doing ourselves a disservice here by calling by pigeonholing ourselves into podcasting when we know we do and talk about more than that.

Ralph Estep Jr  23:48  
I'm getting a lot of love in the chat, my friend. I'm loving this. Yeah, lots of love in the chat.

Marc Ronick  23:52  
Yeah, see, don't jump to conclusions,

Junaid  23:54  
jump to conclusion. Yeah,

Marc Ronick  23:55  
go ahead. I

Junaid  23:56  
still have something to say.

Marc Ronick  23:58  
Go ahead.

Junaid  23:59  
So, yes, we can include those people on other platforms, but here's something that we're looking over completely. What makes podcasting different from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook is that you have complete control over what you put out on your RSS feed, nobody can censor you, because nobody can censor you listening to your RSS feed, right? Unless there's some rules that say, okay, you know, if somebody comments this one, we're going to take it out. You can self-censor your stuff, but if you put content on Facebook, on Twitter, on TikTok, the algorithms can easily censor you, they can shadow ban you, they can shut you down, but that's not the case with RSS feed, and that's why it's such a big importance, why it is different, and why it is separate.

Marc Ronick  24:55  
Okay, fair. And I think there are a lot of people that want to respond, I see all of you. Want to respond, and in case I'll real quick, I know that this is just specific to Clubhouse, but those of you on stage, the way that we get our attention here is you double tap my face and choose the hot pepper emoji, and that means you want to speak. Yeah, yeah, you got it, JR, but I think John was first. John joined us on stage first, so let me go to John, and then we'll go to you, Jr. Go ahead.

John Jamingo  25:24  
I have to disagree with Ralph, and I'll tell you why. I'm watching people on YouTube now go in and complain and destroy somebody's channel, where their channel just gets taken away, and then they're done. And with an RSS feed, they can't do that to you. Tick tock, how many accounts get wiped away for no reason whatsoever? They're just one day you go to sign in and say, "Sorry, your account is gone. If you want to say, "Let's reach out to YouTubers and TikTokers and Instagrammers and say, 'Hey, you should come here where you can protect your intellectual property. Yeah, I'm all for that, but to just to bring them in and say, oh, everything's a podcast, new, it's RSS all the way, in my humble opinion.

Marc Ronick  26:07  
Yeah, and I agree with what you guys are saying, that we have more, you guys are saying we have complete control over our RSS feeds, and I'm going to push back slightly and say that's not entirely true, because those, yes, the RSS itself, that will mostly always exist, right, but any one of these podcast platforms could pull your show off immediately. Apple and Spotify being the ones that I'm focusing on, right, because those are the ones that most people are using to listen, and they could easily take that down. And yes, so we could then try to direct people to Spotify if Apple takes it down, but that's still going to be a heavy lift, and not everybody's going to do it, so you, we can still suffer even with an RSS feed,

John Jamingo  26:48  
but they could take you out of the directory, but they can't take your RSS feed down. The only way that they can take your RSS feed down, I've seen Podbean take an RSS feed down because somebody complained about it. That's why I'll never recommend anybody to go to Podbeat. Also, if you have an RSS feed and you go into the 2.0 directory, they will not take you down, so it still is the best game in town.

Marc Ronick  27:14  
Yeah, so, and I guess my point was, it's not completely foolproof, and that there can be ways that you can lose your podcast even if it is on an RSS feed, and down to the host of the RSS feed, like you're pointing out, Podbean can take it down, and that's so could Libsyn, so could Buzz Sprout. They have that ability. I'm not saying they do it, but they have that ability. We don't fully own it, that's all I'm trying to say. Now, Junior, I think you wanted to chime in. Go ahead.

JR Sparrow  27:42  
Good morning, everybody. How's everybody doing?

Marc Ronick  27:44  
Good. Welcome to the stage. It's been a minute. It's

JR Sparrow  27:46  
been a while, you know. Heart problems coming back. No

Marc Ronick  27:49  
kidding. I'm glad you're doing okay.

