384 - Steven Bartlett’s New Platform, Cinema Pods, and the AI DJ Revolution

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Wednesday, October 8th, 2025, and today we're unpacking the week in podcasting. Stephen Bartlett introduces a bold new video platform launch. To. 4th graders giving NPR a run for their money, plus AIDJS award shows and more. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast or YouTube, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds. We'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. Good morning again, podcasting, Morning Chat. Thanks so much for being here.

1:24 I am your host Mark Ronick and currently on stage with me we have producer Ashley Feller, Nick Nolback, Sid Meadows, Jonathan Howard, Dr. Fey, Alex Baelish and Phil Better. Welcome to the cast and crew and welcome to those of you here listening live on Clubhouse and potentially I haven't really looked yet over on YouTube live. I don't see anybody yet, but yesterday I know we had a couple people pop in and that was cool to see. Really trying to, well, I shouldn't say I'm trying to grow the YouTube thing, but I am trying to be very consistent with the lives on YouTube. I say that because I admittedly haven't put in a big effort into really growing this YouTube side of things.

2:10 It's on the radar for 2026. So more to come there. In the meantime, today, like I said, we are covering all the headlines around the world of podcasting. So I think why don't actually before we do that, I just remembered what I wanted to do. Phil, who I mentioned a moment ago on stage with us. Phil, I saw on Facebook that you have a client that got nominated for a Signal Award. And I wanted to give you an opportunity to share that client and what that award nomination is all about. And maybe then we can put a link in the show notes to try to get some people to vote. So go ahead, Phil. Tell us a little bit about it. Yes, the client that we have is a podcast called Nice Jeans. It's a podcast fully on the genomic world, but they so they talk about the genomes and a whole bunch of great scientific stuff, but in the fun, entertaining ways. This season we're doing it as a more detective series. That's the through line.

3:16 So it's all about storytelling, telling stories about why elite athletes collapse in the middle of a, a sports game that we we've all seen how waste management actually affects your health and your genome, your genome, your DNA and poo detective or poo done it. And we have so many other amazing episodes coming out. So the podcast is called Nice genes. We are nominated for a signal award under the science and education, under branding, the branding style. And it is a podcast that is fully Canadian as well. So it's a fully Canadian team that's creating it, producing it and actually doing all the real work for it. So it's a great podcast, it's a very entertaining, it is phenomenal.

4:05 We've we're trying to win and we would love for everybody who's listening to go ahead and check it out. So it's the Signal Awards. Is Sydney Sweeney your sponsor? No, I can promise you we do not have Sydney Sweeney or her good jeans in it. I know. Unfortunately, she doesn't fit into the science world, only into nice jeans from American Eagle. And there you go. So what? We will put that in the show notes so that everyone can support Phil and his client. I would encourage you to actually go listen to an episode before you vote just for integrity's sake. And it's always nice to support a fellow community member. Were you going to say something, Phil? I was just going to say thank you and yes, check out the Poo Done It episode.

4:53 It's actually a lot of fun. Silliness abound night. Phil, go ahead and put that in the link. If you can find a link to that episode, put it in the chat and then we will make sure to put it in the show notes so that people can go directly to it and press play and then give their vote. Check out the Signal awards, lots of nominations. I believe our friend, community leader Dominic Lawson was nominated for two Signal awards as well. It's kind of, of course he is right. Dominic's always nominated for awards and wins a lot of those nominations as well. So good luck to Dominic. All right, now I'm going to hit the correct button here.

5:37 Let's get in to news as soon as I pull up my news stories. Stand by. Where did it go? Darn it. All right, unprepared, Mark. Well, I was prepared. It's just I have way too many windows open at the moment. Here we go. OK, so as of today, let's start with some podcast data, shall we? And let me, yes, let me make sure this is correct. It is as of October 7th, yesterday, the number one podcast on Apple the past #1 has been dethroned. It's now Crime Junkie by audio Chuck. I will save the top podcast on Spotify because A, we all know it and B, because we all know it. We do a top five for Spotify.

6:27 We will get to Dr. in just a second. I did want to share that according to the podcast index, if you look up podcast index, you'll see that website, there are now more than 4.6 million podcasts listed with over 146,000,000 episodes published. Just a stat I haven't shared terribly or often. That averages out to about 31 episodes per show. And Spotify actually has the biggest podcast catalog, partly because it includes a lot of shows made directly through Spotify for creators that don't appear anywhere else. Apple Podcasts, on the other hand, has fewer listings because not every show these days are choosing to be there. And that's just some speculation, really. I'm not saying that's the hard truth, but I think Spotify has been making such a big push and creating ways of being, of making it enticing to be exclusive to the platform. But here's the number that really matters. How many of those shows are still active that I talked about?

