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  • Don’t Just Make Videos: Build a Creator Media Company | Roberto Blake #687

    Don’t Just Make Videos: Build a Creator Media Company | Roberto Blake #687
    2026/09/14
    Getting views, streams, and downloads is not the same as building a business. Subscribers aren’t automatically customers, and a successful YouTube channel doesn’t necessarily mean you have built something sustainable. In New Media Show #687, Podcast Hall of Famer Rob Greenlee talks with Creator, Educator, Author, and Entrepreneur Roberto Blake, founder of Awesome Creator Academy, about what comes after becoming a content creator and why more creators need to think of themselves as independent media companies rather than defining themselves by one format or platform. Roberto argues that being a podcaster, YouTuber, streamer, or blogger is increasingly just a distribution choice. The bigger issue is the value you create, the audience relationship you build, and what you actually own. We get into the shift from audio-first thinking to broader creator media, why professionalism is more about preparation and performance than polished production, and how AI is changing the economics of being a creator. Roberto sees some of the strongest uses of AI in the operational work around content, including research, data analysis, transcription, organization, editing workflows, and other tasks that can free creators to spend more time on judgment, ideas, and relationships. A major part of the conversation is about turning attention into a real business. Roberto describes his framework as “reach, reputation, revenue,” or in a business context, “traffic, trust, transaction.” Getting attention is only the beginning. The real value comes from earning trust and then creating products, services, memberships, intellectual property, or other business models around that relationship. We also talk about what creators should own. That includes their brand, intellectual property, expertise, direct audience relationships, and the parts of the business that can survive changes at YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or any other platform. Roberto breaks creator businesses into three broad paths: entertainer, lifestyle brand, and thought leader, with different revenue and growth opportunities for each. The conversation goes much deeper into AI, human creativity, likeness rights, AI labeling, and synthetic AI media. Why Roberto believes the bigger risk isn’t simply AI-generated entertainment, but the potential misuse of synthetic media by institutions or people trying to manipulate audiences. The larger point is simple: Creators should stop thinking only about the next piece of content and start thinking about what they are building around it. Key Topics: – Moving from content creator to independent media company – Why podcasting, YouTube, and streaming are becoming distribution choices – Audio-first versus audio-only thinking – Professionalism versus production polish – Using AI for creator operations, research, editing, and workflow – Reach, reputation, and revenue – Traffic, trust, and transaction – Building direct audience relationships – Owning your brand, expertise, and intellectual property – Entertainer, lifestyle brand, and thought-leader business models – Building revenue beyond platform advertising – Why taste and personality may become more important as AI lowers the skill barrier – Human authenticity and real-world connection – AI likeness, voice cloning, and long-term IP value – AI labeling and the risks of treating every use of AI the same way – Awesome Creator Academy and Roberto’s approach to creator growth Guest: Roberto Blake Creator, entrepreneur, educator, and founder of Awesome Creator Academy Roberto Blake https://robertoblake.com Awesome Creator Academy https://www.awesomecreatoracademy.com YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@robertoblake Host: Rob Greenlee New Media Show on YouTube https://youtube.com/@TheNewMediaShowRob Greenlee https://robgreenlee.comRob Greenlee on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/robgreenleePodcast Hall of Fame https://podcasthall.comNew Media Show https://NewMediaShow.comAdore Network Audio https://www.adorenetwork.com/show/new-media-show-audio/Adore Network Video https://www.adorenetwork.com/show/new-media-show-video/Apple Podcasts Audio https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-media-show-audio/id392545649Apple Podcasts Video https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-media-show-video/id392545647 AI Disclosure AI tools helped organize and edit this episode and create the above show notes from the completed Episode #687 transcript. The conversation, perspectives, editorial direction, and final editing were performed, and responsibility for the episode remains human-led. The New Media Show is human-hosted.The post Don’t Just Make Videos: Build a Creator Media Company | Roberto Blake #687 first appeared on New Media Show.
