Bryan Barletta: Podcast Movement is Coming!

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The Sound Off podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast, starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
Brian Barletta is the founder of Sounds Profitable and the president of Podcast Movement. Sounds Profitable was founded in 2020 and is one of the most influential media organizations focused on the business of podcasting. It has grown into a number of things, including a newsletter, a podcast called The Download. It's a research organization, a trade association, and puts on industry events. Its mission is to help podcasting become a larger, more sophisticated advertising medium. When Podcast Movement bought Sounds Profitable last year, one thing we knew was this year's edition of Podcast Movement is going to be different. An important disclosure piece: the Sound Off Media Company is a member of Sounds Profitable. And now Brian Barletta joins me from Portland, Oregon. What is sounds profitable?

Bryan Barletta  1:02  
Sounds profitable is the trade association for the global podcast industry. We are focused on educating and supporting as many people as possible in the space through our free newsletter, which comes out six times a week, which is crazy to say out loud. Our research, which is the leading research for podcasting, publicly available in the U.S. and now the U.K. looking to expand it in more countries. Our networking and opportunities, which we do at all the podcasting events and all the events bigger than podcasting, to make it accessible for everyone. And yeah, then access to us for the the we have about 220 partners as of right now in the six years we've been running, and they all get access to consulting, some more private direct conversations on that end, benefits and perks and whatnot, and yeah, and we were recently acquired by Podcast Movement.

Matt Cundill  1:49  
Tell me a little bit about you know membership because membership has its privileges. I could sit and try to explain it myself, but I'd rather you say it just to say just in case I forget exactly what a membership gets you, which sounds profitable.

Bryan Barletta  2:02  
So first off, we don't require contracts for membership. I think trade associations and other groups like that. It's a lot of focuses on the yearly contract and the rates increasing and all that. And so six years ago, we set at a $500 a month, included a half an hour of consulting, the logo on the website in a random rotation, the logo on all the newsletters, and back then it was just one newsletter and yeah the consulting half an hour consulting every month and a Slack channel and it's grown and we have not changed the rate we ask for three months minimum commitment just a verbal commitment and that every single month I think in the six years we run it there's been less than six months where that number has not grown and we work with everyone from small companies to the leading platforms in the space. You can see all their logos on our website. Some don't want their logo on the website, which is fine. And we provide you know unique access to events, the opportunity for networking and connecting. I do a lot of direct introductions myself. I spend a lot of my Mondays and Fridays sending out email introductions for people, which we don't take any equity advisory board seats, commissioner kickback on any external companies besides our own.

Matt Cundill  3:06  
So one of the things I really like is the Slack channel. You've got a number of channels for a number of things. You can promote your podcast as well. Sometimes people just need help, and other times, like somebody needs a recording studio, I can offer up a recording studio. Somebody needs advice on something. Also, just connecting people. Sometimes the person they want to connect with is already in the Slack channel, and you can and you can just match them up. It's a community as well.

Bryan Barletta  3:32  
It's probably my favorite part. I mean, like I really believe I have the best job in podcasting. Just getting to connect, and like I feel like a waiter, just doing my lap around the table, seeing who needs their water refilled, noticing that yours needs to be refilled, and going to somebody else's. Our Slack community is-it's a business community. I mean, I think that there's times where it's busy and there's times where it's not. And right now, it seems to be a time where it's busy because people are starting to promote their podcast movement panels and asking for votes on it. But I think what's really fun is we we can't see any of the private conversations, but we hear from our partners that they utilize it as a place to have between like sellers and buyers have those boot chats as a central point to keep that conversation going. So it's been really fun to see the progression of all that. I

Matt Cundill  4:15  
think the two biggest moves publicly that you've made over you know since its inception was hiring Tom Webster, and then podcast movement and getting involved with them and and and you know being bought by them inevitably. So I think we know the dividends of Tom Webster. But tell me about getting together in the last you know 18 months since podcast movement acquired you.