JR Sparrow  27:50  
All right. Now, here's the full thing that's happened with me, because I had open heart surgery. I have become a full-time podcaster because I can't return to my regular job, and everybody knows that if you know me well. First off, if you don't know me, my name is JR Sparrow, host of West Virginia and Common Place, and Apple Charting spares under review. Enough right there. My problem in podcasting today with video with audio, when you go to someone for advertising that we do a movie review show, so our business is nothing but content. I can show a metric in audio that I've had clients not be able to pull, because you can pull that YouTube stuff all day, but a true metric, a performance metric that works for an advertiser from Spotify. Nobody's been able to prove, pull something, and even come to me with something that makes sense to take to an advertiser from there, from Apple, from that H was it HSL feed. I have not seen anything measurable that I can take to someone to be like, hey, we can use this to get an indie podcaster or an indie content creator any type of money other than audio. Now, my next thing is this: in a performance scale, when we talk about us podcasters on this tier, we're on right now, I have a problem because I see successful people over on YouTube, but I do not see it translating into this podcasting charting and this RSS feed, like I can distinctively take my numbers against a YouTube person. A YouTube person has a lot of views and all this amazing stuff going on there, but when we translated over to downloads and streams, which were measurable things over off of an RSS feed, I beat them. The Stacy show beats them, and we're able to show something to an advertiser and get someone to put money behind us, because we can actually say that, hey, here's a download, here's something specific that we can grab. My problem is the definitive measurement for a video, or for a podcast, I mean, or for a video format that is called a podcast to be measured in the advertising space, there's truly. No way to measure it right now in a way that's universal, like there is with what's set up for an RSS feed and a stream and a download.

Ralph Estep Jr  30:08  
I want to jump in there, JR, because I kind of disagree with you, and actually I don't think downloads are much of a measurement anyway. Because,

Marc Ronick  30:16  
hey, Ralph, real quick, don't disagree with him too much, because JR has told me that his mom is a big fan of your show.

Ralph Estep Jr  30:21  
Well, that's cool. And listen, that is, there's nothing wrong with that. What I'm getting at is I actually think that the idea of downloads, if you want to race to the bottom for CPM, that's great, it's fantastic. That'll put money in your pocket, it'll put a couple of nickels in your pocket, you go to Dunkin' Donuts and buy a coffee. Actually, what I think this change to HLS actually gives you amazing robust information because you're going to be able to show an advertiser how long people are actually consuming your content, and guess what, if I'm an average, I work with money, that's what I do, right? If I'm an advertiser, I want to know how long are people holding on, are people actually hearing my ad? A download doesn't tell them that, because even if you say the IAB download, which is one minute in length, if my advertisements mid roll or if my advertisements somewhere past one minute, that advertiser does have zero guarantee that their ad was even hurt, whereas with the HLS, the streaming stuff, where you get into consumption percentages, that does, because then you can say to the advertiser, here's the percentage of completion, here's the packets that this person actually watched or listened to. So I actually think that we're better off in the HLS model as compared to the RSS model. See, now I'm really going to annoy people. I totally believe that

JR Sparrow  31:37  
with you. If I couldn't show the length of how long people listen to my episodes, I can show on every one of Stacey's episodes 80% of listening retention. So I have backed up data that I can show to advertisers, and I can show you and receipts privately or anybody $60,000 made last year off of a non-video podcast, strictly based off showing RSS feeds, showing the retention, showing the demographic gains, because my show, I'm based out of West Virginia, but I can show you from Maine to Florida all the way over to freaking Truman, Arkansas, down to the tip, the demographic of the people that listen to my show, the females, the males, I can get any analytic you want, I can get so deep into the detail that your mark will be valid if I seen more once we learn more about this HSL and get deeper into it. I can argue more with you, but an RSS feed, and what we can get, I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I mean I've got receipts and I got proof, I can show you that an RSS feed has made me at least in a 10 year career, almost half a million dollars, you know, in podcasting, and no lie. And I can show you Spotify paying me. I can tell you that I've seen more success for me personally on an audio end than a video, and I've seen more indie people. I'm not talking about people that got production deals, I'm talking about the guy that sits at home, that it's me and my wife, and we have 10 people that listen to our show that I don't pay. I don't even have a team. It's two of us that run a podcast, and we make that kind of money and put no shame in what we do. But, and I don't discredit video, but the clients that I take on, the 12 people I take on every single year, they deal with video and different things like that, and it's a hidden metric, you can't show me a video podcaster that has success, that's indie, that's one of us, you can't show me an indie podcaster that does video that has the same success as one of us on Apple, Spotify, or somewhere else, you can't,