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    1 時間 42 分
  • Hidden Revenue: What Media Publishers Are Leaving Behind | Sean Howard, Flightpath #686

    Hidden Revenue: What Media Publishers Are Leaving Behind | Sean Howard, Flightpath #686
    2026/09/10
    Podcast media creator publishers may already have more revenue opportunity than they realize. The challenge is not always finding more listeners. It can be understanding what inventory is actually available to sell, what to sell, whether campaigns will deliver, and where revenue is being lost. In this episode #686 of the New Media Show, Rob Greenlee talks with Sean Howard, CEO and co-founder of Flightpath.fm, about the growing complexity behind new media podcast advertising and why better forecasting, campaign management, publisher data, and revenue optimization are becoming more important. Sean explains how Flightpath grew out of a problem he experienced from both sides of the business. As an ad buyer, he found that publishers often did not know how much inventory they really had available. As a publisher, he saw the same problem from the other side: uncertainty about whether sold campaigns would actually deliver. Flightpath was built to bring those pieces together through traffic management, prediction, pacing, and cross-platform revenue visibility. The conversation also gets into dynamic ad insertion and the value of the podcast back catalog. Sean argues that publishers relying too heavily on baked-in ads may be leaving significant revenue on the table because listeners keep consuming older episodes long after release. Rob and Sean also discuss a larger issue facing content creator publishers today: platform dependence. As podcast companies expand across multiple hosting platforms, YouTube, Spotify, video, HLS, and other distribution systems, publishers need better access to their own data and a clearer understanding of the business risk that comes with relying too heavily on any one platform. The bigger question is whether the next stage of media and podcast revenue growth may come not only from finding more audience, but from better understanding and monetizing the audience publishers already have. Discussion Highlights – Hidden revenue in existing podcast inventory – Why forecasting and campaign delivery remain difficult – Dynamic ad insertion and back-catalog monetization – Frequency capping, pacing, and ad performance – Publisher ownership and access to data – Platform risk and using multiple hosting platforms – YouTube, Spotify, HLS, and video monetization – AI and revenue optimization – Flightpath’s role as a publisher intelligence and traffic management layer – Why better data can help sales and operations make better decisions Key Topic Timestamps: 00:00 Hidden revenue opportunities publishers may already have 01:00 Sean Howard and what Flightpath does 03:00 Why Flightpath was built around forecasting and campaign delivery 05:00 Fragmented platforms and the growing complexity of monetization 07:30 HLS, open standards, and the return of video podcasting 11:00 Audio and video advertising collide 12:30 Using publisher data to identify campaign and platform problems 15:00 Why publishers need access to their own data 17:00 Dynamic ad insertion and the untapped value of the back catalog 19:00 Spotify, YouTube, and changing control over ad inventory 21:00 Choosing a hosting platform is becoming a business risk decision 23:00 Why publishers may need to work across multiple platforms 26:00 Measuring hosting platform performance and revenue impact 27:30 Publisher autonomy and Flightpath’s platform strategy review 31:00 Forecasting, pacing, and Flightpath’s Revenue Optimizer 35:30 Where AI fits into forecasting and sales recommendations 38:00 Podcast platforms evolving into intelligence and decision systems 39:00 Using publisher data with AI and LLMs 43:00 Advertising, subscriptions, Spotify, and YouTube 44:00 Apple video, Spotify, and the HLS opportunity 46:00 Podcasting becomes a more professional media business 48:00 Why publishers need an independent intelligence layer 50:00 Who Flightpath is built for 53:00 Flightpath onboarding and supported platform integrations 55:00 Closing thoughts and where to learn more Guest Sean Howard CEO and Co-Founder, Flightpath https://flightpath.fm https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanhoward Host Rob Greenlee Rob Greenlee Website: https://RobGreenlee.com Listen and Watch New Media Show https://NewMediaShow.comAdore Network Audio https://www.adorenetwork.com/show/new-media-show-audio/Adore Network Video https://www.adorenetwork.com/show/new-media-show-video/Apple Podcasts Audio https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-media-show-audio/id392545649Apple Podcasts Video https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-media-show-video/id392545647 AI Disclosure AI tools helped organize and edit this episode and create the above show notes from the completed Episode #686 transcript. The conversation, perspectives, editorial direction, and final editing were performed, and responsibility for the episode remains human-led. The New Media Show is human-hosted.The post Hidden Revenue: What Media Publishers Are Leaving Behind | Sean Howard, Flightpath #686 ...
