From The Podcast Show, London; and Max Cutler from PAVE Studios

This was to be a fun live episode, but sadly, the audio recording of that failed to be usable. Bah! 

Lucky we got other audio as well. So, in this episode, we go round the show talking with people, and chat with Max Cutler, the founder of PAVE Studios.

Chapters

• 0:50 Interview: Max Cutler, PAVE Studios
• 11:43 Walking around The Podcast Show
• 30:35 The inbox

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

It's Friday, May, the 23rd 2025.

Speaker 2: 0:06

This is the Pod News Weekly.

Speaker 3: 0:08

Review live at the Podcast Show in London with James Cridland and Sam Sethi.

Speaker 1: 0:16

Hello, we're the audience. Yes, we're live at the Podcast Show, except that audio recording didn't actually work properly, skipped every 30 seconds, weirdly, so it's completely useless. So there we are. So instead you've got me, but don't worry, coming up, we've got Max Cutler from Pave Studios and I wander around the show floor and we find out what the podcast show was all about. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout, with the tools, support and community to ensure you keep podcasting, start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom. Now, outside the podcast show in London, was a beautiful, beautiful, big yellow bus and it belongs to Pave Studios, run by Max Cutler. He used to run Parcast, which got bought by Spotify, and I was curious to catch up with him and learn more about Pave Studios. So in a noisy coffee shop yesterday, I started by asking him what is Pave Studios?

Speaker 4: 1:13

The idea behind Pave is pretty simple.

Speaker 4: 1:14

I think that over the last few years, the convergence of formats is really happening whether it's audio, whether it's video, whether it's books and I felt like there was a need for an independent studio that was focused on the digital sort of narrative to come and launch, that owns ip, that works with creators to expand their businesses, that honestly operates in between audio and video, and so we will still invest in audio only content, but we're definitely thinking about video and how that, how that sort of interacts with each other.

Speaker 4: 1:41

Um, you know, at pay we don't say podcast, we say shows, because we care about attention, um, and I don't, you know, personally care if you're watching on youtube or if you're listening on apple, um, or if you're consuming on tiktok or instagram. I just think, for us, we want to build community and fandom and really help creators expand their businesses, because, you know, the thesis is creators hopefully get a huge audience and launch a show and they want to do more, um, but they need the right partners to do more, and we don't want to be a transaction relationship. We don't do ad sales. We are very much focused on owning, controlling ip and expanding the business for them and books as well.

Speaker 4: 2:15

I, I think as well too yeah, um, we've noticed in the last few years, as I'm sure you have and others, that more and more podcasters are launching books and becoming new york time by selling authors and quite literally selling millions of books. When I was at Spotify, we noticed that trend as well, which is probably why Spotify has audiobooks now, and so for us, if a creator comes to us and wants to expand their business into publishing, we want to make sure we could offer that to them.

Speaker 1: 2:41

And so how long has Pave Studios been?

Speaker 4: 2:43

going now Just about a year, so I think we launched publicly about a year ago and we started shows coming out about 10 months or so ago.

Speaker 1: 2:52

One of the things that I've noticed that you have brought over from Parcast is the way that you name your shows. There's a whole article on the pod news website about the way that podcast used to name uh shows and I think the the the excellent example was a show that a that you had over there called, which was all about serial killers. That you called serial killers um, is this a? Is this a? You know? Is this a max cutler? Um, uh, you know secret, secret sauce to name shows so that they work. I don't know if it's a secret sauce.

Speaker 4: 3:28

I'd say maybe it's the as straightforward as possible. What I think a lot about is if I was searching for a show, what would I type in, Whether it's on Spotify, whether it's on YouTube or Apple? What am I searching for In that case? For podcasts? If you're searching for serial killers, odds are you may search for serial killers or a Ted Bundy or someone like that, and so you know. Seo is so important. It's going to become more and more important, and so that was Paracast At Spot, I mean at Pave. Now we're definitely sometimes more clever with our names, but at the same time, we want to be true, to like what we know works, and there's definitely a hack for SEO.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Yeah, the same time we want to be true to like what we know works, and there's definitely a hack for seo. Yeah, yeah, and. And in terms of um, in terms of pave, what you've done is you've um put different shows into different sort of sub, sub brands, haven't you?

