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In & Around Podcasting
Podcast Growth: Branding Dollars, Search Engine Overhauls, 100 Million Deals & YouTube AI Labels
00:57:15
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- [00:00]
A
So there was a story on Inside Radio and it said, podcast ad spending climbs 28% in Q1, even with lighter ad loads. So, Rob, what do you think?
- [00:12]
B
I like that restaurants were up 36%. Right. Driven by McDonald's and Domino's and Taco Bell. No, he liked this for a reason. It's not about Dr. In that stuff. That is about branding. So when restaurants are doing this, it's all about branding. Right. They're not tracking your IP address to see if you went and ordered anything or they just want to know that branding went out there and that it's working. Right. They must think it's working or you wouldn't do it otherwise. So when I see advertisers that are mostly interested in branding and not call to action, that to me is good. It shows that advertisers are starting to trust the medium, believe in the medium, and release some of that traditional revenue. And there's a lot more branding or a lot more dollars on the branding side than there is on the call to action side.
- [01:02]
A
Yeah, for sure. And like, and it's really interesting that the fastest categories of Q1, you know, with restaurants being up 36%, which is wacky, versus Q4. Right. Which is like the holiday season. Medication, 21%. Education was of 18 and bedding was. Was up 17%. Who are the bedding people?
- [01:28]
B
Well, bedding is Casper and purple and all that stuff.
- [01:32]
A
Okay. All right. So it's the. I was thinking of like the bed clothing part versus the actual, I guess,
- [01:38]
B
you know, bowl and branch could be considered thing. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of people in the bedding area, you know, Mike Lindell and his pillows. So there's a lot of stuff I guess you could throw into the bedding area.
- [01:49]
A
That is correct. And it, it seems like, you know, overall, as always, you know, some of the top advertising spending softened a little bit. Q quarter by 5%. But this is generally a thing between, you know, Q4 and Q1 because there's a big push on in Q4 always. There's just like a lot more towards the end of the year and holiday season shopping and all of that stuff. And financial services remain the largest podcast advertising category overall. Women's clothing, Rob. 101% of a lift. That is wacky. That's like what in the world. And health services, 82% showed some of the strongest year over year growth. In fact, you know what, if I start to think about that in terms of the health services, I have seen a really vast pickup also in the advertising in streaming services for that category as well. It seems like it's also moving into the podcasting space too.
- [02:54]
B
Bring us your money. We'll take it.
- [02:56]
A
Bring us your money. And then you had a quote from that report there.
- [03:01]
B
Yeah, this is a quote that I found interesting. It was quote, the top 500 podcasts accounted for 48% of spending of all spending during Q1. The advertisers investing an average of $364,000 per month on those shows. In the 500 podcasts ranked 501 to 3,000 generated an average of 43,000 monthly, illustrating the continuing revenue gap between top tier podcasts and the broader market. What they did not say was that most advertising is still CPM based. So yes, bigger shows will generate more revenue on average. Shocker. What they should have done is calculated the average revenue per thousand downloads. No impressions, but downloads, then looked at the top 500 versus the next tier of 501 to 3000. So for example, if show A has 100,000 downloads, this is just purely hypothetical, 100,000 downloads and made $100. But show B had 10,000 downloads, made $15. Show B actually had a better pay rate per thousand downloads than show A. So when they go and say, oh, the bigger shows had a higher average revenue, of course they did. The top 500 shows are going to be the top 500 income getters, just like the best five NBA players are going to make more money than the other players that are not as good. So I just thought that was misleading when they said the gap between the podcasts. Of course there's a gap when you look at it that way. There'll always be a gap when you look at it that way.
- [04:47]
A
Yeah, that's exactly why context matters. And there's more to the story than just a headline or a quote. So let's get into it. It's not just all the pieces. It shows the f in and around podcasting. Hey. Hey. Welcome to in and Around Podcasting, the podcast industry show that brings you a range of of powerful podcasting perspectives. I'm Elsie Escobar from Captivate, joined by Rob Walsh, vice president of Podcast Relations, as we dig into what's happening across the podcast industry this week.
- [05:30]
B
Good generic time of the day. Elsie, how are you doing?
- [05:33]
A
Oh, I'm good. But you have the season of the children are leaving the house.
- [05:41]
B
Oh, yes, yes. My youngest is now 18, teen. He's an adult. I no longer have kids. I have adults. It's weird to say that. Yes. So the youngest one graduated and we went off to Camp War Eagle, which is like the orientation thing where they separate kids in one group and the parents and the other way. And for the parents, they basically tell you over and over again, your kids are adults. Let go of them, stop driving the car and let them have their own life. And on the kids side, they get them over there and they go, 98% of the reason that we arrest people because they have the police come talk to them. 98% of arrests revolve around alcohol. Just keep that in mind.
- [06:24]
A
Wow. Okay. Getting them ready for life.
- [06:30]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Basically just saying to them, if bad things happen here on campus, it's probably alcohol involved.
- [06:38]
A
Oh my God.
- [06:39]
B
Or some other substance. Yes.
- [06:41]
A
Well, we. On that note, though, we had a question come in for to us from Threads and this is from Candice and she gratitudegeek. And she asked or she commented, slash asked, quote, I'd love to hear your take on my belief that someone should be a guest 10 times before launching their own show. Also, the importance of finding your podcast bff, end quote.
