Sam Sethi: 0:12

Now. We've been chatting for a little bit, but I want to find out first of all, who or what is Pod Too.

Russell Harrower: 0:18

So party is a hosting platform that allows people who want to get their radio show syndicated to radio stations around the world. In a easy you are able method. One of the advantages for us is that we're actually able to track listeners live, so that travels through, pull back to the radio show and say, Look, you got for this episode 3000 listeners. The beautiful thing about country is that we also podcasts all of the radio shows. So it allows people to be on demand. And I guess the whole system was basically use drop box or send the file manually three way transfer. And when you've got 700 radio stations that you need to syndicate a show to, that gets time consuming very quickly.

Sam Sethi: 1:08

first part is you are a standard podcasting host. You've got lots of clients. Second part is you've got this core, I suppose, broadcast a podcast solution, but in your case, it's podcast, a broadcast, it's the other way round, right?

Russell Harrower: 1:21

Yeah. So basically it's make a show and then get it on radio as quickly.

Sam Sethi: 1:25

As a podcast to broadcast rather than Afri pods, which we were talking to Kevin last week, taking a live radio feed and then putting that out as a podcast. And what you're doing is helping podcasters syndicate their content to multiple radio stations, correct?

Russell Harrower: 1:40

Yes, very correct. So basically the idea came from I had to have brain surgery to remove the growth. And I'll confess, thank goodness my background is I own a radio station and I need that radio station to run without me. So it needed my syndication partners that we get shows from to be able to upload the show somewhere where I could program all of the data that needed the old shows. And so I knew for that time period, even if I was dead, my station will take going time. So that's how it comes out. Honestly, there's no real like one day it was literally, you might die. Let's go and create something that will keep the radio station on.

Sam Sethi: 2:22

Okay. So in perpetuity. Right. Okay, Now fast forward. So that's really how the idea came about. So we've sort of covered off. Why Pop, to where you came from? What is your technical background in all of this? You said you were in radio, but were you in radio as a broadcaster or as a technician or both, or what was it?

Russell Harrower: 2:41

So I loved radio since I was a kid. I was that typical kid with a tape deck and playing a song and then with the microphone commentating. And so I think volunteering at radio station since I was 16, on and off. My actual background is coding and developing, so I'm just a nerd at heart and to me it was like, Here's a problem, we can fix it, let's fix it. radio. It's so powerful. It's a way of telling stories. It's a way of connecting to the community. It's a way to just let people in your local area know what's happening. And that's kind of been lost. I hate to say it, like commercial radio is literally about shouting out now to win $10,000. It's not about that breast cancer survivor or that non-profit or the homeless. Where's those stories? Those stories, sadly, have been moved to podcasts. I'm not saying sadly, but meaning it's actually harder to find those stories because you're competing with God knows how many podcasts and sometimes really hard to find. And a lot of my old clients who used to, they go, I just want to be found. I want to be connected to people. I want to be able to make a business. Houses. I want to be able to share my knowledge with the world. And this is where, if done correctly, radio can they the voice for the people. It can be the place where you share ideas. It can be the place that you connect. It can be that, like a lot of people got already, the interactive there I one this the first to basically bring comments and polls and questions and all that kind of stuff into radio so that when you're listening, if you like something, tap it and it will take you somewhere. We are all about trying to make radio as interactive as possible, and it's powered by call to.

Sam Sethi: 4:37

for me when I had my own radio station, I used to do 40 live podcast shows a week and genuinely live, and we used to put those out on DAB or some people might look at other mediums. I am an FM, DAB, digital radio, web, mobile, Alexa, Google Home, and we would have picked the next channel podcast apps had they existed with the live item tax. So so fundamentally, radio is just a channel. It's just a delivery mechanism. It's just a streaming medium for me of one way to receive content. And that content is a podcast in your case that has been scheduled via this entity called a radio station. But actually it could be called a podcast network. It could be called anything with the word radio Now is quite an anathema to me because it actually is just a throwback to people understanding where the medium is being delivered to. I get in my car, I listen to the radio, but if I listen to the radio or my Alexa, is it radio in the form that we think of it?

Russell Harrower: 5:47

Yeah. I think the thing is, and this is that there's been that debate in our office even about we actually radio the online and I go, well, radio is about a live broadcast that doesn't end. So if it goes 24 hours, seven days a week and it's audio format, then we call it we call it. Right.

Sam Sethi: 6:08

You said it was live. You said it was live. But a podcast in the form that you take. So you have a show called Network that's pre-recorded but scheduled live, but fundamentally isn't live. So you weren't doing what I was doing, which was actually having live shows broadcast, right? And then at the end of that live show, we converted that to a podcast. It was another Australian company called Whiskas, but we did it that way. You're taking a recorded show and scheduling it, so it's perceived live by the listener when it's actually not live.

Russell Harrower: 6:45

So let's take the let's take the menu as example. That's a really good example. So the girls there, Brittany and Kate, they recorded on a Tuesday night. It was three in a video platform. Then they send the audio to me, it's very raw and there's mistakes in it and then I have to edit it. I had to put the jingle at the front. I have to get that trailer, all that kind of stuff. And then we cut it into segments. So for radio, there's four segments because that's like for 2 hours on our station and then that one hour piece of audio that's a podcast is actually converted into a radio show for a blogger. I'm on the podcast version, gets uploaded, and then those segments get uploaded and then their own one chooses to take the segments so that we can insert music and we can use the adverts and that is the difference of turning a podcast into a radio show versus if you look at one of the other shows like Two Nights in a Room that is a live radio show that's then converted into a podcast that then other radio stations can syndicate that show.

