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New Apple Categories Live | “TiVo Guilt” Comes to Podcasts

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Welcome to Season 2, Episode 4 of The Jag Show Podcast.  The biggest story in the podcast world this week is Apple finally rolling out their new categories.  I’m here to tell you what that means to you, but first let me say this. DON’T WORRY and DON’T FREAK OUT.

According to Jacobs Media, 70% of podcast discovery is via social media, word of mouth, or other podcasts.  True, some discovery comes from browsing categories, but it’s not that big a slice of the pie. So if you don’t update your categories immediately, or if the new categories aren’t a perfect fit for your show, don’t sweat it.  Yes, you want every opportunity to bring in new listeners, and you should make your adjustments sooner rather than later. But you don’t have to drop everything you’re doing right this second and change your categories.

When you are ready to make the changes to your categories, it should take you all of 5 or 10 minutes.  Go into your podcast host and your show settings. And simply choose up to three categories that best fit your show.  I’ve got a link to a video from Dave Jackson in the notes that shows how to do this in Libsyn and the Blubrry Powerpress plugin.  I did this for my clients this morning and had them all finished, and emails sent out before 9am.

The other topic I want to cover today is something once known as TiVo guilt.  As DVR’s came to prominence 10 to 15 years ago, all of a sudden television watching changed.  DVR’s are much easier to use than a VCR (and they don’t blink 12:00 all day). However, this ease of use meant we started “taping” everything. If a show even looked mildly interesting, we could add it to our queue with only a few button pushes.

A psychological phenomenon was soon developed, known as TiVo guilt, or later DVR guilt. People started becoming stressed out over a mounting backlog of shows to watch.  In fact, a quick Google search reveals a CNN article from back in 2008 talking about the stress and guilt of having a seemingly endless backlog of shows that you won’t be able to watch, but can’t bring yourself to delete. I’ve linked to that piece in the show notes.

Well, podcasting has now done for radio and audio what the DVR did for TV. We have an endless amount of content to consume, on demand.  According to Edison Research’s infinite dial survey, most podcasts are consumed within 48 hours of download. And topical ones, often related to news or politics, have a limited shelf life.  Evergreen ones often fall to the back burner.

For me, I listen to The Daily from the New York Times every morning – or at least within that 48 hour window.  If I don’t, the content is no longer timely. I’m also a faithful listener of Pod Save America, which generally comes out twice a week.  My political lean is close to that of the hosts, they’ve got great inside knowledge, and I enjoy their personalities. But the problem is, each episode runs around 80 or 90 minutes. That’s a huge time commitment, and I don’t want to fall behind.  So I’ve begun listening to that show at 1.5 times speed in my Apple Podcasts app. It’s a little bit rushed, but I can still understand everything, and I now only have to commit an hour to it, usually while I’m in the car. So I’m still consuming it, but a bit rushed.

The podcast that’s most likely to fall victim to my guilt and time crunch is the NBC Sports Boston breakfast pod.  I grew up in Boston and still follow the New England teams. This podcast is a 15 minute re-packaging of the best 5 minutes on each team from the previous night’s TV sports talk show. 

I work from home, so my time to listen used to be when I would walk my dog in the morning. And lately, my wife has been getting up early to walk the dog with me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to spend some time together at the beginning of the day.  But with less time to myself, there’s less podcast consumption time. And with summer being the lightest time of the year for sports, and this year’s Red Sox team struggling, I’ve got less interest in the subject matter. (And no, I’m not complaining – I know it’s been an incredible 20 years for Boston sports, including the fact that the BoSox are the regining World Series Champs.)

But here’s one other factor.  The production on this podcast is somewhere between average and below average.  The introduction for the show is usually voiced by a producer who doesn’t have much “on air” training.  And the transitions between segments are often sloppy because they are trying to overlap the podcast transition music with the bumper music from the TV feed they are pulling from.  It’s both frustrating and distracting.

