OpenAI TBPN Acquisition: Comms Strategy, Spotify AI Playlists & Summer House!

Summary

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In & Around Podcasting - Episode 29: OpenAI TBPN Acquisition: Comms Strategy, Spotify AI Playlists & Summer House!

Date: April 14, 2026
Hosts: Elsie Escobar & Rob Walch

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into some of the hottest topics in podcasting: the significance (or not) of OpenAI's acquisition of TBPN, trends in podcast monetization and advertising, data portability for podcasters, Spotify’s latest AI-powered playlist features, and a celebration of indie and pop-culture podcasts. The hosts maintain their signature industry-savvy but relatable tone, focusing on what these stories mean for everyday podcasters, not just the “top of the heap”.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. OpenAI Acquires TBPN: What's the Real Impact?

[00:00–14:10]

• Context and Significance

  • Many in the industry hadn’t heard of TBPN before the acquisition (Audience: 15k–20k per episode, mainly Tech Bros).
  • Hosts John Coogan (ex-Soylent & Lucy, close ties to Sam Altman) and Jordy Hayes.
  • The acquisition looks more like an “acquihire” for comms strategy than a game-changer for podcasting.
  • Show is highly produced, not an indie operation: “If you were just looking at it, I would think it was like C-SPAN or something.” – A [09:59]

• Notable Quotes:

  • “OpenAI acquiring TBPN is the most significant news … in years. Unquote. By the way, the IMO is not mine … let me give some info … you can make up your own mind.” – B [00:18]
  • “To me, this sounds like an accuhire by Sam Altman of his protege John Coogan to help OpenAI with their comm strategy.” – B [05:05]
  • “…This is a nothing burger for almost most podcasters. … it already was really favorable because guess what? John’s mentor was Sam Altman.” – B [12:55]

• Takeaways:

  • The value is in bringing Coogan's comms skills to OpenAI, not in TBPN’s audience.
  • The hosts suggest most indie podcasters won’t be directly affected by this news.

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2. Forbes Article Shining a Light on Indie Podcasters

[17:15–25:10]

• Discussion of Frank Racioppo’s Forbes article about the “War of Independence” and challenges for mid-tier indie podcasters in the shadow of celebrity shows.
• Rob’s key advice: “Keep the podcast lean ... Do everything you can on your own. Keep the cost down to a bare minimum and be consistent.” – B [18:13]
• Data: “Although celebrity podcasts make up less than 1% of podcasts, they have garnered 95% of all media impressions in the last 18 months.” – A quoting Forbes [19:42]
• Elsie critiques the “war” framing: “I think there was a way to position this outside of it being a war of independence ... what they're doing is ... surviving.” – A [22:54]
• Emphasis on how the evolution of podcasting is in the indie space with more diversification, less reliance on ad dollars, and more robust businesses.

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3. Monetization & Growth of the “Middle Tier”

[26:39–29:12]

• DAX (Digital Audio Exchange) is expanding its focus to help monetize the underserved “middle tier” of podcasts—shows with solid, niche audiences but not celebrity scale.

• “I love how Brian and the DAX team gets the podcasting space and where things are going.” – B [27:08]

• The “middle tier” is further emphasized as vital to the ecosystem: stable, niche, dedicated audiences that may never be “famous” but are highly engaged.

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4. Podcast Advertising Trends—New Money in the Space

[29:12–33:31]

• Magellan’s latest data: Top 15 advertisers spent $57.7 million in February alone. Quince and BetterHelp are leading the charge.
• New brands entering the space, including Anthropic (AI) and more traditional brands like McDonald’s and T-Mobile.
• Notable Interplay: OpenAI bought a podcast; its competitor Anthropic is going heavy on podcast ads.
• Ad experience reality:
  • “I have yet to do it. But I think I’m considering it a little bit more because every single one of the podcasts that I listen to has a Quince thing I’ve heard.” – A [31:31]
  • Host-read ads (e.g., Quince) vs. programmatic ads: listeners tend to respond more to host-read spots.

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5. Data Portability, SEO, & Legacy Podcasting Workflows

[33:50–41:47]

• Podcaster Question: How can legacy podcasters export and manage all their show data (titles, notes, SEO, etc.)?
• Suggested tool: Scooterlabs’ RSS-to-CSV
• Advice: Regularly backup your metadata, periodically optimize (especially for evergreen content), and consider workflow tools like Captivate’s WordPress sync.
• “Even if you’re not moving, it’s always a good idea to go through and download the data into an Excel and just take a look and search through what your old titles were ... see if you can do some optimization.” – B [39:38]

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6. Stupid Stuff in Podcasting: Guest Intake Overkill

[46:11–49:14]

• Hosts rant about overwhelming podcast guest forms.
• “First of all, I'm complaining from the guest side ... there's a lot of times when I just want to book and ... I just want to book a time. I can get that information to you...” – A [46:53]
• Solution idea: A “Gravatar for podcast guesting” where guests can share a single profile for instant info transfer.

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7. Spotify AI Playlist Tool Now Curates Podcasts

[49:14–52:15]

• Spotify’s “Prompted Playlist” now includes podcasts (Premium only for now).
• This tool allows users to request playlists based on topics or moods, creating a new avenue for podcast discovery.
• “AI assisted search ... If you're a listener of podcasts and it helps you find some new podcasts, kudos ... they tend to be more niche and down to the middle tier.” – B [50:54]

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8. Flattering Rams – Podcast Shoutouts

[52:18–54:38]

• Elsie’s “big love” for Bravo and pop culture reality podcasts covering the Summer House scandal: Bravo We're Black, Bitches Better, Morally Corrupt, Dumpster Dive, and more.
• Rob highlights Frank Racioppo for his Forbes piece on indie podcasters: “Thank you for that great article on the mid tier indie podcasters and the struggle. We won't call it the war, we'll call it the struggle.” – B [54:16]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• TBPN/OpenAI Deep Dive: [00:00–14:10]
• Forbes Indie Podcast Article & Analysis: [17:15–25:10]
• DAX News & Middle Tier Monetization: [26:39–29:12]
• Podcast Advertising Trends: [29:12–33:31]
• Data Portability Q&A and SEO: [33:50–41:47]
• Workflow Tips for Legacy Podcasters: [41:47–46:11]
• Stupid Stuff in Podcasting: [46:11–49:14]
• Spotify’s Podcast AI Playlists: [49:14–52:15]
• Bravo Podcast Love: [52:18–54:16]
• Frank Racioppo Appreciation: [54:16–54:38]