Marc Ronick  33:35  
Jr. Thank you, and I appreciate the passion, and I see both sides of this, and I think what the challenge here is, and we got to keep things moving here, but I do want to just say, look, you're basing this off of your career up to this point in podcasting, right, but the truth is, is that now video, whether we like it or not, has infiltrated in some ways into this industry, and with this new system, with this HLS system, and system similar, like True Fans, has something very similar to that, that they're doing, even with audio podcasting, but the my point is that we, it's too soon to say right now, with the new way video is going to be implemented versus the old way, because with the old way I 100% agree with you. The new way I don't disagree with you. It's just we've got to see what happens. We just don't have enough data yet to see how this is going to affect negatively or positively. So, thank you, Jr. I appreciate it. And Tony, hear where you're coming from. Okay. And here's what we should do. Let's do this. Let's quickly tease what's coming up on Monday before we finish this conversation and move into wins from the week, because I do have two more questions that I really want to hit. Ralph, what's happening for Money Monday?

Ralph Estep Jr  34:56  
Yeah, coming up on Monday the 18th on. The show, it's going to be Money Monday, and we're getting into one of the biggest questions podcasters ask, and it's, How do we actually make money from this? I'm going to be leading a community conversation built around questions I hear all the time from podcasters. I've got some mailbag questions, we talk about small show monetization, sponsors, affiliate links, merchandise, memberships, live events, and when to start treating your podcast like a real business. So, I want to encourage everybody to join us on Monday, bring your questions. It's going to be, you can pick my brain for the whole time we're doing this show again. That's on Monday, right here on the Podcasting Morning Show.

Marc Ronick  35:35  
Thank you, Ralph. Okay, so you know, I think based on the last, where the last conversation took us. I'm curious, where everyone thinks. Where does the industry feel less healthy than it used to, if at all? Does anyone have any thought? Does the industry.. maybe I'll rephrase it. Does the industry feel healthier? Yes, Ralph, go ahead.

Ralph Estep Jr  35:57  
I think the industry is healthy for very successful hosts who can get sponsors and who can go find the money. I think it's less helpful for folks who are looking for the small sponsors, and unless you have a very niche podcast, and we'll talk about that on Monday, where you can have a small audience and make money. But I think that the chasm, as I used the word earlier, is dividing, and I think it's making it much harder because the networks are sucking all of those advertising dollars out and pushing them into the shows with a million downloads or 50,000 downloads, whatever that is, and I think that's hard for the DIY podcaster, because those opportunities aren't there as much as they were before.

Marc Ronick  36:36  
Thank you, Ralph. And I'm going to move right to my next question, which feels appropriate as a follow-up. Here has podcasting has the podcasting advice space gotten better or noisier? And I'm going to share this first, my, my thought first. So I think that the podcasting advice space has gotten noisier because so much of it focuses on the tips and the tricks, the things like the hooks, the CTA placement, the editing do's and don'ts, the posting schedule times, the growth hacks, and look, that stuff does matter. I'm not trying to discount it, but I think it can distract creators from looking at the show itself. A lot of podcasters are frustrated because they're not being found or they're not growing or they're being led to believe the problem is that they haven't implemented the right tactic yet. Sometimes the harder, more useful question is, the content strong enough? Is the show clear enough? Is it compelling enough for someone to come back to it. That's where I think the advice base needs to get better. Is let's start helping people, and I think we do that here. Let's start helping people improve the overall quality of the show. I think that we get so tied up in, we got to do this hack, we got to do it this specific way, if we're going to get more people to find us, or more people to stay tuned, right. But the truth of the matter is, maybe people aren't finding us, maybe people aren't listening. I'm just going to be blunt, because the show is bad, and that's not talked about enough. Maybe your show just needs a real big overhaul, your audience isn't connecting with it. Why not? It's not necessarily because your intro wasn't strong enough. That might be a factor, but it might just be that the whole show needs a lot of work, and that's where I think the advice space fails right now in its entirety. There are definitely people out there that are focusing on that, like this show. Okay, Ralph, you wanted to respond.