Here’s the moral of the story. As more and more people discover podcasts and shows they like, you’d better make sure your content and your production are top notch. Otherwise, when that podcast library starts to fill up, your show may not make the cut.

As always, thanks for listening to this episode of The Jag Show podcast.  You may have noticed we have a new logo. Thanks to Karolyn and Tim at The Promotions Guy in Royal Oak Michigan for creating that for us. I try to keep this show weekly and very short, so that you can consume it quickly and NOT add to your podcast “TiVo Guilt.”  If you learned something today, feel free to subscribe to The Jag Show in Apple, Spotify, Google, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, or Stitcher, and until next time….lata! 

Mentioned in today’s show:

2008 Article on TiVo Guilt

How To Video for Changing Podcast Categories:

 

New York Times Hits, Apple Hits Back, and The Podcast World Comes to Detroit

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Welcome to Season 2, Episode 3 of The Jag Show Podcast.  Today we’re going to take a quick look at three of the big podcasting stories of this week.

First, the podcast world was all atwitter, pun intended, over Thursday’s New York Times article by Jennifer Miller, entitled “Have We Hit Peak Podcast?” If you wanna read it, you can visit the link below in my show notes.  In the article, Miller profiles Morgan Mandriota and her advice podcast she quit after recording 6 episodes in a public library. The Times piece highlights, quite frankly, the bush league side of podcasting. Many podcasters do shows as a vanity project, or a poorly conceived “get rich” scheme.  Most of these folks fall victim to podfading, the industry term for flaming out after a few episodes. Either podcasters are surprised that sponsor dollars aren’t falling from the sky, or they discover that producing a show is much harder and more labor intensive than they appreciated.

The reaction in the podcast world to this Times piece was both swift and wicked. Medium writer Air-nandez said, quote, “Those bandwagoner podcasts are just drops in this gigantic ocean of sounds. They’re one offs. You won’t know about that bro’s bro-cast ever again.” Ed Ryan, editor in Chief of Radio Ink Magazine and host of the show “Podcasting for Radio dummies” also had a great analogy.  Radio is 100 years old, and podcasting is just hitting puberty.

Here’s my issue with the Times piece.  The New York Times is behind one of the most successful podcasts ever – “The Daily,” with, by some estimates, more listeners each weekday morning than the Times ever had paper subscribers.  To gloss over the well researched, highly produced successful shows to talk about the people who never made it – it just doesn’t make sense.

As I’ve said before, my two biggest podcast tune-out factors are poor audio and pointless banter.   Many podcasters fall victim to this, and according podcast host Blubrry, less than 20% of the 700,000 podcasts out there are still creating new episodes. The moral of the story.  If you commit to a show, spend time prepping the audio and the content, and give the show value for a listeners, you’re already light years ahead of the pack.

Next, Bloomberg reported this week that Apple has been reaching out to media companies about creating podcasts that are exclusive to Apple’s platforms. Now, Apple has long been the dominant player in the podcast field, but their market share has dropped from over 70% down to around 60.  Spotify has emerged as the clear #2 in the space, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in companies involved in every step of the podcast creation process. They’ve also inked deals with some very big names like Jemele Hill, Amy Schumer, and a little family named the Obamas.   

While Spotify, now at 10% market share, has a long way to go, they are making enough noise for Apple to react. Some industry speculation is that Apple is looking to leverage content deals for its new Apple TV plus platform, which you will no longer need a physical Apple TV box to access.  But the real question in the emerging field of podcasting remains, can you silo certain shows to only one podcast app? Also, does that lend itself to a subscription model? We all saw the backlash over Luminary’s disastrous rollout. Traditionally, podcasts have been free to consume on multiple applications.  And the field is too new to know how Apple’s latest move will play out.

Finally, a shoutout to my adopted home of Detroit.  The podcast world came to the Motor City this week for Podfronts, the podcast industry’s version of television upfronts. Representatives from Wondery, Cadence 13, iHeartRadio, NPR, ESPN, Stitcher and more were all here to preview upcoming shows.  Why Detroit? Because podcast listening in the car is still huge. And you’d better believe that GM, Ford, and Fiat-Chrysler are paying attention.