7:33 Those 4.6 million podcasts as of right now, about 181,000, let's say 182,000 podcasts have released a new episode in the past week. That's a much smaller group gang and if you're creating shows, I don't want to call it the real competition. I can't think of a better way to put it, but it this is the real competition, here are the ones that are still producing and putting out new content. I think we shouldn't let that 4.6 million discourage anyone because there it's a little bit of a false story there when we know that really only 182,000 of them are actually putting out podcast episodes this past week. Jonathan, did you want to say something? Yeah.

8:19 I just wanted to say that on the monthly because I pulled it from my presentation at Empowered Podcasting. For each month, it's 500,000. So that's still a much smaller number than 4.6 million and it's still against your one podcast, but you have ways of making your podcast stand out. Yeah, think about, I think it's safe to say, think about when you're starting a social media account and compare that to podcasting, because they're, correct me if I'm wrong, Jonathan, but a lot more social media, we'll call them channels, profiles. Then there are podcasts out there, yet everybody rushes to start their social media and they don't seem to. Well, I'm sure there are some people, but it seems that people are quicker to start a social media with the understanding that there is so much competition, for lack of a better word yet.

9:11 Yet I feel like more people get discouraged about starting a podcast because, quote, everybody has one. I. Agree. All right, cool. So now let's go to. Thank you, Jonathan. Let's go to Dr. for the top five on Spotify and the top five in a specific category that she likes to pick for us every week. Go ahead, Dr. So Spotify #5 is the Tucker Carlson show #4 is this past weekend with Theo von #3 is true crime with Kimber. I think that's how you pronounce her name. And #2 is good. Hang with Amy bowler #1. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Is the Joey Rogan experience.

9:55 Shocker. All right, where? What's the category of the week? I just wanted to say that number 2, good hang with Amy Poehler. Some of the video shorts that have been put out are so freaking funny. They are so good. Agreed. So I that is going on definitely that's going on my weekly list. OK, so the second chart that I'm going to read off today, we're doing comedy, fiction, comedy fiction. OK, so #5 is sorry about that murder or it could read sorry about that murder. There's different reads that you could do on that. Number 4 is Legends of Adventist or Adventris. There's an R there, Legends of adventurous #3 is Worlds Beyond numbers #2 is Midnight Burger and #1. Nice.

10:53 Is the Adventure Zone. There it is. So first of all, by the way, you mentioned that number 5, the sorry about the murder. I think that Phil will appreciate this. This is a Canadian show based on Canada, and we know that sorry is kind of a word associated with Canadians. Sorry that we have such great comedy. I'm sorry. Like, I'm really sorry about that. It's nice to have a Canadian back on the crew. By the way, I'm. Telling you that's awesome. So we thought we'd go back and tell you a little bit about each one of these. And we've got some sound effects now. This can be a teaching moment, y'all. This tells you how much richer the read can be if you just have some backing music to go with it. So with that said #5 is Suri about about the murder? Every day in a nice little Canadian town of of Bereave, Mount Ontario, a Zamboni driver must solve a grisly murder to clear his Quebecois name.

12:04 Quebec what? Is that see, let's let's ask Phil's Phil, It's QUEBECOIS. To the qua, it's someone from Quebec that's. Quebec qua. That's Quebec qua. OK, got it. So OK, that makes sense. Grisly murdered to clear his Quebec qua name and the ice for tonight's hockey game. There you go. Anyway, let we won't go through all of these, but I am curious about a couple. Let's do #4 as well. I'll I'll take that one. Legends of Avantress 7 chuckleheads were reading there descriptions, goofing off, telling stories and laughing way too loud. Usually playing D&D the podcast.

12:45 No shit. The podcast, what did you say? Usually playing D&D really. Yeah, exactly. The podcast features are stories that all take place in interconnected world of adventurous. Even if you know nothing about tabletop games, we think you'll enjoy the improv comedy narrative, voice acting drama and friendship along the way. D&D podcasts are definitely a thing these days. Let me do #3 only because it's so funny and I forgot to tell you the name of the show is What is it, World? 'S beyond numbers. World's Beyond Numbers. It's four friends hang out together and use games to make stories.

13:28 It's pretty good. That's the read. It's pretty good. Could be read as it's pretty good, or it's pretty good read either way. Yes, and Midnight Burger is an audio drama about the adventures of time travel, dimension span, time traveling, dimension spanning diner. And that is actually that caught enough of my attention to get curious and I've added one an episode to my cue to hear more about that. And you want to. Quick. Do the next one. I don't think it's anything funny. OK, the Adventure Zone is that first one again. Well, obviously it's got to be funny, but maybe the description isn't that funny, OK.

14:08 Yeah, but some of these sound really funny that I think I might add to my list. Yeah, absolutely. All right. We're going to keep it moving. And I know D Rs got cooking time, so go for it, Dr. enjoy the eggs and let's do some events Speak Fest, which I've been talking about and that's spelled Speke Night of the living pod. That's coming up here in just a couple of days, October 10th in Houston, TX. So if you're in that area and curious, check that out. The 7th annual Afrozen Audio Podcast Festival is coming October 16th to Baltimore, MD once again. And here's a cool one. Again, it's like a Canada theme today, Phil, and I'm curious if this is near you and of interest to you. Campfire 2025 in Toronto, ON.