Ralph Estep Jr  38:44  
I want to jump in there, Mark, because I 100% agree with you. And here's the disconnect: I don't think the average person wants an honest assessment of what their content is, because you people ask for reviews, people ask, we ask for evaluations, and we don't get them. I think that, and Dave Jackson was talking about this last week on Ask the Podcast Coach, and he's right, there's a mechanism out there to get feedback, but I'm not sure people want to hear it. People want to hear, well, use this tool or use this, but they don't want to hear your content is weak, they don't want to hear you need to invest. Listen, I'm at 1200 or so episodes on my daily show, when I first started, it was terrible. It was a garbage fire, but what I did was I went out and enlisted people who told me, Ralph, you are not good at what you're doing, and did that hurt? Yes, but it made me stronger. It made me a better communicator, and I went and invested the time, I invested the money, and I did the things that people said. If you're not willing to do that, then jump off the bandwagon now, because you're never going to grow if you don't get challenged, and you don't, and you don't ask people like Mark and other people in the community, and say, tell me what I could do better, and stop being so friggin defensive about it, and actually do something with it. Sorry, this is a passion thing of me, because I just believe there's so many people that. Complain about I don't have any listeners, and I don't have any downloads. What are you doing to get them? Are you putting yourself out there? Are you asking tough questions? Are you asking your audience? Are you asking your audience to tell you this is no good, and if you hear it's no good, then either fix it or get the hell off the road.

Marc Ronick  40:16  
Yeah, one of my favorite kinds of consulting clients are the ones that, when I first sit down with them after listening to some of their podcast episodes, and they say to me, Mark, do not be gentle. Those are my favorite clients, the ones that are just like, give it to me straight, I want this to be better, right? Yeah, so if you're one of those clients, feel free to reach out anytime at Ironic media.com I'd love to love to sit down with you,

Ralph Estep Jr  40:39  
but Mark, Billy said something in the chat, too. I think we need to address, and Billy said, let me find it here. All kinds of pros with zero receipts. That's another problem, though. Is there are a bunch of these coach hustlers out there that are promising people, but have no concept of what they're doing. Look at their own shows, are they doing anything with their own shows? And then decide, am I going to partner up with this person, because there's a whole lot of people that have jumped onto this coaching bandwagon that have no clue what they're talking about.

Marc Ronick  41:05  
I fully agree, and agree with Billy as well. John, you put something in the chat that I'd love for you to expand on, maybe as our final point before we move into our next segment. You wrote, could we as podcasters fall into the instant gratification trap? Tell us more.

John Jamingo  41:22  
Well, we start a podcast, we put it out there. We have 10 episodes, and we say, hey, I need to get advertising. Advertising, you don't have an audience. Dave Jackson says you don't monetize a podcast, you monetize your audience, and I agree with that. The thing is, sometimes overnight successes take years, you can have a great podcast, but you have to be able to promote it. I'm horrible at promoting my own podcast. I stink at it. I can have a good podcast, I can make it sound great. I stink at promotion. I don't like promoting myself. I don't know why, I just don't. But I don't do this again. I'm not doing this to make money, I do this for fun, but that's not an excuse. I still have to force myself, and I mean force myself, to do any kind of promotion. And I think sometimes people put something out there and they say, well, okay, I put out a podcast, why don't I have all these listeners? But I just have to hear a JR, I think I'm starting a movie review podcast, 60,000 hours a year.

Marc Ronick  42:22  
Love it. Thank you, John. Yeah, I appreciate that. All right, so let's see. I'll go give BC the final word, and really this will be the final word until we move into the next segment. Go ahead, BC.