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Memorable Quotes

• "This is a nothing burger for almost most podcasters." – Rob, [12:55]
• "Sometimes people aren't really paying attention to business accounts as much. They're responding a lot more to human beings and personalities... So this was very smart in that respect..." – Elsie, [06:53]
• “Just because a celebrity is launching a podcast, it does not mean it will be successful ... Celebrity status does not guarantee success and being a sports star definitely does not guarantee success.” – Rob, [18:13]
• “Although celebrity podcasts make up less than 1% of podcasts, they have garnered 95% of all media impressions in the last 18 months.” – Elsie (quoting Forbes), [19:42]
• “Podcasting has always had this where some bigger names get in and get popular ... If only there was a discovery tool. Oh well, anyway, we'll get to that later.” – Rob, [25:25]
• "My only question is ... what if you don't want any music, you just want podcasts about a specific topic...? If it can do that, that would be really cool." – Elsie, [51:56]
• “Shout out to Sierra. She’s a queen and she deserves everything that she gets from now.” – Elsie, [53:51]

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Tone & Takeaways

• Down-to-earth, reality-focused industry talk.
• Constant reminders that headlines sometimes overstate news for the typical podcaster.
• Practical workflow and career advice for indie creators, especially those in the “middle tier.”
• Realism about advertising, tech changes, and the ongoing struggle between celebrity/major network and indie production.
• Shoutouts to the value of community, discoverability, and niche content.

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Useful Links & References

• Scooterlabs RSS-to-CSV Tool
• Captivate’s WordPress Sync Plugin Info
• Forbes “War of Independence” Article by Frank Racioppo
• Spotify’s Prompted Playlist Announcement
• Magellan Podcast Ad Spend Reports
• DAX Expansion Article

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For questions, feedback, or to join the conversation, reach out to [e-mail].

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Transcript

[A]

Tell me about TBPN and this acquirement by OpenAI because I have never heard about TBPN.

[B]

Okay, so the quote podcast, unquote, TBPN. I've been reading a lot about this, by the way, and if you hadn't heard of that podcast folks.

[A]

I hadn't.

[B]

Yeah, I mean a lot of people haven't. So there was one article. There's a lot of articles that have come up on this and there was one article that started with this. OpenAI acquiring TBPN is the most significant news, in my opinion, we've seen in podcasting in years. Unquote. By the way, the IMO is not mine. That's the imo. I'm quoting the IMO from the guy that wrote that. That is not. You're gonna hear my opinion here is not the same as this person's opinion. So let me give some info on this and you can make up your own mind on how important this is or is not for podcasting. First, let's look at TVPN size. If you had not heard of TBN like we just said before April 1, 2026, if you hadn't heard of that podcast, don't feel out of it. Most people had not. While reports of their audience size are in the 70k range, what I could find is that their biggest audience was on X where it does a live three hour show daily. Which by the way, that's some commitment. Typically it looked like 12k viewers per episode, 10 to 12k, another 1500 to 2000 on YouTube views and around 500 per episode. As a podcast, that puts the typical audience around 15k per episode prior to April 1, 2026. Maybe stretch that to 20k. I don't see how you get past 20k given that their target is tech and more specifically tech Bros. Hence the original TB and tbpn. That's a valuable audience. This is by far though it is a much, much smaller audience than all in, for example, which is around 40 to 50 times its size. So I do want to put that in perspective.

[A]

Isn't. But all in has been around for a lot longer than these guys.

[B]

All in has been around a lot longer, but it's at least. At least 40 times larger. Probably at least 50 times larger. I'm being generous at 40x, but it's probably much larger than 50x the size of TBPN prior to April 1st. FYI, TBPN later said that the TB was tech business, but originally they did say it was tech Bros. No, so don't Email me about that. Yes, so don't email me saying rob. No, it's tech business. No, when they started they called it Tech Bros. It's Technology brothers podcast. And then they said, then they did a pivot to make it sound more professional and said oh no, no, it stands for Tech business.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But when it started TB was Tech Bros. So okay, and that's fine. Tech Bros. They're looking for coders and it's a valuable audience if you're the right advertiser. Second, the hosts of the show are John Coogan and Jordy Hayes. Coogan you may have heard of before he was one of the co founders of Soylent in 2012. Soylent is a. It's basically all the protein and energy you need in a bottle. And yes, the name comes from Soylent Green. Right. So this was geared towards coders and Tech Bros. That product. So he knows his market. One of the first investors in 2013 of Soylent was Sam Altman. Coogan in 2014 co founded another company called Luci which is a nicotine pouch company. So he was the CMO at Lucy. Again geared towards people that need nicotine

[A]

and energy to stay up all night.

[B]