Speaker 4: 4:16

yeah. So when I think about, you know, just to go back to parkas, I look at pave and pave is really about will be about four or five podcasts, right. And the way I think about it is is when we were taking a step back and thinking like, what do I want to do next? And I knew I wanted to do podcasting because I love it. I know I love digital media and I challenge myself every day to think about if I could build a modern day Paramount, right, what does that studio look like?

Speaker 4: 4:39

And I think for us it was clear that owning ip is really important, but also build building brands that matter. What is rm tv? What does that look like? And I think, in a world with an abundance of amazing content which there is now, um, how do you stand out, how do you launch a show and be found?

Speaker 4: 4:54

And so, for us, instead of having a science show next to a comedy show, next to a history show, we've developed two brands so far crime house, which, as you can imagine, is crime content, um, and in that you know we have the best in class, hopefully, creators and stories and voices, and cross crime that we could then cross promote, and because we have more control over the stories, like it feels, more authentic, I think, than maybe some of these other networks, um. And then we want to show open mind, which are curiosity, learning and sort of well, you know, while this adjacent brand, um, which is a similar approach to that as well, and there'll be more brands launching in the near future- there's a lot of talk here at the podcast show about live events and, um, I think, uh, the um, the rest is politics has just announced another tour.

Speaker 1: 5:36

They managed to sell out the o2 arena, which is a massive, massive place, and it's two people talking about politics. What where do you stand in the whole live events side? Is that something that you're already doing?

Speaker 4: 5:50

well, well, first off, you know, goal hanger, the business they built, it's the best business in podcasting, I think, um, and I think it's amazing what they're doing and I really jack and tony and that team over there it's just really impressive. Um, in terms of events, it's incredibly important. Um, you know, I think that there's obviously a scale which they're doing out which is great because you're building community and fandom and you're making money. And then there's this also other reality of a lot of podcasts that are doing um 20 city tours, 30 city tours that are selling out, you know, 100 person venues to 500 000 person venues. Some will make money that but you really do it for fandom and community, which is why we believe in it so much. I think if you ask any podcaster that has done a live tour, they would say, wow, it was really burnt out a lot, maybe made a little bit of money, but my podcast grew massively and I think it grows massively because of the community you're building, and so for us to offer that to our creators is very important.

Speaker 1: 6:42

That's really interesting. So it's a community thing more than really you know money-making thing from your point of view.

Speaker 4: 6:50

For most people right, obviously, if you reach a certain scale you're going to make money, but for us, we think about it as community building. I mean, what a better way. It is a surreal thing when you launch a show and you have a million downloads. That's a lot of people, right. But it's just like you sort of see the numbers go up but you don't really think about it. And then you see in person there's something special about that. Even being here at the London podcast show it's like it's really special. The energy you see in there. It's just been really energizing, I think, for myself and the Pave team.

Speaker 1: 7:23

So you have a bright PAVE studios, yellow, uh double decker bus, uh, outside, uh, you cannot miss it. Uh, it's definitely making a a, a statement, and I think it's got drinks inside, and I've yet to work out what what the drinks are, um, so I will go and be investigating that. Why? Why here? Why at the London podcast Show? Why have you traveled all this way?

Speaker 4: 7:46

Well, I think that number one, this is the biggest conference in podcasting. It's the place you need to be at if you're in podcasting or have a business in podcasting. I think we're just doing something really different and the brand around Pave is different. It feels bold, it feels yellow, it stands out and I think, if you look around the space right now, this goes to again like why pay? Why now?

