July 23, 2024

Boost Your Podcast: Cross-Promotion Strategies with Podcross

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Podcasting Tech

Podcast Promotion Strategies

Are you looking to elevate your podcast’s reach and effectiveness? Podcross promises to boost your podcast through a smart Podcast Cross-Promotion strategy.

In this episode, Mathew has a candid chat with David McGuire, the director of Stabl and Adelicious. They delve into the intricacies of cross-promotion, advertising strategies, and the evolving dynamics of the podcasting landscape.

With a rich background in radio and freelance podcasting, David offers his unparalleled insights into the world of podcasting tech. He discusses how Stable and Adelicious were formed in response to the maturing podcast market and the need for transparency and full revenue deals for podcasters.

David’s passion for maintaining the collaborative spirit of the podcasting community is evident throughout our conversation. Whether you're a seasoned podcaster or just starting out, this episode offers valuable insights to help you thrive in the ever-evolving podcasting industry.

In This Episode:

  • The concept and history of Podcross and how it enables podcasters to grow their audience through strategic ad placements.
  • The Role of Human Oversight: Why Human Involvement is crucial in managing and confirming ad placements to ensure compatibility and effectiveness.
  • Advertising Best Practices.
  • Technology in Podcasting and innovations: podcasting equipment and innovations, from microphones to audio interfaces.
  • The challenges posed by big players and how podcasters can still thrive amidst these changes.

 

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

 

**As an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases of podcasting gear from Amazon.com. We also participate in affiliate programs with many of the software services mentioned on our website. If you purchase something through the links we provide, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The team at Podcasting Tech only recommends products and services that we would use ourselves and that we believe will provide value to our viewers and readers.**

For additional resources and insights visit podcastingtech.com or follow us on social media:

 

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Transcript

Speaker:

We are chatting with David Maguire. He is the director at Stable

 

 


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and Adelicious. These are 2 separate podcasting companies. 1 is for

 

 


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podcast production, 1 is for advertising. And the reason why we're chatting with him

 

 


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today is because of a platform called Podcross, which he

 

 


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just indicated he started a while ago, but he just started to bring it back

 

 


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more recently. And we'll we'll dive into it, what it does, and why it's something

 

 


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that you should be paying attention to. David, thank you for joining me here

 

 


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today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. So before we

 

 


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get to Podcross specifically, what was your,

 

 


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like, entryway into the podcasting space originally? Yeah.

 

 


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So, I I used to work in radio, the BBC, lots

 

 


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of radio stations over here. I was a producer and an editor.

 

 


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And then, round about 2014, I decided

 

 


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to go freelance and part of the freelance landscape in

 

 


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London at the time was, podcasting and it

 

 


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was still quite nascent. Now, a lot of people didn't really understand what it was,

 

 


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but, I started as an adviser because I dabbled

 

 


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in my own podcast at the time. And then, really, I did less

 

 


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and less radio and more and more podcasting. So, I then

 

 


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took a podcasting production role and advisory role at News UK, which

 

 


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is lots of brands over here like The Times Newspaper, The

 

 


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Wireless Group, and

 

 


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TFS. And then I went over to The Telegraph Group and I did the same

 

 


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over there. I wrote the strategy for their podcasting

 

 


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at the time because they built a studio but they didn't really know how to

 

 


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get into podcasting. And then from there, I set

 

 


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up, one of my companies, Stable, because around about

 

 


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2016, 2017, the market was just about

 

 


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mature enough to start making money. Can you believe it? In Podcasting.

 

 


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Unheard of at the time. So sponsorship was becoming a thing.

 

 


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And, you know, we'd just come out of a a period where the

 

 


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only way you could really make money in the UK anyway were these

 

 


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vanity links. And, I remember the first time I did something like

 

 


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that. I think it was with Audible. You know, you'd

 

 


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get £10 every time somebody went to audible.co.uk

 

 


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Tech whatever forward slash the name of the

 

 


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Podcasting, and there was no CPMs. There was none of that.

 

 


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So, yeah, Stable was was was born out of

 

 


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a, a desire to do, quality production in

 

 


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podcasting and hopefully make a business out of that. And

 

 


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then from there, myself and my cofounder for Adelicious, we

 

 


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shared an office, and we needed a company that took

 

 


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podcasting advertising more seriously. And, that's

 

 


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blossomed from there. So, yeah, that's it. That's the history of my

 

 


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podcasting career in a nutshell. And at the moment, I I'm still

 

 


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there. It is amazing how similar our paths

 

 


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are because I worked in radio. I started freelance

 

 


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podcasting. I got well, we got laid off at the end of 2014. So then

 

 


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I started to do freelance podcasting work in 2015. And, yeah, it was around

 

 


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2016 that I was, like, 2016, 2017 when I said, you know what? I'm

 

 


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done with all the part time work. I'm gonna do this production stuff full time.