- [07:09]
B
Well, the latter part, finding your podcast bff, really important. Finding some other podcasters that you and I wouldn't say a single. It should be plural, should be BFFs. You need to find your tribe, other folks that you can communicate with, learn from, lean on. But you don't have to be a guest. I mean, you might not be a good guest and it might be your thing. You might not know people to even be guests, not even have what it takes to be a guest. Right. You might just want to do a solo show, or maybe you just want to do a show with your kid or your best friend or your spouse. Hopefully that the last two are the same. But it really just depends on what you're looking to do for a show. Is it a bad idea to be a guest on people's podcasts? Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, I'd recommend, if you're going to launch a podcast, that you try to be a guest on 10 podcasts just to promote your show. But I don't know if you have to do it before launching your show.
- [08:05]
A
Yeah, I was actually torn about that too, and also agreed the importance of finding your podcast bff. I think it's really. There is an element and something that I hear a lot, especially when we go into conferences. One of the sort of feedback that I see from community members once they come back is, I thought I was alone. It was so nice to Talk to other people that got it. Because you can talk about things that, you know, most people that don't get behind the mic don't get. And there's just like a lot of little things and it just makes you feel like, makes you feel like you're not alone. There's something really lovely about the podcasting space and it does make you feel like somebody's listening, because I remember that was the key thing, you know, like, did you hear my podcast? Or like, there's a, there's an element of each other's hearing your own shows to know that, that somebody's listening to you. And that's also another bit of it. So I think it is important to your point.
- [09:03]
B
Right. It's nice to have someone, when you're about to do an interview and you're starting out to go to a friend and say, hey, do you mind jumping on with me for 10 minutes so I can check out my recording setup and make sure everything's working right.
- [09:14]
A
Yep.
- [09:15]
B
I mean, you don't want to have to have another computer in the other side of the house that's in front of a television where you're setting that up and trying to communicate with the other computer just to record the television to see if everything's working, which can be done. But when you have someone else that can just jump on real quick with you, you get better feedback.
- [09:33]
A
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. That's like a great point. And in, in terms of the. That someone should be a guest 10 times, I think that if you're going to do like a, a little bit more of an interview show, maybe not 10 times, but being a guest, it will help you. I think understanding the flow is helpful. If you're having an interview show. I think that if you're having some like a co hosted type show, recording together or doing like a dry run would be kind of fun, you know, to just kind of get the kinks. It's kind of the same thing, getting the kinks out of the way, understanding the process. But there's a lot of folks that do the solo shows. That was where my first thought was when I saw that comment was, well, I mean, if I'm not talking to anybody, why would I, why would I want to be a guest? But I would want to be a guest if I'm promoting my show, you know, if I'm having conversations or if there is a conversation around the topic that I'm really good at or what my show is about or whatever, being able to just be on somebody else's podcast and talk about your show will actually help you be better at your show because you'll get clearer at being able to tell other people about it. And that's something that I think podcasters tend to not be the best at kind of talking about their show, promoting the show in a way that isn't just, hey, my latest episode is up, or because it's hard, it feels awkward to have to tell other people about your stuff. And the easier it it makes it for you when you're talking, the better you get as a marketer. You build skills of being able to naturally share your stuff with other people. So thank you, Candace, for doing that. And hey, if you want, if you guys have any questions or any comments or anything like that, you can always email communityaptivate FM and you can send us audio feedback there, or you can just write us an email and ask your questions or if you want us to get your take on something. So, Rob, there was this huge release and there was a big hoopla, at least on social. I don't know, have you seen anybody talk about this kind of thing here outside of social? And this was all around Google Search, as you know, it is over. And this is an article from TechCrunch, and this was talked about a lot.
- [12:03]
B
I've actually talked to people in Re, in irl, in the real world. Oh, whatever the acronym is for. In the real world. Irw.
- [12:11]
A
Irl.
- [12:11]
B
Yeah, yeah, irl. Okay. Oh, in real life. That's what it is. Okay. Anyway, outside of the interwebs where they have started to say that they've seen issues with their SEO strategy for their business because of all the people that are now just starting to search from Grok and ChatGPT or not even search, just ask. Right? Because a lot of times when you were searching, you were searching to find an answer to a question. And I personally go and go to GROK when I want an answer. If I want to look up who had the most home runs in the 1950s, I'm not searching that on Google anymore. I'm going to one of the AI agents. GROK is the one I pay for. My kid uses ChatGPT. But point is, my 18 year old, my 20 year old and me are using AI for most of our searches now. Especially when we're sitting around talking and someone goes, says something. And the other ones are like fact checking. We fact check each other in our household quite often.
