Tony Doe: Into the Podverse

Tara Sands  0:02  
The sound of podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
We're heading to Lagos to talk about the past, present and future of podcasting with one of the most thoughtful voices in Nigeria, Tony doe Tony is a former radio broadcaster who fell in love with the intimacy of audio long before cameras invaded the studio. We will talk about why he believes video is not the next phase of podcasting, the hidden risks of building your show inside walled gardens, and what happens when a platform can quietly take your work away. Tony also shares why he built the Nigerian podcast index, what the data is really telling us about creators in Africa, and how language access and infrastructure shape who gets heard. This is a master class in protecting your feed, your freedom and your voice. And now Tony doe joins me from the podcast, capital of Africa, Lagos, Nigeria, Tony, do you still have a working or functional relationship with radio?

Tony Doe  1:10  
Interesting question, working functioning. I just haven't been on radio since. I think I was a guest on radio sometime in 2022 I haven't been on radio since, but I have been part, and still a part, of a community of radio, and now we are making space for other broadcasters as well. So there's a guild. It started off as radio guild, private radio broadcasters Guild, and now it's the national guild of Nigerian broadcasters. Yeah, we've flipped the names too many times, so I'm still kind of involved. I still have conversations regularly with my friends in the space. I'm still sending out letters. I'm still paying attention to what it is they're doing, paying attention to their challenges, helping to look for talents, especially when they put out notices for new talents, helping with conversations, generally around the space as well, but holding on to the console, working a typical radio shift. That hasn't happened in a while, and I think, I think I'm beginning to miss it. I was certain I wasn't going to miss it, but maybe

Matt Cundill  2:26  
I am. Now. Do you know specifically, like, what you miss about radio, the

Tony Doe  2:31  
intimacy, and I don't know if it's still there, because to be honest with you, the way a lot of radio stations are built, there's too much attention to its visual appeal. We have a lot of radio stations with cameras. I feel it's invasive. I miss the days where I could actually walk into a radio studio without the shirt on and just fully get intimate, you know, in conversations with whoever is listening at that point in time. I think my favorite times used to be Saturday mornings. They were not very popular with structure, in the sense that weekends were not exactly, you know, big crowd pullers at the time, and I sort of created something that worked for me for six hours between six and 12, whatever came in because we always had some independent shows in between whatever came in between seven and c9, was part of my world. You came into my world. You blended into the into my universe for that time. And then between 10 and 12, it was something else, but there was, there was a level of intimacy that I'm not sure I hear as much anymore, and I think it's what radio is missing now. Everybody's, well, let me not say everybody, but every time I listen is, it's, there's, there's always this rush to share information. There's always this rush to think you're the first to present new music or a new piece of information, there's very little stop, pause. You've probably heard about this, but what if and you bring in a different perspective to it? Too many of my friends have become lazy in the process trusting reactions and the entire structure of your show to the listener or to whoever is active on social media. So you turn on the radio these days, you put out a question, and you start taking reactions from people on social media, and then you interrupt those reactions with a little bit of music and one or two lines in about 15 seconds, and well, you know what's happening. Your Show's over, but there's no connection, there's no intimacy, there's no Oh, I'm glad I had you here today to tell me this as you

Matt Cundill  4:50  
well there, there's radio stations that are, as you mentioned, putting on video. And now you can't do your show with your shirt off anymore, but I'm sure you can probably go to those radio people and. And wait till I tell you about podcasting and the amount of video we are supposed to be doing.