Bryan Barletta  4:36  
Yeah, well, I mean on the Tom thing, I like to tell the story that my opening move to him was half the company because he was worth it. I mean, he is such a leading voice for audio and a champion for the space. And every single quarter, his research has gotten better and better and more powerful. So I'm very, very thankful for his partnership and to be working with him all these years. Podcast movement. I think that we, you know, we. Had been running an event kind of inside of their event. We had our own space for partners that was really tailored towards their needs, which truly was just private meeting space. And as our partnership grew, it became clear that that was a real big draw for why people were coming out to the event. And we had a conversation after the Chicago event, which I think they were they were realizing that they didn't have an anchor point person within the industry anymore. Dan Franks, who started the company, astounding at podcasting and events, but he had been focusing more on the event side. They had expanded to a Bitcoin event and several card collectible card game events like Pokemon and Magic the Gathering and all that that had been really successful. In each one of those, they had an anchor industry person, but in podcasting, Dan was both, and so the opportunity was there for Sounds Propertable to kind of take that leadership role, shake things up, and I I think we're we're proving it out pretty well. I mean, this year we brought instead of evolutions being standalone, which I think is really tough. The first half of the year has so many astounding events for podcasting to talk to podcasting, so we took a swing at making evolutions inside of South by Southwest. So it was both the opportunity to meet with people in podcasting, but the challenge to go do bigger than podcasting things. It didn't require a ticket for our event. It didn't require a ticket for South by Southwest, but it had the opportunity for you to do more, and that event without ticket sales, we're able to break even on. And then it leads into our goal for the September event, which really is kind of three events right now. The and the goal there was how do we create an event in New York where there's buyers, where it's more accessible for people than moving it around the country in different places. Respect the fact that all of you are incredibly cool and can do your own thing outside of the hours of our events, so not charging crazy money for happy hours and stuff like that, not trying to control the whole narrative the whole time, but really create an event for the core people who are making podcasting work, who want to share and learn from each other. So that's podcast movement, and that's 1000 tickets at $200 a piece, all publicly submitted panels, 750 panels. Today we're recording this. It's july 7. Voting just started, so it's public voting for the first 40, and then there's a committee which we announced and will likely expand on a little bit, which will pick the next like 30-five to 40. So there's no pay to speaking opportunities at that event. It's giving back to the community. Wednesday, the the location for the whole week is at Terminal Five. It's a 2000 person concert venue. We're trying to see what we can put on stage to have like an open cash bar happy hour performance thing for everybody going the whole week. And then Monday, Tuesday is the Sounds Propert Business Summit, and the goal there really is how do we invite in the buyers? Like how do we have an event that invites in the buyers to learn from us collectively, not to pitch them on any one specific company, but collectively say like, hey, let's close that audio gap, let's work together and collaborate, and all buyers are attending for free. And that event, we've actually decided to make it just for sounds profitable partners because the 220 of you and growing are the reason we're able to do these things, and and we're really really excited to to see how all this folds up.

Matt Cundill  8:06  
Yeah, I feel like I'm going to ask this question, and you already kind of gave the answer, and you know we've talked about it a number of times over you know maybe a drink or two at Podcast Movement, and that's why New York City. That's a big pivot from from Nashville and the Gaylord hotels, but it's close to Madison Avenue, right?

Bryan Barletta  8:24  
Yeah, I mean, we want the access for the buyers to be there. Look, when when the Gaylord Hotel in Aurora, Colorado, doesn't give you a lot of options, right? It's neat how close it is to the airport, which is pretty cool, but it's not Denver, right? It's it was like 3045 minutes away from Denver. Your hotel options become the Gaylord Hotel, so you're locked into that pricing. There's a lot of overhead on things like that, like the obligation for the event company to have like sell a certain number of hotel blocks, food and beverage. Great way to set yourself up for failure, and it's really hard to invite people in the business space out to random places. And so, while I do think that this might be asking a little bit from the creator side, you can fly into New York and the surrounding areas where there are multiple airports. You can stay anywhere that you can commute into. I mean, heck, if you want to drive in from Connecticut, you're good to do it. Like it's, it is all possible and doable. You really get to make your own decisions on how affordable and accessible this event is for you, and it opens it up for the business side again for the buyers. That absolutely is the goal there, and for the creators, I think it gives them the option to determine what is important to them.