Right. Again Tech Bro. So this guy knows, he knows this market and that startup went through Y Combinator. And who was the president of Y Combinator at the time? Sam Altman. So Coogan was also at founders fund in 202223 and had a front row view of OpenAI's major post ChatGPT funding round. Finally, when Coogan and Hayes started TVPN before it was released anywhere, this is what Coogan said. He said he sent a Google Drive link of the first episode for feedback to Sam Altman. Coogan also went on to say that Altman has been a mentor to him for the past 10 plus years. So there's a strong relationship there. Third, some had said this acquisition was based on X number of years of forward revenue. Except once the acquisition was announced, what was the first thing OpenAI had them do was end all advertising on the show. So X number of forward years of zero revenue is zero. This was not an acquisition about revenue to me and folks, you can make up your own mind but to me this sounds like an accuhire by Sam Altman of his protege John coogan to help OpenAI with their comm strategy. And if that is the case it probably was a great move by OpenAI and Sam. And as they get someone that knows B2C where that C is mostly Tech Bros and Coogan is someone that will be extremely loyal to Sam. I mean, that is huge as a CEO, having now John there as your public face, because that's what's going to happen. And boy, does OpenAI need a new public face. Having him there who's really, really loyal to Sam. Brilliant move. You're bringing in a CMO for the comm strategy basically that knows the tech bros and that's what OpenAI really needs right now. Finally, if you had a chance to see the current setup for tvpn, it basically was what you would see with espn. There was nothing indie in this setup. This is a really, really, really well produced show and very dedicated with three hours of live broadcast daily. And their guest list in the tech space basically is second to none. They even had Eddie Q on from Apple. Apple is really, really hesitant to do any interview. So when you can get Eddie Q on your podcast and all the big names, Mark Cuban and all the other big names in tech on there, you're drawing in some heavy hitters. But do I think this is the biggest news in podcasting in years? Nope. And I'm not even 100% sure it's even the biggest news since our last episode. Oh yeah. I mean, honestly, I don't think it is. We got something else in here from Spotify that I think is bigger news.

[A]

Oh my God. Well, you know, now that I'm looking at this whole thing that you laid out here, I can see why that acquisition, in the way that you're framing it, in terms of the comms, in terms of the conversation this dude Coogan has, he knows how to position OpenAI, he knows how to position conversations around that. He's got a connection with audience overall as of now, most companies and being able to reach audiences, everybody's fighting for that. Everybody wants to get in front of people, especially their people. And that reach is really stilted. Sometimes people aren't really paying attention to business accounts as much. They're responding a lot more to human beings and personalities, sometimes with affiliated with companies, sometimes not affiliated with companies. But there is a lot more eyes are into creators out there that are talking about niche places. So this was very smart in that respect in looking at their social. You're right. X obviously has the most amount of followers there. They have like 343.9000 followers at least as, as of the time of this recording.

[B]

And we all know followers do not equal listeners.

[A]

Absolutely. But I think what I wanted to bring out there is the way that they're using the platform. Yes, they do live stream for three hours. But they also have a really heavy short form video repurposing game. Like you mean they're doing about 40 second clips all day. So they're getting a lot of visibility with a lot of re tweets, I guess that's what you call them, re shares of the content, you know and there's a okay amount of engagement I haven't really seen. I forgot I didn't get an opportunity to look at what the comments are like inside of YouTube. But it's very minimal comments inside of the posts. There's a lot of amplification all the way around. They are present on Instagram. They do change the content like so they're not just publishing or republishing their short form videos into Instagram exactly as they're doing it on X. So they are repurposing it for platform. They've stopped posting on TikTok I'm assuming and this was like at the beginning of the year. So that was obviously smart I'm assuming because of you know, what was going on on TikTok overall and like on YouTube, what they're doing also is they are capitalizing on that algorithm as well. They're cutting down the three hour show into smaller sections that are very keyword focused and then they'll have like the interview playlist and then they have you know, very specific news that they're covering and cut that into like a 30, you know, 20, 30 minute video that they have on YouTube. So they're, they're really pushing it forward and to your point into their production value. If you were just looking at it, I would think it was like C Span or something, you know, I mean.

[B]

Oh no, I was really impressed with, with it and you know, I did some digging and I'll say this, it's a three hour live show where on the show they have different tech guests and CEOs and CMOs and CTOs coming on. They're live. There's no editing, there's no, hey, the comms team, our marketing team needs to approve this before it goes out. No, it's live. So when Eddy Q comes on there and he says something, the Apple's comm team has no say on what actually goes out because it's live. Yeah, it's an unfiltered interview. So give them credit on that and for being able to get the guests willing to come on to do that unfiltered because it's a day and age where everyone's trying to control the narrative you, you can lose the narrative really quickly if someone comes on and had one too many nicotine patches.

[A]

Oh my God. Yeah.

[B]

With all the vibe coders that are coming out now, that's their audience and they've got, well, 15,000 to 20,000 of them and probably more now since the acquisition because all of a sudden the podcast shot up in the Apple charts because everyone started going in and subscribing to it going, what is this show? Before April 1st it didn't even have 150 reviews and Apple podcasts. So I don't know where the number's at today. But the point is it wasn't a huge audience. Don't be surprised if you hadn't heard of it. It was geared to a specific target. That specific target is hugely valuable to OpenAI. But more importantly, OpenAI has a comms issue. If you've ever seen Sam Altman in an interview, they need a better person out there doing the interviews and John is better and can control that. And younger and younger. And again, he knows their target. Two startups, part of two startups that were for that. And I don't want to take away anything from the co host, Jordy Hayes. Jordy, from what I watched, competent, ask good questions, no problem there. But again, if I'm looking at this as an accu hire, it was John Coogan was the reason for this accuhire.

[A]

Uh, I haven't watched at all outside of just, you know, I didn't even turn on the audio. I just watched the videos with no audio. So I hadn't. I don't know how good they are, but if you're able to do something for three hours straight and talk like, I think that there's a lot of folks out there that don't realize the level of skill, regardless of what their content or how you feel about the topics or what their stance on topics are. Being able to sustain conversation for three hours live is a skill. It is a talent that you build and practice. I know we're going to be talking about something else here soon as it pertains to celebrity stuff, but it is not something anybody can just do. Microphone in front of you and let's go and you deliver. That's not a thing.

[B]

I think if you're an indie podcaster, this is a nothing burger in my opinion. Imo. Right. This is a nothing burger for almost most podcasters. If you're a vibe coder, hey now, you may not have heard of this podcast. Now you have and go check it out. You're their target audience. Is it as good as All In? No, I like all in better, but it's a different type. Is it a good podcast? Because I do like that kind of content. Yeah, absolutely is a good podcast in my opinion. If you like tech. I thought it was a good podcast, but that again, is in my opinion. But I just don't see this as anything big for podcasting. I think it was really Sam Altman making a really smart decision and bringing the whole team in and having now they have this great public facing comms team that will continue to be a news organization with quotes around it talking about tech and giving really favorable feedback on OpenAI. That said, it already was really favorable because guess what? John's mentor was Sam Altman. He sent the very first person to ever hear an episode before it went live. It was still on a Google Drive was Sam Altman. Why? Because John really, really values Sam's opinion and he wasn't going to be out there saying anything negative about his mentor and his mentor's company.