Sam Sethi: 7:50

what you and I have been talking about over the last couple of weeks is a thing that we're proposing to the podcasting community. So it's not a standard yet. We hope it will be called medium equals radio and what we're trying to create and what we have created manually is a drone. One radio feed. I publish a feed, but it's a radio feed. We try to differentiate between different feeds. So Wondery would be a publisher feed and then you might get an audio book feed and then you might get a other feed. So so DRM one has at the moment 12 shows in that publisher radio feed. And what we're talking about now is you going to use what has been made part of the podcasting to understand that they publish a free format. So you're going to take each RSS feed and you're going to add a podcast publisher, whether you're a link to this feed that you're going to create. So as a business pod to, we'll manage the hosting, manage the technical challenges of adding this new publisher feed and then managing that publishing feed on behalf of DRM one. And we're going to see if that works. Step one then we're going to add the live item tag to the shows and then see if we can create a schedule out of that. And then thirdly, and the bigger challenge is how do we take syndicate rated shows that you've got across multiple radio stations? And finally, the fourth big problem just to add to the pie is within going to try and geo locate those. In a way that means that if it's a show syndicated across multiple geographies as well, that it's not made available. Let's just take a step back podcasting to the show. Where do you think the world is right now? Sorry, I just realized that's a massive question to address. Right.

Russell Harrower: 9:51

Go ahead. Let me let me answer because I think it's a really good question, because I think that is on copyright. And I spoke. Right. Well, I have a friend of mine and to me, I'm very anti big corporate platforms that take podcasters who let's be honest, we pay rent, we have to put food on the table. We have to pay for the mixes, we have to edit. It costs us creators a lot of time to make these great shows. The problem we have with platforms and I won't mention names, is that they will put ads all over our content and they will not pay us, allowing just our content. They will tell us that we're not allowed to put our own ads in. It's all programmatic ads, and I should say. And then they will put their own programmatic ads in it. And if you do not meet the minimum requirement to generate revenue, that company will take those dollars and use it for them. Now, this is where it bugs me because podcasters are no different to musicians. We create as we create beautiful content. We deserve to get paid. Simple as that.

Sam Sethi: 11:11

Now I fully agree, I fully agree. And and I think actually the way that podcasting is going with live shows of their podcast, with merchandising, I'm looking at multiple revenue streams different ways. I think podcasts as a musicians are in the same boat, you know, in the long tail, they are trying to find their audience, they're trying to find their audience who will then support them. And that support can be in micropayments, it could be in subscriptions, it could be through buying merchandising or tickets to events. So yeah, it's all going the same way.

Russell Harrower: 11:45

I'm most probably the odd one out where this is my view and some people will hate me for it, but that's okay. I just think that if a company is going to make money off of, well, let's be honest, platforms have to pay musicians for their music, whether whether or not they play an app that pays dollars per stream or cents per stream. If they're ingesting our content, then I expect that they would be paying our content creators, even if it is just pennies or not even a cent, like if it's 0.000 $0.08, that is still better than nothing. And that's where I just think that we need like a podcast creators association to actually say, look, we need to be treated like a creator because it is our copyright material that we are giving a platform and we're happy to give it. But if you're not going to support that for me, then pay us through some sort of means. And don't put these stupid rules saying you have to get 10,000 subscribers or whatever it is like you're making money. Let us make money.

Sam Sethi: 13:05

Yeah, I don't think that's going to change. I think v4 v micropayments direct from listeners from fans has to be. I think the way forward is just how long will it be before we get mass adoption so that the amount of money generated is significantly more or at least on par with what you might get through advertising.

Russell Harrower: 13:26

And this is where I say to people, I sit down with a lot of creators going, How do I make money? How do I turn my podcast into a business? And my very first advice to them is don't put on Spotify and don't put on YouTube. If you actually want to make money, you need to use a podcast app because that is literally the only way that you can just say, Okay, when you're listening to this, you have to pay me or you can post it, all that kind of stuff. So these are real conversations that we're having with creators, and this is why it's exciting to be part of the Podcasting 2.0 community because we can say that our creators want this is just how do we educate the listeners? there has to be that. We work together as a community. We can't just go, Oh, well, I'm not talking to you because you're a competitor of mine. I love talking with some of the best people I talk to is from Limerick. It's a fantastic conversation. We have just because it's not about competition, it's about, okay, well, this is what we're doing. What are you doing right to help help each other?

Sam Sethi: 14:34

As the rising tide raises, raises all boats strategy fundamentally in the community and the community is very good at that. Russell Look, if anyone wants to find out more about what to wear, where they go.

Russell Harrower: 14:45

They can head over to P.O.D. dot com. You can find me on the podcast index dot social on the Russell. You can stop me on Twitter fans I'm on there so yeah I get involved only Dan Harlow Yeah that's why they can find me.

Sam Sethi: 15:02

Russell Thank you so much mate. And yeah, we'll have an ongoing conversation about radio two podcasts or podcasts right here.

Russell Harrower: 15:10

Look forward to it.