Hope you enjoyed this episode of The Jag Show Podcast. If you did, please, share a link with a friend or on social media so we can grow our audience.  You can also subscribe to the show in Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, TuneIn, or iHeartRadio. And until next time…lata!

Radio Vs Podcasting – How One Opened The Door For The Other

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Radio Vs. Podcasting

Listen in Apple Podcasts

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 2 of the Jag show.  The intro probably gave this away, but I spent the first decade and half of my career working in radio.  Because of this, people often ask me, “What Happened to Radio?”

First a couple disclaimers.  I love radio. To paraphrase Sammy Sosa, radio has been very very good to me.  It brought me all over the country from Vermont to Detroit, to New Orleans, back to Detroit.  And it was in Detroit that I met my wife. I’ve also experienced the adrenaline rush of being on a stage pumping up thousands of people. And I met my holy trinity of three artists on my bucket list.  Steven Tyler, Carrie Underwood, and Bret Michaels. One is my favorite artist of all time, one is my celebrity crush, and the third…was my late best friend’s favorite band. I still have the video of Bret dedicating “Something to believe in” to my buddy Bill’s memory, with me standing side-stage.  Most people don’t get to experience these things, and I consider myself very lucky.

Also, I have a number of close friends and professional contacts who still work in radio and love it. I have nothing but the utmost respect for them and the talented work they do.

Radio’s been around approximately 100 years, and in that time, it’s withstood an onslaught of challenges, from television to the early dates of the internet.  But if you think that radio is the same as it was when I started my professional career in 2004, you are sadly mistaken. And there are two reasons why.

What Had Happened…

Personality

The first is personality.  Ask any American over the age of 50, and they’ll remember the names of their favorite radio personalities from growing up – names like Cousin Brucie, Wolfman Jack, Larry Lujack, John Records Landecker.  Yes, radio is where people consumed music, but it was the personalities that really made it come alive.

The PPM – Portable People Meter

Well, over the course of the 21st century, a few things happened.  First, radio ratings methodology changed. In the old days, select listeners would be paid to fill out a diary.   It didn’t matter if they were actually listening to you, but if they THOUGHT they did, and wrote you down, you got credit.   It was all about recall. But technology changed, and the Portable People Meter was developed. This was a device that users would wear like a beeper, and it would pick up a special signal, and track your actual listening minute-by-minute.  With more accurate data, ratings changed immensely.

Think about how you listen to the radio in the car. If you’re like most people, you don’t spend 5-10 minutes on every station – you mash those preset buttons frequently. So when the data came in, radio program directors saw how quickly listeners would tune out DJ’s who talked on and on.  

Now, the flaw in this logic is that all DJ’s get tuned out.  Turns out, listeners only change the station when the DJ isn’t compelling.  So even the talented DJ’s were scaled back, and at one extreme point in time, we were told not to talk for longer than seven seconds at a time – roughly the attention span of a goldfish.  And so, longer-form personality was relegated to where you find it today- around the clock on news, talk, and sports stations, and only morning shows on music stations. Making the rest of the day into a jukebox seemed like a good idea at the time, but then ipods, Pandora, Spotify, and others came along.  As access to these platforms grew, listeners realized “Why would I listen to someone else’s playlists, with commercials, when I can listen to one I created myself?” Radio had lost the key element that distinguished it as a medium.

Consolidation

The other big factor in radio opening the door for podcasting was corporate consolidation.  In 1996, Congress and The President passed the Telecommunications Act, which relaxed ownership restrictions in media.  While its intent was to foster competition, its effect was to create corporate behemoths that could overpay for radio stations and build massive companies.  The largest of these, ClearChannel, owned over 1,100 radio stations at its peak. Remember, this was the economic boom of the 1990s….then the economy changed.