 

 


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And, even a year or so later, I started doing some work at podcast

 

 


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advertising. So a lot of parallels there, between the 2 of us.

 

 


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Yeah. Yes. You know?

 

 


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What's the word? Solidarity. You know? Kind of

 

 


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taking a leap just before, the big guys, you know,

 

 


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swooped in to to to acquire everything. So, yeah,

 

 


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it's nice to hear that I wasn't the only one. We're like professional

 

 


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doppelgangers here with our, with our career Passy. And we're even

 

 


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wearing a similar, color top. So there you go. Oh my god. That's so

 

 


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true. Watch it on YouTube if you're not doing that as you can see. So

 

 


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when you started to do the ad thing and you said you were taking more

 

 


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seriously, what does that mean? Right? Like, what was it about ads that you

 

 


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needed to form the Tech company? What were you diving into? What were you

 

 


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prioritizing? So that's a good question. So in the UK, we're

 

 


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slightly behind the curve, right, when it comes to, the trends and the

 

 


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maturity of the market. So we looked over in the US and there were

 

 


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lots of big independent podcast companies that were

 

 


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doing big deals for premium shows. In the UK, you

 

 


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had a little bit of that but there was the market and still is to

 

 


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a certain extent dominated by, Acast,

 

 


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audio boom, a company called DAX, which is owned by Global Media,

 

 


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but they they really dealt with everything. And so

 

 


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they they they only really sold

 

 


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premium sponsorships for their premium top

 

 


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5% of shows. And if you weren't in that top 5%,

 

 


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you you kind of got left behind and you weren't

 

 


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really catered to. So, we needed a bespoke

 

 


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Podcasting only advertising agency

 

 


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that didn't really deal with technology, didn't really

 

 


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kind of accept everyone and everyone. And, at the

 

 


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time, Megaphone hadn't even set foot into

 

 


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Europe. So we were one of the first networks to use

 

 


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Megaphone as an open platform for our

 

 


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shows, which meant that we could also program in the back end

 

 


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of sponsorship deals because Podcasting, at the

 

 


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time anyway, you you didn't have access. There was no transparency

 

 


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to to the deal. So even if you did a deal yourself as an independent

 

 


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producer, you had to give a percentage away to Acast

 

 


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because they programmed the deal. Whereas, Adelicious, you know, philosophy

 

 


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is Podcasting first, which means that if a podcaster does a deal, they

 

 


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get a 100% revenue because they can program in the advertising. They

 

 


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can do everything. We give them full transparency in all the

 

 


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rates. We try because we don't accept everyone, we try and

 

 


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only grow as we grow so we can take care of every

 

 


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everyone on our network and we we can give them time, communication,

 

 


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and everything you want as a Podcasting producer. So,

 

 


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yeah, we felt that as podcasting was becoming more of a

 

 


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mainstream media, there was a bigger need for a more

 

 


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bespoke, more premium curated Podcasting

 

 


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advertising network in the UK. Because, basically, we looked we just looked

 

 


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at the States and saw what was happening there, and we just thought, well, it's

 

 


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it's gonna follow. And it's still case, still the case for today,

 

 


Speaker:

really. How many downloads per show were you

 

 


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working with at the time? Because I know here you would hear from

 

 


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companies say, you know, mid roll, for example, which was a big one that that

 

 


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was early into the game as a advertising agency. Right?

 

 


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They won't talk to you for less than 50,000 downloads, let's say, per episode.

 

 


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But we had plenty of folks and plenty of clients, and I knew lots of

 

 


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podcasters who could generate great revenue with as little as a

 

 


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1000 downloads per episode. So I'm just curious what your kind of model looked

 

 


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like. Yeah. We we were lucky because even though we started off with a

 

 


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handful of of shows, you know, we were, collectively,

 

 


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as a network, you know, around about a1000000. So we started off

 

 


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with with quite a with quite a nice size

 

 


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network, but that was collective. You know, we still had shows that were

 

 


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underneath, 50,000 per

 

 


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month, for example. And we still we still

 

 


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do with we still deal with that size occasionally

 

 


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because it's all market dependent. Right? We we can only

 

 


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we can only make, it work if the the demand out

 

 


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is out there, from from the brands. So,

 

 


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it was but it was tough because myself and Pascal,

 

 


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the cofounder of Adelicious, we we've got no background when it comes

 

 


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to advertising. And, essentially,

 

 


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we lived and died by our numbers and our reputation in the

 

 


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market. And, we got to a point

 

 


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where, you know, we we had to kind of re

 

 


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keep on reinvesting reinvesting programmatic money into our

 

 


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direct sales team. And from there, we just kind of

 

 


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bettered on the higher CPMs, the more direct money

 

 


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coming in, and then over time that that's worked out to the advantage as,

 

 


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you know, the programmatic landscape's changed. Megaphone obviously got bought by

 

 


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Spotify. That's become a completely different different,

 

 


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landscape, the different view of of of how money's made in the industry. So,

 

 


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yeah, a lot's changed, but a lot remains the same. You said it was about

 

 


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4 years ago when you first started this Podcross platform.