Matt Cundill  9:35  
So, from a personal standpoint, win for me because I'm going to drive down from Montreal, and yeah, so that's an easy six-hour drive. Gonna park the car in Connecticut, and I will take a commuter train into the city.

Bryan Barletta  9:48  
I didn't know that when saying that, but like the the like that makes me really excited because like that gives you so many options, and that's like that's really really powerful. I I know that there's some. Aspects of the event that people are going to miss, right? The hotel lobby bar and all of that, but like it's New York. There's some really cool things that we're hearing our partners plan around the business summit. That we're hearing other people start to plan around the podcast movement of it. Like I don't need to control everything that happens as long as it doesn't step on the toes of the event. We want to promote every cool hangout and meet up, and the idea of trying to move 600 or 1000 people from one location to the other, or worse, saying thank you for spending eight hours with us. Your reward for that is three more hours in the same space. Feels gross in a city that you can do like live interactive theater. You can rent out a whole Peloton studio in the morning and go meet up with a bunch of people there. You can do live shows in hundreds, probably, of locations across New York. All of you are way cooler than than me and Sounds Proper One Podcast Movement. And our entire goal is to like really elevate everybody.

Matt Cundill  10:54  
Yeah, I remember seeing some feedback sheets from Podcast Movement one year, and it was like the music's loud. Why are we having this conversation, we could have the same conversation without the music tomorrow in the hallway. And yeah, I've got some partners that say, "Well, are you going to come to this event? And they're like, "No, we're going to a show. This was in London, of course. There's so many shows in London, so many things to do, and so it does give people a chance to get out and enjoy the city.

Bryan Barletta  11:19  
But that's the thing. I mean, like, look during the day, it's the business, right? And like, you know, we've been buying into more events like Can Lion and Possible and all that. It's hard to rationalize Can Lion, and it feels like elitist in a lot of these things. But we posted that, like, we brought Tai King, a new videographer and photographer, and basically audio and video expert on our team. With two weeks' notice, we bought Thai a flight and hotel for under $4,000 to this event that's supposed to be like insanely expensive, food and and other expenses like that. Couple $100 for Thai during those days, but that event is all about how do you just meet and and mingle and connect with as many people as possible to expand your network and the people that you do want to choose to work with. So during the day at our events, it's how do you educate and learn. But at night, like I would rather groups of 1020, 30 people go find cool things to do and build those core memories of like why they're in this industry and why they work together and what cool thing they did and that they didn't just end up at a hotel in the hotel lobby for two, three days straight, that makes me so much happier because that's you know life short, and we all are choosing to be in podcasting, so we should have fun doing it.

Matt Cundill  12:29  
Yeah, it's also a lot of pressure on a guy like me who's going to bring the wife now, right? Then

Bryan Barletta  12:34  
she gets to enjoy New York on that end. But like, look, on my end too, like now there's not one central thing that I have to go to and wave and shake hands. I get to go back to my room after a day and decompress a little bit. Maybe go to one of those things there, or just wander around New York, which I lived there like 10 years ago. And there's parts of that that I just love and miss. And I think it's a really fun experience for a lot of people, especially with the ability to just put in your headphones and walk around.

Matt Cundill  12:57  
That was your megaphone days, right?

Bryan Barletta  12:59  
I think I had already moved by megaphone, but when it was Claritas and Barometric before that, and all the mobile advertising days of my youth.

Matt Cundill  13:08  
So you talked about some collaborations. You mentioned one just a second ago with Canline, and

Bryan Barletta  13:13  
yep,

Matt Cundill  13:13  
also South by Southwest. What is it about those events that make it so attractive to you?