- [13:13]
A
Of course. Of course you do. But it's like, okay, so part of what this is too because that was already a behavior that was happening with those agents with the Google search of it all here is that they are no longer going to be even when you're searching in Google. So like even when you're doing a Google searches, it's no longer going to give you just a list of websites that you click through. It's going to have as a sort of like a default that big summary at the top of the page and then it's going to have even more sort of like a quotes from those pages below that there's going to be like tiny little little squares of the sources. But if you have a follow up question, you're able to then easily have a follow up question right off of Google, like right at the top part and then it'll continue your conversation and give you the interface like that. So all of that obviously people are not going to be clicking through to those websites according to these implications. Right? Because now they're answering questions directly in there instead of sending people somewhere else. I think that part of the question here is that this is kind of forcing companies, blogs or creators to rethink how they attract people, period. Because like why would they want more from something? And according to the article on TechCrunch here, AI overviews are already being used by 2.5 billion monthly users. And Google's conversational AI search mode has over 1 billion monthly users. So this is within Google Straight, no other chats. And these are now no longer experimental. They're really becoming that default search experience. And that's been like my experience. And I have also shifted the way that I ask questions now. In fact, what I did just before we got on because I'm trying to find space on my computer here because I don't have too much memory on this computer and I'm trying to delete everything that I don't need. And I started to see that there were other users in here. Well, I have my kids on here, but they don't ever come on this. And I was thinking like, what if I delete their accounts on this computer? Not they don't really use this computer at all. Just once in a while they'll do. And I haven't. What. So all I did was go on Google and say like I literally said this, if I delete other users from my computer, will I that free up some memory? You know, And I just wrote all that stuff and it gave me the answer, you know, I didn't have to click anywhere to find the exact question that I was looking for at that
- [15:53]
B
time, the questions that we care about here, you know, at Captivate, is how do we optimize that for when people are searching for how to start a podcast, where to host a podcast, Right? So that becomes a question for us as business and then fraudcasters. How do you navigate in this new world for people to find your podcast? How do you optimize your podcast so that it's found by the bots?
- [16:18]
A
Interestingly, at the end of last. Was it in the end of last year? Yeah, it was like in, I think September or October, somewhere around there, I did a keynote for Latinas in podcasting. And my entire keynote was based on this and it was called Be the Answer. And because given what I had the research that I had been doing prior to that event and kind of like checking things out and getting a vibe as to where things were going on, the reason that I made that keynote that way is because what the algorithm is being weighed towards, or the answers are being weighed towards is not first party content, it's more like third party content. Which means that the authority, the expertise, the citations, the community and all of that is bubbling up based on somebody else's conversation about you. So it's not necessarily I am this person, but it's more Reddit conversations, Any kind of sort of like LinkedIn conversations. Anybody giving you as the answer, who is the one that talks about stats, it's Rob Walsh, you know, and if somebody else wrote about you as that, you will become a more authoritative answer. But it's not because you said you do that. And then what happens is the more people talk about you, the more people talk about the podcast, the more people talk about the service in third party places, comments on YouTube, stuff like that, videos that are not your, videos that are talking about a service are going to bubble up higher and then it's going to bubble those answers up. So that, that is really important to being discovered via Google. But then it also makes direct audience relationships really, really important, especially if there are no answers based. If your show is something people don't Google or don't search for, you need to really build an audience relationship via emails, via memberships, via meetups or communities or something like that, where you are actively seeking to connect with your people because they are the ones that are going to serve as the ones that are going to get you found.
- [18:41]
B
So it's almost like word of mouth marketing still.
- [18:45]
A
It's almost like word of mouth marketing, Rob. What?
- [18:50]
B
Word of mouth marketing. That's it. It's always Been it. Right? It's always been your audience telling people about your podcast.
- [18:58]
A
Absolutely. And you know, I think in that keynote too, one of the key things that I was trying to get across is that it's no longer just you. It's like it's a collective community. And as many times as we complain about, hey, you know, so and so podcast wasn't featured or these people really need more eyes on their stuff and they're not being seen. I think it's not necessarily up to just them, it's up to us. So if we love a podcast, if we really love work that a person is doing, that we feel they need eyes on their stuff. You need to write about them, you need to post about them, and you need to say their name fully. Rob Walch with a ch at the end.
- [19:46]
B
Yes, please, folks. C H. Yes, W A L C
- [19:49]
A
H. And write their whole name out there because that matters so much. Saying a full podcast's name in and around podcasting that is hosted by, you know, and then just added on it is really important because again, all of those little spiders out there and the, the robots are the ones that are reading all of this and it will allow for that authority to keep moving up. So if you can do anything nice like that for the people that you love, write a little post about them and say why they are great, it'll count a lot to marketing for them for sure. We have another huge deal. Spotify and Netflix this time got together and signed Jay Shetty in a hundred million dollar deal. Rob?