Speaker 4: 8:04

And it really, when we think about all the companies, there's amazing companies that are selling ads and everyone's like man, you know, that's like why would we launch a company to do that when there's amazing companies doing that? I'd argue that's people say it's a safer business model. I think it's a lot harder because I have to compete with amazing companies doing that, and so for us to actually be thinking about creators and investing in creators and owning the ip and operating the ip and being more of a traditional studio, I think there's less competition now than there was in 2016 when we launched podcast and I think, like, for us, we just want to tell that story because I think sometimes it is confusing what is real, what isn't real and do you see there being opportunity in the uk market?

Speaker 1: 8:40

um, for, uh, finding new talent, finding new shows, uh, is that, is that something else that you're looking for?

Speaker 4: 8:47

Big time. I think that you know. Today I did a panel with Jamie Lang, who's huge over here and, by the way, a wonderful person. Really enjoyed our chat. I think the UK is one of these markets that we see that's just growing and the only thing that's lagging is monetization here. And so, again, if you want to take a long-term view and bet on a market, um, I think the uk is a great market to bet on. I think there's also a lot of ability to move audiences from the uk to the us, and so for us, as we think about global expansion for pave, uk makes a lot of sense for us, as well as australia, actually, and thinking about you know english speaking first, but we are focused on the us market today, given where we are yeah, and and in terms, and in terms of the London, in terms of the UK industry, you say that it could do with a bit more help in terms of monetization, which is certainly something that we've been covering in the past as well.

Speaker 1: 9:37

What does the UK industry need to do in order to be making as much money per listener as the US industry does?

Speaker 4: 9:48

That's a great question. I think there needs to be the ability to tap into bigger brands versus direct response at the end of the day, and I think that when you have a smaller market in general, bigger dollars come from brands. And I think they need to figure that out because direct response is obviously bigger in the us. But if you have a uk audience and you're a direct response advertiser, that's permanent in the us, like you're not going to advertise as much. It's really about brands and activations and also you have to run a 360 business. I mean, I'll go back to goldhanger. They're doing live events, they're doing subscriptions, they're doing ad monetization like that is the prime way to make you know, to maximize revenue over here and um.

Speaker 1: 10:28

One final question uh, we've seen lemonada media, which has been uh bought by pod x um and you know, and they are obviously now part of a much larger organization across the world doing various things is pave studios. You know you've already sold a very successful um podcasts company, um is paves. Is pave studios going to be um going it alone or do you see the benefit in working together with larger organizations in the future?

Speaker 4: 10:59

and we're focused on just scaling our business right now. Um, you know, I don't believe in trying to build a business to sell it or for a strategic acquisition. I'm so lucky that I sold parkhouse, you know, for a big amount of money. I had no investors in it. Um, and I gotta do what I love and work with creators every day, um, and so my feeling is, this time around, it's like I gotta just truly create and work with creators, um, and it feels like every day is different, and so I don't know why I'd ever want to build a company to sell. I think if you're doing that, you're not creating real value.

Speaker 1: 11:30

It's been really good to meet you. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4: 11:34

Likewise, I really appreciate it, thank you.

Speaker 1: 11:36

The excellent Max Cutler from Pave Studios. Very good to meet up with him and to learn more. Lots of people were here at the podcast show in London and earlier. I walked around the event finding out who people were and why they were here.

Speaker 6: 11:53

I am LP Lizzie Pollock, chief Communications Brand Officer at ACOS. I almost forgot for a minute.

Speaker 1: 11:59

Yes, well, there's a thing Podcast show London. Why are you here? Are you here talking about things? What are you talking about?

Speaker 6: 12:06

James, I'm here because it's 10 minutes from my house. No, I'm joking, I do actually live 10 minutes away. No, acast is here in a big way. We are sponsoring the Speaker Lounge, turning it into the ACAST Arms once again about 15 panels. I'm talking a bit later today with Brittany from BetterHelp. We're doing an AMA. Ask Me Anything and I will accept questions on Watford Football Club as well as podcasting. Oh, and then tomorrow we've got a few more going on as well. But yeah, I just love this time of year. It's like Christmas.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Yeah, it's brilliant. What do you think of the? It's year four, isn't it of this event?

