Navigating Podcasting in 2025: Is Video Worth It?

There are times that you have to go back and do research to answer the question, why do you believe what you believe?

And so a couple weeks ago I did kind of a, I hate to say deep dive anymore because it sounds like I'm reading a script from Chat GPT, but we, we did an in depth review of podcast media hosts, and today I'm looking at, should I be doing video?

What are the pros and what are the cons of video and audio?

And then we're going to look at some things that are going on with Spotify and YouTube.

So we're going to talk, open RSS and Spotify and YouTube, pros and cons and things to think about.

Because as we go into 2025, as always with my background in teaching, I want you going in informed so you can make the best decision for you.

Hit it, ladies.

The School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson.

Podcasting since 2005, I am your award winning hall of fame podcast coach, Dave Jackson.

Thanking you so much for tuning in.

If you're new to the show, this is where I help you plan, launch and grow your podcast.

My website is School of Podcasting.

Use the coupon code listener when you sign up for either a monthly or yearly subscription.

I want to start off quickly to say thank you to everyone who reached out and said, hey, how you doing?

Because of my last episode, I have, I had Covid.

I no longer have Covid, but I do have kind of a runny nose, stuffy nose thing going on.

And that feels much, much better than Covid.

So for more information on that, I'll put a link to an episode I did on the Building a Better Dave Show.

But thank you to all those who reached out.

And so one of the things I want to tackle as we round up 2025 is what are we going to see in 2025?

And this isn't, I guess it is a prediction, but I don't really think it's a prediction.

It's kind of like saying, I predict it will snow in Ohio in December.

Well, yeah, duh.

And so there are two things we're going to discuss today.

And one of the things I did was a deep dive with audio and video.

And I realized if you're a regular listener, you're like, ah, the old curmudgeon is going to say, you know, podcasting is not a video YouTube.

There's a little bit of that, but there are also some interesting stats that I found and anytime I can find things that go, maybe this isn't what I thought.

And that's really all I'm ever really looking for is the truth.

In the immortal words of John Lennon, just give me some truth.

That's all I want.

And so we're going to look at that.

But I'm also going to hint on.

There are two types of people slash companies in podcasting, and some of them are very much focused on creating tools and strategies to boost podcasting as a whole.

And then there are cannibals that only care about profit and growing their stuff.

And if it ruins podcasting in the process, we don't care.

I got mine, you get yours.

So that's where we're headed today.

So the first thing I want to tackle is video and audio.

Now, there's no wrong answer here.

Before, I always say, I'm not anti video.

What kills me is when somebody comes up and says, I have this idea for a podcast, and they tell it to me and like, wow, that is so new, unique.

I can't wait to hear it.

And I'm like, what's been stopping you from starting?

And they'll go, I don't want to do video.

And I'll say, well, then just do audio.

And they're like, wait, what do you mean, just do audio?

And I'm like, just do audio.

You don't have to do video.

Not every book needs to be a movie.

And they're like, can you do that?

And I go, it's your show.

You can do whatever you want.

And there's really this thing like, well, all the kids will make fun of me on the playground if I don't have a video.

And I get that.

But I've said over and over, the people that are perpetuating.

Is that a word?

Perpetuating?

The people that are moving that message forward are called YouTube.

It's YouTube that is saying that.

Which, of course they would.

They want you to do a video.

It's like the mechanic that owns a tire company and you go in to change their oil, they're going to be like, you know what you need?

You need new tires.

You got to consider your source.

It's like the doctor that owns many, many, many, you know, stocks of diapers.

And after you get done with your second kid, you're like, you know what?

You need a third.

Like, you gotta, like, know what's going on behind the scenes.

So we'll talk about that as we go along.

All right, so let's start off.

What are the benefits of audio podcasts?

Well, number one, portability.

Audio podcasts are Ideal for multitasking.

This is where you are doing things like commuting or exercising or walking the dog or doing the dishes.

I can't watch your podcast while I'm driving to work, but I can listen to it.

Rob Walsh at Libson talked about Bill Maher.

Bill Maher wanted to do a video podcast and had to be talked into doing an audio podcast.

And eventually Bill was like fine.

And then when he launched, Bill hired a PR company who only promoted the video version and the audio version, which got no promotion, outperform the video version 10 to 1.

Why?

Because there's more opportunity to listen than there is to watch.

Do I need to watch Bill Maher talk to his big name guests?

Do I need to watch Bill Maher smoke pot and drink vodka?

No.

I can listen to that show and not miss a thing.

Sure, some visual cues, things like that.

But it's portable.

Audio is more portable.