Tony Doe  5:04  
Now I'm getting into a lot of trouble over my stance. I won't call it anti video, because it's really not what I'm about, but I'm really not comfortable with the fact that people who should know better in the space are admitting and accepting that video is the next phase of podcasting. I don't think it's about next phases. I just think it's about the system, if you respect it enough, accommodate whatever you do with audio and video. But in the first place, audio was what made it so intimate, what made it so powerful, what made me get into it in the first place. The things I couldn't say on radio, the things I didn't want to be seen for on TV, I could express them in audio. I could tell longer stories. I could, you know, really let go and just express but right now, everybody is about one walled garden, or, well, one walled garden and another wall garden, trying to fight that one wall garden for possession of creators, and I'm worried that people are just willingly throwing away their freedom for what they think would be an advantage to them. And I've already seen how it turns out for some of us. I had a friend who lost his show after seven years, and they never really told him what he did, and this was just audio, but he was locked onto a particular walled garden, or where he was locked in a walled garden, and the stories that came out were just not adding up. But he just made it clear that if you are a podcaster and you willingly put yourself in this situation, there's very little that anyone can do for you. I found myself in a similar situation just early this year as well. And this is just audio. I'm not even talking about video, and video is a lot worse with you know, those terms and conditions. I was on a free platform for a very long time. For about five years, it was home to me, as far as I was concerned, even though they weren't really doing much for me, but they did enough giving me unlimited speech to put up as many shows as I could, because it wasn't just one show. Now the question is, did they violate the terms and conditions? Or do I assume they did? I assumed they did, and maybe I was wrong, because I was told in explicit terms that it was part of the terms and conditions that they could put stuff on your show, telling people that they powered your show, and I thought that was a violation of my space. Now, the thing is, after I complained, they took it off, and they took it off all the other shows as well. So that leaves a very vague space for conversation. But regarding video, it's a problem for what we're doing. I remember, I was on a panel in 2022 or 23 it was very early that year, and it was the first time I'd even heard that, you know, we could have a podcasting panel here. I was doing this. We used to have this event called next Africa. It was a big tech event, and someone was able to get a podcast stage, and then the conversation about video came out, and I was like, If you'd been following my content, which was an audio fiction series, and you now decided you would rather enjoy me on YouTube, would you really enjoy The same show that had immersed you in or that you'd been immersed in for so long you practically closed your eyes to enjoy the show, and you now insist it has to be in video. How do you want me to go about that? So there's, you know, there's the conversation around the fact that not everything we do in podcasting has to be video. I'm fine with those who do chat shows, and it's fine really, but that's not all there is, and we really should stop forcing people to think that that's what's next. It's really not what's next. It's good for who knows what to do with it, but it's not for everybody.

Matt Cundill  8:59  
Well, some people might think that your view is antiquated, but I'm beginning to see signs that your view is ahead of its time. I made a prediction last year that a lot of people would be selling their video equipment because they are not getting any return of investment on the video that they are doing. I'm beginning to see a lot of people who put video up are getting a few views consumption that is lower than 20% and then I say, show me the audio numbers. The audio numbers have way higher completion rates and way more downloads. And I'm not here to say the download is the greatest metric of all time, but the fact that people are listening and getting through 70 and 80% of the show on audio really says something. And I think people are looking at this the wrong way, and by looking, I think they like the look of a video. Listen. One of us is very good looking on the screen, and the other one is doing a podcast from Canada. So, you know, when I people love the looks of things. You know, they like to have access to it. They think they do, and then say, Okay, well, you're gonna watch this. For you know, you know, 3045, 60 minutes, and they

Tony Doe  10:02  
don't do it. No, they don't. I had a conversation with someone too, in the same space, and it's a problem here, too. And it makes me laugh, really, because I think we spend a lot of time just feeding our eyes, because we think that's how we consume and understand what we consume. But I'm learning that it's really just distracting. I'll be honest with you, I actually spend more time on YouTube than I spend on a podcast. If I'm going to listen to a podcast, I'm fully immersed in that on YouTube, I'm looking for a variety of things, and none of them involve an SM 7b hanging on a boom arm and two people laughing over each other. It's never been I've never seen the appeal of that per se. I can see it in short bits, but not for an entire show, and it's concerning for me. There's a lot of really great content on YouTube that far outperforms what some of my good friends in podcasting are doing now. My own quarrel really, is, if you're doing it only on YouTube, it's fine. Why do you have to call it a podcast if it's not available anywhere else? I noticed that the phrase is disappearing, available everywhere you get your podcasts. We need to bring that phrase back. I love

Matt Cundill  11:15  
it because I always thought I was always comfortable saying it. And then Tom Webster, I think, did a tweet one day and said, Well, that might be a good idea, but if your podcast is not on SoundCloud, then you're not available wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're not available on Youtube, then you know, same thing, right? So I still think the term's a lot of fun, but you know why? You know I don't say it anymore, and I think this is something you can speak to because I do think you wrote a blog about this and that you should probably say that you're available on platform one like Apple and Spotify, but also at my website.com, and that's sending people to your website and making sure that when people go to your website that they can connect to the podcast in whatever ways that you're offering up. So can you speak to the importance of having a website for your podcast?