Speaker 6: 12:41

I mean just the way that the big brands are showing up bigger and bigger, just seeing how the activations get bigger, the program gets bigger, even the stars get bigger. I mean you and I are here and that was a hard thing for them to secure, but no, I just love seeing how it's growing. And also I do feel proud that so many, everyone from around the industry is coming to my hometown. It does make me feel proud, to be honest.

Speaker 1: 12:58

Thanks so much. It's always nice to see you, you too.

Speaker 2: 13:01

Hello guys, I am Geoffrey Fossier. I'm the Chief Marketing Officer at Audion, which is a digital audio specialist. We are here today to support the launch of a new innovative product here at Audion, which is Audion Pathway a new way to monetize podcasts and a new way to bring some new opportunities when you are a podcaster.

Speaker 1: 13:26

And so what do you think of the show so far? Is it your first time here?

Speaker 2: 13:29

On my side it's the first time, but it's the third year for Odeon here at this fair, Huge feeling. It's really interesting to see Yuki people, but also to see a lot of US podcasters, US based companies and bringing a lot of new opportunities for us here.

Speaker 7: 13:51

My name is Nick Williams. I work for a company called Black Cat Acoustics. We are the distributor for the Studio Bricks sound isolation booths.

Speaker 1: 14:00

And that's what you're here to talk about today, I guess.

Speaker 7: 14:04

Yes, we've been supporting the podcast show from the first event actually, so we've been here the last four years.

Speaker 1: 14:11

I have to say, if we are standing here in a very loud conference, I'm thinking you have sound isolation booths. Shall, we go inside, let's go in, let's go in, let's go in, let's see if it gets a little bit quieter. Oh, that's marvellous, isn't it?

Speaker 7: 14:29

Oh it is, it's bliss.

Speaker 1: 14:31

So you're showing these to all of the podcasters who are here.

Speaker 7: 14:36

Yes, that's it. We do booths from single-person booths up to nine meters by five meters. So it's a scalable product, customizable, but this is the kind of smallest booth that we recommend for a two person setup, perfect for podcasting, for voice over acting. The larger booths are great for video podcasting as well, so we have a very flexible product that can serve a lot of uses and what sort of podcasters end up end up buying these?

Speaker 7: 15:06

are they the, the large podcast publishing companies or yes, well, we have everything really from from from people that are setting up smaller studios or just starting out, and and large companies such as global media that record all of their podcasts in our booths. So, like I said, it's completely scalable. So it really depends how you want to go. Do you want a small booth for one or two people or do you want something big that you can do video and proper recording in?

Speaker 1: 15:37

And what do you think of the show so far?

Speaker 7: 15:40

It's very busy. It's always busy from the off. This show um stays busy all the way through till till the end of tomorrow. Um, as I said, we've been supporting it from day one and it has changed from a quietly sort of bedroom industry in the first year to to being very professional and it's got all of the big corporate customers here. So it's it's it's something every podcaster should be, should be coming to, I think nick, thanks so much thank you.

Speaker 8: 16:09

So we are Music Radio Creative and my name is Isabella Russell and we are a podcast creative agency where we edit podcasts for creators and businesses and we also make all the funky podcast intros, outros and creative jingles to make it fun now, and it's a great place for us to connect with our existing clients but also find new clients who are looking to take the pain away from the editing and just have somebody do it for them and you have, you've got, you've got goodies and sweets and candy on your we do.

Speaker 8: 16:48

So, you see, we tempt people in multiple ways. So first of all we have a gear giveaway. So at 2 pm at our stand, anybody who enters our competition and comes here at 2 pm can win a podcasting microphone. So we have one to give today, another one tomorrow, but then you also get to spin the Wheel of Fortune, and that's the wheel that keeps on giving. So we've got like really nice audio goodies and sweets and all sorts of really cool stuff to give away.