You can more opportunities to listen.

Simpler production.

So it requires, I don't know, a microphone.

I'm talking in to right now.

The rode podmic USB.

I was very tempted to bust out the Shure SM7B just because I felt like it.

But today I'm using the Rode Podmic usb.

It's going into a Rodecaster Duo and I'm recording directly into Hindenburg and I'm using the waves Sam.

I'm using a plugin links in the show notes.

I forget what it's called, but that's my chain today.

And when you do audio, you require literally.

Now do I need the Rodecaster Duo?

No.

In fact, I could go directly from the Rode Podmic directly into Hindenburg or Audacity, whatever you want to use.

Because the Rode Podmic comes with a bunch of effects.

So it's simpler.

You could get started with a Audio Technica ATR2100 and go directly into your computer or a Samson Q2U for under a hundred bucks.

Simpler production.

I don't have to shave when I do audio only.

Now another one.

Guest comfort.

It's a benefit of audio.

No need for an on camera presence.

And there are people I know.

I always ask, hey, thanks so much for having me on on your show.

I'm excited about it.

Is this audio or video only?

Because I don't want to show up looking like I just rolled out of bed because, you know, I just rolled out of bed.

If I know that, I'll get up and take a shower.

So that might actually increase your guest availability.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

If you want to interview me in the morning, that's not going to work because I got to make myself look pretty.

All right.

According to some studies, better memory encoding, audio improves memory recall compared to video, maybe.

There are a lot of things that we know simply by the audio.

Don't believe me?

Who wants fries, Right?

Also, and to me, when I did the research, some people called it distraction free.

So again, focus listening without visual interruptions.

So I don't need to watch this.

To me, that's very similar to portability, personal connection.

It creates an intimate one on one feel with the listeners.

One of the funniest comments I've ever received is I met someone at an event and they're like, you're Dave Jackson.

I'm like, yeah.

And they go, wow, you sounded shorter.

And I'm not sure what that means, but there are times growing up in the early 80s, late 70s, where I was really in tune with Denny Sanders, Kid Leo, these guys on WMMS in Cleveland, and then you see them later and you're like, wait, Denny Sanders is some, like, you know, he's got a dad bod and he's bald.

It's not what I pictured.

He's like one of the coolest guys ever.

That can't be.

So you have theater, theater of the mind, which is great.

And I am literally in your head right now.

I am in your head.

That's beautiful.

That's where we want to be.

All right.

Broad accessibility.

It's distributed via RSS feeds across platforms.

We're going to get a little nerdy today, but basically what that means is you can listen to me whenever, wherever, whatever amp you want.

You want to listen to me in Apple, fine.

You want to listen to me in Spotify, fine.

You want to listen to me in Podcast Guru, fine.

You want to list me in podverse, fine.

It's open.

You can listen on your favorite app.

You don't have to go to this app because I said so.

And then recording flexibility.

There's again, no visual setup.

I have recorded in hotel rooms with my Samson Q2U microphone and a couple pillows and a laptop.

And if I had not let the audience know, I don't think they would have known.

So those are some of the benefits of audio.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And as always, my goal is to educate you so you can make the best decision for you.

Keep that in mind.

So what are the benefits of video?

Well, enhanced engagement.

You have another layer of connecting with your audience.

There are visual cues, There are facial expressions and body language and all sorts of ways that you can communicate that you Can't.

Like, right now, as I'm talking, I'm waving my hands, making sure not to hit the boom arm.

But I'm engaged.

I'm excited about this.

And you could see that a little more if this was a video, which it's not.

The next one is trust and authenticity.

And I think this is really going to come into play the more I gets in and we can't tell who's who and what's on 1st and etc.

When you.

Can you see the words, you know, can you hear the words coming out of my mouth?

Might be.

Can you see the words coming out of my mouth?

That might be the only way you believe me.

And for the record, that's not going to last long.

There's already AI that you can clone yourself as a video person, and it's pretty again, spooky and cool at the same time.

So when you see the hosts and the guests, it might make the content a little more relatable.

Oh, that guy looks just like me.

Oh, look at her.

She uses the same stuff I do or whatever.

She looks just like me.

So it might build trust and it might make you more authentic.

When they get to see you, you're going to have a broader reach.

Platforms like YouTube and social media, they expand your audience potential.

And we're going to talk a little bit about the algorithm today.

But there is more way to be discovered on YouTube than there is in podcasting.

Now, is that a big deal?

Well, we're going to talk, yes.

It's almost.

It's not fun with math, but we're going to talk numbers today.