[A]

Curious about, you know, how all that stuff's going to play out. All right, let's get into it. It's not just all the. Hey, welcome to in and Around Podcasting, the podcast industry show that brings you a range of powerful podcast perspectives. I'm Elsie Escobar, creator, success and community manager at Captivate, here with Rob Walch, who is the VP of podcaster relations. Hello, Rob.

[B]

Hey. Good generic time of the day, Elsie.

[A]

Hey, hey, here we are. But before we continue on, I just want to get this out, y'.

[C]

All.

[A]

April 14th, which is the day that this episode is out. We are having a live stream on the YouTube channel, captivates YouTube channel, and it is an Apple podcast video Q and A with our very own amazing Danny Brown. Hey, folks, future Elsie coming in here really quickly. So this live stream is still happening. We're still talking all about HLS and Apple podcast video offering and everything, but it's not going to be hosted by Danny. It's going to be hosted by Rob and I. Danny had to step out momentarily, but we are going to steal, keep going forward. So come by, come by, come by April 14th and there's going to be a link in the show notes, y'. All. It is at a 8:00am Pacific, 11:00am Eastern, 4:00pm UK. So you, if you're, if you're interested in that, you can jump over there and. Or if you missed it, the link should still work so you'll be able to watch the replay now. Now this is the Description and the event. Apple just changed the way video podcasts work and it's time to get your questions answered. Captivate, our launch partner for the new Apple video podcast release and you can get involved right away. It's powered by HLS HTTPs Live Streaming, the new standard for delivering video on Apple Podcast. It allows you to offer a high quality video version of your show alongside your audio, all within a single RSS feed with for your listeners, this means they can watch your show at home and switch to audio when they're on the go without ever losing their place. But do you actually need a video podcast? How does this change your workflow on Captivate or not? And how do the analytics and ads work when you're streaming video? Have questions, we'd love to answer them. And I can tell you this, guys, Danny's been prepping for all of this. We're going to probably have some more of us of our team in there supporting him for in all the ways that he needs. And again, everything is going to be there afterwards. So if you still have any more questions, please put them up there. Yeah, that's it. All right. Rob, you were quoted in an article.

[B]

Yeah. So Frank Racioppo and I got the name. I think I got the name Ratiope.

[A]

I think not. Po.

[B]

I don't know. My sister's last name has a Yopi at the end of it. So I don't know Frank, if I got it wrong, sorry. My sister, her married name is very similar to that Cacioppo. And this is Racioppo. It's spelled very similar. Well, Frank R at Forbes wrote a great article about indie podcasters. I am quoted in there a couple of times. The one question I was asked was, it's not a question, it's more of a statement. Quote, I'm writing a Forbes piece called the War of Independence, which is the struggle by indies to survive amid the onslaught of celebrity shows for from large networks, unquote. And then he asked me if I could give a couple quotes for that. And one that I replied with, that made in the article was quote, just. And this is from me. So I don't know if I really need to do the quote. But anyway, just because a celebrity is launching a podcast, it does not mean it will be successful. There have been many celebrity podcasts launched that failed. Meghan Markle's podcast, both with Prince Harry and Solo, were flops. Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Alicia Silverstone, Nick Offerman all had podcasts that were considered flops. There were many other A list and B list celebrities that launched podcasts that never picked up any audience. Celebrity status does not guarantee success and being a sports star definitely does not guarantee success. Unless of course you are dating Taylor Swift. Then the needles moved. But most sports stars podcasts end up like those from Michael Porter Jr. And Trey Young with less than 200 reviews on Apple podcasts and no real audience. Now what did not make it was this other quote that I sent. So I want to put this one in here. The best advice for indie podcasters to help them survive is to keep the podcast lean. Don't launch with a team. Do everything you can on your own. Keep the cost down to a bare minimum and be consistent. Optimize your show's title so it appears in search results as the topic you cover. Get good looking artwork and promote smartly. That is don't pay for promotion that offers instant audiences. That's just fake audiences. Do promote your podcast on other podcasts in your genre. Promote to people interested in your topic and contribute to other shows in your genre. Go to local, regional and national podcast events and network with other podcasters. And again, be consistent in releasing new content, Unquote.

[A]

All right, so absolutely agreed. Rob. Frank did a fantastic job. Solid, solid article. He had so much depth. He quoted and name checked so many different types of podcasts and podcasters that deserve recognition, deserve to be on these articles and he put links back to them and great features like all of that stuff was phenomenal. Hats off to Frank. He did a fantastic job. And I actually put a quote from there. This is from the beginning of the article. It says quote before even all of this stuff because you said this quote about your the celebrities not doing so well, right? Basically. And then he said, yet the mainstream non podcasting media appears infatuated with celebrity podcasts and those shows produced by large corporations such as Amazon, iHeart and Spotify. According to advertising age, although celebrity podcasts make up less than 1% of podcasts, they have garnered 95% of all media impressions in the last 18 months, end quote. So what I want to call out here and, and just give Frank his flowers is the fact that he started to shift that. And I think that that's something that most journalists that I would like to inspire anybody who's writing about podcasts in this way to be able to provide or name check the independence because mainstream media isn't going to do that. It's about being able to always be dropping podcast names that are often not covered, that deserve some eyes or some ears to Them and being able to name their shows as well as the names of the podcasters, because being able to say these names is important in text content online. Again, it's a really in depth article. So he did really, really, really well. The only thing, and I know that maybe Frank. Well, maybe he already had a chosen title for this and I understand why, because people are drawn to conflict and. And they are drawn to titles such as this one, which was There's a war of independence in podcasting. And I just not okay anymore with just starting to use this like aggressive war mongering sort of titles for these articles. I think there was a way to position this outside of it being a war of independence or that they're trying to struggling to survive. Because what they're doing is they are actually surviving. The people that he mentioned in the show, all of the folks in there, they're surviving, they're doing their stuff, they're making money, they're building businesses, robust businesses at that. Would they benefit from more coverage? Absolutely. Would they benefit from a larger audience? Yes. And they're also doing their own. So whatever that sort of we're fighting with those people type of situation, I don't think that that's the positioning that we need. Right. In podcasting, especially for that middle tier of podcaster who is building a robust business. Because to me, I feel that diminishes their success and then starts to pit them with the celebrity people who, as you just mentioned, are not succeeding.