Tony Doe  11:58  
Well, it's very important, and I'm speaking to myself as well, because I need to get back to doing that actually stopped for a while. And this is also an opportunity to shout out the great tools that popped out not too long ago, especially the web building features, pod pages, podcast page, I don't know if podcast page still exists under a new name, I believe. And I mean, that was really looking ahead, because I do remember when I had my shows up on pod page. There was the opportunity to interact with my content on YouTube if I chose to, so it was also one of the options for how to consume my content. So it's important, really, but then again, I don't want to push or put too much pressure on creators. Creators already think they are doing too much. I don't even talk about this in, you know, in the course of this conversation, but I've been doing a bit of research. I've been curating shows of Nigerian origin, and one thing has been constant, so many, so many of them stop creating from the first episode, they don't even get to episode three. It's like, okay, I figured out how to record I've published, but I'm not sure I want to do this anymore, because it's actually more work than I thought. So it's hard enough creating and then looking for different ways to get people to come enjoy what you're doing, but if you're able to understand the basic principle of how your content is distributed in the first place, you can then take your time with doing everything else. Again, you know the whole idea of it is it has to be available everywhere else. So if your podcast hosting platform is good enough to even give you a personalized website. I think that's a good start, too for what you do, and then you can bring people to it. But if you're available in all the major podcast hosting platforms, that's just great. You go to your dashboard, you check out what you're doing. If you're using op three, for instance, you get deeper analytics on how well your podcasts are performing. But the important thing is, be available in the key places where people actually go to listen to you, and then you can bring them in when you're sure you have a community. But having a website is good, but I don't think it's the only thing that will determine the success of your show. So I'm going to

Matt Cundill  14:18  
ask you a question that is very there's many, many answers to it, but I know I'm going to get a very good perspective from you, because you actually tackled it. You've researched it, you wrote about it, and that's what is a podcast? And is the answer to what is a podcast different? You know, where you're from, which is in Africa and Nigeria?

Tony Doe  14:37  
Yes, it is. It's very different. The article, which I rewrote was a follow up to an article that written in 2022 then I think Tom. I took a view from Tom website, took a view from Dave Jackson. They were very generous with their perspective, so some of that was still reflective in the current the. Finishing. And what I was addressing basically, was the fact that people equate YouTube with podcasting, and don't know anything else about podcasting. So it's a question of, oh, I want to start a podcast. You're basically saying you want to start a video channel, and you know nothing else about podcasting. And it bothered me, because I've been teaching podcasting with its origins, its foundations, its perspectives and the future of what it could be. Since 2017 I'm now in a space where rather than protecting the foundation or at least having people understand that this is what it is, and then agreeing that it could be other things as well. We're having people who are saying, No, it doesn't matter what it is. We want it to be this way, because people who don't know anything about it are calling it this, and it's, I think it's a problem. It's like somebody waking up one day and calling himself a tree, and you're looking at him and asking, do you have branches? Do you have leaves? And he says, No, all that doesn't matter. Well, like I'm looking at a tree outside. That's what a tree looks like. You look nothing like a tree. Do you have roots? Do I have to water you and you're like, No, but I'm a tree. I get confused, and that's what we're facing in the space now it's not even a question of audio versus video. It's a question of the structure, the nature, the very foundation that makes it what it is, whether we want to agree on the RSS feed or not, the fact that podcasting is free is what people are missing out on. So people are not free with their content. They're going to lock themselves in walled gardens, and calling these walled gardens that have no respect for the structure, not the distribution of your art form and making those ones determine what they call you, it's problematic for me.

Matt Cundill  17:09  
Yeah, and so that brings us to Spotify, right? One of our favorite walled gardens. I think it's probably the second favorite walled garden we've referenced in here. We've said walled garden a number of times, and it's really up to the listener of the show to figure out which one it is. We'll play a matching game with the whole thing. But when we mean that, we mean YouTube, sort of, that's a walled garden, right? You put your video in there, you don't really lose control of it.