 

 


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Bid on ad spots in podcast

 

 


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to put your own promotional message. Ideally, it would be for other

 

 


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podcasters to promote their show on somebody else's feed.

 

 


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So what was the onus for starting that, and

 

 


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what, what happened to it? Why, you know, why was it kinda shelved

 

 


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for few years there? Yeah. So, I mean, the great thing about working in

 

 


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podcasting, which I'm sure, yourself, Matt, is

 

 


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you can you can, too, attest to, is that it's one of those industries

 

 


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that seems to always be innovative changing. If you

 

 


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think of something, you can kind of really make a

 

 


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difference in in the landscape and how people perceive

 

 


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podcasting and and how how people operate within it.

 

 


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But at the time, I just needed, this so this is

 

 


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Priya Delicious. I just needed a platform to promote my

 

 


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new Podcasting on. And,

 

 


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really, cross promotion was the thing. And so, it just

 

 


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involved me emailing people, getting emails from RSS feeds

 

 


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and saying, hey, I'm making this show. You've got an audience that

 

 


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I want and, can I put a trailer

 

 


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on your show, please? And it was it was a bit of trial and error.

 

 


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It was quite old school. And so when it when it first

 

 


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started, it was just about creating a list, much like Tink Media have done today,

 

 


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where you can go in, you can search for similar shows with the audience you

 

 


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want, and, you can approach them because it might give you an email

 

 


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address. It's a very basic

 

 


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Google Sheet, basically. But I sat on the URL.

 

 


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I kept it going. I was like, you know, you know, my other projects took

 

 


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off, the ones that actually paid the mortgage, etcetera. But

 

 


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I sat on it because I still I still think well, I still thought

 

 


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there was an there was the need in podcasting for this kind of

 

 


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open system where people can have access to. And when

 

 


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everyone talks when anyone talks about marketing within podcasting, there's still a big

 

 


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question mark. There's like, what's the best way of discovery? People

 

 


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disagree sometimes. They're like, well, there's there's Apple Podcasting, there's

 

 


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Spotify, there's certain ways of doing things, there's different ways of marketing things.

 

 


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But from what I've read, pod news, etcetera, still the best

 

 


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way to promote your podcast is on other podcasts.

 

 


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And so, recently, I just returned to the idea on

 

 


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paper and I thought, well, how could this be continue as an

 

 


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ecosystem, but how can I make it more

 

 


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relevant to today with with with podcasting being a biz

 

 


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bigger business, than it was 4 years ago? And I I

 

 


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Tech came up with this idea of having, like, an eBay auction for for

 

 


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shows that wanna sell inventories, wanna sell spots,

 

 


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particularly for promoting other shows because it happens anyway. You know?

 

 


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People pay large CPMs, for shows. The

 

 


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Sony Musics, the Wandries, they do it all the time across

 

 


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different networks. And, and

 

 


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I I wanted to do it in in a way where you could bid for

 

 


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it because I didn't necessarily I wanted to have some fluidity there.

 

 


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I wanted to have some, I wanted the

 

 


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the the the price that people paid for these spots to be dictated by the

 

 


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demand for their audience. And

 

 


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from the idea, I'm not a developer. I just, you know, scrape together

 

 


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some templates. And and what you see now at podcross.c0

 

 


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is this, beginning of of of that really. A

 

 


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marketplace where podcasts of a certain audience can sell

 

 


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spots and people who wanna grow their audience for certain shows can can

 

 


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buy and bid on certain, shows to grow their

 

 


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audience. Let's say I am the podcaster on your platform.

 

 


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Right? People are bidding. They wanna put their promo on my

 

 


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show. Right? The auction ends. What happens

 

 


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as me, the podcaster, you know, producing the show? What

 

 


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like, how long do I have to get it out there? What's the tracking like?

 

 


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You know, what's the accountability, I guess? Yeah. So it's, I'm the

 

 


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I'm still the gatekeeper of all of that. So, money won't

 

 


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exchange unless everything's been agreed

 

 


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on. And, I can't emphasize enough. This is

 

 


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not a finished product. This is a

 

 


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an MVP type of situation where I'm still it's still gonna

 

 


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be hand cranked. I'm still gonna make sure that everyone's happy before any money is

 

 


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exchanged. But, from what I from what I've learned

 

 


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from advertising is that you yes. You can automate

 

 


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some aspects of this kind of stuff, but a lot of it still has

 

 


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to be human. It still has to have,

 

 


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elements of, nuance. Right?