15:00 Campfire hosted by Pod Camp Toronto. We've talked about some of their events in the past, invites podcasters and creators to gather around a cozy campfire in Toronto. It's a chill hangout where you can network, share ideas, and spark collaborations in a relaxing setting. Join us for insightful discussions, community connections, under the stars. I think that's a pretty cool concept. I love the idea, you know, to be honest with you. Phil, have you heard of this and is this something you would attend? I've heard. Of it, pretty sure I saw it one month on Pod news, their newsletter. It's about a six hour drive, 6-7 hour drive depending because it's in Toronto.

15:43 So that's close to, not close to Niagara Falls, but it's in that area. So I'm more closer to like Vermont, so. It's it's gonna be a long Yeah, I'm on. The other side, I would go to it, I'm always interested in meeting more Canadian podcasters, so there there is a potential seeing when it is. What's the date again? October. 18th Yeah, I'll give you guys a. Report. Yeah, let us know. Sean from the. Night from one of the other rooms. He's been a speaker there several times and he's very involved in it and supposed to be a good time it seems like. It I think, you know, I would thinking about the the people that we had at Empowered Podcasting, doing a campfire with them and talking podcasting and networking.

16:28 I think it would go really well. I think it would be a perfect thing. Who knows, maybe we'll incorporate something like that in the future. I don't think the hotel. Would like the fire, no Yeah, I. Don't think we would do it in the hotel Phil, but yes, we would be a little more smart about where we where we host the fire. What else do I have for you? 2025 Latinas in Podcasting Virtual Summit. That's October 23rd. I don't have a link for you handy, but I can tell you go to podnews.net/events and you can get that information there. And of course, we'll put it in the show notes as well. I'm going to do this one, next one for Dr. and Dr. if you're listening, you're welcome to chime in because I think this, yeah, you added this one.

17:13 Podcasters directory, virtual networking event. This is something you've been sharing with us each week lately. The next one is tomorrow, October 9th, 3:00 to 4:30 Central time. And you can use PMC for the discount code to get involved for free, no cost to you as a PMC community member. Just use that PMC code and Dr. Do you want to add anything to it? Yeah, make. Sure. And read off the topics. Do I put the topics in? Yes. Focus topics are business, entrepreneurship, money, finance, tech and AI. Thank you, Sir.

17:53 You're welcome. All right, now let's jump ahead for a minute. I say that because sometimes we save AI news for a little later down the road, but I think this is worth jumping the line, especially while we have Dr. still cooking and then we can get back to some other news. Here's something interesting that I know Nick will jump in on here. ChatGPT plus Spotify equals your new AIDJ for music and podcast discovery. So now Spotify plugs into ChatGPT directly. Nick will tell us a little more about that, letting you ask the chat bot for music or podcast recommendations that flow right from your listening history and mood.

18:37 The feature is an opt in. It's available in 145 countries and gives both free and premium users conversational discovery tools with some privileges reserved for subscribers. So, Nick, tell us a little bit about this. Good morning. Everybody earlier this week's Open AI held their yearly dev day event that happened on Monday and they announced some pretty cool stuff. One being what Mark was talking about here with the Spotify app living inside of ChatGPT or a a version of the app inside of chat. And it's actually part of a broader release or feature that they've added into ChatGPT itself called apps. Right now, there are several different apps that you can actually access through ChatGPT.

19:27 One of them being Canvo on Spotify, I think Zillow. And there's another one, there's probably 5 to 10 different apps that are already built and connected with ChatGPT. If you click, if you're on your profile and you click on your little picture down in the corner, you'll see apps and connections or connections that will give you a list of all different apps that you can actually speak to and connect to inside the platform itself. And essentially what it does is allows chat GPTA direct connection to in Mark's example to Spotify. So you can tag with like a little at sign Spotify and ask it to give you recommendations and see what the latest episode was of your favorite podcast or find you playlists based on your wing or whatever you want to do.

20:18 But. It'll actually open the app side of your chat, DDT chat and you can interact with Spotify app directly inside the chat there. But I think it's pretty cool. It's very cool. I I tested it out. I tested it out, Nick, by the way. And yeah, it's really cool. You can ask it to give you podcast recommendations, ask specifically for the types of podcasts and it will it will deliver that. So I guess. My one question because I haven't actually played with the features. I've been my phone non-stop. As far as I can tell it's only working on desktop at the moment. Does it play music from there as well or does it just give you the playlist? So what I.

21:00 Discovered and I only used it once or twice. What I discovered was well, first it connects it, you know, it asks just like when you connect other apps, Internet apps, it'll ask you, you know, permission and and all that stuff. And then I think what happened was I asked it for podcast recommendations about podcasts. I wanted to see if we came up. We did not damn it and it opened. What happened was it had a really nice graphic looking, you know, a design. It looked almost like a player in within ChatGPT, like a playlist type of thing that you could click on. But also, I think once you click play, it opens up Spotify for you and plays Spotify alongside your ChatGPT window.