Tony Doe  17:30  
It's the same thing. You put a podcast in there, you lose control of it. I don't know whether people get it. Okay, for instance, I was advocating for YouTube making RSS feeds available, but the option for that means you submit your RSS feed and it still gets encoded as a video, meaning that if I make edits to my primary feed to that episode, it doesn't reflect on YouTube unless I resubmit that RSS feed. And when I was doing that, I saw my shows multiplying, you know, different episodes with multiple versions appearing on the same encoded feed. It became problematic. It wasn't helping me in any way, and I just it was a waste of time. As far as I was concerned, I told myself, you're either doing content specifically for YouTube or you're paying attention to everything else.

Matt Cundill  18:19  
And so how did you feel about Spotify when they had a video offering,

Tony Doe  18:23  
I had a great laugh. I had a great laugh because I'd warned people about it. I was on Spotify for a very long time. I still use Spotify to consume content that I really like I can't find anywhere else. But I also saw what they were it was just a desperate fight. Personally, I feel it was just a petulant younger sibling trying to get the best of what the older sibling had a case of Jacob and so in the digital space. And it didn't make sense to me, because the first problem with that was, if I was creating audio already on the platform, and I decided to create video for someone like me. I would want to serve two different audiences, right? I want to serve who's watching. I would want to serve who's listening, which means there will be a measure of edits to either content. But what Spotify did was if you decided to bring your video along with your audio, they would suppress your audio with the video, and that means whoever is listening to your show, whether or not they like it, will get the video version of your content and it it didn't matter to them. They didn't think this was a problem. And creators were like, Oh, well, you know, Spotify. Spotify is big, so let's do this. And that's the problem. People are too quick to give away their power. It's really crazy.

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Matt Cundill  20:27  
I mean, there's a lot people say a lot of things about the RSS feed. Maybe some people find it too complicated. Maybe it's because it is easier to put any new into YouTube. Maybe it's because places make it seem like it's easy to submit your video to Spotify, but people are giving away their power in that moment. They don't really realize that they just want to be on YouTube or on video. It's odd.

Tony Doe  20:53  
It is. It really is. And it gets worse when you see the kind of conditions you're given to monetize, for instance, and you're like, Oh, well, they're giving me everything. The argument has always been YouTube has the most powerful discovery engine, and that's maybe where podcasting, in its traditional sense, still struggles. But I don't think it's a struggle, but say, I just think it's being in a place where people actually, if they really want you will have to find you on YouTube. It's not so much the same case. You're actually fed with something similar to something that's assumed you'd like. So you're not even really given what you're looking for. I use myself as a case study. I go to YouTube, I specifically search for one thing. I find that one thing that's the only thing really I'm looking for along those lines or in that format or in that genre, and then I want to look for something else. But instead of that, I'm having suggestions, limiting me to that one thing I had already checked on. So I'm reduced to following that line, the algorithm keeps me in that space. And then with creators, it becomes problematic for them, because if you're creating content, you have to look for people who are looking for something similar to what you have. And if you're doing it a particular way, and it's not exactly working, you're going to have to adjust it, and at the end of the day, you're really not doing anything creative or expressive, you're not sharing your story anymore. You're just trying to beat the algorithm. There's a lot of education that has to take place in the space that's not happening. And even for those of us who try to make it happen, we have other voices telling us now, you know, keep up. You know you're past it. And I'm like, No, I'm not, because it's still going to blow up in our faces and we'll come back to the raw basis again. And I'm just glad for people like James critland, who just manages to at least give me hope and keep us structured. I moved on to a new platform recently, and when I reached out to him, telling him about what I was doing with the podcast index, he recommended it, and was like, look for some of the shows you're actually going to look for. This platform actually has features that makes it easy to find these kind of shows. And then it became a talking point. Again, I have a lot of friends. I know a lot of people who are stuck on platforms they don't know what to do with, and don't know how to get discovered. And it could just be minor tweaks or certain, you know, podcast features, that could make the difference. But if nobody's talking about these things, we get stuck without everybody else you know seems to agree with that's where we are now.