- [20:39]
B
Yeah, I mean, so let's see. Rogan's deal was supposedly worth 250 million. Alex Cooper's was supposedly on 125 million that she recently signed with Sirius XM. So that's obviously top tier numbers when we're talking whatever that is, nine figures. So first off to Jay, congratulations. From what we're reading, the show will move to Spotify. The video will move to Spotify and Netflix on July 13th. And older episodes clips will remain on YouTube, but no new episodes are going to be on YouTube anymore. So it'll be exclusive for video on those services, but audio will remain on the RSS feed. To everybody else, some of the other things here for the Shetty deal, this is from the article. The deal represents a bet that exclusive distribution on two of the world's largest entertainment platforms will grow his audience faster than the open distribution model of YouTube for Spotify and Netflix, it is a bet that signing premium creators away from YouTube is worth the cost. The outcome depends on whether audiences are willing to follow their favorite podcasters to wherever they happen to be, or whether YouTube's dominance and video podcasting is too entrenched to dislodge. So I went and I looked, right. So I looked at Jay's show. It's currently with Iheart, and his show is audio only right now at Apple and Spotify. And his rss, that's where his RSS feed is, you know, is applying to them. His video is currently just on YouTube and for videos that are one month old for his show, they're getting 300k to 500k views typically. But there are some spikes. There's a couple big guests that will top out here and there, over a million or 500,000. But the typical episode is 300 to 350k. So figure that's his core audience at YouTube and that's a big audience to ask to move to Spotify and Netflix. It's also estimated he has around 500k downloads per episode via the RSS feed, Apple, Spotify, overcast, all the others. So while the deal size is big and close to Rogan, the audience size is not really even close to Rogan's. Rogan's is multiple times that. It will be interesting to see how this deal work out for Spotify and Netflix. Again, to Jay, I say congrats, but Spotify and Netflix, especially Spotify, that's a lot of people they're hoping are going to move on a regular basis, 350k. And if he's got 500k right now on his RSS feed, he probably already has, let's say it's 20%. So 100,000 on Spotify are listening to his podcast somewhere around that. So that's going to bring his number up to 450k, they're hoping on Spotify or even 400k if some go over to Netflix. This all said, when Rogan made the move, his audience got bigger. So maybe it will. We'll see.
- [23:47]
A
Yeah, and I mean from reading this, and maybe I missed it, it's only really talking about the video. Am I right? Is the audio still going to stay?
- [24:00]
B
Yes, from what I've read is the audio remains on the RSS feed. It's just about exclusive on the video. Yeah. So video goes to Spotify and Netflix. No new video goes up on YouTube for full episodes. I don't know if he's allowed to put the audio up on YouTube. Probably can't. Probably. It's like no new episodes. That doesn't mean someone else won't take his audio feed and submit it into YouTube and some back channel, but the audio is going to remain on the RS feed is what it sounds like. So if you're on Apple podcasts and right now all you can do is listen because they're not doing the HLS there with the show, then it'll remain that way.
- [24:39]
A
Okay, so I did a little bit of homework on Jay Shetty a while ago, like a while ago, I would say four years ago, I did some work on, on some of these sort of wellness podcast people because I was creating a report for somebody and I'm just going to read you some of the stuff that I wrote about Jay in case you hadn't really thought thought about him before. First of all, Jay is an online business entrepreneur first the end the monk of it all is people don't even know if he actually really was a monk. It's like a big thing out there because it seems like he wasn't and he was working in marketing right around that time. He's always been a marketer, he's always been a business owner and he's very clear about all of his calls to action and have all and and when I did the research on a group of about 10 of the top podcasters out there, his activation strategy, marketing wise was on point like everything on YouTube. YouTube was probably one of his biggest what from what I could see from the outside in, even though people were, you know, you're looking at numbers, I was looking at the way that he laid out his calls to action in every single one of his videos. He always had it very, very clear. He has a text number that you can text subscribe and be part of the movement to make wisdom go viral. He was very, very clear about how to his community, he was one of the only people that wrote join the conversation by commenting below. He was super clear about that stuff. The YouTube channel at the time that I did this research was strategically organized, aimed at folks looking for solutions. So again they were, it was already set up to, you know, if you're having a hard time sleeping, if you're looking to optimize your health like it. It was aimed at that and all of the links on social that he had led to his podcast or other social channels, they were, you know, kind of mixed with each other there. He's really charismatic. He's a really skilled communicator. He really knowledgeable about digital media marketing and leads with mission. And I think that part of all of that is what's really Accessible with him. And he does Rob, I'm going to say it. He has pretty privilege. That man is gorgeous. He's very, very handsome. And I think that opened up a lot of doors for him because he's so good looking. Mind you, his show launched February 2019. He, at the time of the recording that I did this, he had, you know, 506 episodes. I'm sure he has a lot more. And those were all on his RSS feed. And he has published consistently two times a week from 2019. So that says something too. You know, it's. It's a lot. He actively pulls and engages his audience from the beginning. And so I think that this is a smart deal for Jay because I'm sure Jay already knows how to leverage the YouTube, how to leverage the calls to action, how to mobilize his audience to watch the show, and how to sort of make them feel okay that he's going to not be in YouTube at the time. So, yeah, that's just a little behind the scenes on all of this stuff about Jay.
- [28:03]
B
You know, if I ask Grok if Jay was really a monk, Grok says, yes. Jay Shetty has a genuine background connected to Hindu monastatic traditions primarily through is iskcon, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness or Hare Krishna movement. But he has significantly exaggerated the extent, duration and drama of his time as a monk with quotes around Grok. Put quotes around Monk, especially the narrative of spending three full years in an Indian ashram. So that's how Grok starts the answer.
- [28:44]
A
I'm just telling you, the tea. The. The gossip out there is that people are like, but hey, again, you know, he lives it in a way that you believe it. Because he's like I said, if he looks at you with those eyes and he says, I'm a monk, you're like, I believe you, sir. I believe you.
- [29:07]
B
Whatever his background is, it got him nine figures.
- [29:11]
A
Exactly.
- [29:11]
B
Kudos, dude, kudos.
- [29:13]
A
I know. Exactly. He totally did it. He did that thing. All right, so here's a post from Jim Louderback.