When the downturn happened, these large companies owned many small properties that were not profitable. They had to make cuts.  And this isn’t to unfairly blame the corporations; it’s just basic economics. If you own radio stations in New York City and Burlington, Vermont, you’re going to care a lot more about the properties charging thousands of dollars for 60 seconds commercial than you are the properties that charge 30 bucks for the same spot.   Companies shifted resources to larger markets, and the cuts came to smaller markets.

Soon, the practice of “voice tracking” began.  As network technology improved, DJ’s in one market could record shows to air in another market with relative ease.  Many local radio hosts were victims of cuts – some replaced by voicetrackers and some by nationally syndicated radio hosts like Elvis Duran, Ryan Seacrest, and Mario Lopez.  

Appeal of Podcasting

During all of this, podcasting was growing, and it’s really taken off over the last two years.  A number of former radio DJ’s have begun their own shows, unencumbered by time and content restraints.  Those who had a large audience and social media following have been able to bring their audience over. Smart current radio DJ’s do podcasts to supplement their show.  1) It’s a way to connect with your audience on demand and 2) it’s a nice insurance policy if you were to be the victim of tomorrow’s budget cuts.

What’s Next?

Radio is starting to figure it out.  All of the major radio companies have invested in podcasting, and NPR has long been a leader in the field.  But the most telling sign? When I went to the giant Podcast Movement convention last summer – every big company was there to learn about podcasting.  And one of the happy hours was sponsored by….iHeartRadio, the company ClearChannel became.

So what does all this mean for podcasting? Well, 15 years ago, guys like me had to cut our teeth in small markets, like Burlington Vermont.  Most of those jobs no longer exist. So podcasting, with its low barrier to entry, may become the new farm system for radio. And that’s why, if you can demonstrate talent and personality, you could find your way to a paid gig down the line.  When it comes to podcasts, radio, is….well….listening.

But as a longtime lover and employee of radio, I also wonder what all this means for radio. For a long time, I believed that the keys to radio’s success were two-fold.  Bring back the personality, and let smaller ownership groups take back control. These would be groups that are in the communities they serve, and can invest in those stations, because their responsibility is to those cities, not to corporate stockholders.

Two Stories that Scare Me As A Radio Fan

95 Triple X

But two stories over the last 6 months have caused me to question my theory.  First, the owner of the second station I worked for in Vermont, 95 Triple X, sold the property late last year.  This was a mom-and-pop station, where the owner was down the hall, and I was on a first name basis with him.  Paul owned the station outright, and had live DJ’s from 6am-10pm every weekday. He decided, late last year, that it was time to walk away. He felt the economics of owning a radio station were no longer to his advantage, and was approaching retirement.  So he sold his two stations – one FM and one AM, to another radio company in town.

The AM station has only a live morning show as it did before, but the FM station is a shell of its former self. They now run syndicated programming in morning drive and nights.  The station, once always live and local, now only has bodies in the studio from 10am-7pm.  

Then, last week, the story of Loren and Wally at WROR in Boston.  When I was 8 years old, I would call them and tell them dirty jokes. It was a fun “bit.” More importantly, L&W showed kindness to an awkward 4th grader who didn’t have many friends, but loved radio.  They invited me to co-host with them over the summer when they did the show live from a PGA event in nearby Concord. The picture is the featured image for this podcast and blog post. Ever since that first taste 30 years ago, nobody’s been able to pry the microphone from my hands.  Next, I did the PA announcing for my high school’s football and basketball games, majored in Broadcast Journalism at Syracuse University, earned a living as a radio DJ, met my wife, and started my own podcast company. None of that would have been possible without the generosity of Loren and Wally.

Loren and Wally:

Loren and Wally started in Boston in 1981, several months after I was born.  Wally retired 2 and a half years ago, but Loren continued the show. He and Beasley media, the parent company of the station, were unable to reach an agreement on a new contract.  So they told him Friday would be his last day.  No big sendoff (though, I don’t know if he’d have wanted one), just good-bye. He read a statement on the air just after 7am, which may have had to go through lawyers first – I’ll link to the video in the show notes.  Wally rejoined him for a couple minutes of reminiscing, and that was it. Now, many DJ’s don’t get to say goodbye, so at least he got that.