Bryan Barletta  13:18  
Brands are there, creators are there, influencers, celebrities, content makers, like whatever it is, like those are the the places that we need to be as podcasting. We have enough siloed podcasting events, and they're great, right? Like there, it's how our industry grew. But we have enough opportunity to talk to ourselves. We need to at least talk to ourselves with the opportunity to talk to other people near there if we're going to spend money on these things, and so when you go to South by Southwest and Jim Lauterbach, influencer executive level person, who you know helped run, I think the first podcast festival with Hank Green and the team there, or maybe it was after podcast movement there, but you get to see him on stage talking about creators and influencers. There was a stat that he had shared, I think it was something like for for the Gen Gen Alpha, like the 50% of Gen Alpha belong to a fandom that their core friend group doesn't know about. Like I literally am the type of person who I can send half of a movie quote to a friend, and they'll finish that, and it could be someone I haven't talked to in 10 years, and that can be the extent of our conversation. Like, could you imagine going through middle school and high school and having something like hanging out with these people, but not sharing all those things? Like literally having something that you only share with people on the internet that like they don't, your core friend group doesn't connect with. Like that's such a different mindset, and so you can learn these things there. You can meet people you're not going to meet there before. I also think that we're asking people to step up how they're presenting themselves and what they're presenting. There's a lot of people who want to share their ideas. It's kind of hard to say to somebody like your idea needs to be better, and so it's how do you reinforce it? Well, you reinforce it by making the crowd bigger and more important, right? Making it so that the people who are attending have more stake in what. Going on there and putting that pressure on them so that they do bigger and better things. When it's us just talking to ourselves, we can kind of repeat the same things over and over again without any consequences.

Matt Cundill  15:09  
Yeah, and I totally get what you're saying about being in a silo because I think that's where podcasting, you know, events were for 1015, years, and then everybody is very surprised when podcasting is now two microphones on Netflix picked up elsewhere. It's YouTube. It doesn't need an RSS feed.

Bryan Barletta  15:27  
You look like you got some opinions about that, Matt.

Matt Cundill  15:30  
I do. I have a newsletter called Sounding Off, and I might have just gone off about the you know the importance of you know when you get podcasters into a room and and they don't understand what the RSS feed. It's not about knowing what the RSS feed. It's about knowing what the value is, and in order for them to grow their brands, if you're leaning in on Instagram or if you're leaning in on YouTube, you can be shuttled. You can be put out to pasture, and at the very least, just have an RSS feed so you can live another day. Have a website. We don't have Todd Cochran around anymore to remind us of this every episode of the New Media Show. It's important.

Bryan Barletta  16:07  
I want to challenge one thing on that Pete Davidson podcast. I was just reading something about it this morning. Everybody's mad about it because it's a Netflix show, right? And I think that like calling a podcast a chat show trivializes it. It bums me out because my favorite podcast is Midnight Burger. It's a always on basically scripted fiction podcast that was just picked up by the Critical Role team. It's astounding. It's so overwhelmingly powerful and wonderful and funny and all those things. But when you say podcast, people right now are thinking about a chat show, and that's a bummer because it trivializes it. But if it gets people in there as a gateway, that's fine, right? Like, there's very few people are like, man, I really love VHS. I really love, you know, a vinyl. I guess is an example there. That's a small group of people, but there's people I love music. I love listening to things, and so we have to appease them in different ways. With the Pete Davidson podcast, a really interesting thing. John Ceno is just on it, and we're really caught my attention there is that they were attributing why that episode apparently was so good. I want to go and watch it. I've seen some of the clips. Is because while Pete was the interviewer asking John questions, Pete started to expand on something about a lot that was discomforting to him, and John get got to turn it back to him and and say talk about it like that was the the three letter three words that he said, and so it's it changes that dynamic and the expectation. It's it's a conversation. It's not necessarily just an interview. It's not scripted. It's not as policed by PR or these other things. There, it doesn't follow the governing rules of broadcast in certain ways, for better or worse. If that's what podcasting means, and that challenges people to be more creative to step out there. It's audio forward can be consumed as audio. It's creator owned, whether that means that you signed the rights over to Netflix or not. Like you still made that choice, and on demand, you can consume it whenever you want. Those are the core things that I try and focus on. But I agree with you. Like it's super cool that like RSS got us here, and we need to preserve these things. It's really powerful that audio is more than just these chat show things, but I think that we are at a point where like I think people are starting to see it. It's not something to make fun of. It's not just two microphones, and it's going to be a gateway for a lot of things. And I think that the fear of podcasting going to video is actually one I know don't share. I think everything is going to go audio because I can't wait for a world. Like my belief is that we will see better TV and movies where the audio is enough to carry what's happening because I am too distracted on my phone when I sit down and turn on Netflix. So if I lose track of what's happening because it asks for my visual attention. I'm more likely to shut it off than I am to continue playing on my phone, or than or than to put my phone away because it was that compelling. I would have put my phone away, so I think we're at like this really interesting moment where we're going to see audio actually kind of be a virus. Like other people are trying to take it, but we're going to take over. Everything can be listened to.