[B]

So celebrity status is not a guarantee to an audience.

[A]

Absolutely, yes. They're not getting the visibility, they're not getting the quotes, the quotations and all of that stuff and the mentions. Absolutely. I'm in there for that. But that's not a war. To me, that just seems, seems that it's something that's built within the system. Then it's just a societal thing. I think that making it a little bit more of a positive spin and starting to go like, look who's succeeding in spite of. Check out the robustness of the podcasting in, you know, who's making money in podcasting and living off of it, like something that's a little more positive and bringing these names out. So that's my commentary. But I also thought, Rob, you quoted yourself and I'm going to quote you in the same article and I thought it was actually the last quote that you had in this article was very good and I really like it and you didn't mention it, which is odd.

[B]

Well, I mentioned the one at the beginning and then I mentioned the one that didn't make it, but yeah, I didn't. I was quoted a few times in the article.

[A]

Yeah. So the last quote, all the way at the bottom it says, rob continues, quote, I see the evolution of podcasting will be in indie podcasting and will continue to get better and better. That will draw a higher percentage of listeners, better content, and fewer ads. Yes, please. The network podcasts will still have substantially higher budgets to promote and produce, but those budgets will be cut back as listenership slowly diversifies. End quote. So I see you seeing these folks as the ones that are going to maintain the industry. And what's really lovely about the independent podcasters is that they don't rely on one thing. They know they have to diversify from the get go and they understand how to do it on their own terms. And they are the ones that tend to survive because they're willing to make those hard choices to diversify. So congrats, Rob. This is a great article.

[B]

Yeah. And you know, I look at this. Podcasting has always had this where some bigger names get in and get popular, get written up. And it introduces people to podcasting and it draws people in that weren't listening to the podcast. And they come in and they listen to this podcast that brought them in, but then they go, hey, you know, what else is there? I'm really interested in this one topic. If I'm going to dedicate some of my time, it really should be something I really, really care about. And then they go and find more of the mid tier podcasts that are more in the niche that are for that. And that's how people move from the, the bigger names that caught him in to the middle tier where they're more niche focused. So I've seen that in the past and I expect to see that again in the future. If only there was a discovery tool. Oh, well, anyway, we'll get to that later.

[A]

Oh, my God, Rob. Okay, and then just in case, if you guys want to know a little bit more about Frank, he actually was on, in and around podcasting, Rob. It was a really good interview. Um, I actually reached out to him on LinkedIn and followed him and told him that I listened to him on the show and that and I followed him because of that. So he's on episode 25. You can go ahead and listen to that. It's a really lovely conversation.

[B]

Yeah, remember, there's 27 other podcast episodes that were before we started here.

[A]

They're so good. They were really good. So if you guys want to listen to the back catalog, that would be amazing. And now actually we have some news about dax. Yes.

[B]

So a nice article. End of March in Podcast News Daily. It was titled DAX Expands into Podcasts targeting the missing middle as ad demand Grows. From the article, quote, DAX US is moving into podcasting, positioning the expansion of its next phase of growth as the digital audio ad platform looks to extend its reach beyond streaming with a strategy centered squarely on the industry's under monetized middle tier. Brian Conlon, president of DAX US and my boss, said, quote, we feel that there's real opportunity in the podcasting space. We definitely just seen the shift in the marketplace happening, which is why we're now evolving our business outside of just streamed audio, unquote. I love how Brian and the DAX team gets the podcasting space and where things are going. I am looking forward to talking more about new features and offerings in the near future. In the meantime, if you are someone looking for help monetizing your podcast, please email me directly rob walchlobal.com and that's w a L C H, not sh like mentioned in the article and I can help you there. But it's a good article. Read the whole article. Brian had some other great things to say in there and you can kind of get a feel of where we're going and what's important and how we're trying to help the middle tier there of podcasts.

[A]

And again, I just want to highlight that we're talking about basically the same middle tier this entire time that we've been talking through, because I actually think that, you know, how we started the show with chatting about the tbpn. You know, there are some middle tier podcasters that have that same audience size and they're probably not going to grow bigger than that because they tend to be a very niche audience. Right. It's not for everybody. They're not. All the people in the world are going to be consuming this content. And the article that we were just talking about about the independent podcasters, every podcast that Frank mentioned in that article is in that middle tier section where they're very niche focused. They have a robust listener base, audience base. I don't think it's not going to be super famous. It's very committed audiences that are willing to spend money and, and they're there for the long haul, most of them are. And in staying on the same conversation around advertising and all of that stuff, we've got some stuff from Magellan.

[B]

Yeah, Magellan reported on the top advertisers on podcasts in February. By the time we do the next episode, they should have march out. But for February, the top 15 advertisers spent a combined 57.7 million. And that's just the top 15. That is a yearly run rate of almost 700 million. Number one for February was Quint's at 5.9 million, and number two was BetterHelp with 5.3 million spent. So one making you look better on the outside and the other making you feel better on the inside. Yeah, quints. If you don't know, it's clothing. Rounding out the top 15 in order were McDonald's, T Mobile, Rocket Companies, FanDuel, Shopify, VGW, Sorry, Amazon, Public.com, intuit, Toyota, DraftKings, Squarespace, and Verizon. With Verizon spending 2.6 mil in February on podcasts for VGW, I did need to look up that one. That is online gaming like Chubba Casino and Lucky Land slots. Both VGW and and McDonald's were new to the top 15 in February. And then speaking of top new spenders, there were eight total that spent over a million in February that were new. Coming from $0, basically in January. Rounding out those top eight new spenders, they were Issa Meta, PepsiCo, Dell, Redfin, and Kraken. Per Issa, if you were wondering, that is a company that helps you get your personal trainer certificate in as little as six weeks.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So, yeah. So if you're a young guy in his 20s and you have a thing for married women in their 40s, Issa has a deal for you. Overall, it's great to see lots of new money coming into the space to help support content creators. One of the new ones knocking on the door of 1 million a month is Anthropic, which did almost nothing in January. Will be interesting to see where they wound up in March. Anthropic's main competitor, OpenAI. So, yeah, one decided to go on the advertising front and the other one did an acquisition accuhire front. So those two kind of tied together there a little bit.