 

 


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I mean, hopefully, over time, I can automate a lot of

 

 


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it, you know, in terms of, kind of the

 

 


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flight of of these campaigns, the success rate in

 

 


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terms of conversion rates, that kind of thing. But, you know, in

 

 


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terms of, you know, who wins the auctions,

 

 


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I want there to be a first denial because it

 

 


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might be a show that, you know if you have a podcast and you put

 

 


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it on Podcross and you do a show I don't know. Let's say

 

 


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it's a political show because that's easier to talk about in terms of division.

 

 


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If you do a political show about the Republicans, I'm not suggesting you're

 

 


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a republican or a democrat. Doesn't matter which side.

 

 


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People don't wanna host a lot of political content. Yeah. That's that's

 

 


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just an example. But if a Democrat based show

 

 


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then wins the bid on your show, you might not want it to be

 

 


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on there, right, because of obvious reasons. So I need to

 

 


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ensure that there is still that human

 

 


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gatekeeper for what's allowed and what's

 

 


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accepted. So really, you'll just get an email saying,

 

 


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congratulations, you've won the bid. This is the price.

 

 


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And

 

 


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I'll

 

 


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talk to you. The person will pay, will

 

 


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pay me, and I'll then pay you once the details

 

 


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are scrapped. I kind of thought through. As

 

 


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you can tell, it's not a slick operation

 

 


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at this point, but I just need to ensure that, it

 

 


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has traction before I invest more money in developing it. But I think there is

 

 


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something there. I definitely think there is a need in the industry to have an

 

 


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open platform for you know, doesn't matter who

 

 


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you're hosting on that you can then go into a database and

 

 


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book something without worrying about being hosted on Megaphone or

 

 


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Captivate or whatever. And you're still using

 

 


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Megaphone for this project, or have you shifted to a different platform? No. No. It's

 

 


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completely independent of just, the developer there's

 

 


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nothing there's no mmh

 

 


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partnership. But I mean the podcasting themselves that these

 

 


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ads are gonna go into. Are those dynamically inserted via

 

 


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megaphone or using a different platform? Are you guys just baking them in,

 

 


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into the audio itself? It depends on who whoever

 

 


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puts the show on the platform, it depends on

 

 


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their platform, how that's then incorporated into the show. So

 

 


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I can't emphasize how hand cranked this is. So if you're

 

 


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if you're on Podcasting platform that doesn't

 

 


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allow dynamic insertion, I can't think of

 

 


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any that don't, it would have to be baked in for

 

 


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a certain amount. But if it's on Megaphone, if it's on whoever,

 

 


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Art 19, Captivate, they have technology

 

 


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where you can flight the campaign and you can just program

 

 


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it in yourself. So it kinda really depends

 

 


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at this point. Alright. For

 

 


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folks who like I said, this this platform's a little bit newer. So,

 

 


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right, it's not there for everybody. You can't just run up there, put your podcast

 

 


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on there, and and start getting bids from folks. But for folks who are thinking

 

 


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about this kind of cross promotion strategy for growing their

 

 


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show, what advice could you give them

 

 


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either as the podcaster wants to accept promos or the

 

 


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one who is kinda pitching promos to other shows? What, like, what are

 

 


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some best practices or things to definitely avoid? Yeah. That's a

 

 


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good question. I mean, in terms of

 

 


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pitching your show to

 

 


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be sold, I would say, really think about whether it's

 

 


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the best thing for your show or for your audience.

 

 


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Because like any kind of advertising, whether it be another

 

 


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show or a brand, there has to be a good

 

 


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payoff, right? There has to, it has to be worth

 

 


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the work to kind of

 

 


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put that out there. And you have to ensure that your audience isn't

 

 


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going to be alienated by it either. You know, I've talked

 

 


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to so many people with a show with, I don't know, maybe 10,000 listens and

 

 


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that's great. Okay. 10,000 listens is a huge

 

 


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show per episode. But,

 

 


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if you want to put a mid roll in that show

 

 


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and it's 10 minutes long, it's probably not gonna

 

 


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be worth the money that you're gonna get because the

 

 


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CPM is so low and you wanna

 

 


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concentrate on making sure that the

 

 


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whole show is worth listening to because you wanna grow that. So, you

 

 


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know, really think about whether your audience would

 

 


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accept, something on your show before you actually

 

 


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commit to something. You know, don't get too ahead of yourself. Allow yourself time

 

 


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to develop an idea, to develop a show, to develop a

 

 


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format, because, you know, try and run your own race. And

 

 


Speaker:

it's quite a generalized saying, but,

 

 


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you know there's so many different types of you know, what is

 

 


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even a podcast, Right? You know, it's just a

 

 


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mechanism of delivery rather than a thing. And I think a lot of

 

 


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people get caught up in, you know, wanting to be

 

 


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something when actually a show that reaches,

 

 


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10 people could be just as successful as a show that reaches 10,000,000

 

 


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people. But you're you're defined by your parameters in terms of success.