Matt Cundill  19:02  
Yeah, well, there is more available ears than there are eyes. I mean, when people talk about the audio podcast disappearing, I am like, that's not possible because there is just way more ears available than there are eyes. And what you were just explaining about is actually the way that a lot of content gets consumed in my life, where my eyes are on something else, I find myself listening to movies. I find myself. I actually. I didn't rewatch. I actually wound up re-listening to the White Lotus season one because somebody had it on, and my wife had it on in the other room. And I said, "Oh, yeah, the music really did carry a lot of those scenes. So I felt like I rewatched.

Bryan Barletta  19:38  
Isn't that show operas?

Speaker 1  19:39  
Yeah.

Bryan Barletta  19:39  
Like, isn't that like how showpoppers became a thing, right? Like you were in another room and you turned on on the TV loud enough that you could hear it while you're doing the dishes.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  19:47  
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Matt Cundill  20:20  
This brings me, by the way, to Spotify and Spotify Video, and it was I think last year might be a little bit more than than a year ago that you made a recommendation, and it sounds profitable to members to not get involved with Spotify Video because you will lose the dynamic audio insertion and control. You came out in favor of the RSS feed. We at my company we saw a drop of 15 to 20% because people made that pivot to to video. So, do you still feel the same?

Bryan Barletta  20:52  
My issue is the loss of distribution control, right? Like in Apple, the timing with Apple Podcast launching HLS video, and and it's by the way, it's HLS video and audio. Like we like to say video, but like it it has to be both. It can't just be one. Apple clearly said that creators should determine where they host and distribute from, and have some control in saying it. Like RSS and HLS are open protocols in the sense that anybody can build on it, and any app can receive it, right? But the belief that either of them are open truly is is kind of false. Because like RSS, if I build a hosting platform and I connect with Spotify, unless I have dynamic ad insertion, prove it, and have clients, and then get someone on that team to sign an agreement with me, they cache every episode from my hosting platform on the first run, and then I don't get RSS calls. I just get the data in their platform. I might have the ability to pull it in from an API, but that's not RSS data. That's not open, right? You know, when you upload your podcast to a directory, you are signing an agreement. It's not necessarily open. There are some nuances there. The apps can choose what they do and don't add to it. The hosting platforms can choose what they do and don't add. Spotify and YouTube. I'm very thankful for all the things that they do in this space. YouTube never ingested your podcast the same way. It never called your RSS feed. So their analytics-they've always said, "Give us your files, and that's fine. We would not be where we are media consumption wise worldwide without YouTube subsidizing that and HLS video as a creator hosting it. You have to pay that cost now. That's part of the right to determine where you host, how it's distributed, better analytics, better ad serving, better attribution. That's part of the cost, and it's I think it's going to be bigger than people think. Spotify's solution was saying, ignore your RSS feed and give us your audio, your video file, and I think that that's a step backwards because, and and Apple I think proved that a year, year and a half later by saying like there are other ways to do this. We don't need to have them uploaded to us. We don't need to have full ownership and control, and I believe what Apple's doing will be a virus that will take over many industries. Imagine on the music side, why does everybody have to upload to Spotify, Apple, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and all that? Why can't Universal Music Group have their own HLS server that the app calls for those files, so they can see a little bit more real time usage, which can be limited. It doesn't give that user data, but like now I get to reconcile it myself as Universal Music Group. Paramount Plus uses HLS to contact between their server and their app. Why can't Paramount list all the Sonic the Hedgehog stuff on on their server and Apple TV and Netflix and HBO and everybody else just call that instead of replicating it and rehosting it in all these places. And same with podcasting, right? Like Apple is doing this right now, and it's really powerful. I think that it is an incredible revenue opportunity for companies like Spotify to adopt it. It reduces a lot of their infrastructure costs and headaches there, and it gives the publishers what they want without overshowing their hand. So, my my advice is still tread cautiously on any situation where you have to abandon your hosting platform and the metrics we've worked hard to secure. But I also think we are now in a phase where, like, if you really believe that your audience is watching on YouTube on on Spotify, and you want to be there in front of them. It's worth testing because you can test it on a per episode basis, and then you have to make that financial call. Will your advertisers follow you over a place that no longer gives you podcast analytics? Is it as valuable? How are you going to justify and and and validate that? Because there is no solution that handles it correctly right now.