[A]

I have to say that Quince is doing the most. I mean, and all of the podcasts that I consume, Quince is all over the place. I literally, like, I'm about to get a quints account. Like I'm being influenced because it's been nonstop. People are making me buy things, but alas, I have yet to do it. But I think I'm considering it a little bit more because every single one of the podcasts that I Listen to has a quints thing I've heard. Absolutely. Shopify quince, let's see Squarespace of the top ones. And I have listened to a couple of like online gaming things and that's about it. I think that probably just also highlights the type of podcast that I listen to. Lean a little bit more towards society and culture. Ish giant area there. Right. It tends to be a little bit more audiences are a little bit more women centric. So that's where that's going on with there. But I haven't really heard many interestingly better help ads, which is curious.

[B]

Shocking.

[A]

It's curious.

[B]

Yeah. I'm more of the ones that's hearing the McDonald's ads and the Chubba Casino and the FanDuel and the T Mobile. So those are the ones that I've heard.

[A]

T Mobile, that's another one that I've heard as well. But what's interesting is that I know why I haven't heard a lot of these too is because I tend to stay and listen to the host red ads and those tend to be more like the quinces. Like quince gets a lot of host red ads versus all the other ones are programmatic and I think that they tend to be the ones I skip because in the shows now I'm used to hitting forward 50,000 million times. Like it's like a seven minute slot in the middle and I'm just like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

[B]

You know? Well, I do a lot of hey Siri, skip forward two minutes.

[A]

Yeah, it's crazy. So we have our first question. We have a question all about taking your information with you. Data portability. Take it away. Cynthia Bemis Abrams Cynthia Bemis Abrams with

[C]

Advanced TV Herstory here with a big question and it involves SEO and it involves data and the availability of where all of my data is as it pertains to my podcast. In 2015, Advance TV host restarted and currently there are 180 plus episodes in the archive with my hosting service. Recently I had about half of my episodes really washed for SEO so that now the show notes are more robust and the list of keywords that are attached to every episode. It's all very modern. It feels really good to have that done and I'm seeing it in the downloads. However, I'm also in the middle of transitioning my podcast website from a sort of build it yourself to a WordPress that is searchable. And now my design team wants to receive all of the data that is the back end of the podcast that would include everything from the title to the SEO keywords, the show notes, as much as I want to share and make sense to, and the IFrame embed code. I have been told by my current provider that it's impossible to come up with all of that, even though I have given that to them and that seems crazy. And I have tried to run the RSS feed through Excel, and I come up with the fact that Excel wants to pull the data, can pull the data as a CSV, but at that point, it's all kind of messy and it doesn't feel like it is all of the data it will not render as an Excel spreadsheet document. So, anyway, that's my question is, is there some other way to get all of my data out there back into my computer, short of copying and pasting every single one of my 180 files? I appreciate anything you can bring to this conversation. Thank you much. Bye.

[B]

All right, Cynthia, thank you for the question. There's one tool that I recommend. It's scooterlabs.com hack rss2csv php link in the show notes, and that will allow you to drop your RSS feed in, and then it'll export, well, most of the metadata in your RSS feed to a CSV. And I love that tool. It works great. Does it bring everything in that you asked for? No, but it brings in a lot of what you asked for. So I would start with that. That would be where I would start and see if that gives everything. And you had some thoughts here as well on this?

[A]

Yeah, I think that, you know, one of the things that I've been seeing a lot with podcasters, because there's a lot of folks, or at least the ones that I've been dealing, not dealing with, the ones that I work with have been around for a long time, like Cynthia has been around forever. And they are leveraging a very large back catalog. They are looking to do a lot of different things with it. Some. Some of them, like Cynthia is, is looking to optimize how she shows up online because her podcasts are very evergreen. There's some folks who are. They're quitting in a good way. They're putting down their podcast, but they still want to keep their back catalog available and searchable and optimized for new audiences. They want to use it and place it their way somewhere. The data portability of all of that information, whether it's for legacy, like archival purposes, for people who are quitting for changing a tech stack, which is sort of what Cynthia is doing here, where she is kind of moving everything that she's managed in the past and having a new front end, having a new back end, being able to import all of that information in there for optimizing for the new ways in which things are being found. One thing that Captivate does, though, Rob, I don't know if you've been able to incorporate this a lot, but when you publish something on Captivate, they're really making it easier for you to create a show that is optimized for the apps, right, the podcast apps. And they're giving you an option to be able to optimize titles and descriptions and things that are SEO optimized so that you can have a separate title, which I think is, for me, incredibly helpful, because we can be quirky, we could be creative in quotes with our titles and also have a title that directly speaks to somebody that's searching for a question. Right. That we've covered on the show. And you can do both. And I think that there's a lot of creators nowadays that are being really smart in how they position themselves, because, as you know, they are always looking for discoverability, they're always looking to be found, they're always looking for all of that. And in doing that, especially for the people who have legacy content, their content is the best informant to how they position themselves moving forward. So being able to see 180 episodes worth of data, of information, easily is important, and being able to change it from this to that is important. Before, when we were moving from host, you know, let's say moving from a podcast host to a podcast host, we weren't having to move so many episodes because it hadn't been around for so long. You know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah. Oh, no. I mean, I. You're talking to someone who recently had to move a thousand episodes over various different podcasts.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah. So I. Something I've. I've had to do for the, you know, really for one of the first times. And so I. I've learned on that.