Another one is just improved storytelling, which to me is kind of the same as enhanced engagement.

But you can now combine visual and audio and text for better storytelling and increase shareability.

Look, as far as I know, not too many clips of podcasts go viral, right?

Video clips are much more likely to be shared on social media.

You might have a couple audio ones, but not like video.

That would be silly to say.

So video definitely more likely to be shared.

When I went back and looked into my text messages, anything I shared was a video.

Everything.

I mean, I might have had a couple that were audio, but almost all of them were video clips and most of them were shorts for the record.

Monetization opportunities.

That one needs an asterisk.

And we'll talk about that a little today as well.

Video might provide more diverse revenue streams because I can hold up your product and go, look, I drink Carl's House of Cola or whatever, right?

I could do that.

Plus the awesome YouTube partner program.

We'll talk about that today because again, I want you to be informed.

So sure, you might have more advertising because there are more people maybe advertising in video now.

We'll talk about that a little bit as well.

Because one of the reasons more people might want to advertise on YouTube is about a year and a half ago, YouTube went to all the YouTubers and went, hey guys.

And they went, what ladies?

And they were like, yes.

And they said, you're podcasters now.

And they went, huh?

Like, just tell your advertisers you're a podcast.

So you might have more monetization opportunities over there.

Are they good monetization opportunities?

Again, talk about that in a second.

Also, when you do.

In this one, when I was kind of doing the research on this and I have all my sources, by the way, listed out at school of podcasting.com 963 and they were saying that it might be more interactive and they mentioned live streaming.

But believe it or not, you can live stream audio.

There's a tool called mixler mix lr.com used it back in the day, but when video came along, it's like, well, okay, I can take a shower, I can shave and that.

I do it every Saturday.

AskThePodcastCoach.com live show up there anytime on Saturday between 10:30am Eastern and noon and you'll see me there doing a live show.

So if you want some free podcast consulting, there it is.

And I have real time audience engagement via chat.

I tried to have them call in.

They didn't want to call in.

I have it set up to where they could just jump into the video and ask their question live.

They use the chat box for whatever reason.

Can't get them to really go that extra mile.

Care.

I got anywhere from 20 to 40 people that show up every Saturday.

And it's like a little support group in a way.

It's really awesome.

So, yeah, you can have more interactive features when you're live and doing live streams.

The other one is SEO benefits because again, YouTube is the number two search engine.

We all talk about that.

And so you might be found more in YouTube than you might in a Google search.

And I gotta tell you, right now I'm, I'm really somewhat sad about the shape of Google right now because Google won the search engine wars back when there was Hotbot and Lycos and Ask Jeeves.

Yeah, why?

Because they deliver the best content.

They answered your question quickly.

And now the front page of Google Is an abomination.

I tell you, it's horrible.

The other one is when you have video, it's easier to repurpose.

If you start with video, you can go anywhere you want.

You want to put it out as audio?

I do it every Saturday.

You want to make some video clips?

You got it.

You can go anywhere with video if you start with audio.

Can I turn that into a video?

I'm gonna go no.

Oh, but I do the thing with the static image.

That's not really a video.

It is.

Yes, I get it.

It says MP4 at the end.

But no, I'm not gonna.

That's what we call fake video.

So if you start with audio only doing anything outside of that.

Okay, I'll just have this animated.

Okay.

Not as easy.

If you had started as video.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The other thing we have to talk about are completion rates.

And a lot of people don't know.

You can go into podcasts with AN S podcast connect.apple.com and see how far people have listened to your show.

You can also get this in podcasters.Spotify.com it's the only two places because.

Well, there are other places that, that say you can see this, but those are the two that I think are the best.

And so I went out and did some research and according to.

And again I'll have links to all these different sites, but this one was marketing charts.com says that the average completion rate for a business related video on YouTube.

Want to guess how far do they watch?

10%, 20%, 80%, 90%.

What?

It's 54%.

Now I was using Perplexity, which is an AI tool.

So that's from 2021.

I just want to point out again that AI will not give you the latest greatest data, but we'll use that.

It mentions out that if your minute is.

Or if your minute.

If your video is less than a minute, your average completion rate is 62%.

Which is kind of sad that you can't hang for 60 seconds.

1 to 2 minutes, 56% 2 to 10 minutes 55% and videos of 20 minutes or longer 26% audio completion rates.

The overall completion rate for podcasts and this was from tag lab.net Again, links in the show notes if you.

I just realized, I looked at all the sources for this stuff because when you use AI to do the search, you kind of got to make sure that you're not just making this up.

They said 50 to 70%.