Speaker 1: 17:15

Very cool, and how's the show been for you so far?

Speaker 8: 17:18

It's busy. It's definitely busy. It's great. Yeah, nice to have good, meaningful conversations with creators. And, yeah, continue the conversation about podcasting Indeed.

Speaker 1: 17:28

It's really good to see you.

Speaker 8: 17:29

Cheers Nice to see you too, cheers.

Speaker 5: 17:32

My name is Sean Howard. I'm the founder of Flight Path, where we do predictive analytics for podcasting and YouTube. And why are you here? Because London is amazing and this is the best show on the planet, and it's just fun. When I come to these things, all I do is meet people and normally that's just me in the Sounds Profitable room, which I love, for three days straight. So now I'm actually seeing people mingling, connecting.

Speaker 1: 17:56

I don't know, and you've been making a ton of announcements recently, signing up with all kinds of people at Flightpath.

Speaker 5: 18:04

Yeah, we've brought on a lot of great clients. We just signed Podcast One, which is great for us. A lot of other amazing clients coming on board, yay Network, a bunch of others, and we just announced YouTube. We're doing a prediction on YouTube now.

Speaker 1: 18:16

Very cool, and how's the show for you so far?

Speaker 5: 18:19

This is my favorite show on the planet. I can't, I can't. It's there's. Have you gone up? There's the little balconies with the little boots. You feel like you're in someone's living room, it's just. It's been great Just meeting people, and people are calm, relaxed, which is nice. Pretty good to see you Same.

Speaker 3: 18:45

Hello, I'm Sandy Waugh. I am head of podcasting at City St George's University, so I run the master's degree in podcasting, which we're still really proud to say is the only one in the world that takes the industry so seriously that it's devoted an entire degree to it.

Speaker 1: 18:55

And why are you here at the show?

Speaker 3: 18:56

It's a couple of different reasons. One is to try and find more students. One is just for visibility that we now take the degree so seriously that you know it's a thing, but also just to connect with industry, one of the things that we found fantastic, actually, over this show, in particular for the last few years. It's a wonderful way to connect to people who can give our students work experience, who can bring us knowledge and expertise and bring in guest speakers. So it's been very useful to us.

Speaker 1: 19:24

And what do you think of the show so far?

Speaker 3: 19:26

We're tucked away in a little corner, so we're hoping people are going to find us gradually as the day progresses. I spent most of the first hour or so looking at people's backs next to the Audio UK stage, but it does feel I mean, the queue was immense trying to get in this year, so it does feel like it's got some momentum, which is exciting.

Speaker 9: 19:43

Always great to see you.

Speaker 3: 19:44

Pleasure.

Speaker 9: 19:46

David Priva, head of podcasts at Sassy Plus.

Speaker 9: 19:49

So I'm Lee Alaston, the commercial director for Radio News Hub, which is the sister company of Sassy Plus and why are you here at the show, like everybody else, looking for business, looking to meet creators, talking to brands, finding out what everybody else is doing, which is really interesting. And what is Sassy Plus? Sassy Plus is a production company. We're 80 plus people based in London, elstree offices in the States as well, and we're all about video production, branded content and podcasts, which we're very big in the Dr Hillary Show we've launched today. Legends of News with Dermot Murnaghan, former ITN newsreader, sky Newsreader, which is very exciting, homefront with Russell Quirk and many other podcasts as well.

Speaker 1: 20:32

And how are you finding the show so far?

Speaker 10: 20:34

I absolutely love the show. This is a must-attend diary event for me. Lots of visitors, it's the best podcast event that there is and it's great to meet other creators and publishers and people that are in the industry so we can share experiences and knowledge and also make new contacts.

Speaker 11: 20:51

I am Danny Brown. I'm head of podcast to support and experience at Captivate. I've come over from Canada, mate. I usually go to the North American events Not doing that this year, so come over to the UK and meet the team.