 

 


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So those ten people could be the most important people for the message that you're

 

 


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trying to convey. So that's that's one thing to say about that side. And

 

 


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then, in terms of people wanting to

 

 


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get their promo on other shows, I

 

 


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think my personal opinion is that just do

 

 


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your research in terms of the audience. Because

 

 


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even if it's just

 

 


Speaker:

a cross-promotion email into the either and you

 

 


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don't know them, you're still taking time outs, You're still doing the

 

 


Speaker:

work. You're still putting your name out there and you wanna get it absolutely

 

 


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right. And you know, don't underestimate

 

 


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the cost, both the real cost, but also the cost and other

 

 


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things like time it takes to kind of make a trailer,

 

 


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ensure that, you know, that it hits home because, you know, it's

 

 


Speaker:

time consuming. Podcasting is time consuming and you wanna make sure that

 

 


Speaker:

you're really focused.

 

 


Speaker:

So when you're thinking about your audience,

 

 


Speaker:

you know, the type of promo that you produce is important.

 

 


Speaker:

The research, but kind of don't

 

 


Speaker:

just limit yourself to to, the podcast

 

 


Speaker:

world. Open it up. Look into other areas, message

 

 


Speaker:

boards, that kind of thing. If you're doing a show about a certain topic,

 

 


Speaker:

I'm sure, you know, there are websites and there are, other

 

 


Speaker:

kinds of platforms that you can promote your show on because,

 

 


Speaker:

ultimately, you wanna make it as broad as possible and you

 

 


Speaker:

never know that, people I

 

 


Speaker:

mean, there are so many stats about who listens to podcasts and the room for

 

 


Speaker:

it to grow. Right? So you kind of you wanna make sure that your

 

 


Speaker:

time is precious. Make it worth it. Good advice. You know,

 

 


Speaker:

I I wanna go back to something that you said a few moments ago about,

 

 


Speaker:

you know, whether or not your audience will

 

 


Speaker:

accept advertising, will accept promotional content. And what I

 

 


Speaker:

often would've would tell clients in the past was

 

 


Speaker:

if you even think that you're gonna do advertising on your show, if

 

 


Speaker:

that is gonna be part of your monetization strategy,

 

 


Speaker:

get your audience used to that break as quickly as

 

 


Speaker:

you can. Even if you are just creating promotional

 

 


Speaker:

messages for yourself, maybe you're just talking about an event you have

 

 


Speaker:

coming up, your email list, right, like, start to

 

 


Speaker:

create the idea of a break in your show now so that

 

 


Speaker:

when it happens later and it's not for you, it's a

 

 


Speaker:

lot less jarring than someone who's used to having a show

 

 


Speaker:

completely ad free. And now all of a sudden, it's, you know, you have ads

 

 


Speaker:

now, which it's fine. Shows should be allowed to have ads. I know there are

 

 


Speaker:

lots of listeners who get annoyed by that, but, it it

 

 


Speaker:

does, you know, soften the blow a little bit if you've kinda

 

 


Speaker:

built that expectation in. Absolutely. I couldn't agree

 

 


Speaker:

more. And it's so funny you say that because there's so much,

 

 


Speaker:

especially I don't know if it's a British thing. It could be, a global thing.

 

 


Speaker:

I don't know. But in terms of talking and you

 

 


Speaker:

know, it's a British expression, taking the piss out

 

 


Speaker:

of podcasting in general.

 

 


Speaker:

There's so many, kind of memes and stuff about, you know, you might

 

 


Speaker:

listen to I I don't know. It was the other one I talked to the

 

 


Speaker:

other day. Somebody said something about Marc Maron. Right? Great Podcasting,

 

 


Speaker:

but maybe, like, you know, the podcast only really

 

 


Speaker:

starts until, you know, 20 minutes in because he there's so many ads and

 

 


Speaker:

there's there's so many kind of like corporate reads. And, you know, people find you

 

 


Speaker:

can skip it and stuff, but I don't know. It's,

 

 


Speaker:

anyone who who has experience in podcasting or social media or

 

 


Speaker:

anything that's free, your general

 

 


Speaker:

punter doesn't care. It's like, well,

 

 


Speaker:

it still annoys me. I don't care if I don't pay for it.

 

 


Speaker:

And I still understand that adverts get you

 

 


Speaker:

money to do the thing that I'm listening to, but it still annoys me.

 

 


Speaker:

Right? It's generally not a logical thing. It's more of an

 

 


Speaker:

emotional thing. So putting a marker in where there could

 

 


Speaker:

be an ad, I absolutely agree because it's just kind of priming

 

 


Speaker:

somebody for going, okay. Maybe in you know, even if it's

 

 


Speaker:

subconsciously, there's gonna be a break here. There's gonna be some kind of

 

 


Speaker:

messaging. And, you know, there's obviously then a discussion

 

 


Speaker:

about the type of advert, whether it's a programmatic radio

 

 


Speaker:

style ad with a voice you don't know or where it's the

 

 


Speaker:

a kind of a host read or sponsorship, that's that's a different kind of

 

 


Speaker:

conversation and as long as that's, you know,

 

 


Speaker:

segregated correctly, I guess. But, yeah.