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    55 分
  • Human Audience Growth in the AI Era | Alex Sanfilippo #685

    Human Audience Growth in the AI Era | Alex Sanfilippo #685
    2026/09/02
    As AI makes it easier to create more content, human relationships may become more valuable, not less. In Episode #685 of the New Media Show, host and Podcast Hall of Famer Rob Greenlee talks with Alex Sanfilippo, founder of PodMatch and host of Podcasting Made Simple, about why relationships between hosts, guests, audiences, collaborators, and communities are becoming an increasingly important part of podcast growth. The conversation explores podcast guesting, better host-guest matching, AI-assisted workflows, audio and video podcasting, RSS and HLS, creator-owned communities, and why direct audience relationships matter as large platforms gain more control over discovery and monetization. Human Connection Wins Alex built PodMatch around a simple problem: podcast hosts could find guests, but finding the “right guest” and managing all the administrative work surrounding an interview took an enormous amount of time. The goal is to automate the work around the conversation without automating the human connection itself. Rob and Alex discuss why great podcast conversations create relationships that can continue long after an episode is published. Better Guests, Better Conversations A strong podcast guest should arrive ready to lead with value, not simply promote a book, company, or product. Rob and Alex discuss why: – Every interview should feel different – Guests should bring something new to each conversation – Hosts need to listen rather than simply read questions – Generic AI-generated pitches are easy to recognize – Guest and show alignment matters more than volume – Meaningful conversations are more likely to be shared Alex also explains how PodMatch is using AI to improve host-guest alignment while reducing research and administrative work. Audio, Video and the Changing Podcast The conversation expands into the growing convergence between podcasting and YouTube. Alex remains audio and RSS-focused but believes podcasting and YouTube are increasingly influencing each other. Podcasting brings depth and long-form conversation while YouTube brings visual discovery and engagement. Rob and Alex also discuss the HLS video format, alternative enclosures, separate audio and video feeds, and why the current publishing ecosystem can still feel unnecessarily complicated for creators. Build Relationships You Own As major platforms change algorithms, monetization rules, and distribution policies, creators have another reason to develop direct relationships with their audiences. Newsletters, private communities, memberships, events, collaborations, and other owned audience pathways can turn large platforms into discovery and recruiting channels rather than the entire creator business. Alex sees this community layer becoming an increasingly important part of PodMatch. Discussion Highlights – Why human connection becomes more valuable as content expands – How PodMatch matches podcast hosts and guests – Solo, co-hosted, and interview podcast formats – Podcasting versus YouTube content strategies – RSS, HLS, audio and video podcast distribution – What defines a podcast in 2026? – Why guests should lead with value – Creating unique conversations instead of repeating talking points – Why generic AI podcast pitches fail – Using AI to improve guest-host alignment – Podcast collaborations, review swaps, and podrolls – Building creator-owned communities – Turning platforms into audience acquisition channels – Why trusted relationships may be the creator’s strongest long-term asset Chapter Markers 00:00 When content becomes unlimited, human connection becomes scarce 01:45 Introducing Alex Sanfilippo and PodMatch 03:25 Why podcast conversations matter 07:10 Guests, co-hosts, and solo podcast formats 13:05 Podcasting meets YouTube 17:00 Finding the platform where your audience lives 20:25 Audio, video, RSS, and HLS complexity 27:25 What is a podcast now? 30:05 Why podcast guests need to lead with value 33:00 Every interview should be different 35:20 Listening creates better conversations 38:15 Why unique interviews get shared 41:15 The problem with AI-generated podcast pitches 44:20 Finding real guest-show alignment 48:45 Why Alex has become more selective about guesting 50:40 Using AI for PodMatch alignment 54:35 Podcast collaborations, reviews, and podrolls 57:15 Podcast relationships become communities 58:45 Building audiences beyond rented platforms 01:03:00 Creating relationships with your true fans 01:05:15 Community and the future of PodMatch 01:06:20 Where to connect with Alex 01:07:00 Closing thoughts About Alex Sanfilippo Alex Sanfilippo is the founder of PodMatch, a platform that connects podcast hosts and guests while streamlining the administrative work around podcast interviews. He also hosts Podcasting Made Simple, where he helps independent podcast hosts and guests grow their influence, audiences, and businesses. Guest Links PodMatch https://...