21:47 So that's how it works. That's really cool. So this is actually it's part of a, a broader release that they're opening up to creators, app creators and developers. So I know they already have a whole list of apps that are coming next. But as developers, creators, as they start creating their software, they have the ability now to incorporate a ChatGPT element to it. Where we could end up seeing more of like a ChatGPT App Store where the apps that you're using every day, you can bring directly and communicate directly to them from ChatGPT. And the Canva one, like I said earlier, I didn't quite get the Spotify one. Like I kind of get it, but I probably won't use it a lot. The one that I was really interested in was their Canva connection or Canva app connection. And the reason I was interested is I watched them do a demo of this during the Dove Day event.

22:46 And they essentially they have this business idea that they were this little scenario that they were running through and they had to generate with the Canva app a poster for this company or this business that they wanted to create. And it presented them with several different poster options. And then they took it a step further and said, OK, I want you to create a pitch deck for this business that we're creating based on this poster that I selected. And it went and created like 8 to 10 slide pitch deck that to me looked almost like a perfect Instagram carousel. At that point, you can choose to open it up in Canva and continue working on the design or doing whatever you want with it. But to me, I was thinking if that works as well as they're demonstrating, that would be so easy for creators now to upload a transcript of their episode or their videos and tell Chet GBT to use Canva to design either pitch decks, Instagram carousels, images, graphics, etcetera, highlighting key moments of the episode, some of the funniest quotes or most important points mentioned in the episode. And Chad, JBT and Camba would kind of take care of a lot of the heavy lifting.

24:01 Basically get you past that blank page that we all encounter when you open up the camera for the first time. No, I really like it. I did. But I didn't go far with it because it was the end of the day and I wanted to wrap up my my day. But what I did tell it, I wanted it to create a 7 slide carousel, something podcasting related. I forget what I told it and it what it did. Was it first that as far as I got was it gave me like 5 or 6 different templates to choose from. It gave me just the first slide and they were all completely different. I didn't love them what it came up with.

24:42 I mean they looked decent, but it just wasn't really my style. It felt a little too stuffy, a little too formal for me. But I what I take away from that is I gave a very vague prompt, right? I think if I gave a little more detail about the branding, maybe even shared with it a style that I use and then tell it to create something similar, I think it would work just fine. But I love the fact that it did give me options and then I could click and choose one of the options and then have it build out. And like you said, it, it even told me it would send it straight to Canva if I wanted to go in and work on it in Canva, which I think is really cool. Nick, quick question, like do you think that this new thing from ChatGPT VS apps and these app connections, do you think this is kind of what they wanted to do when they first introduced apps and started teasing the App Store that they have within their own?

25:43 Or do you still see these as two entirely different things I guess? Are you more referring to like the GPTS? Yeah, the GPTS. Yes. Yeah. So I I see them as two totally different things. One, because the GPT, it's very limited in the functionality, but it allows you to kind of build and cater the kind of responses that you want to get out of ChatGPT, which saves you the time on the prompting, setting the AI up to understand your what you're after, your goals, all that kind of thing. I mentioned at the conference, like almost like individual workers or V as working for you that have a strict line of instructions that they need to follow and these app connections. Now I see this more getting into almost like the automation of the apps and things that we use.

26:36 To where? Now you can just talk to the app that you want to do something on. And ChatGPT can right at this point pull information out of those apps or potentially even in the future certain doing things on those apps for you. And I think it's just like the next the next step towards getting that full agent experience that we keep hearing people talk about being AI right now. Yeah, I. Love this idea. Yeah, I just think. It's funny because you're still going to end up listening to the same 5 songs that you listen to all the time because those are your favorites. And just that, that's kind of what I was thinking in my head. I'm like, it's all well and good, but it's still going to end up the algorithm. Still going to go back to the same song that you like anyways so I can relate to. That I know that when I tell when I tell Spotify to play music.

27:25 Pardon me if I'm using like an Alexa. Hold on a second. If I use an Alexa, then I'll just say play music, right? And then it'll just play usually the same stuff. But I think my, my optimism it's towards ChatGPT and telling it, you know, give me some music based on what I like. Give me some new recommendations, something that you think I'll like. I think that maybe this will help expand it a little bit. But you're right, when it just defaults to playing, it usually just goes right to the things it knows you love the most. By the way, I just have to call out in our live audience. I love seeing some updated profile pictures. I mean, Tim, this has been his picture since he started joining us after the conference. Janae, I see updated his picture. It's so cool to see them with the empowered podcasting step and repeat sign behind them from the conference a couple weeks ago.

