My six-month dive into podcasting’s very chaotic 12 months

That is Scorching Pod, The Verge’s e-newsletter about podcasting and the audio business. Enroll right here for extra.

Properly, it is a bizarre e mail to put in writing — at present is technically my final day at Scorching Pod. However you’ll nonetheless see my byline round once in a while as a result of I’m becoming a member of The Verge’s information group in November. Beginning subsequent week, the e-newsletter will fully be again within the very succesful palms of lead Scorching Pod reporter Ariel Shapiro. Though I’m unhappy to depart, I’m additionally actually excited to see her take the reins once more and proceed to churn out the protection that Scorching Pod is understood for. 

It’s most likely not a shock to most of you that I knew little or no about podcasts earlier than taking this job again in April — a time that additionally coincided with some seismic adjustments within the podcast business itself. Though my background is in tech reporting, I’m usually identified for writing tales like this and tales like this. Weirdly sufficient, I additionally lined Spotify’s acquisition of Podsights and Chartable manner again in 2019 for Engadget — a narrative that I’ve no reminiscence of truly writing. I realized a ton in a brief time period by counting on the work of my Scorching Pod predecessors, which embrace Ariel, Ashley Carman, and Nicholas Quah — in addition to the assistance of my editor, Jake Kastrenakes. However I additionally relied on the information and experience of quite a few Scorching Pod readers. So thanks in your assist over these previous a number of months — in addition to trusting me to inform your tales. 

A few individuals at Podcast Motion famous that the entire Scorching Pod writers have had very distinct kinds. Clearly, we’re all totally different individuals — however all of us took over throughout very distinct durations for the business at massive. For my part, Nicholas and Ashley lined the guarantees and failed hopes of the “golden” period of podcasting and the frenzy of dumb cash that made it doable. For me and Ariel, our problem appears to be the right way to doc an business that’s in the course of a contraction — but in addition determining the right way to survive and reinvent itself. 

Throughout the time I used to be in control of Scorching Pod, Spotify laid off a whole bunch and successfully killed its in-house podcast manufacturing models, Gimlet and Parcast. It appeared like each entity, from public radio to information publishers, made cuts to their podcast models. Firms folded, and left their creators hanging. The movie business successfully went on hiatus this summer time as each the unions for screenwriters and actors went on strike, which, residing in Los Angeles, I noticed firsthand. The lack of Hollywood advert {dollars} led to actual penalties for public radio — each WNYC’s president LaFontaine Oliver and former Southern California Public Radio chief Herb Scannell cited it as a think about layoffs. Just a few celebrities misplaced podcast offers — however it looks like every single day, a brand new well-known particular person will get a podcast. 

To that finish, it’s nonetheless a thriller to me why hottest podcasts received that manner. I don’t know why Joe Rogan’s weekly drop of three hours of unedited babble is at all times one of many high podcasts within the nation. I don’t know why so many individuals like Morbid or Alex Cooper. After I have a look at the highest podcast charts, I see a mixture of disposable true crime, information podcasts from main media shops like NPR or The New York Occasions, and buzzworthy celebrity-led efforts like Strike Pressure 5 or SmartLess or that one hosted by Taylor Swift’s boyfriend and his brother. However whereas the titles which have huge enchantment could also be a thriller to me, they clearly resonate with others.

I used to be heartened to see Heavyweight, a former Gimlet podcast hosted by Jonathan Goldstein and now made by Spotify Studios, do effectively now that it’s accessible broadly on all gamers — it at the moment ranks quantity 36 on Apple Podcasts. Nevertheless it was additionally type of shocking, provided that many interpreted Spotify letting go of Gimlet and Parcast as an indication that narrative podcasts had been over. I’m certain Goldstein’s ties to the early days of Gimlet and This American Life little question performs a think about its success. 

However on the finish of the day, I do suppose individuals nonetheless have an urge for food for good tales. It’s simple to overlook that, I assume, throughout an age the place “all the pieces is content material” and virality is the important thing to survival. The variety of views or streams on a video or information article or a publish usually looks like the one factor that issues. Whereas algorithms might be tweaked — I do suppose sure ideas are timeless. 

Can audio-only podcasts truly thrive on YouTube? Regardless of an ongoing effort by YouTube to cater to conventional podcasters this 12 months, the reply to that query remains to be unsure — and YouTube’s idiosyncratic strategy to adverts and RSS stays the large purpose why. 

Google sundown Google Podcasts this 12 months and introduced plans for these customers emigrate to YouTube Music, which is able to successfully double as each a video platform and a standard audio podcast participant by including RSS help later this 12 months. Many standard conventional podcasts have already made the transition to YouTube and YouTube Music, with very combined outcomes. 

Rob Walch, vp of podcaster relations at Libsyn, informed Scorching Pod that he seen a webinar on Thursday that YouTube Music hosted for podcasters. He stated that because the webinar progressed, a Slack channel he was part of for podcasters “full of expletives.” The general response was very adverse.

“Nobody I talked to goes to advocate [YouTube Music] to podcasters,” stated Walch. 

A sizeable dilemma for audio-only podcasts is how YouTube will deal with their adverts. Neither YouTube nor YouTube Music permits dynamically inserted advert spots. YouTube’s phrases of service explicitly state that podcast content material can’t comprise advert codecs that compete with YouTube’s personal. Technically, there’s an exception that applies for host-read adverts or baked-in adverts — podcasters can disclose them by checking the paid promotions field. However even when podcasters are in a position to hold their authentic adverts, YouTube will nonetheless run its personal adverts towards the movies, splitting income with the creator, relatively than the dynamic ones a podcaster might want served and that might pay out solely to themselves.

“No one will settle for adverts on their content material that they haven’t any management over,” stated Walch. 