Speaker 1: 21:02

Very nice. What's Captivate talking about?

Speaker 11: 21:05

Captivate are talking about our platform, what's coming up in the autumn. So we've got our campaign management tool along with programmatic and stuff. So lots of exciting stuff coming out in the next three months or so. Very nice. Is it your first time at this show? It is, mate. Yeah, what do you think? I like it. It's very different. You know the podcast movement. It's a very different vibe, a bit more relaxed, it seems. More users as well, more actual podcasters as opposed to just the business stuff. So I like it so far. Well, more actual podcasters as opposed to just the business stuff. Do I like it so far? Really good?

Speaker 12: 21:34

to see you.

Speaker 11: 21:34

Yeah, you too mate.

Speaker 12: 21:35

I'm Martin Liss. I do a lot of things audio. I'm here as a co-founder and general manager of a company called Podcast 360. We're a production and consulting company for podcasts, believe it or not, in the mostly German speaking ecosystem.

Speaker 1: 21:51

Why are you here? What do you hope to get from the show?

Speaker 12: 21:53

German-speaking ecosystem. Why are you here? What do you hope to get from the show? Mostly inspiration. I like the show a lot because there's so much going on and so many things going on that I didn't even think about. I wouldn't necessarily meet clients or do business here. It's just a two-day playground of inspiration and maybe learning something new.

Speaker 1: 22:13

And how are you finding it so far?

Speaker 12: 22:15

It's great. I mean we're only in the middle of day one, but I like the buzz, I like the creativity. Coming from Germany, which is classically a very stern and rather problem-focused ecosystem, this is great because it's colorful and it's lively and it's creative and it's a lot of fun, and I've seen a few sessions where I thought, yeah, this is good, this is inspiring. I feel at ease in this medium. I'm happy to do podcasts and not other stuff. Really good to see you. Thank you, very good to see you, james.

Speaker 13: 22:47

Hey, I'm Brian Moffitt. I am Chief Operating Officer in National Public Media, which is NPR's sales subsidiary, and also I head the network growth team there, which runs the plus subscription business and a few other things. And what are you doing here? I am here to meet with other folks in the podcasting industry, talk with vendors, hear what's going on, learn, share all those things. How's it going for you? It's a great show. Number one the venue is awesome. Everybody is all in one place. You can't walk 10 feet without bumping into somebody that you want to talk to, and it just seems like a lot of the conversations are on point with what's happening in the industry today and where it's going, why are you here more?

Speaker 1: 23:26

Because obviously NPR is a US thing. But I guess you sell advertising here as well, don't you?

Speaker 13: 23:33

Not that much. Our international audience isn't that huge it's about 17% but National Public Media did a branded podcast for Arm, the UK chip manufacturer, and so we're here with them talking about the work that we did and the success that they had with that, as well as just kind of looking at the market and seeing what's going on outside of the US.

Speaker 1: 23:51

It's really good to see you.

Speaker 13: 23:53

Good to see you.

Speaker 14: 23:53

I'm Julie and co-host of you Keep Me Sane podcast.

Speaker 15: 23:57

And I'm Eileen and I'm the co-host of you Keep Me Sane podcast also.

Speaker 1: 24:02

So why are you here at the podcast show? You're in a beautiful stand. It's very pink. Why are you here?

Speaker 14: 24:11

Well, we're here because we're quite new to podcasting. Six months we've been going and we felt like this was a way to learn a lot meet people, get brand exposure, all of that stuff, yeah because it's not something that I would expect a podcast to be here.

Speaker 1: 24:26

What's your aim for the event?

Speaker 15: 24:29

It's really about visibility for us, because we're not celebrities as you know. About visibility for us because we're not celebrities as you know, and um, we thought at least we'll stand out and we we could be a visitor like everyone else. But we didn't want to be like everyone else and we're actually getting meeting a lot of people as a result.

Speaker 1: 24:45

Really helpful how have you, how have you found the event so far, alison?