So where the average for video was 54% audio was 50 to 70%.

Big jump.

Now this is not a huge study.

It is a sample of one, meaning me and four different episodes.

So I do a live 90 minute show every Saturday and give away free.

Podcast consultant.

Go to askthepodcastcoach.com live and you can see it.

It's there every Saturday.

So I picked four episodes, just random.

And the audio version had a completion rate with 83 listeners.

This is from Apple.

So I had 83 people listening to Apple of 89%, the YouTube, the exact same content, 26% with 72 views.

So almost the same amount of views, down 9.

But a drastic difference of 89% to 20 half.

We rounded up 27% for video, so people aren't watching as long on video.

It's 90 minutes.

Next one, that one.

By the way, the title was AI and Authenticity Navigating Trust and Creativity.

And then the next one was why Honest Reviews Matter in podcasting.

Audio version 67% completion with 36 listeners.

Video 26%.

Now let's round it up again.

27%.

At least I'm consistent.

27% with 47 views.

So more people viewing, but viewing less content.

You, you make up your own determination there.

The next episode, the role of persistent and persistence and timing and podcasting success.

The audio version on Apple, 80% completion with 32 people listening on YouTube 29% with 20 people.

But look at that.

I mean, there's 80% versus 29%.

It's a big difference.

So you might end it now.

So far I've not had more views than listeners.

And then I was like, wait a minute, that's.

That's a really good completion rate, 80%.

So I found one that wasn't great.

And this one was called Podcast Insights from cryptocurrency challenges to YouTube strategies.

Because, you know, when you say cryptocurrency, people just come running.

Did you say crypto?

No.

They typically scream, drool, roll their eyes and run away.

So that one in audio had a 55% completion with a whopping six listeners.

Where YouTube had a 31%.

Again, drastic difference with 42 people.

So I had more views finally than listeners.

But the people that listened on audio stuck around 15% more.

55 minus 31.

Oh, never do math in 24% more.

That's a big jump.

So know that based on the numbers from the research I did and my own, you know, quick sample here of four shows, you're going to get people listening longer.

Why?

Because there's more opportunity to listen.

Not so much Watch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Of course, if you're doing video, it's going to cost a little more because you need more equipment.

So I went out and looked and there's a company called Viltrox, I believe is how you pronounce it.

And you can get two LEDs and stands that run on electricity, not batteries.

And they have a remote.

So you could put two of these in front of you.

Typically you want three lights.

Two, one on the left, one on the right, and one kind of above you, maybe behind you.

There's tons of videos on that.

The.

The three point system.

But this was two lights for 158 bucks.

And I have used very similar lights like this.

They are not horrible.

They will light you.

And really that's the most important thing in video is there's two things.

Number one is your audio.

Number one is your audio, because you can look great, but if you sound like crap, nobody's gonna sit around.

And another brand that is seen a lot and I've used some of their stuff, it's not the most durable stuff I've ever used, but it works.

Is a brand called, I believe it's pronounced Neewer, N E E W E R.

They have a very similar setup.

Two LED stands on electricity with a remote.

And that was 215.

As I record this in December of 2024.

So you're gonna need some lights or you're gonna be doing things during the day next to your window.

One of the two, if you need a decent microphone for your phone, there are two.

The one that is, again, we're going for cheap here is Rode has a lavalier that plugs into your phone.

And that right now you're like, what are we using for your camera?

You have one in your pocket.

It's your phone if you wanted to start on really a super duper budget kind of thing.

And that is $149.

I prefer Sweetwater over Amazon.

Their customer service is just as good.

You still get free shipping and they add a year of warranty to whatever you buy.

Let's talk about competition in terms of, okay, how many other people are participating in my space?

And there are currently, as I look@the podcastindex.org and I'm being gracious here.

I'm saying Active show is a show that hasn't had an episode in 90 days.

Between you and me, if you haven't had an episode in 30 days, there's something going on.

But okay.

I realize people like to take breaks.

Don't know why they want to do seasons, not my thing, but 472,296.

And you're like, man, that's a lot of shows to be competing against.

Well, if you move to YouTube, we were talking 472,000 with YouTube.

It's 114 million active YouTube channels per wise.

Owl.com they have a whole page on YouTube stats now.

What's interesting is Spotify, right?

Hey, look at us.

We're Spotify.

Come to papa.

Papa's gonna take care of you.

Like, really?

And they say things like, there are now more than 300,000 video podcasts on Spotify.

Okay, is that shows or episodes?

Well, they don't say.

And it also says that's an increase of 88%.

Like, dang, 88%.