28:14 Just makes me smile. Thank you for updating those and giving me that smile this morning. Nick, anything else you want to share on the AI front before we move into more podcast casting and content creation news so along? With that dev event, so the apps was a big feature that they launched. And then the second big thing that I'm excited about is what they're calling their agent builder. And I know we've we've talked about Zapier make any then was one of the more recent AI tools that we had talked about. But this essentially brings that kind of functionality into ChatGPT, I guess, not ChatGPT directly, but within open AI.

28:57 And it's essentially a drag and drop editor that you can have AI models connected to it. You can have different MCPS which you've talked about which essentially allow AI to take action on apps. So just as an. Example one of them that I'm messing with right now. I want to be able to have ChatGPT almost do stuff for me in my Notion board. And Notion has their own MCP server which allows it to create pages, read information from Notion, etcetera. So you can set up work flows that talk directly to Notion and start taking action inside of your Notion board. Like I want you to create a new page or a new task called this, set the new date for that, whatever, and the AI will actually go do that for you without you even having to open the app.

29:47 So that is. Another new feature that that you just launch that you should have availability to right now, but you'll likely you'll likely have to serve. I mean, you will for agent builder to actually find that it's not going to be in the the ChatGPT app itself. Very cool. All right. Thank you, Nick. Appreciate the AI updates. I'm going to keep things moving. It sounds like you just got to the office. So let me keep things going with some news bites. These are some stories worth sharing. I I think they, they fall under this particular category. We call them bites because we make an assumption that maybe there won't be tons of things to talk about, but these are important stories that we think you want to hear. So big update in creator tools.

30:37 If you're familiar with podcast page dot IO, this is not pod page that we use. This is a competitor. I believe podcast page dot IO is rebranding as Beamly. And it's not just a name change. Beamly is evolving podcast page dot IO from a podcast website builder into a full creator hub, a place to publish podcasts, both audio and video, blog posts, courses, digital products, all under one roof. So if you are a podcast page dot IO user or searching for a website builder that has a lot more or a lot different a variety of bells and whistles, go and check that out.

31:25 You will be able to use this and monetize in more ways. Memberships, premium podcasts, one time digital downloads, all with pay attention here all with 0% platform fees on those native tools. The transition promises to be smooth for existing users. Your domain, your domains, plans, member data, nothing changes but the actual service itself. Instead of stitching together multiple platforms, your podcast host website, course tools, paywall services, Beamly is aiming to be the all in one stack for creators. Check out that I I was going to say check out podcast page dot IO, but I believe check out Beamley BE AM LY for more info. Dr. you want to take the next one? I sure do.

32:18 So Bartlett, Diary of the CEO just made the leap to the big screen, and we'll have more on that in just a second. Now, last week, Pod News reported that select episodes were being shown in the UK cinemas for about 20 bucks a ticket. OK, even though those same episodes drop for free on YouTube and Spotify just 12 hours later. Naturally, the Internet had thoughts. Like, who's paying for that? Well, turns out a lot of people are OK. Glasgow's nearly sold out. Manchester's about 80% full.

32:59 One London screen is packed with another's over halfway there. Even the largest screen in London is moving tickets, so he's pulling it off. Let's say it's. So fascinating. I'm curious, would anybody, let's say it's maybe this isn't your favorite podcast, so just put insert your favorite podcast here and imagine them putting the podcast up in a movie screen in a movie theater that you could get earlier than the release date. Would you do it? Would you pay for it 20 bucks? Hell no. What if it was? What if it was Conan's podcast DRI still? Wouldn't do it. I'm so busy I can't even tell you. The last time I actually stepped into a movie theater, I can't even tell you.

33:44 Well, a lot of. People can say that these days, apparently. Nobody's going well. I know. It's not a podcast, but Taylor Swift's movie made $30 million this weekend, and it's a movie. It's not a movie. It's a video of one of her, I don't know, one of her concerts. No, it's not even a concert. It's heard a new music video. It's literally an MTV music video. And the behind the scenes of it made $30 million this weekend. So how? Long Is it in late? Do you know It's about an hour? Oh wow, that's hard to compare it to the old MTV videos because they they weren't usually in an. Hour. I mean, it's more like the. Thriller video, if anything, by Michael Jackson. Yeah, I could totally. See like something like Smartlist or something like that and they went on tour. People spent money for that, but. Going on tour live is a completely different thing than stepping into a movie theater and sitting down and watching it on the screen.

34:41 Agreed. Agreed. And I'm, I'm wondering this is where I think it could work, especially for these more popular, these bigger shows. It does it's it provides community. Now you can actually sit with a bunch of people who are as passionate about your favorite podcast as you are. So yeah, you're not necessarily going for the appeal of actually seeing your favorite podcast host live in front of you, but maybe the appeal is that you get to sit and enjoy it. Alex with his example of Smartlist, like that one I could really see being a thing because I know they have a passionate audience and it's usually pretty funny. So I I'm just picturing people laughing and just like you would at a comedy movie. I think it could work, But I I'm not saying like you're crazy for thinking Dr. like, like how can this be pulled off? But I think it could.