But in the final show, they reminisced about the glory days of radio with big promotional budgets. Loren and Wally raced each other around the world twice, had a station helicopter, and rented the Concorde to chase Hailey’s Comet. The stories were insane.   Now, nobody expects those types of budgets in a world of fragmented media consolidation. And I don’t know what the negotiations were like behind the scenes. Maybe Loren had unrealistic demands, but I doubt it. Even Wally said, on the air, “this shouldn’t be happening.” But after 38 years, Loren deserved better. And radio does too.  

Hope you enjoyed Episode 2 of Season 2 of the Jag Show Podcast – I hope to start turning out episodes more regularly so feel free to subscribe in Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts. And feel free to share this episode on social media if you think others in your network will enjoy it.  Speaking of social, you can follow me on all platforms at JAG in Detroit, or visit my website at JAG in Detroit dot com.

Additional Resources:

Final Loren and Wally Show (Podcast) – Loren’s thank you begins at 11:05.

Video of Bret Michaels dedicating “Something to Believe In” to my buddy Bill Leaf.

Meeting my “Holy Trinity” of celebrities (Pic)

Podcasters: Don’t Panic over Apple’s Changes

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This week, at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2019, Apple announced several changes to iTunes and Apple Podcasts.  They are worth noting, but they are not worth panicking over.

iTunes For Mac is Being Split Up.

If you are a Macintosh computer user (as opposed to Windows), you will no longer use iTunes as your app for all things audio.  Later this year, iTunes will be split into three separate applications – Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts.  If you have an Apple device, such as an iPad or iPhone, you’ve already seen this change.

If you are a Windows PC user, your iTunes application will remain unchanged, at least for now. Nothing to see here.

Apple Podcasts Categories Are Changing.

This is the only item that may require action on the part of podcasters.  Apple is changing some of their podcast categories later this summer.  You can see a full list of what to expect here.  I don’t recommend changing your categories in Apple’s Podcasts Connect portal just yet; we don’t have a release date on these changes.  Also, you may remember, several months ago Apple threatened to kick out podcasts that had episode numbers in their titles. They backed off this threat within 48 hours; the backlash from the podcasting community was both swift and fierce.

Apple is already taking some heat for this latest move.  James Cridland, editor of the industry trade Podnews, wrote a piece for Medium.  In it, Cridland takes Apple to task for thinking they control the industry. While they are still the dominant listening platform (at about 62%), that share is shrinking.  So, we will wait to see what kind of rollout, if any, these new categories get.

New Search Enhancements For Podcasts Are Coming.

There’s also some good podcast news coming out of Apple’s WWDC.  In their Tuesday email to podcasters, the company announced the ability to search for shows by “transcripts, topics, and people.” They mentioned availability for top English podcasts soon, with more to follow.  Again, however, the announcement is short on both details and timeline.  If Apple can create automated transcripts of your show, and have your content be searchable, that would be a game changer.  But for now, we are left wondering if, how, and when.

Bottom Line:

We will see if Apple actually follows through with these new features, and if so, when.  For now, keep an eye out for an announcement regarding actual category changes.  When they roll out, you may need to make a couple of minor tweaks within Apple (I will help my clients with this).  But for now, exhale.

Email from Apple:

Below is the email sent to all podcasters from Apple on Tuesday night:

Dear Podcast Provider, 

To improve your experience with Apple Podcasts, we want to share the following information and updates announced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2019. 

Apple Podcasts for Mac
Apple Podcasts for Mac will launch this fall. Members of the Apple Developer Programcan preview the new Apple Podcasts for Mac now. Apple Beta Software Programmembers will have access this summer. 

Search Enhancements
Apple Podcasts will allow listeners to discover shows based on audio transcripts, topics, and people. Moreover, show and episode pages will display images of hosts and guests. 