Well, keep in mind, when they don't quote the numbers and they quote percentages, let's say you started with five and you grew it by 88%.

You know, so just times it by 1.8 or 1.9, you're up to nine.

You went from five to nine.

Now, that's great, but it's not quite as impressive if they go, yeah, we went from five videos to nine.

Wait a minute.

What?

Yeah, so when they quote percentages, always look for the number.

Like, well, what is that?

You know, the number of people that are suffering from bird flu has risen by, you know, 5%.

Well, okay, what do we start with?

We're talking 2 to 4, 5.

What's the deal?

So keep that in mind, especially with the media.

So again, they're not mentioning how many of those are shows and how many of those are episodes.

And even though let's just.

300,000 versus 114 million.

And they're, they're the, you know, oh, we're going to take the big giant.

Okay, I hear you there, Spotify.

So keep that in mind.

Now we're going to come back and start talking a little open versus closed.

Or as I like to call it, the curmudgeon corner.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, let's take a look at Spotify and their history back in the day.

Right?

Everybody's on Pirate Bay, everybody's doing Napster, whatever it is, and Spotify says, all right, we're going to come in and make an interface that's so much easier to use and doesn't look like it was done in cranberry.

We're gonna make our servers so fast that the minute you hit play, you can listen to the song.

Don't have to download it totally different.

They win the war and everybody starts using Spotify.

And they're like, great, we're gonna just put all these places out of business.

And when we're left, we're gonna then have the power to pay the people that actually make the content that is running our company, the musicians, next to nothing.

And that's exactly what they did.

So keep that in mind.

And the bigger these companies get.

And realize, like right now, everybody's running to Blue sky, which is fine, you do you.

But Blue sky is free, and that's not going to last forever.

And they're already going, hey, like, all these people came over, we need some money to keep these servers going.

And so what are they going to do?

They're going to go to advertising can realize advertising equals censorship.

Not in a weird, you know, tinfoil hat, but no, it's because somebody's gonna go, how can you even think about putting your content next to such filthy.

I mean, indeed.

He said, sporting a woody.

Good day, sir.

And you know, so you get into situations like this.

My buddy Matt over at the Sound off podcast, it's a great one.

Links in the show notes was talking to another buddy of mine, Rob Greenlee.

They brought this up.

I could be unknown on YouTube and famous on Twitter.

I've already had some people come to me and say, well, we put our stuff up on YouTube, but we keep getting censorship notes for violation, for health talk or political talk or vaccine talk or bad words.

Could be anything like that.

Yeah.

And that's increasingly going to continue to happen.

I think it's going to be interesting time in the next six months to figure out this whole kind of tension between free speech, moderation and monetization.

Those are the three pieces to that puzzle of, you know, brands want to have a safe place for them to run their advertising.

Right.

And if they have a particular political view or whatever it is, they want it to be not violated by a piece of content that they advertise on.

Right.

So if Spotify doesn't like an artist, they can go in and say, well, I know right now you're getting a ton of exposure and we're going to take away that exposure.

So not only are we not paying you, but we're going to remove the ability to get exposure.

And it could be YouTube as well.

YouTube has blocked people.

And so realize this is the power we are giving these closed situations that they become the place where you can get this content.

And I think my favorite rant on this comes from James Cridland.

There's a show called the Media Roundtable.

And I really like Dan from Oxford Road.

You know, there's Tom Webster and Brian over at Sounds Profitable.

Those guys kind of a different aspect of the advertising space.

And sometimes I kind of hear a little more boots on the ground from Dan at Oxford Road.

And I like Dan because he came up, he's publicly said we should cap advertising at 10% and we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves.

But that's when I was like, I like that guy.

I like this guy.

And there was a rant from James Crinland from podnews.net he was talking about Spotify and YouTube, and I was just cheering him on in the car.

I'm like, you go, James, preach on, brother.

Well, I mean, firstly, Brian Barletta has written a very good article around what it means for podcasters.

And he is saying, he points out, firstly, if you upload a video podcast to Spotify, then that essentially replaces the audio totally, and it replaces the RSS feed.

It replaces your ability to sell programmatic advertising.

It replaces all of the benefits that you get from OpenRSS.

All of that goes away because you've uploaded a video podcast onto Spotify and it uses the audio from that track as the audio, as somebody is playing it back.

So that's one easy way that Spotify has essentially got rid of all of the programmatic advertising from that particular show.

Secondly, we don't quite know, he says, what the numbers are going to be.

As I mentioned before, there are qualifications, and those qualifications are actually significantly higher than YouTube's, which is just worthwhile knowing.

