This is\u00a0<\/em>Hot Pod,\u00a0<\/em>The Verge\u2019s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up\u00a0<\/em>here<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for more.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Well, this is a weird email to write \u2014 today is technically<\/em> my last day at Hot Pod<\/em>. But you\u2019ll still see my byline around from time to time because I\u2019m joining The Verge<\/em>\u2019s news team in November. Starting next week, the newsletter will entirely be back in the very capable hands of lead Hot Pod<\/em> reporter Ariel Shapiro. Although I\u2019m sad to leave, I\u2019m also really excited to see her take the reins again and continue to churn out the coverage that Hot Pod<\/em> is known for.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s probably not a surprise to most of you that I knew very little <\/em>about podcasts before taking this job back in April \u2014\u00a0a time that also coincided with some seismic changes in the podcast industry itself. Although my background is in tech reporting, I\u2019m normally known for writing stories like this<\/a> and stories like this<\/a>. Weirdly enough, I also covered<\/a> Spotify\u2019s acquisition of Podsights and Chartable way back in 2019 for Engadget<\/em> \u2014\u00a0a story that I have no memory of actually writing<\/em>. I learned a ton in a short period of time by relying on the work of my Hot Pod <\/em>predecessors, which include Ariel, Ashley Carman, and Nicholas Quah \u2014\u00a0as well as the help of my editor, Jake Kastrenakes. But I also relied on the tips and expertise of numerous Hot Pod <\/em>readers. So thanks for your help over these past several months \u2014\u00a0as well as trusting me to tell your stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A couple of people at Podcast Movement noted that all of the Hot Pod <\/em>writers have had very distinct styles. Obviously, we\u2019re all different people \u2014 but we all took over during very distinct periods for the industry at large. In my view, Nicholas and Ashley covered the promises and failed hopes of the \u201cgolden\u201d era of podcasting and the rush of dumb money that made it possible. For me and Ariel, our challenge seems to be how to document an industry that is in the middle of a contraction \u2014\u00a0but also figuring out how to survive and reinvent itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n During the time I was in charge of Hot Pod<\/em>, Spotify laid off hundreds and effectively killed<\/a> its in-house podcast production units, Gimlet and Parcast. It seemed like every entity, from public radio<\/a> to news publishers<\/a>, made cuts to their podcast units. Companies folded, and left their creators hanging<\/a>. The film industry effectively went on hiatus this summer as both the unions for screenwriters and actors went on strike<\/a>, which, living in Los Angeles, I saw firsthand. The loss of Hollywood ad dollars led to real consequences for public radio \u2014 both WNYC\u2019s president LaFontaine Oliver and former Southern California Public Radio chief Herb Scannell cited it as a factor in layoffs. A few celebrities lost podcast deals<\/a> \u2014\u00a0but it seems like every day, a new famous person gets a podcast.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n To that end, it\u2019s still a mystery to me why most popular podcasts got that way. I don\u2019t know why Joe Rogan\u2019s weekly drop of three hours of unedited babble is always one of the top podcasts in the country. I don\u2019t know why so many people like Morbid <\/em>or Alex Cooper. When I look at the top podcast charts, I see a mix of disposable true crime, news podcasts from major media outlets like NPR or The New York Times<\/em>, and buzzworthy celebrity-led efforts like Strike Force Five<\/em> or SmartLess <\/em>or that one<\/a> hosted by Taylor Swift\u2019s boyfriend and his brother. But while the titles that have wide appeal may be a mystery to me<\/em>, they clearly resonate with others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I was heartened to see Heavyweight<\/em>, a former Gimlet podcast hosted by Jonathan Goldstein and now made by Spotify Studios, do well now that it\u2019s available widely on all players \u2014\u00a0it currently ranks number 36 on Apple Podcasts. But it was also kind of surprising, given that many interpreted Spotify letting go of Gimlet and Parcast as a sign that narrative podcasts were over. I\u2019m sure Goldstein\u2019s ties to the early days of Gimlet and This American Life<\/em> no doubt plays a factor in its success.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But at the end of the day, I do think people still have an appetite for good stories. It\u2019s easy to forget that, I guess, during an age where \u201ceverything is content\u201d and virality is the key to survival. The number of views or streams on a video or news article or a post often seems like the only thing that matters. While algorithms can be tweaked \u2014\u00a0I do think certain concepts are timeless.