Speaker 15: 24:48

oh, it's great there's so vibrant, so many fabulous people. It's really been worthwhile for us so far.

Speaker 1: 24:55

Which is very good. What are you hoping to get out of this, out of the conversations that you're having?

Speaker 14: 25:02

Probably some contacts, collaborations, exposure, like learning. We have learned so much actually, which is probably a huge part, yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:12

It's really good to meet you both. Thank you for your time today thank you.

Speaker 16: 25:16

Thank you, thanks so much uh I am ollie man and I'm a veteran podcaster. I've been doing it since 2007, can you believe, since you were in diapers I was podcasting in 2005, so uh since I was in diapers yes, yes, you lose that one um, so why are you here?

Speaker 16: 25:32

uh, basically for the social, uh like happenstance of bumping into people that I once worked with or knew I I tried in previous years to go to sessions and I realized that it's just people plugging their own stuff and you can't really hear what's going on. Much better, just walk around and bump into people if you know enough people to, as a sort of starter pack, and you can bump into people and then they can introduce you to other people and then you get free alcohol as well. So that's what I've been using my podcast show ticket for for the last few years now, and it usually works out pretty well and you have been, uh, you've been podcasting, as you say, since 2007, so a relative newcomer, uh, in comparison to me.

Speaker 1: 26:06

No, no, no, um, but why, why would we know you, you, uh, you did, uh, answer me this right I did yes.

Speaker 16: 26:13

So that was the hit AnswerMeThisPodcastcom, which is my show with Helen Zaltzman, which ran from 2007 until, I think, 2021, in various forms weekly, then fortnightly, then monthly. It's a Q&A show. We answer the audience's questions with, hopefully, amusing answers. It's like any questions, but with not gags. And then in 2021, we retired it because we got to our 400th episode and it felt like it was interesting. At that point. It felt like podcasting had got to a stage where to do something interesting, you needed a team of 40 people and to be, you know, sold to the new york times.

Speaker 16: 26:50

And then what happened, I guess, is like, over the last four years, we realized that actually, no, there's a huge crowd of people that have just come into podcasting, that are quite happy to hear two people chatting, and some of those shows actually aren't very good, and we sort of thought we kind of mastered two people chatting 15 years ago. Why don't we just do that again? So, yes, we brought it back recently, um, which has been really exciting because it's a completely different, uh, audience that we're kind of aimed at in a way, because A we're trying to make the show relevant to people who have never heard of us and don't know who we are. So it's not just a sort of cult classic thing but actually has relevance in the world of I don't know, shag, married, annoyed and that sort of thing. But also, secondly, talking to our core audience has changed because of things like Patreon. We can now actually monetize the positive feelings that people had about us, whereas that used to be something that was just a nice-to-have we couldn't really do anything with.

Speaker 1: 27:40

So Answer Me this Is Back, which is great. Are you doing it with anybody big like Acast or whatever?

Speaker 16: 27:47

Yeah, the show's on Audi, which is a smaller ad network in the UK. We chose them because they're nice people. There's two of them that work in an office and we know them both. We can pick up the phone to them and we trust that when we say we don't want to take that particular category of advertising because we don't want to support guns or whatever it is, that they'll be understanding and helpful with that. Um, but yes, like I say, the big change really is the Patreon. I mean, within I think three days of us announcing that we were coming back, we had 750 paid new subscribers on Patreon, which is just like a really nice case study in give something people they really like 15 years for free, take it away and then so you can have it back. So that's been really lovely.

Speaker 16: 28:29

But what's been interesting is and we were just chatting about this off Mike James is we made the announcement that we were coming back in January knowing that that would only be big news for the people that used to follow us back in the day. But that was a large audience. 10 years ago we used to get around 160,000 downloads a show. I know that stats have changed and probably by modern standards. Let's say half of that is accurate by the kind of reporting you have these days. But we're kind of currently attracting about half that again. So you kind of think, okay, so there's probably about 40,000 people that like the show, would like to hear it and don't know we're back yet how do you get that message out if you're not part of Global or the BBC or the Guardian? You don't have a marketing budget and you'd think the answer would be talking to your fans on social, who never stopped following you, but fans on social who never stopped following you. But actually, you know, we put facebook videos, x videos, instagram, whatever, and the reaction was really positive. Like I say, big sign up on patreon.