So if you're not making money from YouTube yet, you certainly won't be making money out of Spotify.

And then thirdly, you know, Brian says, we have no idea if a creator will make more from a share of the consumption of their podcast on Spotify Premium than from the dynamic and streaming ad revenue which is currently available to them today.

We actually don't know, and we don't know how it compares against YouTube.

We don't know how it compares against pretty well anything else, because the actual detail has yet to be released from Spotify on this.

So a lot of it is pretty unknown.

But you do get, you know, people who want to make a name for themselves on LinkedIn and places like that, posting and saying, oh, Spotify is going to be the future of, you know, just.

Just as they said that Samsung podcasts were going to be the future of podcasting or, you know, other platforms.

Oh, you know, Spotify, I'VE got it.

Spotify is going to be the future.

Both Spotify and YouTube, it's all video.

And that's where we go.

Max Cutler, for example, posting a long post recently on LinkedIn saying exactly that and a number of other people.

And I'm going to jump in here.

Yeah.

A lot of people over the years write podcasting is dead.

So that all the podcasters get hot and bothered and go, no, it's not.

And so there are people that are like, podcasting is dead.

Long live video.

Well, they do that.

So all the podcasters and they get all these comments on their posts.

So they're doing it.

And we fall for that trap every time.

Let's go back to James.

And from my point of view as a journalist, okay, there are lots of different views.

From my point of view as a human being who has been involved in podcasting for 20 years, I just think this is crazy, Dan.

I just think this is crazy.

You know, if YouTube and Spotify end up leading podcasting, end up doing the majority of podcast plays, then this is this entire industry gone.

Because we don't have programmatic ads.

Everything is run by people that frankly don't care about podcasting.

Podcasting is what, 5% of YouTube?

If that.

So they don't care, really.

We give all of our editorial control to.

And, you know, all Americans are very nice, but we're giving all of our editorial control to the entire global podcast industry to two sets of people, Spotify and YouTube, and that's it.

And it just.

For me, it's like being on the.

On the Titanic and somebody saying, oh, look, that iceberg looks nice.

Let's go over there.

Let's drive into that.

And what's the worst that could go on?

And we're all sitting there and going, yay, iceberg.

And so there are great salespeople, and there are some that are not so great.

Many, many moons ago, I worked in the copper industry, which is brutal, brutally competitive, because if you can replace your competitor, you're not leaving anytime soon.

And so it is brutal.

And I remember I once, for about a month, was a salesperson, and that's a whole long other podcast.

But I didn't last long.

And one of the reasons why was my boss advised me to lie to a church.

And I was like, I've given God more than enough reasons to not like me.

I'm not giving him another one.

And so there are those people that it's just about the sale.

It's all about the Benjamins.

And so, again, Another clip from an Oxford Road podcast here and someone again giving the kind of from the front lines report.

I think the dirty little secret is that if you're catering, if you're a publisher or content creator and your advertiser community consists of large brands that actually don't know how well the ads perform in real life, which we see a lot of, then they're going to be less likely to to complain.

If they're one of 20 sponsors or if four of their ads happen to show up just accidentally in the same episode, it's not going to have the same impact because it's not going to crush their, you know, performance because they're not necessarily actually measuring performance.

And so I think a lot of publishers are saying, why screw around with the Oxford Roads and the Veritones and the clients that are going to be conscious of ROAS and cpa, why not just sell it to big brand agencies that are never going to check us?

And it's how many ads can we sell?

Even though they know that the value of that inventory may be lower on a CPM basis, they'll make it up in volume.

And that's what we're fighting against with a lot of these.

That's what's really hard about this issue.

And this makes me very worried because these huge companies with huge advertising budgets aren't really checking to see is this working.

And so this is kind of like the person at Halloween that just puts the bowl of candy on the front porch and they'll go, I will just let the kids pick it out.

I'm sure they're all just pick one.

No, there's going to be that kid that takes them all and it ruins the whole bowl for everybody else.

So there are going to be people that just throw so many ads in them and they don't even care that they're driving the price down.

Which also comes from an Oxford Road episode.

On the buying front, we really leverage this data that we receive through verification to help kind of analyze performance trends and really provide evidence based insights when negotiating with publishers.

It helps us justify why we request or need certain CPMs.

There are some publishers out there even for host reads like they're worth a $10cpm period because the ad load is so high, so heavy, so heavy.

So the more ads you add to an episode, the worse they perform because less people are listening.

And these people don't care.

They're like, just throw more ads in.

And there are people that will just take that money every single day.

And this is Where I talk about cannibalism.