Matt Cundill  24:44  
And how excited should I be about Apple and HLS? And I think this very episode is going to be our first Apple HLS experience for the SoundAll podcast. I'm already beta. I've already beta tested on another podcast that I do. But yeah, how bullish are you?

Bryan Barletta  25:00  
I I think that Apple HLS the because Apple is the the steward the governor of the HLS protocol, but it's open source. Like I could build my own fork of it. I can build an app that ingests it, however, or a hosting platform, however. So it has a lot of autonomy on that end. I think on the like the HLS is a medium. I think is astounding. I think Apple Podcasts with HLS, I think, is going to be very interesting. Ashley Carman, I believe today released an article talking about an increase in consumption that they're seeing on Apple Podcasts for the video shows, which is really interesting. Is that because there's not that many and they're prioritizing them? Is that because there's hunger for it? This is where Tom comes in, and he's great on it because, like, the research is really the important part there for me. Because my personal bias is Apple Podcasts is where I listen. I'm not interested in watching there. Same way, I'm not interested in watching on Spotify. But I'm not Gen Alpha, Gen Z. You know, I'm not Gen X or a Boomer. Like, I'm a millennial, and this is exactly what I do here. If there are other people that buy into it and find value in it, like that's great. So I think that if somebody wants to just listen to your podcast, they can minimize the video. If somebody wants to watch your podcast that doesn't have a video, they can't create one. I guess they could with AI. I hope they don't do that. So I think that giving people the opportunity is great, and I think that it's only going to be more beneficial because more apps pick it up. Amazon Music and Prime uses it. Tubi uses it behind the scenes in the in the relationships that they have with their own Speakeasy hosting platform. iHeart is implementing it. I think it's going to provide more opportunities in a lot of ways. Like what happens when Netflix creates a space for it, right? I think it's really exciting.

Matt Cundill  26:41  
Yeah, and I know I mentioned Apple, and I put Apple at the front here, but iHeart. I've already got a podcast up on iHeart doing video. Yeah, and as well on Amazon Music in the U.S. only for now. So I'm calling a lot of my American friends, saying, "Hey, are you watching my podcast? Because I can't on on Amazon.

