Hello and welcome back to Pot News Weekly. I'm joined today by a friend of the show. His name's Gotham Anand. He's over in India. Gotham, Hello. How are you? Hey, Sam. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me out again. Such a pleasure. Welcome back. Welcome back. Now you're here to announce some very interesting new awards from Humble. Tell me more. Thank you for the opportunity. We're actually going live with the Hub up Podcast Awards starting tonight. This is the fourth edition of the podcasting awards that we've been hosting. And it's basically to recognize and shed light on creators out of the emerging markets that oftentimes get less recognition and less sort of pats on the back. And that's where the history of these awards came from as well. There'll be eight categories for these awards and we'll be accepting entries. And entries are completely free for anybody that wants to participate as long as you meet a couple of criteria. So criteria being the fact that you've had to have released one episode at least within this year. So it going to be a podcast that you were running, Matthew, three years ago. You have to have at least five episodes that you've published in the history of your podcasting journey. And this year we're also accepting YouTube podcasts and video podcasts to sort of move with that kind of how the industry is evolving as well as our new podcast. Up until now, it was on the audio podcast that we're RSS backed that we were accepting. But yeah, we're super excited because this year we're going to build. Up until this point it was just for the India market. Our vision with this is to bring recognition to more emerging markets, especially in the Asian region. So expecting a lot of entries coming in from different parts of the Asian market. So if I'm not mistaken, I know that this is the first podcast awards that started in the India market, and a lot of our creators oftentimes do remind us because they won a couple of times over and excited to win this time around as well. But I don't know whether there are other awards in certain other territories in the Asia market, but we're excited to take this and bring this out to folks in and around the countries that surround India. Yeah, one of the things you've talked about is also expanding it to a region called Mena wasteland. So MENA is the Middle East and North Africa once again. I actually think that it's important to chat about where these podcast awards began from and the thought process behind them. So we had started these awards back in 2020 prior to which we were having events. So we were having events across the country as a way to basically highlight creators. And then COVID hit. So COVID had a sort of double whammy. Number one, we couldn't have those events any longer. And number two, a lot of people felt more isolated than ever at home. And unfortunately, in markets like India back in 2020, you weren't getting gratification for your show from a monetary perspective. And we felt that there was a major gap in creators that were spending a large amount of time, blood, sweat and tears into the effort and into the work they were putting into their shows. And that needed to be highlighted and people needed to find out about it. So we started these awards with or thought the fact that they should be as democratize as possible, as unbiased as possible, open to as many people as possible, which is why we had no entry fee that was involved. And it was picked up by storm because it was literally the first time. Today, India is the third largest consumption market in the world, but that was not the case just a few years ago. So it was a really sort of strong badge of honor that creators could read. So even if creators weren't monetizing, it was something that creators could feel vindicated about, that they made a strong decision. And why I give that historical context is because we see similar scenarios in markets like the Middle East, where once again, you've got incredible creators, but not too much or enough recognition for these creators. A similar story would in North Africa. I know a lot of folks in the broadcasting ecosystem are looking to change this. We're not stating that we're coming in as CBOs with this award. It's just our little way of showcasing our gratitude for the creators in this space and the amazing duty which includes yourself. You know, I'm already grateful because there could be nobody else that these podcasters would be more happy to get their shows than folks like you. Folks like Rob Greenlee, who was there when podcast thing essentially came to be, and he's a Hall of Famer with podcasting. Michelle Cobb, who is the executive director at the Podcast Academy, and Sangita Belair, who is a multi-award-winning podcast host herself. And you and I have been on stage with her together some back at the podcast show. So it's great to see that we've got this group of people, the one sort of change we made this year, which people may find a little bit annoying, is that we have limited the language to specifically English, but that's only because we've opened up more countries and the duty panel, you know, the one common language that's spoken across everybody in the jury panel is English. So I wanted to put that out there because up until now, people across any language could submit their podcast, and that was still easier to manage in the Indian context. But this time it's a little bit difficult because we're trying to go a little bit more global. So, yeah. Interesting. Now look, that's lovely and great to see friends who are going to be on the judging panel with me. One of the things we talked about is that you have the Zombies, which I call the American Podcast Awards. We have the British Podcast Awards, we have the Black Podcast Awards. Can we really call these now the Indian or South Asian Podcast Awards? Could anyone who's in the diaspora outside of South Asia, so anyone in the UK or maybe Europe or America, as they all of Asian extraction, could they apply to? Yes, 100%. And it's something that we would love to see, which is one of the reasons why we've got the duty panel that we've got, because the duty panel does incorporate 50% of the duty panel on diaspora of Asian descent. So that's definitely something that we're looking forward to seeing. And what I would actually state is that instead of seeing it as the Indian Awards or the South Asian Awards, one can be even as bold as seeing potentially a couple of years down the road. It could be the Asian awards altogether for podcasting, because one of the things that we just want to do is try to be as inclusive as possible and allow as many folks in less highlighted markets to apply as possible. Good. Now, let's just clarify