[A]

Yeah. So. So my question to you, Rob, if we were giving advice to legacy podcasters and to new podcasters, what do they need to keep for themselves? Let's say moving forward now in order to have all of their information, I

[B]

would say even if you're not moving, it's always a good idea to go through and download the data into an Excel and just take a look and search through what your old titles were and metadata was and see if you can do some optimization, especially if Your content's evergreen. So regardless if you're moving, if your content's evergreen, you can go back and re optimize some of your titles. And Spotify does search through the description of episodes. Apple doesn't, but Spotify does. So you may want to go back and optimize some of your descriptions of episodes to make them a little more SEO friendly for Spotify. For Apple, again, it's going to come down to the episode title and then the author tag. But Spotify looks at title and author tag and description. So maybe go back and re optimize some of your evergreen content to make it more relevant to today's search results. Again, keeping it accurate to what was actually in the episode. Don't put in. You know, if you've got a space podcast, don't go back and start talking about Artemis 2 launch in episodes from five years ago. That wouldn't be accurate. But do see maybe. Hey, you know what the title of what we used to call coding now with AI, now it's called Vibe coding. So maybe I gotta change what I called some things, some episodes about how to code with Claude when it first came out. Maybe add in something about Vibe coding in there. Yeah, you can go back and re optimize some titles so that people can find your evergreen content. I wouldn't waste my time. If you have a fantasy football podcast, I wouldn't be going back to 2020 and changing titles and descriptions for what you talked about in Fantasy Football from 2020. Your audience don't care. Those players, most of them aren't even in the league anymore. So do it smart. Definitely forevergreen or people that have just moved over their podcast. Take a look at your data and we'll have a link again to that. Scooter Labs, it's a great place to go and pull all your metadata to look at it. A lot easier to go through a spreadsheet and do some searching than it is to try to do it online where you find a webpage where your feed will load and you're trying to search through it. It's a mess, right? Yeah, spreadsheets a little better.

[A]

And it is gonna be, I mean it is a little bit of an admin lift if you wanna build up. And of course I think that for this kind of stuff, a spreadsheet is probably the best way to go to be able to keep that information in some place. And it, when I say spreadsheet, it could be like a notion database, it could be like an airtable database, it could be Like a some kind of database that you are probably going to build. And there's so many different tools out there where you can optimize exactly what you want your database to be like. With AI tools, there's so many things that you could do to be able to do that. I think what a lot of people are looking for, and I'm sure that you can actually do this, is to automate a lot of this stuff based on your feed, which I'm sure you can set all this stuff up. It's going to take some thinking through from the beginning how you're going to be able to do that for yourself so that you capture that stuff. Because going back to update things is part of the workflow. And I don't know if a lot of podcasters are already doing so much that it's tough, but it's really good for you to be able to go back and go, this is what we talked about. These are the things that could be updated. Oh, wow. It would be amazing if we changed the title for this episode, especially if, like there's an episode that you really want more eyes on. Again, to reflect what's really on the show. But there's a lot of information now that I've seen needs to be sort of kept, especially as it pertains to marketing. I have a copy of all the show notes in a text database that I can search fairly easily. You know, we have show notes for a website or if you want to have a show notes for the website and how you optimize that as a quote blog post versus one that you can look through with the phone. The tags and categories of your shows, like where do they fit in? How, how would somebody consume that graphics and artwork that oftentimes can bring a lot of eyes into your work because it can draw more attention to it. Especially if you want to work on all of those things, you need to understand where you're starting from. Social media copy and posts is something else that I was thinking about because I've been really thinking through how are we going to promote this show and thinking about interesting ways of getting more visibility to the show. And I'm thinking more eyes, like what is a video component? What is a graphic component to the episodes? And what if I decide, oh, I'm going to bubble up episode 28 again? What are the things that I've already said about that episode that really worked? Or what are some things that I haven't looked at short form video content like, again, how do we position something like that, because I've been really looking through how are we going to promote this show without a video component. We might have a video at some point in the future for a couple of episodes here and there. But being a primarily audio podcast, what are some ways that we could use video to promote that? And I need to have that somewhere so that I can go, oh, that really worked. Oh, that didn't really work. Ad markers. I think that's another thing. Imagine getting a campaign being able to, like, you have to update all of your ad markers for your. All your shows. Where are they? You have to keep that somewhere so that you can go like, yeah, episode 28 had it at this, this, and this. We could put, you know, whatever. And lastly, embed codes, which are the pain of everybody's existence at this point. I know those are rough, but I'm sure there'll be a solution at some point to be able to easily update that stuff. But I think, again, Captivate has a lot of really wonderful tools. There's the WordPress plugin sync, and that pulls all of episodes into a WordPress site, of course. And part of that would be, you know, also being able to do a lot of the sort of like the embeddable web players and things like that. Yes, Captivate does have that, and unfortunately, a lot of that stuff has to be done manually. But there's a lot of really wonderful things that we can do with the WordPress plugin sync here for Captivate as well. I'll have a link in the show notes for anybody who's thinking through any of those things. Are you ready for some stu. For some stupid stuff in podcasting, Rob?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Stupid stuff in podcasting. Okay, so. Oh, my God. Can we make the guest intake forms less cumbersome?

[B]

Oh, I want more questions because I'm dying.

[A]

I've been asked to be on shows. I'm sure you're asked to be on shows. Have you experienced this? Where you are sent, like, just book a time. Let's book a time to record the show. And then you're like, it's like a. A dissertation you have to fill out before you even book a time.

[B]

Let's see if anyone out there gets a good form that has more than like 15, 20 questions. Send it our way. I want to see. Let's see if someone can find the worst intake form.