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Can audio-only podcasts actually thrive on YouTube? Despite an ongoing effort by YouTube to cater<\/a> to traditional podcasters this year, the answer to that question is still uncertain \u2014 and YouTube\u2019s idiosyncratic approach to ads and RSS remains the big reason why.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Google sunset Google Podcasts this year and announced plans for those users to migrate to YouTube Music, which will effectively double as both a video platform and a conventional audio podcast player by adding RSS support later this year. Many popular traditional podcasts have already made the transition to YouTube and YouTube Music, with very mixed results.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Rob Walch, vice president of podcaster relations at Libsyn, told Hot Pod <\/em>that he viewed a webinar on Thursday that YouTube Music hosted for podcasters. He said that as the webinar progressed, a Slack channel he was a part of for podcasters \u201cfilled with expletives.\u201d The overall reaction was very negative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cNo one I talked to is going to recommend [YouTube Music] to podcasters,\u201d said Walch.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A sizeable dilemma for audio-only podcasts is how YouTube will handle their ads. Neither YouTube nor YouTube Music allows dynamically inserted ad spots. YouTube\u2019s terms of service explicitly state that podcast content can\u2019t contain ad formats that compete with YouTube\u2019s<\/a> own. Technically, there\u2019s an exception that applies for host-read ads or baked-in ads \u2014\u00a0podcasters can disclose them<\/a> by checking the paid promotions box. But even if podcasters are able to keep their original ads, YouTube will still run its own ads<\/a> against the videos, splitting revenue with the creator, rather than the dynamic ones a podcaster may want served and that would pay out only to themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cNobody will accept ads on their content that they have no control over,\u201d said Walch.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s not a surprise to many in the podcast industry that \u201cputting your podcasts on YouTube\u201d is harder than it sounds. \u201cIt\u2019s always been a little strange to me that people understand that video-only platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok work in fundamentally different ways, and that content between them is not interchangeable, but still expect podcasts to automatically work on YouTube,\u201d noted Bikram Chatterji, CEO of Maximum Fun in an email to Hot Pod<\/em>. Max Fun has experimented with putting some of its podcasts like FANTI<\/em><\/a> on YouTube but notes that YouTube\u2019s practice of inserting its own ads \u201ccould be a problem\u201d for them on YouTube Music.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s a growing sentiment in the podcast world that YouTube\u2019s podcast vision is (perhaps unsurprisingly) designed for video-first content creators.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s a growing sentiment in the podcast world that YouTube\u2019s podcast vision is (perhaps unsurprisingly) designed for video-first content creators. The company\u2019s messaging doesn\u2019t jibe with the day-to-day reality of most people who make audio-only podcasts, as well as the numerous hosting, distribution, and monetization services that form the traditional podcast ecosystem in place for decades. Surveys from Edison Research<\/a> and others that concluded that YouTube was the number one platform for listening to podcasts failed to capture what kind <\/em>of podcasts those people were listening to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hot Pod <\/em>reached out to a number of different podcasts and podcast networks to see what their plans were for YouTube Music. Some still plan on making their podcasts available on YouTube and YouTube Music, if only for discovery purposes. Others are taking a \u201cwait and see\u201d approach for now.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe have asked for more info, and gotten very little so far from our YouTube rep,\u201d wrote The Vergecast<\/em>\u2019s supervising producer, Liam James, to Hot Pod <\/em>in a Slack message.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Vergecast <\/em>only uses YouTube\u2019s ads for now \u2014 but wants to eventually bake ads into its videos. The podcast only started publishing on YouTube in the beginning of the year. \u201cRight now we make peanuts on YouTube. It\u2019s a loss for us overall but we are looking at it as an investment,\u201d wrote James.