- [29:21]
B
Yeah, so Jim had a nice post on LinkedIn about YouTube and AI disclosure labels. Basically saying YouTube's Scarlet Letter. And from the post quote, YouTube's serious about labeling AI. The disclosure label is moving to a prominent new home directly below the video player, right above the description for shorts. It floats over the video, unquote. Oh, so you asked. You had some questions on this, right?
- [29:50]
A
Yes, I did. So I was trying to figure out, like, what the AI disclosure was. Right. So was it the file itself that has to be completely created by AI, as in like the file or partly. Or is it voices, voice, AI? Is it the visuals of AI? Because even in that same newsletter there is some bonkers data that 90 plus percent of all creators use AI. Of course, and I'm saying of course not in a sarcastic way, but because if you're using Descript, you're using AI. If you're using a phonic, you're using AI, you're using AI. If you use Cap Cut or you know, taking a picture of yourself with your phone, the phone has AI when you're taking a picture. So you're using AI. And I mean, YouTube itself is using AI. This story, we're going to talk about that later.
- [30:37]
B
But still, right? So I found in the article, quote, new algorithms will auto detect, quote, inside the significant photorealistic AI and apply the label automatically. This isn't about you using Adobe's tools to clean up your audio or any other tools for cleaning up your audio or video. From all I read it is about and I went out and did some other research. It's about the use of AI to generate the content from scratch. Content like that from Inception Point AI or the ads created for Spencer Pratt that are out there that have been viral. Someone's creating all those with AI. The Burner Banana ads are AI generated videos. If you've probably seen these videos before where this big dog is frightened by this little dog and jumps up on the couch and looks all freaked out, right? Because a chihuahua is barking at it or something and it's a big pit bull and it gets all scared. Those are things that are created by AI. And that's what they're trying to say is, hey, we're gonna, if it's short, we're gonna float an AI warning over the top or an AI label, not warning, AI label over the top. And if it's long form, we'll put it right below the video, above the description. And here's what I think is really interesting. A study from Smith iOS found that 52% of users disengage from AI content once they identify it. That is, once they realize they've been fooled, they go, oh well, move on. Right? Which means 52% will likely not even engage with it with the new labels in place. Because people do, you know, they want someone to believe in, not something to believe in.
- [32:20]
A
Yeah. And I think what I saw from the conversation on that newsletter, which is very good, by the way, some of the conversation in there is to already, you know, YouTube has a history on the other end. And the negative side of it, this, because I think this is positive. I would want to see this. I want to see the warning, I want to see it. But on the negative side, per YouTube, when YouTube takes something of yours down, when you get a strike off of something, when you have an entire channel taken away, when copyright things pop up, all of that is done by AI. Yes, yes, yes, it is as it is.
- [33:01]
B
As will this be, by the way. As will this be. This isn't human curators, this is algorithms at YouTube saying, oh, that's created by
- [33:10]
A
an algorithm, an AI. Yeah. So what happens is that happens and sometimes it's not the case. Right. I can't say if there's somebody creating something that's not AI that looks like AI, like, I don't even want to go to that place. But there must be a time when somebody's going to say, well, this is AI. And you're like, no, dude, that's like literally my face.
- [33:36]
B
I don't know what the medical condition is called, I don't know if it's hyper dexterous or whatever it is, but there are a certain number of people out there that are born with six fingers on each hand. Yeah, forget about doing videos on YouTube.
- [33:49]
A
I know, but like stuff like that, like where things could be taken away, you know, and what tends to happen again with YouTube is that you can getting a human to respond to your complaint or like to your resistance of, of whatever happened is hard.
- [34:12]
B
Here's something though. Jim had a nice FAQ section in there and one of those was, can creators dispute an incorrect AI label? And his answer was yes, creators can reverse an auto applied label through YouTube Studio. The exception is content made with YouTube's own AI tools, Vo and Dreamscreen, or content carrying C2PA metadata identifying it as fully AI generated, which activates a locked super glue mode that creators can't override. So if you are using YouTube's Studio tool for AI, then you can't change it. But it sounds like from what he's saying here is all you have to do in this case is you're not applying to the black box, you're actually going into the YouTube studio and you're removing, you're reversing the label that was put on that video. You're saying, no, this is real. So I think in this case they're letting humans actually do it themselves. Unless of course you use the tools that YouTube provided or it has some metadata identifying it as AI, in which case, once YouTube sees the metadata in there, it locks it, which just means that people are going to get smart about their metadata and before they upload it to YouTube and the people that are doing the AI creation are going to change it from it's fully AI generated to. Oh, this was created by human. Human created. This was by.
- [35:44]
A
With all of the weird words that
- [35:48]
B
are not words misspelled. Yes.
- [35:49]
A
Yeah, the misspelled bizarro looking words.
- [35:52]
B
Yeah. Who would have thought that AI is dyslexic?
- [35:59]
A
I mean, you're right. Like, why. Of all the things, how. Why is it so hard to just get some words spelled right?
- [36:07]
B
Did you see the ones that James put up last week?
- [36:10]
A
Yes, I did.
- [36:11]
B
Yeah. It said a California. It was California.
- [36:15]
A
Yeah. It was just like, well, why. I mean, why does it do. That's so bizarre. And if you try to correct it, it doesn't correct it. Like, because I've had that happen. I was futzing around, you know, I forgot what it was. It's one of the very first times that I was testing image creation with texts. And I very early on realized never to ask it to write text on top of a thing because it's gonna make weird stuff happen. And I just don't understand why. Like, I don't get it.