35:34 I think that movie theaters need to find a new way of getting Yeah, and. They're doing that. Whole thing where they're they're showing a live events, yeah. Throughout the. World I forget. What it's called, but you see them when you, you know, go to a movie. They have to reinvent their way of doing things. And if they know, to Mark's point, on Friday between 7:00 and 8:00, they're going to have a live broadcast or whatever it is. It it may work. I can see what you're saying, Dr. about I can't even keep up with the podcast that I supposedly subscribed to. How am I going to, you know, make time? But that's the point is that it's kind of like must see TV, you know, it's must see listening or whatever.

36:21 And then community could create you know what? I I see in my head is especially with the Swifties, you know how in Rocky Horror Pictures show they go in costume My. My daughter does that Dr. OK, then, yes, now I would be so on board with that. So I would think that the Swifties, when they see that movie backstage thing that they're besides backstage stuff, they went in. Costume. Yeah, see. There you go. So I think that puts a whole different slant on things. Now if people want to go in costume to see Diary of Aceo, OK, that's fun.

37:04 Chicken. That just be everybody. In suits and ties and business attire. Yes. But if you. Create an event about it. I mean, I can't think of who a great get for Diary of Aceo would be, but like you could create an event. I mean, LeBron James just created a huge event that he got. You know, he did it a couple times, but yesterday in particular because he has a new brand deal and anybody in the sports world, when he decided to go to Miami, it was must see TV on ESPN for him to say that I'm going to Miami, I'm taking my talents to Miami. So I mean, I can see how people can create something from nothing. We've been doing it. You know, it's just another PT Barnum scam. But you have to have the content. I can see this, Jonathan.

37:49 I think you might agree with me on this. Had the New Heights podcast with the Kelsey brothers. Had they done this on the big screen, maybe even live stream on the big screen when they had Taylor join them, I think that would have killed it in ticket sales. Killed it. It's really a. Matter of figuring out what's the must see episodes that you're doing and getting, you know, creating the event and the excitement around that. And that will get people into the theaters because $30 million is nothing to sneeze at. And there's obviously an interest of people going to theater having an event or something and making it, you know, memorable. So why not podcast?

38:30 With the. Kelsey Brothers, I can see something a little different since it's sports. Instead of going into a movie theater, what I can see in my head is various bars and pubs having these events and showing it live, live stream at all the events. That would be a lot more than, you know, walking into a a movie theater, but they kind of do. That already. I'm not saying them per SE, but they've been videoing radio shows for years now. To your point, yeah, it'll work to put it in a movie. It's got a theater like that. I don't think it can be a regular thing.

39:11 It's got to be either a once a quarter, once a year type of thing because I don't think as much as the Swifties are are loyal and everything else. I mean, Jonathan, you're the head of the Swifty fan club for this group. I don't think you want to do that every week. Thank you, Alex. I think to be honest with you, I think what would work really well is the point you made earlier. I think if podcasts did live streaming to movie theaters, especially the really popular ones, I think that they would do particularly well because that would be the draw, right? Like instead of saying we're going to release the recorded produced episode 12 hours before like Bartlett's doing, instead, it's we're going to release the actual live episode as we record it unedited, unfiltered.

39:58 You know, that would be a draw in my opinion. Sid, I want to come to you. I saw you wanted to add something. Good morning to you. Good. Morning, everybody. I'm not a celebrity junkie. I would not likely do this for anybody. I just can't think of anybody that I would pay 20 bucks to go see something in a theater. But here's what I do think about it. I do you think that people are craving entertainment? They're craving fun, they're craving laughter, they're craving joy because the world's a shit show and this is an outlet for that. This is a way for people to relax and go have a good time and do something that brings them joy. And so if these people are doing it and they can get people there to pay 20 bucks and somebody paid 20 bucks for an hour and a half has a really good time and they laugh and they smile and they leave in a good mood, then I think it's a good thing. Thank you, Sid.

40:52 I can't disagree with you there. I think that you're right. I think people are craving more entertainment. And yeah, I think that this is a creative way to provide that Dr. Would go if it was Joe Rogan. We all know that. The only thing that I think it does. Is it gets you away from your device? Yes. Especially the. Younger generation, their head is always down in that Dang phone doing something. And this gets you away from that device. And you know, it does put you in a community. Maybe you do meet somebody, right? But you're there with people who all have the similar passions. So if I'm going to go see the live premiere of a Taylor Swift premiere of a, you know, music video and I'm with a whole bunch of Swifty that I'm having a good time and maybe I meet somebody that becomes a friend.

41:35 I mean, I think it has some good thing, good positive things all around it, but more importantly, it gets you out of that device. Did anyone else hear Sid saying get off my lawn? No, no. But at this point, there's two things you got to think about. You look at a Mr. Beast 1st and for instance, he's got YouTube. He's got all these different avenues where everybody is kind of siloed in their own world. And now you take that to the next level where you can create that community where people can come together. That's a new level to this point. Not everybody's going to be able to do this. It's only a select few, and those select few are already making a bazillion dollars. So to Jonathan's point, you know, 30 million isn't a lot to sneeze at.