BC Babbles  42:34  
I was gonna say that that's really similar to something that is a huge phenomenon amongst us marketing strategists. We put so much time into making sure our clients get all the attention they deserve, and we just, as a result, it just happenstance, we do not give ourselves the same amount of attention, so it causes the same issue that Ralph did bring up. We don't have the numbers to kind of showcase as the receipts, but we spend our all of our time teaching and consulting, so it's just a, it's a weird caveat in this creative world.

Marc Ronick  43:03  
Agreed, and I was sitting here looking for the wins from the week jingle, and I can't find it. This has been.. I gotta just clear out my board and restart it, I think. Ralph, you don't have that, do you?

Ralph Estep Jr  43:15  
I do not, my friend.

Marc Ronick  43:16  
Oh man, all right. Well, we'll maybe have to add it in into post, because I just can't do it without it. All right, give me a second. Let me see here. Hold on. No, I can't find it. Oh, well, wins from the week. There we go. I don't know why I lost that sound. I have sounds that are disappearing from my board, and I need to figure out why. All right, so with that, now is our segment where we're gonna dig into your wins from this past week. These are doesn't matter what, how big or little you think this win is. This is just something that you want to celebrate, you want to acknowledge as something positive that's happened during your week, and like I always say, sometimes that might just be that you were able to get out of bed each morning and get through your day, because it's been a challenging week, and that's okay. That's a perfectly fine win to celebrate. So, I'm inviting all of you who are listening now here on Clubhouse, those of you who are watching on video streams, if you want to put it in the chat, but for those of you here on Clubhouse, come up on stage and share your wins with us, and we will do the same. Thank you, Billy. Appreciate you heeding that call. I'm going to go to John first, because I saw John flash that hot pepper, so go for it, John.

John Jamingo  44:30  
My win was coming on this show as a guest yesterday. It was a lot of fun, and I drug some of my other podcasters over with me, and they said, 'Wow, you did a whole hour without swearings, that was amazing. I know you could do that, so yeah. And this community, this community is a real win for me too. So that they're my two wins.

Marc Ronick  44:49  
Thank you, John. And I celebrate that win with you, for sure. We really enjoyed having you on yesterday. That was an awesome conversation, was fun, it was informative. Thank you for. Helping to make one of my wins possible, which was a great week of shows again. Ever since we did this shift to on May the fourth, when we shifted the name, shifted the time, I feel like the content has gotten a lot stronger. The conversations have become way more valuable, for whatever reason, like each and every show. I'm not just saying that I feel really good about the content that we've been putting out all month long, so and John, you're a part of that, so thank you. I celebrate that with you. I'm going to go to Junaid next. Janae, you want to share any wins with

Junaid  45:35  
us? Good morning. Yes, absolutely amazing community. Love the new time, gives me a little more time to hang out, but the wins. Well, I got a letter the other day from our good friend Said Meadows, and it just said Meadows. I was like, I didn't get anything from Meadows Farm, because we have a Meadows Farm here. So I open it up as a thank you message from him, saying thank you for working with him on eCamm Live. That's my one win. You send me a gift card as well. Like, oh my god, you didn't have to do that. Second win, I revealed Pod Glue to the world on a live stream yesterday with Stephanie Garcia on Lights Camera Live on her live stream channel. And then we are also launching it as a soft launch on the 22nd of May, it is open for beta right now, so if you want to go play in it, you are welcome to come in. Go to poglu.com forward slash beta. Thank you so much. That's my wins.

Marc Ronick  46:31  
Congratulations. Now, Junaid, you may remember. Do you remember about, I don't know, maybe it was about a week ago I asked you for your address,

Sid Meadows  46:40  
maybe

Marc Ronick  46:40  
that was

Sid Meadows  46:43  
funny,

Marc Ronick  46:44  
I was helping sit out,

Sid Meadows  46:46  
Marcus, Marcus Park, hilarious.

Junaid  46:49  
Well, thank you, guys, I appreciate it. Yeah, I feel loved.

Marc Ronick  46:52  
Congratulations on your wins, very cool. And I am especially excited when a win like yours that involves community members, I'm especially excited for that one. So, thank you for sharing. And let's go to Billy, who's on stage as well. Bill, you want to share any wins with us? Good morning.