- [36:48]
B
So the title of today's episode is why is AI Dyslexic?
- [36:52]
A
Yeah, that's right. That's a good one. So I'm gonna share a tool with you, Rob, that I found.
- [36:59]
B
By the way, Jim, thank you for that nice post. And we'll have a link to it in the show notes and there's some good FAQ in there and other good information. So nobody knows video like Jim. I mean, he really is a legend. So thank you, Jim.
- [37:12]
A
I was so shocked. But it's this app called Podi Host. Okay. P O D D Y capital. H O S T A I Podcast generator. Okay. Don't tell them where it is, Rob. I don't want anybody to go looking for this or buying it for that matter.
- [37:28]
B
I can get 15% off.
- [37:30]
A
Yeah, yeah. Okay. I know you can turn any topic into an AI generated podcast with auto publishing, 50 plus AI voices and no recording required. Now here's the part that I literally had a heart attack. Look at the headlines. Record nothing. Publish everything.
- [37:47]
B
Record nothing. Publish everything. Great.
- [37:53]
A
Your voice, your topic. Zero recording.
- [38:00]
B
Wow.
- [38:01]
A
The podcast that runs itself. Invest once, broadcast forever.
- [38:08]
B
Oh, my gosh. I was interviewed yesterday on another podcast and the guy is in the AI world and he started talking about, oh, AI generated content. And I just said the best way to what I think the analogy I put in there was all this AI generated content coming in. It's horrible. Most of these people that are creating it are just doing it to trick people to actually click on the content. It's not by Taylor Swift, but it sounds like it. So people click and they get these downloads. And what they're doing is trying to create a lot of content over and over, tons of content, and get as many downloads as they can for that content. No care in the world that it. The people disengage quickly once they realize that it's AI. Right, 52% from that one survey. But even more than that, probably for podcast listeners. So what that means is there's no ROI for the advertisers. And if there's no ROI and these people know there's no roi, it's like shoplifting. It's hurting everybody else. It's bringing the CPM rates down in the podcast space. So if there's a big segment of this content that has no roi, that averages out and the advertisers over time, it pulls the CPMs down. So when people go, why do you care about AI slop? And why are you against AI Slop? To me, in my mind, it's shoplifting. It's the same reason I don't like shoplifters, because when I go to the store and I have to buy something, I have to pay more for that. Now when there's all this AI slop, the money I get to pay out to podcasters is less, and that the money I can make as a podcaster is less because of that. So that's why I care. That's my opinion.
- [39:48]
A
I understand the idea of this because it's not. Not aimed at podcasters, if you will, like people who want to create content for the love of content creation, because there's a lot of creators out there who love to do it. This tool is aimed at people who want to create content to make money, as a mechanism to make money. And you're talking about it from the perspective of the CPM model, like the ad, like podcast industry ways of making money. I think, I think that this product is aimed at folks that want to create an audio product to sell their thing, you know, like they don't have a microphone, they don't want to invest in recording, like, you know, a course, an audio course or something to leverage for themselves to sell their business, product, service, whatever, all that stuff. They don't want to invest any of that Time they want to get into podcasting, but they don't want to do all the work. So that. I think that's what this is the solution for. Although there's, like, a lot of people who I'm sure going to use this for. Not the power of evil. Right. But I think that the way that this was positioned, it's actually goes against everything that podcasting is. It's. It's backwards, like this other bullet, turn your expertise into an audio empire without ever hitting record. It's like it goes against everything that podcasting is, but wants to give a solution to people who don't know anything about podcasting. And they want one. And they don't want to talk, they don't want to record, they want. They don't want to do anything that's related to podcasting.
- [41:31]
B
Yeah, we won't put no link for the show notes on that one, folks.
- [41:35]
A
Speaking of AI, though, and YouTube, because we were still talking about this. So now YouTube just released this because we are recording the. Literally a week before you get this episode, YouTube added new podcast features. So the last time that you and I chatted, you said that YouTube was banking in on audio, that they were, like, investing more. That they were really investing more on audio, on the audio consumption of it all. And this kind of proves it. So it seems like new YouTube podcast features. This is for premium users, y'. All. They're getting some stuff out. One of them is that there's AI podcast recommendations. They will be. Premium users will be able to receive podcast recommendations, and the recommendations can be based on genres, current mood. I don't know how. I guess you can tell them you're feeling happy or something, or podcast users already enjoy.
- [42:32]
B
Measures the motion sensor in your phone. It sees how you're walking. Are you skipping? Are you walking kind of sluggish?
- [42:38]
A
I'm sure there's YouTube people out there who are like, oh, come on, guys. Because we don't use YouTube. Rob and I, I don't think. I mean, we use YouTube, I'm sure, but not in the premium way, the way that some people are. But anyway, they have auto speed. So YouTube is introducing auto speed features. The feature is designed to adjust playback speed automatically, which is. I'm not sure how that works, but hey, you know, YouTube says it. It adjusts speed during slower speech or information dense segments. I'm not sure if this is like the same way that podcast app works where you change it yourself, or if this is something that you choose auto speed. And then the AI decides, oh, they're droning on too long. Let's speed this section up.
- [43:23]
B
Come on, move along, move along, move along.