You are ruining the show that is bringing you money.

And if you keep doing this all, eventually all podcasting will gets ruined and you end up being this thing that they call what is it again?

Oh, that's right, Radio.

See, this is where when you get perspectives from people who think podcasting started in 2020 with true crime, it didn't.

It was born in around 2005 from a bunch of nerds that were tired of over commercialized radio.

You would turn it on to hear music and just hear hours and hours of ads.

And we went, yeah, we're not going to do that.

And everybody talked like this.

So there was kind of a sticking it to the man vibe of the early days of podcasters.

So the curmudgeons that have been around a while are like, look, guys, you're turning it into the exact same thing that we are trying to avoid.

And there are people that are doing it right.

On Pod News Weekly, they interviewed the CEO of Luminati.

And so this is a company, it's a network.

And, well, what do you know?

If you do things differently than everybody else, you end up with different results.

We brought sales in House in 2021, so we've had our own sales team, which enables us to monetize our Lemonada originals without sharing revenue with a sales partner.

And it enables us to bring sales and distribution partnerships onto the network.

And we have wildly different results than the industry.

So I'm going to jump in here.

They're already doing things differently.

They got their own sales force.

And listen, what happens to their CPMs as a whole?

And we have had them consistently, even as we've grown upwards of 50 to 200% audience year over year.

Our CPMs are in the high 30s and low 40s.

Our fill rate is around 80% consistently year over year.

And so if you want to live differently than everyone else, you have to do things differently than everyone else.

And so they shortened their staff, they brought it in house.

They're very selective about what shows they add to their network, even if you're a celebrity.

And consequently they're able, because they make really good content, they're able to hold the line.

And when somebody goes, yeah, we'd like to give you $10 cpm, maybe 15, maybe 20.

And they're like, no, no, we start at 30.

Yeah, that's what we need people to do because they care about the whole industry.

I hate to use the word industry, but they care about podcasting, not just the bottom line.

Yes, they want to be profitable.

But you can't cannibalize the thing that you're selling, otherwise you go down with the shit.

All right, so let's talk monetization.

And if you want to be part of the YouTube Partner Program, you have to have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of valid public watch time across your videos in the last year.

If you're doing shorts, 10 million valid public shorts views in the last 90 days.

It also depends on what country you live in.

In some cases you're just not able to because where you live you have to follow YouTube's monetization policies in including community guidelines.

So all that brand safe stuff, terms of Service and AdSense program policies.

There's no active community guideline strikes against your channel.

So if you got a strike against, you don't even apply.

And you have to have two step verification turn on for your Google account and an active AdSense account linked to your YouTube channel.

If you they do have a different version that's a little less stringent in where it's a lower tier.

And so you only need and this allows you to use things such as fan funding, their membership, their super chats, super thanks.

And that is 500 subscribers, 3 public uploads in the last 90 days, 3000 hours of valid public watch time in the last 12 hours versus the previous one was 4000 hours.

So a thousand less hours and 3 million valid public shorts views if you're doing shorts in the last 90 days.

And so I kind of googled this, researched it for a channel with a thousand subscribers.

So congratulations, you got your thousand subscribers, you got 4,000 watch hours.

Again, just the minimums.

You can't really see how much somebody makes.

I mean, I've done a lot of research on this.

They said assuming an average of 20,000 views a month, the ad revenue could be around anywhere from $360 a month to $720 a month, depending on the ad view rate and other factors.

My point is, let's go with the best one.

$720 a month.

It's hard to make a living on $720 a month.

Now YouTube splits the ad revenue, you get to keep 55% and they take 45%.

So keep that in mind as well.

So this is where when I hear things like programmatic ads, programmatic ads really don't work for most people that have less than 10,000 downloads.

And even if you do have 10,000 downloads, you still have one of these things called a day job.

So keep that in mind.

If you want to live on programmatic ads, you need six figure downloads.

But there are people, friends of mine that are making money.

Not enough to quit their day job, but enough to take your spouse out to dinner.

And then some, in some cases with programmatic ads.

And so when I hear companies coming in and saying, well, if you want your stuff on our platform, you can't have ads like, hold on, that's, that's an income stream.

And I don't want to see any potential income streams go away because as podcasters, we need them all.

We need them all.

You don't have to use them all.

But I always say use the ones that kind of work.

But just realize when you say, okay, I'm gonna move my stuff.

And right now Spotify has said, come over to Papa.

We will take care of you.

Don't talk to that musician friend.

We will take care of you.

With video, well, their criteria is even higher than YouTube and we have yet to hear what they're going to pay us.