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    1 時間 3 分
  • Own Your Identity: Who Controls Your Voice, and Likeness? | Anne Kavanagh, Royall.ai #684

    Own Your Identity: Who Controls Your Voice, and Likeness? | Anne Kavanagh, Royall.ai #684
    2026/08/31
    AI can now reproduce a person’s face, voice, movement, and likeness with increasing realism. The bigger question is becoming: Who gets to control that identity, authorize its use, and potentially get paid when it has commercial value? In Episode #684 of the New Media Show, Host Rob Greenlee talks with Anne Kavanagh, co-founder of Royall.ai, about building a new permission and licensing layer around human identity. The conversation is not about stopping or being anti-AI. It is about establishing something that has largely been missing: proof and authorization before use. Your Identity Becomes an Asset You Control Royall.ai is developing what Anne describes as a biometric vault where people can register elements of their identity, including voice, face, likeness, and body motion. Those assets can be fingerprinted and watermarked, creating the foundation for detecting use, approving or rejecting it, and potentially licensing it commercially. That changes the discussion from simply asking whether AI can clone someone to asking whether the person actually gave permission. A creator could potentially say: Use my voice for this campaign, but only for six months.Allow my likeness to be used to train this model, but pay me.Do not use my identity for this purpose at all.The central principle is simple: You own you. Protection and Opportunity The same technology designed to identify unauthorized use could also create legitimate new markets for human identity. Anne describes a future where AI companies, studios, agencies, platforms, and brands could license verified human data rather than simply collecting material from the public internet. Creators could choose whether their voice, face, movement, or content can be used for AI training and receive compensation when they opt in. This becomes especially important as synthetic media becomes indistinguishable from human media. Rob also raises another possibility: as AI-generated content becomes abundant, verified or certified human-created content may itself become more valuable. Podcast Archives Create Another Rights Problem The discussion gets particularly relevant to podcasting. A podcast owner may control thousands of hours of archived conversations, but that does not necessarily mean the owner has the right to license every guest’s voice for AI training. Rob explains that the New Media Show archive has previously attracted interest for conversational AI training, but licensing complete conversations would require permission from the guests whose voices appear in them. Royall.ai is exploring infrastructure that could help identify those participants, request consent, manage permissions, and create licensing transactions across large content libraries. That could become a significant issue as decades of podcast, video, music, and creator archives become valuable training material. Discussion Highlights – Who should control your voice, face, and digital likeness – Creating a biometric identity vault – Consent before AI use – Detecting unauthorized likeness and voice usage – Licensing human identity for AI training – Getting creators paid for authorized use – Deepfakes, scams, and identity theft – Why trust is critical to biometric infrastructure – AI disclosure versus AI-assisted creation – The rise of verified human-created media – Creator contracts and synthetic likeness rights – Licensing podcast archives for AI training – Why guest consent matters – Royall.ai as an identity and permission API layer Chapter Timestamp Markers 00:00 Who controls your likeness and voice identity? 03:00 Introducing Anne Kavanagh and Royall.ai 07:00 How the idea behind Royall.ai developed 09:00 Verified identity, authorization and licensing 10:00 Creating a biometric vault for voice, face and motion 18:00 Detection, reporting and takedown tools 20:00 Opting into AI training and getting paid 24:00 Building a training-grade voice model 28:00 Identity protection becomes an economic opportunity 34:00 Why this is a human issue, not just a creator issue 38:00 Deepfakes, students, scams and identity theft 40:00 The trust challenge of storing biometric identity 43:00 Building a registrar for human identity and likeness 45:00 Royall.ai as part of the technology stack 48:00 The principle: You own you 53:00 AI tools, disclosure and audience trust 59:00 Could certified human content become premium? 01:02:00 Synthetic podcast hosts and transparency 01:04:00 Creator contracts and consent for AI training 01:05:00 Licensing podcast archives and guest voices 01:08:00 Who controls your existing content libraries? 01:11:00 How Royall.ai early access works 01:14:00 Public images, copyright and identity ownership Anne Kavanagh Guest Links Royall.ai is currently onboarding users through an early-access process, with registration, fingerprinting, watermarking, detection capabilities, and enterprise/API integrations discussed toward the end of the episode. ...