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Betches Media plans to put its audio-only podcasts on YouTube Music when it rolls out RSS ingestion. \u201cWe see any new distribution platform as an opportunity to reach new audiences, but as YouTube\u2019s strategy becomes clearer, we\u2019ll continue to evaluate and see what is right for Betches and our podcast network,\u201d wrote David Spiegel, chief revenue officer of Betches Media, in an email. Betches currently relies on YouTube to run pre- and mid-roll ads.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhile YouTube\u2019s decision to not allow podcasters to monetize their ads directly isn\u2019t what we\u2019d prefer, it is not surprising at all, at the end of the day, restricting podcaster\u2019s ability to monetize will affect their interest in promoting the platform,\u201d noted Spiegel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But the challenges with YouTube Music and RSS ingestion \u2014\u00a0as well as YouTube and podcasts more broadly \u2014\u00a0go beyond just ads.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYouTube uses a different language than us,\u201d Bryan Barletta, the founder of podcast research group Sounds Profitable, told Hot Pod<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One example: when YouTube talks about podcasts on YouTube, what it\u2019s talking about is a cached video that is audio-first that can have a full video component or static video. And even when YouTube adds RSS support, it won\u2019t work as a traditional podcast player. \u201cThey\u2019re pulling from your RSS feed, caching it, so it\u2019s one call from YouTube and that\u2019s it,\u201d said Barletta.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If a podcaster wants to change the audio after an episode is published, they only need to update the audio file on their hosting platform \u2014\u00a0which automatically carries over to all podcast players. Except, it turns out, for YouTube. Podcasters will have to manually update<\/a> the audio on YouTube Studio.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Listener stats are another issue with YouTube podcasts. In a video titled<\/a> \u201cWhy YouTube Music ingesting podcast RSS feeds could be a huge mess,\u201d Justin Jackson, the co-founder of hosting platform Transister.fm, highlights some of those problems. Whenever a listener presses play in a podcast player like Spotify or Overcast or Apple Podcasts, it requests the RSS feed from a hosting platform. Hosting platforms, therefore, hold a ton of data on who listeners are and where they\u2019re coming from. But YouTube is doing something very different from other podcast players in that it will literally host<\/em> the audio \u2014\u00a0instead of redirecting listeners to the hosting platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This also means hosting platforms won\u2019t be able to access any of a podcast\u2019s YouTube listener stats. While it\u2019s true that you can see listener stats<\/a> on YouTube Studio, the data offered by hosting platforms is much more detailed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis will make it harder for podcasters to analyze where their listeners are coming from, which episodes are most popular, and how episodes perform over time,\u201d wrote Jackson in an email.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Jon Stewart<\/strong> and Apple<\/strong> are reportedly parting ways<\/a> over creative differences, including the host\u2019s intention to cover topics such as AI and China. I\u2019ll be curious to see what happens with the podcast, considering it performed so much better than the TV show.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Speaking of former Daily Show<\/em> hosts, Trevor Noah\u2019s <\/strong>podcast on Spotify<\/strong> is set to launch<\/a> on November 9. The show, which is hosted and distributed by Megaphone, will be released across podcast platforms as part of Spotify\u2019s shift away from exclusivity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Audioboom<\/strong> is still making deals, announcing yesterday that it has signed exclusive partnerships<\/a> with Girls Next Level<\/em>, The Bulwark Podcast<\/em>, We\u2019re Here to Help,<\/em> and Out of the Pods<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On October 26, Serial<\/strong> will debut The Kids of Rutherford County<\/em><\/a>, a new investigative podcast that examines how a juvenile court in Tennessee abused its power. The show was produced in partnership with ProPublica and WPLN Nashville Public Radio, and is hosted by WPLN reporter Meribah Knight<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Suge Knight is making a podcast from prison, and according to TMZ, it\u2019s all about <\/strong>personal beef<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\nYouTube\u2019s uncertain podcast future<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Lightning Round<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n