Bryan Barletta  26:59  
I don't know if you had a chance to see our latest research, the podcast Atlas. But one of the things that Tom really called out in there that I thought was really neat was that 84 of clip consumers become regular listeners. There's nothing more awkward than making someone listen to audio. Like if I was like I was talking about Midnight Burger and I was like, let's play the let's play the audio file. Let's just turn it on right now, and I'm gonna play the trailer for you as I stare into your eyes. You know that's so invasive. Or if I send you an audio file, like you have to be in the right mood to listen to it. But if I send you a clip, you can get it right. Like you can understand what it is. And if we're trying to appeal to more people, make it as easy as possible. You can consume a clip with no audio, right? So what happens if that's that touch point that pulls that person in and says, "I want to watch, I want to listen, I want more" I think that that's that's really compelling. Sometimes video and visuals are the easiest ways to get a point across. It took me two, three episodes when Game of Thrones first came out to be like, "I want to read all of this, and so I stopped watching the show and read the book, and then caught up with the show, right? Like I got it, right? I got all these years that had been pitched to me, but I finally understood, and I had like a a connective aspect to it that made me know I wanted more. Is

Matt Cundill  28:10  
there a worry that if people see the video on iHeart on their app or on Apple, that they'll just go home and finish the show on YouTube.

Bryan Barletta  28:22  
I mean, maybe there's another stat on here. I got. I have a few of them on hand. 70-3% of podcast listeners would follow a creator across formats, so you know, across platforms on there, moving from audio and video and all that. But we don't have a great way to like track that person. But like, I think that that's okay, right? They're still consuming it. You get them in multiple places. Like, as long as you get them, as long as there's overall growth and there's overall interest, I think people tend to like view it not as like destinations anymore, right? Like I think Netflix and HBO Max and Hulu and all those things are very different than podcasts like YouTube and and Spotify and all that. I think people kind of consume certain things in same places, they don't tend to bounce around on that end. I don't use multiple web browsers for different websites. I guess so. That's that's kind of the the association I make. But yeah, I don't I don't I don't think that I'm super concerned about that as long as it means that they consume

Matt Cundill  29:16  
it. Brian, I have a question from earlier that got away from me. One of the first moves that you made when podcast movement came into your world was you made it all free, and for years you had to buy a VIP ticket. It would be behind a paywall, and you could access it later. But sounds profitable has uploaded all the sessions for everybody to access. Why is that important?

Bryan Barletta  29:38  
I mean, podcasting is freely available, right? Like that's like the core of it. Like the reason you go to these events is to learn and have that conversation that happens right after to connect with those people in person and to expand your network and all of that. the The learning that happens on there, if it was important enough to happen on stage, we should be educating everybody in the space and lifting everybody out. We don't need to nickel and dime everybody for these things. Right, like, and and I think about it this way: like, someone. There's only so many ways we can compensate people. At South by Southwest, we had these 10 minute spots, which we did a $500 honorarium for the people there. We're asking them to put together 10 minutes of content. We're asking them to come out to Austin, you know, evaluate if they needed a ticket. Like, I wanted to set them up for success, and $500 probably didn't cover more than like a flight or a hotel. It didn't cover the whole thing, so they had to be want to be there. But that was really important to me. When we get to the these bigger events outside of like very specific things like the committee, because we're asking their time, I don't have the capability to compensate people in the same way, right? If you choose to submit a solo talk, it's because it's important for you. You're getting that half an hour on stage. You're taking one of those 80 slots, right? And the community is voting on it. That's very different to me than like one of these 12 in a new environment that we're asking you to like. We're we're asking you to build something. So how else do I compensate people? And I think the answer there is we provide professional photography, we provide professional audio and video, and we provide that not only on our platform, but with them to have the access to it for marketing of themselves and promotion of themselves and distribution. Because nothing, in my opinion, is more valuable than empowering everybody who chooses to show up in this industry to grow it. So I think we're we're literally just giving tools to the people who are going to guarantee that the event is better, and guarantee that their audience is more aware of them, and and hopefully next year we get more submissions from them. We get them to their audience starts submitting people. I I have a lot of thoughts on it, and the the biggest thing is like I think COVID shook up the event industry a lot, and I think we are so fortunate that Sounds Propable is such a strong business because of partners like yourself that we can look at these things and go, okay, well maybe this is a trying year. Maybe we decide our principles, and the goal is not to lose money. And that's really what this year is, right? Like it would be great to make more money on the podcast movement side, but Sun's Proper is growing, and that means that we can figure out podcast movement and do right by everybody, and this is this, and it being in New York and being at South by Southwest, I think are core aspects of that that we're just you know not going to change. I think that those things have proven to work, and we will financially build our way around it. I'm

Matt Cundill  32:11  
going to ask one question. You might have two answers. What should a creator and what should a business person be thinking about looking ahead to podcast movement if they're on the fence about going.