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    1 時間 11 分
  • Trust, AI and the Future of Podcast Advertising | Mike Kadin, RedCircle #683

    Trust, AI and the Future of Podcast Advertising | Mike Kadin, RedCircle #683
    2026/08/27
    Podcasting has one advantage that much of digital media struggles to maintain: trust. In Episode #683 of the New Media Show, Rob Greenlee talks with Mike Kadin, CEO and co-founder of RedCircle. What does that trust mean for podcast advertising as AI, video, HLS, YouTube, Spotify, and changing audience behavior reshape the business? Long-form shows create a different relationship between creators and audiences than short-form social content. That relationship has always been one of the reasons host-read podcast advertising can work so well. But what happens when AI can recreate the host’s voice? Mike makes an important distinction. The value of a host-read ad is not simply hearing a familiar voice. It comes from the host’s language, personality, experience, humor, and actual judgment about the product. RedCircle does not use AI-generated versions of creators to perform host-read advertising. Mike believes cloning the host’s voice without the actual human endorsement could undermine the very trust that makes the advertising valuable. Authentic Host Reads Still Matter Rob and Mike talk about the difference between reading advertising copy and genuinely recommending something a creator has used. RedCircle has seen similar shows, with similar audience sizes, run by the same advertiser and using the same talking points, produce very different results. One of the biggest differences can be the quality and believability of the host read. That also puts responsibility on creators to work with products they can credibly talk about. Mike explains that RedCircle will sometimes hear from a creator who tried a sponsor’s product and did not like it. Rather than force an endorsement, the company can take that feedback back to the advertiser and cancel the spot. That kind of process helps protect the relationship between the creator and audience. Using AI to Find Better Brand Matches Mike also talks about a newer RedCircle capability called Show IQ. Over the years of running campaigns, RedCircle has accumulated information on its creators’ interests and brand affinities, as well as historical campaign performance. Show IQ uses that information to help identify creators who may be a natural fit for a particular advertiser. This is an example of AI being used behind the scenes to improve the match rather than replacing the human doing the endorsement. The goal is to put advertisers with creators who can actually speak credibly about their products. Spotify, YouTube and Control of Podcast Monetization The conversation shifts to the growing influence of large consumption platforms. Spotify is experimenting with ways for listeners to move past advertising more easily. YouTube has already offered similar jump-ahead behavior around portions of videos that viewers commonly skip. Mike does not see this as some unexpected attack on podcasting. Spotify and YouTube have built massive distribution platforms and naturally want to control more of the economics that happen inside them. For creators, diversification becomes increasingly important. A creator can use YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms for distribution, but should also keep building direct relationships through websites, newsletters, subscriptions, and communities. No single distribution platform can be expected to always put the creator’s interests first. RedCircle Is Moving Into Video RedCircle has also started expanding beyond its traditional audio focus. Creators can now upload video through RedCircle and send it to YouTube, an expansion of its earlier audio-to-YouTube tools. Mike says YouTube was the obvious first priority because that is where the largest existing video audience is today. RedCircle is also watching Spotify video, Apple Podcasts video, and HLS as podcasting becomes increasingly multi-format. The advertising systems will eventually need to evolve along with the content. HLS Creates New Advertising Questions A significant part of the conversation focuses on HLS and Apple’s new video-podcast approach in this episode. Podcast advertising has traditionally been built around audio downloads. The video introduces a much more complex environment. An Apple Podcasts episode may still automatically download its audio before the listener ever presses play. If that listener later watches the video version, the advertising decision may already have been made. That makes traditional real-time programmatic video advertising harder to apply to podcast video. For now, audio advertising may become a common advertising format, whether someone is listening or watching. That works technically, but it is not necessarily the best video experience. Rob and Mike discuss the need for a new type of podcast video advertising that works whether someone hears the ad, watches it, or moves between both experiences. Audio and Video Are Converging, But Not Cleanly Rob raises a question he is dealing with directly on the New ...
