Podmastery: podcasting insights and advice for indie creators

I typed my own podcasting agency's brand name into Google. Spelled wrong, completely on purpose, because transcription services keep hearing "Podknows" and writing "Podnose."

Something was living there. A whole podcast network. Twenty-odd shows. Says it's been going since 2013.

I was already writing the angry LinkedIn post.

And then I did the thing I keep telling everybody else to do. And for a good few minutes back there, I was the villain in this story.

Which is where the actually useful bit starts.

Because the mistake I made wasn't the accusation. That was just ego pain.

The mistake was made years earlier, and I suspect you have made exactly the same one without ever finding out.

In this episode: why nobody discovers a podcast the way we imagine they do, what actually happens when a bloke at a barbecue in Fareham recommends your show out loud, and the reason you will never, ever see this problem in your analytics.

And then one thing to go and do about it, which takes ninety seconds and costs nothing.
Chapters

01:02 Obviously I checked the name

02:42 I was the villain in this story

03:36 Your brand has two names

04:31 How people actually hear about podcasts

05:23 The listener you'll never know you lost

07:26 What do you do about it?

08:17 Why a trademark won't save you from this

08:57 Podmastery Community Member trailer
The bloke I accused of nothing:

Podnose, an independent UK entertainment podcast network founded in 2013 by George Grimwood. A couple of the shows are genuinely good but the majority of them seem to no longer be publishing. podnose.com
Podmastery goodies you can grab:

Treat yourself to a PodmasteryPodcast Audit
Founding member doors for thePodmasteryPodcast Communityopen soon
Everything else:podmastery.co

Alex Cooper's company Unwell took its first outside investment, from Patrick Whitesell's WTSL, at a $500 million valuation. Every podcast expert on LinkedIn immediately pointed out that this is more than iHeartMedia. I went to check that, because I don't repeat numbers I haven't checked, and I got several different answers from several perfectly respectable financial sources on the same day. Turns out iHeart has multiple classes of share and the best part of $6 billion of debt strapped to its back, so depending which bit you measure you can have whichever number you fancy. It's less a valuation and more a horoscope.

But here's what survives all of that, and it's the bit nobody's saying.

The story doing the rounds is "creator wins, platforms lose."

That's rubbish.

I'll explain why.
In this episode:

— What a humming shed in a field had to do with your career for 100 years

— Why "it's worth more than iHeart" is a number nobody quoting it has checked

— Barstool, Spotify, SiriusXM: three tenancies, one landlord

— The bit where I admit I didn't clock any of this for years

— Why you've been feeling rubbish about yourself on the wrong scoreboard

— One number to look at instead, today

Note:

Unwell has been the subject of reporting this year, including a Vanity Fair investigation, alleging a difficult workplace culture. Cooper disputes it. Nothing in this episode is a comment on that either way — the point here is structural, about who owns what, and it would hold regardless of who the owner turned out to be.

This is Podmastery: Podcasting Opinions — the spinoff from Podcasting Insights. Insights is where I think properly about something. Opinions is where something's happened in the industry and I've got a view.
Podmastery goodies you can grab:

Treat yourself to a PodmasteryPodcast Audit
Founding member doors for thePodmasteryPodcast Communityopen soon
Everything else:podmastery.co


💬 Work with me one-to-one — https://podmastery.co

I'm Neal Veglio, the Podmaster — podcast producer and consultant, 25+ years in radio and audio, founder of Podknows Podcasting.

Last week I suggested, in a LinkedIn comment, that podcasters should all walk off Spotify together and keep them honest.

Then I went and looked into how you'd actually do it. And that's when the truth of the situation emerged. And OMFG is it a situation.

So this episode was going to be the good news about organising a walkout. Instead it's the honest version of why we can't.
In this episode:

— Where's the button to leave Spotify

— One tap to skip you, a support ticket to go

— The free rider problem, and why strikes need strike funds

— Why the trade bodies can't help with this one

— What happened when Neil Young actually tried it

— My own conflict of interest, stated plainly

— The one call to action worth changing this week
Podmastery goodies you can grab:

Treat yourself to a PodmasteryPodcast Audit
Founding member doors for thePodmasteryPodcast Communityopen soon
Everything else:podmastery.co

Spotify has secretly built a button that tells your listener which bits of your episode aren't worth hearing.

It's called Skip Ahead. It's in testing, they haven't announced it, and the excellent podcast industry journalist James Cridland broke it on Podnews. One tap and you're past the entire ad break — not fifteen seconds, everything.

The ad still gets delivered to the device, so the impression still counts and the advertiser still pays. They're just encouraging nobody to hear it. Including, in some cases, ads Spotify sold themselves.

That's the industry story and it's been well covered.

This episode is about the bit that hasn't.

This isn't an advertising story. It's a platform applying editorial judgement to the stuff you made.

And then there's the part where I have to be a little bit honest with you - you might have brought this on yourself.
In this episode:

— What Skip Ahead does, and why "you could always skip" doesn't hold up

— Why "we're not affecting ad delivery" is technically true and completely dishonest

— James Cridland on the terms and conditions nobody read

— The membership pitch that got flagged as skippable

— Why your intro is on the list too

— The one thing a machine can never skip

Clip from Podnews Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi, used with thanks. Subscribe at weekly.podnews.net — he does the reporting, I just have opinions about it.
Podmastery goodies you can grab:

Treat yourself to a PodmasteryPodcast Audit
Founding member doors for thePodmasteryPodcast Communityopen soon
Everything else:podmastery.co


Stuck on something specific? Get your next podcasting challenge solved one-to-one at podmastery.co

Got your own opinion and want to share? Great! I love hearing from you. Here's where to do it - https://podmastery.co/get-in-touch/

It's stupid o'clock in the morning. You've just finished editing. And instead of feeling good about it, one horrible little thought is living rent free in your head where the zzzzzzs should be: do I have to do this forever?

In this episode I troll the consistency doctrine which the gurus peddle. The show-up-every-week-forever commandment that gets drummed into you from day one, usually by someone whose whole business model is selling you the cure for the anxiety they just handed you.

I also make the case that publishing in seasons is one of the worst ideas going for most indie shows. Not for the reason you'd expect.

Seasons aren't a strategy, they're something else entirely.
Podmastery goodies you can grab:

Treat yourself to a PodmasteryPodcast Audit
Founding member doors for thePodmasteryPodcast Communityopen soon
Everything else:podmastery.co


Stuck on something specific? Get your next podcasting challenge solved one-to-one at podmastery.co

Got your own opinion and want to share? Great! I love hearing from you. Here's where to do it - https://podmastery.co/get-in-touch/