Bill  47:09  
Hey, good morning, Mark. Good to hear you guys. At 8o'clock instead of seven, so that's always awesome. And it's two cups of coffee, that's the secret. Everyone has had their second cup of coffee, and that's why the content is better, but I mean, a couple wins. One, I've surpassed 4600 videos on Amazon, which I'm super stoked about.

Marc Ronick  47:29  
Wow,

Bill  47:29  
and then I actually, this is kind of a bummer, and a win is we had a car that went kaput, so I had to buy a new car, but I just wanted to, like, I don't know, testify to the power of creating content and the opportunities, because my wife and I are able to buy a new to us vehicle in cash, and that's partly because of content creation over the last four years, and the compounding, you know, aspect of the content creation business, so for anybody who's, you know, going, is this possible? It's definitely possible, man. It's changed my life, and I'm going to start creating a little bit more content around that, because I think all of us are storytellers, and you know, when we, when we tell our story, it opens up opportunity for other people to live, you know, the same story, or something similar, their own gives them permission to live their own, so I just wanted to share that, not to be like a flex or anything, but you know, I'm a trailer park kid, and I never thought I would one live on a Caribbean island, and two, never thought I'd ever be able to buy a new truck in cash, which was pretty crazy for me. So there you go, Dave Ramsey, you'll be proud of me.

Marc Ronick  48:39  
I know Ralph was proud of you. He lit up when you were sharing on screen here. I saw, and, oh yeah, there's the applause from Ralph as well. Yeah, and Billy, 4600 videos on Amazon, which is just mind blowing. In what period of time? How long did it take you to do that many videos?

Bill  49:00  
I think it's about.. I was actually trying to figure that out the other day. I think it's about four years, maybe, maybe a touch over four years, but

Marc Ronick  49:06  
wow, so well over 1000 a year. That's pretty, pretty

Bill  49:11  
damn impressive. I've done about 600 plus this year already, and yeah, man, and I took three months off last year too. So it's, but it's all about having the system you guys talk about all the time, so I love the show, because you are the pros with the receipts, that's what I like

Marc Ronick  49:26  
to see. Yeah, very cool. Yeah, so awesome. Thank you for sharing those wins. We're gonna go to another member from the audience who's just joined us on stage, that's Greg. Greg, I'm glad I remember your name, because sometimes I see leaping bear as your handle, and I forget, but I think I got it this time, and yeah, please share a win with

Greg  49:47  
us. Hell, I have to laugh at that. Thank you for remembering my name. Sure. Good morning. How are you, Billy? I've got to say, real quick, that was profound and philosophical and amazing about. Sharing your life and letting others live through it. I mean, that was a while. What I'm grateful for is life itself, and by that I mean I had a fall off the concrete steps and fell hit my head on concrete over again, had multiple seizures, went to the ER, went to the hospital, and the reason I'm saying life is I'm still here. It gets been so much worse, so much worse, and I'm still here, and up and ticking and ugly as ever. Wow.

Marc Ronick  50:32  
Well, I'm glad you're doing okay. That is, that sounds intense and scary, and I'm always impressed by people like you who just manage to find a way to find the positive in things, and I think it's you are an inspiration, and I'm grateful that you've shared that, because I think a lot of us in a situation like you're sharing, at least temporarily, will feel like we're given up, we can't do anything, it's everything, everything feels lousy, and we're just going to kind of wallow in it, and I appreciate you just kind of stepping back, being grateful that you got through this injury, you're probably still getting through it, but you got through it, and you're just appreciating life, and so thank you for that. Thank you for bringing that today.

Greg  51:17  
Thank you, Mark. I'm heading back to the Rose Garden,

Marc Ronick  51:21  
okay. All right. Well, take care of yourself too, and be careful on those steps moving forward. All right, let's go to the rest of the crew. We've got four of us to go here. Well, five, I guess, if you count me. So, let's do a rapid fire here. I'm going to hand it to Ralph. Ralph, when you're done, pass it to BC, and then we'll pass it to Sid, so go ahead, Ralph.