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    57 分
  • The Human Signal: What Becomes Valuable in AI Creation Era | Jaymi Bauer #682

    The Human Signal: What Becomes Valuable in AI Creation Era | Jaymi Bauer #682
    2026/08/23
    When AI content becomes abundant, what becomes scarce? In Episode #682 of the New Media Show, Host, Rob Greenlee talks with growth and brand strategist Jaymi Bauer. Jaymi is CEO and co-founder of Vaquera Group, creator of Resonance Design, and founder of a new women’s vitality venture called Reign.Care. She and Rob previously worked together at Microsoft during the Zune and Xbox eras, giving both a long view of how technology continually reshapes media and human behavior. The conversation is not anti-AI. It is about understanding where AI is powerful and where human creators may still have the advantage. The Human Signal Jaymi states that humans feel trust before they intellectually recognize it. We respond to tone, presence, energy, emotion, authenticity, and whether something feels genuine. AI can increasingly reproduce human language, imagery, voices, and creative patterns, but Jaymi believes audiences will continue seeking something deeper: content rooted in real human experience. Her advice to creators is simple: Become better at AI while becoming even more human. AI as Amplifier, Not the Source Rob and Jaymi explore AI as a creative and production layer rather than the original source of meaning. AI can: Research faster Organize ideas Improve production Expand visual possibilities Help creators distribute content Personalize discovery Build new interactive experiences But the strongest output still begins with a strong human seed: an idea, experience, perspective, story, or creative intention. Jaymi shares her experience of heavily using AI on a book proposal. The result was polished, but she felt it had become hollow and disconnected from her own creative voice. That became a reminder that efficiency does not automatically create resonance. Why Human Content May Become Premium As synthetic media becomes harder to distinguish from human-created media, Rob raises the possibility that creators may eventually label content as human-hosted or human-created, rather than simply labeling AI content. Jaymi believes genuine human interaction may eventually feel more valuable precisely because it becomes less common. That could increase the value of: Live conversations Human-created storytelling Live music and events Real relationships Distinctive personal perspectives Physical experiences Trusted communities The future may not be human versus AI. It may be human creativity amplified by AI. Creators Need AI Literacy Jaymi strongly advises creators not to ignore AI. Her view is that creators should learn the tools, experiment with them, understand their limitations, and explore what they make possible. But they also need stronger critical thinking and editorial judgment. Rob and Jaymi discuss how experienced professionals may have an advantage here because they have lived through multiple cycles in technology, media, business, and the economy. Knowing when AI is wrong, when to stop refining, what matters, and what audiences actually value may become increasingly important skills. AI Changes Discovery Too. AI is not only creating content. It is increasingly sitting between creators and audiences. Rob discusses how platforms such as YouTube use AI to analyze media, understand content, personalize recommendations, and decide who should see what. That means creators are entering an environment where AI may influence: Creation Editing Distribution Metadata Search Recommendations Audience targeting Personalization The creator still provides the human idea, but AI increasingly shapes how that idea reaches the world. A More Interactive Media Future The conversation also explores AI-powered audience participation. Rob describes emerging platforms where synthetic personalities, expert knowledge bases, and human audience members can participate in shared conversations. Instead of traditional one-way media, future shows could include creators, audiences, and AI agents discussing topics together. That could make podcasts, livestreams, sports media, education, and communities considerably more interactive. Discussion Highlights -What Jaymi means by the “human signal” -Why trust is often felt before it is understood -AI-generated media versus human-created media -Why creators should become “superhuman,” not anti-AI -AI as a creative amplifier -The importance of critical thinking and editorial judgment -Why AI-generated work can feel polished but hollow -How experienced professionals can work effectively with AI -AI’s growing role in discovery and recommendation -Personal LLMs and creator knowledge models -Human and AI participants inside future media experiences -Why live and human-created experiences could become premium -The possibility of labeling media as human-hosted -Creativity, trust, and relationships as long-term advantages Chapter Markers 00:00 Why the human signal matters 01:32 Introducing Jaymi Bauer 02:48 What is the human signal? 05:35 Can AI reproduce human connection? 09...