Matt Cundill  23:39  
So this is a good time to talk about something that you've been working on and working with, and that's the Nigerian podcast index. So why did you feel the need for this to be done?

Tony Doe  23:49  
I've been asking questions for the longest time. One of the biggest problems we have on the continent is accurate data, and if you want to upgrade what it is you're doing, because, I mean, I can't tell people I'm actually making money from podcasting. I'm making money from podcast related services. Yes, production, voice over, work, music and all that. Yes, for podcasting itself, no, because we have constraints. Dynamic ad insertions using CPM doesn't work for us here. We don't make those kind of numbers to be measured in that way. Two, the payment platforms are not the things we have access to. We have strict restrictions here. Most of these platforms pay out through stripe and PayPal. Those are not available to us. Here. We have a running battle in Nigeria with PayPal. So even with PayPal returning, there's still a lot of skepticism around it. So we have those actual challenges. And it's all the reasons people are running away from the medium, because you really can't see way out of it. But there really is no there are many ways out of it. So data, somebody is like, oh, you know. What are you doing with podcasting in your country? How many shows do you have? What genres are popular there? A lot of us have to wait to the end of the year for Spotify to give us a list. Spotify won't respond to emails when you ask about this data. Apple doesn't have my time. So how do we do this? I ask the regular data collection companies, and they're like, they don't think what we're doing podcasting is big enough for that kind of retention. So I decided to do it the way I know how, the same way I was doing the survey. A little while back, I created a form, I found a way to find RSS feeds, and then I started curating my lists, the alternative was to actually put out broadcasts and ask podcasters themselves, excuse me to submit the RSS feeds. And that's where, you know, my eyes opened. People didn't know what the RSS feeds were, and it was an opportunity to be like, Oh, okay, hold on. So you're hosted on this platform, and this is your primary feed. That means you're not available in any of the podcast players, and you've been doing this for how long? Again, okay, now let me tell you how this works and how you've been short changing yourself. So the whole idea now is to have a place where we can actually look at the number of shows we're doing, the formats, the genres. Another interesting aspect, of course, is language. So we're seeing now that there are restrictions to language types of podcasts you can create, despite the fact that there are so many, I mean, Nigeria, over 250 local languages, and we have people who want to tell stories in these languages, but we have problems with platforms who can transcribe or interpret these languages. But of course, technology is, you know, making changes. So we're seeing the kind of languages people are choosing to tell their stories because of the restrictions they have. We're seeing the variety of formats and genres of these stories that far outweigh the chat show format. We're seeing stories from ends of the country that I didn't even think people knew what podcasting was about. We're seeing these numbers. We're seeing people who've done a lot of shows. We're seeing people who have done so very few shows will have awesome content. So it's also raising questions, why did you stop what's going on here? And all this actually started last year. I have a friend in advertising who just reached out to me. As far as he was concerned, I had the numbers somewhere, and he's like, Oh, I have this client of mine who wants to place an ad in a podcast. And I was like, oh, YouTube. No, no, not YouTube. I'm not talking about YouTube guy. We know how we can handle that. I'm talking about a podcast audio, and you're the one I can talk to. So where's your list? I'm like, I don't have one. It's like, but, but you should? I said, Yes, I know I should. And so I started it, and I should have a report and have an article to support my findings and to keep encouraging people to just submit their shows. It's not a player, it's not a chart ranker, it's just a list. It's a digital version of the Yellow Pages. So you come there, you type in, you find the podcast, you see trs link, you go copy it and go play it on your favorite player.

Matt Cundill  28:13  
How do you know that it's a Nigerian podcast? How do we weed that out? Do you pass the test is, do you ask for ingredients for jolliffy rice.