- [43:28]
A
I don't know. So that's a thing. And I guess that's great. I mean, there's. I'm sure there's some people who really love stuff like that. And we'll see how it works out on the go mode, which. Duh. New listening mode for premium users. So that includes controls for skipping forwards, skipping backwards and jumping to the next episode, which. I had no idea that wasn't a thing. So. Because that seems like basic.
- [43:53]
B
Yeah, I mean, you already on YouTube can double tap on either side and it'll move you back and move forward.
- [43:59]
A
Okay, so maybe it's like, you know when you have it in your pocket and you take it out and it's not the video, it's just a little tiny, like a tiny little player.
- [44:08]
B
Oh, maybe it shows up on the screen in the little. Yeah, the little preview.
- [44:12]
A
Yeah, I think that that's probably what it is. And it's. I like how it says it's designed for background listening. It's like as it went, like when you're running or commuting or multitasking. AKA what we've been doing for the next. For the past 20 years.
- [44:27]
B
20 years, yes.
- [44:28]
A
Yeah. So availability. So I guess auto speed and on the go mode are available now for premium users on Android. So if there are any Android premium users of YouTube that listen to this show, it would be amazing if you sent in some audio feedback as to what your experiences of these new audio centric features for consuming podcasts on YouTube. IOS support is planned for the coming months. And then some usage numbers that were shared by YouTube in that article from TechCrunch. Premium users watched more than 800 million hours of podcasts in April 2026. That's.
- [45:08]
B
Wow. Five episodes of hardcore history.
- [45:11]
A
I know. Yeah. Crazy. YouTube podcasts house more than 1 billion monthly active users. That's like a lot for context, like in terms of the YouTube of it all here. These are just features to improve podcast discovery and listening experience for users. So they're really banking on the fact that folks are requesting that they want to listen to a podcast while doing other things and have it be an easy thing to do while they convince
- [45:38]
B
everyone else to look at video. They in the background switched over and went after audio.
- [45:44]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's like, well, they're trying to own all the things. So there you have it.
- [45:48]
B
So we've been talking AI so. And I want to make sure, everyone's we're not anti AI. We're anti AI slop. I'm anti AI slop. I'm. I'll say that, but I'm not anti AI tools because you can use the tools to good things, right and help you and save you time and effort and that's what you need to look at. It's. It's not about the creation of the content but sometimes it's about the production or the post production work and things that you can do. So podsqueeze has some AI tools they announced end of last year called Pod Squeeze Audio Enhancer. It is an audio sweetening tool. From them they said quote it is designed to help creators improve the quality of sound recorded outside of the studio environment using AI. It is said to adjust for noisy environments, even volumes and low quality microphones transform poor quality audio into crisp balanced professional grade recordings unquote. And then another thing they said is quote the Audio Enhancer is being offered as a standalone, meaning users don't need a Pod Squeeze subscription to use. Users receive a free 30 second preview. If they're satisfied with the enhanced quality they can make a one time payment to download the full process file, no subscription required unquote. And I like that there is a preview to hear how good a job they did on cleaning up the audio and then you only pay if you want that to download that full file. That's nice you get to hear if hey did this work? Because there's a lot of different audio cleanup tools and some of them work really good for some people and not so good for other people depending on the situation. I did reach out to them to find out how much the fee is for the full file download as part of their site. Makes it look like it's free. But then the article I read that it it's there's a fee. They replied back with the following hey Rob, at the moment the price varies according to the duration of the file, but the best way for you to check it out is going to podsqueeze.com AI audio enhancer and uploading the file you'll get a free preview of 30 seconds plus the price of total conversion. So once you upload it that's when you're presented with the price of what it would be. And that was from Tiago there. So we'll have a link to the Pod Squeeze in the show notes and then continuing on this I got this yesterday, this email came in and this is from longtime friend of our podcasts in the past, Elsie and he reached out and said, hey Rob, I wanted to reach out because I've been building something and figured you'd appreciate the idea more than most given everything you've seen creators go through over the years. The thing that keeps nagging at me is what happens after an episode goes live, recordings done, editing's done, publishing's done. And then somehow podcasters become social media managers. And most of them, especially the indie folks, doing it for the love and not the money, just don't have the bandwidth for it. I've lived that myself running a small network on top of full time job. At one point I was literally tracking it all on Kanban board. So I started building and I'm going to assume this is now People. P I B B L People is a new tool for independent podcasters that automatically detects new episodes from your RSS feed and uses AI to generate social media posts for platforms like Bluesky, Threads, Instagram and LinkedIn and others. The idea is simple. You focus on making the show, People handles the promotion. There's a wait list Open now@people.net with PIBBL.net, with beta starting soon. The goal is to give creators their time back and let them focus on actually making the show. Not pitching you on anything, just wanted to get it on your radar while it's fresh. And honestly, your reaction means more to me than a lot of others would. Live long and prosper. Bill from Trek Geeks. Well, Bill Llap. And my reaction is I'm mentioning it, so I thought it sounded like a good idea because that is the tough part, right? You're done, it's 1:00am in the morning, you got your episode, and the last thing you want to do is then have to remember the next morning when you get up to do all the PR stuff or do it try to schedule everything at night. So this lets you do it automatic. So it'll be interesting to see how this works and you can again, folks, you can go to PIBBL.net and register to get on the wait list and we'll see. Hopefully. Bill, this works great and thank you for sending that along.