These features will first be available for selected top shows in English; more shows will be added later this year. Sign in to Podcasts Connect, if needed, to review the latest Terms of Service in order for your show to be eligible. 

Apple Podcasts Categories
Later this summer we’re adding top-level categories such as Fiction, History, and True Crime — as well as dozens of new subcategories. See the updated list of supported categories in Podcasts Connect Help. 

Here are some scenarios to help you understand if you should consider updating your show’s category:

  • New categories. We’ll be introducing new top-level categories such as Fiction, History, and True Crime. Additionally, dozens of new subcategories will be available. For example, Fiction > Drama.
  • Renamed categories. For clarity, some categories will be renamed. When possible, shows will be mapped to the updated category or subcategory value upon launch. For example, Sports & Recreation > Outdoor will become Sports > Wilderness.
  • Discontinued subcategories. Some subcategories will be discontinued. Shows with a subcategory that will no longer be available will still retain its top-level category. For example, Sports & Recreation > Professional will be displayed as Sports until a new subcategory value is added to the RSS feed.
You can make changes to your show’s category now, and they’ll go live on Apple Podcasts later this summer. Contact your hosting provider for further support in implementing the updated Apple Podcast categories within your RSS feed. 

Explore Resources and Help to stay up to date on the above developments. 

Regards, 
The Apple Podcasts team

How To Make A Podcast Ad – and How NOT To

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Ways To Make A Podcast Ad?

Truthfully, there are a number of ways to make a podcast ad.  You can insert a prerecorded, already-produced commercial in your show. And if you can make money doing it, great!

You can read a script verbatim from a commercial sponsor. Again, if you can make money at it, well, vaya con dios.

The the truth is, however, the most effective podcast ads are the same as the most effective radio ads – the live read, or endorsement. This is when the host tells you, in his or her own words, about a particular product, service, or establishment. Audio is an intimate medium; think about how connected you felt to your favorite morning show personality when you heard them on the school bus or in the car.  If that trusted voice tells you about a company, it will carry much more weight than the guy from production reading a script. (I should know, I read many scripts in my various off-air roles in radio.)

Why Advertise on Podcasts?

Edison Research’s annual Infinite Dial for 2019 shows that more than half of podcast listeners are at least somewhat more likely to consider a brand advertised on a show.

podcast ads
Data via Infinite Dial – Edison Research and Triton Digital

The Good: Pod Save America

One of the podcasts I listen to regularly is Pod Save America, narrated by former Obama staffers. They comment on our current politics and what’s going on in DC.  I enjoy their perspective because they’ve all worked in the White House. As a podcast producer though, I was very impressed by the commercials.  This is a long show, usually about 90 minutes.  There is a presenting sponsor at the beginning, Ziprecruiter.  And there are two commercial breaks within the show – with 2-3 ads each.  These are for national companies like Stamps.com, the Cash App, and Quip.

These ads are all recorded ahead of time, but they are done so by the show’s hosts.  At first, I was picturing mortified PR people at these companies.  The guys were joking about President Trump needing Ziprecruiter to fill all the vacancies in his administration.   They were yelling at each other over who needed to be reimbursed for pizza with the Cash App.  Anything goes in these ad-libs except, apparently, Game of Thrones spoilers. That’s what got them the most backlash.

Why would these companies allow the hosts to clown on their products, sometimes even making fun of the copy in front of them?  Two reasons.  1) With custom URL’s and tracking, they can clearly see the ROI from the ads.  People are buying the products.  2) The content is compelling.  Like a DVR, you can very easily skip over ads in a podcast.  Click +30 a few times, and you’re good.  But when the content is new, and entertaining, sure, I’ll listen to an ad.   And with their Cash App ads, every listener download of the app turns into a $5 donation to Pod Save America’s current charity.

You’ll notice the picture of Quip in this post.  Yes, I bought the toothbrush.  In a recent ad, they laughingly said that using Quip will make you a better lover.  Of course, I know that’s a joke. But I’ve heard the ad enough times with fresh content.   And yes, I got sick of my old electric toothbrush.  So I spent $25.  I’ll let you know how I like it.