Tony Doe  28:24  
No, really, well, I had to come up with very creative ways. But this is also where I have to give my respect again to James, because he helped out with this on rss.com for instance, they have this feature called location tax, and I find out that really should be available in every RSS feed. I also found out that there's actually an easy way for the Creator to do this, just make sure your description has your location and your contact details, and that would appear in your RSS feed if I search for it. So I started telling people about it too. And you know, some of the members of the team as well reached out to people, and we're like, Look, if you haven't done that in your description already, quickly do that, and we could find it. But yeah, location tags were one of the things I used. And then the word Nigeria Nigerian, I could search for languages. I could search for unique Nigerian names that are popular in the space. And then I find that as you find one, all of a sudden, two more pop up, and three more pop up. And then you're like, Okay, you check their descriptions, you find there's a pattern. And then you walk around that pattern to begin to find the others as well. There's so many I still haven't found, but I broke them into different areas, society and culture podcasts are very popular, so that wasn't too hard to find the Nigerian ones. And then it's not just the ones that were or that are produced here. It also includes the ones produced in diaspora by Nigerians. So sometimes it's easy to find them because their names are there and they are proudly Nigerian. You put it out there, struggles of the Nigerian in America, struggles of the Nigerian in Canada, they put it there. If it's in your feed, then it's easy to find. So it's also opened an opportunity to tell creators, if you want people to find you, you have to be able to put that bit of information in your show description, and then it could pop up whenever your RSS feed is requested.

Matt Cundill  30:22  
Now I'm talking about Africa so far today, as if it's just a sort of one place and it's all equal across the continent. And that is like far from the truth.

Tony Doe  30:32  
It is. I have a struggle, because we have languages. We have neighbors who speak French, bene Togo, and they're even much closer than our Ghanaian brothers. And there's podcasting going on there. There's podcasting going on in Sierra Leone. There's podcasting going on in former Portuguese colonies. I'm looking for these conversations as well. They're not easy to find, but it's happening. There's a lot going on in the Arabic community up north, podcasting as well. So but again, you start from where you are, and then you hope that the template you're creating is replicated, modified, improved, and then helps other regions as well, so that when we have this kind of conversations, you're combining data from the different areas of the of the continent.

Matt Cundill  31:21  
So does that give countries, let's say, like Nigeria, South Africa, and, you know, possibly Zimbabwe. Does it give them an advantage? Because there's predominantly, there's, there's English involved in those countries, and so that, does that give them a head start over, you know, like a country like, say, Libya, which might lean a little bit Italian, or Senegal, which might lean French,

Tony Doe  31:42  
it does. The podcast platforms themselves were shaped mostly with English as the lead language, so that was the first attraction. And maybe now we're having, you know, variety of languages as well. I do know that afripods on the continent is beginning to look into other local languages. So you would find a variety, but maybe not so many. But the fact that the podcast hosting platforms themselves offered homes to creators using English as the base language, that was the first appeal. And of course, on the continent, we have lots of English speaking nations, and those are the ones who would always be in the forefront all the podcast Well, we'll see what the real percentage is. But the ones I've curated are in English. They have to be you find sparingly Hausa Igbo Yoruba podcasts, because these are even harder to translate in show descriptions.

Matt Cundill  32:36  
So would I find that a nation that had some Spanish speaking into it that it would probably do better in the ivooks app, and maybe some countries would do better in Spotify, but maybe there's some tools from other parts of you know that might be Arabic that might do better. So when it comes to apps, what are people choosing in Nigeria? But also, what do you see in other countries?

Tony Doe  32:59  
In Nigeria is Spotify. It's too easy. Nigeria is Spotify because it started with the music. And of course, you know how big the afro beats noise is. So with that, it was kind of easy to seep into that. And even when they came, I think there was a time I sat on a panel. Then it was actually an afro beats week long event, but he found a way to come talk about Spotify for creators, and then they looked at us local podcasters as well and asked us to be on the panel. So yeah, that is a no brainer. Spotify is what reigns here. And then, of course, because people are beginning to look at video as well, YouTube is also very big here across the continent. I'm not too sure, but I know afripods is doing what they can, and that's operating out of Kenya. And they're quite popular here too, quite popular in South Africa, but South Africa has quite a number of them. Iono, I believe, ayouno.fm, and they work with radio stations as well. Spotify, Spotify is all over Africa. That's, that's what everybody's, you know, kind of using and I think with translations now available, it even makes it easier for content creators as well as their fans and listeners to enjoy using Spotify. But Spotify is too easy. It's everywhere here,

Matt Cundill  34:13  
and YouTube is also quite easy. Let's just talk about our favorite walled garden. They're starting to dub in amongst other languages, and it's only a matter of time before it starts to reach a number of languages that are only found in Africa.

