GEN-Z IS GONNA GET BUSY

We have all the time in the world....to watch video podcasts

Hello again to all the new readers. I am trying to make sure I don’t turn my brand into HOT TAKES GUY so I won’t have any major proclamations today (so says First Paragraph John).

Today, a look at some stuff I have been meaning to catch up in the podcasting industry.

Chris Peterson asks, Spotify’s Big Bet on Video Podcasts: Win for the Podcast Industry or Just Hype?

The first thing that jumps out at me is Chris pointing out that Bill Simmons, Spotify’s Big Time Podcaster, isn’t posting video to Spotify, but is posting video to youtube (with some really awfully clunky throws to break “Let’s break for the podcast” on the audio version which I don’t think is even the proper way to phrase things.)

Chris writes:

Take Bill Simmons as an example. In my Q3 update a few weeks ago, I noted how Simmons, whose The Ringer network Spotify acquired in 2020, has yet to upload video to Spotify. Instead, he recently launched a YouTube channel, posting podcasts and live-streaming his tentpole "Guess the Lines" episode weekly. Clearly, he sees the value in YouTube’s reach and revenue model—and just as clearly, he didn’t think Spotify’s SAI was worth the hassle.

My take on Bill continues to be that Simmons will wind up at SXM. He is EXACTLY the kind of hire they like to make. Hey Bill, here’s a pile of cash and you can program your own radio station! (Bill will also be Mad Dog Insurance).

My theory is that Bill might have one foot out the door at Spotify, thus is building on something he controls rather than build Spotify’s platform for a few months before telling his audience “Psyche, we’re on Youtube!” See Megyn Kelly for what a Simmons deal might look like.

Or I’m wrong.

Back to Chris who writes:

Spotify also announced that video podcasts would now get a chance to earn a slice of Spotify’s Premium revenue pie. The payout will depend on how much your podcast is consumed by Premium users, divided proportionally across all participating podcasts. If the revenue pool grows large enough and you have a massive audience on Spotify, it might work out. But is this better than just monetizing your podcast with DAI? I’m not so sure.

Let me see….Joe Rogan’s audience, plus my 1000 watches/views/consumptions on Spotify (should I be bothered), yeah I’m sure I will see a big slice.

As I wrote in the original piece that started my recent run of Substack Heat (linked at the bottom of this post)….

Spotify doesn’t want YOU.

….And I mean actually YOU the person reading this right now. I know this, because you have 10 minutes to read John McDermott’s dopey Media Thoughts instead of hanging in Montecito with Harry & Meghan and having your agent do a deal with Spotify. They don’t want your 1000 views/listens/downloads/watches/consumptions. Sorry. You aren’t famous enough for this.

Speaking of 1000 views/listens/downloads/watches/metric-of-the-day let’s plug the 5 Good News Stories podcast (this one actually gets more than 1000, but although host Johnny Mac still isn’t Spotify Famous he does get to pay the mortgage with it.)

Maybe I will hot take after all.

Chris writes: As my colleague Marshall reminded me, Gen Z lives on video. There’s no escaping it. Video doesn’t just bring bigger audiences; it unlocks entirely new monetization opportunities.

Chris is correct. I live with some Gen Zs and I teach two college classes. they sure like video. But I am going to put a dollar on this:

GEN-Z IS GONNA GET BUSY

At some point Gen-Z will get “old” and look at the Gen-A’s using holodecks or brain implants and we’ll all be told to stop bothering with video podcasts and we should make HoloCasts (yikes there’s a horrible word, and make sure spellcheck doesn’t “fix” that one and add a u in there.)

Gen Z might have to return to the office someday. Maybe only three days a week but those 40 minute commutes in cars or trains where there’s no room to lift your arms - great for AUDIO bad for video.

Laying in bed scrolling Tik Tok for 4 hours is fine until the baby is hungry and you’re living on 4 hours sleep for a decade followed by another decade of your weekends going to soccer games.

Or I live on Old Man Mountain. Sometimes with age comes wisdom. Sometimes time passes the old man by. Bookmark this one and we’ll check back in ten years and see how this take ages.

I finally had a minute to take a look at Sounds Profitable’s The Implication of Spotify for Creators.

I learned Spotify is ‘“not accepting videos that are primarily the static image of the podcast cover art, which differs from YouTube” which is interesting.

I do the lazy Headliner-To-Youtube thing. Set it and forget it, let the static image wav go up, get 1000 views and then ignore the comments from (presumably) young people who are mad that it’s not a video.

I don’t have the time or resources to turn everything into a three camera shoot, and as I have been writing about, I suspect that come July 2025 a lot of podcasters are going to feel the same way once they see those low CPM ROIs roll in even though the idea of discovery is pretty groovy.

Bryan then points out that while (I am paraphrasing here) Spotify will allow you to bake in ads, there are no dynamic ads.

“Integrated Ads are also something many podcasts have moved away from, both in sales and operationally, and selling with a hard cutoff date for an episode to go live is a different way of thinking. Once those episodes are uploaded without an ad, the inventory is gone. Not to mention, we seem to have finally hit a level of comfort with advertisers regarding reporting and attribution, all of which will have to adapt to this new environment.”

And then the big takeaway with which I agree:

Unless the financial benefit and audience growth potential are substantial from those already with video choosing to dip their toes in this, I do not expect this announcement to flip our industry on its head any more than YouTube’s entry into the space has done. It is not a trivial choice to lose dynamic ad insertion for all episodes played on Spotify due to the sheer size of the audience many of the top podcasts have on Spotify.

The folks over at Sounds Profitable have also shared a half hour video about video’s rise which I will ave to check out when I get some more free time.

Back tomorrow with What I’m Listening to Wednesday and I plan to write about U2 again for Music Monday. Not sure what else will pop-up in-between. Enjoy your turkey, and remember, any podcaster that didn’t bother to at least pre-tape this week is a lazy podcaster. Be there for your fans.

Until next time, the typos were on purpose and not me being terrible at proof-reading.