And that's where they go, don't talk to your music.

I'm dying to hear.

I am under NDA for some of this stuff with Spotify, but I, I can tell you, I don't know, I don't think that's letting anything out of the bank.

So I'm dying to hear what people are actually going to get paid.

Final thoughts are coming.

But first.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

So again, if you're a person that wants to do video, do video.

You would be dumb not to.

You've got an algorithm.

We talked about the pros of video, little discoverability, maybe not as much engagement, but you're gonna grow your audience over there and if you want to do that, do that.

If you don't want to do that, then don't.

Don't let the YouTube police come along and go, hello, Mr.

Jackson, I understand you're creating content, but you're not making video right now.

I actually am going to be adding more video in the future because I want to and I want to play in that space a little more than I have.

But just realize, you don't realize the competition, realize the added cost.

We didn't even talk about the added time.

Hoofa lot more time to edit video.

But I wanted to look into it.

There are some benefits of video, so keep that in mind.

But I also wanted to bring up that one of the reasons, I think halfway through, maybe even like the beginning of the year, I said, I'm tired of talking about video versus audio, because people are calling me a curmudgeon.

But as I saw things shifting, I'm like, wait a minute.

This is.

This is a thing.

This could.

We don't want to end up with our options being, well, are you going to do Spotify or are you going to do YouTube?

And things are heading that way because the company with the big, big, big budget that isn't watching the store and just spending money, money, in the immortal words of Cyndi Lauper, changes everything.

And we could really ruin a beautiful thing that we created here that delivers content you can't get anyplace else and now is shaping elections.

And the beautiful thing I just saw, in a way, not so much for the people on the cable networks.

There are cable networks that during, like, prime viewing hours are getting a hundred thousand watchers.

There are podcasts that are bigger than that.

And I said it before.

I said we're gonna beat them at their own game because we're gonna deliver better content.

We're gonna deliver niche content that you can't get any place else.

Because they're blowing it.

They really are blowing it.

When I see, hey, it's time for kicking it with Kenny here on Fox 8 in Cleveland.

And I watch Kenny at, you know, Mitch's flower Shop, I'm like, I'm not an idiot.

That's an advertisement.

What's going on in the news that I should be talking about?

What's my senator doing that I should know about?

No, we're going to kick it to Kenny.

No, I don't think so.

So we don't want to be beholden to advertisers and brand safety.

We want to keep rss.

RSS is so beautiful, and we are doing things right now to make it even better.

We want to push forward with things like podcasting 2.0 to add additional functionality to the apps to your media host and maybe even maybe get paid a little on this stuff.

So my goal was to keep you educated so that you can decide in the same way that I did the episode on Media Host.

By the way, little housekeeping on that.

Todd and the boys over at Blueberry have taken their AI tools and made them to where you can buy them separate so you don't have to hire Blueberry as a media host.

Now, if you just want their AI tools, you can do that.

So am I going to go play with those?

You bet your sweet bippy I am.

And the last thing I wanted to say here as I wrap things up, I hope you're whatever you're celebrating Happy Kwanzaa Massacre is what I often say.

I celebrate Christmas and I'm looking forward to it.

I've had a great Christmas already.

Spent today with my sister.

That was great fun.

Always an interesting time when I hang out with my sister, but.

Oh, shut up, Alexa.

Yeah, I know it's 10:30.

I'm gonna leave this in.

Alexis, stop.

I have been working on this episode.

Let me hit stop here and I'll tell you a little behind the scenes here.

Research and recording.

I am up to four hours right now and I got an hour and a half to write some show notes and put this bad boy out before midnight and listen to this from start to finish again.

So Alexa's letting me know I should be going to bed.

I'm letting her know.

Yeah, I'm not going to bed anytime soon.

But if you need help with your podcast, I would love to help you.

That's what I do.

Been doing it for almost 20 years.

Gonna celebrate 20 years in 2025.

That's what I do.

And at the school of podcasting, you get the courses, you get an amazing community, and you get as much one on one time with me as you want.

That is not a typo.

How can you do that, Dave?

Well, I'll let you know if it becomes a problem.

So far it's not.

And the reason I do that is because I love helping podcasters.

My background is in teaching.

I used to teach sales many moons ago and taught all sorts of Microsoft Office and I've been teaching podcasting since 2005.

And I would love to see what we can do together.

Everything you need you can find@schoolofpodcasting.com 963, which is making me wet by pants because I'm pretty sure I said 964 previously.

Great show prep, Dave, but you can always fix it in the edit until next week.

Take care.

God bless.

Class is dismissed.