Ralph Estep Jr  51:42  
I will do that. My win of the week is week number three of the live show today at 1o'clock As Billy talked about, he used the word Dave Ramsey. Well, come over and check me out too, because I'm helping people figure out how to manage their finances in a better way. It's on Clubhouse, it's on all the streaming platforms, and I just answer questions that help people make a go of their money, because right now it's a tough economic time, and I've got some great things on the show today that I'm going to be talking about. So, come and join me there. I would greatly appreciate it. Now, BC, you're up.

BC Babbles  52:13  
Okay. Two quick ones. I just learned that my podcast, Hafenish Nation, has surpassed 1.2 1000 downloads. I did not realize it was nice. Also, I'm not going to be here on Tuesday, but that's because I am, and Mark and I have both nerded out about how much we love summits on the show. I'm going to be attending to see the South Capitol conference next week, Monday and Tuesday, so I'm super excited about that.

Marc Ronick  52:33  
Awesome, enjoy that. And thank you, BC. Let's go to Sid.

Sid Meadows  52:38  
So have a premonition win, right? But I'm actually going to get to London tonight, so I'm cheering, I'm cheering that on, but you know, as I was reflecting on all the events of yesterday, I mean, it was, there were a lot of people like really mad, yelling at the gate agent, you guys have all seen that, right, and as I was reflecting on it, you know, probably three to four years ago I would have been in that mix, I would have been pissed, I would have been posting about it, I would have been up in there, you know. And so my win is just acknowledging my growth as a person, my growth as a human, that I've moved past that stage of my life, because I think everybody has stages of their life, and I've moved past that stage of my life, and I can see the joy, I can see the gratitude in the moment, and it totally impacts the way that I respond to things, the way I show up, the way I respond to people, and so I'm very.. that's a real win to be able to, you know, for me to be able to recognize my growth as a person and how far I've come through all the work that I've done, because I've done the work right to be a better person. I've done the work, I've committed to that to myself. So that's really the win, having gone through everything I did in the last 12 hours.

Marc Ronick  53:52  
Thank you, Sid. Appreciate that. Congratulations to you. And yes, we are, we are also celebrating that you're in London, and that you get there safely as well. Thank you, and I appreciate your second win as well. I just got to keep things moving, so please forgive me for not going further into that, but please know I do appreciate your wins. And for me, I would say one big win so far. I don't even want to size it, but I'll just say one exciting win for me, is yesterday I had a really good phone call with a sales rep for a particular potential sponsor for Empowered Podcasting three one that I think has a decent amount of money to spend and excited to support communities like ours, so it's a very.. it was a very positive conversation, and we're going to have a follow-up on Thursday to do the official pitch, and we'll see how that goes from there. But that is definitely a win. My second win is more of a personal one. Just proud of myself for how.. hold on.. sorry.. for how I am showing. Up for my wife these days, my wife is dealing with some health issues, and don't worry, nothing, you know, nothing that's too severe, this nothing life-threatening was the word I'm looking for, but, but definitely several ailments that she's dealing with, and she's needed a lot of help, and I'm just proud of myself for the way that I've stepped up, and not only stepped up, but done so, so willingly, not begrudgingly. It's hard to take care of my wife sometimes. What I mean by that is that she's a very self-sufficient, independent woman, and she's also a woman that likes things done a very particular way, and it's hard sometimes to serve her, and this has given me a real opportunity to do that, so unfortunately at her expense, but at the same time it's it's allowed me to really show up for her when I've really wanted to show up for her more than I have, because it's so challenging too sometimes, but yeah, it's just been it's been nice to be there for her, and to show her that she's got someone who's got her back. So, those are my two wins for this past week. And we are back on Monday, as Ralph teased. We'll get back to our Money Monday segment, and you know all about that. So, listen, if this show has been a help to you, supportive to you in any way, shape, or form. Would you buy us a coffee? Go to Podcasting Morning show.com/support and consider any kind of support financially that you're comfortable with to help keep this show going, so that I genuinely take that support, financial support. I take that and I put that right back into what we're doing here. That is not something that I'm personally pocketing. It's something that helps this show keep going. So, consider that if you don't mind. And join us on Monday. Until then, make it a great weekend, everybody. Take care.