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    1 時間 6 分
  • How Podcast Distribution Is Changing | Alban Brooke, Buzzsprout #681

    How Podcast Distribution Is Changing | Alban Brooke, Buzzsprout #681
    2026/08/15
    In Episode 681 of the New Media Show, host Podcast Hall of Famer Rob Greenlee welcomes Alban Brooke, Head of Marketing at Buzzsprout, for a deep conversation about one of the biggest structural changes in podcasting: the evolution of podcast hosting from audio-file distribution to a broader audio-and-video creator infrastructure. For most of podcasting’s history, the hosting model was relatively straightforward. A creator uploaded an audio file, the host generated an RSS feed, and that feed distributed the episode to listening apps worldwide. That podcast hosting model is changing. Video is once again becoming a significant part of podcasting, and podcast hosting platforms are being asked to do much more than store an MP3 and maintain an RSS feed. They increasingly need to manage video encoding, HLS streaming, direct platform connections, YouTube publishing, Spotify video, Apple Podcasts video, transcripts, analytics, AI-assisted publishing tools, and the traditional audio experience simultaneously. Buzzsprout, which launched in 2009 as an audio-only podcast host, has now made a major move into video. Alban explains that the turning point was Apple’s decision to support HLS video streaming into Apple Podcasts. Once Apple committed to HLS, Buzzsprout saw an opportunity to preserve one of podcast hosting’s original promises: “Upload once and let the hosting platform handle the complexity of getting the show everywhere.” Buzzsprout’s current video workflow allows creators to upload video and distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube while continuing to deliver audio to traditional podcast apps. The technology underneath that process, however, has become much more complicated. A podcast host may now be managing RSS feeds, HLS playlists, multiple video resolutions, platform APIs, direct uploads, audio extraction, transcripts, and the different requirements of Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, iHeart, and other services. Alban argues that creators should not have to understand most of that. If podcast hosting is doing its job properly, the technical complexity should disappear into the infrastructure. Creators should be able to concentrate on making the show. That leads Rob and Alban into a larger discussion about RSS and what it still represents. RSS itself is not magical, Alban says. What matters is what RSS enables: a direct and portable connection between creators and their audiences. A creator using an open podcast feed can switch from one hosting company to another without rebuilding their audience from scratch. The relationship is not entirely controlled by a recommendation algorithm or a single platform. Alban contrasts this with YouTube and other social platforms, where algorithms ultimately determine how much of a creator’s content reaches subscribers. A creator can build a large audience on a platform and still experience dramatic changes in reach when the algorithm, product strategy, or monetization model changes. Podcasting offers something different. Alban describes media distribution as a spectrum ranging from discovery to delivery. At one end are platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, which are extremely effective at helping users discover content. The platform decides what it believes each person wants to see next. At the other end are systems such as RSS and email, where the user intentionally subscribes and expects to receive what that creator publishes. The opportunity for modern creators may be to use both. YouTube, social video platforms, and algorithmic platforms can enable discovery. RSS can provide reliable delivery and audience portability after that relationship is established. That combination may become one of podcasting’s greatest advantages. HLS, RSS and the Future of more Open Video Podcasting Rob and Alban explore how HLS video could extend those same open-distribution principles into video. Apple’s implementation currently involves a direct API relationship, but the podcast ecosystem is also experimenting with the alternate enclosure tag in RSS, which can place another media format inside the RSS feed. Buzzsprout has already experimented with alternate enclosures on selected shows, although Alban explains that the company is approaching broader implementation carefully because video creates dramatically larger bandwidth demands than audio. A bot downloading thousands of MP3 files is one problem. A bot repeatedly requesting multi-gigabyte video assets is another larger issue. The larger objective, however, remains open distribution. Alban believes HLS has the potential to enable multiple podcast applications to support video without forcing creators to confine their entire video audience to a single closed platform. Can Video Damage the Audio Experience? The conversation then turns to one of the most important creative questions raised by video podcasting. What happens to audio listeners when the video version becomes the...