It’s not a shock to many within the podcast business that “placing your podcasts on YouTube” is tougher than it sounds. “It’s at all times been a little bit unusual to me that individuals perceive that video-only platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok work in basically other ways, and that content material between them is just not interchangeable, however nonetheless anticipate podcasts to routinely work on YouTube,” famous Bikram Chatterji, CEO of Most Enjoyable in an e mail to Scorching Pod. Max Enjoyable has experimented with placing a few of its podcasts like FANTI on YouTube however notes that YouTube’s apply of inserting its personal adverts “may very well be an issue” for them on YouTube Music. 

There’s a rising sentiment within the podcast world that YouTube’s podcast imaginative and prescient is (maybe unsurprisingly) designed for video-first content material creators. The corporate’s messaging doesn’t jibe with the day-to-day actuality of most individuals who make audio-only podcasts, in addition to the quite a few internet hosting, distribution, and monetization providers that kind the normal podcast ecosystem in place for many years. Surveys from Edison Analysis and others that concluded that YouTube was the primary platform for listening to podcasts did not seize what sort of podcasts these individuals had been listening to.

Scorching Pod reached out to plenty of totally different podcasts and podcast networks to see what their plans had been for YouTube Music. Some nonetheless plan on making their podcasts accessible on YouTube and YouTube Music, if just for discovery functions. Others are taking a “wait and see” strategy for now. 

“We now have requested for more information, and gotten little or no so removed from our YouTube rep,” wrote The Vergecast’s supervising producer, Liam James, to Scorching Pod in a Slack message.

The Vergecast solely makes use of YouTube’s adverts for now — however needs to finally bake adverts into its movies. The podcast solely began publishing on YouTube to start with of the 12 months. “Proper now we make peanuts on YouTube. It’s a loss for us general however we’re it as an funding,” wrote James. 

Betches Media plans to place its audio-only podcasts on YouTube Music when it rolls out RSS ingestion. “We see any new distribution platform as a possibility to succeed in new audiences, however as YouTube’s technique turns into clearer, we’ll proceed to judge and see what is correct for Betches and our podcast community,” wrote David Spiegel, chief income officer of Betches Media, in an e mail. Betches at the moment depends on YouTube to run pre- and mid-roll adverts. 

“Whereas YouTube’s determination to not permit podcasters to monetize their adverts instantly isn’t what we’d favor, it isn’t shocking in any respect, on the finish of the day, proscribing podcaster’s capability to monetize will have an effect on their curiosity in selling the platform,” famous Spiegel. 

However the challenges with YouTube Music and RSS ingestion — in addition to YouTube and podcasts extra broadly — transcend simply adverts. 

“YouTube makes use of a distinct language than us,” Bryan Barletta, the founding father of podcast analysis group Sounds Worthwhile, informed Scorching Pod. 

One instance: when YouTube talks about podcasts on YouTube, what it’s speaking about is a cached video that’s audio-first that may have a full video part or static video. And even when YouTube provides RSS help, it gained’t work as a standard podcast participant. “They’re pulling out of your RSS feed, caching it, so it’s one name from YouTube and that’s it,” stated Barletta. 

If a podcaster needs to alter the audio after an episode is revealed, they solely must replace the audio file on their internet hosting platform — which routinely carries over to all podcast gamers. Besides, it seems, for YouTube. Podcasters must manually replace the audio on YouTube Studio. 

Listener stats are one other concern with YouTube podcasts. In a video titled “Why YouTube Music ingesting podcast RSS feeds may very well be an enormous mess,” Justin Jackson, the co-founder of internet hosting platform Transister.fm, highlights a few of these issues. Every time a listener presses play in a podcast participant like Spotify or Overcast or Apple Podcasts, it requests the RSS feed from a internet hosting platform. Internet hosting platforms, due to this fact, maintain a ton of information on who listeners are and the place they’re coming from. However YouTube is doing one thing very totally different from different podcast gamers in that it’s going to actually host the audio — as a substitute of redirecting listeners to the internet hosting platform. 

This additionally means internet hosting platforms gained’t have the ability to entry any of a podcast’s YouTube listener stats. Whereas it’s true you can see listener stats on YouTube Studio, the information supplied by internet hosting platforms is rather more detailed. 

“This may make it tougher for podcasters to research the place their listeners are coming from, which episodes are hottest, and the way episodes carry out over time,” wrote Jackson in an e mail. 

Jon Stewart and Apple are reportedly parting methods over inventive variations, together with the host’s intention to cowl matters akin to AI and China. I’ll be curious to see what occurs with the podcast, contemplating it carried out so a lot better than the TV present. 

Talking of former Every day Present hosts, Trevor Noah’s podcast on Spotify is ready to launch on November 9. The present, which is hosted and distributed by Megaphone, can be launched throughout podcast platforms as a part of Spotify’s shift away from exclusivity.

Audioboom remains to be making offers, asserting yesterday that it has signed unique partnerships with Ladies Subsequent Stage, The Bulwark Podcast, We’re Right here to Assist, and Out of the Pods.

On October 26, Serial will debut The Children of Rutherford County, a brand new investigative podcast that examines how a juvenile courtroom in Tennessee abused its energy. The present was produced in partnership with ProPublica and WPLN Nashville Public Radio, and is hosted by WPLN reporter Meribah Knight.

Suge Knight is making a podcast from jail, and in line with TMZ, it’s all about private beef. 

Triton launched its September podcast rating, with Dateline NBC ranked primary. Two caveats to the rating, which is that NPR is excluded briefly due to an information migration. The second is that it additionally doesn’t embrace Spotify podcasts, so Joe Rogan (the true primary) is just not on there.

Spotify stories earnings on October 24, and can be adopted by Cumulus Media on October 27 and SiriusXM on October 31 (spooky!).