The Bad – The Podcast I Won’t Name

I’m not in the business of trashing people, so I’ll avoid specific names here.  But I grew up in Boston and I listen to a Boston sports podcast every weekday morning.  It’s just a repackaging of the best 15 minutes of content from last night’s 3 hours of TV coverage.  Usually it’s about 5 minutes on each topic. Well, they finally have a sponsor – Manscaped.com. Click the link at your own risk – it’s exactly what you think it is.  It’s a well-targeted ad, directed at a mostly male audience. And it’s a clever ad-lib by one of their wackier personalities.  So I listened to the full 90 second ad at the beginning of the podcast.  Then I heard the same ad, verbatim, at the end of the show.   And it’s been the same exact content for a few weeks, twice in each show – a span of 15 minutes.  I haven’t listened all the way through since I first heard it.

A cable network produces this podcast, and good for them to be monetizing it.  But this isn’t live television where you can run the same ad over and over.  Times are changing.  If your content isn’t compelling, and dynamically changing, I’ll skip it.  And I’m not the only one.

Peloton Lawsuit Illustrates Podcast Music Pitfalls

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Peloton is facing a large lawsuit regarding the music used in its workouts. In fact, the fitness company is being sued for a whopping $150 million.  And here’s the kicker: The music in question is only part of their library.

Peloton is a hugely popular fitness brand.  It essentially brings a spin class to your home – if you can afford it.  The bikes start at $2,000 – but you can attend a class – complete with music – from your own home when it works for you.

Music Rights

Rights to copyrighted music have always been a legally contentious subject. Radio stations must pay licensing fees to companies like ASCAP and BMI to play music. There was even a time where stations were hesitant to stream because playing the music online required additional fees in addition to their over-the-air ones. Technically, bars and restaurants with live music or jukeboxes should be paying these fees too.  I’m told these large publishing companies actually send low-level employees around to try and “shake down” establishments.

Obviously, there have been monumental changes to the music industry this century. Artists revenue from CD’s (or cassettes, or 8-tracks) have disappeared. Instead, they get small royalties from downloads and streams. Much of their revenue now comes from touring. So you’d better believe they want to cash in on anyone using their music.

Peloton Lawsuit

You may be asking yourself: “Why wouldn’t Peloton pay these fees upfront?” Well, here’s the kicker. They did pay – for some of the music.  The issue is that many musical selections were not covered by what they paid. Under the headline Peloton Sued for Allegedly Stealing Artists’ Music, CBS News reports that music not covered by the fees includes work by Justin Timberlake, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Bruno Mars, and more.  As the Peloton lawsuit plays out, the company is no longer using the songs in question.

What Does This Have to Do With Podcasts?

Music licensing laws have simply not kept up with emerging technology. You may think you are covered, but even in the case of a large company like Peloton, you may not be.  This is why I rarely allow licensed music in podcasts. An artist may think they have all the rights to their music. If they have signed with a label, however, that label may own rights as well. And that label won’t like you using their music without getting paid.   I’ve allowed artists to play music exactly twice in podcasts I’ve been involved with.  Both artists were unsigned, had written the songs themselves, and retained all the rights.

So How Do I Include Music in My Podcast?

Unless you have the financial resources (and 8 million monthly listeners) of The Daily from The New York Times, you probably can’t afford to license that Justin Timberlake song for your show. However, there are services that offer royalty-free music for your show – categorized by genre, and they can be used for intro and outtro purposes.  I subscribe to several that allows me to offer many choices to my clients. Or, you can enlist an independent artist to create music for your show. I recently met a musician who has started doing that himself as part of his business model.   Here’s the bottom line: music copyright laws have not kept pace with new technology. And until they do, and there’s a reasonably priced way for independent podcasters to get their hands on those works, you’re better safe than sorry.  Peloton can give you 150 million reasons why.