barstool sports

Welcome in, I'm Jon Gay. We start with a great point from Amplifi Media's Steve Goldstein. Watch any episode of Wheel of Fortune, and the game starts within the first FORTY FIVE SECONDS of the show. Take that approach with your podcast. Lose excessively long intros, and endless banter, and hit the ground running.  I'll try to do that here.  (Link: https://www.amplifimedia.com/blogstein/what-every-podcaster-can-learn-from-wheel-of-fortune-and-jeopardy)

Apple Podcasts released their subscriptions and channels on Tuesday.  Channels might be good to aggregate content, but I'm still not sold on subscriptions.  As I've said before, if you're asking someone to spend money every month on top of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc - you'd better a) have some KILLER content and b) it can't be available anywhere else.

Meanwhile, Apple's latest iOS update has a totally revamped Apple Podcasts app.  Personally, I hate it.  I find it hard to navigate, but then again, this is what we said whenever Facebook changed their layout.  I'll give it a little while, but I'm strongly considering moving to Spotify for podcast listening.

Incidentally, that's what Tommy Vietor, one of the hosts of Pod Save America, suggested on Monday via Twitter.   Seemed their latest episode uploaded but wouldn't show up on Apple right away.  But it was right there on Spotify.  When you've got a host of a top 10 podcast actively encouraging you to move to Spotify.....well, Cupertino, we have a problem.

https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1404570745783521280?s=20

Speaking of Spotify, they are continuing to spend like the drunken sailor of podcasting. It does seem to be working for them.  They just lured the popular "Call Her Daddy" podcast away from Barstool Sports.  Like Joe Rogan, Call Her Daddy will become a Spotify exclusive. Spotify's price tag: $20 million.  The show moves to Spotify only on July 21.

Big changes coming to Spotify's Anchor platform.  One of the knocks on it was that they auto-submitted to Apple, and it was hard to claim ownership of your show there.  Now, Anchor will allow you to submit to Apple yourself.  Also, as podcast monetization grows, they will only supply you with an open RSS feed if you ask.  This will be a benefit to those who only want their shows in specific places.  Here's the post from Anchor: https://mignano.medium.com/evolving-anchor-distribution-to-meet-the-needs-of-new-creators-efe0b89f8c5a

If you use the Riverside platform to record your audio or video podcast, they've added a "media board" to let you play sound and video clips as you record your show. The idea is that in doing so, you won't have to add them in later when editing. https://podnews.net/press-release/riverside-mediaboard

Other quick hit podcasting news:  The award winning "Ear Hustle," about life behind bars in San Quentin, is being released as a book: https://bookshop.org/books/this-is-ear-hustle-unflinching-stories-of-everyday-prison-life/9780593238868

Greed and hubris can ruin anything, including podcasts.  The Verge has an expose about California's "Podcast Hype House" that Chinese-backed company Ximalaya created to lure podcasters.  It quickly devolved into a frat house and worse: theverge.com/22526502/himalaya-histudios-notorious-llc-podcast-audio-hype-house

Podcast Movement is coming together for Nashville, the first week in August.  There's a contest to get a VIP tour of the nearby Jack Daniels distillery.  I've seen it, and it's awesome, by the way. Enter here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUpCWEt7V0R_xqFgBHkG6fMa6dgI1xg7kFHIDeDj7d0n93qQ/viewform

And finally, I tell my podcast clients not to promote yourself until the end of your show, after you've provided valuable information. With that in mind, if you'll indulge me, I'm offering a new service - a comprehensive podcast audit of your show.  Send me one episode, up to an hour in length, and I'll evaluate it for accessibility, audio quality, content, flow, and more, for just $99.  If you're interested - drop me a note - jag@jagindetroit.com.  Lata!