42:22 For, for, for. That I mean. It's a good day's work for them, but I, Mr. Beast, did a video. I guarantee, I mean a movie, I guarantee it would be. It would go through as. Well, I bet it would. You're right. All right, we're going to try to wrap this part of the conversation up because we have so many more headlines to get to. And let's go to Mike Short. Janae, I do see you there. I'm going to come to you because I think you're going to want to talk about the next story with us. Mike Short, Good morning. Welcome back to the stage. What do you want to add? Thanks. There's just a. Couple of things that I wanted to add specifically for the Diary of Aceo podcast. I think a lot of it is people that are looking to connect and network with people because of the content that's in the podcast. So for them, they're willing to pay for that. But my other thought is, in a lot of ways, I think these type of events could work because it's a way listeners can give back to the content creators.

43:17 It's not terribly different than somebody who supports a YouTube channel by being a member for three or $5 a month. That's just the way give back to say thank you for the content that that creator is putting out there. So those are a couple of things that I don't think we've really touched on as it could be based on the content, wanting to connect kind of like what you said about community, but specifically with that podcast looking for other entrepreneurs or or people that want to and do run their own business, but more generally just a way to support content creators. I love that, Mike, thank you for saying that. I think that's such a great point. And and that is The thing is that you know you don't and I believe you don't have to have a Steve Bartlett audience to do something like this. Now, the numbers might look a little different, but I do think that a podcaster that has a, a strong community could, could get away with this.

44:15 They may want, it might look a little different. They may want to offer something that they don't normally offer as a podcast and do it as part of the movie theater experience. They may want to actually be there and the the host themself may want to be there, sit in the audience with the audience and watch that special episode that they're putting on the the big screen. I think that there are things and the fact that movie theaters are challenged right now, I think that you could work out deals like this with a local movie theater. It's something cool and interesting to explore and I'm glad that we're chatting about it. All right, I want to keep things moving. So let's get to a couple of the headlines before we lose the rest of this hour.

45:01 Flight cast takes off again. I'm back to Steve Bartlett. He and an ex Mr. Beast engineer launched a new platform for video podcasting. Again, that's that's flight cast and it's aimed to simplify the chaos around video podcast distribution, analytics and growth. So think one upload to rule them all, unified dashboards and AI doing a lot of the heavy lifting. So instead of just juggling metrics across platforms, having to go to Apple, then Spotify and YouTube creators gets everything, views, downloads, click through, rate, returning listeners, viewers, etcetera all in one place.

45:53 And then with the AI features it'll do things like what Opus or Riverside will do. It'll automatically generate clips from your full episodes. It'll suggest titles, descriptions, chapters, etcetera. AI driven insights like specifically to your analytics. Like they'll tell you what parts are performing well, what aren't, and the AI is tailored or trained on you so it mimics your style. I find this really interesting and not surprised this came out. Like I. I think this has been something that a lot of creators have been clamoring for to make our lives a little easier.

46:34 Let me give you some pricing after hearing all the things it does. So the first tier is a $50.00 a month tier. It allows you to upload 1080P video. You if you are getting up to 50,000 downloads a month, that would be a package for you. 3 terabytes of storage, unlimited transcripts, advanced analytics, dynamic ads, you can add team members, etcetera, $50.00 a month for $100 a month. The second tier you get everything I just said plus 4K video up to 100,000 downloads a month, 6 terabytes of storage, auto YouTube and Spotify sync and it says here one times AI clip generation per month and advanced AI tools. And then there's the legend package, 250 bucks a month for power users.

47:30 So you get 200 up to 250K downloads a month, 15 terabytes of storage, 4 times AI, clip generation, expert AI and all the pro features. Now some people might think well you may not need all that storage space, even 3 terabytes in the basic package. But if you are a video podcast, you're going to want that storage space 'cause that 'cause that video takes up way more space than the audio does. So $50.00 a month for pro level podcast tools and and really an all in one place. How do you feel about that? Does that sound reasonable for creators just starting to scale up? Should this be something for newer creators to to get involved with right away or should they find something cheaper?

48:20 What are? What's everyone's thoughts? Well. I was thinking about putting one of my clients podcasts on there, but when you got down to the prices, I kind of took a well, let's, let's see where, let's see where it goes before I start experimenting. I want everyone else to experiment with it before I go into it. So yeah, the, you know, after having YouTube be free, free, free, and then all of a sudden plopping down $50.00 for an experiment that we don't know that will work. That doesn't seem you're not. Ready to take the plunge? I mean, listen, here's the thing. So yes, there are free platforms. And when I'm thinking about podcasting specifically, you know, Spotify for creators being a free platform for us to upload our shows and distribute.