Tony Doe  34:26  
True. I'm looking forward to whatever pushes the button for us here and then encourages us to actually be bold with the stories we tell.

Matt Cundill  34:35  
Tell me a little bit about your podcast that you do. How did you ever become an Arsenal fan?

Tony Doe  34:40  
I'm actually wearing one now,

Matt Cundill  34:45  
I know I wasn't going to ask it, but you showed up with this shirt in it, and there's a little video here that I can see, so I figure I'm going to ask him about the podcast.

Tony Doe  34:55  
So I have three active podcasts. At the moment, I have into the pod verse, which is dedicated to podcasting. So I'm looking at everything from innovation challenges and the opportunities from an African perspective, nobody else is doing it the way I'm doing it. But the beautiful thing about it is I'm having conversations with different strata of podcasters, so podcasters all over the globe who are just as curious about what we're doing. And then it's an opportunity for the local content creators to see how people are making a difference in their own small spaces, and they can be inspired as well. So I'm doing that into the pod verse. I have up gunners, which is well over. I started up God is in 2014 now here's the funny thing, the origin of up gunners. It was supposed to be a syndicated radio show. I believe I was ahead of my time when I went to my friends on radio. I had left radio not too long ago, so I was going to my friends. I was like, I am an Arsenal fan. You know this? I know the stories, I know the struggle. I've been an Arsenal fan since 89 so I know what pain is, and I want to be able to talk about it within a sports show. What was constant on radio or sport shows covering everything? And I was like, yes, you can do the sport show covering everything. I just want five minutes inside that spot show. And it was too far fetched for these my guys, you know, like, especially with things not looking too good, I said that's exactly why these conversations need to be had. Like, how are we still fans of a club that appears to be struggling? That should make for interesting conversation? So I was doing that, and then I actually wanted to make it video. We have this thing. We have this habit of gathering in public places to watch matches. It's something to be seen. It's not something you can always explain, especially when you have rival fans gathering around. You hear the funniest anecdotes there. You hear the wildest insults, and I always used to have like fans of opponents, opposing teams, rather sharing their perspectives about my club. And it was always interesting. So I also started creating videos for it on YouTube. So what I was doing for YouTube was different from what I was doing for audio, but it was tasking at the same time, I was pretty good with video editing, but it was taking off too much of my time, and sometimes things happened in football that were way faster. So I continued with audio, and I changed its format over the years. That's another thing about podcasting. You do your way, and I was doing it my way. I was getting Vox Pop reactions, and then I had somebody who wanted to build his skills with analysis take over the show, and I'm like, Hey, have fun. And of course, he used bits of the show to eventually get a job on radio where he's working now, and I'm back to just being me however I feel about certain situations. That's how I express it on the show. And I find that it's when I talk and talk alone, I get the higher or the highest listens. So it's a fascinating situation with that. I became a fan of our snow club when they won the championship in 89 I was about 11 or 12 thereabouts, and it just felt like I don't know, this underdog story, they have been without a trophy for about 17 years, and then they go defeat Liverpool at Anfield to Neil. It was a beautiful story. It's so beautiful that I had to get the documentaries again. I get my kids to watch it. So my oldest son is a bigger Arsenal fan than I am, even though his experience with the club is a lot different. He's growing with this team, and he's able to see them in a way that's very different from the way I would see them because of, you know, my own experiences. So yeah, that's how it started. It was too easy to build a podcast around arsenal, because you couldn't do it as a radio show.

Matt Cundill  38:57  
I have an idea. My idea is that you come to the podcast show in London, and then, you know, two days before the show, I think that arsenal is playing. Burnley, what do you think of that?

Tony Doe  39:09  
Maybe it happens? Yeah, maybe it happens.

Matt Cundill  39:12  
Listen, I'm just, I'm just throwing it out there. Just you think about it. You manifest on it. Who knows? Maybe it happens? Tony, thanks so much for talking about podcasting, podcasting in Africa, podcasting in Nigeria. And arsenal with me.

Tony Doe  39:27  
Thanks for having me again. Matt, it's always a pleasure to be here.

Tara Sands  39:35  
Another sound off media company. Podcast you.