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    1 時間 23 分
  • Liquid Content Era Needs New Measurement | Steven Goldstein, Amplifi Media #680

    Liquid Content Era Needs New Measurement | Steven Goldstein, Amplifi Media #680
    2026/08/11
    In Episode 680 of the New Media Show, host Rob Greenlee welcomes Steven Goldstein, founder and CEO of Amplifi Media, for a timely, future-leaning discussion. We have entered the Liquid Content Era. A podcast conversation can now become an audio episode, full-length YouTube video, Spotify video, Apple Podcasts video, vertical clips, social posts, articles, newsletters, searchable transcripts, and potentially AI-discovered answers. The underlying content may be the same, but the way people encounter and consume it varies by platform. That creates an enormous opportunity for creators. It also creates a measurement problem. Podcasting built much of its advertising business around the download. That metric helped turn an emerging medium into a legitimate advertising marketplace, but Steven argues that it no longer adequately represents how audiences consume modern shows. Downloads were created in an era when bandwidth was limited and podcast applications often downloaded episodes to devices before the listener played them. Today, streaming is increasingly immediate, video consumption is growing, audiences move between devices, and clips can sometimes reach more people than the original episode. The question is no longer simply: How many times was the podcast downloaded? The better question may be: How many people actually listened to, watched, encountered the advertising, and engaged with the creator’s content across the entire media ecosystem? Why advertisers need this change. Large brands already buy television, web, streaming video, social, and other digital media through dashboards that provide comparable impression-based reporting. Podcasting remains fragmented across RSS analytics, platform dashboards, YouTube views, Spotify data, and different definitions of what constitutes meaningful exposure. That fragmentation makes podcast media harder to buy at scale. Steven explains that advertisers do not want separate teams manually reconciling podcast audio, video, clips, and platform metrics. If podcasting wants to attract substantially more advertising investment, it needs to fit more easily into the systems marketers already use. That leads into one of the episode’s central topics: the AMP Accords. The Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting was formed to address three persistent problems: Defining a podcastStandardizing exposure metrics across platformsCreating a more consistent way to evaluate advertising effectiveness. The AMP Accords describe their goal as establishing cross-platform measurement standards spanning open RSS and closed platforms. One of the biggest proposed shifts is moving toward a 30-second play as a standardized exposure metric across audio and video. Steven is less concerned about whether 30 seconds ultimately proves to be the perfect number than he is about establishing a common starting point. Media measurement has always evolved. Steven draws on his experience in radio, where audience measurement moved from handwritten listening diaries to electronic Portable People Meters. The change was disruptive. Some formats gained audience under the new methodology, and others lost it. But advertisers demanded better information, and the industry eventually adapted. Podcasting is facing a similar moment. The industry should not allow the pursuit of a perfect measurement system to delay the adoption of a more useful one. The AMP framework also addresses advertising impressions and audience measurement. That matters because an advertiser ultimately wants to know whether someone actually received an advertising message, not simply whether a media file was automatically delivered to a device. Rob and Steven discuss the tension this creates for established podcast measurement. Some publishers remain strongly committed to the download because it has provided consistency and an open measurement methodology for many years. Steven gives the download credit for helping build the podcast advertising business but believes the medium now needs to move forward. The shift becomes even more important when video enters the equation. YouTube has become a major podcast-consumption platform with sophisticated analytics on views, watch time, audience behavior, retention, and discovery. Spotify has added video. Apple is expanding its video capabilities through HLS. Meanwhile, audiences increasingly move fluidly between audio and video rather than seeing them as completely separate media products. This raises another difficult question: What exactly is a podcast now? The AMP Accords propose a broad podcast definition that encompasses audio or video and open or closed distribution, provided the program remains meaningful without requiring constant visual attention. Steven likes the basic framework but emphasizes that audiences will ultimately shape the word’s meaning. People already call shows “podcasts” based on format and experience rather than on technical infrastructure. Most ...
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