49:10 I think about some of the other platforms where they can cost anywhere from 10 to $30.00 a month depending on the plan and the service. So it's not that far off for those who are paying for services like Buzz Sprout, for example. And it's the big thing that I find appealing is that everything is in one place. All the analytics, I can pull them and just go directly to to this service, find out what my YouTube stats are, find out what my Apple, Spotify, it's all there together. And that is really appealing to me too. And then of course, also this would work well for the podcasting morning chat because we need more storage space.

49:51 So like Buzz Sprout, we had to leave Buzz Sprout basically because it was going to be really expensive to, to host all this storage space. So I went to a free place, Spotify for creators. I just saw somebody had something they wanted to add for someone. That doesn't know any better and doesn't want to think it's great. And for people that do know better and don't want to have to, the all in Thank you. Alex Yeah.

50:38 And another thing that I think makes it really worth it is the fact that the AI will help you with your analytics and understanding them and what's working, what's not. And then I find that will make it a lot easier to make adjustments along the way to help improve your growth. I'm tempted to be honest with you, I'm not sure yet if it's what I want because mainly because we are an audio first podcast. I know I shared earlier when we started, we do YouTube live and stuff like that, but that's really for the most part all I'm doing on YouTube and I'm not putting any video except for clips once in a while on Spotify. So that would be the only reason to hold me back. But still, there's so much more that draws me to it. So to be continued, Mark, I have a couple of. Questions.

51:29 Is this a? Hosting platform. It's partially A hosting platform. Yes, it will distribute audio and video OK, but it. Sounds like it's a video first platform. Can you repeat what's included in the $50 again? Sorry, yeah. Absolutely. Let me grab it. Hold on a second. We've got the basic package $50.00 a month gives you the 1080P uploads for video up to 50,000 downloads a month. So if you are, you know, power podcast that you have to think about that. I think for a lot of indie podcasters that's no problem. 3 terabytes of storage, unlimited transcripts, advanced analytics, dynamic ad inserts and you can add team members. OK.

52:12 Thank you. Listening to that, I'm not sure that I would do it, but it also because it sounds like it's a video 1st and I'm not a video first. So if I had similar to what you said earlier, if I had more intent around a YouTube strategy and trying to grow on a video platform, maybe it would make sense. But as a secondary aspect of where video falls for me, I don't think it would be worth it. I do love the analytics and bringing all that together because that's really hard to do. To Alex's point, you got to go all these different places and takes a lot of time, and then you got to figure out how to analyze them. So I do like that aspect, Yep. I hear you said it makes sense and I don't know.

52:55 It doesn't bother me that it's a video first platform as long as it still distributes my audio to all the platforms I wanted to go to. And and I think that like you said, the analytics that really is very appealing to me. Janae, did you want to chime in? Good morning, everyone. So here's some of the things I want to talk about. Flight Cast. Let's look at the numbers, right? The Diary of a Seer has 12.8 million subscribers on their YouTube channel. I don't know about the other platforms, but each of their videos are getting over 500,000 views within two days. But within. Six days, nine days, they're getting hitting 2,000,001 and a half million marks on YouTube.

53:39 So that's because they have a hard number. Now. They experiment like crazy on every single video, the shorts, the trailers. And that's something that the industry is also copying like hey, this is the dire of CEO is in the trailer. Like we want to do the same thing because again, they've done the research, they've done the work. So imagine getting to work with that team at a price of $50.00 a month. So that's what they're bringing to their platform because guess who's going to be using this platform? They're probably been using this platform for themselves, right? And now they've enabled it for us to be able to use it. So that's one of the reasons I'm like, I'm in because I have to, I have to spend less time.

54:21 They've got experts working on this thing. It's almost like working with Gary Vee's team for your social media marketing. And now you're working with somebody on that level for your podcast. So why not? Yeah, I like that. Perspective. Yeah, thank you, Janae. That makes a lot of sense. And again, you know, to some like Sid, it may not still may not make enough sense to do $50.00 a month. But Janae, I'm curious, your podcast hosting platform, who do you use? Right now I use. Spotify because I don't want to pay any money, but because of all of these features, right? I'm paying Zoom, I'm paying Otter, I'm paying chat TBT, I'm paying all of these other platforms much more than $50.00 a month. Opus Clips.

55:03 On the other one, right, So if you consolidate all of those costs and bring it to one place, it's a it's a steal and it's a deal and you're not jumping anymore between multiple different platforms to get good results and analytics. Yeah, makes sense. OK, cool. Thank you, Janae. Appreciate your perspective as well. And we are at the top of the hour. So we a reminder that we are back tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern Time. Tomorrow is we haven't named this segment yet, but if you remember last week, we've deemed Thursdays as our clip days where we're going to play a clip from fellow content creators talking about their tips, tricks, etcetera for podcasting, content creation, etcetera. And we're going to talk about them, whether we agree, whether we disagree, how we do things.

55:49 So join us tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern Time. And every Monday through Friday at 7:00 AM Eastern Time, we do this show, all things podcasting and content creation. Come join us at podpage.com/PMC until tomorrow. Make it a great day everybody, take care.