some date. When will people be able to submit their podcast for the awards and where should they go to submit their podcasts. So people will be able to submit their podcasts from the night itself? So from the 1st of October, and it's a perfect date because we're literally sitting on international podcast right now, so it's a good point to announce it. And then for the next award weeks, they can get their friends, their family, their listeners to upload their podcast. So that's essentially the process that takes place. You can get anybody who is a fan of your show who will participate in the success of your show across these eight categories. Then the three top winners from the eight different categories will move on to the final selection round, and that is when the eminent panel of judges come in and these judges, which include yourself once again will choose amongst the three in each category. Who the winner is. And one of the things that we've tried to do with the winners of the awards is outside of bragging rights, of course, and something to feel really wonderful about. We also have some really exciting offers and a comes for them which include, you know, apart squeeze one subscription for free on Auphonic one year subscription for free. How about a six month subscription for free on one of my highest year plans? And that's pretty much some of the more materialistic things that creators would be able to walk away from. But I think all of that will pale in comparison to feeling the community, sort of patting folks on the back for the amazing work that they've done. Cool. Did you mention the website? Where would they go? Yeah, So we'll actually be giving you a link which you'll be able to click at the bottom of this show itself when you're listening and you can click on that link and go and submit your show. If you are hearing this anywhere else, I don't have time to check out that link. You can go to the Hub up a website itself, a how up a dot com and you'll see the awards section right on top. We tried to make it as easy and simple for you to find as possible. Perfect. Now changing subjects, very, very briefly, you've been on the show before to talk about what's been happening in the Indian market, and you were very kind to give me a heads up on what's been happening with some of the site closures recently of some of the podcasting platforms in India. What is the current state of play? Is it just basically now Spotify is dominating the Indian market. It's up WhatsApp opening. That's a great question. I would not say that whatsoever. Spotify is not it's not a monopoly game in India. The recent closure. Let's address that first. So there's a major platform called Wynk Music in India, which is essentially a Telugu owned streaming platform. And one of India's largest telecom operators named Airtel, basically ran a company called Wynk underneath that umbrella. And Wynk recently announced that they were shutting shop. Now, that's a major, major deal because you're talking about 50, 60 million monthly active users, just because of the sheer volume of how widespread Airtel and the telco is itself. You can sort of imagine the number of people that this would be impacting. However, what we have noticed is there's a major demographic sort of decision making in terms of the streaming platform that people choose. So despite the fact that we have actually on Airtel have created a partnership with Apple, which is a major highlight point, because that implies that Apple is looking at the Indian market more aggressively and they're looking to move their premium subscribers from Wynk premium to Apple. So that in itself is pretty big news. But that's also going to just speak about a very small subsection of wynk users that will opt to choose for Apple. This is my belief system. The remainder of them will possibly move towards other platforms that are more comfortable to them, which include the likes of your Gaana or Hungama and other platforms of the like. So with WINK pulling the curtains, it's a very big deal. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all of this traffic is going to move to Spotify, it's going to move to other Indigenous platforms, it's going to move a little bit to Apple and it's going to move to Spotify as well. So I think creators in this region or creators that leverage off of consumption, say platforms in this region are going to just see a redistribution of consumption across platforms, not a drop, because we saw this once in the past as well, and we were super anxious as a hosting platform that we're going to see a major drop. But we didn't see a major drop at all. We saw the numbers remain constant. We just saw a change where people were consuming. Yeah. Now, two of the players in the Indian market I just want to touch on briefly. One is Amazon and one is YouTube. I mean, one of the things I often say to James is that I don't hear about Amazon, not just in the Indian market, but just globally. They seem to occasionally pop up. I suppose their big thing is wondery and audible and they do very well through those two channels. But you never hear of Amazon particularly as a company. It's often through those subsidiaries of Amazon that you hear about podcasting. Is that the same in India as well with Amazon? Actually, no. Weirdly enough, I would give Amazon a lot of credit. Amazon Music recently took out a study where they stated that their second largest consumption market on OTT is India, which is a big deal. I mean, at least for us it's a big deal. And also having worked very closely with the Amazon India team, you know, they are doing a very large amount, as are the other platforms, as is Spotify. But Amazon, because it's being spoken about right now, Amazon is doing a lot for highlighting creators. They just had a bunch of creators showcased on Time Square Indian creators, which was really exciting. They are doing a bunch of, you know, sort of activities to try and get creators monetized. I would say that they're working a little bit under the radar. I. One way to sort of state this is we've had events over the last few years for the podcasting community as a whole. And I mean you've always been supported by Amazon, you know, and it's been fine industry and folks across the entire ecosystem. So whether we're talking about the audible side of Amazon that have all been very instrumental or we're talking Amazon music, I think they themselves are also sort of looking at this market in a fairly strong way. Now the other two players that one would sort of be speaking about would be one was not mentioned, which is Jiosaavn. Jiosaavn. I actually think they are one of the reasons why podcasting is where it even is in India, because they punted on podcasting