 

 


Speaker:

People people still want their want their stuff,

 

 


Speaker:

as kind of ad free and as,

 

 


Speaker:

you know, free as possible. Even though it's a contradictory

 

 


Speaker:

Tech, phrase, you know, and sometimes it's, it's not always

 

 


Speaker:

possible. Yeah. They just want it their way. Well, if you're curious to

 

 


Speaker:

check out how the platform works, maybe you wanna advertise, promote your show on

 

 


Speaker:

one of the shows that are being listed here, check out podcross.c0.

 

 


Speaker:

We've been chatting with David Maguire, the director of

 

 


Speaker:

STABLE at Adelicious and the man, the brains behind

 

 


Speaker:

podcross.co. Before we let you go, a couple of questions.

 

 


Speaker:

In general, is there a place where you would

 

 


Speaker:

like to see improvement in the podcasting world in general?

 

 


Speaker:

It doesn't have to be advertising, but just something that really

 

 


Speaker:

rubs you the wrong way that you'd love to see corrected.

 

 


Speaker:

That's a really good question. And I

 

 


Speaker:

have a I have a silly one, which I'm not being uber serious,

 

 


Speaker:

but it kind of annoys me a little bit in a fun way. And that's

 

 


Speaker:

when people call Podcasting pods.

 

 


Speaker:

It happens quite a bit in the UK,

 

 


Speaker:

which, you know, is such a silly thing. And I don't I'm

 

 


Speaker:

kind of it's one of those things where I catch myself and, like, don't be

 

 


Speaker:

such a don't be such an idiot. But because I've been working in podcasting

 

 


Speaker:

and you get people who wanna make it kind of a bit, there's a bit

 

 


Speaker:

of a laddie culture sometimes where especially, I'm going down a

 

 


Speaker:

rabbit hole now. But if they they wanna be familiar, so they call

 

 


Speaker:

it pods. Hey. Do you wanna come on with a pod? Pod. Get a pod.

 

 


Speaker:

And it's like, yes. You know, you know, it's I don't mind it too much,

 

 


Speaker:

but just if you work in podcasting, you're like, no. It's a podcast.

 

 


Speaker:

Anyway and that's a whole another thing. But

 

 


Speaker:

what would I what would I change?

 

 


Speaker:

That's a really good question. I'll think of the right answer in about 5 hours

 

 


Speaker:

probably when I'm lying in bed. But the

 

 


Speaker:

one thing I really loved about podcasting at the start,

 

 


Speaker:

was how, genuinely lovely

 

 


Speaker:

it was to work in podcasting. Without

 

 


Speaker:

exception, it's it's an industry that

 

 


Speaker:

is open to most things. Most people wanna

 

 


Speaker:

lift each other up. Most people,

 

 


Speaker:

enjoy other people's success. There's lots of

 

 


Speaker:

collaboration, and, there was lots of freedom

 

 


Speaker:

because it wasn't the open RSS feed was such a magical thing.

 

 


Speaker:

It was like blogging in the early days. And it was

 

 


Speaker:

generally I mean, I'm sure hopefully, you agree, it was,

 

 


Speaker:

especially, you know, in the mid naughties sorry.

 

 


Speaker:

Mid naughties. Mid teens, 2015.

 

 


Speaker:

We sound like a history teacher. It was it was genuinely

 

 


Speaker:

an exciting place to be, right, because, only a handful

 

 


Speaker:

of people really knew what it was and let alone, you know, how to do

 

 


Speaker:

everything across the spectrum of it. And I

 

 


Speaker:

what I want is for podcasting to retain that

 

 


Speaker:

because what I'm seeing, and this might be my cynical

 

 


Speaker:

old man way of of of looking

 

 


Speaker:

at things 10 years later is that is I see that generally year

 

 


Speaker:

on year eroding slightly bit by bit. And, you

 

 


Speaker:

know, it's the classic example of money follows money, and you've got the big guys

 

 


Speaker:

coming into the space too. And you've got suddenly debates

 

 


Speaker:

about open RSS versus a walled garden of content and all

 

 


Speaker:

that kind of stuff and, you know, where people get content and even

 

 


Speaker:

people using the word content instead of showing.