[A]

First of all, I'm complaining from the guest side. Okay, I get it. It's annoying. You know why? Because there's a lot of times when I just want to book and the assets are. I don't have them handy. I'm on the phone. Give me your bio, give me your headshot, give me your links, give me your thing. And I'm like, I just want to book a time. I can get that information to you. But I'm on the phone, do you want me to finish this or not? So I get it that it's challenging from the guest side until I'm complaining about that. The part that I do understand is that as a podcaster, what you don't want is for you to go be going back and forth with a guest going, can I have your headshot? Can I have your headshot? Can I have your head shot 50,000 million times. What about your bio? Can I grab this shot? Do you have a thing? You know, I understand they're trying to avoid that there has to be a middle ground. So I have an idea, Rob, and it's like Gravatar for podcast guesting. Okay. Remember how Gravatar, you could just like, sign into Gravatar and then whenever you sign up to an account that supports Gravatar, it just pulls your. It pulls all your information. Right. You don't have to do it kind of like that for. For podcast casting. So this is a platform where if you want to be a guest on people's podcasts, you put your headshot in there, you put your bio in there, you put your links in there, all that stuff. And then when you get a link to, like, a new Rob, I'm going to invite you to be a guest. And then I have my 15 question form, but also have the option of if you have a. Whatever this guesting Gravatar account, just link it here and you don't have to fill out the rest of the information because it'll just pull the data from your Gravatar account. So I think somebody needs to come up with it.

[B]

Yeah, someone could vibe code that for us.

[A]

Yeah, somebody could do that. And then that way we won't have to do that. I could just put that link and they can suck it all up. Can we do it ourselves via a link or a page or something that we optimize and we give it to them? Sure. But the point is that it needs to be a question in the guest intake because, like, I just filled out an application in there where I couldn't just send them. Here's all my information. I had to fill it manually out. And that's what I want to avoid anyway. That's my stupid stuff in podcasting. Do you have Any stupid stuff, Rob,

[B]

Other than the thing we started the top of the show off with being the most important piece of news in podcasting. No, matter of fact, that leads me into what I actually think was the most important news in podcasting in the last two weeks. Save this one here for the end. And that was on April 7th Spotify announced their AI playlist creation tool now includes Podcasts from the article on Spotify Quote Starting today, Prompted Playlist is expanding beyond music to now include podcasts. Launched earlier this year in beta, this feature lets you steer the algorithm by creating playlists based on your listening history and real time signals on Spotify, including trends and charts. So the playlist reflects both your tastes and what's happening in the world around you. Rolling out in English to premium users in the us, Canada, uk, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Sweden, Prompted Playlists Beta can now help listeners discover new shows, go deep on a specific topic, or build a curated lineup to match their mood. This is intended to help listeners discover new and appropriate content for their needs. You do put in a request for it to build you the playlist based on what you're looking for, ie a search. You could say build me a playlist around podcasts covering AI and then this list is created that is based not just on what Spotify thinks you want to hear based on your query, but also on what you have been listening to in the past. Again, search on steroids, whatever you want to call it. AI assisted search, whatever. If you're a listener of podcasts and it helps you find some new podcasts, kudos, because that's what we'd love to hear. Because when you find new podcasts and searches like this, they tend to be more niche and down to the middle tier. So comments earlier, if only there was a search, could it kind of help curate that? Yes. This will help link to the full article in the show notes for episode 29 of in and Around Podcasting. You can read it all what Spotify had to say, but right now it's just a premium. Hopefully this rolls out to more of the users and to the non premium users in the near future.

[A]

I would love that. I think that's great. My only question is, and especially for those of you who have premium Spotify, send in your feedback over to CommunityAPTivate FM is what if you don't want any music, you just want podcasts about a specific topic or whatever, however you want to see.

[B]

Well I say. I think you just say give me podcasts, create me a podcast playlist for Shows that cover AI.

[A]

You know what would be really cool, I mean, based on just our conversation here, would be create me a podcast playlist that cover the acquisition of tbpn, whatever it is called. Tbpn.

[B]

Pn. Yeah. Tech Bros. Podcast Network.

[A]

I would find that to be very helpful to see, like if I could get a playlist of all of that stuff and then sort of consume that content on that specific bit of news. If it can do that, that would be really cool. I would really love that functionality. And actually as it pertains to curating content and this specific thing. Let's get into my flattering ram of the episode. The flattering ram. All right. Okay. This is big Love. Big love. Shout out to all of the Bravo podcasters, pop culture podcasts out there, reality TV podcasts that are covering during the summer house scandal. You all have given me life. Oh my gosh, for the past like week, ish, it's been non stop content. So I'm gonna shout some folks out. Bravo. We're black bitches. Better. Morally corrupt. Dumpster dive. So bad. It's good Snark bait. Only to name a few of all of the folks that are out there now, listen, there's a lot of you probably are like, what the heck is she talking about? If you are into pop culture Bravo situations. The summer house scandal at this time is just everywhere. It is everywhere. And there's we are still in the midst of it all. It's still going to be happening for another couple of weeks. There's a lot of stuff that's still being said everywhere. I'm not even naming any names because I don't want to highlight anybody outside of Sierra. Go get it, girl. That is it. That is it. Just shout out to Sierra. She's a queen and she deserves everything that she gets from now. That is my big flattering ram out there. All inside baseball or inside Bravo. Or how about you, Rob?

[B]

Well, I, I, I think I have to give it to Frank Racioppo and hope I get your name right, Frank. If not, please let me know. But Orbes for the article we talked about earlier. So thank you for that great article on the mid tier indie podcasters and the struggle. We won't call it the war, we'll call it the struggle. They have to consistently get out content and to compete with others in the space.

[A]

Yeah, right on. All right, well, we finished another episode. If you have any feedback, please email community at Captivate fm. And I look so forward to hearing from you guys. Please go check out the April 14 live stream about HLS and the Apple podcast video and all of those things, please send that in. If you have any questions, please send them over. We're here for you, and we want to cover things that you want us to cover. So sending us information, sending us things that we want to talk about that we should be talking about on the show or news insight, questions, all of those things. Send them over to CommunityAPTivate FM.

[B]

Until the next time, folks.

[A]

Bye.

[B]

Ciao.