- [50:28]
A
Yeah, that's awesome. And hey Rob, you have some really good news. You have some news. Oh my God, yes.
- [50:35]
B
So I am very happy to announce one of our first sightings for the captivated marketplace. And that's Katie Sackhoff and her Battlestar Reactica podcast, which had over 1 million views and downloads in the first season, which ran from February to May of this year. So about three and a half Months it is where Katie and her husband watch Battlestar Galactica. Not a rewatch, but watch it for the first time. So what her reaction is what her husband's reaction is. So neither of them have ever actually watched it, even though Katie was on the show. We're going to be bringing Katie ads via our Dax US team and we're really excited to have Katie on board. And Katie sent us this quote. You want to read the quote from Katie?
- [51:16]
A
Yeah. Quote. I've always made it a priority to stay connected with fans, and podcasting has become one of my favorite ways to do that on a much larger scale. There's something incredibly personal about the medium. People aren't just tuning in for sound bites, showing up because they genuinely care about the conversation. That creates a level of trust and community that's really special. As the podcast continued to grow, it was important to partner with a team that understands creators, audiences, and where the space is headed. Dax Us and Captivate share that vision. And I'm excited to grow the shows in a way that feels authentic while creating new opportunities for the future. End quote.
- [52:04]
B
Yeah. So very excited to have Katie on board. If anyone listening is interested in bringing their show on board, email me. Rob Walch W a l c hlobal.com Happy to help you in it. And yeah, I love Katie. She's so nice. She's so sweet. And there are not many people that cross, you know, she's got the BSG world, she's got the Star wars as Bo Katan. So there's a lot of stuff that they're going to be doing videos for in the future. But right now they're on season two of Battlestar Galactica just kicked off season two and they're gonna have some celebrity guests. I have Trisha on Efling and other celebrity guests from BSG to sit down, do this reactionary video. So it's gonna be. I'm a BSG fan, so I'm all nerding out here.
- [52:53]
A
So anyway, it's a great, great show. It's like we need to do. I need to do a rewatch of that show. That was like, that show got me through. I like binge watched it, but it got me through when my kids were baby babies, like when I had a baby and then my other one was like a toddler. And I remember that I was watching that, I was like just binging on Battlestar Galactica and it was like, amazing. Yeah. Oh, yay. Congratulations to Katie and. And the Captivate team. And to you, Rob. Yay Yay, yay, yay. And continuing on with some flattering, here's our flattering ram. Okay, so this is somebody that I've been following on Social for a while. His name is Matthew Facchiani. I think. I think I said his name right. And he does have a podcast, although I haven't listened to his podcast. I have not listened to his podcast, I have not read his newsletter, but it is called Misinformation. I'll have a link in the show Notes, but I do follow him on threads. It's where I found him there, and his threads are so great. And I'm gonna read a little bit about him because I think that this really plays with the themes that we've been talking about in this episode overall. And this is a type of information that I think we are, is really important for us to know. So misinformation doesn't just spread because people are gullible. It spreads because it can exploit how all of us think, think. Our identities, our trust networks, and our mental shortcuts. Through Misguided, a podcast and newsletter, Dr. Matthew Facchiani explores why misinformation works so well and what we can actually do about it. Dr. Faciali is a social scientist at the Yale School of Public Health where he studies misinformation, trust and media literacy. He is also the author of Misguided, where misinformation starts, how it spreads, and what to do about it. Through his research, writing and public communication, he breaks down complex topics including misinformation, psychological bias, media and digital literacy, and science communication, turning evidence based research into practical strategies people can use in everyday life. He's very, very good. He just started to be on LinkedIn a little bit more. He started off, like I mentioned before, on threads, but the stuff that he writes is really on point and he's constantly sharing scientific like founded articles. And he really brings to light how this is kind of the kind of information that we really need to be, you know, ahead of because of the AI of it all in so many different ways, in the way that information spreads, misinformation actually spreads sometimes faster than
- [55:40]
B
truth, which is why free speech is so important. Because when speech of somebody is censored down, especially by the government, than misinformation could really spread. Read 1984, not a roadmap. Certain governments in Europe, I just want to say to certain governments in Europe, it's not a roadmap. 1984 is a cautionary tale, not a roadmap.
- [56:05]
A
Did you know, Rob? This is weird. I played O' Brien in high school.
- [56:10]
B
Did you really?
- [56:11]
A
I was O' Brien in high school in our production of 1984. That was my introduction to 1984, me playing O'. Brien. How about that?
- [56:19]
B
So you really know the storyline. Yes.
- [56:22]
A
You lived it, of all things. Could you have imagined, though? Could you have been like, Elsie, you would probably play o'. Brien. That's so, like, not the right casting, but I was one of the stronger actors, hence I was able to do it. So that was the. That was the thing. Anyway. All right, folks, thank you so much for listening all the way through. If you have anything to say, please email communityaptivate fm. Communityaptivate fm. I would love to hear from you, communicate with us, give us your feedback, give us your takes. And if you don't. If you don't want to email, you're welcome to respond to any of the posts that I have about in and around podcasting and get your feedback back to us. Thank you so much, everybody, and we'll chat with you in a couple of weeks.
- [57:10]
B
Ciao.