 

 


Speaker:

But my wish is for that kind of collaboration,

 

 


Speaker:

that niceness, and

 

 


Speaker:

genuine Podcasting to help each other to

 

 


Speaker:

remain in podcasting, because I think if it loses

 

 


Speaker:

that, it loses its, its essence of of what

 

 


Speaker:

excited me in the first place. I do agree. It was always the most pleasant

 

 


Speaker:

experience was being around other Podcasting. And, yeah, as anything

 

 


Speaker:

grows, the the niceties are always going to

 

 


Speaker:

be eroded just a little bit. So in a similar

 

 


Speaker:

vein but slightly different, is there any technology

 

 


Speaker:

on your wish list? Is there a piece of equipment, a kind of software,

 

 


Speaker:

some that either you you know is out there that you wanna buy or something

 

 


Speaker:

out there that you'd love someone to create for podcasting? So in terms of

 

 


Speaker:

technology, it really fascinates me because it's not my area of

 

 


Speaker:

expertise. Quite honestly, I'm I'm I'm I can barely open a laptop without it

 

 


Speaker:

without it collapsing. But,

 

 


Speaker:

you know, this, this whole AI thing and there's

 

 


Speaker:

a there's a company. Oh, what's it called?

 

 


Speaker:

There's Cast Magic. There's Wizards..

 

 


Speaker:

Oh, yeah. It kind of...somebody sent me a show. It

 

 


Speaker:

was a Swedish soccer show,

 

 


Speaker:

and I listened to it, and it was it was

 

 


Speaker:

about an hour and a half long. And, I thought, yeah, it's okay.

 

 


Speaker:

But it was it was 2 English presenters, but they said,

 

 


Speaker:

no, it's completely AI. It's completely,

 

 


Speaker:

produced, and translated by AI and it

 

 


Speaker:

even though it wasn't my thing, it blew me away. It'd

 

 


Speaker:

be really interesting to see how AI develops podcasting in that

 

 


Speaker:

sense. I already know that a lot of news websites

 

 


Speaker:

have daily Podcasting now automatically produced from text,

 

 


Speaker:

or even just from, you know, news

 

 


Speaker:

outlets that just kind of, collaborate together. Yeah. I've seen some

 

 


Speaker:

technology where they will read you articles via

 

 


Speaker:

AI. Also, I mean, it's prolific on

 

 


Speaker:

YouTube to have videos that are just reading comments in a

 

 


Speaker:

computer generated voice, random, like, just totally automated content,

 

 


Speaker:

but it's a strategy that works for a lot of people. Yeah.

 

 


Speaker:

Yeah. And it's, it's time saving. Right? And that's, that's

 

 


Speaker:

always gonna win if if you can solve a solution,

 

 


Speaker:

sorry, solve a problem with a solution that doesn't, you

 

 


Speaker:

know, take any manpower, then you're you're probably onto a winner.

 

 


Speaker:

But in terms of technology that I look at and I

 

 


Speaker:

like, quite it's this it's

 

 


Speaker:

so great. But this microphone that I'm using right now, I I wanted one for

 

 


Speaker:

ages in terms of just a decent microphone, and a, you know,

 

 


Speaker:

Focusrite and a Cloudlifter and that I was over the moon with that.

 

 


Speaker:

But, Yeah. I again, this

 

 


Speaker:

will this is really annoying because I'm gonna I'm gonna think of something in about

 

 


Speaker:

3 hours' time. Yeah. I'm gonna go, oh, yeah. I should have said that.

 

 


Speaker:

But but, again, you know, with with podcasting, it's a it's a

 

 


Speaker:

fascinating world. Like, if you if you read the news in podcasting, there's

 

 


Speaker:

always an innovation. There's always something new going on. You know? Some

 

 


Speaker:

somebody's trying to solve a problem, and, technology

 

 


Speaker:

is definitely a big part of that. There's, you know, there's things coming out

 

 


Speaker:

every day, which is which is why I love it. And the last one, which

 

 


Speaker:

I think is also you're gonna be mad at me that I didn't prep you

 

 


Speaker:

with this one. What is your favorite podcast that you're listening to

 

 


Speaker:

right now? So what does that show that no matter what you're

 

 


Speaker:

doing, when this one pops up in your feed, it is going to be

 

 


Speaker:

listened to, like, that day or as soon as possible.

 

 


Speaker:

Yeah. This is more more in my wheelhouse, more content side.

 

 


Speaker:

But, there's there's there's can I have a couple?

 

 


Speaker:

Sure. There's there's a history comedy show called

 

 


Speaker:

Oh, What A Time, which is, 3 British comedians,

 

 


Speaker:

who, take a subject like

 

 


Speaker:

escapes or, I don't know, innovation

 

 


Speaker:

or, fashion, and each of them

 

 


Speaker:

bring a different period to the table. And, basically, they try and decide whether

 

 


Speaker:

it's the past was worth living or whether it was just a horrible

 

 


Speaker:

place. They have a proper historian researching,

 

 


Speaker:

all the different topics, and, it's relatively new. I think

 

 


Speaker:

it's probably about 6 months old, but I love it because

 

 


Speaker:

I love the as with most podcasts, it's about if you like

 

 


Speaker:

the the hosts, you kind of

 

 


Speaker:

like probably like the show. And I love history too and I love comedy so

 

 


Speaker:

it's like it's perfect for me, I always listen to that. And so just on

 

 


Speaker:

as an aside, the one thing that they do quite well I think

 

 


Speaker:

is that they release they release the

 

 


Speaker:

each episode into to 2 different episodes, if

 

 


Speaker:

that makes sense. They split it from one day and then the

 

 


Speaker:

next day will be the next half. And they do that

 

 


Speaker:

because, they have a subscription where you can have another day,

 

 


Speaker:

but you can only do it if you subscribe. So I think they're quite clever

 

 


Speaker:

with that. And another one, which is,

 

 


Speaker:

an American one I listen to, with Guy Raz,

 

 


Speaker:

which is, How I Built This.