Speaker 16: 29:19

But we're realizing as we post new photos and content, that every time, every week, there's people saying, oh, I didn't realize you were back. And you sort of think, well, if that content you know, the show you love, that you followed for years is back, isn't content that is being pushed by the social networks to the fans of your show? What are they pushing instead? Um, and it's, that's been a little bit dispiriting. So we've had to try and do the old-fashioned stuff. Uh, adam buxton gave us a shout out on his show a few weeks ago because we kind of figured our audience are probably still listening to him. Um, miranda sawyer wrote a piece with us in the observer, kind of like. Uh, of like, the punks of podcasting are back, kind of vibe. So that's all really nice, but it's amazing how much harder it is to cut through these days when every celebrity has a podcast, even if you're doing something that has an audience that would love to know that it's there.

Speaker 1: 30:05

If only you'd have sent a press release to editor at podnewsnet.

Speaker 16: 30:09

Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, I didn't actually genuinely did I spoke maybe.

Speaker 1: 30:20

I thought, oh, you'd spot it and that would be cooler, but you didn't. Oh, yes, ollie, it's great to see you again. Yeah, I love to see james. Thank you the excellent ollie man. Uh, finishing that um set of people from the podcast show over the last couple of days, as you can tell from my voice, yes, it's all conferenced out but, uh, very good to see loads of interesting people.

Speaker 1: 30:36

Now there are lots of different ways to get in touch with us. You can use fan mail by using the link in our show notes, super comments on True Fans or boosts everywhere else, or email and we share all of the money that we make between Sam and myself, some boosts coming in. There was something from Silas on Linux. He was there at the recording and he was terrified as soon as I put a microphone underneath his face to read out his message. But that was nice. Seth here saying great idea to use podcasters as voiceovers for ads. That's related to ACAST's talent voiced ads that we had on the show last week Acast's talent voiced ads that we had on the show last week.

Speaker 1: 31:18

I was on Canada. I was from Canada a couple of weeks ago and Bruce the ugly quacking duck quite likes that Sent us a row of ducks 2,222 sats. You both still sound good. Great job 73. Well, that was because we use Clean Feed, and in the audience yesterday for the live version of this show was the man from Clean Feed himself who probably would like us to say that we should have recorded the whole thing on Clean Feed anyway, and then it wouldn't have failed. But still, there we are. And finally, lyceum, sending me 1,111 sats. That's a bag of Richards, and he says congratulations on the award. Yes, because I ended up picking up an award at the podcast show, which was nice. Thank you to our Noteworthy19 as well all of our power supporters, including Elias, our newest one, who went to the podcast show, and we both saw him. So that was excellent.

Speaker 1: 32:09

And in terms of my week, it's been a fun week, full of travel, and you might tell that I am in British knackered. So there we are. That's how my week has been. Sam has had an excellent week. He tells me some exciting news about the true fans, that may be becoming a podcast host very shortly, and lots of other things to come. Next week we're going to be delving into the mystery of secure RSS, or L402. That's going to be a thrill and an excitement. That's why we have chapters. But that's it for this week.

Speaker 1: 32:50

Podcast stories from the event and, by the way, apple spoke here and a lot of other people spoke here too. Podcast news from the event at the Pod News daily newsletter, podnewsnet. For you to go there. Don't forget to support our show, either streaming sats or press that button If you've got a funding button in your app to go to weeklypodnewsnet to be a long-term supporter of us. That would be very kind of you. And our music is from TM Studios, our voiceover, sheila D. Our audio recorded using Clean Feed, normally Not today or yesterday. We edit with Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.