Bryan Barletta  32:21  
Look, at the end of the day, budgets are tight on a lot of things here, and so maybe the worst thing I can possibly say to people is like, if you are not convinced that this is where you want to be and who you want to be around, and it and we haven't made as accessible, like catch us next year. Like, I specifically didn't do early bird ticket pricing, which, like, no joke, that makes it impossible to compare to previous years, like that's a really rough thing on that end, but I don't like it. I don't like putting pressure on all of you to buy tickets by a certain time. It's either going to sell out, or it's going to hit our goals, or it's not. And so, you know, we've made it as amenable as possible. It's you know, the podcast movement side of it is 199 a ticket covers both days. It's up to 1000 tickets. If you buy a ticket and your panel selected, we'll refund you, and so you know we're going to take care of everybody there. We really want to build this into the best event possible. So I would say, if you're on the creator side, I would say look at the portal, which is open until July 21st for submissions to be voted on. Look at the portal and see panels that you want to see and vote for them, right? You now have an active hand in determining what's on stage. Is that the type of stuff you want to learn from? That excites me a lot, right? You have you can be more involved in that. Look at how you want to network with these people. Again, it's New York. Grab a bunch of people and go to Brooklyn Bowl, right? Do a meet up about a specific topic or an area there. Reach out to all your friends and everybody in the community on the creator side that that you are curious about learning more about, and just say, "Hey, are you attending? I think that'll give you a good side there. On the business side, I think it's going to be really focused on the creators and the people working in it. I think that you know we do have brands that are asking to attend as well, and so the brands will be able to go for free to both events, the business summit and the the podcast movement side of it, and so we're really focused on making it accessible to those buyers on all sides there. But the business side, like I would look at you know meeting creators, I would look at meeting the people behind the microphone and the that are making all that happen, and I would focus on how you can help grow all these people. So I think there's good options for everyone there, but I truly am not offended if people need us to prove it. That's the hardest part, Matt. If you called me and like Brian, I have this massive pitch. I could use your help. Can you come out? I can fly out tonight, and we can, you know, I can affect change and help you directly as sounds profitable. Podcast movement takes years, and I don't know if you know this about me, but I may be the most impatient person in the entire world.

Matt Cundill  34:42  
Yeah, and by the way, you have made that offer. You and Tom both made that offer to come up to Toronto a couple times to straighten out a few buyers. And thanks for that.

Bryan Barletta  34:50  
Always happy to. I mean, like it's fun, right? Like if if we do that and it unlocks more revenue, it's not just for you. It's for the whole industry. So that's like we are always happy to do that. But I. Can't throw 20 events a year and iterate on them every time we get through a new one. Like I already have things I'm learning about from New York. Like I want to do two separate venues next year. Terminal Five was just a great price, great opportunity, but it doesn't fit both sides perfectly, and we can do better. I've never increased prices on things. That's one thing that I'm really proud of. I've never increased prices; they've only gone down. So anything that we do is going to be able to hold that line.

Matt Cundill  35:25  
Ryan, thanks so much for doing this. Looking forward to seeing you in New York.

Bryan Barletta  35:28  
Yeah, thank you. And please, if you haven't had a chance to vote yet, I'm sure there'll be a link for everybody to check out, and you can buy your tickets on podcastmovement.com. And again, next year we're going to do open submissions for everything as well too. So thank you.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  35:45  
Another Sound Off Media Company podcast.