before any other platform did. So even prior to Spotify entering the India market, they had to reach news shows and so large amount of credit goes to their founders, Rashi baron, because they were way ahead of their time and continue to be so with with podcasting, the YouTube phenomenon in the India market, it's had a double edged impact. One thing is that it's caused podcasting to essentially go supernova. Every single person and their aunt and their aunt and wants to start a podcast. It has started a podcast. But because podcasting was fairly young in the India market, there's mass confusion around what a podcast is. Right now I'm grappling with that is a very large problem statement because it took about five years to get the industry to understand what an artist essays, hosting platforms are, etc., etc. And when I say get the market to know this was a smaller market when YouTube changed the label to podcasts and essentially created playlists for podcasts or radio shows or we do interviews, I don't even know what to call them. Suddenly it opened up Pandora's box of every single person wanting to start a podcast or listening to a podcast, which is great in one way, because now everybody knows the word podcast, but terrible in another way because we don't know what the podcast is any longer. In the India market specifically. I don't know whether this is the same with the UK, because in the UK podcasting has been around for a lot longer, so maybe demarcations a little bit easier. But in the India market there's a lot of confusion. Now YouTube has muddied the waters with the word podcast and I think now podcast means anything you want it to mean related to audio or video even now. I mean, I just don't think the word podcast is specific. I know there was a lot of push back in the beginning. Oh no, If it's not good in RSS, it's not a podcast, right? And kids don't care. They just don't care. I mean, you're fighting against the tide of change, right? Where kids like mine will watch a YouTube video and it's the podcast video version of the audio that they might have listened to on Apple or Spotify in the past. Now they'll just watch the video version of it and they'll be cooking dinner, and that's how they consume the content. And they will call that a podcast. They will turn to their mate. Have you seen the latest podcast on YouTube? And that's how they speak. And so you can be a pragmatic person and say, No, it's not a podcast because he doesn't have RSS and there's not this and it's not. That doesn't matter. The word that I think is now being observed into use by other people and they are now using that in the way that they term it to mean what they want it to mean. I don't know if this analogy works very well, but they used to be multiple brands of carpet cleaners in the fifties and sixties and one brand took over and that was Hoover. And so now you don't say, I'm going to Electrolux or Dyson, my carpet. You just said I'm going to hoover my carpet. And it's become a generic term. And and you don't say search, You say Google, I'm going to go and Google this. So I think podcasting has joined the lexicon of those where it's now just a generic term that means anything to do with audio video consumption. Even that we don't know because I think for a year I was like big headed about this. And when people see this, we're essentially telling me that they're watching their favourite podcast on YouTube. I'd ask them, where is it being casted from? So cast it to where? And they would look blankly at me and then voice two point get irritated with me and this guy to go on about their day. So I knew I was fighting a losing battle and one needed to evolve. But I guess podcasts are unfortunately uniquely susceptible to this because this is the second time that this is happening to the medium. So from audio blog to podcast, from podcast or whatever, this is at this point in time. But yeah. While you are including and looping this back, you are including videos in the new awards. So you are actually adding to the confusion because now you are saying that a podcast that submitted from YouTube is going to be available for, you know, the judges to look at as a potential award winner. So is it the case of if you can't beat them, join them? So you're adding YouTube because you can't really stop people calling them podcasts? I guess it would be egoistic of me to believe that I can stop anybody or from anything. I think the market will tell you what it wants and so much so that I wouldn't say that I would even stop there. Very shortly you will be able to distribute to all video consumption site platforms also from up, because at the end of the day that is what the market wants. And each and every time we speak to creators that are less initiated about that on podcasting, that is their first question to us. Their first question to us is like, Oh, that is also distributed too. And then we're like, No. And immediately we see a drop in their face or we see a change in that energy and they don't want to understand why X, Y or Z is the reason they have no interest. They need a distribution platform that fulfills their needs where they're able to manage something from one dashboard and get all of their data from that dashboard. Then it's our job to either provide that or I think, become obsolete over time. That's pretty much as simple as it is. 100% that all the podcast host companies that are not providing support for video and video distribution are giving the market to Spotify and to YouTube. And, you know, we've seen multiple reports now of people saying that the younger generation consume video more than they do audio. And so I think, yeah, got to go with the place where the people are going. Mike But I do have to sort of give major props and compliments to the folks in the podcasting community such as yourself and folks like Adam Corey, you know, know that the market needs evolving and are taking the beautiful infrastructure of the RSS and evolving it to incorporate all of the things that the market needs. I couldn't have stated that in a more complicated framing of a sentence, but you see, where I'm coming from, it is it will be amazing thing to see the podcast 2.0 project and to see the empathy with which the industry is approaching the needs of the market in 2024. We are indeed. It's it's a lot of hard work, but it's also good fun. Gautham, Anand, thank you so much. Good luck with the Hub Hopper Asian Awards. And again, where would they go if they wanted to submit their entry. Into the show notes of this show or to hub up or dot com and you'd see a banner on how about the dot com and you can just go from there to self-explanatory And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. Thank you.