 

 


Speaker:

And, yeah, I I mean, I just I just really like him. I

 

 


Speaker:

think he's I think he's a really good journalist. And, as

 

 


Speaker:

someone running my own businesses, I just I just like hearing the

 

 


Speaker:

stories and, it's, it's really easy to listen

 

 


Speaker:

to no matter what the industry they're talking about.

 

 


Speaker:

I'm always fascinated about people going through the, quote unquote

 

 


Speaker:

journey. And, I think the

 

 


Speaker:

production's really great. But that's you know, they're they're 2 very

 

 


Speaker:

different shows. You know, 1 is just a, I suppose, a Passy panel show,

 

 


Speaker:

and the other is a nicely,

 

 


Speaker:

sound designed storytelling show from,

 

 


Speaker:

is it NPR? I might be wondering now, but, NPR

 

 


Speaker:

stock. How about yourself? I mean, I'm keen to know. Oh, yeah. I

 

 


Speaker:

mean, I've been I listen to Start Here every day from ABC

 

 


Speaker:

News. So they're, you know, they do, like, a nice mix of

 

 


Speaker:

news stories to start the day off. Right? Having worked in the news business, I

 

 


Speaker:

can't stop. And I find this to be better than The Daily just

 

 


Speaker:

because I want more than one topic. Like, I don't wanna just be an expert

 

 


Speaker:

on one thing. I wanna know a little bit about everything going on. And then

 

 


Speaker:

I've been on this crazy binging of Conan O'Brien needs

 

 


Speaker:

a friend. I'm very, very late to that party, but I went back and

 

 


Speaker:

I started from the beginning. And I'm I've been listening to it for months now,

 

 


Speaker:

and I'm I'm close to being caught up. So those are the 2 I'm prioritizing

 

 


Speaker:

right now, but I gotta I gotta road trip coming up, so I'm gonna need

 

 


Speaker:

some new ones. So that's why I love this question because I get good, good

 

 


Speaker:

suggestions from other people to check out. I could bore you

 

 


Speaker:

today. I used to, Stable, my production company, used

 

 


Speaker:

to be a podcast recommendation newsletter in

 

 


Speaker:

2015 no, probably earlier than that, 2014. And so

 

 


Speaker:

it's, like, it's one of those things that I love talking about because there's so

 

 


Speaker:

much great stuff out there, and you're never gonna be able to listen to anything.

 

 


Speaker:

But, you know, a long car journey is a great great excuse.

 

 


Speaker:

Well, if you have more suggestions, or more answers to the questions that

 

 


Speaker:

you think of later you wanna shoot over, we'll include those in the show notes

 

 


Speaker:

along with we'll include a link to podcross.co Tech

 

 


Speaker:

to, David's other company, STABLE. It's we are

 

 


Speaker:

stable.com. We've had the pleasure of chatting with David Maguire, the

 

 


Speaker:

director of Stable and Adelicious and the brains behind

 

 


Speaker:

Podcross. David, good luck with that platform. Keep up the great work,

 

 


Speaker:

and thanks for joining me. Absolute pleasure. Thank you, Matthew. Just

 

 


Speaker:

one thing, if I may. If anyone listening

 

 


Speaker:

has any feedback, I'm completely open to that because this is for podcasters.

 

 


Speaker:

And if I'm missing a trick or they, I'm not,

 

 


Speaker:

it's it doesn't do something that they want, please

 

 


Speaker:

please get in contact because it's for them ultimately. So, I believe there's a

 

 


Speaker:

contact form on the website, but if you're okay if we pop your email on

 

 


Speaker:

the show notes as well? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Alright. So we will also make sure

 

 


Speaker:

to include it. It's going to be david at we are stable, s t a

 

 


Speaker:

b l, dot com. But, again, we'll make sure to include that link in the

 

 


Speaker:

show notes. David McGuire, great to meet you. Thanks for joining me. Absolute pleasure.

 

 

 

 

 

David McGuire Profile Photo

David McGuire

Director

David Maguire is the director at podcasting companies Stable and Adelicious. These ventures focus on podcast production and advertising respectively. Before venturing into the world of podcasting, he worked in radio as a producer and editor. In 2014, he decided to go freelance and fully immerse himself in the United Kingdom's podcast scene and he has never looked back.